just a little glimpse of hope will do. a little glimpse...

Why can't people just see beyond themselves for just a split second. is the big picture that difficult to comprehend? The team is not a complete unit if no one is willing to pitch in; a wall is only as sturdy as its lousiest piece of brick.

When will people start to realize that they reap what they sow? and whatever happened to discipline of self, and honour and shame?

A promise is a promise and you made that promise to yourself and everyone around you on the day you became a part of the family.

How can people with a conscience sleep at night soundly knowing that it's far from the best that they can do.

I will not drop it. Not now, not ever. At least i have to make peace with my own conscience knowing that i did all that i could, and i tried everything that i can.

please, i ask for nothing more than a glimpse of hope. just let me see the silver lining behind that rain cloud, if there ever was one...

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Have a nice day

I believe that nowadays people are all wound up so tight that they will snap at the slightest of provocations. The whole world need to lighten up a little, and have a sense of humour. it's no wonder that more and more people are seeing shrinks, it might just have something to do with the increasing stress we are subjected to on a daily basis.

And an excellent outlet for relieving stress in my opinion is through advertisements. well made and funny ads are timeless, and more likely to capture the public's imagination. besides fulfilling its commercial obligations - that's to move products along to consumers, ads should entertain us. a good ad then makes us wan to watch it over and over again, and not loathe it everytime the commercial break comes on. so to people in the advertising industry: keep those funny ones coming!


Notice the smug reference to spinal tap at the end? "BUT THIS ONE GOES TO 11"!!! wicked!


This one is just classic.

Have a good laugh, it'll do you wonders =)

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Have a nice day

"...

Singapore outbids Moscow

People in Singapore must be delighted today. After all this is not something that comes often. Hosting the Youth Olympics would even be bigger than F1 and practically anything else that's gonna happen.


Interestingly though they have to build a 5000 bed "Olympic Village" in NUS, which i seriously cannot imagine in anyway possible that they are gonna find the space for, not to mention four new sports venues and a place specially built for equestrian, that'll be the old turf city i guess.

But looking at the state of the present sports venues available i'm starting to have doubts. All the fields that come to mind are either too small or too dodgy for sports like soccer. and what about sports like diving and figure skating and stuff? where the hell would that be held? downtown east? jurong east entertainment centre? oh well i'm sure they'll work something out. they've only got one shot at making it right and i don't think anyone would want to screw it up.

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The child in all of us

I never understood how hard it is to deal with children until i got my first real job as a tuition teacher for kids.

All the boredom and hassle of traveling aside, i gotta be subjected to the temperament of a ten year old? it doesn't help that kids nowadays have an attention span of 5 seconds on average. blame it on the television, the play stations, the xbox, the wii, the works. While I'm getting my balls chewed to bits by the parents wanting to see results, the kids keep on misbehaving, doing their own thing as they please. At the end of the day i still get the blame for any "mishaps".


yet somehow, i don't feel THAT angry, nor do i resent these sort of behaviour too much. In fact i have on numerous occasions felt a strange link to my own childhood. It's that rebellious period that we all go through. I still remember the good ol' days of the midnight guitar slinging heavy metal head banging madness.

Of course now it's a whole different story, it's all too far left for me. But sometimes amidst all the grown-up shit that you've been brain washed into doing, you just have this innate desire to maybe let go for a little bit just for that high... you know, smoke some pot (okay maybe not this one), have a sip out of whatever there is in the liquor cabinet, play some pranks on your neighbours/classmates/whoever, get wasted. just some crazy things that you'll probably never get a chance to do if you're all grown up.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be a kid once in a while, there is that forgotten inner child in all of us...

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INfidel WE TRUST

If you haven't heard the best/worst piece of news for a long time, Fidel Castro has finally decided to throw in the towel. It does come as a surprise though, considering how everybody thought that old fart (pardon the french) would never give up.


but in all fairness he had been a symbol of hope for quite a few dozen people over the years. he was the one who started the revolution, transformed cuba into a marxist-leninist state modelled on the soviet union, and probably had a role to play in the cuban missile crisis that nearly started world war 3, not to mention the driving force behind perpetuating the gloomy state of the economy.

