Be like the sun

What's the point of brilliance if you can't light or shine the world.

Don't confuse meritocracy with mediocracy

Don't confuse meritocracy with mediocracy (not mediocrity?). Well apparently there is such a word, and as defined shockingly.

me·di·oc·ra·cy:

–noun,plural-cies.

government or rule by a mediocre person or group.

Origin: mediocre  and -cracy

Source.
More often than not, we can get confused. The above definition seems to link "cracy" with organisations such as governments with mediocre management. Sometimes this can be led by leadership, and sometimes by force.Well, mediocracy is often dedicated to self-interest within groups or individuals with the tendencies to destroy others around them, either peers or colleagues to gain relative advantage.

So don't get confused by the 2 terms as we were clearly brought up in a society where we believe in meritocracy and we work hard for our money and succeed in life based on merits.

Just that I wonder how some "higher powers" are often able to get away with meritocracy with mediocracy. And very often the discussions would ends with "It's an honest mistake, let's move on."

Women need it too!

So it seems, they need to get "it" up as well...
Source.

....such concerns are unlikely to dampen desire among drugmakers to define, and then seek to treat, low female libido.

Besides Germany's Boehringer's big hope flibanserin -- which in a six-month trial increased the number of satisfying sexual events to an average 4.5 per month from 2.8 in American women, compared with an average of 3.7 for those taking placebo -- there are trials looking at the effects of a testosterone skin gel Libigel, from U.S. drug firm BioSante, on women's desire. Procter & Gamble's Intrinsa testosterone patches are already licensed for female sexual dysfunction in Europe 

You can't be too safe

Being cautious and wanting to be safe probably lengthen your existence. But the meaning of existence is to live your life. Carpe Diem!

Courage is what preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things. ~Plautus

Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world. ~Tommy Douglas

Would you stand up for change?

Chingay 2010

Thanks Jase! My first Chingay since it became a paid road show...
Totally enjoyed myself, to capture the crowd and participants enjoying themselves.

This is how my blog sounds like

Cool site which analyses the body content of the website and translate that into music. This is how my blog sounds like. Happening right?

New citizens of Sillypore

Interesting thoughts which I never considered about till of late, as about 1 of out every 3~4 person you meet is not a local here in sunny Sillypore.

Those under 21 cannot vote in Singapore elections. So you can hold a rifle, shoot someone and defend the country but you cannot vote.

However, new citizens who, at a high percentage, are older "deemed" foreign talents who took up citizenship in the last 2-3 years can vote. Hmm..how about those University or Poly students who have stayed and studied here for past 20 years, how do you compare their stakes in our country vs these new "of age" citizens?

They don't even need to defend our country when it comes to war, so what's their stake in our country as they stayed here less with less kinship or friendships?

How would they vote? And why are we "old" citizens giving them a chance to decide how and who manages our tiny island. This is looking even more absurd with MM Lee's suggestion to have some "classes" of citizens have 2 votes over others 1.

Suggestions since lately gahmen enjoys updating the voting registrar list:
1) Citizens between 18 and under 21 serving National Service (NS) should be allowed to vote.
2) New citizens who have stayed less than 5 years and does not have children born here and do not serve any form of volunteering or NS should not be allowed to vote.

If possible, I hope this applies to critics of either either new citizens or PRs origin, who write in to newspapers or posts online about how marginalised or wonderful Sillypore is. Contribution through economic means hardly qualify as nation building IMHO.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

So got my Canon issue resolved, apparently the technician changed a setting during calibration and forgot to change it back. Probably was rushing off to celebrate Chinese New Year. Anyway, just a little happy news to share especially for usually chirpy folks.

Researchers at Columbia University rated the happiness levels of more than 1,700 adults in Canada with no heart problems in 1995.

After a decade, they examined the 145 people who developed a heart problem and found happier people were less likely to have had one.

Source: AP and European Heart Journal.

