song : 100 years - Five for Fighting
mood: hyper
book-in-hand: Fabric of the Cosmos by Briane Greene
It's summer and the temperature now is 3 Degrees Celsius.... THREE!!!!!! I'm freezing my bloody fingers and toes off at my study table.
song : Last Order - Eason Chan
mood: disheartened
book-in-hand: Fabric of the Cosmos by Briane Greene
To all those graduating or thinking of going back to school/work:
PI = Professional Industry
To us left handers =) :
To the few I know in the advertising industry :
To EVERYBODY:
Pictures and drawings taken from http://indexed.blogspot.com/ and http://cheeminology.blogspot.com/
song : Hard To Concentrate - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
mood: headache
book-in-hand: Fabric of the Cosmos by Briane Greene 
It's been an "interesting" weekend to say the least. Studying has screwed up my sense of literacy and so I shall endeavour to list them out in point form as follows....
2008... the year I graduate! Looks like the aerospace industry is going to be one majorly exciting field to work in when I go job hunting. Hopefully, that also means I won't have a hard time landing a job. Also, all this competition should translate into another price war between the 2 carriers. Woohoo!
About the Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Boeing says 'on time' for Dreamliner launch in 2008
Posted: 24 May 2007 0608 hrs
song : Here is Gone - Goo Goo Dolls
mood: stressed
book-in-hand: Fabric of the Cosmos by Briane Greene
song : Everything - Michael Buble
mood: quirky
book-in-hand: People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck
My time in Victoria Hall is drawing to close and I realise that it has totally slipped my mind to put up some pics of my current room for my folks back home!
song : Time Is Running Out - Muse
mood: teafused
book-in-hand: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Step one:
Prepare 2 cups and one mega-ass strainer
Step 2:
Sprinkle desired amount of tea leaves into strainer for preferred level of tea intoxication. Insert strainer into appropriate big-assed cup and add boiling water.
Step 3:
Return strainer to 1st cup to keep for repeat of steps
2 Young men dead, just like that. Another 2 critically injured and 9 victims in total. They were probably just slacking off in the storeroom doing what we army men term as "sai-kang" the quintessential "make-work" in the military. I suppose there will be another uproar back home over this matter. Fingers pointed and stuff. So what? The boys are dead!
If SAF already know that Taiwanese military uses ageing F-5 aeroplanes that are of questionable serviceability, (2 crashes from the same plane model in a single year is not a fluke, it's called a bloody WARNING) why place any of the young boys in potential harm? Why was the plane flying so low over a military base that has operational staff in the first place. Aren't there practice grounds with mock buildings that are EMPTY for firing exercises? Give all those clerks and officers sitting in offices something to do. Check out planned training exercises conducted by the host country BEFORE sending our own troops there. Granted, overseas training is unavoidable given Singapore's small size. All the more safety checks and information gathering be performed at a stringent level! National Service is mandatory for us already. Just don't make us wonder which freaking acci- drowning-plane crash- misfire- torture-dent will kill us next.
"TAIPEI : A Taiwanese fighter jet crashed on Friday morning during an exercise, killing its two pilots.
The aircraft crashed within the grounds of a military base in Hukou, some 50 kilometres south of the capital Taipei.
Two visiting Singaporean military personnel were also killed, and two others have been hospitalised.
The twin-seat fighter jet crashed after completing a simulated low-altitude attack.
According to the Taiwanese Defence Ministry, the flight was part of the island's annual Hankuang military exercise.
Eyewitnesses say the F-5F aircraft failed to pull up in time, and crashed into a military base in Hukou.
One says: "I was with my children in the park when we saw the jet flying just above us. The jet flipped twice and crashed."
Two visiting Singaporean soldiers who were in a storeroom at the base were killed.
Nine other Singaporeans were injured, two of them seriously.
They were there in support of the Singapore Armed Forces' unilateral training in Taiwan.
Lee Jye, Taiwanese Defence Minister, says: "Their casualties included two men who were killed and two who were injured."
The two soldiers who suffered severe burns were rushed to a military hospital in Taipei's Neihu district.
Doctors say one of them, a 22-year-old, is in critical condition.
He had burns on 50 percent of his body, and also suffered from smoke inhalation.
The second man suffered burns on 40 percent of his body.
Doctor Chen Tien Mu, Surgical Department, Tri-service General Hospital, says: "The one with more serious injuries couldn't speak much but the other man had requested to call his mother. He didn't say anything about the situation then."
According to doctors, both men suffered from second to third degree burns on their head, shoulders and back.
They are now undergoing intensive care at the hospital's burns centre and doctors are desperately trying to stabilise their condition.
The Taiwanese Defence Ministry has grounded all its F-5F fighters pending the outcome of an investigation into the accident.
This is the second crash involving an F-5F jet fighter in a year.
Last June, an F-5F crashed into a rice field during a training flight, killing a pilot and injuring the other pilot.
