Take a stand.

This is a strange post for me to be making since I sometimes avoid taking stands, but I'm doing it anyway. Feel free to call me a hypocrite.

I really get annoyed when I read articles that ramble on and on and never actually try to do anything. Every respectable publication I have read has articles that are written with a purpose in mind. There is a point to the piece, and depending on the skill of the writer, they will either make their point, or not. Ultimately, they are trying to do something, maybe tell a joke or a story, if it was one of those light hearted columns.

But I do come across articles that are a collection of facts, and nothing more. It really pissed me off because I feel cheated at the end of the article. I end up scratching my head and asking myself why I read the damned thing in the first place. I dunno why the authors do that. Are they inherently ignorant about the pointlessness of the article or are they intentionally trying to agitate people? Or are they just trying to show that they are aware of the issues, just like every one else out there. Or it could be that they have an opinion, but just to fucking pussy to state what it is. If you are so bloody scared, then keep your opinions to yourself or tell it to someone who won't cross-examine you. Don't put your readers through the the very painful experience of reading something that is designed to achieve nothing.

Lets fighting love.

Michael walked slowly, enjoying the balmy air in his face. He was in a world of his own, his place of refuge for the past few months. The familiar pop-rock tunes that played from his i-pod made his separation from the rest of the world even more complete. It was just him, the road, and his thoughts.

He decided to take his usual path home, past the shophouses and into the alley. It was the shortest way back home, and easily the most secluded. “Wanting to be alone isn’t such a bad thing,” he told himself.

Nodding his head slightly to the tune of the electric guitar, he turned into the dark path, hands in his pockets as he walked. He noticed a couple walking in the same alley, and wondered for a while. The backlane isn’t the most romantic of places and fairly dangerous at night. A bit unusual for them to be walking there. He then noticed that the silhouette of the girl was strangely familiar. Squinting hard, he started to make out the features of the girl.

It was her. Just the sight of her opened the floodgates and released a torrent of emotion. Admiration, revulsion, hatred, affection, sadness, jealousy inundated him at once. She was already with someone new. How was that possible? His logical faculties were trying very hard to remind him that he lived in a free country, and she could go out with anyone that she bloody well pleases, but he wasn’t listening. He was being irrationally possessive and was quite unapologetic about it. They were walking with their backs facing him, so they didn’t see him. He was about to turn around and take another route when he saw a movement in the shadows. He froze.

Suddenly, a lithe figure in a ninja suit scampered out and headed straight for the couple. Before he could shout a warning, the ninja was already upon them, blade drawn and ready to strike. The hilt of the sword connected sharply with the boy’s head, knocking him out. He fell heavily onto the ground, collapsing into a heap of motionless muscle mass. She screamed and started backing away, but the ninja was far too fast. Sticking his leg out, he tripped her as she started breaking into a run.

She turned around and lay on her back, hands propping her upper body up. It was at that point that Michael got over the shock of the attack and responded. Giving the most blood-curling war cry he could manage, he charged the suited ninja down. Something told him that was a bad idea, but he didn’t really care at that point. He had to save her.

Mildly surprised, the ninja turned to face him. Michael kept running, his shoulder lowered in anticipation of the eventual impact. His attack never connected. Deftly sidestepping the attack, the ninja raised his palm and smacked Michael across the forehead. His momentum working against him, Michael flipped backwards, landing on his back with a sickening crunch.

The ninja raised his fist and was about to knock Michael out when he froze. The clenched fist slowly opened and the tense battle posture he was keeping relaxed considerably. “What the fuck?” the ninja asked.

Something had confused the ninja, and Michael had no idea what it was. The self-assured confidence that the ninja had before this was all but gone, the slump in his shoulder making that fact quite evident. The ninja took a step back and took his mask off. Illumination was scarce in the alley, but Michael could make out the face of his adversary.

The ninja looked just like him. Their faces were completely identical, and Michael had no twins. Even their voices were the same. In the face of such a revelation, “what the fuck” suddenly seemed like a complete understatement. The two of them stared at one another, trying to make some sense out of the situation. Silence.

The scraping of gravel against shoes snapped the two of them out of their trance. She was on her feet again, stumbling ahead in an effort to leave the madness behind. If she was hoping that the confusion would allow her to escape, she had been quite mistaken. Drawing a throwing star from the hidden fold of his sleeves, he threw the weapon at his fleeing target. The projectile spun viciously in the air and sunk its teeth into her calves. Screaming in pain, she collapsed to the ground.

