My favourite singers

Another of my friends recently commented that I write a lot about football, especially about the Gunners and my darling Thierry....Hey, it's my blog so I'm gonna write about what excites me, right?

Anyway, thought I'll deviate for a while (one day, anyway!) from talking about football to talking about another topic...like my favourite singers....

Numero Uno is the one and only Steven Curtis Chapman! That's a pic of him with his family (3 biological kids, 3 adopted Chinese kids). Dont' they look a lovely family? He is a multi-Dove and Grammy award winning Christian singer who has been in the business for at least 20 years! The reason I know that is cos I grew up (spiritually speaking) listening to him. He's the only singer, secular or Christian, whose CD I'd buy without even trying, cos I know that every album of his is good. I've only been disappointed once, when I bought an album that contained nothing but love songs (about God, his love for his wife and family etc)...YAWN! Still, the songs were good, just not my cup of chai.

Brief bio on SCC is that he's a family man who loves God, his wife and kids, and loves to share his love of that with everyone by writing songs that are real. I love the fact that he makes the scripture verses real by putting them in the here and now. One of my all time fave lyrics contain the words reproduced below (SCC, please forgive me for lifting them without permission!)

His strength is perfect, when our strength is gone
He'll carry us when we can't carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect

The basis of the song is 2 Cor 12:9-10, and all of his songs always have a scriptural inspiration, or based on a Biblical truth. He has been a major influence on me cos he has a gift of making Christianity liveable. Not sure if that makes sense, but pick up any of his albums, and you'll see what I mean.

Another one of my favourite singers is Juanes. Don't have a pic to post, but he's a Colombian singer who sings in Spanish, a language that I have a faint understanding....somehow, the lyrics never translate well into English, but I can feel the power and the meaning, even though my conscious mind can't quite get all the lyrics. He campaigns for anti-personnel mines, and his songs speak of his life experiences, which have been pretty tragic. I think his dad died of cancer and one of his cousins got killed by kidnappers after the ransom was paid.

The last singer I'm going to highlight is Laura Pausini. Again, I'm not going to post a pic, but she's a gorgeous Italian singer who also sings in Spanish and Portugese. I prefer her Spanish versions best, but apparently, she's really popular in Italy and other Latino countries for her Italian songs. Once again, the lyrics don't really translate well, but her soulful voice (a nice alto-ish voice, I don't like Sopranos) makes it irrelevant whether I understand fully or not.

Ok, that's about all for my favourite singers. Next time, I'd blog again about football. FA cup game tonight between the Gunners and the Kickers (aka Bolton Wanderers). Bolton is my beloved Gunners' boggie team, but I hope and pray that we'll beat them black and blue by at least 2 goals tonight....

The one and only Thierry

My darling won the big game last night for the Gunners with a last-minute goal that stunned Manure! Haha! Serve them right for trying to settle for a draw when they should have continued to press forward. While Manure's loss meant that Chelski still can dream about winning the League, I'm still happy cos my darling scored again! He got such a beautiful head....sigh... (he scored with his head lah!)

Here's a pic of him and Robin Van Persie celebrating the goal....2 gorgeous guys who ARE NOT GAY even tho it looks like it when they are running around with their arms around each other. I wonder why footballers always hug and jump on each other when celebrating goals? Don't they realise it looks very weird? The ones who dive, make rock-a-bye baby movements, or dance like a robotic giraffe at least look straight (just extremely geeky!) But they often will jump on each other, have mass hugs, or worst, piggy back the scorer! Why don't they just hi-five each other? That's relatively cool. And they can go around kissing their female fans! I'm sure I'd be first in line to be kissed by darling Thierry.....

Mini Treble

Hohoho! Christmas is definitely over for the Northerners in England! Arsenal won again last night at Blackburn, despite being down to 10 men for almost 75 minutes! We have beaten Fools twice and then Blackburn over the past week! We are definitely back to our winning ways! And best of all, my darling Thierry scored again! He is the best, the one and only, the supreme goal scorer!!!! MARRY ME THIERRY!!!!!

Do I sound a bit delirious? Maybe it's from all the rain we've been having...raining non-stop for the past 3 days and even sun-shy me is wondering when we'll see the sun again! Ah well, at least we're not having floods, unlike our Malaysian neighbours who are facing water trouble...Thank heavens for all the good work done by PUB over the past few decades in constructing canals etc that siphon away water from low-lying, flood-prone areas.

What amazes me is that Singaporeans (aka Complain Kings) can still gripe about NEA not giving sufficient warning when a flood is imminent! Some folks are mad! NEA comprises of human beings, not fortune tellers, you know! How the heck are they supposed to be able to predict where floods are going to happen? If their forecasting was so good, they would all be millionaires, courtesy of Singapore Pools, and wouldn't need to work anymore! Chee sin! (Cantonese for mad) I wish Singaporeans would stop complaining about trivial things, especially when there are places in the world where there are real serious troubles and problems! What's the point of Singaporeans being rich enough to travel to see the world, when these folks are obviously not learning anything about how fortunate they are????

FA Cup glory!

Gunners shot 3 goals past Fools last night! Hooray! My darling Thierry scored a goal! Boy is he back! The enforced rest obviously did him good, and he's scoring beautiful goals....He's the best in the world! Drogba looks like a clown beside him! Now we're going to the 4th draw....and may we be drawn against a team from a lower league so that the team can concentrate on their EPL and Champion League games instead....

