From TNP,

WHAT was billed as the hottest and biggest dance party of the year has been called off.

Party@The Float, which was supposed to start at midnight on New Year's Day on the Marina Bay floating platform, will not be taking place 'due to unforeseen circumstances', as stated on the Sistic ticketing website.

When asked for further details, a spokesman for organiser MediaCorp said they will be issuing an official statement to answer all related queries to the cancellation.

She did not specify when the statement will be issued.

It is unclear when the decision to call off the party was made, but online forums started discussing the cancellation since Monday.

As of press time, MediaCorp was also unable to say how many tickets had been sold. Sistic said only the event organiser can reveal the figure.

Tickets for the party had gone on sale on 28 Nov for $28, which includes one drink.

Sistic said there will be full refunds.

Mr Kenneth Tan, the deputy chief executive officer of Sistic, said: 'Any show that is sold through Sistic, we give customers the assurance that they will be refunded in the event of cancellation.'

Despite the cancellation of the dance party, the countdown show on the Marina Bay floating platform, featuring various artistes such as Gurmit Singh, Michelle Chia, Fiona Xie, Utt, Taufik Batisah, Hady Mirza, Adrian Pang and Jade Seah, will still go on.

Channel NewsAsia had reported that this is the first time that celebrities will usher in the New Year on the floating platform, the largest in the world.

The dance party was supposed to happen after the midnight countdown and last until 3am on New Year's Day, with music by internationally acclaimed deejays Koflow and George Leong.

The cancellation had set online forums such as SG Club and VR-Zone, abuzz.

As of yesterday night, netizens were still discussing the cancellation.

Some were confused over whether the event was really cancelled as they had seen the commercials for the countdown concert on TV on Monday night.

They didn't know that the concert and the dance party were two separate events held at the same venue, happening one after another.

Others were speculating over the reason for the cancellation.

A forum member called koohansen, said: 'I guess lots of people would be very disappointed and furious.'

Sean Avery said something crude with reference to his ex's. Then NHL suspended him indefinitely.

Reuters report,

Singapore is poised to be emerging Asia's worst-performing economy next
year, when it is likely to remain entrenched in recession as the global downturn
erodes demand for its exports, a Reuters poll shows.

The poll predicts the island state's gross domestic product (GDP) will
contract 1.1 percent in 2009. That marks a rapid deterioration in the economic
environment from two months ago as the global financial crisis has deepened - a
similar poll in late September forecast 4.6 percent GDP growth in
2009.

"Singapore is particularly open to external trade - its export-to-GDP ratio
is more than 180 percent, compared with an Asia average of 60-70 percent," said
Eric Tsang, an analyst at Calyon in Hong Kong.

"So as U.S., European and Japanese consumers spend less that will hurt
Singapore's exports and have a knock-on effect on the rest of the
economy."

Economists see some rebound in 2010, forecasting 4.2 percent growth, but
that would be well below average annual growth of 6.8 percent between 2003 and
2007.

Singapore slipped into recession - defined as two quarters of negative
quarterly growth - in the third quarter.

Philip McNicholas, an economist at Ideal Global in Singapore, said the
first quarter of next year would be especially tough - he forecasts GDP will
drop at an annualised rate of 15 percent, seasonally adjusted, as exports
plunge.

"That will be mainly due to a collapse in U.S. sentiment," McNicholas said.
"The U.S. plans a fiscal stimulus package early next year, but it's got to get
that through Congress and to the people, so that may not be until the end of Q1
or the start of Q2."

The government pledged $1.5 billion last month to help firms secure credit
and said it was prepared to run a bigger budget deficit to boost the
economy.

Manufacturing accounts for about a quarter of the economy and factory
output fell 12.7 percent in October from September, seasonally adjusted, and
12.6 percent from a year earlier, led by sliding electronics and drugs
output.

Manufacturing is expected to be harder hit next year as the downturn in
advanced economies accelerates and job losses in the sector will rise as a
result, analysts say.
Rising unemployment will dent consumer spending, which
is not being helped by a decline in tourism since August.

As the weak economy will encourage the authorities to keep monetary policy
loose, the Singapore dollar is likely to remain sluggish, the poll
forecast.

Now, if you are an AdSense publisher, you can donate all or a percentage of your unpaid balances earned till November 30, 2008 to Tides Foundation which is doing earthquake relief efforts in China and cyclone relief efforts in Myanmar (Burma).

But any donation request will not be processed if the request is to donate more than your unpaid balance through November 30, 2008.

See the details in Inside AdSense: Make your ad cents (and dollars) count.

This is very touching.

