2007

happy new year

feeling way too damm good

had a nice drive into the city today on the kl - seremban highway, at least up to sungai besi.

nickelback was playing loudly ..
i missed you so much that i begged you to fly and see me
you must've broke down 'cause you finally said that you would
but now that you're here i just feel like I'm constantly dreaming
well something's gotta go wrong 'cause i'm feeling' way too damn good

guess i was feeling way too damm good too, cos something definitely when wrong the moment i entered the city. traffic was hardly moving, taking me an hour to reach jalan pinang from the sungai besi toll .. and this is at 11am on a weekday. and it was not because of:
* town council staff watering plants during peak hours
* road closures to facilitate some silly political launches
* idiots stopped in yellow boxes at traffic lights, causing a standstill
* idiots switching lanes, only to switch again when the other lane is just as slow
* cops stopping lorries and having long chats while his colleague watches passer bys
* an accident, with cars stopping or slowing down just to watch
* traffic diversion to facilitate pavement rehabilitation works

there were just too many automobiles. way too many. fancy cars, small cars, smaller cars, kancils, singapore cars, lorries, more lorries, busses, double-decker busses...

why are busses so large? why are there so many on the road, but not enough to cater to commuters? why cant these busses take a turn on the roads in the city without taking up both sides of the road. why are they parked all over, taking up at least one lane, especially on roads leading to puduraya. why are busses still stationed at puduraya? arent we supposed to have moved the bus terminal out of the city? must have read a couple of proposal on it over the last decade. think the rationale was that the roads are too conjested for busses. really?

or we are goin to remove cars now with the levy system, so the busses can remain? can we make up our minds? and then actually implement something that works?

we will need more space on our roads soon, with the unveiling of the RM30 million ferris wheel in tasik titiwangsa. tourists are expected to flock to the site too see the wheel every night. expect phone lines to be conjested too as these tourists will call home, inviting their friends and families to visit to fly to malaysia to see the new wonder. the wheel will be, after all - malaysia, truly asia.

here are some thoughts to make the wheel spin harder for the country.
make all malaysia airlines flights take a spin around the city over tasik titiwangsa."ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot attempting to speak english. malaysia is proud to unveil to you - if you look on your right - the world's largest mobile ferris wheel. we hope you make time to take a spin on it, and tell all your friends and families about it. we will be landing shortly, so please fasten your seat belts, and return your seat to the upright position. forget the drink you ordered half an hour ago, you wont be getting it. thank you for flying malaysia airlines."

we could also take a shot of the wheel from space, when our astronaut takes off without his teh tarik. imagine our astronaut addressing us from space (very briefly as live telecasts from space are expensive, and god forbid we dont waste money).
"yab dato' seri abdullah bin haji ahmad badawi, perdana menteri malaysia yang di sanjungi dan dikasihi, timbalan perdana menteri yang juga disanjungi dan dikasihi datuk seri mohd najib tun razak, menteri pelancongan malaysia datuk seri tengku adnan tengku mansor, semua menteri kabinet, tun-tun, datuk-datuk, dan rakyat malaysia. pertama sekali, ingin saya merakamkan syukur kepada ilahi kerana dengan limpah kurnianya, saya kini berada di angkasa ciptaannya. juga terima kasih kepada rakyat malaysia yang menyumbang kepada perjalanan ini melalui cukai pendapatan hasil dari titik peluh mereka seharian. izinkan saya sekarang berucap dalam bahasa inggeris, kerana ramai pelancong sedang mengikuti siaran langsung ini. ladies and gentlemen, malaysia is now addressing you from space. it gives me great pleasure to inform you that our very own ferris wheel, the largest mobile unit in the world, is available from space. it can be seen clearly, as its surroundings are barren, filled with vast areas of abandoned projects and ex-forest areas which have been logged. i can also see many little spots around the city ... not sure what they are ... wait a minute ... these are buntings. yes buntings. thank you and enjoy your visit to malaysia.

anyway, at least on january 6, we will know why the roads packed.

bring the boys back home

i mean the astronauts ... why go to space when we cant even spare the basic necessities at home during our flood season. let me illustrate some areas that need attention... urgently


this was the scene at batu anam, a short drive from segamat. if you drive south from kuala lumpur, you will only know that the road is cut off when you reach the affected area. no one has the basic common sense to put a sign up half an hour north, at the turn off to bahau, to inform motorists not to procceed south, but instead take the detour south. no brain surgery here. and we dont need millions for the signboard, a couple of hundred rinngit will do. a couple of hundred ringgit can be found easily in this country, but not accountability and common sense.

so i had to backtrack, after pointing out the right thing to do to the public works department guy (or jabatan kerja raya - aka jangan kerja rajin) he just smiled ... to make matters worse, there was no one there to help anyone, just him, who not only had anything to help us with, he didnt even know what was going on.

