Simple yet not a perfect plan

Have you all heard about Canadian pop funk band called ‘Simple Plan’ before? It is one of my favorite bands. I will never feel bored with their songs even until now. ‘When i’m gone’, ‘Perfect’, ‘Welcome to my life’, ‘Untitled’, and tons of other songs are their own original songs. At least 18 different Simple Plan’s songs are used as soundtrack. Their songs’ lyric can be so meaningful and sometimes based on their own personal life. Take a sample of the song ‘Perfect’, which was written for their parents because they were never wanted their sons to start a band.

Jeff (Lead Guitar) - Chuck (Drums) - Pierre (Lead Vocalist) - David (Bass) - Sebastien (Rhythm Guitar)

A little background about the band. It was originated from a band called ‘Reset’ which was formed by Pierre (lead vocalist) and Chuck (Drum) when they were thirteen years old!!! They then left the band and decide to form Simple Plan. The name itself was inspired by the movie A Simple Plan.

A Simple Plan

And now they released new album with yet another hit song called ‘Jet Lag’ which they performed with Natasha Bedingfield (English version) and Marie-Mai (French version). Yep you read correctly, French!!! Did i mentioned that all of them are French Canadian. Anyway i’m going to share the lyrics of the song below. Enjoy!!!

Simple Plan – Jet Lag

What time is it where you are?
I miss you more than anything
Back at home you feel so far
Waitin for the phone to ring
It’s gettin lonely livin upside down
I don’t even wanna be in this town
Tryin to figure out the time zones makin me crazy

Chorus:

You say good morning
When it’s midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
It’s drivin me mad
I miss you so bad
and my heart heart heart is so jetlagged

What time is it where you are?
5 more days and I’ll be home
I keep your picture in my car
I hate the thought of you alone

I’ve been keepin busy all time
Just to try to keep you off my mind
Tryin to figure out the time zones makin me crazy

I miss you so bad
I wanna share your horizon
and see the same sunrising
Turn the hour hand back to when you were holding me.

Which one is a sport? Chess or Jogging?

If you answered Jogging then you are wrong. Jogging is classified as “recreation” instead of “sport”. In contrary, you will see people playing chess in Olympic games. Confuse? So what is the definition of the word “sport”?

Jogging

According to Wikipedia, a sport is defined as “Organized, Competitive, Entertaining, and Skillful” activity which required commitment, strategy, and fair play. In addition, there is an objective means for that activity which is to be the winner. A set of rules are provided for each of activity. Card games and Board games are classified in mind sports, e.g: Chess. Although there’s no physical events for that kind of games, but it requires (primarily) mental skills and mental physical involvements.

Chess

Events like beauty pageant and body building are not inside the classification as well since there is no skill need to be shown and the criteria to decide the winner are objective and not well defined. Those kind of activities can (maybe) classified as a “contest” instead of “sport”.

  

Beauty Pageant & Body Building Contest

Poker

I guess you all now learn something new by reading this article. I have a little test for you all. What about Poker? which category does it fall under? sport? recreation? give us your opinion. :—-)

I bet you never knew that 7-Eleven was …..

I bet most of you never knew that 7-Eleven was bankrupt back in 1990s. Interesting story about this company is still in my mind until now. Okay let’s start the history lesson.

7-Eleven Logo

The company was founded by Joe C. Thompson back in 1927 in Dallas. He was an employee of Southland Ice Company which is actually an ice-manufacturing factory. Joe then started to sell milk, eggs, and bread from the ice dock on Sundays and evenings when grocery stores were closed. Such a brilliant idea and it satisfied the customers and so convenience retailing business was born. The Southland Ice Company then turned into Southland Corporation and opened several other stores around Dallas. These stores were open from 7AM to 11PM (Now you know why it’s called 7-eleven). The company started to used the “7-eleven” name in 1946. The expansions became rapid and reached Canada. In 1973, it managed to reach Japan and the license to open the convenience stores were granted to Ito-Yokado.

7-Eleven in Indonesia

In 1987, stock market was crashed and it affected the business. After failing initially to raise high yield debt financing as much as $1.8 billion in publicly traded debt, the company was declared for bankruptcy. Here comes the interesting thing, it was Ito-Yokado (one of the franchisee company) which saved the company from bankruptcy and owned 70% of their common stock in 1991.

Standing Tall

7-Eleven is now one of Ito-Yokado’s (IYG Holding Company) subsidiaries. Such a funny story, from the franchisee, became the parent-company. So that’s one of interesting story that i know happening in business world. Do you have other similar stories? Feel free to share it here.

