hk day 3

yes i hav enothing better to do at night in hongkong than to sit in the lobby of my hotel and update my blog. i took like 300 photos today
, went to visit the big buddah on the top of the hill and also the worlds most happiest place on earth.

by now i have realised mongkok aint the best neighbourhood in town haha. nothing much to write about today, really tired. update with photos when i cbf.

hk day 2

reasons why i hate traveling with my parents

1. my mum likes to ask random people things regardless of their nature of work or who they are.
eg. my mum likes to go to a security guard/cleaner etc and ask them if they have any more sizes or if they can get her a coat from the back.

2. my dad is over enthusiastic about anything i tell him eg. i tell him i need to get a back pack and he points out every single store with any sort of bag for sale

3. my dad likes to point out random things
eg. we get on the subway and he goes: we're underground
thanks dad
eg. we go into nike and he goes: this is a nike store

4. my mum is like a small child, when she walks she doesnt pay attention to anything.
eg. mum walks in front, me and my dad stop to take photos, she keeps walking for aboout 300 meters before my dad calls out to her to tell her to come back.

5. my dad is a fool
eg. he is trying to boycott france by refusing to go into any shop that is french such as louis vuitton etc.

6. my dad is paranoid about everything, so before we left the apartment he locked my laptop and everything else in a bag with a lock on the zip. we head out and i got extremely tired and decided to go home early to chill out on the computer/take photos with the slr of surroundings later.

i get back to the hotel and i realise that my laptop is in the bag with the lock...
i was really desperate so i told hotel maintenance to cut the lock for me with bolt cutters.

i reckon my dad will be angry when he gets back, but i couldnt call him (no sim cards/phones here for us) and i literally had nothing else to do.

end of day2

(oh yea, picked up somethings today, retail therapy is making me feel better about this place)

hk day 1

i have succesfully landed in hong kong and landed in my hotel with my parents. i am living in kowloon.

first thing i did when i got here was check out the neighbourhood and because ive been hearing all these good things about this infamous "sneaker street" i was curious to go check it out and since i was living quite near it, it was a good opportunity.

my verdict of hk thus far is that it is as good as it is bad. doesnt make much sense.

the "sneaker street" area of kowloon is like a little cbd full of sneaker stores as far as the eye can see. unfortunately, the price is pretty much the same or even more expensive than melbourne and it is essentially 1000 stores with the same stock. every store has the same shit except a couple of stores had vans whilst most didnt.

here i am thinking that i was gonna cop a pair of cheap van eras for like 40 bucks to beat up whils t im in asia, but no, they cost like 80 aud here too =[

plane trip wasnt bad, i had john legend to put me in a trance like state for about 30 minutes and i also watched a bit of possibly the worst movie ever made in the history of man kind, its called:

kung fu hiphop


i watched the first 10 minutes, i really couldnt bare anymore. it had chicken from YnD as the main character and omg, i have lost so much respect for him. that movie really really really sucked.


anyway, hopefully my hongkong experience gets better starting tommorow. see y'all soon

holdin down the block

almost exactly one more week til i leave for hongkong/shanghai. just for those who were not familiar with my plans, they are:

(in chronological order)
hongkong for 4 days
shanghai for 1 month
melbourne for 1 week
korea for 1 semester
shanghai for 1 semester


but its funny that i've been looking forward to leaving all year, i have been imagining jamming with chinese and korean bboys and living by myself in shanghai whilst doing internship with volkswagen and also been looking forward to making some new friends in korea.

but its funny because on the eve of my departure, i don't seem like i want to leave anymore.

disturbia

so i was on my way to the city this afternoon in hopes of getting some dance on and well a very "interesting" individual got on, and by interesting i mean extremely drunk or high.

he looked a lot like this guy:



a few girls in some nice summer dresses came on (they were like 4-5 maybe 6/10 at best) and sat down behind me, and then that bald guy who i shall refer to now as drunko, got on.

the drunko sat down next to them and started putting his arm around them, shaking their hands and trying to chat them up in a sexually harassing way. so one dude on the side started saying "hey mate, don't do that" and a i think maybe french or arabic guy also told him to stop.

eventually the first dude got the drunko to calm down and sit down and chatted to him whilst the girls ran to other seats, but the french/arab (farab) guy kept telling him to get off the tram, eventually other people got on and the farab guy started explaining to everyone else who didnt see the initial incident why he was telling this drunko to get off and then eventually he started bragging about how he made him stop harrassing those girls. at which point the drunko's girlfriend got on and started lip wrestling with him, the drunko also lit one up to smoke. at which point i decided to move because i dont want to die of asthma.

anyway so from another seat, i saw the drunko get up and get this

he took his pants off and got out his genitals and tried to make his girlfriend give him oral sex...on the tram.



end of story.

foh sale

I had my last exam today and wrote about the impacts that developing countries have on developed countries, and also the challenges that face the communist party of china has a result of rapid economic development and rise in average income levels.

and now i have some stuffs to sell. dont hesitate to buy ;)
need (extra) funds for china just in case i get scammed and need money to save my life. that sorta thing.



White/White Dunks
Condition: 7/10
Size: US 11
Price: $70 (hold)


Lakers New Balance 585 High
Condition: 9/10
Size: US 10.5
Price: $90


Provider New Balance 1500
Condition: DS
Size: 10
Price: $550


Melbourne Dunk Low
Condition: DS
Size: 11
Price: $210


Black/White Dunk High
Condition: 9/10
Size: US 10
Price: $80 (hold)


Black/Orange Ice Cream Boardflips 1
Condition: DS
Size: 10.5
Price: $80

out for black presidents to represent you

What’s the black pres. thinkin’ on election night
Is it how can I protect my life?
Protect my wife?
Protect my rights?
Every other president was nothin' less than white
Except Thomas Jefferson and mixed Indian blood
and Calvin coolers
KKK is like 'what the fuck', loadin' they guns up
loadin' mine too, Ready to ride
Cause im ridin with my crew
He dies - we die too
But on a positive side,
I think Obama provides Hope - and challenges minds
Of all races and colors to erase the hate
And try and love one another, so many political snakes
We in need of a break
Im thinkin' I can trust this brotha
But will he keep it way real?
Every innocent n!gga in jail - gets out on appeal
When he wins - will he really care still?

