Nine months, and a baby will be born.

This month lack of entry (as if I've been actively posting) is probably due to:

1. Ulam Project.
2. I'm getting old.

Thank you.

Eight tilted ninety degrees is infinity.

I was looking for some ideas on what to write in this blog when I saw the dusty Dale Carnegie’s ‘Speak More Effectively’ booklet lying on my desk. I got that booklet after attending his High Impact Presentation workshop three years ago. I picked it up and began to read.

Carnegie offered some very good public speaking tips, which I believe can be applied in blog-writing. Basically, he suggested that we write ‘something that we have earned the right to talk about through study and experience’, and ‘that we are excited about’ and ‘we are eager to tell our readers’.

I can only think of one thing.

Sex!

HA HA HA.

Then again, with the on-going debate about the appropriateness of sex education, I guess I have to think of something else.

Hmm… berguling-guling?

Seven days in a week.

Keeping this blog alive requires ideas, determinations and free times. Out of these elements, I only have one, which is some free times which I rather spent on other things besides blogging like... erm... a lot.

Blogging used to be fun when not many people were doing it. When it was just a tool to tell your story and opinions to the world, and make new friends in the process. Somehow, the fun in blogging seems to fade away when people start using it as a marketing tool, a political propaganda machines, to spread half-baked doomsday theory, to copy paste hoax and spam emails, or worst, copy paste other people's blog content without giving credit to the originator.

Thousands (or is it millions?) of new blogs appears everyday on the web. Most of them are the types I've mentioned earlier, while some are just vain teenagers wanting to get some attention from the world. Often, these attention-seekers lack respect to others, have little sense of responsibility on their writing and almost no shame to disclose very private and intimate details of their life. Obviously, telling people about your bra size, or sex life or posting your pictures with a lot of cleavage will invite more hits and increase traffic to your blog -but I feel like slapping these people who later complained about being stalked, sexually harrased or getting too many spams in their mailbox.

There are too many perverts, sexual predators, MLM millionaire wannabes, and immature brats on the net nowadays that it is no longer a fun place for socially-retarded people like me to socialize. Even Facebook is slowly becoming what blogs have become now.

Well, things evolved and becomes more complex everyday. Sometimes, I missed the old days when life is a little bit simpler and more fun.

Six Pillars.

If they can issue capital sentence on drug dealers/ traffickers, why not do the same to drug addicts? The supply will cease if the demand cease, won't it?

Talking about the death penalty, corruption should be in the list of crimes deserving this punishment as well. Corruption effects more people in more than one way. It can slow down development, endangers life, destroy businesses and lead to more corruptions and crimes. The perpetrator is more deserving to go the gallows compared to anyone else, don't you think?

Some people argue that death penalty is against human right, cruel, have no place in developed society yada yada yada. I wonder if these people have ever talked to the victims, or the people effected by the crime or become one of them themselves?

Yes, the will to forgive is truly what differentiate a human from another, but try talking about forgiveness after being punched on the nose or after getting poked in the eye by someone or after you find your partner doing it with someone else.

It is human nature to see wrong-doings being justly punished. It is also human nature to show mercy. But when one is so consumed with rage or hatred or greed or lust or overwhelmed with sadness or grief, is the desire to be just or being merciful still there?

I wonder, how do lawmakers, juries and judges sleep at night?

Five times a day...

I've just moved from Rantau Bukit to Kampung Baru Kerteh yesterday. Still exhausted and still unpacking.

Last few weeks were hectics. The next three weeks will be much worse. Then, comes the performance appraisal season.

This is basically my excuse not to update this blog for a while. Not that it matters since my readership has significantly plummeted since I got Syifaak.

Besides, there's nothing much to tell. Life is pretty much boring and issues are pretty much the same nowadays.

So, don't miss me.

Four Cities in East China...

Just came back from a week-long vacation to China with my wife, Syifaak and parents in-law. We went to Suzhou, Wuxi, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

It was freezing cold. Winter.

The tour guide service in China is interesting. We were accompanied by a 'national' guide throughout the whole visit and a 'local' guide at every city.

These guides, however, are obliged to bring tourists to the Chinese government's tourist centers where they give you some briefing on their specialty products and virtually force you to buy something. Eventually, the products they sold are very expensive for something 'made in China'! But of course, the products are really worth it (or that's what you'll start to believe after all the propaganda they feed you with)

If you want to buy anything from the street shops in China, bargain. And if you want to bargain but you can't speak Mandarin, bring a calculator. The Chinese shopkeepers understand numbers.

Halal food restaurant seems abundant but the dishes served tasted almost the same at all the restaurants. Most of them are oily and salty with soy sauce. I have no problem with them of course. However, the rest of the family lose appetite after the third day.

One thing which bothered us the most throughout the visit was the toilet... or to be specific, the absent of water source to 'cebok' after the call of nature. You know us Malay - wiping with toilet roll doesn't feel... erm... satisfying. So, we always carry a bottle of mineral water with us just in case.

Suddenly, I don't feel like writing the details of the trip. I don't know why. Do you?

Three in one? Nescafe?

I open my good old Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (Students Edition) in the office this morning. The only definition for 'Allah' in that thick book of words is "the name of God for Muslim".

I wonder how the Catholic daily won the case...

Anyone who is using the same dictionary may get confused, o 'learned' judge of the high court.