M A C V A Y S I A

• Found out I have osteoarthritis in my right knee. The suspects: martial arts, lots of driving, genetics, & yeah I’m getting old. #
• My doc gave me an injection in my knee & said it’ll hurt a till tomorrow. I love doctors’ penchant for understatement. #ow #
• Ok, Seemic Look is buggy. Where’s the rest of that previous tweet? #
• Waa si Rais langsung tak suka benda2 rojak. Orang, bahasa…mana dia nak cari orang dan bahasa yg dia suka? Sini takde. #
• #yorais, I rasa lebih baik u cepat pensyen. Kerja yg u buat tak sesuai untuk orang yg tak faham dunia moden. #
• Eh maaf ye, silap tadi, bukan pensyen tapi pencen…alamak, tu pension kan? Ya Allah BI telah diracuni oleh BI! Tidaaak! #yorais, tolong! #
• eh silap lagi. BM telah diracuni oleh BI. Diracuni! Tidaaaak! #
• And what was up with that host? That guy a mob enforcer or something? #
• Ok, baik i tak tulis dalam BM malam ni. Tak reti. #yorais, I’m going to change my mode now, boleh tak? #
• Sarimah Ibrahim’s cute but she needs to stop getting Ronald McDonald to do her makeup. #
• All I really got from that interview is that Rais can count backwards from 10 in English. Terer lah si Rais. Next! Eh maaf…seterusnya! #
• Ok, either the painkillers aren’t working, which would suck, or this IS the painkillers working, which would suck. #
• Maaan got some wicked hiccups here. #
• My doc was right: right knee feels way better today. Not 100% but I can walk without a limp. Nice. #
• Some last-minute 2nd thoughts re A2’s name, but I doubt we can change it since Al already calls him by a certain name. #
• I’ve had wicked hiccups since last night; now the baby has them as well. I took Gavison. If A2 would come out, maybe we could help him haha. #
• We’re all watching Glee when suddenly Al shakes his head at the cheerleading coach & yells “Jahat!” (evil) #
• The cheerleading coach on Glee would make a good love interest for Dr. House. Just imagine THAT crossover. #
• Gotta love David Letterman singing O Canada, even if it does sound like crap. #
• So far no hiccups today. They were so bad last night they woke me up, Leen too. Al somehow slept through it. #
• Not surprised The Star didn’t name the zoo they were shaming today. They are spineless, after all. #
• Hey, my country has a backwards right-wing govt too: Gay rights section nixed for immigrants’ guide http://bit.ly/cfgKfJ #
• #yorais, when #ZulWalks maybe you should follow. And keep on walking. #
• If you haven’t read my take on what Rais said, please take a look & feel free to comment. http://bit.ly/c3u2pz #
• It’s amazing how many ppl fall for the whole ‘you can see who views your profile’ stuff on FB. #
• #yorais, how can your govt reverse the brain-drain if you make Msians married to foreigners want to stay away? #
• I keep hesitating to pull the trigger on a blog post abt the whole Al-Islam/Catholic Church issue. Tempting but I’ll get myself deported. #
• Just looking for an excuse to share my own ‘Undercover Holy Communion Infiltration’ story. What. Doesn’t everyone have one of those? #
• We’re going into the labour room. Here we go! #
• Man, my wife’s a trooper. I knew that, but just sayin’. #
• She says, “Oh poor you,. you must be tired.”
  “Um, it’s ok darling. I’m not the one having a baby here.” #
• Dentist have strong forearms. Dentist in labour? Popeye. #
• Finally! Aaron Yusuf Macvay, 3.68kg, born 07 Mar, 5.56am (via csec) #
• Thanks to everyone for the kind wishes, & thanks to Azlin for helping me ‘live tweet’ Aaron’s birth! #
• had a wee nap at home, now off to the hospital again to see Leen & Aaron. Real sleep later (I fear later=2012). #
• What a day! I’m home with Al now. He’s sleeping next to me. Feeling really blessed. Well, that and exhausted. Going to sleep like a rock! #

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• Besides all the fireworks & firecrackers, another sound I hear is my Arab neighbours’ kids crying. Poor buggers, must sound like a war zone. #
• What a bunch of morons. BBC News - Car bomb explodes at Newry courthouse http://bit.ly/d14aFl #
• Oh, and speaking of morons: CBC News - Nova Scotia - N.S. couple shaken by cross burning http://bit.ly/a8OrMO #
• Yay, the drawing on Al’s pirate t-shirt didn’t wash off. Now he can wear it again & continue being the Scourge of the 7 Seas. Yaaarrrr! #
• Resisting the temptation to draw on more of Al’s shirts now. Oh, the possibilities. #
• http://twitpic.com/14v7og - Cutest pirates ever. #
• Giant George is world’s biggest dog - Scotsman.com #
• We’re all sitting on the couch & suddenly Al turns to me & says ‘I love you Daddy’ & gives me a big hug. *MELTS* #
• The apartment bldgs around here would look so much nicer without all the bars on the windows/balconies. Sucks that they’re necessary. #
• I just love the cute little black yellow-breasted birds that perch on my Astro dish & sing to me & don’t shit on my balcony. Love ‘em. #
• To my great chagrin, yelling out YOU COCKSUCKER when the power goes off doesn’t make it come right back on. #
• Nice. About time! Halifax apologizes for razing Africville http://bit.ly/cifz8q #
• Man did our boys ever kill the Russians eh? Now bring on Sweden! Or even Slovakia. #
• Go Canada go! #
• Ok read this : http://bit.ly/c9wsPF (sorry it’s in Malay). I’ve got a lot to say & I’m going to make damn sure Rais sees it. Damn sure. #
• Jasmine, the Mother Theresa Greyhound http://bit.ly/TjsXa #
• So if our marriage is doomed to fail as Rais says, I guess Leen needs to find a guy who’s half Javanese & half Bugis or that’ll fail too. #
• Rais Yatim needs to understand the only way to stick to your own kind is incest. #
• We asked Al when his little brother’s going to come out & he said 1 day. Not sure abt that but we’ll see. Should start a pool haha. #
• Leen’s trying to get me hooked on Cafe World. No! I won’t do it! I won’t! So cute the way the customers eat though. No! I won’t do it! #
• Mom says she wishes the Dog Whisperer had been on TV when she was raising my brother and me. Haha arf! #
• Ok wow it’s hot. Wow. #
• I hate when clicking a link in a tweet just takes me to a Facebook page where I have to click another link. Yes I’m that lazy. #
• Another reason to vote out the Conservatives as soon as the opportunity presents itself: Canada’s neoconservative turn http://bit.ly/9zNWT4 #
• Ppl have to remember, a tsunami wave only a few cm high can grow real big real fast when it hits shallow water close to land. #
• The good news is, after Dec 26 2004 ppl won’t see a white line on the horizon & say ‘Hey what’s that?’ Now it’s all ‘Shit, tsunami!’ #
• Excited abt the baby coming but Al just fell & hit his head pretty hard & reminded us that parenthood is also scary shit. #
• Little boy in a Spiderman costume walks up to me & says “I am Ahmad Spiderman.” Told me he was from “Maleezya…just over there.” #
• Record for most gold medals by a host country in a Winter Olympics. Nice! #

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• Spent the whole day cleaning. Haha look at me, I’m nesting. #
• Holy sweet lord THE HEAT. #
• You know you’re a history buff when you’re on the can reading a 75-yr-old newspaper. #
• Not only does this country still cane people, it does so for stupid reasons. #
• Canada’s last WW I veteran dies http://bit.ly/dAv6U1 #
• If you’re an adrenaline junkie, I highly recommend arm-wrestling a 3-yr-old boy while getting your face shaved with a straight razor. FUN. #
• If I work 5 days a week I spend 800+ on parking, tolls & petrol. Looks like I’ll be working from home for a while! #
• found a white hair on Al’s head today. That’s the 2nd one. I know the Malay side of the family goes grey early, but 3 yrs old? #
• Cranky today so I don’t care if quietly unfollowing someone on Buzz over one shitty comment means I’m passive aggressive. Sorry. Cranky. #
• Ok, having water with one of those effervescent vitamin c things in it right after drinking coffee is not good for the guts. #
• Off to a birthday party. Theme is fairies, elves & pirates. Al is going to be the scourge of the seven seas. YAARRRR… #
• Went to friends’ kid’s birthday party today. Last time I saw that many white people was when I last visited Canada. #

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• RHB finally replied. They basically said 1) It doesn’t concern me; 2) They ‘empathize’ w/ Leen; but 3) The repo man meant no harm. WTF? #
• 1) Technically correct; 2) Empathize? Not apologize? 3) Can you carjack someone without expecting them to be traumatized? Again: WTF? #
• During Black History Month we can learn abt all sorts of interesting people. Here’s Stagecoach Mary: the Black Cowgirl http://bit.ly/bEHlgD #
• Aw man, Capt. Phil from Deadliest Catch died. Stroke. Crap. #
• So FB will have email, & now Google has this Buzz thing. Jeez, get a room, you two. #
• I’d call having another coffee the bad idea of the day, but it’s only an idea if I don’t actually do it, right? Right? Mmm…coffee… #
• Is anyone actually reading my Duncan MacLeod stories? I have at least a dozen more. Just gonna keep posting till I run out! #
• Watching an episode of Tom & Jerry that’s set in Penang. Tom just got a durian in the face. #
• For some reason I’m suddenly unable to leave comments on Blogspot blogs. In Chrome, anyway. #
• Al’s developed a stutter, but he mostly stutters in English, not Malay. Strange. #
• Oh yeah baby, high-speed broadband at the office. I think I’ll come to the office more often. #
• Imagine, Leen thinks she’ll be able to sleep tonight. #
• No matter how many fireworks go off tonight, all I can think abt is ‘Meh. CNY in China is crazier.’ Night became day, I swear. #
• Having said that, it’s still pretty crazy out there. I don’t think Leen will be getting a good sleep tonight. #
• Oh, by the way: Gong Xi Fa Cai! #

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• Glad to see news today that Msian cops will be paid more. Not surprised they ask for bribes, since they’re paid so little now. #
• Saw a woman’s ass-crack in The Star today. There’s a sliver (teehee) of hope yet for those of us who loathe Msia’s censorship of the press. #
• It was so hot today that when it pissed down rain just before sunset, I didn’t see anyone run for cover. #
• No liking RHB’s proposal: a face-to-face meeting between our friend, the repo man & the branch manager. What, a healing circle? No way. #
• One of Khir Toyo’s clinics wanted Leen to work for them. Walaupun dia ‘wong jowo’ jugak, jangan harap. #
• Finally found a blog design a like. I think I’ll keep it. #
• It’s World Cancer Day today. Now all I need to do is find something yellow to wear. #
• Caught Al & his cousins playing GTA: San Andreas. Never thought I’d be Killjoy Adult Who Ruins Everything but yeah that was me. #
• My buddy Neil’s going on a road trip in the US. One of the attractions: the Arkansas Alligator Farm & Petting Zoo. Careful, man! LOL #
• If Captain Yusof were still alive he’d tell the story about bathing with Anwar at school. Funny stuff. But no funny stuff, he’d say. #
• CBC News - Politics - Layton vows to beat prostate cancer http://bit.ly/bizvDF #

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• Tabbed browsing and blogs that autoplay music don’t mix at all, especially when I’m trying to listen to something else. Why, bloggers, WHY. #
• Mind you, one blog was playing a nice acoustic version of Radiohead’s Creep, so I’ll let that one live. For now. #
• Cha mhisde sgeul mhath aithris da uair. A good tale is not the worse of being twice told. (Gaelic proverb) #
• Is fhearr na’n t-òr sgeul air inns’ air chòir. Better than gold is the tale well told. (Gaelic proverb) #
• Was going to tell Leen abt the false Brangelina breakup rumor but didn’t want to raise any false hopes. Sorry Brad, she’s still mine. #
• ‘Se Cheap Breatainn tìr mo ghràidh/ Tìr nan craobh ’s nam beanntan àrd/ ‘Se Ceap Breatainn tìr mo ghràidh/ Tìr is àillidh leinn air thalamh. #
• Not only is Zee Avi’s Kantoi cute, it’s caught the attention of linguists: Language Log » Indie-pop Manglish http://bit.ly/6o9KbC #
• Dr Blair, Dr Blair, Dr J Hamilton, Dr J Hamilton…anyone else know/remember why that’s funny? #
• Was gonna have green tea but a cup of coffee jumped in front of it screaming ‘NOOOOOO!’ I shall reward its gumption. #
• Off to immigration this morning. Just picking up forms, so not expecting frustration. But ya never know. Will ask about PR. #
• Bienvenue, Jean-Francois http://bit.ly/cDBmsT #
• Malaysia: Where the news is all about cow heads, boar heads, and human assholes. #
• Morning: smooth immigration visit. Noon: nice lunch with Kak Ena. Afternoon: my car died in traffic. I guess 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. #
• Taman Len Sen is like the Bermuda Triangle or something. After my car broke down, another car & a van broke down at the same intersection. #
• Leen was going to come meet me in her friend’s car, but it got snatched from right under her arse by repo men. How crazy is that. #
• Leen & her friend Hanim were pulled over & bullied out of Hanim’s car by repo men, who stuck the car to a tow-truck & drove off. Nasty. #
• They should totally call the Apple tablet iMegaphone. #
• Sure, the Blackberry Bold 9700 is cooler than my Nokia 1208, but if I drop my Nokia 1208 I won’t have a heart attack. Cheap-ass phone FTW! #
• Anyone know any higher-ups in RHB I can contact? Unleashing a shitstorm on them tomorrow & would rather not yell at underlings. #
• Ulster Heritage Magazine: The Ulster Psyche http://bit.ly/ak1Og9 #
• A pie for a pie? PETA protester hit with pie http://bit.ly/bY39eZ #
• If you’ve ever been carjacked by Msian repo men, check out my latest blog post. Please RT http://bit.ly/cDktOn #
• Watching a show about a guy who restores muscle cars. Al’s in a trance. Suddenly he says ‘I want a place like that.’ #
• We were worried about Al’s weekday morning tummy-aches…till we figured out he just fakes them to get tummy-rubs from his babysitter. #
• Watching a show on Astro Prima abt exorcism & wondering how ppl can be so god damn stupid. Me, I mean. For watching this crap. #
• Going for our umpteenth sworn declaration of marriage tomorrow, then off to Shah Alam to submit forms for my visa renewal. Fun. #

