Stepping aside for Reality

I have been reading a number of women's blogs lately and I noticed a rather recurring theme. They tend to bitch about not meeting the 'right sort of guy'.

Hey, the reason you have not been meeting the 'right sort of guy' is because you have not been saying the 'right sort of prayer'.

Well, you can quit yer bitchin' now. Coz I've written the 'right sort of prayer' just for you. Yeah.

No need to tell me that I've got a heart of gold......I already knew that. Here's wishing you "happy hunting" this weekend.


The Bachelor Girl's Prayer

As I lay me down to sleep
Still wide awake while counting sheep
I pray: Dear God, send me a guy
Who'll hug and love me till I die

A guy who thinks that I'm the best
And tells his mom and all the rest
A guy whose views are truly kind
Who keeps a gentle, thoughtful mind

I pray he's not a lazy slob
But one who has a steady job
This guy should own a house and car
And he should treat me like a star

And when he takes me to his bed
He'll moan "Oh yes!" while getting head
I pray that when I suck him hollow
He doesn't try to make me swallow

Author  -  Viewtru

It's only Thursday.
It must be a slow day because I'm planning my weekend already. I don't think I want to go out with Harry this weekend. He's a fun guy, but he has to learn to control his motor mouth. He keeps saying idiotic stuff in front of the ladies that makes me want to say other stuff such as "I don't know him."

There are no niceties with Harry.
And he always fluffed his pickup lines.

I once taught him what I thought was a simple pickup line which goes like this:
"Does beauty run in your family?"

And then Harry goes up to this pretty girl and says:
"Does beauty run away from your family?"

No, I'm not going out with Harry this weekend.

When I blogged about "Spoonerism"  on Monday, I think I must have used a word that many people are unfamiliar with.

Blog visitor, FireAngel,  thought I was gonna talk about the techniques and the types of "spooning". Which is about sex. I am not sure how she jumped to that idea, but I sure like the way her mind works.

And another blog visitor, hari, thought that I was gonna blog on hand-outs. Which is not about sex.

Just how many unofficial meanings can "spoonerism" have?

Oh, hang on, I have another one: home dentistry with a spoon.
Just grasp the spoon with both hands and use it as a dental implement. The simplest equipment is often the best.



If this is not "spoonerism", then I don't know what is.

Of course, it works even better if you are naked.

Readers, please do not try this at home. You run the risk of not looking very intelligent standing naked with a spoon in your mouth.

I watch Malaysian Idol because PAS wants me to boycott it. (See news here or here).My rationale is this: if PAS hates it, then a true God would approve of it. It is sort of an automatic response for me. No, I don't think that PAS is an evil organisation yet. Misguided definitely, but not evil. However, I cannot be 100% sure.

Having watched a few episodes of Malaysian Idol, I must say that, so far, the results have not been vocally impressive. However, the human angle has been inspiring. To see these people travel, and queue up for the auditions, and then practise through the night so that they can be in the final 33 contestants send a sense of awe through me. I am one person who would not even queue up in a 30-man queue to buy cinema tickets. Don't even think of asking me to queue for hours for an audition. It is stressful, being a MI contestant. This contest brings out the will, the determination and the best in people. I am amazed by the fact that even though they are all competing for limited slots, they publicly support the efforts of each other. And many of them are so young. A true God would have been proud of these kids.

I have used the term "true God" here to mean something that is All-powerful, All-knowing, and Omnipresent. And it is INFINITE. I have no way of proving Its Existence, but let us presuppose that a true God exists. Then the purpose of all creation is to express the INFINITE in finite ways. And if you had done so, your Creator would have been so proud of you. Whether you get into heaven or not does not matter. For you would have done your part. You would have allowed your Creator to play out Its divinity through you. Each human being is an adventure for the INFINITE.

I have the opinion that humans should never try to earn their tickets to heaven. Those that seek their life everlasting will definitely lose it. There was a story which I once heard and it goes like this:

There once was a religious man who lived his entire life without sin. He spoke only the truth all the time. One day, he saw a merchant running away from some robbers. The merchant hid in a place nearby. The robbers came up to this religious man and asked for the whereabouts of the merchant. The religious man could not lie, as that would be a sin, and he might not get his place in heaven if he sinned. So he told the robbers where the merchant was hiding. The robbers got hold of the merchant, robbed and slew him. Years later, the religious man died, but was denied entry to heaven. It was not possible, he claimed, as he had never sinned in his entire life. The answer came that heaven doesn't operate that way, and he should have lied when it was required of him to do so. End of story.

