Veni, Vidi, Vedere.

Jonno out

2009-01-07T19:24:00.002+08:00

Hi guys,

I've recently bought some internet real-estate, so I'm shifting over to

hamnoj.com

Do give it a visit, drop some comments and remember that I won't be updating this place anymore.

Jon out.

YF Camp 2008 and what's next

2008-12-16T22:46:00.004+08:00

I was up in the highlands for the past few days for a youth camp. It was cold. I suppose Cameron Highlands still is quite cold, despite all that global warming going on, which is a good thing!

When you come of age, you take on responsibilities. They pile up, and camps that were once primarily laughter and sunshine become a bit less sunny. I had to play the bass for practically all the sessions, and hardly had free time to go aimlessly gamboling around. But I suppose it was enjoyable too, in it's own way.

But it was great up there, enjoying the food and fellowship of friends all around. Oh, and a family reunion as well. Two cousins, an aunty, a sister and a dad were there as well, so I never ran out of things to laugh at.

Our mini family reunion. We were supposed to put on emo faces, but as apparent in the picture, I didn't feel quite sad enough.

The graduating YF bunch. We're spiraling all the way awaaaaay! Off to uni and what-not.

It was fun while it lasted, but camp concluded whatever fun I'm supposed to have for the rest of this hols. University applications are The-Next-Big-Thing on The List. Got to apply to a million and one unis, which are all royal pains in my very royal places.

Even when I thought the work was over - IB finals, SAT subject tests, TOEFL, SAT reasoning tests, there are few major hurdles left.

Back to work. Bah, humbug.

I went to the SU Young Writers' Camp 2008

2008-12-06T16:28:00.006+08:00

Hello everyone,

Guess where I went in my most recent escapade? If you guessed the SU Young Writers' Camp, you're absolutely brilliant! I'm still recovering from the sudden loss of things to take pictures of, and really awesome things to write about. So I thought I'd start blogging again, you know, to keep them creative juiceses a flowin'.

It was really a terrific camp. The premise for this year was simple, really. We're divided into different groups, and each group simulates a media company, meaning that by the end of each day at camp we had to publish a FULL LENGTH (two-page) newspaper!

How's that for awesome?

The camp was held at a place I like to call 'In-the-middle-of-nowhere' simply because it was. You're driving inside some unknown oil palm plantation somewhere in Gopeng, Perak when all of a sudden - WHAM! It's a huge palatial bungalow thing!

Seriously, I kid you not when I say that it wouldn't look out of place in say, Tropicana, or any other upmarket housing estate. It's got a swimming pool and lots of garden around it. Sure, the garden is mostly oily palm trees, but hey! it's HUGE.

Our campsite, Harvest Haven Gopeng.

Besides the programme lines up for us, we also had awesome facilitators/teacher dudes. Besides being totally competent writers and editors, with field experience, credentials to boast about, etc etc, they are immensely engaging to talk to. Maybe it's just a sign that I'm getting old, thereby having a harder time relating to them young un's.

From left to right - Em (The Edge), May (MPH Publications), Deb (The Nut Graph), Uncle David (Black Adder & Watchmen aficionado).

My group's paper was aptly named 'The Eleventh Hour', simply because we were Malaysian. And how can you resist a tag line like 'First-hand last-minute news'?

The other groups were Papyrus, Newsforest (a pun on News for us), and the ubiquitous Toilet Paper. And oh my word. It really was ubiquitous (this big word means 'you see it everywhere'). It all began when we were introducing ourselves to the other campers and they asked for your name, and a random fact.

'Hi, I'm Jonathan, I live in PJ and . . . I didn't bring any toilet paper with me to camp'.

And oh no. The madness began. Toilet paper became a running gag throughout the entire camp. Jokes were told about it, newspapers were named after it, comics were drawn about it.

It was even interviewed!

The first day of editing and writing was a tough on everyone. Being relatively new to this craft, we went about not really knowing what to do. But in the course of working, it became easier. But it really is no joke at all, writing articles, the entire editing process, deciding what goes in and what does not. You even had to stick to a word limit! I haven't had one since 'Rumusan' in Form 5.

Looking back in retrospective, when I read the papers this morning, I was just stunned for awhile at the sheer awesomeness of a complete newspaper. They did it in one day! How often have we grumbled that a day is never enough to finish that essay or that lab report, and yet somehow our papers have been faithfully delivered to us day after day.

Fresh off the printing mill!

I stayed up till 2.30am one night, just to witness the completion and birth of the next-day edition. Incredible, I thought. Little are we aware of the dozens of layout artists who stay up through the night to set out your newspapers. I started appreciating 'The Star' a little more, regardless of some bits of political bias :)

As the days progressed, naturally, writing and compiling a paper came more easily to us than before. Soon we were churning out our stuff by the afternoon, leaving the writers idle and in that, idly content. You could say that we enjoyed large chunks of freedom, and leisure took the form of general recreation - swimming, going around photographing, and napping in the afternoon warmth.

Oh! what bliss.

This is a dog. Her name is Jelly.

This is a smiley face in the sky. Or dorky, however you see it. Or even as Uncle David put it, 'It looks sinister'.

We also went out gallivanting through the caves one day.

This was our cave-guide, whose name I have inconveniently forgotten.

It's a good thing we didn't find any guano (bat poopoopoo) because I'm sure he would have liked to grab a handful and fondle it. It's in my line of work, he proudly exclaims, or so he says anyway.

There was a point in the cave where we were asked to extinguish our torches for a moment and to keep silent. Everyone is excitedly chattering away, and then a great hush.

You blink a few times to adjust to the darkness. There simply is no light. It is a world devoid of any sensory input. No sound, no light. Your ears too, attune to the silence. Then your ears are flooded with a deafening silence. And you wait, not even daring to breathe for fear of shattering this unearthly silence.

'Alrighty then, time to go'.

We picked up our torches and trudged on.

And we stepped into that marvelous light.

Then, lunch by the roadside.

It was quite a sight, some 50 odd campers contently sitting by a road tucking into their packets of nasi. We were muddy and fatigued, but chatty all the same.

This is my group, The Awesomes (our official name, of course was The Eleventh Hour).

Unbelievebly wide smiles plastered on faces? Check.
Brightly coloured clothing conveying a sense of youth and merriment? Check.
Blue sky and lush palm frond waving in the air? Check.
Looks like it was taken out of a magazine (or education publication)? Check!

That's me on the ground, and I'm burning up on the unbelievably hot tarmac. Ouch.

Perhaps one of the things I found most enjoyable about the camp was the people. They were all writers, and that in itself speaks volumes. They read books (not only text books), uphold the same ideals and principles as I do, and are really really smart! We've all been through that age when identity was a struggle, and trying to fit in was always a battle. I smiled myself silly when I saw myself in some of their selves.

And with that, we went our seperate ways. There were no prolonged, tearful goodbyes. But to each writer (or maybe just me), he goes home carrying genuine contentment in his heart.

A Pain in the DNS

2008-11-23T20:50:00.005+08:00

Here's a picture of me doing something I don't normally do.

Just in case you're wondering what I'm doing, I'll tell you.

I'M SNIFFING MY ROUTER! RAWRRRR!

WHY?????

Because it STINKS!!!!

Okay okay, I'm not sniffing it BECAUSE it stinks, I'm sniffing it to FIND OUT if it stinks.

And YES! IT STINKS!!!! )(*$#%)($#&%**#$*)#$

Do yourself a favour and NEVER NEVER buy a Belkin router. It gave me endless headaches for a year, and even after changing it for brand new units a few times. Seriously, I don't know why I didn't go out and buy a new one any sooner.

Yesterday I got myself a spiffy new Linksys WRT54GL, which can be custom flashed with third-party firmwares! No more cheap stock firmware! DD-WRT, Tomato and the like!

Before I scare you off with too many technical terms, here are pictures to keep you happy.

That's Tomato, the firmware thing I was talking about. And it comes in Pink, so it's less intimidating.

That's the brand new Linksys, although I have to admit it's ugly (the bad kind of ugly, like Michael Jackson kind of ugly) next to the old Belkin.

edit: Proof that Michael Jackson is ugly.

I haven't sniffed it yet, but it's been working PERFECTLY since yesterday, and I haven't had to restart it since. Honestly, I've forgotten what it's like to stream a whole YouTube video without getting cut off and having to refresh the page a gazillion times over.

Say no to capitalism! Buy Linksys!

Woooooooooooooooooooooo!

Postscript:

This post was not endorsed by wither company in either way. However, if you are from Linksys reading this and are considering it, do drop me a message :D

Emancipation

2008-11-22T11:57:00.012+08:00

Edit:

I've had people complaining (in a nice way) that my posts are hard to understand because I use big big words. Sorry :(

If you think you might be one of these people, skip to the bottom of this post, where a simplified version awaits you.

Regards,

The Management Team
@hamnoj.blogspot.com

First things first - IB is OVER.

It was weird that of all sudden - IB was over, just like that. We walked out of the exam room after a horrendously difficult Math 3 paper and that was it; no more IB.

No more having to stay up to finish that darned World Lit Essay/Extended Essay/Internal Assessment ever again! No more friends staying over for 3 weeks just to study and study and nothing else for the upcoming finals. No more having to crack your brain about poem structures, onomatopoeia, or having to memorize what the electroweak gauge bosons are.

Yet, somehow, it didn't sink in that the exams were finally over. We sat there lamenting over the loss of the so-many marks from out Math paper, not fully comprehending what freedom lay ahead. It was like a harrowing ordeal you are suddenly sucked out of. To quote Brian Keenan, 'Freedom comes slowly at first'.

And it was the last day of school, so we went around snapping pictures of ourselves with various teachers/girls. Okay, maybe not with the girls after all.

From right to left - A, Lee, Laoshi, Mah.

Mr. Masukor, one of the coolest math teachers ever.

Then the great triumvirate (consisting of Riza, Winson and I - The Illustrious Aleemah) trudged to the chemistry lab. You see, the lab is a sanctuary of sorts, a haven for the weary and downtrodden. We breathed in the aromatic compounds (benzene, toulene, etc etc) in the chemical laden air and at last, felt some semblance of peace.

Of course, and not forgetting to kick and abuse the skeleton. That's Mr. Lawrence (second from left) kicking the skeleton's non-existent umm, balls.

It was really calming, just sitting in the lab chatting with Mr. Lawrence as one would to friends. Our freedom was slowly returning. And after awhile, I quipped the age-old question.

'So. . . want to make a smoke bomb?'

Boom, baby!

Anyway, we sat there for a few hours brewing our noxious ingredients. That beaker holds a LOT of potential little smoke bomblings.

We had to watch it carefully lest it ignited, and risk the entire school being shrouded in a dense cloud of smoke. Not good for your rapport, at all.

Mr Lawrence likes caramelized Potassium Nitrate very much, me thinks.

You know, the end products look remarkably like sticks of candy. Imagine that - Oh candy! Lick lick lick, KABOOBABOOM and smoke all around. Cue evil grin and evil music. Heheh.

Below is a short video, in which we ignited the piece of candy Mr. Lawrence is holding in the picture above.

We laughed and screamed with ecstasy at the large plume of smoke filling the sky. It was our way of release, our way of escape into freedom once more. Gradually, the smoke dissipated, and in that small way, I felt free.

Later on the three of us wandered aimlessly, not sure of what we might be doing next. It was a blessed reprieve; the very fact that we didn't have to plan ahead was consolation enough. Walk walk walk, never knowing where we're going. Walk into the unknown that lies ahead, never knowing, never sure of where you're going. But ah! that's the life we all share.

Our freedom takes its form in the very fact that you are given that opportunity to take that step.

You walk, and you are free.

Simplified version:

Exams finished. Yay, whopee-do, happy happy joy joy.
But Math paper very difficult. Sad, cry cry, boohoo-ness.
Took pictures with teachers.
Went to chemistry lab to make smokey smokey bomb bombs.
We exploded the smokey smokey bomb bombs. (Watch the video)
I feel happy again. Yay.

The end.

Kerismuddin strikes back!

2008-10-18T19:54:00.007+08:00

I was reading Malaysiakini today and Hishamuddin's infamous keris waving incident was brought up. When I saw his picture again after so long, there was your proverbial 'click', and I really couldn't resist a spot of photoshopping fun.

Remember,

TONIGHT WE DINE REALLY WELL!!!!!!!!

(Click on image to enlarge)

Haha! :)

Both of them have just about the same expression, so I really couldn't help laughing to myself.

Alright, I'll be good and get back to nerd-ing overtime.

Stella

2008-10-13T17:50:00.005+08:00

Some months back, Jorrel introduced me to this (near) unheard of Japanese artist - Kashiwa Daisuke and his album, 'Program Music 1'.

The man himself, Kashiwa Daisuke.

Needless to say, since then I've gone raving mad about it. I must confess that I downloaded the album to give it a listen, considering that it's impossible to find in Malaysia. After a few listens I was totally captivated. I could honestly say it was the most beautiful piece of music I had ever heard.

Kashiwa Daisuke - Program Music 1

So yes, in defiance of the typical Malaysian spirit of 'download and listen but never support the artist in question', I decided to purchase the album, but after trawling through pages and pages of the internet, I still couldn't find anywhere to buy it. After months of antagonizing over it, Jorrel found this local distributor that ACTUALLY IMPORTED GOOD MUSIC. Huzzah!

Well, nuff said. We placed an order and waited. Patiently. And waited some more. Between the both of us, we bought 5 copies, at RM45 each. Oh, and the whole album consists of two songs. I only like one of them.

AND SHE ARRIVED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tell you, the whole purpose of having your own personal blog is the document your life's achievements/memories/girlfriends, etc etc. AND TODAY IS WHERE I REALISE THAT DREAM! I'm sorry for typing in caps, but I'm ridiculously ecstatic about it.

After school we drove of to meet the distributor guy/person/dude. I couldn't wait.

Stella (the title of the first song) was waiting, all 5 of her.

So beautiful, sniff.

So there she was, sitting demurely on my lap (all 5 of her, again). Tears of joy streamed down my cheeks, unbeckoned. Okay lah, maybe not. But I couldn't wait to get home to listen.

Diagonally.

Sideways.

Topdown. Yeah, she looks good from all angles.

Oh Stella. I took her in my hands, slowly peeling away the flimsy low density Polyethylene that covered her frame. Basking in the rays of the glorious sunlight, she was a sight to behold.

Unpretentious, unwrapped for all to see, and still so lovely it's making me want to cry.

Oh the shinyness!

Then, with her in my hand (and Jorrel), we ventured into the Sanctuary of Surround Sound, as I placed her upon the pedestal of DVD player awesomeness. In my haste, I dropped her. I nearly cried :(

I picked her up again, ever so gently. This time, round and round she whirred, until a barely perceivable whisper sounded from the recesses of her being.

It was Stella.

For 36 minutes and 7 seconds, I sat there, eyes shut, body immobile. And just listened.

There it is, happiness in a CD case.

You'd think we're crazy, shelling out 45 bucks for one CD (one song, actually), and then sitting in total darkness for 36:07 minutes, without twitching a muscle. I think I'm going crazy myself, but just sitting there, listening to beauty laid bare, removed from the earthly world for those minutes that just flew by, it's almost unfathomable to regret.

Stella is stellar, indeed.

Hmmph. And they said money couldn't buy you happiness.

Hey there's somthing over there looming ominously in the corner! OMGWTFBBQ! Wait, I think it's a. . .no! It's not a . . ! But it can't possibly be...!

2008-10-05T22:47:00.002+08:00

Right, it's exam season again. Just yesterday I took my SAT subject tests along with Winson and Jorrel. Yeah, sat (past tense of 'sit') for my SATs (Scholastic Aptitude Tests) on a sat(urday). ~~Punny~~ Funny eh? To put it simply, I didn't know nuts about what the test was about, much less what to expect. I knew there would be 'Math' questions, 'Physics' questions and 'Chemistry' questions, but I suppose that doesn't tell you a great lot. So yes, I wasn't very prepared.

In fact, just that morning, a dialogue much like this took place in the car, on our way to the test:

Jonno: Hey, winson, it says here I need pencils for the test. I don't have any. How leh?

Winson: I sorta expected that from Jon. Here. (Passes me ONE pencil).

Jorrel: I don't have pencils either.

(silence and dot dot dots)

Jonno: Uhm, I uh, don't have an eraser.

Winson: Me neither.

(after much persuasion, Jorrel relents and we divide his extra eraser into two)

Jorrel: You owe me another eraser.

Jonno: Say, would anyone happen to have an extra calculator on hand?

(more dots follow)

Uhuh, to say the least, we weren't at all prepared for the SATs. It would actually be funny if I did well for Math.

And with exams, I can't afford any more distractions. Have to switch back to asexual (pretend-not-to-like-girls) mode. You know, the past raya week has been considerably productive, considering I studied for like, 4 or 5 WHOLE days. I think just this week, I've spent more hours poring over books and mathematical equations than I have for SPM and PMR, added together.

But with the IB exams looming just around the corner, there's no time for anything else! They're only 29 days awaaaaaaaaay!

And yes, as a few of you might have already deduced, this means I can't visit, much less update my blog for a month or so. Yealah, it's not like it's not already dead, but this is the officiating statement :

THIS BLOG IS DED. DEEEEEEEED (pronounced 'dead'), or will be for the next month.

I've really got to spend all the time I have studying lah. I'm the type who sits at my desk for two hours, but really only about 20 minutes of it gets into my head. So long, farewell, I'll be back before you know it so don't fret or lose sleep over not having intellectualy stimulating for an extended period of time.

:D

Jonno

I want English, lah

2008-09-22T18:32:00.003+08:00

This is a letter I wrote a few weeks back, supposedly for theStar. I mailed it to the editor, but it never saw the daylight of publication :(

Too long? Too controversial (haha, I'm beginning to reek of controversies)? You be the judge. Censure me in your wisdom, and all that. I wrote the letter in about an hour, so it's not exactly Martin Luther King. All the same, I put my views forward and if you like, you can do so too. There's a handy little 'comment' button down there :)

As of late, much has been said regarding the role of English as a teaching medium for Science and Mathematics in our current education system. More recently, we’ve had many worried parents expressing their concerns on the apparent indecisiveness of the government on the medium of teaching for the two subjects.

In 2002, the government announced its decision for the introduction of English as the medium for teaching Science and Mathematics, two subjects that were constantly evolving and changing. The decision was based on the justification an English medium would better prepare Malaysian students for a world that was rapidly being globalised. The teaching of Science and Mathematics in English, while not a new concept has only been implemented since 2003 and already there is talk of reverting back to Bahasa Malaysia for teaching.

If we are indeed to revert to Bahasa, let us first examine the rationale for this decision. Firstly, it has been claimed that many teachers are incompetent for the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English. This comes as no surprise, as even veteran teachers would have initial difficulty in adapting to the new method of teaching. Moreover, the younger and less experienced teachers would have even greater difficulties adapting, considering most of their training was facilitated in Bahasa Malaysia (verify claim). However, should these teachers truly be competent and well-versed with their knowledge of their subjects, it should be a relatively simple to acclimatize themselves to the new teaching environment.

