Well to add my bit, shell does pay better than Mobil but the payment thing gets confusing reson being that all the oil majors have a different cycle for their pay negotiations with their respective managements and the yard stick for increase is based on industry average. The reason why Mobil is not the highest paying is cos they lag behind in negotiations, currently they are about third or second base but by the end of the year when Shell, Chevron and the others have had their pay negotiations they will be in about fourth place. Shell has a commitment from their management to always be not lower that the second highest in the industry, Chevron and Elf because of their strong unions are also one of the top payers, Elf in particular is always between 1st and 2nd position. So on the average it is somewhat like Chevron/elf, Shell, Mobil, this is based on total package including allowances not just basic salary.

Another crucial factor is the salary level on this note the Mobil structure as more levels that Shell and Chevron, hence the entry level is kind of lower and off cause the pay is lower.

But in general the oil majors do not compare to some oil service companies like Schlumberger (especially of you are an international staff and you ar paid in dollars, not counting offshore allowances and the others). Some nigerian based staff pay is equally good if not better than the producers.

As for getting in with connection, any where in the world if you know the right person you will get it but for all the all companies in Niger now, there is the merit channel which includes the numerous test and interviews and you can get in through this if you are good enough but mind you it is tough competition cause you have the best in engineering, sciences, financial services and IT from Nigeria, UK and US schools competing with candidates having 2:1, 1st, masters, Phd, professional qualifications etc and these are not just paper degrees these guys and ladies have got the stuff.

Like mentioned before other factors come in like career progression, development, international postings etc and these vary fro company to company and by discipline, some comapnies value their geoscientist more while others value the reservoir engrs or facilities engrs more.

Just to answer the person that said Italy had a dubious penalty against Australia in the second round, if that is a yard stick then France is far worse cause they had more lucky breaks on bad ref decisions.

The free kick that took France ahead of Spain in the second round was from Henry diving beside Puyol, the penalty that knocked out Portugal was another Henry exaggeration of a slight tap from Calhvaho and the Malouda dive in the final for the penalty as mentioned before so if the consideration is cheating then the French are worse than Italy.

Not to add the Zidane headbutt and the French complaining about it, as if the act deserved a yellow card instead of the red given.

But as others have pointed out with the games statistics Italy are the best team.

You can check out "ProFlex" on Ozumba Nbadinwe in V.I. in the same complex as Cactus resturant next to the Geothe institute, it is a standard Gym, cost about 80k per annum, that was last year not sure about current price or standard but a lot of V.I. working folks use it.

cheers

Dayo

Just to add to your idea the last I heard of Play of Kin-n-play was that he was a born again christian and was no longer into base hip-hop but gospel music and such, your listing of motivational speakers, exhibition and the like as activities to be held gives me the impression that may still be his line of trade in that case you may be better off working with the big christian fellowships in Nigerian universities which are tied to some of the churches such love World (Christ Emabassy), house on the Rock etc they probably already have the infrastructure on ground for what you intend.

cheers

Well there is one important factor that is overlooked in this "heart broken once, will not love again issue" for guys and ladies and that is the issue of healing after a heartbreak.

For ladies once heart broken the next guy to fall-in-love-with has to earn your trust, he has to make you feel comfortable enough with him to let your emotions go, as such he helps you to heal the hurt of the initial heart break.

Whereas for a guy since he still has to do the chasing (most of the time) for his next relationship nobody helps him to heal, the new girl does not care what happened to the last and would still play her hard to get game, I mean you don't approach the new girl and pour out the hurt of the past, you try to be your most charming self while still being careful not to let go, guys are emotional too so most time we don't heal instead we hardden up and give less of our emotions and with time it becomes more difficult to start getting emotional.

For all going to see X-Men III

PLEASE STAY TILL THE END OF THE MOVIE CREDITS, DO NOT GET UP AND LEAVE AFTER THE MOVIE, THERE IS ONE LAST VERY IMPORTANT CLIP.

I had to go and watch a second time to catch thsi clip, if the cinema tries to shut doen the projection while the credits are on, please insist on them running it to the end.

Good luck and have fun, it was the bomb

Ladies should take some responsibility for the choices they make and stop blaming the players all the time.

At any point in time a lady is being asked out by a number of guys from players to good guys and she gets to make her choice of her own free will.

There are always signs that a guy is a player and may break your heart but as was mentioned earlier they are the exciting people to hang with, the flip side of the coin.

So it is your choice; fun and heartbreak or boredom and security and if you are extremely lucky you get  the best of both worlds.

Key word here is "extremely lucky". But i guess most ladies would still chose the former. It is in our nature to believe would be the extremely lucky ones.