Teddy says

Teddy Roosevelt said...

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

Good words for all of us to live by!

A thin line between divine intervention and dumb luck

This is only a joke, but let's see what we can learn from this?

A guy is walking along when suddenly he got his foot caught in the railroad tracks. He tried to get it out but it was really stuck. He heard a noise and turned around to see a train coming. He panicked and started to pray, "God, please get my foot out of these tracks and I'll stop drinking!" Nothing happened, it was still stuck, and the train was getting closer! He prayed again, "God, please get my foot out and I'll stop drinking AND cussing!" Still nothing and the train was just seconds away! He tried it one more time, "God please, if you get my foot out of the tracks, I'll quit drinking, cussing, smoking and fornicating." Suddenly his foot shot out of the tracks and he was able to dive out of the way in the nick of time. He got up, dusted himself off, looked toward heaven and said, "Thanks anyway God, I got it myself."

It's an awfully thin line between divine intervention and pure dumb luck.

Funny how fast people "suddenly" forget those who help them once their fat is out of the fire.

If it was a divine force that set him free, was it a similar divine force that set him on track (heh heh) for a collision course in the first place? Was it the same divinity that placed the guy's foot in the track in the first place? Or was he just a pawn in some battle between conflicting divine forces?

Why does it take a good hard stare into the face of own own mortality before we're willing to admit our faults and change for the better?

What the @!^%?! I'm not even making sense to me anymore. See the kind of junk that a Sunday spawns in my mind? I'm getting outta here and heading out to grab a burger!

Happy birthday Nicky!

My nephew Nicky (Nicholas) just celebrated his first birthday. His real birthday was actually on Jan 17th, but I guess the celebrations just got delayed because of Nicky's extremely busy world tour schedule?

PS: Yeah, that's the handsome hunk himself on the right.

Comedy

Humor is weird stuff. You can say the exact same thing in a comedy club and raise a laugh, but if you said it on the street, you'd get slugged in the jaw. It's all about context. The concept of context... It's so subtle yet incredibly potent. Context and alcohol. Yeah, that's what gets the laughs.

485 reopened!!!!

The INS has agreed to reopen my 485. YAY!
Now, I just need to have a fulltime job so I can show that I have dedicated my life to contributing to corporate America... Anyone out there have a job?

EDIT: Umm... I'm not QUITE out of the woods just yet. I need to get a perm job so I can satisfy the INS' curiousity that I'm adding significantly to the GDP.

Spam filters gone wild

I got this really cool email today.

Thank you for contacting VistaPrint, the online solution for "Best Printing, Best Price."
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but your e-mail has been routed into an unmonitored e-mail box.
Please feel free to contact us directly at our toll-free number: 1-800-721-6216. Our courteous and professional staff of Customer Care Specialists are waiting to assist you. Our phone lines are open 8AM - Midnight (EST), Monday through Friday.
We may also be reached via e-mail at: emailservices@vistaprint.com
Sincerely,
Customer Care
VistaPrint
800-721-6216

The email you have sent was delivered to an unmonitored email address due to content concerns with the e-mail, such as attachments or various forms of spam. Again, we do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and we encourage you to contact us at our toll free phone number given above.
----- vistaprint@slashview.com Wrote -----
What is the difference between a business card and a contact card? Why do 500 business cards cost $5 than 500 contact cards when they look pretty much the same. Maybe I'm missing something. Thanks!

Derek

Now the really cool part is that I had sent my email query through their website's "Contact Us" page, and it gets routed as spam? Geez, the nerve of some spam filters!

Language dissected

Singlish, the meat and potatoes of any true blue Singaporean... Dissected here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Colloquial_English
If there's anything in the world that could make Singlish sound boring, that is it. I mean, come on. Singlish can be funny, irritating, low-brow, colloquial, but BORING?! Well, there's always a first.

SEA launch event

SEA - Singapore Expatriates in the Americas

Last night, I re-met a guy that I haven't seen since 1991. I saw him at the networking event I was at, I even remembered his name, but for the first few minutes, I just couldn't remember how I knew him. Turns out that Alvin and I went to the same secondary school (Catholic High) and the same junior college (Victoria JC). We also played chess on the same team. It was really awesome to meet someone from your past like that. Oh, and he lives pretty near me, so we'll probably hook up some time for dinner or drinks or chess.

Then again, I saw this other guy Richard whom I absolutely detest. I had hoped against hope that he had left the States or at least left California. I guess not all my wishes come true huh? You ever met one of those people that you just seem to intensely dislike? I don't want to use the word "hate" cos he's never really done anything to me, but he's just incredibly irritating and he's ugly and he's pompous and he's an idiot and I'm just really biased.

Oh well. I'll just have to avoid him in the future. Or run him over with my car.

Sickest joke I've EVER heard

Young Johnny had been blind since birth. His mother had always explained to him that it was God's will and must be accepted. One Sunday, Johnny's mom came home from church and told Johnny that she'd had a conversation with God and He agreed that it was time to let Johnny see. "He said if you'll pray real hard and fast every day this week, next Sunday you'll be able to see. Young John hardly ate a bite that week and spent his every waking hour praying and waiting for Sunday. By Saturday night he was weak from hunger and exhausted from praying and he dropped off to sleep in great anticipation of morning. Johnny woke to the sound of church bells on the soft Spring morning. He lay with his eyes closed for several minutes to savor the coming event. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and to his great dismay, realized he was still blind. "Mom!" the lad yelled, "I still can't see." His mother, touching the boy's head softly, said, "Yes, I know Johnny, April Fool!"

That's not censorship!

