Category Archives: Travelling

The Kuwaitians Strike

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I went to Sunway Pyramid, paying RM5.60 for a taxi using meter (a rarity for Subang cabbies!) from Subang Parade.

I met up with the Katie-Holmes-lookalike Pei Wen at Giordano, where I finally acquired myself a new pair of jeans. (My mom got my sister and I each one pair last time, and my sister wanted the lighter one. She then changed her mind and exchanged with me. One day my mom told me that my sister was going to cut my jeans off at the knees so she could use it fashionably. No, that was not anybody asking for permission.)

I held back getting a pair for ages, because I never knew what to get to accentuate my er, legs. What would be right for my shape?

Fortunately Giordano made the decision painlessly easy for guys. There was only one type of cut (loose fit) and only one price. The only difference was in material, and I picked the lightest one.

As I was testing it, the shop assistant asked “sir can I measure ah?” I put on my old cargo pants and came out, puzzled. What was he going to measure? Was I going to be measured ala Joey Tribiani of FRIENDS?

Turns out he had a lot to cut off at the bottom. Eep. (At least people say I have athletic looking legs though all I do is walk around town a lot.)

He said to come back at 8pm, and we went to try out Roti Plaster. Turns out it was just a fried egg plastered on top of a Roti Kosong! There was no hole to plaster even.

We went back to collect it, and followed the flow until we reached the bowling alley.

It was a championship!

The first bowler to catch our attention was this Adrian guy, having cleared all his shots (lacking of a better term?) before that. He got a score 242 at the end of the round. We gaped.

The Kuwaitians Strike

We walked up and down the lanes till we found this superhero Khalid Al Emad. He was big, with thick, hairy forearms, and with a goatee from his ears down. He had 7 strikes from the beginning of the round!

In between each strike, he would stand behind a chair, with his right leg over the chair’s back and his right shoe planted on the chair’s seat. His hands would rest on the seats. That, my friends, was his power stance. What other secrets did he have up his sleeve? When his teammates congratulated him, he did not slap their palms quickly. His hand barely moved during the greet. He also did not wear gloves!

Before throwing, he would hold out the ball towards the lane, as if offering it to the gods of bowling.

The announcer was quick to point out his 7 strike streak. He didn’t get a strike after that! Perhaps the announcer disrupted his energy. At least he got 259!

We later returned to the local Adrian and found he got 256, with probably a 5 strike streak, again marred by the joyous announcer.

The competitors with “Al” as their middle names were from Kuwait (as noted on their shirts.) All of them were good, and they looked somewhat the same, although their last names were different. Were they cousins? There was also a dude from Qatar, but he wasn’t as good. What, in all those deserts and oil slicks, would you find bowling alleys in the United Arab Emirates?

It was late, and I took a metered(!) cab to Kelana Jaya LRT for RM5.40. I then took the LRT to Masjid Jamek and took a cab home, for RM6.10! Now what was surprising was that the cabbie showed a 4-day old new route, and the distance the last cab travelled should be a lot more (and yet did not cost that much!)

Bummerati

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Today I was on the LRT to KLCC when a distraught friend called.
She: Are you near KLCC?
Me: I’m heading there, why?
She: I need somebody to talk to. (Insert crying sniffs.)

I was supposed to be at KLCC at 1pm, but I told them 2pm since I’d be coming after work, to which I got off and decided to come at 1pm. Of course, there was due consolation at DOME (where my friend borrowed Pete Teo‘s lighter) and we both played pharmacist (giving advice we’d never take.)

My distraught friend followed to the gathering. She makes the world seem so small! She knew somebody and somebody else’s friend.

I finally met my picture-taking-linker. Someone who had my link and took a picture of it. Of course, I wouldn’t reveal her link, since there I have some hesitation about linking LiveJournal users.

