Wii Fit!

Ee Ping recently bought the Nintendo Wii Fit, and since then (some 2 weeks back now)the 2 of us have started a regular exercise regime using the exercise/game(?) system.

Of course, 2 weeks is hardly time enough for me to comment on its effectiveness (or otherwise!), but I have to say - at least it gives us a reason to work our lazy bodies and bones! The maker or designer of the Nintendo Wii system obviously had us idle folks in mind when he/she designed the game consoles and its accompanying games. The games are designed in such a way as to make the players participate in much more ways than just twiddling some cute remote controls or joysticks.

With the Wii Fit exercise board, I am now doing sets of stepping exercise together the cute little Miis (cartoon figures who appear on your TV screen to exercise with you and to encourage you.... well, sort of. :P ), as well as doing my 13min+ "island laps" jogs around a scenic island resort. Sometimes, when I feel like it, I'd take it out on the silly-looking punching machine by smashing punches into its virtual face.

Wiiiiiii.... I feel....

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Unfit :(

Terrorists... Are they even human?

The recent terror attacks in Mumbai has been thoroughly reported here in Singapore, with the Straits Times and Today Newspaper running articles on it for consecutive days, hogging all the headlines. Not least because one of the casualties in this horrifying incident was a Singaporean.

To us sheltered and pampered Singaporeans, this piece of news was shocking, sad, but sobering at the same time. All these while, the many terror events unfolding in various parts of the world, though reported over the same news channels (ie. newspapers and TV, radio, internet), felt like events that was a little too far away to have any real impact on our lives. We sympathised with the victims but there just wasnt that "connection". It was almost like watching a well-crafted tragedy drama unfolding on your TV. You feel for the characters on screen, you can sometimes even shed tears because of the sense of injustice your feel for them. Yet, they remained merely "characters" who had no link to the reality you are living in - ie. in safe, sunny Singapore.

Well, not anymore.

The death of Ms Lo Hwei Yen caused such a stir amongst the citizenry of this little island, not merely because of the tragic-ness of her demise. The shockwaves are also a result of many us waking up to the sense of renewed awareness of the ugly truth - that terrorism is EVERYWHERE.

My personal thought at this point is: Are these so-called "terrorists" even human? They may seem human on the outside; they walk like us, talk like us, breath like us, feed like us... Yet, they do not share the most BASIC of social norms as us (ie. human beings in general), that is - the respect for another human's right to live.

Their way of life and their thinking is SO drastically different from the typical human being, that it seemed almost farcical that we consider them as human beings. Just because they look like human does not make them human.

Boy, if I were to make a Hollywood movie, I'd definitely spin a story along these lines.... That these terrorists are actually a form of virus, mutated from a strain long-believed extinct (or exterminated) centuries ago. Either that, or they are actually aliens sent from another dimension, disguised in the form of us humans, so that they could mingle amongst us, learn our weaknesses, with the single objective of wiping out the entire human population on Earth. :PP

Anyway, if you asked me, all us REAL human beings on Earth ought to band together and rid the planet of this scourge once and for all. We should stop thinking of them as "human beings".

Their acts have shown us that they are not.