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Was watching the old 90210 season 2, "The next 50 years", and boy that episode really brought back many memories. I was watching this episode during my NUS days and it was really a very cool theme in it. Since season 1, David Silver and Scott were 2 geeks trying to fit into the "cool" gang of Brenda, Brandon, Dylan, Steve, and Kelly. David was doing his utmost to make him as cool as possible for their acceptance but Scott was pretty comfortable remaining a geek. We can all see David being pretty embarassed to be seen with Scott, even though they were the best of friends in middle school.
After Scott killed himself accidentally with a gun, everyone just assumed that David will be very sad because they all thought the 2 of them were the best of friends. Only David knew the truth and he finally exploded to Brandon in the confession that everyone heard. That outburst was the key to that episode for me.
Now, most of us could understand how David felt. When we were younger, we all felt we had to talk and act in a certain way to be cool and to fit in. That was the beauty of the old 90210 up until season 4 when every episode was dealing with a certain theme that we could identify and relate to. After season 4, it was just soap opera after soap opera and it killed off some of the magic hehe.
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| When I was a Methodist, after becoming a Christian through my schooling days from ACPS to ACS and to ACJC, I remember reading this statement that says, "If I am stuck in a deserted island and can only take one book of the bible, what would it be?" That book would clearly be the book of Romans for it summed up the Christian faith. Paul was supremely logical in his writings and being a somewhat logical person, I can clearly see how he wrote Romans as a way to convince us of the grace message.
Of course, it was only after I read "Destined to Reign" by Joseph Prince and hearing him preach frequently in New Creation that I really can say now that I understand better (I guess I will never ever say I fully understand), why Romans is indeed the book that summed up the Christian faith. I think NCC is the only church in Singapore, or perhaps the only one in the world, that will link Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt in the book of Exodus as the fulcrum to understand what the grace message in Romans was all about.
Joseph Prince is probably the only pastor at this modern time who could recognized, by the Spirit of God, the critical point at Mount Sinai where Moses received the Ten Commandments, as the example of what Grace is all about. Prior to Mount Sinai, all the complaints by the Jews about them having to die at the Red Sea, of them having no water to drink and of them having no meat to eat, were met by the grace of God without any Jew dying. After Mount Sinai, when the Jews decided to tell Moses to tell God to judge them by their own merit, the complaints from the Jews led to death.
The best way to understand the contrast is through reading 2 chapters, Exodus 16 and Numbers 11. In Exodus 16, God's attitude was
3And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger. 4Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.
God's grace was there to provide manna from heaven for these complainers. And just contrast it to Numbers 11 and you will be really shocked!
1 Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the LORD and the fire died down. 3 So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the LORD had burned among them.
4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"
10 Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.
31 Now a wind went out from the LORD and drove quail in from the sea. It brought them down all around the camp to about three feet above the ground, as far as a day's walk in any direction. 32 All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. 33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. 34 Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
You have to truly see that critical point to really understand what living by Grace is all about. With that perspective, you can now understand why, in Romans, when sin increased, grace increase all the more, and that it is utterly impossible for God to condemn you for your sins. Thus, reading and recognizing the story of Mount Sinai is critical to understand what Romans is really all about.
New Creation's preaching on 31st May
Last Sunday, 31st of May, Julia Lian preached on a grace message that uses an interesting point from the Old Testament. Her main message to us, if I interpret correctly, is that if only we know how God has such a remarkable plan to save the Jews and to allow them to rebuild the temple, we will take courage and rejoice in whatever tough times we are going through now and know that God will eventually bring us through. The interesting example she uses is that God used Nebuchadnezzar, of the Babylonians, to punish the Jews for turning away from God. At this point, I will always remember the song made famous by Boney M, "By the rivers of Babylon", that described the Jews agony then in the best possible way, quoting from Psalms 137
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion... For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?
I chuckled when I remember reading, in secondary school, the part in Psalms 137 that goes, "blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." It really showed the frustration of the Jews towards the captives, to the extent they harbor such great violent fantasies towards their captives.
Of course, God had other plans, he raised Cyrus of Persia to deliver them from their captivity in Babylon and return them to their land. We are talking about a Persian king, and Persia, now known at Iran, could never be seen as God's people but yet God raised him up to allow the Jews to come back to rebuild the temple.
