this is asterix.

Rowan Atkinson, when asked to comment on Religious Hatred Law. “To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion – that is right. That is a freedom.” I don’t know about you, but it sounded so wrong to me. OK, criticizing people’s race is wrong. But criticizing their religion is undoubtedly correct? Hmm…I’ll leave that thought for you to decide. Another thing, while I was having breakfast, my friend came out with this statement, “Since when do men care about their weight?” What on earth is wrong with that? So, now it is wrong for men to care about weight? I mean, I care about my weight and I am sure lots of other men out there who care about their weight. Huh. Ciao ciao.

The world is flat. That is so true. With globalization in place, the world is definitely getting flatter each day. For example, you have a problem with your computer and you want to sort it out by calling the customer service centre. The person on the other end answers the phone and attends to your call efficiently. You are happy and satisfied because your computer problems have now been solved. But, you didn’t realize that you’ve just talk to a person who lives halfway across the world, say Mumbai. The thing with businesses today, their main goal is profit maximization, and by that it also means that they want to minimize costs as lower as possible. Hence, you have companies based in the UK having their calling centre in India. It is all in the name of minimizing production costs. Take China for example, almost 70-80% of manufactured goods in China are for the international market. I mean, that many products are not even made for China market. While all of this is good because people

This coming Sunday and Monday are two days that cannot be forgotten by many people in this world. These two days are very important to them. First of all, this Sunday is the beginning of the Chinese Lunar Year of Dog. And with that, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Chinese people a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year! Come Monday, the Muslims will come out and celebrate the New Year of 1427 Hijr. And with that, I also want to wish all Muslims all over the world a Happy New Year. May the New Year be celebrated with resolutions to become a better Muslim and a better servant to the Almighty. Whatever the reasons are for celebrating New Year, let it reminds us that all of us are citizen of a one big nation – a human nation. Let it reminds us that as a citizen of a big nation, it is our responsibilities to make this world a better place to live in. Let it reminds us that only us can initiate peace as well as we can initiate war. And let it reminds us that whatever difference

“These people are earning less than $5 a month.” I think Kaicito’s argument is valid. It is true that when we are talking about people’s income specific to a country, we cannot simply the monetary value between one country and another. If we look across the globe, $5 in Mozambique might be different with $5 in China or Malaysia or Brazil. Hence, just by saying that some people in a certain country are earning $5 a month is not adequate enough to say that they are worse off compared to other people in different country. Perhaps, what we should do is to actually look at their purchasing power parity in each country. And then we can say the payment that they receive for their labour is worth it or not. Well, when I came to this conclusion, it doesn’t mean I am a very strong supporter of Starbucks because I don’t drink coffee. Haha. But one thing for sure, by this time, Starbucks would have sorted out this slave labour issue. It’s because we have seen companies’ image tarnished for a while

The weekend is finally here. I love weekends. Don’t you just love weekends? I know that I might not be living in London where you can let your hair down on the weekends like mad. But a weekend is still a weekend and I really love weekends! So, what’s with this weekend? There is nothing much except finishing up my assignments that seems to be growing each day. I have one presentation for Current Issues in Business Management and the Environment in 5 weeks’ time. Another assignment is a literature review on foreign direct investment which will due in mid-February. Next is a case study for Marketing and Management for Business. Last time I did a case study on Starbucks. This time, it will be Volkswagen and Coffee-mate. And yes, another case study of either Kellogg’s or McVites or Cadbury for my Environmental Management for Business. It does sound like a little bit too much. But again, I am not doing it all at once because each assignments have different due dates. So, I can safely say tha

