Talking with your hands

I was on the way to pick up my brother-in-law from the airport and I took the MRT to Changi Airport.

Sitting next to me were two people talking in hand gestures. And the conversation was a really lively one, judging by the speed of the hand motions. And they were having so much fun, laughing with each other (presumably the result of a joke made by one of them).

It was so refreshing to see a conversation without the need for words and yet being able to convey exactly what you want.

I wish I could do it.

Wish you a Merry Christmas

The holiday season is upon us.

Wish all of a Merry Christmas and hope you have a great holiday.

I pick up my brother-in-law from the airport on Sunday and from then on, it's a great time. We are planning on taking a cruise to Malaysia and Thailand. So that should make a good start to the new year.

So I say this again. Have a great Christmas.

Don't drink and drive.

Hrmmph

I'm so bored.

It's almost like the second hand of my wristwatch has slowed down to the pace of the glaciers. Time is just refusing to move today.

To top that, the weather outside is really murky and depressing. It's been raining quite a bit out there and the atmosphere is really gloomy.

My brain is getting into suspend mode. My eyes are closing.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Flaw with Disapparation - Part II

I discovered another one.

Remember when Malfoy tells Dumbledore (towards the end) that he found out the connection between the two Vanishing Cabinets when Montague was pushed into it.

He says Montague "disapparated" out of it to finally escape. Now if you remember the "Order of the Phoenix", Montague is discovered very much in Hogwarts, jammed in a toilet.

Now how could he have disapparated from the Vanishing Cabinet into Hogwarts when it's not possible.

Hmmmmm....

Flaw with Disapparation

There is a flaw in JK Rowling's world.

At least the way she has written it in her books. You ask what it is? Here it comes.

Through all of the six Harry Potter books she has written so far, there is a constant mention that "Hogwarts: A History" says no one can apparate of disapparate inside Hogwarts. This is the unique nature of the building which makes sure there are no intruders.

This concept is made stronger in "The half blood prince" where she writes that the enchantment against apparation is temporarily lifted only for the Great Hall so that sixth year students can practice.

So here's the flaw.

If no one can apparate or disapparate from within Hogwarts, how do the house elves do it?


STUNNED INTO SILENCE????

Yes. There it is. Even in the half blood prince, Kreacher and Dobby regularly apparate and disapparate when Harry wants to meet them. Ron even comments on this ability and wishes he had it so that he would not have any trouble during his apparation examination.

So there you go. Flaw pointed out.

Now it's time to sleep.

What a thumping!

Chelsea whacked Arsenal with a 2-0 victory at Highbury, Arsenal's home (at least for a few more months).

Arsenal never looked threatening. In fact, they looked like we did when we played in school. No particular strategy, no game plan, no coordinated moves toward goal. Just everybody throwing themselves at the ball (or sometimes not).

Chelsea, as usual, put up a clinical performance and ensured that a few records were broken in the process. Arsenal lost at home after 7 straight wins there. Arsenal, also for the first time in 17 matches, did not score at home.

They did come very close when Henry's brilliant touch hit the post and went away. Of course, Van Persie's attempt was termed off-side even though he was onside when he got the ball and it was Henry who was off side. That ruling will be talked about for a while.

Joe Cole put in the finishing touches to make sure that Arsenal are down to 8th position in the league, a staggering 20 points away from the leaders. Arsenal are in no position to fight back. In fact, they look like the fight has completely gone out of them.

No ammunition in Arsenal's arsenal!

To the Zoo, to the Zoo

That's where we went today with the kids.

I'm not sure if I posted about this earlier, but my sister's in town visiting us. She and her three year old daughter been here the last few days and we're showing her around.

Her daughter is practically my second baby. So when she's around, it's party time at home.

My daughters (both of them) are fabulous together. Sometimes, you wouldn't know these two devils were in the house. Other times, the house is in an uproar. And all the time, it's a great feeling to see both of them together.

Enough of the ramble. So we went to the Zoo yesterday.

One thing strikingly different in this Zoo (as compared to all the other zoos I have been to in my life) was the fact that most of the animals were not in cages! Most of them, including a lion and a few rhinos, were in the open. Only a few (like the grumpy looking leopard) were in a cage. Just as well.

Because of this, my younger daughter almost ended up stepping on a baby Komodo dragon. Inadvertently, of course. Then the howling started.

