THE INTERVIEW WITH GOD

I came across this while surfing the net some time ago and, although I am not a christian, I thought it would be nice to share this for the wisdom of the words. I am not trying to influence anyone nor am I trying to convert anybody, so please don't get hot under the collar.


THE INTERVIEW WITH GOD

I dreamed I had an interview with God.

“So you would like to interview me?” God asked.

“If you have the time” I said.

God smiled. “My time is eternity.”
“What questions do you have in mind for me?”

“What surprises you most about humankind?”

God answered...
“That they get bored with childhood,
they rush to grow up, and then
long to be children again.”

“That they lose their health to make money...
and then lose their money to restore their health.”

“That by thinking anxiously about the future,
they forget the present,
such that they live in neither
the present nor the future.”

"That they live as if they will never die,
and die as though they had never lived.”

God’s hand took mine
and we were silent for a while.

And then I asked...
“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons
you want your children to learn?”

“To learn they cannot make anyone
love them. All they can do
is let themselves be loved.”

“To learn that it is not good
to compare themselves to others.”

“To learn to forgive
by practicing forgiveness.”

“To learn that it only takes a few seconds
to open profound wounds in those they love,
and it can take many years to heal them.”

“To learn that a rich person
is not one who has the most,
but is one who needs the least.”

“To learn that there are people
who love them dearly,
but simply have not yet learned
how to express or show their feelings.”

“To learn that two people can
look at the same thing
and see it differently.”

“To learn that it is not enough that they
forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.”

"Thank you for your time," I said humbly.

"Is there anything else
you would like your children to know?"

God smiled and said,
“Just know that I am here... always.”

-author unknown

GOD on Christmas Day

On this joyous occasion I would like to share this (author unknown) with you. You decide whether these are words of wisdom or blasphemy. MERRY X'MAS!


GOD
if you ask me
god has no face
no color
no sex and no smell
god has no form
no structure
but a fusion of power
pulsing through our veins
god is a passion
burning in our brains
the motivator
of all good things
governing our spirit
making us reach out
for other human beings
on an equal plane
of love and understanding
god is this eternal vision
and desire
to seek for the truth
no matter how many tangles
and barb wires it took
god is this endless want
for freedom of speech
thoughts, actions
and feelings
that would save the whole world
god is this force
that will claim back the rights
of all the living
to breathe, live and love
until we see god
in this fashion
until we are not frightened
how do we face the evils
of greed and oppression
if you ask me
god is within me
god is within you
god is a moment
a situation
an era, a country
where love rules unconstrained...

LIVING IN A GRATEFUL WORLD

Be grateful to those who have hurt or harmed you, for they have reinforced your determination.
Be grateful to those who have deceived you , for they have deepened your insight.
Be grateful to those who have hit you, for they have reduced your karmic obstacles.
Be grateful to those who have abandoned you, for they have taught you to be independent.
Be grateful to those who have made you stumble, for they have strengthened your ability.
Be grateful to those who have denounced you, for they have increased your wisdom and concentration.

(Quoted from a flyer of Pureland Natural Vegetarian of Bayan Lepas, Penang)

BORDERS AT QUEENSBAY MALL, PENANG

Photos from top to bottom:

The entrance to Borders at QueensBay, Penang, which was officially opened during the weekend. Penang, at long last, has a "civilised" bookshop like Borders and Barnes and Noble in the States where one can sit and browse for hours on end, enjoying a cup of coffee and the pleasure of availing oneself of the books and magazines without the fear of being chased out by the management. Unfortunately I noticed that some of their books were wrapped tightly in plastic, the unfriendly way of displaying books as practised by MPH and also Popular Bookstore. Ah well, I suppose this is the price we pay for being a "third world" country! Borders at QueensBay offers a novel gift idea. Their electronic gift cards can be loaded with as little as RM20 and up to a maximum of RM1000 and there is no expiry date. However, they are only usable in Malaysia where there are only 2 outlets at present. The other one is at Berjaya Times Square.

