Received this email this morning. I felt it is good thing to share …

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An economics professor at a US college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.  As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

 
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The GE 2012.
 
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Can you think of a reason for not sharing this? Neither could I.
 
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Got this from a friend of mine. Quite interesting IMHO, so I want to share it out.

I believe we all know about the story of the ant and grasshopper when we studied in primary school. The one below is the modern version with a twist. Enjoy ~~

 
Older Version

An ant worked hard in the sweltering heat all summer, building its nest and laying up supplies for the winter.

A grasshopper thought the ant was stupid not knowing how to enjoy life. It spent its days laughing, singing & dancing thoroughly enjoying the summer.

Came winter, the ant was warm, comfortable and had no shortage of food.

The grasshopper had no proper shelter, no stored food, and couldn't find anything to eat from the snow-covered ground. So it died and the story ended.  

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
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Modern Version   

An ant worked hard in the sweltering heat all summer, building its nest and laying up supplies for the winter.

A grasshopper thought the ant was stupid not knowing how to enjoy life. It spent its days laughing, singing & dancing thoroughly enjoying the summer.

Came winter, the shivering grasshopper called a press conference and demanded to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while he was cold and starving.

TV1, TV2 & TV3 showed up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper alongside to a video clip of the ant in his comfortable home with a table full of food.

The majority of the Malaysian Parliamentarians were stunned by the  sharp contrast. How could this poor grasshopper be allowed to suffer?

Khairy staged a demonstration in front of the ant's nest.

Nazri went on a hunger strike along with other grasshoppers demanding that they be relocated to warmer climate area during winter.

The Malaysia Government immediately passed a law forbidding all ants from working hard in the summer so as to bring about equality of poverty between ants and grasshoppers.

Hishammudin increased 'More Special Reservations' for grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services..

The ant was fined for failing to share 30% of his food with the grasshopper. The Prime Minister announced that this was part of the N E P.  No ant should question it. (Don't forget, Tax Audits were introduced and targeted at certain individuals who were eventually penalized heavily for not contributing enough to the well-being of the grasshoppers).

Many years later...

Some ant migrated to the US and set up multi-billion dollar companies there.

Hundreds of grasshoppers still died of starvation despite the 'More Special Reservations'.

Losing significant number of hard working ants and free loading the grasshoppers, Malaysia  remained a developing country, despite its abundant natural resources.
All because the remaining ANTS were still doing their work .............................

Latest finding showed that almost all the grasshoppers in the political arena and civil service were hoarding corrupt wealth which they refused to share with fellow grasshoppers.  

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2011.

I was a bit shocked when I got to know I won the Best Guitarist Award for the Battle of The Band - Passport To Fame 2011 competition. Frankly, I didn’t expect to win at all because there are a few more good players out there in the competition. I was expecting another David from the band “Got A Match” to win. Perhaps the judges have some different expectations.

I want to thank God for the talent and the opportunity that He has given me and also bringing in all the people to help me nurture my skills. I want to thank my guitar mentor – Jose Thomas for all the lesson and guidance and also shaping the way I look about music, guitar and God.

I also want to thank my parents for not stopping me to learn guitar when I was still a secondary school boy and didn’t scold me when I took the PTPTN loan money to buy my first electric guitar during my 1st year in university. My dad bought me a Yamaha acoustic when I was in Form 2 and I still keep it till now.

… My first electric guitar. I still play it now …

Also want to thank En Ismail Ahmed who first opened my eyes on Jazz music when I was still pursuing my degree in UKM. He gave me the opportunity to learn and perform at RTM.

A big thanks to my band members also for keeping up the environment for us to keep on discovering and learning. Although we are not a professionally trained musicians, but sooner or later we’ll grow.. in due time… LOL

I want to thank the judges for choosing me as the prize winner for Best Guitarist Award.

Eler… macam menang Oscar je…

One of the biggest Battle of the Band event – Passport To Fame just closed its’ curtain on Saturday at The Opera, Sunway Pyramid. It is one heck of a long competition, from early June till end of August.

My band JUNK took part in this competition. We managed to enter Top 10, but sadly was kicked out of the final 5 selection. Part of the reason??? --- Not commercial enough. We are grateful that the panel of 3 judges wanted us to be in but sadly, we are just not commercial enough for one of the sponsors. So we were left out of the final 5. Apart from that, I think we are still green on these kind of stuff. This is my first Battle of the Band contest, and for the most of the band members too I think. We are also still not technically good, but we are working hard to improve ourselves.

Eizaz was the one who mooted this idea of taking part in the contest because of the Shure products. If we manage to win, we will have some useful stuff for our studio. We are not really interested in the cash prizes or the recording contract or the prizes from the food sponsors bla bla bla bla. But of course to expose ourselves to more people out there la…

Throughout the whole journey in the competition, there are ups and downs in the band as well. Some of us wanted to quit, some of us are just too tired of the hectic practice schedule till 1am everyday after a full day at work and too learn up the complicated parts in a short span of time. Sometimes, I do question why have to make the parts so complicated and settle with the easier ones. But in the end, it all boils down to whether do we want to take up the challenge or not. I’m happy that the band chose took up the challenge to settle with the “technical” route of the music arrangements.