Canon Service Centre screwed me over

Was busy with work and wanted to have a quick calibration for my Canon 7D, drove down Thurs to Harbourfront where Canon is located, during lunchtime to pop the camera for a quick check. The end result was disastrous as their service staff screwed me over. Handed them my 70-200mm L  f2.8 IS  lens together with the camera to calibrate as some of my Slinger shots were clearly off with a dark exposure issue during high speed continuous capture mode. Thought everything was sweet as I asked to speak to the technician who calibrated my lens. He mentioned they did not need to take apart the body, just electronically calibrated and even tested out the camera.

Crap..just crap, was informed to pick it up on Friday noon which I quickly pop by just after lunch and came home rushing with errands and pick my mom up and again rushed out for dinner with my buddy. Only realised on Sat when I get to try it out in manual, Aperture or Shutter-priority mode, there is no lens auto-focusing. Only if I turn to auto modes, can the lens be focussed. Clearly the Canon technician did not check thoroughly and screwed me over as I have an automatic DSLR for Chinese New Year. If only I wanted to take mediocre or still shots...well I don't, basically need to do a lot of Photoshopping now to salvage photos. Luckily my sister's boyfriend had a handy 40D to loan me.

Words of advice for fellow photographers wanting to take your Canon equipment for servicing.

1) Always bring your batteries, lens along when collecting back your equipment and test it on the spot before leaving.
2) Try to avoid bringing your camera for calibration, or checking just before festive seasons, photography trips.
3) Never trust the service technician to do a perfect job. They screw up too.

Hate to turn nasty when the service centre resumes operation...I just hope they have a good explanation for how it slipped their minds to actually check like they told me they did.

What has changed

Today while trying to do last minute spring cleaning for Chinese New Year, I did the usual procrastinating thing...turned on the TV only to find out Starhub turned on all channels for free, all the channels were not scrambled and that led to a little longer procrastinating time. So there was basketball on with the Big 10 going on - Purdue vs Michigan State (Spartans), and during commercials I flipped through the channels and found HBO Family channel showing my favorite romance movie "You've got mail". It brought back good memories when time was lot slower, emails and internet needed a dial tone and that buzzing sound before we got connected; and the world somehow seems a lot less complicated. I missed those times.

So I skipped basketball and stayed with HBO though I think I could remember where I placed that DVD. But it wasn't worth the effort since there wasn't commercials on HBO anyway. This movie came timely as I realised sometimes there is no use going back there, that we all have to move forward. The sense of familiarity is but an escape from your fear of the unknowns. So we have to be brave and hope life throws up a surprise which possibly could turn out good.

Another walk in memory lane, happened last night of free booze and food with a dear buddy of about 16 odd years. We've been through ups and downs in our lives and in a brief moment between beers, we somehow tried to reflect back what has happened over the past years. And we asked ourselves, have we changed? Or has the people around us changed? As we ponder forward on with the new complexities in life, it seems so different from when we were once so free with long hippy hairdos and the only problems we had were from finding our way home during the state of intoxication to where shall we party next. Now we have to deal with issues faced at work, responsibilities at home and even friends. As friends come and go since everyone has their own goals in life, I start to realise why sometimes my parents do not have as many friends as people these days do. Some numbered thousands in their Facebook page while others are contented with double digit figures. Numbers do not seem mean to matter anymore, as I start to value quality over quantity; and time over money; and friendship over material gains. Some friends and colleagues have left the world faster than I can meet them just to say "Hi". So I guess I know the answer to "what has changed", but I am not sure if I know the answer to "is the change for the better?".

All I hope now is that life can be kind to me as I carry on the journey to find the answer for the latter unknown.

Google

Sometimes I google too much...

Who is Airworm23?

Actually I prefer Superman...but this is still fun!

Get it from Batman & Robin Comic Generator 

NBA All Star Weekend

Get ready for the NBA All Star Weekend.


Oh and yeah...Happy Lunar New Year to all my friends!

The Notebook

Testament that the heart is stronger than the mind.

"The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that's what you've given me. That's what I'd hoped to give you forever."

Crap Whiskeys

 

So Glenlivet is available at Taiwan minimarts.

