It's been close to a month now that I've been married. And I haven't been blogging much since. Haven't got that much time on my hands actually. Being married really does take away ones time. Sometimes when I think back about it, I do miss those carefree days of going back from work and just laying my ass there on my bed - and later turning on my PC and watching some newly downloaded episodes of Lost or movies.

Aahh..those were the days.

But enough of my ranting for now, let me just write what happened during the days I was away.


The honeymoon
-------------

Me and my significant other went to Indonesia for our honeymoon . Spent a couple of days at Bukit Tinggi, and later Padang.

Our flight departure from Malaysia was on Sunday 2 weeks ago, at around 7:50am. You know people normally would get up early and get to the airport a couple of hours earlier than that time - but as the story goes, we actually woke up from our slumber at around 6:15am (thank you Pak Erwin for the wake up call). Pak Erwin was our chauffeur for the day. Hadn't he gave that call, we would've happily continued sleeping and eventually missed the flight to our honeymoon.

You can imagine how our face looked like when we woke up. And kudos again to Pak Erwin for his skilled driving on that fateful morning. We manage to get to LCCT in quite a record time from our home in Sepang. Luckily we stayed in Sepang.

From then onwards everything was smooth sailing I guess. Sleep depraved, we managed to drag ourselves from Malaysia all the way to Bukit Tinggi. The first thing we did upon checking into Gran Malindo was get to bed. It was quite overdued.

We spent around 3 days there. Most of the times we get around places by walking, or getting an "angkut". Sometimes though we fetched a "kerete kuda".

If you like serene environment and laid back places - this is your place. There's nothing much here, the night life is next to nothing, and the only shopping complex available here (the Ramayana) is so-so. Food is easy to get - the majority of the people here are Muslims. Padang cuisine is great. I didn't indulge myself to it though due to monetary reasons.

For dance music lovers, Padang would suit you nicely. For just Rp 2000, you could enjoy a bumpy ride with loud music. And when I say loud, I really meant loud. Like the woofer could damage your heart kinda loud. Owh yeah - you pay that Rp2000 to the "angkut" driver.

There's a lot of things I would wanna mention in this blog back then - if only I brought my laptop then. Now though...I don't feel like blogging much. Some terms do get stuck in my head though. Terms like "anti mati gaya" (a 3G ad), "gratis", "kelok 44", "makasih", "ngak apa"...


Back home
-----------

If only we could have that one weekend where we could just relax and ease our minds off. Currently our days are filled with work, the nights filled with cleaning/beautifying/buying something for the house, and the weekends...well lets just say we never had a weekend for ourselves just yet. This coming weekend - we're gonna have Ah Hoe come in and build us a kitchen cabinet, so that I guess is another weekend down the drain.

Bummer.

At last, we're finally tied the knot.

Currently we're busy preparing for a lot of stuff. Cleaning the house and all that.

For now though, here are some pics from our photographer Shasmanizam.

Perkahwinan Hafidz dan Amatullah

Last Sunday alas I finally got to sit on my Ektorp couch. Waited a whole week for that. Found it at IKEA a couple of months back - and I've been setting my eyes on it ever since. It got that cozy look, and a nice cushion to go with it that simply screams "this a couch for you to sit your ass in and watch a movie!".

Along with it, came the rest of the furnitures for my new house in Sepang.

Had quite an interesting chat with my old friend from college days. It has been quite a long time. Really long actually since I've had a good chat with. He's quite an interesting guy, somewhat like me, but our path diverges a bit in a sense that he went into 'tabligh', while me and most of our friends did not.

We chatted about life, stuff in the past and such. But what I wanted to share is not about those things. It's about faith. It's about 'iman'. It's about working to strenghen your 'iman'. Happy reading. :)

hairul azri (3:04 AM): owh..

hairul azri (3:05 AM): ilmu agama perlu ada kekuatan iman untuk dapat amal ilmu yg ada

hairul azri (3:05 AM): ko perlu hidupkan usaha atas iman kat umah ko

hairul azri (3:05 AM): kalu x...org blaja agama pon akan hanyut

Hafidz (3:06 AM): cube trangkan sket ape itu usaha atas iman

hairul azri (3:06 AM): iman kita naik n turun

hairul azri (3:07 AM): kadang2 kita solat on time

hairul azri (3:07 AM): kadang2 kita lengah2 solat

hairul azri (3:07 AM): kadang2 kita tinggalkan solat

hairul azri (3:07 AM): bile kita buat dosa kecil....iman kita luntur

hairul azri (3:07 AM): bile kita buat dosa besar...iman kita tercabut

hairul azri (3:08 AM): ini semua godaan syaitan yg cucuk nafsu kita

hairul azri (3:09 AM): nafsu yg buas dpt dijinakkan dgn akal yg berpandukan iman yg sahih

hairul azri (3:10 AM): hati yg sentiasa ada kebesaran Allahakan dapat melaksanakan perintah Allah dan tinggalkan larangan Allah

hairul azri (3:11 AM): hati yg ada kebesaran makhluk(wanita,pangkat,harta dll.) akan lebih mengutamakan dunia daripada agama

hairul azri (3:11 AM): oleh itu kita perlu keluarkan kebesaran makhluk/dunia daripada hati kita

hairul azri (3:12 AM): dan kita perlu tanamkan rasa kebesaran Allah dalam hati kita

hairul azri (3:12 AM): sebab tu la nabi suwoh para sahabat utk sentiasa perbaharui iman walaupun iman mrk da mcm gunung

hairul azri (3:12 AM): bagaimana?

hairul azri (3:13 AM): dengan perbanyakkan percakapan lailahaillah

hairul azri (3:14 AM): *lailahailallah

hairul azri (3:14 AM): bukan dalam zikir shj...

hairul azri (3:14 AM): pasal selalunye kita lalai dlm zikir

hairul azri (3:14 AM): x khusyuk...

