You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2009.
Stumbled through the 40% GEO 2164 (Optical Mineralogy) final exam. Looking back after I had some sleep, I may have some regrets with how I handled the whole damn affair. Wasn’t the most dignified way to end a course at all. The best I can say for myself is that I tried freaking hard, and in all objectivity that final exam was in many ways a weird one.
GEO 2321 (Structural Geology) tomorrow, then it’ll all be over, exam wise. There’s still that 55% field trip to West Virginia though. Hohum.
Wish me luck + pray for me guys.
FLS 1511 – COMMUNICATION ORALE ET ECRITE EN FRANCAIS LANGUE SECONDE: NIVEAU ELEMENTAIRE I
At stake: 45%
I can’t wait to get started. It’s been too long.
Heading to SMD 221 in a few minutes. pray for me guys. Let’s start to Kill ‘Em All.
Best you can do, is to fake it.
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You’re right. I can’t be happy all the time >.< And it’s more than futile to keep trying.
# 1:
No Line on The Horizon
Purchased: 14/03/2009.
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# 2:
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
Purchased: 28/03/2009.
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# 3:
All That You Can’t Leave Behind
Purchased: 16/04/2009.
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God I’m falling in love with this band >.<
Edit: I just realized that All That You Can’t Leave Behind is almost a DECADE old? DAMN. It seems like only yesterday that I was hearing it every now and then on the radio – sometime back in Standard 6 lol @.@ Either my years are flying by…or these guys have been around for donkey years man.
Personally, I think it’s more of the latter XD
Artist: U2 Release Date: 27th February 2009
Number of Tracks: 11 -
Alright folks, I now welcome you to my review of the ONLY piece of new music (read: made in 2009) that I have bought this year – U2’s TWELFTH studio album, No Line on The Horizon.
Gotta love the price tag eh? That’s a hundred and six Malaysian ringgits (CAD 35.99) right there LOL XD + @.@ Details to follow later.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, No Line on The Horizon is a remarkable milestone in my life’s experiences of music thus far. Some of you may recall that about three months ago, I wrote a blogpost detailing the best and worst of 2008 in music; in that post’s tail-end there was inscribed a small dose of mild anticipation with regard to U2’s upcoming studio album to be released in early 2009. I mentioned that if ever I started to actively listen to the band, it would be a “coming-full-circle” event of sorts, as one of my earliest memories of music in my years growing up were of tracks from U2’s The Joshua Tree and Rattle & Hum album (released in 1987 and 1988 respectively) – courtesy of my dad’s deep love for the band when he was about in his early twenties lol.
Thus I found it somewhat poignant when, at least 20 years on, his eldest son is in turn a big fan of the band =) The significance of the situation was not lost on me at all lol – if The Joshua Tree was the work that started it all for my dad, then No Line on The Horizon was, in turn, my own instigator of the U2 addiction that I now possess.
I have never been a big fan of U2’s works up to recently, in all honesty. I blame the Malaysian radio stations (I’m looking at you hitz.fm) for constantly overplaying awesome songs like Elevation and Beautiful Day to the point that I had gotten so incredibly sick of the band I would just turn of the radio anytime the tracks came on lol =.=” The fact that these same radio stations exacerbated their damage by actively neglecting to play some of the band’s better works from that era (like the uplifting Walk On, and the amazing Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of for example) further delayed my appreciation of these Irish greats, and it was not until I was in Canada, earning my own money (albeit a paltry CAD 264 a month >.<) that I actually matured and got interested enough to pick up the band and try to give them the real go that they deserved.
But let’s get the review proper rolling: the first I heard of No Line on The Horizon was its much-promoted first single, the hard-rocking Get On Your Boots, which I listened via streaming from www.u2.com – the band’s official website. – sometime in February. My verdict? I HATED it @.@ + =.=” The track is a throbbing and rockified anthem that sounded like a whole 3.25 minutes of absolute misarranged blunder when I first heard it; there’s no other term that can be used – I actually found the whole affair absolutely annoying @.@ So much so, that I stopped the stream after it finished the first revolution of the song, and didn’t even give the track another go. I thought it was THAT bad LOL.
