Initiate Launch Sequence

It's a while since my last post, but that's because I now subscribe to the content method of writing my articles, compared to the episodic method I once favoured.

Regardless of the reasons, I will now make another monumental announcement:
I shall be leaving Balik Pulau, for Kota Kinabalu.

After six months, I finally received confirmation of my acceptance into Universiti Malaysia Sabah to study International Tropical Forestry.

How and what does it mean by "International", when I can find no in-depth details of the programme on the UMS homepage, remains to be seen.

How will this affect you? Well, it means I am one step closer to becoming Environment Minister of Malaysia, whereupon I will do everything possible to make your life a living hell if you so much as toss a plastic bag onto the streets.

Finally, a link to a fascinating blog discussing the issues of anime fansubbing. I would prefer you read it and understand the issues before you download your next anime.

In fact, I hope you will forever be dogged by feelings of guilt (like me), about downloading anime. But that would mean I would expect you to care.

LOL.
ROTFLMAO.
LOL

The EverAnime Stink

I wish to share something personally painful.

My pride and joy.

My first Cowboy Bebop CD, is a bootleg.

Okay, the pictures:

Here's Cowboy Bebop: No Disc

Here's another view.


And here's the moneyshot.

Know why?

Ever Anime is a known bootleg producer, as refered to from this site.

And here's the EverAnime wikipedia entry.

Don't make the same mistakes I made.

Avoid EverAnime (and also SonMay) like a Taliban fighter touring the USA.

Gunslinger Girl Bootlegs in Queensbay

Gunslinger Girl, as everyone who has experience the discomfort of listening to me talk about anime knows, is my all time favourite must-watch-must-buy anime.

So before we proceed with my latest findings, please visit the wiki. Trust me, you will be referring to it in a while.

Queensbay is home to an anime shop on the same floor as the cinemas, you can't miss it.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon the latest season of Gunslinger Girl (Il Teatrino, with all 13 episodes no less!) being sold for not more than RM20.00.

The Japanese television broadcast (on Tokyo MX TV) for the series, as you can read in the wiki, ended on the 31st of March, 2008.

This is an important date, because Japanese broadcasters demand a 90 day monopoly on the anime series being broadcast:

"When we're dealing with a TV series, very often Japanese TV networks...[demand] a 90-day monopoly on that product. From the day that it premieres on whatever TV network in Japan, for the next 90 days, absolutely no one is allowed to show that product anywhere else in the world,"

In essence, this explains why most legal anime you see being sold come in blocks of 3 episodes, as the 90 day limit lapses on each individual episode.

While this is a moronic distribution method, it is absolutely legal.

So unlike the bootleg 13-episodes-in-one-DVD Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino (with a Gun X Sword logo emblazoned above it for some nefarious reason), this would be what a typical legal DVD box set from Japan would look like.

Of course, I checked this site out to view its legality, and you can read the ratings here.

Though the reviews are rather disparaging, the words "illegal", "piracy", and "bootleg" do not appear.

In conclusion, don't buy any illegal or pirated software. Okay, I know the majority of you folks out there think it's your god-given right to buy cheap VCDs and DVDs.

But the truth is, you can survive without these item, because they are being purchased with DISPOSABLE INCOME. The moral thing to do if you believe the item is overpriced is not to buy it at all. Being a software/web design company employee has made me regret many of the statements and actions I have made regarding pirated software, and I am now striving to rectify these mistakes.

What galls me isn't the prevalence of pirated products, but pirated products being passed off as the real thing... in large national book stores and video outlets. This essentially means consumers don't even have an obvious choice for legal products.

It may be a difficult decision for many, but the choice to purchase pirated products is one of those tiny judgements in life that defines you as a person. For:

Though the soul be single comprehending,
Man is but the sum of things him.

Technically Legal?

Through hours of web trawling, I have discovered a certain trade agreement known as the Berne Convention.

Apparently, this convention is an agreement that protects the intellectual works of art from theft by unscrupulous individuals. However, this is only the case if both countries are members of the Berne Convention.

Interestingly enough, Taiwan is not a signatory of the convention.

Since I have yet to finish reading the entire document, I can't come to any conclusions yet. But from what I have read, it seems the anime being sold everywhere in Malaysia as original products which are actually imports of bootlegs from Taiwan, may be technically legal because Taiwan is not a signatory to Berne.

Until then, happy reading!

Related Links:
Berne Convention pdf document

The Case of the Cheap Bleach Boxset (aka CBB)

The case began with a friend of mine, Tommy, showing me a 60 episode boxset of Bleach which was bought for the phenomenal price of RM 59.90.

