Rape, Sodomy, Wanton Killings
Thursday, February 24, 2005
I was appalled to read about what happened in our country within a fortnight - Two women were brutally murdered. A 26-year old boutique owner, May Goh Lee Fang, whom almost everyone interviewed said she was very pretty, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in the newly opened The Curve shopping complex. Robbery was ruled out, as her cash was not not taken. She was reported to have been raped, at first. However, recent reports claim that she was not sexually assaulted - I hate to speculate, but I wonder how did the initial claim (that she was raped) came about in the first place? Were the newer reports deliberately made up, to cushion the damage done to our country, especially when Canny Ong's rapist was recently sentenced? A cover-up, perhaps? Okay let's just stop speculating.In another case, a bright 17-year old student, Li Mingqian was found dead and naked in an oil palm plantation. She was a foreign student, from Southwest China's Guizhou Province. In less than two months after her enrolment in a private college, she was raped, sodomized and then killed. Brutal? You bet. Very much similar with the high-profile Canny Ong's rape-cum-murder case, I'd say. The accused in Canny Ong's murder trial was recently given the honor of a "full-tour" in the prison (as my friends say). He was ordered to be given 10 strokes of rotan, a maximum of 20 years of jail term, and a death sentence. That's some combo-sentencing, if you ask me. By the way, a friend actually wondered which comes first, the jail or the death sentence. He won't be needing the jail sentence if he were to be hung first now, will he?
If only that sort of punishment scares other would-be sex offenders. I wonder if the rapist(s) of 17 year old Li (she might have been gang-raped) knew about these punishments. If he is (or they are) caught, it'd be apt if he (or they) get(s) the same punishments. The rape, sodomy and murder of Chinese student Li have tarnished the image of our country terribly. The authorities were heard saying that this was only "an isolated case". Mr Authority, we Malaysians certainly hope so too. But sadly, with the string of events that hit our country in recent months, Malaysia may no longer be an obvious choice for foreign students. Certainly, more needs to be done to curb these sex-offenders.
What world are we living in? What's the problem? Is it the people, or is it the law? Months ago, I remember telling my friends "Malaysia is no longer a safe place". Now, recent news reports seem to justify that.
My deepest condolences go to the family members of the dead.
How To Reinstall Blogger Commenting
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
I created a new account a few days ago, to do some testing, trials and errors, while reinstalling my Blogger commenting. I wanted to see how the original Blogger commenting HTML codes looked like. Silly me, I could've easily gone to Blogger's help pages (I just did, prior to this blog), and everything was available there. I summarized it, added some explanations and "colours" to improve clarity. Nevertheless, that new account still proved useful cuz I'm now using it for this particular blog entry (on how to reinstall your Blogger commenting system). Due to the excessive raw HTML codes (the ones that are meant to show you - instead of to be "processed"), I found it much easier to create the post in MS Frontpage. However, after copying and pasting into my blog's (Living Gem) "New Post", it turned out that most of the HTML codes have gone haywire. Some lines exceeded the allocated width of my text area, and "poked" through my sidebar. (Trust me, you wouldn't wanna see that. It was messy!). As such, I copied the whole HTML thingy into my experimental account instead. So today's update can be viewed on this page. No feedbacks or comments can be made there, so drop 'em all in here. Btw, in case you might ask, "newwaveform" is not a strange term especially in my field of study. It randomly spilled out of my mind.
