Someone wrote:
Apa kata ko kahwin je dengan SMRT tu. I’m more Singaporean than you. Duh!
Unprovoked.
Well, let’s see if you can get any more Singaporean than this:-
These are two different flags (as in not the one and the same).
Eat your heart out, bitch!
At first, as stated in the previous entry, I had wanted to write a long post on the Singapore bug that had bitten me. However, given the recent crazy development lately, I decided to write about that later. I’m going to Singapore soon again anyway so I will probably write after I return with much more photos and perhaps a tad better composed.
So, what do I make of this whole Saiful Bukhari affair?
The timing . You’d think over the years Anwar Ibrahim was incarcerated, there’d be complaints of him ’sodomising’ his fellow inmates. I mean, the ‘need’ is even more there given there is no way anyone can ‘let it out’ naturally, legally or otherwise (you know what I mean - I don’t need to minutely describe it now do I?) And suddenly after Anwar has been released from jail, and about to contest in a by-election, this nobody suddenly comes out in the open alleging Anwar had sodomised him. And look at the timing of his ‘Quranic’ ‘Swearing’ - one day before nomination day. Consider also the fact that he had always been a ruling party supporter, and suddenly a few days before the 12th GE he decided to become an aide at the opposing camp. Conveniently two months later he alleges sodomy by a figure of the opposition. Now if that doesn’t point to political motive, I don’t know what will!
The flip-flop allegation. At first, this Saifool said he was sodomised eight times. Now you’re not going to bloody tell me all were actually forced on him and it was only after the eighth time he decided to lodge a police report, are you? The police charge against Anwar is certainly suggestive - ‘consensual sodomy’. Why isn’t Saifool charged as well? Now Saifool says he was sodomised only once and out of force. Now who is saying the right thing - Saifool (”it was forced”) , or the police (”it was consensual”)? And Syed Kodomo Lion says Saiful is not charged despite the police saying it was consensual because the ‘victim’ has to be protected. Looks like even a Minister had made his mind up who’s the victim and who the ‘predator’ is even before the case goes to court. This despite it is equally likely Anwar is a ‘victim’ of a possible conspiracy. Suggestive indeed.
The Quran Swearing. This boy decides to swear on the Quran to ‘prove his allegation is true’. One day before the Permatang Pauh by-election nomination no less. Daring and brave, if not actually misleading. You see, there is no such thing as swearing on the Quran in Islam. It’s something a lot of Muslims perceives as Islamic because it seems on the TV Christians swear on the Bible (actually, according to Christian beliefs, there is no such thing either)! So why not us, right? And the boy holds the Quran with his left hand! I’d dearly love to know if he can actually read the book by which he swears. In Islam, the only swearing permitted is called li’an, whereby a spouse accusing his/her partner of fornication but unable to produce the syar’iah required four witnesses swears in the name of God, “Wallahi, Wabillahi, Wataalahi”, inviting a curse from God upon himself/herself should s/he actually be lying about the truth. Now you aren’t going to tell me Saiful and Anwar are husband and wife! The proper way to pursue this would have been to pursue it at the Syar’iah courts. Saifool had also actually said he’s doing this not to humiliate himself. Ha ha ha I have to wonder if he’s actually sane. And for someone who freely takes photos with his fiance who does not don the tudung, I find his willingness to go this distance hypocritical at best. use the Qur’an only when it suits your purpose, eh? Why not follow what’s in it for a change? I think he’s trying to conclusively prove his ‘innocence’ and not have people question it, because most people, when you throw something with a religious tone in it, will take it hook line and sinker without thinking. This is taking advantage of the fact that most Malay Muslims don’t know much and usually doesn’t bother to get to know better. It’s got to do with the Quran doesn’t it so it must be true (never mind the practice is anything but Islamic!)!
The meeting with Najib. The political connection is clear. At first, the DPM denied ever meeting the boy. Now he says he had met the boy because the latter had wanted to apply for a scholarship, and in the process, also complain about Anwar ’sodomising’ him.There are two problems with this story. First, Saifool is a UNITEN dropout. He flunked uni after three semesters, with 1.69 being the best CGPA he could muster. With that achievement you won’t even get a loan, never mind scholarship! And since when do you go to the DPM to apply for a scholarship? Najib is truly one ‘heroic’ leader, willing to help the unqualified when he’s flunked unviersity and sodomised. All political connections are mere coincidences.
