Sunday, April 22, 2007

Predictably Yours..........

and Jessica Tan is the new Miss Singapore Universe. too bad there is no prize for predicting the winner. and it still proves my theory that wat is needed to win is a great face, great bod and some brains. and by "some" i mean, some.

ill give her more credit tho. it takes a fair amount of guts to parade in front of a scrutinising nation. and she would probably have a clearer train of thought if not for the jitters.

why did christabel campbell or joey feng not win? very simple. joey lost bcos, like jade, she did not have the right cup size despite her composure. her intelligence i cant comment on cos her questions where not 'deep' enough. y did christabel campbell not win. hahahahaaa......i have my thoughts on that. but ill jus say that if u wanna make it big in Mediacorp, you need to be palatable to the channel with the greatest viewership, most productions and stable of artistes.

Bringing Up Father

feeling a little......scattered and edgy.

i haven been able to settle myself down mentally for the whole day. perhaps due to my getting up from the wrong side of the bed this morning. maybe the weather's causing all this. and the series of events yesterday and today, have not helped. actually, a series of events caused by one person - my dad.

J's gone to China for the wk so im left with some spare time on my hands. my dad seems to think that equates to time spent with him. alittle about my parents first. they are not sociable animals. well, neither are their 2 offspring for that matter but my sis and i fare better than them in having a social life. i guess mum and dad come from the bloodline that is heavy on the family ties and less onexternal relationships. so much so that their lives revolve around namely 2 things, work and family. so other than the members of our little party of four (now three, minus my sis), my parents have not much else to focus their attention on.

my mum's pretty ok actually. now that both her children have grown up and are independent enough, she goes out with frens for dinner, visits grandma, does social work, joins karaoke lessons while still holding a post retirement job.

my dad on the other hand. isnt retired yet, which i think he should and get himself a life. and he doesnt do anything else except go to work and then whiling the rest of the day away. and for that matter, he is allowed to work from home which he is exercising the policy to the fullest. so if u notice. he is pretty much jus spending his time at home doing pretty much nothing. trying to find something to take up his time. which leads to how it is bothering me.

my dad doesnt like to talk much to my mum. they talk. but not on a very conversation-ish level. usually it will be my mum complaining about something and he will be.......hearing. not listening. and his lack of a social circle leaves my dad with no one else to talk to or hang out with. except me. which i try my best to accomodate. but it stretches my nerves sometimes.

generally, my parents do not get it that their kids like their personal space and time. i believe that's a generally true statement for most parents. so it gets on my nerves that my dad comes into my room and plonks himself on my bed. it also gets on my nerves the way he tries to call out to me or my sis. he doesnt call our names. he has to whistle. a long, shrill and annoying whistle. sometimes early in the morning too.

imagine waking up in the morning, feeling all crabby bcos u did not have enough sleep, your mouth feels like sandpaper, looking frumpy and then someone starts to whistle to call out to you. it's a tune u have never heard. it has jus 2 notes, one short and then one really long one that is drawn out long and shrill.

incidentally, that is a perfect example of one of the reasons why my dad lacks a social life. he does these kinda things. he has zero sense of timing. heck, the whole whistling thing is jus stupid.

there are times i feel like a teenager all over again, ranting abt all of this. but i dont think ill ever stop anyhow. or anyone in this world would no matter wat age they are at.

anywayz, im off to judge the T&As of this year's miss sg universe. my bets are on Jessica Tan. she seems to have the right set of Ts and a great A to complement them with.

J: you have the best T&As dear.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Rants and Ravings........ P.S. sorry joel

i do realise one thing since i started work. and that is i have pretty much lost all resemblence of a social life. and being in the IT line does not help much. conversations with my notebook is not exactly stirring. neither izit good for my sanity. as it stands now, you could count, using one hand, the number of pple i hang out with on a regular basis. of which the amount of time i spend with 1 of the five has wat many might qualify as the proper meaning and context of "regular".


this observation has been made several times btwn myself and a fellow course-mate from NTU who now happens to be working in the company which is a client of mine. we have lunch every now and then. incidentally our gfs were course-mates themselves too.

but before i carry on, here's another exchange i had wif J today while shopping ard suntec/marina square. i consider it a stroke of bf survival master class. it might turn out to be helpful for some of the guys out there.

*after my answering one of those questions which require my agreement with her on a certain observation she made*

J: You are lying. You are jus trying to patronise me.
Me: No. I'm not.
J: Yes you are. You are not telling the truth.
Me: No. I'm not lying. I'm just agreeing with your point of view.

