Stepping aside for Reality

I was reading a story called "Hostess" by Isaac Asimov the other day. In the story, every alien race in the universe has a long lifespan(think Methuselah), unlike earth people and animals. Then the aliens initiated interplanetary contacts with earth people. Soon, the aliens started getting infected with a mysterious disease that is causing them to stop growing and die early.

One alien, a Hawkinsite from Hawkin's planet, came to earth to begin secret investigations. He discovered that human beings have shorter lifespans because we are hosts to mental parasites, the same way we are hosts to physical parasites like bacteria etc. We humans are unaware of the existence of the mental parasites because we have long existed with them in a sort of symbiotic relationship. But these mental parasites are spreading out from earth people and infecting the minds of the aliens. And we are the only planet in the whole universe like that, thus making us a source of infection to all other alien lifeform in the universe.

If the rest of the universe knew about this fact, then the aliens would either find a cure for us, or destroy us to save themselves. We are not sure which action they are going to take, therefore we have to prevent them from knowing. So before the Hawkinsite could take the knowlege of this shocking discovery back to his home world, we shot him dead first.

Oh, have a great day ahead, you indescribable earthlings. And if we are unable to find any aliens now, you at least know the reason why.

Iraq regained sovereignty yesterday when US governor Paul Bremer signed papers granting independence to Iraq and left the country. With that, G.W.Bush turned his attention to the more pressing US presidential elections.

So I asked an Iraqi friend today about his feelings on regaining sovereignity, and he said, "Yesterday, I was an American citizen. Today, I am an Iraqi citizen. No, I'm not buying lunch.."
Fed-up.....I thought I could get a free meal from him.

This is a new chapter for Iraq. It does not mean that the security situation will resolve itself immediately, but it is a new chapter. The insurgent battles being fought in Iraq are along RACIAL lines. No matter what the muslim governments around the world would say, the bombings are racial. Non-Iraqi muslims are in denial, and by "denial", I don't mean the longest river in Egypt. Whichever race controls Iraq, will control enormous oil resources, and the battle has been playing itself out in the last year. Iraqis have killed many times more other Iraqis than they have killed Coalition troops. A sad fact that goes little reported.

Iraqis always have had this attitude: "Me and my brother against my cousin. Me, my brother, and my cousin against the stranger."
Bloodlines are important to them. In a harsh land, this attitude has ensured the survival of their tribes in the past. But is it relevant today? The Arab shiites, Arab sunnis, Kurds and Turkmen are of different races. The Iraqi Arab shiites have persian bloodlines in them, and speak both Arabic and Iranian, unlike the Iraqi Arab sunnis. The main brunt of the insurgent bombing in Iraq so far has been borne by the shiites and to a lesser extent, the kurds.

Foreign militant arabs such as Al-Zarqawi(Jordanian) have entered the fray and are targeting the shiites. Last Thursday, the shiites experienced the assassination of prominent cleric Hussein al-Harithi in Baghdad , and they pointed the finger at radical Sunni Muslims for the killing. The next day, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Sistani went as far to say, "Zarqawi, Zawahiri and bin Laden are filthy infidels who nurture malignance against Imam Ali and his sons." (News report)
Filthy infidels? Why do they think that this is some big insult?

So far the kurds have stayed out of the fighting, even though there is a lot of kurdish anger against the shiite Ayatollah Sistani. But I read a blog somewhere that a kurd has been caught recently together with two Syrians attempting to plant a bomb in an Arab shiite area. Unable to confirm from news reports if this is true.

Expect that there will be some more violence and new laws in Iraq for the next few months before the people decide that they have enough and should try to live in peace with each other.

I sense that the majority of Iraqis want to move forward and put the past behind them. If they can manage interracial relations well, then they will be able to end the violence. Not that they can't handle violence. Iraqis are used to losing family members. After all, they have gone through one generation under Saddam when family members often vanish without a trace. Maybe that is why, despite all those bombings, they still have traffic jams. Perhaps they're inured to it already.

Iraqi blogger, Alaa, says it best:
"There is no turning back. If the terrorist, obsessed by the devil is willing to explode himself to kill the innocent; we, filled with the light of Love and the Love of light are even more capable of sacrifice."

