When music was still good...

In a musical mood today and found this while you-tube-walking (is there such word?). Fantastic acoustic version of 'Crush' by Dave Matthews and the underrated Tim Reynolds. Sit back and enjoy!

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Save the Earth or...

What's on 22 April?

In case you're not aware, it's the Earth Day. The day when every body becomes expert on environment, recycling, global warming, etc.

The day when we pledge ourselves to save the earth or NOT...

Do we really care about the earth?

Don't you think we care more about ourselves?

We try to save the earth so that WE, the shameless humans, can EXPLOIT the earth for a few more years. Aren't we evil? Claiming we want to save something while we wish to kill it as slow as possible. Yet, we can feel good about it, congratulate ourselves that we've done 'good thing'.

The truth is: we only care about ourselves. I'm pretty sure that the earth will be just fine when all men (and women) disappear from the face of the earth. Chances are it will have been a much better place then.

You don't think so? I guess those noble dinosaurs also thought the same way as you do before they were extinct.

I've had enough of this nonsense. My pledge for this year's Earth day will be "go natural": do whatever I want and let nature take its course. I guess I've done the earth a favor: speeding up the extinction of humans which means getting rid of its bigger enemy...

Happy (belated) Earth Day!

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Philosophical question of the day

You're standing at pedestrian crossing
The pedestrian light has turned red

You look to the left:
No car, no truck, no motorcycle, no bicycle

You look to the right:
No car, no truck, no motorcycle, no bicycle

Zip

Should you
Stand there and wait
or
Walk across and move on with you life


Life's hard...

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Mate, don't play play lah...

From NZ Herald

New Zealand police plan to recruit staff from Singapore to overcome a shortage in the force and help Labour to fulfill its election deal with NZ First to appoint 1000 new officers.

What??? I thought 1st of April was already a few weeks behind?


Singapore might have the reputation as one of the safest country (city?) in the world, but it's not because of the police officers. It's Singapore government (read: LKY) managed to instill fear into its people, similar to the way Indonesian feared Suharto in his good days.

This idea is not going to work if NZ decides to put these police officers on the street. There's no fear factor here. Local criminals here are much bigger in posture than most Asian. If you're bigger, and you are threatened by someone smaller than you, you tend to have more guts and fight back. In short, the bad guys won't be afraid of these police officers. In addition to that, in Singapore the patrolling police officers carry guns with them, while here in NZ they only carry handcuffs and tie wraps, so in order for this to work, NZ police needs to recruit only those with martial art skills close to Jet Li.

The other reasons that NZ police cited was that they needed to learn Asian culture and someone who can speak Chinese as the Chinese population has grown quickly (especially in Auckland area)

Singaporean police officers will also have the language and cultural understanding capabilities to help improve our Asian responsiveness.

The question is, does the NZ police (and its officers) really want to learn Chinese culture? If it does, then it doesn't have to hire someone from Singapore. It's a matter of keeping open mind , learning the language, and some good readings (I'd recommend reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, where he gave one example of Amadou Diallo who was shot by police officers in US as an inevitable byproduct of racism) When multiculturalism is not encouraged and recognized inside the organization itself, this extra Singapore officers won't be their magic bullet.

Come to think of it, it is not practical too to expect special arm of police to handle specific segment of the society. You don't want this to happen:

Patrolling Police: we got the suspects
HQ: good stuff, where are they now?
Patrolling Police: they're in the car in front of us.
Patrolling Police: err.. bugger, they're Chinese, HELP HELP
HQ: this is a job for Singapore police (theme song here)

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it will work out...

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The Rules

On a trip to Feilding, about 2.5 hours away from Welly, I came across an interesting second hand shop around Manchester Square. The shop was open, no one's inside, and I saw these rules written on the shop's wall.


It says:
Rules:
- If you like it buy it
- You decide the price
- No items are priced
- Shop is unattended
- Security cameras are watching you
- Please do not steal
- Please pay, be nice
- Thnx

I thought, what a wonderful world it would have been if everyone could play by this rule.

