Only learnt this morning that Pope John Paul II (1920-2005), the spiritual leader of the Catholic church had passed away at the Vatican at 3:37am Sunday MST at the age of 84.
However, as they say life goes on and there has been some speculation on who the next pope would be. You may find this piece on the BBC website : "Q&A: What happens next?" interesting. The use of technology - text messages and email by the Vatican, to inform the international media of the Pope's demise was also seen as indication of how the Vatican had readily embraced technology under him.
One of his many positive aspects was his attitude towards other faiths and his death is mourned by many in the Muslim world. He support Palestinian rights and was against the war in Iraq. One report also points out that he was the 1st Pope to pay an official visit to a mosque.
I con't forget how he forgave Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk who seriously wounded the pope during an assassination attempt in 1981, even meeting him in prison in 1983.
I pay tribute to one of the greatest forces of peace.
04 April 2005
Sister Back in Town
My little sister (not so little anymore) is back in Malaysia. She went to Australia about 4 years back to do her Master in Management - ended up with two Master's degrees (2nd in Accounting) and finally getting a job in a Bank in Melbourne. She is now a permanent resident there. Compare this to some professionals who have been in Malaysia for nearly 10 years and still can't get the PR status.
It was quite funny but she seems quite mature now as compared to time when she was studying in Help institute, Damansara and staying together in a condominium in Pantai Hill Park. Then, she constantly got onto my nerves. Yes, I guess people change with age.
She was seeing Rahil in flesh for the first time. Rahil was a bit wary at first but by the second day got on fabulously with her. She was able to accomplish one thing. Rahil hates chicken and always spits out the chicken cooked for her. But day before yesterday an amazing thing happened. My wife and my two sisters had gone to the Giant outlet in Kelana Jaya and went for lunch after shopping. They ordered Nasi Ayam (Chicken rice). Rahil was there too. My sister fed her a small piece and that was it, she kept on asking for more until my wife decided she had enough. Maybe it was the flavour the shop used - made the chicken tasty as compared to the bland cooked at home variety.
It was quite funny but she seems quite mature now as compared to time when she was studying in Help institute, Damansara and staying together in a condominium in Pantai Hill Park. Then, she constantly got onto my nerves. Yes, I guess people change with age.
She was seeing Rahil in flesh for the first time. Rahil was a bit wary at first but by the second day got on fabulously with her. She was able to accomplish one thing. Rahil hates chicken and always spits out the chicken cooked for her. But day before yesterday an amazing thing happened. My wife and my two sisters had gone to the Giant outlet in Kelana Jaya and went for lunch after shopping. They ordered Nasi Ayam (Chicken rice). Rahil was there too. My sister fed her a small piece and that was it, she kept on asking for more until my wife decided she had enough. Maybe it was the flavour the shop used - made the chicken tasty as compared to the bland cooked at home variety.
30 March 2005
Ladies Toilet
In the morning I had to go someplace to manage a few things. It was quite early and after a few cups of tea went to the toilet to take a leak. I was quite sleepy and yawning - that what happens when you sleep late and wake up too early. I had only about 4 ½ hours sleep which may be enough for others but definitely not for me. I need at least 6 hours deep sleep if I am to perform at my optimum.
Anyway, as I was doing my job, I noticed the colour of the tiles were pink. “Stupid colour- like a girl's toilet," I thought.
Then it suddenly hit me. I was immediately alert and all traces of sleep left me: “Was this the ladies toilet?”
I am sure that the sign on the door was like the usual one used to represent a man. Or was I?
I was about to rush out when I heard someone entering. This was definitely not my day. I quickly went back to the stall and waited, listening carefully. They were definitely women. Oh shit! What have I gotten myself into. They were talking about something irrelevant but I can’t recall what.
It was quite cool today, after yesterday’s rain but I was sweating like an ox in heat.
What if they discovered a guy was hiding in the toilet. They would think that I was peeping tom. Would they accept my explanation? Several negative images passed before my eyes - of me getting kicked out of my comfortable job, people pointing fingers at me, etc., what would my parents think? Would my wife believe me.
Then I pulled myself together. I would wait it out and slip out after the women left. A few minutes (seemed like hours) passed but these women were not leaving. They kept on talking about their families, children, and other random stuff. Please go outside and talk. I would think that a stinky toilet is not a conducive place for conversation but I guess I am wrong. And it seemed like they were going from one cubicle to another, flushing them. When they reached mine and they tried to open it – I gave a little cough, trying to sound as feminine as possible. I think they were quite shocked as one of them let out a curse – something in Kedah slang. After that I heard them leaving the toilet. I gave it about 2 minutes before rushing out of the cubicle, out the door without even washing my hands.