And that was all I heard of the album for another two weeks. After that fortnight however, I randomly hopped across to www.u2.com all over again, and decided to try the song out again – with the video streamer this time. I don’t know whether that video had bomoh (read: witch doctor) incantations all over it’s images in the background, but that did it for me – I realized that beneath all that so-called mess was actually one HELL of a song. I still hold that the video for that track is one of the BEST I have ever seen in my experiences of music-video watching – if you want to see brilliant satirical backdrops, and absolute showmanship at it’s best, then try it out for yourself:
On second examination, I now think that this track was an excellent choice for a first single – and I’ll tell you it’s definitely one of the many highlights of the album. What makes me dig it so much is primarily that super-addictive guitar riff that just turns up during and after every chorus to simply blow your ears away, but I highly highly encourage that you check out Adam Clayton’s intense bass playing as well in that one – watch how he throbs his way through the song, carrying a crescendo of vibration each time the bridge of the track comes by, just building open the drum pattern set up by Larry Mullen Jr..
And then the bass solo comes by in the middle of the song (1.15 to 1.24) - AWESOME @.@ The lyrics of the whole affair are none too shabby either, and exhibit the general U2-vibe that we’ve come to expect from Mr Paul Hewson a.k.a. Bono. Another interesting thing that I have noted of the song (after close to a hundred and twenty listens), is that the arrangement of the track – that is to say, the instrumental timing and all of their respective roles – is in fact very, very similar to another (very famous) U2 song? It’s this one:
Tell me what you think lol @.@ Speaks volumes about not fixing what ain’t broken eh? 
So that’s where I got started, essentially. Having realized that if the rest of the album was anywhere as awesome as it’s lead single, I was indeed in for a treat @.@ I decided to do a little more sampling before I moved on the purchase the album itself at my favourite record store in downtown Ottawa – the rest of the album was streaming on www.u2.com, and it was here that I was introduced to the tracks of Stand-Up Comedy and White As Snow. The former is a track that follows after the heels of Get On Your Boots on the album – in both ordering and nature of the song. Extremely hard-rocking, the song opens with a trademark riff from The Edge, escorted by harmonics from Bono who in turn begins the vocals proper at around 0.12. The cool thing about the arrangement of this song for me is the fact that you really get to see The Edge’s principle in his style of playing the guitar for the band shine through here – instead of pushing his guitar to the front of the mix and make his contributions obvious (like all other guitarists seem to do), this man focuses on the song and its natural feel, ending up often contributing by way of a few simple but deep lead lines with some form of digital delay in the mix as well. In the case of Stand-Up Comedy, the guitar reverts to a “jumping” tune that hovers in the background along with the drums and bass before roaring out after Bono is done with every verse – I like =)
“C’mon ye people,
We’re made of stars…“
White As Snow in turn presented itself on the streaming page as the ninth track on the album, and while I didn’t find it as listenable as Stand-Up Comedy, this one is a pretty soothing track in and of itself =) Written from the perspective of a soldier dying in combat, this track is easily the softest one on the album and incredibly rich in tone and feel. Interestingly though, this number very nearly did not make it onto the album, and was only taken out of the ‘Maybe’ pile to “balance out the rockier tunes present earlier on”, with bassist Adam Clayton noting that “it gave the listener a break”. Moments to watch out for in this one do include the careful build-up of tune and tone for the first 45 seconds of the song, The Edge’s careful falsetto vocals in the background, and also the entry of a French horn at 2.10 =) Ultimately, although I wouldn’t rush to count it as incredibly awesome the way I did with the past two songs, I would still trumpet this number as something absolutely essential on No Line on The Horizon.
So that was it. I had heard three songs, and now it was time to decide whether I would risk some turkey and go out to get the album proper. Making the whole affair even trickier in terms of consideration is the fact that the album was released in more than one version LOL – the standard jewel CD case, a Digipak, and also a magazine and a collector’s hardcover book edition…with an increasing scale of prices as you travel upwards in terms of thickness and paper quality XD The one that you see above is the Digipak version, which I opted for after much deliberation (I spent close to half an hour in the record store just thinking about making its purchase over the much cheaper standard CD XD) LOL.
