I stumbled this YouTube video recently and decided to blog about it.
Did you know that the top 8 on American Idol sang Shout To The Lord twice?
First they sang it on April 9th starting the song with My Shepherd. Then then on April 10th, they sang it again but this time they started with My Jesus. Watched by millions around the world, this is a great step forward, indirectly spreading the gospel. And a very cool move by FOX for letting them do it the 2nd night with the full version. This was awesome. Praise God!
There is a myth that says that at the end of every rainbow is a pot of gold. Well, I have yet to see that pot of gold whenever I spot a colorful rainbow after the thunderstorm. But I do have my small tiny collection of gold – from gold coins, gold bangle, gold cross, gold earrings to gold chain. These are gifts from my two departed grannies except for the gold coin which was given by my aunt and the gold bangle was a gift to myself for working hard in giving tuition. I hardly wear gold for fear of snatch theft and for my own safety. I have had my mom, my second sister and paternal granny being victims of snatch thefts of their gold chains and handbag right in front of my house. Despite owning some gold items, I don’t normally wear them as they would be too ostentacious and I rather keep a low profile whenever I am in public places.
The inconvenient truth in financial markets today is that the US is already in recession. The turmoil in the credit and housing markets is prominent. Compounding this is the fact that borrowers are the furthest behind on their debt payments in 15 years. Asset prices soar, borrowing increases and the capital inflow grows. Finally, the bubble bursts, capital floods out and the banking system, burdened with mountains of bad debts, implodes.
The total number of job losses in the first 3 months of this year is 232,000 while unemployment rose to 5.1%. Job cuts were concentrated in the manufacturing, employment services and the construction industry but the damage is becoming more wide spread. US commercial banks alone are forecast to cut about 200,000 jobs over the next 12-18 months. US unemployment rate could potentially balloon to 8% in 2009.
Today’s credit crisis is far more than a symptom of a defective US financial system. It is a symptom of unbalanced global economy. This means that as more Americans become jobless, there will be stiffer competition for freelancer jobs with many trying to earn something from the internet for very low bids.
Last Saturday, I went for an ice-skating performance in PISA. It was Disney on Ice. We sat right in front and got a very good view and we could the skaters’ expressions. Disney on Ice comes to Penang once in a year. We saw many award winning figure skaters doing flips, turns and twists in mid air. It was all so exciting with the props and giant blow up cartoon characters with fireworks and other special effects.
There was Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald and Daisy. I especially like 101 Dalmations with the lead skater Cruella De Vil. There’s also Lilo & Stitch, Peter Pan, Ariel the little mermaid, amongst others. The show lasted about 2-3 hours.
Do you know that while you open gmail.google.com, you can also chat with other people in your list of Google Talk? Today I had the opportunity to chat online with my client using Google Talk. There is a green round button beside the name if the person is online and happen to open Gmail. Simply click on the name and a chat window will display. Just type in the box and hit enter for the message to be sent over. Easy as that. It works on Windows, OSX and Linux operating systems. Google Talk is very basic and gets the message across without all the features and advertisements of a full blown messenger like Yahoo. You can go and try and see it for yourself.
Here is an interesting YouTube on Tic, the first hamster and Tac the second hamster. The video above has OVER 3,000,000 views since December 31, 2006 – incredible! Enjoy. I used to keep a pet golden hamster, a gift from my second sister during my varsity days. It helps to relieve stress from all the studying and I loved petting its fury pelt, warm body in my hands. But I also had to clean its cage weekly and shampoo it at the same time. While cleaning its cage from its droppings, I would put my pet hamster, affectionately called Hammy in a pail so that it won’t escape while cutting newspapers into stripes and mashed it into a ball as blanket for it when it curled up to sleep at night. I even bought a mini battery-operated clip fan for it.
I have been to Penang Hill 2 years back and did not know that there is an English restaurant called David Brown. As I went to the tourism web site to check it out, I was amazed to find the interior decoration modern with a touch of class and obviously it has been renovated, a far cry from the Bellevue hotel that sits atop the hill. Bellevue hotel is run down, the furnishings are old-fashioned and very minimally furnished without an air-con. The next time I go to Penang Hill, I will make sure to make a stop in this swanky collonial style David Brown’s Restaurant. The details are below and call up first to make a reservation and for directions to get there.
David Brown’s Restaurant & Tea House
Lot 400, MK 17, Daerah Bart Daya
Strawberry Hill, Bukit Bendera,
11300 Ayer Itam, Penang
Tel: 604-828 8337
Fax: 604-826 6337
