Malaysia Fifth Friendliest

In a recent survey done by HSBC revealed that Malaysia is the fifth friendliest country in the world, after Bahrain, Canada, Australia, and our next door neighbor Thailand. Read it here.

Well at least that's one for the locals.

How on Earth do You....

I remember watching Slumdog Millionaire where these kids stole the engine, and tires of a Mercedes Benz. But that was in a slum area.

But how do you steal an engine from this?


And yes, at a heavily army guarded area?

Beats me. I don't know.

Abbreviations VS Acronyms

No they are not the same thing, and nor are they meant to be interchangeable.

From Dictionary.com:

Acronyms:
a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words, as Wac from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation.

Abbreviations:
a shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, as Dr. for Doctor, U.S. for United States, lb. for pound.

Abbreviations are used to shorten the writings of words, not to shorten their pronunciation. Thus, it really grinds my gears when I hear people pronouncing words such as BBQ as b-b-q. It's barbecue for crying out load. Others like inc. is shorten for incorporated, so next time don't pronounce it as Monsters Inc. McD? No, its McDonalds. And what's up with bro? I hate the usage of the word here in Malaysia to begin with, but since I'm at it, it's pronounced brother.

After all, you don't pronounce Mohd. as mohd right? Or s-d-n b-h-d? A-b-d? No, its Mohammad, sendirian berhad, and Abdul.

Don't be lazy. Open your mouth a bit more will you please.

Thank you.

Gambar Mak di Mekah

A few photos of Mak climbing Jabal Nur, taken from one of the Jemaah's blog.

When Stupidity Prevails

It's amazing how stupid and superstitious some people can be at times.

I was jump listening to a few radio stations on my way to work today and something on Fly.fm caught my interest. They supposedly had some sort of fortune teller present at the studio by the name Guru G something (I think) that could tell the future. The Dj's were encouraging people to call in so that this Guru G could read their future.

So people began calling in. And this guy, albeit in a joking manner and voice, began 'reading' people's future. Even some Malays called in to have their futures read to them (considering it's haram in Islam to do so). And these callers sounded really impressed by Guru G.

But I knew this guy was just a joke. His accent that he put on was clearly fake. And heck, his predictions weren't really predictions, they were more of what the caller needs to do in the future in order for this and that. But what got people going was the fact that he was able to tell something about the caller without the caller even mentioning about it. Like he would say you have a cousin named bla2.. or you like talking, you wanna become a lawyer. Freaking? No, not really.

So how was this Guru G able to do such 'readings'? The answer didn't require any special powers. The DJ revealed after the show that Guru G simply Googled the names of the callers and talked based on the information that popped up, whether it be based on Facebook, MySpace, Friendster or blogs.

If I was one of the callers, boy wouldn't I be embarrassed! Google is quite a powerful tool. Try googling your name up. You might just be surprised by what you'll find :)

Nice

In a recent interview with the Vanderbilt Hustler, former Vanderbilt Chancellor, Gordon Gee declared, "It used to be that Vanderbilt was the "Harvard of the South." I now believe that Harvard is the "Vanderbilt of the North."

I like that. :)

After So Long

I haven't been blogging for quite some time. The last post 'Sending Off Mak to Mekah' was with minimum words. I let the pictures do the talking for me, in an attempt to hide my insufficient writing power to even tell that straight forward story.

Heck, my last real post was way back on the 28th of September. How many years back was that?! Two months and a half to be exact.

I am seriously trying to kick start my blogging career again. Currently I am starting to write reports in my job as a forensic engineer, so I really need to salvage my writing skills before I lose them all together. Not to mention that I'm also succumbing to the many (read a few) requests to update my blog. I don't blame them. :)

But after that lost of writing momentum, it's really hard to get it back. I used to have ideas flowing continuously as I write, which is noticeably missing now. As Newton's First Law of Motion goes, albeit in a simpler manner, a non moving object will continue to stay motionless unless an outside force is applied to it. Same goes with blogging.


So bear with me folks as I endure this barren spell of blog posts. I miss my blog posts as much as you do :P ! But seriously, I might surprise you with a post sooner rather than later!