Traffic chaos

Out in the open field the sun shines brightly across the gleaming grass with every blade reflecting off the glimmering brightness. The wind fills the area that brushes against my skin, forcing my nerves to feel a tingling feeling. Sky is clear, sun is shining, oh such a wonderful place to be. Nothing could ever take this all away; no one can persuade me to leave. Paradise may be close by but the very thought of moving an inch already gets shot down by your ever relaxed body and mind.

Now wouldn’t all of that be great? Apparently it’s the total opposite here in Shah Alam. Dark clouds fill the sky and the sounds of rumbling thunder fills the deafening cries of commuters stuck in a massive traffic jam. As more and more rain fall down from the heavens, water level rises steadily until the inevitable happens, flash floods.

As more and more people tries to scuttle back home from their workplaces ala factories here in Shah Alam, the jam grows at a rate greater than the floodwaters and rain. It started before quitting time and it most definitely ended in the wee hours of the night.

This is my story:

Me [5.35pm]: (Calls a colleague who left work at 5.30pm) Hey man, where are you now? How is the situation outside?
Colleague C [5.36pm]: I am still outside leh, it’s pretty jammed up outside of JVC, I am even stuck in the parking compound. I haven’t passed the guardhouse yet.
Me [5.40pm]: Okla, looks like I will go back a little later.

Me [6.09pm]: Hey man, where are you now? How’s the situation at the highways?
Colleague C [6.10pm]: I haven’t reached the highway yet, still stuck at the roundabout outside the office.

By this time another colleague of mine has convinced me to join him and some other people for some free pizza at Pizza Hut. That was 6.30pm and the plan was to take a 10minute walk to the local Pizza Hut located outside my office.

Me [6.40pm]: Wow, the place is crazy man, the jam is so massive. Why do I not see any cars moving at all?
Colleague A: I think they closed off all of the major roads due to the flash floods.
Me: Darn it, how am I going for cell group later?
Colleague B: I guess you will definitely miss it.
Me: Oh man....hey wait a minute, isn’t that Colleague C in his car over there?

I walked closer and started knocking at his door.

Me [6.45pm]: Hey man, looks like I am overtaking you right now.
Colleague C [6.46pm]: ……………..
Me [6.49pm]: I think if you leave your car where it is, join us for dinner and come back after that, the cars around you wouldn’t have moved any further than 10metres.
Colleague C [6.51pm]: You think so?
Me [6.52pm]: Of course, come on. Let’s go and grab some free pizza. If you don’t believe me, remember the license plate of that car in front of you. The light blue Proton Waja with the license plate WJA 2991.
Colleague C [6.53pm]: Alright. (gets down from his car and leaves it at the roundabout where we met him)

After dinner....

Me [7.40pm]: Man that was some great pizza.
Colleague C [7.41pm]: Yeah man, thanks for asking me to come along.
Me [7.43pm]: You are most welcome. Oh look, that’s your car over there. And hey, the Waja (WJA 2991) is not that far away, only about 2 cars ahead of you. Wasn’t I right?
Colleague C [7.45pm]: Yeah you are right. Thanks for the wonderful advice!

Ok, it didn't really happen like that but it did give you a clear picture of how the traffic situation was in Shah Alam yesterday. It was one of the worst traffic jams I have ever encountered. Now wasn't that more fun rather than me explaining to you the nitty ditty details of what happened instead?

How words can affect us

I write this article in relation to the recent dramatic incidences in our local blogsphere (including Singapore). This incident started off with Miss XiaXue commenting on handicapped toilets (read the article here) which sparked cries of outrage from people around as well as the handicapped community including our very famous Peter Tan.

Recently (on Monday), Miss XiaXue then posted again about people complaining to her sponsors about her actions which resulted in them pulling out their endorsements. She then replied by saying plenty of stuff which I can't be bothered to post it up but you can read it all here. Instead I shall take snippets from it and illustrate more on the issue. Miss Xiaxue defended herself by stating that disabled people can get away even though they know that they are wrong.

