endroog

Tomorrow is my birthday and heck… its just another day to me. What is more important is that today I took part in an outing for the boys of a shelter home in PJ. The organiser is June who volunteers regularly at the home. I’ve never felt so much satisfaction as this by bringing smiles and laughters to some less-priviledged boys. After seeing the place they called home… I wonder how lucky I am and many of us who are reading this post of mine.

Most of theboys there are of Indian descent and  there are 2 chinese boys… who speaks fluent Tamil. Woah…. I myself who wished I could speak fluent Tamil could only salute these 2 Tamil-speaking chinese boys. The volunteers who took parts today are some international student volunteers from China, Taiwan, New Zealand, Holland and also June’s friends.

We took them for bowling at Cineleisure in Mutiara Damansara and later to a lunch at New Paris Chinese Restaurant in SS2, PJ.

There will be more outings to come…. and I hope more volunteers will join to give these kids a smile and happy time.

I had a nightmare the other day… in the morning. My wife and I were at a holiday resort or island of some sort. We can lookout to the sea from a high cliff and there are fences on the edge. Then the was a bench for people to sit and we were taking photos.

Then, we’re back in our hotel/apartment on a high rise building and we’re on the either 3-5 floors and there’s a balcony that we can lookout to the sea some 500-1000 metres away. I was taking photos of my wife with his back to the balcony. I was trying to photograph the sea as the background. Click…click.. chik chak…

Suddenly, I was shocked seeing a huge tidal wave heading towards the beach… “Szer… look !!”, I shouted pointing at the balcony. She was shocked too… but there’s no way to run. Thus we hugged and telling how much we love eash other… and all that kind of thing. When the waves hit…… luckily i doesn’t reach up to our floor. I saw the walls cracked and the building was trembling.

After the first wave, it quickly came to my mind that a second wave may be coming…. therefore i instructed my wife to pack some importang things. I quickly grabbed a sling bag and got all the things we may need to survive the second wave – the rope I used during the days as a scout, my swissarmy knife, belts, bottles of mineral water and (thats all I can recall).

The we ran downstairs and out of the building….. and quickly find a coconut tree to hang on to…. using the belts and ropes….. and the second wave came and I woke up with my shirt wet of my sweat.

Good morning. I quickly lookout the window and there were sounds of motor vehicles from the highway nearby here. Phew.

Does anyone knows what is the message behind this nightmare? Will there be anything bad gonna happen??

(Plainfield, IN – January 4, 2010) The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) commends the landmark ruling by a Malaysian Court on December 31, 2009, that affirms the religious freedom of Malaysian Christians. The ruling asserts that Christians have the right to use the word “Allah” to translate “God” into Bahasa Melayu, the Malaysian language. It strikes down a government ban that was placed in 2007 on the use of the term in Christian literature.

The opponents of the use of the word Allah in reference to God have argued that the term “God” is usually translated by Malaysians who follow faiths other than Islam as “Tuhan” in Bahasa Melayu, not “Allah.” They insist that “Allah” should only be used to refer to God in Islam. This argument is contrary to both Islamic understanding and practice.

The Qur’an is quite explicit that Muslims worship the same God recognized by Christians. The Qur’an commands Muslims to declare that the God they worship and the one worshiped by the followers of revealed books, including Christians, is one:  “… and say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him do we submit.” (Qur’an 29:46)

With regards to actual and historical practices, Christian Arabs have been using the word “Allah” to refer to God in their religious sources since the inception of Islam, and have never been challenged by private Muslims or Muslim governments on this ground. Islamic law is clear that followers of the Christian faith have the right to practice their religion according to their own religious teachings.

Malaysia has long been a good example of Islamic tolerance and we call on the Malaysian government to maintain the tradition of tolerance and uphold the religious freedom of Christians and to let the court ruling stand. We also urge Muslim NGOs to respect Islamic teachings and long-held Islamic traditions, and to withdraw their opposition to the use of the word “Allah” by their Christian compatriots.

Contact:
Louay Safi, Director of Communications and Leadership Development
317-838-8130
louay@isna.net

Source: http://www.isna.net/articles/News/ISNA-Commends-Malaysian-Court-Ruling-that-Affirms-Religious-Freedom-of-Christians.aspx

The year 2009 will be gone in 18 minutes. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy New Year 2010 and hope you achieved something this year. May you achieve more in the coming new year.

This year I finally changed my marital status to married, I’ve set foot on Australian soil. I also received the dip and now certified/qualified pratitioner in my field of practice. These are the 3 achievements I made this year.

