My rant to no one

Today, my friend waited in the car (double parked) while i ran up to the computer shop to get something. Halfway through the process of negotiation with the ahbeng upstairs, I got a call from my friend screaming "OI! someone just banged your CAR!!!"

So I ran downstairs, and saw this chinese man in his fifties, who could have been my uncle. He was coming out of his car park with his old cefiro (unclemobile), and had reversed straight into my car, giving my friend a big jolt and denting my door so badly that the alarm no longer works. And he was blaming me for parking there.

USE YOUR FUCKING EYES la, uncle. My friend is there in the car, just ask him to move the car if your estimation has gone down with your ability to make babies. Anyway, to those with problems visualising the situation, here is an illustration done in MS Paint.



Pretty obvious, no? But, of course, Malaysians will never admit to being wrong in a car accident. So they cling to some excuse that the other person is somehow wrong. some of them actually believe it. Like this dude.

So I come out of the car, and he starts blaming me immediately. I can feel myself getting angrier, and he has kids (ugly as they are), so I decide to just remain calm, get his number plate and car model, take some pictures and ask him to meet me at the police station (a place I'm rather familiar with).

When I get there, he's nowhere to be found. So I go ahead and report the incident. The cops are fairly sympathetic (as they usually are before they get their bribes), so I ask them what happens next.

A. He reports it, and I come back the next day to get his details down to call him (yes, in my anger i forgot to ask for contact details).

B. He doesn't report it, I don't get to claim my insurance and all he gets is a BLACKLIST status that can be cleared with a 50 ringgit excuse note from our Sultan.

FUCK THESE DAMN COPS. Seriously. This isn't the first time either. The last time I got rammed by some drunken truck driver with a fake numberplate, he got off scot free and I wasted my goddamn time reporting the incident. Nothing ever happened after that. No follow up, no phone call.

But oh, when you don't pay your summons, they send cops to your house. Where are those cops now? Aren't they supposed to help me find the impotent uncle? No, they're off harassing someone else for money, and justice is a word mentioned only once in this blog. Yes you just saw it.

Now you wonder why the crime rate here is so high. People can commit crimes left, right and centre, knowing that money (or just plain old laziness) will get them off. Once, a cop followed me through an illegal u-turn to give me a summon. Talk about ironic.

And the icing on the cake? I just got a call from the cops. Apparently, I was double parking, so neither of us get to claim insurance, and both of us get fined. I don't know about you, I define parking as leaving your car unattended. What say you?

So now, having been an innocent bystander, I not only have to pay for the damages to my car, I also have a new summon to contend with, for GODDAMN double-parking.

FUCK the Malaysian Police. You're all a goddamn embarassment to a country with no shortage of them. Come and arrest me now.

Yes, I am angry now. No, it will pass fairly quickly. I will upload a picture of the small-penis uncle later, so you can check if he used to be your high-school teacher, stepfather or lover.

Today, I was killing time between two events and decided to head down to Low Yat to exchange some bad PC game copies that i bought a while ago. With my luck being what it is these days, I came on the day that the PC game stalls were anticipating a raid, and were all closed. A little frustrated, I grabbed my copy of F1 Racing April 2006, and went down to a cafe on the ground floor to have a lemonade and a pretzel to go with my magazine.

So I was down there, having a ciggy, reading about how Renault is the most awesome team in F1, when i noticed that the railing i was leaning on was shaking. I looked around and saw this girl behind me, sobbing to herself in Chinese. I looked at her for a while, and waited to see her face (boys will be boys). It took her a while to look up, but when she did, she was above-average looking, although I think she'd be prettier if she was happy.

I held the thought for a while, and was wondering whether I should buy a drink and go over. Then I hesitated. What if she was a nutjob? What if she didn't speak English (my chinese isn't quite good enough for consultation purposes)? What if she was cranky or started following me after I bought her the drink? I don't want that kind of responsibility. I also hate awkward moments. Then my thoughts ran to times that I've been in the same situation, sitting in a public area depressed to myself, watching people walk by, just hoping someone would give a shit.

As my thoughts were fighting each other, I looked at my lemonade for a while, then decided something warm would be better. I looked at the menu at the cafe, and decided on a warm cup of tea (RM2.50).

