Cocky Little Roach

Late this afternoon I went to Digital Mall PJ in Section 14 to resolve some issues bugging my windows 7 upgrade for my current laptop. It keeps freezing at the hard disk detection point, or something.  Anyway, that's not the real story here. 

This is about my lunch experience, which also required some debugging.

I parked at the multi level car park and walked down the stairs which brought me to the food stall area. The place was kinda deserted because it was already 2.30pm.  'Hope there's still something left for me...' I thought.

I love Malay kampung style food so naturally I found my way to the most appetizing looking spread of dishes prepared by Indonesian Malay ladies.  Though not Malaysian, it still is kampung fare to me, so I took a plate of rice and scooped four sweet and sour fresh water prawns and tapioca leaves in coconut cream gravy.

Needless to say the prawns were nicely cooked, could be bigger though.  But the sweet and sour gravy was awesome.  And so was my tapioca leaves, although I prefer them pounded to pulp and stir fried with sprinkles of minced lemongrass and dried anchovies.  It's my favourite kampung dish, Bidayuh stlye ya'll.  Simple yet so yummy!

I pushed the prawns shells to the side, off my plate so they don't get in the way. Little did I realize a tiny guest was approaching.  It crittered so quick, I didn't have time to blow it away.  Well, it wasn't that big or disgusting, so I let it roam a while. Slightly bigger than a grain of rice it was.  The usual tiny roach you see in eateries nationwide.  Nothing to be alarmed about.  It was more curious to check out the prawn shells rather than jump into my plate, so I thought a few shots were in order.

It was a bloody busy bug and thus a good focus proved to be challenging with my Olympus mju840.  Here's the best I got; took me about five minutes before I flicked it off and continued eating.

It's checking out the head section of the shell... skin head anyone?

See how it gets under your skin?

Sign of the times

The traffic was kind to me today so I arrived at my workplace with 10 minutes to spare.  Time to get breakfast I said cheerfully, steering toward McDonalds Uptown instead of the parking area nearby.
Unfortunately there was no available space for me to park my car for a quick five minutes breakfast run.  I didn't want to double park so I made another circle around the block for the nearest space only to spot a nasi lemak stall by the road side.

The image of Sausage McMuffin was instantly replaced by a fragrant pack of nasi lemak complete with ass kicking sambal. I ordered 'biasa' with a fried egg and took out one ringgit from my wallet and dug a few sen from my pocket.

My breakfast was swiftly handed to me in exchange for RM2.20

"That's quite pricey..." I told myself but paid the woman anyway. 

I walked back to my car with a few questions clouding my mind.  So that's how it is now eh... A decent nasi lemak is already RM2.20.  This reminded me of another stall nearer to my office which charged me RM4 for a nasi lemak with sotong.

Don't get me wrong, I have no qualms about having a four ringgit breakfast. In fact, my sausage mc muffin would have cost RM4.50, with good coffee, that is.

It's the short duration that bugs me.  Is this inflation accelerated? Something that goes in parallel with global warming?

It was only last year, or two, that a pack of nasi lemak with a fried egg would cost RM1.50
And we're not talking about the donkey years, the years our parents and grandparents love to describe how cheap things were back then.

I wonder how things fare in the more suburban areas.  Are there still one ringgit nasi lemak biasa around?

The rice portion was generous though. And that's my cranky coffee mill by the way, fully functional and absolutely reliable to the last crank.  Nothing beats the combo of nasi lemak and good coffee, freshly ground and brewed.

Death and taxes

My friend asked for my help to renew his car road tax and insurance as it is expiring soon and he would be away for several days.  It's easy to do all that with banks near my area and the post office nearby.  I already have all the required documents. However, he's been waiting for the cash to do it since last week because one of his client is a bad paymaster. He promised me he'll have the money this week and since today is already Thursday, I decided to check with him, remind him lest he forgets.

"Any good news for us?" goes my text.

"Aku on the way ke Cyberjaya ambik cheque, harap2 dapat cepat. Esok roadtax mati. Woohoooo" he replied.

Translation [I'm on the way to Cyberjaya to get the cheque.  Hope I get it soon. Road tax 'die'(expires) tomorrow. Woohooo"

Now that's good news but it does make me worry.  The word 'mati' doesn't sound good, and to end that with 'woohooo' just gives me the impression that he is driving like a madman, top down, wind blowing in his hair and not a care in the world about his own safety; as long as his road tax does not 'mati'. Do you get the picture?