- nas

KAIST letter

Dear whom it may concern,

My name is Han, my friends know me as Ken. Ever since an early age, I have always had an adventurous nature and have been exposed to many worlds and cultures. I was born in Shanghai, China and I call 3 countries home. In 2009 I hope to be able to add Korea to China, New Zealand and Australia.

Korean culture and history has been closely connected with that of China, both nations have suffered and triumphed together in the last few decades. From the atrocities of World War Two to the Korean War and the recent economic boom in Asia. Economics aside, Korea has caught the eye of the world with its pop culture, but of course I do not want to see the Korea portrayed in the soap dramas or movies, I want to experience the real Korea, I want to meet Korean people, dine in Korean restaurants and learn the culture first hand. Studying at KAIST will give me a great insight into business conduct in Korea and Asia whilst also giving me access to the rich Korean culture.

KAIST has a high reputation in the field of research and development amongst other things and this was a main attraction for me as I like to experience new and fresh things first hand. KAIST also has a huge wealth of information from abroad accumulated by its staff and of course its students from all the corners of the world, I look forward to participating and adding to the wealth of knowledge by actively participating in school activities both apart of my curriculum and outside. I hope the exchange in knowledge happens both ways and I am able to leave a good mark on KAIST and its students.

The city of Daejeon itself is home to many R&D facilities of global businesses, which comes at no surprise. The “silicon valley of Korea” contains not only the research and development facilities of Samsung and LG, but also to the Yuseong-gu district known for its high tech industries. With new technologies comes new and innovating marketing and business structures which I definitely look forward to learning about and seeing first hand.

With that said I hope there is a position for me at KAIST and I look forward to studying in the Republic of Korea.

apologies

apologies to nick bracks, steve bracks and gary morgan for whatever grief i have caused. the information of van's dismissal was inaccurate and was sourced from a casual conversation and was misunderstood by me and possibly misrepresented by van at the time.

i should not have posted unverified information into the public domain, and my supervisors are not a trustworthy source of information.

let me say again, that everything i have stated in the previous post was completely untrue according to roy morgan management, and this present time there is no other reliable source so thus i will presume that this is truth, as far as i know.

as a result, my employment has been put on hiatus, there will be 24 hours before i am notified in regards to my future at roy morgan research.

i have explained myself to management and attempted to justify how and why i would genuinely believe such matters and had also genuinely believed that the matters were indeed fact due to my belief of the source's reliability, but as you should be aware by now, this was a mistake.

again, i would like to state that i do not want you to think negatively of gary morgan, steve bracks or nick bracks based on those events i described earlier as they are inaccurate and unreliable as far as i know at this present time.

what is wrong with the WTO?

EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

Synopsis

There are various criticisms of the WTO, ranging from certain policies and methods of enforcement to the decision making process and the structure of the organization itself. To what extent are these criticisms true and if so how much do they affect countries and economies? Various methods of reform have also been suggested through the years. This essay will identify a few particular problems with policies, principles and structure/decision making process of the WTO and give general solutions as to how those problems should be solved.

Background

On the first of January 1995, the World Trade Organisation succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as the de facto international trade regulator. The general mission of the WTO and its forerunners were to improve the welfare of the people within its member countries by “ensuring that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible”. Its predecessor had merely 23 countries and the first negotiation round in Geneva took only 7 months in starting April 1947. The difficulty in improving the welfare of all people within its member countries has significantly increased since 1947 which correlates with the number of member countries which again correlates with the amount of interests each nation has. The most recent round of negotiations in Doha, which started in November 2001 with 141 countries, has collapsed. This reflects on the conflict in interests between developed countries (lead by USA, EU and Japan) and developing countries (lead by India and China). The most common criticism of the WTO is through its operations, there has been a divergence instead of a convergence of income levels between the rich and poor nations and this effect will continue unless there is significant reform.

Discrimination

Even though one of the principles of the WTO is “trade without discrimination”, developed countries are still able to find a way around this. Under WTO agreements countries cannot discriminate between trading partners. If a country so wishes to establish a tariff on a particular good, that tariff must be the same across the board for all goods of the same type no matter which WTO member it is coming from. This principle is known as the most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment. In theory this principle should provide poorer countries access to better trade agreements that richer countries have with each other. However the flaw in this rule is that it did not take into consideration that developing countries produce different things from developed countries. If a tariff were to be imposed on all textile, clothing and footwear coming into Australia, it would not affect countries such as Japan and USA as much as it would affect developing countries like China and India. The WTO also has a set of antidumping measures, when these measures are put into practice they also act against the development of developing countries. Another note is that countries may impose a ban on the import of all goods of a particular type such as Australia not importing bananas which is completely in line with the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), this has an even higher effect on the economies of other countries within the WTO, generally speaking bananas are grown in more tropical climates and the majority are grown in developing nation. Even though the supposed reason for ban is a due to industry standard, it in effect is a good excuse for protectionism to protect local industry, this translates to a heavy price for consumers as demonstrated by the effects of Cyclone Larry, the ban is on the grounds that imported bananas will bring exotic diseases and pests into Australia. This ban would have a lot more of an impact on the economy of the Philippines than it would on the economy of New Zealand or USA if any. An amount of the decisions to ban items that contain risk to the environment or wildlife when reviewed, have been overturned. In 1998 a dispute settlement panel ruled in favour of Canada against Australia, in 1994 Australia had imposed a ban of live salmon from Canada after a risk assessment report deemed it a threat to wild Australian as there were 20 types of bacteria present in Canadian salmon that was not found in Australian salmon. The conclusion of this assessment is the Canadian salmon posed a risk of spreading and infecting wild Australian salmon. The WTO found the Australian risk assessment was inadequate and not based on sound science. There could be parallels drawn between this case and the current situation of bananas in Australia and possibly many other cases where a ban is imposed based on proclaimed scientific risk assessment, only when a ban is appealed can the decision be reversed. Even though since the Salmon case between Australia and Canada set a new precedent had shifted the burden of proof from the exporting country proving that it is safe to the importing country having to prove the product is unsafe, questionable and debatable bans are still enforced in Australia and other importing nations. So thus it is still possible to discriminate against a particular group or a particular country when conducting trade as a member of the WTO.

