Fairy Tail - manga & anime

Wah. Lamanya tak update blog. Tak tahu la nak tulis ape. Ntah pergi mane idea, aku pon tak tahu. OK lah. Mari aku kongsi aku punya current interest dengan korang. Cuti semester kali perhatian aku telah kembali kepada membaca manga dan menonton anime. Jadi, anime yang telah berjaya menarik perhatian aku ialah karya Hiro Mashima, "Fairy Tail". Hiro Mashima juga telah mengeluarkan satu anime sebelum ini dan mendapat sambutan yang sangat menggalakkan berjudul "Rave Master". Aku sangat suka membaca dan menonton Rave master. Tiba2 anime Rave berhenti pada episod 51 tanpa sambungan. Manganya pulok walaubagaimanapon berjaya ditamatkan pada episod 296 (termasuk epilogue). Sedih seh tak dapat tengok Anime Rave sampai habis.

Haru Glory is a boy who lives with his sister, Cattleya, in Garage Island. After fishing out a.... thing called Plue, he meets Shiba who entrusted him with Rave Stone or more known as Holy Bring. From there on, he embarks on a quest leaving his sister at Garage Island like his father who went to find Rave 15 years ago. He meets Elie, a girl who loves to gamble but has lost her memory. They met up with Musica at Punk Street. They have to eliminate Demon Card using Rave and is helped by Elie's uncontrollable Ethelion and Musica's ability of controlling silver as a Silver-Claimer. Unfortunately, they had to collect 4 more Raves in order to eliminate the mother of all dark brings, Sinclair. Together, they find out their past including Haru and Musica who both do not know their parents very well. They also find out the connection between Ethelion and Rave.

Sekarang beliau mula melukis manga Fairy Tail dan masih lagi ongoing. Buat masa ini, jumlah keseluruhan manga episod Fairy Tail ialah 161 episod, anime pulok berjumlah 7 episod. Buat masa nie aku belum ade mood nak tgk anime Fairy Tail. Masih terlalu awal. Baru 7 episod. Aku boleh habiskan 7 episod anime lagi laju dari aku habis makan nasik (exagerate gile kau...). So nanti2 lah tengok. Skali tengok anime 20 episod baru best. hehe...

The manga’s story follows a teenaged girl named Lucy Heartfilia who wants to become a full-fledged mage by joining the world’s most notorious mage guild, Fairy Tail. One day when visiting Harujion Town, she meets Natsu, a young man who gets sick easily by any type of transportation and accompanied by a talking cat, Happy. After few incidents happened, that’s when she found out that Natsu not only is a mage, but is also a member of one of the world’s most infamous mage guilds…Fairy Tail. She futher discovered that Natsu “Salamander” Dragneel is a quirky Fairy Tail member and a teenaged practitioner of the ancient Dragon Slayer magic. He has a long-term mission in searching his "father", a real fire dragon called Ignee. Lucy is eventually welcomed into the Fairy Tail guild as she, Natsu, and other members go on various quests together.

OK. sekarang aku mahu sambung baca Fairy Tail.

Mau baca Rave Master? Tekan ini

Mau tonton Rave Master? Tekan ini

Mau baca Fairy Tail? Tekan ini

Mau tonton Fairy Tail? Tekan ini

By the way, masih banyak lagi website yang korang boleh buka n tonton/baca semua jenis anime dan manga. Contohnya seperti website http://www.animetake.com. Yang selebihnya, silalah rajinkan diri anda untuk search ye. hehe...

P/s: Kalau korang perasan, aku tengok pelukis ini sangat suka pada watak "anjing" bernama Plue itu. huhu...

PR Case Studies: Exxon Valdez - What NOT to do when it all goes wrong

Exxon Mobil and the Exxon Valdez

Exxon Valdez

Many companies have faced a crisis during their history, whether due to external forces beyond their control, through their own failings or management problems, or a combination of the two. Only a few, however, come to personify corporate irresponsibility through one pivotal event. Such a one is Exxon's experience with the Exxon Valdez.

What happened

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker, entered the Prince William Sound, on its way towards California. In spite of the fact that the weather and sea conditions were favourable and the Bligh Reef clearly marked on the maps, the ship ran aground and began spilling oil. Within a very short period of time, significant quantities of its 1,260,000 barrels had entered the environment.

At the moment of the collision the third mate, who was not certified to take the tanker into those waters, was at the helm. The probably cause was established that the Captain and many of the crew had been drinking alcohol in considerable quantities.

What did the company do?

According to most observers, too little and too late. The action to contain the spill was slow to get going. Just as significantly, the company completely refused to communicate openly and effectively. The Exxon Chairman, Lawrence Rawl, was immensely suspicious of the media, and reacted accordingly.

