creaturefreak

THE SCHOOL

2010-04-30T21:08:00.008+08:00

"It all started out as a dream. Hope THE SCHOOL entertains you"

THE SCHOOL - EPISODE 1

Tonight was a little different than the rest. It was raining and lightning heavily outside. My friends and I were on a bus ride to night school. It was a newly renovated school for adults to upgrade and gain knowledge. The road was rather dark and lonely with several cars passed by. The bus somehow slowed down, as the rain got heavier and heavier. However, the bus driver managed to guide on the road and safely arrive to the night school. Looking out from the bus window, I felt tired and wanted to rest on my bed. It wasn’t a great night to study when I was supposed to sleep on my bed while listening to some smooth music. Like it or not, I got off from the bus and sprang towards the school’s main entrance. My friends, Tyson and Jesse, on the other hand, were showered with raindrops. I was lucky because I knew it was going to rain tonight and also brought myself an umbrella.

We managed to attend the class but we were a little late due to the rainy weather. Anyway, the instructor was fine with us since our reason to be late was absolutely acceptable. As usual, the class was rather dull and repetitive. Throughout the class, we almost felt asleep. Well, I started writing messages to my classmates in a piece of paper. In the note, I wrote, “This class is bored to death”. Tyson wrote back, “Let’s go out for a break”. Jesse suggested us to hang out at the cafeteria. Well, we eventually ended up agreeing on his suggestion. To go out from the class together at once would trigger some suspicious feedback from the instructor; therefore, we came up different excuses to escape the dullness of the class. My excuse was simple that I needed to go to washroom. Tyson wanted to get some drinks from the cafeteria, and Jesse wanted to hand in his already-due assignment.

As we got out from the class and to the cafeteria, we were laughing like kids in the hallway. Out of nowhere, we felt relaxing and free. In a table, in front of a cashier counter, we sat there to chill out and laugh at everyone’s jokes. The cafeteria was quite empty during this hour since most students would probably stay at home, watching American Idol. It was just tiring and hectic for me to study and at the same time working part-time. I needed extra income to sustain my busy lifestyle. Well, we took our turn to order our drinks. Tyson went first to order a cold orange juice, and Jesse got himself a hot chocolate. They both came back to the table and started sipping in their delicious drinks. First, I didn’t feel like drinking at all, but somehow my throat got thirsty. As usual, I went to line-up and wanted to order something warm and refreshing.

My turn to order my drink finally arrived. However, the counter girl gave me a smile for like few seconds. To me, it was a little weird. I thought she knew me from somewhere or she was smiling at someone behind me. I slowly turned around and saw nothing. My friends, who sat on the table in front of the counter, disappeared. To my sudden surprise, I turned back to the counter girl. During the process of turning back, the cozy environment, the bright walls of the school and the sweet surrounding of the cafeteria unimaginably turned to a gloomy and eerie old school. The newly painted wall had turned into a rusty charcoal-like wall with unpaved bricks. The smiling girl had vanished as I finally turned back and looked at her. Now, the school had turned into total darkness. This was something daunting.

--== Breathe - Demonstration ==--

2010-03-19T21:00:00.005+08:00

[Please be informed that this is a blog series. Please start reading from the beginning if you have read so. Enjoy!]

Constant frustration and immediate tiredness are encasing my whole body, especially my mind. I can't really think of anything right now. My blood is not running through my brain. Maybe revenge or maybe justice is needed here. Whatever it is, I had enough. I am used to say that Life is hopeless but that doesn't mean we don't do anything. We don't live for nothing but we die for something, something to be remembered for our own good cause. Something, I believe, will make a difference, even if it’s just saving the lives of others.

Karl protected his family by leaving his country. Karl’s dad protected his son by staying away from the politics. What is left for Karl is nothing but the soul of self-enlightenment. He is living his life day by day, hoping he could rest in peace on his last day and also knowing that the world will turn into a beautiful place.

To me, he was living his life with full of regrets and hatreds. I know that time heals everything, but time will run out too. This is my defining moment to take any necessary action for the sake of life, hope, justice and survival.

There are human who attach their bodies with self-detonated bombs, but there are also people, like us, with fear of losing freedom. Dangerously, we don’t need to use bombs or weapons; we ourselves explode without any fear of death because our main fundamental rights are gone.

The Day after the Demonstration

Holevent: The city suffered 2 major blows simultaneously when the explosion killed 20 and injured 40 at the Food Bank and the demonstration hit hard at the city area with 50,000 protestors. Government has managed to control the rally with force, causing some bloodshed and major injuries to at least 200 people.

“We believe that today’s explosion and demonstration were linked,” said John Thompson, head of the Holevent Police forces department. He believes that today’s action was barbaric because some demonstrators were trying to create a diversion by blowing up the food bank and simultaneously, making a chaotic protest. Thompson continued, “ We decided to use rubber bullets and tear gases to control the situation when our men were harmed with stones and gun shots”. On the other side of the story, most protesters were absolutely depressed over the Food bank explosion incident; furthermore, the governments put a possible blame on the demonstrators for creating such a barbaric action. James, one of the protesters, claimed that the police was using forces and not rubber bullets. Now, the streets were scattered with bloods and bullets. A huge amount of pressure is pilling up on the government. They will investigate on the incident and provide a substantial report within weeks. The government has yet to come up with a full report on death of several protesters. The streets are closed for ….

Having stopped reading today’s headlines. I am stuck with a mixed feeling of frustration. Rumors of government’s conspiracy on the food bank explosion are all over the town. I quickly dash to my office at West Avenue Road. On my way to my office, there are people crying and shouting. My mind, too, starts cursing the fucking killers. The roads are scattered with old newspapers and broken protest signboards, written with words such as GOV’T SUCKS and GOV’T KILLS US.

I have reached my office and quickly dash to my manager’s room, asking for the permission to do the newspaper’s investigation on yesterday’s brutal explosion and also the demonstration. My manager, with a sudden shock on his face, looks at me for like 5 seconds. Then, my manager mentions, “ Son, This is going to be a road-to-hell investigation. You will jeopardize your life. Are you sure you wanna do it?”

Wazzap!!!

2009-07-25T19:49:00.005+08:00

Dear all,

I'd like to apologize. It's been a long time that I have been stop blogging. Yeah! I am quite busy with work and other stuff. Well, I know some of you are still waiting for the "Breathe" next post. I promise it will continue soon. I just need to find the right time and moment to write the story. Anyway, I am planning something bigger. Will keep you updated if this is going to happen. Take care. Cheers!

Regards,
Ronnie

--== Breathe: Karl Petroski ==--

2009-05-26T23:00:00.004+08:00

11:oo am

Karl is lying on the side of the road with all the dirt and rubbles on his back. I quickly make a phone call while trying to remove him away from the obstruction. His face is pale and grayish. Every single minute seeing Karl suffers from the pain and burnt makes me feel angry over life. Do we all have to end up dying with pains and unachieved dreams? I always tell him not to look back in anger but this is too much. He is the man who has gone through life. He is the man who opens up my mind about life. I have experienced many downs but nothing compares to Karl’s. Finally, the ambulance arrives and we both manage to head to the nearest hospital. Karl is one hack of a great friend and neighbor of mine. I think he deserves to be mentioned here.

Karl Petroski began his life with hope as a child when he was born in this land called Garm. When time came, he had a family, his wife and his son. Times were good back then, his business thrived and he was thinking of having a second son. When suddenly his wife struck by an incurable cancer, she fought hard to remain alive but she failed in the end. When she died, her son was only 2. He struggled to keep his cafe business going as he lost his best partner, his best manager and most of all, his dearest wife. People started staying indoors once they heard the incident is going to happen again, people feared. Only those who did not believe in the incident roam the streets and occasionally came by his store for a cup of herbal tea to pick up and tell rumors, from time to time, the secret police agents would come by his café for a coffee and some small talk if he heard about the rumors.

He kept on telling them, “I’m only a small café owner, I know nothing. I just want to put food on the table for my son.”

On some occasions, He heard that the incident is going to happen again and it will no longer be rumors. This time they said that it was going to wipe out the Pamiri once and for all. He heard about this countless times, sometimes he doubt what they had to say. As days go by, people started to disappear. He decided to close his café in fear of the safety of both himself and his son.

Some six decades ago, when people from another border came across into Garm, His father as another immigrant from another land took this opportunity to open a business to cater for the Parimi (Pah-ree-mee) People. These people brew a special type of herbal tea that they often drink. As time went by, these people took up the natural resources and their descendents started to produce the herbal tea and soon famine struck as lands that are suppose to grow food became infertile due to the tea plantations. Land in the area was very much little. The country plunged into a food shortage and this was when war broke out. The Parimi descendents claimed that the tea plantations contributed significantly to the economy and they were peaceful people governed by rich warlords, while the government claimed that it was because of them that everyone else had to suffer.

The government started using a secret way to create tensions and conflicts between the elites and the regular farmers. Little did they know that this conflict had created a massive ethnic cleasing. War broke out at such a time where people literally have to hide at home or runaway from home. Karl’s father wasn’t Parimi. He was sparred by the government and the Parimi attacks. Both sides favored Karl’s father because of things Karl’s father did in the past and respected his neutrality in this conflict. The Parimi descendants were scattered everywhere and the government went on full scale and tried to eliminate these people, the government claimed success. However, global tensions started to kick in and forced the government to maintain peace.

Karl’s generation was not taught of the former government’s brutal campaign, the Parimi people started to blend into Karl’s generation after many years in hiding. When Karl was much younger, his father used to tell him of his struggles and how he came to this land of hope and opportunity. His father kept reminding Karl to be a proud immigrant and always be strong when in times of fear and trouble. When his father died during a heroic war for the country, Karl never wanted to follow his father’s path. A path he knew it was not fair to his son. His son needed him so much. Therefore he opened up a business and the business continued to grow.