Starbucks Coffee is inside Borders and there is a large window overlooking Penang Bridge. At night the panoramic view of the bridge is lovely.

The third photo shows a section of Borders that offers souvenirs for sale.

REFRESHING NEWS!

After the recent UMNO General Assembly I have stopped my regular subscription of the Star for fear of having to see the traumatic photograph of an evil-looking man brandishing a wicked-looking keris or having to read about a particular race demanding a bigger slice of the economic cake or demanding more handouts as their birth-right. Since then I have been buying my copy of the Star on a daily basis to avoid suffering from further trauma. If I see news that will depress me, I walk away from the news-stand empty-handed, thus saving one ringgit and twenty sen and sparing myself the agony of having to face the possibilty of having to read about people whose only claim to immortality is their ability to run amok at will and hurt other people.

This morning, however, the news on the front page was refreshing apart from the Bar Council's dirty linen. The picture of the two young men and the accompanying headline, "GOLD AT LAST" made my day. Congratulations to these two heroic young men who surmounted great odds to bring great pride to the country. They were an unseeded and an unheralded doubles pair in the Asian Games but they vanquished the top doubles pairs in the world to create badminton history in Malaysia! You are truly Malaysians Boleh!

THE EMAIL SCAMS ARE BACK!

The email scams or the Nigerian scams (or whatever you want to call them) are back but with more imagination this time which makes them sound not only possible but also very plausible. Take a look at what I received this morning:

Fortune Sweepstakes
40 Victoria Street
Hertfordshire, AL1 3TG
United Kingdom

Ref: FTS/745/06
Batch: 308867OS



WINNING NOTIFICATION

Over the years the prestigious Fortune Sweepstakes has set out
and sucessfully organised Sweepstakes on a daily, weekly, and annual
basis.
We have equally maintained a standard unrivaled in the industry as it
concerns the pay out of winnings to sucessful participants.

In line with the commemorating event marking our 10th year anniversary
we rolled out over £2,000.000.00 (Two Million Great Britain Pounds)
for our 10th year Anniversary Draws. Participants for the draws were
randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which enjoy
our patronage. The selection was made through a computer draw system
attaching personalised email addresses to ticket numbers.

Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket
number 001768432463 with serial numbers FTS/8070337201/06 and drew
the lucky numbers 15-22-24-48-50-37(30) which subsequently won you
£250,000.00 (Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great Britain Pounds) as
one of the 10 jackpot winners in this draw.
You have therefore won the entire winning sum of £250,000.00
(Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great Britain Pounds). The draws
registered as Draw number one was conducted in Brockley, London
United Kingdom on the Ist of Dec 2006.
These lottery Draws are commemorative and as such special.

Please be informed by this winning notification to make contact with
your designated agent who shall by duty guide you through the process
to facilitate the release of your winnings.

To file for your claim please contact your fiduciary agent

Mr Louiz Livinston
Fortune Sweepstakes Fiduciary Agent
Tel: +447024014194
Fax:+44-870135-4484
Email: fortunesweepstakes_claimsagent3@yahoo.co.uk
You are advised to contact your fiduciary agent with the following
details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications.
Your Name (in Full), Country, Ticket Number, Batch Number, Serial
Number and Lucky Numbers as indicated in this winning Notification.

I wish to on behalf of all members and staff of the Fortune
Sweepstakes congratulate you on your win and wish you the
best of luck as you spend your good fortune.

Thank you for being part of our commemorative 10th Anniversary Draws.

Sincerely,

Dr. Albert Maringer
Fortune Sweepstakes Co-ordinator.
NB:
PLEASE NOTE! Any claim not made before seven (7) working days from date
of notification will indicate that the winner has voluntarily forfeited
his/her winnings.


