What's wrong with being a Pimp?

My in-house cultural critic is my 12 year old son. Why do they even put the word pimp on television?.

My first and unsatisfactory answer is Because they can.

But I know this is a teaching moment.

He knows, as I am certain my readers know, that sin is what is contrary to God's will.

I added — what makes the sin of a pimp more serious is that he leads others into sin. So I divided sin into some categories:

1. There's a sin that involves just involves an object or person, like stealing something -- it's a desire for something that's out of control (a disorded love)

2. There's a sin that involve harm to something or someone: destroying something or hitting someone -- violence (or hatred)

3. Then there is sin that involves thought, preparation, and a deep awareness of evil: that would be fraud, lying or betrayal. (using reason to serve evil)

4. And at the deepest layer of hell, a place for those who drag others into sin. And this brings us to the pimp. He exploits two weaknesses: the desire of men for sex without the relationship of marriage and without respect for the woman, and the desire of women for money and combines the two temptations into three sins: That of the man, the woman, and his own. The new word for "panderer" is "enabler".

And when you think about it, in the Genesis account of original sin, there's a bit of a pimp in Satan who temps Eve with the fruit, namely pride and the offer of knowledge.

for those who love entertainment...

This post is targetting towards the entertainment lovers, those who love the entertainment industry/field. Yes. It does come with the menu in KL.

It all happened in the same day, same weekend.

For those who love music industry, we had some local flavor mixed in just in front of LowYat Plaza. In conjunction of some blood donation activities, these local young artistes were invited to perform on stage to give the donation drive a boost, while promoting their own career.

We had a list of young performers, and one newcomer.



It all happened just right in front of LowYat Plaza.

First to perform was Chen WeiQuan (陈威权).



Up next is Chen YiYi (陈依依).





Sweet looking girl, isn't she?

Then we have Chen RenFeng (陈仁丰).



From some source, he's a graduate from the same university as mine! He's an engineering graduate.



The two ladies sandwiching him are DJs from MyFM, Malaysia's famous chinese radio station. I find the girl on the right (the one with "I love MyFM" printed on the shirt) very sweet. Just nice.


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Very much of the girl-next-door-type right? She's Ngan MeiYan (Cantonese pronunciation) of MyFM.



The DJs with the singer and the fans.



Next - moving back to Time Square, where there will be more entertainment awaits. The Movie Carnival 2006 also allocated some time for the dancers to perform on stage. These group of dancing queens flew all the way from Down Under - Australia.

The group had a blend of young and experienced talents.



The girls preparing for their dance routines for the performances.



Very strong Aussie presence huh?



Acrobatic moves by the dancers.


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End of routine 1.

Eventually, they were not done there. The girls gave their best to hype the crowd up. Dancing and smiling, and even cheering to fire up the atmosphere there. Despite their effort, Malaysians, whom are shy in nature, didn't really join in the fun. They just stood there as cold as a stone. It sure took them a long long time to warm themselves up.



Change of costume for their 2nd phase of the performance. They were sporting a more sporty outfit this time round. (The girl on the far right seems to be the leader of the group)





"Come on! Let's dance.. Whooooawww.."





When they had this move...
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Just see how the crowd reacted...
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Stare, stare and more stares.. and probably *slurp* as well.



Finally, when the girls were done, they thanked the crowd and sent themselves back to the backstage the Aussie way. Waving the Australian flags, they girls retreated to the back stage. They are really proud to be Australians!

setting my sight on...

For a short update before I go off to Malacca tonight.

There will be one more entry I'd like to share, but it'll be a heavy load of photographs. So, I'll upload when I'm back from Malacca early next week.

Kuala Lumpur, it sure does have most of the things people want, like nice cars, babes, entertainments, and some nice city view, which is good for photography-lovers.





Time Square and its reflection off another building.







I wandered off around Bukit Bintang area that day. And, I saw this!



"Sarawak - Paradise of Borneo" - very well-said, indeed.

I am setting my sight to do a review on this shop next time round, hopefully soon.

Separated at Birth

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align=left width=300 alt="Wall Street Journal line drawing" title="Wall Street Journal line drawing">

"Peacemaker" – for Serious Gamers Only : Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Mar. 31, 2006 - A Palestinian suicide bomber blows up a bus, leaving the newly elected Israeli prime minister to puzzle over a response.

