My Mandatory Birthday Blurb 2011

Hello hello, yes, another year has passed and I'm still alive. Happy about that I must say. This year has been hectic to say the least. I've never done so much travelling in one year and we're only half way through 2011. I'm not complaining though, I mean, in this economy, I'm happy I have a job let alone a job that requires frequent travel. This only real problem I have with my job is, having to be away from my family for weeks on end. Sometimes I feel I'm missing out on my children's growing up. Ultimately, I have to do this for them. 'Gotta pay the bills' as they say.

This year I was once again, on a golf course, in the Tournament Office, in some other country other than my own. The one difference is I received a surprise birthday cake! And what a surprise it was. This one had the full theatrics including accomplice actors and notions of alleged error on my part. Just what I needed after a long day of stress.... more stress. In the end it was worth it, teary eyed while blowing out my candle, I felt appreciated and loved. That's all one can hope for in this world. Initially I thought to myself, I was 'too old for this shit'... but the reality is, you appreciate it more as you get older.

Thanks guys..... one more day to go.... then I can finally go home to my loving wife and children. That's the only present I really want.

Photoshop Tennis 3 - AlphaBeatDown

click to enlarge

Howdy folks, its been a while since the last Photoshop Tennis match between ShoddyBlog and Me. This one is based on the Alphabet. The base image is one of a shopping mall somewhere. This image was challenging as the graininess and perspective made adding things to it, very difficult but extremely fun.

See if you can spot and name all 26 of them.... There is also a bonus 27th one just for the hell of it.

Stay tuned for the next round of Photoshop Tennis. This time we explore the wonders of the 90s!

Here are Photoshop Tennis match 1 and match 2 just to refresh your memory.

Welcome to Malaysia

I been meaning to post this....

Who is at fault?
The Taxi driver? The fares are so low and fuel is up, who could blame him.
The Customers? What choice do they have? Buses are crap and it ain't easy getting a cab.
The People in charge? How long does it take to fix a problem?

Happy New Year Ya Clowns!

Yo! As the title suggests, Happy New Year! I expect 2011 to be a hectic year with much travel and new opportunities in store. No need to declare resolutions and shit, we never stick to them anyway. I say just have a general idea of where you want to be at the end of the day and you'll live with less stress.

My last blog update was in October and I know I've been slack in updating this. It seems that social networking is all the trend these days. Facebook and Twitter have litterally taken over our lives. Blogging seems to be so old fashion now. To be honest, blogging takes too much effort and is rather time consuming. I've found that, although you can express more in a blog than in a 'status update', sometimes less is more. Many times in the past, I'd get in trouble with putting my thoughts on a page. I realise that not everyone shares my opinions or sense of humour for that matter. True freedom of speech does not exist. Its hard to convey your point of view or a humourous anticdote without it be misconstuded to something else.

These days, peoples attention span is getting less and less. Perhaps its the fact that everyone is busy or in a rush. No one has time to read pages and pages of text. I know my sisters have no patience for my ramblings here. I almost have to force them to read this. They are both so busy Twitting that if this doesnt appear on their Twitter feed, this will undoubtedly go unnoticed. Hell, the only reason anyone would read this is because I've linked Blogspot with Facebook, and as soon I press 'Publish' this 'Note' will appear on my wall.

I remember when I first started blogging, getting comments was all I cared about. It is that feedback and interactivity with your readers, that makes blogging so satisfying. I suppose thats why Facebook and Twitter are such a big success. Its constant instant feedback.

Damn you Mark Zuckerberg. You rich cunt. I was watching Bloomberg last night about the Facebook story. The company is currently valued at 10 billion dollars. There are 500 million users and growing. Microsoft paid 240 Million for only 1.6% of the company. One can't help but feel slightly jealous. I watched The Social Network last year and thought "Why did I think of that?" .... damn.

Anyway, Happy New Year and my your dream come true....... Bitches.

