PENANG AFTER 16 YEARS: Daniel

Kamizi is so high-tech nowadays and this is so not typical of him. He has this electronic contraption branded GARMIN Navigator the “talking” GPS Electronic Map.

Oh! The relief I have for not having to do anything but to sit comfortably next to him in the car, enjoying the ride is so magnificently welcomed. Otherwise, I would have been stuck trying to decipher a map, the symbol legends and the distance, up side down for directions in Penang.

We get to choose what language we want for Garmin Navigator to communicate to us. Each language comes with the name of the person that “speaks” to us. I thought that was kind of funny!

So we chose British English as the communication dialect because it is easier to understand and DANIEL is the name of the person that “talks” to us.

Daniel would say, “drive another 500 meters and then turn left to Jalan Burma!” or “please stick to the designated route!” or “you have arrived at Golden Sands Resort!”

Sometimes, Daniel cannot figure out what route we took because the road has been changed and it is not in his system. So Daniel would say, “re-calculating new distance!” or something like that.

But all in all, Daniel is like a new best friend that everyone must have in their cars when travelling to unfamiliar places. Because Daniel’s sole purposes is just to get you from point A to point B without having argued with your travelling companion about left or right, forward or stop when the place we are going to is actually right under our nose.

Daniel reduced our travelling time and distance. We got to our destinations painlessly and quick. We surely love having Daniel stuck on Kamizi's car windshield telling us where to go, where to turn and when to stop. Many thanks to Kamizi who had redeemed his thousands of Maybank credit card points to Daniel the GARMIN Navigator.

With Daniel, you can never get pissed off at anything because if you are too stupid to follow his directions, which we did several times, he will keep giving a new route every time you screw up and make a wrong turn until we finally reach the destination.

It is quite brilliant indeed! (with Daniel’s British accent).

PENANG AFTER 16 YEARS: Intoduction to my holiday

It all started when Kamizi was looking for some glittering shirt to wear for his MASholiday’s Year End dinner. The theme for the dinner was Glitter.

Needless to say more, I got just the right shirt for him to wear that I have never worn before for the obvious fact; It’s too glittery and it will instantly makes me look like a “Bangla” gone mental in a broad day light. But to wear such a shimmery and almost transparent piece of cloth to a theme party dinner, Oh! Yeah! It is so perfect!

The thing about this dinner was they have a competition for best, most glittering Liberace-styled for a male and female outfit. The winner for both categories will get a fabulous expensive stay at a 4-star resort in Penang.

And so with no competition from other middle-aged, beer-bellied male workers of MASholidays, Kamizi won himself a 2-night’s stay for two persons at Shangri-La’s Golden Sands Resort at Ferringhi Beach, Penang. It was only fair for Kamizi to bring no other else but me to this Resort. Otherwise, I would kill him with sarcasm and painful ungrateful disappointment words for years to come.

Actually, no! I was just kidding. I didn’t really mind if he wanted to bring somebody else for this Penang trip. But, I am sure I will get some fabulous I-feel-so-guilty-Souvenir from him after that. So either way I am cool!

After several dates changed to suit room availability and Kamizi’s Annual Leave approval, finally at 8am on the 14th of August, off we went for our adventure to the isle of Penang after 16 years the last time we were there.

To be continued!

(No Bins + Less Worker = Profit)= UNCIVILIZED

As I am growing older in this city of mine, I noticed how fast we have grown. Seemed like it was just yesterday, I was waiting for a bus at Bandar Tasik Selatan to go to SOGO, KL. At that time, MRR2 Highway was probably still in the KIV files in some KL town planning office.

It was just this normal single road with trees and green grass along the road side. Big different now, even a 3-lane highway is still not enough to sustain thousands of cars with traffic jam to deal with everyday day on top of that.

There were no LRT around KL until the National Sports Complex at Bukit Jalil completed for the XVI Commonwealth Games in 1998. It was a huge deal to all of us and how modern we have become. I am so proud to be Malaysian and never otherwise. Mahathir sure did so much gazillion things to Malaysia’s success.

Nowadays, LRT is pretty much my main public transportation; dependable, air conditioned, cheap, on-time, clean and air-conditioned. Did I mention air-conditioned twice? Yup I did! With Malaysia’s weather is so fucking hot nowadays, I just cannot stand it sometimes. Is it just me or the weather really is hotter lately?

No wonder shopping malls are always filled with people wondering around not because they really want to shop or dine at restaurants or going to movies, but because shopping mall is like an outdoor activities that is indoor outside their houses that doesn’t feel like we are torturing ourselves trying to loose weight in saunas.

And then there’s this enticing and creative window display that bewitching us subconsciously to walk in the boutiques and the next thing we know, the plastic card already made it to the cashier paying with the money we don’t posses for the things we don’t need. It is all a conspiracy to trap people in the world of economics. And the retailers have the license to do so.

