oh's johari window

Dear friends, please hop on down to my Johari window, and select what you think of Oh, that is moi, as a person. It doesn't matter if you've met me, know me personally, or whether you think I'm just a stupid fool. Just be honest, and do remember to leave your name/nick there, ok?

This should be interesting. It's a good thing there's no "boliao", ha!

what a wonderful world

If you're big fans of Bert and Ernie, you probably shouldn't look at this. It'll shatter all your fond childhood memories of watching those two buddies on Sesame Street and give you nightmares for years to come.

But knowing you people, you'll click on the link anyway. So here it is. But be warned: it's NSFW (Not Safe For Work)!

rock and roll with it

Some pictures taken with my phone from last night's Oasis concert:

This is Oh, who arrived at the venue with his fellow concert crasher both clad in similar Oasis polo-tees. Not bad huh? Die-hard fan leh!

When we reached the place at 7.30pm, the crowd was really small and the sitting sections were almost empty. However, lots of people were still streaming in slowly. There were so many Mats and Caucasians! Famous faces spotted (after the concert) include Cassandra See, Lim Yu Beng and ESPN football pundit Jamie Reeves. When the gig started just after 8.30pm, the Indoor Stadium was nearing capacity and it looked something like this:

We were at the lower priced standing area, so this was the best picture I could get of the stage:

For a closer picture, see here.

I may be biased, but I think they were good. Oasis is never going to be the type of band that goes pouncing around the stage, and yet they managed to rock the house down with most of their popular hits as well as songs from their latest album (but none from Be Here Now, strangely). It was so good they decided to name the building beside the Indoor Stadium after the band, ha!

It did seem, though, that Noel Gallagher was having a bad day at the office. He sounded like he was having difficulty reaching the notes, and was really quiet throughout the whole show. Nevertheless, the stage was Liam's for the short one and a half hours, but it was a shame that when he tried working up the crowd, most of the people couldn't make out or hear what he was saying in his heavy British accent. Only the Caucasians responded. Duh.

No matter. Just seeing his beloved band play made Oh a satisfied man. There goes another item on the Things To Do Before I Die list. Let's see what's next... Hmm, this should be interesting: Visiting a nude beach in the buff. Ha!

Oh, and the gig-alert bell just went off again. Up next: the extremely talented and wildly entertaining jazz sensation Jamie Cullum.

chelski 1, barcelona 2

Following the recently concluded match between Chelski and Barcelona, the Armchair Critic, that is moi, shall have his say.

I don't usually comment on matches not involving my team, but given the hype on this game and animosity between the two teams, plus the fact that everyone is eagerly hoping that Chelski gets a good trashing, it is only right that the Armchair Critic gives his two-cents' worth.

Chelski are now complaining about Lionel Messi's theatrical reaction that contributed to the sending off of Assier Del Horno. To this I have only one word for them: OBIGOOD (translation: Serves You Right).

Talk about Messi. What a player! Cool-headed, quick feet and wonderful dribbling. And he's only 18 years old! It's hardly a wonder they're comparing this pocket genius to his fellow countryman Maradona. Messi's got to be the player to watch out for in the coming World Cup. Together with the rest of the gang like Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto'o, Barcelona carved out so many chances in the second half you could hardly tell it was an away game for them.

It's time to rejoice! Bravo! Cheers! Let's hope Barcelona puts another four past them in the second leg, ha!

That will be all for now.

be here now

Liam and Noel: The Notorious Duo

It was the year 1995 when British band Oasis took the world by storm with the release of their second album. Despite earlier acclaim of their debut album Definitely Maybe, it was the second album (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, containing hits like Wonderwall, Don't Look Back In Anger, and Champagne Supernova, that made them truly household names all over the globe. Those very songs found their way into every college boy and girl's Walkmans and Discmans, and that included a then young and impressionable Oh.

The year also saw the "Battle of the Bands" between Oasis and Blur who both released their new singles on the exact same day. Blur's Country House may have beaten Oasis' Roll With It in the singles battle, but What's The Story won the album war. In fact, it went on to become the second best selling album of all time in the UK. With the demise of other bands like Nirvana and Guns N Roses, Oasis and Blur soon become the hottest bands around in this part of the world.

After more than ten years, seven albums and one abandoned attempt, brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher and gang have finally found their way to our shores. The wait is over. The day has come. The time is now.

