The ridicule of our supposedly first world country having pictures of our shopping belt flooded being screened around was no laughing matter either. The excuses was pathetic to say the least, clogged culverts? Floods caused by intense storms? Duh, any kid could tell you that. Suddenly, Thomson (where I’ve lived all my life) becomes a “hotspot” for flooding too. The definition should then be everywhere that flooding occurs is equivalent to a hotspot.

Common sense will tell you that the construction of the circle line, ION, etc has had an adverse effect. As we drill deeper underground, compacting the ground as we go along, making it harder for rainwater to seep through – ultimately it means the water cannot flow away as it had in the past. See, you don’t even need to be an engineer to understand the logic. Put that out to the people and perhaps the disgruntled citizens wouldn’t feel so dumb. Example in point is that even the construction works on the CTE widening is causing flooding.

Of course, kayak warrior RX Ang’s latest little adventure had me in stitches (He actually went kayaking). I can even envisage the kayak companies hiring him to be their poster boy – a kayak could very well save you in the next flash flood. Get yours today before the next wave comes! See more on his Facebook.

While ensuring our ministers and civil servants get paid the fees they deserve having sacrificed otherwise supposedly lucrative payoffs in the private sector, shouldn’t they be equally answerable? BP’s CEO Tony Hayward walked for the Gulf oil spill, and while our floods might not be of the same magnitude, it has been 5 or 6 or so flash floods and counting, but we see no heads rolling into the barrage?

I believe they could have accommodated a bigger theme park, considering you could walk one round around the entire theme park in record time. Including meals & waiting time, it took under 6 hours to complete nearly every ride in the park. WaterWorld had decent actor but terrible sound effects, and the Jurassic Park rapids were a downer (and I’m not even talking about the 1 hour wait). Hardly a splash when you make it barely 3 stories high as compared to 85 foot drop in the Hollywiid version.

Add to that the eloquent English speaking guides who start shouting at tourists and you have the most mind-blowing theme park in Singapore.

Little wonder Universal Studios Singapore is not even listed on the Universal Studios website.

Don’t lose your way
With each passing day
You’ve come so far
Don’t throw it away
Live believing
Dreams are for weaving
Wonders are waiting to start
Live your story
Faith, hope & glory
Hold to the truth in your heart

If we hold on together
I know our dreams will never die
Dreams see us through to forever
Where clouds roll by
For you and I

Souls in the wind
Must learn how to bend
Seek out a star
Hold on to the end
Valley, mountain
There is a fountain
Washes our tears all away
Words are swaying
Someone is praying
Please let us come home to stay

If we hold on together
I know our dreams will never die
Dreams see us through to forever
Where clouds roll by
For you and I

When we are out there in the dark
We’ll dream about the sun
In the dark we’ll feel the light
Warm our hearts, everyone

If we hold on together
I know our dreams will never die
Dreams see us through to forever
As high as souls can fly
The clouds roll by
For you and I

We’re both looking for something
We’ve been afraid to find
It’s easier to be broken
It’s easier to hide

Looking at you,holding my breath,
For once in my life,I’m scared to death,
I’m taking a chance,letting you inside.

Feeling alive all over again,
As deep as the sky, under my skin
Like being in love, she says
For the first time
Maybe I’m wrong,
But I’m feeling right where I belong
With you tonight
Like being in love
To feel for the first time

The world that I see inside you
Waiting to come to life
Waking me up to dreaming
Reality in your eyes

Looking at you,
Holding my breath,
For once in my life
I’m scared to death,
I’m taking a chance,
Letting you inside.

I’m feeling alive all over again
As deep as the sky that’s under my skin
Like being in love, she says, for the first time
Maybe I’m wrong, I’m feeling right
Where I belong with you tonight
Like being in love to feel for the first time

We’re crashing
Into the unknown
We’re lost in this
But it feels like home

I’m feeling alive all over again
As deep as the sky that’s under my skin
Like being in love, she says, for the first time
Maybe I’m wrong, I’m feeling right
Where I belong with you tonight
Like being in love to feel for the first time

You look to the stars for direction, and find non forthcoming.
You turn left and right and the lights go green and red.
You consult what’s left within you.
The very same debaters partaking on supporting England and their bravado attempt to win the World Cup.

What does the head say? It is waging a losing battle with thy heart.

I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who’ll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She’ll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She’ll hear me out
And won’t easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she’ll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me
Aaaahhhhh….

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought
With every breath
Someone who’ll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don’t want to be tied
To anyone’s strings
I’m carefully trying to steer clear of
Those things
But when I’m asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
I’ll get away with it
And in a place like this
I’ll get away with it
Aaaahhhhh….

Imagine 3 guys, sitting across 3 old men, Nearly 3 times their age.

We could be there in about double the lifetime we’ve lived so far.