hairul azri (3:15 AM): so kita perlu mudzakarah kefahaman kalimah lailahailallah

hairul azri (3:16 AM): lailaha=tiada tuhan(yg layak disembah)

hairul azri (3:17 AM): ilallah=(melainkan hanya)menyembah Allah

hairul azri (3:17 AM): maksudnya

hairul azri (3:17 AM): lailaha=kalimah yg menafikan segala kekuatan makhluk

hairul azri (3:17 AM): ilallah=kalimah yg hanya mengesakan kekuatan Allah

hairul azri (3:18 AM): kita perlu nafikan kekuatan makhluk dan hanya mengesakan kekuatan Allah

hairul azri (3:18 AM): api xbole bagi panas

hairul azri (3:18 AM): sebenarnya yg bagi panas adalah Allah

hairul azri (3:19 AM): buktinya dalam Alquran...kisah Nabi Ibrahim dicampak ke dalam api oleh Raja Namrud

hairul azri (3:20 AM): Allah tukar sifat api jadi sejuk dan sejahtera

hairul azri (3:21 AM): kita perlu menfikan segala kekuatan makhluk yg kita nampak secara zahir kerana hakikatnya semua perkara berlaku dengan izin Allah

hairul azri (3:21 AM): barulah kita yakin dengan kekuatan Allah

hairul azri (3:22 AM): inilah cara kita dapat taat perintah Allah kerana ada rase keagungan Allah dalam hati

hairul azri (3:23 AM): so tiap2 hari kite perlu mudzakarah perkara nie bersama anak isteri n jiran2

hairul azri (3:23 AM): supaya sume org dpt taat perintah allah

hairul azri (3:24 AM): tapi nak memulakan mudzakarah mmg malu n tebal muka

hairul azri (3:24 AM): pasal xde suasana iman..

hairul azri (3:24 AM): kat umah ade TV

hairul azri (3:24 AM): ade radio

hairul azri (3:24 AM): mcm2

hairul azri (3:25 AM): so suasana iman ade di rumah2 Allah

hairul azri (3:25 AM): sbb tue kita perlu kuar 3hari tiap2 bulan utk recharge iman kita

hairul azri (3:26 AM): dengan cara ni kita dapat bawa kehidupan beragama dalam rumahtangga

hairul azri (3:26 AM): lahir anak2 yg soleh

hairul azri (3:27 AM): isteri yg taat suami

hairul azri (3:27 AM): kita jadi mcm keluarga nabi n para sahabat

hairul azri (3:27 AM): yg jadi asbab hidayat

hairul azri (3:27 AM): asbab agama tersebar

hairul azri (3:28 AM): di seluruh dunia

hairul azri (3:28 AM): sampai kat malaya

hairul azri (3:28 AM): kita skang pon dpt nikmat iman n islam

hairul azri (3:28 AM): kalu sahabat xkeluar dr mekah n madinah...

hairul azri (3:28 AM): kita masih sembah pokok n matahari

hairul azri (3:29 AM): so kalu kita xfollow mcm diorang..

hairul azri (3:29 AM): satu hari nnt cucu cicit kita akan tinggalkan agama

hairul azri (3:29 AM): ...na'uzubillah

hairul azri (3:30 AM): so ok x?

Hafidz (3:30 AM): panjang lebar penerangn ko ek

Hafidz (3:30 AM): haha

hairul azri (3:31 AM): ye la...aku xbole bagitau pendek2 nnt salah faham

hairul azri (3:31 AM): ini pun aku da ringkas kan

hairul azri (3:31 AM): sebenarnya kalu ko betul2 nak faham...mmg kena keluar jemaah

Hafidz (3:32 AM): bole x aku cut n paste ape ko taip tadi masuk kan dlm blog aku?

hairul azri (3:32 AM): it's up to u...

He asked me why not join him on his 3-day monthly thing (ok..so I name it that) whenever I'm free. Emm..and I ask myself why not indeed...

Home loans.

Last night me and buddies talked about managing our wealth. Basically it revolves around how all of us can get rich.

Money makes the world go round they say.

My friend Symofz has recently got enlightened with the idea of financial freedom. I came across that word like 5 years ago. But I guess sooner or later we all would be thinking about that. As you get older, you responsibility will be higher. Got people to take care of, things to buy.

One of them is a house. Or many houses should you fancy that. But people don't have those ridiculous amount of cash when they got out of their university. Nope - they can only depend on whatever meagre salary they can get from their first job.

So people like that who wants to buy a house (like yours truly) resort to borrowing money from the bank.

I've read some articles..got into forums, trying to understand the nature of the subject matter.

Conventional loan VS Islamic loan. Which is better? Can Islamic-based loan still be as competitive or better than the conventional types? These are the question that dwells deep in my mind as of late.

Of all the websites I've been through - this one in particular deserves a mention in my blog. It provides a wealth of information and a good place to cross reference most if not all the home loan packages that currently available in the market right now. A great site for a newbie like me.

I guess this is my first time blogging about a donut.

It's THAT good.

Hahaha. I mean, I don't know about you guys. You might say I'm a bit exaggerating or what not, but erm..yeah I am aren't I. But it's nice to be able to eat a different kind of donut from the ones you usually get at Dunkin Donuts.

I just had a 'Moonraker'. This type of donut has a chocolate topping with sizzles of cocoa pops on top. Crunchy and yummy at the same time. I'd show it to ya if I hadn't ate it already.

The biggest difference that I can spot between 'it' and the donut from Dunkin Donut is the size. Big Apple donuts are quite small. I mean they aren't that thick and can be quickly munched. Due to it's rather small size, you tend to get better taste of the various toppings that is offered - or in my case the chocolate coated cocoa pops.

Maybe it's the 'in' thing right now. Everybody seems to queue up at Big Apple Donut these days.

Oh did I mention that the donut was given to me by my fiancee?

Hehe..you gotta love them freebies :)

Today I went to my uncle's house..or to be technically correct - my extended grandfather's place. He's the brother of my grandma, and he's Chinese.

