236

After 22 years, Dr. Mahathir's retirement is fast approaching. In fact, he will step down from the leadership post in less than 12 hours from now.
Though there are a few things that I don't agree with him, I nevertheless must thank him for everything he had done for Malaysia. Without him, Malaysia wouldn't be one of the most properous and modern nations in Asia. Without him, Malaysia would have possibly shared Indonesia and the Philippines' fate.
A tribute to Malaysia's fourth Prime Minister and perhaps, the best Malaysian leader yet.

p/s - My name will be included in UbiSoft and Cyan Worlds' credit list as one of the Uru beta testers. The best thing is, my name will be listed for public viewing on a major game developer's site. Talk about 5 minutes of fame! FYI, the game that I was involved with is Uru, a sequal to the famous Myst.

235

Due to Dr. Mahathir's "Jews rule the world by proxy" speech, the US Senate has agreed to restrict a total of $1.2 million in military aid.
Just a point here, Malaysia's GDP is measured in billion.

And guess what, ball pen does work in space. Apparently, the "Russian used pencil story was a hoax". However, the million dollar pen, known as Fisher pen, does exist. Read all about it here.

p/s - Anybody that plays with fire alarm should be amputated.

234

The KNVB has handed Rafael van der Vaart a four-match suspension and I expect van Bommel to receive the same punishment too. With the suspension, if accepted by Ajax, van der Vaart will miss a top of the table match against AZ Alkmaar, an easy game with ADO Den Haag, a home game against Heerenveen and a match against traditional rival Feyenoord Rotterdam.

233

California is suffering one of its worst forest fire in 50 years and major cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego have been put on alert.

232

Two days after the retirement of Concorde, life's still the same. Nevertheless, it is an end to an era - the end of the supersonic era for the transatlantic journey.

And Ajax drew with PSV at the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven. For almost a full game, Ajax played with 10 men without van der Vaart and still survived the onslaught.

p/s - Just saw the PSV-Ajax match 20-minutes highlight and I've found somebody to hate - van Bommel. That bitch... Anyway, courtesy of ajaxfanclub.de, I am hosting a match highlight of Ajax-Celta CL match, in Dutch. Also, I have the 20-minutes, 44 MB hightlights of the PSV-Ajax match. Mail me at mnoorsha[at]umich[dot]edu for the file if you are interested.

231

The __earthinc is now on version 2.1.
The html code was modified to accomodate Mozilla and Netscape. Hopefully, Mac's Safari too. However, This site still doesn't fully conform with those 3 browsers as good as Internet Explorer.
Special thanks to Terry Eaton of Button Monkey and Boris Novak of The Challenge for the motivation.

p/s - And tomorrow is Ramadan. How time flies...

230

A few days ago, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida saved a life. Though his action came a little bit too late from my point of view, nevertheless he technically saved a life. And I doubt his action should be appreciated.
I believe each one of us have the right to freedom, with some limitation of course. In doing so, I also believe a person has the right to choose between life and death for themselves. However, I believe Morpheus sucks. Err, I mean, it takes courage to live a life, to take up new challenges as each new day is given another chance of sunlight.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t consider suicide committer as a coward. Quite on the contrary, it takes tremendous amount of courage to take one's own life. It’s just that, unlike living a life, committing suicide is essentially the epitome of giving up. But then, it is not my right to decide what’s and what’s not when it comes to such a philosophical issue. Everybody has their own opinion. So in the end, one's direction must be decided by oneself after all opinion considered.
Respecting freedom, I cannot impose my belief on anybody else (unlike those Taliban and other fundamentalists. And also the communists. It’s amazing how some Malaysians strongly advocate for a total Islamic law for the mass while at the same time they themselves lament the US’ domination over the Muslim world. Human hypocrisy is endless).
The life that Jeb Bush (the brother of the infamous Georgie Bush) saved, is suffering from a permanent brain damage. Terri Schiavo has been in vegetative state since 1990 and her life now depends on machines.
Life seems hopeless for her and she, according to the media, has expressed her desire to die.
I have no quarrel with her decision but the way the doctors handle the case is much left to be desired. Of all the methods available, they chose to pull her feeding tube.
This is an inhumane act.
Depriving her from the feeding tube simply means starving her to death. Of all the methods available, from overdose of morphine to lethal injection, why starvation?
Florida legislature should have prevented the starvation earlier than later. Understandably, the red tape prevented them from acting swiftly.
Seven days into the case, she was almost dying and without doubt got through the pain. Then magically, the state legislature finally got rid of the red tape and reinstated the tube for Terri. Again why?
The action would be welcomed if it were done earlier but she was almost there. And now her seven days struggle came to nothing.
Imagine how she would feel?
No. Better yet, how would you feel if you were in a car race, you were on the first spot and you almost crossed the finish line. And all the sudden, your engine failed and you ended up a mere meter from the end?
After all effort, in the end you ended up last; in the end, it doesn't even matter. How would you feel?

