NBA Flopping

Flop (verb): To drop with a sudden bump or thud.

My explanation: Basically if you watch soccer you should know better then me, I'm talking about the Ronaldo (Man U) kind of flop.

For those not in the know, flop is a word used to describe someone who falls over on purpose in sport to get a foul,free kick,or whatever upper hand he can gain. Happens mostly in soccer. That was in the past that is. The flop has somehow found it's way across the oceans to the NBA which I never though could happen. Here's some evidence...

A hot favorite, Manu Ginobilli



Another famous flopper, Raja Bell

Not so famous, but still good Matt Harpring



Hell there are even fan-vids for these...

My favorite, "Flop Manu"

Manu Ginobilli again...



Now everyone's picking this up...

Good attempt at least...

Sucky attempt




I love this game... but perhaps soon not

Happy Planet Index (HPI)

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact... really. I seriously think the title of the index sounds really corny. But anyway, it was introduced by this certain New Economics Foundation (NEF), in July 2006. As below is the excerpt from Wikipedia.

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact, introduced by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), in July 2006. The index is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability into account. In particular, GDP is seen as inappropriate, as the ultimate aim of most people is not to be rich, but to be happy and healthy and it is critical to understand what effect the pursuit of those goals has on the environment.



The reason why I'm interested in HPI is because it shows greater beliefs among people that economical advancement does not directly lead to us having a better life, assuming a better life is being happier and healthier (as in the HPI).
I'm not trying to advocate that we all stop working and start playing all day long. I just feel that certain advancements in life these days are somewhat made at the sacrifice of our happiness, be it personal or collective. It makes no sense to me... no sense. A simple example... a person could work 7 days a week, which would most probably lead to greater financial returns. However, all these are at the sacrifice of their personal life/health. I would definitely choose a shorter work week personally.

With greater economical advances came general improvements in living standards. However, due to attempts to edge the competition, many countries advocated longer working weeks/strict protocols which actually led to greater stress and perhaps higher suicidal rates. Of course, just with all big scale economical-related stuff, it's actually quite hard to determine the exact factors of suicide rates. Anyway, what worries me is as below:


Rank / Country / Suicides per 100,000 people per year
1 Antigua and Barbuda 0
- Dominican Republic 0
- Honduras 0
- Jordan 0
- Saint Kitts and Nevis 0
- Saint Vincent and The Grenadines 0
7 Egypt 0.1
8 Syrian Arab Republic 0.2
9 Iran 0.4
10 Jamaica 0.7
11 Guatemala 1.0
-- Peru 1.0
13 Azerbaijan 1.6
14 Sao Tome and Principe 1.8
15 Bahamas 2.2
16 Armenia 3.2
-- Kuwait 3.2
18 Albania 3.6
19 Philippines 4.2
20 Paraguay 4.6
21 Bahrain 5.4
22 Tajikistan 5.8
23 Georgia 6.0
24 Mexico 6.4
25 Nicaragua 6.9
26 Colombia 7.0
27 Greece 7.3
28 Panama 7.5
29 Thailand 8.0
30 Brazil 8.4
31 Seychelles 9.1
32 Ecuador 9.6
33 Venezuela 10.2
34 Portugal 10.5
35 Chile 11.6
36 Costa Rica 11.8
37 Argentina 12.9
38 Belize 13.0
39 Israel 13.1
40 Barbados 13.3
41 Uzbekistan 13.6
42 Malta 14.3
43 Italy 14.5
44 Tfyr Macedonia 14.8
45 Saint Lucia 15.1
-- United Kingdom 15.1
47 Zimbabwe 15.8
48 El Salvador 15.9
49 Spain 16.4
50 Turkmenistan 17.3
51 Puerto Rico 17.9
52 Singapore 18.9
53 Netherlands 19.3
54 Uruguay 20.8
55 Guyana 21.1
56 India 21.3
57 United States of America 21.7
58 Trinidad And Tobago 22.4
59 Ireland 22.7
60 Kyrgyzstan 23.3
61 Bosnia And Herzegovina 23.6
62 Suriname 23.8
63 Iceland 24.3
64 Canada 24.6
65 Romania 24.7
66 Australia 26.3
67 Norway 26.3
68 China (Hong Kong SAR) 26.5
69 Republic Of Korea 27.1
70 Germany 27.5
-- Slovakia 27.5
72 Sweden 27.7
73 China (Selected Rural & Urban Areas) 27.8
74 Denmark 29.0
75 Mauritius 30.6
-- New Zealand 30.6
77 Poland 30.8
-- Republic Of Moldova 30.8
79 Yugoslavia 30.8
80 Czech Republic 32.7
81 Bulgaria 34.3
82 Luxembourg 34.6
83 France 35.5
84 Cuba 36.5
-- Switzerland 36.5
86 Austria 37.1
87 Belgium 40.1
88 Croatia 43.2
89 Finland 45.5
90 Japan 50.6
91 Kazakhstan 55
92 Estonia 57.7
93 Hungary 60.1
94 Slovenia 60.7
95 Sri Lanka 61.4
96 Ukraine 62.1
97 Latvia 68.5
98 Belarus 73.1
99 Russian Federation 82.5
100 Lithuania 91.7


