New Genre of Bapa Ayam!!!

Red alert guys. Be afraid. Be very very afraid. There is a new version of Bapa Ayam in town. More suave, more style and more persuasive then ever before, these Bapa Ayam will pimp you in no time.

Well it happened last Saturday, when i was at Sri Petaling's Lrt station. I've got a date with my sisters and i was supposed to wait for them at about 6.30p.m. over there. There is a bus stop right in front of the station and it was there where i chosed to sit and wait, cracking my head on Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time along the way.

I started waiting at about 6.20p.m., occasionally lifting my eyes from my book to scan the road. There were some 10-15 people over there, decent blokes i should say.

I was very engrossed in my reading. People came and left without me noticing. I really don't mind waiting over there for an hour or more. Nevertheless, at about 6.40p.m., i looked up again to make sure my sisters have not arrived yet. Well, one never knows whether they drove by a few times, missed my ugly face and start curing me, right? Suddenly, out of the blue, a thin, skinny man, dark in complexion, dressed unassumingly in typical T-shirt and shorts, holding a plastic bag in one hand and standing some 1.5 metres in front of me, turned his face away from the road and looked towards me. His mouth was slightly ajar and i thought i saw only 2 nicotine+coffee stained teeth in his lower jaw when he gave me a wry smile.

I gave him the 'I know kungfu don't mess with me' kinda look and resumed my reading. Yet, undeterred the man who i think was in his mid 30's try to strike a conversation with me.

He said in Mandarin:" Wah, waited very long oh? The stupid Intrakota bus never come on time. What time is it now?"

"Er, 6.40" Resuming my reading.

"Did the bus come at 6.15? It always come at 6.15."

"Er, I don't know" Resuming my reading once again.

"Don't worry, the bus will definitely come at 7.15. They always do. They never go on for more than 45 minutes." (Obviously he failed his maths)

"Er, they'll never come on time. Sometimes, for 1 to 2 hours. You'll never know" I answered, resuming my readin yet again.

"No lah. The interval is never more than 45 minutes. You know, last time, there was once the Intrakota stick one notice on a post in the bus stand and said "Bas Rosak".....bla... bla... bla..." He kept on rambling on the bus service while helping himself to an empty seat next to me.

Throughout the conversation, i only said "ah....ahha.....ya.....er...."etc. I've met nagging aunties and uncles on buses before and they never stop trying to hook you up on a conversation. They are pretty harmless and i thought this was another typical homesick lonely man.

However.......
"Hey, You've always waited for the bus at this station right?"He asked suddenly.

"Er....No i did not" I've never waited for buses at Sri Petaling's station before and his remark made me cautious.

"Yes you did! I've alwasy see you wait for the bus here around this time"

"No. It must be a case of mistaken identity" Getting afraid.

"Yes. I've seen you before. Where did you stay?"

I realised where this conversation is heading and I gave a pretty clever/stupid answer...."Sri Petaling loh"

"Eh this is Sri Petaling, issn't it?"

"Em... Near The Store"

"Oh... I see.... Well, would you like to have some fun with me?"

I screamed "Huh?????????? No no. I don't think i want to have fun with you"

"Don't worry. I can introduce 'zhai' to you"

I wondered the 'zhai' here means gay guys or girls. Anyhow, i shoke my head vigourously and said "no...no..."

" No need money one... no need money"

"No no no no no not interested...not interested" By now i'm shaking my head so much i can feel that i might shake out the fillings of my teeth.

"I give you my number....You want happy you call me..." And he fetched his phone.

" No No No"

"Why, there is nothing to worrry about what..." he tried to reason with me. " You looks is not bad..."

I would certainly want to nod my head but by this time my brain went out of sync and i regrettably shaked my head further.

"You got girlfriend or not?"

"No No No"

"Then there is no thing to be afraid of..."

"I'm not interested! I'm not interested!"

By this time my sisters came and quickly i ran off. It was such a nightmare. Some Bapa Ayam or Gay bastard tried to solicit sex from me. I'm now living in trauma. Why all Bapa Ayam in KL target me??? Gosh... girls, be careful.

Back by popular demand

Do you know that my monitor is currently out of order? It still work, just that my monitor shows everything in yellow. Anybody has any idea of how I can fix it? Or anybody has any idea why technology keeps disintegrating once I have touched them???? I think this is a very critical problem. Computers never fail to fail under me. When I were sitting for a class on Microsoft PowerPoint, the computer that I’m working on will never fail to crash, never fail to fail to run my slideshow at least once in five times and never show my graphs in proper manner in Microsoft Excel, no matter which one out of 60 computers that were available (and I’m using original).