I met an Avril-Lavigne lookalike (but loads cuter-looking) who totally rocked except for the part where she asked, “are you a Trekkie?” I mean, it’s not really a compliment to be told or asked. (To my relief she took out a Klingon Dictionary.) For the record, I used to record Star Trek: Voyager for my aunt without the ads, and I enjoyed The Next Generation, though Deep Space Nine was a boring journey-less show.

Bah weep granah weep nini bong? (Taken from Transformers: The Movie, as the universal greeting.)

I also met a Chai-fan. Yessir that Coffee Bean drink that is tea with cinammon, at RM7 (without tax). All I could drink from the takeaway cup cover was the steam! I removed it for the full frontal whiff. It was, really, Teh Tarik with cinammon. I suggested Maju Curry House, that also had Teh Tarik with slight cinammon even if you didn’t ask for it. (It was then itself that I knew the smell was cinammon!) It was near the Masjid Jamek LRT interchange station, to the left coming out of the long PUTRA LRT escalators. It was then I found out that Lionel Goh also knew about that place!

I didn’t talk much with the rest of the crowd though, since I was engrossed in musical conversation with the Chai-fan and the Avril-lookalike. Topics ranged from the “have I seen you at Urbanscapes?” to the neckaches from the Incubus concert.

It was time to beckon and I met xen0s at the KLCC LRT station, to take the LRT to Bangsar and then a cab to Su Ling’s birthday party. We reached there somewhat early and walked about, to find Ironwood, a guitar shop. I went in and jakuned over the BC Rich guitars. We stood around for quite a bit before I nudged xen0s, asking him to test the guitars out. It was neat. He did some old-school Metallica, especially the songs I never got round to getting the tabs to. There was this other cool dude with emo glasses who showed us how a Flying V was meant to be held. He also recognized Tenacious D – Tribute when I played the intro riff, and sang the lines!

We then went over to the birthday party an hour late. I met Annie my old pool-virgin-mate there. I had a practice round, with total anti-kai-ness, where I’d just look like I hit something in but miss or send the white ball in. After that, I took whatever was left of the buffet table. I then played with the ever-humble now-sharpshooter. I was still a lucky shooter.

The dancefloor was open, and the lack of density and the deejay’s bad transitional skills (and maybe a few not-so-popular track choices) decreased the buttshaking activities of the young and nubile chicks there. One dude shouted that the DJ sucked, and he was in for a reprimanding. “I’ve been a DJ for 8 years.”

I didn’t overhear the entire conversation. Of course, while as a deejay I’d love to allow people to discover not-so-overplayed tracks, the crowd wasn’t legal, and they had yet to reach somewhat musical maturity. They’d only dance to songs they knew and saw on MTV! Unfamiliar songs were booed.

Whatever happened to finding the groove of the song? I mean, I wasn’t an R&B or hip hop fan, but I could just find the beat and follow it. Sure, some songs pride itself on its unique, irritating samples, but eventually you find some similiar concepts. Same goes for rock music – find the beat and headbang. Sure, some songs were more fun, but his selection wasn’t all that underground. However, his transitions were awkward and jerky, from one song to another. That, perhaps, should warrant him some needed training.

I took a cab home past midnight, and the taxi driver didn’t turn on the meter, but I didn’t say anything. It would usually cost RM7, or RM14 for midnight charge, but I was glad that upon reaching home, he only asked for RM10.

Are you a techie?

Here goes a paragraph: I’m on my first hard disk now. The second one rebooted right after its Scandisk. Total bummer. I’m on a barebones Windows XP installation. The lack of programs installed makes me feel like I’m using a cybercafe computer, except for the games installed. I managed to backup what I thought should be backed up on 9 DVD-Rs. Yes, 9 DVD-Rs at around 4.4 GB per DVD average, or 40.6 GB! (And that’s not even counting pr0n.)

The Real Quiz

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It wasn’t too long ago that I was missing from work on Sunday, on a date to exist once every 4 years. I was at the National Science Center for a MENSA IQ test. (Thanks to Hannna for the information.)