I frequently have the nagging idea that religious people are not spiritual. A spiritual person knows in his heart what is decent and what is not, and lives his life in balance, without being too decent or too indecent. And I try to do that. Those of you following my posts will know that I am never too decent. Heheheh! I also control my usage of vulgarities so that I am never too indecent either. In my own way, I do try to achieve balance.

A spiritual person puts God first and religion last. If I were God, I would let spiritual people enter heaven and send religious people straight to hell.

But wait, the folks in hell may complain that the presence of religious people will make it an even worse hell.

Don't complain. Hell wouldn't be hell without religious people.

But I am merciful. So okay then. Maybe I'll send these unwanted cretins back to earth as worms.

Over the weekend, Harry and I met this guy who told us that he had a job in "moan farketing". Moan farketing? Sounds like a dream job with lots of sex. But it turned out that he was actually a handphone salesman. Say lah, properly........."fone marketing".

Apparently, this speech oddity affects certain people at times. It is known as "spoonerism", and involves swapping the first letters of two words. For instance, "hit the sack" gets verbalized as "sit the hack". This happens when the person is speaking fast.

It can also happen also in writing. I sometimes type "hte" instead of "the". Okay, maybe that does not count as spoonerism(which involves two separate words). And I admit that it's not quite in the same league as "moan farketing".

This posting is not complete without some "English Literature". Study the following story because it is going to come out in your comprehension test:

A company wanted to send one of its managers to a branch in a rural area. Nobody wanted to go. Usual lah. Finally, they got a lady executive to go on the understanding that the company would try its best to make her stay there as comfortable as possible.

She brought along her two pet birds in their cages for company. But the kampung kids were full of mischief and were always opening the cage doors. In desperation, she emailed her headquarters:

"In desperate situation. Need a couple of Cage Locks. Urgent!"

The reply by email soon came:

"Your request has been processed and approved. We presumed that when you typed 'Lage', you meant 'Large'. The specially selected guys will be arriving tomorrow."

I hate tongue twisters. It's because my tongue and my mind don't work at the same speed. Although my tongue is flexible enough for whatever the chicks have in mind, I am however, not one of those guys who can lick their own eyebrows. Not that I haven't tried hard enough.

I've often admired people who can spray out a roomful of words like rapid machine-gun fire. And with perfect pronunciation too. They have what I enviously call "precision tongues". Obviously well-equipped to make any woman happy. So for you people out there with fantastic tongues, I've designed a really challenging tongue twister for you. See if you can say this really fast:

"The present pheasant plucker is a pleasant peasant phucker."

Oh, did I forget to warn you that my sayings usually have adult content? Oooooops.....sorry.....

I was glad to know that they managed to stop this driver from trucking out the 103 pangolins over the Thai border. There is no good reason for humans to eat our depleting wildlife stocks in this modern age.

Pangolins are anteaters and are easily captured because of their defense mechanism. When faced with danger, they curl up into a ball, so that their tough exterior scales present a formidable barrier to the predators. This works well against tigers, but not against humans. I am not sure if this defense works well against the elephants or not. Probably not, as the elephants would be able to play a decent game of football with a curled up pangolin. I have often wondered what elephants in the jungle do for entertainment.

Someone once told me that the way to capture a pangolin is to throw a handful of sand at it. The noise which the falling sand makes against the nearby vegetation frightens them. Instead of running away, it reacts by curling into a ball thus allowing a human to approach and pick it up and bag it alive. Perhaps this is how the poachers were able to capture so many pangolins. It makes me feel like throwing sand at the poachers, tie them up into a ball, and present them to the elephants for football practice.

I overslept a bit this morning. But I felt much refreshed. Also, I had recovered from my bodily aches sustained over the weekend vacation. Somehow, the adult body is not as tough as that of a kid. You know that you're not a kid anymore when you need a holiday to recover from your holidays.

When I was a kid, I could fall down 20 times a day and pick myself up without any problems. Every day was like a paid vacation. My mom would often yell at me to stop running, playing, jumping, climbing, chasing the neighbour's cat, or whatever. I was energetic as a kid. But of course, I was not that strong, and couldn't wait to grow up into an adult.


