Why us men are happier people

I took this from an email and it was just so true so i'm posting it up here for posterity~ ^__^


Why Men are happier people, a scientific approach.

MEN ARE JUST HAPPIER PEOPLE

NICKNAMES

If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.

EATING OUT
When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even thought it's only for $32.50. None of them wil have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale.

BATHROOMS
A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap and a towel.
The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.

DRESSING UP
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!

The Power of Belief

1963. Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist priest in Southern Vietnam , burns himself to death protesting the government's torture policy against priests. The Quang Dug never made a sound or moved while he was burning.


Look at this picture. Carefully.

Then ask yourself this.

When was the last time that you tried to go for something, do something, sacrifice everything to get it to happen? Even going so far as to die, for something that you truly believe in?

This picture struck a chord inside me. I have never seen anything like this before.

Sure we have heroes in this day and age.

Lance Armstrong, 6 time TDF champion cycling on one ball and cancer ridden.
Terry Fox, no legs but ran the super long super hard marathon.
Beethoven, who turned deaf but still made the most beautiful music ever.
Mahatma Ghandi, who freed a nation... with peace.

It makes me wonder: what makes these guys so special that they can change the world?

What do they have, that I don't?

And most importantly, what can I do to achieve the things they have?

It would be so nice....

to end up in the history books, won't it?

Maybe I should start small.

Then move towards greater things. Yosh! I believe I can do this!

I believe.

Magic the Gathering: My lifelong addiction

This is Magic. This is how you fall in love with the game.

I just realized something.

I have been addicted to playing card games for the last 12 years.

Oh. My. God. It all started way back when I was 13.

On the school bus home this kid was showing off his collection of cards. Back then I just got my first super famicom <the original nintendo for those who don't know> and I thought I was one of the cool cats. But Magic: The gathering or just MTG for short changed my entire outlook on life.

I was never into card games back then. But the coolness of the art <back then it was way cool>, glorious idea of rare, uncommon and common cards, and the wonder of cracking boosters never knowing what you could get, was something that I had never experienced before in my life that it changed my lifestyle aggressively.

You could say that Magic changed my life.

I began pursuing the idea of saving up money by denying myself food to buy boosters. I got a part-time job during school holidays so I could buy boosters. I began to do really really well < try insanely well> in school exams just so I could extort my dad for more pocket money to buy... well... more boosters.

I would spend hours staring and sorting out my collection of cards, thinking of new combos to pull off and days and days playtesting new deck ideas and cards strategies with my neighbours, my friends, my family. I spent overnights with my friends place and not sleep but play the whole day and night of MAGIC that damned game GATHERING.

It was fun. I still blame Richard Garfield.

The idea behind magic was simple. You are this great wizard fighting against other great wizards wielding allegiance to the 5 colors red,blue,green,white and black, each with their own attributes and weaknesses.

You use up magic spells that you have gathered from your library of spells: enchantments, lands, creatures, sorceries, instants, artifacts and plainswalkers. Each of these had their powers that would help you win: if you knew how to tap their energies.

I was an addict.

I was a casual player, as they would term it. But then I got introduced to fun tournaments and competitive playing and was soon even more into it. I became a trader of cards, a competitor in tournaments and a one time SOB. Back then since local tournaments were for big money <they are even more big now, like USD40,000 big.> most people had to be SOB's so they could outplay their tournaments. I kinda lost my heart and became one of them.

But one day after going overseas to study I went to London for their Grand Prix. I was astounded at the quality of play, how people treated each other and how people would rather work on the best play rather than the technical KO to win.

You could say I was humbled by what I saw. I promised myself this: if I ever came back to Malaysia, one day I would open my own Magic shop and show proper play to all the local players and bring back real Magic.

The fun, beautiful game that I know.

Hey mom, look at me now! ^____^ I own Mindslavers!

Tifa The Fish... and Better Childcare

I put a new fish in my shop.

