I was stumbling around on the net and then I hit this. Dammit! Time to start reading books again.

Math Whiz Breaks Calculation Record - A 38-year-old with degrees in psychology, education and computer science needed only 11.8 seconds to calculate the 13th root of a 100-digit number in his head, setting a new record, organizers said. (from slashdot)

Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack? - Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday. (via Wired.com)

Yet more Engrish

In Self-Help Books, the 'Self' May Be the Author - … we are so inundated by guides and rules and manuals that we grow ever more difficult to snooker. Sure, there are authors willing to tell you how to date, break up, eat, diet, get rich and keep the wolf from the door. But how many of them have anything genuinely helpful to say?

Meteorite 'photographed' hitting Earth - NORTHERN Territory scientists were last night studying what could be the first photograph of a meteorite hitting Earth.

Oh man, this is hilarious - GOD NAMES NEXT "CHOSEN PEOPLE"; IT'S JEWS AGAIN "Oh Shit," Say Jews

11:45pm. The rain pelts down around me as I scurry to the bus-stop. Shapeless figures shuffle past, heads tilted down, shoulders tense from holding umbrellas. Ahead, a girl’s heel gets caught in a sewer cover. She laughs out loud as her boyfriend tries to wrench it free. I skirt by them, drenching my feet in the process. She continues to laugh. There’s only one other person at the bus-stop – an old man who looks around nervously as if something’s after him. I ignore his glances and turn back to look at the couple. They’ve disappeared. Three buses come and go before the right one arrives. I board and find a seat. A drunk in the front shouts for the driver to stop. The driver keeps on driving. The drunk starts giggling. I turn away. The rain is coming down in sheets now. Through the windows, streetlights look like so many novas burning in the night sky. I suddenly remember that I have to buy this book. The bus finally stops at the interchange. Something’s happened. A police cordon has been set up and there’re officers all around. I hurry past the scene. At the cineplex, I see more officers on patrol. I don’t feel curious at all. I stand outside BK to wait for Pat. The place is thronged with foreign workers. It’s Hindi night. They seem excited. Laughter fills the place along with shrieks of anticipation. Pat arrives, beaming as always. I feel comforted somehow. We make our way to the cinema. Everyone finds The Incredibles funny but I don’t. Yet I laugh. I laugh because Pat laughs. The show ends. It’s 2:05am. The rain continues to pour.

The Gangs of Chicago

I'm only interested in those cool Italians who take up only the last forty or so pages of this book. I hope I got this right.

In the beginning there was Jim Colosimo who employed Johnny Torrio as his number two. Colosimo then foolishly went and fell in love, leaving Torrio almost solely in charge of affairs. So Torrio had Colosimo shot in the neck. Torrio then took over as the most respected gangster in Chicago. To bolster his ranks, he hired a 23-year old slugger and gunman from New York to work as a bouncer at one of his “resorts”. The young man’s name? Alphonse Capone.

Capone proved himself to be capable and rose quickly to become Torrio’s right-hand man. While Torrio tended to negotiate and compromise his way to gangland supremacy, Capone favoured shooting holes in the opposition. And so it was that these two alter egos led the largest vice organisation in Chicago.

Opposition came in the form of Dion O’Banion who split from the Torrio-Capone faction after a dispute over share of profits. O’Banion double-crossed Torrio, costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars and a run-in with the police. In response, Torrio and Capone sent Mike Genna, John Scalisi and Albert Anselmi to O’Banion’s flower shop (O’Banion loved flower arrangement – I know… doesn’t make sense to me either) and had him shot.

The shooting went something like this: The three men entered the flower shop and approached O’Banion while he was clipping the stems off a bunch of chrysanthemums. “The center man of the three (Mike Genna) simply grasped O’Banion’s hand and suddenly jerked him forward, and before the gangster could recover his equilibrium and snatch a pistol, the men on either side had fired five bullets into his body, and a sixth – the grace shot to make death certain - into his head.”