 

Well. it's back to work today. The past few days of vacation had been great. Actually, I was on a secret agent assignment. The vacation bit was just a cover. The rain dragons decided that I deserved my holiday and there was fine weather during the weekend. Yeah, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. However, I think I ate a bit too much, but I am certainly not complaining.

It was raining when I drove to work early this morning. At one stretch of the road, I saw a huge splashing of water in front and I knew at once what happened. A car had just gone through a large pool of water on the road. The driver should have known better than to take a right bend using the fast lane in rainy weather.

Most roads are not on a constant level, but rise and dip. And rainwater often collects where the road dips. At a right bend, the right lane is constructed lower than the left lane. This is known as 'banking', and those who had paid attention to physics in school would know this. Thus, the fast lane in a right bend has a tendency to collect rainwater. When there is a road divider present, the water is often unable to flow to the other side of the road. Combine these factors with a dip in the road and we have a large pool of water on the fast lane.

Drivers on the right lane are often unable to see the pool of water in time because it is around the bend, and the dividers do block the view somewhat. The result of this is a huge splash.

Remembering my physics lesson, I slowed down and took the left lane on approaching a right bend. As I was passing this particular right bend, I saw a large pool of water and the fender of a car sticking out of the water. Some distance from the bend, a car had stopped by the road. It was missing its rear fender. The poor sap must have lost the fender while driving too fast through the pool of water. Fender clips are not known to be the most reliable devices in the world. He was lucky he did not hydroplane and go off the road. The fender was broken in two pieces because I think a bus following behind must have driven over it and cracked it into two. It probably shocked the bus driver as well.
 

Years ago, I was driving on a hilly road. Due to a lapse in concentration, my vehicle went off the road. By normal movie standards, the vehicle would have rolled down the hillside and burst into flames. And the mangled bodies would have been burnt beyond recognition. That did not happen. Instead, it fell on its side on the slope. I rolled down a window, climbed out of the vehicle, clawed my way up the slope and coolly walked over to some astonished bystanders to see if they could help me get the vehicle back on the road again. I was given a second chance in life.

There was a time when I thought I was unemployable. I fluffed every interview I went to by going in unprepared, and left with the "Gone case lah" feeling. Yet somehow, out of the blue, I would be offered a second interview, and later a job.

They say that Life is not meant to be a shuttered room, but a series of doorways. When one door shuts, another door opens. There have been just too many happenings in my life for me not to believe that. If we stop to think about it, we do get lots of second chances. Oh, my way of life can do with much improvement, and I do rant occasionally, and I still do idiotic things. But I am somewhat happy. And they say that the true quality of life is not measured by how much we have done, but by how happy we have been.

Many of us are self indulgent lazy products of a misspent youth. We don't apply ourselves seriously enough. So I am really grateful for all the doors that opened for me when I thought I had reached a dead end.

Yesterday, after work, in a moment of quiet reflection, I penned this verse which I call "Second Chances". It may not be very fantastic, but it nevertheless sums up the amazement I feel at the many, many second chances that I , and everybody, somehow get.
 

SECOND CHANCES

It was a bright and sunny day
And many idle souls were found
While in their comfy beds they lay
They let their quests fall to the ground

It was a bright and sunny day
And angels wept to see such sloth
Why some would keep their dreams at bay
While others marched their conquests forth

It was a cold and rainy night
And many cried that they had not
Taken time to do things right
But instead let things drift and rot

It was a cold and rainy night
The slothful wept while others dance
For only now they saw the light
If only they had seized the chance

Then came first light the early morn
Somehow their troubles lift away
Oh miracles ! A door is born !
IT IS a bright and sunny day.
 

I passed by a male colleague this morning on the way to the gents. This particular colleague has a habit of not washing his hands every time he uses the toilet. He goes in, yanks down his zip, does whatever he need to do, yanks up his zip, and walks out of the toilet. I have to constantly remind myself not to shake hands with him, ever.

For some reason, this lack of hygiene irks me. There must be huge colonies of germs on his hands by now. However, I'm trying hard not to be a judgmental asshole here. There could well be sound logical reasons why he's not into washing his hands.

