bye bye and blokus and birthdays

Labeling these few weeks or months of an intentional hiatus from any memo or p/s about my life and people surrounding me is harsh. I'd rather see this as a partial deliberation oozing from some late 20 crisis. :))

I have had a feud with blogging. The détente might have come gradually and unnoticedly, but obviously time is what it needs. I had a few early and belated birthday celebrations, note, it’s earlier and belated, a few calls from best friends and tens of texts, a crazy singing cum gathering session with the 04 transfer team, multiple new board game sessions including a few on the luxurious TGI (it’s not always Friday), one on wc’s birthday and one on dear 5-year housemate’s farewell. Yeah, 5 years.

I cannot recall (as if I knew) which philosopher's words is that. But picture speaks a thousand words. I think they do, and here they are to speak for me.



Keat's visit to Penang, with CN. Roxbury Autocity



Ok, the always crazy Flying Ostrich team



Flying ostrich II, YamChin was taking photos with his k800



WC BD, MFM QB



Soon to be groom!



Blokus. Kampung girl, big chirp is pretty much into it I guess you ex-PME will too! Expecting knses from the game!


YP and I with boss, at TGIF :D


Free slice from TGIF


Farewell for Miss Lai in TAO autocity


Out of the blue farewell in Xuan Xin steamboat. Three Miss PDC, veteran-level (According to Selvam) :))


Blokus at ice-ice baby

split of a second - human body versus technology

Screenshot of the women 100m sprinting final at Osaka World Atheletics Championships. Who won? hehe

The question is

I have been fair, I want to be fair, I’ll always be fair
By WONG SAI WAN and ZULKIFLI ABD RAHMAN, the Star

Equitable policies to all communities
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has assured all Malaysians that his policies will be fair and equitable to all communities. “I have been fair, I want to be fair and I will always be fair. This is my promise to you,” said Abdullah.
The Barisan Nasional chairman's pledge was greeted by thunderous applause from the more than 1,700 MCA delegates who listened attentively to his hour-long address before opening the 54th MCA annual general assembly at Wisma MCA's Dewan San Choon here yesterday.
Responding to a passionate speech by MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting, who urged Barisan component parties to adhere strictly to the social contract agreed on by the country’s founding fathers, Abdullah said he agreed with Ong that consultation among all communities was important.

also stressed the importance of sincere leaders who take into account the interests of all races, are fair and just in their actions and consider the feelings of others in their decision-making.
“Leaders should not harbour intentions of isolating or discriminating against any race. This should never be done. If a leader tries to isolate a certain race, he is not fit to be a leader in this country,” he said.

On the sharing of the national economic cake, he said there was no government policy that specified that government contracts must only be given to Malays.

“There may have been some overzealous actions (in the implementation of policies) and if there were, we will correct this,” he added.

On behalf of the Chinese business community, Ong urged the Government to give the Chinese more opportunities to participate in government jobs and that they were willing to form joint-venture companies with the other communities.

Replying to this, Abdullah surprised his audience when he said: “If you can form a genuine joint-venture company with other races and not the Ali-Baba type, I promise you that I will give you contracts.”

“I’m not saying there must be 30% bumiputra participation. That is up to you, you decide among yourselves, but this must be a genuine cooperation – (it may be) Malay-Chinese, Malay-Indian, Chinese-Indian, everyone.
“Then we’ll give them priority consideration to secure projects.
“This means that they should all share the profits, losses and risks and also work hard together,” he added.

However, he stressed that no one community would get 100% of what it wanted.
Abdullah also said that under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, no programme or development project was aimed exclusively at any one community.

“We want to balance regional and sectoral development. We cannot have all the development concentrated in the Klang Valley alone.

“Whichever community happens to be in the region or sector will benefit from our policies and projects. For example, when we improve the lot of padi farmers, Chinese padi farmers will also benefit.”

Abdullah also said the younger post-independence generation should learn the meaning of consensus and patriotism.
“The presence of many young people who came to the Merdeka event in Malacca showed that these future leaders understand and embrace the aspirations of our country,” he added.

