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Have a Happy Ramadan!

I ended up doing summer flights for Ramadan.. doing Milan now, and Frankfurt/New York next week..

Not that I'm complaining though.. the money is good.. and considering the fact that I wont be flying for a week during Hari Raya, so the flights come in at a good time..

5 hours to go till buka, and back home, they had buka-ed 2 hrs ago..

Thankfully, there's 2 other Muslim crew on this flight so the three of us lepak together for buka and post-buka conversations..

Came across a Turkish/Kebab restaurant yesterday while looking for a Halal eatery.. and we were invited for free meals, for buka and sahur.. but Sahur is way too early, and I still got some food packed by my dad..

Zahirah and Nadya are down with flu.. just when I was leaving for 2 consecutive long flights.. bad timing.. but at least when Hari Raya comes, they should be strong and healthy again..

And this is gonna be Nadya's FIRST Hari Raya. And as I had mentioned, I would be home for a week for it.. So all u aunts and uncles, get ready the duit raya coz Nadya will come charging soon..

On a sadder note..

I lost my Mont Blanc pen.

Again.

For the second time since I received it as my birthday present 2 years ago from my then-fiancee who was still in secondary school and had to stinge to save up 400 bucks to get that pen for me..

Not that I ever expected her to do that, but its a beautiful Mont Blanc pen and had always been one of the most precious thing to me that I dont leave home without it.. it's always with me when I go to work, and always in my jeans when I'm not working that I dont write with anything else except for that pen.

The first time I lost it was the night before Meraj's wedding when I drove over to his house to spend time with him and the rest of the guys.. I had placed the pen in the pocket of my police uniform, since I was doing some of my reservist duties that day, and when I got home, the pen wasnt there.

It was not till I had to clear my car several months later to sell it away that I found it in the trunk.

And I had taken more care since..

Till a week and a half ago, when I was doing the final packing just before I left home for Melbourne, I thought I packed the pen which was in my jeans, in my suitcase.. but when I arrived in Melbourne, I couldnt find the pen.. and for a week and a half I had been so depressed..

I lost my prized possession.. a gift from my wife when she was still a secondary school student..

I looked everywhere in the house for it but couldnt find it.. seriously, it affected me so badly that I was really depressed for the loss of it..

Till about 20 mins ago.. my wife told me that Nadya found it while playing at my in-laws' in Jurong!

No wonder I couldnt find it in Tampines.. coz it wasnt there..

No words can really express how relieved I am now.. I am so happy.. and this time I'm gonna take MORE care of it.. my track record is bad.. but I'll try..

So, the Mont Blanc incident ended now on a happier note..

Anyway, just a few days after the National Day, I went to watch a football game at the National Stadium with my brother who had a stopover in Singapore en route back from Hiroshima to Melbourne, as part of his study trip for his Masters degree at La Trobe..

Zahirah drudgingly followed after I convinced her that it was a good family bonding session.. watching a soccer match with me and my brother and our 9 months old daughter..

hehe.. not many guys can pull that off eh? but still.. when we're home and she's holding the remote to the cable tv, she'll skip through Channel 27 so quickly that I dont even see the channel name appearing on screen..

but when she knows that there are important games.. or any Manchester United games, she would normally relent and let me watch them..

anyway, back to the game, it was a friendly between Singapore and China.. Singapore scored early in the game, before it was dominated by the Chinese..

even the Chinese fans dominated the stadium, which was like a quarter filled..

The next day, The New Paper reports..

Why No Kallang Roar?

and put it like a blame to the Singaporeans who didnt turn up for the game, and for those who did, that we didnt cheer like the Chinese fans did..

Since they added a small part in the page for us to speak up, I emailed them with my opinion..

here's the letter I sent to TNP sports..

Why no Kallang Roar?

Let me explain to you why. I'm writing here in the defense of the ones who attended the National Day Challenge 2009 between Singapore and China.

The last time I stepped into the National Stadium was in 1994, in support of the Lions back when we were still playing in the Malaysian Cup. Ever since our departure from the M-Cup, along with thousands of other fans, I had lost interest in the local soccer scene. I don't know names of the S-League teams, except for a couple of them who had been around forever. I don't keep track of the players, cause in my stereotypical mind, they are overpaid and overrated. I don't watch the S-league games, cause, again my in stereotypical mind, they are mainly attended by bookies, the players' immediate families and the local WAGs.

I skip the reports on our local games in the papers, choosing only to read the English league and other international game reports. For 15 years, the Singapore soccer scene had been parked right at the back end of my mind, and the interest had never been revived since.

