CSI, Scrubs & Top Gear

I've been so sleep starved. Just spent whole of Sunday making up for lost time.

Now I'm back!

Ok, I like Scrubs because as Nutty Nadia says, each character represents an exaggerated aspect of me. I love and hate the characters at the same time, and sometimes it's almost an 'ouch' for me - dammit! Season 1 better than Season 2, I think. The biting sarcasm makes me fall in love with the power of words all over again - wish I was the one writing Perry and Jordan's lines.

CSI : This is a great demo of 'Gut Feel Backed by Evidence' - my own recipe for sharp strategic thinking. They have a hunch and they look for the evidence to verify or refute it - and they do it without the desperate desire to be right that only leads to hostile battles. Ad people can learn a lot from this.
The other thing I admire about CSI is the sheer creativity - how many ways can one commit a murder? Imagine having the same brief every week - and coming up with something unexpected everytime. WOW!

Top Gear : Same thing. Amazing creativity. Many creatives (me especially) don't even like doing product reviews. And this show features cars - an object I personally find dreadfully uninteresting. But I can sit through Top Gear because they make it so fascinating. Who on earth could think of pitching a car against a tank? Racing against a train? Brilliant!

What else? Arrested Development? Tried but couldn't sit through one whole episode. I love Frasier too, even though I got feedback that it's an older person's cup of tea. I love House too - Honest Grouch punya mentor! hahaha...

Oh - American Idol. Must watch to understand what people like. Talent alone is not enough - the audience wants to be able to 'feeeel' the performer. That's why I think Taylor, Mawi and Daniel won their respective contests. 95% grads - this is the power of Level 5!

Ok, I'm done for now. Going to do some marketing with my new 'marketing buddy'.

Thanks for all your comments - they kept me going when I was too tired to blog. Love you all!

Must watch

While talking with the Honest Grouch today, I realised that there are two TV shows that I consider 'must watch' - especially for advertising people. They are Scrubs and CSI. I'm not going to say why yet - post your comments and let's discuss!

My Bones Have Melted

I am sooooo tired. Feels like my bones have melted to mush. Just finshed a vigorous one day training for 16 pax from an international ad agency. It was good, very satisfying. For us as well as for them. Tired, but feel good and happy. Think they'll be asking us to do more trainings soon ;) Now blogging to stay awake cos waiting for some of the 95% graduates to come in and work on their project. Hope they come soon ...zzzzzz...

May you be happy

Wishing you a Blessed Wesak Day

At the brink

I've been feeling that a tremendous upheaval is going to hit me. I sense huge changes coming.
Soon.
Very soon.

Could be good, could be painful. Don't know, don't even dare to make a wish, just damn scared.

Funny thing is, whether good or bad, I know it will be tremendous and that in itself is scary already. Yes I know 'change is the only constant' and 'things are not changing, they've already changed' and all that. But still damn scared ...

Feeling blahh

These are the days when I wanna just stay in bed. Hide away from the world. Just curl up with a book and Wabi Sabi. Wabi will give a perfect demo of what blissful sleep is, and I'll feel better just looking at him (and scratching his fat furry belly la, I can never resist it - if someone can teach me how to download pixes from my handphone onto the blog, you'll get to see Wabi)

We are One

The past week has been a spiritual one for me.

I came across an old entry in Chong Tao Fatt's blog - around the time of the infamous caricature. At around the same time, the participants at 95% were engaged in a discussion about racial harmony, and during those discussions, my own POV became clear (thanks, Mok, or Mokhtar! for being the catalyst).

I have heard so many people say 'Be careful what you say, you could offend someone who is of another race, religion or sex. Better to keep quiet than to unwittingly offend.'

Well, I disagree with this. I think this only creates separation.
And ignorance.

If we are so very, very afraid of offending, we won't even speak to each other, we won't go into each other's homes, we won't eat with each other, won't have space to share our individual spiritual journey. Each to his own.

No, no, that's not the kind of world I want to live in.

What I want to do is to hold people of other races and religions close to my heart, and learn from them. Learn and understand. Then not only will I overcome ignorance, I believe my own life will be much richer too.

Recently, the Honest Grouch has been explaining to me how the Muslims pray. And to my surprise, it reminded me of what my own spiritual teacher has been teaching me. In fact, when I looked over my old notes, I found deeper meaning in them. The words were different, but the meaning was the same.

Also, Yasmin's brave voice in Gubra touched me deeply too. SO many messages of love and understanding - won't go into details now, just want to highlight the quote at the end : "The lamps may be different, but the light is the same."

So let's embrace each other, with respect and with love.

Forever and ever, amen.

They made it!

Yay! Some news to celebrate : our graduate Rae just got a six month contract at Leo Burnett! How did he get it? It certainly wasn't luck - he had the guts to create his own opportunity. I'm not surprised that Yasmin was impressed. Ok, I'm not going to say anymore, it is HIS story to tell - if you know Rae, go ask him.




Another graduate Daniel has already been working for a couple of weeks at Rapp Collins (last I heard, he was struggling to learn QuarkXpress, my fav software! hehehe )

Congratulations guys, I know how hard you both worked to make it happen.

Now work even harder!
(heheh, I'm the evil fairy today)