Ping Pong match

My company's social club is organizing a ping pong match yesterday. I signed up for the competition, I hope I can contribute something so our team who is currently ranked 5th out of 10 groups can rise to another level.

You might ask me what happened if it rised to the 1st place? I heard that the winner will be awarded RM10k, the group leader will then distribute the money to the group members who are active in participating the activities which are organized by the social club. Well, that is also part of the motivation that I would like to participate in the game despite I would say I am also an 'ok' player. :)

There are three knock out matches to be done at the same time, women double, mixed double and mens double. To be honest, we have a strong men's player in our group (not me), I think if I am a level 15 player, this fella is a level 18 player. Since he is better than me, I follow his order by joining the mixed double as I treat him as a team leader. He himself partner with his friend, who claimed that he hasn't play ping pong for 15 yrs, I assume he must be quite ok (level 1x) if the leader takes him in the Mens double as that is the 'most competitive arena', I even offer my extra ping pong bat to him.

So I go for the Mixed double, my partner, a lady, was a 'level 8 player', well, I think she is the best women player in our group, the rest is like level 4&5 players allocated in womens double. When I look at my opponent, I can tell straight away it is not easy to beat them, the guy is a 'level 14' player and the lady is a level '10' player, their strength in a way is more even (they were at the 3rd place in mixed double). In short, we won the first game (22:20)but we lost the other two (11:21) & (18:21).

After the first round of competition, all our players were being knocked out at the first game... sob sob... I wonder what will be the result if I was sent to play mens' double with a combo of Lvl 18 & Lvl 15 players.

Port Klang Free Zone scandal

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/27964-dap-wants-pkfz-to-close-shop
I didn't follow the news thoroughly, but then, from what I read, it is very clear that something fishy going on when there is a conflict of interest in the land purchasing deal. Now the case has been handed over to the anti corruption unit of Malaysia, MACC, which the authority are thick face enough to claimed that they are better than ICAC from Hong Kong.
There is a report filed on 2004 but there is no action taken, a lot of people like me suspect that some top guns are involved in this scandal. So let me take a guess on what kind of standard answer that I can expect to receive from MACC:

1. "The case is closed with "NFA" status. After many years of investigation when everybody started to forget about the case." (NFA = No Further Action);
2. "There is not enough evidence for any prosecution", therefore, back to item 1. Instead of go and dig for evidence, they just sit there and wait for evidence to submerge, or, who knows, evidence destroyed. The few billion scandal can easily buy off the officers that draws 3-4k per month during the 'investigation';
3. NFA again! "Everything was done 'according to procedure'..."

So at the end of the day, nobody is charged, everybody is happy, the one with evidence, or the scape goats, will be given 'warning'. Damn.... if I you pay me 30 million and you scold me and give me some verbal warning, suspend my membership in some joker political party for 'n' years, I don't mind to be showered with 'warnings' if that is the case.

Local Media loosing credibility?

Political parties involved in media business has caused the local newspaper loose some of their credibility...
Yesterday, when I was having a discussion with our legal counsel near the pantry, a colleague brought his coffee, about to sit down at the table next to us, he ask the legal counsel (which is his neighbor) to pass the newspapers to him... so I said to him...
Me: Time to read newspaper ya?
Colleague: Yup, see if there is any big news today.
Me: That saves you RM1.30 per day when you read newspaper in office, hehehehe
Legal Counsel: Ya, and half of it are crap!
Hahahahaha

Quote of the day

"We have extraordinary judges with extraordinary ability", Sulaiman Abdullah

Jusco Sales

I heard from my colleague that there was a J Card member sales on Thursday. I was wondering how big is the sales, I have heard stories like my relatives from Klang that actually drive from Klang to 1U at 7am just to beat the crowd.

So on Thursday after work, I went to the nearest Jusco at Equine Park, trying to check out if there is any good deal in the store. But then, I don't see the expected crowd there, it shows that the sales suppose to start on Friday. I ask the sales assistant is there a J card sales today? She told me that I should go to the 1 Utama branch, there is where they have the J card sales. After hearing this, I immediately went to the parking lot and get my car, because there is no point I stay there for another minute.

After dinner, I drove to Jusco at 1U, it takes me one hour to go there and park my car. It was nine something already, the mall is full of people, like the stores are giving away free merchandises. The air is warm in the mall, I don't think it is a good place for you to bring your baby. I can tell you, I never seen so many ppl even it is Chinese New Year or Hari Raya. Everywhere I see is long queue. Some shops near the Jusco shopping mall also take the chances and give huge discount that is up to 70-80%. From housewares to car accessories, from clothes to electronics. Hey, after I ask around, I found out that every Rm100 you spent, they give you another Rm10 cash voucher after you show them your receipt at certain counter. Can you imagine the crowd when there is so much good deal going on? Now I believe why some people actually take a day off just to go for shopping, if you ask me now, I can tell you that I will consider taking a day off!

