Nabil’s Weblog

The World Cup is under way. The favourite teams are feeling it, the underdogs are waiting to steal the limelight from them, the also-rans are there to complete the count.

The darnedst thing is with the new licensing rule this year, no TV station in a particular country is allowed to broadcast the matches live except one, which has paid a hefty licensing fee. Understandably, the licensee station wants to recoup the advance on the license and imposes a strict ban on relaying live matches by other stations or pay TV services.

Result: due to my subscription to local cable network, I missed out on the opening ceremony and the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica. The cable network was showing some crappy music award of some kind which is a re-run from I don’t know when. ESPN and StarSports were showing ping-pong matches and old baseball and golf tournaments.

I had to resort to watching the game on small Casio portable TV. God, that thing is awful for watching sport events. I couldn’t see the ball, just movement of the players, even then sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two sides (and they were wearing contrasting colour uniforms, too). At least the audio is clear, so I know when the goals were scored.

Today, I commissioned my driver to look for technician to install antenna to allow me to get non-cable signal so I can stop fretting about not being able to watch the game. It’s England vs Paraguay tonight; gotta watch that!!!

The quest was easier said than done. Apparently, most technicians from nearby areas were fully-booked to install antennas that my driver had to resort to get someone from the other side of the city. Well, I don’t give a hoot, if they come from Guadalajara, Mexico, so long as they finished installing it before the game starts tonight. Pronto, amigo!!!

Needless to say, the bargaining position is slightly offset here; me being in less fortunate side. I ended up getting more expensive antenna than I originally anticipated, and using more cables to get proper signal-catching positioning of the antenna. All this just for a month of watching twenty two grown men kicking around leather ball. God, it is worth it!!!

Update: England just finished the game. They won 1-0, courtesy of a Paraguayan own goal from a remarkable Becks freekick. Damn, that man is good…

On Wednesday morning, 24 May, a dreadful thing happened to my family. Some thing that you usually just read in the papers or watch on those TV programs that feed on other people’s misery.

We have been robbed.

Up to six people jumped the gate, beat up and tied up my nightwatchman. They proceeded to jimmy the front door and cracked it open before dragging the watchman with them TO MY BEDROOM.

It took several seconds to register what was going on. By the time, the lights were turned on I was forcefully pushed to turn on my stomach and one of them tied my wrists and ankles using, what I later found out. shoelaces. They were brandishing long knives, machetes and handguns (whether or not they were real is immaterial).

They gathered my family in my room, including my two young sons and one housemaid, and started to ransack my room, my study and the storage. Contents of closets and drawers were thrown away; they even broke a ceramic jewelry case, snapped a beaded necklace, everyone talked at the same time; to create a sense of panic.

That occasion was actually the trigger for me to tell myself to remain calm rather than getting carried away in the hubbub that they created. I looked at my wife and sons and it reinforced the notion of being calm in the face of this uncontrolable situation.

They continued to rummaged through everything in the rooms, while every now and again they threatened me with the machete on my neck or pistol at the back of my head or to rape my wife or to inflict bodily harm to my sons, to squeeze more information about the whereabouts of anymore valuables they can take. I counted twice they placed the blade on my neck and twice the gun were pushed on my head. I was totally calm, or more likely resigned to the situation beyond my control. So long as they leave my family alone, I couldn’t careless what they took. It is like a defining moment, where you realise how precious life is, that material possessions are just a passing fancy, that having your loved ones unharmed is your utmost concern. These things are the things that we were told everyday since the day we were born. Never has it been such clarity in its meaning in such unfortunate circumstances.

The robbery took about an hour, one long hour. The way they do it is also brazen. The police told me that most robberies -and break-ins- happened between 2.30 to 4.30 am, where people are fast asleep. The police intensify their patrol at these times. The incident at my house happened just at outside the time bracket, just as the police are finishing their beats. More daring, they stayed until 5.30 am where the street outside the house is beginning to wake up, and lots of vehicles are passing it.

At the end, they didn’t do any bodily harm at all, thank God. Before they left, they locked us in my room but luckily they didn’t realise there is a second door leading to the backyard. I ran after them through that door, but have left and leaving no trail.

I closed the door to the study before opening the main bedroom door. Since they didn’t ransack any other room in the house, it was easier for me to play the whole incident down for the sake of my sons. It was time for them to wake up, shower and go to school anyway.

I reported the incident to the police which came with their forensic team. They couldn’t find anything useful in terms of fingerprints or anything leading to the robbers because they were all adorned balaclavas and woolen mittens.

When I said forensic, it is not a very hi-tech team like CSI It is sooo far removed from it. They have this small case with dusting apparatus, torch, tweezer and some other small things. When they think they found a workable fingerprint, they would lift the specimen using a clear large cellotape like you would use for packaging. Sometimes, the tape would tangle up a bit and the officer had to separate the clinging tape. Hmmm… wouldn’t that compromise the quality of the lifted prints? Oh well… again, CSI New York they are not…

I had to fill in a police report, and spent more than three hours replaying whatever recollection I had about the incident in details while one officer patiently took my testimony. They also took my security guard, interrogated him and took his testimony as well. In fact, righfully or not, the police included him as one of the possible accomplices. Who knows…

Overall, it has been a draining experience, both physically and emotionally. I am still counting the actual damage done to us. Harder to take into accounts are the psychological damage it did to my wife and eldest son.

