Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Public Transport - Trains (5)

I was taken aback when I read Cely's blog today. The KTM service shutted down. This incident is the second time in 2 weeks, where the train passangers had to break out of the train, walk toward the nearest train station or exit and find another way back home. This situation is bad in many ways.
 
For one, both incidents happened during the peak hours. The train is packed with people who just finished a day's work and is suppose to not do anything nor have any interaction whatsoever before a shower. To make matters worse, the airconditioning and lights are out, just like the entire KTM train service - till further notice. The only thing the poor people in the train can be thankful for is that I wasn't there to contribute to the air polution.
 
When this kind of thing happens, the entire KTM service dies (till further notice). All trains stop. This is of course necessary, or else people might have been killed by a moving train, trying to get to the nearest train station, or taking a picture (like Cely did). Now, walking on tracks full on stones is tiring and extremely unpleasant. Please also take into consideration that not all stations have same distances in between. And what about the equation of "5 minutes by train = ___ minutes by foot"??
 
Everyone on a train and everyone intended on catching a train ride during the time of occurence would have to find other alternatives. Taxi would be most comfortable after the long walk, but it'll be expensive loh. Not forgetting one might have to go through traffic jams before reaching home. If you stay in Segambut (like me) or in Kepong (like Cely), you would have to take 4 bus rides home. Who knows what in will take to arrive in places in Port Klang, Seremban, Sungai Buluh, or Rawang...
 
Oh ya, I wasn't involved in both incidents because last week I was on MC for 3 days (injured leg and infected wound) and yesterday, this (read the previous post lah). Amazing coincidence, don't ya think?
 
After thinking about so many negative possibilities with the shutdown of the KTM service, it's only right to say that I'm thankful that the KTM service exist in the first place. THANK GOD FOR KTM!! THANK YOU, MALAYSIA!!
 

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

it's 8.30pm

And I'm still in the office. I decided an hour ago that I would leave the office only after 8.3opm, because by then I can claim travel allowance home straight from office. It's the only monetary claim I can make, as I am a contract staff. No OT claims for me. So the only motivations to stay till this hour are the free internet access and not needing to take a train ride home.
 
I've been doing programme testing all day. Actually, not all day. I think altogether I spent about an hour or more actually testing the programmes created by my colleagues. I think I'm a master of QA (quality assurance), because every 15 minutes I will encounter a programme bug. I would inform my colleague, leave the testing workstation, and log the problem with my laptop. Right now I'm feeling really excited, because I have 5 problems logs to show for - enough to prove that I was actually working today... Haha. For now, it's my joy and my colleague's pain. But I foresee that testing and development activities would increase with great pace. And then it'll be my colleague's pain and my pain too.
 
I hope it doesn't happen, but my experience tells me not to place my hopes too high. We are less than a month away from the dateline, and it feels like a delay to bound to happen. Then, it'll be overtime without OT claims for me - the contract staff...
 
The time now is 8.43pm. And I'm outta here. Ni'h.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

The Misplaced Toilet Seat

As you can see, I'm not very good in front of the camera. And I'm as thin as you are genuinely concerned about me and want to tell me everything you see bad about me. And I know I need to loose weight just as much as you need to guard your words. Ni'h. Oversensitivity. Haha...

Personally I prefer to write than talk when it comes to explaining something or expressing an idea. People constantly misunderstand my message, and it's bad enough that people even misunderstand my writings.

Anyway, as you can see in the video, there's a toilet seat in front of my house. Previously there were a lot more dumped in front of my house. I assume it's the work of the construction people nearby. Or maybe one of our neighbours had bad communication with their construction ("20 toilet bowls for my house?? I wrote 2 toilet bowls on the purchase order, not 20!!")

Once there was a guy that came to our house, asking about the toilet bowls. He was dressed all white, came riding on a motorcycle, without wearing a helmet. My dad had a short conversation with him, and then he left. My dad said that he's from the Health Department, but I can't be too sure about that.

Soon enough, the toilet bowls were removed. All thanks to the white prince riding on his bike, I think. Maybe he left 1 here for future use. You know, in case he passes by and nature calls urgently.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Hand in Hand

A beautiful song, written by Lee Hom and David Tao.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

The Wedding Singer

A couple in the church has asked May and I do sing a song for their wedding. Still not sure if it's for the wedding dinner or the wedding ceremony - or both. I remember singing in 3 previous weddings. And I still find it weird that they would entrust me to sing at such an important day of their lives. First of all, I don't have a nice voice, although sometimes I do impress myself. Haha, just kidding. But seriously.

1 was when my dad asked me to sing a few songs to accompany his sharing. The other 1 I got myself into it - me and my big mouth. Took a song that was originally written by my mom, rewrote a few lines and sang as the lovely couple signed, and then danced. No, the couple danced, not me. My bro played the piano on that occasion. We initially planned to ascend a key higher, but last minute my bro thought I couldn't do it. He abandoned the plan last minute, and everyone (myself included) thought I blew it. And I guess the couple who invited me this time weren't there to witness my error. Third one was last year loh, when Lemuel asked me to songlead at the wedding dinner. No comments about that.

This time May was pretty excited about the whole idea. And I always dreamt to do a duet with her, so we said yes. Don't see any harm to this. If we do good, we'll get ourselves a new career. If we do bad, we won't have to worry about people asking us to sing again for the next generation or so... Thought of few good duet songs, but I don't think we're that good. In the end, we decided to use a song I wrote and add some "duet" flavour to it. The bridegroom-to-be said that he'll surely get someone to record that. I told him that even if he didn't, I would. No no. I will, regardless.

The practice is 3 weeks away, and we still are in the midst of making the song complete. Not that good of a song-writer, but I'm very determined to make this good. Fingers crossed. Who knows? I may even put it up here for the world wide web to view.
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Nah, maybe not.

Monday, May 08, 2006