Structure

Democracy is the general ideology the WTO is based on. One country gets only one vote, rather than a vote for every dollar. However decisions are rarely made on basis of votes and is made with a consensus, this in theory should give any country the right to veto any decision. However, poorer countries cannot afford permanent representation and constant economic legal advice, thus the decisions are usually made by the larger and richer countries such as USA and EU. Power does not only extend to the rich and powerful countries, it also stretches to rich and powerful international organizations, even though co-operations have no standing in the WTO, most advisory bodies in the WTO is filled with co-operate representation. The forming of the TRIPS agreement was done in close collaboration with a coalition of 12 of the biggest US transnational businesses, these include: General Electric, General Motors, IBM etc.
Even though that a coalition of corporations was allowed to participate and influences the agreements to a large degree, no NGOs were allowed to participate in negotiations or even comment on the agreement. So even though major corporations have no official standing in the WTO and will never receive membership, companies such as IBM wield much greater influence in the WTO and have more representation than a poor or developing member country. Policies such as TRIPS have also come under heavy scrutiny from developing countries as this policy in effect moves wealth from poorer developing countries to patent holders which are generally large corporations or certain wealthy individuals that are in countries that are already developed and wealthy. The TRIPS agreement also demonstrates how the WTO in principle discriminates against poorer countries as TRIPS was formed by richer countries and their corporations targeted against poorer developing countries, which also reinforces the criticism that the WTO simply increases the difference in wealth between developing countries and developed countries.

Solutions

In order to solve the problem of countries exploiting the MFN treatment, it must obviously be reformed. Instead of having to tax all goods of the same type from all countries, the tax instead has to be put on all goods of the same importance to the exporting country. For example, if clothing was China’s major export to Australia and Australia decides that it wants to put a tariff on clothing, then it must also put a tariff on oil coming from Saudi Arabia. This way, no nations may be able to exploit the treatment as tariffs are not imposed on goods based on type but on importance (measured either in volume or monetary value) to the exporting country. However the goal of this reform is not for countries to impose tax on all imports but to pressure on countries to remove tariffs on all imports, especially developed countries. Developing countries should be given a longer “grace period” to allow time for local industry to develop. Tariffs on all goods should slowly decrease, this promotes the idea that local industries should increase efficiency rather than depend on government to subsidise and tax cheaper imports, the initial tariff on the imported good should only be enough to level out the price so it is the same as locally produce goods, this is so that in the initial stages, imported products will be judged not on price but other qualities of the product. This gives an even playing field for the imported goods and would force local producers to compete with imported goods as they would another domestic company, they could choose to remain more expensive when the tariff is gone and use marketing to put emphasis on other attributes or they could compete on price alone. In terms of the TBT and countries imposing bans based on local policies, the shift of the burden of proof from the exporting country to the importing country is definitely a move in the right direction. However unreasonable bans and excuses for protectionism still happen, perhaps there has not been enough precedence ruling against importing countries but policies need to be changed with emphasis on scientific proof, also local trade laws and local trade authorities should not be able to impose a ban unless approved by the WTO. It is recognised that imported goods in certain cases may have negative effects on a particular country’s environment or population, to protect local environment and population, there should be a period where scientific review is conducted of products that are to be introduced to a country. If the scientific basis for ban is disputed, it may also be reviewed by a third party who is no affiliated with the related countries to decrease the chances of a unjustified ban that could potentially harm exporters. If the scientific basis for a ban is deemed incorrect/inaccurate/fraudulent, there should be compensation from the importing country to the exporting country; this would discourage the practice of using the TBT as an excuse for protectionism

The issue of the undemocratic nature of the WTO in terms of policy making is a hard issue to tackle head on. In terms of corporations having unofficial representation in the WTO, the WTO should either allow official corporate representation and introduce a democratic system where an equal amount of industry leaders from every country should have representation or it should eliminate advisors with current corporate affiliations completely. It seems to eliminate corporate representation completely is unrealistic and impractical. The best solution would be to introduce a new system of equal corporate representation from all countries rather than having a select few companies has influence on industry changing policies such as the TRIPS agreement. However not all countries have the same amount of companies in a particular field, to solve this issue industries in a country should group together and negotiate amongst themselves and select a representative at the WTO. Decisions should be made by votes more often than other methods to insure that all countries/businesses have an equal say in policies and decisions are not made on a “a dollar a vote” basis. If the corporate world have representation in the WTO it would only be reasonable that NGOs are also allowed to participate in negotiations or at least be able to officially review policies before they are enforced. This would decrease the chances that policies that are particularly in favour or one side than others are formed.

