My Adventure of Watching the (Babes at the) Olympics

Once upon a time, there was this global sporting event called the Olympics. It wasn’t really any different from any other global sporting event like the Asian games or even the Commonwealth games. One special difference between the former and the latter two is that it wasn’t geographical limited to the specified countries in that particular continent or colonial history.

No, this particular global sporting event is participated by the who’s who of the sporting world. And winning a medal is a really big thing. Another interesting aspect of the Olympiad is that I find myself hooked on the telly, watching Table Tennis or Weightlifting for 2 hours straight, fascinated by these phenoms, performing at the very top of their sporting field.

And the female athletes are not that half bad either.

So, in keep with tradition of this blog, I present to you the Top 5 Hottest female athletes competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Oh, an additional prerequisite is that they are champions in their own events. It doesn’t do to be pretty but suck at your sporting field like a certain Mrs. Enrique Iglesias.

#5 Ekaterina Gamova, Volleyball, Russia

She’s tall. Even for my standards.

Thank god that not all 2m tall people are ugly as Peter Crouch.

Meet Ekaterina. She blocks. She spikes. And in a team with loads of other blond Russian bombshells, standing out is quite an effort, but she does it effortlessly.  I look on with envy every time her teammates pat her butt when their team wins a point. Lucky cows!

#4 Britta Steffen, Swimming, Germany

Why her? Well, she one of the few female swimmers who doesn’t have broader shoulders than me or your uncle. And she’s cute too. In a game conquered by the Americans, Britta quietly went about her swimming to win the 100-meter freestyle in superb fashion.

#3 Stephanie Rice, Swimming, Australia

All menfolk rejoiced when she decided to call it quits with fellow Australian swimmer, Eamon Sullivan. In the pool,  Stephanie terrorized it the same way she does with men’s hearts by winning 3 gold medals in the 400m and 200m individual medleys and the team’s 4 X 200m freestyle relay.

#2 Sandra Izbasa, Artistic Gymnastics, Romania

You have to admit. Shawn Johnson looks like a chipmunk. And don’t get me started on the Chinese gymnasts. Being Romanian, a gold medal in gymnastics is a MUST. It’s their god given right or something.

Sandra’s  style, prose and execution in the Individual Floor Event was just awesome. The judges would have to be blind or retarded not to have awarded her first place. I had to remind myself to close my mouth during her performance.

#1. Yelena Izinbayeva, Pole Vault, Russian

Come on. She has to be in here. The darling of the track and field, Yelena was too damn good that she could afford to snooze off when everyone was trying to bloody qualify for each height. She took 2 attempts to win the gold and another 3 to break her own record. Easy peasy. And her penhance of wearing those running tights one size smaller helped our eyes as well. And her abs are not too bad either.

And not forgetting a special mention to the Venezuelan Volleyball Women’s team, US goalkeeper Hope Solo, US Softball pitcher Jenny Finch, Spanish Gymnast Almudena Cid, and the two Brazilian beach volleyball duo, Talita Antunes and Renata Ribeiro.

The New Wildlife Times Issue 3

This is not a picture of ‘Jim’, although it is a picture of marine life which is abundant in and near reefs. This is a shameless plugging of the photographer who went on a 2 month European backpacking trip but didn’t bring back anything for me. Ceh!

I would like to tell you the story of Jim.

Jim was different from any other ‘Jims’ in the world. For one, Jim, is a sea polyp. And Jim, along with about a million or so of his buddies like to build. No, they don’t build condos, or crooked bridges but instead they build reefs. Now, the work that Jim and his buddies does is one of the most important construction projects in the world. Forget KLCC or the Penang bridge or airports on environmental sensitive islands, what Jim and his buddies build sustain the millions of life in the world’s ocean.

Without Jim and his buddies, the world’s ocean is pretty much screwed. Because without Jim and his buddies, there would be no life at all in our oceans. And where would you get your ikan kerapu masak sweet and sour then? All the Awe To Ye would be put out of business!

Unfortunately, Jim and his buddies are in real trouble because this charming reporter has found out that according to a recent survey by a bunch of marine biologists, Jim and his buddies may face extinction real soon, ikan kerapu masak sweet and sour et al.

So being the rugged reporter that he is, he was able to get hold of Jim, along with a few of his neighbours, namely Bob, the Scottish Sea Cucumber and Tina, the East London Nudibranch.

“It is hotter noo. It wisnae loch these afair.” said Bob in his thick Scottish brogue, which probably meant ‘It is hotter now, and it wasn’t like this before’ or ‘I like to play with big logs and wear kilts without undies’, depending on the situation.

