The One with the Singapore Idol taunt

I received a tag on my board from a competitor for Singapore Idol 2006. Dear Dear I was thinking about entering the superband organised by Channel U. Anyway we can call ourselves...
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Your Band Name is:

The Fishy Officers

BandName Generator

Cool huh?? Evn though I don't know how the "fish" came about?? (Pun unintended) As a teacher-student duo, we have a better chance of winning or worst a better chance of humiliating ourselves. Haha!!

Update:
Stupid SI 2006, it is for people below age 30 which I am just like a couple of months way off the mark. Maybe there will be a SI for veterans (30 and above)

The One with the all the unpacking

I have to admit that I had not unpacked in my new school. 5 boxes of stuff still at my little cubicle collecting dust since my trip to Gentings.

The trip to Sembawang seems like a long one albeit a 20 minute drive, but the thought of sitting there, doing my lonesome unpacking without my familiar colleagues is kinda of unsettling

A student whom I still maintain sms contact remarked "it is always like this, I put in so much in a friendship and it always happen like this ( separation)" While I tried my best to console this student, deep inside I am have the same amount of trepidation and uneasiness (seems like a wierd combination though) It will be in just a week time where I will be seeing students other than the familiar blue pinafores which had greeted me for the past 5 years. I will also not be seeing the all familiar faces in the staffroom with their "how was your holidays?" as such small talk with candour, I will also not be patronising the all so familiar toa payoh food stalls or even the famous char kway teow just outside school during weekday lunch which had so become part of my routine for the past 3 years. No more morning hymms, daily praise to the Lord and of course the awkward silence when the national anthem is being played.

Next week would be a busy one, from 27 -30 Dec, it is jam packed ith school activities, with a good fren's wedding smack inbetween. And I will finally find the time to finally unpack and to settle down in the school. It will be a different experience, something which I am trying my best to cope. Drop me a line ok? Or a friendly sms. For it is now, especially so near end of the holiday season when I sometime feel lonely.

Your 2005 Song Is

Since You've Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson "But since you've been gone I can breathe for the first time I'm so moving on" In 2005, you moved on.

What Hit Song of 2005 Are You?

Poignant?

The One when I stayed up late

It is 2.25 am, Christmas morning, as I typed my thoughts on my laptop on the comfort of my bed.

Just came back from watching the movie with a couple of friends, those who I had been talking about, friends since my secondary school days. In another 2 years, we will be, well, celebrating our 20 years of friendship. Seems like a long long time. and as I always says, friends made in secondary school are usually there for keeps. I am one good example.

As the years goes by, I find myself lacking more and more in the Christmassy spirit and of course the fun-lovingsy mood. There were no wild parties or night out. Dinner was a quite affair with a couple of my friends and family. There was the turkey bought from carrefour, the homemade pasta, the mash potatoes and the salad. For dessert we had the x mas log cake from swensens- which by the way was way too much rum. After movie, we popped by Maxwell market for drinks ( and i mean non alcoholic) and started planning for another friend's wedding coming on the 28th december.

My girl girl needs her sleep and we were back by 2am. I feel that I am really getting old and, more and more family oriented.

Anyway just wanted to take this opportunity to thank the girls, Germaine, Jaclyn, Zoe for their greeting cards, and Huajia, felicia for their x mas smses. Sorry if I miss your, it is unintentional...

My pet dog trafford also want to say hi and merry x mas to all.

Merry Christmas everyone! Anyway got this shamelessly from another website Very farny, the Hokkien version for X mas

Trafford posing beside the X mas tree my wife decorated

The one with the NKF XXX organisation saga

I know that by writing this, I am opening up myself to be potentially slammed by people. But just want to give my two cents worth.

Disclaimer: I should not be using any form of name calling and harsh remarks but I will be just using a great book as I realise that the episode seem to have SOME parallels. I made some changes to the original text. Maybe it do not make sense to some, so perhaps you should start reading the original. Please bear with me..

Some issues involved:

1) Money saved was never shared and given to the beneficiaries

The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised: it had even been enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington. The windmill had been successfully completed at last, and the farm possessed a threshing machine and a hay elevator of its own, and various new buildings had been added to it. Whymper had bought himself a dogcart. The windmill, however, had not after all been used for generating electrical power. It was used for milling corn, and brought in a handsome money profit. The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill; when that one was finished, so it was said, the dynamos would be installed. But the luxuries of which Snowball had once taught the animals to dream, the stalls with electric light and hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer talked about. Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally.

2) paperwork was never transparent, people complain also no use, terms used were semantic

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer-except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion. There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called "files," "reports," "minutes," and "memoranda." These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace. This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said. But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour; and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.

3) people in support who did not get the same treatment as some.

But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of- "Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"

It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.

Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.

"My sight is failing," she said finally. "Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?"

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

4) the higher management was ripping off the people

After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters. It did not seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves a wireless set, were arranging to install a telephone, and had taken out subscriptions to John Bull, TitBits, and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when Napoleon was seen strolling in the farmhouse garden with a pipe in his mouth-no, not even when the pigs took Mr. Jones's clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on, Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings, while his favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs. Jones had been used to wear on Sundays.

The web of lies and deceit, the whole truth is finally out, I am glad that being a critical armchair critic(?) of the organisation had finally paid off. Don't get me wrong, I am not at all proud or happy with this, I am just glad that those who supported the organisation ever so religiously now know that all their hard earned money do not really go the people they cared about. And of course the people who spend more time doing fundraising than helping. This saga had devastated singaporean faith on the fund raising vehicle and of course the whole idea of helping the underpriveleged. Singaporeans are generally kind at heart, and I wondered how long this sour aftertaste will linger in the minds of the people.

