A long feat: (Above) Students from the Multimedia University in Cyberjaya cheering upon hearing the announcement that they had broken the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s longest barg kebab by creating one that was 2.016km long. The last world record was set in Denmark for a barg kebab that was 1.5km long. More than 250 students (below) made the kebab which required 3.5 tonnes of chicken meat costing RM24,000.  

Source: TheStar

Source: TheStar (link will not work after 7 days if I am not mistaken).

I’m not talking about the silliness of the train driver for driving the train off the track; I’m referring to the people who are standing below the dangling train.

Maybe you’ll think it isn’t at all silly, but if you read the full article, there’s an electricity substation just below the dangling train and a witness said that it was quite fortunate that the train did not crash down and struck the substation, because it would explode.

Explode? Possible? Just look at the picture again…. those people were standing so close to the station and watching. What is so nice to see that they are willing to risk their lives like that? Just imagine if the train suddenly moved and crash straight down to the electric substation.

Amazing people….

A WOMAN has suffered severe burning to her anus after being struck by lightning which hit her in the mouth and passed right through her body. Natasha Timarovic, 27, was cleaning her teeth at in her home in the Croatian city of Zadar when lightning struck the building. She said: “I had just put my mouth under the tap to rinse away the toothpaste when the lightning must have struck the building.

This may sound crazy but it actually happened in Croatia! It’s amazing how lightning could strike a building and travel through the waterpipes. I guess we better not take a shower or brush our teeth, just in case!

Source: Lightning exits woman’s bottom | NEWS.com.au

BOSTON (CNN) — When Rick Hoyt was 15, he communicated something to his father that changed both their lives. “Dad,” the mute quadriplegic wrote in his computer after his father pushed him in a wheelchair in a five-kilometer race, “I felt like I wasn’t handicapped.”

Rick, now 37, has had cerebral palsy since birth. But he has always been treated simply as one of the family, included by his now-divorced parents in almost everything brothers Rob and Russell did.

Source: CNN

When I first read the story, I still managed to hold back my emotions. But after watching the video, I couldn’t hold back anymore. It’s very touching. It’s remarkable what love can do to a person. Watch the video and you’ll understand…

For those who don’t know what cerebral palsy is:

Cerebral palsy is a non-progressive disorder, but secondary orthopaedic deformities are common, such as hip dislocation and scoliosis of the spine. There is no known cure for CP: medical intervention is limited to the treatment and prevention of complications possible from CP’s consequences. Overall, cerebral palsy ranks among the most monetarily costly congenital conditions in the world to manage effectively.

– Wikipedia

TeamHoyt - Their website
A Moving Story of one Incredible Father – Another video link

Hope this story inspire you in some way.

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) – A 4.4 metre crocodile mauled a chainsaw a worker was using Friday to clear up debris left by a tropical storm that lashed northern Australia. While the croc and worker were both uninjured, the saw’s woodcutting days are over.

Source: Canada.com

The croc was uninjured?? What kind of chain saw is that? Or perhaps a better question would be, what kind of crocodile is that? Mauled a chainsaw and not only walk away unhurt, but also left the chainsaw badly damaged.

Salute the croc, man!

An American cook’s adventures in the kitchen have won the first literary prize for bloggers turned authors.

Julie Powell’s tales of French cooking beat the intimate diary of a prostitute and a guide to the UK’s best “greasy spoon” cafes to take the Blooker Prize.

The contest was set up for bloggers who have turned their episodic journals into books.

Malaysian bloggers should take some inspiration from this news and publish their own books as well… I kinda like the name of the prize – Blooker Prize. I’m sure you know what that means.

Source: BBC News

MELBOURNE, March 7 (Bernama) — A researcher who investigated the mathematics of DNA entanglement has become the youngest student on record to graduate with a PhD from the University of Melbourne.

Chan Yao-ban, 21, will graduate with a PhD in Mathematics and Statistics tomorrow night.

He is the youngest student to be conferred a PhD since the University of Melbourne began awarding that qualification in 1948.

Source: Bernama

Yet another home-schooled prodigy!

The 12-year-old collected ice samples from five restaurants in South Florida — from both self-serve machines inside the restaurant and from drive-thru windows. She then collected toilet water samples from the same restaurants and tested all of them for bacteria at the University of South Florida.

