now that i've got time on my hands...

pretty ironic, how the phrase works for me here; now that i've got time on my hands... u c, i just got operated on on thursday, it waz a correctional operation on my right hand for an injury i got three bloody months ago!!! so now that i've got time on my hands to write this piece of crap of a blog entry, i kinda have no hand!!!

yeah, not as funny as i tot it wud be... newaaaaay...

i wuz hospitalised on wednesday right (there was a tv in the room and One Tree Hill was on, so i was alright... just for the record, Sophia Bush is a babe!!!), and the operation was thursday... thursday morning at approximately 6 sumthin, the nurses wakes me up for a bath. gotta use this medical soap thingy u c before the operation. then they let me go bek to sleep. the next thing i noe, i get woken up by this male nurse and he starts wheelin me off... got the whole ER scene in my head. the lights from the lamps on the ceiling and all that jazz. only thing is in ER there aren't holes in the ceiling and there are a whole load of hot 'female' nurses around... damn shows that give false hope!!!

i am taken to a room where they try to cheer me up telling jokes and makin a fool of themselves (the nurses)... only thing is, the jokes were in french, and i dun reli think the french are funny... except Gad El Maleh that is... well, they r funny, i just dun get their jokes sumtimes...

then the jokes stop, and they get serious. an anaesthesists (i dun noe how the hell u spell that and frankly i don give a damn now, as my hand hurts and i forgot to take my pain killers with me... and i gotta get home!!! dun noe y i am xplainin this coze it just takes up more time!!!) arrives. they spread me out. both hands spread wide open and on the left one, they poked in a bloody huge needle (i am not too fond of needles) and attached a tube into my arm!!! the right hand they numb it and voila!!! redi for operation...

the operation lasted about an hour and then they wheeled me bek to my room. i dun reli noe what happened as i kinda dozed off durin surgery, which is not supposed to happen, coz they didn't actually drug me... i was just bored, and seeing as to how powerful the anaesthesicsesxsss was that they injected into my arm, i cudn feel jack... i slept!!!

after that i was totally out!!! my right arm was totally "senseless" and my left one was also un-movable thanks to the tube in it and i felt the weakest i have ever felt in my entire life!!!

flashback to when Lucas Scott was hospitalised in Tree Hill... only difference was, his was a near death experience and he had frens hu actually visited him... me on the other hand... ehem...

so thatz it, i got half the experience of all that shit for half the pain... there were no frenz at my bedside going; "yo man, u gotta get better man, we miss u here back down at the river court", and no gurl squeezing my LEFT hand going "i wish u cud hear me... i... i... i love u..."

but then again, i wasn't reli in a coma now was i??? so thatz that. one thing ive learnt from all this; NEVA CLIMB A FENCE!!! and if u do, at least wear reli thick leather gloves...

merdeitis is back in business baby...

signing out,

aDRiANo

Yo

This blog was not updated for more than 1 month because both of the authors were without home (12 days) and still without internet connection. I am writing this from a McDonald (Wifi, thanks to Starbucks for this wonderful idea) in Rue St.Catherine, Bordeaux. Got to go for now.


gavin

Three decades ago, in 1973, 78 percent of the students attending the nation’s public schools were white and 22 percent were minorities, a category including blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and “other,” according to Education Department statistics. In 2004, the last year for which numbers were available, 57 percent of all public school students were white, while 43 percent were minorities.

From an article in the NY Times, Here.
Such is the strengh of the USA, diversity.

-gAvIn-

An interesting perspective on the Mahathir-Abdullah spat.


Monday, August 21, 2006
Malaysia and its discontents
VIEWPOINT

William Pesek Jr.
Bloomberg News

Journalists in Asia have missed Mahathir Mohamad. The region has been pretty colorless - leader-wise, that is - since Malaysia's firebrand prime minister stepped down in 2003. His successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is the anti-Mahathir: press-shy, affable, soft-spoken and diplomatic. Asia in general features a paucity of larger-than-life, charismatic leaders who speak their minds and, at times, dare to take on the global elites. Blandness often pervades the halls of power from Seoul to Singapore and from Beijing to New Delhi.

So you'll excuse us journalists for rejoicing at Mahathir's return to the spotlight. Yet many Malaysians are less than thrilled. Ditto for investors monitoring Asia's No.10 economy.

