It seems every blogger I’m reading this morning is apologising for not blogging lately. The end year festivities have all but surely clouded out the regular humdrum of daily routine for most, and for me a time like this breaks up my already-fragmented thought process into even finer particles.

It’s been hard buckling down back to work, after this break. Went to Taipei last week for a short pre-Christmas getaway, and minus sun, sand and sea, (because my ancestry dropped the gene for ruggedness somewhere along the way) it went rather well. Concrete jungle, hear me roar.

My only regret with Taipei is that I couldn’t find the buckling spring keyboard I was looking all over for. Somehow, I had mistakenly built up expectations of finding one there. Having tapped on every keyboard I could find in Guanghua, only to be greeted with icky squishy keys (as compared to crisp clicks I was hoping for), I’m disappointed, to say the least.

Being back in the office with everything sealed in boxes for the movers hasn’t done much for productivity, either. Before leaving for Taipei, I enthusiastically taped up all my boxes, only to return realising that I need access to my notes. Heck, I’ve even sealed up my mugs and pens.

The reason everything’s packed is, obviously, we’re moving. We’re going from our current premises at 8 Shenton Way to Centrepoint—yes, the shopping mall. I didn’t know Centrepoint had office space, either.

8 Shenton Way, previously known as Temasek Tower, changed its name from actually having a name to none at all, in the latest trend of obvious naming that this country has indulged in.

The one thing I won’t miss about this place is it’s ridiculous lift system. Although its Wikipedia listing boldly boasts its double-decker lift, the engineers have somehow missed the entire point of the system.

A double-decker lift works by serving alternate floors (since it spans two floors at once), saving precious real estate by having a larger capacity, and cutting down travelling time by skipping alternate floors for its passengers.

However. Howwwever. This building has somehow rigged the lifts to serve every single floor for both carriages, meaning that two people getting on the lift at the basement and ground floor both going to, say, the tenth storey, will stop the lift twice in a short hiccup.

Not only is that inefficient for a double-decker setup, it’s inefficient even for a single. Classic example of Singaporean mentality: get the most expensive installation (because the pricier the better, logically) and magically expect it to plan itself out.

So goodbye Temasek Tower—I mean, 8 Shenton Way—and hello Centrepoint, home of the Robinson’s Sale and many a future shopping break.

Originally uploaded by valensriyadi

Hady won Asian Idol last night because no one thought he would.

Everyone else who voted for their country’s representative was required to combine the vote with a second to qualify it. And they chose the underdog—the one they thought least likely to win—in case a vote for anyone else who had an equal chance assisted them in winning over their own country’s idol.

Only everyone did the same thing. So Hady had the combined vote from all over the region, while the show’s original favourites only had the vote of their own countrymen.

And it doesn’t matter how good the others are; mutual competition and jealousy would prevent a competing country from voting a good member of another, simply because they’re rooting for their own.

This isn’t to say I don’t like Hady. I do. I thought his Singapore Idol win was well-deserved, and he’s carried himself with the requisite charm and aww-shucks humility befitting of a pop star under Asian scrutiny.

But in this case, as good a singer as he was for our local stage, he wasn’t one of the stronger last night. In fact, he was hovering somewhere at the bottom of the six.

And that’s why he won.