Waiting outside were these 2 “mak ciks” – giving me a strange look and smiling. They were the cleaning ladies. I don’t know why but I was slightly relieved. They apologized saying, “Maaf Encik” “we didn’t know you were inside.” I was puzzled and looked back at the door…..
It had been one of the most terrifying moments of my life but I was actually IN THE GENTS.
After the wave of relief, I alternatively felt foolish and angry - with myself, with the as------ who had designed this toilet (everyone knows pink is for girls and blue is for guys) and to people who let mak ciks clean gents’ toilets.
Anyway, as I was doing my job, I noticed the colour of the tiles were pink. “Stupid colour- like a girl's toilet," I thought.
Then it suddenly hit me. I was immediately alert and all traces of sleep left me: “Was this the ladies toilet?”
I am sure that the sign on the door was like the usual one used to represent a man. Or was I?
I was about to rush out when I heard someone entering. This was definitely not my day. I quickly went back to the stall and waited, listening carefully. They were definitely women. Oh shit! What have I gotten myself into. They were talking about something irrelevant but I can’t recall what.
It was quite cool today, after yesterday’s rain but I was sweating like an ox in heat.
What if they discovered a guy was hiding in the toilet. They would think that I was peeping tom. Would they accept my explanation? Several negative images passed before my eyes - of me getting kicked out of my comfortable job, people pointing fingers at me, etc., what would my parents think? Would my wife believe me.
Then I pulled myself together. I would wait it out and slip out after the women left. A few minutes (seemed like hours) passed but these women were not leaving. They kept on talking about their families, children, and other random stuff. Please go outside and talk. I would think that a stinky toilet is not a conducive place for conversation but I guess I am wrong. And it seemed like they were going from one cubicle to another, flushing them. When they reached mine and they tried to open it – I gave a little cough, trying to sound as feminine as possible. I think they were quite shocked as one of them let out a curse – something in Kedah slang. After that I heard them leaving the toilet. I gave it about 2 minutes before rushing out of the cubicle, out the door without even washing my hands.
Waiting outside were these 2 “mak ciks” – giving me a strange look and smiling. They were the cleaning ladies. I don’t know why but I was slightly relieved. They apologized saying, “Maaf Encik” “we didn’t know you were inside.” I was puzzled and looked back at the door…..
It had been one of the most terrifying moments of my life but I was actually IN THE GENTS.
After the wave of relief, I alternatively felt foolish and angry - with myself, with the as------ who had designed this toilet (everyone knows pink is for girls and blue is for guys) and to people who let mak ciks clean gents’ toilets.
29 March 2005
Printer n Earthquake
No, there's nothing related between the two items in the title.
If I had known that buying a printer would make my life much easier I would have bought it much earlier. In order to print something in my office, I have to copy the document or any other file into a diskette and then take it down to the main office. Open it up from a computer there and then print it out using our office printer. We used to have a network connection but printing over the network was stopped after a few technical problems – the printers would go on printing junk endlessly wasting a lot of paper. The experts said that it was due to a virus but I am not so sure.
After putting it off for a long time I finally bought a printer for myself- the Xerox Phaser 3121 from the Mac City outlet at Amcorp Mall. It’s a monchrome (only prints in black and white ) personal laser printer and costs RM599/. The output is quite fast, printing 16/17 pages per minute. The 600 dpi resolution is nothing to shout about but good enough for /most of my printing jobs which are MS Word document files.
They also claim that it is compatible with Samsung laser cartridges, which by the way much cheaper than Xerox’s. I checked out the Samsung site and realized that the Samsung ML-1510 was an exact copy of my Xerox printer. I was in quite a hurry and forgot to ask them to chop the warranty form. So far so good and hope nothing goes wrong in the future.
I guess everyone is blogging about yesterday’s earthquake. I wasn’t even aware of it until I read about it in Kah Soon’s Blog. I was still working last night when the Earthquake happened. I suddenly felt dizzy and decided that it was my body’s way of telling me that it was time to rest. I had also gone swimming in the afternoon. And I promptly drifted off to sleep.
Really feel sorry for the family of those who died.
If I had known that buying a printer would make my life much easier I would have bought it much earlier. In order to print something in my office, I have to copy the document or any other file into a diskette and then take it down to the main office. Open it up from a computer there and then print it out using our office printer. We used to have a network connection but printing over the network was stopped after a few technical problems – the printers would go on printing junk endlessly wasting a lot of paper. The experts said that it was due to a virus but I am not so sure.
