Category: Letters to the Editor

Sonny Chiba

Letters answered by a red-blooded carbon-based totally badass human, Sonny Chiba!

Thank you for Think

Never have I seen such a magazine as Think. I was always surprised to see it is published here, especially when you consider how bad the commercial media is here. Thank you… we need more. I tell people to never watch TV and their world will be less violent and life will seem longer. There are very few good things to say about TV and Mass Media.

Besides the violence, the main purpose of “free” TV is to sell products that you really don’t need. You also don’t need to watch 90 minutes of headline “News” or “Weather”.

And you certainly don’t need to watch TV sports. Thus if you don’t own a TV, you will lead a calmer, less stressful life and not be plagued by false needs. Plus you will have more time to do important things. Like live. (And read Think!) – Tajarik

We at Think only wish we had time to watch TV anymore! We’re much too busy hunkering down in our bunker these days with our stash of Slim Jims and cases of beer… Have you read the newspapers? Or how about CNN? “Death, Doom, Destruction… and the Hollywood minute!” Seems there’s nowhere to escape it, we make Think to filter it all into some kind of sense… enjoy!

Letters answered by a Gitmo detainee.

Dearest Think,

Congratulations on your majestic rise to fame! Unfortunately with every hop-skip-and-jump there is a trip-smack-and-hospital.

Hello! My name is “=” and I will be your STALKER (don’t run). You cannot stop that which has not yet commenced the process of beginning. Stalker Qualifications: I’ve read Catcher in the Rye 13 times and I’m working on my own Broadway musical adaptation simply titled Catcher! It’s all about a small town boy who goes to the big city to break into show business! Along the way he meets several friends:

Ernest: the dancing ‘F’ word, Gabriel: the cowardly pimp and Plath: the sad little synapse who just can’t jump the brain bridge. (Mike Love is set to cameo as ‘corpse.’) But enough about me and my (future TONY award winning) musical. You’re being stalked, so it’s time you acted like a victim… don’t jump and make trouble.

I will be sending you several packages in the mail over the next few months ‘ this is not a threat’ it’s a gift of passive-aggressive love ‘ I’m only doing this because I’m bored and my Claritin has yet to do ANYTHING!!!! WHERE’S THE OPEN FIELD OF GRASS AND FLOWERS AND SUNLIGHT!!!! (Maybe I should have chased it with a Paxil.) – Your Stalker, ‘=’

Great? Thanks? But I’m not sure what stalking is, exactly? Is it just sort of watching someone in a strange way? Sending packages full of insanity? I have an image of some creepy person sitting outside our office in an old rusty Ford Escort smelling his/her finger. I’m curious as to what’s next.

Letters to the editors from our crack-smoking readers

Are you guys for real?

What’s with the coverage of the weird psychic stuff in your July issue? I know you guys are quite liberal, but c’mon, energy healing? What’s next, an article on how to grow your own Goddess out of bean-sprouts? – Puzzled, A Bemused Fan

We’re liberal? News to us. How does that explain the Missile-building facility we have out back? Psychic Energy Healing is just that: healing. Isn’t it interesting that people are energy beings, who sometimes need a little TLC? A little unconventional, sure, but it’s real. For the record, we don’t think one can necessarily grow the Almighty out of bean sprouts. Maybe a disciple or two, but not the Divine Spirit. At least not until 2011.

Letters answered by someone who is no longer with the company. We wish him the best in his future endeavours.

Dear Cigarettes,

Hey, how’ve you been? I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I was just thinking about you the other day. Everywhere I go people are talking about you. It seems like nobody wants you around. I really miss you, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the time we spent together.

Remember our first time? I didn’t really like you right away, but you kind of grew on me. Those first few months were really cool, until my mom found out we were seeing each other. Remember when my mom tried to break us up? We had to see each other in secret for so long. In bathrooms, behind dumpsters, in the backyard late at night.

Once I turned eighteen things were great. We got to see each other whenever we wanted. A lot of my friends didn’t want me to see you, they said you made me stink, but I said the only stink on me is the stink of unconditional love. Remember when I had to leave for boot camp, and I wasn’t allowed to see you for two whole months? Everyone said it wouldn’t last, but as soon as I finished we got back together. We totally proved them wrong.

I talked to coffee the other day. Remember when the three of us used to hang out at all night restaurants? That was great, me, you and coffee. I really don’t hang out with coffee anymore, because it makes me miss you too much, and it makes me shit.

