Monday, March 31, 2008

Something I can't understand...


Facebook is a wonderful social networking tool. I've found my long lost primary school friends of over 20 years to even newly found ones. Even tonight, an Army friend whom I have lost contact with since Uni days have found me! hahaah

What's most interesting is that I have dwindled my addiction to Facebook, stopped myself from playing the addictive Petrol Head where I have managed to get an Aston Martin DBR9 Le Mans version and accumulated 15639600 points! I basically now use Facebook to keep in touch with my friends and ex-colleagues, like an emailing tool except its cool to stay in touch without sacrificing the already limited time we have. It's cool to put up old photos and new ones tagging friends in there, sharing all the photos we have taken, and even share the vacation pictures. In the beginning I've basically added all sorts of applications, and little did I know that this application called Compare People, which our peers vote for each other such as best smelling, smartest etc...have me stumbled in confusion.

I just recently saw that I have been voted:
1) Most athletic (Duh, I am training hard for my IPPT lately, cos I normally die passing the 2.4km run - have you seen me? I am like overweight!)
2) Most desired for marriage (Err..I am still single leh)
3) Most dateable (Err...single..and available and dateless)
4) Best catch (I think this one is because all other good men are married or attached already)
5) Most kissable (Ok, this one I do not mind, but hey I ain't getting any! Maybe that's why, have lots of kisses left)


So this is something I totally cannot fathom as well as my crazy friends who think that by having a ride..(check out the Aston Martin!NOT! hahha) you can get lots of gals.. but hey I ain't getting any dates or kisses! I doubt the female gender is really that shallow. In case you do not mind a date, that's me circled and arrowed in the little picture with Jase...just kidding..

:P Conclusion I think my friends are just being nice!..way too nice!

Friday, March 28, 2008

Juicy exciting news about the Singapore Slingers!

Usually I try to blog once a day, that's about it. But this news just came hot off the press, and I am so excited about it - I just wanna share with those who have been following my blog on the developments of the baby Slingers team.

If you read my previous post on the lost to Adelaide 36ers. There are a few reasons to why we lost, well the people behind the Slingers have managed to turn it around to our advantage and might be the reason why we WILL WIN more games this season!!!

Well, what I've heard is that the Slingers have managed to signed their prize recruit of Darren Ng for the upcoming season. Darren was #8 when playing for 36ers, and normally I keep track of Jersey # numbers, in case they get famous like #23 aka Michael Jordan's number! Well luckily there is no #8 in Slingers previous season line up, though not sure if Darren will opt for #8 again. He might choose it because he likes Kobe (who was #8 before he became #24 in Lakers), but maybe also because Darren NG is ASIAN. #8 is fatt in Cantonese(meaning prosperous and all Asians love it, just check out the car numbers on the Singapore roads, even Jase and myself have a #8 in our license plate #).

More about Darren, he has family in both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and I feel he will become the new local hero for the Slingers, replacing Michael Wong who probably had to go back to teaching. The 6'3" guard averaged 13.3 points per game last season in 30 games played with the Adelaide 36ers. Darren is in his final years of studying to become a medical Doctor and will go back to Adelaide in the off-season to continue his residency. The 25 year old will join Singapore in July.

Any other juicy news, like if he's single (Not because I am gay hor, but for the single female readers out there, who even google on Shane McDonald's CLEO's 50 Most Eligible Bachelor - oh and if you are interested if Shane's back...well let's just say come for the season opening game, I promise you Shane will probably still be there signing your autographs) or will he open his own clinic here...haha well I hope Slingers management will let me chat with him, or even have a game with him once he gets here.


Other non-exciting news would be new sponsors like Novotel and shareholders Jobstreet.com (this one no love - haven't managed to find me good jobs, though lots of lobang lar)

I can't wait for the new season to start...whoever want free tics, put some comments on how you feel and if you are as excited as I am, and like a queue system, I see what I can do.

Of jogs and stars

Having the need to train for my impending IPPT, I took to jogging in the night when it is cooler and not much traffic. As I hit my mid-way mark of about 1.2km, the urge to quit is unbearable. I do not fathom how I can survive easily 24km of cycling against 2.4km of jogging.