I sat for the Advanced Progressive Matrices test. I forgot most of the details, but there were no words, just 3×3 patterns, where you’d have to pick the missing one from 8 answers. There were no “if A is B and B is C therefore…” questions; all the questions were abstract patterns free from the constraints of language. I think there were 36 questions, for a maximum of 180 marks. The passing rate was 148 for entry to MENSA; whether that implied that you’d have only 6 chances to answer wrongly at 5 marks per question, or that the answers were weighted differently, I did not know. I did not even know if your score translated directly into the classic benchmark of your Intelligence Quotient or IQ. The guy said he’d send the results by courier in 2 weeks.

Anyway, enough of sounding smart.

Yesterday my momma, she tella me-a to go eat dinnah and go home mahself. And so I called Shaz and he was in KLCC dependably as a lepak buddy. He brought Penang dudes from the Incubus concert! (P.S. My review is here.) The Penang dudes, they uh say hey let’s be at the Kinokuniya, the bookstore upstairs, and we go up the escalators. Hmm if a place has no stairs, like getting to Fitness First on the 2nd floor of Maxis Tower (which is dumb for a fitness center), can we still say upstairs? (Whoa Hannna-ism there.)

Speak of the devil or at least the gollum-lookalike, she was there at Kinokuniya, standing at the counter, so coincidentally near more 4D puzzles. We walked, we talked, we bade farewell to the Shaz-in-a-rush and the Penang dudes about to watch a movie. We convinced Nora, Hannna’s friend, (come to think of it I don’t remember if her real name has one N or two Ns but heck) to get a squirrel 4D puzzle for her friend’s birthday. We chose Starbucks over DOME and watched the Hannna-the-MENSA-member struggle with her oh-so-cute-and-yet-elaborate hedgehog puzzle. (Yes the same one Aznin made me get her.)

When I reached home, a letter was waiting. It was from the Malaysian MENSA society, and had a 30 sen stamp on it. Nope, none of the grandeur of a courier mail. What, were they considerate enough to tell me I didn’t get in anyway? *does a Dick Solomon egoistic pose* (Of course, if I got 180, they’d be camping outside my house ready to shake my hand and toss me in a duffel bag for shipping to an underground lair where they would extract my brain and conduct experiments without my consent yes?)

Anyway, back to sounding smart.

It said I got 156 out of 180. Yes I barely passed. That means if you’re thinking I’m bombastic, then you must feel stupid, and if you’re not as smart as I am, you probably wouldn’t pass. (And yes, I was braggartly deliberately complicating my sentences.) Of course, if you’re already in MENSA, then you must be equal or greater in intelligence to me. I bow to you.

The membership application form was attached. You could be a genius and be a lazy procrastinator at the same time, and so I did not rush out in the dark night to a Pos Laju (speedy courier mail) office and send my application. Plus I had no experience with money orders or cheques (despite my father’s attempts at forcing lessons down our throats.)

What would I want with MENSA anyway? To meet brainy chicks? Well, that, and to find some Rubik Cube enthusiasts, perhaps.

Studying Networking

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A long-lost friend of mine called me up.

She: Would you like to make money?
Me: Er… yeah, but that sounds kinda dodgy and shifty.
She: Oh nothing, just if you wanna make some extra income. You free tomorrow?
Me: I guess so.

I walked about Low Yat Plaza first hunting for cheap RAM but didn’t find it. As I walked to the appointed 7:45pm at San Francisco Coffee at Citibank, Ampang Park, where we were supposed to meet, she called up. “I’m stuck in a traffic jam, so can you meet my associate who’s waiting there?”

Associate: Do you want to make money?
Me: Well I want money, but if you put it that way, it sounds so pyramid-schemeish. I want to work! Oh wait, that doesn’t sound right.

She brought me two doors away to Wisma MCA, where there was this group of formal, professional-dressed people with the average age of 40. I even saw DJ Fuzz of the Teh Tarik Crew there!

She then asked if I brought RM6. “What? Well my friend didn’t say anything about that…” She took out her own vouchers and it let us in.