Food Myths

There was a saying that consuming lots of carrot can increase your eye sight and make it normal. Have you heard about it? Do you think that it’s true? Or it’s just another myths that our parents have been telling us.

There are other myths related with foods and drinks which have been spread around us since long time ago. It has never been tested out, so we can’t tell whether it’s accurate or not. Probably the two most common phrase that i have ever heard before are: “Don’t eat too much chocolate or else you will get fatter” or “Drink lots of water then you will lose some weights“. But apparently there are more, including:

Drinking more water will lure out fats
People always thought that with drinking lots of mineral water, they can reduce the fats inside the body, which is not true. Nevertheless, drinking water will make our meal portion lesser than usual. It can also prevent us from getting dehydration. Drink 2 glass of water approximately 1/2 hour before you take your meals! It will reduce your level of hungriness

Drinking Water

 

Eating French Fries = Pimples
Do you avoid eating french fries because you scared that you will get lots of pimples on your face? It is true. But french fries is not the only cause of pimples, instead all fried foods can cause pimples. The reason is because the oil on the fried foods will trigger the pimples to grow on your face. Try to reduce eating food with lots of oil! and make sure you wash your hand from it before you touch your face. That can cause pimples as well.

French Fries

 

Carrot makes your eye sight brighter
People thought that with consuming lots of carrot, your eye sight will return to normal. But it’s not! It does contains lots of Vitamin A which is good for eye but it doesn’t mean that it can be considered as a medicine to make your eyes’ degree level back to normal. Eating carrot regularly can make (normal) eyes to stay in good condition and eyes sight to be better.

Carrots!!

 

Late dinner myth
Dinner often to be considered one of the main cause of obesity. Well it’s not completely true! Dinner is not the main cause of obesity. Even over-consuming calories during lunch can also cause us to gain more weight. Make sure you eat 2 hours (or more) before you sleep!! Brush your teeth straight away to suppress your appetite!! Try not to keep any snacks in refrigerator except fruits with lots of fibers.

Late Dinner

 

 

So do you have any other myths related with foods or drinks? Feel free to share it here.

Stay or Leave

This time i’d like to share story of my friend. He is now working at one of company in Singapore. He’s a fellow IT bachelor like myself. And it goes like this…

He got a job several years ago, and he was happy during first year. He even got a raise (a small raise is considered as a raise too right..). The job was manageable by that time (i.e.: can meet deadlines, not too busy, very rare chance of OT). The fellow colleagues were awesome. He went out a lot with them.

Dilemma

Until quite recently, his job responsibilities increased. Let’s say his job from only handling A and B, now he is responsible to job A, B, C, D and E. His boss is becoming weirder as the time goes by and not so ‘friendly’ anymore. Deadlines can still achievable in time. Talking about OT, from ‘very rare’ becomes ‘sometimes’. Salary? no raise (yet). And i told him the story of several other newcomers in Singapore for job hunting. Some of them are also looking for IT-related job. And when i told him that their salaries are bigger than him. He thinks a lot, whether he’s staying or find other job. Let’s say his salary is X. Their salaries are 1.05 * X. And don’t forget that they are still new in Singapore. He finally reach salary of X after 4 years. His company is not that small either.

In the end, he made a decision to find other job when he got news regarding his PR application. Because he’s scared that he can’t get other job and have to return to his hometown when his social visit pass expired. So i think that is the best decision for him.

I’m sure this kind of situation happens to most of foreigners. So what do YOU all think? Feel free to share your thoughts. :–)

Waiting for you….

This time I want to share some part of my story in this post. It’s related with Music. Yes it’s true, i love music and i enjoy singing songs a lot. I often went to KTV place with my friends back when I’m still living in Surabaya. In fact, maybe you will be surprised if i said that I’ve sang before in front of people in a small cafe. I sang a duet song that time with my friend. But I’m not going to talk about that in this post.

Ever since i moved to Singapore, i find it hard to find a KTV place which have Mandarin songs with Pin Yin lyrics. Normally i sang Mandarin songs and not Western songs. That is one of the reason i miss my hometown. Yesterday i went to another KTV place in Singapore and i decided to sang Mandarin songs only from the start until the end with the help of my BB. And one of the song that i often to sang at Surabaya was ‘Waiting for you’ by Anson Hu. It’s really a nice song, and i can still enjoy singing it even until now. I provide the lyrics and the music video below to share with you all. Enjoy it guys!!