Happy Chinese New Year to him and his family.

It's nice to able to visit the other side of the family, the side which gave me some Chinese-features to those who've noticed. Recently he's been diagnosed with 'Dengue' fever. Lost some 20kg because of that. Whoa..

His lawn of bonsai's is perhaps the personification of the man he is; hardworking and patient. I hardly know the guy though, you know when you're young you tend to take these things for granted.

Got some ang pows too...hehe..three days worth of lunch. :)

Later that day my family (which includes my sister's family), went to Chilis for lunch. Frankly I'm not a big fan of the place (for obvious reasons), but since dad deem it fit for us to eat there, so...

Just had a fish and chips. I heard that the burgers there were awesome - but I guess I'm just not comfortable to try it out. In any case, here's a pic of my nephew trying to hit on the girl next door. Go Aqeel go!!

SIFE

Yesterday I was invited to the "annual" SIFE dinner. The theme of the dinner was "Vampire". At first I was like..what the hell am I going to wear for this dinner...then I thought "hey, Edward Cullen didn't wear anything fancy..why should I?". I went there with a baju Melayu instead. Hahaha~

The dinner was held at Country Heights Resorts Sports Club. The houses there were HUGE! Freakingly huge. Each house there had like 5-6 cars in their parking lot. Talk about being filthy rich.

Anyways, I got there quite early it seems (I was like the first guest to arrive...). Disappointed at first. But later when all the guys came it didn't felt that bad after all.

There was a variety of food being served. Fried rice, spaghetti, pasta, chicken wings, sliced beef etc..etc.


Old friends. No matter how you hate and loath some of them in the past, in the end - the bond is still there. I guess that's the beauty of SIFE Uniten. I remember all the ups and downs we had. The tense (very tense) moments, the laughter, the tears. But I guess it all worked out well in the end. As years go by, we all went on with our different ways - but SIFE Uniten brings us back together every now and then. I sure am glad that I was a part of something during my undergrad years. Huda mentioned about my Rumah Nur Salam project. Ahh..those were the days. I surely hope that SIFE Uniten would never abandon that Rumah Nur Salam.

I admit, perhaps I am not that much of an entrepreneur (despite having been the president of the club once). But mingling(is this even the right spelling?) with the lots of them sure make me think that I am/can be one. All-spirited, optimistic, resourceful, opportunistic kind of people. You sure need these type of poeple every now and then.

Ahh, and Puan Kamariah was there. She was like 'there' from day one. The way Juli (rep from Muadzam) mentioned Puan Kamariah in her speech made Pn K sounds like a legend or a myth from the golden days of SIFE. Like for the time in her life she has finally found a 'unicorn'. Haha. Yeah...I guess we all missed her strong presence in SIFE Uniten. It's good that she's back.


Salmonella

Last Thursday me and my fiancee went to Alamanda to have a lil' dinner. I am not gonna go into details on like what we had and such - what I want to write about right now is about Salmonella, the virus.

I am sure most of you guys out there loves/craves munching on those Famous Amos cookies. I admit, I crave for those things too (Hi, my name is Hafidz, and I'm an addict). So anywho, she (my fiancee), offered to buy me them cookies while we were there (Alamanda). So I was like, yay~..and asked her to get me my favourite "premium choice". It so happens that they we'rent selling it then.

I was like..owh..da habis ke. So I picked-lah another kind. And I didn't think anymore about it. Until today.

Malaysia's health ministry Thursday said it was investigating the Famous Amos cookie chain after it withdrew dough from several of its outlets here amid fears that it was contaminated by the salmonella bacterium.

....

"There is only one dough (suspected of being contaminated with salmonella), called premium choice, which we had carried and (which was only) available in limited locations," the company's general manager Jesrina Liew told AFP.

"The batch which they suspected of contamination is still in our inventory and has not been distributed yet. (The premium choice cookies) we have recalled were from an earlier batch of dough and had not been contaminated," she added.

And then I went - "Owh..padanlah..". Yikes.

The world as it is today.

Israel is invading Palestine. Again. Currently the muslims in Gaza are being bombarded by missiles and bomb and what not in order to, as the Israelis call it 'ward off terrorists'.

Now I will not be elaborating over that...I guess I am just tired man who can't stand cliches over more cliches. Palestine has been like that ever since their neighbouring 'Islamic' countries seems to have a knack of turning a blind eye whenever Palestineans got attacked and raped like that. Been going on for years - and maybe for many more years to come. Not to say that I like what I wrote just now, but just be honest - with the current pathetic state of the muslim community, will Palestine ever be free and Isreal be put to justice?

It's like a cruel and sick cycle. You see a peace treaty. Then somehow it got broken. Israel will smash Palestine.

And then comes the part where the world it seems to get excited and have lots of 'rapat umum','tunjuk perasaan', forums, seminars, tv shows, articles, aid deliveries and yadayada. A lot of actions there...but it's not like it all matters anyway. The damage has already been done - and will still be done, since weirdly it seems that Israelites do live outside the boundaries of law and order. They live inside their own code-of-conduct, and the rest of the world can use whatever type of law we see fit just as as long that we don't ever fuck them over.

You can't call them names. You can't touch them. You can't take them to court. That would be blasphemy (sarcasm of course). That would be anti-Semitic.

Later when the Israelis have done like a good amount damage, then it's time to go home. Owh..ade peace treaty rupenye. And all of a sudden you have this peace treaty here and there. How convenient. And owh, it was the US who arranged for the treaty to place. How nice of them to play mediator. Everybody goes back home. The shows over - until the next rocket goes over the border lah. Then the cycle goes again.

In a way, should muslims all over the world unite and defend Palestine, that would be a red alert for the rest of the religions all over the world. Fear for Islamist supremacy will rise, and a World War between religions could develop.

That is some deep and scary shit. Save Palestine? Or save the world?