I wish them luck, not only in defeating the violence, but in finding a way to live with each other happily and peacefully in a modernised nation.

The haze is back. Courtesy of some idiots in a neighbouring country illegally burning forests when they are not busy transporting illegal immigrants. May their shit block up their asses. We really do need a bit of rain to clear the air a bit.

Some parts of this country are more badly affected than the rest. The 5Star, sent a junior reporter, Kong Si Mi, to the village of Sungei Kambing Sangkut to interview the residents about the haze. Being full of enthusiasm, our reporter interviewed the first inhabitant he could find. But the haze was so friggin' thick that he could not see whom he was talking to. When the haze lifted a bit, he discovered to his horror, that he had been interviewing an anxious cow.

But fortune smiles on all 5Star reporters, and our junior reporter soon stumbled onto a young, 'hip and happening' vegetable farmer in the village who was willing to talk frankly.



Reporter: Hello! I'm from the 5Star.
Farmer: Oh, the best paper in the country! Wow!

Reporter: That's right! Sir, can I interview you about the haze?
Farmer: Interview me? Certainly! Certainly! I thought you reporters only interview those VIP morons?

Reporter: Oh, at the 5Star, we interview any moron!
Farmer: That's what I like about the 5Star.....it is not snobbish!

Reporter: Well, sir.......how bad is the haze in this town?
Farmer: Oh...very bad, oh! The haze was so thick that nobody can see anything! And it's affecting my plants!

Reporter: Affecting your plants? How so?
Farmer: Everyone knows that insects have to pollinate the flowers so that the plants will fruit.

Reporter: Yeah......so?
Farmer: Well, the haze was so thick that the insects couldn't find their way to the flowers even in broad daylight. They ended up pollinating the cow's ass instead. The flies and butterflies were all hovering around its puckered ass all day!

Reporter: That must have been bad.
Farmer: Bad? It got worse! You should have heard the cow when the stinging bees came along!

Reporter: I know. I..... er...... tried to interview your cow just now.
Farmer: You did? You sure that's my cow?

Reporter: It had an anxious look, and lots of Handiplast plastered around its ass.
Farmer: Yup. That's my cow all right. Poor fella.

Reporter: Tell me, has the haze affected your life in any way?
Farmer: Oh yes....it has affected my sex life!

Reporter: It has?
Farmer: Yeah, my wife and I used to enjoy fantastic sex outdoors.

Reporter: Come again? You enjoyed what?
Farmer: Hey, loosen up! It's the broadband age! It's not the stone age!

Reporter: Oh yes, I forgot! Sorry.....
Farmer: Well, two days ago, my wife and I went to out our vegetable farm to have a quick shag. Usual method lah. So she undressed by the pond and I undressed by the cucumber patch. Then we ran towards each other naked.....

Reporter: Wow! Like in the Hindi movies!
Farmer: That's right, but without the singing and without the clothes. So we raced towards each other, but the visibility was so poor that we missed each other in the haze, and I landed inside the pond!

Reporter: Oh, poor you!
Farmer: Yeah....and my wife landed onto the cucumber patch and got herself stuck onto a giant cucumber. I had a tough time trying to pry that cucumber off her. In the process, she had two orgasms. Finally, I broke the cucumber into little pieces and pulled out the pieces one by one.

Reporter: Wah.....that must be awful!
Farmer: Oh, it was damn awful.....'cos that cucumber was all in bits and pieces. How to sell?

Reporter: My sympathies. Anyway, I hope both of you were not hurt.
Farmer: Only our pride, only our pride! I was stinking from the pond water, so I had to go into the bathroom to take a shower. My wife was still horny, so we decided to have sex in the shower instead!

Reporter: Well, I hope that you did not try the 'running-towards-each-other' stunt in the shower.
Farmer: In that haze? Of course not! If we had missed each other, she might have gotten herself stuck on the bathroom door knob!

Reporter: Err...yes. Well, thank you so much for this interview. I won't take away any more of your time.
Farmer: Oh, no problem. I can't get any work done in this haze anyway.

