Totally Random

It's been a long time since I indulged in one of these totally random blog entries. These days, I tend to write something more significant in length because it is easier to be intensely cynical over an issue rather than a whole catalogue of them. I jest, of course.

Year change-overs tend to be news-ebb period. So boring, the stuff you read. It has gotten so bad that stupid things like who's pet died are also making to the newspapers. Are these really news-worthy? Or are they in the papers so that the press can justify charging me 80 cents for my daily dose of trash?

A friend told me he had given up newspapers since he can get almost every piece of news online. I almost agree with him. The Straits Times is at least a day, if not up to a week, behind for the news which I first read on Google News. When I flip through the papers, I normally end up reading just domestic news. I need to read the Straits Times simply because they carry enough details. Channelnewsasia.com is not very spectacular in that department; their written news are terse and are almost cut-and-paste from the news bulletins read out over national TV.

So, here are the random bits:

1. I was so heartened when Jo-Wilfried Tsonga knocked Rafael Nadal out of the Australian Open! Then my heart sank when Novak Djokovic did the same to Roger Federer. I am not a Fed-fan. I like Boris Becker (not Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander). I like John McEnroe and Jim Conners (not Michael Chang). I also like Andre Agassi (not Pistol Pete Sampras). But not Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Tsonga. But among them, well, Federer is most "acceptable". So. Of course, I was very disappointed when Maria Sharapova bundled out new-mummy Lindsay Davenport out in the second round of the same tournament. I've followed Davenport since she started playing with Martina Navratilova (who was usually partnered with Pam Shriver) in some of the ladies' doubles matches. She was very young then.

2. Suharto died. This is sad. A neighbour (a Malay-Muslim no less) was still joking about him and his high profile Asean top leadership visitors at his bedside a fortnight ago. The next thing, he died an hour later.

3. US Writers' Guild Strike continues, making me more and more irritable. I wring my hands waiting for my next Desperate Housewives episode like a desperate pad-chelor. This is not very good. And of course, I am also desperate for my next episode of House. Thank god I no longer follow the likes of Lost or I'll be literally so - lost and suffering withdrawal from the lack of fresh TV fixes.

4. Sharemarket crash vs 75 basis point cut by US Fed Reserve. I wait with bated breath what the Fed guys are going to cut off next when the sharemarket next takes a rollercoaster ride to the bottom of the pits. Standing at 3.5% compared to 6.25% a year ago (my figures may be wrong if my memory is), I really really wonder what else the US folks can cut. Bernanke is probably cut at birth, so!

5. Sharemarket crash. Too little, too slowly and too directionless. I was hoping that the sharemarket would go right to pre-2005 levels. I would say that the US Fed cuts did not help the world economies. Instead of amputating above the rot, the cut is akin to cutting just beneath it with the hope that this excision would be enough to stop the gangrene. This simply doesn't work (and I wait with bated breath to be proven right). If I were Bernanke, I'd let the market fall another 20% before announcing the cuts. Then, the sharemarket values would be at a more reasonable level. Any salvation package would then work. To give another analogy, when drop first aid parcels when Katrina is still wreaking havoc at full blast? Not only would the first aid parcels be lost in the winds, the people and aircraft in the mission are also put in danger. Aid only works when the tornado goes away. That time, you send in the first aid, enough and quick.

6. MRT line extension. Singapore will get 2 new MRT lines by 2020. And then I realised I would be 45 then. Er... Well, folks, this is my tax money paying it forward here. So stop bitching that my generation is only concerned about we, us and ourselves. In any case, if we are, so what? Who are we to know that there would *still* be oil left to generate electricity to power any trains, much less those lines.

7. When will the world come to the realisation that to regress is the new progress? We have expanded too much, too fast and without any consideration to the sustainability. Ok, I'm wrong. People did consider how such developments are sustainable. Just consume, mine, waste at higher rates. This is not progress; this is self-destruction. Earth might become a white dwarf before the sun.

I've gone on too much already. I need to give this a rest.