I work in Gelang Patah (thereabouts actually) and stay somewhere near JB. The family is still in KL. As such I am on a weekly roundtrip from JB to KL. So the North-South Highway is now my best friend. The thing is, I used to dread having to make the trip on the highway (except on a bike of course). But as the trip now has become a weekly thing, I’m getting used to it already. I’ll leave the office for KL on Friday at about 6 or 6.30 pm and usually leave home for JB around the same time on Sunday. I am more of a robot now I guess, going about all the traveling like clockwork.
The highway is a boring place. The road is straight and I tell you, PLUS (the highway operator) really knows how to break your spirit. When you start your journey, they’ll place big signboards that say “Kuala Lumpur 304 km” or something like that. It’s like they’re trying to tell you that you’re 304 kilometres away from freedom. For now, they’ll just happily torture you with the almost never ending straight road and get you to spend at their rest areas. And you’ve got to buy your freedom too. From Senai Utara (my entry point to the highway) to Sungai Besi they make me pay a princely sum of RM40.90. That’s one way. And I travel to KL and back every week. So do the math kids. Doesn’t make for good reading.
I realise the highway is made to ease our traveling. The roads are well maintained, I must say. Quite safe for you to drive fast (or really fast) on. I think I generally have a very relaxed demeanour when I drive. Never one to explode into a rage whenever somebody cuts into my path. Also never one to break into a continuous rant of expletives when things don’t go my way. That said, speed is my weakness. As your quality of life improves, so will the quality of your car. Higher speeds follow suit. To be honest I think a 110 km/h speed limit is ridiculous (for selfish reasons). I could never keep to it. I’ll just simply fall asleep if I try to keep to 110 km/h for long periods of time.
I think where the speed limit is concerned, we are all hypocrites. At least I know I am. I’ll keep to it in the daytime as I am of the impression that the cops and their speed cameras will be hiding in some bushes just waiting for me to be the next “saman ekor” recipient. I heard somewhere that’s not what they do anymore. Apparently they’ll always make their presence known i.e. under some bridge or the observation posts you see on the highways. The curious thing is, you don’t see them with their speed cameras in the observation posts do you? So when do they catch you speeding? I don’t see them under the bridges anymore either. So that’s still a question mark to me.
OK, I digress. So I keep to the speed limit in the daytime. Once dusk comes, my right foot makes this uncanny transformation from flesh and bones to lead. Please blame the car for that. Never really discovered the true potential of my car until I begin traveling down south on a weekly basis. No I don’t own a performance car, it’s just a naturally aspirated 2 litre car. But the boy can go. The sad thing is, being one of those Japanese parallel imports (orang Melayu panggil kereta recon) the speed is electronically limited to 180 km/h. Not that I touch that speed on a regular basis though. My approach has always been that I’ll go relaxed in the car. If I need to speed I’ll ride. That has all changed now. Try driving from JB to KL (or vice versa) at 120-130 km/h. You’ll go crazy man.
So now, conditions permitting (no rain, light traffic, it’s nighttime) I’ll just floor the throttle. The thing is, there are still people who think the right lane is for vehicles traveling at 110 km/h (because that’s the speed limit) and the other lanes are for vehicles traveling under 110 km/h. So you’ll have to get close to them and “bagi high beam” for you to be able to overtake. Some do oblige, so that’s fine. I have an issue with those who remain where they are even after getting the signal to move over. I’m no road bully, far from it. And I will not overtake from the left either. So I’ll just end up getting stuck. Not good. I think moving over when you get the signal to do so is just good driving ethics. However I will not get into the debate of whether driving fast is good driving ethics. Why would I want to diss myself on my own blog? [Note: the Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) defines “diss” as “a form of disrespecting someone, their homies or their mama e.g. don’t diss on me, cause you ain’t me.“]
I used to stop at the rest areas to have a drink as well. Now, after realising that it’s all part of an elaborate plot by PLUS to get us to spend on the highway, I’ve quit doing that as well. I stop only at lay-bys nowadays should I get nature’s call. That’s it. If I get thirsty, I’ll get something from the vendors who are at the lay-bys and that’s it. No elaborate stops to makan2 or anything like that. Mind you, this is only applicable when you travel alone. If you bring the family along, a totally different rule applies. You’d make more frequent stops and obviously you don’t drive that fast anymore. Not with the kids in the car. It’s a totally different sensitivity.
For now, I still get that enjoyment in driving (not that I can afford a driver anyway). So I’ll just do it while I still can. I do have plans to bring the family down to JB when I get confirmed in my position. However, that’s a another story for another time. Until then!
