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On Behalf Of Uncle Yap
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 8:51 AM
Cc: bpmalaysia@yahoogroups.com; bpmalaysia@yahoogroups. com
Subject: E-mail from Astro
You might be interested to read what I have just received from Astro.
To: xxxxx@streamyx.
Subject: Re: BIP1, MHK2 & OMF3
From: We Care
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2008 16:00:36 +0800
Dear Encik Yap,
We refer to your email below and would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused. We wish to advise that we have noted your comments on the irritation suffered by you on the regular appearance of the letters BIP1, MHK2 & OMF3 on your screen whenever you and your family watch Astro programmes. Please be advised that the appearance of a 4-digit code on your television screen is part of an on-going audit and tracking procedures undertaken by Astro to improve the safety and security of the smart card.
Alamak, why am I bull-shitting you?
If you really want to know, when we started the Astro service in this country in 1996 following the launch of the MEASAT-1 satellite, our turn-key contractor and consultant was Brainbox Integrated Production plc, a British hi-tech firm located in Virginia Waters, Surrey in the United Kingdom.
In the early days, we needed to incorporate certain codes to monitor our programmes and for that purpose, three sets of alpha-numeric characters were devised by the then-senior engineer, Mr Merde-Hereford Kingsley.
We do not have records of how or why he chose BIP 1 but we strongly believe this was the initials of the consultant company, Brainbox Integrated Production plc.
The second code is obviously the initials of Mr Merde-Hereford Kingsley himself, a bit like the personal appearance of the late Alfred Hitchcock in one of his films.
As for the third set of codes, we have reasons to believe they were his favourite swear words, "Oh, mother f*****" which he would shout aloud in the laboratory whenever he met with a problem. However, we are also led to think that they may well represent the initials of the missionary group of his parents.
You may be interested to know that at a young age, Mr Merde-Hereford Kingsley was sent to Eton (and then later to read physics at Hertford College, Oxford) when his parents, Oliver and Rachel Kingsley volunteered for the China Inland Mission (CIM).
However, due to the turmoil in China occasioned by the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party following the end of WWII, many CIM missionaries were unable to go to China to spread the Christian gospel. Many of the volunteer-missionaries were diverted to other Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaya and Indonesia.
To reflect the change, CIM was renamed OMF for Overseas Missionary Fellowship. We are fairly certain that the above narrative adequately described the origins of the three codes that you have complained about.
As to why they still remain to plague you is yet another story which I have to seek among the old-timers to get at the truth. Apparently, the Senior Engineer, Mr Merde-Hereford Kingsley, in the course of his work on Astro, met and fell in love with the Secretary to Mr Ananda Krishnan, the CEO of Astro and Measat. This lady by name of Cik Zaleha Omar was a most comely lady who was reputed to speak three languages, Malay, English and Tamil. When the question of marriage cropped up, there was great anguish and anxiety in the Astro organisation that a Christian foreigner would dare cohabit with and marry a local Malay lady of the Islamic faith.
The matters was not resolved until Mr Merde-Hereford Kingsley was given a 24-hour order by the Immigration Department, Ministry of Home Affairs, to leave the country, which he did around midnight 24 October 2002.
We are unable to tell more as Cik Zaleha Omar left the services of Astro shortly after. We are also unable to tell you whether she emigrated to the United Kingdom. However, we are able to tell you that nobody in Astro know how to switch the codes off.
So today and everyday since October 2002, we have to live with the irritating codes of BIP1, MHK2 & OMF3 on yourscreen.
We trust the above clarifications are in order. Should you need further assistance, kindly contact our Call Centre at 1300-82-3838 which is operational from 8.00 am to 12.00 midnight daily or email to wecare@astro.com.my.
It is our pleasure to be of service to you.
Yours sincerely,
Muhammad Jan Rawi
Correspondence Officer
Customer Service
From: xxxxx@streamyx.
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 10:13 AM>
To: We Care>Subject: BIP1, MHK2 & OMF3>
Remote Address : 60.46.202.35>Remote Host : 60.46.202.35>HTTP User Agent : Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB;>
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Interesting story, isn't it? Apparently, it was just a April Fool's Day joke of the century. There was someone who was so free to write such an article. Somebody must have pissed this fella off while working Astro, I presumed so.
Maybe the writer was a guy who didn't get to court the secretary as it was taken by an expat senior engineer ...... LOL!
Tags: Astro, Measat-1 Satellite, Merde-Hereford Kingsley, Brainbox Integrated Production plc, Chinese Communist Party, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, China Inland Mission, April Fool Joke
4 comments:
thanks for your "2 cent" comment at my blog, appreciate it !!! :)
most welcome
LOL. I thought it was real at first until I read 2nd paragraph.
shld hav taken that off hehehe
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