DuhEconomist.com wishes all friends and readers a most wonderful, enjoyable and fantastic Chinese New Year!! Especially to those in SG who are having their decadent 3-day CNY holidays... To kick start this wonderful year of the Dog, i shall show you a pic of this insanely gigantic dog which Kenny told me about several times but i never actually saw until yest...
it's really crazily big right?
Hope it gives u a pleasant start to a year filled with gigantic blessings and surprises too! =)
"Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!"
p/s: i was telling Hebe that i always felt that statement seem to be telling pple to enjoy themselves and grow fat..
burp~ Arigato Gozaimasu to the wonderful SingSoc Ex-Co 05/06 for organising a wonderful CNY pre-reunion-dinner dinner for all of us! The food was great, the company pleasant and most importantly, the time spent was fantastic... Honestly, the annual SingSoc CNY dinner is quite impt to me cos it's one of the very few times when SGreans frm all 3 years get to be together... Becos we are usually very segregated into the different year groups, the dinner gives us the rare chance to talk to frens in other years... Hence, i really appreciate the effort put in by the ex-co into organising this dinner...
He told me abt how fun and challenging a structural engineer's job is but how low the pay is... apparently an average chartered structural engineer earns less than a train driver... i told him abt that's prob becos of the transport sector being so unionised and suggested tt he gather all the structural engineers out there to go on strike... at first he thought that it wouldn't create a big stir but we gradually realised tt structural engineers are pretty impt to the structure (hurhurhur) of our society... then he made this brilliant suggestion:
"Yar, economists can go on strike also..."
i thought abt wad effect that will cause in society....
and i thought sumore...
then i laughed and laughed and laughed...
Becos i could not think of anything...
Now one hour later, with the benefit of a nice shower, i've thought of 1 thing:
If economists go on strike, the world may become a happier place. This may actually cause psychiatrists, counsellors, drug dealers and all the supporting pharmaceutical industries (which we know is v impt to good old biopolis-ed SG) to collapse. However, this prediction only holds provided that the subsequent economic breakdown don't cause all the economists to be hired again...
One of my most frequently uttered lines is "... yar... History / International Relations / Anthropology / Pyschology is interesting to read lar but if u want me to study, wah, cannot lar.." there is of cos, nothing wrong with this statement becos it accurately describes my preferences... the problem, however, is tt it does not accurately represent what i usually do, which includes many many many things except read social science books... honestly i feel tt this is a huge waste of the resources i hav at hand, which includes convenient access to the British Library of Political and Economic Science housed in my school...
Yesterday, i was in the library waiting in the queue for the photocopy machine and i saw this book: 'Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare'... browsed thru the first few pages and was quickly hooked onto the interesting content, colourful pictures and glossy pages... i borrowed the book and after reading the first few chapters, i realised tt the book has another major attraction which suits my taste very much -- hilarious pictures.. while most of the captions are very sensible and informative, some are accompanied by pictures whose relations to the captions are stretched beyond the breaking point... for example:
"Caption: Only 2 civilizations have invented drill for their infantry: China and Europe. Moreover, both of them did so twice: in the fifth century BC, in North China and in Greece, and again in the late sixteenth century. Exponents of the second phase - Ch'i Chi-kuang in Imperial China and Maurice of Nassau in the Dutch Republic - explicitly sought to revive classical precedents, and in the West marching in step and standing on parade became a permanent part of military life (even when as for one British Guardsman in 1970, the ordeal proved overwhelming)."
yes, i'm sure tt is the only picture related to drill which the author could find given many centuries of proud military tradition in both the East and West....
Another one:
"Caption: The search for a 'wonder weapon' that might secure instant victory obsessed both sides in World War II. Germany developed a liquid-fuel ballistic missle, yet despite huge expenditure (...) the first 'Vengeance Weapon 2' (V-2 rocket) only struck London in September 1944. Shortly afterwards General Walter Dornberger (the project director) and Dr Wernher von Braun (the chief scientist) received from Hitler a telegram of congratulation and a Knight's Cross (which both of them wear in the photograph, taken at a celebratory dinner). However, the 3000 or so rockets launched did little to stave of Germany's defeat."
yes, i'm also sure that is the most serious picture they can find becos all the other possible pictures regarding the missile, or the research facility or London getting razed are not serious enough...
when i grow up, i want to write an illustrated history book too...
Back-blog: 22 Jan 06 - Pointless Pic of the Week 3
Pple who know me know that i am a very 'deep' kinda guy...
Pple who know me well know that besides being 'deep' i am also 'serious'...
Pple who know me really really well know that i am deeply and seriously lame and random...
On the other hand, i am also terribly all-rounded... this means that my randomness is not limited to just to my thoughts, speech, writing or cooking but also extends to the pictures i take... i simply love taking pictures at the spur of the moment when a particular object or scene looks so pointless and out of place...
it started when i first got my digicam, a Canon A300, which i bought becos reviews told me it was a wonderful piece of technology, cheap and high resolution and good features and all... what reviews failed to tell me, is tt a piece of brick which is cheap and takes good pictures with high resolution is still a piece of brick becos it is still very bulky... Things got better when i got my Nokia 7600 which was a lot less bulky but still weirdly shaped... it had a 1.2megapixel camera, which took pretty decent shots.. unfortunately the accompanying Nokia software was so unfriendly tt 50% of the time it cannot detect my phone when i connected it to the computer... this means that randomly taken pictures gets randomly stored somewhere on my phone until i randomly delete them...
Thankfully, this year, things are wonderfully different... i got my SE K750i sometime last Nov and so far things have been going magnificently, 2.0megapixelly and cool-and-sleekly well...
then suddenly it hit me.
why take pointless pictures of my life(read carefully: this statement shud NEVER be misinterpreted as 'pictures of my pointless life' becos tt's simply not true) when i can take pointless pictures AND show them off to the whole world too...
