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All things said...

Post by Malaysiakini.

Arrow And Partridges

Have been watching a downloaded TV series called "Arrow" lately:

A star in the series is one, Katie Cassidy which made me wonder about another Cassidy whom she slightly resembled; David Cassidy of popular 70s TV series, The Partridge Family. As it turns out, Katie Cassidy is the daughter. Back in the day, David Cassidy was a rave with teenage girls and a favorite pin-up boy. The following that Google found makes me feel real old!

David Cassidy:


Partridge Family Pilot (1970):


David Cassidy today:

Paris In Fall - Louvre 99

Mona Lisa...

It was a tiring trip and Jeannie had not rested enough. Yet she could not resist a photo with the famed  La Joconde. More than words, this video and picture show it...right down to their tired eyes!

  

Methodist Primary School Parit Buntar

I was in Parit Buntar from Standard 1 to Standard 3 (1966 to 1968). An old classmate recently posted this picture I had lost a long time ago on Facebook. Thanks Thiam Hin! I would think my teachers would be pushing 70 now...

The Taste Of Victory

The year was 1978 and I was in Upper Six at King Edward VII School, Taiping. We had a fantastic rugby team for the first time in years and were fresh from victories in two friendlies (Bukit Mertajam High School and Sultan Abdul Hamid College) and two district games (Vocational School and St Georges Taiping). The team had scored a total of more than 200 points and not only had no team crossed our try-line, none managed to score a single point! We were formidable but we were next to play Malay College Kuala Kangsar; a team we had not beaten since the early sixties! 15 years to be exact.

Just before the game, our charismatic new coach Mr Yew Siew Seng showed up with a bottle of what looked like plain water. He said the water was air jampi from a bomoh in nearby Kampung Air Kuning and he was serious in that only the Muslim players be allowed to take a sip each. The rest of us pork-eating players were not supposed to. The team created history that day. We beat MCKK 26-12 to lift the Perak schools title officially for the first time, enroute to winning the national championship. It was our toughest game that season but needless to say, the boys played like they had raging fire in their bellies.

I found out later that the water actually came from a school tap and of course with nary any chlorine let alone incantations from a shaman!

Now you will understand Seth Godin's snippet below better.


Folk wisdom and proofiness

"Is it feed a cold, starve a fever, or the other way around, I can never remember?"

Does it matter if you get the rhyme wrong? A folk remedy that doesn't work doesn't work whether or not you say it right.

Zig Ziglar used to tell a story about a baseball team on a losing streak. On the road for a doubleheader, the team visited a town that was home to a famous faith healer. While the guys were warming up, the manager disappeared. He came back an hour later with a big handful of bats. "Guys, these bats were blessed and healed by the guru. Our problems are over."

According to the story, the team snapped out of their streak and won a bunch of games. Some people wonder, "did the faith healer really touch the bats, or was the manager making it up?" Huh? Does it matter?

Mass marketers have traditionally abhorred measurement, preferring rules of thumb, casting calls and alchohol instead. Yet, there's no real correlation between how the ad was made and how well it works.

As the number of apparently significant digits in the data available to us goes up (traffic was up .1% yesterday!) we continually seek causation, even if we're looking in the wrong places. As the amount of data we get continues to increase, we need people who can help us turn that data into information.

It's important, I think, to understand when a placebo is helpful and when it's not. We shouldn't look to politicians to tell us whether or not the world is getting warmer (and what's causing it). They're not qualified or motivated to turn the data into information. We also shouldn't look to a fortune teller on the corner to read our x-rays or our blood tests.

Proofiness is a tricky thing. Data is not information, and confusing numbers with truth can help you make some bad decisions.

Those Were The Days

The wonders of Facebook. As we go through life we never know who has recorded our passage in photos taken that we may never know about. Today, an old school mate, Tiger Nashri Idris posted some photos on Facebook and tagged me. He simply labelled them, "some very rare photos of friends in King Edward VII" but some of the photos meant more to me than he realized. Thank you Nashri. Brought back old/fond memories of 1978. Do not miss the full head of hair but sorely miss the physique though...

