One Minute Dugong Update

OK, i've not been updating my blog...now I can start listing the gazillion reasons why but I'll spend the time giving a ONE MINUTE DUGONG UPDATE..now isn't that better?

1) I'm going to be a DADDY again!! When you're asking? My little dugong is due end-December, I'm hoping it'll be around Christmas but it's more likely to be mid-December but anyhow, Li-Anne and I are both looking forward to completing our family. Terelle will have a nice little playmate - at this point, we're a little concerned she'll be all jealous over the little baby but we'll just have to deal with it when it happens. Oh, we're not sure if it's boy or girl yet. Keep you all posted.

2) A new addition to our family this month -> Yani our Indonesian maid. She's only been with us for 2 weeks and i'm feeling super-duper pampered already. No more washing dishes, milk bottles, laundry, sweeping and mopping the floor, messy toys strewn all over...sigh...will I ever let her leave us...HELL NO!!

3) Training for my 1st marathon this year (2007) is gaining grounds. I've signed up to take part in the 10KM Mizuno run on 22nd July at Bedok Reservoir, so that will be my first step towards completing the marathon, hopefully by end this year. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to complete another maybe 4 more before I try for the marathon proper. Don't want to end up dragging my semi-limp carcass across the finishing line.

OK, that's about it for the 1-minute update. I'll deliberate more on each item in my next posts...please post whatever questions you have and i'll answer them (if you're boliao enuff).

Wet slippery Dugong kiss for all! MUAKZ!

Dugong Stranded in the High Seas

Ok, safely back from Bangalore in one piece. Had a good working session with the team there, and as usual, I do walk out of India feeling that the team has a good handle on things. May be a 'India' thing but the camaraderie within the team is just amazing. Sometimes wish some of that energy and can-do attitude can rub off on to my own species.

Indian food in India -> breathtaking.....it's so totally different from those we get in Singapore, might be the atmosphere but whether north, south, west....it's just as good. Not good to stay beyond a week in India, I'll just be putting on the kilos....after the appetizers, I'm already filled up to my neck in excellent tandoori meat.

The year has just started but it already feels like I'm stranded on an off-shore island with an immense task on hand for the year - make the 500km trip back to mainland. Granted I have a rubber dinghy with a pair of oars at the start of the year, the task shouldn't be that bad...I mean i'd make it eventually, just a matter of time. Well, I just realised I've lost my pair of oars last week after paddling furiously for 100m. And to top it all off, I just found out that my stash of chocolate bars in my back pocket (which was suppose to sustain me for the journey) is rotten.

So here I am, staring at the most ardous journey in my career so far, with no oars and no chocolate bars. Chinese New Year just can't come soon enuff...

Dugong in need of a holiday..

4th week of January - already in need of an extended break.....am so looking forward to the Chinese New Year break....visiting with family and frens, mahjong, goodies and more goodies..

Was watching the semi-finals of the ASEAN CHAMPIONSHIPs on the gym's TV on Tuesday...have to admit it did stir up some minor excitement in me while I was doing my shoulder presses...Malaysia 1 - Singapore 1.....not that I was surprised with the scoreline...but I'm really hoping Singapore makes it to the finals like last year, so we can re-live the Kallang ROAR for one last time before the National Stadium is torn down. I'm not sure who I'd rather have in the Finals facing Singapore...Thailand seems to be the more deserving team based on skill and overall performance but the PLAY-ACTING which that team dished out against Vietnam, it sure ranks way up there with some of the best we've seen each week in the English, Italian and Spanish leagues.

Oh well, whoever get's in, I'm 95% sure I'll be there in Kallang (hopefully I can get tickets)......would love to bring Terelle there to experience it.....this is how soccer should be watched....90+ minutes of live action, screaming fans all around with half-filled mouths of lukewarm currypuffs and keropok!!

DUGONG BACK HOME

Finally, after x2 16hours plane rides and 3 days of -2degrees weather, I'm back in 'real' sunny Singapore. It was by far the most mentally tiring and at-times, physically tiring business trip I have ever been on.

Cancelled flights due to bad weather, more cancelled flights due to airport closures, long hours walking around the airport terminals trying to get alternative flights, getting desperate enough to consider making 5hour long drives on ice-covered mountainous roads just to get to SAN ANTONIO. You name it, we thought about it.

Well, it all turned out well in the end...in fact very well. The entire meeting went on smoothly - and as I would have expected, you walk out of these annual kick-off meetings feeling totally recharged, energised and ready to conquer everything that stands in your way. Well, maybe it's just a handfull of us who feels that way, but what the heck. The best thing was to put faces to names of the great people you've been working with the past year over email and tele-conferences.

