Why I doubt the F1 will succeed in Singapura

Yes, F1 fans. Time for me to piss you off again. But this time, I’ll be nice. I promise. Again, I know nothing about F1, but Foxtrot told me that Singapura is going to have a street track like in Monaco. I immediately had doubts over how successful it will be (even though it’s the 2nd time). Below, I give my reasons why I doubt it will succeed.

1. The drivers will need to get cashcards to enter the restricted zones.

2. The team will have to stock up on parking coupons whenever their drivers come into the pitstop.

3. The speed limit, cameras and cops will kill the game.

4. They’ll get fined for driving and drinking. (get it?)

Impostor Prime

After having lunch with Foxtrot today, we did our mandatory shopping centre walk to drool over Transformer models. I still had time to kill (what with my boss still being in Australia until the end of the year) and decided to visit other shops.

Although I bumped into two hottt Malaysian megastars (don’t worry guys, I bet you don’t know them) who are fantastic MILFs by the way, I didn’t have the courage to ask for a pic, so I just walked on and into a 99sen shop (which almost always sells stuff for more than 99sen) and lo and behold… what did I find?

Forged Transformers!

Now, the others didn’t really catch my eye, but the one above (sorry, but all I had was my crappy 0.1MP camera phone), which I shall christen Impostor Prime was amazing. It’s about the size of the almost-alternator line OP, and was forged to look the same. The amazing thing is that this IP has been slightly redesigned to look like OP, but the transformation is different. How to describe? Must see yourself wan.

The box art, too is original. Someone actually took the pains to redraw the box art and loving recolour from the original in ink and acrylic. Wow! Now I know what happens to engineering and design students when they dropout or become jobless.

They design crappy toys.

Whiskercucucicitdatuknenekengkau! (That was the sound of Optimus Prime transforming, or didn’t you know)

When we gonna get ads for this page huh?

Hey, Fox and Tang! I just checked my Nuffnang balance and I earned RM7.20 in 2 weeks! I can now afford a pair of brand new underwear. That’s RM14.40 a month! That’s RM187.20 a year! Holy shit! At this rate, I’ll become a millionaire in 5342 years’ time! For doing absolutely nothing!

So, when are we gonna add some ads on this blog? Hehehehe… Split the earnings three ways, I’ll get RM1.20 a week. Add that to my current blog’s income… and…. wow!!! I’ll be millionairing so much earlier!

Wakakakakakakaka whiskers!!!!

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Singapurans

Sorry for the long absence, guys. It’s the end of the year and many companies are dumping their budgets into anything they can spend on, and training seems to be the favourite. I was running documentation workshops back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back… and phew, am I tired. The closing workshop was in Singapura last week just before Eid and for the first time, being there for business and not family visiting, it dawned on me that Singapurans are weird people.

I actually composed the latter half of this post on my phone as I was travelling to my client’s place via MRT. Thus, to commemorate my return from the land of fake lions, I present to you, the 10 Things You (Malaysians, that is) Didn’t Know About Singapurans!

1. They will line up around the block for a free newspaper, even if it means they’ll be late for work. (It’s not a cake forgoonessake!)

2. They can’t pronounce Genting properly (Jen-Ting)

3. Their stray cats have mostly been neutered and have one ear clipped to tag them (I wonder if Singapuran men who undergo vasectomies also have their ears clipped?)

4. When they speak of Malaysia, they usually mean Johor Bahru (”Perak? Where’s that?)

5. They think Malaysians can’t speak English.

6. S$200 for season parking is considered cheap.

7. They hate Phua Chu Kang (bit too close to home, I guess).

8. Many of their flats are larger than Malaysian condos.

9. They didn’t even vote for their own candidate, but he became the 1st Asian Idol anyway.

10. Their drivers actually stop at zebra crossings.

and a last one… just for the road…

11. They have no flies.

Majulahhhhh Whiskerspuraaaaa…

Humming a song I don’t know the words to

I’m walking down the street
Humming a song
A song I don’t know the words to

When people stop to hear
I sing the song
The song I don’t have the words to

I sing the words
The word that weren’t there before
In the song I don’t have the words to

