Kuala London? Free hugs? Oh my!

So. Yet again. Kuala Lumpur is looking like fog-covered London.

What am I talking about?

• From MobileMom: THIS THIS THIS [lots of links to news articles]
• From scattered puzzle pieces: THIS
  
• From Jeff Ooi: THIS
• From Patrick Teoh: THIS

While regular Malaysians are suffering through all of this, the usual finger pointing is going on.

As usual.

It's like a broken record, isn't it?

Pssssst! All you useless finger-pointing impotent useless have I mentioned useless people in power who have yet again proved how useless you are: I say to you GO FOG YOURSELF!

But here, here's an amusing take on it all, by mozilla monster.

* * * * * moving on .....


It's the buzz of the 'net: The Free Hugs Campaign video.
[just saw it on Ms Sizzle's place]



It's really moving for me, as someone raised without hardly any good-touching. Just occasional intensive slaps across the face if you pissed off a certain parent. In general just plain no contact of any sort. Growing up so touch-deprived I probably ended up during my "free" years in situations I was better off *not* in but was driven by this unknown void in myself to desperately. seek. to. be. touched.

So this video? Certainly resonated with me.

Of course, if *i* were to pass Juan Mann [one man - get it??] while he was offering the hugs, I would be one of those who'd walk by with a "No thanx!" but would perhaps stop by a "safe distance" away to watch, with a half-smile playing on my lips and an eyebrow cocked in amusement.

Because.

My battered and cynical self will ask, How *safe* is it to just go hug this complete stranger? Why is he doing this - he gets off on having strangers pressed against him, izzit? Is someone gong to pick my pocket while I'm distracted?

Sad, isn't it?

I must say, the desperately-seeking-contact college student would probably have asked the same questions, but pushed them aside and "taken" a hug anyway.

But enough about me.

Wanna know what about this vid that makes me REAL sad??

That something like this would never ever work in Malaysia.

Why not?

Take your pick:

Indecent. immoral. close proximity. un-Asian. un-Muslim. will lead to sin.

Yup, in a society where even holding hands in public is frowned upon, and sometimes can get you arrested, if not harrassed by overzealous members of the public or the religious/morality police,,, you think someome trying to bring Juan Mann's message will last more than a few minutes on a KL sidewalk?

I don't think so.

And *that* is sad.

On a positive note to end this post: I am thankful I have in Kosh my very own hug- and cuddle-friendly hubby-buddy :-)

Cheers!

Urgh's for the day

Urgh.. the haze is back... i'm lookin out the window and i see white air. no sign of the petronas twin towers or the telecom tower! smells smokey too. urgh.

Yesterday was an interesting day... woken up at 645am by my mother who could barely speak, saying my dad "wasn't doing very well", they were going to the hospital; i said i'd come along...

.. thinking we were going to the nearby hospital,, after all, that's why they bought the apartment so close to a "bad chi" location... but no... at 7am we were going to battle the morning rush hour to get to a hospital across town.. because that's where they took him 14years ago for his heart attack, and that's where his cardiologist is, and that's where his records are...

good thing at 7am, the traffic is usually already heavy, but still flowing.

we got there, he was feeling much better already... later his cardiologist came in and checked him, said it didn't sound like a heart attack, but he didn't like the dizziness symptom; ordered chest x-ray and a CT scan; results would be in later.

long story short : it had been a stroke. a relatively mild one, affecting his left side of the brain that deals with balance. very fortunate.

they'll do an MRI and whatever else they need to do to check the impact of the stroke on the brain itself, and will be keeping him in hospital for 5 days' worth of treatment.

Most of the "clan" swooped in last night once we'd announced what had happened - yep, the very Asian thing to do - the obligatory hospital visit! Silver lining - they were so occupied with him that i was spared interrogation about oh pesky things like being engaged, departure date, etc etc. heehehehe!

Speaking of departure date: i've booked a flight outta here arriving in Chicago 11am on sunday 30th july 2006.

See? end on a positive note :-)

Filling time hazily

I mentioned I haven’t been reading at all since I’ve gotten back to Malaysia.

So, what *have* I been doing with my copious amounts of free time?

You mean, apart from meeting up with ex-colleagues and schoolmates from the days of yore?