Below are an excerpt of some crap that I took from the NSTP. I mean what the hell is he trying to achieve here? To express anger, regret and dissappointment? A psychiatrist might be interested in those things. The Israelis? You'd expect 'them' to listen to you?

Politicians are a weird bunch indeed I'd say.

Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said about five million pupils and 360,765 teachers from more than 10,000 schools would be involved.

"This is to create a wave of pressure for the Israelis to stop their violence and oppression of Palestinian civilians."

He said the ministry would be working with the Information, Foreign, and Youth and Sports Ministries, as well as Peace Malaysia, to expand the campaign to a mega scale.

"When we protested against the US invasion in Iraq, we managed to get 200,000 people into Putra Stadium, Bukit Jalil.
"We are confident that youth leaders from political parties, including those in Pakatan Rakyat will join us in this fight against the Zionist regime," he said after his ministry's New Year gathering at Putrajaya International Convention Centre here yesterday.

Today me and my fiancee went to the Mutiara Damansara to buy a ring and go see a movie.

About the ring, we finally agreed on a ring for our wedding. I bought only one since I'm not a ring wearing type of person. A bracelet maybe - but not a ring. Unless that ring has got some special enchantment on it - like make me go invisible or something. Now THAT is a useful ring.

Anyways we bought it at Diamonds and Platinum. There are basically 3 jewelery store at The Curve. Habib Jewel, My Diamond's and Diamonds and Platinum. In terms of prices, I could say that My Diamond's has the cheapest rings of them all. Funky+simplistic design. It was nice to look at at first. But then after quite sometime looking back and forth I find myself hesitating to actually decide upon which ring to get. So we got out of the store, and walked on - intending to look at what other stores has to offer.

Habib Jewel's collection was quite a few. But quite a few of the same thing. The difference between most of the rings available wasn't that stark and convincing - just a couple more diamonds there, a slight variation in design here. I'd say their goldsmith is lacking in creativity department.

Next we went to D & P. The collection was quite nice. And the price range was OK as well (since it was within my budget of RM 1k-ish. The ring we agreed upon was an 18k white gold ring with 2 diamonds attached. The design was quite sophisticated and sleek (whatever that means). It was matted in some parts as well (I mostly fell in love with the ring because of that. I got this thing for matted metals). In any case, it made the ring look nicer since the diamond and the design became the subject matter of the ring (instead of the ring itself which usually would steal the limelight).

So that was about the ring.

The other part of my day was about the movie we went to see - Yes! Man. At first I came there (to Cineleisure) under the pretense of seeing The Spirit. But having going there with my fiancee, I've decided at the last minute to buy the tickets for Yes! Man instead (so that she could enjoy it too. I don't think that she would watch The Spirit with the same passion that I do, being a self-proclaimed comic book/movie buff that I am).

So on we went. The plot was interesting. Plus Jim Carrey, as he's getting older - is fast-becoming one of my favourite actors. Like fine wine (if wine does gets better with age. People do say that often though..). What I mostly like about him is how well he could in different roles - from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to the early days of Ace Ventura. But frankly I like to see him in a more serious role, or at least a romantic comedy (none of those Dumb and Dumber, although the movie do kick-ass) .

The movie brings with it a unique view of how we should live our lives. Say Yes!. Say yes to everything. And perhaps anything that might be coming in our way. There was this part in the movie where Carl (Jim Carrey), the then unbeliever of the Yes! philosophy, went to the Yes! seminar after a friend of his mentioned how the Yes! philosophy had actually changed his life. So in the seminar, Terrence (the Yes! guru), talked on about that by saying 'no', we are closing all the doors of option in our life, and 'yes' actually opens it. I actually find myself intrigue by this statement - and it does get me thinking silently, reflecting on the choices I've made along the years that I've lived as a human on this earth. I could say that I was a bit of a Yes! man myself. Hehe~.

Opportunities do come - if you want it to come. If you let it come. Change can happen, if you want it to happen. I think there is something in the Quran which sounds something like "Sesungguhnya Allah tidak akan mengubah nasib sesebuah kaum, melainkan kaum itu berusaha untuk mengubahnya sendiri". In short if you want 'change' to happen to you, you're gonna have to work for it.

Which brings me to my next favourite quote, "If you want something you like, you gotta help enough people to get something they like" - Zig Ziglar. In the movie (yeah I know, I'm still talking about the movie), Carl had to help (in his case, say Yes! to) many people before finally getting what he wants in his life. A concept that I couldn't agree more. Well at least we as muslims should be aiming ultimately for 'keredhaan Allah'. Heck no matter how much 'pahala' you acquire, if Allah is not 'redha', then off to Hell with you. (which reminds me of a story...)

How is life going to be like after marriage eh? I had always aspire to be someone who would always go to mosque after getting back to work, maybe take some hadith lesson as well - after I get married. I wonder now, now that I am actually getting married, whether I will be actually doing that. Sometimes I doubt myself. But I guess I shouldn't be thinking like that eh - I should say Yes! instead :)

Today I sat down with my dinner beside mom. She was watching the news in the lounge - while trimming her nails.

We talked about stuff. Mainly on the ASB's dividend distribution this year. 7 friggin percent with 1.75% as bonus. Not much I thought, dad says with the state of economy Malaysia enjoyed in the past, we should have been getting up to 9%. Meehh~ "Janji ade.." I thought to myself.

Then the news shows the most hilarious pic of the night - a guy (journalist) throws off his shoes at George W. Bush.


The guy's got some balls! I mean wow..talk about guts. He must really hate the fella huh. But then so does the rest of the world I would imagine. Can't blame him really. And I would imagine that after Bush left, he'd just be getting a slap on wrist and maybe some little fine. Nothing he couldn't handle..I mean hey, he just did what everyone else in the world would WANT to do but don't have the cajones to.

On the other hand..if Secret Service got their hands on him - then that's a different story.

The closest thing I could come to that is this, and it's not even a real person (just a wax at Madame Tussaud. Notice the shock on the lady's face behind me. )

Booyakasha!!