O’Banion was succeeded by Hymie Weiss who declared war on Torrio and Capone. His opportunity came when Torrio foolishly attended O’Banion’s funeral and was rewarded with bullets in his jaw, right arm, abdomen and chest.

But the bugger survived.

However, when he recovered, he had no appetite left for gang life and left Chicago for good. He is estimated to have been worth up to thirty million dollars at the time of his retirement.

The attack on Torrio sparked the gang wars that lasted from 1925-1930. More than five hundred men were killed in these wars and Capone alone is thought to have killed between twenty and sixty. Mike Genna was shot and killed on July 13, 1925 but his assailants were police officers.

Weiss made a dozen attempts on Capone’s life in the year following O’Banion’s death. The closest he came to succeeding was on September 20, 1926 when eleven automobiles filled with Weiss gangsters drove past the Hawthorne Inn (Capone’s headquarters) and riddled the building with bullets. Capone was lunching at a restaurant next door and escaped injury.

Weiss was dead twenty days later. As he walked towards his office on October 11, 1926, he was gunned down by Capone’s men with a shotgun and a machinegun. Fifteen bullets were found in Weiss’ body.

But Capone wasn’t just ruthless to the enemy. The bodies of Joseph Guinta, John Scalisi and Albert Anselmi (the latter two were involved in the O’Banion shooting) were found on May 8, 1929. The case was never solved but many suspect that they were killed under orders from Capone who suspected them of plotting against him.

Ironically, what eventually forced Capone from Chicago wasn’t another gang lord but the common man. The Chicago Crime Commission, aided by local newspapers, turned the spotlight on gangsters, establishing them as “public enemies”. This move raised public anger against the hoodlums and “gangdom began to feel the lash of an aroused citizenry.”

Al Capone fled Chicago in 1929 but was arrested in Philadelphia on charges of carrying concealed weapons. He was sentenced to a year’s jail but only served ten months. A few months after his release, Capone scoured the country for a place to retire but not one state allowed him refuge. He returned to Chicago in the summer of 1931 and was arrested by Federal agents after which he was sentenced to eight years in Alcatraz Prison, San Francisco Bay.

Phase 2 of GAH started with Bryan and me giggling (in a manly way!) at Harbour Front MRT. It’s a necessary hazard that we have to deal with on missions such as this. The look on Andy’s face coupled with the anticipation just makes a laugh irresistible.

So anyway, the plan was Sentosa. I believe this was inspired by The Champions. Unfortunately, none of us had b00bs of similar caliber. Well, almost none at least.

I don’t wanna go into the details, mainly because I’ve forgotten them. And also because they involve the usual volleyball, babe-watching, handball, babe-watching, beach soccer, babe-watching stuff. But it suffices to say that I believe things are looking good for the single guy. Maybe Phase 3 (if there is one) will be the clincher.

Looks familiar?

From an article in the Economist.

”The main reason why so many people have given up smoking is that governments have been drumming into their heads that they are giving themselves lung cancer, hardening their arteries, destroying their fertility, damaging their circulation and making their teeth drop out. Smokers have been made to feel stupid; which, since they are, is just as it should be.”

Ooh… Scathing.

Phase 1 of Get Andy Hitched or GAH has passed without result. 3 days spent mucking about in Downtown East has only ended up with me gaining 1kg from downing I don’t know how many cans of other people’s Heinekens. At least it was fun and Andy did meet a few new female friends even if they probably weren’t his type.

Anyway, if Junwei and Bryan have their way, there’ll be many more phases to come, starting this Sunday.

Come to think of it, I don’t know why we’re so obsessed with finding him a partner. He certainly seems like he couldn’t care less. Ah well, that’s what friends are for.

Here's another reason not to buy pirated DVDs.

On the other hand, at least it's balanced.

Over the last few days, I have caught snippets of The Champion - that erection-inducing babe-filled drama serial. For the uninitiated, the plot of this extraordinary TV experience revolves around pH|0|\|4 x|3 (fee-oh-na xie), henceforth FX, throwing her b00bs around while her male co-stars act like they’re not interested. Most engaging, this. Especially the throwing part.

