This is Pointleast

Well, it’s half past three in the morning and I’m till incapable of sleeping. I’ve been lying (or laying?) on my bed since ten to one and up to six hundred and eighty two kangaroos was counted jumping over the imaginary fence. Still, here I am, browsing through the internet, Facebook, blogs, whatever I can find to keep myself occupied, or just trying to find some boring things to read so I can doze off – oh might as well write my own stuffs to do that. So, here I am.

Mm, let’s talk about ideas. Everyone has ideas for something. Very little times that they are creative as most of the times are just simply common sense, duplicated or just simply pointless. And I’m pretty sure there are many other adjectives to describe it but for this entry, I’m just gonna pick ‘pointless’.

Well, not exactly ‘pointless’ in the sense that it is pointless for us to catch sunlight with our hands. Because we all know that sunlight consists of light particles traveling at a ridiculously high speed in a certain (or multiple?) frequency or wavelength, which we cannot catch with our hands. Or pointless to teach mathematics to Asians. Somewhere along that line heh.

I am referring to the time where pointless is when an issue is prosecuted without evident that it could make anything to be worse or better.

Oh how I love the grey areas.

If you completely ditch the pointless idea, the issue will not be raised and no one has to waste their time thinking how exactly can we catch sunlight with our hands.

However.

If you considered the idea, the idea is raised, but no useful conclusion can be made and a certain someone would be pissed off to waste 20 years of his life trying to find a way to catch sunlight with our hands.

It just simply so tempting as human nature to pick up the former as the common intuitive response to pointless ideas.

Well, I am going no where with this.

This entry may be, in fact, pointless.

I just wish there could be more pointless ideas in this world.

With actions, of course.

Pointless actions. That’s it and here we are.

Freedom

I have this humour book that I borrowed from a friend and haven't returned it after over a year, and there's one joke of the many occupational jokes I would like to share here:

"A diplomat/politician is a person who tells you to go to hell in a way that somehow you're looking forward to that trip."

Something like that. I can't remember the exact words but yeah, something like that. How's that relevant for my entry today? Because it is Malaysia's 52nd Independence Day! And sadly politics is the first thing came into my head.

Yes, sadly.

In previous years, my first few thoughts on Independence Day are usually something about how am I proud to be in a country that is free from external (assuming bad) powers (which is quite naive come to think of it) or thinking have I done enough as a citizen to contribute to a country that has spent so much on my education and welfare? Somewhere along those lines, I think.

Patriotism initiates different thoughts at different times. And today, Independence Day does not make me feel that celebrative. Don't get me wrong. Despite my immigrant's blood, I still love the country and the system that has provide a moderate living for me and my family. I'm just not in that kind of mood to celebrate any achievement either made by myself as a citizen or even the country itself this year.

It's almost the same feeling when I had my birthday this year. Nothing worthy of celebration. That's maybe how I feel about this year's Independence Day. The country and I need to grow up. And perhaps, real soon, we could do a distance worth celebrating in coming years.

Maybe that is exactly my patriotism thought of the year.

Nonetheless.

Happy 52nd Independence Day Malaysia.

Even Van Gogh Can't Do Better

My dad scanned me this drawing and e-mailed it to the whole family. My 7 years old sister drew a family portrait. I thought it's just incredibly adorable.

I miss home.

Since 1000 Days Ago

I was supposed to continue from my previous article - something about philosophy and politics. Well, I'm still tired (not from previous entry but just for today) and not in the mood to write anything today.

Today.

Today is a special day for me, and especially this blog.

Blog.

This blog has finally reaches its 1000th day.

Thank you.

I'm just really tired. I'll write more about it later.

Later.

Procrastination rules.

I'd Fly for a Roti Canai Mamak

I may not be a student of philosophy or even an avid fan of political studies. Nonetheless, the topic for today may fall under these categories and accordingly, cautious readers may adjudicate the credibility of the writer of this story which I wish to tell.

Anyhow.

Let me start with something that I’m more familiar with – sustainability.

Well, allow me to quote the most widely use definition:

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

-Brundtland Report in 1987-

Anyway, keep this inside your head while you keep on reading this entry. Do also remember that this is not an academic writing. Hence, I may not refer to any external knowledge anymore and thus, again, you may critic the credibility of this entry, take the knowledge you may get from it and shove it up your a**.

