I woke up to a fantastic Nasi Lemak lunch. I then took a cab to PWTC, where Xfresh had a booth at the astro festival. This was no ordinary cab. There was a kid sleeping in the backseat, and who I assume to be his mother!

Cool! That was the first lady cabbie I’ve ever met. I had only heard of lady cab drivers before that.

She asked if I was in a hurry. Nope, I said. She stopped over at one of those NGV (Natural Gas Vehicle) petrol stations. I asked how it worked, and if it was practical. She explained all the nitty gritty details, and how she didn’t like having to keep her RPM’s near 1000 and service her tuning every two weeks. Sure, she may be a lady taxi driver, but she was no car geek.

I just hung around the booth until when Akademi Fantasia was on stage. I rushed with Shaz to the backstage, as Xfresh was supposed to be on stage after them. Some technical problems arose and we were postponed. Ah well, back to the booth.

Of course, it was near impossible, with the crazy adoration of the fans! A glossy picture was passed to one of the AF-ers, who took it and looked for a pen to sign it with. He returned with his signature and passed it to the guards, who probably couldn’t remember which fanatic it belonged to! A girl in front started dribbling tears.

The AF-ers then walked out of the building, but the crowd didn’t disperse – they believed that the AF-ers were still in, hiding somewhere!

After the crowd was pushed back, we saw the damage. The Nokia booth had its display glass windows broken, and the phones stolen.

Makes me think of how much I take working at astro for granted. The AF-ers drop by the fishtank (Xfresh’s office is nicknamed so) to check emails when they’re at astro.

Oh yes, thanks uneeq for treating me to McDonald’s! 🙂 That took care of the post-crowd-trauma headache.

Due to the waning crowd, we packed up early. No sir, not 10pm… by 8 we started packing. Oh boy, what waste the crowds can lay to pretty posters!

After all the work was done, I got conned by my own sleepiness.

Shaz and Darrel were hanging out at The Mall’s Starbucks, drinking Auntie Anne‘s RM3.50 lemonade. (The table was between two counters so I wasn’t sure which shop it belonged to.) I then walked over to the counter, not Starbucks, but they didn’t serve lemonade, or anything at that price! I then bought Iced Lemon Tea for RM5.50. Yes, the D in Iced adds to the class and price.

I sat down and complained to Shaz. They then pointed out that I was holding a Delifrance cup!

I then got a cab home. Weirdly enough, there was a jam right around Segambut, and nothing after a certain point that we didn’t notice. Like how you can suddenly walk out of rain.

Yes, I realize that there is nothing introspective about this post; it’s just a what-happened-today post, but at least I make up in quantity… 😛 (In other words, eat it!)

Ever had one of those days where what you do earlier today feels like you did it yesterday?

Today was such a day.

In the morning, I slept in the PUTRA LRT train system. I got off at college, just to have the excellent nasi lemak, the local delicacy of my breakfast tongue. It was only 9 am, and I wanted to head to Low Yat Plaza to have my MP3 USB thumb drive player fixed, once again, but the shop would only be open at 11 am.

So I walked. I walked to KLCC (not a problem) and then headed on towards Jalan Sultan Ismail, a major road. I turned right and walked down the road, seeing more and more familiar territory. Had I struck jackpot? Had I stumbled upon Bintang Walk, somewhat adjacent to Low Yat Plaza?

No, I hit the other end. Sogo area. I went on to the legendary Campbell Complex, finding three music shops that didn’t have too mainstream tastes. I hit jackpot, somewhat! Of course, it was only 10 am, and my guess would be that I’d have to stay around for 2 hours to enter…

Day 2?

I then took the STAR LRT to the Hang Tuah stop, where I would walk to Low Yat Plaza. I handed my MP3 player, for them to finally send it for warranty instead of repeatedly formatting it. 🙂

I headed to Hang Tuah again, to switch at Masjid Jamek to reach KLCC. I was going for free sushi. (I’ve never eaten sushi before.) Yes, someone was going to pay for me, for reasons too evil to speak of here. 🙂 On my way up the escalator to meet her, I bumped into Ed and girlfriend.

At the top, I bumped into her and another friend, and financially challenged as he was, we flipped a coin to decide between KFC and sushi. KFC won.

It’s ironic how I always get a phone call when I’m in KFC eating. Nope, not a message. It has to be a call. Can’t I eat my oily fried chicken in peace?

Day 3?

I then headed over to Putra World Trade Center for the astro festival, where I was on duty from 4 pm to 10 pm to guard the Xfresh booth. There was also a Sony Playstation 2 to cure bouts of visitor-less boredom. 🙂 I also lost to a (about 10 year old) kid in Gran Turismo 3, racing simulator game. 🙁 What would you expect of a guy who doesn’t even use manual transmission in arcade Daytona?

Although Day 3 has the shortest paragraph, it is also the one that consumed most of my day. I sometimes have days segmented into two virtual days, but three? Not to my recollection.

I’m gonna try a commentary of the day’s events, as filler till I have something really interesting to blog about.

Last Saturday, I went down to my old school, SMK Sultan Abdul Samad PJ (yes, believe it or not, that gangster school). It was Family Day. I hoped to bump into some old schoolmates but alas, I found only two; Ayman and Edwin. A look around found many double-dotters. Mmmm. Especially one gothic chick with hazel-eyed innocence. They probably were from other schools anyway. 🙁 My schoolmates were never supportive enough of our own events!