The Pusrawi checkup This boy alleges he was sodomised. His face and reaction certainly does not reflect someone who is traumatised. And the first doctor who examined him at Pusrawi, the doctor to which he went to have his ass**** checked, found nothing consistent with his allegation. And suddenly the doctor is disclaimed by the hospital as someone not qualified to do a simple ass check. A doctor with 20 years experience mind you.
Given all the above, Saifool can swear on all the holy books and hadiths in the world to ‘prove his truthfulness’. What he has done is to ridicule religion at best, just to serve someone’s political need. My take? I think he’s being coaxed into cursing himself and ridiculing the holy book because he’s engaged in a ‘fight’ for a ‘greater good’, i.e. doing something bad (”false swearing on a holy book”) to prevent something ‘worse’ (”Anwar Ibrahim the Western American Jewish Zionist puppet from becoming PM”). When sudah tua, taubatlah, or can go to Mekah to seek forgiveness. That’s the typical Melayu belief unfortunately. As if there is guarantee he’ll be old enough to go to Makkah or taubat before his time comes.
Read more here:-
Inventing new religious rituals
I was raped, dammit
Consensual victim
It’s all in the timing
And a song!
A ‘muqadimah’ for a long post, coming shortly:
So I was surfing around in Lelong looking for a a good bargain when this caught my eye:
Wow so direct these days. Is that all that we Malays ever think of?
Very the mellow…hahaha…
My housemate moved out last month. With him went the telephone line and Streamyx.
At first, I thought I could live without the Internet. After all, I have a computer with a TV/Radio card installed so if I’m bored I could always turn on the radio or telly.
Before long, I was bored. Malaysian TV is atrocious with its overflow of crappy reality and singing shows. Radio was OK, but I yearned interactivity, something only the net could offer. I wasn’t totally cut off from the net for our office is connected. I had initially thought that would be enough - it’s not. Lonely nights at home doing nothing was getting to me. So I decided to get connected again, this time via wireless broadband.
I have heard of horror stories about Maxis BB. Slow speeds and unstable connection tales are rife. Besides, the 3GB data transfer limit is very puny by today’s standards, and definitely not something I can live with. They offer wireless modem for free, but you will be bound to an 18-month contract, during which time you are not supposed to terminate their service (get penalised if you do). The monthly fee for that, MYR 138, was also far from attractive.
Then there’s Celcom BB. They offer the same speed as Maxis BB, up to 3.6Mbps, and basically imposes the same condition for their free modem package, the differences being the fee is MYR 10 less and data transfer limit is capped at 5GB.
I decided to go for Celcom BB, and buying my own modem. I bought a second hand Vodafone-Huawei E220 USB Modem for MYR 350, and promptly signed up for their D98 package (MYR 98 a month for speeds up to 3.6Mbps).
Activation was an annoying experience. After several calls to Celcom Call Center and the agent at which I had signed up for the service, I was online after close to 5 days after I had signed up.
Speed was dismal. At first, I had problems surfing even though I was connected at WDCMA (3G) speeds. My surfing would only move if I set the connection type to GPRS , which made speeds come down to rates comparable to dialup. I was told by the useless robotic non-sympathetic call centre chap that they are having problems and service wouldn’t come back to normal until 30th June. I had heard of this problem before when they said it would be OK by 30th May. I lashed out at the hopeless personnel pointing this out to them. Being the same idiot as his company was he merely repeated what he told me earlier. I should have used coarse language with him - somehow I didn’t.
Since then I have been able to surf at 3G speeds, which unfortunately is nowhere near the upper end of the 3G speed range. Forget live streaming - radio and YouTube didn’t move at all. Ping requests time out rather frequently for sufficiently long periods though I remain connected to Celcom’s network. All the time the MobilePartner software shows full bar, and connected at so-called 7.2Mbps.
Speed test result is bad to say the least. Look at the ping time! And for some reason, I am shown as connecting from Borneo, and I’m in Sungai Buloh Selangor…
It is when I was searching to see if the problem was peculiar to me (it isn’t) that I found out about a new broadband provider in town, U-Mobile. They have this fantastic offer whereby you can connect up to 3.6Mbps (same speed, same technology…) for only MYR 78, free modem thrown in. Only catch, just like the other providers, you are bound by a 24-month contract. And their coverage is presently limited to areas within the Klang Valley only.
The sleek looking modem is ZTE’s MF622, a slightly different offering from both Celcom and Maxis which offer the Huawei E220 for their free modem packages.
