2007 – What A Year

2007.

What a freaking strange and wonderful year it has been.

This is definitely the most bittersweet year of my (adult) life. I’ve experienced so many things; the one and only thing missing from my collection of experiences is the kitchen sink.

I kid you not.

Highlights of the year:

1. Most definitely getting a job which I like a whole lot. And having the best colleagues and mentors ever makes the work much easier than it really is.
2. Getting back my 32-inch waist. I can finally wear spandex without looking like an overstuffed sausage! (Think Nacho Libre and you’d hit the jackpot.)
3. Singing Celine Dion’s songs as well as the nastiest and cheesiest rock song ever, Eye of the Tiger, when I applied for a stinking job at an insurance company. Oh, that was such joyous fun!
4. 
   
5. I’ve become a lot more confident and assertive. In other words, I am now more of an asshole.

Remember my 2006 Resolutions List? Here are the results (or lack thereof in many cases):

1. Get a better job.

I’d liked that. Really.

Outcome: I did!

2. Improve my guitar skills.

I still can’t seem to tune my bloody guitar! And it’s been 5 months already!

Outcome: Urm. I haven’t practised in aeons. Damn.

3. Run for more than five minutes and not pass out.

The current time is 4 minutes. Ah, the ignominy!

Outcome: I can safely (and proudly) say that I can run for minutes (not hours, that’s just crazy) on end without the need for an oxygen tank.

4. Stop my mouth from spewing out rubbish.

I remember reading an interview with Deftones once and one of the band members said to the singer, “Your mouth is like a shit making machine. You keep talking shit.” I think that pretty much sums it all up. Think first you dolt!

Outcome: I’m still an incorrigible git. But I’m getting cheekier, though.

5. Write better.

Damnit, I’d do anything to write like some of you guys.

Outcome: I’m still trying!

6. Finally get me some Mandarin lessons.

China girls, beware! And all you Mandarin-speaking, peace-sign lovin’, silly dressing gals out there, too!

Outcome: I’m about as useful as an elephant in a cage. A very small cage. I still can’t string sentences together but I can sort of get the gist of conversations.

7. Get me Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels.

I’m eyeing the obscenely huge, tome-like, 20-episodes-in-1 bonanza that would cost me a quarter of my pay. Actually, what I mean to say is, get me the rest. Behold!

Outcome: I still haven’t read it yet. Heck, I still haven’t even taken out the damn wrapping!

8. Listen to more jazz, preferably guitar-based ones.

I have to let my Marc Antoine CDs rest. They’ve been spinning non-stop. Trumpets, saxophones and other instruments that require one to blow into them need not apply. That sounded somewhat disturbing…

Outcome: All right. I still can’t get into “real” jazz (whatever that is anyway) but I can appreciate the finer stuff, like Sophie Milman to really “feeling” heavy stuff like Christian Scott.

9. Read AND understand better.

I love to read but I tend to do it fast as though the words might run away if I took my time to really understand them. Darn. I feel dumb now.

Outcome: Not that dumb. I hope. I think. Sigh.

10. Attract more girls with my wit and charm.

LOL! (I’m not much a LOL! fan but I felt that that was appropriate.)

Outcome: Dreadful.

My resolution list for 2008:

1. To be a better person.
2. Enjoy life with family and friends.
3. Work hard and play harder.
4. Save the planet. One plastic bottle at a time.
5. See Dream Theater in concert, which, is going to happen on the 17th of January!

I’m going to miss 2007. But 2008 beckons me with even greater mishaps and missteps. Here’s to me! And what the heck, you as well!

Happy New Year!

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: Sorry for the lack of updates. Been terribly busy trying to be busy.

Iron Maiden seriously rules

Oh, man.

I have so many stories to share.

So many things I want to say.

But dangnabit, time ain't on my side. (She's probably on my backside but, urm....)

Have a great week ahead, people.

Watch this space.

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: One line paragraphs are teh shiznit! Yo!

Golf is the most useless sport. EVER.

When I was about six, my father took me to the driving range for the very first time in my life. He had just taken up golf himself, and I being the dutiful but not-quite-prodigal son, followed him to see how my daddy was going to hit white balls with steel sticks. He got better at it while I got more and more frustrated as to why I had to shwing my body like an idiot. After awhile, my father even bought me a golf set for me, which I used to hit balls no further than a few metres away from me. My technique was all about brutal power; I swung as though a small head of a person I despised was on the pedestal where the ball is placed, imagining hitting it with all my strength and hearing the screams as the mutilated head disappears into the horizon. By the end of the day, my hand would be blistered and my butt strangely skewed to the right. I was too young to go on the green but I did attend a golf tournament once. I hated it. The only thing I like about golf is ironically, not actually playing golf. I don’t mind hitting balls. I just don’t see the reason why I have to hit it so far only for me to retrieve it some kilometres away and eventually push it into a hole in the ground.

Simply put: Golf is retarded.

The cost of taking up golf is enough for me to put a down-payment on a small car. On top of that, the cost of membership is an astonishing sum. You could feed a whole African village suffering from abject poverty and still have a bit more for medicine. Golf courses are so vast that they could be turned into wildlife reserves instead of having foreign labour manicuring the grass twice a day. The haughtiness golf generates is absurd. If your set is second-hand or worse, a cheap one, the wealthier folk will turn their nose up and say that their sticks are better. They feel deign to talk to you, no matter what.

Have you ever seen an overweight badminton player? A rotund F1 driver? Besides bowling, which sport lets you get away with being stout and chunky while wearing your grandma’s chequered trousers? Golf lets you get away with being unhealthy by making you think you’re healthy. You hit a ball, get on the buggy, stop, hit the ball again, get on the bloody buggy again, repeat and go back to the club and enjoy a lunch featuring a spread that would make any food nutritionist gag.

Sports are supposed to make you healthy, not porky.

Golf is a selfish person’s “sport”. There’s no I in team and golf perfectly demonstrates that. There’s of course the Ryder Cup where there’s two groups vying for lots of money and bragging rights. But it’s a group of selfish individuals. There’s no teamwork whatsoever.

People are paying millions every year just to hit a ball with sticks of varying materials and number on its shiny head. Yet the same can also be said about football, with players earning an obscene amount of $100,000 per week. We pay basketball stars a lot of money just for them to slam dunk a rubber ball into a basket. We see tennis players shrieking (Maria Sharapova squeals like a pig at times), stomping, and make us eat overly priced strawberries and cream at Wimbledon. Why do we venerate these mere mortals? What makes them “special”? Is it a primal thing? Is it a man thing? (I say man thing simply because men are into sports as women are into shopping. Generalising, I know, but it’s the closest thing I can think of.)

Golf can disappear for all I care. Just don’t touch my football.

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: Michelle Wie is kind of hot. Still too young for me, though!

ARGH!............!..................!!!!splat

I hate pretending to be busy.

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: This is going to be an awful, awful week. Whee!