Aik U puncture Me

In my quest to resolve my runaway high blood pressure, I was recommended treatment using acupuncture. Yeah, yeah...I know, people have many theories and stories behind this method of treatment. My take on it is that, do not knock it until U try it.

Having made and appointment to see this gentlement, I went in for a half hour diagnosis and another half an hour of treatment. He did a before treatment and after treatment measurement session. Although I am not a great fan of needles and being pricked all over the place, my fear was eventually laid to rest as the sensation was not that bad. It is all in the mind.

However, since this particular session was only preliminary and I have to undergo further sessions, I will blog about this when I finished the final session. However, just basing on the preliminary session, I went out of the treatment room rejuvenated and fresh.

It is an alternative to treatment that I sought in Specialist Centre. But I suppose, its horses for courses.

Ode to a Great Dad

I have never really talk about my dad. I attribute it to perhaps my inability to accept closure on the subject of his death, as I have never really told him how thankful I was to all his silent contribution. Even in my early working years, having graduated with a degree (and suppose to be matured) I did even make any attempt to give the ole man a simple utterence of thank you.

His character is one that works and plod on making an earning tirelessly without ever seeking recognition nor wealth to send us to school as my mother does not work and he is the sole bread winner. He also has this obsession with work and research that some of this attribute seems to rub off and infected some of us. Being a Veterinarian, and a researcher, his fellow workers use to joke that he has more degrees then a thermometer.

Not only did he developed the Veterinary Department to a certain stature, he also contributed greatly to the Veterinary Research Institute (Ipoh) in the development of new vaccines. After retiring from the Vet. Department, he then took office to teach and assist in nurturing many new Veterinarians at UPM. My only regret is that the country never did bestow any honour for all his contributions, chosing to reward other lesser minions. I only realize how many people heart he must have touched and how many students he must have taught,when we were overwhelmed with hundreds of graduate veterinarian that turned up during his passing.

Only recently was I made aware that a Japanese Researcher in recognizing my dad's effort has named a fly in my fathers name.

Thinking back, I begin to appreciate his nudges and silent contribution and arrangement that proded me to be independent and self sufficient in many areas. In my early years of school, he would at that time would invest in two sets of Encyclopedia (Britanica and the Book of Knowledge). Remembering that this was pre Internet years, and I had been instilled the spirit of learning as early as 7 years old. By 11 years old, I was accoladed the nickname "KnowAll" much to my dismay though.

For all his effort, I would like to record my thanks to a great DAD. I miss U.

Therapy from Watching a Weird Movie

I have been having quite a bit of a challenge lately, that I thot a change of scenary and maybe a distraction will do me good in relieving my stress level. Pop in at Mid Valley having taken half day EL to watch a movie. Reaching there inpromtu and having to select movie that has tickets available can be an interesting process. Not wanting to watch any serious (need to digest) type movie, I settle in for this movie titled Date Movie.

After watching the first 5 minutes of the start, I knew this is a ridiculous B-type category movie that has an almost stupid storyline with crazy and gross attempt of humour. Having resigned to that fact, I can't help but enjoy the overall movie in watching the amount of parody that the movie tries to potray of more then a dozen of Hollywood's churn of love story in the past decade.

Well, what can U expect from writers who has worked on Scary Movies? Parodies of movie like "Meet the Fockers","The Wedding Planner","How to loose a guy in 10days" and even "King Kong" can be seen within this movie. Though it may not be worth as a DVD collection, i think it has done my stress level a bit of good.

Must do this more often tho..

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RFID - Surrendering my Privacy to Information Collectors

Having attended the launch of the RFID event at the MCMC, I was left bewirlded as to what benefit these new fangled technology is going to bring the average Joe Consumer. As I understood, RFID is nothing new and has been used by the US Military for quite sometime to track their assets (soldiers, guns etc).

I understand the need to promote the use of such technology but I am of the opinion that you need to present both side of the case. The seminar started well, but in the end went into a product marketing mode, which I don't really appreciate. A lot of the guest and audience still came out not able to digest nor comprehend the benefit that can be capitalize from this technology since the real benefit or value either of cost benefit or otherwise could not/have not been presented.

What I do see the benefit of this technology is the ability to use the tag (throw away or reusable) to track concurrently items and assets using RF antenna upto 100 m in radial distance. The immediate benefit highlighted is the ability for shoppers to go out of Superstore (such as Wall Mart) with the bill and reciept immediately presented at check out.

