Bloggers vs celebrity DJs

The topic today on radio was about bloggers. The DJs felt that bloggers were given celebrity status in the papers which apparently is not deserving because of the topics bloggers were blogging about - I heard the topic "sex".
Its quite contradictory coming from the DJs who air sexual jokes as early as before 7 in the morning. I travel a long way to work and several times during the journey, there will be sexual innuendos in their verbal exchange. Is it really the sexual content or is it having newbies with the celeb status that's disturbing?
I'm open to having discussions, sexual or otherwise - provided there is just cause for it.
If someone decided to have an open discussion about child prostitution, then by george, let's do something about it. BUT a constant injection of sexual jokes is very telling on just how ill the mind really is - because this is done without realising who the listening audiences are.
Bloggers have their reading audience, and I'm sure the DJs know they have theirs. The difference is, when one surfs the internet, you have a choice of the entire world wide web to begin reading from - but as for the radio, choice is limited, because each station focuses on a different genre of music. Also, during peak hours, traffic updates are critical.
I think the problem lies in the word 'celebrity'. I guess the DJs just couldn't accept that some blogger got themselves that status overnight.

For my Colleague

I just received news that my colleague is leaving. That leaves the group with more people who are not team players. It's always the wrong people who leave. I thought I'd be the one to tender my resignation first.
I guess we have to be selfish for ourselves, because in that team, at least 2 of them are there like furniture - unhelpful, butt-warmers and individualistic with no sense of team, goals, objectives.
We all have our up and down days, but after 13 months, they are apparently not just 'down' but 'out' as well. They are the ones who would pledge their loyalty by staying with the company and simultaneously bleed the department of it's pennies.
In situations like these, the good ones always leave and this time, it's the friend with whom I lunch with, I complain to, the one who helps me with adding links to this blog, the one who supplies me pictures of her rabbits as my wallpaper, the one who helps me pick nice shoes and clothes - basically my friend.
I'm really mad.
I'm happy for her, I am....but it doesn't make it right.
We have goals in life to achieve and she's just making the decision to do it sooner rather than later. I wish her the very best, and at least we have this blog to keep in touch........if you're reading this, thanks for the company, confidence and support throughout the year.

Cyclists

Recently there was this debate going on radio about cyclists. I think all drivers will share my sentiments that cyclists are a hazard on the road. This morning, one decided to maintain cycling in the middle of a 2-lane road, without even trying to move to the side of the road, during the morning rush to the city. Someone suggested making these people pay for the use of the road plus taking the highway code. They have no mirrors on their bikes so they are not aware of what's going on behind them. They are so bent over that they don't even look back.
I'm all for them wanting to keep fit, keep carbon monoxide pollution down etc., but if a vehicle runs them down, it'll be the driver of the car that will be blamed. Our roads are congested enough, without us having to deal with such cyclists or bikers. Bikers are the same, zipping and zapping between cars who are already bumper to bumper.
When it comes to road safety, I think the Malaysian road authority got it right. They have extra lanes for them, making it safer for all road users. Of course, they have their buffalo crossing problems and trailers, but the idea is comforting.
We should be looking into solving this because isn't it all about safety for everyone? Isn't this as important as having smoking tables?

Table for SmOkeRs

Each morning, I have breakfast before coming into the office. With the allocation of very limited tables for smokers, I'm glad my morning begins early. After going through one cup of very good coffee, the place started filling up and naturally, table space became limited. One bespectacled chinese man walked up to the table next to mine, pointed to the SMOKING SIGN, and asked the man seated there, why he was smoking. He was lucky, the man simply replied, this is a table for smokers.

This man is a non-smoker, therefore, I would imagine that his brain cells are functioning perfectly - so why couldn't he read signs?

If he's so concerned about quality of air, perhaps he should walk around in an oxygen tent. Our air quality is already bad with pollution from cars, air-conditioning units and incineration, that's not including the industrial contribution to the environment!
People die and it's not always because of tar and nicotine. He's lucky he didn't come to the table I was at, because I would have said things to make him want to shove his head into his ass - do a new style kamasutra so that he wouldn't be so edgy.
We are all temporarily here - whichever way we die, would depend very much on how compassionate we have lived our lives. It's so cliche, if he gets cancer, he'll blame the smokers, without thinking for a moment that he could have been born with a dysfunctional gene that manufactures a dysfunctional cell.
Today, everyone blames the ciggie for illness - tomorrow, they should ban drinking as well. Perhaps we should just make everyone walk to work, use bicycles and stop the sale of air-conditioning units. We should also stop cutting down trees to build houses/shopping complexes, because they are all bad for the environment. But it will never happen because, these people only react if it means a chance of extending their own life - if the danger is shared amongst the community, it makes it less urgent - the fumes from the incinerator probably chokes the environment more than a few smokers puffing at one go - but the incinerator has not been shut down.
Let's see how these people will handle death, perhaps, they may just try a wager with the devil when their time is up.

