Kuala Lumpur, July 9, 2011. The Bersih 2.0 street demonstration. Just something to remember for many years to come..

Anti-Government Supporters: “Police brutality!!!”

Pro-Government Supporters: “Padan muka kau!!!” (“Serves you right!!!”)

The Climbing Man: “Years of practice with the coconut trees paid off today..”

The Policeman: “You can climb but you can’t run..”

The Climbing Man’s Family Members: “Look! Dad is in the news! Wow!”

Papa Bear: “All I wanted to do is go to Toys R’ Us..”

Have fun remembering..

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Do You Want Fries With That?

That would be one of the most asked questions at some fast food restaurants but that would not be the case if you are buying something to eat at the Machap rest area. Over there, the question would be: “Do you want flies with that?”

If you are travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru on the NSE, you would not miss a rest area called the Machap R&R. Last week, while driving back from Johor Bahru to Shah Alam, we had the “luxury” of stopping over for a short break at this rest area . From the car, everything looked great as the rest area was recently renovated by PLUS.

They Are Everywhere!

However, once I stepped out of the car and went to one of the stalls there, I was greeted by hundreds of flies. While the few hundred of them were doing the welcome to rest area Machap song, there were few thousands other flies were busy “promoting” the food and goods for sale to travellers… What a sight!

I went to the upper portion of the rest area. The automatic escalator was impressive and once I reached the top floor, I saw the whole eating place was sealed by glass walls. I thought that was a noble idea to ensure that the flies stay out while people are eating inside…

Let’s Do Some Maths

Well, it did not really 100% work as there were thousands of flies queueing up on the glass walls and doors waiting to enter the area. Imagine this:

1000 flies waiting to enter the eating area. If one person open the glass door to enter, and1% of the flies would take the opportunity to sneak in. There would be 10 flies per person. If 100 people went in, there would be about 1000 flies and each person that goes in must come out and that would mean at least 2000 flies in there…

They Can See You

With that, you can imagine that whatever you order in there, flies are complimentary… Not bad for a free source of protein ha! At the same time, you would get to experience a scenario that is normally common in some sci-fi movies and in this case, you would be trapped in a glass enclosure surrounded by thousands of flies staring with their compound eyes… Would you still eat there? Some people did but no way for me…

Blame It On The Chickens

I talked to one of the sellers there and I was told that there are some chicken farms nearby and things would get extremely bad during the rainy seasons and there was no way to get rid of the flies…

Luckily my son was asleep and therefore, he stayed in the car with my wife… If not he would have a freaking time chasing after the flies and my wife would have been having a busy time wiping his hands and feet shoes…

So, the next time when you drive on the NSE, look out for Machap rest area and stop to look at the wonder of the flies.

P/S:

There was a fly in our car a day after we came back and looking at the size, it must have followed us back from Machap…

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What a morbid title to start the week. I am sure that most of us do not need to be reminded that death will eventually come and take us away from this world and nobody can escape that no matter how hard you try. Anyway, I am not going to write about how to face and accept death or what is waiting after death as I am not an expert in that subject matter but I just want to highlight three recent news that is related to death.

The news are about three different people, from three different places and with three different intentions and ended up with three different outcomes. In all three incidents, death was present, in one way or another.

You jump, they catch you. The first news was about a 38 year old woman who was looking for death by committing suicide. However, she did not get to meet death as she was rescued in the nick of time by the police from jumping off the ledge of a four-storey, under construction building in Kuala Berang, near the Sekayu Junction, in Trengganu yesterday.

The mother of one had a previous record of being mentally ill and according to the same news shown on the TV last night, she wanted to kill herself because of her husband is having an affair with another woman.

So, in this case, what do you think of that woman? Was she not thinking straight at that moment and forgot that she has a child? What about the husband? Is he the main cause or just an excuse? Nevertheless, it was not her time and death did not come for her.

Read Woman saved in the nick of time for the full news.

