September 1752

Did you know that nothing happened between 3 and 13 September 1752? In September 1752 the Julian calendar was replaced with the Gregorian calendar in Great Britain and its American colonies. The Julian calendar was 11 days behind the Gregorian calendar, so 14 September got to follow 2 September on the day of the change. The result was that between 3 and 13 September, absolutely nothing happened!

On that month, workers worked for 11 days less but were paid for the full month.

Reading: The time that nothing happened.....
Reading: Time to Take Note: The 1752 Calendar Change
Tags: Weird, September 1752, Julian Calender, Gregorian Calendar

Malaysian Mathematician

I find it most alarming that Malaysian schools teach our children the wrong things. I mean, can the children really apply what they are taught in school later in life?

For example, can you imagine a mathematics question in a recent examination as follows?

"If an egg costs fifty sen, and if you buy one-eighth of the egg, how much would you have to pay?" Who in heaven's name will want to buy one-eighth of an egg? The shopkeeper will probably think you are crazy and he will be equally stupid to break the egg and measure one-eighth for you. Yet, this is how they structure the questions in Malaysian schools.

Why not pose questions that would be more useful later in life when you go out into the world to earn your living? To help Malaysia 's Ministry of Education bet to face the realities of life, we are suggesting some questions they could use in our classrooms:-

QUESTION 1 If you drive from Kuala Lumpur to Penang along the PLUS Highway and there are four speed traps along the way, and if each speed trap would cost you RM300.00 in fines, how much in fines would you accumulate by the time you reach Penang ?

ANSWER (Choose one)

1. I would not suffer any fines as the on coming cars would flash their headlights and I would slow down before coming to the speed trap.

2. I would only need to pay a total of RM80.00 as I would pay a RM20.00 bribe at each speed trap.

3. I would not be stopped as I am an UMNO Wakil Rakyat so I am exempted from speed traps.

QUESTION 2 If your Bumiputera company is awarded a RM150 million government contract, and you make a 20% profit, how much profit would be at the end of the contract period?

ANSWER (Choose one)

1. I will not be making a 20% profit as I would have to pay the Minister 10% and UMNO 5%.

2. I would make 30% profit, which is the progress payment I receive, after which I will abandon the project and let the government call for re-tender.

3. My company will not make any profit at all as I will siphon out all the profits and show a loss to avoid paying corporate tax.

QUESTION 3 If the ruling party obtained 54% of the popular votes the last election and won 151 or 80% of the seats, and if it saw an increase of 10% in votes this election, how many more seats would it gain?

ANSWER (Choose one)

1. The ruling party will not show a 10% increase in votes, as it will stuff the ballot box with another 20% to give it a 30% vote increase.

2. The ruling party will win a ich are the newly created seats in the delineation exercise recently done.

3. The ruling party has already decided it will win 90% of the seats and the votes have nothing to do with it.

QUESTION 4 If the national petroleum company, Petronas, pays a 5% royalty to Terengganu State and if the amount paid is RM800,000,000 per year, how much should Petronas have in the bank accumulated over the last 25years?

ANSWER (Choose one)

1. Nobody is supposed to know as Petronas need not show its accounts to anyone except the Prime Minister and this information comes under the Official Secrets Act.

2. Petronas earns only 50% of its petroleum revenue from Terengganu so Petronas' total income accumulated in the banks over 25 years should be RM800 billion.

3. Petronas has nothing accumulated in the bank as all the money has spent bailing out companies and finance mega projects.

Tags: Jokes, Funny, Humor, Politics, Malaysia, Mathematics, PLUS Highway, UMNO Wakil Rakyat, Petronas, Terengganu, Ministry of Education

Flight of the Phoenix / Night at the Museum - movie review

Flight of the Phoenix – starring Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi & Jacob Vargas. An operation plant was shut down in Mongolia and Dennis was sent to pick up the crews from the site via his airplane. Midway, the plane’s engine/system gave way to the bad weather and their airplane plummeted down to the desert area. Stucked there without any communication tools and with mental torture setting in, one by one got killed. Want to know how?

One of the stucked up guy, in the last moment, provided them with a genius way of getting out from there alive. How? To re-build the airplane according to a small scale model airplane design seen in a book. In the midst of re-building, an unidentified group of travellers (with weapons) camped near their plane and the employees banded together to confront them. One obstacle after another, their plane was up and to start the plane, it required firepower. Only few rounds from the flare gun left …….. but the plane was only meant for a 2 seater passenger. How are they going to ride away?

Quite entertaining with suspense at times. You could have guessed the ending with some people dying along the way. If you have plenty of time, this is one show you can watch, otherwise forget about it and I found it absurd in the way they got out of the desert with that plane in the end. Not realistic.
Night at the Museum – starring Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney & Bill Cobbs. Before reading the whole review, I’m giving a thumbs up for the movie for the creativity and originality of it. About this guy who can’t stay in a job long enough and due to that his family kept moving house till his teenage daughter couldn't stand her dad and blasted him one day. With that incident, he was determined to get a stable job and stay at it. Was interviewed for a job as a night security guard at a nearby natural museum.

