Now everyone's been talking about the incredulous collapse of Lehman Brothers and the "heng ah"* escape-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth save of Merrill Lynch. And I'm sitting here thinking, okaaay, so what else is on tv? Don't get me wrong, it was a terrible, terrible thing to have happened but nothing seems to faze me anymore. Not the ripple effect this financial disaster will present, which in turn was caused by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the States, not the earthquake in Sichuan, nor the tainted milk powder by Sanlu, not Hurricane Ike and definitely not Lance Armstrong returning to competitive cycling after overcoming testicular cancer.

Nothing. Fazes. Me. Anymore.

I wonder if we've somehow along the way been exposed to so much tragedy (ok, Lance Armstrong is not a tragedy) that what's bad now becomes the norm and what's good is either suspicious or unbelievable. If someone were to tell me that civil war broke out in Thailand or a crazy gun-toting psycho massacred everyone in a shopping mall, I'd have as much of a facial reaction as Paris Hilton with Botox.

I wish it wasn't this way. I wish good things would be the norm again. That you could walk the streets of JB without worrying about getting mugged (ok, sore spot for me), or take a plane and not have to throw away all liquids in your cabin luggage that are over 100ml and not packed in clear re-sealable plastic bags, or simply take the most convenient route in your vehicle without having to go through the ERP gantries.

Life, as I knew it, is gone. But ever the ACSian, I will say, The Best Is Yet To Be.

*heng ah - hokkien slang for lucky