Sign of the Times ...

Early this year in February .. my wife came back from work as usual in the evening at about 9:00pm .. parked her car in front of the car as usual ..

.. and promptly had her handbag snatched by two assholes on a motorbike.

And of course she just HAD to hang on to her handbag (more by instinct than anything else) .. resulting in her being dragged on the tarmac for a good 50 meters or so before the two assholes gave up and sped off.

And THAT resulted in cuts and wounds and bruises and a nasty gash on her forehead.

LAST WEEK .. my 4 year old Proton Waja which I had parked in front of house was stolen.

And it was stolen on a Saturday afternoon - between 3:00pm and 6:00pm ... I know, cos the last I looked out at 3:00pm my car was still there.

And it was no longer there at 6:00pm.

We made police reports for BOTH incidents ... and you know what?

The officer taking our statements had the cheek to say :

" Biasa lah, satu hari banyak lapuran dan kes-kes macam nie ( it's normal, we receive lots of such reports everyday )"


Biasa lah ????

Doesnt that stupid guy realise that it doesnt look good on the PDRM and himself that there are so many such cases everyday ???

What in the world are the police doing ??

Why are criminals now so brazen as to snatch and steal stuff in BROAD daylight .. and IN FRONT of people's houses ????

Is it because they know that the PDRM no longer cares about the safety of the very people they are supposed to protect ????

I wonder when it's going to get better .. but methinks it's going to get a WHOLE lot worse before it even feels like it's gonna get better .....

The Day I Met Mandy ..

I remember the events leading up to me meeting Mandy ...

I was sitting in a clinic with my wife .. it was somewhere in Shah Alam, if memory serves .. and I remember clearly the nurse walking by, then turning to look at us .. giving us a smile and nodding in affirmation .. and I remember turning to my wife and looking into her eyes to see the most excited and happiest smile ..

Fast forward several months .. and I was in Assunta Hospital .. 18 hours had already passed since the first contractions .. junior apparently liked it so much in her mummy that an emergency C-section had to be performed ..

And I remember first seeing her .. the amazing blackness of her thick curly hair .. her soft pink chubby cheeks .. how she would squint at the glare of the bright flourescent lights .. and the way she felt in my arms .. I understood then how you felt at the moment is beyond the understanding of non-fathers - it's difficult to put into words .. it was like meeting a witness to my life and what it was worth.

I felt fiercely protective of her .. like somehow I wanted to keep her in my arms and never let her go ....

Fast forward again 18 years .... Mandy is now a adolescent teen .. rebellious and with a mind of her own .. and im left wondering .. what has happened to my princess? what the hell did I do wrong?

Didn't I spend enough time with her?
Or was I being overly protective?
Have I neglected her in any way?

I just hope that somehow in some way .. when she finally grows outta being an adolescent .. I can have my princess back ... but somehow I doubt it ...

Say that Again ?

So apparently I didn't get better the following day ... the headaches and the fever abated for like a few hours ... but came back with a vengeance that same evening ....

Unfortunately I couldn't take time off to recover cos I've just started a new job ( yes, I'm working now - been working since March ) ... so I just basically had to suck it up and bear with it ... I was kinda guessing that it would be some viral thingy and that it would run it's course in about a week ......

And guess what?

I was right ...I woke up this morning feeling much better .. a good thing too, cos it's Friday and a weekend .. I didn't wanna spend my weekend in bed trying to silence all that pounding in my head ...

So I was in Puchong just now after work - decided to have my dinner .. and I saw this :

Shouldn't that read as TIDBITS ? I wonder what would happen if someone went up to the guy and asked for a TIT ... hehehe ..

Mondays ..

I thought feeling lousy and lethargic and a general sense of 'feeling sick' comes with the usual blues of a Monday.

Turns out I'm running a temperature of 102 degrees .. I just checked .. no wonder I didn't have the appetite to eat anything at all today .. guess I'll just pop a couple of Panadols and go to bed.

I just hope I'll be ok tomorrow - cos being sick really SUCKS.

Wow ...

So after dropping off my daughter at school ( why do they have classes on a Saturday? ) this morning, I made my way to the mamak stall near my house - ordered a glass of hot tea and proceeded to just chill .... when I noticed this huge shadow pass over me ..

It was only then that I realised an eagle had flown right over me ( or rather us as I was sitting with the mamak stall owner ) less than 10 feet above my head !!

Living next to a secondary forest does have it benefits and the occasional visitor .. just never expected an eagle ..

Nice to know that in heavily polluted KL .. there are still sights to remind you that not everything is lost .....

You Know Who You Are ....

How many POLITE ways are there to show that you are NOT interested?

If I don't pick up your call .. and I don't reply your smses .. despite you calling over and over again .. as well as not responding to any of your smses OR your SKYPE messages ..

Doesn't that give you an indication that i'm NOT interested?
Or do I have to tell you to your face to FUCK OFF ??



Jeeez .. some people really tak malu .....

Still Around ...

Just a short note to say that im still here .. just been really busy lately, what with the festive season and all the other stuff that i've gotta deal with .. updates soon !!

The Angiogram

So I decided to go to the hospital after all ...

Admitted myself into the Daycare Unit this morning at 0800am ( actually was supposed to be admitted yesterday .. but it seems that the hospital ran out of bed space !! So the pre-op team asked me to come back this morning ) .. and basically just waited.