If I could have my way of testing my own fitness, I would rather be cycling or roller-blading, where the impact on my joints would be less and the joy of speeding will drive my heart rate faster.

Anyhow, at the mid-way mark, I would be staring up in the skies, looking for God!!! As I will not give up..must..make...it...to...my....goal..
While up in the skies, I noticed somethings which I haven't enjoyed for a long time. The afternoon rains have been drastic, but I couldn't imagine the night skyline would be so clear. March nights are filled with many constellations in the southern hemisphere, you can easily spot 50 over stars clearly visible.

If you need a star map to spot the skies with your love ones, download here.

These are some of the Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere:

Apus, the bird of paradise
Ara, the altar
Carina, the ship's keel
Centauras, the centaur
Chamaeleon, the chameleon
Circinus, the compass
Crux, the southern cross
Dorado, the swordfish
Eridanus, the river
Grus, the crane
Hydrus, the water snake
Indus, the Indian
Lepus, the rabbit
Mensa, the table
Musca, the fly
Norma, the surveyor's level
Octans, the octant
Pavo, the peacock
Phoenix, the phoenix
Pictor, the easel
Reticulum, the net
Triangulum Australe, the southern triangle
Tucana, the toucan
Vela, the ship's sails
Volans, the flying fish


Enjoy it while it lasts!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Over hot chocolate and Famous Amos cookies - avoid coffee


Haven't been blogging lately though I have so much I wanted to talk about. From a close friend leaving her job because of misunderstandings at work, to even another who has gone to seek greener pastures in South Africa. I am having similar experiences of both and have to be discreet about it, because you never know who reads this blog entry - thus the crazy title which makes no sense to what I am about to blog.

Though it pretty much shouldn't matter because its just avenues of expressions which is just stating how one feel at that moment of blogging. But I am having my hot chocolate and cookies right now.

A close friend of mine had misunderstandings with a female/woman/bitch boss lately. It was seriously very minor, but it escalate till the fact that she needs to resign even without a job. (That's gutsy and at times encouraging to just do it) Since I started working, I had my fair share of working with women and their issues. Many female colleagues have also shared with me their experiences with working for men vs female bosses. And they all are observed to be in the same points. I shall attempt to recall from all these experiences including my own to write a dissertation on this topic.

Normally for a male boss, their common problems would be the BIG male ego, power struggle, demanding respect while not rightfully not deserving any... just to list a few. While the female boss would be having blinkered views, favoritism, demanding attention over small little issues, revengeful, spiteful, particular over every single thing once you've stepped on their toes; or actually thought to have step on their tails...just to list a few as well. Women tend to be less logical and uses more intuition.

Citing a book written by Anna Frances Grundy on Women and Computers.

Men use intelligence; women, on the other hand, use intuition. And parallel to this, men are rational and logical; women are emotional...


This is said in context of having intelligence for top jobs and thus men having a big chunk of most CEO positions.

While applying to my discussion is that women do tend to judge intuitively or instinctively, enabling them to care better for children and the elderly. And their development in these areas confine them to jobs requiring more of it in their areas of work. But of course let's not make a general sweeping statement as there are good female CEOs there, but the percentage is lower. You do not have to agree to my statements but you have to look at it objectively like Prehistorical Men are hunters and explains why all women would occasionally call men barbaric.

Anyhow most women hold terms of being emotional, intuitive, irrational, sensitive, hysterical and empathetic. And these states at certain moments can be rather explosive if you are any men who have been in a long term relationship. These states at work if not controlled due to quarrels at home or with friends, or certain periods of the month, or even hear a wrong hearsay from rumour-mongers can kill relationships at work which will end employment for many. Because, there is another trait of women which goes hang in hang with this killing spree - memory.

Women tend to bear more grudges, less forgiving, like to bring out the past etc etc..

Actually studies have been made to prove that fact:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Drinking more than three cups of coffee a day helped protect older women against some age-related memory decline, French researchers said on Monday, giving women more reason to love the world's second most popular stimulant, with the vibrator being the most popular.

Men did not enjoy the same benefit, they said. "The more coffee one drank, the better the effects seemed to be on (women's) memory functioning in particular," said Karen Ritchie at the French National Institute of Medical Research, whose work appears in the journal Neurology. "They remembered all sorts of shit to be mad at their husbands and families about, going way, way back, in some cases to when their teenaged children were babies."