Damn I feel good today. Just got a new contract offer from my boss. A permanency and pay raise. Nice~

Just when an extra cash would come in handy. Perhaps I could get a bigger stone for my lady's ring eh?

Anywho, alhamdullillah. With the economic forecast looking gloom and uncertain, this new contract certainly feels so much sweeter.

7 months have passed - and I am still at Comptel and starting next year; a permanent staff there.

Right then when she(my boss)told me about it I was freaking glad! But my face tried to hide it as much as I can. Kontrol macho la kan. After getting to my cubicle, I was all grinning to myself - felt so good. Wish I had that 'cone of silence' they had in the movie 'Get Smart' - so that I could scream out loud how fucking glad I am. I still am actually. Hehe.

Told my parents about it. They seem pretty happy. Good, I thought to myself. At least now dad wouldn't be nagging me anymore about how I should've worked in the government or some GLC (read TNB). I was all too happy to show him the envelope containing the contract (I actually danced in front of him).

Gonna get the family together for a lunch-out this weekend. Good things are meant to be shared. :)

Well to be honest, this post is serves not to explain why I don't clean my room. It's more to sharing what I just picked up on BBC News.

But yeah I do somehow hope that my mom and dad can read this. At least then, maybe they won't be breathing down my neck every so often, heh.

Favourite quote from my dad; "Sedangkan bilik ko yang sekangkang kera tu pun ko tak boleh nak bersihkan,..kemas-kemas,..macamana la ko nak pikul tanggungjawab dah kawen nanti (or something like that..kinda forgot..) "

well anywho, here goes the article. Taken from BBC

The Brilliance of Creative Chaos

George Bernard Shaw liked the tidy approach

A POINT OF VIEW

Are we able to think clearly when surrounded by mess because chaos is inherent in all our minds, even those of the great writers and thinkers, asks Clive James.

The great thing about this slot is that I can pontificate. But a wise pontificator should always remember that he won't solve a global problem in 10 minutes, or even do much more than usefully touch on it in 10 hours. There are two main reasons for that. One reason is that the global problems are, by their nature, devilishly complicated. But everyone knows, or should know, that.

The other reason is less obvious, because it lies within the nature of the pontificator. He, or she - in my case he - speaks with a special pontificating voice: integrated, judicious even in its doubts, purporting to contain the distilled wisdom of a lifetime's experience. Almost always, I suspect, this voice is at odds with the personality from which it emerges, and in my case the discrepancy is so glaring that even I can spot it.

Writer Will Self's study Enlarge Image

As I prepare this script, tapping away at the keyboard as Socrates might have done if he had owned a PC, it seems to me that my brain is at my fingertips, with all its scope and knowledge. But then, after looking up at the screen and noticing that the last two sentences are all in capitals and include various chemical formulae for substances unknown to science, I bounce my forehead off the desk and make the supreme mistake of looking around my room.

It's in chaos. The pontificator with plans for fixing the world can't organise his own desk, and as for what lies beyond the desk, forget about it. The evidence that I've spent years forgetting about it is all out there. Piles of old newspapers and magazines. Stacks of box files containing folders containing memos about the necessity to buy more folders and box files. Hundreds of books uselessly hidden behind hundreds of other books. A small statue of a Sumo wrestler, or else a life-sized statue of a small Sumo wrestler. A bag of random receipts that my accountant might have found quite useful in their year of origin, 1998.

But let's start with the desk. Or rather, let's not. The desk is too much. Little of its surface is visible through piled notebooks and shuffled papers. But observe this vertically striped earthenware mug full of ball-point pens. If the phone rings with information I must take down, I reach for one of these pens and find that it does not work.

Shambolic

In the same vertically striped mug there are 15 other pens that do not work either. Vaguely I remember the day when I planned to sort through these pens and retain only those that did work. But I got distracted. What else is in the same mug? Jelly beans, several of which have grown fur.

And that's just the mug. What about this desk drawer over here on the right? Ah, there's a touch of organisation here. Every year I put a new set of vital names and addresses in the designated section of my appointments diary. But I never get round to transferring vital names and addresses from previous diaries into the current one. So there are 10 years of diaries in this drawer alone, to supplement the line-up of 20 years of diaries standing over there in the corner of the room behind that valuable stack of obsolete phone books. Or, as I have just typed, obsotel nophe kobos.

There are books I know I own but I have to buy them again because I can't find them Hear Radio 4's A Point of View Audio slideshow: Eamonn McCabe's Writers' Rooms

All over again I count my blessings that I have not been chosen as one of the subjects for Eamonn McCabe's series of photographs called Writers' Rooms. In London, an exhibition of these photographs has just opened. The photographs have been running as a series in one of the upmarket newspapers. When I looked at the early photos in that series I was envious. Would I be chosen? Then I started praying that I wouldn't be, a prayer which has mercifully been answered.

There are some prizes I would like. I would quite like the Nobel Prize, if the money could be delivered tomorrow in a suitcase, clearly marked "Nobel Prize money: bank immediately or it will burst into flames." I would quite like the Booker prize, the Whitbread Prize, the Forward prize and the Unicef prize for the chronically disorganised. I can hear myself pontificating while accepting any or all of those awards. But what I don't want is to be photographed in this room, because any shred of credibility I had as a pontificator would evaporate instantly.

I noted with shame that even the most shambolic of the writer's rooms in the photographs was better organised than mine, and the majority of them might have been deliberately arranged to remind me that I myself was working in a skip. These paragons had got it all together without it getting on top of them.

Force of nature

You could tell that everything was there for a reason. If a woman writer had the propeller of a Sopwith Camel mounted on the wall, it was because her great-grandfather shot down Baron von Richthofen's second cousin in 1917.

Order and romance for Barbara Cartland

Writers had their books arranged by category, in alphabetical order. I moved into this office 10 years ago, the books came out of their tea chests in any old order, and any old order is still the only order they maintain on my shelves. There are books I know I own but I have to buy them again because I can't find them.

