Justin Hawkins of The Darkness said to MTV, that in the rock culture of today where showing your middle finger is a norm, giving a thumbs-up is more rebellious...

I hate it when I'm sick. I need panadol.

Played soccer on the field today. Damn tiring, and so not used to having so much space to run. But damn proud to score 2 goals and set up another. Plus I played keeper for a good part of the game too, pulling off some smart saves. Damn! I'm the complete footballer. Liverpool should sign me. Bleah.

Got the following story from Zunjie through email. I don't really give much attention to such emails, but this is a really great story:

I know you are all the "appropriate " type of people who would appreciate the beauty in this story. Don't look for a punch line. There isn't one. Read it anyway. My question to all of you is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.

After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question. "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?" The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. "I believe, that when a child like Shay comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child."

Then he told the following story: Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball.

Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?"

Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging. Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play.

The boy looked around for guidance and, getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the outfield. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible cause Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher took the ball and turned and threw the ball on a high arc to right field, far beyond the reach of the first baseman.

Everyone started yelling," Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled; Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!"

By the time Shay rounded first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions and intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases toward home.

Shay reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third!"

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams were screaming, "Shay, run home!"

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the "grand slam" and won the game for his team.

"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world."

Such a warm story. Don't know whether it's a real story, but I liked it all the same.

On another note, Bobby and James just joined Friendster. The pigs! They finally succumbed to the dark side too.

Went to check out Mahalo at Big Splash with some friends. It actually seems like a pretty cool place, but unfortunately, it was a Deepavali Party nite tonight, so a lot of people there to celebrate Deepavali, if you know what I mean.

We then hopped over to Europa, just next to Mahalo. All I can say is a lot of uncles and aunties. 'Nuff said.

Some folks are petitioning to free the pink dolphins in Sentosa. This is just great. So do we now start petitioning for Ah Meng and the rest of the animals in the zoo? How about freeing the NUS students? We go through more abuse and stress than the dolphins for sure. While we're at it, let's free all the poor workers stuck in low-paying, stress-inducing, high-blood-pressure-inducing, dead-end jobs out there. Now these are the ones who need to be freed. Heck, most of them used to be NUS students. Yeah, let's petition to free all the stressed monkeys and animals. Oh, dun forget those at the zoo.

Just a early morning rant. I'm feeling cranky.

Was at the Esplanade Library yesterday to return and borrow movies. Had some time to kill before meeting Hazel and Tse Chuan for dinner, so I settled down at one of the CD listening stations to listen to music, and browse through Mojo. They were featuring Radiohead. How can I possibly not read that article? One of the most influential and definitive bands of the last decade or so, the article was mainly focused on Thom Yorke's transitions through his life.

Why is it that almost all great artists go through moments of depression or insanity in their lifes, and yet produce their most poignant works during those periods? If I go through depression or insanity, people will just call me crazy. Although the government has lately been actively telling people that depression IS a clinical condition that can be cured. Yeah, I know that. Learnt it in the psychology module I took. But somehow, it just doesn't feel that way to people going through it. It usually takes someone to push the depressed person to seek help, so all the commercials telling the depressed people to go seek help aren't gonna help much. Instead, people should be educated to notice depression in other people, then helping those people.

And you know what is depressing? It's depressing that as I browsed through the back pages of Mojo, I see all the acts that I would love to catch that are having gigs and shows all over UK. And the tickets aren't ridiculously priced like thay would be if those acts came to Singapore. Man, I want to live in UK. At least people there don't have to be told that they can seek help for depression. They get cured everyday at the pubs, eh?

Ninjai, the little ninja. Chapter 2 is fwuarking fwunny. Fwuaark!

A friend's friend's friend's friend's 5-mth-old nephew has heart problems and is in urgent need of B- blood. Anyone who can help please get in touch with me asap. Thanks.

