It was shown on terrestrial TV many years back,
probably 15 or so years. The time slot .. should be about 2.30pm or 4.30pm, one
of those times which are not prime time even for children's movies... the
impression that lingers is that one got to watch this series on TV sometime
after school.
Familiar faces that we see in this movie
include that Asian dude from Heroes (Masi Oka) and The Rock.
So the premise of the story is secret agent with
suit, tie and gadgets, last explored in Johnny English and The
Tuxedo.
Now, not only was this story really enjoyable to me
(yes, I'm rather 'shallow' and undemanding in my choice of movies, to make up
for other areas of my life) but it was also delightful to see a series that one
has a fond impression of come to the big screen.
And the revelation of this movie seems to
be...Anne Hathaway.
Having first, and the only time, ever seen her in
the Princess Diaries 2 (of which, I never even watched The Princess Diaries 1),
the second with Julie Andrews, whom most of us would
remember from her Sound of Music days.
Well that movie never left a very remarkable
impression of her on me apart from that I never would have imagined that I'd be
over-eager to see another of the movies that Anne Hathaway acts in.
With that, after this movie, I never imagined that
I'd moe*
over her :p Well, after the ballroom dance competition and mansion
infiltration scheme (with the evening dress and high-intensity lasers)
in this movie, at least.
The witty repartee between her character and Maxwell Smart was also
amusing, particularly the phrase "dusty old uterus" that was brought up
by her.
Although my impression of her in Princess Diaries 2 is rather bland, in
this story she portrays a female agent with the typical characteristics
of tsundere* ... and although you should all know how this story is going to go, it's enjoyable to see how the process of it gets there...
Ah, and so it seems most apt, that since in a recent entry I mentioned about the concept of moe ... it's only suitable, perhaps even inevitable, that a mention of the concept of tsundere should follow, and so here it is!
*tsundereツンデレ : Used to describe, especially, girls who act all cold to you when you first get to know them... but then get all spoony** when they warm up to you.
When in doubt, always always consult the UrbanDictionary : The only
dictionary that you''ll ever need for brutally honest (and accurate)
definition of words, without the obfuscating obligatory political
correctness.
Might as well I record the definition down here. I've always liked how
they make you get a picture and understand things clearly in
UrbanDictionary:
Tsundere is a slang born on the Internet, and it is a word to describe
the nature of female anime or game characters. Tsundere is a word
combining two words, "Tsun Tsun" and "Dere Dere". Both terms describe
attitudes of a person. "Tsun Tsun" is used for cold/blunt/curt
attitude, while "Dere Dere" is used when a person becomes spoony in front of his/her lover.
(Definition is from the game " Tsuyokisu Cool×Sweet ")
Therefore, "Tsundere" is a female character who is usually cold, but
she becomes spoony on her lover. Or, she is cold to the main character
at first, but she becomes lovestruck later.
I can't remember having ever moe-d over any actress
in my teens and with that, ever in my lifetime, like any regular male
should have .. at least once in their lifetime. Just on
two-dimensional girls so far ... as everyone should
know by now. *Comely anime girl waves and beckons*
That brings a scary thought to mind: that my
maturity was all along in the "childhood" stage, and I'm only just maturing
into my teens now ...
:-S
* moe 萌え : its usual meaning has something to do with
cute (usually anime-related) stuff, but it can also mean to excessively
fawn in a dreamy star-struck state over something, usually induced by cute
(usually anime-related) stuff. Not to that high a degree in this particular instance, though.
Summary - an all too very brief one - by the ever-considerate me, specially dedicated for make benefit those who happen to have the naive notion that politics is boring. Because in actual fact - real-life politics -- Malaysian politics -- is more interesting and engaging than fiction.
SUMMARY:
BN component party from Sabah, with a grand total of 2 (two) parliamentary seats - its president - who we note is not a Member of Parliament himself - proposes a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister.
