Gregorius - NMKY (Finnish YMCA 1979 version)

Village People - YMCA (1978)

Roxette - Crash! Boom! Bang!

Lakeland Maize Maze

Today my family and I went to the Lakeland Maize Maze with three other Malaysian families. It is situated near Lake District. We went to the car boot sales first, of course, and Ilyas managed to buy himself Power Rangers videos and DVDs, a Digimon toy, a Bionicle toy and several Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Sarah got herself few shirts (one of them is a Burberry bought at 50 pence!) and several toys too. My wife got some Kenwood travelling steam iron, a Levis jean and other stuff. I bought myself several DVDs (special edition of Reservoir Dogs and Final Fantasy, and a complete collection of Taken) and a hard cover Hannibal Rising at 1 pound. There were actually two giant car boot sales in that area (Carnforth) but since our inital plan is to visit Lakeland Maze, we had to forego the other one. Maybe next weekend, hehe.

Lakeland Maze itself is an interesting place to visit and bring your family. I've already uploaded several videos in Ilyas and Maisarah YouTube account. Their main attraction is of course their corn maze which is quite huge. Every year they designed a different maze. The first two years were in the shape of a farmer and his dog, and a pig. This year they created a tractor maze and a mini maze in a shape of a corn. We decided to take a mini maze challenge because the main maze will takes about 1 1/2 hours to finish. I think we spent half an hour on a mini maze. At the end of the day, the kids enjoyed themselves to the fullest and that's what important.

A pig maze

A farmer and his dog (sideway)

This year maze, a tractor and a corn

This is the clue, printed on a fridge magnet

Roxette - The Big Love

Badminton - A Dangerous Sport?

We played badminton last night as usual and I was eager to try out the 2GB Memory Stick that Owen lent to me. Turned out it has a capacity of 70 minutes of recording. That's quite a plenty. And what a night it was. Huzaini managed to break his fourth racket, this time by smashing it onto Maulana's head. And the whole thing was recorded and proudly uploaded in the YouTube. And he managed to hit Maulana's head again later on. After he went home, Maulana just realised that his head is actually bleeding. After recent injury to Asmadi and now to Maulana, our badminton session suddenly becomes a battleground. Time to wear a protective headgear?

The racket fits perfectly to Maulana's head... hehe

Ouch!

Exactly at 0:10 Huzaini hit Maulana's head...

followed by breaking his racket at 0:24

and hitting Maulana on the head again at 0:36

Roxette - Joyride

Roxette - Dangerous

New Beginning

I'm busy uploading all the necessary softwares in my recently formatted laptop and creating all favourites links back in my browser. It is fun! Like painting on an empty white canvas.

Roxette - Almost Unreal

Starting All Over Again

Well I sent my laptop to the computer guy in the library and asked them to reformat the whole thing. It's better that way, start clean. It is just plain luck that I have decided several weeks ago to treat my laptop as a transit station rather than a permanent station for all my files. A bit unfortunate though that I didn't managed to transfer my recent files (consisted mostly of pictures and videos taken for the last couple of weeks) into my two separate external hard drives but it could be worse.

On an different note, I just had a discussion with my new co-supervisor and he had plenty to talk about my research questions. He didn't think it was enough and want me to exploit the data for other research questions. I had to ask my main supervisor though about this because we have been working on this one for several months now. This sounds like another reformat. Uh-huh.

Roxette - The Look

Computer Virus

My notebook has been infected by a virus last night. I didn't know what happened really. I just came back from a badminton session and wanted to browse the internet and suddenly there were several pop-up messages that telling me my computer has been infected. I got suspicious and just close all those messages when I realised there are several new shortcuts on my desktop that I didn't recognise. The notebook suddenly crashed and rebooted but when the Windows started again, the usual wallpaper is gone and replaced by a strange warning sign. I immediately disconnected from the Internet and did Ad-Aware scan and Symantec virus scan. Through Ad-Aware I found several Spywares but the computer is running so slow that I had to abandon the Symantec virus scan.

At this moment I'm starting the Symantec virus scan again and if that doesn't resolve the issue, I'm going to bring my notebook to the tech guy.

