Even though Tamparuli has long been well known, if only for the song “Jambatan Tamparuli”, Marsha firmly re-established Tamparuli in the nation’s consciousness.

But is she the most popular vocalist in Tamparuli?

I don’t think so.

I have been to a few wedding receptions which was also attended by “Chris”, who would invariably perform a song or three, and would get the best reception of all performers in the reception, guaranteed.

Here’s a video of him performing the classic Bob Tutupoly song “Widuri”:

Click here to see the video

OK, the much-talked about D-Day (16th September 2008) did not happen, but I’d like to ask: will the federal government change hands from BN to PR this year?

Timeline

16th September 2008

Change of government didn’t happen, but Anwar insists:

We have a slight majority, it is in excess of 31. To the PM, please do not do more ISA arrests or impose emergency rule to stop the takeover.

But he would not name the defectors:

We name them now and they get harassed immediately. So I’m telling you now that I will choose to confide in the prime minister. And if he wants the list I will show the list at the meeting. Until the right opportune moment, we can’t declare. We know how the system operates.

He even said the numbers are increasing quickly:

It keeps increasing by the hour… seriously. I’m not joking. This morning, I received a signed note from another member. What do you want to know? You want to know if we have the numbers. We’ve the numbers!

He even said that the defectors included cabinet members and their deputies.

The PM said:

I would not entertain Anwar’s request to meet him until the list of defectors is made public. This is a waste of our time. It is a game of political lies by Anwar Ibrahim and the people are choosing to believe him. He has no substance but the people will continue to be fascinated by him. Why should I be pressured? It is mere dreams. If at all it is true, (Anwar) would have announced it by now. The whole world would have known. Do you think he would ask for a meeting with me to discuss a transition? He would storm into my room with hundreds behind him, shouting victory. This is Anwar’s style.

However, PR leaders said in that case they would meet the king. PKR Information Chief Tian Chua said this could happen within the next 1 to 2 days, but then clarified, “as much as possible, however, we will try to avoid dragging the king into this.”

According to the law:
(i) Anwar can approach the king with proof that he has the support of enough MPs to be the new leader of the government; however Anwar preferred to discuss the takeover with the PM first; or that
(ii) the king could order another round of general elections, if the outgoing or incoming PM recommended it.

15th September 2008

On the eve of 916, Anwar Ibrahim told a rally of 25,000 (some say 30,000) at the Kelana Jaya stadium in Petaling Jaya:

Tonight on the eve of Malaysia Day, we are ready to form the government tomorrow. We have the numbers to defeat BN. Tomorrow is D-day, we are ready to form the government. Pakatan Rakyat has submitted a letter to the PM today seeking a meeting for a smooth transition of power.

Apparently, earlier 3 MPs from Pakatan Rakyat (PKR’s Johari Abdul, DAP’s Loke Siew Fook and PAS’ Dr Hatta Ramli) gave the letter to the PM.

After the rally, Anwar told journalists:

I believe that the government will fall in the next few weeks.

However, the Prime Minister dismissed this claim, saying:

It’s a nuisance and preposterous. The people had become very uneasy with this “naughty” speculation that the government would be toppled. It’s better to so something worthwhile instead of indulging in unecessary coffee shop talk. The best thing to do was not to entertain such talk posted in websites. The current government will remain strong.

Other Barisan Nasional leaders echoed him.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said:

There’s no way there would be a change in government on Tuesday. It’s not going to happen. Parliament has to be in session and it’s not sitting currently, and there should be a constructive vote of no-confidence in Parliament such as by defeating a Bill. There were two attempts by the Opposition not too long ago but they did not materialise. So, it’s a waste of time talking about it. Anwar is always doing a con job to trick the rakyat. You can kid the people once, twice but not all the time.

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Farid Wan Salleh said:

Anwar should stop playing mind games [playing the xbox 360 is allowed though ;-)]. For someone who aspires to be the future leader of the country, he must behave like one, and not like a politician hungry for power.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said:

Anwar’s goal to capture enough Barisan MPs to topple the government today was an unnatural political act. If they want to form a government, it has to be done through the democratic process of the general election, not through the back door.

PAS secretary-general Kamaruddin Jaafar said:

The new “Pakatan federal government” will include Barisan members who have rejected their component parties.

12th September 2008

Anwar admits for the first time that Pakatan Rakyat might miss the 16th September deadline:

The process of transformation to a new government… is proceeding smoothly and we believe that Barisan Nasional will be replaced in a very short period. The date might be delayed from September 16… but the agenda is still going on. One complicating factor had been the government’s move to ship lawmakers overseas this week.

