Wet Dining: Rainy night in Kuching @ The Banquet 10 January 2009
In case you haven’t heard; it has been raining almost non-stop for the past 5 days and large areas of Kuching are flooded. And if you haven’t heard of it yet and you soon will; this is reason(s) enough to justify the massively costly Kuching Flood Mitigation Project. Bad news for most is sometimes great news for a few.
Putting my face on Facebook
Along with the relentless rain, our kayaking trips last week was swept along with it. However our kayaks were put to good use in the Batu Kawa area to help ferry Azmi’s mother-in-law and neighbours belongings to higher grounds. And we have left them there as the weatherman is predicting more rain in the next few days and chances of flooding again with the unfortunate coinciding with King Tides times. This could possibly be the worst instances of flooding in Kuching.
Revealing it all in Facebook?
Anyway I had also finally relented and took the plunge; and signed up on Facebook over the weekend after being harassed constantly asked for a good part of 2008 “whether I’m on Facebook”. I am now. So go ahead and add me as a ‘friend’. I could do with more fans friends. I don’t feel like such a social outcast anymore. *sigh*.
And I find it perversely amusing particularly with regards to the “relationship status” thingy (Do you really have to announce it if you’re uncertain? Nor do you have to say anything. Its OPTIONAL dickhead.) and the irony that some people just do not get is that this is called FACEbook for a good reason - so for chicken’s sake, put the bloody photo of your face in your profile and not some other idiotic irrelevant avatar or gravatar or whatever shit so we can tell if you are really our ‘friend’ and not some idiotic stalker, psycho or whatever. It is annoying as well as kinda stewpig really. If you are so frightened that people know who you are then don’t bloody join Facebook in the first place! Duh!
I think the prolonged wet weather is getting to me.
Not chickening out on Facebook
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Yeah even over here we read in the papers about the floods in Sarawak. My family is so lucky. For the entire 6 days we were in Kuching, the weather was near perfect. Each morning it threatened to rain, but somehow the rain came only when we have completed our activites; e.g. the kayaking trip.
With regard to Facebook. you will find that it is difficult have 2 loves. So I try to to distract my friends with it.
Sorry. I try not to distract my friends with my Facebook presence. Happy if they just remain loyal to my blog; that is.
Yeap, the floods will be used to justify the massive cost of the Kuching flood mitigation project. The project may be expanded, the price may go up and the usual cronies will reap the benefits. But there are serious questions with this project too. Is the new project another failure in the making, a Kuching Barrage 2 if you will? I hope not. But it is certainly another example of the somewhat dated method of flood control that the powers that be in Sarawak so dearly love - build dams, ditches and drains and pour as much CMS concrete as possible. Other nations are recognizing that sometimes its best to leave low lying land to be flooded, ie leave some space where the flood water can temporarily go. And of course it helps if you do not knock down every hill for quarries and log every tree in sight. The design of the new flood project may take into account standard king tides and surges but will it be able to handle a climate warning induced massive storm surge. Climate change is already upon us here in Sarawak. I just hope that the new 15 km ditch from Salak to Batu Kawah and the associated infrastructure is better designed and planned than the pathetic Kuching Barrage which has caused so much suffering to the residents of Kuching and those living further upriver.