D.I.Y. Beehive Removal

Listening to: Camera Obscura - Lets Get Out Of This Country



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Yes, its been a busy couple of weeks for me. And yeah, I had to work today. Why do you ask?


What happens one day when you step out and notice a large swarm of bees had made a nice little nest in your garden? What do you do? Call the fire brigade? Well, you could do that...

Or you could do it like these bunch of nuts from SomethingAwful.com, they decided to take matters into their own hands, and...



You know when you have a plan that involves various flammable liquids, its either going to be a tragedy or a lotta laughs...

Marginalize Me, Lah!

Listening to: Nothing


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So I was browsing Malaysiakini today and read a letter by Baki Minuddin. It was a reply to Richard Teo's opinion on the debate on whether the Singaporean Malays were oppressed. Or not.

Now I'm not Malay, or even a Malay in Kiasuland, so I won't make any judgements that the Singaporean Malays are marginalized or otherwise. But what's interesting was Baki's comment on the Malaysian Chinese...

Richard Teo’s No exodus of Malays from S’pore in reply to my S’pore Malays worse of than Chinese here will not convince objective-thinking Chinese who know that from the day their forefathers arrived with the British, their life has been nothing but good except for a little pain during the Japanese occupation.

I suppose the massacre of tens of thousands of Chinese is just a "little pain" for them, no? And way to go! Lets propagate the myth that all Malaysian Chinese have it easy. Ignore the fact that there exists many poor and working-class Chinese who have to struggle daily to feed, clothe, and educate their kids.

At least he didn't claim also that the Indians have it good here... That would be waaaay much harder to back up...


Even more hillarious, he places blame on the Chinese for the social ills of the Malays. Just like how some white supremacists blame 'The Jews' for corrupting impressionable white youth with drugs, alcohol abuse, porn, and rock music...

Thus the Chinese were allowed to go into the ‘kampungs’ to set up their grocery stores, to corrupt the Malays with their ‘555’ debt books, ‘nombor ekor’ and alcohol. The British also made the Malays feel ‘very proud’ to be working as clerks, soldiers, policemen, etc.

And yes, to Mr. Baki Minuddin, the Indonesian Chinese are "persecuted", not persecuted. Even after the discrimination they faced during the Soekarno and Suharto era, and the Jakarta Riots of May 1998.


I recall reading some of Baki's letters in the Utusan before. But I don't recall what they're about, only thing that they weren't really nice. So, I got a little curious and went aboard a time machine called Google...

He's quite an active writer. God bless the Internets:

• Apparently he's forced to accept these races of a different culture and faith...
• A differing view on Independence
• The bangsa asing is taking our women! Do sumthing!
• Another letter about Yasmin Ahmad's Gubra
• Some rapists should just be fined, and some rapes should just be considered "common assault"
• Regarding the Interfaith Commission (IFC) and nonMuslim faiths...
  

Methinks he don't like nonMalays and nonMuslims much...

Fixing An iPod Shuffle's Dented Clip...

Listening to: You're The Man Now Dog!


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The second-generation iPod Shuffle has a clip at its back that lets you hook it onto your shirt/jeans pocket. The Shuffle keeps up to 1Gb of music in a package around the size of… umm.. a postage stamp?

tape Walkman is hungry...!!

A nice compact library of 250 songs in an aluminum case. And aluminum is a soft metal. Which became a problem one day when I sat down in my car, with the Shuffle clipped to the back pocket of my pants. The clip was slightly dented but I only did realize this later when I wanted to connect the iPod to the USB-dock/recharger. I could only fit the device into the groove after a little force was applied…

The bent clip prevents you from easily fitting
the iPod Shuffle into the USB-dock above...

pic courtesy of TychoUnder

And apparently, I’m not the only guy with this problem.

What’s equally bad is clip couldn’t hold firmly to your clothes anymore. So imagine yourself one day… iPod Shuffle with a bent clip on your jeans pocket. And thanks to the bent clip, the iPod comes off your pocket and freely falls towards the hard concrete floor below. Did I mention earlier aluminum is a soft metal…?

I tried bending back the clip with my bare hands, but it was difficult for such large hands to manipulate a tiny object. And the thing with aluminum is, it bends when you don’t want it to, and doesn’t bend when you need it to.

Fortunately, this guy Pete had devised a method to fix his own Shuffle. Following his instructions below…

You’ll need:

1. One butter knife. For Christsakes, use a blunt one!
2. Your iPod
3. A soft piece of wood. My desk makes a good one.

Now place the knife as in the photo below, so the clip is between the wooden surface and the knife.

Apply force (reasonably!) with your hands on both sides of the knife's blade... until the clip is flattened out. You won’t get it totally straight, but enough so you can connect it to the USB-dock and use the clip on your jacket pocket again…

Meanwhile, I need to write a letter to Steve Jobs about this…

And I hope you’re using a BLUNT knife…?

iPods For iJok

Listening to: Nothing


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Just yesterday, I talked to a friend who had gone down there to cover the recent by-election...

from redkid.net + edits

Trenches were being excavated for new power cables, new lamp posts were being erected, and the whole place smelt like an asphalt bunker. Like what I expected...