Loverboy Wins The Day

Malaysian lawmaker Bung Mokhtar Radin, left, wipes tears from his eyes after he has escaped going to jail for entering a polygamous marriage without official consent, as his second wife Zizie Ezette looks on at an Islamic High Court in Shah Alam, Wednesday, August 11, 2010.

Of course the teary act was disgusting, but, well, the Kinabatangan MP, Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin has escaped the jail sentence. [Bintulu] This is not a surprising conclusion—obviously anyone with a bit of common sense would’ve seen it coming months ago. I fancy that the loverboy MP is having a hard time suppressing his inclination to do the middle-finger thing to his many political rivals right now, if you know what I mean.

I have no idea why these people had even bothered with the charade of the Syariah High Court trial. I mean, it’s not like there was any other possible outcome to this whole comedy? I suspect it had something to do with creating a bit of news—no matter how frightfully pathetic it is—to fill up our local papers, among the other news articles about how the BN Government had done this nation so much good.

It kinda reminds me of the Kartika woman who was caught drinking beer in a hotel lobby, and consequently earned herself a few strokes of the rattan. Except that that sentence, too, was eventually reduced to a prescribed duration of “community service”, whatever that means.

So congratulations, Datuk—you’re da man! But let this be a lesson to you; if by any chance you’re planning for no. 3—that seems like a natural progression somehow—make sure you secure the Syariah Court’s consent first, ya hear?

And by the way, here’s to a great Ramadan for you and your family(ies).

Afida in Wonderland

I have mentioned in the previous post that my friends, Andrew and Teo, will be joining the Sprint Triathlon in Miri this October. Their participation is intended to be something of a fact-finding mission for our circle of friends who're keen to know what the triathlon is like. We reckoned that whatever little experience Andrew and Teo can gain from the sprint would be useful for our preparation.

Although there is no question that Andrew and Teo can both afford to travel in luxury, they decided to share a hotel room for this particular outing. So Andrew made the necessary reservations with a clerk in a hotel in Miri, explaining that he required a room to share with a friend. After making some preliminary enquiries, Andrew received an email from the hotel, confirming his room reservation:

Good afternoon

Dear Mr Andrew Voon

This is your confirmation booking as per below

Room confirmation no: XXXXXXXXX

1) Guest name: Mr Andrew Voon

Check in: 30th October 2010

Check out: 31 October 2010

Room type: 1 Deluxe Sea view rooms, 1 Twin Sharing Bed

Room rate: RM150 nett per room per night (Include 2 breakfast)

Payment: Personal Account

Regards,

Afida Sabtu

Reading the above email, Andrew became fairly alarmed. He decided to write back to Afida:

Afida—we need 1 TWIN SHARING ROOM ie 1 room with 2 single beds—not 1 TWIN SHARING BED!!

Andrew Voon

And then shortly after that, Andrew received a reply from Afida:

Dear Mr Andrew

Actually twin sharing bed or twin sharing room is the same type of room. Inside the room have 2 separate bed which is queen sized bed of each.

Regards,

Afida Sabtu

So now Andrew is happier with this latest reply from Afida. But perhaps because he remembered that I have a torturous mind—with that curious affinity to analyse everything even when those analysis are not required—decided to share the emails with me.

I told Andrew not to be too happy with this latest reply. For we don't know if Afida is really sure of what she's talking about. 2 queen sized bed(s) in one room? The only thing that we can be sure of is that Afida could use a bit of improvement in her English.

I told Andrew to make sure that they're not getting only one queen sized bed. We have had enough of Anwar and Saiful in the Sodomy 2 Trial. We don't need a Sodomy Part 3: The Andrew and Teo Saga. Enough of these pathetic sequels please!

Shopping For A Road Bicycle

It's been only a couple of weeks since the topic of attempting the triathlon was first raised at the potluck dinner at Andrew's. I thought it's an appealing idea. Having conquered 3 marathons and several other shorter races, it seemed only natural to explore trying something else. However, I still have a couple of races lined up for the next couple of months, i.e. a half marathon in September, a 30km race in October, and another full marathon in November. I didn't think it's such a good idea to squeeze a triathlon into my race schedule. But God willing, I would like to try the triathlon next year.

Little did I know, Teo became so excited at the very mention of the word "triathlon". Within no time at all, he had flown to Manila to buy a GIANT road bike. And then last Sunday, while Dr Peter and I were running laboriously from the Likas Sport Complex to 1Borneo and back, Teo and Andrew did the same route on their bikes. Teo seemed so happy with his new toy.

After the long run, we met Dr Felice at the car park. She had her brandnew bike which she bought the day before. And she came complete with her sexy bicycle tights too. A bunch of them crowded around her. As we were talking, Mia approached the car park. She had just finished her 17km run.

