Jacksonmania and His Last Two Singles

It has been more than 4 days since the shocking sudden death of Michael Jackson and Jackson mania has hit the world again. All of his music records were sold out in most music shops everywhere when news hit the world and every media shop is playing his video music, including the recorded Dangerous world tour.

Back in the mid-90s, in Malaysia, some people would refer the initials of M.J not as Michael Jackson but actually to the then Domestic and Consumer Affairs Minister, the late Tan Sri Megat Junid Ayub, M.J that is given that he makes rounds on the 'sell Made In Malaysia goods' campaign.

Back to the real story.

After the History collection, Jackson released two but not as great albums namely Blood on The Dance Floor: History in The Mix and his final recorded album, Invincible. The last two singles known to hit the airwaves after You're Not Alone is the title track from the former and You Rock My World from Invincible featuring Chris Tucker.

When you hit 40 you are not as great as before because of your age, you will not be able to perform those stunts, including the moonwalk or the vocals as great as before. Jackson tried to repeat the feat being at 50, but as the saying goes, it ain't that easy as before when you try to repeat your gags.

In my opinion, these two tracks are the last two hit singles from King of Pop, and though it is not as popular as the greatest smash hits, these could be the good farewell in retrospective for MJ.

Salute!

Blood On The Dance Floor

You Rock My World (From Invincible)

Even The Devouts Say Anwar Will Win!

This morning, I was invited by a friend of mine to come along for a church service in Setapak. Although I got there a bit late due to an errand, the most of the proceedings of the 2.5 hour service were dominated by songs of worship. Towards the last third of the service, I was impressed to see that even devouts of the church - today they were praying for the future, the winds of change in Malaysia - are pretty sure that the change will come SOON.

In the last third of the service, there were four people, namely the church elders went up to the stage, each taking turns to prophesize as much as they can about the change in Malaysia, and what they said are in unison: MALAYSIA will RIDE the winds of Change that is God.

Another statement that they said were from one of their songs is that the WALLS of JERICHO will tumble. Interestingly, the walls of Jericho paralleled the BN walls.

I must admit that they are now sure this time that God had plans of changing Malaysia to become a better place. Therefore, there is now a certainty that Anwar will win. Preliminary intelligence indicate that Anwar might win by 15000 majority but it might change no thanks to BN's cheat tactics.

Long on Brutality, Short on Foresight

I can have a good guess that the police will do everything under the orders of the UMNO thugs to stop this Saturday's rally from going on. I wondered whether is it really because of the fear of the cronies on the above that prompted them to act. What good is a policeman if he is ordered to behave like a terrorist?

Malaysiakini and Bernama reported that IGP Musa Hassan has shot off a warning and threat of arrest to anybody including the public if found to be at the place. As of a few hours ago, there were roadblocks placed around Gombak, Jalan Pahang, Jalan Kuching and roads from the east coast leading towards the capital, as the police will anticipate tons of opposition followers from the east coast, especially the PAS people will be coming down in readiness for Saturday's march.

In most occasions nowadays, the police seems to foment troubles instead of ensuring order and security to the nation. Crime rate still remains at high, and there are cases of splinter cell wars between the CID and CCID, Special Branch is accused of starting the ruckus at Batu Buruk. The police reputation has taken another severe setback, resulting in tarnish of public relations, when they were judged responsible for the abuse of ISA detainee Malik Hussain and this has resulted the government having to pay $2.5 million in damages to Malik. What more are they going to push for what they know that they cannot win?

According to some reports, some 4000 police personnel will be deployed around Merdeka Square ready to pounce on anybody. Now the question is, suppose if there is a total of 100 thousand people against 4000 policemen, how are they going to arrest all of them, unless if they have the balls to shoot every innocent unarmed person including women and children on the street. Like the march of Lawyers in September, the FRU and the police are likely to come with those big trucks, shields, batons, and those tear gas, water hoses ready.... The police think they are able to repeat the formula in stopping the Indian forum but what if things turn the other way round? Should the police decides to make things personal by hitting an unarmed person who has nothing to hide, this means it's a grudge of the citizens against the police for they are provoked and threatened of their lives. And that means massive damages. Do they really want a April 1992 LA Riots here, K.L style?

Let's face it, the RFS index is at 124 compared to 92 in 2006. What more can it be worse with such brutality taken into consideration. The police are just like the gangs fighting for the Five Corners of New York from the 19th century until to the late 70s. They are short of foresight but long on brutality. Don't forget that each police personnel are citizens of Malaysia too, not robots. They too have the right to take part in a general election. If they are not aware of the current situation now, including the judiciary crisis, why do they call themselves policemen if they don't use their common sense and their conscience to wake themselves up from the slumber and ignorance? You see, they should let them go, because if they do not do so, a greater comes in the form of hegemony by iron-fist, politicians who may strip us the freedom as Malaysians in the not so distant future. It might not be now, it will happen someday though. This is the foresight that sadly the policemen did not take into account.

I would like the authorities to step into the shoes of being a normal Malaysian citizen being in that scenario as to understand the other perspective of being a part of the assembly. This sad thing here is that many accusations are made from one side of view, without looking at the other, just as what Puteri UMNO does now, repeating the Wee saga and seeing from only one side.

