Sad Ending Siege

Seriously, one has to wonder at the thought process.

To prove my innocence in alleged crimes of extortion, I shall kidnap a bus-load of tourists.

Nope. Can't follow it. And rightly so. I wouldn't like to think like a hostage-taker.

For context: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/world/asia/24phils.html?src=me

Found while browsing the supermarket aisles...

The biscuit formerly known as golliwog? Relics of a time gone by, I
think this is what happens to politically incorrect snacks in a PC
world.

What would Enid Blyton say?

Hear Ye Hear Ye

I would just like to let it be known that Yeo's Chicken Rendang (with Chef Wan's face on the tin) is NOT good.

Actually it IS good. As an argument against eating canned meat.

Yes I suppose it is quite gross to be eating something seeping in juices that has been dead for an unknown number of months (or years).

Well, now I know for sure.

Yeo's Chicken Rendang (with Chef Wan's face on the tin) is NOT good.

Dental work is just highly skilled plumbing

After a gap of at least a year, I went to the dentist today and found a disgraceful amount of cavities.

Some filling was necessary.

But as the high-pitched drilling sound was resonating in my head, this scary thought struck me:

Dentists are basically putting mini power tools in your mouth and doing plumbing work.

How is that not scary?

I wanted to paste some picture of dental work being done with power tools.

But googling led me to find that horses' teeth are actually worked on by power tools.

Man.... sucks to be a horse.

Oh, and it just struck me it is my second horsey post in a row. Gee...

I have to share the odd coincidence that after yesterday's post, i drove by 3 trucks of polo horses on the way home.

It was funny because the horses were travelling by car.

Am I a Neighsayer of Cars? Hur hur hur I did not just make that pun...

As I drove to work today, I passed by what looked suspiciously like horse droppings on the road. This is unusual as I live in Kuala Lumpur.

There are no horses in Kuala Lumpur (save perhaps in the zoo, in horse riding centres and at the sultan's palace).

Anyway, I then started fantasizing, as I was stuck in my little metal box, about a time when equine travel was again possible. I mean, the more I thought about it, the more I could frame:

Arguments for Horsey Travel

1) Horses are environmentally-friendlier! They do not give out noxious carbon fumes, only noxious methane gases. Here I shall attempt to get sciencey, so pardon me or skip to next point if bored.

Of course someone else did the math and I just plagiarised it... but credit given where credit's due:http://ezinearticles.com/?Cows-Vs-Cars---The-Methane-Versus-Carbon-Dioxide-Battle&id=2877531

From another page, I found out that a dairy cow produces twice as much as waste as a pony and about 1/6th more than a medium horse. Taking that into account, here's how a horse squares up against your car.

A car on average produces 4100 pounds of CO2 a year

A cow on average produces 220 pounds of methane a year so a horse is at around 183 pounds

However, as a greenhouse gas, methane is 20 times as harmful as CO2! Therefore, in terms of greenhouse harm, a car = 4100 while a cow=4400 and a horse = 3660

Ha! I am still at a win for the horse! But you might want to rethink your consumption of steak for the planet's sake. (also seeing as how there are vastly more cows in the world than there are cars)

2) Fuel economy. Again, more information appropriated from this site:http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2005/05/horses-vs-cars.html

Math math math and what you get is that a pony can travel approximately 1.25 miles/pound of feedwhereas a car working on switchgrass fuel (sorry that dude's post was based on one where he discussed this new biofuel made from a grass so that's what he bases his calculations on) will travel 0.83 miles/pound of switchgrass.

3) It's a pony! WHICH LITTLE GIRL DOESN'T WANT A PONY!?!?

4) Horses can be your friends. Or at least that's what i learned from My Little Pony.

5) Horses produce their own substitutes. Never have to pay for a car again... EVER! You will have to have about a year of just feeding and no travel benefits though, i suppose.

6) Used horseshoes can become a fun game of horseshoe toss

7) Horses that turn out exceptionally fast can be invested into horse racing - i hear tell it is lucrative. Then they can be studs when they are older. Can your car get you money for producing fast little heirs?