After putting it off for a long time I finally bought a printer for myself- the Xerox Phaser 3121 from the Mac City outlet at Amcorp Mall. It’s a monchrome (only prints in black and white ) personal laser printer and costs RM599/. The output is quite fast, printing 16/17 pages per minute. The 600 dpi resolution is nothing to shout about but good enough for /most of my printing jobs which are MS Word document files.
They also claim that it is compatible with Samsung laser cartridges, which by the way much cheaper than Xerox’s. I checked out the Samsung site and realized that the Samsung ML-1510 was an exact copy of my Xerox printer. I was in quite a hurry and forgot to ask them to chop the warranty form. So far so good and hope nothing goes wrong in the future.
I guess everyone is blogging about yesterday’s earthquake. I wasn’t even aware of it until I read about it in Kah Soon’s Blog. I was still working last night when the Earthquake happened. I suddenly felt dizzy and decided that it was my body’s way of telling me that it was time to rest. I had also gone swimming in the afternoon. And I promptly drifted off to sleep.
Really feel sorry for the family of those who died.
28 March 2005
New Firefox Build
It was not that long ago when I downloaded the last Firefox build (1.0.1). I just found out that they have come out with a new version 1.0.2 (the latest in the aviary branch, in Mozilla lingo). I am not complaining. This is expected when you have so many loyal supporters and developers trying to find bugs, security issues and others coming up with ways to fix them.
Expect some more changes when they come out with version 1.1 (expected by June 2005).
Get Firefox!
Expect some more changes when they come out with version 1.1 (expected by June 2005).
Get Firefox!
27 March 2005
Ikea With Rahil
This friday, went to the Ikea store in Damasara (again!!). I suddenly realised that we had made 3 trips to the store this month alone. This time we were here to get the matress pad. I guess we are the kind of people that marketers love.
However, this time we made a mistake - that of bringing Rahil along with us. It was her nap time and she was really cranky. By the time we reached the kid's section, she was throwing a really big tantrum - screaming to the top of her lungs and crying with tears streaming down. The thing was that she wanted to run around and didn't want to be held. We put her on top of the trolly and quickly selected the Matress pad (Sultan Timan, which cost around RM500) and went as fast as we could to the checkout counter.
Along the way, I did pick up other stuff, like mirrors, pillows and a side table. After my wife had paid using her credit card, we quickly went down to the parking lot. I left them near the drop off space and went to fetch the car. To my horror, I couldn't find the car with fears rising. I ran around quite a bit with Rahil screaming "Baba, Baba" in the background.
I suddenly realised that we were on the wrong floor. I had parked the car at the lower parking PII. My wife was a bit cross with me as she was having a hard time with Rahil. Rahil finally calmed down after we started the car and went off to dreamland.I didn't even have time to pee even though I was about to burst and held on till I reached the house. She slept for nearly an hour.
A good lesson for both of us : never bring along Rahil when it's her nap time. She can get really cranky. However, it's a normal phase that a toddler goes through as she develops.
However, this time we made a mistake - that of bringing Rahil along with us. It was her nap time and she was really cranky. By the time we reached the kid's section, she was throwing a really big tantrum - screaming to the top of her lungs and crying with tears streaming down. The thing was that she wanted to run around and didn't want to be held. We put her on top of the trolly and quickly selected the Matress pad (Sultan Timan, which cost around RM500) and went as fast as we could to the checkout counter.
Along the way, I did pick up other stuff, like mirrors, pillows and a side table. After my wife had paid using her credit card, we quickly went down to the parking lot. I left them near the drop off space and went to fetch the car. To my horror, I couldn't find the car with fears rising. I ran around quite a bit with Rahil screaming "Baba, Baba" in the background.
I suddenly realised that we were on the wrong floor. I had parked the car at the lower parking PII. My wife was a bit cross with me as she was having a hard time with Rahil. Rahil finally calmed down after we started the car and went off to dreamland.I didn't even have time to pee even though I was about to burst and held on till I reached the house. She slept for nearly an hour.
A good lesson for both of us : never bring along Rahil when it's her nap time. She can get really cranky. However, it's a normal phase that a toddler goes through as she develops.
23 March 2005
US Malaysian Relations
Warning: Long (Boring) post ahead
I was discussing my future plans with my colleagues today during lunch and I casually mentioned that I would like to do my PhD in the US. Initially we started off debating the pro and cons vis-à-vis studying in the UK and Australia. However, our discussion moved to the problems that many Malaysians faced while traveling to the states. I guess it is not restricted to Malaysians and that people of other nationalities have to face the same hassles, including long delays before obtaining visas, strip searches at the airports and so on. A friend joked that anyone with a Bin (meaning ‘son of’ in Arabic) in their name (that means almost all Malays) will face some short of problem in the US.
