Who's going to be next??

Really, I think all these fear-mongering actions are getting a bit out of hand. I was surprised to learn this morning that a Sikh temple in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur came under a hail of stones last night, thrown in from outside the temple compound. Whether or not it was related to the Allah and the Catholic Church issue remains to be determined but luckily, nobody was hurt. However, the glass doors were cracked.

No doubt, the Home Minister will still say that it is isolated and not serious. No doubt, the Police will still call on the churches and now temples to guard their own premises. No doubt, the Police will continue to say that they are investigating the latest incident. No doubt, the Police will dust the stones for clues and try to lift fingerprints from them. No doubt, The Malaysian Insider will still use the word "imps" to describe the perpetrators.

But in the meantime, the zealots and the bigots are having a field day, emboldened by the snail's pace of this investigation. Where's the will to make it happen fast?

F-word in the M-kitchen?

Totally cool. Gordon Ramsay is one of the most entertaining celebrity chefs around and I know that several people managed to get fat just by watching his shows on television.

So now, the word is that he wants to highlight Malaysian cuisine next. May we have some expletives served with our food then?

When lightning strikes

I was having a somewhat frivolous conversation on facebook with English chess grandmaster Nigel Short recently and our topic turned to his first and last visit to Malaysian shores quite some time ago.

Nigel: I am trying to remember where I picked up hepatitis
Me: ahem....lightning seldom strikes twice in the same place
Nigel: one guy was struck by lightning seven times
Me: that's why i said "seldom", not "never"
Nigel: he was a ranger in Yellowstone Park. if I recall (he) committed suicide in the end. Roy Sullivan was his name. just looked it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Sullivan

All I can say is, poor guy...

Little devils

Aiyoyo, I noticed this news item in The Malaysian Insider today and couldn't believe what I saw. The headline said: Police: Imps broke Miri church windows

I was scratching my head. Imps? Did The Malaysian Insider really mean to use this word? Because to me, the most common meaning of this word is "a little devil or demon; an evil spirit."

Of course, imp also means "mischievous child, naughty kid, delinquent" and this is probably closer to what the news portal wanted to say in the headline. But the first impression I got was that the Police had started to believe in the supernatural and blaming all the arson and attempted arson not on "Acts of God" but "Acts of Imps".

Or have they?

Australia travellogue: Augusta lighthouse, Cape Leeuwin

5 Nov 2009. Of all the places we visited in Western Australia, I think Augusta has the grandest sounding name of all. Perth, Albany, Denmark, Walpole, Pemberton, Busselton, Margaret River, Bunbury, Rockingham, Fremantle.... In my opinion, none of them can hold a candle to Augusta's name.


Augusta's claim to fame is their candle in the wind: the majestic Cape Leeuwin lighthouse (aka the Augusta lighthouse) that's more than 100 years old, stands 35 metres tall and whose light burns with the intensity of a million candles, warning away ships from as far as 25 nautical miles.

Yes, we made it to the final guided tour of the day or otherwise I wouldn't be able to write this story. Of course, it was a bit of a rush driving down along the winding Cave Road from the Lake Cave but we made it all the same without breaking any spped limit. The most interesting aspect of visiting the lighthouse was the approach. As we walked nearer to the lighthouse, it simply loomed taller and taller over us until we were forced to crane our necks upwards just to focus on the top.


Before we went up the lighthouse, we walked along the boardwalk to this platform that proclaimed that we were looking out to the point where the Indian Ocean met the Antartic Ocean. Down south, they call it the Southern Ocean but I clearly remember my geography books refer to it as the Antartic Ocean. Anyway, we don't know for sure where exactly the two oceans meet but we were told to look out for some rocks a distance away where the waves would break dramatically.


The lighthouse has seven floors and 186 steps spiralling internally all the way to the top. The platform at the top, where we could walk all the way round, opened out to a view of the oceans and towards Augusta itself. The view is not only remarkable, it is breath-taking!



