Relatively Dysfunctional

Seoul

2007-08-27T16:11:00.001+08:00

I'm off to Seoul this weekend. Here's some travel info I found...

General
Korea uses American style sockets and voltage. You will need an adapter for your appliances.

Weather
Thu        Fri         Sat        Sun        Mon        Tue
T-showers    Partly Cloudy    Mostly Cloudy    Partly Cloudy    Partly Cloudy    Sunny
High: 26°C    High: 28°    High 29°    High 27°    High 28°    High 27°
Low: 18°C    Low: 18°    Low 19°        Low 20°        Low 20°        Low 20°
Summers are generally hot and humid, with monsoons taking place from June until September. August, the hottest month, has an average temperature of 22 °C to 30 °C (72 °F to 86 °F) with higher temperatures possible.

Language
Hello/Good Morning/Good Afternoon/Good Evening/How are you? Annyeonghaseyo? Ahn yawng hah seh yoh?
Hello (Answering telephone, Getting someone's attention) Yeoboseyo? Yaw boh seh yoh?
Goodbye (Say to someone leaving) Annyeonghi kaseyo. Ahn yawng hee kah seh yoh.
Goodbye (Say when you are leaving) Annyeonghi kyeseyo. Ahn yawng hee kyeh seh yoh.
Nice to meet you. Manna boeeo ban gapseumnida. Mahna beh bahn gahp sum nee dah.
Thank you. Kamsahamnida. Kam sahm nee da.
You're welcome. Cheonmaneyo. Chawn mahn neh yoh.
Yes. Ye/Ne. Yeh/Neh.
No. Aniyo. Ah nee yoh.
Help me. Dowa juseyo.
I don't understand Korean. Hanguk-eo neun motamnida. Hahn gookaw noon motahmnida.
I don't understand. Moreugesseumnida. Moh ruh geh sum nee da.
Do you speak English? Yeong-eo hashimnikka? Yawng-aw hasheemneeka?
Write it down on paper, please. Jong ie sseo boseyo. Johng ee eh saw boh seh yoh.

How much is it? Eol-ma ye-yo
It is expensive. Bi-ssa-yo
Give me a discount, please. Jom ggak-a-ju-se-yo
Can I try it on? Jom ibeo-bado doel-ka-yo?
Clothes. Ot
Pants. Ba-ji
T-Shirt. T-sheo-cheu
Shoes. Shin-bal
Skirt. Chi-ma

blue     Haneul saeg. Hah nul sak.
brown     Gal saeg. Gahl sak.
gray     Hoe saeg. Hwee sak.
green     Nok saeg. Nohk sak.
pink     Bun hong saeg. Boon hohng saek.
purple Bora saeg. Boh rah sak.
red     Ppalgan saeg. Pahl gahn sak.
white     Huin saeg. Hween sak.
yellow Noran saeg. Noh rahn sak.
black     Geomeum saeg. Gawmun sak.

0    yawng
1    eel
2    ee
3    sahm
4    sah
5    oh
6    yook
7     cheel
8    pahl
9    goo
10    sheep
11    sheep eel
20    ee sheep
100     baek
1,000    chun
10,000    mahn
20,000    ee mahn
100,000 sheemmahn
1,000,000 baekmahn

RM1 = 270 Won
SGD1 = 619 Won

Item            Price
small bottle of water     Won 500.00
litre of petrol         Won 1, 500.00
souvenir t-shirt         Won 5,000.00
movie ticket         Won 7,000.00
movie ticket         Won 7,000.00
local newspaper     Won 700.00
half litre of beer         Won 1,000.00
litre of bottled water     Won 1, 100.00
loaf of bread         Won 1,600.00
street snack (Tteobokki)Won 2,000.00
food court lunch     Won 6,000.00

Average Meal Prices
Low         Mid         High
W2300-3400     W3400-12000     W12000-20000

Transportation
Subway
The Seoul subway system is probably the best way to get to major points of interest around the city. It is pretty inexpensive, and faster in most cases than taking a taxi. About the hardest thing is figuring out where you are going. But, if you have directions in advance, learning to navigate the subways are actually pretty easy. About every popular destination in Seoul has a train stop so get a stored price ticket and zip anywhere through town. Every arrival will be announced in English and Korean. Signs are also written in English and Korean.

Things to do
Dongdaemun (Great East Gate)
It is one of the largest shopping districts in the world and has just about anything the heart could ever want. Built in 1905, the market consists of 30 shopping centers and about 30,000 stores, and more than 50,000 manufacturing companies joined together to trade textiles, clothes, shoes, sports goods, stationery, toys, household goods, and accessories. What makes this place really special is it is where most of the other shopping areas in Korea get their products.
Dongdaemoon Staduim Station (Lines 2,5,4) Exit #14. Seoul city tour bus stop number 19.

Namdaemun (Great South Gate)
This is a huge indoor/outdoor market that is very crowded and stimulating! Just about every "designer" fake you can imagine is here, with a big emphasis on Loius Vuitton. There is something for everyone from clothes to Korean knicknacks, shoes,furs and lots of leather goods.
Hoehyeon (Namdaemun) on Line 4.

Itaewon
Do not shop for souvenirs in Itaewon unless you have money to burn. If you do decide to shop here, be sure to barter. If you start at half the marked price, you may end up with a fair price. Itaewaon does have a huge variety of souvenirs such as faux mink blnakets, traditional masks, paintings and drawings, lamps, pottery, and just about anything else you can think of... Prices are just cheaper elsewhere. In Songtan, 45 km to the south, most things are about 1/2 price. In Insa-dong just a few km north, quality is much higher.

COEX Mall – Underground Shopping City
COEX Mall is a huge shopping arcade located beneath Samsung-dong Trade Center in Gangnam-gu. The mall offers shopping, culture, and entertainment, attracting mostly young people in their teens and early twenties. Located nearby are the COEX exhibition halls and international conference rooms, providing convenient shopping for business people.
Take Subway Line No.2 to Samsung Station between Exit No.5 & No.6. (The Millennium Plaza, Megabox Cineplex, COEX Intercontinental Hotel, and the arcade all connect.)

National Folk Museum
The large National Folk Museum of Korea on the grounds of Gyeongbok Palace is a nicely-done museum showing the daily lives of Koreans throughout history. Inside of the building are displays and dioramas while the outside has authentic pagodas, houses, and farming tools. There are three main exhibits in the museum: Korean Culture and History, Korean Lifestyle and Commodities, and Korean Life Cycle.
Located behind Gyeonbokgung. Take Subway Line 3 to Gyeonbokgung Station or Anguk Station.

Insadong (Mary's Alley)
"Insa-dong," as referred to here, is the stretch of avenue extending about 700m beginning at Tapgol Park. Here, in the myriad fine craft stores that line both sides of the street, you can find anything from simple hanbok (traditional Korean clothing), to beautiful Goryeo era vases. Insadong is where you can find traditional Korea within Seoul. Wander around the place and enjoy the street full of art galleries, craft shops, antique stores and restaurants.
Seoul Subway Line 1, Jonggak Station, 3 minutes by foot. - Seoul Subway Line 3, Anguk Station, 1 minute by foot - Seoul Subway Line 5, Jongnosam(3)ga Station, 3 minutes by foot

Lotte World
If you have kids or really, really miss Disneyland Lotte World is about as close as you'll come in Seoul/Korea.
Jamsil Station (Line 5, 8) in Songpa-Gu

Contacts
Malaysia Embassy Seoul    +82-2-7959203
Singapore Embassy Seoul    +82-2-7742464
Police                 112

Bachelor no.15

2007-05-17T14:49:00.000+08:00

Dear Friends,

My very good buddy is currently on Cleo's Top 50 Most Eligible Bachelors (refer to Cleo May issue).

Although he's not the best looking of the lot, nor the best dancer, nor the best hair, nor the most well-known, nor the nicest smile, nor the best teeth, nor the best answers (he should have asked me to write it for him), nor the most charming, etc etc. However, he's one of my best buds.

Therefore, please do vote for the underdog.

Hey all,

Our very own MMN member Raj Arirajah is competing in this years Cleo most eligible bachelor contest.
Raj's MMN Profile

Which Superhero am I?

2007-05-07T14:15:00.000+08:00

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk		60%
Spider-Man		60%
Robin		57%
Green Lantern		55%
The Flash		55%
Supergirl		55%
Superman		50%
Batman		50%
Wonder Woman		35%
Iron Man		35%
Catwoman		30%

You are a wanderer with
amazing strength.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Which super villian am I?

2007-05-07T14:13:00.000+08:00

Your results:
You are Apocalypse

Apocalypse		74%
Juggernaut		65%
Dr. Doom		64%
Magneto		61%
Venom		61%
Lex Luthor		54%
Dark Phoenix		50%
Green Goblin		49%
Kingpin		49%
The Joker		45%
Mr. Freeze		43%
Mystique		37%
Catwoman		35%
Riddler		33%
Two-Face		33%
Poison Ivy		19%

You believe in survival of the fittest and you believe that you are the fittest.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

Little Wonders by Rob Thomas

2007-04-26T11:50:00.000+08:00

A song I'm listening to lately.

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The Warlords clip

2007-04-26T11:41:00.000+08:00

It's a heroic tale of three blood brothers and their struggle in the midst of war and political upheaval. It is based on "The Assassination of Ma," a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) story about the killing of general Ma Xinyi. The story was filmed by Zhang Che in 1973 as The Blood Brothers.

Yo! Fool!

2007-04-26T11:35:00.000+08:00

World of Whorecraft

2007-03-23T19:07:00.000+08:00

Whorecraft is the first fantasy adult website of its kind to extend stories of sorcery, swords, and fantasy worlds a step further with sex!

The whole idea was spawned from playing different computer games and daydreaming of alternate endings for fantasy sex. PERVERTS!

Whorecraft is specifically targeted to anyone who's ever imagined their fantasy world characters coming to life in a sexual way.

Greek Gods Family Tree

2007-03-23T19:06:00.000+08:00

Weird Al interviews Eminem

2006-10-27T18:25:00.000+08:00

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eBooks

2006-09-05T21:37:00.000+08:00

Lately, I've had this fascination with eBooks (electronic books). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebooks

There's quite a number which are freely available on the internet. Even legally.

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/
http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/002676.html
http://books.google.com/

Anyway, I've a bunch of books I've downloaded and the only way I read them is thru a PC. What'd I'd really like is to curl up on the sofa and read it like a real book. However, there're very few options out there at the moment.

The Sony Reader is a bit bulky and expensive USD300. http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/06/sony-reader-details-and-pics/

The good thing is the technology is getting there. This e-ink looks to be pretty amazing.

http://www.biblio-tech.com/BTR901/January_2001/e-ink_for_e-books__.html

However, it's still gonna take a while for the technology to get there and a while more for the price to reach affordable levels. Can't wait though... Just imagina carrying around hundreds if not thousands of books on a device and the option to read any of those books anywhere you want. Faster, damn it!

Japanese version of UFC

2006-08-07T17:02:00.000+08:00

Sakuraba vs Smirnovas.

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ABC Nails Exxon and Republicans for Fake Al Gore Video

2006-08-07T14:04:00.000+08:00

Those bastards!

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Rabbi Against Israel (Zionism)

2006-08-07T14:01:00.000+08:00

Interesting view.

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Bump keying

2006-08-07T12:00:00.000+08:00

Crap! It's so easy to open locks.