In several cases, the ice tested positive for E. coli bacteria, which comes from human waste and has been linked to several illness outbreaks across the country.

Source: ABCNews

Is this something new? No, it’s not! Even in Malaysia, almost everybody know the “cleanliness” of the eateries, but people still likes to eat out. Some said it’s good though, to help our immune system build up the body defense system. What do you think? I would rather cook by myself, cheaper and cleaner.

PORT ORANGE, Fla. (AP) — A man who woke up and found his head bleeding, drove to work and left a note for his boss before going to the hospital to find he had a bullet lodged in his brain, authorities said.

Source: USAToday.com

Isn’t this a bit….over? Shot in the head but yet unaware of it? I really don’t know what has gotten into this guy’s head (besides the bullet).

Her sense of smell, so keen that she can sniff traces of blood on weapons that have been scrubbed after attacks, has her so much in demand by forces up and down the country that she is hired out at £530 a day, plus expenses.

Thought to be the only one of her kind, the crime scenes dog earns nearly £200,000 a year. Her daily rate, ten times that of ordinary police dogs, puts her on more than the chief constable, Meredydd Hughes, who picks up £129,963.

Amazing or not? That dog earns GBP200 000 a year! That is much much more than an average salary worker in the UK. Seems like it’s better to be a dog than to be a human? LOL!

I wonder where the money goes… into the dog’s bank account or…someone else’s pocket?

Source: TimesOnline

Rachel’s battered body was found face down in mud near a lake just 17 months after her wedding.

She had suffered more than 60 injuries at their hands in the weeks before she died.

When she was found, 11 of her ribs were fractured and her mouth was so badly injured that her bottom lip had become detached from her skull.

She had also suffered cigarette burns, scalds and heavy bruising as a result of countless attacks with a baseball bat and a piece of wood.

She eventually died of thrombosis caused by a blood clot in her brain that had been left untreated for weeks. It had been brought on by septicaemia, dehydration and repeated assault.

Reading this news is bad enough for me. I really can’t imagine a 20-year old woman going through all this.

Sorry to spoil the jolly Christmas mood, but I hope you all will appreciate your family more. You’re much much more fortunate than some people out there.

Link - BBC News, “‘Family from hell’ get life terms”

Home Depot was sued by a shopper from a Colorado store who claims he got stuck to a restroom toilet seat because a prankster had smeared it with glue.

Bob Dougherty, 57, accused employees of ignoring his cries for help for about 15 minutes because they thought he was kidding.

Oh dear, how sickening! Why would anyone put glue on the toilet seat?

And the staffs of that shop were also dumb, thinking that he was just kidding when he cried for help. Now, be prepared to get sued by the angry old man.

Source: CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/11/03/toilet.suit.ap/index.html)

So, if you really want to be unique, and if you’re really a computer geek/nerd/ addict, and……if you really want to do it online…..find a different way to be original.

The guy who did it on a blog is a Taiwanese, so his site is all in Chinese language. It’s here. Ah Knight wrote it in his blog about this proposal.

As for the search engine proposal, he did it via “Ask Jeeves”. Blewtooth has the story on his blog.

How do I plan it should go down? Continuing after what I said above, she types in her name into Ask Jeeves. What if she asks me why? I lie and say that her recent CBS News TV coverage of her at the League for Hard of Hearing (her job) is showing up under her name at Ask Jeeves. So she does the search and bam!, up comes that result that asks her to marry me. At that time, while I kneel behind her, I pull out flowers and the diamond ring from the surrounding draws. She turns the swivel chair around and I ask her to marry me. What happens next, that is for the story page, but if I had to guess… The ring is so shiny it temporarily blinds her, and I have to drag her to the local hospital.

Happy proposing!

A truffle weighing 1.2kg (2.6lb) has sold for 95,000 euros ($112,000; £64,000) at an international charity auction in Italy.

An anonymous buyer – reportedly from Hong Kong – purchased the white truffle via satellite link-up.

Wow, $112 000? That’s a huge sum of money! But since it’s an charity auction, maybe it’s not that bad…I wonder how much money from that will actually go to the charity.

I wonder how special is the taste of a food worth $112K ….