Her name is Tiffany. I call her Tifa for short.

She is seriously the sexiest, prettiest shop assistant anyone could wish for. Slim, long and insanely beautiful betta halfmoon fighting fish that anyone has ever seen. Personally I blame Feng Shui.

I used to not believe in it. Until someone advised me to get a proper fish and put it in my shop. Apparently, fish can give the shop some form of protection and also increase the luck rating. But, the fish must also have enough fighting spirit to support the number of customers walking in and out, the number of which will stress and kill most other fish.

And thus, I chose the most dangerous and powerful fish: the fighting fish.

Built to fight and kill, you cannot have 2 of the same kind share the same space with each other. They will literally tear each other to shreds and fight till someone dies. If you want to breed them be prepared to prepare at least 2 females for each male in the tank. Otherwise, the poor thing will get raped to death.

But, she is insanely beautiful and powerful looking.

P.S. Tifanny is actually a guy. Cos in most species other than humans, the males of the species is the weaker form. Thus they have to look and dress pretty to get the attention of the bigger, stronger and uglier females.

P.P.S. My niece just reached 2 years recently. And she still can't say a single human word. Ga Ga all the way.

Personally I just think she is confused. Why do I say this?

Imagine: in a normal Malaysian family we are trained from birth to be able to communicate with all the other races in Malaysia. And over here, the distribution is equal enough that you MUST be bilingual at the least.

My family can speak very fluent English. Fluent Malay. Fluent Chinese. most of the curse words in indian and Kadazan-Dusun.

It is in such an environment that I fear for my little niece.

How do you expect her to be able to relate and talk to everyone when:

a) Grandma A speaks in Cantonese.
b) Grandma B speaks in English.
c) Mom speaks in Mandarin.
d) Dad speaks in Manglish
e) T.V speaks in Malay.
f) Grandpa A speaks in Malay.
g) Grandpa B speaks in Hokkien.

How much more confused can a baby get? I'm seriously worried I tells you. At this rate, she will be able to talk at least till the age of 17.

Pre-school starts in a year. Wowza. Good luck kid. Here's more love from uncle.

On the bright side, Shannon is an insanely cute looking kid. Hopefully she'll grow up to be a supermodel or something.

No one ever expects models to say anything.

How a Sabahan boy ended up in Johor

I was having dinner with my parents the other day and somehow our conversation kinda drifted to the area of government jobs and the "avenues" of making money...

Apparently.. if you are in like Customs or Immigration there are so many grey areas you can step into that you can be a multi millionaire before you retire. True story coming up.

At this point my mom starts becoming proud of my dad <> and her eyes lights up.

Ehhh??? My Dad My Hero?

OK here is how it goes. My dad is seriously the most HONEST official in the PLANET. So honest in fact, that people still remember him even years after he has retired from official business.

He returns 1K red packets that the businessmen give out to all the chiefs during chinese new year.

He distributes the insanely huge hampers that we used to get to all the priests and nuns and friends.

He hits me for asking the businessmen that come a'bribing for toys but i still get em... though...^__^

Anyway...

The fire cracker business is very very big in Malaysia due to the fact that it is illegal but is a necessity during the New year and public holidays.

So one day this man who works for this other man who works for this MAIN MAN has already settled everything with all top brass. hands have been greased, illegal stuff has been given a permit by the police chief, the customs heads have been bribed clean.

All except my dad.

My hero.

So he comes along to the customs department, looking for the 2 top guys there, my dad and his boss. Apparently the top guy has already been bribed so they want to bribe my dad too to keep things quiet.

So my dad goes into the boss room. This man whips out a briefcase full of cash and just SHOWS it to him.

RMY$40,000.

In todays terms about 17 years on this sum would be a bout 150K

So they were like so sure my dad would fall into the plan and everything would be smooth.

My dad said no.

Like WTF!?!! NOOO?!