Conclusion

The reforms suggested are all in consideration of the WTO’s main principles and all aim to improve the WTO so that these principles are seen as missions. They reform methods all suggest that there needs to be more transparency on all levels of administration and membership within the WTO. Only through transparency can democratic decisions be made that reflect the interest or approval of all member states and more importantly the people represented. Arbitrary decisions should be avoided where possible and voting should be the predominant method of making decisions. Corporate representation should also be governed rather than be ignored officially so that all corporations from different countries can have an equal say based on the “one country, one vote” policy and not the “one dollar, one vote” idea which seems more common within the WTO under the current system. Only through these reforms can the WTO truly be a organization that improves the wellbeing of all people within its member states no matter the wealth of the state or the individual.

love lockdown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcjkkBtXgIc
what is with the recent explosion of rappers singing with autotune? i have had quite a lot of kanye west hating lately but i think this song is really too far. This follows in the footsteps of lil wayne and snoop, though i have to say i was a lot more entertained by snoop's sensual seduction aka. sexual eruption than young weezy and air yeezy. and kanye likes to think hes innovative and artistically beyond everyone. someone with minimum musical experience could have made something that sounded better on fruity loops trial version

on another note, theres this asian producer/mc (who actually looks real nerdy)named kero-one, he does real ill tracks. check out the great remix he did of common - the light

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA6ByKBy8Ho (couldnt embed)

if you like chill-out hiphop, reccommend you give this guy a listen
kero one


peace

VIS/Tropic Storm

im pretty stoked on them at the moment.


so anyway, visvims aside.
tropic thunder is a way hilarious movie:


this is what parody/satires should be like in my opinion. great acting from robert downey jnr.
because its a comedy, i'll look past the bad chinese spoken by the villains in the film and the even more humorous chinese spoken by robert downey jnr.

for those who dont know what the film is about:

a washed up action star who was big in the 90s (think van dam, stalone, seagal), a comedian (think eddie murphy, jim carey back in the day), a 5x oscar winner (think hrmmm... not sure, think of a REALLY good actor in lots of good roles), a rapper wanting to get into the movie business (icecube, ice-t, andre3000, methodman etc)and a new comer get together for the most expensive war movie ever made. the 5x oscar winner has surgery to get his skin darkened so he can play a black sargent in the film. however filming goes horribly wrong and the stars get lost in the jungle of china dressed in army fatigues. they are discovered by local militants and are mistaken for an invading american military and thus the humour begins.


i went into this movie not expecting too much, but i certainly got more than i expected. There were actually times where my brain actually though robert downey jnr was a black guy.

if youre still not convinced to go watch it, maybe the trailer might do alittle help. not the greatest trailer though

til next time, peace

the home song stories

the home song stories what a brilliant australian film.
for me, it was comparable to romulus my father which was a book i heavily enjoyed (not so much the movie)

it follows, the events of a hongkong night club singer named rose and her two children.
she meets an australian sailor(bill) and follows him to melbourne. she leaves him after 1 week and travels to sydney going from job to job and boyfriend to boyfriend. soon however, she has no choice but to move back into bill's home back in melbourne. he however has to serve and leaves for 3 months. meanwhile she has an affair with a much younger male named joe, who is an illegal immgrant from hong kong, things get even more complicated when joe and rose's daughter begin feelings for eachother.

this is based on a true story.

the ending came close to making me shed a tear, which is pretty uncommon. the story's protagonist is rose's young son, tony or "di di". i guess i really liked the story because i could really relate to tony on certain levels but of course my life was certainly not as half as tragic.

i think all of the mhs dudes who had read romulous my father and enjoyed it, should really look into this film or the book.

for those who have read the book, its almost like seeing it from christine's perspective.



worth a look.

kick of an angel

last night i could not believe what i was seeing. i had to say it was the most funniest moment of the olympics i had ever witnessed.

in the video is angel matos from cuba, he is the gold medalist from the 2000 games.
so you get 60 seconds of injury time, if its not enough your coach or you may step into the middle of the ring and ask the ref for more time. however, angel matos and his coach probably forgot, the ref gave them a warning at about 40 seconds, and well angel matos lost the match by default because he didnt get up to ask for more time, which is fair enough.

BUT the humour as you just witnessed happened when angel matos lost his temper and kicked the ref in the face and punched an official that ran in. hes got a life ban from competing in taekwondo comps now, which is good game haha.

not so fresh (off boat) united

NSF united

top: pav, dam, sagar, alex, dolm
middle: andrea
bottom: kate, nysh, stella, ken


that was my team for sports last sunday, took a week to get the photo.
we got robbed in the netball. so heres the story

so the game the game is meant to be 14 minutes, but the ref tells us for this game its only going to be 7 minutes without half time and no substitutes, which turned out to be bullshit. we started about 3 minutes into the game. towards the end damilola injures himself and needs to be subbed off, but for some odd reason the ref ignores him, meanwhile the opposite team gets a 1 point lead and the game finishes.

so we're pissed off, and then one of the organizers tell us that we have a second half, by the time we got started again we only had about 3-4 minutes left on the clock already, and after some rest damilola could play again. we quickly evened the scores until the end where dam again tells us his leg is too screwed up for him to run so we're one player down whilst the ref watches damilola limp around and begging to be subbed. and then in the last 10 seconds they score the final point and won by a point, and that team took the finals too, so in turn we were absolutely robbed.


anyway so ive been sore for a whole week after playing that shit.

team sports are extremely fun and i plead to anyone who is apart of some sort of student or otherwise organization to organize more team sports days rather than shitty poker nights and shitty clubbing events.


peace

rivington club

beijing 2008

so i stayed up til like 2 last night to finish watching the entire opening ceremony.
thats right i watched all 203 countries walk around that track too.

i loved the idea of using the "great inventions" in the ceremony. but was it me or did i miss the gun powder? or was the gajillion dollars worth of fireworks enough to celebrate gunpowder?