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• I like Sunday nights, even though they’re full of Monday morning. #
• It’s interesting that we still use something as outdated as race to determine who’s mixed. It’s silly. I mean, I’m mixed. So are you. #
• Malays & Chinese calling each other different ‘races’ reminds me of how English people said that of the Irish ages ago. It’s that silly. #
• Sleep is ignoring me but oatmeal and coffee still want to be my friends. Aww, I love those guys. #
• Germany asks its citizens to stop using Internet Explorer http://bit.ly/7t6xoV #
• Man it’s awesome when Leen goes to these dental conferences. We won’t have to buy toothpaste/brushes/mouthwash for months. #
• http://twitpic.com/ymbhx - @unmsia Here’s another one you might like. #
• Oh Coffee, I like you, I really do…but honestly I’m just doing this to make Sleep jealous. #
• The best article I’ve seen so far on the ‘Allah’ issue: http://bit.ly/7I01wg #
• Either I just heard a jet with a really messed-up engine flying overhead or someone’s car is badly in need of servicing. #
• Follow @CBCReporters for Canadian journos’ 1st-hand accounts of what’s happening in Haiti. #
• Finding Dr. King’s Roots in Slavery http://bit.ly/8×38jy #
• Under the ‘Allah’ rules etc, I suppose Tony Eusoff (org S’rawak) can still play a Malay on tv but Hans Isaac (org JB) can’t. #Allah #
• Experimenting with replacing my daily coffee intake with green tea. So far so good. #
• Given the heat lately, this cool post-thunderstorm breeze tiptoeing in off my balcony is the most refreshing thing EVER. #
• Rais is so ancient, you know the only way he’ll go away is if a giant meteor hits earth and blacks out the sun. #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient he’s still bitter over someone building those darn pyramids and ruining his favourite desert view. #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient his ears are still ringing from the Big Bang. #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient, in his day social media was all on cave walls; his username was dudethrowingspearatbuffalo7. #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient he remembers when flooding in the Klang Valley caused lots of lava damage. #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient he once saw a papyrus scroll & said ‘This writing thing will never catch on.’ #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient he remembers when this chick was HAWT: http://bit.ly/2pVLlH #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient he totally won’t see the humour in all this. Actually, he totally won’t see this. #yorais #
• Rais is so ancient he remembers when Venus de Milo had arms. #yorais #
• Tun says Avatar means the US could’ve done 9/11 themselves. So does he also think Star Wars means they faked the moon landing? #
• Didn’t notice #whentwitterwasdown because I was playing with my kid. I’m no addict. Awww, ain’t that tweet? Uh I mean sweet. #
• Dah la Al cakap BI dengan slang Melayu, tapi dia melatah jugak. ‘Alamak!’ ‘Oh pocut!’ Yang paling best: ‘Oh mak kau jatuh!’ #
• Not sure what’s worse: that Al says certain words with a Malay accent, or that he’s just copying the way his daddy talks. #
• Leen’s phone mysteriously died like a day after the warranty expired so guess who’s hogging the Blackberry Celcom gave me to review. #hmmm #
• Animals rafted to Madagascar http://bit.ly/7KBAv9 I like to move it move it, she like to move it move it, he like to move it move it… #
• Shooting an Elephant: Film documents the brutality of Operation Cast Lead http://bit.ly/7jUBrp #
• ‘Lesson number one, I thought: you’re lucky to be in a wooden building.’ http://bit.ly/5qUNXb #
• Now they’re trying to burn down suraus in Muar? What a bunch of twats. #
• RT @netraKL RT @phrTweets: Use the #closegitmo hashtag today, the 1 yr anniversary of Obama’s executive order to close Gitmo. Pls RETWEET. #
• The Heavy doing ‘How You Like Me Now’ on Letterman. WICKED. http://bit.ly/5rPvOr #
• ‘I’m fairly sure if they took porn off the Internet there’d be only one website left, & it’d be called ‘Bring Back the Porn’.’ Dr Perry Cox #
• FedEx dude at the door was probably a bit shocked to see a mat salleh wearing kain pelikat LOL #
• Just finished watching A History of Scotland: Language is Power. Moran taing to Colin Tan for the DVD! http://bit.ly/6aQ0mm #
• WTF? St. John’s man fined for not driving car http://bit.ly/7HSLze #
• God bless the children. They can still smile. http://twitpic.com/z90jz (via @CBCReporters) #
• Get Fiona J Mackenzie’s song Loch Maruibhe- Loch Maree for free in exchange for one tweet: http://trkurl.com/mt9goR #TFAT #
• Al: Apa tu Mummy? Leen: Tu burung hantu. Al: Look daddy! Me: Yes, it’s an owl. Al: No Daddy, it’s a ghost bird. #bilingual kids rock. #
• Ho. Lee. Shit. The heat. #
• Saw two Malays with family names on TV today: one named Fenner, the other Ross. Then I spent the day with a Malay kid named MacVay. #

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• Sometimes I think the only thing keeping Msians from killing one another is a non-nuke version of the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction #
• In my kids’ family history there’s a story abt a guy who fell in love with a Muslim girl & converted to get married. It wasn’t me. #
• 51% of respondents in a popular Israeli TV channel’s online poll choose option D: ‘Destroy Gaza’. http://bit.ly/5SNLmq #
• May get a Blackberry Bold 2 from Celcom tomorrow to use free for a month, unless my non-Malaysian status puts the kaibosh on the whole plan. #
• I’m not one of the ‘eligible signatories’ but if you’re Malaysian please do sign this petition (& ignore the spam) http://bit.ly/7tbYzS #
• There were Msian Xtians calling God Allah when my wife’s family was still Buddhist. The ‘Oh no you don’t’ crowd need to read more. #
• It’s cool Al’s sleeping in his own room now, except for the part where he runs shrieking into our room sometime before 5am. #
• Woohoo, got a Blackberry Bold 2 (& a Celcom line) all free for 1 month. Sweet! #
• Hilarious! RT @boostventilator RT @BindleParty This is where I go to stay informed about current events in Sydney, NS: http://bit.ly/7VEm6z #
• Initial thoughts on the Bold 9700: I prefer keyboards to touchscreens, but wow the keys are small. I have really big hands. Learning curve! #
• Also, the Bold 9700 is sitting neglected on a table because the Celcom line can’t open gmail, facebook etc. #
• Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground… #
• RT @netraKL RT @TheNutGraph: The impact of migration. Who will fuel economic growth in Msia? http://bit.ly/4yIfRJ #
• What are your thoughts on the new rules re petrol prices/subsidies? #malaysia #
• I swear I won’t censor websites! LOL just kidding RT @netraKL RT @aainaaridtz: #Jordan to Censor Websites #Gov http://bit.ly/8PZzFJ #
• Migraine. Crap. #
• It’s amazing how a simple thing like going out into the sunlight can screw me over when I have a migraine. Going into vampire mode now. #
• RT @netraKL RT @juanajaafar: RT @PalestineToday: John Pilger: For Israel, a reckoning http://ow.ly/WHta #
• It speaks volumes of how mature the govt thinks Msians are when the news describes a 25-yr-old man as a youth. http://bit.ly/R7cTu #
• Camera on Australian beach leads to Ontario couple http://bit.ly/6mWWWL #
• Spotted a ‘Mitzvah tank’ in Kajang today, of all places. Religious diversity in Malaysia FTW! #
• When ZAM was done as Information Minister I applauded because no one could be worse. Turns out I was wrong. #
• A Blackberry with a shitty Internet connection is like a Ferrari in the jungle. #
• So far the only real use I’ve got out of this loaner Blackberry Bold 9700 is playing a game where you break bricks. Otherwise useless. #
• Told Al to stand next to a Lambourghini so I could take a pic. He went to sit on it & almost gave a security guard a heart attack. Hehe #
• Off to Sunway to hang out with Alisdair. #
• Last weekend while cleaning the storeroom I found the devil’s business card. Name: Larry Usifer. Occupation: Life insurance salesman. #
• Seriously, when a guy named Larry Usifer shows up at your door selling life insurance, you’re probably not going to sign anything. #
• Snoop Dogg Shocked by Genealogy Results http://bit.ly/69CkWQ Well he can still take comfort in that American staple, the ‘one drop rule’. #
• Holy heat Batman. Is the hole in the ozone layer like right over my place or what? #
• Mr. L. Usifer knocked on my door one day in 1995, if I recall correctly. He was selling life insurance. As if I’m gonna sign with L. Usifer. #
• Thig crioch air an saoghal, ach mairidh gaol is ceòl. The world will pass away, but love and music will endure. (Gaelic proverb) #
• This country has aged me. Ok, actually it was time that aged me. But Malaysia egged it on. #

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• RT @netraKL RT @TheNutGraph: Looking back, moving forward by Marina Mahathir. http://bit.ly/6dxmaD #
• Bad blood between Israel, Palestine & Jordan affects two-thousand-year-old documents: http://bit.ly/8zK2AK #
• Minarets are not an essential part of Islam | Taj Hargey - Times Online http://bit.ly/7ZQja8 #
• A2 kicked one of Leen’s patients in the head today. I tell ya, kids can get away with anything these days. #
• I think I want to start a testicular cancer support group here in Msia. TC’s rarity here is good but it means awareness & resources are low. #
• How crazy is it that I’m writing a screenplay? 2010 looks set to be an interesting year. #
• Wow, I’d be pissed if this happened to me. RTÉ News: Explosive reached Ireland after failed test http://bit.ly/7pVipy #
• Thinking of going to the Egyptian embassy to join those demanding EGY let the VivaPalestina convoy into Gaza http://fb.me/49gVzo3 #
• Ok no protest for me today. Leen’s scared I’ll get arrested. ‘U bukan org Msia tau! Kalo u kene tangkap dan kene keluar dari Msia, ha, how?’ #
• RT @netraKL Check this video out — Viva Palestina Convoy Attacked in El-Arish #3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVwGnqHwk7U #
• Cuimhnich air na daoine bho ’n d’ thàinig thu. Remember those from whom you came. #
• Skipping my writers group meet-up tomorrow. My excuse? I’ll be too busy writing. Heh. #
• Few things are as beautiful as distant lightning silently painting stories on clouds in the night sky. I could watch it for hours. #
• Way to go! Aid convoy breaks Gaza siege
  http://bit.ly/6jvDdE #
• Can we please recognize ‘hate-filled imbeciles’ as a unique ethnic group & give them an island or something? Jesus what morons we have here. #
• The MacVays lived in Northern Ireland for 200 yrs before finding peace in Canada. Now here I am in Msia & people are burning churches. FML #
• RT @meeshly RT @NazimEsa I love god. It’s his fan club I can’t stand #
• Where the hell do all these NGOs come from every time there’s a protest? Dozens & dozens of ‘em. I’ll bet most of ‘em are one-man shows. #
• I hereby interrupt this sectarian violence nonsense to brag about the awesome pasta dish I just cooked. MMM GOOD Suck on that haters. #
• http://twitpic.com/x6lch - Aaaaand here comes the rain. #
• Fatwa declares any attack on US or Canada to be an attack on Muslims http://bit.ly/8wL5kL #
• Sigh. I wish there could be a story abt Msia in the int’l news that doesn’t make us look like dolts. @meeshly @netraKL @monaeltahawy #
• The whole family just had a 5-minute laughing fit for no reason at all. Either we’re all nuts or we’re just the best family EVAR. #
• How could I possibly be against non-Muslims calling God Allah? I still yell ‘JESUS CHRIST!’ when startled. #
• I don’t know why I keep gaining weight, said the 35-yr-old man microwaving chicken sausages at 2am. Life’s little mysteries! #
• Marvel sues Spider-Man, Hulk artist heirs for rights http://bit.ly/7dIPu3 #
• Oh, hello Sleep. Let’s hang out. You talk, I’ll listen. You tell the best stories. #

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• Configured my blog to publish a weekly twitter update & it made a post with every update (excluding replies) from 2009. Hmmm #
• I smell burnt toast. Since I’m not epileptic & there’s no doctor poking things into my brain, I’ll assume someone somewhere just burnt toast #
• Spent New Year’s Eve in Muar. Our cat Mimi was with us. Left her there. In her place are some guppies & neon tetras. Al’s ok with that. Phew #
• Rolled-up Trousers: Douglas Alexander should be with the protesters at Egypt’s border http://bit.ly/82daCo #
• Unearthed: Journal Gives Eye Witness Account of Slavery http://bit.ly/5V6Aft #
• Predictions for the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900 http://bit.ly/5QIh7F #
• Robert Fisk: Walls never work: in the Middle East or in Ireland http://bit.ly/8rXOkY #
• Ok, what’s with the heat? Yeah we’re near the equator and all that but damn it’s hot tonight. #