I had no suspicions of it being illegitimate, seeing as it was bought from Popular, a well known book chain firmly rooted in Malaysia. So I let the issue go.

However, the lousy subtitling brought to mind stories of Hong Kong pirates selling bootlegs of anime as the legitimate thing.

After some time, I posed my suspicions to members of the #Japanator channel on irc.irchighway.net who subsequently answered that the products could not be legal, as bootleg versions of anime sold in their country (the USA) were still more expensive than the allegedly legal ones here.

I finally met the people manning Popular (Gurney Plaza branch) yesterday, on the 27th of March 2008.

Since I carelessly forgot to borrow a recording device of some sort, I will present at least 3 witnesses to the event if anyone should ask for one in a court of law.

I have posted my preliminary findings on the Japanator forum under the thread Too Cheap to be True, so it would be rather repetitive of me even if I rephrased them here.

Anyway, a summary of my findings up to today:

1. Box sets being sold by anime distributors in Malaysia are crushingly cheap compared to distributors in other countries.
2. There is at least one confirmed distributor of anime DVDs in Malaysia, Technogram (according to this site, which happens to be a blog), which is the Malaysian branch of Odex, the Singaporean company now suing Internet users who download anime from the web illegally. Since they are suing people downloading anime from the web, and haven't been sued by any Japanese company for wrongful claims of Intellectual Property, the evidence weighs heavily in Odex's favour that it is a legitimate anime distributor.
3. If however, Animedia Entertainment is a legitimate company, I have no qualms purchasing stuff from them. This is after all, an inquiry into the legitimacy of the product, not an accusation of guilt.

Other related links:

• IIPA 2007 Special Report MALAYSIA
• FAQ on Pirates
• Popular
• Legal Anime Alternatives

Finis

New words: Barrette, Enfilade, Oast.

The title is in Latin, and it means boundary or end.

• Reality sets in.

It is very common for me to ponder world events, and to fire off comments that are hopefully smart enough to warrant reading. It's easy for me, to just read the various news stories and call each and every one of them an idiot, a moron, a lunatic, an omadhaun, or any other word that is synonymous with useless infidel!

It isn't very healthy, and runs in direct contrast to my personal aspirations to rid myself of negative emotions. As much as I like writing about other people's follies, it has to stop.

This blog has to stop.

I remembered taking a vow to myself not one year ago (I am an atheist, so the only thing I can swear upon is my own honour and conscience), to judge no one but myself.

As the days and months pass, this has become rather hard a demand, as I always have an opinion, mostly one that reduces my target to a ludicrous three-dimensional piece of molecular interaction that happens to speak.

This is not only unhealthy, it is unhelpful.

Enough is enough, and if I must stick to my vow, to judge no one but myself.

There is only one inevitable solution. To stop playing the hypocrite, and start behaving like a grown man. The time for words in an inconsequential blog is over.

I want to change the world, but I can't write change into existence. I must study it, discuss it, work it into existence.

By the end of the day, maybe I will stop hating myself.

Short, Shot, Shoot!

New words: Prestidigitation, Taproom, Cocksure, Quiff, Brigid, Servile, Rondo, Bollard, Parser, Doeskin, Aslope, Contumacious.

This week on A Stray World:

• Oily skins missed;
• Not the face! Not the Face!
• A. Asohan goes Stray
  

What's with the goo?
This week has been particularly hectic.
Oil hits $100.
Jon Stewart returns with A Daily Show.

And Malaysia, the second largest producer of palm oil world, ran out of palm oil.

Fascinating. Almost fictional in fact. It's like saying Thailand has ran out of prostitutes, or Kelantan without muftis, or George W. Bush without lies.

Without realising it, we citizens have failed to notice the convenient subsidies on cooking oil quietly nestled in place somewhere in the bowels of this immature democracy. Keen to keep prices low in our favourite char koay teow stalls, proprietors seemed to have caught on to the subsidies placed upon store bought cooking oil.

The larger barrel-like ones woefully forgotten.

Incredible as it seems, people refused to buy anything but cooking oil for the first two days of the apparent oil crisis. Like the geopolitical factions at play for its non-edible distant relative, storekeepers were accused of hoarding attacks were carried out by government officials, and general chaos from media coverage and frustrated oil-dependant citizens brought about a final agreement to raise production.

Alternative to oil-fried food - water.

People are addicted to oil.

Quite fascinating.

Bullet
Datuk S. Krishnasamy. One slug to the head. Close range.

Reading Gunslinger Girl has given me morbid insight into the mind of professional assassins.

