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Bible Verse of the Day

Monday, December 31, 2012

Road Manners

Hi All,

We still see a lot of irresponsible drivers everyday. Speeding cars is still a common scene. People are overtaking and going into different lanes without giving proper signals. Do they know they need to use signals / indicators? I have experienced this a few times before where a car suddenly appeared in my lane from the right. There are cars who purposely follow closely behind you on the right lane forcing you to move to the middle lane. Some of these drivers will honk or display bright lights at you.

There are drivers who make illegal U-Turns. Some cars are parked indiscriminately at junctions. There also cars that are parked indiscriminately even though proper parking lots are provided. Drivers could not be bothered to adjust their car or park their cars properly causing traffic kiosk. Some drivers double / triple parked their cars resulting in traffic congestions. This prompted DBKL and MBPJ to make roads one way. Previously in Taman Connaught, we can see a lot of double parking but now it is a one way road. There are no more double parking. It is worst in Damansara Utama (DU) whereby there are triple parked cars. There are some improvements now. There also people turning right from the left lane where the left lane is going straight and vice versa. This is cutting queue. Most of the cars in Malaysia also do not give way to pedestrians.

In Australia, car drivers are fined if they do not give way to pedestrians. While I was studying at Monash University in Caulfield between 2004 and 2006, a speeding sports car stopped for me to cross the road at the small roundabout there. We don't see that in Malaysia. Cars just sped through. We will get honked when we stop at a pedestrian crossing. 

Pedestrians also should cross roads using the crossing or the pedestrian bridge. There are a lot of shoppers who just crossed in the middle of Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. As drivers, we need to be very careful. I can't understand the risk they are taking crossing in the middle of the road instead of using the pedestrian crossing. It is much safter doing that.


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In the morning at the fork between East West Link and Bandar Tun Razak / Bandar Tasik Selatan (coming from Taman Connaught) as shown below during weekdays, there are cars jumping queues in the morning by going to the front and force themselves to the right lane going to Bandar Tun Razak or to the most left lane going to Tasik Selatan. This act is causing jam backing up to Giant Taman Connaught. 


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We are educated with driving skills and safety but most of us do not follow them or ignore them. We should give indicators when moving lanes and follow the speed limit. We should park at the designated parking areas properly. We should give way to passengers. Perhaps, careful and safely driving should be incorporated in the driving course syllabus. We are only tested on 3 point turn, side parking, hill climbing (manual transmission cars) and street driving. I am not sure whether the new syllabus for automatic cars will include the hill climbing test. 

Please improve our road manners, people. Thank you.

Happy Driving.

Cheers,

Roger TJ Koo

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Animes

Hi All,

Anime is defined as a Japanese animated productions that comes in all formats including tv series and computer animation creations1. This definition is from Longman Dictionary. It can be an original work or adapted from mangas, books and video games.

The themes for animes can range from fantasy, futuristic plot, music, love stories, alien invasion and action The characters are very colourful and appeals to all people, young and old. I have been watching animes through Animax since a few years ago on Astro. To me, animes are fun and interesting to watch. 

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood is an anime that centres to two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric to save their mother using their knowledge of alchemy. However, it ended up disastrously with Edward loses his leg and Alphonse losing his body. Edward managed to seal Alphone's soul with a huge metal armour.  Edward, the full metal alchemist has a prosthetic arms known as automail build by his friend, Winry and her grandmother. It talks about their journey to find the precious "Philosopher's Stone", the most powerful stone of all that can restore their bodies. The Philosopher's Stone, if ended up at the wrong hands will be used to kill people2.



K-On meanwhile is a story of a secondary school band that comprises of 4 people namely Yui (lead singer), Mio (bass), Ritsu (drummer) and Tsumugi (keyboard). Later in the show, another team meamber, Azusa joined in. This anime is funny and hilarious. The characters are fun and happy.

Sergeant Keroro is another anime that features frog-like alien creatures who wanted to invade Earth. Sergeant Keroro, the main character and his friends / comrades that include Kururu, Giroro, Tamama among others always have a plan to invade Earth. However, they always failed miserably. Keroro, the leader can be annoying and his plans are always stupid. It is overall a hilarious and entertaining anime. The theme song is as below:



Two of the musical animes that I watched are La Corda Doro Prima Passo and Nodame Cantabile. La Corda Doro Prima Passo talks about a girl who plays a magicial violin given by her musical fairy. She plays greatly with the violin although she herself can't play any musical instruments. She joins a music school and meets a lot of musically talented friends who helped her along the way. She will eventually learn to play the violin from scratch after she broke the magical violin. Nodame Cantabile, centers on a girl, Nodame and her would be boyfriend / mentor, Chiaki. Nodame is a girl who is very talented on the piano but does not practice regularly. Chiaki meanwhile is a very talented piano player and a conductor. He would lead and guide Nodame to be a very successful pianist. All the characters are very interesting. There are some strange ones as well. Here is the official song from Nodame Cantabile:



Among some of the other animes that I have seen include Inuyasha, Blood +, Jigoku Shoujo (also known as Hell Girl), Fate Stay Night, Tears to Tiara, The Law of Ueki and Fairy Tail

Jigoku Shoujo tells us the story of Hell Girl. People who like seek revenge will find her to kill the persons they hate or wanted to take revenge. Hell Girl will give them a surprise visit and then will bring them to hell.

 

Fairy Tail is a story of wizards who go on adventures to defeat evil. Main characters of Fairy Tail are Natsu (with the power of fire), Gray (the power of Ice), Erza (she is an skilled fighter and can change into another character that gives her different capabilites) and Lucy (she can summon people to help her fight). Lucy has the weaker power among her friends but some of her characters she summoned can fight.  

  

Romeo and Juliet was adapted as an anime too. It is also the same for Emma.   

Cheers,

Roger TJ Koo

1 Anime - Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime, Accessed: 30th December 2012

2 Full Metal Alchemist - Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist, Accessed: 30th December 2012

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