Let’s start with the email from Dato’ Sri Najib. I am sure that most, if not all, of you (Malaysians) have received the same email late last month. At first I thought it was just another spam. Then, many people said it’s for real. OK then…

As for me, I am just wondering where did they (referring to those who manage the PM’s website) manage to get my email. Not that my email is a secret or something but the fact that they had it is a bit bewildering… A bit only OK… On the other hand, I would not be surprised if this move would be or have been politicized by now. Malaysians are good at it…

Next, the email from LHDN. This one came in early this month. By the way, this has got nothing to do with my Nuffnang earning declaration that I made here recently. I am pretty sure the folks at LHDN are superb at currency conversions. The email is about notification on non-issuance of Form B / BE / P for Year of Assessment 2010. Applicable if you have used the e-Filing system. Don’t forget to pay your tax ya!

My point is, it is good to see that the government and it’s agencies are leveraging on the internet and its related technologies to get to the people. Good or bad, that’s for you to decide.

p/s
My thought for the day: “I wonder why those people who talk bad about this country are mostly still living in this country… My guess would be, no other country wants them as well since they might talk bad about that country too”. LOL! Peace!

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It just did not make any sense…

Packed up my things to go home at 6+ pm yesterday. Then, I realized that my car key was missing. The whole bunch of keys were missing! Searched high and low, in my room, in the toilet, in the surau and practically the whole floor, and still could not find them.

It just did not make any sense…

Sat down and calmly recalled what I did, starting from the arrival at the office…

Arrived from Putrajaya. Joined the meeting at the Sales department. Pick up the Projector from Din. Took the projector to my room. Locked the projector inside the wooden cabinet. Put the keys on the table. Went for lunch downstairs. Back to the room. Took the notebook out. Joined the meeting at the Sales department again. Picked up my umbrella from Azie. Went up to my room. Went out to talk to Man. Went back into my room. Called Azmi. Sayau came and talked about DLP. Azmi came. Sayau left. Went out looking for Azmi. Sat at a desk out there. Found Azmi. Brought Azmi to my room. Azmi left. Packed up. Keys were gone!

It just did not make any sense…

Went down to Sayau’s room. Asked whether he had accidentally taken my keys. He rummaged some keys on his table and said they were all his. Went back up and called Azmi and he said he did not bring anything in and out. So, the only two people that came over were cleared. Went over to the lunch place and the only thing that someone left behind was a mobile phone…

It just did not make any sense…

Eyan joined the search party. She went through everything in my room and still could not find any key. Mama Pasha called and ready to come over with a spare key. It was peak hour, raining and depended on GPS. It was really a bad idea. We gave up. Search party dissolved at 7+ pm.

It was not the first time I lost my keys. But the difference was, this one just did not make any sense…

On the way down, I stopped at Sayau’s for a last look. My instinct told me to do so. Went over to his table and looked at his keys again. Then I saw that he had two set of keys and both had a car key attached. It just did not make any sense to have two sets of keys at that time. I took one set and guess what?

It was mine! He rummaged his and mine! Mystery solved! Mama Pasha did not have to come. I was relieved.

Senseless things happen…

P/s:
A big thanks to Eyan for volunteering for the search!

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If you are familiar with Jalan Ampang, right after Ampang Park, there’s a 4-way intersection between Jalan Ampang and Jalan Tun Razak. Right after the intersection, Jalan Ampang will have 3 lanes and then a few meters away, it is reduced to 2 lanes. That’s where this story begins.

I was on the middle lane, that would eventually become the left lane. I saw this big old blue bus in my rear view mirror on the left lane. Traffic was heavy at that time as it was half past four and people were just started to rush out of KL. It was not really congested yet though.

Suddenly I heard a loud engine roar coming from my left. The big blue old bus came speeding on my left side and cut over into my lane as the 3 lanes converged into 2. To make it worst, my dear honking device, as usual, would always fail to work when I needed it to work… Duh!

May be it was desperate to squeeze in at that time, so I thought… I was wrong! Right after that stunt, the bus cut over to the right lane as there was  a small gap between the cars there. And naturally, you have no choice but to give way to this big bully anyway. From that point onwards, the bus driver kept on switching lane from left to right and vice versa, as and when he saw a gap between cars!

I just would not let this go. What if it knocked into a motorcyclist ferrying a kid or a pregnant lady or any person for that matter? It is already statistically proven that reckless driving is the main contribution to road accident. So I texted 15888 and gave them the place, time, plate number and a brief description of what was the bus doing.