“Will you stop hurting her?” Michael screamed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

The ninja turned to face him. “You are me and I am you. If that were true, you know as well as I do that she deserves much worse than what she is getting right now,” the ninja replied.

“What? You are going to torture and kill her? Is that it? You think that will solve anything at all?”

“Well, yes actually. Judging from the frequency of the screw ups, I’d say that I am going to save a lot of people a lot of trouble in the future if I kill her.”

“Right. The vigilante guardian of morality. Who the hell told you that you had the authority to be the one meting out punishment?”

“A simple principle of consistency. An act of malice, be it intentional or not is punished by law. The careless driver never intended to run his victim over, but he is still charged with manslaughter. Emotional abuse is punished, even when the victim is unwittingly abused. But it never applies for the crimes that she has committed. People like her get away scot free all the time. If ignorance was a valid excuse, then I might have reconsidered, but in this case it certainly isn’t. She knows, but because she doesn’t want to deal with it, she pretends like nothing ever happened. That cannot be ignored or forgiven. Its selfish to the core, and for some reason, no one ever sees this act of evil for what it is. ”

Michael had heard all of this before. It had played over and over again in his head and he didn’t want to think about it anymore. It always gave him a headache. He buried his face into his hands.

“Now if you will excuse me, I have some unfinished business to attend to,” said the ninja.

“I won’t let you do it.”

“You can try to stop me, but I assure you, it wouldn’t really change anything.”

Screaming like a maniac, Michael flung himself at the ninja. This time, the ninja wasn’t in the mood for games. He was resigned to the fact that collateral damage was inevitable. Sighing a long sigh, he raised his weapon and slashed. The sword bit into Michael, shearing muscle and bone alike. The blow was struck to kill, and it achieved its purpose. The two halves on Michael’s body slumped into a bloody pool of severed organs.

“I never knew that I was that stupid,” the ninja said to himself.

Turning to face the girl, he started walking. She had curled herself into a ball, whimpering and sobbing. The ninja shook his head.

“You probably think you don’t deserve this, but you do. It has to be done. You are too dangerous to set loose upon civilized society, or any society for that matter.”

She buried her face into her knees, wailing for mercy. She never saw the katana as it came screaming down onto her.

Football and Malaysia.

I was initially tempted to write something about Pottermania, but figured that its probably not going to be anything more than a cynical swipe at the wizard. (and 'll end up pissing off more than a good portion of the HP fans out there) So I decided to weigh in instead on something that Malaysians are still smarting about. Our dismal performance at the Asian Cup.

The usual uproar ensued after the Uzbek defeat and to be honest, I'm quite tired of hearing those theories. Everytime we fare badly (which is very often), article after article will be written about what needs to be changed. Yet nothing ever changes.

The decline of Malaysian football is really just a representation of Malaysian sports in general. We have never won an Olympic gold medal. And its quite painfully obvious that the Malaysians who do succeed make it in spite of the system that they have been through. Think Nicol David and Karamjit Singh. Nicol had her parents to drive her against the current of general discouragement from the Malaysian system while Karamjit eventually retired because he couldn't get sponsors despite being a world champion.

Our problems lie in school. Every single one of my friends have an identical physical education experience. PJ time arrives and the boys change, grab a ball and go have a kick about. The girls change (some don't bother) and sit under a tree and chat the half hour away. Ask any one of them about anything beyond a casual muck about on the field and you get a firm no. Studies first.

The problem is that no one even asks the question in the first place. PJK teachers are normally majors is something else and are given PJK to fill their quotas. They couldn't care less about the sporting reputation of the school. They have no ability or interest in training the students in any sport they may have interest in.

Some schools have one, maybe two teachers who take physical education seriously. But these teachers normally give up hope after a while, in the face of parental protest when they approach potential athletes about representing the school. Sports is painfully low on our lists of priorities.

School administration makes things even worse. All that matters to ambitious headmasters is the number of A students they can produce. Its the fastest way to get into the Ministry. So when the Biology teacher asks to take the PJK periods for a few extra classes, there is never any resistance. Physical education is expendable. As is art and craft, but thats another issue altogether.

We suck, and everytime that fact becomes apparent, the finger pointing starts. Maybe its time to start taking an honest look at ourselves and see the answers that are staring us in the face. If we are not willing to pay the price for sporting excellence, then we should stop bitching when we come up short.

We can't blatantly ignore sports development and then expect wonders to happen. Token support doesn't count. Proudly proclaiming that our senior squads will get lots of money when they succeed will only get us so far.

