In Moscow
Currently in Moscow. Somewhere between the second and third phase of culture shock. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the fourth phase by the time I leave for Kuala Lumpur.I miss Kuala Lumpur. Nasi lemak Equine Park.. Pergghh.
Will be writing soon. Rindu Neet. Rindu kamu semua. Oh, rindu Ochin juga.
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 | 2 comments
Hidup Tuan Presiden
I didn't write this, but I sure wish I did.I first read this article in the College library back in 2003. It's taken from The Malay College Magazine 1998, written by a Khairul from 5 Science 1.
Enjoy.
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Hidup Tuan Presiden
Saya masuk ke pejabat Tuan Presiden. Tidak seperti semalam dan semalamnya, Tuan Presiden menyambut saya dengan riang.
"Halim, aku dah dapat"
"Dapat apa tuan?"
"Saya nak pecat Puan Rina"
"Pasal apa tuan?"
"Tak apa, nanti aku cari sebabnya."
Sudah 20 tahun saya bekerja untuk Tuan Presiden. Saya sudah masak benar dengan perangainya yang suka berahsia. Dia memang hebat, berwibawa dan berkarisma. Semua kualiti kepimpinan ada padanya. Dia sudah memimpin negara lebih 20 tahun.
Sebagai Menteri Hal Ehwal Sebaran Umum, saya merupakan mulut Tuan Presiden. Semua dasar-dasar Tuan Presiden saya sebarkan. Dengan tugas inilah saya berjaya membesarkan 3 orang anak saya. Dua orang tokoh korporat yang hampir berjaya dan seorang anak perempuan yang hidup cara barat di New York. Semuanya masih bujang, tapi saya sudah mempunyai dua orang cucu.
Esoknya Kementerian saya mendapat arahan untuk mencanangkan pemecatan Puan Rina, Menteri Hal Ehwal Pohon-Pohon Hijau. Saya tidak mengerti apa sebabnya. Bila diajukan soalan, Tuan Presiden hanya berkata, "Tunggu meeting malam ini". Saya mengganguk. Sememangnya saya berdiri teguh di belakang Tuan Presiden.
Malam itu mesyuarat bermula jam 8 malam. Saya tiba lewat setengah jam kerana berhenti solat Maghrib dan Isyak di masjid. Sesampainya saya di sana, Puan Rina sedang berucap bermati-matian mempertahankan diri.
Seperti biasa, saya duduk di sebelah Encik Sarip Saripudin dan Encik Azizi Azimuddin. Saya lihat Tuan Presiden terlentok-lentok mengantuk. Dua tiga orang menteri lain sibuk berbincang fasal perlawanan golf mereka pagi tadi. Beberapa orang menteri wanita pula sedang membelek-belek majalah Vogue sambil berdebat tentang fesyen-fesyen terbaru dari Paris.
Saya bertanya kepada Encik Sarip Saripudin tentang perkahwinan terbarunya dengan seorang artis tempatan. Dia hanya tersenyum.
"Kahwin dah lama, nikah aje minggu lepas," jawabnya ringkas. Saya mula terbayang yang indah-indah.
Sempat juga saya bertanya tentang kes Puan Rina. Katanya Puan Rina dipecat kerana merasuah pohon-pohon hijau supaya tidak berfotosintesis. Jadi tiada lagi makanan dan oksigen.
Saya terdiam. Pada hemat saya ada juga benarnya tuduhan itu. Pokok juga ada nyawa, ada kehendak. Kalau ada kehendak, maknanya boleh terima rasuah. Ya, Tepat sekali! Bijak sungguh Tuan Presiden.
3 jam kemudian, Puan Rina selesai berucap. Tuan Presiden baru terjaga daripada lenanya. Sedikit air liur basi membasahi lengan bajunya. Semua jemaah menteri mula berbincang mengenai isu itu.
"Saya cadangkan kita minum dulu," Encik Rahmat Sudin menjerit riang.
"Bijak... bijak," puji Tuan Presiden.
Jadi kami pun minum teh atau kopi yang telah disediakan serta dibawa oleh pelayan yang comel-comel belaka itu. Semasa minum, Tuan Presiden sempat berbisik kepada saya, "Lim, ada bawa Viagra?"
"Ada, dalam kereta," jawab saya.
"Aku minta dua biji"
"Bila tuan nak?"
"Lepas meeting"
Saya kembali ke tempat duduk saya. Mesyuarat disambung lagi. Jam sudah satu pagi.
"Oleh kerana hari sudah lewat malam, saya putuskan Puan RIna dipecat daripada kerajaan dan Parti Lipas Kudung," kata Tuan Presiden.
"Saya nak balik, nak tidur," Encik Azarudin Azirlah bersuara lemah.
"Baiklah, kalau semua nak balik, angkat tangan dan sokong saya."