A video clip captured by a traffic camera overlooking a busy freeway in Chile recorded a heroic act of a dog's rescue mission.

Lo and behold! Hail the world oldest cat below! :p

Mischief, the world's oldest cat, is 100 Photo: SWNS.COM

Telegraph.co.uk reported,

And at 27 human years, Mischief is still living up to his name despite "slowing
down a little", according to owners Chris and Donna Thorne.

The Guinness
World Records has confirmed there is no record holder in the UK at the moment
but the previous oldest cat was 29.

Mrs Thorne, 33, of St Austell,
Cornwall, said: "It's amazing - he just keeps going on and on."

Mr
Thorne, 51, got the black cat from a friend in nearby Launceston as a kitten in
1981.

He still has photographs of Mischief at just a few months old
being cuddled at Christmas the same year.

Almost three decades later, he
is still a vital part of the Thorne family, and is adored the couple's
20-month-old baby Skye.

"She loves him to bits," said Mrs Thorne. "When
he eventually goes we'll have to get another one because she'll be devastated."

She said that despite Mischief's advanced years, he still has a spring
in his step.

"His name says it all," she said. "He may be 27 but he
still manages to jump over the stair gate and he's round your ankles constantly
for food.

"He's an indoor cat now, and he's losing big clumps of fur,
but he's still going."

She added: "We'd love to know if there are any
older cats in Cornwall. He's lost a couple of his nine lives over the years but
it doesn't seem to have affected him."

A spokesman from Guinness World
Records said a ginger cat called Spike was the last feline to hold the title of
UK's oldest cat but since he died in 2001, there had been no further record
holder. He encouraged Mr and Mrs Thorne to get in contact with Guinness World
Records.

The oldest cat ever is Creme Puff, who was born on August 3,
1967 and lived until August 6, 2005 an amazing 38 years and three days.

Creme Puff lived with her owner, Jake Perry, in Austin, Texas.

Take a look at American President Bush new home at 10141 Daria Pl, Dallas, Texas 75229.




View Larger Map

Do you know how to talk to girls? Ofcoz you do. But I don't think you know more than Alec Greven.

Alec Greven is just 9 but he is a already a great master of girl-pickup. His book titled "How to Talk to Girls" hit the stores in USA last week. In fact his booked started off as $3 handwritten pamphlet selling at school book fair.

Alec Greven with his book, How to talk to girls (Source: www.nypost.com)

So what is the best way to start a conversation with a girl? Just say, "Hi", he reckons.

So guys in Singapore, wait for the book to appear at your book stores near you. Or if you can't wait, you can hit amazon and order a copy.

From Economic Times India,

NEW DELHI: Ramping up the diplomatic pressure on Pakistan significantly, the government asked Islamabad to turn in 20 of India's most wanted
terrorists, including Dawood Ibrahim and Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Pakistan high commissioner Shahid Malik was called in by special secretary Vivek Katju to serve a strongly worded demarche (diplomatic protest) in the light of clinching evidence of involvement of LeT operatives in the Mumbai attack.

From Wired.com,

Look up at the sky Monday night to see a bright cosmic frown. The planets Jupiter and Venus will briefly align to form (nearly upside down) two eyes and a frowning mouth in the southwest.

In what's called a planetary conjunction, the two planets —the brightest in the night sky — will appear extremely close, separated by only the width of a finger held at arm's length. They won't be this close together and well-placed for evening viewing again until May 2013.


In fact, some astronomers think a similar alignment of the planets on June 17 in the year 2 BC is behind biblical accounts of the Star of Bethlehem present during Christ's birth. The bright planets would have appeared so close together they could have been taken as a single shining star.

Though the three celestial objects will appear to be close together Monday night, they lie at drastically different distances from Earth. While the moon is only 252,000 miles away, Venus is 370 times farther away, at 94 million miles. And distant Jupiter lies nearly six times farther away than Venus, at around 540 million miles.

The tables are turned when we think about the heavenly objects' relative size. While the moon appears as the largest of the three, it is really a tiny speck in space compared to the vast bulk of Venus, which is again dwarfed by Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter's diameter is 40 times that of the moon.

Though Jupiter is much larger than Venus, it appears dimmer to us, because the latter planet is so much closer to Earth. Plus, Jupiter is much farther away from the sun than Venus, so the light bouncing off it is much less intense than the light bouncing off Venus, which hasn't had to travel so far.

So who the hell is that Ted Mosby? Do I need to care? I don’t give a damn!

But wait, there is nothing funnier than to see two nonsense websites becoming popular hits overnight.

