This Blog Is Cooler Than Yours (Blogging Makes me 20% Cooler)

2011-02-08T22:25:00.001-08:00

2011-02-08T11:05:00.001-08:00

2011-02-07T23:49:00.001-08:00

The Return of The Son of a King

2007-01-20T06:33:00.000-08:00

Dear Beautiful People,

I Am Back In Melbourne!
(I Have Been for quite sometime actually but... )

And i'm lovin' it.. :D
Padappap-pap-paaaa....

Love,
Dugong

Farewell Melbourne 2006

2006-12-13T23:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Melbourne City,

I have had an awesome year with you. This year has been an incredible learning and maturing experience. Making new friendships and experiencing a whole new culture has added more spice into my journey of life. I am humbled to have made so many meaningful relationships, served a God with a big heart, be served by some amazing people of authority (vice-versa) and experienced a whole new meaning to the word 'family', 'community' and 'growth'.

It's been a great year. A great year.

Now, a toast.... To everyone running this race with me..

Goodbye Melbourne 2006!
Cause the next time i set foot in this sun burned land is in 2007! ><"

Love,
The Dugong

The 6 Happiest Words

2006-12-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

There comes a time when a man hears 6 very happy words.
It could be:

1. Honey, i think i am pregnant
2. I have transfered AUD$27000 to you
3. I think Chelsea have been relegated
4. Manchester United wins the Champions League
5. Manchester United wins the Premier League

or

"Hey, you have (John Mayer) tickets to His concert!"
I am finally going to see my 'Hero', 'Sifu' and 'Tai Kor' live in Vodafone Arena
Aaaahhhhhh.......

I am a happy man.. :D
Can't wait to see the look on Chris or Sam's face when they find out!

Love,
The Dugong

Borat: An Essay

2006-11-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

I saw ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ today with Tjokro Aminoto. Before I go on with my essay, I must set a few facts straight about myself:

1. I do NOT support anti-Semitic statements in any way
2. This Essay is not a promotional tool to encourage one to watch the movie.
3. I am a person who believes in God and I Love Him very much
4. I like getting my hands dirty by being involve in controversial arguments but I believe strongly that each argument eventually falls into only two categories. The Truth and the Lie.

The movie Borat is an incredibly crude, bold and disturbing piece of Guerilla-comedy filmmaking that will either leave you feeling entertained or will cuase you to walk out of the theater. As the saying goes, “Another man’s food is another’s poison”, the same can be applied for Borat. It is definitely not for the weak-hearted or the easily offended. How so? This movie not only exposes ‘taboo’ issues like homosexuality, feminism, anti-Semitism and sex, but rubs salt to the wounds of those negatively reeling from Post 911 attacks, the Iraq war, religion and other controversial issues that even Dave Letterman wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

Clad with a cheap charcoal grey suit and sporting a thick mustache, Borat’s deep hatred for gypsies, obsession with Pamela Anderson, backwater sexist statements and anti-Semitic character boldly opens a closet full of skeletons. The outrageously funny scenarios are when his prejudices go unchallenged by his American interviewees and as amazing as it sounds, some even happily support it. When Borat walks into a gun shop asking for a recommendation for the ‘best gun to kill a Jew’, the shopkeeper doesn’t flinch or bat an eye lid but recommends a 9mm handgun. An anti-muslim 5 minute rant caught on camera by an American rodeo cowboy and other disturbing insights about the casual prejudices of the average American acts as the films powerful sleigh hammer to conventionality.

Like a spokesperson for everything politically incorrect, Borat breathes genuine originality and brilliant shocks to the reality television landscape filled with weak, mindless, incoherent junk. Baron Cohen who plays Borat is a man of firm Jewish Ethic foundations, happily married and is a forerunner in combating prejudices. Like the Former director of Jewish Public affair Larry Rubin says, “Cohen’s heart is in the right place”. The parts that offended me were the parts that Cohen manipulate truths in order to suit his perception to create further controversy.

In conclusion, whether or not you choose to avoid this film like a plague or happily embrace its stinging satire is up to you. For me, Borat is an unflinching, unrelentingly breathless 88-minute ride that takes you on a crude, gross, rib-tickling exposition of human prejudice.

I've had my say.

Love,
The Dugong

A Dead Kangaroo On My Plate

2006-11-29T05:33:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I had the priveledge of picking up Miss Lisa Han from the Airport last week (Sunday). Having roast lamb on a pita bread as a first meal in the beautiful land of melbourne, i do hope she enjoys her visit here in Melbourne. She says she's put on weight, but i honestly think she looks the same. A note to men reading this: Girls always say they put on weight NO matter how skinny they are! =P

Now, on to other things that happen this week.