Awards for ?????

Lately, I have been made aware of numerous people, having received some public commendation for service to the nation, who committed punishable offences. This is not good publicity and it makes me wonder how these people received commendation in the first place. Some people are just better being regular people - people who still contribute greatly without the glory. Some people just cannot handle 'power'. It's not the system that is wrong in giving people who have served, recognition. Often, it's the people on the ground, who never had a chance at fame, who would just go overboard when the pressure hits them personally.
Some people are just 'stool carriers' and their accommodating nature and ever willingness to please the group gains them support. However, that certainly doesn't justify that person receiving a public award, that is supposedly prestigious. When caught, these people will give statements about their failed businesses, gambling or just having a huge heart. It does not make it right.
I know of some who failed in business, declared themselves bankrupt, yet picked themselves up and started again from scratch. These are the people that need public commendation, since when they were made bankrupt, they made the headlines in the NOTICES section of the newspaper. Yet, when they succeed, no one gives them a medal.
I never bothered about who received what kind of honour in the papers, because it's always the regular people who will always matter to any society. There will always be systems where recognition is given not on a deserving level, but more on the level of blind following. Perhaps its time we just saved the money for such ceremonies and donate it to a more deserving charity.

questions questions questions

I have always been in situations that are never quite straightforward. Deals could never close without fanfare and business trips are always injected with unwarranted events. On a personal level, the oddest of moments would become etched in my memory. I magnetise complications like bread spread goes on toast. How does one person get so enrolled in THE 'school of hard knocks' and survive yet, never seem to graduate?
I would like to think it's beyond my control, yet as with all situations, we externalise when it's bad and internalise when it's good.
Yesterday, I had one of those moments again, right after sorting the Hong Kong fiasco! Some contractor decided to run off with clients money and a report was made. Naturally I had to be one of the clients who paid cash. I have the receipt so it's a real non-issue, except that I wasn't the owner of the house. Of course there were questions to the relationship but I wasn't in a position to say because it was something I never discussed. Let alone, put in on an evidence report to be forever on offical records! I am sure, the owner of the house would find this amusing, because it happened to me, as usual but it certainly wasn't funny when I had to get my talking skills in gear, sidetrack and control the tel-con right smack in the middle of my proposal! I am to meet with this officer later, and my question to him would be " does it matter who I am? "

Light Conversations

It has been an eventful week so far - having continuous debates with our Hong Kong office, cat-fights between the shark and little me, an ikan bilis, tug-of-war for clients. I don't know if I came out of this unscathed.
How do we measure that? I put my point bluntly across, as usual and eventually, facts got me the right-of-way. That must be it. I won.
BUT after days of solid exchanges via email and phone, I was in dire need of a fix.
Thankfully, a good friend obliged and I got my quiet time, coffee, him as a punching bag and what I enjoyed most of all - light conversations!
Conversations are a way of life for both social and business pleasures, but light conversations are different from the empty chit-chats. It's talking without much effort - it's sharing dumb ideas because it made me feel like a regular person. We need to just have conversations because it's what brings us back to the basics of leisure.
I sleep thinking work, I wake-up thinking work, I go to work, flooded by work. The few times I get to enjoy a cuppa is what brings warmth to my being. Someday, I would like to thank him for always sacrificing his sleep to hear me rant and rave. We all need such a time just to re-charge.
Light conversations are not generally light by nature of the adjective, but more casual in tone and limitless in content. There is no agenda, no outline, no pending issue, just conversations that go wherever the current winds are going yet achieving the objective without the stress.