Next: Abbey Beach Resort
Previous: Lake Cave

Shine on, ELO

I can't remember when it was that I first started listening to the Electric Light Orchestra but the first time I did, I went, " Eh? Now that is a sound I like!" Like every teenager, I started off by listening typical pop and rock music on the radio but by the time I reached my twenties, my music preference had gone off on a slight tangent. Middle-of-the-road pop and rock may be fine but there were other musical adventures to explore too.

Jazz rock, psychedelic rock, heavy metal rock, folk rock, orchestral rock...I've listened to them all. Now here comes classical rock. To my mind, one of the greatest proponents of this genre of rock music was the Electric Light Orchestra. ELO supposedly took off where The Beatles had left off. Rock wrapped up with cellos, violins, horns and woodwinds to give the sound a classical feel. A good concept which the ELO pulled off very well.

ELO was Roy Wood's idea but ironically, he left the group after their first album. Jeff Lynne then took up the reins of the group and there was no turning back for their type of music. Between 1971 and 1987, Electric Light Orchestra came up with 12 albums. Fifteen years later, a final album was released.

I spent the weekend listening to a few ELO albums, starting with Face The Music (1975) and finishing with a compilation album, The Light Shines On Vol 2.


Look closely and you'll see an electrocution chair on the cover. This is a reference to the album's title, Face The Music. When you are in the chair, you are really going to face the music. Indeed! The first song on the album, although essentially an instrumental, contained a distorted voice message at the start. It's documented that when the song is played backwards, drummer Bev Bevan is heard saying: "The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back."

Side One: Fire on High, Waterfall, Evil Woman, Nightrider
Side Two: Poker, Strange Magic, Down Home Town, One Summer Dream


A New World Record. Until today, I don't know whether the emphasis should be on "New World" or on "World Record". Is it a "new world" record or is it a new "world record"? Anyhow, the cover art features the now famous ELO logo which looks like a jukebox speaker. It's used here for the first time on an ELO album.

Side One: Tightrope, Telephone Line, Rockaria!, Mission (A World Record)
Side Two: So Fine, Livin' Thing, Above the Clouds, Do Ya, Shangri-La


Discovery was much influenced by disco music and this was clear from many of the songs on this album. Not all, but some of them. There's a real orchestra backing the ELO this time and their traditional trio of string players were all now missing which was a big pity as far as I was concerned because to me, they were an inseparable part of the group that gave the songs their signature classical feel.

Side One: Shine A Little Love, Confusion, Need Her Love, The Diary of Horace Wimp
Side Two: Last Train To London, Midnight Blue, On the Run, Wishing, Don't Bring Me Down


And finally, this is The Light Shines On Volume 2, a compilation album that contained music from their first two albums. I bought it because of the original full-length versions of 10538 Overture and that classic Chuck Berry hit, Roll Over Beethoven (UK version).

Side One: 10538 Overture, First Movement (Jumping Biz), In Old England Town (Boogie #2), Manhattan Rumble, From The Sun To The World (Boogie #1)
Side Two: Kuiama, Nellie Takes Her Bow, Queen Of The Hours, Roll Over Beethoven

Island city?

An interesting piece of news spotted today in Sun2Surf, the online version of theSun newspaper.

Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng says that the state government is applying to the Housing and Local Government Ministry to elevate the whole island to city status. And he also says that the minister did not object to the proposal.

The only doubt I have in my mind is whether or not "not objecting" is the same as "not agreeing" because knowing how this federal government works, they will surely put a spanner in the proposal as long as it is made by a Pakatan-led state government. I wouldn't put much hopes on the request right now. Such is life, I suppose. But of course, it's worth every effort of trying! I will support any move to give city status to the whole of Penang island.