Upon Felice's encouragement, Mia attempted her first ever ride on a bicycle in 35 years. I stood there looking at my wife riding a bicycle—wobbly and very robotic, and it made my knees go very weak just watching her in action. But she actually managed to balance herself on the bike for an amazing 10 metres or so. The next thing she needs to know, I think, is that in order to stop a moving bicycle, one is supposed to use the brakes, not by using the feet on the ground. I can't remember if I had to pick up my jaw from the ground, but at least now I'm more convinced that we can probably invest in a road bike each.

As I said, we are not in a big hurry to attempt a triathlon, although Teo and Andrew have already signed up for the Miri Sprint Triathlon at the end of October. But I reckoned that it would be good to buy a bike as soon as possible, so that we can practise riding for a bit. That way, perhaps by the time we begin to seriously train for a triathlon next year, we would no longer be starting from zero!

These days road bikes are a very complicated matter. I never knew that there are specific measurements and sizes for the riders. But thankfully, Andrew was kind enough to tell me a general guide on how to determine the suitable size. According to him, the way to find out is something like this:

Step 1:

Measure your inseam. This is best done barefooted. Stand against the wall and put a book between your legs so that it presses right up against your pelvic bone. Then make a mark with a pencil on the wall along the top of the book. Measure the distance from the floor to the mark in centimetres.

Step 2:

Use your inseam measurement to get the rough idea of your road bike size. Multiply the distance by 0.65. This will give you a good estimate of your road bike size measured centre to centre.

So this morning at the office, I thought I might as well find out what's the right size for my road bike. I went to the receptionist at the entrance lobby and asked for the measuring tape. Then I started measuring my inseam. She looked at me, puzzled. I entertained the idea of using a book pressed against my crotch as mentioned in Step 1 above. But in the end I decided against it, because I had the feeling that my receptionist would not dare to touch the phonebook after I was done with it.

Well, to make the long story short, I'm looking for a 50-cm frame, or size M. That should be about right, because after all Teo is riding a size M/L, which is a 53-cm frame.

In the mean time, a friend, Claire, who's also into marathons and surfing (not internet surfing!), and now triathlon, has been writing emails to the Merida distributor in KL to get some idea on bike models and prices. I think I can safely say that we should be having our bikes before the end of this month. But of course I still need to tell Mia how to use the brakes on the bike.

There will be other matters to deal with, of course—the scary thought of getting into a bicycle tights, since I can imagine that I won't look very sexy in tights like Kate Beckinsale.

Then there's the learning of the freestyle, although Teo and Andrew are talking about "Total Immersion Swimming". But I don't know if they're confused between swimming and scuba diving.

So much more to do in preparation for a triathlon in 2011. But I can see it all now—it's gonna be a lot of fun attempting a new challenge!

Religious Dinner & Direct-Selling Businesses

A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me to a dinner scheduled for 6 August, Friday. I had no idea what the occasion was about, but because I did not have anything on on that day, I accepted the invitation. The dinner was held at the STAR Hotel, in Tanjung Aru.

It turned out that it was some sort of religious gathering organised by a church. I pass that church all the time. I think I can safely say that that church is easily the most sophisticated church in KK, if not in the whole of Sabah. It has an extremely huge auditorium and a big stage.

Many years ago, I had been attending the Catholic congregations for a while. It wasn't a case of being religious on my part. Rather, it was mainly to oblige my mother-in-law's wish to at least attend several sessions, perhaps in the hope of making it a permanent routine. But it was not meant to be. I simply had too many questions which of course couldn't be answered. In fact, religions are mainly about faith, nothing much to do about logic and tangible evidence.

There is of course no foreseeable hope for me to ever embrace any religion. That night, after the dinner (it was a buffet dinner), some of those at my table left shortly when the "religious" portion of the event started. But being the curious animal that I am, I stayed on till the very end to observe the proceedings.

They started with singing—about God and Jesus, y'know, the usual stuff in any church. That was followed by some young girls singing and dancing with more religious songs. I thought it was kinda unique because it was life music with guitars, drums etc, just like a typical band in the pubs, except that these were religious songs. According to my friend, that's how the singings are conducted in their Sunday congregations.

In the Catholic church, what I can remember was that there were also some songs too, but accompanied by an organ, and maybe a guitar. The songs were mainly led by a choir. Certainly not the kind of band we had at STAR that night. It was quite an interesting "invention", in my opinion.