I still talk to beer. Probably more than I should. He asked how you were doing, and I said we stopped seeing each other. He was surprised at first, but he wishes us both the best. I gave him your email address.

I hope you’re doing okay, I’d like to say we should get together sometime, but that will never happen. Especially when you’re twelve dollars a pack. – Love, Jim

Letters answered by a dude in a faux-hawk (so 2003).

Restaurant writeup

This is the 1st time that I pick up your magazine and I THINK it’s great….except for this: Restaurants In Singapore, Indian, Vansh “The hippest India joint in town! Beautifully styled venue, and the bathrooms are so cool, you might want to spend all your time there! Take in the aroma….???!!!” Not very appetising, is it?? – Jessie Neo

Ha ha! Nice to know that our reader’s are sharp enough to catch an unintended slip like that… or maybe it WAS put in there by our former listings editor. You see, after having to write listings for one of the other free papers, his mind suffered a bit of rot… we’ll comb through them all to see what other surprises he might have left.

Letters to the editors from our crack-smoking readers

Are you guys for real?

I’d rather be imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay than this pacified society of happy boys and girls. Alright, admittedly, my grudge against raves is somewhat personal. I’ve had the misfortune of attending some of these youth culture-marketing fiascoes during my summer break.

The story in brief: I ended up getting sucked into this lame-o crowd of house music fanatics in a desperate attempt to escape the otherwise conservative herd of people who inhabited my life. At the (beer company name removed) party, I spent an entire ten hours being ignored, lonely, and misunderstood by the booze-addled, happy-faced space kids who were content to boogie down all night long to the monotonous thump-thump-thumping that shook my skull but not my ass. But, annoying as it was, this is not the sole reason these events are “working our nerves”.

I maintain that my disdain for house music culture goes beyond my own horrible experience and actually stems from a fundamental disagreement with the socio-political ramifications of a bunch of blissed- out idiots gathering to share their love of musical garbage. Please, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let us examine the most basic aspects of a “house music party”:

Supreme Argon leader, Mordack

Letters answered by our Supreme Argon leader, Mordack.

Dear Think,

Too bad you didn’t resist the temptation to do an “Eco-Green Issue.” I know this is going to sound terrible, and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, but this whole “Going Green” movement that’s recently picked up so much steam is getting annoying. Everywhere I look, someone is telling me how I can reduce my carbon footprint.

That said, your story on going green didn’t completely drive me crazy. There were some good ideas and some really bad ones. How about these: going with LED lights is a great idea, because they’re energy efficient and look good. But using a real tree instead of a fake one doesn’t make sense. How does cutting down a tree help the environment? Yes, while growing, trees absorb carbon dioxide. But once you cut them down, they sure don’t. So the argument to go real or fake is not settled in the landfill. Isn’t the whole idea behind getting a fake tree so you can reuse it year after year? No one gets a fake tree and tosses it each year, only to get a new one. – Daniel G. Holland Village

Hi Daniel,

I’m of the opinion that it’s already too late. That if we were to return to an 1850 population and standard of environmental impact tomorrow, nothing would change as the snowball is already down the hill, so to speak. That said, there are small things that can be done, since the big problems will not go away until it’s sitting on top of us. I ride a bike to get around, take only one (or none) plastic bags, stop eating beef, little things that if billions did would probably do more than all the accords the big corporations allow governments to write. As for Christmas trees, aside from boycotting the consumerist aspects of this holiday, the real way to go is to buy a living tree, and keep it alive and growing. Because eventually, that cheap made from petrol-products plastic tree, WILL find it’s way into the landfill.

Letters answered by our least literate editor.

You Suck!

You have got to be THE dumbest people on earth. I’ve been reading your publication since your first volume and I’ve hated every issue. Last year’s Reader’s Choice Awards issue was a waste of paper and I pray every day you won’t do another one. Joe Bodia is a brainless prick without the slightest shred of taste. Your editors, especially the music girl Laura Encarnado (is that even a real name?!), sucks with more enthusiasm than an Orchard Towers whore.

I’m amazed with each issue. Your column “Lush Life” (cute name by the way, losers) would be much better served if it simply didn’t exist. I don’t think I’ve found a useful thing in it since reading the damn thing when you idiots introduced it. Volume 3, Issue 21 for example: You list Shanghai as a great place to party as well as salsa at Sentosa as well as World Battle of the Bands as cool things to check out.

