This and That

American Idol

Melinda and Jordan gave the best performances tonight. I also liked Phil's rendition of a Garth Brooks number. Lakisha did not receive a very positive feedback from the judges for her performance of Fantasia's hit song. I thought she did well though.

Sanjaya, as all of you who follow the show know, was booted out last week. He appeared on The Late Night Show with David Letterman last night and read the Top Ten Things I Learned from American Idol. I heard that at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Sanjaya was a guest, and there was a long line for his autograph.


Arkansas Trip

We spent a week in Arkansas, two weeks ago. We were in Little Rock, Russelville and Dardanelle. There wasn't that much to see in these places. William Jefferson Clinton's Presidential Library was the main attraction in Little Rock. However, I did get to taste a lot of their catfish menu. We ate at a place called The Flying Fish in Little Rock, and the food was excellent.

Esther, my good friend visiting from Malaysia, and I wanted to look for a mall in Little Rock but we did not know where the mall was. However, we found a bead store and spent quite a bit of money there. We went there two days in a row. Doug and Duncan visited a submarine right there at the waterfront, close to the bead store.


Sick kids

After church on Sunday, the kids developed a fever. They stayed home yesterday and today. I couldn't go to the flea market today as a result. I wanted to look for more beads as most of the bead vendors only sell on Tuesday. I am happy that they are much better today; their fever is gone and they should be able to go back to school tomorrow.


Beading Frenzy

I bought a Wigjig and am having a lot of fun learning wire jewelry. I bought several books on wire jewelry and learnt to make my own ear ring hooks and clasps. I have also placed all kinds of orders for wire jewelry and beads from Fusion Beads and Artbeads. I like these stores because shipping is free and there is no minimum order.

I have made several ear rings and about four necklaces. You can see three of them on Puteri's Hobbies.


Old Pen-pal

The internet is a wonderful thing. I was able to re-connect with a Swedish pen-pal that I corresponded with in the late 70s and early 80s. A few years ago I saw a book that he had written at a bookshop at KLIA. I wondered about him and recently a name of a place in Sweden made me think about him again. I googled his name and found all kinds of informationa about him and even wrote a web site that publishes his article asking them how I could get in touch with him. I received a reply to the query and it was Bertil himself who wrote back. My name on the email address did not trigger his memory but when I wrote and told him who I was, he remembered! That was indeed wonderful.

Yesterday I received an autographed copy of the book that I saw at the bookshop at KLIA. Back when we were pen-pals, he was a free-lanced journalist. Now he writes books, reviews books, writes articles, and is a well-known authority on Burma. He still lives in Thailand, married to a Burmese, and has a grown daughter.

Necklaces

Faceted aventurine briolettes, swarovski crystals, pearls and sterling silver make up this pretty necklace.

I don't know the name of this green stone. It has some yellow and dark browns on it. I also used purple fresh water pearls and my own hand made sterling silver clasps for this creation.

This is my version of a multi-strand necklace that has at least a couple of strands of seed beads. The yellow beads is yellow jade, the green is aventurine.

Good Friday

Good Friday

~ | ~ | ~

O my chief good,

How shall I measure out your blood?

How shall I count what you befell,

And each grief tell?



Shall I your woes

Number according to your foes?

Or, since one star showed your first breath,

Shall all your death?



Or shall each leaf,

Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?

Or can not leaves, but fruit, be sign

Of the true vine?



Then let each hour

Of my whole life one grief devour;

That your distress through all may run,

And be my sun.



Or rather let

My several sins their sorrows get;

That as each beast his cure does know,

Each sin may so.



Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write

Your sorrows in, and bloody fight;

My heart has store, write there, where in

One box does lie both ink and sin:



That when sin spies so many foes,

Your whips, your nails, your wounds, your woes,

All come to lodge there, sin may say,

No room1 for me, and fly away.



Sin being gone, oh fill the place,

And keep possession with your grace;

Lest sin take courage and return,

And all the writings blot or burn.

Modern Version of Good Friday
from The Temple (1633), by George Herbert

Odds and Ends

American Idol Update

Gina Glocksen is out, and Haley stays for another week. Between the two of them, Gina has the vocal talent, and Haley has the looks. Sanjaya? He makes the competition "interesting". The top three girls, what can I say, they were in top form this week. I enjoyed the guys' performances this week, even Sanjaya's! Heh.

Dancing With the Stars

Arrrggghhhh!! How is it possible that I missed the start of this season's show? Four weeks of it!! Thank goodness for YouTube! I have been able to catch up with most of the episodes that I have missed. This is the other TV show, beside American Idol, that I follow diligently! :-<

Il Divo

I know I haven't been living in a cave, but how come I have never heard of Il Divo? Four gorgeous looking guys with heavenly voices, and I have not heard of them?! I might as well have been living in a cave! They had their first self-titled album released in 2004.

And they have even been to Malaysia, just this past January! Arrggghh!

It was by chance that I saw them on TV the other night. I was totally bowled over. And to think that Simon Cowell of Idol fame came up with the concept of a group that "tried to sound like The Three Tenors and looked like Armani models". Indeed they look like Armani models rather than this opera pop group.

Larry King's interview with them gives you an overview of how the group came together, and if you, like me have never heard of them before this, watch their performance here on Larry King Live.

Trip

Next week we'll be taking a week long trip to Arkansas. It'll be an exciting trip for me because my dear friend from KL will be joining us. She is arriving today but she will spend the next few days in LA before meeting us in Phoenix, Arizona next Monday, en route to Little Rock, Arkansas.

I can't say how exciting Arkansas will be for us because the main reason we are going is that Doug has some family business to attend to. Since my friend's visit co-incided with our trip we decided to invite her along, instead of postponing it. Doug promised that it won't be all business and that he has checked out the places to go and see while there.

Have a Blessed Easter. Jesus is risen indeed!

Blog Policing in Malaysia

I am a regular reader of Malaysia Today. While I was reading the comments posted on the blog yesterday, Raja Petra the owner of the site, posted a notice about having received a letter from his web host provider regarding the postings of a participant on the site. You can read the notice here.

In essence, the participant named FrenchFriedTacos was deemed to haven posted "false and poisonous comment about the Prophet Muhammad". The warning letter told Raja Petra to remove the offensive postings by FrenchFriedTacos, or the web host provider would have no choice but to shut down Malaysia Today.

If you doubt that there is a policing of the internet in Malaysia, here is a fine example of one in action.

If you are a regular at Malaysia Today you will no doubt be aware of the constant heated debate over religion. I was surprised that there was a monitoring of postings especially with regard to Prophet Muhammad.

FrenchFriedTacos had no choice but to withdraw from participating any further at Malaysia Today. He did not want Malaysia Today to be shut down just because of comments made by him.

Bloggers in Malaysia, there is no such thing as freedom of expression. Refrain from insulting Prophet Muhammad, or do so at your peril.