The people applaud my song
And hear the words
And think it means what it means to me

But only they know what it means
Because I sang the song with words
The words which mean nothing to me
In the song I don’t know the words to

And I walk down the street again
Humming the song again
When the people don’t hear me
The song I don’t know the words to

Whiskers
Petaling Jaya
2/6/2007
11.30am

How I know I still have an ego…

Sometimes, one needs to be reminded of one’s own importance in this world. And sometimes, when no one wants to help with that, we take it into our own hands. Here are 10 things I do that prove I still have an ego, and that I am important to me.

1. I call up Mix FM just to be able to hear my own voice on the radio.

2. I call my wife’s handphone just to see my name appear on her screen.

3. I wink at myself in the mirror.

4. I beam at the name printed on my cheque book.

5. I marvel at my name card and my job title.

6. I download other people’s scanned certificates online and replace my name with theirs using Photoshop, then print them out and pin them to my partition.

7. I pin every Hari Raya card I got this year and last year to my partition, even those not from professional contacts.

8. I practise my signature on recycled paper.

9. I laugh at my own jokes.

10. I have 5 blogs and everytime I update one, I ask a friend, “Did you read it? What do you think?”

Upper crust whiskers.

Road to millions

Yahooooo!!! My journey to becoming an internet millionaire has begun! A capitalist advertiser has deigned to place an ad on my blog, via Nuffnang, a local banner advertiser. To date, I have made USD50++ on Adsense (over one whole year!) and now… well, currently, nothing yet on Nuffnang, but hey, I don’t have to do any work! Except maybe update my blog once in awhile…

Eat your heart out wage earners. I can now afford a nasi lemak a day more than you. Bah.

Stiff whiskers.

8000 grains of rice donated!

I decided to try my hand at the vocabulary game at Freerice.com and found that it was so addictive, I raked up 8000 grains of rice within an hour!

However, most of my answers were intelligent guesses and morpheme matching. For example, anything with ‘necro’ in it, has got to do with death, and ‘nefra’ is definitely kidney related, so you just look for the closest answer.

It’s not a truly valid test of your vocabulary, but it’s fun, AND you get to donate rice to those who need it. Keep going there when you have the time.

Whiskers: Rice of the machines

The roving eyes of a man

I have a secret, and my wife knows what it is.

I love to look at other women. I’m a bad, bad man.

(Hey, you… yeah, you, that guy over there. What are you looking at, with that disapproving face? I know your secret too)

I’ve always thought that if it wasn’t sacrilegous to think of it, women would make good deities. I mean, they’re all-hearing, all-observant, all-seeing, all-remembering, and all-knowing. The only thing that makes them imperfect, is because they choose to marry mortal men, thus disqualifying them forever from godhood.

A man’s imperfection is, however, the fact that we are men. And we love women.

I keep telling my wife, that the only reason I look at women is because I’m naturally attracted to them. If I didn’t have this instinct, we wouldn’t be married in the first place, and little Whiskers wouldn’t be gestating within her right now (I have nothing left to prove now).

So, looking at pretty girls is just my way of keeping that instinct sharp, to keep loving her. Yes, I know women have a hard time understanding this logic, but really, we don’t understand your logic either (”Why are you crying now?” “That dress… waaaa… it’s… it’s… it’s blue!!!” “WTF???!!!”).

Well, now that the rationale is out of the way, let’s run down the list of the pretty women that make up my daily routine of eyewashing. Granted, I don’t know most of their names, but, do we really need to know them? (The moment you ask for a name, you better be prepared to go all the way. Besides, I have quite a few reasons to NOT take a 2nd, 3rd nor 4th wife. See here)

Here they are, in the order they appear during my day:

1. My wife.

2. The cute girl in the Kancil/ Getz/ Myvi/ Viva on the way to work on Jalan Sentul.

3. The cute girl in the green baju kurung waiting for a bus along Jalan Sentul.

4. The sexy woman in the Waja/ Wira/ Aveo along Jalan Travers.

5. The amazingly coiffed young thing crossing my path in Jalan 52/1 as I’m about to climb the stairs to my office.

6. The MBPJ aerobic twins (twins!!!) who go for lunch every Wednesday around Section 52.

7. The cute MBPJ officer having lunch at Haja’s Nasi Kandar.

8. Every single shampoo and facial and armpit whitening model on television.

9. My wife.

The difference between all of them and my wife? With them, there’s only one way admiration, but with my sayang?