From time to time, Karl would wonder why his friends around him disappeared. Soon he realized, those who were and had Parimi blood were single out in the society and soon denied equal citizenship rights under the new government policy. Having his father’s instincts in him, Karl knew exactly why when his father talked about his struggles, his father would tear up and stop the moment as his father talked about the Parimi. When Karl was a kid, he used to question and ask his father, however, his father would always tell him, “Son, you will know why I always cry when you are older.”

~written by Morgan aka Morgie
~edited by Ronnie

--=== Breathe: 2040 ===--

2009-05-12T22:28:00.007+08:00

[Note: If you are going to read this story, please be advised to start reading from episode 1]

Episode 2: 2040

With few more seconds to go, the earth will turn 2040. There are many changes throughout the years. However, life has not gotten any better. I decide not to do anything tonight. I just want to lay back, relax and enjoy my glass of 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon and also a touch of fusion music. Tomorrow is going to be a tough day. A good and sweet night sleep is all I want tonight. I have not had any great sleeps since last few weeks. I suffered to the point that I had to take sleeping pills. It seems everything is physically and mentally haunting me. Good night.

“We only have short dreams in our sleeps, but real dreams are long way gone”

1/1/2040

My microtech watch suddenly wakes me up with an update on the breaking news at 7:50am in the early morning. It’s an update on the current breaking news. Usually, I won’t bother reading the text message on my watch but this time, something very important arises. With a glance on the text on my watch, I see something “…lia is in a turmoil”. With a great curiosity, I switch on my OLEMX and start watching the breaking news. Southeastern Australia suffers a major blow on water shortage crisis. Most lands have turned into deserts. With a slightest wind blown on the area, most buildings and houses will be covered with dust. Today, farmers and business people have gathered around in Adelaide city area to demonstrate the lack of water shortage in the city. Australian government is facing a major blow of water distribution.

Well, it's going to get really terrible. If they can’t fix it, they will just face another major problem of food shortage. In fact, food is scarce in everywhere. Major trading is very limited nowadays. So, the idea of Adam Smith’s free trade is rather irrelevant nowadays. Nations that suffer from staple output will eventually face a devastating indirect consequence.

Five minutes past 8:30am, another breaking news happens in the states. The state of California suffers a major forest wildfire. With multiple areas being affected, firefighters are struggling to control the fire. 100,000 residential homes are going to be burnt down. California has multiple sites with high risk of getting another fire outcomes. Massive evacuation is in placed.

I quickly switch off the screen of my OLEMX and prepare to check out on a rally outside today. It’s just 3 blocks down the road. I can’t wait to go out and make a voice. It is a rally that against on the issues of food and water distribution. Most immigrants, jobless people and also different class of citizen are being treated unfairly. The distribution of food and drink vouchers is unequally distributed in favor to local or native people and not to mention, rich business representatives. Today is the day where thousands of people from different background and culture are coming out to make a stand to destroy the food and drink distribution quota. Enough is enough. A fair food allocation must be re-considered by the government. However, there is another side of this story.

From my apartment house, I hear demonstrators shouting “Food and Drink For Everyone”. It’s going to be a big crowd. I can’t wait to get there. I quickly rush to Karl’s apartment and impatiently knock on his door. With a drained look on his face, he opens the door gently. This is how our conversation goes.

Me: Hey, Let’s go! The demo is going to start.
Karl: Yea..h I know, but I’m hungry and got no more vouchers.
Me: It’s okay. I got some. Let’s go. Hurry up. I’ll wait you outside. Be quick!
Karl: Yeah! Thanks

10:11am
We both arrives the food bank distribution center. Well, as usual, the line-up is insanely long. We talk a bit and the time goes by quite fast. Luckily, most people are heading to the demonstration today. It makes us a lot easier to grab our food. As far as I am concerned everything seems fine. In fact, we grab our hot coffees and some bread that is freshly baked from the oven. We will be able to get to the demonstration in time. Karl realizes that he has to get a daily newspaper from a newspaper stand just outside the center. Reading newspaper is just his daily routine activity. Well, I guess he prefers reading than watching.

Karl: Hey I gotta get a newspaper.
Me: Okayy, I’ll walk first.
Karl: ya! I’ll catch you later.

10:31am
Out of nowhere, a sudden blast hits me from behind. It violently shakes the streets. A gust of explosion pushes me on the ground. A sound-like buzz is jamming my ears, and my body is covered with black dusk. I can’t hear anything. I am in shock for 10 seconds before I could realize that Karl is behind me. I turn back and run all the way back to look for Karl. The environment is so intense that I see people with burnt faces coming out from the center. They shout for helps. I can’t see things clearly. My vision is very blur. Smokes are everywhere. Canned food and broken glasses are scattered all over the place. Finally, I manage to find Karl outside the newspaper stand. Karl is …… (to be continued)

---===Breathe===---

2009-04-28T23:17:00.020+08:00

Episode 1 - Pilot

Day by day and night by night, I keep on thinking about life. Finding ways to live life to the fullest is just what people aim for. It’s easy to say that in words but, life, itself, has a new meaning for those who were born in a hopeless world. Today is supposed to be a special day for mankind as earth is making a history. As far as I am concerned, the street is empty and nobody is celebrating New Year’s Eve. I pitifully look out at the window from my old rusty apartment and notice a thick layer of hazy smog that entirely covers up the whole lifeless concrete city, leaving an uncertain and unclear vision of hope. As I have mentioned earlier, only with hope, we can only live life meaningfully. Few days ago, I went to a library and borrowed a great novel, "The Beautiful things that Heaven Bears", written by Dinaw Mengestu. I was profoundly touched by the quote mentioned in the book. This is how it goes, "A man who stuck in two worlds, he lives and dies alone". Not only I am stuck in two worlds, but also I cant move forward.

Sometimes, when I look out from my apartment’s window that is totally closed, I perceive my life as a vision of incompleteness. Something is missing and I just can’t find it here anymore. It’s like doing something for nothing. Karl, my neighbor, who used to have a son, told me the same thing but in a different context, “In the end, I am back to nothing”. He always murmured with that pathetic phrase. The only way I replied to him was with a hesitate smile. I totally understand why he would say such a solemn phrase. I know the feeling of lost and lack of fulfillment. No doubt, challenges will make us go stronger. What if challenges that make us turn weaker?

My old big round clock ticks silently down for a New Year’s celebration. The roads, my room and my entire apartment are very much speechless. It’s so calm and quiet that only my breathings can be heard. The streets, where once used to be filled with irresponsible people and polluted cars, are gone. Lights along the streets are dimmed and covered with a thick layer of dusty sands. And if you were to walk along the street at night, you wouldn't have found your way home. Technically, you will be lost because darkness impairs your visibility and sensibility.

To be honest, it’s true that the earth no longer gives us hope. Human generation will slowly vanish. Why? The air I inhale is no longer the same as I used to breath 20 years ago. Air pollution, which contains toxic of co2, has destroyed 50% of the earth atmosphere. It’s beyond repair now, and I am just trying to make my last stand here on earth. I hate to say this but it’s true that almost 60% of the new born babies will not manage to survive the hostile environment. The rate of environmental degradation has surpassed the rate of human evolution. Human will no longer manage to cope with the increasing damages of our mother nature. I manage to remain alive because I was lucky to be born earlier where the environment was relatively with life-support. The percentage of dying babies increases now and then. It’s horrible and sad to see an end to human generation.

Sadly speaking, I have experienced another devastating New Year celebration, knowing that the earth is unable to survive on its own anymore. I just don’t have the joy to move on. Time is running out and it’s too late. To all the dead and about-to-die ancestors out there, thank you for destroying our lands that you borrow from us. We will see you soon.

With few more seconds to go, the earth will turn ....... (to be continued)

~written by Ronnie Tay.

How long does it take to be yourself?

2009-04-25T21:16:00.010+08:00

Greetings from the blogger/writer:

I am deeply sorry for not being able find time to post something. My job has been quite devastating. Some colleagues are totally out of the world. My team leader is making life sucks. It's alright to work hard but if noone gives a hack about your working spirit, it makes no point to work for a company. In other words, we all need appreciation and respect from others. Here is what on my mind, I am planning to go back to school next year. Anyway, I have written something recently for the sake of my own fun. I just enjoy writing, especially something imaginative and different. For those who have read my story, "The Lost Violence of Holevent town", you will probably like this as well. As far as I am concerned, this one is way darker than my previous writing. It's going to be controversial and suspenseful. Be prepared for the fun. It takes quite awhile to write this. Have an open-minded perception on my new upcoming posts. To be honest with you, I think it's dark but something meaningful at the end. Have fun! Yeah! feel free if you want to contribute.

The new episode will be posted on May 1st 2009. I haven't considered the title yet. Will let you all know about it soon. Seeya...

A marriage talk of Life

2009-03-22T17:08:00.014+08:00

My sister is getting married soon. I feel very happy for her. It's not easy to find someone you love and be with the person forever. I will be attending her wedding in Kuala Lumpur, Perak(Kembar) 6/6, Selangor(PJ), Sabah(Sandakan)12/6.

Life, itself, is much more complicated. I have seen young couples, getting married at a very young age and with no plans. I also have seen my friends' families broke up because of adultery, cheating or financial incapabilities. I have seen friends who were forced to get married because of accidental pregnancy. I also have seen a strong relationship in marriage. All in all, the reasons of getting married can be very different. I think most marriages usually happen due to fulfillment, fulfillment of family's desire or legacy. For others, they think marriage is just part of life. Some people think marriage is being together and not being lonely when you get old. For others, getting married is having children, children that will grow up someday and take care of their parents. Even worst, some women want to get married because of status. A status to show that they are being loved and being taken care of. In other words, a security or a financial protection. Marriages also allow a legal protection and economic stability to both parties. Some countries provide unionized benefits to married couples with several reasons: child benefits and lower tax.
I am sure there are more freaky reasons of getting married. Some people get married because of migration, money, work, sex and etc. Fake marriages do happen in countries like USA, Canada, Australia and many more. People seek fake marriages so that they can have citizenship of another country, seeking a better future in a new place. Marriage also means financial stability. It's better to have 2 than 1 to play the game of life. It's better to have 2 to own a house, paying off the debts. In other words, getting married is also seen as a way of having mutual benefits. Of course, there are other weird reason of getting married, marriages can be beneficial to the bridegroom's family. In certain inland part of China, bride's maid needs to have sex with bride's groom's family members. In some cultures, marriages with lots of wives means higher status for men. Sometimes, there is no reason to marriage because of blind marriage. It usually happened in the older times.

