TEMPTations, The Renaissance KL

I never feel at home in swanky eating establishments, but I rarely pass up a chance to sample two- or three-star fare whenever the opportunity presents itself. Most of the members in the two software development teams (one team being mine) decided to have a buffet lunch to celebrate a job well-done. The venue: TEMPTations, at the New World Wing of The Renaissance, KL.

(This was the second; the first celebration was at a company dinner at a Chinese restaurant inside the Tropicana Golf Club, which in all probability negates the bonuses we were supposed to receive)

Most of the food was good; I ignored the shellfish (allergies and all that), and experienced horror from a pâté made of the stale organs of some animal mixed with crunchy bits of plant origin (there's no way it could be foie gras - too expensive for a buffet spread, and I'd never believe foie gras could taste so vile).

I also had blue cheese for the first time. Smells bad, tastes OK, although it's more like medicine than a chunk of soured milk cream. There was also a cheddar-like cheese that doesn't taste like any cheddar I've tried - nearly tasteless, not like the sharp, tangy feeling one associates with off-the-shelf stuff from Kraft's.

Everything else that I could pick was good: juicy beef and chicken satay, smoked salmon, smoked chicken, smoked duck, fresh veggies for salad, the curries, bread pudding and the crispy biscuit fingers that were among the skewered thingies you coat with melted chocolate that swirled down from a fountain.

Despite my churning stomach (damned vile pâtés, and I only had one!) and the realisation that my appetite wasn't what it used to be, it was still a great experience.

At RM55++ per person, you generally get your money's worth.

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TEMPTations

Ground Floor - New World Wing
Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel
Corner of Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Ampang, KL

The Rushed Verses

Budding ideas / Jumbled thoughts
Brave new visions / Not yet wrought
Teary ballads / Love and loss
Breaking news / Plus hots and nots

Causes championed / Battles fought
Once surrendered / Come to nought
Jokes remembered / Worst and best
Off-colour banter / Said in jest

Inner struggles / Logic bent
Childish rants / Deadly intent
Raging tempest / Worldly passions
Suppressed fury / Caged emotions

Fear and fetish / Spending spree
All kept under / Lock and key
Days and nights / Far and away
Sparkling colours / Shades of grey

Brooding weekends / Halcyon summers
Magic moments / Tranquil waters
Days go by / No looking back
Recollections / All fade to black

Buried sorrows / Forgotten pasts
Cherished romance / Forever lasts
Calming mantras / Soothing tunes
Immortalised / In ancient runes

Blank white paper / Flowing pen
Writing words / Beyond my ken
Poem and sonnet / Prose with flair
Rhyme and reason / Who would care

Measured tempo / Bold quatrain
Balanced stanzas / Far from plain
Pentameter / Text in twain
Synching couplets / What a pain

Request granted / All penned for you
Of whom do I speak / Oh, you know who
Chapter closed / All mood has gone
Mind is numb / Leave me alone

Dear Customer, Allow Me to Shaft You

Just got this with my RHB My1 Current Account statement today:

Important Notice to RHB MY1 Account Holders

Dear Valued RHB My1 Account Holders,

Due to the large numbers of you with less than the necessary amount in your My1 Accounts, we have decided upon a move whereby we could earn more from what is becoming a non-profitable service.

The RM10 half-yearly fee will be discontinued for accounts with less than RM1,000. Instead, we will charge RM5 every month for accounts with a daily balance of less than RM5,000. Accounts with more than RM5,000 will not be charged this amount.

So, instead of RM20 per annum, I have to fork out RM60 for treating my My1 premium current account as a two-bit, run-of-the-mill current account. Since my deposits will never reach RM1,000, there's no other way out. I'm also sure that there could be another hidden charge somewhere.

You see, with the number of people treating this premium service as a two-bit current account, we feel that some form of mitigation-cum-encouragement measure is necessary to: a) squeeze you a bit for your craven treatment of the My1 Account facility and b) encourage you to use this facility as it is meant to be used.

We hope you would understand the circumstances that led to us implementing such a measure, and bear with us while you think it over and realise that we are right, and that there is nothing you can do about it, being bound by the terms and conditions for using the said facility.

For more information, refer to the nicely worded numbers at the bottom of this notice.

Thank you.

OK, that was not exactly what I got in the mail, but the meaning is there. I took the time to read it and run the numbers through my head - twice.

RM60 per year may not sound like much, but I have another savings account with RHB. That money isn't just sitting idle there; they can take part or all of it and invest it somewhere. That's part of the deal, and they'd be dumb not to. Yet it's still not enough for them. Their service is slightly better, but come on...!

Democracy: It's All Greek

Democracy.

It's a nice word, isn't it? Brings up connotations of freedom, civility, and other utopian concepts. It reflects the ability of ours to choose the right goals, the right paths to those goals and the right people who will take us there.