Last Saturday: We renovated an old homeless feeding shelter. A couple of Urbs people painted, did gardening, sand paper-ing, sweeping, and basically all the other -ings to make the place waaayy better than before! God is amazing and His love for people has rubbed on to all of us. We had a tiring but ultimately gratifying experience renovating the shed. :D We Missed Juni though!

Monday: Went to Great Ocean Road! We drove for hours, walked on the beach, touched the beautiful waves, took some brilliant photos, ate good food, saw the stars and topped it off by watching the sun set from the Twelve Apostles. God is an amazing landscape artist! I will post up some photos in the next post.

Tuesday: Hung out in Smith Street. Bought an Adidas Shoe while my cousin Bought a Nike Cap and a dangerously fierce pair of Hiking Boots from Kathmandu.

Wednesday: Went to the night Market! I love it. I ate Kangaroo Meat!! I ate some Spanish Food and African Food! I ate Dutch Food! Dutch Pancakes! Exotic Corny Dog with weird 'Popiah-like' flour skin! Woot Woot! All in all, its AUD$70.. Waaaaaaa...

Its Been a great 4 days. Its been awesome!! Mind Blowing! As the End of the year approaches, i think it's safe to say this year has been really amazing for me! I'm using lots of '!' marks to show my excitement!

Looking forward to be back in Thailand and Maybe Malaysia!

God Loves ya Mates,
Dugong

THX 1138 – Technological Labyrinth & GOD

2006-11-12T06:50:00.000-08:00

JB Hi-Fi. I have spent a year here in Australia and I can tell you that the worst, most evil place for a half-broke student in the land down under is JB Hi-Fi. Just ask Joshua or Herbs (Brodie). Joshua gives me a really cheeky grin whenever we talk about it as we reminiscence of the time when we went on an uncontrollable DVD shopping rampage a few months back. Sigh

Anyways, i bought a few new DVDs.

One of them is THX 1138.

THX waaa? Its George Lucas’s visionary first film that started out as his final semester short film project back in the 1960s. A commercial flop and way ahead of its time, the film is now remastered, re-edited and squeezed into a glorious 2 DVD set Director’s Cut.

For those of you who know me well, I AM a movie fanatic. Growing up reading about the fabled THX 1138 and hearing tales of its almost mythical beauty, I nearly cried when I pressed the play button. Dramatization is necessary when one blogs. Marlon Brando’s flinching in his grave.

Anyways, I watched the movie twice in one sitting. Getting up only for a cup of water and for a 12-minute nose-dig break. THX 1138 is an amazing movie. With minimal dialogue, superb technicality, brilliant usage of colors (white) and understated acting driving the momentum of the film, it manages to tell a story of a haunting future that sees economics and technology replacing freedom and love. A brilliant, crisps essay on perfected community, fragmented humanity. Shades of Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ steadi-cam techniques, Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ silent picture stills and Orson Welles ‘Citizen Kane’ heavy symbolism are scattered throughout the movie.

Themes of a mechanized religion, where mechanized priest promoting commerce and instant solutions through mandatory pacifying drugs prescriptions make THX 1138’s future a chilling yet strangely relatable future. In conclusion, not only does THX 1138 live up to all the hype of being an intelligent artistic triumph but proves that George Lucas, is a ‘kow-kow’ genius.

As I prepare for Urban life this Tuesday, I can draw a parallel line to our journey with God and the movie. Being on this journey, we can either chose to be ‘mechanized’, to expect God to move in a way that we’ve been ‘programmed’ to expect OR we can choose not to be satisfied and break free from the box of thinking/limiting how God will move. The bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:9 ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’.

I believe and expect God to move in my life in a way I cannot comprehend. Do you?

Love,
Dugong

To The Pits and Back!

2006-11-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

Hey amazing people who read my blog,

Yes. I have not been blogging for the past month. I've been having exams and i've been frequently hanging out and looking cool in the library.

I haven't slept for more than 3 hours a day for the past 3 weeks. The Past 65 Hours, i have slept for 2 hours and 32 minutes. I just realised i have multiple ulsers on my upper, lower lip, tongue, my throat is swollen, eyes bloodshot, having eye-bags the size of mooncakes and i have had nose and gum bleeds due to a lack of sleep. I fractured my left Wrist 3 1/2 weeks ago and cracked my right wrist, Ulnar Styloid too. I am the living proof of one tough sonafagun.

But guess what? My final exams ended an hour ago.

