marathon man plus

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

passionless enterprise hurts!

marathon man is feeling a heart pain for these few days. was it the lousy sleeps that have caused the heart problem? was it the food that he has been eating that caused the blood pressure to go high? in particular, was it the nuts he ate that's taking its toll on his hyper-active brain network?

he did one thing today. he had a passionate evening. and that seemed to do the trick, easing his heart pain.

for the past week, he has been curled up in his own self, with a long face.

that is causing the imbalances in the hormone system. without saratonine, the blood flows slower, and he could feel the coldness in the tips of his limbs.... and the heart does not feel like working. what for?

he wanted to be as astute as he can, to bring back his self esteem, to raise his image that he is a serious person, to command the respect of the others.

passion is not seriousness..... if it's love. it's casual and spontaneous, it's playful and entertaining.... it total trust and faith..... it's sporting and exhilarating.... it's ice and fire - cool and hot!

if you hv to get serious to assert your existence, that stops the life of enjoying the moments that come along. you are only acting! acting is not marathon man's cup of tea. he could do it for one day, two....perhaps one week, two.....but his being is resisting it, his system does not like it, and it tells by his heart aching on him.

at least he knows one thing - he still has the fire in him, and can afford it if occasion arises..... meanwhile, life sucks!

rajapisang · Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:59 am Post subject:

Dear Nanny Boy,

Sorry to hear about your heart problem. I think you should see a cardiologist NOW.

If you are suffering chest pain or other symptoms that may indicate a cardiovascular problem, your doctor will likely want you to undergo an angiogram (cardiac catheterization) to see if your coronary arteries are blocked by plaque. A blockage can cause a decrease in the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart, and over time can lead to debilitating chest pain or a heart attack.

If angioplasty proves unsuccessful, the position of the blockage is too difficult to access by angioplasty, or you have severe blockages in multiple major vessels, your doctor may recommend that you undergo coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

Bypass surgery has been performed for nearly 40 years. Cardiovascular surgeons have received extensive training on bypass techniques. More than 500,000 bypass procedures are performed each year in the United States, making it the most frequently performed major surgery in the country.

Good luck and a Happy, Healthy, Safe and Properous CNY to you and your family.

HAPPY · Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 18296 Status: Offline

Why you worry Banana Boy?
None of your banana business.
Muahahahahahahahaha

rajapisang · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:57 pm Post subject:

Hey, hey JB whores, you don't have to worry
Hey, hey JB whores, because your AID/HIV/STD infected hole is going to make you sorry.

Hey, hey JB whores*, you admit you're stupid and dumb
Hey, hey JB whores, because you love to eat pedophil Neolofarc's dirty cum

Hey, hey JB whores, you say your brain contains bad cells
Hey, hey JB whores, because when you die, you're going to Hell

Hey, hey JB whores, you no can compare to Joy Luck
Hey, hey JB whores, for she is 1001 times more smart

Hey, hey JB whores, you envious I can rhyme
Hey,hey JB whores, "thiew your mah kah hai."

Hey, hey JB whores, you don't have to tell us you're stupid and dumb
Hey, hey JB whores, we all know about your c how hum

Hey, hey JB whores, you no can wear qi pao
Hey, hey JB whores, because your face is fat like a bah pao!

Hey, hey JB whores, if the dead no can harm
Hey, hey JB whores, how come you've such C how hum?

Hey, hey JB whores, you said nobody would sell me coffin when I die
Hey, hey JB whores, when I've so much money, why are you so "Tua Tai?"

Hey, hey JB whores,you said I am a handsome alien on earth
Hy, hey, JB whores, but you're the ugliest Geylang female goat

Hey, hey JB whores, you insult Beggarshit
Hey, hey JB whores, he's going to teach how to eat LKY's shit.

Hey hey JB whores*, prostitutes don't pay Central Provident Fund
Hey hey JB whores, when they catch you, then you'd have your fun.

Hey, hey JB whores*, waste money when it doesn't spend on your puki
Hey, hey JB whores, and that is why you're so itchy.

Hey, hey JB whores*, you no can write simple English
Hey, hey JB whores, no wonder, you use a vibrator to make your numbed chee bye ticklish.

Hey, hey JB whores*, you said nobody would sell me coffin no
Hey, hey JB whores, I can buy first I die before

Hey, hey JB whores, you said I looked to many forumers stupid
Hey, hey JB whoress, so long as they know you're stupid and they get a kick!

Hey hey JB whores, you no can guarantee
Hey, hey JB whores, but I can still afford to eat Hokkien Mee.

Hey, hey JB whores, you said my head is empty
Hey, hey JB whores, but my wallet has plenty

Hey, hey JB whores, you think you're the only chee bye
Hey, hey JB whores, but China girls say you go and die.

Hey, hey JB whores, you like me banned
Hey, hey JB whore, you're not that grand

Hey, hey JB whores, you used a bad word f*ck
Hey, hey JB whores, no wonder you always run out of luck.

Hey, hey JB whores, you pay no CPF
Hey, hey JB whores, for you cheat and that is bad

Hey, hey JB whores, you're plenty jealous in you
Hey, hey JB whores, you're Muslim, you can't eat yummy Char Siu!

Hey, hey JB whores, you've bad smelliest a ssholes
Hey, hey JB whores, even stray dogs won't go!

Hey, hey JB whores, your holes pollute S'pore bad
Hey hey JB whores, Satan would give your holes to his inmates after disinfect.

Hey, hey JB whores, we don't need you in S'pore!
Hey, hey JB whores, your stinky hole is no, no!

Hey, hey JB whores, even if it's free, there's still no call!
Hey, hey JB whores, no wonder you're so sore!

Hey, hey JB Whores, Angmohs and Bangladeshis don't call!
Hey, hey JB Whores China girls beat you at prostitute war.

Hey, hey JB whores, what do you know
Hey, hey JB whores, except allowing Angmohs and Bangladeshi to enter your holes raw.

Hey, hey JB whores, in little India, even Bangladeshis shun your holes
Hey, hey JB whores, for they know they're full of HIV/AID/STD viruses and cold.

Hey, hey JB whores, pedeophil Neolofarc is not giving you Angpao, CNY come
Hey, hey JB whores, he's giving you a roti prata and his cum

Hey, hey JB whores, you no can afford to take taxi no more
Hey, hey JB whores, because nobody wants your hole and you're too poor.

Hey, hey JB whores, Chinese New Year come
Hey, hey JB whores, you get no Angpao but only pedophil Neolofarc's dirty cum!

Hey hey JB whores, you worry about the economy,
Hey, hey JB whores, for your Bangladeshi customers have no more money.

Hey hey JB whores, during CNY, Hokkiens wish each other "Keong Hee What Chye"
Hey, hey JB whores, Chinese New Year, you wish your customers Keong Hee F*ck Chye" hoping they'd f*ck your AID/HIV/STD infected hole and die.

Hey, hey JB whores, You ask where Huang is today
Hey, hey JB whores, Huang after f*ucking your dirty hole is having his little penis x-rayed.

*Malaysian prostitutes Merlin69 bin Cuntdowntogst and Happy, world's two smelliest and stinkiest chee byes which even stray dogs and crocodiles avoid.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

gong-gong,
thanks for your concern.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

what's success?

you can do whatever you want. but success doesn't just come by what you've done. it comes by itself. like if you are a business man, not everything you do will be successful. if you are a music composer, not every song you compose will be a hit..... if you are a mathematician, you can work on a certain proof of a certain theorem, you may not be able to arrive at any conclusion, if you are a scientist working on a certain research, you may also not find what you want.....

some successes are depending on other's appreciation of your work - most of this work is "creative" in nature.... like a song, a painting, a book, even a business, which may just catch on when the time and place and the people and product you are selling are right, combinatiously.

but some successes are objective, like in the scientific, mathematical fields..... though in some cases, the scientist or mathematician may not be considered as successful when they first making known their findings.... only later it dawn onto people that their findings are indeed ground breaking.....some even die in anonimity even their works are first class. are they successful? yes and no. yes, they achieve what they set out to do, but no, if what they set out to do is to achieve fame.

marathon man is not a successful man by any standard. just done enough to go by, hanging around as they say.

he would like to retire doing something he likes.

his fren ah chek called him, "o level just out, my daughter got some a1 and some a2..... can get into the middle-grade jc's lah. but she wanted to go acs(i), to do her ib, because she wanted to go overseas after jc....."

"good...."

"but it costs quite a lot of money to study in independent school. further more, air level also can go overseas what.... "

"nowadays, ib better lah. let her go lah if you can afford."

"oh no."

"that's exactly my case. i passed n level then o level.... N, O = no. NO level! that's a no-no..... no jc. now i only work to get by....."

"are you blaming your parents?"

"NO.... i am a NO-NO guy..... just get by day by day....."

"better than a yes-man."

"yes-man is the way to success.... like our mr sm, mr cj, mr ag, mr ministers, mr president.... all are typical yes-men, see how successful they are."

"are you jealous?"

"NO-NO......"

"are you living in denial mode?"

"no-no....."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

"put on your thinking cap and give me a solution that will get me out of this fakking mess."

the transport minister is shouting at his chief engineer.

the poor chap, though a gahmen scholar don't used to be addressed in 4-letter word. he said, "sir, can you not say dirty words to me."

"wat? if i don't get a solution by tomorrow, i would stop saying dirty words, instead i will get a singh to give you his dirty dongle."

"ok.... i'm thinking."

"slamm...."the door shuts with a loud bang, when the minister left.

at nite, the poor chap calls up marathon man.

"i'm in trouble."

"what?"

"hai.... my boss want me to solve his problem."

"what problem?"

"the causeway stinks."

"oh.... is that so? why?"

"all the shit hung up at the side of the causeway...."

"wow..... you are in deep shit, literally!"

"so, you got any idea how to clear this mess?"

"hmm.... get pm's help."

"what? are you kidding?"