And the new Mac reserves, not found in Taiwan, is available here in Singapore as they removed all the Classic 12, 18, 21, 25 and 30 years from the shelves in DFS and decided to sell us Reserve crap after running out of stock, which we have tried from the cheapest to the most expensive - it's all crap!

Don't buy that crap, above is an Estate Reserve version, supposedly 25 yr equivalent (maybe price wise, but tastes like crap compared to the Classic Mac 18 yr old which is still found in Taiwan). Strangely the 18s are still available in Taiwan DFS.

So don't believe Singapore DFS ladies selling you whiskeys, they do not know anything, and try to sell you crap - obviously crap is not wanted in Taiwan, the asian capital of whiskeys!

Oh and perhaps wine as well...they tried so sell me some Australian overpriced whites, which I decided to stick to Robert Mondavis though 20% higher, but you can't go wrong with Mondavis.

So this is me

Had a talk to our Spartan manager over MSN and he is planning to have everyone do the personality profiling like Myers-Briggs. So that we can all play better ball and understand each other during practise and games.
So this is me. And how I behave in relationships. 


Hmm..apparently I should date someone of the INTP, or the ISTP profile. Haha this is how engineers determine their prospective partners...

We will be back! Go Slingers!

The game played as I flew back from Taipei to Singapore. And as when I landed with anticipation; secretly turning on my mobile with silent mode enabled as the plane taxied into the airport, the sms from Jase came with a heavy heart. Slingers have lost finals decider game 3 76-86 at home. What's worst is that the Indo dynamic duo imports played a great game despite the online trash talking, smashing the Slingers' dreams of reaching the first ABL finals to bits and Jase's lens as well. Full match report from ABL here.

Slingers take Game 1

In the game of basketball, like Michael Jordan's habit of wearing North Caroline Tarheel shorts beneath his NBA shorts for games, there are trends or traditions which sometimes are observed and avoided at all cost. So after a couple of trends seen this season, I was getting superstitious.

Each time Boston, Nuggets and my team Spartans lost, the Slingers would get beaten. My silly superstitions were recorded here and here.

Therefore on Saturday morning, after Boston lost to Atlanta 100-91 and Nuggets got whipped 101-64 by Oklahoma Thunders... Spartans really need to win our evening game against the #1 team Taman CSC in the Jammers league right now, they have yet to lose and the last team I remembered, that played them lost 38-130. Errr.. I was suppose to rest my injuries but due to a lack of players, I had to play and for at least the first quarter, we fought hard with what little teammates we had, matching them in defense and scores. But their physical play proved too much for us as we lost by 41 points finally but they never reached 100! So, the fears start to set in for the Slingers game on Sunday, but...the outcome:   Was outstanding!

Singapore Slingers 87 - 68 Satria Muda BritAma

This was a big win for us at home with almost a maximum 20% discount off at Botak Jones with your ticket stubs, Desmond Oh had 4 chances at the free throw line in the final minutes to bring the lead frm 18 to 20, but only shot 1 in. But overall it was a great game from our boys. With all the starters scoring double digits, and the locals contributed notably Pathman was perfect from the charity strip 4-4. The boys played tough and appeared to be a better local side than the Indonesians. Hartman and Miller were the only one scoring double digits and shooting off 21 and 18 points respectively; they were also shooting off their mouths with their whines...

A win this Wednesday at Indonesia will seal the finals for the Slingers. Otherwise, we play home next Sunday 7 Feb at same time and same place! Do bring all your friends to support the Slingers!

Jeffers was a monster tonight as I will return soon with more pictures and a full review. For now enjoy this.
 

 Jeffers' great off the board block, which the referee deemed a goal tending.

 

Jeffers with a put back one-hand dunk after a missed layup from Marcus, frightening Hartman! 

In the other ABL semi-finals, the scoreline was a little more scary than ours as both teams try to send out signals. Philippine Patriots 77 - 43 KL Dragons was a vindicated win with a strong signal to their finals opponent, they meant Business (with a capital bold B).Patriots won by 34 points and held the Dragons to a ABL season low of just 43 points. More of the defense Patriots put up over at this review.