My friend told me that a average Jusco mall make a sales of RM500k everyday. But today, I think the sales is 10 fold more than a usual day. A young couple in front of me took out a platinum card and swipe for their clothes, guess how much is the bill. RM1845.90!! On the other side, I saw one auntie paying for her three new hair dryers. I guess she plan to put each of her bathroom with one hair dryer. Totally crazy man!!

Well, due to the limited time that I have, as the store open at 8am and close at 11pm. I can only grab whatever I could. Got a Diadora slipper for half price which I pick it up when I am on the way looking for the water dispenser, it is around RM18, a Lock and Lock Tupperware with 20% discount, a Zebra stainless steel water dispenser with 20% discount, two Pierre Cardin 100% cotton shirt with 70% discount, one pants with 30% discount, a 600ml Sigg bottle with 30% discount, total damage is RM500+. I think if I have another hour there, for sure I will spend over RM1k... I told my mom, for the next 'J card' sales, I think I will seriously think of taking a day off. On the day of Jusco sales, it seems that everyone is a 'J Member'. You also feel like the news about recession is a lie, people spend like no tomorrow, you see hope on economy recovery. :)

The only thing that I regret a bit is the Swiss made SIGG bottle, the 600ml bottle selling at RM67 after discount from RM99, the 1 litre bottle without discount is selling at RM99 - Rm109 too. So I think if I pay RM32 more, I get a 1 litre bottle without discount that comes with a better design and larger storage, what is the point of paying RM67 for a 600ml bottle? I learnt this from a book, "The Millionaire Next Door", where some of the rich fellas in US buy their cars based on the weight of the car. You use the total value of the car and divide by its' weight to find out how much you are actually paying for every pound of steel. :)

“同班同学” - II

Refering to my post on Thursday, March 26, 2009
之前批评了一首叫“同班同学”的歌曲；终于知道谁主唱，谁填词了。主唱是中文咬字不清的泰国偶像派组合Golf & Mike, 填词的是马来的黄维尔，曾出过唱片，但不是很红。一个字来形容同班同学这首歌 - “烂！”希望Golf & Mike回去唱英文和泰文歌曲，中文歌曲真的不适合他们，难怪我觉得很难听。另外，也希望黄维尔在填词在方面有所改进，可能是比较能听的歌曲都留给自己唱了。
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fokXodXJfuM&feature=related
好不好听可以在以上U 管查询，本人真的觉得这首歌超难听！

'Chinese are a bunch of Cowards'

I totally agree with what has written by the author, I have tasted it the first time during my high school time, when me, together with a group of friends are going for a strike on something. You see majority of the buggers just chose to keep quiet and not to do anything because they are afraid of being punished, they 'feel' that they have more important things to do, spending time on study, getting a good results at school for themselves is more important than wasting time going for a strike. After the strike is successful, they enjoyed the achievement.

So after these bunch of cowards grew up, they think that politics and human rights are none of their business, not to mention global issues. Some chose to ignore it and bury their head under the ground like ostriches, some prefer to sit inside the well and look up the sky for the rest of their lives, because they think that it is useless and a waste of time because they think that there is nothing can be done as a member of minority or there are more important things to do in their life. In addition, you heard 'cowards' complain about street protest that creates unnecessary traffic jams that wasted their precious time, jeopardize their business sales; but they never look into the bigger picture which brings everyone a bigger good in the future, they are just surrounded by pessimistic thoughts. Thus, this has concluded that Chinese are a bunch of Cowards. As a Chinese myself, I will have to agree with that too!

Yes, most Chinese are selfish, they only care about themselves and doesn't care about how other people live their life, what is going on around the world. I am not sure if this has to do with our genes, when you hear someone said, 'Chinese is like that la'... this is just an excuse from cowards. My mom always tell me to avoid trouble for myself, don't bother with other people's business, but I never listen to her. If I see something heroic and righteous that need to be done, I will do it, but of course, I will use my brain and think before I do.

Ref: http://stocktube.blogspot.com/2009/05/chinese-are-bunch-of-cowards.html

Five thousand years of Chinese Civilization have transformed the Chinese into a unique race which possessed all the necessary ingredients to survive in a harsh environment. But they are still the same homo-sapiens that are clever yet selfish and cowards. Although the Chinese are complex they’re relatively easy to understand once you mix with them. And they don’t call Singaporean “Kiasu” (fear of losing) and “Kiasi” (afraid of death) without any good reason. As usual there’re two sides of the coin and hence the Chinese are known to be rich (or rather economical capable) yet they need to be led and controlled under communism regime for obvious reason.

