Gangsterism

Our newspapers are still carrying articles about gangsterism among the youth and I was able to experience it first hand last weekend.
I was on my way back to KL when the bus I was in, stopped to pick up some passengers from Ipoh. Many passengers got down and a few got up but the bus was still half empty. As we restarted on the journey to KL, I noticed this guy (must be in his early 20s). He was asking for something from girls sitting around. This guy was with another smaller kid. I noticed that one girl sitting on the other row beside me, giving him her handphone. After a while, the guy gave her back the handphone and there was a short exchange (which I couldn't hear). Suddenly the girl got up and sat in the seat right behind me. I didn't think much about that incident and went to sleep thinking that it was none of my business.
As we were nearing KL, I saw the guy getting up and going towards the back. After a while, one of my colleagues (a lady) who was on her way back to KL too, suddenly came beside me and told me that the guy was trying "to kacao' the girl. I looked back and noticed that the girl was looking really scared and the guy was now in the seat behind her. I am not much of a hero and I was a bit apprehensive as that guy had a friend sitting up front. Anyway, I just stood up and asked "ada problem??" and on receiving no reply, repeated it in English. My friend was whispering " be careful!, be careful!" all the time. The girl started to tell me something in tears, which I couldn't really understand. Like all bullies who prey on people who are weaker then them, this guy turned out to be a coward and quickly slinked to the back after a few deadly eye-to-eye stares. I told the girl to complain to the bus driver if the guy troubled her again and he can drive straight to the police station. There were no problems after that. The two guys quickly got down from the bus and walked away after reaching Pudu station. They didn’t even look back but they were walking very slowly so I thought we might have a chance to catch them and teach them a lesson. We escorted the girl to the Police pondok, which unfortunately turned out to be unoccupied at that moment.
The girl later told me that the guy wanted to borrow her phone to make an emergency call and so she gave it to him. After making the call, the guy started to make stupid and obscene remarks for no reason (I guess to intimidate her). Later on he was pulling her bag from behind her seat.
I was really angry with the other passengers the bus. I guess those in the front were not really aware. However, there was one guy sitting on the seat right beside the girl and he was acting as if nothing happened. There was also another lady with her daughter who remained silent. I guess this is one reason why these gangsters can get away with such acts – our lack of action when it happens. We will raise and hue and cry – only after the tragedy has happened but prefer to turn a blind eye- “its none of our business”, while it is happening. However, this might have happed to family member or even to me and I am willing to bet that only one in a thousand would have come to our aid. Really scary, don’t you think?

Free Roaming Calls through the Net

Have you heard about Skype. This FREE p2p (peer-to-peer) phone program is from the same guys who brought us KaZaA. This simple to use program allows you to make free calls to other Skype users around the world. Haven't tried it myself yet. I am downloading it right now. At last count this program has been downloaded 9,857,643 times.
It is reported to have excellent sound quality and highly secure with end-to-end encryption. You also do not need to reconfigure your firewall or router.
They are also introducing a new service called PocketSkype where people can use their handhelds and other Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices to make calls through wireless "hot spots" in homes, airports, hotels and your local Starbucks.
However, one drawback is that it is designed only for devices running the Microsoft's PocketPC operating system.

Trip to Kelate

Just got back from Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Was visiting my parents with my wife and Rahil. I don't get to see them as often as I want to and this time, we spent nearly a week there. As usual we took the Air Asia flight and the round trip ticket for three of us was only around Rm200/ which was a great bargain. I had to book them online nearly 2 months ahead of course. My parents were really happy to see Rahil, as she is their first and only grand child. They even threw a feast for all our family friends in Kelantan. I was expecting only our neighbour but in the end more than a hundred guests turned up. The lucky kid received a lot of gifts. Rahil is now growing fast, she turned 5 months on the 29th of March and she now weighs eight Kgs. She also started eating solid food. On the 27th as I was about to feed her in the morning, I heard her say "Baba". I thought I was dreaming but she repeated it louder and clearly. You can imagine how thrilled I was to hear the first coherent words out of her mouth - Baba. My wife doesn't mind that she didn't say Mama but she deflated my ego a bit when she told me that Rahil doesn't understand what the word means and she was right. Rahil kept on saying it to everyone including a loud continuous "BABA BABA BABA" when we are slightly late with her food.
We were just in time for the Sultan's Birthday and I learnt that Kelantan is the only state in Malaysia which declares two days holidays to celebrate the Sultan's birthday. The entire town was lighted up and it was quite nice though my wife noted that the decorations looked a bit "Kampung". One thing I noticed was that people there would take any opportunity to celebrate with their whole family and this was one such big occasion. The entire road around the Istana was closed to vehicles as thouands visited the palace.

