Of bulan puasa and raya

I love Ramadhan and Syawal.

Well of course apart from being holy months of restraint, submission and forgiveness, I get to save alot of money.

Ramadhan..through less eating and free buka puasa. It helps that i've learnt to discipline my self this year to not over buy on foods at pasar Ramadhan.

Syawal..through open houses. I stuff myself silly in each of them, while hardly eating outside.
"Kurus pun boleh makan banyak ke", a friend remarked on my 4th trip of the roti jala servings.

You know where these savings will go to :)

Tepung Pelita Ramadhan

Yummy..sweetness

On my annual quest in finding the perfect tepung pelita, I asked myself, what makes a tepung pelita THE tepung pelita?

Its the gebuness of the texture. Not too soft..otherwise it'll spoil the first touch.
Its how it presents itself, not too watery. Thats just a turn off.
Its the sweetness, not bland, and not too much sugar that sometimes you can still taste and feel that it is not fully dissolved.
Its the perfect proportion of the whitish and the greenish parts, that makes it pleasing to the eye.
Its the how the daun pisang wraps around it, causing the sweet aroma emanating from it.

But, I take exception to the last criteria. As I have tasted the best tepung pelita this Ramadhan during the last days of puasa. It is a modernised version, macam Mk II ala VW Golf Mk II, V etc, wrap in plastic cup, but still taste fantastic. Yummm.

Bas Sekolah kaler Amber

Never mess with a Bas Sekolah

Aku gi sekolah dulu naik Bas Mini kaler kuning. Erm..bukan sekolah la..but pegi kolej. KDU. The whole lot of us..10-12 kot..were always amazed by the stunts pulled by the driver. Which happened to be a chinese aunty. Macho gila la. Kadang2 visit kitaorg kat umah naik motor Harley dia. Well..maybe not a Harley..something similar. If you have been around KDU, you will think it is next to impossible to maneuver a car without dislodging the parked cars side mirror. Its located in the middle of housing area, and cars parked by both side of the road. Well I tell you..this aunty drives the bus daily around that area...and hardly ever hit anything.

But there was this one day, finally, the aunty needed our help. This bugger parked his Wira by the side, blocking the road, making it impossible for the bus to pass. Aunty tu pun jerit, "Angkat itu kereta". So there were we, under the hot afternoon sun, after classes. 10 skinny college boys selalu tak cukup makan, angkat kereta Wira tu, tolak tepi sikit. Priceless.

I noticed...how come most of the van sekolah and bas sekolah are driven by aunties or makcik2? Apa2 pun..R.E.S.P.E.C.T to these makciks and aunties. They are real mean lady drivers.

UBAH GAYA HIDUP. Dump your Astro

Yep..I dumped my Astro. I was so blardy pissed off with them. See..I recently moved house, so had to remove the satellite dish, and later decided that I will not need the Astro anymore.
So I called to disconnect, and what did they told me?
They will need one month to DC. WTF?? Why one freakin month man? So with this one month, I will need to further pay for the coming months monthly subscription, which I am not goin to watch anyway, since the dish is down on my living room. Kalau nak connect and bayar, cepat je. Dah la charge RM10 for a single day of late payment. Rip offs. Pastu hujan takleh nak tgk. Stupid la.

So up yours Astro! Consumer power...I'm sticking to 6 free to air channels. Take you RM70 subscription fees and shove it up yours.

The upside to all this is I'm appreciating how hot Intan Ladyana is in Sutera Maya and how cute Liyana Jasmay is in Sari Maya :)

Side ways is the ONLY way

Cheapest way to go sideways? Go kart, absolutely.

Wow..what a thrill. Though for only 10 minutes, it was fun fun fun from the get go. Especially everytime on taking an S-bend, and also taking the big corners ala parabolica flat out. Now I understand the thrill when Mark Webber talked about taking the 'parabolica' in Monza. Haha.

Apart from that, I've always wanted to do an opposite lock , the one when you have to steer the car the opposite way after an oversteer. Well I got to do it, in a kart la. The experience left me salivating driving a RWD on a track.

Its actually my third time karting. Set a decent time, but took 4 laps before I gained confidence to take corners, pedal to the metal. Looking forward for the next time.

Scrap your car for RM400?

Well not quite.

For every one successful project car (the one where one restores an old, rusty, non-drivable condition car to one thats pristine, perfect and showroom condition car), there'll be easily eight other failed project cars (berkarat, terbiar, and with the car tepi jalan, all four tyres gone, supported by bricks, even the bricks have started to crumble). Its a sight for sore eyes, and being an car nut, it hurts to see it. Even if its a first generation Honda Accord. I feel for it. I know how hard it is to keep a car going at tip top condish. The emotional anguish, the financial committment, and the experience of fixing one thing, with another one failing the week after. So if you can't commit to it, what should you do with it?

The government should go ahead and implement the option to scrap these cars. Scrap owners sell their scrap at a price fixed by scrap yards, based on how much the yards can sell the besi buruks to the kilang besi. The kilang besi will buy these scrap at a price, which could be factored in to their production cost of a steel. I'm not from the steel industry, so I have no idea how much it is. Of course along the way, everyone will find a way to make profit. Not realistic? Maybe. But if we can find incentives for everyone, then it'll definitely work.

As for me, there's one project car thats on its way to greatness :)