24 August 2011

Yesterday I was supposed to pickup our brand new car in Pandan Indah. Since I had to be in Sungai Buloh with my colleague who didn't manage to finish his work until late at night, I had to take a train to get there. Just my luck, the train ran an hour late so by the time I got to KL Sentral it was already Maghrib. So after stopping by to pray, I quickly board the LRT to Masjid Jamek and then to Pandan Indah.

It's been quite a long time since I last took a train so I struggled a bit to find the right train to the right destination. There were only two trains but there were also 4 different lines that they took. Choosing the right one and waiting on the right platform was rather tricky. Anyway I did made it to Pandan Indah. I thought I would just walk a short while to Pandan Capital but when I got there it was dark and I had no idea where that building was. Lucky for me I called the car salesman and he willingly agreed to pick me up from there. He took me to the showroom and I signed some documents and he explained to me a bit about our new car. Half an hour later I was driving home our brand new Alza. But that's not all, I went to pick up my wife and then she drove the new car to my office so that I can take my Savvy home and then we went out to Seri Kembangan for a test drive. You know so that she would be familiar with the routes to take when she drives the car tomorrow to work.

Working the whole day at the factory and taking 3 trains to Pandan Indah, that was super tiring. We only got home around 12:40 in the morning. The great thing about today though, I drove home with my brand new car. Just seeing my name on the vehicle registration paper just gave me an enormous sense of pride. I couldn't afford to own a car before. My last loan application was rejected in cold blood by the bank. So yeah, today I was quite proud. It felt amazing.

15 December 2010

Yesterday a French man came to my office to promote something, a product or service. When it was time for him to leave, he tried calling a cab but after 20 minutes no cabs arrived (or wanted to come). So I offered to take him to the taxi stand in Equine Park knowing that there's always a couple of taxi drivers hanging around there. When we arrived, all 7 taxi drivers refused to take him where he's going - Jalan Maarof in Bangsar. Exasperated he said back in France you cannot refuse to take a passenger or they will revoke your license. Sorry to say monsieur Herve but taxi drivers in Malaysia can get away with pretty much anything. They can refuse to pick you up, send you anywhere they don't want to and especially refuse to use the meter and rip you off at every chance. The law is there but the enforcement s severely lacking.
In the end I offered to drop him off at the Serdang train station where I told him to take a train to Mid Valley. In Mid Valley he should have no problem getting a cab to Bangsar. Was I embarassed by the whole incident? Of course! But then sadly that's the norm here. We are still light years away from being a developed country judging by the attitudes of some of us. I'd like to say not all taxi drivers are like this but I know I can't. Most of them would do exactly the same. But you can't really blame them because everybody knows how bad traffic is at 6:30 in the evening in downtown KL. One would be crazy to head on there at that time for no concrete reason, taxi drivers included. Au revoir monsieur Herve. I Hope you won't bad mouth us too much when you get home. Most Malaysians are not that terrible but taxi drivers here, they're the exception.

Sent from my iPad

14 December 2009

Just the thing I needed to cheer up my rainy and gloomy days. Today I received this new free Nokia 2730 Classic phone after I signed up for Celcom's executive plan with my company a few weeks ago. 3G, mp3 playback, SD card, FM stereo all for free! The market price for this baby is around RM340 each.

While most of my colleagues got that ugly free Motorola phone, I got this classic from Nokia. Yup life is unfair ha ha. Thanks Nadia?

And for the record, you don't need to charge new phones with lithium-ion batteries for 8 to 24 hours. For really ancient model with ni-cd battery yeah but newer batteries will simply stop charging when they're full.

9 December 2009

Tucked in a remote corner of my office, intertwined amidst cables and electrons sit a humble little plant in it's plain-looking but still beautiful little white pot. Already, I'm feeling a breeze of fresh air bellowing from the side of my table. An odd yet welcomed edition to my office stationary. Hello there little plant, let's be friends shall we?

Did I said I wanna blog more? It's a bit difficult when your life is dull as dishwasher.

12 July 2009

A long time ago when I first used the north-south highway when I was still a kid, I thought someday I'll stop by this overheard bridge and eat there. It's not like the food or drinks there tastes better, it's more for sentimental reasons.
Today 10 years later, I finally get to do that, together with my family some more which made it even more special. Some times it's these little things that make your life more meaningful.