Jet Set

This week I have mostly been thinking I haven't done a blog for a while so I had better do one. The irregular updates have been made more irregular than usual, primarily because of our big footed baby being the prime focus of my attention rather than the pub. This is not really a baby blog (apologies for anyone who googled baby blog and was sent here, you will be disappointed) and because I hadn't been doing anything stupid, I even went to New York and didn't drink Jaeger bombs. Mostly because I couldn't keep my eyes open and my usual Jaeger guides were below par themselves. But I did catch a 2 pound bass in a lake in Pennsylvania.
However this does not mean that unusual things do not go on around me. For instance I happened to be in a bowling alley the other day. That is reasonably unusual in itself, and stumbled upon what appears to be a soft toy gambling problem. The Integrated Resort, Singapore government's name for a dirty great casino, can not come fast enough if people are having to bet on soft toy grabbing to satisfy their gambling needs.
The Integrated Resorts, yep 2 of them are being touted as one of the resons why house prices and rents are stupid right now. From what I can make out that is rubbish; it's greedy landlords doing it, and it is giving us plenty to worry about at the moment as we try to escape the construction going on in what seems like our lounge room it is so close.
So to forget for a moment that we will need to pay in rent the equivalent in our Aussie mortgage back home we went and saw Jet last week. Full of hope and expectation we lobbed a little late, and should have perhaps left when Elliott did .... before they started. He broke out in a rash, perhaps an allergy to bands who believe their own press, and scuttled off to hospital.
Reidy and I went in and sat around for 30 mins before they finally came on. I am not sure what the delay was, couldn't have been drugs and as Reidy rightly noted they aren't that famous. Eventually they came out did their best to entertain, which wasn't much so we went home before they finished. Perhaps I am getting old, but they were pretty ordinary and I was starting to feel like Victor Meldrew as I watched the local rugby playing trader types in front of us try to outdo themselves as the funniest person there.
There have been some odd things going on in my cab rides in Singapoo at the moment, the cabbies seem to be driving worse than ever. To set the scene most of them seem to think their Toyota Crowns are automatics and forget to change gears making for an unpleasent journey at the best of times. On top of this they tend to step on and off the accelerator so that occasionally you get out with a minor whiplash. But they are generally up for a chat, sometimes they even watch the road when they talk to you, and I had a very strange conversation with one the other day.
This older style cabby pointed to the new Tampines tunnel being built and told me it was going to be quicker but slower to get to work. I was a little confused about this and despite his urging to use my 6th sense still couldn't quite grasp at what he was getting at. He then told me it was because of a 6o KG limit. I am thinking aah it's a weight thing and then I realised he meant 60KPH speed limit because I think even the 2 stroke scooter that appeared suddenly at my window next to me weighs more than 60 KG. So then he said I had to use my 6th sense to work out how long it would take to travel the 9Km. I just applied a bit of elemetary maths and said roughly 10 minutes, which isn't bad really considering we had moved 1 km in the last 5 minutes on the PIE. But he wasn't going to let that get in the way of a good story and on and on we went about it for the next very slow 9km. Can't wait for that tunnel to be finished.