Local television has a few idiosyncrasies that piss me off but the most chillingly horrible are definitely the courtship sequences. The one I managed to catch in the aforementioned serial involved FX jumping and running around while the guy (I don’t know his name but he is arguably as pretty as FX) chased her around the beach or boat or lodge. And why must there always be water-splashing?! How many people of that age still do that? In this case, they splashed each other in the sea and then a few seconds later were caught throwing mineral water at each other in a lodge. The sense in this escapes me completely.

Of course there are others idiosyncrasies such as bad acting, bad scripts, bad sets etc but let’s be nice.

Another thing to note is that FX’s chest wasn’t the only one worth gawking at. There was another pair of huge h00trz on show. Unfortunately, they belonged to the actor playing the diving instructor. Other than for pure narcissistic pleasure, people who work out look at themselves in mirrors regularly to check muscle proportion. This guy apparently didn’t read the manual cos his man +|++|35 (I had to write this in |337 to avoid unwanted hits) threatened to cover his face. Ok, I’m exaggerating. To give you a more accurate picture, imagine Optimus Prime’s chest on Bumblebee’s body. I was absolutely disgusted but I couldn’t turn away. I must do something about this.

Had the pleasure of attending a Johnnie Walker tasting session last night at the 1NiteStand. At least I can say that I’ve been in there even though there wasn’t any comedy to be had. What there was though was a lot of whisky. And some babes. And Bernard Lim, who is Johnnie Walker’s brand ambassador and emceed the event.

He gave us a brief training session in how to enjoy whisky. Looking at the colour is the first step. The darker the whisky, the older it is. Simple enough.

Following this, we were told to look at legs. As everyone no doubt expected, it wasn’t what it sounded like. We were instructed to tilt our glasses, bring them vertical again and watch the whisky on the sides flow back down. The longer it took, the longer the legs the whisky had and thus the more viscous it was. Again, piece of cake.

Nosing was a bit of a problem though. The first whisky was supposed to have hints of “creamy vanilla”. I smelt kerosene. In fact, I smelt kerosene in all five whiskies. The only variation being kerosene in addition to smoke for the 4th glass.

Tasting. Now, I know that whisky is sometimes called the water of life. It’s loved by millions all over the world for its depth of flavour and so and so forth. But I can’t, for the life of me, understand why. Each and every glass tasted absolutely vile. There isn’t such a thing as a smooth whisky in my book. There’re only choking ones and not so choking ones.

However, it wasn’t all painful. I did get a nice box of coasters.

[Headline on Soccernet]

Gladbach get Dick in for Fach

Before I forget, this is what the creative department looks like now. Somewhat squatter-ish if I may say so but definitely more comfy than before.

Bush or Kerry? I'd say neither.

The US elections are upon us. Should I care? Maybe. Do I? No.

Perhaps if I approved of either candidate I would. But, when faced with the reality that either of these "deeply-flawed men" will become what is effectively the leader of the free world, it’s impossible for me to feel anything but regret, apprehension and a certain degree of apathy (yes, I know I’m contradicting myself somewhat).

I must admit that at the beginning of the race, I favoured Kerry. The problem is that I wasn’t as much for him as I was against Bush. From the few people I have asked, the general impression is that the word “Bush” is now synonymous with the word “idiot”. This, as far as I can remember, is a first for US presidents. It might be noted that “Clinton” was synonymous with “fornicator” but that was only to be expected.

But now, the problem is that Kerry, other than appearing at least twice as intelligent as Bush, is also coming across as twice as indecisive. Sure, Bush may have bungled the war in Iraq but at least he knows what he wants and that is to kill terrorists. Conversely, Kerry has claimed the war to be a mistake despite voting for it earlier. This surely shows that if Kerry were to take over, his commitment to the cause would be questionable.

This is exactly what America and the rest of the world don’t need. We need someone who’s going to go at it day after day, year after year, with relentless fervour no matter what the challenges.

