Facebook = Take-away-all-my-privacy book

I bet all you Face Failbook users by now have realised that they've introduced a brand new 'Ticker' feature at the right side of your home page.

What this does is list/announce/reveal/publish/bocorkan every single comment, post and like on every single photo, status and whatever shit. What makes it worse is that it is not only limited to within your circle of contacts. 


So lets say I'm friends with Ah Chong, and he is friends with Ah Kit, but I am not friends with Ah Kit.


Every single comment, post and like by Ah Chong on any of Ah Kit's photos, statuses or wall will now appear in YOUR ticker.


So now in short, anything and everything you do will now be publish for all to see.


This idea is so full of fcukfail, I simply cannot write anything that displays my disgust for what is going on with Facebook. I thought the new chat bar is a rotten enough feature, but whoaaa get a load of this new Ticker. 


I am genuinely considering moving out of Facebook. Such infringement of privacy is beyond what I can tolerate. Google+? Twitter? Friendster? Choices choices.....


*Update!* It seems the Ticker's be taken off now. Jolly good thing they did.

Cuti-cuti bang bang

Woot woot 2 weeks holiday woot woot cant wait for badminton with my kaki lang woot woot cant wait to taste Sitiawan's good AND CHEAP food once again woot woot

Well actually it's been 5 (wtf FIVE already??) days since my holidays started (nevermind, still got over a week left xD), but I've been able to keep myself un-bored until today when I wasted spent wasted an hour or so walking aimlessly around The Summit USJ. But the highlight of my holidays so far was my return to Naza World and Naza Italia. This time around I was accompanied by my good online buddy Imran (who stays super near to Naza World) and we spent a good 2 hours walking around, looking and taking photos of the cars there. One thing that really ticked me off is that Naza World blocked off the exotics showroom area to visitors. I seriously could not understand the logic behind such a thing. Why call it a showroom if you dont let visitors near the cars?

So, thanks to this nonsensical rule, there are no close ups of the Aston Martin DBS, Porsche 911 GT3 RS, or Audi R8 V10 on display there. But to compensate, there are some other nice cars (and even some videos) which you can see further on down. Also, you can check out my previous visit to Naza World here and also here.

Goodbye Uncle Wong

I just got the news from my brother that my badminton coach of 10 years had passed away, although he doesnt know yet what was the cause.

He had taught and coached me tirelessly since I joined his sessions at age 7. When I first joined (and even held a badminton racket) I was a chubby and lazy slob of a boy. Well actually I got slightly chubbier until about 10 years old. I never really joined because I wanted to learn, but just because my parents wanted me to get some exercise. So then every Sunday (okay maybe not ALL, I'll admit skipping quite a number of days), for two hours, I learned how to hold a racket properly, how to swing properly, how to move around the court properly. I remember how I used to run out of breath and get dizzy when we ran 4-5 rounds of the hall as warming up during my first few years. Later on he would teach us about techniques and deception, and on my own I started to learn how to "jump" smash (I use quotation marks because it's not really much of a jump).

 These memories however, are only made special because of Uncle Wong. When I was out of breath, he would calmly tell me to take a seat and rest. When training was about to start he would ask if I'm okay and ready to go. For a brief period when I had troubles with my service he gave me an entire box of used shuttles and asked me to practice against the wall. When we practiced techniques and did them well he'd say "Yaahh, good!" with that tone of encouragement, and if we didnt, he'd say "Nevermind, keep trying!". My favourite memories of him are when we played a match and we scrambled and ran all over the place and he would sportingly shout "Run run run!!", and if the point was long and tense enough or ended in some epic/funny way, he would laugh and/or clap at the end. He knew how to share the light moments with his students.

Likewise, if we were struggling, we wouldnt hesitate to give some on-court or off-court guidance, and always he did it softly but making sure he gets his point across. Work aside, Uncle Wong was a really friendly man; we would sit down between games, have casual chit-chat (although this only came towards the end of his training days), I used to see him talk with some of the other kids' parents. We even used to play a few games together, and despite being on the shorter and slightly plump side of the scale, this man could play.
 

Over the 10 years being under him, an unbreakable bond formed between the teacher and this loyal student. I started out playing badminton just for the sake of it, but the longer I was with Uncle Wong, the more I improved, the more I began to love the game. And I have to thank him (and not forgetting Aunty Wong) for his kind yet purposeful ways of training that kept me going back for more. He never deterred or criticised his students, but always helping and guiding them. I have undying respect and appreciation for this man and what he along with his training sessions have done for me.