So I replied "Please drive safe, road tax mati tak apa...[tak apa=nevermind]"
I wanted to add "jangan kau mati sudah."[as long as you don't die] but it sounds taboo and kinda steers the scene to that direction.

He replied "Hehehe. I will dude. Death & taxes can't be avoided"
Ok, now I'm really worried but I'm pretty sure he's got everything under control.

I replied "Yes, death of road tax, life must go on" and prayed he doesn't reply, for his own sake, and mine.
He should be focusing on driving.

And I don't want to kill him with another text about tax.

Eat your vege Maggie!

I was on Kesas Highway at 6pm today and spotted this advert on a lorry.  Very striking and effective I must say. It was evening rush hour so the exposure must be good.

But I think it is rather odd that an instant noodle brand would carry such a health conscious message. Perhaps out of guilt, considering the negative health effects instant noodles have on our health if consumed continuously.

Or perhaps they want people to associate their brand with a healthy image, some kind of branding strategy to shake off that MSG persona and 'waxed noodle' myth. Has anyone heard of law suits against instant noodle for hair loss?  If they can't remove MSG from the equation, maybe the government should implement warning images of hair loss patterns on the noodle packaging, much like the ones on cigarette packs,

Now we can add one more request at the mamak's; "Magi goreng lebih sayur" to pair with "Teh Tarik Kurang Manis"

Whatever it is, the message is noble, albeit the actual motive behind it.

Now eat your vege Maggie!

Siti can't do it right now

Now there's an apology we all can sympathize with. The Malay translation of it anyway.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you right now. Please try again later" says the note on the screen, followed by "Harap maaf, saya tidak dapat melakukannya sekarang. Sila cuba sebentar lagi."

Now you might just move on to the next screen upon reading the English note, however, you can't help but be amused with the Malay translation.

It literally means "I'm sorry, I can't do it right now.  Please try again later"

What is it love? What can't you do right now? And why not?

Hmm, wonder if you've heard the same apology in bed. 

Sila cuba sebentar lagi, sayang...

Ohoho... but check out the blue sign below the screen.  Think 'baby making machine', applicable to both husband and wife, or man and woman, depends on your status that is.

But hey, don't take my word for it, I'm just tryin' to have some fun here.

And please don't proceed to the next machine.

Haloscan is dead

And so are my comments.  They're tucked away in a nailed coffin, an .xml file I could never figure out how to extract or install into blogger, and there seems to be no other equivalent free commenting system available out there except one, a clone of haloscan they say.

It is called tridentscan.  The blessed person that runs the system is Kirk, and Kirk only.  He's one good soul, helping people with their xml exports, putting everything in place one blogger at a time.  Go to this site http://tridentscan.jaggedseam.com/ to get email information on how to get back your comments streams back in line.  I haven't decided to e-mail him yet cos my blog is as quiet as the sewer.  Heck even the sewer has more activity.

Not sure how long this would last though.  It could be a very long time but what guarantee do I have that tridentscan won't end up like haloscan.  Haloscan has been serving people for so many years that most would just go with the paid service simply to avoid the hassle.  Hmm, it does sound like entrapment, some even call it blackmail, or extortion. On the other hand, to be fair, people have been enjoying the free good service for many years, so it does seem appropriate to give back a little, only if the service is worth the price, of course.  

As for myself, I've decided to use the default blogger commenting system and making it open to anonymous, but I don't suppose I'll be using it much.  I don't even get a spam comment. That's how long I've left blogging.  In fact, there isn't a single post in 2009!  One year of solace. Sigh.

Open The Tunnel Already!

I am so sick of going through the jam in front of Phoenix Plaza every fcuking morning on weekdays.  It takes 45 minutes just to crawl along that one kilometer stretch along Phoenix Plaza.

The whole RM77million interchange construction by MTD for DBKL has been completed around November 2009 but the tunnel which was supposed to ease traffic is still not open.

The number of cars increases by day flowing from Kajang and for those heading to PJ and Shah Alam, they have to cross swords with those coming out of Taman Len Seng toward KL.  It's sheer madness.  Everything gets fcuked up when there is a stalled vehicle somewhere in between.

I just don't understand what is taking them so long to open the damned tunnel.  What are they waiting for? The KL mayor?  Even our sleeping PM has stepped down and the only thing I see every morning is a disappointing row of red skittles and plastic barricades.

A hectic search keeps taking me to this 2008 annual report by MTD with a pathetic mention of the project.

Where does one find relief?