The reason for this? Well, as you may have noticed from the image of my Digipak copy above, this version (and the others above it) are priced higher than the standard jewel CD issue due to their being packaged with either a disc key, or a barcode or a DVD which all lead to ownership of an exclusive film – Linear – by Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn.
I was more than interested to see what the movie was all about, as seeing that the media AND the band had made so much hype over it in the lead-up to it’s production lol. The fact that I would be getting a limited edition CD booklet and a HUGE fold-out poster only sweetened the deal for me by this point ahahaha. And thus it is here that I mention that a review on the Linear film will be included at the end of this review =)
So I got home, plonked my CD in the drive, jacked my iPod in and began to listen:
The album begins with the track No Line on The Horizon, which was apparently selected as the album’s opener over the much-more-experimental track FEZ – Being Born due to it being rockier and therefore more uplifting. I’m not too sure whether FEZ – Being Born (which ended up being track #8) would have actually been a worse choice in that sense, but I found that this opener did it’s job, essentially – from the moment the guitar starts buzzing at 0.07, and Bono’s entry at 0.26, I felt that the start was more than good enough as it created a preceeding anthemic feel to the whole affair. The best example of this is Bono’s yell of “I’m a traffic cop; Rue du Marais!!!” after a trademark slew of Edge-assisted vocal gyrations.
Magnificent follows soon after, and the title of the track actually describes what I feel about it LOL. Driven by a power bass and The Edge’s well-timed guitar riffs, there’s much to like about this one. And apparently U2 agrees as well, for Magnificent is slated to be the next single to be released from the album =) Completing the traditional “power trio” – the opening sequence arrangement that U2 albums are so famous for – is the power-ballad Moment of Surrender. IMHO, this one definitely ranks up there with its ballad-based counterparts from previous albums of U2; I cite you Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of and Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own as songs which operate in the same spirit. Although I can’t say that Moment of Surrender tops these two examples in particular, what I can say is that it definitely gives its predecessors a run for it’s money =)
And do check out Bono’s climbing vocals in this one – absolutely amazing.
Much of the album is a great deal more experimental; FEZ – Being Born, which I mentioned earlier, features two separate components – namely “FEZ” and “Being Born“; the former lasts for a minute and three seconds, and is an ambient mix of effects mixed by Declan Gaffney, Dave Emery and Brian Eno. The later is pure unadulterated rock, as The Edge announces a change in the feel of events by roaring in the moment the 63rd second ends. More a homage to the Morroccan city in where the album was recorded (the city of Fez) than anything else (this one features lyrics like “Bay of Cadiz, and ferry home/ Atlantic sea cut glass/ African sun at last)”, FEZ – Being Born is the most experimental track on the album for certain, relying heavily on synthesizers to get the job done. Another equally intriguing track is Unknown Caller – a song that I enjoyed very VERY much – which opens with the sound of Morrocan birds chirping in the dazzling morning sun, closely followed by whining guitar play and percussionary taps…very soothing indeed =) And when things get rolling with Larry Mullen Jr.’s entry at 0.57, the whole unit just starts to fall into place; and that is before the band throws in an instrumental session at the end – we are left with a simply epic track.
Cedars of Lebanon is another construct worth highlighting in terms of its experimental features. COMPLETELY tuneless, this one plays more like a read-through than anything else; the barest moment of a tune only appears at the very end of the track when Clayton’s bass rises up for all of three seconds and disappears again beneath the bed of rattles that is Mullen Jr.’s drum kit. Fantastic lyrics and symbolism in this one however.
But yet there are numbers that harken back to U2’s earlier styles, albeit with none of the electric guitar strength that characterized the sessions from 2004’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb - I’m thinking of I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight and Breathe here. The former I can envision to be simply AWESOME at live shows, what with it’s uplifting chorus and SOARING peak of “Baby baby baby!!! I know I’m not alone!!!!”, whilst the latter has already shown it’s mettle as a crowd-pleaser – what with its grabbing at your ears with it’s thundering drum beats at the very beginning. As you may guess, very pleasing, these two tracks are.