"no.... i'm serious. he said, we are in this together.... whether it's shit or piss.... he must help."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

decision - some one, some time, some where, some how has to make one. when no body supports it, or the people that are dearest to you oppose it, you will feel depressed, stressed. but if that's what you have to face, face it then.

marathon man's fren ah chee told marathon man, "my son, got 6 points in o level, but he wanted to choose cjc. for 6 points minus 2 in eca, he could go at least acjc. i was disappointed with his last minute switch. all this while he told us he's been aiming for rjc and acjc.... now he could afford it, he threw his chance away. sayang...."

"yap, parents' great expectation! i think let your son be."

"ya lar, if not, wat to do? i suspect his teacher psycho him. or he's brainwashed by somebody from cjc."

"no point imagining. just take your son's words, if that's what he wanted, that's wat he should get."

"ok lor."

as they were jogging by the river of singapore, they crossed the elgin bridge . then they went toward the esplanade, to the singapore flyer. the sun was setting, the wind was cooling and quite strong. the flyers has stopped for more than 2 weeks now. what used to be a a tourist attraction has become office-political fights among its directors. obviously, the planning was not done adequately to prevent any mishaps like the one just before new year. the ang moh's wanted to short-circuit the contingency protocol; not even equipping the cabins with water for contigency purpose. and now they are talking about opening for business before cny. the gahmen better step in to make sure no such fiasco happen again before they let it fly again.

ah chee said, "look, this flyer is a white elephant now."

marathon man said, "this year end you will have another two big elephants to accompany our little elephant."

"what?"

"the two ir's"

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

if broken love can be continued, and in the place and time you dictate, it'd be like a fairy tale come true.

walking on a stretch of open field, with trees lining on both sides, under the light of the full-moon, with the jan cold breeze from the north-east, marathon man wonders away... life at that moment suddenly stops, and rewinds back to years ago when he was still that energetic, full-of-visions, romantic teenager, in high school. that moment of breaking up with his first love, saddened him for many months. if memories can be erased, he would not erased this experience though it has been bothering him on and off. like tonite, that tragically beautiful monet created a lot of anguish, yet it tells a story of love.... first love that usually ends up with painful after-effects.

how is she doing? is that a sincere concern or subconscious ill-wishing? if love is unconditional, he doesn't have to feel hurt. obviously for marathon man, it's not. love is personal acknowledgement of giving up one's feeling for another person, and expecting the same from her. unrequited love always creates anguish..... that spurns the soul to carry on to prove to her that she's missing out something in her life by giving up on him. it's just a one-sided wish, far from the truth, she's already moved on with her life without ever having the impression that he was ever part of her dreams......

the dogs bark from afar, the monkeys jump from tree to tree, the insects squick, and the nite is getting older. he's wondering why, we cannot read other people's minds, cannot do it across space?

when you think, you radiate brainwaves. these waves travel across space..... somehow, if we can implant a receiver in the brain, then voila, like a radio, we can read people's minds. only thing we have to be mindful is, each should choose a somwhat unique frequency to transmit and the receiver should be able to tune to whichever frequency it likes.

you see, living within the body is boring. we have to strive to break away from it..... and roam the world, do what we want, get what we desire, all in the comfort of an armchair.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

sleeping pills don't work as effective as a panadol. marathon man's fren ah siew loong told him. many a time he just pops a panadol when he is too tired but cannot get into a good sleep, due to his blood pressure, or his brain is on hyper-mode, or sugar level too high, or too many problems ravaging his thots.....

it's a world of zombies, where people lack of sleep still carrying on with all sorts of activities, with their eyes shut, and their minds stoned and their actions so mechanical.

when they were jogging together down in the reservoir, siew loong said,"i got many moments of anxiety, whereby i burnt away the melatonine without a shut of the eyelids. not that i was not sleepy, but somehow my mind wanted to go on, thinking that to give up, and tuck into bed will be a waste of the train of thots that's been cranked up throughout the nite. you see, people are a creature of habit. i have this habit of doing a lot of mind activities before sleep, then missing the sleepy hours, and screw up the whole next day, in a zombie state."

marathon man said, "then, you should throw yourself a life jacket. let yourself lie in the ocean, in the middle of the nite.... eyieng right into the star-studded nite sky, you would be lulled into your dreamland in no time."

"is that true?"

"it's called the mari-stella therapy."

"are you a therapist?"

"no,i am not the rapist. rather i am a victim myself."

"what? you were raped?"

"yes. my mind was raped by myself, like you. i was a total insomniac. then i went to the beach and realized how much i had missed the calling of the ocean, and the twinkling smiles of the stars...."

"so you slept in the ocean?"

"i just got into another world. a world where sleep is where works are done."

"what? is there such a world? what do you do in your sleep?"

"yes.... in your dream world, you actually realize your full potential...."

"you mean, you can control what you dream?"

"sort of..... when you don't depend on others, you can do whatever you want."

"but in your dreams, your mind is wild....."

"no. as long as long i float, my mind will always be in a state of semi-consciousness, the thots would just flow from one incident to another, i can dwell longer on the ones i like, and flip by the ones i don't..... selective dreaming is the way to live one's life."

"ha...... i would rather get myself a panadol, and live my zombie life the next day, than to fool myself into some kind of sci-fi world."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

he called up the nea, "there's a dead bird on my roof. can you send somebody to take it away and see whether there's any flu in it."

later he received a call from the nea contractor, "where's the dead bird?"

"on my roof."

"sorry, we don't deal with dead birds on the roof."

"but it's just the roof that can be reached with a ladder."

"sorry we don't deal with that. but just doing you a favor, we will be there."

they came and took the dead bird away.

after marathon man's fren was telling the incident to him, marathon man said, "why nea don't deal with dead birds in people's roof? they deal with mozzies even in your roof-top, don't they?"

"beats me, this gahmen rules!"

imagine, there's no birds in this world.

sure you miss your fried chicken. you also can only salivate on the thot of peeking duck. sure you would be making green-minded statements like ,"oh.... wat a disaster! we loose our birds, what are we going to do without birds?" the ladies will answer, "good, we will be really liberalized! totally emancipated! from the drudgery of pregnancy and child bearing.... but still enjoy the pleasure of hole rimming with humanoid tools!" the men will say, "bees do it, now without birds, we cannot do it. we have to think of something quick!"

these are understandable sentiments.

but to the human beings, flight is what everybody subconsciously aspires to achieve thru out history of mankind.

now, what if all flights go extinction, what do yo make of that? you rather ground your feet firmly on terra cotta?

so human will be doomed to the cling on to this world, forever.

bad thing?

no. a very good thing indeed.

without an escape route(flying to other planets), we would be appreciative of what we have in this world, and take steps to preserve and concserve them, and make it a real home for all things.....sans our feathered frens.....

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

marathon man's fren ah wisey shook his head. he asked him why?

he said, " this wong can't sing still harping on the 'confluence of factors' theory for his mas salamat's fiasco..... i really cannot tahan. so i wrote a letter to the newspaper.... but they rejected it for publication."

"let me see what you wrote."

so he showed him the letter:

Dear editor,
Referring to Mr Wong's repeated cliche "the public's unreasonable expectation that there cannot be any lapses whatsoever(ST Jan 16)..." I would like to express my opinion on the subject of "the public expectation versus the truth", as an individual of the public at large.

First, I would like to bring to mind how the banks normally react to cases whereby money is somehow "mysteriously" eaten up by the ATM machines without any acknowledgement of a deposit, and the bank's responses were always, "it's impossible......".
Compare this with the government's oft-uttered reasons for failure to control a situation - anything is possible..... like the economic forecast changed within a couple of weeks, the reason being, the situation is not within one's control.

Let's take a look at the Mas Salamat case, the government said, it happened due to the now famous "result of confluence of events".

But the question is how do you explain the cause(s) of these confluence of event. Are they independent events?

From statistics, there's a certain probability for any event to take place, for independent events to "confluence" ie occur at the same time(or within the reference time frame), the probability will decrease by order of their product..... what it mean if it's one in 5 chance for event A to happen at a certain time, and 2 in 5 chance for event B to happen in the same time, then events A and B happening together would be 2 in 25 chance(multiplication rule), which is far more improbable then any single event happening alone. So it's near impossible for a confluence of events to happen at the same period of time, if there's no bigger cause(s) behind these individual events to cause them to happen together.

As for the bank's case, we know, error of the ATM machine can come from various sources, like mechanical error from the machine(say probability=A), software error(probability=B), hardware error in the electronics(probability=C), etc.... for an event like "eating the money without a deposit record" to happen, it only takes one of these errors to occur, hence the probability is A+B+C+....(addition rule)so taking into the different things that can go wrong in the ATM, it's not so improbable for an ATM to go wrong after all.

In conclusion, the public expectation are a view justified by statistics after all. Whereas, the extreme viewpoints taken by the authorities invariable sounds far-fetch. The truth of the matter is, as they say, always lies in the middle of two extreme views.

The statements from the banks and the government(impossible and possible) reflect not so much on the true reason that actually causes the consequence, but rather an attitude to look at the problem. The former attitude is : I'm perfect, don't bother me with your problem. The latter attitude is : Nobody's perfect, so what is your problem?

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

beach road, with variety of makan shops from hing hua, to korean, to japs, to chicken rice, to chung ching hot pot..... come to beach road to enjoy the good food with very reasonable prices. in this time of economic downturn, it;s value for money that counts.

turning into kampung glam area, it was like a small mid-east. you have pakistani, indian, turkish, egyptian, and other mid-eastern food-shops, cloth materials, soverniers... though nobody was selling spices. for that, you have to go little india. but before that, marathon man went sungei road. in this recessionary time, business in sungei road was so good that, it had expanded into the empty compounds next to simlim tower.... there's even a tented stall selling jeans, bermudas, shirts, all hang up properly on hangers, just like the shops at orchard road. marathon man saw a bermuda, very nicely-cut, with size fitting him to a t. and it's only selling for $4. he asked, "is this new?"

