Tis' the year of the frogs..

It looks like 2009 is turning out to be the year of the frogs.

Well, keep your eyes peeled, I feel that this is just the beginning of a massive froggie migration in our country.

I think for we should do what our mom's did in the past to any frog (mine at least), Hit them hard with a broom.

Cheers...or should I say 'ribbiit..ribbit..'

Triumph in the face of adversity..

With all the news of bleak economic conditions, prospects of job losses, recessions. Here's a bit of motivation for all of us. It may be hard, but we humans always have it in us to overcome, if you believe in yourself.

Read this in a comment on some site:

It is not the critic that counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and come short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those COLD and TIMID souls who knows neither VICTORY nor DEFEAT! - (U.S president Theodore Roosevelt)

And another nice one here:-



Words to live by, for me at least.

Sacrifice - Bollocks, I say.

Extract from the Malaysian Insider:

"Lim also called on employees in the state to be prepared to take pay cuts as the only alternative to save their jobs. “Employees must be ready to sacrifice in order to save the company from retrenching employees due to the economic downturn,” he said. — Bernama

Ya..ya..ya.. How to take pay cut's when the bloody salary in Penang is so damn low. Cost of living continues to go up. We are already so lean, if you cut you'll probably see bone.

They expect us to sacrifice, but from my experience, this will easily be forgotten when things look up. For me, it's time for companies to re-look at their workforce. Get rid of all the deadwood, and retain and reward the good ones. Usually during a VSS, the good ones who are confident of thier ability and marketability are the ones who opt to go. The useless ones will usually stay put.

Bollocks I say, there is oppotunity in adversity, and comapnies should look to inject new blood.

Sarang Tebuan Jangan Di Jolok

What are these HAMAS jokers up to? Now that Israel has put up a ceasefire, they are taunting the Israeli's again. Really? Some people never learn. These fools deserve no sympathy. Thier own people should kick them out.

Don't they realize who they are playing with. I am no fan of Israel, but I believe that every nation deserves the right to defend itself. You throw pebbles at my house, I'll return the favour with rocks. What chance do HAMAS puny rockets have, when compared to F-15's, Apache's an Merkeva tanks. Although Israel's response may be 'dispoportionate', I believe that sometimes this is the way to go.

Sometimes, I wonder whether Israel should just 'nuke' HAMAS out of existence. I mean this conflict has been going on for centuries, and will never end. I beleive ISrael has such weapons at it's disposal, they just enver admitted to it so far. Remember..Israel is a nation born out of adversity.


And back home we have our own jokers, that are clamouring for support for Gaza and all that shit. Hellooo.... We have many problems in our own back yard. Lets feed the poor and needy in our country first.

The money could go to better use domestically. Forget the Palestinians in Gaza. What are their fellow Arabs doing..not a squeak. Zilch, nada, zero... After all they are rich in pertrodollars. We are not Arabs. This is a cultural conflict that has been going on for centuries. No need to get involved.

I'm often reminded of a saying we learnt in school, "Sarang tebuan jangan dijolok" (don't stir a hornets nest).



So to Hamas, please be reminded..The sting of the 'sons of david' can be quite painful..

I'm on Google -- Yeah !!

Yeah...I can be finally searched on Google!.. Hmmm.. now I wonder would that be a good or bad thing. Don't want old girlfriends knocking on my door now do I...He.he.he.

Cheers, to me of course.. (yes I'm a self absorbed asshole..)

Facebook - Love it or hate it?

I had been a late adopter of the social networking site, Facebook. Initially, I always thought of these sites as a waste of time, as I did IRC and other tools like IM , Yahoo Messenger and the ilk. I was invited to Facebook by one of my friends, who I'd not seen in a couple of years. He had e-mailed me a link to share photos of his newborn baby. Well at that time we just viewed the photos and totally forgot about it. Wasn't interested in Facebook.

Up until a recent family vacation, where a large group of few families were involved, there arose a need to share and comment on some of the photos taken. That's when I remembered Facebook. Since I had a sizable collection of them, I signed up, created and account and started posting. Lo and behold, apparently I wasn't the first one in my family to be on there. All cousins, siblings, nephews,nieces and even a few old friends were already on and very active.



Up until recently, our family was beginning to drift apart. With all of us having our own careers, family and living in different parts of the country, get together's were very few and far in between. So out went birthdays, weddings, parties and the rest. Keeping up with what each one was doing; was relegated to the odd phone call, and that only if we made the time for it. Sadly, even those calls were very infrequent. Now through Facebook, were are now all somehow magically re-connected and are well abreast of each others activities.


Facebook has filled the social void, that physical distance brought about. And we are interacting more with each other than ever before. But it doesn't end there. Through the 'friend-finder' I have been able to re-connect with my alma-mater, got in touch with friend from elementary school whom I'd forgotten about for years. And the same with them. The joy of getting in touch with people you've not seen in decades is a rush and likewise for them remembering you and talking about old times.

