The Haze Strikes Back

After a week of continous cold and heavy rain here in Penang, the scenery here has abruptly turned back into a sky full of blurry smog. And yet although the winds are still blowing strong, it's bring in more and more haze to the island.

Dammit, we need more rain here!

Tanggal Tiga Puluh Satu...

Happy 49th Birthday Malaysia!

:D

If You're A Woman Living in JB...

This strange but yet true "joke" that's circulating in Johor is...

"If you're a woman and you live in Johor Bahru,
... then you surely had your purse or bag snatched at least once in your life."

I heard this being mentioned on ntv7's Chinese edition of My Siasat, and it certainly rings a bell to my ears.

The reason?

8 years ago when my family were still living in Johor, my mom fell prey to snatch thieves who rode on a motorbike, and smacked a hand right on her chest and grabbed her gold necklace. Mom was literally shocked and dazed after that. We were just thankful only the necklace got stolen, it could've been a lot worse.

So when this article appeared on yesterday's newspaper, you can't blame me when I said I was happy that another scumbag got nabbed by the public. Score one for the ramming down of the snatch thief, and score another for his capture! I'd be happy too if vigilante justice took hold, and the crowd kicked the shit out of the red-handed thief before handing him over to the police.

Even 8 years ago, snatch thieves were out on their motorcycles, lurking and observing women from a distance before committing the crime. 8 years later, instead of less crime, the security in JB is getting worse day by day. The more and more news articles that I read about victims dying from head injuries or end up paralysed from the neck or waist down, I have less and less sympathy towards the fate of these scumbags.

Alongside that incident in JB, did you know that my mom once encountered a smartly-dressed snatch thief on a motorbike right in Penang? She noticed that the guy was reaching his hand out for her, and so she took her umbrella to shield herself. The guy gave up and pointed an index finger and looked at her sternly as he fled on his bike. This second incident shocked my mom so much till even a motorcycle passing by alongside her is enough to give her a bad jolt.

So, don't ever be afraid to take a few swings of your umbrella at a snatch thief if you ever see a crime in progress, and don't be afraid to ram down a thief's motorbike. Since they brought this upon themselves, these thieves are a legitimate target with a giant bullseye painted on their back and chest.

[Edit]: On a more moderate note here, I'm not advocating that snatch thief victims ought to hang on to their posessions stubbornly. These victims often end up injured or dead in the process of struggling. So it's best to just let go your belongings if you're threatened. No amount of gold, money or jewellery is enough to replace a life.

R.AGE's Spirit of Penang!

Guess who's going to R.AGE's Spirit of Penang competition tomorrow?

It's none other than these four guys!

Left to right: Kah Leong, Kok Leong (me), Bi Cheng, and Edmund!

Yeap! The place's at the old Esplanade (not Gurney Esplanade), tomorrow morning starting from 7:30am. We're Team 4 Factorial! Wish us luck there! :D

2006 Heng Ee High School Concert

Even logging into blogger seems unfamiliar now. Gawd it's been over a month since I last blogged anything about my life here. Fair enough, plenty and I say PLENTY of stuff and events happened during this time period.


June 30, Friday night:
Annual school concert in Dewan Sri Pinang. A week later the event was covered in the North section of The Star. Despite what you read in the news article, the performance was NOT spectacular, and the entire concert was NOT magnificent. In fact the hall sound system was badly tuned and damaged the audience's hearing during the first 30 minutes of the concert, and most of the performances were mediocre. Let's say that for every 2 performances that each group played, only one out of those two were decent performances.

Bad performances: The brass band, harmonica band and Chinese orchestra were out of tune and out of rhythm at times, it ought to be called a practice session rather than a real performance.

Good peformances: The dance troupe and the drama club. The performances of both these two were simply great I can say! The dance troupe had both male and female dancers swinging and jumping wildly to a tribal snake-spirit appleasing ritual (or somesort) while the drama club's performance was simply surreal. The drama's about a group of 20 boys and girls questioning the very definition of the word "art". The entire performance was elaborately planned (about 30 minutes or more in length) with large scale cloth-twirling and even a "glow-in-the-dark" scene involving fluerescent-painted elephants and objects. I'd give them a standing ovation. :)

As for the rest of the performances like poetry recital and choir, I think they're not bad and pretty nice actually, but nothing stunning of course. :P Anyways, me and my mom were the ones who were watching this concert, since last year's concert was so interesting. Who would've thought that this years concert was exceptionally bad compared to last year?

I really pity the journalit from The Star who had to grimace and force himself to write about an "amazing" concert. Y'know, I can easily guess that some of these students who performed less than expectations could be given a dressing down by the seniors.

And by the way, the blurry photos were taken with by old handphone and its external camera. I don't think I can take proper pics with it anymore, since most of the pics nowadays turn out to be too blurry.

[Edit]: One more thing here, I couldn't believe how uncooperative the audience were. The announcers had already requested that the audience to NOT take pictures at the drama club performance because the flashes might affect the performance. Yet, the cameras flashed as much as fireworks in a dark stadium. Good gawd.