Reporter: So what are you going to do if you can't work?
Farmer: Stay indoors with my wife , and watch some more Hindi movies on TV lor.....

You know what I hate about stopping in the Rest Areas along the tolled highways? The food. It seems to me that every stall operator is either selling teh tarik or mixed rice. There is not much of variety to titillate my taste buds. I had wanted to pump some cow sense into the Rest Area management for quite some time now.

They were handing out the “Customer Satisfaction Survey on Tolled Highways” yesterday at certain toll plazas. It was an impressive document, twelve pages, like they really mean business. And right there at the top, the instructions said
“..….tick the number corresponding to your feeling for each area of services.”

Being the responsible citizen that I am, I dutifully ticked the answer to each survey question. And then in the feedback section, I read, “If you had circled ‘2’ or ‘1’ in any of the service areas, we would like your feedback………blah blah….”
Circled? Did they say “circled”? Shit! Of course I hadn’t circled anything! I was told to tick, remember? If they didn’t want my feedback, why didn’t they say so, rather than try to throw me off with a technicality.

I was about to use the twelve pages to wrap my old shoes when it occurred to me that there is something not quite right about the whole thing. Skimming to the end of the document, I found two highly suspicious info they wanted; “Occupation” and “Type/Model of car”.
Now, I ask you, how are these two bits of information going to help them make better tolled highways? Irregardless of what I do or what car I drive, I will be paying the same toll as any other person! Or are they interested in me only if I have a “respectable” occupation and drive a “respectable” car? In that case, they’re snobs.

Well, two can play at the same game. For “occupation”, I put down “Committee member of council of Chinese datuks”. For “Type/Model of car”, I thought of putting down “Ferrari”. But then, Chinese datuks don’t drive Ferraris. So I wrote “Mercedes Benz big-eye small-eye”.

And on the last page, in the “Your additional comments” section, I tried to sound like a successful businessman datuk:

“Wa kasi lu tau. Lu sikalang semua olang mau jual nasi campur dan teh tarik saja, mana boleh? Lu mesti paksa itu olang jual lain lain makanan macam goreng pisang, mee goreng dan satay. Kali kali wa pegi Kawasan Rehat, satu goreng pisang pun tak dapat. Apa macam? Lu ingat wa tala luit kasi kah? Guna akai sikit. Lu ikut saya cakap mesti manyak untung mya.”

Yeah, maybe that will get some action.

Girl comes out of pet shop. Gets into car driven by mom. Mom drives off and knocks down man. Man falls onto ground writhing in pain. Girl panics and cries. Paramedics arrive at scene. They look at fallen man and sobbing girl. Ignoring the injured man writhing on the ground, they comfort the girl first.

Great balls of oliphunts! I must be slowly going nuts. Somebody, read this Britney Spears article, and tell me if I should just forget the world and go back to sleep.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton just wrote a book entitled "My Life". I'm impressed with his effort. All this while, I thought that his brains were under his zip.

Interestingly enough, Clinton was the only U.S. president to be sandwiched between two bushes. No, I don't mean the bushes on Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Hey, I wouldn't wish that on any healthy male. I mean that Bush Sr was the president before Clinton, and Bush Jr was the president after Clinton. Two Bushes and one Clinton equals a Clinton sandwich.

It was unfortunate that because of his affair with Monica, Clinton became a sort of lame duck president. Most of his time was spent on battling the media rather than running the country. I'm still amazed that he told us that a blowjob was not sex. I was told that the American Indians called him "Walking Eagle" because he was so full of crap he couldn't fly. Still, you gotta admire his resilience. He took a lot of shit during his term and did not have a nervous breakdown. And the people elected him for two terms.

Oh, about the book. Apparently, it does not have any sizzling sex scenes in it. So, no, I'm not buying it then.

My sister makes good rice dumplings, even better than my mother. And my mother already makes better dumplings than most people I know. On the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese Lunar calendar, we celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. Today's the day when we eat glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. In Malaysia, many of the dumplings are wrapped using the leaves of the nipah palm tree.

