Once upon a long long time ago.. In a land far far away..

called Kluktukluktokukutoop..

or maybe thatz what they used to call it last time.. when they started building this thing abt 5000 years ago..



that, my dear friends, is one of the remaining Ancient Wonders of the World..

The Stonehenge..

I dont think the English language was even invented back then.. so Kluktukluktokukutoop in the Kluk language might sound just as much as England would sound now..

so.. yepz.. I just got back from London..

and Kluktukluktokukutoop is my opinion of what they might have called the place now known as England..

dont take my word for it though.. i dont speak the Kluk language..

and I took a trip down with two of the crew, Rachel and Maylene, to Stonehenge, which is located in Wiltshire, Wessex, in Southern England.. or abt close to 2 hours drive from Central London..

woke up in the morning and headed to the hotel Concierge, who drudgingly obliged to book a car for us to rent.. so he called Hertz and coz itz a weekend, they dont have a delivery service for the car.. and so I had to take a tube down to Victoria.. abt 20 mins away and a good 10 mins walk from the tube station..

good thing that the weather was perfect, though.. it was at 23 degrees, and the sun was bright enough not to make it too chilled..

when I arrived at Hertz.. I saw that the ppl manning the counters were nice and friendly.. and after a 15 minutes queue, I went to the available counter..

and so.. when the fella attended to this Asian fella, the smiles were all gone and he became so impatient..

I told him that the hotel Concierge had booked for me..

and lo and behold.. actually.. ermz.. as I had expected..

there were no reservations made by the Concierge..

no records, zilch, nothing, nil, kosong..

so our friend here tended to me like as if it was a disruption from his daily smiles and nice greetings and made it as fast as he could to get it over and done with so he can smile to the next Caucasian customer..

ok lor.. u Ang Moh mah.. i'm Indian.. u win.. ur country is bigger than mine..

only when I returned the car the next day that I realised that he didnt offer me everything on the set and just put DECLINED on everything.. like a standard fuel purchase, so I dont need to top up the gas if we used up the whole tank.. in which I knew that we would coz we were travelling far..

the drive back to the hotel took a good one hour, instead of a standard 10 mins drive coz it happened to be the Queen's birthday.. so with the horse processions and road closures, a lot of the roads were detoured..

and London has a lot of one-way streets.. so what u see on the map might not be so straightforward..

by the time we left the hotel to drive to Wiltshire, it was already 1.30pm..

arrived at The Stonehenge at abt 3pm.. and at the first sight of it..



I was like..

wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

*THE* stonehenge..

it was built in 3 stages.. through a period of more than a THOUSAND years..

FIVE FREAKING THOUSAND YEARS AGO.

by so many hundreds of generations..

which, to me.. is quite far-fetched..

the mainstream belief is that itz made as a place of prayers, of sun worshipping.. or solar projections for calculations of seasons and days..

some stories said that it was built by the pre-historic Englishmen..

they might had been so bored that they dragged down hundreds of tons of stones from Ireland..

that is what u get from the Englishmen if u dont give them football..

others mentioned abt the Stonehenge being built by Druids and Merlin and even the Devil himself..

yeah rite..

i'd prefer the stories abt it being built by aliens..

thatz more like it..

a religious place of prayers?

that spanned for more than a thousand years?

being continued by their descendants?

wahaha.. no way..

even in 50 years, religions can evolve drastically..

so Aliens it is..

itz really breathtaking.. knowing that the structure that u see is even older than the first Pyramids..

and trust me.. Pyramids are really awe-inspiring.. itz another one of those places that made me go WOW..



Me, Rachel and Maylene in front of the Stonehenge..



a closer view of the stones..



the Plains surrounding the Stonehenge..

these are the breathtaking sights as u drive down the A303 down to Wiltshire..

and therefore.. after spending abt an hour and a half looking at funny-looking rocks built by the ancestors of David Beckham, we decided to drive down to Salisbury, abt 15 mins away.. a change from going to Bath coz the Temple at Bath were closed at 5pm..

itz an interesting place.. really..

quiet.. peaceful..

a lil bit boring though..

but still.. quiet.. peaceful..

itz a medieval town.. very interesting..



a sign of the medieval town.. a gantry in Salisbury..