Who finds and decides on these things? Don’t bother answering; it’s a rhetorical question. We all know it’s some blind inbred, randomly pulling press releases out of a big trashcan. I was impressed with your restaurant review article in that same issue with the header tag of “energy drinks”. Broth, a place where I wouldn’t even buy my dog dinner. Or how about the article on the history of the hamburger?

Now that’s a f*king great idea! I wish I thought of that. Then I’d be almost as retarded as you guys. Your editorial direction makes no sense, your columns suck and your design looks like you taught a monkey how to press CTRL + ALT and bang on a computer with a PVC pipe. And then there’s Benet, a.k.a. the worst Editor-in-Crap in the history of ink. I’m going to send you a nice straight-edge razor Jeff, for your readers, please, do the right thing. – Sincerely, Paul Vessa

Dear Paul, Thank you for the letter of encouragement. It’s people like you that inspire us. We’ve clearly supplied you with years of material to hate. Frankly, like all God’s creatures, we love you. And we want to help you. Please come to one of our court-ordered support groups for the truly jaded. You don’t have to speak – your satay-stained tank top will say it all. By the way, Paul, we still have your writing samples and resume on file, so we know where you live… We’ll send puppies.

Letters to the editors from our crack-smoking readers

Editors:

Recently, I just been out of job for about 1 month and during this period, I tried so many interviews and without much success.

To get to the point, I hope the editor with its connections will help me find something temporarily. I willing to work or try anything and I mean “anything”. let me remind you I’m straight, ok?

I like to work with single or married lady but when their man is not around, like making breakfast for them or serve them whatever or whenever way they like it. I work cheap and I mean very cheap. I really desperate for cash. And I ready to share the commission with anybody who introduce me to this job. Available hours 06:00 hr – 12:00 hrs. Lastly try to be discreet. – Hot Rod

So how about it folks? Any of our female readers need breakfast made for them? This is a real letter we received, if you’re interested, drop us a line and we’ll pass you Hot Rod’s phone number! Really…

Letters answered by McLovin.

Lush Lovers,

What happened to the Lush Life column? I absolutely love your magazine and looked forward to seeing what was going on around town. – Karen, via email

I noticed your Lush Life feature was missing from last couple issues. I hope you haven’t dropped it from your regular rotation because Time Out has recently started to really suck. IS too. You’d think that, since you’re in the same target audience, they’d try to come up with something a little better to read than yours, but me thinks they fail. – Colleen Meyers East Coast

Well ladies, the guy who was writing it had liver trouble you see. Apparently the human body isn’t so hip to that much alcohol. So we sent him off to a special lab in London, where they have bio-manipulating his system where it will require alcohol just to function… then the column will be back!

Letters answered by whoever the hell checked the mail that day.

Dear FRIEND,

I’M FROM THE IVORY COAST AND HAVE LOTS OF MONEY. I HAVE LIKE 22 MILLION AND I NEED TO TRANSFER IT TO AN ACCOUNT IN SINGAPORE. SO PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER AND I’LL TRANSFER THE MONEY TO YOU AND I’LL GIVE YOU 50 THOUSAND. OKAY? – SINCERELY, IKAA LPSOOD

Dear Ikaa, this is the WORST attempt at the bank transfer scam we have ever read. Come on, you didn’t even say how you’ve escaped a horribly oppressive slave trade or how you got the money from a prince or anything. What is the world coming to if scam artists aren’t even putting in the effort? You get a D minus. But thank you for being such a huge on-line supporter of Think. Mad props to our people on the Ivory Coast!

Team America

Letters answered by Team America

Where to eat?

I moved to the Singapore from Bangkok a couple of months ago, and I have to admit, I’ve always been a restaurant snob. I really didn’t think the dining in Singapore would even come close to comparing to my BK loves. But I saw your magazine on line, and your dining features guided me in the right direction. Though I still miss being able to walk down any street and finding good eats, I now know where to go near my new home, and I’m no longer missing out on the delicious fine dining that I’ve grown so accustomed to. – Lois Lee, via email

Thanks for the compliments, glad we could help. Be sure to check out the Jerry’s BBQ review inthe issue, and know that we will be updating the site with even more reviews!