American Idol Season 6 - Final 24

Just when I thought I'd lost the TV for good, I get sucked back by my favourite reality show, American Idol!

This season of AI started off ok-ish. The audition rounds weren't the most interesting, in fact, AI is in fact more of a reality show (one that's produced to entertain) than a singing contest. Go figure!

So anyway the exciting episodes have only just begun. The final 24 have been selected and I've proudly sat through 4 hours of AI6 this week already (2hrs each Wed and Thur night), another hour tonight on the results show.

I must say that the male singers sucked on Wednesday, with only Blake and Phil being the only notable performances. But yesterday's female performance was da bomb! This is the year of the black belters really, with Lakisha, Melinda and Stephanie all bringing their 'A' game.

My favourite as of now is only Melinda Doolittle. Hope she gets far in the competition. She's definitely top 12 material lah. Check out her performance of Baby Sweet Baby last night!

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!!!

Here's wishing everyone a very very prosperous and happy Chinese New Year!!!

May the year of the Pig bring luck to one and all!!!

Huat big big ah!!!!

Flood (Not The Jars of Clay Song)

Ok, so that sounded abit to kua zhang, but it sure felt really wet for awhile.

There I was at my desk contentedly making money off FXCM and having a ball of a time trading FX when I hear sounds of pitty-patter in the bathroom. So I curiously went over to check it out and 'lo and behold, the bathroom was leaking from the ceiling!

So there we were scrambling to plug the leak. Ma was removing all the stuff out of the bathroom while Pa was checking out where the problem was. I was busy wiping the flooded floor (when I wasn't taking pictures), haha.

Here's a picture of the flooded bathroom roof.

That's Pa doing what every man's gotta do - hide when his picture's taken!

And here is the flooded floor which isn't THAT obviously flooded but I swear at one point in time the water was like 10mm deep in certain crannies of the bathroom!

Looks pretty bad right? But guess what? The leak was plugged and now its all dried up.

Think tomorrow the maintenance man is coming.

How's that for a Monday highlight?

I'll see this as a good omen for our family. Got water flow past (the leak) and got mountain (the ladder) - you shan you shui (got mountain got water). We must be in for a windfall this coming CNY...

ASEAN Cup Champions Once More!

Hooray for Singapore!

So happy that we won.

Watched the match at the girlfriend's place.

I gotta say we played sucky football and our defence was horrendous and even atrocious (Aide Iskandar cheeky back-heel?!??!) at times but we weathered the Thai storm and Khairul Amri scored an amazing goal. Really an exciting match that kept even Chun (soccer helps her sleep better) at the edge of her seat, especially during the dying minutes.

Cheers to the Singapore team for giving us something to be proud of once again.

Go, Lions go!

Maybe I should watch less EPL, then my expectations wouldn't be so high.

Man U's leading 1-0 at halftime.

Hope they win too!

A Firm Compliment

"Why didn't you apply for it?"

"You were the first choice on their list, and they were hoping you applied for it."

"Maybe in the next round you should try for it."

Well, it was good enough. I dunno why but I left feeling really good about myself.
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On a separate note, guess who won the Best-dressed for my company's X'mas party held last Friday? (Yeah I know its like sooooo late). Indochine, here I come!


The things you have to do to get noticed even in Denmark and London.

Hurt.

We were leading 1-0 from a Rooney header.

Then Saha came in and it went downhill from there.

Van Persie 84'
Henry 94'

That really hurt man. I thought we used to do this to teams, not the other way around.

Bummer.

Rainy Days Bring Rainy Thoughts

Another rainy weekend.

Its been raining for too much and too long now. Even my regular basketball plans are ruined. Haven't got much planned for today. Probably going back to office awhile before meeting the girlfriend to repair her hard-disk (which I dropped while helping her move her stuff) at Sim Lim and then maybe meet her gal friends to go hang out at a pub tonight.

This week's been just like the rain - damp. Nothing really exciting to crow about neither is there anything lousy that really happened. The rain was probably the highlight of the week.

Last night we were in this Brazilian meat-eaters restaurant along Sixth Avenue for a company dinner. I think it came down to approx. $70 per pax, and I didn't think the food was absolutely fantastic. But the atmosphere was good since I had my gum colleagues around me. We hung out till quite late and then as our boss - a large ang moh in his 50s, mind you - said that the night was still young, we adjorned to this place in Clarke Quay called The Clinic. It was fun but in line with the "I'm getting old" theme, I would've rather just have been sipping teh tarik at some kopitiam.

The only other significant thing I did was on Monday when I went to Dragonfly @ St James Powerhouse with Ah Huat, Led and the Tanjong Pagar gang. It was Robert's farewell - he had been abruptly transfered to Bendemeer branch - and we met up to have a good chat. Still feels great that he thinks so highly of me. Maybe because I still owe him a dinner at Equinox for losing our personal bet.

Dragonfly was really nice. I liked the cheap beer ($30 for a bucket of Heineken during Happy hour), the free entry (before 9pm, weekdays) and the great live performances. Quite nice, the crowd was much older and mature (which I somehow liked) and it was fun to see cliques of 40-yr old aunties living it up and gyrating on the dancefloor like in mambo (though for shorter stints, longer skirts and more cloth *cringe*). All in all was a good night because we got to hear of Simon's troubles (just weeks before his wedding?!) and all the gossip I've missed out.

