Unsafe Malaysia

Almost everyday, I hear something about petty theft, snatch thief, burglaries, stolen cars and smashed car. It is scary but doesn't affect anyone until it happens to oneself. And I seriously hope it won't happen to me coz I don't have much money already and I hate the trouble of reporting stolen bank and ct cards, MyKad, etc etc.
Parents are afraid to let their kids (even tho they are already teenagers) to go to school by school buses. Ladies are afraid to go anywhere alone especially at night or lonely places like car parks.

I am afraid to withdraw money from ATM or fill petrol at night.
I am not sure about you guys, but I really feel that Malaysia is really becoming so unsafe everywhere. If you don't have money in your wallet may also pose a big problem, coz if a thief come to you and find you without money, he might just slash you. It seems like Singaporeans fears of Malaysia are becoming facts of life and a reality.

I am thinking of drafting a letter to Pak Lah, Ketua Polis Negara and Menteri Dalam Negeri to express how we (the rakyat) feel. I believe they need to really look into this matter seriously and actually SOLVE them. We must stand up and express our fears and worries.

Otherwise, soon enough, we might as well stop mentioning that Malaysia is a safe and peaceful country. Or is this a lost cause already?
So friends, will you be interested to participate in this letter writing? Let me know your thoughts. If you have anything you wanna express in the letter, let me know too.

Shall I or not? (to continue blogging here)

Hi there everyone,

Hope all of you had a great weekend. Mine was good coz I spent a nice weekend with my family in Singapore. The weather was nice as it wasn't hot. It rained on Sunday though, but we was indoor in the mall.

However, I am pretty sad coz I have just received news this morning that my dear friend Asther's dad has passed away a few days ago. My deepest condolences to Asther and her family. Take care Asther. Hugs!

Anyway, I am kinda unsure where I should be blogging. Where do you think I should blog? Should I move to my new blogging place or continue as usual back here at blogspot? You gotta let me know if you like me to maintain this blog.

Hope to hear what you think :) Take care and have a great week ahead!

First post elsewhere

As part of my research about social networking site, I created a blog and start doing stuff in somewhere else to see how it works. So I decide to copy and paste my posts from there to here, since I don't have much time to blog anyway.

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To start the first blog is always the hardest.

Most of you already know I've got another blog in blogspot, which I barely update these days.

If I blog, it will be nothing but about work and sleep. These are what I do lately. Gone are my days of gallivanting around - climbing, diving, sneaking away to neighbouring countries , tv tv tv and plentiful of dinners and meet ups with friends.

Anyway, am going to Singapore tonite to meet my dear sister whom has not been back here for a while now. My whole family going too. Nice!

Hopefully there will be a next post in this blog section. I am lazy.

Updates from me again

So many books to buy each time I step into a bookshop. It is scary to be in Kino. It is so tempting. There are tons of books I wish I could buy. The only problem is that I don't have that much of money to buy them. And of course, the time to read.

This is a book I wanna get for the longest time : Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life by Gene O'Kelly. Somehow I always fail to remember the name when I am in a bookshop.

I have been coughing for about month now. It is so irritating. It disrupts my sleep. I am medication now, hoping it will go away real soon. No ice creams, no fruits and no cold drinks for me for now coz it seems that each time I ate or drank one of those, I cough more.

I ate too much "pan mee" these days. I love this noodle, but been eating it almost everyday. I still love my mom's pan mee the best.

My tummy is still bulging. Darn. It is awful esp when I wear baby tees. Must be too much "pan mee". Haha.

I must say that my teammates are bunch of bright, smart and progressive people. They are quick and assertive. Nope, they are not reading my blog, so I am not apple polishing. It is kinda intimidating for me. I kept doubting if I am cut to do this job. But it is good for my soul coz it is sorta like a wake up call and to stop my brain from rusting.

I am learning a lot from my current workplace too. Almost everything is teaching me something. And almost everyday is a learning process.

I miss climbing. I have not climb for ages. I must make time to climb. I must! I must! I must! My new resolution for the last 2 quarters of this year.

I finally watched Season 6 of The Shield, but only up to episode 5. It is really good, the plot is getting thicker. Just another 5 more episodes to go. Then I will start on Criminal Minds, which I have stopped for a long while.

I finished The Earl Season 2. It is such a feel good tv series. It make you laugh too.

I am writing these from work since morning. So, that's it folk. Time for me to pack my bag and go home.

p/s: Hi my dear Arizona, I got your email from Delphinus. It was sent to my old email id. I changed my job, so my email has changed. Luckily she forwarded it to me. I hope you'll know what I have been up to from my last few postings in this blog. And I miss you too. The wed gatherings is missing your presence. Send my best regards to your hubby too :)

Me randomly

Shardy and Patrice are away in Cairns diving. Oh I am so so jealous.


