Quoit, raiment, preclude, loopy, gonzo, rhetoric, coronet, impecunious, empyrean, maudlin.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Chap Goh Mei and Kwanzaa.
There, now that I have given the annual winter greetings, I will proceed to a couple of issues worth the common Malaysian's attention.
Number one on the item is the passing of the Islamic Family Law bill, which if anyone who hasn't just been out shopping, cooking, baking, partying and generally engaging in other holiday activities know, allows Islamic men more freedom in matters of polygamy among others.
Being of a belief (atheism) that doesn't practise polygamy, nor any experience of it, I will not pass judgment on the lifestyles of some people and how they treat the women of their lives.
I do however wish to highlight a certain aspect of the entire episode, which was much more displeasing and disappointing then the actual content of the bill itself.
In a shocking revelation, the nations alleged democracy is revealed to be nothing but a pretentious whimsical farce when a certain minister who was recently in the limelight as a leader of a certain human rights caucus declared he would invoke the Whip to prevent any vote against the bill by women MPs within parliament. All 19 of them.
Invoke the Whip; and it turns out another senior minister of a darker skin tone could also invoke the Whip.
I don't know about you, but my sick, twisted mind has conjured up images of (content not suitable for younger readers) and of merchandising deals - "Invoke the Whip" T-Shirts anyone?
For those precarious easily influenced minds who have not quite reached the maturity to understand what this means... Go to www.disney.com.
For those who do, I'll stress again: the Judicial and Legislative Branches are now ONE! No more checks and balance, because ministers who oppose the bill or any bills for the matter will scream, shout and cry, but in the end, will vote for something that betrays not just their conscience, but that of Muslim women all over Malaysia.
This begets the question - what next?
Answer: Every man in Malaysia is entitled to a free houris from birth.
The second issue I wish to highlight is the increased vigilance of censors in Malaysia.
You know what I mean.
Here I was, watching an episode of The Nanny when I realized the censors working overtime. Here and there, words like jerk and damn not to mention entire phrases and sentences replaced with the Malaysian way of censorship - silence.
Come on! When you remove the word stiff from an innocuous sentence like "I'm not as ~ in the morning..." which was meant as a repartee that Mr. Sheffield was not as strict as Ms. Fine implied was turned into something quite insidious by the censors when they replaced the word with the silence of space.
Those hypocritically parochial morons should have realized that only people with matured minds would have understood the joking reference to sex and only uptight, prim and proper individuals (e.g., the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, religious fundamentalists) wouldn't laugh along.
Kids are of course, excluded if they don't understand. I know, because I watched The Nanny when I was 5 and I still laugh as hard then as I do now, because jokes mean different things at different ages.
For example, the Jack and Jill went up the hill... nursery rhyme. Then, it was just a weird illogical poem. When I first heard this poem, I thought it was pretty odd to be writing poems about a boy and girl fetching water from a well on top of a hill and then falling down from a life threatening height.
Now, I understand that it was an allegorical piece about teenage sex set to nursery rhyme.
Sorry, got a bit carried away there.
The way Malaysian censors work is an interesting case study - they censored the tone of variable frequency and amplitude emanating through the vocal cords of the actors as if they have a grudge against "talkies" but, didn't care to remove the Bahasa Malaysia subtitles of the spoken words.
Hmm... From here I conclude that the censors intend for us to insult one another in Bahasa Malaysia and if we ever need to exchange sexually charge repartee, we should do it in Malay.
Having nothing else to do and nothing else to censor, these morons have also targeted a rerun of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Global Edition.
It was the same show, only with some content further removed. Most conspicuous was how Jon's use of the Hindu god Lord Ganesh was removed. Yes my Hindu brothers, the censors are doing religious profiling.
Now, if only there were people out there reading my weekly blog entries then I can count on my fingers, my assessment and views would be more than just wasted Internet storage and bandwidth, people might actually start making a difference.
On that sour note, I end my last blog entry of 2005, see you next year.
Live Long & Prosper,
May The Force Be With You,
Be At Peace With Death.
P.S. If you are wondering about the title, it's a reference to what Senator Padme Amidala said during Revenge of the Sith after Darth Sidious dissolve the Galactic Senate.
Enough said.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
The Atheist's Preach
Peccadillo, Malthusian, Palliate, Mezzanine, Denigrate, Boor, Levity, Spelunker, Palindrome, Motile, Parlance.
24000 people.
Take a moment to consider that number.
24000 die every day from hunger.
You can help without paying a single dime. "How?" you may ask skeptically. By going to this site, and clicking on the unavoidable big yellow button.
Advertisers pay about 0.5 pence per click (if my sources are to be trusted) to feed someone dying of hunger.
You don't need to spend a single cent.
After clicking, you will see similar sites are also located at the bottom half of the page. Make sure you check out other causes you can support.
Be compassionate.
If you can't even do this simple task, and if you are religious to boot, I suggest taking a well deserved stroll to the North Pole to keep that cold-as-ice heart of yours from melting.