Not sure if many of you know this, but Singapore is actually 51st out of a 100 countries surveyed. That is actually higher then poorer neighboring countries such as Philippines and Thailand and lower then richer countries like Japan.

Although one might say that the statistics might not be accurate as with all big scale surveys. However, I just hope that I had provided some food for thought for the people out there...

(P.S. Pardon me if i sound philosophical throughout. Haha.)

Romantic?_?

Haven't really had the time to post a decent entry these days. Been busy with camp, animation, games and going out. But at least I don't get to complain life's too boring... Haha. Anyway, I really wanted to post something for the readers (if any), to read so I kind of turned to the endless archives of received files from my various friends/sources. With a bit of luck, I stumbled upon this ".txt" file...

Hey Future Love,

I didn't know how to start this letter
Dear, or hello, couldn't decide which sound better.
I went for the informal because I'm not trying to impress.
Try to make it laid back so there's no need to stress.
I know I don't know your name but someday I hope
We'll meet on the street and no longer be alone.

Sometimes I gaze up at the stars and imagine how it will be?

Where will it happen? Will you just turn and look at me?
Will we discover the meaning of love at first sight??

Perhaps it will take one or two nights?

Laying out under the stars and discovering the mysteries.

Asking questions that have eluded the minds of many for centuries.
Maybe it will be our laughter that floats in the air?

That makes us turn in the right direction, at that moment, right there.
Our eyes will meet, and it will be just like in a movie
We'll smile at each other, and you'll ask me out for a cup of coffee.

Oh the possibilities, they haunt me in my sleep
All the secrets I want to share but for now I keep.
Each poem I write makes me somehow feel closer to you
Based on emotions that I know to be true.
When life gets me down, I look up at the night sky
For a long moment, I'm silent but eventually I'll sigh?

Someday we'll meet, and it'll be like we had never been apart.
Because you know when you've found the one...
That completes your heart.

Sounds like whoever wrote this must have a strong yearning to be loved/love.

Romantic albeit mushy. ^.^

World of Warcraft: Detoxification

Really wanted to say something about WoW addiction but couldn't really find a way to put it better then just presenting with you with these websites.

Anyway, before i bombard you with some websites, here are some snippets from WoW Detox that I really like. The site is a must-see by the way.

"I HATE WOW! My husband is choosing WOW over our relationship. He wants a divorce because I don't let him play enough.. He plays from when he gets home from work to whenever he goes to bed just about every day about once a week I will ask him to spend a few hours with the family.."