This:


I like to think of it as Sudoku: The Next Generation. It’s called Kakuro, or Cross Sums. Same principle of having non-repeatable numbers from 1 – 9, but within each column/row the total of the numbers is provided, and you need to figure out which numbers go where, based on clues provided by the totals.

It’s helped me improve a bit on my mental math (which is VERY sloppy, heehehehe!), and I suppose it’s also helped take the rust off some patches of my math geekiness: I’m not sure whether anyone else would think it’s “cool” that, among other things,

• 45 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9
  
• 23 = 6 + 8 + 9; 24 = 7 + 8 + 9
  
• 15 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5; 16 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6

No worries, no need to memorise all the possible permutations: the list is given at the front page of the book I have. And yes, one needs to flip to that page very often to figure out whether that "33 in 5 digits" is 3+6+7+8+9 or 4+5+7+8+9, for example.

And unlike Sudoku, where once I got the hang of it I whizzed right up to “Expert” puzzles and got stumped only by a few really good ones, for Kakuro I’m fine with the “Easy” levels, am starting to be able to finish off “Medium” levels after extended effort, but the “Hard” and “Expert” levels are, well, haaarrrrrdddddd!!!!

. . . Back to books, though: I now have one to add to my year-end book report for March readings: Piers Anthony’s Currant Events, book 28 of the Xanth series, or book 1 of the next “cubed Xanth trilogy”. Yes, devoured it in less than a day :D It was choc-full of puns as usual, some of them REALLY groan-worthy. Then, I almost LOL'd at the appearance of a stinky fruit being eaten by a Thai girl who's crossed over to Xanth, the fruit being called the "duran" in the tale. Close enough :-) Nice to have a (slightly-misspelt) piece of this region appear in the book :-)

HAZE WATCH: the usual finger-pointing was in the newspapers this week, the haze is starting to appear again. And I suppose it's only going to get worse! Imagine, it rains heavily almost every evening/night nowadays, and yet the sky's still all hazy afterwards. It's still just very light lah... but still... if the rains can't "wash the particles out" now while it's light haze and heavy rain, imagine when it's thick haze and no rain?? Sigh.

A hazy shade of Malaysia!

Yes, it’s baaaaaaaaack! Numerous e-mails, sms and even a phone call have updated me on the latest bout of white stinky skies to hit the Klang Valley.

As usual, fingers are pointed to Sumateran forest fires, and only when ‘exposed’ were the peat fires near Cyberjaya also acknowledged as the source of the hazy skies.

And as usual, the people in general are clamouring for the government to do something.

And as usual, only when things are bad will the government then ban ‘open burning’: of course, the main offenders continue to flout such laws and rules… heck, who’s gonna bother tracking them down?

And I guess the cloud-seeding exercise will commence again?

Did they ever implement that idea of having high-rise buildings install some sort of sprinkler system on the outside, so that they could sprinkle water into the air and hope to bring the smoke particles down to the ground? I have my doubts that it will be effective, but hey, that never stopped the government before…

And to top it off; everyone attempts to counteract the effect of the haze by wearing surgical masks and such over their nose & mouth. Sorry folks, all that does is give you a psychological boost, I don’t think the dust and smoke particles are actually caught or filtered out by those things!

I know it’s horrible, but really, by the time the haze gets this bad, there’s nothing much that can be done! Which raises the question: what on earth is being done to prevent such a thing? Jeeeeez!

Btw, no-one’s replied yes/no to my question of is this year’s haze worse than the one from 1998? (Hmmm, according to Jeff Ooi, the worst was in 1997. Maybe it overlapped: end ’97 early ’98? I certainly don’t remember the month(s) we were affected by it). From what I’ve read, it’s definitely comparable!

I remember the haze hanging low to the ground… it was not white, but a light yellow color… and it had a smell of, well, smoke. Ugh!

My sympathies to everyone having to put up with breathing in the crap, especially those with asthma and other respiratory diseases: it seems it’s not going away till October?!

Not to rub it in or anything, but boy am I glad I’m halfway across the world from y’all right now!!

Useful reads & pix:
1. Jeff Ooi: Government decides to release API
2. TV Smith's pix: What the fog?
3. DOE's API page (http://www.jas.sains.my/jas/Air+Pollutant+Index.htm)


[Undated image from Google & BBC UK]