One particular thing that is most commonly relates to sustainability is energy efficiency. This includes electricity, petrol, and all types of fuel – perhaps even your own, energy I mean. There are numerous perceptions on what efficiency really is. For the purpose of this entry, I will use one of them, which reference is ignored due to limitation of memory:

“Efficiency is when you can do more things with the same resource,”

-Somewhere from someone-

In other words, instead of flying to Istanbul to grab a kebab, now with the same amount of fuel with an efficient personal jet (assuming you own one), you can continue flying to Paris to grab an Escargot Bourguignon, then off to Madrid for a delicious Seafood Paella and a quick stop at Zurich for a warm Chocolate with Cheese Fondue (I think that’s the right name for it, not too sure).

To put simply, with efficiency, you can do more things with the same amount of resource you have, which goes back to the earlier stated simpler definition (which instead I chose to elaborate on with such a long and unnecessary description of famous international cuisines).

This concept tracks back to the time when steam engine was invented by James Watt around early 18th century. This perhaps may be the key point of human civilization when this particular innovation initiated the Industrial Revolution in UK during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and many industries started to grow at a significant rate and remarkably changed the social economic in Europe, America and subsequently the rest of the world.

In simpler term, human activities grew rapidly. Consequently, human population increased at a much different rate than before. Thus, with more activities, and greater population growth, more resources are necessary. The initial idea of an efficient transportation envisioned by the genius invention of the steam engine created more potential human activities and consequently created more demand for more resources. Instead of one kebab made with bread, meat, vegetables produced with electricity, gas, water, and so on, now with the idea of efficiency, we can also have an escargot, paella and a fondue made of more resources, i.e. more electricity, gas, water, etc.

Oh, which part of this entry actually relates to philosophy and politics?

Well, I’m tired. Maybe next time I’ll continue to finish this entry.

In the mean time, to wrap up this entry, think about this: at this time of human civilization, it doesn’t make that much difference if you buy a petrol efficient car, energy efficient buildings, or turn off your lights for one hour in a year. When you see a sale by the retail store, $10 for 3 pairs of Ted Baker’s jeans, if you believe that human, in general, will buy only one jean for a less than $4 instead of grabbing all 3 pairs of them, let’s start talking about saving the planet.

Still, chill fellas.

It Doesn't Have to Make Sense

Clarity.

“All those who sit quietly during the test may go outside and play afterward,”

We often take its meaning from the context both his or her experience and our own. In other words, with common sense, built from our own experience and perception through growing up ('in other words' does not necessarily mean it have to be shorter or simpler).

First thing come to mind is that the person who doesn't sit quietly during the test may not go outside and play.

No?

Maybe he forgot to add another sentence that the person who doesn't sit quietly during the test will be shot to death.

Nonetheless, our own experience will tell us that the person who doesn't sit quietly during may not go outside and play - and we strongly believe so.

Maybe not in this adult age anymore.

I don't know about you but I'm fan of the underdogs, which includes sports teams, the antagonists, races and sometimes unfortunately, solutions to life's problems.

How's this entry so far relates to anything?

Well, it doesn't have to be if you're still confused. Those who seem to understand this perfectly is the target audience for my writing today.

And I don't mean those deep and complicated people.

Just the silly ones.

Not Too Busy

Three weeks I've been ignoring this site.

Busy? Not really.

Couldn't be bothered? I can't say that I haven't.

Ideas? There's plenty of stuffs to write about. Trivial and important matters. Personal and fictional issues. Academic or just plain boring stuffs.

If only I can just scan my thoughts and have it automatically uploaded to this site.

Inconvenient? I sit in front of the computer everyday! (Well, who doesn't?)

Anyway, I'm not in a mood to elaborate about anything. Maybe I could just drop some topics I had in mind for the past 3 weeks. Possibly will find time later to further explore the stuffs below:

Iran's Election - I have great respect for Ahmadinejad, as an outsider looking at a man's exterior strength and marketed admirable philosophy. However, when it comes to leading a country, ... well, I want to say an insider should have a better opinion but half the chance if you meet any Iranian, they will, too, have split views. Hence, possibly mine's ain't that bad either. Nonetheless, I'll keep it to myself for now.

