Oh common, smile won’t ya?

Don’t we all lament on the predicaments, or curveballs, that life throws our way?

Always, only two things will result from this.

1) They choose to add colourful verbal adjectives to match their predicaments and continuously rack up the ‘bad luck’..

Or..

2) They choose to work real hard to change their fortunes, come what may.

Out of 10 persons that I know, perhaps as many as 1 person chose to change their own fortunes.

To their credit, they’re always happier, not just with themselves, but also with their surrounding environment and situation.

It’s not that hard to recognise them, cos in fact, you’re naturally drawn to them.

These are the ones who accept any inadequacies that they have, and work on their strengths and live life knowing how lucky they are to be born into this world.

What happened to the other 9, that feels that they’re consistently unlucky, that they wish they’re born into a rich family or something like that?

Or perhaps wishing that they’re born to another family, in another time, in another place.

Some of us are born lucky, while some are lucky to be born.

One of the statement, we can’t choose, but the other we can choose to embrace its intent.

I’m bloody lucky to be born, so what about you — which shoe do you choose to walk with?

Work extra hard in doing the right things.

That’s right, you don’t just do work and you don’t just work hard, but you work extra hard.

Who’s smarter: The person who reads 99 books or the person who reads the same books, plus an additional 1 extra book?

Does being talented, skilled or gifted means being born with it, or does it mean putting in a few more hours of extra practice rounds in doing what you do?

And this begs the questions..

Did you do things right?

Or is it, have you done the right things?

Farid was asking me just the other day where he could get himself a copy of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, and I told him to head down to Funan Centre because I recalled printing a few murals of it’s launch over there recently.

So what’s so good about Starcraft II anyway, and why the massive hype surrounding this just-another-alien-versus-humans game?

After the epic success of the initial Starcraft game, and when a sequel was planned 7 years ago, you’d have forgiven if you had a hunch that the game was going to mimic the doomed, pun intended, failures in the ways of Doom Forever.

You see, Doom was THE game of its time back then and when a sequel was announced, every gamer who’s ever played it soiled themselves and anxiously waited for its sequel, Doom Forever.

Heh, what a name right, because the game is indeed doomed forever when the plug was pulled on its development last year, as the creators simply couldn’t decide on how to produce the game.

THANKFULLY, Blizzard’s arcane sense of games prevailed and Starcraft II has finally reached our shores after 7 bloody years of waiting, a sequel to THE RTS GAME of it’s time.

Some say it’s the balance nature of the game, some say it’s the action and thrils but whatever you think of it, it’s a game that deserved a sequel, if only to put in some extra $$$ into the pockets of the development team.

I’m not sure if the game itself have been sold out here after shipping 11 MILLION copies on its first week of release, but if you can’t wait to get a confirmation on your copy, you know where to click right?

(Yup that image you see here is an affilliate link and if you click there and buy your game from Amazon, I’m going to be able to afford myself half a cup of Starbucks finally. Or you can always type www.amazon.com and search for it yourself. Bah.)

*nudge-nudge*.

Hmmm, so Farid, are you sure you can’t find yourself a copy in stores?

I wonder what I’ll be going through if age catches up to them, and everybody knows that domesticated cats don’t live a long as humans do, though those that do probably look more like a cow than a cat.

It’s true.

Told you.

Anyway, who knows how long cats are able to live, especially with that 9 lives of theirs.

But we humans have just one chance to live our lives, and this, truly, makes everything worth living for.

Making friends, chasing dreams, and living life as much as we can, is all that we can really do right?

Or do we mull and gloss over our problems, spend time worrying and tax ourselves calculating incessantly?

What if you knew tomorrow isn’t ever gonna come and you had only one thing left to do?

Of course, all these I’m merely hypothetically suggesting, but what if?

Would you recluse in regret or live vindicated knowing that there’s nothing else that needs to be done, because you’ve done all that you can?

No, I can’t tell the future nor read minds, but I know that if there’s something I wish to do, somewhere I hope to be, or someone I yearn to spend time with then I’d do it, go there, or let them know.

Or at least try to, before considering alternatives.

Life is short, noone needs reminding but somehow everyone seems to forget that it is, and we procrastinate and let things be hoping it’ll get better tomorrow.

But why leave till tomorrow what you can get done today?

And are you pretty sure that tomorrow’s going to be a better day?

Well for your sake, I hope so too, and that you’ll never stop dreaming, never stop hoping and never stop trying.

