Little Indians
Do you still remember this rhyme? Well, a good remake to portray the Malaysia politics in the Indians community. On February 16, Indian women and children marched in KL city with roses in hands. They were going to send the roses to our prime minister but instead of meeting him, they met the FDU (Federal Reserved Unit) armed with shields and batons. Several women including an 11 year-old girl were arrested! This was the reason behind the massive traffic jam at Sg. Besi toll.
Which party are you going to vote?
The 12th Malaysia General Election is here on March 8. Posters and flyers everywhere. Useless politicians whom you don’t see them all year round suddenly appear in markets, streets and even going door-to-door. WTF!
With all the happenings in Malaysia, I hope dear Malaysians know who they are going to vote for this time. Here is a video for you to laugh and relax. So, no headache, just relax and cast your vote wisely this time.
Sun successfully acquired MySQL
Sun broke out the news that it has successfully completed the acquisition of MySQL. The acquisition was smooth. The acquisition accelerates and opens up opportunity for Sun to take a more prominent role in the US$15 billions database market worldwide. This acquisition will bring more synergies to Sun for the millions of global deployment of MySQL. These deployment include Google, Nokia, Facebook, China Mobile and Baidu.
Sun has been active in Open Source and well known for its contribution in OpenOffice. Sun will take MySQL to greater heights with this acquisition. This acquisition will open up more opportunity for my software business as well as provide better and easier access to MySQL/Sun technical. Read here.
Sex, lies and videotape
About 20 years ago, there was a movie with the title “Sex, Lies and Videotape”. Twenty years later, Malaysia released the first home brewed sequel, which shot down the minister of health. The sex scandal had stirred great upheaval in Malaysian society. People searched for the video high and low. Police hunted down the distribution channel and yet could not wipe it out simply because it had gone deeper underground. The scandal cost the post of the minister of health. Here’s something to laugh at.
重男轻女
我太太的一位朋友因为流产须要留医没法照顾她那18个月大的女儿。她要求我太太帮忙照顾一天，因为她的奶妈家有急事不能照顾，我太太基于朋友关系而欣然答应了。
我和我太太谈了一会才知道她朋友的丈夫要出勤而不能照顾。简着是废话。她丈夫自己开修车厂，而今天是星期日，有什么事急过于照顾女儿和太太？而她的家婆那里，一个人都没去医院探望她！她丈夫带他女儿出街，从未带过她去吃东西，就算俭朴，也不寒酸到这个地步吧？如果是个男儿，我相信她丈夫那里的人今天可会飞扑过来照顾了。她和丈夫都是广东籍。广东籍的人多数都是重男轻女，简直不可理喻，太过分了！
Our Princess Bread Maker
LA has got her Princess bread maker on February 11. She had made a few breads and they all tasted very good. Today she made another one after she managed to buy some special ingredients for bread making. She made a wholemeal bread with the wholemeal flour she bought from PJ. Here is the photo of the Princess bread maker and the delicious fresh hot wholemeal bread.
Lingam’s Devil Curry
Whether you have been following the recent video controversy of Lingam or not, or you have no idea what it is about, just turn on your loudspeaker loudly, sit back and enjoy!
Nokia 6300
It has been a week since I lost my Sony Ericsson K700i. Choosing a cellphone is always a chaotic headache. So many models! I had been a Nokia fan before I switched to Sony Ericsson 3 years ago. The most important feature I wanted for my phone is the Bluetooth sync feature which allows me to sync my Calendar, To-do, Address with Mac OS X. That was the main reason I chose K700i.
Another criteria is that I want a phone to look like a phone. The 6300 has got a classic phone look after Nokia releases so many garbage. Deciding on a model is never easy. I listened to many live user experience from friends and relatives and even youngsters who own phones as a hobby. Reading comparison and comments on Internet is never as good as listening to real people talking straight out of their minds.
Apple’s iSync and Nokia do not support this model for syncing via Bluetooth. I did some research and found the 6300 is using Nokia’s Series 40 software and there are many similar phones have been supported. I need to do a hack to iSync so I referred to the following sites:
- Koos Kasper.nl: How to iSync a Nokia 6300
- dabgotra.com: Nokia 6300, iSync, and Contact Photos…
By following Koos’ hacks, I managed to setup Bluetooth link and iSync away in less than 2 minutes. Now, my 6300 is populated with so much data from my Calendar, To-do and Contact. I have yet to try dabgotra’s hacks to iSync contact with photos.