Let me add that everything is well dusted. A cleaner comes in once a week and she does a good job. But she is under instructions not to move anything, in case I need it. So she has learned just to polish the whole lot as if it were an installation at Tate Modern.

Other writers clearly find it easier to get their act together, and no doubt most non-writers do too. But judging from my own admittedly extreme experience, they can only get things under control by striving mightily against a force of nature that wants things to be disorganised rather than not.

Scientists call it entropy. Back in the early 19th Century, Carl von Clausewitz, in his great work about military strategy On War, called it Friction. Clausewitz said that you have to have a plan for the battle but the plan had better include plenty of room for the absolute certainty that the plan will start growing fur from the first moment of its execution.

I have just been checking up in my copy of Clausewitz - I had to buy another copy, because my original copy is somewhere in my bookshelves, which means that it might as well be on Mars - and I can tell from every sentence that he was writing with the insight conferred by self knowledge.

I'll bet all the money in my foreign coin collection - it's over there in the fruit bowl, and some of those hundreds of obsolete francs and deutschmarks are sure to be worth something to collectors a hundred years from now. I'll bet all that money in the fruit bowl - and if you're asking where the fruit is, I gathered up all my powers of organisation and threw it out only a month after I forgot to eat it. I'll bet all that money that Clausewitz, when he was working on his magnum opus in his last years, was sitting at a desk that looked like the morning after the Battle of Waterloo.

His name for the accumulated effect of Friction was the Fog of War. When I read that, I could tell straight away that here was a man who, like me, couldn't toast a slice of bread without filling his apartment with smoke. When his widow prepared his manuscript for posthumous publication, she probably found sandwiches in it.

Dangerous signal

When DVDs came in, I rarely played my VHS tapes again, but the VHS tapes did not move out. There are several hundred of them here, stacked on the floor. My first copy of Clausewitz might be somewhere behind them. I know there is a squash racket behind them because I can see the edge of its frame sticking up.

John Mortimer's creative space Enlarge Image

Will I ever play squash again? Of course not, so why is the racket still there? Perhaps it's trying to remind me that the best equipped pontificator is the one who is aware of his own propensities towards chaos. Unable to organise his own breakfast, he will be less ready to condemn officials who can't organise an efficient system for sending out student grants, or collecting private information onto a CD-ROM that won't be left on a train.

But even the most self-aware pontificator is still likely to expect too much of the world. Rarely will he be sufficiently amazed that society functions at all, considering some of the human material it has to work with. In ancient Greece, the philosopher Diogenes, wedded to simplicity, lived in a tub. But he still roamed the streets of Athens by daylight while carrying a lamp. He said that he was looking for an honest man, and everybody wrote it down, saying that Diogenes the cynic was a piercing analyst of the human condition. But maybe he just didn't know how to turn the lamp off.

Sitting at this computer, on whose keyboard I have just typed the word "lamp" and actually written the word "lump", I am face to face with an item of technology that Diogenes would not have known how to switch on. I barely know how to switch it on either, have often failed to switch it off - why does it ask me "do you wish to report the error" when I don't know what the error is? And yet I do know that its mere presence in the pile of rubble I call my desk is sending me a dangerous signal.

This miracle of machinery is telling me that order can emerge from chaos after all. Well, yes, it can, but only against heavy odds, because chaos is inherent even in the minds of those who make the miracles. And it is certainly inherent within the pontificator. I can pontificate about that with some certainty, even as I type the last words of this sprict, scirpt, script, reach for my mug of coffee and get a mouthful of ball point pens.

Eamonn McCabe's Writers' Rooms exhibition is at the Madison Contemporary Art gallery in London until 17 January 2009.

No, I didn't go there. I'm just jotting this down to express my concern over the whole event.

What's the concern you might ask? Well, I am very much concerned over the sponsor for the event : Magnum Corporation. For those who don't know what that company does - they deal with gambling.

Gambling, in Islam; is haram. The profits that they (Magnum) acquires hence forth from their business is then also haram. Thus the event, and more importantly the food served - is haram.

Do the people who went there last Saturday realize this? I mean I guess it's "OK" to go there, listen to the music and enjoy yourself - as long as you DON'T TAKE THE FOOD!!!

I don't know man...I certainly hope they didn't. Worries me a lot when a muslimah (i think) announcer can easily say "Are YOU game for it? " <-- this is Magnum's tagline btw.

Enuf of my rantings. Time to get to work.

It's been about 6 month now since I've entered Comptel. It's been great - working and all that. Meeting new people, learning new things, jargons and languages (as in programming languages) and honing my english-speaking skills (one of the reasons I picked an MNC). Always wanted to be in the telco industry. The problem used to be from which angle should I enter - networking, RF, or programming. I guess my job now answers that question huh.

The early months was pretty laid back I suppose, with lots of training to attend to, and there was also this time when I was pretty much without work (in which as it turns out, my manager had thought that I was busy doing something - so she chose not to assign me with anything. Later on after we had a lil' chat, I explained my situation and later on some CRs came in my mailbox. Damn relieved to have some work to do).

So far my product knowledge goes only up to the Eventlink 4 and Eventlink 5/6. The two although quite similar in function, works quite differently. One relies much on S-Lang and shell scripts, while the other uses much C language and Perl. Frankly though I think I am starting to hate EL4, hehe~

And I've been getting the hang of reading Functional Specs nowadays. And those weird jargons and terminologies don't seem to scare me anymore. I used to worry a lot whenever I read those specs - actually I still worry now too but because of different reasons, haha. Back then it used to be about understanding what the terms meant and all and try to make sense of things. Now the problem is understanding how the program is suppose to flow and what exactly is the customer expecting to see.

