Freestyle - Ali G featuring Mohd Al-Fayed

He's one of Britain's most richest men and Ali G turned him into a gangster rapper for a day on the Ali G Show. Its really cool and funny at the same time. Al-Fayed showed that age really doesn't matter when it comes to having a laugh and fun. Booyaka! Booyaka!

Broadband in Malaysia is crap!

For years TM has been fooling us by providing us with crap quality Internet access through their “pride and joy”: Streamyx. If you’re not in the IT line, most probably you won’t know that the 1Mbps (1Mbps = 1000Kbps) bandwidth that TM was supposedly providing us only reaches about 300Kbps maximum (only if you’re lucky), that’s a fraction of what you’re suppose to get (1Mbps). If you call TM to ask them about this, they will say: “Best effort only. 1Mb is not guaranteed.” Check the contract that you signed with them when you bought your package, the fine print says “Best effort only”. Do you know that the bandwidth is crap mainly because:

• Replace copper wires! We use the public telephone infrastructure (PSTN) which runs on over-head copper wires. These copper wires are prone to outside interference (noise and high temperature) and this affects the transmission of data through these wires. It’s ok for telephone conversation traffic but bad for Internet bandwidth. They need to be replaced with fiber optic cables.

• Not enough switch ports! I had a bad experience with TM once, they pulled out my port just to fit someone else’s port because there were not enough ports. The best thing was that the switch box was right outside my apartment room, so I went outside to shout at the TM technicians. They apologized and said that they had to do that because there were not enough ports in the area for new subscribers. I was not the only one that experienced this in my area, a few of my friends get the same problem regularly and since they don’t see the technicians on the spot, they have to call and request customer service to arrange for a technician to come by to fix the problem. TM generates millions in profit but they don’t even want to buy network equipment (routers and switches).

• Poor maintenance! If you conduct proper maintenance of the local network infrastructure, there should not be any problems with it. Their technicians should be qualified personnel that know how to handle switches and router and must be good at troubleshooting problems on the spot. I’ve met many TM technicians and most of them don’t know what they are doing, they just refer to manuals or call their helpdesk when they encounter problems. They don’t have network knowledge!

• No QC standards! We need quality control. When TM says 1Mbps, they must deliver 1Mbps, not “Best Effort”. The government should take control of the situation and impose a penalty on TM if they don’t achieve the required standard. What is the consumer affairs board doing about this? Why are they keeping quiet?

Today TM told the press that they are planning a RM15.6 billion ringgit bid to improve the country’s broadband penetration rate and infrastructure “to ensure that the country will have a top-notch, competitive high-speed broadband infrastructure in the next decade” (source: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/16/nation/21272341&sec=nation).

I believe that its crap, why do they have to implement it within a decade? Why not 4 to 5 years? I believe it is possible if they put some effort into it.

Broadband speed in South Korea is now 1,000 Mbps (that’s more than a 1000 times our current bandwidth here) and it is the same for Hong Kong, with Singapore expected to reach that target by 2015. If Singapore can do it, why can’t we? We have more resources than them but yet we can’t even compete with them? That’s because Singapore cares about their standards. They impose high standards and never lower them no matter what. We should learn from them, especially TM!

Malaysian Football Today... a Humiliation... a Disaster

The Malaysian football team was once respected and highly regarded in the International arena, acknowledged among the best in Asia. But those days are long gone now. You won't see any players like Dollah Salleh, Santokh Singh, Mokhtar Dahari or Soh Chin Aun anymore in the current Malaysian League. Players of their caliber no longer exist in Malaysian football. During their time, Malaysia was ranked among the top 5 teams in Asia and top 50 in the world.

Quote from Wikipedia:
"Malaysia's first Olympic appearance was in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Although beaten by hosts West Germany 0-3 and Morocco 0-6, Malaysia did beat the USA 3-0. The best years of Malaysian football were from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, during which time Malaysia and South Korea were the two main rivals in East Asia."

Look at where we are now (FIFA Rankings)... latest ranking seed us at 169 out of 200. St. Kitts and Nevis??? Who are they? But they're higher than us. They're at 156. This is nonsense. Most African countries do not have proper training facilities and coaches but look at them, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Togo and Senegal proved to be forces to be reckoned with in the past World Cups. Segenal beat France! Malaysia can't even compete with a small island called Singapore! Some of these African nations do not even buy proper equipment like football boots for their players (talking about poor countries like Zimbabwe and Niger) and they still play amazing football. Our Malaysian player only get the best of everything but they produce nothing... why?

Another sad fact about Malaysian football... would you believe that our M-League Football teams who claim to be cash-strapped pay foreign player tonnes of money to play for them. I was reported 2 or 3 years ago that the highest salary for a foreign player in the M-League at that time was RM16,000 per month. The highest paid Malaysian footballer at that time was Indra Putra and he was getting only RM12,000. My point is that if we can't afford such insane salaries, why can't we just use our local players. The most match experience our local players get, the better they get. That's a good way to improve the quality of Malaysian football.

Another amazing fact: The Malaysian national team changes it coach so often that even most of the Malaysian public doesn't know who the current coach is. What I don't get is why doesn't the FA let the coach have at least 2 or 3 years to implement changes to the team, instead of expecting results overnight. When the Malaysia hockey team did so badly last year (i think, can't remember it that well), they disbanded the team, saying that the team didn't deserve to be sponsored by the Government because they did so badly. From what I've seen, the football team did even worse than them but why didn't the government take the same action against them? Because its backed by royalty (head of the FA at that time was the Sultan of Pahang) and politicians (Khairi Jamaluddin is the Vice-President of the FA now)? I believe that sports and politics should not mix at all.

The government says that it will take Malaysia another 20 to 30 years to be good at football and able to compete in the World Cup. I would say that I would never happen as long as the government keeps interfering and players keep getting pampered.

Mokhtar Dahari, the greatest Malaysian footballer ever...

'Spiderman' Arumugam, one of the best goalkeepers in Asia at that time...

Soh Chin Aun, a living legend, still contributing his experience to today's Malaysian football...

And we thought Malaysian Idol was bad... this is even worse...

Bulgarian Idol... shit happens when you listen to a tape recorder over and over again to try to sing an english song although you can't speak english at all. A piece of advice, don't do what this auditioner, Valentina Hasan, did at the Bulgarian Idol competition. She sang Mariah Carrie's Without You but in a weird way and she called it "Ken Lee" (which was acually Can't Live, which wasn't the title of the song). The thing is that history repeated itself, she became as famous as William Hung on YouTube and reached celebrity status in her country. All because she couldn't sing that well.




Later on she was trained to sing the actual song and how to pronounce the words in the lyrics (just like William Hung). She was the invited to sing at the finals and her singing was ok, much improved. Kudos to her for trying. The romour is that she's going to try to sing a Celine Dion song next... damn... there's a limit to my pity ya' know...

Forces working against Arsenal? Too much sense or too much weed???

Recently I watched this clip on YouTube about an Arsenal fan who thinks that there are 'outside forces' who influence his team's games and basically 'make' them lose. I couldn't stop laughing when I was watching because he was talking like he was on drugs... serious weed man... The best part about this is that he was bloody serious about his comments. "Forces working against Arsenal". Perhaps he should stop supporting Arsenal and check himself into rehab.