Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Season Greetings Attack

You know it is going to happen. Every time a festive season is around the corner, it will appear. It waits silently without anyone noticing it except for the executor who carries it all year round. Its source of origin is unknown. Then before the last hour of countdown to ANY holiday's celebrations, it mysteriously materializes in your cell phone inbox, reminding you of its presence again.

YES.....FORWARD (RECYCLE!) SMS (Short Messages) GREETINGS!

I am ready for the New Year eve wave of sms attack. It is a blessing to be remembered wouldn't you say? Therefore, I am quite delighted to be the recipient of joyful blessing.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Some Facts And Belief....Not That It Matters

Saw this on my organization intranet. Not sure whether it is accurate or not. Just some additional information.

Christmas is celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ born over two thousand years ago.

'Christmas' gets its name from 'Christ' (Meaning 'messiah' or 'anointed one') and 'mass' (Meaning 'religious festival')

Historians believe that Christmas was first celebrated on 25th December in 336AD.

Englishman Sir Henry Cole reportedly created the world's first Christmas card in 1843. Sir Henry, who wanted to encourage more people to use the new postal system, designed a Christmas card with an artist friend and sold 1000 cards for a shilling each!

The custom of exchanging gifts during Christmas is said to have been inspired by the example of the wise men in bible, who came bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the baby Jesus.

According to legend, the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree can be traced back to Martin Luther the 16th century protestant reformer who was so awed by the brilliance of the stars twinkling through the branches of the trees in the wood that he decorated a small fir tree in his home with candles to recapture the scene for his family.

An Austrian priest, Joseph Mohr in 1818, wrote the Christmas carol “Silent Night”. As the church organ was broken and could not be repair in time for Christmas Eve, he decided to write a carol that could be sung by the choir to guitar music. On Christmas Eve, “Stille Nacht” was sung for the first time in a little Austrian church.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Santa's Coming To Town....Again?

Christmas is coming. Everyone is talking about it. You can see decorations on the streets especially on orchard road. You can see people rushing to buy their last minute gifts, sending out their last minute greeting cards. You can hear it on the radio as they broadcast those unbearable Christmas jingles. You can see Salvation Army personnel with their big red money pots asking for donations by just standing there shaking their tiny little bells. You can see catalogs for every imaginable kind of log cakes in the bakery. You can see it in the papers where every retail and product organization including car dealers with their big right-in-your-face bold letters: CHRISTMAS SALE! You can sense the lovey dovey feeling in the air. You can smell the fresh baked cookies from the oven. You can taste the richness of the season coming.

And frankly.....I HATE IT!!

I used to LOVE Christmas when I was just a young reckless prick. Wished everyday could be Christmas then. As the years pass and my prick mature and grow in both length and girth, I no longer share the enthusiasm of the season. Perhaps it is due to the increasing responsibility we need to take and the burden of stress from all areas of life. This year itself, Christmas somewhat just creeps up on me. I only realized Christmas is on Sunday this week four days ago!! Talk about losing track of time. Due to increasing workload, I do not even feel the difference between weekdays and weekends anymore. Weekends are now officially used for running errands and for settling unresolved matters instead of resting. Guess I just lost my Christmas mojo.

So spare me your Ho Ho Hos and Yo Yo Yos this year. Not that I am grumpy like Scrooge McDuck but I getting too old for all this celebrative shit.

Furthermore, the pre-celebration of any holidays now is getting so overrated and commercial that I wonder if anyone actually remembers the true meaning of Christmas itself??!! Yes (Yawn).....IT IS the birth of Jesus Christ. What I am typing about is whether anyone remembers the SPIRIT of Christmas?

It is the season of giving isn't it? Not presents in case you people misunderstood. The giving to the less fortunate. How many of us lavish on ourselves and on others instead of giving to the needy and desperate? Shouldn't we be spreading the joy so everyone can have a merry Christmas? Well.....we still has a long way to go before there is equality in the world. This by the way is NEVER going to happen!

