Happy 50th Birthday Malaysia

50 years ago on this day, Tunku Abdul Rahman proclaimed the independence of the Federation of Malaya from British rule.

To all fellow Malaysians, here's wishing you:

Selamat Hari Merdeka!

...and a nice long weekend

"Dying on the Horn"

Yup. I learned this phrase from my Brit-now-Australian mentor (at work). When someone honks like... "beeeeeeeEEEeeeeeeeEEeeeeeeEeeeeep" - it's as though someone has died on the horn.

This has become a commonplace joke with everyone in my team now and one of us will say it when we hear someone honking away trying to gain the attention of the idiot who has double-parked behind him or her so that said idiot will come and move their car away.

Well... I had the honour of being one of those unfortunate people who had to resort to doing some incessant honking last Friday... for a whole good 10-15 minutes thanks to a moron who didn't even have the courtesy to leave his or her contact number visible on their car dashboard.

I was supposed to get home to meet dad and get my stuff for going home to Penang before the both of us leave for the 8pm bus to Penang from the old KTM station in KL. I was cursing away under my breath at that moron and was tempted to inflict some serious scratches on the moron's car except that I can't and didn't do that because my car is still trapped by said moron's car.

So my dad formed plan B. He told me to abandon the car. Then he called for a taxi from USJ, boarded the taxi, and told the guy to take a detour to Damansara Uptown to pick me up.

So... does that mean my car stays in DU over the weekend? Nope. That will not be necessary because my brother who was arriving back in KL from a business trip to Singapore has been assigned to pick the car up. Hence the car was rescued... and I still hope karma will go back and give back to the moron what said moron deserves for being a total inconsiderate buffoon.

Wahey! I'm still alive!!

Yes, this blog has a tiny spark of life in it still!

Okay, yeah... I've been a bit lazy to update (understatement, I know...) and here's what's been going on so far.

For the first 2 weeks in my job I was essentially spending more time getting to know my new colleagues than working because everyone in my team who reported in for work on the same day as moi did not get our notebooks until sometime in the second week. Fun, fun, fun!

On my first weekend in KL, I followed my dad to his friend's daughter's wedding dinner at the Westin Hotel... and it was my first time in a wedding that played disco music when the dance floor was opened. Oh... and did I mention minimal romantic music? It was such a blast!

Anyway, back at work we had our training session throughout week 2 and started doing on-the-job training on week 3... and it's been so far so good since then.

By the way, it doesn't seem like I ever need to leave Damansara Uptown to get lunch... there are just so many food outlets here!

Harry Potter
I finally got around to getting myself a copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and am almost done reading it. As for the movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", I can't say that I like it much because as a person who has read the book... I feel that too much of the story has been dropped and the script was done to fit it into a reasonable duration for a movie. I've always believed that Harry Potter from book 4 (Goblet of Fire) onwards would work better as a miniseries rather than a movie. I do however believe that Helena Bonham Carter did a fine job in portraying Bellatrix Lestrange who is very deranged and very loyal to Voldemort.

The F1 Circus
I have to say something about this. It's very obvious that Ron Dennis (and whoever else who is in league with him) is gearing towards putting a Brit at the top of the Driver's Championship by the end of the season. People (including Damon Hill) may say that Hamilton and Alonso are acting like children but the blame truly lies with Ron Dennis. What was he thinking when he successfully lured Alonso a reigning world champion over to McLaren and groomed a very talented Hamilton to go for gold? I'm sure Alonso has every desire to defend his title... and there's no way Ron Dennis can convince him to just let Hamilton have the upper hand. There will definitely be more drama to watch out for.