Salisbury town..



this is the Salisbury Cathedral.. built in 1220, ancient English Gothic style.. and has the tallest spire in the whole of Britain..

we had our dinner at one of the pubs.. while watching Ghana beat Czech..

the good thing abt watching the World Cup in Europe is that the timing is always good.. dont need to wait up early in the morning coz the games in London are being telecast at 2, 5 and 8pm..

got back to the city at abt 11pm at night.. and headed down to Bayswater for another dinner..

Siew Ngap Fun..

yey.. my fav food..

everytime I see a London in the roster.. the first thing that comes to my mind would be..

Roasted Duck Rice.. again..

and as it is.. the entire city was still partying coz they were celebrating the Queens Birthday..

though i think the Queen might had been asleep hours and hours earlier and would be wondering why the heck are those drunk ppl making so much noise outside her house..

or.. ok.. outside her Palace..

whatever..

but then again.. yeah.. i think they are just looking for another excuse to get drunk..

coz most of the ppl who were partying are not English anyway.. they talked in foreign languages and funny accents mah..

so, those are the tourists who are just looking for any excuses to get drunk and pretend to be English..



Bayswater, at midnight.. still busy partying..

I love London..

I really do..

one of the coolest places on earth..

and one of those places where I would be excited to go to whenever I am rostered for it..

not only coz of the Siew Ngap..

but therez so many cool things to do in London..

they have nice clubs..

or u could just head down to the stretch between Picadilly's and Covent Garden to watch talented bands busking on the streets..

really really talented..

or in the tube stations..

the gloomy London..

where it always rains..

somehow, the smell of the air.. the ambience, the weather.. all adds to the coolness of the place..

and u have to go there and experience it on ur own to know it..

even the tube.. itz an experience to take it..

I dont know why.. but it just is..

I love taking the tube.. Mind The Gap.. and I still cant explain why..

not like as if the stations are beautiful..

or the trains are fantastic..

but itz just London..

just Mind The Gap..

or even at the gas station, the fellas would just hang "Sorry, Not In Use" to every pump, including the one that u have in ur hand.. with the nozzle already in the hatch..

dammit.. u could at least come to me and say sorry.. but we dont have anymore gas rather than just hang it and leave..

macam siak punya bangla..

but nevermind..

the rest of London is still cool..



there it is.. a typical walkway in the tube station..

for a good view of London.. try watching American Werewolf in London.. it even shows u the gloominess in the tube stations..

but u dont feel the sense of danger here.. not like in the United States..

u dont get robbed in the stations..

but of course.. u might get shot by police officers if u have a beard..

or bombed by some bearded freaks..

and another reason why London is cool is..



coz they have condom machines in the toilets..

All's Well That Ends Well

Ofi forwarded an email.. something abt friend friend kinda thing..

but something caught my eye and made me ponder..

something that had been in my mind recently..

but.. before I comment on it, a *DISCLAIMER*..

I'm not a pessimist.. on the contrary, I'm quite optimistic abt life.. I dont have a traumatic childhood neither am I a product of a sad life.. I lead quite a happy life, I must say..

that reminds me..

recently, someone on the Net wanted to psycho-analyse me..

thinking that the reason why I chose to be single and overprotective of my freedom was coz I have had a bad experience in life..

sorry dude..

I didnt..

and with that.. i'm commenting on this..

as I've said.. in the email.. lots of friend friend kinda thing..

but.. a line..

Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

hmm..

for young readers, stop reading here..

when I was serving my National Service, I was attached to a Police Post near my house..

I had fun..

I enjoyed working so much that on my last day of my service, I felt like I was sacked from my job.. it was a perfect team that I worked with.. we didnt have politics, and among the 4 of us in the team, we were good friends..

I had a good Officer in Charge who took care of us protectively...

but he said something in the midst of the good times..

Everything must come to an end one day..

may it be good or bad..

if u suffer from depression coz of any reasons.. remember.. nothing last forever.. the problems that u are facing will end one day..

unless of course the problem is either AIDS or cancer..

or u are on a death row for some shit u did..

if u are having a good life..

nothing last forever too..

u will die one day and that life will end..

thatz what he said..

Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

somehow, itz not entirely true..

life does not come to a full circle, even if we do wish that it does..

u dont go thru downs to prepare u for the ups..

or vice versa..

and therefore, life is not entirely fair..

for that, I have a theory..

itz called TFB..

most of my close friends know what TFB means..

if u face something bad that u cant change, Too Fucking Bad.

it happens..

Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

how abt those kids who were born in famine-strickened Africa?

or those who were born from parents who are HIV positive?

life dont end well for them..

how abt those ppl who went thru blood transfusion and got infected with a deadly virus, thru no fault of theirs?

or those careful pedestrians who became paralysed coz of some distracted motorist?

how abt those whoz life became so unfair for them that they ended up committing suicide?

life does not come to a full circle..

some ppl have it good..

some ppl just end up having a fucked up life..

TFB..

some ppl are lucky to be born rich and good looking..

some are poor and ugly..

some are born with good parents..

some are born to drug addicts, and they grow up to be Mats and Minahs..

and everyone knowz that *THAT* is the worst curse..

dont brood over ur sad life and be hopeful that it will end and good times will come..

coz it rarely does..

unless u take ur time to solve each and every problems that comes ur way..

and solve each problem to a point that the problem will not reappear..

and make good use of every moment that u have..

carpedium!

one of my friends on my last flight said something a few days ago..

If u get lost in a jungle, whatz the first thing u should do?

Sit down, relax, fix urself a cup of coffee, and have a smoke..

if u are not in a good state of mind, therez nothing that u can do..

what if u dont have coffee and cigarettes..

well.. so now u know.. pack urself some coffee and cigarettes before u step into any jungles..

if u really dont have any of those..

then itz a good time to panic..

Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

not every life turns out to be perfect..

there had been ppl who had been executed for some crimes that they didnt commit, only to be cleared posthumous..

and worse still, if the person who was executed was an abandoned kid, who lived on the streets, and suffered thru his life.. and got hanged coz he was at the wrong place at the wrong time..

so, the moral of my story is.. dont be too optimistic for no reason.. dont wish ur problems will go away coz itz supposed to go away..

if u have problems, solve it..

if u have AIDS, start praying..

if u have terminal cancer, start smoking, it makes no difference at this time..

ok. thatz the closest to pessimism that I can think of.. but then again, I'm an optimistic person..

I received a phone call from a credit card marketer this morning..

when she found out that I am a Flight Attendant, and that I like to shop, she asked me..

why not go Thailand?!

ermz... why should I?

then she started talking abt this place and that place, in States, Bali, blablabla..

word of advice to my dear friends here..

dont brag abt travelling to so many places to a Flight Attendant, Pilots or Sailors..

coz we dont really care that u had been to so many different countries..

we've been there..

brag to someone who told u that they had never stepped on a plane before..

if u wanna talk nicely without bragging, then itz ok lor.. if u wanna brag, honest to God, we wont be impressed..

lemme list down the places that I had been to so far.. this list is for those who wish to brag.. avoid bragging to me if the place u visited is within this list..

All the States in Peninsular Malaysia
Adelaide,Australia
Auckland,New Zealand
Brisbane, Australia
Christchurch, New Zealand
Melbourne,Australia
Perth, Australia
Sydney, Australia
Tasmania, Australia
Los Angeles, California, United States
New York, United States
San Francisco, California, United States
Anaheim/Orange County, California, United States
Vancouver, Canada
Tijuana, Mexico
Athens, Greece
Brussels, Belgium
Calais, France
Paris, France
Copenhagen, Denmark
Rome, Italy
Vatican City, Italy
Frankfurt, Germany
Wunenberg, Germany
HeidelBerg, Germany
Cologne, Germany
London, England
Manchester, England
Birmingham, England
Louborough, England
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Veenedaal/Utrecht, The Netherlands
Zurich, Switzerland
Lucerne, Switzerland
Lichtenstein, Switzerland
Innsbruck, Austria
Vienna, Austria
Beijing, China
Hong Kong, China
Shanghai, China
Taipei, PRC
Fukuoka, Japan
Osaka, Japan
Nagoya, Japan
Tokyo, Japan
Hiroshima, Japan
Mumbai, India
Delhi, India
Amritsar, Punjab, India
Kathmandu, Nepal
Maldives Islands
Mauritius
Bangkok, Thailand
Haadyai/Songkhla, Thailand
Jakarta, Indonesia
Bali, Indonesia
Seoul, South Korea
Manila, Philippines
Cairo, Egypt
Cape Town, South Africa
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Istanbul, Turkey
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Johannesburg, South Africa

I know I had missed out quite a number of cities that I had been to.. I'll add to this list when I remember..

this list is also for those of u who wants to go somewhere for a holiday but cant make up ur mind..

