Erickson

What's wrong with Erickson? For someone who's paid more than 4 million pounds a year, he's capable of better management and tactics. For starters, he's the first non-Englishman to coach the England side(kind of an irony for a country who invented soccer) since 2000 and he has been in the news for the wrong reasons as he couldn't control his roving eyes and hands and indulge in affairs with a Bangladeshi woman who happens to work in the English Football Association.

Yesterday's match against Ecadour was pathatic as England struggled to find rhythm as they were playing in a unfamiliar 4-5-1 formation and Rooney, a support striker was playing as an all and out striker. Any manager in the world will know that Rooney cannot play in the position and the World Cup offers no luxuries of testing out formations when teams should have done that months ago. England for all their talent scored only 1 goal courtesy of David Beckham from a classic free-kick

The only highlight of the match was the camera zooming in on Victoria who was estatic after her hubby scored. I had rather see Victoria jumping up and down than see the team which I support play like crap. Their only salvation lies in the quarter finals and I doubt they will get past the quarters unless they can conjur up something remarkable. God Save the English!!

Late-night wisdom

Do not let the anger simmer within you for it might define the purpose and direction of your life.

Venkat

Iraqqqq!!!!!!

I just realised that I haven't been blogging about politics for some time as I was busy putting up and dedicating videos of hot women. Both women and men have certainly feasted their eyes on the music videos and have throughly appreciated it. You can't stop checking out Beyonce or Shakira from head to toe or try to get the music videos out of your head. However, my dear readers and loyal friends need to know that I'm a man of balance and I seek a right mix of serious and fun issues. I hope i don't sound sophisticated and if i do, I'm sorry about that. Talking about sophisticated issues, I would like to give my two cents worth of opinion on the Iraq issue as it seems a bit complicated and I would like to tell my version of the Iraq story

Not again. I have read the opinion columns, editors' column, internet listings, magazines and I'm sick of the issue as some of you all might feel but the Iraq issue is indeed a very interesting topic. For those of you guys who are not sure what i'm talking about, it's the invasion of Iraq by America. Mr George Bush, the American president felt that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction or had weapons of mass destruction(WMD) capable of destroying the world and he was concerned for the safety of Israel, America and the world as he felt that Saddam Hussein was capable of using these weapons of mass destruction to destroy the world.

Saddam Hussein was the notorious guy who invaded Kuwait in 1991 and was guilty of gassing the Kurds and Mr Bush felt that Saddam was capable of more ruthless stuff if he can do such heinous stuff earlier in his power. We can say that the US attack was a preempt attack to prevent Saddam Hussein from using WMD. The no 1 question is why will America attack Iraq.

Firstly, we should never totally believe politicians as they are political people(pardon the lameness) and they can't be expected to furnish the public with the complete truth. In 1991, America helped Kuwait to overcome the Iraq invaders and Desert Storm was a victory for America. If Kuwait was a land of sand and no worth, I doubt America will have entered the 1991 war. Kuwait is a oil-rich country and America had to gain a lot if Kuwait was under their control instead of our friend, Saddam Hussein. I disagree with Bush to a certain extent that the main reason for attacking Iraq was that they had WMD and they had to stop the misuse of it and I personally feel it was one of the lesser reasons. In that case, America should have attacked our troublesome friends, North Korea and Iran as they are also capable of launching their WMD and their leaders are quite unpredictable as well.

Secondly, America seems to want a regime change in Iraq as Saddam is a dictator and has been ruthless and so America is doing the Iraqis a favour. If America really wants to play good brother, they should have assisted in changing the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan(military regime) and many more corrupt regimes but instead they chose not to as these regimes were favourable to them. I won't totally agree that Mr George Bush was a liberator of Iraq.

