I'll Play Taffer at You!

So, it seems that Abdullah Badawi is somewhat gone up to fever pitch with a wavering threat against those who would be coming down for tomorrow's rally at Merdeka Square.

They say that the police is mounting roadblocks monitoring cars coming from Rawang, Seremban, and even the Karak Highway. They are threatening to stop and question any car coming to Kuala Lumpur. But I was in town, and I don't see any police trying to stop me and my car while on the way. I wonder if that's actually and empty threat and intimidation by the police?

The way the police acts has clearly violated Article 10 of the Consitituition which every citizen in Malaysia is entitled to. But then, don't they know that the king, the Agong is involved in this situation being at the end of the march? Have they all forgotten the second principle of Rukunegara? Kesetiaan Kepada Raja dan Negara?

The reason why the rally will be conducted is not because they want to, but they had to, forced to. It is like being put into the last resort. Clearly they have said that they had appealed to the government to do so but they were ignored, turned away by Abdullah Badawi and his cronies. If everything has been denied, while you are a worker, what else can you do except to hold a rally and report to the king that the government has failed to do what they should do to the people? I've already said many times that the police has long in brutality but short on foresight. The actions today indicate that they are cannon fodders for UMNO and they are not independent as what we perceive of them.

At the assembly today, Abdullah went fever pitch and gone CAPITAL LETTERS on some occasions, according to the Sun. The immortal phrase line in the article? "I will not be challenged!" The English saying, "Be careful what you wish for" seems appropriate for him as he might think himself being on the omnipotent position means there is no fall. Someday, he will. Picture this: will he for an unknown occasion he ended up like the fall of Tsar Nicholas II?

The reply, based on quotes in the Malaysiakini article and the Sun clearly gives the clear impression and implies that:

• 1. Abdullah Badawi has failed to fulfill his promise despite having many chances in his duty as PM as dictated in the 2004 General Election Manifesto. Corruption and crime rate still remains high and racial tensions still remain at high.
• 2. Abdullah Badawi is afraid to come out and face the truth of the current state of social affairs in Malaysia and prepared to correct his mistakes. Instead he cowers behind and gets the cannon fodder to do his work of suppressing the people. I wonder whether if this contradicts with one of the statements, the rally is against the law and the people.
  
• 3. Abdullah Badawi is not what it seems of people looking at him as Mr. Clean.
• 4. Abdullah Badawi is unwilling to face the problems that a leader expects in his power base.
• 5. Abdullah Badawi is running out of leadership ideas after all have been expended on expensive lavish projects. The ECER is one of the last bullets in his arsenal.

..and many mistakes that I can't seem to recall.

Simply put that Abdullah Badawi has made too many mistakes that cannot be tolerated anymore by country-loving citizens, those real patriots, not the ultra-nationalists. Mistakes that should have been corrected at first sign of danger but instead was ignored totally. Instead of admitting your mistake, he blamed the opposition as part of the tactic to overthrow or sway people confidence towards them. It is the one step backwards mentality of certain leaders in the country that the people had no confidence of. Someday, arrogance can be punished.

The real problem in the country's progress lies in certain policies deemed as third-world mentality rules by those who have achieved high level of awareness and those well educated to understand the rules in the current context. Many leaders have failed to see this in long term. So, if they can remove some things that are meant to fix those in the old days, the better it will be in long term.

No matter what is the outcome of the rally tomorrow, Abdullah Badawi will still end up in the losing situation. If everyone is aware of how brutal the police and you all in the government act at the end of tomorrow, expect to see many condemnations by international observers, thousands of court cases and perhaps the government will have to spend a lot of money to compensate the victims of potential brutality. He will end up like another Than Shwe, by attempting to suppress what people are entitled to.

If things go worst, they will end up paying tax payer's money back to the people in long term as damages and compensation because they start first beating people. They had guns and all those batons, gas grenades, while those who come for the rally had nothing at all. So if the government tries do the violent thing, people will have to disobey, using the Civil Disobedience principle. If this thing reaches international media from Al-Jazeera, CNN, and BBC via someone unknown, then we are likely to see our faces in the whole wide world and Malaysia will become a laughing stock because of the government.

There is little time left for Abdullah Badawi to correct his mistakes, and he has to do it now, starting with election reforms and the judicial crisis. If he decides to call election while this has not been solved, you might seeing a repeat of the 1999 elections, thankfully it's not going to be in this year, but somewhere in March. But the results is likely to follow the 1999 results.

If the police think that they are somewhat having a distinct advantage because of their equipment, you better be prepared to be sued in court and prepared to have all the money out to compensate the people if you are found responsible for the brutality. You can call me a taffer for such believes, but I am not partisan of any side. This is a two-sided view story.