The secret to wrapping the rice dumpling is to press the rice into the leaves so as to pack the rice grains tightly. This is the part that most people forget to do, and so when the leaves are unwrapped after cooking, their rice dumpling comes apart in pieces. They then blame the quality of the rice of course!

Today, rice dumplings are available throughout the year. You can frequently see them selling in pasar malams. Carrefour in Subang Jaya sells a halal version which is surprisingly good. In fact it's better than what most people can make at home. Many versions of dumplings are available in Malaysia today. My favourite has got to be the one with lots of black-eye beans in them. I loved it as a kid, and I still love it now. Better still if it comes with chestnut inside. My sister puts half the yolk of a salted egg inside each dumpling, when most people would put only a quarter. She is quite extreme and her dumplings are so chockful with ingredients that I marvel how the rice could still hold everything inside. Some of my friends' families make the nyonya version of dumpling. They like it although I don't. I guess parents do influence what we eat. Come to think of it, parents do influence how we turn out as adults.

In honour of the festival, here's another 'Calwin' graphic. Yeah, I needed an excuse to splash some more nonsense across cyberspace.



Of course, maturity starts when you stopped blaming your parents for turning out the way you did and start taking steps towards self-responsibility. At least that is what people say. Heheheh.....

Over the weekend, I had to apply a little discipline on a daft kid who insisted on doing things he really shouldn't do. Kids can be quite perverse at times. It's not that they are bad. It's more to do with growing up and having fun.

I have this theory called "The Law of Comparative Regret". If a kid pulls a prank he shouldn't, he knows that older people are going to make him regret it. But if he doesn't do it, he knows that he will regret it even more, for not doing it while he had the opportunity of a lifetime. So, it's like, "To hell with the consequences! Let's make it happen, dude! Yippee khai yehhhhhhh!!!!"

Heheheh! I was like that as a little kid. And I sure got disciplined a lot. Thankfully, most of us grew up into matured and responsible adults. Ahem.



Disclaimer: Any resemblance which the above drawing has to any existing comic strip is purely coincidental.

Girl : "Sex first or supper first?"
Guy : "Football first."

You know Euro Cup 2004 soccer season is here when guys start making strange decisions. It's a kind of madness in men. They eat, sleep, and drink football. They stay up late at night to watch the game on TV and then wander into the office bleary-eyed next morning like constipated zombies. And then their intelligent good-looking colleague, ahem, have to cover for them.

But women have caught up with men. I know of some girls who are fanatical football fans. They know everything about the game, about the players, and even about the referees' favourite sexual practices. In fact they know more about soccer than the guys. With their expert eyes, they even can tell which player has the heaviest balls from the way he runs. It takes a really brave man to try and discuss football with these female fans. Asking them a simple question may result in the most animated answer in a foreign language.

"What was the score?"
"!@@#$#%.....referee kayu......!#@$%#%#.......lousy piece of shit.......%&$%#$#....simply blow whistle......!@#@!!#%#!!!!!"

Actually, my French not bad wan, but theirs are much better. The strange thing is that these foulmouthed fanatics are often the more physically attractive girls around.....demure, sexy and smart. The type you would like to take home to meet your mother.

Indeed, times have changed. Gone are the days when if you wandered into the TV room and found a girl watching the football channel, you could carry out a decent intelligent conversation:

"Which teams are playing?"
"The yellow team against the red team!"
"Ohhhh....er....what's the score?"
"11-10, yellow winning!"
"What !!!!!??? 11-10? Are you sure?"
"Yes lah! Stoopid referee sent out one player in red jersey. So now the yellows are leading with 11 men to the reds' 10."

*Sigh* Those were the good ol' days.

While clearing some of my old stuff yesterday, I came across an old notebook. On flipping through its pages, I noticed this passage which I wrote down years ago:

"A general must always think of the worst scenario. He has negative thoughts throughout the day. Yet many generals lead successful lives. Maybe it is because of their positive attitude."

I do not remember from which book or article I copied that passage from, or the date I wrote it down, but it must have made an impact on me at that time.

Many well-meaning people are always advising us to avoid negative thoughts. I don't understand why. What is so wrong about negative thoughts? Everybody has negative thoughts just like everybody has germs in the body. But we do not try to irradiate ourselves to disintegrate every germ in our body, do we?