I think marriage should not be taken lightly. Marriage means commitment, trust, love, care, devotion, financial stability, protection, communication, management and more importantly, life. Marriage must also be seen in a different perspective. Most couples think marriage is being together, leaving everyone behind. To be honest with you, when you marry someone, you also marry with the family of your lover. They all play apart. Families and friends can affect your marriage indirectly or directly in a short or long run. To have a long lasting relationship is not about loving or caring. It's about binding or strengthening your marriage relationship with your friends, families, society. They are always around you. External influences are usually the cause of major break down in marriage. I wish you all the best in finding the true long-lasting marriage.

Are you prepared to get married? Please think carefully. Are you prepared to devote yourself? Even the smartest and richest people suffer relationship problems from marriage and families.

"To get married, you need plans but, to divorce, you just need to sign on papers"

Gonna be busy for this coming week!

2009-02-28T18:59:00.002+08:00

Dear readers,

I am sorry that I will be busy for this coming week. I have lots of things to do at work for now. I will try my best to come up some stuff to talk about. Just hold on and wait till next week. Seeya soon. Feel free to send me message. Cheers!

Yours truly,
Ronnie

Massive Drops In The Airline Industry

2009-02-21T15:30:00.002+08:00

The Complexities of Airline Industry Will Never Be The Same

Airline Industry will never be the same as the oil supply remains relatively low and the recent global recession continues. As the oil production decreases, the price of oil will start to increase again, which ultimately also raises the cost of flying. However, it will only happen in a long run. What the market faces is another challenge of recession and consumerism.

Since recession has already arrived, the Airline market will have to face several consequences due to the change in income level. Income level, in general, will shrink as business retrenchment proceeds globally. As a result, a change in preference reflects the airline market. Anyway, traveling can be identified as a luxurious good or a normal good or both. However, in an airline industry, airline companies usually distinguish themselves in 3 categories: budget airline, normal airline and luxurious airline. Of course, one can see a main company with a sub company, operating at a lower cost. They want to capture as much market demand as possible with the benefit of market (price) controlling. Airline industry is definitely a competitive market in a global scale. Some companies have certain advantages over others. The main focus of this post is on the results and changes in the airline industry as they encounter the problem of global recession.

Budget airlines will likely to be on a safe side during this period of global recession. On the other hand, normal airlines will suffer from a decrease in demand due to the shrinkage of disposable income or income level. In other words, it’s more like a normal good. When the economy is hit, travelers will cut back on expensive vacations and search for cheaper alternatives by flying on a low-cost budget airline. For example, 20% of the population takes luxurious airlines, 40% takes normal airlines and 40% takes budget airlines. As the income level shrinks, middle-income earners will most likely to be affected very much due to their exposures to investments. Assume, middle-income earners (40%) and low-income earners (40%) are affected by a decrease in 10% in their incomes. Certainly, middle-income earners will lose a big chunk, compared to low-income earners. How will that affect the airline industry? A 10% reduction in low-income earners’ income does not reflect much on their travels with budget airlines. Even if it does, middle-income earners will start to switch with traveling on budget airlines because now they lose a big chunk of their income. Middle-income earners might lose 4000(10%) = 400. Low-income earners might lose 2000(10%) = 200. Importantly, budget airline market will still benefit in many ways: low-income earners have no choice but to travel with budget airlines, new potential market of middle-income earners is switching to other cheaper alternatives, and a reduction in income level might not influence that much to the budget airline market. Suddenly, one can see a reduction in customers taking normal airlines. To ensure the flight route is viable for profits, “normal” airline companies are starting to cut down certain flights or decreasing the numbers of flights. Some companies might have to resolve in employees lay off.

For extra information on graphical explanations or any comments, feel free to ask me.

Thank You Freaky Readers

2009-02-18T23:00:00.001+08:00

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for supporting my blog. I feel something strange about this blog. Somehow, i think readers feel a little tired of reading my blog because it's getting boring or what. Anyway, today my blog has reached a thousand entries. It's brilliant. In order to be effective in my blogging, I definitely would like to have some of your comments about things that can be done to juice up the blog. Feel free to email me or message me here. As far as I am concerned, I have planned something cool for this year. Once again, thank you very much. Please do feel free to participate in my blog. Give me some comments. We need more discussion here. Cheers

Yours truly,
Ronnie

StiMuluS PlaN

2009-02-17T08:30:00.007+08:00

Wh@t A fre@ky StiMuluS Pl@n?

The global economy is in tremendous pressure of economic downfall, which is badly affected by the credit crisis in the States. Recession is everywhere. Most developed countries are in considerable danger of high unemployment rate and other social implications. Multinational companies are retracting their outputs and inputs in terms of production throughout the world. What can be done to recover the global over- speculation economy? Governments, from different parts of the world, are implementing stimulus plans to sustain the multiple effects of global recession. They are trying to create jobs for the “unemployed work force. Hoping that job creations can create multiple effects in the local economy, governments are doing their best in injecting lots of money in terms of building infrastructures and giving out social benefits to the unfortunate.

The huge amount of money injection to the economy is a way to smoothen out the pain of economic crisis, but not necessarily fixing the economic system. When the government mentions about stimulus plan, they are talking about injecting money to the economy, money that belongs to the society. However, consumers and private companies have some sort of bad speculation over the economy. In other words, the previous market economy was over speculated and now it has to be retracted to a certain state of stable economic equilibrium. What we see here is that the government is trying to offset the economic breakdown but how far will they manage to do so. Coming back to my question, does stimulus plan help? It really depends how one would look at it. The economic crisis is not about injecting stimulus plans when there are still multiple holes of broken systems. It’s no point of filling a tank with water when the tank has leakages. These leakages can be inefficient financial system, corruption, loopholes, uncertainties of investment and misjudgment.

I believe that the new stimulus plan not only should focus on money injection but also a new working system that will ultimately bring us to a higher standard of stable economic equilibrium. For now, governments are spending our money and yet we are retracting. This is something I would call the “see-saw” economy. The economy needs trust and efficient financial systems from consumers and private companies. If the economy continues to dampen, maybe it’s true that the economy is over speculated and we are still far away of reaching a higher standard of global economic equilibrium. As far as we concerned, the American financial systems are in total mess. The global economic system needs to be changed. Policymakers! Good Luck!

How it's made! When I'm not a smoker

2009-02-14T15:44:00.007+08:00

As you might have noticed, my blog has a new layout and a new banner. I really want to thank my friend, Edwin, for taking a great photo of me in a restaurant. Finally, the picture is well-deserved with creativity. I have gone through some tough time trying to be a real smoker. Basically, it took me at least 2-3 weeks to master the style of smoking. I always thought of taking a photo of myself while smoking. Now, here it goes. I wanted something very real and cool. Thanks to my friend and myself for making this wonderful banner. Yeah! It's cool.

To be honest with you, it is not an easy task. Afterall, I am not a smoker. You can call me a social smoker but I guess I am not one either. A new layout means a new style of blogging. Brainstorming is needed now. I am sorry that you just have to wait patiently. Cheers.

I'm back to blogging again

2009-02-10T14:54:00.002+08:00

Hi! I am deeply sorry for not being able to find times to post new stuff on my blog. I just came back from my hometown, having celebrated Chinese New Year with my family and friends. As far as I am concerned, everything went quite fine and fun with me. I know my hometown, Sandakan, is a little boring in terms of night life and so on. However, I did enjoy my time there cooking pasta and also making some new cocktail mix. Now that I am back to Kuala Lumpur, I will have more time to continue my blogging. Hopefully, it's gonna be fun. I gotta get back to my writing and reading. So, please wait... cheers

My HomeTown's Hit By Double "Whammy(s)"

2009-01-13T12:05:00.004+08:00

I was born in an island of Borneo. Now, it's called Sabah. My little small hometown is Sandakan, located at the east coast of North Borneo. Normally, noone knows about this place. It's quite remote from the rest of the big cities in Malaysia. Recently, the small city has been named as the Nature('s) City. Part of the process of naming is just another way of marketing strategy for touristic purposes. Let's forget about the name or the marketing strategy of my hometown development.

Personally, i think my hometown is hit by double whammys. First, the oil price has gone down tremendously and second, the world market is still gloomy. We might always think that small towns will have less economic impact with regards of the financial and economic downfall. If you think that way, I am sorry to tell you that this is not the case. A whopping drop in oil price has created a downward syndrome of oil speculation in the market, which results in palm oil price to be affected badly. Not only the oil price decreased but also the share market was in crisis. Speculations and over speculations create massive uncertainties in the market, which also result in the lost hope of consumer markets and investments.

My hometown, highly dependent on palm oil and timber industry, is going to face another downfall of business retraction. There are several projects of commercial zones of shop lots to be filled. Now, it will face problems of selling those shop units. Business in my hometown is nothing but a circle of people doing the same old thing or transferring from places to places. Without any influx of outside investment or external influences to the small town, the town will only slowly take time to expand. Sometimes, business will slowly lose out as well to other more experienced investors coming in. However, in the case of my hometown, the chances of investors coming in are less. The population is tremendously low. The economic expansion is slow. The technology and infrastructure are considered to be improper. Last but not least, human capital, in terms of education, is rather inefficient.