“Ye can squirtt noo mair water it tay me.. Noo swatch,” he added, with this reporter guessing that he was saying, ‘You can squirt no more water out of me’, which was probably correct as Bob proceeded to prove his point by squeezing himself which resulted in a few droplets of sea water came out of his arse.

As the reporter was trying to decipher the crap, Tina, the East London Nudibranch quiped,

“Hit iz da rise in da sea temperature, innit? Hit due to higha carbon emissions wit result in da increase in termperature, innit?”

“It is the rise in sea temperature due to higher carbon emission which resulted in an increase in temperature?” I asked.

“Dat iz wat I said, innit?“, replied Tine looking at me incredulously, adjusting her woolen cap so it sits in a 45% degrees angle.

Thinking that he’ll get a more coherent answer from the Jim, this charming reporter inquired with the sea anemone-like polyp of the findings made by the recent IUCN global coral assessment.

“ T’ results o’ dis study is reeight disconcertin,” Jim replied in his best Yorkshire accent.

Yes well, he had to be from Leeds.

“When corals dee off, sa doa tutheur plants ‘n animals ‘a’ depen’ on coral reefs for scran ‘n shelta, ‘n dis can lead teur t’ collapse o’ entire ecosystems.”

So, in conclusion, you can go here for a more coherent report because I have no bloody idea what this lot are talking about.

My Diurnal Escapade in Kota Damansara Nature Park

My Adventure of Teaching Scouse

Hello.

Today, the rugged chap with the charming personality will continue your education in speaking proper English. So, he’s going to tell you a story. It’s not that different of a story from the other charming stories he has told previously, but equally important nonetheless. Perhaps, it is the most important story that you may ever hear.

Once upon a time, there exist a city situated along the Merseyside river in the north-westerly part of Jolly Olde England. This city is remarkably different from any other city in the British Isles. For one, it used to be one of the most important shipping ports in the British Empire. Secondly, it is the birthplace of many great talents; entertainment and football-wise.

Some of its favorite sons who have called this city their home include a certain Fab Four; John, Paul, Ringo and George. Not to be outdone, other notable figures in English football were born and bred from this great city; Steven, Robbie, Jamie, Michael and err.. Stevie too.

However, with other famous cities, they have had their fair share of black sheeps, which includes that granny-shagger Wayne Rooney and that cow, Kim Cattrall. It would be ironic to know that Ms. Sux in the City is probably old enough to be shagged by the Troll and depressingly enough, if he does, it would indeed be a step-up from Colleen.

Speaking of the great game though, the most IMPORTANT FACT of all, this city is home to the greatest football team in the WHOLE WORLD, Liverpool FC. We shall not even mention anything about the ‘other’ team though. They are not worth it.

Most recently, this year, the city was named the European Capital of Culture, (Yes, culture.. something that those peasants from Manchester wouldn’t know anything about) to add to the 5 TIMES! European Champions League title held by Liverpool FC.

Now, it is here in this great city, that their accent and pronunciations are wee bit different and the people talk a bit differently to0. The people who live in the city are called Liverpudlians or more lovingly termed as ‘Scousers’. It is well known though, that ‘Scouse’ is a term derived from “Lobskaus”, a sailor (of Scandinavian origins) favorite dish of stewed meat, vegetables, and ship’s biscuit. Thus, over the years, most of the people in the city were eating it and they have been called Scousers ever since.

These Scousers who live in the city of Liverpool are in general, welcoming, fun-loving, hardworking and a talented breed of people. Unfortunately, due to some stereotyping by some idiots, Scousers are made known to be crooks, scum and hub-cap stealer, which is all of course utter bollocks!

(9’s Note: You pricks from Manchester, why don’t you bloody get a bleedin’ job and stop bitching about a place you can’t afford to go because you’re unemployed, have a drink problem and live off permanently on welfare).

Anyways, if one day you happened to find yourselves in Liverpool, and have trouble communicating with the local populace (you might find yourself asking Jamie Carragher for directions, you never know), no worries, here are the more popular phrases which you might come across.

We do dat doe, dont we doe?

It is an affirmative to a question. Basically, a Scouser would reply with this to agree with something one of his mates said. In the Queen’s english, it would be ‘I couldn’t agree with you more’. For example;

Scouser 1: We scousers ay easy peasy go’n and always up fe a tuch.

Scouser 2: We do dat doe, don’t we doe?

La

Just put it at the end of every sentence and use it to end a remark or a sentence. Different from our own Lah, as we use ours mostly as an exclamation and a question.