Taiwan has about 60 ageing F-5 jets, and it is trying to replace them with newer fighter aircraft." - CNA/ch
These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place. Shu, if you ever become like this, I'll shoot you myself :P
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
______________________________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you
forgot?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his
sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shittin' me?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh.... I was getting laid!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Are you shittin' me? Your Honor, I think I need a
different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Now whose death do you suppose terminated it?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Guess.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on
dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people. Would you like to rephrase that?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh....are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________
And the best for last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
We love you too WX =]
Take your time. Rant a little. Bitch a little. Shop a little (with ML only please, you know I hate shopping). Eat a little. Sleep a little.
Little by little. We'll always be here for you. As if you didn't already know that. :)
Jerry Adler
Newsweek
May 7, 2007 issue - Consider someone who has just died of a heart attack. His organs are intact, he hasn't lost blood. All that's happened is his heart has stopped beating—the definition of "clinical death"—and his brain has shut down to conserve oxygen. But what has actually died?
As recently as 1993, when Dr. Sherwin Nuland wrote the best seller "How We Die," the conventional answer was that it was his cells that had died. The patient couldn't be revived because the tissues of his brain and heart had suffered irreversible damage from lack of oxygen. This process was understood to begin after just four or five minutes. If the patient doesn't receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation within that time, and if his heart can't be restarted soon thereafter, he is unlikely to recover. That dogma went unquestioned until researchers actually looked at oxygen-starved heart cells under a microscope. What they saw amazed them, according to Dr. Lance Becker, an authority on emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "After one hour," he says, "we couldn't see evidence the cells had died. We thought we'd done something wrong." In fact, cells cut off from their blood supply died only hours later.
But if the cells are still alive, why can't doctors revive someone who has been dead for an hour? Because once the cells have been without oxygen for more than five minutes, they die when their oxygen supply is resumed. It was that "astounding" discovery, Becker says, that led him to his post as the director of Penn's Center for Resuscitation Science, a newly created research institute operating on one of medicine's newest frontiers: treating the dead.
Biologists are still grappling with the implications of this new view of cell death—not passive extinguishment, like a candle flickering out when you cover it with a glass, but an active biochemical event triggered by "reperfusion," the resumption of oxygen supply. The research takes them deep into the machinery of the cell, to the tiny membrane-enclosed structures known as mitochondria where cellular fuel is oxidized to provide energy. Mitochondria control the process known as apoptosis, the programmed death of abnormal cells that is the body's primary defense against cancer. "It looks to us," says Becker, "as if the cellular surveillance mechanism cannot tell the difference between a cancer cell and a cell being reperfused with oxygen. Something throws the switch that makes the cell die."
With this realization came another: that standard emergency-room procedure has it exactly backward. When someone collapses on the street of cardiac arrest, if he's lucky he will receive immediate CPR, maintaining circulation until he can be revived in the hospital. But the rest will have gone 10 or 15 minutes or more without a heartbeat by the time they reach the emergency department. And then what happens? "We give them oxygen," Becker says. "We jolt the heart with the paddles, we pump in epinephrine to force it to beat, so it's taking up more oxygen." Blood-starved heart muscle is suddenly flooded with oxygen, precisely the situation that leads to cell death. Instead, Becker says, we should aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion.
Researchers are still working out how best to do this. A study at four hospitals, published last year by the University of California, showed a remarkable rate of success in treating sudden cardiac arrest with an approach that involved, among other things, a "cardioplegic" blood infusion to keep the heart in a state of suspended animation. Patients were put on a heart-lung bypass machine to maintain circulation to the brain until the heart could be safely restarted. The study involved just 34 patients, but 80 percent of them were discharged from the hospital alive. In one study of traditional methods, the figure was about 15 percent.
Becker also endorses hypothermia—lowering body temperature from 37 to 33 degrees Celsius—which appears to slow the chemical reactions touched off by reperfusion. He has developed an injectable slurry of salt and ice to cool the blood quickly that he hopes to make part of the standard emergency-response kit. "In an emergency department, you work like mad for half an hour on someone whose heart stopped, and finally someone says, 'I don't think we're going to get this guy back,' and then you just stop," Becker says. The body on the cart is dead, but its trillions of cells are all still alive. Becker wants to resolve that paradox in favor of life.
hmmm.... I wonder if this will bring about another wave of Deep Freezing on "death" frenzy among the rich and famously "Michael Jackson"
Personally, I think the fact that I am the first born and eldest grandson in the family has a very big part to play in who I am today.
| You Are An ISTJ |
The Duty Fulfiller You are responsible, reliable, and hardworking - you get the job done. You prefer productive hobbies, like woodworking or knittings. Quiet and serious, you are well prepared for whatever life hands you. Conservative and down-to-earth, you hardly ever do anything crazy. You would make a great business executive, accountant, or lawyer. |
*first few pictures from one of my all time favourite floggers (food blogger) www.chubbyhubby.net