Coming back to the idea of Nature city, I don't see any reason to call it anymore. Timber industry and palm oil business, by rights, should have generated enough income to improve the town and diversify the business and industry of the economy. Too bad, I have not seen any improvements in terms of business activities. Importantly, the timber industry and palm oil business have created a massive destruction to our nature, especially the reserved jungle. We are on the verge of losing mother's nature and also the living standards. Corruption and bad management have destroyed the lives of others. The small town should have used the earned money to improve the city but now it has fallen to the same old path of wasting money, destroying mother's nature, and killing the town.

The Lost Violence of Holevent Town (Pt.4)

2009-01-09T12:00:00.000+08:00

[Recap: Previously, I was trapped in a hut with an unknown army, and the Nazi armies were about to raid the hut. The American army and I had no choice but to run away from the hut. Time was running out and we had to face the consequences of being noticed by the Nazis.]

“Wat! Hey hold a sec! You’re telling me to run and the Nazis are here,” I asked the army in a very shocking manner. “Hell Yeah! You’ve got a problem with that," he replied in a way as he was used to it. Seriously, I didn’t deserve to be in a war or any other war. Life, itself, was quite challenging to live and yet people were having wars.

The atmosphere was still covered with a think layer of hazy clouds and at the same time, I could only imagine myself walking through the sky with an unclear midst of self-denying acknowledgment. The war was not real. Everything was just a dream. I closed my eyes and pinched myself to hope for a change for tonight as everything would get back to normal. A change for tonight could mean a lot for others who have lost their sons, families, relatives and friends. For me, I would get back where I came from, a small hometown with nothing except a large green field of love, freedom and hope and also a meaningful small cottage with lots of great experiences during my childhood. However, the devastation continued as I opened my eyes with the German armies getting closer to the hut.Sometimes, I thought of something. Maybe, a damage was done would forever remain with us, just like a scar. Anyway, I was not going to let my hope down. My journey continued with the attack getting closer. We, finally, ran away from the hut as fast as possible. At first, I was a little panicked and cold, but later, I was quite alright with it. Soon, everything seemed quite fine. I felt something. It was like running along with the wind of freedom and hope. It was wonderful.

Sometimes, a small hut, although selfless and small, was still meaningful to someone, especially me. It brought lots of fond and incredible memories. That moment reflected my great childhood life while I was running away from the hut. I felt like a kid, running around my wooden cottage with a sweet looking garden of vivid flowers on the ground. Life was meant to be colorful. I was not going to get back to where I was from. I felt very tired of finding my home through darkness and misery. It was so dark that it could lead one to a deep frustration of finding happiness. As every single mesmerizing gunshot fired, a picture of my sweet and wonderful memories flickered in my mind with a bright light. I had never run with such a great joy of freedom. I enjoyed this freedom of no sufferings and felt enlightened. Suddenly, a white and bright, powerful light struck me. It seemed my hopes were starting to fade away. I fell on the ground, hoping the same place where I used to lay my body on a large green field of flying butterflies, during my hometown sweet summer time. I hoped I could just rest in peace.

The Fre@kY Bever@ges You P@y For

2009-01-05T12:00:00.004+08:00

Nowadays, if you go for a hawker's center and ask for a drink or food. You start to realize that drinks are getting relatively expensive. Well! I have been doing some short researches about the reasons. Most people might not know or not too sure why this is happening. Ask for a Coke that normally costs only a buck in a vending machine but it will cost you more in a hawker's center or some places. The answer is Economics.

Let me give you another great example of bar or pub business. Most of the time, bars or pubs will provide you free peanuts or chips and also charge you for drinks that even include plain water. Here is the reason of they are doing it. Chips or peanuts, although cost something, are cheaper than beers and other drinks. In order to attract customers to drink more, they provide free chips for the sake of getting customers going thirsty for drinks. In other words, chips and peanuts come hand in hand with drinks like beers or even cocktails. Therefore, normally, you won't order chips and peanuts without ordering any drinks at all. Customers will always get thirsty consuming peanuts and chips. As a result, bars and pubs will play a role to jack up the price a little higher, knowing that the customer will purchase a drink and giving you free peanuts or chips. Maybe even free services like open karaoke environment.

Same things apply in the business of some hawker's center. Eaters, who buy foods from the stalls, will also end up buying drinks. I have seen several hawker's centers are playing a special role in monopolizing a certain area. For instance, one will only find a drink corner with several food stalls. In other words, the food center might only allow one drink shop to be in business due to certain rights. Selling drinks generates tremendous amount of profit and the effort of running a drink business is rather easy and time-profit effectiveness. The monopoly effect allows drink shops to play with the price and causes competition to be absolutely none.

Sometimes, you also find a restaurant that rents out small booths of food stalls to others for business while the restaurant's owner will do the drink business. Again, most of the time, there is no way we purchase foods without drinks. On the other hand, most people can have drinks without food. Importantly, the profit margin of running drink business is greater than running food business.

If you start to complain about the cost of a drink getting more and more expensive. You might as well start to bring your own bottle of water. LOL. If you have questions and comments, feel free to discuss with me. Afterall, water is the best drink ever.

Seasons' Greetings

2008-12-16T16:19:00.005+08:00

Wasssup! Everyone is about to celebrate a new year. 2008 is definitely a great year for some people and unfortunate for others. 2008 also marks the start of global financial crisis. I know there will be more things to say about the global recession. I am looking forward to touch and talk about the impacts of global economics crisis on several industries, ranging from airline market to social development. I really can't wait to get myself started. Once again, I want to thank all the bloggers, readers and friends for visiting my site and giving me lots of comments. Let a new year, 2009, be a new start for everyone, especially me. I want to get more involved in the social battle ground. I am looking forward to start talking things more with in-depth analysis. Anyway, here is a glimpse of me for this coming new year. 2009 means a new me. Love Ya All!!!

My fast-paced trip:
18/12/08
4am - Woke up and prepared to take a cab
5am- Cab arrived and headed to LCCT Airport
6am- Arrived and Checked in to Tiger Airways
6:30 - Got myself a McDonald breakfast
7:40 - Departed to Singapore
8:35 - Arrived to Singapore Budget Terminal
8:55 - MRT to Buona Vista MOE
10 - Arrived to MOE
10:55 - Interviewed
11:30am - Done with interview
12pm - Went to meet friends at Jurong Point
12:25 - Left to Changi Airport by MRT
1:00 - Realized it was too late with MRT and took a cab
1:30 - Arrived at the airport & the counter was closed
1:45 - Managed to get in Airasia because I had no check-in baggage
2:10 - Flew to KL LCCT Airport
3:20 - Arrived to LCCT and started to take a bus to KL central (transportation Hub)
3:45 - Left the airport to KL central
4:55 - Reached KL central and started to look for something to Genting Highland
5:00 - Me and A cute guy left to Genting with a cab
5:55 - Reached Genting Cable Car
6:30 - Reached Genting Highland and Met my friends and families
7pm - 3am - Dinner and Fun

19/12/08
2pm - Genting to One Utama Shopping Mall
3pm - Reached One Utama
3:05 - Taxi to PJ Section 17
3:30 - Arrived back to Apartment in PJ
4pm-5pm - Took a nap
7pm - Went to Kampar with a nice van
10:30 - Arrived Kampar with families and friends
11:00 - Late Dinner
11:30 Slept for the day

20/12/08
8am - Breakfast with families and friends
10am - Kampar to Ipoh
2 pm - Ipoh to Kampar
3-6pm - Rested for a day
7-9pm - Dinner again with families and friends
9pm - Went back to KL
11pm - Arrived KL/PJ
2am - Slept for the day

I am planning for a new blog with my friend.

2008-12-10T17:09:00.003+08:00

Dear friends and readers,

I am actually planning for a new blog with my friend. This blog is gonna be cool. It's gonna be adventurous and fun. Since I will be busy with lots of things this month, I will temporarily stop writing the story of lost violence of Holevent Town with my last post on this coming weekend. I hope you all will enjoy reading it. Be prepared to be amazed!!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I will try to wrap things up. Oh regarding the Dj Ronnie thingy music, I will have to postpone that as well. I really can't possibly do all things as I am going for a special and intensive training to get myself in shape. I want to make sure my health and diet are good. I will have to spend more time on doing sports. Sorry for the inconveniences. Miss ya all. Cheers.

Yours truly,
Ronald Tay

Fre@ky Sandwiches (Cooking Style Pt 2)

2008-12-05T14:14:00.007+08:00

Hey Wasssup!!! Now that I am back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I can start cooking for my own experimentation. Well! I want to share with you a recipe of my own. It’s called “freaky sandwiches”. It started cooking it out of nowhere. Let me name the ingredients: mushrooms, breads, ham, cheese, butter, black pepper, sprouts and salad dressing (coleslaw).
The 3 simple steps to prepare this crazy meal

Step 1: Wash and cut the mushrooms. Heat up a frying pan with low heat. Add some oil or butter to the pan to heat up the ham meat first. While warming up the ham, one can season the ham with some black pepper.

Step 2: Once it’s done, you can cook the mushrooms with black pepper or a small amount of bbq sauce to spice up the taste. When everything is done, remove mushrooms from the pan and you can now focus on heating up the breads on the frying pan, making sure it’s low heat. While heating up the breads, you can place a slice of cheese on top of the bread. In this case you can use whatever cheese one prefers.

Step 3: When the cheese starts to melt on top of the bread, one can remove the breads and start to place your ingredients: cheese below, ham next, mushrooms next, sprouts next, and coleslaw top. Make sure you turn off everything. Now everything is good to go.

Results
Taste: Kinda Cool; Decoration: Awesome; Preparation Time: Super fast & easy; Conclusion: Waulaueh (unbelievable) beh tahan.

Racist Fre@k

2008-11-28T17:53:00.002+08:00

I know that this post will be a little controversial at times. Therefore, I would like to apologize to you or anyone whom I might have offended. Racist remarks can be very sensitive and harmful to a certain group of people. In order to limit any conflict between me and you or someone else, I will try to be cautious with my expressions.