The other niggling question is about the position of George Town's own city status. It is never a doubt that George Town is known worldwide as a heritage city and UNESCO recognises it as much. As an Anak George Town now living on the other side of the Channel Divide, I am still very much attached to the old city where I was born and raised. I still feel the pulse of the old city in my veins: the heritage buildings, the culture and the way of life, and definitely the people. Therefore, while all of us here in Penang are rightly proud of this status - we are, after all, the only city in the country with a status granted by Royal Charter by the Queen Elizabeth in 1954 before independence - I do not want any new status for Penang island to overshadow this unique position.

The state government should ensure that the city of George Town's position is never questioned or touched when they open negotiations with the federal government. In my opinion, it is perfectly alright to have a City-within-a-City concept.

Cupid is no match for the pig

During my 24 years in the banking industry, there were two projects that I'm extremely proud of. What, you may say, only two projects in 24 years? Of course not! There had been several but among them, only two stood out; two that I'm very proud to be associated with.

When I first joined Ban Hin Lee Bank in 1977, the bank was already issuing a very nice coinbox in the shape of the bank's building in Beach Street, George Town. Soon afterwards, the management decided to replace that design with a series of new coinboxes that followed the Chinese zodiac signs. It was an ambitious decision but it was a right decision that set the bank onwards along a path of revitalisation.

The first Chinese zodiac coinbox appeared in 1978 to coincide with that year's Chinese New Year. That year was, of course, the Year of the Horse so the coinbox was shaped as a horse's head. In the following years, the Goat and Monkey coinboxes came out.

Because the idea was such a novelty - a new coinbox design every year AND coinciding with the Chinese zodiac signs - it started a craze in Penang. In all the branches of the bank, people started coming in to open savings accounts after Chinese New Year just to collect the coinboxes. The branch counters would be jam-packed with new depositors and we, the front-line staff, would be working non-stop from 10 o'clock in the morning until way past three o'clock in the afternoon. You see, 3pm would be the time that the bank doors would close for the day but the banking hall would still be filled with people waiting patiently to open their accounts and collect the coinboxes. Only one word to describe all that hard work: CRAZY.

In 1980, I was transferred to the Head Office and took over the coinbox project. It meant that I had to negotiate with the coinbox supplier every year to get a new design agreed upon, and the prices too. So I was involved directly in this project for seven years from the Monkey design (1981) till the Tiger coinbox (1987). After that, I was transferred to another department in the bank and another person took over the coinbox project until the 12-year series was completed.

Incidentally during those seven years, I got to know Mr Colin Edmonds of United Technologies well. I believe that eventually, he supplied all the 12 coinbox designs to the bank. While the project was with me, he was very accommodative to the bank's demands and we got on very well professionally. Indeed, there was even a year that he turned up for the bank's annual dinner with a band and gave his Elvis impersonation, crooning away to the delight of Madam Teoh Phaik Kheng, the mother of former Ban Hin Lee Bank executive director Jimmy Yeap Leong Aun who was shot dead in an unfortunate botched up kidnap attempt along Kelawei Road in Penang in October 1985.

However, in the 12 years that this series ran, the bank issued 13 designs altogether. The year 1984 was going to be the Year of the Pig and so in 1983, I started looking into the design of the Pig coinbox. But we recognised that a Pig coinbox will definitely not go down well at all with the bank's Muslim customers. Although the bank did not have many Muslim customers, we were all already very sensitive to their religious needs. So I had to propose to the management that for 1984, the bank would also issue a different coinbox for customers who did not want the Pig. That was how in 1984, Ban Hin Lee Bank ended up by issuing both a Pig coinbox and a standing Bear coinbox. Incidentally, the Pig coinbox was a HUGE success for the bank because the design was so traditional: a real piggy bank for savers.

I'm bringing all this up because yesterday, I was reading that McDonald's in Singapore has pulled the pig character from its latest toy promotions. The pig soft toy was expected to have been part of a 12-character Doraemon set designed after the Chinese zodiac signs but the fast-food giant decided not to include the pig toy to avoid offending Muslim customers. Instead, they replaced it with a Doraemon Cupid toy.

