Firstly, Love United. What a lovely song that was. In the video, Roberto Carlos is quite funny.
Anyway, thought I post a follow up on that list I put up last week:-
1. Already placed an order for the door. It should be here within this two weeks.
2. Guy who hit me promised to pay me this week.
3. I keep forgetting to look through the CDs in the car. Might do that tomorrow, I'll move them out of the car at least.
4. Backup of music in progress. Lots of DVDs.
5. Still no time to play guitar. Work gets in the way. And Football Manager.
6. Too lazy to close bank accounts. Besides, there isn't much money in them anyway. I might want to keep the Maybank one just in case I need their online payment service.
2 out of 6. Which is less than half. Ah well.
Yesterday, I was hanging around with my colleagues at work and someone blurted out that our Swaggery colleague has got himself a date with this woman from another department.
That is bloody fast. Last week they didn't even know each other. Actually, I wanted to slowly talk to her.
Once again I'm going to have to let this one slide.
Relationship dynamics can be quite complicated but watching Swaggery colleague work his way through women is frightening. His method is scarily simple. He just bulldozes them, never giving them any chances to overthink. Take it or leave it. Now or never. It's mystifying.
Needless to say he gets laid quite a lot.
Some might say it's a matter of timing but from what I see here, being forward is more rewarding. Being brash and swaggery helps too apparently.
That's the X factor. Swaggery colleague has tons of total confidence in himself. Almost too much one might say. I'd pay money to be that confident and that fearless. I guess confidence is what separates the wheat from the chaff.
Sometimes I think, where did this confidence come from? Is he confident because he gets laid a lot or does he get laid a lot because he's confident?
Also, guys like this make it hard for ordinary guys.
You see, he gets laid a lot. So, behind him he leaves a trail of messed up women who fell for him. In fact, he dumped one just last weekend. *Snaps fingers* just like that.
Now, let's say that I met one of these "leftovers". Let's say that I wanted to befriend her and take her for dinner or whatever. She won't. Because I'm a guy and guys are scum. Just like the last guy who dumped her.
Unfortunately, this isn't a hypothetical scenario. Wrong place wrong time?
Anyway, there are three conclusions. Conclusion number 1, low confidence equals no success with women. No surprise there.
Conclusion number 2, the more easily one hooks up with a member of the opposite sex, the easier it is to leave them just like that. It's because one can get away with it and people will give one more chances to "make up for it" so to speak. It's not necessarily evil, it's just the way it is. If you're desirable then you can get away with being a bitch/jerk because you're desirable and people are more willing to let it slide. That's why people stay is bad relationships.
Don't ask me why, I've tolerated bad treatment out of want and desire myself. It's just human stupidity I suppose...
And lastly, unless you have a "move" or are attractive or uber confident, if you are just an ordinary joe, the one and only one thing you can rely on is still just pure, blind, dumb luck.
That sucks but there you go.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Long Delay
Very sorry.
Six days between updates. That's a new record I think.
There's not much to write about this days. Nothing important anyway.
I went to Diana's and Cyrus' wedding dinner on Saturday night. It was a grand affair. They didn't spare any expense. It was fun. Alvin Leong is one damn good photographer. He's kind of expensive, but after seeing some of his work that night I kind of understand why.
The rest of dinner was alright. I didn't really say much to everyone at my table on account of a banging headache which mercifully petered out as the evening went on. Some funny stories were told.
I didn't get to say much to either bride or groom, which was a shame. They were both quite harried, having to greet everyone at each table. There were many tables.
I hope that they will be happy and that their married life is as great as the reception. They are very lucky. In this world these days, it's hard to get that lucky. Both very nice people.
After dinner, I went to meet up with Rin, Jerome and Zack.
There were no negative vibes that night. I didn't feel sorry for myself and I wasn't plunged into introspective mode. I guess I really am alright now. The fact that no one asked me any "dumb" questions really helped though. I was kind of worried about that.
I did realize other things. Things concerning my rapidly advancing age and the fact that middle life is less than a decade away. I realize that I'm not really going to have a stereotypical, normal, average future so to speak.
I'm not really sure if I'm 100% comfortable with that idea yet. I do wish for some of the trappings of "normality" sometimes.
I guess it'll be all ok in the end. I hope. I do realize that this "normalcy" that I sometimes want won't happen without any effort. We'll see if I ever get enough motivation.
In other news, I watched The Prestige on Friday night. It was awesome. Spectacular even. Rivetting stuff. Go and watch it. You won't regret it. Seriously.
The end of the year is upon us already. In my work calenday, today counts as the first day of the first week of November. Already I'm feeling the holiday spirit!
This year I don't think I'll be doing anything special on New Year's Eve. Especially considering that I have to work on New Year's Day itself.
I have a feeling that this year, the end of the year will be a quiet, peaceful one. That's just fine by me.
This week I will start buying parts for my new system. I'm planning to slowly build it up so that I don't overload my credit, starting with board/cpu/ram this week. This is going to be fun.
So, how has every else's weekend been.
Six days between updates. That's a new record I think.
There's not much to write about this days. Nothing important anyway.
I went to Diana's and Cyrus' wedding dinner on Saturday night. It was a grand affair. They didn't spare any expense. It was fun. Alvin Leong is one damn good photographer. He's kind of expensive, but after seeing some of his work that night I kind of understand why.
The rest of dinner was alright. I didn't really say much to everyone at my table on account of a banging headache which mercifully petered out as the evening went on. Some funny stories were told.
I didn't get to say much to either bride or groom, which was a shame. They were both quite harried, having to greet everyone at each table. There were many tables.
I hope that they will be happy and that their married life is as great as the reception. They are very lucky. In this world these days, it's hard to get that lucky. Both very nice people.
After dinner, I went to meet up with Rin, Jerome and Zack.
There were no negative vibes that night. I didn't feel sorry for myself and I wasn't plunged into introspective mode. I guess I really am alright now. The fact that no one asked me any "dumb" questions really helped though. I was kind of worried about that.
I did realize other things. Things concerning my rapidly advancing age and the fact that middle life is less than a decade away. I realize that I'm not really going to have a stereotypical, normal, average future so to speak.
I'm not really sure if I'm 100% comfortable with that idea yet. I do wish for some of the trappings of "normality" sometimes.
I guess it'll be all ok in the end. I hope. I do realize that this "normalcy" that I sometimes want won't happen without any effort. We'll see if I ever get enough motivation.
In other news, I watched The Prestige on Friday night. It was awesome. Spectacular even. Rivetting stuff. Go and watch it. You won't regret it. Seriously.
The end of the year is upon us already. In my work calenday, today counts as the first day of the first week of November. Already I'm feeling the holiday spirit!
This year I don't think I'll be doing anything special on New Year's Eve. Especially considering that I have to work on New Year's Day itself.
I have a feeling that this year, the end of the year will be a quiet, peaceful one. That's just fine by me.
This week I will start buying parts for my new system. I'm planning to slowly build it up so that I don't overload my credit, starting with board/cpu/ram this week. This is going to be fun.
So, how has every else's weekend been.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
More About Football/Selamat Hari Raya!
I'm very engrossed by FM 2007 right now. Hence the "disappearance".
*football starts here
Talking about FM 2007, the Football Manager franchise gets better and better with every installment. This one is the best one yet. This one is also the most challenging one to date. Yet somehow, not as frustrating as some previous versions of the game.
Most likely this is due to the extra speed boost courtesy of the optimized coding. I really appreciate this. Previously, Football Manager games were notorious for being very slow and unwieldy.
I've started a few FM games. I learnt the ropes by managing Brighton and Hove Albion. Later I started a French League game, managing Toulouse FC. I also started a Serie A game, managing AC Milan just for the heck of it. I usually stay away from the big clubs. I like to play down in the lower leagues which is usually quite challenging.
That doesn't mean the managing a club like Milan any less of a challenge however. The challenge is different.
Anyway, the experience of playing Milan is quite exciting. I have a squad of stars, millions in the bank and skyhigh expectations from the board of directors (Silvio Berlusconi!) and the fans.
I don't play this AC Milan career often. It's there for pure fun factor. Managing a world superpower football team is fun!
Yesterday, I started my "proper" campaign. I created an English/Irish manager and started the game with no job. Later, I was offered the vacant AFC Bournemouth job. I took it.
What a far cry from Milan! They may both wear the same colours (black and red stripes) but they are from different worlds. Bournemouth are a small, mediocre team with little cash, a little stadium and little hope of ever leaving League 2.
Yes, I'm finding it harder than usual. Goals are hard to come by, so winning is rare and precious (unlike Milan). Defence is pretty good but I'm finding it hard to kill off opponents and win games. I draw a lot of games (0-0 and 1-1). Especially at home.
I cannot strenghen the squad much because I have no money to sign people and I can't get anyone on free transfer because I can't pay their wages.
I'm loving it though.
FM may not have the glitzy graphics some games have, but when it comes to management simulation all the others don't even come even remotely near in terms of realism and depth. I urge all football fans to try it.
*end of football talk
In other news, today is Hari Raya Aidilfitri. I have many friends who celebrate it and I wish them all a blessed and joyous holiday.
This also means that there's no one in the office right now. Today should be a quiet-ish day.
Last week I said I wanted to do something about lists. Here is mine:-
Things I need to do this week.
1. Get my replacement door. It will cost RM226/-. Not including spray, which will cost RM180/-
2. Get the guy who hit me to cough up at least 50% of the total cost at the end of the month. I'll worry about the other 50% later.
3. Look through all the CDs in my car. I have stuff in those CDs that I don't have in my PC.
3a. Buy a CD marker.
4. Back up ALL my music. I have 40Gbs of it. It will take 12 DVDs.
5. Play guitar. I haven't played in a good long while and I really should because we have 3 really good guitars in the house. The callouses on my fingers are gone so I'm going to have to build them up again.