Ada Seminar
I gave my last Ada Seminar in March 2005 at MMU Melaka. It has been 3 years since I last active in Ada and Ada projects. It will be a great pleasure to restart any Ada related activities after quite a long inactivity.
This time, I am going to give a talk about Ada at two universities. For more information about the Ada seminars, read here.
CNY visiting
There was nothing to do over the week end so I decided to take everyone to PJ to visit my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. The plan was also to visit a few friends including Benji and also window shopping at 1U if time permitted.
We started our journey early. Traffic was smooth and we arrived at Sungai Besi in 1.5 hours. Unfortunately, the traffic built up heavily before the Sg. Besi toll. We were stuck there for many minutes and I decided to turn back and to take another alternative judging the heavy traffic would be delaying our journey by at least an hour or more. I took the UPM-Puchong (LDP) way and again another traffic congestion at LDP’s Sunway toll. The traffic there was not as heavy as Sg. Besi but it delayed our journey quite a bit. A 2-hour journey became 4-hour journey!
While driving on the E way, I realized I did not have Benji’s numbers on another phone. I had no way to contact Benji until he contacted me. According to SIL, all shopping malls were heavily congested by cars and people. On our way to PJ, we saw heavy congestion at Sunway Pyramid. So we decided to hang around at BIL’s house.
We went to some bakery supplies shops to buy some ingredients for making bread. On the way, Benji called. Thanked God! We would meet after 8.
Finally, we met up at Benji’s around 8. We drove back to Malacca and arrived safely. We called it a day!
I lost my cell phone
I had to go to one of my client’s outlet at Sentral Melaka to service their IP camera. When I arrived at the outlet, I received an SMS from LA followed by a phone call from Richard. He asked me lot of questions about his insurance claim and also to thank me for providing assistance and information about his insurance claim. I remembered clearly I put my Sony Ericsson K700i which I bought in 2005.
I was a Nokia user before switching to SE because I read about how seamlessly SE K700i syncs with Apple’s Mac OS X applications via Bluetooth. The SE K700i is a very nice phone with many features I love about. One of them is K700i can be used as a remote control for Apple’s Keynote presentation software. The control is via Bluetooth as well.
Soon when I realized it was not in my waist pouch, I quickly dialed the number using another phone. The phone had been switched off. Total silence. It’s gone! A phone which has been my friend for almost 3 years is now gone.
I went back to the outlet after taking Dmitry from school and the staffs told me they didn’t see it. Disappointed.
Hospital visit on first day of CNY
This year, the first place (other than parents’) we visited was the hospital. After our lunch at grandma’s, we went to Putra Specialist Hospital to visit Richard. He met an accident and had his ordeal at the general hospital.
When we saw him on the bed, his leg was nicely bandaged after the surgery. He now has a bionic leg. He was seen cherish and became the usual Richard. He was already recovering as he now had the mood to joke around. He was as cherish as usual as he used to be and on his way to recovery. We were a little pressured and worried while he was still in general hospital and he took many hours to decide to seek treatment at private hospital. We are glad he has made it.
Rest well and back on your feet again soon my friend!
I think we had a meaningful CNY this time by helping a friend through his suffering and ordeal. May the force be with you, Richard. And hey, you have got 3 months medical leave and we can really have a long chat and many teh tarik (tea with milk) this time. LOL! Cheers!
An idiotic culture
Many Chinese are practicing the burning of paper offerings to their Gods. It is an idiotic culture practice as it does not make any senses and is destructive to our environment. These paper offerings, as its name implies, are made of papers which are made of trees. The burning of paper offerings destroy many trees and does not bring any benefits at all. The smell and ashes are a nuisance. Ashes flying everywhere.
The Chinese believes the paper products will turn into real stuff after burning them. There are paper made TV, cars, airplane, cell phones an etc. to be offered to the dead. There are papers with silver, gold and/or other printing symbolize silver, gold and others respectively to be offered to the “Gods”. Take a paper with a square rectangle silver printed on it, after burning, it will turn into silver!
If the “Gods” are almighty, He does not need our offerings. After all, He does not need ashes, does He? We are able to have a job and earn money to buy these paper offerings to be turned into silver/gold for the God. In contrast, the God has to wait to receive offerings from us. If we have the power of turning paper to ashes to gold, aren’t we mightier than God? Why do we need God anyway? Think!
