Entries Tagged 'Rantings' ↓

I saw a sight this morning that I would prefer not to have seen.

A man on a motorcycle appeared without warning from a side road right into the path of my car. Fortunately I was going slow. He did not even stop to look at traffic or to see who might have nearly knocked him down. I later noticed that he had a little child sitting in front of him without a helmet.

At the traffic light, again without stopping to look left or right he ran the red light into the path of oncoming traffic.

If he did not treasure his own life, at least think of the little boy sitting in front of him.

Some people don’t deserve to be parents.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine whats wrong with Streamyx. It has slowed down to a snail’s pace both at work and at home. It starts out promising and then, as the day progresses, just withers and dies away. Most of the time, I can barely have 2 tabs open and if I do, both will be loaded halfway and stuck after some tantalizing titbit of information.

Perhaps now is a good time to be looking at wimax. I don’t know the mechanics of it, but if it can promise me a consistently fast speed (and anything that doesn’t cause pages to time out on me is fast) at a fair price, I’m game.

I am.

Now, where do I sign up?

I just got back from RHB Bank where I do a lot of my banking. Its not my favourite bank but its convenient location-wise. Thus far, bar a few hiccups here and there they have served me relatively well. I too had been a loyal user of their internet banking since its inception.

So, imagine my horror when I went to the bank today and saw a new directive for New Service Charges by RHB Bank.

Right at the bottom under an obscure column called e-banking, were the words:-

Transfer between own accounts - RM0.50

Transfer from own account to 3rd party RHB account - RM1.00

I was stunned. Was RHB planning to charge me for using their online banking feature to facilitate online transfers between accounts?!

A check with the cashier told me that yes, it will come into effect next week. There was no date on the directive and no date of coming into effect.

I have shot off an email to the RHB Internet Banking centre to seek clarification. I also called up Maybank to see if Maybank charges for inter-maybank transfers and the answer was an emphatic NO.

If RHB decides to go ahead and charge me for using their online services, well, I’ll just stop using the bank altogether! Yes they are convenient, but I don’t think I should be made to PAY for an online transaction, do you?

I will update when I get confirmed news.

Pride is having a Malaysian on the Olympic medal podium. After Lee Chong Wei qualified for the Men’s Singles Badminton Final, Malaysia is now assured of a medal and to see our flag flying high. Whether we hear the Negaraku played tomorrow, rests on the shoulders of one man.

From The Star

Whatever the outcome, we have every reason to be proud of a Malaysian making his mark in the world and putting our name on the Olympics map. And yes, I’m terribly proud of him, whether it be Silver or Gold tomorrow.

Shame is hearing that the Selangor MB will be sued by UiTM for not apologizing over a proposal that the institute of higher learning admit 10% of non bumiputras. A mere proposal, and it sparked protest marches (with a police permit apparently) and threats of a legal suit. Are we so immature that we cannot resolve matters by sitting down over a cuppa tea to discuss things like full grown adults? Since when did protest marches become the norm here in Malaysia?

When I see this, all I feel is fear, threatened and all round shame. They make it so hard to love a country.

And yet, I know that when I see Chong Wei on the podium tomorrow, I will feel nothing but pride.

You know, I’ve never been as sick of the Olympics as I have been in recent days. I don’t mean that I’m sick of it. I love the Olympics and everything it stands for. I always see it as a triumph of the human spirit where upsets happen all the time in any sporting discipline irrespective of country might and money.

I love the idea behind the Olympics, where athletes from all over the world come to compete and (traditionally) all wars are halted to foster the spirit of friendly rivalty.

I don’t know what it is about China hosting the 2008 Olympic Games thats gotten the world’s pants in a twist. Every other day, I’m reading complaints about Chinese gymnasts being underaged, or that the opening ceremony was not as spectactular as it was, or that China has spent too much money building the water cube where the water sports are held… and China did this and China did not do that … and the list goes on. I find Yahoo Sports a big culprit in encouraging derogatory comments about the host country - first by tweaking the medal tally and in their truly skewed reporting. They should give fair coverage to the sports not make comments about how much the water cube costs and why the Chinese could not build a wall around the showers.

In my view, China is doing as decent a job of hosting the world’s biggest games as Athens or Sydney. We don’t hear complaints about how much Athens or Sydney spent. In fact, cities have gone bankrupt by hosting the Olympic Games. I’m sure Barcelona has a tale to tell. Will we be hearing about how much London will spend to host the 2012 Games? Will we still be hearing about Chinese gymnasts then or will we have some England bashing? I seriously doubt the latter.

Why am I not hearing that the 52kg Thai girl who lifted a record 126kg in the weightlifting championships is not legit? She is tiny and her lifting technique was effortless. She deserves her Gold medal as do the Chinese gymnasts who displayed a good performance. Performing before a home crowd always brings out the best in any athelete - ask our Jaguh Kampungs and they can tell you that. The USA swept the medals at the Los Angeles and Atlanta Olympics - we didn’t hear them complain then.

I’m not defending China in any other aspect other than their performance in hosting the Games. I’m just saying that it is the Olympics and if you win, kudos to you. If you lose out, you had a bad day, better luck next time, try again in 4 years. Phelps is dominating the swimming events and I’m sure the Americans are proud of him. They have every right to be, the same way the Australians adored Ian Thorpe when he was King of the Pool in Sydney. We don’t hear of allegations that Phelps must be on steriods to be the size he is and have the power he has or that the Americans must have pumped him up with something illegal that escapes detection.

So, I think what the world needs to do is take a step back and remember that we are all different. Asians have a smaller built and face it, look younger than our Caucasian counterparts. Different sporting disciplines result in people having different body physiques and different races capitalise on that. Look at track events. Blacks and Africans dominate mainly due to their size and physique. Swimmers need height as well as arms and caucasians have the upper hand. In the gymnasium and in diving a smaller size means less weight and more agility and Asians face it, fall in this category. In fact, I remember watching the Romanian team once who used to dominate the gymnastics events and they were really tiny too. So, if you can’t get that sort of physique it might be time to blame your ancestry not others.

I’ve had my say. Comments are closed. I dont’ want to have to deal with people telling me about why China is not being fair to their people and spending too much money instead of feeding the poor, because this is NOT what it is about.