"no. it's old clothes." but it looked new. perhaps the sellers did not want to tell the truth, for he may be wary of gahmen officer finding out him selling new stuff in sungei. who knows it may be against the LAW.

then he saw some people crowed in the middle of the road. they were checking out the dvd's and cd's of xxx film, $5/pc. there were a few vendors selling and fixing old bicycles. very soon, like most pasar malam's now selling new cars, sungei road will be selling second cars.... by the way things develop.

marathon man had his lunch in seng chuan food centre, relishing a bowl of $2 katong laksa from the famous stall that sells laksa without the chopsticks. he added $0.50 hum... the hawker said, "nowadays, meesiam also add hum..."

"why?"

"the pm said meesiam maihum.... he must be right one.... mee siam must have hum, then can ask for maihum mah.... so any body selling meesiam without hum, must be served with a summon from the nea."

"oh... like that hah? then pm also said, don't cut people, cut pay first, but many gahmen companies no huelan... how?"

"how? pm cut his pay for show one..... the other big bosses of the gahmen companies cannot cut their pays.so when economies up, the big bosses pay still high-high, then pm can increase his pay, pegged to the big bosses high pay mah..... simple thing like that, you also don't know....come eat laksa often, i teach you."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

marathon man's fren, ah wisey, the guy who writes letters to press wrote again:

Dear Editor,

I have read a lot of articles and letters from this newspaper extolling the benefits of speaking good and proper English, and avoid as far as possible contaminating the language with Singlish. The main objective is so people from other countries can understand us when we converse with them in English.

In the same token, I would like to urge the radio announcers to be very careful in their pronunciations, especially when they pronounce names of local people and places. I was irked to write this letter because I heard from one of the Ang Moh radio news announcers pronounced PUNGGOL, as PANGGOL when she read the news. As some of us may not know where is PANGGOL, the value of the news will be completely lost.

I am not complaining that the foreign radio/TV announcers are not as capable as the local ones. I am of the view that, if we employed these foreigners to read news or take on any other radio or TV programs, they have to ensure that they pronounce the local places and local names according to the local way of pronunciations, NOT in their own mother-tongue intonation, or else we should not engage them in these jobs.

Perhaps, we should test them on this before they are allowed to take up their jobs. For one thing, local pronunciations(Roman pronunciations) are not difficult. There's no reason why they cannot do it properly, if they put their hearts to it. By pronouncing the names correctly, they not only convey the meanings to the local listeners clearly, it also shows that they pay due respect to local culture.

Thanks,

and instead he got a reply from the radio station as follows:

You are right that it is our responsibility as national broadcasters to uphold pronunciation standards.

As such, all presenters are required to sit for pronunciation tests on a quarterly basis.

However admittedly, there are some words which are still mispronounced.

We have reminded the presenter in question of the correct pronunciation.

Another way that might be useful would be for her to check with her local co-host.

Thanks again for your feedback.

Happy 2009!

Regards

marathon man said, "ai yah, not only ang mohs pronounce our local names in their native intonation, our local people also trying to be like the ang moh's, saying the local names in the ang moh way.... like changi becomes cheangi, bedok becomes biidog, jurong becomes jerong.... so no need to complain lah..... we talk our singlish.... they talk their anglish.... each to his own liking.... no quarrel, ok?"

"ok lor.... but the ang moh pai(clique) always want to complain we lower the english standard here. if they don't complain, i also keep quiet lor."

"if they complain, let them lah.... no law say cannot talk singlish..... unless you take english oral exam."

"ok, ok.... forget about these ang moh complain, let's go havoc tonite."

"go where havoc."

"GO PANGGOL nite club lah!"

rajapisang · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 2:31 am Post subject:

Dear Nanny Boy,

It's not fair to condemn local guys wholesale for speaking with "Angmoh" accent. But what actually is "Angmoh" accent? To the average S'poreans, it means anything that sounds like "Angmoh" but forgetting the fact that spoken English comes in many accents, just like our Mandarin dialect.

Regarding the Brit accent, it could be subdivided into Irish, Welsh, Cockney and the Queen's stiff upper lip accent.

Then there is the Aussie accent which as we know pronounce certain words lazily like their convict predecessors, like the word "a" as "ai". "Good die mate."

Then there is the South African English, with a mixture of Africaan, Dutch, Zulu Greek, Portugeese and various Indian languages.

And I think I'm not wrong in saying that 'American' English spoken by the tv anchors and Hollywood people should be the benchmark for spoken English as it's English understood by majority of us. You might cal it the universal English. But if you go to the southern states in the US, you could hardly understand the English spoken there esp by the blacks. In the mid west states, the spoken English there is again different from those spoken on the west and east coast of America. And the New Yorkers would pronounce words like as if it's coming out from their nose.

And recently, I read a letter to the editor written by a Filipino who said that Americans found it chic if you spoke English with a French accent but would make fun of if you speak English with a Tagalog accent.

So tell me how do you define "Angmoh" accent before criticizing those locals who speak English with accent other than spoken locally?

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

gong,
marathon man heck care whatever slang people use. but wisey is particular about people slang on the local names.

why CUN-T people pronounce IRAQ as EERAAK instead of EYE-RECK?

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

obama comes into the presidency like some ugly duckling turning into a swan. the first lady's incesscant, tight-lipped, inner-joy-held-back smile accentuates her protruded lower jaw, making her looking happier than her husband.

how to be happy, when you have tons of problems waiting for you, the minute you step up to the throne. unlike mr president, the first lady only has to find her pet when she steps into the house that's painted white.

the americans are fun people..... all those interviewed said something like.... oh, he is so confident, he is my hero! she's so chick, she's the diva.... as if they were a sure ticket to get the u.s. of a out of the deep shit.

fanfares aside, banks don't react the same way.... more hands extending out, for the billions that's rolling our from the bill printers.

just like the oath re-taking, the bail-out plan has to be re-vised. instead of money going to the big boys, money goes to the small fries. people like it. but how much to fill up the hole? the black hole created by the white house.

marathon man's american fren goonie, called him up after the in-aug, sounding very hyper, "hey dude, you know what.... there's no place on earth that i want to be, except the u.s. of a..... look, a star is born, we have the president that will lead us to another era of prosperity and power. look how he told the world to behave or else, look how he made a completely mess-up situation to look like opportunities for us to show the world we can do it!"

"ok... your president no doubt commands very high tv ratings, but his pay is not high enough to warrant him to give his best to fix the problem."

"what?"

"i mean,look at my president, getting more than 5 times the pay of your's, he just did one thing; holding the 2nd key to the vault, and for the first time he's going to use it..... and with that one-stroke of act, our economy is going to be saved! can your president do that? he can if only with a $3 million salary."

"wow, very expensive key-holder indeed. ok. got you, first thing first, raise his salary, then do the job!"

"u got it right. you are talking to the right guy. look how much your bankers r getting, even if they screw up big time.... yet your president getting peanuts, and blaimed for the screw up..... is there any justice in the land of ultimate justice?"

"ok.... obama will print more money to get himself more motivated."

"yes. as the saying goes, money motivates presidents to print more money!"

rajapisang · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 9:49 am Post subject:

Dear Nanny Boy,

The correct pronunciation for Iraq is pronounced as I-raq like the way the Iraqi natives pronounce it and not the way that the Brits pronounce it, E-raq. Actually, it doesn't matter so long as you and me could understand the country that we are referring to. Singapore or Silatpor is the same to us irrespective of whether the Angmohs could understand us or not.

I know what you mean when you were condemning those locals trying to sound Angmoh. A good example is that female voice when you're riding the MRT, pronouncing those local names with a fake Angmoh pronunciation. But then I could be wrong for she could be a genuine Angmoh herself. If that is the case, then she should learn how to pronounce local name the way the locals pronounce them, right?

Anyway, in closing may I take this opportunity of wishing you and yours a very happy, prosperous(?), safe and healthy Chinese New Year for the year of the ox.

Keong Hee What Chye!

rajapisang · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 11:28 am Post subject:

Hey Nanny Boy, look what I wrote on Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:15 am

Post subject: Why Call It Chinatown When Whole Of S'pore Is A Chinatown?

Why must we call all that area, Pagoda St, Smith St, Club St, Chinatown? Why must we copy Angmoh countries like England, Australia or America which have a predominantly Caucasian population and where Chinatown is a place for the minority Chinese in these countries to congregate among themselves for social, economic and security reasons? In actual fact, the whites call them Chinatown with a derogatory sense.

Or do our leaders think that they are not Chinese and are Angmohs and being clever to call that area Chinatown? Or are they ashamed of being Chinese and are actually "white bananas"? Or is it because they think that they can speak and write English, they are one of them? Those rich and wealthy HK Chinese used to behave like that prior to the return of HK to China. They used to tell their Angmoh guests that those rickshaw pullers and homeless Chinese were not Chinese.

Does HK or Taiwan or Macau has a Chinatown? Why can't we call our Chinatown by its original name, Niu Che Shui (bullock cart water) or Kereta Ayer instead of Chinatown? I'm sure that Bullock Cart Water would draw more tourists to the area than a common name like Chinatown which those Angmohs can find at home.

So let's stop being pretentious and be what we are.

Happy New Year!

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

china town, nite fell, people pushing against people. more people, and more pushing. that's the new year seasonal mood. marathon man also went there for the mood. he bot squash, 2 for $3. then some taiwan titbits, then got himself a seal, engraved on the spot by some chinese engraving master for $20. this year you can see a lot of fish new year cake which marathon man did not happen to see the previous years. is that a new fad?

recession is here, coe dropped to $200, but people still have to celebrate new year. so business as usual as normal years.

there was a tcs re-rehersal for tomorrow nite's new year eve show infront of people's park, occupying half of the eu tong seng street. the lady artise were very pretty, especially jessica liu. marathon man fell in love with her instantly, faster than instant noddle cooking time. he would have something to dream about later in his sleep.

for now.... he tried to get her attention by raising his hand but she did not see him. her black blouse contrasted nicely with her brightly yellow skirt, and her lanky shape and oval face and dark hair and cheery smile all left a very deep impression in marathon man's mind. he really could not control his urge to meet up with her any more. he went up to the stage from behind, and presented her with a bouquet of flowers, yellow crysantimum, with black roses, matching with the colors of her attire. she accepted it. and marathon man wanted to kiss her, but somehow she was not ready, and marathon man cut out the kissing action half way, instead got a warm shake of hands with her.

she said, "thanks."

marathon man said, "i love you!"

she said, "i know."

he said, "can we meet after this?"

she said, "where?"

he said, "downtown."

she said, "which downtown, east west north south?"

he said, "south. my brother will meet your sister down-under ."

she said, "tonite cannot."

he said, "why? your taiyima auntie came?"

she said, "no. my sister is on diet, not eating sausages."

he said, "why?"

she said, "for me .... LAPCHEONG - sounds like rob and cheong(also rob in cantonese). not good to get rob during the auspicious season."

