just take the damned bus

just take the damned bus.
our generous traffic branch of the malaysia police force extended a discount period for paying summonses til sept 30. i took the chance n went ahead with paying mine. nothing serious, just made an illegal u-turn n ended up stumbling upon the white-clad campers. guess they needed their quota for the month.

there's a scene between a cop n this young girl, not more than 18, who was there for the discount too. it seems like the car is her mom's, n her friend drove it, unaware than the road tax has expired n no insurance was purchased for the car.
i'm not sure if insurance is required by the law here, but according to the cop, the summonse was for a total of 3 violations: expired road tax, no insurance, n denying to sign n acknowledge the summonse when asked to sign. for each of the 3, she has to pay RM300, which comes to a total of RM900.

it sounds like total bullshit to me. denying to sign n acknowledge a summonse is an offence?! wtf?! does that mean that when we're given a summonse, we'll HAVE to sign it no matter what?

if i'm stopped by some corrupt cop looking to earn a few quick bucks, hinting at me to pay for some made up offense, n i refused to pay, so he gave me a summonse, which i definitely will not agree nor acknowledge, i'm actually violating the law?? so i'm in the wrong for not agreeing/admitting to something i did not do in the first place? what a great system we have.

i've always had a bad impression of the local traffic rules n regulations - too many loopholes for all those corrupt cops out there to prey on us. now, it's gotten worse as they get more empowered, n the rules get more ridiculous.

1. 14-day loss of licences for errant drivers.
2. drive traffice offenders off our roads.

the new rules are:
1.DANGEROUS or reckless driving resulting in death
2.RECKLESS and dangerous driving
3.CARELESS and inconsiderate driving
4.DRIVING under the influence of alcohol or drugs
5.DRIVING or controlling a motor vehicle while the alcohol level in the blood system exceeds the permitted level
6.BEATING the traffic lights
7.DRIVING in excess of 40kph above the speed limit

now can someone tell me the difference between driving under the influence of alcohol n driving while the alcohol level in the blood system exceeds the permitted level?? how can someone be driving under influence of alcohol n not have the level exceed the permitted level??
when u look at it, drunk driving actually violates rules #2,3,4,5 all at the same time. u're driving under influence, having alcohol levels exceeding the limit, driving carelessly n recklessly.

am i the only one that's seeing the absurd redundancies in those ridiculous rules?

our transport minister is right about the increased opportunity for bribery with the new rules. we've more or less been getting either hinted subtly or directly asked for 'duit kopi' by traffic cops, n that's when if we broke 1 rule, we broke 1 rule.

now with these new rules, the extra summonses n the 14-day revoking of licences, our white-clad kings of the roads are gonna be having a field day. everyday.

are those tits on ur phone?

the malaysian govt is so hell-bent on stopping the spread of almight pr0ns that they're gonna have cops stop ppl on the streets n search their mobile phone. yes, that's right. all ur mobile phones are belong to us, they say. (can't help the lame joke)

similar reports from 2 differe sources: bbc uk and news24.. i've been trying to look for a link from malaysia online papers, but can't seem to locate one. it'll be most interesting to find the Harian Metro article that actually reports on "teenagers are using their mobile phones to video mass sex parties and then send the pictures to each other."

dude, where the hell are the mass sex parties? how do one get invited? i'll like an invitation pls. hello? HELLO~??

so, here's the low down. be prepared to get stopped on the streets by policemen in uniforms or plainclothes asking for ur mobile. be prepared to have them go thru all ur pics, pr0n or not, n be prepared to suffer idiotic comments from them that was supposed to be funny.

the other thing right now is, how much identification do they have to provide the public before we have to oblige n handover our mobiles? what's to stop impostors to actually just grab our mobiles n run? with the bribery among traffic police still rampant nowadays, i think this might just be another opportunity for duit kopi for cops.

ok. i can't get this outta my mind. where the hell are the mass sex parties?!!

hazy penang

the haze from indonesia's forest fires has been a big concern for everyone in malaysia. things were getting real bad for the last few days, especially in KL. penang was starting to get hazy yesterday afternoon.
i was up at 4am this morning and there was a mild thunderstorm outside with very strong wind. i thought the haze will at least reside a bit. 7am shows that things aren't that good. this photo is a view from my balcony towards the market near sunshine square. visibility is really low as i can normally see the market from this angle.

this is the road, right below my balcony.

shots of equatorial hotel's golf course, right across the road from my apartment. the red circle is where equatorial should be, but it's not even visible now due to the haze.


views from the other side of the apartment.

new year. yay?

1st Jan. :) Didn't even celebrate last night. It's not that I agree with the PM about mourning for the deaths of the tsunami incident, it's just that I didn't feel like celebrating in the first place.

I'm not very much affected by the whole thing, although I do agree that it's really tragic. The dead are dead, but the living will have so much more to deal with, especially those who has not only lost their families and loved ones, but also their livelihoods and their future.

Ultimately, it's a very good move for leaders of the region to cancel all official celebrations for the new year. It will certainly make the coutry look bad if they have celebrations that soon after such a huge tragedy. So, fuck you to those who complain about governments cancelling celebrations. You people should think ahead more instead of just worrying about where you're gonna get drunk on New Year's Eve and who you'll be getting laid with.

Sent some money in to a local charity/relieve fund for tsunami victims in Malaysia under mom's name yesterday. It's not much, but it's about as much as I can spare, seeing how my current financial situation isn't all that good either. Any bit helps, I hope.

tsunami. 26 dec 04.

