It’s so hard.. scratch that, it’s bloody hot! February, last month, was supposed to be the hottest and driest month ever in years but I beg to differ. It is much hotter now in JB than it was a few weeks back. Ice Kacang, Cendol, Bubble Tea and Ice Cream sellers will be smiling right now as another heat beaten customer orders up those chilly drinks to quench the thirst.

I myself is equipped with a huge bottle of Ice Milk Tea on my left and Gendang Kasturi (kuih) on my left. I had planned earlier to bake Chocolate Cake with Ganache but after after the heat beating at my back, I’d rather make ice jelly fruit cocktail.

I’m not sure of the exact temperature outside but I’m very sure that my clothes which I hung out to dry was dried after 2 hours (clothes consist of 2pairs of jeans, comforter, bed linens etc). I could feel the scorching heat every time I stepped outside of my house. It’s much more cooler to stay in the house or air-con malls than be outside.

Oh yeah, went to Tesco Bukit Indah again today. Bought rice there, much cheaper from those in Hwa Thai and other places. The throng of people looked menacing but the que at the Tesco Hypermarket itself was very much controllable and I can happily say that it is a breezy affair.

The large space area is not wasted and it is filled up with various shops. There are Fabiano Ricco (they are everywhere these days), Amly, Watson, KFC and other shops which I can’t really remember since the crowd of shoppers jostled me at every moment.

I’m glad Tesco is finally in Bukit Indah as I am an avid fan of them. They have such a large variety of items and groceries at very much discounted price and I really love their Tesco Choice products. Those products are very good quality and is priced at relatively cheap price.

My beloved desktop PC nearly gave me a heart attack. It insist on not cooperating with me and stubbornly refused to boot up. There was no light, no alarm, except for the whinning sound of the fan. I had thought my power supply or motherboard had died on me again.

The stress was close to sending me to a hospital. I hate waking up to a horrible morning with a dead PC on my desktop. So at 9am, I unplug every cable accessories to my PC and lugged it into my dad’s bike and vroomed off to my favourite computer repair shop.

Luckily the shop was opened and after an hour of watching the technicians fussing and vacuuming (yes vacuuming!!)  my PC, my darling finally woke up from slumber and whirred to life. I was so very happy that I nearly hugged the my friend over the counter. The last I visited them to bring my PC to the ICU, I had to burn a few hundred in my bank account. Furthermore, I’m so going to get the PC that she was selling as a new set.

Then as my dad and I headed back home with my darling resting comfortably at the front, I caught sight of an enraged motorcyclist couple quarreling on a road shoulder. They had parked their bike and was on the road side, quarreling loudly and pushing each other to the road. Not really sure why they were quarreling but the guy really had a huge chin acne on his face.

So many eventful things happened within 2 hours and its not even noon yet!

It is not easy to govern a country that has many forms of religions and races. The line between each threshold is very thin and I’m glad that Malaysia and Singapore has managed to instill inter-racial and inter-religion harmony in all of their citizens.

However there will be a small cluster of irritants that try to make a fun on these sensitive issues. Take a look at the bombed churches and Suraus in Malaysia and the irresponsible comments left by 3 Singaporeans on Facebook. They may think that what they did was right and in retaliation of the use of the word “Allah” and the kids have thought it was just a bogus joke to leave unfair comments on other races on Facebook.

What they didn’t know that it is these small things that may create the next Racial/ Religious Riot that haunted Singapore in 1964. The older generations had experienced it and the nightmares that haunted them was still as fresh as freshly baked bread. In fact the impact was so strong that it had managed to get into Singapore’s History books.

People these days have to realise that we are living in an inter-racial community whereby we have to respect and other races and their religions. Don’t say anything hurtful or do rash actions that may incite the anger of the other party. I’m a proud Muslim and I was so flabbergasted and disgusted at the actions that some irresponsible people have done at the Churches and Suraus in Malaysia.

I was extremely close to beating the ones responsible into a bloody pulp and then strangling some sense into them. How could they do something so irresponsible and crazy like that? Take a look at the 1964 racial riot, the cause of it is almost the same as what those morons did.

I’m sure all of us love our peace and serenity. I am also very sure that we do not want to live with fear and death surrounding our vicinity and seeing our loved ones die all for the sake of a racial riot.

Furthermore for those offenders who tries their hand in breaking the internal security, load the toughest punishment on them! They deserve it! For their one stupid mistake, everyone else safety is at stake. Lash them, jail them and then fine them to the maximum. That ought to teach those idiots a lesson and others to never meddle with the safety of the nation.

