Kampua Hits RM3.00

Need I say more? RM2.20 for normal kampua and RM3.00/- for special. RM5.00 for laksa special...

Rice Shortage: Myth or Fact? Or Just Another Bullsh*t?

Staple Reading (Open in New Tabs for some basic understanding of the situation):
Shortages drives rice prices to record high
Sarawak as nation's ninth rice bowl
Enough rice in Sarawak, assures BERNAS

Right. So I was out helping my mom to do some grocery and resupplying (nothing much to do for the holidays anyways so helping around kills time). And only by then I came to know Sibu got a rice shortage. WTFBBQ. 2 years ago the town had a sugar shortage, then last year it was cooking oil and now it's our staple food. Anyways we went to Thai Choon near Civic Center and they said they're out of stock, saying:

"No more stock, China don't want to export rice because they want to make sure they have enough food for the Olympics"

Ok... Next stop was Power near Kpg. Nyabor-City junction. My mom was lucky, because there were only 2 rice sacks left and we keelhauled everything. Enough supply for the next few weeks :) The picture above was taken at Medan Mall, so hurry there if you still want to eat rice tonight.

So are we really facing a rice shortage? Some people said the price increment of rice caused the grocers to hide it in their stockpile and wait for the right moment to sell to earn more profit (sounds familiar right? Same thing that happened to cooking oil and sugar not long ago). Some used the China's restriction thingy as mentioned above (sounds bullsh*t though), while some said this is just another news to be discussed at coffee shops after the public got bored talking about petty politics, the aftermath of the elections and minyak naik.

I'm not sure which one is it, and I'm just going to stay neutral about it, for now (hey I'm still studying and not yet earn my keep properly, so the pain that is felt is less). Basically all these barang naik issues, especially the rice and other essential goods, are inevitable. As a neo-economist and a hardcore gamer, I daresay we are all to be blamed here.

WARNING: HAM IS LAYING DOWN SOME KNOWLEDGE BEYOND THIS POINT!

You see, the law of supply and demand plays a heavy role here (ironically my lecturer used to tell me those theories were only useful for passing Economics 100 but now we are using it for real). Law of Supply states that the supply of goods naik when the their price increases. Law of Demand on the other hand states that demand increase when prices of goods turun, ceteris paribus. It's a win-lose and lose-win situations between suppliers and consumers.

And since we're multiplying everyday, the demand for food increases as well. The sad thing is to support the ever increasing high demand, the hardworking farmers are literally breaking their backs to sate our lust and hunger. In a boring but detailed graphical form, it looks like this:

Demand and Supply of Rice 1900 - 2008 (Click to enlarge!)

So the best solution is to buy more equipments, slash and burn new lands (global warming duh) and hire more foreign workers to help (they have to eat our rice too, so +5 demand). All these cost lots of money so the farmers and manufacturers have to increase the selling price to avoid going bankrupt. Unfortunately we as consumers take the hit badly and the savings for the PS3 or the new Nokia N98 become the opportunity costs of our food. The rich becomes poorer and the poor becomes bankrupt.

And to end this post, here's a song and a video for you to enjoy:

CJ7: They're Everywhere XD

And I thought the fad for CJ7 was over (well in Oil Town anyways, almost). But upon returning home to Kampua Town I found out that they have bred beyond control and infested every corner of town; from some random small accessory stalls to special booths that was set up to specifically sell these green and white uber-fuzzy headed aliens as pets. They breed like rabbits I tells ya! Just last night there was just one stall selling them in a shopping mall, then today 2-3 more mini side-stalls and gift shops put them up for sale, even a pet shop!

They've infested my car.

They clogged every corner of all shopping malls and disrupted the flow of goods and services in this town.

And here's the little fella that was put on sale in a pet shop in Everise, Medan Mall. I'm a hamster rights activist and this is kinda cruel since, albeit they're not hamsters, they need a bit more freedom :(

Transborneo Bus

I've been using the bus for quite some time now so now I'm just gonna blog about it just cause. So I usually get to use Vital Focus Transportation's PB Bus and sometimes the MTC Bus service for the trans-Borneo trip between Kampua Town and Oil Town (yeah yeah I forgot to take snapshots of those buses for this post, so sue me).