- marathon man wishes everybody incl gong-gong the long time cyber-acquintance, a very CHEONG(like a bull) new year!

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

who do you visit in the 1st day of cny?

marathon man visited the flowers, in sentosa.

this year the flower fest is not as glamourous as the previous years, though the ad said it had extended from the imbiah place to the palawan beach. but there's not much flowers displayed at the beach, even in the expo proper, the flowers were not as conspicuos and not as strking as before, looked like the authorities had come to the end of their wits to give this fest any breakthrough..... time to get a raise, like what the ministers did.

marathon man noticed a lot of indians visited the place also. perhaps it's on a sunday when most of these foreign workers were having their day-off, or perhaps, it's india's national day today, that the oversea indians also would like to celebrate in a nice place like sentosa. and also the indians like the beach. you could see many of them on the palawan beach. all of them put on long pants, sanders and a collared, buttoned shirt, nicely ironed. they looked a bit out of the singaporean fad. but looked more like what marathon man would put on some yearsback. simple and easy going.

they moved from their far-away home-towns to singapore to earn their livings, and some of them got the rough end of the deal; they were swindled into paying high fees to get a job here, but all they got was a temporary one, and stuck without any job and any money after a couple of months. you express your pity for these people, because they are from the lower rung of the society. yet some people are so sinister that they have the hearts to throw them into the ocean without anything to cling on..... no shore to reach for. if they go back, they will be worse than a bankcrupt; they will be in debt for their whole life.

you say society is a dog-eat-dog place. it has no moral value, as the most famous slogan is : GREED IS GOOD! so why is there anything wrong with making money out of others' misery?

sentosa's flowers are mostly from overseas, so are our menial workers. flowers are colorful, menial workers are blue-collared. people come to appreciate the flowers. a blue rose is supposed to be invaluable, so is a blue-collared worker - for without him, singapore will not be a red dot, but a RED CRAB!

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

the budget is a good one. not so generous and not so ungenerous, just nice. mm lee said.

i agree. ah beng said.

i also agree lah. ah hue said.

and pm lee, "we already done what we can do. so you guys have to brace yourself and face the reality."

president said, "i finally used my key to open the vault..... hee.""

so wait lah for another 6 to 9 months to see what happens.

6 months pass.

marathon man wakes up from his half-year long hybernation, and raises his head above the hole he dug at the top of bukit timah hill. rubbing his eyes for a clearer view, he sees singapore baking in the light of properity.... people are happy, businesses are booming, stock market riding the bull, housing market back to the boom year of 2007.....

hmm.... the budget did the trick!

he admires the guys who did the budget so effectively to bring singapore out of the trough. and he wants to thank the president who gave his ok to open the vault in the critical moment. so he runs into the istana, straight to where the president works.

he thanks him.

but the president says, "son, don't thank me. thank the guy who's holding the key to my $3 million salary."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

masterfat is a humble and simple guy. he opened a small salabat stall, selling ciggies, drinks, papers, teatbits and mutton pies. then as business grew, he opened up a shop selling groceries. as the business kept growing bigger, he opened up a small supermarket, selling more types of goods, including stationaries, household utensils and toiletries.... and the business kept booming, he had his supermarket expanded into a megamall, selling everything you need.

and it has been the low pricing of his goods that keeps the customers coming back, and new customers keep coming in.

how can he keep his pricing lower than the other shops?

he buys the goods in bulk, so can get a good price. others like ntuc, giant, carefour also buy in bulk, so come to square one. but he also PAYS HIS WORKERS VERY CHEAP! that's the trick.

but how do you keep your people with cheap pays? they are not your slaves? they are not from bangladash or india, or sri langka pr pakistan.... they are local singaporeans!

marathon man was curious. he asks mr m,"how do you do it?"

mr m says, "ask my people."

his people just smile... like marathon man has asked a stupid question. then to marathon man's surprise, he somehow finds out that, mr m's workers have their own businesses outside what they do for mr m.... eg, if you are a finance accountant incharge of account payable, the payment term says 90 days... anybody wants a 60 pr 30 days, or even cod, can also.... but with some you-know-what-lah- under-table to the accountant.... similarly if you are a purchaser, and i want you to buy things from me.... can also... but also with some you-know-what-lah.... even his $500 driver also does the same thing with garages...

then marathon man asks mr m., "you know your people are doing some fishy things behind your back?"

"i know." shaking his head, rather happily.

"why you allow your people making all these doubtful deals behind your back?"

"if not, why do you think they are willing to work for me for peanuts?"

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

finally the u.s. economy collapses even with the trillions of dollars the government pumped in to bail it out.

one thing they did not see it coming was the contsraint of the money printing plants.

as the government was pumping in trillion into the economy, the printing plants were printing more and more money. so much more that the capacity of the plants are fully overloaded.... but it only satisfies a small portion of the bailout fund. so how?

oboma calls his experts on money printing....

"hey, you! get me a plan to increase the cap of the printing plants. now!"

"eh.... i say we outsource it to mexico... or canada... or even india, singapre, china...."

"hmmm... no way..... we are loosing so many jobs everyday. how can we send more jobs overseas?"

"mr president, how about engaging the mafia's, they should have fake-money print plants somewhere here?"

"hmmm... that's a a way to go. legalize fake money printing. but do you think congress will approve the bill?"

"they have to if they want to pay their bills."

"do you think the world will buy it?"

"they have to, unless they want to go down with us together."

"do you think, it's morally right, using fake money?"

"ask marathon man, he is the guru of marality."

and marathon man says, "what's so big a deal about fake money? the whole idea of your democracy is even more of a fake..... and you still claim to be the champion of democracy. don't tell me, you become a saint overnite on the issue of morality? do it, and get the world going, for another 70 years of fake prosperity, before the next big crash!"

rajapisang · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 11:41 am Post subject:

Dear Nanny boy, first let me correct you when you said that the US economy had collapsed. It hasn't collapsed, there are still millions of American and non American working to day and a new govt has just been installed. They're still fighting the two wars and the people working in various govt depts, hospitals, schools, universities, police and firemen are still being paid. So is this your definition of a collapse?

Even without a complete collapse, the whole world is already suffering from their recession. You see strikes and protests all over the world, Spain, France, Turkey, Russia, England. Even S'pore whose govt always boast about their competency, many people are jobless. This ripple effect shows the world how important the American economy is to the world. Like it or not, they're still the world's economic engine. Even China and India, with their huge domestic market are affected by the American recession. And without the American "prosperity", many 3rd world countries won't have being able to climb out from poverty to prosperity. Some of the examples are Japan, Taiwan, HK S'pore and lately, China, India and Brazil.

We've to give credit where credit is due. We've to give credit to the Americans for coming out with the concept of a world free trade policy. With it, the world's economy generated 60 billion dollars worth of business. If the Americans start a protectionism policy, think of the damage it would have done to countries esp those from the 3rd world. Would S'pore be able to create enough jobs for its citizens, esp those that have just graduated from universities and colleges? Would there be possibility of strikes and riots as seen during Lim Chin Siong's era? Look at the mess some of the countries are in now from the aftermath of the US recession. You see strikes and protests all over the world, Spain, France, Turkey, Russia, England when so many people lost their jobs.

Let's wish the Americans well esp now when it's led by a black man. It's not going to affect just the Americans only for their success is also going to affect us as well as many other countries who do trade with them. Or you rather prefer that the Americans isolate themselves from the rest of the world?

The world still trusts the American dollar, so let them print as much money as they need and want to. So don't blame the Americans, blame those people who trust the American dollar. The Americans could easily solve their financial crises just by pulling back all their troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and from Europe, S. Korea and Japan. But then who is going to be the world's policeman?

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

the wisuri restaurant selling nasi padang in kandarha street is new kid on the block. marathon man tries its ikan bakar, not so nice as the spice is just coated outside the fish, not inserted between the two halves of the fish.

he also orders sayo lodeh, nothing to crow about. the sambai hijau and merah is mild, but good. he's sure that many other nasi padang stalls in othe hdb hawker centres are better than this one. but because it's in the kampung glam area like sabar menanti, it's regarded as a better restaurant. ambiance and the surroundings are definitely in another class, but not food-wise.

marathon man goes to the bookshop in bras-basah road and buys the "old canto recipes" and "traditional canto recipes" which he has been eyeing to buy after watching the tv food program in tvbs channel, hosted by chua lam. the books are an adaptation from the old cook book, "food sutra" by a hongkong newspaper chief editor, chan mong yan, aka special proof-reader, written in the 50's. many of these recipes already lost in the course of time, due mainly to the messiness in the preparations and the unavailablity of some of the ingredients.... and the concept of healthy eating.

eating is an art. cooking is also an art. looking into the various recipes of the world cusines, you realize how smart and creative people are. small little thing like an egg, there's hundreds of ways to cook it.

marathon man is listing some of the way it's done here:
softboil, hardboil, sunny side up, scramble, steam, salted, century, iron-egg, crepe, shredded, powdered, raw, balot, sliced, steam salted plus fresh egg, steam salted, fresh plus century, steam egg white, steam egg-yoke, fry egg white, fry egg yoke, mayonese, kaya.....

but wait a minute, you would ask.... not even 100 ways, how come you say hundreds of ways....

well, if you consider the chicken is also a form of egg... only it has feathers.

and don't forget your two little eggs!!! hahaha!!!