And for the record, I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight is my favoured one of the two.
The review of the CD section of No Line on The Horizon ends here; I’ll now move on to Linear, before wrapping up the whole affair with a cumulative comment section at the very end.
Here goes:
LINEAR FILM REVIEW:
The shot you see above is a screen-capture of the loading screen at www.nolineonthehorizon.com/bonus, where buyers of the Digipak, magazine, and hardcover editions of No Line on The Horizon go to to get their rightfully-owned exclusive Anton Corbijn material – the movie Linear – via high-speed download. The film is an interesting construct in itself because it was designed to work as a sort of visual accompaniment to listeners of the album; the band felt that if one was going to spend hours simply hearing an album being played, there might as well be some sort of optional visual flavour to add more spice into the whole affair. It was with this in mind that the quartet commissioned long-time photographer and friend Anton Corbijn to construct a film around the songs of the album.
A story was then thought up – with a Parisian cop, disillusioned by the conflict between immigrants and the local enforcers in the city, running rebel and heading off to Tripoli to visit his girlfriend. Mr Corbijn – who had not too long ago impressed the band by shooting a scene of the four musicians by asking them to stand still and from there on end recording the events that transpired around them – decided to use that same concept of fixated viewpoints to produce Linear. The end result? An intriguing hour of camera play, in where the central object stays fixated for minutes on end, as objects go in motion in its immediate surroundings. Particularly interesting vantage points using this concept do include, for one, having the camera focus on the reflective fuel tank of a superbike whizzing through the countryside – capturing every inch of scenery superimposed on a plethora of mechanical scratches and refractive effects…all to the background music of Stand-Up Comedy.
And so this silent film proceeds in exactly that fashion – you get tracks like Unknown Caller serenading you over the skyline of Paris (absolutely ENTHRALLING scene, this one @.@), and Cedars of Lebanon casting a sombre gloom over the main protagonist’s camp-out on the beach of the Mediterranean, all while facing the far reaches of Tripoli. Interesting concept overall I must say, but all the praises probably end there >.<
The thing that you MUST know about Linear is that it is a work completely incoherent with the album. The reason for this is the fact that the band ended up recording more songs and spending more time in the studio than was originally intended – the problem with this was that Corbijn had already started shooting and completing the film >.< As a result, once you dig deep enough, you uncover MASSIVE flaws in the film’s construction. Firstly, it is blatantly obvious that the movie’s potential for deep and revealing storytelling is completely thrown out the window – lyrics like “I’m a traffic cop…The sirens are wailing but it’s me that wants to get away” have their underlying emotive destroyed by being structured around a so-obviously-edited-to-fit movie that completely and utterly fails to tell it’s own story =.=”
There was no way I could have figured out Mr Traffic Cop (played by Said Taghmaoui) was trying to visit his girlfriend , who apparently stays in Tripoli (I only found this out after reading the album’s brief online) =.=” There was also no sense that I could make out of the album’s random detours to items like the fuel-tank scene described above and FEZ – Being Born played alongside repeated in-and-out-of-focus shots of Said Taghmaoui and a random waitress in a diner’s rest stop. I felt that there was a LOT more that could be done for the story as a whole in terms of time usage and plain old storytelling; this is especially apparent in the latter song mentioned here, as more than once I got completely confuddled by Corbijn’s repeated moving of his camera’s focal length to refocus endlessly on the characters, one frigging scene at a time =.=”
It honestly felt like the award-winning photographer was running completely out of ideas =.=”
And let’s not forget the scenes that Get On Your Boots accompanies @.@ + =.=” I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you people at this point, but it involves moustaches, peepholes, and boots. Lots of boots.
LOL?
