.... of heavenly minded and no earthly value

Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) observes that the best place for Confidence Trickers and, con men and women to operate is in the church and, of course, among the circles of "well meaning, church-going people." The place where you regard as your sanctuary can sometimes be your "battle field" full of bobby traps and mines. It is a place where you have to be drowned in your own suffering and miseries because no "well meaning church- going people" are going to side with you in any issue that call for taking side. At the most, you will be advised , " Oh, don't hate the sinner but the sin."

There is this Catholic con man, now in his forties, who operates in Y S' church for many years. He takes a prey on and off and then disappears for some time, feeds on his ill gotten gains, and resurfaces for another unsuspecting " well meaning and church going" victim. Well, memories are short, especially for " well meaning church- going people." This Catholic con man has quiet eyes and a boyish face that keeps on pleading innocence that even Hitler would have spared him in the Holocaust.

His modus operandi is to tell tear jerking sob stories of his chronic diabetic, kidney, liver, stomach, heart, intestines and what other organs have you complications that call for emergency treatment or operation. Then he pleads with his quiet eyes for a loan from you while invoking heaven and earth with promises of repayment. Of course, you kiss the loan good- bye.

Many " well meaning church going people" in Y S church have fallen for his ploys all these years BUT NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING TO PROTECT OTHER " well meaning church -going people" from been cheated. Many were cheated and kept quiet about it, perhaps they felt ashamed for doing "blind charity." Others would tell you about being cheated but made you promise not to tell out !!! A few more are so good hearted that they blessed him " for he knew not what he was doing" Grrrrrrrr !!!! All because "well meaning church going people" are not supposed to talk bad of others. "Oh, hate the sin, not the sinner."


This Catholic Con man targets members of the Parish Council, "well meaning church- going people" with ministry and new "well meaning church- going people." He is still on the prowl. The latest victim was Y S' friends. A "well meaning church- going" lady who draws a small salary but has a big heart. She wanted to help, not knowing that she was taken for a ride. RM6,500, a few months of her salary, vanished.

Sometimes Christians are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly value. Too many evil things are happening because good men are just looking on.

.... of keeping up with technology

One of the best ways to feel like being a dinosaur is to be left behind in this rat race of technology in almost every appliance and gadget that we use. Of course, a very prominent gadget is the cell phone, hand phone , mobile phone and what-nots.

Yours Sincerely ( Y s ) bought a cell phone many, many years ago when the children were very much younger. It was a "Phillip," and had since been retired. When the daughters grew up and used handphones, Y S has been receiving hand-me-downs all along.

" Pa.... why don't you take over my phone ? It is still ok but I wish to upgrade. " And this "Pa" being a frugal person would not let things go wasted. It is always " Reduce, Recycle and Recycle." So, Y S and his Better Half have been recipients of old "Nokia," " Sony Ericsion," " Samsung," "Panasonic", you name it.

These hand-me-downs become so because of minor faults here and there which young people cannot bear but the oldies can live with. On and off, friends complained that bY S' phone was not clear, with lots of noise and static and worse of all, it suddenly went dead in the middle of a conversation.

Anyway, Y S seemed to be proud of becoming the owner of hand-me-downs until he was awakened by a friend who told him that he had just purchased two state-of-the-art hand phones at about one thousand ringgit each. According to him, his spouse also has to keep up and not him alone. That was inspiration for Y S. No more hand-me-down. It is "Just do i t" Nike style. After all, you don't need a hand phone when you are 6 feet underground !

It is a Samsung Galaxy Ace (GT-S5830) :-

HSPD 7.2 Mbps
Dual band (900/2100MHZ)
Quad band
3.5" HVGA TFT LCD Screen
5MP AF Camera wwith LED flash
800MHz CPU
TopuchWiz 3.0 for Android
Social hub
Wi-fi 802.11b/g/n
GPS/Geo-tagging.