These on-the-job training can be quite intimidating at first. I used to be able to use my "fresh-grad" status to buy myself some time in order for me to learn up some new things. It's like having a "Get-out of Jail Free Card" I suppose, where if you'd make a mistake or need some leniency, you can always get it. After some time though - you do not seem that "fresh" to them anymore. Buffer periods get shorter, works get tougher. And all of a sudden you might be thinking that extra cup of coffee might not be a bad idea after all. Owh, and don't forget the pizza delivery, it's gonna be a long night.

Coming from an electronic background, there were times where I question my decision to work here. Hell I could be doing RF or Networking if I'd want to. But I chose programming. Hurm~

Maybe it's one of those days where you wonder about the what-ifs stuff eh? What if I had done this...what if I hadn't apply that..all those unnecessary and useless question. There were times that this "self-questioning" thing became quite troublesome to me (especially in the head). But I guess this is just a phase that I'm gonna have to go through sooner or later.

Is there better opportunities out there? Should I jump while I'm still quite new in this programming thing and seek other jobs in a different field..you know..just try things out..see if it suits me or not.

I dunno. Life is full of stupid questions at times. I say it's stupid because most of the times you already know what the rational answer is, but you still keep on asking the darn question - and usually hope that someone might be able to read your thoughts and give you their second opinion, supportive or not.

Guess I'd just have to live with it for now. Been doing a lot of hard work lately (and sleeping rather late as well I might add). Working on stuff for FET, DiGi..and now Vodafone New Zealand.. man.. I need a break.

Or at least I think I do. It's that "hope" thing that keeps me going I suppose. That "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow kinda thing. Where you think that after this is all done you're gonna go wild and do all sorts of crazy things - but once done you get there, you realize you may not wanna enjoy yourself that much after all. It's that "hope" that gets you finishing that job earlier.

Owh, recent internal news says that Comptel has been voted as top OSS Vendor in Asia..err..or something like that. Great news I'd say. Better news should that mean I'll be getting a fat bonus at the end of this year.

Fat chance of that ever happening eh? But a man can dream. Owh you bet he can.

An interesting piece of reading! Taking a break from the Obama-fever (congrats to him btw), this piece about conspiracy theories in general really gives you a refreshing take on the subject matter. Ripped off from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4319574.stm

A POINT OF VIEW By Harold Evans

In his weekly opinion column, Harold Evans takes issue with Michael Crichton's latest thriller, in which global warming is the work of mad eco-scientists.

Do you ever read that line on an early page of a novel: "Any connection between the characters and events herein portrayed, and real people, is purely coincidental."

In Michael Crichton's State of Fear, I'd say the connection was purely intentional. It's about the kind of hurricanes, floods, tsunamis and tornadoes we've been experiencing. Crichton's trade is to bring pleasurable terror to millions by spinning tales of science gone amok - as in Jurassic Park and the Andromeda Strain.

In this new bestseller those hurricanes etc aren't natural disasters at all. They are the creations of global warming activists - eco-maniacs desperate to publicise the case for controlling emissions of carbon dioxide. To make sure you get his point, Crichton adds a 32-page footnote documenting his own conviction that global warming is an unscientific scare.

What about the contrary worldwide consensus of scientists that global warming is a man-made disaster in the making? Crichton's answer: "If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus." As I suppose in the old consensus that the earth is flat.

Crichton's is not actually a thesis that the displaced folks in Louisiana and Texas can concentrate on at the moment in the wake of Katrina and Rita. Yet for his polemic on global warming, Crichton has become something of a hero to the groups fighting hard to stop anything like the Kyoto treaty.

Michael Crichton: 'Something of a hero'

The well-endowed think tank, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, honoured Crichton with an invitation to Washington to address its members - not on the novel, but on science policy in the 21st Century. The point of that was to embrace Crichton's attack on what he calls the pseudo-science of global warming. It's not easy to embrace Crichton himself; he is an intimidating 6ft 9 inches.

BBC NEWS: AUDIO Hear A Point of View in the BBC Radio Player

The sceptics on global warming needed this kind of reinforcement. They have mostly been keeping quiet after the ferocity of Katrina and Rita, widely blamed in the press on the unusually hot waters of the Gulf. Al Gore, in a rousing "action now" speech that impressed business leaders at the Clinton summit in New York recently, pointed out that since the 1970s, hurricanes both in the Atlantic and Pacific have increased in intensity by about 50%.

'Great hoax'?

It is quite significant that while President Bush has been active on hurricane relief, he has not reiterated his well-aired doubts about whether global warming is a real threat or a scare. Nor have we heard much from the Republican chairman of the Senate Environment Committee.

Senator James Inhofe's previous best effort was this: "With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phoney science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it."

Hurricanes are now more intense

The senator did not explain quite how 2,000 top scientists in 100 countries could have been persuaded in 2004 to produce a rare consensus that gas emissions left unchecked will produce a series of catastrophes. Nor is he likely to try and explain in the post-Katrina atmosphere.

The conspiracy Crichton outlined in his novel might seem tailor-made for Hollywood - scientists manipulating weather systems to suit their own leftie agenda. But it is very much in the paranoid political style identified by the renowned historian Richard Hofstadter. There are still people who just know that FDR conspired with Winston Churchill to have the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. There are millions who just know that JFK's assassin, the shooter on the grassy hill in Dallas, was hired by Lyndon Johnson.

As a historian, I have never been much impressed by conspiracy theories left or right. Too often, they are exalted by non-evidence - "proved" by records that have disappeared, "witnesses" whose stories have been suppressed. But if you happen to be in the market for a conspiracy theory today, there's a rather more credible one documented by the pressure group Greenpeace. Just bend an ear for a moment for the names of a few organizations very much concerned with global warming.

• Advancement of Sound Science Centre Inc
• Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
• Heartland Institute
• Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Annapolis Center for Science-based Public Policy

You wouldn't guess it but all these highfalutin bodies are dedicated to undermining the science of global warming and preventing America signing something like the Kyoto Treaty. And again, you wouldn't guess it, but they take thousands of dollars from Exxon Mobil. It's the world's largest oil company and a high profile opponent of Kyoto for imposing too many costs on the developed world.