Thinking back, it was quite nice actually getting stuck in LA for over a day with the rest of my team. Like I said to them that morning, misery loves company. It would certainly have been different if we were stuck there alone but with 7 miserable souls in there together, it was quite nice spending the time cracking occasional silly jokes, passing each other pathetic looks and feeling sorry for one another.

Oh well, I'm back now in hot humid Singapore.....had wanted to just dash off the plane to get back into the heat but then i got sick of the heat after just an hour.

It's hot India next week, so there will be plenty of opportunities to bake.

Watch that Aerosol Spray!

After a tiring 15+ hour plane ride across the Pacific Ocean, we landed in sunny California......not....rather it was chilly 5degrees Los Angeles Airport which greeted us. What transpired after that was much much worse...we found out that all connecting flights to San Antonio has been cancelled for the day....due to the torrid weather out there this week...-2degrees and snowing. Total unpredictable weather for the state of Texas and hence the entire state is just not prepared for this kind of weather, unlike snow cities like Milwaukee or Chicago.

Airport's been closed and roads have also been closed.

That's the United Airlines counter we spent some hours trying to find us an alternate way into S.A

In the end, we even got our tickets changed from LA into Dallas (1am flight - 4 hours) and then from there we would attempt to drive into S.A which is another 5 hours drive. Madness but we were desperate. At the very end, after all the endless phone calls, we wound up cancelling all those elaborate plans and decided to put up in LA for the night. (Advice from above)
So off we trotted to the shuttle bus stop to take us to the nearby hotel, hoping the weather would clear up tomorrow, but in any case, we've got tickets into S.A on Thursday, but our flight out and home is on Friday evening - which makes me wonder why we're going to S.A in the first place. Sigh....it would still be nice to meet a couple of folks there.

That's some strange looking restaurant (I think) next to the LAX control tower. Nothing much to do during the "8 hours" we spent in the airport figuring out whats the best and smartest move.

Moral of the story, global warming is no joke...watch that aerosol spray....

"Land of the Free...and mega-size French Fries"

..I'm leaving....on a jetplane....don't know when I'll be back again (actually it's only 5 days)...

Will depart for the shores of the United States today....Texas to be exact....won't be seeing my two girls for the next couple of days...simply crushing to a man's spirit...

Here's a picture of me, with my freshly "lawned" scalp to help them think of me when I'm battling the cold in San Antonio!
Double Muakz!!

How Wonderful the GOD we have...

He has never failed to amaze me, with the wondrous ways He chooses to work. Just found out over the last 2 months, my mum has been attending church service every sunday and she's occasionally been able to coax my dad to go with her to visit the little church just outside their house.

Spent some time reflecting upon this fact yesterday and it occured to me that since I've been a Christian in Year 2000, it's been ingrained in me that I'm the first-generation Christian in the family and the salvation of my entire family falls upon my shoulder. I mean it makes perfect sense since I'm the only Christian in the family and it's up to me to spread the faith. Everyone knows the mechanics of that...but I guess the thing we've failed to realise is what God is trying to tell us right now...."Salvation is not up to us...it's always up to Him"....

The more I think about it, the more incredible this gets....it's been almost 7 years now that I've been a Christian...stagnant is probably the best word to desribe my spiritual life at this present moment...but yet, despite all that, God has miraculous led my parents to church...which was something I've never succeeded in the past (besides the rare occassions I've invited them to church to watch my drama and church musical). I've even been told by my mum that the fellow Christian brothers and sisters in that church are always so warm and welcoming towards my parents.

There really is no better way to usher in the new year, but to receive reaffirmation from God that He is in control in All ways and in everything. A timely reminder to me as well to go back to Church regularly and more important, renew and strengthen my relationship with Him. I feel so blessed to know that He's watching over my parents and my family. What a wondrous God we serve.....

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS 2007

Here's the full list of my resolutions - and the reason I'm publishing them here is so that I can be held accountable for it, when I review the list at the end of the year. Hence, my decision to keep the list short...kinda counter-productive to make a long list and end up not keeping them all.

1) Read at least 12 books => average of 1 per month
2) Run my first half-marathon (21 km)
3) Keep to my workout schedule (in order to meet resolution (2))
4) Pass my IPPT (yes......it's a sad fact but it's true)
5) Achieve my work-targets (too long to list them out here-but they are achievable)

Didn't take me too long to work out this list, but took me slightly longer to think up of more items to add to the list. At least I have 5 items which i'm 100% committed to achieve this year. Oh well, publish first...think later...