Shortly after the accident had taken place, and the world's media had piled in to begin extensive coverage, a company spokesman pointed to the existence of procedures to cover the eventuality - procedures which the TV shots showed were demonstrably failing. When asked in Rawl would be interviewed on TV, the response was that he had no time for that kind of thing.

Meanwhile the operation on the ground was getting nowhere fast. Around 240,000 barrels had been spilled, with another million still on the ship. During the first two days, when calm weather would have allowed it, little was done to contain the spillage. This spillage spread out into a 12 square mile slick.

Then the bad weather struck, making further containment almost impossible.

After more than a week, the company was still giving no ground on the request for better communication. The media clamour became so hostile that eventually Frank Iarossi, the Director of Exxon Shipping, flew to Valdez to hold a press conference. It was not a success. Small pieces of good news claimed by the company were immediately contradicted by the eyewitness accounts of the present journalists and fishermen.

John Devens, the Mayor of Valdez, commented that the community felt betrayed by Exxon's inadequate response to the crisis, in contrast to the promises they had been quick to give of how they would react in exactly this eventuality.

Eventually, Rawl deigned to go onto television. He was interviewed live, and asked about the latest plans for the clean-up. It turned out he had neglected to read these, and cited the fact that it was not the job of the chairman to read such reports. He placed the blame for the crisis at the feet of the world's media. Exxon's catastrophe was complete.

Cost and benefit

The consequences for Exxon of its two-pronged disaster - the spill and its environmental consequences, alongside its disastrous communications - were enormous. The spill cost around $7bn, including the clean up costs. $5bn of this was made up of the largest punitive fines ever handed out to a company for corporate irresponsibility.

The damage to the company's reputation was even more important, and more difficult to quantify. However, Exxon lost market share and slipped from being the largest oil company in the world to the third largest. The "Exxon Valdez" entered the language as a shortcut for corporate arrogance and damage.

Conclusion

The features that made Exxon's handling of the crisis a failure included the following:

• The company failed to show that they had effective systems in place to deal with the crisis - and in particular their ability to move quickly once the problem had occurred was not in evidence
• They showed little leadership after the event in showing their commitment to ensuring such problems would never happen again
• They quite simply gave no evidence that they cared about what had happened. They appeared indifferent to the environmental destruction.

The Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into one of the most pristene and beautful places in the world. It covered over 700 miles of coastline. It was heart breaking. Thousands of animals died immediately; the best estimates include 250,000 to as many as 500,000 seabirds, at least 1,000 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs.The effects of the spill continue to be felt today.

PR Case Studies: Tylenol - What to do when it all goes wrong

Johnson & Johnson and Tylenol

Crisis need not strike a company purely as a result of its own negligence or misadventure. Often, a situation is created which cannot be blamed on the company - but the company finds out pretty quickly that it takes a huge amount of blame if it fumbles the ball in its response.

One of the classic tales of how a company can get it right is that of Johnson & Johnson, and the company's response to the Tylenol poisoning.

What happened

In 1982, Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol medication commanded 35 per cent of the US over-the-counter analgesic market - representing something like 15 per cent of the company's profits.

Unfortunately, at that point one individual succeeded in lacing the drug with cyanide. Seven people died as a result, and a widespread panic ensued about how widespread the contamination might be.

By the end of the episode, everyone knew that Tylenol was associated with the scare. The company's market value fell by $1bn as a result.

When the same situation happened in 1986, the company had learned its lessons well. It acted quickly - ordering that Tylenol should be recalled from every outlet - not just those in the state where it had been tampered with. Not only that, but the company decided the product would not be re-established on the shelves until something had been done to provide better product protection.

As a result, Johnson & Johnson developed the tamperproof packaging that would make it much more difficult for a similar incident to occur in future.

What did Johnson & Johnson do?

Once the connection was made between the Tylenol capsules and the reported deaths, public announcements were made warning people about the consumption of the product. Johnson & Johnson was faced with the dilemma of the best way to deal with the problem without destroying the reputation of the company and its most profitable product.

Following one of the guidelines of protecting people first and property second, McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, conducted an immediate product recall from the entire country which amounted to about 31 million bottles and a loss of more than $100 million dollars. Additionally, they halted all advertisement for the product.

Although Johnson & Johnson knew they were not responsible for the tampering of the product, they assumed responsibility by ensuring public safety first and recalled all of their capsules from the market. In fact, in February of 1986, when a woman was reported dead from cyanide poisoning in Tylenol capsules, Johnson & Johnson permanently removed all of the capsules from the market.

How did Johnson & Johnson re-introduce the product to the market?

Once the product was removed from the market, Johnson & Johnson had to come up with a campaign to re-introduce its product and restore confidence back to the consumer.