When it rains in Jakarta

For me Jakarta has always been a destination of choice but yesterday, I was greeted with what only can be described as liquid hell. It was as if the skys opened up a wept tears of anger. This populous nation was clearly overwhelmed with the immense sudden quantity of rain that drenched the city. What should have been a relatively short drive from the airport to the city center became a torturous 5 hour ordeal.

Personally, I believe that the floods are as a result of too much shit in the sewer system. With over 100 million people, all shitting at once, where does it all go? Surely it has all clogged up the storm drains and pipes. Never mind that Jakarta city sits below sea-level, it has to be the shit that is causing these highway shit-rivers.

Just goes to show, that shit is eternal.

And this is what Disney princesses teach women....

My Mandatory Birthday Blurb 2010

Yes its that time again.. one more year has passed.. and I am older by one year. As you can see, I've not written anything for over 2 months. Very slack of me I know. Even then, in may, it was a copy paste article. Maybe its because Blogging is so 5 years ago? Nah, that's just a lame excuse. I'm just lazy, I always have been I suppose. Almost 'sloth-like' as my mom would put it.

Kudos to Simon for his expansive blurbs about the World Cup which has just concluded. He, of course is the reason I started my blog years ago, and I'm glad to see that he is still going strong with his surprising interest in soccer. Must be all those years working in London.

What has happened in the last 12 months? Goodness, so many things to recall. I've been doing my usual traveling around Asia for work. It was nice to have my family with me one of those outings, a sort of working holiday in Phuket, that was fun. My son is now in first grade at a government school. We had to adjust to the lack of attention the teachers have for our child due to the student to teacher ratio. Also having to adjust to waking up early to send him to school. Just when you thought, as you get older you didn't have to do that anymore. One of life's bitter irony. And I just stubbed my toe on the way to the kitchen. Oh God it hurts more than usual. My daughter is almost 2 years old, and as the day go by, I find myself thinking of the fool that would eventually be called 'boyfriend' and that makes me very upset. I will kill that dweeb or anyone else that would threaten to spoil my precious.

My wife, of now 8 years, is still by my side and forever the voice of reason in my otherwise loony world. She still manages to bring a smile to my face at times of darkness and ever ready to shake my core with words of 'where is my house you promised me??'. Soon darling, soon... I say. Hopefully, one day, we will achieve our goals together.

Anyway, here is a list of famous people that share my birthday:-
1. Jesse 'The Body' Ventura (15-Jul-1951) WWF Wrestler turned Governor of Minnesota and was the dude in Predator with the vulcan machine gun.
2. Jan-Michael Vincent (15-Jul-1944) Sting Fellow Hawk from 80s TV series Airwolf.
3. Kim Alexis (15-Jul-1960) Top 1980s model
4. Brian Austin Green (15-July-1973) David Silver from 90s TV series Beverly Hills 90210
5. Eddie Griffin (15-July-1968) Star of Undercover Brother and was the pimp in Deuce Bigalow. Remember the phrase "Dont make me he-bitch-man-slap you!"
6. Ayatollah Khamenei  (15-Jul-1939) Supreme leader of Iran
7. Brigitte Nielsen (15-Jul-1963) Stared in Red Sonja and was married to Sly Stallone
8. Rembrandt (15-Jul-1606) Painted Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp

Judging from this list, people born on this day, can either be great people in history or really crappy actors. So far I'm neither.... well, I did do a sub-standard commentating job for The Le Tour de Langkawi cycling race for TV, does that count?  A friend of mine put my name forward to do this, with absolutely zero knowledge of cycling, I foolishly said 'Yes'. Talk about undergoing the steepest learning curve ever. On the first day, I yelled out "and the guy in blue won!"... but at least by the end of the week I think I managed to sound like I knew what I was saying.

So here is to the next year ahead, and as always I give myself some massive boobs to stare at, just because I can.

Here is Jordan Carver, she is from Germany and is currently trying to dethrone big boob legend, Denise Milani as the number one internet pinup girl. Her boob to waist ratio is unreal. Surreal almost. Really. Just take a look!

nuff said.......................