In my opinion, a person can be racist to a certain level. Let's make an example of a racist meter. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is non racist and 10 is pure racist. Now, where would you put yourself? In order to understand the definition of racism or racist, we need to look up in a dictionary.According to an online dictionary database, racism means a belief or doctrine that involves the idea of one's own race is far more better and has the right to rule the others. Moreover, racism also means hatred or intolerance of another race or races (www.dictionary.com).

I am not here to prove that everyone is racist or anything. I am here to provide some knowledge of my own experience of why a person can be racist to a certain meter point. Anyway, just keep in mind about your own racist meter scale for now while you are reading the rest of my blog. We will come back to it.

Now society seems to be very sensitive over racist remarks, especially the minority. Is it fear or just equality rights among races that drive us to be more sensitive over the issues of racism? If you were to ask me the question, I would not answer you at all. You see, racism's issues can be seen in a very different and complex perspectives. It's an entirely different issue for the black American communities and for some other Asian communities too. It's not on my behalf to say something for them because I am not black and I didn't even expose myself to the black communities or even to the KKK. The suppression of the black experience can only be expressed by them as they are exposed to racism in their own community. In other words, you have to understand something when you experience it personally. I was not there and I can't judge them. On the other hand, me as a Chinese, what do I think about the Japanese brutal invasion on my country during WWII? Again, I can't really touch on that issue as my life is seen mostly unaffected. I know that my ancestors would have hated them so much because they suffered and experienced the most violent and unthinkable memories.

Well, my story doesn't end here. At some point in our life, we might have changed our racist meter to a higher scale or a lower scale. I am sure there are reasons that reflect the change in our racist meter. Let me name a few for you: Media, Politics, Money, Colleagues, Your Neighbors, Robberies, Illegal immigrants, Education and even Football fanatics. Of course, education can be seen as something helpful to lower your racist meter but not necessarily true. Maybe a history study about the brutalities of Japanese Invasion during WWII would rather stir up some commotions between Chinese and Japanese learners. Again, I am not saying History is a bad thing. However, learning not to repeat the same old mistakes might be rather worthwhile to study History. Importantly, some historians (observers and writers) can be a little bias at times due to their past experiences over a racial matter. Therefore, you can see how the racist meter kicks in. Anyway, the question here is how are we going to repair the scars or any racial conflicts? To me, it's never an easy task. You probably need a revolutionary change in everyone's mindset. Maybe, great leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King or "Aliens" can make a huge impact on racial issues.

Great leaders will always have more power to provide good influences to the society. Their voices can make a great change and also lead to peaceful resolutions. Well! when I am talking great leaders, I am not talking about Hitler. I am talking about someone who can inspire others to join for a good cause. On the other hand, alien invasion might bring human beings together to fight for our lives, mankind existence and home. I believe communication and cooperation are also vital keys to improve racial tensions or other misunderstandings.

Well! Revolutionary change in everyone's mindset is a very huge thing to begin with. It must be done peacefully and simultaneously at the same time. When it is not done in a synchronized way, racial issues might not be solved in a systematic coordination, and racism might even get very serious and tensional among other racial groups. I will call this, such problem, a racial coordination failure. Coming back to the Japanese brutal invasion, the reason of not putting myself in the shoe my ancestors is that the past is gone. Obviously, I want to have a fresh mindset that is not heavily influenced by my ancestors' brutal experiences with the Japanese invasion. I am not telling you to give up about learning or knowing your grandparents'. I just believe a newer generation of a society should focus more on integrating ourselves with different types of people. Heavy influences from the corrupted, violent and unfair issues keep us within the circle of racist problems. Well! We can blame anyone for this and it will continue for the rest of our lives. Maybe, the governments, the religions, the family, the teachers and the list will go on. We will never put a full stop on this racial matter till the day earth dies. However, I do believe we can do something with our own hands to reduce, but not to eliminate, our racist meter scale.

It's easy, in words, to say what we can do something about racism. Let me put it this way, "to the new future ancestors, if you want your children to live in a world of racist-free earth, be a good non-racist influential leader".

So what is happening now? When one is being seen as a minority or being offended with racist remarks, he or she starts to complain or hate the other group of racist people or racial slurs. Eventually, one is so turned down that he or she becomes a over-reacted to the racist group and starts to be a little racist as well. This is how the racist meter kicks in. With more bad influences from friends, families and societies, things get worse and create a massive problem in racism. It's like a chain reaction among society. Well! not everyone will have this problem if he or she knows how to handle problems properly but when things get too extreme, I am sure noone will be able to withstand it. Sometimes, you don't realize that you are racist in a way, maybe not racist but certainly, some minor racial implications.

THE RACIST METER SCALE CASE STUDIES

KuKlaxKlan didn't start off as a harmful group. Well! the early KKK's racist meter would be around just 1. First, it was just whole bunch of pranksters who enjoy riding horses while dressed in white sheets and pillowcase hoods. However, the Klan evolved to a bigger and more powerful clan that involved in multi-state terrorist activities such as frightening and killing emancipated slaves. Why did the group suddenly shoot up all the way to 9 or 10, killing the black American? Perhaps, during that period most members of the KKK society had lots of incentive of not giving up equal rights to other groups due political and economic factors. During that 1870s, most members were supported by the plantation owners and they did not want the human rights to be given to the people who worked in their plantations, especially black slaves. As a result, early Klan did its work through violent acts against the black society to ensure blacks would never get the benefits of equal rights. The racist meter was rather high with 8 to 9. Therefore, racism usually comes with a trigger of something. It can be revenge, economic benefits or just for the sake of "a certain (holy) land".

How did KKK eventually get weak with a reduction in racist meter? With WW2 coming and the idea of KKK was simply more or less like the idea of Hitler, it was then KKK started to lose its ground. More people, from black and white and other communities, were unified to participate in a war to stop Hitler, the so called racist maniac, who had killed many Jews. Indirectly, one can see that the war was a way of bringing people together to stop racist, violent and brutal wars.

It is just my weird thought that It would be less likely we would ever fight to eliminate racism anytime sooner. We would probably continue to eliminate terrorism, corruption, financial collapse, poverty and etc. Will it ever eliminate all that problems? Perhaps, we might need something bigger to stir everyone's mind to unite for a good reason to live lives. For instance, "The Alien Invasion".

There are tons of reasons to think how one's racist meter increases over time. To name a few, your colleague, a Mly, is very lazy at work. You hate him very much because you have to help him with his work. You might get very mad and start to hate other Mly people and often come out with a racist remarks within your friends but not in front of the Mly person.

England football fanatics can over excessively support their own national teams and start cursing other countries with racist remarks. Also, Yeah! If you remember Zidane's case too.

Your teacher hates a certain type of person and overly generalize about the person's race with racist remark. Your teacher even talks about it in front of his/her fellow students. Students also learn from the teacher.

An African government radio station intentionally starts to broadcast something violent and brutal to a certain group of tribe, creating heats of revenge and causing ethnic cleansing.

All in all, what is your meter scale by the way? Are you prepared to make a change to yourself? If you are a racist, it's fine to be one but at least you should learn how to reduce the effects. Don't be influenced! We'll never stop racism if we do not initiate to do something about it and foremost because of "Racial Coordination Failure".

What's next for a different meter scale problem? Sexism(Bisexual & Homosexual), Feminism and etc. Think?

My random thought
Societies, living in a very traditional norm, sometimes cannot accept the existence of other minorities, especially gender differences or other religious belief. In any way, we should learn to accept and respect each other differences.

3 Reasons To Hate Malaysian Taxi Drivers

2008-11-26T17:40:00.008+08:00

Kuala Lumpur's public transportation system is still considered to be quite disastrous in some ways. The 3 most major transportation carriers are LRTs, Taxis, and Buses. I would like to touch on the disadvantages of hiring a taxi. The 3 reasons are non-meter drivers, foolish drivers and last but not least, on-their-own drivers.

Non-meter drivers prefer to charge foreigners who don't care much about what they pay. In other words, he/she will offer you a fixed rate or charge to your given destination. You can either bargain or just close the frickin' door and move on. Non-meter drivers are not here to help with transporting commuters. They are here to relax, smoke and wait. In other words, they want to do business fast and at the same time, they are humiliating the taxi industry in Malaysia, which is also voted as the worst taxi drivers in the world. Well, it's time to destroy the non-meter taxi drivers. Say no to non-meter taxis.

Foolish drivers fool around when they drive. It could be driving recklessly. However, they are not foolish but they make their customers look like a fool. Foolish drivers will either cheat on you by adjusting their taxi meter so that it ticks quicker than you count your heart beats or by driving you around with the most longest route. Given that the oil price is lowered, maybe driving on your own is preferred and you know these taxi drivers won't adjust the taxi charge rate back to where it's supposed to be. Seriously, if you know nothing about the location, please be sure to ask for some information about taking your taxi. Make your own judgements rather than telling the taxi drivers to do what they want. 9 out 10 taxi drivers are considered foolish drivers.

On-their-own drivers, who drive to places where they like most, do not help to ease the troubles of customers. The drivers only prefer to bring you to places where there are more opportunities of getting hired. Therefore, it's such a pain for customers who live far away or in a congested zone. Since when we are picked by taxi drivers? Customers pay for the ride and at the end of the day but, they are being treated unfairly. Yeah! Sometimes, you will encounter taxi drivers suddenly dump you on a road side because they act stupid in such a way that they don't know how to get there (out of sudden).

All in all, I have been living in KL for quite some times. I have scolded taxi drivers more than anyone else. The government should monitor and change the identity of our taxi industry. It's a shame to the country, Malaysia. The taxi industry is about to defame the Malaysian Tourism sector. Forget about the local. We are about to buy cars. It's okay to pay for parking fees and high gas price rather than waiting for 30 minutes for a taxi or being fooled like a stupid foreigner. One thing for sure, consumers are smarter than taxi drivers after all. It's no point of offering side business like selling drinks or cigs. It's better they learn to behave like a real taxi driver. Giving an extra opportunities to sell craps means giving them another way to scam customers. Yeah! Keep up the good work of giving out more taxi licenses so that the market turns saturated, hopefully driving down the price of taxi rate. As far as I am concerned, buses and LRTs are craps. I will touch on LRTs in my next post.