I dunno them, but I sure like reading their blogs. Their writing always brighten up my days - karencheng.com.auand kennysia.com


I can't wait to the end of today. It has been my team's main priority to make today right and perfect since the first day I joined this company. I pray it will go well and we will get the approval.


Everything in life is bittersweet. You just can't have it all. It sure seems some have it all. Or maybe bitter don't bother them. I guess every bitterness we faced in life is a little step to build courage and agility, a time to acknowledge the blessings of sweetness around us and a moment for us to reflect on ourselves.


I forgot who has my "Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hoseini. I forgot who I lent it to. If you are reading this and you are having it, just sms me, k?


It may sound absurd...but don’t be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed...but won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
It’s not easy to be me
I’m only a man
In a funny red sheet
I’m only a man
Looking for a dream
~ Superman by Five For Fighting


Maybe, sometimes, perhaps always, we want people around us to be a little more forgiving, a little less judgmental, a little more accepting of who we are. There is often more to us that what meets the eyes. Take a little time to discover or are we too distracted or too occupied to do so? Or is it the world we are living in now moves so fast that we keep running along and lack of time to dwelve in depth.


Sometimes I think I am weird. When I do, I feel I am all alone. I try to understand the whys and hows. I try to accomodate but inside me, it don't feel right. But I have no answers to the puzzles and I think I am weirder more than ever. Does it make me a freak if I often think and perceive things differently and that I have different aspirations from others? Maybe I am a really weird.


Are you reading or listening to anything nice at the moment? Care to share with me?


I bought a Mitch Albom book - For One More Day in the airport the other day. I almost finished it but I left the book in the plane. I am too careless.


These days, I kept missing everyone around me. I miss my dad, my sister, my mom, my ex colleagues, my close friends, my friends overseas, my climbing buddies, my diving buddies and my cousins. I will try to catch up with you all. I will try to call. I will try to write. And it would be really nice if you could call or write to me once in a while too.

About Web 2.0 and Online Social Networking

Thought I share this in my blog too.

My new immediate boss emailed me this - "k*a, can you please provide some background info on social networking sites, what web2.0 means, what the latest developments in the online world are etc to CFO and COO please?"

So, based on what I have read and am reading now, as well as from the resources of the Internet, I mashed all the infos up and wrote the below for my bosses. Hope you'll enjoy reading it too.

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These 2 articles are pretty good to explain how the term web 2.0 is derived, what web 2.0 means and what it is all about. I needn't explain more :-)

http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

This is my illustration of what is Social Networking Sites. Happy reading!

Social networking is an everyday thing which we human have been doing all along. We go to gatherings or parties or even business meeting to meet other people, meet our friends or make new friends. We call our friends or family to update about our lives or to keep in touch. We go on holiday, we take photos. When we are home again, we write to our friends to inform them about our trips. We send photos too.

Now everyone can perform all the above through the Internet. That is what social networking sites are all about. There are specific social networking sites for specific activities such as blogging, photos, favourite links, videos, etc. And there are social networking sites that provide all these functions for its members such as MySpace, Friendster, MSN Live Spaces, etc.

For e.g. Flicker.com is a site where people store, share and organize photos. It is so simple. With the advancement of digital camera and cheap yet huge storage card, everyone can be a pro in photography. We no longer worry if we have sufficient film rolls. We are not limited by the 36 pieces per roll. So we tend to be trigger happy, camera that is.

We often have hundreds of photos after a holiday trip. Isn't it so convenient that we can just post them all up online and share with all friends and family? We save money from printing hard copy of photos, which are to be given away or burning them ito CDs for our friends or family. Through these photos sites, we can easily allow access to view the photos only to people we know. We can even sell some of our artistic shots online and make some money.

One of the biggest social networking elements is Blog. Blogspot.com and Wordpress.com are examples of sites where people can write about almost anything. Let me illustrate how big is Blogging in this current time.

Blog is such a mania. People are blogging shamelessly about their private lives. It is like an online diary for some. They blog about what they eat, what they see/hear, what they think, about their dreams, their hopes, their fears, their lack of lives, their anger, their frustrations and about their alter ego.

It is speculated that a blog is created in every second. At this moment, it is estimated that there are 60 mil blogs in the cyberspace and by 2010, there will be 500 million blogs. They have become authority in opinions from arts, politics to health and culture. Blogs have became so infinite that it blurs what's true and what's false Most kids are unable to differentiate between credible news written by professional journalist than what they read on kennysia.com. Kenny Sia is a celebrity blogger and he resides in Kuching. He is such a hit and most blog readers love him. I think people might have withdrawal symptoms if he stop blogging.