5. While I fix my door I might as well fix that ugly dent in the bonnet of the car, which was my own fault (parking mishap).
6. Close unnecesary bank accounts. I have 2 accounts that are dormant. There is money in them.
If I do half these things by this time next week, I'll be quite happy.
That is all for today and Selamat Hari Raya again to all those who are celebrating.
*football starts here
Talking about FM 2007, the Football Manager franchise gets better and better with every installment. This one is the best one yet. This one is also the most challenging one to date. Yet somehow, not as frustrating as some previous versions of the game.
Most likely this is due to the extra speed boost courtesy of the optimized coding. I really appreciate this. Previously, Football Manager games were notorious for being very slow and unwieldy.
I've started a few FM games. I learnt the ropes by managing Brighton and Hove Albion. Later I started a French League game, managing Toulouse FC. I also started a Serie A game, managing AC Milan just for the heck of it. I usually stay away from the big clubs. I like to play down in the lower leagues which is usually quite challenging.
That doesn't mean the managing a club like Milan any less of a challenge however. The challenge is different.
Anyway, the experience of playing Milan is quite exciting. I have a squad of stars, millions in the bank and skyhigh expectations from the board of directors (Silvio Berlusconi!) and the fans.
I don't play this AC Milan career often. It's there for pure fun factor. Managing a world superpower football team is fun!
Yesterday, I started my "proper" campaign. I created an English/Irish manager and started the game with no job. Later, I was offered the vacant AFC Bournemouth job. I took it.
What a far cry from Milan! They may both wear the same colours (black and red stripes) but they are from different worlds. Bournemouth are a small, mediocre team with little cash, a little stadium and little hope of ever leaving League 2.
Yes, I'm finding it harder than usual. Goals are hard to come by, so winning is rare and precious (unlike Milan). Defence is pretty good but I'm finding it hard to kill off opponents and win games. I draw a lot of games (0-0 and 1-1). Especially at home.
I cannot strenghen the squad much because I have no money to sign people and I can't get anyone on free transfer because I can't pay their wages.
I'm loving it though.
FM may not have the glitzy graphics some games have, but when it comes to management simulation all the others don't even come even remotely near in terms of realism and depth. I urge all football fans to try it.
*end of football talk
In other news, today is Hari Raya Aidilfitri. I have many friends who celebrate it and I wish them all a blessed and joyous holiday.
This also means that there's no one in the office right now. Today should be a quiet-ish day.
Last week I said I wanted to do something about lists. Here is mine:-
Things I need to do this week.
1. Get my replacement door. It will cost RM226/-. Not including spray, which will cost RM180/-
2. Get the guy who hit me to cough up at least 50% of the total cost at the end of the month. I'll worry about the other 50% later.
3. Look through all the CDs in my car. I have stuff in those CDs that I don't have in my PC.
3a. Buy a CD marker.
4. Back up ALL my music. I have 40Gbs of it. It will take 12 DVDs.
5. Play guitar. I haven't played in a good long while and I really should because we have 3 really good guitars in the house. The callouses on my fingers are gone so I'm going to have to build them up again.
5. While I fix my door I might as well fix that ugly dent in the bonnet of the car, which was my own fault (parking mishap).
6. Close unnecesary bank accounts. I have 2 accounts that are dormant. There is money in them.
If I do half these things by this time next week, I'll be quite happy.
That is all for today and Selamat Hari Raya again to all those who are celebrating.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Finally, FM 2007
I was reading Suanie and from there I got the very interesting and very hilarious MadHaiku! It's absolutely brilliant. Check it out.
And talking about brilliant, this morning I downloaded Football Manager 2007. The game hasn't been officially released yet, but from what I can tell it's the full version with all the leagues and correct updated data. Now, I would buy the original like I did with Need for Speed:Carbon, but it would cost RM149. Personally, I think that's just a little too much. I'd buy it if it cost half that.
So I started the game up and picked one of the managerless clubs in the English Football League, Brighton and Hove Albion. My first impression is good so far. The game is very fast now, unlike before when clicking continue would begin a very boring wait. The makers of the game claims to have optimised the code and from what I can see so far, I believe them.
The interface is very slick, similar in look to the previous FM 2006 but with extra bits thrown in.
The match engine looks the same as before, but I only played one match before I left for work so I wouldn't know for sure until I play more matches. The new features are quite nice, prematch team talk, more options to interact with players (like asking them if they know of any other footballer that I can sign for the club) and of course the feeder club. Or rather in my case, my parent club which in this case is Le Havre AC.
There is a great number of new little touches to the game and I wouldn't be able to write about all of it. Lets just say that in relation to FM2006, FM2007 looks kind of the same but not exactly the same.
Like I said, I've only just played one friendly match (I forgot against whom) and lost it 0-1. So I'm still getting used to it before I go play seriously... and manage a team in Italy. Or maybe Spain? I hope they tweaked the match engine enough, I had the greatest trouble with FM2006 tactics.
In other news, I still need to fix my car this weekend. I haven't heard anything from my mechanic friends about a door yet. I hope they find it soon. If not, I have to go order the door from Proton and God knows how much that would cost.
Tomorrow, I have no work so I'll probably be playing FM2007 until 10.00am at least.
There's something else I feel like writing about, but not right now since that would lengthen this post by way too much. Something about lists. I'll do that next week, probably.
And talking about brilliant, this morning I downloaded Football Manager 2007. The game hasn't been officially released yet, but from what I can tell it's the full version with all the leagues and correct updated data. Now, I would buy the original like I did with Need for Speed:Carbon, but it would cost RM149. Personally, I think that's just a little too much. I'd buy it if it cost half that.
So I started the game up and picked one of the managerless clubs in the English Football League, Brighton and Hove Albion. My first impression is good so far. The game is very fast now, unlike before when clicking continue would begin a very boring wait. The makers of the game claims to have optimised the code and from what I can see so far, I believe them.
The interface is very slick, similar in look to the previous FM 2006 but with extra bits thrown in.
The match engine looks the same as before, but I only played one match before I left for work so I wouldn't know for sure until I play more matches. The new features are quite nice, prematch team talk, more options to interact with players (like asking them if they know of any other footballer that I can sign for the club) and of course the feeder club. Or rather in my case, my parent club which in this case is Le Havre AC.
There is a great number of new little touches to the game and I wouldn't be able to write about all of it. Lets just say that in relation to FM2006, FM2007 looks kind of the same but not exactly the same.
Like I said, I've only just played one friendly match (I forgot against whom) and lost it 0-1. So I'm still getting used to it before I go play seriously... and manage a team in Italy. Or maybe Spain? I hope they tweaked the match engine enough, I had the greatest trouble with FM2006 tactics.
In other news, I still need to fix my car this weekend. I haven't heard anything from my mechanic friends about a door yet. I hope they find it soon. If not, I have to go order the door from Proton and God knows how much that would cost.
Tomorrow, I have no work so I'll probably be playing FM2007 until 10.00am at least.
There's something else I feel like writing about, but not right now since that would lengthen this post by way too much. Something about lists. I'll do that next week, probably.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Speedposting 2
Soon.
Soon I will be free on Saturdays again! For three months. Until middle of January next year! More importantly, this means that I'll be free when other people are free.
Yay.
------
I was reading the news, blogs, comments on blogs and Malaysiakini just now and I was thinking if aliens landed here tonight and read those same things, they would think that this place is really screwed up what with its politics, racism, marginalisation and other sundry stupidity.
Actually, it's not, but we all know that. And by WE, I mean The Others. The sane people in this country. The ones who aren't racist or narrow minded or crazed religious fanatics (these includes some atheists also by the way) or bigoted in some other way. Usually, The Others don't have blogs or regularly express their opinions in public.
Even if they do have blogs or other public outlets of expression, most of the time The Others write about daily stuff. Or work. Or their hobbies. Or other things that pundit wanna-be trendwhores would consider "irrelevant".
I don't write about politics or news or current issues much. But that doesn't mean that I don't care or don't think about what's happening around us. I'm sure I speak for most regular people when I say this.
While we don't say much, we are all watching. We are all vigilant. Crazy people talk and try to screw things up, but one reason why this country hasn't torn itself apart yet is that most of Us are sane, regular people who just want to enjoy our lives in peace.
So, we must continue to watch and be careful. There a lots of people out there whom if given the chance, would turn this country into their own private dystopian nightmare based on their own beliefs and ambitions.
Good thing for us this country is a democracy. We must do out utmost to stop unfit people from being elected into office. We must never be bedazzled by them and give them power.
If they do then we, the sane people of this country, are screwed.
------
Regular followers of this blog would notice that recently I have been dividing posts into sections by marking them with "------" It's a new thing I'm trying.
You see, sometimes when I write, many things pop up in my head. Usually, I say,"Hmm, I'll write about that in the next post" but usually, I forget about it. And so to avoid wasting all these thoughts I've decided to try writing all of it down in the same post, but in their own sections.
------
Finally some assorted minor news.
On Sunday morning as I was about to leave work, some guy reversed into my car's rear door. It's badly dented. The guy has promised to pay for repairs. So now, I'm looking for a rear driver side door for my car. Apparently, beating the door back into shape takes too long and costs the same as a new door.
So until I buy a door, I have to drive with a huge dent on the car's right side. Bummer.
Last night, I went out to pay my bills and every ATM in town was out of money. According to one guy I met at the Eon Finance ATM vestibule, it's something to do with government servants getting their Raya bonuses. I can believe that. I went to Hopoh at 8.30pm and the place was packed with whole families shopping for clothes.
I couldn't even park nearby. Which is remarkable since it's Wisma Hopoh and not too many people go there.
I'm getting my car tinted on Saturday evening. It's going to look really nice. Except for that dent in the rear door....
Soon I will be free on Saturdays again! For three months. Until middle of January next year! More importantly, this means that I'll be free when other people are free.
Yay.