Needless to say, the adults enjoyed the zoo a lot more than the kids. They wanted to get back home and the walking did not do them a lot of good. I would have thought the tram system in the zoo should have been like the Bus service at Sentosa. Free for all from one point to another. But no. You had to pay every single time you got on. That, I thought, was a bit too much.

I wish I could say I was really impressed with the Zoo, but I wasn't. It was an OK experience.

Maybe the bird park will be better. Cause that's where we are headed next.

My mouth is on England

People usually say "Put your money where your mouth is". But I have no money, so I will just put my mouth.

I think England has a shot at the FIFA World Cup in Germany next year. This time, almost all the key slots are in place for them. The reason I say almost is because they have fairly lousy goalkeepers.

Look at the positions:

Strikers: Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, Darren Bent, Peter Crouch
Midfield: David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerraed, Joe Cole
Defenders: John Terry, Sol Campbell, Rio Ferdinand
Goalkeeper: David James, Paul Robinson

As you can see, it's a star studded line-up, except for the goal side.

Of course, having a lot of stars does not mean the team will be the best. Real Madrid the classic example. But there is a lot of quality in the England side this time and the threat is a lot more serious. Mainly because of one major factor.

ROONEY!

If there is a fantastic player in a league of his own, Wayne Rooney is the one. The ability of this guy to create opportunities and to score goals is unbelievable. It's almost like he can play any position as good as or even better than some of the stars in the team. I am counting on him to contribute significantly to the team's success.

Keep an eye out for a lot of Beckham patented accurate deliveries into the box and Rooney getting them into the goal.

Just a walk in Villa Park

Man U cruised to a 2-0 away win against Astom Villa.

With a fairly dominating performance, Man U are now 6 points away from leaders Chelsea (with one more match, of course).

Villa never looked seriously threatening and it was Man U all the way. The score line could have been 3-0, but Park Ji Soon's attempt brushed off goal and the Korean International was denied his first premiership goal. The pass from Rooney was breathtakingly beautiful and Park's finish was fantastic. Just unlucky to hit the bar.

Van Nistelrooy put a nice, almost similar to Rooney, pass into the back of the net and then Rooney himself added the second with a brilliant run into the box.

Sir Alex was smiling away when the three minutes of extra time were added.

Way to go, Man U. Keep it up.

A year's worth of blogging

It's been a year!

Yep, that's right. It's been a year since I started to blog, my first post being on the 16th of December.

Funny coincidence really. I was just looking at my blog history today and realized the significant milestone I was about to cross. And I noticed another funny thing.

For the last few months, I averaged about 13 posts a month. That's almost once in two days. And that was the best average. Hmmm...

Now, that's not so good, it it? And considering the fact that the number of posts dropped dramatically during the NaNoWriMo contest during November.

So here's what I am going to do.

I am going to attempt and up the number of posts per month to around 20. Which would make it two posts in three days.

Only problem will be writing something sensible :-)

Ho Hum...

God, it's a slow few weeks!

Everybody in the office is already in holiday mood. A lot of them are in the holiday mood and are, coincidentally, on a holiday. Somewhere great, I imagine.

As for me, I'm still here. Putting up with the glacier like speed of the week going by.

Why then, you ask, dont I take a vacation myself? Hmmm, good question. Fact is, I will take one, but only in the beginning of the new year.

You see, I want to make the coming year begin with a bang rather than end this year with one.

This year has been sort of a mixed bag for me. A lot of good things, a lot of crap. (Now don't scream thats everybody's story). All in all, I think it's been a positive trend year-on-year.

From where I was three years ago to where I am now (mentally, of course), it's a huge change. Completely positive. Some of you unfortunate souls who have known me for the last few years would know exactly what I am talking about. For the rest of you, I guess it's too long a story to get into.

Another week and a half until Christmas and another 2 weeks to go before I go on vacation.

Maybe a bit of golf will brighten the day.

I'm not the only one missing short putts

Even the Professional players do it.

I am one of the priveleged people to see some of the top women golfers in the world play at the Lexus Cup at the Tanah Merah Country Club in Singapore. Eleven of the top 13 players in the world were there. Yes, you heard me right. That included the likes of Annika Sorenstam, Paula Creamer, Grace Park, Jiang Jang, Birdie Kim, Jill McGill, Natalie Gulbis.... The one notably absent from the line-up was Michelle Wie.