By the way, I'm writing this using my office computer. Since I did all my work in the office, nothing is lost, plus I had my dissertation backup in my thumbdrive. And I already did a backup for all personal files in my notebook to two separate external hard drive before this virus attack. So if worst case scenario did happened, which is reformatting my notebook back, I will only lose several new pictures and movies of my family, which I think some of them have been already uploaded into our YouTube and Fotopages account.

I think this virus attack happens when you click some of the pop-up messages that appear when you browsing the internet. Will investigate this further.

Roxette - Spending My Time

Helwa Lancaster

The Malaysian ladies in Lancaster have been really active in their 'usrah' and gatherings for the past few few months. They even have their own blog site http://helwa-lancs.blogspot.com which includes several interesting articles and pictures of the members. Well done to them!

Roxette - How Do You Do

R & R

Arghh... please come back soon R & R!

Roxette - It Must Have Been Love

Lancaster City FC (2) FC United of Manchester (1)

What a match!

When we arrived at the Giant Axe Stadium, there were thousands of people in red shirts and scarves and very few in blue (the actual attendance is 2247). I had just started to think that it is becoming like a home match for FC United. Their supporters came with flags and singing songs throughout the match and I was struggling to find any Lancaster City fans. The match itself was also a bit one-sided. FC United were attacking all the time and Lancaster City were realy struggling. Only on certain occasions they managed to make a counter attack and from that they managed to get a lead through a header. And then back to defending until the half time whistle.

In the second half, FC United resumed their attacking mode and only through sheer luck and the inability of FC United strikers to do the finishing did Lancaster City managed to got hold of one goal advantage. The match continued to become a one way traffic affair until several minutes before the final whistle. Some of the supporters have started to went home when suddenly Lancaster City managed to muster a counter attack. The Lancaster City striker found himself face to face with FC United keeper and he kept his cool to slot home the second goal. I was still celebrating when FC United scored a goal which I think came straight from their kickoff. The match became alive yet again and now FC United have doubled their attacks. They got another chance when one of their players executed a bicycle kick shot that was just few inches wide. And then a final whistle came. What a relief and what a joy for Lancaster City fans, including myself. And Ilyas was happy because he can play Transformers toys with Haziq for nearly two hours.
Huzaini, Haziq, Ilyas and me.

The kickoff, Lancaster Castle at the background. Strangely enough, the dugouts were situated away from the Main Stand so the players and the staff had to cross the pitch before the game and during the halftime.

Roxette - Listen To Your Heart

David Beckham scored in his first start for LA Galaxy...

and then he assist Landon Donovan..business as usual

Roxette - Fading Like A Flower

New Freezer

Today I got a new freezer for my flat. Well, not actually new but rather was given by one departing postgraduate. Until now, I have a tiny compartment of freezer in my fridge to stock several weeks supply of frozen chickens and fish. What about icecream then? Well, we just eat them straight away after we bought it.

Now with the new freezer that is the equivalent in size to my current fridge, I've already started to imagine all sort of frozen foods that I can put inside it. Such as chocolate icecream, strawberry icecream, toffee icecream, caramel icecream, vanilla icecream and not forgetting mocha icecream. Seems to be in conflict with my resolve to lose weight though....

Padhyangan 6 - Tenda Biruku (as recommended by Idlan, hehe)

Contract Agreement Part 2

Today I signed the contract agreement with Grant Thornton. Hopefully I will get the data in two weeks time and be extra busy for the next few months.

Dschinghis Khan - Samurai (with altered subtitles of course!)

Books Part 2

Today I received a book from Amazon titled 'The Sword of Attila by Michael Curtis Ford'. Which makes the number of books in my collection that has not been read yet to 44.

No. More. Books.

Hmm.... latest book by Steven Pressfield... 'The Afghan Campaign'... sounds interesting.....

Bok'Teh - Bining

Old vs. New

Today I bought tickets to watch a football match this Saturday. It is a Northern Premier League Division One North match and it is between Lancaster City F.C. and F.C. United of Manchester. Both clubs have their own colourful histories even when one of them just formed in 2005. Lancaster City F.C. was founded in 1905 but recent years saw them relegated two divisions below due to financial difficulties.