------
I was reading the news, blogs, comments on blogs and Malaysiakini just now and I was thinking if aliens landed here tonight and read those same things, they would think that this place is really screwed up what with its politics, racism, marginalisation and other sundry stupidity.
Actually, it's not, but we all know that. And by WE, I mean The Others. The sane people in this country. The ones who aren't racist or narrow minded or crazed religious fanatics (these includes some atheists also by the way) or bigoted in some other way. Usually, The Others don't have blogs or regularly express their opinions in public.
Even if they do have blogs or other public outlets of expression, most of the time The Others write about daily stuff. Or work. Or their hobbies. Or other things that pundit wanna-be trendwhores would consider "irrelevant".
I don't write about politics or news or current issues much. But that doesn't mean that I don't care or don't think about what's happening around us. I'm sure I speak for most regular people when I say this.
While we don't say much, we are all watching. We are all vigilant. Crazy people talk and try to screw things up, but one reason why this country hasn't torn itself apart yet is that most of Us are sane, regular people who just want to enjoy our lives in peace.
So, we must continue to watch and be careful. There a lots of people out there whom if given the chance, would turn this country into their own private dystopian nightmare based on their own beliefs and ambitions.
Good thing for us this country is a democracy. We must do out utmost to stop unfit people from being elected into office. We must never be bedazzled by them and give them power.
If they do then we, the sane people of this country, are screwed.
------
Regular followers of this blog would notice that recently I have been dividing posts into sections by marking them with "------" It's a new thing I'm trying.
You see, sometimes when I write, many things pop up in my head. Usually, I say,"Hmm, I'll write about that in the next post" but usually, I forget about it. And so to avoid wasting all these thoughts I've decided to try writing all of it down in the same post, but in their own sections.
------
Finally some assorted minor news.
On Sunday morning as I was about to leave work, some guy reversed into my car's rear door. It's badly dented. The guy has promised to pay for repairs. So now, I'm looking for a rear driver side door for my car. Apparently, beating the door back into shape takes too long and costs the same as a new door.
So until I buy a door, I have to drive with a huge dent on the car's right side. Bummer.
Last night, I went out to pay my bills and every ATM in town was out of money. According to one guy I met at the Eon Finance ATM vestibule, it's something to do with government servants getting their Raya bonuses. I can believe that. I went to Hopoh at 8.30pm and the place was packed with whole families shopping for clothes.
I couldn't even park nearby. Which is remarkable since it's Wisma Hopoh and not too many people go there.
I'm getting my car tinted on Saturday evening. It's going to look really nice. Except for that dent in the rear door....
Friday, October 13, 2006
Gaming News
I received a very interesting notification email just now.
Need for Speed: Carbon is available for pre-order. Release date is end of the month. Wow. Just look at the car list. This is going to be the biggest Need for Speed ever.
I'm especially looking forward to Autosculpt, a modding tool that will actually allow you to design your own physical modifications, like body kits. I can picture myself spending hours doing this.
Also, in this installment of NFS, you get to hire your own crew. Teammates, mechanics etc. Plus more tuning options, both cosmetic and performance.
The end of the year is always a great time to be a gamer. Let's take a look at some of my favourite offerings coming out very, very soon.
The Football Manager 2007 demo is out. The game itself should follow soon after.
Like I mentioned before, Medieval 2: Total War is due out on 14th of November.
Sims 2: Pets is due out on the 20th of October. I really hope it works with the Sims 2 Megapack, which is what I have.
Battlefield 2142 is due out on 17th of October. It's also available for preorder.
Also being released on the 31st is Neverwinter Nights 2. Again, also available for preorder.
And finally around Christmas time, Burning Crusade will come out. I hope.
The mind boggles at such a wide array of new stuff. Did I mention that it's a good time to be a gamer?
It's going to be awesome, especially when I change my PC at the end of the year.
Need for Speed: Carbon is available for pre-order. Release date is end of the month. Wow. Just look at the car list. This is going to be the biggest Need for Speed ever.
I'm especially looking forward to Autosculpt, a modding tool that will actually allow you to design your own physical modifications, like body kits. I can picture myself spending hours doing this.
Also, in this installment of NFS, you get to hire your own crew. Teammates, mechanics etc. Plus more tuning options, both cosmetic and performance.
The end of the year is always a great time to be a gamer. Let's take a look at some of my favourite offerings coming out very, very soon.
The Football Manager 2007 demo is out. The game itself should follow soon after.
Like I mentioned before, Medieval 2: Total War is due out on 14th of November.
Sims 2: Pets is due out on the 20th of October. I really hope it works with the Sims 2 Megapack, which is what I have.
Battlefield 2142 is due out on 17th of October. It's also available for preorder.
Also being released on the 31st is Neverwinter Nights 2. Again, also available for preorder.
And finally around Christmas time, Burning Crusade will come out. I hope.
The mind boggles at such a wide array of new stuff. Did I mention that it's a good time to be a gamer?
It's going to be awesome, especially when I change my PC at the end of the year.
Posting at The Speed of Thought
Sometimes when I go hang out with my friends, we reminisce about any number of things.
Things like what TV shows we watched and how they don't make em like they used to, the things we did before the invention of the internet and the good old days when we had to go outside and make our own fun.
And not to mention how tricky it was to schedule a gathering during the days with no cell phones. At least, it seemed like it was tricky. The memory is a little hazy.
There were a lot of good things and great memories of great times that I've had.
And yet at this hour of this morning, my brain persistently asks,"When did it all go wrong?"
A strange question indeed.
I have many things that I can be grateful for, and yet some days I catch myself thinking,"If only I had done [insert correct action here] instead of [what actually happened]..." I find it quite annoying that for all the effort I put in, that side of my head that likes to regret and think up negative things still has a very loud voice and still comes up with things like this. Especially when I'm not looking.
The glass is half full they say. This is a truth that we should embrace. There is much to gain from negative experience. And yet, somehow I find the fact that a half full glass is also half empty more.... comforting, for lack of a better word.
The big question is, why?
Before I go on, I should probably mention that all this is triggered by a few events. Like today, it frustrates me when I try to makes sense of some things. There are things that happen that still baffles me.
I wonder, how is it that some people can act like a bull in a china shop, crashing about in their bellicose, inconsiderate, selfish way, and still get a positive reaction from people. While other people, do it carefully and quietly and get absolutely nothing.
Since when did being rude become the proper way of getting what you want and being nice and polite not be the proper way.
Up = down, left = right, bad = good and lying and being an asshole = dates with women. Despite all those things that people say, this is what I keep noticing, sometimes right here at work. Sometimes, I think the world has turned completely inside out. Or that I got sucked into some parallel bizarro world where all the rules are different.
There's more of this upside down examples I can remember, but I'm going to stop thinking about it. It just makes me mad.
------
World of Warcraft is getting interesting again, after a cooling off period the last month or so. My warrior is level 49 now. That's almost 50! That also means I'm strong enough to solo some low level dungeons. These dungeons usually require a group of 5 people when done at the correct level. Yesterday, I soloed my favourite dungeon, Shadowfang Keep. And this morning, I soloed Black Fathom Deeps, a fabulous instance that is the underwater ruins of an ancient elven temple. I have to hand it to Blizzard, some of the architecture of these instances are awesome.
I get no experience points for doing this, but I did get a ton of auction house fodder, bucketloads of raw material and quite a good amount of coin from the dungeon elites.
I put my haul up for sale and so far half of it is gone and I'm getting cash at a nice rate!
------
I have a wedding to attend to at the end of the month. For once, I can actually go. The last two weddings I wanted to attend, I couldn't because of work.
Ah weddings. I can say it's no big deal but really, those things are. It's almost like a reminder that I'm not doing something right. That something is.... missing. That I'm somehow lacking a basic but important ability.
Ok, I'm going to stop writing about this now before this post goes out of hand. We don't want a woe is me story now. It wouldn't do any good.
I'm just going to go to the wedding, be happy for my friends and have a good time.
------
I was looking at my schedule and I won't have to work on Sunday until the middle of next month! That is nice.
Soon it'll be December. I wonder how the year is going to end. Certainly, the more recent years have been relatively kind.
I'm really grateful for that.
Things like what TV shows we watched and how they don't make em like they used to, the things we did before the invention of the internet and the good old days when we had to go outside and make our own fun.
And not to mention how tricky it was to schedule a gathering during the days with no cell phones. At least, it seemed like it was tricky. The memory is a little hazy.
There were a lot of good things and great memories of great times that I've had.
And yet at this hour of this morning, my brain persistently asks,"When did it all go wrong?"
A strange question indeed.
I have many things that I can be grateful for, and yet some days I catch myself thinking,"If only I had done [insert correct action here] instead of [what actually happened]..." I find it quite annoying that for all the effort I put in, that side of my head that likes to regret and think up negative things still has a very loud voice and still comes up with things like this. Especially when I'm not looking.
The glass is half full they say. This is a truth that we should embrace. There is much to gain from negative experience. And yet, somehow I find the fact that a half full glass is also half empty more.... comforting, for lack of a better word.
The big question is, why?
Before I go on, I should probably mention that all this is triggered by a few events. Like today, it frustrates me when I try to makes sense of some things. There are things that happen that still baffles me.
I wonder, how is it that some people can act like a bull in a china shop, crashing about in their bellicose, inconsiderate, selfish way, and still get a positive reaction from people. While other people, do it carefully and quietly and get absolutely nothing.
Since when did being rude become the proper way of getting what you want and being nice and polite not be the proper way.
Up = down, left = right, bad = good and lying and being an asshole = dates with women. Despite all those things that people say, this is what I keep noticing, sometimes right here at work. Sometimes, I think the world has turned completely inside out. Or that I got sucked into some parallel bizarro world where all the rules are different.
There's more of this upside down examples I can remember, but I'm going to stop thinking about it. It just makes me mad.