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

philosophy is only for the non-achievers!

marathon man asked mr lee what is his philosophy. he answered, give me a day, i would spend it in making a mark for myself.

is that a philosophy?

philosophy supposed to say something about the meaning of life, in relation to the people and things around you....

making a mark is an ambition. what's so philosopyical about one's ambition?

obviously mr lee does not have a philosophy. he is ambitious, he's very egoistic, self-centred..... and ruthless, perhaps! he doesn't like to be beating around the bush in the subject of philosophy. why should he? he's so powderful that he doesn't need to explain any failure with any philosophical pretext. only if you are a a non-achiever or born-looser, would you want to fool yourself into believing that, your philosophy of life is not about success, but rather about happiness. and you are happy because you are satisfied, and you are satisfied because your goals in life are simple.... just eat to live, and live to eat!

lao zi said to chuang zi ,"oh master chuang, you are a nobody that's why you said powder and fame are but a farce. if you are like mr lee, would you still be saying that?"

chuang zi said, "oh head master lao, your teachings also describe what your own personal experience led you to believe, would you be leaving the middle kingdom if you were the prime minister?"

"hahaha.... exactly! the truth of all our teachings are only confined to our own experiences..... if we want to tell others that, what is good and bad, we are only telling people what we ourselves consider good and bad..... very subjective. but then, if we already in the state of enlightenment, then whatever we experience is the truth, and nothing but the truth. absolutely, objectively so."

"how do you know you reach the state of enlightenment?"

"i know, because i am."

"wow, you mean you already enlightened? i mean how do you know that? that you are not just in a dis-illusioned state?"

"because, the answers to all the problems are in me. ask me something that you think is not-answerable, anything."

"ok. the question is : if there's something called enlightenment, why do we need to seek it? why not just have it!"

"well, you know, like learning math and making use of math to solve a problem..... though you know at the end of the process, you will get the answer, you still have to go through the process to get at the answer."

"but some math has no answer."

"that itself is the answer. what i say is, there's enlightenment..... and not every which way you try will lead you to it. you must ask the right question to get to the answer. don't ask something like a salesman's problem."

"hmm. but why do we need math? if any tractable question has an answer?"

"just imagine..... the minute your are born, you know the answers to every question, instinctively. then, no need to think. thinking is TIME CONSUMING! therefore, time stands still!"

"oh.... but time is not standing still, therefore, we have to think to get the answer! therefore, math and thinkings are here to fill up time?"

"you are there. TIME exists to separate the thinker from the knower. just like philosophy exists to separate the loosers and the winners!"

"am i a looser then?" chuang zi asked.

"you are. you loose your ignorance."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

driving along sembawang road, marathon man got the idea that, dark matter and dark energy exist in another dimension. that explains why we cannot detect them no metter how hard we tried. you see, the fate of the universe is going to be like a big rip, ie matters just disperse across space, thinner and thinner until there's nothing left, into oblivion.
.....nothing comes from nothing, and nothing ever could..... the singer from the radio crooning away.

to us that seems the way things go, from nothing to nothing. but to the beings in a higher dimension, the universe, like a butterfly, changes from its cocoon stage into another form, ie a butterfly. we only are lucky enough to be living in the cocoon stage. as for the butterfly stage, we don't even know that it exists.

so who are we to know what is supposed to be the truth about things, about nothings?

we are just stardust men(like snowman). if all we have done is to realize the highest order of organization(reverse entropy), to bring things under control, then with a lot of blessings, we may be able to land our feet outside our own reality and just in the doorstep to witness its unfolding - far from the goal of putting our hands around it.

the car behind honked, the traffic light had turned from red to green.... marathon man wondered like the cars in the traffic flow(if you don't follow the rules, there's no such thing as a transport system), only with a set of apparently consistent rules, lives would be meaningful.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

the grass getting dry and yellow. no rain for most of jan, and now, daytime is a cooking oven, whereas, nite after nite, winds blows and temperature drops to cooling points.

but tonite, no much wind, and its warm. the heat comes from inside the body. marathon man needs some water hole to let go the heat.

he has this old flame, he recently hooked up again. he called her up. he went to her place. they had dinner, and watched tv.....

she said, "i know you must be desperate!"

"ha.... how come you know?"

"the economy is in a mess, you sure lost money. and with the warm weather these days, all normal men would do one thing..."

"ha.... you really smart lady."

"no.... you men are so preditable! all you are after are wealth, power and women. you don't have the wealth to make more, you don't have the power to want more.... you only have me... i'm your only person that means everything to you now."

"wow, you really mature fast. the last time we met, you were just this little gal, just doing things for fun. now you really know something about men."

"cheh, it's all you men's fault for the economy to be in mess. if we women were to run it, or more of us were to run it.... you would not have this financial fiasco."

"how?"

"we at least will not give tax payers' money as our bonuses. we will only spend our men's money!"

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

marathon man has stepped into the territory of lengkok bahru, the first thing he noticed was the cpib building, not that grand though, to exude any awing aura. he turned into hoy fatt road. he was quite pleasently surprised to see jalan rumah tinggi was just off hoy fatt road. he had seen the road name many times, and wondered where was the place. now he had found it serendipiciously, he could not afford to give it a miss. it's on a higher ground above the surronding area., it's a typical hdb area, though, old, but the surroundings were serene and spacious. he ended up in bukit merah market, took a bowl of porridge and koay chap. since he needed something more to fill his tummy, he also bot yeu-tiao and ham-chim-pian.... then he continued his jogging, stomach full. he landed himself in a small but boutique park across bukit merah view. some ang mohs brot their kids to play in the park.... the special amenity that caught marathon an's eyes was the "train" play-thing for the kid, where train-coaches with slanted coaches was supported by a 6-ft high rail. along its sides, slides were extended to the ground, quite cute.

he continued, and was again pleasently surprised to bump into the alexander park connector, out of nowhere. this connector was along a big longkang. then he realized it was the singapore river; only now it has become a big longkang. he tracked the river from delta road to its mouth.... along the way, behind the river valley road, he bump into some condo's, magnificently built, and some restaurants, bohemian-like and some offices, like somewhere in europe, and most surprisingly the dbs arts centre.
near eu square. singapore's orchard road's back yard is river valley road, and river valley road's back yard is the along the singapore river.

it has changed so much along the singapore river that, very soon we will have our little paris along the seine river. and it's only for those who can afford it. for others it's just another longkang flowing thru a concrete jungle.... and for those foreign construction workers , whose sweat nurishes this concrete jungle, sure hope that more little paris spring up in this little red dot.... so they could get their dreams realized with more works....

the world is not fair, but instead of complaining about it, you can always make an effort to be in the fairer side of it. and that's what many people are doing. though some are still fighting to make the world a fairer place..... looks like the unfairness is the only source of productivity and creativity aka market meltdowns and wars!

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

after many years of good management of lky, gct and lhl, the singapore's reserve has grown to a sizable sum. but just over the last year, a big chunk of it got shaved off.

now that our drago lady(ah loong sao - auntie loong) has stepped down from the post of temasek ceo, her next move is to try her luck in the biggest bank in the world, as what? as ceo lah!

in the board interview.....

marathon man : tell me why you think you are that good for this job?

drago lady : you know why we have this financial tusnami?

marathon man : why? you tell me.

drago lady : its because all the big banks are run by men.

marathon man : what is wrong with that?

drago lady : well, you men are big spenders, and all you do is give big bonuses to yourselves to sustain your spending spree, even when you are loosing money, even though you get it from the bailout pool... that's why banks collapsed.

marathon man : you think you can do better, with your track records so far?

drago lady : sure! though i'm also a mega spender myself. i won't need all these bonuses. i only spend the money made by men!

- as they said : men make all the money, and ladies spend them

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

marathon man was puzzled when he read "Reconsider 5-day week?"(4 feb). he was first taken aback by Dr Loo's seemingly illogical suggestion -
more free time did not result in more babies, so people should go back to work on Saturdays. Why in the first place it took a doctor to bring up the issue of national productivity? And secondly, why he said the lack of more baby production as a reason to return to 6-day work-week. But then after some re-considerations, it made perfect sense to me why Dr Loo suggested what he did in the parliament.

As most doctors, their incomes are derived mainly from attending to patients, which means the more they work the more they get paid. Hence to them, productivity(which is linked to income) is directly proportional to more work. So Dr Loo's simple solution of improving Singapore productivity is a longer work-week.

Secondly, we know, from countries like Japan, working long hours will normally be at the expense of one's health. That is, more patients for the doctors. Now you see why Dr Loo was so enthusiastic in his suggestion for Singaporeans to work longer hours.

Thirdly, Dr Loo is running a private hospital. So if his hospital were to follow the 5-day week, then the hospital has to pay overtime pay for doctors, nurses and workers to come back to work on weekends. So it will benefit him if the government and the private sector were to go back to a 6-day work-week.

Why then justify the 6-day work-week with the lack of more baby production?

Simple. If a 5-day work-week can bring more babies, it means more business for the hospitals. No reason for Dr loo to complain about it.

Though the above rationales are purely hypothetical, may explain where Dr Loo was coming from.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

finally the number is out. temasek has just drained away $58bil.

the sequence of events accordingly, when finance minister tharman issued his pre-pariahmen budget statement to the press; first, it mentioned some loss figures, but was quickly withdrawn, and tharman got a slap from the pm, then when he spoke in the pariahmen, he did not mention any loss figures, then ms ho resigned, then the figures were out.

so you can see, the purpose is to pre-ampt all the questions on who should be responsible for the losses and what is the action taken on the culprit. smart move! the crisis saves the queen, and the queen saves the day!

why only a minister of state to make the announcement of the losses, not the finance minister himself?
could be viewed as the gahmen take the losses not as seriously as the public does. only $58 bil... what? not peanut lah.... but coconut only. no need to panic!

so tonite, before sleep, the queen said to king, "do you think people will blame me for loosing $58bil?"

"no lah. we told them it's due to the financial crisis."

"but they will bring up shin corp, indo telcom, abc..."