Unfortunately, many parents still have qualms about the standard of teaching being imparted to their children. Clearly, the issue of competence among our school teachers has to be addressed. It is foolhardy to abolish the current system because of this. Put in perspective, the move could be likened to refusing medicine simply because it was difficult to swallow it. Furthermore, if there is a genuine inability on the part of the teacher to teach adequately in English, reverting back to Bahasa Malaysia is definitely no cure. In all probability, the teacher’s inadequacy stems from the fact that as a student, he or she did not receive as English based education, hence the inability to express himself in English as a teacher. Hence, it is critical that we realize this is a self-propagating cycle that must be broken. And if not now, when? Simply put, reverting back to Bahasa Malaysia for Science and Mathematics will only compound the problem, not solve it.

With this is mind, I see absolutely no reason for reverting the medium for teaching Science and Mathematics back to Bahasa Malaysia. Proponents of the move might justify it with the most recent examination results, in which it was shown that many students chose to answer the papers in Bahasa Malaysia, compared to English, or that students generally performed better when the Science and Mathematics was taught in Bahasa Malaysia. However, I believe this issue is closely entwined with the competence of the teacher. Given time and proper training, the teachers should become familiar teaching in English, and the performance of students should follow suit.

Returning again to the original vision of the government in its 2002 declaration, the situation has not changed. It is still imperative that Malaysian students are well equipped for the globalized world. Knowledge is power, but practicality helps a great deal as well. To be brutally honest, Bahasa Malaysia has no value where Science and Mathematics are concerned. In the world today, a large portion of the advancements in technology are carried out in English. Hardly anywhere in the world is research being done where Bahasa Malaysia is the language of instruction. For this reason, it is totally impractical to further the teaching of these subjects in Bahasa Malaysia. Countries such as Japan and Germany are still able to maintain the teaching of Science and Mathematics in their own native tongues because it is of some use. These countries are bustling hubs for research and development of new technologies, while Malaysia, unfortunately, does not even come close in this regard.

However, one cannot doubt the role of Bahasa Malaysia as a unifying subject, as common ground on which the races can build their foundations of harmony. As the national language, it will be used for the teaching of most of the non-science subjects, but with the continuation of English based Science and Mathematics subjects, a healthy balance of both languages can be introduced, and hopefully this will encourage a proliferation of English proficient students.

In recent years, many of our local graduates have found difficulty in getting employed, chiefly because of their poor command of English. If we examine this retrospectively, we find that these are the students who have been subject to a wholly Bahasa Malaysia based syllabus. As a result, there is practically no room for the development of their oral and written English skills. They may be able be score A1s for their SPM English, but in reality any grasp of a coherent sense of the language is lost to them. A language is not something that can be mastered through the teaching of the language alone. Consistency and regular usage are necessary to be English proficient. At least, with a few subjects taught in English, students will have to read, write and speak it on a regular basis, which will help them better grasp the language.

For the reasons I have stated, I wholeheartedly advocate the teaching of Science and Mathematics in the English language. In a world being shaped by rapid globalization, we cannot deny the fact that English has become one of the most important languages in the world. Teaching in English will not result in the corrosion of our culture and our national language. Let not misguided patriotism blind our judgment. Let us not politicize our education, as it has been oft done in the past. All we want is for Malaysia to advance as a country, and I believe it begins with education.

Hai, it's me agein.

Remember, COMMENT, COMMENT, THINK, THEN COMMENT AGAIN.

Tenkiu very much :)

The Imminent End of The World

2008-09-13T23:00:00.004+08:00

edit:

A little Ben told me that there's actually a website you can visit to check if the LHC has destroyed the world yet. Keep yourself updated! Click HERE, HERE and HERE to visit.

Early this week something happened up in France/Swisscheeserland that was bound to shock, excite, made you scareded, or potentially bore, but mostly excite everyone in the world. Yup, they turned on the LHC on Tuesday. Didn't do anything spectacular or smash things up at really high speeds, just turned it on.

Well, the main reason I'm so happy that they invented the LHC machine-collider-dude-thing is because it's could screw a lot of things up! Yeah, selfish, I know.

Some complicated looking part in the LHC. Well, don't ask me what it is!

Quite basically, the LHC is the Large Hadron Collider. They don't collide 'Large Hadrons' in a Collider, they just collide Hadrons in a 'Large Collider'. Confusing, I know. They make little particles fly around happily at speeds nearly reaching the speed of light (which is superbly fast, mind you), until they collide into each other and they're not so happy anymore. Then they kinda blow up and the little bits and pieces fly all over the place. Then they look at the little bits and say things like 'Ahah! This squiggly line proves that the Higgs boson exists!' and then they'll go publish it in the papers and get lots of money for it. That's the essential theory of it, lah.

Right, anyway, some people are worried that the LHC will make little black holes things that will magically expand in size and gobble the world up. Fear #1 - The world gets totally screwed.

Besides that, the current model of the atom, called the Standard Model, might also get screwed if we find out that the Higgs boson doesn't acutally exist. But if it does exist then that might prove the Standard Model, but not necessarily. But if they can't find it, then they'll have to rethink almost everything about the current atomic model. Or if we find something totally weird in the BANG BANG experiments, the model might be totally disproven altogether. It's all very confusing, but let's forget that now and let ourselves get deluded by the 'appeal to authority' fallacy (that means we believe whatever the scientists say because they claim to be smart-pants-scientists). So Fear #2 - The Standard Model gets screwed.

Either way, if the world or the Standard Model gets messed up big time, I'd still be happy. You see, my IB exams are in 53 days (and counting) and to put it in the simplest term(s):

DIE lah.

So really, if the world meets it's calamatystic fate because some little hadrons beat each other up, I won't have to sit for my exams!

If the Standard Model of the atom is proven (at best) wrong or (at worst) partially incorrect and therefore dude for numerous revisions, hopefully the IB Organization will understand this and take out that part of our syllabus from the exams!

The world loses, but hey! IB students worldwide would rejoice.

Alrighty, back to trying to study.

And we've waited 51 years to get here

2008-09-08T23:42:00.004+08:00

I know I haven't been blogging for some time, but I'm really not my usual self right now, so I'll just be talking a bit about the Malaysian political scene (yes, again).

For those who don't follow the happenings, I'll quickly bring you up to speed.

Recently, during the Permatang Pauh by-elections, both BN and PKR were campaigning like mad to woo the voters. Obviously, Anwar won. Even our former premier, Dr. M thought so. During the whole campaigning frenzy, a local UMNO assemblyman got a little too excited and made a bad boo-boo.

"Bukit Bendera Umno division chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail had called the Chinese pendatang (immigrants) at a ceramah prior to the Permatang Pauh by-election."

Source: The Star (3 Sept 08)

Soon after, the Chinese based parties (Gerakan, MCA, etc) start complaining about his 'alleged' remark.
Najib apologizes on behalf of UMNO.
Chinese leaders don't buy it.
Ahmad Ismail pulls a disappearing act, so not even the PM can find him. Then he remains elusive for some few more days.
He returns and says something stupid that totally screws everything up.

Essentially, he refuses to apologize for his 'pendatang' comment, effectively snubbing the UMNO leaders (Abdullah and Najib). He then insists the newspapers who reported the issue should apologize, for taking his comments 'out of context'.

You know, a lot would have been resolved if he had just said sorry there and then, instead of 'allegedly' going for a sepak takraw match (I bet he spent those days cooking up a good reason for saying what he did). But NO, he had to drag it on and on, trampling on whatever rapport the nation has built among the races. Honestly, I can't help but feel a little hurt by what he said. It's not only insensitive, it's especially idiotic considering his arguments are somewhat weak. It's not too hard to see that he's just beating round the bush, trying feebly to turn the tide back on the Chinese people (who've just been snubbed pretty badly, mind you) by playing the oldest trick in the book, the 'Ketuanan Melayu' issue.

I'm a bit pissed to be thinking coherently now, so I realize my arguments aren't really going wherer they should be. But ARGH! I can't help but feel that whether Ketuanan Melayu or not, what he did was absolutely intolerable (non-sequitur, my reasoning today, sorry that).

What infuriated me more was an article I read on Malaysiakini today:

"Penang Umno leader Ahmad Ismail, the man at the centre of the ‘racial slur' controversy, warned Chinese Malaysians not to mimic American Jews who not only seek to control the country's economy but also its political power."

Dude, it's not like the Jews were there FIGHTING and DYING for the independence YOU now share. GAH, the idiocy really irks me! And then:

"Earlier, Ahmad told the minority Chinese not to go overboard in hurting the feelings of the Malays and Muslims. "I want them to know, I want them to take this as a warning from the Malays. Malays and Muslims have been provoked many times. We have been patient because we want to maintain stability in the country," he said. "Remember! The patience of Malays and Muslims has its limits. Do not push us to the wall, where we will be forced to reject the Chinese for the sake of our survival."

Oh sure, he's the one making idiot comments, and he's warning the Chinese not to hurt the feelings of the Malays and Muslims.

Really, words almost fail me here. I was just furious that anyone could even be this dense. Any semblance of peace we had between races doesn't seem to get into that head of his. Why does he think every other Chinese person wants to usurp the rights of the Malays, or that we want to take over Malaysia and turn it into Singapore? Obviously, the Chinese don't wish to get along peacefully with their fellow countrymen, and they obviously don't want the best for the country that they and their families live in. After all, they're only SQUATTERS (and ONLY since the pre-independence era).

How can you tell someone who has known only life in Malaysia that he is a 'pendatang'? In fact, the Chinese (and Indians, at that) have been shorter-term 'pendatang's than the Malays, who are in fact 'pendatang' to this land themselves! But let's not go there. The point is, after all these years of 'Independence', it's so frustrating that so many are still not 'Independent' of their own thick-headed bigotry. After 51 years, after generations of Born and Bred in Malaysia Malaysians, we still have bigots calling other people names.

These are the issues 'true' racists harp on all the time, and yet he has the nerve to brand himself as a not-racist.

In the same press conference from which I quoted previously, the Malay leaders went really gung-ho about snubbing the Chinese.

"The press conference, which was held at the Penang Umno headquarters this afternoon, ended with shouts of ‘Hidup Melayu' from about 50 local party leaders who were there.
Soon after the event, former Penang Umno committee member Zainol Abidin Hashim, with the help from his colleagues pulled down the photo of Gerakan acting president Dr Koh Tsu Koon which adorned one of the walls in the party headquarters.
Koh's picture frame, which sat next to the photos of the Penang governor and his wife, was subsequently smashed.
As the glass broke into pieces, Zainol removed Koh's photo from the frame and tore it into half.
Koh, who is former Penang chief minister, has been trading barbs with Ahmad, the Bukit Bendera Umno division chief, over the issue."

They were even kind enough to include photos of the peaceful gathering.

Hidup Melayu, bangkit kebodohan?

But really, I don't make any sense, and you can totally discount whatever I've said (or tried, at least). I'm only a kid of the kid of the kid of a 'pendatang', so technically my arguments are already inferior to that of a 'lesser-pendatang', for what it's worth.

I'm sorry if I offend anyone, I'm just really, really angry. I can't think of another word for it.

Forget CO2!

2008-08-13T17:33:00.003+08:00

Attention everyone! Our world is in grave danger from a very real threat - DHMO. Forget the whole ruckus about CO2 (carbon dioxide), DHMO (dihydrogen monoxide) is at least a thousand times more abundant in our atmospheres than CO2 ever will be. read the following article for more info. Lastly, don't forget to boycott all products that use DHMO! Together we CAN make a difference!

BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE!
Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there.
Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.
Dihydrogen monoxide:
· is also known as hydroxl acid, and is the major component of acid rain. · contributes to the "greenhouse effect." · may cause severe burns. · contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape. · accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals. · may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes. · has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
Contamination is reaching epidemic proportions!
Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and recently California.
Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:
· as an industrial solvent and coolant. · in nuclear power plants. · in the production of styrofoam. · as a fire retardant. · in many forms of cruel animal research. · in the distribution of pesticides. · as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.
Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!
The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use.
Oh btw, to those who don't quite get it, try writing out the chemical formula for DHMO. This goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you read from emails or blogs nowadays. Well, except for this one, of course.

Cheers, and have a good day :)

GG-ed!

2008-08-07T22:09:00.001+08:00

Everyone's stressed out by an insane Math paper, except those who've practically memorized the answer scheme. Never mind, it's picture time!

I seriously ROFL, LOLed, BBQed, DVDed, whatever. I just love Lolcat, don't you?

The Making of a Sciencey Person

2008-08-07T04:12:00.000+08:00

I have a friend who is an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beatiful it is," and I'll agree. But then he'll say, "I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, takes it all apart and it becomes dull." I think he's kind of nutty.

First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people-and to me, too, I believe. Although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. But at the same time, I see much more in the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells inside, which also have a beauty. There's beauty not just at the dimension of one centimeter; there's also beauty at a smaller dimension.

There are the complicated actions of the cells, and other processes. The fact that the colours in the flowers have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see all the colours. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also esxist in lower forms of life? There are all sorts of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower.

It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

-Excerpt from 'What do YOU care what people think?' by Richard P. Feynman

The short excerpt was taken from the a book compiled from the memoirs and interviews with Richard Feynman. He is sort of a hero to me, representing everything I've wanted and still hope to be.

The main reason I felt like sharing the extract was because a lot of people, I'm sure have a certain preset notion about the 'Sciencey' breed of people in the world. We're supposed to be boring, dull people who spend the rest of their days cooped up in some lab somewhere. We take everything apart, so there's really nothing left to appreciate. So it really struck a chord with me when he says, "It only adds (beauty). I don't understand how it subtracts".

A good friend of mine once told me that as a kid, he would gawk in awe at the rainbows in the sky. They has an ethereal, magical property to them. Then progressing up the ranks of study, science broke down the beautiful rainbows into nothing more than the refraction of light through water particles acting as lenses. In that sense, it removed the mystery, the wonder of something you didn't understand.

But then again, after the rain has fallen, I still look up to the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the multi-hued arches in the sky. I understand how a rainbow is formed. I understand it on a deeper level than the average passerby. It's almost like an exclusive secret I can keep to myself. It is still magical, it is still beautiful.

It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

Of running, fasting

2008-08-03T04:12:00.001+08:00

I'm now a volunteer for World Vision's annual 30-hour famine!

Click for more info.

It's this nifty thing where you don't eat or bathe (honestly, I have no idea why) for 30 hours (hence the name). Somehow or other, it's meant for you to experience the hardship and poverty of the impoverished people of the world. It's a great idea, really! But for a ridiculous bunch of people who have just as ridiculous metabolism rates (like me!), die loh. No, really. I don't know how I'm going to last 30 hours. I don't think properly if I don't have my second breakfast. I get moody if I don't get my lunch. How? HOW LAH TELL ME WEI. I thought I could get away by being a volunteer.

'Alrighty now, everyone start fasting! But since I'm a volunteer, obviously I need my energy to volunteer properly, so I won't be joining you *snicker*.'

But that didn't work. Turns out volunteers have to fast too. Bah.

I'll just have to deal with it when I get there. Stay awake all night and sleep through the 30 hours? Maybe. Play COD for 26 hours straight? Maybe. Options, options.

Speaking of which, on the exact same day of the famine countdown, there is this other event I would have reeeeally liked to have gone to. It's the (also) annual SAFRA Singapore Bay Run! The coolest thing about it is the sheer number of participants. If I remember correctly, there were about 10 to 15 thousand runners for one of the previous years. And also, Singapore has a good reputation for organising enjoyable runs.

And Singapore is a lovely place to run. I mean, all island with no place else for the smog and pollutants to go to. Lovely, lovely indeed. All urban landscape with close to zilch greenery. But let's not forget the other spectrum of the view - the girls!

I mean, honestly, probability dictates that at least some of them will be acceptably gorgeous. And they'll be running! Flushed red cheeks, windswept hair! What more could you ask for?

Oh wait.

PB and Jelly it. I can't run because I've volunteered to starve myself and deprive myself of food. GAH! NO! I can't believe the alternative. It's either Run With Pretty Girls or Starve Myself For 30 Hours.

Sigh, persevere, Jonno! It's for a good cause. Think of the little kids in Somalia, starving! Or Zimbabwe, think of the poor kids who have to lug around back-breakingly huge mounds of money just to buy breakfast only to find that the price went up due to their hyper-inflation rate, pegged at about 2.2 million % due to the power crazy splurges of their evil dictator leader who does not want to negotiate in talks with the opposition leader but oh why am I telling you all this, lets just get back to the point!

Zzz....

Dilemmas, dilemmas, but I'll keep you posted. Good night world!

I swear it!

2008-07-30T18:20:00.007+08:00

Recently, Winson and I gave some presentation in school about some Energy Audit project we did a month ago. It was quite well met, which made me quite glad actually.

The now (in)famous picture of Riza, imprinted in the minds of them impressionable school kids.

Of course, there were a couple of things we forgot to do. Forgetting to inform Mr. Jonathon (our IB coordinator) was obviously the biggest mistake. Besides the obvious, it turns out I was also a little rude on stage. ‘’Jonathan, you don’t use words like ‘darn’ or ‘crud’ on stage’’, said he, very civilly.

‘’Oh dang it’’, thought I.

Perhaps I was getting a little used to saying not-so-rude or crude words every time something slips, or every time I stub my toe on something. Well, fine. As much as possible, I’ll try not to say ‘darn’ or ‘dang’ or anything of the sort from now on. But ah, I need some sort of milder substitute to slowly wean myself off. Sorta like a nicotine patch for chain smokers.

I know! I’ll start swearing by ‘peanut butter’.

Yes lah, it’s very lame and nonsensical, but it gets the job done. Plus, I probably get points for coolness. Imagine a situation where Dai Ah Long (gangster guy) and I are walking and both of us almost got run over by a car.

‘Beep beep beep boop boobity boo beep beep beep’ (Guy starts swearing in Chinese, obviously censored. Plus, I don’t know enough Chinese to swear)

And then you’d hear ‘Peanut butter!’

Haha, I know, it sounds insane, but I happen to think it’s insanely cool as well.

Then you’d ask me, why bother? Just swear and be done with it. Well, I don’t really know. It might just be me who thinks it sounds a little crude to be swearing all the time.

I asked one of my classmates today why he was constantly swearing all the time.

"Oh, swearing amplifies the emotion I’m trying to convey. Say, if I was happy I’d say I’m ***************** happy so I would sound happier."

Right. I don’t think that’s an adequate enough justification, but all the same, if you enjoy swearing so much, by all means go ahead. I’m not the one making a fool of myself. The thing is, with every other person uttering expletives at every other thing nowadays, it’s become just so commonplace, so ordinary. Why, I might even dare say it’s downright boring and redundant.

Take for example, an exceedingly infuriated person. If he were to swear, he would probably sound like this:

Oh my BEEP you BEEPing BEEP BEEP BEEP, I’m am so going to BEEP BEEP your BEEP BEEP BEEPing BEEP and BEEP your BEEP up so that BEEP BEEP BEEP until you BEEP and BEEP and also BEEP, but not forgetting BEEP!! You BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP and your dog BEEP BEEP argh! You BEEP mushrooms are BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!! Tuna is BEEPing expensive BEEP BEEP BEEP. . .

And so on, so forth, etcetera, etcetera. . .

Practically nothing is left to the imagination. It’s all spelt out in beeping graphic detail for you. Another thing I have against swearing outright is that it’s just so . . . brainless (for lack of a better word). Any idiot could just start shouting random cuss words (in no particular chronological order) and that would constitute swearing. Bah, such humbug. Really, I think it's a particularly bad habit, much like scratching our bums in public or sneezing in the general direction of other people.