My paranoid take on this is that, it is another technology (if wrongly used) can be used to track item, people and asset and thus invade consumers privacy. There could be privacy issues in the data mining of the information especially for cultures with lacksadasy attitude to managing information. Imagine these tags are embedded in under garment of man and woman. Since the tag is unique, one can identify what brand, type and flavour that the man/woman is using and how many times it is being used in a week.

Someone might come up to U and ask, why are U wearing NXXX Boxer shorts three times a week only??

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Project W

As I was perusing some blogs during this weekend, I came across a blog operated by someone familiar. It is not common to see youngster organize something for a worthy cause. I think my fren wouldn't mind me putting a link to his daughter's blog.

Its for a Woman's Aid Organization.

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My Broken Hearted Car

Sometimes you think the car has feeling and a soul. My Citroen ZX16V seems broken hearted and spill out its guts (or radiator water), I suppose upon hearing that it is to be sold. It kinda left me stranded for about an hour and a half in front of Curve and IKEA. It seems that the AAM got their instruction a bit confused. Nevertheless, the car had to be towed back to the workshop.

I need to liquidate some of the unnecessary assets for future endaevours. I suppose upon hearing this discussion, the car must have sulked and decides to throw tantrum right in front of Curve. Though it nearly went close to overheating, there was ample time to have it quickly parked by the roadside for it to cool down sufficiently.

At that time, I was still a bit in a dazed trying to comprehend the results of my monthly visit to my Specialist in Damasara Hospital. Seems that the result left him(the Doctor) a bit perplex, my sugar level went down but my blood pressure went up to 140/95. The last time he put me on "Micardis", I nearly fainted due to the blood pressure going too low. Ah well, need to re-examine the lifestyle, diet and health and keep it under close supervision. Maybe some form of celery juice maybe of assistance.

It pays to change your landscape

It is sometimes good to go out and about to have a change of scenery. Being clogged up with stress and work can be depressing. In your daily life, you tend to be a conformist and loose the edge to be different. Going to Genting Highland, you suddenly realize how much fun it was to re-live your childhood days and be a kid again. Coupled to the park having new theme ride, it was fun to live sightly on the dangerous side.
We were there early in the morning and it was fun to skip all the long queue and going for some of the ride repeatedly was good. In fact it was exhilirating. Though we finished almost all the rides by early afternoon, it was my stamina that gave way rather then the rides itself. I went into to the indoor theme park which was a bit of a letdown.

Driving down Genting can be challenging especially in an autobox car, since you need to use the engine to slow down the car lest you want a siezure in your braking system. This is not easily controlled in a car that has Auto gearshift. Nevertheless, it was a relaxing journey back especially when we use the stops as a breath taking and brake cooling exercise.

Overall, a good day of outing.
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One of Those days

Ever had days when U go insane. I did, last evening. Reason???----Traffic Jam.

I was driving from Cyber Jaya down to KL for my usual Gym Class. In seeing rain had come down and I am still stuck at the Seremban Highway, I text a friend to book me a place. The point that drove me nuts was that, I managed to battle traffic upto KLCC and was in the vicinity with ample time, but I can see the building where the Gym was but I couldn't move( U know, the feeling that U wanna just leave the car in the jam and its faster to walk.) It took me a stupid 30 minutes just to move half a kilometer. Coupled to that, I just missed the class by 15 minutes.

With all that anger, I went in and enrolled into the next "Challenged Class". Now that was the dumbest move that I did this week. Halfway through the class, my chest felt like bursting and I must have sweated gallons and was screaming my way just to finish the class.

Lessons learnt, take deep breath, before any impromtu decisions.

Have we looked into our Rights or are we Left? - Long Post

Watching some discussion on the Blogs and monitoring recent events got me into thinking, how does one protect copyrights of printed material especially on the Net.? I was also being hinted by a journalist acquaintance on this issue. How does one protect writings and copyrighted ideas when the culture of the community maybe inclined to take the easy way out of copying without acknowledgement.?

In the olden days, ideas and thought processes were written and later published as journals, books or magazine and this was distributed in exchange for wealth through the sale of such materials. Leakage of wealth and reduced sale were managed through the management of intellectual property and infringements were dealt either through licensing or suits.

Though simplistic in its description, but what is clear is that in the traditional method, every start of the process is backed by clearly defined documents (legal or otherwise) and hence responsibility and accountability can be traced.

With the invention of the photocopying machine, this technology then poses a big challenge to the protection of copyrighted materials and its distribution. With the proliferation of the internet, this infrastructure just brings distribution to a new all time high (positively or negatively).