This said party president is one of a long line of Sabah Chief Ministers, as seen in the Sabah National State Museum... And that exhibit has so many faces displayed, you wonder how long each actually warmed the seat.
For those who came in late, there used to be a system of 'rotation' for Chief Ministers, but the rules of the game were changed once 'service' (as in badminton) was passed to a certain party. This game sounds like CalvinBall.. from the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, where you can change the rules when you hold the ball.
So, what's wrong with the below article?
Highlighted point 1: "It is disrespectful to the Prime Minister". Wow, that is like, the, Revelation of the Century. People are now proposing a vote of no confidence against the PM. So how else would it be?
"...denied speculation that... pulling out of the Barisan".
He is right on this account. They are not pulling out of the Barisan, they will be kicked out of the Barisan.
But wait... Maybe despite BN's show of indignation, they might not kick out this party for fear of losing these 2 (two) seats.
...in which case, this opens the chance that this party might voluntarily quit Barisan. If this were to happen, it would be embarassing, people leaving before you can fire them.
But how much more embarassing than things already are ... who knows?
KOTA KINABALU: SAPP deputy president Datuk Raymond Tan said he was
confused and embarrassed about the party's move to move a motion of
no-confidence against the Prime Minister.
He said that the
party's supreme council had not been consulted on the matter, accusing
SAPP president Datuk Yong Teck Lee of acting arbitrarily.
Saying
he would attend the party supreme council meeting scheduled tomorrow,
he however questioned the party's rationale of having made the decision
first.
"It is not proper for us to do it when (Datuk Seri)
Abdullah (Ahmad Badawi) is the Barisan chairman. It is disrespectful to
the Prime Minister," said Tan, who is Sabah Deputy Chief Minister and
Infrastructure Minister.
On the meeting, Tan said: "If it (the
no-confidence motion) was already pre-planned and decided, what are we
going to discuss? The damage is done."
He said the move was embarrasing as the SAPP won its seats on a Barisan ticket.
Tan said he was not making any stand on the issue at the moment before attending the meeting.
He
said SAPP had been very vocal and even blunt on Sabah issues and the
Federal Government had been responding to various requests.
Tan had on Monday denied speculation that the SAPP would be pulling out of the Barisan.
In all, what I can say is we have to wait and see how things will
unfold in the next 2 weeks - 3 months period. I can't say that
everything that is happening now or is looking to happen is definitely
going to be something good... but as it is - this country seems to be
losing its competitiveness and will continue to be so if inefficiency
and wastage continue to go unchecked.
A lot of problems stem from non-accountability, non-transparency
leading to blatant high-handed abuse of privileges by the
well-connected, all the time riding on championing the cause of the
less economically well-off ... but in the end, benefits all accrue to
those who don't need to be helped by such benefits, while never
reaching those who really need the said benefits.
Our current Prime Minister... one can say that he inherited all the deeply entrenched, in fact, now institutionalized
problems that was introduced by his predecessor.. but when one thinks
of this scenario: Had the so-called 'political tsunami' not occured,
would he have shook things up to change things for the better ...? Or would he just continue the same practices as his predecessor, since his own flock of people have 'not yet reaped the benefits' as the one before him had?
However, thinking from another angle, lucky that it is him who became
the PM (as opposed to someone else). If not, if it is someone else with
an iron fist... political blogs might be forcefully shut down in more severe ways than just the current lawsuits.
The deplorable thing about wastage is that after 50 years of independence and enjoying abundant natural resources, the necessary measures to ensure that continuedand sustainable benefits are enjoyed by many generations to come were not taken... and now the chance seems to get slimmer by the day. As you know, as in any resource-management build base game like WarCraft... there are only limited gold mines on the map with limited gold amount inside each... as the game drags on, all players will eventually not be able to build any more units... thus the game cannot go on indefinitely...
Perhaps this is the Dutch Disease ... when got so many other things good to import... but we want to import this one. pffft...