Semua menteri mengankat tangan. Saya juga ikut serta agar boleh pulang lebih cepat.
"Jadi semua orang setuju Puan Rina dipecat?"
"Ikut suka tuanlah."
Esoknya saya melawat Puan Rina di rumahnya. Sesampainya saja saya disana, Puan Rina sedang berucap di hadapan orang ramai yang simpati kepadanya. Saya lihat ramai di kalangan pendengar adalah kaum wanita dan kanak-kanak. Sedikit sangat orang lelaki yang hadir.
"Ini petanda baik, Puan Rina gagal menarik sokongan kaum lelaki," saya berkata kepada setiausaha saya yang gemar mengangguk.
Saya melihat jam di tangan. Friday, 1320 hrs. Saya semakin bersemangat. Saya bergegas pulang ke Kementerian dan melaporkan hal ini kepada Tuan Presiden, dengan harapan agar gaji saya naik lagi.
"Bagus!" kata Tuan Presiden yang sedang makan tengah hari.
Saya lantas berlari mendapatkan setiausaha akhbar saya. Saya arahkan supaya dipanggil wartawan-wartawan daripada semua jenis media. Selepas 10 minit sahaja, dewan persidangan sudah penuh dengan wartawan. Cahaya lampu kamera tidak terhitung banyaknya.
Saya dengan bangga memaklumkan tentang pergerakan Puan Rina yang gagal menarik sokongan rakyat. Saya juga sempat memberi amaran kepada semua rakyar agar menjauhi gerakan anti-kerajaan. Tidak lama selepas itu, Encik Mohd. Azirlah, timbalan saya masuk. Saya menegurnya kerana lewat. Dia hanya tersenyum.
"Saya Sembahyang Jumaat, tuan."
Saya terlopong.
Esoknya saya meghadap Tuan Presiden lagi. Dia nampak riang seperti semalam.
"Puan Rina dah tiada."
"Tuan Presiden puas hati?"
"Aku puas hati? Belum lagi Lim."
"Apa salah Puan Rina?"
"Dia merasuah pohon-pohon hijau supaya mengancam keselamatan negara. Dia pengkhianat, dia pembelot!"
"Dia merasuah pakai apa tuan? Duit ke baja?"
Tuan Presiden terdiam. Air mukanya berubah. Matanya merah menyala. Saya mula berasa serba salah.
"Maaf Tuan Presiden, saya minta diri dulu." Saya bergegas keluar tanpa berani menoleh.
Hari itu rakan saya Encik Sarip Saripudin terpampang di dada akhbar. Beliau mengeluarkan kenyataan yang menarik mengenai Puan Rina. Beliau bukan bercakap sebagai tokoh politik, tetapi sebagai seorang ulama. Beliau berkata pemecatan Puan Rina adalah amat tepat dan amat dituntut oleh syarak.
Saya sendiri kagum dengan kenyataan Encik Sarip. Kejayaan beliau mendalami ilmu agama sehingga bergelar ulama dalam hanya dua hari amat mengagumkan. Memang kami pernah bersekolah pondok bersama-sama di Bagan Seraai, tetapi dia lari selepas dua bulan berada di sana, seminggu lebih awal daripada saya.
Esoknya saya menerima surat pemecatan saya sebagai Menteri Hal Ehwal Sebaran Umum. Dua jam selepas pemecatan saya itu, sepasukan polis bersenjata lengkap memecah masuk rumah saya. Saya ditahan di bawah Akta Ketenteraman Awam. Saya dituduh menimbulkan keresahan di kalangan masyarakat.
Esoknya, akhbar-akhbar penuh dengan wajah-wajah teman saya. Mereka semua menyokong tindakan Tuan Presiden memecat saya. Encik Sarip muncul lagi dengan hukum-hukum agamanya, sambil saya terperosok di dalam lokap.
Hidup Tuan Presiden! Kami berdiri teguh di belakang pucuk pimpinan. Bila tiba masanya pucuk dimakan kambing, kami golongan akar akan tetap di sini.
Hidup Tuan Presiden!!
-Khairul-
5 Sains 1
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Saudara Khairul, in case you are reading this and you have concerns regarding me publishing it here, do drop a comment or send me an email. I will take the necessary actions.
Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2008 | 5 comments
Facts and Fun stuffs. As if..
Random facts that could someday save your life.1. It takes approximately 4 minutes and 21 seconds for a plate of sushi to make one full round on the Ampang Point Sushi King kaiten.2. The car with the number plate ABC 123 is a white Perodua Myvi, driven by a middle aged Chinese lady who most probably lives around the Klang Valley.
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Kura-kura. RM6 seekor. Pasar Lorong Tuanku Abdul Rahman. Hurmm..