That said, it has been a long time since I’ve bloged. Been to KL motorshow with Mun Ching, to see a play in Sentul Timur with my date Eli (muahahahahaha), and rejected my place at UKM. I’ve also seen many movies, like Tokyo Drift, Superman Returns and Robin Williams R.V.. The actions and breath taking camera angles in Tokyo Drift really make Initial D looks like child’s play. The girls are hot, cars cool, and the drifting simply electrifying. Just that the plot might be further strengthened. However, if the plot is compared to Superman Returns, Tokyo Drift will be seen as a class act. Apart from spirited performance by Brandon Routh, who portrays Christopher Reeves perfectly, I think the cast and the plot left much to be desired. Routh looked too young to be a father and the empty promises of Lex Luthur discovering the supreme technologies of Krypton a real let down. I thought Lex Luthur will gain the same powers of superman, or at least, possess crystal weapons that can swat F-16s like flies. The real excitement was when audiences discover Superman has a son and one of the thugs is actually an accomplished pianist!!! R.V. is a tasteful slapstick comedy and is very much entertaining. I think R.V. is a very good movie in a sense that there are many values as undertones. Its just that the beginning part was a bit boring. However, once you get into the think of things, the movie actually leaves you in stitches.

The next worthwhile movies to watch will be Pirates of the Caribbean and Dragon Tiger Gate. Anyone wants to watch with me? Of course not.

troubledshooter

Do you believe in luck? Do you believe in fate? Tell you a secret. Among my friends, i'm noted for bad luck with girls and tech toys. I'll not ponder anout my luck with girls cause that will be all too painful to me, I'll dwell on my flings with tech gadgets.

I'm never good with technology. Every damn thing that is not natural becomes garbage when they reach my hands. My friends admire me on my credibility on making electronics fail by itself. It might be me being too callous, too cowboyish when i use technology, but to tell you the truth, i still have no idea on what have i done wrong on the occasions that my tech toys malfunction. Nor did my friends.

My printers are champions of disasters. They can either get their printerhead spoilt or their cuicuit boards toasted just like that, or their ink dried up miraculously whenever i want to use them.

Recently, i've been fixing a lot of my company's computers, curing all sorts of problems. Too much maybe, that's why lady luck tried to test my hardware skills and fried my CPU instead. I've got such a shock of my lifew when i found out one eventful day when my monitor stars blinking on and off like a boy drowning and gasping for air. Me, financially desperate, tried everything, from simple switch on and off procedure to dissecting ram and graphic card and reassemble again. Nothing works!

So desperate was I that finally I reached ot for my friend, Zentrox, who uncannily, recommended all the steps that i've done. We reached a common understanding that it must be hardware failure and nothing short of a component replacement will do the trick. Unwillingly, we went to Low Yat together to get confirmation from professionals. (With all my cash that i ever had)

The verdict, motherboard and power supply unit failure. To make things worse, that guy ripped me off RM30. Then, i bought a new power supply unit and a motherboard for a total RM270. I've decided to assemble it on my own as i have not explored the connection between power supply and motherboard yet. We did the assemly at Zentrox's house. We really have a real fun albeit dangerous time exploring all the connections. Sometimes, we weren't really sure of what we are doing as not all instructions are stated in the readme file. We gambled on some ports but finally got my computer up and starting.

Later on, at my home, i tried reinstalling my windows, but my computer just can't detect the .exe files. It turned out that the cd-rom drive was spoilt. Funnily, it was really the last thing on my list that i suspect is spoilt as it can detect other files fairly well like mp3 and wav etc. I was so desperate that i even tried changing the IDE cables! Anyway, jargons a side, it set me back a hefty 115 bucks. Now, after all my investments, some RM450, inclusive of bus fare, my modem kept on giving me error 651. To tell the truth, i'm currently using my 3rd printer in 5 years, and my 4th cd-rom drive in 2 years. Heck, is this fate or what?

Troubleshooter

Sorry for writing late…..again. For the last few days I was very busy, being harassed by a certain fiend uh…..friend of mine half a globe away. If you want to complain, please go forth to www.kumonoito.blogspot.com and lodge your report on the chatterbox.

As some of you may know, my work involves me working with a computer, not on a computer. But it was exactly what I did these past few weeks, holding the screwdriver more than a pen. It all started less than 5 minutes into my new job, when my boss (BOSS A) asked me whether I’m computer savvy. He said that most computers here are old stuffs, and I said no problem (Well, actually I really don’t have any problem working with any type of computer as long as they are not older than me. Serious!).

Then, 5 days into my new job, he intercom me and asked me whether I can work a scanner. I told him no as I don’t have a scanner yet (at that time), and I have not used any scanner in my life yet (at that time). Later, I think it was another week later, my boss tried to introduce something high tech into one of my colleague’s computer that runs on Windows 95. It was a USB port meant for the PCI slot. My colleague unfortunately, does not possess the rudiments of a computer, and my boss was kinda busy. So he asked my help. I helped him fixed it but the problem was, the o/s has problems detecting the USB. Of course! USB doesn’t exist before 1999(I guess)! Anyhow, we never thought of that problem but suggest that it only happens to that particular computer. So he and I decided to try it on another computer. It was still the same (the computer was running on Windows 98).