The future of motoring.

Oil prices are high, driving is going to become expensive really soon. Thats what we can safely assume from what has been happening lately. I was just flipping through the Top Gear Malaysia magazine when I saw an article about the Tesla. I heard about it some time ago, and they had managed to build a decent car that runs on electricity. I stopped following the developments, and suddenly I find out that they are going to launch a 30,000 pound sterling family sedan by 2009. And this car is supposed to be able to rival every other car out there on more than the novelty factor.

That in itself is quite an achievement, but when I looked at the stats that the Tesla roadster (the only Tesla available on the market right now) has been posting, I was quite stunned. 0-60 mph in less than 5 seconds, and if you factor in mileage based on the electricity that you derive from burning fossil fuels, you get well over 100miles per gallon. Thats at least double the Toyota Prius. And here's the kicker. A range of 250 miles. In urban driving situations, thats plenty.

But I figuired that the electric car will be less appealing to long distance drivers. After all, charging takes time, and I don't think people want to spend a few hours refeuling. I suddenly remembered something that the real Tesla (as in the inventor) tried to do, and recently has become reality. Wireless power transmission. It might not make it into reality in my lifetime, but I can imagine cars being charged while they are being driven. Imagine that. Infinite range for your car. Of course that would mean having remote charging stations built all along the roads, constantly emmiting energy to the cars that pay for it. Sounds like fantasy, but one can dream.

Plus, Lotus has helped develop what it claims to be a car that can go 350 miles without recharging, and it takes 10 minutes to go from flat to fully charged. Bloody impressive.

People are still debating the fuel that is going to take petrol's place. Some think that hydrogen fuel cells will work. Some like ethanol. My money is firmly on electric cars.

Stubborn.

The monotonous bleeping of medical equipment was the only thing that broke the silence in the room. He lay in his bed, feeling somewhat agitated. He was still in confinement and he didn’t know why. The doctors had very specific orders. Don’t get out of bed.

It all didn’t make any sense to him. He felt fine. There really wasn’t any reason not to move about, and he was bored. A person can only sleep and watch TV for so long. And the longer he spent in bed, the more he thought about the circumstances that brought him to where he was.

Most people didn’t believe it when they were told about what had happened. He was always so careful, and he took so few risks. When he finally did venture out of his little sphere of protection, he paid the price he always feared that he would have to pay.

He half expected himself to regret the decision and cocoon himself again. If you spend your whole life being cautious and the very thing that instinct tells you not to do bites you in the head, then you do have a right to become cynical and unforgiving.

Surprisingly, he didn’t. He didn’t feel sorry, and actually believed himself when he said that the entire ordeal was worth it. But whatever positive thoughts he could glean didn’t make him any less annoyed at being stuck in bed. He checked himself over again. He had done that about a million times already, and he could never see the wound that the doctors said would burst open if he got out of bed. As much as he had faith in modern medicine, he was starting to think that the doctor didn’t really know what he was doing. He had read his fair share of literature on human anatomy, and the doctor’s orders didn’t make any sense to him.

“Fuck it,” he said aloud. He pulled off the sheets that covered him and shuffled to the edge of the bed. It was at that point that he heard the doctor’s deep voice in his head. It was clinical and emotionless as always. “I’ve told you more than once. You are not ready. I spent a lot of time patching you up. I’d hate to go back to square one again.”

“I can’t stay any longer, doc. I’m healed already. I’ll be fine.”

He could almost hear the doctor roll his eyes. “Everybody is a doctor nowadays. To do this is a risk, and to warn you is my job. I have already done that. I wish you good luck.” The voice faded away.

He took a deep breath and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Nothing happened. So far so good. Sliding across the bed sheet, he moved ever so slowly towards the floor. His toes touched the floor. Still nothing happened.

Gaining confidence, he applied his weight onto his foot, fully expecting his legs to be able to support his weight. They did, but he certainly didn’t count on his closed wound across the stomach splitting open.

The pain was back. If he wasn’t already gutted, the pain would have gutted him. He couldn’t quite think of an analogy that would accurately describe the white hot burning on his abdomen. Slowly, he curled himself up into a ball, screaming an agony as the severed muscles contracted. He wanted to die at that point.

Just as he was about to pass out, the door slid open and the doctor entered with the rest of his medical team. The doctor looked at him for two seconds, shook his head and sighed his disapproving sigh. “Bloody idiot. I told him. No one ever listens.”

At the doctor’s signal, the medical team hoisted him back onto the bed and started working on fix him.