Twitter - I haven't got myself into this thing yet. Perhaps, soon. The idealistic concept is fascinating. TinaFey39 says "I just tried the new McPrime at McDonalds and it was awesome,". Less than 140 characters, simple, honest and quick. I heard the riot, or possibly just an organized gathering by the oppositions during post-election in Iran was largely arranged through Twittering.

Ricky Rubio - The Spanish basketball wonderkid was picked at no.5 by Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA Draft 2009. Rumour has it that the 19 years old prodigy possibly won't be playing in the NBA next season due to many issues that I'm pretty lazy to list down here. Sufficient to say that I'm a big fan and I'm very disappointed if I have to wait for another year to watch the kid conquer the NBA courts.

Transformers 2 - I gonna be honest here. Many would disagree, but here's what I think. The movie is great. However, Star Trek is still my number one movie so far this year. I never followed the original TV series nor I am a fan. I just simply think the movie is better.

There you go. Apparently, this entry is quite long. I thought I just wanted to have a short update. Oh well.

Tolong~

I thought this is funny. Well, at least for our friends of Wellington anyway. Enjoy :D



He'll forgive me later.

On Wishing for the Better

I've been checking my posts for the past, well, 2 years and a half, (I used this time date calculator thingy on the internet to calculate how old is my blog and I just found that in 2 months, my blog will be 1000 days old. I should do something special.), ... oh, yeah for the past 2 years and a half, I've never written anything about my birthday. Earlier this week on Tuesday, was my 21st.

...

Ok, it was my 24th.

So, another year before making, in God's will, the Silver Jubilee. I'll leave out the future anticipation for now and let's look back to the past and see if I've done anything I can be proud of.

...

Not my favourite subject for retrospection.

However, it was certainly a better year than before. I think I've become more mature, more intellectual on certain things, better in making decisions, to name a few. Nonetheless, there are things that I would like to see less in me - self-absorption, procastination, ignorance, etc. It is quite common that we, as humans, want to be better everyday. We have idols to inspire us to be better: leaders, visionaries, athletes, fictional characters, friends, etc. I have a fictional character as mine. Hint: he's fluffy heh.

For cliche's sake, what do I wish for my 24th birthday?

I wish to be happy. Ok, that's lame. A real wish, ok, I wish to find a companion. At this point, it's not necessary be a female. Although I'd prefer a girl than another bloke. No, I'm not implying my tendency of being a bisexual. I just wanted to throw that out for the fun of hinting it (Dude, haram do). The wish is to find a companion - a great one. I'd wish it to be a girl, then it'll be super awesome because it's been a while since I had a great company. A girl (or a woman. Since I'm 24 now most probably all females I'll be hanging around with is reaching that threshold) that I'd love to spend my vast priority in life - to adore her, to spoil and to care for.

If it's a bloke, well, to become the wing man - to find the girl, hah. (Chap, if you actually ever read this, know it that it's your job)

In fact, well, I haven't finish university yet. How about we postpone that wish and change it to graduate and finish my academic life for good, in flying colours.

She can wait.

Girls in Jerseys

I gonna tell you something a bit personal today.

There's no rush for anything this week at school so I thought I could spend a bit of my precious time writing some interesting stuffs (for me it's just not the usual sleeping the whole day routine) happened this weekend.

If you've been following this blog, well at least since September 2007 (if you, such person, actually exist, well, I thank you, really), you'd know that I joined an amateur basketball club in Wellington. Well, the club plays two tournaments, in autumn and spring, every year and for the past 2 years, I only joined the tournaments in spring. This weekend, I made my debut in the autumn tournament, and this entry is not about how badly, apart from the million assists per game, I played - it's about girls.

There is a female category in the autumn tournament. Well, there were also in the past spring tournaments I participated, but back then I was lazy to tell any story about it. Anyway, girls, playing basketball, though not much of a story, it's just my rantings of some thoughts I had in the Wellington Indoor Basketball Stadium in Newtown. The thought that I have a few particulars towards types of girls that could make me fell in awe, in admiration, and one of them, as this weekend concludes, is girls who play sports.