Most of us can't really stop thoughts from zipping in and out of the mind. Thoughts arise and then disappear naturally, like waves on the ocean. Going out of the way to avoid a negative thought is not the answer to living. What matters to me is that I should have a positive mental attitude towards negative thoughts that come my way. It is through seeing shadows that we can better appreciate the light.

I think I will keep that old notebook for a little while longer.

What a busy morning. I am getting piled with work and deadlines. No time to blog even. No time to even zip up pants.

People keep forgetting that I was hired only for my good looks. Every time I remind them of this pertinent fact, I would be met with empty vacuous stares. I might as well be talking to a cross-eyed duck. At least, ducks are more intelligent.

My colleagues don't remember that they are supposed to only look at me, and not give me work. How can anybody forget? Hello? Their memory powers are failing them. Gee, they must be getting old. Some of them are so old that they can remember the time when Mount Kinabalu was only a small ant hill. A few of them played with real dinosaurs during their childhood in the Jurassic period.

They were terrible as prehistoric children. They played the dinosaurs to death. They played until T-Rex became T-bone steak. You tell me, they terror or not? At least, now we know why the dinosaurs prefer to become extinct.

Okay.....rant over. Back to work.

Don't get me wrong. I do think that the Malaysian Idol advertisement song on TV is hilarious. But it just wasn't believable. When was the last time you saw four jagas paying attention to your parking? On a normal day, you can't even see one jaga, let alone four. But if a couple were to make love in their car, in the car park, then you may just get to see four jagas. Heck, even the off-duty ones would flock there to watch the action.

Thus I re-wrote a more believable "Visitor Pass" song for the Malaysian Idol advertisement (sung to the tune of Y.M.C.A.).

* music starts *

"Young man...... what are you doing here
I say, young man...... you have no business here
I say, young man...... you cannnot farking here
Take your girlfriend and go elsewhere...

* tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet *

You cannot syiok here with a Visitor Pass
You cannot syiok here with a Visitor Pass
You can syiok anywhere, hump wherever you want
Just don't do it right here in our car park

Young man...... put on your clothes and then go
I say, young man...... why you dressing so slow
I say young man...... used condom do not throw
Take it to the big tong sampah

* tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet *

You cannot syiok here with a Visitor Pass
You cannot syiok here with a Visitor Pass
But if you want to fark here
Without us kacau-ing you
Then you must get the V-I-P Pass....."

* music fades out *

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Note: I have not got the heart-stompin', pelvic thrusting, dance choreography to my satisfaction yet, but I am sure it will come to me in time. Cheers!

While loitering in 1Utama complex yesterday, I saw this pet exhibition. There was a huge cage with 7 Persian cats inside. The thing about Persian cats is that they have really flat faces. Their faces are so flat that they remind me of Subang airport. Every facial feature is on a flat surface. Knowing a bit about evolution, I got to wondering how their faces can evolved into that shape. After all, a flat face is not aerodynamic, and is a drawback to speed.

That was when I thought of the "no brakes" theory. I think evolution works like this: If a cat chases a mouse and the mouse runs into a hole in the wall, the cat had better brake fast. But of course, some cats are dumber than others. Their idea of braking is to slam the wall with their faces. If they do it often enough, their faces get flatter and flatter.

Now, I can almost hear you asking, "But won't the cats die?"

Of course not! Cats have nine lives, remember? As long as they slam their faces against the wall not more than eight times, they'll be okay. But because of their unusual flat faces, other cats will normal faces would not want to mate with them. So, we can conclude that those poor flat-faced cats get to mate only with other similar flat-faced cats. And by inheriting those flat-faced genes, their offspring, and the offspring of their offspring also have flat faces. The end result of this is the modern Persian cat.

But Nature is kind. To compensate them for their flat faces, Nature gave Persian cats a friendly disposition and nice silky hair. What was I doing around the cat cage? Well, err......I always had a thing about friendly pussies.

I was walking to my car this morning when a truck pulled up right behind it. The driver got down, and took a huge pack of tube ice from the truck to deliver it to the coffeeshop where I had just had my breakfast. He saw that I was going to get to my car and said, "Sekejap, 'bang!".