This recent scam is more imaginative because it states that "my email address was attached to the winning number!" instead of the usual and rather stupid announcement that I am the winner of a lottery that I never bought in the first instance. If you receive such an email, just ignore it. Don't be like the foolish engineer in Penang who parted with RM88,000 before he realized that it was a scam! Some people just never learn. I have already written 4 posts on these scams this year alone.
(http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/12/9/nation/16271522&sec=nation)

LITTLE PENANG STREET MARKET 26.11.2006

Winding up for the spin!













A tourist from England is fascinated by the spinning top.






















Little Penang Street Market is held on the last Sunday of every month at "Upper Penang Road"
to showcase local culture and handicraft. Today there was a top spinning demonstration which
proved to be entertaining to the locals as well as the tourists.

THE THINGS THEY SAY BECAUSE THEY ARE THEY! (6)

 
In today's (15/11/2006) Star, under the headline "Khairy hits out at call to abolish NEP" it was reported that Kahiry slammed the ASLI report that claimed Malay corporate equity had reached 45%.
"They are manipulating figures. If we want to use the ASLI figures, let's set a new target. Let's make it 70% for the Malay equity," he added.
I don't understand why Khairy stopped at 70% and not ask for 100%. Khairy and his cronies should demand to take over all the businesses owned by the Chinese and run them into the ground, the way his foray into buying a stake into a company with borrowed millions ended up making him lose a bundle in double quick time. Perhaps Khairy should go and read the article in The Age, Australia, under the headline "While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunites are running dry" by Michael Backman. 

THE THINGS THEY SAY BECAUSE THEY ARE THEY! (5)

 
Just as I thought the president of the Penang Municipal Council would be a gentleman, unlike his other "towering" politician colleagues, and refrain from blaming the press for misquoting him, he has come out with the predictable
declaration that he was misquoted!
Today's (14/11/2006) New Straits Times:
He claimed to have been misquoted although all reports on Sunday had virtually the same report on his remarks.
"I merely said that there should be a dress code for reporters covering council meetings.
I then gave an example of sexy dressing; meaning no sexy attire.
I never said the reporter involved was dressed sexily; I was misquoted", he said yesterday.

The DAP has called for Datuk Abu Bakar's resignation and rightly so because the president of the Penang Municipal Council has made it worse for himself by claiming to have been misquoted. If he did not think that the reporter involved was sexily dressed, then why did he come up with the stupid suggestion that there should be a dress code for reporters covering council meetings? Do the people in Penang deserve to have a president of the Municipal Council who cannot think straight? 

THE THINGS THEY SAY BECAUSE THEY ARE THEY! (4)

 
Very often when our politicians open their mouths and put their feet in, they will put the blame on media reporters and claim that they have been misquoted or misinterpreted but in the case of the president of the Penang Municipal Council it was Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan who opened his mouth in defence of the president and in the process put his foot in. Dr Teng was quoted in the Nation of today's (13/11/06) Star as saying that "Abu bakar's remark on the sexy dressing was probably a miscommunication or uttered in jest."
It doesn't matter to Dr Teng that if the remark was made in jest it was a joke in poor taste. A man like the president of the Penang Municipal Council had no business to make a joke out of something that is tantamount to outraging the modesty of a young woman. It's people like Datuk Abu Bakar and Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan who give datuks a bad name and it makes us wonder why people like them should be so honoured! If Datuk Abu Bakar was a moron for coming up with that tasteless remark, Dr Teng was being an even bigger moron for coming up with that lame excuse to defend him. It just goes to show that getting professional people as councillors will not guarantee that we will be served by intelligent people. 

