Friday, Saturday, Sunday

It's been a seemingly long and yet quick-moving weekend - Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Couchy Friday
On Friday, I was mostly a couch potato, reading a few newspapers online such as NST, The Star, Kosmo, Harian Metro and Washington Post, and Lord Denning's "The Family Story" autobiography. Initially, I was supposed to meet my dearest brother for a quick lunch at his workplace, but as usual, he has work commitment which happened to fall during lunch time itself. I guess I'll only be seeing him in 2010. My dear brother works "overseas, 5 km from my house", which explains why I hardly get to meet him. ;p

In the evening, I went for grocery shopping at Giant (low prices, within my budget). Somewhat similar to a housewife's shopping, but I'm no housewife (and no wife of anyone anyway).

Long Saturday
It was a relaxing, drizzling morning... how peaceful. About an hour after lunch, I slept for about 3 hours.

Came evening, I spent time at Tropicana City Mall (TCM), which is about 10 minutes by car from my place. On the way there, I had also observed the route to KGPA so that when it's Bad's wedding day, I know how to get there. Pretty simple actually, because the distance is even shorter than from my place to TCM.

After dinner at "Food & Tea", it's movie time. Watched Avatar. Overall, it's a good movie with a touching story line, scenic graphics and exciting motions. I felt a little dizzy watching certain parts of the movie. The movie was pretty long, it took about 2 hours and 30 minutes to finish. By which time, although the story was nice, I was already drowsy because it's late. We didn't expect it to take this long. Further, sitting quite in front of the screen had made it a little exhausting, having to almost lie down to look up to the screen. This was the first time I ever sat so in front. :(
Note... For any high-rate movie such as this, it's better to book tickets in advance for better viewing seats, although tickets may still be available on that day itself.

By the time I was home by night, I felt a little weird. I had no proof, but I suspect the sour-tasting herbal drink I consumed in the evening was the reason behind it. I might be intolerant towards one or more of its ingredients. My tummy didn't feel right, but fortunately, nothing happened.

Gloomy Sunday
The weather was gloomy throughout the morning. I woke up a little later as a result of exhaustion from the day before. The first thought that came to me upon waking up was to do some paint touch-up for my car.

Darling, oh darling!
My car. Speaking of my car, dear... I'm disheartened over the fact that my car has been quite an unfortunate one. About a year ago, it was hit from behind by someone. Unfortunately (yes, it was unfortunate), there was no "injury" on the rear bumper, and therefore, I had nothing to claim against that klutz who did the thing on my poor car. No apparent damage, what to claim?

Unfortunately (again, I'm using the word), one year down the line, a few fine lines began to surface. I strongly suspect it's the result of what happened last year. I swear that I've never hit my rear bumper on anything before. It must be akin to the thin-skull rule here now... As a result of the force against it, the bumper became vulnerable.

My car has never been fortunate to be able to enjoy roofed protection. As a result of being constantly under rain and shine, the paint work on the affected area appears slightly "scratched". Only if it occured the moment that klutz hit it, then I would have been able to make my claims for a full job, either to that klutz personally because it was clearly his fault, or through his insurer if he had no means to compensate me.

When I found car touch-up paint (specifically for my brand of car) on sale at the auto accessory department yesterday, I couldn't resist anymore. I had also bought a fine brush. Well, no harm trying.

Touch-up
After taking a short shower and getting ready with my stuff, I began my touch-up painting job. I merely followed the instruction on the bottle. First, I cleaned the area which I wanted to touch up. Then I painted. And I did a few layers of coating. Finally, the result turned out ok.

Now that I'm done, I begin to wonder if the paint touch-up work will last. For how long? Any other effect? Will it remain intact?

Anyway, since I still have 90% of the paint content left with me, provided it doesn't harden, I should be able to keep and use it again in the event the touched up job doesn't last (touchwood!!).

Appetite gone wrong
It must be from yesterday. Although my appetite started off fine in the morning, I felt a little uneasy by noon. So, instead of joining in for lunch, I ate nothing. I only had a honey lemon drink in the attempt to stimulate my appetite.

Fortunately, appetite was restored by the time by evening. And then, I walled up lots of jelly and a sumptous dinner of 'bak kut teh' and rice wine chicken with rice at Seri Kembangan.

Right now, I haven't really understood how my appetite works. The day before, I was craving for and eating so much. The day after, my appetite turned sluggish, as if I was feverish. Hmm... who knows if my body temperature was indeed above 36.9 deg C earlier, which made my enzymes somewhat less active. After all, this had always been the trend whenever I had a slightly higher temperature.

