I saw a really interesting article in The Star today about dry mushing. Can't seem to find it on their site, but basically, mushing is when dogs pull a sled over snow, and dry mushing is when dogs pull tricycles and carts and really anything with wheels over dry land, be it a tarred road or grass.

Apparently a mutt or mongrel is the ideal dry mushing dog, but somehow I can't see Kinte pulling me along on anything. Sure, he would pull, but I would also probably end up in a drain somewhere. Also, dogs overheat very easily, so the article cautions that people should only do this when it's under 20C. Wonder why The Star decided to feature this sport then, given that the mercury has been soaring this past week. 

The principle of the sport sounds great - your dog gets some exercise, you get to see some nice scenery and spend quality time with your dog - but I think if I could get Kinte to pull anything, it would be one of those manual lawn mowers. Why not get more benefit out of it if you're going to harness your dog to some wheeled contraption anyway? :P

It's a dog's life

First there were doggie day care centers. Then, there were doggie hotels. Now, and I can't believe I'm saying this, now there are doggie flights. In the midst of all this economic uncertainty, when millions are losing their jobs around the world and there are stories of families of five cramming into one bedroom motels because they have been kicked out of their homes, now, of all times, Dan Wiesel and Alysa Binder are planning to launch "Pet Airways", flying cats and dogs from five US cities.

Don't get me wrong - I love my dog - but honestly, isn't this the absolute height of decadence at the worst time possible?

The hunt never ends

As one hunt ends, another begins. And another, and another, and another ad infinitum.

But the good news is, I've completed my job hunt! For now. I've accepted an offer from Booz & Co. as a consultant based in Kuala Lumpur. I'll be the 2nd, well officially the 3rd employee here but the 2nd one is a contractor, so I'm not sure she counts. I start in February and my first day will be in Sydney for training! :) But the best part is, my first day there is also a public holiday here, so that means I get another day's leave :D

Now that I've finished my job hunt, I'm doing another kind of hunting - for artifacts! There's a Tomb Raider challenge going on. Actually I think tomorrow's the last day, but for the last three weeks or so, they've been giving out a Sony PS3 everyday to the first person who can find the artifact in Google Maps based on the clue of the day. It's insanely competitive, though - the first person usually gets it in under a minute. If you think you're up to par, go to www.tombraiderchallenge.com at 9am Malaysian time everyday. 

Wanted: Sony T77

I recently returned from a trip to Australia. Updates about that later. The country is in full Christmas mode with beautifully decorated shop windows, plazas and malls. Best of all, their Christmas sales have started already. Usually the big sales start on Boxing Day or the day after Christmas but due to the poor economy, sales have started early. And the biggest sales are on electronics right now. Apparently the prices were set before their big currency depreciation so right now electronics are heavily discounted compared to the rest of the world.

I'm in search of a camera right now. A simple point and shoot will do, nothing too fancy. I had my eye on the Sony T77 which is sold at RM1,299 here in Malaysia but it's going for AUD380 or just under RM1,000 in Australia. Sigh me being me, I thought I'd wait till I got home to compare prices and that ask my brother to get the camera for me in Australia before he came back. But who knew that he decided to come back even earlier than I did. Sigh. So I'm now looking for another buyer :)


Anyway, I was browsing through Sony Malaysia's website to check out their products and I came across this really cool contest. It's called the Snap and Catch and it's run in conjunction with their Year End Festive Promotion. Check it out here. Basically, you have to photograph as many of the wanted Sony product within a set time frame as you can. The highest score right now is in the 12k range. Mine is in the paltry 4k range. Sigh. Never mind. I have until the end of January to hone my mad skillz. Who's up for the challenge?

Meh

Feeling apathetic? Bored? Indifferent? Or maybe something's just mediocre. Well I've got the perfect word for you. MEH!

Or, given its meaning, perhaps meh might be a better way to present it.

The Collins English Dictionary is officially recognizing this bit of US slang for it's 30th anniversary edition. Here's an example of how to use it:

I'm feeling so meh about money politics in Malaysia.

Bye bye, Baby Bush

Now that America has voted and Obama is due to take over the White House next January, it won't be long before we have to (thankfully) say goodbye to George W. Bush. I couldn't believe it when he first won the elections back in 2000, and then was even more flabbergasted when he won it again in 2004. Was America really so dumb as to revote for the guy who started two wars that he couldn't finish and was increasing America's debt to the world at the same rate as he was killing innocent young American soldiers? It's definitely time for a change, but I gotta say, the guy was good for some laughs at least. There are whole websites devoted to this clown of a president but here are ten of my favourite Bushisms from 2007 and 2008:

The misunderestimated me.

"Amigo! Amigo!" - Bush calling out to Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi at the G-8 Summit in Japan

How can you possibly have an international agreement that's effective unless countries like China and India are not full participants?

So long as I'm president, my measure of success is victory - and success.

I don't particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it.

All I can tell you is when the governor calls, I answer his phone.

You know, when you give a man more money in his pocket - in this case, a woman more money in her pocket to expand a business, it - they build new buildings. And when somebody builds a new building somebody has got to come and build the building. And when the building expanded it prevented additional opportunities for people to work.

All of us in American want there to be fairness when it comes to justice.