One perk of this whole incomplete-film affair though – one of the songs that Linear has in its setlist is not on the album itself, as it was edited out of the final release version of No Line on The Horizon. So you essentially get a bonus track lah. A CAD 20 bonus track =.=”
In case any of you are interested, here’s a sampler of what Linear looks and feels like – it’s a bootleg copy I filched off YouTube. And when I say bootleg I MEAN bootleg LOL – the thing was taken on a camcorder by the looks of it, and suffers from serious quality issues…which I guess you would expect from something not exactly for public viewing LOL =p
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So there you go folks – a comprehensive and total review of the hardware (and arguably software) that U2’s latest release has to offer. I admit that to end on a negative note (all due to over-comprehensive Linear-bashing >.<) wasn’t how I wanted to end this review, as I completely and thoroughly enjoyed the album that was No Line on The Horizon. The band said that this was probably their best work as of yet, and although I can’t say that for certain as of yet (I haven’t listened to all of U2’s illustrious catalogue – a truly expansive collection that spans 20+ years LOL) I wouldn’t be too surprised if many, many years down the line music critics end up agreeing with them – this is a truly holistic piece of work, with nary a poor track in sight. In the month since I got No Line on The Horizon, I have already picked up – and throughly listened to – its predecessor, 2004’s winner-of-eight-Grammy-awards How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb…the verdict? EXTREMELY close, but I think No Line on The Horizon just edges out it’s opponent, as it sounds much more complete and – no other word for it – epic.
In judging this one, I would hand it a score of 90%. A+ material, any day.
I enjoyed U2’s twelfth studio release more than Death Cab For Cutie’s 2008 release of Narrow Stairs, and also The Killers’ Day & Age as well (and believe me you I loved those two albums to bits LOL). And definitely more than Coldplay’s Viva La Vida…that is seriously one overrated band and album man, IMHO =.=”
However, I don’t know where I stand with Linear to be honest >.< Part of me hates it to high heaven and wishes I never bought it (>.<), but I also strongly feel that without it the album does appear to be missing some components that have allowed me to view it in such a positive light at this point in time @.@ The film IS a very interesting construct, and is undeniably a cohesive work of art – the question (I guess) ultimately boils down to whether this whole affair of artistic indulgence is worth spending an extra 20 bucks on.
I won’t make the plunge for you myself, but if you can only spare CAD 15 strictly for the album purchase alone, then I’ll reassure you that you’re not exactly missing out on the world by passing up Linear – the album itself is more than fine =)
Even better than the real thing, as the aficionadoes might say
Selected Tracks: No Line on the Horizon, Magnificent, Moment of Surrender, Unknown Caller, I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight, Get On Your Boots, Stand-Up Comedy, FEZ – Being Born, White As Snow, Breathe, Cedars of Lebanon.
Selected Duds: None. Yup, it’s that rare thing – the perfect album =)
It’s a rest day for me today – I figured it’s the least I could do for myself after a punishing (and ultimately frustrating) week of academics. Not much on the agenda – maybe a couple of Skype calls, a game of DotA, and some blogging. Oh, and I plan to go for a short walk with my iPod and my Olympus Fe-230 in a few minutes =)
But in the meantime:
Finished Drawing 1.
Finished Drawing 2.
Finished Drawing 3.
I now leave for my walk =)
I just…can’t do it anymore.
>.<
I need love and peace.
Goddammit.
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* Edit: I seriously can’t go on anymore. Please don’t make me >.<
I’ve taken to curling up on my bed in exhaustion and outright frustration whenever I can’t take it anymore – which is quite frequently these days. I just curl up in a corner, cover myself under my blanket, and wish it all it away. I hold my pillow tight, squeezing it hard enough to make it worthy of the title of my third shoulder. And sometimes I just wish I could do that all day, as for the briefest of moments it makes me feel better.
But then the guilt sets in, and I find myself compelled to rise out of my refugium to begin the fight again.
And that’s what pisses me off the most – the fact that I can’t even give myself a break without feeling like a piece of shit.
Damned obligations.
I need a break from academia. Badly >.<
Summer can’t come soon enough =(
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TO MALAYSIA:
Saturday May 30th
AC 0189 (Ottawa to Vancouver) = Depart 5:35 pm, Arrive 7.48 pm
Sunday May 31st
CX 0889 (Vancouver to Hong Kong) = Depart 2.45 am, Arrive 7.00 am.
