I Love Golf. I Love It Not. Love It. Not

I sometimes wonder how much I actually love playing golf - a game which essentially means focusing to wack a white ball into a 3-inch hole using different sticks!  And then repeat 18 times of that, which easily takes up half a day. 

For the numerous sports I have endured, I think it is safe to conclude I loathe golf.  There's nothing more depressing than playing a terrible round of golf in which you were really excited about. 

The harder I wanted to hit good shots and shoot for lower scores, the worse I played.  The problem was, no matter what method or gimmick you tried, no matter how much money you spent on clubs and lessons, no matter how much you practised, you still missed a shot or two at worse, sliced and hooked at best!   

Most frustrating.

And yet do you know what frustrates me even more?  It is the fact that I don't want to give up! 

Reason being: I just can't quite get myself to accept I am never going to be good at hitting a tiny ball and see it flying in the air over a long stretch of field, calling penalties on myself every now and then, before it finally goes into a hole!

Even typing this out makes this sports sound like something ridiculous.  There you go...an entire post devoted to the hatred of golf!

I know this is reading more like a whiny diary entry than one of my normal blogs but I have a feeling every golfer has been here before.  I just need to get it out of my head, it probably wont repeat.

Vacation To-Do-List

Over dinner, my father was asking me what I plan to do for my upcoming long vacation.


I thought I had it all figured out and I happily told him the list of things I have planned for, the people I am meeting and the places I am heading to. 


"A whole lot of planning goes into this time of year, kid.  Why not put yourself on that list of things as well?"  

Right.  Point taken.

It's like what they say in the safety demonstrations on plane rides. 

"Please place your oxygen mask on yourself before you tend to your child."

To-do-list No. 1: An invigorating full body massage tomorrow is in order!

Feet On The Ground, Head In The Cloud

My home PC went on strike the other night, where the blue WordPerfect 5.1 screen of death got me down and missing DLL files made me frown.

I did the requisite rain dance but things were still wonky.  Panic attack led me to believe it was time for some extreme action - either reboot and reinstall Windows or...perhaps look into switching OS. 

I also took the opportunity to tap into what the world is buzzing about - cloud computing. 

I think so far, the best part of cloud computing has been that wonderful use of the word "cloud". 

Telling users their data is in the cloud is like telling a kid his dog has gone to -  doggie heaven. You and I know there is no doggie heaven as such and likewise, your data isn't floating in a cloud so to speak.  It is in fact, residing in a datacentre somewhere in a rural part of the world.
 

Honestly, none of that cloudy concept is new.  Think Hotmail, your Blog, your Facebook.  All of them aren't stored in your local hard drive, but are accessed by an umbilical cord linked to the internet.  How new is that?  But somehow it became ever so cool when Apple does it with the introduction of iCloud.

With iCloud, I can keep all devices on the same page with all my stuff. Take a photo on my iPhone and the photo got shot up to doggie heaven cloud and then rain falls back down into my iPad and whatever else I have as long as it's - made by Apple.

The trend is basically saying, as more and more of our data evaporates off our hard drive and ascend into doggie heaven, Steve Jobs up there will get more control over us.

I suppose a lot us will like to have it both ways i.e. feet on the ground, head in the cloud.  Down the line though, we may be forced to decide: If I can totally trust doggie heaven / Steve Jobs in heaven, does it mean I can demote my home PC entirely?

Simple (Is) Better

Just as Chinese characters have a traditional and a simplified version, I discovered the same applies to good old conversational English!

Let's compare the Queen's English with some Singaporean English (Singlish), which I came to master.


Briton : Hello, my name is Bond.  James Bond.  Did anyone call for me a few moments ago?

Singaporean : Hello, who called?


Briton : I beg your pardon Sir, but we don't seem to have what you are looking for.  If you could just bear with me for a moment, I can certainly call another outlet of ours and run a check.

Singaporean : Wait ah...I check for you.

Briton : Excuse me, but do you think it would be possible for me to enter through this door?

Singaporean : Can pass or not?

Briton : What do you propose we do before dinner?

Singaporean : So how?

Briton : Hey, put your wallet away, the drink is on me.

Singaporean : No need lah.

Briton : I am terribly sorry, I could have said so earlier if circumstances allowed that.

Singaporean : Aiya, I would say so if I could leh.

Briton : Under no circumstances you are allowed to cheat

Singaporean  :  You die die can't cheat one.


A Singaporean will tell you "Simple better".  Let's put aside the grammatical context of that two-word sentence (didn't know a sentence can be that short for a starter)!

Exactly.  That on its own, forms a brilliant demonstration of the sheer efficiency and effectiveness of communicating with the astonishing - Singlish!

Simplifying A Classic Mathematical Problem

A decadent box of chocolates adorned the living room.  

When Audrey saw it, she couldn't resist and ate 1/6 of the box.
Then along came Betty who refused to admit she ate 1/5 of what Audrey has left in the box.
Hungry Benson arrived, took out 1/4 of the chocolates that remained.
Later that day, Mandy happily finished off 1/3 of the remaining.
By the time I returned home, I managed to have 1/2 of what was left.
When my sister Amy discovered the delicacy (much later), only 4 pieces were scattered inside the box.

