Finger

I suppose some of you, or one of you - namely Nick, had wondered if I was going to blog regularly again. In my defense, I could have, I wanted to certainly, but have not been able to because I buggered a finger. One can appreciate that a football travelling at a rapid pace towards you deserves some attention. One can also appreciate that said football packs quite a wallop especially if (and when) it whacks one on the tip of the finger.... Doesn't sound so bad? Well, it is if the damn blasted bloody ball smacks the tip of my finger threatening to drive the unfortunate digit into the palm of my hand. Yes. The ball hit my finger dead on. Not sideways. I was about sure the ring finger on my right hand was a lot shorter than before the incident. An x-ray revealed a small chip on one of the finger bones. It hurt like hell. It wouldn't be a bad thing except I am going diving again.

Good timing. I've now been banned from playing futsal at least a week before a dive trip. A terrible fate but seemingly, quite a wise one looking at the situation I'm in. I didn't tell mum I busted my finger four days before leaving on a dive trip. I'm keeping mum you might say. Four days? Well, in my experience, it takes two months for this kind of injury to heal.

Merde.

We're going to Sipadan this time. The mecca for divers the world over. Jacques Cousteau gave very high praise. It's one of the best places in the world to go diving.

If you'd been reading when I'd been blogging, you'd know I have a shark phobia. Well, in Sipadan it isn't a possibility of seeing sharks. It's quite a definite thing. Wish me and my unfortunate digit luck. Me, so I don't shit myself and my finger because I don't know as yet what it's going to be like struggling into my wetsuit. If I had the dosh I'd have bought one of those Scubapro suits with zippers for the hands and feet, easy-access-the-use-of.

I'd been reading a dive in Malaysia guide by Jack Jackson (how original) and it mentioned great white sharks. Jackson, Jack claimed that it is very highly unlikely to see a great white in Malaysian waters as they prefer colder temperatures. All I read is that it is not impossible to see a great white in Malaysian waters. Merde. Anyway, great whites eat food with high fat (read blubber) content and happily although I have been putting on weight alarmingly, I can safely say that there are divers in our group who would be more appetizing to a great white. I'd be well down on the pecking (eating) order although somewhere in the middle. Jack Jackson goes on to comfort the reader by saying, no no no, you probably won't see a great white. You might see a tiger shark though.

Fuck.

Merde.

Ah well.

On a different note, I hadn't realised what a snooty little bastard I can be. I hadn't been happy with a real estate agent I had been dealing with. I had been corresponding with the happy chappie via email and he'd been writing his emails to me like he was sending me a friggin' SMS. No 'Dear sir' or 'Dear Mr. Tan'. No 'yours sincerely'. Apparently also I have become a 'u' and not 'you'. It got right up my nose it did. It was probably accelerated by the fact that I thought this guy wasn't dealing straight with me. It turns out.... he was. Oh dear oh dear oh dear....

I suppose I am snooty. I don't send SMSes in SMS-speak. I do not abbreviate. You is 'you' and 'already' is not 'd'. I'm one of the twits that actually writes SMSes in full. Complete with punctuation and capitals in the right places. I don't know why. Maybe cos I'm a snooty bastard.

Anyway, do you know the English sentence most Malaysians will fuck up? I do.

"I have tuition on Wednesday evenings."

Figure it out. I'll tell you why when I get back from Sipadan. Assuming I don't meet any tiger sharks. Or great whites....

This is where we're going.

http://www.swvresort.com/

Feel free to feel envious. Hahaha!

Hippo Material

Have you noticed how swanky eateries are getting? And we're all paying top dollar for it? It's ridiculous. Let me start with something close to home. The Oldtown Kopitiam franchise. You've probably heard of it. It's everywhere.

It pleases me that a corner coffee shop in Ipoh has exploded onto the scene and it appears to be a very very profitable thing. It does however represent all that is right and wrong about it. Let me quickly explain. Oldtown Kopitiam, is for intents and purposes, NOT a kopitiam. It's a fake to appeal to the the present generation's money happy ways. The biggest example I can give to you is the upgraded McDonald's "restaurants". It looks upmarket now but let me tell you it still serves the same shitty fattening fast food. After McDonald's got rid of the plastic furniture and provided wi-fi, it was suddenly trendy.

