Cool Plane Design

In the domestic Melbourne terminal on my last trip to Brisbane, I spotted this magnificant design on our one and only Malaysian Airlines. It's really something. Wouldn't you say so?

Is this how they waste their time in Parliament?

I read this article in The StarOnline this morning.

The article was basically about an MP Abdul Fatah using the words "Janda gatal". Randy divorcees? A crude way to put it, HORNY divorcees?

Here's an excerpt :

Rantau Panjang MP Abdul Fatah (Gatal?) Harun, under attack from women's groups from within his party (PAS) for his comments about janda gatal, is sticking to his guns.

He said he has withdrawn the word gatal in the Dewan Rakyat but did not relent on his stand that many janda have this trait. He said he would not issue a public apology as demanded by Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.


He stated/accused/argued, however you interpret it, divorcees of being more "randy" than widows. My goodness. I find it hard to believe that a politician, someone who represents us would actually make such a ridiculous comment and for what reason? FROM what evidence? It's so crude and random. No, actually, knowing our politicians, it's completely believable.

Now a whole bunch of parties are after him and in the process not doing what they're suppose to be doing. Eg. Ruling the country? HELLO?!?

Now I know why we send the same people back to government everytime. It's not because they're better, but they're just the lesser of two evils. From the statement above, you can tell we probably don't have much of a choice.

Musical Melbourne

Went out alone today as Annie and Betty had classes. Wanted to get groceries before weekend rush so I can concentrate on my assignments.

Dropped by Allan's for new reeds. Luckily the 2 and a half Vandoren were in stock. Here's a sight for sore eyes, brand new instruments:

Yamaha and Buffet Clarinets

... with the Flutes...

...and a wide variety of Saxophones.

Musicians on the streets....

Bourke Street Saxophonist

Lonsdale Street Violinist

I finally got my shopping done. All 63.36 dollars of it. Yea yea.. go buy 4D. 6336. What are the chances?

For the three of us next week...

Spotted random advert in Chinatown...

Don't forget Buddha's Day on 20th May

Colours of Autumn

I feel very lucky for such views on the way to school and back everyday.

Uni Square 1- on the way

South Lawn - on the way

Uni Square 2 - on the way, this morning

Uni Square - back home, yesterday evening

Entry 10 - back home

And that funny memorial for Thomas Ferguson in the middle of Uni Square,

try see what it says

Yeap.. He was the "Secretary Melbourne Total Abstinence Society"

Sitting

Sitting in the library waiting for my 4.15pm class. It's 3.51pm here now btw. I just realized that my blog is still set to Malaysian time. Oh well.. :)

Managed to finish a couple of readings in this longggggggggggggggggggg interim (12pm-4.15pm). Sucks doesnt it? And it happens every Monday and Wednesday.

Will post later. Got a really nice picture I wanna show everyone :)

Quote 1

"You know, the opposite of love isn't hate.. it's indifference." - Bree Van deKamp

New Kuching Airport

WOAH!

Would you guys check this out? The New Kuching International Airport!!
The last time I was there (December 2005), my father's old place by the river looks even better. What happened to that old decapitated building?

Disclaimer : Pictures taken from http://www.anthonyt.cjb.net

Brisbane Trip, Australian National Band Championships 2006

Hi guys!I just got back this morning (By now it's two mornings ago). Had a very entertaining weekend of music at the Australian National Band Championships but ran into some trouble nevertheless.

On the first night I arrived, I checked into YHA Brisbane which is a youth hostel. Hmm.. The worst of luck happened, I met a racist. I walked into my room and the girl was standing there, glaring at me menacingly. It went something like this :

Girl : What are you doing here?
Me : I stay here. Top bunk.
Girl : Where you from? You fucking Asian get out. Go back to where you fucking belong.

Geez.. -.-" I left the room after that, put my luggage in a locker and left for the competition (Solo Brass). When I came back, I waited outside till I was sure they (I had two roommates) were asleep and went back into the room. The next morning I got my refund, and checked into another place. No doubt I felt quite stressed about the whole situation. Not that I've never met a racist ever before, but not one who's quite so in my face. I truly believe racism can only be taught and is not innate. Therefore, the girl's parents must have had something to do with such prejudice and I can only imagine how her children will grow up to be like.