Back to my LRT, more and more people are using the service and one should experience what a pack little sardine can it is at the rush hour times in the morning. I for one lucky enough to avoid such experience as I am working on my own and my office located on the suburb area.

However I often take LRT to the city center for my business meetings, banking, buying supplies, social functions, shopping and many other chores. I couldn’t help but wonder though as the LRT is making more and more profits after so many years in operations, why aren’t they adding more wall mounted fans?

It only takes 5 minutes of walking for the heat to make me sweat profusely and not to mention walking up and down the stairs at the LRT stations and then wait for another 10 to 20 minutes for the train to come. By the time I reached my seat in the train, I am already dehydrated due to unstoppable sweat in the hot sunny day.

Every time I got stuck at the LRT station, Masjid Jamek for example, during rush hour between 5.00 pm to 7pm, there were huge concentrations of people standing bum to bum under a wall mounted fans. Haven’t they (LRT) figured out yet that these fans are very essential in giving people comfort while waiting for the train to arrive? Is it too much to ask?

With the increasing number of people commuting with LRT, I have also realized the increasing number of plastic wrappers, plastic bottles, i.e. assortments of earth- damaging trash, been thrown around. But then I was awakened like an electric shocked to the fact that there are actually very-very few trash bins anywhere. It’s like litter litter everywhere, not a bin to find!

I know what they are up to actually! They want to reduce the number of imported 3rd world country cleaning workers working on each LRT platforms. To them, by taking out all the trash bins off the LRT platforms will reduce the number of people throwing away trash at their bins. Thus, no bins around, less worker needed! No Bins + Less Worker = PROFIT.

The truth is, if the trash didn’t end up in their trash bins, they will end-up on the train track, the grounds, roads, side-walks, our drainage systems and eventually being push by the rain to our river. By the end of the day, all our ecological system got fucked-up just because there were no trash bins at LRT stations.

It’s the cycle of life! When we (the corporation) decided to be greedy and selfish, our Mother Nature always end-up taking the fall. To think that we have become smarter and civilized doesn’t really mean anything actually. Mother Nature -(No Bins + Less Worker = PROFIT) = UNCIVILIZED.

Where have all the civilizations gone? They are just bricks and metals and lack of humanity.

GOSSIP BOY: Celah Bedah!!!

Sometimes in order for us to avoid from drowning in the sea of people, one has to swim up the most creative detestable gestures imaginable.

But before we get to that….

Confession: Mostly, I would download all my fascinating, interesting, fun shocking bits and pieces of malicious gossips when I ease-dropping at a public hang-out area, i.e. at a juice bar in a gym drinking my hot green tea reading my newspaper repeatedly while my headphones stuck in my ears playing nothing. Uhh! Huhh! You heard me! My iPod Touch was actually on a pause mode the whole time I was there.

Yup! I was gathering data. In a slightly more professional term, I was doing an investigative-spying like a desperate little reporter trying to meet deadline for some scandalous-juicy-tabloids on your supermarket aisle near the cashier counter.

No! I lied! I am not that desperate! But scandalous makes us smirk!

Back to the main issue, do we need to lower our self respect in order to advance our career as a popular dance instructor (ultimately) while the permanent professional instructor is on a long leave?

I have stopped my self from going to her class because I have realized that I was doing it all for the wrong reason. I was there just to annoy her! Initially, me and my 3 buddies who now has been deleted off her phone book, were going to her class wearing identical “Smiley Cheer-up” Giordano t-shirts. She despised my attendance in her class (so I heard) and that gives me the more reason to be there and tip her off with my lack of enthusiasm dancing mode of an entry level Dance Lesson 101.

Eventually, I have noticed that my existence in her class makes that sweaty hot dance studio crowded and send the wrong signal to the people outside the class that she could be an excellent, fun instructor that everyone should join. Oh! No! That’s not what I want!

Thus, I quit her little joint and “lepak” at the juice bar watching eager-muscle-gymmers drinking 100Plus and turn on my radar for juicy details.

Word has it that “Flashdance”-instructor here gave a birthday gift to some boy that she was not really close and now made that boy’s best friend AM annoyed! Seemed to me like she is trying to fish some new friends! But with the wrong fella and wrong gesture!

She didn’t even give R anything when she was organizing a little surprise birthday dinner for R at Bubba’s Gump last June. I mean, she was supposed to be really close to R at that time and very eager to please R. R got something from each and everyone of us but not from her. Weird!

And now, she gave AM’s best friend a birthday gift when in the first place she and AM are not in a hugs and kisses kind of friendship but more like a pat on a shoulder kind of friendship. Envious and territorial of each other! Her motive is questionable indeed! But who cares what the book says about her when we can read the “cover headline” in neon lights. Right!

