Baghbad Bob

I watched this documnetary on Baghdad Bob - based on the comical Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saheed Al-Sahaf. While I agree he was as close to being a complete idiot, I hate what the media is doing.

Having studied media, I am to some extent, aware as to how well it can manipulate/distort the world. It is sickening to think that someone produced Baghdad Bob. To be honest, the Iraqi Info. Minister had done enough damage by painting the wrong picture. While there were people dying, he simply resorted to lying - no-one knows the reason why he did this but he did.

However, no-one is really better off. The Americans and the co-alition have, and this is based on current news by Al-Jazeera, BBC and CNN, struggled to complete their "mission" in Iraq. In all honesty, maybe replacing Saddam Hussein has achieved nothing. If you thought Baghdad Bob was funny, the lies that are potrayed by the western media are not less damaging. It has been a long three plus years in Iraq and the terror of Saddam has simply been replaced. This is so sad especially in the context of watching Baghdad Bob, I am forced to think that the "Western Powers" are getting away with the same amount of lies except that the media is on thier side and keeps portraying them as heroes. Media kills.

Prudence? What prudence?

Attended a course of Financial Reporting Standards. Good stuff - kudos to Asst. Prof. Ng Eng Jaun for keeping me, and a bunch of 30+ other professionals, engaged for almost 8 hours with FRS 32 and 39,

In all, a good course but I will still need to read a lot more on it and will have loads of questions.

However, I am suprised since Accounting has changed a lot. All of the concepts that I have learnt - prudence, consistency, martierialism and blah blah are now completelycompromised. OK - maybe not completely but still... Jeez... these standards almost make accounting sexy.

I am going to make a mental note to have a look at a few standards. Accounting, like Timberlake, is bringing sexy back.

Tony and I were wrong

I predicted a Sri Lankan win for the South African match and we have sufferred a horrendous loss. I am, of course, eating humble pie, and will be flooded by some sarcastic comments upon my return to office from certain individuals; in some sense, not being able to access my email today since I was not at work, is a blessing. However, to be honest, South Africa played better than us - especially their bowling off the top - Pollock and Ntini, combined to give them a dream start and had us on the ropes with 3o something for four. We surrendered meekly to 141 and have just knocked ourselves out of the tournament.

Tony Greig, who was the darling of Sri Lankan fans, for his outward support for the Lankans in 1996, with his enthusiastic commentary with famous terms such as "Lil' Kalu" and "Fetch that, India" each time Jayasuriya pounded the boundary boards has made a sudden u-turn. Apart from the fact that he seems to be losing perspective - such as when Kallis dropped the catch, he kept screaming "What a catch!!" (and there was one more instance of such a blooper), he worked with Barry Richards to make some unflatterring comments about Sri Lanka. To be honest, we played horribly, and he was right in identifying that Lanka was under pressure and did not handle the situation well. However, to write off all our achievements in the past 12 months was a bit much.

Firstly, yes, we did not handle South Africa well. True. However, we had South Africa at out mercy not too long ago and the man of the match, Pollock, was bowling off-spin to look for respite in Sri Lanka.

Secondly, Jayasuriya might not be the man he was in 1996; but he is still a terrific opening batsmen and did Tony himself not comment that he was unlucky to be LBW? In any case, he beats Jehan Mubarak and Michael Vandort; I would trust Jayasuriya if he was 65 with one forearm than either one of the terrible duo of Mubarak and Vandort.

Thirdly, we beat England 5-0 in England. Even to beat a relatively under-performing team, this was a tremendous feat.

Fourthly, how do, as idenitfied by many, to be the hottest team to win the Champions Trophy, in one match, lose all of our credibility.

Finally, Tony, you are wrong. We are most likely going to be out - but we still are technically in the tournament until Pakistan loses. If Pakistan loses to either South Africa or New Zealand, yes, then we are defnitely out. Also, it goes down to Net Run Rate if Pakistan wins both thier matches; and things do not look good for Lanka following the heacy 78 run defeat. In any case, Tony, you are still technically wrong.

