'Legends'

Pyan mentioned this. I find it terribly funny.

Jalaluddin Hassan - Richard Gere of Malaysia
Mustapha Kamal - Slyvester Stallone of Malaysia

As long as Mr. Jalal is able to keep housewives glued to Astana Impian, then I'll give him that.

There's rattling sound in my Alfa and its coz of those damn pothholes

Drivers who drive at 40km/h on a federal roads, typically with speed limits of 90-80km/h, should be shot. Or better their cars could be lined up side by side at Stadium Negara, and have those big, huge monster truck roll over them, with their owners forced to watch in horror. Thats a pretty good business plan. At the same time, the gate collection from the show, can be channelled to the Ops Sikap (my brorther speculated that Sikap is actually 'kasi' + 'tangkap') conducted every year.

The police head honco was quoted as saying that he's saddened that the tireless effort by the police force for Ops Sikap this year has still been unable to reduce the death toll. I don't know bout you, but hell boy, speed ain't gonna kill nobody, its the sudden change in speed / direction thats getting people in statistics. There's 3 factors that contribute to road accidents. They are human error, vehicle, and the environmental conditions. I think there's much less emphasis being put on the 2nd and the last factor.

Take vehicle. How many of us do regular maintenance on our cars? Simple basic ones such as check tyre pressure / thread / balancing / alignment / rotate. Tyre is the only part of the car thats holding our cars to the road. Imagine the stress that it has to go through, the heat, the flexing of the sidewalls through corners, the braking, the acceleration of our cars and so much more. Ignoring their maintenance, means we're a step closer to losing our NCB, best case scenario or worst, a ticket to six feet under.

I'm so pissed by the endless road constructions / repairs going on at Karak highway and at the Kuantan - Kemaman bypass road. Maintenance, as neccessary as they are, induces human error, leading to accidents, even death. I remember there's this bridge and junction construction near Gebeng, which was never completed, until a van carrying a family, met their untimely death there. Then voila, a couple months later, work started to pick up, and the work was completed in no time. So that's what it takes? Fuck man, even if the roads are repaired, after a monsoon season, pothholes will flourish, like 'cendawan yang tumbuh selepas hujan'. Its killing my Alfa. Well, my Sachs Super Touring absorbers certainly aren't much of help on these treacherous roads. I don't know what kind of engineering standards being used for road construction, but my common sense tells me that any repair / construction work, should take into consideration what ever environmental challenges it has to be put through.

Back to Ops Sikap. Are we addressing the right root causes? Are we even doing root cause analysis on what are the root causes, contributing causes to road accidents? It certainly don't look like it. The numbers don't lie. I'm guessing better road conditions, better signages will help. Poor road conditions, filled with hazards, lead to drivers having to brake and accelerate whenever approaching danger zones, leading to higher wear on tyres, coupled with poor maintenance awareness or practice, leads to uneven thread wear, hence a higher risk in the vehicle not going where the driver wants it to go to. Sooner or later, bang! Another statistic. Another death. Another spare part for kereta potong.

Hmm...it might just be a Hella spot light that'll fit into my Alfa.

Mask

Its difficult for anyone to guess whats going on in my head.
Even when I'm feeling absolutely devastated, gutted to the point of throwing up, I'll still be able to go about doing my job, as if everything's alrite. I'm really really good at masking my emotions.
But, I'm not too sure whether its good or bad.

Of KLIA, hot stewardess and caffe mocha

The WiFi in KLIA is blardy slow.
At least I get to see hot stewardess passing by every few minutes or so. Wonder how going out with a stewardess is like. Never had the opportunity, unlike a mate of mine, who went to Florence for a training programme, on business class, and at the end of the flight, got the stewardess to ask for his number. What are the odds of that happening to anyone??

Selamat Tahun Baru Cina

Gong xi fa cai. Sin nien khuai le'. Quan xi lu i'.
Have a prosperous and joyful new year.

My uncle once told me, when eating mandarin orange, don't peel the 'urat-urat'. The more you eat, the more money you'll make.

Happy holidays and stay safe ya!

Goreng-goreng Pekan Peramu

If you are planning to drop by Kuantan, make sure dine in at this Goreng-goreng stall beside the Peramu police station. Its the road on the way to Pekan.

Man..they've good the best and most assorted selection of east coast foods.
Imagine heaven...filled with cholesterol. All sorts of goreng-goreng i.e sotong, ikang, udang, ketam balls, fish balls. Other wicked foodies include satar, otak-otak, laksam, lompat tikam, kuih pelita, pulut panggang, popiah, nasi minyak, nasi dagang, nasil lauk, laksa.

So gimme a buzz when you're around town, I'll take you there, and gladly welcome you to buy me lunch.

Drives.

Give me the keys to your car, and I'll give you a piece of my mind on it. Some that I've driven:

Alfa Romeo GT 2.0 JTS - "Ekzos bunyi macam ada air"
Alfa Romeo 156 GTA 3.2 - Amazing. Just amazing.
Alfa Romeo 166 3.0 - Never really liked how it looks.
Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 Selespeed - The clutchless manual is tricky to operate at first.
Alfa Romeo 156 2.0 Selespeed - Love the classic looking speedometer dashboard.
Alfa Romeo 145 1.8 TS - Better torque, hence better throttle response than my ride.
Alfa Romeo 146 1.6 Boxer - Laborious drive.