THE THINGS THEY SAY BECAUSE THEY ARE THEY! (3)

 
In today's [12/11/06] Star under the headline "Council: It's the sexy dress", Penang Municipal Council president, Datuk Abu Bakar Hassan was quoted as responding to a complaint that the closed-curcuit television camera in City Hall was zooming onto the thighs of women journalists instead of council proceedings, "The issue is the sexy dress worn by the journalist. If it was not sexy, the incident would not have arisen."
Datuk Abu Bakar reminds me of the dim-wit politician who declared that women get raped because they go about flaunting their physical attributes in sexy dresses. Why is that in the 21st century we still have such morons running our country? Does the biggest political party in the country have to dig into the bottom of the barrel and come up with people like Datuk Abu Bakar to be president of the Municipal Council? Datuk Abu Bakar should be proper attire consultant to Wanita and Puteri UMNO since he is such an expert on what constitutes a sexy dress! 

BEGONIAS, ANYONE?

 
 
 
 
Gardening has always been one of my favourite hobbies and recently I have gone into gardening in a bigger way. I have started a collection of begonias, each plant costing me an average of RM7, but I haven't been very successful yet, having managed to kill a few plants through "over-watering". Initially, I went into the internet to read up on begonias and I learnt that the soil for begonias needs to be damp all the time. The soil must not be allowed to dry out completely. Later on, to my regret, I learnt that too much water also leads to rotting of the stems and leaf stalks and ultimately the death of the plant. I am still in the learning stage and would welcome advice and guidance from anybody who has had experience and success in growing begonias. I would also welcome identification of the different begonias in the photos above. 

THE THINGS THEY SAY BECAUSE THEY ARE THEY! [2]

 

Under the headline "More men marrying foreigners" in the Star today [9/11/2006], the Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Tan Chai Hoe, when asked the reasons for the trend among local men, said, "It is difficult to explain why people fall in love. Maybe foreign women are less demanding than local women."
The Deputy Home Minister's statement has made me take another look at my wife of 45 years. I am wondering whether I should trade her in for a 25 year old, less demanding, foreign wife! 

THE THINGS THEY SAY BECAUSE THEY ARE THEY!

 
In today's Star (9.11.2006), under the headline "Hisham: Build trust for good ties", it was reported that:
"The UMNO Youth chief said there were those who were tempted to look at issues purely based on their racial group to gain temporary popularity with their race."
[Look who's talking! Among Malaysian political parties UMNO is the one where "half-past six" politicians have nothing intelligent to say except to resort to pandering to their own kind along such lines.]
"In the long term, that will not be beneficial to the party nor the individual because that approach has been proven in history not to be acceptable by the majority of Malaysian people," he said.
[You wonder whether Hisham believes what he says! If he does, it makes you wonder why Hisham and his ilk in UMNO continue to sing to that tune.] 

CINEPLEX AT GURNEY PLAZA WITH SE K800i

 
 
 
 
All the photographs were taken without flash, using only available light. I find that the Sony Ericsson K800i Cybershot gives me photographs just as good as any compact digital camera of the same mega pixels, i.e 3.2 mp. 

IS THERE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

 
(Picture taken witn Sony Ericsson K800i in macro mode)

In today's Star, under the headline "Avoid gag orders, govt urged", the Kota Bahru MP, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, was quoted as saying,
"I would have thought that, if the CPPS bumiputra equity figure of 45% is accurate, the government and UMNO should be pleased that their policies have succeeded and take credit for that."
I bet Datuk Zaid Ibrahim is not a graduate of Oxford University, unlike the famous son-in-law, and yet he showed superior intelligence in coming up with such a brilliant conclusion. In continuing he said,
"The irony is maybe they don't want to reveal the actual figure so that they can keep on asking for more."
If only more of our MP's could come up with such an astute analysis there will be greater hope for our beloved country. The favourite response from our Barisan MP's, and that includes our DPM, when they have nothing concrete to offer is to tell all and sundry that "there should not be any further dispute" and use the threat of racial "discord" as the ultimate weapon to end all argument.
Datuk Zaid Ibrahim said, "This must be about the sixth time we've been told we can't talk about something this year."
"We are told that we will one day reach the NEP target; does that mean we can only talk about it then?"
Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, who had just returned from Prague, continued, "It was a shock to come back and hear we aren't supposed to discuss or dispute the government's equity figures. What will it be the next time - no discussion on the haze and the API because it would affect national security?"
The man does not only have intelligence but he also has a sense of humour! If you compare him with the guy who wants to turn the "mat rempits" into "mat cemerlangs", the other guy looks an absolute idiot. If more MP's think like Datuk Zaid Ibrahim there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

Sharapova Richer By USD 1.7 Million After US Open!