Another colleague saw me working on the computer, asked me to rewire her computer because she wanted to shift her CPU some where else. I obliged. My boss kept an eye on me and from then on kept on asking me varied questions regarding computers. One day he will ask me to sit down in his office and talked and ask me to explain the difference of 16x dvd rom drive and 52x cd rom drive, asked me why one of his computer can play a certain dvd but another computer with almost identical specs can’t. Other days, he will pull out one IDE cable and another floppy cable and asked me what the difference is. Sometimes, he will ask me to give suggestions to his problems at hand, like how come he cannot safely remove his external hard drive. Some of these are so complicated I need to hide in the office toilet and send these IQ questions to Zentrox. (Fei Zhai, you really don’t know who Zentrox is? He is actually a computer idiot. That’s what he is. So whenever I got problems, I’ll call him and get my “Idiot’s guide to Computing”. Pretty handy though. Sometimes, we watch crazy movies together, like Ultraviolent and My Dick have fun with Jane. We often break our backs at some mountains near Star Hill, and our favourite movie is Alexander the Gay. Our worst moment is eating FABs together and our finest moment is preparing our gifts to 25 zhai.)

My ultimate was helping another boss (BOSS B) format his computer and setup the computer again, including LAN, antivirus and all that. It has 150G and it took me half a day. Then, BOSS A, I think, felt uneasy in relying me on tech support all the time, installed Norton Antivirus 2004 on one on my colleague’s computer. He knows that there was a virus EKK on the computer, and he wanted to clear it up. Unfortunately, after installation, it crashed. He didn’t want to tell me at first, but when the situation went dire, he said. “Shengcui, there is a problem with this computer. I think the antivirus software made it crash. You continue from here.” Then he went off.

It took me 3 hours to clean up the mess. I removed the hard drive, hook it to another ‘healthy’ computer, scanned it and cleared the virus before realizing the computer crashed because my boss was trying to run Norton Antivirus on 16 MB RAM!!! Then, 2 days later, my boss asked me to take out another colleague’s computer hard drive so that he can hook it up with his computer via his external hard drive casing, so that he can mimic what I did last time. I don’t know what happened but the whole hard disk went dysfunctional after that. The computers, both my boss and my colleagues, don’t recognize the hard disk format. Even a computer technician certified the hard disk as dead. Nothing short of a reformat will do. All data would be lost. (The data here involves the data of the whole company for 6 years!!!!)

I don’t know what I did but at the end of the day, I ‘revived’ it. All data is intact. All my colleagues and BOSS A asked whether I entered the wrong stream, and urged me to give my career a total rethink. Well, actually, to tell the truth, I’m completely no good in computer before all these. After all these problem solving, I’m only slightly better in computer skills. It’s my BOSS A that stimulates me to think and apply my computer common sense. It is him that provided me the chance to push my tech skills further, and helped me gained invaluable insights and experience in computer trouble-shooting. And to think of him placing the fate of a more than 25 year old firm into the hands of a barely 20 year old kid that he barely knows, I think he is among the best bosses I will ever work with. Thank you.

Trip to Malacca, Food Havoc.

I'll first write about my two trip to Malacca. My first one was god knows which saturday. My parents and I went down to Malacca to attend a ponggal, an indian thanks giving ceremony performed in gratitude of their gods. My family friend's wife, also er.... my family friend, had suffered from a stroke, and her husband, a hindu priest and medium which i call aneh, had done prayers in the hope that his wife will recover. Since then her health has improved and so he dicided to hold a ponggal at his temple. Its a Sri Mariaman temple but here's the catch. The temple is no ordinary temple, but one deep in an oil palm estate. My father says on a 'fierce' night, he can hear tigers growl. My father's car has to endure the bumpy dirt road's drive of roughly 15 minutes. The surrounding was dark, with owls howling and cows mooing. Anywhere we go, the car light seems to shine on trees. I wonder whether my father has any help from the divine because his car failed to fall into a ravine.
Soon we reached the temple, greated by fluorescent lights and a beaming uncle sedhu, my father's childhood friend. My father, on seeing him, turned into a young boy again and i, for the past 10 years wondering for the reason why i'm so em.... 'ganjil', finally got to know why i am what i am. Its all too similar!!!
We saw aneh and his family. His wife has almost recovered, with only swellings to his left hand and inability to control her vocal chord.
My mother and i followed the hindu custom by praying to ghanapathi, then to Ah mah, to lord murugan, then to kali, to muniandy and then finally ending by praying to ghanapathi again. To cut things short, we finished our ritual and cooked milk rice with brown sugar in honour of 'Ah mah' which we feasted on. Then, my father sped my mother and i back to Malacca town and we had a good look at Malacca's night life. Then, he brought us to eat satay celup.
This particular owner, the third generation running the shop, is a keen businessman who offers special prawn satays for 50 cents each if he finds you eating a lot. U can't grab or ask for it. They will distribute it the way they like. These prawns usually measures up to 5-6 inches long which are big! they are thick, juicy and succulent. That guy saw us gobbling up our food so he gave us three. One 6 inches long and two 5. I took them, gave my father the 6-inch-long and both me and my mother had the 5-inch-longs. My mother must have taken it to heart because when the next round came, the guy gave us another prawn and my mother took it all for herself. The guy gaver us only one prawn. If my father's prawn was incredibly big, this one is obscene coz its 8 inches long. Yup its 8 INCHES LONG!!!!! If u want a clearer picture of it, look at the length of you arm from wrist to elbow. She can't even dip the whole prawn into the boiling pot, and it took her some 10 minutes to cook it.
The next trip down to Malacca was during ching ming. It is one of the days which me and my brother desperately looked forward to. We went there early in the morning to beat the heat of afternoon sun. After performing the rituals at my grandma's grave, we headed down to Malacca town again, and once again, for food. My brother and i gobbled up 9 plates of 'Tau gua' or bean curd which is some 60 pieces of them. Because every Ching Ming day is food day, my grandma must be rolling in her grave.

