Yup, you guessed right, I was back in Ipoh for Chinese New Year last week, that’s why I couldn’t have any updates…

Before anything, I WANT TO COMPLAIN AGAIN! First, it was the ‘i’ button; now, my whole laptop breaks down on the eve of Valentine’s day!

When I was planning to buy a laptop a few months ago, did my friends not totally warn me that the brand ‘A*er’ was unreliable? I think THEY DID!

ARGH!!

Now I have to go all the way to Low Yat to claim my warranty!

I’m writing this entry with my desktop, which I sort of ‘neglected’ since I bought my laptop…

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Multimedia University is the number 1 university in Malaysia?

Hmm, I don’t think even the President of MMU dares to make such a statement… At least not in public.

After all, making such a statement would make the person who said it seem arrogant, and even ignorant, since there are so many other respected universities such as UM, USM, UKM and many others whose names uniformly begin with ‘U’ and end with ‘M’ in our country that would appear as better candidates for position of ‘number 1′.

Furthermore, students from other universities would probably start flaming the guy who said it.

But, could there be any truth at all to the question I posed above?

Apparently, there is – to a small extent. Recently, a weblink that was forwarded to me caught my attention. It was a list of the ‘Top 200 universities and colleges worldwide‘, ranked by web popularity

It came as no surprise to find that MIT and Stanford University topped the list. Sometimes, I find it ironic that people always mention Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge as being the top universities in the world, and not even knowing what ‘MIT’ stands for!

You know what? Gordon Freeman, the guy that you play in the game Half-Life, is from MIT! (Don’t simply believe me, check Wikipedia!)

By the way, Harvard is in the 4th place, and Cambridge and Oxford goes way down to 24th and 25th.

Closer to us, Hong Kong University and NUS ranked 8th and 20th respectively. (Hey, it has been my long-time dream – but just a dream, I don’t expect it to ever happen – to study in HKU someday…)

I wondered if our great Universiti Malaya made it into the top 200 list, so I pressed ctrl+f and made a search for the word ‘Malaysia’, and the page went way down to 182nd. Curiously enough, I saw:

Not bad, isn’t it? The only university in Malaysia to make it to the list!

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Speaking of our university, our dear 11-years-in-office President Prof. Datuk Dr Ghauth Jasmon, made a sudden retirement last month! He is now being replaced by Prof. Dr Zaharin Yusoff.

Maybe I was not updated enough, but I really heard nothing about Prof. Jasmon planning to retire…

Most people that I know didn’t see it coming, many were shocked, some outraged. Moreover, apparently a number of professors, lecturers and staff were so upset with the management that they resigned and left the university.

This includes the great Prof. Dr Chuah Hein Teik, the very respected and cherished Dean of our Faculty of Engineering – gone.

My friend even told me that he heard some lecturers ‘indirectly’ expressing their dislike and frustration towards the current management in their lecture sessions!

However, there seems to be no official clarification as to what exactly happened that effected in the great change in management. There are many theories and suspicions arising among students, but as long as the university stays silent, we can never be sure.

Indeed, the university made mistakes before, could this change of management be another one?

Just a random photo of water unknowingly being wasted in MMU.

To add to the thought, I notice that it was mentioned in a farewell notice allegedly written by Prof. Jasmon: “...my term as President has been determined to end on 31st December 2007…” Notice the passive voice in present perfect tense – ‘has been determined‘…. Hmm…

A blogger posted a copy of the Prof. Jasmon notice in his blog.

Well, it could have meant nothing, maybe he meant ‘…has been determined (by himself)’… I wouldn’t know…

But anyway, we’re really gonna miss him. Although I’ve never seen him much, he was no doubt a great President; or else we, the university, wouldn’t be having the many achievements that we are so proud of.

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In other news…

Alvin, my housemate, STOLE MY HAIR COLOR, I mean, dyed the same color as mine!!!

OK, he didn’t really steal… His color is, in fact, slightly more ‘brownish‘ than mine. And actually, the color in the photo is slightly amplified using Photoshop… Because, remember? My uncooperative camera somehow doesn’t capture red-colored hair!

Ah, anyway. My hair is completely black now… Dunno whether I should try a new color anytime soon… Sigh, guys’ short hair really makes coloring an extremely short-term thing.

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Oh ya, before I end, Happy (early) Valentine’s day!

[WARNING: This entry contains images that some people might find offensive (pixelated nudity).]

New nude media scandal again! (This time from Hong Kong!) Haha, this post is quite outdated…

First, it was cute Vanessa Hudgens, the star from High School Musical, posing in a series of provocative photos (see news article) and even a nude one, allegedly for her boyfriend – Zac Efron. (Who else?)

Obviously, this is not the nude photo, but one of the ‘milder’ ones. Don’t ask me where to get the ‘extreme’ ones!

She’s evidently not very aware that being a celebrity, taking private digital photos coupled with an internet connection is a very dangerous combination indeed. Apparently some irresponsible dude got the photos from her PC or E-mail and posted them to the public.

OK, to be fair – at least she’s cute, 19 years old, and she’s like, just posing nude in private… Nothing more than that.

Then, came Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek, high profiled ex-Minister of Health, Vice President of MCA, being caught on-tape cheating on his wife, having sex with a ‘personal friend’ in a hotel room. (See news article.)

I think there is no doubt in the sharp decline of ‘attractiveness’ between the two… err… ‘casts‘ of these two scandals. Gentlemen, Dr. Chua is 61 this year!

The weird thing is, the DVD sex tapes were selling like hot cakes! People were actually buying them!

Unless the ‘personal friend’ of Dr. Chua was exceptionally pretty, I can only conclude that these people probably bought the DVDs out of curiosity, not for… enjoyment. Because if it were for the latter, I quite believe that there is an awfully huge warehouse of ‘better choices’ out there.

61-year-old Dr. Chua making out with an unknown woman – not really interesting, is it?

Therefore, to top the nude media scandal list, it appears that Hong Kong superstars Edison Chen 陈冠希 + Gillian Chung 锺欣桐 (from ‘Twins’) + Cecilia Cheung 张柏芝 moved in to give everyone’s new year a blast!

Ladies and gentlemen, behold your favorite stars in action! (See news article.)

It is still controversial as to whether the pictures were doctored, but the artistes and their representatives are reacting big.

Apparently, (again) some moron hacked the photos from Edison’s PC or HP, and decided to let the world see them.

As far as I know, the artistes have yet to officially and explicitly confirm, or deny, the allegation that the subjects in the photos are actually them in person.

Truly, censored photos revealed some faces that look like one or more of the artistes… err… ‘in pleasure’. Just repeating what many people are saying out there – can you really, so simply, find ‘pleasured’ faces like that of the artistes, on the internet or in magazines, to be photoshopped into some pornstar’s body?

*This, allegedly, is Cecilia Cheung 张柏芝 with Edison Chen (not in view).*

Some people also claimed that the backgrounds of some of the photos are identical to that of Edison’s room!

I heard that there are many photos being released, each in different, err… positions.

If you are that interested, you can find censored photos of this anywhere online. And NO, I have no idea where to find the uncensored ones. I have not taken the liberty to find out.

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Despite allegations and inconclusive evidences to the contrary, I still choose to believe that the pictures are not genuine, and were indeed digitally doctored. I mean, it just can’t be! They can’t be so careless!

Moral of the story: Never store sex photos/videos of yourself, especially digital ones, because they can be easily stolen/hacked. Especially if you’re not completely aware of how telecommunications and multimedia devices work as well as how they can be exploited.