• Phone, applications Launcher, and Browser now have dedicated shortcuts on the Home screen, making it easy to access them from any of the 5 home screen panels.
• LED Flash enabled for camcorders; allowing for videos to be shot at night or in low light settings
• Camera onscreen buttons provide easy access to a new UI for controling zoom, flash, white balance, geo-tagging, focus and exposure.
• Updated Google Search bar to include dropdown for All, Web, Apps or Contacts search. Plus choose which items are searchable, not just those previously mentioned yet specific apps; Messaging, Twitter, Music, etc.
• Portable Wi-Fi hotspot that can be shared with up to 8 devices; Wi-Fi/USB tethering
• Improved performance with better kernel management, enhanced browsing performance & Dalvik performance boost
• Task and application manger; ability to upgrade all apps at once and add background updating
• Bluetooth Voice Dialing for hands-free calling while driving
• Different trackball colour notifications; blue for bluetooth, red for low battery, and the usual white for new messages & call notifications
• Voice input settings let you specify your regional accent (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Generic).
• Multi-language stock keyboard (but doesn’t support Chinese)
• New Car Home design
• plus a whole lot more …

However, the dazzling highlights for me were undoubtedly:

• Better Performance. It’s like an upgrading of RAM – so much more free space makes everything faster. Up to 271M of free as compared to up to 91M previously.
• Auto Brightness. Power widget for the home screen now lets you select auto-brightness. Previously, you had 3 lighting options and my Christmas wish was for an auto brightness option to come so I didn’t have to change it everytime I walked into bright sunlight or meander around in a dark room. Looked like Christmas came early and the auto brightness is probably the best addition to Froyo. Had reservations about what effect it would have on battery life but so far my worries have been unfounded.
• Vibrate. Watching a movie, in a meeting? Need to silent the phone urgently? Lowering the volume quickly could mean totally silencing the phone. Not anymore. Vibration can now be set to always, never, only in silent mode, and only when not in silent mode.
• Colourful Trackball. New SMS – white. Low battery – white. New notification – white. Imagine my surprise when my trackball suddenly flashed RED for dangerously low battery. Blue when my bluetooth was turned on. Why did they even wait with all these? It’s not a useless navigational tool anymore. Red, Stop, Green, Go, I wonder how many hues does the trackball have.
• Flash. For those flashy websites and the not so flashy games, you need Adobe Flash.
• Better call log display. This might just be a minor change, but I still feel a much needed one considering it just summarizes how you might have had 5 calls from the same person appearing once instead of five. Perhaps it’s just me.
• The Google Apps. Google definitely make their apps work best on their own operating system. Strangely, Gmail wasn’t exactly all that smooth previously but now you can browse & tag emails with much more ease. Oh and YouTube videos in HD!
• Voice input now recognizes swear words. No, I hardly even use voice input.

Android 2.2 theoretically supports installing apps to the SD card which undoubtedly would even free up more space, but developers need to first enable this in their apps. My previous concern was eventually the apps would take up all the in-built memory, but it seems this will eventually be worked around as developers slowly enable this.

Google obviously needs to cater to more users from elsewhere to enable multi-language stock keyboards for languages like Mandarin, and what’s up with no accent support for Singaporeans? I reckon Singaporeans are distinguishable anywhere you go in the World. You can fake a British or Australian accent, but not a Singaporean one.

All in all, Google simply amazes with every Android update; it seems to only unlock more and more capabilities each time – from multi-touch ability, to automatic lighting, and multi-coloured trackballs and such in a faster Froyo, simply makes me salivate at what Android 2.3 would unleash on the Nexus One.

mSpot allows people to upload their music- be it purchased, ripped or downloaded (via various means) and access it from any Windows or Mac computer, or a Google Android device. It currently only supports Android mobile devices.

Rather than trying to recognize the music files on your computer and replicate it in the cloud, mSpot practically uploads your music collection from iTunes, Windows Media Player, and/or any folders you specify, effectively saving any ratings and metadata (album artwork) you may have set up in iTunes by scanning its XML database. The upload process takes at least several hours depending on processing power and connection speed, but once it’s there, you’re good to go. It took me approximately 5-6 hours to sync my data onto mSpot.

mSpot plans to offer “north of 2 GB” of free music storage or more for a monthly fee. All files are converted into 48-Kbps aacplus files (a standard format for mobile music streaming services), meaning that you can store over four days of music in a free 2-GB locker account.

Having tried out the service, I would say it simply rocks – it totally eliminates the need to try and sync your music from your PC’s library onto your phone or anywhere else! Of course, the current downside is that the limit is 2GB for free users, which essentially cannot contain my library of nearly 3,000 songs and 11 GB of data, though I would be interested to see how much they plan to charge for a larger account. The conversion though has meant that about 50% of my songs have been sync onto mSpot.

mSpot is currently in private beta mode, but users can sign up on the company’s website (www.mspot.com) to try the web and/or Android version using the password “phandroid“.

mSpot’s freemium music locker service for Android smartphones and computers will be available to the public at some point in June, with apps for RIM, Windows and possibly iPhone to come thereafter.

About mSpot
mSpot is a digital entertainment company that offers instant streaming of movies, music and other entertainment to more than six million consumers across North America. mSpot helps consumers easily access music, custom ringtones, live radio and videos from major music labels, movie studios and top brands. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, mSpot is on the Web at www.mspot.com.