Now, how can they do that? A Chinese zodiac series of any collection is simply not complete if they do not include the pig character. Already, I hear that the move has upset Chinese customers in Singapore. For example, one of them, Daphne Koh, said: "I was born in the Year of the Pig and would have collected the whole set. But without the pig, it makes no sense for me to do so."

Perhaps McDonald's should just take a leaf from Ban Hin Lee Bank and come out with both a pig character and a cupid character, and let their customers decide which one they want. That would solve all their problems and keep everyone happy.

Any football this weekend?

Will there be any football game in England this weekend, seeing how the whole of Britain is under a cold, cold spell? Everybody's bound to be indoors with a cuppa hot cocoa drink. I would too, if I'm there. This is a satellite image of a frozen Britain, taken by Nasa's Terra satellite on 7 January 2010:

Torching aftermath

I was having a brief telephone conversation with a Muslim friend from Kuala Lumpur this morning and according to him, "50 percent of the Malays just don't care about the controversy, 45 percent of them are against playing it up, while the remaining five percent are the ones who are causing trouble."

He asked me whether I would agree with his observation. I told him that he should know better since he is a Muslim and has his ears more to the ground in KL where most of the heat is. However, I would believe that after seeing this little extract from Anil Netto's blog, there is a certain degree of truth in my friend's words:

"Just go home." I suppose this sums up the overall feelings of the vast majority of Muslims in this country. There is a certain feeling of outrage that this unfortunate incident had taken place. Like my friend said: "I know how I would feel, as a Muslim, if others had done the same to me. So I know precisely how the Christians in this country are feeling right now. I just want this to end."

Australian travellogue: Lake Cave

I was faced with a dilemma when we arrived at the Lake Cave. Unlike most of the other caves in the region, we would have to join a guided tour. This wasn't a tour that we could walk through by ourselves. The dilemma was that we were too late to join the 2.30pm guided tour while the next one was at 3.30pm. The person at counter told us that if we were to follow this 3.30pm tour, we wouldn't have enough time to go up the Augusta lighthouse. So it was to be the cave or the lighthouse. After a few moments of indecision, we decided on the cave ... but we would still go on to Augusta.

The Lake Cave turned out to be a underground cave with limestone formations reflecting in the almost still waters of an underground stream. The entrance to the cave sits on a doline, which means an underground cave had collapsed previously and the soil above had sank down, causing a depression at the earth's surface.


Anyway, the cave is underground and to get there, we had to descend a wooden staircase with some 350 steps to the base of the doline where the guide was waiting. Along the way, we passed by giant karri trees and even ferns. After a few preliminary explanations, which included a warning not to touch the crystaline deposits which had remained uncontaminated for millions of years, we went down the long narrow stairway to be swallowed by the complete darkness.


No problem, I told my wife, I was ready for the darkness because I had brought along a torchlight. Clever me, aren't I? Smart, right? Too smart, actually, because I didn't reckon with the power of the dark which totally overwhelmed the light from my pathetically small torchlight, thereby rendering it completely useless. I quickly hid it away.

At the bottom of the stairs was a cave lake. It was not exactly that huge or cavernous by my estimate but when we walked in the semi-darkness - the guide would turn on and off the lights after we crossed certain stretches - and your senses started playing tricks on you, even a small cave would appear very big and you would imagine monsters on the cave walls. Nevertheless, it was about a 10-minute walk to the back of the cave on wooden planks with only a handrail to separate us from the edge. At the back of the cave there came more explanations from the guide accompanied by a light show: more turning on and off of the lights for special effects.


It is a beautiful cave. Since then, I've read somewhere that it is sometimes said to be the most beautiful cave in Australia. The temperature inside the Lake Cave is a constant 18 degrees Celsius regardless of the seasons.