Monday June 1st
CX 0723 (Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur) = Depart 8.50 am, Arrive 12.30 pm
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Almost there boys…almost there.
It’s that time of the year again folks – finals season.
Now let’s look at how we’ve been doing so far, and what we’re up against this time around:
06/04/2009: GEO 2020 – FIELD STUDIES I
Course Marks*: 26.31%/30%
FINAL: 15%.
* A 10-day field trip to the Applachian Mountains in the United States will comprise the remaining 55%.
09/04/2009: GEO 2113 – PALEONTOLOGY
Course Marks: 68%/75%
FINAL: 25%
23/04/2009: FLS 1511 – COMMUNICATION ORALE ET ECRITE EN FRANCAIS LANGUE SECONDE: NIVEAU ELEMENTAIRE I
Course Marks: 45.6%/50%
FINAL: 50%
28/04/2009: GEO 2164 – INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL MINERALOGY
Course Marks: 46.98%/60%
FINAL: 40%
29/04/2009: GEO 2321 – STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY AND TECTONICS
Course Marks: 51.7%/60%
FINAL: 40%
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Wow, is it the end of second year already? That was FAST @.@ I’m actually HALFWAY through my university degree already man, and I feel like I haven’t changed one jot >.< It’s been almost 20 months since I left Malaysia for Ottawa, and I have to say that it has been an INCREDIBLE journey thus far – one wrought with self-discovery, acclimatization (in every sense of the word) and also ample measures each of fun, excitement, regret, and disappointment. To be completely frank and honest, I never expected my university career to turn out as well as it has – as I write this, I am sitting on a 9.2 CGPA from the University of Ottawa, and God willing will be able to make it through my next set of finals in reasonably good conditions, despite my academic drive having petered out towards the end of this Winter semester.
Just a few years ago, I thought I wasn’t good enough for university (no joke, seriously).
Then I thought I wasn’t good enough to get an overseas offer. Much less a renowned academic nation like the one I’m in now.
Then I thought I wasn’t good enough for a top university in Canada.
Then I thought that once I was in university, all I could do was stave off the cut-off point as long as I could.
I have certainly exceeded expectations for the first two years of my undergraduate studies; not as much due to my being able to push myself forward – as opposed to my expectations being too low to begin with in the first place >.< I guess that’s the greatest regret of my life thus far – being too afraid to have regrets. Now that that realization is mine however, deep inside me I have started to make greater plans for my academic future, and hopefully I won’t be too afraid to take the steps of faiths that I need in order to make the come true.
That said however, I realize I haven’t been the best of students this semester. I admit I let myself off the hook a bit, and the fact that I can practically SMELL my summer from here probably removed all drive to keep pushing forward. With this I pray and hope to you, God, that you help me face the fold and thus end my second winter semester in the best fashion possible.
I would really like to do well, once again. I kind of like surprising myself again and again.
Even if others apparently aren’t surprised by how well I’m doing, and how unexpected it actually is.
*dons battle armour and slings rifle around shoulder*
Let’s Kill ‘Em All.
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Here on snuffleupagush.wordpress.com, one thing I very rarely talk/write/gabble about is politics. At this point I can only think of one post (out of 266 or something) which MIGHT have had political overtones. I’d be the first to admit it wasn’t intentional though – I think Malaysian politics is indeed a VERY interesting thing (if not a little childish sometimes, admittedly >.<) but up to this point I have not been compelled to say much about it for a myriad of reasons.
However, in just a few minutes my beloved homeland will conduct the swearing-in of a new Prime Minister, and I feel that such an occassion warrants the spelling out of my thoughts here on this blogpage. Why is the swearing-in of this new Prime Minister important, you may ask – countries change Prime Ministers ALL the time; case in point: Canada had something like five switches over the past 25 years.
Well, picture this: for the first fifteen years of my life I had known only one Prime Minister (Tun Mahathir Mohamad), but over the past five I have seen the post change hands twice already. We Malaysians (or at least those under the age of 22) are not used to seeing our top politician step down to have another take his place – what more do you expect from a country in which the same ruling coalition has been in charge since Day 1?