229

Ajax 1 - 0 Celta. And the good news is, Ajax is currently the leader of Group H, thanks to the Dutch's Belgian cousin, Club Brugge. I could imagine how the Azzuri played - "defense, defense, def..., offense, offense".
It feels good to be on top.

228

A Dutch team, Nuon backed by the European Space Agency (ESA) has just won the World Solar Challenge 2003 in Australia. Second place was booked by a well known Australian team, Aurora while Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) secured the third place. So this actually means MIT managed to overthrone Michigan as the best performing varsity team in WSC. Nuon Solar Team is not a varsity team regardless what the Dutch claim.
The next major solar challenge will be the Hellas Solar Car Race (also known as Phaethon 2004) in Greece, in conjuction with the 2004 Summer Olympic. Currently, more than 10 teams have confirmed their participation in the race. Michigan unfortunately will not be joining the race.
So, I guess 2005 is the target.

But in any case, Celta is in Amsterdam for a Champions' League match today. Ajax should be able to make Celta flying back crying to Spain. Update to follow.

227 This is part 9. Please read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 and part 8.

I moved on after having a much improvised lunch.

The Sun was getting more and more unbearable as the time passed by. Needless to say, the air was getting thinner and thus further reduced my lung capacity. I wished could just sit and take a very long nap instead of walking. However, I need to go on simply because it was the most beneficial option. Without food, the benefit of reaching my checkpoint, the Tuolumne Meadows was multiplied, causing it to have an exponential effect.

The journey to the top of the California Falls was tiring. The trail was tough to handle since rocks instead of sand made it up. I wonder how Leman could hike with only a pair of snickers; even with my toughened boots, blisters plagued me. Things seemed to be hopeless and hapless but I had no choice. I kept saying to myself that this will pass, like other unpleasant things in the past. This too will pass.

Despite feeling generally depressed, the wall of the mountains offered a great sight. I took the liberty of observing the wall expression and swore that I thought the mountains were smiling at me. I was bewildered and laughed for the first time in days. Looking at the sides of the canyon was really like looking at the clouds; you could see almost anything as long as you have a decent imagination.

After a light moment, I knew I was hallucinating. And generally, hallucinating beside a ledge of a trail, with one side falling down more than a hundred feet is not good. So, I garnered my concentration and stared at the mountains and unfortunately and humorously for my sanity, the mountains this time seemed to laugh even harder. Comforting enough, after a few minutes of tries, I assured myself that the mountains wall was just some unusual rock impression.

The sensation of seeing smiling rock wall had a positive effect on me and I began to believe Mother Nature was giving a hand. She played a trick on me but in doing so she lifted up my strength and spirit. She gave me hope by giving the impression things were not as grim as it would seem. For that, my love for her grows even more.

Hours into the day, I’d finally outperformed myself. I was finally on top of cascade of falls. Dropping my backpack to the ground, I went to a boulder located in the middle of the river, overlooking the whole cascade of falls. The sheer height of the fall would have taken a life immediately out of a hypsiphobic. With a clenched fist, I smelled a scent that I haven’t smelled for years – victory.

I stood on the rock for a considerable amount of time, with the wind and the water vapor blasting against my face. There was just me, up high in the mountains overlooking the whole canyon down below. No wonder John Muir’s heart was broken when Hetch Hetchy was condemned in the name of progress.

At times, I wanted to jump, ending everything at that moment so no more will the excruciating pressure of life pressuring me. It takes courage to jump and frighteningly, I had the courage to make that jump. Luckily, I remembered a word of wisdom said to me a long time ago - it takes greater courage to live a life than to end it. In addition, there are just too many things need to be done. I concurred at the end that I need things to be done before I die.