The most spectacular sight is the "suspended table", a huge plate of calcite with a size of some 10 square metres and weighing in excess of five tonnes. It once formed as a layer of calcite on the floor, at the foot of two massive columns. Later, as the material below the plate was carried away, the columns are now left holding the plate in the air, some 20 centimetres above the surface of the cave lake seemingly in defiance of gravity.

Next: Cape Leeuwin lighthouse
Previous: Margaret River

Pure intimidation

At first I thought that this story from Reuters about a razed church in Kuala Lumpur couldn't be true and that there must have been some mistake. However, I myself was mistaken because the story is now covered by The Malaysian Insider with pictures and eye witness reports.

As right-minded, law-abiding and peace-loving Malaysians, how can we condone such cowardly extremism in our midst? We have a right to demand the authorities come down hard on the bigots in our society. We cannot afford to let this issue spin out of control, which is exactly what has happened!

Over the last few days, I had already been very ashamed of the hardline stance taken by those UMNO jerks who are condoning protests against the High Court ruling on allowing Christians to use the word Allah in their sermons. I had also wondered warmly at the moderate stance of the PAS people who declared that there was no problem with Christians using the word within the limits of their own religion.

For the present, this is not about two groups of Malaysians with different opinions on the use of a word. This is also not about two groups of Muslims with differing views on the same matter. It is all about politicians who can do something to either resolve issues for the good of the people, not play them up wrongly for their own gains.

As an observer looking in from the outside, my conclusion is that the UMNO buggers are playing up the issue to the hilt and fanning the religious flames for their political gains. Or otherwise, how can you accept that none other than Najib Razak and Hishamuddin Hussein "have backed the right to protest within mosque grounds to the chagrin of many who have been previously detained at opposition gatherings."

I can only tell them that they shall reap what they have sown. If no one can control the two infamous cousins from shooting off their mouths without care and responsibility, it shows up their true, full-blown colours, just like Mahathir Mohamad being shown up as the racist he has been since the 1960s. If people like them cannot be saved from themselves, how can we save ourselves from them? So much for supporting the 1Malaysia ideal if Najib and company cannot be bothered with it.

75 years old

If Elvis Aaron Presley was still alive, he'd be celebrating his 75th birthday today. He'd be looking old and haggard but nevertheless, presumably still singing and entertaining his hordes of fans all over the world. But he's gone, so all we have left are his music. And the countless number of Elvis impersonators.


Side One: I Just Can't Help Believin'. Twenty Days And Twenty Nights, How The Web Was Woven, Patch It Up, Mary In The Morning, You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
Side Two: You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', I've Lost You, Just Pretend, Stranger In The Crowd, The Next Step Is Love, Bridge Over Troubled Water


Side One: CC Rider, Release Me (And Let Me Love Again), Sweet Caroline, Runaway, The Wonder Of You
Side Two: Polk Salad Annie, Yesterday, Peoud Mary, Walk A Mile In My Shoes, Let It Be Me (Je t'appartiens)


Side One: Help Me Make It Through The Night, Miracle Of The Rosary, Hey Jude, Put Your Hand In The Hand, Until It's Time For You To Go
Side Two: We Can Make The Morning, Early Mornin' Rain, Sylvia, Fools Rush In, I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago

White bread: an unwarranted price increase

It's probably time to take a little action of our own against manufacturers and traders who take the slightest excuse to raise prices of consumer goods immediately whenever there is a price hike in essential commodities or the reduction of subsidies. Admittedly there's little we can do except to voice out our complaints but we can also try to boycott or avoid their products or reduce consumption wherever possible.

And I'm sure that we can find alternatives if we look hard enough.

What brought on this indignation was the reaction to the government announcement on 31 Dec 2009 of the withdrawal of subsidy on white bread effective the next day and removing bread from the price control scheme. While most bakeries have chosen to retain their old prices for the time being until their new stock of raw materials arrive, there is one recalcitrant bakery that raised its price immediately.