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This lady has an interesting view

2006-07-31T17:27:00.000+08:00

This lady has an interesting view.

I must admire her courage for saying in TV in front of everybody, especially when some of these people may try to assassinate her for it.

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Yo! Vader!

2006-07-31T17:10:00.000+08:00

Somebody added James Earl Jones's voice from his other movies.

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Everybody's Changing by Keane

2006-07-19T15:05:00.000+08:00

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You say you wonder your own land
But when I think about it
I don't see how you can

You're aching, you're breaking
And I can see the pain in your eyes
'cause everybody's changing
And I don't know why.

So little time
Try to understand that I'm
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody's changing
And I don't feel the same.

You're gone from here
Soon you will disappear
Fading into beautiful light
'cause everybody's changing
And I don't feel right.

So little time
Try to understand that I'm
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody's changing
And I don't feel the same.

So little time
Try to understand that I'm
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody's changing
And I don't feel the same.

Ooo...
Everybody's changing
And I don't feel the same.

Stephen Colbert's Microphone Accident

2006-07-19T12:30:00.000+08:00

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Cousin Couples

2006-07-19T12:22:00.000+08:00

I was doing a search on for some stuff I'd blogged previously when I came across this website. It is somewhat... disturbing. Not that I have anything against them. Just surprised there are such sites around.

http://www.cousincouples.com/

They describe themselves as "the world's primary information and support network for and about romantic relationships among cousins. This interactive site is for those romantically involved with their cousin. This site is dedicated to providing support and factual information, as well as to foster friendships from around the world. Kissing cousins now have a free site, where they may come to exchange information and advice."

Famous people who married their cousins are:
Queen Victoria
Charles Darwin
Albert Einstein
Jerry Lee Lewis
Franklin D. Roosevelt
First Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A. MacDonald
Jessie James
Christopher Robin
Rudy Giuliani
Edgar Allen Poe
Biblical Mary and Joseph were first cousins
Prophet Muhammad
Aemilia Lanyer
Jean Sebastien Bach
H.G. Wells
Werner von Braun

Some facts: http://www.cousincouples.com/?page=facts
And even a cool chart: http://www.cousincouples.com/?page=relation

Quick Change Artists

2006-07-14T15:47:00.000+08:00

This is sooo awesome. Some female friends of mine should take lessons *hint*HINT*

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Magnetically Levitating Bed

2006-07-02T13:28:00.000+08:00

Anyone want a magnetically levitating bed invented by a crazy Dutch dude? It'll cost about 150k euros.

http://www.therawfeed.com/2006/07/floating-magnetically-levitating-bed.html

My hero

2006-07-01T12:44:00.000+08:00

This man is my hero!

Pimp Suits

2006-06-26T11:34:00.000+08:00

Yo! For those aspiring Pimps out there, there's a website where you can order your duds.

http://www.pimpdaddy.com/

Mrs World 2006 article

2006-06-11T22:39:00.000+08:00

This is the article that explains the whole fiasco. Quite an interestingly disastrous read.

http://www.exile.ru/2006-May-05/feature_story.html

Thanks Irina.

Mrs. World 2006 finale

2006-06-08T15:06:00.000+08:00

A child descends from the ceiling! The wrong girl (sorry, woman) gets crowned! Crying ensues!

An f-ing fiaso...

Superhero art

2006-05-30T11:03:00.000+08:00

Worth1000.com is a really cool image manipulation contest site. What does that mean? There is currently a contest called "Superhero ModRen 2". The contest directions are:

"There were no superheroes during the renaissance period. Why? Apparently there were no supervillains so they were not needed. That would explain the lack of superheroes in fine art. It's time to fix that.

The rules of the contest are thus:
Take any piece of fine art and incorporate a superhero (or supervillain), as in the awesome themepost. As always, quality is a must. We'll remove poor entries no matter how much we like you. You'll have 48 hours for this contest, so make your submissions count."

Here are some images which I found oustanding:

Neo vs Robocop

2006-05-30T11:02:00.000+08:00

This rocks!

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Star Trek Cribs

2006-05-29T15:23:00.000+08:00

Star Trek is actually cool! Well... Kinda.

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You Raise Me Up

2006-05-29T15:09:00.000+08:00

I really like this song and it is special.

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Autistic basketball player

2006-05-27T01:22:00.000+08:00

This is an amazing true story about an autistic boy's incredible 4 minutes.

Avenue Q

2006-05-25T14:30:00.000+08:00

I just heard about Avenue Q from Dan-Dan. It's da bomb!

"Avenue Q is a Broadway musical. It has risqué songs about racism, Internet porn, and the difficulties of life, and all but three characters are portrayed by puppets.

The show is largely inspired by (and in the style of) PBS's Sesame Street, with several characters that are recognizably parodies of classic Muppet characters. For example, the roommates Rod and Nicky are clearly adult versions of Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie, and Trekkie Monster seems to be based on Cookie Monster.

Because of its adult content and "full puppet nudity" (including graphic simulated sex between puppets), Avenue Q may be inappropriate for children 12 years of age and under. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_q

Here are some songs from the show:

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Jay, this fan made movie is specially dedicated to you.

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Meeting Planner Organizer Worksheet

2006-05-25T12:56:00.000+08:00

This guy created a nice worksheet for student meetings but can be used for other meetings too. In the creator's words:

" The MPOW assists a leader in
...planning (thinking about what needs to happen before the meeting),
...organizing (thinking about what needs to happen during the meeting),
...and work that needs to be done (thinking about what needs to happen after the meeting). "

http://studentlinc.typepad.com/studentlinc/2006/05/meeting_planner.html

The worksheet can be downloaded here:
http://studentlinc.typepad.com/studentlinc/files/meeting_organizer.pdf

Dead Like Me opening theme

2006-05-21T23:23:00.000+08:00

It's a cool series. Very unique. Too bad there are only 2 seasons.

Sick or not

2006-05-21T22:42:00.000+08:00

It's one those viruses that leave you sickly, yet not fully sick. I feel weak, achy and there's a burning sensation at the back of my throat. It's quite annoying cos I'm not fully sick but just "under the weather". Whatever that means.

The good thing is it's not full blown virus where I'm hacking my lungs out and my nose wants to run off. The sucky thing is I had 2 meetings with friends and I had to cancel. Bummer!

Afterglow video

2006-05-21T16:02:00.000+08:00

Afterglow

2006-05-21T14:28:00.000+08:00

This song suits me today. Not so much the words of the song but the mood.

Afterglow - INXS

Here I am, lost in the light of the moon that comes through my window
Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divides the thorns from the roses
It's you and the roses

Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way when I see your eyes
Now I'm living in your afterglow

Here I am, lost in the ashes of time, but who owns tomorrow?
In between the longing to hold you again
I'm caught in your shadow, I'm losing control
My mind drifts away, we only have today

Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way
I will sacrifice 'til the blinding day when I see your eyes
Now I'm living in your afterglow

When the veils are gone, as I let you go, as I let you go

Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way, I will sacrifice
Now I'm living in your afterglow

Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divides the thorns from the roses
It's you who is closest

Avirginsplea.com

2006-05-18T12:13:00.000+08:00

Well... It seems that this website was a viral marketing campaign that got out of hand. Geez! This is getting to be too much.

There are so many of these "hoax" sites now. You don't really know what's real or not anymore on the internet, which is a bad for everyone. People are just going to get cynical and not bother with real pleas for help.

Help this guy get laid!

2006-05-16T12:01:00.000+08:00

Go to this website to help this guy get laid.

"So, here's the story - I'm 25, and to this date, have never been laid. Yes, it's sad, but it's true. The whole story, however, is far more interesting than just the lack of sex.

When I was 21, I was engaged to be married to a woman I thought I would be with for the rest of my life, and the two of us had chosen to wait until marriage to have sex so we could share something special with each other. But when I was 22, just six months before our wedding, I discovered that she had been cheating on me and sleeping with another man. Needless to say, I was crushed. For the last 3 years I haven't really been able to bring myself to start dating again as the pain of that betrayal still runs deep inside of me. But as a man, the overwhelming urge to have sex is just starting to get to be too much for me to handle, and so I made a bet with one of my very hot (but also very platonic) female friends - if I can get 5 million visitors to this website in 30 days, she has agreed to help me with my "problem". If I can't get to five million in 30 days, I have to be her personal servant for a week, doing anything she asks me to do."

http://avirginsplea.com/

It's pretty cool and innovative. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. He obviously needs to get laid.

Go the website and give the boy a hand.

Why the new theme? / Relative-ity - Incident 2

2006-05-11T01:17:00.000+08:00

Why the new theme?

As you might have noticed, I moved the blog to this new address and re-titled it.

I had an epiphany on Sunday night, after an incident (related below). I also realised that there's been an overall theme to what I've posting and writing about.

If you've read a few of my postings, I'm sure you'll see a trend (or not).

Relative-ity - Incident 2

I attended Cousin BL's wedding on Sunday evening which I nearly did not attend because I wasn't up for it, but I'm glad I went in the end.

I arrived fashionably late cos I didn't wanna attend the reception and make chit-chat with all the relatives.

I was seated on the table with Mom, Cousin K and family, Sis + 1 and Aunt J. In the next table was Cousin TT, Cousin BC and others.

A little background... Cousin BC is weird. Not crazy weird. He just does un-normal shit. I'm all for being not normal but the things he does are sometimes just stupid. He hits on every girl like a desperado, gets drunk, wastes money and acts like a total slob. That may just make him sound like a slacker loser but when people meet him, people get there's something really "off" about the guy. *sigh* He was normal growing up. We used to play together and do boys stuff. But he changed after Form 5.

Anyway, by the time I arrived at the wedding, Cousin BC was half-way drunk and chatting with Cousin TT. (I remember Cousin TT as being a bawling baby who was shitting in her diaper. She's grown up and all of 19 now. She looks very different from the crapping baby I remember. She's slim and pretty. I'm sure she drives the teenage boys wild.)

A little while later Cousin TT came over with a disgusted expression on her face. Me and Cousin K asked her... What's up?

Cousin TT: What's wrong with Cousin BC?
Me: He's a little drunk.
Cousin TT: Yeah. But...
Me: Huh.
Cousin TT: He was asking me weird questions.
Me: Such as...?
Cousin TT: "Do you have a boyfriend?"
Me: ...
Cousin TT: "Have you kissed a guy?'
Me: ...
Cousin TT: "Have you been intimate with anyone?"
Me: Errr...
Cousin TT: Ewww ewww ewww... He's my cousin!

Me and Cousin K tried not to laugh too hard.

We later realised Cousin BC was acting a little more unusual than usual. He had picked up a new habit. Smoking weed. It explained the frequent toilet breaks. But the stuff he asked Cousin TT was his pretty usual shit.

Just as the night was winding up, Cousin BC came over to my table and started to talk to Aunt J. (Aunt J is nearly 50 and a spinster. Conservative. None of us have ever heard of her having had a boyfriend. Refer to my previous post about Aunt J.)