I received my report number already. With that I just gave LPKP the benefit of the doubt…

Well, at least I tried something…

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I wanted to write about food in Dumai but almost everywhere I stopped on the Malaysian blogosphere, AJL25 was what I found. Ana here, Ana there, Ana everywhere, e i e i o… I mean so on and so forth… And not to mention a few people have asked me to hop on the bandwagon. So people, be careful of what you wish for because now you have to bear my piece on AJL25…

Out of 10 blogs that I visited, 8 were not quite happy with her winning the AJL25 last night. Ana Raffali with her Tolong Ingatkan Aku beat other favorites such as, Faizal Tahir and Hafiz. The last time I checked, music experts don’t really have time to blog and majority of the bloggers are hardly music experts.

But, last night and today, many bloggers have been making so-called expert criticisms on her selection as the winner. I find that rather strange and this is the point of this post in case you still haven’t got a clue on where I am heading with this post…

In other words, I am very sure that the juries, who are the experts, had done proper evaluations before deciding on the winner. Don’t you think so?

Am I a die hard fan of Ana? I only heard that songs a few times played on the radio while I was driving to and from work. The first and the only other song that I have heard from her was Hujan Bunga di Kuala Lumpur. I believe that would clearly disqualify me from a die hard fan title, right?

Here is a piece of that Hujan Bunga…

Hujan bunga di Kuala Lumpur
Kini sudah tiada
Masa untuk mencari payung
Berteduh kita bawah surat khabar
Lalu terbaca berita kata
Hujan ini tak akan reda

Most people who read that would say what a crap that is. But then, that’s Ana. That’s what differentiate her from Siti Nurhaliza with her Balqis or Misha Omar with her Bunga Bunga Cinta or Adibah Nor with her Terlalu Istimewa. Now some people have to swallow their own crap…

The way I look at it, music is not much different from food. Well, I was about to write about food, remember? Some people like sushi, some people like curry and some others like bakso. People eat what they like to eat and when they are served with something other than what they like, criticisms will be jumping out of their mouths… That’s what it really is, in a nutshell…

As much as it is interesting to read about all the good and bad of the last AJL25, I am taking it with a pinch of salt and move on. We have bigger problems on our hands that require more serious attentions such as, the increasing price of fuel and the shortages of cooking oil, the rising cost of medical care and a few others…

By the way, luckily for me, I enjoy eating from sushi to some hot curry and anything in between and when it comes to music, I can easily indulge in listening to song such as, Bahtera Merdeka from Ahmad Jais all the way to Pawana from Search. So Tolong Ingatkan Aku is not a problem at all.

Congrats Ana! Peace!

P/s:
I did not even watch the AJL25. I was busy watching the Junior MasterChef Australia on StarWorld.

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Happy new year 2011 to all! May we all have a blessed life this year.

Papa Bear and family is in Dumai, Indonesia. This will be a short entry just to wish everyone happy new year 2011.

Ps;
This post was written on WordPress for Android and it’s my first attempt at mobile blogging…

Garuda scratched Harimau Malaya 2 -1 in GBK but that was not enough to prevent the tiger from bringing back the AFF Suzuki Cup 2010 to Malaysia. Malaysia wins with an aggregate of 4 – 2. It was another heart pounding match between the two teams.

Indonesia deserved to win this leg as they dominated the game from the beginning. The Malaysian midfield and defense were not performing as good as they had done before against Vietnam in Hanoi and Indonesia in Bukit Jalil. I wonder why? May be Rajagopal would know better. They lost possession of the ball quite a lot and not as challenging as they were before…

Luckily for Malaysia, Khairul Fahmi gave out an outstanding performance despite letting in 2 goals. He even stopped a penalty. Great Job!

All in all, it was a great game! Congrats to Safee Sali for becoming the top scorer.

Finally, Good job Indonesia and congratulations Malaysia!

p/s:
3 goals but I could only shout once…

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I am imagining the eerie feeling surrounding the inside of the GBK stadium as it awaits for the final kickoff of the AFF Suzuki Cup 2010 between Indonesia and Malaysia tonight…

All the best to both teams! Play a beautiful game and make it worth the attention that it has got this far!

… And keep the fight on the soccer field only…

Oh boy! Suddenly this blog has transformed from a mixed-bag blog to a sports blog. Thanks to AFF. No worries, this transformation is only temporary and once AFF is over, it will be back to normal.

Anyway, this entry is about lasers. Why is the sudden fascination about lasers? Thanks to AFF again. As expected, the Malaysian victory over Indonesian in the first leg of the AFF final would bring out some discordant voices (suara sumbang) from some (definitely not all) of its fanatic supporters. The denial is so great that some really “bad” words have been used against, not only the team, but also Malaysians in general. As I said before, that is really uncalled for. I do not wish to list the words here as they are words that I do not want to appear on this blog. Just google the net and you would easily get them…

Let’s go back to the lasers. In Malaysia, lasers are synonymous to not that many things. In my case, they are more related to some science fiction movies such as the Star Wars…

The pic on the left is showing an X-Wing fighter avoiding some laser shots. Love the X-Wing so much that I wanted to own one when I grew up. Now I know we are still stuck with Proton cars… And, the other lasers that more Malaysians are familiar with is the pic on the right. The guy on the right is Azwan Ali who is, once upon a time in the Malaysian entertainment arena, well known for his “mulut laser” (laser mouth that was more powerful than any laser gun). But that was then…

Now, going back to AFF, a pic of allegedly a Malaysian firing laser spread like wildfire on Twitter and the net in general. Obviously an attempt by some fanatics to make sure that Malaysians are blamed for their team’s dismay performance on the field.

