Oh My God, He LOOKED At Me… (*Squeal*)

More as it develops, or whenever I regain my composure. Whichever comes first…

Countdown to Neil-O-Palooza

Okay, all the Neil-O festitivities will kick off promptly at 10 am tomorrow with the press conference. Part of me is still insanely curious to see how many of the people there will actually be familiar with Neil-O and his work, and how many of them will only know about him thanks to his recent appearance on the cover of the life section of the local paper and will only know him as some famous Ang Moh writer.

It’s a weird kind of mixed reaction to Neil-O’s impending arrival (Although odds are he’s probably already here). One the one hand, I’m really gratified to finally see him, and get him to sign a copy of the Doll’s House trade paperbacked I bought over 10 years ago and have carried around with me all over the world. On the other hand, there’s the usual resentment at the locals who really didn’t give a damn who he was until he saw the story in the paper, thus legitimizing him as a Famous White Person They Should Know. This means, inevitably, that I will be running into people who will be experts on Neil and tell obscure facts, such as:

“Did you know he’s a New York Times bestselling author?!?”

Or:

“I bet you didn’t know he’s British but lives in the U.S.A. now!”

Or, even more helpfully, when they see me carrying my Sandman: The Doll’s House TPB:

“What’s the matter with you?!? Don’t be rude, show some respect and bring something he wrote, not some stupid comic book, you’ll look incredibly foolish with that! [Rolling eyes ruefully] Aiyah… so stupid, bringing a comic book to be signed by a writer, so silly, you…”

Yes, it will doubtless be incredibly annoying, especially when the more prominent types claim to love his work but be unable to name a single title, but then that’s the way fame is here in Singapore.

Mental Note To Self: When my own books finally see the light of day, remember to never, EVER come back here for a tour…

Annnnd The Current Word Tally Is:

Grand Total In Word Account: 100, 000 words.

Words spent to date: 25, 000+

Words Remaining In Word Account: 75, 000 – 200 or so.

Possibly (And it’s a very small possibly, but still there nonetheless) I might still be able to salvage a complete novel out of this rather than having to break it into two books.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to write some more and finally get around to destroying Hong Kong…

Every Man, Woman And Child Worships Tom

This particular blog topic is brought to you courtesy of my fiance, who requested I write this post on her behalf.

First, the evidence:

Now, what do all these movie posters have in common?

In case you’re blind or fell off the IQ tree one time too many, the answer is, all of them have an inredibly obvious subject, that being the Pretty Boy of Scientology, Tom Cruise.

The argument being presented is that there is at least one woman on this planet who is sick to death of looking at him. Hard as this may be to believe, a red blooded, heterosexual woman who has no problem with romantic liasons with males is less than enthused every time she sees his face on a poster.

The big complaint here is that plastering his face on a poster more or less seems to confirm that the actual story and quality of the movie itself is only secondary to the fact that it has Tom Cruise in it, and that based on this alone, everyone will watch it, a strong argument for the theory that latent homosexuality in men is greater than anyone suspects since it can’t all be women that fill the theaters.

There had been some initial hope on her part that once, just perhaps this once, the draw power of Steven Spielberg in War of the Worlds just might have been enough to subvert the Cruise-o-meter when posters like this appeared at first:

Alas, this was just a reprieve, and in the end, Cruise would not be denied. Witness:

End result? One enraged fiance throwing a major hissy fit…