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Do we even care about our own safety precautions at work? Especially for YOU who works in the office every 5 days during office hours. No matter what, your health come first! So, get the best tips @ Safe Office Practice website.

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And you’d be wrong. While your odds of having a heart attack are much higher than finding yourself in most of these scenarios, strange things happen every day. For example, almost 2.5 million people called poison centers for help in 2006. In 2004, 112,000 people died of injuries from falls, drownings, and other accidents. In 2006, search-and-rescue rangers in our national parks responded to nearly 4,000 calls, more than a third of them for people who were also sick or injured. Every year, around 3,000 succumb to choking.

Another 400 are struck by lightning, and 67 of those die from it. How do you keep yourself out of the statistics?

Besides calling 911, here’s what to do in 12 life-threatening emergencies when no one’s around to help.

LOST IN THE WILDERNESS
To avoid becoming the lead story on the evening news, be prepared. Before you head out on a hike, check the weather (you can find forecasts for many wilderness areas at wunderground.com), take plenty of water, and make sure someone knows where you’ll be and when you’ll be back. Bring clothes to keep you warm when wet, like a water-repellent jacket, says Laurence Gonzales, author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. Avoid cotton, which traps moisture. “The search-and-rescue people call it death cloth,” he says.

“Expect to get lost, and check often to make sure you’re still on the trail,” says John Dill, a search-and-rescue ranger at Yosemite National Park in California. “The minute you think you might not be on the trail, stop.” “First, you’ve got to acknowledge you’re in trouble,” adds Gonzales. If you’re not alone, focusing on the needs of others can help hold your own fears at bay. Other keys to survival: staying observant and remembering to rest. Keeping a sense of humor helps too—it reduces stress and promotes creative thinking.

The surest way to get out alive is to take basic precautions, such as stowing a survival kit in your car. Gonzales’s includes waterproof matches and chunks from fake fireplace logs for starting a fire, a folding saw for cutting branches, and a plastic tarp and cord for making shelter. Don’t forget an emergency blanket, a good knife, a first-aid kit, a flashlight, batteries, snacks, and water.

In general, people who try to find their own way out fare worse than those who stay put, says Richard N. Bradley, MD, of the American Red Cross. Find shelter before dark, and try to keep dry. Stay visible so anyone searching can see you. In a wide-open area, make a signal with colorful gear, make a big X out of rocks, or dig a shallow trench, says Dill. “The top layer of soil is a different color. Scrape it away and make straight lines, which are easy to spot from above.”

You can go several days without eating, so in most cases, you’re better off not foraging for food, since there are lots of poisonous plants in the wild, says Dr. Bradley. You need to stay hydrated, so if you run out of water, it’s usually better to drink from a stream with suspect water than to go without. If you’re stranded in your car, stay there: You’re more visible to rescuers, and the car provides shelter.

CHOKING
Richard Stennes, MD, was home alone in La Jolla Shores, California, eating a steak, when the phone rang. The 64-year-old gulped down the bite still in his mouth and answered the call. But the hunk of steak was stuck, and he couldn’t talk or breathe. He put his finger down his throat to grab the meat, but he couldn’t reach it. Gagging didn’t help either. So he walked over to the couch and forcefully thrust his abdomen on the hard arm of the couch, sending the meat flying and allowing him to breathe again.

An emergency physician, Dr. Stennes knew that if done right, this would have the same effect as the Heimlich maneuver. If you’re ever in the same situation, quickly find a chair or other piece of furniture or a kitchen counter, says Maurizio Miglietta, MD, chief of trauma at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Aim to hit the top of the chair or edge of the counter against your upper abdomen, in the soft part below the bony upside-down V of the ribs. Thrust up and inward. If you still can’t breathe after six tries, call 911 from a landline, even if you can’t talk. They’ll find you. Write the word choking somewhere nearby, and leave the line open until help arrives.