I’ve always loved sitcoms. I know sitcoms is short for situational comedy but I decided to look for the definition anyway out of curiosity. According to the British Comedy Guide (www.comedy.co.uk), sitcom means, “A humorous radio or television series featuring the reactions of a regular cast of characters to unusual situations, such as misunderstandings or embarrassing coincidences; a sitcom.”
I enjoy both American and British sitcoms, but more of the British variety. The only American sitcom I watch is “Seinfeld”. It chronicles the lives of Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine. On a side note, they started with only the three guys (Jerry, George and Kramer). The series was deemed as a failure due to bad ratings. Then they included Elaine. The ratings improved and the rest, as they say, is history. I honestly believe that the inclusion of Elaine signalled a rebirth of Seinfeld. A sitcom with three guys talking and hanging out is not really interesting, isn’t it? Apart from good jokes, we guys need some eye candy as well. That’s just how we’re made.
Anyway, Seinfeld is dubbed as the show “about nothing”. After watching all nine seasons, I can vouch for the “nothingness” part. The guys and Elaine would just sit around and talk about literally, nothing. There’ll be arguments about nothing as well. For example, there’s this scene where Jerry sits with George at a diner. The conversation went on like this, “Where is the Netherlands? And what about Holland?”, something like that. I like pointless stuff like that. No thinking involved. Just straightforward hilarity. Maybe Seinfeld is not for everybody but it’s way better than Friends in my view. No offence to Friends’ fans, but Seinfeld is definitely way better. But that’s just me.
Seinfeld’s just about the only American sitcom I enjoy to be honest and to a lesser extent, Frasier. I’ve tried 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother and the others but they just don’t cut it for me. Currently Frasier is showing every night on FX HD on Astro (channel 726 if I’m not mistaken). Since I don’t have Astro byond in JB, I try to watch it whenever I’m in KL. But I would at times take out my collection of Seinfeld DVDs and watch them for hours on end. Never fails to crack me up.
Apart from Seinfeld, the sitcoms I enjoy most comes from Britain. Now, don’t get on about “mengagungkan penjajah” or anything like that. I love the sitcoms for pure entertainment value. For me the two best ones are “Blackadder” and “Allo ‘Allo”. Blackadder was the gem in which Rowan Atkinson played the title role before he became Mr. Bean. The writing is simply marvelous. Blackadder would talk metaphorically and always at extremes. It’s a definite recommendation from me. An interesting nugget of information – Hugh Laurie, the star of “House” (the medical series playing on AXN) stars in Blackadder as one of his cohorts. One season is set during the medieval times, the other during King George’s time and one more set during World War 1. In all, Rowan Atkinson stars as Edmund Blackadder. Hilarious. One of the lines which reflects the brilliance of the writing of Blackadder:
Blackadder: “I know from long experience all my men have the artistic talent of a cluster of colour blind hedgehogs in a bag”.
Notice the comparison? Simply brilliant. Wouldn’t have thought of that in a million years.
The other British sitcom is ‘Allo ‘Allo. Set in France during the German invasion, it tells the story of Rene Artois, the French Resistance fighter masquerading as a pub owner. Everybody in the story was supposed to be talking in French (the show’s in English). There’s this British secret agent who disguises himself as a French police officer. Instead of saying “Good morning”, his French version would always sound like “Good moaning”. Again, hilarious. Then there’s Yvette and the others. Rene is this guy who is irresistable to all womenfolk (kind of like every guy’s fantasy isn’t it?).
Come to think of it, there are other British sitcoms like Fawlty Towers and who can forget Mind Your Language, although I didn’t enjoy that half as much as I enjoyed Blackadder.
This is what I’m doing at the moment, blogging. If you’re at all interested to know, I didn’t get to watch Thor tonight. Didn’t feel like it. At least I didn’t have to watch a single Yuna commercial on terrestrial TV tonight. The made up American accent is quite irritating if I’m being honest. Oh, and my appointment with the Astro guy is tomorrow afternoon.
Well, another day dawns. Until then!
Today has been an OK day for me. The thing is, every week I try to get through Monday or whatever the first working day of week happens to be. In this week’s case, a Wednesday. For me, usually the first work day of the week will move awfully slow. After that, the rest of the week seems to breeze past, irrespective of what kind of aggravation I get. It gets doubly fast when I’m in JB. You see, over here I get thrown into the deep end from the get go. As such, everything moves really fast. At times it gets really tiring. But hey, they don’t pay you what they pay you for you to lounge around and goyang kaki do they?
