It seems someone out there does have a sense of humour!? Guess by this stage, somehow or other, we have all seen the (in)famous Iraqi Information Minister dishing out his daily denials of American attacks in Iraq? Well, having attained an unfortunate celebrity status, here is a site dedicated to him. Well, let’s hope that he will resurface someday to accept this honour!
Choices
A nice short one from, of all places, Harry Potter…
It is our choices that show what we truly are far more than our abilities.
Professor Dumbledore – From ‘Harry Potter’
First blood
Today I donated blood at the blood donation drive at work. Being a first-timer, I was a little apprehensive at first. Well, it did not really help that much if the guy next to me felt giddy halfway through and had to stop and rest! Needless to say, I came back in one piece. Took less time than I thought. Guess I am just very healthy with a fast flow!?
The hunt
Time to sum up the findings from the past few days’ research for an alternative web host, and possibly a new blog to store my thoughts. Hopefully this will serve as a starting point to anyone who happened to come this way.
First, the resources.
N-U-T-S, Part II
As a follow up to the previous article on NUTS, here is what my Italian friend said after he read it:
“It is maybe interesting that in Italy the situation is such that the rules are there just to have fun in breaking them. For an average italian it is a real pleasure to U-turn when there is a sign of no-U-turn… maybe we can call it U-Turn And Have Fun Syndrome…”
N-U-T-S
Recently I received by email the following, rather long, article. While this is a sober and poignant examination of the social culture in Singapore, I believe many other countries can similarly benefit from Mr Sim Wong Hoo’s observations. By the way, Mr Sim also happens to be the Chairman and CEO of Creative Technology, one of the best-known success stories of Singapore, and very much government-unassisted in its early days.
In case you are too busy to read through the entire article, here is a short extract from the Introduction:
Whats is NUTS? NUTS is when you want to do something and you seek approval of a higher authority. When there is no rule saying that you can do such a thing, then the standard answer is NO…
Shifting cyberhome & MT no more?
This must be the time for discontentment. Two days ago, I was reading an interesting article on SitePoint about someone’s experience in setting an ecommerce website in 2 months for USD$99. Out of curiosity, I clicked on one of the web hosting providers listed on that site. After browsing the features (and price of course), the idea of switching to a different host came into my head, and I have not been able to get rid of it since! Incidentally this is probably the only time I would admit that website ads are effective… Maybe it is part of human nature that we are all very hard to satisfy??
Death of a star
Two days ago, it was April Fools’ Day. It was also the same day that Leslie Cheung took his own life by jumping off from his 24-th level hotel room. Leslie was one of the biggest star in Hong Kong – movies and singer – throughout the 80’s.
War & media
The war in Iraq is on the lips of everyone. So far, despite the initial optimism – through the media’s fondness for showing missiles hitting targets and brandishing the fire power in the coalition forces – and unreasonably high expectations, it is perhaps not surprising that it’s Iraq having the upper hand after about 10 or so days. After all, to win this war, US needs to depose Saddam Hussein, whereas all Saddam needs to do to win is to remain standing at the end of all the commotion!
Delusions of change
Over the past few months, the words “change is constant” are often heard at my work place. Well, seems to me that whoever is saying that is either shirking the responsibility of providing stability, or admitting defeat – in other words, inability to influence matters favourably.