Try. Hope. Work at it.

Who knows, instead of predicting the future, you could probably write it yourself.

Your thoughts become words.

Be thoughtful of what you say.

Your words become your actions.

Be selective of what you do.

Your actions become your habits.

Be wary of what becomes habitual.

Your habits become your character.

Be concerned of your traits.

Your traits become your destiny.

…

And it all points towards the beginning.. our thoughts.

So how willing are we to change the way we think?

It arrived duely, not after the unfortunate player had spent 20 odd minutes lying in the middle of the pitch, under the unforgiving hot sun.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you see it, a few guys flanked him and did their best to provide shade as well as fanning a piece of cardboard for air.

And that was how my 2nd game in two days ended, prematurely, and on both occasion, my team conceding 6 goals.

Oh, it sucks badly to lose, but it happens now and then, but the manner of this morning’s loss felt less weary than yesterday’s league game with Skopets FC.

This morning, it was a team, playing for each other and pushing each other, and how miserable it felt yesterday after the team disintegrated and whined internally, cos we were 5-2 up and in control before losing everything in the second half.

That feeling of thinking that everything’s going to be okay, but in the end it’s all screwed up, and its beyond your control, well it’s beyond terrible.

It’s terrible, horrendous and catastrophic when Men gives up, and Skopets FC gave up yesterday.

Ironically, it was a haphazard collection of bunch of uncles and young men from all walks of life and nationalities that enlightened me, during this morning’s game, where even though we were losing, it was a graceful loss.

There were no whining, no finger-pointing, no rush-of blood to the head tackles (unless you count the events that led to the ankle breaking) and it was a fun social game of soccer, the way it was meant to be.

I really don’t know what the future holds for Skopets FC, following this dejection, and I think someone mentioned about us taking a break from soccer, just to straighten out our minds and, hopefully, our team spirit.

If there’s anything that wins or loses games, it is team spirit.

Without the team, there’ll be no spirt and without the spirit, there’s no team.

Oh well, another loss, another knock on the chin, but gotta look forward to the final league game of the season now, and that’s next week.

And I have no idea what I’m gonna be spenind my Saturday afternoons with when it’s over.

Maybe I could write a book.

“What to do when someone breaks an ankle during a soccer game.”

Poor chap. Wish you recover well, and on the bright side, if any, he’ll be getting a lot of MCs.

Belle slept like a baby.

Switched off the cartoon box, put away the rigid frame glasses, that always make her eyes seem a set smaller, and then I whisked a portion of her fringe to the side.

I bent lower and, as soft as I possibly knew how, smooched her goodnight, for I knew I couldn’t stay for much longer, even if the drizzling rain playfully drizzled on, and even if she was too tired to hear my whispers.

The lingering cough and wheezing breathes made it hard for me to say anything much, and It wasn’t the ideal conditions for me to stay on either, but an option which I wished I could have chosen.

It’s way past 2am and I had a hunch that someone needed me more.

Like a brother who won’t mind a helping hand while tying the knot.

Yes, he’s the bridesgroom and his wedding feast is this Sunday, another night to go after tonight, and I could sense that he was caught in a teeny tiny knotty situation.

You know that a bridegroom is having a tough time when the guestbook that he orders online, comes into the mailbox in A5 size.

“I didn’t know, the text was too small.” He, the bridegroom, my brother, the anything-goes-fella, would say to me, without me even asking about it. “I thought that they were all of the same size!”

You see, you see, he could really use a helping hand, especially when things like this happened with just 1 more night to his big day.

So I offered instead of signing on guestbooks, we’d have guestboards! Huge, 3ft by 3ft posterboards where guests can scribble and doodle their well wishes at the wedding hall’s entrance, as seen in the image above.

And where I offered 3 pcs, he requested for 5 boards! Kasi betis, nak paha pulak¹!

It feels good that at last I’m contributing something to his preparations, because, seriously, it feels sucky that I’m not really helping out much.

And then he suggested that we recced the halls.

Like a bridesgroom, who’s travelled too far and made too many decisions, he resigned with a grateful, satisfied comment, at the end of the recce.

It is superb! Eloquent, yet simple and modern at the same time.

Black + Turquoise + White does turn out to be good choices for a wedding hall deco after all.

Thus I shall not go on about how I thought the wedding hall could be beautified and balanced out, but the truth is that it really was ample and nice, plus it was still ongoing and unfinished, so those thoughts of mine were better placed in reserve.