------
World of Warcraft is getting interesting again, after a cooling off period the last month or so. My warrior is level 49 now. That's almost 50! That also means I'm strong enough to solo some low level dungeons. These dungeons usually require a group of 5 people when done at the correct level. Yesterday, I soloed my favourite dungeon, Shadowfang Keep. And this morning, I soloed Black Fathom Deeps, a fabulous instance that is the underwater ruins of an ancient elven temple. I have to hand it to Blizzard, some of the architecture of these instances are awesome.
I get no experience points for doing this, but I did get a ton of auction house fodder, bucketloads of raw material and quite a good amount of coin from the dungeon elites.
I put my haul up for sale and so far half of it is gone and I'm getting cash at a nice rate!
------
I have a wedding to attend to at the end of the month. For once, I can actually go. The last two weddings I wanted to attend, I couldn't because of work.
Ah weddings. I can say it's no big deal but really, those things are. It's almost like a reminder that I'm not doing something right. That something is.... missing. That I'm somehow lacking a basic but important ability.
Ok, I'm going to stop writing about this now before this post goes out of hand. We don't want a woe is me story now. It wouldn't do any good.
I'm just going to go to the wedding, be happy for my friends and have a good time.
------
I was looking at my schedule and I won't have to work on Sunday until the middle of next month! That is nice.
Soon it'll be December. I wonder how the year is going to end. Certainly, the more recent years have been relatively kind.
I'm really grateful for that.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Zeta and Wing Zero
Sunday, October 08, 2006
WoW and Gundam
*Warning: Lenghty post about things that aren't very important.
It's a Sunday. It rained yesterday and what a relief that was. Unfortunately, it didn't do much for the haze other than lower ambient temperatures, which is fine actually.
I have some World of Warcraft related news.
On Thursday, I managed to download Southpark Ep. 10-08, Make Love, Not Warcraft. It was great! I'm very pleased that Matt and Trey managed to get Blizzard to work with them and produce a top notch mechanima of Southpark using the WoW engine. The episode was pretty funny too, although it was by no means a classic. MMORPG players in general and WoW players in particular would find it funnier than lay people I think.
Also in WoW, I finally managed to buy a horse. I finally managed to get 100 gold at Lvl 47 and I spent 90g buying the riding skill and the horse. Now I can move 60% faster than before. No more walking! Of course that means I am kind of broke and will not have enough cash to upgrade skills when I reach level 48, which is very soon.
I don't WoW much these days, not like the first 2 months when I got the game. Now it's maybe 1 hour per sitting, maybe 2, sometimes 3 hours if I'm not working. But I'm more efficient now though. I can finish 4 - 5 quests in one trip and hand them all in during that limited playing time.
----------
Talking about questing, a funny thing happened the other day while I was questing at the pirate base on the coast of Tanaris. I was fighting a pirate when I saw a lower level Night Elf hunter getting overwhelmed by 4 pirates. Usually, Horde players (which is what I am) don't generally assist Alliance players (which is what Night Elves are) because they are the "enemy"
Somehow on this occasion, I was moved to rush to his aid, enemy status notwithstanding. So I did and managed to pull 2 of the pirates off him. After defeating the pirates, I bowed and waved and left the Night Elf to heal and revive his pet, which had gotten killed. By the way, Horde and Alliance players cannot chat with each other. The only way to communicate is through emotes like waving and bowing and pointing and jumping up and down and general gesticulating.
A little later, it was my turn to do a bad pull. A bad pull is when you try to attract one enemy to you but end up attracting more than one instead. So there I was try to fight off half a dozen pirates in a more dangerous part of the base when out of nowhere, a black panther comes out of stealth and ambushes one of the pirates. It was a Night Elf druid in cat form. Behind him, was a Night Elf hunter, the same guy I had helped just minutes ago. And next to him was another Night Elf hunter.
Apparently, the guy was part of a group and he had called the rest of them to help.
So they saved my bacon. More gesturing and bowing and waving. We decided to stick close together and cover each other as we did our pirate quest, which we all managed to complete without much difficulty since there was now four of us (six, counting the hunter pets). They would attack something and I would help and then I would attack the next target while they covered me.
It was great. I had fun. Situations like these is what makes MMORPGs so much fun, when enemies can put aside their differences and assist each other.
----------
In other WoW related news, MMORPGs got into a national paper today. Of course as usual, it's where old farts accuse something they don't understand as bad while players defend their passtime. Not much to comment on that, except to say that it's hardly a surprising reaction. Soon, people who don't play MMOs will start writing in to papers urging the government to ban MMORPGs or something similar.
Well, that's Malaysia for you, moral vanity is sort of like a sport here. So many moral guardians who are so afraid of things they don't understand. It's so annoying.
----------
I nearly finished building my Zeta Gundam! I have head, upper torso, waist, legs and arms. Last night I started building the wings. I have the right wing and tail done so far. Only need to do left wings and guns. Next, decals. This time around, I've decided to do all the detailing work (decals, panel lines) on all the separated parts first. When that's done, only then will I put the thing together.
All in all, Zeta Gundam is a big challenge to put together. So much fun.
While we're on Gundam, I just finished watching Gundam Seed Destiny last night. Despite the negatives like how overwrought with emotion the series was and how annoyingly bad the pilots' discipline was in battle, I thoroughly enjoyed Seed Destiny. I was well made and had great production. The music wasn't too shabby either. I'll do a proper review when I finish watching Gundam Seed. That way, I can compare.
Right now I'm trying to decide which Gundam series to download next. Do I get Zeta Gundam? Or do I get Victory Gundam? Which one eh? Or do I get the others first? F91? Double Zeta? Stardust Memory? Gundam Wing? Stargazer? MS Igloo?
So many!
And so little hard disk space...
Seriously though, I need to get another big hard disk. I can't wait for December when I will get double pay and will finally be able to afford to get a new PC.
----------
Ok then I've been very talkative this post. It's time to go for lunch.
It's a Sunday. It rained yesterday and what a relief that was. Unfortunately, it didn't do much for the haze other than lower ambient temperatures, which is fine actually.
I have some World of Warcraft related news.
On Thursday, I managed to download Southpark Ep. 10-08, Make Love, Not Warcraft. It was great! I'm very pleased that Matt and Trey managed to get Blizzard to work with them and produce a top notch mechanima of Southpark using the WoW engine. The episode was pretty funny too, although it was by no means a classic. MMORPG players in general and WoW players in particular would find it funnier than lay people I think.
Also in WoW, I finally managed to buy a horse. I finally managed to get 100 gold at Lvl 47 and I spent 90g buying the riding skill and the horse. Now I can move 60% faster than before. No more walking! Of course that means I am kind of broke and will not have enough cash to upgrade skills when I reach level 48, which is very soon.
I don't WoW much these days, not like the first 2 months when I got the game. Now it's maybe 1 hour per sitting, maybe 2, sometimes 3 hours if I'm not working. But I'm more efficient now though. I can finish 4 - 5 quests in one trip and hand them all in during that limited playing time.
----------
Talking about questing, a funny thing happened the other day while I was questing at the pirate base on the coast of Tanaris. I was fighting a pirate when I saw a lower level Night Elf hunter getting overwhelmed by 4 pirates. Usually, Horde players (which is what I am) don't generally assist Alliance players (which is what Night Elves are) because they are the "enemy"
Somehow on this occasion, I was moved to rush to his aid, enemy status notwithstanding. So I did and managed to pull 2 of the pirates off him. After defeating the pirates, I bowed and waved and left the Night Elf to heal and revive his pet, which had gotten killed. By the way, Horde and Alliance players cannot chat with each other. The only way to communicate is through emotes like waving and bowing and pointing and jumping up and down and general gesticulating.
A little later, it was my turn to do a bad pull. A bad pull is when you try to attract one enemy to you but end up attracting more than one instead. So there I was try to fight off half a dozen pirates in a more dangerous part of the base when out of nowhere, a black panther comes out of stealth and ambushes one of the pirates. It was a Night Elf druid in cat form. Behind him, was a Night Elf hunter, the same guy I had helped just minutes ago. And next to him was another Night Elf hunter.
Apparently, the guy was part of a group and he had called the rest of them to help.
So they saved my bacon. More gesturing and bowing and waving. We decided to stick close together and cover each other as we did our pirate quest, which we all managed to complete without much difficulty since there was now four of us (six, counting the hunter pets). They would attack something and I would help and then I would attack the next target while they covered me.
It was great. I had fun. Situations like these is what makes MMORPGs so much fun, when enemies can put aside their differences and assist each other.
----------
In other WoW related news, MMORPGs got into a national paper today. Of course as usual, it's where old farts accuse something they don't understand as bad while players defend their passtime. Not much to comment on that, except to say that it's hardly a surprising reaction. Soon, people who don't play MMOs will start writing in to papers urging the government to ban MMORPGs or something similar.
Well, that's Malaysia for you, moral vanity is sort of like a sport here. So many moral guardians who are so afraid of things they don't understand. It's so annoying.
----------
I nearly finished building my Zeta Gundam! I have head, upper torso, waist, legs and arms. Last night I started building the wings. I have the right wing and tail done so far. Only need to do left wings and guns. Next, decals. This time around, I've decided to do all the detailing work (decals, panel lines) on all the separated parts first. When that's done, only then will I put the thing together.
All in all, Zeta Gundam is a big challenge to put together. So much fun.
While we're on Gundam, I just finished watching Gundam Seed Destiny last night. Despite the negatives like how overwrought with emotion the series was and how annoyingly bad the pilots' discipline was in battle, I thoroughly enjoyed Seed Destiny. I was well made and had great production. The music wasn't too shabby either. I'll do a proper review when I finish watching Gundam Seed. That way, I can compare.
Right now I'm trying to decide which Gundam series to download next. Do I get Zeta Gundam? Or do I get Victory Gundam? Which one eh? Or do I get the others first? F91? Double Zeta? Stardust Memory? Gundam Wing? Stargazer? MS Igloo?