Till yesterday, when my brother, who was visiting from Australia where he had lived for the past 6 years, almost pleaded to me to watch the game with him. He had always had the soft spot for the Singapore team, maybe due to the fact that he missed the country badly. He said that he felt pain everytime Liverpool scored against Singapore and had to walk around to pacify himself.

That's the Singapore die-hard fan for you.

I was an attendee at the game yesterday. I wasn't a fan. Had stopped being one for 15 years. I did not even know about the game till my brother told me about it. And so I thought that it might be a good time to give the National team a chance and to re-ignite my love for them. When the names were mentioned, I couldn't not connect to them as they were literally foreign names to me. When they played from the first kick, they lost me.

It was a good thing that Singapore had scored at the beginning before the Chinese team settled in as the Singapore players were lost in the field for most of the game.

What I saw during the game was a team of mainly lazy players who gave up too many possessions and refused to regain the ball after losing them. They seemed to be contented when they were unable to retrieve the ball, or when they lost the challenge for it.

My brother was too kind to consider them having the skills but not the flair. Too kind. But then again, he is THAT patriotic to the National team as he lives far away from Singapore, and supporting them is one of those things that he can use as reminiscence of the memories of the good old times when he was still living here.

I'm sorry. But the last football match that I had watched live was at Old Trafford. While I certainly do not expect the National team to perform like their English counterparts, they could not even perform close to their predecessors who had don the red jerseys and did us proud for so many years. The Real Lions.

I would have cheered for the team if they could have played better. They might think that they could have played better if we cheered.

I'd rather lose my voice to a team that deserve the cheer. They should not have been given the luxury to choose to underperform due to lack of fan support as it is their responsibility to play, and to play well. We, the attendees, were not obligated to cheer for a team without flair. They could have gotten a fan in me if they could play with more dedication. Besides the National custodian who had a streak of fantastic saves, the rest of the team were just not playing.

I wouldn't blame the National coach when he thought that the team played well. He had just gotten too used to the way these boys play their level of football.

FAS marketed the game badly. Most of my friends who are obvious Lions' fans back in the 90s did not even know that there were such an event yesterday. Not that they bothered too as none were interested in it when I told them about it. They lost the fans when they opted to leave the M-Cup. So what if they had been victimised by the M-Cup organisers? Singaporean fans is a patriotic bunch. By leaving the competition without a proper replacement dismantled our National pride in the team. The S-league could not even come close to it. FAS chose to ignore the fans.

Then again, that's just an opinion.

I'd stick to my standard EPL games and leave the S-league and National games for the WAGs to watch. If they want the Kallang Roar to come back, work hard for it. You don't deserve it just because you were chosen to don the colours due to the fact that everyone else play much worse than you do.

They are not the Lions. We lost them one and a half decade ago.

I was not a fan who attended the game yesterday. I was just another Singaporean who happened to watch the game.

And it hurt me just as bad when I watched in dismay, the dismal performance that they showed us while wearing our National colours.

A few days later, a reporter from TNP called me and told me that they liked my letter and invited me for a dialogue session with 2 other fans who had written in, with the boss of S-League and FAS, Winston Lee..

wah.. so serious like that ah?

But the session was at 6pm that day, and I had to leave for a flight to Delhi at 4pm.. so I had to give it a miss.. I did write in some questions though to the reporter coz he told me to do so for him to relay to FAS.. but for the print, only a single paragraph appeared.. good enough.. but the reply that FAS seemed to give was that they had given what they should and we should accept it the way it is and support the national team and league coz we are expected to..

No thanks, FAS. I'll stick to Channel 27.

3 hrs to go till buka in Milan.

Be My Baby No Matter If You're Black or White..

"We want to celebrate this black man"

Those are the words of Jamie Foxx two days after the death of Michael Jackson.

Yeps.. this is my tribute entry to King Michael, like millions of other tributes..

When I heard Foxx said those words outside the Shrine Auditorium, at the 2009 BET Awards which was hastily revamped to celebrate the life of Michael Jackson, I went like.. err.. Michael Jackson is a black man mehhhhhhh?? where gotttt???

Be my baby no matter if you're black or white..

Michael Jackson was born a black baby and died a white man. Or raceless, if you prefer to think of it that way..

I had never been a fan of Michael Jackson's songs.. some of them, yeps.. but not most of them.. Its not like its not nice or something.. they were nice songs, but its just not my kinda songs..

Now, more than a week after his death, I'm here sitting at Long John Silver's at Tanglin Halt, at 4.15pm, waiting for Zahirah to finish her class, while Nadya is sleeping through, and still on the radio, a Michael Jackson's song is playing.. a nice one, sang when he was with Jackson Five.
It's true that his songs can cover most of your emotions, and thatz coz the guy got a variety of songs, sad, happy, emo, lovey dovey..