Singapore Idol 2

31 dec 2005, Feb 2006.

Maybe I should take part...

What should I sing?

"Hey Baby" and of course my infamous dance routine. (whom another colleague said it looks suspiciously like the Axe gang dance in Kungfu Hustle)

And I know there is an exIJ girl who should also take part (*wink wink)

Maybe we can take part together, you know like those talented boybands or girly groups.

Sorry got to take my Valium.....

The one where trafford is found

After writing the previous entry, i received a phonecall and it was a man who said he found trafford.
Thank God We are reunited!
Trafford look tired and wary. He has been wandering for 1 week
Let's hope he is ok tomorrow...

The one where I lost Trafford

It has been a week since I lost the dog. Actually by no fault of my own. (OK kinda of a little) when we left the door open with the inviting lure of the outside world last tuesday. My missus was actually planning a short outing to East Coast Park with my nephew and we were all at Jurong West when this unfortunate accident happen. I was not there to witness this for I was busy doing my research at NTU/NIE library for my long overdue assignment. But anyway, I received a phonecall telling me that Trafford was missing and I rushed down to Jurong West to search.

After a frantic 2 hour plus search, with relevant calls to the relevant authorities to report the loss of our dog, we decided to call it quits. We were again there on Wednesday, and Thursday and were intending to just rest for Friday when we again received a tip-off from some residents who spotted Trafford roaming on the streets of Jurong West again. But again it was in vain as by the time I rushed down from my home ( which is like from another part of Singapore) the dog was already nowhere to be found.

It had been a gloomy week for me and my family, for Trafford has always been regarded as family. My mom can't sleep as trafford would always snuggle behind her at night (for it seems that he is afraid of the dark). My dad missed his display of affection (ie tail wagging, and of course the obligatory "carrying") as he come home from work. My sister cried when she heard the bad news and was busy trying to get her friends from online dog lovers forums to help out. My wife was perhaps the most upset for she felt she was the guilty one who was neglient and did not look after Trafford and thus allowed him to run off.

I am actually pretty upset and unhappy about certian things that are happening but I am just going to reserve my comments about what I saw when I am in a better mood and less antagonistic to write it down on my blog. :)

Please keep Trafford in your prayers and hope that we will find him real soon. It is X mas and it will be the most wondrous X mas present if he can be back...

The One about the poem about the boy who lived

I got this at the Track and Field Farewell, I know it happens like eons ago, but I promise to write about it.
Thanks Wei Xin and Natalie for writing this beautiful poem. Made me feel like a superstar :P

The Boy who lived

Listen for a minute

It won't take a lot of time

I won't talk much about it

I'm just trying to rhyme

Tonight's subject

is one of curiosity

He's not an American reject

Nor does he commit atrocities

He likes to speak spaghetti

He's pal with Mussolini

He likes to dance and sing

Together with Sun Yat Sen

Old friends, he is, with Lenin

Chairman Mao and Stalin

They all died infamously

But it was not a tragedy

For among them all

He was the boy who lived

Now he stands quite tall

Respect what he has achieved

Look amongst you

For the one I speak about

If your guess is through

Give a try and shout it out!

Thanks so much again!

The one about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (REVISED)

Just came back from the 9 plus show at Bishan and I just have to blog about the movie. I know it is stale news for some people. I really can;t find the time to really blog about about stuff. Coupled with the fact that my desktop is down and I am writing this on my extremely slow laptop which is dying on me, I got to get this really fast.

Interesting and entertaining movie if you are not a Potter fan, The book itself already provide a wonderful script for the movie, but my personal take is that it totally massacre the book. I know that some of the stuff in the book cannot be reproduced on the big screen on a shoe string budget, but isn't this the purpose of adaptations? I was hoping that the movie could reproduce the magic and followed the books faithfully like in movie 1 and 2 and all i got was a jigsaw of scenes which would make little sense for those who are watching the movie without any prior knowledge of the book itself. The emphasis was also on the Ball which was actually a useful distraction in the actual book. In the movie it was like one of the big scenes. It is really too much when they had the rock concerty thing going on. Muggle music? There was also the first 60 plus pages of the book which was abbreviated to like 2 minutes of the movie. In the end it didn't make much sense to all.

(Edited) Not to spoil the fun of those who have watched it and yet able to show my unhappiness of how the book failed to capture the essence of the story, I will try to give as much as I can the discrepancies between book and movie


1) Harry Potter got to know about the Gillyweed for his 2nd task for the Tri Wizard Tournament not from Neville Longbotttom as mentioned in the movie but from Dobby the house elf

2) When the death mark was apparently shot in the sky, the confrontation occur when Winky, a house elf was holding Harry Potter's wand, this was not shown in the movie

3) The whole scene about Harry learning the Summons spell before the first test of the Tri wizard tournanment was not shown.

4) Malfoy was changed into a ferret much earlier in the encounter with Mad Eye Moody

5) The whole Quidditch world cup was vividly illustrated in the novel but was over in like 2 sec in the movie.

6) The opening scene of the first encounter with Voldermort , when Harry woke up, he should have been at his muggle home with his Uncle's family in Privet Drive.

There is just so much to say. I am just disgruntled after my attempt to read the book the second time ( tll about 100 plus odd pages) that it didnt have any impact to the viewing. I am glad I went into the movie hall expecting to be entertained for I certainly did. But I was horribly sad for Rowlings, as I don;t know what will happen to the next big screen adaptation, granting that the Order of the Phoenix isn't really a good script to start with.

I will be getting my comp fixed hopefully by the weekend and till then I will try to blog a little before I leave for Genting Highlands.

Anyway if you have anything about the movie, HP and the GOF that is different from what you read, please feel free to use the tagboard or even the comments page.