I turned my back and only to be stunned by Gaia again. In front of me, the river was flowing towards me with a narrowly long, flat valley dwarfed by the Sierra Nevada in the background. The valley was not simply a valley. Conifer trees conquered both sides of the river. It was as if an elongated football field was present up high in the anything but flat mountainous area. The oddity equals to seeing a patch of green earth in the middle of the Antarctic.

I wonder why I didn’t notice the grand Sierra Nevada when I first reached the top but this was one of many reasons why I do not regret my decision to hike more than 50 miles with a 50 lbs burden on my back in California.

The sierra was beautiful beyond words. To try to describe it here would do great injustice and more, an insult to Mother Nature. But yet as Human, I can’t resist the temptation to describe such sight to friends later after the expedition. She was terribly beautiful and if she were the fairer sex, I would strip myself of my entire ego, fall to my knee, begging for her love.

Farther up front, about an hour worth of walk, Glen Aulin was in sight.


A cantilever bridge in Glen Aulin. Glen Aulin literally means beautiful valley.
Photo by Epol.
To my delight, there was a small sign indicating my goal, the Tuolumne Meadows was just over five miles away. Yet, the length doesn’t describe the true dimension of the path that I needed to take. Hundreds of feet needed to be swallowed to accomplish the five miles.

If I was given the chance, I would camp at Glen Aulin, be in the small grove in the petite valley. Alas, time was not my ally. I need to hike as much as I could if I were to catch up with Epol and Leman. Though it was merely a hunch, I believed that Epol and Leman should be waiting for me at the Meadows. I was betting on luck but my bet was a calculated one. True enough, as it turned out later, it wasn't vainly made.
The Sun was setting when I was somewhere near the heart of Glen Aulin; the sky was turning red as the white moon rose to claim the heavenly throne. Yet, I headed on, struggling for the Meadows.

The thought of food, clean water, hot shower and all made me to ride on a faster pace. I hiked until it was dark and cold. Exhausted and hungry, I finally had to give up the game of catching up and camped. Up high, the wind was merciless, blowing as strong as a storm, giving me a hard time putting the tent up.

Once that done, quickly I changed my clothes and engulfed myself in the sleeping bag, hoping the mighty wind won’t be able to undo the tent, hoping that all this will pass swiftly, hoping no bear will come to my path.

226

Rugby World Cup.
Fiji almost lost to the US. 18 - 19 was the scoreline.
Wow.

225


Another love-hate relationship with Bill Gates.

224

China is planning to launch a manned space mission next week and to say that I am not surprised will be an utter lie.
Almost everybody received a slap in the face once China announced it. The shock came not as jealousy but as pure unexpected development. Of course, China and a few other countries such as Japan have declared their intention of joining the elite space-faring group in the past few years. However, most people would have placed a bet on Japan as the next nation to experience zero gravity; few had anticipated China.
Though I am delighted to hear China’s intention, I feel China is taking too fast a step at a time.
The announcement came barely two weeks before the actual planned launch date. Furthermore, according to the Chinese press, the candidate for the taikonout (or taikonouts but essentially, an equivalence of cosmonaut and the astronaut) was (or were) chosen a few months (it might be just weeks) ago. Usually in the US, it takes the pilot and the crew months of training before undertaking such mission. Although the public is given the impression that China is prepared, I doubt the pilot, or the crew is. Worse, China has conducted only four unmanned space missions with its Shenzhou IV craft.
Thus, I come to a conclusion that though this is a great development to reignite the space race, it is merely propaganda at work. If you don’t believe me, consider this one fact – the launch will somewhat coincide with the Communist Party assembly of which opened yesterday. At the same time, the assembly is being held in closed door in secret. No significant news has leaked yet. Perhaps the announcement came in as a distraction, to sway the public away from the current political development.
In any case, I wish China the best of luck. I wish China’s space program doesn’t suffer the same setbacks as the American, the Russian, the European and the Brazilian had suffered in the past.

p/s - Congratulations to the Badgers for screwing up the Buckeyes. The Buckeyes deserve the lost. And to the Golden Gophers, maybe next year. LOLROTF.
35 - 38! Keep on dreaming, babeh! Dream very hard!