The complex choices facing leaders in the Middle East have long confounded observers. But two graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University are hoping their video game based on the conflict will help players find solutions - and raise capital for their new company.

Asi Burak and Eric Brown, along with a team of other students, have spent more than a year building PeaceMaker, a computer game that attempts to simulate the violence and political turbulence of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

My son was on the development team but accepted a position with another game producer in January.

Both he and I hope that there's a market for videogames that are not merely "shooters" but offer some other entertainment value.

Pray for the Church in China

John Allen, Vatican correspondent of the National Catholic Reporter writes in the Wall Street Journal (paid subs reqd.)

Church and (Communist) State

When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, this historical resentment, combined with the Vatican's ties to the Chinese nationalists in Taiwan, made relations between Rome and Beijing impossible.

Pope John Paul II tried hard to break that stalemate. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, famously said in 1999 that his boss would move the Vatican embassy from Taiwan to the mainland "not tomorrow morning, but tonight," if only the Beijing government would negotiate.

I want to say that over time, my views here have changed. I had believed that the Vatican diplomats were prepared to sell the faithful, Underground Church, down the river. I believe that Pope Benedict is not going to let that happen. The article continues:

The pope's foremost concern is to defend the basic human rights of the estimated 13 million Catholics on the mainland. This isn't a negligible issue. While antireligious persecution today is nowhere near as severe as in the heyday of the Cultural Revolution -- when all religions were persecuted, not just Catholics -- believers who don't worship through state-approved organizations do so at their peril.

The Cardinal Kung Foundation, an activist group, estimates that there are seven Catholic bishops in China currently in prison, 10 under house arrest and one in hiding -- not to mention 23 priests either in jails or forced labor camps. To put this into perspective, official Chinese statistics put the total number of Catholic bishops in the country at 69, with some 5,000 priests, though perhaps as many as 40 "underground" bishops are not counted in those numbers.

As I wrote in the title, please pray for these Catholics. The 21st Century should be a century with many saints who die after living full lives and not a century of martyrs.

Recovery Mode

My Lenten blogging break is over. It was extended because of the Divine Mercy novena which in my case, started on Good Friday and ended on Mercy Sunday (a/k/a) Second Sunday of Easter.

Alleluia, He is Risen.

men just love these!

For Automobile Lovers

Kuala Lumpur is a city where men (at least for most Malaysian men) love the most. It has everything men can ever dream of. Nice car, hot babes and money. At least, it was a safe bet to say these while I was out over the weekend.

Saturday alone got me bumping into these..

Pick your choice!



Mazda RX-8 (with Sarawak Car Plate! How nostalgic.. )
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Nissan 350z Convertible!!

For Online-Game Lovers, and Hot Chick Lovers!

There was also this promotion going on for this online game - Water Margin Online (水浒历险). It is the latest Chinese (I think it's originated from Korea) MMORPG. According to the leaflets there, it's FREE for life. Also, it says it's only opened for Beta testing only.



One of the highlights of the event.

I think there was some sort of competition going on prior my arrival. When I was there, they were announcing winners already. I really had no idea what was going on.

Regardless, there are other attractions there. For such events, it is definite to have models to dress up as the characters in the game. I was not out of luck. I managed to meet few of them while they were performing their duties.


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Do take note that these are not professional models (It's obvious, isn't it?) They are just part timers, which I believe most of them are students. In fact, I did see a familiar face there.



This guy on the left, is the familiar face I was referring to. He looked familiar to me when I first saw him. However, it took me almost a week to confirm who he was. I would say, he's the better looking guy model around that time. But, height was really not an advantage for him. Poor thing..

Next! I believe this one would be many guys' favourite. She stood out from her ranks, mostly thank to her outfit, rather, to the way she brought herself out. Her duty was just to distribute free CDs and posters to the patrons there.



Given with only one ordinary T-shirt. She had her own combination with her skirt. I am not good at describing this.. so, I'll just let my photos do the talking.


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Now, with the comparison.. Is that clearer?



She is not really that bad either, isn't she? She sure did good job catching guys' attention that day. ;-)

Love Love Love - Lovers!