We must thank him however for jacking up the world's cuban cigar prices, without him there would probably have been a few billion more cuban cigars floating around in the market, and it probably wouldn't be treated like the precious gem it is today. Oh and not forgetting kudos to him for giving us mortals hope, that immortality really exists and can be sought. When's the last time you heard that old fidel was dead? 10 years ago? 5 years ago? last year? yesterday? Don't you find it exciting/mortifying that time and time again he has risen from the dead and proven us wrong?

For some of us it's a beacon of shining hope on the hill of horse crap of a world today that miracles do occur. For others, such as employees of CIA, FBI, and a dozen other dodgy organizations who call themselves by alphabets and are living under the illusion that it's pretty cool, it's a case of chronic migraine - imagine having to haul yourself out of bed in the morning and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is "Oh Cock! Fuck me. He's still alive."


Yet it's his precise eccentricity that has charmed millions of us. People worshiped fidel, he was a hero in many people's eyes. Some say he shits bricks and that his eyes can blink horizontally, all we know is that he's called fidel. There was always an air of mystique around him wherever he went and whatever he said. So we ought to give it to the old man for at least having some charisma, charm, and that elusive ability to not mince his words even when he knows whatever he's saying is complete rubbish - such enduring qualities (especially the last one) that George W. Bush could never even dream of having in his lifetime or thereafter.

And our dear leader's last words before retirement?

"I will not aspire nor accept - I repeat I will not aspire or accept - the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief"

published today in the now probably more than 50 years old Cuban Communist Party's daily publication aptly named Granma.


Fidel, you did the right thing. now enjoy life and go shack up some grannies already.


Read More: Fidel Castro Resigns Cuban Presidency After Half-Century in Power

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The good, the bad and the ugly

sometimes i wonder why i do the things that i chose to do, why i put in the effort and give my 110%, why i keep hoping, why i keep driving myself, why i keep giving, why i keep getting disappointed, why i keep getting bruised, why i keep feeling down, why i feel unappreciated, why i get a sense of helplessness, why i get betrayed and yet still i keep the faith.

maybe because they don't see eye to eye with me. maybe to them it's something trivial, maybe it's because of the circumstances that dictate the situation, maybe there just isn't that hunger, that thirst to do something. maybe i'm over-reacting, maybe i don't command their respect, maybe i'm not good enough, maybe i should give up.

even though i tell myself it's nobody's fault, deep down inside i'm full of hate. i hate the bureaucratic hypocrites and their apathetic attitude. i hate those who don't seem to give a shit. i hate those who mouth us off and yet are blinded by their own ignorance. i hate the condescending attitude shown towards us when we have given it everything we have got and then some more. i hate it that others who are not our own show us more respect than those we call "our own". i hate the silence every time we stumble, and even more on those rare occasions that we overcome all else for that briefest moment of triumph. and i hate myself for not being able to make things better for those to come.

but above all else i have no regrets for what i have done, not a single one of my decisions, not a single drop of blood, sweat or tears, not a single inch gained or lost, not a single point dropped or earned, not a single jammed finger or busted ankle and not a single moment just being there with my own band of brothers.

so i pray that people can just see past the differences and distractions and focus on the prize, i pray that when i leave and look over my shoulders i see them not as individuals but as one, i pray that things will take a turn for the better. i pray that everyone realises how special each and everyone of them is.

i'm living on a prayer...

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Little creatures, Big balls smell

Have you ever wished a beer would not smell so... vulgar?
Have you ever wished a beer smelt rather... sweet?
Have you ever wished a beer would smell like raspberry jam?

Then... Here's your bloody answer! It's called Little Creatures Pale Ale and it's from Australia. Now don't be put off by the whacky name or Australian make because it smells really good! I'm no beer snob, in fact i don't really give a hoot what beer i'm drinking, as long as it taste like beer. but i gotta hand it down to them for making such an interesting product.


