Trip - about your Belgium/Singapore comparison - its a little off whack:

Singapore is a city-state of approx 693 sqkm (thats less than 1/5 the size of Miami-Dade county, and almost exactly the same size as the City of New York - the five boroughs) and a population of 4.6 million.

Belgium is a country of approx 30,510 sqkm (thats 44 times larger than Sing, and about the size of the State of Maryland) and a population of 10.2 million.

just slightly different then...

Sorry if Im being anal, Im just a geography buff and a bit picky about these things!

/bfg (a Swede living in London but has travelled a little)

Sad to say, I think I'm the only Silent PC Enthuasist in Malaysia. Everyone seems to be an overclocker here who favours Delta Tornado fans. Someone once said that the noise is the "nicest noise they've ever heard".

Trip, Selection of silent parts is tough here, we must import some of them. Panaflo are very hard to get because there is no distributor here, and when people do bring in some, they usually bring in the H version. Lately, we got the new Zalman produicts - CNP7000,ZMHC1,ZM80A and C. No Sapphire 9800Xt Ultimate Edition here.

Tigr, to enter Singapore from Malaysia we can,

1) drive in.
2) take a train.
3) fly in.
4) I don't know if we can still use ferrys to go in.

In fact, we do it very often for business and pleasure. As for computer parts, the last time I looked most of the stuff there can also be bought here.

Ana, those of you familiar with World War II would know that Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union for its strategic location. Took the Red Army 3 months to get the Finnish to surrender. And then later in the war, Finland fought the Soviets with the Germans. And then even later, they fought the Germans with the Allies.

Selamat bertemu engseng!

Terima kasi for expanding our horizons! This is why I love the internet - bringing together people from all over the world...

Are you in KL?

Good luck with the silent PC passion - its just gotten ahold of me too, but Im in the UK so there's a bit more supply here...

Jumpe lagi!

/bfg

(hope I got the Malay right... I used to live in Djakarta and spoke Bahasa Indonesi almost fluently, but have forgotten almost all of it now - so I'm sure I'm screwing up the Bahasa Melayu!)

heh, i was just teasing the guy from belgium about how small belgium is; kindof playing on the American stereotype of thinking bigger is better.

I know Singapore is supposed to be pretty nice relative to certain parts of the islands, but I haven't traveled as much as you have. Read some of our political threads, it'd be interesting to hear what you have to say (if you make it all the way through... )

maybe Belgium is small but there are countries that are much smaller like Luxembourg (next to Belgium), Monaco and all the others I forgot to mention...

But how do you guys know Belgium?? We dont have earthquakes, volcanos, no President Bush, no Saddam, the only thing we maybe have is a famous kidnapper and a police force that doesnt do sh*t


About the police force:

Half a week ago they were very proud they could catch a leader of the Cosa Nostra (Italian Mafia) in a castle in the Ardennes together with some of his closest helpers...
Today the newspapers said that the Italian and German police said us 10! years ago that they were hiding there, even belgian television made a documentary about it 10 years ago... but only now the belgian police arrests them

They had Lamborghini's, Ferrari's, some Porsches, machine guns, WWII guns, one anti air gun (to shoot planes), a place to build weapon silencers, neighbours that came to close were being shot at,...
They even found blood traces from 'The Godfather'-like assasinations

I'd say: Go Belgium

edit: they even think the guy they arrested had connections with a famous politician from the 80's-90's. The politician got murdered later in his career...

GenghiS_KhaN : I cheat, one of my best friends is Belgian, (she's even getting married at Klokhof in Kortrijk next year!) so I've been to Ostend and Brussels a few times, and spent a summer in the Ardennes...

Other than that the foremost reason I would know belgium is your beer!

/bfg

Oh yeah I forgot about the beer, it's a bless to be a student in Belgium (you're allowed to drink when you become 16)

Belgium, We read about you in history, art, politics, military strategy (WWII), etc. You're a member of NATO, EU, UN... Heh, you might be small, but you're not insigificant!

I cheat too, I've been to EU as well

Did Ghengis Khan ever make it to Belgium? I think his son made it to Vienna.

Good food too chocolate, beer, cheese, etc.

Take pride in your nation (and get out of NATO, EU, UN )

Oh yes we flood half the country in WW I so the germans couldnt move . The only thing we did in WWII was dieing i think?


He didnt make it to Belgium I think. I got this nickname when I was in a restaurant in Washington DC on holiday called the Mongolian Barbeque (btw very good food there)


Yes Mr Bush called us the chocolat makers and I think French cheese is better but that's personal taste


Eh, Why should we get out of the NATO,EU,UN...???
Someone has to protect us when we're in danger. The belgian army didnt want to use their tanks in the anual military parade because they were afraid to break them, the year before the army participated in the parade with PLASTIC guns

...but I guess every country makes these stupidities

PS: as you can here I'm not very fond of my country but on the other hand I really like it, dont know why tough,...

Did you get a chance to eat at Addis Ababa? Good and I believe authentic Ethiopian food. Kind of ironic, they served a great deal more than I could eat, heh, prob. threw most of it out.



I'm the same way! I think I love parts of my country's heritage, but I don't like where it's headed and some of what it's done. Still, it's home right?

the_bfg, hey nice to meet you man? I've worked there before, at times the Indonesian Malay can vary from very understandable to unintelligible. It depends on who you speak to actually.

I don't really hear much about Belgium except for what I read about World War II history (the Battle of the Bulge was fought there). Belgium doesn't really make the news often, and Miss Belgium has never become Miss Universe/World yet.

I remember Miss Belgium 2003!

I'm in Norway, which is NOT the capital of Sweden. It is a country of it's own, bordered by the North Atlantic Ocean in the west, and Sweden to the east. Our capital is Oslo, which many of you have probably heard about.

Oh... and we're NOT part of EU (European Union) luckily... not yet anyway...

Are you sure Helsinki is not your capital? I thought Oslo was in Sweden ...

Get a map!

Dang dude...didn't you ever take a geography course?

Everyone knows Helsinki is the capitol of Portugal.....

Oh yeah... well I do know Washington D.C. is the capital of the only country that really matters, the glorious U.S. of A!