And so the speech began. There are many ways of making money etc. It came to a predictable point when they said of this thing called Network Marketing. “Do not confuse this with Direct Selling”, they said.

A few slides later, the suspect reared its infamous head. Amway. (Yessir they have a legal license to do Direct Selling in Malaysia. 😛 )

They demonstrated their alarm system, with amusing blunders. 🙂

Then came the amusing self-bashing testimonials. “I once got into it when I was young, did it for one year, and swore never to touch it again. Much later my wife got interested and now I am successful and not working for anybody!”

My friend finally came. It ended at 9:30pm. I greeted DJ Fuzz and asked him what he was doing there. “What do you think?” I saw the badge! Well then. He wasn’t a first-timer.

I then ran off to catch the bus. I wasn’t into their product range anyway. At the Ampang Park PUTRA LRT there was already some confusion as some lady was saying the train would stop at only KLCC and go directly to Kelana Jaya after that. Call me busybody but I like controlled chaos.

I got off at KLCC and walked back to Bintang Walk. I ate McDonalds there and took the bus home. That ends my day folks.

Disjointed Paragraphs

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I went to the Xgames and bought myself a Pantera – Reinventing Hell: The Best Of Pantera CD for RM10. Yes, an original CD, from Warner Music’s booth. Syefri and I put RM10 each on Dream Theater – Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence. Neat!

Syefri and I rode to Alda‘s birthday party. Ah! Joy was to be found in regular seats that do not paralyse the thighs.

Being alone can be good or bad… sure you won’t have anybody to listen to you, but you don’t need to listen to anybody!

I then bunked at his place and played his housemate’s electric guitar. Maxed compressor and gain on a British classic amp setting rocks!

Life has a funny way of throwing things at you when you have an uncomfortable amount of money in your wallet.

Disjointed unrelated paragraphs help to add to the flashbacked dramaticness associated with thriller movies. I blame the Gollum-lookalike for this style. It makes any “I brushed my teeth” entry look good!

We Deyyy

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Oh yes, what an interesting Saturday indeed.

I saw a friend of a friend who owed me money get on the Kelana Jaya LRT! I walked towards my money-owing friend and whistled, hovering over her, irritating her on purpose. She settled her debt. Interestingly enough, I asked her the night before if she was free for lunch on Saturday. She said “sure if you treat me”. I *ahemed*. She didn’t reply.

I then met Aznin at PJ A&W Drive In, Amcorp Mall. Yessir the girlfriend of Syefri.

The A&W bear land, once the premier playground of my childhood and many other kids, was now a sad-looking place. It was just one small construction with one tunnel slide, a monkey bar, and a few springed-seat rides. Before this, it was a grand, tall, long slide, loads of tunnels, and the rollercoasterish climax – a slide leading to a huge maze! The only thing that stayed? The original hand-painted sign that said “A&W bear land”.

We got a cab from Kelana Jaya LRT. Not any regular cabbie. He, as usual, asked if I could speak Chinese, to which I said I could understand Cantonese but not speak it with the proper intonation. However, other things cracked me up:

He: Eh you know ah today is the taling day?
Me: Taling day?
He: You know, taling day!
Me: (Pretending to know) OHHH taling day!
He: You know that day if girl kiss you you extra happy…
Me: Oh…

(Later he waves at a cabbie to his right.)

Me: You know him ah?
He: Yeah, actually they all know me.
Me: How ah?
He: I’m the chairman of the taxi drivers association lah! I so handsome, go on TV and talk, complain to the government…
Me: Wah, so they let you pass all the time ah?
He: Nolah, I keep low profile.

(Later still.)

He: You know actually I can speak Tamil.
Me: Really? Wah! Can hear ah?
He: (Rattles on in Tamil.) Yeah… last time I love this Indian girl.
Me: Last time? What happened? Did you pick her up from the same spot all the time?
He: 3 years ago lah. I love this Indian girl and she love me. So I learn Tamil from her.
Me: And then what happened?
He: She left me! She left me for some other Chinese fella and married him! Until now I am still single… I say lah. Must be damn bad luck one. If not means I won’t drive taxi any more.