********************************************************************************

The question is:

I want to be fair and I have been fair to other races too. Sometimes I just feel that, with only me alone doing that, it doesnt help. Probably you, will do more, not much less.

I know it takes time. But eternity isn't timeless, if the mood and paradigm are fluctuating but not one way and devoted.

Finger-licking good

Bayan Baru KFC


Oh! This song is making me "filling" good too!

A joke

A friend told me a joke.

There was this group of girlfriends including my pal making an outing in a car. Confused by the hectic and labyrinth-like roads and streets of Penang, cellular phones started to ring frantically. Apparently there was another car making its way to the same destination. On one pick up by one of the passengers, the caller asked for the street these girls were in. Everyone turned to the driver anticipating the answer, and here come the answer of the year --> Jalan Sehala.


Do not laugh. Do not laugh. Do not laugh.


Just highlight, in case you miss highlighting my previous joke.

ps, It's from a Malaysian



Hahahahahahahahhaha

56th

Having nothing much to surprise you and myself, except lots of outings to bid farewell for a friend that is getting married and migrating to mainland China and lots of scrutinizing of the microcircuits which both I deem not of your likely interest, I would blissfully close my this latest post with a few wishes.

Happy birthday to TN in US (erm, probably two weeks late, here); So long, farewell and take good care in China for HY; All the best and congrates to YM on her new venture; Ever after for zzwei; Congrates to SM for having little HoonChieu :D; etc etc.

It's my 56th post. On a saturday in the mid July. It's a perpetual summer.

And they said Penguin once lived in Atacama Dessert during one of the warmest periods of the last 65 million years. Is Al Gore's inconvenient truth a convenient means for past culprit to restrain current bandits from progressing?

isolation

my pin switch design couldnt make it there for isolation at low frequency.
my fet switch design couldnt make it there for isolation at high frequency

shall i test on myself an isolation test?

next

I bought a Tori Amos CD. I watched Phantom of the Opera in Esplanade. I watched a movie (namely next, and it was bad) doubling the normal rate due to conversion. I bought three new shirts. I sang. I went to NY NY to eat.

Tori was then repeatedly heard from the embedded speakers, she said, cause Devils and Gods, they are you and I. Cause Devils and Gods, they are you and I.

Littlest Things

I thought I should post a piece of something here before works start to get demanding (as my boss warned during that dinner (that sucks (I don’t use this word that often but at 400 per table the food in the only restaurant in BJ complex could be best (to itself, with no irony) described))). I hope the parenthesises can contain my hatred within the restaurant itself as Aunt May told Peter Parker that Uncle Ben wouldn't want them living with revenge in our hearts, it's like a poison. It can take you over and turn us into something ugly.

Noted, with love.

I had my weekends full to capacity as I figured out I didn’t want it to be empty, only for that weekend. After that Friday’s dinner I went to bowl and scored 112 and 114. Then as the light-sensitive roosters (crow all the time) of the illegal labors at the construction site rang the alarm as dawn fell upon the misty (*dusty) air volume, I then went to sing for two hours before watching Spiderman that I deem a little lengthy and less action-packed whilst only Aunt May did her job to satisfactory in that movie. I then went checking out a few houses for renting as I have had enough of the misty fresh air and the courteous crows. All above all, that superb traffic planning in the place I live now.

Noted, with hatred.

And now I am sitting in the blue bedroom, yeah, still blue, typing as fast as my brain can think, trying to check if speedwriting is slower than speedtyping. It’s already after half-a-day long spent on slogging and trudging through the dense vegetation to Pantai Kerachut. This time around I had a chance to visit a newly set up sea turtles hatching center and visited and watched a school of 63 one-and-a-half-year old baby green sea turtles, helplessly and desperately attempted to swim out of the polyfoam box that will be their safe house for 7 days. Everyone is desperate, like the Vietnamese or Burmese lady that stood beside me at the ATM inside BJ complex, asking me then to help withdrawing her money and gave me her password.