The reason why America attacked Iraq is simple-it was the oil. I know you guys will be thinking..duhhh..I will like to explain the explanation behind the America attack based on the oil concept. America consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day and they have a reserves of 20 billion barrels of oil and if there was a war and the oil production/exports were to stop, the reserves will last America for maximum 3 years. America has the Saudi and Kuwait oil to meet part of the demand but America still need to meet its daily demand and the next oil rich country is Iraq and our dear Saddam is not kind and friendly enough to sell oil and America knows that if they can't confirm the supply of Iraqi oil, they are in deep shit and they can't continue to use their reserve oil as it's saved for a rainy day considering the fact that America has made more enemies than friends these days.

This oil reason clearly shows that our friend Bush should not be totally trusted to deliver the truth and America has a lot to gain as the military expenditures and losses are incomparable to the massive economic gains they will later gain Regime change and WMD were also part of why America wanted to attack Iraq. America has and always will enter a war or poke its nose if it has something to gain. Personally, i'm divided over the oil issue as i would not know what I would have done if I were in Mr Bush's shoes.

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_res-energy-oil-reserves

Beyonce

The hottest chick in town deserve a mention in my blog. She's freaking hot..enjoy the video

Gambling!!

I love money.In fact, everybody loves money.Nobody can resist the lure of money. Who doesn't? Everybody will love to make a quick buck or two and with the ongoing World Cup, people will be tempted to place a bet. The World Cup betting is said to run into billions of dollars. As i was reading the New Paper today, I noticed a number of gambling hotlines which supposedly offers top gambling tips(to the tune of 50 dollars a call or $2 a min) from the soccer experts and in some ads gives statistics on the results which they have predicted correctly.

If it was that easy to make money by listening to the expert's advice, why don't these fellows have to share their so-called secrets? They might as well keep their secrets to themselves and make good money. They know that there are gamblers who will do anything to make a quick buck and by listening to these experts, gamblers receive an assurance of the bets they place and the sums placed can run into thousands. Gambling has never made a person rich. From the stories I read and hear, people go into debts and the only people who gamble freely without any worries are the rich people. It's very difficult to stay away from gambling once you get hooked onto it and especially when you incur heavy losses and try to recoup those losses.

The only thing the guys who set up the soccer hotline are interested in is your money. They are providing a service and they expect a return on their service where you have to part ways with your money to pay for the 'expert's' advice. Naturally, you will want to place a bet after making that expensive call to recoup your money and also to make a quick buck.

I'm not asking everyone to stay away from placing small harmless bets in the name of fun. I just hope people will be wise(I hope so) and know their limits. I might place a bet or two just for the fun of it in the coming World Cup.

Vanessa Mae

I didn't notice her until my friend introduced me to classical music and she can certainly play the violin. Respect to Singaporean girl Vanessa Mae. Enjoy the music and the video

Second Day in Bangkok

The second day was no different from the first except that there were more interesting characters and places we met and went to. I'm usually an early bird in foreign places and I was awake at 6am. I thought the time was 5am when i woke up but I received a shcok when I saw the time. I didn't want to disturb the two survivors and proceeded to have a slow bath in the bathtub(make use of the opportunity while you can). We proceeded to have our breakfast. I saw first light only at 7.30am(no joke)

The hotel breakfast buffet was the best highlight of our trip as it was worth our money and it was certainly beyond expectations for a 3 star hotel. There was a pastry section with 10 different pastries and a section for fried food(fried rice,mee goreng,french toast,bacon..) and there is actually a cereal section with six 6 different cereals. We shamelessly helped ourselves to the buffet but we were decent enough not to overfill our plates as some of our Singaporean buddies did.

We then proceeded to look at the shops as I couldn't believe the fact that the shops open after 10 and I bought a toothbrush(I forgot to bring this essential item of all things) at 7-11 before heading back to our hotel room to rest. I couldn't get the hell out of our hotel room as I felt that we should hit the shopping centres instead of lazing around. We hit Siam Square which was like another Paragon which had boutiques and the prices were sky-high. We were not expecting MBK prices for expensive labels and we proceeded to MBK and I did some shopping and I began to bargain shamelessly as I felt that the prices were not justifed as they were jacked up. The Thais were decked in yellow shirts as they were celebrating their King's birthday and it was kind of nice to witness that.