"no need to worry. since even the whole world could not tell the crash was coming, what makes them accusisng you not to able to tell shin corp, indo tel, abc would land themselves in such lousy states. forget about the 58. let's do the 69."

marathon man thinks, hmmm.... don't play play with the queen. when she goes into hiding, don't know how many 69's of singapore's reserve will be drained away.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

marathon man's fren ah chee is a teacher of economics. he asked him what can he teach to his students from the big losses of gic and temasek.

he said, 3 lessons:

- Since GIC faired better than Temasek(reports please!),it is time to consider merging the two investment vehicles, and let the management be under the GIC umbrella. This will consolidate resources and also strengthen the Singaporeans' confidence in having a better organization running our investment vehicle.

- The situation as mentioned by the senior Minister of State of finance that Temasek was in a better position, because it has the holding power , hence no need to make any panic selling, is a double-edged sword. NO panic selling is good, but don't know when to sell, and keep on holding a dying stock is VERY bad! Instead of holding on the archaic principle of 20-30-year view of any stock, a more agile strategy has to be developed to shed off those sunset stocks promptly to avoid making more losses.

- What's the wisest investment that any government with its people's money can make? It's the investment on its people; in our case, the Singaporeans, of course. Looking at what Singapore has achieved so far, though it claimed to in the 1st world, and attained numbers 1's in a lot of areas, it's still so vulnerable to outside influences, and lack of a solid base to anchor us in this chaotic times, it means there's still a lot can be done to get our nation to be a truly strong and proud entity. So our government shld not to be lured by the high returns(equivalent to gambling in some cases)in the equity market, but plough more money back to develop the national welfare(I mean enterprise, in case welfare is a taboo word).

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

marathon man's uncle, ah kui came to town from buangkok kampung. he asked marathon man, what he had to do since he already turned 55. marathon man heard he could opt his cpf for the retirement plan, like the newspaper said. he said he went to the transitlink to buy senior citizen fare card. the lady told him, not eligible until 60 years old.

he has been living in buangkok doing carpentor work for all his life except for a couple of years working in the shipyard many yeasr ago. so he still have some cpf to take back. he also a single man, asking marathon man whether he can introduce him some lady. any lady as long as she wants him as a husband, and not too fat, too thin, too dark or too tall, too short or too talkative or too quiet, or too rich or too poor, or too beautiful or too ugly. marathon man said, "if i can find her, i would also marry herlah, unlce. where got gal like what you wanted one?"

"why not? now, i heard economy bad, gals so many no work. i have work, so i can give them security."

"people nowadays also want to marry handsome, tall, rich hasbands. you only have enough for yoruself and maybe your wife, how to marry you? some more, yo live in uluu place. the gals want condos, big cars, big cards.... you got or not?"

"i don't have lah, but i have a big heart!"

"no use, big heart, no money.... no body see it."

"what you talk? they can come to buangkok to see."

"your heart is in bunagkok?"

"yes. my attap-zinc HUT is in buangkok."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

if you keep insisting, truth can be just that. that's what a lot of people think and are doing. for the free-thinker they insist there's no devine being. and by doing that, they think it's the truth. similarly for the GOD fearing people. similarly for the aqaeda, the anarchists, the rapists.....

the truth is what you insist it to be.

is that so?

that's what our gahmen does on its so called un-corruptibility, and its official public mouthpiece does on its credibility.

last nite, marathon man attended the st bash, brought in by his fren ah chee who contributed some letters to the forum.

ms joanne lee looked more beautiful than when she was the ankle woman of channel 5 news, though she still looked young but matured, still talked with a little bit of shyness. mr han fook kwang the st chief editor, a man from the gahmen, as expected insisted that st is as neutral as it can be. maybe for overseas news. but local news.... obviously siding the gahmen. likelast week, st reported the gilman heights verdict, just glossed over it without any reason why the judges arrived at the verdict that the minority owners was the losers. and the same day, TODAY reported with a big title page "DRAFT ERROR", stating the reason for the verdict, which itself is very strange and arbitrary and bordered the edge of tyranny. no wonder the st cencored it for fear of more questions being asked by the public on the biasness of singapore justice.

and mr yap koon hong, the forum editor was meek, and shy, holding back his words when he talked. not so forth-coming as the other editorial chief, mr peter khoo, the fat and round guy who talked and talked about the greatness of the press people and how st had to mind its footsteps for fear of stepping onto the authority's tail. and he stressed that st readership had been on the up trend, so he did not forsee any time sooner that st would go totally on-line or change to a free paper.

marathon man enjoyed the kui paiti during the reception. as it was dinner, but already 8pm, everybody took their turns to chomp up the food - whereas a better arrangement was to have reception during guest arrival....

marathon man said, "you know newspaper controlled by gahmen in sinagpore.... even in u.s. they are also controlled by the boss behind, like the wall street journal, bought over by murdock, has to listen to what he wants."

"what can i say. power is like gravity, permeates thru the society, it sucks everything towards itself. nobody can claim he's free from its grip."

rajapisang · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:29 pm Post subject:

Dear Nanny boy, I don't think I can agree with you 100% of what you wrote.

It's not true when you said that people working for American newspapers always wrote to please the owner of the papers. Remember the case of the publisher of Los Angeles Times who defied the new owner and was later sacked? Yes, it's a well known fact that Washington Post and Fox tv network are owned by the Republican party or by members of the party and they always write or publish stuff leaning heavily towards the opinion of the owner(s) or the Republican party. But then, it's also a fact that most of the papers in the US are unionised and the columnists, journalists are not scared or frightened of losing their job by writing or expressing their opinion contradictory to the owner's or owners'.

But in the case of ST, I would say that those guys have no balls and no dick. They only think of their rice bowl. They're just like all the a sskissers you see in all govt depts and GLC's.

Anyway, Nanny, don't you have to worry for pretty soon, the ST would also follow their American counterpart and be killed by the internet. Just watch my words for in life, nothing is permanent as shown just yesterday when F&N announced that they've lost their Coca Cola franchise.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

when you have too much to bear, just let go, like letting yourself falling from a clift, onto the water below. God will be the water that support you..... just let HIM be in you.

he was so exilarated when he stepped onto pierce road. some sort of emancipation, from the drudgery of the world, from all its worries and what not. heading forward, he reached the end of the road. he saw the soccer field, that stirred his memory, somehow. he saw the same field from the other side, the dempsey road side, during one of his trips into the old mindef camp. things seems standing still... little change to this little corner of land. then he turned back into pierce hill, all big bungalows with sprawling compaunds, and very boring thick and stifling build arthitectual..... telling visitors to buck up their ettiquetes. so much of air was in the space that, nobody dared to utter a squeek in this tense environ. high class society has its grip on people's mind, and freezes them in their corruptitious and rotting state that its hard for them to sustain this kind of living for too long. there's this house with a guard stationed outside. which minister was that? it was mr wong's house, he learned later.

swettenhan road had its share of memories in marathon man's jogging repertoire. many years ago, he jogged here, and encountered quite a number of big-house constructions. now this area is an established habitat of the rich and famous.

in rid-out road, he remembered he found a way to go into the mc donald in queensawy, now he simply routed himself in circles...back to pierce road.

as he was about to call it a day. he met a lady in her forties, asking for direction to go au petit salut, a french restaurant in the dempsey area, from her beamer. marathon man was trying to show her the way....but too many left's and right's and turns.... he ended up in the resturant with her in a candle light dinner for two, her other half just lost somewhere in the jungle of the botanic...

and the night ended with a meal of juicy raw osyster freshly flew from france..... how much can you expect from things just falling from the sky?

rajapisang · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:53 am Post subject:

Nanny Boy, if it's not a dream, I bet you that the 40 years old lady you met is either some old man's (most probably suffering from ED) mistress or an amateur hooker trying to make payment for her BMW. And she thought that you must be living in one of those mansions in that location, so why not pretend to ask you innocently the location of a certain address. Yes, yes, yes, you lucky son of a gun, you got "picked up" like the way a suave guy pick up a lady in a bar or better still like the recent case of the married mother picking up of her student lover.

The Americans like to say, "Every five minutes, a sucker is born" so I think it might apply to you. She impressed you even tho she is in her forties. She impressed you when she is driving a BMW. So you gotta impress her back with a candle light dinner with aphrodisiac power oyster as entree and a bottle of the best Chardonay in a fancy restaurant and you're now poorer by a few hundred dollars.

So my $64,000 question is whether you "score" in your investment? Or did she tell you that she is having her "period" or she has a splitting headache and needed to go home or there is no condom in the car? If that is the case, take consolation in Lau Lee's words after Temasek's and GIC's loss of over $100 bill, "it's meant to be a 20 to 30 years investment." So might be in ten to twenty years time, you might also reap your investment in Heaven!

Well, well, well, what else could I say. It's nice to dream as in Slumdog Millionaire for it might come true one day.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

the caterpillars have disappeared overnite. there was rain yesterday to wash away the remnants of step-smashed corpses of these little seasonal creatures. just last weekend, marathon man was all up at his utmost caution to avoid stepping on the creepy crawlies that moved about all over on the road-side pavements.

he was in a hurry to complete his jog, to avoid the darkness when he was pounding his feet somewhere in margeret drive. he made his way from rochalie dr where he had a glimpse of the pm's bungalow marked by 3 gate guards. he was quite surprised that the house number was 24. obviously our pm is not superstitious. he then went into chatsworth ave, then out to tangling road, then into jervois road, jervois hill, where new development of bungalows were rampant, and there's still one or two pieces of empty lots for sale. that was a quiet place that perched at a higher altitude compared to the surrounding area, should command a nice sum for a piece of land about 10000 sqft. he turned into mount echo park, a place he visited some years ago, a well established housing estate. he then stumbled into prince charles cresent, where all the roads with names of the british royal family congregated, but the area(queens town), like the british empire, is going down hill, deserted and neglected for development. good to keep it this way to reflect history and reality, and not to derpive the people another open space that's becoming harder to find, nowadays.

then he made the finding of the day - the track after the singapore river, running parralel to the margaret dr. for a regular jogger cum "singapore explorer", any place that he had not visited means very much a discovery of the century. though he doesn't think that there any place in this little island, that he hasn't put his feet on. yet surprise after surprise makes him change his mind, to pay more respect to this garden city on its un-expectedness in turning out new places. many times, when its time for him to jog, there's no planned route, he would simply drop himself in any corner, then starts reeling on, any which direction his impromtu mind takes him. and he would end up, like today, in some surprising discovery that makes his day.

but the pattern of un-expectedness also become something expected - a pattern in any way you look at it is a pattern - which is not so much out of any systematic thots.... like the caterpillars that crawl onto the pavement, the first time you found them, you were amazed by its novelty, the next, you thot there's some kind of seasonal regularity, then you see them many times more.... it became a routine encounter. and that's boring after you recognize the repeatiblity of the trend......

so what's next that can motivate marathon man to carry on with his calorie-sapping, mind-numming, hopeless and aimless drudgery ?

