About Twelve 11

QUOTE:
“Twelve 11” by Loh Yin San

A tragedy of a magnitude never before seen in Malaysia had claimed 48 lives and shocked a nation. In unravelling the mystery surrounding the incident, Twelve 11 questions whether the loss of life and property could have been avoided. The aim is also to expose a legal loophole that begs urgent action in the call for justice.
UNQUOTE.

The tragedy which was talked about is the collapse of Highland Towers in 1993, Dec 11th.
Why the story was told after 13 years? That is because the fight from the victims' families came to an end only this year Feb at the Highest Court, and the Municipal Council got off scott-free. That's because there's this Act to protect them even they are the people to give the green lights of any developmental land projects. And why is there such an Act in place? That goes back to history back to the 1960's during the Emergency when there was a need to had that kind of law. It promised to be taken away when the Act was not needed anymore, but unfortunately, until now, it was still in place, and that is why MPAJ was found not guilty of negligence in this Highland Towers tragedy.



I was there on the day's screening of this winning entry of the
Freedom Film Fest 2006 run by KOMAS. Yin San made me proud and embarassed at the same time for her meaningful effort to help in bringing the plight of some people to a wider audience. Proud because she is my good friend I have known during the varsity days, (we do share a lot of our passions and interests), and embarrassed because I have done nothing much like these sort to contribute to the society before.

She contributed to last year's same event which was the winner as well, named "Clean Shit" or "Alice lives here". It was said that it helped in a way to Alice's struggle to stop her town Broga (near Semenyih) from being polluted with an incinerator plant. A well documented film does indeed help a lot, some way or other.

Good job, Yin San, and CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Twelve 11 screening

I'm proud to present to you the effort of my friend, Ms. Loh and her team, to her premier screening of the documentary on Highland Towers tragedy. It is named Twelve 11, and will be screened at the following date and time:

Venue : Taylor's College, Subang
Date : 30th September 2006
Time : 7pm-9pm, together with 4 other films

This is part of the 3rd annual Freedom Film Fest organised by Komas that runs between 29th September - 1st October. Admission is free.

For further details, please see the full schedule attached or call: Effa Desa 03-79685415.

Join me in showing our support to her...Hope to see you there!

Fun day for the children

We gave the children a treat for the weekend, took them up to Genting for a day's trip of fun and rides.

Things nice to do there:

1. Ride up on the cable car (NOT DONE, KT said it's a waste of money....bugger!)

2. Dip in the wet theme pool (NOT DONE, not enough time, lazy to get wet and bathe later)

3. Ride on the monorail (NOT DONE, queue too long initially, later it was raining and ride was closed)

4. Bumper car for the boys (CHECKED, uncountable number of rounds in there for them)

5. Ferris Wheel (CHECKED, nice, the children love it)

6. Merry go round (CHECKED, Chloe and Adrian absolutely loving it)

7. Take pictures (CHECKED, here they are)

8. Have a stroll outside or walk around outdoor theme park (NOT DONE, another time, when the price goes down)

9. Snow World (NOT DONE, KT said before might as well take us all to see REAL snow! How sweet, hoh? Then again, just need to be patient only la....)

10. Casino (CHECKED, KT was 100 bucks poorer)

11. Check out Mushroom Farm (NOT DONE, have to do that next time)

12. Sky fly (NOT DONE, KT tried that twice though, not cheap leh)

13. Eat outside instead of paying a hefty price for a plate of chicken rice at theme park (NOT DONE, we still was paying a hefty price for a plate of chicken rice, sigh...)

Have to get all the NOT DONE items checked the next round we are there again.

Blogger not found!!!

Somebody just tampered my page.. Wonder who I had offended?

A baby year

Another friend I know is having a baby. CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING A FIRST TIME DAD, CHAN YING WEI!!!!

This add on to the list who are expecting: Kok Lan, Shuo Ngoh, Suet Fong and Wai Yee(my cousin sisters), Sook Wei, Penny, Anita Yuen (my favorite artiste, whose husband is in my list of the-hottest-guy-in-the-world).

Congratulations to all of you for cradling a bundle of joy soon. Hmm.... shall I have join in the fun too?

Make sense?

Today I met someone rather, weird, I think.

I walked into a boutique shop, looking for chances to introduce myself. I had myself to blame as I tried to pose as a potential customer. Initially, I just started off innocently by commenting on a cute little white dress. It indeed looked cute, but she gave me a comment "That dress is not meant for you".

I thought it was pretty rude. Well, anyway, I tried to look in a different angle, that maybe I should appreciate her honesty and frankness. We had a nothing-so-special talk on the quality of that dress, and I told her I wasn't looking anything for myself anyway. (Thick skin, yeah I know). She asked me what I am looking for, I said it's for a girl who is about 20, blah blah blah.

OK, after showing me some of the other and affordable ones, and seeing my non-eagerness to buy, she started rattling about the different kinds of customers she meets everyday.