So if anyone asks me why I'm generally 'goody-good' and why I choose not to swear, now you know. Of course, there is the whole moral perspective, but besides that viewpoint, now you know.

Cheers :)

Oh and by the way, for some good intellectual swearing (hah, I keep telling myself there is such a thing) in action, honestly, none do it better than the English. Here’s a short clip from the movie ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ for your enjoyment. Watch out for them Frenchies!

A Small Death

2008-07-09T17:50:00.001+08:00

My mouse died on a Sunday night. It was so strange, so sudden. Walking down the stairs to get my dinner, I stopped, stopped and noticed that one of my two mice was missing. It couldn't have escaped, I told myself. Rummaging through the heaps of bedding, a small head peeked out.

It's eyes were closed. It's mouth was agape.

It was dead.

I didn't quite know what to do then. I held it gingerly in my palm, and it was stiff and devoid of warmth. 'I suppose I must bury it', I then told myself. In the garden I shoveled a shallow pit for my mouse. It was dark, and I couldn't see. I couldn't even see when I had to pat down the earth around the small, frail frame. But it was probably better that way. I couldn't bear the sight of the carcass bloated, a mere shell of what used to be.

Later that night, as I poked at my dinner with disinterest, I would remember. Remember how my mouse used to scamper around, warm, lively, alive. I would approach their little nest, and even when they slept, their little ears pricked up when I was around. Then they would run rings around each other, and sniff longingly at the air. But that was mostly gone now. I continued eating, but it was cold. It was quiet now.

There used to be two of them, but only one remains now. There used to be two, and I'd see them play with each other. And in that small way, I suppose they did make me happy.

Was I a bad owner? Didn't I feed them enough or clean their cage often enough? Didn't I take note of the signs of ailment? I can't quite say.

As I ate my dinner, and I wondered. Why do people really bother keeping pets if they're just going to die someday? I have friends who wept buckets upon the death of a pet. I wonder if it's really worth the anguish.

I wasn't exactly lachrymose about a dead mouse, but it did leave a hollow ring in my ears when I told myself that she was gone. Really, is it worth it?

We just have to resign ourselves to the fact that life goes on, no?

Jonathan.

My Gay Thoughts

2008-07-06T20:24:00.007+08:00

No you didn't read that wrong. I'm here to expound a little on thoughts I was entertaining as I read news on the whole political hullabaloo that has been playing out in our Malaysian circus. You know, the whole Anwar being accused of sodomy kind of thing. But, like most other bloggers, I'm quite resigned to blogging about the political viewpoint of the matters; it's just so darn confusing at this stage.

And no, I don't literally mean 'gay thoughts', but rather a few thoughts about the homosexual movement as a whole.

It just struck me as I was reading some opinions about the allegations against Anwar. Some of the more eloquent and thought-provoking writers offered their opinions on the matter, and it pretty much went like, 'Hey, we're really not interested in whether or not Anwar did sodomize the poor chap. Considering that he was a 23 year old lad, probably at the peak of his youth and vitality, and that Anwar was 60+ and had a bad back, it must have been an act of mutual consent, and we're not at all interested in what two consenting adults choose to do in the privacy of wherever. We're only interested if it involves embezzlement of the public funds, and etc etc...'.

Or even things like, 'Malaysia is homophobic for the reason that sodomy (a homosexual act) is criminalized'. Or something to that effect.

Now, note the two main criterion most people offer for an action to be justifiable morally. One, they're adults, and thus fully able to comprehend their decisions and the ramifications of their decisions.

Two, it involves two consenting adults, and from a post-modernist point of view, that would equate to 'We're just doing our thing, and it's not hurting anyone, so just let us be!'.

Well, alright. It seems to be the perception of most people that if its done by two consenting adults, just about anything is fine.

Well, then, I was just thinking to myself about what these very same people would say to a case of incest. Yes, incest, some totally whacked sexual relationship between two people in a family. After all, it does involve two very consenting adults. So if we're really all that keen on allowing people to run around being gay, I really have to ask, why not let a father marry his own daughter? Or better still, let a grandma marry her grandson, or great great grandson, or whatever you fancy?

And doesn't incest just strike you as wrong? Why then, do you ask yourself, is incest so wrong? What, it's not natural? But oh, I never really thought homosexuality was natural either. I might be wrong and my view on things might be totally distorted because I'm a closed-minded person and a Christian of all things (oh no, it's another one!); but after all, it's just my personal take on things.

You know, the thing is, I believe this whole being 'open-minded' is a farce when it comes to homosexuality. There is no real open-mindedness. Everyone is just plain selfish (I'm not absolving myself either). I think most (I'm not saying all, mind you) proponents of homosexuality are themselves closed-minded because they refuse to acknowledge that the grounds on which they justify their claims for validity are the very same grounds that can be used for a lot of other things, which would probably tickle their moral conscience as well. So really, when you refuse to acknowledge that, then it's a mockery in itself of this 'open-mindedness' that we should have.

Of course, if you could still say, 'oh yeah, sure, incest is totally fine with me', then my argument would totally fall and I'd really have nothing else to say. I'd just go home, brood over it and seriously think that our moral state of affairs is in VERY, VERY deep peanut butter (it's the best substitute I could think of to represent something brown and mushy).

And oh, don't even go to there. Where? The, 'Oh, you're another closed-minded Christian and so your arguments are so 1940. We live in the modern age! Your old school rules are no longer relevant!'.

Seriously, -.-''

One, by calling someone closed-minded, you're already refusing to accept whatever views the other has to share, regardless of its validity and rationale.

Two, how do you really know if we're 'closed-minded'? Don't you think that in this age of thinking, we (the C-dudes) would have examined and re-examined our values and asked ourselves if this is really what we believe in?

Honestly, I fall waaaaaaaaay away from the standard of what I dare to call a 'good' Christian, but even I have my core values, which I've asked myself if they were worth protecting, and come to a resounding 'yes'. And of course we've all thought about homosexuality and whether or not it was right or wrong based on both divine standards as well as on modern standards. Well, there are some people who couldn't be bothered about forming a personal opinion, but I think they're just dumb and so they don't come into the equation here.

And look, you know that highly-touted value of being able to speak up for what you believe in? A great majority of people think its great that gays and gay-like people are able to brave ridicule and sum up the courage to tell everyone they're really gay, or stuff. They think its absolutely great that they have the courage to speak up for what they believe in and all that. Well, well, newsflash, that's EXACTLY what I'm trying to do. I'm speaking up for what I believe in, whether it irks people or not.

I could probably think of a few more things to say, but I think this post is controversial enough as it is. I'm expecting backlash from some human rights group in Amsterdam or somewhere, but it's alright. I really hope this prompts everyone to actually think. If you have a nit to pick with me, then fine, but go take some time to think about it, then type it out in a readable manner. Then, we'll sit down for tea and chat.

Lastly, peace out, yo.

:) Jonathan

The World is Fat?

2008-06-29T04:12:00.013+08:00

This happened quite some time ago, but it's so funny I just had to share it!I bought a book a couple of months back, and for those who haven't read it, it's a really good book. It's called 'The World is Flat' by this chap called Thomas L. Friedman. Isn't that a kick-tooshie name? Its sorta like Fried-man, but way cooler cause its just Friedman. Do you pronounce it Fried-man, or just Freeeedman?

Anyway, I was buying the book with my sister at MPH, One Utama, but I was kinda lazy to go get it. The conversation went something like this:

Jon : Wei, go get me a book from that corner, it's called 'The World is Flat'.

Sis : What?? The world is Fat?? Like you la!

Jon : . . .

Not wanting to be outdone, my brain coughed up what seemed to be the most appropriate answer in a situation as such.

Jon : No. The world is FLAT. Like YOU!

Sis : Nooooooooooooooooo!

Muhaha. Maybe the end was a tad exaggerated, but you should have seen her face! And I couldn't stop laughing after that. Absolutely priceless. Of course I didn't mean it, but theres always that compulsive need to insult your siblings, in a uhh, loving sort of way.

Man, when we're all old and saggy I'd really like to be able to visit my blog again and read this. I'll probably have a good time laughing it off.:)

Urban Politics

2008-06-28T12:30:00.005+08:00

I came across an interesting display on a wall somewhere in KL as Winson and I were walking back from the MACEE US fair.

Roughly translates to 'Give us ashes, but not UMNO'.

I thought it was a pretty interesting show of the urban mindset of certain things, their views on the happenings in our political landscape, etc etc. I'm assuming here, but I do honestly think that it was probably a bunch of Malay youths who wrote the words. For one, it's written in BM, and secondly, older guys won't resort to such 'uncouth' methods. They'd probably print posters and stick em' on walls cause they're less rowdy and more civilized. :)

Anyway, the point was that youths are beginning to show their interest in politics as well, especially with all the buzz and excitement generated from the previous General Elections. This isn't at all bad or anything, and I think that it is one of the key ingredients in a healthy democratic system. Can you imagine a a place where the young fellas couldn't give a damn about whats happening in their own country?

The only thing is, from the pre-election period till about now, that anti-establishment sentiment has been running hot in the veins of a great number of voters and the young demographic of to-be-voters. Honestly, they have every reason to be, seeing how things have been handled in our country in recent and past years.

However, you can't help but wonder if this zeal is bordering on the fringes of fanaticism and blind-faith in the Opposition?

Recently, during the fuel price hike there were emails floating around questioning the apparent inability of Petronas and the Government in cushioning the impact of the increase for the good of the people. Some people, angry with the governing body, blindly accept the allegations and are quick to jump up and condemn. Whether or not such allegations are true is a whole other matter, but judging by such outbursts from our community of Malaysians, we see that the problem with us is that we always need someone to blame.

And I suppose this is the case for our bunch of Malay youths. For whatever reason they harbor resentment against the Government, they need to put the blame on someone, and so they throw objectivity out the window and shut it tight. What else should we call this but close-mindedness?

We're the urban youths. We're supposed to be the elite ones in terms of thinking and making decisions. Where are we going wrong? Perhaps its time for us to sit back and reevaluate our mindsets on things.

:) Jonathan.

I'm back

2008-06-24T17:31:00.003+08:00

Seriously, I thought I had lost it when I couldn't really think of anything else for a title but 'I'm back'.

I'm back? What kinda of crappy title is that anyway??

Right, so here it goes.

With this, I officially declare myself back in business. Yayness and hurrayness to all. After about 2 months of mental blogging block, I can't exactly come up with anything remotely smart to say now, so I'll get away with it by posting a picture! (Really, it almost always works)

Here's a really random picture of me in Amsterdam. Enjoy, and watch out for an update soon.

Hamsterdam!

Chem 6A

2008-04-27T17:50:00.013+08:00

Hello all!

In our chem class recently, we studied Markovnikov's rule, and unless you’re a die-hard chem fanboy, I doubt you’ll be interested in reading a whole post about it. Srsly.

Srsly -this means Seriously, in LOLspeak, a language I happen to be quickly assimilating, unfortunately, for you. :)

A paragraph of LOLspeak would sound something like this:

Yo! Like srsly, I don’t fink u wanna heer mi speek abowt dis Chem thingy bt u’d radder heer mi talk abowt thingz asploding. Eryone luvs watchyng things asplode. Like OMGWTFBBQ! It asploded! Yeah I like asploding things too bt the teory bhind the thingz iz also impowtant. Like srsly yo. So I has made talk abowt dis Markovnikov thingy coz itz impowtant for organik chem synthesis yo.

I think you get the idea so I’ll stop now :)

I liek bizkits! w00t!

Sorry.

So one day we were sitting down in a Chemistry lesson. It was actually pretty dull. I mean honestly, as much as I love Chem, the Markovnikov theory isn’t the most interesting thing in the world. So when you’re bored you start doodling. And because you are a lifeless IB student, you start doodling and drawing cartoons about CHEM.

But srsly, how do you remember a name like Markovnikov? This is where the brilliant Riza comes to the rescue.

‘It’s pronounced My-konek-cough la!’

Liek OMGWTFBBQ yo.

Okay, so Mr Lawrence could tell we were a bit restless. I think.

‘You know Markovnikov? Have you ever seen his face? You hold on!’ and with that, Mr Lawrence disappears into his mysterious preparation room to get something. I thought he was getting a picture of the M-dude la, duh.

But no! Mr Lawrence came out with a big wad of cotton – and we were all like WHATTHEHAM!?!? Okla, it was just me coz no one else likes ham in my class.

‘You know Mr Markovnikov? He’s really hairy! Like, super bushy’, exclaims our sprightly teacher. And guess what he does?

Hilarity ensues. I tell you, we’ve lost track of how many ‘facelifts’ we’ve given the skeleton. But well, I suppose they do look quite similar.

With all do respect Sir, you’re a great Chemist, but copious amounts of hair in the scientific society always lead to you being made fun of. Think Einstein.

Who ever said scientists had no sense of humour?

And because I recognize just how important the Markovnikov theory is to man(and woman)kind, I’ll give you a brief rundown of it.

Eh, no grumbling yo, or I maek ur head asplode wif my cuteness.

Just to make it bearable, I’ll add little black and white diagrams! Ain’t that something?

Okay, let’s start with a molecule.

This is the Chick molecule, for want of avoiding ‘standard IUPAC nomenclature’ (fancy-schmancy names)

Srsly. Too complicated wei.

Ok lah. So right, the reaction involves two molecules reacting. The other one:

Okay, so the current chick atom attached to Jon is angry, because of his promiscuity and numerous reactions with atoms of other elements. But Jon spots the Chick molecule, with so many chick atoms in it, and is then attracted. Angry chick atom has enough, so they break up, leaving the Jon atom unattached.

And because the Jon atom has really high electronegativity (high degree of hotness or whatever), he gets an invite to join the big big molecule really soon after the breakup! So shallow eh? But they’re atoms, and it’s all about the chemistry! Heeey, don’t look at me like that.

But there are two places he can sit. So the big question is

WHERE WILL JON GO?

That’s all there is to the theorem. It was made to answer that question. Heheh, I feel kinda important all of a sudden. :)

Right, so back to the case of where Jon would sit. Logically, if you were an electron sucking atom (or well, in our human context it’s probably equivalent to a hot-blooded male) you’d want the spot with more electrons right?

That’s a happy molecule, if I’ve ever seen one.

That’s all there is to the My-Konek-Cough theory. Given the option,the Jon molecule sits on the side where there are more chicks la! So easy! Tersangat kekacangan! Hen pian yi! Eh, I mean, rong yi.

Cheh wa, I should become a Chemistry teacher and draw more pretty pictures.

Hope you enjoyed the lesson.

Putting on what Khairul calls my 'mischevious look'. Don't we all look so happy? Not the guy in the middle though, he's a real heartless dude.

The Professors.

We're asploding your head! LOL.

What happens in the dark?

2008-04-15T19:17:00.004+08:00

You know how people tell you that humans are most 'productive' when the lights go out (or when there's a power shortage).

Let's see if the old adage holds true. Without much ado, I present to you . . . (air drum roll)

Podcast #1

Kinda mo liu/tak ada isi/pointless, don't you think? But the lights were out, and I didn't have anything to do!

Watch out for Podcast #2! Don't worry, it'll be brighter this time round.

IB Bowling Outing

2008-04-12T14:59:00.007+08:00

Today the IB students of Sri KDU went bowling, you know lah-to get rid of some steam so we don't kill ourselves slaving over Internal Assessments. We had plenty of fun, although there were a lot of longkang balls from our side of the game. All in the name of good fun :)

And here we have pictures! Everyone loves pictures. I set my camera on auto, though, so some pics didn't turn out so well. Lazy mah, what to do?

Jorrel bowling. He was pretty good, actually. Much better than my straight-but-straight-into-longkang throws.

Yvonne's throw. Quite funny to watch, though her expressions were probably funnier. (Picks up shoe and throws it at you!)

Heh. I had my share of longkang as well.

Shafiq Psychoe's exuberance. Quite amusing to watch him bowl as well, and seeing his leg pop out at funny angles when he throws. Heh.

Eugene here, shuffle-bowling. Another happy bowler. I remember him jumping on Andrew after striking. Why though, I don't recall.

Aleen (left), one of the co-conspirators in this whole bowling fiasco. Caught her (literally) red-handed!

Mr. Danny contemplating his next shot. Tension betul.

We met Ru Ann there, somehow. I thought she was somewhere in Australia when she popped up all of a sudden. Funny eh. And I do wonder what that huge thing is that Daniel's wanting to get his hands on.

Scorpions in One Utama! What a huge publicity gimmick. Admittedly though, it piqued the interest of curious shoppers, as there was a huge crowd milling around that area. Eg: yours truly.

I was shooting this particular snake with my Canon (man, I love that pun) when Riza pointed out a snake on top of the cage, just sitting there idly, OUTSIDE the cage. I got a fright out of that, when he so gracefully laughed in my face. It was fake. Blah.

There you have it, the IB people do have lives, after all. I personally doubt my team will win that much-coveted food voucher, since we bowled quite badly. Well, at least we had lots of fun. Alrighty now, back to work. EE for me, as Mr. Sai Mun so nicely pointed out.

Warning: Long rant ahead.

And on the way back, something happened that was pretty infuriating. I caught a cab from the taxi stand right outside the complex. I wasn't really expecting any trouble, having taken the cab plenty of times. It was a quick 5 minute hop to my place from One Utama, and usually cost anything between 4-5 ringgit.

But What-The-Ham, when I got home the meter said 7 ringgit. I so desperately wanted to expose his evil rigged meter scheme, but I thought better against it. He was this Indian guy with piercings. Not that I'm racially discriminating against Indians, but when guys like that have piercings, he might not be your average Muthu.

So right, I was already fuming and everything lah, but I parted with my 7 bucks. But no, Mr. Scary Piercing Dude told me that it costs another additional RM5, because it was a special taxi. WHAT THE HAM? It didn't look at more special than other taxis. After arguing for a bit, I relented lah.

12 ringgit indeed. This just screams daylight robbery. And bad consumerism on my part. Bah. A word of warning. Don't ever get into a cab from a company called 'Bestoden Sdn. Bhd.'. I might just be sore from my little scuffle, but I happen to think they're cheap conmen, so don't get into a taxi from the company.

And the thing is, once I got home, still fuming, I called up 103, the phone directory to get the company's number to go lodge a complaint. The company wasn't listed. I wanted to go like this: -______-"

Never mind, I consoled myself. I turned to the Almost Almighty Google and hey! they did have a listing with a number to call. But WHATTHEHAM again, the number wasn't in service.

Something about this smells terribly fishy, and no, it wasn't my socks. So, girls and boys, remember that 'Bestoden Sdn Bhd' is a bad bad cab company that cheated me of some 8 ringgit, so never never never get into a cab from them!

Muhahahahahaha cough cough cough choke faint die.

Okay, bye.

Some never learn

2008-04-03T22:59:00.003+08:00

A lot has been said and done about the release of 'Fitna' in the recent days. I was flipping through the newspapers today when a particular article caught by attention.

The headline read 'Dutch embassy in Indonesia attacked'.

Now, lets not jump to hasty conclusions here. I don't condone the movie, neither do I support its viewpoints. That's not the point.

First, let's follow this simple thought process.

Movie that equates Islam with violence is released.

Muslims get angry, because its a mockery of what they believe in.

Therefore, we conclude that Muslims should be peaceful, since they are protesting against violence.
Indonesian students in Indonesia (duh) angry too, because they're students, and students are naturally more emo.
They rally, burn flags and tires and tear down the gates over at the Dutch embassy.

