Archive for the ‘Daily Life’ Category

Good news, Bad news, Chinese Spacewalk, Turtles, etc.

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

It seems that people often dote on bad news. But it is really not difficult to understand why. Every day, we are bombarded with bad news, especially sensational ones that can help popularise a blog, a magazine, or a newspaper. I normally get my news from GoogleNews. I believe the news headlines there are picked from the most viewed news from around the world. Obviously, it is mostly bad news. (P.S. You can get slightly more localised news if you go for the website for your country. E.g. add .au for australia)

Here’s a good news for today though. One that I haven’t heard much talking about outside of China… China has successfully launched, landed and completed a spacewalk! Read more about it here. I think it is such a great accomplishment, not only because they did it, but also did it in accordance to their previous plans, and without much politicking (at least not that I have heard/read about, and certainly not enough to delay or derail the mission). China and its leaders do really inspire trust and respect IMHO. At least, they really do punish people who are outright doing wrong, whether they are part of the Communist Party, and irrespective of how high up they are. This is something that many “democratic” countries fail to do…

Anyway, I am really happy for China. I think they are the best hope to keep the fascination, enthusiasm and even fanaticism for space alive! NASA is good, but unfortunately, too much politics and internal money-siphoning (probably — why everything is so expensive and slow?) just doesn’t do it much good. I would also wait for all those private companies now trying to make space travel a reality for the masses…

Definitely welcomed good news after reading all the upsetting news on Malaysia’s politics… :) I may have been away from Malaysia for 13 years (almost half my life), but there’s still a Malaysian in me… And at least for me, there is no place like one’s birthplace. Maybe that’s why even turtles keep going back to the same place to lay their eggs, even though they realise that humans are there to trap them, disturb them and remove the eggs they so lovingly placed in their yearly ritual until they are now almost extinct

P.S. Colafish is still incubating the little one… Adam must be too comfortable in mama’s tummy.

Crime news

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Adelaide is a peaceful and slow paced city.

That’s a fact supported by these crime news from the city free weekly newspaper - The Messenger.

1. Handbag Grabbed (not bad, we have snatch thieves too!) -A man grabbed a woman’s handbag off her arm as she walked through Victoria Square on Friday, June 27,about 8.30pm. The woman chased and confronted the man who dropped the bag and ran away (feminism rulez!!). She was not hurt.

2. Knife Wielder - three men, one wielding a knife, tried to rob another man of his backpack as he walked along Princess St, city on Thursday, June 26, about 6am. The backpacker ran away and kept his bag. (hope he didn’t get caught by the traffic police for running over 50km/h - that’s the speed limit in the city)

- amongst other news of breakins, speedings and booze bashings.

That’s why the papers doesn’t need a joke column when there is a ‘low and order’ column. Haha.

Childish neighbour…

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

Whoa! Was playing Dance Dance Revolution with colafish recently on the Wii… then came a series of knocks on the door. I finished the dance (and beat the Venue Master! :) ) before answering the knocks…

Turns out it was the neighbour complaining about banging noises! Well… ahem. Let’s see. It is 8:30pm at the time. And, even though I do dance like an orang utan, the floor is carpetted, and we only have the rare occasion to play the game in recent days.

Well, I apologised about the noise, thinking it might be due to having the TV a little louder than usual. Then, I thought, hmm… there are banging noises from the units above us as well. So, I wrote a (hand-written) note stating that the noises might be from the units above and left the note on the neighbour’s door.

(more…)