It's All About Choice, Part 2

I love my freedom..

I have had choices that i have made in life..

I smoke, coz i love smoking..

So now.. itz a choice that we make..

I dont smoke when there are kids ard.. i move away from crowds when i smoke.. and i stand near to some bins to extinguish my cigarette..

I smoke in my car coz itz my personal space..

and now some idiots wrote to the papers coz they think that smoking in ur car is dangerous?

ok.. first few letters said that it was dangerous to smoke and drive coz if the cigarette falls onto ur lap then u will lose control of ur car..

fair enough..

I dropped my cigarette several times before.. and all those times when the car was parked.. coz i hit it against something..

when I drive and smoke, I have the stick in a position that it remains there while i'm not puffing.. but I cant say much abt every other smoker in every other car..

but therez someone who wrote to the press abt smokers getting stuck in a traffic jam.. she said that itz a danger coz a motorcyclist can wheeze thru and hit the cigarette if the smokers put the cigarette out of the window..

now now..

I had never seen a smoker in a car who stretches out his hand while smoking..

I had never seen a smoker anywhere stretching out while smoking..

and if the smoker DOES NOT stretch out, and if a motorcyclist comes that close, i think he deserves it..

if the smoker DO stretch out, and if a motorcyclist hits his arm, i think the smoker deserves to have his arm broken..

my car is my freaking personal space..

itz my second closet..

itz my second room..

itz my second house..

itz my second bed..

I do whatever I like in the car..

coz itz *MY* car..

and some freaking idiot have to come up with the silliest of points to talk abt smokers stretching out their hand while smoking?

what if a smoker stretches out his hand while smoking and walking? what happens if he hits against a non-smoking walker?

how abt banning ppl from drinking and driving? and i'm not talking abt alcoholic drinks..

imagine dropping ur coffee onto ur lap while driving..

and make it illegal for ppl to wind down their windows while driving.. especially if they rest their arm on the window..

or worse still.. what happens if a piece of paper flew out and hitz the visor of a motorcyclist behind you?

what happens if the flyers thatz stuck to ur windscreen that u forgot to remove fly while u are driving on the highway and hitz the poor fella?

letz ban ppl from putting flyers onto car windscreens..

remove all the ashtrays and the cigarette lighter and the cup holders in the car..

and make it illegal for ppl to squirt water to clean the windscreen while driving coz it will definitely hit the vehicle behind them..

when Henry Ford invented his car.. he didnt put in a radio.. coz he said that the radio has no place in a serious business like driving.. itz a distraction..

so remove the freaking radio..

dont even think of installing that iPod transmitter..

so now, i cant smoke when i'm driving..

and i cant smoke when i'm stuck in a traffic jam?

so why not make it that i cant smoke when the car is parked?

for some kids who are shorter than the height of the window might pass by and hit against my cigarette too..

so let's see whether would Singapore be the first country to ban smoking in the car after banning chewing gum..

till now, foreigners tell me that itz one of the first few things they remembered abt Singapore.. even if they had never been to Singapore and some of them, those locals in the countries that i go to, dont even know where Singapore is..

but they know u cant chew gum in Singapore..

and they laugh at it..

ok ok.. so.. it makes Singapore a lil cleaner and saves a lot of money rather than cleaning up the streets of the gums.. and u dont have to worry abt having gum on the seat of the MRT or under it..

i dont really care.. coz i dont chew gum anyway..

but i smoke.. and now some idiots still have to think abt proposing laws to ban smoking in my personal space..

i dont pollute ur air when i smoke in my own freaking car.

if u are a non smoker and u dont like me smoking in my car, i would just not invite u in..

take the bus.. ppl dont smoke in the bus..

unless they own the bus..

some Singaporeans think that they own everything in Singapore.. they have to be in control of every single thing..

a police officer told me recently that times had really changed..

last time, ppl used to be afraid of the police..

now the police are afraid of the ppl..

coz some Singaporeans who cant sleep at night will just wake up and think abt something to complain abt police officers..