HEART ATTACK
If you’re experiencing crushing chest pain with or without pain in your left arm, are short of breath, or have a sense of impending doom, you may be having a heart attack. (Women are more likely to have atypical symptoms like severe fatigue, nausea, heartburn, and profuse sweating.) Call 911 and chew one 325 mg uncoated aspirin, to get it into your bloodstream fast. This will thin your blood, often stopping a heart attack in its tracks. While waiting, lie down so your heart doesn’t have to work as hard, says Sandra Schneider, MD, a spokeswoman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. If you think you might pass out, try forcing yourself to cough deeply. It changes the pressure in your chest and can have the same effect as the thump given in CPR, says Dr. Schneider. “Sometimes it can jolt the heart into a normal rhythm.”

If someone else goes into cardiac arrest, note that the American Heart Association now recommends CPR without the mouth-to-mouth: Call 911, then push hard and fast on the person’s chest until help comes.

IMPALEMENT
This doesn’t happen only in horror movies. Tornadoes and hurricanes can fling debris for miles, and even recreational hobbies like fishing or archery can be hazardous. Just ask James Bertakis. The 81-year-old Florida man fared better than Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, who was killed in 2006 when a stingray struck him in the heart. Bertakis was impaled when a stingray jumped into his boat and hit him directly in the chest. He didn’t remove the barb but piloted the boat to land and got help.

If you have something stuck in any body part, including your eye, don’t remove the object, says Richard O’Brien, MD, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. “The object may be compressing an artery that would otherwise start bleeding like crazy.”

If you’ve been struck by a branch or some other hefty object, try to trim it, breaking off the part that’s protruding from your body, but don’t pull it out.

SWIMMING EMERGENCIES
Riptide: Dr. Stennes is either extremely lucky or has a knack for putting his life in danger. In addition to surviving choking, he also saved his own life in a riptide in Acapulco, Mexico.

“I was swimming in the ocean, and all of a sudden a strong current took me away,” he says. “There were no lifeguards, so I was waving to people on the shore, who just waved back at me. I began to think, I’m in a bad situation here. I’m not a great swimmer, and I can’t go against that riptide, so what am I going to do?” He floated for a while, then did exactly what the experts recommend: He swam slowly, parallel to the beach, until he was out of the current.

You know you’re in a riptide when you feel yourself being pulled away from the shoreline, says Dr. Bradley of the Red Cross. “Your natural reaction is to head toward the shore, but it’s very difficult to swim against a riptide.” Luckily, these currents are fairly narrow, so you just have to swim along the shore, in either direction.

Cramps: If you’re in deep water, take a breath, lie on your back, and float. If you’ve got a muscle cramp (they often hit the calves), float facedown, grab your toes, and pull them toward you, stretching your calf until the pain goes away. If it’s a stomach cramp, lie on your back, spread your arms and legs, and float until you can swim back to shore.

BEAR ATTACK
If you surprise a bear, don’t run away. That invites an attack. Instead, stand up and back away slowly, without looking the bear in the eyes. Speak softly to the animal (no loud shouting). If it does charge at you, try to make yourself look as large as possible: Stick out your chest, raise your arms, and spread your legs. Now you can yell at the bear, to frighten it.

If it’s going to attack, lie facedown, with your hands clasped behind your neck. Play dead and don’t get up until you’re sure the bear is gone. Leave the area immediately in case it returns.

If you’re in bear country, carry a bear-deterrent pepper spray (find one at epa.gov). Make sure the wind isn’t blowing toward you, and spray for one to two seconds when the bear is 30 to 40 feet away.

POISONING
The most common reasons for calls to poison centers? Unintentional or intentional drug overdoses (painkillers, sedatives, and antidepressants are high on the list) and exposure to cleaning products. No matter how little you’ve ingested, call a poison center before you do anything. The national number is 1-800-222-1222.

Don’t make yourself throw up or give yourself ipecac, the vomit-inducing antidote that used to be a staple in first-aid kits, says Alvin C. Bronstein, MD, medical director of the Rocky Mountain Poison & Drug Center in Denver. “Ipecac has never been proven beneficial,” he says. “We rarely use it today. It’s gone the way of the horse and buggy.”

Ipecac can leave you throwing up for hours. Plus, if you ingested something that burned going down and you force yourself to vomit, it will burn on the way back up too. And say you accidentally took a few extra sedatives. If you take ipecac when you’re overly sleepy and your gag reflex isn’t working well, you can turn a manageable overdose into something much worse.

Colorless, odorless carbon monoxide is a deadly poison that kills nearly 500 unsuspecting people a year. Make sure you have a working detector in your home.