Not that I assume I have done my part by donating some money here and there but hearing about what I can only perceived as narcissists everywhere on the streets bragging about what they got for themselves and from others, how expensive and 'classy' it is and where they will be going to spend their Christmas simply K.O my mood down for the count.

I will be spending quality time with my Queen lazing around enjoying each other company. Guess that is my idea of a merry Christmas from now on. Nothing fancy. Just the two of us and the possibility of the unknown future ahead.

Friday, December 16, 2005

What's Your Sexy Name

[ Via Lancerlord ]


Marvelous Romantic Lover Exchanging Embraces



Marvelous Individual Delivering Delights and Arousing, Warm Necking



I can't decide which one sounds more erotic.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

How We Behave : Women

Most women in this modern society will never be on time for an appointment! (Noticed that I didn't use the word ALL) It is just not in their nature to be early. Women of yester-years like my grandmother and my aunt have never been late for anything as far as I can remember. You can say they are more anxious to reach their destination. If the appointment were at 3pm, my grandmother would be up at 7am taking a bath, getting ready and wanting to set off at 10:30am. Of course, this drives my dad crazy and he would tell her that he won't be leaving until 1pm, which still have a two-hour window and asked her to sit and wait. Naturally, she will be sulking her face and complaining to me about my dad until they finally took off for their appointment.

To be fair, woman nowadays occasionally do show up on schedule. However, this only applies depending on certain factors. Like you are close friends meeting up to paint the town red. You're not that close and you do not want the other party to be kept waiting. You have a business meeting or event to attend to together and can't afford to be late. You two are going on a first date and both of you don't want to create a bad impression by being late.

On the other hand, once you two are attached and your status have been upgraded to boyfriend, husband and eventually father of her kids, you can kiss being early for any events or outings goodbye. From then now, woman exist and operates in another dimension where their perception of time is inconsistent from the universal domain around us. They function in a parallel space whereby they're on an average of 15 minutes behind real time. One thing I have learned is that you can make arrangement with them the day before and remind them every hour of the day but they will still be late. You can give them a head start by saying you'll be there to pick them up from work/gathering/their place/meetings in two hours time but they will only start to prepare when you called up again and say you're already at the proposed destination waiting for them!

Why do women always torture men with their unexplainable and mystified behavior? Take shopping for example. Men need a certain item A. We go and purchase the item. We go home. Women THINK of what they THINK they may need. They go to search and see which place has the best bargain for item A. They got distracted with item B, item C, item D along the way. They spend 6 hours browsing through item E to item Z before coming back to item A.
They went home empty-handed feeling satisfied!

Unfortunately, I too am a victim of the postmodern women erratic behavior. Like all the men out there who loved their spouse or soul mate, there is a sentence we frequently say when asked about our opinion to all this sort of irrational and illogical nature by our still single brothers out there: “What to do?!!”

Examples of Commonly faced scenarios:

I'm ready to go.
(What she isn't telling you is: “As soon as I recall if there is anything I left out that needs to be done.” That would give you a good 7-10 minutes before she is out of the house.)

I will be ready in 1 minute.
(Have to find matching shoes to go along with the outfit. Which translate to 15 minutes of waiting time. )

I will be ready in 15 minutes.
(Take out a newspapers cos that normally works out to be 45 minutes of waiting time. She'll be multi-tasking, putting on makeup, watching whatever is on TV during that ' brief ' intervene, playing with the dog, chatting with a friend on the phone or family members.)

I will be ready in 30 minutes.
(If you hear this, I suggest you either finished watching the soccer game on TV, take a shower, have a short nap, slip a cup of coffee or tea at a nearby coffee shop and wait for her call saying she is ready to go!)

Like I said: “What to do?!”

Thursday, December 08, 2005

We Finally Got It

After two long years of countless, exhausting and not forgetting to mention time consuming HDB housing Balloting, Walk-In-Selections and Build-To-Order exercises, we finally got the keys to our NEW HDB flat yesterday! Finally, never was I so happy to take up a loan from any institutions and to put myself in debts EVER in my life.