I will repeat again, no more. This week marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. And we are likely to see the Yellow Revolution this Saturday. If the people particularly those who could not make it on that day realize how brutal the police are, then this is likely a sign that the support of BN is likely to erode badly, considering how they are done. There are some who has to do the job of telling world what is happening here. Unless, the King, being the Supreme Military Commander of Malaysia decides to overrule the police and let the soldiers help the country-loving citizens in marching peacefully...something that I wish it would be tomorrow.

I also would like readers here to take a look at some video clips on Youtube of Warren Beatty's Russian Revolution epic, Reds which has the similar context to what is likely to be expected this Saturday. As for me, I am unlikely to attend this due to an appointment elsewhere, but my spirit will be together with this march - unless by stroke of luck I am available.

After all, it's time for citizens to learn how powerful you are in deciding the government of choice.

Chewing Like a Candy

Monthly trips back to Ipoh have given a nostalgic feeling for me. It would make me feel that I really wanted to go back to the point where I had my childhood. I fear that might not see it again in the next 30 years or so as Ipoh had gone tremendous landscape changes particularly during my previous visit in September. Who knows that I might be working overseas or whatsoever. I really wanted to go back and savor an extra day at the house where I grew up with.

I read some articles from my fellow town man James Wong who named his blog Clare Street after the street opposite Central Market now called as Jalan Mustapha Al-Bakri. The nostalgic feeling is in the air!

Alright..alright. Almost every time I am back at Ipoh, my mother would buy a big number of Kampar Road coconut buns that are fresh from the oven. I can't remember which shop is it in town that sells that, but there are two things that I know about the bun:

• You can't get it on Sundays.
• It's my dad's favorite bun.

The bun's filling has scraped coconut mixed together with Gula Melaka baked with in a wholemeal bun. On Saturday, I took two. I started to love having the bun, after my mother insisted that I have try when I was a kid. Dad had lived in Ipoh for more than I do, he would go there sometimes while dating my mother in the late 70s.

Ah...the memories. I in fact gave one bun to my colleague at sales department, K.K. I just drove back from Ipoh 6.30 in the morning. Couldn't go that fast because today was day 2 of Ops Sikap, the hardworking period of police officers in conjunction with the Raya celebration. I met him at the carpark of my office, went up the lift together and handed one to him. I wanted to give my finance manager William another one, but he doesn't take buns too much. But we would talk about hometown as well sometimes at lunch, William was from Pusing, surely I would remember of Tanjung Tualang seafood and of course, claypot braised pork with salted fish - the famous dish in Pusing. Pusing would be right after Lahat and further to Lumut, where my poor mother would have to go very early in the morning. She's not taking it for long. She wanted to stop in July next year.

Offdays Explained

There are a few people who actually asked me, especially Edmund who asked me of why I didn't write posts for the last three days given that I was so used to the one post per day rule.

Well, the main reason is that my family just came down to K.L on the weekend, just left this evening and they went to visit relatives, and all the coincidences with my father's own agenda.

I actually met them after a seminar meeting with Ewen Chia, the number 1 market affiliate in the world, who offered me some tips on helping me to get start with my own web page. I'm still looking for books to help me improve my web page development skills, by starting off with an html page.

Of course there's dinner with the relatives.

The next day it's meeting people including my granduncle and as well as taking my brother who recently joined Christianity - I didn't know until he revealed to me in dinner - and stopping by my house to get some things for him, before meeting them.

We had dinner two of us alone. And today I took a leave off to help them - in case there is a short of hands.

Enough? Hahaha....and later I will be making a post later on - what's happening in the Malaysian scene, as requested by a friend of mine.

Revisiting A Past

On Monday, I sent the car to the workshop for a oil-filter replacement service which is done on a quarterly basis. However, because this time, the service involves replacing the car's timing belt, it took a little longer than expected, roughly four hours. The car will not be done until before 3 p.m. and as to kill time, I decided to visit my school, St. Michael's while at the same time I could pick my brother up from school earlier since this two weeks is actually the school's mid-term examinations.

School has changed a lot in the last five years. What I am talking about is that there is plenty of interior changes into it. Every year, the school's musical production earnings were used to facilitate renovations and repairs to the building. The most critical of all would be the replacement of the roof since it was in a bad condition and repairs can no longer be delayed. The number of new faces of teachers in the school are pretty much more compared during my time in school. Some came after my time and the number of teachers that I see during my time began to dwindle as time goes on.


The biggest change of all is that the primary school students get to study at their own new school block next to the workshop block and the canteen has been fully renovated. It was no longer the style of the 1990s and instead it is much more pleasing looking than before. So with that building constructed since 05, the primary school block is more pleasing looking than it was as in the old primary school block, which shows its age and it's scheduled to be demolished by end of this year.

Update: Continuation of the post.


The school is currently undergoing the replacement of the roof. So far only half of the main wing has been completed with the other one in progress. It was said that the completed period would be somewhere within next month. The final price tag was estimated to be around at $600K. It was the only way to beat the mites infecting the roof and prevent a possible ceiling collapse.



The cafeteria was first renovated back in 2000 but more changes were added into this sometime after I left school. Among them, you can see there are permanent chair fixtures, new tenants replacing those who left after my time, railings, and proper back doors for tenants only. The doors were painted in blue. Back in the 90s, you would not see that. The number of stalls are doubled compared five years ago. Hence, there were about 16 stalls compared to 8-10 before.

This was the first change to the school's interior right after I left school. This would be the lecture hall, the major changes would be the tiling and repainting. Also, the hall was also renovated to accommodate new benches, a television and a projector as well as air-conditioners.