The researchers followed more than 7,000 men and women in three French cities, checking their health and mental function and asking them about their current and past eating and drinking habits, their friends, and their daily activities.

They found that women who drank more than three cups of coffee per day, or its caffeine equivalent in tea, retained more of their verbal and -- to a lesser extent -- visual memories over four years.

They were also much crankier and generally more angry and difficult to get along with.

These extra-pissed-off but stimulated french women had a 33 percent lower odds of having verbal memory declines and 18 percent lower odds of having visual and spatial memory declines, compared to women who drank one cup or fewer per day and were less pissed-off.

The effect also depended on age, with women over 80 reaping more benefits from these beverages than those who were 10 to 15 years younger, Ritchie's team wrote. It was unclear whether current or former coffee consumption made the difference, and whether or not the coffee was high quality or cheap, nasty shit.

Some studies in mice have suggested that caffeine might block the buildup of proteins that lead to mental decline.

"Our best guess is that women don't metabolize coffee in the same way (as men)," she said in a telephone interview. "Also, men tend to let things go, whereas women hold onto grudges, sometimes for life, which requires that they remember more. I suppose it would have helped if I had actually talked to any of the men, but ... eh, whatever."

The average American drinks one to two cups of coffee a day, according to the National Coffee Association. The average American woman drinks three to four cups of expensive Starbucks coffee and is pissed off at someone roughly 50 percent of the time.


I rest my case and thus I carry on drinking my hot chocolate and continue my coffee abstinence for over 30 years. In light of my brave friend who left this rat caged lifestyle, for a totally new exposure, I also hope to find my own greener pastures for a mid-life career switch or to go study once more to find myself.

Life's too short to screw with people's life with pent up gender-inflicted-possible-coffee-induced frustrations. So stay off caffeine as I can't possibly tell you to be less emotional and intuitive.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Defining culture

I was asked recently on my understanding of culture during a dinner with some friends. And she actually stumped and belittled my short answer when I told her it was about the arts, appreciation of life, and involving pottery, dances etc. Maybe perhaps the fact that she used to work for MICA - Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts. Singapore's Government Ministry in charge of the creative industries, arts, heritage, library, media, info communications and government public relations. So I better give her some credit and do some work on the real definition on culture and have a shot at giving a longer excerpt on my understanding of it.


Wiki defines Culture as (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. And Culture can be defined as all the ways of life, arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, norms of behavior such as law and morality, and systems of belief as well as the art.


My shot at explaining my deeper understanding of it again - Culture is about the arts, and a whole lot more. It's about all things in appreciation of the finer things in life, history, literature, language, religion and the grasp of the society fabric at points in time where it meant something. Like periods of European Renaissance where we have the best paintings by 14th-17th century artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The accumulation of humanism, arts, science, music, dance etc. being represented in their forms as they were interpreted by individuals. Where people in the future like ourselves can appreciate it and somewhat grasp that moment it was defined.


So if you ask me..Singapore has no culture. We have no defining moments and I do appreciate the government in trying to promote it. With all the fundings and I hope we have more opportunities to appreciate it, to refine ourselves, so that I won't have irritating people sitting beside me during concerts which talked loudly during Jeff Chang's concert at moments the symphony was playing. Those moments were NOT intermission time for people to go to the loo as well.

I leave you with a painting I saw recently at the Jeff Chang concert (which I will try to blog on the event later and explain how there are paintings to see in a concert) which somehow captivated me and I did up some research not knowing the importance of it. I just love it.





Het meisje met de parel - which in Dutch meant Girl with a Pearl Earring, also widely known as the "Mona Lisa of the North" by 17th Century artist Johannes Vermeer. The painting is universally recognized as one of Johannes Vermeer's absolute masterpieces. The painting is currently housed at The Mauritshuis in The Hague, which I hope to be able to see it some day just as I've seen the Mona Lisa and watched the Da Vinci Code. In the meantime, I shall go find the the novel by Tracy Chevalier inspired by the painting and watch the film starring Scarlett Johansson inspired by the novel. They bear the same name for titles.