I do believe there is a certain amount of dissection of the conversation to be done here. agreeing with her point of view does not mean i agree with her. it can mean that. but it can mean that i agree with the position that she's coming from but not the opinion that she actually holds. there is a difference.

and to end off my rant........

looking at how im posting consecutive entries based on my exchange with J has made me remember the observation i made with my on-off lunch buddy. thus i realise how much i need to get my social life back in order. all work and no play makes jack a dull boy y'know.

Steaks and High Stakes

alittle light-hearted material first.............

went for dinner at Morton's today. 7 yrs ago i was there, and today i finally got to go back. it was good. very very good. one of the best dinner/food ive had. im definitely going back next year. oooo.......the hot chocolate cake is jus simply to die for. the porterhouse steak.......c'est parfait.

had this exchange with J over dinner
J: I feel neglected.
Me: *btwn mouthfuls* huh? y?
J: You are neglecting me.
Me: I am? How?
J: Yah. You are neglecting me for that piece of meat.
Me: You are jealous? Of a piece of meat? This piece of meat?
J: Yes. I feel neglected.
Me: This thing between me and this piece of meat is just a one-off thing, it's purely physical. You are the one I truly love. OK?

thankfully the appetizer wasnt the shrimp alexander. else i fear the worst for our relationship. i mean the one btwn me and the porterhouse steak.

~ . ~

there's been alot of controversy lately on the ministers' pay hike.........i guess i shld chip in my bit too.........

with all the comparison to ministers of other countries and stuff, i kinda believe that we might be missing the point of why we are paying our ministers so much. or rather, what is our money getting us in a buy/sell sense.

first of all, to put things into context. i think we shld be looking at our situation and wat it warrants. i believe each country requires different things. that i think is agreeable by all. i also believe that in a country, the people living in a country are rewarded or punished based on the capacity of the country to reward or punish. if the country has the capacity to reward more, then good for the people. it's kinda like having 2 kids score 100 marks in a test and going home to their separate families and getting rewarded differently maybe bcos both families hold different values or are different in financial stature. one gets a car, the other a pat on the back. apples and oranges.

im jus saying, each country has different needs, different situations, systems. so the comparison between how the ministers of other countries are rewarded compared to us might not have a good foundation.


so given our context. i would like to think that the commodity that our precious tax dollars are buying (in the form of ministers) is not jus skill, but also precision. we are not buying skills to manage large countries, we don't need that. wat we do need is a certain level of precision in the skill our ministers shld possess.

like wat PM Lee, SM Goh and MM Lee have been repeating all this while, we cannot afford to slip. whether we can stay at the top, i for one do not believe we can. but that is another topic altogether. we need the precision to stay competitive. we do not have the luxury of a big economy with multiple forms of resources to help sustain setbacks or diminishing competitive advantages. thus we need pple who can get to targets quickly and effectively.

i would like to believe that our pple can do that. but unfortunately i don't seem to be seeing many of the leaders doing that. perhaps the sensation of media has skewed this perspective of mine by focusing on the negative stuff.

as to whether the price for such precious commodity is justified. i would say, if we can afford it, y not? singaporeans are among the highest paid in this region. y? cos we are better skilled? our education system is stronger fundamentally? our people have a certain value to work hard instilled in us? i would like to think so. and so far, i have seen examples that have strengthened my belief. so if our system can afford to reward our people better, y not? if the other countries aren't paying their people more, that's them to sort things out.

the idea here is, we have the resources to get ourselves the right stuff. in this case, we have the money and we need the right people. so y not? political reasons aside, everything else being equal, if there is capable foreign talent that can help take this country ahead and we have the resource and means to get him/her, y not?

corruption and stuff. like joel posted in his blog, no matter how much u pay someone, he/she can still be corrupt. corruption is also hard to trace in a government where there' s a very strong ruling party. i think the whole corruption argument is really weak and is jus a tactic used to cash in on the whole NKF saga, make an example of it and try to garner some support.

hey, if u had to convince a tough crowd, wouldn't u try all ways and means?

i would agree that the pay hike and the gst increase coming together is really bad timing. whether or not they are correlated, i don't know. perhaps they are. and the whole issue of how the poor shld be helped instead of the money going to a minister pay hike, i dunno. it's hard to say. there are measures in place to help them. i believe the question im repeating for most people is whether it is enough.

so wat is enough? where do we draw the line in helping the lower income? the elderly and less fortunate, i guess they need the aid. no doubt abt that. but the party that benefits most from the aid is the lower income group bcos they have more stuff to carry on their backs. how much aid shld be doled out to them? i think too little, the aid is pretty much useless, too much and we run a danger of breeding people dependent on external help regardless of it coming from the government or the other income groups. this is the kind of mentality that might slow the whole party down.

ah well.......c'est la vie.