We ‘uv a gaffer fewtee team, De red one o’ cose, la.

Calm down!, Calm down!

Since Scousers are a fun and easy-going bunch, they always try not to make such a big deal of anything and are constantly calming people down when the need arises.

Scouser 1: Fuck it! We ay tree nil down at alf-time to Meelann.

Scouser 2: Calm down, Calm down. Dun worry, Stevie G wul get dem bach in de second.

Oh, and not forgetting to pronounce all words ending with {ck} as {ch}, as in; back to ‘bach’, sack to ’sach’ or rack to ‘rach’. Have that phlegm at the “bach” of your throat going.

Hope this helps. So, good luck and happy Scousing.

The New Wildlife Times Issue 2

26 June 2008

Aloq Setaq, Pulun-Kedah-Pulun

The new Kedah Menter Besar has shown that he is such a bloody brilliant individual, industrious, and a visionary to boot too. He has continued to defy his critics, especially the ones from his own coalition, by being defiant and is proposing to cut down more trees in the Ulu Muda forest reserve to generate income for more development in the state.

Even if by some miracle, the Federal Government, find their conscience (which might have been misplaced and sitting quietly in a broom closet in PWTC, or have their souls returned to them by the devil, and decides to pay the RM100 million compensation owed to the state, Azizan was still adamant to cut the trees down.

Azizan told his critics that they should not be too obsessed with caring for the environment “like parents who are extremely obsessed with their offspring”.

“The child is so pampered that he does not need to go to school. The child does not want to leave home.

It seems that his brilliance knows no bounds, as he adds,

“This is like our forest. We are too obsessed with preserving the trees that we don’t cut them.We leave the trees till they get old and rot. The trees die and fall and affect the growth of others.”

He then ended the interview by saying,

“I like to wear my underpants on my head and run around in it like a demented chicken too.”

This charming reporter is unable to confirm however, if Azizan sees either little fairies at the bottom of his garden or when he is returning to his home planet, Ping Pong.

The New Wildife Times Issue 1

June 8, 2008

Kg London, Ulu Kenaboi, Negeri Sembilan

It seemed that the uncertainty of the fate for the 250,000 long-tailed macaque living in our neighborhoods are safe. The Cabinet has reinstated the export ban on the protected ‘urban’ monkeys, and has allowed our furry, long-tailed friends to continue to live near our neighborhoods.

In a decision last month. Malaysian Ozone Layer and Greenie Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah Embas said:

“The decision was taken to reverse the earlier lifting of the ban after considering the arguments and views of the various groups. A Cabinet paper on how to tackle the human-macaque conflict, especially in the urban areas, was submitted and approved as well.”

Tree huggers and animal lovers, who had taken time to unwrap themselves from their continuous hugging of their respective flora and fauna, had taken arms over the lifting of the ban last June by former Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid who had reccomended that the 23 year old ban be lifted, citing that the monkeys had a tendency to steal sattelite dishes and vehicle registration plates, as they lived in small pockets of forests in the cities and near residential areas.

When contacted, Arash, the president of the Macaque Association of Wilayah (MAWI), Bukit Kiara branch, had this to say,

“We are not happy with the decision. We were promised a free trip to overseas. Now, we have to stay here in Bukit Kiara, pillaging rubbish bins, disturbing joggers and that nice lady selling Jenny Tau Foo Fa .”

This reporter, rugged and charming that he is, has learnt that the ‘free trip’ mentioned by Encik Arash, was in fact made by a company which sold and export monkeys to satisfy the needs for the exotic food demand in the East and laboratory needs in the West. The monkeys were held at the exporter’s facility in Ulu Piah, Perak, pending shipment.

According to Wildlife Department’s statistics, one-third of the country’s 742,000 long-tailed macaque in the country are found in city areas, including Kuala Lumpur, with the main focus on habitat range being Taman Connaught, Taman Paramount, Taman Desa, Sungai Buloh and wherever the hell Antyyk lives.

My Adventure of Entering a Competition

One fine morning, the rugged chap with the charming personality woke up and thought, I haven’t won anything nor have someone given me something for free in ages, have I? He had thought that the situation was uncalled for, not too mention being ethically and morally wrong. How could his rugged and charming self not win contests left and right or being given freebies on a daily basis?

Shaking his head to the injustice in the world, our protagonist then proceeded to take matters into his own hand by entering this, which the good people from the All Malaysian Bloggers Project had specifically organized to allow our rugged chap with the charming personality to win. How nice.

