BGT and Diversity...

Another show of diversity on Britain's Got Talent... which one judge describe as "bloody brilliant!"... *I didn't say that... it was the judge :P*

Diversity In Talents...?

There's a number of things that I do enjoy when I'm here in the UK. One of it is this TV Talent Show called "Britain's Got Talent". People from all walks of life get to perform virtually ANY type of performance in front of 3 judges (one of it is Simon Cowell) and the prize is 100,000 pounds and the chance to perform in front of a royalty and The Royal Variety Performance held yearly.

It started last year, and the winner was... Paul Potts. His was an amazing story. Just a plain mobile phone seller. Low on confidence, low on money, juz simply eking out a living on a day to day basis. His decision to audition for the talent show was based on a flip of a coin. He was a bag of nerves during the audition and Simon Cowell was just waiting to press the buzzer to eliminate him out... until this guy started singing... and every mouth gape open wide as he hit every note of Puccini's Nessun Dorma... and in the he went all the way to the finals. Right now he has an album under Simon Cowell's company and it's called "One Chance".

Beside Paul Potts it also discovered a talented 6 year old Connie Talbot who sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and made quite a number in the audience cried...

I really like the concept behind it, everybody from all walks of life, short, fat, rich, poor, young old have a chance to perform and show what talent they have, without any prejudice. Although there are also a number of equally horrendous and awful, vulgar performance...

Anyway yesterday was a superb performance by a lady by the name of Madonna... Madonna Ducia... a Filipino... she left her kids in Philippines... came over to the UK... to work as a club singer... so that she can send some money back... and what a performance it was... she sang Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love you" and moved the audience to tears. Besides a good performance, what caught my attention was a celebration of diversity... they applauded and supported her, eventhough it was clear that she wasn't a Brit... anyway more of the story here...

What else to be said... music crosses all boundaries...

Cheers...

England smells like a farm...

Walked out from the hotel it thought I smelled something funny... so just quipped to my colleague the sea smelly today... haha... I thought it was pretty normal as there's a number of farmland around our hotel... anyway little did I know... the smell was actually cow manure from Europe! :P... from BBC:

"A foul smell detected in parts of England and Wales is being blamed on easterly winds bringing farming or industrial smells across the Channel.
Labelled "Euro-whiff" by the Met Office, the source of the smell - alternately described as sulphur and manure - is under investigation.
The Met Office said it had had hundreds of calls from the public looking for information about the odour.
The BBC News website has received over a thousand e-mails about the smell.
Readers have reported a range of sulphur and manure-like smells hanging over large parts of England and Wales. ..."

More of it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7354538.stm

Cheers...

< P A S S I O N >

You've heard them, you've sang their songs... now they're coming to our shores. Yea the Passion Team is coming over to Kuala Lumpur and Chris Tomlin is "tagging" along... :P

Screenshot of website: www.268generation.com/worldtour

Book this date: August 3rd....

If I'm still around in UK on June 5th I would really like to catch the London edition.... Besides Chris TOmlin there's also DAVID CROWDER BAND... and Matt Redman... awesome stuff...

American Idol Shouts... *edited*

I'm not sure how many of you all caught "American Idol: Idol Gives Back". The hotel here doesn't have a channel showing it :(... so was just catching the highlights over the internet... was pretty much surprised that they sang "Shout To The Lord" not once... but twice... with the last one the word "My Jesus" edited to "My Shepherd"... I've linked both here... enjoy

The first one...


The 2nd one...


Pretty good and strong performance on both.... wonder whether it's shown back in Malaysia... let me know guys...

I've pretty much lost track of American Idol, but thanks to You Tube I can catch good performances here and there... and this was quite refreshing... but was just wondering why they had to omit out the "My Jesus" part... not that I'm so taken up by it... just curious... international audience perhaps?...

*addition* Michelle just highlighted to me this cool commentary on the aftermath: http://www.joshharris.com/2008/04/inside_scoop_on_shout_to_the_l.php

Art in me...

It's a song I like from Jars Of Clay Self titled album... anyway I like this person's thoughts on art... :

"What we need is art made with excellence—art that reflects the joy, suffering, pain, brokenness, hope in the world around us, even art grounded in a Christian worldview—and a Church that supports it. This art may come from Christians, but we should recognize that it may also come from people who do not know Christ. In its essence, art is the expression of human emotion; true art reminds us that this temporal existence is not the end, that there is something greater, something this world cannot satisfy. It cannot help but call us to God if we only follow its calling. In this way, art is a connection, a connection deeper than mere brushstrokes on a canvas or images on film. "

For full article get it here: I like the way her thoughts are phrased and articulated in the article. Be Blessed.

When I read the article it just sort of reminded my past brushes with art... and I'm not sure how I end up as an engineer. Have always been an 'art-sy' person. In fact I actually "sold" drawings when i was in standard 2 and 3. That time I use to draw pictures of World War 2 planes, war ships, war scenarios and stuff and my classmates would buy it for 10-20 cents... really good one's are bidded up to 50 cents!... enough for a full meal in the canteen!... I'm really not kidding... I still remember I had a competitor by the name of Steven John... he was also an excellant artist... hehehe

Desktop piece from Relevant Magazine

By the time I was form 3-5, there was the PC revolution... and I designed alot of stuffs on the PC using Adobe Photoshop... it was an amazing software... did bookmarks and all... part of the motivation was "showing off" skills at that time... especially to the ladies... hahaha...