Mahathir, 80, has returned with a passion to criticize his handpicked successor, and it's tantalizing this nation of 27 million people. Mahathir's gripe: Abdullah is reversing some of his decisions, including a massive project to build a bridge to neighboring Singapore.

"I gave him time," Mahathir said this month. "I didn't say anything for two years. I was quiet. I observed his promises. I had high expectations. I expected his view to be different from me, but I don't see the government doing what it promises to do."

The former prime minister's impolitic comments may prompt investors to avoid one of Asia's more underappreciated economies. In recent years, most of the surprises in Asian markets came not from reports on growth or inflation, but politics. Asia has seen all too many market-shaking spats, scandals, disputed elections and impeachment efforts.

And so Mahathir's rebukes of the prime minister are unsettling Malaysia's markets, too. "It seems now to be having some effect on a domestic economy which is already slowing," Gerald Ambrose, managing director of Aberdeen Asset Management's Malaysian business, said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur.

Record oil prices are weighing on Malaysia's $131 billion economy, slamming consumer and business confidence. Add to that a slowing U.S. economy and concern about the nation's ability to compete with Asia's upstarts. Malaysia could be too affluent to outperform China; too underdeveloped to join the ranks of Japan or South Korea. It also has a public relations weakness.

That became clear in interviews with investors in the United States and Europe over the last couple of months. There was, of course, huge interest in China and India. Yet in cities like London, New York and Stockholm, I found great interest in economies such as Thailand and Taiwan. In Chicago, Paris and Lisbon, folks wanted to talk about Korea, Singapore and Vietnam. In Brussels, San Francisco and Washington, it was Indonesia and Japan.

Oddly, Malaysia didn't come up unless I mentioned it first. Given its rich resources, technology industries and unique status as a moderate, predominantly Muslim nation, you'd think Malaysia would be a bigger blip on investors' radar screens. It's not, and politics bear some of the blame.

In his 22 years in power, Mahathir morphed a tropical backwater into an Asian tiger. While it doesn't excuse him for bizarrely blaming Jews for Malaysia's troubles in the late 1990s, Mahathir had his economic successes. Yet Malaysia has been too slow to boost entrepreneurship and move beyond manufacturing and resource-based industries.

Whether it's wounded pride, an attempt to look out for associates hoping to profit from his megaprojects, or anger at the release from prison of his former rival, Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir is back with a vengeance.

Mahathir has a point on at least one thing: Abdullah can be painfully indecisive. Many Malaysians are disappointed by how timidly Abdullah has attacked corruption and policies giving preferential treatment to the ethnic Malay majority. Abdullah should also go further to convince Malaysians that his family hasn't benefited from government contracts, as Mahathir has alleged.

Many of Mahathir's other protests are weak, at best, relating to megaprojects that seem more about pride than necessity. If the former prime minister is upset that Abdullah is unilaterally scrapping his initiatives, he has himself to blame. It was Mahathir who masterminded the centralization of power that Abdullah wields. In Malaysia, for example, one man acts as both prime minister and finance minister. It's an awkward arrangement that should be reconsidered.

Even if Mahathir's concerns are legitimate - and one certainly meets businesspeople who share them - he needs to learn to bite his tongue for the good of Malaysia's economy.

"It might be difficult to swallow at first, but for the sake of keeping his dignity intact and sparing us unnecessary embarrassment, he should disabuse himself quickly of any notion he might continue to harbor about his indispensability to the Malaysian body politic," Tunku Abdul Aziz, a former head of Transparency International Malaysia, wrote in the New Straits Times on Wednesday. Mahathir must learn to "eat humble pie once out of office," he said.

Mahathir is anything but a spent power. He still has charisma to spare, and retains a clear vision of where Malaysia should be in 2010, 2020 and beyond.

Yet along with tarnishing his legacy, his tirades could unnerve investors and dent the government's credibility abroad.

Fair or not, Malaysia still has a lot of work to do on its public relations. The economy deserves more attention from international investors than it receives. It won't get much - at least not the kind it wants - with its present and former leaders trading barbs.


