This is a long overdue post. Last weekend, while Smartass, Girly Girl and friends were north-bound in preparation for the exams (it's in less than one week!), I headed south to Kukup, a fishing village in my homestate. It's a great place if you happen to go with good company; otherwise, there's nothing much to do (unless you're into karaoke and wish to prime that voice of yours for the next round of Malaysian Idol competition). I enjoyed the trip to the world's largest mangrove swamp island and the kelong (fishing outpost) though.

So, Jac is our very first Malaysian Idol, huh? Hmm, why isn't that at all surprising? I was actually rooting for Dina; in part because she's rather good and partly because Jac had more than enough fans voting for her.

In case you're wondering, I'm not exactly one of those guys who would rather risk dissapointment supporting the underdogs. As a matter of fact, I love winners, people who have an upperhand. And in Singapore Idol, I see champions in the like of Daphne, Leandra, Maia, Olinda and Taufik (Slyvester is a crowd favourite though). Singapore Idol's Rock and Roll week was simply amazing unlike the fiasco in Malaysian Idol. While this week's performance was less dazzling (the theme was disco), the fab five still put up a rather great show. One of the reasons I watch Singapore Idol is because of the judges; they are, I'm happy to say, still as witty as ever (Ken Lim is still as uptight; funny at times though).

You really have to tip your hat off to the people over at Fremantle for coming up with the Idol franchise. The show isn't exactly original, but what's commendable is that Freemantle has managed to elevate a simple talent show into fad status. Originality, it seems, isn't Freemantle's forte; The Swan, another of its legion of reality shows, for instance, simply takes Extreme Makeover a step further. It bills itself as the "most unusual beauty pageant ever devised". Unusual it certainly is; each week two "ugly ducklings" will be transformed surgically into "swans". They will then be judged on their overall transformation and the most-transformed of the two will move on to compete in a beauty pageant devised to choose the prettiest of the transformed-lot. Dumb and distasteful, but as TV goes, it's a good watch.

Picture above was taken at Tanjung Piai (Piai Cape); the southern most tip of peninsular Malaysia (see this map). It's also the southern most tip of mainland Asia, just so that you know.

Before signing off, I wish to extend my good wishes to Muslim friends and visitors to Odds&Ends; may you have a blessed Ramadhan month!