23 February 2006, 8.00pm, Singapore Indoor Stadium. Be Here Now.

Take the time to make some sense
Of what you want to say
And cast your words away upon the waves
Sail them home with acquiesce
On a ship of hope today
And as they land upon the shore
Tell them not to fear no more
Say it loud and sing it proud today

And then dance if you want to dance
Please brother take a chance
You know they gonna go
Which way they wanna go
All we know is that we don't know
How it's gonna be
Please brother let it be
Life on the other hand
Won't let us understand
We're all part of the masterplan

-- Oasis, The Masterplan

a foreign arse

An interesting note on tonight's match-up between Arsenal and Real Madrid: Real Madrid could very possibly field more Englishmen than Arsenal, given the fact that both Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole are out (there are only 5 Englishmen in the whole Arsenal team, and 3 of them are mainly reserves).

Take a look at the probable teams for tonight (Englishmen in bold):

Real Madrid: 1-Iker Casillas, 11-Cicinho, 4-Sergio Ramos, 18-Jonathan Woodgate, 3-Roberto Carlos; 16-Thomas Gravesen; 23-David Beckham, 5-Zinedine Zidane, 14-Guti, 10-Robinho; 9-Ronaldo

Arsenal: 1-Jan Lehmann; 27-Emmanuel Eboue , 28-Kolo Toure, 20-Philippe Senderos, 16-Matheiu Flamini; 7-Robert Pires, 19-Gilberto, 15-Cesc Fabregas, 8-Freddie Ljungberg; 14-Thierry Henry, 9-Jose Antonio Reyes, 11-Robin van Persie

Seems like even a top English team suffers the problem of too much foreign talent, ha!

oh gets bored, and corny

Spent the whole day attending a seminar at Microsoft. It's bad enough that we had to sit through hours of boring presentations selling us the upcoming Windows Vista. But to add salt to injury, we had to wear this derogatory sticker tag (click image to enlarge) that says 0MB. The seminar may be packed with old fogeys and my memory's been failing me, but it's certainly not zero megabytes!

What tickled me was hearing that one of the presenters' name is Chewy. Imagine all the corny jokes you can crack if he is to introduce himself to you face to face:

Chewy: Hi, I'm Chewy.
A: Oh, really. Which part?

Chewy: Hi, I'm Chewy.
B (taking out a stick of Mentos): Oh, this is chewy too!

Chewy: Hi, I'm Chewy.
C: And I'm not!

Heheh. Sorry for the corniness. Boredom gets to me sometimes, ha!

are you bored?

What do you do when you're bored at work? Head over to I-am-bored.com of course. Hundreds of links to boliao stuff like video clips or funny websites that are all safe for work. According to them:

This site is founded on the theory that people will get so incredibilly bored as to type things like "I'm Bored" into their search engines just to see what happens.

Check out this video of someone doing a time trial of Mario I. It's amazing how fast he can complete the game (under 5 mins 10 sec to be exact)!

much ado about nothing

Things can get quite troublesome if your cheque gets lost after you’ve dropped it into the quick deposit box at the bank:

1. When it's not cleared after a long time, you call up the bank and ask it to check.
2. It calls back after a few days saying the cheque couldn’t be found. It then offers to send you a lost statement as proof to whoever issued you the cheque.
3. With the statement, your payer can give a stop payment order to the issuing bank before reissuing a new cheque.
4. Cancelling the lost cheque will incur charges, but you can send the invoice to the bank with whom you deposited the cheque.
5. Out of “goodwill”, the bank will subsidise you half the charges (because no one can prove who lost the cheque).

This was what I learned after realising that a cheque I’d gotten early last month from my company is still not cleared yet. I had subsequently called up the bank asking it to search for the cheque. It certainly isn’t comforting to know that such a thing could happen every time you do a quick deposit, and the trouble you have to go to if it gets lost. And for my case (this depends on the issuing bank), the fee for cancelling the lost cheque is $25! Imagine if the original cheque is, say, just $10 – cancelling it would’ve been utterly pointless.

Just as well, then, that after all the hassle of calling the bank, checking with my company admin and all, I found the “lost” cheque sitting pretty inside my wallet amidst a stack of receipts. Oh is such a bloody nincompoop sometimes, ha!

lelong, lelong

Lelong, lelong! Ten sets of System-6 Toto numbers for sale:

• Auspicious "Good Luck" numbers specially chosen
• Bought at red-hot outlet in Tiong Bahru Yishun
  
• Guaranteed new and unused (results not checked)
  
• Going at up to 70% discount (further bulk discount available). Best Price!