The point I am trying to make is how easily we part with our money for bad product just as long as it's nicely wrapped.

Back to Oldtown. I'm happy that the explosion has occurred while the original (and real) kopitiam still exists, still has its regular clientele, is still doing very well and pretty much looks the same as it's done for decades. The franchise however is no better than the people who bought the franchise and run it. Of all the Oldtown's I've been to, I'm only frequenting just one outlet. The rest, while they look really nice, serve horrible food and drink. I'm pretty certain that there are standard recipes but apparently only this one outlet in Kota Damansara sticks to it. Nat and I went to an Oldtown in Penang for a drink. It was bursting at the seams with customers. The coffee really really really sucked. Were we the only ones that noticed or are we now content to pay for the atmosphere and damn the food and service.

Speaking of service. It reeks these days. We went to eat in Sushi Groove in 1Utama this week. It took a while when we were ready to order to get the attention of the staff there. When we did, this guy comes over and says very curtly, "yah?" He might as well have said, "well, what the fuck do you want?"

The last server to do this to us was in Delifrance at Bangsar Shopping Complex. I glared him down and chewed him out and told him to his face that the service had to be better than what was on offer. We walked out that time. I don't think I'm overly fussy. Again, it took a long time to be served. Again the guy seemed like he wanted to be somewhere else. He wasn't overly rude but he wasn't polite either. When Nat ordered something he snapped, "no more, no more." Then without saying anything, he walked off and when he came back, I had had enough and I chewed on him a bit. Nat was totally pissed off and we left. At premium price for a croissant, I expect better.

It's pretty much the same in most places. Expensive decor (although I have to admit, Delifrance doesn't fall into this category), ambience and atmosphere and all that shit. Maybe sometimes the food is decent but way too often the service is crap or indifferent.

In the beginning, Nat was quite surprised that I can cook. I was surprised she likes my cooking! Anyway, we have an inside joke which is called the Hippo. The Hippo will be the name of the restaurant we open with the combination of our culinary skills. Above all, not only will the food be good but you will feel very welcome there. The staff will be polite, friendly and they will make you feel happy to be there.

The best example I can give you is Pasta Zanmai in 1Utama. The food, yes, is expensive but the food is very good and the staff are Hippo material. If the Hippo really existed, I'd be trying to poach them. Another good example will be one of the staff from BBQ Chicken in Desa Sri Hartamas. She was friendly, polite, cheerful and ready to smile. Not only that, she anticipated our dining needs. Hippo material I tell you!

These days however, in the age of the bling bling, many consumers are willing to pay high prices for superficial rubbish.

Tragic isn't it?

?

Somehow, I recently remembered (vaguely I have to admit) I had something called a blog. Somewhere in the back of my mind resided the necessary information and it needed a catalyst. Two in fact. They are called Jeremy Clarkson and Bill Bryson.

They both write. I suppose no one should be surprised about that. However in respect to both men, they are alike like chalk and cheese.

I have been familiar with Clarkson for quite a while now. I had watched some BBC Top Gear shows taped in jolly old Blighty by my uncle who resides there. He also wrote a column for a car magazine. Clarkson is balls out, unashamedly anti conformist and a petrol head. He loves machinery that do quite anti social things. Zero to hundred in less time it takes for Paris Hilton to flash a tit or two. Top speed in excess of 2000% the legal speed limit. That kind of macho (and totally uncessary thing) gets his knickers wet with excitement. Don't forget he's the guy that bought a brand new Perodua Kelisa, drove it off the car lot and took a sledgehammer to it in full view of the dealership. It ended with the demise of the unfortuntate Kelisa by a good amount of explosives.

Mind you, I laughed. You yourself can watch it on youtube. But that's because I'm familiar with the chest beating apeman that is Clarkson. The Kelisa was accused of being devoid of character and manufactured for the sole purpose of profit for the manufacturer.

