Borderline

(The middle lane and motorcyclists – inseparable! Picture source: www.guardian.co.uk)

Here’s a mind boggling question – why does some stupid motorcyclist bastards have to ride in the middle of 2 lanes and have to ride rather slow?

They like to follow the “dash line” but obvious to the fast traffic on their right and left. Don’t these buggers know that it is very difficult to judge the safe distance the cars to overtake them? It gets even worse if they have a fat lady sitting at the back of the bike.

Damn!

Free for all?

(Photo source: Malaysiakini)

Imagine this:-

You are driving along the road near Bandar Mahkota Cheras and stopped to see the protests by the residents. The police asks you to drive away which you did but suddenly you are surrounded by 20 FRU personnel claiming that you ran over one of the officers and they start beating you without mercy. Sounds far fetched?

From Malaysiakini:-

In no time at all, however, Chang Jiun Haur was soaked in his own blood after being repeatedly beaten by 20 riot squad (FRU) personnel armed with batons and kicked with boots.

Chang, 21, his sister and two friends were driving away from the site of the barricade about 11.30pm, when their car was surrounded by police personnel who had earlier dealt with a fracas involving BMC residents.

A high-ranking police officer at the scene claimed that Chang had run over a FRU personnel with his car.

“He asked for it. He ran over a policeman and he got what he deserved,” the officer told Malaysiakini a few minutes after the incident.

Has the police has come down to the level of thugs when one high ranking officer can say “He asked for it. He ran over a policeman and he got what he deserved”. Did Chang really “deserve” the beatings?

Assuming that the high ranking police officer is right – Chang in mere confusion or perhaps deliberately could have ran over a FRU personnel. No one can ascertain this statement as both parties claim innocence. But certainly the alleged act by Chang does not give the open right for 20 police officers to surround the young man and start bashing him up. Did Chang do something serious, especially when it was revealed later by another police officer that Chang did not run over any police personnel?

Watch this video and see for yourself whether the FRU personnel have downgraded themselves to mere street gangsters and started taking law in their own hands, despite being in uniform?

Why the police couldn’t arrest Chang in a better manner – stop the car and talk to Chang to get from the car peacefully. Why the police asked the reporters to switch off their cameras? Assuming that Chang was violent, was the excessive force was needed to bring Chang down? Did kicks from heavy boots was required?

Will the Home Minister proceed to make an investigation on this alleged police brutality? Or take the usual way of presuming the victim to be at fault? Certainly the 21 year old did not deserve the high ended beatings and certainly the police officers who used the excessive force should not be get away scot free.

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Happy Birthday

The boss is celebrating his 4th birthday today – he will get his “Ultraman Cake” for the small celebration scheduled next week (but he does not know this yet).

East Coast

(Snaking highway! Image source: Google Earth)

It must have been like 15 years since I last stepped in East Coast of Malaysia.

So a relative’s function in Kuantan last week was just the excuse I needed for a 520 kilometres drive to and fro East Coast. For the record, I never driven past Karak Highway – it is either a journey in a bus, driven by a half asleep driver with a baseball bat safely tucked away under the seat or a journey in a car, driven by experienced but a speed demon friends. And in a way, time was on my side for the new East Coat Highway was ready by the time I wanted to drive on my own to East Coast. The old road was not only tiring and dangerous but also time consuming (I missed the counts of truck / bus – car accidents in the old road).

We left “KL” at about 10 am – because my dad who is also going to be my “navigator” only finished work at about 8 am. In the car was myself, my wife, my kid, my dad and my mom. KL was usual with its heavy traffic jam but as we are nearing Genting Highland, the traffic was almost sparse and the heavy trucks were almost non existence. My 1.3 engine powered Iswara with full occupants was struggling at 4th gear but at the 3rd gear, it managed well to climb the hills and even overtake slower “automatic geared” cars.

It was not long before we reached the start of the new “East Coast Highway” and what a bumpy highway it was! Overall, it was smooth but just when one is driving at 110 km/h, the part of the highway turns into a bumpy stretch. The highway constructor must have taken the blue prints from Kesas Highway!

We reached Kuantan town just after 1 pm and originally the plan was to go to the relative’s house for lunch and then to the beach and then hunt for hotel to stay for the night. We did not make any reservations (my mistake) so after thinking about it, we changed the plan (thank God, we did) – hunt for hotel first, then go to the beach and then finally to the relative’s house.

We must have gone to 5 hotels but all was fully booked – there was one where as I was getting down from the car, the security guard told me that the hotel is fully booked. 5 hotels before we found one that was affordable and available and at the right time too – we managed to register in time before a bus load of people came and begging for rooms. The hotel upgraded our rooms without any additional cost because we had to wait for the rooms to be ready (good customer service). Whilst waiting for the rooms, we had our lunch and in process got a parking ticket (damn, didn’t the authorities know that people work half day on Saturdays?).

We came back at 3.45 pm and only then the rooms were available. We quickly dropped off our bags and drove to the beach – my son was in his “gears” for a dip in the water but in the end, was overwhelmed by the “huge” waves. One hour at the seaside and we were back in our hotel rooms for shower and a short nap. The function at the relative’s house went smoothly – even managed to chit chat with some “long forgotten” relatives.

We left the next morning after a short trip to the market for fresh, cheap seafood. And we used the same bumpy highway to KL. One thing I noticed about the Karak Highway near Genting, the cornering is very testing – speed at 60 km/h test driving skills to the maximum but there still idiots in small Kancils speeding at these corners.

I had a small problem with the camera, so I missed taking plenty of photos in Kuantan. Need to rectify this the next time. Tiring…

Childhood Memories Part 4

Continuing the weekly series – read Part 3 here

When I was young and my parents could not afford to buy us toys, we had to content with making our own toys. One of the “usual” toys that we often make is the wooden gun. The “ingredients” are rather simple:-

An arm length wooden plank (cut in the shape of a gun)

A nail or thumbtack (whichever is available)

A couple of rubber bands

The above is for the “gun” – hit the nail or thumbtacks at the end of the gun (the part where muzzle would be).

Tie the rubber bands at the nail. Take a small square wood chip and put it on the other end and tie more rubber bands to hold this wood chip. For the bullets, we use wild plant seeds which was found all over the neighbourhood (I don’t know the name of this plant – we just called “cherry”). One thing about this “bullet” is that when we are hit with this, it is painful.

(I know paint-brush skills sucks! A very rough blueprint of wooden gun)

We are normally divided into 2 teams – it is either me against my brother or me and my brother against the kids in the neighbourhood. There was once we organised a game between this neighbourhood and the other neighbourhood and it was played the whole day. We even managed to capture a POW and later that day, we had a change of POWs.

Captured weapons was collected and placed inside my neighbour’s dog kennel (that was a mean dog!).