Overall, we gained lots of experience from the competition. There were times that we are very nervous before any shows (sometimes, insomnia). After a series of gigs and from the rounds of the competition, somehow we managed to suppress the pre-gig anxiety and we are more composed when we were on the stage performing, up to the point of “Whack first, Think later”, LOL. Other than that, we managed to composed a few songs as well.

For me, JUNK is a very delicate and special band. Every band member is irreplaceable. Take any member out and you’ll leave a big hole in the music that we play. The band members compliments each other and we really “exploit” everyone. I’m really impressed by how we worked together to sound good, especially in our originals.

I do cherish the moments we had together, from practicing everyday, road trip down to JB for competition, the fright of empty gas tank at the long stretch of dark expressway on our way back to KL, the makan time and etc. It’s definitely a memorable moment for me. Although we didn’t made it to the finals, but we do gain something that are intangible and has no price tags on it.

NEXT UP >> Best Guitarist Award … will post about it once I got hold of the pics.

It’s been a while since I last update this blog.

Things are pretty much getting routine till there is nothing about them to blog about.

Band wise, there are ups and downs. JUNK manage to get more gigs in these few months. We played our first Jazz gig in the Malaysian Youth Day and another one in Jazz Ampang. Most of them are free gigs. I don’t really encourage free gigs because as a musician, we want to be respected (or rather compensated) for the amount of resources we’ve put in, monetary in particular. I think I’ll blog about my opinions on free gigs in a separate post in the future.

Also, JUNK took part in a band competition and we managed to go into round 4 of 6. This is my first time taking part in a competition like this. It is a good experience. We somehow manage to get good comments from the judges.

The competition somehow drained us up and we don’t have much time enough to breathe and reflect on what we did. Due to our own personal commitments, work, so on and so forth, we don’t have really have enough opportunity to practice together also. So we have to really “belasah”.

To think from the other perspective, the competition did make some of the deep hidden issues within the band surfaced. So as we band, we’ll have to address these issues as a matured adult, rather than making a reckless decision and regret it later.

Enough said, look on the bright side, we manage to gain more exposure and experience. Compared to our gigs a year or two back, we’d feel anxious, nervous till the point of insomnia before gig. Now, we’re somehow feeling more relaxed and less nervous compared to earlier gigs.

Wish us all the best ……

2007 – Toe Tragedy
2008 – Knee Tragedy
2009 – Mishaps
2010 – Annual Injury

 

Seems like this is going to be an annual event.

How I ended up ? Was cleaning my “new” apartment unit and some of the floor tiles bloated suddenly and some got cracked. So in the midst of pulling it up, the tiles broke and my thumb got cut. Kinda deep, can see the inner flesh and the wound is around 2 inches long. Awful lots of blood..

So got 4 stitches, 1 Tetanus injection and RM100+ gone… and more money to spend to fix the floors…

A friend of mine posted this as his FB status :

“kalau basikal drpd bicyle, motosikal drpd motorcycle, then seterika itu bahasa apa? apesal bukan "hari ini saya tak sempat besi baju?" this is no joke, can someone let me know where this word come from?”

Then a friend of mine manage to shed some lights on the answer. This is his response to the FB status :

“I think I found it: "Strijken" [Dutch. Google translate can pronounce this] Source: http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/hiramoto2007lexical.pdf”

Language is a funny thing isn’t it??

 

Anyhow, my purpose here is not to promote the study of language but some funny stuff exchange that we had over the posts. Take a look :-

Received this email from a colleague of mine which I think I’d like to share here. Feel free to debate.

 

The human body was never meant to consume rice! You see, our genes have hardly changed in more than 30,000 years. However, our food choices and lifestyle have changed dramatically. The caveman would hardly recognise our food or way of life.

Caveman food was never cooked as fire was not yet tamed. Thus, he ate only those foods that you can eat without treatment with or by fire. He ate fruits, vegetables, fish (sushi anyone?), eggs, nuts and meat. Yes, even meat! You can even eat meat raw if you were starving in the forest. You have the necessary enzymes to digest meat.

However, rice, like wheat and corn, cannot be eaten raw. It must be cooked. Even if you were starving in the desert, you cannot eat rice in the raw form. This is because we do not have the system of enzymes to break rice down. You were never meant to eat rice. To make matters worse, you not only eat rice, but also make it the bulk of your food.

In some parts of Asia , rice forms up to 85% of the plate. Even if you take rice, keep it to a minimum. Remember, it is only for your tongue - not your body. Actually, rice and other grains like wheat and corn are actually worse than sugar. There are many reasons:

Rice becomes sugar - lots of it!
This is a fact that no nutritionist can deny: rice is chemically no different from sugar. One bowl of cooked rice is the caloric equal of 10 teaspoons of sugar. This does not matter whether it is white, brown or herbal rice. Brown rice is richer in fibre, some B vitamins and minerals but it is still the caloric equal of 10 teaspoons of sugar. To get the same 10 teaspoons of sugar, you need to consume lots of kangkong-10 bowls of it.