I'm not talking about the likes of gymnasts, figure skaters or any other girlish sports. Nor I'm talking about the league of Serena and Venus, New Zealand Female rugby team, etc. I will also want to exclude the ever-ridiculous WWE wrestlers, even the hot ones. For the purpose of this entry, please refer to Maria Kirilenko for this type of female sportswoman, or perhaps one of the gorgeous beach volleyball players, or, uu, a few of the Russian Olympic female athletes.

Anyway, I thought, athletic girls are, well, fascinating. Especially the ones with agile moves on the feet and excellent IQ for the game. The list of girls varies in tightness on how they wear their jerseys, emotion control on the court, sportsman.. well, sportswomanships, and the way they react to bad calls (whichever by referees. teammates or themselves) - which some were, ahh, heart-melting adorable.

It's a bit unfortunate that I''m only able to keep these thoughts inside my head, instead of going out there and say hi to any one of them. Nonetheless, through check and balance with particular scenarios, personal taste in women, and a big chunk of shyness, I'm not disappointed that I didn't do anything anyway.

Maybe one day.

And ohh, girls in oversized basketball jerseys (the top only) are hot.

Ahh.

I Think it's a Bunny

There's a story back then, a hypothetical one, however you want to take it I don't really care, because it's fictional, happened quite a while ago, about a girl. She is unique, in her own spectacular way. Somewhat assertive, with heart as pure as the driven snow (I googled "as pure as" and it came out this phrase. It means entirely pure but I have no bloody clue why is it "the driven snow"). Her skin? As white as lily (I wanted to use snow but, well, you know) with a wee bit tone of red-ish and yellow-ish. Her hair is as long as a shampoo model should have and it smells a little bit like fresh coconut. At least I think it's coconut - my imaginary thought said so.

Her name?

That's not the point, but I'm guessing some of you have already picking up some names already.

Let's call her Daisy, as the symbol of pure and innocence (Yep, it's true. Google it). Actually I can just start this entry with the issue I had in mind, but I chose to have a character. I guess that makes this more interesting, for now. Although, so far, there's nothing to be intrigued for.

Anyway, Daisy has a funny quirk. Not too eccentric, just simply unique. She has this peculiar way of expressing good deeds, which the description will remain limited to this, because I can't think of anything at the moment. Maybe later, if I see fit. The problem, however, every good deed she carries out, she makes an enemy. Though, in return, she earns four good friends.

There is this desire to please and to be loved by everyone that we see as a curse but Daisy believes it as a blessing (does that make sense?). She hates to make enemies. By stopping her good deeds, she could avoid from making anymore enemies - but of course, no more good friends to add in her Facebook.

Mathematically speaking:

Good deed = 1 enemy + 4 allies
Bad deed = 4 enemies + 1 stupid ally
No need = 0 enemy + 0 ally

What kind of deed is this? Sheesh.

...

I'm thinking this metaphorical scenario with hypothetical character doesn't work at all to commmunicate the initial matter I wanted to point out. I'm guessing this is a little political, but perhaps, a more of a social interactive concerns, whichever float your boat.

...

Anyhow.

Here's a scribble to humour yourself.


To whom (I'm guessing this is the right application for it) in Wellington, stay warm and healthy. For those in Malaysia, well, bet you wish you're here heh. Anywhere else, well, .. you suck.

Make Me A Joke, Honey?

I went to a standup comedy show at Happy last night. Happy is a bar by the way. Funny name. 'Let's be happy at Happy' kind of cliche. A great place nonetheless. I went there for a number of interesting events. ... Oh well.

Anyway, the show was fun. Sean kindly invited me to watch his friend performs. His friend was one of the five comedians entertaining us last night. I'm not actually going to share with you about the jokes they made. Well, you know, repeating jokes is not easy, regardless how good it is. Especially coming from a person who's not that well known of making jokes. I like to be on the other side of such person - the avid free listeners. The show was $15 by the way. $10 if you went in a big group.

