Fuss

I must admit I have a new hobby now and it is reading through the ST Online Forum.  Not just for the insightful (sometimes incredulous) articles that are submitted but also for the totally hilarious comments Singaporeans dish out.. .  For example there was this article written by the secretariat of The Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers which was meticulousy and painstakingly explaining/defending the HDB valuation scheme.  The first comment was this:

“And that method is technically named TEE-KUM.”

The comment is obviously done in (good) jest albeit totally and almost disrespectfully disregarding the entire content of the article.  It made me laugh though.

Somebody add this to the list of things that make us Singaporeans!

Nearly all my colleagues had a small pop out window open on their laptop that displays updated scores (refreshed every 15secs) from the olympics table tennis semi finals between Singapore and South Korea.  Im quite sure there are more of them at the canteen watching it live.  An audible smile could be heard when we finally edged pass the koreans 3-2 in this thrilling team event. 

For a nation of moaners and complainers, we really actually do love our country (and our foreign imports) don’t we?

Conditional statements in computer programming is a feature which allows for different functions and computations to be performed given different scenarios.  For example,

if his salary > 100k, buy him a gold tap.

This sort of conditional statements are widely used in programming and more often than not, it appears as a complex web of nested conditions. However, no matter how complex these conditional statements are, they are still binary.  And by binary, I mean black and white, no grey areas. (well, unless you are writing a 4D generator of some sort where you base your conditions on a certain form of randomness).

As a computer engineer, inevitably, I tend to live my life based on conditional statements and I would often wonder what is the main conditional statement I should live my life by when it comes to human relationships.  I mean, wouldn’t life be simpler if we can base life’s decisions on a simple rule.  No matter how complicated the situation is, there should be a simple condition we live our lives by.  As a christian, the obvious condition would be

What would Jesus Do?

But sometimes, that could be grey… because we are imperfect and our decisions are always influenced by our imperfection.  Is there a simple, practical rule that we will have no problems applying?

For me, the golden rule in human relationships is found in Matthew 7:12.

“do to others what you would have them do to you..”

This rule, to me, is easy to apply because we all know how we want to be treated.  I reckon there will be WORLD PEACE if this is applied by everyone (with the exception of the masochists..).

It’s not easy, but at least its an easy conditional statement to understand.

If I like this done to me, I will do this for him/her

I have always enjoyed good, funny quotes.  I chanced upon this quote by the father of advertising, Mr David Ogilvy.

“The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.“

I think its brilliant.

I received a call from lilsnooze yesterday asking me for my shirt size.  She was going to buy me the new Liverpool home jersey, which she knew I quietly coveted.

lilsnooze: “Hey, no more jersey in size M, can get you the blue one?”
tehpeng: “Huh? Liverpool has no blue jersey!”

The blue jersey she was referring was Chelsea’s home jersey.

Thanks but no thanks!

Its been 10 years since the introduction of blogs, I have finally decided to have one myself.  Yup, I’m a late adopter.

I’ve been a religious reader of my wife’s blog, and as I browsed through her archives, which stretches 4 years, I smiled as I recalled the memories she recorded which would otherwise, definitely be forgotten.  I too want to journal my life journey, my random rambles and thoughts.

And so it begins… and I hope it doesn’t come to a premature end.