A bit too close to home: Thailand bomb blast

I called home to Malaysia today, and my dad picked up the phone. After some initial chit-chat, he mentioned rather casually that Uncle Tom from Singapore had come up north for a visit and they had gone across the border to Sungai Golok, Thailand, earlier in the day for lunch.

A scant few hours after they'd returned. Someone detonated a bomb outside a karaoke bar in Golok.

It's going to sound selfish of me to say this, but Thank God my parents left early and nothing happened to them.

Golok is just a 30-minute drive from my house. My family frequently pops over the border on weekends for a meal and some change of scenery.

You read about tragedies like the Madrid bombing in the news and you feel bad, but it never ever hits quite as hard as when the thing involved is somewhere you know and people you love.

Damn the bastards. Damn them all to hell.

It did bring to my attention that the Malaysian Press are absolutely pathetic, though. Of this posting, Neither The Star nor the New Strait Times have reported this incident in their respective websites. Considering it happened almost 12 hours ago and a number of the casualties were Malaysian, I can only shake my head at their inefficiency. News of Malaysia Online... 1 day too late. Heh.

Utusan had a brief article up, but it sadly got most of the facts wrong. Coffee shop? You call yourself a journalist? I regret to note that The Sun, a UK Tabloid that features toples women on page three, beat you to it and had the facts right! Oh for the love of...

Oh yeah, and pop into the forums for a bit, I'd like some opinions on some designs for the next chapter.

EDIT: In the light of this I forgot to mention... NEW FEATURED LINK! It's Loxie and Zoot!