i loved it, i thought it could have been longer. it was funny though right at the beginning of the ceremony there was a little girl lip syncing, she look like she was gonna pass out.

good stuff china.

ps: what was retarded was that every time someone spoke Chinese, the subtitles slowly displayed:

speaks in...



asian language.



i think anyone could have guessed they were speaking in chinese.

planet bboy

i watched the documentary: planet bboy today at the melbourne international film festival.

now prior to watching this docco i had seen a lot of trailers and really wanted to watch it, unfortunately it didnt come to melbourne when it was first released, however since then i had heard some negative things about the film according to other bboys, saying that it gives BOTY too much credit and too much importance as the "world cup" of bboying.


for people who have no idea what this film is. it is a docco about a couple of crews and their journey to the "biggest breaking competition" in the world, the battle of the year in hamburg germany. each crew represented their country, the documented ones were gamblerz: the defending champions from korea. Knuckle head zoo from usa. Ichigeki from japan and last4one the underdog crew. now other than potray their journey to this competition, it also gives an insight to the mentality of a bboy all across the world. why they dance, how they got into dance and how it affects the people around them. of course the results vary across the world. but it demonstrates that, even though we are very very far apart in language and our own ethnic culture, bboys still manage to communicate through hiphop.

i missed the first half hour of the docco, which i assume had an explanation of what bboying is from ken swift and a history of the dance from both him and trac2. also the segement on knuckle head zoo i missed too.

i came in just on time to watch last4one's segment, and having seen it, i have gained a lot more respect for last 4 one as bboys.

it was a bit of a biased docco, but still good none the less.

alot of things we can all relate to, and especially for me as a dancer.

i was really impressed by katsu's (ichigeki) mother, saying that he must not dance to win, but dance to dance, if winning is the only thing on his mind, it will show through his dance.

another great quote from the docco i cant remember who it was said by, but i think it was joe-t
he says

"i dance not to make money, i make money to continue dancing"



i encourage everyone who wants to learn more about hiphop culture, breakin/bboying as a dance, to go watch this film somehow.

8/10 for me

Eazy Eee

after many months of consideration i have finally purchased a laptop.

asus eee 1000

1.6 ghz
80 gb HDD
1gb Ram
10 inch monitor

not a bad price, the logo was hell ugly so i had to cover it haha.



a heads up though, if anyone plans on buying a laptop or screen of anysort, make sure to check at the store if there are any dead pixels/frozen pixels. because a lot of stores actually dont handle the warranty in store and tells you to refer to the warranty card/manufacturer. asus doesnt give you warranty unless you have more than 4 pixels malfunctioning. so could potentially mean, you buy a comp, go home turn it on discover it has a dead pixel within 30 minutes of purchase and having to send it to the manufacturer for repairs for a weeks.

watch out

worst game trailer ever..easily

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36746.html

it is literally 4 minutes of nothing.

3 pointer

big friendly giants

this issue i want to discuss is sort of an old one, i remember watching this on the news and just being shocked, but for those who have no clue what i am talking about... here it is



now if you still dont know what i am talking about. that is one of the buddhas of bamyan. (note the size of it by looking at the people at its feet)
those buddhas were situated in afganistan which we all hopefully know is an islamic state who do not believe in idolisation, as in you can worship god but you are no allowed to worship a statue of god.

these statues are over 1500 years old, and were listed on the world heritage site.

unfortunately, they were destroyed by the taliban.


and now virtually nothing remains.



of course it is such a huge shame to lose something like that. but before you starting yelling out things like "bloody turbin heads!" etc...

from what i have read, a major factor in it's destruction was a protest...protest against what? you ask.

well, as you probably know, afghanistan is a very poor country with a lot of it's citizens suffering heavily not just from violence, but from poverty and starvation. aid agencies wanted to pay millions to restore the statues before they were destroyed, the government wanted to use the millions to feed the starving children and keep them alive, but were told the money was not for the children but for the statues.

having read that, i can imagine the outrage. yes the starvation is probably due to the government themselves. but this contributed to the destruction.

yes, blowing them up may have been abit extreme and impulsive due to extreme anger.

its funny that there was such outrage at the destruction of the statues, but no outrage when aid agencies decide they dont want to save starving children.
i have never suffered from starvation and have never had to look after a country with children starving, thus perhaps i can not give a very strong and well informed opinon.

but it seems its hard for me to decide between saving a carved rock, or the lives of starving children.

there's something wrong with us all.

step your game up: kfc

i think roughly 40-60% of my diet is fast food, which isnt a good thing.

but after years of experience with Macdonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks, i think that KFC stores have got to be the worst in terms of facilities, cleanliness, customer service, management and pretty much everything.

so today i was hungry as shit and decided to visit a KFC store for some oily goodness. we all know fried chicken makes your footwork faster and possibly cleaner...i hope.

i walk in there to find a massive group of people waiting, i was not sure what was going on, but i go up the counter and order my family feast (shared with my parents of course).

they told me it will be a 12 minute wait on the chicken and at first i agreed without second thought. but then i realised 12 BLOODY MINUTES, THATS NOT FAST FOOD! and then i looked at the place where they put chicken, there was nothing there...absolutely nothing.
ok so if that wasnt bad enough the wait actually took longer than 12 minutes, and when i finally got my family feast (10 pieces of chicken + extras), i began to dig in to find that there was only 5 pieces of chicken in my family feast...not much of a feast, so i went up to the counter and it took roughly another 5 minutes to get my 5 pieces of chicken...

so you'd think that whilst the chicken was not ready, the staff would do something useful in that time. instead they stand around looking at the oven for the chicken to come out whilst theres shit all over their tables and dirty stains all over the building. the ground is sticky with god knows what all the bloody time and theres not a single spotless table insight...