Proved their point that Islam does not equate to violence.

What? Of course it's a peaceful demonstration where we wave around posters connoting that Geert Wilders (the producer of the film) should be shot!

It's not the nicest thing to do, is it? Burning the flags of other countries and all that.

Honestly, some people never learn. By inciting more violence with your rallies and passionate speeches, your shooting yourself in the foot. At the very least, I'm sure Geert Wilders would have expected protests denouncing his film, maybe even a few people being bashed up along the way. You're not denouncing the film through those actions, you're proving him right. Actions speak louder than words, after all.

I sound a little angry here. Alright, put it this way.

Extremism = bad

Instead of wasting precious time and energy being angry at the Dutch for something that ONE person did, shouldn't Muslims unite to instead curb extremism within their own ranks? After all, at the very root of the problem, its the extremists who are giving Muslims around the world a bad name.

Just my two cents, but have your say as well;

It's good for the brain.

Horrible Pun #1

2008-03-25T14:20:00.011+08:00

Hello everyone. I know I’ve not been updating for awhile, so here’s something to whet your appetites.

So right, we were feeling really lame in Math one day. Yeah, I know. Statistics are hilarious.

Then in the spur of the moment, I came up with a pretty bad pun. No matter, I’m here to inundate your brain with the redundant and the ridiculous anyway, so here it is.

How does THIS:

Equal THIS?

Think about it for awhile. And scroll slowly.

GRAPH

G R A P H

G      R      A      P      H

G      R   A   P   H

G R A P H

G-RAPH!

GIRAFFE!

:D

Don’t start pelting rocks at me, I told you it was a horrible pun.

Have a good day!

Postscript:

I tell you, this post was heck tough to format, in terms of HTML. The upside is, I learnt something new! Like this nifty cool line above this PS section.

Antoine de-Saint Exupery says that we learn through resistance. This, I believe to be true. If you haven't heard of the man, go read up one of his books. He's an excellent writer, and his book 'The Little Prince' is now clamouring for first place in my favourites list.

Quasi-political ramblings

2008-03-11T14:43:00.004+08:00

The infamous good friend of mine, Khairul Syahir, has authored yet another post (man, I love this guy, I really do). Instead of disagreeing though, I very much agree with what he has to say.

If you actually have the time, go read this excellent article up on Malaysiakini.com - here.

What the writer has to say is that if the voters had earlier known that as many as five states would fall into Opposition hands, they wouldn't have voiced their protest through the ballots boxes as loudly as they did. It's simple, really. Regardless of however much voters were against the ruling coalition, it's a fact that the Opposition has no experience whatsoever in ruling a state. So we're all worried now for the state of our states in the coming future.

We've given them their mandate to rule, but the question on everyone's mind is whether or not they can do so efficiently? Most are worrying about dissent among the Parliamentary leaders, seeing that they come from different parties. Some are worrying that with a weakened majority, the National Front (BN) coalition will be quite crippled and thus rendered quite useless (more than they already are, at any rate).

But there is hope yet.

I've been quite an avid reader of Malaysia Today, an news site, independent of any one political party, since about a year ago. Raja Petra, the site's owner and author recently write an article titled 'The Aftermath of the Bloodbath'. Don't let the title faze you. It's been what I've been wanting to hear ever since the elections took place.

Quote: 'Malaysia Today, which is already a nightmare for the ruling party, is going to now also be the nightmare of the five opposition-led state governments. And we are going to monitor these five states even closer than we watch the federal government.

So remember who put you where you are today. Remember who gave you your job. The rakyat can hire and the rakyat can fire. We, the rakyat, made you and we, the rakyat, can break you. Just remember that and with God as our witness we shall not fail to do that if you fail to do what you promised to do.'

The rakyat have spoken, and they will again if the Opposition fails to deliver.

Another point that I feel gives us a little more security is the fact that our elected MPs (here is Selangor, at any rate) are actually accessible and contactable people. I'm sure the young generation of voters and to-be voters (like yours truly) will have familiarized themselves with the political web scene, which have seen the uprising of political figures like Jeff Ooi.

If the people doesn't like what he's doing, do you think we'll let him have it off that easily? No, we'll voice our dissatisfaction, we'll spam his site till it crashes (okla, we don't have to be so mean).

And it's not just him. We have bright, young figures like Tony Pua, Hannah Yeoh, Teresa Kok and Fong Po Kuan, to name a few. All of whom have their own blogs, all who can at any time can be found by the people, and not only when the elections swing around.

Like Raja Petra said, 'We, the rakyat, can make you, and we, the rakyat, can break you'.

We'll be watching them.

----------------------------

Alright, that sums up my political ramblings. Be prepared for more mindless posting about pointless things in the days to come. :) I'll be off to Guangzhou, China tomorrow, so no updates for 5 days (heh, not like I actually update that often). Tata, humans!

Let's talk politics

2008-03-10T09:15:00.004+08:00

If you've noticed, I've kept politics out of my posts since I started, but I've been compelled to reply to this. Recently, my good friend Khairul Syahir authored a post, titled 'Don't talk about politics with me'. He cites three main reasons for his stand:

We're 19.
We don't know much about politics
When we base our judgments solely on biased sources, it is only right that our judgments are biased too.

Go read his post for the full context of his claims.

Anyway, the past week has been fraught with these 'political discussions', and just about everyone, from the canteen lady to a particular Business teacher we have has been heatedly discussing the political happenings around us. But the have every right to, seeing that they're eligible voters.

How about us then? People like me, who can't do pretty much anything but talk, talk and talk about the elections?

We're 19

Actually, I'm 18. And you'd be in for a shock when you find that many others younger than us do 'talk politics' as well. You might think it's a waste of time, since we can't vote or anything, but I beg to differ. Apply the same logic to say, a football fan.

Quote: 'No matter how hard we believe in any party (or team) , we are not eligible yet to vote (we can't do anything about it). So I might as well save my energy and time doing something else like doing my EE or writing my Maths IA or reading up on Special Theory of Relativity that would actually benefits me as a 19-year-old instead of indulging in politics that I cannot do anything about (watching football which I cannot do anything about).'

Why then do 19 year olds everywhere continue watching football, or even talking politics?

Look, I'm pretty darn sure that on the 9th of March, a day after the elections you picked up the newspapers and read about how everyone fared this elections. Why so?

It's simply because we have an interest in the outcome. Like the football fan, he can go die happy if his team Y wins the whatever cup. Likewise, as Malaysians, we are all stakeholders in the governing body. Whatever happens to them will inevitably affect us in some way or another. So we talk politics, to keep ourselves abreast with the news. Don't get us wrong Khairul, it's not all about bashing certain Son-in-Laws or other politicians. It's also healthy discourse, and this leads to more critical thinking. Maybe we've come across as BN bashers and Opposition worshipers, but really, we point out flaws in both, give merits where we can. It's really idiotic of us if we were to delude ourselves into thinking that any one party is perfect. We're not that stupid.

And heck, talking politics is pretty darn fun.

.
We don't know much about politics

Honestly, I see no reason why we have to dig up the history of the ruling parties, read books by leaders of parties, etc etc. What we want to know is what is relevant today. What we want to know is simply whether or not the contesting parties can deliver the points stated on their glorious manifestos. You don't have to dig that far back. Just look from 4 years ago, the previous elections, when many promises were made and not so many were fulfilled. It's not hearsay, it's not biased opinions or dubious secondary sources. It's the facts. Crime rates, inflation, economic growth. These aren't things you come by digging up the history of parties or leaders. It's facts we've felt around us, facts that have been drilled into our heads every time we read about a missing child, a horrific murder and increasingly commonplace crime. We don't have to know much about politics, we just want to know who can deliver, and who the real incompetents are.

Admittedly, I understand where you're coming from, when you consider all those bandwagon jumpers, who only stop to gossip about politics when the elections swing by. Your points would be validly justified on those people. But some of us aren't that fickle. We have a real interest in what goes on in the country.

3. When we base our judgments solely on biased sources, it is only right that our judgments are biased too.

We've been studying fallacies in TOK (Theory of Knowledge) for a year now. Do you think I would subject myself to such non-objectivity? And don't you think that through discourse we are able to apply, first hand, all we've learned in our TOK lessons, like identifying fallacies in certain ideas or thought? Like I said, there's probably nothing dumber you can do than do delude yourself by only reading one-sided views. Personally, I do try to get my news from as many sources as possible. Unfortunately though, not everyone tries.

Quote : 'When we support one view, we tend to look for everything that goes in support of it. If we support PAS for example, we read Harakah and accept all while dismissing all in the national newspaper.'

Maybe you're referring to the anti-establishment sentiments that have been running hot in the veins of young urbanites like some of our classmates. It's partly true that we can't do anything about it, but at the very least, as rational thinkers, by engaging in a discussion you might bring them to the 'light', so to speak.

There's probably a lot more we can say about this, but I'll stop here. You've chosen not to talk about politics, fine and well, I respect your choice. I, however, will beg to differ.

I will talk politics, and if not with you, with another.

A new cousin!

2008-03-02T17:55:00.006+08:00

Eh, my titles are getting more and more literal.

Anyway, on the 29th of February my aunt gave birth to a baby boy. the 29th! Poor kid, imagine growing up only once every 4 years. Oh well, it does make you unique, and set you apart from most of the other kids, if you like all that.

And here it is! I say it, because somehow or other the gender of the baby isn't really so evident. Like in class the other day, Kay was mentioning about how Mr Michael brought his daughter/son to school. It was pretty funny, because we were initially staring blankly at her wondering if she couldn't tell the difference between a boy and a girl.

'It's a baby laaaaa.......'

And so, congrats to my cousins, you've got yourself (another) brother.

If you look through the picture below, you'll find that the cousins are ALL very much male, with the slight exception of my two sisters.

And now we've got another boy. Everyone's happy, but I do think my aunt and uncle were hoping for a daughter. Think about it, with three boys they'll really have their hands full.

Oh well, you know what they say . . . if at first you don't succeed, try and try again ;)

85 years is a long time

2008-02-26T17:19:00.004+08:00

Last Saturday my grandpa celebrated his 85th birthday. It's pretty interesting, as he doesn't follow the Gregorian calendar system, but has his birthday on the 13th day of the Chinese New Year. So it's subject to date changing every year, but it's right smack in the middle of all the festivities and food, so we're not complaining.

And to mark the occasion, we had a little bit to drink. 85 Mah (it's a pun, geddit?) , and so we had to go tipsy, if not it wouldn't be much fun at all.

Heh. A little was probably a gross misnomer.

You know, since I haven't been posting for quite awhile, I really need time to get it back in my stride. So this post will be the most mindless post I've had in awhile, just spamming pictures with little captions underneath.

Pictures galore!

The cognac was good stuff. But it was so old the bits of cork were breaking up and fell into the drink :(

So here's the restaurant guy straining the cork bits out, then pouring it back into the bottle. Almost as good as old. Pretty ingenious, eh?

Kin Yip was all like 'Wah, white so gay'.

Then he changed my theme to pink.

Underage drinkers! We're obviously not very good examples, so yeah, don't drink (too much).

And there were the usual festive dishes. Yee Sang pictured here. And as much as I love yee sang, I've probably eaten the very same dish at the very same restaurant at least three times over the course of the past weeks.

More underage drinkers. Bad bad Mah family.

Well, we're not actually all that bad. See here, one glass is alcohol, while the other is relatively harmless Chinese tea. We drank tea too, but you almost can't tell the difference.

Uh oh, that might explain why the little kids were so hyper that night.

A big big, expensive dish. Though not as costly as the fish, which was a whopping RM900 for our three tables. That was one expensive life! As I was eating the fish, I really couldn't help thinking that it had lived a good life, and was now serving its higher purpose in life.

Good stuff, that fish.

Kids be kids. Long gone are the days when your childhood didn't revolve around technology. It's pretty sad actually, when I notice everyone around so obsessed with their handphones and what-not. But then again, it might just be me.

The restaurants famed 'Sang Har Meen'. It doesn’t look too appetizing in the picture, but trust me when I say that it's absolutely glorious. For the benefit of those who don't know, sang har meen (very very) loosely translates into 'big-ass prawn noodles'.

We 'Yam Seng-ed' all night. Must have scared quite a number of patrons at other tables too. And there was this other table who tried to rise up to the challenge. But with some 10 screaming kids and teenagers, it was really no contest.

Huhuhu, patience, my young padawan. . .

The biggest drinker of the night. I kid you not.

The salted egg crabs. Absolutely delightful. The next day I had this for leftovers, and got a nasty cut trying to pry open a shell. It was worth it though :)

At RM80 a kilo, they don't come cheap, but they're just so fat and succulent you really couldn't be bothered about trivial things like price! (especially since a certain grandpa is paying for the dinner)

Posing.

With cousins outside the restaurant. We really had to take a break from the steady stream of food and alcohol. So much good food, so little stomach capacity. Darn our gastronomical limitations!

Umm, uhh . . . there’s something you don't see every day.

More toasting and scaring away other customers. We're a real ridiculous bunch, I tell you.

Umm, that's not what it looks like. *hic*

(Really, it's not)

One jonathan and lots of Sprite later, this is what happens. Man, we're a big happy bunch of alcoholics.

My adorable little cousins. While they're still adorable, and (relatively) little. Kids have this tendency to become pain in the artichokes as they grow up.

Picture speaks for itself.

Another great pride of mine. I CAN READ THE CHINESE WORDS!! Hey all, I'm no bananana!

Happy Birthday, Mr Mah Peng. Something ru dong hai shou bi nan san! (Whatever that means)

Blowing out the candles, after we sang Happy Birthday in English, Chinese, Malay, and Cantonese. We're multi-lingual, yo.

Family pic. Oh gosh, I look so much like my mum it's creepy. I should consider shaving bald sometime soon.

Winding down. Laissez-faire (let it be).

How often do you see two octogenarians (someone over 80) give each other a big High-Five? The other grandpa was waving his hands in the air saying 'I surrender, I surrender' when my grandpa tried to make him drink some more.

Just classic.

The normal family picture.

The not so normal family picture. It's a pity we couldn't get Grandpa to join us.

The Kids.

The boys are (leaning) back.

Garrett. I have no comment. Except maybe a slight mention of how hilarious it was to watch him do that.

Random nonsense after dinner.

OH MY GERBIL we finished the alcohol!

There are some 20 emptied cans of Sprite. In the end, since we kept asking for more and more Sprite, they just brought out the entire carton. Smiling innocuously at them, we asked 'Free ah?'.

What to do? We're Chinese to the core.

As quirky and weird as we all are, we're one big family.

And I love my family.

Post-dinner:

Garrett and I, obviously tipsy, decided to pull off one last stint before we went home. Grabbing our emptied Cognac bottles, we marched out onto the middle of the road.

With all eyes on our sober (again, this is relative) selves, there was a quiet count of '1, 2, 3'.

Then we burst out into this drunken stupor, slapping ourselves, laughing and causing a riot for a good minute.

Unforgettable.

Sidetrack:

HAVE YOU SEEN SO MANY BOWLS BEFORE??

I dream of rainbows and ponies

2008-01-12T23:05:00.001+08:00

Ignore the title. I just felt like typing something random.

I know what you're thinking. I bet you're already picturing this:

=.=

I was thinking more along the lines of manly He-ponies wielding killer gamma-ray emitting rainbows. If you're wondering how that works, then that makes the two of us.

See, I've officially gone detrimentally wacko.

The point is, I did have a rather weird dream yesterday.

Jonmah in snoozy-woozy lala land.

No, it didn't have anything to do with me climbing a Jacob's ladder to the land of eternal buffets, unfortunately.

Neither did it have anything to do me having lunch with Carrie Underwood. That's daydreaming, and unlike dreaming, you do have some measure of control over that, until the inevitable adolescent hormones kick in.

It started as all dreams start, where you find yourself somewhere quite familiar.

I found myself at home, because I didn't want to attend a particular family dinner. By now, I realized it was a dream because it was a FREE dinner (paid for by grandpa, so it's free for us lah). And customarily, because my Grandpa had expensive taste-buds and an exquisite sense of refinement when it comes to matters pertaining to food, we would normally go to, well, to say the least, restaurants that served good food.

Honestly, how could I NOT go?

But well, as dreams often go, things don't happen very logically.

So there I was, at home, alone. HUNGRY. Blardi Hial, I still don't understand why I didn't go! Anyway, being hungry AND alone, I decided to call up someone to go for dinner.

And since I can't drive . . . she did.

I'm feeling so =.= just writing this post. The thing is, if you knew her, she doesn't drive yet. Whether it's age, or time constraints or plain I-don't want-to-drive, I'll let you speculate.

So right, SHE drove me there. And since girls are generally bad with directions, I chose the restaurant lah. Actually, I was quite torn between two priorities of equal consequence. Girl or food? You see, at this point I was probably raving mad with hunger, dribbling at the mandibles, uh...I mean foaming at the mouth, so I figured a candlelight dinner with a romantic ambiance would probably take too long for the food to arrive.

If I get the girl, and still end up dying, all my life's work would have gone to waste. As you can see, self-sustenance comes first, so that ruled the candlelight dinner out.

I consoled myself then, saying 'Chinese restaurant also got candle light mah.'

True enough, there are little candles at the tables of Chinese restaurants. Of course, it's more to keeping the flies away than anything else. And the flame of the candle probably pales in comparison to the glaring glow of the fluorescent light tubes. Meh, the Chinese really have no subtlety or tact.

Ok-lor, so then we drove up to this place. I had been there numerous times on numerous occasions and over and over again, they have proven themselves worthy of the visits. And the fact that the food was served quickly was an added bonus.

Then we stepped inside.

Hold on, I really have to catch my breath here.

Seriously, whatever happens next, DON'T LAUGH. It's not funny (for me, anyway).

Basically, the WHOLE restaurant was jam-packed with my relatives. I nearly died.

My grandpa probably booked the whole restaurant and called for a family reunion. Then they all turned around to see who had entered (or maybe they heard the sound of my jaw dropping).

Oh crap.

You do realise that bringing a girl to dinner with your family is tantamount to saying "this is my, you know, 'friend' ". And the WHOLE family was there.

I must have been shocked out of my sleep then, because I don't remember what happens after.

And that, my friends, is why I feel so =.= today.

Someone cheer me up.

Google fun

2008-01-07T19:46:00.000+08:00

I recently stumbled across a book that tells you how to find out dastardly secrets about everyone, though maybe not so dastardly if you're used to glitzy paparazzi gossips.

Look, you can't NOT know Google. People would probably give you a blank look if you even thought of asking 'Whats the google website?'.

And yes, if you're thinking of anything Google-like they will know. You see, when you think, you emit these little particles into the atmosphere called Hameons that can be detected only by a very expensive device called the Pork-Chopinator. Why ham? Because it just is. You don't hear yourself asking 'Why is nose-picking scientifically known as Rhinotillexomania?'. Because it just is.

And they're not called the 'We know everything there is to know search engine' for nothing.

Even your thoughts.

DON'T let this happen to you.

If you act fast, you'll be able to minimize (or maximize, as you'll soon read) public divulging of your most intimate, dastardly secrets!

As always, I've got the scoop. Here's how :

Visit www.google.com
Enter your name into the search bar followed by 'is', with quotation marks, like this : "jonathan is"
Search and prepare to cringe as your darkest secrets are revealed!

I did a quick search on mine and got this : Jonathan is no longer in solitary confinement but prison life remains harsh.