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Here's wishing everyone a fantabulous NEW YEAR ahead and to get the ball-rolling, my first resolution this year (not that I do it every year) is to post at least one entry here in me blog every week....that will mean at least 52 entries in 2007 and if I complete all of that in January, I don't have to blog the rest of the months...nah...just kidding...

Stay tuned to see the rest of my resolutions.....

Dugong Returns!

Ok, I’m back.

Have just had two people lament that they did not see updates to my blog and that really sucks. Don’t think this is what is referred to as 'responsible blogger', different category probably. You start a blog, u tell people about it, u jolly well be responsible to go update it. Don’t waste people's time to go look in the blog and get a 'history' lesson. OK, OK! I'll update already. That’s why I’m blogging and trying to force open my drooping eyelids on the train now.

Its been rough since I took over this new role at work...well I don’t think it can be called take over, since a take over involves handing over and all I’ve gotten so far are morsels which I had to grovel and beg for. Lets call him Kingkong for easy reference. All of a sudden, you're thrusted into the deepest end, and told to swim...plus u realise, hey, I don’t have swimming trunks, so the little pirahnas are nibbling at your jewels, waiting for you to sink and then they can fully devour you. Meanwhile, the King Kong floats around you in a nice wooden boat, with all the flippers and lifevests inside, and everytime you look at him, he gives you that "I don't care less" smile and throws you one of those lifevests, mind u, NOT INFLATED! Let's summarize : Here I am, trying to swim without trunks, pirahnas nibbling at me jewels and blowing a lifevests at the sametime. Now throw in a big wave, and that’s where I am right now. How did I get here, u ask? Well its a long story, but my motto these days : 'What doesn’t kil you makes you stronger" but then, you'll just die being a strong man eventually.

I’m tired, and the journey hasn’t even started yet. Can't decide if I want the week to go faster so weekend gets here sooner but then the next week will loom, or to pray the week moves slower so I have more time to work. Gosh, can't wait for World Cup to get here. I really enjoy my drives to work these days, the only time my hands are not on my laptop and my mind is not on work and I can be guilt-free about it.

Terelle's birthday is this weekend, and I’m still fretting over whether to get helium for the balloons. I mean what good are balloons which can’t fly, yes they don’t come that cheap, and you don't have to pay for air, it's free anyway. But I never had helium-filled balloons during my first birthday, can’t a man have some now at his daughter's one? I’ve yet to convince Li-Anne for this purchase but I’m going to try again today. Don’t think I’m going to fancy blowing them all with my mouth on Sunday. I’ve only got one mouth and right now, its busy blowing my lifevest. Oh I just remembered, I have the big springy, bouncy thing with the balls contraption which I have to blow as well.

Dugong-Size Headache..

How do you cope with a gloomy and wet Monday morning, coupled with a nagging headache? You can't, although you really have no choice but to take it head-on. Didn’t even bother to grab a copy of TODAY or the STRAITS TIMES this morning....just felt like staring at the head of this guy standing next to me on the train. Strangely, it makes my head feel better; do I have the inate ability to transfer 'headaches' to other peopl??

We had 2 buffets and 1 'major' dinner this weekend....it was my birthday weekend...give me a break :) My 'diet', by now, is spiralling out of control into the abyss. Li-Anne's right, I love food too much.....well not 100% true, but it's a way of rewarding yourself after a long day, or a long week. You can’t just take that away from a man. And no, you can’t replace it with a big plate of carrots and lettuce, topped with fat-free mayonaise.

Bumped into my army buddy, Bryan, at IKEA on Saturday (again). You don't see someone over a year, then you bump into him twice over two months. He's a good guy, must reeaaaalllly remember to give him a call when I get back from Sydney. We had hell-lots-of-fun back in Service Medic School...sigh...the care-free days of the military. Ok, my headache's back, think this fellow's head has max-ed out, have to change to another head. Wow, I can feel Hiroshima starting too.....this is not good.......not good at all.......

Down Under Dugong...

Ok, it's official. My little 'Boobee' is going with us to Sydney next week! Don’t ask me why she's called 'Boobee', its just a term of endearment, and probably a mutation of the common term 'Baby'. Anyway, we're starting to fear Terelle thinks her real name is Boobee Leong.