What prompted me to blog about this, is last week I had been able to get in touch with my college mates. We were quite tight back then, had a band together. Started to lose contact when I left to work in Indonesia. After that could not re-establish contact (those were the days before mobiles). I found out that they were just still as tight; even went on vacations together. I had missed a few weddings.

If only I had looked for them earlier... For the past few weeks I've been feeling nostalgic, thinking bout all the good times we've had, seeing what my friends were up to now. Especially with a lot of old photos being posted and being tagged, talking about the days gone by...wow.. We should plan to get together and meet up again.



We'll that's the good. The bad; Facebook is addictive. can such up your time, and my wife would gladly attest to this. and it can get painfully slow at times. Even my wife has used Facebook to re-connect with a lot of her old work and college mates too.

So our collective friend list has grown from a nice family circle, to close friends to now a nice list of about 50 or so old friends each, which by the way is a nice manageable number. Now the challenge is more on controlling who gets to see what and type of news to be shared and such, and how frequent we want updates are from each of our friends. (Must have some control on privacy too..he.he)

And so to Facebook, like it or not...unproductive of not..we thank you...

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Terang Bulan in KT

We spent Saturday hiking in the national park, dipping at the beach and doing CNY shopping till past midnight. This was all non-stop mid you. Therefore, on getting hoe we had totally forgotten about the goings on in a certain east coast state. Well everyones attention has been there recently. Babies were geetting raped, people mugged but where were the police..all having a wet monsoon dream..

Well come Sunday morning, I was surprised to be greeted with the news that the moon was shining bright over KT last night. Taht was a good pick me up for Sunday. Well, I for one couldn't care less about 'hudud' or 'budud' or whatever. I'm not committing crimes or such, and to those that do..you reap what you sow.

Now with all the excitement over, everyone should get back to work. There's loads of stuff to be done this year, in very uncertain economic conditions.

You know our national anthem is based on a song about a full moon. Therefore, I think its appropriate I signoff with ....Negaraku.tanah tumpah darahhku....Now that's me all partriotic and more.. Well actually I am..Malaysian what?.

Temurun - Hidden Gem in Langkawi

In Langkawi tourist maps, most people will be drawn towards the popular Telaga Tujuh Waterfalls. Why bother hiking up for ages, when there is a better waterfall just by the roadside. Temurun. To get there one should take the road heading towards the Langkawi Crocodile Farm or Datai/Andaman resorts.

There is a parking area just opposite the falls, and you just need to walk in about 100m from the road to enjoy natures beauty. Temurun consists of 2 tiers, with a nice pool and huge vertical drop at the upper tier. Getting to the upper tier requires a steep climb, but there are some basic steps carved out. trust me its well worth the effort.

Go on, experience it for yourself.

Teluk Bahang Dam

On the way home form Titi Kerawang, we made short stop at the Teluk Bahang Dam. Here you can walk across the dam and enjoy the scenery and fresh air. Plan to go there again, as it's a nice place to take photos. We couldn't spend to long there as it was getting dark, and the dam closes to the public at 7.00pm.

An afternoon at Titi Kerawang

We've been living in Tanjung Bungah, Penang for close to 7 years now. And we have yet to explore the attractions here. This must be one of the most scenic parts of the island. During the school holidays, instead of making trips out of Penang, we decided to explore the attractions in our own back yard.

We made a trip to Langkawi earlier this year. There we had the chance to spend time at the Temurun waterfalls. I think Temurun is one of the better waterfalls in Malaysia, easy access, not crowded, relatively clean and crystal clear ice cold water. (I'll post this later). Anyway, since then, my daughter has been fascinated by waterfalls. I plan to post a series later on some of the nice places for an afternoon out with the family.

Anyways, we had read about the Titi Kerawang waterfalls. So one hot lazy afternoon, we decided to go there. Getting to Titi Kerawang from our place is only a 30 minutes drive. Heading through to the tourist belt in Batu Feringghi, on to Teluk Bahang. At Teluk Bahang, turn left and head towards the old road to Balik Pulau.

Driving there is very relaxing (to me at least). Although the roads are narrow, you are flanked on both sides by miles and miles of fruit orchards. The hottest days, can quickly become so cool, as most of the sunlight is blocked off.

You will know you have reached the falls, when you see fruit stalls (pic). Parking may be a challenge, because there is none. You will have to find whatever spot there is along the meagre road shoulder.

It's only a short walk, bout a 100 metres or so to the falls. Malaysians really have no manners. You will see so much litter on the path. I don' understand why people just can bring along a plastic bag with them , and take out whatever trash when they leave. There is a big trashcan at the entrance anyway.
Thankfully, the falls area itself was free of litter. Titi Kerawang, can't compare to Temurun, but for a Sunday afternoon dip, was just nice. There are 2 cascades, with a small pool to swim in. Water was clean and cold.

We spent close to an hour there and headed to Batu Feringghi for dinner.