Cousin BC: Heyyyy... You should be happy you knowww...
Aunt J: I'm happy.
Cousin BC: How about some more red wine?
Aunt J: I have enough.
Cousin BC: Have some fun.
Aunt J: *Disgusted look*
Cousin BC: You should be happy hey. You want to be happy. Have some paradise. (He offers his pack of Pall Mall cigs. His weed is in there.)
Aunt J: No!
Cousin BC: It's paradise... Heyy... You know what will make you happy. You should be fucked by 10 men! *
(This was right in front of Mom, Uncle T, Aunt LS, Cousin K + wife + 2 kids.)
Aunt J: *Sputtering + horrified expression*
Aunt J: *More sputtering*
Aunt J: You know... huh! You know...huh! You should have you mouth washed with tooth paste!
Cousin BC: *Zoned out expression*

* Cousin K and I just stared in shock for 5 seconds then we burst out laughing. I nearly collapsed and couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes.

I love family events and functions. There's all kinds of drama and shit.

Well... This incident, in part, is my inspiration for the change and the new theme. Among other things.

My bloody SNEAKERS!!!

2006-05-11T00:05:00.000+08:00

I woke up this morning and headed off to work. Exiting my condo, I opened the door and found a few of my shoes on the ground next to the grill. It looked like a thief was interrupted while trying to steal my shoes.

But he still TOOK my favourite pair!

It is a damn-hard-to-find-not-available-in-KL pair of Adidas which I bought in Bangkok. It looks like a pair of Converse Jack Purcell highcuts but totally black with 3 white stripes on the side.

You mother fucking thief!!! That was my favourite pair and it's still practically new!

May your tecticles fall up and become your nose. May your feet smell like 2 month old rotten cheese. May you get fungal infections between your toes.

It's a rare pair of sneakers which I've not seen anyone in KL wear. If I see anyone wearing it, it's definitely you! I will flying tackle your thieving arse and I will give you the smackdown that will leave a permanent mark on your "tiu lan" face!

*Snarl*

Promise you won't laugh...

2006-05-10T14:11:00.000+08:00

In the examination room Abu nervously asks, "You won't laugh?"

Of course I won't laugh," the doctor Wong said. "I'm a professional. In over twenty years I've never laughed at a patient."

"Okay then," Abu said, and proceeded to drop his trousers, revealing the tiniest peepee the doctor had ever seen. It couldn't have been the size of a peanut. Unable to control himself, the doctor started giggling, then fell laughing to the floor.

Ten minutes later he was able to struggle to his feet and regain his composure.

"I'm so sorry," said the doctor. "I really am, I don't know what came over me. On my honor as a doctor and a gentleman, I promise it won't happen again. Now, what seems to be the problem?"

Abu replied, "It's swollen."

The Malaysian in London

2006-05-09T17:01:00.000+08:00

Something that came my way...

Johan, a 'young' Malaysian tourist on his first visit to London, locates the red light district and enters a large brothel.

The madam asks him to be seated and sends over a young lady to entertain the client. They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap.

He whispers in her ear and she gasps and runs away!

Seeing this, the madam sends over a more experienced lady to entertain the gentleman. They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she screams, "No!" and walks away quickly.

The madam is surprised that this ordinary-looking man has asked for something so outrageous that her two girls will have nothing to do with it.

She decides that only her most experienced lady, Lola, will do. Lola looks a bit tired, but she has never said no and it doesn't seem likely that anything would surprise her. So the madam sends her over to Johan. They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap.

He whispers in her ear and she screams, "NO WAY, BUDDY!", smacks him as hard as she can, and literally runs away too!

Madam is by now absolutely intrigued, having seen nothing like this in all her years of operating a brothel. She hasn't done the bedroom work herself for a long time, but she did it for many years before she got into management.

She's sure she has said yes at one time or another to everything a man could possibly ask for. The challenge iirresistible. She just has to find out what this man wants that has made her girls so angry.

And she sees a chance she can't pass up to show off to her employees how good she was at what they do. So she goes over to Johan and says that she's the best in the house and she, herself, is available. She sits and talks with him. They frolic a bit, giggle a bit, drink a little, and she sits in his lap. And then Johan leans forward and whispers in her ear, ...

"Can I pay in Malaysian Ringgit?"

Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer

2006-05-06T15:29:00.000+08:00

"Believing that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies."

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=674042006

Oh finally! The zealots have seen the light.

Prodding aside... This is an amazing admission by someone from the Vatican. A 180 degree change on everything that has been preached all this time.

A few years ago I was hanging out with a friend and her friends. All whom were Christians. This was during the Intelligent Design debate in the US. Hoping to get some insights into Creationism and hoping to speak on Intelligent Design, I asked one of the guys there:

Me: Do you believe in Evolution?
C: Yes.
Me: Do you believe in Creationism?
C: Of course.
Me: How do you consolidate the two beliefs?
C: I was once like you, my son. An unbeliever. Full of questions...
Me: *Sigh* All I heard after that was "blah blah blah blahhh blah..."

The lesson... There's no having an intelligent conversation with fanatics.

Although given this admission by the Vatican, I'd really like to have another conversation with Mr C.

Slavery Contract

2006-05-04T16:32:00.000+08:00

This is one of those little things that might turn out to immensely useful one day... a B&D, S&M Slavery Contract.

With a few changes, it could even make a good pre-nuptial agreement.

Buy your own toys

2006-05-04T14:25:00.000+08:00

Dear Ms S,

As much as your pretend cool disinterest, I know you are fascinated by the toys. I can see past your "Sex toys? Ho hum" play-it-really-cool attitude. (If there was a sex toy shop in KL, you'd be breaking speed limits to get there right this moment.)

I know you struggle with the puritan thinking that have been ingrained and indoctrinated into you since childhood about how sex is evil. Hence, sex toys are evilllll toys.

Therefore, since it is forbidden fruit, it is so much the sweeter.

Nevertheless, I still will not help you order those toys with my credit card. Go ask your boyfriend to purchase them for you.

I know you want to.

Other deviant toys

2006-05-03T20:27:00.000+08:00

A female friend saw my recent blog on Female Blow Up Dolls and asked me about Male Blow Up Dolls. Hah! As if I know!

Anyway, I did some research (sacrificed my eyesight) just for you, Irish Girl. Here are some samples.

But I put my foot down on mail ordering any Male Blow Up Doll for you (or any of the other stuff). You just have to use your own credit card and order your deviant toys yourself. Hmph!

If you are unhappy with your other half.

Other deviant toys. For instructions on how to use, please refer to the nearest New Zealander or Australian. (I am sooo getting flamed for this.)

If you think the above toys are the worst society has to offer, think again. Here are the most demented, depraved, insidious "toys" society has to offer. Easily available off the shelf of your nearest mall.

Blow up doll

2006-05-03T17:13:00.000+08:00

A good friend who shall remain nameless sent me these pictures of a blow up doll. I don't think it is his doll. At least I hope it isn't.

Dude, I hope that's not your hand.

We all have a finite amount of time

2006-05-01T01:38:00.000+08:00

Last Friday at about lunch hour, I was lining up in front of a cheque deposit machine ready to deposit a cheque. However, the machine had run out of receipt paper and a bank employee was adding paper into it.

So here I was 1 minute away from depositing my cheque, when this petite middle aged Chinese lady steps in front of me out of nowhere. I looked at her back for 2 seconds and then looked at the 4 other people in queue behind me. I stared at the Chinese lady's back for 10 seconds.

Finally, I said to her, "Excuse me. Are you in line?" She ignores me. I say again, "Excuse me. Are you in line?" She pretends not to hear.

Next level. I say, "There is a queue. Please go line up. It's rude to jump queue." Even the bank employee who is adding new receipt paper turns and says "Please line up."

The Chinese lady turns and gives me a 'tu lan', 'stare cock' look. (Obviously she understands English.) If looks could kill, I'd be sliced, diced and served as a dish.

Just then the bank employee finishes adding the paper. I step up and deposit my cheque. The Chinese lady goes right after me and effectively, jumps in front of the person behind me. The Chinese lady then hurries out of the bank and into a MPV that is double parked with a kid in the back seat.

People here seem to jump queues and expect to get away with it. Which, sadly, they do. I have seen this happen a number of times and never once have I seen anyone say or do anything in protest. They passively take it and just stare laser beams into the Queue Jumper's back.

I am watching this series called "Dead Like Me" (great series) and there's this one scene which speaks perfectly about this incident.

Scene: Rube (one of main characters in the series) is in queue at the post office when this Lady B walks into the bank. Lady B sees Lady A which is also in queue in front of Rube. Lady B joins Lady A in queue in front of Rube and they start chatting.

Rube says to Lady A and Lady B: Afternoon ladies. You two old friends?
Lady B: Her (Lady A) daughter's in my son's class.
Rube: I have a question for you... Is everyone in this line an asshole?
Lady B: Excuse me?
Rube: Is everyone you cut in front of an asshole?
Lady B: Er, No.
Rube: So it's just you then?
Lady B: I have children in the car. (in a matter of fact tone)
Rube: I got a cake in the oven. (Rube points to other people in queue) He's got 3 minutes left on the meter. She's got a lunch meeting. We have a finite amount of time.
Lady B: Uh...
Rube: Now get back in line. And don't use your children like that. It's shameful.

Lady B hurries to back of the queue. Other people in the queue applauds.

Life Lessons

2006-04-28T15:05:00.000+08:00

These figurines are soo cool. I gotta get one or two or three or...

http://tlclifelessons.com/

Once in a Lifetime Event

2006-04-27T18:21:00.000+08:00

On Thursday, 4 May 2006 , at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00AM in the morning, the time and date will be...

0 1: 0 2: 0 3 0 4 . 0 5 . 0 6

This will never happen again in our life time.

Nokia N72 and W810i Walkman

2006-04-25T21:49:00.000+08:00

This is the new Nokia N72. It has a 2.1-inch, 176 x 208, 262k color display, Bluetooth 2.0, and 20MB internal memory expandable via SD memory cards. Media support includes a digital music player with dedicated music keys supporting MP3 and AAC playback, an FM Radio with Visual Radio support, and a swivel-activated 2 megapixel camera.

I like my Nokia's and have always used one, but after seeing the Sony-Erricson W810i Walkman, my next phone is a Walkman.

http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=sg&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pp1_loader&php=PHP1_10376&zone=pp&lm=pp1&pid=10376

I4GiveU.com

2006-04-22T23:10:00.000+08:00

Wow! A website to confess your sins on. It's like an online confessional, except the priest, judge and forgiver is the community. Does that imply the community is God?

http://www.i4giveu.com

Welcome to the biggest Confession room in the world You have the opportunity to confess on every sin you ever committed and be judged by the community if you're worthy of Forgiveness or Not.
Every Confession is ranked with the Forgiven or No forgive ranking. Your reputation will be judged from Angel to devil upon your confession ranking , The higher the score the closer to Angel status you get and vise versa . Rank each confession after you truly decided on the sinners fate, The higher the score the closer to forgiveness. simple. What are you waiting for?

Pimp my Snack

2006-04-22T13:50:00.000+08:00

Make your own snack heaven!

"[PimpMySnack] take(s) Snacks to their limit, and show what they're capable of with a little ingenuity, a little cash, and a lot of imagination."

http://www.pimpmysnack.com/gallery.php

KitKat Chunky Peanut Butter

Death Smarty

Dragon backpack

2006-04-21T11:59:00.000+08:00

Interesting leather backpack.

The Snake & The Bunny

2006-04-20T18:15:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time, in a nice little forest, there lived an orphaned
bunny and an orphaned snake. By a surprising coincidence, both were
blind from birth. One day, the bunny was hopping through the forest,
and the snake was slithering through the forest, when the bunny
tripped over the snake and fell down.