The set-up was perfect. Here's my theory.

This mid-ranking member of the MIC was murdered in an MIC branch. Not on the road in some secluded junction. The building would be guarded, and with elections around the corner, very likely to be rather busy with human traffic.

Why take the risk? Why kill him in an elevator in a political building buzzing with pre-election activity?

This implies a political message.

A straight gunshot to the head implies rather obviously, an intent to eliminate, not intimidate the victim.

Since the MIC could easily replace one of their fallen with another mid-ranking representative, it could be postulated that this was a warning.

It would be naive to assume Datuk S Krishnasamy was completely innocent in the entire affair. He was embroiled in some business with some dangerous individuals.

People who aren't afraid of public execution as long as the message is delivered clearly, vividly.

The question now becomes, what is the message?

Stray Thoughts
One of the most senior members of The Star, A. Asohan, whose work I have acquainted myself with since his In Tech days has been awarded a column in the Sunday Star.

I have no hard feelings that he used the phrase above in bold as the name of his column. After all, Stray isn't a patented word.

However, it does make me wonder whether or not I should request a trademark for my blog's name when I move it away from Blogger.

Lovely.

New words: Headland, Ineluctable, Martinet, Bunco, Gumshoe, Kindling, Ingenue, Simper, Dint, Palaver.

Scandalous? Indeed.

But the study here isn't really about Chua Soi Lek, but the nation as a whole, and why it matters.

The people have Judged

Sex scandals are nothing new. If one were to look back further, a mistress was even considered a symbol of success.

The concubines of Chinese Emperors certainly weren't cheap.

And if our so-called Muslim leaders were to reflect on the Ottoman empire, I am sure they would find no solace in picking upon a man who kept a measly one.

Let's not kid ourselves here.

This is but a private matter gone public. To lose one of our better leaders in such fashion is simply wasteful.

Let's do a quick recap on other crimes that surely deserve or exceed the same measure of public disgust.

Wasteful Spending
Right, so what happened to all those government departments implicated in the Auditor General's sweep? A few low-level, mid-level executives questioned and sacked?

Imagine gallons and gallons of liquid gold spent on such essentials as:

• Screwdrivers,
• Digital cameras,
• Computers,
• Pencils, and my personal favourite
• Car jacks.

Illegal Logging
After the rape of Nanjing, our leaders probably decided to up the ante and stage:

The Rape of Lojing.

An entire mountain range was given the greatest haircut in Malaysia (Malaysian Book of Records) when a few state government officials decided to sell all the trees to loggers and plant, ostentatiously, ferns.

Yes. Those itsy-bitsy-teeny-greenish-weeds that kids (both human and animal) step-on on their way to the local municipal playground.

The White House
Not suggesting someone would go so far as to build a replica of the symbol of American democracy in Malaysia. Only going so far as to suggest flagrant flaunting of wealth and power.

So what happened to the politician who steamrollered his way to a new house and a satay restaurant sans official approval?

Apart from the now familiar official denial of any wrongdoing ("The architect did it!"), the man with a face thicker than the length of the Great Wall of China decided to invite a few dozen orphan to stay over at his new dig for one night.

Only thing he lost was his eatery, not is job.

Hmm...

Have Sex, Will Tell
This article is in no way meant to defend the good doctor from further jibes. What he did was wrong, if one subscribes to the Koran and Old Testament.

Secular-wise, he broke the unspoken laws of social propriety. Malaysian laws of social propriety.

But when left with two obvious choices, to keep quiet and his job, or to speak and get out, Dr Chua did the unthinkable.

He admitted his mistake, and left government.

That is a remarkable thing, considering Barisan Nasional could just as easily preserve his job by withholding comment anyway.

Alternative Future
Imagine this.

1. If Dr Chua kept his flap shut and asked press aides to deny everything,
2. and Badawi spoke of the lack of evidence,
3. and the press were directed to the greater issue of our floundering education system, flood mitigation tactics, the Royal Commission, and other more pressing issues,
4. Dr Chua Soi Lek would remain Health Minister.

Politics Screws the Bold
He had no charisma, but Dr Chua was a reassuring figure.

In a country that officially denies the existence of gays, lesbians, transvestites, transsexuals, bisexuals and any other word ending with -sexual, he pushed for the use of condoms; the distribution of condoms.

Whatever his fallacies, it would be prudent to note: Dr Chua's mistake did not cost the nation taxpayer money, or taxpayer time (though we all know that's not really high up on any agenda here).

I don't believe the same fingers now pointed at him can claim the same.