Gustave Flaubert
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Michaelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007)
The principle behind the cinema, like that behind all the arts, rests on a choice. It is, in Camus’ words, “the revolt of the artist against the real.”
who started it?
experts now believe that obesity is contagious:
“When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight too.”
it’s like what the “success” gurus have been saying:
you are who you spend time with.
thanks to my self-imposed exile from the world, none has caught my obesity.
but all that time away from friends means a lot more time at home with the little monster, who does nothing but sleep, eat and wank all day.
accio $$$
a box set of all 7 of harry potter’s books will be released on 1 October.
Gregory of Nyssa
It is impossible for one to live without tears who considers things exactly as they are.
Chris Gardner
Be bold enough to find the one thing that you are passionate about. It might not be what you were trained to do. But be bold enough to do the one thing. Nobody needs to dig it but you.
debt collecting
in india, debt collecting is in thanks to the increasing popularity of credit cards. debt collectors there have a rather unique way of getting their job done:
“Chandra Murthy, 53, a scientist, filed a police complaint after men came to recover a pounds 2,500 housing loan. “They spat at me, took off my shirt, shaved off my moustache, cut my hair and ransacked my house,” he said.”
i wonder if they use shaving cream.
say yes
Psychology Today:
Women often say no to men. Men have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. Men have built (and destroyed) civilization in order to impress women, so that they might say yes.
actually, women say yes to me all the time; yes, go away; yes, you are a moron.
single bombers
according to Psychology Today, almost all suicide bombers are single.
Larry King
Good morning. This is my first day ever on the radio. I’ve always wanted to be on the air. I’ve been practising all weekend. Fifteen minutes ago they gave me my new name. I’ve had a theme song ready to play. But my mouth is dry. I’m nervous. And the general manager has just kicked open the door and said, “This is a communications business.”
the making of an expert
Harvard Business Review:
Benjamin Franklin provides one of the best examples of motivated self-coaching. When he wanted to learn to write eloquently and persuasively, he began to study his favorite articles from a popular British publication, the Spectator. Days after he’d read an article he particularly enjoyed, he would try to reconstruct it from memory in his own words. Then he would compare it with the original, so he could discover and correct his faults. He also worked to improve his sense of language by translating the articles into rhyming verse and then from verse back into prose. Similarly, famous painters sometimes attempt to reproduce the paintings of other masters.
spell checker has many problems with this post
the mister teh tarik store in china square has upgraded; it shifted from the middle of nowhere to somewhere beside the spicy ramen store and now feature women staff and dare i say it, chinese people.
but the problem is chinese people cannot make milo dinosaur. they can make chee cheong fun and hum chim bang but milo dinosaur is too impossible for them to make.
to be fair, the malays and the indians do make crappy milo dinos. i sometimes feel like one can only take 10 real milo dinos in a lifetime before one collapses of a bad heart. my ma and my little monster must surely be glad that i don’t live anywhere near jalan kayu.
yawns
Wall Street Journal (13 Jul 2007):
If the 1980s created yuppies (young urban professionals) and the 1990s brought us bobos (bourgeois bohemians), the 2000s may be giving rise to a new kind of elite: yawns.
Yawns are “young and wealthy but normal.” They are men and women in their 30s and 40s who have become multimillionaires and billionaires during the wealth boom of the past decade. Yet rather than spending their money on yachts, boats and jets, yawns live modestly and spend most of their money on philanthropy. In stark contrast to the outsized titans of the Gilded Age and the slicked-back Gordon Gekkos of the 1980s, yawns are notable for their extraordinary dullness.
What do you call an extraordinary dull and poor guy like me?
what do you do
A few years ago, Timberland CEO Jeffrey Swartz accepted a friend’s invitation to spend half a day in a teen halfway house. His friend promised him that his life would never be the same. After answering a troubled teen’s question about what he did (“I’m responsible for the global execution of strategy”), he asked the teen what he did. The response: “I work at getting well.” Swartz said later that the teen’s answer trumped his own answer.
Haruki Murakami
One of my all-time favorite jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. Once, when someone asked him how he managed to get a certain special sound out of the piano, Monk pointed to the keyboard and said: “It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!”
of libraries and char kway teow
the national library board has 4 kinds of libraries: reference, regional, community and community children’s.
i have a simpler classification system. Queenstown and Bukit Merah are superior libraries and the rest are otherwise. (i have the same thoughts on women but i decline to elaborate since some of you actually know where i live. in fact, some of my closest girlfriends have, in the privacy of my home, seen my little monster)
Queenstown and Bukit Merah are superior because they are quiet and rather empty. plus, Queenstown had at least 7 borrowable copies of Football Manager 2007. (i borrowed one which is why i haven’t been blogging much as well as not-having-a-life)
Queenstown and Bukit Merah also happen to have superior char kway teow stalls within walking distance. the one at margaret drive, you’ll have to queue at least 30 mins before the hums get to you. and both the chaps selling char kway teow, despite all the heat and smell, have very pleasant dispositions.
it’s the highlight of my week if i spend a couple of hours reading at these libraries and having char kway teow afterwards.
that and imaginary sex.
William Morris
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
from an objective to a summary
The biggest change in résumés over the last decade has been a switch from an objective to a summary at the top… The summary emphasizes the skills that the applicant can offer the company, rather than stressing what the applicant is seeking. A pithy, well-considered, “key-word-rich” summary can be crucial.
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