First she said the worst customers are chinese, followed by malay, and the angmoh. The best ones are from teh middle east. Though they wear thick black jedi uniform, inside they dress to kill and are all branded stuffs. She said these are the people who know the importance of dressing up and that's why their children are dressed up well too. Locals would never buy these kind of clothes to dress their children up.

In addition, she was saying those women, was not respecting the people around by just wearing their t-shirts and shorts with sandals. This would, in turn, teach their own children not to wear appropriately, and in the end, causes all the crimes and violence in this world. She claimed that that's where all these people comes from!(WTF!)

The world is very materialistic, she said. She instructed her staff, if customers don't have the budget, don't let them try on their clothes. And she would determine if the customer can afford to buy by just looking at what they wear etc.

Yeah yeah.. blah blah, I was getting REALLY irritated and disgusted! I loathe people who judge a book by its cover, and here right in front of me, was someone who speaks like she's talking nothing but the facts of life. I think she was trying to tell me "Don't fool around here, I know you can't afford to buy anything here, one look at you, I know who you are!". But of course, that was not exactly what she said, but I think she got the message across.

What a ****ed business owner!

Snakes on a Plane

We watched "Snakes on a Plane" last Friday evening. The synopsis looks ok, the caption reads "Sit back, relax, enjoy the fright". Soon, after munching half of the "Large" bucket of caramel popcorn later, and some previews including of Spiderman coming soon in May/June/July 2007, I was thinking if we went into the right place when it began. The show began with people having a fun time in a beach in Hawaii, and the song blasting away sounds something like "Kokomo". When does action thriller movie start off that way?? I must have been out of the movies for a long time?

Anyway, slowly the story began to unfold. A cute young guy witnessed some bloody murder, and before he even know what is going on, he was tracked down by the mafia and the FBI. Soon, people were boarding THE plane, and mafia fella came with a brilliant idea to bring the whole plane down with some boxes of poisonous snakes.

The snakes started to wriggle their way around, attacking all the "sensitive" areas.. it was like all hell broke lose after awhile, National Geographic snakes enjoying their limelight in Hollywood style. Jeez... I won't like to be in a 4D cinema in that kind of movie. Makes my bulu roma stood up seeing all those reptiles. However, there were some scenes where it was so TOTALLY FAKE! Like how would a big long snake coiling out from a guy's mouth?? Come on... the snake should be EATING IT up, not venturing into its mouth and stomach to see what is in there??!! And the other scene where out of nowhere, there came this HUGE ANACONDA!!!! (Jaws dropped, head shaking, really couldn't believe it!)

Anyway, being a mom, I can't help feeling "kan cheong" to see little children in danger. There was a mom travelling with her baby, and there were 2 brothers, the elder looking over the younger one and they were travelling as minors. Miraculously, the baby wasn't hurt a bit though people were dying around him, and many snakes partying around. As for the 2 brothers, the "ko ko" protected his little brother from any harm, and gave him support and warmth, which made me feel "oh.. I wish my sons would have a bond like that..."

I don't know, I think I would feel very heartbroken going home if these kids were harmed in the movie. I think the director knew it's not going to look good if he makes us mothers cry all the way home from the cinema. And I now know I won't cry in other love stories anymore but cry ever so easily seeing little children safe and sound at the end of a movie.

As for the verdict, I won't say it's an A+ movie, but it has its thrills. As long as I can take a break from the routine, no children dying in the movie, the good triumphs over evil... I am a happy woman.

Side track a bit, on a different note..

We went for a course over the weekend, it's something to do with negotiating skills in "something" (we were sworn to absolute secrecy!). Anyway, now, something very unlikely happened in that event.

When the course began, the speaker wanted to "break the ice" and came out with his idea of a little "lucky draw". There were 20 of us in the audience, some of us just put some name cards in, while those without cards (like me!), just wrote our name on a little piece of paper and put that paper with those cards.

Now, both KT and I weren't ever so lucky in lucky draws. We put a few "tens" of entries for lucky draws when we were staying in Brunei, and never ONCE came out a winner of any of those prizes before. So, I wasn't anticipating our names to be called.

But hey, you probly can guess it now, yes, KT came out the first person drawn, both of us were like, "oh wow!". The 2nd fella was called, and hey, the 3rd lucky person was ME!!!

Well, to have one of us drawn, well, we considered, unlikely, but possibly. BUT.. to have both of us in that draw... how do you count the probability?? 1/20 times 1/18?? To me, it never EVER crosses my mind. So, I think both of us were VERY lucky that day...

Don't ask what the prize is.. that's not important. The important thing is THIS really happened! Nevertheless, I didn't go to buy 4d, or what-have, we went home, ate dinner, took the kids for a ride on the monorail to BTS and rewarded with Joshua's statement when we were going home, "Today is a happy day".