What an awesome story that I have never really realized up until now. And I was very touched by God when Julia Lian ended her sermon with the point on how, after God had killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians but saved the Jews through the blood of the Lamb, the Jews walked among the Egyptians with hands held high to the Lord, like a high five. Indeed, I was reminded once again that, no matter what concerns and worry I have now about the future, God knows my concerns and he is just asking me to seek first his kingdom and rejoice in the Lord always. If he can formulate such a great plan to save the Jews after 70 years, he will make me look back 5 years from now and rejoice at how he has led me through those worries and concerns. I will then walk around with my hands lifted to the Lord and my mouth expressing all the thanks that he will do exceedingly, abundantly, above all I could ever ask for and think. | |
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| No doubt one of the interesting outcomes from the AWARE saga is that parents all over in Singapore are in uproar over how their kids in schools are being taught homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle and that anal sex is not morally wrong. For example, the many comments in this blog really made me amused. It immediately brought into mind the Southpark musical "Bigger Longer Uncut", the scene when parents discover that their kids are learning swear words, choose to blame Canada instead of themselves, using a hilarious version of Canada's own national anthem, "Oh Canada". I thought the best part of the lyrics was the following, "We must blame them and cause a fuss Before somebody thinks of blaming uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!!!!" Just subsitute the word Canada for Aware and you get the gizz of what is going on hehe. | |
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| Ed Miller has a short extract from his forthcoming ebook on poker that teaches the art of 3-betting. In poker, a preflop 3 bet stands for a reraise before the flop. Once you are buying in for the full 100BB, you should definitely add 3-betting into your repotire of poker skills. So far, from my playing experience in 25nl and below at Full Tilt, Pokerstars, Cake as well as in the iPoker network, most standard tight players 3-betting range is QQ+ and AK. You rarely see players 3 betting light at those levels, which makes it quite easy to play against them postflop. As most tight beginning players realize during their learning process, me included, you should always raise preflop whenever you are the first to come in. That is called 2-betting. Now, most players, if they read enough poker books and articles on how to play poker, will know that, if a player opens with a 2-bet UTG, the hand range is very likely to be 22+, AK and AQs. But at the cutoff and the button, when everyone folds to you, a standard tight aggressive player will 2-bet with a range much wider than that, the range at the cutoff and the button will typically also include any ace, KQ, KJ, 10J, and almost any connectors, suited or offsuit. The main objective in 2 betting is to steal the blinds. Now, if you are in the small or the big blind facing such an attempt to steal, what should you do? Most books will say that the worse thing you can do is to call the raise because what you are doing is returning the initiative back to the stealer, who is likely to do a continuation bet on the flop and you would not know how to respond. For example, here is what aejones from 2+2 would say to a player who keeps calling a 2-bet from either the small or big blind: "You are too passive preflop.. You are most DEFINITELY calling too much out of the blinds... It's hard to play KTs or A5s or even KQo from out of position against a decent player. Essentially, you should probably be 3-betting more from the blinds to a CO or button open. First, their hands don't have to be that strong. Second, if they do call, your advantage to bet first on the flop is HUGE... basically, you're using the reverse implied odds of their hand against them... and that's huge. It doesn't matter how often you hit the flop, it's how often they miss.. Variance will certainly go up, but by 3-betting more you're definitely going to up your winrate (if you do it in the right places, when the y can open light, and with the right hands, preferrably nondominated hands that tend to be the best hand preflop, or suited connectors to mix things up)." Thus, a good strategy at the blinds facing such a steal is simple, "either 3-bet the 2-better, or fold". Ed Miller expands on this standard advice with some more tips that make full use of the information poker tracker would give you, and I should start applying these once I move over to Full Tilt where many players are playing simple TAG games hehe. ( Read more... ) | |
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| Ed Miller gave a good list of the stages that a tight aggressive (TAG) player goes through as he learn poker. I think I am at stage 7 now, with some great reluctance to 3-bet my hands light preflop. I am suppose to start moving up to 50nl this year but unfortunately, I am still not getting a solid win-rate at 10nl with a full buyin to be honest. I have no problems playing 10nl with 50bb and 25nl with 40bb but 100bb is still quite a struggle for me. From now until end June, I hope to consolidate my skills playing 10nl with a full 100BB stack each time and learn the art of TAG style, that is raising every hand I enter with and be an aggressive blind stealer in position. I managed to secure a rakeback account at an iPoker network site, through a concept known as grandfathering. It is so interesting how you can learn so many new English expressions through playing poker hehe. Because of that "grandfathered" rakeback, I think I am going to start with that site first before finally settling at Full Tilt. By the end of June, I hope to reach at least stage 13, hehe, learning to 3 bet light from the blinds will be a big challenge. Definitely I still want to be super comfortable with a 100BB stack at 25nl by the end of this year. ( Read more... ) | |
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| by 5-betting 8 6 offsuit preflop hehe, and the 2 of them check on all 3 streets. This picture sums it up the best, Howard Lederer's face was priceless!