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

the rod, the 65-year-old-act-young singer attracted alot of oldies and not-so-oldies. angmohs and locals. marathon man went with her gal fren. the nite rained.... they shared a small umbrella. she pulled marathon man's hand that held the umbrella to her. he felt her bossom, full and springy.

as all concerts, this one started 20 minutes late. a slim and electrified rod with a blue jacket with three back-up blacks singers swayed to the stage amid a round of rancous applause. the song he pelted out were many. marathon man could only pick up those that he heard before, like maggie may, every picture tells a story, da ya think i'm Sexy?, have i told you Lately, reason to believe, tonight is the night... his most favorite, ....do ya think i'm sexy, brought back memories of the past when alomost everyday, he listened to this song, not that he owned it, but his housemate did, and he was also an ardent fan of the rod.

the ampliers' extremely loud sound sounded more like noise, strangely sounded like some very soft music.... you could hardly pick up andy familiar tunes from it... like a tune that you used to know just by the start of the music, even before the singer opens his mouth, becomes some very strange tune when amplified to ear-piercing volume.

the rod, though still kept himself slim and fit, the eyes drooped and lips thinned, and closed to a line, reminding marathon man of robin william. he hopped around the stage, stopped in a stooping position.... then ran back to the mike to catch up the tune.... looked cartoonic and his gal fren asked, "is he a pondan?"

"no. he is 5 times more man than any man. got a very young wife somemore. perhaps, that what keeps a man ever feeling young inside, and acting it out in his life."

the sax gal did a hell of a good blow job. the violin lady's constant gape made marathon man wanted to shaft his rod into her open mouth. the lead guitarist squeeze the hell out of his tensioned strings, like there's no tomorrow... the drummer and his co, beat the hell out of the sets like some kind of possessed zombies.... the nite ended when the big sreen flashed up "mr steward has left the building" when the encores and whistlings and clapping were too loud to be ignored.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

i feel like i'm a machine. i'm giving instructions to my cpu, or rather, my cpu is telling me what to do. let's get angry. even though somewhere some voice is telling me not to. but i have to. i have to listen to my programmed instructions. who programmed that? they say, there's always choices one can make to make one's life good. like when you come to the point whether to get angry or not to, to quit or not to, to eat ot not to..... many times. your neural network processor just executes whatever that's been programmed; YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE. you have a program.

before you sleep, can you tell your mind to shut down, and just relax your muscles, and let your sleepiness take over? if you can, then you are the programmer. many a time, marathon man thot to himself..... just take it easy, let go and sleep. no need to count sheep. but sometimes, the mind runs wild, with the intoxication of some high sugar level or sodium intake during the day time, the thots run ahead of him, and the whole machinary runs amok..... no matter how hard he tries to relax, it won't help. only a jab or a pill will do the trick.

reality is always very stark. no room for any romantic thots. weather you go for it, or run from it. no hesitation. people have many ideas and ideals, but the only one that counts ish YOUR's.

marathon man is tired. too tired that he wanted to re-tire. and so he told his fren, ah hung, "you have already retired for sometime, what you do ah?"

"i don't do lah. i just sit around."

"r u not tired just sitting around doing nothing?"

"i was tired of work, that's why i retired. now if sitting around makes me tired also, what else can i do? retire from sitting around?"

"that's why you are stuck sitting around?"

"i'm not stuck. i just find it too ridiculous to go around the circle just trying not to get yourself tired. tell me, is there anything in the world that you can do day in and day out and not getting tired of it?"

"ask mm lee. he is doing what he has been doing for many years, still not getting tired."

"but people are tired of him!"

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

WASHINGTON: The United States government threw a new US$30 billion (S$46.6 billion) lifeline to American International Group (AIG) as the embattled insurer reported a US$61.7 billion quarterly loss yesterday, the biggest in US corporate history.

sucked in, bail out, sucked in, bail out ........ that's what people like about capitalism - it's like making love!

when's the recession going to bottom out? like love making, it will CUM when both parties are satisfied.

marathon man likes to make love also. but he doesn't care too much whether his partner is a capitlaist or socialist or even communist or religious fundamentalist. to him, any hole with juice will do. now, that he has the means to go for any hole in the market. he would not stinge on getting the juiciest one in town. he went to joo chiat, in a vietnamese bar. he ordered hennessy, that rhymed with pussy. he drank with a viet pussy. and got so high that when he reached hotel 81 next door, he headed straight for the bed, and everything came to a halt. the next morning, the pussy gone and his wallet, money, credit cards, and ic also gone. he reported to the police. the sargent asked, "what happened?"

"i don't know, sargent. i got this 1st class pussy, and booked her for a nite, but nothing happened last nite except i got so drunk, that she got all my stuff while i passed out."

"hmmm. another case of suspicious swindling. you were not runk, but spiked."

"how? i thot i had a glass too many."

"come, bro. see, was this the gal you booked last nite?" he showed him a picture.

"ya...."

"that's it, you are the 12th victim."

"what? why police hasn't caught her yet?"

"well, fyi, the other 11 eleven were police officers. but boy, can you blame them?"[b][/b][b][/b][b][/b]

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

the little birdie chirping away, sucking the nectar from the flower with its long and thin beak, attracting the attention of marathon man. its thump-size body flipped the wing so fast that you thot that little creature was going to run out of fuel anytime and dropped dead from mid air in no time. but lo and behold, it just did its things with no bothering on anything else.

the pandan leaves in the garden gave out a pandanish fragrance. the bees were busy buzzing over the flowers of the star-fruit tree. the cheeku fruits were ripe for the plugging. the overnite dews on the hokkien-tea tree started to evaporate under the morning sun. the fruitless pamelo tree looked so slender and shaby amidst the other lush plants in the garden. bambu shoots already became tall grass.

the day broke into its full bloom!

marathon man's presence disrupts the little birdie's routine and it flew away. he did not intend it. but sometimes the act of observation disturbs the observed. he could not help it, unless he deprives himself of the role of an observer. then what could he be? a participator? to wet his feet in the pool and be one of them? or just shut out his senses, and let things rot?

things will rot, like the withered, dry leaves from a tree that's lying on the ground. and rotting returns the leaves to the soil, and the tree benefits from it as nutrients. so rotting is part and parcel of an eternal cycle - it's not a choice but a path one has to go thru if one chooses to be recycled back to the world.

the head is shrinking as you get older, his fren uncle alala told him. how he knew? he said, "i touched my skull, it felt sunk in. i used to be 6ft 5, now i'm only 6 ft 3. my head shrank 1 inch, and my spine shrank another."

marathon man said, "take it easy... shrinking is also part of life. just like getting bald.... as you age, you are going back to the state of your childhood."

"that sounds silly - you mean i'll become a teenager when i'm 80?"

"no - you would become little chocolate candies - like MM has!"

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

the mcritchie reservoir is a catchment area, therefore, there's more rain fall in this area compared to other areas in singapore. true or false? generally, northern singapore has more rainfall than the rest of singapore, and it happens that the part of the catchment area is near the north, not that catchmment areas will have more rainfall. march this year, is a rainy month, almost everyday rains. and thunders and lightnings, but no wind. it's not in the monsoon period, period. then why this march has so much rain? it's not a question that's been asked by anyone , but marathon man. his fren ah philip said, "this year is a year of the ox. and it's a water ox."

"obviously, the ox doesn't like the merlion. look, it got struck by lightning the other day."

"it's not that. it's the merlion who was getting angry. it used to look out to the bay, and over the bay, the ocean. now, the bay has become a pond, and the ocean view is blocked by the ir..... no view, just being locked in this concrete jungle, and now have to face the future gamblers and swindlers and whores and pimps.... that just broke its heart, i mean his mane."

"how you know?"

"hah, actually, merlion is just a manufactured myth. like singapore, a manufactured nation, once its manufacturer is gone, nobody will believe the myth any more."

"why you wish the founder to disappear? you hate him so much?"

"hate is something personal. it gets very irrational. all you want to do is to justify your existence to ensure the downfall of the ones you hate."

"is it worth it to hate someone?"

"well.... you need something to live for. hatred somehow is the most common motivation for human beings.... like you hate your leaders, you hate your neighbor, your classmate, your ex-lover, president bush, liverpool, a certain religion, a certain person....., a certain race.... and some country and people are living in the shadow of hatred all their lives.as you grow older, you hate more things. growth, unfortunately is just a process of accumulation of hatred."

"do you hate yourself?"

"think of it, yes. i do. i hate myself for hating others!"