Today the PKR sent a delegation of 5 to fly to Taipei to contact “potential defectors” among the 49 MPs who went on the Taiwan trip. Members of the delegation:
(i) Fuziah Salleh (Kuantan MP), election bureau deputy head, flew in the morning;
(ii) Tian Chua (Batu MP), information chief;
(iii) Saifuddin Nasution (Machang MP), strategic director;
(iv) Low Chee Cheong, supreme council member. Another report said the PKR vice-president Dr Lee Boon Chye went instead;
(v) Elizabeth Wong (Selangor state executive councillor and PKR Wanita publicity chief).

The Taiwan tour officially ends tomorrow, and “about five to six MPs had already gone back on the 10th (Wednesday).”

10th September 2008

Anwar Ibrahim said the 16th deadline is still very much on track, even though many MPs are now abroad.

He also said there will be a “surprise” on that day (16th Sept), but did not go into detail.

8th September 2008

PKR Deputy President Dr Syed Husin Ali confirmed that Pakatan Rakyat does have enough MPs for the takeover, and tantalizingly, said that there are “several” among the 41 BN MPs who flew to Taiwan today for an “agriculture study tour” lasting 8 days.

It has been reported that up to 54 MPs will go to Taiwan, but the list of MPs is not available, only that there are 10 MPs from Sabah, 10 from Sarawak and the rest from the peninsular.

However, he added that:
(i) it is likely to be a few days after 16th September and that PR will wait until everybody’s back in Malaysia before unveiling all of them together.
(ii) PR is likely to secure 40 MPs rather than the minimum 31 in order to have a more stable government.

PAS secretary-general Kamaruddin Jaffar also confirmed that PR has the numbers but the takeover date has changed.

6th September 2008

Anwar Ibrahim said he is on track to meet the 16th September deadline to recruit at least 30 BN MPs in order to topple the government. 30 is the number needed to unseat the government. He said:

…quite positive from the initial response from the MPs. We have seen some very positive signs, but we have also seen the desperate acts by the government, threats and using institutions to discourage them. The only issue now is that they are going to compel members of parliament to (travel to) China or overseas until after the 16th of September, so we’ll have to deal with that. Probably we’ll meet on the 17th because they’ll come back on the 17th.

Gerakan’s Acting President Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said Gerakan will leave Barisan Nasional if it cannot play a “meaningful role” within the coalition.

5th September 2008

The PM said it won’t happen.

Some comments by Sabahan leaders:

PBS Deputy President Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili said:

We cannot tolerate any more this kind of story (of forming the Government). Such a rumour has created political instability and fear among the people and even (affected) public safety. Based on the feedback from the grassroots, there is no sign of BN MPs, especially from PBS, crossing over as claimed by the opposition.

LDP President Datuk VK Liew said:

The Government formed through the backdoor is undemocratic. We in LDP don’t uphold and subscribe to such a government.

Upko Deputy President Datuk Wilfred Bumburing said defections won’t happen, but declined to comment further on the matter.

SAPP VP and Tawau MP Datuk Dr Chua Soon Bui said:

We never discussed any defection.

Sabah Parliamentary Back Benchers Club Chairman and Kimanis MP Datuk Anifah Aman said:

No Sabah BN MPs, including from Umno, have indicated their intention to defect.

28th August 2008

Many of the 24 Sabah BN MPs rejected the move to get them to sign a loyalty pledge to the PM. State Barisan Backbenchers Club chairman Datuk Anifah Aman said the move proposed by Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal:
(i) was an insult to the Sabah MPs
(ii) the pledge should instead be signed by all Barisan MPs
(iii) various Sabah MPs including himself had repeatedly voiced their loyalty to the Barisan leadership
(iv) they had no intention of crossing over to join the opposition.
(v) some Sabah MPs said they felt that they were being treated like “cattle.”

Kalabakan MP Datuk Abdul Ghapur Salleh said:
(i) the loyalty pledge seemed to infer that Sabah MPs could not be trusted.
(ii) He would not be signing any such pledge

Karambunai MP Datuk Eric Majimbun said:
(i) neither he nor fellow SAPP MP Datuk Dr Chua Soon Bui of Tawau would be signing such a pledge.
(ii) he questioned the the point of such a pledge, and said “this so-called pledge doesn’t make sense.”