This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit. "Oh, my," said
the bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I've been
blind since birth, so, I can't see where I'm going. In fact, since I'm
also an orphan, I don't even know what I am."

It's quite ok," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is as yours. I
too have been blind since birth, and also never knew my mother. Tell
you what, maybe I could slither all over you, and work out what you
are so at least you'll have that going for you."

"Oh, that would be wonderful" replied the bunny. So the snake
slithered all over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with
soft fur, you have really long ears, your nose twitches, and you have
a soft cottony tail. I'd say that you must be a bunny rabbit."

Oh, thank you, thank you," cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The
bunny suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you all over with my
paw, and help you the same way that you've helped me." So the bunny
felt the snake all over, and remarked, "Well, you're smooth and
slippery, and you have a forked tongue, no backbone and no balls. I'd
say you must be either a team leader, supervisor or possibly someone
in senior management

Timbuktu

2006-04-17T14:10:00.000+08:00

The National Poetry Contest had come down to two semi-finalists --- a Yale graduate and a redneck from Wyoming. They were given a word, then allowed two minutes to study the word and come up with a poem that contained the word. The word they were given was "Timbuktu".

First to recite his poem was the Yale graduate. He confidently stepped to the microphone and said:

"Slowly across the desert sand
Trekked a lonely caravan
Men on camels, two by two
Destination: Timbuktu."

The crowd went crazy. No way could the redneck top that, they thought.

The redneck, with sweat rolled down his face, made his way to the microphone, he said:

"A friend and I a hunting went,
We spied three maidens in a tent,
They being three, we being two,
I bucked one and Tim bucked two."

The redneck won!

Polyphasic sleep

2006-04-15T00:33:00.000+08:00

"… Polyphasic sleep is a sleep pattern specification intended to compress sleep time to 2-5 hours daily. This is achieved by spreading out sleep into short (around 20-45 minute) naps throughout the day. This allows for more waking hours with relatively high alertness…"

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/information-list-of-polyphasic-sleep.html

Supposedly.

This guy went on polyphasic sleep for 5.5 months and documents it here.

"I'm starting this polyphasic sleep schedule today, so last night was my last night of "normal" sleep for a while. I still got up at 5am this morning, and then I'll begin doing the naps every 4 hours starting this afternoon. I'll use a countdown timer alarm set for 30 minutes, so I won't oversleep. I've decided that my sleep times will be 1am, 5am, 9am, 1pm, 5pm, and 9pm. I aim to continue at least until Halloween… or death, whichever comes first. If it seems to be going well and I retain basic functionality, then I'll decide whether I want to continue with it."

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

After 5.5 months, he went back to normal sleep (monophasic sleep). Mainly, because:

"The #1 reason I decided to call it quits is simply that the rest of the world is monophasic. If most of the world was polyphasic, I probably would have stuck with it. Obviously when you go polyphasic, you fall out of sync with the way other people live. You're awake most of the night while everyone is asleep. If you sleep like most people, then the hours you'll gain from polyphasic sleep will come in the middle of the night. And as I gradually learned, nighttime hours are not the same as daytime hours when you live in a monophasic world."

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/polyphasic-sleep-the-return-to-monophasic/

Ryan vs Dorkman

2006-04-13T22:44:00.000+08:00

Better than Episode 1.

Topless car wash

2006-04-13T22:41:00.000+08:00

Suckersssss...

"'Mr. Switzerland" to entice women during World Cup

2006-04-12T00:16:00.000+08:00

Hahaha...

GENEVA (Reuters) - For women bored at the thought of this summer's World Cup soccer finals in Germany, neighbor Switzerland is offering an alternative packed with beefcake.

A cow-milking 'Mr. Switzerland' and other handsome men are featured in a new advertising campaign seeking to entice soccer widows to leave their sports-obsessed men behind.

Renzo Blumenthal, Mr. Switzerland 2005, in an undated photo. For women bored at the thought of this summer's World Cup finals in Germany, neighbour Switzerland is offering an alternative packed with beefcake. REUTERS/Mister Schweiz Organisation/Handout

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-04-11T150638Z_01_L10606896_RTRUKOC_0_US-WOMEN-WORLDCUP.xml

Tropical Islands Resorts

2006-04-10T11:43:00.000+08:00

Interesting Tanjong project...

Tropical Islands Resort is an artificial tropical resort in Brandenburg, Germany. It is said to be the world's largest tropical indoor pool which can accommodate up to 7,000 visitors a day.

The resort is located in Briesen (Mark), Oder-Spree, Brandenburg, Germany, about 60 km (36 miles) southeast of Berlin, off the "Staakow" exit of the A13 Autobahn.

It resides inside a disused hangar 360 meters long, 210 meters wide and 107 meters high. At 5.5 million m³ (194 million ft³), it stands as one of the largest buildings on Earth by volume, and is the world's largest single hall without supporting pillars inside. The hangar cost 78 million € and was originally commissioned by Cargolifter AG as an airship hangar named Aerium, but the airship it was intended to house – the CL160 – was never built.

The Malaysian Tanjong company bought the hangar and the surrounding real estate for 17.5 million € and turned it into a resort with a man-made tropical habitat. It opened on December 19, 2004.

Visitors find an exotic environment with rain forest, beach, artificial sun, palm trees, orchids, and bird soundtrack. The air is warm (25 °C). Tropical Islands is open all around the clock, every day of the year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Islands
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=390#more-390

Testimonials

2006-04-09T22:16:00.000+08:00

This has gone around a number of times but still worth a laugh.

Have you ever spoken and wished that you could immediately take the words back...or that you could crawl into a hole? Here are the Testimonials of a few women who did....

FIRST TESTIMONY:
I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly, "How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?" I turned around and walked back out and never went back.
My husband didn't say a word...he knew better.

SECOND TESTIMONY:
I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls.
I was unhappy with the women's type I had been using. After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen who worked at the store. He asked if he could help me. Without thinking, I looked at him and said, "I think I like playing with men's balls."

THIRD TESTIMONY:
My sister and I were at the mall and passed by a store that sold a variety of candy and nuts. As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help. I replied, "No, I'm just looking at your nuts." My sister started to laugh hysterically, the boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away.
To this day, my Sister has never let me forget.

FOURTH TESTIMONY:
While in line at the bank one afternoon, my toddler decided to release some pent-up energy and ran amok. I was finally able to grab hold of her after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told her that if she did not start behaving "right now" she would be punished.
To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening, "If you don't let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you kissing Daddy's pee-pee last night!"! The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing. I mustered up the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow. The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me were screams of laughter.

FIFTH TESTIMONY:
Have you ever asked your child a particular question too many times?
My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly. One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room. While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so, of course, I checked my seven-month-old daughter, and she was clean. Then, I realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while, so I asked him if he needed to go and he said "No". I kept thinking, "Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don't have any clothes with me." Then I said, "Danny, are you SURE you didn't have an accident?" "No," he replied. I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse. Soooooo, I asked one more time, "Danny, did you have an accident?" This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over and spread his cheeks and yelled, "SEE MOM, IT'S JUST FARTS!!" While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better by thanking me for the best laugh they'd ever had!

LAST TESTIMONY:
This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks. What happens when you predict snow -- but don't get any....a true story. We had a female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked: "So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?" Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!

Vindicated

2006-04-08T13:34:00.000+08:00

Hallelujah! Straight men of the world unite and sing (in relation to the above topic matter) ...

Hope dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption
Winding in and winding out
The shine of which has caught my eye

And roped me in
So mesmerizing, so hypnotizing
I am captivated

[Chorus]
I am Vindicated
I am selfish
I am wrong
I am right
I swear I'm right
I swear I knew it all along

And I am flawed
But I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself

So clear
Like the diamond in your ring
Cut to mirror your intentions
Oversized and overwhelmed
The shine of which has caught my eye
And rendered me so isolated, so motivated
I am certain now that

[Chorus]
So turn
Up the corners of your lips
Part them and feel my finger tips
Trace the moment, fall forever
Defense is paper thin
Just one touch and I'd be in
Too deep now to ever swim against the current
So let me slip away [3x]
So let me slip against the current
and let me slip away [4x]

Toilets of the world

2006-04-07T11:53:00.000+08:00

Man Marries Thai Twins

2006-04-06T16:23:00.000+08:00

There is a god and he lives in Thailand.

(Translated from the Thai Rath Newspaper, 24 March)

After Mr Wichai (Tao), aged 24, from Samut Songkram province, who earns his living by dealing in old goods, got married to gorgeous twins Ms Sirintara and Ms Thipawan 22, he vouched his sincerest 'equal love' for both of them!

Mr Wichai, just yesterday, 23 March, got married in pompous ceremony to both twins simultaneously. On being interviewed by the Thai Rath reporters, Mr Wichai declared wholeheartedly, that he didn't see much problem in having to perform tiresome marital duties with two wives.

In the engagement ceremony before the wedding, Mr Wichai successfully offered a dowry of eight baht of gold and 80,000 baht EACH for his lovely darlings. Both families celebrated the marriage with joy and were said to be delighted for the threesome.

Mr Wichai told the press that he had been best of friends with his neighbouring twins since they were children. "When I grew older, I would walk past their house each morning and try to decide for myself which one I fancied more, but it was darned impossible – I adored BOTH of them – I just couldn't decide, which one of them to chat up….!"

He went on to say "For three continuous years all three of us would go on dates together, until there was one day when I couldn't stand the frustration any longer and told them I love you and want to marry you BOTH "

The fortunate Mr Wichai, instead of getting a slap in the face, was overjoyed when both girls admitted to having sworn all along, that they wished to marry the same man! "It wasn't easy at first, what with the neighbours gossiping, but our family sympathized, understood, and fully supported our mutual love for the one man" the twins said.

Mr Wichai arranged for his brides to live with him, in his family house after the wedding, and his mother has already proudly prepared TWO rooms for the newly-weds.

Our reporters were just gagging to hear the response to this mouth-watering question "And.... what are the sleeping arrangements Mr Wichai"? to which he replied modestly with a beaming smile "Absolutely no problems! For the first three nights of the week, I will sleep with Ms Thipawan and the next three will be spent with Ms Sirintara. As for every Saturday, the three of us will sleep together"

Ms Sirintara finally told the press "When my twin and I worked as assistant nurses, we promised each other that we would never leave each others side, and that our future husband would have to either take us both, or leave us"

"Anyway, Mr Wichai is the perfect man – he neither smokes nor drinks!"

Awesome Jump Rope

2006-04-05T15:17:00.000+08:00

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Giant centipede eating mouse

2006-04-05T14:55:00.000+08:00

Gross!

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Clerks2 trailer

2006-04-05T14:52:00.000+08:00

For Kevin Smith fans. Or not.

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Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like this?

2006-04-05T14:46:00.000+08:00

The Simpsons Movie

2006-04-03T17:31:00.000+08:00

Wooo hoooo...

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The 100 Worst Album Covers EVER

2006-03-27T01:16:00.000+08:00

For all music fans:

"Thanks to glamour shots, psychadelic drugs, day-glo pants, stuffy visual metaphors and an unnatural love for pre-pubescent nudity, music has come in all shades of crap. Special thanks to repeat offenders Beegees, Millie Jackson, Scorpions, Butthole Surfers, The Rolling Stones and Prince. And, by the way, 1983 is officially the Ugliest Year in Music."