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

taking a run in the explanade from the singapore flyer did not seem to be anything unusual to marathon man. he had done it many times; though not for quite sometime already. but the minute he came out from the singapore flyer, he already felt something unfamiliar. there was a large strip of tarmac road, a couple fo hundred meters long, infront of a long building. he tried do figure out what building was that. then he realized that the building was the pit stop,also the start/finish point for f1. two sport cars were revving their engines on the track, but that section of the track was just too short for any excitement. he remembered this area was full of trees before.

he continued on up the kallang river, and reached the rochor river, crossed the bridge, back to kallang river, up until he hit a bridge at geylang road, and crossed it. crossed the geylang road and sims ave underneath the mrt line, headed back to kallang river, he saw a small iguana swmming in the river, moving gracefully thru the water, with the forked tongue flipping in and out of the mouth. he obesrved it for a while, until it parked itself along the riverside. then he took off again until he hit the confluence of two smaller rivers. he chose to detour to the one on his left side. crossed the upper boonkeng road, where there were a couple of 2-storey shop/factory buildings. the kallang river branch ran beside one the rows. foreign workers sat on sheets spread out on the ground, drink, chatting, playing cards and having good times, just like the the thai workers by the rochor riverside..... they brought back memories of old kampung times, where people came out to enjoy themselves after a hard-day's work. these foreign workers sure have their sense of work-life balance. moving forward, he met the pie. he crosssed the river by the small pathway on the side of the pie, and climbed a flyover to cross the pie into the stretch between the pie and aljunied road. the tide was ebbing, and most of the water in the canal already flowed back to the sea, showing the slightly muddy river bed. a group of 7 or so white cranes perched on the rail beside the river, took flight into the air every now and then. they could possibly had alredy their dinner, and having their fun time catching up with one another on the day so far. it was a sight that marathon man least expected, having these graceful and auspicious creatures along this part of the river. he also saw a gang of minars, the smartest city birds, congregating on the river bed, frolicking and chirping away. and a couple of sparrows darting about on the river bank. then he arrived at the circuit road area, greeted by a group of all-black crows. one of them perched on the rail, even when marathon man went near it, it just gave him a miss, as if it owned the place. and a family on bicycles halted their journey, got off the bikes. the young daughter said, "look a crow is blocking our way...." the mother said, "don't go near, it will peck you...."

he stopped in the food centre for a drink. he ordered soya mixed with sian-chao. then he realized he did not ask the vendor not to put sugar, and it tasted so sweet he just took a sip and left the rest on the table. he bought bottled water in the shop instead. the balam road stretch was obviously newly contructed, to the spec of a typical park connector, with interlocking-brick pavement and nicely landscaped surroundings. what warmed marathon man's heart was the people, and their kids, coming out in hordes to have a good time in the new playground, riding the springy horses, playing the slides, turning the big wheels, flip-flopping the seesaw, climbing the rope maze....chasing around, giggling and cheering up the whole atmosphere.

in airport road, he saw buildings he had not seen before.... it looked so strange as if he was in an alien place. anytime he finds himself in a totally un-familiar place, the feeling of novelty arises, giving him a sense of achievement, a sense of lost also. he came to the end of this branch of kallang river. the abrupt ending took marathon man by disappointment. he thot he could spend the whole nite chasing the kallang river to its source. he turned right into hougang ave 3, which had not seen much development. he moved on until he found an s11 food centre where he had the most tasteless meal of fried spring chicken.

then he realized, if you don't like the food, don't force yourself to finish it. he used to wonder why people didn't finish their food. then he knew, most people's don't enjoy eating.

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

our mm lee is at it again. STUPID are those who dare to talk bad about his policies; in this case the bi-lingual policy.

but then, with dialects encouraged, we would be using it everywhere, even in the pariahmen. see:

ms lim : mr wong, salamat chau ki to loh? (mr wong, where is salamat now?)

mr wong : mg chai lah. (don't know)

mr speaker : ms lim.... tak boleh tanya bagitu. tanya lain boleh? (cannot ask this. ask something else.)

ms lim : mr tan, GIC chua yiu liaw an ne che lui? (mr tan, how come GIC
lost so much money?)

mr tan : ms lim, mai kau peh kau bu lah.... li an ne lau, ko bo kawin.... ta ta ji ai kong lui..... lui bing ha? ( ms lim, don't yell. you so old already, still not yet married.... always talk about money.... you money face?)

ms lim : mr speaker.... mr tan kong wa lau.... wa ai complain ah! (mr speaker, mr tan said i'm old lady, i want to complain.)

mr speaker : apa complain? sini complain, sana complain....mesti ajar perempuan ini... wong, kan seng( complain what? complian this, complain that..... must teach this lady a lesson.... wong, you up her!)
mr wong : ok

mr speaker : tony, tan! (tony, wait)

mr tan : ok lor.

----------------------------------------

marathon man, who know a few dialects himself thot why our mm lee still like small kid; small little thing scold people stupid.
then he realised mm is trying to find out why after so many years, singapore still cannot be number 1 in the wrold. and now he knows why: most of the singaporeans ARE STUPID - even the professors in the universities!

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

david faehner, vp of school developemnt is like a big kid, very enthusiastic when he talks about the champ. he says he met the champ since his kid and the champ's kid were of the same age group and they knew each other. and the conversation just takes off. many at the table are obviously not as enthusiastic, but since to be courteous, do not want to show any sign of disinterest. in lotus restaurant in quality hotel, the food is ok, vegitarian. the head of the andrews u is a dane, and mocks his english, to the amusement of the rest. doughlas is the only one from marathon man's batch. some are in-campus students, graduated from various disciplines, like music, early childhood, properties, some are from extension school in singapore, from software engineering, mba program. one old man aged over 70, who he recognised from his country club, also a student from software engineering. he is very proud to be the oldest student among the cohorts, to do a course on software engineering. eileeng, from the civil service talks a lot.

time flies. his fren said, "i attended the alumni this tuesday, and it looks to me that the older i get the older i tend to forget. am i going to have alzeimer? i forgot about most of the experience of my days when i studied for my msc.... even all the lectueres' names, the cohorts' names....the campus layout, only thing i remembered was there was a big water tower in the campus.... not its shape, only an impression of that tower, and now come to think about it, i doubt whether this memory is valid...."

marathon man said, " memories, if not revised, will fade away, especially when you have later memories piling onto the older ones."

"i don't remember the times when my kids were small, how they behaved, not much to remember though there were not supposed to be a lot of time spent with them.... it's real pity, memories can be so fragile. or rather my disregards to remember the times that's passed is apalling."

"i think you have too much worries. worries also kill memory cells. or disrupts the connection in the memory network."

"ya. i think so. how not to worry, in times like this?"

"i just tell myself, worry now, worry later..... worry every minute, things will not be changed. but you will - getting older faster. to change things, stop worry and live them, and you will see things change to the better. why? because without worries, you look at things differently - though things remain as objectively themselves as before."

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

society is very unfair - or is it the unfairness that forms a society? like the universe only exists because perfect symetry is broken.

10% of the population(the rich) holding 90% of the wealth, and 90%(the poor) holding 10%. that is not unfair. that's just what wealth like anything in the law of phisics, tends to end up in one extreme, like water flows from high places to low places, heat flows from high temp to low temp, universe would either expands or contract.....

now, even the 10% of wealth that the 90% people are holding is not due to their own deligence, its due to the good-will from the other 10% of the population. infact the 10% wealth that the 90% are holding are the scraps, of the 10% richer population.

how's that so?

it's very obvious in the economic downturn.

americans are angry that aig which received big bailouts from the u.s. gahmen aka, the u.s. taxpayers still giving out millions as bonus to their high-paid managers. the reason, it's in their job contracts. the reason that it's in their job contracts as it's also in all the ceo's or corporate honchoes' contracts, so the companies can retain the "talents". now if these talents go somewhere else the company will collapse. and the workers(the poor guys) will loose their rice bowls. so the poor owe their livelihoods to the rich.

a compamy is the most undemocratic environment : whatever the head says, the subordinates MUST follow. that's what they call company protoco.... unwritten rule, but surely cannot be broken. it's always top-down.

take cost cutting as an example. during this economic downturn, all companies are engaging in one way or another belt tightening policies...... they cut things like employees' medical benefits, social benefits, travelling benefits.... and all these benefits added up, would not be more than a half of what could be saved if the managers, directors', ceos' pay and bonus and benefits(but this is always done when all other employees' benefits are already cut to the bones, and many a time, manpower reduction comes first before any pay-cuts are done to the highly-paid personnel).

marathon man's fren ah suresh was complaining to him when they were having drinks after completing 2 days of hard-walking ball-stroking.

marathon man said, "so you think the capitalist system is no good? what can you suggest?"

"hmmm... i don't know. perhaps still capitalist, but tax the high-incomers more."

"you think that would not kill the incentive for these talents to hold back their performance? you know people do their best in return for a good reward. now that whatever they get got taxed, they would feel might as well just stop at whatever they feel they want to."

"if people work purely because of getting more money, then, human beings have a long way to go to become civilized. the higher-tax policy can work because, the taxes from countries like america is already high, and still you find people rushing to work and rushing to become
managers. so what if you tax the highly-paid managers higher, there will still be people or talents going for the highly-paid jobs. the republicans, like most of the bosses oppose that excatly because they are the ones who are the culprits who causes the collapse of the system and yet don't want to admit it."

"well.... you may have a point. but since the world is still run by the 10% rich, you could bet your last dime, it would not be adopted into law. because if you do that in the u.s. the talents will flow to other countries, and u.s. will kaput. can they afford that?"

nanny · Joined: 31 May 2004 Posts: 351 Status: Offline

"when your boss visits you, what do you do?"

"do what he wants." marathon man said.

"hmmm.... good idea."

that what ah winston does when his boss visits him this week.

he brings him to see the vendors, lunch and dinner him nicely. bring him to golf... shopping, karaoke....

and the end result is ah winston gets a fat bonus for the job well-done, though there seems to be little reasons for any company to give bonus to their employees during this recession period, except bailed-out companies like aig, fannie and freddie...

winston has a habbit. he likes to entertain people, so entertaining his boss is a piece of cake for him.

marathon man,"which karaoke you bring him?"

"the most secret and private karaoke in town, somewhere in the rich and famous housing estate.... in a big bungalow. where the rich and famous go for their happy hours."

"what did you do there?"

"we have a room to ourselves.... we have one gal each... and then after some drinks and singing.... we partitioned the room in two... and i was too busy myself to find out what he did in the other side of the partition. only thing was, after 30 minutes.... i was already flat out.... the other side was still very noisy. then everything became quiet and still.... i thot there's something wrong, so i pulled open the partition.... there my boss and the gal were busy singing into each other's organic mike."