I pissed off quite a few sales people particularly the crystal lady whom I thought will sell me the crystal figurine at 100 baht but told me it's for 130 baht and I walked out of the shop as I felt that we agreed for 100 baht and I refused to stare in her direction as she was staring hard at me. There was also the sunglasses lady who refused to sell the sunglass lesser by 10 baht and I didn't buy and I realised that it was pointless to bargain for 50 Singaporean cents when I should be bargaining for a few Singapore dollars. The shops in MBK were basically selling the same shirts and shorts and there was no much of a difference.

I got a tattoo(a temporary one) and the tattoist looked scary and entertained us with his guitar while we were waiting for my tattoo to dry which took 30 mins. The best part was after taking a photo with him, I forgot to pay him for the tatoo. My short term memory is absolutely bad and we had lunch at a Long John style restaurant(can't remember the name of the restaraunt) which was bad before we went to hit the other shopping centres.

We did serious window-shopping and ended up buying nothing at these stores and I bought 'Freakonomics' from one of the bookstore as I finished my Ben Elton's past mortem thanks to Lester's recommendation though I didn't get past the first few pages. We later searched high and low for a barber for 30 mins as my hair was getting longer and Megan also needed a haircut. We finally found a massage centre-cum barber(what the hell) and I had a hard time explaning to the hairdresser before her supervisor kind of understood my English and it was a decent haircut. We then went back to laze around in our hotel and the two survivors had to convince Sara to eat at a roadside stall as he was cautious of the food. I regretted buying chicken rice as I didn't like it but there was no complains as the prices were damn cheap. However, we witnessed two children playing with a cardboard box when our Singaporean kids will be playing with their Gameboys and playstations and I wondered if they could ever break from their cycle of poverty and the answer saddenned me.

We then hit the famous Suan Lam night market which was huge and I was again back to what I was doing-bargaining till I got a good deal for my money. I pissed off a lady who agreed to sell a pair of boxers from 250(rip-off) to 100 and managed to get 2 for 160 and she wasn't happy with the deal as she wasn't getting a huge profit from me and I managed to get a good waist pouch for a reasonable price and the survivors were clearly unhappy with me for spending too much time at shops bargaining when I felt that if we don't bargain, we will get a bad deal. When we were about to go,I saw lots of people crowding around a big screen and I realised that it was the world cup opening match. We took a cab which didn't go by its meter and we watched the world cup at our hotel room. It was a pretty interesting match and the best moment was when thomas frings scored an outstanding goal from outside the box and the final score was 4-2 in favour of Germany.

We retired early and looked forward to our trip to Chatuchak the next day.

3rd Day-To Be Continued....

P.S: I urge people to refrain from reading my blog if it affects them. I don't believe in changing the content of the blog or my style of writing to suit others.

First Day in Bangkok

It's been a few days since I came back from my Bangkok trip and I feel nostalgic about my Bangkok trip. To sum it up, it was good fun and excitement spread over the 4 days with numerous characters and events never failing to entertain us. I began my research on Bangkok once the travel dates was confirmed. Scrolling through the web pages about Bangkok made me even more excited about going to Bangkok and the day finally came after 3 weeks of wait. The 3 survivors going to the trip were Megan, Sara and me.

Megan and I reached the airport earlier than expected at 11am as I guess we couldn't wait to check-in and get on the plane to Bangkok. We got a shock when we learnt our third and final survivor, Sara was in the airport as we expected him to come late as usual as I can't remember the last time he was punctual. I received a bigger shock when I saw that his bag was bulky and I asked him to weigh his bag and the bag weighed a grand total of 7 kilos after telling him to bring minimal stuff the day before as we would be doing shopping over there. The tag '7 kilo Saravanan' got stuck to him for the entire trip. After Meenatchi and Anbu send us off, we did wingdow-shopping before getting onto the plane.