Rice is digested to become sugar.
Rice cannot be digested before it is thoroughly cooked. However, when thoroughly cooked, it becomes sugar and spikes circulating blood sugar within half an hour-almost as quickly as it would if you took a sugar candy. Rice is very low in the 'rainbow of anti-oxidants. '

This complete anti-oxidant rainbow is necessary for the effective and safe utilisation of sugar. Fruits come with a sugar called fructose. However, they are not empty calories as the fruit is packed with a whole host of other nutrients that help its proper assimilation and digestion.

Rice has no fibre.
The fibre of the kangkong fills you up long before your blood sugar spikes. This is because the fibre bulks and fills up your stomach. Since white rice has no fibre, you end up eating lots of 'calorie dense' food before you get filled up. Brown rice has more fibre but still the same amount of sugar. 

Rice is tasteless-sugar is sweet..
There is only so much that you can eat at one sitting. How many teaspoons of sugar can you eat before you feel like throwing up? Could you imagine eating 10 teaspoons of sugar in one seating?

Rice is always the main part of the meal.
While sugar may fill your dessert or sweeten your coffee, it will never be the main part of any meal. You could eat maybe two to three teaspoons of sugar at one meal. However, you could easily eat the equal value of two to three bowls (20-30 teaspoons) of sugar in one meal. I am always amused when I see someone eat sometimes five bowls of rice (equals 50 teaspoons of sugar) and then asks for tea tarik kurang manis!

There is no real 'built in' mechanism for us to prevent overeating of rice:
How much kangkong can you eat?
How much fried chicken can you eat?
How much steamed fish can you eat?
Think about that!

In one seating, you cannot take lots of chicken, fish or cucumber, but you can take lots of rice. Eating rice causes you to eat more salt. As rice is tasteless, you tend to consume more salt-another villain when it comes to high blood pressure. You tend to take more curry that has salt to help flavor rice. We also tend to consume more ketchup and soy sauce which are also rich in salt.

Eating rice causes you to drink less water.
The more rice you eat, the less water you will drink as there is no mechanism to prevent the overeating of rice. Rice, wheat and corn come hidden in our daily food. As rice is tasteless, it tends to end up in other foods that substitute rice like rice flour, noodles and bread. We tend to eat the hidden forms which still get digested into sugar.

Rice, even when cooked, is difficult to digest..
Can't eat raw rice? Try eating rice half cooked. Contrary to popular belief, rice is very difficult to digest. It is 'heavy stuff'. If you have problems with digestion, try skipping
rice for a few days. You will be amazed at how the problem will just go away.

Rice prevents the absorption of several vitamins and minerals.
Rice when taken in bulk will reduce the absorption of vital nutrients like zinc, iron and the B vitamins.

Are you a rice addict? Going rice-less may not be easy but you can go rice-less. Eating less rice could be lot easier than you think. Here are some strategies that you can pursue in your quest to eat less rice:

Eat less rice-cut your rice by half..
Barry Sears, author of the Zone Diet, advises 'eating rice like spice'. Instead, increase your fruits and vegetables. Take more lean meats and fish. You can even take more eggs and nuts.

Have 'riceless' meals.
Take no rice or wheat at say, breakfast. Go for eggs instead.

Go on 'riceless' days.
Go 'western' once a week.

Take no rice and breads for one day every week.
That can't be too difficult. Appreciate the richness of your food. Go for taste, colors and smells. Make eating a culinary delight. Enjoy your food in the original flavors.

Avoid the salt shaker or ketchup.
You will automatically eat less rice.

Eat your fruit dessert before (Yes! No printing error) your meals.
The fibre rich fruits will 'bulk up' in your stomach. Thus, you will eat less rice and more fruits.

It's your life. Decide what you want to eat! But eat less rice! 

Just wanna share my current pedalboard for my analog pedals. I’m using it quite extensively now for jamming. It’s not a huge board in terms of number of pedals. (Some pedals are just huge in size)

Power : DC Brick

GUITAR > Korg Pitchblack Tuner > Crybaby GCB95 > Analogman Comprosser > Keeley-mod DS1 > Damage Control Demonizer > Boss Volume Pedal > AMP INPUT

AMP SEND > Analogman Mini Chorus > Eventide TimeFactor > AMP RETURN

Still waiting for the patcher pedal to arrive from US.

I’m actually feeling guilty for not updating this blog. Not that I’ve lost interest in blogging, just that things are being very routine lately. Probably I’ve lost the interest in noticing the interesting stuff happening around me. Or I’ve subconsciously chose to ignore all these stuff.

Anyhow, I’ll try my best to blog “more often”.

As for myself, I’ve been hitting the gym very often, almost every weekday and some weekends as well. My trainer advised me to take pictures to keep a log of my progress. So I wanna share some progress pics here.

 

Jan 4th, 2011	Feb 17th, 2011
Mar 4th, 2011	Mar 24th, 2011

I was at Pavilion just now for a dinner with my sister. Thinking whether to dine at La Bodega or Weissbrau. So we ended up at Weissbrau.

I ordered Pork Knuckle and my sister ordered some Sausages. Pretty decent… I will try the sausage next time.