Its absolutely incredible how much they charge you for a 'infant' seat on the plane. Let's just say it is 500% over my initial estimate. Well, regardless, she's coming with us on my business trip and we've actually arranged for a bassinet on the plane too. In case youVre wondering, I just found out the meaning of that word too. It stands for 'Bed on Plane in Sky' - size S only. It comes 'free' with her grossly over-inflated airfare. And since she ain't even going to occupy a seat on the plane, we might as well take the bassinet; father and daughter can take turns to get some snooze in it. :)

Li-Anne and I were saying that it'll be great to go back there, this time with Boobee, after what.....8 years? More so that the last time, we had some really bad shots of the Opera House. I would really want to blame my lousy underwater camera, it really was....but this time, I'll be well-equipped. Hehehe. So looking forward to it, especially when I'm staring down the barrell of the gun called 'WORK OVERTIME OVER CHRISTMAS SEASON'!! Li-Anne has been extremely supportive over this busy and stressful period; I hope we can have smashing good-old fun as a family next week. It'll be nice to meet up with Jason again after 3 years. He was the funky Chinese-Australian-Malaysian-whatever dude we met on the Grand Canyon tour back in Arizona. He has kindly offered to show my big and small 'Boobees' around while I work my a*** off DOWN UNDER!!!! Thanks bro.

Watch this A***Dugong....

It's just amazing what some people would do to get some press-time and publicity. Its like in their normal mundane lifes, they are just one-in-a-gazillion, insignificant speck of dirt which no one really takes notice of. That can only be the reason.

If you think about it, it's ain't all that difficult.

(1) Choose a sufficiently controversial topic, do be careful that it won’t get you sued in court or thrown in jail. Remember, racism in a multi-cultural based country is a definitely no-no. It obviously isn't that obvious to some people.

(2) Once you've found the topic, decide which side you want to be on. Usually, it'll be the side which 95% of the population is against. It really doesn’t matter which side YOU 'really' support deep down in your heart, you just want people to think you're a non-conformist. You can spend the next 3 months convincing your loved ones you're really not an a***hole and that you only wanted people to take notice of you. What your non-loved ones think about you is however inconsequential, so no worries there.

(3) Post some really ridiculous view on the topic in your blog, in the name of free-speech, and say you've always felt that way about it, to give the impression that you've had 'real' long-term values and views and that you're not just faking it.

(4) As in the wonderful and creative Heineken ad (I really love that one), ".......NOW WE WAIT....".

This is a sure fire way of getting the whole population of gullible Singaporeans to start talking about you. All of a sudden, your name is one of the top-ten search topics on Yahoo. Now comes the finishing move. :

(5) Find a physical representation of your topic of discussion eg. Toilet Bowl, call the reporters, tell them you need to add in the finishing touch to your masterpiece, get them to meet you and take a picture of you sitting on the item/topic with your most constipated look and watch it hit the headlines. WAHLAH............!!!!! (Just remember to give me the due-credit if this works out for you)

UNLUCKY Dugong

Ok, it's been a while, and yes, I didn’t manage to get into the SUBARU Challenge again. That's 2 years running, not too long considering that there' someone who has competed in it all 4 years since the competition started. But hey, the difference is, he got to place his hand on the cars everytime.

I'm seriously beginning to hate LUCK. It's something you have absolutely no control off, something you thank when it goes your way but you curse when it does not. Essentially, it's something you hope works in your favor, when you want to reap reward without expending effort. That's what I don’t really subscribe to, but well, sigh, I wouldn’t be complaining here if I had picked the colored ball. Its not like I would have gotten the car straight off, I just wanted the chance to compete.

To be honest, I was in two-minds as I stood in the queue waiting for my turn to pick the ball. I’ve just gotten assigned to this make-or-break humongo-bongo of a project at work, and there was no way in hell I was going to miss the important meeting on Monday. BUT I wasn’t one to quit at the last moment and dash YQ's (my partner) hope of winning the car. I made up my mind that if I got the colored ball, I'd give my 110%. He was really dissapointed, I could tell, and I really wanted him to be the one to try for the color ball. I knew LUCK never really favored me in such circumstances. Well, fate had it that the caller (main registrant) had to be the one to draw for the ball, and so, once again I had to re-live the horror of digging through a box of styrofoam ball-lets and ping-pong balls, and suffering the 'humiliation' of elimination at the hands of LUCK. YQ didn’t let his dissapointment show, but I could clearly tell he was feeling just as shitty as I did last year. His exact words were : "Oh well, back to my mundane life".

On hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have lasted the whole challenge (60+ hours this year), although I would have died trying. Reason I am sayng this is because as I was on my way to work on the train on Tuesday, I could feel a "HIROSHIMA-LIKE" ATOMIC EXPLOSION building up near my rear-end. As hard as I tried to will myself to 'tahan' till I got into office, there was no way, no way, I could have made it pass Bishan station. I started at Yishun. The rest was history, I'm just thankful the eventual blast radius was small and there were minimal casualties.

Wow, its weekend again tomorrow; certainly feels like we've had 3 weekends this week, after the 2 public holidays. Not that I'm complaining, I'd sure welcome more, but trying to pick yourself up to go to work after each 'weekend' is tough work! It's like you can’t generate enough adrenaline in your body, and then its 'weekend' again.

We had a game of racquet ball yesterday afternoon, if you ask me, is a game that should be introduced in Singapore. Its what I call a semi-skilled game, doesn’t need too much skill to start you off, yet promises you hours of fun and a very good full-body workout. We see many people struggling with games like squash and tennis, which requires a certain level of commitment to get the right skills to play them properly. Unless of course, if you find ball picking fun and a good workout, then i'd suggest racquet ball. For the uninitiated, racquet ball is played in a fully-sealed, squash-like court (longer but narrower), with a shorter version of a tennis racquet and a rubber-like squash ball which is double the size and bounces 3 times higher and faster. Sounds fun already huh?? The only downside of playing this in Singapore : you have to play it in a squash court, there are no racquet ball courts here. The squash courts here are all not fully sealed, so occasionally, the ball gets hit out of the court and you have to go chase it and retrieve it. Minor setback if you ask me. I'd be glad to give initiation sessions to any interested party, afterall, it gives me another excuse to go play. All equipment will be provided by yours faithfully, moi.

One more day to the Subaru challenge, gotta go get my medical checkup done today. Hope its worth it this year and I actually get to place my meaty palm on the car. This time round, the organisers added in a $10 registration fee per team, sounds to me like a blood-sucking money-grubbing exercise. I mean, its ok to charge a $10 fee for the teams who get to place their palms on the cars. But for those who fail to proceed past the 2nd qualification round (drawing the color ball from the box), how fair is it to charge them $10? It's already bad enough to not be able to participate - $10 to get your morale-zapped from your soul on a Saturday morning. Well, I can only be optimistic....Li-Anne's got a strong gut feel i'm gonna get it this year...so "finger's crossed"!! Oh, I met up with my partner yesterday, chatty "little" fellow, I did have a problem keeping up with his ever-changing conversation topics during our 45 minutes meeting, but Li-Anne did remind me that that's how 21year-olds behave. We were once there. I've gotta say he looks really tough, and sufficiently motivated. Never underestimate the human willpower, especially a motivated one. It's gonna be a "fight" till the end.....

Weekend Dugong

U know time really flies when Christmas is just around the corner and you remember vividly that during the last Christmas, you weren't a daddy yet. You only have time in the week to ponder about such things when you're sitting in a coffee house on a Sunday afternoon, with a sleeping baby by your side, sipping a nice cup of hot latte and waiting for your wife to meet you after her tuition assignment. Yupz, life doesn’t get any better than this. I'm serious, this is a definite good way to unwind after a hectic work week.

Right now, i'm so looking forward to the Subaru challenge. I'm starting to really think I'm going to win it this year. Just please, please let me put my hand on the car this time round. Winning a car for a Christmas present would be really nice, but that is one present I won’t be putting under my Christmas tree. I really should be putting up my Halloween decorations tonight. These are the ones we bought during our 6 month stint in US. I wish we had more of a holiday spirit here. We were reminiscing the other day over dinner about how much fun we had then. We really miss the place, and I would certainly not hesitate if given the chance to go back there for 3-4 years. I know little Terelle would definitely like to grow up there; there's just so much to do there vs here where we all throng the malls over weekends. What else is there to do here? I wish I can dress Terelle up as a little pumpkin and watch her skip off with her other little friends to go trick-or-treating during Halloween. Thanksgiving is round the corner as well. I feel every family should celebrate 'Thanksgiving', though not for the same reasons the Americans do, but just to sit around, have dinner together, and be thankful for all the little blessings that have come our way this year. Yes, I am planning a Thanksgiving dinner soon; I have lots to be thankful for, in addition to my cup of latte, my sleeping baby and my weekend-still-have-to-slog 100% dedicated wife.

Baby Dugong :)

Here's looking at you world...Have a smashing week ahead! Remember, looking at the world through a baby's eyes : with wide-eyed innocence :)

Vvvvvrrrooooommmm Dugong!