It’s a sad day as Johor loses one of the most important leading figure. His royal majesty, Sultan of Johor, Sultan Iskandar Ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail passes away last night at 7.15pm. He had died of an illness. His majesty was 77.

The citizens of Johor grieves with his passing. Public are allowed to pay their last respect to his late majesty at the Istana Besar from 9am to 10.30am. Public are advised to wear Songkok with with bands along with black Baju Kurung Telok Belanga for Muslim males. Non-Muslim males are advised to wear a black armband on their left arm and black tie.

Muslim females are to wear white headscarf along with black Baju Kurung while non-Muslim females must wear a black armband on their left arm.

All buildings must fly the state flag at half mast between 6am and 6pm for seven days from today while all mosques and suraus must organise tahlil prayers.

All entertainment and games for today are canceled.

My deepest condolences to the royal members of Johor.

I’m thoroughly running out of ideas of what to blog these days. I’ve either been brought down to just nonsense prattling or mumbling incoherent thoughts. Let’s see what I’ve been doing these past few days…

Nothing much interesting. I didn’t manage to get any interesting pictures as I used to years back.  Eat, sleep, read, shake my bum-bum once in a while in a feeble attempt to slim down and teach my students.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve touched a textbook with the exception of Ayu’s. It is also a very long time since I’ve did any engineering maths and I had to crack my head on one of the questions imposed to me by one of my students. She was taking A maths.

Now that I’ve thought about it, Malaysia education and Singapore education has no difference. Even though many thought that Singapore education is much higher and better than Malaysia’s I beg to differ.

Singapore education system seems to cram every possible syllabus they could in a period of 10 years to prepare their students for the higher education. Whereas Malaysia education system takes it much slower and polishes those topics which they deem as needed the moment their students is brought into the working world.

There are also certain topics which the Malaysian education system has which Singapore doesn’t cover, most probably because Malaysia has more natural resources thus, teaching their students ways on how to survive in different types of industry that Malaysia has to offer.

However I have to agree that Singapore education system concentrates on more problem solving, brain storming questions and think out of the comfort zone questions. It is very useful as it makes the students think and scramble for all the possible answers instead of having their answers served on a silver platter.

I’ve seen the questions in the Malaysian education system and was quite surprised at how direct the questions were structured instead of the puzzle solving questions. When faced with puzzling questions by just rephrasing the questions, the students were not able to think of the answer even though it is the same question!

Thus, I’ve decided to integrate some of the education syllabus of Singapore for my teaching. It’s been three weeks since I’ve tried it and I’m beginning to see  some good results from my students.

It is back to work for me once again. After a weekend of fun and entertainment with my old buddies, Doverites, I had to rush back home on Monday morning to be in time before my meeting with a customer. Even though I had constantly balanced a 3hr to 5hr day of sleep and managed to be fresh the next day, I wasn’t able to get my brain gears to clock in properly on Monday morning.

Perhaps I was too tired or perhaps my body was trying to fight against the slight signs of fever, but whatever the case was, I had to get up for work. By the time I reached Johor, it was 10.30am. Rush hour was terrible, the ride was a nauseating experience for the first time in my life and work was piled sky high when I reached home.

Even though Dad had bought a large amount of Durian, most probably trying to lure his daughters back home, I couldn’t get a taste of it until evening. It was lucky that I managed to get a quick shut eye at 3pm, else I’d be very sure my desk would be decorated with my stomach’s content.

I feel sick, I am tired but I am not going to get sick! Too much is at stake here.. I just need to pop in Panadols and work the sickness out of my system. I need a vacation! Perhaps I should go through those orlando vacations list and pick a good place to have my vacation.

Doverites, if you are reading this, I need those pictures emailed to me. Hehehe.. I want to develop and frame them and most probably frame you guys too.. hahaha

I was quite surprised to read on today’s paper about a new museum opening in JB this coming 3rd October 2009. The museum is to showcase collection of artifacts related to the Cantonese, Hokkien, Hainanese, Hakka and Teochew clans. Situated at Jalan Ibrahim in Johor Bahru, the museum is ensured to leave visitors a rustic feeling as the museum and surrounding buildings has existed more than 60 years ago.

I am more than delighted to visit the museum and take a more personal look at the lives one my ancestors had to go through during those old days. But since it’s opened on 3rd October, I’d wait out for a few weeks or perhaps months later before dropping into the museum.