Just what did Audrey manage to have?

Apart from a clogged brain, she might have...Diabetes! 

LOL

You Are The Apple Of My Eye

I first came across this idiom from Stevie Wonder's song "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life"...its lyrics goes like this...

You are the sunshine of my life. That's why I'll always be around.
You are the apple of my eye. Forever you'll stay in my heart.


It means someone pleasantly sweet and of great worth, whom you cherish above all others.  Just like our eyesight.  It is so precious, if someone is called this as an endearment - is deemed equally precious.

They don't seem to write flowery songs like this now, do they?  And I wonder why. 

What is it that gives the great ballads their special feel and flavour that kept us playing the oldies over and over?

Call me old-fashioned but I am thinking there was something much more nuanced and subtle alive in the music world back then, harmony-wise, lyrics-wise and in many ways I struggle to describe.

May be...gone were those days.  

It is awesome to have movie like this one, which steers us to reminisce the old, revalue the current and relive what comes in future.   

Email Etiquette

I come across this a lot at work: 

It is my job to respond to emails because some people expect an immediate response via email, even though it is not seemingly urgent. 
 
What a sad state of affairs - we have all become professional email responders, haven't we?  

Realistically, it is essential that we respond to emails but I never think email should be considered as an "immediate response" type of tool in a matter of urgency when you have something called IM, which denotes "Instant Messaging" and that's exactly what it is there for.  Alternatively, we can simply call the party by picking up the good old tool called a "desk phone"  - which probably has been taking up a corner of your desk collecting dust as we speak. 

You don't sit in front of your mailbox waiting for mail to arrive.  You will go fetch it when you can, deal with it in your own time and you are not going to let the pile of mails upset you when you see them.  Why should we treat emails any differently?

Hello...I hope we don't have to slap ourselves every now and then to remind us we are humans and that we are capable of dealing with things such as...electronic mails.  

The Various Friendship Kinds

Have you ever think of the many different types of friends we can have. 

There are those who you deal with only on a professional level where professional and business etiquette must be practiced.

There are those party friends who you would immediately think of when you want some bit of fun and that they are great to be hanging out with.

There will always be some which seem to have a solution for just about everything...Some zen friends who are permanently non-stress, do you have some of those?

Some, you would only think of when your bank balance is fast depleting and you needed someone to pay your dinner bills.  Then on the other hand, there will be some who will only pop up when they want to ask you for some favours. 

Some are hard to catch, they are almost always never there when you called but then you haven't quite given up on them just yet.

There are of course some buddies whom you grow old with, that you know each other so well that you can share the most intimate hair (I meant fears) and sentiments with.

There are also those special kinds that you think of from time to time, but never have the gut to pick up the phone and call.  Whose voices you so long to hear, opportunity presents itself every now and then but you just never quite grasp the chances on time for a meet up.  

Some, how ever distant they are, they will never be forgotten. 


To me, friendship is a relationship where both individuals can have a great time together, with whom there are less ego fights, with whom I can have open conversations, and who will prove loyal.  

No one is perfect, including me, and so no relationship can ever be perfect.  And, to tell you the truth, I’m pretty weird,  so it would be highly unlikely that I can meet my exact duplicate on this earth! 

So I took a moment to appreciate all my friends, no matter which way they come to me, or how long they stay. We only get to stick around on this earth a short while so...make the most of it.

Siri-ously Speaking

Purely out of curiosity, I can't wait to grab hold of Siri - iPhone 4S's latest voice-recognition personal assistant - who, according to Apple, is able to tell your wife that you are running late, or send a note to your friend.  


Hypothetically, Siri does what you say, finds the information you need, then answers you just like you are having a normal conversation with a human but this time with a device - the iPhone.

Right...exciting as it may sound, don't think your wife will be particularly impressed with that when you have the time to ask for help from Siri personally but don't have the time to tell her yourself that you are running late!


Then you might try instructing Siri to send a note of apology to your wife.  Sounds viable too but, how impersonal will that make you, seriously?


What happened to the "I just call to say I love you" era?  

Musings At A Cafeteria

I was observing each and every passerby while sipping my coffee alone on a fine autumn day.  There was just me and another woman in the cafe - on a quiet Saturday morning. 

A gentleman decided to join us, he ordered his coffee and sat right across me.  He looked at the woman sitting opposite him and admired her legs which had tasteful black tights on heels.   Nice calves, he thought.  Then he moved on towards her chest.  She was wearing a white silk blouse buttoned part way up.  Nice rack, he mused. 

This was the time when the man looked around, mindful that a man his age shouldn't be staring at a young woman for long.  He probably didn't think I noticed him and so he returned his gaze to this woman - whom at the time, was feverishly punching the keys of her iPhone. 

That woman shifted in her seat and her bosoms swayed.  They are definitely real, he thought, a smile creeping up on his face.  The fake ones don't jiggle like that, he reasoned.   What he didn't realise before I did, was that he had tilted his coffee cup and his coffee was spilled all over the table and started dripping on his pants!

Why men are so boobs-crazy, I have no idea.