In other more obscure news, I managed to make contact with two really good old friends last week. One was Brandie, who found me on hotmail and we've been chatting online eversince. She was my best friend during summer camp'04 in Camp Chief Ouray and I even visited her in Pittsburgh for a couple of days (thrashed her mom as Scrabble) before I flew back to Singapore.

The other was Mervyn Teo, my JC2 classmate with the whacky hair and even whackier brains. This rebel artist of sorts has finally made it ok in the US of A. Works for CNN and bought himself a bachelor's pad in Atlanta, this guy is finally realising his dreams of becoming *cringe* an artist/photographer/dancer/akido/martial art/musician! Or so he claims. Still, it was nice connecting with them again after all these years.

Thats about it for now.

You can almost feel like its drizzling out there right now, cant you?

A Night In The Office

Bummer.

So here I am blogging away in office. Such a bummer to be working the late night shift on a lovely Friday night. But what the hey, its not as bad as it seems. Good time to catch up with the paperwork.

Life's still pretty good, though there's alot more pressure now that we're finally on the ground running, and everyone seems to be doing very well. Gotta struggle to keep up with the leaders.

Anyway, as a reply to my previous post, I have listed the below:

1) My HEALTH goal for 2007 is to maintain at least Silver for my IPPT for my 28th birthday.

2) My WEALTH goal for 2007 is, as mentioned as my resolution, to earn twice as much this year as I did last year.

3) My PERSONAL SELF goal for 2007 is to save enough money to hit my budget (yes, THAT budget) that I planned for this year.

4) My SOCIAL SELF goal for 2007 is to volunteer for a significantly good cause at least ONCE and donate more money to charity than I did in 2006.

Haha.

Ok, I finally did it. Set my goals for all to see. I sure hope I achieve them, so that come 31st Dec 2007 I can proudly dig out this blog post and say I achieved all of the goals I set for myself.

If you remember MY goals, feel free to egg me on about them. You've got a full year to tease me for all its worth.

What are YOUR goals for 2007?

How to Achieve Anything in 2007

"The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never scoring." - Bill Copeland

I set myself up for failure...

Foolishly, one year ago, I shared my "Goals for 2006" with you. Perhaps more foolishly, I promised to report back to you a year later on how I did on meeting those goals.

I did this because of my multimillionaire friend Michael Masterson. He’s launched successful business after successful business. And he told me what he believes is a key secret to his success...

"At the beginning of each year, I write down a single goal for the year in four areas of life: health, wealth, social, and personal. And I make each goal significant, yet specific."

I took him up on it. I figured if I tried and failed, at least I tried. So I set significant, but specific goals. For my health, the goal was to get in better shape. Specifically, I said I’d reduce my body fat percentage by 15%. And I said I’d get there by making specific improvements in my diet and by training for a 10-plus mile paddleboard race.

I’m pleased to report that I achieved those goals. I cut the weight, and I competed in a 12-mile race around Key West in May. (I didn’t even come in last... but I did cross the finish line a full hour after the winner.)

In 2007, I’m going to do it again.

I’d like to get healthier... Specifically, I’d like to reduce my body fat percentage by another 15% (don’t worry, I’ve got it to lose). And this year, I’d like to qualify for and compete in the Catalina Classic paddleboard race in August. It’s 32 miles from Catalina Island to Manhattan Beach. This is daunting... but so was last year’s goal at the time.

In last year’s letter, I said, "If all goes well, I’ll weigh less, be more fit, be wealthier, be able to sing a bit, and have made the world a little better place than I left it the year before."

I’m proud to report that all of those goals came true in 2006. And I strongly feel that writing them down, and knowing that I had to be accountable to you in a year’s time, made a big difference. It sounds strange, but I didn’t want to let you down.

The biggest thing that setting these four goals did for me was it focused my energies for the year.

Instead of pursuing all kinds of different things (as I usually would), I focused on accomplishing four specific things... things that I’d thought a lot about and decided were important to me.

I strongly urge you to do what I’m doing... to take a good amount of time and write down what you really want to accomplish in 2007. Set one goal in each of these four areas:

1. Your health
2. Your wealth
3. Your personal self (hobbies and interests)
4. Your social self (friends, family, and community)

And remember to make sure that each goal is significant, yet specific.

Also I highly recommend that you write these goals down and share them with someone that you’ll feel accountable to a year from now. Make yourself a promise that you’ll go over those goals with that person one year from now to see how you did.

Last year was one of the best years of my life, if not the best. I feel like it was particularly fulfilling - in part because I accomplished what I set out to do. As the quote at the beginning says: "The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never scoring."

Set those four goals now... and make sure they’re significant, but specific!

Best wishes in the New Year,

Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

Happy New Year Everyone!

Happy 2007 everyone!!!

Here's wishing every one of my dear friends a blessed and prosperous new year ahead!

Spent the New Year's eve at Bock Lian's place playing mahjong with Leon and Hwi Kiat! Haha. Didn't win $$ but we had fun. Watched the countdown on TV. Doesn't seem like much fanfare this year.

My New Year resolutions are:

1) Speed less.

2) Earn twice as much this year as last year

3) Listen to a lower volume on my Ipod

Thats about it. Lets all hope 2007 will be an even better year than last year!