c'mon guys, we dont need to be idiots all the time. take a break every now and then, especially when people need help.
* put some proper signages up
* publish alternative routes in newspapers, draw some maps even to make it easy
* station our army there, use the fancy trucks and whatever else we need to ferry people across. otherwise what ever we purchased wont come to any use when there is a war. think about it .. how will be be able to fight a war if we cant even put up a simple signage. think of providing aid to the rakyat as survival training.

space levy

looks like space will remain the final frontier as malaysia decided there wont be any teh tarik when our latest splurge takes off into space. pity .. all the research we could have done with our favourite drink. we could have introduced a space tarik version , with an improved gravitational pull. would us put the country on the world map again.

but lets have a round of applause for another great idea from our ministers. keep the ideas coming, while we grapple with our daily woes.

but whoa .. we have a new mayor in town. and he mean business, and has plans .. like every other person who takes over a new post in the country. hear he is going to impose peak hours levy on cars coming into the city to ease conjestion. but he wants dedicated lanes. but why??? just impose the levy lah. whats the issue here? we have been talking about it for so long .. its not like a new brilliant idea. you dont even have to make study trips across the world .. believe me it works well. it works really well.

just dont give out too many "free ride VIP passes" stickers .. limit them to ministers and their immediate / extended families, town councillors and their immediate / extended families, tuns, tan sris, datuk seris, datuks etc etc, friends, families and neighbours of VIPs, our astronaut and his immediate /extended families and neighbours etc etc .. as long as we limit the free ride vip passes.

do it fast though, cos the traffic jams are kiling me. but driving into kl today, i actually saw some good news. the smart tunnel is opening from sungai besi to the city. make sure we impose the levy on these cars too, except for those with the free ride vip passes of course.

wait a minute .. we are also talking about car pool lanes .. didnt we introduce this before? sigh

spirit of christmas

From the Editorial Page of The New York Sun, written by Francis P. Church, September 21, 1897

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

things we can do without

* cops standing beside packed roads, waving their hands to ask us to drive on duhhhh .. the reason we are backed up is because we cant move anyway
* expensive electronic signs on roads that only say jalan basah, pandu perlahan .. no point stating the obvious unless one tries informing of alternative routes to take
* traffic cops carrying guns .. what are they for? to shoot at motorists who beat the light?
* guard posts built at the entrance to most government offices .. they are either empty or you can just wave and drive in
* seminars for government servants
* meetings on when to have the next meeting to decide on an action plan
* assistant deputy vice presidents
* buntings all over town advertising political meetings
* launch of campaigns which are not followed up on
* rukun tetangga units in housing areas
* the anti corruption agency
* proton

race on the highway

stopped by the highway r & r to get some mineral water a while back, just before the sungai besi toll coming into the city. there were four stall selling exactly the same things, (in line with the country's typical non-competitive nature of doing business. one stall was run by a chinese chap. his stall had at least four customers while the others were empty. wondered if it was because the customers were also chinese and they preferred to buy from their own race. sad, after fifty years of independence. i was glad that i was not race-biased. i'm gonna buy from the person whom i know will serve me fastest and in the most efficient manner. i got behind the line at the chinese guy's stall.

someone told me once that every malaysian is racist, because we cannot help it. come to think of it, we cannot run away from race references. just the other day, i was filling up a form for some refunds, and had to input my life story into the form, including my race. i asked why it was necessary, esp since the company already had al my details in its database. apparently it was an old form, and they need to use the 300 million they had already printed.

but things are looking better, i think. i actually saw a billboard on a school programme, which only showed five malay kids. that was cool, no need to show two malays, one chinese, one indian and one kadazan. in fact, a local daily took it one step further by showing a merdeka story which showed a picture of five malaysian, of which only one was malay. been about a week since the picture appeared, and no one from the paper was sacked, so i guess we are learning to take chances. or god forbid, our local papers are being run by immigrants.

its even funny that im writing all this. we have come so far and yet are so behind in the basic fundamentals of life. i guess this will never change as long as our focus remains on re-conquering already conquered space, buying (on loan) monuments that have nothing to do with our beliefs or culture. we continue to shout meaningless slogans. and claim to be developed.

but just last night, over a forty-five minutes dinner at jalan alor with some friends, three parties approached our table asking for donations. the first was a monk, kind of a shady character. the second was a child, barely ten, while the third was a pleasant lady asking for funds for a charity home. how can we consider ourselves as developed if the welfare of our citizens are not cared for?

how can we consider ourselves as developed if we do not have our basic needs taken care of, ie clean water, garbage collection, roads without potholes, floods in the city ...

and things are getting worse as the years go by. we are paying now for ridiculous decisions made in the last two decades. we will continue to suffer for action not taken in the past to plan ahead. we will pay for the short term measures taken to appease greed.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

dylan (1963)