There are many other littlest things in the world, ain’t there...

As little as you feel you are sometimes.






flap, flap, and flap


Less than a dozen of humans at the long stretch of beach. Isn't that great?


Can you see Sumatra?

Melinda Doolittle

I'm bluntly in love with her voice. Say, vocal masterclass. Sentimentally and technically.

My Funny Valentine
There will come a Day
Trouble is a Woman
Home
As Long as He Needs Me
Sway
I've got Rythm
Heaven Knows
I am a Woman
Since you been gone

You've got to listen to My Funny Valentine.



When I was, a young boy. Was I used to sleep that way, like a fetus?

Farewell. Farewell. Farewell.

MH finally left Penang after tonnes of farewell dinners and lunches and even breakfasts. I was too hectic yet empty with the not-so-working-yet breadboard units and either attending or organizing the meet-ups, that I suppose this is the longest period I had abandoned this blog.

Let me try to speak the way late Mary Alice whispered to Wisteria Lane.

Every little morning at Lebuh Kampung Jawa, the sun rays are going to pierce through the dense treetops along the seemingly placid road, as busy people are rushing their ways to work. It will probably rain on the next morning that the rays aint going to shine on the people, but the people will still be going to rush to clock in. Some are starting to crack their heads thinking of how to solve the yield issues and design problems, some are speculating about what the future is going to hold, some are counting steps while walking towards the office with apparently empty mind, and some, are impatiently looking forward to the next hour, the next day, and week, and month, and probably, year.


In SM's mama's car. Maximum fuel efficiency, minimum driver-point wastage, crammed, dont-think-it-will-happen-again scene. Bye bye.

Mary J Blige vs Lee Hom

Some people are born to be a star. Some singers are born to be a diva. Watching this youtube video made me thinking that Lee Hom should never sing again.



How could this song lose to the chicks? Hehehe

I will upload photos later, if I'd gotten the time and rhyme.

KC said I was faster to reach mukah head light house this time around. I thought he was slower and was taking deep breath. MH wasn’t there for the third placing this time around. And it wasn’t the same guard that was guarding the light house this time around. Yeah, we talk about this, this time around. The visitor book was ironically still there.

We killed a few fish that bottled in a 100+ bottle and left on the beach to anticipate us coming down from the light house. Rearing fish might be sorrowful.

I saw something that can really reshape a person. She was an elegantly independent lady. Elegant still, unexpectedly fallen into. Just, wow. You know what it is. All my sincere wishes.

Two kids were playing Chinese chess in the hawker center. Chinese new years song was a pleasing fusion with the wind that blew through the pirated VCD stall where a young man with artificial blonde hair answering me that that Babel VCD was still a cinema version. Sorry I just couldn’t wait. But wait, I didn’t buy. That weak apology is just for the intention.

I played an old mp3 CD in the car. It's Norah Jones. I copied from TN. I think she copied from PL.

Last couple of weeks or may be months was a fling of all sentiments and numbness. It was supposed to be like that. Everything comes to a happy ending in a few months and I duly anticipate that.

I dreamt of Smurfs a few days ago I think, after vaguely peeping into a mini-tv in a car in front of me catching some blue figures of cartoons. Then I thought of old tv shows. Full house, HVD series, A million-dollar chance of a lifetime, Win, Lose or Draw, and many more. You tell me. Then you think of the people you watched them with, the place you watched them, the time you watched them, the dinners and lunches you missed when you watched them and much more. You tell yourself what you have forgotten and what you shouldn’t have forgotten.

Desperate housewives season three was too made-up. But it was still as good as Grey’s Anatomy (note, not Gray’s) and Lost and Prison Break in coming to you when you feel like watching series I guess. They are all series.

It’s a Saturday late night. Serena slammed Sharapova. I hope Gonzalez slam Federer tomorrow.

Too many things I want to write about since my last write. I wanted to write about how suffering Sierra Leonese in the movie are, about my new cubical, about my slightly hurt ankle from squash that needs ankle guard, about new people I met, about how many trips I made to the mall a stone’s throw away, and about the jhumpa lahiri’s book I read. But they are just not really worthwhile to mention too much.