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/djlanda/the_100_worst_album_covers_ever/

Resume untuk Mawi

2006-03-24T23:02:00.000+08:00

I just saw a TV ad for this new program 'Resume untuk Mawi'. For those who don't know who Mawi is, he is this local phenomenon who won 'Akademi Fantasia' (Astro's answer to 'American Idol').

Anyhow, 'Resume untuk Mawi' is a reality show in search of a PA for Mawi, a la 'The Apprentice'.

"Titled Resume Untuk Mawi, the half-hour programme on Astro Ria has contenders doing tasks such as organising his daily schedule and activities like attending functions and press conferences."

The program runs for 8 weeks. During those weeks, they'll put the contestants through all kinds of tasks and probably even manufacture some drama to "test" them. (Read... Dramatise the program and generate more viewership -> ads and moolah.)

At the end of it, the "winner" is picked to be PA to Mawi. Woooo hooo! Big freaking deal. It's not as if the "winner" will get $100k and cut an album.

Astro's really pushing this. There's a commercial every other break on every other channel on Astro. I'm sick of looking at that bald head advertising a sad reality TV show.

WTF??!! Come on! Do we really need a TV program about a bunch of bumpkins vying to be PA to a kampung boy who make it big??

Don't get me wrong. Whichever Exec in Astro who thought of this should get a promotion and a raise. Astro is really milking their 'Akademi Fantasia' properties for all it's worth with spin offs like this. I'm sure it's a real cash cow for them.

With all the profit Astro is making, buy some decent programs for F's sake!!!

I'm sick sick sick of watching reruns on HBO, Cinemax and Star Movies. I keep seeing the same old movies every time I switch on the TV and even movies from 20-30 years ago. I wanna retch from seeing the same old episodes of Friends, Monk, Angel, etc etc etc.

Is it cos Astro's a monopoly that they can treat their consumers like crap and not innovate and get new programs?

(I hope someone in Astro is reading this.)

PS: For really odd reason, this Mawi guy sells like hotcakes. Mamee put his face on their noodles and they all sold out. Go figure.

PPS: Oh, Mawi is known as 'Mawi AF3'. Those poor sods are known by which 'Akademi Fantasia' season they appeared in. I'd think it'll be quite depressing to be known as "John AF4" for the rest of my career.

Pulling the plug on standby power

2006-03-20T21:20:00.000+08:00

Energy: Billions of devices sitting idle in "standby" mode waste vast amounts of energy. What can be done about it?

"STRANGE though it seems, a typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food. For while heating food requires more than 100 times as much power as running the clock, most microwave ovens stand idle—in "standby" mode—more than 99% of the time. And they are not alone: many other devices, such as televisions, DVD players, stereos and computers also spend much of their lives in standby mode, collectively consuming a huge amount of energy. Moves are being made around the world to reduce this unnecessary power consumption, called "standby power"."

"Alan Meier and his colleagues at LBNL set out to quantify the scale of the problem. In 1998 they released an initial study which estimated that standby power accounted for approximately 5% of total residential electricity consumption in America, "adding up to more than $3 billion in annual energy costs". According to America's Department of Energy, national residential electricity consumption in 2004 was 1.29 billion megawatt hours (MWh)—5% of which is 64m MWh. The wasted energy, in other words, is equivalent to the output of 18 typical power stations."

Do switch off your devices if you are not using it.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5571582

Porn euros being passed off as real

2006-03-20T09:42:00.000+08:00

Someone was actually stupid enough to accept these as real cash. Unbelievable.

"Fake porn euro notes being sold as a gimmick in Germany are being successfully passed off as real cash."

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1760580.html?menu=

Facial recognition

2006-03-19T02:15:00.000+08:00

This website is fun. You upload your pic and it tells you which celeb you look like.

http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/face_recognition.php?s=1&u=g0&lang=EN&restore&category=1

Who do you look like?

V for Vendetta

2006-03-15T00:58:00.000+08:00

I just came back from watching V for Vendetta. I rarely advocate a film, esp. one by a competitor. Well... I am advocating this film. Watch this film! Now!

Don't just watch the film because of it's great plot and fantastic dialogue. Watch it because of its relevance to these times.

See the film in relation to what our World is going through right now. What has happened and what is still happening.

Cast: Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Sinéad Cusack, Stephen Fry, Selina Giles, Rupert Graves, John Hurt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Stephen Rea
Director: James McTeigue
Writers: Alan Moore, Andy & Larry Wachowski

Synopsis:
Set against the futuristic landscape of totalitarian Britain, V For Vendetta tells the story of a mild-mannered young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman) who is rescued from a life-and-death situation by a masked vigilante known only as "V." Incomparably charismatic and ferociously skilled in the art of combat and deception, V ignites a revolution when he detonates two London landmarks and takes over the government-controlled airwaves, urging his fellow citizens to rise up against tyranny and oppression. As Evey uncovers the truth about V's mysterious background, she also discovers the truth about herself - and emerges as his unlikely ally in the culmination of his plot to bring freedom and justice back to a society fraught with cruelty and corruption.

Trivia
# Being huge fans of the original comic series, the Wachowski brothers wrote a draft of the script in the '90s before they worked on the Matrix, which shares several similar themes with "V for Vendetta".

# Portman was chosen for the role of Evey over Scarlett Johansson and Bryce Dallas Howard.

# The complete nursery rhyme referenced by the tag line is: "Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot. I see no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent to blow up the King and the Parliament. Three score barrels of powder below, Poor old England to overthrow: By God's providence he was catch'd With a dark lantern and burning match. Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring. Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King! Hip hip hoorah! A penny loaf to feed the Pope. A farthing o' cheese to choke him. A pint of beer to rinse it down. A faggot of sticks to burn him. Burn him in a tub of tar. Burn him like a blazing star. Burn his body from his head. Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead. Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah!"

Real Life Simpsons intro - revision

2006-03-08T12:13:00.000+08:00

Use this link instead:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw

Thanks, SYoung.

Real Life Simpsons intro

2006-03-06T13:47:00.000+08:00

This is the real life Simpsons intro. Don't know whether it's from the studio but it's cool.

http://www.waytoblue.com/media/video/the_real_simpsons_850k.mov

The Falkirk Wheel

2006-03-02T17:10:00.000+08:00

"Near Falkirk in Scotland, the Forth & Clyde Canal meets with the Union Canal, however at their meeting point the two differ in height by approximately 115 feet. Before the 1930s, travel between these canals was provided by a series of eleven conventional locks, but they became disused and were filled in about seventy-five years ago. In more recent history, the United Kingdom's Millennium Commission began an effort to restore the canals of central Scotland in order to reconnect the east and west coasts of the landmass. As part of that effort, a brilliant, one-of-a-kind contraption was engineered which uses gravity and Archimedes' principle to transfer boats between the two canals using very little electricity. It's called the Falkirk Wheel."

The unique shape of the structure is claimed to have been inspired by various sources, both manmade and natural, such as a Celtic double headed spear, a vast turning propeller of a Clydebank built ship, the ribcage of a whale or the spine of a fish. The canal network as a 'backbone' connecting Scotland, east to west, seems appropriate and there is a true beauty in the repetitive, sweeping shapes of the aqueduct.

The Falkirk Wheel lies at the end of a reinforced concrete aqueduct that connects, via the Roughcastle tunnel and a double staircase lock, to the Union Canal.

Boats entering the Wheel's upper gondola are lowered, along with the water that they float in, to the basin below. At the same time, an equal weight rises up, lifted in the other gondola. This works on the Archimedes Principle of displacement. That is, the mass of the boat sailing into the gondola will displace an exactly proportional volume of water so that the final combination of 'boat plus water' balances the original total mass.

Each gondola runs on small wheels that fit into a single curved rail fixed on the inner edge of the opening on each arm. In theory, this should be sufficient to ensure that they always remain horizontal, but any friction or sudden movement could cause the gondola to stick or tilt. To ensure that this could never happen and that the water and boats always remain perfectly level throughout the whole cycle, a series of linked cogs acts as a back up.

Hidden at each end, behind the arm nearest the aqueduct, are two 8m diameter cogs to which one end of each gondola is attached. A third, exactly equivalent sized cog is in the centre, attached to the main fixed upright. Two smaller cogs are fitted in the spaces between, with each cog having teeth that fit into the adjacent cog and push against each other, turning around the one fixed central one. The two gondolas, being attached to the outer cogs, will therefore turn at precisely the same speed, but in the opposite direction to, the Wheel.

Given the precise balancing of the gondolas and this simple but clever system of cogs, a very small amount of energy is actually then required to turn the Wheel. In fact, it is a group of ten hydraulic motors located within the central spine that provide the small amount, just 1.5kw, of electricity to turn it.

http://www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk

okcupid.com

2006-02-21T15:37:00.000+08:00

This website is soo cool. It's got all kinds of stupid and fun tests. Hilarious. This is one is cool:

http://www.okcupid.com/oktest2?

I pity whoever gets these results:

Underappreciated

The Battleaxe
Deliberate Brutal Love Master (DBLMf)

Sharp. Hardened. Dominating. The Battleaxe sweeps all before her, smiting and what not.

You've had a number of serious relationships, so you obviously have many attractive qualities. You're well experienced in dealing with other people's weirdnesses, and it's likely you're good in bed by now, too. Also, like the drunken housewife chucking Heinekens at her no-good husband, you've got a lot of energy.

People can tell you're sophisticated, and so you find yourself the object of infatuations quite often. But it's how you handle yourself in your relationships that gets you the 'brutal' tag. Controlling? Imperious? Overbearing? Yes, please.

Your exact opposite:
The Nurse

Random Gentle Sex Dreamer

Remarkably, you don't mind the same from your men. You've experience enough to take whatever you dish out. Overall, you're a very good person and a capable lover, and when the time comes you'll make a fine divorcee.

ALWAYS AVOID: The Poolboy

CONSIDER: The False Messiah, someone just like you.

FACT: The apocalypse has come. All are dead. You never should've asked her out.

The Last Man on Earth
Random Brutal Sex Dreamer (RBSDm)

Shit, rejected again. You are The Last Man on Earth.

Sorry, but most women would rather see the human species wither to an end--and therefore deny the most fundamental instinct that living creatures have--than sleep with you.

We've learned the following: you don't think things through. You're haphazard. You're dangerous. You're somewhat inexperienced. It's totally obvious that you're a horny bugger, as well. Everybody knows that and steers clear.

To top things off, when you do find your way into a relationship, you tend to be a dick somewhere down the line and fuck it all up.

Your exact opposite:
The Gentleman

Deliberate Gentle Love Master

There's a small, but negligible, chance we're wrong. In any case, your friends find your shit hilarious. There's nothing cooler than a dude reducing himself to human rubble.

ALWAYS AVOID: The Sonnet

CONSIDER: Half-Cocked, The Nymph

Vietnam man handles three decades without sleep

2006-02-17T01:23:00.000+08:00

This dude hasn't slept in 30 years and he's still sane.

http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673

The 3-Variable Funny Test!