8) Old horses can become satay or glue. (i did NOT say that *gasp*)

9) Horses can jump fences

10) Horses can keep the grass on your lawn short

11) Horses can snort at your enemies

12) They are just cool and you can give them names like Binky

Horse wins!

However, it would be unfair if i didn't point out that

• A horse cannot carry a family of four
• Plus luggage
• A horse can't travel for much more than 40 km a day (that's just about enough to make it to Klang from KL, for those of us numerically disadvantaged folks)
• Horses need to eat a lot. All day.
• Horses poo. And you need to clean that up.
• Horses are moody. Will your boss let you skip work cos your house was throwing a tantrum?
• Horses smell horsey. As will your clothes. And your hair. And y0u.

Ah well, perhaps someday my dream will see fruition. We will hark back to the days when men were white knights on big horses and women were swooning over their machodom. But we will be doing it while sipping espressos and talking on our iPhones of course.

Because this has already been full of horses, let me take the opportunity to throw in a fat pony.

This be my fat pony sent to me by Aaron. (he being an awesome boyfriend *mush mush*)

And this be the comic.

*the picture refuses to scale down for me so if you would be so kind to click 'open in a new page' then you will see it in all its full glory*

It was an appropriate comic, thinks I.

More wonderful fat pony goodness (as well as other great historical stuff) can be found at Kate Beaton's comic site.

You must love her, because I do.

Okay, less ponies and more work! *neigh*!

Sukan adalah Muhibah

Quickly, while Malaysia is still in the Thomas Cup, I have to share my experience of my first live badminton match. Knowing that in most of the football matches I have watched live, I've always wished there was running commentary and instant replays, I was a little unsure what a live badminton match would be like. The crowd always seems a little crazy on TV and the court might be really far away, will i lose interest halfway?

Well, mum and I thought since the Thomas Cup is in town let's go watch it. Fate would have it that I've got stuff on during the Finals and the Quarters (kiasu watch the best mah, right?) and that may have been a fortunate turn of fate because our Malaysian team looks shaky on their feet at the moment, having lost just the day before our match to Japan. (Japan? Not quite the powerhouse, you would think).

Arriving at the stadium, we passed by the stalls selling food and badminton gear and ambled our way to our seats. Oh, and they gave us a free little Malaysian flag to wave too. Yay Malaysia! Of courseon the way we stocked up on snack food! Pizza, and a hot dog and some really really tasty chips! If you spot Ireland Potatoes anymore, do try their chips with wasabi mayonnaise! Good fat chips are hard to find. It's a bonus that you have seats and are able to enjoy your meal slowly.

The match started pretty on time with Germany and Japan squaring off directly in front of me and Malaysia vs. Denmark in the court next door (which was still relatively near - arguably better to have a bit of a side view). I really pity Germany and Japan because naturally most of the stadium was shouting for Malaysia and even when Chong Wei made his entrance to "Eye of the Tiger" (hahaha we will never tire of that song), the crowd was going crazy with screams of Malaysia Boleh and the whole time the German and Japanese players had to just suck it up, deal with it and continue playing. I suppose that is home country privilege. :P

Have to say that Chong Wei and the pairing of KKK-Tan pretty much breezed through their matches. But it was when it came to our 3rd game that stuff got pretty... haha.. what shall i say, worked up?

In particular i thought this instance was damned funny and particularly 1Malaysia. Our 2nd doubles team (Abdul Malik - Hoon) was playing fairly terribly at one point and they kept dropping really easy points. I mean, against tall Danish players what does one do... feed the shuttlecock really high up, right? (-_-")
I love that the guy sitting behind me shouted 'Ah macam tu la! Mereka pendek aje! Bagi tinggi tinggi mereka tak boleh dapat lah!" hehehe... the crowd was SO agitated by how we were losing easy points!
Then at one stage, a dude sitting quite a few rows behind started shouting "Malaysia! Main la! Bodoh! OOoOoiiII!!!Kick their f*cking ass!!" I glanced behind and saw a superly red-faced Chinese man at the edge of his seat and I think if i had looked closer, I could probably have spotted some veins popping out at his temple. Lo and behold though, after that scolding they actually scored! He kept quiet for the next service and our team lost points again.