The tournament was Asia Vs the International team. Grace Park assumed the role of the leader for the Asian team, while Annika righfully assumed her place at the top of the International side. The final day started out with a slug between the captains teeing off first in a singles contest. I followed that round until the 13th hole where Annika was leading Grace 2up. The crowd just got a bit too much for me and I was missing a lot of the game because of the jostling. From the way Annika was playing, I knew that match would be over before they reached the 18th tee. It only looked like a matter of time before Annika finished Grace off.

So I waited at the 12th green to follow the next match. But even before the players had teed off from the 12th, I knew following the match was useless. The scoreboard placed to the left had side of the 12th green was screaming 5up in favour of Paula Creamer who was playing against Birdie Kim. Paula's approach landed six feet from pin and Birdie's landed in the greenside rough. Looking at Birdie's chip from the rough, I knew she had no chance of catching Paula. Indeed, Paula won the next couple of holes and won 7&5 winning the second straight point for the international team for the day.

Gladly for me, the next match proved to be a cracker. Jill McGill was playing the reigning British Open Champion Jiang Jang. JJ came to the 13th trailing one down and looked to be making a move. The picture on the right (with Jill smiling) was the only one where the player was nice enough to smile at the audience. It was great to talk to a player of the caliber of Jill McGill and get that feeling of humility despite all her achievements.

As I anticipated, the match was an absolute cracker. Both players played some fantastic shots. Jill played, according to me, the shot of the tournament. She had hooked her drive into a fairway bunker on the 15th (I think) while JJ was on the fairway. JJ's approach landed on the right edge of the green in the rough. Jill had a tough approach from the fairway bunker with the bunker lip around 3 feet high.

What a shot it was! The ball shot off the face of what I believe was a seven iron, neatly crossed the lip of the bunker and landed five feet from pin with enough spin to make the ball stop dead. It was a fabulous shot. Made my trip to the TMCC worth it.

Jill eventually lost on the last hole due to some bad luck. Her second shot hit a tree and went close to entering the water on the right hand side of the 18th fairway. It was a good recovery for bogey, but JJ was on track for a par and won by one hole.

All in all, it was a great experience for me to watch all these great players in action. Especially Annika. She is a treat to watch. She is so focused and so consistent, it's unbelievable. And she showed why she is the number one player in the world.

I learnt a lot.

You are responsible, Sir Alex

Manchester United is out of the Champions League.

Yes, the famous club has been unceremoniously kicked out of Europe's premier competition after their 1-2 defeat against Benfica last night.

There has been a lot of blame throwing following the match, mainly from the media. The usual suspects list has been narrowed down to Christiano Ronaldo and Rio Ferdinand.

While I agree that Ronaldo could have played a better role last night and that Rio is increasingly looking distracted and getting caught unawares more often, I don't think the blame lies solely with them.

One of the reports mentioned "Ronaldo was given the responsibility to dribble the ball towards the box and feed Ruud Van Nistelrooy". Why? Is Van Nistelrooy incapable of taking the ball to the box himself and finishing? Is his job just to sit in the box and await feeds from his collegues?

In my opinion, Van Nistelrooy is a piece of SHIT! That's right, I said it! It had to be said. All the idiot will do is to stay near the box and wait for the ball to be passed to him. If you look at the number of times he gets the ball in the midfield, you will see that he almost always never manages to dribble the ball away towards the goal and the defenders take it right back.

The only reason Van Nistelrooy has been successful at ManU is because they had Beckham to feed the ball into the box for this idiot to finish. And they don't have him any more. And they don't have Roy Keane any more, either.

Look at the people ManU has. Scholes is a natural striker who is being forced to play as a midfielder. So is Smith. Giggs, Ronaldo, Park are all very good wingers. Two jackasses in the form of Ferdinand and Silvestre form the heart of the ManU defense. There is no proper midfielder, no one who will make the play, who will lead the team. No one to orchestrate the game for them.

And that is the sole responsibility of Sir Alex Ferguson. For a club the stature of ManU, they deserve a lot better. Instead, long standing fans like me are increasingly getting frustrated with the way the club is playing.

Do we ever learn?

"Give peace a chance" was the statement John Lennon made 35 years ago. Paying no heed to that statement, someone shot him 10 years later. How screwed up is that?

The song went on to become the anthem for almost every peace protest ever since. But that is all it has become. Just an anthem for a bunch of protests.