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• If the Disney cartoon about crazy US drivers was made in the 50s, does that mean I have to wait over 50 yrs for Malaysian drivers to learn? #
• Where the heck can I find quinoa in Malaysia? Anyone? #
• Went on a gluten-free shopping rampage at Cold Storage. Felt like home…only 10x more expensive. #
• I wonder if Al’s sudden habit of making the ssss sound is an early sign of Tourette’s or just him making the ssss sound. I have to wonder… #
• If Goofy’s a dog, does that mean Pluto’s just mentally challenged? #
• I don’t get blog trolls. You ignore & delete, they get mad. You reply, they get mad AND they look stupid. So why do they want door #2? #
• Is it just me or is quinoa really awesome? #
• Interesting that the only way to stop Al’s tantrum was to show him video of himself having a tantrum. Too bad the effect quickly wore off. #
• What to do when wifeless for a day? Go fly a kite. Really. #
• had fun flying kites & playing in the river with Al & Faaris yesterday, except when the poisonous snake charged at us (but what a rush). #
• just spent 2 hrs eating a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries. It was a big bowl of oatmeal. Lots of blueberries. Don’t come near me later. #
• The ghastly pics of a shirtless me from yesterday’s outing shall further motivate me to start exercising. I’m so horrified. #
• Been experimenting with a gluten-free diet, which in Malaysia is exceedingly tricky. So I guess it’s actually a low-gluten diet instead. #
• Burnt my lunch a little but I ate it anyway. Mmmm… #
• Does anyone else out there hate songs with saxophone? If that upsets you, you’ll really hate me for admitting I like the sound of bagpipes. #
• Valentine’s sucks. However, I AM looking forward to buying Leen chocolates & taking her out on a date. Hypocrite? No…opportunist. #
• Valentine’s still sucks. But we had a good time anyway. #
• Bad enough developers never consider parking; add the fact that restaurants use parking spaces for seating and the result is just stupid. #
• Basic chat etiquette: If you’re really there, respond; if you can’t, drop a note later. Otherwise why are we ‘friends’? #
• It’s times like this that make me wonder why I moved so close to the equator. DAMN it’s hot. #
• If I’m eating ‘lightly salted’ rice cakes, the ‘no salt added’ ones must taste exactly like styrofoam. Because these ones are damn close. #
• Even if I only got a penny for every time someone wrote ‘loose’ when they meant ‘lose’, I’d be rich in no time. #
• Got my copy of Down the Block in the mail yesterday. So nice to get ‘real’ mail once in a while! #
• just had oatmeal for lunch. Mmmm…delicious soluble fiber… #
• would love to name a (hypothetical) 2nd son Duncan, except Malaysians would just associate it with Dunkin Donuts. Damn it. #
• Speaking of Damansara: Spot the problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damansara #
• Wow it is really dark outside for this time of day. #
• I find ‘what I’m eating’ updates annoying. But damn this fish, potatoes and veggies concoction Leen cooked for lunch RAWKS. #
• paid a phone bill from 2005 today #
• knows it’s time to clean the litterbox when he finds a pile of crap on the bathroom floor. Smokey’s right, that’s unpleasant. #
• 2 months rain in 2 hours. So Tuesday WAS as bad as it looked! #
• finally found something to hate about this job: colleague has been playing Elvis songs all afternoon #
• Spouses of skilled Malaysians who return get PR in 6 months, but spouses of skilled Malaysians already here can’t get PR at all. Huh? #
• tried three times to wipe a little piece of tissue off my face before finally realizing it was actually white hair #
• Down the Block is now at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/d5hltt #
• Smokey used up the last of his 9 lives today. See ya buddy. #
• buried Smokey in Kampung Melayu Subang this morning #
• should probably try to remember how to tie the belt before I step back into a judo dojo #
• Migraine all week. Suspect named Grief still at large. May have an accomplice named Gluten. #
• Your dad is CM of Sarawak? This too could be yours! http://tinyurl.com/cdrmp3 #
• Colleague has asthma, can’t have air-con on; I sweat excessively & get headaches when only using fans. So how? #
• If I ran this country I would so do something about the way they pack garbage bags here. Then you could just take ONE out of the bag. #
• People who chop chicken without regard for its anatomy shall share my wrath with the garbage bag packers. I’m gonna need more wrath then. #
• it’s just wrong to sweat this much if you haven’t just exercised and/or had sex. Why did I have to move so close to the equator? #
• should pack a lunch every day because all this ‘where will I eat’ stuff is very draining #
• gave into temptation; now lovingly devouring a ‘dinner plate’ from KFC #
• Jeremy Clarkson may hate the Kelisa, but if he drove one in KL traffic he’d change his mind. I kinda like mine. #
• Today’s priority: not looking like a complete n00b at judo. Tomorrow’s priority: getting out of bed without screaming like a girl. #
• got pretty scraped up at judo last night; even popped something in my ribcage. Doing it again Sunday, hopefully with less rib-popping #
• “It is not important to be better than someone else, but to be better than yesterday.” - Jigoro Kano #
• went to see ‘Knowing’ last night. Kinda creepy. #
• It’s official: that ‘pop’ I felt at judo last Friday was my rib cracking. No judo for at least a month, maybe two. Major suckage. #
• The We’re related FB app April Fool’s joke about Obama being my cousin might have worked if they’d said Hilary Clinton, who IS my cousin #
• TMNet is ridiculously slow today #
• OK, the slowness of Screamyx is beyond ridiculous now. I can’t even blog. #
• The Internet is so slow right now I can’t even edit my blog to enable comments (which should have been enabled by default anyway). Grrr…. #
• Hey, a Wikipedia page just loaded in 15 secs. That’s better than 15 mins. Maybe the problem is almost fixed. #
• I think I might go for a brisk walk around Bukit Damansara. If the trees will shade me, of course. It’s bloody hot out there. #
• enjoyed hearing about Al’s dream about eating cake with Ben 10, the Power Rangers and Batman after they saved him from a monster #
• Depressing as the news is, what I’m really wondering about is the AP’s use of the word ’shet’. Like shed+shit? http://tinyurl.com/d4gssw #
• spending the day at Immigration. 1-month special pass expiring; 6-month ’spouse’ pass not ready yet; getting another 1-month pass. Woo. #
• Rain in Shah Alam this afternoon was worst daytime visibility I’ve ever seen outside of a blizzard or a Halifax fog bank. Crazy. #
• Is Libya playing a big footie match right now? I keep hearing cheers down at the mamak. Yes, that many Libyans live in Sungai Chua. Imagine. #
• I thought I could go catless, but here I am contemplating a visit to the SPCA tomorrow. This place needs a cat. #
• Spent the morning at Immigration to get my 2nd 1-month pass in a row. Crowded as usual. But hey, it wasn’t Thailand. Hooray for optimism! #
• One of the guys featured in Amir Muhammad’s ‘Apa Khabar Orang Kampung’ has a blog: http://matamin.blogspot.com/. Very interesting. #
• stands by his climbing ability, but begrudgingly admits he’s a poor judge of the load-bearing capacity of vines. #
• lost his right to vote almost 2 yrs ago due to a quirky bit of Canadian electoral law and is now ineligible to vote in any country. Nice. #
• just finished a bottle of non-alcoholic beer I bought from the Lebanese-Australian guy’s shop downstairs. Actually tasted like beer. Sigh. #
• the funny thing is, the guy I would never peg for Australian before he spoke actually thought I was Syrian before I spoke. I look Syrian? #
• almost forgot how good Shaolin Soccer was. On TV3 now. #
• shoulda watched that match in the wee hours, since screaming fans at the mamak woke me up at 430am anyway. Sheesh. #
• tried Bavaria Malt yesterday. Even better than Barbican. Sure, not ‘real’ beer, but it tastes right, and I can drink and drive. Nyeah nyeah. #
• Anyone wanna join me and @tariqk in starting an acid dangdut punk band? Wouldn’t that be trippy? Or not? OK, maybe not. #
• Twitter Tools appears to be broken, so I have to tell you myself to go read my blog. So go read it. READ IT! #
• it’s funny that my 2002 Proton Wira is basically a 1993 Mitsubishi lancer/Dodge Colt. #
• had too much petai last night. Morning bathroom visit was just wrong. Enjoyed the petai, though. #
• is about to have a nice nap at the office. Driving to Penang tonight and want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. #
• heading to Penang / Kedah for the weekend #
• got pulled over near Tapah last night. Cop: ‘Is there anything you’d like to say before I write this ticket?’ Laaa just ask me for the RM50. #
• sweltering in Mak Ngah’s house in Sg Dua. Next stop: Jitra. #
• in a tiny little hotel room in Jitra. But God bless air-conditioning. #
• There was a Satay kajang place behind our hotel in Jitra. Needless to say, we skipped it. I mean, we get enough satay Kajang as it is. #
• saw dozens of Vespas on the NSE last night. Some sort of Vespa gang? Oooh, scary. Especially the ones with stacks of side mirrors. Horror. #
• safe to say Malaysians suck at geography, considering how many mistake the North-South expressway for the Autobahn. Wrong country, folks. #
• Canadian authorities urge washing hands with hot water & soap, among other things, to avoid new swine flu. So basically Malaysia’s screwed. #
• Or, for those who prefer more upbeat status updates: purple Gatorade is yummy and contains 0% swine flu. Yay! #
• was going to get down to doing some work, but ah screw it, how about a really long lunch? Oh yeah. #
• yeah go ahead and laugh at my cheap Asadi knock-off crocs, but bear in mind they’re popular with wacky achilles tendons. Well, mine anyway. #
• had things to edit but took a 3+hr lunch instead. Tomorrow: some editing and another 3+hr lunch. #
• why I get paid to edit: “X might seem an ordinary man to you, but you will be surprised to discover that he is nothing but ordinary.” #
• Why is the Malay word for ‘rebate’ spelled ‘rebat’ when everyone pronounces it just like ‘rebate’? #
• Funny how today’s Star has page after page on the swine flu, which isn’t here, but a cholera outbreak in Klang is buried somewhere on p. +++ #
• You’d think I’d have a favourite football team by now, but I STILL don’t know which one I like. EPL I mean. #
• If you’ve ever read Archie comics & wondered what the heck was up with Jughead’s hat, someone’s figured it out: http://tinyurl.com/cfsm86 #
• I finally know where the term “half-past six” (in one sense anyway) comes from: http://tinyurl.com/dg5vm4 #
• didn’t panic about SARS because I wasn’t a parent. This new flu is freaking me out. Docs in Mexico too it seems: http://tinyurl.com/c53n7y #
• can’t say this office is like others. Colleague spends all day in t-shirt & boxer shorts. #
• Ah, there you are, Rain. I’m actually glad you’re here this time. But please tell your friend Wind not to drop branches in front of me, ok? #
• relaxing in Sitiawan, enjoying good company and good steaks. Ping-pong too, but my gimpy leg made me stop. So back to steak then. #
• Ping-pong may have actually helped. My limp is less gimpy now. The body works in mysterious ways. #
• Like I said, still looking for an EPL team to support. Maybe Liverpool (history!), or Chelsea (blue!), or Newcastle (Geordies). But not MU. #
• Or Portsmouth maybe. Nice logo. And they’re blue! And they’re an island. I like islands. #
• The connection error this stupid Celcom ‘broadband’ throws up is ‘Find an incorrect size of the structure’. So their English sucks too. #
• So @sazdaud insists that if I don’t like MU (I really don’t), in all fairness to her I should also shun Liverpool. @sashi1977? Hmmm….. #
• So far it’s Liverpool, Newcastle, Portsmouth. Man City have potential. Maybe Tottenham. Oh I don’t know. #
• My lunch FTW: grilled salmon, brown rice, baby carrots, green beans & kacang botol with lemon pepper and a sweet ginger sauce. Mmmm…. #
• Sweet berimbau action: http://tinyurl.com/3hvs2g #
• Best Wintersleep song ever: http://tinyurl.com/yqjopk #
• The other best Wintersleep song ever (& definitely their best video ever): http://tinyurl.com/dlf4jf #
• It’s impossible to twitter everything, cos then you’d have ‘Just tweeted about pooping’ then ‘Tweeted about tweeting about pooping’ etc. Die #
• I want mee rebus. Oh look it’s Tuesday. So mee rebus it is then. With lots and lots of fried shallots. #
• I want to play futsal. But only if I can find other people who suck at it so I won’t feel so out of place. #
• Watching The Wrestler. “It’s the Passion of the Christ. You have the same hair.” LOL #
• Marisa Tomei failed at playing someone not as smokin’ as the other girls. Please. Mid-40s and you could bounce a quar…OK I’ll stop now. #
• Seriously thinking about joining the gym near my place. With Leen. Have to kick each other’s arses. #
• Lemme get this straight: ppl eating breakfast get arrested for wearing black, but ppl who rob & kill pregnant moms get away. Riiiight. FAIL. #
• Sivakumar should start throwing punches like they do in Taiwan or Korea. If you’re going down, go down fighting. #
• LOL RT @insider_latest: FLASH - Ipoh restaurant owners refuse to close shop. Police give up and instead start buying drinks. #
• Awakened by screaming footie fans again last night. Going to talk to the mamak owner tonight. If all else fails, I’ll unplug the damn TV. #
• I feel for Pakatan, but if they walk away from this without asserting their authority, then whine about it, my sympathy level falls a bit. #
• Come on, at least get dragged out kicking and screaming instead of ‘I’m the speaker. I’m the…oh darn, I’m not the speaker. Let’s leave.’ #
• Ok, looks like they’re not leaving. Siva’s stepping up. Yay Siva! #
• BTW, where is the sultan? And Raja Nazrin? It would take but a word or two from them to end this shit one way or another. #
• Interesting point at anilnetto.com: Since Raja Nazrin hasn’t declared sitting open, nothing that has transpired is official. Siva is speaker #
• Watching the rest of The Wrestler. More Marisa Tomei. Still not buying her as the ‘too old now’ stripper. Damn. Movie rocks though. #
• Our ‘leaders’: RT @insider_latest: Perak Assembly - Chaos as lawmakers scuffle and fight with some trying to strangle each other. #
• Canada can have its boring politics. Here in M’sia politicians punch, strangle and pepper-spray one another. What’s next…tasers? #
• Bubar? No, no. I believe the correct word for all of this is FUBAR. #
• Today’s politcal hullabaloo in Perak goes into the fizzle bin with Sept. 16th. #
• In other news, Leen & I bought 1-yr gym memberships yesterday. Watch out, people. #
• couldn’t get online all weekend. So much for my celcom ‘broadband’. #
• High court declares Nizar is MB of Perak! Whoa! #
• spent the last 2 days at immigration. Visa delayed because JPN can’t read our wedding cert (it’s in jawi). Malaysia boleh apa? #
• Gardenia butterscotch bread tastes awesome, but it appears to have given me some sort of food poisoning. Can I stop peeing from my ass now? #
• Hey, today’s my 5-yr ‘blogiversary’. Wow. #
• Going to blame this bout of diarrhea on chicken sandwiches from the petrol station. Shoulda known better. It’s ALWAYS the petrol station. #
• RT @lainie Loving Reach, this short film animation by Luke Randall of a tiny robot, and the power cable he’s bound to. http://is.gd/zJ7V #
• Publisher & editor want my tsunami book to be rewritten as fiction. Would help in some big ways, but I’m torn. Decisions, decisions… #
• Last week: a cold, immigration woes, food poisoning, & internetlessness. Dear This Week: Don’t make me break ma foot offa yo ass. #
• Just downloaded a Coldplay album for free. Woohoo! Thanks to @ShaolinTiger for sharing the link: http://bit.ly/WTgiP Now go get it. #
• Car scraped by road bully’s truck & I can’t do anything because I didn’t quite see the plate number. Punched the shit out of his hood though #
• Should I even bother making a police report? #
• If you have a weird name, no Facebook for you. http://tinyurl.com/ok8q6k #
• Speaking of names: If Msia had a surname law like Turkey, I wonder what surnames Malays would get? Easy for those with Nik, Meor, Raden, etc #
• If you type ‘best country’ into Wolfram Alpha it tells you it’s the Netherlands. Well, because there’s a place called Best there. Hah. #
• I guess I won’t be one of those writers who always talk about the novel they never write. This tsunami book is morphing into my 1st novel. #
• Ah, Malaysian girls http://bit.ly/uAq7a
  WTF? #
• Going to the gym with Leen after work. Still sore from my session with the personal trainer. Just going to do cardio and lots of stretching #
• Parents in Alberta could be able to choose not to have their kids learn about evolution in school? Disturbing! http://tinyurl.com/papk26 #
• The guy who’s been Mickey Mouse’s voice for 30 yrs has died. He was actually married to the voice of Minnie. RIP. http://tinyurl.com/re97xv #
• LOL RT @thatjames American Idol: Adam vs Kris. Your votes count! Perak Idol: Zambry vs Nizar. Your votes don’t! #
• Good mood? I think he looks like someone just kicked him in the balls. http://twitpic.com/5lqos #
• LOL RT @suanie overheard on the howard stern show: “that was the gayest thing i’d ever seen, and i’ve seen two guys blowing each other.” #
• Wow, and I thought Al was bad! RT @ShaolinTiger This baby is genius, gibberish ftw ROFL - http://bit.ly/gGaF #
• The Star tells ppl to follow @aichunstar for the latest Nizar vs Zambry. Her latest tweet is ‘I got kicked out’. So much for that! #
• was very impressed by Papa John’s Pizza. I mean, it actually tastes like PIZZA. #
• Archie’s supposedly getting married. But will it be Betty or Veronica? http://tinyurl.com/p4lzh3 I’ve always preferred Betty. #
• Yay Canadian writers http://bit.ly/qdv3M #
• may just join the screaming masses tonight and root for Barcelona. #
• I’m too tired to watch the match, but the local fans will wake me up with their screaming anyway. So I suppose I might as well watch it. #
• was awakened by screaming footie fans & went down to join them. That 2nd goal was sweet. Pretty emphatic win. Way to go Barca! #
• LOL RT @lezzles:There’s an email going around saying that some tinned pork products contain H1-N1 aka “Swine Flu”. I think it might be spam. #
• Working at home all day. Later: playing footie with Al. For a 2-yr-old the kid can really boot a ball. #
• Isn’t it kind of disturbing that Chicky the KFC mascot cooks & serves his own kind? Al has a toy Chicky in a chef’s hat holding a fried egg. #
• I know Energizer lithium batteries rock anyway but the ones in my camera now are freakishly good. I think they’ve been going over a month. #
• got to where Leen works way too early. Thank God for a full laptop battery and wireless broadband. #
• going to the gym soon to work off a weekend of yummy food. #
• Passed a lorry exiting LDP. Passenger was waving something. Looked in rearview mirror & saw him waving a .44. I hope that was a toy! #
• Anyone got a really good Malay dictionary handy? One that gives etymologies of words? Mine are at home & I want to look up a word. #
• I have to go to a place not too far from my office but because of the weird roads probably can’t get back without driving all over KL. Meh. #
• Robber gets away with a new religion and even a new name LOL http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/02/new.york.robber.mercy/index.html #
• I think the biggest leap of imagination in the new Terminator film is not how advanced the robots are but how dumb they are. #
• just noticed on Wikimapia that in the place my great-great-grandparents (the MacArtneys) lived there’s now a place called Leen’s Lodge. Heh. #
• The Canadian dollar can’t win: when it’s low, people complain. It goes up, they still complain. Poor Canadian dollar. #
• It’s about bloody time: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/06/04/abdelrasik.html #
• Not sure what this guy did (supposedly rape) but damn, is this Malaysian justice? (Link is NSFW) http://tinyurl.com/pmydb4 #
• Cats are so smart. The 2 stray kittens we took home last night could apparently read the word SUCKER written all over me and Leen. #
• Problem: my book needs an editor but I don’t have money to fork out for an editor. My only option now is to go it alone & hope for the best. #
• off to buy kitten food so the little buggers will stop eating all my tuna. #
• Not a card-carrying NDP member, but kinda hope they win. They deserve a chance to screw Nova Scotia like the others have. It’s only fair eh? #
• “…if necessary will arrest any person wearing black as they approach the outlets…” Wow, now THAT would be dumb.http://tinyurl.com/mg48tj #
• found one white hair on Al’s head yesterday. Very strange. I know some people go grey early, but he’s not even 3 yet! #
• wouldn’t be shocked if Al’s hair colour changed. Mine was black at birth, then fiery red, then really blond. Now it’s dirty-blondish. #
• Why is someone retweeting something I never tweeted in the first place? Or am I simply meant to see it? Forgive me, I’m sleepy. #
• Canadian MP Bob Re deported from Sri Lanka. Is the Sri Lankan govt really that stupid? Apparently so. http://tinyurl.com/lg2yz8 #
• I’m in stay-at-home-dad mode all week; today Al is in spend-every-moment-playing-with-me mode. I’m gonna need more coffee. #
• just had dinner with CEO of Naza & a bunch of journos/bloggers. Got a 75GB external hard drive in the gift bag. I like this guy already. #
• Great, the ‘haze’ is back. I wish we could afford to spend these hazy summers in Canada. #
• just got up from a 2-hr nap with Al, who fell back asleep. Somehow have to get him dressed so we can go get his mommy. #
• Leen’s watching the Kardashians & we’re both horrified. But for some reason it’s still on. #
• took our new kitten to the vet. Need a name for him. He’s brown but no way will I name him Coco or Mocha or the vet’s suggestion, Brown. #
• decided to name the kitten Maximus, Max for short. Then learned Max is the most popular cat name. So nope. Gotta be more original than that. #
• Malaysians are little help. Most white cats are named Putih. Black ones are Hitam. Also popular is Comel. Not naming this one Coklat. #
• Ok, so if uncle Hugh can name his dog after his own father & brother, surely I can name a cat after my grandfather. So Duncan it is, then. #
• Besides the fact that Duncan is good for a brown cat, this one is small & scrappy and we thought he might be a goner. Now that’s my Duncan. #
• I hate when people correct me when I say I dislike sushi (they point out the raw fish is sashimi). I dislike sushi AND ALL THE SHIT IN IT. #
• Were police roadblocks the reason for the shitty morning traffic? School holidays are done but traffic wasn’t that shitty before the hols. #
• Man did Spain ever massacre the kiwis last night. I’d make fun of that, but I’m Canadian and we suck at football too. #
• Duncan the kitten died last night. I think he died on the floor & Mimi put him in her cat bed. Poor little fella. Had a few good days anyway #
• Off to eat Kak Ton’s delicious mee rebus. Mmmm… #
• Got P1 WiMax at home now. Celcom ‘broadband’ just didn’t cut it. #
• LOL Fighting for his right for TIm Horton’s coffee http://bit.ly/92hCl #
• RT @davewordswords Evolution is so gay. http://bit.ly/11te7U #
• One animator’s tribute to another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrsVa3CzQj0 #
• Bought Al a set of plastic army toys: jeeps, little green men etc. Opened it & found a detailed map of Afghanistan. Oh how times change. #
• Upon closer inspection: package even says it contains ‘Taliban ground army’. When I was a kid the plastic baddies were Nazis & Japanese. #