Now, for your information, I have this thing about people who are into Multi Level Marketing (MLM). To be perfectly honest, I believe everybody has a way of making it in his/her life. For me, I don’t see any other way but to work hard. To me there’s just no substitute. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people who are into MLM don’t work hard. Sure at times you feel like packing it in, but as the saying goes, “bukan senang nak senang, bukan susah nak susah”. There was a time in my life when I felt like there’s just no way forward for me. I can tell you for sure it’s not easy going to the Uptown night market night after night for 10 months, carrying your load of merchandise, setting it up, attending to customers and the like. On a good day you’d get many customers, on a bad day you’d get none.
It’s always good when they are customers. But when there are none (or not many) that’s when you sometimes wallow in self-pity. It’s not a good thing to do, but it just happens you know. You have friends who are really successful in what they do (credit to them of course) and here you are, struggling. Don’t get me wrong, opening a stall at your local pasar malam is never an issue with me. It’s not demeaning in any way at all. As I said that’s what I did for close to 10 months. So no issues there. My stand has always been that I’ll do whatever it takes, legally of course. The thing is, I was married then and we had Nureen. My main priority was I have to provide for my family. The fact that I was staying at Mak’s place softened the blow a little bit.
Mak seemed worried but I always thought she had faith in me and always prayed for me. In any case, you can never discount the effect your parents have on you can you? I just hope everything works well, InsyaAllah. But make no mistake about it, the pasar malam experience (combined with other experiences as well) shaped me into the person I am today, in all the best ways possible. They say hindsight is a good thing and you learn from your experiences.
Anyway, I digress (that was a long one!). Many years ago, Murni and myself were approached by a relative who told us there’s this friend of hers who’d like to talk to us about this e-commerce thingy. Being somebody who’s always curious about the internet and all things IT, I said OK straightaway. So one night we went to this relative’s place to listen to the “talk”. There I find this guy who has a Master’s degree (in what I don’t remember) and his wife. The e-commerce thingy turned out to be…wait for it…Amway!
Well, I’ve never been an “in your face” person, so we stayed and listened. Apparently the relative was caught off guard as well as she didn’t realise the couple was going to give us a lecture on Amway. The things which struck me were catch phrases like, “do you want to retire at 35?”, “do you want to have financial freedom?”, those types of remarks. Here I was, a guy who just got married (can you call 3 years just married?) with his whole life in front of him, with crap like early retirement being shoved down his throat. And looking bemused at all times. I thought to myself, I studied for my law degree (with great difficulty mind you) and am determined to make the most out of it. I certainly wasn’t looking to retire at 35.
After some time, I politely indicated my disinterest at the offer of abundant riches and success (note the hint of sarcasm). The guy was OK with it. I think he could tell. The thing that really got to me was his wife. She went into this rant about wanting to help us (“kitaorang nak tolong you all ni orang muda-muda!”) and went on about how “rugi” we all are at passing up the opportunity. I thought this lady must’ve been brainwashed by her uplines real good. She really touched a raw nerve. I didn’t get into a fit or anything, but I gave her a piece of my mind. She was rather taken aback, as did the relative of ours.
I remember asking Murni to check on the current situation of the Amway couple. Have they become millionaires? Are they retired now? How many people have they “helped”? Somehow we never got around to it, but I sure would like to know. If they are indeed millionaires now, fair play to them. With effort comes reward, no two ways about it.
Anyway, the Astro technician called me this afternoon. Well done to Astro. The thing is, the guy can’t come over after office hours. And I almost certainly can’t take time off work. Something’s gotta give man. Can’t do without Astro. Probably I’ll have to make some arrangement in the next few days. That leaves me with the broken DVD player then. On a slightly happier note, I am planning to watch Thor tomorrow night. Hopefully it’s not gonna turn turtle and I find myself at home tomorrow night, watching the Yuna commercial on TV3 (which may well be the case).
Now, this is a rant, proper and true. Came back to JB tonight. You see, before I leave for KL every week I’ll make sure to turn off the power point where the TV, Astro and my DVD player is plugged in to. So being somebody who cannot live without Astro, the moment I step into the house, I’ll turn on the power. Usually everything turns out OK. Anyway tonight lo and behold, the Astro decoder didn’t boot up! Being the cool guy that I am (am I?) I took my time and turned off the power, turned it back on with the hope that the decoder would boot. No such luck. I proceeded to call Astro customer service. A lady answered my call. “We have a troubleshooting procedure”, she said. Which turned out to be what I just did. She then told me a technician would be calling me within 48 hours. I clarified a very important point. “Would that be 48 hours or 48 working hours?”, I asked.
