Azuma Japanese Restaurant

A short trip with the intention of going to the PC fair but tak jadi in the end cos there wasn't anything we wanted to get from there. So, we detoured to Queensbay for a short shopping trip and ended up for brunch here.

We were early and while away the waiting time, window shopping; something which I have not done for a couple of months. We were among the first customers when they opened for business.

And the first thing I noticed was the sushi conveyor belt. Other Half and our gal were looking out for this, mochi, which has now also become a favourite of our gal. I usually give them a miss. Mochi is actually similar to our tangyuan.

This is also from the conveyor belt. Generally, the sushi bar's offering is better than Sakae Sushi or Sushi King.

I am a gindara fan and I ordered their Gindara Teriyaki set. And it's one of the better Gindara Teriyaki sets that I've had. The cod fish was lemak and cooked to the right texture. The teriyaki sauce did not overwhelm the fish. Overall, it was a nice blend of natural cod taste and the sauce. Went very well with the rice. Another thing I liked about the set was their chawanmushi. The texture was soft like good tau-huey. 8)

We tried a few orders from their menu. This is their Gyu Tenderlion Kushi Yaki, basically beef, mushroom and some capsicum grilled on skewers. Beef was very tender and succulent.

Tsukune Kushi Yaki... Tsukune is chicken meatball. Yaki means grilled. Kushi means skewer. So Skewered Chicken Meat Balls. Nice...

And the Shitake Butter Yaki which was very yummy. The mushroom soaked in the sauce and gave it a really nice buttery taste.

Hotate chahan... sounds exquisite but hotate is scallop. Chahan is fried rice. So basically, this is scallop fried rice. It's nice but not something that most of us can't cook up ourselves. For such small bowl at RM10, you might want to spend it trying something else.

Overall, the food is quite nice.

Steve Jobs ...by Walter Isaacson

The book was launched on Monday and by the same evening I was already reading it. The irony was it was made possible by the very person I was reading about. I found the book 'mesmerizing' enough to keep me glued. And 48 hours later, I was done with it, all 728 pages of it. In between, I went to do a video shoot of a kiddy sports, at the same time downloaded and installed the iOS 5 for the same friend; multitasking. I sat too with my girl with her lessons and pottered around the house, the usual never ending housework, edited some of the video and pictures on my iMac.... but I was rather disorientated and blur though, because I was caught up by the book. It's best to enjoy a read when one is free actually...

What do I think of the book? It's a good read. Rarely do we get an opportunity to read a biography, 'in his own words', the words of the person being written... but from the author's perspective. I sound confusing, I know. It would have become an autobiography had Jobs written it himself. When Jobs knew that he was going to die, he sought out Isaacson to write his biography - so that his children will know him, he said. He gave Isaacson a free hand to interview anyone, everyone and write his biography in the way he saw fit.

Reading about Jobs' growing up years was fascinating. Jobs and Gates, the two men who shaped computer technology are contemporaries. Jobs did not finish college. Neither did Wozniak until many years later. Gates dropped out from Harvard. It could be all these men were self taught but the education system must have succeeded in shaping their minds. I am impressed by the depth of their high school projects. Even though we have so much facilities and better trained teachers (on paper), we pale in comparison almost 40 years later.

Jobs was a difficult person with a reality distortion field; as how those people around him labelled him. To me, it's a more techy (and polite?) way of saying he lied when it suited him. But he was brutally honest too. I think everyone of us is like that too, often, have our own reality distortion field, but minus the brutal honesty. Most of us would prefer to keep our reality distortion field comfortable for everyone. Jobs did not outwardly seem to care how his actions might cause others to feel or think about him or the consequences that would befall him. But his genius was his ability to bring out the untapped and the genius in others, for at least those who were willing to be pushed into the unknown of themselves. And that's why he was able to do the things that he did, make his gadgets a lifestyle, change the way we do things. Despite his reality distortion field, I find him compellingly consistent, be it, his quirky food habits (he gets fixated with one kind of food, his fasts and purges), his famous mean streak, stubbornness, his focus on the products that he envisioned, and commitment. Mr. Nice Guy he was not, but life can never achieve greatness by just trying to please everyone, I think. But being consistent is a necessary good (or evil, depends on how you look at it) where this is concerned, I think.

