星期日, 7月 24, 2005

St. John Ambulance donation incident

Well, this incident happened to me only and as far as I know nobody else encounters it before. Hence, the opinion about St. John Ambulance is totally personal.

It was a lovely Sunday morning. I purposely woke up earlier that morning because I planned to go pasar pagi to buy breakfast and newspaper before MF wakes up. The pasar pagi is just less than 5 minutes drive from my house. And, it was not surprisingly crowded with aunties buying breakfast and food and morning joggers enjoying their breakfast at the restaurant.

While I still haven't decided getting what for breakfast, there's this young fellow, at his 15 i guess, holding a donation can labelled with St. John Ambulance logo, approaching me. He put up a smiley face and asked for my donation. With only a RM10 bill in my pocket, I did a quick calculation and decided that I could donate RM2 to him (for buying a small paper flag). I held the RM10 bill in my hand and asked if he could give me back RM8 change. "Cannot. But you can get 5 flags with RM10 donation lor." I insisted that if he could give me RM8 change then I will donate RM2. But he still kept on saying the same thing.

Maybe they give some sort of training on how to get the most out of a donor to these fellows they send out. Or maybe there's kind of hall of fame for the most donation that's why they wanted to get as much of donation as they can. Or this fellow just simply have no change for RM8. I got no choice. I do donate whenever it's possible especially to this kind of well-known association as I believe they will put the money in good use.

However this time, I passed. I didn't say anything more to him again and just said sorry and left. And he didn't go on asking again either. Probably he thought I was simply kedekut. But I didn't care much.

I went on buying MF's favourite chicken rice and my Chi Cheong Fan and a SinChew then went back home afterward.

星期四, 7月 21, 2005

Proton rules!

The local automobile industry players have tried to push government to do them a favour, again. In the business news in today TheStar, Proton Vendors Association has come up with some recommendations for the National Automobile Policy that expected to be unveiled on September.

The recommendations are meant to protect the local automobile industry, read Proton and Perodua, from competing with outside automobile giants. Summary of the points of their recommendations:
  1. Bar vehicles with engine capacity of 2 litre or below, regardless new or used, from entering local market
  2. AP holders required to obtain a No Objection Letter (NOL) from Proton Holdings Bhd and Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd before importing a specific model of vehicle
  3. Bar vehicles over 5 years old from imported, except those classified as vintage car
  4. Enforce what Singapore's having now, Vehicle End Of Life (VEOL), e.g. higher tax and maintenance fee for older car
  5. Special incentives or grants to be given to local car makers and vendor
Further summarize them, we get this:
Put up a low to stop rakyat from buying foreign car but to only allow them buying national car

Further summarize them, we get:
JUST GIVE US YOUR FUCKING MONEY AND STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT OUR CARS - by Proton/Perodua to rakyat

I can see a 20 years old grown up requesting a tongkat (walking stick) from others. Why? Because he still does not walk.

The only reason that a person does not learn to walk for the past 20 years is: he is not being put on middle of street and being chased by hundreds of big trucks. All the while he has been carried by his parent crossing the road.

So, to force him to learn to walk, just put him in the middle of the street and let hundreds of cars and trucks chasing after him. If, for the past 20 years, he has used his mini-tiny brain to pickup every walk and run action from others, he would possibly start using his feet to run away, if not ahead, of the cars and trucks behind him. Else, we might just let him being run over by the trucks yet shedding no tear of him. No point helping him because he needs no help. He has no reason to existence in this world either.

星期五, 7月 15, 2005

An incident at a baseball match

It was a lazy Sunday.

After breakfast, as usual I wasn't doing anything except lying on the sofa with TV remote control in one hand busily switching through the not-so-many channels one by one. Then there's a US Major Baseball League match at this sport channel. I thought it'd be interesting hence I stopped the channel browsing activity.