So many!
And so little hard disk space...
Seriously though, I need to get another big hard disk. I can't wait for December when I will get double pay and will finally be able to afford to get a new PC.
----------
Ok then I've been very talkative this post. It's time to go for lunch.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
A Night at Scoops
My Zeta Mk.2 finally arrived on Tuesday. It was a long wait. I was very nervous. It's an expensive model kit.
It's also very complex just as I thought it would be, with more parts than your average master grade kit. I've been spending about 4 hours a day for the last 2 days building it and I'm not even halfway through it yet. Not complaining though, I like the fact that the kit is complex. A real challenge.
The weather is very, very hot these days what with the haze coming back. Last night, I had planned to stay home and continue building the Zeta, but it got way too warm to stay inside my room. So I went out. Luckily, at this time Rin called me to tell me that Gette wanted to meet up at Scoops.
So we went.
This is the first time I went to Scoops. It's an ice-cream place. It was very, very good. I'll be back there again soon.
Gette arrived later with Andrea followed by Jerome and then Zack and his friend whose name now I have forgotten. I must be getting old, lately more and more things seem to be falling out the back of my head.
Talking about getting old, I was building the Zeta in the living room I switched on MTV for the first time in months. During the four hours it was on, the only people I recognized were Shakira, Marion Raven and Ryan Cabrera. I'm so out of touch with new music these days.
Not that I'm missing out on much. Current mainstream pop music doesn't do a thing for me. Plus, there's simply too much rap, hip-hop and RnB on. What happened to guitar music, man?
A lot of the stuff I like is now being played on radio stations like Lite n Easy and on retro segments on radio and TV. A sure sign of times moving by.
Music was one of the things we talked about at Scoops. It's always an interesting topic.
All in all, a nice night out before I go back to work. Which is where I am now...
It's also very complex just as I thought it would be, with more parts than your average master grade kit. I've been spending about 4 hours a day for the last 2 days building it and I'm not even halfway through it yet. Not complaining though, I like the fact that the kit is complex. A real challenge.
The weather is very, very hot these days what with the haze coming back. Last night, I had planned to stay home and continue building the Zeta, but it got way too warm to stay inside my room. So I went out. Luckily, at this time Rin called me to tell me that Gette wanted to meet up at Scoops.
So we went.
This is the first time I went to Scoops. It's an ice-cream place. It was very, very good. I'll be back there again soon.
Gette arrived later with Andrea followed by Jerome and then Zack and his friend whose name now I have forgotten. I must be getting old, lately more and more things seem to be falling out the back of my head.
Talking about getting old, I was building the Zeta in the living room I switched on MTV for the first time in months. During the four hours it was on, the only people I recognized were Shakira, Marion Raven and Ryan Cabrera. I'm so out of touch with new music these days.
Not that I'm missing out on much. Current mainstream pop music doesn't do a thing for me. Plus, there's simply too much rap, hip-hop and RnB on. What happened to guitar music, man?
A lot of the stuff I like is now being played on radio stations like Lite n Easy and on retro segments on radio and TV. A sure sign of times moving by.
Music was one of the things we talked about at Scoops. It's always an interesting topic.
All in all, a nice night out before I go back to work. Which is where I am now...
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Vista!
I wrote a post just now but it disappeared when Firefox crashed on me.Anyway, I was remarking about how pleased I am to have discovered this awesome website. A must read for history buffs and fantasy role-players.
I'm still testing Windows Vista. It's looking very, very good. I managed to tweak the PC to enable it to use Windows Aero. It's very pretty with its cool menu effects and transparent, glassy borders and taskbar (only with Windows Aero desktop, available only if you have a display card with AT LEAST 128Mb memory).
Oh yeah, the taskbar. I've always thought that black taskbars are cool and wondered why Windows XP didn't have them. With Vista, it comes standard.
I think the most striking things about Vista so far are its great, soft appearance and its apparent high speed. Yes, it's very fast. Faster than XP. Definitely faster than other earlier versions of Windows. I installed it on an ancient 5400rpm 10Gb hard disk and it's still fast.
The overall look is great. Due to the way the desktop and icons are rendered, everything looks warm and fuzzy. This is probably due to Cleartype fonts. It's gorgeous. And OS X users might notice some similarities here. Ok, a lot similarities. The icons especially.
Not only that, the overall appearance of everything on my test machine looks smooth, warm and fuzzy. I like.
Also, there's another interesting feature called ReadyBoost. You take a USB2.0 flashdrive, stick it in your machine and Vista will ask you, amongst other things, whether you want to use the flash drive as somekind of virtual RAM. Yes, you can use your USB thumbdrive to boost your PC performance. It's great.
While I test Vista, of course I am also testing IE7 and Windows Media Player 11. So far so good. Haven't really noticed anything too different. IE7, as I mentioned earlier, is a lot smoother than IE6. It has tabbed browsing, RSS, popup blocker, search engine plugins. No surprises there. The only thing I don't like about IE7 is the menu system, but this is probably because I'm not very familiar with it.
In fact the menu system is currently the most annoying thing about Vista. I'm not familiar with it.
And the cost. It will range from 299 to 399. USD. That's 1000+RM. Well, if that is so, looks like I'll be waiting for pirates again. Which is fine since I'll still be using WinXP until I'm 100% sure about Vista. It might be pretty, but I don't enough about it to start using it, at least for the first year. As usual with Microsoft stuff, it's best to wait for Service Pack 1...
Also, MS is going to put out Service Pack 3 for Windows XP which includes some Vista features for XP. Cool.
Today is my last day of work for this rotation and I will be off work three days followed by another 4 days of work. I have some minor things to do tomorrow and a lot of videos to watch!
That's it for now. See you later.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Early Day at Work
I'm in the office, continuing a Windows Vista RC1 final beta download my colleague started last night. 3.0Gbs ISO DVD image. I'm quite excited actually.
I'll be testing that today.
I've been reading up and all in all, nice new features. Especially impressive is the new Windows Aero desktop and 3D flipping. Very nice.
Provided everything works, of course. It is, after all, Microsoft. As usual, I'll wait about a year before I think about converting my home PCs.
Despite my less that favourable thoughts about MS business practises, lately I've been finding myself becoming more sympathetic to the people who work there. I've dealt with them before on various issues, and they've been very nice. Despite all the Microsoft stereotypes, the people we've dealt with so far really do care about what they do and actually do listen to us.
Anyway, I hope Vista works out as well as IE7 has so far. No really serious problems so far. It's faster, feels less cumbersome than IE6 and is quite possibly the most stable version of Explorer I've used so far.
Personally, I still use Firefox. All this IE testing is work related.
In other news, my package from eBay should be arriving today. I recently ordered a Zeta Gundam Mk. 2. It will be the most complex kit I've gotten so far. It is also my first transformable kit! This is going to be awesome.
This would probably be the last kit I order this year. Next, I'll be saving up for a major PC upgrade. It will cost quite a bit. It'll practically be a new PC. New board, CPU, RAM, PCIe graphics, case, SATA hard disks and possibly a new monitor. I think it'll cost 2 grand. At least.
It all depends on my annual year end windfall. Hopefully, it will be enough. I really hope so because this will also give me a good reason to retire my dad's PC and replace it with my current one. My brothers use my dad's PC regularly and it sucks. It can't do anything really useful at all now. I feel kinda bad for them. With my PC in the common room, everyone can use it for almost anything. My current PC is still very strong and should be enough for most things.
Well, I'll cross my fingers and hope I can afford to do this without having to wipe out a good portion of my savings. If possible, I want to use only my bonus money and nothing else.
And look at that, it's the end of September. Only 3 more months left till the end of the year. This is going to be nice because I really like the final quarter of a year. And Christmas will be here soon. That's always great!
As usual, one wonders, how fast does time fly these days!
I'll be testing that today.
I've been reading up and all in all, nice new features. Especially impressive is the new Windows Aero desktop and 3D flipping. Very nice.
Provided everything works, of course. It is, after all, Microsoft. As usual, I'll wait about a year before I think about converting my home PCs.
Despite my less that favourable thoughts about MS business practises, lately I've been finding myself becoming more sympathetic to the people who work there. I've dealt with them before on various issues, and they've been very nice. Despite all the Microsoft stereotypes, the people we've dealt with so far really do care about what they do and actually do listen to us.
Anyway, I hope Vista works out as well as IE7 has so far. No really serious problems so far. It's faster, feels less cumbersome than IE6 and is quite possibly the most stable version of Explorer I've used so far.
Personally, I still use Firefox. All this IE testing is work related.
In other news, my package from eBay should be arriving today. I recently ordered a Zeta Gundam Mk. 2. It will be the most complex kit I've gotten so far. It is also my first transformable kit! This is going to be awesome.
This would probably be the last kit I order this year. Next, I'll be saving up for a major PC upgrade. It will cost quite a bit. It'll practically be a new PC. New board, CPU, RAM, PCIe graphics, case, SATA hard disks and possibly a new monitor. I think it'll cost 2 grand. At least.
It all depends on my annual year end windfall. Hopefully, it will be enough. I really hope so because this will also give me a good reason to retire my dad's PC and replace it with my current one. My brothers use my dad's PC regularly and it sucks. It can't do anything really useful at all now. I feel kinda bad for them. With my PC in the common room, everyone can use it for almost anything. My current PC is still very strong and should be enough for most things.
Well, I'll cross my fingers and hope I can afford to do this without having to wipe out a good portion of my savings. If possible, I want to use only my bonus money and nothing else.
And look at that, it's the end of September. Only 3 more months left till the end of the year. This is going to be nice because I really like the final quarter of a year. And Christmas will be here soon. That's always great!
As usual, one wonders, how fast does time fly these days!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
One Good Night
My life is quite nice these days. I have good friends, enough quality personal time and money to spare to be able to spend on the finer things in life. Like a decent in-car audio system. Or 1/100 Master Grade GUNPLA kits. Or nice outings in gourmet coffee houses and other places.
