I never liked the idea of webcams cos they freaked me out. Like an eye, always staring at you, and it’s like you never know if you accidentally left it on or not.

I am in awe of Lee Kuan Yew. Sat down to watch his interview with Charlie Rose, and in 1 hour, he made me nod my head numerous times, and made me wanna take notes. His intelligence and knowledge is just incredible.

Of course, nagging thoughts of his authocratic harshness stays. Especially when he talked about the importance of history, which is a good thing. But beneath those wise words on how we can learn for history, one gets a sense of his hard concern with legacy, and obsession on how greatness gets remembered, rather than being concerned with the little people. I’ll give you this example:

LKY: (about Iraq) Casualties have crossed the 1,000 mark. It`s a disaster. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. They`re killing each other and they`ll continue to kill each other.
I think you have to look at it in the long term. All this will be forgotten, but how did you, at the end of the day, hold your head up and said, I came to do good, and I did good.
You did not go as conquerors. But alas, for various reasons, you didn`t get the blessings of the UN. Otherwise, it would have been much easier. And you had to carry the burden of being an occupying force. You go through with this, leave it in better shape, and you`ll still be a leader of the world.
ROSE: There is also this lesson, whether it`s Singapore or China or Vietnam
or Iraq, you have to learn from history.
LKY: Yes.

So that was my one quibble (in bold, which I read as a referral to himself…), as well as the very thing that his haters like to pick on…the fact that this -is- a great man, and the tragic lives of the small men will be secondary (in his eyes) to the legend of the big man. That all this (the 100,000s that died) will be forgotten, might be sadly true. But that is his main concern. Which is uncomfortable for me to accept.

And I do know many that cannot accept that. Yet, I must bashfully admit the inhuman in me and I remain in awe of his charisma and sharp intellect. As mentioned in a conversation last night, some people like their leaders they can identify with, that they can warm up to. I personally don’t like my leaders to be the everyday man so in touch with the masses. I’ll leave that to my next door neighbour or the town mayor/local minister. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe leaders should be untouchable and distant. It takes a special individual to connect with the people, while inspiring awe at the same time, be charismatic, with intelligence clearly beyond the everyday man, to lead. Call it elitist, but I think that’s called personal preference.

…the Meiji chocolate almond ones. We first came across them in SF’s Japantown. Pat’s very happy he finds them here everywhere. We call ‘em Beckham’s nuts. He really likes eating them.

Jon, Pat and I headed down to Little India to check out Emily and Rutherford’s Andy Forever exhibition. I’m not just saying I only liked their work because Emily’s my friend. But I really did only like their work because I thought the rest of it was, as one exhibit (attempted to) show, all popcorn: fluff without substance…pretentious popcorn at that. Soon after, we explored Little India for some hearty Indian food.

I can’t decide my favorite part, the too big reason or the too stingy one:

"He and his wife decided to use contraception but the condom they bought was too big so he stuck it on with glue."

A nurse said: "He even said that he thought the condom could be used several times and that he wanted it stuck on his penis so he could use it again later. We barely managed to remove it in the end."

The Economist is my weekly source of information and entertainment. Aside from great articles (not all), they have some of the funniest news photos and captions that I often guffaw at, sometimes ceaselessly and embarrassingly in public.

My favorite quote:

Blogger and Gmail are two sites that constantly exceed my expectations. They appear to me to be truly based on consumer demand.

It’s so chic to do Yoga these days it’s so not chic.

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