I'm no Dave Letterman, but I think the top ten reasons probably are:

10. He's totally ignorant about hygiene.
9. He's not ignorant about hygiene, but is fascinated with dirt.
8. He's trying to save water for the company.
7. He doesn't want to wet his hands because they're not waterproof.
6. He doesn't know how to operate the tap.
5. His "Temple of the Filthy" religious cult does not allow washing.
4. He's saving his dirty hands to shake hands with the boss later.
3. He's keeping the germs as pets.
2. His alien DNA will react aversively to water.
1. He thinks that germs are food and he's saving them for later.

In response to my 'intellectual riddle' post yesterday, FireAngel made a comment that ".....having soap in your HOLE hurts like HELL...." And it got me wondering. Is it really that painful? Being a guy, and not having a lower frontal hole, I am unable to imagine the experience. However, I did experienced soap up the rectal hole when I was a kid. There was a queezy feeling, but no pain.

I grew up in a small village(which shall not be named) where the housewives believe in home remedies. There was a loose network of housewives in the neighbourhood who thought that they were better than the government doctors.

As a kid, there were times when I could not shit. To solve the situation, my mother would shove a small bar of soap up my ass, and lo and behold....I would start shitting like nobody's business. The other kids in the neighbourhood faced the same fate if they ever dare to have constipation. There were many a time when I overheard the housewives proudly discussing their quick-fix methods.

"Mrs ........, I've got a kid who can't shit!"
"No shit!"
"That's what I said."
"You need to shove a bar of soap up his ass."
"Can work or not?"
"Sure.......one hundred per cent."
"Which soap is best?"
"The cheapest one lah.....nobody's going to use it after that!"
" I got no cheap soap lah, can use the FAB bar, ahhhh?"
"That one too big! You want him to shit, not scare him shitless."
"Then I got to go out and buy soap..."
"No need.....just use the small hotel soap your husband always whack from the hotels."
"My husband whack soap from the hotels you also know ahhh?"
"Aiyahhh......your neighbour's cousin's wife's third sister told me mah....."
"Which one? The bitchy one who couldn't get married?"
"Not that one. The other one who got pregnant before she was married."
"Ohhh...the hiau hiau one!"
"Yah. Now, let's go and try it out on the kid!"

And so the poor kid had to squat down over a drain while the women went to work on his ass. This home remedy was popular for a time until the housewives decided that it was less troublesome to use laxatives. Thank goodness! If I am not mistaken, it is still being used in some remote places. I bet your mom would have heard about it.

I was reading through my previous posts in this chunk of cyberspace which I call a blog, and I noticed something glaring:
This blog is totally devoid of intellectual content.

And that bugs me.

If I am to have any pretensions at all to a highbrowed thinking mind, I need to fix this quick. What can I post that will give the desired impression to the babes that I am highly intellectual?
Riddles, that’s what! Riddles make people think, and thinking is associated with the intellect.

My problem is, I don’t know any decent riddles.
My OTHER problem is, I do know an indecent one which I heard a long time ago.

Well, I’m staking my claim to intellectual progress with this riddle.

Warning: The following content is somewhat crude. Read at your own discretion.


Riddle:
What is the difference between a woman deep in prayer and a woman in the shower?

Answer:
One has a soul, full of hope.
The other has a hole, full of soap.

I was in Amcorp Mall yesterday. Yes, I know, it’s the shopping mall for retired old pensioners. You see, I managed to persuade a Hot Babe to see 'Spiderman 2' with me. I knew that I would not be able to get tickets at 1Utama, Mid Valley or any of the hip and happening places. So what to do? We went to the flea-bitten Amcorp Mall instead. We queued up for tickets at 11.40 a.m. for the 12:15 show. There were plenty of seats available. However, the cinema seats were not as good as that in the TGV Cineplex of 1Utama. There was also an irritating hum from the speakers. Towards the last 5 minutes of the show, Hot Babe saw a rat scampering across the aisle.

Guys, take my word for it: the Amcorp mall is not the most brilliant place to try to impress a girl. The shitty cinema aside, the show was kick-ass. When I was reading Spiderman comics in my misspent childhood, I used to think that Doc Octopus was a really dumb concept for a villain. Not anymore. In the movie, he was simply awesome, the way his extra limbs moved so fluidly.
They were like elephant trunks, only longer.

After the show, we walked around a bit and saw lots of people selling old vinyl records. There's even a shop on the first floor that repairs old turntables. The scene was all very 'fifties', and we skedaddled out of there. I needed to salvage my credibility. So I took Hot Babe to another complex to drink Starbucks coffee instead.