HOW DID THEY EVER FIND OUT???

Seriously! Go give it a try with your own names, and feel free to share as you see fit. Remember, the first step into rehabilitation is admission of guilt! This is, of course, assuming you're coming clean about your past wrongs.

See, by admitting you're telling everyone 'Oh fine, I'm no longer in solitary confinement, but, so what? I like it here being ostracized by the public. In fact, I don't have to share my food anymore!'

If it backfires, like a certain Mr Chua Soi Lek, then it's really not my problem. It's yours. So now that everyone knows, they won't be prodding you behind your back any longer. Sure, they'll be prodding you in front of your back, but you'll probably feel better about it now.

So, go! Have a shot at it and tell us how it went.

Final words : Be strong.

Back to business

2008-01-06T14:56:00.000+08:00

It's back to school, for those who care. The first two days of school were a jumble of franticness and being overly lax. A strange paradox, I know. All the teachers were basically laying out the 'year plan' for us, and all the datelines for ALL our work, throughout the year.

'Blardi Hial!' (in a Mr Soong-esque fashion)

But it's to be expected, life isn't a bed of roses. It's time to slap myself and pull up my socks! Not like they're not high enough already.

And so I digress.

I went shopping! (Yay!)

And bought books! (Aww...)

Obviously 'A Walk to Remember' isn't for me, but I just might get around to reading it, oh you know, if I really really have nothing to do.

And even more recently, Friday night to be exact, I went for a movie. Not a good time, considering the amount of residual work I have stacked up. It was a really spontaneous decision. It went something like this:

(Setting - Dinner table. Props -food)

Dad : So when do you want to go watch National Treasure 2?
Me-lah : How about now?
Dad : Alright!

And that was it. We rushed off, grabbed jackets and everything. It was 9.00pm. The movie schedule said 9.20pm or some other ungodly hour. Oh die!

And that wasn't just it, I had to buy my SWITCHFOOT tickets as well! You know, just in case a throng of mad switchfoot revelers suddenly snapped up ALL the tickets and I would fall into depression, have a nervous breakdown and stay that way for the rest of my short life! Anyway, when we got there, got everything done, it was 9.30!

Blardi Hial! I'm really using a lot of exclamation marks!!!

So, National Treasure!

Okay, anyway. The point was we didn't get the 9.20 tickets. We bought the 9.50 ones instead. Sad thing was, there were no more consecutive seats so the three (dad, sis, me) of us had to sit all over the cinema. Bah, and there was this guy next to me muching his popcorn noisily AND all the while giving 'supplementary info and LIVE feed commentary' to some other person.

You know, it seriously gets annoying after awhile. I mean, idiot! You don't say things like 'OMG@&%! DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!?' Obviously she freaking saw it! You're sitting a foot away from her in the same BeepBeepBeep cinema!!! Okay-lah. He didn't actually say that, but if anyone did I would get seriously annoyed about it.

Right, anyway the movie wasn't too bad. I preferred the first one though, where the bad guys were badder and the treasure looked more treasurey. (I know, I know, adjectives, don't be all harsh on me) The first one was very well paced, and didn't feel too long or draggy at all. This one was too, except I couldn't stand Nicholas Cage's mumbling.

Thank goodness for Diane Kruger!

And once again, I digress.

I lost $$$$$$$$. . .

It's almost amazing how much it costs you for entrance to a stupid concert. Wait, I didn't just say stupid! It's a great concert, stupid fee. Blame it on Axcess, the ticketing company who's in charge of ticket fees.

I can almost smell...SWITCHFOOT!

Seriously, I'm going crazy with anticipation.

Movies in the upcoming year

2008-01-01T18:39:00.000+08:00

I take it back when I said 'Whats all this fuss about the new year, bla bla bla'.

I just watched two trailers of upcoming movies and now I'm practically drooling with anticipation. Much like Transformers, the marketing teams really know how to build up the anticipation as the months tick off till the movie premiers.

But, don't take my word for it, watch it for yourself.

Batman - The Dark Knight
Scheduled for release in the Summer, which is about July or August.

Ironman
Scheduled for release 2nd May 2008

My New Year Spaghetti

2008-01-01T17:12:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year everyone, though I really can't see what the fuss is all about. I spent my remnants of 2007 in bed (sleeping, of course). You can never quite have too much sleep.

Today feels like any other I've had during these hols, which are abruptly coming to an unfortunate end. Wake in time for lunch, then bum around all day doing what I fancy.

I imagine most of you waould have made new year resolutions already. I'm planning on putting 'Not Procrastinating' on the top of my list, but I'll do that later.

So, my way of celebrating the new year was to cook something up. I've been dying to try this recipe I found for weeks now and I thought this would be a pretty good excuse for me to whip up lunch.

Here it is, Spaghetti ala Carbonara.

Some of the ingredients, ready to be prepared and cooked.

Frying the bacon. It's gives off a lovely fragrance when lightly fried in olive oil.

Bacon! Unfortunately for some, non-halal.

The finished product. Spaghetti ala Carbonara.

Fresh out of the frying pan and onto the dishes it goes.

It didn't taste too bad, but it was a little dry since it was the fried kind. I guess we're more used to Carbonara having it's mouth-wateringly creamy sauce to top off the noodles.

Don't be fooled by how it looks, it actually is really filling because of the ingredients used, double cream, cheese and 6 eggs among them. We had a hard time finishing off everything.

Next stop, I'll try my hand at Bolognaise and see if anyone gets indigestion. :)

Switchfoot Concert Details

2007-12-30T17:31:00.001+08:00

Heheh, this isn't really an update but for those hounding me for details of the concert, here goes.

To Aunty Lily-buds, sorry lah. You'll have to put up with more Switchfoot in the coming weeks.

More info to be found at www.onearmed.net. You also stand a chance to win tickets at www.mtvasia.com. All you have to do is sign up as a member of the site and answer the question (Duh, California).

So, GO, sign up and if you do win, we'll split 50-50 ;)

Details are as follows.

Switchfoot Live In Malaysia

Date : Saturday, February 2, 2008
Venue : Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre - Hall 4
Doors open : 6.30pm
Opening act : Love Me Butch
Ticket prices: RM120 (pre-sale), RM 140 (at door)
* All ticket prices exclude RM3 processing fee

In case you're wondering where it is, or how to get there, I've compiled some information from various sites.

#1. Getting there by LRT (Monorail)

Pros : No car means no having to drive around madly for parking spaces. No likely traffic jam caused by possible Switchfoot fan mobs.
Cons : Packed trains pre/post concert. And after the exhilaration and jumping and moshing and screaming, you'll be sitting there and breathing the same air that circulates through their sweaty goodness-knows-wheres.

Getting there by LRT - Putra LRT Route Map

Just get yourself to any one of the stations and purchase a ticket to KLCC (ask for a 2 way ticket if you plan on getting both there and back the same way you came).

At the station, turn left after exiting the turnstiles and walk through the Suria KLCC shopping centre Concourse Level to the Centre Court. Turn left and make your way past Cold Storage to the Guardian Pharmacy where there is a walkway through to the Convention Centre. Take the elevator to the Ground Floor where you will be directed to the Registration area. (sourced from KL Convention Centre website)

#2. Driving there

Pros : Drive there in the comfort of your own car, no noisy public throng to sit with.
Cons : Parking spaces might be limited. Getting there and back might take a while due to traffic congestion.

Map to KL
Map to KLCC
Map to KLCC (2)
Map to KL Convention Centre

(Have a look at all of them to get a better picture of things)

If you are driving, here are your parking options:

Take the first left after the Mandarin Oriental Hotel from Jalan Pinang up the ramp to the access to the car parking below the Centre.
Park in KLCC Suria Car Park and exit to the Concourse level Centre Court. Make your way past Cold Storage to the Guardian Pharmacy where there is a walkway through to the Convention Centre. Take the elevator to the Ground Floor where you will be directed to the Registration area.

#3. Alternatives

Take a cab there. No parking contrainsts to worry about. If you are in a taxi or a chauffeured car, approach the Centre along Jalan Pinang and turn left into the main entrance (second turn after the Mandarin Oriental Hotel) for dropping off.
Shop all day at KLCC. Wait till the concert and catch a movie after. Everyone would have disappeared by then.

That's all for now folks! Start whipping out those albums you want autographed and a plethora of pens if you want the bassist to sign in one colour and the drummer another. I'm off to memorize them lyrics!

Switchfoot in Malaysia!

2007-12-24T09:33:00.000+08:00

I CAN'T FREAKING BELIEVE IT!

SWITCHFOOT IS COMING TO MALAYSIA NEXT YEAR!

(Falls into hysterical fits, faints, and falls flat on the floor)

For the record, I've never used Switchfoot and Malaysia in the same sentence before. But now I have! I really can die in peace now.

If you don't quite believe me, and think that it's probably another case of me having too much to drink (yes, Chinese tea does that oftentimes) you can check it out on the official Switchfoot website.

Switchfoot.com

Or if you trust me to be a legit source of legit information, the table below says it all.

2nd February 08, people! Any takers? I die die also want to go.

I mean, this is Switchfoot we're talking about! Only my favouritest bestest band in the hole-wide-wurld!

As someone phrased it to near perfection,

'please oh Dear God, let me go to this concert! Amen.'

I'm still in shock, so my spelling and grammar wentr down the drain.

EDIT : I'm assuming this is the first concert Switchfoot is having in Malaysia, since I've not heard of any other prior to this one. It's probably (now, I say probably because I don't know) their maiden tour into South East Asia as well, so be sure to support them! They'll be passing through Indonesia (Jakarta) and Singapore before they hit the muddy shores of Kuala Lumpur (for those who don't know, Lumpur is Malay for mud)!

What the Pun?

2007-12-22T16:04:00.000+08:00

If you've noticed, the title for my blog here is no longer 'I eat, therefore I ham'.

If you've never understood it in the first place, let me do it justice by explaining how it came about.

Rene Descartes, a famous philosopher once said 'Cogito ergo sum' which from Latin means 'I think, therefore I am'. He famously used the phrase in one of his works to, uh. . .to keep it short and very simple, he used it to convince himself that he existed. Or something to that effect.

On my side of the coin, I aptly replaced 'think' with 'eat' since I'd prefer to eat than to think anyway. It sort of reflects the Malaysian in me as well (If it wasn't obvious enough for you to notice, Malaysians love their food).

And the ham part was plain silly. My name is Jonathan Mah and most people refuse to utter anything more that two syllables when calling me, so it was cut (very) short to JonMah (no space summore!). So that's how the whole 'Hamnoj' thing came about, it's actually my name spelled backwards.

And back where we left off. I think therefore I am. As you can probably guess, AM became HAM and as they (WHO ARE THEY, ANYWAY?) say, the rest is history.

But more recently I've renamed it 'Veni, Vidi, Vedere', as you can see up there. It's another pun, a play on Julius Caesar's famous quotation 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' which means 'I came, I saw, I conquered'.

'Edere' is eat. Haha, yes, you guessed it! All the words being in first person perfect present tense, I assumed 'Vedere' would mean 'I eat'. Not the most grammatically sound pun around, but it should work. Typical Malaysian ingenuity, eh?

And so, welcome everyone, to the new hamnoj.blogspot.com.

I came, I saw, I ate.

Scones

2007-12-19T17:35:00.000+08:00

I bet it won't come to you as a surprise that I'll be writing on scones. Yes, scones, those scrumptious round things the English eat for tea with their jam and tea.

Well, since it's the holidays, I thought it would be a good opportunity to pick up some handy skills, like cooking to keep yourself alive. With the advent of the internet, you can get recipes pretty easily.

I found 'Cameron Highlands: Scones Recipe' with a link to download some scone recipes.

The iconic tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. Picture by TS Bok here.

This is the site : Click me.

And this is the link for the recipe file : Click me too.
(it's a pdf file so you'll need Adobe Reader)

I walked out to the shops to get some flour after looking through the recipe, since we didn't seem to have any at home. The ingredients weren't too tough to get, and it seemed deceivingly simple to bake your own scones.

So I got the ingredients ready, measured the flour and everything meticulously, beat my eggs, heated up the oven, the usual stuff. The recipe called for two tablespoons of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt for taste. I didn't take any pictures here since my hands were sticky with dough.

Apparently, the key to getting good scones is not to overmix the dough mixture. It has to clump together jump nicely without being too saturated or you'll get tough scones. Right, everything looked set for baking. I stuffed the tray in the oven for about 15minutes. It didn't take too long for the aromatic molecules of smell to diffuse through the air. It actually smelled pretty good (and actually edible!).

The oven bell went 'ding' and with anticipation I opened the oven door and pulled the warm tray out, with my lovely little scones sitting proudly and puffed up. There were a luscious golden hue, screaming EAT ME! in nice little rows.

Temptation indeed.

As soon as it was cool enough to eat, I popped one in my mouth with great relish. I had done everything right, so rightfully, it should taste pretty darn good. I sat tensed, eagerly awaiting the burst of flavour that would soon erupt and take me to pastry heaven.

Well, let's just say it wasn't what I expected.

Simply put, it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

SALTY.

My expression must have looked like this :

It turns out I mistook sugar for salt, and salt for sugar. There must have been like 10 times more salt than was needed so I had to gulp down cups of water. Darn it. I did everything else right but messed up the salt and sugar.

Stupid laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The only thing I could do then was to throw them away. But not before I took some pictures. Since I wouldn't be eating them anyway.

=.=

Real scones are supposed to be a little taller and rounder. I don't know what mine are supposed to resemble.

They look so good, but taste just so bad. Bah, the irony!

Treewhoring

2007-12-18T21:18:00.001+08:00

Whee! I'm on a roll. 3 consecutive posts in a day.

Just to make up for the extreme wordiness of the previous two posts, I'll dedicate this one to pictures of my Christmas tree. Trust me, I can't stand reading too many words either.

Now that I've got meself an dSLR, I just walk around the house every now and then snapping pictures of anything and everything. So when the Christmas tree popped up, I really couldn't help myself.

Mind you, I'm still a budding photographer so my shots aren't exactly great. Here goes.

A screenshot of my picture folder. Most of the pictures you see here are the 'final' versions of the shot. Prior to this I shot an average of 10 shots just to get the one I wanted. Pretty tough work, for newbies like myself.

One of the ornaments hanging on my tree. It's a mirror with the silhouette of an angel on it. Pretty.

Camwhoring with the tree? Treewhoring. It deserves its own place in the Olympics.

In Black&White. I thought I'd try something different.

It's a glass ball. Catches the light quite nicely, dontcha think?

A hidden gem in the dark?

A personal favourite, the Gingerfairyman. It was made by an orphan and we bought it some years ago. Since then, it has been a regular feature on our tree.

The Light Side

2007-12-18T19:16:00.000+08:00

If chain mails are the dark side of the whole 'Forwarded Emails' scene, then theres obviously a light side to the force, uh . . . I mean, mails. (Obviously someone has had too much Star Wars indoctrination)

On the lighter side, there are messages with genuine information that crop up from time to time, which are out to shock, amaze and sometimes, disgust readers. Some are actually a pleasure to read (mebbe not the disgusting ones).

Some we don't have to read at all! Mails with lots of pictures are welcome anyday. They're not so wordy and confoundingly counfounding, like what my blog is becoming. (Oh the Hamanity!)

For example, a mail forwarded (Sourced from this site) :

Subject: FW: they're gonna need a bigger wall in china!

Commentary :

Although the rabbit depicted in these photographs may seem almost unbelievably large, it is (or was) in fact a real animal and the images are authentic. According to a February 2007 Washington Post article, the colossal bunny in the pictures is a German gray giant named "Robert" who weighed in at at whopping 23 pounds (10.4 kilograms). The man holding Robert is Karl Szmolinsky, a long-time rabbit breeder who lives in Eberswalde, a town in eastern Germany.

Szmolinsky and his giant rabbits gained the attention of the media after he agreed to sell some of his animals to the North Koreans to be used in a breeding program designed to help alleviate chronic food shortages in that country. Because of the large size of the breed, North Korean diplomats felt that Szmolinsky's rabbits would be a good choice as breeding stock. Indeed, Szmolinsky notes that each of his giant rabbits can yield up to 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) of tender meat.

In December 2006, a collection of carefully selected rabbits, including Robert, was transported to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Szmolinsky was later informed that the rabbits arrived safely in North Korea.

Sadly, what happened to Robert and the other bunnies after their arrival is somewhat unclear. The secretive North Koreans remain tight-lipped about the success or failure of the breeding program. In fact, Mr Szmolinsky later received word that the rabbits he supplied may have been eaten at a birthday banquet for North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, rather than used as breeders as he intended. Thus, poor Robert may no longer be with us.

The email subject-line of this version of the message, "they're gonna need a bigger wall in china!", may seem somewhat cryptic to recipients who do not live in Australia. The line references a very popular television advertisement shown in Australia in which a father, struggling to think of a factual answer, finally tells his young son that the Great Wall of China was built to "keep the rabbits out". According to the ad, if only the dad had Bigpond broadband connected at home, he would have been able to give his youngster the correct answer. This clever ad and its follow-ups are very well known in Australia and the "dad" has become a minor celebrity. The following video of the ad should make the China wall reference clearer:

In case you can't quite catch what they're saying in that accent of theirs, I've typed it out for you.

Kid : Dad, why did they build the great wall of China?
Dad : That...that was during a time of Emperor Nasi Goreng and uh, it was to keep the rabbits out. Too many rabbits, in China.

Emperor Nasi Goreng, haha. Just classic.

Spam (REAL spam)

2007-12-16T21:20:00.000+08:00

Recently I received one of those forwarded mails that seem to be floating endlessly around the internet. You delete them over and over again, only to find someone else sending you the same message.

It gets pretty annoying.

Probably the thing I hate most about these chain mails is the immense length of that list of email addresses you have to scroll through. I'm sure you know what I mean.

So what happened was I received a mail claiming that Microsoft would give me lots of money if I forwarded it to my many Uncles, Aunties and friends.

Here something that you might want to read it was on the news .
Subject: FW: PLEEEEEASE READ!!!! It was on the news!

Dear friends,

Something to share with all of u. Would u believe if this is true? Read on..... For those who need money badly and this is one opportunity to try it! I'm an attorney, and I know the law. This thing is for real. Rest assured AOL and Intel will follow through with their promises for fear of facing a multimillion-dollar class action suit similar to the one filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long ago.

Dear Friends,

Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test. When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period. For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.

Regards.

Charles S. Bailey
General Manager Field Operations
[CONTACT DETAILS REMOVED]

I thought this was a scam myself, but two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on, Microsoft contacted me for my address and within days, I received a cheque for US$24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford this Bill Gates is the man. It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many people as possible. You are bound to get at least US$10,000.00.

We're not going to help them out with their e-mail beta test without getting a little something for our time. My brother's girlfriend got in on this a few months ago. When I went to visit him for the Baylor/UT game. She showed me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped "Paid In Full".

Like I said before, I know the law, and this is for real Intel and AOL are now discussing a merger which would make them the largest Internet company and in an effort make sure that AOL remains the most widely used program, Intel and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.

Pffft! What rubbish. Honestly,with no offense whatsoever to whoever sent me the mail, how can you be naive enough to believe that you could get "at least US$10,000" just by sending out a stupid mail. And if I WERE Bill Gates, I wouldn't just go around giving my money like that. I'd rather throw it away in a densely populated area, where I'd create a commotion of some kind. Stop traffic, even.