The thing about people, when they are in a group, is that there is a kind of peer pressure to follow the tide. If one finds himself amongst all the religious people, there is a kind of shame if he is not also religious. But I have never really been affected by such influence. Therefore, I observed, and I got onto my feet as a gesture of respect. But when it was time to go to the stage on the invitation of the Pastor, I did not go. I could see how the hosts at the other tables trying very hard to ask their respective guests to go. And of course some of them did go. Whether they went because of "peer pressure" or because they really wanted to go on their own accord, I couldn't tell.

In all religions, the members almost always want to recruit new members. In fact, I'm convinced that that is an important element of all religions! And those of you who are in the direct selling businesses or online marketing thing would know that the more members you can recruit, the more successful the business will be. The selling point is that if one wants to enter the kingdom of God, the way to do so is through this religion only! And all the religions will claim that their religion is the true one; and their God is the true one!

I have always said that most religions are generally very good. I think if ever I want to embrace any religion at all, I would just go back to the Catholic church, because after all that's the religion which was "given" to me. There is really not much point to switch to another religion because quite frankly, religions to me are just something like social clubs. None of them are perfect—I have said before that they're human inventions. They are full of procedures and obligations to perform, but people's hearts are not necessarily "clean" just because they are religious.

A man is involved in a road accident. He lies paralyse in his wrecked up car. A man who's on his way to a Sunday morning mass passes by and notices the dying man. But he does not stop because he's already running late for church. His love for God is just too great and absolutely nothing will stop him from attending the Sunday mass on time!

And then another man who is without any religion arrives at the scene. Using his cellphone, he calls for help. While waiting for the arrival of the ambulance, he talks to the injured fellow and gives him words of encouragement. That does not really help to lessen the pain, but he tries to comfort the injured man anyway. Soon, the ambulance arrives to take the injured man to the hospital. But in the end, the injured man dies anyway!

Now if God really does exist, which of the two men do you think God would welcome into heaven on judgement day—the one who loved Him so much to the extent of not even stopping to help a fellow human; or the one who's got no religion, but tried to help a man in distress?

I want to try to be a good person in my life; I try to help others if I can. If I had a bit of extra cash, I would like to use it to give education to poor kids, or food to those who're dying of hunger. I doubt that I would use my money to help build a church with a huge auditorium, and escalators, and all the grand modern design. Many churches these days have too much emphasis on image. I would rather use the resources to help others in need. I'd like to believe that the act of kindness to others means much more to God than building beautiful expensive churches where we can sing praises to Him.

The Raging Fire

A page from JJ's Bahasa Malaysia text book. For the benefit of those who're not well-versed with the language, let me try to translate it into English:

"Malay Warriors

Dato' Sagor and Dato' Maharaja Lela were brave Malay warriors. They dared to fight against the English colonists in Perak. Whereas Seputum was the one who murdered J.W.W. Birch, the first English Resident in Perak. He was killed because he did not respect the Malay customs at the time.

Their good deeds and sacrifice are now immortalised in the Kompleks Sejarah of Pasir Salak."

If that was indeed how it had happened many, many years ago, I have nothing much to say about the history part of it. But JJ raised an interesting question to mommy.

She said, "But isn't it wrong to kill the man, mom? Why is a killer praised for what he did?"

The mind of a child who's free from hatred and the will to kill another human being. She is confused about why a man who took the life of another was praised and remembered for his "good deeds".

Mom and dad had to tell JJ that killing another man is wrong no matter what. The world is made of so many people from so many backgrounds, sizes, colours and creed. We can't please everybody, and we can't expect everybody to agree with our ideology. There will be times when they may even belittle us because of what we believe in. Likewise, we may also not share their beliefs.

It is good if we can respect each other and live in harmony. But there will be some who are disrespectful. That still does not give us the right to kill them.

Anger is a dangerous thing—it is like a raging fire. If we failed to control it, it will eventually burn all of us!

Deadly Massage?

“I will massage him when he starts to talk about younger women. This will dissuade him from thinking about them”

The famous 108-year-old woman, Wook Kundor—not kendur, mind you!—explaining to the press [The Star] how she's been keeping her husband, who's some 70 years younger than her, faithful!

No, I have no idea if her husband is blind or not—but there is no mention about his eyesight in the news article.

The massage usually takes up to an hour. Quite a bloody long massage—that! It was the same massage that she used to keep all her previous 22 husbands remain true to her until their death. Twenty-two freakin' husbands before this! I bet even Elizabeth Taylor would be impressed!

Now I'm thinking if too much massage can actually kill; I wonder if her previous twenty-two husbands died in the blaze of excitement during the blissful massage! If that is so, then at least some people died happy?

Please excuse my rampant use of the exclamation marks. I just can't control it...