Political leaders should always declare their assets to show that they have nothing to hide. That way, we, the public, can tell if they were born corrupted, or became corrupted only after they were elected. If this helps to prevent corruption, then I'm all for it.

But politicians in Third World countries have been slow to pick up this practice. Which is why massive corruption thrives without shame in so many Third World countries. Damn! We have so much to learn.

In the U.S., Senator John Kerry is widely expected to challenge George Bush for the U.S. presidency this November. Like any other politician, he is expected to declare what he has.

So ladies and gentlemen, here he is, Senator Kerry, declaring his precious asset:



And here are two Third World political leaders, from China, responding inappropriately to Senator Kerry's declaration.



Okay, you two, knock it off !
That's definitely not polite behaviour !
And besides, we don't really know if Kerry was referring to his length.......or thickness.

If this is gonna work at all, we're gonna hafta make ALL political leaders declare their assets. No exceptions tolerated. We're going all out to prevent corruption, and we mean business, yeah!

* Updated 12 July 2004: I've changed my mind in response to daysleeper's comments. Nobody should declare their assets anymore.

I attended a MOST boring meeting yesterday.
It was so fucking boring that two flies went into a coma in mid-flight.
And the mosquitoes bit each other viciously to stay awake.

I could not keep my eyes opened any longer. Then mercifully, the lights were dimmed and the Powerpoint presentation came on. What a relief! Our LCD projector was not very bright so the lights had to be turned down low. Everybody took the opportunity to sleep through the presentation. The only one left awake was the presenter, of course. It wouldn't be a meeting if he were to fall asleep as well, would it?

When the presentation ended, we all woke up totally refreshed, and commented to each other, "Man, that was a brilliant presentation! Superb, and very well done!"

Of course, none of us had any idea WTF we were talking about.

There were times in the past when I was called upon to give a presentation. Instead of using Powerpoint, I would give out hardcopy handouts. Then I would go through the handout notes while presenting the facts.

Some of my colleagues complained about my style of presentation, "How ancient!. Where got chance to sleep through that kind of low-tech presentation? Use lah, Powerpoint!"

Well, screw 'em. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is gonna sleep through my presentation.

Yesterday, while blogging on the topic of mynahs, I mentioned that I only saw mynahs and no other bird species feeding along the highway. I suggested the idea that somehow there must be a BN government in the bird kingdom that awarded the highway concession to the mynahs, and now they have a free buffet every morning. Oooops!!!! That was the most ridiculous idea I have ever had. I mean, have you ever known the BN gahmen to give away anything for free? I'm so sorry that I insulted your intelligence. Please forgive me.

To make up for my momentary lapse in logic, I searched my brain cells last night to try to figure out why the birds that are found along the highway are mostly mynahs. And I believe, I have found the answer. Not that this bit of knowledge is important, but you can never tell, can you?

A few years ago, I was on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand, trying to do a spot of.....er....birdwatching. One day, after a hectic morning of inspecting some migratory Golden-backed Bed-Thrashers congregating on the beach, baring their fronts and arching their backs, I found that my eyeballs were getting stiff in their sockets and were starting to cramp. It was time to give the eyes some much needed rest and relaxation from combat duty. So I wandered into a small village to see if I could gently glance at some local species instead.

The village was small, with about thirty houses. Towards one end of the village, I saw a flock of mynahs frolicking around a small muddy pool of water beside the village road. Each time a villager walked by them, they would fly off before settling down again later.

Moments later, I saw two young boys on a Honda cub motorcycle. The boys were only about 11 years of age, and definitely way too young to have a legal motorcycle license. The motorcycle made a very slow pass by the flock of mynahs, but the birds did not fly off. I think they did not perceive the moving vehicle as a threat. When the boys were close enough to the mynahs(about 2 metres), the pillion rider pulled out a home-made catapult and shot at the birds. He missed. The birds flew up into the air just a bit, but settled down again almost immediately. It's almost like they were not impressed by the danger.

The boys made many passes on the motorcycle and each time, the pillion rider would take a pot shot at the birds. I think he must be trying to capture a bird to keep in a cage. But he was a damn lousy shot. After many, many tries, and missing each time, the boys got down from the motorcycle and stared at it's engine. I think that they must have run out of petrol, and were figuring out a way for it to run on air alone.