CNN.com Specials

CNN.com: Quake, tsunami kills thousands

CNN.com: Report: Third of dead were children


Those are but a few.
It's the most unexpected and terrible thing to hit Asia for nearly a century. (Personally, the '97 finanacial crisis affected me more, but this is a real tragedy.) Lucky me was in Penang at the time, but I wasn't even near any of the areas affected by the whole thing. The nearest I was to the seaside was at Bayan Lepas FIZ, where people were fishing quietly by the beach. I only got to know the whole thing Monday morning when I read the papers in Ipoh.

I can't find much (read: lazy to google) about the extend of the destruction in Penang, but from what I heard from friends, it's pretty bad. Roads split near Island Plaza. Batu Feringgi is a mess, fishing villages in the north-eastern part of the island are in shambles.

Comparing to what happened to other countries, especially India, Sri Lanka, and not to mention Maldives with two-thirds of its land submerged, I'll say Malaysia did OK. The saddest thing is that the death tolls keep rising, and so many of them are children. Areas destroyed will take years and millions of dollars to rebuild. So many lost their homes and loved ones.

CNN.com: Fatal Lack of Warning System

It's true that governments could have done more in terms of some kinda disaster warning system for real-time warnings on tragedies like this. Still, they are not to blame because this, the Indian Ocean, is really not a region that's been high in these kinda seismic activities. More like, none.

It's a good thing that governments now plan to setup such warning systems. It might be too late for what has already happened, but hopefully, it will help save lives if, God forbids, that similar events might occur in the future.

Besides these, it's really been a bad December. A few buses have had serious accidents casuing deaths throughout the month. The Lata Kinjang waterfall, a famous tourist attraction here, had a sudden flood during peak days. Bad news are all I see in the papers this month.

Hopefully, things will get better next year.
For those who died, may they find peace; and for those who lost so much, may they find the strength to live on.

what can i say?

Read this

That is the concise version. I got interested in that piece of news when I was scanning through a local Chinese daily this morning. What is not included in the online version, is information such as how the accused had been working for the post for 8 years, delivering mail via motorcycle and van, and is currently only getting RM500 per month.

With that piece of information, it is obvious that the fella actually did what he did to get to whatever that's worth something inside the mail that he's supposed to deliver for extra income.

What's wrong with this picture?

Aside from the obvious, that he has gone against his job ethics in tampering with the mail (which he is now paying for with 2 year's jail), is how badly paid some government servants are.

I said some, because I see those that get paid beyond what they deserve all the time. For example, you friendly local assemblymen. How many of them actually deserve to be where they are now, least of all getting paid for it? And those idiots that gets laptops everytime they go for a meeting? Oh please. Do they even know how to use a laptop?!

Let's take the PM for example. He's getting a monthly salary of over RM20k, has government provided housing and transport, tons of benefits, claims for traveling overseas... not to mention other *coughunderthetablecough* income sources. I'm sure if there ever was a in-depth investigation into what these government people are getting, we'll all see how unbelievably disappointing the whole system is.

The other thing is, I utterly fail to understand how someone working for the same company for 8 years can only be getting paid what part-timers, in their teens, can be easily getting. It's even a government subsidised corporation, for chrisakes!!

If these high up "officials" would only give up some of their income for charity every month, we probably won't even need to have any charity drives in the country at all.

Charity shows are another stupid idea. We often see charity shows that pays for artists/idols to attend and play games, get people to donate via the phone or whatever, give prizes the stars... blah blah yadda yadda. Didn't they even stop to think that, instead of spending all that money on hiring people, organising the show and buying the prizes, they might as well just donate those money to charity?

It's all a freaking show. That's what life is.

ciggie prices

Not high enough. You heard me. NOT HIGH ENOUGH.

I'm probably gonna get killed, but I'm among the few who thinks that cigarette prices should be hiked up more. RM6.50 per pack of 20s is like, chup change. Especially due to the reason that the currenly "high" price was raised little by little over the years.

If we really wanted to stop people from smoking, or at least to lessen smokers and to discourage new smokers, raising the price so slowly is not gonna work. Why? Smokers are gonna get used to the current price after a few months, and when the price is raised agian the next time, they won't feel that it's been raised that much.

Take one of my smoker friends for example. 2 months before the price hike, he expected it to happen and stocked up on cartons and cartons of Dunhill. According to him, it's gonna last him and his dad til sometime next January. Another smoker friend of mine actually cut down on drinks to buy cigarettes. Usually, he'll be paying RM1.50++ for Coke or kopi-ais. Now he's paying 30 sen for iced water or iced tea. Another one just outright said that it doesn't matter cos she's still gonna stick to smoking, blaming work-life pressure and hailing cigarettes as the almighty anti-depressant. I clearly don't see the point of that.

What I do see are all the bad consequences of smoking. The black, shriveled lungs. Bad breath. Burning money. Second hand smoke for everyone around you. And the list goes on and on. Another thing is the smell it leaves on your clothesand hair, especially when you just came out of some poorly ventilated area packed with smokers.

So, to really stop people from smoking, the price should've been hiked around, let's say, 300% at one go. Which would result in about RM16++ for a pack of 20s. Now THAT would seriously cut down the number of smokers.

Of course, that all just wishful thinking. There's no business like tobacco, and the government's earning a lot under the table from it anyway. If I had a digicam, I'd take a picture of all the white unmarked vans and Marlboro pickup trucks jamming the street around here every morning, just to pick up their deliveries to send to places all around Ipoh. That's on helluva sight.