“Not All Angels Are Descendants Of Heaven.”

My Adventure of Teaching (advanced) English 1.1

The rugged chap with the charming personality had promised more advanced lessons on the proper usage of the English language, irregardless (sic) whether people wanted to learn or not. But being the rugged and charming person that he is, he would still carry out what he had promised because thats what charming people do and also for the fact that good looking chaps like him can get away with anything.

“Innit”

‘Innit’ is a shortened version of ‘is it not’ or ‘isn’t it’. But how did it come about in the first place, to be used so indiscriminately and erroneously by certain bloggers? Well, one day, not too long ago, about the time when the price of petrol was only RM1.10 per liter *sigh*, there were these enterprising group of individuals who call themselves the Chavs.

Now, these Chavs were not your ordinary tax-paying citizen, paying RM2.70 per liter of petrol. No, in fact it was rumored that they did not pay tax at all nor paid RM2.70 per liter for petrol. They can mostly be found loitering in the London area of Fulham Road and Holloway, where they spend all day long disturbing passersby near the town centers and harassing the general public, and basically making a bloody nuisance of themselves.

They think themselves as hard as nails, ready to get stuck-in with anyone and anytime. But fortunately for the average tax-paying citizen, paying RM2.70 per liter for petrol, the Chavs’ hard image was just a display and when confronted will normally leg-it. Note: There was also rumors of Chavs in the Merseyside area. This, unfortunetaly was true but these Chavs are mostly oncentrated near the Goodison road area.

Now, a Chav is easy to spot. They would usually be decked out, from head to toe in the best imitations (usually Adidas or Burberry tracksuits) and would also have a baseball cap on which they wore at a slightly angular 90 degrees level. And not forgetting their precious bling. No, you couldn’t catch a Chav without his precious bling, so much so that it would make even Mr. T proud.

Another important aspect of the Chavs is that they are thought to have a reputation of being creative with public property and motor vehicles in general. This would entail, exhaustively but not limited to providing us with their supposed funny artwork painted on toilet walls, bus stops, or the walls of shops, probably in an effort to ease our boredom while we were either urinating, waiting for the bus, or on the way to get a Cornetto.

The Chavs, in their imitation Burberry tracksuits, whilst defacing public property and making a public nuisance of themselves has *surprise, surprise* only limited knowledge of English and will tend to avoid or dissuade the use of words they can’t spell (which is 99.9% words of the dictionary) nor properly pronounce, even to the extent of creating new words only they know the meaning of.

‘Innit’ is one of those.

In the proper context, ‘is it not?’ or ‘isn’t it?’ is a form of question. How do we know it’s a question? Well for the fact that it has a question mark attached to the end of it or/and is usually pronounced with a change in the pitch of the voice when you say it, would, give it away as a question. However, those Chavs, in their imitation Burberry tracksuits, whilst defacing public property and making a public nuisance of themselves, more often than not, would use it as a statement, rather than a question. And so should you.

So,for greater effect, you could utilize the term in sentences, where it would make no sense whatsoever. You could use it as (i) to end a statement and give it emphasis, and simultaneously invite agreement or (ii) use it as a replacement for a full stop. For example;

Frank: I is not paying RM2.70 for dat petrol, innit.

Ashley: Wot yew gonna use to travel now? innit.

Frank: I can use da public transport from now on, innit.

Ashley: Dats no to’ally cool now, innit.

In terms of popular culture, it can be found extensively in that film about that Indian girl footballer which also starred that pirate chick from Pirates of the Carri bean. So, i suggest you go and watch it if you haven’t and learn the different ways and techniques that they use. Another source of reference, would be anything with Ali G in it. He is the epitome of a Chav, whilst not playing that *other* Eastern European chap, innit!.

My Adventure of Teaching (advanced) English 1.0

Once there were these bunch of English people. Cockneys perhaps. I’m not sure as the story wasn’t all that clear on the facts.

So, as the story goes these ordinary English people, who lived in England by the way, lived their life like any other Englishmen. They would go to pubs like any other ordinary Englishmen. They would go watch cricket at their local cricket club like any other ordinary Englishmen. No, there was nothing extraordinary about them… EXCEPT for one simple fact.

One evening after an extra helping of Tetleys at their local pub, they woke up from their hangovers and suddenly decided to invent and change the usage of certain words in the English language.

“We’re English”, they thought. “We invented the bleedin’ language. And our accent is real and not made up. And it would be good to confuse our American cousins from across the pond. Including some in that malaria infested jungle of Malaya as well”.