Anson Hu – Waiting For You

Jin se de wu xie
Ban zhe yin yue
Baby ni de yan jing shi yi wen shen sui de hu shui

Er hu ming hu mie
Yan cang bu ke si yi de mei
Rang wo yun xuan
Zai xuan ya bian
Shu zhi yi zheng yan jiu bu jian

Chorus:

Waiting for you i’m waiting for you
Waiting for you kiss me at tonight wei he ni cinderella
Liu gei wo yi wang wu ji de si nian

Waiting for you i’m waiting for you
Waiting for you come here to my dream

Qian zhe ni bu duan xuan zhuan
Yi zhi dao hei fa bian cheng le yin xian
Waiting for you waiting for you
Zhi dao yong yuan

Hoot Hoot Hoot

Most of you probably already know that i’m a BIG FAN of SNSD (So Nyeo Shi Dae). Yepp, especially the leader (Kim Tae Yeon). It’s a group of 9 cute girls formed by SM entertainment back in 2007. Another name for SNSD is So Shi.

Yuri Sooyoung Taeyeon Jessica Yoona Seohyun Sunny Hyoyeon Tiffany

So two of their latest hit songs in year 2010 are called ‘Hoot’ and ‘Mistake’. Enjoy the videos!!

SNSD – Mistake

[Jessica] nan ajig jejarijyo
yeojeonhi geudae gyeoteseo
hemaeida jichyeoseo

[Seohyun] oneuldo geudaer maemdolda
haru tto haru heulleo heulleoseo
yeogikkaji ongeojyo

[Sooyoung] almyeonse apeun nae mam almyeonseodo

[Yoona] utneun geudaega nar deo apeuge hajyo

[All]
nareur deo saranghage mandeulji mothan
nae jalmosijyo
naega deo saranghaeseo mandeureobeorin
nae jalmosijyo
nae maeummankeum narreur deo
saranghage haji mot haesseotdeon geoyeotjyo
nae jalmosijyo

[Taeyeon]eolmana deo manheun siganeul
nunmureur heullyeo yahanayo
geu yaksokmaneur mideumyeo

[Sunny] gidaryeo dalladeon geojitmal
ije sogatdeon nae yoksimdo
jichyeo beorigo mangeojyo

[Hyoyeon]almyeonseo apeun naemamda almyeonseo
[Tiffany]geureohge moreun cheog useur sun eoptjanhayo

[All]
nareur deo saranghage mandeulji mothan
nae jalmosijyo
naega deo saranghaeseo mandeureobeorin
nae jalmosijyo
nae maeummankeum narreur deo
saranghage haji mot haesseotdeon geoyeotjyo
nae jalmosijyo

[Yuri] gajir su eoptneungeor almyeonseo
[Jessica] meotdaero keojin nae maeumi
[Taeyeon] honjaseo gidaridaga
honjaseo huhoehadaga
saranghan geotdo jalmosineyo

[All]apeun jur almyeonseodo itjireur mothan
nae jalmosijyo
[Taeyeon] naega cham babo gatjyo
dachir kkeor almyeonseodo biuji mothan
[Seohyun] nae jalmosijyo
[Sunny] modeun ge nae tasiradeo
geurado gwaenchanhayo
geudaeman itdamyeon
[Tiffany] eonjekkajina
[Taeyeon] ireon nar yongseohaejwoyo
geudaer saranghan nal~

SNSD – Hoot

Verse 1:
nun kkamppak hal sai neon tto
Check it Out
jinaganeun yeojadeul geuman jom bwa
anin cheok motdeureun cheok gasi bakhin kouseum
isanghae da da da

jogeumman naege chinjeolhamyeon eottae
muttukttukhan maltu neomu apa nan
ireon ge iksukhaejyeo ganeun geon
jeongmal sirheo soksanghae da da da

eodil chyeodabwa nan yeogi inneunde

CHORUS:
neo ttaemune nae maeumeun gabot ipgo
ijen naega matseojulge
ne hwasareun Trouble Trouble Trouble

nareul noryeosseo
neoneun Shoot Shoot Shoot
naneun hut hut hut

dogi baein ne mare na sangcheo ipgodo
dasi jun du beonjjae Chance
neon yeoksi Trouble Trouble Trouble
ttaereul noryeosseo
neoneun Shoot Shoot Shoot
naneun hut hut hut

Verse 2:
dareun yeojaui hamjeonge puk ppajyeotdani
byeonmyeong kkeut
neon ajikdo jeongsin mot charigo itji

geu taedoro joheun yeoja mot mannalgeoda
yeongwonhi neon neon neon

chakgangmara neon kyupideuga anya neo mallya

REPEAT CHORUS

mulsogeseo tteuryeomyeon garaantge
naega mandeun Circle neoneun gakjige
mutji anheun mare daedamman tto hae
geuraedo nan neocheoreom hwasareun an ssolge

REPEAT CHORUS