8 Years Later

Today an important event of global significance (some may disagree) has happened. However, only one Malaysian blogger has blogged about it. Now I am the second.

After several years of negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol finally comes into effect. The name comes from the ancient Japanese city where the negotiations took place in 1997. It is an adjunct to the 1992 UN treaty on climate change. Ratified by 141 nations, it means that 35 industrialised countries are now legally bound to reduce or limit their greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide emissions (5.2% before 2012 compared with their 1990 levels). However, the refusal of US (the bigest greenhouse gas polluter on this Earth) and Australia to retify the protocol, limits the impact of this treaty. The developing countries also have obligations under the treaty, which means that fast devloping (and polluting) countries like China and India are exempt.


Global warming: greather threat than terrorism "Source: Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org)"

However, this is indeed a great step in the right direction. As pointed out on the Greenpeace site "Kyoto is not enough. But it's a start."

Lost City

Several people have blogged about it but now it seems like the interest has faded. I am not surprised considering the fact that there were never many people in Malaysia who were interested about history or archeology for that matter, in the first place.

Sometime back I had blogged about the forgotten 'Batu Hidup' near the Old Railway station in Kuala Lumpur. None of my KL born and raised friends (or my wife) had a clue about the origins of the megaliths - and should I say, "don't care!" Like a friend who once said “ who cares about dead people and some old ruins” when I started a topic on the ruins in the Bujang valley of Kedah.

In case you still haven't got the hint, I am talking about the recent claims of a lost and forgotten city of Kota Gelanggi, somewhere in the forests of Johor. I guess NST is still smarting over the fact that it didn’t carry the news first of all. That explains why it does not carry any more news about the claims made by Raimy Che-Ross. On the other hand, the Star, which carried the story first of all is still trying to stoke the fire of interest. You can read the entire sequence of events that set off the buzz at the Star site here.

One thing that really intrigues me is why (and is not explained in any of the articles) Raja Rajendra Cholavarman I of the South Indian Chola Dynasty went around leaving a trail of destruction all the way from the North - Gangga Negara (now Perak) to the south - Kota Gelanggi (in Johor).

By the way, I also wonder why people still refer to the Malacca Sultanate as if the history of the country started there when much older cities and empires had existed before that including Langkasuka and Bujang Valley in Kedah, Beruas and Gangga Negara in Perak.

Any comments?

Lonely VD

It was a lonely Valentines's Day for me this year. The sacrifices one has to make to earn a living. At least last year I was able to have a nice lunch with my wife. Unfortuntely this year, it falls on a weekday and I am back at work here in Kedah. It was pretty boring and I stayed back in my office after office hours to finish the pending work (which seems to pile up so fast).

I hope your Valentine's day was much more fun than mine.

Flu in PD

Feeling a bit groggy, here I am supposedly at work, writing my blog.

As I has mentioned in an earlier post, we (Me, my wife and Rahil) spent the Chinese New Year at Port Dickson. It was actually a working trip. My wife was working on some project with her colleagues and thought this was a perfect way to come up with the project application and have fun at the same time. I am not sure how much work you can do on a holiday mood but I guess they achieved their goals as they were all quite satisfied. My wife has to hand in her part after a week. I have to suggest this to my own colleagues. Nothing like working in shorts and T-shirts to get the creative juices flowing.



We stayed at the Corus Resort Hotel and Apartments. My wife’s Project Head had booked 6 apartments (@ RM250 per night). We were there for 3 nights. The rooms were not so bad but I had expected better at those prices and they had only 9 channels on TV. (I know we were not there to watch TV but…)Ont he bright side, we could cook our own food and bring as many people as we like (if they don't mind sleeping on the floor).

Port Dickson has never been my favourite holiday resort but the proximity to Kuala Lumpur means that it will remain one of the most accessible sea resorts for a lot of people. The parking lots were full and I had a lot of truoble getting in the morning.


Rahil is quickly picking up a lot of words now. When she saw the sea from our balcony she kept on pointing and shouting “Air, Air Air” (Air = water in Bahasa Malaysia). Yes, there is a lot of "Air" in the sea, Rahil. Once she threw her ball from the balcony and came running to me shouting “Ball Jatoh, Ball Jatuh” (Jatuh = fall in B. Malaysia). I looked down and saw the ball bobbing in the sea below 5 stories below. Some kids promptly picked it up and started playing with it. Well! There goes Rahil’s ball.