Perhaps by then, the musuem has become more established and have more artifacts and activities for visitors to partake.

It started off as a boring day yesterday but it ended in a near panic last night. It all started with just a family outing to Jusco Bukit Indah since mom was dead bored since she has been cooped up in the house for a near month due to her ‘fragile’ condition.

Anyway we left the house after Maghrib prayers which was around 7.45pm or so and reached Jusco at around 8pm. They had implemented the parking system now in Jusco. If you ask me, they should not charge for the parking at all since the entire parking route itself is like an endless maze, too confusing to my liking.

After grumbling about the parking ticket, mom, dad and fatso walked around Jusco while Ayu and me terrorised every single shop that catches our interest. The clothes were boring, there wasn’t any dresses to my taste, the stationeries were a hard decision making and before I create a mass out catastrophe in Jusco Kids department itself, mom pulled my fun off.

I had fun shouting for my mom when I lost sight of her. I would have usually jut called the person who was with her, she doesn’t use a mobile, or just simply search for her quietly. But lastnight I was feeling playful and extremely bored with everything and work, I used the old fashion method of calling out for help.

So what if my shouting had caused an unwanted attention to myself and my mortified looking younger sister, it’s much better than walking around in search for a short cute looking sporting granny. Hey, I did try to keep my calling as cute as possible like “Mommy, where are you?” and singing out loud “”where is that big red buffalo with red colored baju. Red colored baju oh where are you?” (I was referring to my giant sized of a younger brother who accompanied mom).

I found her in a few seconds and after grinning at my mom and getting a laugh from her at my off tune calling, we went back home. Too bad if only it was as easy as the usual return home journey.

After paying for my parking ticket, the unthinkable happen. My car doors doesn’t want to open up. The locks by some unknown reason became faulty. To make it worse, our usual tool box in the car was left back at home and it started pouring heavily on us.

After an hour and asking my younger brother to stunt a taxi down and ride the bike back to our rescue, we finally were able to get the doors to open after getting the mechanic door opener stick from fatso.

We had thought we were going to face problems in getting out of the parking barrier since it was already expired. Good thing it was still raining heavily and the exit barrier we were in were faulty and created a massive jam. The parking management solved the issue by raising up the barrier and cease the function of the parking barrier.

Wet, cold and extremly well spent, we reached home as if we had just done a marathon.

Yesterday was full of events. On Saturday I was asleep by 12.30am and was woke up at 6am even though I had wanted to sleep in since it is Sunday. Good thing I didn’t because mom suddenly popped up and dragged us out of the bed. We’re off to a road trip!

Oh yes… Mom was a happy bunny.

So by 8am everyone was prepared and ready to test the rickety Honda Civic Auto 81. No doubt the body needs a lot of patch job and needs to have a new weatherproofing installed, the engine was in tip top condition.

Anyway we travelled to Batu Pahat Gerisik Hot Spring. There were Singaporeans there! Wow… Anyway after some friendly chats and making new acquaitances with the locals and visitors there, I finally get my dip. Too bad for the rest of my family members, they didn’t remember to bring extra clothes so they had to remain on dry land while I get my soak.

It was heavenly on my aching back and my forever cold feet. The old car needs to get a new upholstery! The cushion forced me sit sideways and nearly twisted my spine. Grr… But at least it was able to send me to my hot spring. For that, you are forgiven my dear car… Hehehe..

I’m not sure if it was my poorly bad blood circulation of mine but after a long while of soaking and swimming around in the hot pool (yes, I was crzy enough to swim in a hot spring) I experienced a major blood rush to the point of dizzy and extreme breathing difficulty as if I’ve just done a few kilometers of running, when I step out of the hot spring. It took me a few long minutes to finally relax.

I’m not sure if I was the only rare case since everyone who dipped in didn’t look winded or cooked at all. Some elderly who went in earlier than me and came out after me didn’t even looked winded. What?! Oh well… I must be severly lacking in my physical training or medically wrong.

So anway we continued on our journey to Muar where my distant aunt stays. She has ducks now and I’m so excited about it! Hehehe.. I was happily collecting the eggs and then running off to their mini Cili Padi plantation. There were a total of 24 Cili Padi plants just at her backyard and all of them are healthy and bearing chilies! They were lots of other changes which I can’t keep track but too bad my favourite Ciku tree is no longer around.

Oh well..

I was too full with drinks to manage anything else into my stomach and passed out on dinner. I was dead tired when I finally reached home. But the fun didn’t stop there.