A lot of things to be happy about.
I had a great time tonight. I went to Grand Continental to meet with Zack, Azreen and Gette. I don't get to meet Gette often enough. She's great.
Anyway, we were talking and one of those things that came up was the topic of those annoying chain emails that make you forward it to 1,184,876 other people or bad things will happen to you. Or those urban legend ones that tell you that Microsoft or something is giving away free money. Or those sob stories about various dying children who suffer from various exotic fatal ailments.
It's really mean to take advantage of people's misfortune to start a viral email but that goes without saying.
These days, I have a procedure to deal with this kind of mail. I try to debunk them.
I look up Snopes and other places on the internet for confirmation and forward the link back to the senders. Hopefully, everyone learns a little something whenever I do that. It's also more satisfying to do that instead of just ignoring it.
Also, I would like to inform everyone that there is really no harm in ignoring those forward-this-or-else emails or forward-this-and-get-your-free-blessing emails. I've ignored thousands and here I am, not dead and blogging about it.
It's quite surprising that even in this day and age, people are still superstitious enough to fall for stuff like this.
In other news, still nothing much to report. Life is just like that these days and I'm enjoying it so far.
A lot of things to be happy about.
I had a great time tonight. I went to Grand Continental to meet with Zack, Azreen and Gette. I don't get to meet Gette often enough. She's great.
Anyway, we were talking and one of those things that came up was the topic of those annoying chain emails that make you forward it to 1,184,876 other people or bad things will happen to you. Or those urban legend ones that tell you that Microsoft or something is giving away free money. Or those sob stories about various dying children who suffer from various exotic fatal ailments.
It's really mean to take advantage of people's misfortune to start a viral email but that goes without saying.
These days, I have a procedure to deal with this kind of mail. I try to debunk them.
I look up Snopes and other places on the internet for confirmation and forward the link back to the senders. Hopefully, everyone learns a little something whenever I do that. It's also more satisfying to do that instead of just ignoring it.
Also, I would like to inform everyone that there is really no harm in ignoring those forward-this-or-else emails or forward-this-and-get-your-free-blessing emails. I've ignored thousands and here I am, not dead and blogging about it.
It's quite surprising that even in this day and age, people are still superstitious enough to fall for stuff like this.
In other news, still nothing much to report. Life is just like that these days and I'm enjoying it so far.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
At the Risk of Sounding Pedantic...
"A GOOD number of Malaysians in Sabah and Sarawak are nursing a grievance because the significance of Malaysia Day — Sept 16, when Malaysia actually came into being — has been eroded and even ignored as the years go by."
Damn right.
I refer to this column in the NST. This is also a kind of extension from my previous post about Malaysia.
Well, the good news is at least the grievances of many Sabahans and Sarawakians have not gone entirely unnoticed. Someone took the trouble to write the aforementioned column, and I appreciate that. According an article in the Star, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the cabinet is willing to discuss making 16th September a public holiday, if there was an official request from the State Government to discuss the matter.
Personally, whether Malaysia Day is a public holiday or not isn't really the point. My point is Malaysia Day's significance is not highlighted enough. It is AS important as 31st of August, not less. It should be made a bigger deal. I've said all these things before and I'll say them again.
Anyway, a common answer to the 16 September question is the US example. The American Independence Day commemorates the declaration of independence of the original 13 colonies, not the dates when other states joined the federation.
This is not a good example. The US' and Malaysia's independence/formation are not the same thing. Let's examine the United States Declaration of Independence. The 2nd line of the introduction is the following phrase,
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, (*emphasis by me)
According to that, the country was called the United States of America from day one. The other states gradually joined this federation, which as we can see from the document, was ratified on the 4th July 1776.
In Malaysia's case, it was different. On 31st August 1957, MALAYA was officially declared independent. On 16th September 1963, MALAYSIA was formed when Sarawak, Sabah, Singapore and Malaya banded together.
So prior to that date, Malaysia DID NOT EXIST. People can twist and turn and deny and pooh-pooh, but there you go.
I'm in NO WAY saying that we should change the date of National Day. It is no doubt, a vital date in our history. Neither do I want to be parochial or regressive or whatever else people might want to call me and others who feel the way I do.
What I DO want is to see 16 September 1963 be recognized for what it really means, not just for the sake of our people in Borneo, but for every Malaysian. We should ALL know what 16 September means.
The federal and state governments can and should do MORE. The current situation is NOT satisfactory. What do I mean? Go out and ask 1000 West Malaysians about what happened on 16th September, see how many people know. The result will be surprising.
I'm NOT being paranoid or stupid. I went to college in KL and Johor until the mid-90s and NOTHING happens on the 16th of September over there. NONE of my West Malaysian classmates EVER made a big deal out of the date.
This is NOT right.
I have a suggestion. Why not celebrate Independence over 2 weeks instead of just one day? I don't mean we should be wasting money by having parades everywhere for two whole weeks. Rather, the period between 31st August and 16th September should be treated like a memorial period. For example, we could have more documentaries, exhibitions and activities that celebrate the events and the people who were responsible for our independence. Sure, some of that is being done, but it's not enough. It must be more.
That way people won't forget, like they do now. Maybe, just maybe, if that happens on a regular nationwide scale, Sabahans and Sarawakians will start feeling closer to being more Malaysian. Maybe, just maybe, West Malaysians will get to know more of our half of history, get know us a little better and stop misunderstanding us.
Everyone will come out a winner.
As usual, I'm quite passionate about this matter and I think this is enough for now. One last thing, if it is true that our state leaders and politicians never made an official request for more recognition of Malaysia Day, then I'm very, very disappointed. Not surprised really, but disappointed nonetheless.
Damn right.
I refer to this column in the NST. This is also a kind of extension from my previous post about Malaysia.
Well, the good news is at least the grievances of many Sabahans and Sarawakians have not gone entirely unnoticed. Someone took the trouble to write the aforementioned column, and I appreciate that. According an article in the Star, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the cabinet is willing to discuss making 16th September a public holiday, if there was an official request from the State Government to discuss the matter.
Personally, whether Malaysia Day is a public holiday or not isn't really the point. My point is Malaysia Day's significance is not highlighted enough. It is AS important as 31st of August, not less. It should be made a bigger deal. I've said all these things before and I'll say them again.
Anyway, a common answer to the 16 September question is the US example. The American Independence Day commemorates the declaration of independence of the original 13 colonies, not the dates when other states joined the federation.
This is not a good example. The US' and Malaysia's independence/formation are not the same thing. Let's examine the United States Declaration of Independence. The 2nd line of the introduction is the following phrase,
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, (*emphasis by me)
According to that, the country was called the United States of America from day one. The other states gradually joined this federation, which as we can see from the document, was ratified on the 4th July 1776.
In Malaysia's case, it was different. On 31st August 1957, MALAYA was officially declared independent. On 16th September 1963, MALAYSIA was formed when Sarawak, Sabah, Singapore and Malaya banded together.
So prior to that date, Malaysia DID NOT EXIST. People can twist and turn and deny and pooh-pooh, but there you go.
I'm in NO WAY saying that we should change the date of National Day. It is no doubt, a vital date in our history. Neither do I want to be parochial or regressive or whatever else people might want to call me and others who feel the way I do.
What I DO want is to see 16 September 1963 be recognized for what it really means, not just for the sake of our people in Borneo, but for every Malaysian. We should ALL know what 16 September means.
The federal and state governments can and should do MORE. The current situation is NOT satisfactory. What do I mean? Go out and ask 1000 West Malaysians about what happened on 16th September, see how many people know. The result will be surprising.
I'm NOT being paranoid or stupid. I went to college in KL and Johor until the mid-90s and NOTHING happens on the 16th of September over there. NONE of my West Malaysian classmates EVER made a big deal out of the date.
This is NOT right.
I have a suggestion. Why not celebrate Independence over 2 weeks instead of just one day? I don't mean we should be wasting money by having parades everywhere for two whole weeks. Rather, the period between 31st August and 16th September should be treated like a memorial period. For example, we could have more documentaries, exhibitions and activities that celebrate the events and the people who were responsible for our independence. Sure, some of that is being done, but it's not enough. It must be more.
That way people won't forget, like they do now. Maybe, just maybe, if that happens on a regular nationwide scale, Sabahans and Sarawakians will start feeling closer to being more Malaysian. Maybe, just maybe, West Malaysians will get to know more of our half of history, get know us a little better and stop misunderstanding us.
Everyone will come out a winner.
As usual, I'm quite passionate about this matter and I think this is enough for now. One last thing, if it is true that our state leaders and politicians never made an official request for more recognition of Malaysia Day, then I'm very, very disappointed. Not surprised really, but disappointed nonetheless.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Games To Look Forward To
Ever since I've been playing World of Warcraft, I haven't been playing much else.
That could change not long from now.
Firstly, FM 2007. The world's best football management sim is coming back, better than ever. 100s of new features, updated squads, a proper youth system and feeder clubs. Coming in December.
And then, we have Medieval 2: Total War. The Total War series has always been mindblowing. When Rome: Total War came out, I was thinking it couldn't get any better than that.
I'm going to be wrong apparently. This new one is going to be awesome. No release date yet though.
In other news, we watched Keroro Gunsou at Jerome's house, It's... evil man. Really. But seriously, it was hilarious.
That reminds me, I have many animes to watch.
Not much else to report. Tomorrow, I return to work.
That could change not long from now.
Firstly, FM 2007. The world's best football management sim is coming back, better than ever. 100s of new features, updated squads, a proper youth system and feeder clubs. Coming in December.
And then, we have Medieval 2: Total War. The Total War series has always been mindblowing. When Rome: Total War came out, I was thinking it couldn't get any better than that.
I'm going to be wrong apparently. This new one is going to be awesome. No release date yet though.