A lesson to be learned, everybody. I was once told the same thing by TM’s customer service when my streamyx broke down. I waited and waited. It turned out to bloody 48 working hours. That’s 5 working days. Thus, I learned my lesson. The hard way, I might add. Oh, and the Astro technician will be calling me within 48 hours.
The trouble’s not over. I thought, well I’ll just watch DVDs then. I switched the DVD player on. Great, that got KOed too. I may have to bring it somewhere for repairs. Which I haven’t a clue where. Just great. There’s nothing like coming home to Astro after a hard day at work. That’s gone now (for this week at least). I hear you ask, “You can watch DVDs on the laptop, right? Surely you are ranting in your blog via a computer”. That I cannot dispute. But if you are a self respecting guy, you would not watch a DVD on your laptop, would you? With bad sound system and sometimes the picture quality sucks (which is what you get for buying pirated DVDs). Looks like it’s all doom and gloom then.
Well, come to think of it, this may be a sign. Sign of what? I haven’t figured that out just yet. I believe things happen for a reason. Again, I can’t really find the reason for this. Probably I’ve got to bring my work home then. That would just be crazy wouldn’t it? I admit I do work at home at times. Voluntarily and not because I do not have Astro. Now I end up watching terrestrial TV. Am watching Nightline on TV3 now. Which I never do. And what’s with Yuna suddenly talking with an American accent? Pardon my crankiness. That’s what you become without Astro.
Anyway, in case you’re reading this and you do not have Astro, I would like to apologise to you from the bottom of my heart. You must be thinking, “what is this guy ranting and raving about? I don’t have Astro and I get on just fine”. Point taken. Sorry again. It’s just me. I am the result of years and years of indoctrination by Astro. Please blame them because I honestly think they are the evil ones here.
Now, time for a contingency plan. I heard there are many good movies being shown now. Been planning to watch Thor. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 starts this Thursday. I might just watch those and get to know JB while I’m at it. Well what do you know, the Kangar round of the Cub Prix is starting now on TV3. That will have to do for now. Good night!
- Wouldn’t be complete without this, isn’t it?
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Nureen Sabrina with her cousins
Farah Batrisyia showing her lack of front tooth with her cousin
Harith Haiqal not in the mood for festivities
Harith Haiqal and Pakcu. Harith still rather clueless about the whole birthday thing
I’ve been thinking. Is there any benefit at all of being nasty to people? By being nasty I mean not giving people the respect they deserve. Be it in the workplace or in general dealings with people. You know, like according proper respect to people who work for/with you to the guys who take your order at your local tomyam joint. This is how I do it. Always treat people with respect. Where the guys at work are concerned, I try my best not to offend them, to provide good quality coaching, having their interests and feelings in mind and always respect them as human beings. I think this approach works with people who know their place and would accord you the necessary respect in return of what you provide them. Well, you do get some rotten eggs along the way, but I use this approach all the time and it has not disappointed me so far. People need to be in a conducive environment to perform and I believe it is the sworn duty of employers and bosses to provide them with that environment. During my time I’ve seen (and experienced) employers and managers who do not really care about their employees’ feelings and sensibilities. Employees are supposed to perform no matter what. We must never forget that human beings go through phases in their lives where they get discouraged and demoralised, not necessarily by events at work mind you. Things happen in their personal lives as well.
These issues may cause them to be unable to perform at the workplace. Some employers do not go the extra mile to find the causes to their staff’s non-performance. It’s really unfortunate that in the Malaysian corporate scene the prevailing approach is to blame somebody the moment something goes wrong. Rarely and I mean really really rarely the approach is to forgo everything else and focus on the problem at hand and look at ways to resolve the issue. That may come at the end of the road but the first option is always to see who’s head is gonna roll. Personally I do not believe this should be the approach. To me there’s always a lot of facets to everything we experience in life. To take the simplistic approach may result in trouble. Again, I feel that we need to delve deep into the individual and always treat everybody differently, according to the individual’s personality. No two people are the same. Generalise people at your own peril.
I wouldn’t consider treating A the same way as I would treat B. A may be OK with being spoken to in a certain way, not necessarily B. All things considered, it’s not that easy isn’t it? Well, there’s no sure fire way of doing it, neither there is a rule of thumb. However, just be nice and things should be OK. We are not angels so we may have our off days as well. Keeping your emotions in check would be a good place to start. I think we should all draw a deep breath and try to relax every time we are upset, under pressure or angry. Always find the time to sit down and ponder. Making a decision when you’re upset is never a good thing. The odds are decisions made in such a time will invariably prove to be destructive.