F.C. United of Manchester (try reading their name from right to left) was founded by the supporters of Manchester United who decided to create their own football team following the Malcolm Glazer's takeover. They got promoted twice during their first two seasons.

Now both of them are together in the same league and they are going head to head this Saturday. I went to the Giant Axe Stadium office (I saw a pennant, Lancaster City vs Manchester United - 2005 - wow!) and bought tickets for two adults and two kids (Wan Huzaini is going to watch together with his son, Haziq) as I am thinking of bringing my son, Ilyas as well.

The officer must have thought that I'm going to bring my wife and two kids as he said, "Well, I think I will give you a family package, you don't have to pay for the Main Stand Seat (worth £8 altogether!), but don't tell anyone OK". So I only need to pay for the entrance tickets (£6 for adult and £3 for kid) and received a complimentary seating section. They still have a standing and uncovered section, which is no longer allowed in higher divisions. These four tickets are still cheaper than a single ticket I bought when watching Manchester United last year which resulted in 0-0 scoreline. Really looking forward to this game. Stay tuned.

Dschingis Khan - Hadschi Halef Omar (with altered subtitles!)

Batch Reunion

My former MRSM schoolmates are planning a reunion sometime in 2008. I won't be able to attend it because it will means spending close to 2,000 British Pound Sterling just to buy tickets back to Malaysia. But I'm helping them in creating some sort of reunion book, where all the contact details of each and every one of us are collected together with the current pictures. Can't wait to see their faces after 14 years. At the moment six people have already responded so that will leave 251 names to go....

Badminton Stunt

Family Tree Part 2

I have installed the Legacy Family Tree Deluxe 4 on my computer. Tried it once and did not like it. So I bought another geneology software, Family Tree Maker 2006 Deluxe from EBay. It arrives today and I'm going to test it soon. I heard that it can converts my old file into the new one. So hopefully I can recover what I have collected and stored so far in that old file and save me lots of time.

Tunak Tunak Tun (with altered subtitles!)

Body Fat Part 2

Today I went to Boots again to confront that weight machine. It is exactly one month since the shocking revelation that I was in fact overweight. So I braced myself and put some coins into it and waited for the printout.

Some good news first:

1. I managed to reduce my weight from 81.4kg to 79.8kg (a 'whopping' 1.6kg (or 2%) decrease).
2. My B.M.I is currently 26.1, a 0.5 point decrease from 26.6.

err... that's it.

Now for some bad news:

1. I'm still overweight. If my B.M.I is over 25, I am still considered overweight. Rats!
2. My body fat increased from 20.4kg to 20.7kg (from 25.1% to 26%). So it is still between Average and Poor.

I don't understand this. I managed to reduce my overall weight but my body fat is increasing instead. Things that I did over the months are playing badminton three times a week, skipping dinner almost every night, eating less of chocolate and chips and walking around the university whenever I had the chance.

So assuming that I maintain whatever that I am doing so far and if reduction in weight is a linear progression, I should be able to attain my ideal weight in two months time. Plus the Ramadhan is coming. So I will only say this to that weight machine in Boots, "I'll be back!"

Ultimate Warrior! Wuarghhhh!!!!

Contract Agreement

Finally, Grant Thornton has sent a contract agreement to my supervisor. Once it is signed and send to them, they will send the data to us, and I can start crunching them like mad. But when we studied them closely, there is no mention of data exclusivity in the contract as agreed earlier on the phone. Now the university officer is going to look at it and decide whether we can proceed with the signing or do we have to ask Grant Thornton to revise it back. Considering that it took me more than 3 months of calling their people almost every week just for them to send this contract, I don't know whether I will be willing to wait much longer for the data. The wait continues...

The Offspring - Pretty Fly For A White Guy

Coming and Going

Last night my wife and I invited several people to our house for a dinner. Bakri and his family are going back to Malaysia after he successfully defended his thesis during his viva last month. And so is June, who has just finished her Master degree. Several days ago Syarifah Raihan, a UKM staff arrived here to do her Phd in Linguistic and at the moment she is staying in Nana's flat, which is in the same buiding with us. We had our dinner and also had our pictures taken. Hopefully there will be a big reunion in 5 or 10 years time in Malaysia where everyone who has been in Lancaster can gather together just to relive that sort of muhibbah feeling we have at the moment.

