MERDEKA

To all visitors, lets forget whatever differences we have and take a moment to celebrate this auspicious occasion. Merdeka is not just a public holiday, it is our National Day.

My wish for Merdeka is for the Malaysian people to be truly independent. What is your wish?


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Excuses Excuses Excuses

When asked why did BN lose to Anwar despite the whole government machinery camping in Permatang Pauh, here are the answers offered by the gomen people.

Gomen 1: I think I made a mistake by asking my number 2 to run the campaign. If I had been down there calling the shots, Anwar would have lost his deposit. I couldn't be there because I have a country to pretend to run and my beauty sleeps.

Gomen 2: I swear that I don't know all those people in the buses. I swear that I have done my best. I swear that I thought Saiful's swearing was a good idea at that time. I swear that I will come back and get back all the money we gave to people who did not vote for us. I swear that I think they charmed the voters using Mona Fandey's spirit.

Gomen 3: No, I don't think the MRR2 crack got anything to do with the way the voters vote. All the Indian votes that we got was because of me so don't believe Kayveas if he said he delivered.

Gomen 4: The voters from the Penanti Chinese Cemetary did not come out to vote.

Gomen 5: It is no big deal la. If 15,000 people did not vote for PKR but voted for us instead, we would have won handsomely.

Gomen 6: It's all Saiful's fault. We asked him to show his arse to the people but he refused. He demanded more money for it. Where to find?

Gomen 7: Actually the voters did not vote for Anwar, they voted for PKR because if you look at the ballot papers, Anwar's name was not on it, only the PKR's symbol. They cross aginst the PKR's symbol and not against Anwar's face so Anwar cannot claim that the people of PP voted for him.

Gomen 8: Right from day 1 I have already said that we were the under the dogs. So how can the under the dogs' people win?

Gomen 9: We did not lose the seat, it was theirs and they won it back so logically we did not lose. Anyway it is only one seat.

Gomen 10: I think the civil servants is sending a message to the PM. They want to make it clear that if in this budget still no bonus, he will be in trouble.

You are free to create excuses of your own and share it here.

Quick Rise Slow Fall

I still remember the PM being interviewed on tv after reducing the price of petrol by a WHOPPING 15 sens. You could see him smiling as if that was a killer blow that was surely to bring his ratings up. It is either that or he is so removed from reality.

Anyway he went on asking for businesses to follow suit. Businesses must not only be quick to raise their prices, they should also be willing to bring down prices when the government brings down the price of fuel. He had that 'look how clever I am' look when he made that urge.

He seems to have forgotten that as PM he is in fact the head of all GLCs and Tenaga is one blood-sucking GLC that would do his biddings should he decide to.

I know it is only 15 sens but Tenaga should also follow suit by reducing their tarrif by a sen or 2 per unit. That is only fair. They increase their charges when fuel prices went up but kept mum when petrol and diesel goes down. Now that is not the right way for a corporate citizen to behave especially one that is directly linked to the government.

I heard rumours that there will be another round of petrol and diesel price decrease and with that the total decrease would be more than 15 sens; all the more reason for Tenaga to reduce their tarrif.

Did I hear someone say "Who said the price of petrol and diesel is going to be further reduced"? Its just a rumour in this land of rumour come true. Anyway, Singapore and many other countries, non oil producing ones, have reduced theirs more than once so why shouldn't we be keeping up with the Jones?

Hey you better do it fast otherwise Singapore's oil price would be cheaper than ours so how the hell are you going to use the oft used excuse that 'but we are still cheaper than Singapore'?

Anyway, if I remember correctly, they said that they preferred to raise the price by a big percentage to raising it bit by bit so that businesses could come to grips with reality sooner.

Why is it so when you want to raise prices but chose to do it bit by bit when it comes to lowering it? Wouldn't it be better for bussinesses to adjust to one big drop than to keep on adjusting to many small drops?

Oh by the way, tomorrow is Budget Day. Remember last year, you did not give the civil servants any bonus? You were very sombong right up to election day and the civil servants returned your arrogance with a change of heart come election day?

You see, they were angry because when you said that the government was concerned with inflation should you hand out bonuses, they were actually hoping for that bonus to keep up with inflation.

You promised no school fees so parents spent school fees money on something else and when school reopened there was indeed school fees, in fact parents had to pay more. That got them a little bit uptight and when Cuepacs said that they were hopeful that you would give an honorarium the civil servants were more hopeful and still you let them down and thus they punished you by contributing to the March 8 Tsunami.

