Asher Aw

Here’s wishing you a Happy Lunar New Year and a Happy Valentine’s Day!

What an interesting year this is… I was told sometime back that the travel agencies here in Singapore are prepping up a lot because this year’s one of those years where there are lots of long weekends as a public holiday lends either on a Friday or Monday.

Looks like this is the first of the lot!

And it’s an interesting day today as well, I found a couple of things which made my day.

First of all, I found out that 12 February was the launch date for “We Are The World 25” – an amazing round up of big shot artistes who sing together to bring aid to Haiti.

This song was originally sang by Michael Jackson and the hottest stars 25 years ago to bring help to the famine situation in Africa.

Today, the song’s being used to bring help to the earthquake victimized Haitians.

I celebrate and appreciate everyone who decides to buy the song on iTunes or make a donation (every little bit helps), or even tweet about it, etc.

However, for the people who decide to say the song is horrible for reasons like “that dude can’t sing”, “how come this-or-that-artiste is not inside”, “they murdered the song” or “they could have raised more money instead of getting us to give”… I say – “screw you“.

Especially the people who say some variant of “they could have raised more money instead of getting us to give”… that sounds totally like Judas Iscariot to Jesus when he commented “It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor”.

Judas wasn’t caring about the poor… he was concerned more about the money. He was the treasurer and he wanted the money. Likewise, the people who lament about how the money could have been raised by these artistes to give more… are no different from Judas.

So screw you. (Finding the song made my day – finding these knuckleheads didn’t)

Moving on… For the fans of Lord of the Rings… guess what – there’s a fan made prequel (an hour long!)

It was released in December 2009 – Born of Hope.

Now, you won’t be getting any big shots in this one – it is, after all, a fan made film.

But what’s amazing is that it cost the film maker £25,000 to make – a FAAAAR cry from what the original trilogy cost.

Amazing – this is a powerful example of what people can do with a bit of money and a lot of passion.