While many of the ideas he claimed his weren't exactly his, as Jony Ive, one of those few people who understood Jobs better than most said that, had it been other companies or CEO, it would have taken good ideas weeks, months or never to come to fruition because cost (profit) would have mattered more than anything else. In one instance, when Rubinstein told him that he needed $10 million to seal what he believed is a solution (which was Toshiba's 1.8 inch hard drive. The Toshiba engineers had no idea what to do with it yet at that time) to the problem of storage of what was to become the IPod, he approved it immediately, minus all the hassle of board meetings. This is one of life's lessons which I've had good fortune to experience.

Years ago, when I was just a rookie, I transferred into a school with an enthusiastic Principal with a passion for education technology. That was almost 20 years ago. We had many conversations even though I was still very new. He liked to throw ideas at me and get my response. And through our conversations, he discovered that I had some computer skills. He wanted to set up a media room, with LCD projectors but could not find anyone willing. My youthful gungho-ness and recklessness said that it could be done but I needed 20K. It was a huge sum back in those days! Somehow, he convinced the PTA to fork out the amount of money and we went on to set up one of the first media rooms. Those were heady days for me. I learned a lot. And it was because my boss believed in me and he continued to support me by having many more conversations and encouraging me on.... even though I had many doubts after my initial recklessness. I owe a lot to that boss and am grateful to be able to work with him. Because of that experience, I embrace technological advances and changes more readily today too. But bosses like him are hard to come by these days.... made worse by the haziness of politics.

Jobs' work ethics was legendary. An organization is only as good as its head. A fish rots from the head. Again, and again in this book I find it to be quite true. The rise and fall of Hewlett Packard, Disney, Apple, IBM... they speak volumes about the people who led them. You are only as good as your head because the majority of us, come with very bendable reality distortion fields. At some point, our reality distortion field will convince us that we are doing great, bringing in good profits, etc, etc. but they can only be stretched that long before the distortion becomes reality of the opposite. Take a good look at our own country, Malaysia. The AG report for the past few years have been highlighting abuses after abuses. It used not to be this bad... imagine deferring the repairs of the roof of our National Stadium which hosts many major sports events or the purchase of useless horses. So, if anyone of us gets on our high horses, I think we should take a good look at our own reality distortion fields.

An interesting note here. I first downloaded and read the book on my iPad. And how I read it is also Jobs' legacy. It would have been rather difficult for me to get my hands on his book on launch day in the old days. Malaysia has become a smaller dot in recent years... can you imagine the iPhone and iPad being launched first in our little dot of a neighbour down south. It has a population of 5 million plus. Malaysia has more than 5 times people, more resources, yet..... Singapore developed the one source that we selectively disregard, people. Anyway, I wanted to go to the gym yesterday. It seemed such a waste of time to walk on the treadmill and not read. But I had not put the book in my iPod. Other Half had thoughtfully put it in my Dropbox for me to download and read the day before. So, in less than 5 minutes, I downloaded the Dropbox app into my iPod and then the book. It would have been a rather cumbersome task in the past to transfer files. I managed to read for 40 minutes at the gym. One stone, two birds or two stones, one bird... depends on how you look at it... That is also part of Jobs' legacy. Changing the way we do things.

