I've not posted anything for a long time, until today that is. Something happened on my flight from Singapore last night and I just need to blow off steam here.

It was the last flight from Singapore to KL, MH610 which left Changi at 9:10 pm. Everything was ok until midway through the flight, one of the stewardess banged the drinks trolley against the chair of the passenger behind me, and this stewardass by the name of Daiana never so much as even blinked, let alone apologise to the passenger! Practically everyone stared at each other in disbelief and we were in utter shock at how rude Daiana was.

And then I realised that prior to take off, my seat was not in it's upright psition, which is required during takeoffs and landings. Now if there's anyone who would have noticed it, it must have been Daiana. Not only was she completely rude, she failed to ensure my full adherence to basic take off procedures. I won't be surprised if there were other passengers whom she overlooked as well.

Next I also realised that Daiana never smiled and was rather crude in the way she spoke. Is this the kind of image that we want to portray to tourists entering this country? The poor Chinese lady behind me must have wondered why she got treated as such.

As for me, after what happened last night, I don't feel like flying MAS anymore. And I will make an official complaint just to make sure bad apples like Daiana be taught a stern lesson in manners.

What's this thing with bullies nowadays? We've got road bullies, school bullies, kindergarten bullies, neighborhood bullies and the list goes on and on...with the latest rage off course being school bullies. That poor kid who got beaten to death last Sunday...what has happened to our school children? Are we so immersed in our worldly pursuits that we blatantly ignore the value of one's life? The kid got beaten over a stupid kettle ok...or so it seems. And our newly appointed Education Minister was REALLY quick to give his two cents' worth on this. Well let's hope his actions will match his words. And I'm not gonna yak on this further than what has been published, except for this - yeah I went to a boarding school to and those days ragging was still practiced although sometimes they degenerated into fights, we were gentlemen about it i.e it was one on one and you would'nt find a whole bunch of thugs beating up a single guy. What those kids in Seremban did the other day was cowardly and they deserved to be put away for the rest of their lives! These are the kind of religious zealots who would bring nothing but trouble in the future and I shudder to think the kind of fear they'll instill in my kids who are just beginning to enjoy the wonders of going to school.

Do I have a solution? Probably yes and no, but the least I can do is to instill a sense of responsibility in my kids from a very young age. I know other parents would do the same although with varying degrees of success. What makes it quite tricky is the fact that today's society is constantly being bombarded with tons of information, some of it useful and the rest being junk. A lot are even quite harmful - check this out guys..last week I was describing Herge' s famous Tintin character to my eldest and searched Google for his image and guess what I found among them...Tintin was actually fondling Madame Castafiore's exposed breasts!!! http://www.stupide.net/archives/decembre/decembre.htm My son shrieked and he immediately clasped both hands onto his face! Imagine his horror at that sight, and I was completely dumbfounded! And of course my boy had to tell his mum later...typical of a soon-to-be 8 year old :) Well so much for that, but I must say..Tintin still continues to be my favourite comic character of all time. They actually have his series in 3-in-1 volumes these days. Actually I bought a set for my kids (RM69 a piece!!) at Kinokuniya the other day and my kids just love it!

Now back to the piece about the school thugs. If anything, peer pressure is a denominating factor in such incidences. You become bound to the group and any dissent would be dealt with in the severest possible manner, even if it means lynching you to death! So once you're in it, there's no way out! Toe the line or we'll beat the crap out of you; that's the message instilled among them.

But maybe the thugs who did this needed an outlet? Probably, but who knows? Beating the kid was convenient enough for some reason ar another. Will they grow up to become serial killers? There's more than a fair chance of that happening. Or they can choose from the following list of other professions which fit their character - loan sharks, pirates, pimps, hitman etc. Good luck to these people; they'll more than need it!

well...it's been a while since i posted something here...not that there aren't any contentious issues revolving in my head, there's plenty of it :) But by now probably it's old news so i won't bother raising them at all..ooooohhh...here's one i just remembered...i took a look at the new proton gen 2 last week and was initially pretty impressed with the overall design of the car, that is ...until...(oh oh here i go again:)...well, put it this way..did any of you actually sit at the back? assuming that you're not a hobbit, elf, or dwarf (what's this thing with middle earth peolpe? blame it on my mwife, she started it and every night she manages 2 pages of the lord of the rings before she dozes off) did you notice how dangerously close your head was to the roof? i mean, come on guys...did you actually think 50% of malaysians are no taller than hobbits?

this is serious ok because i'm like 1 inch away from certain brain haemorrhage should i be unfortunate enough to be in the back seat when the car runs into a pothole..and what do you know..if there were honors for the nation with the most potholes, malaysia can certainly pride itself in being one of those in the upper echelons!

but that was not it..you see, the moment something funny like this pops out, i suddenly discover that there are more to it than meets the eye..just take a look at the front radiator grill with the proton emblem on it..did you notice how flimsy it was? and if you looked closely, some of the body lines were not properly aligned...like the front bonnet, bumper etc...finally, i said to myself...ahhh...let this first batch of buyers go through the motions...just like what happened to the waja..i won't even bother narrating what happened then ok ;)..i'll be happy to drive around in my laguna...:>

Last week traffic was unusually horrible. I live in Kajang and what normally takes me 45 minutes to get to work just got longer...much, much, much longer. And that too despite the fact that I used the tidal flow only to discover that it's worst than going against the tide! It turned out that the traffic policeman at the end of the tidal flow was causing the bottleneck by not allowing more time for the tidal flow to pass traffic. So what's the point of having the tidal flow then if it's just going to add to my misery? Is this another no brainer for the taxpayer to suffer through or what?

Here I was silently cursing at the highway operator for just ripping me of my precious time which could have been spent by the pool surfing over the net whilst sipping my cappuchino. I mean, let's face it guys..why do you build a highway with promises of jam free traffic only to have a set of lights causing miles of backlog and fuming motorists trying to inch their way through traffic for a quarter of their lifetime? Isn't there any foresight during the planning stages of the highway? I bet this won't be the last of such highways in Malaysia; darn those toll operators!

Well, if it isn't malaysia's biggest bank getting on my nerves again....I was taking my wife to one medical centre when we were approached by a group of people, three of them actually each sporting the MAKNA (majis kanser nasional or the malaysian national cancer society) logo on their t-shirts. It turns out that they were soliciting contributions for the national cancer fund from the public. Apparently MAKNA subsidizes part of the cancer treatments in Malaysia to the tune of RM30-40 k per patient. So now they're on a fund raising drive to beef up their kitty. I was about to make a cash contribution of RM20 when lo and behold, to my surprise the young lady told me that they didn't accept cash contributions that day. Hmmmmmmm...I thought, this better be good :).

Instead, MAKNA nowadays allow you to directly debit your money to their account with Maybank in denominations of RM20, RM30 and RM50 monthly. Ok, I said. I'll sign up for the RM20 per month thingy for starters. Then the big bomb came.."Sir"..the lady looked nervously at me.."for every transaction Maybank will be charging you RM1 per transaction..", and that's when I just blew off my top. RM1 per transaction? For crying out loud, this is charity were talking here!! I mean, what does it cost Maybank for a lousy standing instruction anyway? Peanuts, right? I could understand if it was a 1 time charge for administration purposes but actually imposing e-commerce rules on a charity organization? This sure is another low for Malaysia's biggest bank!