George Bush showed the determination to do what he felt right and the courage to go it alone if that was what it took. The invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do, given the information and circumstances of the time. The decision to ignore the UN, while irreverent, was exactly the kick up the arse that that old man’s club needed.

This doesn’t mean that Bush is the right man for the job though. I don’t doubt that he has the drive. If nothing else, he has at least proved himself in that sense. But, and this is a big but, his ability has been seriously called into question. It’s true that Afghanistan has progressed since the invasion. The Taliban has gone and the country has just held its first democratic elections. Congratulations. But you’re only as good as your last achievement and the debacle in Iraq must surely speak badly of Bush. No one doubted that the US would drive Saddam Hussein from Baghdad. But Bush’s short-sightedness then became painfully apparent. By committing too few troops to maintain security and ensure a smooth (or at least smoother) transition, Bush has lost whatever kudos he may have gained previously. The atrocities at Abu Ghraib highlight the mentality that Bush has unwittingly instilled in his soldiers which some say reflects his own attitude towards Arabs. Bush certainly has done himself no favours with his rhetoric - the use of the word “crusade” being one example.

So, with that said, I’m glad the decision isn’t mine to make. (At least over here, the choice is clear. Not because I pledge allegiance to the powers-that-be but because the opposition is generally made up of comedians.) The choice Americans face is certainly one of the hardest ever and the pre-election polls show it. Bush or Kerry, the decision is fraught with danger either way. Thus, with regard to the next four years, all I can say is good luck.

Can Asians Think?

Interestingly, the answer is only a “Maybe”.

We Have Moved

The creative department has moved to the back of the office. Four of us crammed into a space roughly 4m x 4m. Finally we can get some decent brainstorming (and cardplaying) done. It’s so much easier to work when all you have to do is turn your chair around to smack someone else’s head.

I have a cupboard on my right hand side that sorta acts as an entrance/exit. Despite my repeated assertions to the contrary, my boss is worried that it’ll make me feel “seconded” pronounced “see-kon-ded”. I can only guess that he means secluded. I learn how not to say things everyday.

The view has improved tremendously as well. We can all look down Shenton Way all the way to the Esplanade (rhymes with shard). Sure helps me sleep better after lunch.

Probably the only drawback is that we’re now right beside the spray mounting room where, unfortunately, much more takes place than just spray mounting. An activity so cataclysmic that it cannot be mentioned on this blog. In fact, there is a hand gesture succinctly illustrating this activity that some in my office have picked up to avoid staining the tongue. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

A Dream

It could’ve been North Africa or Afghanistan or Iraq or Siloso beach. Any place with a lot of fine sand. I found myself with my buddy in a foxhole with an M16 slung over my shoulder. I was scanning the horizon but I didn’t know what for. It could’ve been tanks or bikini babes. Either way, I was totally focused when, as it always seems to happen in the movies or dreams for that matter, something exploded nearby. A patrolling soldier went down. I turned in alarm to my buddy and saw fricking Robert Pires staring back at me. The thought of getting an autograph flashed across my mind. Not the most appropriate thing to do in the circumstances I decided. We bounded out of the foxhole with me screaming “Medic” and him “Medeeeeeeeeek” in the way that only a Frenchman can.

We got the medic - Zinedine Zidane (?!). I took this revelation in my stride admirably (which begs the question – what was I smoking at the time?). He started cutting the soldier’s (thankfully, he remained nameless) fatigues with an old pair of scissors. But there was no time to watch. We started sprinting back to our foxhole. It must be noted that Pires’ running style is kinda weird. It’s weird on the pitch and even weirder when he’s dressed in army fatigues. It’s sort of gangly, like an ostrich running with its wings outstretched.

So we jumped back in and started firing. At what, my brain didn’t care to inform me. I just emptied magazine after magazine and, well, that’s about it really because, in the way that dreams always seem to end, an air raid alarm sounded which turned out to be my clock.

Ok. Back to work.