For me? Well, I'll be having an appointment somewhere else, but in spirit, I'll bring a blackjack and some moss arrows. I'll hit them and the City Watch behind to set the truth free for everyone!

The Weekend

Finally, back after a good break. But I still had the kind of mild fever that made me a bit weaker than ever. I had a bad cold since Saturday, but I am getting a little better by the evening.

I already managed to get a place to stay from August onwards as there will be some people coming in to restore the state of the house back to where it was before we got in about two years ago. So, most probably I will be spending this weekend making the packing and the arrangements of moving back and forth to the new place. About the furniture, the new venue was fully furnished and I was told that I can pick stuff that I can take along to the new place. But at a price of course.

A good thing though is that the place is quite convenient for me to move in and out of the town. But the problem is of budgetary constraints. Don't forget that I still have about a quarter of credit needed to clear off due to the cost of the notebook. Hence, the next few days will be a bit packed, depending on the condition.

This was the first time in two months that I met my father. In the previous two occasions, I could not see him due to a schedule conflict, he traveled to Vietnam and Singapore recently for business.

I know that there has been a hot buzz over the worldwide release of the final book of Harry Potter, but I decided to take my time and I absolutely refused to dig more about that thing, as not to spoil the taste and my predictions which I mentioned in the previous post. I just think maybe to play time and get a copy whenever I feel that I am able to do so.

I didn't have a good sleep for the last two nights. I just simply couldn't go to bed early because of the bad cold. I couldn't understand why it happened or what. But I felt better today with Panadol Soluble.

Tiring But A Worth Weekend

Yesterday was my colleague's wedding day so the first thing in morning was to get my car fixed. Initially I thought having to paint together the front bumper but the cost together with the repairs would be at around $300 plus after special price. I nixed the idea due to budgetary constraints but I told them that I would have it done in a few months time.

The next thing was to settle the damage due to the other guy's car. He was working downtown but he was on medical leave because he fractured his left arm - not severe though - as his arm was placed inside the spacing of the steering wheel when the accident happened.

Once it was done, I went to the hotel to get some rest. Parking was a concern. I decided not to park at those legit lots because of the cost. $6 for the whole day until 7 a.m the next day. But then at around 6 I parked across the other side of the main road at those City Council-legit spaces as it is free of charge from 6 until end of today.

One thing frustrating though was that the traffic condition was quite bad at around late afternoon. That is why I ditched the idea of driving to the restaurant and instead took a railway to the bus station. From the Pudu bus station, I walked all the way to the restaurant - it was next to Swiss Garden Hotel.

About 20 people of our company came. Mostly management people excluding Muslims - since it is a non pork-free premise. I guess I was the first two besides William, the finance manager arriving at the place first. Then it's my other colleagues coming. As a courtesy, the boss and those department heads showed up.

The dinner was just routine. Mostly it will only start at around 8.30 p.m. If the invitation card says that it's 7 p.m, then it will start at that time. I know, since the wedding dinner of my distant relative too starts at the same time, except the card mentions it as 7.30.


That's my colleague on my left as the bride, and Samuel as the bridegroom.

I was with Ong, the new tester, talking a few things including wine. Shame though that there's no white wine. It would go well with fish and seafood. So I hitched a ride with him taking through K.L - he's not that familiar since he's mostly from Kajang, a town about 15 kilometers south of the city center.

Even the room has an air-conditioner, I didn't use it at all, the fan was quite powerful and it's provides the humidity of the room. The checkout time is slightly earlier, 10 a.m. So I went for breakfast and decided to see if there is a room at my first place that I rented when I first started work in Kuala Lumpur. Thankfully, they still have it and I decided to get that place. The old landlady - a sister of my dad's friend - wanted some company since her daughter moved out two months ago.

I thought of going back there since the rate is cheap and this room is next to the one I used to go. It has an air-conditioner and a detached bathroom as well. Then in the afternoon, I had a meal with my cousin, who was asking help to get some songs online and creating an audio CD.

Quite tired really in the end, but it's worth the weekend.

Would You Look At This!

I just went to town today. I already had in mind of going my with a friend of mine to see notebooks at Lowyat Plaza once he finishes his work at IPK - the K.L police contingent. Thought he would finish in the afternoon but in the end he finished quite late and I decided to go ahead and do things without him.

I spent the entire afternoon doing my work in the cafe and I thought of meeting with Edmund. When he messaged me, he was somewhere in town too. But he had other things and we could only meet some other day.

By the time it was around 5 p.m, it was raining like cats and dogs. Would you look at the skies there...!