When I was at the market last Friday morning (that is, on 1 Jan 2010 itself, about 12 hours after the announcement), I noticed that the price of a loaf of Gardenia's sliced white sandwich bread had gone up from RM2 to RM2.20. Twenty cents may not seem much in absolute terms but that's an astounding 10 percent immediate increase in price. It's really unwarranted and a really uncalled for increase.

Could it be that this bakery was perhaps the main suspect that pressured the government to remove bread from the list of price control items or else, how could they have reacted immediately to the announcement with an overnight price hike?

Where my family is concerned, Gardenia is off the shelf at home.

Australian travellogue: We were typical Margaret River tourists!

5 Nov 2009. You don't go to Margaret River without partaking in their wine, cheese and chocolates, I told my wife. They are part of the reasons why we're in Western Australia, I added.

Well, we had our fill of cheese and chocolates in the Margaret River region except the wine. We knew of the ridiculously stringent drink driving law in Australia, with its incredibly low tolerance limit and thought the wiser of going on the roads with alcohol on my breath. So all we did was at Walpole, we bought a bottle there and we had been drinking little by little in our hotel rooms all the way to Busselton. Here was where our wine finally ran out and we didn't replenish it. We didn't think we could finish another bottle before we left Perth in two days' time. Anyway, we aren't good drinkers.

One good thing about staying two nights in Busselton was that we didn't have to worry about packing our clothes in the morning. We could just get up and go, which was what we did.


First place we stopped was at the Margaret River Chocolate Company and boy, was I floored by the huge varieties of chocolates! If my wife did not restrain me, I think I would have pigged myself out. Still, I treated myself to a glass of the freshest and "bestest" chocolate drink ever...chocolates with hot fresh, frothy milk and a dash of cocoa powder.


Next door to the chocolate factory was the Margaret River Providore which combines vineyards, olive groves and organic vegetable gardens on a working farm. Despite it being almost 10.30am, the wine tasting was still not ready, so we had to confine ourselves to the oliver oil and other natural produce - jams, chutneys, spices, relishes, pickles and sauces - at the farm. It didn't matter to us, actually, because amidst all the interesting stuff, we didn't miss the wine at all.

BTW, I've been reading that while the Margaret River region produces just three percent of Australia’s grapes, it is responsible for more than 20 percent of the nation’s premium wines. There are many small boutique wineries with different varieties of wine to suit different tastes. Margaret River is reputedly the most exciting of Australia’s wine regions.


The last place we visited on the drive down from Busselton was the Margaret River Dairy Company where we had a bit of fun with the cheese-tasting sessions. We wanted to buy some yoghurt to bring back to Busselton but because we would be on the road for the whole day and the weather had turned warm, we thought the better of it. The night before, there was even a huge thunderstorm in Busselton, quite an unexpected change in the weather pattern.

And finally, we arrived at Margaret River itself - the town, not the river, at about 11.30am. A dash of freshening up followed by a walk down the town centre and popping in and out of several shops. Time out for souvenir hunting as we decided that this was as good a place as anywhere else to pick up the bligatory souvenirs for the relatives and friends back home. For a while, I thought about buying one of these for my Caucasian colleague. What a fun present it would have been.


Next: Lake Cave
Previous: Beedelup and beyond

Buah keluak satisfaction

For the past week, we've been soaking these Buah Keluak nuts (or seeds or fruits) in a bowl of water. It's supposed to be the way to dissolve away the poison (hydrogen cyanide) that comes with it.


So today is the day of reckoning. If you don't hear from me after this post, well, you know what happened with the hydrogen cyanide. Ha ha ha .....

Using a chopper, I open the shell at its thinnest part, scooped out the black kernel, mashed it together. mixed it up with a little salt and then stuffed the mess back into the shells. On hindsight, I shouldn't have bothered with the salt at all. Some recipes recommended mixing the kernel up with sugar as well, but it's all so unnecessary because once you start cooking the dish, the salt or sugar will dissolve into the soup.