And it's been a long time since I last finished a book within such a short span of time. It felt good that I could still do it, despite the stress on my presbyopic eyes. But it also made me realize something too... passion, intensity, inquisitiveness are all those catalysts required to produce that sort of life changing excellence. And unfortunately too, they are rather lacking these days in many of our young ones. This is one of the better biographies I have read... The writer left a poignant view by Jobs. He was in Turkey and he noticed that the young people there were similar to other young people everywhere else.... no Turkish iPhone, American iPhones... to the young, an iPhone is an iPhone. The world has become more uniformed than we care to admit. And here we still have archaic politicians who are still trying to convince us that a certain race is more special than others.... Technology has turned us into one global village..... it has also brought uniformity in many areas. And that happened because of Jobs who was part of the computer equation.

Book 29, a good and worthwhile read and a strange book too cos it's read so soon after the subject's death. It's another first for Jobs, I guess.

The Great Pretender

An old, old song that I used to listen as a kid cos my dad used to play it on the vinyl record... Remember those black round plasticky discs which you spin on the record player? My dad still has the player. It used to give us hours of listening pleasure. Of course, it was much to the chagrin of my mom who always felt that dad played it way too loud, disturbing the neighbours. But as a kid, I used to enjoy singing along to the familiar tunes. Anyway, this tune kept bugging me this morning.

Aren't we all pretenders at one point or other???

PPSMI... Barking up a dead tree!

The ink is already dry on the wall. The voices of authority have been sounding it out... the text books are ready. MBMMBI is set to roll but many parents, students, NGOs don't seem to want PPSMI to be phased out. Many say teaching Math and Science in BM being the national language should be elevated, that BM is the mother tongue, but they forget too for some, English is a mother tongue... politics of expediency.

Would it really make a difference, going back to BM as the medium of instruction? Some of my colleagues feel that it would. But these are also people whose language competency is deplorable to begin with. Will the students' grades go up if we revert. I think it would but the rise would not be spectacular. The passing percentages in the public exams do not seem to indicate that the medium of instruction seems to matter. But argue what we may, we have not tackled the basic issues yet. English is important but no matter how important or necessary it is, there are 2 areas which we need to look at.

One is the teacher competency. You use peanuts, you get peanuts. Guy Kawasaki in his writing talked about how Jobs believed that 'A players should hire A players'. Kawasaki modified it to 'A players should hire A+ players', though. We don't see this happening in the teaching fraternity. If anything is to go by, there was one period of time when the MOE absorbed many of those who could not withstand the rigorous demands of the corporate sector. I think there is a general feeling that the quality of teaching have deteriorated. I am inclined to think so too. The state of the teaching profession today is in part due to this decision. I think they must have felt that anyone can teach or is suitable to be a teacher. We have many uninspiring teachers today. Promotions for the really capable ones, even if they are Malays are hard to come by. Don't even begin mention the non-Malays. So in this scenario, many of our Science and Maths teachers are basically incompetent in English. PPSMI would fail because there are far less competent teachers (in English).

The MOE tried to ensure competent teachers by sending promising young people to English speaking countries like the UK, Australia and New Zealand for their basic degrees in Science at the start of PPSMI. We're slowly getting these teachers into the system. Though some of them still do not have very good command of the language, they are at least competent enough to teach in English. Now we may never know whether this group of teachers can make a difference.

The second reason is the attitude of today's students. Say what one may that attitude can be shaped, etc, etc... But one thing that stands out is students attitude is bad. The statistics speak for this too... nearly 1 in 10 drops out. School is boring, students get away with their misbehaviour a lot these days. And many teachers seem unable to control their classes. It is not uncommon to go into your average school and find teachers and students talking at the same time while class is on. Meaningful noises? Add that to the marginality of teenage years, you find yourself in a cauldron of helplessness. Discipline should enforced strictly. Lack of parental supervision, family problems coupled with inept school management.... these are among the other problems which add on to the attitude problem.

Free netbooks, scholarships... the list is unending. The message that the students seem to get is they will still get these things even though their grades are bad. The recent 1Malaysia free netbook is one such example. We are teaching our kids that one will still get 'rewarded' even if one does not work hard. Same goes for scholarships.... There is no accountability there... they get the money.

