the wacky wombat weblog

Well, according to Mike Tyson anyway (read: Berita Harian in Malay). If he’s right about foreign organizations paying bloggers back home up to RM 100k per month, I’m gonna buy the first ticket back to KL and be a full-time blogger. But then again, these words came from the very person that made a police report accusing RPK of insulting the Agong and Islam in his blog.

Does Mike Tyson have any factual proof to substantiate his claims? He’s the one who’s caught in public trying to carry out millions of dollars in Australia. He should know better than to throw out such wild claims about money.

And then there were the rumours of UMNO cyber-troopers being paid in excess of RM 2k per month to create havoc in blogs. If UMNO really can pay for these cyber-troopers, why can’t bloggers get paid for their writing too? Probably because they know that they can’t pay the bloggers enough to stop writing the truth? And if both claims about all these money is involved is true, then UMNO better be able to cough up for more cyber-troopers otherwise it won’t stand a chance to fight.

In the meantime, I feel the term “Information” in the minds of our politicians is more likely a synonym to misinformation. Coz now we have the Information Minister and UMNO Information Chief being constantly misinformed.

UPDATE: Pay me the market rate of RM 100,000 a month and I will blog on whatever topics you like. My blog loyalty goes to the financial sponsor. It doesn’t matter if you’re a foreign organization, UMNO, or even an influentially-yet-misinformed minister or senator. Interested? Contact me today! Offers less than the market rate mentioned above will not be entertained.

“KIMANIS (Sabah), July 28 (Bernama) — Umno wants bloggers who resort to slander to be brought to book, said Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin.

He said these bloggers did not think about the sensitivities of others and the repercussions their writings can cause.

“There are no laws in the cyberworld except for the law of the jungle. As such, action must be taken so that the “monkeys” behave,” he told reporters after opening the Papar, Kimanis and Sipitang Umno Youth annual delegates conference here today.

Khairy said there were some bloggers who thought they were above the law.

He said this when asked about Malaysia-Today webmaster Raja Petra Kamaruddin being called by the police for alleged seditious comments posted on it.

Khairy added that he too had been slandered on websites but had yet to take legal action because the case might take a long time to be settled.” - BERNAMA

And that comes from someone who brags about his stupidity of owning an iPhone in his column on a national newspaper and using it via roaming (since it can’t be unlocked yet) back home in Malaysia. The very same person who would hang out with the Mat Rempits and ride around by-election towns without wearing a helmet (isn’t that against the law? Oh wait, he’s the son-in-law of our Prime Minister).

The very person who thinks that bloggers do not care for the sensitivity of others, yet this very person is the one who goes around raising racial issues and having no respect at all for foreign leaders when he acted in outrage in a demonstration in town when US Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice was around.

Who’s the monkey now?

Just flew back from Tokyo to Singapore. First thing I noticed when I got off the plane? Travelators and escalators that don’t ’speak’. haha. *In Japan, all travelators and escalators play a recorded female voice telling you to please watch your step and don’t fall on your face, or something, over and over and over.

Took United Airlines, flight was alright, not too bumpy even though weather was cloudy. Food was meh (my butter was not melted into oil this time, but the bread was stone-cold). In-flight entertainment didn’t leave me very entertained with its combination of bad movies, crappy audio and puny screen. Oh well, business as usual on UA.

Nevertheless, the view of the sunset from above the clouds was quite nice (or at least to me it is). :p Plus the seat next to mine was vacant, so, yay!

Flight landed 20 minutes early, so I thought hurray, the faster I get out of Changi, the more I can avoid cab surcharge going overboard. Unfortunately, with the uncanny luck of always ending up on the queue that is the slowest no matter what I do, I only left the airport at 1.10am no thanks to idiots who seem to not have proper travel papers in my queue and cab lines extending to the front of arrival gates.

Anyhoo, I’m back, fatter from all the food in Japan, and sneezing non-stop now after cleaning up the dust in my room. Convocation’s happening in 3 days, and my family will be coming down to Singapore for that, so lots to look forward to (besides more dusting up of my room).

p/s: time for char kuay teow tomorrow. w00t!

Good victory for Fernando Alonso of Team McLaren, taking the chequered flag off whiny, good-for-nothing Felipe Massa. Funny handbags moment in the room just before the podium presentation where they were both bickering over whose fault it was when they both tangled for a moment and almost let slip the victory to Mark Webber on P3…

The rain and yesterday’s Lewis Hamilton crash really swirled up today’s F1 race. And there were tons of questions on whether Lewis was legally allowed back on track to race after spinning off to the gravel trap in severe aquaplaning, as well as why he was the only one allowed to unlap himself from behind the safety car even though he was already at the back of the pack. I’ve no answer for the 2nd question, but for the first, this may be of help:

The meal that lead to the intense battle of procrastination

After my intense battle of procrastination with Benet for a week, he finally caved in and posted about our tom yam feast at his house (his blog post). Go read more about the seafood tom yam feast on his blog.

Besides my mer-dragon encounter, I also had a nice time strolling around the gardens at the Imperial Palace. I always like how fresh everything looks and smells right after a short misty shower.

Took some photos, but not all turned out as nice as I had hoped. This time I decided to skip the editing like fine-tuning the colours and all, and stuck with the original, although I cropped some slightly to give the picture more balance. But all the same, I had fun playing with Au Yong’s digital camera (Casio Exilim EX-Z850).

My favourite is the spiderweb and the suspended water drops trapped in it. Here’s more of the rest. Alternatively, go to the navigation bar at the top of this page, and hit <photo gallery>.

Tried to take some photos of the Tokyo city scape, but I just can’t seem to capture concrete and steel structures nicely. Looks drab most of the time. But gotta shift from the flowers and greenery, and change my focus to city scenes.

Singapore has the merlion. Guess what I found in Tokyo.

Mer-dragon? haha.

Found this at the entrance to the Imperial Palace Garden on Wednesday. The ferocity of the dragon seems kinda diminished with that nice fish tail that he’s got.

But after looking at a notice stuck next to it, seems like he isn’t really a dragon.

Er, stylized dolphin?! (ok maybe a dolphin styled after a dragon?) 0_o

Well at least it looks more dignified than the merlion that zaps laser lights out of its eyes on Sentosa Island. And I suppose being 350 years old helps too. :p