Blogger enters Malaysian parliament

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/9914840/

Jeff Ooi, Malayasia's most famous political blogger was voted into parliament in the recently concluded Malaysian general elections.

Standing under the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), Jeff Ooi won the Jelutong parliamentary seat with a 16,246 majority beating two other candidates.

One of the indications of the growing political clout of bloggers. I may be mistaken but I think he's the first blogger to get elected to a parliament in any country.

Didn't get the job

I was in the middle of class today when I received a call from the Unitemps office. I didn't get the job. It not something that you like to hear on your birthday but there you go.

Felt a bit down because I was extremely confident I would get the job. I was excited even though the job was only a part time and temporary, because I had done the research and felt that I could show them immediate results in just a couple of weeks.

The lady on the line was telling me that the choice had been extremely difficult and that they had a hard time deciding between me and another candidate. That was even more upsetting because then I start thinking that probably I didn't sell myself enough or that maybe I shouldn't have been too honest.

A simple "Sorry! You didn't get the position you applied for" email would have sufficed.

Anyway, that's life. You win some, you lose some.

What the British Really Mean

Received this forwarded email from a friend and wanted to share it with you guys because it's so true.

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It is well known that the British do not always say what they really mean. So, with the growing international nature of business, the definitions below may help people from other nations understand their British counterparts better.


♦ I hear what you say
What They Mean: I disagree and do not wish to discuss it any further

♦ With the greatest respect
What They Mean: I think you are a fool

♦ Not bad
What They Mean: Good or very good

♦ Quite good
What They Mean: A bit disappointing

♦ Perhaps you would like to think about…./it would be nice if….
What They Mean: This is an order. Do it or be prepared to justify yourself

♦ Oh, by the way/Incidentally
What They Mean: This is the primary purpose of our discussion

♦ Very interesting
What They Mean: I don’t agree/I don’t believe you

♦ Could we consider the options
What They Mean: I don’t like your idea

♦ I’ll bear it in mind
What They Mean: I will do nothing about it

♦ Perhaps you could give that some more thought
What They Mean: It is a bad idea. Don’t do it

♦ I’m sure it is my fault
What They Mean: It is your fault

♦ That is an original point of view/brave option to consider
What They Mean: You must be crazy

♦ You must come for dinner sometime
What They Mean: Not an invitation, just being polite

♦ Not entirely helpful
What They Mean: Completely useless

Thanks Christina.

A taxi ride

Yesterday evening I was attending a seminar on new digital media at the University of Warwick when I received a call from my wife. Our son had a really high temperature and we might have to send him to the drop-in clinic.

I didn't have the car and as a bus ride back would lake too long, decided to take a Taxi. Fortunately there were several parked besides the Rootes building.

The taxi was one of the new generation TX4 built by LTI vehicles based in Coventry. I just realised that it was my first time ever in one of these so called "London Taxis". Quite roomy and comfortable.

The taxi driver was polite and tried to make some small talk but I was not in the mood and he soon got the point I guess.

I don't know why but the journey (which is around 3.9 miles) felt like it took ages. I guess I was worried about my son. It cost me £12.80 for the journey. Though I love the idea of efficient public transport, blah blah blah, it is in situations like this that you makes you realise the advantages of having your own vehicle.

Found out that my son's temperature had gone down and we didn't have to send him to the clinic.

Peace Tag

I got tagged again, this time by Baizurah of Prozak Nation. Didn't really know what to write.

Rules:

1. If you get tagged or not (and want to play along), take some minutes to meditate about love and peace, pray for countries that are facing troubles, for those people you love and those you don’t.
2. Write a post with links to blogs that you think would like to participate
3. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme

Looking at the times we live in - with the fear of terrorism everywhere we go, wars in various corners of the Earth, hatred and mistrust, it is very easy to be pessimistic about the future our kids will inherit.

But we must not give up hope. Let's pray for peace and love on the Earth - not only for ourselves, or for our kids but for everyone. I hope for a future where people won't have to keep guns in their houses to protect themselves, where people won't have to blow themselves up for any issue, an end to never ending "an eye for an eye" cycle of violence and differences of language, skin colour, religion and region won't matter.

I tag anyone who's interested to further spread this message.

Geeky girls

Way back in 2003, I once asked "Are most bloggers, Girls?" I later wrote "Not all Bloggers are teenage girls". This was followed by "WAHMs leading the blogging brigade" in my technology focussed blog, Adamok.net.

Well according to an article in The New York Times,

..the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

The article also quotes the results of a Pew study, which says that the doubling of the number of bloggers from 2004 to 2006 was due to the “the increased activity of girls.”

Not only are there more teenage girl bloggers, but apparently the primary creators of Web content and social networking sites are girls. I guess it's true because just looking at my classmates - almost all of the girls are on Facebook whereas some of the guys haven't even heard of it. Of course, I should point out that some of these guys have teenage kids and are not really into the new developments on the net.

Stealing from Charity

My wife was working late today and I went to pick here up from the campus in the evening. On the way back she wanted to drop by the Tesco nearby and grab a few things. Fortunately I was able to find parking right in front of the store.

Anyway, while I was waited for her in the car, I noticed a suspicious looking fellow in the shadows near a charity shop. There are a couple of charity shops in the vicinity but the one near the Tesco store was a PDSA store.

The guy looked suspicious because he was hanging in the shadows and was looking left and right all the time. Suddenly a small car pulled up right in front. In one fast move the guy quickly grabbed a big plastic bag filled with stuff left by charitable people in front of the shop, jumped into the car and it quickly drove away.

There are a lot of charitable people around and they usually take their used as well as unwanted stuff and leave them outside the charity shops.

Sometime back there was a documentary on TV about some people who go around in a van pinching bags left outside residential homes meant for various charities. I know they are unwanted stuff but it's not right to pinch the stuff as they were meant for the charities. It's totally wrong.