Enough with the serious stuff. Today the family and me went to Amcorp Mall in PJ. We spent probably 5 hours or so there. Not being a guy who relishes going to Mid Valley, KLCC and the like (due to the amount of people there or thereabouts) I just like Amcorp Mall as I can find most of the things I want there. Especially as I always go to Book Xcess. They sell books there (thank you Captain Obvious). The point is the books they sell is cheap. It’s not one of those joints that sell second hand books. Book Xcess deals with over printed books which they sell at mostly at about 60 per cent of the original price. And it’s updated too. I get a good supply of World War Two books there.
On weekends, they have this flea market where you can get almost everything from T-shirts, CDs, comic books etc. I always go to this stall where this guy sells neckties. He has a good selection with great designs and cheap too. A nice necktie for RM30 each (and with a RM10 discount if you buy two) is a bloody good deal is it not? I was planning to get a couple today. To my disappointment, the guy wasn’t around. So my new necktie’s gotta wait.
Today, we paid a guy to trim the trees in the new house. I asked him to also trim to pokok bunga which covered the fencing of the house. Had a look this evening and he did a good job, in my view. As the family and myself will be moving down to Johor soon, we may just get him to clean up the place every three months or so. I still do not know what to do with the house when we do move to Johor. Renting it out is out of the question I think. Can’t leave it empty though. Let’s see. Gotta think about it.
Stoner won the race in France today. They say Simoncelli is a crasher but I didn’t really believe it looking at his performances this year. Apparently the riders have been complaining of his on track antics lately. Today I saw it first hand (not at the track but on TV). Super Sic (as he likes to call himself) made a rempit-like move on Pedrosa who fell on lap 18 or something like that. That was careless man. Super Sic just turned into Super Suck in my book. Pedrosa who just came back from a shoulder operation ended up holding his shoulder after he fell. I hope he’s fine. Always the unsung hero of MotoGP, he was never spectacular but he did his job. I think he’s the most consistent rider never to have won the championship. Oh, and hot off the press, Pedrosa fractured his right collarbone in the crash. Good on you, Super Suck!
What do you know…two days after I started to blog (or rather think I could blog) again, Blogger screwed me. I pasted the entries to my last blog way back in 2006 in my new blog, added a new post, and lo and behold it went missing after half a day. That sucks man. Now I am starting all over again, while I have the spirit and motivation, so bear with me. I’ll do the cutting and pasting a little bit later as I still think I should do it. This owed to the fact that I like to read the old entries (perasan!) and the way I wrote it.
The thing is, I think I was more carefree then and the writing style was very casual and happy if you like. Now I could categorise myself as a more serious person. Which I do not like to be honest. Didn’t really notice it until I started to write. Everything sounds you know, a little tight-arsed, or uptight or what have you. I’d like to think of myself as that carefree person, like the guy in 2006. The other difference is (and I think the more important one) I am more stable now. In most aspects, be it in my career, financially and in my life in general. But what a price to pay, kan? Getting some stability in your life with the trade off of being a more tight-arsed person. Damn!
All that said, I have tons and tons of work to finish. In all honesty, I don’t mind working on a Saturday night if that’s what it takes. It’s not the norm, but to succeed you can’t be the norm can you? In the quest to be different, you’ve got to do what others don’t do or rather would not do. I really believe that all the effort you put in would prove to be useful or beneficial later. Not a rajin guy by any means, I’d rather be sitting, lounging around watching TV. But what choice do I have?
Enough of this serious stuff. I think I’ve chosen a good day to re-commence blogging. Why? Today is the day Manchester United FC won their 19th League title. That matters to me. I’ve been supporting United since I was in Standard 3 and that was 28 years ago. Duxbury, Robson, Kanchelskis, Parker and the others were my heroes. For all I care Astro could just have the Movie and Sports channels and I wouldn’t complaint. I could just be watching some movies and the Premier League and Champions League. Not to forget MotoGP and to a lesser extent, Formula 1. Now, back to United. Sir Alex, could you please buy that guy Wesley Sneijder for next season? I really think he’s a brilliant player. You missed on van der Vaart and Ozil (I really think you should’ve gone for him) and the others. Come clean please, the 80 million pounds from the Ronaldo transfer wasn’t really there to be spent was there?
The cutting and pasting would still come later…you are not yet released!
daily rants (well...almost) 