Oops, just realised that I'm going on and on about football again....but can I help being a fan when it's such a beautiful game??

OK, I'll give a plug for a show that I just discovered on DVD....Battlestar Galactica (the new series). I was a huge fan of the old series....Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch were my two childhood pinups and I remember that I was glued to the TV every week when the show was on. The new series has a female Starbuck...who's almost as big a cad as the male Starbuck! Tip to any parent-to-be: DO NOT CALL YOUR CHILD STARBUCK! Series 3 is halfway through in the US, and I can't wait for the Season 3 DVDs to come out so that I can see what happens to the humans under Cylon rule....If you have to ask what I'm talking about, you're obviously not a BSG or sci-fi fan! After I watched the first show (aka the pilot), I was hooked and went through both seasons within a week! It's that addictive! Go watch it and you'll see what I mean.

Old Year ponderings, New Year Resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007!!!!

It's a brand new year and boy, did it start off with a bang last night for folks up in Bangkok where some idiots decided to show the world how dumb they are by setting off 6 bombs in the city. WHY do folks still persist in thinking that they can get their way by violence? 2 days ago, the Iraqis hanged Saddam....funny, I felt sad when I saw the images of him walking to the gallows, having the noose placed around him, and his body, with the neck obviously broken, lying on a shroud. I thought I'd feel happiness that there's one less tyrant in the world, but I only felt sad that he was hanged on the morning of a religious day in the Islam religion, and that his death won't stop the violence in Iraq. It's also hard to feel joy at the death of anyone, even one as evil as him. Maybe I'm finally getting mellow in my mid-age???

Last night, my gal pals and 2 guys (one's a husband, the other is always found where's there's food!) gathered at HL's place for dinner and Christmas gift exchange (belated lah! we're busy folks you know!). I made the ultimate booboo of bringing the wrong bag of gifts! In my hurry, I grabbed the bag of gifts meant for my godkids and only discovered my mistake when I had parked my car in HL's carpark. Darn! I'm such a blur-blob! Anyway, the party was cool, my mum cooked her fabulous vegetarian bee hoon, and the rest had meaty stuff like chicken wings, kongbak pau. We then watched Star Wars Ep 3 on the telly and the countdown party. The rest clicked wine glasses at midnight, I stuck to my diet coke. (among my other boring habits, I'm a teetotaller)

Came home, tried to sleep, but couldn't! Must be the diet coke! why do I never never learn not to drink Diet Coke at night???? It's strange that I can sleep like a log after drinking cups of coffee all day, but can't sleep at all after diet coke or green tea! Anyway, I was playing computer games when I heard a loud bang and squealing brakes. I looked out of my window and saw a car careening across the road in front of my home! The scary thing was that the driver was braking so hard that there were sparks under the tires! The car screeched to a stop right in front of my home, and I saw a couple jumping out. I have absolutely no idea what happened, but I suspect the driver went round the corner too fast and hit the road divider. I don't know it he had been drinking, but a few minutes later, a cop car came. Thank God there were no casualties, and at 1am, there were very few cars on the road. I hope that driver learned his lesson and drive slower in the future....

Gosh, I've been meadering on and on, and haven't even got to my resolutions yet! Okay, in no particular order, here's my 2007 resolutions:
1) Get a full medical check-up: Believe it or not, the last time I had a full check-up was 10 years ago when the Canadian High Commission made me go for one before giving me a student visa. I think I'm relatively healthy, since I'm a vegetarian and exercise 5 times a week, but better to be safe than sorry, right?

2) Train to run AND complete a marathon: I've been running many half-marathons, but haven't done a marathon since 1999 when I did the Millenium run in the old Mobile Singapore marathon. This year, I'll train hard and take part in the full marathon. I know it's going to hurt like crazy during and after the run, but it'll be a personal milestone.

3) Get back to the Word: I've been amiss for the past few years and haven't been reading my Bible everyday, like every good Christian is supposed to do....I know I ain't a good Christian, but I guess I should at least read God's Word daily to help to keep me on the straight and narrow. So, I've decided that this year, I'll read at least 2 chapters everyday.

4) Develop my brain: According to Brain Age (fab Nintendo DS game) my brain's age is 80! I'm almost brain dead! To stave off early dementia, I think I'll try to do at least 2 courses in Spanish, which I've learned on and off over the past decade. I want to learn enough so that if and when I really go to Spain, I can communicate with the "natives" in their language. I might also learn mahjong for purely intellectual reasons, of course (erhem!) My mum's a champion mahjong player, so maybe I'll get her to teach me the basics of the game.

Well, that's the 4 resolutions I'm making for the year. Notice I didn't put avoiding cursing bad drivers when I drive and being more patient on the road...that'll be a resolution that would be broken the first time I get behind the wheel in 2007, which should be in about 2 hours time! But maybe, I'll do that for Lent this year.....

May we all have a good year ahead, filled with happiness, joy, peace, and blessings from God. May we all learn to love each other more, and love ourselves the way God loves us. May we spend more time with our loved ones, and less time on superficial activities and mindless chatter. And my personal prayer is for me to grow a little more like Jesus this year.