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4434168.stm

How about this: “Hello, Mayor! May I borrow your pencil?”

An 18-year-old student held on to a two-vote lead to become mayor of a Michigan town. Like any other young American, Michael Sessions will study in class from 8am to 3pm, and after 6pm he will do his homework. But from 3pm to 6pm he will carry out his new job as the elected Mayor of Hillsdale.

Source: Independent News (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article326585.ece)

A leading lingerie company has joined Japan’s fight against high fuel use, unveiling a heated bra for winter.

The fluffy creation contains special pads filled with an eco-friendly gel that can be easily heated in a microwave or with a hot water bottle.

Actually, what they mean by saving the world is that they aim to reduce energy consumption (for heating), and hence prevent global warming. The bra can be heated up to the same level as domestic heaters. Cool

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4420820.stm

A pair of pandas have ‘got married’ in a lavish ceremony in Thailand.

Chuang Chuang and his bride Lin Hui were given a beautiful cake decorated with dragons – but they were more interested in eating bamboo!

Source: CBBC

Wee…look at some of the photos here:

Of course, this is not the real panda…they are just mascots…. (Source: nbc6.net)

How come their parents are human beings??? (Source: nbc6.net)

Ok…the real pandas are here…with their wedding cake. (Source: People’s Daily Online)

An Adopted son repeatedly assaulted and finally killed the father who took him on and never gave up on him, a court heard. Bristol Crown Court was told that Lee Barnes, who suffered from learning difficulties exacerbated by 25 years of glue-sniffing and alcohol abuse, beat 68-year-old Gilbert Barnes to death after attacking him on numerous previous occasions.

Source: EveningPost

The sad thing is, the father never gave up on his son. He even helped him, stood by him. But in the end, his adopted son took his life from him.

The power of about fatherly love…..sigh.

Some people just don’t understand that peace cannot be gained by violence. So, is it much peaceful there in Iraq after the war? To me, it seems like there are more and more suicide bombings.

Why can’t they take Mahatma Gandhi as an example?

Link

The bid started at GBP 1, and within 10 days, it shot up to that amount. Impressive? Guess not, the winning bidder pulled out the very last minute; 30 seconds before the bid closed.

Mr Hartwright, a web designer who lives with his parents in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, put his possessions up for sale to try to clear his debts and make a fresh start. The eBay page had more than 233,500 hits and attracted 135 bids, which soared from £1 to the final £22,100 in just 10 days. The final offer was made by a bidder known by the user identity nickyb25082092.

Source: The Independent

You can sell almost everything in EBay, it seems.

In 2003, while BT was rolling out their 1Mbps broadband connection, the Japanese were already enjoying up to 26Mbps of ADSL broadband. And guess what? They paid much less.

Anyone knows the fastest broadband speed in Japan now? I bet it’ll put every country to shame…

To document the trend, he and colleagues have been randomly examining students and found a disturbing and growing incidence of what is known as noise-induced hearing loss. Usually, it means they’ve lost the ability to hear higher frequencies, evidenced at times by mild ear-ringing or trouble following conversations in noisy situations.

Hearing specialists say they’re also seeing more people in their 30s and 40s — many of them among the first Walkman users — who suffer from more pronounced tinnitus, an internal ringing or even the sound of whooshing or buzzing in the ears.

Source: CNN

I think it’s a very true report. I actually don’t like to listen too much with headphones, my ears get kinda weird after a period of time. And now, if you go to a public place and throw a stone to the crowd, it’s 99% chances you’ll hit someone with an iPod *exaggerating*.. But to be honest, more and more people are wearing headphones/earphones wherever they go.

I prefer to listen more to the sounds of nature, that’s why I seldom wear earphones. Well, at least I know by doing this, I can reduce the chances of hearing loss. I hope you’ll do the same too, listen to the sounds of nature!

“In the future,” Meinke says, “I hope people will wear ear plugs the same as they wear their bike helmets or wear a seat belt.”

Let’s hope this will not become true.

Further reading

After the preparations were done, the Pentium 4 670 Prescott processor reached 7132.82 MHz (375,4 MHz FSB x 19).

Cool, huh? I want one too… Imagine…7GHz computer… In my dreams, LoLx.. Now, can anyone else beat that overclocking? I believe someday, someone, somewhere, the record will be broken. After all, I believe there’s no limit to technology.