It caught me wondering, that I would really love to have a comedian friend. I mean, a professional comedian. You know, you can introduce him (I don't mind if it's a girl. I'm just lazy to type 'him or her'. Instead, I chose to type this long explaination) to your other friends like, "Hey guys, this is Tommy. He's a comedian, professional comedian,". Thus, we will all know who's going to talk all night. I know that's a misconception to treat such special friend. You don't usually introduce a surgeon friend and he'll gonna cut you up right there. A magician friend? That would also be interesting. I do have plenty of funny friends (which I am also very grateful to have a fine number of great friends). Just to have a professional one, maybe, intrigues me.

How about a comedian girlfriend? Ahh, I would definitely love to cuddle up with Tina Fey. Well, possibly if she's 20 years younger. Maybe she wouldn't be that funny if she's at that young age? Well, there was this young female performer last night. She had that smart-nerdy-Tina-Fey vibe around her which kinda caught my interest a little bit. But nah, I'm still into authentic Malay chick, preferably with Arab/North Indian descent.

A comedian girlfriend. Now, that's a plan.

Wisdom of the Week

I like words of wisdom from others. Well, by 'others' I mean widely popular people, like leaders, philosophers, musicians, etc. Not that I'm discounting my friends because I think their words are not wisdomy enough. Did I wrote it right? Well I meant that I don't think that my friends are not wise enough to share their wisdoms. Ahh, that's better. Anyway, I'm planning to do so, soon. I mean, embracing their wisdoms.

Anyhow, today I want to share with you the 7 Deadly Sins, as perceived by Gandhi.

Seven Deadly Sins

Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

-Gandhi-

Have a thought, or two.

Seriously, Come and Live Happy

How To Be Happy

1 Get physical. Exercise for half an hour three times a week.

2 Count your blessings. At the end of each day, reflect on at least five things you're grateful for.

3 Have an hour-long uninterrupted conversation with your partner or best friend each week.

4 Plant something - even if it's in a window box or a container. Keep it alive!

5 Cut your TV viewing by half.

6 Smile at or say hello to a stranger at least once a day.

7 Phone a friend.

8 Have a good laugh at least once a day.

9 Make sure you give yourself a daily treat.

10 Do an extra good turn for someone each day.

Source: Making Slough Happy, BBC

--------------------------

I'm trying to do this one at a time.

Live Happy

I found this article in New Zealand Herald last week and have kept it for today's entry. TopSports reported New Zealand's Happiest Places and Rodney District takes the top honour while Waitekere City languishes at the bottom. Wellington is at fourth, behind Rodney, Dunedin and Tauranga. Auckland and Christchurch are in the bottom five of the top 10 list - if it's worth mentioning.

Anyway, the report spans around how people feel about themselves, their lives and their communities. The criterias taken into account are health, satisfaction with leisure time, sense of safety at home in the day, perceived safety of unsupervised children in the local area, balance between work and other aspects of life, emotional wellbeing, frequency of experiencing stress, feeling of isolation, ability to cover costs of everyday life, overall satisfaction with life, and perceptions of quality of life.

Although the paragraph above is, I think, pointless, but I copied it from the website anyway. And, believe it or not, from the report, money doesn't make us happy. Sure, poverty makes you unhappy but once basic needs are met there's little difference between the wealthy and the well-enough off. Which may explain why Auckland is at the bottom of the list.

I guess that's why the article caught my attention. I'm not an avid fan of money. I hate the fact that money is often an issue in life. Money does not make us happy. I just hope that this principle I strongly believe in won't hit me back in the face later in the future when I'll be scraping money for house loans and stuffs.

Approaching Insanity

Id-i-o-syn-cra-sies n. 1. an individualizing quality or characteristic of a person or group, and is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity

This was discussed during our Easter break trip up to Northland and Auckland last week. Needless to mention who was the subject(s?) in this forum but I shall however reveal the draft theory gained from the outcome conclusion(s?).

This theory models the level of eccentricity of a subject, i.e. a human being, which for the simplicity of explaining this, I will create a scenario to make you relate to this matter better.

The subject wishes to remind herself (yes the subject discussed was a girl haha) that she needed to do something (I can't remember what it was so lets say she wishes to return a book to the library).