If you’ve inhaled something (bleach or ammonia are common culprits), get away from the toxic area. If it’s something that got on your skin, like a cleaning product, wash it off, then call a poison center and follow the specialist’s advice.

SEVERE BLEEDING
You’re gushing blood—and getting scared. Forget about tourniquets, says Dr. Schneider of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Use your hand or a clean cloth, paper towels, a scarf, or any fabric you can grab, and push down on the wound until the bleeding stops. Tourniquets, which every Boy Scout learned how to make back in the day, are now a first-aid no-no. “If you have a cut on your upper leg and you put pressure on it, you’re just closing that vessel. But if you put a tourniquet on, you’re going to close the vessels to the entire leg,” says Dr. Schneider. “You could lose your foot.”

The only time to use a tourniquet, says Charles Pattavina, MD, chief of emergency medicine at St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor, Maine, is when you know that everything below the wound is beyond repair (say, the accident has amputated your finger, arm, or leg).

RISING WATER
Rule No. 1: Never drive through standing water. As thousands of stranded motorists can attest, what looks like a small puddle can be much deeper. “It takes just 12 inches of water to carry a car away,” says Robert Sinclair, Jr., of AAA New York. If you do get stuck, step out of the car, which will likely stall when the water reaches the vehicle’s electronic controls. If the water is higher than the bottom of your knees or is moving too quickly for you to wade through, climb on top of your car and wait for help. Otherwise, get to higher ground.

If you suddenly become immersed (say, you drive off a bridge or into a lake or river), roll down the windows as soon as you can. Yes, it allows water to rush in, but that’s a good thing, says Sinclair. It equalizes the pressure, so you can open the door or swim out the window. Do it quickly, though, as the electrical systems on automatic windows can get damaged and stop working when wet. A LifeHammer can shatter automotive glass and cut through seat belts; Sinclair keeps one between the driver’s seat and the center console in case of such emergencies. Break the side windows (windshields are usually thicker and harder to crack), and swim toward high, dry land.

In a hurricane or storm with heavy winds, hide in a closet or pantry. Don’t try to wade through floodwater outside—it can knock you over. If water is rising in your house, climb to the roof (as long as it’s safe to do so) after the heavy rain and wind stop, says Lt. Ana Wisneski of the U.S. Coast Guard. Bring plenty of water to drink, sun protection, a flashlight, vital medications, and white sheets or colorful towels to signal rescuers. Then wait for help.

ALLERGIC REACTION
Bee stings, food allergies, and medications can be deadly, even if you think you don’t have allergies. Symptoms include itching in one spot or all over your body, sometimes accompanied by a rash, swelling, and, in the extreme, swelling of the airways, which hampers your ability to breathe. If you know you have a life-threatening allergy, form an action plan with your doctor, who will probably prescribe an EpiPen, which comes in child and adult doses. It delivers the drug epinephrine, which keeps the heart pumping, improves breathing, and gives you about 20 minutes to get to a hospital. Even if you don’t have severe allergies, you can still be prepared for a spontaneous reaction. Slip a few maximum-strength antihistamines, like Benadryl Allergy capsules, into your wallet. The fast-acting tablets will begin to fight an allergic reaction while you wait for help to arrive. But since antihistamines can make you drowsy, don’t drive yourself to the ER.

TRAPPED IN A BURNING BUILDING
If you’re in an office building and can’t get out, don’t panic. “In any emergency situation, the difference between survivors and nonsurvivors is that survivors remain calm and fight through their fear to find out, What can I do?” says Dr. Schneider. So think back to those fire-safety lessons you learned in grade school. Call 911. Close yourself in a smoke-free room and place a wet towel underneath the door to prevent any smoke from entering, says Dan McBride, a firefighter in New York City. Then get low to the ground, where you can breathe and see better, until help arrives. If you’re in a house, get as low as you can and crawl outside as fast as possible. Don’t stop until you’re well away from the fire. Then call for help.

By Pamela F. Gallin, MD

P/s: Example of the pictures are all @ Reader’s Digest

Storytelling is more than just telling interesting or funny anecdotes. It is about using the power of stories to unlock new connections and reveal tacit knowledge. Because the human mind relates to stories in a different way from the way it relates to analysis, storytelling can succeed in releasing new ideas in areas where conventional analysis or presentations might leave a group merely looking dazed.