So here it is, my pointless picture of Week 3 of 2006.
so i guess the rumours are right... we may be a world-class premier social science institute but deep down inside, we really cant spell...
anyway, i hav to stop using my computor cos i gotta go do laundry and buy groceries...
A really nice song i heard on 'layleo' jus now... i like Carpenters... Simple but beautiful songs...
Rainy Days And Mondays Talkin' to myself and feelin' old Sometimes I'd like to quit Nothing ever seems to fit Hangin' around Nothing to do but frown Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.
What I've got they used to call the blues Nothin' is really wrong Feelin' like I don't belong Walkin' around Some kind of lonely clown Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.
Funny but it seems I always wind up here with you Nice to know somebody loves me Funny but it seems that it's the only thing to do Run and find the one who loves me.
What I feel has come and gone before No need to talk it out We know what it's all about Hangin' around Nothing to do but frown Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.
Well, i knew my God is the God of Heaven and Earth and all else in between, but i've never actually expected Him to show up so realistically in Maplestory as well...
For those who don't know, Maplestory is one of those pointless online games where pple play to kill monsters, get items, lvl up and repeat the cycle over and over again.. Well, some items are rare, meaning monsters don't always drop them when they get killed... One of these items is the 'Sap of Ancient Tree', which is the exquisite-looking bottle of stuff in the screenshot above...
So i was playing just now and i there were 2 Dark Axe Stumps (monster which drops the 'Sap' thingy) on the map.. i killed one, and it dropped a 'Sap'... Feeling very pleased with myself i went ahead to kill the second one.. In the split second between me killing the monster and the game revealing what the monster dropped, the following thoughts went thru my head...
Wah.. another Dark Axe Stump down...
Hmm.. i hope it drops another 'Sap of Anicent Tree'...
Well if God exists, i will get another 'Sap of Ancient Tree'..
Wow, that thought was very blasphemous... it was like saying that if i don't get a 'Sap' then God doesn't exist...
ok, better stop thinking abt this...
Then lo and behold! The monster drops another 'Sap'!! Yes, of cos i know abt this thing called probability, i'm an economist remember? but if you think abt it, probability never actually explains anything... it describes happenings but it never explains why... a miracle can be seen as a coincidence but a miracle can also simply be a miracle...
Anyway, my point for the entry is this.. Sometimes we keep hearing abt how prayers must be offered up in faith, but sometimes God just surprises us by answering even random prayers such as this one... He's really the God of surprises as well, like how a guy will buy flowers for his love just when she least expects it or buy her something when she makes a passing remark... God's courtship of our hearts is just as enchanting and enjoyable... i love my God! =)
LSE isn't really well-known for its architecture or decor... it is afterall, very much smaller and poorer than its fellow colleges like King's and UCL... Houghton Street, the pedestrian corridor between 4 buildings, which is also the main artery of LSE student traffic, is very much a dirty, over-'posterised', over-used walkway... The administration's very futile attempts at beautifying the place was limited to the planting of a few saplings, which always look malnourished and only flowered in summer, when few pple are in sch...
So you can imagine my surprise when i saw the new penguin statue along Houghton St... it looks cute but strange, a complete stranger in a world where most passer-bys are too concerned about their lectures, classworks, CVs, interviews, internships and million-dollar jobs-in-waiting to take a second look... hopefully this adds abit of freshness and randomness to the way things are here... Anyway, i have no idea why but the penguin was tied up and cordoned off when Rong Ren and i passed it this afternoon...
Me: Eh? How come the penguin is tied up leh?
RR: Huh? Orh, maybe Batman came by just now...
Fortunately it was already set free by evening time...
If I want it, it's mine. If I give it to you and change my mind later, it's mine. If I can take it away from you, it's mine. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine. If it's mine, it will never belong to anyone else, no matter what. If we are building something together,all the pieces are mine. If it looks just like mine, it is mine.
Hason found this here on Our Daily Bread.. it's kinda cute and very true for toddlers most of the time and true enough for adults more often than it should...
Yesterday, Kenny told me tt the GAP near his workplace was having a some crazy sale... He showed me this this really nice jacket which he bought at £8.99 when the tag price is £88... Alamak! Got this kind of sale how to miss! i also want jacket... So i went there today during my 3-hr inter-lecture gap... haha.. come think of it i went shopping at GAP during my gap.. hurhurhur... becos there was a huge gap between the sale price and the tag price.. hurhurhur... okay gotta stop before it starts to hurt...
Anw i bought the same jacket cos it was so cheap and they only had tt design left... it's not too thick so i guess i can wear it in SG... i jus hav to buy a car to dump the jacket in...
but ok lar, i'm not in a lousy mood this time cos i had 2 very fun, engaging and lively classes in school... who would have thought that the same LSE which was so intellectually-stifling in my 1st yr can transform into such an exciting place in 3rd yr.. it's really great when pple offer their opinions and alternate viewpoints in class cos it stimulates you to think hard too... apparently i thrive on arguments... =D
Swee lor... i jinx my own blogsite, it goes down, i put up a notice telling people about it, the site runs again and along comes Jiehan who jinxes it again by saying something like "domaindlx is very unstable" And all thru this while my new host server WebSamba.com has yet to approve my DSN request, meaning my semi-automated posting tool cannot be used... i'm too lazy to blog manually again so i'm putting my entries here at Blogspot for a while... i only hope i dun hav to move here permanently... i mean blogspot is great but i prefer the freedom of having ur own place... it's like staying in a service apartment or a HDB flat... Service apartments are great but you really cant change the decor and other stuff too much cos it's not really ur place afterall...
i guess my blog just has to stay here for a while until i get my HDB flat back...
