世间无不散之筵席… 让一切随风。眼不视为净！
人走人的阳关道，俺过俺的独木桥。 此处不留爷，自有留爷处！
Author: Grievous
If your dog bites someone…
On Nov 26, 2007, 5 large-breed Rottweilers dashed out of a Lengkong Tika home and attacked a small-breed Jack Russell terrier being walked by its owner. The dogs had allegedly bitten a person earlier. What happened after that, was that the owner Madam Satpal Kuar was ordered to give up two of her dogs, as no more than three dogs are allowed on a private property. Potentially, she could also face a a fine up to $50000 for allowing all five dogs out unleashed and without muzzles. [source]
In fact, even if it has been your maid walking your dog, and then your dog bites someone, you will still be fined. You can’t just have you maid take the blame, and there’s no way for you to say:
“Although the maid was neither directly nor indirectly linked to the attacks of the dogs down the leash, and she was not at fault over the attacks, the maid was holding the leash of the dogs.”
And guess what the judge will do when you indignantly say,
“Why fine me? It’s not my fault?” .
You will still be fined. And on a particular bad day, the CJ will probably review your case and slap a heavier punishment on you.
Unless… you wear white and draws 3 million dollars of pay. Then probably the maid gets sent home for it and you get away scot free.
A Wake & Afterthoughts
I was at a wake yesterday – the wake of the father of my pastor.
There was only one reason for me to be there. It was respect I had for my pastor – a friend, a brother, and at times a father figure, whom have given me encouragement and concern when I needed it.
So, what measures a man’s legacy? The financial or political empire he built? The impact of his ideas to mankind? Or just simply, the family he left behind? I sat there amazed, hearing the testimonies of sons and their wives, grandchildren, family friends, and even those whose lives the man has touched, came forward speaking fondly, and often in sobs, of the man who has passed away – a man whom I do not really know and have met only once in better times. Yet among the sorrow, there was a joy, a joy that the man has lived his life to the fullest, with the full knowledge that the man has run the good race and will now pass on to a better life beyond into the embrace of God.
As I sat there I saw a family of 8 sons and brothers who speaks fondly and lovingly of one another, I saw daughters-in-laws whom acknowledges and affirms one another in testimonies, and I saw grandchildren who bears witness to the kindness, and the gentleness of the man. And I also see his legacy in his son, the pastor whom I respected.
While his legacy may be nothing to most as it is not as significant as the founding a financial or political empire, or even taking a country from rags to riches, but the lives this man has touched, will go on to touch more and make an impact on society on a level more substantial than just one’s physiological and security needs. In that, I see a giant, and a person who has lived as a living testimony of Jesus Christ, leaving behind shoes too big for his sons to fill, and a great legacy for his descendants to carry on.
Yet, among this humanity, I lament this as a dying trait. More often we see family torn asunder, fighting over the material legacy of those who passed before them.
A brother-in-Christ whom gave a short message at the wake said this: If the past 8 years were any indication, the 21st century will be remembered as the century of dehumanization. It is a century that maybe remembered for nothing else but the downgrade of the human race’s uniqueness as equivalent is drawn between man and beast, the attacks on the sacred institutions of marriage and the sanctity of life, the collapse of traditional values of family bond, plus the ability of people to take up a complete altered ego and be someone (or perhaps, something) else on the Internet.
You are free to disagree. But it got me thinking: As we become more affluent, did we lose our humanity? Perhaps we simply did not realize what we lost when Adam lost Eden and the everlasting relationship with God, Jesus Christ, the Creator of the Universe.
I have much to think about and reflect upon. And I have much to confess to God and seek His forgiveness.
I signed up sgping.com
I knew that sgping.com exists quite a long time ago when some bloggers reported in on ping.sg. I have never considered signing up for it until today. Part of the reasons why I signed up was because I had a fall in readership but it’s not like I had a wonderful and healthy traffic anyway. And no, it’s not for the money that sgping.com promised to share. Remember, I had a low readership so it’s not going to be even 1ct a day. It was simply done to increase exposure to the blog. What’s the point of a public blog if no one is reading it?