Being Chinese and somewhat superstitious, my fiancee and I went to NTUC fair price and purchased two pineapples. We didn't know exactly what procedures to execute for house owners wanting to enter their house for the first time but pineapple is a safe bet cos everyone is doing it. You are supposed to throw or roll the pineapple into your bare and unobstructed house before you enter. This custom is believed to bring you good luck and wealth while chasing away all the bad luck. Some hardcore people like my mum even suggested mandarin oranges and apples. Anyone know the actual procedures for this sort of things?

Pineapple is pronounced Ong Laiin Hokkein. Meaning Wealth come literally. (I am not even Hokkein in the first place but my fiancee is) Since it is no big effort and just some extra steps so I thought better to just follow the custom. Everyone wants good luck right?!

Especially now since our days of debt have started! (Monthly installment, PUB bills, TV and Radio licenses bills, ....) Really gave me a heart attack when I saw my hard-earned CPF money being wiped out to $0.
(It is the practice to deduct everything in your account first nowadays even if you have more than enough for the 20% or 10% down payment whichever option you chose for the payment of your flat)
My method is, the lesser the interest the better so I opt for the 20% down payment, which of course we paid more than that since both our accounts are now empty.

HDB sure is not wrong when they call our housing Flats. My wallet and CPF account sure is FLAT now!

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Prankster

Yesterday when I came back from work in the morning, I saw my dad outside our house looking around the corridor area. We greeted each other and it was then that I was informed of what happened the night before.

Someone had vandalized our corridor walls with the typical loan shark trademark. The usual “Owe money return money #xx-xxx” scribbling across the walls with paint and #xx-xxx representing the house unit number. So what's new about it, I thought to myself. This is not the first time this sort of thing had happened. The neighbor below us once had their front door locked and wrapped around in steel chain preventing them from getting out while their surrounding walls proudly displayed the works of the debts collectors.

I glance around and noticed that the writing on the walls have already been erased and the only evidence left is the fresh new contrasting layer of paint covering them. I was dragging my tired soul into the house when my dad told me: “It was our unit number on the wall.”

Too shack out to react but a deep and shock ‘WHAT?!!’ screamed out inside my head.

“When did it happen?” I asked

“Last night when I came back from work round 9pm.” Replied my dad.

“You mean it happened in the evening?! When there were still people walking around coming back from work?”

“Yes. It was also written on the walls of our Malay neighbor beside the lift. They said that when they came home about 8:30pm there were no sign of any vandalism as yet.”

True enough, there were also a new coating of random paint on one of their walls.

“So it occurred between 8:30pm and 9pm in the evening with occupants INSIDE the house?”

“Yes.”

My goodness. What on earth is going on?! Both the Malay neighbor AND my younger brother were at home during that period. How could they not noticed or hear anything suspicious going on outside the door? These guys must be pros.

The police were called in and my dad was told that most likely it was just a prank played by some idiots who had too much time on their hand. Yup, too much time is what they're going to get...in the hospital when I get my hands on them! If I were home at that moment, probably all this commotion wouldn't have happened. I start questioning the situation awareness of my brother and our surrounding neighbors. I can't decide which is worse. Too trusting of our surrounding or too heck-care to bother?

Wait...for all I know, this could be the work of the knocker
(Loud sudden dunk dunk dunk music in the background with flashes of lightning strike.)

See related: Here and Here

Thursday, December 01, 2005

What Is Your View Of The World

Your World View

You are a moralist with conventional ideas, which some people would call old-fashioned.
You probably think that most of the world falls badly below your standards.
Your inhibitions and sense of guilt are in the way of your happiness.

You think that people tend to use sex for evil, as a weapon.
Your parents probably played a big part in the formation of such a guilt complex as yours.
Your mind is in chains, and it's time you did something to free it.
I have to agree with it. I'm ok with being called old-fashioned.