As their hangover hammered the snot out of their membranes, the said idea became better and clearer, like it was the bestest (sic) idea concocted by Man since the electrical vibrator was invented. So, through the pissed-up mist of their hangover, they started to invent certain words. Words which, unless you were at the same pub, sitting at the next table, hungover like the rest of them, too scared to go back home to face the missus because you forgot to go to the chippy again, you wouldn’t be able to understand them at all.

Much less use the words correctly.

Fast forward to the present, the handsome chap with the charming personality had noticed that the words had spread all over but people in general didn’t know how to use them, especially here in Malaysia. And they would blunder around clueless, writing and using the words in their blogs erroneously thus making them look like complete and utter twats. So one day, the handsome chap with the charming personality thought that it was best for all and sundram (sic) to educate the masses on the correct usage of those words because thats what charming people do.

Bollocks noun

Testicles. Or Balls. Or Nuts. Your dangly bits.

However, over the years it had evolved from describing the contents of the scrotum to a highly flexible term which is commonly used by the people in England (and orang perasan England). It could mean either, (i) something rubbish, or (ii) a lie, or (iii) exclamation on making an error.

Manchester United is bollocks!

DBKL has promised to protect more green lungs in the city. LOL. Thats just bollocks!

(Halfway to work before suddenly realising that it was a public holiday) “BOLLOCKS!”

However, please take note that if the term is owned by a dog, then the meaning becomes the exact opposite.

9 is said to be rugged and charming. In other words, he’s the dog’s bollocks. Antyyk however, is not.

Or you can use it sarcastically;

Christina Ronaldo, yeah. he’s the dog’s bollocks *inserts two fingers in the mouth to entice vomit*.

So, there you go. You can use it now to the best of your grammatical ability. Although, if your usage of the English language IS bollocks, then there’s nothing the handsome chap with the charming personality can do about it. You might as well quit blogging or move to AU3 Keramat.

Next up.. ‘Innit’.

My Adventure of Being Bamboozled

The rugged chap with the charming personality has a mother.

She was like anyone’s mother. Sometimes they got along well. Sometimes they don’t. They were pretty close as mother and son go. Well, considering that they were only 4 in the family, 5 if you included his wife. (Note: You can be pretty sure the wife is smugly married to him as who wouldn’t be, when you’re married to a rugged and charming chap like he was, but thats another story all together.)

So one day his mother went on a trip to Japan. The rugged chap with the charming personality thought that was wonderful as she was going to place where it was a haven and a technological smörgåsbord of Information Technology thingamajigs. All at very cheap prices.

But the rugged chap with the charming personality didn’t want to burden his mother, being that not only he was rugged and charming, he was also very nice and understanding too.

‘Buy something nice, but make sure it was cheap because I don’t want to burden you,’ he had told his mother.

Fast forward a week later, when his mother returned from the trip, she called him, ‘Come and see me, and choose which Swatch you want.’

‘Oh, wow.. a Swatch,’ exclaimed the rugged chap with the charming personality. ‘I’m quite too old, albeit rugged and charming, to be running around with a Swatch, but then again, a free watch is still a free watch,’ he thought.

So, there he was all excited as his mother had bought him a nice Swatch along with other tidbits and snacks that those Japanese were famous for. No, the rugged chap with the charming personality is not going to post the pictures of the snacks as this is not THAT type of blog, mind you.

‘What did you buy,’ he asked.

‘Oh, I bought this this new Canon Cybershot camera,’ she replied.

‘Cool’, he and his brother replied. ‘Thats the newest model, it’s not even out in Malaysia yet’

‘It’s just RM900.’ his mother explained.

‘I wanted to buy you two either a PS3 or a PSP, those two are cheaper. You can get them at around RM200-RM300. But I didn’t know which model you wanted, because there were hundreds of them there, blue, black, white, red, so I decided to buy this camera for myself instead.’

Now, if you had opened the dictionary, and searched the word ‘dumbstruck’ at that very moment, you would probably find a picture of him and his brother under it. And I very much suspect that if you searched under either, ’shocked’, ‘amazed’ , ‘astonished’, ‘astounded’, ’startled’, ‘bamboozled’ or ‘jolted’, you would probably find them under there too.

After 10 minutes of being under that state, they both started to cry for another 10. A point to note that, it is OK for rugged and charming men to cry but in only two instances; Your football team either win or lose a cup final or your mother didn’t buy a PSP at dirt cheap price.

Yes, the rugged chap with the charming personality can now claim that his mother went to Japan and all he got was this lousy watch.