All work and no play makes jack suffers from constipation

Yup! You all happy now? For the past week, I've been doing O.T., and my computer was giving me a handful. So, my toilet time was worse then labour. Maaybe i'm too stressed up and all i need is to relax a bit(at the expense of my boss). Sorry for not blogging this past 2 months. I've been really busy, but i'll relate all to you. I went down to Malacca twice. One to attend a ponggal and the other time was for Qing Ming. MY granny had her birthday dinner, my mom did hers and my papa had it too. I got dispatched to Serdang to work, came back to office after a week, found more work, done all of it and more work again. MY computer caused me loads of troubles and made me real desperate, and broke too. I'll write all these in a couple of days and show you on my blog. The night is getting older, and my eye pouches are getting darker. Thats all for today:)

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Its been 2 weeks since i took up the job. Time passes by so fast that the whole week was just like, you woke up on monday just to find out a few hours later that its friday already. Life was calm and routine. I've suspect that if only i can get a 6 foot 2, 38-22-40 Latin American as my wife, get a bungalow and an xc90, have 5 lovely kids, life on earth would beat the days on heaven handsdown!( of course i must be dreaming i can't even get a decent 5 foot 2) I've got to admit, its tough working. And most of the time I didn't even use my brains when i'm doing my job( I suspect if I have any). Most of the time i'm wondering whether i indeed listened attentively on my school lessons or my teachers are ill equipped in knowledge to teach. Everyday, i'll just refer to old documents and.....monkey see, monkey do. Or, ask my colleagues and people say, monkey do. Life was sweet and calm before right before my boss asked me to go out all by myself to do field work! I've got such a shock of my life! Who else's homework i've gonna copy??? Or who else should i consult? Can i be like....em...pick up the phone and ask.....boss.....the form is this and this and this....what should i do!? Sigh......my field work is on Thursday.......and STPM result is coming out soon. Gasp! God must be forsaking me!Ha ha, joking. My colleagues are first class and i'm learning the ropes pretty quickly. Just today, the whole staff room grind to a halt just to think of ways for me to get to brickfields on thursday. They helped me a lot on the brainy part and i try to do my best to help them with brawn. Just today i have to move dunno how many thousands of files just to uncover 1 or 2 old ones lying deep inside the store cum office! My boss was nice to me....because he has not called me to his office and scold me for incompetency....Haha! But i've got to admit i'm pretty slow. Now i am doing 3 jobs all at once!

From 1st gear to 5th

I'm sorry guys for letting you wait. I was supposed to write this yesterday but can't because I have to help a particular friend of mine with his/her homework half a globe away. So, sorry readers, but I've make up with 2 posts. So I hope Kelly Ti Lien Ghee won't complain. I'm working now, but I won't write it down here on what i work as or whose my boss. ( You never know whether your boss is keeping track of your blogs, right?) So, leave your e-mails in the comment box or meet me in MSN messenger so that i can give you all a more 'personalised' answer. But before that I've got to thank lien ghee for holding a birthday party. Met a lot of my old friends there.

So here's the recount of my haphazard week.

Sunday

It is Chap Goh Meh and i went to market with my mom to buy stuffs for our steam boat dinner. Then I went to temple with parents and had our lunch there. Came back to prepare the food for steam boat. My granny came, my brother, his wife and my sister came back to help. There were vegies, sotong balls, home made fish paste with fatt choy inside (yup! fatt choy), crab meat sticks, prawns, pork and chicken fillets, and scallops etc (woh! i can't believe it! but my mom bought scallops! You all should know that i come from a poor family).
So the highlight of the day was when i helped my granny to fry "fu chok" (bean curd skin with fish paste in it). I'm a kitchen veteran and obviously not afraid to cook. I have confidence that my food taste good too. But perhaps because i was having a fairly good time, or maybe it was after effects of my blogging activities, i accidentally dipped my left hand 4th finger (i dunno what to call it) into hot oil! See lien ghee, its all because of you, forcing me to blog, and that's why bad luck has been on me. It won't be long until i get raped and you'll be happy. I cooled it down with water(which according to my mom, wrong) too relieve my pain. But still, it felt terrible. It was then my quick thinking make me see the half frozen scallops lying beside the basin. With gusto, i took the mushy but cold scallops and placed them on my finger. It killed the pain immediately. So next time, dear readers, if somebody ask you what is the medicinal value of scallops, your answer, painkiller.
Nevertheless a huge boil did surface and i got no guts to burst it. At night, my brother's godfather, together with his family joined us for steam boat. Trust me, the food were good especially for the prawns and scallops.

