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!