PLEASE, people. Use that mound of matter between your ears before forwarding mails of any sort. A simple search would verify your mail. Take for instance, those mails claiming to be from Hotmail claiming that you need to pay for your email unless you forward it to everyone on your mailing list.

Hello everyone I'm the chief executive of Hotmail and we're telling you to forward this to everyone you know so we won't delete your account, even that would go against the Consumer Law and numerous other laws you don't know about and would give you the right to sue us tenfold for breach of contract. Even though you have no credible evidence that I am telling the truth, you should just believe me because I say so and you are a gullible fool. So send this to everyone you know! Have a good day.

Mr. Bob
Chief Exec of Something

If a huge service provider like Hotmail were to seriously consider an action like that, it would probably have it's own page in the news. And they would probably send out and official mail to your inboxes. And why pay anyway? Server hosting is getting ridiculously cheap

I'm getting worked up just typing this out.

If you must know, I never forward 'Forwarded' mails that come my way. So what if I don't get the love of my life in the next 24 hours? So what if the bloody phone doesn't ring within the next 5 minutes? So what if I'm eternally condemned to being unlucky?

If the emails were somehow, mysteriously all-powerful and capable of giving me cooties Where-It-Itches-Most, I couldn't really care less. Considering the number of chain mails I've deleted, I should have accumulated enough bad luck for me to be tripping at every step I take and breaking every bone in my body, including my ossicles (little bones in your ear) for at least three lifespans. I should be waking up to being haunted by a ghost of a little girl under my bed every other day.

HONESTLY!

I wouldn't mind spam so much if there were pretty pictures to look at, though.

Picture Day

2007-12-09T23:08:00.001+08:00

About a week back, the family took a (very) long drive down to our kiasuer-than-thou neighbours, the little island called Singapore. Probably the only thing I remember doing there, besides having scrumptious meals paid for by rich relatives, is forking out lots of (my dad's) money.

Now, if you remember me drooling over a particular contraption that takes photographs here, I am quite proud to say that I am currently the owner of a brand new, spankingly brilliant Canon 400D.

(Rapturous applause)
(yes lah I syok sendiri, don't go around bursting my bubble)

***We got ripped-off though. The owner of the shop charged us a whopping $ 115 Sing-Dollah for an extra battery and some other things too. Back then, I was way too elated to notice the price. A good rule of thumb is to avoid establishments that don't advertise their prices. Depending on whether or not the keepers like you, they adjust their prices accordingly at their own leisure and discretion. To their credit though, the shopkeeper was a fantastic salesman who actually talked my dad (MY DAD) into buying the camera. If we weren't ripped-off ever so subtly, we might not have gotten the thing in the first place. Sigh, you win some, you lose some.

If you ever get a dSLR, the one thing you have to know is that it involves quite a steep learning curve, unless you've got a natural flair for the darn thing. I know I don't.

Most people who are looking at taking the jump from your average compact point and shoot cameras end up buying a big, bulky SLR only to be intimidated by the numerous buttons and dials all over. In the end, those Rm4000+ babies aren't used to their fullest advantage, with the owners resignedly turning the settings to Auto and letting the camera do the thinking for them.

My dad and I took a trip down to the Curve today, in hopeful search of photo opportunities. You really have to practice to be a good photographer. Anyway, I initially thought myself to be acceptably good at photography, since I pick things up pretty quickly (generally anyway, dancing is a whole other matter) .

I took a whole bunch of pics, but they're so ugly I cringe at the sight of them. I'll be nicer to you lot though; I picked the pictures that don't look so bad.

I've always loved this effect, the water just looks so . . . wet. Forgive my lack of adequate adjectives, my brain is hibernating at the moment.

Wishful thinking

2007-12-08T00:44:00.000+08:00

Christmas is just round the corner, and more people are buying into the over-commercialized facade it has (unfortunately) become.

But don't let that stop you from buying me something. (Grins cheerfully)

I have a picture and a few words. Not that I'm hinting at anything. Nothing at all, really.

It's a booke, in case ye might'st be wonderin'.

And just COINCIDENTLY, it's up for sale on amazon.com for a petty $0.36 cents. Even after the conversion rate, it's unthinkably cheap. Have a look at it here.

Factor in the shipping costs, and you'll leave three people with that warm, fuzzy feeling in their stomachs this Christmas, (namely, me, you, and Mr. Seller) without breaking the bank.

What's in a brand name?

2007-11-10T20:21:00.001+08:00

I'm back, everyone. I've been out of the scene for a while because of the school's Performance & Awards Nite but more on that later. The last time I posted it was the start Hari Raya, and now it's Deepavali. Woah, that's been quite a while. Seeing that, the next time I post it might be Christmas.

Happy Deepavali, everyone. For Malaysians, any occasion for a holiday is reason enough to rejoice, so everyone is happy :)

The festival of lights, Diwali (or Deepavali in Malaysia).
_______________________________________________________

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."

-William Shakespeare

So, what's in a brand name then? Even as we go about our daily lives, we can't ever escape the reality of the brand-conscious, material world we live in. In the news, ads, mainstream media, just everywhere we are bombarded with the subtleties that have become synonymous with the big world of Marketing.

Whether we like it or not, most of us have an ever growing compilation of the Hot or Not brands in our heads. We just can't run far enough.

Then you look at those who have made a name for themselves. Those who live on forever immortalized as a brand. Even if the person fades into history, a brand seems to live on endlessly. Famous examples, of course, abound plentifully. Just glance down the aisle in a mall and names pop up everywhere to greet you.

Chanel, named after founder Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel. My grandma calls it 'Cher-niao'.

So, what is in a brand name?

I have no idea.

Alright, prelude over. You didn't seriously think for a moment I was about to discuss materialism in the context of modern fashion, did you? Anyway, here's the story.

There's this person that I know, and she happens to be a classmate of mine. Meet Agnes Sia Hui Bing, Petronas scholar and Physics extraordinaire.

She's on the right, mind you. That person on the left IS a guy, in case you're mistaken. A great one, at that.

Pictured here in the Sri KDU Library. What are we doing camwhoring in the library? Note the SMKDJ tie. Old loyalties die hard.

Just imagine how weird it was when I found this in the bathroom. (apparently, it came free in a goodie bag sometime ago)

OMG, it's Agnesia! What would Agnes Sia say?

That's just . . . wrong.

Surviving, Survived the Exams

2007-10-13T21:16:00.000+08:00

Random Quote : Now that Raya is here, we're free to eat and drink in front of our dear Muslim friends again!

The Eid ul-Fitr Festival, or Hari Raya Aidilfitri as it is more commonly known in Malaysia.

___________________________________________________________________

I know this is a little untimely, simply because our exams are long gone, DEAD and OVER, but for the benefit of those who are still struggling through their SPM (Sangat Penting punya exaM) and PMR (uhhh, Penilaian Menegah Rendah), I've decided to publish a new series of helpful guides at random intervals in time, depending on how lazy I decide to be.

Cue drum roll.

Installment #1 of Jonathan's Pointless Guides to Everything - Pulling an Emergency All-Night Study Session.

Lets face it, just about all of us don't really look seriously into revising till the last week before our exams. Of course, this depends on the varying difficulty of the exams in question. Lets quickly look at a table comparing the exams of different education levels to an approximate of when you should start studying.

Exams	When you should start studying
Standard 1 to 6	Study? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…- No one (that means me) studies when they’re in Primary School, regardless of what our teachers try to tell us.
UPSR	If you’ve been listening in class, the night before is fine.
Form 1 to 3	A day before. MCQ (multiple choice/objective questions) basically means you don’t have to study.
PMR	3 days before each paper. Again, MCQ.
Form 4 to 5	Aiya, if you know your stuff just run through it the night before. Especially English.
SPM	Two weeks before, be zippy zappy about it and you should be done in time for SPM, with plenty of time to relax as well!

Note : I don't seriously advocate my own advice. DON'T listen to me.

Probably the only subject you should be absolutely serious in studying for in the SPM is EST. No bull man, that's a crazy subject, namely because I got a B3 for it. Blah. Let's get back on track.

So you're Form 5, and suddenly realize you've got a big SPM-thing looming ahead of you that would partly determine your future success and undertakings. And since you've recently gotten yourself addicted to that new Carrie Underwood song and forced yourself to listen to it on repeat for the past week, you don't realize your Bio paper is in two days!

Oh-my-gosh-I-so-love-Carrie Underwood.

(If you're weren't once DJ-ian, you probably won't understand the next paragraph)

You DON'T listen to Puan Lim when she teaches. You PHOTOCOPY all your work from Chan Koay Soon when you need to hand it in. You sit at the table where EVERYONE stands the minute its your turn to answer Puan Lim's questions. Your idea of a good Bio experiment is poking fish guts with a scalpel and making funny shapes with your isotonic potato strips.

So just how will you learn two years worth of Bio facts in the span of two days? This calls for drastic measures. This calls for an All-Nighter! If you're a person who can't study under pressure, then you're pretty much doomed.

For my finals, I had to do something like that too. Amidst work, Halo and Halo 2, I had to fit in studying somewhere, so where better than the whole night? We spend most of our lives sleeping anyway. So, drink coffee. Truth be told, I hate the stuff, but it works. Kinda.

Well, that's one way of getting your caffeine dosage. Coke has a wee bit of caffeine in it.

This is how I usually get through the night with a cup of coffee and a little sleep.

Burning the midnight oil?

My never ending source of caffeine.

Thick, intellectual books to read in case I get bored. Har har, I jest.

8.00pm - Has dinner and freaks out after realizing exams are tomorrow. Goes watch TV with little sister. Usually High School Musical or Totally Spies.

9.00pm - Snorts coffee powder (this is optional - you can add water to yours). Falls asleep in 5 minutes.

10.30pm - Wakes up and attempts to study.

11.15pm - Bored. Logs on to YouTube to watch Hannah Montana for an hour.

12.15am - Resumes 'study' while solving a Rubik's Cube.

1.00 am - Tries to study again. Notices the room needs cleaning.

3.30 am - Makes resolution to study. Reminds self that Physics is HARD. Successfully continues study without distractions.

3.37 am - Remembers to bath, having forgotten the night before.

4.00 am - Gets hungry, goes downstairs to eat.

4.30 am - Actually gets solid studying done.

6.00 am - Caffeine wears out. Takes nap.

6.40 am - Wakes up and hunts down mosquito because it is annoying.

7.00 am - Prepares for school.

So you'll see for yourselves, it isn't all that hard. Now, you can save yourselves some time if you take my Certified Mosquito Prevention Steps. Firstly, get yourself a sleeping bag or big blanket to cover yourself up, like so :

Head covering removed for illustrative purposes. Breathing apparatus (straws) optional, but for added security (ie: if you don't want stung lips like Angelina Jolie or Amber Chia), feel free to grab a few.

However, this alone won't guarantee an hour of blissful, uninterrupted sleep. Mosquitoes are INCREDIBLY annoying in the way the buzz around your ear when you're sleeping, only for you to start slapping yourself all over. Or, you try getting up to slap it dead. You run around the room, getting sweaty and thus emitting more carbon dioxide, which makes it even easier for mosquitoes to find you. While your back is turned or you're taking a breather, it nips you in the butt and it gets itchy for DAYS. Stupid buggers.

So if you're on the verge of desperation and feel like crying, try this. According to Andrew, who first told me of this, it works. So far I haven't met anyone willing enough to try this, so if you do, lemme know!

Step 1 - Bait the enemy.

Step 2 - Trap the enemy

Once it's snugly in your ear, the trap is set. All you need to do is spring it.

Step 3 - Strike to Kill

Step 4 - Gloat over Victory

The best thing about it all is, mosquitoes can't see in the dark! So they'll never know what hit 'em. Of course, neither can you, but who cares.

Exams

2007-10-01T17:45:00.000+08:00

And thus, Doomsday begins.

Die lorr.

This week I'll be having my final year exams, and its crazy what the teachers packed into one week. Math, English, Physics and Mandarin in just 3 days! Thats crazy, Boss!

And today was Math. We're all finished, I tell you. I've never seen so many blank spaces in a 'finished' paper before. In other words, I SUCK at Vectors big time. The other questions were tough, but not so bad to the point that I leave them absolutely blank. But VECTORS, oh gosh, I'm just so dead lah.

Well, I gotta go eat bananas now. Happy Puasa-ing to all who are Happily Puasa-ing and Buka Puasa-ing. And likewise, happy PMR-ing to those who are.

(Yet another) Blogging Break

2007-09-26T20:51:00.000+08:00

Since I just downed a cuppa coffee, I thought I might as well get this done with, seeing how I'll be up all night anyway.

Due to unforeseen circumstances (EXAMS!), and many other events (mostly EXAMS!), I have once again decided to run away the heavy responsibility that is blogging. Yes, I admit, I'm more interested in my Rubik's Cube at present.

Right now, I have the following to be completed :

1. EXAM! Prep. That's a lot of Math to revise.
2. World Lit Essay.
3. A quintillion million gazillion hamillion chameleon physics practicals
4. A whole ton of Business questions
5. Mandarin Essays (wo bu zhi dao la)
6. Something else (so this list looks more imposing)

Okay lah, listed down it doesn't look like alot, but that's how life is. It's like idiotic chemicals who refuse to react the way they're supposed to. The textbooks say this but nooooooo, they just have to differ by 106kJs!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Okay again, my brain is overloaded with Rubik's algorithms and what-not.

But I swear after Raya I'll be back with a vengeance. I'll spam a whole load of posts and you'll just HAVE to read them over and over again till your eyes bleed and you start reciting 'Hamelot' in your sleep - IN MANDARIN.

I've officially gone detrimental.

Technically, it should read hamnoj.blogspot.com on holiday, but it couldn't fit. Another case of bad photoshopping. Blah.

Storming off and smelling off caffeine,
Jonathan.

Miss Kalai

2007-09-16T20:36:00.000+08:00

No, I'm not dedicating this post to Miss Kalai or anything.

Awhile ago, she walked up to me and demanded that I remove a particularly unflattering picture I posted up some while ago from my blog. To view the now condemned post, click HERE.

Now on the main point, HOW DO THESE PEOPLE FIND ME????? No Miss Kalai, I'm not implying that you're someone who's Technologically Backward and doesn't know how to use Google to ~~stalk~~ keep up with your students. I just don't really understand how these people managed to find me on the WWW (that's world wide web). Well, let me tell you something else.

One day I was happily (or not, I can't remember) waiting for my ride home, when two girls from the school popped up to talk to Jorrel. When he had to take a call, they suddenly turned to me instead.

Girl whose name I do not know #1 : Hi, we read your blog. It's really good.
Jon : Uhh, hi. Do I know you?
Girl whose name I do not know #2: Nope.
Jon : Are you sure you've got the right person?
Girl whose name I do not know #2: Yup.

Or something like that lah. It's pretty amazing, once you think about it, just how much the Internet has expanded over the last few years. Sometimes in our classes, when we're hopelessly out of our minds with boredom, we log on our MSN messengers and start sending digital nudges to everyone else in class. To think that that one signal traveled halfway around the world, only to be received by someone half a meter from yourself. It's true when they say the world is getting flatter.

Woah, I'm way off my original topic. Finally, then, I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, be it Miss K or Girl WNIDNK #1 and #2. Frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed by the fact that people (plural, my friends) actually read my blog!

Minor rant over, Jon signing out.

Obituary : Luciano Pavarotti

2007-09-12T14:51:00.000+08:00

Last Thursday we experienced the loss of one of the greatest operatic tenors of our time, Maestro Luciano Pavarotti.

Here was a man, the stuff living legends are made of.

I've never written an obituary before, simply because I haven't had to opportunity (or misfortune, however you see it) to write one. But truly, I see it fit that I pay tribute to Mr. Pavarotti and the accomplishments that were his life. As a kid, my mum would oft tell me of the great Three Tenors, no other than Pavarotti, Carreras and Domingo. I didn't think much of them then, save for a sort of far-off awe with which we regard dignitaries such as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

His music reached far beyond the usual opera audience, and I cite myself as an example. Honestly, I can't really stand all the glass-shattering pitches sopranos are able to reach and loud 'Aaaaaaaaaaaa!'s which characterize opera. But then I stumbled upon a grainy video on YouTube, showing Pavarotti belting out Puccini's Nessun Dorma, I became absolutely infatuated with the it and the man, and had it on replay loops in my head. I really couldn't help but continue browsing for more videos of the Maestro. His collaborations with James Brown, Bono and Sting? Explosive. As Bono aptly put it:

'He was a volcano of a man, who sang fire'.

And when I saw the headline on Thursday 'Pavarotti Dies at 71', I quietly mourned for the great man. I never knew him personally, and neither did the millions of fans and well-wishers who grieve this loss. Pavarotti was constantly positive about his condition, and confident he would recover from it eventually. Although he never did, we are exhorted by his personality, which was as large as the man himself. From the aria Nessun Dorma, he sings 'Al'alba vincero! Vincero! Vincero!' in a climatic crescendo. It translates to 'At dawn we shall be victorious!'. Fitting, for a man who battled against his ailment for years.

You can watch his final performance at the 2006 Torino Winter Games here.

ITALIAN;
Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o, Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che fremono d'amore
e di speranza.

Ma il mio mistero e chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun sapra!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo diro
quando la luce splendera!

Ed il mio bacio sciogliera il silenzio
che ti fa mia!

(Il nome suo nessun sapra!...
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)

Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All'alba vincero!
vincero, vincero!

ENGLISH
None must sleep! None must sleep!
And you, too, Princess,
in your cold room,
gaze at the stars
which tremble with love
and hope!

But my mystery is locked within me,
no-one shall know my name!
No, no, I shall say it as my mouth
meets yours when the dawn is breaking!

And my kiss will break the silence
which makes you mine!

(No-one shall know his name,
and we, alas, shall die!)

Vanish, o night!
Fade, stars!
At dawn I shall be victorious!

Adieu, Maestro.

MERDEKAx7!

2007-09-02T21:02:00.000+08:00

I'm really really busy at the moment, so excuse this pathetic semblance of a post for now.

1. MERDEKA! Yay, we're 50 years old and everything. Did anyone spot me on TV or in the newspapers?

2. What was Aladdin's mom's name?

ALAMAK! Wahahahaha!

That was so random, but something I never want to forget. It's the epitome of Malaysian quirkiness and humour. We find entertainment in just about the most trivial of things. Okay, moving on.

3. I have a new hero! I'm doing this crazy thing called the Extended Essay at the moment (it's the thing that IB-ians all over the world bitch about the most) and the man is just a genius! I mean, Doppler effects! I hadn't considered that at all!

The big red words tell all. And if they say 'Don't judge a book by it's cover', I say 'Don't judge a physicist by his beard'.

That concludes this wreck of a post. If I were to envision this post as a real-life material thingamajiggy, I would say it looks like a few Post-It notes taped together. Real messy. And for the record, I don't think I'll be posting anytime soon

Merdeka Randomness

2007-08-27T16:52:00.000+08:00

It was still dark and gloomy when my alarm cheerfully went off, playing the intro riff of 'Stars' by Switchfoot, effectively waking me and the neighbourhood along with it. Drat, I couldn't believe it was morning already. I was just getting adjusted to sleeping late and waking even later for the holidays, but before I knew it, them good ol' hols were over.

Well, no matter. I doused myself with coffee so I'd at least look alive in school. I packed my bag, and boy was it heavy. To top that off, my head was still cloudy and brain laggy from lack of sleep.