And as i have promised some friends, I WILL blog about my past month.

But not now... Not now...

Because now...

It's time for me to sleep til the cows, chickens and rabbits come all the way home.

Love,
The Dugong

Confessions of A Poser

2006-09-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

Dear everyone,

It's been ages since my last post. So many things have happened the past few weeks that it's quite hard to blog it out in one single, rushed post.

All i can say is that each and every passing day, God has been there for me in this incredible journey we all call life. I have been blessed so much and it's been an incredible experience for me.
Two things i have learnt this month:
1. God loves me so much. He showed me just a fragment of how His heart beats for my generation, and i am in awe.
2. If we don't stand for something in our lives, we're gonna fall over everything.

Also, I got this picture from Joshua's Blog. It's beautiful... Really.. Hahahahha

From Left: Paul, Billy, Edmund, Yours Truly, Josh & Tjokro

Hoho! Student by Day and Poser by Night!!!

Love,
The Dugong

September 11: God's Big Heart

2006-08-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody,

I just got back from The Phillip Islands. Apparently, there’s suppose to have a lot of penguins hanging out in the area. (smoking weed and all) Unfortunately, the only penguin i could find in the resort was Tjokro.

But…. That’s a whole story altogether. He has gotten enough stick from me already. I’ll save it for another time. Hehe.

On a more serious note, earlier this afternoon, I had the honor to watch Paul Greengrass’s ‘United 93’ with Alan Tham. The movie spoke to me so strongly in many areas. Note: There is a strong possibility of it being BANNED in Malaysia though.

The film is a value of catharsis; it gives a visceral and haunting portrait of the tragic events aboard flight United 93, showing us what it’s like to be one of the passengers.

It’s the unbearable attention to mundane details that make this movie so wrenching and difficult to watch. You see people avoiding eye contact while waiting for the plane, people making small talk, looking at watches, giving fake smiles. The movie is an intense documentary-drama that puts the viewer in a pressure cooker.

At the end of its 110 minutes, this fact-checked, tightly woven drama is incredibly powerful not because it makes you cry or its ability to connect with the audience, but its ability to take us on a journey back through time to the day of the unprecedented American tragedy.

Yes… I did shed a tear or two while watching this controversial masterpiece. Not only for the heroes, victims and their families of September 11, but also for the terrorist hijackers that believed in something so fanatically that it ultimately consumed them.

After the movie, sitting on the tram on my way home, I felt God saying;
‘Jesus died on the cross for sinners like you and everyone else. Yes, he died even for the hijackers involved in the September 11’

I cried again.

A BIG God who loves me,
Dugong

The Ultimate Joker versus A Parodoxical Week

2006-08-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite a few days since I’ve blogged. I must admit now that I am a very spur-of-the-moment person that, at times lack the discipline to maintain a regular-as-clockwork string of posts. Holding on to the principle of ‘If your heart isn’t there, just don’t blog for the sake of filling up the page’ I guess. Enough of rhetoric monologue.

I’ve had an incredibly paradoxical week.
Relax, Let me explain.
Washed, dried and pressed my Man Utd Jersey. It was in immaculate condition. Minutes later, A pigeon decides to shit on it.

Right side. Just above the Man Utd symbol. I never wanted to eat Peking Pigeon sooo bad….

Thank God I got a job interview. I got vomited at on the way to the interview. White marinara cream color discharge with grey bits.

I had an unbelievable bargain for tickets to ‘Fourplay’ in concert. I bought 3 tickets. Only to find out days later that they were NOT the band I thought they were. Tickets non-refundable.

Carefully timed my tram rides to perfection. Almost. Missing the tram by a few seconds.
Yeap. Four times in a row.

Am I bitter? No way, Jose. Sure… I may have been a lil’ cheesed off then.

But then I realized that Life is an amazing journey with God. It just shows how colorful life is and how amazing each day is planned out. Like I was telling a Juni and Pei Jet over dinner, Jesus must’ve been the ultimate joker 2006 years ago. Dave Letterman, Russell Peters couldn’t even hold a torch.

Everything works out for the good of those who love Him and live according to His will.
Amen
Life is ironically beautiful.