Not many people know that the word "democracy" comes from two ancient Greek words, but as we all know, the ancient Greeks were also hopelessly romantic and idealistic. Today's flag-bearer for this ideal form of government is, of course, the "United" States of America. Once a democratic government is installed, freedom and humanity will automatically flower and grow. Milk and honey comes forth from the earth and spills over into everybody's homes, bringing joy and peace.

Given the existence of bigotry and xenophobia in the real world, especially when sanctioned by tradition, culture or radical religious figures, true democracy doesn't stand a chance in hell. In what many perceive to be autocratic regimes, leaders use religion and tradition to keep their subjects in comfortable mental bubbles, shielded from harsh reality, the existence of what lies beyond and the consequences of making wrong choices. Breaking through that bubble requires education and enlightenment, which are anathema to these malignant shepherds. To keep themselves relevant and in power, they have little choice but to keep their herds corralled and tightly reined.

This is the problem facing "recently-liberated" nations in hotspots around the world: the mental bubble was pierced too soon. Entire societies that have lived like corralled sheep for so long have been freed without being educated about the weight of their new responsibilities. They were basically told that they could initiate change simply by putting a piece of folded paper into a box.

Of course, things rarely work out that way. Guess what happens when the promised miracles don't happen.

Anarchy.

When order is replaced by chaos, the peddlers of this panacea are now regarded as quacks by unruly mobs. They see only ulterior motives in damage control and enforcement of the rule of law by the local authorities. Self-important, uncrowned and untitled autocrats tap into the newly-opened wellsprings of rage and discontent to further their own agendas.

Resulting in things and people going BOOM around the world.

Damned ancient Greeks and their romantic idealism.

There Is No Spoon (at Work)

It seems most of my colleagues don't understand English. Warning signs have been dished out after spoons started disappearing from our pantry, and indicated that we would soon be bringing in stuff from home because management isn't going to replace them anymore. Another declared those who do not wash their cups after use were worse than kindergarten graduates.

Yet the trends persist.

The past few days I've had to use a knife to stir my coffee, pouring the ingredients into my mug with the precision of Jamie Oliver or Keith Floyd during one of their cooking skits. A knife. With a six-inch blade. One you could comfortably stab spoon-hoarders to death with. Somewhere in the sprawling office space where I toil, somebody fancies himself as Little Li of the Flying Daggers.

On the bright side, my coffee nowadays tastes much more bearable. You might even say it has an... edge.

Giant Squid Caught on Video

They finally did it! Scientists have finally caught a giant squid on video. What's the big deal, you say? It's just a squid. A sotong. Jiu hu. Market also have.

Not really.

Randy Kochevar, deep sea biologist with the Monterey aquarium, via Yahoo! News: "Nobody has been able to observe a large giant squid where it lives. There are people who said it would never be done."

Well, they did it. It may be possible to expect more footage of these once-
mysterious denizens of the deep.

The giant squid (genus architeuthis) can grow to be over twenty feet long from head to tentacle-tip. They are usually found around 1000 feet deep, but can surface to find food. No living specimen has ever been caught alive, even on camera - at least, up till now. We can't even breed one of these in a lab.

You do not want to bump into this creature when it's hungry. If its arms don't squeeze the life out of you, it'll drag you to its mouth, where a strong parrot-like beak waits to tear you into bite-size bits. It's not really tasty, either; it's full of ammonium chloride, which helps keep it from sinking to the bottom - and kind of smells like pee.

While chances of swimmers actually meeting a giant squid are nearly zero, its smaller cousin, the Humboldt squid (a real jiu hu), is no less ferocious. They will attack and eat each other. The fishermen who catch this squid call it the Red Devil, and are more afraid of it than sharks.

Would your opinions of the squid ever be the same again?

Seafaring Riverboats, Unarmoured Humvees

We've all heard about how Kublai Khan's failed invasion of Japan, thwarted by the kamikaze or divine wind, that capsized his fleet of over four thousand ships. Centuries later, the young stupid suicide pilots of the Japanese air force would invoke the name of this conquering tempest when they ploughed their planes into enemy warships during World War II.

A recent archaeological expedition has revealed some startling truths about the Khan's failed venture, and downplayed the role played by the storm, long touted as the main factor.

Never mind that the Mongols knew scratch about sailing or sea battles, or that Japanese swordsmen were lethal in close-quarters combat. There were hints that Chinese ship makers commissioned into building the fleet had used shoddy workmanship as a means of sabotage. Kublai's impatience was also a factor; to complete his massive fleet within the unreasonable schedule, riverboats - totally unseaworthy vessels - were also drafted into the fleet.

The fleet had sunk even before it left the dry-docks.

We are strange, you know. We store history and quote from it, but never learn anything from it. Even today, people are still rushing to war with vague mission statements, poor preparation, and misleading preconceptions and lousy intelligence about the other side. When it all ends, usually in failure, the common folk have to bear the cost of the aftermath.

But we don't have to look back eight hundred years to learn about the folly of rushing to war. We only need to go back about two years.