"I'm going to try to see if I can remember as much to make it sound like I'm smart on the subject." - Bush on a possible flu pandemic

"I've heard he's been called Bush's poodle. He's bigger than that." - Bush on former British PM Tony Blair

One of my concerns is that the health care can not be as good as it possibly can be.

Gobama!

Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama soon to be the 44th President of the United States. The 2-year long campaign is finally over and for the first time, a black man who's father hails from Kenya, has the honour and the challenge of leading one of the world's powers. It is a daunting challenge, inheriting "the worst financial turmoil in a century" and two wars from the Bush administration. But the American people believe in him, giving him the job by a landslide. May he bring a greatly-needed wind of change to the White House, to America and to the world.

Honor Code

You must have heard the news about Cambridge by now. "Half of Cambridge students admit cheating," blares the title of the article. An anonymous online poll found that 49% of undergraduates admitted to cheating, while only 5% had been caught. The best soundbite in the article:

“Sometimes, when I am really fed up, I Google the essay title, copy and throw everything on to a blank word document and jiggle the order a bit. They usually end up being the best essays.”

I guess it's true around the world, no matter which top university you go to - getting in is the easy part; after that, it's just, if not plain sailing, then definitely not as insurmountable a challenge as getting past the gates.

Cheating in any form, including plagiarism, is taken very seriously at Princeton. Upon matriculation, each student receives a copy of the Honor Code Constitution, which outlines, in excruciating detail, what constitutes cheating and plagiarizing. One can only be a student of good standing once (s)he signs and returns the honor code statement. Also, we were reminded about the Code at every exam that we took and every paper that we submitted, having had to write the statement 'I pledge my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code during this examination' on each paper. One lives in mortal fear of violating the Honor Code by accidentally neglecting to footnote and attribute everything to its original source. Some take it more seriously than others, but everyone has heard the dark rumours and half-confirmed stories about a friend of a friend of a friend getting thrown out or suspended for a year or more because of an Honor Code violation. Being suspended is, of course, taboo, but being suspended because of an Honor Code violation puts you in among the Untouchables.

Given Princeton's stringent approach to cheating and plagiarism, it's quite a surprise that the students at Cambridge apparently don't seem to understand exactly what plagiarism is. Copying and rearranging Google hits to pass for an essay is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. What sort of reputation is the university inviting for itself if half the students admit to cheating? Admittedly, it was an online poll and anyone could have said anything on it, making the results questionable at best. However, I've found that there's some truth to the saying that 'There is no smoke without a fire,' thus putting Cambridge's No. 2 ranking on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings this year in serious question. But honestly, how can anyone trust a ranking that places Princeton outside the top 5?

Vote for Kiva on AmEx's Members Project!

Microfinance for the masses

We've all heard about Mohd Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning entrepreneur who brought microfinance to Bangladesh's poor via the Grameen Bank. When I first discovered microfinance, I thought it was a fantastic idea - loaning small sums of money to the underprivileged, in most cases a group of women who are collectively responsible for the loan, which they then use as capital to create a livelihood, e.g. by buying goats to breed for meat and milk. The key breakthrough in this idea is that by loaning the money primarily to women, who are supposedly more financially responsible, and to a group that is collectively responsible for the loan, which imposes social pressures on group members to cough up the money, the loans are more secure - so far, Grameen Bank boasts a 90% repayment rate since their inception.

The thing I didn't know was how to participate in projects like these. But one fine day, I discovered Kiva. Their mission is to "connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty" - an admirable goal if I've ever heard of one. Through Kiva, one can scroll through a list of entrepreneur profiles from all over the world who are in need of these microcredit loans and choose the person or people that you want to sponsor. Kiva then partners with existing expert microfinance institutions to disburse the money to these entrepreneurs. Throughout the course of the loan, which usually lasts for six to twelve months, lenders can receive journal updates and track the status of loan repayments. And the best part is, you can lend as little as USD25!


I chose Keo Sokdy, a 38 year old Cambodian woman with four children who works as a rice dealer and a teacher in her village. Who will you choose?


However, loaning your own money isn't all that you can do - you can get other people to GIVE Kiva vast sums of money, specifically USD2.5 million from American Express through their Members Project. Yes, that's right. $2.5 million to fight poverty. Vote for Kiva now! And if you're not an American Express card holder, get your friends who are to vote for them.

Food + MSG = 0 winks

I had dinner with some friends at a Vietnamese restaurant yesterday. It was a fun night out - plenty of laughs and good conversation. Strawberries dipped in milk chocolate (dark would've been better) was an excellent way to end the night.

Except the night didn't end there. In fact, it felt like the night didn't end at all as I lay tossing and turning in my bed. As the hours dragged by, I finally managed to get some fitful rest but that didn't stop me from feeling like a jetlagged grouchy bear today.

Determined to find out what kept me awake all night, I started hunting for clues online. Turns out my mother was right about Monosodium Glutamate affecting sleep. Even Merck's Online Medical Library agrees. Some people are so affected by MSG that they experience awareness during sleep paralysis - scary stuff that involves being able to look around the room (eyes not fully open) and seeing ghosts and demons. Apparently the condition has been blamed for claims of alien abductions and ghost sightings. Hmm... it would be interesting to see if the frequency of these reports increased after the proliferation of MSG.

Anyway, I suspect that the Vietnamese restaurant used MSG in its cooking. Grr... Of course, like everything else, different people have different sensitivities to MSG. But this grouchy bear is declaring a HEX ON MSG!