Well, overall the PD trip was fun TILL I caught the flu. I guess swimming in the hot sun in dirty seawater and walking around in wet clothes does nobody any good. Anyway, it was not as bad as we had come prepared with paracetamol and other medicines. I don’t recommend self-medication but it is good to be prepared. I finaly saw a doctor yesterday and my nose is not running anymore, and the slight cough I had has cleared but I am now suffering from the effect of the medicines – I am groggy and whenever I close my eyes, I feel like I am floating.

There was a sad incident. We learnt later that a kid staying in the same hotel had drowned in the sea while paying with his friends. He was only 17 years old and they didn’t recover the body till the next day. It was the father (who drove down from Klang) who noticed the boy’s body floating near the lagoon.

. Really sad.

Private Screening

It has been quite sometime since I last went out and saw a movie with my wife on the big screen. So we decided to catch the last show in theTGV multiplex in One Utama. I had wanted to see Constantine but it will be released only on the 9th and my wife booked us tickets for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. I was not really keen but decided to watch it anyway.

So we made plans to put Rahil to sleep and then slip out. However, as they say, "things do not always go according to plan," Rahil refused to sleep even after singing lullabies, turning off the light, after nearly 2 hours. In the end we gave up and decided to leave her with her grandmother.

I was able to get to One Utama from my wife’s house in a record time of about 15 minutes. It was around 10:15 pm and the movie starts at 11:55 pm. To kill time, we sat down at the Starbucks outlet on the ground floor, which opens till 12 am.

Ultimately we went in and to our surprise discovered that we had the entire hall to ourselves – I mean we were the only one watching the movie. It was kind of fun – we could talk and laugh loudly, talk on the phone and we even took pictures of ourselves and the screen.

Contrary to my fears, the movie was quite fun and I recommend it. Renée Zellweger is a great actress.

An interesting experience indeed. It was the first time we had a private screening of a film at a cineplex.

Happy Chinese New Year - Gong Xi Fa Cai

CNY in PD

To make up for not being with Rahil and the wife for 2 weeks, I decided to take some days off and take a complete week off to spend some quality time with them. However, it seems that my wife has some meeting or the other, everyday. Fortunately I have Rahil to keep me busy. She is now a bundle of energy - running, jumping and climbing everywhere and she is so "Manja". She won't let me off her site that I can't even go up and take a leak without her throwign a tantrum. I guess she is scared that I will leave her like every week.

We are planning to go over to Port Dickson this Chinese New Year. Actually my wife is going there with her project team for a 3 days retreat, to finalise their project. Another case of mixing work with pleasure but I guess it not such a bad idea as accomodation for spouses and children is all paid for. Their meetings will be only for a couple of hours and have the rest of the day off. Till my next post.

Manja is Bahasa Malaysia for pampered; indulgent. It describes "gooey, childlike and coquettish behaviour by women designed to elicit sympathy or pampering by men". Got the meaning from this site.

Statisitics

I have been using Nedstat basic to track the traffic to my blog since 9 September 2003. However, I rarely check my stats. Just had a peak at it today and found that I have had 18853 total number of page views up till now. I know it is not much but what really made me happy was the info about the last 10 visitors:

1. 31 January 21:21 Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Mumbai Bombay, India
2. 31 January 22:16 Univerity of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom
3. 31 January 22:42 Telekom Malaysia, Malaysia
4. 31 January 22:50 Philippine LD Telephone Comp., Philippines
5. 1 February 00:02 TMnet Telekom Malaysia, Malaysia
6. 1 February 02:22 T-Online, Germany
7. 1 February 04:57 IP Plus Internet Services, Switzerland
8. 1 February 07:46 NTL Internet, London, United Kingdom
9. 1 February 09:02 Australia (edu.au)
10. 1 February 09:26 United States (loralorion.com)

I never realise that I have so many visitors from foreign countries and I guess I have to make sure that I include an English translation whenever I use common Malay words or phrases.

Like I was trying to explain what "Ah OK Lah" signifies or means but somehow it didn't come out right as it can be used in several ways and situations. It is often heard in everyday Malaysian life - usually when people are tired of arguing with some stubborn fellow who refuses to see your point of view. In other words, "there is no point in arguing with you, so I let you win, even though you are wrong".

Anyone has a better explanation or translation of the phrase?

You can also read Mr Brown's explanation.