I grinned at him and waved him on. He took the tube ice to the back of the coffeeshop, came back to the truck, smiled sheepishly at me, and drove off.

Tube ice. Ah.....if memory serves me correctly, a few years ago, coffeeshop owners were required by the authorities to buy commercially produced ice rather than make their own ice. (Phenomenal......I sound like an episode of "Iron Chef".) This ingenius move has two functions; to ensure that the ice you get in the coffeeshops have been strictly produced to highly accurate measurements, and also to ensure that the authorized ice companies have a profitable source of income.

But I am not complaining. When coffeeshops produce their own ice, the products often have a 'smoky' look. Also, health standards get thrown out of the window and we sometimes find unidentified stuff sticking out from the ice. The drinks tasted different too. Yucks!

Still, if you do miss your illegal coffeeshop produced ice, there are lots of small Malaysian towns that still maintain this practice. As for me, I'll pick legal ice over pirated ice anytime.

By now, most people will know of the unanimous vote at the United Nations Security Council in favour of the resolution ending the occupation in Iraq and transferring sovereignty. This may be the start of the breakup of Iraq into two. Autonomy for the Kurds and minority rights were not mentioned in the resolution on the insistence of Ayatollah Sistani. The U.N. resolution kept the Iraqi Arabs happy, the arab states happy, Iran and Turkey happy, and left the Iraqi Kurds furious. The angry Kurds are now left with two choices: go without autonomy, or secede.

I think the Kurds will secede if they are ignored. Then we will have another round of battles in Iraq. Of the roughly 100,000 militia men in Iraq today, more than half are Kurdish fighters. And they are proven fighters. Which is the reason why they are able to enforce a peaceful calm in northern Iraq. The feeling now is that they have been sold out by the Americans for Arab and Turkish interests. Now, their freedom is being threatened. Does anyone seriously think that they will lie down and play dead?

But no, I do not think they will announce secession yet. Most likely, they will wait until after the U.S. presidential elections in November to see if a new U.S. president will be more sympathetic to their plight. But even if they announce secession at this time, there is little that George Bush, Sistani, or the United Nations can do. What the Kurds will most probably do now is train and prepare in secret for the coming battles. And when the time comes, we will have two Iraqi states. And the world will have to live with that.

Teachers have a nasty habit of asking us to solve weird stuff in school.



Anybody who understands sine and cosine will know that the above equation cannot be solved. Not by normal people, anyway.

A guy I met at work once who showed me an obscure method of solving that darn thing.



Freakin' funpads!!!!???
I should have found out which school he came from. So that I can tell people to send their kids there.

During the weekend I attended the wedding reception of a Muslim couple in KL. Both of them were out-of-towners and they already had their wedding ceremonies in their hometowns. The KL reception was for their Klang valley friends. The groom was a bit unconventional. He wore a Manchu style green tunic and looked like Wong Fei Hong but without the round Manchurian black cap. He told me he wore the same thing during his akad nikah! When we wanted to take photos, he stood behind a table to hide his feet, because he was wearing Japanese slippers! Where got people like that one? The bride wore all white. Her skin tone was a bit on the dark side, so it was quite contrasting. She was quiet, shy, and homey looking.

Of course, during non-Chinese weddings, guests are expected to bring wedding gifts. I always had a problem with that. Shopping for the appropriate gift is most difficult. Most people buy electrical appliances as gifts. It is not unusual for a wedding couple to receive five rice cookers and ten blenders. The only way to get rid of them is to wait for someone else's wedding. Since I knew the groom decently well, I gave an ang pow instead, figuring that he would rather have the cash than have an extra blender. He pocketed it with a grin.

But situations vary. I once attended the wedding of a really rich Malay guy. Somehow, giving an ang pow to somebody who was filthy rich seemed rather odd. So I went shopping for a gift instead. The gift was in a big box and wrapped colourfully so that it would look good when displayed together with the other presents. Size does matter. Cam tu best....muka ada ler. Never mind if the box was half full of packing materials inside. At least the decorated big box contributed meaninfully to the wedding decorations. The guy was so rich that he probably distributed away all his wedding gifts. That was the only exception so far. In all the other Malay weddings I attended, I gave an ang pow.

