The world is a book

Singapore, you need a break...

No. I'm not doing a commercial for Jetstar. There's this online petition going on right now for an extra public holiday in Singapore. The petition stays open until 13-Sep-09. Go on... Do your part for Singapore.

Family Gathering = Majong

It's feels good whenever I get a chance to have a round of Majong with family over the weekend. And Majong reminds me of this music video...

Dreams

Some pursue their dreams by travelling
Some live with their dreams dangling
Some thought their life were fulfilling
Some wish their lives had been more enriching...

Sometimes, all you need is a SIGN

Not too sure if you guys have seen this before. But damm solid I thought... It is one of the Cannes Lions winners in 2009. This movie is actually an advertisement for Schweppes. If only we can see more of such great adverts.

Giving Blood

Found this interesting story and thought I should share

"
Many years ago, when I worked as a transfusion volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a disease and needed blood from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes, I'll do it if it will save Liza."

As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?"

Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.

"

Find me a Singaporean Art Book - 稀游记图文影像纪录

Somebody left me a comment on my "Find me a Singaporean" post. Apparentely, this fantastic show has decided to come out with an artbook (sort of). I haven't buy it yet but should do so pretty soon and will keep you guys posted on how's the book. In the meantime, if you want to find out more, I suggest you click over to the FindMeASingaporean.Com

Wolfram Alpha

I came upon an article in Newsweek recently that caught my attention. There is this physicist by the name of Stephen Wolfram. He seems to have created a search engine which give result in a much intellectual way than Google. Well, not exactly a search engine. As Wolfram puts it,

"Wolfram says his creation is not so much a search engine as a "computational knowledge engine." It has a single input field, like a search engine, but users can pose complex questions. What is the date of the next total solar eclipse visible from Paris? (Answer: Sept. 23, 2090.) What is the current orbital location of the International Space Station? "Computing where the ISS is right now is not a trivial computation," says Wolfram. "You have to actually solve some differential equations for the motion of the aircraft in the Earth's gravitational field." And yet the result is returned as quickly as a Google search."

Upon trying this search engine, I must say it is really interesting (for a start). It returns me interesting result. I'm pleased when I type in "Singapore" and it returns me with a load of information of Singapore such as GDP, population, etc and how we ranked to the world based on these attributes.

However, I must say that it must continue to expand its database of information so as to return me more useful information when I need them. Until then, I'm still happy Googling. The link to this engine is here... Wolfram|Alpha

Bulk of pedestrians killed jaywalkers!?!?

Check out this news headline. It's amazing to imagine a bulk of pedestrians have gone berserk and went around killing jaywalkers. This headline sounded more like a direct translation from an article of the "My Paper" Mandarin edition.

We've always been urged by the government to speak proper English. I don't speak perfect English but in a city where Singlish is often banned on national TV, I don't understand how did the editor manage to get this published. A word of advice to "My Paper": If it is so hard being a bilingual newspaper, don't hard hard come.

Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown - Know Your Enemy - First Single

This is funny. I really thought it is the first single of their latest album. Don't get me wrong. I like Green Day. Which is why all the more we should buy their album and not catch it on youtube.

Still in Singapore, caught in Malaysia

While some of the Singaporean believes that Mas Selamat is still in Singapore, the Malaysian police caught him. IN MALAYSIA.

Come to think of it, did the Singapore police ever managed to catch hold of him? As in personally? He was caught in Indonesia (#towards the end of the linked article) and was deported back to Singapore which he later on managed to escaped. He then left Singapore again and was caught again but this time, by the Malaysian police.

You don't get this type of news on Singapore from our local media!

Check out this link. Honestly, how likely will it be for our local mainstream papers to publish news such as this? Anyway, this teaches one thing. Don't have an affair and if you need to, don't have it at East Coast Park. And men, watched out. There's a reason why a woman in her 30s is out having an affair even when she's already married!

Not just for our minister, we pay a high price to build our roads as well

It takes more than S$4 Billion to build a 5-kilometer road. I'm referring to the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE). This means that we can build another North East Line (NEL) which according to this website, it costs the government S$4.6 Billion to build the NEL and the line length is 20-kilometer. That's 4 times longer than MCE. What about KPE? According to Wiki, the approximate cost for building the KPE is about S$1.8 billion and the distance is 10 kilometers underground. I always have the perception that it is apparently more difficult to build roads underground right? But it seems to be the other way round in Singapore?

OK. Let's not talk about Singapore. Let's talk about Michigan, one of the more populated states in America. According to their official-state website, it was indicated that a mile of freeway through an urban area costs approximately US$39 million. 5km is about 3.107 miles. You do the math. It's not even half of what it takes to build our KPE.

You might say there are certain challenges in building the road due to difficult soil conditions and what have you. How about building a tunnel that is 4,000 meters above mean sea level? In Tibet, this tunnel is 3.3km long and the whole connected highway is 117km in distance. It cost the Chinese government US$139 million to construct the highway according to Tibetan Review.

