That is the question.
It will be answered in 2 weeks’ time.
If it is positive, then it’d be a first (yet again in a series of firsts that have been occurring in my life).
If it is negative, then the first would simply be delayed by a few more months and the destination different.
But it’d be REALLY cool if…
Hurray democracy!
Aye to capitalism!
Yippee! The Berlin Wall collapsed!
Those guys who demolished our World Trade Center are having a fine time in Gitmo & Abu Ghraib if they’re not being baked by the Devil in Hell, already!
Only Communists and Totalitarian States censor the media, thank God Almighty that we, the God-chosen West, are free to say and do whatever we want, as long as Laissez-Faire Capitalism and the Free Market Economy and Freedom of Speech and our ‘National Interests‘ and ‘the Truth about 9/11 (i.e. it was them freedom-haters)’ are sacrosanct!
Yeehaa! God wants us to develop and prosper as a Nation, and to grow, we need oil, lots and lots of oil. Who cares Mr Bush, Cheney and Powell lied? They lied white lies! Our old friend turned traitor Saddam is now dead.
Our right to bear arms is preserved (School shooting? Them students don’t know they also have a right to bear bulletproof vests? God, what is happening to our Darwinism-poisoned educational system?) and our genius economists are doing their best (God bless ‘em… all of ‘em) in manipulating the interest rates so that we have enough money to pay our good old friend Halliburton to take even more oil from Iran (C’mon! They don’t need oil to make nukes! Why not give it to us? Everyone will be happy!).
Global warming? Our former Vice President won the Nobel Prize (the stinkin’ No Bell Prize, for God’s sakes!) for trying his very best to fight it, right? World hunger and poverty? Haven’t we been fighting a war against that with our celebrities as soldiers for as long as the sanctions-caused starvation of Iraqi children (which I’m sure was ‘worth it’!)?
We are virtually the center of the universe! The sun orbits around us while the Earth orbits around the sun! Everybody in the whole world cares about us (thanks to CNN, Fox News and the sometimes naughty YouTube) such that a 24-year old fool from Singapore with nothing to do cares to write about us!
So what’s the problem now? Everything’s gooooood!
P.S. I, Mohamad Latiff, really am grateful I am free to write this without any threats to my life. What are you going to do to celebrate your freedom?
This is a celebratory post.
The word ‘success’ is searched by about 839 people (or 839 times) every single day according to Wordtracker.
Today I searched this word on Google and found this -
Click on the above thumbnail to view the full screenshot.
Or go ahead and search ‘success‘ in Google.
The Ultimate Secrets of Success website is currently #10 in Google for the keyword ’success’, right on the first page of the search engine results!
Google being Google, it probably won’t stay there permanently. But this is the first time one of my websites actually get on the 1st page of Google search results for a singular ‘first-tier’ keyword that is searched for by thousands of people every month.
Surely a cause for celebration…
Imagine if we are to do what we do every new year, every day, to celebrate the cyclical dawn of a new day.
Imagine everyone going, “Happy New Day!” and receiving SMS’s or MMS’s from your friends and loved ones, wishing you a “Happy New Day. May the new day bring you prosperity and the fulfilment of all your dreams”.
Imagine irrationally exuberant people organising parties and countdowns and beach bashes, bands performing every midnight to celebrate the coming of the new day.
Ah… Don’t listen to me.
I’m just trying to contradict the status quo. Acting different.
Happy New Year. Happy New Month. Happy New Week. Happy New Day.
Try not to die. Stay alive. But just in case you do die the next second you read this (which is entirely possible), do relish this very moment right now and smile with your last breath.
Still alive? Congratulations.
“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” - Benjamin Disraeli.
Crisis, Reaction, Solution.
What a simple pattern.
Yet this simple pattern has been a successful model responsible for the enslavement of the minds and bodies of entire populations.
When wielded in malevolent hands, the Crisis is usually one that is orchestrated by the powers that be with a deliberate precision that even beats the Devil to his own game.
There will be scapegoats and other pawns in this scheme of things, and much of the attention of the populace will be focused upon these scapegoats and pawns, but seldom on the notion that there are higher levels of control in the hierarchy.
Am I being paranoid?
Far from it.