Yeah, I meant it.

BE form is here. Better work hard to worry about the form next year.

dateline, deadline

I've never checked what's the difference between these two words. Not much difference, I persuaded myself. It's just an unduly bug on the last day of the year. A rough one, I reckon.

Watching Justin (Nah... not the HK shortie singer that takes singing as shrieking) serving so hard while Amelie (the male commentator seems biased for Mauresmo...Oh no Amelie, No Amelie, That's not a good sign for Amelie, She deserves all the credits and the set.. bla bla bla... well, I am very fine with that :D) desparately finding the correct tune (which she did at last) in my dust-free hometown wasn't really a luxury. Having seabass for dinner though, from the newly opened Malaysian-owned leading chain restaurant at my hometown (imagine that!) , a little luxurious,revealed that the recipe isn't secret anyway. It's the same everywhere else!

I had my annual xmas gathering in KL and back to Penang for a few days of work before another four days of holidays back home. The dinner was as old as it was, as warm as it was, as many laughters as it was.


The only picture that we managed to ask one of the seemingly ever-and-over-occupied waiters/resses in the new chilis in one u to snap. Better than none, that's it!



We spent 4 to 5 hours in the restaurant (I think the captain disliked us for that!) playing games, swapping and swapping the gifts (it came back to everyone first choice! fate.) and getting penalties like this.


Which one do you want?

It's lovely enough for a new year. Happy New Year to all!

Attn: Catch these three movies next year!
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/children_of_men
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pans_labyrinth
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/notes_on_a_scandal/

Road to Changlun

I took this gloomy picture, sitting behind in a car, after visiting a fast-recovering friend staying adjacent to the Siamese border. It does not lead you to any state of melancholia though. It was a peaceful evening on the familiar long straight highway back to the hometown with your old faithful buddies.

so long

so long since my last post. nothing much, just a different job function, a new boss, a new cubical in a new building, a new shopping mall, a new pair of jeans, a new long-sleeve shirt for weddings, and probably a rejuvenation of views towards life and its components.

xmas is coming. and i will tell you a joke.

a colleague forwarded me a hilarious mail. let me quote part of it

" I learned that if the date code ends with an even number, it is manufactured in Santa Claus. If it ends with an odd number, it is manufactured in Germany. Then later every part is manufactured in Santa Claus. May I know when does this occur?
Those parts with date code ended with odd number that had moved to Santa Claus, does the design change applied on these parts also?"

it was supposed to be santa clara. exhilaration over xmas was too overwhelming i perhap.


do not laugh. do not laugh. do not laugh.


just highlight.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Greeting, ah Boy!

I bet you must have experienced before stall owners greet you Leng Cai or Leng Lui when you were buying goods from them.

And guess what! There is one stall owner that I always buy breakfast for weekly breakfast session in the office greet me "Ah Boy" !

Either she is having too many kids or her benevolence extended to me, nah, who cares! Probably it's coming from the skies that I should start my November's new role in new department in full happiness.

Ha! ha! ha!

Check out this blog of a friend of mine. They are too busy complaining my English. I need some practice for something important dudes!

Cheapest city, not so cheap engineers!

Latest release, 2006 report of UBS Prices and Earning Reports

UBS conducted standardized Prices and Earnings survey in 71 cities throughout the world between February andApril 2006. In each city, surveys were conducted independently.


It's cheapest to live in KL!


I don't know how to inteprete this, but we are away from the crowd...?



Net hourly pay. Quite low for us?


Wage level for we Malaysians seem moderate low. Purchasing power is above average due to cheap goods and services.



33 minutes for a big Mac. How about McCrispy? I dont take beef.

Engineers are paid almost the same for KL folks as to counterparts in Bangkok, Mexico, Moscow, Bogota, Caracas, Prague, and Lima. 50% higher than engineers in Beijing and Shanghai and 100% higher than in the Indian capital. Think about it again? Anyway I still wish to work in Luxembourg! hehe


Summary for KL: cheapest to live, moderate wage and purchasing power. Nothing to be so proud about except getting to savour a plate of delicious chicken rice with USD1.