Apparently it's these little creatures that are doing the job. They're called hops, some kinda flower thing, different from the conventional malt used in beer brewing.


Though i must say it is quite an interesting plant to use...

- Perennial flowering vine that grows up to 5-6m high
- Hops were first used as a medicinal herb in Egypt
- Hops are a member of the cannabis family!!!

Next thing you know someone will start making beer out of weed (marijuana aka cannabis...), and I'm certain that will surely make many North American (and especially Dutch) people stoned-happy. It's like killing two national addictions (pastimes) with one magic elixir.


And here is proof that i'm not bullshitting:

"Marijuana is the top cash crop in the US, a report released on Monday says.

It says that despite intensive eradication plans, $35bn (£18bn) worth of the illegal drug is produced a year - more than corn and wheat combined.

The study was prepared by Jon Gettman, a public policy analyst who advocates reform of US marijuana laws."

Read More: Marijuana 'top cash crop in US'

Anyways coming back to Little Creatures, i think the beer isn't available anywhere else other than Australia, and I was given a six pack as a present. down to the last five now. i still can't believe it, IT SMELLS LIKE RASPBERRY JAM!

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Mama, put my guns in the ground

 
While casually scrolling through my playlist, "Jeremy" came up again...

Play "Jeremy"

... the quiet boy who draws during lessons, whose parents are too busy to pay him any attention, finally shoots himself in front of his english class. It actually did take place at Richardson High School in Texas on the morning of January 8, 1991.

Fast forward to 20 April 1999 - Columbine, Colorado. Then to 16 April 2007 - Blacksburg, Virginia and finally to 14 Feb, two days ago - DeKalb, Illinois. Why do these shootings keep taking place? What are we doing? Why are we here? Is it because of anger, sorrow or just some inexplicable reason which causes such irrational behaviour which calls for taking another person's, or in numerous cases, multiple persons' lives?

Eddie Vedder once commented in an interview regarding the song Jeremy. He said "The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself. Be stronger than those people. And then you can come back." And I can't help but agree with him. The reason for taking one's own life as I can only imagine is to seek the end, an end to all the drowned out sorrow and misplaced judgements. But would the end be a peaceful one if all it does is lead to the pain of even more people. I dunno, maybe that's the objective after all.


If you've watched Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore, you probably would have known certain facts about the United States and its state of catastrophe with firearms. I've always thought it's completely retarded to allow civilians to own firearms. I mean I dunno how the average Joes in US live with it, but imagine if you live in Singapore, how would your everyday Ah Pek and Ah Mah react when they walk into your friendly neighbourhood NTUC Fairprice and right by the Sunshine bread and Tops kaya spread shelves, there's a cabinet stocked to the brim with Kalashnikovs and Carbines and your asortment of Paras and Arctics? All displayed there proudly with a shiny FOR SALE sign on it targeted at every bum on the street. Okay maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but think about it, the least it would do is to make every sane human being go like "knnsmljccbwtfbbq?" or translated to english loosely it would be something like "holy mother of... WHAT T H E F U C K B B Q?" (the "bbq" at the end simply symbolizes the speechlessness one would feel after saying fuck, yet yearning to say something to continue expressing one's bewilderment). well you get what i mean.

Anyways it's just the sad fact of reality and society that we may never know the true motives or causes behind some of the things that happen. we can only offer our prayers and hopes. But I think it's also time that people examine some age old traditions/rights which doesn't really help with the situation in this screwed up new era. e.g. the Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms in the US.

And on a final but ironic note, the guy who committed the massacre just 2 days ago, he's currently (well he was before he killed himself) enrolled at UIUC as a graduate student. and the thing is UIUC is one of the schools that I have applied to and it is pretty high up on my possible-schools-to-goto list. i cringe at the thought of what other possible nutjobs are still in there...

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