I dont complain abt police officers.. i dont really care..

as long as they keep our streets safe at nite.. do whatever they wanna do as long as they dont commit crime and they are not corrupted..

but nooooooo.. Singaporeans think that they OWN the police force.. and they think they own everything that every one else own.. my car is their car too..

that might stem from the fact that we live in pigeon holes that dont even belong to us..

u dont even own a freehold condo.. if u buy one, after 25 yrz ur block will be deemed to be too old and en-bloc, and u will be relocated somewhere else and u will start paying the difference in amount coz the new pigeon hole is 25 grand more expensive..

so u own everything else that everyone else bought..

i wonder why Singaporeans cant just live and let live.. mind ur own affairs and let others mind theirs..

anyway, i just got back from Tokyo a few hours ago..

and i just found out that they sell iPods in every 7-11..

Tokyo had recently started discouraging smokers to walk and smoke.. sounds familiar..

but they created a smoking point at every street corner with proper stands and bins.. so smokers can congregate there and not irritate everyone else..

fair enough.. i think if u are a smoking Japanese living in Tokyo, itz a good place to mingle and get to know each other.. they are not short of cute girls smoking there too..

i wanted to take a pic of the smoking point but i didnt bring my camera with me..

anyway..

come to another point..

abt having no choice..

u have no choice to whatever race u are being born into..

if u are not white, u cant be white..

if u are not Jamaican, u cant be Jamaican no matter how much weed u smoke and how much Reggae u listen to..

dont even think of praying to Ras Tafari.. they wont even accept u into their religion..

i am a Pakistani..

and I mix ard with the Malays..

and I speak the language..

that doesnt make me a Malay..

but i do love the Malays.. no matter how much racist jokes i give them abt the Mats and the Minahs and the Dayong Sampans, courtesy of my Arab friend for whose name i shall not mention for his own personal safety.. I still love them coz they had been nice to me..

and they know itz a joke..

but whenever i make these kinda racist jokes, they would suddenly claim to be mixed.. and claim to be Indians or Eurasian or whatever..

ermz.. my great grandma was a Eurasian.. my granddad was a Chinese.. my stepmother is an alien.. all those, besides claiming to be a Malay..

or Chinese or Indians or whatever race they are from.. just that i dont dare to make racist remarks against the Chinese and Indians coz I am not racist.. and i dont want to be misinterpreted to be one..

but i know the Malays well enough to know who to tell and what to say..

u are whatever thatz stated in ur IC..

if ur race falls under the races thatz native to the Malay Archipelago, you are a Malay..

all of us are linked genetically to the Africans.. so why not we all claim to be Africans?

and so... like what Zainah mentioned.. some ppl have Arabtitis.. thinking that by smoking Sheesha and hanging out with the Arabs make them Arabs..

it doesnt.

an incident several months back.. at Starbucks, Siglap.. i met up with Suhaila Abdat.. and with her, some other Arab and Indian friends of hers, some of those whom I know.. and there was this Malay guy who was obviously Malay.. but when we were talking abt races, he's supposedly a Malay but one of his grandparents are Eurasian..

wtf?

Dok.. lu Mat lar.. apa mau cakap belit belit..

be proud of what u are.. u have no choice in that..

and those who wanna know abt Dayong Sampan, pi Dayong pelan pelan..

It's All About Choice

i forgot that i have a blog..

anyway, thanks to all those who tagged and those anonymous visitors who appeared in the blogpatrol counter..

i'm now in my hotel room in Los Angeles.. my 2nd Californian trip in 2 weeks.. not many things had happened since the last entry, but one of those not many things that happened is a big event in my family.. my youngest brother's wedding..

yeah.. the baby boy is married.. heh.. now.. THAT'S funny.. coz no matter how old ur youngest brother can be, he is still a baby in ur eyes.. so when i look at him and his wife on the pelamin.. it looks like two kids trying to get hitched.. but they are actually all grown-up alright..

i'll post up pics and comments later in this entry..

other things that had happened recently..

i was in Sydney..

i was in Hong Kong..

i was in San Francisco..

i was in Beijing..

i was in Tokyo..

and now i'm in Los Angeles.. going back to Tokyo tomorrow..

i saw a group of 5 helicopters in the skies together.. hovering near to Griffith's Park.. so somehow i had a sense that something had happened..

found out on TV that itz one of the daily high speed chases on the highway.. ended when the motorcycle overturned upwards and the rider being thrown backwards..