When we were in Malacca, the Buah Keluak curry we took were cooked with chicken. Recipes are plenty in the Internet but they all recommended cooking the Buah Keluak with either chicken or pork. My family? We fell back on our old recipe of using fish. So there you have it: our main dish for today's lunch, "Buah Keluak" fish head "tumis" curry, looking exactly like what my mother used to cook more than 20 years ago. Don't you love the colour that the nut imparted on the curry? It's stained dark by the nut. And the thin layer of oil gives it that simply irresistible sheen. And mmm....the fragrance and the taste! Memorable! Excuse me, I'm going back for seconds ...

Three questions

I was spending New Year's Eve in the dark outside the house with my wife, listening to the distant peeling of bells from the church and the brief sound of fireworks set off by neighbours and looking at the bright orb of light high up in the sky. It was still a full moon and it had never looked so much bigger or shone so much brighter than now.

So this is it! Life after JobStreet. These few moments without my house's perimeter, I started to wonder about all the what-could-have-beens in my life. What could have been if I had not be in the newspaper industry to start with; what could have been if I had not progressed to the banking industry and what could have been if I had not sort different pastures in the Internet-based industry. Well, all the could-have-beens.

Then I remembered the story I told my ex-colleagues only two days ago when they had demanded a speech from me during the farewell, and I had to speak at the spur of the moment. An impromptu speech, if there were was going to be one, and I couldn't talk of Sex or run away to hide in the toilet. I had to look my audience in the face. It was MY time. Then I realised that I could tell them the story of the emperor's three questions. In my own way, of course, without all the embellishments but going straight to the chase.

I told them that the answer to the first question, when is the most important time, is now. There is no point in thinking back about the what-could-have-beens. What is past is past, and what is in the future remains unseen. So, the most important time will be today, right this moment. We've got to make full use of this moment so that we can shape our own future.

Then I went on to tell them about the second question, who is the most important person. And that person, I said, should be the person you're with. If you were with your spouse or your partner, these would be the most important persons that you should give your fullest attention to. And I told them, in that little, crammed room on the first floor of Mayang Mall in Bayan Baru, Penang, that the most important people in my life at that moment were them, the people from JobStreet who had come to celebrate my leaving and who were listening intently to me now. They were the most important people in my life right at that time.

And about the third question, what is the most important thing to do, the answer is to care for the people you're with. Your heart should be filled with care and compassion for the people you're with.

I think it was the lengthiest and perhaps, most sombre and most non-upbeat, speech I've ever made in my life. But then, I've never given farewell speeches before, so I don't really know at all.

Postscript: After I had finished writing this story, I decided to do a Google search and came up with this original short story from Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy was among Russia's greatest novelists of the 19th century. War And Peace and Anna Karenina were among his most important books.

Australian travellogue: To Beedelup and beyond

4 Nov 2009. So finally at 3.10pm after a fine lunch and an unforgetable encounter with the alpaca, we were on our way to Busselton.We went through the town again because we needed to get onto the Vasse highway and stop by the Beedelup Falls. I had impressed on my wife that since we had already visited the hills, the sea, the river and the forests, we should try and round things up with a waterfall too and possibly later, even a cave. And the Beedelup Falls was just off the road to our next destination.




Well, it wasn't a big waterfall in the first place but Beedelup provided us with a pleasant 30 minutes or so of exploring. But we were surprised that there was a canopy walk across the river. It gave us a good view of the falls.

Other than the falls, the remainder of the drive proved rather uneventful - we passed through Nannup and decided to go straight through to Busselton instead of detouring to Augusta - and we arrived at the Abbey Beach Resort in Busselton at about 6.30pm. Well, here then, after a few days in the Australian countryside, was a big enough town with all the amenities and distractions. We quickly settled in -- the lady at the registration counter took a look at our country of origin, wished us "apa khabar" and then said that she was upgrading our room (turned out she was Indonesian) but I suspect they always say this to their new guests; nevertheless, it was a nice gesture -- and then decided to drive into town to look for dinner.

