about Sanjaya, the voting system and democracy

To be honest, I love Sanjaya the first time I saw him at the American Idol audition. I loved him even more when he showed his love for his sister as soon as he knew his sister didn't made it to the next round at Hollywood audition.

If you read the forum at the American Idol website, you knew he was the most popular guy until Antonella Barba case was exposed. Barba didn't lasted long in the show but Sanjaya fame continues to rise not because of his talent but his personality and hairdo.

The rating of the show continues to fall but I don't think anyone should blame Sanjaya. The show is bland: Melinda Doolittle and Lakisha Jones are flawless even Simon didn't know what to comment anymore, Ryan Seacrest and Simon and their homophobic jokes, Randy Jackson and his same ol' "It was a little bit too pitchy for me" comment and Paula, I don't even want to talk about her.

The American Idol show is now depending on Sanjaya for publicity. I don't watch the show as regularly as I did before. I just tune in because I want to see if he performs really bad that week and I don't want to miss the moment if he's voted off. But hey, there are other contestants like Phil Stacey and Haley Scarnato who are far worse than Sanjaya who should be voted off first but they continue to stay on.

Going into my main point, people like Gina Glocksen, Chris Sligh and my favourite Stephanie Edwards are the victims of the voting system. I have long disagree with this so-called democratic approach to find a talented singer. We didn't make a mistake the first time when we decided that Jaclyn Victor is the well-deserved winner of Malaysian Idol. But look at what happened to Malaysian Idol in season 2.

Another significant weakness of the voting system was shown in Akademi Fantasia. Mawi is not my favourite contestant in AF3 but this man deserves to win because he's really popular. But what happened to other contestants in the same batch with him? The huge gap between Mawi and his fellow friends was very demotivating because you know you did your best and received applause from judges but you will never be able to match the popularity of Mawi even though he made mistakes like forgetting lyrics, sang out of tune or received bad reviews from the judges.

Once I heard that some contestants from Blast Off spent thousands of ringgit to ensure they will go far in the competition. Another contestant in Astro Talent Quest not only won the competition through the voting system but also represented Malaysia in a TVB8 singing contest and won the most sms votes despite his lack of popularity and losing in the singing contest judged by Hong Kong celebrities.

To me the voting system is a total rip off of viewers money because for each vote, you are paying like 50 sen or 65 sen. And now Akademi Fantasia is introducing Afundi Sakan whereby viewers can place 3 or 5 votes with each call. What is so democratic about the system?

The moral of the story: the voting system in reality shows is the symbol of the democratic world we live in. Look at the suffering world around us. The influential and rich will always win or have better advantage than those who doesn't. But since we accepted the system, we made decisions on who becoming our leaders (whether you vote them or not) and hence we will have to bear the consequences of our own action.

custom domain name with a Blogger account

Currently I'm using a custom domain (hcfoo.com) but my blog is still hosted by Blogger. After purchased the domain name at GoDaddy, I tried to configure the settings but failed many times because both Blogger help site and GoDaddy support team gave me different information.

How do I use a custom domain name on my blog?
How do I create a CNAME record for my custom domain?

In the end Blogger help site is correct but what I did wrong was I typed hcfoo.com instead of www.hcfoo.com in my Blogger setting (under Publishing).

By the way, GoDaddy provides FREE host and email (I set mine as blogger@hcfoo.com) but I decided to just keep the free host since I'm using Blogger as my host.

Updates: After a couple of hours my blog failed again. I reported the matter and received an instruction from GoDaddy support teamto rectify the problem.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Online Support. You can forward your domain directly to an IP address by modifying the A record for your domain. Please follow the directions below to accomplish this:

First, log into your customer account:

. Go to the Go Daddy Account Login Page
. Log in using your account username (which may be the same as your customer number) and password

If you have trouble logging in, our password reset form may help you. You can find this form through the following link:
Account Retrieval Page

Once logged in, follow these steps:

. Select 'Manage Domains' from the 'Domain Names' menu at the top of the page
. Click on the domain you wish to Forward (Setup an A-Record) for
. Click the '+' next to "Total DNS Control" from the menu. (This option will only be available for domains Parked or Hosted on our servers)
. Click the 'Total DNS Control And MX Records' link
. Enter the IP address for the '@' Zone Record Value and click 'Save'

Please allow 1 hour for the Zone File to be updated with this new information. Your domain will then physically point to the IP address entered.

Sincerely,
Online Support
Technician

It worked. Hence it shows that the instruction in Blogger is incomplete and user needs to enter and divert to Google's IP address which is 72.14.207.121 in the A(Host) in Total DNS Control.

habits or little known facts about me

Vhanded tagged me!

Here are the 10 weird things or habits or little known facts about me:

1. I'm 30 years old (no, I'm not afraid to let you guys know my age) but security guards at Genting casino still asked for my MyKad. It happened so many times I'm not sure if I should take it as a compliment or an insult.
2. Speaking about Genting, I'm one of those people who chose to sleep in the car at the parking lot in the open air.
3. I'm obsess with mint. From mint chocolate ice cream to tiger balm, I can't live without them.
4. I can't swim and I'm afraid of the water.
5. I have phobia over snakes. It's pretty serious because if I flipped through a magazine and unexpectedly come across a snake picture, I'll jumped up.
6. I've written fan letters and send sketches to New Kids On The Block, Toni Braxton and Wilson Phillips when I was in secondary school.
7. I used to have 5 piercings on my left ears.
8. I'm very particular about toilets. I would rather tahan until I go home. And I appreciate clean public toilet like the one at Mobil Bandar Utama.
9. I'm easily touched when watching movies. It doesn't have to be a romance movie. As long as the movie has a touching line, I'm moved.
   