I must say that I was heartened to hear the King's message on his birthday. The Star dutifully splashed this on the front page:
"Disregard status in war against graft, says King"

I noted happily that on June 5th Pak Lah says he's determined to fight graft.

This is good. Both the king and the PM are in favour of getting rid of corruption. So am I. And so is the rakyat.

Oh, BTW, we must congratulate Rafidah Aziz. She had some long-standing allegations of corruption. But then we saw this news report last week on Trade minister cleared of corruption charges. There, I knew it.......people with status simply cannot be corrupted. It is just not possible. That I understand. What I don't understand, however, is the meaning of the term "insufficient evidence". I guess my language skills were not as great as I thought.

Note to myself: Buy new dictionary.

Today's posting is mostly about students who failed all STPM examination subjects and have to make some tough decisions on their future careers.

The mainstream media had given much publicity to the 128 straight A students who experienced problems in getting places to study medicine in the local universities. But what about the miserable failures? There is no media publicity of any sort regarding their fate. They are humans as well, aren't they? (Note: Only their parents are allowed to say that they aren't.) If you cut them, do they not bleed? If you fail them, do they not cry? If you scold them, do they not say, "Fark you"?

But not to worry. The 5Star is here! In the name of service to all segments of society, the nation's best newspaper has devoted a column to cater to the aspirations of the goof-offs and lazy bums who did badly in the STPM, and who are now unable to get a place in the university. Our 5Star columnist, Ms Lai Ma, former karaoke lounge singer(very famous one, hooiyoh) is here to answer questions from the affected students.



Dear Lai Ma
I failed in all my STPM subjects. I blame no one but myself. I was always skipping classes. The whole school called me the "ponteng king". The teachers, prefects, gardeners, jagas, office peons and canteen staff would often see me loitering in the corridors and they would try to capture me. But I was always too fast for them, and easily evaded capture. Now that I've failed every subject, I do not know what to do. Don't ask me to repeat STPM again because I will surely die.
Pontengarajah

Dear Pontengarajah
We at the 5Star feel your pain. We feel your sorrow. We feel like kicking you in the butt for pontenging class. I think you have a problem with authority. But you also have the necessary skills to evade capture. The most logical career choice for you is to become a VCD seller. Easy job. But need to run sometimes. However, my talkcock editor tells me that we should not advise people to do things that are not right. So listen carefully. Selling is right. Running also right. But getting caught is not right.



Dear Lai Ma
My dream in life is to become a crony. But I failed all my subjects in STPM. I now have no opportunity to go to the university to study how to become a crony. My life is over. My friends tell me that I should just kill myself. Should I listen to them?
Wang Busat

Dear Wang Busat
Oi........what kind of friends you have? And summore you call them "friends"?
Not being able to get into the university is no reason to kill yourself. Besides, which university can teach you how to be a crony? If you want to be a crony, you must first learn how to bodek gahmen officials. The best place to learn is at the golf course. Take up a job as a caddy in a golf course. Then observe how businessmen bodek civil servants as they play golf. It is not as easy as you think. Businessmen must try not to win the game. The only way to do so is to purposely keep hitting the ball into the water. This is the way, mah. Every crony knows this by heart. Then only can get projects. Outside the golf course, you can see boys selling lots of golf balls fished out from the ponds. Why are so many people losing balls? So many people bodeking, that's why. After two or three years at the golf course, you should learn enough to become a bodek expert. After that, you can easily become a crony. Once you become a successful crony, you can go and to tell your present friends to go fark themselves.