I know nothing about Africa really. But then, when I wrote about Starbucks in the last two posts, a friend told me about what happens in Africa. He said that Starbucks are exploiting Africans cheap labour. He said, and I quote “These people are earning less than 5 dollars per month.” I do not know how true this statement is. I tried to look it up but I have not found anything yet and maybe because I am too ignorant when it comes to this. If any of you have any information about this, please, by all means, inform me. Now, back to the poorest continent that is Africa. I read these few things from the internet and The Economists. Here are some of them. GEOGRAPHY Africa is the second largest continent in the world. Only Asia is bigger. Because it has very few jagged coasts and bays, Africa has the shortest coastline of all the other continents. Three-fourths of Africa is in the tropics. Africa is almost an island. Its only connection to the other land is the tiny Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

Here is the second part of my case study of Starbucks Coffee. In the last case study, I mentioned about the factors that contributed towards Starbucks’ successful story. In this second part, I tried to evaluate Starbucks’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. STARBUCKS COFFEE: A CASE STUDY II Starbucks Coffee has certainly made an impact to the coffee-culture all around the world. They might not be the first, but they have managed to be a leader in this coffee-culture. Now, we want to see what the things that contribute towards Starbucks’ success are. First of all, Starbucks offers great choices to the consumer. A typical coffee drinker can come into any Starbucks store and ask for a coffee from the many choices available. This is certainly an advantage for Starbucks especially at the beginning of 70’s because other coffee stores did not offer as many choices as Starbucks were. Starbucks, being an established company have created a brand for themselves. People are now ass

Here is my case study of Starbucks Coffee. This is the first part of the case study. STARBUCKS COFFEE. Whenever people mention Starbucks, we will always think of the smell of coffee, big purple sofa, coffee in a big mug and so forth. As one of the executives of Starbucks actually said, “ We’re not in a business of filling bellies; we’re in the business of filling souls.” Kotler et al (2005: p80). Starbucks emerged as one of the pioneer in premium coffee brand. First started in the United States, Starbucks now already have almost 6000 stores all over the world. By projecting themselves as a premium coffee brand, Starbucks have to charge a high price for their coffee. And, according to economics rule, if a firm charged a high price to their products, quantity demanded will fall. However, looking at Starbucks case, even with a high price, they still managed to record large sales from their worldwide stores. Hence, we would like to know why people are willing to pay up to $3.15 for a cup

Before I go to bed tonight, I just want to continue with my review on the next two participants in the coming Anugerah Juara Lagu (AJL). Following Taat is Awan Yang Terpilu. Composed by Lin Li Zhen and lyrics written by Loloq. I personally like this song very much. And I think, the fact that Awan Yang Terpilu won Song of the Year Award in the recent Anugerah Industri Muzik(AIM) says very much about the credibility of this song. I am not saying this song will definitely win the Best Song Award because its competitor in AIM is not the same as in AJL. Hence, Awan Yang Terpilu might not be able to win at all. Again, this is just my view and not a certain prediction. Ning Baizura however, has other things in her mind. She said that she doesn't really mind whether the song will win or not because she is going to concentrate on winning the Best Vocal Award(Please refer this to Utusan Malaysia Online ). I don't have doubt that she can win that award but, her rival like Jaclyn Victor, A

OK, before I head to my first lecture. I have been reading about this officer from Road and Transport Department(JPJ) and this motorcyclist. The story is like this. This boy ride his or rather his father's motorcycle without licence. Unfortunately that day, this boy was caught in the act by the JPJ officer. And as any normal JPJ officer would do, they flag him and asked him to stop. But, this boy, being clever and nervous as he should be, decided not to stop. So, this angry, annoyed JPJ officer threw a chair to this boy. I am not quite sure what happened after that. But one thing for sure, this angered the people of the village. And all the villagers(just like in the 50's) decided to 'pay' this officer a visit, if you know what I mean. And hence, this issue came out as national issue in Malaysia. And if you happen to read the newspaper in Malaysia, some support the officer's action and some support the villagers' action. OK, here is the deal, the boy clearly bro