2006-02-16T16:37:00.000+08:00

Nooooooooooooo...........

the Ham

(23% dark, 50% spontaneous, 31% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | LIGHT

Your style's goofy, innocent and feel-good. Perfect for parties and for the dads who chaperone them. You can actually get away with corny jokes, and I bet your sense of humor is a guilty pleasure for your friends. People of your type are often the most approachable and popular people in their circle. Your simple & silly good-naturedness is immediately recognizable, and it sets you apart in this sarcastic world.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Will Ferrell - Will Smith

The 3-Variable Funny Test!
- it rules -

If you're interested, try my latest: The Terrorism Test

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 2% on darkness

You scored higher than 62% on spontaneity

You scored higher than 34% on vulgarity

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

The Personality Defect Test

2006-02-16T12:45:00.000+08:00

Sociopath
You are 85% Rational, 42% Extroverted, 71% Brutal, and 57% Arrogant.

You are the Sociopath! As a result of your cold, calculating rationality, your introversion (and ability to keep quiet), your brutality, and your arrogance, you would make a very cunning serial killer. You care very little for the feelings of others, possibly because you are not a very emotional person. You are also very calculating and intelligent, making you a perfect criminal mastermind. Also, you are a very arrogant person, tending to see yourself as better than others, providing you a strong ability to perceive others as weak little animals, thus making it easier to kill them. In short, your personality defect is the fact that you could easily be a sociopath, because you are calculating, unemotional, brutal, and arrogant. Please don't kill me for writing mean things about you!

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.

3. You are more BRUTAL than gentle.

4. You are more ARROGANT than humble.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Hippie.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Spiteful Loner, the Smartass, and the Capitalist Pig.

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=4741219933576750506

Macross

2006-02-12T00:54:00.000+08:00

Do you remember Macross or otherwise know in the US as "Robotech"? It's that anime with the transforming airplane that looks like an F-14. If you don't know/remember Macross, go to http://www.robotech.com/

I've got the entire series and I'm taking my time watching it again. (Besides the other stuff I'm watching right now.) Mainly cos I missed most of the episodes during my primary school years.

Back then (wayyyyy long ago), school finished at about 6.30pm and Macross started at the same time on RTM2 (it's TV2 now) or was it TV3? By the time I got back, I'd just catch the last 2 seconds of it.

Rant: Macross was like the hottest cartoon at that time. If school finishes at 6.30pm, you f-ing do NOT schedule the show at the same time. What were the TV programming ppl thinking?? Stuuuuuuuuupid!!!

Anyway... It's fun and all watching the episodes of Macross, butttt the storyline, dialogue, animation and drawings doesn't quite have the appeal I remember anymore. It's not quite as good as I remember it to be.

I can never go back to the time when rushing home to watch Macross was the most important and happiest part of my day. Gone were the simple joys of childhood.

I now rush home to watch American Idol.

Nacho Libre

2006-02-08T16:53:00.000+08:00

F-ing funny trailer.

http://www.aintitcool.com/Nacho_large_vid.html

Meebo and Gtalkr

2006-02-08T12:33:00.000+08:00

Meebo.com and Gtalkr.com are 2 pretty cool websites.

Meebo allows you to log into AOL, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo instant messaging services from their web page. Similar to Trillian but on a web page.

Gtalkr has Flickr, YouTube, Gmail, Google Talk and RSS feeds all on a web page.

Flowline

2006-02-07T23:49:00.000+08:00

This is an amazing effects clip of computer generated water and sharks.

http://www.flowlines.de/

In "Gallery-Clips".

Virtual Bartender

2006-02-06T21:10:00.000+08:00

These girls are such a tease...

http://www.virtualbartender.beer.com/VB1/

Try commands like "kiss" and "strip".

Relatively Dysfunctional - Episode 2

2006-02-04T01:18:00.000+08:00

It's that wonderful time of the year again when relatives flock to gaggle, gossip, eat, gamble, compare and gossip some more. It's also that time of the year which unmarried relatives get the 3rd degree.

The usual barrage of questions will come from those 'pat' / "concerned" relatives"

   "Where's your girlfriend?"
   "How come you are still single?"
   "When are you going to get married?"
   "Your cousins are married with kids already. When is it your turn?"
   "When am I going to get an ang pow from you?"

And blah be blah and so forth.

I've prepared my more tactful answers:

   "Which girlfriend? It's hard to keep track."
   "I'm joining the monastry."
   "I'm in transition."
   "I'm sowing my wild oats."

And if I really want to give that relative an apoplexy:

   "My girlfriend is Christian and she thinks you are all going to hell for praying to false idols."
   "My girlfriend is at home taking care of our love child."
   "My boyfriend is shy."
   "My boyfriend is Mormon/Muslim/Black/Jehovah's Witness/Klu Klux Klan and is waiting for me at home in a rubber suit."

Having relatives can be fun. It makes them very grateful they only see you once a year.

* Note to self. Get a decent camera to capture those funny expressions on relatives's faces. The camera phone is too slow.

The simplest things...

2006-02-04T00:40:00.000+08:00

Someone just reminded me this evening how the simplest things is not easy to describe.

How do you describe a strawberry?
How do you describe a feather?
How do you describe taste, colour, etc..?

Gotta remind myself to practice Mastery and make distinctions.

Relatively Dysfunctional - Episode 1

2006-01-28T00:56:00.000+08:00

The Setting:
Early CNY dinner at Xin in Concorde Shah Alam. 27 Jan 06.
Cousin K's 2-yr old boy (Baby E) was making a slight ruckus by having some fun banging chopsticks on the table near the end of dinner. We were the only guests in the restaurant and he was being quite adorable.

Aunty J tells Baby E: Baby E stop being sooo noisy. You are making that man angry (pointing at a waiter standing 20m away and looking the other direction).
Me: Heyyyy... That's not a very nice thing to tell a baby. Don't use fear on children.
Aunty J: He was being noisy.
Cousin K: I read that psychologists did a study. Little children who were told to behave otherwise the policemen will take them away, have an irrational fear of police even when they reach adulthood.
Aunty J turns to Me: So what's your greatest fear when you were a child?
Me: Stupid relatives.

Liver-Eating Johnson

2006-01-23T14:28:00.000+08:00

Posted by Alan Bellows on January 22nd, 2006 at 11:02 pm

From the cloudy reservoir of history it is often difficult to separate legend from reality, and such is the case with the story of the infamous American mountain man John Johnston. It is certain that throughout his life he was known by many names, but most famously he came to be known at the time as "Crow Killer" and "Liver-Eating Johnson."

It is said that he earned these names through his penchant for killing Crow Indians, then cutting out and eating their livers; a symbolic way of completing a revenge slaying. His personal war against the Crow tribe was an errand to avenge the murder of his wife, who had been killed by Crow warriors in 1847.

John Johnston was born sometime around 1824 as John Garrison, though little is known of his early life. Some say that he joined the navy as a young man to fight in the Mexican American War, but deserted after striking his superior officer during an unknown disagreement. In any case, when he was aged about twenty years he changed his name to John Johnston and headed west to become a hunter and fur trapper, setting out with Old John Hatcher as his guide.

Hatcher– an experienced mountain man of some repute– took Johnston to his cabin on the Little Snake River in northern Colorado. There, he taught Johnston the trapping, hunting, and survival skills which a mountain man needed in order to live and profit. Johnston caught on quickly, proving handy with his .30 caliber Hawken rifle and Bowie knife. When Hatcher quit the mountain-manning trade several years later, Johnston took over the cabin and set out for the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, where a year earlier a Flathead Indian sub-chief had offered his daughter to Johnston in a trade. Johnston made the exchange, and he and his new wife set off to return to his cabin on the Little Snake River.

During the journey of several weeks, Johnston had his wife begin to teach him the Salish language of her tribe out of respect for her, and he taught her how to use a rifle so that she might hunt to feed herself during the winter while he was away. Once they arrived at the cabin in early Autumn, Johnston spent the rest of the season putting together an ample supply of dry goods for her winter's stay, and set out to do his trapping.

When he returned to his cabin in the following Spring, he was met with a gruesome scene. The remains of his wife– little more than bones after lying exposed for months– were lying in his cabin's open doorway. It was clear that she had been the victim of a Crow hunting party. Even worse, amongst her bones was a smaller skull… that of his unborn child. She had been about seven months' pregnant when she was killed.

Soon the scalped bodies of Crow warriors began to appear throughout the Northern Rockies and the plains of Wyoming and Montana. Each had had his liver cut out, and presumably eaten by the killer. Eventually other mountain men and Indians learned of Johnston's ongoing vengeance slayings, and he soon became known as "Liver-Eating Johnson" (dropping the "t" in "Johnston"). Also known as "The Crow Killer," he was waging a mortal, solitary battle against the whole Crow tribe, and no Crow warrior was safe from his wrath.

Many deaths followed. In time, the Crow decided to hand-pick their twenty best warriors and set them on a mission to hunt down and kill Johnston. How the battle played out, no one knows, but not one of the warriors would return.

Johnston's killings continued for years, and the Crow seemed helpless to respond. But one winter, as Johnston was traveling over five hundred miles to visit his Flathead kin, he was ambushed by a group of Blackfoot warriors who intended to present him to the Crow for a handsome reward. The Blackfoot overtook Johnston and captured him, placing him in a teepee and binding him with leather straps. A young warrior guard was placed just outside. But Johnston turned out to be an unmanageable prisoner.

Inside where he couldn't be seen, Johnston eventually managed to chew through the leather straps which bound him, and he slipped out of the exit. When he confronted the guard outside, Johnston– who was a large man of about six feet and two hundred pounds– landed a devastating blow to the man's nose before he was able to act. Johnston wasted no time in taking the warrior's knife, which he used to saw one of the Indian's legs off at the hip. Armed with the leg as a blunt instrument and with the warrior's knife, Johnston managed to fight his way out of the Blackfoot camp and make his escape into the woods.

As Johnston began the two hundred mile journey back to his cabin, the guard's leg proved to be useful as more than just a weapon. He used it as a source of food for lack of anything better in the harsh winter, and it sustained him until he reached his destination.

After almost twenty years and countless Crow deaths, Johnston finally ended his vendetta against the Crow and made peace. This truce was so complete that he thereafter referred to the members of the Crow tribe as "his brothers."

Liver-Eating Johnson never ate another human liver, but during the Civil War he did join the Union Army in St. Louis. He worked as a sharpshooter, and was honorably discharged the following year. During the 1880s he was appointed deputy sheriff in Leadville, Colorado and later as a town marshal in Red Lodge, Montana.

In December 1899, aged seventy-six years, the Crow Killer was admitted to a veteran's hospital in Los Angeles, where he died on January 21, 1900. He had lived a long and adventurous life, and his story was passed on through the generations. While some of the events from his life are verifiable, many of the stories are no doubt improved upon from over a century of retelling and embellishment.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=366

Whale spotted in central London

2006-01-23T12:59:00.000+08:00

A seven-tonne whale has made its way up the Thames to central London, where it is being watched by riverside crowds.

The 16-18ft (5m) northern bottle-nosed whale, which is usually found in deep sea waters, has been seen as far upstream as Chelsea.

A rescue boat has been sent to protect the whale and rescuers have been trying to keep it away from the river banks.

Specialist equipment, including inflatable tubes to re-direct the animal downstream, are being sent.

The whale has come within yards of the banks and has crashed into an empty boat causing slight bleeding.

Vets are remaining on standby and experts have said it does not appear to be ill, but are concerned it will get weaker and may become beached.

Tony Woodley, of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, which will be handling the rescue, said the animal's welfare was the main priority.

He said if attempts to re-direct the whale downstream failed, it might be necessary to put it down to prevent from suffering further.