At that time the picture was taken, it was around 6 p.m. Once I am sure that my friend couldn't make it for the appointment, I decided to go back home. However, I was surprised to find a lot of people stuck in the underground train. I decided to wait until the crowd thins down by visiting the opposite mall, Avenue K. Look at this shot:



Once I had finished taking a look round the more, I went back to the station. Still too many people. I just had no choice but to queue at one of the counters. While on the way back, I was kind of a little fearful of the lightning and thunder so I had to shelter inside the building and then dashing to some cover. But the last stretch was a little hard, so I just ran like mad to my car which I parked at the Royal Selangor Club. I never liked to park at KLCC for a long period. It costs more than parking at other places.

I could have finish my work there, but I didn't bring my adapter along. But I am surprised to see that Civil War has been restock and been given a 20% discount. I am looking forward to get those important ones...the main story and Front Line. 1602 Fantastic Four is also something to complement. But I need to clear my credit bills first.

"There is no good or evil. There is only DOOM."

Back With A Vengeance: Lone Wolf

When I was about 10 years, I was introduced to the Lone Wolf book series by my cousin. It is an adventure game whereby your actions are based on the current abilities and skills that you possess and also allows you to progress in your adventure. It is an independent adventure or it can be combined to create a brilliant fantasy epic.

The adventures are written by the only British and 1982 AD&D winner Joe Dever who eventually became a games consultant and writer for major RPG games for most European-produced games. The books were first published in 1984 with the first book - entitled Flight From The Dark released as a testing tube.

Eventually the series became popular and almost 8 million copies were sold. It won the Gamebook of The Year award in 1985 and 1991. Dever mentioned that the idea of the series was meant to provide a setting for his AD&D campaigns. It was formed as a game similar to Runequest. The UK versions are the complete versions released by Hutchinsons - later becoming Red Fox. The U.S versions of the series were not released. Berkeley - the U.S publisher only published and abridged books 13-20.

The following here taken from Kai Monastery gives the idea behind the wonderful solo campaign and incredible world of Magnamund.

Originally my idea was to turn Lone Wolf into a RPG system, something akin to RuneQuest. In 1983, I was working with Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone at Games Workshop in London. By this time I'd already spent six years developing Magnamund and the saga of the Kai. Ian and Steve were very keen to have Games Workshop publish it, but the deal they proposed to me was so insultingly bad that I decided I would quit and go it alone at the first opportunity. In August 1983, they published the first of their Fighting Fantasy books and it was a huge success. Still seething from the derisory offer they'd made me for Lone Wolf, I decided to redesign my RPG system and turn it into a solo RPG campaign. I asked Gary Chalk (who was also working at Games Workshop at the time) to illustrate some of my manuscript for the first book, Flight From the Dark, and then I approached three London publishers with the first 50 sections or so. The response was fantastic. They all wanted it and they all started outbidding each other for the rights. Hutchinsons offered me the best deal which I duly accepted. I then quit Games Workshop and started work immediately on Fire on the Water. Gary resigned shortly after I did and we collaborated on the first eight Lone Wolf books between 1984 and 1986.

The books were selling well until 1998 where the last book #28: The Hunger of Sejanoz was published. When it was announced that the books were no longer published, this was Joe's explanation:

Red Fox have decided that they don't want to publish any more Lone Wolf gamebooks. As far as they're concerned the interactive gamebook genre is no longer popular enough to warrant publishing any more titles after Lone Wolf 28. I can't say I'm happy with their decision but I can understand the thinking behind it. Since 1994, all of the editorial staff who had worked for years on the Lone Wolf series either resigned or were sacked. Naturally, their replacements were keen to impress their bosses and thereby keep their jobs. I feel the newbies neglected Lone Wolf which they considered to be part of the old Red Fox regime. This neglect manifested itself in falling production standards (e.g. the loss of the colour maps in the U.K. editions from book 25 onwards, without any commensurate drop in cover price) and the allowing of certain titles (e.g. book 19 and book 22) to go out of print. I received dozens of letters from fans about book 22 at the time, and I passed on these inquiries to Red Fox with a request that they act. Unfortunately no reprint was forthcoming. I've demanded, as is my right, that Red Fox reprint the missing titles, but so far they've fobbed me off with vague excuses and have made no written commitment to reprint despite having received orders (in the hundreds) for those titles that are now out of print. Frankly, I've had enough of their procrastination and I've given them notice that I will be revoking their rights unless they reprint within the next three months. Legally, the rights to all of the books will revert to me on October 18th 1998. On that day I can legally offer the series, and any future Lone Wolf works that I care to produce, to another publisher. I have recently been in discussion with a publisher who is interested in picking up my entire backlist (over 50 books) when the rights revert to me in October so, fingers crossed, we may well see Lone Wolf get a new lease on life this year.

