RIFLE RANGE BOY

Squid Games 2 (Korean; 2024) Miniseries, E1-E7. Continuing with  Season 1 ,  Squid Game (SqG) moves into a new set of games featuring a fresh group of players. Admittedly, SqG 2 is not as captivating as its predecessor. The storyline is predictable, and viewers can easily discern who will survive and which characters will likely be eliminated.   Nevertheless, while engrossed in the miniseries, I noticed that the entire storyline symbolises the challenges Malaysia's thinking voters face regarding democratic governance under their duly elected government. To provide context, the games in SqG2, much like those in SqG1, involve teamwork and lethal consequences for the losers. An amendment was made to the clause allowing players to vote on whether to proceed to the next game. After each match, the accumulated betting money increases. If the players, by majority, choose to discontinue, the funds would be divided equally, and the games would be halted. Humans, being inherently h...

Unless you have living in shell away from the evils of social media, you should be aware of the brouhaha of late of the cyber display of the advertisement publicizing '2014 Penang's International Nude Sports'. Let us leave the merits and appropriateness of flaunting one's modesty for others to judge to theologians and esteemed philosophers to argue it out. I was  particularly intrigued by some of the comments posted by supposedly learned members of the public. Some criticized not because of their brazen differing morality standards but rather because they were not impressed with what they saw. They commented that it is an embarrassment when they exhibit their seemingly unimpressive bodies, visually unappealing. We, as a society, seem to have brain washed into believing that the human body is supposed to look like what is seen on the celluloid screens of Hollywood and Bollywood. Anything disproportionate to that standard is unacceptable. Period. Not fit to be recorde...

The Golden Ball, a British game show is said to be able to show the conniving nature of humanity. In the last round of the show, the remaining two contestants face a face-off to win the jackpot money (lots of it). They are given two golden balls with either split or steal written on it. If both contestants choose split, the prize money would be split between them. If both choose steal, both go back with nothing. If one chose steal and the other chose split, the one who chose split will end up as the stupid fellow goes back empty-handed whilst the steal goes with the lion's share of the loot. So the rush is for the contestant not to be the stupid fellow who is slouched in the chair disappointed! In the previous shows, even the girl-next-door goody two shoes looking blue eyed dumb looking blondes had taken their opponents for a ride and mean looking tattooed and moustachioed dudes had failed. This guy, Nick had a final round face off with Ibrahim below. Nick's strategy was tha...

There was a time when members of the fairer sex were expected to stay that way - stay fair skinned, at least for the high heeled, away from the melanocytic activity enhancing UV light and powdering themselves smoothly pretty. They confined to the spectator pen to add splendour to the event but not as contestants. Their participation in international sporting events were only sanctioned by the governing bodies as late as early 20th century. From then on, female contestants competed amongst themselves till some of them actually perform better than their average male counterpart. In 2012, the number of female contestants equal that of the male in the Olympic Games. Fast forward to the 21st century... A new breed of reality based competitions have emerged. A competition where men and women can compete as equals without any handicap given. One competition that I had the chance of viewing was Wipeout. It is a very outdoors physical intensive kind of competition which involves ha...