Grazing on drought-stricken land

The five groups I mentioned are not the only ones with deceptive titles. Greenpeace has identified 40 such mouths at the Exxon nipple. So what's wrong about this? For one thing I'd guess you'd be a bit more sceptical of their pronouncements on global warming if they made it clear that they are not - shall we say - unrelated to the interests of their Exxon sponsors.

I asked Exxon about supporting so many of these propaganda groups. They point out that pro-Kyoto foundations give out much more money than they do, and that's true. What's disturbing to me is that the groups Exxon supports are much less forthcoming about their connections; they are often treated in the media as if they were wholly independent scientific bodies.

In addition Exxon has done something positive in committing $100m to Stanford University for research into new energy technology. So where's the rub? Well, funding long-term research like this is all well and good. The trouble is - as the economist Keynes famously said in another context - in the long-term we are all dead. The damage is being done here and now every day. It is accelerating - and it is damage that could be irreversible.

Smear tactics

All the delaying tactics, denials and obfuscations bring to mind what happened in 1974 to two American scientists, Professor Sherwood Roland and Dr Mario Molina. They coolly set out the evidence that the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigeration, aerosols and air conditioning were eating at the ozone layer which protects mankind and plants from dangerous ultraviolet radiation.

The era of procrastination is coming to a close; in its place we are entering a period of consequences Winston Churchill

They were at once smeared as scaremongers. The manufacturers ran an all too successful campaign to fog the issue. A lazy media bought into it. The public got bored and bamboozled. And as they did so, millions more tons of the pollutant were added to the atmosphere.

Thirteen years later when the world finally woke up to an ozone hole bigger than anyone had predicted, there was a swift international agreement - led by the US - to find alternatives to the CFCs. In the meantime, great damage had been done.

Winston Churchill back in the 1930s had this to say about another government that didn't believe a threat was real. As the Chamberlain Cabinet dithered about Hitler, Churchill warned: "They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent."

And he concluded: "The era of procrastination, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."

We are entering that period now with global warming. And if quoting Churchill in this context puts me in Michael Crichton's class of conspirators, I will bear it with fortitude.

Recently there was this furore about Majlis Fatwa going about discussing whether or not Yoga, is haram or not.

Taken from the blog RantingsbyMM by Marina Mahathir, I find this comment from one of the reader most interesting indeed and have decided to put it all here for all to read/see/talk/discuss with friends. It's not much on Yoga, more on what a fatwa is all about. If you find it wrong or misleading or whatever, feel free to give a comment or two. :)

1. Members of the Majlis Fatwa are selected from scholars of various disciplines of Islamic knowledge such as Hadith, Qur'an, Fiqh, Usuluddin etc.

2. Fatwas are not issued for fun.

3. A Fatwa is needed for issues where its halal or haram is not direclty mentioned in the Qur'an.

4. A Fatwa is the interpretation based on the knowledge and understanding of an issue in a particular time, and place. So a Fatwa can change as an issue is better understood by way of research, or sudden inspiration. Since our life evolves around new things, we will certainly need Fatwas from time to time.

5. A Fatwa is a way out for those who do not wish to push the limit of 'harus' to the maximum. He or she prefers to remain safe from 'syubhah' or associating themselves with something that is close to being haram.

e.g: Majlis Fatwa has issued a decision on cigarette. It's haram based on medical reasons of the day and statistics i.e people who smoke are more prone to getting cancer compared with those who don't. So if you smoke it's like you're subjecting your body to getting cancer, which is close to suicide, which is haram.

If you wish to smoke, it's all right because Qur'an doesn't mention anything about smoking. As far as Qur'an is concerned you can smoke the whole cigarettes in the ciggy factory if you want. And you can still argue with God that since it's not mentioned in the Qur'an you figure it's all right to smoke.

But for those who wish be closer to Allah - they may chose not to smoke based on this Fatwa.

(Not a big deal - the choice is yours)

Members of Majlis Fatwa is made up of liberal-minded individuals with exceptional intelligence that Allah has given them. They have more open discussions than what you have accused them of here. They've had discussions with M. Nasir on lyrics, music and such. They've had discussion with gays and homosexuals. They don't have to tell you about this.

A Fatwa (yet to be issued) on Yoga is in the process of being discussed. You can bet your left ear that by the time they're done with it, they will have understood Yoga better than the most senior Yogi the bear.

The Majlis Fatwa, like the rest of Majlis Fatwa in other Islamic countries, have issued thousands of Fatwas for matters you may consider trivial, but a big deal to those who want to be close to Allah and do not wish to commit 'syubhah'.

That's what Islam is about. It's about obtaining the 'redha' from Allah because you know everything you do here, will be questioned in the hereafter.

Of course, a great many Muslims do not really think that the hereafter is a big deal and so it doesn't really matter to them whether or not Allah 'redha' for all their actions here.

One of the signs that you don't care all that much about Allah is when you feel uncomfortable with the sound of people reading the Qur'an. Or people talking about Qur'an. Instead you make it your mission to point all the 'flaws' in the Qur'an so that you have this thing in your heart whispering; if Qur'an is perfect, then how come Allah has imposed so much rules on women like tudung.

And you have this doubt in your heart that Qur'an is not the ultimate truth, which is why you don't read it every day. Besides you don't speak Arabic. Since you're the type who understand what you read, you figure there's no point in reading the Qur'an. But you forget, people have read Qur'an for more than a thousand years and a great many of them don't understand a word what it means but yet, they find it beautiful.

This blows your mind away. Which is why you figure; I'm a Muslim but I'm a thinking Muslim. Which why you figure you don't need HIDAYAH.

It's just a Fatwa. Not a big deal. You may choose to follow. You may choose not to follow. You may choose to make Yoga your way of life because it is just a form of exercise. Or you may choose to sing songs in a church because you figure, it's just a song.

Each will answer before Allah our action. There's no force in Islam?