So the MOE may say that they are getting native English speakers to teach or have more English teaching periods. But for as long as attitudes do not change, we are hitting the wall with all the programmes.

Send truly competent teachers to teach the early years in primary. Perhaps that's where we ought to send the native English speakers. By the time the kids are in upper secondary, with the exam to contend with, the teachers are at wits end what and how to teach. Coupled with teenage angst and myopia, it is difficult to make progress.

As for Math and Science in English, a choice should be given to parents. After all, MARA Science Colleges are continuing to teach in English, so it was reported. It would be rather elitist to just allow that. It's crazy to do Science in BM up till Form 5 and the switch to English. It's even worse for those who attend vernacular schools. In Primary, it would be in either Mandarin or Tamil. Then from Form 1 to Form 5, BM would be the language of instruction. And if the kid moves on, English would be the next language of instruction. Crazy????

If I had a choice, I would want my kid to study Math and Science in English.... for practical reasons. I wonder about all those who are vehemently against PPSMI. What would their choice be? If they are truly concerned, why all these policies which has caused us to end up with substandard teaching. The ranking (or none ranking) of our universities in the world ranking is one such reflection of the state of our education system. Just compare National University of Singapore and University Malay. Same roots, different outcome. NUS today is well-known. It is one of the top universities in Asia. None of our best universities come even close to it. The dumbing down of whole generations because of politics.

Alternative education???

Animal Farm ...by George Orwell

LOL!!! This book brought so many chuckles here and there. Of pigs and horses, dogs and donkeys, goats and chickens... those that make up a farm. At the end of the novel, Animal Farm was renamed The Manor, the ruling animals took to walking on 2 legs instead of 4. What began with noble aims failed, because mortal nature is such that greed always surfaces when power undisputed.

This book is a satire of the Russian Revolution, the rise of the peasants against the bourgeoisie... Stalin, capitalism, Marxism, of ideological struggles so long ago. But as I read, there were many moments where I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. Pigs are smart, pigs are lazy. Dogs are loyal, running dogs... and they are us. Smart lazy pigs... they get others to do their running. They grow fat on inequalities they dupe others into believing is good. If not for the background knowledge I had at the start of the book, I could be excused for thinking that Orwell was describing my own little world, right now, in 2011.

What started of as a noble cause to create an equal society within a short time brought the animals back to square one with a few changes. The pigs (Major) started the revolution going. It was done with a noble aim, to give all animals equality and freedom. By and by, after Major died, the other pigs became what the humans had been to the animals. And the animals, unthinking and ignorant as they were, worked hard with little for themselves for the broods of pigs that came after that. Boxer, the not so intelligent but steady worker of a horse was one such animal. The pigs were smart. The got the dogs to be their bodyguards. The pigs had a good life while the other animals slaved for them. Among the ignorant animals were a few who dared speak out. They we snuffed out, executed and obedience soon prevailed. And the animals worked very hard, feeding the new noble class, not realizing that this new noble class are like them... but more manipulative; the animals that we are too.

Old classics like this are real gems of work. Creative and critical writing in one. Thinking skills too. They make see yourself in a different light; unlike today's literary works which seem to put emphasis on the superficial. I've not come across many present day books written in this vein. We should make such readings a literature read in our schools instead of those stuff that they make our 17-year-olds read.

I read this book in between all the other books that I was reading. It took a while. These days, my eyes tire easily from staring too long into the screen....

Catch 22 ...by Joseph Heller

' I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.’ ... Yossarian, pg. 442 in Catch 22. As I was getting to the end of the book, this phrase got stuck in my mind. And it basically sums up the comedy in every chapter of the book. The tragedies and human decencies in every chapter see someone else cashing in on them.

I started reading this book almost 2 months ago. When I first picked it up, I found it to be a rambling sort of book. But like many books which I persevered, it got better as I went on. Ideals are good but not all people are good is another phrase which caught my eye. Instead of the usual novel on bravery, sacrifice and everything noble that I usually read in novels about war, this one highlights the greed that turns people in opportunists in every situation and it felt like reading a comedy of errors.