Our badminton YouTube page

This is one of the game that I managed to upload at YouTube. You can watch them all at www.youtube.com/lancasterbadminton

This particular match is interesting because Din and I were leading throughout the game but somehow got beaten by Asmadi and Wan Huzaini at the end (This is Part 1, you need to watch the Part 2 to see how frustrated I was). So it does remind you that every single point matters and you'd better make sure your serve is in all the time.

Husband vs. Wife

The Silent Treatment

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 AM " He left it where he knew she would find it.

The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM . Wake up."

Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests.

Relatives

A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position.

As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?"

"Yep," the wife replied , " in-laws"

Women's Revenge

"Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. "So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked.

"No," she replied, " but my husband refused to come shopping with me,and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally."

Words

A husband read an article to his wife about how many words women use a day. 30,000 to a man's 15,000. The wife replied, "The reason has to be because we have to repeat everything to men...

The husband then turned to his wife and asked, "What?"

Creation

A man said to his wife one day, "I don't know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time. The wife responded, "Allow me to explain.

God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me;

God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you!

Who Does What

A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee." The husband said, " You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee."

Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee." Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me." So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says ..........."HEBREWS"

And lastly...

God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.

***Received it from a female species, but I guess you'd already figured that out, didn't you...

Minmi - Sha Na Na

sekali tengok muka macam Maya Karin

dua kali tengok macam muka Maya Karin

tiga kali tengok muka macam Maya Karin

empat kali tengok macam muka err... Maya Karin

err..lima kali tengok...errmmm muka macam Maya Karin

tapi bukan Maya Karin yer...

Nikmat Dunia

Japanese Transformers with corrupted subtitles (again!)

Blink 182 - All The Small Things

Happy Happy Joy Joy

My daughter Maisarah is happy today because she got a new My Little Pony. Now she has three of them.

My son Ilyas is happy today because he got a Transformers Bumblebee. He is already asking whether we are going again to Toys'R'Us tomorrow. I suspect he is already eyeing another Autobot.

My wife Joanna is happy today because she has her own PC now. Now she doesn't have to wait for her turn to online shopping, err I mean online surfing.

I am happy today because my team, ANSARA Taiping managed to avoid relegation in the Division Two Alumni League. We received a walkover since SAHOCA decided not to play at all. They have committed to another tournament and they don't mind going down to Division Three. Well, we don't mind staying in Division Two either.

Long Rally Part 3

Family Tree

I used to create my family tree using a software bought in Low Yat Plaza. I think it was a Family Tree Creator Deluxe by Mindscape. My geneology database became so big that it covers more than a hundred family members. Unfortunately I lost the CD and as a results I cannot open the file. That was two years ago. Now I'm going to start again, this time I will make sure there will be a hard copy of it. I bought Legacy Family Tree Deluxe 4 over the Amazon and it arrived today. Haven't got time to install it yet. This is going to be a long term project so I'm not going to rush it. Hopefully it will be something that my children can learn about their ancestors.

Indian Thriller with 'revised' subtitles - Especially for Izri ;)

Dschingis Khan - Dschingis Khan (with the altered subtitles!)

Birthday Gift

Today my family and I went to Fleetwood Freeport, a retail park about 30 miles from here. There is a sale at The NEXT and my wife managed to get a few bargains. And when she went to the Wedgwood shop, she found the Wild Strawberry cup collection that she has been looking for. I let her bought them. When we arrived home, her new Sony Ericsson K810i has already arrived. I guess her birthday which is due next month came a little bit early. I don't mind actually, better early than accidentally forgot about it!

Long Rally Part 2

Done that, did that

10 things that happened today:

1. ISS (Internet Something Something) people came to my flat to inspect our internet connection data point. Something is definitely not working and he promised to come back tomorrow morning with some of the repair tools.

2. I renewed my mobile phone contract and got my wife the new Sony Ericsson K810i. It should arrived tomorrow. Her birthday is next month so I guess I'm safe for this year.