Two of my neighbors practice burning paper offerings. Despite of complaints I have forwarded to them and advise them to use a burning container with lid cover, they ignore and often will just say sorry. Every first day of Chinese New Year we have to suffer from the ashes dirtying our compound and my car which I just washed last night.
I will find a time during which they burn paper offerings and send them a strong verbal protest. This is too much. I hope the government will ban burning paper offerings as it does not bring any benefits but destruction to our environment. If the government is going to pass this bill, I will be 100% supportive. It is time to stop such idiotic and superstitious practice. It is a culture which should not be followed.
Boring at home?
If you are boring at home and have nothing to do or you are looking for some exciting entertainment, you may want to try some exciting online games. There are countless of online games available. Recently, I get to know some Online Bingo Games! Do you play Bingo? You can play online bingo here provides two sites that offers online bingo games reviews. The sites also provide some other entertainment and preview of games. Try Bloons Tower Defense 2. These sites provide ratings of bingo sites and listed them according to their rankings. They provide free bingo sign up bonuses, no-deposit bonuses and more. You can find lots of entertainment information and other games as well. Visit these two sites now and get entertained.
Happy Chinese New Year 2008 The Rat Year
It is the first day of the Rat year (in fact the Rat year actually started on Monday when the spring arrived). Feel great after a good rest. So, my family and I wish all family, friends and visitors a very Happy Chinese New Year. May this new Rat year brings you lots of happiness and a successful and prosperous new year. This Rat year will be an exciting year as it signifies the beginning of a new cycle as the Rat is the first animal in the 12 animals of Chinese horoscope.
Be happy and enjoy while heading along the successful path! Gong Xi Fa Cai and Wan Shi Ru Yi.
Another case of sub-standard health care
I wrote an article about sub-standard health care provided by government hospital sometime ago. Read it here. Today, we experienced another with our friend, Richard, who had a terrible accident last night.
We were going to grandma’s to help prepare the CNY eve dinner. It was about 1100+ when we arrived at the general hospital. Richard’s leg had been plastered without any surgery. LA and I were shocked and we got further details of what the specialists said from Richard. He told us one female specialist said he needed a surgery and the other male said no need surgery. WTF! What specialists were they? Were they qualified? I doubted.
We confirmed with a few friends who worked in hospital and they told us surgery was necessary to repair bone fractures. The earliest surgery the general hospital could schedule for Richard was next Thursday. It would be 10 days after his accident! WTF! He could have infection and had his leg amputated! We quickly provided him options to seek professional medical treatment in private hospital. He was concerned with insurance claims and the medical expenses. Private health care is many times more expensive than government hospital. I helped him to sort out some insurance doubts and advised him to decide quickly because today was CNY eve and there would be followed by two public holidays and weekend. Charges could be double or triple in operating theater and medical fees.
We waited until about 1645 and he finally called me that he had decided to seek professional medical treatment at private hospital. Without any delay, LA called her ex-colleagues in private hospital and arranged an ambulance and informed the doctor to standby.
By 1730, he was transferred to Putra Specialist Hospital and was under Dr. Ramu’s care. Surgery was scheduled at 2100 and after the CNY eve dinner, I went to see him at around 2000. Richard’s parents had gone home for dinner and he was alone. Poor Richard. I could understand his loneliness and fear as I had experience a surgery in 2006.
Before 2030, the nurses came in with an OT wheeled bed. They changed him. He was too embarrassed to get naked in front of the female nurses (his first time in front of female 
a virgin I supposed :D) He finally submitted to the sweet persuasion of the nurses. There gone his virginity! LOL. I accompanied him to the OT waiting area. That’s the furthest I could go. I comforted him and saw him being pushed into the OT. I went home and called to inform his parents.
I called his sister around 2350 and she told me Richard was soundly asleep and had not waken up after the surgery. I was relieved to hear he was fine after his surgery. Get well soon, my friend.
Most Unfortunate
Richard, my ex-classmate and best friend, were back from Singapore for the CNY on Sunday. He called me on Sunday night and Monday as well but I wasn’t free to go out with him for a tea. So, tonight while taking dinos downtown for a spin, an idea sparked and I called Richard to find out his whereabout and thought we might go for a drink.
He was shopping at MP and Carrefour. We made an rendezvous at 2145. We went many places in the car to look at CNY decoration in the old town. Then we were at Melaka Raya and I called Richard to change our rendezvous place to Hotel Equatorial. We waited there and many cars and motorcycles had passed by but Richard was nowhere to be seen. The kids were getting boring and started to make lots of noises. I decided to leave but no long after we left the rendezvous place, my phone rang. It was Richard. He told me he met an accident. First I thought he was joking as he used to be. But I heard his jumpy voice and I knew it was not funny. He was behind MP and we rushed to the vicinity.
