So I am stealing Ngee Ann City’s program name for my post title.

But its so true to form that is hard to run away from. While I was walking down Orchard road, contemplating where to get a journey from, I hear the music coming from the heart of Ngee Ann City Plaza. I knew I just had to stop to listen.

So I snagged myself a stair and sat down to enjoy the St Pat’s military band – the Junior band apparently and they aren’t half bad. It was nice to hear them play both overtures and more pop hits like Can You Feel The Love Tonight and Twist & Shout. Those seem to be band favourites.

Now I am just sitting here waiting for the Senior band to get into formation, tune up their instruments and warm up.

The Senior band’s conductor introduces the next song as “From Michael Buble” GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Why does everyone credit Michael Buble only?!?!?!? When so many other people have sung it and he was not the first person to make it popular. Sigh, what is this state of our musical education. Thankfully, the band made up for the anguish that the conductor had caused. They were pretty good. I felt like getting up and dancing but unfortunately there was no one to dance with me.

As a finale piece, the band put together a melody of ABBA songs tho the person who introduced it went: songs from Mamma Mia and also the album ABBA Gold. I wonder if the kid knows that the songs form ABBA were used to write the play and not the other way around. But their melody was absolutely amazing.

Maybe I should really learn how to dance and maybe start going out with people so that I can dance when the music inspires. I’m so glad I had stopped to enjoy the music.

One would think it is common sense not to put an ad /directions or anything relating to your business on a trash can.

Maybe common sense is not so common after all.

PS - Please forgive the grainy image, I had forgotten to bring my camera out. Phone cameras will never cut it.

This is for my dear cousin. Excuse the grainy image, I didn’t have my camera with me.

Who says there isn’t a tub of Dublin Mudslide!!

I was just having a discussion with a friend just the other day. She mentioned to be that a forum she is part of is trying to raise money for the little girl whose toe was ripped off on an escalator. As much as I would like to commend them for their civic minded-ness, I think they have lost perspective of what things should really be.

When wanting to “raise funds for charity or a charity project”, one must be sure that it is such. This is just an unfortunate accident – not a valid charity project, in my humble opinion. If you would just hear me out before throwing raw eggs (or spam in my direction)

There are people writing into The Straits Times’ forum about how the government needs to look into these escalator incidents. As far as I know, there is only a handful that exists in recent time; I probably can count them on one hand.

Every time I go out, I will definitely have at least one run in with kids that are playing in places that they should not. They run amok around shopping malls, in restaurants and many other places and the parents just sit there and do nothing. Or they tell the maid off for not controlling the children. It makes me wonder, who gave birth to those kids.

I’m more likely to believe that the parents were not watching the child when the shoe got caught in the escalator, causing the toe to be ripped off. As my friend said, if that happened to her child, her husband would blame her for not watching the child properly. As it is, we have warning labels on escalators – not to stand too near the sides, to stand within the yellow bar area, to hold the handrail, to not play on the escalator, for adults to hold the child’s hand – all of which are common sense that should be applied regardless.

What else do we need? Every time I see a coffee cup that comes with the warning “Caution, contains hot drink” (or something similar) I just want to roll on the floor laughing. I feel like companies are dumbing me down – but I understand their need to do so, coz others can’t seem to figure it out on their own. Some guy got burnt by his tea or coffee from McDonald’s – he sued McD’s and actually won; which is probably why their cups come with that warning label.

How soon are we going to learn to stop whining and just realize that the Singapore government isn’t here to baby you? It just seems that everyone wants the government or someone to step in when something goes wrong. The snack deli opposite yours didn’t close down and your business is suffering – what do you do, complain to the media in hopes of getting some attention. If you didn’t do enough research before committing to a shop location, your child hurts themselves because you weren’t watching them carefully or you burn yourself when you spilt hot drink on yourself, I say it’s your fault.

Don’t keep finding someone to blame; have the courage to realize that it was your mistake, fix it and move on.

P.S. Another person with a similar take on the situation – tho person has anger towards footwear too as well. The blog post can be found here

Normally I am always the first to ignore emails with pleas of help – a lot of them are obviously fake and I can’t understand why so many people cannot see through it. When there are actual dates involved, it makes it either to confirm it for the truth or not.

But when a contact sends it to you, it makes it so much easier. When I read it – it hit a cord with me.

When I was younger (school days), I had a friend/schoolmate who suffered from leukemia. As time passed, I watched her wither away and we slowly grew apart. The school’s grapevine was good so I knew a bit of the things she was going through and we also had mutual friends. It was extremely hard to see her slowly disappear right in front of us and know that there was nothing we could do about it besides just watch from a distance as she fought her battle. It was a long and drawn out one, and unfortunately one she didn’t win in the end. In some way, some of the things I do, are probably because of her.

Now here is one more.

Chrissy Tan, was recently diagnosed with leukemia as well. From the pictures on JayWalk’s blog, my heart goes out to her, for the strength and courage she shows. Even tho she has received bone marrow for her treatment already, she is still organising a drive to increase the number of bone marrow potential donors in the registry. All that is required is a drop (or two of blood) for them to type and put it in the registry.