When this certain man wrote his emails to Localbrand, Kimage, and Voxy, he KNEW what he was doing.

When Turodrique asked him why he was doing this (ie trying to harm my income), guess what his reply was?

"Because it always works."

(Work to what, destroy people's lives? No shit Sherlock, I almost couldn't believe your daring honesty.)

He knows, because he is a physically disabled person, he stands an advantage in everything he does and says. He knows that he is never wrong, or that people will never dare say he is...

To me personally that is really hitting it below the belt. As if it is not bad enough that they are disabled but to even generalize them in such a way is not a very good move. Furthermore, she added,

I always thought that the physically handicapped will have a sense of pride even stronger than the average person, and this is something I have always admired in them. Their will to live far exceeds those physically abled, and because they constantly get unwanted pity, they are even more bent to prove themselves; prove that they can also live their lives normally, like everyone else.

But this man has proven me wrong.

Instead of picking up his pride, he exploits his disability to the fullest extent, to get things working for him; and to harm others - who are not allowed to have a different opinion from him.

Not only did he write to Voxy, Kimage, and Localbrand in an attempt to stop them from endorsing me, and hence stop my livelihood, he also CC-ed all the disabled charity organisations in his email... His purpose? I can only guess he was trying to get to the media and shame me as well.

Maybe her loyal fans might agree with her but to one who is trying to fairly judge the situation, I believe her statement above would seemingly add proof that she is rather insensitive. Yes freedom of speech and all that but to hit out on the handicapped, then generalizing them? But I have something to say about the last line. Peter doesn't have to write the letter to get the media, you do it all by yourself in your own blog. Only a self centered person who thinks that everyone elses lives revolves around theirs would believe so.

In all honesty, this situation actually speaks for itself. The public will always have differing opinions and situations like this will never be solved because we live in an imperfect world where no one is perfect except for the one person who walked this earth 2000 years ago. Even then when the people wanted to stone a prostitute or an adulterer, He said, "Let those without sin cast the first stone". So, I myself am not perfect in any way therefore what right do I have to come and judge someone for their own wrong doing.

People can comment all they want about how bad other people can be and how insensitive some bloggers might be but remember to remove the plank out of our own eyes before we start trying to remove a speck of dust out from other people's eyes.

Condolences

My condolences to our nation's leader, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on the sad loss of his beloved wife, Datin Seri Endon Mahmood.

Lets take a moment of silence as we mark a great loss for our Prime Minister.

Find out more here.

Weekend rush!

It has been a little over a week since my Clarks shoes was stolen from my front door and the first priority for me is to get a decent pair of shoes for myself rather than walking around everywhere in a pair of slippers. So last week I opened my mail box and found an email advertising a Clarks warehouse sale in Shah Alam. A quick discussion with my family and we were on our way there.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by a massive traffic slowdown right in front of the factory lot and finding parking wasn't easy. I think binomial interpolation was easier. Anyhow after squeezing my car about a hundred meters away, I walked in to the lot only to find this.



There was a massive crowd of sweaty people, waiting for their turn to be let into the warehouse. I couldn't even look inside and man, was I hot. After another 5 mins, yup you guessed, even more people arrived. They stood behind and started pushing.



My screams for help landed on deaf crazed shoppers who think that shoes are the truth and light of this world. Well at least this warehouse sale is better than the one at Sony recently. After about 10mins, I was finally in. My mum decided to start lining at the queue first whilst me and my dad went looking around for shoes.



After a quick check through the men's shoes and looking at the catalogues, I couldn't find anything of my liking and so did my dad. There weren't any formal sort of shoes and most of them were sandals and loafers. I didn't really fancy paying RM300 for some casual shoes anyway.

Finally to conclude my Clarks Warehouse shoes sale, at the end of the day I finally managed to get myself a pair of shoes.



And I got these at almost the same price as those Clarks casual shoes that were on sale!

Ironic?

Try this out for yourselves.