I do feel sad for the passing of Michael Jackson, even though, as I had mentioned, I had never been a fan of most his songs.. I feel sad like most of the ppl in the world.. and the problem with his death is that, even more than a week passed, we still feel sad abt it..

As my wife had mentioned, Farrah Fawcett's death was mentioned in page 24 of the Straits Times, while King Michael's death was published at the front page.. and for the next few days that I was in London, his pictures were still on the front page of the papers for the next few days.. and CNN and BBC and SkyNews kept on reporting up-to-date progress on the autopsies and funeral plans..

King Michael morphed like his Black or White video, from Black to White. The Whites might have liked it coz they dont need to publicly be a fan of a black guy.. coz they might be able to feign ignorance and claim not to realise that King Michael is Black.

The Blacks still celebrate the black man.

Even though, as a non-fan of his music, I dont recall Michael Jackson ever said anything abt himself being a black man.. I might be wrong.. and it might not even matter coz ppl dont need to go around telling others abt their race as its normaly self evident.

But he stopped being black a long time ago. He married two white women. His kids are all white.. they cant claim to be black even if they want to.. they are just as black as Wentworth Miller..
or might be much lesser than Wentworth Miller..

Coz recently the reports said that the 3 kids are not King Michael's.. so there goes their royal blood..

So, a black man who never publicly claim to be black, goes for skin bleaching and surgery to change his featured appearances, married two white women and got 3 white kids cant possibly be black. He's not even an Oreo.. He was a former Oreo who had been dipped in Milk till it loses the color..

But this is not to insult The Black Man.. in fact.. this is a tribute entry.. not on his music coz i know nuts abt it..

I think King Michael had successfully crossed the race boundaries.. Not that he publicly mentioned that he's white anyway.. its just that he's a Person.

Not Black. Not Really White.

I passed by HMV at Picaddilly Circus to take a look at the tributes that the fans had laid down for King Michael, and I saw mainly whites who were there.. saw a white woman crying softly.. and thatz a few days after King Michael died..

I think even some of the members of the Ku Klux Klan might have cried.. heck.. they might even have not known that King Michael is black and some might even had the thought of inviting him into the Klan..

Michael Jackson had surpassed the need to have a race.. might have been the only person in the world who had successfully done that.. and for that feat, it's admirable.. and now, fans all over the world, Blacks and Whites and Yellows and Browns and Everything In Betweens would have cried for the passing of the King.. and i'm pretty sure they cried much more than when they cried for King Elvis.

Thats the tribute that i have about someone that i dont really know whose death did affect me..

But I think it affected my wife much worse..

And Michael Jackson didnt really die anyway.. its a cover-up by the FBI.. just like when they came out with the cover-up story saying that Elvis had died.

Anyway, this blog entry was continued at home the next day, at 3.35am..

Just got back from having an entire day of celebrating my cousin's kids' wedding.. a double wedding for my niece and nephew..

so.. Azmi and Ana, Aishah and Iqbal.. welcome to the club.. hope soon u'll be joining the other club that Zahirah and I got into 8 months ago..

Other updates in my life..

Just got back from London, where there's currently a heatwave.. and the entire London is on SALE..

my brother and his wife and 3 of his 5 kids in Melbourne had just recovered from H1N1..

I got promoted in March.

Nadya had been standing for more than a month.. and soon enough she'll be walking.. and soon after that I'll be running.. which would be a good way to get rid of this belly anyway..

Zahirah is back in school since we got back from Melbourne in April.. and so, for 3 hours on most of the weekdays that I am in Singapore, I'll be having a Father-Daughter Bonding Session.. mostly at one of the cafes in town.. where we'll just sit and chit chat.. just me and Nadya.. and when her Mama finishes her class, the 3 of us would be chilling out in town together..

My Bro/Sis-In-Law are expecting their first kid in 2 months time..

Mom and Dad still the same..

the company I work for still make lots of money..

thatz it for the updates in my life..

Would be around in Singapore for the next week, till my Zurich flight in 7 days time..

and abt the SALE in London..

Singapore is having their own Great Singapore Sale.. but a lot of tourists who came here didnt really bother so much abt it..

I got 5 shirts and a cardigan for Nadya from Zara in London.. and some of the shirts costs £1.99.. That's abt $5..

some of the items on sale at some of the shops goes down to abt 90% off.. and thats a SALE..

try any of the shops participating in GSS.. U might as well go down to Daiso instead.. cheap and good.. GAP in London are going down to 70% off.. of course, just for selected items... but the selected items cover most of the store..

so much of being a GREAT Singapore Sale..