• Another weird thing abt the toy army set is the flags of the armies: Brazil & Uruguay. One of the jeeps has a USSR flag on it. #
• This morning’s entertainment: reading last night’s tweets from drunk friends. I shudder to imagine what I’d tweet if I were still a drinker. #
• I think our cat Mimi is deadly to other animals. The week we got her Leen’s rabbits got sick & died. Took in 2 cats, same thing. Creepy. #
• I think Mimi might also be a little slow. No cat should run into things at full speed as often as she does. She’s lucky she’s cute. #
• Al wants to play with Faaris today. Off we go. #
• Happy Father’s Day to all the daddies out there! #
• RT @lord_ashe Pixar grants a dying little girl’s wish. Kudos, and an example of how a little kindness goes a long way. http://bit.ly/18uWiX #
• The only good thing I got from the video of that Iranian girl dying was proof that tv/movie/game violence hasn’t actually desensitized me. #
• “While the idea of a modern Islamic theocracy was born in Iran and practised in Iran, it’s being buried in Iran too.” http://bit.ly/fyXAX #
• Today’s sign Twitter has arrived: credit for this story’s photo is ‘Twitter/Reuters’ http://bit.ly/oSjnf #
• eating fava beans before bed = so, so wrong…though the boy in me was mighty impressed (unlike the woman next to me). #
• dropped a piece of paper at LHDN, instinctively said ‘Alamak!’ and got a laugh + really surprised look from the Malay guy standing nearby. #
• A NYT article from 1901 on ‘Negroes speaking Gaelic’. I blogged this stuff before (without racist 1901 terminology). http://bit.ly/zDLgb #
• Off to play with Al, which will probably involve a pillow fight. #
• Chua Soi Lek is being silly if he thinks there’s something un-Malaysian about crowds of Indons and Banglas in Puduraya. http://bit.ly/UYIf #
• You need hundreds of thousands of foreigners to build your homes & wipe your kids’ asses, but you’d prefer they stay out of sight? FAIL. #
• will have another cup of coffee, thank you. If I don’t finish these reports tonight, have to slice a chunk out of family time tomorrow. No. #
• watched a huge fireworks display from the balcony at about 1130. I think it was in Bangi. Nice. Now back to work. #
• is sending a can of Tesco-brand isotonic stuff into his gut to do battle with those two cups of coffee. Poor bastard’s outnumbered. #
• was going to go to the bank but what sheer lunacy that would be. I haven’t had my coffee! Disaster averted: check. #
• Any other twitter users out there find it a bit annoying to be called ‘tweeps’? #
• Having thousands of Twitter followers sounds cool, but how the hell do you interact with them? You might only see 1% of tweets aimed at you. #
• off to the bank, AKA The World’s Worst Parking Nightmare. Pray for me. #
• just had a strange conversation with Amir Hafizi abt race, religion, MLM & Thai prostitutes. He bought pizza, so I listened. Domino’s FTW! #
• Tim’s is going home http://bit.ly/clB0X #
• Msians who complain at the idea of giving the maids who wipe their kids arses a day off should read Sazlin’s article. http://bit.ly/D1fnx #
• With international communication so easy now, we forget the thrill of finding a message in a…balloon? http://bit.ly/JP5oB #
• And I remember sitting in my room as a kid, straining to make out faint signals from Boston and New York on AM radio, excited when I did. #
• Guess what time it is. Oh, you’re so slow. It’s coffee time, silly. #
• RT @sashi1977 RT @nikicheong: I LOVE IT!!!!! RT: @sochews: This has to be the world’s most addictive banner ad. http://bit.ly/Cy9SI #
• In honour of Canada Day, here’s a classic: http://bit.ly/q8vR or, if you prefer, William Shatner’s version: http://bit.ly/lPiI0 #
• was going to write about how great P1 WiMAX is, but this morning it’s really, really slow. Booooo. #
• Omar Shaban shouldn’t be the VP of the Canadian Arab Federation. http://bit.ly/19UMUt #
• thought the babysitter had been kidnapped or something until Leen called me & said ‘Oh btw you have to drop Al off at Liza’s place.’ Grr. #
• Videos of Canadian senators bickering. Ah yes, the house of sober second thought. http://bit.ly/gbgfV & http://bit.ly/tgxiy #
• Nasty vp of Canadian Arab Federation seems to have agreed with my (and many others’) view that he was a dick. http://bit.ly/aC49y #
• V for Vendetta is on TV and I can’t help thinking it’s just an 80s movie that was made way too late. #
• thought my Cape Breton accent had faded away, but then heard Al saying he wanted to watch Mickey Mose. Score one for Cape Breton! #
• Ah, I see local TV stations still sometimes forget how to cut gracefully to commercial. And why must Nightline always split TV3 movies? Grr. #
• Interesting: Gamer robs virtual bank to get real-world cash http://bit.ly/14sjWV #
• Oh look, self-help is officially bullshit: http://bit.ly/VMWnk #
• Playing Transformers with Al. He calls me ‘Eticon’ and delivers an impressive kick to my face. More proof he should only watch disney stuff. #
• And where the heck did Al learn Muay Thai knee strikes? #
• Was out on the balcony getting clothes off the rack this morning & realized I was completely naked. Oh the trauma. Oh the humanity. #
• So far the only thing I don’t like about P1 WiMAX is the fact that people keep tripping over the cord & knocking the receiver off the table. #
• Has anyone read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri? In the middle of it now and really enjoying it. #
• Can anyone name a recent Malaysian commercial property development that properly addressed both parking & traffic? I certainly can’t. #
• spent a night & a day at Leen’s aunty’s place. It’s like home. 1st place I slept in Msia. Also where I buried Smokey (& Al’s uri). Home. #
• Taking Azlin’s son Faaris for a photo shoot today. Thinking of taking Al along, but that could turn into a major disaster. #
• I used to be a fan of DC Comics, so I find this interesting: http://bit.ly/LoIaO #
• Brought Al to Faaris’s photoshoot. Pro: ppl now want Al in their ads. Con: Al + Faaris = MAYHEM. It was cute but it wasn’t pretty. #
• RT @boostventilator Nothing says “rest in peace” like a lottery for fans, ticket scalping & a stadium named after an office supply retailer. #
• Anyone wanna take a cute Siamese/tabby mix? She’s not good with kids, presumably including brand-new ones. #
• What does a band do when United Airlines breaks their guitars? How about a video called United Breaks Guitars? LOL http://bit.ly/z2GU5 #
• So they’re scrapping teaching of maths & science in English. I think that’s a bad move. Not that PPSMI was a rousing success, but come on. #
• From a selfish standpoint, since my kid is bilingual he wins either way. But I think it’s a step backward for the country. #
• Was going to give up coffee today, but I’ll do that another time, when I’m not sleeeepy. #
• Someone’s thinking about baby names again, but I’m not sayin’ who… #
• Now that MJ’s gone will we have MJ impersonators all over Vegas? And will people claim he’s alive & packing groceries in Kalamazoo? I dread. #
• From a chat with a friend on gmail: ‘fulamak, for a laki with satu telor you very keng arr.’ LOL #
• I don’t believe the reversion to teaching maths/science in BM will help rural folk. Instead, it will keep them firmly in their place. #
• More on the saga of United Airlines and the broken guitars: http://bit.ly/vIIrf #
• would like to thank the govt for scrapping PPSMI, thus ensuring my kids a spot in an elite whose English skills will be scarce & prized. Thx #
• See? I am truly an optimist. #
• So who wants my cat? Other than being intolerant of kids, lethal to other cats & slightly stupid, she’s awesome. C’mon, ya know ya want her. #
• Off to pick Leen up at work. Tonight, visiting the doctor & hopefully getting a thumbs-up & an official due date. Woohoo! #
• You know you have a cheap crap phone when something falls hard onto the floor & you think Whew! It was only my phone. #
• I blog about Malaysian construction safety standards & a guy leaves a long comment about Jews and Michael Jackson. WTF? #
• Bloggers who have ‘infolinks’ and other things that turn words into links for no reason should know this: it’s bloody annoying. Stop it. #
• Mmm….coffee… #
• MY GAWD RT @icilalune RT @SteveCadwell: Retro Comedy: The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time - http://shar.es/4Dfh #
• Wouldn’t it be ironic to be from Oklahoma and get killed by a tornado at a fishing resort in Ontario? Oh yes it would. http://bit.ly/1CEwoL #
• off to Muar for two birthdays, an anniversary, and surprisingly not a single wedding. #
• If sleepy, get off the highway. If only a bit sleepy, get in the fast lane. Adrenaline, it seems, is way more effective than coffee. #
• Dear Malaysian Road Bullies: I don’t play the Flash-Flash Get the Fuck Out of My Way game. Ok, thanks. Now back off. Love, Jordan. #
• You can’t outrun faster cars but you can outdrive stupid drivers. My creaky old Wira reeks of WIN. #
• So what to do when you get home from a weekend with the in-laws? Make a coffee, put on Return of the Tres, and do some work. Deadlines yo! #
• Put the needle on the record when the drum beats go like this (cue Ofra haza and whatever that crazy shit is she’s singing). #
• Tony Fernandes takes his beef with Malaysia Airports to Wall Street: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124700645894708209.html #
• LOL RT @boostventilator Posted without comment: Saving Private Ryan Final Scene and End Credits http://bit.ly/6WdnW (via Picnicface) #
• Saw this before but it never gets old: http://bit.ly/okHO #
• Brown says Afghan war ‘keeps Britain’s streets safe’. Quick, someone check the stats on how many purse-snatchers in the UK are Taliban. #
• If I had 5 minutes with the ppl responsible for the haze I’d tell them my wife’s a pregnant asthmatic. No, screw that, I’d just punch them. #
• Today’s our 8th wedding anniversary. How awesome is that? Love you, baby! #
• I don’t know why ppl leave their Gmail status on ‘busy’ all the time. It’s not like it makes me less likely to msg them. Hehe. #
• Can barely see Bangi from my place. Can hit it with a rock from here, but can hardly see it now. Damn haze. #
• Trying to decide whether a headache is from too much coffee or not enough is kinda like deciding which wire to snip on a time bomb. #
• Knew it already but…Blueberries FTW! RT @kzamri The Healthiest Foods << Smart Living http://is.gd/1xbA0 via @ecobject #food #
• Yay, it’s Mee Rebus Tuesday! #
• A boy and his toy http://bit.ly/NDpSs #
• Ok, can we please be done with by-elections now? #
• Listening to Stone to Throw by Nathaniel Matthew on http://www.thesixtyone.com. Nice. #
• I blame @kzamri for getting me hooked on http://www.thesixtyone.com. Where else would I find bands like King of Prussia? #
• LOL http://www.stockholmpride.org/howhetero/ According to the Swedes I’m 87% hetero. #
• Kinda sucks when the mag you edit has speeches by the PM & a prince & they contain little errors, but you’re supposed to print them as-is. #
• Might fix them anyway. Here’s hoping I don’t get deported for it. Heh. #
• Taking communion when you’re not catholic is one thing (I did it once. Long story) but spitting out the wafer? That’s disrespectful man. #
• Slow connection + boss forgot lunch meeting + no office furniture + shelling out my own money for the new phone line = I have a headache. #
• Now, where to get good, cheap food within walking distance of Mutiara Bangsar? #
• Keeping fingers crossed. If tonight’s ultrasound shows nothing, word of the day is ‘ectopic’. Hoping for a different word. Like ‘normal’. #
• Ok, we can breathe a bit now. Ultrasound shows everything where it should be. Early days yet (only 4 wks), but woohoo! #
• One of my favourite books ever. RT @sharonbakar “Angela’s Ashes” author gravely ill. http://bit.ly/mw9u2 #
• Follow the Apollo 11 mission in real time (yes I said Apollo 11): @ApolloPlus40 #
• Facebook breaches Canadian privacy law: http://bit.ly/Aabz0 #
• I have just over an hour before I have to shower, dress & go get Leen. A: Have a nap. B: Drink coffee & get work done. Hmmm… #
• Too much work to do dammit. Coffee wins. This time. #
• Going to meet @idlan this evening. Hope it’s not too sudden. We’ve only known each other for five years. #
• Syed Mumtaz Ali, 1st Muslim lawyer in Canada, dies at 82 http://bit.ly/edXa2 #
• Fiddler Jerry Holland of Cape Breton dies http://bit.ly/fqm0q His ‘In Memory of Herbie MacLeod’ is my favourite fiddle tune. #
• Can’t find my Heart of Cape Breton CD. Quick, someone hum this for me. http://bit.ly/2l1IUp #
• You know I’ve been here a long time when ‘Selembar Kaseh’ (and its prelude) by Dewangga Sakti satisfies my sudden yearning for fiddle music. #
• Watching Wall-E on tv & wondering if anyone’s done a study on the portrayal of robot sexuality vs. platonic companionship. #
• Off to spend the day with Al, Leen, & a guy who lived across the back fence when I was a kid. I’m sick of satay now but it’s new to him so.. #
• Next time someone begins a sentence with ‘Don’t ever let it be said that…’, stop them right there & say ‘OK.’ #
• Jeez, everywhere you go, you’ll find another Canadian. http://bit.ly/OFNIf #
• World’s oldest man dies at 113 http://bit.ly/VQo7w #
• I hear KISS played in the rain. No injuries were reported during the Running of the Mascara. #kissifax #
• Kudos to Amri Yahyah for scoring TWICE against MU even though his countrymen were cheering for the opposing team. #
• RT @elviza Al Fathehah: Captain Yusof Ahmad @ Ancient Mariner among bloggers, passes away this morning. His body taken back to Seremban #
• Sounds cool for a second but it’s a ridiculous idea. Akwesasne chief pushes for Mohawk sovereignty http://bit.ly/KdIa1 #
• Didn’t know Capt. Yusof Ahmad very well, but I enjoyed his stories & will miss his laugh, the laugh of an ancient mariner. #
• Now back to the Mohawk sovereignty thing. If they got sovereignty, where would they get money, without Canadian taxpayers to fund them? #
• Made maggi goreng. The smell made Leen gag. I had to eat in the spare bedroom. And so it begins. LOL. #
• After I explained the inner workings of the elevator to Al, he looked puzzled for a moment then smiled & said ‘I see!’ #
• Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, dies at 78 http://bit.ly/3Jmji #
• It must be a sign of getting older when so many of your tweets & status messages are about deaths of people you know and/or like. #
• RT @sashi1977 RT @eyerizzz: BRILLIANT RANT. A die-hard Manyoo fan hits out at ‘Malaysian’ Manyoo fans –> http://bit.ly/1as8Fh #
• Here’s hoping game 2 sees Malaysians actually supporting THEIR OWN TEAM. I know you folks love ManU, but COME ON. #
• Scary shit indeed! RT @meeshly Scary shit. Stay away from BKK duty-free man - http://bit.ly/FwfBp #
• How pleasantly odd. Al, who usually won’t go to bed without us, announced he was tired, said goodnight, and went to bed. #
• Staying up late when you’re really tired is like seeing how long you can hold your head underwater. It’s ok, I can still see bubbles. #
• Ah, Cape Breton fiddling at its finest. http://bit.ly/ype9A #
• Funny how Malaysians call it by an English name (tomato sauce/sos tomato) but we Westerners call it by a name derived from Malay (ketchup). #
• Leen’s friend kept pronouncing ‘gestation’ wrong; Leen spent several minutes thinking ‘But I don’t own a gas station…’. #
• had a shitty night. Sore throat, fever, chills, & some thunder & lightning just to make sure what little sleep I got was disturbed. Sigh. #
• Bread + gobs of peanut butter + loads of blueberry jam = just what the doctor ordered. Nom nom nom… #
• Ok so it appears I have a flu. No runny nose or cough, but lots of fatigue, aches & a damn sore throat. Better not be swine flu. #
• Can’t seem to get into cooking shows. So disappointed that they took over the travel channel. #
• On a bottle spotted among the condiments at a stall at the KLCC food court: black paper sauce. #
• Someone please rickroll me. I feel so left out. Oh the sorrow of having never been rickrolled. Oh the dejection. #
• All I did so far today was make a list of all the things I’d do if not for the fact that I never seem to be able to get anything done. Meh. #
• Interesting. Friend rickrolled me, then mentioned ‘2 Girls 1 Cup’, which I hadn’t seen. Looked for it, found it and…got rickrolled again. #
• Note to everyone who writes in English: sentences beginning with ‘I wonder’ are usually not questions, so put that question mark away. #
• I find myself getting so easily annoyed lately. I think I’m pregnant too! #
• So disrespectful! My grandparents & great-grandparents are buried there. Gravesite vandalism astounds grieving mother http://bit.ly/LOeF3 #
• LOL I guess this wouldn’t work for me. RT @danny_lim Tips I got from those who’ve been to Afghan: #1. Don’t stand near mat salleh. #
• Someone should tell Saiful Bukhari that he’ll need to die under mysterious circumstances before he can be compared to Teoh Beng Hock. #
• Not only are they talented, but one is named Al. Nice. RT @ShaolinTiger Man these kids REALLY rock out. http://bit.ly/UL6OC&gt; #
• Sharing a delicious cake with Al. I can’t see, smell, touch or taste it, but Al swears it’s there, it’s blue, and it’s really good. Mmmmm! #
• Annoyance of the day: blogs that play music. Right up there with blogs that have too much flashy shit going on. #
• All 3 restaurants in my taman are closed because Immigration came & carted all their workers away last night. No nasi goreng pattaya for me! #
• ‘You’re eating again!?’ Leen asks just before midnight. ‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘It’s for the baby.’ #
• So let’s see, we’ve got stories about the devil screwing Malay women 17 times a night, AND poor writing/editing. Why do I read the Star? #
• Find the error that might piss off a local politician in this article: http://bit.ly/TnVdW #
• At the office. Looks like today is a big waste of petrol, toll & lunch money. #
• Mamak place in Mutiara bangsar = FAIL. RM7.30 for a small portion of rice, a bit of egg & 3 tiny pieces of…dunno, pigeon? + drink? FAIL. #
• On the plus side, the office aircon works better than I thought. I may have to take a nap on this sofa. #
• LOL Yeah unfortunate acronym for them RT @ecomad Headline on the Malaysian Insider news website today - MILF action pleases OIC chief #
• I really love House but the whole patient-has-multiple-crazy-symptoms-till-House-has-an-epiphany thing is almost getting old. Just almost. #
• As I watch Al excitedly showing a booger to the cat, I suddenly wish I could remember being three. #
• Listening to Indosesta by Berroguetto. I didn’t find this song, it found me. #
• I sure wish I could have delicious mee rebus for lun…hey look, it’s Mee Rebus Tuesday! Yay! #
• Mmmm…kacang pul….sedap gile…jgn marah kalau org kentut ye. #
• It’s not just Msians who stupidly want to change their skin colour. Mat sallehs do it too, & risk their lives to boot. http://bit.ly/11QuFW #
• The Star has redeemed itself ever so slightly in my eyes with today’s article on Islam & alcohol by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. #
• Here’s the article on Islam & alcohol. Hopefully the judge who ordered that woman caned will read it. http://bit.ly/NhuRT #
• RT @meeshly And yet, so many still remain silent on Darfur. Child drawings of Darfur. Chilling - http://bit.ly/WJZfH #
• Ok, ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’ is almost as bad as the Kardashians. Some chick just said ‘Jesus was all over me.’ #
• Good night, Malaysia; good morning, Canada. #
• Inspirations are like snowflakes; artistic talent is the ability to bring snowflakes inside and show them to everyone. #
• Aw man, it’s bad enough Leen has asthma, now this: Swine flu risks make pregnant women a priority: CDC http://bit.ly/TbTMN #
• The English teacher in me is HORRIFIED! Haha: http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2009/07/27 #
• Awww, this cat reminds me of Smokey…well, except Smokey wasn’t quite as good at playing piano. http://bit.ly/9TxBD. #
• Internet + ADD = another unproductive day. #
• ‘Operating System not found’. This, kiddies, is why you should always back up your files. Whew! #
• ‘Rich Kids Cattle Drive’? Is there a reality show for everything now? That’s it, I want my own reality show. #
• Fascinating to see a really old lady at her father’s funeral. World’s oldest man laid to rest: http://bit.ly/f9Xkc #
• Oh great, another by-election. Anyone else out there really tired of by-elections? #
• So what to do when your 3-yr-old’s babysitter is away & you need to meet with clients? Take your 3-yr-old to meet the clients. Cue madness. #
• To spank or not to spank? http://bit.ly/Sb5Nv #
• Here’s an awesome article on Malaysia’s shitty education system by @sazlindaud (I got her twitter name right this time) http://bit.ly/141WHF #
• The mee goreng & nasi goreng @ the stall near our place are damn spicy, but they’re damn good too. The secret ingredient must be crack. #
• It’s funny how the govt always blames protesters for inconveniencing the public, when actually the problem is roadblock overkill. #
• Aww…Leen said she had a tummy ache, then Al disappeared into our room. He came out with a bottle of minyak sapu & gave it to his mommy. Aw #
• Watching Malay TV dramas/comedies, you’d think every family lived in old kampung houses. #
• Watching ‘Light at the End of the World’ on National Geographic. Yeah, that’s my Saturday night. It’s all good. #
• Mmmm…nasi goreng…pedas is just sedap rearranged. Mmmm…. #
• You’d think that after suffering through a wicked migraine I’d leave the Toblerone dark chocolate in the freezer. But noooo… #
• Al naming letters he knows on my laptop keyboard: “A…B…C…L…McDonalds…O…” #
• There are many reasons Malaysian movies generally suck, but here’s a big one: dubbing. It’s just so wrong. #
• It’s not at all surprising that the top-selling Msian books on Amazon are cookbooks. http://bit.ly/zgQjq #
• Hurray for Battlestar Galactica! http://bit.ly/WNbkL #
• Speaking of Amazon: they can’t steal back books they regret selling, so why is it they can delete stuff from people’s Kindles? #
• Two guys are having a drum battle on the roof of a small car near my place and it actually reminds me of the Nova Scotia Tattoo. #
• Speaking of home, now that I’ve got Al pronouncing ‘mouse’ like a Caper, my next task is to have him call his little toy cars ‘dinkies’. #
• I was thinking about how there are currently only 2 guys named MacVay in Malaysia; then I remembered there are only 3 in Canada. No pressure #
• Well, duh. Brazilian environmentalists: If you’ve got to go, go green - by going in the shower http://bit.ly/OgPsr #
• I’m lying in bed, just like Brian Wilson did. Well, except I have a laptop. Oh, and I’m not depressed or obese. Or on cocaine. But anyway… #
• If you’re the praying kind, please pray for Dalilah Tamrin: http://bit.ly/sibJq #
• Man, the things Bill Clinton will do to pick up women. #
• FB’s nice photo uploader never works for me, no matter what computer or which browser I use. Odd. I always have to use the simple uploader. #
• “Why did you pee your pants?” I asked. Al folded his arms, gave me a deadly-serious look and said, “Decepticons, Daddy. Decepticons.” #
• RT @sashi1977 RT @Asohan: At 56sec past 12:34pm on Aug 7, the time/date will be 12:34:56 07/08/09 — 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ! #
• Other than the fact that their sub has apparently gone on vacation, Off the Edge’s July issue is really good. #
• The world (well, Reuters) sees through the govt’s Internet censorship idea: http://bit.ly/PnbCv Najib smartens up: http://bit.ly/13ieMl #
• First Kuantan, then…? Malaysia maverick plans world’s largest open access FTTH network http://bit.ly/vEE3C #
• I must be a nerd, because I’m excited about Draining the Oceans on National Geographic Sunday night. #
• WHoa, crazy stuff: Paraguayan baby declared dead, found breathing during wake http://bit.ly/rZ5Cl #