1. Tylenol products were re-introduced containing a triple-seal tamper resistant packaging. It became the first company to comply with the Food and Drug Administration mandate of tamper-resistant packaging.(Mitchell 1989) Furthermore, they promoted caplets, which are more resistant to tampering.

2. In order to motivate consumers to buy the product, they offered a $2.50 off coupon on the purchase of their product. They were available in the newspapers as well as by calling a toll-free number. (Mitchell 1989)

3. To recover loss stock from the crisis, Johnson & Johnson made a new pricing program that gave consumers up to 25% off the purchase of the product. (Mitchell 1989)

4. Over 2250 sales people made presentations for the medical community to restore confidence on the product. (Mitchell 1989)

Cost and benefit

The cost was a high one. In addition to the impact on the company's share price when the crisis first hit, the lost production and destroyed goods as a result of the recall were considerable.

However, the company won praise for its quick and appropriate action. Having sidestepped the position others have found themselves in - of having been slow to act in the face of consumer concern - they achieved the status of consumer champion.

Within five months of the disaster, the company had recovered 70% of its market share for the drug - and the fact this went on to improve over time showed that the company had succeeded in preserving the long term value of the brand. Companies such as Perrier, who had been criticised for less adept handling of a crisis, found their reputation damaged for as long as five years after an incident.

In fact, there is some evidence that it was rewarded by consumers who were so reassured by the steps taken that they switched from other painkillers to Tylenol.

Conclusion

The features that made Johnson & Johnson's handling of the crisis a success included the following:

• They acted quickly, with complete openness about what had happened, and immediately sought to remove any source of danger based on the worst case scenario - not waiting for evidence to see whether the contamination might be more widespread
• Having acted quickly, they then sought to ensure that measures were taken which would prevent as far as possible a recurrence of the problem
• They showed themselves to be prepared to bear the short term cost in the name of consumer safety. That more than anything else established a basis for trust with their customers

The world’s most expensive and cheapest McDonald’s

Monday November 2, 2009

AS if Iceland does not have enough problems, McDonald’s has just announced the closure of its three restaurants there and said it has no plans to return.

Apparently, most of the ingredients used by McDonald’s in this crisis-hit country are imported from Germany and the franchise holder would have to raise prices by at least 20% to produce an acceptable profit.

The story was important enough to make it to the front page of the Financial Times on Oct 27.

According to the report, for McDonald’s to stay profitable in Iceland, the Big Mac there would have to be priced above US$5.75, which is what it costs in Switzerland, home to the most expensive Big Mac, according to the Big Mac index.

The Big Mac index is published by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and provides a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries.

You can get a good exposition of how this index works, including its limitations, by referring to Tan Sri Dr Lin See Yan’s column on July 25 entitled “Burgernomics and the ringgit”.

Since this column is not into heavy economic stuff, I was more interested to find out where the most expensive and cheapest Big Macs are to be found.

As of February this year, the most expensive burgers were in Norway (US$5.79), Switzerland (US$5.60), Denmark (US$5.07), Sweden (US$4.58) and Eurozone (US$4.38).

Now, here’s the interesting part. According to the same index, Malaysia (US$1.70) actually ranks No 1 among the five most affordable Big Macs, ahead of Hong Kong (US$1.71), China (US$1.83), Thailand (US$1.86) and Sri Lanka (US$1.95).

To be frank, I am not a real fan of fast food but when I am overseas and am at a loss as to what to eat, it is quite comforting to be able to step into a McDonald’s, KFC or Pizza Hut outlet, and order familiar items.

We also have to understand why some of our overseas friends do not like to be too adventurous with our wide array of Malaysian hawker fare, especially when they are on a short trip. There’s nothing worse than having to repeatedly run to the toilet because their stomachs are not accustomed to our delicious, spicy stuff.

Still on the same subject, I am trying to figure out why the fast-food joints are increasing the number of their 24-hour outlets.

In my neighbourhood, they compete with the Syeds and other 24-hour teh tarik outlets, and for the life of me, I cannot imagine anyone preferring a snack plate of original recipe chicken over a piping hot bowl of sup kambing in the hours after midnight, or a Big Mac over the Ramly burger sold at the roadside stall.

But they have obviously done their research, and I suppose my preferences are fast being overtaken by more global taste buds. That may well impact on the Burgernomics figures eventually, since prices are determined to a large extent by supply and demand.

I like to think that I’m doing my bit to keep Malaysia in the top ranking for most affordable Big Macs – by sticking to my teh tarik and roti canai during EPL matches.

Quoted from: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/11/2/business/5012387&sec=business

My comment:

Owh! Big Mac kat Malaysia rupanya dah dikira sangat murah. Tapi masih tetap mahal bagiku... >.<