Monday

I went for my interview at 9.00a.m. in the firm at Jalan Changkat Bukit Bintang. My interviewer is the firm's partner, Mr Yong. He is a nice man. Then I was introduced to my colleagues. There is Bee, Boon, Zehra, etc (Eh, don't be mistaken that i work in a zoo. Its not bee, baboons and zebras mind u! They are kind, cheerful and helpful!) My work desk was just outside the partner's room. I was given a 50-something pages thick guidelines to read for the whole day.
Later that day, during lunchtime, a self-proclaimed Sabahan teacher approached me to try ang rip me off RM35 so that he can reach KLIA. I told him that it was my first day of work. U must see how disappointed he was.

Tuesday

Went to work, continued to read guidelines, and soon received my first ever assignment. It was kind of simple but of course, I'm stupid so i have to disturb boon for help all the time.

Wednesday

This was the 'Big' day. While I was busy finishing my first assignment, bee, together with another girl, moved 2 boxes of documents to my workplace, and asked me to help her out. the were about 15 main documents, each the size of yellow pages.Me awed.

Thursday

Reached my office some 10 minutes late. What's worse was that my company's partner was alreadyt standing in front of my desk, and smiling at me. Continued to struggle past the pile of paper. Boon and bee were out on field work so it was up to me to guess out the direction of where should i be heading. While I was on the way home, somebody accidentally stuck his lighted cigratte onto the back of my right hand. Now i have a boil on my left hand and burn marks on my right. Great. Then later on, at Jalan Bukit Bintang, a bapak Ayam called out to me!!!! Sigh....do i look so desperate?

Friday

Boon and Bee came back, I realised that the direction i was heading was to damnation. Panicked and tried to do u-turn.Spent the whole day doing things all over again.

The Three Ringgit Bet

2 days before I start working, my brother took me to look around the firm. We saw the building, talked bout other things when we came to the question of food.

"There are many foods to choose from in Jalan Alor. I think your colleagues will invite you to dine with them. Don't worry those guys are quite thrifty." He said.

"Well, that's good. As long as its under 3 ringgit then it will be ok" I said.

"3 ringgit? I bet you eat shit!"

"Well, what do you suggest huh? My pay is low. I try my best to get a 3 ringgit meal. Sister-in-law said that she found a 2-something mixed rice before." I protested.

"She's a girl mah. You are a boy. You want to eat as much as her? In my workplace, my meals are guaranteed RM5 and above. Anyway, I would really like to see how you survive on RM3 on food per day". He said.

He threw me the gauntlet and so the challenge is on. Below is the list of food and their price from monday to friday.

Monday>> >Mixed rice, no drinks-------------------------------------RM3.20
Tuesday>>>Roast chicken rice, no drinks------------------------------Rm3.50
Wednesday>Mixed rice, no drinks-------------------------------------RM4.00
Thursday*>Mixed rice, boiled sugar cane water-----------------------Rm5.20
Friday>>>>BBQ pork rice, no drinks----------------------------------RM4.00

*on thursay, my colleagues went out for field work. So it was up to me to decide what to eat. I wanted to look for roti canai, but the shop has no customers, no houseflies, just waiters. So I decided to have rice instead. Drank boiled sugar cane water because my sore throat was getting worse(for not drinking water for the last few lunches)

So, to reach my mark of averaging RM3 or less for each lunch, from next week, I have to
bring soy sauce so that i can swallow down plain white rice,
or bring sandwiches from home (that's cheating),
or have bread & buns everyday
or even roti canai kosong with kopi O.

By the time I'm done, I am ready to go to hospital. So what do you readers think, huh? My pride's at stake.

Burglary

Kelly Ti Lien Ghee, you owe me big time. Ever since I started this blog, many things, eventful and uneventful has happened to me. Now a burglary has happened in my house. Are you happy?

Joking. Um, but the theft is real.

