simonjong.com

Just posted a mother load of pictures in the Gallery. It took me the whole day just to sort through and label them.

My trip to Mulu has been rewarding. I got to spend some quality time with my family and I managed to put my new D40 through an extensive field test as well. I must say the tiny SLR fared well.

Detailed posts of my trip are on the way. In the mean time, enjoy the pictures.

And of course, Happy New Year to my blog readers (yes, all two of you).

My brother came back from KL yesterday and he brought with him my shiny new toy.

A Nikon D40 Digital SLR camera.

This is an early Christmas gift for myself, by myself. Credits to my brother for sourcing me a good deal though. It must have been a nightmare haggling with those slick salesmen. Not only that, he also provided some much needed ‘financial aid’ to make this purchase possible. Thanks bro!

Here’s to taking better pictures in the future, and to spending the whole of my paycheck on a useless, plastic toy.

Another month, another kayaking trip. With the amount business I’m bringing in, I’m sure Francis will be giving me that VIP Membership Card anytime now, right Francis?

Anyway, it’s December now. And this little town of mine has been getting rain by the bucket load. Not really the best time to go kayaking, any sane person would have told you that.

Any sane person would also tell you that I’m not really a sane person. Oh no, a sane person would not have invited his friends along for a kayaking trip in the middle of the rainy season, now would he? But he did. Bad Simon. Baaaddd!

All kiddings aside, the water level last Sunday was quite high and the river current was fast. That made for quite an exciting kayaking experience, albeit with the risk factor pushed up a few notch. I was glad that we had a couple of kayaking veterans to guide us that day.

We set off from Krokong, a tiny village by the Sarawak Kanan River. We would work our way downstream towards Wind Cave.

Eight of us split into teams of two. My co-pilot was Cheng, who had kayaked with me in Borneo Heights back in October.

Swee had also kayaked with me before. This time, he brought his girlfriend, Hui Hui along.

Rivea had the honor of having Captain Francis on board with her. An arrangement that she would soon regret. Hehe.

Meanwhile, Phang sped away with kayaking champion Azmi before I could get a decent picture of them.

The river current was fast and furious. So much so that we almost missed our first point of interest. Our kayak convoy had to backtrack a bit to stop at a mini zoo.

We actually went in by the zoo’s ‘back door’, if you could call it that. A good thing about going by the back door is that the admission is free. Until you get spotted by the angry owner that is.

I wouldn’t exactly call the place a zoo, not even a mini one. The only animals I managed to see were a few goats and a pair of ostriches.

Attracted by our incessant hooting (mostly mine) to get their attention, the ostriches slowly made their way towards us.

I’m not sure whether the birds were just happy to see us or they were really hungry because they were munching up the greens that I fed them non-stop. Almost pecked off my fingers, those crazy over-sized birds!

Not far downstream from the zoo, our journey was halted by a dam-like obstacle spanning the width of the river. Made up of bamboos, twigs and assorted garbages, the obstacle was actually sturdy enough to stand on.

We had to carry our kayaks over the ‘dam’. Phang and Azmi provided the bulk of the manpower.

Passing the obstacle, we were soon greeted by a bunch half-naked gentlemen frolicking by the riverbank. Turned out they are with the Army. The soldiers cheered us on as we paddled pass them, their excitement spurred after seeing there were ladies in our group.

The soldiers were probably on some sort of military exercise. Or maybe they were just camping by the riverside for fun. Since when did the Army actually need to work anyway?

We took a break on a rocky sandbank in the middle of the river. It is sort of like a tiny island. The water level was uncannily high that day so the usual spots by the riverbank which we would have stopped were all flooded. So we had to make do with parking at ‘The Rock’.

After we all had some hearty snacks, skipped a fair amount of flat pebbles and dipped in the cold but refreshing water. We got ready for the final leg of our journey. Before leaving, I just couldn’t resist marking the territory just like the animals did in the Discovery Channel.

Don’t you just love it when you connect with nature?

Before we knew it, we were already approaching the final bend near Wind Cave. Swee and Hui Hui gave us a scare when they capsized just as we were about to dock. They managed to swim to the riverbank but their overturned kayak continued to drift downstream. Francis quickly paddled to chase after the kayak. Phang and Azmi followed close behind to provide assistance.

They managed to rescue the kayak and towed it back. With a happy-looking Francis following behind.

In the end, we all made it back in one piece. Amen to that!

Our timing couldn’t have been better as it rained heavily soon afterwards. Luckily we missed it. I just couldn’t imagine us kayaking in a thunderstorm.

On a sidenote, Francis earned himself a new title that day - Captain Capsize. He enjoyed capsizing so much that he did it twice. I’m sure Rivea enjoyed it too. Hehe.

Uno

Duos

Francis, you didn’t think I was going to forget to include this part, did ya?

More photos of the snake, the ostrich and the fabled pebble

I’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories. Blame that on an overdose of lousy X-Files episodes in my younger days. So any conspiracy theory that I encounter nowadays is taken with a grain of salt, sometimes even with a whole handful of salt.

Nevertheless, Loose Change, an independent documentary that takes an alternative look on the 9/11 incident is quite interesting. The basic premise of this documentary is that the US government planned and executed the September 11 attacks on its own people.

The theories portrayed by the documentary is not as factual and convincing as those being shown in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. But there is one part of the show that grabbed my attention. The documentary theorize that the collapse of the World Trade Center towers was from a controlled explosive demolition, and not from the impact and fires by the airliners that rammed the towers. You have to admit, seeing how the towers collapsed in an almost symmetrical and controlled fashion, it really looked like it was being methodically demolished using explosives.

The documentary is free to download from the Loose Change website. The full show is also available via Google Video.

Dear Santa,

It’s me.

I know, I know. I’m not on your list this year, or any other year for that matter. I admit I haven’t exactly been a good boy lately. Well, I haven’t been a good boy period. But I’m sure you can see past that. And do you know why?

Because they say you are a man with a big heart, that’s why. But I don’t know, to me you are just a big man. A big man with a fetish for red clothings I might add. But who am I to criticize a man’s fashion sense? Let alone a BIG man’s fashion sense. You are what you are. If you can look past my shortcomings, I guess I’ll do the same for you.

Prove to me that you are a man who can give without prejudice, Santa. If you do that, I might just refrain myself from telling the whole world what really happened to Rudolph’s nose. Last I checked, glowing red prosthetic nose wasn’t such a big hit with the reindeer chicks. Poor Rudolph.

OK, enough about that. Let’s talk business.

Here’s what I want for Christmas. No, I don’t want no frickin’ Playstation3. I have enough paperweights already thank you very much. An Ipod you say? No way! Ipods are sooo yesterday. And don’t even try to bribe me with that 100-inch widescreen plasma from Samsung. No no no, I want something better.

I want the Stokke™ Gravity™ balans. This baby has got to be the coolest chair ever conceived by an IKEA wannabe.

Oh yeah, look at that chair pivot. My mind fills with endless possibilities just by looking at that girl in the blue silhouette rock the chair.
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Sweet mother of god! I think I need to cold shower.

So I assume we have a deal here? We wouldn’t want innocent little kids around world to know the truth about the “Rudolph Incident” now, do we?

You know what I want. Make it happen.

Have a Merry Christmas!

.

Yours truly,

Simon