3. I called and put my name for dentist registration. Apparently you had to wait for available places before you can go visit the dentist. I'm going to put the whole family into that registration thing.

4. I picked up my Indonesian friend, Maulana from Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal, about 23 miles from here. He got a screw removed from his foot. He broke his leg last year and the doctor had to put some steel and screw to strengthen it. The bone is OK now so I guess the screw already served its purpose.

5. I received 'The Darwin Conspiracy by John Darnton' today from an Amazon seller. Several days ago I received 'Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child'. I don't think I will be able to read these books this month. There are two books I'm currently reading and the progress is very slow.

6. Got the rental DVDs today, 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning'. Probably going to watch them tomorrow.

7. Did some 'adjustments' to my website www.ligaalumni.com. I put State flag beside each team's name. Going to tweak some more tomorrow.

8. Had a two hours session with the badminton club. Had to play doubles with three ladies. Hate it! Cannot smash!

9. Created a YouTube account for my children. You can go visit www.youtube.com/ilyasmaisarah

10. Ate karipaps made by my wife and the children. The most delicious karipaps ever!

Bass Hunter - Boten Anna (with corrupted subtitles of course!)

Research Money Part 3

Have submitted my final claim for the year ending 31st July 2007. A receipt for wireless keyboard and mouse worth £12.99. So the amount left in my research fund is £13.33. Hmm.. come to think of it, I should have bought TWO wireless keyboards and mouses instead!

Best Bollywood Stunt Ever! (kih kih kih)

Backgammon News

Yes! After seven consecutive weeks of losing to Kevin, I've finally managed to beat him 9-4 in our weekly backgammon duel. I was trailing 1-4 and the thought of not winning for the full two months started to form in my mind. But then I realised that I had nothing to lose and started to play aggresively. Whenever my pieces look promising, I immediately offered a double cube. Sometimes he declined it and sometimes he accepted the offer. And lady luck was on my side as I was finally in front at 6-4. I tried to put more pressure on him by offering a double cube again in the next game. He accepted it and after few moves decided to offer back the double cube to me. The positioning of my pieces doesn't look good but it was too early to tell.

So I've been thinking, either let him win this game and tied the score at 6-6 or I can just finish off the match altogether. And maybe I was crazy in accepting back the cube but when I rolled double sixes at the last moment, it was such a sweet victory. I am going to cherish this moment, at least until I meet him again next week.

Dschinghis Khan - Moskau (with funny subtitles!)

Manchester United Calendar 2006

Mike the porter gave me this, a 2006 Manchester United calendar. What struck me most is the cover. There are seven players portrayed on the cover. All of them have sweet memories during the 2006/2007 season except that they are not necesarily celebrating it together. Rooney, Ronaldo, Heinze, Ferdinand and Scholes can at least have a party among themselves to celebrate the return of Premiership title to Old Trafford.

Nistelroy on the other hand will celebrate the La Liga triumph with his new Real Madrid teammate. And Keane will celebrate in different kind of way when he guided Sunderland to a Championship title not as a player but as a manager (Who would have thought that is possible considering that when Keane took over, the team was nowhere near the top). On top of that Ronaldo has also won the PFA Young Player of the Year and PFA Player of the Year, a feat not achieved since 1977 by Andy Gray. And another kind of record is in the making if Heinze is finally allowed to crossover to bitter rival Liverpool, last time such a dreadful thing happening is in 1964 when Phil Chisnall moved to Merseyside.

What a difference one year can make!

Long Rally Part 1

'New' PC

Two days ago one of the Malaysian undergrad here is going home for good. Obviously she could not carry all her stuff to Malaysia so the usual hand-me-down took place. She gave us her two duvets (I want to keep them for the new family from Malaysia who would be coming this September), kitchen stuff and her PC. My wife and I are very happy with the PC because this means my children can play games in their own PC instead of having to share with me. My wife can also use the PC for her own benefits and this will free up my notebook considerably in term of data storage and usage.

Unfortunately, the mouse and keyboard are not working, so today my wife went to the PC World and bought them, a wireless version. The only thing is, our flat is having a bit of connection problem with the data point (my notebook is using wireless connection so no problem in there). Apparently when the flat is being refurbished back in 2005, they must have forgotten to check the internet cable connection whether its working or not. Report has been made so the wait continues.....