I woke up this morning, at 5.16a.m. after somebody knocked on my room door. In a daze, I heard my mother calling me out, saying that somebody is trying to still my father's bongsai. Alarmed, i quickly jumped out of my bed, ran out to the front compound, leaving my specs behind.
When i saw the empty stand where a bongsai used to be, my heart sank. The gate in my front compound was ajar. I dashed out to the road, but nothing was in sight. There wasn't a ghost on the road. Only silence.
I went back to fetch my specs, and when i went out again, my father had returned. It seems that my father gave a chase, on foot. We examined the gate, which was slightly bent.
It was a small, typical gate, that uses a bolt to close and link the two sides of the gate and another bolt that anchors the ground. Just like those that you usually see in new houses. The bolt(anchor) was lose, while the other bolt was still firmly in place, with the lock on it. The catch is, the gate was ajar.
My mother recounted that a loud crash, similar to one that is caused by a car accident, woke her up. My father woke up a second later. Both of them looked out through the window, which shows the front gate. They were shocked when they saw a man carrying a medium sized bongsai, roughly about 30 kg, up from the stand. My father gave a shout, dashed out of the room, took time to open the gate of my house(my house have 2 gates, one is the front gate and the other leading out of my living room), and ran after the burglar. My mother woke me up.
Then, while we were still puzzled by how the thief opens the gate, my neighbour, Uncle Lim came. He told us that he heard the crash, looked out of his balcony, and saw the thief carrying the pot. The thief was small built, some 40-50 years old, with gray hair, and was wearing a stripe shirt. He went back to fetch his keys, dashed out of his house just in time to watch the thief rode by his house in a motorbike, the bongsai balancing precariously on his lap. That was a rather big bongsai with branches some 20 cm long, which makes it some 40 cm in diameter. Uncle Lim gave chase in his car but lost him in the twists and turns of the housing estate's roads.
It was among the best bongsais that my father has. It has the best apex. It wouldn't have cost much, the pot and soil, but it took both my father and Uncle Lim, a bongsai sifu himself, painstaking years and devotion to trim it. In fact, the bongsai is 22 years old. I wouldn't speculate on its market value. The incident broke their hearts, and mine too.
After much thought, we came to common ground that the thief must have studied my house and the bongsai for a long time. This is because we have a "beware of dog" sign on the gate, but of course my dog had passed away 2 years ago. Therefore he has no worries. Secondly, he studied the bongsai very well. Every bongsai has its designated front, sides and back. A bongsai is valued by looking at its front, which was facing inside, leaving the back facing the road. It looks like a green mushroom if you look from outside of the house. So he must have spent a long long time just to analyse it. Unless this is a common robber stealing every damn thing under the sun in the hope that he accidentally steals the best things. Not very bright huh?
He must have climbed into the house compound through the wall. Once inside, he lifted the bolt(anchor) and gave the gate a good, strong kick, which explains the bent. This action will push both sides of the gate out, and the other bolt would have scratched against the gate. He kicked it so forcefully that the bolt scrapped all the way out of its 'holder' and seperated the 2 sides. Then, he removed the bongsai and climbed onto his motorcycle for his getaway.
Therefore, my friends, if you live in a small house with a small gate like mine, think about changing it(the gate, I mean). The burglar was so efficient he probably had done it hundreds of times. No kidding. My mother, father and Uncle Lim only heard one crashing sound, which means the thief did it in just one kick.
Everytime I see burglary, rape and murder I thought that they only happen to somebody else. Unfortuantely, I'm also somebody else to somebody else, and now it was my turn. The world has never been a safe place. Every damn thing happens. Gentlemen/ladies, don't leave prescious things in your compound that passersby can see, even though they are ought to be outside of the house. Bring them indoor. If you love your dogs, keep them indoor. Put an alarm.

Scary day act 2

It was sure to come. There was no running away from it. The day finally came when Wen Sern, Zentrox and Kuan Yong came to my house to finish up 2 packets of pasta, a large jar and a little bit more of prego sauce (actually its 1 1/4 jar), and the taiwanese sausages that we were supposed to finish up in PD 2 weeks ago. Things go really haywire whenever we get together, you know?
I told Wen Sern to buy some mushrooms and i expected them to be fresh. Instead he bought me dried up ones. Well it will do. He came first. I did the minced meat, seasoned it before Zentrox and Kuan Yong arrived with drinks. Kuan Yong can't believe how clean his small, tiny pot was when compared to the dirty blackened one that he 'accidentally' left in my house. It took lots of time to clean it.
Then things started to get dangerous. Kuan Yong, a certified pastry chef got all egoistic, Wen Sern took command, Zentrox voiced his opinions and i tried to maintain control. 4 voices shouted at one another, sometimes crude and vulgar, but we laughed all the time. They looked every nook and corner of my kitchen for food and sauce that can be 'justified' for use on our pasta. Heck, they nearly dismantled my whole house. Have you ever seen anybody using Lee Kum Kee's oyster sauce for pasta? No? Well, then u haven't seen us cooking. One of them spotted a can of clams and they tried to claim it for use. Luckily i saw that. If i didn't supervise them, i'm sure that even my grandma's ginseng will go to pot. They are bloody communists I tell you!
Kuan Yong manned the chopping block, apparently dismayed by the way i diced the garlic and onions. This guy works the devil out of a knife! He can chop real fast and the cuts are even and fine. His skills are dazzling but at least things slowed down a bit when he mistook his middle finger for one of the taiwanese sausages. Yup! One deep slash right on the back of his right middle finger. Blood oozed out. Tried to get him a sanitary pad but a handiplast came just in time.
Zentrox and me tried to calm down Wen Sern, who was adamant to cook all the 2 packets of pastas in a row, each about 500g.
I still can remember him saying, "What's the worry? there are 4 of us, it is just 250g of pasta for each of us. 500g is not a family size. 1kg is about it. We can easily devour 250g of things. U can't? Well i can." Then, he dumped the 2 packets into boiling water. He won.
Kuan Yong and I added some salt to the water while Wen Sern took the liberty to pour oil into the boiling water. Ya. The boiling water with pasta in it. And incredulously, Zentrox seconded him. Where on earth did they get the idea anyway? The whole situation was so chaotic nobody seems to be in control of himself. After the oil has been poured, i showed them the direction on boiling pasta that was stated on 1 of the packets of pasta. It was in English and it was obvious that it mentioned nothing about oil. They grinned.
Then, to rub salt onto the wound, Kuan Yong pointed out that Wen Sern miscalculated the weight of pasta that each of us will have to consume. He said that each of us will have 250 g of pasta. Dried pasta. After it comes to boil, it most probably weighs twice as heavy.
Plus tomato sauce, minced meat, sausages, cheese and mushrooms, I can safely say that each of us will be consuming about 600-700g of food. More grins.
After that, without much ado, we heated the wok and started to cook. We cooked the taiwanese sausages first. Then, with gusto, Wen Sern and I stir fried the garlic and onions, and poured all the prego tomato sauce into the wok, before realising that we yet to cook the minced meat and mushrooms. Disaster. We did it on a seperate pan and then add to the gravy. Anyway, you must see the glimmer of madness in Zentrox's eyes when he was dishing out the oregano, salt, and pepper onto the sauce. I was scared. He was mad.
Then we had our meal. At 12.30p.m.. Most of us didn't have our breakfast and were hungry like wolves. Despite our haphazard way of cooking, it actually tastes damn good! Zentrox and I had 2 helpings, Kuan Yong had 1 and the rest, the remaining 1kg of wet pasta, minus the sauce were all Wen Sern's.
That guy was so fedup halfway through that he played with his pasta in such disgusting ways that if i describe them here, authorities would have taken down my blog the next day. Anyway, that guy was so full he went to the toilet during the dinner. To clear more room.
My mother came back and helped him out. Then we went on a joyride to times square in a car. Yup! The speed demon's. I can't believe it that it was still a one-wheel-drive and the sand from PD laid untouch on his rubber sheets! Along the way we scratched the car's bottom on some speed bumps, accelerated while executing corners and violating a double-line. Same old story.