• Why men in ads are dumb, goofy or completely inept - The Globe and Mail http://bit.ly/Pc2gY #
• Leen’s checking the TV guide & when the word Wall-E comes up (no pics or graphics, just the name), Al yells out “Wall-E!” WTF? #
• I’m gonna stray from the herd & say I think it sucks that the travel channel is now dominated by cooking shows. #
• Seen in a piece describing the Airbus A380: “I am also told by pilot friends that they find it hard to sleep on the aircraft…” LOL #
• I’m in awe of the oceans (awe perhaps bordering on terror) so I found ‘Drain the Ocean’ on NatGeo really fascinating. #
• It seems the head of Sri Lanka’s LTTE was arrested in KL. I seem to recall local news leaving the KL part out. http://bit.ly/cNrVU #
• just did a silly Facebook quiz & fears this may lead to doing more silly Facebook quizzes. Why, WHY?! After staying strong for so long… #
• It’s interesting that Malays very frequently ask me what my ‘Muslim’ name is, but none of them ever ask my wife what hers is. #
• Wow, what a moron. RT @meeshly: Homosexuality & masturbation causes H1N1? WTF KINDA DUMBASS IS THIS - http://bit.ly/EysIR #
• Not the 1st time; probably not the last: The Cape Breton Post: Local News | Flying Dutchmen land in wrong Sydney http://bit.ly/TJVYp #
• Mmmm peanut butter & blueberry jam sandwiches…mmmm… #
• Going to Immigration tomorrow to see if I can get my 5th pass this year. #
• will be spending tomorrow with hundreds of other people Malaysia needs but doesn’t want. #
• spent the day at Immigration trying to get my 17th pass…or, as they like to call it, my 1st. Going back for more tomorrow. Ugh. #
• Friend of a friend of a friend, 34, perfectly healthy, died of H1N1. Docs say it’s a new strain. Will believe when I see news, but still… #
• LOL Check out number 8: 10 Manliest Names Ever - Oddee.com http://bit.ly/bTSdc #
• spent last evening hanging out with students from Yemen. I think it’s time to learn Arabic. #
• Felt an earthquake for the 1st time today. Mild, but an odd, crazy experience nonetheless. #
• The earthquake I felt was in Southern Sumatra & was 6.9 on the Richter Scale. http://bit.ly/SdUZC #
• This guy’s amazing, and he’s just getting started! Bolt obliterates 100-metre world record http://bit.ly/n4QuF #
• Anyone know where I can find a Semai dictionary? Visited the Semai once & remain fascinated by them. #
• Can’t wait to see pics from the big bbq/kitchen party at Mary Theresa’s place. I really wish I could have been there! #
• I think it’s time for someone to retire. Umno members will not go to heaven, says Nik Aziz http://bit.ly/3fTfBN #
• The only thing I like abt Stephen Harper is that he’s beefing up defense in the North. Maybe that’s where he should move when he’s voted out #
• Realized the cat was missing & went searching. She had the right apartment number, but the wrong floor. Bet she won’t do that again. #
• I went to bed at 4 last night thinking I could sleep in today. Now Al’s babysitter has a wicked fever & is under home quarantine. COFFEE. #
• The only way to drop race from official forms in Msia would be to drop names from them too. I guess it’s a start though. #
• I wonder if JPA scholarship applications still ask which political party your father supports? Might not have met Leen if she had put PAS. #
• Sleep deprived, full of Nescafe, watching Al throw paper, crayons & markers all over the apartment. Daddy tantrum in 5…4…3…2…1… #
• Just made ‘pizza’ with Cavendish hash browns, pasta sauce & tuna. As long as Al keeps saying ‘Mmmm pizza’ we’re good here. #
• About to have a nap with Al. Day’s not over yet though. I still have to have dinner with the CEO of TM tonight. Think I’ll need more coffee. #
• Palestinians are condemned as anti-Semitic etc. Hmmm…but read Eli Roth’s views on resistance in Inglourious Basterds. http://bit.ly/VvlFl #
• Can’t decide what’s weirder: that someone did a study on zombies, or that the researcher has a question mark in his name.http://bit.ly/svCYS #
• Al insists on using chopsticks to eat his pb&j sandwich. What can I say, he was made in China… #
• Interesting. I got way more done yesterday when I was tired & cranky than today when I’m well-rested and in a relatively good mood. #
• Had dinner with the CEO of Telekom last night, along with his VPs and some bloggers. Interesting stuff. Will blog about it soon. #
• Leen’s watching a movie on 8TV. They bleeped out ‘bitch’ but not ’shit’ and ‘faggot’. Not following the logic. #
• This whole thing abt ppl saying who’s going to hell brings me back to the day I became a Muslim. It irked me then, it irks me now. #
• A religious extremist is anyone who thinks God cares more about how you treat Him than how you treat other people, IMHO. #
• Mom always tells me I remind her of her uncle Lawrence. I didn’t really believe it till Al saw a pic of him today and yelled “Daddy!” #
• Now that my hair’s really short the cat wants to groom me. Thanks Mimi, but I think I want to wash my hair with shampoo now. #
• Wondering if a certain politician’s plastic surgery was just practice for when he needs to change his identity & flee the country. Soonish. #
• Panasssss….http://bit.ly/QtH5R #
• When they’re awake, Mimi & Al are constantly fighting. But when Al has a nap, Mimi snuggles up to him & sleeps with him the entire time. #
• Did the really old guy who speaks incredibly slowly come on TV yet? #
• Al usually won’t eat any more than a bite or two of ANY food. But he can drink about 2 litres of his milk in a day. And it’s not cheap! #
• Ready for my 10th Ramadhan. The 1st 9 have varied in success, from full months to almost total write-offs. Let’s see how this year goes. #
• Al thinks the whole point of spending an hour putting a puzzle together is to immediately smash it & then beg Daddy to put it together again #
• Off to a shaky start. Alarm was only set for Mon-Fri. Didn’t get up for Sahur. Gonna be a rough day, peeps! #
• Yes, let’s! RT @netraKL Let’s Read the Quran 2 http://bit.ly/GyuGQ #
• Alhamdulillah. Almost cried when it was time to eat. A good time to remember those who sometimes don’t get to eat. #
• Murtabak Singapura FTW! But I should add that it’s not as good as the one in Muar. Mmmm…. #
• Evolutionists who deny creation and creationists who deny evolution are two groups of people that truly deserve each other. #
• You can tell I’m a night-owl: instead of getting up really early to eat, I’m going to have a really, really late dinner. #
• An unextpected, pleasant surprise: breaking our fast with our elusive friends Alain & Jija. Pizza, donuts & good company. Awesome. #
• Hey where’d that T come from? It appears the fasting has led me to develop Fat Fingers Syndrome. #
• My tummy’s telling me all that pizza, donuts and coke after a day of fasting may not have been such a great idea. I beg to differ! #
• If ($sahur == $oatmeal) {echo “Excellent choice.”;} elseif ($sahur == $leftover pizza) {echo “Someone’s asking for trouble.”;} #
• I feel kinda sorry for the ants attacking the remaining donuts. They probably weren’t expecting the reaction of a man who’d been fasting. #
• Know what’s wicked awesome? Oatmeal. #
• So if he didn’t have cancer he might serve close to the full 150 years? This article has a really dumb 1st line: http://bit.ly/yvPEt #
• Opened FB to see so many interesting discussions I’d love to take part in, but my brain is FRIED. #
• The current Canadian government is stupid. http://bit.ly/4ry5Z6 #
• Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf shares my opinion that the Malaysian religious authorities are just plain WRONG. http://bit.ly/wWrio #
• Just noticed that on Wikimapia the name of Kuching is listed as ‘Kuching / pussy’. #
• 2 guys + 1500 hrs of work = an awesome 8-bit trip http://bit.ly/4D9ipl #
• Andy Borowitz: CNN: Michael Jackson’s Death Ruled a Primetime Special http://bit.ly/4bEpBW #
• Whoever first used the word ‘fast’ to refer to what I’m doing now obviously never went through it. I feel bloody slow these days. #
• Maybe it’s because I’m so long out of high school, but I find blogs that play music incredibly annoying. #
• Maggi kari & sugar donuts for sahur. Tune in tomorrow to see our intrepid hero suffer for his foolishness. #
• Facebook to make privacy changes http://bit.ly/2y2cnx #
• Blood-boiling mistake of the evening: reading comments made by anti-circumcision dingbats. http://bit.ly/iSQiO #
• I challenge you to read this guy’s tweets without laughing your arse off: http://twitter.com/fireland #
• Heading off to Muar (aka MuO, aka Muwor) tonight for the long weekend. This doesn’t bode well for my Ramadhan weight-loss hopes. #
• I wonder how the pricks who protested building of a Hindu temple with a cow head would feel if someone showed up at their mosque with a pig. #
• At a very noisy cybercafe in Muar, since my wireless broadband doesn’t work at Leen’s place. They should hand out earplugs at these places. #
• Spent yesterday being clumsy. Spilled coffee on laptop. Sleep disrupted by wicked migraine. September, don’t fuck with me. Please. #
• In a cybercafe, trying hard to see through the fog in my head, and hoping some guy named Masood can fix my laptop. #
• I complain about how lax Malaysian safety standards are, but wow, folks back home are at the other extreme. http://bit.ly/goPa5 #
• Getting my laptop back tonight woohoo. #
• Finally got my laptop back. Some of the keys are a bit wonky, but no worse than the keyboards at your average cybercafe I suppose. #
• Watching a show called Expose Mistik & finding it sad that cases of mental illness get mistaken for ‘possession’ here. #
• Ugly indeed. RT @netraKL The Ugly Malay http://bit.ly/fIN1B #
• M’sians boast of peace & harmony. Yeah, well then stop acting like your street becomes Love Canal when a Hindu temple is built nearby. #
• Wow, it’s quite windy outside. Kinda reminds me of home. Except here ‘quite windy’ almost always means it’s going to rain any minute. #
• Watching the vid of the Section 23 temple dispute, I can’t help feeling that anyone who agrees with the antics of those ppl is SICK. #
• Played with Al all evening & talked to Papa on the phone; now eating a big scoff Leen cooked up earlier. Now that’s how to end a day. #
• Got an earful from an aunt in Canada because Al goes to bed later than Canadian kids. Yeah, well I agree somewhat, but this ain’t Canada. #
• Wow, so telling kids to stay in school is a socialist plot now? US right-wingers are almost as FUBAR as the ones here. #
• Papa told me he and Nana had gone out together for the 1st time in yrs. “Yep,” he said, “we went out to the clothesline.” #
• Once again getting sucked into the black hole that is my Acadian genealogy. Man, those people kept awesome records. #
• Canadian literacy levels mapped online: http://bit.ly/gLR2s (more details here: http://bit.ly/13XKkD). #
• Craving nasi ambeng. I blame this on @pickyin #
• Crawled into bed at 5. Leen calls at 830 to say she forgot to tell me the babysitter’s off today. And with my next words I batal puasa. #
• You know it’s going to be a long day when you hear yourself saying “Let’s get that poop out of your hair.” #
• FB’s privacy settings are pretty good, but if you’re REALLY paranoid there’s FaceCloak: http://bit.ly/11q8XR #
• The good thing about yesterday’s sleeplessness: my sleep schedule has been whacked back to ‘normal’. Technically anyway. #
• So now we sort of have a Canadian automaker. Magna wins battle for Opel http://bit.ly/FCcJm #
• Now getting dragged from the abyss that is my French heritage to another abyss: my English heritage. Taking a virtual tour of Dorset & Devon #
• Aaaand here comes a migraine. #
• Dear Migraine: not tonight, please, I have a…oh damn, that’s you. Whatever, not tonight please. #
• Brilliant commercial advocating same-sex marriage rights in Ireland: http://bit.ly/M6cnZ The guy even speaks in Irish. #
• Why couldn’t Kanye just write SOY BOMB on his chest and dance around like a goofball like a good stage-crasher should? What a jerk. #
• Kudos to the person who read the sports news on Mix FM this morning. She pronounced all of the foreign names properly. #
• Michael Preston - Deep Background – Why I can’t take the 9/12 movement and the GOP seriously - True/Slant http://bit.ly/x4kJI #
• Not that foreign names MUST be pronounced the way natives pronounce them (that would get annoying), but still, way to go Mix FM newsreader. #
• I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’s almost 4pm and I still don’t have a migraine. Only a few days left to go! #
• Cranky child + mat salleh driver playing dumb + foreign driving license = cop getting overwhelmed & saying ‘Oh ok just go, GO.’ Hah! #
• Philadelphia to Close All Free Libraries http://bit.ly/UX4Pw Sad. After a few years without libraries, they might be Republicans. #
• It’s a sad read, but I’m glad CBC didn’t ‘clean up’ this Newfie’s speech. Don’t often see it ‘as-is’ in print news. http://bit.ly/yuoEf #
• If there’s any justice in this world, no one will complain about Obama calling Kanye West a jackass. http://bit.ly/3ZJVJE #
• Remember these guys? http://bit.ly/OvyaB Here they are 8 yrs later, hoping for some change: http://bit.ly/BTIbY #
• Reminds me of Smokey’s month on the lam…only waaay longer & further afield: http://bit.ly/4DEVoS #
• Odd headline of the day: N.S. garlic farm wards off high-speed internet http://bit.ly/2t3LDn #
• Wow is it ever raining. #
• This is really cool: RT @netraKL RT @staronline: US synagogue serves as mosque during Ramadan http://bit.ly/u2o9p #
• I think this time of year the Malay papers might as well just have a whole ‘Kids Who Blew Their fingers Off’ section. Sheesh. #
• They should also have a ‘Kids Who Drowned in Rivers & Storm Drains’ section. #
• Or maybe they could just have a big Tragedy section, where every headline could be ‘Tak sempat berbuka puasa’ or something. Sigh. #
• Playhouse Disney vs Ceria: the former taught Al to count seconds between lightning & thunder; the latter taught him how to do a drop-kick. #
• Ok, either there’s an earthquake coming or my cat really does have serious mental problems. #
• Muar & Batu Pahat, here we come! In case I can’t get online till I get back: Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri! Maaf zahir dan batin. #
• It’s hard to watch Sifu & Tongga without thinking there must have been lots of drugs involved. #
• Anyone else find it a little freaky how Amy Mastura doesn’t seem to have aged at all in a long, long time? Siti’s another story though. #
• You know I’ve just spent several days with the in-laws when I write a status message that mentions both Siti Nurhaliza & Amy Mastura. #
• How clever of National Geographic to have Kevin Bacon narrate The Human Family Tree. #
• Iran’s leaders are jerks; Canada’s are hypocrites. http://bit.ly/yNPdk It’s sad that I can’t help remove either group from office. #
• Went to 3 open houses yesterday but it felt like 5 or 6. Not complaining though. Yummy. #
• Wow, Star World is showing the Trailer Park Boys movie. Who would have thought listening to Bubbles talk could make me all homesick? #
• Migraine + spending the day alone with Al = Thank God for drugs! #
• Finding people who may have been Jews in my family tree brings me back to the day a lady from NY told me I looked “like a good Jewish boy.” #
• Pureed loads of veggies, made soup for Al; made what was left into pasta sauce for me. Today’s lunch tastes awesome & smells like WIN. #
• Well, lunch will be a big win only if I can get Al to eat it. My mom must be roaring her arse off now that I’ve got a kid as picky as I was. #
• Al keeps saying my soup is tasty but he’s gritting his teeth and taking tiny sips from the spoon. Poor bugger. It is really tasty though. #
• Anyone else realise if you follow all the ’stuff not to share online’ advice you’d have pretty much nothing to say & no reason to be online? #
• The look in my eyes when that quake hit was probably just like the ‘WTF?’ look in Al’s eyes. Needless to say we went from 18th flr to G fast #
• Woohoo, we’ve found a good babysitting arrangement for Al. Everyone wins. #
• Things that make blog suck: rainbow text, tHiS sHiT, music, & centre-justified text. I’d throw in ‘poor writing’ but let’s stick to design. #
• DAMN my calves hurt & it’s all because of that stupid earthquake (which sent me down 18 flights of stairs carrying Al). I need more exercise #
• Fixing a toilet was so much easier when all the clothes hangers weren’t made of plastic. #
• I keeps saying I’m gonna go to the Olympics but this time I mean it. Rio de Janeiro! Gosto muito disso porque falo portugues. Vamos! #
• So now instead of joining my wife & son in dreamland I’m eating a sandwich. YEAH YOU JUST WAIT RED BULL I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS. #
• Finding out I may have some Jewish roots: interesting. Finding out Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have even more: PRICELESS. http://bit.ly/PVhGB #
• I thought my cat hated Al always trapping her in the laundry basket, but now she’s sitting in it waiting for him to come home. She’s so odd. #
• Helped a friend write a ‘Hey I just filed for divorce’ email to her deranged deadbeat husband. Cue long impotent-rage-filled rants. #
• Glued to Apocalypse: The Second World War on NatGeo. #
• Mmm…bell peppers stuffed with tuna, broccoli, cauliflower & creamy tomato/mozzarella pasta sauce. #
• Know what sucks? Slow internet. Know what else sucks? That’s all we can get here in Malaysia. #
• Saw an old Mini cooper today (you know, the one that was actually mini) and it was a pick-up. A Freakin’ mini pick-up, awww, it was so cute. #
• Best solution for all: Call the show Jon & Kate Plus Hate, make Jon & Kate appear together in every scene with new bf/gf. Let the 8 vote LOL #
• Those Bendera guys will probably arrive as tourists, decide to stay, and will all have PR before I do. There’s your invasion. #
• Snipers in Rosmah’s hair to fight Bendera? Funny, but wouldn’t you run the other way even if she didn’t have snipers? *shivers* #defendMsia #
• Nothing racist abt #defendMsia (unless Bendera is a race of their own). But whoever suggested throwing ppl into the sea needs to grow up. #
• Pigging out on Al’s Honey Stars. Here’s hoping he doesn’t want to eat Honey Stars in the next couple of days. #
• It’s interesting how English papers in Msia sometimes follow Malay grammar rules, not English. Or maybe we can just say it’s Msian English. #
• SMS messages I send sometimes don’t get sent; incoming ones sometimes reach me hours later. Changed phones & it still happens. Hmm… #
• Canadian archbishop charged with having/distributing kiddie porn has been to Malaysia: http://bit.ly/1yzuW7 #
• Muslim group calls for burka ban http://bit.ly/1lmTD I agree. I’ll defend a woman’s right to wear hijab, but burka/niqab? Nope. Take it off. #
• Scientist at particle collider arrested in terror link http://bit.ly/24ahk Well, if anyone wants another Big Bang, it’s al-Qaeda. #
• LOL RT @davewordswords RT @nealgillis: #NASA moon bombing was 10% science, 90% drunken rocket-scientist party stunt. #
• I’m getting kind of tired of seeing the yellow light on my modem #p1 #p1wimax #
• Quietly singing all the right parts of ‘Roxanne’ to my P1 modem. #p1wimax #
• LOL ‘A Christian who enters a mosque risks losing his soles.’ altmuslim - Perspectives: Infidel in the mosque http://bit.ly/117vJE #
• Damon & Affleck being 10th cousins would wow me if I didn’t have a clue how many 10th cousins a person can have. http://bit.ly/249NhD #
• Dear #P1wimax : Last night I couldn’t watch Chris Cornell sing Hunger Strike on stage with Pearl Jam. Be kind tonight. Love, Jordan. #
• My cat slipped off the bed’s headboard today, & instead of stepping onto the bed 1 cm from her foot she panicked, crawled back up & ran back #
• More proof my cat is mental: she bites Al for nothing but then lets him dump her in the laundry basket, fill it with toys & drag it around. #
• My laptop no longer likes my camera. That card reader I see every day but suddenly can’t find sure would come in handy right about now. #
• Maybe I don’t understand how merging works on @Geni, but I’m really not liking that suddenly I have profiles in my tree that I can’t edit. #
• And I REALLY don’t like that other people (who I haven’t invited to collaborate with me) can edit my @Geni profiles. Now my tree’s a mess! #
• The fact that we need a registration table for Family Day next weekend hints at just how big Leen’s family is. #
• When Msian TV characters balik kampung they always go to old wooden kampung houses, never to the terrace houses most ppl actually live in. #
• Al refuses to accept the letter W is not called ‘dopey’. I guess he takes after his dad & isn’t a fan of George Bush. #
• Real love is when your dentist wife asks if she can use you for a dental experiment & you say yes instead of leaping from the balcony. #
• I normally don’t relish watching Friends reruns with my wife but when we play the Spot Rachel’s Pokies game it somehow becomes enjoyable. #
• Has anyone else out there read any of the Alan Banks novels by Peter Robinson? Got two as gifts (thanks Nizar!) & must say I’m now a fan. #
• If I see another ‘what I’m having for lunch’ status update, I may just barf up this delicious cream of mushroom soup I’m having for lunch. #
• The people downstairs should stop cooking. The delicious aroma crawling up my balcony makes my just-add-hot-water mushroom soup seem…blah. #
• Speaking of smells: followed one to a dark corner of the kitchen; am still asking myself, ‘Did those things used to be bananas?’ #mush #
• I think it’s time to change my phone line. DiGi’s ‘ambassador plan’ is easy on the wallet, but I’m tired of calls & SMSes not going through. #
• It’s driving me nuts that I can’t watch Chimamanda Adichie’s TED speech because P1-Wimax is doing upgrade work. #
• “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” Chimamanda Adichie http://bit.ly/lMjsq #
• ‘Iranian-Texans, Vancouver-based lesbian Pakistanis and the converted son of a white supremacist wife-beater.’ Punks. http://bit.ly/fATcw #
• First thought on Pudu demolition: it’ll make the story I tell my grandkids about my limp just a little cooler. #
• Second thought on Pudu demolition: Another shopping mall? Seriously? Is Malaysia trying for a world record or something? #
• The Canadian connection in the northernmost battle of the U.S. Civil War http://bit.ly/mM8Cv #
• Headline made me think he got what he deserved. Article burst my bubble. Man sentenced for abuse of puppies left in snow http://bit.ly/7c04X #
• The fact that Mimi doesn’t try to drink my coffee when I’m not looking doesn’t make me miss Smokey any less. #
• Seriously thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year. Note to self: buy lots of coffee. #
• Closed eyes, picked random book off shelf, opened, found strange word scrawled on random page. Tried again weeks later: same book, same page #
• P1 Wimax is still down in my area. FAIL. Now I’m working from the neighbourhood cybercafe. Dodgy keyboard, noisy kids…FAIL. #
• Apparently ‘Hey, what’s up?’ typed on a typical cybercafe keyboard is ‘Heym, wh’. #
• If 1) Al’s babysitter is home and 2) the Streamyx dude shows up at the office, there’s a chance I won’t need painkillers tomorrow. #OMGpleez #
• Yet again, Malaysia makes it into the news back home for something stupid. http://bit.ly/2O3b1m #
• If this happened to me I’d end up in jail for hurting someone badly. RT @netraKL Things are getting out of hand!! http://tinyurl.com/yg84fby #
• Family Day was fun. We conquered an entire resort. Yeah, it’s a big family. #
• If I don’t wake up tomorrow, tell the authorities about the blueberry bread I just ate. I swear green looks like blue under these lights. #
• Insane POV base jumping video: http://bit.ly/3xYW9d #
• Could still be fake but WOW. World’s largest gun suppressor: http://bit.ly/18ifTZ #
