my world this week

******* LIVERPOOL beat chelsea in the champions league to advance to the Finals.
YAAAAAAAYYYYY. Go Reds! Go! It was another one of those european nights at Anfield as merseysiders outwitted the best team in the land. Kudos to Rafael Benitez for masterminding the victory and outsmarting what some consider the greatest mind in football today, Jose Mourinho.
I just love Liverpool. Not as much as I adore my Newcastle. And with this victory and the ones that came leading up to this point I do believe Pool can beat AC Milan and actually lift the cup.

****** Work is shit!

****** Agnes is gonna be away for....3 whole days!! May not seem like alot to you. But to me it is an eternity. Gonna miss her so much while she is gone. She is going to Kuching for a bi-lateral meeting with our Malaysian counterparts. She also has an upcoming trip to Cameron Highlands and Johor Bahru. Same thing again.

******* Camou is looking and feeling better. So much so that he now wants me to take him on walks again.I took a raincheck on that idea for the time being at least. But really looking forward to our walks again....soon...

**** mysterious white layer at the top of my planted tank. No idea why or what. Probably has a little to do with the fertilizer and stuff I added during the last water change. Gonna have to do a couple of water changes soon to eradicate the white stuff.

***** reading Walk On- The Spiritual Journey of U2
All about how religion (read: christianity) has played a part in the music of U2. A good read so far. My favourite band. My favourite God. How can it be bad? :P

***** just finished reading the screenplay to Revenge of the Sith. Gonna be great. I am so hyped. Agnes just thinks I am bonkers. I guess she will never imagine the magnitude of what it means to me. To her it is just a movie. To me it is a culmination of a lifelong obsession, 28 years in the making.

****Bought a candle thingy from eastpoint the other day. Was not as translucent as we had hoped. Still it is better than the tealight candles in a glass container which seemed to brighten up the whole room. Not what you want when you want to cuddle up with the girl you love.

**** Agnes copy of her school certificate is still with me!

**** The pictures of our Sungei Buloh trip on monday are up on my picture blog. Go take a look. Was tiring but fulfilling for me. Agnes is a real trooper for going on these walks and photo excursions with me. God knows we need the exercise anyway.

Mother's Day Shopping

Was as usual a crappy day at work. I do not know how much longer we can keep up working like this. It is crazy! Just wish Ai Khim, Dr Ali and Mr Yong will just wake up their ideas and do something instead of being hinderances. *sigh* Sick of this. All the money in the world does not make up for this shit. Thank God for Hasli and Sin. Do not know what I would do without them.

After work went down to MND to pick up Agnes. There was a terrible jam all along the CTE and in the city which made my journey a slow one. What is it with these Singaporeans? It seems whenever it rains they lose their bearings and hit into things. They also seems unable to locate their prized vehicles and only get out of the office after the rain has dissipated. The result: traffic jams like the one I experienced today.

After picking up My Sweetness, we drove over to Takashimaya. Same thing again. Long rows of vehicles heading somewhere. Grr.... bad day so far.

Mother's Day. Mixed feelings. I love my mum as we all do. But getting a gift for them to commemorate the day? Oh my! What do you get for someone who does not need anything? YTou spend the days and weeks leading up to the big day trying to fish out clues as to what she would like and more likely than not you will end up with a big ZERO. That was the situation Agnes and I found ourselves in today. At least Agnes has the option of a hong bao, something I do not have the fortune of falling back unto.

In the end we got the women in our lives a pair of watches each.

Had dinner at Burger King. Was so full after.

Waltzed back to Sunny.

Sent Aggie home. She gave the M Day gift to her mum. She seemed pleased.

Perused the pictures Agnes had printed out. Somehow they did not turn out as well as they appear in the camera or on my blog. Agnes says it has something to do with my camera settings and my amateurish camera skills. I just think the developers did a bad job of it.

Singapore's former President, Dr Wee Kim Wee, died on Monday morning (5.10am) at his home, from complications due to a relapse of prostate cancer.

Dr Wee, who was president from 1985 to 1993, was 89 years old, and is widely known as the People's President - displaying a genuine concern for others and a natural warmth that touched many lives

We have had the pleasure of feeling first hand the warmth of the man while on his walks at East Coast during the weekends.

Millions

Watched Millions the other day at GV Plaza.
It is a delightful little movie from Danny Boyle, the same dude who gave us Trainspotting and 28 days Later.

The plot outline is: The UK decides to convert to the Euro in seven days. It's the biggest opportunity the criminal world has ever had. When a railway heist goes wrong and an enormous bag of money falls from the sky into the hands of Damian and Anthony, there's only one thing to do--spend it like there's no tomorrow.

I found it to be a heart-warming tale of innocence in a corrupt world, as Damian tries his best not to succumb to the temptations that follow his new found riches. Alex Etel is great in his role as damian. At times you have to take a step back to realise that he is only a kid. Such is the depth of his acting.
On the downside it may be a tad difficult to follow the story as it shifts from the real world and the world that exists in Damian's imagination throughout the movie. That coupled with the holes in the plot that are unexplained makes for a few questions marks after. Maybe I wasn't paying attention or something...nevermind...
Overall a good movie to catch if you want to watch a feel-good movie and you do not mind just sitting back and suspending your logic for a couple of hours.

Rating: 3 rubber duckies out of 5

in the blogosphere

***
I just do not want to think that anything I write here can be used against me as evidence in the court of law. Take the case of Mr Chua Cheng Zhan . He purportedly made racist remarks on his blog and was censured by Public Service Commission (PSC). Some even had the gall to suggest that he lose his scholarship for his remarks.

In PSC's statement they had this to say:

'We would like to take this opportunity to remind all PSC scholars to
conduct themselves in a manner becoming of holders of a PSC scholarship at all times.'

I know what he did was wrong but please aren't we over-reacting a little here? You think it is justified to ruin a guy's future for something he wrote on his blog?

here is Mr Miyagi's solution to avoid litigation:


Call it going back to old-school. Works better than firewalls. Just do not forget to make a way to leave comments.

***
Another thing is how blogging has suddenly become 'mainstream' with the media going head over heels over this new 'phenomenon'. Suddenly bloggers are celebrities and have columns in newspapers, endorsement deals and the newspapers and tv station feature stuff on blogs.

*sigh*

Blogs are basically online diaries. We speak about stuff that matters to us, the blogger. It is not meant for mass consumption. Of course we all want more eyes and hits, but surely part of the appeal of blogging is how you can say what you want when you want to without having to cater to a mass audience or to be censured for making politically-incorrect statements.

***
With the advent of blogging into mainstream consciousness comes spamming blog style!
Now enterprising enterpreneurs(is there any other kind?) have harnessed blogs for their advertising needs. Anything and everything under the sun is hawked from blogs much like this one. Who woulda thunk? What next? viruses, trojans and spyware spread via blogs?

blog links

One of the other blogs I enjoy reading is this one, Brose's World. His commentaries are really a hoot. A good read. The link above about the poor pickings in the Science Faculty..cruel...but so very true.

Another one I love to read is jadeunderground. Her observations on life are spot on if a little quirky. Does not shy away from speaking her mind even on some of our so called 'sacred cows'.