No review of any product is perfect, but the general consensus is that the best reviews are those that are independent and fully customer rated, based on what everybody wants like track record, existing or former customers’ feedback, affordability, reliability and techical support.

Webhosting providers are in the midst of a price war, what with an abundance sub USD10/mth offers. At the same time, customers are getting more demanding and discerning: they’d throughly research a web host and its product nitty-gritties before making a decision. A review site with comprehensive list of webhosting providers, with relevant information such as plans offered, even promotions / discounts and most importantly uncensored reviews by customers would have an upper hand over the rest.

…I haven’t double-checked, but they might well also do reviews on hardware that run onMac memory.

I had planned to balik kampung this afternoon, after attending the wedding reception a colleague, Kenneth at Foo Chow Hall.

As usual the weather was fine in the morning, just nice so as not to necessitate the wearing of a cap, but by 12 something it was already raining, not particularly heavy, but of course what really matters is how heavy the rain is upstream.

I knew the answer at 5 something.

First flood warning siren blared, quickly followed by the 2nd and 3rd (and final) warning. That could only mean one thing: 99% chance the river is going to overflow within the next 5 minutes.

The water level reached its peak around 9 something - mercifully not as bad as before, only knee-high downstairs.

…or even perhaps the decade.

Why so? Because a first cousin finally, finally ended his bachelorhood after most of us had given up hope of him ever settling down.

Being a much older first cousin (>10 years), he’s like a big brother to all of us, indeed one of his many nicknames is “Abang Besar”.

The following is my favourite photo: it’s 9.24am, the wedding mass is at 10am, a moment for reflection: selamat tinggal bujang? (goodbye bachelorhood):

After the mass:

Congratulations Alfred & Alice!

P.S. The groom being a successful insurance agent, their honeymoon options should include the beach homes via Outer Banks rentals…

At the very last minute, I decided to bring my daughter (who readily agreed) see Stacy AF6 in concert again, after the first time at Padang Merdeka on 31st May.

We arrived late (9 something), but luckily:
- there was still space at the car park
- tickets were still on sale. On one side of the ticket, the concert was billed as “KDCA Fundraising Concert 2008″, and on the other, “Stacy Comes Home: KDCA Concert 2008″.
- the hall’s only about half full (I estimate there were 2,000 there)
- I can’t remember if there were more expensive tickets, but you could sit as near as possible to the front of the stage using a RM20 ticket: no barriers were in place
- Stacy has not yet arrived
- just as we sat down, the lady I’ve been waiting for appeared onstage with Adam AF2: Jo-Anna Sue Henley-Rampas, who I thought was one of the best vocalists I have ever heard live back in November 2007. And yes, she impressed again, and to me is a better vocalist than Stacy.

Still, there’s very little fault with Stacy either. Powerful, my favourite kind of voice (rock-friendly, a little gravelly at the higher registers), down-to-earth personality, and a good dancer to boot. Not quite in the same class as Nikki MI, but still very good nonetheless.

Having said that, the organisation of the concert could’ve been much better. For a start, it was quite bizarre watching RTM’s Sabah VFM DJ Louis Chin as one of the MCs, because I’ve never heard him speak in Bahasa Malaysia before (he’s a DJ for the Kadazan segment). In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the other MC (a lady) is also from the Kadazan segment of Sabah VFM.

That took a while to get used to, but then their handling of proceedings left much to be desired. I think concerts like these need hipper people to be MCs. During some parts of the concert they seemed to be lost and didn’t know what to say. Case in point, they announced that a “kejutan” (surprise) was coming, but then the DJ played a birthday song, to which the crowd sang along. So everybody already knew what was ahead, but still the MCs kept repeating the word “kejutan”. The cake itself took much too long to appear. And as cute as it is, I don’t think it’s a good idea to pause a pop concert for that - it disrupted the momentum. If they could make it very quick, it would’ve been ok, but when the MCs started calling for the parents of Stacy to appear onstage, and suddenly a whole bunch of people came up, including the current Unduk Ngadau presenting Stacy with a bouquet, I thought it was going too far.

About birthdays, apparently Stacy’s going to turn 18 soon. That means she was just 17 when she won AF6.

Then the DJs: I always wonder why they never learnt their lesson all these years. It was a karaoke concert, hence the DJs MUST get their song selection and order down pat. But still, they made at least two horrendous mistakes. The first one was right at the beginning - Stacy’s first song: they played the WRONG song - Stacy had to point it out before they stopped it.