Dikir Audition Part 4

Dikir Audition Part 3

Jamea Al Kauthar

Today the Lancaster University Islamic Society decided to make a visit to Madrasah Jamea Al Kauthar, situated near the Lancaster city centre. I tagged along since I was curious myself. This madrasah is quite unique, in a sense that it is one of the largest in the UK, due to the fact that it occupy one of the famous historical building in Lancaster, Royal Albert. It used to be a hospital and even a school for the mentally handicapped. The building is very huge (30,000 square ft) and and surrounded by 20.5 acres of greenery. You can have more details on their website (http://www.jamea.co.uk/). It costs them £750,000 when they purchased it in 1995 but now it's worth is close to £50 millions. Talk about shrewd investment!

Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles

ASMARA

ANSARA (Persatuan Bekas Pelajar Sains MARA) to which I belong has initiated their own co-operative called ASMARA (Koperasi Anak Sains MARA Berhad). Their official website is www.asmara.com.my and I think it is a very good and noble idea. Membership is open to former and current students and staff of MRSM. Initial investment is only RM1000 and there is an option of RM50 monthly subscription. It has a quite impressive list of pro-tem committee members and it has also already outlined its future business projects. Let's just hope it will become amongst the most successful co-operative in Malaysia.

Irwansyah - Pecinta Wanita

Research Money Part 2

Just bought EndNote X for Windows and Starter Guide Book for £78.01. So I'm left with £26.32 to spend before 31st July. Hmm... what's next?

The Best of Ren and Stimpy Commercials

Research Money

My officemate asked whether I have spent all research money that have been allocated to me and I asked her why. She said, 'Well, they are going to close the account in less than a week, so you'd better start spending it!' I thought that £250 (in which about £42.50 has already been spent on seminar accomodation last year) allocated to me was supposed to last for the duration of my PhD, which is 3 years. How wrong I was and how generous my deparment is. They are giving me £250 to spend every year! So today I started shopping and these are what I have bought (so far):

1x Western Digital 120GB Passport V2 External USB 2.0 2.5" Hard Drive and
1x Western Digital Elements 250GB FAT32 USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

Total cost: £103.17

I'm going to buy an EndNote X software which will cost me £68.

And I've been thinking on buying cordless keyboard and mouse. So that will leave me with few pounds to spare. And starting this August, the budget will be replenish to its £250 limit again. Hmm.. I wonder how much a new laserjet printer costs nowadays....

The Offspring - Come Out and Play

The Offspring - Self Esteem

Another Viva, Another Successful Candidate!

One more Malaysian managed to get his Doctorate today from the Math Department of Lancaster University. He managed to pass his viva with minor correction and happily reported to his UPM employer the good news. So four successful viva this year already for the Malaysian students in Lancaster and I think there will be at least two more coming up this year. Hopefully they will also be as successful as their friends. And I hope the trend continues until 2009, the year I'm supposed to have my own viva.

I received an e-mail from my former Lancaster junior that he will be coming back here because his wife is pursuing a Master degree. And turned out that they will be staying next to my flat starting this September. They also have two young children. I'm sure my own children will be quite happy to have some friends to play with.

Dikir Audition - Part 2

Dikir Audition - Part 1

Lancaster University Malaysian Badminton Group

We've been playing badminton regularly amongst the Malaysian in Lancaster since last year and things have really been improved in term of, everything! (except of our skill I think, nahh just kidding). We have our own Yahoo Group, complete with its members details, pictures, database and so on. Our finance couldn't been much better, that some say sooner or later we will have more money than Lancaster University Malaysian Students' Society (which I doubt since we had to constantly renewing our supply of shuttlecocks). We have our own club t-shirt (see below) and we have had players joining us for a game from various nationalities, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Welsh, Sri Lankan, Arabs, and even women joined us from time to time. Hopefully in the near future we can have an invitation tournament with other Malaysians in various parts of the UK. At least while I'm still here!

Front of the shirt

Back of the shirt

Cup Stacking Record (didn't know this kind of sport ever exists!)

Cup Stacking Record (the fastest ever?)