the toilets are also dirty as hell, theres no straw dispenser or tissue dispenser anywhere, there is absolutely nothing.

kfc i give you a 10 in terms of overall oily goodness but pretty much 0 on anything else.
STEP YOUR GAME UP!

spoilers

if you watch doctor who or plan to watch it...then don't read this

----------Spoilers Start here--------------




i watched the stolen earth last night as elises, let me say how fantastic of an episode it was. the return of davros was awesome and the return of dalek caan also. the fact that he predicts that one of the doctors most faithful companions is gonna die is a bit chilling, seeing that jack harkness can't die dont think its going to be him. i think its either sarah jane or rose tyler. it might be sarah jane coz shes technically the longest serving companion who has met 4 doctors i think, whilst rose has only been with 2, however rose has been the only one that has fully confessed her love towards the doctor so maybe shes the most faithful.

at the end of the episode for anyone that saw it came a cliff hanger out of NO WHERE. the 10th doctor is shot and beings his regeneration process and just before we see his new face the screen cuts out to "to be continued". however i have read that hes already filmed the christmas special episodes which means david tennant will be the doctor until at least then, but then i really wonder how the writers will make him regenerate and keep himself. from watching doctor who the cliff hangers usually dont end up as something EPICALLY ENORMOUS. for example the episode when they are trapped at the end of the universe without the tardis, you think OMYGOD HOW ARE THEY GONNA ESCAPE FROM THOSE DIRTY ANIMALS ATTACKING THEM. and the doctor just pulls out his sonic screwdriver and fixes jack's vortex manipulator and way they go. but i dont know...after 3 seasons with david tennant, i have fallen in love with the 10th doctor, i really dont want him to leave the show even though i know one day he will, but damn it...not now.

-------end spoilers-------




so for all that skipped the spoilers, trust me, doctor who is an amazing show, this season finale has gotten off to the best start you could possibly imagine for a tv show. if you havent started watching season 4, go youtube the episode names and youll find them. if oyu havent started watching it at all GO WATCH IT YOU BAFOON!!!(so i can have someone, other than my blog to talk to about it haha)

the stolen earth

the stolen earth...second last episode of doctor who for this season

and i have been ROBBED of it as my net is capped for the very first time in my life.
so now i have to wait til the 8th of next month before it becomes uncapped to watch it, in the meantime the season finale will be up as well, so i guess maybe its a good thing.

last night also was of course anna bannag's 18th birthday, of which i happily attended.
i proceeded to drink and pressured truc to do the same til the point where he was crying for me to stop, by which time kate had to step in and stop me being evil in which i accused her of being evil due to party poopingl. but the irony was, after that i had about another million drinks and i began to expel the liquid from my mouth, she was the one getting me water and such.

me: lets go get something to drink
maria: nah
me: c'mon, dont be pansy, you gotta drink its a birthday party
maria: only pansy around you
me: damn...

good times.

dear mr west

i liked your second album, your lyrics arent the best but you are a good producer. you know which songs to sample and how to use it. i thought you were one of the better new MCs coming out.
but as of late you said souljaboy is on nas' level. and your graduation album is pretty crap.
your lyrics are getting really shit compared to your other two albums.
please stop buying bape and dissing nas. thankyou

911

first thing that came to mind, was 1984. War was peace.

exams, soccer, sango, doctor and athena

exams are coming up so soon, by soon i mean Wednesday. first one should be ok, its international trade and investment. i have a pretty good understanding on it, BUT next Tuesday is a different story... STATISTICS!!!! i am going to die in that exams.

meanwhile i have been severely distracted by watching shaolin soccer over and over again, i think its one of the most brilliant movies i have ever seen. the hilarity is ingenious.

also i've downloaded romance of the three kingdoms 11, its actually a really good game, so far the translation patch i've got for it is so shit, i've been guessing my way around the game, and getting owned 10 minutes into any game i try to play. so i'm downloading an update which would allow me to use a better translation patch so i don't get owned more.

doctor who this week was good but it was a bit of a disappointment, i was expecting dr river song to be some kind of revelation to the story, in a way she is, but we didn't find out who she was to the doctor, though we do know she knows the doctor's full name. but i guess overall it was a good story. and of course watching the mid season trailer revealed that rose tyler is coming back and so is davros.

davros

and last but not least i think i am in love with athena chu.

ghettoest link

this has got to be the funniest thing (maybe just as funny as wwf weakest link)ever.

krishna talking shit.

ok if you bothered to watch the video, krs-one claimed kanye is less hiphop than 50cent whilst comparing their latest albums: curtis, graduation.

all i have to say is krs-one is on crack if he thinks ayo-technology is more hiphop than ANY song on graduation.

you know, i didn't really like graduation, i sure as hell didn't like curtis.
i agree that kanye's album wasn't exactly hiphop in the context that wu-tang may be or talib kweli or nas etc. but c'mon krs-one, you need to do some homework.

he said people seem to be saying graduation is the better album because it made more sales. sales figures he says, should not be a measurement of art....er...hello KRS, 50cent uses his album sales figures against ANYONE he beefs with, when he has nothing else to diss, he pulls out his sales records. people he used this against include Nas, master p, fat joe, the game etc. he even used it against kanye before the album release saying that curtis will sell more. if not, he will quit his solo career. then he quickly withdrew that statement.

funny though, 50cent lost a beef to fat joe coz 50 said his shit sells crap, and then fat joe in turn said he will offer anyone who has seen 50cent "in da club" 2000 dollars, no one ever came up. (i'm not a big fan of fat joe either)

but he did diss souljaboy and said he'll F him up if he ever sees him performing...WERD krs-one.

trust me. i'm the doctor.