CNY

Happy Chinese New Year to everybody. Yet my disappointment, this year's CNY has not been an exception, the celebration atmosphere and the spirit of gaity have been slipping away, largely due to the stagnant Malaysian economy and the ban on firecrackers. Nevertheless, CNY has never failed to be unforgettable, just like the 3a.m. firecrackers that woke me up for 4 straight night. They arte illegal, of course.

CNY was all routine to me, spring cleaning, bake cookies, decorate, pray and have the all important reunion dinner on New Year's Eve, but the fun started at the first day of CNY, when, after all the painstaking spring cleaning for the last few days, i still miraculously woke up at 8, but i did a stupid thing by wishing my father by saying, "PaPa, Happy CHINESE New Year".

Like a wily fox that he always is, he said," Son, being a Chinese, we don't wish another Chinese a Happy Chinese New Year, We wishes Him/her Happy New Year, stupid."

OUCH!

How can i forget such a new year!!!!What a way to kick stat my new year.

Which partially explains why my neighbour's house nearly caught fire.

My neighbour is a good man A successful young man at his 30's, he is polite and steadfast in Chinese cultures and traditions, which to me is a pluspoint. The tragedy struck when after praying to the Tian Gong on 2 make wooden table as a makeshift altar in the morning, with all the incense, josssticks and stuffs, my neighbour and his family left their house unattended. I didn't see it but base on my analysis and experience, he must have placed his incense too deep into the bronze urn, which can result smouldering of the incense stick, much like a peat fire. It orcurs when the part of the incense that was meant to be burned got underneath the ash in the urn, so the spark of fire on top of the top end of the incense will finally make its way underneath the ash, generating enough heat to start a smoulder.As the urn was bronze, and there were a lot of burn materials (especially taking note of my neighbour's amount of josssticks and incense used when he was ushering the god of wealth) , the urn acted like an iron, and the heat finally consume the tables. It causes much smoke due to incomplete combustion(lack of oxygen causes carbon monoxide) but nobody realises it except us because he had just built a large gate that block all visibility of the front compound from the outside, so most of my neighbours probably thought some devoted nutcase been praying for 4D numbers.

The fire could have gotten much worse if my father didn't douse the fire in time.

Therefore, I urge people to be more careful when you pray. For instance, you can place a tile or glass in between the urn and the table, or use a ceremic urn instead of bronze as it doesn't conduct heat that much. Or else, you can also renovate your house and build more neighbour-friendly-cum-burglar-friendly gates and fences so that other people will always have a clue on what you are doing.

Then, on the 4th day of CNY, I went out for a movie with Wen Sern, Zentrox and Jeff. We watched Fearless in Berjaya Times Square. It is a very nice movie, pretty original storyline, and highly recommended if you ever is a Chinese. The whole KL was so traffic free that we took a taxi. Zentrox's sole came off from one of his sandal and all of us was glad to repair it for him with a cellotape, ala-mummy style.