Storytelling can also be used as a motivation tool to excite people’s hearts, not just their minds. It is thus a useful tool for times of disruptive change, when you need to create buy-in for new ideas or foster a sense of collaboration.

MinLaw’s Strategic Planning Division (SPD) officers have undergone training in using storytelling as a tool for Knowledge Management, and have already conducted a strategic retreat for the Intellectual Property Policy Division (IPPD) using the storytelling method.

Using a tale featuring Jack and the beanstalk, giants, cows, golden eggs, and even golden carrots, SPD helped IPPD officers explore their unstated assumptions and push beyond their current thinking in order to come up with strategies relating to IP.

SPD will be pleased to support any MinLaw department that wishes to use this tool to develop and tell stories so as to unleash the flood of ideas.

How storytelling can be useful for management

Action: Analysis excites the mind, but storytelling excites the heart, and is thus effective for getting buy-in.

Collaboration: Telling a story encourages other people to share their own experiences, which unleashes the ideas inherent in a group.

Knowledge management: People can use telling stories to describe problems and how they were (or were not) solved. This way an organisation can bring out tacit knowledge from its people.

Scenario planning: A story can help evoke a concrete vision of the future, inspiring listeners to consider various images of the future and help them anticipate potential
changes.

Values: Stories can illustrate the values of an organisation, thereby bringing those values to life (although leaders’ actions have to also be consistent with the stories they tell).

Credits to: Power of Storytelling

In popular culture, especially in the United States, the Devil’s Sea is widely believed to be, together with the Bermuda Triangle, an area where ships and planes are said to disappear under mysterious circumstances. The Japanese, on the other hand, do not consider the Devil’s Sea to be more mysterious or dangerous than other coastal waters of Japan.

Contrary to several claims, neither the Devil’s Sea nor the Bermuda Triangle is located on the agonic line, where the magnetic north equals the geographic north. The magnetic declination in this area is about 6°.

Among the phenomena reported in the Devil’s Sea are the loss of ships and planes (more than the Bermuda Triangle), numerous ghost ships, unidentified craft and USO’s, missing time, and is even said to explain the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

For the video please visit: HelpingHumanity

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

‘Dreamt’ is the only English word that ends in the letters ‘mt’. (?Are you doubting this?)

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

The sentence: ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog‘ uses every letter of the alphabet. (Now, you KNOW you’re going to try this out for accuracy, right?)

The words ‘racecar,’ ‘kayak’ and ‘level’ are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

There are only four words in the English language which end in ‘dous’: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: ‘abstemious’ and ‘facetious.’

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. (All you typists are going to test this out)

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. (Some days that’s about what my memory span is.)

A ‘jiffy’ is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years. (I know some people that could do this too.!)

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that also)

Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.

The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket .

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Now you know more than you did before!!

The Rain-Thomas Kinkade

This is a Thomas Kinkade painting It’s rumored to carry a miracle!

In my own words: Well, I found out that this message here is very interesting and it has its ‘oh really?’ way in telling us about the fact. Perhaps its all true and some may not be true. Whatever it is, we as a human being didn’t know very well about all the things in this world. We gained knowledge by learning and listening to it. We share the information together for goods. And how amazing it is to share this world together. ;)

Astronauts generally wear their clothes for several days, although some have found creative ways to care for small items, he notes. For example, one astronaut has been known to wash his favourite pair of shorts in a plastic bag.

“Clothes don’t tend to get as dirty on the station as they do on Earth because the temperature is constant and the environment is controlled,” Comtois adds. “Also, because they are in a weightless environment, the astronauts don’t have to work too hard to move around. They sweat only when they exercise – something they must do to counter the effects of living without gravity.”

During a prolonged stay at the International Space Station, unmanned Russian resupply capsules bring new clothes and take away the dirty ones. After leaving the station, these capsules burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, over the Pacific Ocean.