These are the photographs:

Milestones

These past three weeks saw milestones for Krystyn and JJ that would have made Jeannie proud. 21st August was Krystyn's UTAR Convocation where she received her Bachelor of Communication Degree and on 6th September, JJ started work as a trainee sound editor at Addaudio, arguably the most established, largest and best audio production company in Malaysia.

Jeannie had always looked forward to being at Krystyn's graduation and on 21st August, she was. I am sure Krystyn would have preferred Jeannie's physical presence at the convocation but it marvels me to observe the mother and daughter occasion playing out on a spiritual level from the day before, till the day after. Krystyn gives a new meaning to a Degree in Communication!  

Krystyn had always been Jeannie's pride and joy, not only as a daughter that she mentored but also as great friends, especially the last two years of Jeannie's life. There was just no way Jeannie would miss Krystyn's convocation!    

Sound freak, JJ had been at ICOM doing an audio production course and joining Addaudio has been a career defining opportunity for him. All the knowledge he acquired at ICOM and the passion in his heart would not be able to take him further without hands on working experience. Addaudio is the best place for him to cut his teeth. 

Jeannie and JJ. What can I say...the two are so similar in so many ways. She encouraged his interest in music and the two were often dueting on karaoke at home and outside. Jeannie was tough on JJ yet she cared for him the most. She brought him up to be a man and she would be proud that at 20 now he has the makings of a fine man. The values she taught him are intact.   

I would expect that Krystyn and JJ will really come into their own in the next couple of years. There will be more milestones as they progress forth and I know the values Mummy has ingrained in their hearts will remain their beacon.

You Would Have Been 51 Today Darling

June 27. Today would have been Jeannie's 51st birthday and I was tinkering with her memorial website in the early hours of this morning (between World Cup games) when I noticed the figure on the Statcounter; 3627. Such "signs" have become so common over the last three years. Check some of them out here, here, here, here, here, and here. I hear you Darling...

Need More Be Said?

Many years ago, I think it was in the late 80s I met Ibrahim Ali when he came to my office on the 27th floor of Menara Promet to buy a motor policy for his new BMW 7-series. I don't not remember why he came to an insurance broker to buy motor insurance instead of an agent. That is not normal but then again, neither is Ibrahim Ali.

He already had a reputation then as a shit-stirrer and that was slightly more than 20 years ago. I suppose one could say he is a career shit-stirrer and in politics there is always use for people of his ilk-especially in psy-war. Ask his most regular customer, the good doctor himself; the mind-bending specialist Tun Mahathir.

Although he does not speak English very well, I must say he does age well...do watch this Al Jazeera news clip:

Fame 1980

Watched "Fame" the original 1980 version on DVD with JJ yesterday; rekindled some old memories it did. The song "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine" is one of my favorites:



And then there's another good one also by Paul McCrane, "Dogs In The Yard" which reminds me of our labrador, Shadow in the yard of our house.



But the song that takes the cake was definitely Irene Cara's "Out Here On My Own":

"Camping" At Sham's Place; 19th To 21st February 2010

Last weekend Tiger-Putera Col. Mike Naser invited Tiger KC Heah, Tiger Harjit and me to an Old-Putera (ex-Royal Military College) gathering in Ulu Langat. The location turned out to be a fish farm owned by OP Major Shamsul and the occasion, a joint birthday celebration for OPs Mike, Shamsul, Maniam and Joe Fernandez. As they say, old soldiers do not die; they only fade away...well, these old soldiers certainly know how to fade away gloriously and in style!

It was a memorable 3 days of great camaraderie and even more facinating conversations, wonderful food and excessive drink, and the warmest of hospitality. Major Shamsul and his wife Annie are brilliant hosts and we lacked for nothing!

To think that I was prepared for two nights of mosquitoes and normal camping conditions! The only things "camping" were the collapsible camp-beds! The following photos (click on them for enlarged view) which do not include photos of the chicken rice lunch on the 20th, tell the story: