Life's Happenings

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Eleven Digits for Malaysian Mobiles

As Malaysia's mobile technology is going to implement the Mobile Number Portability (MNP), mobile users will get to change to whichever mobile service provider whenever they want and yet, get to keep their same mobile number.

According to the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, the new numbering and electronic addressing shall be available to the public at a fee to be decided by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

Now for the best part, you will get a new number for this process. Currently, all mobile phone numbers are in seven digits. Upon this new implementation, your new mobile number will an additional digit.

Subject to you subscribing for the MNP, you will be assigned with another three new digits. Whether they will add that four digits before or after your current number, it has not been mentioned yet.

I don't think it's a problem to all mobile users. Those days without the mobile technology, I could remember a number of my friends' house telephone numbers. Nowadays, I can't recall almost all of my friends' numbers, be it house or mobile. Thanks to the technology of phone memory. My excuse - it frees my brain in storing those complicated phone numbers and brain could be put to better use for other issues (some friends who will read this will surely say - you mean you have a brain?).
All this will happen by end of the year after many months (or years?) of delays. Delays due to ??? Let's see which mobile telco will win this service provider war with the MNP in place.

Reading: Mobile numbers to be in 11 digits - The Edge Daily
Related post - Mobile Number Portability (MNP)

Tags: Mobile Technology, Mobile Number Portability, MNP, Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, MCMC

Monday, August 18, 2008

Amazing Plots in Indian Movies

Once, an Englishman Newton came to India and watched a few Indian movies that had his head spinning. He was convinced that all his logic and laws in physics were just a huge pile of junk and apologized for everything he had done.

Here are a few scenes:-
1) In one of the fights, Rajanikanth is shot in the head. To everybody's surprise, the bullet passes through his ears taking away the tumor along with it and he is cured! Long Live Rajanikanth!

2) In another movie, Rajanikanth is confronted with 3 gangsters. Rajanikanth has a gun but unfortunately only one bullet and a knife.

Guess, what he does?

He throws the knife at the middle gangster & shoots the bullet towards the knife. The knife cuts the bullet into 2 pieces, which kills both the gangsters on each side of the middle gangster & the knife kills the middle one.

3) Rajanikanth is chased by a gangster. Rajanikanth has a revolver but no bullets in it. Guess, what he does. Nah? not even in your remotest imaginations.

He waits for the gangster to shoot. As soon as the gangster shoots, Rajanikanth opens the bullet compartment of his revolver and catches the bullet. Then, he closes the bullet compartment and fires his gun.

Bang... the gangster dies...

Happened to see another movie for one last time, and thought that at least one movie would follow the theory of physics. The whole movie goes fine and the patrons are happy that all in the world hasn't changed. Oops, not so fast!

The 'climax' finally arrives.

Rajanikanth gets to know that the villain is on the other side of a very high wall. So high that Rajanikanth can't jump even if he tries like one of those superman techniques that our heroes normally use. Rajanikanth has to desperately kill the villain because it's the climax.

(Patrons are smiling since it is virtually impossible?)

Rajanikanth suddenly pulls two guns from his pockets. He throws one gun in the air and when the gun has reached above the height of the wall, he uses the second gun and shoots at the trigger of the first gun in the air. The first gun fires off and hits the villain and the villain is dead.

THE END
Tags: Rajanikanth, Indian Movies, Hero, Villain

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Roy Durman's Healing Crusade

Rev. Roy Durman is back in town again and he's a superb servant of God used mightily in the area of healing. This event is being hosted by Praise City Church, located in Cheras.

Date: 15 Aug to 17 Aug 2008 (time as listed on the left pic)

The main sanctuary upstairs was occupied but sufficient seatings have been arranged for over flowing crowd. Four additional large screens have been set-up to cater for people seated on the ground floor area.

New visitors registering at the reception area.

Healing process taking place. Yesterday night, he requested specifically for people who have breast cancer. Miraculously, after the prayer session, some tested themselves on the spot and confirmed that their lumps have gone just like that.

The front area was large enough to cater for people coming forward to seek prayers for God's healing power.

Not only the crowd in the front was there for healing, they did pray for those who were selected to be on stage that were being prayed for by Rev. Roy Durman himself.

Packed right up to the end of the sanctuary hall.

Next specific healing that was called - hernia. Various individuals have their hernia pain taken away miraculously by the power of God.

Rev. Roy Durman was addressing the crowd on God's healing power.