-gAvIn-

-gAvIn-

月亮代表我的心 -经典


Found this in youtube (i was bored...), beautiful voice and girl, what can you ask for more? It's just the voice and some simple guitar chords, nothing fancy, but it's sublime!




-gAvIn-

Some TV is worth watching

Some TV is worth watching

From Google Video, we can now watch the classic (which means the eighties) Milton Friedman television series Free to Choose. Watch them if you want to understand more about economics.

Volume 1: Power of the Market
Volume 2: The Tyranny of Control
Volume 3: Anatomy of a Crisis
Volume 4: From Cradle to Grave
Volume 5: Created Equal
Volume 6: What’s Wrong With Our Schools?
Volume 7: Who Protects the Consumer?
Volume 8: Who Protects the Worker?
Volume 9: How to Cure Inflation
Volume 10: How to Stay Free


-gAvIn-

http://www.google.com.my/

As a Malaysian user, I am really surprised that http://www.google.com.my/ is only offered in English and Bahasa Melayu. If we would take a look at the demographics taken from the CIA World Factbook, the population is composed of : Malay 50.4%, Chinese 23.7%, Indigenous 11%, Indian 7.1%, others 7.8% (2004 est.) Although it is right that the majority of us do speak English and Bahasa Melayu, the usage of Chinese (simplified) and Indian (tamil) are widespread, and thus, should be offered.

If you were to use the argument that there are not enough potential users or that it does not make economic sense, we just have to simply take a look at http://www.google.ch/, which offers English, Français, Italiano and Rumantsch, although the population speaking Italian and Rumantsch are only 6.5% and 0.5% respectively. I do hope that they add the language options soon.

-gAvIn-

Food for thought - schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a common english word borrowed from German, it means enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others. While at the superficial sense it seems terribly immoral, most of us, if honest enough, would remember occasions in which we practiced schadenfreude. According to classical evolution theory, we should feel happy if our rival took a fall; however, a newer generation of evolution scientist actually found some compelling reasons for teamwork, rather than the old fashioned adage of "every man for himself".

I for one, would commit myself to be as un-schadenfreude as possible.


-gAvIn-

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Many Malaysians are well aware of the 1992-1995 war that engulfed Bosnia. It was a three way conflit between the orthodox Serbs, the muslim Bosniaks and the catholic Croats. It was by far the bloodiest and most widely covered of the Yugoslav wars. I remember the massive donation drive in our newspapers and TV and the military and humanitarian aid our country offered to them later.

A fews days ago in a volunteer work in Sondernach, near Metzeral, I had the opportunity to actually meet a bosnian political refugee. When he knew that I come from Malaysia, he warmed up immediately and we had some good chat together. According to him, the serbs, croats and bosniaks are actually of the same origin, the same root; the only difference between them is their religion. This was enough to actually cause the bloody war and the ensuing sufferings. After 3 years of war, 100 000 are killed and 2 million displaced, which is a very significant proportion of the population considering that their habitant is only around 5 million.

In his family alone, his brother, whom he says to be the smartest fled to the US in 1993, just 1 week before the war. His second brother fled to Sweden after the war ended while he came to France in 2004. He bemoans the fact that his country is in a deep mess now: with 3 seperate government and ruling councils in his country, massive corruption, more than occasional violence and massive sell out of Bosnian assets to foreigners.

I asked him if he plans to settle down in France since things are alot better here, he shaked his head and told me that he does not like France. He says that people are more friendlier in Bosnia, with neighbours having lively debates around BBQ and children playing animatedly around whereas here, the buildings are beautiful, households are affluent but where are the children and what happended to the camaraderie among neighbours? He told me that although his son, who speaks fluent french may want to stay back, he will always return to Bosnia. What a true patriot!

Talking about Malaysia, he told me that our country greatly aided Bosnia and he is very indebted to us. He mentioned also about a big mosque that the malaysian government donated for them in Sarajevo. He also asked about "sarong", "nasi lemak", our former pm mahathir and also talked about how blessed malaysians are. Frankly, I am humbled that whatever contributions that Malaysian gave did not go unnoticed by the Bosnians amidst the great sufferings they have gone through and I am very proud to be a Malaysian. Throughout the day, sadness and regret were clearly written on his face, I wish him the best and that one day he could go back to Bosnia in peace. Shalom.


-gAvIn-