Well waht-do-u-know, I'm officially in the "Subaru game" again this year, all thanks to my wonderful wife. First she suggested to me one of her ex-students as a partner for the contest, and then she successfully got me registered as the 10th caller yesterday on GOLD90.5. Isn't that head-banging awesome or what?? It's fate, i tell u....maybe i'm suppose to win the cars this year. Well anyhow, I just wanna have a feel of how it is to compete, to stand in the hot scorching sun and bone-chilling rain for 3+ days. That has gotta resemble reservist field training, at least there aren't mozzies around. Even if I don't win it this year, it'll prepare me for next year, and the next, and the next and the next.....:)

Taking a step back from the euphoria, I'm not really there yet since we still have to pick the color ball on the 5th November to qualify, but at least I'm a step closer again. Maybe i'll let my partner pick the ball this year. You know, the funny thing is, just a couple of days back, I was racking my brains to find a partner. Now that I've gotten one and have registered successfully, the names of possible partners keep popping up in my head. For starters, I'm sure my brother-in-law Terrence would make an awesome partner...he's the bang-head-on-wall-won't-give-up kind...now why didn't I think of him earlier? Oh well, I'm sure my current partner will do just as well....more about him later :) Brother Axl, you're a day too late man....if I don't win this year, we'll do it together next year!!

A Dugong Prayer

As I flip through the papers this morning, I can't help but feel like the luckiest person in the world. I've kinda lost count of the number of natural disasters the world has endured this year. One after the other, even before we have fully recovered from the shock of the previous one. I don't know about you, but I think by far the worst "natural" disaster we've ever gotten was the mini-tremors we felt from our neighbouring country, Indonesia.

So how lucky are we? Anyone ever took time off to sit and ponder on the "How Lucky Am I" scale? I turn the page to the "Home" section and I see articles of Singaporeans rushing down to car-showrooms over the weekend to take advantage of the drop in COE prices. We are indeed very lucky....and as I've always believed, the word is "sheltered". You can see it as a good thing, but I guess, there's always the other side of the coin. Sometimes I wonder if we as Singaporeans will survive a natural calamity of this magnitude.

Imagine this :

1) No cars because all the roads are damaged.

2) No water to wash your now-useless cars.

3) We now have to wait for food-drops from planes...Imagine the kiasu-ism in full flight

4) After you get your food-drops, you complain about bad service cause it wasn't dropped at your doorstep.

5) There will be many wakes to attend, more opportunities to spot 4D numbers. But then, SPools will not be open. Have to keep the numbers for later use.

6) Natural Calamity - so no one's fault, so no one's being sued in court, so no court-cases to attend. Damn....kaypoh uncle and aunties have nothing to do but wait for food-drops.

The list goes on...but this is exactly how I feel right now when I think about the huge divide in "luckiness" between us and the various countries affected this year by the "disasters".

My prayers go out to all the families who have lost their loved-ones and children in the latest earthquake. I pray for God's protection and comfort to be upon each and every one of them. And for goodness sake, if you're reading this you morons-aka-rebels and militants, stop adding to the body-count. Please stop the fighting. Enough people have died already. If you must kill, go kill yourself.

Desperate Dugong!

I need a partner for this year's SUBARU CHALLENGE on the 4th November. Yes, to all who know me, this is my 3rd year trying to get selected for this competition. The first year I wasn't successful in calling in, the second year I actually got past that stage, made it to the draw at Civic Plaza but didn't manage to draw the number ball to qualify as a contestant. Somehow, I've got a good feeling I'll make it alittle further this year. Maybe not win the car yet, but at least get to compete. But as fate decrees, I have a new obstacle in my way this year...I now need a partner. Although there's 2 cars up for grabs this year, but seriously, it really just increases the complexity of this whole thing. Why oh why did they do this to me?

I did a thought analysis yesterday; 2 things came to mind, actually 1 was a revelation.(1) I have been out asking some of my good buddies if they wanted to be my partner on this quest, no luck so far....the reason being no one wants to let me down.....I wasn't at all aware that so many of my buddies think I'm an extremist. I mean, do you really think i'll last the whole 3 days?? :) (2) I sat down to reassess my options, I'm looking for someone whom I'm close enuff to and confident in his ability to brave the winds and fire with me, yet won't cause me to weaken in my resolve and give up when I see him grovel and convulse on the ground, while foaming at the mouth. :) So, any takers for this role? A special shout-out to my good buddy TZ - Thanks for considering! HAHAHA!