ISPs are now being roped in to assist authorities in shutting down sites hosting files infringing copyrights issues in the form of mp3 and movies. This is becoming a prevalent issue and is being taken seriously in the music/movie industry fraternity. What will be more interesting is to observe the community come together to police the abuse of intellectual property rights of journals, news and ideas put forth on Blogs.

Now then, what are the challenges of protecting and distribution of ideas or writing on the Net.? Perhaps one way to explore this,is to look into issues and challenging in operating a Blog. In its simplistic form, a Blog is a journal of the writer published on the Net. The Journal can consist of ideas (new innovation or observation), hypothesis and/or photograph or any other multimedia files published in an electronic form.

The Author of the Blog does own some if not all of the Intellectual Property of the Blog if the writing and ideas put forth are original, of his own minus the acknowledged referrals and quotes. Unless and otherwise stated or claimed by the author, theoretically anything published on the Internet/Blog maybe deemed Public Domain and thus distributable. Recently there are initiatives of claiming IP rights on materials written by author under the banner of Creative Common. These are sets of terms which set forth the claim to rights and simplify the conditions on what and how the materials can be distributed.

What makes the Blog further entertaining is the ability for the Author to source comments from the Net community. The comments put forth are generally accepted as being owned by the commenter and thus is not part of the Blog author. However, there are other school of thoughts that implies that the comments forms part of the content and thus the Blog owner owns some part of the Blog and thus responsible for some of the Content. This can be quite challenging for the Blog owner.

The challenge is now extended, if the content posted does not comply with the law of the country ie if the content is sexually abusive in nature and the law in this country prohibits the publication of such content whether in print or otherwise.

The question pose to me is which Act and Legislation (if any) covers the Protection of Copyrighted Materials on the Net and which Act covers the regulating of Content published on the Net? How many of us are aware of our rights to claim and to pprotect our ideas. For those concerns on the issues of content, how many of us are aware that the content on our blogs is still subject to regulation under the Publication and Printing Act?

I think the general public may not be aware of their rights and responsibility of the content of their Blogs in relation to Law of the Country. I think there is a lot of work to be done in this area of educating the Malaysian Internet Community.

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Journey towards health - POEM

Exercising in the Gym is so much fun,
Walking and Cycling it can be done,
To begin the routine the start of a day,
Stretching and Limbering in the proper way.

Begining the routine warm up on a cycle,
Strengthen your stamina, your knees and ankle,
Followed by treadmill, your jog for the day,
Improve your cardio, every step of the way.

Toning your muscles, use the weights correctly,
Overstressing yourself, causes pain in your body,
Reminding ourself to start oh so gently,
Proper supervision, is recommeded wholeheartedly.

For those who feel group exercise is best,
Enrol yourself in it, but don't expect no rest,
Theres RPM,Pump,Balance,Attack,Combat and Jam,
Be selective in choosing lest you get the cramps.

Focussing on Fitness, do not be distracted,
Heavenly bodies and hunks is to be expected.
Showing their attributes, so that we can see,
Theres still some hope for you and me.

Exercise is best done at the correct places,
Eating healthly and correctly at the right paces,
Not to expect changes ever so drastically,
What takes years to put on, cannot be removed quickly.

Blame it on the Cost of Petrol

Times must either be hard or that I am hell of a careless idiot. In this case, I think both. My beloved Thinkpad T41 has gone, being swiped by two girls and a guy companion at Curve Starbux recent Saturday. I felt like kicking myself in the arse, but being a fat idiot, my legs could not go that far.

They must have been desparate seeing that they swiped it minus the power supply, which makes it more sore. But, live moves on, no need to cry over spilt milk. But to think that with a minor investment of a cup of coffee at that establishment, they can plot the "daylight robbery".

Lesson learnt,

a) Don't worry about getting a good place near a power socket, get the drinks first and sit down where there is a seat.
b) Don't try chatting up the baristers as the longer you are away, the higher the risk
c) God is trying to give me a sign........(I wonder what it cud be)
d) There is no sex discrimination in theft.

Hmmmmm.....where is that silver lining beneath this cloud??

Liabilities of Friendship

Sometimes one gets stuck right in a middle of a chain of information which gets distorted as the manner the question are asked. Sometimes, one has "spokesman" of sorts which inadvertantly gets bystanders implicated and dragged into unneccesary conversation pieces that he/she tries best to avoid.

Perhaps, the only way is to destroy these chain of information or disinformation lest I get accused of being in cohort with all parties concern. I don't need anymore challenges to my credibility as it is. I would rather move on and cut out all these crap even if at the cost of loosing some friends. However, its a shame too loose friends over what may seem childish, trivial but potentially provocative action.