Generally the Chinese (in China) are weak in politics thanks to thousands of years under autocratic dynasties’ rule. From the first emperor Qin Shi Huang to the last emperor Pu Yi, the Chinese never tasted real politics let alone democracy. So when the Taiwan’s lawmakers started throwing punches and chairs, spraying water at each other, pulling hairs and literally transformed the House into a wrestling hall, it was understandable as they were just infants learning the rope of democracy. However the Chinese are very good in business so much so that they “may be” the first race that invented corruption (whether they realize it or not) in order to speed up the business deals.

Because of the “Kiasu” characteristic, the Chinese are always in front of the queue when come to the business of making money regardless whether it is legitimate or illegitimate. They can naturally smell the aroma of money miles away and they are willing to enter the ring of no-holds-barred for the sake of making money. There’s not a single business which can make money without the presence of Chinese. From stock market speculators to drug smuggling you will see the Chinese have some parts in it. Yes, the Chinese are brilliant and can make huge amount of money quite easily but that’s because they’re a great spender as well. They can create an efficient economy mill within a small town with ease and you wonder how the hell the community can prosper. As a comparison, go to a kampong dominated by ethnic-Malay and your jaw will drop to the floor.

Unfortunately the Chinese are “Kiasi” at the same time. They have extremely high level of tolerance and as long as they can bring food to the table for their family, they can accept intimidation, inefficient and even a very corrupted government. That was the reason why they never strike back even though their husbands and sons were brutally killed and their wives and daughters were gang-raped during the riot in Indonesia of which many said was engineered by General Wiranto and endorsed by President Suharto. The Chinese have done a calculated risk and knew it wasn’t a battle for them thus they migrated leaving behind the debris but not before transferred billions of dollars out of Indonesia (mostly to Singapore). They understand the concept of live another day and you will still be alive to avenge your losses. Fight a losing battle and you’ll lose your life cheaply.

Having said that the Chinese would not tolerate if their country is at stake as can be seen when the China was invaded many times by outsiders. In fact historically the Chinese never invaded other countries (if my old memory serves me right) but was enjoying many civil wars within the current modern China territory. The Chinese had the greatest opportunity to expand their empire during the height of their naval power under Admiral Zheng He when the China generally ruled the seas but they didn’t. They’re happy to show off their power and as long as you do not poke their nose, they’ll leave you alone. And for this simple reason former PM Mahathir once said Malaysia (and other countries) has everything to gain and nothing to lose if China continues to prosper although the other superpower U.S. didn’t think so, out of jealousy I supposed.

Unlike the Chinese, the ethnic-Malays are specialists when come to the topic of politics. They’re willing to risk everything for their political beliefs including their lives and for this reason the UMNO supporters were easily intimidated and demoralized with the presence of a bigger crowds from PAS, both consists of Malays. There’re reasons why the “Bersih” rally was a huge success but the supposedly “Perak” rally yesterday was, well, a failure. Unlike the “Bersih” rally, there was no serious organizer for the “Perak” rally and everyone “thought” people will show-up naturally as if it was a “Michael Jackson” concert. But sadly the urge for the rally never reach the Perakians. Furthermore the “Kiasi” Chinese will only turn up if they see scores of Malays turn up. It was like a 100:1 ratio – if there’re 100 Malays then you’ll probably see 1 Chinese *grin*. They need PAS-Malays to lead them, period.

Seriously most of the Chinese in Ipoh consists of middle-age or retiree who do not have the stamina to run should they greeted by tear-gas. Also, they do not read blogs but still subscribe to the government-controlled newspaper, mind you. In addition, many of these Chinese are still haunted by the 13th May 1969 bloody incident. The youngsters who are “relatively brave” have mostly migrated to towns such as Kuala Lumpur, Johore Bharu or Singapore. They have yet to see that should they be whacked by UMNO-Malays, the PAS-Malays will come to their rescue and can you blame the Chinese considering they’re one bunch of “Kiasi” cowards?

Now, after seeing how an Indian-Hindu Speaker Sivakumar was humiliated and dragged away as if he was a stray-dog by, God knows if they’re real police, do you think the already “Kiasi” Chinese will not think thrice to come out, if there’s another rally in the future? If the so-called police can treat a Speaker in such manner, what guarantees are there that an average-Joes will not ended up like toasted-bread with several broken bones? Yes, in this case the Malays are well-built wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan, Batista, Triple-H or Goldberg but the Chinese are just novice with body no better than Tian Chua. So it’s not a level playing field with Tian Chua holding a poster while Hulk Hogan holding a steel-bar thirsty for blood. Oh yeah! Do you want to know the court’s decision on Monday to decide who the rightful Chief Minister of Perak is? I’ve the crystal ball for this *grin*.

