Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Better Way to Unleash "That Talent"..?


 A lot of people in Kota Kinabalu are very talented and we have lots of youngsters (and not discounting the older ones) who are very good at "painting" our walls with graffiti.

Mention public or paid washrooms at shopping malls and gross graffiti immediately comes to mind. Go on, check out some toilets at Centre Point Sabah, Wisma Merdeka, especially male toilets, and get entertained with scribbles, sketches, and fancy hand written arty expressions; mostly vulgar words.

I like the efforts by some street artists turning the appearance of the ruins of the old North Borneo Land and Survey building into something more pleasing to the eyes. Stroll along Standard Chartered Bank building towards Tong Hing and you will not miss the sight.

Built in 1910s the wooden building was destroyed by fire in 1992. It remained abandoned until today and in the middle of a developing city it is an eyesore to the passers by.

Look at it today, the remaining columns are interestingly painted and decorated. Subjects of painting is up to the talents. They have messages of their own. I was parked the other day and it so happened that few young people were busy doing what they do best. Great sight.



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The building skeletons viewed from Suria Sabah




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ms. tweety on the floor



"The facets of misery goes beyond human skin" - interesting caption.

  

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Spray painter should at least wear mask, such as him.




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"I Love My Antu gonie"




If you ask me whether I've asked for their permission to take their pictures, yes I kindly requested.

Me : Bro, boleh saya ambil gambar kau kah?
Him: Boleh bah, ambik saja.
Me: Great work here! Kamu kena kasi bayarankah buat lukisan banyak ni?
Him: Teda, kami saja2 bah ni buat. Ramai lagi org yg lain buat.
Me : Oo bah, trima kasih aah (kemudian beredar balik kereta).

Friday, March 25, 2011

Earth Hour 2011

What is it?

Uncle Google and Aunty Wiki should be on hand to help  you out in case you still do not know what it is. Excerpt from Wikipedia:

Earth Hour is a global event organized by World Wildlife Fun and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.

For 2011 that special one hour falls on 26th March, from 8.30pm to 9.30pm local time.

A little bit about Earth Hour:

1. Started of in Sydney, Australia in 2007 (2.2mil people participate)
2. In 2008 participation grew to more than 50mil people
3. In 2009 more than 100mil people from over 4000 cities and 88 countries touched the switches.
4. In 2010 enormous responses from more than 128 countries, no estimate given but it should not be less than half a billion people.

Earth hour has transformed into a kind of celebration with a lot of activities towards making the public aware of the need to safeguard earth from negative climate change. Concerts, seminars, workshops, photography contests, beauty pageants, power-saving campaigns; it's like you-name-it-we-have-it kind of thing.

This year DBKK (Kota Kinabalu City Hall) is organising a photography contest. Good opportunity for photographers and hobbyist. I can't take part on this one but would definitely take part on the switching-off of non-essential lights.

Do visit Earth Hour official website and have fun making your very own lantern lights.

This is what I got from there and I like the lantern to be red in colour.



Happy Earth Hour day on 26th March 2011.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Cartoonist - Out of his mind?

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This is the caricature by Selangor born cartoonist, Mohd Zohri Sukimi, 52, better known as Zoy.

I am a Malaysian and am proud to be one but I'm not proud at all with what this cartoonist did.

What was in his mind? Trying to portray that no matter how big and strong you are, you can never match the the hands of God?

I think he was out of his mind! He stooped so lowly to kids-having-fun level and made fun out of it. Out of others' misery. I'm not impressed at all!


Let's put this into perspective:

Ultraman is a character in many TV programs and is well known primarily among children and kids (although some adults watch them as well).
It is therefore, purely for fun and humor, and nothing near reality. Shoving this kind of "brilliance" to Berita Harian readers' throat at this time of calamity is absolutely uncalled for.

Kepada mereka yang membuat ulasan dalam Bahasa Malaysia dengan cuba mempertahankan lukisan Zoy sebagai nukilan beliau untuk menggambarkan kekuasaan Sang Pencipta, saya katakan begini:

Minda saya simpel, seperti juga minda anak-anak yang menjadi penonton utama siri Ultraman di televisyen. Lukisan anda juga simpel dan ia mengundang sifat semulajadi golongan ini: Ketawa! Kenapa? Kerana pada dasarnya tujuan siri TV ini adalah untuk hiburan.

Victims of tsunami do not need to become your source of "hiburan".

There are a lot of people bashing Malaysian in other oversea forum as well as other International news portal, CNN. To these people, I say that our hearts are with the victims and their families. We certainly do not subscribe to the idea of Berita Harian (whatever they mean by the publication).

By the way, there are two definitions for "Out of his mind" by Cambridge Dictionary:

i) unable to behave or deal with things normally because something has made you very worried, unhappy or angry, and

ii) extremely stupid or mentally ill

come on, take your pick!
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