ok.. thatz it abt my flights now..

somehow.. i'm reminiscing my childhood days now..

i grew up being a delinquent..

and those days, it was quite unheard of for mothers to go to work, and those kids whoz parents are both working, and come home to an empty house, kids having their own set of house keys, were called Latch-Key kids..

the term now is gone coz everyone is Latch-Key nowadays..

i was a latch-key kid.. just that my parents were divorced when i was 8.. and only 3 yrz later my mom remarried to my stepdad, who i love dearly coz he had never treated me like a stepson.. my brother and i had always been like his own kids..

my real dad, who passed away due to cancer abt 3 yrz back had other responsibilities and it was quite rare for me to get to see him.. though when we did, he'll shower us with all the protectiveness of a dad.. and it was something that we treasured when we have it.. but after that several days with him, we will go back to our real lives and for months and months we will go without seeing each other..

i miss my dad though.. and his death is something that i still have yet to be able to come to terms with..

nowadays, kids are more independent that they know what to do and where to go.. back in the 70s and 80s, Singapore was very much different than how it is now.. there were no MRTs and the bus services sucks.. there were only SBS, and a dumb looking small bus that plies in the city, called CSS and the rest were private buses which charge cheaper than the Govt ones. all buses comes with a conductor who will recognise u if u take the same route 3 days in a row..

most families didnt have cars.. coz most families cant afford cars..

back in those days, a 2 hr bus ride is normal.. that is definitely not inclusive of the feeder services and the walk to and from the polluted bus interchanges.. just the freaking journey to anywhere takes 2 hrz..

Singapore those days somehow were painted dull.. i dunno why.. itz like the colours that u see on the 70s tv shows.. though psychedelic were born during that period, the disco eras and ppl started to paint their afro hair red and green, the buildings were still dull..

and the air was polluted from the lorries and buses and cars whoz transmission is not regulated and it was dusty and dirty.. airconditioners came about in the early 80s, replacing the rotating fans that were placed in shopping centres.. and somehow, the shopping centres seemed to be very gloomy and dark and with a stale smell of the new airconditioners which were fitted in buildings without proper ventilation..

the word Mall have not even been invented yet back then.. or prolly never caught on in Singapore..

at least.. those were from my eyes.. as a kid back then..

it was kinda of a rough city to live in.. if u happen to walk at the wrong side of town, and right in the middle of an estate where the homeboys rule.. be prepared to be beaten and robbed.. just by crossing their turf, u would have committed the biggest crime and u have to be prepared to face the fair judicial system.. by giving them everything they want..

of course, the term HomeBoys didnt exist back then.. but we had our share of ghettos..

almost every estate would have their ruling party.. and itz race dependant..

Bedok has a group of Malay Government called Black Coffin..

another group of rival Government owning the same turf would be the Chinese Sa La Kao..

Brickworks has another group of Malay Govt called Black Sondol.. and the Chinese Govt Sio Di Hoe..

somehow the Malays like to put Black in their Govt names.. just like the Black Metal group in Malaysia..

Alexandra has a Chinese Govt called Graveyard, Teban Gardens with a Malay Govt called Mafia..

Clementi has Jit Si that covers downwards towards Buona Vista..

one of the Clementi Jit Si bosses were shot dead by police detectives when they pounced on him when he was withdrawing his own gun to shoot at them at a coffee shop..

the Indians rule Woodlands and Yishun and probably have names that i cant pronounce.. if they had named their groups anyway..

every estate would have their own Ruling Government..

somehow.. these homies are now the pakciks and the ah peks and mamak that we see at the coffeeshops.. chilling out..

some would probably have grown out of it and open up their own shops..

some would probably have changed citizenship to permanently live in the prison..

some became police officers, some became real estate agents and some became businessmen..

some got killed and some died of cancer..

some had retired and now playing with their grandkids..

so.. point is.. to be a kid in the 70s and 80s has itz own challenges.. u need to be tough or u'll just be food for the crows and vultures..

i started smoking at the age of 10.. with my 2 cousins, one who died 6 yrz later when he was 17, and the other is now married with 2 kids after spending some stints in the drug rehabilitation centres..

i somehow played around with some of those drugs available back then, like marijuana, Roche, Erimin 5, Upjohn.. i think most kids back then will have them as their toys anyway.. i grew up just a lil bit later than the LSD phase.. so i wasnt caught up in that wave..