In other news, we watched Keroro Gunsou at Jerome's house, It's... evil man. Really. But seriously, it was hilarious.
That reminds me, I have many animes to watch.
Not much else to report. Tomorrow, I return to work.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Lest We Forget, It's Actually 43
31st of August 1957 was the day that Malaya got its independence from the British Empire. It is also the official date for National Day. Malaysia was officially created on the 16th of September 1963 with Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak forming the new federation, although most casual observers and lay people most probably wouldn't know that. Singapore left in 1965, unfortunately.
Sarawak Flag, 1963-1973I'll say it again like I've said it before. There is simply not enough mention of the event. I can safely say that many Sarawakians and Sabahans feel kind of slighted by this apparent lack of recognition. No, hosting this year's National Day is not even close to being enough.
Not to be a pain in the ass, but a little respect would be nice. After all, the resources of the two states help power the whole country does it not?
Much more could be done to make the people of our two Borneo states feel more at home and on par with the rest of the country. It would be nice if more parts of Sabah and Sarawak history make it into the national education syllabus. It would be nice if we could get more money from our oil and other resources. We really do need it, especially Sabah, which is poorer than it should be.
Sarawak Flag, 1973-1988In that respect, we Sarawakians are lucky. Our politics are relatively stable and the state government, for all its shortcomings, has so far done an adequate job balancing our books.
It would be nice if we could get more TV and media time, if only to prevent West Malaysians from thinking that Easterners still live in trees, are naive jungle dwellers and have no access to technology. I'm not being paranoid, ask any Sabahan or Sarawakian who has studied, lived and worked in the Peninsular and we can tell you about all the dumb questions that we keep getting from Westerners. It's not their fault really. They don't know.
The Powers That Be need to answer that question. Why don't they know? Why is it so many people are still ignorant about us?
Yeah, we kind of feel like no one cares sometimes. This has a side effect. Part of why Sabahan and Sarawakians are so fiercely proud of their state and heritage is the very fact that we feel we are misunderstood and ignored. It's us against the world. Our loyalties lie with our state first.
Sarawak Flag, 1988-presentAs long as the status quo remains, many of us will continue to feel more Sarawakian and Sabahan than Malaysian. Sorry, but that's the truth.
Happy 43rd Birthday Malaysia.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Wanting New Stuff
Last night we were hanging out and I mentioned a particular song that appeared in a particular episode of South Park. When I went home, I looked the song up and found it on Youtube.
Here it is, Let's Fighting Love from the episode "Good Times with Weapons". It's quite funny.
I just finished downloading Gundam Seed right before I left for work. I'm still thinking about what to download next. Talking about the various videos that I keep, I've been rather busy with them. I'm also running out of hard disk space. But that's my fault really, I have so much data it takes ages for me to housekeep.
I think I'm going to download South Park episodes next. And the South Park movie. Or another Gundam OVA/series. I don't know yet. Or some other thing. I'm sure there's something out there that I'd really like but am forgetting about right now.
This last few days I've also been playing WoW. I'm happy to report that the lag is completely gone and everything is stable. I hope the next Streamyx hiccup won't happen very soon. That's the sad thing about Telekom, service interruptions are always a when, not an if.
I also moved our router outside and secured my wireless access point with a WEP key. That will prevent other people from using my connection without my knowledge.
I helped a friend upgrade his PC. Biostar AM2 board, RAM, AMD Sempron 3000 AM2 CPU, GeForce 7100 PCI-E graphics card. Total around RM950/-. I also realized that there's quite a lot of new technology out there that I'm not so good at. I'm a bit rusty.
The next day, I went out and bought a 80Gb SATA hard disk because we discovered that his current 20Gb hard disk is not big enough for all the stuff that he wants to put in the PC. Good thing I managed to set up the hard disk properly the first time I tried it. I've never set up a fresh SATA drive before.
Very rusty.
I'm thinking about changing my own hardware the end of the year. About time I get on the SATA/DDR2/3000+ CPU bandwagon. This is going to be expensive. A new PC, literally. This will also enable me to retire our old Duron 600 that my dad's been using. My current rig will replace that one.
It'll be nice to have 2 very capable machines in the house. I'm sure everyone would appreciate it.
Anyway, I think I need to save up over the next 2 months. The new machine is going to be a monster if I can get the kind of spec I want.
In other news, nothing much is happening. Life is quiet and routine. Not much excitement or drama of any kind. Which, despite my natural inclination to complain about it, is actually yuite nice.
That means I will be updating at my current infrequent rate.
Here it is, Let's Fighting Love from the episode "Good Times with Weapons". It's quite funny.
I just finished downloading Gundam Seed right before I left for work. I'm still thinking about what to download next. Talking about the various videos that I keep, I've been rather busy with them. I'm also running out of hard disk space. But that's my fault really, I have so much data it takes ages for me to housekeep.
I think I'm going to download South Park episodes next. And the South Park movie. Or another Gundam OVA/series. I don't know yet. Or some other thing. I'm sure there's something out there that I'd really like but am forgetting about right now.
This last few days I've also been playing WoW. I'm happy to report that the lag is completely gone and everything is stable. I hope the next Streamyx hiccup won't happen very soon. That's the sad thing about Telekom, service interruptions are always a when, not an if.
I also moved our router outside and secured my wireless access point with a WEP key. That will prevent other people from using my connection without my knowledge.
I helped a friend upgrade his PC. Biostar AM2 board, RAM, AMD Sempron 3000 AM2 CPU, GeForce 7100 PCI-E graphics card. Total around RM950/-. I also realized that there's quite a lot of new technology out there that I'm not so good at. I'm a bit rusty.
The next day, I went out and bought a 80Gb SATA hard disk because we discovered that his current 20Gb hard disk is not big enough for all the stuff that he wants to put in the PC. Good thing I managed to set up the hard disk properly the first time I tried it. I've never set up a fresh SATA drive before.
Very rusty.
I'm thinking about changing my own hardware the end of the year. About time I get on the SATA/DDR2/3000+ CPU bandwagon. This is going to be expensive. A new PC, literally. This will also enable me to retire our old Duron 600 that my dad's been using. My current rig will replace that one.
It'll be nice to have 2 very capable machines in the house. I'm sure everyone would appreciate it.
Anyway, I think I need to save up over the next 2 months. The new machine is going to be a monster if I can get the kind of spec I want.
In other news, nothing much is happening. Life is quiet and routine. Not much excitement or drama of any kind. Which, despite my natural inclination to complain about it, is actually yuite nice.
That means I will be updating at my current infrequent rate.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Flavour of the Weak
I managed to find some time to cull my Blogroll. Perhaps now I should find some time to edit the links list. I have other online places I go to nowadays.
Last week, I finished downloading all 50 episodes of Gundam Seed Destiny. Watched 8 episodes so far. It's bloody awesome, every bit as good as Macross was. I'm also halfway through watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam DVDs that I borrowed. Also good, but I feel I like Seed and Seed Destiny more, perhaps due to the more contemporary, polished, sharp anime stylings of the Seed series. The original Gundam style of anime was the typical one for the 80's. Storywise, it's hard to pick between the two. I like both storylines.
I'm halfway through downloading Gundam Seed now. Should be done in about 2 days. I think I'll try to download as many of these things as possible. And by the way, does anyone know where I can get the entirety of The 08th MS Team? I am very intrigued by its sypnosis.
Yeah, this Gundam thingy is my latest flavour of the week. And it's been great fun so far.
And talking about downloading and stuff, the lag that I've been having in World of Warcraft has corrected itself. It's back to normal now and I can actually play it. It's been ok for the last 2 days now. I ran some tests and it seems there was some trouble with Telekom's international gateway which seems to have been dealt with. I'm relieved.
I'm getting off work very soon. Which is good because I'm very exhausted. It's been a hard week.
In other news, I read this entry that Kenny wrote. The interesting thing isn't the entry itself, it's the comments.
Relationships are in essence, simple. But is it really? It's supposed to be about trust and mutual affection and commitment. It should be so, but I guess it's not strictly that anymore. Love is tainted these days. I'm not sure if I want it anymore and now I'm not really sure if it was that way all the while. Perhaps it is pure only to those who aren't jaded yet, or those who are young and innocent?
To me this is a vindication of sorts of my decision to go on an indefinite relationship hiatus. I don't need that kind of headache right now.
To think, I used to be so eager to get involved in one...
Anyway, tomorrow I go and buy computer parts for a friend and build him a new PC. That's always fun to do!
Last week, I finished downloading all 50 episodes of Gundam Seed Destiny. Watched 8 episodes so far. It's bloody awesome, every bit as good as Macross was. I'm also halfway through watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam DVDs that I borrowed. Also good, but I feel I like Seed and Seed Destiny more, perhaps due to the more contemporary, polished, sharp anime stylings of the Seed series. The original Gundam style of anime was the typical one for the 80's. Storywise, it's hard to pick between the two. I like both storylines.
I'm halfway through downloading Gundam Seed now. Should be done in about 2 days. I think I'll try to download as many of these things as possible. And by the way, does anyone know where I can get the entirety of The 08th MS Team? I am very intrigued by its sypnosis.
Yeah, this Gundam thingy is my latest flavour of the week. And it's been great fun so far.
And talking about downloading and stuff, the lag that I've been having in World of Warcraft has corrected itself. It's back to normal now and I can actually play it. It's been ok for the last 2 days now. I ran some tests and it seems there was some trouble with Telekom's international gateway which seems to have been dealt with. I'm relieved.
I'm getting off work very soon. Which is good because I'm very exhausted. It's been a hard week.
In other news, I read this entry that Kenny wrote. The interesting thing isn't the entry itself, it's the comments.
Relationships are in essence, simple. But is it really? It's supposed to be about trust and mutual affection and commitment. It should be so, but I guess it's not strictly that anymore. Love is tainted these days. I'm not sure if I want it anymore and now I'm not really sure if it was that way all the while. Perhaps it is pure only to those who aren't jaded yet, or those who are young and innocent?