223

I'm still on hiatus but Californians, rebuff Schwarzenegger!
The Republican is certainly going to bow to the grey lobbyists' pressure and overturns all the years of hard work done making California a green friendly state.
Imagine what Bush's silly Healthy Forest Initiative will do to Yosemite!
Imagine a treeless national park!
Imagine Terminator's future in California!
Imagine a Terminator on top!

Please, keep California golden and green. Don't make it rusted and grey!

222

With a broken elbow, I find typing is a tiring task. Therefore, I will be on hiatus for about a month. Hopefully less.
In the mean time, I will try to find a few guest writers to keep this site running. Interested individual should leave a note here or e-mail me at mnoorsha[at]umich[dot]edu.
Until then, ciao.

p/s - Interestingly, even the Canadian and the French use 'ciao'. I thought the expression was exclusively an Asian phenomena.

221

AFC Ajax Amsterdam 2 - 0 Club Brugge KV.
A job well done Ajax, a job well done. Hail to Sonck for scoring both goals. Kudos to Ibrahimovic for being the architect of the attacks. This resulted in Ajax securing the second spot, just below AC Milan who was held to a scoreless draw to Celta Vigo.
And, ehem...
Stuttgart 2 - 1 Manchester United. Two German goals in two minutes!

Other results:
Chelsea 0 - 2 Besiktas
FC Porto 1 - 3 Real Madrid
Lazio 2 - 2 Sparta Prague
Marseille 3 - 0 Partizan Belgrade
Panathinaikos 1 - 1 Rangers

Ajax striker Sonck's double sinks Bruges

AMSTERDAM, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Wesley Sonck struck once in each half against his compatriots Club Bruges to give Ajax a 2-0 win in their Champions League Group H match on Wednesday.
The Belgium striker opened the scoring after 11 minutes when he received the ball just onside from Tomas Galasek and left Bruges goalkeeper Tomislav Butina with no chance.
Sonck doubled the lead nine minutes after the break when he picked up a defence-splitting cross from Wesley Sneijder in what looked like an offside position and again left Butina with no chance of making a save.
Ajax are second in the group with three points, one less than AC Milan, who drew 0-0 away to Celta Vigo in Spain.
Bruges almost equalised four minutes after the opening goal when Bengt Saeternes intercepted a sloppy pass from Petri Pasanen, but after he got past keeper Bogdan Lobont, French defender Julien Escude cleared his attempt off the line.
The Belgian Champions were missing two suspended and several injured players and were seldom able to threaten last season's quarter-finalists seriously.

Ajax clean up with 2-0 win over Bruges

October 1, 2003
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AFP) - Ajax made up for their disappointing start to their Champions League campaign with a 2-0 win over close neighbours FC Bruges, both goals coming courtesy of Belgian Wesley Sonck.
In what was billed as a Champions League derby, Sonck claimed his first goal of the match in the 11th minute, and on the back of a spell of Ajax domination which almost saw them ahead as early as the fourth minute.
Shots by both Sonck and teammate Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the sixth minute gave keeper Tomislav Butina some early work - and an indication of what was to follow.
Ajax coninued to dominate and Ibrahimovic was again involved ahead of Sonck's opener, the Swede picking up a solid pass from Czech midfielder Tomas Galasek before backheeling it through the Belgian defence to find Sonck, who rolled the ball past Butina.
Bruges reacted quickly however and were unlucky not to level after Bengt Saeternes found himself in alone on Ajax keeper Bogdan Lobont. Saeternes' shot was goalbound until it was cleared off the line by Julien Escude.
That was one of the rare Bruges occasions in the first half however as Ronald Koeman's side reasserted control and kept the pressure on Butina with shots from Tom Soetaers in the 26th minute and Hatem Trabelsi shortly before the interval.
Bruges came out fired up for the second half and midfielder Ivan Gvozdenovic could only watch as his shot, following a corner that was glanced on by an Ajax boot, was collected by Lobont.
The visitors' bid to claim at least a point from the Amsterdam ArenA however was brought to an end moments later when Sonck claimed his second of the match.
Ajax midfielder Wesley Sneijder found Sonck in plenty of space behind the Bruges defence, with the Belgian given time to advance and send a left-footed shot past Butina.
Having gone down 1-0 to AC Milan last week, Koeman will be happier with a result that leaves his former Dutch masters second in group H, with Milan aclaiming just a point from their scoreless draw at Celta Vigo.