Hence, the theory recommends the level of eccentricity of the subject as below;

Level 1: She writes a Post-it note "Return book to the library," on the wall to remind herself in the morning.

Level 2: She adds an extra note "Good morning," above "Don't forget to return the book to the library,".

Level 3: She ends with another note "Kind regards from yesterday,".

Note: Level 1-3 is considered to be mild and can only be discovered with fierce interrogation or preferably close relationship with the subject. Meanwhile the following level is believed to be obvious from distant observation upon subject. In another words, if you think yourself to be included in the following level, you are, well in this theory at least, weird.

Level 4: Instead of a Post-it, she actually go to the post office and posts the notes or perhaps a full letter with stamps and all to arrive on the next day.

Level 5: She then replies the letter saying "Thanks! xoxo".

Level 6: If she (whichever the yesterday or present I've lost track) forgets to send a letter, the other she will write, in anger, "Where the bloody hell are ya?!".

Level 7: A real fight shall occur. One will not reply another until she apologizes. This goes on for several weeks.

Level 8: One of them apologizes and they make up. One of them asked to meet up for coffee.

Level 9: They actually go out for coffee and have a great time at Mojo.

Level 10: Someone (is it the police or the ambulance?) grabs you and send you to the mental hospital.

“Humor is the timeless antidote to life. The beauty of our humanity is that we are imperfect. It is our imperfections and our idiosyncrasies that make us such a wonderfully unique species”

-Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing-

Kids

Kids.

I know I don't even have a wife, nor even a girlfriend, to even start talking about kids of my own. Yet, somehow this thought just suddenly came into mind.

When I have a kid, or specifically a boy of my own, I would want him to like basketball. The first toy that he'll get for his first birthday (and possibly the next 20) is a basketball with a tiny rim in his bedroom. Heck, I would like to try and create this brainwashing technique that soon he will like basketball as how I want him to be.

All the toys in his room will have that basketball-ish theme, i.e. fluffy toys of basketball ball (well, how else can I call it? We have soccer ball, rugby ball, snooker ball and not basketball ball?), poster of basketball legends around the walls, music, or specifically the smooth sound of the ball bouncing on the parquet or the sound of the net when a ball got in or any other sound that relates to a basketball games that will serenade his sleeping night time, air freshener made of the smell of basketball leather or parquet on the court, basically if you get my drift by now the first 2 years of his life will be all about basketball-ish.

Why the first 2 years? I'm glad that you ask. Well, when he reached his 2nd birthday, or somewhere before, I will remove all those basketball-ish stuffs off his room and replace them with all the other normal toys and decorations that a normal baby room should have. The next few months, or years I will raise him like any normal daily life should be and open him up to all the possibilities to allow him to be whatever he wants to be and play whatever he wants to play - as a sporting flexible father as what I would like him to see me.

After a few years, when he's around 4-5 years old, during a family dinner, suddenly,

"Mommy, daddy, can I play basketball?"

And all he knows that he came up with the idea to play basketball by himself.

Trust, Worth and Crap

I just took this one quiz on Facebook, well, among many others lately, i.e. who am I in Twilight (which I haven't watched yet), what kind of legendary creature am I (which is the Dragon by the way, which is, well, you know, kinda cool and all whatever), which Gossip Girl character (why the bloody hell my character is Jenny?!), when will I get married (I got when I'm 32 which is super awesome because I still have lots of time to screw up) , Friends TV Show character (I got Ross which, well, I kinda liked it anyway) and the endless list goes on.

Oh yea, that quiz I was talking about earlier - do I support the National Front or the People's Alliance? Well, I wouldn't want to start by questioning (in a good curious way, not for argument) the questions surveyed so I just go straight away to my result, which is "neither".

Neither.

Am I on the fence? Or the current choice that I have is just simply inadequate? Should I be bounded by the current options? A new Prime Minister of Malaysia has just been appointed last week, as well as the new UMNO Youth Leader. Well, mm, I'm not excited about it, nor I resent the outcome of the interestingly complex process. I am here in New Zealand. I'm not really sure if I am capable of casting any kind of vote or support but I shall choose the easier option, which is to stay back and observe from a distance, without any intention of really analyzing the situation. If the choice made is utterly unpatriotic, well, mm, file a lawsuit and shove it up somewhere inappropriate.