Sometimes, Singaporeans should slap themselves in the face to wake themselves up.. We think that we are so good that everything SHOULD be good if it comes from us..

like the crowd attendance at the Asian Youth Games..

what a disgrace..

eyes too sleepy to continue blogging now so i'm just gonna leave it here..

Michael Jackson had just left the building.

Don't expat too much hor..

Alone in Raffles City now.. wife is celebrating her birthday with her ex-classmates.. so I thought it would be a good time to meet up with my bandmates.

Was 45 mins late. But no one was here anyway.. so it does not make me late coz theres no one waiting.

Yazid is on the way now. Fiza replied to my msg saying that she's not coming. Azil got stuck in the rain and might not come. Umi uncontactable coz i dont have her number with me. Shida will come at 8. Nas in KL. Din and Hamdy MIA.

There were no seats at Starbucks so I ended up having my lunch in Burger King.

There's an overzealous Sarawakian staff who was mopping the floor and saw some teenagers moving chairs around and he thought that it was his civic Burger King Staff duty to stop them from doing so.

Ordered my meal next to another teenage boy of about 17-18 yrs old who cant talk in tune. He ordered in a single, monotonous tone.

10 CHANGE FRIES TO ONION RINGS

20 CHILLI OR KETCHUP? CHILLI. AND MAYO.

30 MORE CHILLI PLEASE.

40 CLS

50 GOTO 40

Imagine all these orders made with a robotic, monotone voice.

Ahh.. dont you just miss GWBASIC. Days when you thought that programming was easy. Till you came across an alphabet plus plus.

Recently, in the Singapore bashing facebook group, one Aussie woman commented that she cant understand what Singaporeans are talking about.

She should talk to this guy. No one can ever misunderstand what he wanted to say.

Does anyone, besides the Aussies, even understand what the Aussies talk abt anyway? Coming from a place where you speak ONLY English does not make ur command of the language fantastic. I had been to the States and Australia too many times to be able to know THAT for a fact.

Ok. Din just called me to tell me that he is on the way.

As much as I love Australia, London, United States, there are always downsides to everywhere.

Obviously, Singapore is not a perfect place. If u are a Singaporean and you dont like Singapore, move to Johor.

Too bad that they dont allow you to buy a gun in Johor, and yet a huge number of crooks theres own more than just a single gun. Yesterday's papers mentioned that even the Police Chief in Johor was tied up in his house while it was being burgled by 3 fellas.

And if u can't control the crime, blame it on the Indonesians. The Malaysians had the habit of blaming the Bangladeshis several years back for the crime spree.. It's always a foreigner. Never the local.

But then again, I personally know of some ppl who had been robbed by obvious locals.

OK.. This entry was continued at home now..

Yazid came with Ima soon after I wrote the first part of the entry. Din arrived with Lina.

Went down to Singapore Flyer coz they wanted to watch some motorbike stunt show..

The event turned out to be massively attended.. with the attendees turning out to be 95% mats who ooohed and aaahhed at every jump the stunt bikers made..

Some of the mats wore identical shirts.. Spotted one wearing a Singapore Bikers something.. like he belonged to a professional bike clan. heh..

After abt 15 mins, there was a break so we walked a lil bit further out of the crowd to get some drinks.. that was when I saw IT.

IT was a BIG screen showing the Manchester United/ARSEnal game.

I had wanted to watch the game, but since I was out with the band, I thought I could just get the result afterwards.. But God's bigger plan was for me to watch and enjoy the part where Manchester United picked up the Premier League trophy for the third successsive year.

Shida, Umi and Fred met us during half time of the game..

So after the match, walked over to Esplanade, and I went down to Citylink to fetch my wife and daughter, who had gone for a karaoke session at a place where it was Family Friendly.. with songs even for little kids to sing.

Spent a lil bit more time with them before we all headed back home.

So that's it abt my entry, after months and months of not blogging. And when I do, its the typical.

Wife.
Daughter.
Band.
Mats.
Manchester United.
Programming.

And here, back to the stupid Aussie from the Singapore Bashing group.

Seriously, if Singapore is ALL that bad, none of u EXPATRIATES would wanna come over here.

But of course, u do want to, coz Singaporeans put Ang Mohs on such high pedestal that they feel like princes and princesses.

I had a Swiss friend who worked here before.. and he loved being in Singapore.

Coz Singaporean SPGs would throw themselves at him. And he get free drinks, no queues, and extra preferential treatment coz he is a tall, good looking ang moh.