• What AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com might have looked like before 1930: http://bit.ly/LzvhV #
• A security guard in Bangsar called me ‘boy’ today. I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. Flattered sounds good. #
• So Al has chicken pox. It’s gonna be a long week. #
• I swear next time I find a decent shopping cart at Tesco I’m going to act as if I’ve just found the Holy Grail. #
• Just had a torrential sunshower here in Sungai Chua. Very cool. #
• Turns out Al loves peanut butter. Eats it with a spoon, right from the jar. Awww, that’s Daddy’s boy. #
• Woke up on the sofa around 4:45am. Problem is, I had gone to bed around 10:30pm. Leen & I are both stumped. #sleepwalking #
• The Twitter bird is my Internet coal-mine canary. When my connection starts to lag, Twitter’s the first site to become unavailable. #
• Not even noon & we’ve played Ultraman vs. Robot, played an alphabet game & hunted dragons. For a sick kid he sure is full of energy. #
• Hey fans of Anne of Green Gables: there’s one more book. But don’t expect it to be as cheery as the rest of the series. http://bit.ly/3XPWf4 #
• Leen’s having her monthly ultrasound but I have to watch Al at home. On pins & needles waiting for the latest update. #
• Leen just called. Doc has confirmed: if we want a girl, we’ll have to try one more time. MacVay boys FTW! #
• Heard Al humming Stravinsky’s Firebird. Kids who watch nothing but Ceria can hum…what, the Ultraman theme? Little Einsteins rock. #
• Dear body: That stuff I just pumped into you is called caffeine. It’s supposed to make you feel all awake & alert, not sleepy. Humor me. #
• FB’s News Feed is a bit wonky but since it doesn’t make me see who got ‘Gas-Powered With Pull Cord’ on the Which Dildo R U quiz, I’m happy. #
• Got a call from a Malay Mail reporter asking me about my thoughts on the news that foreign husbands will get PR. Talked his ear off. #
• Great, my connection sucks at home, so I come to a cybercafe to get some work done and…the connection here sucks too. #
• Can’t figure out if the problem is Gmail or Streamyx. It’s usually the latter but this time other sites seem to be OK. #
• Great, just great. Turns out this cybercafe also uses @P1w1max. So basically I’m paying twice for this shitty connection. #
• Canadians not welcome in Libya? That’s ok, there are so many Libyans in my neighbourhood I don’t need to visit Libya. http://bit.ly/4hcBg3 #
• Check out the article ‘Budget 2010: Visa cheer for foreigners’ in today’s Malay Mail. #
• Had to go out for some things. Had to bring Al. Probably infected half-a-dozen cheek-pinchers with chickenpox. Tried to warn them. Oh well. #
• Reporter spelled my name wrong & did such a hack job on my words I wonder if they’re even mine. But here’s the article: http://bit.ly/Fz6cu #
• Al hands me a jar of Body Shop foot butter & asks for a foot massage. When I’m done he says ‘Much better. Mmm, smells nice.’ #spoiledrotten #
• Excellent choice! Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief is tops in a ranking of Atlantic Canada’s 100 best books: http://bit.ly/4yOCr #
• Malaysian PR: Some McVay Guy’s Thoughts (and Mine) : M A C V A Y S I A http://bit.ly/2w2zoy #
• Kinda weird how they keep finding shoes with feet in them. This is the 7th. http://bit.ly/1Z0h39 #
• Wow, nasty. That’s our favourite hiking trail. Coyotes kill Toronto singer in Cape Breton http://bit.ly/1IS3wO #
• Al’s looking at a pic of a dog next to a fireplace and totally isn’t buying my explanation that the fireplace isn’t an indoor doghouse. #
• Dead on about Msia making global news for the wrong reasons! RT @netraKL Beyonce’s bellybutton the least of our worries http://bit.ly/hUA1c #
• Dear Facebook: I’ve supported past layout changes, but this whole News Feed/Live Feed thing OMG WTF it makes no sense to me. #
• Coffee’s bad for me = give up coffee right? Yeah right, just like every time I was hunched over a toilet I swore I’d never get drunk again. #
• Oct 31st shall be remembered as the day Al discovered the usefulness of backwash in securing all for himself whatever his daddy’s drinking. #
• Other things Al has discovered lately: flushing the toilet (& therefore using it, not peeing his pants); the fridge light; windshield wipers #
• Damn, I wish I had a gun. I need a new camera. Guns for cameras in Halifax amnesty program http://bit.ly/3fdm6a #
• Planned to nap at 3, then take Al out. Suddenly the whole family wakes up at 7 @ we’re all Oops WTF let’s have dinner. #
• I’d bitch endlessly about Al being a really picky eater if I wasn’t 100% sure he inherited that from me. #
• Disney Magic: When a 3-yr-old not only enjoys watching 80-yr-old cartoons but also knows the characters. http://bit.ly/11AHgD #
• RT @meeshly Najib is “puzzled” over Asri’s arrest. THEN DO SOMETHING ABT IT LA. Don’t just be PUZZLED. -_- #
• 5 yrs from now will everyone look back at Google Wave as some bloated, confusing failure, or will it actually change things? #
• RT @sharonbakar short story by Malaysian author Preeta Samarasan. http://bit.ly/4FbDeI #
• Just set up my Google Wave account. Now all I have to do is figure out what the heck I’ll even use it for. #
• At the tail end of two weeks taking care of Al. We drove each other crazy but we’re still alive so it’s all good. #
• Al is already calling A2 by one of the names we like. So I guess the name has been chosen. (Don’t blab if you know, please). #
• I hate how people here think a white man’s baby’s supposed to be big. The way they say Al’s skinny you’d swear he had a disease. Cmon, WTF. #
• Wow, quite a storm we’re having in Kajang right now. #
• That was one of the most intense rainstorms I’ve ever seen. #
• The MacVays went on a cleaning rampage yesterday. Al’s room is finally Al’s room again. Chucked lots of junk & 7 bags of clothes. #
• If my kids ever ask ‘Daddy, what are we? Are we Malay, Canadian, Scottish or Javanese?’ I’m just going to say ‘Yes. Yes you are.’ #
• Yes! RT @kzamri RT @CikBedah: There, thanks paris ! RT @paris_b: http://twitpic.com/oz7ik - Spotted! WTF1! #
• Anyone else part of the beta group for the new retweets feature? Looks pretty cool. #
• It’s that time again. Don’t forget. http://bit.ly/VN8NC #
• I’d like to say I did some landscaping today but I don’t have a yard, just a balcony. So I did some gardening today. Sort of. #
• Not just true but awesome! RT @ashyusof Probably the truest thing I’ve read all day: http://i.imgur.com/NWYiq.jpg #
• A Canadian-Malaysian Connection: Unwanted Soldiers http://bit.ly/4bqhtv #
• Congrats to a writer from home for taking home the Giller Prize. Well done! http://bit.ly/3m2vR8 #
• Travel guide names Cabot Trail as one of world’s top 10 cycle trips http://bit.ly/11Fjih #
• Is Gaelic an Indigenous Language? http://bit.ly/20BOPX Tough question. Depends on what the criteria are for the ‘indigenous’ label. #
• Complained about @P1W1MAX on Twitter, they called within minutes. Problem magically went away. Hmmm. I’m happy but hmmm… #
• Twitter must’ve thought I didn’t deserve the new retweet feature after all. Now it’s gone. #
• So H1N1 is worse than docs thought http://bit.ly/387Aft but not as bad as everyone else thought. http://bit.ly/3KaxZZ #
• Anyone wanna bet Lou Dobbs is off to Fox? #
• It’s kind of ironic that Malay has a perfectly functioning gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun & English doesn’t have any. #
• Why Caloric Restriction is not on my Menu | h+ Magazine http://bit.ly/2B9RQg #
• Hey it’s Friday the 13th! Well, I got married on a Friday the 13th, and I’m still alive suckas! #
• Went to Bintang to buy oatmeal. Ended up buying over RM100 worth of groceries. Forgot to buy oatmeal. #
• http://twitpic.com/pbqje - My dad’s ‘48 Chev pickup #
• Kinda cool, but did they have to put in that Crouching Tiger running-on-treetops shit? Besouro : Nasce um herói http://bit.ly/1ws6p2 #
• RT @sharonbakar Congrats to Tan Twan Eng and Ivan Yeo Mun Kit - joint winners of MPH Alliance Short Story Prize. #
• NASA’s moon crash reveals ‘lots of water’ http://bit.ly/3ZRHrI #
• Eating the spiciest fried rice EVER. Breathing fire but can’t stop eating because I SWEAR IT’S FULL OF CRACK. #
• Mad trampoline skills http://bit.ly/2NLQwe #
• Mmmm….mee siput….mmmmm…. #
• Dropped Leen off at a conference & took Al to the KLCC park. Man did he ever play the shit out of that place. #
• I’m Malay. At least, I would be if ‘masuk melayu’ hadn’t been trumped by the later race-based definition. http://bit.ly/xsGLR #
• People back home who make signs for their homes reading The Randall’s or The Watson’s should go to this site: http://bit.ly/1EGSzs #
• CBC News - Technology & Science - Twitter to scrap suggested user list http://bit.ly/1Hohws #
• Whoa, wicked thunder & lightning. #
• There’s a kid in my building who always speaks to me in Arabic even though I try to make it clear I can’t understand. He just goes on and on #
• When Leen & I watch TV she points out things abt ppl’s teeth: ‘She’s Class 3′; He’s class 2′; ‘Those aren’t real, they’re veneers.’ LOL #
• Whoa RT @CBCAlerts A 6.5 magnitude earthquake has struck off the coast of British Columbia. No further details immediately available. #
• Hey look, the retweet button’s back, after last week’s hasty retweet (tee hee). #
• You know you’ve been working from home a lot lately when your wife calls to say a friend’s coming over & adds ‘Put on some clothes.’ #
• LOL RT @idlan RT @daraobriain: RT @RichardWiseman: check out tweets of @big_ben_clock - 14k followers! (via @zizapiz) #
• History does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. — Mark Twain #
• All this rain lately makes drying clothes a huge pain in the arse, but if it means the temperature goes down a bit, baby I’ll take it. #
• If anyone’s wondering how much various dental treatments cost in Msia, my wife’s posted a list: http://bit.ly/2BUizg #
• WTF were ppl thinking anyway? RT @sashi_ M’sian Met Dept: There’ll be NO Winter Storm tomorrow. http://bit.ly/HNhFW [PDF]. #
• Agreed RT @sashi_ RT @pigduck: Sums it up pretty well me thinks RT @Steveology Why Twitters New Retweet Feature Sucks http://ow.ly/DCl4 #
• ‘Ride me like a throbbing’ fish LOL Got this from Dina: The Worst Sex Scene in Comics - ComicsAlliance.com http://bit.ly/FwxBi #
• I cheered for France in ‘06, but next year I’ll cheer for whoever plays against them haha. #
• Archiving Social Media http://bit.ly/dZRSe (via @NS_Archives) #
• The cat’s doing her chargingaroundthehouselikeshescrazy thing. I’ll have to watch the computer cables. #
• 2005 Uzbekistan-Bahrain WC qualifying match: Ref screwed up, match was invalidated. France, FIFA: do the right thing, s’il vous plait. #
• That last tweet would seem like something other than daydreaming if not for the fact that FIFA seems determined to have France go through. #
• Haha this reminds me of Al’s photography. the hive : kyle cassidy http://bit.ly/2kcjKA (via Metafilter) #
• Facebook is showing me Capt. Yusof’s profile on the sidebar & saying I should ‘Reconnect with him.’ Cold shiver in 5…4…3…2…1… #
• OK, I officially hate the new retweet function. A tweet by Yoko Ono just showed up on my page. OMGWTF #
• I often think we should have something like this. Now someone’s actually done it. Nice! http://bit.ly/48rkeg #
• My quest to find my family’s former residence in Ireland got a boost from a historian there who thinks my main theory is right. Woohoo! #
• Irony of the day: A lot of Americans who hate Obama are my ‘kinfolk’. (That is, we’re all descendants of Ulster Scots). http://bit.ly/18krwS #
• I’m a cracker-ass cracker. I make 50k a month & chicks wanna hump my ass. http://bit.ly/5j6ReP I’m both honored and disturbed. LOL #
• RT @MickFealty RT @johnheaven RT @civicolive: #pdfeu Liz Mair: 85% of political journalists look to blogs for stories (US) #
• Methinks retweet needs to be retweaked. #
• RT @netraKL RT @TheNutGraph: Closed Penan rape cases indictment of criminal justice system http://tinyurl.com/ydsl48h #
• I can haz extra cheeez. Dominos FTW. #
• “Don’t cry, Shark. You’ll only make the ocean more salty.” Ah, the wisdom of Playhouse Disney. #
• 85-yr-old Scottish pensioner takes on Donald Trump: http://bit.ly/7EOuvW #
• The MacVays of Malaysia haven’t really done Xmas in years, but now Al is making snow angels on the floor & squealing about Xmas trees. Haha #
• Al’s still not getting the concept of Santa though. “No,” I said, “you don’t push Santa off the balcony. He’s coming to GIVE you things.” #
• Natasha Fatah: “…sometimes when you’re a Muslim woman, membership does not have its privileges.” http://bit.ly/8PYVqo #
• RT @netraKL: Today is international Day 4 the Elimination of #VAW. Pls don’t remain silent if u see or hear women n girls being abused. #
• My initial reaction: ppl who do this shit should have it done to them in return. But really it should just stop. Now. http://bit.ly/53nrGJ #
• Does the Malaysian Insider site load incredibly slowly for everyone else too, or is it just me the site doesn’t like? #
• Saw A2’s face on the screen during Leen’s ultrasound the other night. Same big squeezable cheeks as Al. #
• Kids sure are nice when they’re sleeping. #
• Several Msians on ‘500 most influential Muslims’ list. Also there: the guy who married Leen & me, and a guy who made balloon animals for Al. #
• Interesting, but I’d like to know their definition of ‘expat’. http://bit.ly/6GzX9h Cause ya know, here in Msia expat = white. #
• Was reading up on Ramallah & saw this amazing restored, hand-tinted photo from 1919: http://bit.ly/5L8eYN #
• Apparently when a 3-yr-old asks “What’s that?” or “Why?” the answer can’t be “I don’t know.” #
• Hmmm…if this is true, there’s no such thing as a silent fart. Hehe. http://bit.ly/7Ka80t #
• Off to Muar for the weekend. Probably won’t be on here till I get back. Have a good weekend, everyone. Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha! #
• Back from Muar. Did a whole lot of nothing all weekend. Well, except for eating. I refuse to get on the scale now. Takut. #
• A friend just told me JPN now lists child’s ancestry on birth certs & that by default it follows that of the father. So Al’s European. #
• If a Malaysian child’s father is white, the child’s ‘keturunan’ on their birth cert is European by default. #
• Re previous tweets: The whole ‘White father = European kid’ thing applies no matter what the ‘white’ father lists as his ancestry. #
• was mistaken for an Arab while shopping at Bintang. That’s the 2nd time this month someone asked me if I’m Arab. #
• RT @netra KL RT @TheNutGraph: Haunting, poignant photos of Pudu Jail, once an icon, now demolished. http://bit.ly/7ZUmxF #
• The only good thing about this article is the pile of comments pointing out the writer is horribly sexist. http://bit.ly/92NY1e #
• Happy St. Andrew’s Day to all Scots out there (that’s you @lezzles) #
• If you think Malaysians can make a proton accelerate, you should see how THESE folks do it. http://bit.ly/4G8hhi #
• The Swiss minaret ban is silly. So are the comments on this article (’radicle islamics’, minarets=sharia etc) http://bit.ly/5IetxQ #
• I wear this red ribbon in solidarity w the 33.4 million ppl living with HIV on World AIDS Day. Get yours: http://bit.ly/5YATny #
• Migraine. #
• Leen’s assistant’s staying w us, does housework in lieu of rent. Everyone’s happy except girl’s mom, who fears the libido of the mat salleh. #
• Our house guest’s mom actually said “What if he knocks on your door in the middle of the night and says ‘Kopi secawan’?” #
• I hate when ants get into the cereal. But when they won’t touch it, ya just gotta wonder what’s in it. I mean, it’s right there, but no ants #
• Ok this migraine is pretty vicious. But Arcoxia rox bebeh! That shit is potent, kids. #
• Leen just called. Her assistant, who drove her to work today, has a flat. I have to go rescue them. With a migraine. THANK GOD FOR DRUGS. #
• The good news: the arcoxia dampened the migraine a bit. The bad news: a bit. Seems I’ve developed tolerance. #
• ‘Armstrong is apparently undaunted by the fact that this new word sounds like a-hole without the h.’ http://bit.ly/7OMLlZ #
• Ladies and gentlemen, shoe-throwing has just become a meme. http://bit.ly/4FEJXV #
• I’ve long avoided LGF due to all the far-right crap spewed there. Looks like the blogger got sick of it too. Good on ya!http://bit.ly/5cgi2K #
• I posted two blog posts today. Go read them if you’re a foreign spouse and/or have kids in Malaysia. Or if you just want something to read. #
• Natasha Fatah: The story is behind the photo http://bit.ly/8×7y2m #
• Ever wondered what a place’s opposite point on the earth is? Antipodal location for any map point http://bit.ly/10dwG #
• RT @MickFealty RT @TheHistoryWoman Publishing jobs go as celebrity books fail http://tinyurl.com/yawspee #
• Homeless Hungarian brothers inherit $7 billion. Crazy if it’s true. Awesome. http://bit.ly/4LQycf & http://bit.ly/6xmNCw #
• Was supposed to get 2 wks knocked off my @P1W1MAX bill this month for recent disruptions, but now they say ‘maybe next month’. WTF? #
• This lady is creepy & has some serious baggage…but oh, those eyes. http://bit.ly/93h9B2 #
• For any history buffs out there, @NS_Archives is tweeting the hell out of the Halifax Explosion. Lots of pics & even film footage. Go see! #
• I want to comment on things but my inability to focus on more than 1 thing at a time means it’ll probably happen Monday. It’s family time! #
• The difference between Not-Enough-Sleep Al & Well-Rested Al is incredible but he’s the latter now so I’ll just pretend 3 pm didn’t happen. #
• will go looking for a Christmas tree this evening. Pro: no need to choose between real & fake. Con: the fake ones here are damn ugly. #
• Of course, after spending RM160 on a new brake pump today, an ugly fake tree may be exactly what we end up buying. #
• Prepared a bottle of milk for Al, then walked into the living room, held it out in front of Leen’s face. We laughed. Early senility FTW? #
• The girl in the Omnia 2 ad just asked ‘What distincts the Omnia 2 from other phones?’ #
• We were at this store that sells Christmas trees and decorations, and Alisdair got all upset because we didn’t buy snow. #
• Queue-jumper freaked when I blocked him. Got out of his car, wanted me to get out. He even opened my door. Leen saved him. His lucky day. #
• makan rusa tadi. Dengan kari pekat. Mmmmmmmm sedapnye. #
• England’s council candidates: representative democracy? http://bit.ly/7wsY8Q #
• Leen: ‘Babies cry for lots of reasons, like colic. But in my kampung, it’s because of hantu, so they’ll call a bomoh’ #pantanginkajangjelah #
• Would’ve been cool to have today’s tech growing up, right? Hell no. Then people would see all the stupid shit I did. So…whew! #
• A2’s name will be easier to pronounce for Msians. So far the only person here to say Al’s name right upon reading it was an Irish lady. #
• There’s a house being built over Smokey’s grave. On the plus side, he’ll have a roof over his head. #
• Malay girl asked me why Arab ‘kuih’ are so sweet. When I said I didn’t really eat it, she asked ‘Huh? Aren’t you Arab?’ #
• RT @blanket Stay tuned for more on #climategate. But first: Medicine - good for our health? Or evil wizardry in disguise? #
• Oooh been looking for something like this for a while. Belajar Bahasa Jawa http://bit.ly/7TWrqM (via @kzamri) #
• People who resent the recording industry’s hard line on file sharing might find this amusing: http://bit.ly/75zkf8 #
• Please say a prayer for little James Delorey’s family. http://bit.ly/5mxHEK #
• Marina’s column: Oh, the shame of it all http://bit.ly/6Y1enn #
• Ok, it’s one thing to see people not on my Twitter list appear via RT, but when they appear at random, not retweeted by anyone? WTF? #
• Perhaps @godblessseanzha appeared at random on my Twitter feed solely so I could see the craziest Halloween costume EVAR. #
• Hmm…@P1W1MAX just tweeted that they’re ‘going to a long holidays this weekend’. Let’s hope they’re not talking about the connection. LOL #
• Tariq Ramadan’s in town & I’m spending the weekend with my family instead. I’m either completely insane or totally frickin’ awesome. #
• We gathered round to put up our tree, took it out of the box, & found the stand was missing 3 legs. Great. #
• Yay the tree’s up. And so begins the annual tradition of having Al place the star on top. #
• My dad asked if the in-laws are ok with my xmas tree. I said if I have to put up with all their superstitions, they can put up with my tree. #
• How am I supposed to get in a Christmas mood in this damn heat? Forget snow, I’d take rain now. #
• As bad ideas go, cherry coke at 2am is right up there with, I dunno, half the stupid shit I did in high school. #
• Mind you, cherry coke at 2am isn’t against the law, so no, maybe it’s not up there with half the stupid shit I did in high school. #
• Girl on the radio only wants to party with boys who look like Mick Jagger. I fear the apocalypse may be upon us. #kidsthesedaysitellya #
• Spent days complaining about crazy heat, wishing for rain. This afternoon the sky opened up & I got stranded. #okgoodoneyagotme #
• With the appearance of white hairs, my head now has hair of every colour at once. #
• RT @copyblogger: Yes, James of @menwithpens is a woman. See the reaction: http://bit.ly/65Cica (via @netraKL) #
• Aw yeah baby bring on the rain. Bring it! #
• Do any of the supermarkets here sell eggnog? Cold Storage, Carrefour, Village Grocer, etc.? #
• What’s the best inexpensive digital camera? My old Sony is nearing death due to old age, wear & tear. Recommendations welcome. #
• Seeing Msia win gold in the SEA Games football final last night was so awesome it made up for the fact that I ironed my finger yesterday. #
• Hmm it’s been awhile since I complained about blogs that autoplay music. So I’ll do that now. AUTOPLAY IS ANNOYING, KIDS. STOP IT! #
• Going camera-shopping tomorrow. Apparently there’s some big camera sale at/near Giant Shah Alam. Will also buy Al lotsof gifts tomorrow. #
• Did all our Xmas shopping today. All that walking, wondering and waiting reminded me why I don’t like Xmas shopping. But it’s done so yeeaah #
• Starting to catch myself pronouncing certain words like a Malay speaking English. But with folks back home I say words the old way. For now. #
• Deadliest Catch wasn’t on last week. Oh Discovery Channel, don’t disappoint me again this week. #
• How to keep some privacy on Facebook http://bit.ly/5wgF5V #
• With another kid on the way, I foresee my 2nd childhood lasting even longer than the 1st one. I play with Al’s toys every day. Loving this. #
• Have been a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan since I was a kid so I’m not sure what to make of the new movie. Guess I’ll have to see it 1st. #
• Whitening cream ad’s going on about ‘inner fairness’. Jesus, it’s bad enough people here want to be white on the outside. #
• Even if Sherlock Holmes ends up sucking, at least the hype’s got me reading my old Complete Sherlock Holmes Treasury again. Good stuff. #
• Got all teary-eyed watching Deadliest Catch. Life’s full of funny little surprises. #
• Had an awesome conversation with my grandmother today. Old people are like time machines. #
• I’ve got New Year’s resolutions, but I’m going to call them 2010 priorities instead. #
• Turn over Facebook history, judge orders http://bit.ly/6mMBgF #
• Finally got Al to take a nap, which means we (probably) won’t be dealing with a cranky kid at Farah’s Xmas gathering tonight. Naps rule. #
• Had a nice Xmas dinner at Farah & Jeremy’s place. Turkey, gravy, great conversation, a giant spruce tree, & Al got a pirate ship. Nice. #
• Mother-in-law had a mini-fit over our tree. Tempted to remind her of all the ‘un-Islamic’ things Malays believe in. Ghosts, black magic, etc #
• The Grinch diagnosed with depression http://bit.ly/7Tu2CJ #
• My seemingly neverending book project may have just spawned an interesting side project. Looks like 2010 will be a crazy year. #