Loner is Me - Life at a stand still

Met a friend of mine recently. He remarked to me "You know, you have now become some what of a loner.....very unlike yourself". That comment got me to thinking, what is it that I have done or not do to give people that impression.?

What is critically obvious is the amount of hours I used to allocate to friends and colleagues have perhaps been cut down either by time management or by circumstances. What used to be allocation of about 15 hours per week for mentoring and coaching now has gone into Gym classes and excercises. When I stop to think, wow, thats approximately 2.5 hours per day. Putting in context of a 15 hour day that I normally operate under, thats 1/6th of the day apportioned to excercise.

Recent circumstances also dictates changes in my circle of friends as some will be upgrading (sic is this correct?) their life from a single status to that of a married one. Others have moved on to new carreer which also brought about busyness and change of lifestyle. These has also lead to the shringkage in my usual cliques.

One of my closer buddies is also busy in preparation of a new addition to the family and has recently made some carreer move which brought about a change in lifestyle and outlook. This has somewhat "restricted" his movement and thus we have been only in contact via Instant Messaging.

Looking back, I may have brought this change onto myself since the cut down in these interactivity has lead to lesser opputunity in social events (eating together, expanding new friends and opputunities etc). Well, looks like I better get use to this kind of lifestyle as its going to be a long journey for me to reclaim my health. On the positive side of it, perhaps it also time for me to give other people space ;), who knows, I may have been cramping other people's life.

The Problem with Clouds

There is a saying "Every Cloud has a silver lining". One tries to look at the positive side of any problem. The only problem is when there is cloud, there is also rain. In having rain, things get murky and your vision gets clouded and U can't see very clearly.

There is also another saying in the Consultancy, when the problem is not clearly identified, then the solution recommended may not be relevant. You might identify the wrong problem hence U get recommended a wrong solution.

Sometimes we look for solution for a particular problem but in life, identification of problem is so much clouded by emotional and finely disguised behavioral actions of people that trying to solve one problem creates another. There are so much noise to the problem, that getting down to the root cause can be very difficult. So U ended making wrong decisions which can also lead to exacerbating the problem further.

Well, as I was driving back from Gym last night, this particular song rang in my ear, "I can see clearly now the rain is gone...." and suddenly everything came clearly to me as to what or who is the major cause of this problem. I suppose when it rains, it washes all the mud away and what is left is a clear to see. I was suddenly amassed with information that suddenly everything became very logical and fall into place.

If you can see through the many actors and Trojan horses in this world, the solution is right in front of U. The challenge is to sieve out and identify the non relevant problems in your life and sidestep them. The world is but a stage....

I don't like Mondays

I hate Mondays and as I try to keep my eyes open this morning, perhaps by uploading this colorful and cheerful image can get me through the day. Ironically though the song by Boom Town Rats and that slurring vocals of Bob Geldof keeps ringing in my ears. Can't get that lyrics out of my head though. Here are the excerpts to the lyrics;

I Don't Like Mondays

The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home.
And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was as good as gold.
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

Your Absentminded Pak Cik

It is not uncommon for one to forget an appointment but to leave your cars keys in the front door of your car, that is incredibly foolish to say the least. Sometimes your age catch-up with you wonder whether you are living in denial.

I wuz recently called a Pak Cik and being a typical male with ego as big a Cow, I was kinda taken aback and I brush it aside as the word Pak Cik to me, gives an impression of some feeble, absent-minded, "tongkat" dependent old bloke. Now looking back this past few days, that description may not be far off. At least in two of the three attributes was definitely experienced in recent days.

A friend called me out to our usual hang out last evening. We opted to use a single car, since with the rise in petrol price. Being on a Friday, I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I sat down in his car as he drove from TPM to Hartamas. I was a damn lousy co driver having to doze off almost immediately and only came about as we were at Hartamas traffic lights. That was one embarrasing moment as the last words that I remembered happen to be from his wife, and I was already in la-la land.

The worse has yet to come, as we came back to pickup my car, I was rummaging around in my pockets looking for the car keys. we must have spent at least 10 minutes searching for the keys, until someone asked to check whether it was in my car. Lo and behold, there it was still stuck to the door of the car in plain view. Though all three of us laughed ourselve silly, few conclusions came to our mind:-

a) My car is not worth stealing (it was in the car park for about 3 hours)
b) The content of the car was not valuable enough to be stolen
c) I need to get my brains checked.

Today having taken a day off the Gym, I found myself almost bed ridden trying get out and about. Though some might say you are only as old as you think, today I feel 56 and maybe go into retirement.

Have you ever had one of these days??