I was wondering whether Americans are that stupid. I am sure they know by now that having a 'bin' doesn’t mean you are related to Osama Bin Laden. However, the fact that many in the west, still refer to him as Bin Laden makes me think twice.
Anyway, I just recalled a recent visit to our office by a Councilor, Economic Affairs from the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. His talk was quite an eye opener.
Despite some rough moments (some of you may recall the dinner speech to the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum on 16 October 1998 by the then US Vice-President Al Gore supporting ‘Reformasi’) and differences on certain issues (Iraq invasion) US-Malaysian relations have remained fairly good. According to the Prime Minister, Malaysia's current relations with the United States are "the best we've ever had."
At present, Malaysia is the United States' 10th largest trading partner and its 16th-largest export market. On the other hand, the US is Malaysia's largest trading partner and the top business destination. The two-way trade in 2003 amounted to a total of over US$36 billion. The US had invested an estimated US$29 billion here and American firms employ some 100,000 Malaysians. This includes my friends in Intel and Dow Chemicals. In fact it’s a win-win situation despite the fact that the balance of trade in favour of Malaysia. It should be noted that US trade with Malaysia supports nearly 200,000 jobs in the U.S. A large part of the trade is also intrafirm trade. For example, the Asian Composite Manufacturing (ACM) facility in Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah makes advanced composite panels for the wings of the Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767 and 777 aircraft.. (BTW, ACM is joint-venture with 4 partners, namely,
Boeing, Hexcel Corp, Naluri Bhd and Sime Darby Bhd ). Another interesting information was that more than half of the Dell computers sold in the US are made in Malaysia.
I realize that many people here don’t actually like the US. It’s not like they hate the Americans. It is quite funny considering that we like watching Star Wars, sing rap songs, wear Levis jeans and Nike, drink Coke and eat at McDonalds and blog on a Dell PC, using MS Windows on Blogger.
I guess there is a lesson here but I am not sure…
I was discussing my future plans with my colleagues today during lunch and I casually mentioned that I would like to do my PhD in the US. Initially we started off debating the pro and cons vis-à-vis studying in the UK and Australia. However, our discussion moved to the problems that many Malaysians faced while traveling to the states. I guess it is not restricted to Malaysians and that people of other nationalities have to face the same hassles, including long delays before obtaining visas, strip searches at the airports and so on. A friend joked that anyone with a Bin (meaning ‘son of’ in Arabic) in their name (that means almost all Malays) will face some short of problem in the US.
I was wondering whether Americans are that stupid. I am sure they know by now that having a 'bin' doesn’t mean you are related to Osama Bin Laden. However, the fact that many in the west, still refer to him as Bin Laden makes me think twice.
Anyway, I just recalled a recent visit to our office by a Councilor, Economic Affairs from the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. His talk was quite an eye opener.
Despite some rough moments (some of you may recall the dinner speech to the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum on 16 October 1998 by the then US Vice-President Al Gore supporting ‘Reformasi’) and differences on certain issues (Iraq invasion) US-Malaysian relations have remained fairly good. According to the Prime Minister, Malaysia's current relations with the United States are "the best we've ever had."
At present, Malaysia is the United States' 10th largest trading partner and its 16th-largest export market. On the other hand, the US is Malaysia's largest trading partner and the top business destination. The two-way trade in 2003 amounted to a total of over US$36 billion. The US had invested an estimated US$29 billion here and American firms employ some 100,000 Malaysians. This includes my friends in Intel and Dow Chemicals. In fact it’s a win-win situation despite the fact that the balance of trade in favour of Malaysia. It should be noted that US trade with Malaysia supports nearly 200,000 jobs in the U.S. A large part of the trade is also intrafirm trade. For example, the Asian Composite Manufacturing (ACM) facility in Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah makes advanced composite panels for the wings of the Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767 and 777 aircraft.. (BTW, ACM is joint-venture with 4 partners, namely,
Boeing, Hexcel Corp, Naluri Bhd and Sime Darby Bhd ). Another interesting information was that more than half of the Dell computers sold in the US are made in Malaysia.
I realize that many people here don’t actually like the US. It’s not like they hate the Americans. It is quite funny considering that we like watching Star Wars, sing rap songs, wear Levis jeans and Nike, drink Coke and eat at McDonalds and blog on a Dell PC, using MS Windows on Blogger.
I guess there is a lesson here but I am not sure…
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