I was swept with true pity. This Chinese dude was old (in his sixties) and balding! I paid the fare and asked him to keep the change. We then got out and laughed like hell. It was better than Kerpal (you know, that hit Jerky Boys – You Kicked My Dog MP3 being forwarded around?)

We went to Ikano Power Center and went jakun over everything! The corridors were wide and the tunnels were skinny and long!

The Euphonics music store was stocked with different brands of guitars (Fender, Ibanez, ESP LTD) you don’t usually see in one shop (with a very informed salesman, to add!) The Popular bookstore had a cheap RM3.90 Rubik’s Cube imitation by the same brand (but each time I find one, it’s distinctly different – in this case, it was 133% the size of a regular one, and it felt as spring-loaded as an original, but a bit smoother…)

We terrorized kids in Ikea’s playpen and went around trying to open those darned doors to nowhere. We then ran through the maze that was Ikea to meet a unnameable supposed-to-be-my-date friend for dinner at Ikano’s food court. I looked around for the fancy fountain tap that I heard my mom telling me about, and found it at the back. It was in one tiny room instead of being the center of attraction!

As we left to walk to One Utama (cab drivers would charge crazily to go to Kelana Jaya) I realized what taling day meant. Darling day! Darling day!

Aznin (in jilted sobby voice): “Why didn’t you get me a real, red rose instead of this pink clump of leaves which I picked, gave to you, to give to me?”
Me (in agitated Indian voice): “Aiyah I tell you lady, I am dressed in red already and I am biiigger than any red rose you can fiiind on the overpriced florist! Whaaat more could I be haaa? Selfless that’s iiit! To give myselllf to you!”

One Utama 2 was huge as we walked past it, but we didn’t go in, since we were rushing to the taxi stand.

She asked me to pick up a fallen rose from an exhibition in One Utama’s main hall. I told her “I’d pick up a RM5 note from Taman Bahagia LRT but not a rose, shy lah…” What would they do with those anyway? (You know, roses around a arched top between two pillars…)

Hmmph. I got her a 4D puzzle from Jaya Jusco One Utama, much like those I have made Hannna fall in collectible love with. I got myself an apatosaurus (long-necked 4-legger) and for her, a hedgehog with its spikes combed down. Damned cute and round! She loved it. (My brother has one too, but he’d never let me touch it since it was too damn round and cute to be pulled apart.)

While lining up at the cashier, I said to her, “You know why I like you so much? I don’t need to learn a new language to be with you!”

We walked, talked and laughed until we had to stop for thirst-quenchers every 15 minutes.

We managed to hitch a taxi at the first point where taxis turn in to One Utama. What luck! This taxi driver was quiet though. At Kelana Jaya they did some fancy switcheroos since the earlier taxi wanted to go where she was going, LOL! The passengers were asked to get out and take the taxi behind it!

How about Sunday? I have always dubbed Sunday the day of rest, and rightly so, I slept till dinner, waking up only for lunch.

Oh, and dead blogs have been removed from the links of my About Me! page. Irma and Ed are relinked. “Broken links” is a funny oxymoron.

And Then What Ah

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I was showing my friend this tunnel which led from Planet Hollywood to the hotel opposite it, going under Bintang Walk.

She asked if I was afraid I would get robbed when I walked there alone. I said I never thought of it, since I don’t think about these kinda things alone. If I was in the tunnel and I wasn’t alone, I wouldn’t think of being robbed and so…

Ah well, that didn’t make sense when I typed out the premise here now.

Things don’t seem to be as confidently coherent anymore, hence my lack of thought-provoking blogs. Even when reporting the most happening Urbanscapes I just kept procrastinating.

