Oh, the irony...

I was pretty amused when I read this :

Raptors guard Jose Calderon was honored at center court before the Cleveland Cavaliers vs Toronto Raptors game for posting an NBA-record 98.1 free throw percentage last season, making 151 of 154. Calderon later missed his first two free throws.

I guess that Calderon will find it pretty nigh impossible to match that record this season after his start.

New toys on the block

Catriona's new toys.

Another little step ...

We've got her folding clothes now.

Interesting, innit ?

Here's an interesting little tidbit; a water bridge built over a river!

Located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin, the channel bridge is built over the River Elbe and joins the former East and West Germany.

It is 918 meters long and took 6 years and 500 million Euros to complete.

And for a little quiz :

Does the bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water ?

Answer :

It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water.

Why ?

A ship always displaces an amount of water that weights the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.

In which Hannah Tan is mentioned ....

What do the White Stripes, the Racounteurs, Jack Johnson and Neil Halstead have to do with music in Malaysia ? Well, other than all of them being artistes that I've listened to and liked to varying degrees.

In fact, they all belong to two recording labels who have jointly signed a Malaysian singer. Born in Miri, Sarawak and based in KL for the last 10 years, Zee Avi signed with Monotone/Brushfire Records late last year.

Her's is a modern success story - success to the extent of signing a recording contract, to date. Discovered through that great talent show - no, not Malaysian Idol, or American Idol, or Britain's Got Talent, or any of their ilk - via YouTube. Zee's got an album out and is currently on tour in the US.

So, despite all the publicity for Hannah Tan being the first Malaysian to produce an album in Japan, my bet's on Zee to succeed before Hannah Tan.

Seriously good shit. And it's not because I'm trying to be patriotic here.

As an aside, you can read about the press conference for Hannah Tan's recording deal here. In it, her record company's CEO pointed out the qualities that he noticed about Hannah. That would be : her wonderful smile, her strong influence among the Asian pop-culture market, fast growing web presence, humility and positive attitude. I though it was terrible but will leave you to figure out the reason why.

Champions ... really ?

Yesterday, someone mentioned to me that Ghana were deserving champions of the under-20 World Cup. He then went on to elaborate on how Ghana had played for 80 minutes with 10 men (after a red card for one of their defenders) and had still held on to beat Brazil on penalties.

Truth is, I hadn’t even noticed that the under-20 World Cup had been going on. So I kept quiet and listened and nodded.

Now that I’ve had a chance to look it up, I realize why I had not noticed that the tournament was being held over the past month. The European season had already started, the World Cup qualifiers were still going on, and some of the biggest young stars in the European leagues were not even at the under-20 World Cup.

Even a short list reads like a who’s who of emerging teenage football talents :

• Mario Balotelli (Italy – Inter Milan)
• Thomas Muller (Germany – Bayern Munich)
• Bojan Krkic (Spain – Barcelona)
• Theo Walcott (England – Arsenal)

Besides these starlets, there were a host of other players who remained with their clubs throughout the under-20 World Cup with some of them even joining their country’s senior team for the World Cup qualifiers.

So Ghana won the under-20 World Cup. Big deal.

Sadly, I feel that FIFA have done a great disservice to the World Cup name and in reality, Ghana have merely won a second tier youth tournament. Wouldn’t it have been better for FIFA to have held the tournament in June or July, just like the World Cup, when all the young starlets would have been available ?

The anti-prawn sandwich people

Bill Shankly, Liverpool FC's most famous manager is credited with this very memorable quote :

" Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that. "

Well, let me introduce to you a Portsmouth Football Club fan who embodies that statement.

Meet Mr. John A. Westwood.

He has travelled to every Portsmouth game, home and away, since 1980. He has 60 Portsmouth tattoos on his body, the club crest shaved on to his head and "PFC" engraved on his teeth. He doesn't wear a shirt at Portsmouth games, no matter what the weather, so that said 60 tattoos are on display. And for pretty much the entire game, he rings a bell, blows a bugle and bashes a big bass drum. And in 1989, he legally changed his name by deed poll.

Meet Mr. John Anthony Portsmouth Football Club Westwood.

Any takers for Manchester United ?

Gag

Sometimes things just stick in the throat and make you feel like choking, like this view held by UMNO man Abdul Shukur Idrus as reported by The Star here (article entitled Reduce Federal aid to Pakatan state govts, go straight to rakyat).

An extract :

Abdul Shukur said the Pakatan Rakyat-ruled Selangor government gave RM1,000 to finance funeral arrangements to the people in the state while Umno provided RM300.