Circumcision went wrong. The second news is about a 10 year old boy from Kuala Lumpur who was enrolled by his mother into a mass circumcision program has been admitted to the ICU at University Malaya Medical Center due to some complications suffered during the circumcision ceremony.

According to the parents, their son complained of extreme pain when he wanted to pee and at the same time his testicles have swollen. Apparently, the doctor who performed the circumcision had installed some kind of device on the boy’s penis.

The doctor at the medical center had to perform a surgery to prevent the infections caused by the installed device. At the time the news was published, Farhan is still on the life support system at the medical center.

The doctor who performed the circumcision when contacted blamed the boy and his parents for not attending the briefing and following the right procedures.

So, this is what you get when you want to save cost and send your child for a RM10 circumcision with 300 other children. Now who is to blame? Farhan is now playing hide and seek with death…

Read Masuk ICU lepas khatan for the full story (in Malay).

Do not disturb the wasp hive (Sarang tebuan jangan dijolok). The last news is about a 10 year old boy from Kuala Kangsar, Perak who died after being stung by wasps while he was walking to a nearby sundry shop.

According to the news, a group of 10 youths were pelting the hive with sticks and stones before Year Four student Mohamad Amirul Hafiz was stung in Kampung Padang Asam in Padang Rengas here. According to the great grandmother of the boy, the hive had been there for some time and no one had been attacked before.

Looks like he was at the wrong place at wrong time and death was the result. Do we blame the 10 youths who disturbed the hive or the people who knew about the hive? How about we blame the wasps for attacking the wrong person?

Read ‘Boy would be alive if wasps not disturbed’ for the full story.

There you go. One cheated death, one hanging for dear life and one has left us. May there be a lesson for us to learn from these…

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We believed it!

We grabbed it!

We will be going to Jakarta and Surabaya again next year! Read about it at We Got Free Seats from AirAsia.

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Yesterday AirAsia launched the Free Seats – No Fuel Surcharge promotion and we decided to grab the offer. We are not really a fan of AirAsia due to some of its ridiculous policies such as, express boarding fee and low baggage weight allowed but when they made such an offer, we would have to grab it since we know that when AirAsia is  on sale, it will be really on sale!

We managed to get free seats for the whole family, including Papa Bear’s mom for round trip travels from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta and from Jakarta to Surabaya. It is a dream come true for Mama Diah who has always wanted to bring her mother in law to her place in Jakarta and her hometown in Surabaya, Indonesia…

So, how much does it cost to get tickets for 4 people for a total of four trips? It is less than RM 800.00! That is approximately IDR 2.4 million or USD 230.00. A really awesome deal even though we have to wait until end of September 2009 for our trip. At least we have already planned for our next year’s annual family vacation.

The last we checked, there are still many seats available to all destinations!

That would be the name of one of the streets in Kuala Lumpur if I am elected as the new Mayor of the capital city. I would choose a street that I like and change its name to that. How about that?

This is what happened to Jalan Alor that has been changed to Jalan Kejora. Soon, many other street names would be changed as well. Can you imagine those who just bought a map for Kuala Lumpur looking for the famous Jalan Alor? They would get there but they would only find Jalan Kejora! Talk about a major confusion not just for tourists but even for the locals.

Imagine those who have to change their addresses just because some big people feel that Jalan Kejora is more suitable for the Bukit Bintang area. Since “bintang” is the Malay word for stars so the name of the streets should follow all the stars in the universe. I wonder where did these people go to school?

Datuk Bandar Datuk Ab Hakim Borhan said the move, which was planned three years ago, would give the tourist destination of Bukit Bintang a new image.

“Other roads in the area will soon have new names, and they will all be named after the stars to create the new image,” he said yesterday during a visit to a landslide site in Cheras.

New image by changing the street names? What’s the point? if you read in Locals and tourists want Jalan Alor to be maintained, even tourists disagree with the move.