I woke up 17 minutes later than usual. And I am not complaining. Just want to say that I woke up a little bit later than usual. Hey, it is Monday morning for God's sake. Do I have to say something? Well, yeah, really. Today, I want to comment on Utusan Malaysia Online headline. It's about this controversial case where a woman was stripped off her clothes and ordered to do ear squat. Now this so-called Royal Commission proposed the police to use scanner instead of asking the suspect to do naked ear squat. I'm not saying that I am totally against the idea of using scanner and not that I am amused to see naked people anyway. It is just that, we have been using this practice for God knows how long. And it has been the most effective way to detect drugs or weapons especially when the suspect actually hides it in their private parts. Well, there are cases like that. And just because one video leaked out to the public, they want to stop this practice. I mean, Malaysia is not the o

Three posts in a day? This must be a record for me. Haha. Some might say I am addicted to blogging, but I would say I just haven't got anything better to do. On a second thought, I have better things to do such as studying for my upcoming statistics test and completing my environmental management essay. Well, to be fair, I did wrote my essay halfway through and I am waiting for my statistics book to arrive from Amazon.co.uk before I can actually start studying statistics :D Fair enough? I'll let you decide on that. How is my day today? Things are OK except when I go down to check on my laundry just now. Well, I hang my clothes down there to let it dry. But some inconsiderate people just remove my clothes and put theirs. I don't really mind actually since they need some space for their clothes as well as I do. The thing is, one or two of my clothes are still wet. And that really pisses me off! If they really have to remove my stuff, can't they just take away the dry ones

In my Friendster Blog, I commented on Anugerah Juara Lagu. I talked about Semalakama and Elergi Sepi. Now, I will continue with the other songs. The next in line is Pop Ye Ye. This song will be the first song for Pop Rock category. Pop Ye Ye is composed by Cham, Lah, Zam and Damien while the lyrics are written by Zaf and Cham. Pop Ye Ye is actually the name of the most popular era in the 60's. That's what we call Pop Ye Ye era, where things like Agogo, BBpark are very phenomenal at that time. Anyway, back to the song, personally I think, this is a great song. Nice to listen to and have lots of fan. But, what Pop Ye Ye is lacking of is originality. I mean, this is an original song, yes and I emphasis a good song too. But, if we want to compare with other songs in the same category, this song is a little bit cliche. Just like Semalakama. I'm not saying this song cannot win, but, just saying that the chances of winning is not that great. However, knowing V.E., I think they sti

Good morning people. I woke up early today planning to call my sister in Malaysia. But, she apparently didn't pick up her phone. I've been trying to call her since yesterday and still no answer. OK, in my previous post, I said that this is my fourth blogs right? I want to correct that, I think this is my fifth blogs. Haha. Now I want to take all of you down the memory lane to all my previous blogs. My first ever blog was called asterix! just like this one. This one was from blogspot.com, and I managed to update it quite regularly for a few weeks before I ended up ignoring it because I was so busy with exam and so forth. Then, feeling guilty, I set up another blog using MSN Myspace. This is also a new feature introduce by MSN. Here, I managed to write a couple of postings and also put a LOT of pictures. Pictures of my girlfriend Faeezah and my family of course. Then again, when exam season came, I just couldn't be bothered to update it. The third one was called stories of 1

Welcome to my new blog! Hmm...including this one, this should be my fourth blog. Not that I really like to play around with blog. It's just that, I haven't really find the right kind of blog for me. Now, hopefully with my fourth trial, I will have a perfect blog for myself. I will try after this to update my blog regularly, just like I did last time with my previous blogs. And of course, I hope you, whoever reads my blog will enjoy yourself. I will certainly be enjoying myself writing about whatever I like. haha. I think, everyone should blog. Not just for other people's reading, but just for yourself. Honestly, when I started blogging, I never thought that anyone would actually read my blog. Then, a few friend of mine told me about things that I wrote in my blog. And that's fun. Anyway, I never really care at all if no one wants to read my blog. As long as I'm happy doing it, fine for me then. Well, I really should go now. I'll post more blogs some other time.