The other bit of "mess", if you can call it one compared to the first, was the lack of chinese food in Brisbane. Chinatown was about 30 minutes walk away and I did not have the time to walk there for every meal. For the first three days I ate sandwiches and burgers. You can bet it will be quite sometime before I down a lettuce or tomato again. Luckily on the fourth day I sort of found my bearings and remembered the small chinese place my family and I dined at the last time we went to Brisbane. Although the rendang was far from satisfactory, it was a change from all that bread. LOL..

Here's how the competition worked. Very different from ours by the way. They had three kinds of competitions :
1) Brass Band Competition (Junior [19 and below] and Open [19 and above])
2) Concert Band Competition (same as above)
3) Soloist Competition (same as above)

Both Band categories are judged as follows :
A. Stage Performance
1) Hymn Song (selected from a list)
2) Test Piece (a piece selected by the judge)
3) Stage March (selected from a list)
4) Own Choice

B. Marching Competition
1) Drill
2) Music

And the Soloists have to play a piece selected by the judge.

I met this very friendly guy called Adrian from the Brisbane Excelsiors, the champions of the Open Brass category last year and this year. He kindly explained to me the rules of grading and all other questions I had (which were enough to drive one crazy). All bands are put into different Grades. Grade A through to Grade D. When a Grade B Band has won a few times in its category, it is promoted to Grade A and when you lose a few times, you get demoted. There were many surprising things about this competition. Firstly, there was only ONE judge for the Band categories and that judge is from UK where the top Brass Bands in the world come from. Secondly, the audience was made out of elderly people. Yeap. All the ah peks and ah mus. At first I thought these people were just bored so they came to watch. Guess what? These people are retired band members. Believe it or not, I talked to this 93 YEAR OLD great grandpa by the name of Fred Callum who used to play the trombone with the Brisbane Excelsiors (the champions) and comes to watch them play every year. Now that's what I call loyalty! He's been playing since he was 14 and retired in 1973 (when he was 60). I thought he was kidding, coz it sounds impossible. However, on Sunday night, when there was a concert featuring a world reknown percussionist Simone Rebello, they announced his birthday (which was on Monday) and acknowledged his presence. Wah lao.. this guy is for real..

Thirdly, I was surprised that Marching Bands were not very popular in Australia. They preferred either Brass Bands or Concert Bands. The concert bands had the usual kind of instrumentation that we know : clarinet, flute, bassoon, oboe, piccolo, bass clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, baritone sax, soprano sax, french horn, alto horn, baritone, euphonium, trombone, tuba, cello, trumpet, timpani, marimba, snare, bass, xylophone etc. The Brass Bands had a section made of cornets and flugel horns which was an entirely new thing to me. Hahaha.. maybe I'm just stupid Is anyone else aware of this? The rest we know, like alto horns, trombones, and all the other bass stuff.

I had the honour of sitting with the Brisbane Excelsiors when the results were announced. LOL. As I had the program book, we calculated each of the sections as the marks were revealed. It was between the Brisbane Excelsiors, Dalewool Auckland (New Zealand) and St Kilda Brass (New Zealand). Needless to say, they went crazy when they won! LOL!! Unfortunately, my camera battery ran out then. -.-" Managed about 2 seconds of the victory cry before it shut down.

On the final night, I was lucky to witness a proposal! One of the band members from Castle Hill RSL North West Wind Ensemble proposed to his girlfriend on stage. Hahah.. what an uproar that was. The woman expressed her feelings about having met him through band activities, as well as all the friends which the band experience has brought her. That really truly ocnfirmed to me the significance such an experience could be. It cleared any doubts I might have had in the past, including thinking that I must be crazy to be so paranoid over band when nobody else is at home. After a weekend filled with passionate people who have been at it for decades, it's hard not to believe what you're doing is enriching and worthwhile.

Hmm.. after all that.. here are some videos I took. Someone's gonna kill me for the Solo Brass Comp coz I did something stupid.. My camera was held portrait position, therefore.. the video is.... sideways.. -.-" I realized that during the Solo Woodwind Comp.. so.. I guess it's pretty much bad luck coz the Solo Brass Comp was the first comp held and it became my white mice.