The game wasn't so interesting, at all. It is not as exciting as what I read from some comic book. Disappointed. While before I was just about to switch away from the match, there's a fault strike from the attacking team. The ball flew out of the bound and towards the audience seat. The audience all stood up hoping to catch the ball as souvenir of the match. It was then caught by one of the audience. That fellow has his son sitting in front of him, he passed the souvenir to his son. Then something funny happened. The son threw the ball back to the ground, with his father dumbfounded by it. This must be the first time he brought his son to a baseball match hence his son has no idea he can actually keep the ball to himself.

The son didn't know he's done something stupid, continued watching the match. The father was shaking his head in disbelief.

星期四, 7月 14, 2005

Physics saved my ass!

I've done it, successfully, and it saved my life and of course Saga-92's too.

This evening after work, I was supposed to drive all the way from my work place to SS2 for some basketball with friends. While on the way there a friend called and the basketball session was cancelled, because SS2 was raining cats and dogs. I said okay and continued listened to the radio. It started to rain as I reached Puchong toll and the road became slippery.

I was concentrating on the radio, and then all of the sudden the Waja in front of me made a hard brake due to some other vehicles in front slowed down suddenly. Within one hundredth of a second my brain made a brilliant decision and send the reflex signal down right to my right foot at the next one hundredth of second-I stepped so damn hard on the brake pedal.

But the car was just not slowing down, the tyres have been locked up and they lost resistance with the road, the vehicle continued its momentum toward the front. I could hear the screaming tyre sound at that moment. I can only think "Am I going to bang the waja?"

Then something flashed through my mind, something my friend Lee told me just couple of weeks ago. I freed the brake pedal and stepped on it and repeated them in a real quick manner like 3-4 cycle per second. I could feel that I start gaining control of the vehicle's direction again and it really slowing down, eventually, to a stop. Just by a few inches more I'll bang the waja real bad. *phew! I looked in the rear-view mirror checking if the car behind me made the stop, it did, back of my car is safe too. Another *phew!

There was a tremble in my legs, I could felt it. I felt so weak and almost can't regain my strength to simple task like stepping on the clutch and accelerator pedals. I was scared. I was scared because I knew with my speed that time I could hit real bad at that waja. I was scared because I don't want to damage Saga-92. I was so scared because I thought I will die!

Manual ABS (Anti-lock braking system) might've just saved my life. So I guess I should say what saved me was one thing, physics!

I didn't see my past life flashed through my head. And I didn't see any bright light ahead of me either. So perhaps I am just so lucky. I should be buying my vehicle registration number for 4D this week just to try out my good luck. 1568, any taker?

星期一, 7月 11, 2005

Make Monday History

Make Monday History has become an unprecedented movement of passion, energy and solidarity. Never before have so many people in the world come together, fully united in demanding action to end Monday, with a roar for justice that they felt was impossible to ignore.

But more action is urgently needed from us if we are to play our role in bringing about real change for the world's working-class people and consigning Monday to the history books.

To secure a deserved place in history, we must go a lot further and secure real change by urging the world leaders to eliminate Monday. The people of the world are already on the road to justice.

They expect their leaders to be with them. Today's announcement has shown that the leaders need to run much faster to catch up.

星期五, 7月 08, 2005

Blasts in London

It happened again. Another major city was being hit by terrorist after 9/11 tragedy. This time is London. The London bombings is believed to be carried out by the notorious al-Qaeda, and is kind of being confirmed after the group has published a letter claiming they did it.

My condolence to the londoner. I believe that the attacks have not only shocked britons, but all civilised people in the world.

After hearing the news, my first thought was how many died? Then followed by will British join back United State's circle of fighting terrorism again after this incident? It's really raised my worry over this. If that happens I'll say it is truly a triumpant for the terrorist.

The attack will draw no good emotions from any civilised people around the world except one, George Bush The Idiot. He will be glad to see it happens so that he could tell his US people, "see, that's the consequence you will see happening in US again if you guys do not allow me to attack other Evil country and let me spend money on weapon buying". Yeah, he won't say that directly but his subsequent move will indicate or hint that to his people. And I think US people will be hypnotised and agreed.

But no matter what, I sincerely wish the victory will be ours against the cowardly terrorist. And again, stay strong and good luck to you, poor londoners.