080808, Toto, Olympics, NDP And Everything

So everything began on 080808.

Very much earlier in the day, I went to the Tanjong Pagar NTUC to purchase 60 sets of System 7 with money pooled from office colleagues. The lady behind the counter was unsure of what I asked for and shouted back '60 ah?' to let the entire queue gasp at my bad gambling habit.

When I got home at about 11pm, a little worse for wear from regular Friday activities in the office (though accentuated with the presence and subsequent frolic of a small rubber ball in the car park), I turned on the TV to watch the Olympic opening ceremony.

I think most people will share in my open-jawed expression of 'Oh My Goawd'. From the flickering number opening to the unfurling of the scroll to Li Ning running along the rooftop to light the Olympic flame (though the oversmiley little girl at the piano drove me nuts) was spectacular. And the fireworks, goodness. All over the shop. Only China could have pulled this off. And now the world knows for sure what the next superpower is capable of. (Am listening to BBC Radio 1 Pete Tong's show as I write this, and the host is asking listeners to put the Beijing show on as lighting effects for a dance party "It's like the biggest club in the world")

Then Saturday was spent watching men's gymnastics and swimming trials. I was jumping up and down for Korea's Park Tae Hwan and AU's Stephanie Rice sped towards the end of the pool to win their respective events. Australiasian Power seh!

At about 6pm I switched over to the National Day Parade, and for the first time I was half-hearted about watching it. It was a 'I've seen it all before' 'What else could happen?' kind of blase-ness. So I channel surfed between live Olympic coverage, live parade coverage and The History of Singapore documentary on Discovery (they showed Lee Kuan Yew crying in 1965 all over again, twice, and JBJ sellling The Hammer).

One thing about the NDP. The commentators were incredibly chatty and were describing everything they saw. "This event symbolises our resilience..." 'The lights represent our people's desire for excellence..." "The dance includes elements borrowed from our four main ethnic groups..." Come on, give us a break. Those lines seemed to be recycled from the previous ten NDPs. It really put me off. I liked the techno version of 'Shine For Singapore' though. The fireworks were, as usual, stupendous.

Too bad Beijing spoiled the market the night before.

And no I didn't kena the 8 million. Did you?