A bustling bus station in the morning. The bus flights can be as earliest as 6am. With the introduction of the new Airbus A880 model and the cheapness of diesel in this country, now everyone can fly.

A typical scene at a bus terminal where the passengers wait for their flight while families, friends and spouses wait eagerly for their loved ones.

You can say I'm a frequent flyer/busser since the gap between Oil Town and Kampua Town is only 7 hours (bus standard, 4 hours by car, may vary depending on the frequency of rest stops and technical difficulties), so I'll just head back to unwind during free weeks, semester breaks or whenever I feel like I'm close to the edge. The fare is only RM40, 1/4 of the price of using commercial airliners. There's no on-board food and toilet of course (though that would be nice), but you can buy supplies and take a leak at the different stops along the bus's scenic but boring route:

For a Miri-Sibu and vice versa trip, the bus will stop at 3 locations (in order of appearance): Niah, Bintulu and Selangau. Miri-Niah takes 2 hours, Niah-Bintulu another 2 hours, Bintulu-Selangau 2 hours again and Selangau-Sibu only takes 1 hour. For Miri-Kuching trips, it takes an incredible 14 hours but luckily I stay at Kampua Town which is in between those two cities.

Apart from the mentioned stops where the driver will give the passengers 30-15 minutes of break, the bus will sometimes give a pleasantly surprise stop by the roadside in the middle of nowhere to allow the passengers to admire the beauty of Sarawak's forest while the driver and his co-driver do some emergency maintenance on the dead fuming engine.

The new A880 design allows the driver to warp into Borneo hyperspace, reducing traveling time but causing nausea to the passengers (darn it's supposed to be an animated .GIF to show how extreme the warp is but Blogger does not support that feature, snapshots of it will do then).

So what do I do during the 7 hours trip? Well, nothing. I just sit there, listen to my freshly downloaded MP3s and think about life with my eyes closed. Now that I'm back in Kampua Town again for the 2nd free week, I'm just gonna laze around and see some stuff in town since I've been liberated from major assignments :)

Miri Male Stipper

Snake in a Box

For メタルギアソリッド / Metal Gear Solid fans, I'm sure you guys are familiar with the screen shot above. Yeah, it is one of those Solid Snake's trick of hiding in a cardboard box. Snake may not be a ninja or Naruto, but his box camouflage tactic can deceive any typical terrorist soldier such as the dude above. So what's up with this post you might ask? Well I found out they have Snake in a Box paper model. How uber cool is that? All you need is some A4 papers, scissors, glue and a color printer. Just print these two images below (they're high quality so they WILL take some time to load and won't appear even when you read this). Click to enlarge:

Or you can get them at these links:
Snake in a Box 1 of 2
Snake in a Box 2 of 2

Just follow the instructions given in Snake in a Box 2/2. And you should get something like this:

Thanks Anonymous for 4-Chan for the paper model. Kudos :)

Torrent Down!

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KLIA Shootout

I was hoping someone would smuggle out the security camera or some 2.0 megapixel recordings on the KLIA shootout and upload them. And sadly to say all I got was this:

Finally an uber news to talk about besides the daily squabble on politics. But sadly the coverage is at all time low since 10th April, so I assume the shootout that left 5 wounded was nothing impressive, or the government covered up the whole thing with dirt again (speaking of which, anyone have a clue on what's the status of H5N1 and H5N2 here? The issue died down just like the war in Afghanistan did before it was out-shone by the Iraq War).

Anyways I was told by some dude (but I forgot which dude) that those robbers got their guns from Thailand. A lot of gun run and smuggling happening at the border apparently, so any dude with enough RM can buy an AK-47 and, with enough balls, rob the international airport.

Blood Donation Drive Sem 1 2008

Had another bloody Wednesday at campus, with a lot of people bled themselves in order to help others. It was another blood donation drive on campus, with an unexpectedly a lot of student and staffs who want to donate their blood. Too bad the blood bank staffs had to close shop by noon and not 4pm as planned because they have reached their quota of 30 bags. For those who did not make it in time to donate, do come back again next semester. And for those who came out with a lot of 'excuses', do come back too and do not worry if you forget, because we will just have to hunt you down and make you remember by then.