Only time will tell…

I just heard that a Malaysian-Indian friend from my university day in Australia just died, well… a few weeks back actually, but I just heard about it from another friend. Apparently he suffered kidney failure. Such a young age.

He was a tutor in our college, Weerona, majoring in Economics or Finance or something else along that line, I didn’t even remember. We never discussed our studies, social gathering was more our main concern. Him, Andy Ramulu, Shapoor, deSouza, Phil Glass, Stan Somebody. Eat, drink and be merry was more of the tagline.

Before the news, I was actively looking for him and other Weeronians. If Google, couldn’t find him, where else would you look? Damn Google and its stranglehold on our life.

It’s so weird how so many people passed through your life, which most made impact of varying degree, and yet along with time the impact, save few, would sorta diminishes. I still have the roll list and room allocation of some of the Weeronians of my time. Looking at those names, I just realised how many people touched your life in just a few years, yet without the list I would be lost to name but a few.

Hmmm… c’est la vie…

Review taken from Rope Of Silicon

A provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial conflict in America, CRASH is that rare cinematic event - a film that challenges audiences to question their own prejudices. Diving headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic cast, examining fear and bigotry from multiple perspectives as characters careen in and out of one another’s lives. No one is safe in the battle zones of racial strife. And no one is immune to the simmering rage that sparks violence - and changes lives…

The followings are nominated for Oscars, but went duck:

- Good Night, and Good Luck (6 Nominations)
- Munich (5 Nominations)
- Pride & Prejudice (4 Nominations)
- Cinderella Man (3 Nominations)
- War of The Worlds (3 Nominations)
- A History of Violence (2 Nominations)
- Mrs. Henderson Presents (2 Nominations)
- Transamerica (2 Nominations)
- North Country (2 Nominations)
- Junebug (1 Nominations)
- Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire (1 Nominations)
- Batman Begins (1 Nominations)
- The New World (1 Nominations)
- Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (1 Nominations)
- Match Point (1 Nominations)
- The Squid & The Whale (1 Nominations)

Steven Spielberg must be losing his touch. His movie, Munich, one of the biggest losers in this year Oscar, nominated for five but failing to grab any. So, is Good Night, and Good Luck which goes 0 of 6. In the words of Maxwell Smart, “missed by that much…”

Other winners:
BEST ANIMATED MOVIE:
Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

BEST SHORT ANIMATION:
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation

BEST LIFE ACTION FILM:
Six Shooter

BEST FOREIGN MOVIE:
Tsotsi (South Africa)

BEST DOCUMENTARY:
March of the Penguins

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY:
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Robert Altman

In following the frenzy and jumping the bandwagon, here are the regrouped Oscar winners and losers:

KING KONG (4 Nominations)
- Best Visual Effects
- Best Sound Editing
- Best Sound Mixing

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (8 Nominations)
- Best Director (Ang Lee)
- Best Original Score
- Best Adapted Screenplay

CRASH (6 Nominations)
- Best Editing
- Best Picture
- Best Original Screenplay

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (6 Nominations)
- Best Art Direction
- Best Cinematography
- Best Costume Design

CAPOTE (5 Nominations)
- Best Actor (Phillip Seymour Hoffman)

WALK THE LINE (5 Nominations)
- Best Actress (Reese Witherspoon)

THE CONSTANT GARDENER (4 Nominations)
- Best Supporting Actress (Rachel Weisz)

THE CHRONICLE OF NARNIA (3 Nominations)
- Best Make-up

HUSTLE & FLOW (2 Nominations)
- Best Song (It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp)

SYRIANA (2 Nominations)
- Best Supporting Actor (George Clooney)

How many email accounts do you have? Either maintained or created and abandoned? I counted, the ones I remembered, 15 at the least. Ranging from old ones like Eudoramail (now Lycosmail), Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Softhome, and the ones with paying ISPs for work and personal uses. Not to mentioned the ones I lost the account due to forgotten passwords.

Using Microsoft Outlook, I have managed to periodically check on them, provided they have POP capabilities. Mostly I retrieved spams –you know, offers to deflower Russian teens, crazy persons want to inflict sexual pain on me, penile enlargement, \/iag ra ads; along those lines–, but nevertheless, why haven’t I have closure and shut them down? Hard to know, to be honest. Maybe due to the situation I mentioned on my confession (see previous entry).

Some have been suspended due to inactivity. Today alone I reactivated, two Yahoo and one Softhome accounts. Maybe, just maybe, I have to do some spring cleaning. Or, maybe not

Online confession: I AM a procrastinator, now can I join the 12-step program?

In quoting the infinite wisdom of Garfield: “The earlier you set your alarm to, the longer you can snooze…”
Hmmmm… Could agree more…