 

Maria Sharapova, the number one pin-up girl of ladies' tennis collected a cheque for USD1.7 million after trouncing Justine Henin-Hardenne 6-4, 6-4 in the ladies' singles final of the US Open in Flushing Meadows. Sharapova played superbly in both sets, serving well and deadly accurate in her drives, to eclipse Justine Henin-Hardenne who was appearing in her fourth Grand Slam final in 2006. The prize money for the champion was USD 1.2 million and she received another USD 0.5 million for emerging second best in the US hardcourt series run-up to the US Open.
In the ladies' semi-final, Justine Henin-Hardenne played scrappily but still managed to beat Jelena Jankovic 4-6, 6-4, 6-0. Jelena Jankovic was leading Justine Henin 6-4, 4-2 when she had an altercation with the umpire and ended up losing the next 8 games to Justine Henin. In spite of the fact that in the 2006 US Open each player was allowed 2 challenges on disputed line calls, the silly girl chose to quarrel with the umpire, lose her cool and lose the opportunity to create history by beating the No 2 seed and moving into the final and probably take the title. Dumb ass! 

Sony Ericsson K800i

 
 
 
 

I have bought myself a Sony Ericsson K800i to replace my 3 year old Nokia 6610. I had wanted a complete phone - phone, mp3 player and a good camera and I think I have found it in the K800i. I paid RM1980 for the K800i and RM199 for the 512 MB Sony Memory Stick M2. The photos in this blog were taken with the new phone in natural light without flash. Some of them have been cropped. I have recently purchased a Motorola bluetooth stereo headset on Ebay which matches marvelously with the K800i for mp3 playback. The Motorola stereo headset cost me RM260 inclusive of shipping from Hong Kong. 

PENANG DRIVERS ARE SUCH CONSUMMATE MORONS!

 
If you have driven in Penang before, you will know that Penang drivers never know which lane to drive in when they are on a 4 lane road. Chances are they will drive on the broken line dividing the 2 lanes, merrily unaware of the fact that they are causing confusion to other drivers coming up behind them. You just don't know which lane to use to overtake them! Very often I have to honk them to help them to make up their minds which lane to use and when I am passing them I stick up 2 fingers (not one) to drive home the point that they are driving on 2 lanes.
In addition, drivers in Penang will change lanes at will, without any indication of their intention to do so. If the lane they are driving in is just a wee bit slower, they will switch over to the next lane without any prior warning whatsoever. I suppose, as far as road manners are concerned, Penang drivers are no worse than drivers in the other states. When will Malaysians drivers learn to be more considerate towards other road users? 

PEPPER SPRAY IN DR M's EYES!

 
For almost all Malaysians, this morning started with the shocking news that our former Prime Minister received a dose of pepper spray in his eyes after arriving in Kota Bahru airport. The reason behind the attack is still unclear, although speculation is rife. Could it be that a dissatisfied customer of the Tun's Japanese style bakery, the Loaf, became so incensed that he took it upon himself to show the Tun what he thought of the Tun's business venture? There are quite a lot of people in this country who take their bread seriously and they will go to any length to show their displeasure if they don't get their bread the way they want it! 

PENANG IS SHROUDED IN HAZE AGAIN!

 
In the present Middle East conflict Israel and Lebonan are trading bombs and rockets. If ever there is a conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia, Indonesia does not have to rain bombs and rockets on us. All they have to do is to send us their haze, more often and in heavier dozes and we would all be dead pretty soon. Anyway our children and grandchildren are going to grow up with all sorts of respiratory ailments, no thanks to our neighbour!