The second was one or two songs later during a duet on a ballad:

Click here to read the rest of the post

… or rather the 6th Ministry of Finance Sports Carnival, boasting quite a few sporting disciplines.

But the timing was certainly fortuitous. The opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was held the night before on the now-famous triple-eight (8/8/2008).

So there we were early the next morning for the opening ceremony, complete with 12 teams, VVIPs, march pasts and oath taking.

Certainly felt like we were holding our very own little Olympics. But this little Olympics lasts much longer than the real Olympics - months in fact for the simple reason that competitions are done on weekends, usually not simultaneously among the disciplines.

Back to the event: after the opening ceremony, the action started with the badminton tournament. I was one of the 15 players in my team, not including the team manager.

If you thought this was beginner-level badminton, it was certainly not. There were a handful of state or ex state players in the fray, plus serious regular enthusiasts, so quite a lot of the matches were worth watching.

By the end of the weekend (around 4.30 pm on Sunday) we’d finished third after defeating the State Treasury 3-2. Ministry of Finance, boasting several state players and more excellent players, as expected became champions for the umpteenth time, overwhelming Sabah Credit Corporation 3-1 (if I got that right).

So you can say that I’ve had a very sporty weekend, indeed it was very enjoyable and a great demonstration of team spirit.

The only question now is whether I’d be fit enough to work on Monday…

Anyway, congratulations to all those involved, with special mention to Yussop and Kamal who endured a tiring doubles match to haul us back into contention.

Ad: one of the bad things about the parking lot of the Likas Indoor stadium and the nearby jogging track is the rampant car break-ins. On Sunday, as we were all going back home, there were at least 2 cars broken into. I wonder if cheap auto insurance also covers break-ins as well as auto accidents?

Last month, as I usually do while making my way out of Kota Kinabalu International Airport after a business trip (no, I don’t deal in auto parts franchises), I’d stop by one of those duty-free shops in search of chocolates.

That time I decided to buy this:

But when I opened it, the chocolates inside only took the following area:

The taste was ok lah, not spectacular.

Worse, I bought them in a bundle of 4, and cost me RM31+, meaning almost RM8 per box. Supposedly duty-free, locally made, 137g per box of chocs for almost RM8, you think this was reasonably priced?

As reported in The Star on 19th June 2008:

Sex VCD exposes wife’s lesbian affair

A HUSBAND suspected his wife was having an affair with another man. He was wrong. To his shock, he discovered a VCD with explicit scenes of his wife having sex with a woman.

Harian Metro reported that the woman was the wife’s office colleague and the affair had been going on for the past few months.

The paper said the man grew suspicious when his wife came home from work with love bites on her body. He thought she might be fooling around with a male colleague.

He confronted his wife, who denied having an affair with any man.

A whole new light was thrown on the affair when the husband found the hidden VCD and discovered that his rival was a woman.

…I guess some of the hanky panky were also performed on office chairs…

Source

By kampung I mean places so remote that it’s more than likely you had to spend the night sleeping on the floor or in a car.

I’ve had a few encounters like this over the years, in places like Kg Morodobou (Kota Marudu), Kg Libang Laut (Tambunan-Ranau border) and Kg Talantang (deep in the jungles of Kiulu).

One of my most memorable experiences is helping to carry musical equipment, including heavy amplifiers, guitars and loudspeakers through miles of muddy and mountainous jungle paths to a relative’s wedding reception in a remote village. Yes, people who live there definitely don’t need to purchase any strength equipment at all: you’d get your weight training whether you like it or not. Definitely no electricity there, had to use a generator. The “stage” was a bamboo floor simply put onto the ground. To top it off, it was raining heavily throughout the reception, the tarpaulin cover was leaking (rainwater was dripping onto the instruments!) and I slipped and fell at least once on the slippery ground, ruining my clothes. Truly Woodstock stuff.

Then at another reception several years later, I gingerly made my way downstairs after trying to sleep through all the chatter, only to find the stairs almost impossible to go through.

The latest kampung wedding reception I attended was last month, although it was not as extreme as my previous experiences.

At the usual receptions held in halls, restaurants or hotels, you probably won’t find the following:

The JKKK Chairman himself barbecueing wild boar:

Extremely loud band playing right next to the newlyweds’ bedroom, but this boy couldn’t care less:

Then I witnessed, for the first time ever at a wedding reception, the band performing Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. I only had a mobile phone to video the momentous event, but you get the idea:

Click here to see the video