Can I Have A Light, Doug?

I'm tired. Really, I'm honestly physically exhausted. Working a full time job, moonlighting on improving the DIS 29500 (Microsoft OOXML) specification, buying a house, selling a car, seeing the apartment building go up in flames[1], hosting two Couch Surfers, dealing with an engagement (don't get excited, it's not mine), taking this really hawt and intelligent woman[2] out and wanting to spend time with her but simply not having time to spend, takes its toll, you see.

So I'm going to keep my response to Doug's recent provocative spin-doctoring and fact-fudging [3] to a numeric series of objective observations and subjective argumentation. Make what you will of it, I personally think Doug needs to spend more time in constructive efforts (perhaps improving the specification?), and less time building elaborate conspiracy theories and flaming his "buddies" (his words, not mine).

Here goes:

1. Doug, you are claiming that you wanted a technical debate with YK and yours truly. You never contacted us prior to the PIKOM meeting and never told me that you would be present at TC4. How can you claim that you wanted a technical debate when you never bothered to get in touch with the people you wanted to debate with? Your logic simply does not compute[4].
2. Your blog post says "they threw me out before the meeting started". Well, no shit sherlock. If you turn up at a meeting without giving due notice of your nomination as an alternate representative of IASA, you really can't be surprised if they weren't too happy, eh? There are proper processes to follow in Malaysia's standards body and IASA flagrantly violated them.
3. Microsoft and IBM were specifically not invited. Doug, you are a high profile Microsoft employee and you circumvented this ruling by turning up as a Malaysian Vice President of IASA. It just doesn't sound to me that you attempted to participate in good faith basis, but rather tried to twist the rules to your favor. If you got in, why shouldn't Google, Oracle, RedHat, IBM, Sun etc all get in as well? The rules are there for a reason, you know. You have to accept that this is a Malaysian technical body, and we want the Malaysian agenda to be discussed, not the agenda of multinationals.
4. I arrived 10 minutes late, not 30 minutes late. Wrong turning on the Federal Highway, you see. Nothing to get worked up over. I have no idea when YK arrived.
5. Hitting out at Madam Tan is a new low, certainly not something I would have expected out of you[5]. I'm going to echo YK's comment and suggest that you stop burning your bridges.
6. Kamarul was invited specifically as an observer by SIRIM in the past. He did not turn up uninvited. Kamarul actually got his facts wrong on this point and was corrected by the secretariat immediately during the meeting. Kamarul acceded to his mistake during the meeting. You may wish to update your blog post accordingly
7. DSM wasn't making up the rules as they went along. Just so you know, I had to get MNCC to formally submit my status as an alternate before they would allow my participation. I'm not sure how you do it in the US but in Malaysia, there are proper processes to follow and IASA shouldn't be an exception.
8. You seem keen in arguing that there was no technical material discussed and presented. Au contra ire[6], I presented Malaysia's dispositions, output from the BRM and gave my technical opinion on the issues. You see, I actually write code for a living, I know what I'm talking about and am willing to defend it too[7]. Mr. Cheong (from the infamous IASA) did not raise a single issue with my interpretation of the technical deficiencies at hand and instead started discussing non-issues ("if Malaysia votes NO, Microsoft will never open anything up ever again"[8]). In fact, Mr. Cheong specifically declined to discuss the technical issues. I see hypocrisy in you blogging that there was no technical discussion when there was indeed such an opportunity present and your organization (or more correctly, Microsoft's front) chose not to engage in it.
9. I think Hasan was in SIRIM to hit on a secretary. Female, and from what I hear, quite the MILF-ish. Really, you should have stayed, if not for seconds, then for the entertainment.

There you go. I'm not going to pursue this any further (but Doug, do feel free to write another scathing post, I've got /dev/null all prepped up and ready here). I just felt folk reading Doug's blog and OpenMalaysiaBlog should be able to see this from another perspective. Specifically mine. Either that or this is just another excuse for more sandiwara (translation: drama).

You know, we Malaysians just love our sandiwara, especially since the election-fever recently ended and no new gossip seems to be making its rounds. Oh well, lets hope Doug keeps us entertained for another week or so (planning to infiltrate other National Bodies? I hear the Singaporeans are bored).

[1] Well not really, but it sure did feel that way.
[2] Mmmmph!
[3] If this a job requirement at Microsoft? That may explain why I never got called in for an interview.
[4] Which is really not a bad thing. It busts the myth that Vulcans inhabit Redmond. I, for one, am f*&#ing glad. I must admit you guys scare me at times with the paranoia but as long as it's not backed up by sheer cold and calculating logic, I guess we're cool.
[5] Well, maybe I expected the stalker to do the dirty hatchet job, but definitely not you Doug.
[6] Slpelnig may be fubared, I couldn't give a shit. Read the first line of this blog post again.
[7] This is really why chicks dig me. That and the 200 dollars I'm willing to part with.
[8] I must admit that this is my favouritest bad argument, ever. Partly because it was quite unexpected (Mr. Cheong does strike me as a fairly intelligent chap) but mostly because the argument is so mindbogglingly stupid.

Comments

[Ditesh]

This particular post had no comments, yours was the first. Are you referring to other posts?

[odd]

Odd, I remember some comments showed up on this page a few days ago, and now they are gone (from Doug).