Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 11:18 PM | 0 comments  


For some reason, I was grinning from ear to ear when I first saw this clip on Discovery Channel. It gives me a fuzzy kind of feeling and also of hope... and almost too naive. I'm quite a fan of the channel.

Now everybody go... Boom De Ah Dah! Boom De Ah Dah!
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 10:20 PM | 0 comments  
13 Rejab 1402H, when Muslims were performing Friday prayers, I came into existence. It's now 13 Rejab 1429H. By calculation of the Hijri calendar, that makes me 27.
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 10:59 PM | 0 comments  
The Ring

I got a missed call today. I didn't pick it up as I was riding. The number was strange but I quickly dismissed the call as a ricochet call from some foreign country.

*****
I got home to find out that my house got the same call from that same number. Nobody answered the call for safety sake. There was a report in Berita Harian of people dying in Indonesia after receiving a mysterious phone call or SMS. It was warning people not to answer calls that has strange prefixes. I have my suspicions to the credibility of the report but it's something I would not entirely dismiss either. Perhaps black magic decided to keep up with times and got an upgrade.

I needed to get the bottom of this and started to browse the web if any of these is true. Some indonesian sites has this to say:

Ketua Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) Sumut Prof DR H Abdullah Syah, MA mengimbau masyarakat tidak mempercayai rumor yang "berbau" syirik tersebut. Menurut dia, rumor tersebut sangat meresahkan dan tidak perlu dipercaya karena dapat merusak akidah (keyakinan) beragama. "Hidup dan mati manusia telah ditentukan Tuhan dan bukan disebabkan karena menerima telepon atau SMS," katanya.

I conclude that the Berita Harian report is very likely a rumour gone wild. If you think about it, it's from a plot of the movies.

Then I decided to google the number : 000190853203. It seems that people have been getting these calls for some time. You can check out the link but in short, its a scam.


The Ring 2

Another incident with phones happened about 2 months back. I was calling a friend over my phone. Out of nowhere, I heard a lady's voice. My friend was no longer on the other side. The lady was saying, "Ouh... sorry". Then she hung up.

I called my friend again. He told me that he got cut off as well and found himself talking to some guy. The incident got me thinking,

"was it just an honest mistake of an operator?"
"do we even need operators for our local calls?"
"who was really on the other side, who seemed to realise she made a mistake?"
"are my calls being tracked?"

Technology made life easy for man. But it also empowers the people who has control of that technology.... and what if that technology falls into the wrong hands and we get exploited.

Am I just being paranoid or is there a genuine need to ensure that technology doesn't fall in the wrong hands. I shall elaborate in later posts.

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Sekian lama sudah ku tak memblog. Bukan takde cerita, macam2 cerita.

It's not that I don't want to blog in Malay, but I suppose I want to cater to a wider audience. I shall be blogging in Malay in some of my future posts. Furthermore its Bulan Bahasa.

Apart from an introspective marathon, I went to Terengganu for holiday last month. Went with the whole family as well as my big bro's new family. It was fun on the whole. Learned some things about myself. The only downside of the trip was hurting my little finger(pinkie). That re-triggered a whole new episode to my right arm saga.

And the the final part of the trilogy will continue in the middle of October. I don't know what the outcome will be like. Contemplating too much on it only drains me out. Some things are merely out of our control. As what my secondary Maths teacher would say, "We'll cross the river when we reach the bridge." My Maths teacher loved to quote chinese proverbs. I hope I'm not butchering the language. (eh Fir, engkau bulan bahasa.... bahasa aper?) In principle, that's not how I go about life. I am very much quite the opposite. A tad too much perhaps. Another lesson for me to learn. Don't dwell too much on the future which is never certain.

The cycle of life :-
1) Hope/Vision
2) Effort and sprinke it with doa (without effort, you've fallen into ghurur)
3) Tawakal
4) Syukur if your prayers is answered, redha if u don't get it (but ur effort is never a waste)
5) Repeat step 1

Hope and expectations. That's the ingredient to living. I used to tell myself not to have too high an expectation in life. I learned that lesson cos I got disappointed when my expectations did not materialize. So, I went on life trying not to expect too much from anybody or anything. But, that was my major mistake. Without expectations, my soul died. Without expectations, one becomes a living dead.

I am focusing more on my now. I am currently working as a temp staff at Singapore Botanic Gardens, at times having lunches in the park. It's been great so far. Once in a while, I will imagine what's waiting for me on the other side of the bridge. One thing will be certain though, I will only know for sure when I reach the bridge, and cross it.
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