Need. . .drugs. . .I mean, caffeine. . .

I got to school, not looking forward to lessons. But surprise, surprise; Mr Jonathon (yes, it's spelled like that, which proves to be a huge inconvenience to me, since all the other teachers think that's how my name is spelled too) Shaw, our IB coordinator greeted us this morning and made a spectacular announcement.

Turns out our school (actually, just the 50 IB students in school) is invited to play the Chinese Seasonal Drums for the Merdeka Day parade this Friday.

Ooh La La.

That means no lessons for 4 days, since we would be practicing for just about the whole day. I don't have to bring my brain along then.

And at about 9 am we hopped onto buses that would take us alllll the wayyy to Dataran Merdeka, at the heart of Kuala Lumpur to play the drums, or at least look like we know how to play the drums. Most of us were informed just today about the event, and most had no clue as to HOW to even play the drums.

Those two sausages are actually drumsticks. No, really.

They're big, scary and make a lot of noise. Hmm, reminds me somewhat of ~~Yvonne~~ someone I know.

So when we reached, the buses had to stop about 1 kilometer off from the practice area, since the roads were closed. We took a long long walk and accompanied some military vehicles along the way (they were going in as well).

An awesome looking artillery piece. Or, that's what I think it is. Maybe a giant pogo-stick? I don't know.

I have no idea what that is. But one can speculate. Maybe it's a repair/spy drone (think Command&Conquer 3). Either that or a big round pot to cook lunch in. You NEVER know, it just might be.

When we arrived, we saw people PRACTICING. They must have been for the whole past week. We just went there to LEARN.

Wah, like that sure-die lorr. How leh?

For the rest of the time we were there, it was just bumming around until we got our drums. When we did, it was time for more bumming around. We didn't actually get around to doing anything, and the guy who was supposed to teach us wasn't even there. It was just hitting the drums in random beats, everyone playing their own concocted rhythms and generating (generally) unwanted noise.

If our 'learning' continues at this rate, the Merdeka celebrations are DOOMed. Doomed, I tell you. There's no better way to screw up something than invite the whole clueless lot of us over.

Before we knew it, the clock struck 12.00noon and we sauntered off to lunch, reveling in the fact that we practically wasted a day away from school. Of course, later we went back for lessons lah. We'd grow stupid if we spent all day hitting drums, you know.

Today was only the beginning, and we'll see how it goes tomorrow. I'll remember to bring my camera this time. Alrighty then, I should be sleeping pretty soon, seeing that I have to be in school at 5.15am tomorrow.

P/S : I just remembered. On the bus Andrew was revealing to us the secret art of Catching-A-Mosquito-In-Your-Sleep. I absolutely have to tell you about it sometime. It's an ingenious idea, and it supposedly works :)

YouTube hates me!

2007-08-24T10:10:00.001+08:00

I'm sure at one point of your life, you've most definitely had the experience of someone telling you something you never actually wanted to know, whether it be true or not.

I was browsing through my YouTube account today, peering into 'My Videos' to see if my thermite videos had gotten views since I last checked. And then . . . I . . . I saw . . .

Sniff. It's just too horrible, you'll have to see it for yourself.

First, I saw this. Hmm, not too bad really. No subscribers since I've only three videos so far.
That's okay, that's okay.

I have no favourites? Heeeey! (Jon gets a tad enraged here)

Here comes the killer.

*
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

! ! !

END

Post-end script, P(e)S: I attribute this post fully and wholly to my utter lack of creative juices. I can't think in the mornings laaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. At least now I've broken my own record of one post per 5 days.

A slice of the past

2007-08-23T19:32:00.000+08:00

Reflection
Is all we have
And when it's over
Reflections
Of the path that sends us searching

-Reflections, Mae-

I was just sitting of my couch today, blankly staring ahead at the fish tank under my bed, sifting through my thoughts of the past, wondering about the present, musing about the future.

I just had to pull out one of my old essays, which I wrote back in secondary school. It wasn't so much what was in the essay itself, but it was like reading a recollection of my thoughts then. At certain parts I pretty much guessed what I was about to write next, and it felt kinda refreshing, affirming that the very same you once existed back then.

I know I don't make any sense now, (to those of you who are reading this), but all the same I'd like to be reading this post some 5, 10 years from now. It would be really interesting, to see what I (future) would think of myself (present).

Well, enough ranting from me (present), I'll let you have a really long one from me (past). Bear in mind this was written some time ago, as the holiday assignment that I never handed in. When I look back at it now, it seems so elementary, to some extent even childish. On my first read through I picked up so may errors and redundant words and phrases. But I had fun rereading it, and I'm sure I'll be thinking the same when I read it again loooong after this.

Oh, just to let you know, this was written to conform to 'SPM English', which was basically spamming every adjective you know, and wedging in as many idioms as your brain holds and basically, just trying to show off your command of the language. It's VERY cheong-hei (long-winded), now that I realize. Here it goes, quoted verbatim (word for word) :

It was a beautiful morning. I woke up early. I cast my eyes to one corner of the room, which housed a huge grandfather clock. It’s two gold-gilded hands kept the time, as it had for the past few decades. Eleven in the morning, on a Saturday. I was rather surprised myself; I did not usually rouse so early in the day. Throwing off the thick woolen blanket that my father received as a mansion-warming gift from a certain dignitary years ago, I hurried to the dressing chamber. I undressed from my silken pajamas and donned something more practical and suited for the day ahead.

Attired in a pair of slacks and an immaculately pressed white shirt and a burgundy tie, I then proceeded to the dining hall. The two massive oaken doors open on their own accord without an audible creak. I deliberately clicked my heel on the smooth, polished granite floor. At once, a chorus of voices greeted me in harmonious unison. ‘Good morning, young master’. Waving a hand in dismissal and seating myself, I then get on with breakfast. I survey the spread and note rather glumly that it was not as impressive as the previous days. The usual savouries, being cold ham, fois gras, caviar, poached quails eggs and an assortment of cheese were laid out amidst tureens of soup and boiled congee. Something was amiss, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Wait, where was my morning tea? My burrows furrowed as I realized the usual teapot that contained the aromatic, brownish liquid that I enjoyed so dearly, had gone missing. What treacherous doing was this? Who could have possible plotted such an evil scheme to deprive me of life’s pleasures? Demanding an explanation, I snap my fingers twice. A rather jittery maid-servant approached my cautiously. I glare gloweringly at her, and she, startled, takes a step back and fidgets uncomfortably in my presence.

As she explained, it slowly became clear to me that it was not the doing of members of another noble house seeking cold blooded vengeance by taking it out on my beloved tea leaves. It was in fact, far from that. It was purely the folly of one particular blundering servant who set out to brew my tea but dropped the whole glass jar instead. It shattered quite literally like falling glass. Oh bother, and the next shipment would only arrive the following week. I rubbed my sore temples, as all civilized folk do when in deep thought. But wait, Butler did mention something about a central commoner trading center where all manner of cheap, common goods including tea could be procured. It was hardly any good crying over spilt milk, or rather, tea. Now, there was a specific name for that place. I rubbed laboriously, searching deep in the folds of my mind for that elusive word.

‘Supermarket!’

A few servants stopped their work and looked puzzledly at me, pondering if their master had possibly gone absolutely deranged due to his lack of tea. A cold scowl set them back in their places and on with their routines. Commoners could barely sympathize and would hardly feel the pinch of losing a good invigorating cup of Earl Gray in the mornings. And with that, I sauntered off gaily in the direction of my chauffeur. I wondered what surprises the impoverished other side of the world held in store for me. This was quickly becoming quite an experience for me.

Absolutely fascinating. How should I begin describing a place as such? It was simply packed to the brim with people of all shapes, sizes and also smells, which I noted with a growing sense of distaste. It was at that precise moment that recalled the wise words of my forefathers, ‘Commoners rush in where we fear to tread’. Alas, if only they knew how much truth that held. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and proceeded.

I was no less fascinated. Shelves with packaged, canned and fresh foods as well as other objects of interest lined shelves in every plausible corner. I must applaud them for their space-saving ingenuity. People milled all around while pushing metal contraptions that held many things. Remarkable indeed; these people actually shopped themselves and did not hire their butlers to run the errand. The sheer vastness of the place and the many varieties of items on display perplexed me, as ashamed as I was to admit it. Where could the tea be?

I promptly stopped a man who was perambulating a child around, supposing he was one of the staff who kept surveillance on the children while the parent was away purchasing.

‘Good sir, could you direct me to the section which houses the tea leaves, preferably Earl Grey of the English variety?’, said I, with a hint of Cambridge in my English.

The man did look confounded, but pointed me in the right direction nevertheless. I fished for some loose change in my pocket and tipped him. Walking towards the beverage section, I could not help but wonder why the man I had tipped was staring at the hundred dollar bill in his hand as if it were manna from heaven. As I drew nigh, lo and behold, I stumbled across an entire rack of tea that spanned from one wall to another. Amazing! Absolutely fantastic! These people deserved more recognition that we accredit them for. I started browsing through the assortment of teas.

After a good ten minuets of thorough searching, I concluded that commoners simply did not know how to appreciate good tea. So many different varieties, but seemingly no recognizable brands. How did they ever thrive on shredded tea leaves placed in small porous bags? As with all other matters regarding these people, the answer eluded me. I was ruefully dismayed at the notion that the whole expedition was an absolute waste of time. Yet, my nerves were frayed because my day had not been complete without my drink. Woe was me! I scratched my head and chewed on the end of my manicured nails, as I had once observed on a documentary on common folk. Well, I supposed I would simply have to survive on a box or two of this meager substance for a few days. I randomly choose one and plucked it off the shelf. It read ‘Lypton Tea, the finest in quality’. I shrugged nonchalantly. For a pittance, I supposed it was a reasonable bargain.

Another new experience greeted me at the cashiers. There were literally hundreds of people lined up to fork over precious cash in exchange for their goods. Interesting. They were actually civil enough to form lines, though it seemed more like a human menagerie than anything else. Then realization hit me like a brick and I cursed politely under my breath. I too would have to line up and actually wait my turn. Then the memory of the man I had tipped resurfaced on my mind. Perhaps these people would succumb just as easily. Well, it was no harm trying.

I crumpled a hundred and threw it at my feet, looked away, and coughed courteously, just loud enough for a number of trolley wheeling customers to notice. They eyed me cautiously at first, but upon my walking away and whistling the ‘Blue Danube’, they took steps and ventured closer. Their eyes flicked up, now eyeing each other instead.

One man lunged daringly forward and grabbed the bill on the floor. His grubby, brown stained hands unfurled the note. He flashed me a toothy grin, his eyes twinkling in sincere gratitude. He then waved the note in the air triumphantly. ‘It’s real!’, he called out. By now most had gathered nearby, with more than a passing interest at the whole situation. The crowd watched my every move intently, perhaps even fervently praying for more bills to fall through holes in my pockets. I shrugged for the second time today and absent mindedly threw a few notes a distance away. The crowd no longer needed any provoking. Yells of ‘I saw it first’ and ‘It’s mine’ erupted as a stampede of people grabbed and dashed madly for the few crumpled bills.

I suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. The good news was, that the cashier aisles were now almost clear of people. It seemed as though everyone wanted a piece of the action and jumped in to join the fray. The cashier efficiently scanned, packaged and took my money in a swift, well-practiced motion. I promptly took my tea and left, without bothering to wait for any change, having no wish for a mad horde of people to be on my heels. It really did no good to be running in my handmade leather loafers. They were comfortable, but wore out so very easily. I departed from this ‘supermarket’, more than content in the family limousine, relieved to be breathing purified air again.

As we passed and witnessed a certain scene, a rather rude outburst of laughter erupted from my person. It included snorting, knee slapping and various other forms of uncouth behaviour. The driver even dared raise his brows questioningly at this volte face of my manner.

But this was outrageously hilarious! Never in all my sixteen years of life have I seen ladies squeamishly waiting in queue to use the privies. Just wait till father hears about this!

Postscript : This post was a little emo, off the usual Jonnian train of thinking. Hope the essay made up for it :D

Thermite, Baby!

2007-08-18T17:55:00.000+08:00

I'm officially back from my 25 day hiatus! That's a crazily long period to have left my blog, but what's important is I'M BACK! To you poor me-deprived people, rejoice, for you have again a nonsensical collection of random occurrences to keep you entertained.

OK lah. I'll cut the crap and get on to what I've been doing the past weeks. In no chronological order, I have :

1. witnessed thermite first hand
2. won a durian (from a catapult competition, which I'm sure you'd like to hear about)
3. created my own smoke bomb
4. taken part in a number of runs, most notably the school's recent Patriotic Run

I couldn't really care less for dramatic theatrics, so I won't stick to the 'save the best for last' crap. So without much further ado I present. . .

THERMITE, BABY!

I'm NOT referring to termite babies, just to clear things up.

Some background on the legendary thermite reaction :

-It's used to weld stuff together (that means very very hot)
-It's very very hot (up to 2500 °C)
-It's just darn cool! (and hot, at the same time)

So I'm sure you'd be wondering why in the world I'm doing crazy stuff like this in school. It's simple really.

I'm crazy. MUAHAHAHAHA.

Okay, I lied. Mr Lawrence, my chem teacher, wanted a memorable photo of us, for keepsakes you know. What more memorable than a thermite reaction? You should have seen how elated he was the whole day. But since it was really dangerous, we only used a small, 'kicit' amount.

We used just a little bit in case it blew up the school along with it.

Wikipedia says 'Thermite usage is hazardous due to the extremely high temperatures produced and the fact that it is almost impossible to smother once initiated.'

We recorded a short video of the reaction, and do remember we only used so little, so it's not really that spectacular, but still cool anyway.

Some other pictures.

Our secret ingredient. Only that now I've told you, it's no longer a secret. Darn.

That smolderingly suspicious-looking red patch in the middle is pure molten iron. Read that. Molten. Iron.

Taa daa! If you have any old pots you don't like any more, feel free to throw some thermite in and see how well it melts.

So cool leh. All of you should really take up Chemistry. Of course, there's a lot of theory behind the reactions, which we had to study thoroughly before actually doing it.

Weeeeeeell, if you're interested there are some other interesting reactions which we did in school.

Other Interesting Reaction #1 : Ammonium Chromate (VI) and Magnesium

This is also known as the 'Volcano' reaction because (well well, no guesses here) it looks like a volcano, if you observe the end bit of the video.

Other Interesting Reaction #2 : Chemical X and Chemical Y

This is the same reaction that notoriously blew up in my house not too long ago, and you can read about it here. Well, I'm proud to say I did it right this time, with all the safety gear and low heat settings. This one was Jason's, and we tested out just a little lump, since the whole chunk would have set off the smoke alarms.

It didn't self-ignite this time. Yay.

After ignition and giving off a whole load of smoke, this was all that was left.

Probably the most memorable and hilarious part was after we ignited the smoke bomb and safely ran away. We actually committed the evil deed outside the girls toilet (heheheh) and so there was smoke everywhere.

Right after that, there were these two girls walking to the loo and then they just STOPPED when they saw all the smoke. I nearly died laughing.

I mean, can you imagine what they must have been thinking?

Girl 1 : Let's go pee!
Girl 2 : Yeah! I've been waiting all day to go pee!

*walk walk walk walk*
*stops*

Girl 2 : . . .
Girl 1 : Wow, that must have been one heck of a fart.

End.

TAK (ke)NAK

2007-08-11T10:25:00.000+08:00

Saya tak kena NS!

Even if I did, it would interfere with my IB programme and I'll probably have to defer it until I'm like.... 36 or something.

Still, no crappy food or trainers who breathe and bark down your neck!

Anyway, you don't get proper food and nourishment with the slop that they serve you, so I would have died within the first 2 weeks.

I'll write up a bit more some other time lah.

Chow chow, people!

A non-update-ish Update

2007-08-08T18:43:00.000+08:00

To everyone who's been reading hamnoj.blogspot.com in the past weeks, I do thank you.

I'm really sorry but I've been really busy (and still am) and won't be updating till the school holidays. Or that's how the plan goes, anyway.

Again, my apologies. Look out for an update by the 18th of August. If its still stagnated then, I give you the liberty to call me by a variety of insulting names. I might even permanently post it up here.

Till I blog again,
Adieu, mes chéris!

Random Picture
One of my favourite teachers, Miss Kalai posing on a pole in Penang during our trip in July. I'll probably get 200 CAS hours docked if she ever sees this, but then again, I really can't resist.

Chemicals in Action

2007-07-25T17:01:00.000+08:00

I nearly got roasted today.

I got some Chemicals from the Lab to go home and experiment with. So there I was, happily stirring my Chemical X and Chemical Y (names obscured for YOUR safety) and then adding some Sodium Bicarbonate every now and then.

Crazy stuff, these two.

Well, I suppose no good comes from trying to do experiments in a Metal Tin over a Gas Stove. Still, I was itching to make something, so I went on ahead anyway.

And there I was, stirring a peanut-buttery like substance. I didn't really notice it, but eventually the chemicals got too hot, and all of a sudden. . .

WHOOSH! BANG BANGBALANG!

Before I knew it, I was Roast Ham.

I swear it! The flames were as high as my head and there was a MASSIVE amount of smoke given off. It looked as if my house had been hit by the haze of something. Fortunately, I only suffered some little burns. Imagine if that thing was pointed directly at me. Just look how burnt the can is (I used a perfectly shiny, new can, so go figure) !

Phew.

That does it, no more home-brewed chem experiments for me. Really really really. I'd like to keep all my body parts intact for now.

The Lottery and I

2007-07-24T18:04:00.000+08:00

Now reading : Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Now listening to : The Sounds of Traffic by Noisy Cars that are Passing My House
__________________________________________

The King And I.

I watched it at Istana Budaya last Sunday. Pretty good, but nothing I've never seen before.

Probably the only thing I'll remember is meeting Pau (Danial Syafiq) there. I was taking the picture up there, when all of a sudden I got a message from him (that's why one hand is in my pocket). To quote him verbatim : 'I see u'

It sounded really stalkerish then. Scary lah.

And the only quote I remember from the play sounds something like this :

British Emissary Guy : Why Your Majesty, that speech you gave during dinner was just so amusing!
King : (In stuck up-ish voice) Yes, I know. I was forced to laugh. I was just so funny!
Jon : HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *Snort snort snort*

Alright, moving on to the next event.

I got a lottery ticket!! And no, I didn't buy it myself.

Here's the deal :

I went for a family dinner, it was my relative's 80th birthday so the family totally whacked the top floor of this Chinese restaurant. There were just so many people I've never seen before.

I never realized I was related to all those people I never even knew existed.

Since it was a birthday, we each got an ANGPAO, as was customary. After years of experience, I've come to realize there are a few ways to find out how much is inside. (Yes lah, I bet all of you are experts yourself).

This is a little off-season, but now is a time as good as any.
Anyway :

1. Hold up packet to the light (discreetly of course). Usually if it is thin enough, you'll see a glimmer of those lovely red or green notes peeking through the red packet.
2. Through the feel. Experienced angpao pickers will tell you instantly how much is inside with a little pressing and guessing.

So here we were, my cousins and I, wondering what was in the lovely packets. It didn't really feel right. Something was amiss.

Ripped open the packs. Found lottery tickets. What the Ham?!? Lottery tix of all things! Okay lah - I've never owned one before, so now I can safely say 'Been there, done that'. Still. . . what can you do with 'em?