Spices of Reading

I met my supervisor yesterday and had the usual discussion regarding my ongoing thesis. And then he mentioned about the philosophy of science and suggested that I should read books by Sir Karl Popper. Apparently he is the guy who offers a critical assessment on the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by offering his own theory of falsifiability. Hm.. interesting. My supervisor said that I should put more variety into my readings and not just concentrating on the subject matters, which is accounting. I told him I read some economics book (Freakonomics comes into mind) but stop short of telling him that I just bought two books on football from the car boot sale last weekend. One of the book is titled 'Football Fanatic'. And if I had to choose between reading a book on philosophy on science and a book about a guy who watch a match at all 92 Premier and Endsleigh League football grounds (plus Berwick Rangers) in less than a year, well....

Badak nyanyi lagu 'Anok Tupa'

Selamat Datang ke Kelantan

PhD

This year alone, 3 Malaysian students in the Lancaster University have successfully got their PhD degree. Two of them are from UPM and another one is from UKM. There is another one from UPM waiting for his viva sometime in July. So in short, good news all around!

Raihan - Ya Nabi Salamun Alaika

Raihan - Mari Bersolat

Books

I have just finished reading Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly. He is one of those authors who just love to tell a full action-packed story to the max and I have a full collection of his books. His books will always have a hero inside them and they will suffer various tribulations and setbacks but somehow managed to escape through some near impossible (well, impossible anyway in the real life) escapes. And this latest book by him managed to put an interesting story on the Capstone of the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

Now, I am starting on The Lost Army of Cambyses by Paul Sussman. This is his first novel from the two published so far, so I don't have any high expectation here. But that somehow reminds me of John Darnton with his brilliant Neanderthal novel.

Anyway, I've finished updating my books collection in my file. So far I have 148 books in my collection (most of them are in my father in law's house in Malaysia) and I haven't read 40 of them! Looks like I had to really catch up then.

Raihan - Tak Selamanya

Raihan - Al-Hijrah

Body Fat

I went to Boots today and whilst waiting for my wife to pay for all those multi-vitamins and other prescriptions, decided to throw away some coins into the weight machine. Well, this machine can do other things as well, such as calculating your B.M.I. (Body Mass Index) which you can easily calculate if you have a calculator or a handphone with you and Body Fat. And why do we need to know the exact composition of our body fat is beyond me but since I was bored and never knew my exact height before (I put 177cm for my height in my passport because double 7's look cool), then why not.

So here is the printing that came out from the machine:

Weight: 12st 11lb 81.4kg
Height: 5' 8.8" 1.75m

B.M.I. 26.6

Body Mass Index (B.M.I.) is calculated as Weight (kg) / Height (m)2

Less than 18.5: UNDERWEIGHT
From 18.5 upto 25: IDEAL WEIGHT
More than 25: OVERWEIGHT

Your ideal weight for a B.M.I. between 18.5 and 25.0 is:

8st 12lb to 12st 0lb
56.6kg to 76.5kg

Body Fat (%): 25.1%
Body Fat Mass: 20.4kg
Age: 31 years Male

Recommendations (%)
Male
Excellent: 14.5%
Good: 21.5%
Average: 24.5%
Poor: 31.2%

So I am overweight with an average to poor body fat. And I am actually 2cm shorter than what I thought. Considering that I'm playing 3 badminton sessions per week with each session lasting more than an hour, I know what I should focus on, that scrumptious four letter word starting with an 'F':


Food


From now on, cutting a little bit of everything. And I will go to Boots in one month time to see if there is any progress, or hope at all.

Oh, by the way, my wife B.M.I. is 21.6 (Ideal Weight) and her Body Fat is 26.3% (Good to Excellent). Lucky her.

Obat Diet

* a forwarded Indonesian joke from Bong, thanks!

Seorang wanita yang sangat gemuk pergi ke dokter.

Wanita: "Dok, obat apa yang harus saya minum agar bisa kurus?"

Dokter: "Oh, anda tidak perlu minum obat, cukup geleng-geleng kepala saja!"

Wanita: "Kapan saya harus geleng-geleng kepala dok? Pagi, siang, sore, atau malam?"