Human Capital vs Foreign Human Capital (UNEMPLOYMENT)

2008-11-20T16:49:00.002+08:00

I am sorry if my post gets a little complicated or boring because I thought of writing this in my 30 minutes of blog's brainstorming. As an economist, especially in the field of economic development, I have tremendous amounts of issues and ideas to say. Today, I am going to touch on the human capital side. Human capital is basically employees or work force. In some countries, one can find human capital to be a little expensive or efficient than the others'

In developing countries, the cost of human capital is relatively cheap, especially in the manufacturing industries. Moreover, technology is scarce and human capital remains relative abundant. More importantly, population is higher and education is lower.

In other cases, one can find an influx of foreign workers, working in rich countries. Local workers, in rich countries, with better education or priorities would not pick up hard labor works due to personal reasons. Importantly, most rich countries have high technology capital to increase their production with less human involvement. However, of course we do see countries that require foreign workers for certain manufacturing or hard labor business such as constructions. As a result, foreign workers are needed from overseas to support local rich and labor-intensive required companies. Their pays for such workers are much more higher and better than other developing countries'.

For instance, one would live in Johor Bahru (the tip of western Malaysian peninsular) and work in Singapore. Why? Currency advantage, better pay and more opportunities.

Well! If you look at it with a different angle, there can be a disadvantage. Seriously, I don't want to talk about social impact like leaving your family and friends behind while you work abroad. I want to focus on economic terms. Yeah! Forget about living standards too. I think everyone knows about it. We all know Johor(e) is one of worst cities in Malaysia.

The advantage might be better off for some particular people but not necessarily to others. With better wages in a developed country, workers are expect to work harder, given with the competitive outcome. High wages attract more cheap labors from abroad. Noone would deny to work in those companies with given high pays. On the other hand, companies in developing countries might offer lower wage, which also means that they can hire more workers. In other words, we can see two different competitive environments. First one, one must work for harder. Second, abundant labor is around. In developing countries, abundant labor is always around whereas in developed countries, labor is not that a lot but companies can always hire cheap labors from abroad with their attractive high wages. So what is the disadvantage? Foreign workers in developing countries will face higher risks of losing more jobs when there is a downturn in economics.

Governments usually play the priority to protect their own citizen, especially in providing jobs. Again, most multinational companies are more likely to cut employment in developed countries due to high cost of running the business in developed countries. Well! during crisis like recession, companies will lay off workers. However, the chances of getting laid off is higher in developed countries, especially to those foreign workers from abroad. For example, it takes $1000 to hire 4 workers in China but it takes $1000 to hire 1 worker in Singapore. Assume the worker's efficiency is different, the 4 workers in China can produce 2 products and 1 worker in Singapore can produce 1 product. If the company needs to cut down cost of $500, it will go for a retrenchment in its company in Singapore so that the output is now 2.5 products. If the company were to cut in China, the output would be 2.0 products. Therefore, the risks are there.

All in all, this just my random thought about the human capital in developing countries and developed countries. I am sure there are more things to talk about but again I am tired now. You can definitely ask me questions about it. It's just a discussion. Expect more of these issues to come. Now banking & insurance industries cut things based on sales. It seems everything shrinks. More to cuts in commercial flights too.

Companies Jobs Gone
Rolls-Royce 2,000 Jobs
AIG unknown
CityBank 52,000 Jobs
HSBC 500 Jobs
DBS 900 Jobs
RBS 3,000 Jobs
Deutsche 900 Jobs
Boeing 800 Jobs
NOL 1,000 Jobs
Suzuki 1,400 Jobs
Toyota* 12o Jobs for now
Pepsi 750 in America (plant)
BT 10,000
Fidelity 1,300
Lehman brothers' jobs are all gone

The Lost Violence of Holevent Town (Pt.3)

2008-11-08T04:24:00.010+08:00

I know most of you have been waiting for this. I hope it won't let you down. Anyway for those who have not read part 1 and 2 of this short story, please feel free to do so. Sorry for the long wait. Nowadays, I am struggling to write something. Yeah! there are lots of errors here. Fix it later....

[Recap: My car was broken. Having walked through the street, I saw places were heavily damaged. It was a very lonely night as I walked through the eerie forest, leading me to a hut. When the door opened itself, unfortunately I was terrified to.... ]

Unfortunately, I was terrified to see a back body of an army trying to stop himself from a heart-pain bleeding. The floor was flooded with a very thick layer of blood. Apparently, his arm was badly shot. I wouldn’t want to see him taking the awful pain. Later, I just realized what on earth would an injured army doing here, especially in a place where it wasn’t supposed to have a war and the outfit of the injured war veteran was like the late 40s’ stuff. I dared not to talk or move, but I slowly tried to stay away from him, out of my sight, by stepping away from the door. “Don’t move”, said the army. His rifle reloaded with a very fast-paced and click-cluck sound. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” asked the soldier with a very deep-toned voice with a southern accent from North Texas. I replied to his questions accordingly and with a hesitated emotion. He commanded me to turn around with my hands raised up. I did what he asked but I tightly closed my eyes and turned around. However, the army went speechless. It was a sudden silent for a moment, and I could only hear the army's suffocated breathing. Finally, I decided to open my eyes after taking a deep breath. That moment was like between death and hope. As I opened my eyes, he shouted, “Quick! Stay down”. Out of nowhere, the hut was in total darkness. It was very different from before. As the night continued to echo the lonely forest, I heard some foreign sound of voices. In no time, I realized it was German. As I moved closer to the injured army, I saw him wearing an American Flag's badge on his green uniform outfit. He whispered at me, “seat your ass down, you wanna get killed by the Nazis”. My heart and my mind dropped dead and stopped with an unbelievable response: WTF. “They are coming and we need to move away now”, said the American army.

Run.....

Halloween Party At Zouk

2008-11-03T04:39:00.012+08:00

I would like to thank Nicky and his wonderful friends for making a scary and great Halloween club party at Zouk, Singapore. Having done my swimming teacher lesson on that night, I dashed myself with a taxi all the way to the party, and the crowd was infested with zombies, monsters, superheroes, lamers and weirdos. Luckily, I was quite attractive and smart to find my way and to cut across the lines of long queues. Finally, I managed to find my buddy, Nicky. He was tall and handsome enough to distinguish himself from others. I guess the attention was quite sharp for me to spot on him.

So the queue took more than an hour before i got to go in. However, that was me, waiting for more than an hour but my friends, they were waiting for at least 3 hours. Yeah! It was really crowded. Finally, we were inside and the place was rumbling with hot and spooky club music, especially with the sound effect of woman's screams and police's sirens. Yeah! every now and then, a sudden gust of smoothing air would jam the whole place, creating a hot, steamy and sexy environment for this Halloween dance party.

The real stuff was like dancers were wearing different types of costumes. Literally, you could find any superheroes or supermonsters there. So what did i put on? Yeah! A good friend of mine, Mr Ming, gave me a free costume of a patient who apparently suffered from SARS or insane disease. Well! Yeah Lots of people were taking pictures with me. Maybe more than 20 pics, which was quite fun. At one point, I was lost and could not find my friend, Nicky. LOL! Well! It wont happen again. I don't want to search people all night long.

So the excitement came when I was dancing on the deck and on the stairs. Girls were like WTF with my dancing moves. They would start to distract me a bit by touching my hair cover. LOL. Guys, who were not gay, danced with me or looked at me with a very weird reaction. Seriously, Maybe I was a bi !!! LOL. Kinda Cool. Anyway, there was the incident where I was dancing on the short stairs of few steps. This guy, with his gal, started to stare at my dancing moves as if I was gonna do something creepy and gloomy. And his gf was like oh cool! So, we came into a challenge of horror dancing show down. Anyway, he ended up taking a pic with me. I could see a sudden expression on his face. He was like this guy was insane in his creepy dancing. Lol! Yeah! Immediately after dancing with this guy in front of his gf, another guy, on the deck, came to approach me with his hands, trying to show me some signs of something. Maybe, my dance was way off the limit of hell's style. Lol. I appreciated his comments of my crazy and scary dancing moves.

The rest of the night, i was partying and drinking. Talking was a no no situation as the environment was bombarded with loud music. Before I went back home, I came to realize i had some many drinking coupons and decided to stop for a drink, my favorite bartender's rootbeer. What a great night to end my Halloween experience in Zouk. It was great but a little too crowded and the lineups were insane. I took a cab and went home with a slight dizziness in my head. Way to go for a good night sleep, but it went really bad during the rest of the early morning. Maybe the alcohol and the insane costumes haunted me throughout the night. Boo Boo!!! Suddenly, I turned into a creature freak.

Ronnie Jr. Preview Available

2008-10-30T14:20:00.000+08:00

Dear blog readers,

I have been trying very hard to make things interesting and fun in here. Now, I want to change the way how people perceive my blog and me as a person. Here is my one of my musical pieces for you to experience. This is the type of music I will be working on for these few weeks. It's going to be tough and weird for me as I have no musical background. Kindly share your interest or anything to me. So we can work things together and form a new upcoming album. For now, you just need to wait for my new album to be released. Yeah! Check it out in my following purevolume address: purevolume.com/RonnieJr

(Peace On Earth by Ronnie Jr) Will be released on 31th Dec 08

Did technology ruin your fre@ky life?

2008-10-27T17:56:00.003+08:00

Most of the time, we look at the benefits of having a technology gadget. However, have we looked at the bad side of it. Well! If you don't, maybe you should think about it just for the sake of fun. Mobile gadgets are the most popular demand of all in the market. Cellular phones, mp3 players, video players, laptops, digital cameras and portable game players (PSP, Nintendo DS) serve a purpose for different users. There are tons of them out there with different brand names, ranging from high-end products to low-end products, especially the one you can find in China. Oh Yeah! The battery might explode and you might get a burnt in your hip.