Hesitate no further! Realise your dream of turning multi-millionaire NOW!

my big, fat dream

The Reluctant Gambler, that is moi, doesn't usually gamble, but under the bad influence of some terrible, terrible 损友 has bought a few dollars worth of Toto for tonight. Methinks it is a wise and economical move because the chance of winning improves by an infinite factor from zero to infinitesimal.

You have until 9.30pm to try your chance at the $10M Toto draw. Draw takes place at 10pm.

I'll like to take this opportunity to bid farewell to HDB flats, public transport, economy class food and the mediocre life. And to you my suffering friends, good luck for the rest of the draw.

Ha!

no you're never gonna get it

It is interesting to note that Google doesn't necessarily return you all the results of your search. The company will, in fact, remove certain results if they received complaints of copyright infringements. For example, try this search.

You can see at the end of the list of results this message:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

Well, at least they're transparent about it, non?

You can see the whole list of complaints they've gotten here. Looking at the list, you would've noticed that, besides copyright infringements, there is a large number of removals of sites containing child p.ron (sic). Too bad for those bloody pee-doh-philes, ha!

food for thought

We tried out a new joint for lunch today, following recommendation from a colleague. It wasn't so much the food; it was the free-flow dessert (red bean soup for today) that enticed (or, should I say, bribed) him.

I had tom yam seafood bee hoon soup, but it was so bland yet spicy it was like eating chili! In the end, I only finished half of it.

For that half bowl of bee hoon wasted, I had to endure disapproving looks from some of my colleagues. And that got me thinking: I know parents and elders like to teach their young ones not to waste food. They mean well, of course. But to support their case, they often cite the example of starving African children. And it is this that I could never comprehend: how does finishing our food help feed those starving African children?

Being "engineer-trained", I'm perversely inclined to explain and relate all things with logic, however hard I have to twist and turn it. Forget about African children, let's just talk about people around us who couldn't afford three proper meals. How can we help them? The logic is really simple actually (and no, I don't mean passing on leftover food to those poor folks).

Instead of finishing our food every time, imagine what would happen if everybody wastes food. Sooner or later, all the restaurants and eateries would start realising that the portions they serve are too large for the average diner. The sensible and economical thing for them to do would be to reduce their serving sizes. So if every single restaurant and eatery starts doing that, the demand for food and related commodities would drop. What happens next? Prices will drop, of course. It's simple demand-supply economics, ha!

So voila! Less people will starve as a result because food has become cheaper. Simple as that. In addition, more people will be healthier as a result of not overeating.

Make sense, non? Or am I sprouting nonsense again?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: Oh does not advocate wasting food. He's merely trying to justify his own wasteful actions and appease his guilty conscience.

chelski 2, liverpool 0

Robben got hit by Mike Tyson

The Armchair Critic, that is moi, is still fuming after watching last night encounter between Chelski and Liverpool. While he concedes that Liverpool has only itself to blame for being unable to score despite dominating, the way Arjen Robben play-acted to get goalkeeper Jose Reina sent off has left him extremely riled. (See video of match here)

In view of this, he decided to come up with a (biased) list of ten reasons why Chelski is the most hated team around now:

1. Robben is a bloody cheat,
2. And so is Joe Cole.
3. Essien is a dirty player.
4. Lampard is the most overrated player in the Premiership.
5. Mourinho is the most arrogant tart around.
6. Abramovich looks like a dork.
7. Drogba is really ugly.
8. They bought success with Abramovich’s money.
9. They’re running away with the league
10. With their boring counter-attacking football!

The Armchair Critic wonders how anyone can support the current Chelski team. He’ll rather support a losing team that maintains its pride and integrity. Heh!

(We hate to say this to him, but he’s just jealous because his team is really crappy now.)

liverpool 1, birmingham 1

Following the recently concluded match between Liverpool and Birmingham, the Armchair Critic, that is moi, shall have his say.

...

!!!!!

...

Oh, we're terribly sorry. The Armchair Critic is not in the best of state right now. He's still recovering from severe trauma suffered during half-time when two freakish household roaches went berserk, took over the kitchen and threatened world domination with their kamikaze flight attempts. One even ran over his foot!

The poor fellow needs rest now, but he'll be back the next time. Meanwhile, do remember to keep your household roaches well fed and taken after to prevent similar incidents.