"We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married for four and a half years." - Nick Faldo

***

"Give to UNICEF and you give children a chance. For example just $1 can provide 8 children with pencils and exercise books. Or $225 can buy a recreation kit containing toys, games and physical education supplies for an entire class of girls and boys."

Wah. I want to buy stuff from their supplier.

***

Singapore: Of Churches and Campuses

"a simplistic comparative study of NUS v UM

Shuttle
NUS: the internal shuttle is very reliable. students can even say "how come the bus takes so long?" after a 5-minute wait. no need to show matrix card or pay when you hop on the bus. service is open to everyone in the campus- students, visitors, cleaning staff etc.
UM: you can't get on unless you have a prepaid card which functions manually- as in one 'tick' per ride. waits can be up to an hour before you see the 'batang hidung' of the bus. most of the time when i walk to my faculty i pass by the bus parking lot (in between First and Second College) and see the bus drivers chatting under the shed. we're so desperate for bus drivers that the existing ones are so valuable, they wont be replaced anytime soon."

So if you think NUS sucks... (UM = University of Malaya)

***

Jesus Had Short Hair! - "Richard Wurmbrand, formerly of Romania, is quoted as saying, "The symbol of the Community PEACE is a very well-known symbol. it was called the witch's foot in the Middle Ages and it was a common symbol of the devil, with the cross reversed and broken." In our generation it was designed February 21, 1958, for use in an Easter peace walk in England. In the beginning it was supposedly merely a composite of the semaphore letters "N" and "D" standing for nuclear disarmament. When the symbol is inverted it is a composite of the semaphore letters "U" and "D" standing for unilateral disarmament. Its designer was reportedly Mr. Bertrand Russell, who was reportedly a Marxist from youth. He is quoted as saying, "The world is damnable...There is no hope in anything but the Soviet way.""

Canvascape - 3D walker - "Use the arrow keys to walk around the map. Space bar = jump. What you are seeing is a test using the new Canvas tag to demonstrate its capabilities. I am beginning a project to port 'Doom' to the common browser through javasScript."

Orwell: Politics and the English Language - "[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts... This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse."
Almost 60 years later, this essay still resounds. Yet, this is rich, given that it comes from the person who conceptualised (and presumably disapproved of) Newspeak. A simple meal fills one just as well as a lovingly prepared feast, yet the latter is all the more satisfying and conveys to the customer shades of culinary texture and complexity lacking in the former.

Existentialism is a Humanism - "The essential charge laid against us is, of course, that of over-emphasis upon the evil side of human life. I have lately been told of a lady who, whenever she lets slip a vulgar expression in a moment of nervousness, excuses herself by exclaiming, “I believe I am becoming an existentialist.” So it appears that ugliness is being identified with existentialism... Indeed their excessive protests make me suspect that what is annoying them is not so much our pessimism, but, much more likely, our optimism. For at bottom, what is alarming in the doctrine that I am about to try to explain to you is – is it not? – that it confronts man with a possibility of choice."
Written by Sartre in the same year as the above, no less.

My Morning: A Play in One Uncomfortable Act - "HALF-NAKED MALE: STOP HARASSING US YOU PERVERT OR I'LL REPORT YOU [for sexual harassment]! ME: (still holding door) You'll report me for your having sex in my office?"
This is like The Associate claiming that I am a hypocrite and suppress freedom of speech.

Sex in the university - "Hop along as we stumble upon the most condusive make-out spots in NUS. If you are unfortunately caught with your pants down after reading this story, do not quote us.... Rooftop of Central Library: Some might find it uncomfortable making out on the cold and hard cement floor. It is recommended that you bring your own mattress. In fact, we have uncovered mattresses and used condoms at the rooftop."