It’s growth rate is phenomenal and without precedent, skyrocketing into the public consciousness and becoming commonplace nearly overnight. So what do the journalists, analysts and pundits all do when they witness this moment in history? Kvetch.
Nobody actually wants to understand exactly why this happened in the first place. Instead you hear the following (and typical) Silicon Valley commentary. “How are they going to monetize it?” “It’s the dotcom bust 2.0!” “There must be a video bubble.” “They’re burning through $1.5 million a month. How can they continue?”

It’s weird but almost nobody looks at this tremendous growth curve and asks themselves, “Holy cripes! How did that happen!?!” Instead you get headlines such as “Is YouTube the next Napster?”

Apparently YouTube has stumbled on to something and perhaps we should try and understand that in itself. If and when the company manages to “monetize” (don’t you love that term?) things may change.

And you must assume that with all the marketing brains out there one of them can find a way to make money. I’m more concerned about why this product exploded the way it did. I’ll critique the money-making scheme when it appears.
So let’s look at what caused the growth. And let’s note that this company is hardly the first on the block to let users share video. Google video, in fact, looks a lot like YouTube, but never achieved this growth despite getting a big head start.
Two things seem to be at work. The first is the incredible desire people have to share video clips with each other. That’s now apparent.

What’s not so apparent, unless you actually have tried to use the various video sharing sites, is that nobody — and I mean nobody — made it easy until YouTube.
By merely combining a pent-up demand with ease-of-use you get the YouTube phenomenon. It’s brain dead simple, but I’m telling you that is all there is to it.
The hardest part of the process is the user managing to get the video onto a computer where it can be uploaded to YouTube. Nowadays with digital camcorders and still cameras that shoot .MOV files it is not that hard and most cams come with software to make it easier.

Then comes YouTube. The first thing you notice about YouTube is the lack of barriers to entry. You can sign up quickly and upload anything in any format right away.
YouTube’s computers then transcode (convert) your files into Flash movies which can be played on any browser. They also provide a link to the video which you can email as well as some embedded code so you can post the video on your own website and play it from there.

Since I like to run videos on my blog this turns out to be a great way to both transcode and save bandwidth since YouTube picks up the tab on the video stream.
Would I pay for this service, yes.
I have seriously looked at the alternatives to YouTube. With no exceptions they are all flawed.

It’s amazing that the YouTube formula for success is simply ease-of-use and convenience. A shocker, huh?

Some sites require endless forms to fill out. Others, such as copycat newcomer Metacafe which cannot even transcode the ubiquitous MOV file, are useless for personal digital cam vids.

Other sites have weird limitations or do not provide embedding code. It’s one thing or another.

One of the community video sites for “citizen journalists” wants the hapless user to transcode the video themselves before uploading it. Most people don’t have a clue how to do that.

Even Google can’t get it right. I’m hoping that the founders of YouTube Chad Hurley and Steve Chen realize that they may be subtle geniuses insofar as ease-of-use is concerned.
I want to see more from these two no matter what happens to YouTube.

Reference to: MarketWatch

  Sender: xyz@hotmail.com (where xyz is in your MSN list)
Tittle: Somebody has blocked you on MSN messenger
Message:

You’re Blocked!

A contact has recommended you to enter in www.youareblocked.com.
The site allows you to find out who has blocked or deleted you from the MSN Messenger
This e-mail comes to your inbox, since you have been recommended by one of your contacts

When you click the link, it’ll bring you to a website that looked pretty decent and professional. But don’t be fooled by the site’s design to pass it off as a genuine site. To check for a blocked contact (xyz@hotmail.com), you have to enter your MSN e-mail and password. But wait.

Why would you need to do that? Never give away your credentials unless you are very sure that the site is not bogus. Google the site and the source where you get the link from. Look for security certificates. And what I meant by “very sure” is if ask yourself this question — Do I feel a sense of insecurity (even a lil) giving away my password to the site? If you feel even the slightest distrust, stop and close the site.

Spread the word. Do not be fooled by the e-mail. Searching the WWW showed that people who have signed in actually got their MSN account hacked (multiple sign-ins, etc). IF you had fallen prey to this scam, change your password IMMEDIATELY!

Techie Talks

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Do Different Genders Use The Web Differently
Men tend to see it as an office, a library, or a playground–screw the community, this is about function not family.

The report found that women are more enthusiastic communicators, using email in a more robust way. Not only sending and receiving more email than men, women are more likely to write to family and friends about a variety of topics, sharing news, joys and worries, planning events, and forwarding jokes and stories.