Venturing Into Unchartered Territories

During the recent potluck dinner at Andrew's, we were discussing about what other challenges we could do. We thought of several things, one of which was the climbathon. The last time I went up the mountain, I felt like I almost died because of altitude sickness. Several doctors have since told me that it is possible to die because of altitude sickness. So the climbathon is most certainly a no-no for me.

Then someone brought up the subject of the triathlon. I guess the triathlon is more promising than the climbathon since I don't have the altitude to worry about. However, the last time I rode a bicycle must have been more than 25 years ago. And if I'm not wrong it's been more than 15 years ago since my last visit to the pool. I think I still have it in me to try the triathlon, but maybe not so soon. I probably need a bit of time to buy a decent bike and find out if I still know how to ride one.

But the most difficult discipline, I think, is the swimming. I have never been any good in the freestyle. When I was much younger, I could do a couple of laps, but even then I was mainly using the breast stroke, you see. Well, because I haven't been swimming for such a long time, I did not even know if I could still float in the pool. At any rate, even if it's such a big challenge, I could at least give it a try. Perhaps we should start scouting around for a suitable event some time next year.

Then I started a forum via exchanges of emails with some friends just to gauge the interest, and to start the ball rolling. And then before I knew it, Teo became so excited with the idea. Within a few days, he was all so pumped up for a triathlon. The plan about next year's triathlon suddenly disappeared. Instead, Teo is all out to join the Miri Triathlon at the end of October this year!

I think Teo caught some of us by surprise. Well, at least I did not see it coming! And then in no time, Teo had even tried out what he called a "mini-mini" triathlon of his own (yes, Teo is talented in coming up with new sporting terms), i.e. comprising swimming several hundred metres, biking in the gym, and followed by running on the treadmill. His verdict was that the triathlon is "doable"!

Well, Teo inspired Andrew who in turn also did his version of the "mini-mini" triathlon. He, too, gave a verdict of "doable". So the two of them appear to be heading for Miri in October. The rest of us, I think, have not recovered from the shock. But the idea is beginning to sink in by now. In the forum, I raised my concerns about the swimming leg of the event. But Teo and Andrew will go ahead even with the breast stroke!

Well, I did not even know if I could still do the breast stroke. The only thing I'm certain I could do is breast-stroking, but that has nothing to do with swimming. So I decided that I might as well try to find out. Well, one fine day I went to the Suria Shopping Mall to buy a swimming trunk and a pair of goggles. For a brief moment, I considered putting some scratches on my goggles, so that it's not too obvious that it's still new, you see.

I wasn't sure if I could still fit into a swimming trunk, but last Tuesday I finally got into the swimming trunk for the first time in over 15 years! I was pleasantly surprised that the tightness did not cause any migraine. I jumped into the water and for a few seconds I thought I was gonna die of hypothermia. Turned out that I could still float!... and I could do the breast stroke! But into the second stroke, I pulled a muscle just below my left shoulder blade. A short rest and then I finally decided to try the freestyle. And wow! I could swim almost a full 40 metres without stopping! It was so pathetic, I tell you!

A short while later, a friend of mine who's a professional swimming coach showed up. He watched me swim from one end of the pool to the other end. While I was swimming, I was conscious of him walking at the side of the pool. He was shouting instructions to me—I think it's something to do with my arms; or was it my legs? Anyway, my main focus then was just to remain alive and floating.

I stopped somewhere in between, but I finally reached the other end of the pool. My friend was already there waiting for me. The first thing he said to me was "too stiff"! And I thought, he wasn't even looking at my crotch? Well, I finally completed a pathetic 400 metres that day. Never mind how many million times I rested in between, but I must seriously doubt that I will be ready for the Miri Triathlon! Well, not unless I plan to be in the front pages of every major papers for all the wrong reasons.

In the mean time, Teo has visited practically all the bicycle shops in KK. And from a decent budget, he has now gone far beyond the original idea of a "simple bike". He's going all the way to Manila to buy one (I never knew that Manila is the best place to buy a sports bike). And perhaps by this time next week, he will be already playing Lance Armstrong on his new bike!

The rest of us mere mortals are still contemplating if we're really into doing a triathlon this October. Dr Felice said she wanted to ride someone's mountain bike to get the feel of it first. Mia was more ambitious—she suggested that we try out a mini triathlon next Sunday, until I reminded her that we don't even have a bike. Perhaps she was thinking of using JJ's toy bike for her triathlon training, I don't know.

In the mean time, I'm doing the Singapore Bay Run in September. I'm also trying to sign up for the Newton 30km, but I received an email recently from the organiser, informing me that they don't even accept Malaysian credit cards. Then of course the Penang Bridge International Marathon. So I've been quite busy this lately, you see. I just hope I will survive all this!