Short Note: A lightsabre shown in this entry costs about RM 500 per sword, and about RM 800 for Darth Maul's double lightsabre.

Time Square, and Bukit Bintang (Star Hill) are just places for lovers!

Really. You see, they have this movie carnival for the movie lovers. Not only they brought the share of new movies and trailers to people in Time Square. They also brought the movie fans back on their feet!

First, they had this...

The Nazgul.



Then, the have the V...



And, the StarWars family.



Jedi Masters meeting the fan.



The Attack of the Clone!!



The Dark sides - the Siths!



Even the LOTR fellowship (Gimli, Legolas and Gandalf??) joins in the fun.



More of the StarWars Gang! The good and the evil (Jedis & Siths)!



On stage: M-i: III game show..

They have various of activities going on from time to time. Also, they have participating companies from different industries joining in the carnival, trying to generate some new business leads.

First, we have the media industry - Newspaper.

Malaysian Today





Malaysian Today was conduncting some survey, trying to push their popularity in effort of getting more readers. For each of those who participated in this marketing research, they will be given a free copy of Malaysian Today, and 2 small packets of Biore wash.

Then, we had GSC with their Dragon Tiger Gate (龙虎门).

GSC is building database for their International Screening. They are giving away freebies, like free movie pass, t-shirts, discount coupons and etc., to those signing themselves up. Each signup entitles the person once chance to spin their very own wheel-of-fortune.

Short Note: Dragon Tiger Gate is the latest HK graphic-novel adaptation hit. Starring Nicholas Tze, Shawn Yu and Donnie Yuen (I think, better check the listing). The graphic-novel (comic-la!) has been around for almost 2 decades (as far as I remembered).


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Ready to spin??
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Wheeeeeeee!!!!!

No idea what that dude got, but I had gotten myself 2 free passes for a chinese movie. (I attempted twice). The free passes I got was only valid for the movie Mahjong Master (打雀英雄传). I have yet to watch the movie.

Also, they have this gaming section (Game Industry).

PC Game (Their logo is wholely 'diverted' from the one of EA games, LAME!) is also participating in this event. They were just sitting side by side with the TMNet Streamyx point.



Taadaaa! All Original/Genuine & Licensed boxes of PC games! No pirated/illegal copies please! Each game costs about at least RM 120. But they were offering special rate at only RM 79.90 per game!! And, if you wonder why most Malaysians are going for the cheaper choice.



The two girls on the left are promoters of the PC Game booth. (If you can zoom this pic, till clear enough, you can spot some 'tattoo' on the girl's neck.) The tattoo was cute one, it's lip-shaped. So, putting it on the neck makes it as though it's a love-bite casted on the girls' necks. Again, I didn't have gut to ask them to pose for me.. *sigh*



View from the top, and the otherside of the rack. I must say that, there is this one game that triggers my interest. It's the X-Men game, called X-Men: Legacy.. or something like that. It seems that this X-Men game is made into the RPG-Strategy (RPG = Role Playing Game) genre, rather than the usual action cum arcade-fighting genre. I must check it out much later, go for cheaper choice!

Credit to the others who also featured in the Movie Carnival 2006!



AOE with their Re-Cycle booth partition.

Short note: Re-Cycle is the latest horror flick by the Phang Brothers who made fame with their highly successful horror The Eye, which had our Malaysian singer-actor Li XinJie (李心洁) won herself the Best Actress award in her debut film.



And, this Black Box (Theatre Screening). It was just a dark room set up just like cinema's seatings, while having non-stop trailers being projected on a plasma tv on the wall.



Special Thanks to Wall's ice-cream vendor, and the 'special' appearance by Tom Cruise..

Also NOT forgetting...


Those we do not see everyday...
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Those who are around us, but we do not see them..
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THEM!!!



RUNN!!!!!!



Zombie on the loooose!!!

These 2 dudes, especially the girl, did a great job in playing as a zombie.. or a ghost? Whichever it is, she sure brought the ghostly side well. Many of the patrons/visitors were given a good shock treatment when she just walked pass them emotionlessly. ;-)

That wraps up for the movie lovers!

More LOVERS to come!