Also, as an add-on, Murali, should be given a terrible hounding; horrible to see that you represent a country with such ignorance. I would think you would hold your ground to the death and that shmuck attempts to hit a six; not funny, Murali. We could have done ourselves a favour by at least trying to get close to the score and give ourselves a shot if Pakistan turned up the heat.

Nevermind South Africa walked the talk and deserved their victory. I also felt Lanka was lazy/complacent in allowing the Kallis/De Villiers partnership to build. I could probably rant on but I am stuffed with all the humble pie.

Anyways, go Pakistan. By god, if you give us one more chance, maybe I can outdo myself :P

Never saw the day...

OK - so some of these songs that I really like - are probably weird to most

Dreaming of you -Selena
Sleeping sattelite - Tasmin Archer
For you I will (Confidence) - Teddy Gieger
Love Song - Sky
Missing - Everything but the Girl

Alright - obvisouly a whole lot more - yes, you can message me online and ask :)

Cheers!

ICC Awards 2006

Player of the Year Award:
Michael Hussey (Australia), Muttiah Muralidaran (Sri Lanka), Ricky Ponting (Australia), Mohammed Yousuf (Pakistan)

Test Player of the Year Award:
Muttiah Muralidaran (Sri Lanka), Ricky Ponting (Australia), Shane Warne (Australia), Mohammed Yousuf (Pakistan)

ODI Player of the Year:
Michael Hussey (Australia), Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), Ricky Ponting (Australia), Yuvraj Singh (India)

Women's Player of the Year:
Karen Rolton (Australia), Anjum Chopra (India), Katherine Brunt (England)

Emerging Player of the Year:
Alistair Cook (England), Mohammed Asif (Pakistan), Ian Bell (England), Monty Panesar (England)

Captain of the Year Award:
Rahul Dravid (India), Michael Vaughan (England), Ricky Ponting (Australia), Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka)

Spirit of Cricket Award:
India, England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka

Umpire of the Year Award:
Aleem Dar, Rudi Koertzen, Simon Taufel. Sapa

Changes

Life is so freaking different when compared to six years ago. Man! Going through CIMA without a care in the world and those are the days that I will remember as being my fondest.

A tribute to the gang who made it all happen (in no order)

- Mustan :P
- Rezan (14th Aug)
- Janhar (31st Jan)
- Shanks (22nd May)
- Manjula (16th Feb)
- Suhanthan (15th Sept)
- Ismeth (OK - so no fucking idea)
- Harsha (December baby - no idea about timing - towards end me thinks)

And my apologies. I have never been good in keeping in touch but I do miss the times and more importantly your company. I just want to put it out there. And I am not big on birthdays :) And those dates there are tentative - I am not sure about them exactly.

And now - things are different. Friends in Singapore. And they come and they go. It blows that they have to go but while it lasts - it is awsome. No regrets.

HollywoodClicks

14 days free trial - decent collection. Should be getting my first batch in a couple of working days. Give it a shot - similar to Netflix or Blockbuster in the US. Think it should work in Singapore since about 70% have access to the net, strengthning of piracy controls, and the appeal of the convenience factor.

Most updated music list...

And I have finally uploaded all my favourites. Almost all of the songs I love - a few 100 to and my 17GB collection will be reasonably enviable to anyone who likes a general mix with no real preference to a genre. It was bloody tedious but at least, the skip button is spared.

Preview: Sri Lanka vs Chicken

I could not resist. We are all due to play a highly charged-up quarter-final like games with the South Africans tomorrow. To put things into perspective - huge respect for the South Africans - not so much of the current team though. S Africa came through in the World Cup 1992 and in that jaw dropping semi-final where they were, in many people's books, robbed off a victory with the application of a very stupid rule, where the balls were reduced from 13 to 1 while the target to achieve (22 runs) was reduced by one run. And yet they showed that their hearts and spirit were in the right place by coming out to salute the crowd (with one of the batsmen who was at the crease at the end in a towel) and made a whole round. Enter South Africa and they have since then played really well as shown by their consistently high ranks in the ICC ratings.