Click at the above link for more. We work too long hours indeed as complained.

KL and KL

The sun didn’t penetrate through the silky costly curtain tailor-made for Miss Teo’s new apartment in Villa Oversea Union Garden, as she loathes rays of light piercing and harassing her peaceful sleep, I guess. I woke up just after dawn rushing to pick Miss Tan up and met up with WCK at the silhouetting double city centers’ basement, getting ready to ascent to the connecting piece of concrete in between.

Alas, it was inaudibly closed. I regard this as an embarrassment for a premier tourist spot to close for 5 days though it was holidays. Almost certainly we thought it was due to the charge-free entrance and lift, for we made our lengthy walk to the neighbouring aquarium that remained open and still charged 28 bucks on the second day of Aidilfitri.

The modestly advertised Aquaria was not a downer nonetheless not too enthralling. Yet my baffling obsession towards deep sea creatures was satisfied though a little. Miss Tan led us in a fine time looking for an obvious angler fish that was tagged as good in camouflage but all we discovered is a piece of 4-legged charcoal with barely noticeable moving gills resting just next to a standing red coral. Her mama must have told her that the most dangerous position is in fact the safest one.


Magnificent movements in every direction


Come baby come, it's time to eat.


Something fishy in the aquarium!


We stopped by the famous-only-to-foreign-tourists palace's front gate.


Acting class I - Frightened yet desperately excited countenance


Acting Class II - Petrified Body

A few fine days later, after multiple shopping sprees in the abound shopping malls in the metropolis and a visit each to the car workshop and the university, Miss Teo insisted to pursue her first visit to the skybridge after a failed first attempt. That very misty morning we headed to the city center once more and this time Kim has replaced Miss Tan who was apparently fed up with the suppose-to-be-in-disguise black angler fish.

It was a few minutes past 8 am in the morning as my bone-jingling wira ran past a saga with passengers who were obviously heading to the same destination as ours. Contentedly we walked up the car park to the tickets distribution counter thinking that we will get tickets at ease. See this picture and you will know how awful the big O our mouths would be at the crime spot.

After a 5-day closure, it was definitely not a good day for us to jointly grasp the tickets and agitate the already-disturbed planned trip of the many foreign travelers that we believed had stayed back a few days just to pay a visit to the icon. But well, it’s Miss Teo’s, my accommodation provider, maiden visit. We were not going to give up, taking turn to line up for nearly 2 hours and ended up seized four four-hour-later tickets.


The twins, as unforgiving as it has always been.


Patient WCK among the impatient hundreds of flockers. Check out the crowd, it's already after the officers requested only one to line up for a group. They are too slow in distributing the tickets!


From the top of the bridge


Another one


The bridge itself


Lightning strikes on KLCC


The group that managed to get a pass to the bridge!


The group that didn't make it to the bridge


After nearly a week in the capital, I drove back to Penang with Mr Tee and Miss Lai, with packs of hard-earned-money-turn-into fabrics and price tags. (Miss Lai too!) Mr Tee’s 9-month service exchange in the States left me and him much to catch up that the long arduous journey felt short.

Reached Penang soon after lunch time. Unpacked, napped, dined, and desserted, that was a pretty and lazy Sunday before November looms.

Maiden win for Chinese girls in Gymnastic History

*pictures from sina


I have always been thinking that Gymnastics is the cruelest and most mentally and physcially grueling competitive sports.

Congratulations! And the boys won too!
ESPN
Yahoo Sports
Sina Sports

Nerina Pallot

www.nerinapallot.com

Look for Entertainment. It's hard for me to recommend any of the songs to you coz they are all simply fantastic. But the hits are Sophia and Everybody's Gone to War.