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As a Canadian living in Malaysia, I find it interesting whenever I find some connection between the my country of my birth and the place I now call home. That is, I find it interesting when two seemingly separate aspects of my life intersect beyond the boundaries of my little family, like one time when I watched a Canadian and Malaysian driver battling for position in an A1 race (let’s face it, you usually don’t see Malaysia and Canada competing against each other in pretty much anything). It reminds me of my wedding, when people who were in my life but not one another’s lives were suddenly sitting together at one table. It was like a comic starring both Batman and Spiderman. It was interesting.

I got that feeling again (and more) today when my friend Tariq alerted me to a National Film Board of Canada documentary from 1999 called Unwanted Soldiers. It tells the story of a group of young Chinese-Canadian men who lived in a society in which they couldn’t vote, get decent jobs, or even safely leave Chinatown. When the Second World War came along, they discovered to their great frustration that they couldn’t even get accepted into the army to fight for their country. However, when the Japanese occupied what was then called Malaya, the British hatched a plan to drop soldiers into the Malayan jungles to arm and train the guerrillas; the natural choice was to find Chinese-speaking soldiers who could blend in. That’s when they got the Canadian army to open the doors to Chinese recruits, several of whom were taken to an island off BC and trained in commando tactics. The soldiers were then dropped into the Malayan jungle and remained there until August 1945, when the Japanese finally surrendered.

