mamma mia - abba

just had to post this up!



- ABBA Lyrics

spent a nice quiet birthday...

...chilling out with my beloved...

had a lie-in in bed till late, then had an early lunch at da paolo at rochester park...fabulous pasta in a lovely secluded atmosphere (and a kickass cuppa black coffee)...then went shopping and finally caught MAMMA MIA the movie...

absolutely lurved it!

deep down inside, i think everyone must be a closet ABBA fan! i am unshamedly an overt fan of this iconic swedish supergroup of the 70s/80s...such unabashed campiness and joy in their music...accompanied by some of the most silly lyrics...my my....they sure rocked the music world and till this day, their songs are instantly recognisable...

i can tell that the cast really enjoyed themselves making this (musical) movie...the joy just oozes out of everything that they do...you can't help by sing along and be transported into their world...

oh and they did their own singing! meryl streep's voice is not bad at all, so too christine baranski and amanda seyfried (pictured left as the titular bride)...

but pierce brosnan should stick to his day job...or any other job...he can hold a tune, but that's about it...such a grating voice...and similarly julie walter...oy vey...

damned good effort though! i give this movie a 8/10...can't help it...lurve the muzak...yes it's biased i guess, but what the heck...it's MY review!

incipient old age...

...as i turn 36 today, i feel my age in my bones...

i don't recover as quickly from my games of squash...

i don't feel motivated to party all night to celebrate the passing of another year of existence on God's green earth...

i prefer to snuggle up in bed with a book instead of going out on a friday night...

cripes, talk about depressing!

one foot closer to the grave...bleah...

aiyo...heartbreak....

scarlett johansson has married ryan reynolds over the weekend....the lucky bastard!

the miracle drive of singapore

after the end of the 2nd qualifying session on saturday, fernando alonso was left ruing his ill luck when the fuel pump of his renault gave way during the session thereby relegating him to 15th on the grid...he as much admitted that it was all over, given how tight the track was and how difficult it would be to overtake on a street circuit...

well, after last night's race, he must be thanking his lucky stars over and over again for he came all the way back from 15th to top the standings and win the inaugural singtel F1 singapore grandprix!

tactically it was a bit of a masterpiece but mostly i reckon it was down to sheer luck...he started off on an aggressive slant...putting on the supersoft compound tyres to try and make up some places right from the beginning...went from 15th to 11th, then headed into the pits for a very early stop to load up on fuel...and then the miracle happened...his team-mate nelson piquet junior lost it and slammed into the barrier just a couple of laps later and this resulted the safety car coming out and all the cars bunching together...

as one by one the rest headed into the pits, this gave the chance for fernando to improve on his placings just by being there...and before you know it, hey, he found himself leading the race!

credit where it was due, the bloke drove a damn good race and the renault was pretty much perfectly set up in handling by the team from enstone...but if there was no safety car, would he have won it by sheer racing? i very much doubt so...

so it was down to all the pieces of the jigsaw falling into place...kismet, i s'pose...

well-done, renault!

i've heard of the need for speed but...

...this is ridiculous! that's 2 million odd singapore buckaroos in fines! what was this guy on...105 octane race fuel???

Police in Brazil have finally caught up with a serial speeder who owed US$1.9m (£1m) in traffic fines. Sao Paolo police who pulled over Armando Clemente da Silva were shocked to discover he had clocked up nearly 1,000 violations, local media report.

Mr da Silva had accumulated the fines for speeding and running red lights over a seven-year period. The driver, 36, said he had not received any penalty tickets because he had been too busy to register his car.

more HERE.

get your facts, right!

this. does. not. compute.

something is not right...

how could they have gotten it so wrong?

hmm, this bloke's obviously a bit slow...

you think he'd learn not to repeat it (TWICE) after the first shot...

the wrong words at the wrong time...

...can result in serious injury!

A man staggered into a hospital with a concussion, multiple bruises, two black eyes, and a five iron wrapped tightly around his throat.

Naturally the doctor asked him, ” What happened to you ?”

” Well, I was having a quiet round of golf with my wife, when at a difficult hole, we both sliced our balls into a cow pasture.”

“We went to look for them and while I was looking around I noticed one of the cows had something white at it’s rear end.”

” I walked over, lifted it’s tail, and sure enough, there was a golf ball with my wife’s monogram on it - stuck right in the middle of the cow’s butt “

Still holding the cow’s tail up, I yelled to my wife, ” Hey, this looks like yours ! “

” I don’t remember much after that….”

gaseous battery!

alamak this fella....champion! hahaha...

A man arrested for driving under the influence in West Virginia got himself into a lot more trouble later at the police station.