Thanks to all donors and CV! volunteers donating and helping out with the event. For the cause!

Wicked Sick Remix: Soulja Boy + Travis Barker

Title: Crank Dat
Artist: Soulja Boy
Remixed: Travis Barker
Genre: Pop Rap/ Snap Music + Rock
Length: 4:03

Soulja Boy - Crank Dat (Travis Barker Remix)
[click here to PLAY!]

Yet another cross genre remix, with Blink-182's Barker adding some wicked sick sounds to crank that Crank Dat. It's been around for some time and I just stumbled upon it while looking for some new sounds. Four thumbs up from me.

Why I 1: Don't Eat the Whole Chicken Wing

Those who have eaten dinner, lunch, supper, brunch, and afternoon tea with me might have noticed this eating behavior. I love chicken wings (but drumsticks and breasts still top my list P:) and I can go on a killing spree consuming 10 wings in one go, but I will leave the end of the wings alone.

Why? Well, because not long ago I've seen how some people would inject some growth hormone chemical stuff into the chicken's head to make them grow 4x faster. One of those stuff is steroid [citations needed]. So basically the steroid sediment will reside in the end of the wings and in some cases, it can be seen as black stuff in that part when you peel off the skin (might not apply to hangused wings).

Hence explains the uber size of the people who have a diet consisting of chicken for almost everyday, especially ang moes (us here don't eat at KFC or McD almost everyday, mahal ooo). And yeah I've seen the same effect on the local populace. I mean, some of the dudes and dudettes here are uber big than your standard average Asian size since they eat all the parts with the steroids altogether as their staple diet without knowing it.

Sure, eating these power-upped chickens are somewhat good since you can outgrow your buddies. But I'll pass, because of the long term effect it might bring. Taking in second hand drugs already sounds bad by default, and too much steroids will kill your children [1]. Ouch.

But don't be alarmed. Not all farm raised chickens are injected with growth boosters, so don't poke around that RM9.00 Snack Plate. Just put it into your mouth and eat it, we only live once. And if you are unsure and/or love your children, just leave the parts where you think sediments will form or blood veins are heavily concentrated (I'm no physiologist so I don't have the credibility). Alright, enjoy your next chicken meal. It's finger lickin' good P:

Shutter: Don't Play-Play with Your HP Camera

I needed to scare the $#!+ outta me to take my mind of the stress and worries caused by my assignments and hey presto; SHUTTER.

Frankly speaking the movie isn't all that bad nor good. Sure I like the slightly new concept of spirit photography made into a movie, but sadly to say the 2008 ang mo's version of Shutter doesn't get my two thumbs up.

SPOILER ALERT! RUN B***** RUN!

So we we start with newly wed couple from Americana going to Nippon due to the hubby's occupation in model photography. Upon arriving at Nippon they went sightseeing and pak toed near Mt. Fuji before going to Tokyo. Then at night they drove to Tokyo with the wife at the wheels and hubby sleeping. As expected a spooky lady in white appeared in the middle of the road and the wife ran over her, causing her to lose control of her car and swerved into a tree by the roadside.

The next morning when the two recovered, they found themselves to be okay, but the car was a wreck and the unfortunate spooky lady's body was nowhere to be seen. The cops came and the hubby comforted the wife, and he kept telling her that she was hallucinating because she was tired from the trip.

At Tokyo, the wife and hubby enjoyed a Nippon life in a photo studio given by the model agency company. The hubby gave the wife the developed pics of them pak toing at Mt. Fuji, and the wife noticed some photoshopped looking smoky apparitions in all of them. She was wtfbbq but ignored them, thinking it was the camera or the lighting 's problem or something. That night the two had dinner with the hubby's 2 good buddies working for the same agency. After kampaiiang they asked the kawaii waitress to take a group pic, but the waitress dropped the expensive camera (the model Gerain is using) and got the shock of her life. The group, wtfbbqed from the incident, just shrugged it off and went home. At their new home cum studio, the couple slept and got expectedly bad dreams about the roadkilled lady.