Dear Lai Ma
All the universities rejected my application for entry. I can't understand why. I sent them a certificate that stated very clearly that my CGPA was 6.5. I know that all the other applicants have CGPA of less than 4.0. There is no good reason why the universities don't want to accept me. Why the world so fucked up?
Chin Tu lan

Dear Tu lan
Ni na beh.......where got people obtain CGPA 6.5 one? Closed eyes also I know that you printed the certificate yourself! Wa lau eh, bullshit also don't know how to bullshit properly. I ought to come over and whack your thick head. But my talkcock editor said that we are a five star paper, and I must give you good advice. I told him to go fly kite. If everybody print their own certificates, then what for conduct examinations anymore? My advice to you is to stop printing nonsense. If you still want to further your studies, you can go and apply to get into the Lame Cock Wank Institute. They are always looking for creative students. After they finished laughing at your creative CGPA of 6.5, I am sure that they will accept you.



Dear Lai Ma
I want to become duck. My STPM results got many 'A's but I not so like to go university. People say university graduates earn small money. I want have big big money. And fast. I so the very handsome and energetic. Supple orso. You think I can be good duck or not?
Pelvic Elric

Dear Pelvic
What kind of broken English are you talking? The proper word to use is "gigolo", not "duck". To be a good gigolo you must have very polished and refined language skills. Rich lonely women don't just want action. They're lonely, not stupid. They want intelligent and stimulating conversation also. You talk one kind like that, how to get good business? I advise you to enroll in a university and study a proper course, like Mass Communications. And after you graduate, you should be able to speak like James Bond. Then you can introduce yourself in a sophisticated manner, like saying,
"My name is Elric....Pelvic Elric. How do you do? And how you want to do?"
When meeting prospective clients, you must show off your degree. Then only can command high price. Like that, mah!

No time to blog on anything interesting today. Just a short note to notify visitors to this blog that my boss is expecting real work from me today. This is unfair because everyone knows that I was hired only for my good looks. What, now I am expected to work as well? What cheek!

Everybody knows that good looking people in this world don't have to work. This is the Supreme Planetary Law! But my company is controlled by not-so-good looking people, and they have bent the rules a bit. I have half a mind to complain to SUHAKAM. And if they don't act on it, then I'll bring it up to the United Nations. Kofi Anan is my friend. We used to drink lots of coffee together. Hence his nickname "Kofi". His real name was Banana Naan. But Banana Naan Anan is a bit of a tongue twister. So Kofi Anan it is.

Strange...I suddenly have the urge to go make myself a drink. See ya.

Sometimes, hor, all these politicians si beh kay kiang. Pandai pandai tell us to develop boleh attitude without thinking long term. First they talk nonsense. When they not talking nonsense, they talk rubbish. And everybody follow. Now everywhere this one boleh, that one boleh. I see 'P' drivers go through 'No Entry' sign because they think everything boleh oreddy. And when got 'No Parking' sign, people also park two rows. Sometimes three. Where can? If got something boleh, sure got other thing tak boleh one. This one is logic, mah.

Even old men also like that nowadays. Last time without Viagra, they tak boleh. Now, they boleh oreddy, they become cheekopek. They forget that si panjang boleh but the heart organ still tak boleh. People just don't understand the proper concept. Why so blur one? Like that, hor, society sure damn condemn one.

Chia lat leh. Somehow, must get people to come to their senses. Fortunately, I found a pair of mating lions willing to help out. Mr Lion and his lady friend posed very professionally for this edukayshenal poster to help get the concept of boleh across.



Luckily they not shy. But animals teaching humans proper concept, we shy or not?

I read this from the email:

"Men are like laxatives......they'll irritate the crap out of you."

Now, that statement can't be true, can it? Nobody can be that irritating, right?

A nerdy guy told me that he once dated this girl who kept going to the toilet every few minutes. And a lot of girls are like that. Their behaviour is even more odd during a group date. Then if one girl wants to go to the toilet, all the other girls would also want to go at the same time. It's like a kind of herd mentality. Never mind if the toilet has only two cubicles......the whole darn herd would head towards the toilets together, leaving the guys to sit around and entertain themselves. And here comes the puzzling part: it is a SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN fact that girls don't need other girls to hold their hands while they are shitting. Oh yucks, that would be so gross!

So there is actually no legitimate need for the girls to go to the toilets together. Unless the guys are downright irritating, and no girl wants to be left alone at the table with them. Oh damn, maybe there is some truth to the statement after all.

There can only be one solution; guys who are bloody irritating should not try to date girls who are full of shit.