rimble rumble ramble wumble

taking a jog down memory lane while i'm alone at the office working the graveyard shift.

story done, nothing to do, so i listen to the bee gees. and how lovely they sound.

it's almost how it used to be...

dad had just bought the home theatre system with 5 speakers, a marantz amplifier and a vcd player

so we were having a good few weeks of karaoke-ing and enjoying the sounds.

then dad brought back the bee gees one night only concert in las vegas. boy was i hooked. i guess i was hardly 10 or 11. but i was hooked on the bee gees.

dad even remarked one night 'if only you memorised your books like you memorised that bee gees concert'

because here's what i used to do: i'd get home from school, have lunch, and turn that cd on and just sit in front of the tv entranced, singing along, pretending i was barry or robin or maurice in his hat.

i'd be jumping to 'night fever', pretending i had my 'more than a woman', or being all mellow with 'words' and  'i started a joke'.

until mum would come by and nag my ears off to do my homework, NOT BEFORE SHE HEARD A FEW TUNES HERSELF.

i knew of the bee gees before i knew the beatles even existed. of course, i developed my love for the other oldies tunes as i grew up, but i never outgrew the bee gees.

they represent something more than just their music. they are a reminder of my dad's boyish eyes as he drummed his fingers to their tunes.

it is worth mentioning that my dad is very much a beatles guy. but being a band boy in his younger days, he sang everything, and the bee gees were as good as anybody, musically.

it's thanks to my dad that i love music the way i do. it's thanks to him that i have made music my way of getting in touch with certain aspects of my emotions that i wouldn't be able to express otherwise.

don't ask me why, but time has passed us by.

klang and thames

The River of Life project initiated to galvanise the Klang river aims to make the 110 kilometre stretch of pollution suitable for recreational use by the year 2020.

Fortunate to be able to join a media boat ride up the river organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, I was able to experience first hand the notorious repulsive stench that permeated from some stretches of the river.

As our boat navigated away from our starting point at the Selangor Yacht Club in Port Klang, we were greeted, not only by the effluent smell but also by the sight of waste throughout the journey. 

There were even parts of the river that were less than two feet deep!

The Klang river begins somewhere in the highlands 25 kilometres northeast of Kuala Lumpur and flows through four major cities along the way: Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, Kuala Lumpur and Klang.

It is easy to blame the pollution in the river as a by-product of the incessant development that's taking place in those cities.

This is not helped by the sight of illegal residences that spring up along the river's quieter sections as well as the ignorance of the general population in caring for the river.

It would be wise for the minds in charge of the project to make an example of what England did to revitalise the Thames river.

Having been declared biologically dead in the 1950s, it has made a remarkable comeback, its waters now teeming with wildlife that had disappeared and have begun re-establishing their habitats. 

Thanks to consistent efforts over fifty years, the Thames was awarded the 2010 International Theiss River Prize by the International River Foundation, in recognition of its achievements in river management and restoration.

One cannot be blamed for being skeptical at the effort to restore the Klang River by the year 2020.

If it took five decades for the Thames to be restored, what hope have we to restore the Klang in the next eight years?

There are silver linings to be drawn, though. The river can be saved without having to hit rock bottom. 

It is not in as dire straits as the Thames was when restoration works began. 

The water has been classified as polluted and unsafe for skin contact, not dead. The wildlife has yet to totally desert the river on its less smelly stretches, judging from the family of otters, bangau and other birds we saw on our trip.

