Furious anger, much?

So Wendy’s boyfriend Shau saw what I wrote about him late last week. I was wondering at first, “What took him so long?” Heh. But get this, he wasn’t so much angry that I blogged about him as he was angry that she complained about him to me. Me - a friend who has known her longer than he has. Of course she’s gonna complain to me! What does his reaction tell you about him then?

Wendy had seen that post and even commented on it. Her comment said that the reason I may have a bad impression of him was that I only hear the bad stuff from her. Yes, she would be correct. That’s logical ain’t it?

Yesterday I got a scathing email from her saying that she feels betrayed that I wrote about her complaints. Why? Because she and him ended up arguing over it. The impression that I got was that our friendship is now over.

To Wendy …

I wrote the post on Friday night. You were ok with me on Saturday night. You were ok to leave a comment on the post on Monday. But you are not ok with it anymore now that he got angry about it. Basically, you are pissed with me not because I blogged about it, but because he found out. Damn. Surely your feelings of injustice are misplaced? I merely shone a light on what you had told me yourself. If that makes it awkward for the two of you because you now have to deal with the issue of trust, think about this - it was something that you were gonna have to face sooner or later anyway.

I’m not taking back my words. I can’t anyway. This is blogging for you - it’s already out in the ether. Even if I could, I’m still not apologising for it. I wrote what I wrote because believe it or not I feel somewhat responsible - you did meet him through me. From what you have told me, I do not agree with his control over you. But you’ve turned it around now and say that I’ve been too harsh about him because he’s generally nice to you. So why did you complain to me in the first place?!

Here’s my parting advice to you:

To prevent a similar incident like what happened between us from happening again with another friend, try talking more to the person whom you should really be talking to: him. Tell *him* why you are unhappy enough to complain to other people about *your* relationship.

I wish you both the best of luck. If your relationship works out and I’m made to look like an idiot, I’d be the first to admit it. I might even blog about it.

I’ve mentioned in the past about not airing other people’s dirty laundry for fear of losing friends. I’ve violated that rule and I’m suffering the consequences. Now I’m compounding it by blogging about it! Woohoo. Hardcore blogger, yes I am.

Technorati Tags: relationships

Happy Birthday Malaysia.
Happy Birthday Dad.
Happy Birthday Yvonne.
Happy Birthday Reucas.

Meanwhile racial politics in Malaysia continue to be played out on this, the 49th year since independence from the British. Here are a collection of posts from around the Malaysian blogosphere about Merdeka, some sombre and some upbeat:

• Screenshots (Jeff Ooi): Chia: “It’s nonsense to celebrate Merdeka!”
• Lim Kit Siang » A sombre 49th National Day marred by irresponsible race politicking
• About Nude Not Naked: We Are 49 Years Old Now And What Have We Achieved?
• exordinarily ordinary: Tanggal 31 Ogos - Happy Birthday Malaysia
• MonsterBLOG - Of Merdeka Day - Project Happy Malaysia »
• As Suanie Sees It - suanie’s project happy merdeka
• minishorts.net » I’m happy today.

I’d like to be optimistic and say that if one compares another country when it was 49 years old with Malaysia, I don’t think Malaysia is that bad. Yes, it is not that bad but it can be so much better. To be a truly first-world global country, Malaysia needs to get rid of its third-world mentality.

In a multiracial country, no one race needs to lose out so that the others can gain. Unity is strength and divisive racial politics is one huge hurdle slowing the country down. Everyone gains when the economic pie increases, because everyone’s share increases proportionately. Of course there’d still be arguments over how big everyone’s relative share should be, but baby steps yeah?

I may no longer live in Malaysia but I have many friends and family who do. And I identify with it so intrinsically. Even when I eventually become Australian as a formality, I’d be proud to say I have my roots in Malaysia. My birthday wish for Malaysia is to see it achieve first-world status by 2020 as planned and leave all the ugliness behind.

Selamat Hari Merdeka. Selama Hari Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Technorati Tags: Malaysia, Malaysian, Merdeka, racial politics

This is for all you Nam Hyun Joon fans who keep popping by. Yes, that was a pun. The first one is of him in an LG phone commercial and the second one is of him and his crew performing on a street in Korea somewhere. Enjoy!