1) Go to http://www.google.com.
2) Type in "Failure", without the quotes in to the search box.
3) Instead of hitting the "Search" button, hit the "I'm feeling Lucky" button.
4) Look at it and laugh at what comes up.
5) Tell your friends before the people at Google Fix it.

Now didn't you have a good laugh?

Backward Mentality

I refer to today's article in The Star's website regarding the recent raid on a snooker centre and it really got me thinking, are we moving forward in terms of sport as a nation or are we hindered by plain stupidity?

After spending about a couple of years in the UK, I managed to experience the true sport of snooker, attending even the World Snooker Championships. I longed to see Malaysia grow into a dominant player in the snooker field, bringing Asia to the fold of the other great players like Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Marco Fu, Jimmy White and others. But after reading the ariticle, all I could see is the sport moving backwards.

I could not believe that the sport has been labelled "entertainment" and then not allowed. What is the true definition of entertainment?

en·ter·tain·ment Audio pronunciation of "entertainment" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ntr-tnmnt)
n.
1. The act of entertaining.
2. The art or field of entertaining.
3. Something that amuses, pleases, or diverts, especially a performance or show.
4. The pleasure afforded by being entertained; amusement: The comedian performed for our entertainment.
5. Archaic. Maintenance; support.
6. Obsolete. Employment.

- Souce: Dictionary.com

So anything that amuses or pleases the people in that particular state has to be banned? Then they should go ahead and ban funny people, people who make jokes, businesses who entertain clients, offices that entertain customers and so on and so forth. This blatantly expresses the mentality of certain individuals who came up with this idea.

Maybe this problem all started out from the fact that in Malaysia, snooker parlours and joints were rather sleazy in nature. Places like these attracted the bad hats of the crowd and were even haunts for drug adddicts. Even the name snooker was a cover up for illegal gambling and betting areas, people might be gambling in the next room or playing "ma kei" machines (horse racing betting machines) right next to the table. How then could one argue with the fact that certain parties only wanted to control the proliferation of these unwanted and unhealthy practices.



Tackling the problem from the root should be the right way but the real question is, what is the root of all this? The problem has sunken in so deeply already that any kid who wants to play snooker at the local snooker parlour must be ready to receive a bombardment of questions from their parents. In fact, real snooker parlours such as the ones in shopping complexes like 1Utama and Pyramid charge exhorbitant prices, so much such that youths rather spend RM2 per hour playing at a cyber cafe rather than the RM8-RM20 per hour at snooker centres.

The cheaper ones on the other hand offer better rates but these have already been branded as sleazy joints with windows tinted, the strong smell of smoke and the usual sound of cracking "mah jong" tiles emanating from the room in an obscure corner. With this culture and mentality embedded deep into one's mind, I say with much regret that it will definitely take some sort of convincing to turn this sport into a real gentlemen's sport, one with class and honour.

UVJ Search Photos

I finally gotten around to sticking up these photos on my blog. Well firstly, it was taken using my camera phone (VGA camera), so the quality isn't that great.


This picture was taken at the reception area where we had to wait until we were brought in to the set. Once inside the set, there must be no handphones turned on so a quick snapshot was in order.


Everyone had a banner like this and all we had to do was to write down the name of who we are supporting. Its a pity I didn't manage to get a snapshot of the huge cardboard signs which Nadia made. They were awesome!


This was how the set looked like when the show ended. The entire place wasn't really big, there weren't enough seats for everyone as well. Some people had to sit at the sides which were rather uncomfortable.


Once the show ended, everyone was ushered out of the studio and then out of the building. Of course there were people still hanging around chit chatting.

To me, this was a first time for me being in a studio and since I into camcorder designing, those huge tv cameras really blew me away. Next time, I am going to bring a camera or at least try to take more pictures with my phone. Honestly I am rather surprised that the pictures turned out better than expected, well at least compared to the old Nokia pictures I took.

What colour should my blog be?

Your Blog Should Be Purple

You're an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything. You tend to set blogging trends, and you're the most likely to write your own meme or survey. You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you - not what anyone else has to say.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Didn't you know? Green is the next purple!