One website, http://www.tedmosbyisajerk.com/ says, Ted Mosby is a jerk, and http://www.tedmosbyisnotajerk.com/ says he is not.

The first website is created by a girl who was allegedly dumped by him. If you might want to give a damn, be sure to read the letter he left for the girl. If the letter is authentic, I say – Ted Mosby is REAL jerk.

What the fuck is going on? Anyway who give a damn?

Ok.. tell you the truth, Ted Mosby is a fictional character created for the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother. The character is created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas.

After a week which is full of pretty depressing news, now it's time for some laughters...

Btw, There are frogs in my.. wat? pocket? Who still need pocket? :D

Mark Abell was trapped in the Oberoi Hotel in forety-eight hours. He was having his dinner just before the terrorists stormed the hotel. During the attack he took his chances and barricaded himself inside a room, instead of running, and later formed a blackberry network with others inside the room to share information.

He said,

“What I really learn from this is.. May be we can go three weeks without food,
may be we can go three days without water, the real substance we need in that
siege situation is information. Without information, you really can’t control
your environment. And if you don’t control your environment, you are in for very
very bad kind”.

MSNBC: Mark Abell, who was trapped in the Oberoi Hotel for 40 hours, describes his frightening ordeal and explains how technology may have helped save his life.

I believe we can learn a thing or two from him.

British Actor Joey Jeetun, 31, who played one of the suicide bombers in a British television documentary 7/7: Attack on London survived the terrorist attack by faking his death but later arrested by by Mumbai police as a suspect. He was in Cafe Leopold, Taj Mahal Hotel when attack broke out on Wednesday.

His arrest led to reporting in some news agency that British were involved in Mumbai Attack.

Piers Akerman from The Daily Telegraph wrote in his blog -

The involvement of Britons among the terrorists responsible for the murders of
more than 150 people in Mumbai last week signals another milestone in the march
of multiculturalism and the failure of Western and democratised nations to deal
with Islamists.

Anyway, I guess Joey Jeetun must have looked a lot like a terrorist to be able to act as a terrorist in TV and to be mistaken as a terrorist in Mumbai.

People should advise him not to go to USA in case he is mistaken as a terrorist and send him to Guantanamo.

TechCrunch.com reported that a bartender from NY was fired because she blogged about Belgian Minister of Defense Pieter De Crem bar visit. A few days after her post, Nathalie's boss received a call from Defense Minister's office and she was fired straight away!

According to TechCrunch,

Following his visit, bartender Nathalie Lubbe Bakker blogged about their visit
(in Dutch), talking about how disgusted she was of how drunk De Crem was and how
embarrassed she was about his behavior. Worst part, she wrote, was the fact that
one of the politician’s advisors admitted to her that the meetings they were
there for on taxpayer’s money were in fact canceled because the UN was meeting
in Geneva (which is about 330 miles from Brussels).

A couple of days later, someone from De Crem’s office had a telephone call with Nathalie’s boss, after which she was promptly fired. This was initially denied by the politician, and it remains unclear if her termination was a direct result of the call or the blog post in question.

Well I think this was abuse of power from De Crem’s part. The trip was paid by Belgian tax-payers. Even though the meeting was canceled, he still choose to come to NY just because " he’d never visited the city anyway" and got drunk in a bar.

When his action was exposed on net by a civic-minded blogger, he got the blogger fired.

I say - with all due respect, Mr. Pieter De Crem, you should be fired, not her!

"The loss of any life to terrorism is sad, and the loss of a fellow
Singaporean is a pain more keenly and closely felt by every Singaporean."

Professor S Jayakumar.

This facebook group was founded by a facebook user Adrian in memory of Ms. Lo Hwei Yen, the fallen angel, who gave her life to the terrorist attack in Mumbai. You can share your condolences and display our unity against the terrorists.

Currently the group has a total of 16 members and 7 wall posts.

In Memoriam: Ms. Lo Hwei Yen

It was a night of tragedy in Mumbai. It was the night Mumbai was burned along with the hearts of peace loving people of the world. It was the night a group of terrorists brazenly walked around the streets of Mumbai, killing the innocents along their ways. It was the night Mumbai burned. It was November 26, 2008.

We will always remember you and that day… Mumbai!

Interactive Map of Mumbai Attacks from NY Times

I received an invitation SMS from Zirca, a new entertainment venue in town..

The SMS goes like this -

U r invited to our exclusive party @ The Cannery TMR, Fri. Tis sms admits 2.
FREE FLOW frm 930 - 1130pm. Get ready 2 experience d new frontier of clubbing.

Wow... exciting!!! See u there... babes... :)