To me this is a vindication of sorts of my decision to go on an indefinite relationship hiatus. I don't need that kind of headache right now.
To think, I used to be so eager to get involved in one...
Anyway, tomorrow I go and buy computer parts for a friend and build him a new PC. That's always fun to do!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Bad News
Steve Irwin is dead. It's not a hoax this time, unfortunately.
I'm not a fan by any means, but it's very sudden and very sad all the same.
In other news, I might be canceling my World of Warcraft account. Ever since the game got patched to version 1.12, cross-realm battlegrounds were introduce. Unfortunately, it seems that this new feature has apparently sucked up bandwidth and now I can hardly play it due to extremely bad lag. I used to be able to get 200ms to 450ms latency, on average.
These days, I'm lucky if I get 1000ms. Some days, the game lags for 5 minutes, and then disconnects. Other days, I get 3000ms. I hit a button and the effect is only seen 6 seconds later.
I'm going to give it until October, since my account is paid up until then.
I really hope I don't have to quit. I like WoW.
In happier news, my life is really good these days. I'm really enjoying it. I'm in a real good place right now. Will write more later.
I'm not a fan by any means, but it's very sudden and very sad all the same.
In other news, I might be canceling my World of Warcraft account. Ever since the game got patched to version 1.12, cross-realm battlegrounds were introduce. Unfortunately, it seems that this new feature has apparently sucked up bandwidth and now I can hardly play it due to extremely bad lag. I used to be able to get 200ms to 450ms latency, on average.
These days, I'm lucky if I get 1000ms. Some days, the game lags for 5 minutes, and then disconnects. Other days, I get 3000ms. I hit a button and the effect is only seen 6 seconds later.
I'm going to give it until October, since my account is paid up until then.
I really hope I don't have to quit. I like WoW.
In happier news, my life is really good these days. I'm really enjoying it. I'm in a real good place right now. Will write more later.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Something to Think About During National Day
I wrote something this morning, but the NST carried an article that does a better job saying what I wanted to say. I'm reproducing it here so that it won't disappear when the link expires.
It's a good read. Here it is:-
Brian Yap
WHEN I first read the statement by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak about the post-Merdeka generation being unappreciative of the country’s history and easily influenced by Western liberal ideology, I thought he was talking about me.
It was early in the morning, and my mind still groggy, susceptible to the influence of my ego.
By the time the coffee kicked in however, I realised that such an important person probably has better things to do with his time than read this column and comment on it. I also remembered that I'm not influenced by Western liberal ideology.
Later, it occurred to me that when he reportedly said, "These post-Independence kids do not realise that racial harmony today did not happen on its own," he might be giving advice to members of his own political party.
My concern for this country isn’t inspired by Western-style liberalism nor Eastern-style whatever. To be honest, my political awakening, like many of my generation, was the result of the Anwar Ibrahim saga in 1998, and I take inspiration from more Malaysian leaders than Western ones.
I've read books concerning the history of this country, including those by Rehman Rashid, K. Das, Patrick Keith and others. They explained to me why Malaysia is the way it is today, more than anything I ever learned in school. I’m not claiming to be a historical expert, but neither am I completely unappreciative of the country’s history.
What I do know is that Malaysians, including those born before Merdeka, have been consistently calling for the repeal of certain laws for decades now. So while young people like myself like to think everything begins with us, we have to admit we were beaten by those before us. So the call for a more transparent and democratic society can hardly be the sole domain of youth influenced by Western ideology.
It is certainly timely to ponder these issues — after all, tomorrow is the 49th Merdeka. No doubt a time for celebration, but the commemoration of the fruition of a tough struggle should also be a time to remind ourselves to continue our efforts to realise the nation envisioned all those years ago. The danger is in mistaking Merdeka as simply a time to be nostalgic and wave flags.
Malaysia, after all, is a work in progress, and democracy a conversation. For better or worse, Malaysia is inevitably a multi-multi nation, made up of many cultures, religions, ethnicity and languages. The basis for our nation is enshrined in our Constitution, which can be amended, but should only be done so consensually. Until that is the case, however, that’s the document we are all bound by.
If it is true that the young take the past for granted, then it is equally tragic to take the future in the same way. This is what worries some of us . And when I say us, I don't know if it’s a hundred, a million, or, uh, just me, but there’s a sense that the multi-cultural nature of our society is no longer as prized as it should be. Multiculturalism is being stigmatised, when racism and social inequality are the true enemies.
My disappointment with all the race talk lately lies not so much with what was said, but the fact that people still fall for that kind of talk. Someone says something, another side defends, and both end up looking like champions of their respective communities. This has happened many times in the past. It’s hard to blame politicians for committing themselves to certain communal causes when it’s what Malaysians still want. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t work. I mean, if I wanted to move up the political ladder, I wouldn’t promise a further hike in petrol prices. That would be political suicide. Playing the race card, however, isn’t.
This Merdeka, maybe it is time to demand for leadership that will not pander to the basest of our feelings like mistrust and selfishness, but someone who will find what is great about us, and use that as the framework of our co-operation. You know, something like what the founding fathers of this nation did.
When I say it's time for us to move beyond laws that stifle democracy and open debate, I am inspired by the talk of Malaysians having a First World mentality, something mooted by our Prime Minister himself.
And when I say I long for a day when we find a new political paradigm, where pandering to narrow communal interests is frowned upon by everyone, I don’t think I’m influenced by the West. Instead, I suspect it has to do with the whole Bangsa Malaysia idea constantly being thrown about. Don’t look at me, I didn’t come up with it.
If after almost 50 years, we’re not getting any closer to that coveted goal (some might even say we’ve drifted even further apart), then we have to admit that nation building hasn't been effective as hoped. If so, it is time to address this. There are already too many people defending their respective races and religions. What we need are more people defending Malaysia. Selamat Hari Merdeka.
Brian Yap is a writer at Klue magazine
It's a good read. Here it is:-
Just Sayin': Time to defend Malaysia for the Malaysians
30 Aug 2006Brian Yap
WHEN I first read the statement by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak about the post-Merdeka generation being unappreciative of the country’s history and easily influenced by Western liberal ideology, I thought he was talking about me.
It was early in the morning, and my mind still groggy, susceptible to the influence of my ego.
By the time the coffee kicked in however, I realised that such an important person probably has better things to do with his time than read this column and comment on it. I also remembered that I'm not influenced by Western liberal ideology.
Later, it occurred to me that when he reportedly said, "These post-Independence kids do not realise that racial harmony today did not happen on its own," he might be giving advice to members of his own political party.
My concern for this country isn’t inspired by Western-style liberalism nor Eastern-style whatever. To be honest, my political awakening, like many of my generation, was the result of the Anwar Ibrahim saga in 1998, and I take inspiration from more Malaysian leaders than Western ones.
I've read books concerning the history of this country, including those by Rehman Rashid, K. Das, Patrick Keith and others. They explained to me why Malaysia is the way it is today, more than anything I ever learned in school. I’m not claiming to be a historical expert, but neither am I completely unappreciative of the country’s history.
What I do know is that Malaysians, including those born before Merdeka, have been consistently calling for the repeal of certain laws for decades now. So while young people like myself like to think everything begins with us, we have to admit we were beaten by those before us. So the call for a more transparent and democratic society can hardly be the sole domain of youth influenced by Western ideology.
It is certainly timely to ponder these issues — after all, tomorrow is the 49th Merdeka. No doubt a time for celebration, but the commemoration of the fruition of a tough struggle should also be a time to remind ourselves to continue our efforts to realise the nation envisioned all those years ago. The danger is in mistaking Merdeka as simply a time to be nostalgic and wave flags.
Malaysia, after all, is a work in progress, and democracy a conversation. For better or worse, Malaysia is inevitably a multi-multi nation, made up of many cultures, religions, ethnicity and languages. The basis for our nation is enshrined in our Constitution, which can be amended, but should only be done so consensually. Until that is the case, however, that’s the document we are all bound by.
If it is true that the young take the past for granted, then it is equally tragic to take the future in the same way. This is what worries some of us . And when I say us, I don't know if it’s a hundred, a million, or, uh, just me, but there’s a sense that the multi-cultural nature of our society is no longer as prized as it should be. Multiculturalism is being stigmatised, when racism and social inequality are the true enemies.
My disappointment with all the race talk lately lies not so much with what was said, but the fact that people still fall for that kind of talk. Someone says something, another side defends, and both end up looking like champions of their respective communities. This has happened many times in the past. It’s hard to blame politicians for committing themselves to certain communal causes when it’s what Malaysians still want. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t work. I mean, if I wanted to move up the political ladder, I wouldn’t promise a further hike in petrol prices. That would be political suicide. Playing the race card, however, isn’t.
This Merdeka, maybe it is time to demand for leadership that will not pander to the basest of our feelings like mistrust and selfishness, but someone who will find what is great about us, and use that as the framework of our co-operation. You know, something like what the founding fathers of this nation did.
When I say it's time for us to move beyond laws that stifle democracy and open debate, I am inspired by the talk of Malaysians having a First World mentality, something mooted by our Prime Minister himself.
And when I say I long for a day when we find a new political paradigm, where pandering to narrow communal interests is frowned upon by everyone, I don’t think I’m influenced by the West. Instead, I suspect it has to do with the whole Bangsa Malaysia idea constantly being thrown about. Don’t look at me, I didn’t come up with it.
If after almost 50 years, we’re not getting any closer to that coveted goal (some might even say we’ve drifted even further apart), then we have to admit that nation building hasn't been effective as hoped. If so, it is time to address this. There are already too many people defending their respective races and religions. What we need are more people defending Malaysia. Selamat Hari Merdeka.
Brian Yap is a writer at Klue magazine
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