Blogger's Vs Haloscan's Commenting System
Sunday, February 20, 2005
I made some changes to Living Gem - included the Blogger commenting system in addition to my existing Haloscan one (*smacks self* - regret taking away the original Blogger's commenting system in the first place). My decision to include Blogger's version was initiated after reading Mdmafia's recent posts - where she expressed concern over her missing old comments. Personally, comments on my blog mean alot to me - I believe the same applies to most bloggers out there. In case you haven't known, Haloscan archives your comments for posts older than 4 months. You won't be able to see them unless you make some payment - in form of donations (and your account will be upgraded). I'm not sure of the amount, you can visit Haloscan's site for more info.This is nothing new, I think. It is not a recent policy-change whatsoever. I think it has been like that all along. It is only me who learnt about it just over a fortnight ago (5xmom also mentioned it in her Feb 10 post). Being the ultra-freeloader that I am, I do not make online transactions - Heck, I don't even have my own credit card. Also, Haloscan displays "(0) Comments" for older posts (not as old as 4 months lah - Cuz that'd warrant archiving already), even though there are comments. You may still click on "(0) Comments" to view the comments. Now you see, there's no free lunch in this world. As freeloaders, we've to constantly seek alternatives :p
I don't know if Blogger's commenting system is the perfect choice - Cuz I don't know whether they archive comments (like the Haloscan guys do) or not. Anyone, don't mind, share some info, please? I know there're other commenting systems out there, but somehow Blogger's seemed to be my first obvious alternative. I spent the last hour modifying the code, adding tags and checking for XHTML validity. I am still keeping my Haloscan commenting system, cuz I don't wanna lose the old comments *yet*. Right now, it remains a choice: You take your pick (if you intend to drop a comment, that is).
Buying my own domain and webspace is not feasible - Like I said, I'm credit card-less. Besides, I'm not some big-time, fulltime blogger. Blogging is just my pastime. By the way, Blogger's commenting system isn't at all bad - In fact, it's so darn cool that it allows a pop-up comment window, similar to Haloscan's. It also allows profile pictures to be displayed, one for each Blogger commentor. I saw Buaya's profile pic in one of the blogs I read, it was an animated "69", next to the comment he made. IMHO, the Blogger guys (aka the Google guys?) are edging Haloscan already. Next up, perhaps a Trackback feature by Blogger as well?
If you haven't noticed how cool Blogger's commenting system is now (a recent upgrade, actually), try it!
CNY Reunion Dinner With Adam Cheng
Thursday, February 10, 2005
After spending a few days away from home, I began to miss home. We were supposed to be home after lunch today, but decided to drop by and my grandparents'. We ended up spending almost the entire afternoon there - which was great (*$-$*, you know what I'm talking about!). My lil cousins were there - they're the most adorable toddlers I've ever seen! The elder one is in kindergarten already - she is smart, very bright, very cute, is not afraid of other people, quiet when she's supposed to, but speaks all the right things when someone asks (sometimes I think she has quite a matured mentality!). Grrr *geram*.I was having a dinner in Genting, with performances by Adam Cheng (Cheng Siu Chow - é„少秋), the guy who acted in numerous TVB series for decades. He sang, danced, played the piano, and joked pretty well - very, very entertaining, if you ask me. Despite the old songs, watching him sang live was really something different - I enjoyed his performance thoroughly! Mom said that the show would be incomplete without him singing the song from one of his most popular drama series, Chor Lau Heong. I managed to take some photos - Pardon me for the poor photography. ;p
This was the view from our table - The only obvious image of him in the picture is on the backdrop ;p He hadn't walked up stage yet!
There, two giant screens at both sides of the stage. A young woman walked up to the stage and gave him some prezzie :D Throughout the show, quite a number of fans had actually gone up stage to give him presents and flowers - Most of them requested for a photoshoot.
Tried to zoom in on him - Check out the white suit! Sweeet!
This pic was taken when he walked off stage and shook hands with the audience - while belting out a song. If you've watched HK concerts before, you should be familiar with such a practice.
Adam was talking to his audience during one of the intervals. This guy, I tell ya, he was an all-rounder lah. I've watched some of his dramas before - many many years back when I was younger. Little did I know that he could also sing and dance.
The grand ballroom of GICC (Genting International Convention Center) after the show.
Outside the GICC.
During one of his songs, he invited a decent, good lookin' young lady up on stage to accompany him. It was Unchained Melody, the English love theme from "Ghost" - and boy his rendition was AWESOME! The tune... the lyric... the invitee (*ahem*)... the feel... It was just great lah.
I managed to record about 10MB of Adam singing Chor Lau Heong (the last, most anticipated song of the night) - the video is available for 7 days (or expires after 25 downloads) on yousendit.com servers. Here's the file - for those who're interested! :)
Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!
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