10. I still keep a journal of all the sajak I've written since secondary school.

I think I still feel normal after disclose my secret habits and facts. Now I get to tagged another 6 people. They are:

1. flsam
2. che-cheh
3. aziya
4. papajoneh
5. julie
   
6. princess shin

Donald Trump won @ Wrestlemania 23 and got 'stunned'

As expected Donald Trump won the Battle of the Billionaires and Vince McMahon had to go home bald.

After the shave, while celebrating Donald Trump's win, Steve Austin a.k.a Stone Cold gave Trump an unexpected Stunner! However, the Stunner was totally off. Either Trump did not practice enough or chicken out in the last minute.



This is the impact on Donald Trump after the Stunner.

papa jahat - a ban song?

Have you guys listen to this song called 'Papa Jahat' by Fabulous Catz (Cat Ruffedge) before? I heard it on FLY FM last week and my sister told me her Malay colleague said that the phrase 'papa jahat' is used when people having sex.

I think this song is not so suitable to be played on the radio. I'm not conservative but hey, the radio station used to ban a lot of my favourite songs back in the 90s such as Boys To Men's I'll Make Love To You and Inner Circle's A Lalalala Long (Sweat).

So what do you think of the lyrics? I'm not sure if I'm dirty minded and misinterpret the lyrics. Why don't you be the judge?

The Fabulous Catz ...

Nama saya Jahat....Papa Jahat

Chorus:
Papa jangan papa jahat
Jangan papa nakal sangat
Mama jangan mama sekat
Jadi papa tak terleka

Papa jangan papa jahat
Mama tahu papa ligat
Mama jangan paksa sangat
Papa tengah cukup penat

Papa papa sangat jahat
Takde otak nak melihat
Gila-gilanya ia kerja
Jangan dibuat

Papa papa kerja kuat
Dulunya papa penuh muslihat
Papa janji papa takkan buat
Ingat janji papa yang diikat

Oh cuba nak percaya
Oh tak ku perdaya sayang percaya..oh oh
Oh takkan ku berdusta..oh oh oh
Takkan ku perdaya sayang percaya

(ulang chorus)

Senorita aku gila kat kau
Mama sita janganlah menderita tersiksa
Tak diabaikan janji kita
Tak kembali ke zaman silam

Bila petik jari dah terguling-guling
Tak tentu hari bawa berasing-asing
Itu dulu kini tak begitu
Satu persatu semuanya berlalu itu kutahu

Bila ku tak gilakanmu
Susahku tak siapa tahu
Jangan kau mulakan serantau
Sebab kau sentiasa buatku kemarau

Oh cuba nak percaya tak ku perdaya
Sayang percaya
Oh takkan kuberdusta
Takkan ku perdaya sayang percaya

(ulang chorus)

Berikan percaya darimu
(telah kuberikan segala)
Tidak pernah ku ingkari dirimu
(tak mungkin, tak mungkin)
wowow.....

Mama mama percayalah ku tak guris hatimu
Papa papa kupercaya yang kau ubati hatiku
Mama mama percayalah ku tak guris hatimu
Papa papa kupercaya yang kau ubati hatiku

(ulang chorus)

LIght at the edge of the world: science of the mind

I love to watch documentaries especially on history, sociology and culture.

Recently there an interesting show on Buddhism on National Geographic Channel (Astro Channel 52) called Light at the Edge of the World: Science of the Mind. The upcoming repeat will be on Saturday @ 11 a.m. Here's the synopsis of the show.

Light at the Edge of the World follows Wade Davis, an anthropologist, writer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, from the foothills of the Himalayas to the tundra of the Northern Arctic as he explores how four indigenous cultures adapt to preserve their unique heritage. Buddhism asks the fundamental questions like 'What is life and what is the point of existence?' Wade Davis goes on an anthropological and spiritual path into the Himalayas of Nepal to learn the deepest lesson of Buddhist practice.

I haven't watch the complete show because the first time it was shown on tv, I had to juggle between this show and The Amazing Race. At one part of the show, Wade Davis shared the Four Noble Truth with viewers. Another interesting part of the show was when Davis cried during a meditation. I'm not sure why but let's find out this Saturday.

@ Cameron Highlands and Sg Klah over the weekend

I was away to Cameron Highlands and Sungai Klah Hot Springs Park over the weekend for friends' birthdays.

We stayed at an apartment at Desa Anthurium owned by Mrs Chang of 188 Vegetable Farm. It is very clean and more of a chinese family house rather than a hotel apartment. Everything is complete: kitchen, tv, etc. They also gave us a lot of vegetables upon our arrival which we used to cook steamboat. Anyone looking for a place to stay in Cameron Highlands (cheap cheap, good good as quoted by my friend), can call these numbers (017-509508 or 05-4961740) and look for Chang Siew Wah.


We headed off to Sungai Klah Hot Springs Park after leaving Cameron Highlands on Sunday afternoon. The entrance fees is RM5 for an adult. Earlier of the day, we called to book a private room at the family spa. It only costs RM25 for a room. Personally, I'm not into water activities but I did enjoyed myself though. It's highly recommended for family outing. Bring your mom, dad and grandparents!

On our way back to PJ, the highway was in a massive jam. I really pity the aunties at the public toilet at plaza toll because they had to wait for another long queue again. To the Works Minister, thank you for all the trouble.