I find it very opportunist to just give her not-so-good friend’s good friend a gift that doesn’t really matter when she didn’t even care for her own friend, R. Seems like she’s trying to “celah bedah” herself in to other people’s territory.

Well, good luck to ya! Be careful though, you might get yourself into a catfight someday. Kitty likes to scratch!

Personally I would prefer to watch you in a mud-wrestling. That would be something to cheer about!

Go Z go! Go Z go! Go Z go!

Zzzzzzzzzzzz!

Live Free!

GOSSIP BOY: Tsskkk! Tsskkk! Tsskkk!

News travel so fast nowadays! With internet only a click away in our iPhone and Blackberry, we get to find out the juiciest news about our own back side only a few second travels from Susan to Cindy to Mike to Jane and back to me.

I heard that Z(Hobbit-Oprah of Middle Earth) deleted my sweet buddy L, R and J from her precious little Facebook friend list. L was a little bit sad by Z’s action for about 10 seconds. Nope, cut the zero and leave the 1 second only.

And then L was all smiling and said, “Aku tak rugi apa pun, ada aku kesah!”

Then my Sweetheart friend W from overseas sent me a short message said that J (Desperate Black-Widow) has made her lousy Blog into a Private Blog upon invitation only. Then I said…..”Aku tak rugi apa pun, ada aku kesah!”

Another sad gossip: I was told by someone that Z was really over confident doing her BJ class last Wednesday night with fewer followers than the week before. I counted! A friend asked me why I didn’t attend her dance-dance-dance the night away class. So I spoke the truth about the whole thing to him.

Z’s class is “syok sendiri” and if someone wanted to use her BJ class as a torturing device to kill me, they will succeed. I will surely die of boredom and a severe eyesore watching her believing what a fabulous little hobbit she is. So sad!

A little shout out to some friends….I supposed now the wind has changed. It’s time to migrate to the Friday BJ class and have fabulous times. I heard Z goes to that class too but as a follower. Errrmmmm! Suspicious! Spying and doing some un-official political act is more likely.

Z confessed to R buddy of mine long ago: “Dik, kat gym ni akak kena pandai politik sikit dik!” Proven guilty as charged!

But on the other hand, joining another BJ class will help Z to loose some of those fatty love handles around her waist, thunder thighs and everywhere there’s skin. A word of advice to Z, cut down your Nasi Lemak at Old Town from 2 plates at one time to 0 plate ok. There are other foods to eat too. Look at the menu again!

Tsskkkkk! Tssskkkk! Tsskkkk!

FAKE MONET!

When I first went to FF Maxis, never in my right mind that I was planning to make friends with people or make enemy with anyone. But one thing led to another, shits start to happen. Why? Because, I open myself for new possibilities and believed that there are good things out there for me.

The true confession is I never really put priority to make friends with people. I always felt that I am happier by myself and with my existing set of friends. I always feel like the more people I know, the more complicated my life will be. And it’s true!

I cannot turn back time now and pretend that nothing happened. The situations with J (The desperate Black-Widow) and Z (The Hobbit-Oprah of Middle Earth) have gotten sour and now rotten. I could care less how good they rate themselves or how much lemmings that follow their fat asses. But it is surely entertaining to watch how they flock together in the gym with big silly smiles. God knows how much effort they put to ignore my existence among them breathing the same stale air in that gym.

But another true confession is I wish I didn’t know them at all in the first place. Woulda, shoulda, coulda, means its' too late now! They are just a bunch of counterfeit Monet paintings that deteriorating over time on your wall. You just need to watch them from far and away because if you come near them with a magnifying glass, all you see is just a bunch of ugly blotted of colors that doesn’t make sense and make your eye soar.

I think this is the time for me to throw these poison apples in the trash bin and let them rot and eaten by the rats.

Live Free!

Outing with Mak & Sis!

For the longest times, my mom has been meaning to ask me if I could take her out for dinner and such. I am such a selfish son never even bother to ask if she needs anything at all.

After been told by my sis about my mom's wish, I took them to Dinner at Bangi on the 1st of August, to eat Satay and after that I brought them to the Festival Flora at Putrajaya 2009.

I was a little bit disappointed with the Floral Show at Putrajaya because the walking path around the exhibition area were not wheel-chair friendly. I couldn't push my mom to a lot of the places.

To think that we could come out with such grand flower show equivalent of an international exhibitions and cost millions of tax payer's money and they couldn't even get the pathways right and forgot the physically challenged citizens. I wonder who actually responsible for designing the landscape layout of the whole exhibition. They shouldn't be used again next year!

By 9.00 pm, we were so tired and sweaty after walking around the exhibition. I bought mom some KFC to take home. And we reached home about 9.30pm.

It was a great day with my mom! I am happy to have been able to take her out to see the world.

I love you mom!