Surreally, everything glistened magnificiently in the night.

The colours, the props, and the misty atmosphere combined perfectly, and I’m sure my brother wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Maybe my Sister would’ve had second thoughts? She had to trim Pandan leafs through the night!

This was taken after we cut out the final leaf, but it wasn’t this way earlier, because earlier it looked like a pack of ‘overgrown ferns’, that threatened to make your hands numb and eyes sore.

On the bright side, the fragrance it oozed smelt like the perfect wedding, and not even the thoughts of intimidating ferns couldn’t slow us down!

So she was cutting up the leaves when I got home at about 3am and, had I not grabbed the red big pair of scissors, sat beside and starting trimming along, I bet that she’d still be trimming till the morning sun peeks into the living room.

Miraculously we managed to avoid trimming our own precious fingers, while we chatted away, both in our drowsy voices and wondrous minds — she was wondering how it’s going to be like when she begins work this Monday, while I was wondering if I could have stayed, had I brought my pyjamas along.

So no pyjamas, but just my biking raincoat, and it was enough to allow me to drift home to render these little packets of aid, gladly.

Nothing much, but at the very least, I hope it eased a troubled mind a little bit more.

Now that those minds have been put to ease, I guess it’s time for me to feel at ease — time to sleep!

I’m here hoping that my cats don’t suddenly jump on me because it’s already 6am now, which is about the usual time that they expect to see food in their bowls.

BUT, I suppose that they won’t be seeing much in their bowl till it’s afternoon. Now that’ll twist their tails in a knot!

- – - – - – - – - -

1. Kasi betis, nak paha pulak: Malay idiom which candidly refers to someone who asks for more than what he’s being offered. Literally translated as “Offered the (leg) calf, now the (leg) thighs are wanted.”

If you’re not on Gmail yet, shame on you, you’re missing out on a lot of really fun stuffs, like the old snakey game for one.

And earlier I stumbled upon MaleCopywriter, who actually won the webbies for best homepage award! Check out his ‘Contact me’ page. Hilarious, just like his works.

And where if anyone’s short of cash, and is in need of short term loan, go ahead call your nearest loanshark and give Wango a tryout, it’s got a rather high interest rate and really short term loans.

Anyway, who knows in case you needed some liquidity a little bit earlier than payday, and if that’s so, then this is the answer for your prayers.

Talking about money, got a better way to manage your finances other than MoneyStrands? Best of all, it free and has plenty to offer for the money concious minds.

So, got a useful site to share?

BUT fortunately, Google didn’t pull a similar prank as mine above, in juxtaposing the letters in words, BUT unfortunately they pulled, pun intended, a joke (that’s what I think it is) where vowels where stolen.

I waited almost whole day to see what prank the Google team were gonna come up with after previous years’ frissons.

Apart from this year’s Google changing to Topeka, I think.. THE VOWELS WERE STOLEN! How gutsy right?

Used by millions of users worldwide, excluding China (heh), and they have the cheeks to pull this off — and that’s why I’ve always admired the geeks, I mean guys at Google.

A company with such high profile stocks and plenty of reputation at stake, well with this latest stunt, what’s a reputation worth if you’re not having fun at the same time right?

In fact, isn’t it nice that they’re having fun in these times?

Much like how the culture is at 2Advanced.com, my idol website geeks, I mean guys, Google’s unrestrained working environment meant that people could be proven to be productive and fun at the same time (are you listening Bosses?).

Take off your shoes, make paper balls and throw them around, wreak havoc, sing song, be crazy, but work when you have to, and not just doing the job right, aim instead to do the right jobs.

It’s somewhat similar to what’s being cultivated over at my workplace, where we do have plenty of fun working with each other, and productivity levels have never been higher.

When one person cracks a joke, or makes fun, it eases the work tension and gets everyone tighter and fills any tireness with endurance.

And especially when the boss joins in, the rapport built makes everyone want to work harder, longer and achieve more.

Of course there are days when we’re just overworked and that’s when everyone knows that it’s time to slow it down, kick back and just take things lightly.

So, if you’re a Boss, and you’re reading this, lighten up on the authority, especially if you’re wondering why the human resource turnover exceeds that of your stapler inventories.

Take a lesson from Google, and see what a fun working environment can bring to your productivity levels.

Of course, I hope that the bosses and guys over at a power station or nucelar plant don’t start loosening and taking things lightly in their departmentes — because some things just need to stay tight.