People joining Rev. Roy Durman in praying for the unhealthy people. Anyone could be heal in the power of Jesus' name provided you believed that He could do it.

Tonight, he has mentioned that he will be praying specifically for those who are deaf and dumb. If you knew of anyone who has this issue, please bring them along. If you want to invite someone for this event, it's still not too late by sending out this e-card invitation.

A video was compiled for this event as well and posted in YouTube -

Reading: Roy Durman in Kenya - Partners in Kenya
Tags: Roy Durman, Healing Crusade, Praise City Church, Breast Cancer, Hernia, Deaf, Dumb

Friday, August 15, 2008

Confusing Olympics Medal Standing

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is heating up in many sports arenas throughout a few cities in China. No doubt that we can see from the total number of athletes' participation that both USA and China would be going all out in their respective sports to compete for the number one position in the medal standing.

Who would dare to bet against China in not getting the number one position for the first time in Olympics history by looking at the current medal standing. But USA is catching up and with their athletics taking up positions in the track and fields' events, surely they will threaten China's current number one position.

But what am I talking about? What catching up with China? In Fox Sports, USA is already shown as the number one nation in the medal standing. Fox Sports took into consideration the total number of medals won (be it gold or silver or bronze). Fox Sports-shares owned by USA interests-obvious!

When you read the official Beijing 2008 website, the medal standing showed otherwise where China is the top nation. Obviously, this website is maintained by China web administrators.

Which medal standing do you support?

For me, I'll adopt the medal standing which rates the nations according to their number of gold medals first. There are 302 gold medals to be won. Imagine USA was to win all the 302 golds and China won the rest of the 604 silvers and bronzes, will China be accepted as the number one in the medal standing?

Reading: China Vs USA, The Olympic Medal Race Begins - Great Findings

Reading: The Medal Rankings: Which Country Leads the Olympics? - New York Times

Reading: Raising the Stakes at the Olympics - Time

Tags: USA, China, Sports, Olympics, Beijing, Beijing 2008, Beijing Olympics, Olympic Games, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Olympic Games Medal Standing, Medal Standing, Fox Sports

The State of Malaysian Students

Here are some reasons to show why the teaching profession is so pressurised:-

Tags: Education, English Test, Teaching Profession

Thursday, August 14, 2008

My Journey Back to Home Ground

Left Khartoum on Sunday night after a long delay at the airport. My Emirates Airlines plane was supposed to depart at 7.20pm (local time) but the wonderful plane landed just before that and passengers were only alighting from the airplane at 7.20pm.

In such case, I would expect a forty minutes wait for the plane to be cleaned. At 8.05pm, we were boarding our plane but were seated in it till 8.45pm before the captain announced that we will be on our way. My my.

Arrived at Dubai around 1am plus. The colourful wall that you can see here is actually the outer design of a bus. It has not opened its doors yet at that point of time.

Our plane stopped about five minutes away from the main terminal. Peak timing during midnight at Dubai airport.

The plane from Khartoum was packed and this scenario in the bus was just like a public bus. Went straight to the transfer desk to obtain my boarding pass for my connecting flight at 10.20am. That's how crazy it was. Me and my two other colleagues were amongst the first to be at the counter and we were the last to leave the counter. That was way past 2am.

Arrived at Millenium Airport Hotel to be checked in and only managed to drop dead on bed at 3am. By 7.45am, we woke to go over to the airport.

The Dubai city scenery seen from my bedroom. Not facing the city centre where there are lots of towering buildings.

The buildings (two storeys) right in front of me is the Dubai International School which comprise several blocks. Owing to the huge expats found in Dubai, such international schools are really huge.

That's the Dubai Metro railway, under construction to meet the congestive traffic throughout Dubai city.

At 10.20am, it's time for my flight back to home sweet home. The control tower located on the right hand side of the picture.

Human traffic jam while entering the plane. It was a Boeing 777 model.

They were still pumping fuel into my airplane while I was boarding it.

Seated besides me was a beautiful four year old girl (I think) from the Middle Eastern region. I was seated at the aisle seat while she was at my right and her parents were on her right. The mother who was beside her couldn't care less about her. She was poking the TV screen on the seat in front of her.

She was totally excited with that flight. Moving here and there. Kicked my leg unknowingly. I couldn't stand it any longer. When it came to meal time, I threw some sleeping pills into her food without her parent's knowledge.

She knocked out for the rest of the flight. Peace at last!