Look at this for what should have, could have, happened, especially in resource-rich, low population Sabah and Sarawak ... or even the whole Malaysia, for that matter... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway#Economy
After the rise in petrol prices and inflation, finally something went down... the stock market.
Cited as 'due to political uncertainty' in The Star newspaper... In view of this 'cost' priced into today's market I hope that this political shake-up will change things for the better in the long term. Somehow...
The importance of "ICT" has often been relentlessly emphasized by the modern media - and so here it is, the latest contribution to the ICT field at Interview With The UltraBeast - "Irresistible Cutesyness Today"!
Original source from Yahoo Videos. :)
EDIT: Just want to record down that this is the first video that is directly hosted on my webhost... let me know if it's slow loading... or the exact opposite - all that pleasantly smooth exclusive bandwidth, just for you (YESS you!)
KUALA
TERENGGANU: A property negotiator has received the blessings of his
three wives to wed his newfound sweetheart who is 30 years younger than
him.
The Syariah High Court approved the application of Abu
Bakar Embong, 54, after it found that the father of 25 children met all
the prerequisites under Islamic law to take a fourth wife.
Judge
Shaikh Ahmad Ismail granted Abu Bakar, who also has three
grandchildren, permission to take Suhaili Alias, 25, as his wife.
Shaikh
Ahmad advised Abu Bakar to be fair to all his wives, tend to the
religious needs of his children, and take his three wives on a
pilgrimage to Mecca.
Abu Bakar has fathered 11 boys and 14 girls
from his three marriages, with the youngest being four months old and
the eldest 25 years.
“The court had considered the affidavit
submitted by Abu Bakar, where he stated that he earned RM20,000 a month
and had provided houses and cars for each of his wives,” the judge
added.
“Therefore, with consent from his wives, the court allows Abu Bakar to marry a fourth wife.”
His
three wives – Asnah Jusoh, 46, Mazumi Ismail, 45, and Norazlina
Ariffin, 25, – all from Kampung Telok Manir here, also told the court
that they had no qualms about their husband marrying another.
The
wives later told reporters that their husband was a loving, fair and
responsible man and they had arranged for him to marry Suhaili, who is
unemployed.
When met, Abu Bakar said there was no secret to keeping all his wives happy, but he believed in treating them equally.
“As
long as I can afford another wife and am strong, I don’t see why I
can’t marry,” added Abu Bakar, who married his first wife at the age of
19.
Recently, the same court had deferred its decision on an
application by lorry driver Mohamed Nor Awang, 57, to marry for the
fourth time. It was not convinced he could financially support another
wife.
Mohamed had already obtained the nod from his three wives to marry clerk Suzi Sulong, 34.
The highlighted points... are simply nothing short of impressive. "Fashion metal strips into car keys... within a minute, including disarming the alarm system."
The best description of this, to borrow this quote from a friend -- "Malaysia also got a lot of MacGyver".
KLANG:
A car thief nicknamed ‘Radiator Raja’ has been arrested and
investigations reveal that his relatives had helped him cannibalised
the vehicles before pushing the parts to workshops.
The man, 36, has been on the police wanted list for the past 18-months.
He
has been getting the help of his 28-year-old wife, uncle and
brother-in-law to cannibalise a car within an hour before the parts
were disposed off to workshops or spare part outlets.
Klang OCPD
Assistant Commissioner Mohamad Mat Yusof said initial investigations
showed that with the arrest of Radiator Raja, some 30 cases of stolen
vehicles have been solved.
Police believed that from Jan to May this year he had stolen 18 cars in Shah Alam and here.
“Our
men had uncovered a family of thieves. We are glad that we have nabbed
Radiator Raja, his wife and his uncle. We are looking for others in
connection with the case,” he said.
According to a mechanic,
Radiator Raja was able to fashion metal strips into car keys according
to their model and could steal a car within a minute, including
disarming the alarm system.
On stealing a car he would hand it
over to his uncle who would dismantle the engine and his brother-in-law
would cut up the body to be pushed to workshops.