As the seconds tick away to Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak’s appointment as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia, I suppose that it wouldn’t be terribly untoward to admit that at this point, I don’t feel all that keen as having this man – son of our second Prime Minister, and nephew of our third (talk about being born to be in politics LOL =.=”) – as my leader for the next few terms. In fact, truth be told, I’m not even THAT keen on even giving him the chance to prove himself either.
The man carries too much baggage into Seri Perdana -
His political past haunts the demographic of the minority races in Malaysia -
And I haven’t felt the same poweful charisma, or even the vestige of an affable personality from him – something which I was so used to getting from Tun Mahathir and Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi >.<
On another more personal tone however, I just realized that Najib Tun Razak’s appointment as Prime Minister means that my 21 year-old duck of not having met a single living Malaysian PM in person has finally been broken – I had the opportunity to meet Dato’ Seri Najib (albeit for the briefest of moments) when, as Defence Minister in 2004, the man himself came over to hand-out prizes for academic excellence for students at the Royal Military College of Malaysia. Looking back, I recall that when I met him, I was only terribly impressed by how unimpressive he was >.<
But now that the highest office in the land is his, all that I am obliged to do is to convey him my very best wishes, and whisper my dreams for a more united and progressive Malaysia for all Malaysians.
I also take note of the fact that Najib Tun Razak’s first few interviews with the local press has retained some degree of confidence towards his leadership on my part. I will readily admit that I am comforted by some of the things he has been saying about his coming tenure, and no one hopes more than I do that my initial misgivings about this man are wrong =)
Enough about Number 6. Before I go, I now want to point out a few things about his predecessor -
So I was reading The Star Online (the online portal of one of the better English Malaysian dailies, and I came across this article entitled “Pak Lah, We Thank You”, which was essentially an article providing, at reasonable length, an overview of Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s (“Pak Lah” is the press’ colloquial term for him) leadership tenure and some of his qualities. Now, I’m not the best of social and political analysts – nor am I even remotely capable of journalism – but I couldn’t help noticing the following components of the article:
“He went to the people in 2004 for a mandate and we gave him an overwhelming landslide. It was to be the high point of his political career.
But the vagaries of politics are such that when he went back to the people in March 2008, the verdict turned the other way. It was, as he puts it, the lowest point of his political career.
Although there were many factors beyond his control, quite a number were probably the direct result of the actions of the administration he led.
The hope envisioned by his promises was a little too late in coming.
It is a testimony to the democrat in him that Pak Lah accepted the verdict of the people. Though the political landscape has changed tremendously, and remains hot to this day, he never resorted to any extra-constitutional measures to move things to his advantage“
All respect to Datuk Seri (and the fella who wrote this damn thing), but I don’t think that “avoiding from becoming an unlawful and tyrannical dictator” is worth very much in terms of plaudits =.=” I think that it’s an incredibly insightful statement of the state of political affairs in Malaysia if the line “he never resorted to any extra-constitutional measures to move things to his advantage” is one of the better credentials we can offer him.
What the hell man =.=”
And there’s more:
“As a politician, Pak Lah never used racial and religious issues to stoke the fires that cause disunity among the people. He was just too nice and too much of a statesman to want to play to the gallery.”
=.=” I would expect no less from any Prime Minister of mine? =.=”
I have no idea whether Pak Lah was REALLY that ineffective to only obtain such comments on his testimonial upon leaving office, or if the writer of this article was just plain unimaginative? Like, really, if “never used racial and religious issues to stoke the fires that cause disunity” is a CREDENTIAL, then I’m well on my way to becoming the seventh, eighth, and ninth Prime Minister of Malaysia all at once =.=”
Good God, the country really has to buck up man >.< I have no idea what role I can play in this, but I feel terribly obliged to help in any way I can once I become official human resource property of the Malaysian government once again.
As I reach the end of this blogpost I realize this has been a terribly ineloquent and unstructured write-up (I wrote it entirely at random, and on a spontaneous internal notion) – confused even >.<
But then again, what else could be more symbolic for a nation whose political state is in less-than-ideal waters?
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