However, the ratings are no inidication of the spirit of the team. With the unfortunate incidents over Hansie Cronje's matchfixing and a combination of a fatal error by Shaun Pollock's poor mathemetical skills costing them a berth in the super sixes in the World Cup 2003, saw Greame Smith enter the fray. No doubt - he is a fantastic bat but he opens his mouth as often as he hits a boundary. And that is unfortunate - he has been caught with his pants down more than once; I cannot recall any instances but take my word on this. For instance, the time he talked about how sledging was privy to the game on the field and then took it straight to the press.

And in the recent tour of Sri Lanka - jeez man. I know about the security threat but to leave the cricket high and dry. That is sad. And I am also inclined to believe that Kallis and Smith skipped the tour since they are truly chicken - and they faked their injuries - with the same conscience of a NUS student skipping a mid-term.

In any case, he has opened his big mouth again and we all know his banter when he lost to the black cups.

I hope to be having some humble pie tomorrow. Courtesy of Smith and Boucher. Stuffed with chicken. Two portions, biatch.

Sports. Technology.

Alright, so the whole of the past two weeks have revolved around arguments over sport. Since cricket fever is around in lieu of the Champions Trophy. I am tipping Lanka to win - they do have a good chance except for a couple of issues that they may wish to fix - i.e. the firepower in the middle order to finish an innings on a high. I think they got the combination spot-on for the game against the black caps - the only glitch being that the end to the match, albeit a forgone conclusion, as soon as Jaya had dug in with a quickfire 20, was delayed due to Tharanga and Jayawardene fell in quick succession. While Jayawardene has really come good, and this is recognised by him being nominated by the ICC as one of the four runners for Captain of the year 2006, he still does play irresponsibly - at times. If he could just maybe play with a little bit of circumspection...

Anyways, tempers are flying helter skelter with regard to each individual gunning for a different team. So far, I think, Australia, Sri Lanka would be my top three choices; I would give India an outside edge but I feel that they will be exposed in their bowling. Their batting has looked good on paper forever - they usually deliver but we will have to wait and watch whether it can carry the weight of their bowling.

On the note of technology, I spend every Sunday evening religiously watching CSI. CSI is a good series even though it may not accurately refelect the life of a CSI - for instance, a good buddy of mine, who studied in Texas - Forensics something, told me that a forewarning for the course was that in real life, CSIs specialise in a particular thing - such as say DNA analysis. Can you imagine how boring that would be? Never do you on the field to see all the gory stuff; interviewing the bad guys. Nothing. Just sit and analyse. So it is glorified - but in terms of entertainment value - it is kick-ass.

And to relate this to technology - the importance of them having good Management Information Systems. For real - I mean, they traced a suspect through a tatoo. Jeez. Can you imagine that? With just one obscure piece of info. and poof - it pulled up the suspect.

And technology is loads of fun too - of course, we all hear this cliche about how things have changed over the past 10 years - with the advent of email/internet. It really has. The internal mails at work give all of us respite and help us bond; so even if share physical proximity, email serves to act as something that accentuates that.

Anyways, it is also Eid and a few of us are looking to have a good time tomorrow; cricket - watching the match (at the very least) and maybe even playing some, and lunch at a good spot.

Yep - that is about it really. And to top it off, I had a fantastic lunch partly because I was catching up with my colleagues and we ended cracking each other up.

The weekend was spent between sleeping and playing PlayStation; it will become more constructive as I begin my quest to self-study for ACCA. Haiz.

Everybody's fool

Over the past few days, it has been common for me to sleep real late since I sat on a report due at work and found myself stretched towards the end. Lucky for me, I had my fellow GA, Mr Yew Poo, working on it with me.

To put a few things in perspective. While academics are tough, it is relative. You come out to the working world, the stakes are higher. And there are a lot more dimensions/variables and perespectives that one needs to account for.

