I see from other blogs that there is a tag going round that makes people list 3 of their most important things. My first is the door, cos without it the cold air will blow in mightily.  

The second indispensable thing is the couch because watching TV should be comfortable. 

There are many important things here like the umbrella, internet router, textbooks and telk.  

The beauty of English

Read this in my Developmental Psych textbook.
" The theory is that lead affects brain development in such a way that it creates a general impairment in cognitive abillity. This could lead to a variety of behavioural impairments."
EPL starts in less than a month. Rather excited because Spurs finally have a chance of doing well. Usually i was only excited cos there was soccer to watch. At least now there is optimism. Although Chelsea are going to run away with it again i suspect. Please leave, Van Nistlerooy. I have been waiting 15 years for Spurs to finish above Man Utd. Ronaldo can stay. He cant cross anyway.

Economies of Soccer players

Thanks goes out to Melvin for sending me this link. http://www.slate.com/id/2144182/
Its about game theory and penalty kicks. Its an interesting read. To improve knowledge, read the article. To improve your penalty kicking ability, join me at James Oval sometime.

Dungeons and Lizards

I was sitting my condominium's shuttle bus back the other day and the driver stopped to show the passengers a Komodo dragon. It was basking in the sun on an open patch of my estate known as the golf putting course. Maybe it likes golf, although it wasnt carrying a club.
What ensued was a strange affair, as if my condominium had become some sort of safari bus in Africa viewing rhinos and mammoth elephants. In a mixture of mandarin and dialect, many housewife-y aunties were shocked and appalled that such a creature could actually be so close to their homes. Translation: "Why no one catch ah?! Is it dangerous? Why no one call someone to catch it?!"
Lest i remind human beings, we are the intruders with all our crazy condominiums, playgrounds and "golf-putting courses". Besides, my condominium prides itself in being close to nature, with a 'river' view and away from main roads. There are kind of jungle-like habitats close by so i guess its kind of ironic that we want the serenity but not the reptiles that have been enjoying it for centuries before us.
I watched a documentary on Aboriginals in Australia for a unit on Anthropology once. In it, the aboriginal family gathers around a habitat of a native lizard-like animal. They wait at different entries and exits of the burrows. Following which they all take turns to bang the ground and make excessive noise at their allocated burrow. In due time, the lizard runs out of one of the holes. In the film, the grandmother is the lucky one standing at the right exit. She grabs the lizard by the tail and swings it wildly, banging its head on a rock a couple of times. They then throw the dead lizard onto a fire and eat it after it is sufficiently barbequed. The lizard feeds the whole family of 5 as it is about 1 metre in length.
I do not advise my condominium residents to catch the Komodo dragon by its tail. Apparently i read in the zoo once that it has very poisonous saliva, hence its name. Instead i think we should show nature some respect, like the aboriginals do. Despite their seemingly cruel way of preparing their dinner they have actually preserved the land and its natural animals a lot better than when the colonists came. Who knows what occupied the land that my condominium's golf putting course now stands on. Maybe we should ask the Komodo dragon.

Fever is over

World Cup fever that is. After an intense one month of football madness, now we can all have soccer withdrawal symptoms. Anyway, if you watched the final you may want to consider the following questions.
1. Was Totti actually in the match?
2. Why did Zidane actually do such an obvious headbutt?
3. How come Fabio Grosso wins every match?
4. How come Florent Malouda and Franck Ribery are actually so highly -rated?
5. Is Raymond Domenech really playing his best players to their strengths?
On a lighter note, below is a game i played with Louise some time back where we randomly picked words from the dictionary to write a short excerpt. "Polythene" has to go in the title, followed by 3 paragraphs that must contain the words "wide", "fountainhead" and " United States of America" in each respectively. Hope you like it.

POLYTHENE PERFECTION

“Ok, so you never EVER buy wide- leg pants, you get that?” The stylist ran his hands down the boy’s shirt to smooth it in place. Then, taking a step back, his fingers went instinctively to his five o’clock stubble as he considered the boy’s look.
“You don’t yet look like a million dollars, but you’ll do. Go do your stuff.- Argh! Macie, are you wearing that skimpy number? I don’t suppose you heard what the judges said last week? No… (slowly enunciating his words) looking like Pink is not a good thing. Not in this stage of the competition anyway. Please… here, wear this.” And grabbing a modest DKNY off the rack, he pushed the petite girl back behind the curtains.

At two o’clock a.m, the stylist yawns back to his car.
“This generation just doesn’t learn.” This episode of The Lark ended well. Macie got two thumbs up for her ‘provocative song yet understated beauty’. And James, the boy with the skinny legs, who was said to be weakest and might get booted out, had the judges see in him heralding of Daniel John.
“They may not see in the mirror what I see, but surely they would have some basic sense that doesn’t require the fountainhead of fashion to dictate.” He was referring to the young wannabes. But as he checked out his own reflection, he saw the glazed, weary eyes under the nicely arched brows. His jaw is now more defined than in his younger days, but also rugged, having suffered a couple of hundreds more nips by the razor.

As he pulled out from the lot, the stylist decides not to put on any music. He is able to ruminate a lot more in silence. That even though three quarters of his physical being tugged to go home, there was still the Survivor after- cast party in Millenia Walk to attend. There were the big bosses of the industry he wanted to meet and impress. They may not see in the mirror what I see, but surely they would have some basic sense that doesn’t require the fountainhead of fashion to dictate. At 43, it was the Singaporean stylist’s dream to go to Hollywood, the United States of America.

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It’s a game between abel and I to write a piece with the flip through of the dictionary. With the random 4 words we find, the first word will be in the title, the subsequent three to be found in the first, second and third paragraph. -

Polythene is a term for the United Kingdom

“Far and wide sir”, exclaimed Butler Hurricane. Bernd sat comfortably in his high- back Italian leather chair and swiveled around. His eyes met with Hurricane and then he swiveled back to face the gigantic glass window. He stared menacingly at the serenity of the rolling meadows of Falling Blossoms outside.
“Far and wide,” Bernd repeated merrily to himself. On his table lay ‘The Fountainhead’ by Lyn Rand. “Man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress” he quoted to his Butler. “Sorry sir, you were saying...” Bernd looked dismissively at Hurricane but he understood that stupidity came as a natural correlate of being a henchman. He alone was the one with the brains. And he had the ambition and selfishness to go all the way.
In the United States of America, a new plastic called Purple Furry Nails or PFN was taking the industry by storm. It was more durable, more malleable and just plain genius. People just could not imagine the need for polyethylene anymore or polythene as it was called in the United Kingdom.