Suddenly, an old woman came out of one of the houses, looked at what the two boys were doing, and screamed at the lads:
"#%^$%@$*&^*U@*^%^!! #%$^#$#%$^#!!! #$@$$#@ %@^%%&!!!*"

Now, my understanding of the Thai language was practically zero, but I am going to make a serious effort to translate what she said anyway:
"Come in, my dear darlings! 'Cos I want to feed you some healthy tom yam soup!"

The two boys fled immediately. I guess they didn't really like her healthy tom yam soup.

Once the two boys were gone, there was nothing happening in the village. Time stood still, and I was totally bored out of my skull. So I walked back to the beach, wondering if the Bed-Thrashers were still there. They were. And they had been joined by a group of Brown-Breasted Wagtails that must had just flown in from the Caribbean. I didn't have long to wait before one by one, they started arching their backs.

But what's the point to this story? Oh yeah.....mynahs are not afraid of moving vehicles.

I almost banged a bird this morning. I mean the feathered kind, and in a non-sexual context. It was a mynah(picture here). It foolishly tried to fly right into the path of my car, and then it suddenly realized whom it was messing with. I saw it brake in midair, altered its flight path with some fancy wing flaps, and then flew away in the opposite direction. But by then, it had caused me to apply my brakes. What an idiot. The whole thing happened so fast I hardly had time to recognize its face.

Those of you who use the highway often may have noticed the mynahs along the road. They like to hover around the toll booth like their presence was necessary for toll collection. They used to hunt live insects in the fields, but today, they are often found along the highways. I tell ya, all these came about because of modern development.

With development, highways were built through fields and forests. During the night, cars travel along the road with their headlights on. The insects from the surrounding areas are attracted to the headlights and fly towards them. The insects then bounce of the bonnets and windscreens of the speeding cars and end up dead along the side of the highway. In the morning, the mynahs wake up and discover that the dead insects are theirs for the taking.

They shout out merrily to each other, "Hey, it's a buffet out there! And free also!"

Pretty soon, the mynahs give up hunting for live insects because they find it easier to gather dead ones. It is a drastic career change from being a hunter to becoming a gatherer. How did the dumb birds manage to make the switch so smoothly? I believe I have the answer. It's called "The Dining Experience".

When birds eat insects, they swallow them whole. And when a mynah catches a live insect and swallows it, the insect struggles all the way down the bird's gullet. Even in the stomach, the poor insect would still be lashing out in its death throes, flailing about with its many feet like there is no tomorrow......because, frankly, for it there is no tomorrow. And the bird would feel the battle going on inside its body. But what to do? A bird's gotta eat. So when the highways came along, the mynahs started asking themselves, "Why eat live insects when you can eat dead ones?" They then started to learn new skills, such as how to avoid traffic, how to estimate the speed of a car and how to hop out of the way.

Many mynahs pay the price for being too slow to get out of the way of a speeding car. You can sometimes see dead mynahs along the road that ended up as roadkill. And then there are those who think that they are invincible. They don't think like that for very long. It is no coincidence that there are more mynahs around the tool booths. I suspect it's because the cars slow down near the toll gates making it easier for the mynahs to avoid them.

I would love to write a scientific paper on this but I do not think there's money in it. Many species of birds eat insects. But why is it only the mynahs are found along the highways? I do not know how nature works, but I think there is a BN government in the bird kingdom, and that somehow, the mynahs got awarded the highway concession.

An Indonesian woman once told me how to choose a puppy.
"Avoid those puppies with spotted tongues!” she said.
Apparently, puppies with spotted tongues can be very naughty and are not as docile as those with clean unspotted pink tongues. I thought that this must be an Indonesian old wives’ tale until I met an Indian veterinarian who told me that his mother used to tell him to avoid choosing puppies with spotted tongues or curly tails.
What’s wrong with curly tails?
Well, he said that his mother used to say that if the puppy’s tail is bent, the attitude of the dog tends to be bent as well. It will be more naughty than normal puppies. Over the years as a vet, he has seen the old wives’ tale bear out quite well statistically.
So, my advice for those choosing puppies would be:
“Check out the tongue and the tail.”
Strangely, many guys also seem to follow this advice in choosing girlfriends. Two days after going out with a girl and they are trying to check out the girl’s tongue and tail. And if the girl won’t let them, they somehow think that the girl’s a bitch.

But, wait....I’m losing focus here. Let’s get back to the subject of pets.

