To hear, or to silence

Firstly, if you're the CIA and you're reading this post, I am NOT a terrorist, serial killer or any like minded person. I just have an opinion.

I'm sure by now you've all heard about South Korean student Cho Seung Hui's mass murder at Virginia Tech and how he shot himself after killing more than 30 people. You've probably also heard the outcry over the media outlets publishing his "manifesto".



Now, I'm not pro-silencing or pro-airing. But I am pro-listening-to-what-he-has-to-say-and- making-some-good-judgement-or-learning-good-lessons-from-it. From what we know in the media, Cho rants against "rich kids" and "debauchery". And classmates said he was bullied. So what does that tell us?

Instead of an outcry over "disturbing images" we should ask ourselves, really, why did he do it? What was he experiencing? His story seems so similar to what happens here in malaysia, kids who get ostracized in school, laughed at, and ragged.

I've seen people like that when I was in school. I'm sure you have.

The most that most of these people do is go home to Mommy crying. This one went out and bought two guns. There's a message here somewhere.

Maybe Cho's telling us to look at how we live and how we treat others. Do we victimise and put people down around us, in our workplace, or in school? Someday, the "butt of all jokes" will have the last laugh.

Read this guy's blog posting. He makes a good comment.

Queues and Malaysians

So I was lining up today at the Customs department, patiently waiting for my turn to check out my parcel and bring it to the customs officer for checking and declaration, when suddenly, this guy comes up casually stops right in front of the booth - in front of all of us who've been queueing for ages.

Now, he's got a mean look and no one dares say anything, so I just casually mention "the line starts here." He nods, and that's about it. He continues standing by the booth, waiting for the person being served to be finished, so he can swoop in and get his stuff done first. The nerve.

I had half-a-mind to walk up to him and insist he line-up like everyone else (which, after due checking with my own paltry musculature, I decided against).

Thankfully, his friend across the other side of the customs office decides to signal him and he has to give up his spot to complete some other business. Business as usual.

But what's it with these guys? Can't we learn to queue up civilly like everyone else in the world? I mean, this is not the first time or first incidence or only form of queue cutting.

Many times, I've circled around MidValley and finally find a spot for parking when a large car (usually a gold Mercedes Benz, old model) will appear from the other side and swing into what was formerly my parking spot. Hello? Mother never teach you manners?

Or when queueing up for LRT. Can't queue properly. Lining up to embark an LRT quickly devolves into mass melee free-for-all. And poor women get taken advantaged of.

Or queue hopping. Have a bunch of friends go to McDonalds, everyone joins a different queue to a different counter, and the first one that reaches has all his friends join him. Suddenly, if you were behind him, you realise you're in for a 10 minute wait till your turn as the attendant sorts through the mass-ordering.

I wonder what foreigners think of us and our Queuing habits. Probably to be expected of at a Third-World country. But we protest. We're at least second world, if not close enough to first world.

So, in the spirit of Visit Malaysia Year 2007, I humbly call to you: queue up civilly, and respect those who queued before you. Let's show them foreigners that we're civilised too. Cheers.

Return of the parking saga

Remember the time I was ranting about MidValley's increased rates? Well... they've also screwed up something else.

Just last Friday whislt attempting to exit the parking mall area, a massive traffic jam was caused. Why? Because someone had expired the 20 minutes grace period you're allocated to exit the carpark.

Okay, that's normal, right? But wait till you hear this.

Because MidValley is so super packed with people and they all want to get out at the same time, let's just say that in the midst of waiting, you had many many people with 20-minute-grace-period expired.

Chaos ensued.

So, how can MidValley fix this?

1. A longer grace period. Maybe 30 minutes?
2. A better traffic flow, with attendants guiding people out in peak hours. Someone has to think of a plan.
3. Or, just go back to flat RM 1 parking?

Bloggers to register with government?

This just in, from lowyat.net:

BLOGGERS using locally hosted websites may be asked to register with the authorities, Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said. He said registration was one of the measures the Government was considering to prevent the spread of negative or malicious content on the Internet.

One more reason to stay on blogspot? A resounding YES for me. Need to sort my thoughts out. Then I'll be back with more.

I'm an M&M

Deep down inside each of us, there's a secret chocolate lurking underneath. Come on, you know it's there. Admit it.

Well, I'm finally letting the chocolate me out (scroll down)


This is sooooo me. Blue's my favourite colour. I'm a Lau Piah, so I wear slippers every where I go. And I love gadgets, so my mobile phone is a must have. Of course, I don't have THAT funky a hairdo, but I sure wish I did...

This link brings a smile to my face. Become an M&M too at http://www.becomeanmms.com/. So, what's your colour?

Up Down Streamyx

Can anyone help me with this problem?

So I booted up World of Warcraft for the first time yesterday, and realised I was experiencing absurdly high latency. The bar started with Green then dropped to Yellow and then finally to Red. Latency was rated at about 1169 ms.

Once again, I feel really let down by TMNet's service. How are we supposed to play MMORPGs if latency is such an issue?

World of WhoreCraft?

*Whoring is to journalists what PR people who push products do. You Whore when you say "such and such product does this and this and this, and is the best reason for you to spend money."

I know there's been a lot of talk about Second Life as the next big PR platform. Many PR agencies, including my own, are gaping with jaws wide open about the "possibilites."

• Virtual Press Conferences.
• Virtual Product Launches with Virtual 3D models of the latest products.
• Limitless interaction with a media footprint that crosses geographies.
• Interactive gaames and contests.

More than 5 million "residents" and about 1.6 million of which logged-in within the last 60 days (taken off http://www.secondlife.com), this is some audience. Besides, you can almost be certain that whoever is spending time on Second Life is in some measures a geek. And if you're selling geek products, that's quite a big audience that you can safely say is "targeted."

Heck, even my agency has a virtual office in Second Life-land, and Reuters has a reporter covering stuff in Second Life full time.

But... this whole shebang is dwarfed by an even bigger phenomenon. One that has gamers aged over 50 playing and logging on and pretending to be tight women in skimpy leather outfits. With a last reported number of over 7 million subscribers, I'm wondering if any PR agency or corporate client has ever thought about targeted product placements or press events in World of Warcraft.

Think about it.. that's 7 million people with the cash to shell out USD 15 a month to play pretend (vs 5 million of people not shelling anything out). WoW players would be more likely to be logging in than Second Life onlookers.

Next, the demographics are kinda there, in any case, Blizzard will have the info. So you'd know exactly which people you're targeting. So, if you're a brand that's totally not targeted or related to the WoW-playing demographic, don't bother.

Sure, there'd be problems given that you'd have to have the same presence across the different "shards" or "servers", but we could just mirror the activities, content and events.

Then there'd be problems in, say, throwing a press conference on WoW. What about journalists who don't have passes? Well, we COULD give away passes to journos to get online just for that event. Maybe a special media pass Blizzard could design. Of course, the 3.5 GB download is going to be killing, but maybe over time, with WoW as a platform, WoW would come pre-installed on every journalist's PC. (I have a dream...)

And most Malaysian Tech Journos I know are on WoW in some form or another...so that would pretty much be a moot point.

So, that's my case. Blizzard, you're sitting on a marketeer's dream. Figure a way to let the brands in, and the money would start rolling. Would your average, paying subscriber be open to marketing in WoW World? Yeah, why not? If done tastefully and in character, we love these kind of things. So, what're you waiting for?