Sign Of Approval

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I spread among many the good word
And I no longer touched the ground
In ways perhaps unfairly absurd
As I felt more life in my blood
I so joyfully leapt
As if weight was trivial
To have repayment of debt
In wearing the sign of approval

Connectivity

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There’s the headbanging buddy Syefri, and finally-linked Alda and Ledwina. Oh yes and Elena the hug monster.

(Edit 3:30am 20th January 2004: Added them to the About Me! links section…)

On another note, Vanilla coke is becoming vanillaish, literally. I love vanilla ice-cream, but this was becoming bland with the prosperity burger meal. I needed a proper Coca Cola kick. I also recently tried vanilla teh tarik at Strudels, and it too lost its magic. I need to be Jakuning on it again!

How about the futility of the Friendster bulletin board? Everyday (up till the warning) paranoid people forwarded doom messages about deleted accounts. Don’t they ever learn? ICQ had those same messages over 5 years ago.

Then there are those birthday-list forwards. You can never get everybody on one list, even if everybody participated. Some friend will post it again, but he/she may not be the friend who gave you the idea. Heck, if you see a few of those lists, you’d see that they’re not always the same. Adding your name to a list might be futile because another friend’s list might be forwarded instead. Unless, of course, someone takes the effort to compile the lists he/she receives daily, and people continuously respam every bulletin board post just so the “compilers” get it.

A linear forum is obviously better at this. Whatever happened to the relevant bulletin board postings?

The Coin Collector

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Got on the PUTRA LRT to Masjid Jamek, to change over at STAR LRT to get onto Hang Tuah. Yeah, I was guessing the monorail would be crowded, so this would have been a safe choice. I met my friends at Fish & Co, Lot 10. Promotional menu? RM35.90 for a set meal. What could we order outside the menu? Nothing! (So much for promotion…) It was too late as we had our Sprite/Coke drinks already.

I then walked to KLCC to meet Jasmine and gang at KLCC at 10pm. I overshot the Wisma UOA turning, seeing Warp Disco as an unpleasant surprise! Ah well. I continued on Sultan Ismail, and walked around KLCC trying to get in. Nobody could come in. I found a car park exit, and it led me to Burger King, where both escalators were going downwards! I bumped into Jasmine’s gang… minus her. Alas, stuck on the LRT she was!

Her gang headed to Bintang Walk anyway. I stayed behind and met up with Ed and Milee first. Then only did I manage to get through to Jasmine, who was already on the way to Bintang Walk with Trent the stick-wielding guardian. (Yay!) And so I walked back to Bintang Walk, to rendezvous with them at Haagen Dazs.

People were spraying foam all over. Foam and some other substance which wasn’t exactly foamy. What would become of the ozone?

The fireworks came, but nobody really knew when the countdown was over, until the fireworks took on an extended orchestra.

Yay.

Somebody remind me what’s the point of going all the way there if we’re just gonna see fireworks. What about drunken stupors and crazy escapades?

Jasmine, Trent and I walked back to KLCC. As we reached Eden Restaurant, her gang called! And so, we went back to Haagen Dazs for the grand rendezvous. Except, of course, that many were at many different spots between KLCC and Bintang Walk.

I wonder how far you could go on Bangsar.

Finally, Ed, Milee and I took the exodus to KLCC, as we saw many foamed cars. They went off into the car park, as I walked to Ampang Park LRT. My pride, my Touch N Go, didn’t work! I had to queue like everyone else.

The train that came was empty, and we cheered and mobbed in, just like last year. Aunties included. KLCC further sardine-packed us, and it wasn’t till Pasar Seni that we got much breathing space. Syefri then picked me up from Bangsar, and we crashed at Led’s.

Morning came, and I walked to Bangsar LRT. At Masjid Jamek, I was thirsty, so I went to McDonalds to see if they would charge 5% government tax. They did, indeed, and the Vanilla Coke was unsettling! It kept me awake in the bus, as for once, it wasn’t a wonderful complement to a double cheeseburger. (Plus I was thirsty! Shouldn’t it taste better?)

My life stories are becoming boring.