I dont really blame this kinda ang mohs for taking advantage of the situation. Blame the Singaporeans who gave it and whined abt how service staff are discriminative towards Asians.

I am a service staff. I give preferential treatment to anyone who comes. So when u get it, take it with grace and dont whine abt it when u get back to Aussieland.

Most of the ppl worldwide that I had met are nice ppl. But we do come across some asses.

One of my friends was shouted at while she was in a tram in Melbourne. She was sitting down and here comes an Aussie woman who started shouting to her to tell her to give her seat to the REAL Australians.

Till someone else in the tram told the woman that the REAL Australians are the Aboriginals. Not the Ang Mohs who came down on their 10-pound tickets or sent down under for being petty thieves.

And not too long ago, in London underground, a seat was empty in front of me when someone alighted. So graciously, I moved over to let an old ang moh man sit down.

He started shouting at me, saying that I should take the seat coz MY ppl had been doing it in HIS country. We had taken over their jobs and all.. so why not just take the bloody seat too?

I wanted to retaliate, but considering that he is an old man, I let it go. Everyone in the quite congestedly full cabin was staring at me while it happened.

To all Brits who think that we stole something from them by living in the UK.

Firstly, I DONT LIVE IN THE UK. So I didnt steal your job. I am happily employed here, in Singapore.

Secondly, I am a tourist. So I normally wont be there for more than a few days. I dont really have much time to steal your job. Even if I did, it will be just for a few days packing some groceries in Tesco, if they would allow me to. But they dont. So I dont have anything to steal.

Thirdly, my country is better than yours. Coz YOUR ppl love to come here and mingle with our pretty little Asian SPGs. Somehow, YOUR ppl like to come here and work and steal Singaporean jobs coz our country is open enough for anyone to come here and work, no matter where u are from.

Fourthly, our MRT stations dont smell of urine. We dont carry guns, and neither does our crooks. Except for One-Eyed Dragon, but he's caught and killed.

Fifthly, since the old man mentioned, YOUR PPL.. ermz.. I still couldnt figure it out, who does he refer to as MY ppl. OK.. I am an Indian, but I dont look Indian. Malay? There's not that many Malays in the UK who stole their jobs except for Ashley Isham. The rest of the Malays there are either studying or selling Malay food. But I am not a Malay. I am an Indian who doesnt look Indian. I dont look Chinese. The only ones who stole their jobs are the Italians. And theres no way in the weirdest world that I could even look Italian. I am not even so much of a fan of pasta.

So again, to all Brits who think that MY ppl had stolen your jobs.. We didnt. YOUR ppl came over to con the Malay Temenggong to colonise MY country. Thanks ah.. go bully some dumb fella and take his island. Lucky we got smarter hor.. and got back our island.

To all Aussies who think that we speak funny.. if only you would record your own voices. You think Singaporeans speak funny. The rest of the world KNOWS that you speak funny. Enough said, mate.

Ang Mohs like to come to Singapore to work while leaving their wives at Jelita, Holland Village, Serene Centre and Tanglin Mall supermarkets. So they end up talking to some PRC cashier at the tills.

With that and when they found out that their husbands are enjoying the attention of the SPGS more than their EXPATRIATE jobs here, they got bored and angry and ended up in a Singapore Bashing facebook group saying that Singaporeans speak funny.

We dont. Maybe the SPG that your husband was sleeping with speaks funny. But the rest of us dont.

And how in the world did she know that we cant speak our own language well? You can understand Malay meh? or Tamil?

Singlish is not a bad thing. Aussies have their own weird slang. Mates do refer to copulation too.

How ya doin? Mate?

No thanks. I'm married.

Another weird EXPATRIATE that we had was the one who commented on the arrest of Mas Selamat. Got this Ang Moh terrorism expert who mentioned that Mas Selamat might have been planning attacks to some Singaporean icons. Such as the Singapore Flyer, the Merlion. And he mentioned, "Now, that, would be spectacular".

Wahahaha.. attacking the Merlion would be spectacular?

We, the normal Singaporeans, dont even find the Merlion spectacular. Attacking the Merlion would not be spectacular. It would have been DUMB.

Not many except for the poor Bangladeshi workers who had to clean up the mess bothered so much except to laugh it out when the Merlion was struck by lightning.

That's the kinda EXPATRIATE that we need? To come and make some dumb comments thinking that he would know what Singaporeans think of our national "icons"?

Haiyah..

I am more forgiving to the Englishman in the tube coz England has got good football. I dont watch rugby.

Anyway, the blog entry ended the next day, on 17th May at 2.10pm, at home.

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