antipluto

My very psycho, irrationally logical but incredibly cerebral friend has just completed her masters with a whole bunch of pats on the back from her doctorate community. Very proud of her.

Nice ads we saw during training. Lego: what does your kid see in them? 

Hahaha, love the video. “I am a lonely boy.”

It’s a put on. People forget. 

Flute. 

Tull time. 

What a trip. 

1. Two crazy days of shooting so far, filled with unsaid tension between client, agency and director/production team; a whole lot of heat in which we sat like a bedouin tribe in the middle of the bald Rajamangala stadium; incredible amounts of pampering by local Thai people running the show; wonderful and comical ‘talent’ and ‘extras’ on the sets; the scare of rain at the fag end of Day 2! 

2. I am staying at good ol’ Nat’s guesthouse in the lively as ever Khaosan street. There is Lady Gaga music playing outside my room right now. There is a Man U game going on as well which people are watching intently over their beer. While the game will finish in half an hour, the music will continue all night long until 7 am, and give company to the masseuses, the tattoo artistes, the revelers, the solitary backpackers and the street food vendors. 

3. I got my hair braided in what has turned out to be quite an underwhelming experience because of the side show that has stolen thunder from the hairdo. First, there was a police scare while I was getting the braids, so my braids’ lady had to move her shop (equivalent of the low chair I was sitting on and the stool she was perched on) and me to a different location. The police stroll the street every once in a while telling street vendors off for squatting on the road. So every time the police come, the vendors move their things back into their tiny shops. Give it a few minutes, and high tide is back again. Second, I realize I am 100 baht short when my hair is done because I had mistaken a Filipino 100 Peso note for Baht. So the nice braids’ lady comes with me to the ATM right next door, but my card doesn’t work because my dear Singaporean bank has decided to cancel overseas cash withdrawal services, as I find out later. Thankfully, Citi never sleeps so I get cash out after a phone call back home to the flatmates. So yes, I finally look at my hair and am thinking, I need a beer. Anyway, so upon careful inspection, I think I look bald like the actresses from ‘Water’ and midway between the hotness levels of Shabana Azmi (low) and Nandita Das (high). The underwhelming feel also is due to the fact that my hair is tied so tight that I can’t feel the blood in my head. 

4. I went on a recce of small provision stores in Bangkok this morning to find out a few things about our giant competitor in throat drops in Thailand. Since this is an unofficial trip, I had all the flex to go out and do this ninja style. I had my ad agency’s van and driver which was a huge help, and someone from the production team conveyed my message of ‘take me to small shops’ perfectly to the driver, ‘cos  he took me a treasure trove of just the right kind of shops I wanted to see. When I came down a couple of months ago to Bangkok on a real work trip, we didn’t know where to focus our nosing around, so things I got to know today will be super useful! It was a lot of fun too. Having no entourage helps to talk to people at a human level and get to know more intimately the people we will sell our products to eventually. So I went back around lunch time with lots of notes on my phone (Ever note works like a dream) and lots of sample products I bought, which like a giant oaf, I forgot at the shoot site at pack up. I must go look for them tomorrow and hope the nice production team has kept them safely somewhere. Also, my task for tonight is to get some Thai words down so I can go on another recce tomorrow during the less interesting shoot sequences. I shall do that now, and then go for a drink with the ad agency folks (if they are still around), and then finish up with a massage. 

5. The guy getting his hair dread-locked while I got mine braided has a Shivalingam around his neck. 

6. Graffiti on a shuttered shop early this morning - Money Kills 

MORE TO UPDATE…(time to go)

Discovering the YouTube list from the last mid-sem party in uni is disastrously fun. 

Numa Numa yay after AGES!!! Oh, uni days!

I have no idea what I dreamt last night, but someone in my dream was being super preachy and said this - we should celebrate every single thing that goes right in our lives, no matter how small or insignificant it is, because for a bunch of ‘right’ things to happen, the small things gotta all line up like good soldiers and say ‘Aye, captain.’ And because, for every right thing that happens, we deserve a break.