Last night, while I was doing my late-night-before-bedtime surfing, all the electricity at home suddenly just went out. No, not a blackout, just that my mum's iron probably tripped something. I was halfway through a cigarette, so I just stayed put in my room to finish it before going out to do something about it. Unfortunately, before I finished my fag, my mum burst into my room asking for a torchlight. Damn, I forgot to lock my door.I usually do so at home when I smoke, coz I don't like having my parents seeing me puffing away. They know I smoke, but still, I don't like them to see me doing so.

Anyway, apparently my mum took out the batteries in the torchlight in the living room sometime back, for whatever reason I don't know. We weren't exactly in total darkness, coz the light from the outside is enough for us to see and move about, but it was a different matter in the storeroom. It's too dark to see the circuit breaker without a light. How how how? My mum asked me for my lighter, but I didn't refill my Zippo, and the cheapo 50-cent lighters always get too hot to hold if it's used for long durations...

The solution? My Nokia 6100. Hooray for handphones with ultra-bright screens.

My dad's gout is acting up again. Think I'll be home today to be the little errand boy.

Dr. Mahathir is really losing his credibility after what he said about the Jews. In fact, he's causing the Malaysian government to look bad as a whole. He is getting into a lot of nations' bad books. I'm beginning to suspect that he dares to say such things because Malaysia has WMD in abundance against the western world.

Durians.

Night will always turn to day
Tomorrow the sun will shine.
If you don't walk the road
You'll just be wasting time.
You're not what you think you are
You are what you think you're not.
You lost your way some time back
And you can't stop the rot.

Get going
Get with it
Before you lose your sight
Get with it.

HMV at City-Link was playing The Darkness just now as I walked past. Cool.

Anyway, I watched American Wedding with Renee on Monday. Not as much laughs as the original American Pie, but it still has its moments. The dance-off was hilarious. The show opened to the sound of James' "Laid". I thought it was so apt.

Damn, I haven't smoked since Sunday night. I wonder how long I can keep this up...

Diarrhoea can be such a pain in the ass... Trust me.

This Friendster thing is getting out of hand. It's just an online dating site with a twist. And suckers like me are falling for it. Help.

And here's wishing a Happy Birthday to Hazel...

No Sunday soccer this week. Something doesn't feel right, somehow...

I don't really know why I bother with the comments link. Hardly anyone uses it. In fact, hardly anyone comes to my webpage I think, except for the few regulars. Maybe I should become a blog whore and get myself listed on some weblog listings... nah... too not me. I guess it's just that sometimes, when new people stumble upon my page, it would be nice for them, or maybe you, to say hi. Ok, so I'm guilty of not doing that when I visit other peoples' blog, but hey, nothing's fair in this world. Oh well...

You know, I didn't really get any feedback on this current layout even. In fact, I would actually appreciate constructive criticism, so that I can work towards better, more user-friendly designs next time. So go ahead and tell me what's wrong with this layout, but I reserve the right to disagree with your opinions... Bleah...

And thanks to Renee's new-found love for MayDay, their songs are stuck in my head. Well, at least they are decent songs, not crappy stuff like the Macarena, or the Ketchup song.

And speaking of crappy songs, I hated the new Macdonald's ad campaign from the first time I saw the commercial on TV. The music stinks, it's trying too hard to look and be cool. In the end, it just falls flat on the face. They should learn from the Coca-Cola's ads... Simple, yet vibrant and effective. Coke achieves in 30 seconds, what Macs tried to achieve in a minute or more... Chihuahua!

And speaking of Chihuahuas, the 2 breeds of dogs I would like to own are Chihuahuas, and Boston Terriers. Chihuahuas, coz they are small and spunky. Boston Terriers, coz they are always so well-dressed. I guess it's kind of the same reason why I like penguins so much. Always in formal wear. Unlike me...

And speaking of penguins, here's a blast from the past for you. Say a big hello to Earl and Dick, my 2 stupid penguins:

Gosh, I rant and I ramble...

