The Bangsar Boy: Don’t waste time waiting, pull out a good book instead
Aug 16, 2008 The Bangsar Boy
Okay, so I have just arrived back in KL from my wonderful holiday in Langkawi and am squeezing in some blogging time before I head off to Kajang for the BRATs workshop.
Will be posting up pictures from the trip soon, but just wanted to bring your attention to another article I wrote published today in StarMetro (in line with my, “If I don’t plug myself, who will” philosophy).
This week, The Bangsar Boy (that’s moi) talks about reading while waiting. Yes, I do plug other people too. I talk about why I feel people should read more, why I support this project and why I feel everyone should too.
Of course, the numbers say it all. I remember back in the 1980s when a survey showed that Malaysians only read an average of two pages a year. Of course, that’s in the past and the number has gone up to two books a year (a Government survey in 2005) and five books a year (a corporate survey in 2006).
Whichever is more accurate, the numbers are scary.
Click here to read the article.
Oh, and while I’m in the process of plugging, watch the video below. It’s from this online TV show called The Fairly Current show, featuring my friends Fahmi Fadzil as host, and Mark Teh as creative producer. Oh, and this is the current (yes, pun intended) episode featuring Zain HD who talks about RWP (excuse his mistaking tax exeption for EPF ok folks?).
5.30pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)
Tags: fahmi fadzil, mark teh, reading, RWP, The Bangsar Boy, the fairly current show, The Star, zain hd
Holidays are tough
Aug 14, 2008 Trips
Are holiday’s really holiday’s when there’s so much effort involved in planning, travelling and er, waking up at 4.49am in the morning?!?!
I suppose I should be grateful ‘cos this time I’m not doing the planning - just gonna sit back, and enjoy the trip. I’m secretly quite excited, as I’ve not traveled with them before although I’ve known them for almost 22 years.
Yup, I’m taking a short holiday to Langkawi with my two good buddies from primary school and, I’m sure they would agree, their better halves.
Not sure about time and access to the Net over the next few days, but I’ll try to post when I can.
Otherwise, just come back here and check out my Twitter. :) Micro-blogging to the fore!
p/s Click on the down arrow to scroll down to catch up on my Tweet in case you missed any (and are interested, that is)
Tags: holiday, langkawi, micro-blogging, Twitter
“Racist” Spaniards?
Aug 13, 2008 Events
Update (13-04-08) 11.56pm:
The players respond. I kind of feel for them. Surely can’t be easy for members of a team to react to a sponsor too. Still, I maintain that it was in bad taste - but to call them racists might not be accurate. IMHO, that is.
Yes, more on the Olympics but how can one resist?
Spanish basketball team poses for offensive picture
I’m not particularly over-offended as a Chinese person (my small mind does see some humour in it), but it really does not reflect well on the team at all.
9.58am Malaysian time (+8 GMT)
Tags: Basketball, Beijing Olympics, Racist, Spain
Shahrizat declares jihad?
Aug 12, 2008 Rantings
Malaysian ruling party women declare ‘jihad’ against Anwar
WHAT THE FUCK? WAH LAU!
How did I miss this story today? Came across this article on MSN News which quotes The Star’s article in today’s paper.
Yes, I do think that the Permatang Pauh by-election is a waste of time and resources, and I have said it before. But jihad?
Come on lah, Kak Ijat, what nonsense is this?
11.44pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)
Tags: Anwar Ibrahim, By-elections, jihad, Permatang Pauh, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil
Olympics Opening Ceremony: More deception
Aug 12, 2008 Events
UPDATE (14-08-08) 5.07am:
China responds. Perfect casting? Hrmm…
This is my 101th post - and I was going to celebrate it someway or other but got busy today and only managed to get online for some personal surfing now.
But then I came across this AFP story in Yahoo News! which, well, got me really disappointed. Just a couple of posts ago, I defended China’s decision to use a couple of computer-generated scenes for the live telecast of the Beijing 2008 Olympics opening ceremony because it was 1) a safety issue, and 2) the real fireworks went off anyway.
But this is inexcusable I think.
The article quotes Chinese news website sina.com as reporting that Lin Miaoke - the golden girl in the red dress at the start of the ceremony singing her heart out - was not actually singing. I don’t think I would have minded so much if she was lip-syncing - after all, she is a child - but the article reports that Lin was used because the girl whose voice was used has a “chubby face and uneven teeth”. UPDATE: Photos of both girls available at BBC News.
Oh, the outrage!
Surely, this has gone beyond the question of propriety to an issue of ethics. How will this affect both the girls, and also the self-esteem of other chubby-faced kids with uneven teeth?
To make matters worse, the report also said that sina.com’s article has been wiped out in China. I can’t read Chinese so I couldn’t see if the article is available to those of us outside of China - although it’s not surprising, I also blogged a week or so ago about China’s intention of limiting access to the Internet during the Olympics.
I hope that the “Western” media is reporting accurately, but if they are, then this is indeed dissapointing.
11.31pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)
Tags: Beijing Olympics, lin miaoke, lip-syncing, Opening ceremony
