The never ending war

If you have read about the ongoing rat killing biltz in Orchard, LAMESHIT School of Thought is going to tell you why the rats will NEVER be annihilated.

Background: Rats are running rampart in Orchard Skatepark area and breeding like nobody's business affecting real businesses (nice huh!) in the area. So pest controllers area engaged to trap, poison, starve, ultimately killing the rats.

Why its not going to work?
Reason 1: There will always be rubbish
From the observation by LAMESHIT on Singaporeans, many of them do not care a hoot about leaving their rubbish uncleared. Their main response to this problem will always be to expect cleaners to clean after them. As such the rats will always have a steady supply of food so starving them really isn't a solution since it cannot be sustained unless NEA resolved to permanently post dedicated Bangla cleaners in the very heart of Orchard 24/7.

Reason 2: They are indestructible!
LAMESHIT has witnessed first hand how tough a rat can be when a rat fell 3 storeys yet lived to tell the tale; though it was not confirmed if the actual rat actually died after telling the tale. But yes, the rat is that tough that hitting the ground from 3 stories did not managed to kill it. They eat all sorts of rubbish and not die. Poison can work only if they egest enough of it to kill it, if not it would only be a matter of time before they grow immune to it.

Reason 3: The numbers are always there
The report has indicated a 95% success in eradicating rats, this would mean that the rat population has drastically decrease right? Yet any 14 year old who have paid attention in Science class can tell you that it would only mean good news to that remaining 5% and bad news to us. Why? The main factors for survival includes low competition for food, with most of the other rats now dead, the remaining ones only have much more food to go around. Even if there is a decline in rubbish (see reason 1), there would still be enough to go around since their numbers have decreased 19x but not the same for the amount of food.

Natural selection would probably also have gotten rid of the weaker ones, leaving the stronger ones who can withstand sufficient amounts of poison or smart enough to not eat that lousy grilled coconut amid that sea of rat glue. The result: Fatter and stronger rats who will re-populate their communities with their kind.


LAMESHIT School of Thought's suggested solution:
Solution 1: Introduce the their natural predator... the snake. Compared to rats who tear apart rubbish bags and spread deadly diseases like plague, snakes do not have such problems. Sure, snakes bite but they hardly kill (non-poisonous snakes), comparatively plague have killed millions worldwide. Snakes are slower and bigger thus easier to catch and they generally leave us alone. So LAMESHIT suggests unleashing snakes to do the job and re-capturing them when its done so they can be reused again (smart right!).

Solution 2: Since you can't kill them all then why not just leave them be. Urbanites have already learned to live with rats. Did you know there is at least one rat in every 50m radius in urban areas? We just leave them to their scavenging at night while we are sound asleep, so since there isn't anyone staying in Orchard at night, who cares?


Note: This is proudly brought to you by LAMESHIT School of Thought, it is totally nonsensical and should not be taken seriously.

Picture below is not for the faint-hearted!

The missing orange.... without a trace!

Intern 1 decided to leave an orange on his table so he can eat it as and when he wants. He also brought 3 bags of chocolates, which he left on his other chair, so he could snack on them. Intern 2 bought a a box of Kinder Bueno, ate some and left the remaining pack and a half on his table togehter with his other goodies which comprised of a big box of 'chiong' Pocky called Rocky and a box of small curry-puff-lookalikes which were originally thought to contain peanuts as fillings but turned out to contain hae bi hiam (prawn paste).

One day Intern 2 wanted to snack on his Kinder Bueno after lunch but found them missing, he asked Intern 3 if he had seen them but no one had any idea where the chocolates went. When Intern 1 came back from lunch, he too had wanted to eat his orange but found it missing from his table and asked the other 2 interns about his orange which had mysteriously disappeared. Also 2 of the 3 bags of chocolates were also missing. This prompted the 3 interns to ponder on the mysterious case of the missing orange. 3 explainations were provided:

1) The office cleaner had took them. But this was rejected as the cleaner typically arrive later and leave earlier than the workers in the office.

2) The missing foodstuff had been preyed upon by rats. Upon closer scrutiny of the 'crime scene', the interns found no traces of food bits or torn wrappers and thus also reject this hypothesis.

3) Someone on OT decided to snack upon the interns food while they were gone. This seemed to be most plausible judging by the positions of the food items which seemed inaccessible to rats and the rather selective disapperance (the other food items were intact).

A few days later, another colleague discovered a packet drink under his table behind his cabinet and decided to check it out. The scene motified him. Bits of wrappers and food scraps were everywhere. Packet drinks were chewed into and the contents emptied, so too were chocolates leaving only their wrappers behind. Out of the pile of mess were discovered bits of skin of orange and 2 rather intact bags of chocolates that resembled that of Intern 1. If up to this point you still had no idea what had happened, it was the rats that had intelligently removed the food, taking care not to consume any of them but to first gather them in their 'hideout' before settling into their buffet complete with drinks, fruits and desserts. Due to the grotesque sight and in prevention of scaring away present and future readers, photos were not published.

The mysterious case of the missing orange: Solved!

The ugly side of the White Collars

Observation #1: I am not the lift operator

To some, standing in front of the lift controls do not mean they take on the responsibility of controlling the lift. These white collars do not bother holding the lift doors open when people are entering/exiting the lift, nor do they bother to promptly close the lift doors when everyone are in. They take a autonomous approach towards the lift thinking the lift IS automatic wad!


Observation #2: Who cares about the Earth

The 3Rs of saving Mother Gaia - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle certainly do not interest some White Collars who thinks global warming is just a fad like those small coffee buns called Papa Roti or Roti Papa (how uncreative) that mushroomed all over Singapore before disappearing just as fast within a few months. White Collars have been observed to openly dumping unused paper into rubbish bins where a recycling bin is just 3m away. Toilet bowls were found to be choked with toilet papers enough to clean the Incosiderate's ass for weeks, but since its free, Incosiderate probably decided to use a week's supply for ONE use... its free wad!


The above observations were brought to you by LAMESHIT School of Thought

Update

Just an update for those who are still visiting this blog despite its recent inactivity

I have been interning at DSTA since the exams ended and after my KL trip in Dec and will be ending my stint here on March 20.

Then the next question would be: 'How about ur semester in NUS?'
Ans: Unless you dunno me personally or we haven't been in contact for years, I will be leaving for Germany for my exchange on 24 March (for some: finally... after talking abt it for so long), tentatively be back on 8 Aug.

Up to this point many would be asking:'Huh... why so late? When is ur term starting?'
Ans: The summer semester in Munich starts on 20 April til 25 July while orientation starts on 5 April. I am going for a short tour first before school starts, most probably Spain (25 Mar-2 Apr) and then Belgium-Netherlands (7 Apr-17 Apr).

For those who would like to spend a nice holiday in Europe are most welcomed to visit me in Munich. FYI, flights can cost about 1.3k (return but with transit) or lower depending where you fly to and hostels in Europe generally cost about 10-20 euros (eastern/western europe) ~ 20-40 S$. So if you work it out, you can generally tour Europe pretty comfortably with a budget of S$2k, enough to last you about 1 week. After doing my sums from information online, I am estimating my 8 days 4 cities to cost about S$1k all inclusive where about S$300 is for my return flight Munich-Barcelona.

So the old tip applies: Plan and book early and watch out for promotions (some exchange students are flying SIN-Frankfurt for S$998 only, Qantas promotions)