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| The title certainly sounds like a GP essay question hehe. But I will of course insert an economic perspective to the picture. In general, civil society in Singapore suffers from the "public good" aspect of their activities, resulting in under-provision. For example, look at our SDP. Even if there might be a significant group of Singaporeans who desire more democracy, it is optimal for them to "act blur" and let people like Chee Soon Juan and his Merry Men pay the entire price of going against the Matrix. If, in our lifetime, the SDP succeeds in making Singapore more democratic, the benefits will largely be "non-rival" and "non-exclusive". In plain english, once SDP "succeeds", everyone who desires democracy would certainly gain without the need to pay any price. Of course, like the Aesop fable about "belling the cat", everyone thinking this way would mean there either would be no one paying the price, or an underallocation of resources into this, which is clearly what the SDP and other groups are constantly facing. Thus, we can see Aware's new takeover from this light. If you belong to the conservative group of Singaporeans who are worried about this slow process of society accepting homosexuals, you would wish that someone else take the step forward to "pay the price" to reverse this process. Hence, I see Josie and her gang's actions from this light. They are the group of Christians, from the conservative Church of our Savior, who are stepping forward to pay the initial price of public outcry, examples of the real price these people are paying are here and here, in order to correct something they think should be corrected. In this light, I can applaud them, to the large extent, for being so proactive and willing to provide a "public good". To a small extent, I may be fine with homosexuals and it is obvious that the gay community will be uncomfortable with this kind of scenario. However, I see this as how this proactive group is trying to tell the rest of us apathetic Singaporeans that they are at least doing something, which is certainly something we can learn from. | |
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Had a chance to view this interesting commentary on whether the new 90210 girls seems to be promoting anorexic behavior among girls. I certainly was amazed at how "slim" the new female stars of the show have been. I always feel that guys like healthy girls and not necessarily slim girls.
Upon viewing the above clip, I set my mind thinking of how 90210 was like during my time, which I last mentioned here. Is there a good example of a girl with "cute fats" around her and yet irresistibly attractive to us then? I came up with the perfect girl, that is Valarie Malone! Her real name is Tiffani amber thiessen and she only joined 90210 after Brenda left and some would say she was the main reason why 90210 continued to be popular even after season 4. Here is a sample Youtube clip that showed her with Dylan Mckay at their best haha.
After viewing this clip again, and recalling all that I have seen in 90210 seasons 5 and 6, yeah I have to agree, the new 90210 girls are way too skinny and certainly not appealing at all compared to Tiffani at her prime haha.
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| Reading this letter certainly made me recall this latest Southpark episode where the money goes into the bank and then...its gone! | April 1, 2009 | STRUCTURED PRODUCT SOLD TO 78-YEAR-OLD 'Guaranteed' principal was just an 'oversight' | | MY FATHER and I share the frustrations experienced by Mr Victor Khoo ('Minibonds: Bank adamant despite MAS advice'; March 27) My Cantonese-speaking father, 78, who barely has a Primary 2 Chinese education, went to United Overseas Bank (UOB) to roll over his fixed deposit (FD), which was maturing in July last year. But he was persuaded by a personal banker into buying - with a good part of his retirement savings - what he believed was a three-year FD. It turned out to be a Merrill Lynch principal-protected structured product. At this time, Merrill Lynch was already known to be in financial difficulties. When my siblings and I discovered this, we met the said personal banker to void this non-FD transaction. We later met the bank's compliance officers, but came away feeling UOB was more interested in justifying its actions than listening to us. We refused to sign the draft minutes which didn't reflect our key points. Despite many exchanges thereafter, the bank declined our request to void the purchase. In September, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch were both reported to be collapsing. Extremely distressed, my father redeemed the product and suffered a loss of nearly $50,000 in just two months. The reason my father thought it was an FD was because the personal banker had assured him it was guaranteed. She had also written in his 'My Wealth Planner' document that the 'principal is guaranteed upon maturity' - which was untrue and misleading as it was not a guaranteed product. When questioned, UOB, in its written reply, dismissed it as an 'oversight' by its personal banker, again declining to compensate my father and referring us to the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (Fidrec). We are truly appalled and disappointed. Clearly, the bank must be accountable for its mistakes. For UOB to just pass this off as an oversight, without redress, is really untenable. We sincerely hope the Monetary Authority of Singapore would render direct help to such affected consumers like my father. Chin Kin Yam (Madam) |