so many of you would have at least heard of the name "doctor who" which is the name of the longest series on television.

it stopped in 1989 (when i was born) and then there was a tv-movie in 1996, and then finally the series was revived in 2005. i use to come home from school to see the old doctor who on, it was pretty tacky for today's standards though i did like seeing all the crazy monster designs and such.

when the 2005 series started, i was very eager to see it on abc. the first and second episodes captured me, even though i eventually forgot the timeslot and stopped following it.

however last year i discovered that it was on the internet like everything else (fantastic as the 9th doctor would say) so i caught up on it.





now for everyone who has no idea what the series is about and why it is so good, let me explain.



the doctor who series has a central character, named "the doctor" not "doctor who" just simply the doctor. he is a traveler who travels through space and time, visiting different planets and different eras.
whenever he is about to die, he has the ability to regenerate into an alter ego/persona, almost becoming a completely different person. he has regenerated 9 times on screen.

now i have no seen the old series, so i can't claim to be a HUGE fan, but i am definitley a fan of the new series, its just so great.

now why is it so great? well, the best way to describe it is like this:
you are walking down the street at 10am one morning, just as you were about to cross the road, a rock hits you in the head and you stop to turn around. just as you turn around a car drives past in front of you, it would have ran you over if you crossed the road.

later that day you find a time machine and you go back in time to 9:59am that day, and you see yourself about to cross the road and a car was about to run you over, you throw a rock at yourself and the past you stops and doesnt get ran over.


and there you have it, every series of the (new) doctor who has been like this so far. and its just brilliant. david tennant is a fantastic actor, so was christopher eccleston. recommend you guys watch the first two episodes of the first series (2005).

ill leave you with a picture of all the doctors so far.

G.O.D.

so i have been watching some documentaries lately. it includes a documentary discussing the evils of religion (any religion), a good quote to come out of that would be

"if there was no religion, good people would do good things, bad people would do bad things. it takes religion to make good people do bad things"

a lot of interesting things were brought up. ill discuss a couple here:

now i have agreed with most of the stuff that were presented to me, so bare that in mind when you read the rest of the blog.

religion is a set of beliefs in simplicity. you are christian, islamic, jewish, etc.
political beliefs run similarly. labour voter, democrats voter, etc.
now there is a reason why kids can't vote. and there is also a reason why young kids are not labeled by their parents.

parents send their kids to religious schools to be taught about their religion, and thus they are labeled by the rest of the society as "muslim kids" or "christian kids" but you never label someone a "labour kid" or "national kid", because they are too young to comprehend the complexity of politics. why is religion an exception?

human logic and instincts after maturity, is to question things presented to us. for example, if i bought something off you on ebay, and i transfered the money into your account, you would usually make sure what i said was true before sending the product.
or if i told you there were no one on the streets, logically you'd want to get verification, and the best way is to see for yourself. that is how science came in. a theory and then evidence to back it up and then maybe one day proven wrong.

now religion works completely against this system, you are told to believe and have "faith" despite all the evidence contrary to your belief. you are told that the more you believe these stories without doubt and question, the more likely it is that you will be rewarded when you die.

also the story of god seems to be watered down in religion taught at school. so is this not brain washing? from a young age i was told that moses wrote the old testament, now older in life i have discovered thats actually false. so why are countless young children told this?

now of course, science can never prove that god does not exist. technically, science can not "prove" anything, there is never 100% chance that something will happen. As Einstein said, not even 1000 experiments can prove him 100% correct, but a single experiment can prove him wrong. But that is the beauty of science, it is forever changing, old ideas are updated with new ideas and evidence to support it.

the bible written hundreds/thousands of years ago, with no credible author, edited numerous times by numerous people, heavy contradiction within itself, is said to be the word of god and is believed by billions unquestionably.

what is going on?

the art of war

recently i started reading the art of war with commentary by various figures.
i have finished reading the actual "art of war", the commentary may take a while.

let me just say that i recommend this to everyone who is thinking of doing anything at all. and i do mean anything at all.

for me it put a lot of thoughts i have had into words that can be written down. if you have read one of those quote calendars or a quote book full of good quotes from people that get you thinking. well this book is full of them.

whos really crazy?

i think that if we were all a little crazy in some aspects, this world would be a better place.

for example.
a while ago, i was on a train with i think approx 4 pregnant women and 1 lady who had just given birth probably not long ago and had her newborn in her arms. 2 foolish white trash people got on the train and lit up. for those people who are unaware, you are not allowed to smoke on trains and i think its probably morally wrong for everyone to smoke near pregnant women and new born babies anyway. so one of the ladies told them to stop, they told her to F off like any foolish white trash people would. well a few attempts later they were still smoking, a gentleman in his 40s i think also asked them to put it out. so later on the lady had no choice but to press the big red button and the train conductor announced that he had called the police (bluff obviously) and will wait for them to arrive. the bogans got off and told the ladies to watch their backs.

now today i was oblivious to something until the last point. i was sitting on my train listening to my ipod trying to check out a girl next to me. anyway, so i noticed this crazy white lady who ran past me and pointed to LED display that showed which station it was and she was yelling it out loud. i had no idea what was going on and ignored it. later on one station before i get off, i took out my headphones and realised the reason why she was yelling was because she was trying to get her communication across to a Chinese lady who obviously spoke no English and had missed her stop. the crazy white lady took her off the train and explained again where she is meant to go. now if i had heard earlier what was going on, i would have been able to speak to the Chinese lady in Chinese and everything would have been fine. but the crazy white lady whom i have deemed crazy because she was over enthusiastic about it all and got off at a different station than she would have to explain to the Chinese lady where to go.


I'm not sure exactly how i can word it so that the first story fits into context, but i think you get my drift.

worst feedback, ever.

