…probably not available in the Guinness Book of World Records or Ripley’s Believe It or Not
In Wikipedia’s list of best-selling single-volume books of all time, only a few days after its launch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In comparison, the best selling book of all time is The Holy Bible
The rest of the all-time top 10 list is primarily made up of religious or political-type books, as listed below:
The Star reported on 25 July 2007 that in an interesting twist, a Nigerian is the one who is scammed, instead of him doing the scamming. Not to discriminate against Nigerians in general, but unfortunately the very term “Nigerian scam” has entered the general psyche.
S. Arikrishnan, 38 of Klang achieved the rare feat of allegedly scamming Nigerian Muhammed Momodou Njie of RM234,000 (about USD68,000) on 12 October 2005, by leading the Nigerian into believing that he could supply cooking oil worth the said amount. He got so far as getting Mr Njie to agree to a Letter of Credit for payment of that amount.
29th August has been fixed as the date for mention of the case at a magistrate’s court.
What is the world’s greatest 100m sprint race? Of course any occasion where a world record is broken is special, but IMHO it has to offer more than that. To me, there are a few contenders.
It could be the 2004 Olympics, where for the first time, 4 men dipped below 9.90 seconds. This is reputedly the race with the fastest ever average time for the finishers: 9.93s. Check out the final score:
1. Justin Gatlin (USA) 9.85 s (Personal Best, World Record at that time is Maurice Greene’s 9.79s set in 1999)
2. Francis Obikwelu (Portugal) 9.86 s (African record?)
3. Maurice Greene (USA) 9.87 s (Season Best)
4. Shawn Crawford (USA) 9.89 s
5. Asafa Powell (Jamaica) 9.94 s
6. Kim Collins (Saint Kitt’s & Nevis) 10.00 S (Season Best)
7. Obadele Thompson (Barbados) 10.10 s
* Ghana Aziz Zakari (Ghana) (Did Not Finish)
Rambo: First Blood (1982): Bring in the chopper (helicopter)! -> Bawa kapak!
Goodnight, cutie pie. -> Selamat malam, kuih manis
Serial killer -> pembunuh bijirin (cereal killer)
Star Wars (?): We are approaching light speed (?) -> kami tengah menuju halaju ringan
A war movie: Duck! -> Itik!
Another war movie: Fire! -> Api!
Romancing the Stone -> Berasmara Dengan Batu
Saving Private Ryan -> Simpanan Peribadi Ryan
Hi Babe -> Hi Bayi
I mean business -> saya bermaksud perniagaan
On comedy sitcom How i Met Your Mother, a character says “Cheap Trick” (the name of the US band playing on the jukebox) is translated as “Helah Murahan”
…and did you hear the one about how Sly Stallone spoke Bahasa Malaysia in Judge Dredd: I am the law -> Ayam Telor
It’s not North Korea in 1966. It’s not Korea Republic in 1954. The answer might surprise you. Before the Second World War started, for the 1938 World Cup, Indonesia qualified, under the name Dutch East Indies. Of course you could argue that since they have not achieved independence, most of the players could’ve been of Dutch descent.
But surprisingly, that is not the case, at least judging from the name of the players in the starting eleven. There are at least 5 Asian-sounding names in the first XI: Tan Mo Heng (Goalkeeper), Achmad Nawir, Tan Hong Djien, Suvarte Soedermadji, Anwar Sutan. Added to that, there are at least 2 Asian-sounding names in the reserves list: Bing Mo Heng and Tan Se Han. The coach was Johannes Van Mastenbroek.
Unfortunately, they only played in one match (no round robin matches then), and that against the mightly Magyars. The match took place at 5pm, 5th June 1938 at Reims, France in front of about 9,000 spectators.
Indonesia lost that match 0-6, and Hungary went on to reach the finals where they lost to Italy.
The above is not a photograph! It’s a painting by Dru Blair, probably the world’s best photorealistic artist. It was completed in February 2005 in “around 65-75 hours.”
Detail of nose/mouth area:
In his own words:
Subtle nuances created by an xacto knife, an eraser, and some colored pencil can build convincing skin texture. The etcetera technique also helps the believability of the skin and hair texture. Fine hair is created using my shield-reveal technique, and my split frisket technique. Airbrush constitutes about 99% of the image.
The model is Tica, of whom he created a reference by taking a digital photograph of her in his studio, then printed it.