Link

Below are some excerpts of news reports about the haze:

Forest fires in Indonesia’s Sumatra province covered Malaysia’s main city Kuala Lumpur and 32 other towns Tuesday with a smoky haze that reduced visibility to as low as one kilometer (half a mile).

The Department of Environment said air quality in an area in central Perak state was “unhealthy,” and it downgraded air quality in 32 other areas nationwide, including Kuala Lumpur, from “good” to “moderate.”

Source: MongaBay.com

Kept in the dark

But newspapers have been bombarded by angry telephone calls from the public, complaining that information is simply not available.

For more than a year it has been official policy in Malaysia not to make public the air pollution readings, for fear of driving away foreign tourists.

Source: BBCNews

Take a look at this photo by NASA during the haze in 2001:

Larger Image: Here
Source: VisibleEarth

The Star Malaysia has provided a useful list of dos and don’ts with their report. At least, it’s better than nothing, right? To everyone out there, hope you all take good care of your health!

Source: TheStar

Melissa Marlow, aged 30, of Ham Green, has applied for three jobs in Bristol and a total of 50 jobs across the country, but has so far been unsuccessful.

She is just one of thousands of Senior House Officers (SHOs) across the country who have found themselves in the position of incurring huge debt by funding themselves through medical school, only to find themselves unemployed at the middle stage of their training.

Source: ThisIsBristol

This is surprising. A doctor but couldn’t find a job? I always thought those who studied medicine will never be unemployed, judging from the low ratio of doctors to population. But this news is real. I don’t quite understand the reason. Is it because there are too many junior doctors already? Can someone read the article and explain to me? *confused*

In a 1990 study done at the University of California, Davis, researchers found dog saliva killed E. coli and Streptococcus canis, another harmful bacteria. The scientists concluded that when mother dogs licked their nipples it helped keep puppies free from disease, and that dogs licking their own wounds accomplished the same goal.

This is an old study, but I came across it only recently and thought it’s kinda interesting.

I like this quote from the article:

I’ll never turn my head from my dog’s kiss again.

Source: Alaska Science Forum

NTT, the Japanese communications giant, has recently developed a technology called RedTacton, which it claims can send data over the surface of human skin at speeds of up to 2Mbps — the equivalent of a fast broadband data connection.

To work, a transmitter is attached to a portable device, such as an MP3 player, which then uses the human electrical skin field to send data to another receiving device. The transmission is achieved by minutely modulating the electrical body field in the same way that a radio station wave is modulated to carry broadcast data.

Photo credit: Giuliana Contaldo

Will this encourage more skin contact among ourselves in future?

Source: RobinGood

First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile.

Weird right? Sheep committing suicide…hmmm… 1501 sheep jumped, 450 dead.

Source: Yahoo! News.

China has abandoned its currency’s peg to the dollar and revalued the yuan by 2.2%. It now buys more US dollars than before.

With China both one of the world’s largest exporters of manufactured goods and one of the largest importers of raw materials, the move’s economic impact will be felt worldwide.

BBC News published a Q&A report on this matter rather in detailed. Click here for more.

On the other hand, Malaysian Ringgit was unpegged against US dollar as well. It does sound coincident with the unpegging of China Yuan.

Bank Negara Malaysia announces today that the exchange rate of the ringgit with immediate effect will be allowed to operate in a managed float, with its value being determined by economic fundamentals. Bank Negara Malaysia will monitor the exchange rate against a currency basket to ensure that the exchange rate remains close to its fair value. Promoting stability of the exchange rate continues to be a primary objective of policy.

Read the press statement from Bank Negara Malaysia here.

Fellow bloggers are among the earliest to post about this before I read the news online. They are: politics 101, __earth, lone, Norzu, cccp and Sabri.

Seems like blogs are good sources of updated news these days..

Whatever the reason, being a nerd, a geek, a dork — whatever you want to call the tragically unhip — is becoming a source of pride.

Source: CNN.com

Interesting! Now nerds, geeks and dorks are the “cool” people.. Let us all be nerds! Haha..

Sorry for the error on my blog earlier today. Apparently Blogsome (my blog host) was down with some server error. It had been resolved now, fortunately. Enjoy!