Then the guy seated behind me stood up and turned to the angry man and shouted "Bos! Marah lagi bos! Marah lagi!"hahaha.. the whole crowd laughed along and seriously, i kid you not. He shouted again and they won the next few points.

That's teamwork for you! hahaha... There were also lots of heartening Malaysia Boleh chants and I really did feel some sense of camaraderie with all the people I was sitting with. Chatting with the makcik next to me the whole way and we even jaga each other's bags when going out to toilet, etc.

I have to say I have never felt more muhibah in Malaysia than while cheering on our team. The two chubby boys in front of us were soooo involved in the match you could one of the boys' frustration when we dropped shots. He'd flick his wrist and make a loud Tsk noise. And it was quite entertaining to see him praying when our chances of staying in the cup rested on the last few shots by our third singles player Hafiz.

Kudos to him by the way, he played excellently last night and I don't blame him. I think if he had lost there would have been chances of a crowd lynching!

There was also the kompang man decked out in his Malaysia flag outfit. From the stripey pants to the knitted jalur gemilang on his hat, he was really great at encouraging the crowd and players, and i appreciated that he knew when to keep quiet as the game started again.

Anyway, this has been a long play by play, i just wanted to convey that i think sport is such a great nation-building exercise and really, that is worth so much more than all the 1Malaysia ads/songs you could ever put up.

If it worked for South Africa, it can work for us.

Oh, and although i think China will massacre us in the quarters tomorrow,

MALAYSIA BOLEH!!

A Lesson in Minding your Media

I would like to express my deepest gratitude, first of all, to Weng Lum for sharing this article with me: TNB to Sue WWF Over Earth Hour, and then to the blogger at nose4news for entertaining me so well this Friday afternoon.

My initial reaction reading the article was 'OMG. The bastards. Are you sure?' And a bit of googling helped me find out that I was not the only one outraged. Upon closer scrutiny though, the top heading of 'Asia’s Biggest Loser loses rest of body weight, disappears into thin air' did seem a little bit suspect. Haha.. a fact I proceeded to share with Weng.

After which our gaze diverted to the banner. (this is the point when you do the same for that 'Oh.. i get it' moment)

Anyway, I totally love this website now. nose4news And yes I was tempted into browsing the archives whereby i was simultaneously impressed and disgusted by the Malaysian intellect.

Totally impressed that there's a satirist sophisticated enough to come up with these news articles. Reads really well and is so DARNED funny with the visuals (haha.. Keris Kebenaran is classy) but at the same time SO DEPRESSED that even with the glaring banner, the many comments indicating that it is all a fake, there are still SO MANY IDIOTS in Malaysia.

Post in point is this one: Sabah & Sarawak to be Relocated

Here are my fave bits of the article (including the marvelously photoshopped map)

Before: Malaysia as it is

After: Malaysia post-cosmetic surgery

“It’s a big project, costing well over RM850 trillion,” said Najib. “The project would take 10 years to complete, since we’d need to move all the soil, water sources, flora, fauna, man-made structures and of course, the people. But it’ll be worth it, since we’ll truly be 1Malaysia.”

“Of course, we might ‘improve’ some things when we rebuild the states. We’re thinking, maybe Mount Kinabalu could be higher than Everest. I mean, why not? It’s not every day that you get to change what nature has given us.

“And if we take the soil from inside Gua Niah and use it to add on Mount Kinabalu’s height, we’d get both a bigger cave and taller mountain, effectively rewriting two Guinness World Records. Now that’s what I call value for money!”

On protests by the Kelantan state government, citing the ‘loss of a coastline’ and ‘off-shore petroleum’, Najib said that this is of national interest, and the opposition-held state administration should not be so selfish.

“These people simply refuse to understand the importance of 1Malaysia. They keep on looking a the small things like the death of their fishing industry or the loss of billions of ringgit of income.

“Serves the Kelantanese people right for voting in such small-minded leaders.”