I am saying all this because there is still time to change certain things here and there before tomorrow. Not that it is going to make a lot of difference because your past indifference had inflicted a deep wound in their hearts, but you see Raya is coming soon and cookies and cakes and ketupats, not to mention, mutton, chicken and beef and Basmati and broken rice is much much much more expensive than last year.

Ooops! I hope that I am not giving you ideas about how to get back at civil servants.

Hooked once more

First thing first. I was running high and low for news on polling day. First my hardisk decided that it was time for it to go for an overhaul so it was duly sent for formatting. After pressuring my son to press whoever was it who did the formatting to get it done fast, I was relieved that the thing is once more where it should be and it was only about 4.15pm on polling day.

I left everything else and straightaway hook the thing up and fuck who ever is responsible, my modem wasn't blinking and that was surely a bad sign. I gave a friend a call and was told that the bills have been duly paid, the modem is okay but TMnet, the bastardize son of the gomen people said that there was cable problems in the northern states and service could only resume on Wednesday, as in now, at 5. At a little past 5 I tried but still no blink, played some games and checked the modem and finally the contraption was blinking like a sex-crazed winking at a naked lady. Hey do you need to wink at a naked lady? I mean she is naked so you don't need to wink anymore, just do your stuff.

Okay back to business. While off the hook to the wired world, my source of info was a few friends in Permatang Pauh, some bookies in Bukit Mertajam, Ali Allah Ditta and my sifu Zorro. The fed me valuable infos otherwise the suspense would have floored me.

My friends in Permatang Pauh fed me with intel as to how the Malay kampung folks were taking to PKR's ceramahs. The bookies told me the going rate, which was Anwar and 10K votes. Ali gave me some kind of running commentaries on polling day and a friend at the counting centre who told me what was happening in one of the counting centres and how Hishammuddin and Khairy were hackled, Serve them right.

Zorro, kept me informed of the vote countings and tallies. Some UMNO people were also giving me infos about how confident they were that they would garner at least 60 percent of the votes. 60 percent my foot.

You may be wondering why is it that I was not there myself? Well yours trully was down with an escalating BP and the action on ground zero would surely be counter-productive. I would prefer to blog from the comfort of my home than from a hospital should there be wireless access.

Anyway, it was an eventful polling day even from across the bridge. My handphone was ringing like nobody's business and I was fed with all kinds of infos that I was confident of victory an hour after they shut the doors to the centres.

It looked like all those 'sumpah laknats' just did not catch fire. I hear of UMNO perayus, being chased away by their own white voters. I heard of how Hishamuddin was in celebration mood the night before polling day, I heard of the jams where at about 4.30, many PKR people were still not able to vote. I heard of the big numbers of Barisan workers but PKR cars were busier.

Anyway, victory is on the side where it should be and I thank Allah for it, not to mention the clever voters of Permatang Pauh for not being deceived by the massive Barisan propaganda machines.

Glad to be back in cyberspace and blogging once more.

Abu, Noodles and Permatang Pauh

The above caption is of KTN and Chung but affectionately called Abu by his friends in their Kelantan days. If you were to glance over to the sidebar there is an image of a print that Abu made at USM when he attended a printmaking seminar and workshop.

It was nice meeting up after so long but then again the meeting deserved a post of its own which KTN said that he would do in due time.

Do you know the only home-cooked food that KTN offered Abu during his stay here in Penang was his wife's special, he would like to call it such, gravied noodles with plenty of beef, prawns, potatoes, taukua and eggs.

Not much of a host that KTN fellow don't you think so? Well anyway, Abu is now back in Johor promising to be back in a year or two and may make Penang his next home, hopefully.

Anyway talking about noodles, just across the bridge in a place called Permatang Pauh where it was reported to be some kind of a war zone, friends have been calling me up to say that there is a new mobile noodle store serving an all new interesting noodle recipe.

KTN was salivating already when he heard about this new mobile stall because noodles is one of his favourite food. Back home it has always been either Hailam noodles, mamak noodles or his wife's special gravied noodles.

KTN headed across the bridge to catch this much hyped upon noodle stall, imagining a hot steamy plate of noodles full with dried sotong, chunks of beef, thumb-sized prawns and maybe pieces of chicken meat that would cover the whole plate.

Wait a minute, its a mobile stall so where is he going to find the stall? Being very familiar with Permatang Pauh, a constituency in which he was once a voter, KTN dialled a few numbers and was told that the stall would be operating in front of the UMNO building in Kubang Semang.