Oh, the interview went great. I think I got the job. :D

Love,
The Dugong

A Serious Post: Farewell To The Horse

2006-08-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

The horse is set to leave Manchester United for Real Madrid this coming Friday for a substantially large fee.
This post, will be a short (very serious) tribute to probally one of the best 'in the box' strikers ever to grace Old Trafford.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy was one of the most imposing forwards in the world (for Man Utd and Holland). Scoring with his trademark power shots, he has torn more goal nets than any other player in the EPL. You never knew what hit you (If you were the goalkeeper that is). Never giving up a chase for the ball, great in the air and on the ground, 'The Horse' has:

1. Had a 100% penalty score rate for the 2002/2003 season
2. Scored a beautiful 45 yard lob. (the distance of about 1/2 the football field)
3. Ex-most expensive player in Britian (19million pounds)
4. Scored in 8 consecutive games
5. One goal shy from the European goal scoring record set by Dennis Law
6. Has scored a total of 150 goals for Manchester United
7. Has won Golden boot of the Season and English player of the year.

-A picture of Horse Neighing defeaningly as he scores a third goal againsts Blackburn. His Proud Neigh goes up to 120 decibels depending on how much grass he eats before a match. We will trully miss his horsey looks and kicks

To cut a long-story short, Horse's name will be remembered in the history books of not only Manchester United, but for Holland. Scoring numerous hattricks (3 goals in a game), uncountable braces (2 goals) and bags of single goals, The Horse has also been known fondly by fans as the 'Dutch Goal Machine'. In the wish lists of almost every football manager for half a decade, age, and injury woes finally caught up with horse. The 2005/2006 season was a forgettable season for the horse as injury, patches of bad form, team bust ups and a very public fallout with the manager made his position in the club anything but secure. A move to greener pastures was inevitable. Real Madrid timing was impeccable. And the rest is history.

As the Horse leaves Old Trafford, with his head high and proud, hoofs restless, Let us take a short, quiet moment to remember horsey's buck tooth smile and humanly neigh.

Sniff. Au Revoire Ruud Van Nistelrooy.

Posted by,
Dugong aka Roy Keane =D

Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity and then some..

2006-07-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

Wha? I know. I know. God only knows what's that.
It's the first word that i learned in my first financial econometrics class and i think i'm in for a pretty challenging semester. I try to look smart in class by strategically placing my silver pen near the corners of my mouth (left & right) or chew the tips of my spectacles.

For those who havent heard from me for ages, here are a few things about what i've been doing for the past few months.

I have tried and succesfully been able to grow a stubble. It's not as immaculate as i want it to be and doesn't make me feel very cool either. But what the heck... i'm keeping it for at least another few months. Maybe til summer then. keeps my chin warm in winter.
I am enjoying Melbourne quite a bit. The weather is really cold but it's still a step up from the fiery humidity in KL. You can get a good workout by just walking to your car.

I do however miss Malaysia at times. It's the simple things. Simple things like spitting on the floor, speaking malay, Waiting for hours for the LRT buses and the great mamak chats. In fact, i think that the mamak stalls are where Malaysians, in general let their defensive walls down and start sharing (too much occasionally) about their lives. From football, Why men have nipples, Politics, Badawi being a softy, the Jihad, Religion, God, Pornography struggles to even the sharing of one's core values in life. Nothing becomes too sacred or taboo when one holds a teh tarik/teh ais/limau/teh o in their hands. Perhaps its the sugar high, the bacteria laden ice cubes or the dense cigarrette-filled air. I dont know. We will never know.

I miss home. I miss Malaysia. I miss the amazing national health food, Ramli burger.

Another thing. It's been really bugging me. It's about Israel's massacre and all out attack on Lebanon. Nothing breaks me more than seeing the Chosen people go to war on the grounds of 3 POWs not being released. 750000 people are losing their homes and the deathtoll reads 418 lebanon people and counting. It's strike 3 for Israel after the acts of 1978 and 1982. I'm can't help but feel restless. It's either the UN or US who will be the clean up crew this time.

Someone always cleans up the mess. Someone always does.
The mike is yours now.

Love,
The Dugong

Hello, The Dugong Blogs Again!

2006-07-24T05:59:00.000-07:00

Ello,

Due to extreme duress from my peers, and also to the incredible (incurable) urge to express my thoughts, i have decided to start a new blog. So, there you go. Taa Daa.. My new Blog.

There are 4 main blogging principles you must know:
1. I blog about things the way I see it.
2. Each time i write a post, I believe strongly that i become 20% cooler. No matter how stupid the post is.
3. Feel free to comment. This drives me to blog about more stupid things and makes me know that YOU care about what i think. Who doesnt want their blogs to be a beehive of sarcastic, sardonic or encouraging comments? I Do give a DAMN what you think.
4. I would love to add your blog link. This shows that we are all cohesively cool. Cool calls to cool like the deep calls to deep.

Ps: Put your blog address on my Comments for me to add you.

Yes, i love you,
TheDugong