中秋

苏轼 『水调歌头 明月几时有』

明月几时有？把酒问清天。不知天上宫阙，今夕是何年。我欲乘风归去。惟恐琼楼玉宇，高处不胜寒，起舞弄清影，何似在人间。

转朱阁，低绮户，照无眠。不应有恨，何事长向别时圆？人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全。但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。



Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all!

Cambodia

People in the office were talking about Cambodia, asking why is this beautiful country lagging behind the locomotive of development. Check this out from CIA. It has actually achieved indepedance ahead of us.

Most Cambodians consider themselves to be Khmers, descendants of the Angkor Empire that extended over much of Southeast Asia and reached its zenith between the 10th and 13th centuries.

Attacks by the Thai and Cham (from present-day Vietnam) weakened the empire ushering in a long period of decline. The king placed the country under French protection in 1863. Cambodia became part of French Indochina in 1887.

Following Japanese occupation in World War II, Cambodia gained full independence from France in 1953.

In April 1975, after a five-year struggle, Communist Khmer Rouge forces captured Phnom Penh and evacuated all cities and towns. At least 1.5 million Cambodians died from execution, forced hardships, or starvation during the Khmer Rouge regime under POL POT.




Skull stupa that will stay to remind the Cambodians their murky pages of past.


This smile just couldn't stop you from thinking what was his ideology.


A December 1978 Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge into the countryside, began a 10-year Vietnamese occupation, and touched off almost 13 years of civil war.

The 1991 Paris Peace Accords mandated democratic elections and a ceasefire, which was not fully respected by the Khmer Rouge. UN-sponsored elections in 1993 helped restore some semblance of normalcy under a coalition government.

Factional fighting in 1997 ended the first coalition government, but a second round of national elections in 1998 led to the formation of another coalition government and renewed political stability. The remaining elements of the Khmer Rouge surrendered in early 1999.

Some of the remaining leaders are awaiting trial by a UN-sponsored tribunal for crimes against humanity. Elections in July 2003 were relatively peaceful, but it took one year of negotiations between contending political parties before a coalition government was formed.


Do you know why now? Don't frolic around and take what we are savouring now for granted.

Races' race?

cartoons from Zunar


Lately there have been numerous issues pertaining the multiracial elements of our beloved country. Things are going wild. All the many words about perpaduan and how we should take full pride of the harmony admist the divergence that we have been reading and being instilled in our KBSR/KBSM system, seems to be pretty bloviating.

I do not have any comment, but disheartened? Yeah... All the chaos, unwillingness to accept the words of sorry from Mr Lee, and keeping mum of Khairy in a clarification press conference that uses Hishamudin's lips to sort of clarify (not even a word of sorry and intention to apologize here) to people that we'd MISUNDERSTOOD what he has stirred up, is nothing but just a cruel reflection of how our education system has faltered.

I couldn't gather much videos or news on the above matters. Below are just some.
Isn't Mr Lee was right then?

No new school for SRK(C) and (T)
*Should we cry foul or cry over spilt milk?
What Chinese of PRC think about Mr Lee's comments...
*harsh
Mr Lim on this "ask for SORRY, decline to say one" and Chinese Education issue
* u know, last time I dont quite like him...
Read About Khairy on Wikipedia.
* Last three paragraphs are interesting. Was him trying to get some political credits by creating the uproar?

Terrible

Two weeks with fever, stomach upset, Maxolon allergic reaction, loss of appetite and dehydration shredded 5kgs of me.

Terrible.

Oh in one of the eat-nothing-much days I was watching this 8pm news and heard a top politician from UMNO Youth referring the Chief Minister of Penang as “Dia” while requesting the minister to carry out a meeting with UMNO Youth to solve the deficient development chances to the Bumiputera in Penang (phuh, chances are teeming to be grabbed right?)

But my point is, Dia? "Terpulanglah kepada dia sama ada dia mahu mengadakan mesyuarat tersebut"?

Terrible.

Third. Anyone heard and saw our MIC head looking down on and off (do you think it's a piece of paper with three or four lines of our national anthem lyrics down there?) when singing Negaraku on TV?

Terrible. Terribly funny.