tmz.com published a gallery of dead professional wrestlers. It almost looks like a who’s who of wrestling. All dead before they turned 50. The least that this tells me is that: do not let your kids get into pro wrestling!

Some of those in the list, excluding Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit.

Andre the Giant, 46, WWF Champion, died 27th January 1993, heart attack.

Yokozuna, 34, WWF Champion, died 22nd October 2000, heart attack.

Bam Bam Bigelow, 45, died 19th January 2007, drug overdose. Read the rest of this entry »

I received the following email about 2 weeks back:

From: “Irene Julia” <irene.julia@gmail.com>
To: [deleted]

Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 1:54 AM
Subject: Fwd: Free PDA+GSM Palm

Dear Friends,

Here is to announce that our company Palm, Inc., headquarter is located in Sunnyvale, California US opens our marketing office in Kuala Lumpur for Asia region. We are promoting our product and for the detail you can visit: 

http://www.palm.com/id/products/smartphones/

For first launching of our product in Malaysia, we will give away for free the new product of PDA+GSM Palm Type Treo 650 and Treo 680 and Treo 750.

By giving the product of PDA+GSM , we will get valuable feed back from the customers and get the mouth to mouth advertising.

You only have to forward to 15 people. After 2 weeks you will receive a PDA+GSM Palm Type Treo 650. If you forward to 25 people, you will receive a PDA+GSM Handspring Type Treo 680. And if you forward to 40 people you will get a PDA+GSM Palm Type Treo 750.

The only thing to remember is to send cc (copy) to:

louise.jasmine@gmail.com

Only by sending email to this address, we know you have forwarded this massage to your friends.

Good Luck!!

Louise Jasmine

Executive Promotion

Kuala Lumpur Office

Palm, Inc.

Email:

Private : louise.jasmine@gmail.com
Business: louise.jasmine@palm.com

After explaining to the sender that it’s most likely a hoax, I keep getting the same email back from different persons.

Even though I can’t find references to it the usual way, it still sounds suspicious for the following reasons:

• why she used a free email account to send this instead of palm.com corporate email?
• why is the email sent by a Ms Irene Julia, while it was signed by a Ms Louise Jasmine?
• why she linked to Palm’s Indonesian website instead of Palm’s Malaysian website?
• neither Palm US, nor Palm Indonesia, nor Palm Malaysia website mentioned any such promotion/marketing campaign.
• spelling and grammatical errors

I contacted Palm Corp US, Hong Kong and Singapore to confirm whether this is an authentic offer via their listed email address a few weeks ago, unfortunately I haven’t received any reply yet. Email addresses for Palm Malaysia & Indonesia are not listed.

You might be good at covers, but people will always remember you best by your original compositions: it has been said that the late Loga could rock as hard as anybody with Deep Purple’s Black Night or do a fiery version of Don McLean’s American Pie, but probably people will remember him best as the lead vocalist on the Alleycats original Jika Kau Bercinta Lagi.

You gotta be good at what you do, then you’re bound to get noticed: Even before cutting their first album, they were already top of the game. In 1976, when Loga was 24 and David 27, they were already performing in Hong Kong. They were such a hit with the crowd that the initial 3-month contract became 3 years. When they finally left for a new contract in Singapore, they were signed by Polygram-Philips.

Perseverance: Alleycats was formed in 1969 but only got signed by a major recording company 9 years later.

What you do will influence your children: Loga’s mother said that she sang (and probably still does now) and Loga and David would join in the music-making in their own way. She encouraged her sons’ musical ambitions although her husband didn’t. It’s obvious who made the greater impact on the kids.

Sources

• News Straits Times
• Wikipedia
• Myspace
• Daily Express

Update 28th June

Benoit and Daniel, then 4 years old, in 2004

Benoit celebrates winning Wrestlemania XX in March 2004 with Eddie Guerrero. 3 years later both are dead.

Where at first WWE paid tributes to Benoit, now it has made an about turn - withdrew support after it was clear it was he who committed the murders.

Background of killing, as reported by various media:

• Since 1997, more than 60 current or former pro wrestlers, all younger than 45 years have died.
• Daniel was mentally disabled: suffered from Fragile X Syndrome, a rare medical condition: can lead to autistic-like behaviour and dwarfism: no cure.
• Nancy recently had surgery on her neck - was in pain - it was difficult for her to take care of Daniel at the same time
  
• Nancy wanted Chris to be home more often but not to quit wrestling: he was on the road most of the time
  
• Days before deaths, they argued over difficulty in caring for Daniel
• Daniel adored his dad: pictures of him all over his bedroom
• Chris may have had other “significant mental health issues” not related to steriods use

New details on killings: Read the rest of this entry »

I visited the Lok Kawi Zoo on Saturday 16th June. Actually the signboard says “Lok Kawi Wildlife Park”, so this could be a source of confusion, as people might be looking high and low for the word “zoo”.

The entrance is nicely designed and looks very inviting:

Entry charge is quite steep. The rate shown below is for Malaysians. Non-Malaysians get charged double. I think those below 6 years of age get free admission.

In the children’s section, there was a fresco which caught my eye: nice touch

Elephant ride is only for those below 12. So adults will be disappointed. I think they could’ve used a bigger elephant and let the whole family go on it, like they do in A’Famosa Melaka.

The aviary is a very authentic jungle setting. When I first entered it, I thought it’s going to be a long walk, while in actual fact, it’s only about 150m. Right in the middle, looking up, you’ll be able to see this. Looks like a giant spider web - to prevent all the birds from escaping.

Visiting all places except the reptile and botanical gardens at a leisurely pace took us about 2 hours.