We'll be spending two nights here and tomorrow, it'll be a trip southwards towards Margaret River and Augusta.

Next: Margaret River
Previous: An alpacan pttui!

End of the decade?

Quick, let me know. When you start counting numbers, do you start from one and end with 10, or do you start from zero and end with nine? I believe it is more common for us to say "one to 10" rather than "zero to nine". That's the convention I learnt in school and that's the convention we should stick with. Saying "zero to nine" is rather absurd because zero is not even a number. You cannot count anything that's not there and zero is simply not there. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Bringing this argument a step further, if "one to 10" is the correct convention to use, then "11 to 100" is also correct, as are also ranges of numbers like "101 to 1000" and "1001 to 2000". Then, the next 10 numbers would be "2001 to 2010".

Therefore, it is totally illogical and wrong that people are saying that the decade ended on 31 Dec 2009. Just because the calendar turned from 1999 to 2000 ten years ago did not mean that the 20th Century ended on 31 Dec 1999. It was partly because of the Y2K scare that computers would not work that made people believe wrongly that 2000 was indeed the turn of the century and millennium. On the contrary, the old millennium ended on 31 Dec 2000 and by extension, there is still one more year to go before the end of the first decade of the new millennium. This decade will only end on 31 Dec 2010. So perish the thought that we had reached the end of the decade at midnight yesterday. There are still 364 days to go.

My farewell note to JobStreet.com

Dear comrades,

Lewis Carroll, in his delightful book "Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There", published as long ago as in 1872, wrote an absurd poem called "The Walrus And The Carpenter". I'm no walrus and neither am I a carpenter, but I often quote a line from this poem which goes: "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things."

Now, I'm not going to talk of many things but I'm going to tell you all a story. A story so very short that it may seem more like a joke than a story. Nevertheless, it is a story. It may have actually happened; it may not have happened. Think what you may.

Once upon a time, a nameless off-duty Content Manager was called upon to give an impromptu speech on the topic of "Sex" at a dinner function. You do know what's an impromptu speech, don't you? It's when you are asked to speak at the spur of the moment without any warning or preparation because the main speaker happened to have cold feet and disappeared into the toilet and won't come out.

This Content Manager took it all in his stride. After a brief introduction by the Master of Ceremony, he walked up to the rostrum, adjusted the microphone, looked around the room, beamed brightly at all around, nodded to the expectant listeners and began his speech.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said in a very clear voice, "Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure...."

And then he walked back to his seat.

Dear comrades, that is how short and upbeat a speech should be. You don't want to bore your audience to tears. Similarly, farewells should be kept short and upbeat too. Unfortunately as I've never had much practice at saying farewells, I don't know how to keep this message short. You'll have to suffer me while I play out my time from centre court.

But I should have better luck at keeping messages upbeat than short. At 3pm today, this email address ssquah@jobstreet.com will d.i.s.a.p.p.e.a.r...... Yes, in less than five hours' time, nobody can reach me here any more. Now, maybe for old times' sake, if you still yearn for me to look over, review, edit and comment on your document and get that final "stamp of SS Quah approval" for posterity, well, perhaps you'd want to send it to me now. But mind you, there's no guarantee that I can get back to you in time as this offer is only good until 3pm.

Dear comrades, like the nameless off-duty Content Manager above, I also don't wish to bore you to tears any longer than necessary. Therefore, let me conclude by saying this to you: if you do care, I'm still around in the Ethernet. And if you really do care, please come visit me occasionally at http://ssquah.blogspot.com and drop me a line to say hello. You will be welcomed and you'll be touching me with your gracious presence.

So....for the first and last time, goodbye, and may you have enough. Enough, that is, of everything you want in your life!

SS Quah
Content Manager (retired)
JobStreet.com