Hong Yi, 26 is a Sabahan who’s working as an architect for an Australian company in Shanghai.

On 10th January 2012, she uploaded to youtube a time-lapse video of her painting basketball superstar Yao Ming onto a canvas using only a basketball and red paint.

Then she casually mentioned it on her Facebook page the next day.

After that, the viral power of the internet took over, earning her attention from the likes of Yahoo!, NBC, Huffington Post and Gizmodo.

Apparently first mentioned at Gizmodo on 24th January: that’s when the view numbers really picked up, the site has since generated more than 50,000 views.

3 weeks later, it now has more than 443,000 views, with the following milestones:

01/26/12 First embedded on – tabonito.pt 26,396
01/25/12 First embedded on – cnn.com 13,752
01/25/12 First embedded on – blic.rs 11,739
01/25/12 First embedded on – 10minutesaperdre.fr 7,860
01/24/12 First embedded on – gizmodo.com 37,629
01/24/12 First embedded on – thedailywh.at 12,071
01/11/12 First view from a mobile device 41,564
01/11/12 First embedded on – facebook.com 24,804
01/11/12 First referral from – facebook.com 10,206

Click here to view the embedded video.

She could be the first Sabahan to be a true worldwide internet celebrity.

Source

It’s usually held on the evening of the second day of CNY, which this year fell on the 24th of January.

The announced time was 9.45pm, the actual show started 10 minutes later.

We were very lucky to get a table next to the road where the show was held.

There were 2 unicorns, 3 lions, a “normal-sized” dragon and a giant dragon.

Highlights include Salim tossing roti canai in the air while the 3 lions attempt to catch them with their mouths.

Then Salim and family posing with the giant dragon after putting on it some kind of headgear.

Later, Salim himself took hold of the giant dragon’s head, then ran a few rounds chasing after the “sun”.

[Photo credit: WikiSabah]

[Photo credit: Rooney Biusing]

I call the following letter the 3-in-1 letter because the person to whom it’s addressed resides in Kota Kinabalu, the address mentions “Bangunan MPT” which I think refers to the Town Council Building in Tawau, while the letter itself arrived in Keningau.

At first glance it could be misinterpreted as either Sabah not open to any visitors on that day, or everything’s closed on that day.

Everybody I knew in Sabah called it Ninja Turtle, reportedly due to:

(i) the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles then, of which comics and TV series made their debuts in 1984 and 1987 respectively;

(ii) its roundness makes it look like a turtle’s shell, and some say its headlights look like a Ninja Turtle’s eyes.

Even local newspapers started naming these vehicles Ninja Turtles in their reports.

When higher-end later models were announced, for example the Land Cruiser 100 series, which was also identified with other names like Lexus and Cygnus, people simply called them Ninja Kings.

In fact, I’ve heard people calling higher-end variations of other models as simply the model’s name plus “king”, example: Unser King.

More than 20 years later, this practice is alive and well in this part of the world, but it seems that it never caught on in other parts of Malaysia, let alone the rest of the world.

Libya’s 1 dinar banknote, issued in the 1980s, with Muammar Gaddafi on the obverse. Apart from this, the other banknote featuring Gaddafi is the 50 dinar bill. After the 2011 revolution with overthrew him, Libya’s Central Bank Governor is redesigning new banknotes that will likely replace Gaddafi-emblazoned bills. On 20th October 2011, Gaddafi was captured alive, beaten and killed by NLA fighters:

Iraq’s 25 dinar banknote, issued in 1986, with Saddam Hussein on the obverse. Apart from this, there are many other banknotes featuring him. After the deposition of Saddam in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi Governing Council and the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance issued new notes, understandably none of which featured Saddam. He was captured in December 2003, and was hanged on 30th December 2006:

In one of the worst cases of hyperinflation the world has ever seen, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced trillion-denominated notes on 16th January 2009, including the incredible Z$100 trillion banknote. In mid-January 2009, Z$1 trillion was equivalent to USD1. Forbes Magazine reportedly mentioned that by December 2008, inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (65 followed by 107 zeros):

North Korea’s 100 won banknote, issued in 1992, with Kim Il-Sung on the obverse. Apart from this, the other banknote featuring Kim is the 1,000 and 5,000 won bill:

Hungary went through the worst case of hyperinflation in history between the end of 1945 and July 1946. In 1944, the highest denomination was 1,000 pengo. By mid-1946 the highest denomination was 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengo. At its worst, prices doubled every 15 hours. In Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, prices doubled every 24 hours. The banknote I have below is that of a 1 billion pengo (10 to the power of 9 pengo), issued in May 1946 and withdrawn a mere 2 months later. This is not the biggest ever Hungarian banknote of that period: that’s the 10 to the power of 20 and 21 b-pengos. I am still looking for reasonably priced banknotes of those:

The ship as seen from Suria Sabah. In the background is Penaga Hill, Sepanggar

[photo credit: thienzieyung]

It claims to have more than 5,000 titles on offer and a local daily reported that it’s expected that 100,000 would visit the ship during its stay.

We went there on the 26th of November.

Everything was as expected, except this:

Of course it’s there as part of a message.

Yes, even the smallest lady of the house did all her nails, her fingernails of exactly the same design as mummy’s.

Luckily my boy wasn’t around, otherwise my iPaid look would’ve been even more obvious.

First heard early August 2011.

As of the time of writing, a video of the song uploaded to youtube on 17th August 2011 has garnered more than 100,000 views

Click here to view the embedded video.