Who knew there was such a fascinating Canadian connection to such a tumultuous period in Malaysian history? I certainly didn’t.

Of course, the story doesn’t end in 1945. There’s more to this documentary than just war. The fighting these men did in the jungle was nothing compared to their fight for dignity. The documentary is almost an hour long, but it’s worth it. Do take a look.

Sure, it’s not Remembrance Day anymore, but it doesn’t have to be, does it? As fellow Cape Bretoner and blogger Kate Beaton writes:

Remembrance Day always makes me ruminative about the place of history in our current consciences, because it is one of the few holidays where we are explicitly told listen you have to remember this thing that happened ok and, one, people pay attention, two, there is nothing jamming the line like bbq’s or parties or football games or chocolate eggs or presents. History: You should give a shit, who knew.

Anyway, watch the documentary if you have time. It’s a truly moving Canadian story, with a bit of Malaysian spice.

Today a friend (who could hardly contain his glee) told me about a great online resource called Sejarah Melayu (Malay History), which bills itself as A History of the Malay Peninsula but contains goodies from all over the Malay Archipelago. What’s especially interesting is the Sejarah Melayu Library, which is described as…

…perhaps the largest public on-line collection of books and other texts on the history of the Malay archipleago and its surrounding region. Consisting of over 600 documents in electronic PDF format, the library includes books related to specific topics in the history of the Malay archipleago and its surrounding region, travelogues, general histories, academic papers, encyclopedias, dictionaries and other types of references. Essential downloads include the Sejarah Melayu itself, the Kedah Annals, Hikayat Abdullah and The Commentaries of Alfonso d’Albuquerque.

Of course, I find myself drawn to the drool-inducing Language section. There’s lots of other great stuff hiding elsewhere on the site too, I think. Do check out this fascinating (and free) resource if you’re interested.

Last night, after a good workout at the gym, Leen and I were on our way home when in the course of a conversation about post-workout close physical proximity I joked, “Well, it’s not like you have cooties.”

I expected her to ask me something like, “What the heck are cooties?” But instead she said, “I had that once when I was a kid, actually.” I was surprised to hear someone say they’ve actually had cooties, considering it’s an imaginary affliction, used by kids in the west as an excuse for shunning and/or teasing other kids. But Leen wasn’t talking about that. She was talking about the very real skin infection known in Malay as kudis.

So we talked about kudis for a bit and it seemed quite plausible to me that the imaginary western affliction known as cooties came from kudis. But I’ve been wrong about stuff like this before (after hearing several times from several sources that the word bogeyman had something to do with colonial powers’ fear of the Bugis, I wrote about it and was corrected by those who knew the word actually had English origins from way back; one of those who corrected me was a linguist who seemed really annoyed by the perpetuation of the Bugis myth). Whatever the case, I wanted to check it out.

The Wikipedia article on cooties is a mess. There’s no mention of Malaya/Malaysia, but that’s not necessarily a refutation of the kudis connection, considering how dodgy the etymology section of the article is. There is, however, an external link at the bottom of the article that goes to a page at The Straight Dope. There, in a piece from 1985, someone replies to a question about the origins of the word cooties by saying:

Cooties in the sense of “an intangible profusion of vileness emanating from an especially loathsome individual” is probably peculiar to this country. However, cooties in the original sense of body lice is known to most speakers of English. According to Eric Partridge, whose knowledge of things linguistic is almost as awesome as my knowledge of things in general, the word cooties, and probably the reality as well, was picked up by sailors from the Malayans, who had a similar word meaning dog lice. A possibly related term is kutu, a Polynesian word meaning lice of any kind.

So there is a known connection between cooties and kudis. A quick look at some entries at Dictionary.com reveals this as well:

coot⋅ie1  [koo-tee] Show IPA
–noun Informal.
a louse, esp. one affecting humans, as the body louse, head louse, or pubic louse.
Also, cooty.

Origin:
1910–15; perh. < Malay kutu biting body louse, with final syll. conformed to -ie

Another mention of Malay origins. Fair enough, but hold on: why is it attributed to the word kutu, which generally refers to lice and other wingless biting insects? Did cooties really come from kutu?

I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate (I’m no linguist, after all) that cooties did actually come from kudis, not from kutu. The association with lice may have something to do with the fact that a certain kind of kudis (kudis buta, known in English as scabies) does involve mites. People I’ve asked about kudis have all told me it’s not contagious, but scabies certainly is (at least through skin contact); if regular kudis is the same as impetigo (it is according to the Malay Wikipedia article on kudis), a bacterial infection, then it can be spread through contact as well. Ease of transmission aside, kudis would be repulsive enough that children afflicted with it would be shunned by their peers, or at the very least teased. We all know how cruel kids can be sometimes. Considering its repulsiveness, and its prevalence among children (like the imaginary cooties, kudis is more common in children than adults, whereas kutu refers to lice and fleas more generally), it makes sense that it would develop into an insult to be used against someone who might not even have the condition (”Stay away from her,” the class jock said, pointing at the nerdy girl, “she has kudis!”).

Cooties could very well be from kutu — after all, the people who wrote that dictionary thought so — but I’m not so sure. Even if kudis is the real origin of cooties, it might be something linguists already know — but again, I’m not so sure. I guess I’ll just have to keep scratching…er, digging.

Recently Marina asked me if I’d take part in a little initiative she and a few other bloggers have put together to promote understanding — or at least the basic beginnings of a shadow of a basic understanding — of Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an. Sounds good to me.

Many people, the wise and the not-so-wise, have read the Qur’an over the years, endeavours which have led to both keen insights and also terrible misunderstandings. The latter often result in the Qur’an and its message being taken completely out of context and misused by both Muslims (to justify their efforts to create a ‘perfect’ Islamic society) and non-Muslims (to justify their efforts to destroy Islam). There are plenty of verses in the Qur’an that are used by both sides. In fact, there’s a lot of potential for confusion when reading the Qur’an, because it’s both context-specific and timeless, both dense and simple. A hundred people could read it and come away with a hundred different understandings of it. 

There are also many different perspectives on the very idea of reading the Qur’an, ranging from “The scholars have read it and understand it better than everyone else so trust everything they say and ignore the rest,” to “Go ahead, read it and make up your own mind.” Whether you subscribe to one of these opinions, or something in between — and whether you consider yourself a true believer or a crusader against Islam or something in between — I think we can all agree that a thorough reading of the Qur’an (despite the inevitable confusion that will result anyway) is a necessary starting point for any decent argument. 

So let’s read the Qur’an, shall we? 

Here’s the text all participating blogs are currently displaying:

On January 1^st 2009, four friends Syed, Walski, Marina and Anas got together at Coffee-Bean Bangsar Village and decided to launch a campaign to encourage people to read and understand the Quran better. 

This campaign is not only for Muslims, but also for our brothers and sisters who are Christians, Buddhists Hindus, Sikhs and  those who believes in a God-Head but not so gung-ho about being in any brand of religion, too – come join us and share your ideas! You can join this campaign even if you are an atheist! 

The goal of this campaign is to encourage people to read the Quran in the language they understand most and find in it areas of common values in our day to day living.

What is the Campaign all about?

Read the Quran in the language that you are familiar with.

When will the campaign start and end?

January 15^th to February 14^th (Happy Valentine’s Day!)

Where?

Participating blogs in the blogospheres.

Why?

So more people know what the Quran says and what the Quran does not say and to match it to what is really said in our daily lives.

Who?

Everyone who wants to – the more the merrier! If you have a Blog, Facebook, etc carry the logo/icon.

How?

-          To join the campaign, place the accompanying logo/icon at your blog.

-           Write or share short articles based on the Quranic text.

-          Share what you find in the Quran with family and friends.

-          Ask questions about the Quranic message

-          Read the Quran – eg click here http://www.islamicity.com/QuranSearch , www.altafsir.com

Peace and Thanks,

Marina Mahathir

Syed Akbar Ali

Walski, and,

Anas Zubedy

Participating Blogs

1.        3540 Jalan Sudin                   http://www.nursamad.blogspot.com/

2.        Anas Zubedy:                          http://letusaddvalue.blogspot.com

3.        ARTiculations:                                     http://art-harun.blogspot.com/

4.        Being Human in the World:  http://www.peru.name/writing

5.        Cowboy Malaysia:                  http://cowboymalaysia.wordpress.com

6.        Disquiet:                                  http://malikimtiaz.blogspot.com

7.        Jebat Must Die:                       http://jebatmustdie.wordpress.com/

8.        Lunch at the Lake Club:        http://lunchatthelakeclub.blogspot.com

9.        MACVAYSIA:                          http://macvaysia.com

10.     myAsylum:                               http://asylum60.blogspot.com

11.     O.B.E.                                        http://shar101.wordpress.com/

12.     OutSyed The Box:                  http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com

13.     Poetic Justice:                         http://nizambashir.com/

14.     Rantings by MM:                     http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com

15.     Rapera:                                     http://jahaberdeen.blogspot.com/

16.     Renovatio:                                http://stephendoss.blogspot.com

17.     Rocky’s Bru:                             http://rockybru.com.my/

18.     Write Away:                              http://elviza.wordpress.com/

19.     Writing By Amir:                      http://amirmu.blogspot.com/