An interesing term that I picked up is "The Single Version Of the Truth"(SVOT). I picked up a couple more - "Business As Usual"(BAU). And on the slightly amusing side - CYA - i.e. Cover-Your-Ass.

Apart from that, I have sorta started on a few small initiatives; volunteering, growing my nails (OK - so maybe this is not really an "initiative"), sleeping more - apparently it helps performance (DO NOT LAUGH - there is a case study done by Harvard and this is not a figment of my imagination), play less Playstation/Xbox (did not touch for almost a month before playing on it continously for 8 hours - yes, Top Spin rocks :D) and well, the list sorta goes on.

I got my iPod replaced and finally uploaded the almost perfect songlist - and uploaded my photos on it too. Do not think there will be major revisions to my songist since Singapore is clamping down on pirated music - so my "sources" will be lying low. I have got quite a few old songs on like 20 different CDs and I am feeling lazy to go and pick up my fav's from that - such a tedious bloody procedure.

Joined for a free trail on www.hollywoodclicks.com. Allows you to try for 14 days where movies .are delivered to your doorstep. a.k.a Netflix/Blockbuster in the US.

Nothing else to really talk about - cricket is fun to watch. Lanka is in with a real chance so that is exciting - just need to knock out South Africa to make it through to the semi's for sure - else, it might just be elimination or a dog-fight.

So now, I am looking for new content for iPod - videos and interesting podcasts and maybe some interesting ringtones/themes to jazz up the K700i. It is not the latest phone but it can still hold it's own since it is a pretty popular phone :)

Sleepy too - stayed up the whole night. Yawnz.

Oh - if you have the time, check out Promiscuous Girl and London Bridge. Between the two videos, I learnt two things - the meaning of promiscuous and that the dudes who guard the buckingham palace can really shake their booty.

On a final note, and some advice, do not try to help someone un-invited. It has already backfired on me. Do not help unless asked to since otherwise you are equally unwelcome. This is really as a note to myself!

Cheers!

Unresponsive + Trash Talk

Do you not hate people who do not answer your calls or messages?

I hate it when I do not get a reply or someone does not pick up a call. I know a lot of people are like - so what it happens. OK - so maybe missing a call or not replying is something that we are all guilty of 'cos we were too busy and so on. However, at least have the decency to respond when you do have the time.

And I have believed all along the time that being busy does not mean you cannot make the time to do something; the people who are the busiest seem to be able to do a lot and hence they are justifiably busy.

Well, since I have finished ranting - work is still slow. I can probably do a lot more and I am waiting on my colleagues - who are busy with their Business-As-Usual (BAU) stuff to impart some of their knowledge. They are really nice - but really busy - but they do make the time :)

Apart from that - nothing really new. Emails are flying around at work with the loads of newbies in the organization.

And the Singaporean GAs met up at Paulners - it was good to see all of 'em together. As usual, good food and even better company capped off a good mid-week in the beginning of October!

Watched Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Courtesy of free tickets from Power 98 won by Rajen. He is so jobless. He keeps on calling Power 98 incessantly and virtually lives off them. He could potentially give up his day job and just settle down with a FM radio. Tune into Power 98 - virtually every other competition is won by him. This is new for Indians (by the way, I am partially Indian so my comments are fully qualified) - they are now playing the Champions Trophy. They were not statisfied that they had their booties laced in KL - so they have organised a tournament in their motherland - and the players better top up their insurance 'cos the forest fires in Indonesia will be no match for the houses lost when they lose the cup in India itself. However, every cloud has a silver lining; it will only condition them for the upcoming loss in 2007 - the World Cup.

And I am scheduled to get free dinners - if you bitches - Onn and Loaded - are reading this, I am licking my lips already. We took care of former India yesterday. Read the raving reviews - first blood! :D

CCCChhhhhhhhhers!

Disclaimer: I love most of my Indian buddies - so do not take the comments too harshly. Afterall, you guys are not directly responsible for the pathetic state of your team.