It was a long time since i got onto a plane and I requested for the window seat. The view from the plane is simply breath-taking and you can never get sick of having an eagle-view of our tiny island unless you are flying week in week out. More trouble were to come as Megan got into an uncomfortable sitting position when an Indian expat sitting in front of him began to recline his seat all the way to the back and the other two survivors were having a laugh at his expense. The Cathay Pacific air stewardess were pretty average as I was not expecting SIA standards and our lunch was served half and hour before landing and I had to rush my lunch. A pity that I had to rush through my Haggen daz Ice cream..

More trouble were to follow as people warned me to shave off my beard before leaving for Bangkok as the custom checks are very rigorous nowadays. As usual, I wanted to test the system and it was not my beard but the arrival/departure card which got me into trouble as the staff over there refused to chop my passport until I have filled my form completely. I made a grand total of 3 trips to the lady before I went to the other counter as I was pissed. After clearing customs(which was a breeze), we went to search for our travel agent.

This travel agent deserves a mention in my blog. He was one of the highlights of our trip and the survivors named him 'Smiling Prince' as he was always smiling and he tried to encourage us to buying 600 baht tickets to the tiger show. I realised that it was too hefty and he was going to earn a big fat commission from us. As Danny put it, everybody in Bangkok is a professional and they will earn commission one way or another and I'm not going to let him earn commission off us. Our van came a hour late and Smiling Prince somehow managed a wry smile in the midst of his panic mode.

There were two other passengers on the van as well. Megan named them R and J(Romeo and Juilet) as they were hilarious on the last day. While we were all in the van, R and J were talking about going to a temple to get 4D numbers and Megan understood them as he could understand simple mandarin phrases and words. We were just surprised that people do such nonsensical things in this age but I guess greed knows no limits.

After an hour on the road, we reached our hotel and Smiling Prince tried to push his luck with massage thinking that he can earn some commission finally but we disappointed him yet again. When we went into our hotel room, I received a pleasant shock. There was a bathtub,a proper tv with decent channels, 2 sofas and 2 proper beds and a spare bed and a window finally. The Malaysian hotel which we stayed in last year was a disaster and the facilities were atrocious! We began to laze around in the hotel room before going to Mah Broon Kong(MBK).

MBK is one of the biggest shopping centres in Bangkok and you need at least a day to go through all the shops. We had a proper meal at a restarant and the finale dish was a currypuff pizza which was unique and good. We tucked in to some Dunkin Donuts(awesome) before going for a massage.

The Thai traditional massage is very good and I almost fell asleep as it was that good. It was certainly one of the highlights of our trip as it was relaxing and it was worth the money. I will definitely recommend the Thai massage to anyone going to Bangkok.

Day 2-To be continued...................

THE SUN!!!!!!!

I love the British. Not very much but more than the Americans. They gave the world Beetles, Craig David and Blue. They have created/invented numerous sports(cricket,soccer and the list goes on) and gave the world a Beautiful language -English which has certainly bridged gaps and ensured Singaporeans could still be understood by our Western friends but our Western friends are still baffled by our Singlish and have difficulties coming to terms with it. I definitely have problems understanding the English Lingo and slang as the phrases are not exactly you come across in a English dictionary. As much as I love them, I also hate their arrogance and their colonisim where they have benefitted from their conquests.

I just came back from Bangkok yesterday(will do the updating very soon) and I bought the Sun paper from Bangkok aiport bookstore. I just wanted to check out if the English tabloid was really that notorious for its nonsensical and rubbish stories and its clinical dissection of celebrites' lives and it lived up to its billing. The usual page 3 bullshit which features topless models(i don't fancy English models) and crappy stories dominated the Sun.

I guess the newspaper satisfies their readers' lust for juciy stories and anything that involves sex, murder and celebs are certain to make it to the Sun. These are sadly the trademarks of possibly the best selling paper in the world. Readers sadly do not want to hear about mother theresas of the world dedicating their lives to voluteerism and instead they will rather see the Parises, Nicoles and Jessica Simpsons partying away in some of the many high-profile events and it will certainly be a treat for male readers to see their pictures of scantily clad famous celebs and showing off their real and fake assets. I do want my ideal newspaper to have a bit of gossip and serious issues but I guess that's ideal of me to ask for a ideal newspaper!!