I signed up for their 8-day trial where with MYR 50, you can use their service for 8 days, together with their free ZTE modem. If you are not satisfied with their service, have it returned within that period, and you’ll get a full refund.
Speed test was not bad - definitely better than Celcom. Apparently they only have HSDPA wherever their service is available.
Not necessarily good news, as this means if your connection degrades to 3G, you are left in a state where you remain connected to U-Mobile’s network, but not the Internet. In fact, where I live, the signal degrades from HSDPA to 3G (and back) quite frequently. But when it works, the speed is amazing. Better ping times than Celcom too. I guesss this may have to do with the fact that they are a new kid on the wireless broadband ISP block - probably not much users yet clogging the network. New broom sweeps clean eh? For the particular speed test result shown below, the speed shown is only marginally better than Celcom, but in actual fact, response time and download speeds are far superior to Celcom. On occasion I’m able to download at speeds approaching 2Mbps.
Upload speed however, is a different story. I have been consistently getting speeds that hover around 60Kbps, and a check on the local forums on this reveals I am not the only one to experience this. U Mobile probably throttles upload speeds. Not bad news necessarily, but if you are using things for which maximum upload bandwidth is necessary (e.g. Skype, P2P…), U Mobile may not be your kind of broadband solution.
In conclusion, U-Mobile is very tempting. If you are used to the relatively faster Streamyx and almost instantaneous response when requesting for web pages, currently U Mobile gets my recommendation. However, if you are into online gaming, where low ping times are critically desirable, not even U Mobile, never mind Celcom, is ideal. U Mobile’s total HSDPA coverage is also a plus point, though of course if you are outstation most of the time then this fact is of precious little benefit.
I will be returning this package soon to get my MYR 50 back - I have decided to stick with Celcom for the time being (which to me has attained the Holy Pisspot of Catastrophic Internet Disservice, and should be renamed as Celcrap Narrowband) in the bona fide belief that come July 1st, things will be OK. If things do not improve by then, I will terminate Celcom, and commit to that 2-year contract with U-Mobile. At least it’s a good MYR20 cheaper, and with free sexy-looking modem too.
Being the lonely social retard that I am, sometimes I surf the Internet searching for long lost friends. Not really sure what I expect to find or how I benefit from knowing whatever details these people have put up on the Internet.
Maybe it’s because I long for the good old days. My experience then wasn’t exactly terrible; perhaps bordering on slightly cherishable. Perhaps, it’s because I’ve never been this lonely for this long. Looking for names I was once acquainted with perhaps takes me down memory lane. Memory, heh. The last refuge of a coward when he cannot face the present and future.
Seeing how most people I know have progressed in life, I feel envious of them. Most are married. Got a family. Got a career. Got everything that anyone can ever dream of in life. Which almost always takes me through a narrow reflective view back on myself. A few are doctors. A few are engineers with respectable companies. Why didn’t my life turn out like theirs? I only got a bike, still renting out; no one to love, never mind a friend. Even things that I indulge in are becoming a grief - I get overwhelmed by obvious idiots who think knowing a particular person in an organisation who perhaps doesn’t even have a diploma is an accomplishment and an achievement over me. And these people have virtually not known what living on meagre means is like. Where’s the fairness in that?
It makes me feel little. So little if I were to die tomorrow nobody would take notice. Some people have dreams and achieve them. Some, like me, have dreams only to witness that and more come crashing down. Feels as if someone is laughing big time looking at me. And I’m nowhere near the land that I love. Everything in my life is junk.
So when I received an invitation to a friend’s wedding, I immediately binned it. For what? To make me feel even more inadequate about myself?
I’m not writing this to elicit any sympathy from you dear readers. Just to get some things off my chest. Sorry for the incoherence.
Feeling all nostalgic…
I have come to notice how I am always surrounded by idiots who have an edge over me. Absobloodylutely unfair life certainly is. Actually it’s pissed me of enough to coax me into writing again, so all is not lost. So here’s a start to more postings.
It’s been a long time since I last blogged. A lot has happened since. I certainly have a lot to write about, if I choose to write. However I feel like I have lost the steam to move ahead with writing. Life has not been good for sometime now so I suppose I have no mood for anything including writing. And it certainly doesn’t help this stupid keyboard at work has a few keys malfunctioning.
I wonder for how much longer I’m going to be stuck in this rut.
I do not know what to make of my life now.