I was reading the papers and I shall now attempt a social commentary blog entry like every other blogger twice my age.

Members of the Parliament (whoa, Albert uses this word and isn’t referring to George Clinton and band) were discussing how to eradicate the drug problem. Pre-Independence opium islands, free drugs to quench demand… I’m not sure how those will help. If you had a choice to be departed to a happy land for free, wouldn’t you? Who is to say you’ve had enough? And when you have had enough, do they boot you off the island, and if so, where the heck can you go?

Will they reject my entry because I look drugged enough?

What about the casual users? People who go to a party and take a puff?

Jasmine asked me once (for a project) what the best drug prevention was – education, enforcement or parental guidance. Apparently enforcement doesn’t seem to be working. I’m sure you know someone who knows someone who can get weed. Or maybe you don’t know it yet. Heck I knew a supplier who went for National Service. Well at least they smoked the skema-ness out of the innocent. (Skema meaning the innocent naive sheltered kids.)

Education? Smokers know the cancer stick is bad; that doesn’t stop them. “Hey come to Assunta Hospital and visit me lah… I’ve got bronchitis.” The next time I met her was in a cafe in Bangsar, smoking a cigarette. True story, kids.

Parental guidance? My parents never drilled anti-drug messages in me. It’s a wonder I’m so clean then. 🙂

This goes against my Malaysian freeloading spirit but hey, anything that can be bad for you should not be free.

Speaking of which, Celcom, a mobile phone service provider, has a new plan that lets you send SMSes for free between midnight and 6am.

You: Hey um I’ll be right back.

Are you back from the shop yet? Are you going to update me with your new number?

While this is infinitely cheaper than 1 sen per SMS, you’d find it a bother. Already I’m getting random missed calls from bored idiots on cheap prepaid cards. Now that you can SMS for free, imagine what you could do! Your friends not on Celcom 013/019? Well then, make new friends! You can afford to SMS any random 013/019 number until you get a response. 7 digits means 9 million numbers! Imagine if you got a 0.1% success rate. 9 thousand numbers. Supposing you asked them, “haizzz do u cum fr tmn cahaya ?? wanna go fr mamak ???”

Supposing 10% were from the Klang Valley, and 1% of them were from Taman Cahaya. That makes 90 people. If 60 of them are bored teenagers who are locked at home, that leaves 30 people. If 15 were girls and they couldn’t walk out of their house fearing that they would be raped, or worse, their free-SMS phone would be stolen, that leaves 15 males. Congratulations, you have found yourself mamak buddies! Who needs Friend Finder now?

Me: Hey um I’ll be right back.

Oh and I was standing in a bus when this bleached jeans-wearing, blonde haired Ah Beng asked me, “would you like a seat first?” He then got up to let me enter the seat next to the window (he was on the aisle seat.) Most astonishing considering we were going to Bintang Walk, which was all the more reason for him to assume I could speak Chinese. How did he know that I couldn’t?