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Posts Tagged Life

Of Triplets and Aids

Jul 19

Posted by khensthoth in Government, Malaysia, Penang, Site, Technology, Toot! | No Comments

WARNING: This post may induce uncontrollable urge to write angry emails and to “flame” me.
WARNING: This post may also be controversial. If you are uncomfortable, DO NOT continue reading.

I was reading the news again, when I came across this and this. While most people will feel love and warmth when they read the news, I on the other hand, think otherwise.

Triplets bring joy and hardship

Triplets bring joy and hardship

The first report was dated 18th July. It brings to the attention a couple with five children, including a triplets, and talks about how hard life is going to be now that they have the new triplets.

To the aid of the triplets' parents

The second report is dated today, and it talks about the people feeling good about themselves donating to this couple, and how are different people trying to help them differently. Heck, another Chinese Daily has also reported that three Australians, Melbournians to be exact has decided to support the expenses of the triplets by wiring at least RM350 into the account of the father monthly. They will also encourage their friends and family to donate when they are back in Melbourne.

While I will not dwell with the issue of the age difference between the man and wife, which really is a non-issue here, I really have to comment on their financial planning. A family of four earning a combined household income of RM1500 really has NO BUSINESS reproducing. In fact, I am not even sure the monthly income will be enough to sustain the two older kids through primary, secondary and even tertiary education. We also have to consider that the father is of “retirement age”. How long can he keep up with the same income? How can he cope with rising living expenses?

Haven’t the family heard about proper financial planning, proper family planning, and contraception? They can have all the bodily pleasure they want, but considering their income, they really should not be trying for any more children. People will refute me by saying it’s their right to reproduce, and I will agree completely. However, it’s also their rights and responsibility to make sure they have the income to support any addition to the family.

And what’s with the amount of charity and donation the couple is receiving? What kind of message are we sending here – that if you are poor you can have all the kids you want and people will take care of them for you? If the parents have no means of raising the children, then they should let them go, and let them be adopted. How can one be sure that they will not spend all the donations and aids in one go? When should the aid stop? In fact, what if the aid stops coming suddenly – what next?

That said, I hope the government start thinking seriously about providing family planning session to the people, particularly towards families who are prone to reproduce excessively without considering their financial situation. One of the reasons of poverty is the lack of financial and family planning. Education is the answer to poverty – NOT aid.

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Sire or Sigher?

May 13

Posted by Hean in Toot! | 3 Comments

Have you ever wonder why people sigh? People sigh when they feel down or when they feel stressed. What do we call people who sigh? Sigher.

You know how life is harder and more stressful when we have more responsibility to bear. Just look at little kids, they don’t sigh, since they pretty much don’t have anything to be stressed for. As we grow older, we get more responsibilities and we tend to sigh more.

I think the people who get to most responsibilities are leaders of countries, such as Kings, Queens or Presidents. Not only that they have to be responsible for their own lives, their action can affect everybody in their country. This led to more stress and hence more sighs. They sighed and they sighed, and as time goes by, people started to address them as Sigher. Since this was clearly disrespectful, they changed the spelling to Sire, and this is how the word came about.

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My Subconsciousness SUCK!

May 7

Posted by khensthoth in Toot! | 1 Comment

9.45 a.m. : The alarm rang. I was rudely awaken by the alarm, assuming the alarm has been going on for the pass hour or so. I panicked, my subconscious mind reminded me that I have Genetic Analysis lecture at 10 a.m. It struggles for the next 30 seconds or so, deciding if I should go to the lecture.

9.46 a.m. : I got up of bed, ran to the toilet, do what nature intended me to do at the time. I brushed my teeth, washed my face and poured enormous amount of water over my hair to cover up the fact (to my fellow coursemates) that I have awaken only minutes ago.

9.55 a.m. : I changed into something more presentable, packed my bags, filled my water bottle, which most likely was infused with some kind of bacteria since I did not wash it.

9.59 a.m. : I did not want to sleep or look tired in the lecture, so I made myself a cup coffee which tasted absolutely like TOOT! and poured the disgusting cup of instant coffee down my esophagus.

10.01 a.m. : My subconscious mind constantly reminded myself that I have to get to that lecture by 10.05 a.m., as I darted out of my house and towards the lecture theatre.

10.05 a.m. : I made it, open the door to the lecture hall, and turned my head to see if anyone was there. To my surprise, no one was, not even the students who would normally go there 10 minutes earlier. I sat down, thinking that people will come soon and thus waited.

10.10 a.m. : There was no sign of any visible life form except me. My subconscious mind again struggled to decide if I should go or stay. It still told me that the lecture starts at 10.05 a.m.

10.15 a.m. : I began to feel bored, as no one was there. I was cursing the lecturer for being late, as well as everyone else for not showing up. At the same time, I hoped someone would show up to prove that there is indeed a lecture.

10.20 a.m. : I decided to leave and go to the library at the Architecture Building and use the computer. My conscious mind, guided by my subconscious mind telling me I have a lecture at 10 a.m., began to wonder why everyone didn’t show up.