Too bad, many people already know that this pic was not taken in Stadium Bukit Jalil. Definitely not with a number of  ”Pak Arab” in the picture. That pic was actually taken from the last Fifa World Cup in South Africa. Check out this link and have a look. Fifa 2010: Spectators target coach Maradona, Messi & other players with laser. Shame to those who spread lies such as this one…

Another question that came in mind is who started playing with lasers during AFF. Did the Malaysians started it or was it already done by some other people in some other stadiums. Thanks to the power of the internet and social networking, my simple question was immediately answered.

Just watch the video clip below and you will also know…

That is the clip of the game between Indonesia and Malaysia played in Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) and you can clearly lasers on the keeper’s frustrated face… And Indonesia won 5-1. So, what is the big deal about lasers in Bukit Jalil then? One thing for sure, nobody here complained about those lasers. Malaysia lost because they played badly…

And here is a statement from Alfred Riedl

“I have to talk to the players if the lasers affected them but I don’t think so,” said Riedl.

“It was the first goal which changed everything. We had a good first half. But when Malaysia scored, my defenders got confused. One mistake made the difference. Read more: Football / AFF Suzuki Cup: Raja not celebrating yet http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/Rajanotcelebratingyet/Article/

The moral of the story is, check your facts first before succumbing to your emotions… Looking forward to another great Asian football match in GBK!

Credits: Thanks to my friend Mella for prompting this fact-finding post and thanks to my friends Ed and Bird for feeding me with some facts.

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It was a great game marred only by the green laser incident. Bad supporters!!! So, when we won the match, they would blame it on the lasers. The authority should have done something to not allow these  Star Wars fans to come in with all their gears. Anyway, the game was well balanced in the first half and it ended up with no goal. It was a worrying result for the Malaysian side since the much needed goals to bring over to Indonesia was not in hand…

The second half was a different story altogether. The game was stopped for about 5 minutes when the Indonesian keeper complained about the lasers that were being fired at his face. In the end, finally, the laser bearing spectators decided to behave and switched off their lasers. That’s when the irony began.

Laser went off and floodgate opened. Probably after getting some rest and more tips from the coach, the goals started to roll in. Safee Sali struck twice and got his wish to beat Marcus. Ashaari made it 3 – 0 later on.

It was a great scoreline for the Malaysian team to bring over to Indonesia. However, I am pretty sure that the Indonesian team and supporters would blame the lasers and labeled this match as an unfair game. I have seen lots of these comments from my Facebook friends and I am even surprised that somebody even started name-calling against Malaysia… I really believe that it is uncalled for… or maybe that person forgot that her friend list is not 100% from the same country…

Anyway, wanna guess what was the dog looking for?

Now let’s look forward to another great 90 minutes on December 29!

Updated on December 27, 2010: Safee Sali scored the first and the third goal and not the second goal as mentioned above. My bad…

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Good news for Malaysian soccer fans especially to those who do not have ASTRO or have ASTRO but do not subscribe to the sports channels. RTM 1 will be showing the first leg of the final between Malaysia and Indonesia live starting at 8:00pm and not 30 minutes later as previously shown. Quoting Datuk Seri Dr, Rais Yatim, the Information Communication and Culture Minister in Utusan Online,

“Yes (live telecast), we have received public attention that this is not just an ordinary football match, this is a match that has drawn the attention of Nusantara, that’s why we endeavoured to show the live telecast and whatever programmes that ‘are offensive’, we will try to adapt,” he told reporters after launching the Istana Budaya (IB) 2011 programme, here today.

It is good that finally RTM 1 is going to listen to what the people want for a change…

On the other news, the Indonesian team has been promised a huge amount of reward of IDR 3 billion (approximately RM 900,000) should they emerge the champion of the AFF Suzuki CUp 2010. The money will come from the Indonesian government and the Indonesian Footbal Association (PSSI). That’s a huge sum of money. The Indonesian players are going to be instant rich people!

Meanwhile, Nugraha said the Indonesian government and PSSI would reward the team 3bil rupiah (RM900,000) should it emerge AFF Suzuki Cup champions. Quoted from Utusan Online.

We can only hope that our players will play their heart out and will not start to compare rewards. It would be terrible if they are distracted after reading that news.

To the fans of both teams, please do not fight! May the best team win!

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