Dokter: "Cukup ketika ada orang yang menawari makan saja!"

Miscommunication

* Thanks to Bong for this!

Boston - More Than A Feeling

A Letter From LHDN

* Thanks to Asmadi for this funny but true story

A taxpayer called up the LHDN (Inland Revenue Board) in Terengganu, and asked for Form B. The LHDN clerk who answered the call asked for the address to send the form to. The conversation goes:

LHDN CLERK: "Boleh bagi alamat encik?" (Can you give me your address?)

TAXPAYER: "Hantar ke Ranhill Worley." (Send to Ranhill Worley)

LHDN CLERK:"Ranhill... eja macam mana?" (err... How to spell Ranhill?)

TAXPAYER: "R.. for Rumah... A for Ayam.. N for Nangka... H for Holland .. I for itik... L for lain-lain...." (spelling)

LHDN CLERK: "Ok..nanti kami hantar ke alamat tu" (OK, we will send tothat address...)

After waiting for a week, the form arrived - have a look at the address on the envelope!!!

Summer Time

What a better way to spend time in the summer than celebrating your child's birthday in the open. That's what Bong and Yana did today and what a party. The kids have a giant bouncy castle to play with and not to forget plenty of foods to eat. However, I think the guys (dads and lads) were having more fun than the rest. After eating the barbequed chicken, we had a game of 'sepak raga bulatan' and I think the highest score we had was 67 times.

Then we played table football tournament organised to collect fund for our badminton club. There were 12 players (11 guys and 1 girl, Eivani) and there were four groups in the qualifying round. Wakaf Che Yeh FC (Wan Huzaimi) met Pasir Mas FC (Asmadi) in the first semifinal and myself (Reko Clan) met Haria Penang (Amir) in the other semifinal. Huzaimi managed to beat Asmadi 2-0 and Amir got beaten by me 0-2. In the final I managed to win first leg 9-8 but in the second leg Huzaimi got his revenge by beating me 9-5. So Wakaf Che Yeh FC was the winner.

It was one of the most fun and tiring birthday party I have ever attended. I wonder whose child's birthday is next... hmmmm. :)

Rabbani - Pergi Tak Kembali

Raihan - Sesungguhnya

Wad

Ada sorang makcik kelantan nih, dia mai HKL nak carik sedara dia eksiden. Sampai kat HKL dia tanya la sorang nurse kat situ...dalam loghat kelantan la.

"nak tupe tanyo, mana dio wad kecemase"

Nurse tu selamba jer jawab...

"wad kencing masam takde....wad kencing manis ader la"..

*Thanks Asmadi for the forwarded e-mail*

Lancaster Morecambe & District Badminton league

Last year I started to join Bailrigg team for their annual District badminton league (www.lancasterbadminton.org). They have A & B teams and I was immediately drafted into an A team. The tournament started from 27th September 2006 and finished on the 14th March 2007. It was a grueling tournament since you had to play 18 matches (home and away) and for each match you had to play 6 sets with your partner within 3 hours. They are still using the old point scoring system (15 points) but I heard for the new upcoming season they are considering the new rally points scoring system (21 points). I have no preference really, but a game with the new system tends to finish faster than the old one.

We lost 4 matches in our first 5, and things doesn't looked good at the time considering our main player, Paul Taylor is still out injured. However, when he finally recovered by mid December, we won two matches in a row. In the end, we managed to get a respectable fourth position in the second division (see table above). In the Riley Cup (knock out competition) we lost to eventual runner up, Ascension A in the quarter final. Overall, it was a good season considering that Paul was injured for the first 2-3 months and there are two new male players in the team. Bailrigg A is always in the second division (they are 5th during the 2003/04 season but third in both 2004/05 and 2005/06 seasons) but Bailrigg B has made a commendable comeback by being promoted to the third division after finishing second in the fourth division.

Some statistics:

Points won by my double: 58/158 = 36.7% for league and 6/23 = 26% for cup
Percentage winning home matches = 73
Percentage of sets won with Brenda = 58%
Percentage of sets won with Tim = 53%
Percentage of sets won with Paul = 55%

Sheila On 7 - Itu Aku

Sheila On 7 - Sephia