Good luck. May the Force be with you.

endroo G

P/S: Oh yeah… we will surely miss Michael Jackson.

The greatest football sportswear manufacturer had unveiled the official jersey for the greatest team on Earth… Germany. The cheapest I can find selling here in Malaysia is at al-Ikhsan. The adidas shop at Mid Valley is selling at around Rm 258.00 while al-Ikhsan in the Curve is selling at Rm 230.00 .

Its awesome.

The crest is gold in color and black background. The 3 stripes has its meaning…

I gonna buy it !!

So, the days are drawing near and I’m gonna leave the bachelorhood (technically) and taking a step further to the club as what my buddy Yea Chern put it. Definitely it feels like the same but what lies ahead is unknown to me at this moment. Got the flower bouquet DIY’ed and lunch venue booked. The outing is just for the closest of the closest people. What am I gonna wear on the day? A suit? Its kinda hot these days… yeah its global warming and its real… but can I just wear a shirt and just a slack. Maybe I’d put on a tie. Thats all.

This is the first time I’m breaking some news of my change of status. Great. 2009 is coming to an end…. and this (ROM) could be one of the notable achievement this year, the others being the awarding of the professional Dip and the economic advantage it brought me and having set foot on Australian soil (finally). I couldn’t ask for more. Its been a colourful year I may say.

Hopefully next year will be better… and the resolution is to complete the Assoc. if possible and  have a great wedding. Another aim is to go gallivanting to as many places as possible in this short lifetime of ours. Next year will be a football year…. Germany’s gonna win the World Cup. Ha.

Cimate change… we read about it everyday in newspaper… its impact can be felt more and more these days….. so is it really a big issue?

What can I do for my part to help address this issue? Well, first ,we Malaysians just won’t give up our cars…. because public transports is still in a sorry state. A car is a necessity. I remember many many years ago there was this TV ad urging us to carpool and not to drive single occupancy vehicle (SOV) but if you’re stuck in a traffic jam on any given day….you’ll notice everyone drive SOV.

Trust me, if public transport is better, I dont think many people would want to drive and what is the current average price for non-designated season parking in KL? I am currently being charge RM230.00 per month and my company is subsidising RM50.00 ONLY since the last seven years. When I first joined, the price was RM100/month. You do the math. So, for Malaysian government, the first thing they need to do if they want to do a part in addressing this issue is to take the cars off the roads. The more the better. Impose congestion fees so that fuckers who goes for a morning ride in downtown KL would be detered. Sometime it is because of these fuckers, there is  a crawl tailing it behind. Charging a heavy congestion fee is the only thing to ensure people dont drive around KL aimlessly and create traffic jam. The existing, light rail transit (LRT), monorail and KTM Komuter should be revamped and expanded. Just do something like Singapore’s MRT.

Any of you ever tried catching the LRT or monorail during rush hour? I gotta miss a 4-5 trains before I can get onboard one. Too much of people squeezing into a train and the train itself was already fully stuffed. Our monorail and LRT train is just too fucking short and small in size. Let me dare you: go and take the monorail on a weekday around 5.40pm at Raja Chulan, Bukit Bintang or Bukit Nenas station in Kuala Lumpur. That will be enough and lets not talk about the taxi and bus service yet at this point of time.

Ok, back to the climate change issue… with that kind of inconvenience to catch a train…. isn’t it a wise move to buy a car? For RM400 a month, you can reasonably own a Perodua Viva….. small and compact and easy to move around town… Monday to Sunday. The more cars on the road, create more traffic jam and more trees have to be chopped down to build more roads to cater these cars. More cars on the road means more risk i.e. risk of cars getting flooded, collision, loss of lives etc. More traffic jams will burn up a lot of fuel unnecessarily and this leads to carbon emission. Emission is ever increasing and there’s lesser trees to control carbon pollution. Then, we see a lot of changes in our climate as compared to a decade or two ago. Places that have never been flooded before in history got flooded… just look at the not-so-recent major flood in the state of Johor. We are getting more rain, drought, landslide etc in a year. The government then have to fork out money to help those affected by flood…. insurance companies and the financial market in a whole are the most unhappy one at time of such catastrophe… the government would just tai-chi some of its responsibilities to insurance companies i.e. they instructed insurance companies to pay for claims which otherwise is not their liability…. and the insurance fraternity obliged as to protect their operating license issued by the Central Bank. Cost is ever rising…

Who then are the happiest at time of catastrophe and loss? Well, go guess it.