Excuse me. But isn't that the exact fucking point?

The absolute intention for a business, any business, from car manufacturer to your aunt Sally's curry mee stall is to make profit and as much of it as possible. More importantly I think, is that most people need to have the option of a cheap car to get from A to B (and hopefully back again) and also an easy car to drive. Character in a car means the back end's likely to overtake the front end if you get it slighty wrong. Clarkson can spout about his Farraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis, Saleens and whatnot. Only 0.1% of the world's population can actually afford and want to buy such montrosities of engineering. A road car that is capable of 320km/h is like having an industrial sized incinerator in your home. Walk the 10meters to the garbage can you lazy bastard. It's free. A car that does 320km/h uses the GDP of a small country to move that same amount of distance too.

Once, I was fully on Clarkson's side and wholeheartedly agreed with his viewpoint but that was almost 20 years ago. Back then I was a teenager suffering raging hormones, rebelliousness and zits.

So Clarkson can celebrate his Need for Speed. It's okay. It's his right. I however think Clarkson is anti-conformist and anti-social for the mere sake of being so. You can tell of the obvious guilt the man feels from the occasionally self-depracating remarks he makes.

But. I genuinely enjoyed his writings and still do. Even if I think the man's a cerebral menace, I have to admit he writes it well.

Bryson on the other hand, I simply love. An American who opened one eye and learnt how American America is. That's not a compliment actually. Bryson is an American who travelled to England to have a look see in his youth and didn't leave. He did eventually return to the YOO EHS AY but by then with a wife and four children in tow. By then Bryson pretty much grasped half of what the rest of the world do. The YOO EHS AY are a planet all on their own. I find white people adorably stereotypical be they Australian, American or British but the Americans have to take the cake in the Being White Stakes. I'd explain but my brain will probably not be able to take strain right now. It's nearly 4 in the morning. I guess have a long nap after lunch isn't a good idea.

Regardless of which and although it is stereotypical I will say that all white countries are inherently racist. The British because they used to rule us and now the the empire days are over, long for the past. The Australians because they feel threatened by us (look at an atlas sometime, mate); and The Americans because they are simply, arrogant (and delightfully unaware of this) and quite likely the new global Aryan.

Which brings me to my next bit of bitching. Es Pee Gees. I fucking hate SPGs. Not for the obvious reason which is since they only put out for white boys, we get less pussy. No no no. It makes no difference to me now anyway, not being single. Not at all. I hate them because there is no forgiveness for gross, irresponsible and blatant stupidity. One fine day, it might do them good to look up these lines:

1. Me so horny.

2. Fucky sucky, 10 doh-lar.

3. Me love you long time.

White boys love you bitches because you lot throw yourselves legs spread akimbo at them all the time. And us local boys couldn't give you the time of day because:

1. We can't stand your goddamn fake accents which none of us who have travelled almost the entire English speaking world can place let alone have heard before.

2. We think the tired old excuse than white men treat you all so much better is bullshit anyway. If I was trying to get some pussy gratis, I'd be real nice to you too.

3. This is sour grapes but we do recognise that white boys quite likely have heapo money. This does however, make you materialistic mercenary whore.

Of course I do realise we can't expect preferential treatment of the sort you crave from an Ah Beng but they're not all of us. That's stereotypical and not fair! Hahaha!

It is funny though when you tag along with us, there aren't any white boys around and you haven't a clue why no one is even remotely interested in speaking to you. So at least you do have entertainment value. Minor as it is.

Anyway, you've probably sussed out by now that this is nothing really to do with Jeremy Clarkson or Bill Bryson but mainly that I wanted to bitch and whine about something. Anything. It's what I'm good at in front of a keyboard. I've been reading Bryson and had been reading Clarkson. The fingers got kinda itchy.

I will leave you with this though, I discovered something new in the course of my work in which I meet quite a few expatriate families. I've discovered that the white boys who come over to work here.... well, their wives hate you fucking bitches too!

Truly wonderful. We're going to start a union soon.