Police are also trying to trace his brother-in-law and a workshop operator.
ACP
Mohamad added that most of the cars stolen were models such as Nissan
Sunny 130Y, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry and Proton Wira.
This question lovingly directed to all Sarawakian
readers:
Q. Who was the first Chief Minister of
Sarawak?
Does any Sarawakian
know?
Especially to my Sarawakian friends, they could ask
their other friends, and out of 10, count how many can answer this... if at
all... correctly.
Not being sarcastic, but there's a reason behind
it (read to the end of the article to find out.)
First of all, though, maybe you're wondering why do I have this question
today?
Triggered by this first thought:
I wonder how much is the current petrol price in Brunei.
In the
recent environment of rising world petrol prices for the past two years or so, I
wonder how was Brunei affected all along?
Well, back to the main topic, there's no blame if no one ever remembers his
name...
what I'm fuming about is...
selective inclusion in our history syllabus
Like I would remember (or even know) who was the first mayor of
Kuala Lumpur. And in fact I do -- and without the benefit of a Google Search. he is
Dato' Lokman, none other than the one with a school named after
him.
Anyway, Sarawak is almost like a nation unto
itself, so knowing who the hell was the first Chief Minister seems to be a whole
lot more important than knowing or not knowing who the first Lord Mayor of KL
was.
I wonder though, whether there were any schools
named after him - to know why, read on...
Original article here, but copied below just in case
it gets taken down, as it might be perceived, due to its emphasis on a certain
episode, to have a mite of strong biasness:
I wonder how much competition would an independent Sarawak or Sabah, in 50 years, have provided the Peninsular - provided that their leaders didn't go down the same path of unaccountably managing (i.e. squandering without any transparency) the country's resources. It is always a wonder to me why countries with no natural resources such as Japan or Switzerland manage to get to their level of technical advancement. Don't give me that they started earlier - we had 50 years - and coupled with the benefit of not needing to reinvent the wheel for many technologies - i.e. we didn't even need to have to come up with any new technologies like Japan or Switzerland had to - In any case, with our rich natural resources we could just have purchased up to a certain level and continue to develop from there rather than needing to start from scratch. And we didn't have two atomic bombs dropped on any of our cities, either.
Would they (Sabah and Sarawak) be another two Singapores? Or just ... two more Malaysias?
Anyway :-
Ningkan, Stephen Kalong
(1920–1997), first chief minister of the East Malaysian state of Sarawak.
Stephen Kalong Ningkan served as first chief minister of the East Malaysian
state of Sarawak between July 1963 and September 1966. Prior to Sarawak's
joining the union of Malaya, Singapore, and North Borneo to form the Federation
of Malaysia, Sarawak was a British colony. Born in Sarawak of Iban and Chinese
ancestry, Ningkan is probably best known for triggering a constitutional crisis
when he refused to vacate his office after being dismissed by the Sarawakian
governor. Ningkan, as leader of the Council Negri (the state legislature), had
purportedly ceased to command the confidence of the majority of the council.
With the backing of the federal government in Kuala Lumpur, the governor
proceeded to appoint a new chief minister. Ningkan's refusal to vacate his
office, resulting in a constitutional impasse that was perceived to threaten the
fragile unity of Malaysia, aroused a vigorous reaction from the federal
government.
On 14 September 1966, Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Malaysia's head of state,
proclaimed a state of emergency in Sarawak on the basis that its
security
was threatened by the constitutional crisis. Under emergency rule, Parliament
was legislatively enabled to exercise further powers, effectively governing
Sarawak from the federal capital. Ningkan appealed his dismissal all the way to
the Privy Council in London, Malaysia's then final appellate court, but lost his
appeal for a declaration that he was still chief minister of Sarawak. A firm
believer that Sarawakians were entitled to have full citizenship rights and to
participate in Malaysia's national development on a par with the Malays on the
Malaya Peninsula, Ningkan slipped into political oblivion after his removal from
office.