When we arrived, he was sitting by the road side. He was on motorcycle and a car recklessly knocked him down. I went to understand the situation and to take a look at his condition. Using my knowledge in sports science and sports injuries, I examined his wounds and his right leg. He told me his leg was broken but some youngster who appeared to be the friends of the driver and were St. John members told me his leg was fine and not broken. What a stupid and ignorant youngsters!
Richard had some abrasion on his arms and legs. Not much of concerns. I examined closely and carefully his right leg and I found some swelling began to develop around and above his ankle. I touched and pressed gently and asked him if he felt anything. He told me it was numbed. That further reaffirmed my findings and I told him he had broken leg. I concluded his top part of fibula and the lower part of tibia were broken. I quickly called an ambulance and then came two policemen on motorcycles. One of them went to direct traffic and the other stopped beside to see what happened. I told him it was an accident and the victim had broken leg. This policeman took his own sweet time and he did nothing but standing there to look. I told him to radio the ambulance to reinforce my report. He still took his own sweet time to unbuckle his crash helmet, put it down in the basket, and stood there. I asked him why wasn’t he take any action and he ignored me. When I questioned him the second time, he told me to be patient. I raised my voice a little bit and told him the victim had broken leg and was suffering and he needed immediate medical assistance. He still took his own sweet time. My anger increased and I took out pen and paper and started looking for his ID number on his uniform but his safety jacket had covered his uniform and the ID number. I wrote down his motorbike registration number and he quickly began to radio back to headquarters. What kind of policeman was that? Worst, at the end of the incident after Richard had been sent to the hospital, the two policemen encouraged the driver and my friend’s family to settle outside so that no troublesome paperwork. I told him with a stern voice that we were going to lodge a police report.
After Richard had taken his motorbike which was parked behind MP, he was en route to rendezvous with us. Suddenly, a car came from behind him, passed him and suddenly turned left to go into a parking without signaling and looking at the left rear looking mirror. BANG! The driver was a young college going boy after his form five so he must be about the age of 18 or 19. A new and inexperienced driver with friends in his car talking and cheering away. When they spotted a parking, he endangered Richard.
The driver and his friends (girls and boys) admitted it was the driver’s fault while talking to me and Richard’s sister and mother. We encouraged him to file a police report. I was the one to lead them to the police station. Sadly, this young boy changed his mind under the influence of his friends (maybe) and his family. He did not admit his fault and stated that the motorcyclist (Richard) overtook his car from left rear. I wonder where is his conscience? I wonder if he can sleep and eat well?
My three boys are fascinated by ambulance and they like to see ambulance when we spot one on the road. This time, they had gotten the chance to seean ambulance taking an accident victim to the hospital. They saw the medical officers taking Richard up to the ambulance in a wheeled stretcher and rushed him to the hospital with siren. My boys had seen what an ambulance should do. But I guessed, today was the most unfortunate day for Richard.
After I sent them home, I went to the General Hospital to see if there was anything I could offer. I waited until he was ready to be warded. His leg was confirmed broken and he was really worried. When we (his sister and I) met the doctor in the ward, I asked to see his X-ray. That confirmed my findings. One fracture on the top part of his right fibula and two fractures on the lower part of his right tibia.
又是肉干飘香时
春节来咯！大街小巷每个角落肉干摊子林立，烤肉干的香味四处飘。又是肉干飘香的时侯。平时卖肉干的摊商零星可数。春节一到，可说卖肉干的人全都趁时机卖肉干大捞一笔。
肉干可是我的最爱。小时爸爸常买肉干让我夹面包当早餐。小时肉干还相当便宜的。现在肉干的价钱可要比我小时候贵了好多。这也是平时不买肉干吃的原因。不过偶尔会食指大动，买一点来吃。前两个礼拜就已经吃完一盒肉干。我那三个恐龙也很爱吃。不到三四天就吃完了。昨天朋友送来一盒肉干，晚上按耐不住，把它开了，吃了两片半。刚刚又吃了两片。
我喜欢单吃肉干，由其是猪肉切片的。如果配啤酒味道更好。肉干夹面包也美味。肉干拿来炒饭也很好。过了年，又要节食了。唉，一年一次吗…
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