Weekend Summary

A lot happened over the weekend for me, well just a couple of weird incidences. Anyway Saturday morning began with the extremely sad news of a robbery which occured right at my doorstep. Yes, some idiot came in and stole all of my shoes, well, he/she did leave the slippers and sandals. But nevertheless, my loafers, work shoes, badminton shoes and casual shoes were gone! Thank goodness I left my futsal boots and jogging shoes in the car. I kinda guess all of my shoes would have been on sale at the Uptown "pasar malam" that night. I just hope that whoever took my shoes and my family's shoes would get his/her just returns.

In the evening, the plan was to head out to Hartz Chicken Buffet at Sunway Pyramid to celebrate one of my colleagues birthday dinner but by the time I arrived there at 6pm, the place was already packed with people, majority Malays waiting to "buka puasa" or break fast. Not only was the place packed but there were tonnes of people lining up in front. So a change of plan was in order and I starved myself the entire day for nothing. Our whole group ended up in Manhattan Fish market eating fish and enjoying each other's company and chatting. It has been a while since we all went out for a meal together outside of work.

Sunday was a long day for me, woke up early for church and then headed over to have a round of futsal with my mates. Playing for nearly 2 hours was no joke and if I didn't drink milo before the match, I would have conked out early on. Still, I am grossly overweight and in need of more training in terms of fitness. Sunday evening was the main highlight of my weekend, I attended the Hitz.tv UVJ search live showing at Astro and the experience was mind blowing. It was the first time for me to be in a movie/tv studio and I really did enjoy myself. On this matter, I will post more updates as well as pictures taken with my camera phone.

The cry of Mp3

With the proliferation of mp3 players in the market, more and more consumers are switching from conventional CD players, walkmans, mini discs and other media towards mp3 players which offers plenty of advantages over the latter in terms of song storage and portability. Because of this new phenomenon, the rise in digital file sharing has increased which bred a new technology whereby major labels are applying onto their CDs to prevent piracy. This has led to numerous problems. One of them is that users are not allowed to rip them into mp3 format.

By not allowing the user to rip CDs legally purchased into mp3s means disallowing them to actually listen to the CD on a mp3 player. So what are millions of iPod users are going to say about it? Well they have been complaining like mad and even artists are revealing methods to going around this copyright protection code.

- source CNN

As for me, personally I think that this will encourage more people to download off the internet or through peer-to-peer softwares rather than going through the trouble of trying to rip it into another format then converting it again. The extra hassle will not discourage people from downloading through peer-to-peer networks but rather encouraging them to do so. But luckily my mp3 player plays windows media format so it doesn't really bother me, just the other millions of iPod users. heh

Tag - I'M IT..

Alright I have been tagged by my good friend Ikewauhc and it seems I have to answer many many questions in order to lift this tagging curse that has fallen unto me. Lets begin, shall we?

Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1) Leave a legacy
2) To be married and have kids
3) To drive at least two supercars
4) To say goodbye to everyone I know
5) To try all the tasty food in the world
6) To tell certain people what I really think of them
7) To travel around the world

Seven things you could do:
1) Improve my vocabulary
2) Be more patient
3) Spend more time with friends and family
4) Earn more money
5) Master mandarin (it will take a while)
6) Lose about 15kg and be fitter
7) Take more photos

Seven celebrity crushes:
1) Sandra Bullock
2) The girl who acted in some movie about losing a guy in 10 days
3) The girl who acted in one of Andy Lau's gambling show
4) Britney Spears
5) Jeniffer Aniston
6) I can't remember her name
7) I can't remember her name

Seven often repeated words:
1) Ala...
2) What the heck?
3) Oh crap!
4) Er, excuse me...
5) Yupp!
6) Really?
7) Sigh....

Seven physical traits I look for in the opposite sex:
1) Long straight silky hair
2) Smooth skin
3) Slightly tanned skin
4) Big lips
5) Slightly tall
6) Small built
7) Can make funny cheeky faces

Now to tag someone else!
Lionel
Joshua
Adrian
Chuenie
Seng
Grace
Elizabeth