got hooked to drumming when i was 14.. banging to Deep Purple and Iron Maiden and Scorpions and King Diamond and Anthrax..

still hooked to drumming now.. but my choice of music had evolved from Metal to Grunge to Post-Grunge to Alternatives to NU-Metal.. and weirdly.. to Ska..

i had my fair share of being in gangs and fights.. though i refrained to commit sins involving money.. like stealing and extortion and gambling..

lessons in life..

to think of it.. i had never regretted doing what i did.. it was a part of growing up.. and somehow it gave me good insights of how things in the underworld works while i did my stint in the Police Force during my National Service.. and somehow, most ruffians that i had known when i was a kid ended up being good police officers till now..

and itz a good thing that i never got addicted to those stuffs.. except for smoking though..

reminiscing the old days..

and a good thing was that i had never been arrested for those kiddie sins and somehow learnt from it by growing up..

the economy was bad, and most of us didnt have any money.. so without that, comes a totalitarian way of life where other ppl decides what u should do..

so.. i'm gonna rant abt whatz in my mind now.. CHOICE..

it's all about choice..

something that most of us have not even thought of..

coz we grew up without a choice..

we lived without a choice.. we were born without a choice..

a whole life of ppl telling us what to do and what to say..

how to dress and how to talk and how to walk..

thru my growing up years, i have had ppl "advising" me on how i should behave and how i should think.. and these ppl arent even qualified coz their own personal lives sucks..

i grew up rebelling against whatever that they advised me on.. i was given a freewill to do what i wanna do.. and thatz what i chosed..

itz interesting to see how ppl live in other parts of the world.. in United States especially.. where everyone has a right to everything.. u cant impose somethings to some ppl and depriving them of their rights..

i was at a mall at Glendales this morning, and stated on every entrance are warnings abt chemicals that are used in those buildings.. those chemicals are present in most buildings everywhere else.. but here, u are given a choice whether u wanna come in or not.



if u do, then u cant sue them if u suffer from misfits from inhaling the air..

the ads on TV shows some FDA-approved medications that can help u with sleeping disorders and enhance ur sex life and for heartburn and etc etc.. but with all the ads, it will also state the conditions and the known side-effects and about consulting ur doctors..

they are trying to sell it, but they have a responsibility of informing u so u cant sue them if anything happens.. so, itz ur choice..

our lives are being dictated from the time we were born.. when u are in primary school, they decide on the path of studies u are supposed to take.. back in the 70s and 80s, most of us get into the Normal stream in primary school.. if u are a lil bit dumb, u get into Extended and spend 7 yrz instead of 6.. and most of these kids survive.. if u are totally dumb, u get into the Monolingual stream, and take up 3 subjects instead of 4, and natural progression of most of these kids were to go to VITB (currently called ITE), and they end up in prison for robbing old ladies..

i'm generalising and stereotyping.. but who cares.. it happens anyway..

i have a cousin though, formerly from Mono stream whoz currently pursuing his degree in RMIT.. and a friend who ended up in Extended and quitting school at 14, and currently holds a MSc and is one of the directors in a Japanese MNC..

but most of them didnt make it thru this way.. they didnt have a choice..

somehow, some ppl get a great sense of satisfaction when they get to control someone else's life.. they'll try to dictate ur every movements and every decisions that u should make..

some girls think itz their rights to decide when their boyfriends can go out to meet his friends..

some guys think itz their rights to decide whether or not their girlfriends can go down to the freaking shop..

i remembered a girl telling me that she have to ask for her bf's permission if she wants to go out to buy something from the shop under the block..

wtf?

and a guy who got pissed when he tried to call his gf but her phone was off?

insecurities will tell him that his gf was having sex with someone else.. probably a dog living next door coz he dont allow her to go down to the shop..

but couldnt it be that her battery just went flat?

or it was inadvertently switched off?

who cares? unless it was really a life and death matter, doncha think that u could call them back later? or leave an sms or a voice mail or whatever to tell them that u tried to call them just to say hi?

if ur bf leaves home without telling u.. would u blame him for not calling? what difference does it make? would u say no? is it ur rights to say no? couldnt u just pick up the phone to call him when u think that u wanna talk to him and hear his voice? or must he actually have called u out of "respect" to tell u that he's going out?

respect of what? of ur "decision" on whether he should or should not go out?

if somehow they were not informed about it, they'll throw a tantrum coz their RIGHTS to decide for someone else was taken away..