BMW E30 318i M- Quick and nimble.
BMW E36 316Ci A- Have you seen the hideous analog clock at the center console?

Toyota Vios 1.5E - If its not a McLaren F1, then its a sacrilege to have speedometer at the center.

Proton Satria Neo 1.6 M- Pulls nicely at high rpm, but engine note not very encouraging.
Proton Gen2 1.6 M - Good all round suspension set up, not too harsh, not too soft.

Perodua Kelisa A - Nippy, not a bad highway cruiser.

Will you hand me the keys to yours?

Hotel Melia

Its a privilege to be employed by an MNC, though all of my peers complain that our pay aren't the most competitive. Nevertheless, we get to stay in 5 star hotels in KL every now and then. On a recent overnight trip to attend a dinner in Berjaya Times Square, I stayed in Hotel Melia.

The access to Hotel Melia was straight forward, driving from Jalan Kuching.
Parking was a bitch, it was full when I arrived. So parked at the reserved spot.

A colleague of mine told me that apart from Maya, Melia provides free internet connection. Bummer, I thought, since I left my laptop back in Kuantan, sensing that I wouldn't have the time to utilise it. To my surprise, this was what greeted me in my room.There was a bloody PC in the room! But the connection speed was such a turn off. It hanged a couple of times, apart from the crawling speed I was browsing at.

Other parts of the room was standard, nothing impressive. All run of the mill convenience that a 4 star (I'm just guessing that its a 4 star) must have i.e in room iron and iron board, complete set of toiletries, Astro channels (ESPN, Star World).

The plus point for Melia would definitely be its' location. It is situated at the heart of the golden triangle, surrounded by Berjaya Times Square, Low Yat Plaza, BB Plaza and Sungai Wang Plaza. Unfortunately due to time constraint, was not able to capitalise on that. Or rather I couldn't think of anything to get. Also if I enter Low Yat, there's a high possibility that I'll swipe for an iPod, and regretting it 10 minutes later.

So all in all, I'm giving Melia 3 stars.
Pros: Location, oh..love the big switchesCons: Slow internet, slow check out service

Here are other pictures I took while staying there.

Albums I wasted my money on Pt. 1

I am an album guy. I don't do singles. A rare breed. Proud of it too. That's the reason why I still waste my money buying cds, rather than downloading it off the net. These are some notable ones, for various reasons.

Radiohead - The Bends

I was on a 'Lawatan sambil belajar' trip and had a stop over at Subang Parade back in 95. As always, stopped by the record shop and saw this weird, yet compelling album cover. That was good enough reason for me to buy it.



King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

Allmusic.com 'ed about prog rock when I was into Pink Floyd. Bumped into a review with a 5 star on this album. For the next 1 year after that, I ended up buying Discipline, Red, Beat, THRAK and The Power to Believe.



Gomez - Liquid Skin

Farouq, my music 'guru' recommended this. The only track I continuously listen to after I got it was the beautifuly written 'We Haven't Turned Around'. This album deserve a special mention for being the 'lambatest' album for me to 'get' into. I only really listened to it about a year after buying it. As soon as I 'got' it, it was untouchable from my playlist for a year afterwards.

Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire

This is special. My first CD. RM50 from Yik Foong!
I can 't recall how I 'discovered' RATM. Its either through Guitar World tabbing Morello's DJ scratching solo on Bulls on Parade or me waking up to Zack de la Rocha's fanatical ravings on what I think was Amir Shazlan's radio when I was hanging out at Overfloor in 95. Contrary to most people, I still believe that its their best, darkest, and tightest record.

6000, shift!

I always tell friends that my 145 is more prone to breakdown if driven slowly. She just loves climbing the revs. Of course the glorious growl of the flat four pots helped further in ensuring a constantly heavy right foot. Being a boxer, she just hates the low revs i.e <4000rpm. She's crawling when driven at those revs, I've been smoked by quite a number of kancil miras, Wiralutions, West Wiras, on traffic lights.

A few months after I got my bella, a friend wanted to test drive it, as he had never driven an Alfa before. So there we were, on the Bukit Setongkol straight, puttering away at cruising speed. 1st gear, ok, 2nd, 3000rpm, shift to 3rd, and 3000rpm, shift to 4th. I can't help but coaxing him to hold the revs longer.

"An Alfa have to be driven hard. Hold at least till 5000rpm, then shift up".

Trusting my words, that was what he did. At the end of it, with a big grin, clearly displaying the adrenaline rush he just had, he summarised the drive.
"Tak penah dalam hidup aku, aku bawa kereta macam ni".

Connecting...

So what do you do when you get online?
My routine:

1. Login msn messenger and check who's online.
2. Check my emails.
3. Open Firefox and tab out italiaauto.net to check out discussion threads and any parts for sale. Currently looking for a set of 15" QV rims.
4. Tab out NBA news to check out Lakers news and whether Kobe scores 80+ points again.
5. Browse paultan.org and autoblog on the latest car news, releases and anything related.
6. Check out my blog for any comments :)
7. Check out other blogs e.g screenshots, rocky's bru, decktable (my sisters' blog) etc.

Tell me yours!