(via YouTube)

(via YouTube)

Technorati Tags: Nam Hyun Joon, dance, popping

Isn’t this a muuuch better picture than the one Valleywag chose?, originally uploaded by joeywan.

This is Joey Wan who works for Stirr in San Francisco. Stirr does meetups for tech startups and investors and Joey is their PR. She’s just won an arbitrary competition of hotness on Valleywag. It’s not sexist at all because there’s also a competition for the men of Silicon Valley. The male winner is Om Malik of GigaOm - who is not quite as hot as Joey.

I don’t know about you but I haven’t met a hot chick in all my years of working in the tech industry. Neither have I met any whilst studying in uni. Females, yes. Attractive? No.

All the attractive female professionals that I have come across are mostly in the media (graphics, marketing and ad execs), followed by the occasional hot lawyer, accountant or architect.

Are all the pretty girls afraid of mixing it up with the smelly and socially inept geeks in uni? What is it about us that scare you away like that? Luckily for me, I did a double-degree in Commerce and Engineering so I got to socialise with the girls in Commerce. I got to tell ya - they were soooo much better than those in Engineering.

Woohoo!

What were your experiences like in uni? Were there any hot chicks in the science and engineering degrees when you were in uni? Any now? Were you or are you one?

Bonus link: The Frag Dolls (safe for work). Oh yeah.

There was a promo shown last night on TV for A Current Affair which got me quite riled up at first. It was a typical ACA promo - reporter and camera crew going into a non-descript Asian restaurant, hands of the restaurant owner shoving the camera while the reporter says, “Don’t touch the camera. We just want to ask you why you don’t serve Australians?”

The promo served its purpose - it made me wanna watch it, even though I loathe ACA usually for its pandering to the lowest common denominator. My first reaction as someone who had worked in several restaurants and had run one myself was, “What restauranteur would turn away business on the basis of skin colour?” That’s a ludicrous idea. Money is money, the more the better.

So it was with a sense of dread that I sat down to watch it - I thought that they were gonna make the Asians look bad and they were gonna interview some rednecks on the street who will accuse the Asians of being racist amidst cries of “If they don’t like us, they shouldn’t come here in the first place.” Woohoo. It’s gonna be great TV!

And it turned out that the ACA report was quite fair and the reporter was very polite. The restaurant in question is a Korean restaurant in Nelson Bay, NSW which according to the owners only “serve Korean tourists”. When asked why by the reporter, one of them said that they have had problems with “Aussie” customers not liking the food or something. A lame excuse if you asked me. Plus “Aussie” customers are more cosmopolitan than people give them credit for.

In my view the restaurant is limiting their business unnecessarily for a very stupid reason. Sure you get the occasional problematic customers now and again, but they come in *all colours*. The Nelson Bay City Council is already looking into revoking their restaurant license.

The story was ludicrious all right but not for the reason that I had assumed at first. Hey you can’t blame me, ACA has a spotty track record when it comes to issues of race. In this instance however I do approve and agree that the restaurant owners should be punished just so that they know how idiotic they are.

Technorati Tags: Australian, television, multiculturalism, anti-racism

Someday, originally uploaded by diastema.

“Sliced avocado, 5 strips of bacon, 2 eggs over hard, rye toast with a scandalous amount of butter, black coffee, ice cold cherries and fresh-squeezed orange-grapefruit juice. And of course, garnished with Tabasco and aspirin.”

Yes I drank a little too much last night. I managed to get home in one piece thanks to Wendy and Shau. Then I proceeded to throw up twice.

Anyhoo, the food in the picture is one of many cures that some believe will help ease the hangover the next morning. Lifehacker has a good collection of tips too.

For me, the one thing I do when I have had a little too much alcohol is to pop a Berocca in a big glass of water and down a Panadol or two before I go to bed. But the nauseous feeling still doesn’t really go away the next morning, even though the headache is less.

I feel hungry but I can’t keep it down you know?

Share some of your own tips here. It might help me the next time because as we all know, no matter how much we say we are not gonna drink so much next time, we inevitably do.

An old TV ad for the Isuzu Gemini, circa 1980s. This was done before the days of CG and so what you see are real stunt drivers driving real cars, jumping and swerving around real things. Mesmerizing to watch.

(via BestWeekEver)