The constitutional crisis that Ningkan was embroiled in should be seen in the
light of the volatile political matrix in Malaysia then. After Malaysia was
created through the union of Malaya and Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak on 16
September 1963, communal tension rose over the core identity of Malaysia. The
politically convenient union was short-lived and Singapore left the federation
on 9 August 1965. At the federal level, there was concern that Sarawak and Sabah
might follow Singapore and secede from Malaysia. The removal of Ningkan, albeit
by constitutional means, was an attempt by the federal government in Kuala
Lumpur to exercise indirect control by aligning East Malaysian political parties
with the United Malays National Organization–dominated coalition at the
center.
Further Reading
Means, Gordon P. (1970) Malaysian Politics. London: University of
London Press.
Milne, Robert Stephen, and Kanagaratnam Jeya Ratnam. (1974) Malaysia—New
States in a New Nation: Political Development of Sarawak and Sabah in
Malaysia. London: Frank Cass.
Roff, Margaret Clark. (1974) The Politics of Belonging: Political Change
in Sabah and Sarawak. Kuala
Lumpur,
Malaysia: Oxford University Press.
Von Vorys, Karl. (1975) Democracy without Consensus: Communalism and
Political Stability in Malaysia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
I've asked this question many times before, and
I'll ask it again - Since Malaysia is a net petroleum producer, why does the
population not rejoice when the world price of petroleum goes up? Instead, what
happens is that when the world price of petroleum goes up, the prices at the
local pumps will go up too.
Then ... what is the use of having petroleum reserves
even exist here in the first place?
Well, the reason why I repeat this question is that
all the times I've asked it, I cannot remember getting any satisfactory answer.
Or even a tongue-in-cheek, witty one. The reaction elicited being "..." or some
mumbling that reflects the sentiment as expressed in the title of this very
post.
Wonder if I could get some answer now which is ...
hopefully insightful ones, but at the very least, not a boring
one...
Being the producer of so-called high-quality
low-sulphur petroleum, coupled with a relatively low population, conventional
thinking would point that we should in fact be rolling in contentment with every tick in the
never-ending upward spiral of petroleum prices. (Loudspeaker and ticker tapes
announcement in city: Today, the world oil prices went up by another $1.
Reaction of populace: "Hooray!" *throws bags, briefcases and other objects into
air in celebration*)
Somehow that above imagined scenario has a rather comical
feeling to it...
A bit more grim, though, is that the reality of the
chain effect of the rising cost of living for the peasants brings to mind this quote:
Marie Antoinette - if they don't have bread, then
they can eat cake!
(Historically, though, this phrase is said to have
not originated from her, but then again, regardless of the accuracy of the
attributing of this quote to her, she lost her head in the ensuing social
upheaval, nevertheless.)
Note: As this kind of post has caused
misunderstandings before, must mention beforehand that this is not an
emotionally charged post. The impersonal anonimity of the Internet always tends
to double the severity of apparent negative emotions, while halving the effect
of good intentions.
UPDATE: This was originally just a part of an earlier post, but in view of the incessant circulation of this particular forwarded email, this deserves an post of its own already!
By the way - some of you may have received spam
regarding a certain Brazilian psychic who predicts ominous happenings
soon this year and beyond (making long-term investments like those for
4-7 years risky.)
Well now, be not alarmed, as some searching has turned up that this
person has a track record as illustrated below (from Japanese Wikipedia)
Compare the maru(O)/batsu(X) marks to evaluate his track record of past predictions.
Looks like there's no pressing need to cancel your overseas trips, stock emergency rations, and get laid.
But he actually made one correct prediction... Italy won the FIFA World Cup 2006 !!! *shocked* :-O Arghhh!!!!!!
(EDIT: More accurately - What he actually stated was, "Italy has a chance to win, Brazil won't win". Well then, so did the other 32 or so teams which participated had a chance to win. Including England.)
General