I then went over to Midvalley at noon. I met up with ex-colleagues from Xfresh for my free lunch at Chili’s. Surprised I was to see classic fong-fei-kei-er Nadia and her concierge, Jay.

6 left the gathering, leaving just Patrick and I to watch Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle. Action-packed, yes! At times it seemed like the Angels had superb air control. It was like they were able to swim through air, escaping explosions and landing on flying motorbikes! It seems their bulletproof vests can also block wall-penentrating Desert Eagle bullets shot by that renegade Angel played by Demi Moore. Cast all illogicalness aside; I was hooked since Rage Against The Machine – Sleep Now In The Fire played during the Mongolian escape, and Dylan would wear AC/DC and Judas Priest shirts while headbanging to Bon Jovi. Natalie (played by Cameron Diaz) has the most irritatingly bimbo expressions but is also the fact-laden scientist. Yep, I enjoyed it. I wasn’t blur even though I hadn’t seen the first movie. 🙂

By then I was having a flu-induced headache, but I went on to Maju Junction at night to play British pool or whatever you call those downsized tables with multicolored balls on them. It was way cheaper, at RM3 per game. The white ball was either bigger or smaller than the other balls, and it was the only ball to come back out if it fell into any of the holes. Coolness!

How about Sunday?

I slept the whole day. I woke up for dinner to find out that the continuation to the cliffhanger series Smallville was delayed! Dangit. The channel TV3 was showing their 19th anniversary celebration instead. Gee, isn’t it more auspicious being celebrated on the 20th? Now I’ll won’t know whether Clark gets Lana the babe till next Sunday! 🙁

I was stuck in a two hour jam on the company bus from ASTRO to KL for two hours, when it should usually take 20 minutes. The occasion? Flash floods. Yes, the famed millions-of-Ringgit-in-damage one. Ouch.

Fortunately, where the bus was, was higher ground. Though the traffic took one hour to go from one junction of a road to another, and half an hour to turn a corner, I wasn’t faring too badly what with my credit-busting mobile phone in hand. The bus air-conditioner was ambiently coating me in frost, to that I wish I had gloves to type messages with, instead of having to sit on my hands between sentences.

Yes, sitting on your hands is a lot more effective than leaning on them; the lipase on your gluteus maximus fills in the gaps in your fingers. Make sure the palm faces your body, not the other way round! That way, if you have varicose-like veins on the outer side of your palms, you won’t give yourself pins and needles.

I heard that the Masjid Jamek LRT station was closed or something from my mom. Fortunately, the LRT stops I was going to were all above ground. What a pity though… if my mom wasn’t waiting for me at the Bangsar LRT station, I would have been the nosy busybody Malaysian who would go to Masjid Jamek just to see the hooha.

The next day I saw the papers. Tragic, yes! Cool in a way, too, because I was sorta there, and sorta affected. People drowning, cars submerged, basement parking lots flushed? Not cool.

Of course I was still very busybody and so I strolled around the place depicted in the photograph, namely the Masjid Jamek LRT area. There was sand everywhere… the last time it happened I christened it Pantai Jamek (or Jamek Beach.) The metal bridges above the muddy rivers were full of debris, like dead grass, wooden planks, a car seat, and a motorcycle helmet. I told this to a female friend, to which she said only guys would do these kind of things. Well, I didn’t like poke the car seat to see if it was still wet. 😛

Even cooler (but yes, tragic) was when I walked past the underground McDonalds. The counters and a few seats are at ground level, with the other seats all at a lower level. It was dark, with a rubber hose running out to the drain, as an employee walked barefoot. How was business? What business? Perhaps they would have hope in being a take-away joint… 🙂

Today was no better. I read about the local thespian hangout, The Actors Studio being submerged in the carpark. Not like I was going to watch a show there anytime soon, but it still felt painful. Also, could submerged cars still work after the water is gone?

I wonder more than ever if I should get an umbrella.

There’s these two 40-something middle class Indians guys sitting opposite me on the bus. Guy A’s hand was on Guy B’s inner thigh as he talked loudly on his mobile phone. Then Guy B put his hand on Guy A’s hand! They looked pretty straight to me but what was weirder was that Guy A had some brown puke on his shirt. He then puked on the entrance stairs! This lady facing them got off, but stupidly, on the same stairs. I moved to the far back end of the bus. Guy B borrowed a pail of water from a petrol station to wash it off.

Guy A later made waterfall sounds, but his back was towards me so I was relieved I didn’t see it. Guy B was standing, watching over, and beckoning the passengers to come and see the show! I was thinking of getting off and getting a cab, but luckily the couple got off soon. As the bus drove off into the sunset (okay, so sunset was 3 hours ago) the couple walked behind, hand in hand. Quite straight, I might add; they didn’t look drunk at all.

Very weird indeed. Even weirder is the reaction of one old Chinese guy who went over to stare at it, like it was a grotesque accident. He’s probably going to remember “8565” and buy the numbers at the local 4D gambling parlor. If they went for a drink, why did they go back at 2215 hours? Also, they hardly looked like they would be touchy-feely. They also looked educated enough to know if it was considerate to get off the bus and find a drain!

Now don’t take this as a racist sentiment – there was once a Chinese lady behind me who barfed into her plastic bag. At least she got off soon.