People haven't learnt anything from it. Society hasn't turned a corner. We are still doing the same hateful things that have now become tradition for the last few dacades.

Look at the pointless war in Iraq. Look at terrorists in Bangaladesh, Kashmir, Malaysia, Indonesia, ....

It's like they never asked each other "What then?". OK, so you've killed a lot of people and managed to make a seperate independant state based on religious law. What next? How does that help in making life better? Where does the new state and its populace go from there? What is the end objective? Are people even thinking about these things?

I'm sorry if I sound bitter, but the sheer futility of some of the things going on around the world, it just sucks. Innocent people are dying every day for no reason. Armies are invading other countries for no rhyme or reason (oh sure, the politicians will find a reason for anything. remember the "Weapons of Mass Distruction" excuse against Iraq?).

Why poeple cannot just take a chill pill and learn to relax is just beyond me. I am glad to say that I have friends from all walks of life and from religions I cannot even keep track of. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Chinese, Christians, Jews, Buddhists...

The only thing that brings us together is the fact that we like being with each other. We talk about so many different things. And there is nothing wrong with an alternative opinion. Just cause you like being around these people does not mean that you have to agree with everything they say, nor does it mean that they have to agree with you.

Debate and discussion is always good. Learning different points of view is important. It is only when you learn to comprehend the different views to the same situation is when you can see it in totality. And that is learning.

Is there a point to this post? I am not sure. But the thing is, as long as we agree to disagree and learn to "live and let live", there need not be a point.

Butterfly in the MRT

Remember the scene in "You've got Mail!" where Meg Ryan recounts her experience in the subway. She sees a butterfly get on the train and get off at Broadway.

Well, I had the same experience yesterday. Not exactly, since I am in Singapore and so Broadway is way too far away.

A butterfly got into the MRT at Braddell and got off with me at Novena. It just hopped on and sat there on the ceiling of the train for a while and then calmly (I presume) got off at the Novena MRT station.

Maybe it was getting through it's Christmas shopping list and wasn't impressed with the stuff available at Braddell.

These youngsters are amazing

I was recently at the "Thank God It's Over (TGIO)" party which celebrated the end of the month long, frantic wrting contest that is NaNoWriMo.

I realized that I was the oldest bloke there (if you ignore the Municipal Liason, that is) and most of the people were youngsters in their early teens.

A couple of them were just entering their teens. And these two were amazing. One of them wrote a - trust me when I say this - 101000 word novel! You heard me right, a hundred and one THOUSAND word novel. And she did this in two weeks instead of four. Whoa!

The other did not churn out a tome this big, but beat the teen by being the youngest WriMo in Singapore. Coolio.

And here I was, looking old and foolish in the middle of these young people who were having a lot of fun. They obviously knew each other from the write-in's and the meetings, but it was a first time for me.

The only thing that made me feel good about myself is that I managed to get to the Winner spot despite having a full time job and a family that screams for my time. That is a good experience.

No more crouching at Anfield

Peter Crouch finally managed to score.

He did it after spending a collective 24hrs on the football pitch without a single goal...until today, that is. And today, many would say he scored twice.

He definately has one goal and can claim the other as well.
So Liverpool Manager Rafael Benitez' faith in Crouch has been well placed and the rewards were reaped well as Liverpool collected all three points from their home encounter against Wigan. Both teams, before this match, were tied for the fifth place.

With this win, Liverpool will be in sole second position...awaiting the outcome of the ManU and Arsenal games later today.

All said and done, all the Peter Crouch jokes should stop now that he has actually scored.

From Bulimic to Bohemian

Conversations can hop along so fast, it's hard to keep track of what started them and where they will lead.

Take this conversation over lunch yesterday. A few collegues and I had stepped out for lunch and as usual, there was this inane conversation which has some of us holding our respective heads and the rest of us rolling on the floor laughing.

This conversation was shifting tracks so fast, it was difficult to say when the topic of Bulimia (the binge eating disorder) came in. Even while we were marvelling at the topic cropping up during lunch, one of us rhymed it with Bohemia and the topic ran off into a completely different direction.

We finally ended up with a discussion on - you won't believe this - Copyright and Copyright Violation laws. Wonky, huh?

The only reason we didn't have our thought running wilder was the office were we all had to get back and work. Had it been a beer session on a Friday evening, only God knows where it would have gone.