Back in 1995 when I was in standard 1 I had an argument with my Bahasa Melayu (or Bahasa Malaysia, I can't tell) teacher over the correct spelling and pronunciation of the word 'giraffe' in Malay. I recalled my ABC book spelling it as 'zirafah' so I was 'zirafah' all the way. My teacher said that it was 'girafah'. Since I'm 7 years old schoolboy and she's about 5, 6 times my age she won hands down.
Oh well..
I was in standard 2 back in 1996. One day it was the mid year exams and on that particular day was the English paper. I remember this paper because the whole class got poor results. Why? Well.. on the cover page of the exam paper, right above where we are supposed to write our name and class, was a drawing of a cute dinosaur wearing a hat on a small island with a coconut tree. It wasn't black and white; it was only the outline. So everyone rushed to finish their paper and after half and hour, most of us were busy colouring the dinosaur instead of the usual checking and rechecking our answers. Hey, what else do you expect a bunch of 8 year olds to do?
Oh well..
There was this one group of Chinese girls in my class (always in my class because they are as smart as me) back in primary school. During recess they would always take out their lunch box which would always contains a sandwich and use them as weapons to force everyone out of the class. How?
Haa! You takut babi tak? Kalau takut you keluar! (While parading the sandwiches in front of us Muslims' face)
Haha.. Well, they were young and so were we. In recent years I kept wondering wether that was really a pork sandwich or not. I wonder what happen to those girls too..
Oh well..
I was in standard 3 when I somehow got 100% for my Pendidikan Islam paper. I went home to recheck everything when I found one question where the teacher marked my wrong answer as right. I kept quiet about it because that was probably the only 100% anything I ever got in school.
Oh well..
Today I am able to reaffirm my believe that I live in the IT age when I read Cepe's comment on my posting about me changing my Mac's hard disk. He said:
Cool gile. Haha.
Oh well.. Maybe I should go to sleep..
Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | 2 comments
MCOBA Futsal 2008
Obses dengan nombor masing-masing.
I don't know about the rest but the it wasn't about the futsal that brought joy to me, or the fact that we won 1st place..
It was the people there.
Posted on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 | 0 comments
Nostalgia and Progress
This is how much fuel RM40 can buy these days. My full tank just gone up from RM70 to RM100. Tisk..
Yesterday was the first time I refueled my car since the price hike. I've been trying to save up actually, taking trains and such. It is kind of a killing two birds with one stone thing: I get to save fuel and money and I get to walk, exercise a bit. Walking have also given me a nice opportunity to do photography since I haven't photographed anything nice for quite a while..
Anyway, if there's one thing KTM need to do to improve is to change its name. Stop living in Tanah Melayu. You might be top notch back in Tanah Melayu but you are a mess in Malaysia. It's not that you really need that name to be nostalgic of the old days and all. Restore your old stations in Perak, make something useful out of the old KL station or even start a dedicated steam train ride once a month for people to experience life back in the old days. Those are the kind of nostalgia I would appreciate. I don't need that name to remind me of my history.
When I'm on the Komuter from KL to Rawang, I don't want you guys imagining me as tin ingots being transported from Port Weld to Klian Pauh. Oh, that reminds me.. Port Weld is now Kuala Sepetang and Klian Pauh is Taiping. When will Keretapi Tanah Melayu be Keretapi Malaysia? Stop the denial and let progress begin.
Posted on Sunday, June 15, 2008 | 0 comments
7
Pagi itu hujan lagi. Perlahan-lahan aku buka mata yang masih berkabus sedang melodi titis-titis hujan memalu atap zink, dalam gemanya menenggelamkan kesunyian bilik ini. Aku meraba-raba tilam mencapai jam tanganku. Ah, pastinya aku lewat lagi hari ini.Pagi ini hujan lagi, mungkin sama dengan hujan pagi itu.
Pasar Keramat memang sesak pagi-pagi. Apa yang lengang waktu-waktu begini di ibukota metropolitan ini? Sedang aku mengikat tali kastku kemas-kemas fikiranku melayang kembali ke pagi itu. Jangan tanya aku kenapa aku teringat perkara itu, jangan tanya kenapa hari ini. Aku juga tidak pasti. Mungkin kerana orang sepeti aku memang tak banyak benda perlu ingat, tak banyak perlu buat. Hari hari sama saja. Mungkin juga aku bosan.
Pagi itu hujan, aku nampak kamu diseberang jalan, dibawah pokok itu.
Aku tak pernah faham cara orang ikat tali kasut. Kenapa macam terlalu senang sedangkan aku bersusah payah? Ah.. payung aku hilang lagi. Aku dah lambat ni. Sialan kau anak Pak Mat!
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Nanti aku tulis lagi.
Posted on Saturday, June 14, 2008 | 1 comments
Operation
Here's what I've been doing. My hard disk is failing and I've bought a replacement a few months back. I took it to the Apple store only to found out that they want to charge me between RM120 to RM200 for the operation. That is more than how much I paid for the Hitachi replacement disk. Why? They say that my Mac model is one of the hardest to disassemble. Oh, okay..
