The Chinese are the most creative people. Do you know that they actually invented a tool, or rather, a method, to communicate with their gods? (the Chinese have thousands of gods, not only one). The device is called ‘the moon blocks’ (as I learned the English equivalent name from the net). In Chinese, it is called jiǎo bēi (筊杯). But as a child, it was known to me as ‘seng pui’ in Cantonese. (I’m sure most of us Chinese are familiar with that thing, especially 4D punters *wink*)

This pair of ‘moon blocks’ tool is quite simple. It is made of 2 wooden blocks, that looked like a pair of kidneys (our variant). Each block will have one round side, and one flat side. So by tossing the 2 blocks on the ground, it will randomly give out 3 possible results that represents 3 possible answers that can be given by a spirit/god – Haha, Yes and No.

Haha – represented by both blocks with flat side facing upwards. It means that the god/spirit is laughing at your ass because you’re so fucking dumb and stupid

Yes – represented by one block with flat side facing upwards, and the other down. It means ‘yes’ as an answer to your question.

No – represented by both blocks with flat side facing downwards. It means ‘no’ as an answer to your question.

So you can imagine how fun it is when you can communicate with your desired god, deity or dead relative. Just fire a question and you’ll get an answer. Eg.

“Dear god, am I going to get laid tonight?” [toss the moon blocks]
Haha

“Come on god. Please be serious. Am I going to get laid tonight?” [toss the moon blocks]
No.

“Is it because I’m not good looking enough?” [toss the moon blocks]
Yes.

Hoooboy. Reality check confirmed by your god. Cool tool, eh? That’s why when one of my colleagues lamented to me how complicated it was for him when his boss died (in an accident a few weeks ago), I actually suggested him to use a pair of ‘moon blocks’ to communicate with his boss (in modern days, ‘moon blocks’ can also be substituted by 2 coins, or a pair of shoes…)

Boss am I doing a good job? [toss moon blocks]
Boss do you approve to give me a 50% increment this year? [toss moon blocks]
I’m asking you again, do you approve to give me a 50% increment? [toss moon blocks]

Just toss until he says yes. (that’s what the every Chinese do anyway, toss until the desired answer comes up). It’s going to be wicked. If this works, I’m gonna kill my boss tomorrow and use this solid method to climb the corporate ladder.

I was talking to my colleagues about Tiger Woods this morning. I’m sure most of you have heard about his fiasco. If you haven’t, well basically, it was about him cheating on his wife. He had sexual relationship with a dozen (or more) of porn stars and whores. And when his secret was revealed by one of them (whores), he admitted everything, apologized with a somber look and decided to take a break from golfing with plenty of drama and shit.

I was saying, I don’t fucking understand why Tiger had to come out to say he’s sorry and all that. And also why he had to temporary take a break from golfing (although he’s set for a return now). What does having sex rampantly with random partners have to do with golf? Does a golf tournament have a prerequisite of restricting one to have only 1 legit relationship at any given time? Mind boggling.

If I were to be him, I’m going to be all smiley during the press conference, and probably dispensing high fives to all the blokes at the front row. I mean, he’s an adult. If he is man enough to cheat on his wife to have sex with porn stars and whores, for sure he’d be man enough to face the consequences. He shouldn’t have whimpered like a chicken shit and expressed sorrow. Was he sorry when he was humping them whores? I bet not.

He only owes the apology to his wife, and he can always do it privately away from all the attention. But having to cheat on her for whores, well… I’d say he already had an existing relationship problem, otherwise he wouldn’t have done that – so an apology might be unnecessary. As for the media, he should have spit on them – tell them that it’s his private matter and none of their fucking business. Sponsors pull out? Fuck them. The Tiger is rich enough. Besides, being such a stud, he can always solicit for other sponsors like condoms or fragrances for men.

The same goes to that Jack Neo. Such a pussy. It saddens me to see great men like them selling out their self esteem to convince the public that they’re good men after a filthy sex scandal. What a fucking lame and ironic way to ‘control handsome’.

If you can’t take it, then don’t do it. If you decided to do it, then do it all the way, do it like a man.

Oh, by the way – fuck Earth Hour.

I don’t know about you guys, but I think the idea of creating that High Performance School (HPS) list by the Malaysian government sucks. Isn’t that a form of discrimination? You identify who’s awesome, and give them incentives or shit like that, while the under-performers get nothing. It sends the wrong message to the young, don’t you guys think? That it is ok to stereotype, to discriminate, to discern who’s strong and who’s weak and give them preferential treatment.

Shouldn’t our children be taught how to treat everyone equal? How to help the needy? Sure enough, many think that the list and 1 million bucks would serve as a motivating factor for schools to work harder to get into the goddamn list. No doubt that the idea could probably work on some level… but in a bigger picture, I think this could cause a negative effect in the long term. For example, when a school fails to make into the list after putting enough effort to improve, it could also seriously jeopardize the morale of everyone involved. Not to mention the possibility of making the pupils feel inferior for being in a non-listed school. Parents on the other hand, will be more inclined to send/transfer their children to a listed school (kiasu mentality). The teaching staffs will also suffer some form of demotivation.