"An interesting topic to look at. i think you could have defined the 2 groups more clearly with facts and references and talked about their origins and evolution through the 70s, 80s and 90s. and relate it strongly to the clothing + music. you need a lot more fact based information which is available in cultural studies such as DVDs like - dogtown and the zboys, style wars etc. the hiphop origins were unclear and some things you said were actually wrong. what year was flashdance made? skating was banned by the government? which government in 63? the presentation was a bit random and needed much more depth of research. you touched on the relationshops and crossovers between the subcultures, but you needed much more in terms of lifestyle and music. the personality profiles were very good and engaging. more observational comments from you about the clothing + shoes would have been great. more in depth analysis of the topic would have lifted your result" - rebecca

Rebecca who is my tute of "cultural explorations in fashions" told me she really liked my presentation and that i got a good mark.... and what was that mark? a P-

so reading that review got me a bit angry, because i had a crap load of references. i've seen the documentaries she listed for me at least 10 times and plus a crap load more. but according to her that "didn't show" in the presentation. what the hell am i supposed to do? say where i got the information every time i make a statement? jeez. i had a list of references at the end.

i asked her what part of my presentation about hiphop was wrong. she referred to when i said jokingly that mr.freeze from rocksteady crew "did the moonwalk like 20 years before michael jackson". apparently from her view an "academic" view, she has to take everything i said literally, which i think is ridiculous.

my presentation was 30 minutes, which was the maximum. there was absolutely no way to fit more content in without going over time.

she initially stated that i needed to focus on the music and lifestyle, but dude, this subject is cultural explorations in "FASHION" which was why i had alot more stuff about the fashion. i can rant to you all day about lifestyle and music.




so bottom line is, all the staff at RMIT fashion department are all a bunch of freaks. i did this presentation with no criteria supplied to me or anyone else thats doing it. and then she marks me with a crappy criteria of

1. content
2. research
3. presentation


and thats it. nothing more. a mark for one of those 3.
why did she give me low marks for research? i don't know.
was there somehow not enough content in that 30 minutes? i don't know
was the powerpoint really bad quality? at least i don't think so.


thats my angry rant. thankyou

the debate.

i have decided to give blogspot a shot, moving from my long term blog of xanga for the last couple of years. and to kick things off, i am gonna put some extra effort into this post here. heres some stuff to discuss.

so a couple of weeks ago i had a large debate whilst over at my family friends new house. i was a little shocked really, to see that this sort of mentality could even exist anymore in this day and age but here is pretty much the main topics that were presented to me


1. terrorists are heroes. Americans are the real terrorists.

2. mentally disabled people are not(in china)/should not be allowed to reproduce. as it will slow human evolution, cause suffering for the spouse, produce mentally disabled children who will also suffer.

let me address the mental thing first.

now ok, thats all fair game apart from the fact that the person who was suggesting this was overweight and had diabetes. he also had a daughter...hrmmm
obviously there is a lot of hypocrisy there.

1. he is overweight and has produced a child that was also born genetically overweight (no offense intended)
2. he also has diabetes which puts his child at risk of diabetes

he suggested that mentally disabled people would have long died away if there were no medicines, hospitals etcetera. if things were to return to natural selection. they would be long gone without care. that governments should have policies so that people who slow down the course of our evolution should not be allowed to reproduce.

again there are so many levels of hypocrisy.

1. he is overweight, i don't think he can even sprint for 20 meters. lets not even talk about competing with natural predators.
2. he has diabetes and takes a hefty amount of medication to suppress his glucose levels so he doesn't pass out. (and get eaten by the animals)

where do we draw the line of mental retardation? where do we draw the line of what sort of illnesses may prove to slow down the evolution process? humans has not evolved for thousands of years. he stated that its a medical fact that they are mentally disabled, and they should not breed.

now that is really nazi. medical fact? years ago it was a medical fact that black people had smaller brains? or women had smaller brains. everyone had smaller brains and the white race reigned supreme above all. jews were slowing down evolution and were the source of all evil at one point too. has he learnt nothing?

now it is probably a medical fact that Asians (i am Asian for anyone who doesn't know)on average have smaller eyes. what if Kevin Rudd were to announce a new policy next year, that all Asians who do not have a certain dimension of eyes, are not allowed to breed? i don't imagine him being very happy.

now his counter argument to that is the mental disability could inflict lots of trauma and stress to the spouse and produce more mentally disabled children.

first of all that is really stupid. if a person is WILLING to marry and produce children with all the risks in their mind. why should they not be allowed to? it is not even 100% that the children WILL be disabled either. having said that, mental disability doesn't come from a whole line of disabled people. that is if someone was disabled, its not like everyone before him in his family were disabled too. it comes out genetically from non-disabled people, average, "normal" people. so should everyone who has a chance of giving birth to a mentally disabled person be banned from reproduction? then i guess no one in this world is allowed to mate ever again.

his counter argument to that, is incest. why is incest illegal? because apparently its to stop genetic and health problems associated. i disagree. i believe its a social and cultural taboo. to demonstrate i asked him is the law the only thing that stops you from reproducing with your sister or your daughter? check mate







terrorism.

now we all know that the Americans along with some other countries are doing some stupid ass shit in the middle-east which is at the very least, comparable to what the terrorists have done if not worse. but calling the terrorists heroes, now thats next level.
a murderer who has murdered 1000 people rather than 1000000 people, is still a murderer. and there you have it.

its easy to say things like that if you are no involved, oh yes the terrorists are heroes. they are defending their nation and whatever. retaliating to oppression from the USA.

but if your daughter, your wife or a friend was killed by a terrorist attack. you'd beg to differ.









anyway on a lighter note.

new proddies

SF Puma blaze of glories and Nike spiridons


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