Anyway by the time I was in uni... and saw all the superb designs in UNI... especially from the FCM group (faculty of creative multimedia)... I realized I was pretty crap... hahaha so downgraded to doodling designs and stuff on pieces of paper... even then someone did mention that my designs were pretty good... :P... and I actually wanted to start an advertising company... which is called... *secret* :P... some of you out there might know... :P

Anyway... that's history... here am I sitting in front od the computer... trying to meet deadlines to get some development work done... sigh... till the next secret... :P

Cheers...

elkna...

I've always had problem with my ankle, the right one especially, that's why i've stopped playing football. Since I was a kid whenever I climb a hill or something it would easily get twisted. I injured it again 3 times while playing football, once it was so bad that I was on crutches for abt 2 weeks and had to go for x-ray and stuff.

Anyway... since it was snowing, this jakun chinaman decided to play. When the rest of the mat salleh's stayed indoors. So yups slipped and fell and the pain was excruciating. Could hardly walk the next day and was allowed to part at the visitors parking place right at the entrance because I tempang. haha. Anyway after a day it started swelling and bruising:

My Foot!

My Foot 2!!!!

Thanks to your prayers... I know some of you decided to laugh first!!... the swelling has subsided a little and I'm walking with much less limp although the pain is still there... so Thank God for the quick recovery... hopefully in time to be able to drive up to liverpool to catch the Champions League 1st leg match against Chelsea!!!! wooohoooo... that if my boss allows it... I'm so swamped with work.... :((

It's not April Showers...

It's April snow... was pretty much surprised when the weather was forecasted... never thought it would snow in April... but woke up on sunday morning and was very surprised at the amount of snow... at first it started like these:...

The beginning: Droplets of snow...

So was washing up, went out for breakfast and was contemplating whether to drive to church... until I saw this:

Heavy snow falling....

Yups didn't had the confidence to drive in heavy snow, although I did see some cars leaving and heading out, so decided to just wait around and see snow fall... :D... so once the snow started tailing off... it's play time! So next few pics will show the snow 'jakun'... haha

Snow eating Jakun... Snow covered sign boards...

Frosty flowers...

Stairway of ice...

In pain...

The above picture of me smiling... I was actually in pain... I twisted my ankle. Was walking through snow and didn't realize there's a huge hole... so my right leg fell into it and twisted... really lost count the number of times I twisted my right ankle... seems loose already... :P... Anyway like a hero... just trudge along and took some pictures... I wanted to walk along the coast and hopefully can get some good pictures... but it started to swell so just headed back to the hotel...

Winter Wonderland...

live 'snowman'...

All right's pls pray my ankle would heal quickly... thanks... cheers...

Terrorist

It's a bit of a coincidence... after posting "stint 3", with the picture labeled with the supposedly "bomb" and "ammonium nitrate" I was reading this article about engineers and terrorist... just an excerpt below:

"Engineers' personality traits make them excellent "field operatives"--that is, on--the-ground terrorists, according to an international security expert. "

For more please follow this link at EETimes...

Stint 3...

This is my 3rd stint in the UK. And what a start it is. In the first place I wasn't keen to come to the UK... knowing the amount of workload that I would have and especially knowing that I'll be here for an undetermined period :P....

I have never lost my wallet. ever. until this trip. Of all places it has to be in UK. away from home. I didn't realize it was missing until I checked into the hotel at Hayling Island... which is abt 1.5 hours away from Heathrow Airport. But stangely although I was frustrated abt it but I'm surprised at the pretty calm way I handled.... I didn't really fly into a panic but start making calls to the taxi company and locating numbers to call.

After the taxi company confirmed that my wallet is not inside the car I feared the worst. I called HSBC Malaysia to cancel all my credit cards and atm cards. Next was to locate the number of Mas Airlines in London office. and Guess what.... none of it was working... could have guess that it was a sunday. So I called the MAS customer support in Malaysia. It's about 1am Malaysia time so I can't really blame the operater for giving me... SCANDINAVIAN airline office number. so back to MAS office Malaysia, called and realized it was a different operator and she gave the correct number. So called and managed to get them and i was so surprised when i enquired, they said yes there was a wallet found. PRAISE GOD!...

The next problem was retrieving it. I had to go all the way to London to collect it before 11am as they would not send a wallet by mail. So I was already planning to get there by train and bus. roughly a 2.5 hours journey. So while chatting with my friend who's staying in the same hotel, he told that he's leaving for London at 7am in the morning!, and even that... he was actually supposed to leave on Friday but the plans was cancelled! hmmm wonder whether God was "arranging" for me to loose my wallet...

Anyway for the trip back I was prepared to pay the taxi to return me to the hotel... but in the middle of the journey, my UK boss called and he said it's ok and to charge the fare to the company!

Faith is strange, although I was prepared for the worse, but I prayed for the best outcome... and the prayers were answered. Is this faith?

Although it was a miserable experience, I expected for the worse actually, planning to report the lost only when I return and all... but Thank God everything turn out well.

Anyway I'm in office right now... pretty much hitting the road running... so within 24 hrs in office I manage to mess up a clean and nice and EMPTY table.... to this:

Hehe... till the next post... ciaos....