“The new name will definitely confuse some of us when trying to find the place in the future,” Australian tourists Jenny O’Connor and Caitlin Coppock said.

Not to mention that Jalan Alor, for example, returned more than 900,000 results in Yahoo!.

Don’t they have any other better things to do. everyday in the news there are lots of things that need to be fixed in KL and yet they have choosen to change the street names.

I propose Jalan Bukit Bintang be changed to Jalan Shaxx Beruang!

Crimes and more crimes are being committed and nowadays criminals are bolder and more daring and fully equipped with lethal weapons. They are not afraid to kill their victims and would do anything to get what they wanted and cover their tracks.

Victims are no longer just threatened, injured or restrained but killed if necessary. The latest incident in Pasir Putih, Kelantan involving a jeweler and his wife added to the collection of shocking crime news in the country.

They were chased by three masked man and shots were fired at them and one hit the wife on the shoulder causing her death.

Jeweller Mohd Zaidi Che Li, the husband of the dead woman, telling the police investigating team about the car chase that took place when he tried to evade three masked men. — NST picture by Fathil Asri

Three masked men in a silver Proton Waja tried to block the couple’s Proton Waja. The men directed Zaidi, who was driving, to stop but he sped off.
The gunman at the back of the car opened fire twice but the shots did not hit the car.

“They chased the couple’s car and when it made a U-turn they fired another shot, which hit the woman,” Amir Hamzah said at the district police station.

Now, do you think that we are still safe? Read more about it at Jeweller’s wife shot dead during car chase.

In another news, Police in Kuala Lumpur have found five dead bodies in a single day. One of them, believed to be an Indonesian were found with slash wound on the neck, arm and head. Then a Myanmar national was found hanged in his room and police believed that he committed suicide.

At the same time, a decomposed body of an identified man was found near a river at Jalan Ipoh and finally a body of two brothers, one of them beheaded was found is Segambut Dalam. Read Five bodies in one day for details.

What is going on with all these crimes hitting the news on daily basis? Should people be allowed to carry guns for self defense now?

Now let’s talk about some odd and off beat news. The first one was about a freak accident that happened in Parit, Perak. A car driver knocked down two pedestrians and then panicked and drove straight away to the police station.

Upon arrival he was shocked to discover that the body of one of the victims are shucked on the roof of his car. Can you imagine that? Driving three kilometers with someone that he just killed (accidentally) stuck on the roof of his car. I would not be surprised that that guy would stop driving for a long time after this.

Read Shock for driver who hit dad, son for the full story.

The next one is about being stuck as well. A Malaysia that has been stuck in India for the past 31 years. This is the story of C.K. Ravindran and probably due to some red tapes or may be negligence by some party, this guy is stuck there in India as he did not get his passport renewed.

A consultant who was born in Malaysia says he has not been allowed to return to the country because authorities have failed to provide him with a new passport for the past 31 years.

Childhood days: Ravindran (standing right) and his siblings posing outside their house in Bahau Estate in a 1963 picture. Their father, C.K Kumaran, was employed as a manager at the estate. – The Star

I wonder who screwed up this one. Nothing is like home sweet home. Read about this mess at Malaysian in India can’t come home.

Last but not least, the Political stuffs. The battle between Utusan Melayu and Teresa Kok is not over yet as Pakatan Rakyat is now urging the Prime Minister to take action against the news daily. These people sure have nothing better to do and all the people involved should go back to kindergarten and learn how to solve problems amicably. What a waste of time.  Go to Pakatan wants action taken against Utusan if you are still interested.

Secondly and the last news for today, a Perak MCA youth delegate called for Umno Youth Deputy Chief, Khairy to be detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA). The funny thing is that from what I read, MCA is against ISA and now they wanted ISA to be used against someone.

This is an example how stupid arguments can make the news when they are politically motivated. These people need to go  back to kindergarten as well and join the above group… Go to ‘Detain Khairy under ISA’ if you have nothing better to read.

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