These apparent tongue and tail faults do not make the puppy a bad pet. It just means that you will need to spend more time on their training. For all we know, naughty dogs may be more street-smart and better protectors than docile dogs.

Kittens are the cheapest pets you can find, because, frankly, they’re free. There is no need to go to PAWS, SPCA or the pet shops to look for kittens. Many people abandon kittens outside vet offices, so all you have to do is to scour around the vet offices and the vet should have kittens that he would gladly give away for free. Frequently, the kittens are already dewormed before being given away. The vet would be so happy to see you because he would have gained a new client as you would have to take the kitten back to him for vaccinations and stuff. Also, if nobody takes the kittens, he would have to put them down.

If you look carefully around the Malaysian coffeeshops, you may notice a lot of stray cats having hooked tails. Their tails end in a knot, thus making it look like a hook. I am told that this is a sign of inbreeding. Therefore, with cats, you need to check out the tails as well. Again, a hooked tail does not imply a bad pet. But inbred animals may have less resistance to diseases, meaning that you may need to take your pet to the vet more often.

So, again let me present another bit of advice:

“Check out the tail while you are checking out pussy.”

Gosh, that sounded obscene.

A Saudi blogger has some interesting pics of stray cats in Saudi Arabia in his post on 22nd June 2004. Apparently, these cats live by the dumps and have feline tribes. What struck me most is their odd elongated appearance. Check it out.

They were showing Saddam on TV yesterday night. He looked thinner than his previous pictures as he was being charged in the Iraqi court, but his gestures showed that he was not going to go down without a struggle. I have not been able to contact my Iraqi friend this morning. He did promised me a lunch when Saddam was put away for good.

I think Malaysians will never be able to fully comprehend the horrors the Iraqis went through. Anwar got a black eye in prison, and we were already horrified. But many Iraqis had their ears sliced off when they were in Saddam's prison. Iraqi physicians were frequently forced by Saddam to amputate ears and tongues of opponents and also army deserters as punishment. I read the news somewhere that there are moves to get these mutilated people some free reconstructive surgery in the new Iraq. I hope that it's true because there are a few thousand of them.

But the biggest problem facing the Iraqi population is insanity. I do not think people are able to live in high stress situations for a long time without becoming mentally scarred. And of course, there are the opportunists, like the shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who were only too willing to take advantage of the people. He mounted an uprising in Karbala and Najaf which was not backed by the residents of Karbala and Najaf or even by the shiite hierachy headed by Ayatollah Sistani, for his own political agenda.

By the time the uprising was over, 1500 shiite fighters were dead, lured by his call of "fight for Allah and you will go to paradise". And all this fighting was done in the face of the opposing fatwa from Ayatollah Sistani "instructing the population to remain calm and to not interfere with coalition actions." Most of them were killed by the Americans, but there were some killed by the local resident 'Thulfikar Army'.

Pity the poor Sadrist shiite fighter. He has no way of knowing if his fallen dead comrade will be allowed into paradise by going against a fatwa from the Grand Ayatollah. What is so insane about this is that Sadr sacrificed 1500 young men to kill just only 19 American soldiers, and in the end, instead of fighting to the death, he copped out to join the political process. Why not fight to the death and die a martyr? Obviously his plans did not include dying. And his tactics of using children to ferry ammunition must surely earn him the wrath of a true God. The Sistani clique knew that Sadr's true intention was not to occupy the cities, but rather to exercise control over the shiite direction. However, that clique would rather stand aside and let the Americans fight the battle for them. The whole thing is just so insane. It reminds me of those Chinese kungfu movies where leaders of a martial arts clans jostle with each other and nonchalently sacrificed their followers to further their own ambition. The Washington Post gave an interesting battle-by-battle account of the uprising which ended without a conclusion.

They say that Time heals. I hope this applies to insanity as well. An Iraqi blogger once mentioned that maybe the Iraqi people don't deserve democracy, because they went looting like mad when Saddam was deposed. And of course, mad people don't suit democracy. Well, I hope they get cured soon.

It's going to be lunchtime soon. I think I shall make one more attempt to contact my Iraqi friend.

Women should not overdo the slimming fad. Before they know it, their clothes don't fit and they're gonna need a whole new wardrobe. But that is no excuse not to put on an underwear.



Lord, what am I saying? I adore women without underwear.