Jose Cruz was pulled over Monday night on Route 60 in South Charleston for driving with his headlights off. He was subsequently arrested after failing a series of sobriety tests, according to WSAZ TV in Charleston.

During fingerprinting, Cruz then allegedly moved closer to one of the officers and passed gas, the station reported. In the complaint, the investigating officer wrote that police noticed a "very strong" odor.

The alleged stunt led Cruz to be charged with another offense — battery on an officer — in addition to DUI and obstruction, WSAZ reported.

more HERE.

yee-frickin'-haaaa!!!

our request for the extension of the return flight from narita to singapore has been approved and confirmed by the airline!!! blardy wonderful!!!

i was on tenterhooks waiting on this news as we had to await same before we could book our accomodation in kyoto...in tokyo, we are staying with friends (thanks mark and mei!!!! MUAKZ)...now we can get down to the business of booking the shinkansen to/fro tokyo/kyoto and the hotel in kyoto...

so the schedule is as follows:-

• 23-30 oct --- hokkaido on package tour
  
• 30-31 oct --- tokyo
• 1 nov --- travelling from tokyo to kyoto
• 3 nov --- travelling from kyoto to tokyo
• 4-6 nov --- tokyo
• depart tokyo --- 6 nov/about 1800 hrs local time
  

yay!!!!!

hello hello!

*waving spastically to carol*

we men are doomed from young...

oh shit...

for real? nahhhhhh...

...but still hilarious!

WTF...

...is going on down there?!?!!??!!?

a sacrifice...NOT!

oh no....

get ready for a struggle!

will your tongue stick to the metal pole...

...if it's really cold?

the upshot is...YES...see explanation below if you are remotely interested...

finally...

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette, with a satisfied smile on its face.

The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheet, rolls over, and says, ‘Well, I guess we finally answered THAT question.’

this is probably...

...the best news for men in general, for a damn long time!!!

"oh darlinggggggggg...."

look where you're going, diddy!

carnage....

nothing else on the news except the global conflagration of the financial markets...

fanny mae and freddie mac...nationalised (in the best interests of the nation blah blah blah)

lehman brothers now a mere footnote in history...the result of the Fed not willing to use public funds to rescue them...they were apparent "not too big to fail"...barclays apparently eyeing parts of the business...circling shark packs...

merrill lynch is now part of bank of america, apparently foisted off on BOA by the Fed...

next up AIG, desperately trying to stave off bankruptcy, has now been "nationalised" with a loan by the Fed of 85 billion in return for a 80% stake...

what next? tinderboxes a-plenty in the market... how long more before rescue becomes nigh impossible?

and why has it become this way? lack of regulation? what can we learn from this?

it's coming down...

...to the business end of the 2008 Formula One season and there's still no clear favourite in sight!

the excitement grows, the tension mounts...and next up will the the inaugural night race in my neck of the woods! this coming weekend of 26 to 28 sep, the whole F1 circus will descent like a flock of ravening raptors on this little red dot of singapore...

i was originally intending to be there, but decided in the end to watch it from the comfort of my own couch with a coupla beers and chips instead...besides, i'd rather spend the moolah on other things...priorities lahhhh...

additionally, one doesn't see much at the race itself unless one has the good luck to be sitting near a big screen...otherwise all one experiences is the thunderous roars and screeching wails of the engines as they rev to 18000rpm...and at 300 kmh, reckon all i'd see is a blur flashing by...

vs

it looks increasingly likely that it will come down to a head-to-head between lewis hamilton of vodafone mclaren mercedes and felipe massa of scuderia ferrari...

there's no doubting the skill and precociousness of hamilton, but there's a question over his racecraft and levelheadedness...as can be seen in his run-ins with the stewards and FIA over various incidents in this season alone...if he can reign in all the excesses and focus all his attention and skill on just racing, instead of being distracted by nicole scherzinger and all the accolades being heaped on him, it's just a matter of time before he becomes world champion...not if, just when.

felipe has played a supporting role to the great michael and the flying finn kimi for the last 2 seasons in spite of his skill and it looks like it may just be time for him to step forward and be the spearhead of the ferrari mantle, in view of kimi's strange lack of motivation and speed this year...the little brazilian has oodles of speed and skill but the consistency of performance might just be slightly lacking...he does have to tendency to blow hot and cold, irritatingly enough...

so we shall see...this promises to be a very interesting race indeed...and to add in the uncertainty of possible rain, ooooh yeah...it's gonna be one helluva good one!

who do i tip?

well, my heart says ferrari (being a dyed-in-the-wool tifosi), but my head says the boys from woking, surrey will shave it...