On top of my head at the moment, effective leaders are suppose to have two things; the capacity to lead, i.e. the brain, the energy, all the necessity criteria that makes him or her capable of making the right decision for effective leadership; and trustworthy to carry out the landed responsibility.

A leader can be not that smart but trustworthy. He or she is honest, transparent and all the sugar and spice that makes him or her reliable to handle the taxpayer money. Well, mm, except he or she runs the wrong policy, draft a bureaucracy system which actually will only works if he or she was elected in Luxembourg, hire more not so smart people around to advice him and use electric car simply because it is green to do so (electric/hybrid cars are not exactly green by the way).

Meanwhile, another leader can be a genius but not so trustworthy. He or she holds a PhD in Awesome Leadership from Awesome University and has the ability to turn a desert into an international paradise. However, he or she will only do it if there's something in it for him or her (ahh it's getting annoying to do this he/she non-sexism thingy. From now on I'd just write him or he and we shall all accept it as a universal non-sexism notation). Anyway, he's smart yeah but you can definitely feel that your tax money is not entirely in good hands. Sure he'll build you a bridge, for the non-existing river that he'll eventually give you one as well.

Anyway, of course the actual political scenario is far more complicated than this. Should it be that difficult anyway? Well, perhaps it should, and we as committed citizens should learn all this crap, At least, for now, I know I'm not that fond of the National Party in New Zealand because of the weak sustainability policies, i.e. the ban on gas and coal-fired electricity repealed, carbon neutral public service programme cancelled, etc. Although it won't be enough for a sound decision making, but still, it's a start.

In conclusion (ewah), I think it sucks to have leaders tainted with frustrating prosecutions. It really sucks.

Really, Live Green

Earth Hour.

Well, many of you guys know about this anyway. So I can spare the 400 words of introduction of what it is and just get straight to the point. I, resident at 2/243 The Terrace in Wellington, is one of many of the ignorant people in this city that ignored the campaign. Oh well, I have no reason to why I did not participate in this. Maybe I just simply forgot, or possibly it's not something that is signicant enough for me to pay that much attention to it.

I'm trying to maintain this blog by posting entries at least once a week. This week, I am not that well prepared nor even have any exciting stuffs to write about (assuming anything posted here before actually is). So, I decided to write something about what I do for my research. A bit of academic writing but I'll try to make it relevant for you.

Electricity in New Zealand is generated 54.9% by hydro power, 26.4% from geothermal, 6.9% from coal, 2.2% from wind and 1.8% from others. Therefore, it is safe (I think) to assume that this country consumes at least 80% of its electricity from renewable resources, hence very low carbon emissions.

Malaysia, instead, gets its electricity 67% from natural gas, 17% from hydro power and 16% from others, i.e. coal, MFO, diesel, etc.

I'm not sure what is relevant here but I'm guessing (from my amateur opinion) that the savings from turning the lights off in Malaysia for one hour is equivalent to the same activity in New Zealand, but for only 10-20 minutes, or possibly a lot less. I'm assuming this from the estimate calculation of carbon emissions from electricity generated by both countries. It may also not be very accurate, but I do think the logic is there.

However, raising this comparison is not relevant as the core objective of the campaign is to spread awareness towards sustainability. May I quote from the UN Brundtland Report in 1987 which stated that sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

So, again, live green?

Or just simply, be considerate, think of others, or at least your future great grand children. You save a litre of petrol today, you'll be providing more for them to use.

Colour Your Life Green

When it comes to sustainability, there are usually 3 things that come in context; environmental, social and economical impact.

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That's a start for academic writing. Who gives a crap anyway? I do, but you might not.

I think you should, maybe. I found this website that can calculate your impact to the environment. I did it and the website told me that I am living as if we have 2 planets to support me. My carbon footprint is 7.84 tonnes per annum. I'm not really sure what does that mean but I will surely find out soon.

I'm thinking, if this calculations were true, my great grand children can kiss their dream to drive a sports car goodbye, assuming the world isn't planning anything to migrate to Mars.

In a political note, I might only consider to vote a party that promote a strong sustainable policy - if there's any.