At about 1100am .. the pre-ops team wheeled me ( or more precisely I walked ) into the procedure theater and the Doc gave me a local anesthesia .. apparently Doc decided that insertion of the catheter would be done from my wrist .. I felt a numbing coldness in my forearms and my hands as the anesthesia took effect .. And before I knew it .. Doc was saying 'End of Procedure' ...

Apparently he had done whatever he needed to do so quickly ( inject the dye into my heart from the wrist and take the required shots on cam ) I didn't even know he was done ! And he gave me the news on the spot : No blockages .. your weak heart is not caused by blockages.

I then walked back out into the post-ops room ( actually it was a conference room .. maybe they needed the beds? ) and waited for the required 3 hours for the incision to seal shut and I was back home by 3:30pm !!

I guess I was happy that I didn't have any further bad news ( re: blockages ) but on the other hand .. who can actually tell me what's causing me to have a weak heart? My next appointment with the cardiologist is next week .. so guess I'll know then ....

Misgivings ....

It's Sunday nite.

And tomorrow morning I will be admitting myself into the hospital for an invasive medical procedure known as an angiogram. Basically, what the doctors will do is to make an incision in my upper leg .. into the main artery .. and insert a catheter into the blood vessel all the way right up into my heart.

Then a special dye is injected directly into the coronary arteries so that X-rays can be taken of the heart. This is so that the doctors can see if there are any problems ( re:blockages ) in and around the areas.

I'm NOT looking forward to this. Cos everytime I go to the hospital, I just seem to get bad and even worse news.

Perhaps I might just skip the whole procedure all together ... after all, who was it that said that Ignorance is Bliss ? After all , I seem to be getting along just fine on my meds ...

Case Closed ?

Hmm.

Seems that local authorities have arrested the people responsible for the spate of attacks on several churches recently. But methinks that this is just the tip of the iceberg .. whether or not this will restore the 'faith' or ease mounting tensions .. or even if these are the actual people responsible ... well, your guess is as good as mine.

Full report HERE.

Updates ..

I guess it's going to get a lot worse ( hopefully not ) before it gets better ... look at the following news :

Fourth church attacked in
Malaysia as Allah row deepens

Reuters - 2 hours 8 minutes ago

• Send
• IM Story
• Print

By Niluksi Koswanage

KUALA LUMPUR - Arsonists in Malaysia struck a fourth church on Saturday as the government tried to soothe tensions arising from a row over the use of the word "Allah" to refer to the Christian God.

The unprecedented attacks risk dividing the mainly Muslim nation of 28 million people, which has significant religious minorities, and complicating Prime Minister Najib Razak's plan to win back support from the non-Muslims before the next elections by 2013.

The row, over a court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use Allah in its Malay-language editions, prompted Muslims to protest at mosques on Friday and sparked arson attacks on three churches that saw one Pentecostalist church gutted.

While Najib visited the badly damaged Pentecostalist church and offered a government grant of half a million ringgit to maintain "a harmonious society," church leaders said they wanted more concrete assurances of safety.

"We ask the government to make a strong statement to these wrongdoers so we can worship in peace on Sunday," Reverend Hermen Shastri, secretary-general to the Council of Churches Malaysia, told Reuters.

Malaysia is mainly Muslim and Malay but there are substantial ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities who mainly practise Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.

These minorities handed the government its biggest losses in 2008 state and national elections in part due to feelings of religious marginalisation and growing disillusionment with corruption.

In the latest attack on early Saturday, unidentified attackers flung a home-made petrol bomb at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in a suburb in Selangor state. The two-storey bungalow sustained minor damage, church officials said.

Police said they have stepped up security at all places of worship but faced a manpower shortage. Inspector General of Police Musa Hasan told churches across the country to hire more security guards.

ALLAH

Christians account for nine percent of the 28 million population, with a sizable number of non-English speaking Christians in Malaysia's Borneo island states of Sabah and Sarawak who have used the word "Allah" for decades.

Najib's handling of the issue will determine whether he can keep the support of the Malays and win back ethnic Chinese and Indian voters to solidify his grip on power after taking control of the government last year.

"Till today we are protecting the interests of other races besides championing those of the Malays," Najib was earlier quoted as saying by state news agency Bernama.

"Don't point fingers and say UMNO is racist...when churches are burnt," he said referring to his party, the United Malays National Organisation that is the linchpin of the National Front that has ruled the country for 52 years.

But Malay-Muslims, including those in UMNO, fear the word could be used by Christians to proselytise to Muslims, which is already illegal in the Southeast Asian country.

More than 169,000 Malaysians have joined a group page on social networking site Facebook called "Protesting the use of the name Allah by non-Muslims," a fourfold increase from the start of this week that signals growing Islamic anger.

And a Happy New Year to you too ... *sigh*

I woke up really early this morning.

That's not really typical of me these days, it being a Saturday as well but I promised my youngest daughter that I would send her to school for her extra-curricular activities ... so I found myself in the car at 0630am .. driving her to school.

After dropping her off I decided to have breakfast as sleep was already a lost cause .. so I headed to a nearby 'mamak' stall .. only to see this :



It's not even two weeks into the New Year and there are churches firebombed?

What is going to happen next?

I only hope that this wont result in something everyone will regret ... more news reports HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.