'Breathing normally'

The RNLI say it is the first whale rescue on the Thames. A spokesman said three whales were spotted east of the Thames Barrier on Thursday but only one managed to get upstream.

he might have been hallucinating, but he had just seen a whale in the Thames.

Alison Shaw of the Marine and Freshwater Conservation Programme at London Zoo, said the northern bottle-nosed whale was usually found in groups of three to 10.

She told the BBC News website: "This is extremely rare in British waters as they are normally found in deep waters in the North Atlantic.

The whale is thought to weigh about seven tonnes. Photo: Guy Bailey

"It is about 16-18ft long, so is relatively mature. It is a very long way from home and we don't know why it has ended up here."

The whales usually weigh about seven tonnes, which will complicate any rescue attempt, experts said.

London Aquarium Curator Paul Hale told the BBC: "Getting that to do anything it doesn't want to do is going to be extremely difficult.

"This is a very active swimming animal and it's not going to go anywhere it doesn't want to go so we have to persuade it to swim back out."

Liz Sandeman, a medic of the Marine Connection, a whale and dolphin protection charity, accompanied the RNLI to examine the animal.

She feared it might be in danger from other boats, or be frightened by the noise.

"The last thing we want to do is stress the animal out," she said.

Over the years dolphins and seals have been spotted in the Thames.

Sperm whales have been seen in the Thames Estuary and porpoises have feasted on fish near Vauxhall Bridge, in central London.

Hyperoodon ampullatus

Adult length: 7-10m (23-33ft)

Weight: 5.8-7.5 tonnes

Diet: Squid, fish

Habitat: Deep offshore waters

Range: Arctic and North Atlantic

Status: Lower risk, conservation dependent, protected since 1977

Distinctive feature: Bulbous forehead

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4631396.stm

Unintentional, Unwitting Heroine

2006-01-23T10:25:00.000+08:00

Posted by Jason Bellows on January 20th, 2006 at 8:45 pm

Most cells in the human body can only multiply a certain number of times, then they inevitably die. This limit is named the Haystack Limit, for the man who first observed and published this observation. In humans, the average cell can divide 52 times. During each division, a portion of the DNA called the Telomere is shortened, and this shortening is suspected to be one of the causes of aging, the eventual degradation of the body, and ultimate death.

So if there were human cells that didn't degrade with multiplication–that showed no limit in the number of times they could divide, and remain alive forever, so long as the environment were suitable and nutrients were available–to what lengths would scientists go to study them?

It's not a hypothetical question. Henrietta Lacks doesn't know it, but she is a leading contributor to the sciences of aging and cancer. She lived in Maryland, mothered five children, and in 1951–at the still young and vital age of 31–died. Her unfortunate demise was the result of cervical cancer, and though the woman has passed away, the cancer remains.

When Mrs Lacks was hospitalized for her illness, the cancer cells were harvested and cultured–this is normal for her treatment. There was no discussion about future use for these cells, but after her death, the remarkable quality of the cells was noticed. The cells were no beholden to the Haystack Limit, nor did the Telomere shorten on reproduction–each offspring was a perfect copy of the parent. A resident at the hospital named George Gey distributed the cells as a means to research cancer despite the fact he'd received no permission to do so.

To protect her identity, Henrietta's name was first concealed, instead labeled as having come from "Helen Lane", hence the name HeLa Cells. Currently most every cancer research facility in the world has some HeLa Cells on hand. Though no one has measured exactly, it is speculated that the volume of HeLa Cells in the world today outweigh the woman from which they first came. The cells are somewhat hard to handle because they grow at such a phenomenal rate, sometimes contaminating other samples in a lab because only a few cells crossed containers in handling, and the HeLa Cells found the rudiments of survival.

In 1975, after the death of George Gey, the family of Henrietta Lacks learned that her cells still lived, and were all over the world.

Despite the fact the these cells have been heroic to the causes of cancer research and the study of aging, they are not without controversy. Some people made fortunes dealing in Henrietta, but her family never received a dime. No one had ever gained permission to deal in her cells, and Henrietta, being a black woman, was of a class traditionally oppressed and taken advantage of, and the notion vexes many.

Aside from that concern there are some that hold the meta-physical concern that the HeLa Cells are a unique, new species on their own right, and having seen one species spawn another opens some interesting ideas for the realm of evolution.

The interest of evolution might be better served by asking why Henrietta Lacks was never consulted about distributing her cells. Was it honestly neglected because no one foresaw the incredible potential, or was the notion rejected for fear she might say no?

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=364

How do men get sexually transmitted diseases?

2006-01-22T01:11:00.000+08:00

Ever since I took sex ed in high school I've been wondering: How exactly do men get STDs from women? The gym teacher explained that STDs are transmitted in body fluids and, as far as I know, men don't intake bodily fluids from women. Can you help me out? --Josh

Guest contributor Mojave66 replies:

Pardon the metaphor, but while a gusher may be spectacular, a swamp can be just as wet.

Transmission from females to males is dependent on a lot of factors such as open sores on the penis and vulva, vaginal trauma in women and circumcision in men (non-circumcised males have a higher risk of penile cancer). Female arousal includes a lubrication phase that squeezes water out of vaginal cells through vasodilation. The lubricant that forms is mostly water with a mix of squamous vaginal cells, cervical mucus and small amounts of blood. Luckily for us women, that can help reduce the risk of transmission to partners since more lubricant keeps the vagina safe from the cuts and scrapes of enthusiastic partners, and therefore less blood is introduced into the mix. It pays to keep your girl happy.

As for actual numbers, female-to-male transmission has been studied extensively, mainly in connection with HIV. A 1994 study in Italy (Nicolosi et al--see references below) showed that male-to-female transmission of HIV was 2.3 times higher than female-to-male transmission. In contrast, a study in Uganda in 2000 (Rakai Project Study Group) showed no statistical difference between men and women in HIV transmission--the biggest factor in transmission rates was viral load, not gender or any other variable.

Many other studies have confirmed the disparity between transmission rates in Africa and those in the developed world. The factors that probably make the difference are the higher number of penile ulcers in African men, who are also more likely to become infected via a prostitute. As for other STDs like HPV (human papilloma virus, which causes genital warts), herpes and hepatitis, few studies have been published but those that have been suggest the rate of female-to-male transmission isn't much lower than male-to-female transmission and may be roughly equal.

Female-to-female transmission is only beginning to be studied, but HPV, herpes and even syphilis are known to have been transmitted via female-to-female sexual contact. We also know that exclusively lesbian women have higher rates of bacterial vaginosis than straight women (Hughes and Evans, 2003; Fethers et al 2000; Campos-Outcalt and Hurwitz, 2002). As usual, it always pays to play safely, no matter your gender or orientation.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mF2M-stds.html

U.S Supreme Court votes 6-3 to uphold Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law

2006-01-21T01:29:00.000+08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

Justices, on a 6-3 vote in which chief justice John Roberts was on the losing side, said the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people trumped federal authority to regulate doctors.

That means the administration improperly tried to use a federal drug law to prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribe overdoses. Then-attorney general John Ashcroft vowed to do that in 2001, saying that doctor-assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose."

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the federal government does, indeed, have the authority to go after drug dealers and pass rules for health and safety.

But Oregon's law covers only extremely sick people - those with incurable diseases, whom at least two doctors agree have six months or less to live and are of sound mind.

Tuesday's decision is a reprimand of sorts for Ashcroft.

Kennedy said the "authority claimed by the attorney general is both beyond his expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design."

"The authority desired by the government is inconsistent with the design of the statute in other fundamental respects. The attorney general does not have the sole delegated authority under the (law)," Kennedy wrote on behalf of himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.

Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented.

Scalia said federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine. "If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death," he wrote.

The ruling backed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Ashcroft's "unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide."

Ashcroft had brought the case to the Supreme Court on the day his resignation was announced by the White House in 2004. The Justice Department has continued the case under the leadership of his successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Scalia said the court's ruling "is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal government's business."

"It is easy to sympathize with that position." he said.

Thomas, in his own dissent, complained that the court's reasoning was puzzling. Roberts did not write separately.

Justices have dealt with end-of-life cases before. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill people may refuse treatment that would otherwise keep them alive.

Then, justices in 1997 unanimously ruled that people have no constitutional right to die, upholding state bans on physician-assisted suicide. However, that opinion, by then-chief justice William Rehnquist, said individual states could decide to allow the practice.

Roberts strongly hinted in October when the case was argued that he would back the administration. O'Connor had seemed ready to support Oregon's law, but her vote would not have counted if the ruling had been handed down after she left the court.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/060117/w011732.htm

Buoyancy Bounces Back

2006-01-20T16:20:00.000+08:00

Posted by Alan Bellows on January 19th, 2006 at 5:30 pm

"Lighter-than-air" airships were once a promising breed, providing an inexpensive way to move large amounts of people and cargo inexpensively for long distances. But after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, flight-by-buoyancy was all but abandoned by the aeronautics industry. Hot air balloons and blimps have seen occasional use, but the giant, rigid-airship zeppelins were all dismantled by 1940, and have hardly been seen since.

Now the U.S. Army is taking another look at the technology, with plans to develop a vehicle which harks back to the buoyant days of the zeppelins; however this new design is not intended to be "lighter-than-air," rather it is a hybrid combining aerodynamics, thrust vectoring and gas buoyancy. Combining these three forces, the Army hopes to develop a cargo vehicle which can haul more than five hundred tons over very long distances, and land almost anywhere. The concept is called the "Walrus."

Zeppelins were briefly used by the German military during the First World War, primarily for bombing and reconnaissance missions. But their vulnerability to gunfire from the Earth and from other aircraft made them impractical, and they were quickly abandoned as a military vehicle. The rigid airships which followed were used to transport people and cargo, and until the Hindenburg took the entire zeppelin industry down in flames, the reliability and endurance of lighter-than-air vehicles was very promising.

Some new technologies should make this latest foray into buoyant airships a bit more practical for the military. This design will still be vulnerable to gunfire due to its relatively large size and low speed, but its use will be limited to missions where the area in question is already under control, even if only temporarily. The Army envisions a vehicle which can transport an entire Unit of Action– including 1,800 infantry plus armor support– from its operational base in the U.S. to the theater of combat… wherever that may be. This factors into the military's "10-30-30" objective: deploy to a distant theater in 10 days, defeat an enemy within 30 days, and be ready for an additional fight within another 30 days.

By way of comparison, the military's current cargo workhorse– the C-130 Hercules– holds about 22 tons. In order to lift the 500-1,000 tons as required in the specifications, it is estimated that the Walrus will be about 1,000 feet long, with a size roughly comparable to an aircraft carrier. Despite its size, it does have one large advantage over cargo planes such as the C-130: the Walrus' design allows the vessel to land practically anywhere, with no need for a landing strip … or even land, for that matter. The Army's requirements call for a craft which can land on "unimproved terrain" or on water.

If the design proves viable and cost-effective, the peacetime benefits of this technology are potentially great as well. The Walrus is planned to have a range of 6,000 miles which it can travel within four days, providing an inexpensive means of hauling large amounts of cargo great distances through the air.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded funding to two contractors for the first phase of the Walrus program. If the design phase goes well, phase two should produce a smaller 30-ton-capacity prototype by 2007.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=300#more-300

Nemesis: The Million Dollar Question

2006-01-20T12:42:00.000+08:00

By Robert Roy Britt
22 March 2001

"The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance. It's know'n so many things that ain't so." -- A favorite quote of Richard A. Muller, by 19th century humorist Josh Billings.

