If we want to remember him as a freak, we'll need to know how he came to be what he was today. Childhood was his biographical song and it's my fave among all.
Waking up early is so meaningful now cause i've more time during the day to do things. Like catching sun leaks around my house.
Old wisdom, just learn.
I didn't spot the connection between the 'kind act' movement (Twipple, Free Hugs) and using it as a tactic in brand building. So, I was pleasantly surprised when Hyatt announced their new initiative to randomly target Gold Pass members with acts of generosity during their stay at the hotel. As part of their mission in bringing 'authentic hospitality' to life, guests will be treated with little surprises such as picking up the bar tab, complimentary massage or free breakfast treats for the family.
This is a shining example of corporate generosity, and the gold standard of what 'added value' is defined. For me, the obvious strategy is randomness, and not about the act itself. For years, brands that claim to be customer-oriented have been promising freebies and promos as part of their service standards. It is getting stale and boring.
What Hyatt will be doing is putting a twist to the service definition. The surprise element of 'random luckiness' is definitely more delighting than the promises on the menu. A classic example of how you do it, instead of what you do.
Just found out that Nandos started home delivery! Will definitely be my top list for home orders and late work nights since McD, Dominos and Pizza's is getting a tad boring.
Yeh yeh.
Animated sketch comedy series, SuperNews takes on the hot button gems of politics, pop culture and technology. Watch them all at Supernews on Current TV. Lots of insights in there.
We spent more than 3 weeks of May trekking from Inner Mongolia to big city Xian. Among the thousands photos we have, this is my favorite. It's not the prettiest but it was captured at that moment when I'm the most happiest. The temperature was right, the smell of the woods and the tingling heat when the sun touches my face. Mr Bak was next to me.
See more of Silk Road here. Look out for the videos too.
I've never taken an interest at the state of our political climate mainly because, most of their antics happen within their circus ring. But now that they've taken the act to play with ordinary people on the streets, I find this absolutely absurd and disgusted. Raiding the Humour Tees is a cheap thrill but wearing Che Guevera makes your a communist and Bruce Lee is communism tops it for the Guinness World Record of funniest joke. (If you don't believe, check your Facebook. The whole world is laughing!)
On a serious note, please read this article by Amir Muhammad in the Malay Mail today. I know most of you won't bother with Malay Mail so I've pasted the article to save you the trouble. Me thinks it's the most intelligent, sensible account of what this whole bull shit means, by far and I know you'll agree. 
AN early chapter begins with a sentence as good as any Dickens opening: "Several months after my 25th birthday, I discovered that I was, in fact, only 23 years old." If the events of the past had been very different, might Chin Peng (the nom de guerre of Ong Boon Hua, now 85,) have become one of our very best writers?
Life was different then. Births weren't registered efficiently; people made difficult life choices; some of those choices vex us until today. That is why, despite not having made any public statements lately, the Sitiawan- born Chin Peng has become the second-most discussed octogenarian in the country. That's not surprising because, for over four decades, he led the country's very first political party..jpg)
The Communist Party of Malaya was also the first multi-racial party, although you can see the snag very early on when Chapter 2 is titled "A Chinese boyhood in colonial Malaya." That well-known colonial strategy of stark racial demarcation also ensured that the CPM never succeeded in expanding its reach, and this proved one of the factors that led to its marginalisation.
Chin Peng has lived in our popular imaginations as all sorts of things, and it's with a sense of shock we discover that he's just a man. I also hadn't counted on this book, whose very title is intelligently aware of narrative subjectivity, to strike the occasional droll note: recollecting his boyhood membership of a church choir, he says that he probably could still sing Christian songs now - "if my life depended on it".
I had looked forward to his account of the killing of the Sungai Siput planters, the event which triggered the Emergency. Although he says it was done without his knowledge, and that he regretted that the youngest planter was targeted (he was a new arrival in Malaya and couldn't have known much), he ends the section with:
"The deaths of the other two were acceptable." No longer droll, just chilling.
Then again, these were people at war. The Emergency was merely a euphemism for the longest undeclared war in Commonwealth history, with tolls on both sides. Within the context of armed revolution, a white planter probably embodied precisely the type of capitalist exploitation that needed to be eliminated.
We have become subconsciously used to the idea of British rule as not only relatively benign but, given the circumstances of the time, somehow natural.
Thus, the wounded and dead who fought on behalf of the colonial elite are protecting "the rest of us" while anyone else becomes, well, unnatural. It seems almost impossible now to imagine that if history had gone the other way (and in the decade after WWII, communism was seen as a global force not only by its supporters) we would have very different ideas of heroes and villains.
Among the rich cast of characters, the British soldier John Davis, who formed an alliance with the communists to get rid of the Japanese, emerges particularly vividly, as does the book's villain, the triple-agent Lai Te. The unlikely friendship between Davis and Chin Peng points to how people could be ideologically opposed but still respect each other. This is something few of us appreciate nowadays.
No politician should stay in power so long, and the second half of the CPM's active existence did indeed see the group unravelling through internal bickering and witch-hunts. But it's the stubborn pride of its leaders that resisted a total surrender; after all, pride was one of the few things they had left.
The last chapters detail the long road to freedom... or at least out of the proverbial and literal jungle. He stops short of calling Mahathir our Mandela, but Chin Peng acknowledges the 1989 peace accord between the governments of Malaysia and Thailand as well as the CPM as a model of a dignified settlement.
It appeared that we could finally set aside our respective hurts and just move along. After all, nations with arguably more traumatic pasts, like South Africa, could reconcile their divisions, so why can't we?
Just as we shouldn't forget history, we shouldn't be strangled by it, either. Respect the promises we made two decades ago.
--the end.
In summary. R.E.S.P.E.C.T
If Malaysia is going for change, this seven-letters word is the ultimate savior to move forward.
Hear that, Mr Ministry of Absolutely Authority? R.E.S.P.E.C.T
If there's one lifestyle disease you can aptly label for 2009 (and onwards), it is exhaustion. 
Last Sunday, Britain's Got Talent runner up, Susan Boyle checked into a mental health clinic last Sunday after the award ceremony. Apparently, she's been showing signs of reclusion and erratic outburst nearing the finals. 
The following day, Malaysia's self-made millionaire Tony Fernandez was not exempted too. He fainted at LCCT after arriving from Penang for AirAsia's inaugural Singapore-Penang flight ceremony. 
Earlier in March, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail aka Salim in Slumdog Millionaire is said to be suffering from exhaustion after his trip to LA for the Academy Awards. The 10-year-old has developed a temperature of 103 degrees F since returning home to Mumbai and his mom claims her son is having difficulty readjusting to life in the slums after experiencing a life of luxury in LA.
What do they all have in common?
Ordinary folks with sudden rise to fame and the pressure to keep it going. Competition kills.
Take it easy, my friends.
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