Shakira!!!

Another of my late bloomer girls whom I didn't take notice until this song.She's freaking hot!!!Check out the dance moves!!

Being a tour guide

I met up with Danny, my hall friend who is from Canada and was on exchange programme last semester at my old block two days back. It was pretty fun to meet up with him as he shared his travel stories(i'm a sucker for stories). He's travelling all over S.E Asia by the way and came to Singapore for a two day stop over before flying off to Australia. I began to badger him of his trip to Bangkok as I would be going there soon and I wanted to prepare myself and wanted to know how the system works there. His Bangkok account was pretty interesting and I know what to look out for in my Bangkok trip.

The next day, I followed him to Bugis as he needed to buy some T-shirts and it was his first time going there. We reached Bugis at 1pm and we were going around Bugis Street. He bought a Singaporean souvenior t-shirt from Bugis Street and he bought a Bossini T-shirt. It was interesting as he came all the way to Bugis just to buy a Bossini t-shirt when he could have bought it at Jurong Point.

We went to Peninsula Plaza to check out the clothes there and we stumbled upon this store where the uncle tried to sweet-talk Danny into buying his LLboy(Lee Lee boy) shirts. I was just laughing to myself as I found the brand name hilarious. In the end, we left the shop without buying anything and in fact he didn't make a single purchase at Peninsula.

We went over to Suntec City and Danny almost didn't make a purchase as the prices were astronomical and the discounts offered on the astronomical prices didn't tempt him to buy them as the price was way off his budget until he chanced upon a top man shop and he bought a shirt. At final count, he made a grand purchase of 3 t-shirts and we bid each other farewell as I won't be seeing him again unless i happen to visit Canada.

It was pretty interesting to meet Danny as he loves to talk about politics and it's refreshing to hear a different point of view and his travel stories never fail to amaze me. Haha, scooting off to Bangkok in another 12 hours. Can't wait for it!! Bangkok, here I come!!!!

Saturday!!!

It's been a long time since my saturday was fully packed without any tuition. It's good to have a break once in a while from tuition. My saturday morning started off with the long journey from my home to NTU for the handing over of the old exco. The journey can be a pain in the ass as it is long and you have to leave 2 hours in advance so that i can reach NTU on time compared to the times where i can wake up 1 hour before a meeting and still make it on time when I had my hostel room. Now, I truly understand the pain of my Tampines comrades who make their way to NTU and the importance of having a hostel room.

Anyway, I reached tutorial six thinking that everybody will be in the midst of the meeting only to find out that Rui Jie was not there. I killed time by talking to Lester and Chen Hui before Rui Jie made an appearance and he never failed to entertain me with his jokes(Sng and Sng and delegate). I frankly have no idea how he can come up with such jokes but i can never dispute the entertainment factor. The meeting lasted for 4 hours and my brain began to go into sleeping mode as I hate afternoon sessions and I hate working in the afternoon.

The remaining survivors(Putu,Lester,Chris,Agam and me) went to play pool at Jurong East. It was good as I guess winning the games(at the expense of Chris,sorry girl) and hitting the right moves can make for a enjoyable pool experience. The music was awesome as I didn't know there can be some dumb ass songs which can get on your nerves and work up a laughter if you repeatedly sing it.

Then, I made my way to Hougang where Sneha invited me and the usual gang for dinner. I have no idea on what's the occasion but I just went for it. It was certainly good as Anto was his usual self making jokes and being himself and Priya cracked corny jokes and Praveen(Sneha's friend) cracked one or two jokes. The most memorable event was the food of course as I shamelessly helped myself to 3 helpings of the food and of course meeting J.P was the highlight of the dinner occasion. I guess Sneha purposely arranged so that we can meet J.P. Quite a smart move..

I guess it was certainly one of the best Saturdays I have ever experienced with so many different people. Saturday was a blast!!