The admiration is actually mutual. I’m appreciated. And that’s what makes my day and my life complete.

Rejoice model notwithstanding.

Whiskers purrs.

Phone call opening lines I hate

Everytime someone calls me, or even IM’s me, there are certain lines I dread to hear. I mean, the normal Melayu greeting of “Apa khabar?” “Sihat?” “Amacam?” (actually this one is Chinese adopted, sudah jadi Malaysian already) actually sound sincere and don’t grate on the ears. But the following ones are sickening to no end. Add on some in the comments if you have any more:

1. “Whatcha doing?” (Talking to you idjit)

2. “Where are you?” (In hell, you busybody)

3. “Busy ah?” (No, I’m dead)

4. “Sleeping ah?” (Yes, I’m sleeptalking)

5. “Not working today ah?” (…)

6. “You heard what happened ah?” (Women would love this. Me, not so much… worse when caller keeps saying, “come on, guess la!” My answer? Click. Toot… toot. toot…)

7. “Why your blog not updated so long?” (Yeah? Why your blog so boring?)

Frazzled Whiskers

Foxtrot’s additions:

1. “Eh, quick one…” (It’s NEVER quick)

2. “Sorry for calling.” (Then DON’T CALL!)

International Day of Disabled People

Today is the International Day of Disabled People.

Ask yourself if you’ve made this world a better place to live for your disabled family, friends and colleagues. We are one world. One heart. One body. One soul. A disability in one is a disability in all.

Handicap International Website

Missing a whisker…

Will your grandchild have ‘Nigerian’ on his IC?

Several Malaysians I’ve met automatically hear the word ’scam’ whenever I say the word ‘Nigerian’. It’s bad enough that the country is the most well known producer of fraud, but the fact is quite a few Nigerians are actually nice people.

I speak from experience myself, coming from the International Islamic University Malaysia. I had several friends there from Nigeria, whom I had the honour of eating, sleeping, praying and studying with. These are the people I would trust my life with.

Among them, Tijani was my best Nigerian mate. He’d saved enough to take him out of the country just so he could come to Malaysia to study. He spoke perfect English and Arabic and was studying Bahasa Melayu, so he could get a job here, just in case.

Outside of the nurturing walls of my university, I found that Nigerians was a dirty word, especially to those scameaters who regularly bait fraudsters. It didn’t matter where they were from. As long as they were black, and they had bad intentions, they were Nigerians.

Why my preceding story about Tijani? I had to make sure you understood the context of what I am about to write. Tonight, my wife and I were dining at Pizza Hut, in Mutiara Damansara, I noticed her watching a scene over my shoulder. So, I turned.

There he was, this huge black man in a green T-shirt, handphone in hand, chatting up a couple of Indian girls. I don’t know what skills he had, but the girls went from being suspicious to actually laughing at his jokes, to giving him their phone numbers. I know it was theirs, because he call-tested just to make sure. Innocent scene? I’m just being paranoid? Maybe, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it happen.

At cybercafes, busstops, LRT stations. Everywhere. These tall, dark casanovas are making a move on our women, and they actually have the tongue and equipment to do it! Go watch something if you don’t know what I mean.

Now, am I worried for our women? Yes. Why? Because I’m a mysoginist. But at the same time, I’m also worried for our men. True, the female population is rising. But remember this, they now have more options, what with all the Shah Rukh Khan and Denzel lookalikes running around (okay, maybe not as good looking).

But the point is this. Wake up Malaysian men! Enough of being metrosexual already! Fight for what’s your right! Pick up that club and let’s go drag some hair!