10.23 a.m. : I checked my email to be sure no emails has been sent announcing the lecture has been canceled, or the lecture venue has changed. I check my Learning Management System (LMS) to see the subject information for Genetic Analysis. I scrolled down to check the venue and confirmed that I was at the right place. I scroll down someone to see the time of the lecture – 11 a.m.

Curse you subconsciousness! Why can’t you think rationally before reminding me that I have a lecture? Why did you assume immediately that the alarm has been ringing for the pass hour when in fact it has JUST began to ring? Why did you think that the lecture was at 10 a.m. at all? You have cost me my precious sleep, and make me look like a complete idiot. Is this your idea of fun? Is it the amount of caffeine I put into my brain everyday causing you to be hyperactive and has no rational thoughts? Is this a revenge?

Curse you. Curse you to TOOT! You suck!

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Social Networking Sites

Apr 29

Posted by khensthoth in Toot! | No Comments

Social Networking Sites refer to those sites which allow you to add friends, on top of whatever function they perform. These sites, such as Friendster, Myspace, Hi5, Tickle, Orkut and TONS more out there, basically allow you to socialise over the internet. Others, such as Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon! lets you to add friends, discover new websites over the internet, and see what other sites people like as well.

Personally I think this is one of the most abused sites on the internet, and this opinion is particularly targeted to the purely social networking sites. I used to login to my Friendster profile everyday, adding new photographs once in a while, approving good testimonials once in several months and checking ridiculous amount of stupid forwarded messages. It used to be okay, until one day I never visit the site anymore.

This is particularly due to the stupidity of some of the people there: People who think messages and birthday wishes is part of testimonial, people who forward messages about how Friendster is going to shut down and delete your account unless you do something. For Science’s sake, Friendster RELY on users to operate. Without the enormous amount of users they have, they will not be able to generate income with the enormous amount of advertisement they put on every page. Things got so bad that I have to put up rules and recommendations on my page, I even have to resort to infringe Friendster’s copyright to create a fake Good Testimonial page to show people what IS testimonial.

All is fine, until today I login to my Friendster’s profile just to see what’s going on. I have long noticed the facelift, but I never anticipated this: Testimonials page is replaced by Testimonials and Comments! What this means is that Friendster realised the stupidity of most of the users and succumbed to the pressure. I would think that Friendster, being a U.S. company, would advocate good English and teach people the REAL meaning of the word Testimonial. I guess I was wrong.

I joined Friendster in January 2004. It has been more than 3 years and I still get an average of 2 GOOD testimonial a year. In order not to offend people, I have to approve testimonials that really belong to the message page.

So, here’s my Friendster Rules and Recommendation:

Being a so called perfectionist means I would appreciate it if you people would stop forwarding junk bulletins. Please do refer to your dictionary for the meaning of the word “Testimonial” and please do not blindly send crappy testimonial to other people. A small brief note about the person worth more than a huge picture made up of characters. Please consider what you are doing and do not flood up the Friendster’s network, or other people’s screen. Thank you very much.

Please Note!

Below are the rules to my friendster profile.

  1. Testimonials are for testimonials. If you do not know what a testimonial is, do not write me one. If you do not know me well enough to write me one, don’t bother. These are some of my good testimonials.
  2. If you just want to drop by and say Hi or wish me happy birthday, I would appreciate it if you use the “Send a Message” function instead. You do not need to let everyone know you send me any wishes.
  3. I would appreciate it if you read the text above.

Should you not be able to comprehend the above rules, please read them again until you do.

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Wisdom Teeth

Apr 25

Posted by Hean in Toot! | 1 Comment

Everybody knows that you don’t really grow wise by having wisdom teeth. They are just some teeth which will grow when you reach a certain age, sometime near your early 20s or so. I keep wondering why nobody calls them “old-age teeth” or “after-teen teeth”, at least.

After looking at the small x-ray film, the dentist told me that my “wisdom” tooth is growing near horizontally rather than vertically. “A lot of people get this problem, and you might have to surgically remove it when it finally grows out.” It kept me thinking, since a lot of people encounter this problem, and obviously it’s painful, shouldn’t we be calling them “pain-in-the-toot teeth” rather than wisdom teeth?

Well, for most people(in the developed and developing countries, at least), life is more or less hehe-haha all the way from childhood to teenage years. Perhaps these pain-in-the-toot teeth are one of the ways Nature teaches us a lesson… as if the other teeth biting your lips when you are eating is not enough… What is the lesson, you may ask. Nobody sums it up better than Monty Python in Life of Brian: Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it.

If you think I am trying to name those teeth “shitty-life teeth”, then you are somewhat correct, but not precisely. Part of growing up is learning that there are a lot of problems that we will have to face in our lives. Part of growing wise is knowing this simple phrase (also from Life of Brian): “Always look on the bright side of life”! Perhaps the person who named them “wisdom teeth” had all his(or her) wisdom teeth growing sideways.

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