Scary day

Today is probably one that got straight off from a hollywood script. I woke up this morning, about 80% recovered from my sickness and straight away looked for the birthday cake sweet Phooi Fun bought for me because I was unwell to eat it yesterday. I never got to find it and i bet my family ate all of it. Dang!
Then the guys came and we load all the things up my friend's car. Can you believe it, we put our budget at RM80 and end up paying well over RM140. And come to think that Wen Sern is studying commerce and I'm in accountancy, that doesn't make us very bright huh? Together with Zentrox and Kuan Yong, we left for Port Dickson at 9.30 a.m.
Now the scary part.
All the way to Port Dickson, 3 out of 4 of us got really scared because one of us who was driving was going 0-80 kph in 5 sec, going 110 kph at normal trunk roads, 195 kph on the highway and overtaking cars on the left lane. I should have known it when i saw his car having traded paint with other various 'road obstacles'. All along the journey we crossed various speed bumps. His car scratched 9 out of 10 of them. We reached PD in no time.
When we reached our destination, we cooked staight away. It was a nice windy, sunshiny day and there were a few stranded logs around for us to sit. I realised that it was the same beach i came with my parents twice before. The weather made it all worth while, well at least for the first 15 minutes. After that, every damn thing including my undies were covered with sand. At least our chicken wings taste perfectly.
Kuan Yong never realised that my BBQ pit was rusty and full of cobwebs and he was the first with enough guts to put his wing on it. Bravo.
Wen Sern came up with an ingenius way to cook our food. He dug a sand pit, placed in it 2 tight sealed aluminium foil, 1 containing potatoes and the other chicken wings, burried it and started a fire on it. It would act like an oven and slowly cook the food. The problem was, he dug in too deep. After all the open burning, he took up the raw chicken wings and he didn't even bother to open the potatoes, which stays there till this very hour of this very day.
Then we started to cook other ultraordinary-extrauncommon-totally unBBQable-foodstuffs on our BBQ pit like pizzas, bread and spaghetti. The pizzas, which I made were a hit! By the time we reach spahgetti our tank was full. We drank loads of crazy stuffs too. We were supposed to stay till 5p.m but we gave up and left at 2.
Now, to make the above scary part scarier.
My friend made a u-turn on the beach. Unfortunately, the car got stuck on the sand. We tried to push it out of the trap but in vain. Then we realised that whenever my friend step on the gas pedal, only the right front wheel turns. Which means that the front car axel has a problem, and instead of having a front-wheel-drive, we were actually riding on a one-wheel-drive that goes 195kph in no time!(Engineers please take note) From then on we realised that the car has a tendency to swerve right even the driver didn't turn the steering.
Anyway, some guys from FAMA who were having a recreational session nearby help us out, and we were soon back at 80kph.
Now the scariest of all.
While 3 out of 4 of us were squelling out of fright and 1 out of 4 of us were beating the asphalt and corners ala Initial D, we encountered a road accident. While 1 out of 4 of us were giving a sharp 90 degree turn at 60 kph in 4th gear into an offroad from a trunk road, all of us heard a loud bang from behind. We quickly looked back and saw a bike flying like a paper plane along the road followed by a motorist. A Malay. The Malay landed on the road, and layed head down, motionless, his helmet smashed and flung far away. We hesitated but got down from our car to take a look. Blood were oozing out onto the tar from the body. His right shoulder was smashed. there was an indian motorist lying on the ground beside his own bike, with nothing more than body ache.
There was a mamak stall nearby and many people came out to help. Some men tried to move him but I suggested not to. Yet when I saw blood continued to pour out, I asked for a cloth from mamak stall and placed it on the injured part in the hope that the blood will clot. We picked up the debris, but then we realised that we can't let the body stranding on a 2 lane double-line trunk road, so we have no choice but to move him away as traffic were slowing down. When we turn him upward, I saw his eyes and I thought "Oh my god!please have mercy."
His head was covered with blood, his eyes and mouth half-opened. His blood dripped onto my hands. None of us know how to treat him. Luckily, we saw him still breathing. Then there was this old Makcik, wearing tudung and baju kurung, who ran out from no where and cried over the victim's body. By then, Wen Sern had called every damn emergency department like police, ambulance and even bomba. He was constantly dialing and for a second I thought he would go on calling other government agencies like Mardi, Risda or even 911 and FBI.
The accident took place in front of Methodist Hostel. Chee Kang should know because he and I had spent some 4 days staying there a few years ago. The bomba came first and the fella came down from their fire engines, scratching their heads and also don't know what to do. We left (what we chinese call, no eye see), and headed home on a 120kph joyride, always swerving dangerously to our right. We have no mood to stay in PD any longer.

Lonerunner's Timeline

Lonerunner's Timeline

Yesterday was my 20th birthday. Haih getting old liao. How many 20 years will there be for me? Yet it was one that i will remember most. My sister, my father and my friends celebrated my birthday and yet I got sick on that day. (Can't Believe it)
That Kelly Ti Lien Ghee was too much. Ripped me off at dinner's time and still want to force me to write a blog! Knowing very well that I always talk without my brains. Sooner or later I'll end up in I. S. A. Well, looking on the bright side, I can improve my English huh?
Wen Sern came back just in time to celebrate my birthday. Missed that guy so much. His hair is growing so dense now he is taking liberty in calling me botak. Went with him together with Zentrox Law to Carrefour to buy suffs for our BBQ trip in Port Dickson. Though I can still barely walk, I enjoyed the shopping very much. I enjoyed their company very much and I think they also appreciated my crazy thoughts.We laughed our way around Carrefour. We came back to my house to marrinade our chops and chicken wings. I guess none of us ever read The Idiot's Guide to Perfect Marinade. Can't wait to taste the food. Can't wait to go to Port Dickson tomorrow. Havoc beakoning.