Another big Web 2.0 thing is Wikipedia. It is an online encyclopaedia where anyone can publish just about anything from apple to zoology. It is estimated that more than 15,000 contributors have 3 millions entries in over hundred over languages. Mind you, none of these are vetted or edited for accuracy. Hundreds of thousands of visitors are estimated to surf to Wikipedia for information. The contents of Wikipedia is trusted by readers, although it has no experts or editors.

And let's not forget You Tube. All of us have, one way or another, view at least 1 video clips from You Tube. The video (via a hyperlink) could be sent to you through email by your friends. You Tube is definitely a haven for amateur videos. It is estimated that 65,000 videos are uploaded to You Tube and 60 mil video clips are being watched per day. Most of the videos you get through You Tubes are absurb and it is again an infinite gallery of people showing off themselves. Well, actually you can almost watch anything through You Tube.

Through a more diverse social networking sites such as Friendster or Mutiply, users can easily do all the above and store them in one area, in their own personal pages, created by themselves for themselves. And share all of their blogs, photos, videos, music, etc with friends or anyone they want.

It is pretty common these days, if you asked someone how his /her holiday trip was, he/she will reply - "Hey just go to my blog or my Mutiply to read about it. Oh btw, I have posted up my photos too. Go check them out!"

That's what online Social Networking is like these days. It is no longer just about publishing, but it is participation. It is not about what the experts say anymore, but it is about you, me and everyone - all free to express ourselves, free to share, to connect, to comment and to communicate - all through the Internet, quite easily too. It is an extremely democratic ecosystem.

Alright, that's all folks, think I will copy this and paste it to my blog and share it with my friends :-)

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I didn't mention all the virtual world sites that are mushrooming these days. A place for you to escape, to do things you can't in your real life. A second life for you. And there is a site called Secondlife.com. Really, you can do almost anything you want there - further your studies, be a pop idea, run a succesful business and even fulfil your wildest sexual fantasies.

Anyway, wiki away anything you want to know ;)

My post on my trip to Hanoi

This was an old post which I saved as draft since 25 May 07. It is unfinished, but I doubt I remember much about my trip now. I am a goldfish. Besides, all the photos which I took in Hanoi are no longer in my pc and they were stored away in another storage area.

I know that I have not been blogging, sorry again. I am not on a hiatus or having any blogging block. Just that I have been too busy with new work and when I am free, I want to be away from my pc.

But I really miss all my friends, family and my carefree days - I have so little time to go around and keeping in touch. So I guess blogging is even the better way to update all my friends about me and my thoughts.

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Before I move on to a new work, I cleared all my leave in the current company. 6 days to Manado in Feb. Another 6 days to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Here are some photos to share with you.

Under the blazing sun, on a steel boat rowed by the local, with the companion of ducks, along the canal to Perfume Pagoda. Took a day tour to visit Perfume Pagoda. It is about 2 hours bus ride outta Hanoi city, then another hour via this steel boat and a 15 mins ride on a cable car - all just to visit a temple in a cave and the Perfume Pagoda.

Junks resting in the calm Halong Bay

The gold sky illuminating the tranquil emerald bay of Halong. The 2days/1 nite tour to Halong Bay, where you can stay in a self-sufficient junk on the calm bay, is good for the soul. Nice break away from the honkings and messy streets of Hanoi.

The rather fascinating interior of the Song Sot Cave in Halong Bay. Huge cave with really nice formations. Nice and cool inside. This photo do no justice to the view you behold in the cave

We are being rowed into 3 caves through the boat ride in Tam Coc. It was another day tour to Tam Coc and Hua Lu. Another 2 and half hours bus ride outta Hanoi city. The the boat ride was really pleasant, due to the nice cool breeze and sunless sky. It seemed like it was going to rain but it didn't. The scenery is nice coz the canal is surrounded by green padi fields on both side. But the boatmen harrased you to buy their goods, mostly embroidery products

Vast green padi fields in a Thai decesdant village.

At the border between China and Vietnam. Apparently this crossing between these 2 countries has just been recently opened, which has helped to forge a strong trading ties.

A group of Black H'mong ladies with children near the marketplace in Sapa town. They are very enterprising - persuasive in selling their crafts and silvers (the cheap stuff are actually steel that are made to look like silver). Some even can converse in English.

Playing football at a square in the middle of Sapa town. It wass pretty cool weather during my visit there>?

Sapa is breathtaking. Everywhere you'll see valleys and hills.