On photorealism, he said:
As a style, Photorealism has a few detractors, who often dismiss it as pointless, or non-art. They fail to realize that many photorealistic paintings are not mere copies of photographs, but interpretations of reality based on the artist’s vision. The act of merely copying a photograph has no artistic merit except to hone one’s artistic skills… This painting of Tica is not just a copy of a photograph, but is a product of many artistic decisions, whereas I deviated from the reference photo for more aesthetic appeal… Photorealism is by far, the most difficult artistic style to master.
Elements of photorealism are proportion, color fidelity, scale, perspective, edge transition, subtlety, non-contrivance (chaos), object relationship, light and shadow, reflection, radiosity, transparency, texture, atmosphere, depth of field, weathering (wear and tear), flaws, detail, and it all has to make visual sense.
If any of these elements are amiss, the painting will fail as a photorealistic image. In truth, these elements are simply descriptions of the visual experience of reality. If an artist ever wanted to put his or her artistic skills to the test, there is no greater master than reality.
A little bit about Dru Blair: (more…)
It must be during U2’s Zoo TV Tour in 1992 in Stockholm when they are joined by Abba’s Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus onstage, while U2 lead singer Bono sings Dancing Queen, then says things like “we’re not worthy” and “this is definitely one of the most surreal moments of my life.”
Prominent football / soccer magazine, Soccer World has recently conducted a global poll of experts to determine the greatest matches of all time. Among them are Liverpool’s come-from-behind win against AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League Final (ranked second), England’s 4-2 win against West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final (ranked seventh) and Brazil’s 4-1 win against Italy in the 1970 World Cup final (ranked eighth).
But the one which towers among them all happened on 17th June 1970 during the 1970 World Cup in a game which surprisingly did not feature the greatest team of all time, the incomparable Brazilian side of 1970.
Instead it was a match between Italy and West Germany, dubbed the Game of the Century.
For sheer drama, even the Liverpool-AC Milan Champions League Final of 2005 cannot compare.
Italy scored at the 8th minute and led until injury time when Karl-Heinz Schnellinger equalised for the Germans. German TV commentator Ernst Huberty could hardly have chosen his words better when he exclaimed “It had to be Schnellinger!” Schnellinger played in the Italian Serie A with AC Milan, for whom he did not score a single goal. It was his first goal in 47 matches.
During extra time, a staggering 5 goals were scored. It is the one and only World Cup game ever to have five goals scored in extra time!
The extra time goals:
- Gerd “Der Bomber” Müller (West Germany): 94th, hence giving the Germans the lead for the first time in the match. Score 1-2.
- Tarcisio Burgnich (Italy): 98th. Score: 2-2.
- Luigi Riva (Italy): 104th. Score: 3-2.
- Gerd Müller (again!): 110th. Score 3-3. Picture:
- As TV cameras were still replaying Müller’s goal, Gianni Rivera, unmarked near the penalty box, put away Boninsenga’s cross. Score: 4-3.
Such is the magnitude of the match that a monument has been erected commemorating the match in front of Aztec Stadium.
I think it was said by Michelle Pfeiffer in 1983. The movie is Scarface 
Can’t you stop saying fuck all the time?
The following clip shows all (or almost all) the F-words said in that movie, and at 1:02 you can see how Michelle Pfeiffer said her infamous line.
Prominent football / soccer magazine, Soccer World has recently conducted a global poll of experts to determine the best goals of all time. While there’s probably no argument that Diego Maradona’s 2nd goal against England in Argentina’s 2-1 quarterfinal victory in the 1986 World Cup should be the greatest goal of all time, it might come as a surprise that a goal scored by an Asian has made it into the list of the 10 greatest goal to have ever been scored in a football match.
To be exact, number 4 (some say 6) on the all-time list.
That person is none other than the great Saeed Al-Owairan (then 27) of Saudi Arabia, in the match against Belgium, World Cup 1994 1st round, on 29th June 1994. In the 5th minute, in front of more than 52,000 spectators, Al-Owairan weaved his way from his own half through 5 Belgian players before slotting the ball past Michel Preud’homme, one of the best goalkeepers of his generation, and the first winner of the Yashin Award as the best goalkeeper of that World Cup.
That earned him the nickname “The Maradona of the Arabs”. He played 50 times for Saudi Arabia, scoring 24 goals. He also played in the 1998 World Cup.
Playing in their third match of their first World Cup, Saudi Arabia scored a stunning 1-0 upset, finished 2nd in their group behind perennial World Cup giants Holland and went through to the next round. Unfortunately, they then lost 1-3 to in-form Sweden who went on to finish 3rd in the tournament. Still, surely that’s the best ever showing by the Saudis in a World Cup finals, as they failed to go through the first round in the next three world cups, including that humiliating 8-0 defeat by Germany in 2002.