“The state government also provided RM1,500 to the elderly. The people in the state are talking about the opposition government giving aid to the people.

“Little do the people know that what the opposition government is giving comes from the Barisan Nasional Federal government,” he claimed when debating the president’s policy speech at the Umno General Assembly here on Friday.

Abdul Shukur said the Federal Government should reduce payments to the opposition state governments so that the people there could see which party provided greater assistance.

Seriously.

Even if this was said at the UMNO General Assembly, I do hope that some of the delegates are capable of thinking a little deeper than this fellow's shallow thoughts.

To say that the PR-ruled Selangor govt is getting funds from the BN Federal govt is fair enough. To conclude that this shows the BN Federal govt is providing greater assistance to the rakyat, I think, misses one fundamental point.

If the PR Selangor govt is getting PART of their funds from the BN Federal govt, where does this fellow think the BN Federal govt is getting ALL their funds from ? Petronas money, personal and corporate tax - aren't all these funds that belong to the rakyat ?

Therein lies the issue. There are some within BN who think of govt money as BN money which they deign to give to the rakyat via aid or development or what not. The way I see it, it's the rakyat which has given this money to the Federal govt to act as stewards.

The ownership of the money is with the rakyat. The Federal govt are given the funds to manage and disburse in a caring and responsible manner - and this remains the case whether the Federal govt is led by BN, PR or Muthu who lives in the junk yard.

Whither now, MCA ?

I was in a meeting when two colleagues of mine said that they had to go to a meeting on Thursday, with a view to challenge for the president's post. Turns out that they were referring to the MCA central committee meeting which will be held in 2 days time. The irony of it is that neither of them are MCA members, nor politicians or even Chinese for that matter.

Yes, it has come to this. While the knives are being unsheathed in the MCA, it's probably the jokes which reflect the sentiment of the Mandarin-medium educated Chinese. Like this one from a friend of mine :

It was during breakfast yesterday with one client, he quipped and told me candidly ...........now MCA (马来西亚华人公会) .......... translation, is now known as = Moh Wah Kung Wooi = Speechless Association.

Another quick witted client of mine quickly added in Moh Ngah Kung Wooi = Toothless Association.

How apt is the two new names given to MCA ................. God Save the Queen, God should also save MCA !!!

Maybe it's time for somebody to set up a new party, call it "Chinese Power!" and invite Najib to officiate at the opening ceremony.

Hmmmmm.......

Let's ignore the lip service that Muhyiddin occasionally spouts about BN's / UMNO's appreciation of the contribution of the Chinese to nation building in Malaysia, which can be read in this article : BN recognises contributions of the Chinese.

What I find really interesting in said article is this statement by Muhyiddin :

"In terms of value, 47 per cent of the nation's wealth is controlled by the Chinese, the Malays 18 per cent and Indians about one per cent."

Let me see, 47% + 18% + 1% = 66%

So this begs the question, who owns the other 34% ?

The category 'dan lain-lain' ? The government ? UMNO ? Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing ?

Does make you wonder, doesn't it ?

15malaysia

There's an interesting site featuring 15 short films made by Malaysian filmmakers which can be found at http://15malaysia.com .

Interestingly, they're encouraging free downloads and embedding of their content. So I've embedded the first one I watched.

Najib's 1 Malaysia

In honour of Najib's 1 Malaysia, which will soon become 1 Region, and eventually 1 World.

Seriously, who's to say that Najib can't do it ? He's already got 1 Perak and is aiming for 1 Selangor.

Today - 1 Malaysia

Tommorrow - 1 Region

Next week - 1 World

Sea Of Love

Before Natalie Cole popularized a whole new genre with remakes of her father's songs, there weren't many musicians who left their genres to dabble in a jazz, swing or big band sound. There must have been a few but right now I can only think of Linda Rondstadt and The Honeydrippers.

Nowadays, there are a whole clutch of musicians who have produced, if not a whole album, then at least a few songs.

But through it all, one song has remained a personal favourite of mine. The Honeydrippers is a remarkable group. They only ever came out with one EP, a total of 5 songs. But a perusal of the group members reveals a remarkable musical pedigree :

* Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin

* Jimmy Page, guitarist in The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin

* Jeff Beck, guitarist in The Yardbirds and later solo

Imagine that. Mix one of the greatest rock singers of his era, and two guitarists listed in the top 15 of Rolling Stones' 100 Top Guitarists list, throw in a couple other musicians, and you'll get a remake of "Sea Of Love".

China's 60th

There are some really good photos of China's 60th anniversary at the Boston Globe here.