Nonetheless, I went curious.. How hard could it be? I googled and found several websites detailing the process step by step. After a few detailed look and read I kindof decided that it was easy enough and it doesn't look it was worth spending RM200 for so I called Hariri and after a few delays, we finally started to take the laptop apart..
It was scary.. There was a lot of screws, all shapes and sizes. We tried to remember which goes where as we slowly take off the PowerBook G4, layer by layer. It should be rather easy if not for my dented aluminium case, thanks to the several drops it suffered. It is true what they say: if Apple want to make it easy for you to change the hard disk, they'll make it super easy like the new MacBooks and the Mac Pro, but if they don't want you wandering inside of your machine, they'll surely make it a suffering. Mine is certified as non user serviceable. Oh well, I have no warranty to worry about.
So there it is, the guts of my devoted laptop. The top right yellow thing is the DVD drive, the cavity under it is for the battery. To the left of it is the place where the hard disk sits. Look closely and you'll see the deformed case of my laptop; this is the point of impact of the last drop. I've removed the hard disk it in this picture, exposing the logic board underneath. Above it is the neat looking heatsink which sits over the GPU and the G4 processor chip.
We then transplanted the new Hitachi and started to reassemble the PowerBook, at times arguing which screw when where. Remind me to label stuffs next time okay? After connecting all the necessary cables we turned on the Mac to see wether the new disk works or not since we cloned the old disk's content into this one to avoid all the hassles of reinstalling.
Oh jolly, it worked. Now I'll just put on the keyboard here.. tighten a few more screws there.. and voila!
I was crossing fingers along the way but it was a relief that the whole thing was a success. Phew..
Posted on Friday, June 13, 2008 | 3 comments
Lies
YesterdayWell, when I'm older and if the world then still relies on black gold to work, I can tell my children that during my time, we paid RM1.92 for a liter of fuel. Well, at least for a while. Because Pak Lah bohong.
Personally I know that it is inevitable. But I'm kind of sad that off all things that he could do, Pak Lah bohong. He told that the price is only going up after August, but Pak Lah bohong. He said that the money saved from the subsidy will be used for the benefit of the people, improve public transport and all. Guess what, Pak Lah bohong.
Two years ago.
Personally I know that it is inevitable. But I'm kind of sad that off all things that he could do, Pak Lah bohong. He told that the price is only going up after August, but Pak Lah bohong. He said that the money saved from the subsidy will be used for the benefit of the people, improve public transport and all. Guess what, Pak Lah bohong.
Two years ago.Measures soon to lessen people's burden. The KTM Komuter is still snailingly slow. The LRT is still not expanded, the trains are still jam packed. Buses are still late and scarce. Taxis still cheats. The price of goods are still high, my paycheck is still small and after today, becomes a bit more valueless. Pak Lah bohong.
We are to understand that he government does not have money for projects if the subsidy stays. What project? Do you mean the wasteful LRT in Putrajaya? Why not LRT in Subang, in PJ, Cheras, Ampang? Do you mean the wasteful new Masjid Besi you are building less then a kilometer away from the already expansive and adequate Masjid Putra? You blame Mahathir for wasting money. At least he didn't build another KLCC across the street from the current one. Pak Lah bohong.
We were told to change our lifestyle. Okay. I'll change when I see a minister taking the LRT with me. I'll change when I see an official's car stuck next to me on the MRR2. I'll change when I see a black Perdana V6 lining up behind me paying toll at Jalan Duta. Bikin tak serupa cakap. Pak Lah bohong.
When I'm old and frail and my children and grandchildren ask me about what are the greatest achievements in my life, among other things I would tell them that I lived in a time of Badawi.
Siakap senohong gelama ikan duri. You know how it goes.
We are to understand that he government does not have money for projects if the subsidy stays. What project? Do you mean the wasteful LRT in Putrajaya? Why not LRT in Subang, in PJ, Cheras, Ampang? Do you mean the wasteful new Masjid Besi you are building less then a kilometer away from the already expansive and adequate Masjid Putra? You blame Mahathir for wasting money. At least he didn't build another KLCC across the street from the current one. Pak Lah bohong.
We were told to change our lifestyle. Okay. I'll change when I see a minister taking the LRT with me. I'll change when I see an official's car stuck next to me on the MRR2. I'll change when I see a black Perdana V6 lining up behind me paying toll at Jalan Duta. Bikin tak serupa cakap. Pak Lah bohong.
When I'm old and frail and my children and grandchildren ask me about what are the greatest achievements in my life, among other things I would tell them that I lived in a time of Badawi.
Siakap senohong gelama ikan duri. You know how it goes.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 | 5 comments