Don't really have anything to talk about, but I just feel compelled to write something here. Yeah, I've reached that stage where even writing nonsense here is a release for me.

Well, I do have this to say at leaast. I tried That Boney Cake at NYDC for the first time tonight. Mmm... It was good. Really really good.

And despite what the name suggests, it has nothing to do with boning...

And while on the topic of boning, I never realised that there were so many colourful terms to describe parallel parking. Bleah...

Dad not feeling well, so I stayed home today. But he wasn't feeling that bad either, so I didn't have to do much anyway, other than getting him lunch from downstairs.

Speaking of lunch, I sat in front of Bobby and James when I opened my packet of "Cai Fan". The 2 pigs started "wheeking" away. I offered them my "towgay" but apparently they didn't like it, coz they just ignored it and ran away... Fussy fellows...

Don't anything much to say. Just archived last month's entry, so just decided to update this as well.

Went to the Esplanade Library to borrow some concert VCD and DVDs of Mayday for Renee. She's really hooked on them right now. Borrowed "Farewell to my COncubine" as well. The librarian at the counter who checked it out for me commented that it's a very good film. I haven't watched it yet, and besides, Renee was thinking of watching it, so I guess I can see how good it actually is when I watch it for myself... Bleah

Updating in school from my notebook. This Toshiba Satellite 2590 CDT has served me faithfully for the most parts of the last 4 and a half years. TIme to retire it soon, but just can't do so at the moment... Poor notebook.

Anyway, had a pretty eventful few days since my last update. Where shall I start... Let's see... Well, last Friday was Renee's birthday. She got sea-monkeys from me. They're currently wriggling about in their tank in Renee's room. After dinner that night with Tommy and Mindy, the 4 of us stumbled upon this Eygptian Restaurant, in one of the small lanes off Beach Road. Interesting deco ("Ming" vases with Arabic writings, little pyramids, water-pipes, etc), and exotic-sounding stuff in the menu. We ordered some Eygptian drinks, and an Orange and Date Salad to share. While the drinks received mixed reactions, the salad, which is actually a dessert, got our unanimous approval. I wouldn't mind going there to try their other dishes someday.

Saturday was spent mostly asleep, went to Chambers to watch Liverpool lose undeservedly to Arsenal, then went to Lynette's Ardmore Park apartment. I wish I could afford to stay in a place like hers. It would be really cool to have a bachelor's pad right next to Orchard Road. Chicks would be impressed, i think...

Ah, Sunday, bloody Sunday... Not bloody actually, just went for the usual morning soccer session. While on the way to soccer, heard over the radio that Mayday, or more commonly known as "Wu Yue Tian" in chinese, was going to have a autograph session cum performance at Junction 8. So Renee and I went to check them out. Most of the fans there were probably a few years younger than us. I don't really know their songs, but I enjoyed their performance. I'm pretty impressed by their music. Easy listening chinese rock, they even managed to rock in Hokkien. Cool.

After the performance, we went down to Flea and Easy at Zouk. It was so bloody (Ok, so it was Sunday, bloody Sunday afterall) crowded, there was hardly any room to stand and browse the stuff on sale. I did see a guinea pig that was up for adoption. Would have loved to bring him home, but my mum didn't want me too. Poor guy. I hope he found a happy home.

So tired out that night that I went to sleep at 10 plus at night. Not my usual bed-time at all...

On another note, I've been telling Renee that I want to be a lion. Check out their sleep schedule...

No one can tell what the future holds. A critical period of my life lies ahead, I think. I hope I come through it for the better. There are people counting on me that I cannot let down.

Thankfully, there are also people around me I can count on to help me through. These people I thank. They know who they are.

Yeah, my mood hasn't been that great lately. Kinda been going up and down, though more down than up. I hope everything will turn out fine.

NIght Safari

Identity Crisis

Bobby thinks he's a hen...

My Butt