Post Independance, Merdeka so what

Post-Merdeka...recalling our history as we Malaysians in school have read in our history textbooks, here's a bried crash course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Merdeka

I am working today because Singapore isn't celebrating this day. They celebrated theirs, 22 days ago. I think they should celebrate because its also the day this little island got liberated from the colonials. Then I can have two holidays ma....

Kenny Sia blogs about how un-malaysian we can get, makes me wonder, maybe colonialisation happens in a different way today. Looks at how BIG MNCs flourishing in our country, how MTV invade our lives, every corner we have McDonalds, KFC and my favorite Starbucks. McD is like a family restaurant here when in US, its somewhere similar to our roti prata shop. I have friends who wanna be black, some who wanna be white, and some just wannabees. Don't get me wrong that I am against western culture and i am not a fundamentalist. I just envy the japanese and koreans because of the fact they can asimilate their culture and the western culture making them unique and strong.

So, creating our own unique identity and culture , will be day we merdeka.

A hot fact I got to know from a friend ,

si ngapura
Malaya ---> Malay a ---> Malaysia. 1963 thats when we got our name. This fact somehow got truncated out from our textbooks. Machiavellians !!!

Anyways, i find that malaysians are pretty united overseas, but squabbles back home. Hence the saying , never wash dirty laundry outside ma...:)

Bringing Down the IRs ?

Book Reviews ... I am poor at them. Never did a good job in school.

Anyways...told myself this year, I am going to read more.

I was at Borders and miss JB die Hard have some printed coupons for 20% discount. I didn't any titles in mind at that moment. Can't resist the temptation of such good discount, I scrounged around. I came across this book " Bringing down the House" at the gambling section.

I heard about this book before some time ago. So I bought it. Its about how a group of MIT students reveal how they manage to win millions from a few large casinos in Las Vegas and some other places legally. They played blackjack, which through the words of Kevin Lewis " BlackJack is the only game in the casino that is beatable over an extended period of time because blackjack is subject to continous probability.

To put it simply. Once an Ace is out, the chances of getting another ace in the deck reduces. Before I start reading the book, I thought these people have great memory skills, to be able to count the cards literally i.e. 3 ACE, 2 Kings...4 Queens...In fact , they have a system. ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting ) . Too bad , I can't use this techniques during Chinese New Year to win money. Sigh !!!

The book is more about how they work as a team and trust each other as a team.

A intriguing and good read for engineers(myself) or mathematicians. With the Singapore IR coming up, we can start practicing now because its perfecting legal. However, a casino can always refuse you.

A better review see , http://www.techsoc.com/bringing.htm

As for my reading, I am still stuck with Freakanomics, going to start Blink ( recomended by SoupLad ), and going to get Good Omen (recomended by VirginPornstar )

Happy Reading !!!

Ghost Game

Souplad, BeerBrat, a few others and I went to watch "Ghost Game", a thai made horror flick. Not a bad show. I googled it and it seems its a very controversial movie that sparks tension between Cambodia and Thailand. It seems that this movie is modelled after the Khmer Rouge torture. Go figure ... http://www.tharum.info/2006/05/10/ghost-game-film-made-in-thailand/ . Such cruelty existed in the past, and its over. Just be glad it ain't happening right now.

My review. Not very scary. Partly due to the fact I am not a fan of horror movies. It has an unexpected ending though.

Rating : 3/5 stars

Back to blogging...yes, I have been lazy.

a little intro.

I am a Malaysian. ( some ignorant ang-mor thinks I am Malay !!!)

Born, bred in a small town.

I speak Malay, English, hokkien, Cantonese and Mandarin(Malaysian style).

Glad my childhood is in the era with no Xbox, no extra tuition, no stress exams and seems my hometown is much of the world I know.

Went to a National School. Only bad thing is I didn't learn mandarin.

CLick ... fast forward ....

finished Local university ( trust me, getting in is like winning the lottery) , and now contributing to Singapore economy. Irony ain't it.

This will be the place where I rant all my life in Singapore. Here for 5 years already and I still say "bu de kong", " chi mei yi sia" .

Stay tuned.

Malaysians and Singaporeans differ in a way despite the proximity we shared. I have the best of both worlds. :P