Anyway, I'm just thankful to be back to my usual self now. I've got to... I'm scheduled to be in Ipoh on Tuesday, so I've got to be well so that I'll be able to do what I ought be doing throughout the break.


Discounted shopping
I bought a few things at a cheaper-than-usual price today. I'm currently looking at getting more long-sleeved white blouses in contemplation of my upcoming work assignments, so when I saw one such reasonable-looking blouse at HKE at Endah Parade in Sri Petaling today, I bought one. The price was cheap. I only found one which suited my physically and also to my preference today.

Speaking of Endah Parade, there's one Carrefour there, some shops on the ground and first floor, and many beauty and massage parlours on the upper floors. Not that many places, but the presence of Carrefour hypermarket there was enough to capture customers to go there to buy mostly household items.

Later, I was at The Mines. Just strolled along the places, saw many people going for boat ride (it's school holiday) and watched fishes swimming in the canal.

Lastly...
It's time to go to bed soon. I've got a day of work on Monday before going on break on Tuesday. Here you go, a very ordinary diary entry on my blog. Nothing spectacular, nothing interesting, but only some of my daily experience and plain thoughts.

Driving Woes

Travelling pass a new test-drive unit of Perodua Alza somewhere around PJ...



So near and yet so far. What could've taken just 10 minutes took 30 minutes as a result of this massive congestion. Whether PJ or KL, there isn't any difference.



People (like me) can never stop complaining. With a car, I complain about stressful driving under our indeed stressful driving condition. Without a car, I suffered inconveniences under the hands of our generally insufficient public transport system.

Traffic Woes

Prior to now, I've never driven during times when almost all roads are on mad rush on a daily basis. It's 'puasa' month now, as a result, schools and many employers allow their teachers/students/employees to go home earlier in the evening. So, everyone goes home at the same time.

The rush is crazy! It's everywhere - right within KL city (of course, no doubt), and all over PJ as well. One good example is the area around the few familiar LRT stations. Kelana Jaya station is as usual with its huge crowd, Taman Bahagia is located near a school and the road in front of it has massively congested at around 6 pm. Diverting to Taman Paramount isn't any better because one will still need to bypass either SMK Taman SEA or SS2. SS2 isn't that big, but the volume of cars are again, crazy! Plus the bad attitude of certain inconsiderate drivers, e.g. those who like to occupy yellow boxes or those who want others to occupy yellow boxes so that they can be more in front of the queue... - kiasu, anyone?



A random picture on an average day. This was on a considerably not that bad occasion. See how one-sided is the traffic.

Why am I complaining? Isn't the convenience of a car what I've wanted? The thing is, waiting for public transport (i.e. bus) isn't better than driving. I've taken the bus (and sometimes taxi) for more than 2 years, so I perfectly understand it. The irregularity is dreadful if you urgently need to arrive at your destined places on time.

Back to the roads, it is sad to note that many of our drivers who are otherwise nice and friendly to us, are transformed into monsters once behind the wheels.

Here are some of my observations throughout my 1 year on the local roads... A guy driving with a girl beside normally behaves very well while on the road. Hardly come across such guys honking impatiently or showing rude signs to other road users, no matter how stressful the road conditions are. Maybe... maybe it's .......... I don't know. But not when the car carries couple with heated arguments, or when "marriage is already an eye-opener".

Lady drivers are generally okay in terms of patience. But some are rude in that they like to shift lanes in dangerous manners. Trivia mistakes are not uncommon, so instead of trying to "bully" any female drivers, people should think twice. What if as a result of you forcing your way through, you caused mishap to yourself by causing your victim to crash into you? Some ladies of course are sheer bitchy on the road. Men or women, they're generally the same, actually. Just that the manner differs.

A number of worst-mannered drivers are solo drivers, perhaps due to no necessity to impress anyone in the car. Some are even 'heads of families' carrying a whole bunch of kids as in a family unit. What a good example to your kids by failing to behave like a reasonable road-user. Yes, it's sarcasm here. Dishearteningly, it's hard to believe how some usually kind-hearted uncles turn into demons when they drive.

With such crazy rush, which is contemplated to continue until the end of this month, it's no wonder many folks around me talked about not driving to work. It may possibly be linked to low blood glucose which makes it more challenging to concentrate throughout the entire slow and congested journey home. Driving on the roads of our beloved Malaysia..... the Malaysian driving (note: in general only)! We are in dire need to change our driving attitude.