St Kilda Brass - Dunedin, New Zealand (1st Runner Up, Open Brass Comp)
Hymn Song - The Day Thou Gavest by Wilby

Brisbane Excelsiors - Brisbane, Australia (Champions, Open Brass Comp)
Stage March - ORB by Anderson

Castle Hill RSL North West Wind Ensemble (Champions, Open Concert Comp)
Stage March - Vanished Army by Alford
http://rapidshare.de/files/18374761/Castle...Alford.MPG.html

QYO Wind Symphony
Stage March - The Dambuster by Duthoit

Alto Saxophone Champion - AmyLouise Walduck

Tenor Saxophone Champion - Ben Hull

Baritone Saxophone Champion - Beau Webb

Piccolo Champion - Katrine Ross

Oboe Champion - Renee Badcock

What have I learnt from this comp? Well.. it has taugh me how to appreciate the more classical type of music apart from the usual popular music we play.. also, now i know it's never too old (or too late!) to enjoy music and to jam on your instrument!! even if you live to be 100

Ninth Malaysian Plan and all the other crap just like it..

I'm no economist but the question is, "So what's new?"
Penangites might be happy about the huge transportation budget, but then again, how much of that is going to come true? And WHEN?

More budget to Sarawak and Sabah development.. we'll see about that.

The main issue that got me peeved is Chap 1, Thrust Three.

Can the bullshit on economic inequalities would ya? How much has that improved over the years? Plan after plan? Even if there's a god forsaken increase on the index, how much of it is actually going to the poor? They're using race divisions to justify this crap. The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer.

Blatant CORRUPTION. You can NEP my ass.