If you like it buy it. Buy only what we like (or what we need maybe?), do not buy things because your neighbors do, or because Paris Hilton wore it on TV :-p.

No items are priced, you decide the price. Shame on the big major companies gang up to set the price to get unlimited profits for themselves. I just read The Truth about the Drug Companies. See how these companies made us believe that we owe them a living for giving us this 'miracle' drugs, therefore they can charge us anything they want. They made us believe that these companies need the money to fund their R&D, while most of it is used to hire spin doctors, while the company owners and CEO are laughing all the way to the bank. On the flip side of it, we often spend countless minutes haggling over a $2 t-shirt in Cambodia or Bali, and later have a $5 cup of coffee from Starbuck while the t-shirt sellers are still living from hand to mouth.

Shop is unattended, do not steal, security cameras are watching you. The temptation is always there, we've got freewill as human being, but remember that the big guy is watching over us. And for the world full of honest people? I'll take two!

Happy Easter guys, Be Nice...

P.S. The shop's owner might just want to have some fun though :-)

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RIP. Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008)

I know who Sir Edmund Hillary is, he's one of the guys who reached the Mt Everest summit for the first time. I didn't realize he's a kiwi until I read the news that he'd passed away. Shame on me! He apparently is considered as true great NZ hero, he really is. He's no ordinary mountaineer, and the Nepalese probably won't remember that he conquered their highest mountain for the first time. They will remember him as a guy who respected them and provided them health and education with his Himalayan Trust. What a guy...

Who's my hero then? I've been thinking really hard and couldn't find any face or name who's really touched my life. Back in my school years, we were taught of numerous Indonesian heroes and yet none of them really deserved to be called hero. It might be because we were introduced to so many 'heroes' (I reckon it's more than 100 names to be memorized), that there was not sufficient time to really know what they did in their whole life, except that they'd been involved in one or two wars before they finally died. I'll blame it on education system :-)

"Well, it doesn't have to be national hero", some says. How about international hero? Well, they didn't teach me at school, and I'm just too lazy to read biography, so the answer is none. I have soft spot for Nelson Mandela though (and George 'hey where's me brain' Bush killed him already, bugger) as I believe he is the role model for reconciliation.

Celebrities? Nah, they seem insincere to me.

Perhaps I do set my standard to high?

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Ghost town (Wellington Christmas)

This year's Christmas was our first in Wellington.



The build up to Christmas day was really similar everywhere I guess.. Shops offering Christmas discount and extending shopping hours (it's extended to 8 o'clock only :-) and some opened until midnight on selected day). It's not as bad as Christmas sale in Singapore though, where you need to squeeze through barricade of mad shoppers in orchard road (mostly Indonesian), here you can still have enough space while you're shopping.

On Christmas Eve, it was surprisingly quiet. We went to church, and only a quarter of congregation members turned up. We came late to the service and we had panicked that we would have problem finding seats as in Indonesia where Christmas eve services are always flooded with church-goers and sometimes people have to sit outside.

We drove around the city and it was reasonably quiet compare to usual weekend. It was a contrast to what happened in Singapore when I was still living there. I was out on Orchard Road on Christmas eve a few years back, and it was hell, it was really crowded you could feel people literally breathing down your neck. There was countdown to Christmas day which was really absurd to me. I don't know if they still have it now, but someone needs to stop them!

One of my friend mentioned that it used to be really quiet in Wellington on Christmas day as most of the population actually came from other part of NZ and they usually traveled back to their home town on Christmas day and as the shops are closed as well. In NZ, based on Shop Trading Hours Repeal Act 1990 there is restriction for trading on Christmas day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and half a day of ANZAC day hence all shops and restaurants are closed.

Apparently it WAS really quiet here, and I loved it!


The pictures above were taken on 25 December in Willis street and Lambton Quay area which are the shopping belt of Wellington.


There were only a handful of people, and the kids took the chance to skateboard on the road.


Even the ever greedy McDonald's 24 hour chains were closed.

Merry Christmas!
p.s. hun, thanks for the pics :-)

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