I’ve been to the Taiping and Melaka zoos and my impressions are:

• not very many animals yet. Zoo standards like zebras, camels, giraffes and lions are all missing.
• very well designed - wide avenues and places to sit and observe the animals.
• apart from visitor’s book, they also have a suggestions book which was surprisingly well populated, with very honest and constuctive comments inside. Most of the points here I also jotted down in their book.
• display of medicinal plants. complete with description, what they’re supposed to heal and which part of the plants to use is a nice touch.
• in future, they could add transportation services, an electric car perhaps, for the disabled/elderly.
• also in future, they could add other animal rides like camel rides and pony rides.
• also in future, they could add animal shows like bird shows and multi-animal shows (monkeys, buffaloes, bears etc)

Yes, we’re definitely coming back!

“Tiwas Kotoh” [Kadazandusun words, which is a derogatory interjection, roughly means: you deserved it], that hip-hop/rap song by Lydia Kalidin and Asmin Mudin has become something of a cult favourite, thanks to its rather explicit lyrics (by Malaysian standards of course).

I can’t ever imagine it being played on radio but it should be a hit everywhere else. Apparently it’s included in Lydia’s album released last year.

But children might find some parts of the lyrics rather hard to understand. For example this poor young lady is having trouble understanding what the fuss is all about with the line “nasib tidak kena burung” [fortunately, the bird was not hit]. If you know Malay slang, you’d understand what it means.

Video (dialogue mostly in Malay) Read the rest of this entry »

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that world famous spy agency has a new TV series revolving around it in the form of USA Network’s Burn Notice, premiering 28th June on USA Network.

It’s about CIA operative Michael Weston (played by Jeffrey Donovan) being suddenly sacked while on duty, or in spy-speak, receiving a burn notice. Having no inkling of why he’s suddenly terminated, he goes to Miami, his hometown, and from then on he’d try to find out the real reasons. At the same time, he’d offer his special operations skills to those in need to fund his investigations.

My favourite TV / movie genre are dramas and thrillers, so this is something to check out.

As for my personal theory of what actually happened, I think he disturbed the hornet’s nest when he tried to expose a senior member of the organization for serious breach of trust - in this case, being a spy for a terrorist organization. That senior operative gets a handsome amount for his services leaking information overseas and upon finding out that Weston is secretly tracking his movements got him in a panic, and hence used all sorts of dirty tricks to put Weston in trouble, resulting in the burn notice being issued. In fact, that senior operative is merely a link to a much greater scale of corruption in the CIA and other related agencies, including the highest levels of the US government. A multibillion dollar spying business is ongoing and those in the money would never let a single operative spoil the party.

At least for members of the civil service, www.jpa.gov.my/pekelilinggaji.asp should be the most visited URL in Malaysia now. It contains the softcopy of 2 circulars issued on 15th June 2007 by the Public Service Department (Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam) which describes in detail the salary increase for Federal civil servants and members of the police force.

The official circular for members of the Sabah civil service has not yet been issued, but most likely it will be almost the same, if not exactly the same, as the federal circular.

So how much more can a civil servant (not including police officers) expect to get? From the several rough calculations that I’ve made, for middle management staff (those between the grades of 41 to 48) will get between RM300 and RM800 extra per month.

Fresh graduates (degree level) joining the civil service as an Information System Officer (meaning ICT field) at grade 41 (the usual grade for first degree holders) will now get almost Read the rest of this entry »

If you can have a Bird Watching Society, why not a Plane Watching Society?

Go to the 4th beach (still popularly known as the 3rd beach) at Tanjung Aru, Kota Kinabalu and before the turning into the sea, at least at daytime during the weekends you’re sure to see quite a few cars parked right next to the perimeter of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA).

They are there for at least one reason: watching planes taking off and touching down at KKIA. I must say the location is absolutely perfect since:

• You are very close to the action: the planes land right in front of your eyes - you see the smoking tyres and everything. They take off slightly further away, but still close enough to see clearly.
• There are plenty of places to park your car under the shade.
• The place is right next to the sea, so you get to enjoy the sea breeze while plane watching.
• Ice cream vendors come once so often: enjoy the planes while eating your ice cream!
• Planes take off and touch down frequently: I would say I saw at least 10 planes in in action in about 1 hour one weekend from around 11 am to 12 pm.

Enterprising traders can even be seen setting up food and drink booths there.

Here are two junior members of the club in action (video): Read the rest of this entry »

The term “vacation rentals” would probably sound foreign to most Asians, but it’s a tourism buzzword in Europe (especially the United Kingdom) and North America, the concept getting more popular by the day. The term is used by the travel industry to mean the renting out, to tourists, of a fully furnished apartment or even house on a temporary basis. It is an alternative to staying in a hotel / resort. In some cities, such as in Barcelona, vacation rentals are such a success that the hotel industry there felt threatened enough to push for laws enacted to limit its influence.

Here in Malaysia we immediately think of homestay programs as a comparison, but in vacation rental, the property owners do not stay in the same house or even compound. Owners could let agencies manage their property, offering services much like the hotels, for example concierge services and 24×7 maintenance.

Benefits of vacation rentals include the bigger space as compared to hotels - it could be a whole house after all, with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms (of course with nicebathroom faucets), fireplaces and so on. Their locations can even be much nearer to local attractions as compared to hotels. Then there’s the privacy issue: hotels can never compete with rented out houses in this respect.

Therefore, vacation rentals is an interesting new way of enjoying your holidays. Every budget is catered for, as properties range from studio apartments to sprawling villas on private islands.

Vacation rentals are available in most US states, including major tourist areas, for example Fort Myers vacation rentals. It’s located right on the beach of the Gulf Coast of the western part of Florida. I think that should beat any hotel’s offer.