Two news articles in the Star caught my attention today: Five-day week plus Cola for civil servants Quality time: The Government has agreed in principle to a five-day week and a Cost of Living Allowance (Cola) for the country’s one million civil servants. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said a five-day week would benefit civil servants as they could spend more time with their families. At first I thought the government is reducing the work day week AND giving civil servants a fizzy drink every week. Oh yeah, sure, like that’s gonna placate Cuepacs. Anyways I found out it was actually Cost of Living Allowances (NOT Coca-Cola). While…

What to do When You’ve Watched Star Wars Sixteen Times Already… by Simon Collect the complete set of Happy Meal toys and re-enact the movie in your own room. Collect the following items: Short aluminium pipe, duct tape, coloured plastic and a fluorescent light tube – and you can make your own lightsaber! Program your Nokia handphone’s polyphonic ringtone to sound like R2-D2. Have an all weekend movie where you can watch all six movies back-to-back, followed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Indiana Jones trilogy (all in just 24 hours straight). Start calling your friends with names of characters from Star Wars : “Hey, there Jabba…

Pros and Cons for Liverpool to play in the Champions League next season… by Simon Points SUPPORTING Liverpool to play in the Champions League Next Season: Champions should be allowed to defend their cup. (Strongest point they have, this one) European big teams support their bid (it would be less embarrassing for them to lose to Liverpool next year, rather than to, say, Partizan Belgrade…) Hey, getting 5th position in the premiership is a BIG achievement. Chelsea, Arsenal and MU have made block booking on the top three spots for the next few seasons, anyway… At least we have a positive goal difference. Look at Everton… And we beat Arsenal,…

The MCA internal elections are back again. Quite a few high profile faces are facing challenges, although this time around things are not as spicy as the last elections involving the ‘MCA & MCB’ factions. Support for MCA, just like politics in Malaysia, has seen waning support from the urban English speaking Chinese. Not because MCA is becoming unpopular, more because the younger generation are less socio-politically conscious, having more things to occupy their short attention span. Anyway, as is the norm with Malaysian political party elections, the players will always use the same old tried and tested political-speak, which we will inevitably read in the papers (most of them…

Man, this has been a tiring week at work. And for the next two weeks while everybody else is going on family vacations in conjunction with the school semester break, I’ll be stuck in endless meetings at the office. The other day I was bottled up in a 15-minute discussion that dragged on for 1 and a half hours. Most of the time I was sitting there frowning at the people talking, I was thinking about the new Batman movie coming soon. I know the Star Wars force is still strong, but the Dark Knight’s hype machine has also started. Anyway, this is the result of the meeting. Top Twelve…

I thought of doing a team by team review of this season’s English Premier League, but I guess there isn’t much to say that hasn’t been done so. So I thought, screw it. Let’s just give a snappy tagline to describe their entire season. Listed here, 20 teams, according to their finishing position in the table…Chelsea – Muahahahar, money DOES buy success. Arsenal – Hey, at least we won SOMETHING.(I’m trying to be non-partisan here…) Man United – We still THINK we’re the best club in England… Everton – How to Play With 9 Defenders and One Striker Or Now who wants to buy Cahill for 20 million? Liverpool –…

Some time ago was Teacher’s Day. I think. Never thought about it for the last umpteen years since leaving school. My mom (who wasn’t a teacher) said this lot had the best jobs in Malaysia – half day work, 2 day weekends, 10 weeks of school holidays every year, etc. This was many years ago when teachers weren’t required to spend Saturdays and holidays doing all that ‘extra co-curricular activities’ crap. Anyway, I had some really cool teachers in my time, and some really moronic ones. Here’s ten words of wisdom that were really given to me by them. I kid you not. Best Advice My Teachers Ever Gave Me…

Dress up as Darth Vader and flash yourself (yes, as in expose yourself naked) at a group of ladies waiting at the bus-stop. Better yet, flash yourself at a newspaper reporter and photographer. Here’s another tip. Choose a slow news day. You don’t want to go to all that trouble to dress up and risk being arrested, hoping to make the front page of the Star, only to be pushed to page 3 by the Perodua Myvi launch. And make sure you choose your victims. The last thing you want to hear when you flash at them is: “Oh dear, what a *tiny* ‘lightsabre’!” “OK girls, remember what I taught…

My blog hasn’t been updated as often as I’d like this week, I’ve been feeling very sick these few days. In addition to that, I’ve been quite busy, no time to go to see my unsympathetic doctor. I’ve only been to the doctor twice in the past 12 months. Once for suspected dengue, once for a bad case of throat infection. Speaking of going to the doctor, I’m reminded of a story my friend SA once told me when we were in university together. He was attending a sekolah asrama penuh (fully-residential secondary school) in Perak. His was quite a strict school, you couldn’t go home from college unless it…

You Know Malaysians Are Too Crazy Over Star Wars When… by Simon (who last night taught Darth Vader how to operate his VCR) …when they start using C8