Was all alone and the graphics designers did a good job in getting various historical animals & humans to move as if it was real throughout the museum. A SHOCKED Ben found out that at midnight, all historic animals and humans figures could move. Ben has to settle a dispute between the western cowboys and Caesar's roman armies, teach the pre-historic humans about fire, learn to play 'fecth' with the T-Rex dinosaur and his adviser in his difficult hard night times was the former US President, Theodore Roosevelt.

Towards the end, Ben was able to bring all animals and humans to work together to catch a band of thieves that wanted certain magical stuff from the museum. Hilarious, unique and very entertaining.
Tags: Movie, Cinema, Review, Flight of the Phoenix, Night at the Museum, Dennis Quaid, Ben Stiller

Liquid

In the life of many people, they may require 4 types of liquid........

Milk? Soft drink? Liquor? And drips of whatever liquid while laying in bed during old age.......

Tags: Liquid, Milk, Soft Drink, Liquor, Jokes, Funny, Humor

Nasi Briyani

Nasi Briyani or Briyani Rice - rice steamed with ghee oil/some butter/spices and could be taken with meat or vegetables. But when I saw the following pictures (of Lamb Briyani Rice), my appetite for Briyani Rice dropped drastically.
Tags: Nasi Briyani, Briyani Rice, Food

Cost of a Miracle

A little girl went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jelly jar from its hiding place in the closet. She poured the change out on the floor and counted it carefully. Three times, even. The total had to be exactly perfect. No chance here for mistakes.

Carefully placing the coins back in the jar and twisting on the cap, she slipped out the back door and made her way 6 blocks to Rexall's Drug Store with the big red Indian Chief sign above the door. She waited patiently for the pharmacist to give her some attention but he was too busy at this moment. Tess twisted her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. No good. Finally she took a quarter from her jar and banged it on the glass counter. That did it!

"And what do you want?" the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. I'm talking to my brother from Chicago whom I haven't seen in ages," he said without waiting for a reply to his question. "Well, I want to talk to you about my brother," Tess answered back in the same annoyed tone. "He's really, really sick... and I want to buy a miracle."

"I beg your pardon?" said the pharmacist. "His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says only a miracle can save him now. So how much does a miracle cost?"

"We don't sell miracles here, little girl. I'm sorry but I can't help you," the pharmacist said, softening a little. "Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn't enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much it costs."

The pharmacist's brother was a well-dressed man. He stooped down and asked the little girl, "What kind of a miracle does your brother need?" "I don't know" Tess replied with her eyes welling up. "I just know he's really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my Daddy can't pay for it, so I want to use my money." " How much do you have?" asked the man from Chicago.

"One dollar and eleven cents," Tess answered barely audibly. "And it's all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to." "Well, what a coincidence," smiled the man. "A dollar and eleven cents---the exact price of a miracle for little brothers. "

He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her mitten and said "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the miracle you need."

That well dressed man was Dr. Carlton Armstrong, a surgeon, specializing in neurosurgery. The operation was completed free of charge and it wasn't long until Andrew was home again and doing well.

Mom and Dad were happily talking about the chain of events that had led them to this place. That surgery," her Mom whispered. "was a real miracle.I wonder how much it would have cost?" Tess smiled. She knew exactly how much a miracle cost...one dollar and eleven cents, plus the faith of a little child.

In our lives, we never know how many miracles we will need. A miracle is not the suspension of natural law, but the operation of a higher law.
Tags: Inspiration, Miracle

Consumer Healthcare

GlaxoSmithKline Malaysia has assured the public that Ribena's content is as per its label via an official statement to Amir Mahmood Razak, a TV news anchor who enquired about it when he read about the case in New Zealand. The statement came about due to GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare in New Zealand (GSK-CH) who has accepted charges brought by the New Zealand Commerce Commission and has given undertakings to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission with regards to potentially misleading advertising statements and low levels of Vitamin C in some Ribena Ready-to-Drink products manufactured for the Australia and New Zealand markets.

More in Amir Mahmood Razak's blog and Screenshots.

Has the food/beverage production been compromised lately? Which 3rd party can verify the truthfulness on the label or those contect not listed in label to avoid consumer repercussion.

In China, two young men from Hangzhou, provincial capital of Zhejiang in eastern China, sued the Zhongcui Foodstuff Co Ltd for producing and putting on the market Coca-Cola and Sprite drinks containing the preservative sodium benzoate, which has been proved to be harmful to human health when consumed over a long period. The plaintiffs accused the manufacturers of covering up the preservative's chemical nature, thus depriving the consumer of "the right to know". The case is reported to have been accepted by a court. (source: Asia Times Onlime)

Is it the same situation in Malaysia as well? What does Malaysia's Coca Cola producer, F&N Coca-Cola, has to say about the situation in China. Personally, I do refrain from drinking carbonated soft drinks.
Tags: GlaxoSmithKline, Ribena, Malaysia, New Zealand Commerce Commission, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Vitamin C, Hangzhou, Zhongcui Foodstuff Co Ltd, China, Coca Cola, Sprite, Preservative, Sodium Benzoate, Consumer Healthcare, Health, F&N