Suddenly, your purpose of having a gadget gets more complicated. If you want to take photo, talk on the phone, listen to mp3 music, watch movies, surf online, play games and use GPS, you're just going to need a powerful, fre@ky, weird, crazy, creature-like, out-of-nowhere and bizarre Atomicphone. For that reason, we hate the hassle of having lots of tangling gadgets, we just want something that everything fits all, like 10 in 1. Well, i guess for some insane users might like to have an Atomicphone. Suddenly, everyone, with an ipod on the move or the bus, is starting to isolate him/herself from the rest of the world. In some countries like Singapore or HK, people are living in a huge block of building that alienates people from interaction. In order to interact is to talk on the phone or online. Worst still, if you are working in an environment of tremendous pressure of office politics. Do you think you still want to talk to those people or start joining the club of dissing others? So what is left to communicate and meet your friends? Coming out to talk and chat is definitely impossible because everyone is busy earning money. Maybe money is the key to get more friends.

Yeah! Materialistic friends are kinda cool in a way. At least, they come and go when you are rich or broke. So what do we need to keep ourselves occupied? I guess technology does help in a way. At least, i could post a blog here for someone to read.
So why wasting time with the gadgets when one can go out and socialize? Like spending valuable times with friends. Life is about not just having fun with your gadgets. There are more things to do. So yeah! let's have fun!!!

What is your life anyway? Talking on the phone, texting your friends, chatting in msn, searching porns, blogging to nowhere, watching tv/youtube, listening to mp3 and playing online/games. Well! If those are the things you do most of time, like me, you are heading to a freaky technology of alienation. Isolating yourself to the max, you can only find your best friends in an aluminium metal case. Say hi! to Mr PSP, Mr Dota, Miss Msn, Mrs. Utube, Miss SMS, Mrs Xune, Mr Intel/Mac/Win/AMD. Oh Yeah! I totally forgot about him, Mr. Ericsson.

I love gadgets but I don't like them to take over my freaky life. Well! use your gadget cautiously. Don't talk and drive. Don't text and drive. Don't walk across the road while texting. Don't talk while meeting your friends. Don't play games when your families or friends are around. Don't eat, sleep, play. Don't surf porns, Don't try to show off your phones to others, Switch off your phone if possible.

Don't let the gadget ruin your freaky life. I am sure you will find yourself with more free time when your gadget is off. I am sure you will be amazed.

What A Fre@ky G@P? Wealth Gap

2008-10-22T13:16:00.027+08:00

Recently, Dr M has raised up the issue of reduce wealth gap to narrow race gap. According to the Stars newspaper, Dr M also mentioned that all the different races were responsible for building a success for the country, adding that it had been tough to ensure all the races to get united because of Mly’s demographic profile. Later, he mentioned about The Federal Constitution was based on that contract and more than that. The reason of having the contract is to ensure the spirit of each race sacrifices something to gain something else. The balance was needed.

Thank you for commenting about the rich and poor gap. Who are the rich and the poor? I will definitely not comment on the contract so much as I have not read about it at all. Reducing wealth gap might not necessarily reduce the race gap. What is Race gap anyway? The gap between other races or the gap among an ethnic group. Whatever it's, I guess he was talking about the unification of the people among or between the ethnic groups. When we talk about wealth gap, we usually talk about the income inequality or the income distribution. In general, we can measure the gap by using the Gini coefficient. I won't talk about the Gini coefficient but it has something to do with measuring income and population. The idea of the Gini coefficient is simple and it's about how the population and income distribution spread over a country. The lower the coefficient, the better is the gap. In Malaysia, the ethnic groups are distributed in this way, 58% Malay and other Indigenous, 26% Chinese, 7% Indian, 9% Others. In many countries, individuals belonging to certain racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be poor or racially segregated.

The government usually plays a role in reflecting the outcome of the income distribution, especially in developing countries. Why Governments? Political needs, economic benefits, corruption and so on. Of course, the government could also reinvest or redistribute most of this income back to the poor in order to close the gap of income inequality. Unfortunately, we don't see anything. Even Mly people among the poor ethnic group is facing income gap differences. Suddenly, we see a development of the poor ethnic group and the rich ethnic group, which also caused a recent change in political movement during the recent election. I am not here to disapprove the idea of improving wealth gap, which also helps to narrow race gap. I am saying that the race gap is not necessarily caused by wealth gap. It has something more to do with that, and we have to look at things in different perspectives.

Over the years, I believe that even within the Chinese ethnic group, we can find income gap between the educated and the uneducated, the rich and the poor people, but we still unify to improve our country. However, things have changed a lot in Penang. It's more about communication or the belief of an equal treatment from the government. Malay population income gap among themselves has grown a lot too, and even within their ethnic group. I see the reason of why smart people deserve to earn more. They work hard to get into that position. Rich people, on the other hand, might not be necessarily smart or even hard-working but manage to lead due to power. Suddenly, we see a big division in groups. The rich wants something. The poor wants something. The gap continues and widens. There is always a gap? But why the gap has widened? Financial crisis, Political crisis, Revolutionary needs and more.

Now, you find lots of differences in their income distribution as well. If wealth gap is what we think to be the cause of disunity among races or race gap, what about educational gap, political gap, transparency gap, quota gap, AP gap and health gap. They all could lead to income gap and also race gap. To be honest, everyone sacrifices for their country but we also deserve to be equally treated. Of course by closing down the wealth gap, everyone seems to be equal in income distribution or even maybe hierarchy status. But, shouldn't we look at equality rights with transparencies. Again, smart and rich people want to distinguish themselves from others. It's alright to have a very small gap problem. You can close the gap but that doesn't mean you can have a social unification among people. The respect is just not there. Significantly, we must focus on needs for a revolutionary change in education, people's mindset and work attitudes. Maybe, it's just the right time for the government to think about it. Importantly, it's all about equal educational opportunities, equal benefits, equal government loans, equal medical benefits, equal supports and equal freedoms to all people. Yeah! And I agree the balance is needed. But to what certain extent the balance goes? For how long? Who are the people in this country who get the better balance? Are we talking equal balance? Shouldn't we focus more on universal fairness so that even indigenous people deserve the helps. Forget about closing the income gap, when the balance may lead or widen the race gap in a long run. I'd rather focus on something concrete and influential that will prosper the society as a whole in a long run. We all expect more to come.

I think KinnikuMan is Fre@ky

2008-10-18T01:32:00.020+08:00

How did I find out about this weird superhero? My roommate and his girlfriend went to an arcade shop where lots of things could be won. He spent around 30 dollar to beat the Candy machine, and one of the prizes was this ultimate funny looking superhero.

Well! Most superheroes that you know are somewhat perfect in a way. However, some of them usually carry certain weaknesses. For instance, Superman is afraid of kryptonite, Ultraman is afraid of energy failure, Power Rangers need to unite in a way to form a huge robot. That weaknesses, I would consider them to be more indirect influence or I would say non-emotional. In other words, the weakness does not directly touch on the characteristics of the superheroes, something considers to be less abstract. I am sure there are other new generation of superheroes like Batman, Spiderman, or Daredevil might carry certain personality weaknesses. My superhero is always Batman. However, KinnikuMan shares something interesting and weird to me. If I were to be a hero, I would want to be someone like KinnikuMan, but not Batman. Don't get me wrong, Batman is still my superhero. So Why KinnikuMan? LOL! I guess you will have to find it out yourself.

So who is KinnikuMan? According to wikipedia, Kinnikuman (キン肉マン) was a manga founded by Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi Shimada. The manga was published in Shueisha's Weekly Jump, and awarded with the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen manga in 1985. An animated series was produced using old animation technique. In America, he was called as a muscle man ("Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere").Most superheroes came from something or somewhere different and with certain high status. Batman was rich. Superman, born in krypton, was fathered to scientist, Jor-El . Ironman, multimillionaire business man, did research in weapons and robotics. Spiderman was bitten by a spider and he turned into spider fre@k. Seriously, most of the superheroes look a little scary to me. Just like what the Joker said, "to me they are all just a freak". I would have said the same thing. Most superheroes' personalities are just strict and weird. Maybe, superheroes were meant to act in a certain macho manner. Joker was funny but he was way too scary and freaky. In my opinion, KinnikuMan would be the right candidate in terms of "funnieness" and the right "freakiness". He just had all the right elements. LOL

Moreover, most superheroes were just smart or strong in different perspectives. It seemed they were perfect in anything. On the other hand, KinnikuMan, originally, was a clumsy goof of a superhero whose services were only called upon to battle monsters if no other superheroes were around. In a way, he was like a substitute superhero. Kinnikuman's powers came from eating garlic, which would gradually fill the "garlic meter" on his forehead until he could grow into a giant to fight the monsters. His main attack was the "Kinniku Flash" beam. Yeah! I like garlic too.

In order for KinnikuMan to be a mainstream superhero and also to be worthy for his throne as he later found out that he was the missing prince of planet Kinuku, he began to focus on professional wrestling. Of course, his major personality flaw was clumsiness. He always forgot about things for no reason and even awkwardly acted like an insane man. It's quite true, to be a popular superhero, you gotta climb up the ladder to gain your fame. Moreover, to me, he was not that handsome or attractive to capture the attention at all. Most of his opponents or villains were quite weird too. For instance, "The Toilet Paper Mummy," a giant hand, and monsters based on things like pachinko machines and telephones.

I have included a youtube clip of this funny superhero. Just pay attention on the stuff he does. You will laugh all the way to his planet of Kiniku. In the clip, KinnikuMan is the one who is wearing a red color underwear.