Guy: i'm going out..

Girlfriend: when?

Guy: now..

Girlfriend: u mean, u have planned it since just now and u didnt even inform me? u didnt even ASK me?

Guy: ermz.. yepz.. i'm chilling with my friends..

Girlfriend: when will u be back?

Guy: ermz.. i dunno.. i have not even gone out of my house.. i'm CHILLING out with my friends.. so therez no specific time.. if itz interesting, i'll stay on, if itz boring, i'll do something else..

Girlfriend: *bangs down the phone*

ermz.. it happened..

itz not like the guy had cancelled his plans to meet up with the girl just coz he wanted to chill out with his friends.. she was at home anyway.. whether or not he goes out..

i had been thru several relationships before where the girl decides to be a Dictator.. and from the first sense of it, i'll leave..

i am a bachelor by choice..

i make it clear to the girls that i started to date that i treasure my freedom very much.. and i wont let anyone take that away from me..

freedom of choice..

if i ever get married one day.. then i'll have to give it up and start compromising.. but in no way i'll ever let my family get dictated by someone else.. itz a matter of being able to choose together.. and itz still a matter of ur personal choice as a family..

i was being raised by my mom to make my own decisions.. whenever she needs to influence my decisions, she'll put it in a way that *I* had decided to do it that way.. ever since i was a kid..

of course.. my misdemenours were kept as secrets from her.. just not to let her get worried..

but she had never said no to any legitimate decisions that i made.. just that she will be there to troubleshoot those wrong decisions when it comes to a point where i wanna give it up and do something else.. she'll take the consequences in and solve it for me.. and that happened so often..

and with this.. lemme just put up some pics of the choice that 2 ppl had recently made..



My dearest baby brother, Azlan and his new bride, Yanti.. and i think he made a perfectly good choice in getting a wife..



My relatives..



Nervous.. just before the nikah.. but i think the father of the bride was more nervous..



My brother Azman with his son, Me, my Mom, my Stepmother and Azman's daughter, with the Bride and Groom..

my friends, Alfan and Wily attended the solemnisation in the afternoon.. and in the evening, met some of the old chatters that i have not seen for abt 5 yrz or so.. like Andre and Paiman.. along with some others of my friends, Maizie, Hainie, Ayu, and of course, Andrew..




after the wedding ceremony, i headed down to Johore with my mom and my elder sister and her 9 yr old daughter, to meet my elder brother who flew to Malaysia from Melbourne for a conference in KL..

and later that night, Maizie and his wife, and Meraj and Wati and Alfan came down for a surprise visit to my brother, whom they have not met for years..



Maizie, Me, My Brother, Meraj and Alfan..

ok.. some pics from the previous flights..

in San Francisco..



Market Street.. with a homeless with a yellow picket.. this is a common sight in any big cities in the United States.. somehow i think they can make a lil bit of money walking around with a sign saying that Jesus Christ Loves You.. not bad at all..



Union Square, taken from the balcony at Cheesecake Factory, at the top floor of Macy's..

Victoria's Secrets on the left.. the one with cars and yellow cabs in front of it.. a Disney store at the corner across the road just above it.. SAKS, and Tiffany's..

that's downtown San Francisco..



Cheesecake Factory.. where we had our dinner..



a stretched limousine.. which is another common sight in United States.. i wonder why we dont have it in Singapore.. might require a Class 4 driver though..

when it opens, i saw a plasma TV and a fridge with wine glasses inside..

i had lunch in an AUTHENTIC Indian restaurant.. as authentic as it is, the cook and staff there were Mexicans..

but not bad.. it tasted Indian..

and i had a Japanese Bento set just now at Glendale's.. and still.. cooked by Mexicans.. and it tasted Japanese..

the Mexicans here can cook AUTHENTIC anything..

and now in Hong Kong..

went down to the night market with my teammate, Azarina.. at Temple Street.. quite disappointing coz it rained just before and a lot of the shops were closed..



Temple Street..



Bright Bright Hong Kong..

basically.. thatz it for the flights..



to Yanti.. with lots of love, welcome to the family..