I must first thank kriscell for his patience and guiding me in submitting articles. Unlike ping.sg the article submission is manual so it’s somewhat like digg in a certain way. Some would dislike this feature but I wouldn’t entirely call it a drawback. After all, this completely stops those ‘top bloggers’ (aka link-sters) whose blogs contains nothing but a bunch of kriffing links or articles they plagiarized from another site and shamelessly slapped their own ‘copyright’ on it. That’s not mentioning with this you have a greater choice over what you want to ping and what not to ping. 🙂
Next, when you submit an article, it gets 1 ping right away, and it goes into upcoming. Only after another registered user pings it (correct me if I am wrong), will it then gets 2 pings and move up into published. (Note, clicking on the link doesn’t ping it!! Only by clicking on ‘Ping it’ is it pinged.)
In this aspect it is somewhat like ping.sg whereby only ‘reads’ of members are counted. That also prevents one from pinging his own posts repeatedly to create a false popularity. Of course, it still doesn’t stop people from singing up as say multiple accounts like Milky, Shabby, Princely etc and start ‘cross-pinging’ one another to make their own post popular.
Still, the ideas behind it is not too bad. And like I have said previously, there is no conflict between using sgping.com and ping.sg because no one is going to quit using ping.sg by signing up with sgping. It is merely just another avenue for one to increase exposure for one’s blog.
And if one doesn’t want exposure for one’s own blog then just take it completely private.
Movie: 10000B.C., 江山美人 & 卧虎
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10,000 B.C. Nothing spectacular in this movie either: Prophecy & mysticism, raiders that goes far and wide to raid and capture slaves, velociraptors that looks like berserk ostriches, unlikely hero against impossible odds, allies and friends from unexpected places, stigma the son bears of a father’s unexplained departure, pyramids and slaves that requires freeing (Moses!), deformed men living behind veils claiming to be Gods, and the hero in the movie winning the beauty at the end after all his trials. The same old plot we see all too often. The only thing missing was T-Rex or Godzilla rampaging around at the end of the movie, but in their place were rampaging mammoths… and many of them. The story ended with a large scale rebellion or uprising and a good spear throw. You are not missing anything if you had given this a miss. The Empress and Her Warriors [江山美人] This is not that story. Instead this was the story of an outcast (黎明 Leon Lai), an orphan whose parents are unknown (甄子丹 Donnie Yan) and a princess (陈慧琳 Kelly Chen), who became the successor upon the murder of her own injured father, and the support of the orphan who became a general in the kingdom’s army. The ending was quite tragic as well, though I’ll prefer not to reveal more details on that. Of course, in a setting like this, there is palace intrigue and conspiracies, leading to an attempted assassination of the Empress-to-be, and her fated meeting with the outcast. Near the end of the movie, the Empress-to-be finally discovering who the murderer is and avenged her father. So ultimately, the good guys did win, but at a tremendously high cost in lives. As to the costume, the armor is outlandish even though it appears to be set in some medieval age in China. I do not really like the movie, because some parts of the plot was unrealistic. If it was the intention of the script writers and directors of the movie to encourage the people to see beyond their petty international squabbles and put aside their hatred, that isn’t going to happen at all. You aren’t losing much, if you give this movie a miss. |
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Operation Undercover [卧虎] In fact, it is of no surprise that in the movie, several of the actors were from the cast of Infernal Affairs II [无间道 II]. While I normally write off movies directed by Wang, this movie was atypical. In fact, I would say it is quite well done in some places where the agony of the undercover policemen and the hazards they faced are vividly portrayed. Some of these involved the killing of fellow policemen in the course of undercover work, getting killed in the course of duty, and finding it hard to return to normal life after long periods as a triad member. Meantime, it also portrays the power struggles within the Triads, of members vying to be the next leader and their plots to oust and discredit their fellow rivals. Of course, you also see the ‘good’ guys within the Triad itself, one who honors his vows of brotherhood to his fellow members, and did everything for the unity of the Triad itself. While it was nothing as dramatic as The Infernal Affairs [无间道] itself, I would say it is a pretty good movie. I didn’t regret watching it. |
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