Darth Jackson

While everyone on the net is going crazy over Susan Boyle, you should check out this Darth Vader who tried to walk on the moon...

X-Men Origins - Gambit?

I was really excited when I found out that they finally have Gambit on the X-Men Origins movie. Gambit is like one of the greatest X-Men I've ever known. He was my inspiration to Blackjack, Poker and "Dai-Di"... But when I saw the poster of this movie...

I thought they had Michael Jackson on the movie instead. In my limited years of reading Marvel comics, I've not seen Gambit wore a hat yet (maybe after this movie).

And that hand movement, it looks as though Taylor Kitsch was trying to do a moonwalk or was reaching out for the Snake on the Plane.

Fail Blog

You guys should really go visit Fail Blog... Here's a clip that I really like. Enjoy...

Olympics Arrow Opening

The Beijing Olympics 2008 was really impressive. However, there was one torch lighting ceremony which I have always heard about but didn't know when it was held and which country hosted it. Nobody does. Like my friend on Saturday, we were talking over whiskey how successful this year opening ceremony was and he came out with the:

Shameer: I remember there was this opening ceremony where they shoot the arrow and voom... they light up the ceremony"...

Matt, Nizam and Me: So where is it?

Shameer: I don't know...

This isn't the first time this topic end up this way. More often than not, when we spoke about the Olympics, we'll talk about this arrow torch lighting. Nobody knows where it was held nor when did it happen. We just knew it happened during our era. Over the weekend, I had a gut feeling that it should be the Spanish who would come up with such an idea... So am I correct? I bring to you the answer...

One "Lust" Game at National Stadium

Well done... We'll have another one last game between Singapore and Brazil. It's been more than a year since the "official" closing ceremony was held in National Stadium and we had our last game then as well.

We then went on to have our next last game between Singapore and Lebanon early this year. Who knows? According to Wiki, the Sports Council announced that the stadium would host at least two more football games, due to ongoing delays in securing the paperwork for the Sports Hub construction.

So moving on to the next game... We then had our last last last game between Singapore and Saudi Arabia. But hey! There's one more last last last last time!

As a consumer, I think this is fuck up though I never really participate in any of their "last game". But think about this. It's like you walked into a shop, they're telling you it's a closing down sales and they will close in 2 weeks time. So you spent the money, you buy the things. 3 weeks later, you went back and the shop is still there. You ask them why and they told you that due to the lease, they're extending another 2 more weeks. Buy what you want now. It's really the last time. You figure that there's still something you didn't buy the previous time and you went on to buy some other items in the shop. Now another 3 weeks had passed, the fucking shop is still there with the banner "Closing Down Sales"! What do you do? Isn't this just like the TV commercial about a father asking for money from her daughter "ONE LAST TIME" so that he can go try his luck on gambling?

For the folks who believe that last time was the last time, I pity you.

For the folks who believe that last last time was the last time, I I sympathize with you

For the folks who believe that last last last time was the last time, I laugh at you

For the folks who believe that last last last last time is the last time, I have no comments for you...

Will you remember?

Just read Dasmond's blog and thought how true it was...

Will you remember?

How often in our lives, have we took our love ones for granted? I always ask my friends and myself, why is it that every time when we're in a foul mood or frustrated, the victims would normally be your love ones? One example:

When one has a lousy day at work, it seems inevitable that many people would vent their anger by raising their voice on their parents just because that person thinks that his/her parents is getting naggy.

Well... Left is too short to be frustrated at those small little things you face day to day... Just my advice to everyone, treasure you love one before it's too late.

Life is short, treat your love ones well
Do not left things unsaid until ones’ life fell
You can cry until your eyes will swell
Cuz when they’re gone… There’ so much things you just can’t tell

Saving Television

On 5 June, I realized there was something wrong with the logo on the top right corner of my television. Both the channel 8 and 5 seemed "di-colorized". I thought the time is up for my flat screen CRT TV. I shouted to everyone in the family... Time for a LCD TV! This TV has broken down! Everyone concur that something was really wrong with my TV...

Before I know it, my dad was telling me he was facing the same problem on his TV too. I then realize that day was "Saving Gaia" day. They made the logo green to coincide with the World Environment Day. Sorry MediaCorp. The color really look bad on my TV.

Anyhow, I wonder how long such initiatives would carry on? I like these stuffs. Go Green. Save the World. It's the least we can do for this world right? But to the founders and creators of such initiatives, please bring it forward and carry it on. Don't just build onto the hype and thought that was it.


How many of you still remember a couple of years ago, Bono and Geldof (2 of the many celebrities behind Live 8) shouted to the crowd at Hyde Park "We don't want your money. We just want your vote". And they criticized the level of commitment G8 has to places like South Africa. I have often checked back to the Live 8 website... No updates since 2007/06. Doesn't matter. It's been more than a year and what have they done? Sometimes I can't help but to think celebrities are quite crappy as well.