Moving In

Its kinda weird penning this post because I'm not exactly ready to sink my fingers deeply into this new blog at this very moment.

Essentially, this will be my 'not-so-new-but-still-relatively-new-blog' (get the drift of my problem writing this now?), which I intend to kickstart and fully migrate to from the existing one at http://lonerzprattlez.blog-city.com/ come the new year.

But in reality, there is the issue of moving the older postings from the previous site to here and then, only God can tell why I spent two weeks trying out different blog templates, colours, headings, blah, blah, blah and till this very second, I'm still doubting my own new year resolution - which is to blog more frequently and be happy with the look and feel that I have chosen.

Now, now, all these only sounds too familiar for my good old self - didn't I make an almost similar (if not exactly the same) resolution at the beginning of 2006? Did I live up to it?

Knock, knock...it's that time of the year for me to conduct a reality check as to whether I have successfully lived up to my own resolutions!

So folks, should everything go well and if I'm really up to the challenge of handling a more consistently frequent blogging mode in addition to mounting work plus personal stress, you'll see some newer posts here pretty soon.

Till then, season's greetings everyone :-)

Virgin Dragon Awaits Newborn

This Xmas, its not Santa who will be climbing down the chimney to leave behind presents.

This time around, the surprise is even bigger and better, especially for the folks staying in Chester, England.

I read here http://www.nysun.com/article/45568 that Flora, the Komodo dragon at the Chester Zoo, is due to give birth this holiday season and the surprise really is that she has conceived all on her own, without any help from the male counterpart.

Now, how's that for female independence...among reptiles that is!

The virgin dragon mother-to-be is said to be expecting seven young ones and what better time to celebrate their arrival than Christmas?!

Ho..ho..ho..ho & have a merry Christmas everyone!

Excuse me...the condom's too big for Indian men

Couldn't help but to laugh when I read here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6161691.stm that a survey among 1,000 Indian men concluded that the standard manufactured condom proved to be too big for their 'tools'.

First, I was amazed that there was such a 'unique' survey conducted in India and secondly, I was taken aback that the outcome of the survey got mentioned in the BBC website.

But on a more serious note, thumbs up for the two-year study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research for boldly approaching this topic in a land where sex related issues are considered to be a taboo if discussed in public.

Taxman Goes After Sperm Donors

From my days of writing tax-related stories for the Personal Money magazine, which gave me the opportunity to learn some basic hardcore facts about taxation and owings to the Inland Revenue Board in Malaysia, I learned that there is no evading tax.

One senior tax consultant told me that when it comes to tax, there is no such thing as running away from paying it - forever. You may and at times can evade paying tax for sometime but eventually, they will catch up with you and make you pay what you owe.

The consultant went on to say that with most tax authorities worldwide, its a case of 'we will hunt you and make you pay even if you already six feet under'.

The consultant didn't mean it literally but in reality, if you have illegally evaded paying tax all your life, just remember that death is by no means the end of the road - the taxman will hunt you down and whatever is payable to them will be deducted from your estate left behind for loved ones.

In line with trying to demonstrate just how serious tax authorities are when it comes to recovering what is owed to them, I found this article http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061206/hl_afp/denmarkhealthtax_061206191038 while browsing the web today.

Living in this part of the world where the word sperm hardly is mentioned in most conversations deemed to be decent, it took me by surprise when I learnt that tax authorities have now requested Danish sperm donors to declare their income from sperm donation.

It is said that in most Scandinavian countries, sperm donors are assured of anonymity but if they are now required to declare their income from sperm donations, how will privacy and confidentialy prevail, at the end of the day?

Tough question to answer? Yes, most certainly it is!

It's Still Not OK To Kiss in Indian Films

Just when I thought that the Indian film industry in particular is keeping up with Western trends, I'm proven wrong.

I mean, don't get me wrong because I'm not advocating that this is the way things should be but then, in the past few years, I have seen Indian movies churned out by Bollywood in particular featuring striking resemblance to what is accepted as a norm in English movies - such as a kissing scene.

And so, with time, I figured that the Indian community has come to terms with accepting the fact that as in real life, actors in the silver screen also kiss to make a scene more believable.

But then, I'm wrong. So bloody wrong because I read here http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-12-04T144950Z_01_DEL207809_RTRUKOC_0_US-INDIA-BOLLYWOOD-KISS.xml&WTmodLoc=OddNewsHome_C1_%5bFeed%5d-3 that a lawyer appears to have taken serious offense with a kissing scene in a hit Hindi movie between Bollywood's beauty Aishwarya Rai and hunk Hrithik Roshan.

Time and again, I hear of certain quarters being unhappy with this and that showed in a film, claiming that all these will contribute to moral decay among cultural and traditional Asian community.

Now, the pressing question is, in an increasingly free world who should be given the right to do moral policing?

And just because you are unhappy with a kissing scene in an Asian movie, would you file a legal suit?

Of course, I don't and will not question the right of the lawyer who decided to bring his unhappiness to be adjudicated by the court of law but all I'm asking is - where is this going to bring him, really?