The details are:
Date: 5 November 2006, Sunday (only a few days away!!)
Time: 10am – 4pm
Venue: Aramsa - The Garden Spa Function Room; Bishan Park II

Here are some links

JayWalk’s entry on drive with all the pertinent information you would need. He is also going to be blogging about Chrissy over the next few days also, so you might want to check back

FAQ on bone marrow donation

Aramsa Spa
You can go make a day of it and book yourself some spa treatments as well. I’ve passed the spa before, it looks gorgeous.

If you can, please do pass this information around.

Over the last weekend, I caught some amazing sights. I love fireworks – the pure power, with control and the beauty of the sky and light will never cease to have me in awe each time.

As the appointed time draws close, the heart beats faster, the mind rushing ahead dreaming of the beauty that will soon present itself, one gets more jittery caused probably by the excitement running through the body. When the first firework is set off, goose-bumps quickly rush to the surface and then one sees the sky light up – absolutely astounding.

It gives a natural high that not many things can. One can only just watch from below, admiring it, soaking it in and enjoying the moment. For those ten to fifteen minutes, you are transported to a world very different from the one we live in. The adrenaline pumps thru your body and the wonderment of the situation is the only thing you will think of, every other thought, worry or confusion just melts away like it never existed in the first place.

Thank you for the lovely comments for the previous set of firework images. There is more to come. It’s been a busy busy week!

I managed to catch the opening ceremony of the Fireworks Festival 2006 @ Marina Bay. My friends made it there earlier than me (coz I fell asleep) and I’m so thankful they fought tooth and nail to save me a spot on the bridge; as by the time I got there, I would have been blocked and not have gotten any good shots at all! I did get a few good ones, mostly bad but its expected… it was a breezy night so the smoke moved off quite quickly.

Here are some of the nicer ones

A great bright and cheery start

There was a whole bunch of fireworks which started out gold and suddenly the ends become coloured, amazing

Connect the dots

Fireflies in fireworks – sweet

Palm trees?

This just screams carnival atmosphere to me

Going out with a big bang

The Aftermath

Yesterday night’s performance was done by an Italian team, and my was it passionate! Many might not have grasp the full performance as anyone would be mesmerised by the sheer beauty of the fireworks, but the music accompaniment was amazing. Full of life and passion, I was utterly in awe of the whole thing.

Definitely going to try my utmost best to catch the other teams.

It’s a nice change when you hold open the lift door and the gentleman behind you says “Please, you first.”

In this fairly ungracious society, it’s no longer part of the norm. Although a number my male friends are gentlemanly (to a certain extent only), one hardly finds chivalry outside of their circle of friends.

That small little gesture, that didn’t cost anything made my morning; which even the stupid lecherous man that hangs around my office couldn’t spoil.

I do often feel that I tend to have fairly high standards when it comes to service. I’ve been known to just write a place off for only mediocre service.

But sometimes service staffs surprises me, and it really brightens my day. I was just at a food-court buying a snack to ease the hunger pains; when I ran into this great staff. While a couple of customers were waiting for their orders to be prepared - he went out of his way to make conversation.

If there had been a GEMS card there, I would have definitely given him one.

If one takes the time to slow down, you might just find something to put a smile on your face.

Two days in a row – I hurry from work to a movie theatre to watch Brokeback Mountain. Both times, by the time I get there the tickets are sold out. Even single seats are snapped up!

After being rejected at that cinema, each time, I take a walk to a nearby cinema in hopes to catch a movie as I have missed so many. In the span of the walk – its funny little things that tend to catch my attention. Like a couple, leaning against each other just watching the world pass them by; school kids “hanging out”; a tourist taking a picture of a building (I think) and his friend taking a picture of him taking a picture.

The one that really caught my attention? This little girl, walking beside her father, holding his hand on her left and something on her left – on second look I realise there is a (wooden) duck on a stick. She is making it walk by rolling it on the ground. The two webbed feet of the duck merrily roll along with her. The serene calm on her face was mesmerising to say the least.

About my movie watching – both days I catch different shows at the second cinema. On the second day, after the movie I head to the bus stop to catch my bus home. While texting my friend, I do a 180 and rush back to the cinema on a whim that I will get to watch the movie I’ve tried twice in 2 days to catch. Thankfully, I get a seat which is a bit further front then I would like – but I finally get to watch Brokeback!

While walking towards the cinema, I realise that I’m going back into the same cinema hall I had just watched my earlier show.

On the spur of the moment, I’ve created a semi-movie marathon. As a lot of my friends have pointed out – I’m the only one they know that works on a lack of any shape or form of schedule and is so extremely spontaneous that my line of thought can change within a minute. I guess I should start organising things, so that I won’t keep getting myself into situations where I need to “go with the flow” so strongly.

Who is up for taming a wild horse?