When you think big, as Richard A. Muller does, you're bound to create ideas now and then that are so compelling you just can't let go of them -- ideas so outlandish that mainstream scientists are equally eager to dismiss them.

Muller, a physicist at University of California at Berkeley, has had his share of big ideas .

If you don't count the restaurant he owned between 1976 and 1982 ("If anyone near and dear to you wants to open a restaurant, I can now be hired to talk them out of it."), Muller's ideas are generally rooted in solid science and genius extrapolation. He's got a gaggle of prestigious awards to prove it, with titles that say things like "outstanding" and "highly original."

But Muller's biggest idea is a real Nemesis. Or so he claims.

Like a thorn in the side of mainstream researchers, Muller's Nemesis theory -- that our Sun has a companion star responsible for recurring episodes of wholesale death and destruction here on Earth -- seems to reemerge periodically like microbes after a mass extinction.

It's a theory that has many detractors. And it's a theory that has been beaten down and left for dead in the minds of most scientists.

Yet it is a theory that just won't die.

Nemesis is cautiously supported by a handful of scientists, who often sound like ringside rooters eager for a victory but thankful they don't have to put the gloves on. Muller meanwhile acknowledges the possibility that the whole idea could turn out to be wrong, but he is nonetheless confident that Nemesis will be found within 10 years.

"Give me a million dollars and I'll find it," Muller said in a recent telephone interview.

Brave words for a bold theory that if proven true would shake up everything we know about the formation and evolution of our solar system.

Genesis of Nemesis

Muller's idea for Nemesis came to him 1983. Luis Alvarez, then an emeritus professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, and his son Walter had recently put forth the theory that a giant impact had wiped out the dinosaurs. (This idea, like so many others that are now widely accepted, met with staunch criticism when it was introduced because it, too, was not mainstream).

Around the same time, two other researchers had suggested yet another controversial idea, that mass extinctions occurred at regular intervals -- every 26 million years or so. Scientists immediately folded the ideas into a new and breathtaking possibility: Impacts by space rocks were causing massive global species destruction every 26 million years.

Luis Alvarez was Richard Muller's mentor, and he suggested that Muller try to debunk the periodicity argument. Pondering this, Muller dreamed up the fanciful companion to the Sun as a possible cause, and with Berkeley's Piet Hut and Marc Davis of Princeton, worked out the details.

Muller gave the object the name of the Greek goddess of retribution -- fitting for a killer star that roamed stealthily beyond the solar system flicking comets at dinosaurs.

In the end, the idea looked surprisingly plausible to Muller and his colleagues, and the results of their work were ultimately published in the journal Nature in 1984. Muller then wrote a book about Nemesis, and he has pursued the companion star, while also doing other research, ever since.

Tossing comets at us

Nemesis, as Muller sees it, is a common red dwarf star that would be visible through binoculars or a small telescope, if only we knew which of some 3,000 stars to look at. These are stars that have been cataloged, but their distances are not known.

Any one of them could be the Death Star, as Nemesis has come to be called by some.

Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the galaxy. They are small and relatively cool, dimmer than our Sun. The notion of companion stars is also exceedingly common -- more than half of all stars are part of such a binary system, in which two stars are thought to form out of a single cloud of gas and dust.

Binary stars settle into a gravitational dance around a common point in space. The smaller of the two stars does most of the orbiting, whereas the larger one is much closer to the center of the dance routine. It's like two kids on a seesaw. For the thing to work properly, the heavier child must sit closer to the center of the apparatus.

Muller figures Nemesis' orbit ranges from 1 to 3 light-years away from the Sun.

On its closest approach, the lethal companion would pass through a vast, but sparsely populated halo of primitive comets called the Oort Cloud , which surrounds our solar system from beyond Neptune's orbit out to nearly a light-year away. (The Sun's nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, is about 4.25 light-years away).

During this passage through or near the Oort Cloud, the gravity of Nemesis would scatter a furious storm of primordial comets that had been relatively undisturbed for 4.5 billion years, since the solar system came into being.

Dislodged from their once-stable orbits, millions or billions of these comets would travel to the inner solar system over millions of years, pulled toward the Sun by its gravity. A handful would run into Earth along the way, and the flurry of would result in mass extinctions.

Simple enough. But Nemesis has for years been dogged by a misunderstanding, Muller says. Most researchers think the theory was long ago dismissed by competing data that claimed its orbit was not possible.

Far-out idea

The orbit assumed for Nemesis is an unusual one, Muller admits. No star has ever been found to orbit so far from a companion. "And that really bothers people," he said. "It makes them think that this is a really far-out idea, literally."

But computer models developed by Muller and his colleagues predict that such an orbit must occur at some point in the evolution of most binary star systems. "We just haven't found such systems yet," he said.

And while Muller appreciates the natural and healthy skepticism of other scientists, he figures they are not interested in funding a search because they erroneously assume that Nemesis cannot be found.

Jonathan Tate is the director of Spaceguard U.K ., which lobbies for a government response to the threat of asteroids. Tate is among those who see no rush to find Nemesis. He would rather see money spent on more immediate searches for asteroids closer to Earth that might prove to be humanity's undoing in coming decades or centuries.

As Tate points out, proving that mass extinctions occur every 26 million years, regardless of the cause, is only of academic interest: Humans may not likely to be around to care, as many researchers don't expect our species to last that long. If we do survive, there will likely be plenty of time to worry.

Questioning periodicity

Meanwhile, many scientists see little or no credibility to the studies alleging periodicity in mass extinctions, and hence no need for a Nemesis theory.

Numerous studies have reported cycles in either impacts or mass extinctions. The period between peaks in these studies mostly range from 26 million to 35 million years. Andrew Glikson of the Australian National University says that trying to pin down things that happened so long ago is no simple challenge. For one thing, space rocks that land in the ocean leave few clues, Glikson points out, and Earth is roughly two-thirds water.

And Earth has always had a crust that is on the move. Evidence gets buried, destroyed, and folded into oblivion by the same process that creates mountains and moves continents.

"Some of the suggested periodicities are more likely to represent statistical artifacts than robust observations," Glikson said.

David Raup, a University of Chicago paleontologist, made the original mass-extinction periodicity argument two decades ago along with colleague J. John Sepkoski. The pair studied marine fossil records over a 250 million-year period that they say showed significant spikes every 26 million years.

"To me, the periodicity idea is as well supported as many ideas that have been adopted into the conventional wisdom, but the scientific community is heartily skeptical," Raup told SPACE.com. "Of the 15 or so re-analyses of our data published since the original paper, about half support periodicity and half reject it. It's is still very much in the eye of the beholder."

Muller supports the statistics more emphatically.

"There is a peculiar pattern in mass extinctions, something that cannot be dismissed as a statistical fluctuation," Muller said. "It requires some explanation."

Raup, now retired from active research, would not venture a guess as to when or whether Nemesis might be found, but he expressed hope in the idea: "I am glad Rich [Muller] is still working on it because it may take a lot of effort, and he's the best."

The galactic plane, Planet X and black holes

Other ideas have been put forth to explain the alleged periodicity in mass extinctions.

The most widely accepted is the suggestion that the solar system, as it revolves around the center of the Milky Way, bobs up and down through the plane of the galaxy. This plane is full of gas and dust that never became stars, which collectively has a certain amount of gravity that some expect might dislodge comets from the Oort Cloud.

There are doubts, however, about the amount of mass in the galactic plane and whether or not the timing coincides with the periodicity of mass extinctions.

Others have suggested a dim failed star known as a brown dwarf might be lurking in the distant fringes of the solar system. Muller called the increasing rate of discovery of brown dwarfs, including one that is just 13 light-years away , "extremely discouraging." For if Nemesis were a brown dwarf, it would be harder to find.

Yet another enduring idea is that another large planet lurks beyond Pluto. This so-called Planet X would be a gas ball up to five times the size of Earth, according to some predictions. Even the possibility of a black hole has been raised. Few researchers support these two ideas.

Evidence from the Moon

The best evidence for periodic impacts on Earth may ultimately come from the Moon. While the Earth's crust has been stretched, squashed and folded violently its whole life, the Moon is relatively static, preserving a far more accessible geologic record.

A year ago Muller, Berkeley geologist Paul Renne and then-graduate student Timothy Culler found the Moon underwent a flurry of impacts between 400 million and 600 million years ago. The active period (which may still be going on) presumably affected Earth as well since both bodies are in roughly the same spot in the solar system.

Muller says the sudden increase offers indirect evidence for a sudden change in the orbit of Nemesis, which might have been caused by a passing star.

But the study did not turn up evidence for the 26 million-year periodicity, as hoped. Muller says there was not enough data. The study involved 155 microscopic glass beads formed in the intense heat of lunar impacts and later brought to Earth, in a single gram of soil, by the Apollo 14 crew.

But given that there are "several hundred pounds (kilograms) of [lunar] dust and rocks that have not been analyzed," Muller plans another more detailed study.

Whether or not he finds evidence for Nemesis in Moon dust, it's clear that Muller won't stop looking. He is a man of enduring confidence. But he is also a remarkably conservative scientist, quick as anyone to point out that there is no proof until there is proof.

"I'm realistic," he said. "I may be wrong."

And he recognizes that if the Death Star is not found, the whole idea could become a real Nemesis for the big thinker who dreamed it up.

http://www.space.com/news/nemesis_010410.html

Vatican Paper Hits 'Intelligent Design'

2006-01-19T16:36:00.000+08:00

VATICAN CITY, Jan. 18, 2006

(AP) The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

The article in Tuesday's editions of L'Osservatore Romano was the latest in a series of interventions by Vatican officials including the pope on the issue that has dominated headlines in the United States.

The author, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, laid out the scientific rationale for Darwin's theory of evolution, saying that in the scientific world, biological evolution "represents the interpretative key of the history of life on Earth."

He lamented that certain American "creationists" had brought the debate back to the "dogmatic" 1800s, and said their arguments weren't science but ideology.

"This isn't how science is done," he wrote. "If the model proposed by Darwin is deemed insufficient, one should look for another, but it's not correct from a methodological point of view to take oneself away from the scientific field pretending to do science."

Intelligent design "doesn't belong to science and the pretext that it be taught as a scientific theory alongside Darwin's explanation is unjustified," he wrote.

"It only creates confusion between the scientific and philosophical and religious planes."

Supporters of "intelligent design" hold that some features of the universe and living things are so complex they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Critics say intelligent design is merely creationism _ a literal reading of the Bible's story of creation _ camouflaged in scientific language and say it does not belong in science curriculum.

Facchini said he recognized some Darwin proponents erroneously assume that evolution explains everything. "Better to recognize that the problem from the scientific point of view remains open," he said.

But he concluded: "In a vision that goes beyond the empirical horizon, we can say that we aren't men by chance or by necessity, and that the human experience has a sense and a direction signaled by a superior design."

The article echoed similar arguments by the Vatican's chief astronomer, the Rev. George Coyne, who said "intelligent design" wasn't science and had no place in school classrooms.

Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed in off-the-cuff comments in November that the universe was made by an "intelligent project" and criticized those who in the name of science say its creation was without direction or order.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/18/ap/world/mainD8F7BDS03.shtml