He scolded the boss and threatened to send the man to the police. What if the Internal Affairs found out? He was going to minute the entire case. Stop the release of firecrackers. Get the crackdown on everyone.

It was basically madness.

In the end the boss scolded my dad, " What else do YOU WANT?", and basically gave up. The man with the suitcase even went to the house thinking that my dad needed more privacy or something. Got chased out with a shotgun. gyabon!

The deal still went through cos the chief of customs back then was already in the system. So everything went hush hush. But my dad had a reputation now.

Unstable.

Too strict. Not part of the system. The nail that had to be beaten down. Annoyance.

And that was how my dad got "promoted" to Pasir Gudang, Johor.

Although, I never knew about it till now. Sadly I blamed my dad for the whole moving affair for a very long time...

I mean, think about it. Try being moved from a place where your best friend was a Malay and you could like eat together and chill together to a place where the culture was Malay for Malays and Chinese you can go die.

How about going to a public school which was 99.999999% Malay and everyone had a thing against Chinese. Hell, I am a sino Kadazan but they still couldn't see the difference.

First day in school, I got into my first serious fight with kids bigger than me.

"Oi sepet! balik Sabah makan babi la ko!". Learned to fight dirty. Step on their toes and hit their noses.

Although once they respected me we could become friends. But earning that respect, thats the hard part. I fought almost everyday in school to the point my mom began to get worried that I would be a delinquent.

Luckily, everything worked out in the end.

I learned a lot from the school of life.

P.S. Here's a little true fact about the art of bribery. True you may get to be a millionaire. True you will get rich and happy.

But only for a while. For you will have no peace of mind for the rest of your life.

Cos last chinese new year, I went to my Dad's number 3 man party. He was only like 55 but he looks like 70. Very bad health. Walking on a wheelchair. Wrinkles everywhere. His kids all gone bad. Wife divorced. But he had money. Still 50 bucks red packet.

I bet he never had a good night's sleep.

What life do you want to live?

One of the theories that I have about life is that life is only worth living if you have a challenge, a goal.

Something that wants to make you reach out beyond yourself, beyond the impossible.

I look around and stare at all the people around me and I came to the conclusion that I don't want to live like that.

A living zombie.

You see, not everyone started out wanting to be a insurance salesman, or a administrator or a clerk. Everyone had a goal, a dream to be someone special. But somehow along the way, life became too comfortable and they decided to just slide.

I was like this too. I had a good job which earned me a lot of money. A comfortable living and a good adoring girlfriend. But somehow or another I could see the outcome of my life.

Buy the car.
Buy the girlfriend.
Buy the house.
Buy a wife.
Buy the kids.
Buy your grave.

It was like if I continued along this pathway of life I would be merely another... zombie.

So I decided to quit my job. Quit the girlfriend. Quit the house plans and insane loans and bad investments and just try out and start my own business with whatever cash I had and give it my best shot.

Nothing better that today, right? I figured if I was to save money and collect enough to make my dream a possibility, I would always end up looking for more hidden problems that need fixing, or stuff to buy, or things that need handling... until in the end I lose the guts to do it at all. and end up being 60 years old and wondering where all the time went...

So here goes, going, doing!

My attempt at a new life.

Welcome Mindslavers. Welcome my new life!

The April Fool.

I got out of bed today.

Phone call.

My honeybaby has decided to pull me a great big April Fool's joke... or so I thought.

"Hey dear, sorry you had to get it today, but.. let's break up."

I smile. Yeah happy April Fool's day.

She just smiled sadly and said, " sorry dear, this time its for real."

I'm in a state of shock. Is she for real? Or is this another one of those jokes she likes to pull just to get me off my high horse cos I have to say I have an ego the size of KLCC...

As she explains further about how our relationship is breaking down and how she has met this guy who is really nice to her and giving her everything that she needs emotionally and how I could never give to her, I realized that she is FOR REAL.

Oh my god.

We're breaking up. again. for like the 3rd time.

Maybe this time for real.