Saturday, August 30, 2008

Amy Winehouse - The Ska Ep

Oh no... Amy jumps into Raggae. Well, the songs are not bad but Raggae music is not my taste. I can't play it while working. The beat is disrupting my concentration.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Recently

Virus Attack
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My notebook was again attacked by virus since last Friday. Spent the whole weekend to try rescuing my data, was so mad because I couldn’t watch Olympic volleyball final matches on Saturday. Grrrr…. I believe there is still a virus hiding well like Bin Laden, and execute Taliban ambush occasionally.

Olympics Closing Ceremony
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Spectacular! The performances were excellent (except the singing session). Was interesting to note the 8 minutes performance of the next Olympics host – London, emphasizing the urban life of metropolitan. The modern dancing was a stark contrast to the cultural theme of China. But, why Leona Lewis? David Beckham is still the iconic sportsman of UK, luckily Victoria was not present.

Travelling
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I prefer backpacking.
My ex-colleague opted biking around the world for 6 years.
The new project intern hiked all the way from Germany to Spain.
No matter how… travelling is fun! Can’t wait to go to Hungary next Friday!

Gelato
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Sis told me that she prepared some gelato for a country club, particularly served for Malaysia Prime Minister on flight some days ago. She just sent me an overjoyed message that the club said the PM was impressed and wanted to see her. Regardless how true it is, she is encouraged.

Next Project
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This is the latest hot topic in the office, Manager has started planning the infrastructure for this new project in Rwanda though he is not officially assigned yet. In fact, the whole organization in head office is not clear - who would be the boss? who would be recruited? material transportation? infrastructure etc.? I have not committed myself to Rwanda, at least not now. Would like to take a rest and settle some personal matters before starting next project.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Visa To Hungary

Am planning to visit Budapest early next month. Learned from the unpleasant experience being rejected on-board during the last trip to Italy, this time I want to be sure of I won't encounter the same problem.

Yesterday, I was right, the instinct response of the Hungarian Embassy (in Sofia) officer insisted I do need a visa to visit the country, of course without checking his data. After explaining to him Malaysian passport is valid to any EU country without visa for 90 days (as stated on Hungarian government webpage), he asked to call him the next day to confirm the same.

This morning my colleague contacted him again, he admitted no visa is required.

Where is the professionalism? Tired with such attitude!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Olympics Events

Upset… the best hope of Malaysia in badminton men's singles game failed to snatch gold medal. Well, silver is by far the best in our history.

Why swimming event is contributing so many (34) medals? 100m and 400m are fine, why do they need 50m and 200m? Most of the contestants in the 3 shorter distance categories are similar. Maybe FINA will develop 4x50m relay, 150m, 250m… in future to increase gold medal counts of traditional swimming empires.

The basketball games with NBA are interesting. Great shows of slam dunk. I Love This Game!

Jamaica clean swept both men's and women's 100m dash, defeated entirely and severely shook the USA.

Some games' rules are unfair to the athletes. Minor accident/ mistake during execution is like a death penalty, no chance to save the mistake. For instance gymnastics artistic – vault, the average score of 2 trials is counted. But on track & field, hammer throw, triple jump, shot put… are given several trials and the best score is taken.

Swimming events so far have contributed the most world records. Swimmers claimed the Speedo LZR swimsuit made the trick, which was termed by CNN as 'technological doping'. I believe the advance "biological doping" plays greater role.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

'Conversion to Islam' Forum

The Bar Council of Malaysia has decided to hold the forum 'Conversion to Islam' despite encountering strong opposition from the ruling government and Islamic organizations. The objective of the forum is to discuss the religion Islam and its status in accordance with Federal Constitution, for instance the conflict between the federal and Syariah court.

An angry crowd of 300 Muslim protestors gathered outside Bar Council headquarter demanding that the lawyers group halt its controversial forum, condemning it is destroying the social harmony and 'challenging' Islam status in the country.

On one hand the Prime Minister recently urged to hold more dialogues to encourage harmony interaction among the different racial and religious communities, on the other hand the Deputy Prime Minister himself expressed his "worry" that this forum might ignite misunderstanding, anger and tension in our society.

Malaysians have been keeping silence so far, not because we are tolerant, but it is forbidden to discuss such sensitive issue in the public. The politicians make use of this 'advantage' to threaten and suppress the others. The relevant issues are getting more and more complicated, but no one is able to untie the knot. How could we achieve greater integrity if we couldn't understand and treat with equal fairness to each other?

Olympic 2008 Opening Ceremony

I skipped from my working desk at 3pm local time to watch the highly anticipating Olympic 2008 Opening Ceremony. The live broadcast has 2 narrators speaking in Bulgarian unceasingly from the beginning till the end (gosshh… they showed no sign of tiredness). Their voices shadowed the actual scene, the music and the cheers on the background were vague, I couldn't feel the atmosphere!

The show was no doubt high quality, but it doesn’t mean really entertaining. History and the cultures were the topic of the show, was a little bit "heavy". Other than the spectacular 2008 drums beating, rest of the programs are kind of lacking of upbeat rhythm (possibly because I couldn't hear the music clearly).

Each performance involved lots of people, far too many in my opinion. All performers were just an ant size in this huge stadium. I was expecting some sort of gigantic features parade with clean swift simple choreograph instead.



Sunday, August 03, 2008

The Appeal – John Grisham

Just finished reading this latest novel - The Appeal - of John Grisham. It is boring instead, no climax and he simply wants to deliver the message that judiciary is influenced by politics and business. No unexpected plot, the introduction of the book tells the whole story.