Vend it like Beckham

The talk in sports town is definitely the record amount spent on a football player not even worth to start in the first team of Madrid.

David even mentioned in his interview that some of his colleagues were laughing when he mentioned the amount of his new contract. My thoughts were: who is going to pay for all of this? The money needs to come from somewhere.
If it is not the banks that are cashing in fortunes out of fractional reserve banking and providing loans for such transactions, these astronomical ( or should I say galactical now?) funds must be somehow hidden in your Gillette shavers, Pepsi drinks or all his other marketing endorsements.

Someone has to pay the bill, there is no free lunch in this world.

Or is it Posh lured by the ‘Hollywood glory’ or was it Tom Cruise who succeeded in converting his buddy to become a Scientologist and be relatively safe in crazy California (rather than for example Germany, where they booted Cruise out because of his lobbying with the government to get legal status for his cult) Whatever the reason, I pray Beckham will not donate all his new marketing revenues into the promotion of the Scientologists, like Tom and John Travolta are doing.. but that he may use these funds to get the stoned and addicted from LA streets, help the less priviledged, homeless in the golden welfare state and get them to play some soccer. Maybe then, like in Brazil, some of these street soccers become good at it and make their own living.

DB claims his motive is to promote football or soccer in the US. Ha! What the US needs is not another giant franchise league, producing sport idols, but some people getting the Americans off the entertainment trap and back on track!

At last, I feel sorry for all the ladies in Europe who enjoyed seeing their star on TV, guessing on what hairstyle he would don next… What’s next? For Madrid, no worries, they will offload some 10 older players and buy fresh blood in the legs. For ManU: Fergie is building a new and young team, same as his buddy Arsene Wenger, who rather invest in youth programs than letting cash dictate them. Afterall: football is a sport ... no?

Starting a new year

Many make new resolutions every year. Usually, I take the old ones, refresh them to SMART rules and live them out again..

This year I decided to start anew by making a major decision. After working 5 years for a medical firm that I help setting up with a few Taiwanese business men in Thailand, ... I quit! I even removed the link on this blog!

Sometimes leaving a ship that is neither floating nor sinking, is not easy. If another big ship comes along, one may decide to jump on that one or when a fast moving speed boat flashes by, hop on that one and move on… This time, I jumped into the sea… no floats… open sea… I am not sure what shore I will wash onto. It may be a stormy sea, lots of waves, lot of salt to swallow, maybe nothing in sight for some time, just bobbing around, where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, in whom I trust .. (Psalm 121) .. funny One 2 one …!?

The Reason for The Season

Wow, the Christmas season flew by so fast! We did not even buy presents for one another..
4 weeks before, Orchard Road and shopping malls were decorated and as soon the new year hit, all disappears… so it is all the more about $$$...

For me, Christmas becomes every year less and less a season I am looking forward to. Not because it is not important, but because I more and more celebrate the reason for it every day so there is not so much of a peak at the end of the year. By the way, according to some historians and Bible scholars, December 24 was not the real date but some time in spring…come to think of it: Israel is a cold country and mobilizing people for a census in the winter would not have been the ideal timing..

I only sent out 5 Christmas cards: mainly to my family. This year I wrote the above title on it, then explained that Jesus was born, died for our sins making the way to our Father in Heaven (i.e. God, for those who may wonder about my own dad…), resurrected, went to Heaven and is still alive today … I did not talk about: peace, happiness, good love life, luck, good health, etc… because my wish is not going to make that happen, but a relationship with God does…so why promise empty claims!?

E-cards for Christmas did also not work well this year. Cyber traffic is still a bit slow as reparations are being done on the undersea cables off the coast of Taiwan. How fragile this whole internet web is! Now I understand how world economy can collapse if just a few simultaneous failures happen at one time…just to learn one should not put too many eggs in that basket!

This entry will also have no pictures, because our camera got stolen on Christmas eve, while taking pictures on Orchard Road…so at least for somebody else it was a Christmas with a ‘new’ camera … and for me, I should never assume that Singapore is a safe place.

If any of you know of a good second hand digital camera for sale…LET me know!!