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| Economics of Superstars and Joseph Prince And yet another story has emerged about New Creation Church, this time, we realized that Pastor Joseph Prince was paid a sum over $500,000 in the last financial year. I felt it was rather "naughty" of Straits Times to put such a news on the very frontpage of the Straits Times. Running it so close after the story of NCC managing to raise 19 million dollars in 1 day during "Miracle Seed Sunday", it seems to drive the implication that many of the givings goes to paying "superstar" salaries. I have commented more than once, from an economic perspective, how New Creation Church is actually justified in focusing on money intensive activities. After worshiping at NCC for sometime, I begin to view Joseph Prince as a very clear example of what economist Sherwin Rosen said more than 2 decades ago, that Prince is a "superstar". In his well known AER article " The economics of superstar", he asked the question, why "relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage.”. Joseph Prince fits in the superstar category. He clearly has the gift of preaching and his grace message appeals to rich people who may sometimes feel guility of having a "comparative advantage" in money based activities, due to their high opportunity cost of time. His good looks certainly does not hurt too. What I am impressed about him is how he made sure he preaches in every sermon, which means 4 times every Sunday when he is the preacher. Coming from FCBC before when I noticed the extensive use of video recording from Lawrence Khong, I certainly appreciated Prince in that. Furthermore, yesterday, after I laughed so heartily at his closing joke during the 4th service, about how "You guys sit down there thinking you can dance better than me, but try to dance like that after speaking for 4 times lar", I realized why I find his sermons so appealing. He is a typical lame guy and crack all those lame jokes that many lame guys like me will often do from time to time when we address a crowd haha. Thus, I really appreciate his jokes because I know, from my experience at Trinity Christian Center, how boring a sermon can be without those jokes. Similarities between Joseph Prince and Adam Khoo
And after I had the chance to read Adam Khoo's books, I realized many similarities between the 2 preaching styles. Adam Khoo recognized, in his seminar for kids, that the mind is very powerful. Like his book goes, "I am a genuis, so are you!" If your mind thinks you are a genius, more than half the battle is won. Prince is well know for his message on grace, which, in a more formal tone, he focused more on the indicative, rather than the imperative. Thus, I see Joseph Prince delivering a similar message along Adam Khoo's line, that once our mind thinks that we are powerful in Christ, we can go on and do great things for him in this world. Furthermore, Adam Khoo's more investment oriented books mentioned that, to get rich, you need to go beyond working to get paid but ensure that money still comes in even when you sleep. That is when he suggested coming up with intellectual property and making sure people around the world are buying them. In this aspect, I am very curious to confirm my hypothesis, that part of Joseph Prince "500K" package, could also come from his extremely popular DVD series of various preaching sermons, as well as his book, "Destined to Reign". All these media are being sold throughout the world. Now if it is true, and I will make sure I try to verify my hypothesis soon, then we should clearly not begrudge his earnings. Like what economists would say, "The market have decided that his intellectual property are very valuable to society and thus is compensating him well." Conclusion
Well, to be honest, I did not contribute to Miracle Seed Sunday. Again, my reasoning is that I am still having some difficulties maintaining a 10% tithe, which I, thank God, have been doing it after much prayer and deliberation, especially during these times of salary + performance bonus. To be objective, Joseph Prince himself stated very clearly that, if you do not feel the Lord's calling in terms of this, he rather you not give. I am still trying my best to keep returning 10% of my gross income every month consistently. Now, if you were to ask me whether I am worried about the "precious" tithe financing Prince's superstar pay package, I can tell you honestly "Not at all!" After all, I know that I am returning to God my 10% because God wants to constantly remind me to break free of the love of money. Jesus preached more about money than heaven and earth combined and everytime I put 10% of my gross income into that tithe envelope, I know that the Spirit in my heart leap for joy because I am constantly putting my faith in God. This is something that dancing in church, praying in tongues, or lifting hands enthusiastically in church will not accomplish. I keep having to remember verses like, "If you are not faithful with earthly wealth, who will trust you with true riches" and "Do not worry about what you wear, what you eat" when I put my tithe in that envelope. That to me, is the main reason why I return 10% of what God blessed me with to New Creation Church, to honour God and to constantly break free from the love of money. It is certainly not about Joseph Prince. | |
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