While both sexes equally appreciate the efficiency and convenience of email, women are more likely than men to value the medium for its positive effects on improving relationships, expanding networks, and encouraging teamwork at the office.

“Women also value email for a kind of positive, water-cooler effect, which lightens the atmosphere of office life,” reads the 54-page report.

The report found that women are more likely to use the Internet for emailing, getting maps and directions (after all, we men always know where we’re going), looking for health and medical information, seeking support for health and personal problems, and getting religious information.

Men tend to be more intense Internet users than women, being more likely to go online daily (61% of men and 57% of women) and more likely to go online several times a day (44% of men and 39% of women).

Men also tend to go online in greater numbers than women but for a much broader variety of reasons. Men are more likely to use the Internet to check the weather, get news, find do-it-yourself information, acquire sports scores and information, look for political information, do job-related research, download software, listen to music, rate a product/person/service through an online reputation system, download music, use a webcam, and take a class.

Note there was nothing about “nurturing relationships.”

Here are some stats for the number crunchers:

67% of the adult American population goes online, including 68% of men and 66% of women

86% of women ages 18-29 are online, compared with 80% of men that age.

34% of men 65 and older use the Internet, compared with 21% of women that age.

62% of unmarried men compared with 56% of unmarried women go online

75% of married women and 72% of married men go online

61% of childless men compared with 57% of childless women go online

81% of men with children and 80% of women with children go online.

52% of men and 48% of women have high-speed connections at home

94% of online women and 88% of online men use email

Reference to: Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Twenty-eight years ago, an autobiographical account of Malaysian village life called The Kampung Boy sealed Lat’s reputation as an astute cartoonist in Asia. It’s been translated into French, Japanese and, most recently, Portuguese. Last year, The Kampung Boy made its American debut. Its sequel, Town Boy, about Lat’s teenage years, will follow suit next month – proof positive that humour transcends cultural and language barriers.Why do you think your books have travelled so far?
Lat: Firstly, I think it’s because people are always interested in learning about other people’s cultures. Secondly, some time ago, graphic novels were all about the bizarre and the mysterious. Maybe people got tired of that and wanted something normal.

To the untrained eye your cartoons haven’t changed much over the years. Have they?
Lat: I prefer simpler things now. I don’t go into too much detail. Once upon a time I would draw a table at a coffee shop and what’s under the table. Now, I’ll just draw somebody sitting down. You cn’t even tell if there’s a table or not.

Have you ever been afraid that the creative well will run dry?
Lat: It started to go dry in the 80′s. (Laughing) But I realise that if I don’t do the job, there will be lots of people who will call up the newspaper office and write letters to ask why I’m missing. It’s like when I was a kid. I always expected to see Mandrake and Dick Tracy in the papers so I know how that feels.

We hear The Simpsons creator Matt Groening is a fan.
Lat: When I was in LA working on The Kampung Boy, somebody told me that Matt Groening liked my cartoons. So I got in touch with him. He liked work even before he did The Simpsons.

Are there any cartoonists that you admire now?
Lat: I’m behind the times. Those whom I admire have stopped drawing. I like people from Punch magazine.

What about up-and-coming cartoonists in the region?
Lat: I don’t want to mention any names; I want it to be an even playing field. Even my decision to leave Kuala Lumpur and return to Ipoh ten years ago was because I wanted to leave the field.

Do cartoonists find inspiration in other cartoonists’ work?
Lat: Oh yes, definitely. [My mentor] Rejab Had was Mr Clean. He always told me not to offend. Today I think you have to rude to create humour. And I definitely don’t belong to that group.

Has the world become less funny?
Lat: No. I still take out a piece of drawing paper, sit down and proceed to draw until I finish.

People must expect you to be funny all the time.
Lat: Yes, but there are times when I produce something that isn’t good. Then again, sometimes I’ll produce something that made me laugh when I drew it, but the next day I’ll get a call from someone saying they didn’t understand it.

Will we be seeing something new from you soon?
Lat: I’ve got something in store that, God willing, you’ll see next year. Maybe I’ll call it Lat and Easy because the drawings are all simple.

By: Siti Rohani

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