Paranoia stems from fear, from worry, from a feeling of powerlessness.
I say this because I am unafraid.
Accusations of paranoia against the voices which speak truth to power come from the sheep, the very slaves who place shackles upon themselves and surrender their power to the power-vampires.
It is ironic that in the paper of an authoritarian state, an incident that should draw averse criticism is belittled and ridiculed as something to be entertained by.
This incident is a manifestation of what I observe to be the slow death of democracy.
Shame on you if you do not even have an inkling of concern about this. I don’t care about your opinion, your freedom or your right to one, because if you are not even the slightest bit concerned about this, you forfeit your right to having one.
Some of the world’s greatest religions with billions of followers, some of which have now become the mainstream, were founded by rebels, misfits and threats to the status quo. It is ironic that in this day, the same followers of this mainstream feel threatened by rebels, misfits and threats to the status quo.
These are dark times indeed, but not one without hope.
Hope never died.
The world may not need more Ahmadinejad’s, Ron Paul’s or Galloway’s, but what we need more of is attention to these misfits, rebels, rogues and status quo threateners until such attention reaches a critical mass that would trigger massive changes of Richter 10 magnitude, jolting the true fascist dictators of the world off of their thrones and onto the ground, rightfully crushed under the angrily stomping soles of their former slaves.
Benjamin Disraeli, death of democracy, Ahmadinejad, Ron Paul, Galloway
$1 MMM does not equate to One Million Million Million dollars. It’s One Billion. M stands for 1,000 in Roman numerals. Do the Math.
Actually, I don’t think there is even a proper Roman numeral for 1 Billion. Anyway…
From a fish, I have transmuted my desktop wallpaper into a billion dollar cheque which I predestine to come to me (from myself, no less) on my 25th birthday.
Since I am the one who both signed and received the cheque, it means I have way more than $1,111,111,000.00 in my checking accounts.
Who knows?
…according to the personality survey results of eHarmony.com, which I found out from this YouTube video about number crunching featuring Ian Ayres.
It makes interesting reading, especially for the few people on Earth who have the remotest interest in me.
Here’s a printable .PDF version of my personality test results. It’s 10 pages long, so unless you’re really interested in me (in both a platonic or otherwise way), you should just skim it.
But here’s a convenient summary of my 5 chief qualities according to their personality test algorithms:
Agreeableness:
I am inclined to “take care of others and take care of myself”.
Openness:
I am “sometimes curious, sometimes content”.
Emotional Stability:
I am “sometimes steady, sometimes responsive”.
Conscientiousness:
I am “focused and flexible”.
Extraversion:
I am “sometimes outgoing, sometimes reserved”.
Well, if you like me - in a platonic or non-platonic way - I am always open to communication. And if you do, let me say in advance, I like you too! If you don’t, go away! Or take the eHarmony.com personality survey and find someone you do like.
My friend Ganesan and I are about to start a project now codenamed Operation “Organic Existence Piercing”. I leave it to your imagination to speculate on what it is all about. It is a small side project, that’s how things like this usually start out, until it grows and becomes an entire industry of its own.
Stay is a 2005 movie starring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling.
Ryan Gosling is a brilliant actor. I have yet to see his latest caper, Lars and the Real Girl, but in this one, he plays a Henry Letham (his last name being an anagram of Hamlet - the Shakespearean character from which this film takes inspiration), an art student who wants to commit suicide on his 21st birthday and calmly tells Ewan McGregor’s psychiatrist character about it.
The whole story is about how Sam (Ewan) tries to persuade Henry not to kill himself as if suicide were a supreme work of art while Sam himself is losing his grip on reality.
I don’t quite understand the film fully but it vaguely suggests the theme of life being but a dream. There was a heart-stopping moment when Henry suddenly somehow becomes a Christ-like figure by restoring sight to this blind man played by Bob Hoskins whom Henry claims is his dead father. This wasn’t Henry’s only power. Apparently he can foretell the future and warp reality too.
The film’s a little thrilling and mind-bending but it isn’t like Fight Club or Vanilla Sky. But the acting of Ryan Gosling and Naomi Watts redeemed this picture.
Stay, Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Ryan Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl, Fight Club, Vanilla Sky