So, everything is in a loop and related. The above is just one of the example that I can think of. If the root of the cause is tackled, then the rest of the things will not crop up. Right? Technically yes but there’s a “but”.

Even in the corporate level, companies can start to adopt paperless system which I think is a very small step but a big leap in helping to reduce trees being chopped.

Well, I hope something can be achieved in Copenhagen soon to address this issue.

Here’s something to ponder:

Westerners in the past drove cars, now they cycle to protect the environment. Asians on the other hand, cycled in the past as they have not much money to own a car then, are now driving cars of all sizes as they have money now.

Happy November. This time last year I was in Europe…. Paris… looking back at the photos, makes me want to just pack up and go off once again. Well, kinda bitten by the travel bug and am lusting to go somewhere although I just went to Melbourne a few weeks ago. If not for the big events planned, I would have booked an airticket to somewhere for next coming year.

Well, Melbourne was great and nice. The beaches was great… I just love the view at the Great Ocean Road. Maybe I have not been to any other similar place and this is the best I’ve seen so far. Imagine the time when Cpt. James Cook arrived in Australia, it must have been very nice. After going to Australia, I can now relate to the scenes I saw in Australia (the movie) like the farm houses, vineyards, wranches etc. A nice place for emigrating to. Life they is so laid-back and you can go home after 5.00pm. No need to do overtime whatsoever. No one gives a fuck. They’ll just tell the customers to come another day for they are closing.

Till today, the debate still goes on…. people would say Australians are a bunch of convicts…err decendants of convicts. Well, Uncle Robert said not all of them were convicts. They were many prison guards as well. He may be right. Eyeing for Sydney now.

Life is just too short to not travel around… hoping to just go anywhere within budget…

Arrhh… its been a long week of tiresome, sleeplessness and depression (anger without enthusiasm as Steven Capaldi put it). As usual, it is mostly due to work in a dog-eat-dog world. Ok.

Lets look at some brighter things of life. I’m off to Melbourne next week for a week break from shit-stuff in KL. Lets make it a point to enjoy life and go see the world a bit. No mattter how much we earn…. we should enjoy life according to our budget. You’ll never know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. You might just wake up in the ruins and rubble of an earthquake aftermath in Malaysia (0.38 probability?). Maybe with all these “goals” you will have the motivation to grind.

Well, am looking towards the realm of matrimony which is getting closer than I’d realise… we are looking at some unconventional ideas to cut cost and of course for simplicity sake. I’m not revealing anymore. Everything is still in the early stage of planning. I dont want to see the projected cost sheet yet or else I’ll have another sleeplessness period.

Alright… just let it be. I’m trying to get back the blogging mood after lying low for so long. I’m going down under. Yay.

Dear Car-lost,

In a few days I will be parting with you. Thanks for being there for me for so long since GABR days and till now I’ve travelled about 238,000 kilometres with you all over the peninsular of malaysia.North, south, east and west.

I may not be a good owner but nevertheless I did tried to give you the best – Mobil1, Meguiars, V-Power, Continental, Ambi-pure, and many more. So many fond memories of us travelling in style and you brought me to every damn corners of the Klang Valley.

I hope you gonna have a better owner than me in the future. We’ve gone through thick and thin all these year… with you involving in multiple minor accidents and me making money extorting the third party at fault. Though I’ve never strike on your registration number… but it did came close a few times. It opened in 1st and 2nd prize for a few times.

Actually I don’t want to part with you but I just can’t take it anymore. Everyone have been urging me to part with you – my szer, my dad, szer’s dad, my friends, my insurance agent friend, my colleagues, my mechanic, etc. I just can’t stand it anymore. Your market value dropped so drastically in the past year. You will be replaced by a Perodua…. to take me to extra kilometers.

Well, hope we can bump into each other next time in town. Please pray for me to strike your registration number ok. I would just buy you back from the used car dealer.

With love and adios,

endrooG

Hei yo, Happy Merdeka and I hope your long weekend was great. Well, I went to Singapore by flight on Firefly budget airline. Got a fairly cheap deal. Visited some touristy place there in Singapore i.e. Esplanade and saw the merlion from afar…. the bank of Malaysia… that is Maybank secured a good location for its building…. and the building is even taller and nice that the Menara Maybank or Dataran Maybank in KL. Geez. Anyway, the latest hype in Orchard Road… the yet another new shopping mall, Ion Orchard among many other established malls along the road…. shopping malls there are quite happening. Singaporeans just love their foodcourts. Everywhere you go, there are foodcourts. Stalls? Kopitiam? They just prefer foodcourt because its cleaner.