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Taken from Jeff Ooi's blog (http://www.jeffooi.com)
Parliament Speech: MP Loh Seng Kok gets 'ultimatum'
March 15, the Member of Parliament in my Subang Jaya neighbourhood Loh Seng Kok (BN/MCA - Kelana Jaya) took to the floor in the august hall of the Dewan Rakyat.
In a no-holds-barred speech, Loh complained about ‘imbalanced’ history textbooks, new prayer recital guidelines and the problems faced by non-Muslims with regards to places of worship. He said the syllabus of history textbooks ignored the contribution of non-bumiputeras and only emphasised on the Islamic civilisation.
At the end of his speech, his party colleague Mohamed Aziz (BN/UMNO - Sri Gading) issued a caution to Loh, saying his words could be interpreted in a ‘dangerous’ way.
Please refer to the Malaysiakini archive here, and the Hansard here.
It is learnt that, six days later, some 50 Umno Youth members, led by Kelana Jaya division chief Abdul Halim Samad, paid Loh a surprise visit at his Subang Jaya service centre at about 9.30pm.
Protest letter
Loh was handed a protest letter. According to Malaysiakini, Abdul Halim told him, “We don’t want to hear any explanation now; this is our letter, you read and answer it.”
The MP was also purportedly told that Umno Youth would “take action” if he failed to respond to the letter within several days. Some in the group had brought along video cameras to record the brief meeting.
It is learnt that the Youth wing has rejected Loh’s proposal to set up a religious development department on the grounds that this would undermine the position of Islam as the official religion.
According to Malaysiakini, the Kelana Jaya division had apparently held a meeting to discuss the speech and concluded that Loh’s proposal had hurt the feelings of Malay Malaysians, who make up the majority of voters in the parliamentary constituency of the same name.
It is also learnt that a copy of the letter to Loh has been sent to Umno leaders at the national, state and divisional levels, as well as to Malay-based non-governmental organisations.
Malaysiakini has set up a special mailbag for this. You may email your comments on the above issue to Malaysiakini at
voxpopuli@malaysiakini.com
Your email may be published in Malaysiakini. Please indicate in your email if you wish to remain anonymous.
As such, this blog topic topic will not accept any commentaries and I would like you to email your thoughts to Malaysiakini instead. However, if you so wish, you are welcome to copy your email to Malaysiakini to me.
From Malaysiakini archive
Religion & History: BN MP with all guns blazing Beh Lih YiMar 15, 06 7:05pm
A Barisan Nasional (BN) parliamentarian today raised the temperature in the Dewan Rakyat by touching on history and religion. This prompted another BN MP to issue a caution.
In a no-holds-barred speech, Loh Seng Kok (BN-Kelana Jaya) complained about ‘imbalanced’ history textbooks, new prayer recital guidelines and the problems faced by non-Muslims with regards to places of worship.
Loh said the syllabus of history textbooks ignored the contribution of non-bumiputeras and only emphasised on the Islamic civilisation.
Terming it as “incomplete and imbalanced”, he said the syllabus does not encourage critical thinking among the students.
“For instance, the fight against the Japanese Occupation during World War II is portrayed as only the effort of the Malays but ignored the role of Chinese and Indian Malaysians,” he added.
Furthermore, he said the syllabus from Form One to Form Five does not provide a deeper understanding of other civilisations.
“Five out of the 10 chapters in the Form Four history textbook only focused on the Islamic civilisation,” he added.
Prayer recital guideline
Earlier, Loh also complained about the prayer recital guidelines which were being drafted by the Department of Islamic Development (Jakim).
According to him, the new guidelines would be imposed on “everyone and every government and private agency” during official or semi-official functions.
“The guidelines are being drafted without consultation, reference or discussion with representatives of other religions,” he said while seconding the motion to thank the royal address.
“This is against the principle of respect, understanding, discussion and transparency promoted by the government and its leaders,” he added.
Loh also urged the government not to ignore providing allocation and basic facilities for non-Muslim places of worship.
He claimed that one of the problems faced was the Registrar of Societies (ROS) revoking the registration of these places of worship without strong reasons.
For example, he said a church was recently de-registered by the ROS due to confusion regarding its membership, failing to publicly display meeting notices and accepting university students as church members without prior consent from the university’s vice-chancellor.
In view of this, Loh said the time was ripe for the establishment of a religions development department.
He said the department would be seen as a step towards recognising other religions and upholding the spirit of religious freedom enshrined in the federal constitution.
“If Jakim is needed, the religions development department must be established as well,” he added.
‘Dangerous’ interpretation
At the end of his speech, Mohamed Aziz (BN-Sri Gading) issued a caution to Loh, saying his words could be interpreted in a ‘dangerous’ way.
“The country’s harmony is based on the nation’s history, where there was a consensus reached by the different ethnic groups... we shouldn’t just look at superficial issues.
“The nation has also never denied freedom of religion,” he added.
Also irked was Salahuddin Ayub (PAS-Kubang Kerian), who told Loh not to question the prayer recital guidelines.
He warned that the BN MP’s speech could lead to a rift between the different races.
In another development, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in a written reply to Chow Kon Yeow (DAP-Tanjong) today reiterated his rejection to the formation of an interfaith commission.
He said the proposal had caused controversies and widened the division among different religions.
However, the premier added that dialogues will be held between the various faiths from time to time.
BN MP gets 'ultimatum' from Umno YouthBeh Lih YiMar 28, 06 5:21pm
A MCA parliamentarian’s scathing speech on religion and history in the Dewan Rakyat two weeks ago has prompted an unannounced visit by Umno Youth members bearing a protest letter.
On March 15, Kelana Jaya MP Loh Seng Kok had complained in the House about the ‘imbalance’ in the history textbook syllabus, Muslim prayer recital guidelines and the problems faced by non-Muslims in relation to places of worship.
One of his peers had warned him then about the potential hazards of speaking his mind and about his choice of words.
It is learnt that, six days later, some 50 Umno Youth members, led by Kelana Jaya division chief Abdul Halim Samad, paid him a visit. Their sudden arrival at about 9.30pm took those at the office by surprise.
Loh was handed a protest letter. It is learnt that Abdul Halim told him, “We don’t want to hear any explanation now; this is our letter, you read and answer it.”
The MP was also purportedly told that Umno Youth would “take action” if he failed to respond to the letter within several days. Some in the group had brought along video cameras to record the brief meeting.
It is learnt that the Youth wing has rejected Loh’s proposal to set up a religious development department on the grounds that this would undermine the position of Islam as the official religion.
The Kelana Jaya division had apparently held a meeting to discuss the speech and concluded that Loh’s proposal had hurt the feelings of Malay Malaysians, who make up the majority of voters in the parliamentary constituency of the same name.
It is also learnt that a copy of the letter to Loh has been sent to Umno leaders at the national, state and divisional levels, as well as to Malay-based non-governmental organisations.
‘Sensitive matter’
Contacted today, Abdul Halim confirmed that he had submitted a protest letter to Loh but declined to comment on the contents.
Asked for the reasons behind the division’s discontent, he replied: “There are two or three grounds but I cannot tell you over the phone now.”
On whether the division had gone to the MP’s office to teach him a lesson, he refused to comment, saying that it was a “sensitive” matter.
Meanwhile, Loh when met at Parliament, said he is willing to meet with anyone.
“I don’t deny that there are people who have visited me. I am willing to explain to anyone the context of my speech,” said the first-term MP and former aide to ex-MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik.
It is learnt that a dialogue will be held this week between the Umno Youth Kelana Jaya division and Loh.
Selangor Umno deputy chief Muhammad Muhd Taib is said to have been informed of the matter, but could not be reached for comment.
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And so ends another episode of our lovely administration..