Dunno. So I used it as a bookmark for Sherlock Holmes and totally forgot about it.

Some days later my dad was asking for it, since the results were out.

O_O !!! Does that mean I'm now a Kazillion dollars richer? I was being optimistic bout things then. But WOW, I can just picture it now. . .

Rolling in the Benjamins, baby!

But wait, something was fundamentally wrong here. The date was correct. The numbers were correct. And then, WHAM. Reality slapped me in the $)*(@&$*(@$ really hard.

It's MAGNUM 4-D donkey, I was looking at TOTO.

Crud.

So close, yet so far. Think of the amount of Char Kuey Teow I would have been able to buy. Sigh Sigh Sigh.

And so we learn another good moral to take home, from reading hamnoj.blogspot.com

NEVER GIVE YOUR GRANDKIDS LOTTERY TICKETS!
(even if you're Chinese and a 100 years old)

hamnoj.blogspot.com has got a facelift!

2007-07-19T22:14:00.000+08:00

As most of you would have noticed by now, unless you're new here (welcome!) I've changed the header for my blog. It used to be -

and is now changed to what you see at the moment.

Of course, here at hamnoj.blogspot.com the readers are just as important as me. That's right. Or actually, I'm a bit more important lah. So through some unofficial voting system, I'll let you choose which you prefer :

Ham Header
(old header)

or

Random Green Squiggly Things (current header)

Tell me what you think.

Light in Motion

2007-07-18T17:33:00.000+08:00

The title is supposed to sound reeally cool, so if you didn't think so, do SAY SOMETHING at the nice little box thing at the side. I appreciate hearing feedback (or even things like 'LiKe OMG your bLog suxxxx').

Well anyway, with the exams looming ominously ahead I've had little time to blog and even less time for study. But some nights ago I was feeling restless and started toying with my camera (yes, yes it's a compact digicam, sigh).

This is my compact but . . . I WANT A DSLR and SARAH HAS ALREADY GOT ONE!
Unfair gila ()@*#()*@#.

Okay, so I have 2 words.........Loooong shutter speeeed.
(Yah, Imah gonna failmah math)

Here are the pics of my little experiment with long shutter speed :)

My dad the stoner
I think this is looks really cool. My dad had to stand still for 15 seconds though. It looks as if he's oblivious to the world, which passes him by in a flash. It's slightly pinkish cause I messed with the colour balance. Looks better this way, though.

ME JON
This is me fooling around, trying to write my name with light. It's supposed to say JON, but didn't turn out all too well.

Light up a hill
In classic Black&White, just so the contrast shows better.

Flash
These red streaks are . . . fascinating, somehow. The leave a nice glowy after-effect.

Highway Blues (and yellows)
Took a short walk out to the highway to try and get some shots. Unfortunately, it was way too bright.

These shots are still pretty experimental; me messing with the controls and everything. Still, a compact doesn't give you the freedom a dSLR does. I so want one. I still can't believe Sarah has a Canon EOS 400D when I don't.

Yea lah, I'm too poor to buy one.

Oh damn that is sexy. In bimbo lingo I'd say 'I like' but it's becoming so overused and abused it's just sad. So I say to you, 400D -

'Saya suka' (?)

Farewell, good citizens! (<- has nothing to do with the quote below) Au revoir! Je ne parle pas français!

The Ethical Arguments For See-Ham

2007-07-12T18:52:00.000+08:00

From the recent slowing of posts, I'm sure most of you realize I've been getting busier and so can't post so often lah.

In fact, I'm supposed to finish up a Euthanasia thing (so morbid, I know) but it's so mind-boggling I'm taking my break even before I start. teruknya saya - so I have to make this quick.

So here it is, a way to win any argument against your friends (I will not be held be responsible in the case of hearing 'I don fren you oredi' from your beloved buddies should you put this method into practice).

But it's really easy to pull off so don't fret over it.

Ahem, let's now assume I'm arguing with Abu over whether or not it is morally wrong to order Char Kuey Teow without see-hams (bloody cockles, which are pronounced see-hum but I like ham, so sue me).

The conversation goes somfink like this :

Abu : Eh, Jon ah, why you donwan see-ham in your char kuey teow? Darn nice wei, especially with all the bloody stuff. You sure you Chinese ah?
Jon : Well don't I look Chinese? (Presents argument for not ordering see-ham)

*Jon unfurls 100 page essay with no paragraph breaks with size 10 and (eeeee!) Times New Roman font*

*Abu's eyes implode*

Abu : Okok macha, you win. Just keep your essay thingamajiggy away.

Drawn by Eugene. I imagine Abu to look like this upon imploding. Ignore the rude Cantonese words, btw.

Jon is triumphant. Yay.

So there you have it, an example of how to win an argument. Just substitute in whatever arguments you might have into the situation and write a long long master thesis about it. I'd like to do that for my Euthanasia essay too but if my teacher's eyes implode I might mysteriously fail this subject evaluation. Tsk tsk, life's unfair.

P/s : Oh, and awhile back someone actually did ask me if I was Chinese. Her name was Jeandre (she was South African) and she had the loveliest eyes but don't mind that for now.

The Great Escapade

2007-07-03T20:35:00.000+08:00

Hello again everyone, today I'll be introducing my bimbotic alter-ego : 'Jonnyboi~'

YES. With the squiggly ~ sign. Say hello, Jonny.

Uhm....hie

Since I declare myself on sick leave from blogging today, I'll let him (Jonnyboi~) take over for now. Eh Jonnyboi~ ah, make sure you fill our readers in, alright?

Bye~ (ack, it's contagious lah)

(2 miliseconds of profound silence)

PHEEEEEWWWW, liek, dusn dat guy just get on ur nerves? He talks sooooo much and uses soooooo many big big bomb-ass-stick words! My head oso get headache alredi! OK lah Im supposed to tell u guyz about someting very very interesting.

But first I must lay out sum rulez for those pplz who mite not understand dis complikeyted post.

All good bimbo blogz (like mine) must hv dese things:

1. PINK!!! heheheh~~~~~

2. i SUmtImEz liKe TOo TyPE LiEk Dis bUT I gOt headachES today so will tyep normally liek dis so dat its easier for u not so smart ppls so you can read.

3. Looooooadzz of zzzzzzz after every character/word/sentence like dis :

eg: example: i wentzz to de zoozzzz and saw my friendzzzz! dere!! hehe~ and Riza(zzzz) waz acting like der monkeyzzz! hahahaha!

4. Must have bad punctuation (i ctrl-c dis bigword from internet, i hope you knoe wad dis meanzz~~~) liek the above sentence.

5. SMILLEY FACES!! :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :D

6. Must be veri de ah lian (eg example contoh : say lah, mah, bah (for sabah-ans), liau and an assortment (i ctrl-c again! so keng leh) of misspelled words and oso chillax)

7. Take lots of pictures of myself~! Itz called camwhoring but sinz im a guy, i camgig!!! hahahahahahahz so funny lah me. i make joke! heheh.

and de lastestest and bestestest iz...........

Oh hi Jon, ur back. Wait....wad are you doing wid dat big heavy looking thing?
You betta becareful in case u hit........wei.........ouch.

*Insert sounds of a bimbotic male getting clobbered with a big-heavy-looking object here*

I'm really sorry I had to put you through all that.

Someone's had been particularly stupid and blonde (no no, not Paris Hilton)-

(GASP! Jonmah has committed the unhammable sin of stereotyping! C'mon angry mob, let's all throw thick slabs of streaky bacon at him!)

-and so I'll tell you what my other self was supposed to tell you now.

Well today in class Mr Winson came up with the brilliant idea that some of us should go running around Malaysia and beyond (Singapore) on a tight budget. You know, just to see if we live or not. WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA!

Seriously, it's cool. This is the plan as of now, and is subject to change-

In groups of three students :

1. From school (Sri KDU) we'll be stripped (wait lah, don't get so excited) of belongings - that means money, phones and extra underwear.

2. We find the means to get our own money and get our sorry butts all the way to Singapore. (Malaysians are generally not so kiasu with their money, so it's not half impossible)

3. In Singapore, we're given our budget of 50 sing dollars since they're really kiasu with their money and it would be near impossible to beg, or even for Riza to offer his 'services' for money. Then, we've got a few tasks to complete in the span of 24 hours. And knowing Miss Kalai, It'd probably be things like 'Meet Lee Kuan Yew and tell him that his country is like a little nose-picking on the world atlas'.

4. Get our (by then) even sorrier butts back to Malaysia, land of the Nasi Lemak.

What an adventure it'll be..and you'll be the first to read about it! Aren't you glad now that I've brain-washed you and utterly hooked you to this blog? Even if you're not, do tell me you are just so I die happy.

I'm just really free at the moment lah, okay? <- the statement that justifies the existence of my blog.

postscript : I got a headache and eye strain just from typing out in PINK. And my brain hurts from thinking of so many stupid things to write. It's not as easy as it seems after all. But I guess now I understand why bimbo blogs thrive in such abundance. You can write whatever nonsense you want and people STILL read AND comment (much unlike what goes on here). Of course, I've greatly exaggerated the typical female bimbo. I apologize to the feminists out there.

Signing out, Jonathan.

Three Amazing People

2007-06-30T10:18:00.000+08:00

It's been about 5 days since my last post now. I've had lots of work to do lately, people to meet, salts to synthesize, sleep to catch up on and the usual ramblings of school life.

Alright. Today's post is a tribute to three absolutely amazing people who have made my week. I'll feel really guilty if I don't blog about them, and give them the recognition they deserve. Unfortunately, I don't personally know them but they have indirectly affected me, to varying degrees. I don't exactly feel like my humorous self today, so I apologize in advance. (We bloggers are unpredictable creatures, you know)

When I said people, I'm pretty sure you'd have expected a fully fledged adult. But certainly not......Baby Ally? Yes, Baby Ally. She's a baby (no prizes for guessing) and is absolutely adorable.

1. Baby "Whatever" Ally

When my sister first showed me this we were like, "OMGness, that's just sooooooooooo cute!". I'm sure you'll say the same. So cute lah. I think I'm gonna teach my kid that too in the future.

Okay, I just want a chance to say this again:

"She's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO adorableeeeeeeeee! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Alright, rant over.

The next star-studded member of Jonathan's Angels is a face anyone would recognize if they had been actively in touch with the online community these past months.

Some facts:
-She was a finalist in the recent 'Britains Got Talent' Contest.
-She's a fantastic, pitch-perfect singer.
-She has the most adorable smile (she's missing teeth, which makes her all the more adorable)
-She's only 6.

Her name is Connie Talbot, and she's up against Britain's most talented and yet she holds her own ground. She was a favourite to win the competition, for a chance to sing before the Queen. The video might take awhile to load, but it's REALLY worth your time.

Connie in the finals. "Pound for pound, inch for inch, the best 6-year-old singer in the world."

The first time I watched her, I felt tears welling up, until I remembered I was a guy. Seriously, just watching her sing reminds us of our lost innocence, amidst a world where lost causes prevail. When was the last time you looked at someone and saw nothing but a childlike innocence, naive and quite oblivious to the world around her? That's the exact reason why the world has fallen in love with Connie, because she reminds us of the things that we have lost to ourselves as we grow up.

I pray and pray that Connie won't grow up to be a die-cast model of those ridiculous singers and what-not that fill the tabloids and headlines. A part of me wants to tell her to never grow up, but that's just wishful thinking. The chances are, under the limelight and with the pressure of the world on her, she'll turn out no better. But we can still hope, can't we?

I believe I've typed enough, and imposing too much of my philosophy on you. Well, we'll move on then.

Next up is Paul Potts, a man who needs no introduction (unless you've been hiding under a coconut eating biang biang noodles). While he might not look too imposing, a little bit loser-ish even, I have nothing but respect and appreciation for the man. He competed with Connie and won the 'Britains Got Talent' show (quite rightfully so, I must add). I thought Connie was good, and absolutely deserved to win...until Paul Potts sang. And now I'm potty over it, and so is the world.

First performance. As some guy aptly puts it, 'See how gobsmacked Simon and the judges are when he starts to sing'

Paul Potts in the finals, a real winner.

I got goosebumps all over just hearing him sing. And nearly cried too (only nearly lah). It really moves you to see a REAL LIVE person go so far. By real live I mean your everyday Jon, the kind that you meet on the streets, the kind that tenders your change in restaurants, the kind that sells you tins of Spam (canned Ham) and rips you off by selling Ah Fesyen shirts.

His story sounds just like one out of the movies. Humble mobile phone salesman, who has no confidence himself, but has a talent he is not aware of, faithful supporting and loving wife gives him confidence in himself, joins competition, wins, wows world (and me!) over. But it's darn right true, he has talent. I must say I'm a self-professed fan of the guy. The four tenors? The amazing tenor Paul Potts? First tenor featured on hamnoj.blogspot.com? All within reach of this amazing singer.

He gives life to the oft-quoted quote - If you believe in your dreams, they can come true.

And that sums up my week, and the people who've inspired me throughout. Read, comment and enjoy. I doubt I'll be posting for awhile due to work commitments and my downright laziness (*Grin*). Jon out.

A screenie

2007-06-25T20:52:00.000+08:00

A quickie:

Somehow Mac's are just so much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than Windows could ever hope to be. Just look at Vista now and you'll notice it bears a striking resemblance to the original Mac style.

Tsk tsk Microsoft, shame on you for copying.

Anyways, I'm using a Windows myself (and not complaining) and finally decided to bank in on the lovely Mac layout for my own desktop.

The results?

I dare say it looks pretty darn good. (Click image to enlarge)

Well now, I've wasted enough time already on jazzing up my desktop, and I'm about to waste a bit more just sitting and staring at a blank desktop.

Jon signing out.

My Pancreatic Romance

2007-06-21T20:39:00.000+08:00

Hello again, I'll make this quick, since both you and I have better things to do.
I've gotta study for a physics test and you probably have some other blogs of more interest to browse through.

Anyway, I've done two things today that might be of interest to you people.

1. I've watched a horridly soppy movie. It's called 'The Notebook'. I actually liked it.

Oh fine, I'll admit I'm a huge sucker for a good romance movie. Well yes, some of the lines were a little corny and clichéd, and you can pretty much guess whats happening and going to happen next.

I mean, it all gets predictable after awhile. You don't actually have to guess who dies, who ends up with who...etcetera etcetera. In spite of all that, my pathetically soppy alter-ego decides that it's a good movie because it has a happy ending and has happy moments throughout the movie.

But never mind that.

2. I've listened to Pancreas. No it's not the name of my newest imaginary friend. Neither is it a new kind of roti invented by the ingenious mamaks who come up with so many names for their rotis. Now, I bet half of you don't appreciate your pancreas the way you should. Ask your average Jon on the streets and they might not even know he has a PANCREAS, of all things.

Wait, isn't the pancreas that cartoon character?

Meet Mr Pancreas.

He's even got his own spot on the Walk of Fame!

Moving along; ever heard of Weird al Yankovic? Only like the best parody band to ever exist? It's a real shame if you haven't. Anyway they have one song aptly titled 'Pancreas'.

No prizes for guessing what the song is about. I simply have to say that it is a PANTASTIC (fantastic) song! Man, now you'll no longer have trouble remembering all those bio facts about that oh-so-underrated organ in your body.

Here are the lyrics to the song. It's little lengthy, but oh so darn funny. (It's even incorporated some physics in it)

Weird al Yankovic 'Pancreas'

I'm always thinkin' 'bout it
I don't know what I'd do without it
I love, I really love
My pancreas

My spleen just doesn't matter
Don't really care about my bladder
But I don't leave home without
My pancreas

My pancreas is always
There for me
Ahh-oooh

Secreting those enzymes (bap bap bap)
Secreting those hormones too
Metabolizing carbohydrates
Just for me

Ba-ba ba ba-ba ba ba ba-ba ba ba
My pancreas
Ba-ba ba ba-ba ba ba ba-ba ba
My pancreas
Ooooooh

**My pancreas attracts every other
Pancreas in the universe
With a force proportional
To the product of their masses
And inversely proportional
To the distance between them

**by the way, this is actually Newton's Law of Gravitation,
to those of you who understand my lingo.

Woo woo woo woo

Don'tcha you know you gotta
Flow, flow, flow, pancreatic juice
Flow, flow, into the deuodenum

Insulin, glucagon
(Won'tcha flow, flow, flow, pancreatic juice)
Comin' from the islets of Langerhans...
(Flow flow, into the deuodenum)

Can't you see I love my pancreas
Golly-gee I love my pancreas

JON : DON'T YOU JUST LOVE YOUR PANCREAS NOW?

Ah Fesyen

2007-06-19T20:20:00.000+08:00

Hey there!

Wanna look uber funky and groovy this summer season? Look no further as the new Hammelicious wardrobe line is bringing you the "Ah Fesyen" Designer Line.

Ah Fesyen 1 is a stunning complimentary blend of retro chic colours such as white, grey, and more white.

Not only that, it only serves a dual purpose not only as a enviable top, it is also a fully fledged sport attire! New patent Hole-In-The-Sleeve technology allows freedom of movement and also good air flow to your arms and more!

Check it out today at hamnoj.blogspot.com!

A model posing with Ah Fesyen 1.
*Note the Hole-In-The-Sleeve technology

Size : Free size
Condition : Only worn about two hundred times.
Brand : dunno leh
Colour : White
Starting price : RM 50
Price after discount : RM 20

Note to reader : Price is non-inclusive of shipping costs and model.

Be a true Malaysian and support our cause today!

**Disclaimer : hamnoj.blogspot.com is not responsible in the case of me ripping you off.

The Mysterious Death

2007-06-09T20:09:00.000+08:00

There's been a death.
Log : 9th June 2007. 1932hours.

Fishy16 was found lying unconscious beneath the drift wood, hidden from plain sight until fishes 1-15, 17-24 detected a foul odour. The National Department of Fishorensics was alerted immediately. It has been widely speculated that this case in under the direction of renowned fishspector, His Imperial Fishness, Sir Cofungus Jon.

When probed for comment, he only replied "Rest assured, justice will be served".

Scene of the crime

Sector 54 of the Skeenefut District is one of the newest pioneering architectural landmarks in the state of Jon's Room.

Officiated only today, it is tragic that it is already plagued with a death.

The victim, only known as Fishy16 had not been carrying any identification at the time. Foul play has not been ruled out as a possibility of the death.

Now for the big question (literally) :
WHO DUNNIT??

Also present at the scene of the crime were two ex-convicts. J.A. Rummynose Tetra claimed he was taking a bath at the moment of the crime. However, he is on the police list as the first suspect.

Teen gangsters Bob, Leonard, Eric, Tony and Bossman of the Stick-It-To-The-Man scandal were also present. Comments were unavailable as at the time of printing, they were as drunk as fishes. They are suspects number 2.

bob
leonard
eric
tony
boss man

**names have been changed and faces blurred to protect privacy.

Shortly after the death, family members and friends gathered at a private ceremony to mourn their loss of Fishy16. Consistent with the family beliefs, they sent him off in typical Gillanian fashion. "He was a good brother and fish. I hope he rests in peace now that he is back in the ocean, where he belongs", says brother, Fishy15.

Final goodbyes.
Picture published courtesy of
Flush-Away-Your-Tears Funeral Home.

The authorities are still working hard in order for justice to be served. If you have any information concerning the case, dial 1800-i got info wei-00.