Sometimes, I wish people would learn to just shut up and save themselves from advertising their own ignorance. Like some viewers complaining to the FCC about how the Olympics opening ceremony featured nude male actors. Don't they know there's a big difference between pornographic and artistic nudes? And if they really didn't want to see the nudes, or didn't want their children to see it, then just turn off the damned TV and shut the hell up already. Quit your stupid whining about how these things offend your moral standards. You're the one in a billion person that spoils it for the rest of us. So please. Shut the hell up.

Not so electric Elektra

Elektra was a letdown.

First, we have Jen Garner, who although really hot, totally did not get a chance to show off her sai skills. Then we have Will Yun Lee who's a 4th or 5th dan in tae kwondo, and all the chance he gets to show off his skills is... zilch. He had a 5 second showcase window in James Bond:Die Another Day, but here in Elektra, he doesn't get a single chance to showcase his beautiful kicks, and he's stuck behind flashy special effects and camera tricks. Big big pity!

The view from 50 feet

... is excellent. Well, it's not all great since I'm only in a rock climbing gym, but everyone down below looks like ants. Tomorrow, my arms are going to be sore, but for now, I love the aching feeling of a good workout.

Oh yeah, contrary to what you may think, it's not so bad climbing in an indoor gym in the winter. It's cold at first, but once you're moving and climbing and reaching and stretching, you feel fine. Until you stop to rest...

Stupid PC

Oh, and did I mention that my PC decided to die on me at the most wonderful time?

I get home around 6, login to work and start running a script to process some stuff. Right after the script starts running, my home PC just DIES on me. Great. Now I have to go to work to make sure that the script completes properly. But I have a dinner appointment at 7.

No problem. I'll head to work after dinner. At 10pm, I complete my 25 miles drive to work, park the car in the parking lot in front of the office, and then I realize that I forgot to bring my badge. How the hell am I going to get in without a damn badge? Answer: I can't. So I drive 25 miles back home to get my badge, drive 25 miles back to work (again), and when I login to my computer, I find out that the stupid damned script worked perfectly and in fact completed its tasks successfully at 6.20pm. ARGH!!

But you know what? If I didn't come to work, knowing my luck, the script would have bombed out and I'd have gotten my butt deep fried the next day at work.

More more more!

Ouch... Just got the official contract from the lawyer. The estimate is $3500 - $4500 to take my case, with a minimum payment of $3500. Bah, it's only money. Yeah. Right.

A game gone wrong

You know those games where someone asks you, if your mother and girlfriend were drowning, who would you save? Well, sometimes the game goes really wrong...

This was reported by USA Today:

Mahado Mohamed Musa was in her concrete-block home with her two children when she saw the wall of water hurtling out of the Indian Ocean toward the fishing town of Hafun.

She had a split second to make a decision she says she will regret for the rest of her life: Should she carry her son or her daughter to safety?

Musa tells her story quietly and with little emotion as she squats in the shade of her makeshift plywood shelter. Khadra, her 2-year-old daughter, clings to her side. "When I saw the water, I took this one," she says, looking at Khadra, "and left the other." Her son, Mohamud, was bigger and had hurt his foot. "He was limping. So it was easier to carry her. I just couldn't carry both."

With Khadra tucked under her arm, Musa, 20, raced to higher ground. She sent her brother-in-law back for her son. He found Mohamud, 6, floating in the water, barely alive. He died that evening.

"I regret that decision," Musa says simply.

Time is craaaawling

It's only 2.30pm. There's still 150 minutes till I get off work. I've had my long lunch. I've taken my mile-long after-lunch walk. I've read the news. Now, I'm simply vegetating here at work, listening to MP3s (thanks goodness for those) and watching the second hand sweep across the face of my watch.

I have no game! Pool, that is.

Went to shoot pool last night with Clara. I suck at pool. Fortunately, she was having a bad night (probably my influence ha ha ha) so she pretty much sucked too. Pity she didn't suck as badly as I did. The only times I won was when she scratched the 8 ball. Hey, whatever works right?

Best (worse?) case

Here's another thought...

If my I-485 falls through, I'll have to leave US for a year before reapplying for a H1-B (work visa). I've decided that I will use that one year properly.

I'll start with two or three months of vacation. I'll visit Ye Lin in Sri Lanka. I'll visit Roz in the UK. I'll visit Yee Jenn in Australia. I'll spend a month or so alternating between my parents in Malaysia and my friends in Singapore. And then, I'll try to find a job in either the UK or Australia, or in the worst case, Singapore. I figure that if I'm going to be away from US, I'd rather use the time to work somewhere where I won't normally get the chance (ie, not Singapore).

The more I think about it, the more a vacation sounds like a beautiful idea...

I-485 denied due to abandonment?

The issue:
I filed for an I-485 (Adjustment of Status) about 2 years ago. On Aug 12 2004, BCIS sent me a request for evidence of some sort, which I never got. In mid Nov, I happened to check my case status online and noticed that the case status said they had sent me something. I called the BCIS help desk and they said they did not know what kind of info the request was asking for (they didn't have access to such details) but they would re-send the request. On Dec 21 2004, I got a letter stating that my I-485 was denied due to a lack of response on my end.

It is possible that BCIS sent the request to an old address of mine. However, I have managed to receive other notices from them (eg my fingerprint notice and this letter of denial) just fine, which seems to indicate that they have a current address. Also, I have mail forwarding on all my previous addresses.

I have 30 days to appeal the decision, or else I'm out of the country. Great huh?

For now, my immediate future in the capable hands of Stacey Gartland from Van Der Hout, Brigagliano, & Nightingale LLP. Who knows where I'll be in 1 or 3 or 6 months?