Let's just focus on the work

When things don't go as planned, what do we do? As a pragmatist, I say, re-adjust our lenses and find a new focus or a fresh angle. But as a person, who is pissed off, I would say ; let's just be laid back, that way, nothing would really affect us.
Is my life so boring that all I ever bother about is work? Perhaps it is. It's the been there done that syndrome, and nothing is ever exciting anymore.
The only whimper of a difference came when I was trying to get a picture of Mount Kinabalu. The adrenaline was hay-wire - between the clouds, mountains, forestry and our tight schedule, I was sure, I would leave Sabah, without ever laying eyes on this beautiful mountain....until, the very last day!
If the mountain is shy, then well, let me make my way there..AND I stood, 1500m above sea-level, had a whiff of fresh, cold, mountain air, just hours before my flight. She was magnificant.
If every situation at work is like my experience with Madam Mt Kinabalu, all will end well.....but work surely is never as beautiful as she. I soaked in the awesome view unabashly - my view of the world needed adjustment and for that moment, the world seemed so perfect - until the plane landed...........

Being Fair

Do we subconsciously behave unfairly towards individuals or is it really just reading too much into situations? If a purchaser offered to buy a property at $x and he was turned down because the reason given "at that price, we would have sold most" then in the span of 48 hours, sold the same property to another at <$x, what does it mean?
For an onlooker, it simply means, the project is not selling well and it's a desperate sale. For the sales people concerned, the second sales person apparently enjoyed some form of favourtism.
I witnessed this first hand, because it was my client who gave the first offer. I suppose, being a woman who is not dysfunctional in the societal sense perhaps caused some inert subconsicous insecurity to a person so blatantly skewed towards the few, who chose to be society's closet cases.
I do not make a serious effort to look upon such people too differently, unless they provide me good cause. Whatever their preferences in their sexual orientation is personal as long as they do not discriminate against others like me, who are just regular people, having sex with the opposite sex.
Therefore, I felt that I have been discriminated against.
Such behaviour does not help their situation but it only serves as a reminder to me that subconsciously, they are more emotional than the average person, and thus, prone to making poor judgements when given a tight situation. How do I, after all this, be able to treat them fairly, when I know, under pressure, they will stick together - they are, after all, birds of a feather..and I am just a spectator.
It does not bother me that much, it just proves a point and one that I will quote and re-quote as a real-life example.

What we DON'T have

The glass is either half empty or half full, depending on our orientation of view. I have chosen to look at it as half empty not because I harbour negative thoughts but more so a realist. Reality is never silver lined nor rose-tinted, it's mere cold, hard facts.
Having come back from Sabah, I'm now dead sure, what is missing in our society here. It's not just the crystal clear waters, where even my Motorola V3 could capture an image of the shoal of fish that has compelled me to write this piece. It's how much of mother nature I'm deprived of on this little island. I had to slap myself just to be sure I wasn't watching an episode on National Geographic with a high definition TV. Then, there was this little monitor lizard, not lounging by the pool, but actually, used the pool as a short-cut to the beach. Had this incident happened in Singapore, I would have heard screams, and perhaps the animal control people would have been called in. BUT here, this reptile just walked into the pool half filled with people, swam across to the other side, climbed over, and walked to the beachfront, with no fanfare. Guests by the poolside just grabbed their video cams for this picture souvenir.
THAT is what we will never have here....nothing to rose-tint about. Sure, there are many here who appreciate that we do share this planet with creatures, but they are far and few. Thank GOD for the people I know who understand this concept, for at least, whenever I meet with them, it's a comfort because it makes me feel less sad that we have forgottten, they were here first.

under the weather

As the world becomes more ill because of pollution and a continued disregard for trees, so have we. I have never felt weaker in all my life than I do right now. My immune system just refuses to work for me anymore!
Then comes the question : what do we need to do to keep up? Most times, I would catch the bug when its a bud - not allowing myself to get severely ill...the idea of a virus impairing my mobility makes me more determined than ever to get back on my feet. However, this time around, the doctor required me to rest, rest and rest. He may be right - even on days when I am not officially working, I'm working - perhaps, I just do not understand the word "OFF" or "REST".
Sitting idle is just not my idea of spending the day - after all, we cannot ever turn back time and re-live the day. If we waste it, we never get it back. I don't have this desperate need to work, I just love to be doing something.
So, I'm back at the office today, after 2 days, and my eyes are still heavy, probably still laden with meds....but well, life has to go on, even if we are under the weather, because for each day we don't contribute, it's a day of wasted opportunities. For me, opportunities does not simply mean closing a deal because in my book, painting a wall falls into the same bracket. Yes, painting is therapy for me, as with cleaning bird cages, washing the fish tank and bathing the dog. It makes me more humane - at least I think so....