I couldn't imagine my life today without badminton, without my almost-torn shoes or my favourite black Yonex shirt, diving and "jump" smashing on court and eagerly waiting for the next badminton outing with friends, or even gluing my eyes to the TV to watch Chong Wei and Co during competitions. Even if I dont have championship-winning capabilities, but learning badminton from him and knowing him in person has opened up my world and taught me so many positive values, especially his patience and gentleness in teaching. I owe it all to this man, but I can never repay him enough.

Thank You Mr Wong, for all your contributions and services, and for being such an amazing coach to all of us. I will always remember your most memorable and last words to me:

"You must master the basics, that is most important; before you can be good in anything"

"Whenever you want to have training again, just give us a call"

There will probably never be another like him

An hour ago the world watched as Lin Dan picked up his fourth World Badminton Champion title, the same time millions of Chong Wei supporters cringed, sadding-ed, slumped and so on. It was a damn close fight, Chong Wei winning the first set 22-20, dropped the second at 14-21, and was on the verge of becoming our country's first ever world champion at 20-19. Alas, Lin Dan made sure he wouldnt be finished off and turned the tables on Chong Wei to win 23-21.

I really do take my hat off to Chong Wei for the brilliant (although admittedly slightly imperfect) game he played tonight, and still managed to hold his nerve in the final set right up to the last points, but perhaps he just cracked a little too much and allowed Lin Dan to take advantage. Otherwise, he definitely deserved to win the title.

It wouldnt be so painful if Chong Wei still had a few years left in him, but now aged 29, at the peak of his fitness level, with news and speculations going around that he may retire after the Olympic Games next year, there may not be another great player that can fill in his place. Just look at the next generation of players, i.e Chan Kwong Beng, Liew Darren, and the mens-doubles-players-whom-I-have-no-idea-what-their-names-are, they've never made any sort of impact that says "Watch out world, we're still here to fight". Have you ever noticed almost every tournament is about depending on Chong Wei (and perhaps Kien Keat-Boon Heong), and nothing about rising youngsters?

There was once a time when Malaysia's football team was also a force to be reckoned with when the likes of Mokthar Dahari, R. Arumugam and Soh Chin Aun took to the field. What has happened since then?

The exact same thing may very well happen with badminton. We once had Wong Choon Han, the Sidek brothers, and now Chong Wei. Given the current condition of our back-up shuttlers, I cant help but wonder will the same fate befall badminton?



:Update:

“I may have lost the opportunity to become the country’s first champion but I am coming back. I will be back in 2013 to get it right,”


Lets hope he does~

Free electricity

So I went to check my mailbox yesterday morning and I saw an enclosed envelope from TNB (I think the rest of you should be getting yours about now). Interesting, I thought that now they mail your bills to you. But what's more interesting was the bill itself:

My first thought was "omgwtfbbq FREE ELECTRICITY! XD", but after some online searching it turns out the government will cover all electric bills worth RM20 or less, and apparently this has been in effect for a few years already. o_O

But looking back at the bill again, sharing the apartment with my brother, how did the bill reach such a ridiculously low level? Our past two bills were RM22 and RM24, and also our daily electric usage wasnt abnormally low. Meter rosak? Hmm......

New updates are available for this blog~

Yehhh I know it's been almost 1 solid month since I last blogged... Couldnt really find much to write about these days. =/

So... after some much needed adjusting to college life and no longer overly thinking about all the rubbish before this, I suppose I've managed to properly settle down here in Subang. 

College life seems to have stabilized I guess, after passing 4 exams already. But still I wont let slack even a little bit; there's a very strong reminder telling me not to do so. Still having to wake up at 6.30 in the morning is still quite the a**e thing for college life though.

Remember when I said I found this group of badminton players that play on Sundays near my place? Well for some unknown reason that session is temporarily unavailable... haih~ But how come their sessions suddenly stopped just when I joined in? Face problem? ><"

My friends gave me some tips about looking for a Buddhist association for my social life-upgrading, and just so happens I found the Subang Jaya Buddhist Youth Association which is near Taylors Subang in SS15. But looking at the website and seeing how extremely out of date it is, I wonder whats the status of the association now... Should go have a walk in during my upcoming sem break soon...

In light of the many expensive exotic and sports cars I've seen running around KL, I'm considering hauling my Spotted™ photos over to my blog and perhaps share some basic information about them (or it can also be because I want to syok sendiri :P).

I've begun to notice I'm having a sharp rise in short-term memory loss... The cases so far involved placing something, somewhere, and then quickly forgetting about said something. Some of the time I manage to remember to retrive them before it's too late, and other times not quite. Once I left my notes in the library before going back, luckily the staff kept it and returned it the next day. Is my brain really beginning to rot? o.<

*End of updates*