Now, onwards to another issue.
Recently, some quarters, ahem, Msiuc Cnocuuil of Mylasaia, have suggested a blanket levy on all CD-Rs to be sold in our beloved country.
They claim, uh, actually I don't care what they claim. They are just being greedy.
Just a reminder, you can do your own research to confirm this, the manufacturing cost of a CD is significantly lower than that of a cassette's.
Yet the industry charges more for CDs.
That's because music on CDs will sound like music (although Ashlee Simpson and other pop-singer wannabes might not qualify for this category) while audio from cassettes will eventually sound like Edward Scissorhands trying to write on the blackboard.
The smart people up there know we will pay more for a cheap product if it's better than the more expensive junk sold cheaply.
That's it for now, I'll end today's show with a quote from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart: Global Edition -
"every time someone says 'Happy Holidays', an angel gets AIDS. "
24000 people.
Take a moment to consider that number.
24000 die every day from hunger.
You can help without paying a single dime. "How?" you may ask skeptically. By going to this site, and clicking on the unavoidable big yellow button.
Advertisers pay about 0.5 pence per click (if my sources are to be trusted) to feed someone dying of hunger.
You don't need to spend a single cent.
After clicking, you will see similar sites are also located at the bottom half of the page. Make sure you check out other causes you can support.
Be compassionate.
If you can't even do this simple task, and if you are religious to boot, I suggest taking a well deserved stroll to the North Pole to keep that cold-as-ice heart of yours from melting.
Now, onwards to another issue.
Recently, some quarters, ahem, Msiuc Cnocuuil of Mylasaia, have suggested a blanket levy on all CD-Rs to be sold in our beloved country.
They claim, uh, actually I don't care what they claim. They are just being greedy.
Just a reminder, you can do your own research to confirm this, the manufacturing cost of a CD is significantly lower than that of a cassette's.
Yet the industry charges more for CDs.
That's because music on CDs will sound like music (although Ashlee Simpson and other pop-singer wannabes might not qualify for this category) while audio from cassettes will eventually sound like Edward Scissorhands trying to write on the blackboard.
The smart people up there know we will pay more for a cheap product if it's better than the more expensive junk sold cheaply.
That's it for now, I'll end today's show with a quote from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart: Global Edition -
"every time someone says 'Happy Holidays', an angel gets AIDS. "
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Coalesce, Bibliobibuli, Akimbo, Mosh, Bodewash, Donnybrook, Popinjay, Mawkish, Token Economy, Ecorche, Ectocommensal, Congenital.
Two weeks.
That's how long I trained for the Penang Band Festival.
Two weeks worth of sweat, pain, and most of all, wasted time.
If you should know, we won the state level challenge, which was held on Friday. No unbiased judging here. How do I know? Because I asked my younger sister who was watching the event (she's one of those honest types) as well as my mother (vindictive and highly judgmental type) regarding their opinion on whether or not we deserved the win.
They both agreed. But they still pointed out weaknesses in our performance.
Friday's Result: We received the Gold Certificate and were crowned champions of Penang. Annihilating our closest competitors Jit Sin & Heng Ee (someone tell me if I misspelled their names) with the inspirational Sejahtera Malaysia (my favourite Malay Song of all time) and the classical Poet and Peasant.
Yesterday though, was a different story. The judges were different from Friday night. Quite understandable. But most of their replacements were local or regional.
This was the national level competition, so we really should be doing better than this. But as long as the judging was fair, IDGARA.
It wasn't.
None of the bands outside of Penang received Gold certificates and in an odd twist of fate, my band, the classical piece playing band, earned only a silver for playing the same thing from Friday night (as did all the Penang schools), while Jit Sin walked away champions and Heng Ee won a Gold Certificate (as did Jit Sin).
Believe me when I say this isn't the sore loser speaking, here's the evidence:
They lose nothing by giving us their honest opinions. We on the other hand, lose a lot more by listening to lies.
No one plays demagogue in the school band of Chung Ling.
After one days worth of observation, reflection, and other calculations; I have come to the conclusion that the Penang Band Festival was nothing more than a political ploy for the Pesta Pulau Pinang celebrations.
A victory was assure for the home teams when none of the non-Penang teams earned a Gold Certificate.
A mock David-versus-Goliath or some other come from behind victory against a much more powerful competitor was staged when Chung Ling supposedly screwed up to earn a scandalous Silver Certificate while both Jit Sin & Heng Ee were given Gold.
If you still have any doubts, let me leave you with this final note:
Some of the unbiased, common folk, who had no affiliations with Chung Ling were heard by my bandmates saying they were surprised by the decision as they had predicted a Chung Ling victory.
I can only compare this infuriating decision with the one made over the Anthony Bonsante-Jesse Brinkley rematch.
Some victories are worse than defeat.
Live Long & Prosper,
May The Force Be With You,
Be At Peace With Death.
Two weeks.
That's how long I trained for the Penang Band Festival.
Two weeks worth of sweat, pain, and most of all, wasted time.