The next morning again, the hubby woke up with a bad neck-shoulder pain and the wife figuratively told him about her bad dreams. Again the hubby just brushed the issue away and both of them enjoyed the day themselves. The wife explored the streets of Tokyo while the hubby was busy with his work (both activities involved cameras). When both of them came home the hubby was furious with his work. All of his photos were spoiled by some bad lighting. The wife just let him be and showed the housekeeper (she's smoking hot :P) her pics of the day. The housekeeper noticed all the wife's pics to have 'spirits' (again some more photoshopped looking apparitions). The housekeeper told the wife to meet the housekeeper's ex- boyfriend who was into spirit photography, and the wife agreed.

The next morning (again), the wife went to the housekeeper's ex-boyfriend's horror magazine studio. There she got a tutorial about spirit photography from Ando (yesh, the ex-bf is Ando from Heroes! Sad to say I didn't get his name in the movie). Ando told her to go meet a medium for some info on her spooky photoshopped pics, which she took into consideration. Meanwhile at home the hubby was developing pics from his work in his red room and predictably, he got played around by his wife at his back. Then he got a call from his real wife, which caused him to drop the phone and decided to check the red room to find out who was fondling him earlier. Moments later he WTFBBQed and the wife heard his scream over the phone, causing her to run back to their home cum studio. Upon reaching home the wife found the hubby sitting on an office chair facing the window. Yada yada yada turned the chair around then WTFBBQ! moment and hey, the hubby was okay but he looked like he just got scared the $#!+ out of him. Both agreed to see the medium to see what this was all about.

So they went to the medium's apartment and consulted him. The medium dude can only speak Nippon, so the hubby became the middle man to translate whatever that was needed to be said (no subtitle for anything Nippon in the movie). The medium got a feel of the pics and yelled out some profanities in Nippon, which the hubby didn't want to translate and the wife was blurred and wtfbbqed. The hubby said it was all bullshit and dragged the wife away from the place.

From there onwards the wife suspected something was up, so she went on investigating. With the guidance of the spirits in the pics, she found out that a female employee in the agency was working as a translator for her hubby back before they were married. To make things seriously short, the hubby and the translator was *ahem-ahem* but the translator's dad did not approve their relationship. Thus when the dad died, the translator became so attached and obsessed with the hubby. The hubby find this disturbing and he didn't love her that much at all, so he and his two friends mentioned earlier did *ahem ahem*, took photos of it so that they could use it to blackmail the translator. But sadly to say the translator was traumatized by the incident and committed suicide. She was the apparitions appearing in all the pics. And she has some unfinished business...

One by one the hubby's friends got killed in gorily awesome ways and the hubby was next. Back at the home cum studio, the wife found out about the *ahem ahem* and figured out the spirit was really trying to tell her how sick the hubby really was. The wife left the hubby for good, and the hubby was left enraged with the spirit. He snapped photos with his Polaroid to find his old lover and settle the score. In the end he found her, in a snapshot where she was sitting on his shoulder (hence explains his neck-shoulder pain all these times). So the hubby grabbed some cables from the photography equipments and tried to fry the spirit with 1600 megavolt of electricity. But he failed and ended up in the special ward, wtfbbqed and depressed like any typical emo. The screen zooms away to the reflection on the ward's door, showing the translator superhugging the hubby... END

HAM'S RANT:
Seen everything. Predictably scary things and scenes, all the concepts were used in the Grudge and the Ring (all ang mo version), so basically it's kinda "not fresh". But it's not that fresh to start with since it's just a westernized copy of the original movie. The original Thai version of the movie was the $#!+


HAM'S RAVE:
Still managed to 0__0 me at my seat. $#!+ I got goosebumps just by typing this review. And the actress for the translator was pretty too unlike most movies of the same genre. A good horror movie for couples, since it conveys a good message.

P/S: Yeah yeah, got some parts missing near the end of the spoiler, it's late and I'm kinda lazy to type it out. So sue me.