Okay, so the post, we agree, is superbly well-written so you would suspect it of being genuine. What more because our ministers HAVE said some questionable things before, i.e: "We are not saying that they cannot use Facebook or Twitter but when using such facilities they must upkeep the values taught by Islam, Buddhism or Christianity to maintain our culture," but you haven't seen anything til you've read the comments.

Idris
December 14, 2009 at 11:58 pm

Better use these trillions of RM to improve the institutions of learning, give our scholarships to the poor based on merit, build more technical colleges to develop skills of students who are not so academically-inclined ie for skills upgrading so these people can find a job, build better hospitals and look at ways to improve the public healthcare systems, improve the roads and upgrade the computer systems of public offices. Basically, use the money to stimulate the econony and build it, enhance it, grow it for the properity of the Rakyat.

This moronic PM comes up with idea to siphon off the Rakyat’s money. He should do a feasibility study first. To me, this is gonna be a useless project.

Bodoh punya orang.

Bertaubatlah Najib. Insyallah.
Idris.

Okaylah Idris. You posted as soon as the post came up. Forgive your stupidity. Noone told you yet.

Brokenheart
December 15, 2009 at 12:27 am

Our PM suddenly became God when he talks like this.If God said it I beleive because God can do all the IMPOSSIBLE which humanly think is impossible,for example an earthquake or tsunami can change landscape.So I do not know what God or gods our PM pray to that made him think and want to act like God.If this idea comes then those gods can be very dangerous and we have seen that with the ** incident.We better pray hard for the mind of our PM to stay in good shape.

One day later - still got excuse?

retard
December 15, 2009 at 1:16 am

this is simply not feasible because the maintenance just to keep the two new land masses from disappearing due to poor shoddy workmanship would cost 400 quadrillion a year.

This is a classy comment though.

FUTURE PM
January 2, 2010 at 2:35 pm

wtf is this ! 850 trillion my S !
Dont talk about the money, think of the citizens condition.. Dont you ever think they will get nightmare when sleeping, been torturing for 10yrs, it is like the earth is not safer anymore !
Can you ensure that no one will die !
Can you ensure that no building will collapse!
Can you ensure that ALL THE CITIZENS want this to be happened ?
Say this is democratic country, do the people have the right to say YES / NO for this project!
Why dont you run a survey to get permission first !

MONEY !!
Our hard earn money !! 10yrs squeezing people money into your ‘pocket’
We are your citizens not your toys !

PM ! cant your just think for us, switching your position as a citizen, dont always be on top! you miss out alot of things. Whatever you think is not the ppl need ! Cmon you have to be more mature !
WHat you spoken, doesnt ever convince the people! WE ARE LIKE LIVING IN HELL SOON ! ” Peepo cross-finger ! we will be tortured soon, enjoy the best for now !

But seriously, after a month?

Anyway, my point being that the government is sometimes really stupid but erm.. when you see how people lap up anything typed in a posh enough font - then you understand why we are where we are, huh?

I for one choose to revel in the few who question and then write hilarious articles. Thanks nose4news! Will be checking back often :)

And to everyone else, check your facts before you believe everything!

(and switch off your lights 8.30pm - 9.30 pm on Saturday the 27th March. Pretty sure TNB employees won't be losing their bonuses)

India Alive!

Three months into the year and my last post was in November of last! *gasp*
Unforgiveable.
On the off chance people may still perceive this blog to be alive, i shall jot down my observations of India.
What is that? Yes.. i Did go to India (finally!) and i have to say to my former postmodernist tutor NO! I did NOT prepare myself spiritually for it and I think i came out FINE. *pooh pooh*
Anyway, the place is simultaneously frustrating, amazing, beautiful, dirty, friendly, full of con-artists and really infuriatingly a hodge podge of humanity. You get the best AND the worst, i reckon. However, i think the craziest thing of all is how in that huge mess that it is, the place just works.
How can a town full of cows and goats and shit all over, with nary a proper sewage system, zooming rickshaws everywhere and just a seething mass of people... how can it work? But it does! And that is Incredible India. Love it and hate it all at once.
Anyhoos, a little teaser to whet your appetite and hopefully I will get to uploading and blogging more in the near future :)