At 11pm when everyone was asleep, I heard a loud banging at the manufacturing department shutter. I had thought my cat was stuck at the gate again so I didn’t bother. (remember I do live in a factory for security sake) Then after a few minutes there was another loud banging and I heard loud shoutings.

Armed with a wooden stick and armored in just my bath robe (duh!) I went out into the manufacturing department to investigate. There was someone at the back of my factory and I climbed up to the back window to see who the burglar was. I was quite shock to find a black car and 2 police patrol men checking on it. I’m not afraid of the police but I was clueless about the strange car. I wasn’t even informed there was a car parked at the back of our factory. In fact no one in their right mind would ever want to park their cars where there is no light and a pathway for burglars. Furthermore, my place and my neighbouring factories has a history of being broken into.

Instead of opening the back shutter, I ran to alert my parents. When we checked again, the policemen were gone but the car was still there. So we rushed out of the factory in an attempt to meet the patrol guys to ask what’s the matter. Luckily a patrol car entered our street and we flagged it down. (like a taxi seh.. hehehe)

After asking the policemen for help in our matter, we were immediately advised to stay in our factory and not to open the roller shutter of our back exit until they had signalled a clear sign. While the men in blue drove off to check in our situation, my parents and I waited at the back of the factory.

After a few long minutes, the policemen knocked on our shutters and told us it was ok to open our back exit. True enough, there was a black modified proton wira at the back of our factory. The police checked on the car and found one 1.5m bamboo stick used for changkul handle, one baseball bat and other junks in the car.

The engine was still hot. While one of the officers checked with the HQ regarding the car, the other was professional in calming us down by cracking up jokes, making friendly chats while taking statements from us. Oh yeah, the car was suspected to be stolen. Oh dear.. Good thing we informed the police early. It would be a hassle explain to them later in the day when they find it by themselves.

Anyway it was almost midnight when all the statements and investigations ended. The officers were very professional and friendly and they handled the case from there. They were totally different from what Metro and other people says about them. Thanks officers!

This is idiotic, really idiotic. For a powerful organisation, PFM (Pengeluar Filem Malaysia), they sure can come up with the stupidest idea available. They had voted the idea in lieau with the bad results in sale of movie tickets for local production. If the government were to ever take up that suggested idea, I’m sure the reports of movie goers will be dropped to a drastic result.

I was reading the morning news as usual in Metro paper and got immediately irritated by this news. You can read them here

From the usual Rm10 to RM20 just for a movie produce and directed in Hollywood. The local productions will still cost the same rate. Do you think that’s reasonable? I say NO!!

Look here PFM, I know that you want locals to support the local production but if the story line sucks with a major flaw in the plot which I usually experience, resulting in me sleeping away in the cinema and coming out of the theatre with a disgusted face. So what if you include high tech media included to produce the movie? If the storyline is MEREPEK and downright stupid, I am not going to even bother glancing at the advertisement.

There are reasons as to why people watch Hollywood movies. Most of them are good storyline, good acting, good CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) effects, good realistic makeup and props and etc.. As a consumer, we have every rights to choose what to choose even to our decision of movies. To play a lazy fool trick on us by forcing us to watch a badly produced movie is disgusting.

There are plenty of local production movies which are sadly lacking in all the above. For example the horror movies. It’s as if they have run out of ideas and love to imply the old folks tale that usually used to make kids sleep with nightmares. Come on, most of the movie goers are adults and we do not like watching our nightmares that we grew up and gradually learned its just plain stupid folklore to be made into a bad comical horror movie.

I’m not saying that all local production movies are bad. There are extremely good ones like Cicak Man and Jangan Pandang Belakang. They received a major sellout in their first premier and all because they have all the good qualities worth to watch and get excited about even though Jangan Pandang Belakang was worked on a tight budget. If local production can come out with good movies like them, surely they won’t have problems with tickets sale.

If they were to increase the price, I might as well get a pirated DVD costing Rm5 each or get a 4-in-1 DVD at RM10. Why in the world would I ever want to spend RM20 while I can watch the pirated version with the rest of my family and friends. I’ve never like supporting pirated DVDs and VCDs but if they were to imply the regulation, make sure they are able to reap what they sow. Don’t start blaming the authorities and the sindicates for their actions. We are consumers, we buy what we think is within our wallet budget.

Don’t take the easy way out and point fingers at others strength while trying to cover your major weakness. That’s being a typical irresponsible Malaysian. Work out on your weakeness and find another idea to deal with the bad sell out. Raising the price of tickets is out of the question.