"My fiance (ex fiance now) stopped going out. He would go to work and rush home to play. We went cross state to spend a weekend with my family, and he woke me up at 5am wanting to go back home so he could play. He also missed my daughter's birthday and mine. I stopped doing his laundry and cooking for him. He didn't even notice, just wore the same nasty clothes to work every day. The final straw was when he skipped a close friend's wedding because he had a raid or whatever it's called. I showed him this website and he thinks its a conspiracy and that only two people keep posting different things. I am a frickin moron for staying with him for this long. When I kicked him out, I think the only reason he was pissed is because he was supposed to raid with his buddies. WOW is worse than crack."

South Park: Even South Park dedicated an episode to WoW. And yes, "Oh my god, they killed Kenny!".

WoW Addict: Here is hoping that you are not one. But if you do play WoW and you are suspecting that the game is starting to gobble away at your life, try this test.

40% Addicted: One expert on game addiction claims 40% of the WoW population to be addicted to the game. I was once a gamer and 40% sounds like a crazy figure to me. But of course, I had no MMORPGs during the time I gamed. The only multi-player game I played was CounterStrike. -_-"

70 Reasons Not to Play: A person decided to do a nice deed by coming up with 70 reasons not to play WoW. Personally, I like this one: "Reason 37. Playing the game accomplishes nothing outside the game".

---

By the way, one of my friends passed me the WoW installation discs. He wanted more people on his raids. Of course, I didn't installed the game after reading the horror stories on WoW Detox. They could even have a book on it.

To end it off, prevention is better than cure. Be very afraid... of the WoW.

I'm a Geek -_-"

Anyway, I went down to Ang Mo Kio Hub to meet my friend, Kevin who actually had ORD-ED and had some talk about his first day of work as a certain site engineer at a certain company. After some talk about his work, I popped a question about my blog (just to gather some feedback( and got a perhaps not so inspiring reply. Here's the conversation that transpired...

Me: Kevin, got go visit my blog not?
Kevin: The one with all those entries about like the one about the Firefox thing?
Me: Yeah, isn't that useful? Or somehow informative?
Kevin: o_O Hmm...
Me: O_O (*Thinking that he did not read the blog entry at all)
Kevin: To be honest, I thought Kim Leng (another friend of mine) was kind of correct with his comment (he left a comment on that entry).
Kevin: Are you geek or are you just geek?
Me: O_O"...

Surprisingly to myself, I didn't really felt disappointed at what Kevin commented about my blog. It was kind of expected in a way.

I always thought of myself as a kind of hybrid geek (a geek who could do sports, go out and be at ease just like everyone in social events). But the Firefox post was more of a pure geeky stuff post. Things the normal Jane and Jacks wouldn't appreciate. Not to put the Jane and Jacks down but it's simply not something they would be interested nor versed enough in to understand. Just like if a certain person tried to explain the Quantum's Theory to me, I bet I would most certainly be asleep. =)

Anyway, I did received some positive feedback from another friend, a fellow IT student. A geek understands a geek after all. So I won't put myself down or what. Just hope to post more diverse stuff in future. Guess the world works that way. ^.^

I'm a bore: AMK Hub

Just came back from Ang Mo Kio Hub. Anyway, I used to live in that area who those who didn't know. The place much surpassed my expectations though it's nowhere near the next Orchard Road it's touted to be. But perhaps the area's not fully completed so I can't really score them on this yet. However, I've none but one qualms about the place; the traffic. The traffic there was already so horrible when I was living back there (perhaps due to the high density of people living there). With this Ang Mo Kio Hub coming into play, I had to alight a stop earlier to walk there just to avoid being stuck in the traffic for a good 5-10 minutes waiting to reach the interchange. Not really ideal.



But overall, the area's great and a Cathay Cinema is going to open there soon. Anyway, the Eng Wah cinema at the nearby Jubilee has responded to that competition by reducing the prices to 7 bucks (not sure weekday or weekend) but it's a all round good time for consumers. =)