You see, you only mend the roof if it’s leaking. You don’t mend a perfectly good and non-leaking roof. It’ll be a waste of effort. Same thing applies, if those schools in the list are already that good, why would they need the 1 million bucks to enhance themselves? Shouldn’t the money go to those that needed the money most? I remember seeing headlines in the paper about schools asking for funds to fix their cracked walls, damaged desks/chairs, etc. Even my school once had to ask for donations from the alumni to renovate its facilities because it had gone to the stage of being dangerous to the students. How about that? I’m sure there are even more schools out there (esp the rural ones) that could use a little help to upgrade something.

Instead, I think the government should create an opposite list. Top under-performing schools of the year. Make it top 10 for each state. Then inject some PhD manpower into the schools as their personal consultant (since we have so many of those ‘meritus-meritus’), to review what went wrong and change the way they do things. Enforce KPI for the teachers and review their performance. Or perhaps to make things simpler, eat the humble pie and rope in some help from other top countries like Singapore or Australia. Ask them how do they do it. Pay them 200 trucks of sand for a contract to uplift our standard or whatever (our sand is pretty much useless to us anyway if our people are stupid and incompetent).

I’m just a stinking engineer and this is what I can come up with. I’m sure there are enough genius around to be able to come up with something even better. That HPS idea? That is so amateur. It’ll get us to nowhere.

I’ve always fascinated with the idea of being an orphan. On my way home from work today, I expressed to my wife how envious I am with being an orphan – for the orphan, though lonely he might be, has all the advantages set throughout his life.

He won’t have to worry about anyone judging him on what he does. He won’t have a cousin who always does better than he can ever do, and no one’s going to compare him against anyone. He won’t have any sibling whom he’d have squabbles with, and get hurt in the process. He won’t have to see his parents be in the worst possible shape when they get sick and he definitely won’t have to see them die one day. No relatives to badger him, and no blood relation obligations.

He’s all liberated and is set to live his life the way he wants it to be. He gets the whole blank canvas for himself to paint the colors with. It’s all about being him. But the only downside about being the Orphan is probably, loneliness. Can be quite a bitch. But then, loneliness isn’t much of a big problem if you were to compare that to the stuff I mentioned above. For loneliness, we have our friends, lovers and PS3 to alleviate the pain. It’s still a better trade off than the scum and filth we humans have to contend with every second of our awakening moment. I’d trade all my troubles with loneliness, anytime.

Speaking of having babies, I don’t fucking understand why do people get the compulsion to ask if we’re going to have another child, as if having children is like a scheduled product launch from a fucking factory. If my wife and I are going to have another child, then wouldn’t they see my kid already? And why does it even matter to them? Fucking hell.

The truth is, it’s all about the budget. Life in the 21st century, does not actually warrant us to have multiple children unless one is making a lot of money. Some of you may not agree with me (and fuck you), but it’s true. At least from my perspective. Allow me to convince you :

First of all, we need to find out, how exactly much does it take to raise a child? There’s no definite answer to that but, we can work out a gross amount based on my daughter. But before that, a disclaimer – I do not intend to raise my daughter to become a lame-ass social garbage, so this calculation is based on an assumption that we’re dumping in a considerable amount of money, in our best ability, to give her a good quality of life.

Alright, first of all – the milk feed. We give her the best milk there is. Abbott’s Pediasure something something. A can costs about 105 bucks (at a discount), and would last approximately 2 weeks (she took more when she was younger). That’s about RM210 per month.

Solid food. She consumes porridge cooked with meat broth. Once a day at home. Twice in the weekends. I don’t exactly know how much it costs per meal but, let’s throw in RM100 as an optimistic figure.

Daycare. She goes to a daycare center so that my wife and I can go to work. The daycare makes sure she gets fed everyday, and also learn how to read/write there. It costs us RM450 per month, and another RM150 per semester, and once-a-year-each concert/excursion/holiday-camp events (which I’m not going to include). Roughly works to about RM475 a month.

Clothes and toys, we took a lot of used stuff from relatives and friends. Medical covered by our company (first child only). And miscellaneous. But still, we factor in about RM50 (this shall include – vitamins, pro biotics, orders at restaurants, stationery, books, foot wears, kiddy rides, birthday expenditure, etc.)

RM210 + RM100 + RM475 + RM50 = RM835. Give or take 10%. You ask any parent, this is actually not a very realistic figure because this figure does not include a lot of things like vacations, road trips, the amount of electricity it takes to keep the little human happy, conveniences to keep him/her clean, etc. The real figure could come close to RM1k (even more as the kid grows). But hell, for simplicity’s sake, let’s take the figure as it is.

We paid about RM4k for her vertical take off from her mommy’s womb (gonna be less though, if your child comes out the conventional way). So in all, that works to be like, a 10% downpayment for a Perodua Viva, and a monthly installment of about RM835. Not for 4 or 5 years, but for about 20 years (or until she finds a self sustaining job), and the amount is bound to steeply increase in the future (money to go bowling, movies, other co-curricular activities, etc).

Now, ask yourself, how many of THAT KIND OF Perodua Vivas can you afford, without the need of doing a drastic cost cutting measure at the expense of your child(s)’ well being, on top of what you’re already paying – mortgage, your real car(s), bills, fuel, food, parental support and what-nots. If your answer is more than 1, and still confident about being able to cough up that big lump sum of college fund for all of them, with your retirement fund still intact, then congratulations rich man. You rock.

(For the record: my wife and I are not having more than 1 child due to a few reasons, not only this).