There’s another nice happening place… Dempsey Road. It used to be an army barrack during colonial time and now its a place where most of the expats hang out. There are many good restaurants over there. Oh yeah… the purpose of the trip was actually attend one of my szer friend’s baby fullmoon bash at Sheration Hotel. The lunch buffet was nice. Goo bak mi or beef noodles in Singapore is a big thing. There’s one good one in Purvis Street (aka Hainan Street?) called Hock Lam Beef Noodles….  ok well all these happened thanks to the Ang family’s hospitality.

Ok… back to work today…. some weird thing happened about email. Can you imagine working in a company where even the receptionist has an email but you don’t…. how fucking pathetic would that be? The HR manager came over and asked the guy sitting next to me about an urgent matter sent by email from an insurance company to both the director and the chairman. Not to say complant, the email wanted a quick response /reply comment on an issue. After drafting the letter, the HR came and asked EU to email her the softcopy of the letter. FYI, we have no choice but to draft a letter because we DON’T HAVE A FUCKING EMAIL.

E told the HR.. “dei, we have got no email lah (you idiot) !!!”. Then she was like stunned… and said “well, you can use G’s email to send to me.”. I looked at her and then at EU. I was like ” I don’t have an email either. We all don’t have email. dont you know?”. She then took the hardcopy of the letter printed by EU and left.

Now, one thing for sure, the senior management, HR, directors, and chairman didn’t know thst the whole department doesn’t have email except those of managerial post. The company may have won some “the best in Asia”, “the best brand in ____ “, the “golden cow” and other awards (by using money??)…. but they can’t even care to provide tools that are required for our job and maintain staff morale. We have email client (Notes) installed in each of our computer but without an email account.

Like what Munna aka Balram Halwai said, what a fucking joke?

Passed by this place many times over the years and until recently I finally stopped by to see whats the fuss with all this people collecting water by the roadside. Thats the hilly road going to Ulu Yam and Batang Kali.

Above: The water flows out continuosly from the hill.

G: Hey mister, you are collecting all this water for drinking or washing purpose?

Mr: Of course for drinking, lah ! This is the best water for drinking. Its better than those of the Diamond or Nesh bullshit.

G: Even better than those bottled mineral water like Spritzer etc ?

Mr: This is the best. Why do you think I come here everyweek to collect drinking water supply for a week?

G: How many containers you have here?

Mr: 11 ! I’ve been here the whole morning. Come, since you have a small bottle, why don’t you take some first.

G: Ok. I wanna see whats so great with this water…

Mr: Here… go ahead. I use this water to brew tea… chinese tea. You get different taste from the same tea box.

G: (gulping a litre of water)…. WOW. This water is sweet and fresh. (reminds me the water of Kenyir Lake that I drank)

Mr: Exactly. The sweetness is because the water contains high oxygen which is good for the body. Unlike tap water, those are treated water with gallons of chemicals in it.

G: Whoa… then this water is very suitable for cooking…. for soup and gravy.

Mr: Definitely it will be out of this world.

G: Maybe I’ll come and collect water with a bigger bottle one day.

Mr: You should. This water is healthy. There were even Health Officers came here before to take water sample and certified it to be drinkable.

G: Oh really?

Mr: Yeah… I’ve been coming here everyweek for the past 4 years.

G: Ok good. I take another bottle of water for my journey back to KL. Where you from? Batang Kali or Ulu Yam?

Mr: No… I’m from Selayang. All the way from Selayang just for the sake of the water.

G: Oh… I’m from there too. Now no more stayin there. Ok, let me take a picture and I have to roll already. Thanks.

Mr: Alright young man.

“Human Nature”

Looking out
Across the night-time
The city winks a sleepless eye
Hear her voice
Shake my window
Sweet seducing sighs

Get me out
Into the night-time
Four walls won’t hold me tonight
If this town
Is just an apple
Then let me take a bite

Chorus
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way

Reaching out
To touch a stranger
Electric eyes are ev’rywhere
See that girl
She knows I’m watching
She likes the way I stare

If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
I like livin’ this way
I like lovin’ this way

(instrumental section)

Looking out
Across the morning
The city’s heart begins to beat
Reaching out
I touch her shoulder
I’m dreaming of the street

Chorus
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -
Why, why, tell ‘em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
I like livin’ this way