If you should know, we won the state level challenge, which was held on Friday. No unbiased judging here. How do I know? Because I asked my younger sister who was watching the event (she's one of those honest types) as well as my mother (vindictive and highly judgmental type) regarding their opinion on whether or not we deserved the win.
They both agreed. But they still pointed out weaknesses in our performance.
Friday's Result: We received the Gold Certificate and were crowned champions of Penang. Annihilating our closest competitors Jit Sin & Heng Ee (someone tell me if I misspelled their names) with the inspirational Sejahtera Malaysia (my favourite Malay Song of all time) and the classical Poet and Peasant.
Yesterday though, was a different story. The judges were different from Friday night. Quite understandable. But most of their replacements were local or regional.
This was the national level competition, so we really should be doing better than this. But as long as the judging was fair, IDGARA.
It wasn't.
None of the bands outside of Penang received Gold certificates and in an odd twist of fate, my band, the classical piece playing band, earned only a silver for playing the same thing from Friday night (as did all the Penang schools), while Jit Sin walked away champions and Heng Ee won a Gold Certificate (as did Jit Sin).
Believe me when I say this isn't the sore loser speaking, here's the evidence:
- Heng Ee played worse than us that night, meaning they played too loudly and there were very obvious flaws in their performance.
- Jit Sin were only slightly better than Heng Ee.
- None of the schools outside of Penang received Gold Certificates (which would have meant they were in contention for the Yamaha Trophy) for their performance.
- Some of the judges were, shall we say, not on friendly terms with our principal Conductor, Mr. Woon Wen Kin.
- Chung Ling High School Band (my band) had healthy female support. This is quite remarkable when you take into account Chung Ling is an all-boys high school.
They lose nothing by giving us their honest opinions. We on the other hand, lose a lot more by listening to lies.
No one plays demagogue in the school band of Chung Ling.
After one days worth of observation, reflection, and other calculations; I have come to the conclusion that the Penang Band Festival was nothing more than a political ploy for the Pesta Pulau Pinang celebrations.
A victory was assure for the home teams when none of the non-Penang teams earned a Gold Certificate.
A mock David-versus-Goliath or some other come from behind victory against a much more powerful competitor was staged when Chung Ling supposedly screwed up to earn a scandalous Silver Certificate while both Jit Sin & Heng Ee were given Gold.
If you still have any doubts, let me leave you with this final note:
Some of the unbiased, common folk, who had no affiliations with Chung Ling were heard by my bandmates saying they were surprised by the decision as they had predicted a Chung Ling victory.
I can only compare this infuriating decision with the one made over the Anthony Bonsante-Jesse Brinkley rematch.
Some victories are worse than defeat.
Live Long & Prosper,
May The Force Be With You,
Be At Peace With Death.
Friday, December 02, 2005
The Anticlimax.
That's one of my suggested names for the supposedly hardest examination a secondary student in Malaysia will face. It would be hard, if you didn't study anything for the past 5 years of secondary education.
Now, for my forecasts:
Chemistry - Average, meaning it was as hard as a coconut under the Malaysian sun. But then, Chemistry was and might always will be the hardest subject for me to crack. Get this: I can't give it up next year! This is because some idiots working in the upper echelons of the Malaysian government thinks all Malaysians should take some biomedicine thingy training, which they claim will create a richer human capital. These are of cause, the same parochial pigs who invented the streaming system. Whatever happened to learning for learning's sake, and to follow your own passions? C
Biology - Easy on the eyes, more so in the mind. My favourite subject of all the science subject forced upon me by the school. As I predicted, Biology was a breeze for me, with a few hiccough of course, but nothing major. A
English in Science & Technology (EST) - Indifferent
Note: Words in colour are my expected grades.
And that ends my week. I had to do my blogging two days earlier due to band practices and an outing with fellow Fifth Formers on Saturday and a charity performance with my school band on Sunday. I play the Tuba. Go figure.
That's one of my suggested names for the supposedly hardest examination a secondary student in Malaysia will face. It would be hard, if you didn't study anything for the past 5 years of secondary education.
Now, for my forecasts:
Chemistry - Average, meaning it was as hard as a coconut under the Malaysian sun. But then, Chemistry was and might always will be the hardest subject for me to crack. Get this: I can't give it up next year! This is because some idiots working in the upper echelons of the Malaysian government thinks all Malaysians should take some biomedicine thingy training, which they claim will create a richer human capital. These are of cause, the same parochial pigs who invented the streaming system. Whatever happened to learning for learning's sake, and to follow your own passions? C
Biology - Easy on the eyes, more so in the mind. My favourite subject of all the science subject forced upon me by the school. As I predicted, Biology was a breeze for me, with a few hiccough of course, but nothing major. A
English in Science & Technology (EST) - Indifferent
Note: Words in colour are my expected grades.
And that ends my week. I had to do my blogging two days earlier due to band practices and an outing with fellow Fifth Formers on Saturday and a charity performance with my school band on Sunday. I play the Tuba. Go figure.
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