The suspense was killing him. He even told his wife that if the noodle was good enough, he would not be having any of her noodles anymore, at least until he gets fed-up of it, to which she gives a look that implied that he would be dissapointed because no one makes better noodles than her gravied noodles.

There was already a crowd of rowdy Mat Rempits at the stall. KTN is one guy who despises Mat Rempits, calling them the scums of society, but the lure of a new noodle recipe made him set aside his hatred for these hellish characters.

Now this KTN fellow is not one to dive into any food straightaway without first giving it a look over. It has to be well presented, has the right aroma and colour and most importantly has that x-factor which makes him fall in love with it at first sight.

This stall, crowded by the rowdies and the curious, just doesn't give a good first impression. It looked dirty, smells awful and is just totally repugnant.

He had a look at the sign of the stall, looked at the stall again and walked to his car to his waiting wife. He started the car and drove off. His wife knew that, KTN was disappointed. "Where to" she asked. "Cherok Tokun" he answered, rather dissapointed. "The crap-gravy noodle at the junction"? He just nodded his head.

They headed to Cherok Tokun and ate the famous crap-gravy noodles at the junction opposite the mosque and went home. "Why didn't you buy any noodles at Kubang Semang?" His wife asked. "One look at the seller, I lost my appetite. He is dirty, smelly and do you know what he called his stall?". She kept quite but knew he would tell her anyway. " SODO MEE" 

Evil

PM: Okay what's the latest report in Permatang Pauh?

DPM: Not so good. We are still trailing sir.

PM: What still trailing? That Epol boy, hasn't he been campaigning for us?

DPM: Yes, sir, every night. We play his swearing cd everywhere. If possible we would like to play them in the cinemas and maybe sell them to HBO but it is just not enough sir.

PM: Enough, enough I don't want to hear any more on this election thing. Noh, how's the economy?

Noh: Not good sir. We don't have much money left. We must borrow and there aren't that many lenders around.

PM: Shit, I am getting a headache. Exports! How are our exports?

MY: Besides the 2 oils, nothing else is going smooth.

PM: What about the Anwar case? Can we win it?

AG: If we do not want to be rated lower than Zimbabwe we better drop the case. It's a roti jala case sir, too many holes in it.

PM: I think I need a bypass. What about my campaign for the presidency of UMNO? Are you secretly fighting behind my back Najib?

DPM: No, never, you know me what. But Mahathir is not leaving you alone. They are going to fry you alive in the next General Assembly. Hopefully you are still the PM at that time and not that Anwar fellow.

PM: Anwar, Anwar, Anwar. I don't want to hear anything about that fellow. Must I make a report that he sodomised me to make the people believe our story? Anybody has any good news, please?

Samy: I got good news. Yesterday I bought a 60 inch plasma tv with good surround sound. Fuh, the colour so nice and the sound so good la. I bought an original Tamil movie dvd, ayo, yo. The fighting so clear one. When Vijay fight on the hill and roll down the flowers, the colour so clear la.

Kayveas: You call that good news ka? You crazy la Samy. Shut up la.

Samy: I know la you jealous, kucing kurap.

PM: Shut up you two, shut up. I am in distress and you want to fight here. Everything is going wrong, there's not a single good news for a long long time, that Anwar is breathing down my neck, my MPs are working against me, the economy is in ruins, my IGP decided that its a convenient time to go for a change of spare parts, urgh! help me.

Samy: Sorry la Datuk Seri. I didn't know you are so distressful right now. I have an idea, why don't we fly the flags outside there upside down?

Happy Birthday Meiji

When my wife first told me she was pregnant, I did not make it a secret that I had wished it was was a girl. I don't know why but I really wanted a girl for my first.

The name was discussed between my wife and I and of course like all young parents at that time we had a long list containing names for boys and girls. No, no scanning so we really were in the dark as to the sex of the child.

My late mother in law was never one to meddle in my marriage life but she did whisper to my wife that she had fallen in love with the name of one of my neighbour's daughters so we reserved that name if it was a girl.

It could be that in Penang that name that my late mother in law fell in love with was quite rare at that time but in Kelantan, it was like a dime a dozen, very common.

To shorten things up, my wife delivered our first born at the Penang Maternity Hospital. We got a healthy baby girl who we duly named Marziah, the name of my mother in law's choice.

The date was 21/08/80. Yes, today is her 28th birthday. She is now of course married but is not a mother yet.

She may be 28, the eldest of the three children that I have but in our eyes she is still our baby, our first baby.

Happy Birthday Meiji, as she is affectionately called, and may you live a long and happy life.

Your mom, sister, brother and I love you very much. Happy Birthday baby.