KinnikuMan's action figure can be found in different forms and colors due to his awkward personalities. Therefore, you might have owned one and you still don't know about it. He is just so damn cool but a little ugly in a way. KinnikuMan Rocks!!! LOL

Garlic Myth (from Wikipedia)
Central European folk beliefs considered garlic a powerful ward against demons, werewolves, and vampires. To ward off vampires, garlic could be worn, hung in windows or rubbed on chimneys and keyholes. Garlic has been regarded as a force for both good and evil. A Christian myth considers that after Satan left the Garden of Eden, garlic arose in his left footprint, and onion in the right.

Alternative Fre@k's Cooking Stylo (P1)

2008-10-17T01:12:00.014+08:00

4 simple steps to Cook Your Own Fre@ky Maccheroni

Alternative Freaks: people who can't kick their old habits but somehow find a better and cheaper way to continue their old habits (the definition is on my previous post, freaky economics)

Italian Cuisine is usually quite expensive in a way. As an alternative freak, I usually learn how to cook my favorite dishes. Recently, when I was in Kuala Lumpur, my sister's home, I was left alone with a freaky starvation. Fortunately, I found some ingredients to cook a special and fast dish. Oh yeah! It's an Italian food. Well! Let me share with you my own fast-food recipe. If you are a lazy ass but enjoy Italian food, i think this might help a bit.

Ingredients: Garlic, Onions, parsley flakes, a can of mayo tuna, black pepper, macch ero ni, cheese, beer and etc. LOL. Did I say beer? Yeah anything that fits.

First, boil your maccheroni for like 10-15 mins with some oil and salt and later, dry the maccheroni .
Second, heat up the oil or butter with chopped onion and garlic in a frying pan, and later put the maccheroni and mayo tuna. Give it a few mins in between.
Third, when the pan is getting a little dried, add some beer or water (like 2 tablespoons). In the end, you can add cheese for cheezy purpose.
Last, by now, you can start to switch off the fire and start decorating the food with parsley flakes and black peppers for sneezing effect.

Yeah! It's done. The cooking process of this Italian dish takes approximately 20-30 mins, and cooking instant noodles takes around 10 mins. Well! At least, you are cooking on your own. Be a fast-food cook now lazy ass. Lol... I know it's ugly but tasty.

Results
Taste: Freaky; Decoration: Weird; Preparation Time: Super fast & easy; Conclusion: Waulaueh (unbelievable)

The Lost Violence of Holevent Town (Pt.2)

2008-10-13T05:12:00.000+08:00

Continued from the previous post ( The Lost Violence of Holevent Town).

I just couldn't believe that there was actually no human in this little small and shanty hometown. As I walked through the woods and the leave-less and dead-look hollow trees, the full moon started to fade away as the heavy and dark clouds overshadowed me. Everytime, the freezing wind blew with a howling speech, the wooden and broken doors would creak. Glassless windows with no frames would start to shatter and I could only hope for a comfortable place to spend this very long and horrifying night.Suddenly, owls would stare at me on top of the ghost-like trees; Wolves would make scornful cries out of nowhere; other animals would scarily hide away from me as if they knew something was going to happen. There was no way to turn back as my car was damage. It seemed the accident happened by no mistakes. My devastating journey continued without any promising outcome. However, having walked for another few long minutes, I came to see a little hut with some glimmering lights, and the fireplace was very warm and hopeful. It was just a good relief to encounter a place where I could spend my lonely night here. As I got closer to the wooden selfless hut, there was some conversation going on inside the place. It was even better with people around in the hut so that I wasn't going to be alone and speechless tonight. At least, someone was here to accompany me and that was what I thought. Then, the little tangling door opened with a slight push from inside as if someone was welcoming me. I was terrified...(to be continued with this story)

Fre@ky 3C0N0M1C5

2008-10-08T11:01:00.024+08:00

Read your newspapers and you will see headlines, popping up with the big words like "The Big Plunge", "Inflation soars", "Recession", "Credit Crunch", "Bankrupt", "Unemployment Ups" and the headlines keep on repeating. Let me tell you, not only we are living in a world of freaky economics but also freaky Globalization, freaky government, and freaky media. I know you hate me for saying this and now we are freaking out.

What you gonna do when you know your bank is going to go bankrupt? You become a freak and start withdrawing your money. Later, we might just become "freakers", influencing others to withdraw their monies too. Few weeks ago, I was thinking of writing something about me, the economy and Starbucks (coffee shop). I was sure that they were connected in a way. I just couldn't link them up with some stupid connections (I LIKE COFFEE -> STARBUCKS -> ECONOMICS). It wouldn't make any sense to you or me at all. Why do we want to link them up between economics, Starbucks and me? Well! We just like to make things that make sense and assume it's the only way. But sometimes, we often misjudge the outcome of a certain problem due to our conventional thoughts. Sometimes, you have to be a little freaky to think something weird or unconventional or bizarre.

Starbucks, one of the biggest F&B chains, closed down several outlets in the States due to the big words like RECESSION, CREDIT CRISIS and LOW DEMAND. Now, you probably have an idea of a freaky economy. We can't really ignore the way we react when the economy is down. People will drive less and might even sell their cars because of high oil price. If you belong to a low-income-earner category, I am sorry that you will probably suffer a lot more than others. So why did I drink my coffee in Starbucks when the economy was in a real bad situation? I was there because I was still looking for jobs with the free Wifi connection (Economy Downfall -> Starbucks Close Down -> Employees Unemployed -> Less Consumption -> Weak Consumerism Economics -> Low Demand In Starbucks Coffee -> Ppl switch to drink (Kopi-O)) It's nothing weird to be a freak. That's how nature works. Suddenly, our characteristics might even change due to the social economic environment. Some people will be much more calculative. Some people will be spending wisely, and some people will be cooking at home or making their own coffee drinks. If you can't kick your old habits of doing expensive stuff, you will have to find other alternatives.

When I was a poor university student, I enjoyed drinking Grande Green tea Latte from Starbucks. I felt a little expensive for a simple drink. As a result, I learned to make my own Green tea Latte. Now, I also call myself an "alternative freak". Good thing, I can make my own Green tea Latte and also get to save my own money. Well! You can definitely try to do this at your own pace, especially during the recent economy downfall. (Caution: The outcome of replicating a drink from Starbucks might be slightly different or something worst)

All in all, if you are a rich freak, you will be okay with the freaky economy. If you are a freak drinker or can't kick the old habit, you can be an "alternative freak". If you are scared of the freaky economics concept very much, you will have to be a "freaker" and a freak. Well! Well! Suddenly, we might see more and more calculative freaks around us. LOL.

So What's Next? (Economics downturn -> New Ways to Cut Cost -> Tainted Milk -> Starbucks China -> 220 Outlets Stop Serving Milk-related products -> No Demand -> Bad Consumer Market -> Lost trust in Chinese Products -> Consumer Market Downfall - > Everyone Fre@ks Out)

(Chinese milk powder contaminated with melamine sickens 1,253 babies)

Freakers: people who freak others
Freaks: people who are afraid or scared of something
Kopi-O: Plain black coffee, usually serve in hawker center with a reasonable cheap price
Alternative Freaks: people who can't kick their old habits but somehow find a better and cheaper way to continue their old habits
Calculative Freaks: People who are very selfish and calculative over a small amount of something

(The Above Pic: Me freaking out in Jaya1, Starbucks, PJ, Malaysia)

Un@gi Fre@k

2008-10-08T01:57:00.001+08:00

Unagi (うなぎ) - A Japanese word for eels. Unagi is served widely in Japanese Cuisine. Unagi is quite high in protein, vitamin A, calcium, cholesterol and saturated fat.

Caution: Some eels like electric eels are capable of generating high electric shocks for defend and attack.

Moreover, other countries also serve eels very much.

New Zealand (Maori): Longfin Eels
East Londoners: Jellied Eels
Italy (Comacchio): Eels from Adriatic Coast
Germany & The Nederlands: Smoked Eels
United States: Moray Eels

(Pic from Wikipedia. A kabayaki-don (una-don), Japanese unagi cuisine)

Well! I have been to lots of places to try Unagi dishes. I guess you can find a scrumptious unagi dish in the most expensive Japanese restaurants. Some low-end Japanese restaurants serve Unagi with little or no care to Unagi. It's simple to prepare and to cook, but most of the time, it must be served right after having cooked. In some grocery stores, you could find Unagi in a frozen pack. Heat it with a bowl of rice and the dish is good to go. However, it usually sucks that way. So where is the best way and the best place to taste this fine delicate Unagi dish? Japan!!! Oh Yeah!!! An Unagi Journey to Japan (To be continued)

The Lost Violence of Holevent Town

2008-10-07T19:10:00.000+08:00

It was a shivering night and the only thing I could see was a pole of a dimmed light, constantly flickering the silent street with no one except me. Walking down the street of the heavily damaged roads, I could only think of the darkness of misery, a place where one could not even bear to suffer the gloomy and chilling environment. In other words, it's just plain scary and dull. Maybe, this place wasn't meant for anyone to stay over and I wasn't even supposed to be here. Nonetheless, I would still need to survive from this heart-tearing moment of my life. Having walked across a block of an old and rusty concrete building, I came to realize that the place had been abandoned for a long time. People suspiciously claimed to observe very weird and scary sightings when they came across this so-called haunted area. Moreover, the pale and scrapped wall of the building reflected the bloody violence of this place. It's about 12 midnight and I was still walking slowly down the road, leading me to nowhere but the forest of eerie sound and spine-cracking wind. As the wind howled with a freezing breeze, I was just there waiting for my whole body to turn dead cold. (To be continued on 20th Oct)

Welcome To Creature Freak

2008-10-07T18:01:00.000+08:00

It's just great to be back in my blogging activities. It probably took me quite some times to write something meaningful and exciting. Anyway, as a creature freak, I will try to explore the world of diversified and bizarre things. I definitely know my journey is rather weird and wonderful. I just wish we could all be somewhat similar but it won't happen coz I am a Creature Freak. Let's explore the people, the love, the nature with an opened heart.

Human

How different human beings are

Even though born under the

Same star.

There is no similarity

Within human variety

We are all considered unique.

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