Free Online Encyclopedia

Just came to know about Wikipedia. It is a multilingual online open-content (and FREE) encyclopedia, which was started in January 2001. Anyone with an Internet connection and a browser can add and alter the content found here. As of last count there were 231966 articles in the English version. Some predict that this will be bigger than even Google and may be the best source of the latest news directly from common people all around the World. However, I admit that I couldn't find a few topics I was searching for but the great part is that you can add your own articles to it until someone else edits it. The disclaimer on the site notes that "Wikipedia CANNOT guarantee, in any way whatsoever, the validity of the information found here".

Of course there will always be some a**holes, who being the idiots they are, try to spoil the party by writing junk. I guess we have to live with them but we can go ahead and reedit it back again.

Now go ahead and add your own articles to this wonderful site.

The People have Spoken

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has a clear mandate from Malaysians. I guess Pak Lah's "Mr. Clean" image and Islamic credentials won the day. It may also be a sign of disenchantment with the opposition. Barisan Nasional reclaims Terengganu, which it lost in 1999 and has taken massive gains in Kelantan, which has been under PAS rule for 14 years.
One of the big losers is the PAS leader Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang who lost his parliamentary seat in Terengganu. Other big PAS losers include vice-president Datuk Dr Ali Hassan (Parit Buntar), secretary-general Nasharuddin Mat Isa (Besut), information chief Datuk Dr Haron Din (Perlis), central committee members Mahfuz Omar (Pokok Sena), Mohamed Sabu (Kuala Kedah) and Datuk Taib Azamudeen (Baling).
So much for their claims of taking Kedah and Perlis.
Apart for Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (Permatang Pauh), all other Parti Keadilan Nasional candidates were also rejected by the voters.
Only the DAP showed better results with the re election of Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh in their seats which they lost in the last elections.
Just hope the ruling party will fulfill their pre-election promises.

Election Fever (or Not)

All the hot topics these days seem to be related to the ongoing elections - predictions, arguments in favour or against, hopes and simply "don't care" attitude in some cases.
Well, I had been talking to some of my friends and acquaintances about the elections and I made a surprising discovery - many of them were not aware who their local MP and who the candidates in their constituency was. Mind you, most of these guys are intelligent people with good jobs, many of them foreign educated. You might not believe it; some had not even registered as a voter.
What does this tell us about the modern urban Malaysian? Many of them of course had very strong ideas about various issues but I find it short of disturbing that inspite of such strong views, they didn't even know who their local representatives or candidates are.

Tragedy in Spain

When I heard about the bombings in Spain I was a bit relieved at first. No! don't get me wrong and read on. It was a shocking tragedy - 200 people killed and 1,500 wounded. I really feel sad for the familes of the victims.
When the Spanish authorities blamed the bombings on the Basque separatist group ETA (which denied involvement in the bombings), I was thinking to myself, "Thank God, at least it's not another muslim terrorist group. " Then I later heard that al- Qaeda claimed responsibility and that three Moroccans and two Indians were arrested on Saturday in connection with the attack. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said it was too early to say if al-Qaida was responsible and the Spanish authorities have not yet ruled out the ETA.
This really made my blood boil and if muslims are in fact involved - I can only say one thing to them- "you deserve to go to hell!" I know about islamic brotherhood etc. etc. but these stupid A**holes are determined to ruin the good name of Islam. Satan would be really happy with them as they are doing what he wants - Chaos, death and destruction and all of this in the name of Allah/God.