As long as the noble individuals involved in the project stick to their aims and schedules with the same unwavering consistency shown by the English, then we may even scoop an International Theiss River Prize of our own!

what's in my mind?

facebook asks me that question every day... and more often than not, i find that there are more things in my mind than i care to share as a status... so i'll channel the rest of it here.

screw it. 9gag distraction. later then. =)

clean and fair

let me clarify that i have no problems about the call for free and fair elections. campaign all you want. it is your cause, your grouses, your claims.

but i question the movement's methods, and strategy in all 3 rallies that have taken place so far. it's three times that you have taken to the streets to send your message. but, all three have turned unruly. yes, you blame the authorities, especially the police. but i can't see why, after july 9th, would you plan another round of rallying on the streets? 

july 9th was supposed to be a walk for democracy, and i must admit, the ruling coalition didn't do a good job for itself with the spectacular u-turn on their stadium offer. the rest is history.

april 28th was supposed to be a peaceful sit-in at dataran merdeka. but the request for the location was rejected and stadiums were offered. organisers rejected it, saying the offer came at the 11th hour and it was too late to change their plans. herein lie my questions. 

if the organizers planned to have a sit-in, with songs to sing and speeches to give, for two hours, how is it too late to just have participants move to the stadiums instead of dataran? wouldn't a stadium be a better venue so that people are encamped in one place, where you can address all of them, without the need to fill up streets and disrupt businesses and traffic for the general public? wouldn't it be easier to station 6000 security personnel and hundreds of medical staff around a stadium instead of a town square? if it were at a stadium, would you even need such a large number of security and medical staff?

wouldn't you minimise the threat of agent provocateurs if you were at stadiums? wouldn't you minimise the possibility of violence if you were doing your own thing in an enclosed area? wouldn't you eliminate confrontation with the authorities, the need for tear gas and water canons? wouldn't the press be able to cover your demands in a peaceful environment? wouldn't your own voices be louder, thanks to stadium acoustics, than in the streets?

if it was about sending a message to the ruling coalition, wouldn't it be better to give hard proof instead of claiming to have the facts? wouldn't it be better to win the minds (and votes) of people that way? having listened to your speeches, mainly by opposition leaders, all i hear are claims, rhetoric, and sentiments.

if the sit-in was supposed to be non-political, why were there chants of reformasi and hapus BN? isn't that already political? you are trying to send a message to the ruling coalition to make changes, and to not hold elections until your demands are met. why then, are you chanting anti-government slogans? it does not make sense to me.

if the sit-in was supposed to be non-political, why were opposition leaders allowed to make their presence? as champions of electoral reform, accusing the election commission of having members of the ruling coalition in their ranks, shouldn't you be showing them the way it should be?

i don't see how taking to the streets has helped raise awareness of elections in this country being unfair and dirty. if anything, it disturbed the saturday of a larger population of malaysians who weren't able to have a normal weekend. policemen, reporters, medical staff, who could've had off days, had to be called back to serve.

it's sad to hear speeches making examples of the arab spring, that they want the same to happen here.they blame the police for the excessive violence, i say, that's expected of street protests. they claim the local media to be biased, i say, everyone is. do the foreign press covering the event not have their own agendas AGAINST our country? yes, our local media has it's issues. but that's an issue for another posting.

the call for free and fair elections in the country is something that the government cannot turn a deaf ear to. they must show the people that the calls are really just harmless dog barks. otherwise, the opinions of people may sway. we have enough fence sitters whose votes can be won, like their chairman said, and i agree with her on this point, the numbers who turned up for the 'sit-in' have sent their message to the ruling coalition. what is the coalition's response? for that is the true marker of their preparedness to open ballot boxes to the public.

but long after the dust settles, i still think you should have just gone to the stadiums. would've saved us all a lot of worry, panic, airtime, newsprint, hospital fees, overtime, off-days... it'll just go on. no more street bersih, please. use your intelligence to plan better methods of calling for the free and fair elections you yearn for.

current musings...

it has been a long long while since i've written here. one month into my new job and i can positively say, without any shadow of a doubt, that i am happy to be employed at one of the most recognisable and prominent broadcasting brands in the country.

going deeper still, yes, i'm having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the environment because it is so so so unique. *sugar-coating at its best* Yet, it's up to me to make it work. where i would prefer to be, i have made it perfectly obvious, but alas, you cannot have all that you want. lets just see this through, and make the decisions as we go along.

i'm looking for some inner peace. i think i've ignored that facet of life for far too long.