Who embarrass Who?

Last night, me and my friend were looking for KFC restaurant at the Shenzhen airport. A few ppl has been telling me on how great is the KFC in China, so I really want to try it so I can share with you whether it is true or not.

Unfortunately, the KFC restaurant is in the old wing, there is only one restaurant called "Golden Chi Lin" or something in the new wing airport. Thus, me and my friend decided to go and get some food at the restaurant.

The restaurant is not a fancy one, it looks like the regular Chinese restaurant that sells roast chicken, roast goose meat, BBQ pork and stuff. So we both sat down and ask the waitress to hand us the menu. Let me tell you, the moment I open up the menu, I started to swear 'WTF?' inside my heart. Guess what? A regular roast chicken + BBQ pork rice is selling at RMB88!! That is like RM47-48 per plate of 'Chicken rice'? Then my eyes start to scroll down a bit, trying to flip over the menu, trying to look for minimal damage... If I am not mistaken, I found the cheapest mineral water RMB20! Wow!! That is what I called "Monopoly business"!

I look at my friend, and he looked back at me with a grin on his face. Finally and thank god that he opened his mouth, he tell the waitress that we don't plan to dine here. We stood up and walked out of the restaurant. Right after we walked passed the restaurant entrance, he sweared and told me that the food doesn't worth the price. I said, 'I totally agree with you, glad that you initiated to leave, or else I will end up ordering the RMB20 mineral water'.

We sat down on the chairs for passengers after we get out from the restaurant. I joked with my friend by asking him, 'Hey, do you think 'Malaysia' embarrassed us just now or we, as Malaysians, embarrassed our country?". "You see, if our country is strong and our currency exchange rate is the other way round when we exchange for USD, let say USD3.55 can only change one Ringgit Malaysia, then, we won't think that RMB 88 for a plate of chicken rice is expensive. But then, due to we have a not-so-efficient-government that runs the country(I think this will sound better than using 'idiotic and corrupted government', you see, nowadays the government might send you to jail if you talk something bad about them, the hell they can link it to'sedition' if they really want to charge you), our Ringgit value shrinks badly, now we have to walk out from the restaurant with embarrassment. In a way, we have embarrass Malaysia, because we can't demonstrate our buying power but on the other hand, we had demonstrated the weakness of our Ringgit and our standard of living, when a few Hong Kongers still eating happily inside the restaurant and I assume they hate flight meal very much.

Malaysia is a country that is used to be ahead of Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea; on par with Hong Kong and Japan. But after forty years, there are two Malaysians complaining a RMB88 chicken rice not worth the price in ShenZhen airport. So, do you think we had embarrass the country? Or the country embarrass us? Does this reminds you of 'Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You! Ask What You Can Do For Your Country!'?:)

Hey, one thing I need to clarify, we definitely can afford the meal if we want, in order to save ourselves from dying hunger which we don't have, but then, I still think it doesn't really worth what we are paying for. Don't you agree?

Diarrhea

This morning woke up feeling very weak, I doubt that I am having a light fever. After breakfast, went to take a long nap.... since then, woke up having continuous diarrhea. Feel like going home, started to feel bored. Went to check the rate for one way return ticket, wow... about RM600-700... alas... forget about it!

After finishing one role of toilet paper, I think I am going to dehydrate later... need to look for '100 plus' kind of drink now.

Paint Ball game

Went for a paint ball game with colleagues on last weekend. The fun factor is alright but then I think the game is quite expensive too, for about three session of game, it cost us almost RM100 per person. I think the way they design the "capture the flag" game is really not fun at all, the first game lasted in a few minutes, some people just simply whacked and finished of their 'ammo' in few minutes time. To me, the fun part of the game should takes longer time, and you need to use more tactical move to capture the flag. Once you finished your ammo, you are as good as a dead man.

For the first three game, half of my cartridge is still full, because I aim and shoot. May be I am just in to those PC game, which a lot of times you need to conserve your ammo and make every shot count and focus on head shot for maximum damage you can get.
This is before we go into battle.

The organizer - Siew Wai, tasted my head shot at the final 2 vs 2 game. :p

My partner and me manage to get them because our opponents: 1. One finished of his bullets despite I didn't manage to snipe him because he hide behind the net. 2. The other guy got hit on the head by me. So with one guy without ammo but still alive, he will have to surrender.

After the game, we took a group photo again. :)

Farewell with my colleague - Ray Teng

From left: Ganesh, Choo, Ray Teng, Me, Terry, Allan and Michael