At this time, Joe has moved on to consultancy work whereas the books were given for online use for free at Project Aon. He is now currently working as a Lead Designer of a Lone Wolf RPG game due for release in 2008 by a Singapore games design company. Since the license of the books were reverted back to Joe since October 1998, he has the discretion over the rights.

However, the good news has arrived at last.

The rights of publishing were finally picked up by Mongoose Publishing. In a recent announcement, Mongoose will be re-releasing the books including the novels in a 6-8 week basis from September 2007 onwards and the publishing rights will indeed cover the final four unpublished books (29-32).

All the books will be revised extensively and new materials are added (quests, additional storylines) together with new artwork by Alberto Dal Lago, possibly in addition to the art drawn by Gary Chalk and Brian Williams. These are soft-cover titles. The Hardcover version of the books can only be ordered directly from Mongoose.

The biggest change in the series would be the release of the "redux director's version" of the first book Flight From The Dark. This time, the size of the book will be at approximately 450 pages with the major change (rewritten by Dever himself) focuses on the first act of the story.

In the first 1984 version, the reader will start the adventure from the forest after being knocked unconscious. But in the redux version, the player will band together with the other kinsmen, fighting enemies. The player will be fighting the way up to the Tower and ignite the signal of attack. Then you will be taken to the underground tunnel out to the forest where the original part of the adventure will begin.

Here is the new cover art for book 2: Fire On The Water by Alberto Dal Lago:

You See, I Have A Problem...

Before writing this post, I was split on deciding what would be the interesting title to be used for this post. At first I thought of using "Bad People Deserve A Bad End", which was the tagline used in The Punisher: Barracuda. Then again, I thought of one of the lines by Clarence Boddicker -the infamous cop killer who executed Murphy at the opening act of Robocop. During that execution, he said, "You see, I have a problem. The cops don't like me and I don't like them." I just thought, hey that's a some sort of a connector to the next part of the post.

Today I saw a very interesting article in the front page of News Straits Times. There is somewhat of a make-up poster of this:

This happened to be the poster of the two special dogs that the Domestic and Consumer Affairs Ministry used, with courtesy from the MPAA - The Motion Picture Association of America in an experiment to see whether it is feasible to set up a canine unit specially trained to sniff out polycarbonate - a vital ingredient used to manufacture the blank CDs that we carry around. Two days ago, the dogs helped the Ministry's enforcers to raid an apartment in Johor Bahru (the last town before Singapore) and seized about 10 million ringgit worth of pirated stuff. Apparently, because of the incident, the syndicate kings in the south decided to put up an undisclosed bounty on whoever can take out the dogs or bitches to them.

Seems like both parties are trying to cross over the actual lines drawn, and maybe try to take each other out. However, neither one of them know their own lines. Was it because of pressure from outsiders? Is it going to be the end of them as like the loan sharks (as announced in today's The Star)? I have no idea though. There are many endings to this situation, but I am no Kaileena, who said in The Two Thrones, "Of all the possibilities that I've seen, this held the promising of all." After, isn't she the Empress of Time, who knows the possibilities of the future?

A friend told me that the criminal rate in Johor is far much higher than the rate in Kuala Lumpur or in Penang. But I think the three are the same. However, in terms of notoriety, as according to him, criminals there, particularly snatch thieves are much more aggressive than ever. But I agreed in one point though - the number of snatch cases is far more than those two places. He claimed though of something, saying that those criminals there claim to have special blood in their veins - I won't go more just to avoid provocation - and there are far more illegal Indonesians there compared to K.L. Because of this though, he said that J.B has the most number of lifeforms worse than animals in Malaysia. I have no opinion though as I don't have a statistic to back his claim.

This would be the third day in the role that there's heavy rainfall in Klang Valley. And I really had to finish testing the JIRA bug tracker tool by tomorrow evening. I had to do a series of tests, including validation tests. The worst was that a field that I've set to put in the Resolve screen never showed up despite my firm believe that it was definitely in place! How could that be? But after that, the program crashed. Out of memory problems. I think that my machine does not have enough RAM to support handling of massive issues that might come. So suppose if the company decides to buy the software, it needs to be installed in either two workstations that has high memory.

The plan of visiting Ipoh on the 6th is back on schedule as the Sports Club Run was moved to the 14th. And with my friend calling me in the afternoon to see what time I could come down to town to meet him, I think it's going to be a great weekend for the three of us. But then I might have to post Saturday and Sunday's entries for this week on succession, say Monday.