Seriously? You guys are on the verge of extinction. Bah!

The last stop…

I love dreams. They are doors into ourselves, our hopes and our past. Good ones give me joy. Bad ones give me learning. Thus, most of my more spiritual experiences happen when I close my eyes.

That’s why last night was an especially joyous ocassion for me. I dreamt I was standing in front of the Kaabah, in Makkah.

I suppose the set up for me to experience this was perfect. Last night, I attended a Majlis Zikir at the Darul Qadriah center in Setiawangsa, Kuala Lumpur. I had been absent from attending for several months, due to personal business, but we picked the perfect night to come.

Not only was there a full house, but also in attendance was the door kiswah (cloth covering) from the Kaabah. It had been sent all the way from Makkah, to its permanent home in Darul Qadriah. When you take into account that there is only one kiswah made every year to adorn the Kaabah door, it was an honour that none of the other 1 billion plus Muslims would ever have. An honour I got, which is to touch it.

The kiswah was made of several layers of black felt (which made it look like a thin mattress) and embroidered with gold and silver plated wire, which made it a very, very heavy piece of cloth. To touch it was magical, like being in front of the door itself, imagining myself being right there.

Later that night, at home, my mother called from Makkah. She’s there to do her Haj and hearing her voice after not seeing her for two weeks made me forget how much I missed her. Her description of being there made such an impression on me, I wished I was with her.

Which is why, Allah answered my prayers, by giving me a first hand experience of being there. But when I looked at myself, I wasn’t in ihram, so I knew, I was only there to visit. It felt so real, but knowing it wasn’t doesn’t make it any less magical.

To this minute, I remember every moment I was there. If even dreaming of it feels this good, I’m definitely looking forward to actually be there. The last stop I’ll make in this long, long life.

Whiskers cries.

Why my wife is the perfect woman for me (and why I’ll probably not take another three of them)

Some wives are just unsupportive. Mine however, is a dream come true. Foxtrot and I visited a model shop last Thursday and we drooled (I literally did) over the oh-so-unattainable-unless-we-were-freaking-rich Transformers of every variety. Foxtrot commented that his wife never understood what he saw in TF.

Suddenly, I felt like the luckiest man in the world. It never occurred to me until that very moment, just what a catch I actually got. Now get this, I’ve told you before of one of my passions: Silat. But, two other common passions I have are Spider-man and Transformers.

Give me a dose of any of these three any day and I’ll generally leave you alone.

Now, why is my wife perfect? Firstly, because before we got married, we met in the arena. She’s a Silat instructor.

No, she’s not among them, but these are kinda cute though. So, I never hear “Haven’t you had enough of that damn silat blog already???” because she normally gives me ideas on what to blog anyway.

Secondly, after we got married, I introduced her to my comic book collection. She didn’t understand why I had so many Spider-mans. But after I gave her a play-by-play of his origins and backstory and why the movie differed from the comic book and why I didn’t like Dunst for the role, she understood me better.

Spider-man 3 was a real date which she enjoyed.

And lastly, when I stayed home sick from work, I watched my whole collection of Transformers cartoons, from the original series all the way up to Armada, which got her wondering. She had always hated the show from when she was a kid. But, Michael Bay changed all that for her. We watched Transformers The Motion Picture twice in the cinema and 11 times (and counting) on DVD.

She’s now a TF convert.

Nervous as I was before the wedding, I wondered if she’ll be the one for me, or whether I made the right choice. I know now that all that worrying was for nothing.

Thank you, sayang, for being my pinang dibelah dua.

Whiskers and fur.

Good luck in Korat!

To all Malaysian athletes, especially those competing in the Pencak Silat events, I wish you a good run. May you kick ASEAN asses while you’re there. Enough of Vietnam already! Let’s take the prize home this time!

(Could you bring back some DVDs while you’re there? Much appreciated)

Whiskers salute!

Happy Birthday Foxtrot!

Welcome to Club30.

The above cake is for you to share with everyone else. The following cake is just for you to scarf.

Whiskers in my cake…