One can't help but laugh at how Milo transformed his war into a business enterprise, how he profited by snitching the emergency kits and supplies on the planes for his own profit. Or how he bombed his own side just so that there is more profit for him. And how he as the mess officer 'abused' government facilities and properties for his personal gain and justifying it as a good for all - using the air force planes to source eggs, cotton, tomatoes, potatoes and everything else to prosper his enterprise. Or how Colonel Korn or Colonel Cathcart tried to advance their own careers at the price of their men's lives; by increasing the number of missions for the men each time the target is achieved. They profited greatly by working in cohort with Milo. It resulted in almost none of the original squadron members getting out alive. People cashing in on every decent impulse, every human tragedy.

I did some reading up while I was mid way through the book and discovered that the phrase Catch 22 was coined from this book. It means a no win situation. The men in the stories were in a no win situation. Survive a bomb run, only to live through another nightmarish run. And so it goes on and on because their superiors wanted more for themselves. There was no way out for these men who kept seeing their goal posts moved after getting there.

War makes us to lose ourselves. You lose either your life or ideals. Either way, a part of you dies. You can feel the characters losing themselves as you follow their brief lives in the book. War is a farce that profits those on top.... to the ones who did the actual fighting and dying, they are pumped up with huge doses of noble aims - to sum it up, freedom from the yoke of oppression. Yet those at the top live to enjoy that freedom, while those who fight for that freedom die in the process. Now, how not to become a cynic on that?

I started reading this book on my iPod Touch but ended up reading on my iPad because upon updating my iOS, i discovered that the app that I had been using all this while, Stanza would not work with the the new iOS. And that set me on another little journey to find out why. And the reason was this. About 2 years ago, Amazon had bought up Stanza. Stanza had been rated as one of the best ebook readers around and I agree. You can download books wirelessly to your iPod Touch or iPad if you had it installed on your desktop. Turns out, Amazon bought it and let Stanza die. Good small product giving big company a run for their money. Big company buys small company. Left it there to rot. And with the new iOS, Stanza is as good as dead. But I am sure the guy who wrote Stanza got a good deal.... too bad little people like me won't get to enjoy using Stanza any more.

On a note of cynicism myself, this is book 27.

Back In Time ...

This is my 3rd ebook app this year. I decided to give this a try after reading because of the good reviews I read about it. And after going through it for the past 2 weeks, I agree with the reviews. I like the idea of the 24-hour time frame analogy used in this app to represent the history of our universe; from the beginning till present day. And it helps a great deal also that the illustrations are beautiful and vivid.

Being an app also means you find multimedia elements, which enhances the presentation. They are not very detailed but sufficient enough to paint a clear picture. One can always google up more details. But before that, having the big picture helps.

In short, what I like most is the perspective presented by the app. I have always liked the use of timeline to give the bigger picture of everything, if possible. I believe that in understanding our position in the bigger picture it helps us understand things better and be better learners. When we learn things on a standalone basis without taking in the bigger picture, it's sometimes hard to see its relevance to our lives or even make sense of it. The bigger picture is usually hard to see but the makers of this app manage to do it in a way that even my primary school going kid could understand... with some help, of course.

The timeline in this app is cool. There is this black hole which you can push the topics that you are done into... in a way it represents the theory that one day, everything around us will be sucked into the black hole when our world begins to collapse.... the end of times.

The journey back in time begins with The Big Bang. The explanation is simple enough, the expansion of energy from that one point... And the makers chose the events which they felt were defining moments of our vast universe. It's a good job done considering our limited understanding of our universe. This beats a paper and print book cos you get to move the timeline and see the progress of time.

Another book under my belt. This year, my book review has gone onto another platform. I used to think that digital books would never replace the paper and print book that I grew up with. The demise of the latter is unavoidable as I can see it. We are in a transitional stage now, I feel.