I looked at her again. A rough guy and a middle-aged auntie talked to her briefly, and then went away. I looked back at my magazine, and tried to distance the thought away. Procrastinating. I realised that if I didn't do anything, I would regret it at some point, so I decided to go ahead and buy the tea first, and then after that, there would be no turning back.

So I got up, trying not to look at her (i didn't want her to think I WAS the nutjob), went to the counter and asked for a cup of tea. They were busy with this other Malay dude, so I waited. Just as I got the tea (and I am telling the absolute truth here), the rough guy (apparently her so-called boyfriend) and middle-aged auntie came back, talked to her, and led her away. So I sat back down, sipping the tea that was now mine, and my mind wandered for a bit.

Shit, I almost got whacked. What if the guy thought I was trying to pick her up?

Then I sort've regretted not goin over there earlier. Then I didn't. Then I did. Finally, I decided to take the chicken exit and called it fate.

I actually hate the term of fate. Like Neo said, "I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life". But it's a convenient excuse or decider sometimes, nonetheless. Still, back to the main topic, I think that we often hold ourselves back from connecting with people, afraid of the responsibility or the consequences.

I think I'd feel alot better now if I had actually just given her the drink and said something profound, like "Life goes on", or just a simple "are you ok?".

I remember once, during my college loser days, when I found out that I got invited to a party just so everyone could give me a nice whacking. It's not a nice feeling, and it lasted till the next day. I was sitting in front of college, and this rather pretty girl (I still remember her name - Joy Ee) came up and asked whether I was okay. I'd met her once or twice before, but we were acquaintances at best. I told her I'd gone through some rough stuff lately, but that I would be fine. She asked if I was sure, and i nodded. She patted me on the back, and said "Take it easy" and walked off.

And immediately, I started feeling better. The worst feeling isn't rejection, it's loneliness. Sometimes as humans, we just want someone to care that we're alive, and care how we're doing. That a relative stranger could care about another, gives me alot of optimism about the world. Optimism that I wished I had enforced today.

Today, we went to one of those expensive red-tablecloth restaurants for dinner to celebrate my granma's 83rd birthday. After a rather good dinner, me and a bunch of relatives packed into the lift to head down to the car park again. I held the door as my aunties, uncles and cousins piled past me, barely leaving enough space for myself. I was surprised the lift didn't start beeping from the weight. I settled into the front as the door closed.

"Eh... going up la..." exclaimed one particularly observant uncle.

So the lift went up to the top floor and binged open. THEN it started beeping.

Like WTF? Of course, everyone waiting at the top floor saw the situation and were giggling like schoolgirls. So I got out at the behest of my relatives, and the lift stopped beeping immediately. I got back on, and it started beeping again. So I got off, and was now stuck on the top floor waiting for the lift to go all the way down to the ground floor, and then come up again.

This reminds me of my other tragedy with a lift where i was playing with my parking ticket when it suddenly came loose, and floated like a magic carpet towards the lift door in slow motion.

Then PAP! It landed flat on the door, and proceeded to slip down into the depths of hell. *sigh* 20 bucks gone.

Of course, it's not just lifts... that would be too boring. It's also chairs, bicycles, cars, taxis and ahbengs that add colour to my sitcom life, but I think most of you have seen those episodes already.

Man....

Today, I was walking my dogs around my neighbourhood. Behind GoMD's house (which is sorta near mine), there's this block of newly built apartment blocks which are quite nice. Thought I'd check it out, going through a backroad that I know that seemed directionally correct to get there.

But as I walk the backroad, I realise that it doesn't really lead me to anything but the squatter area that's always been there. I thought they'd have cleared it away by now. So I turned back with both my dogs, and started to walk home, realising that this was the perfect metaphor of my relationship with GoMD.

I genuinely like GoMD alot. I've written this section a few times and deleted it over, cos any words that I use to describe her have already been taken by cliches. Gorgeous, funny, cute, smart (when she needs to be). And she's got the most amazing shoulders that you just know would be fantastic to rest your chin on after a long day.

Long story short, she's with someone already. Long distance. 10 months or something like that. Me n her have been very close these past few months, while he was away. Now i think I can usually tell the difference between friendship and DLL (Dan lain lain). And from the bits and pieces that I told my closest friends, most thought that this one definitely fell in the latter category. I'd never even dared to hope, but I guess I started to, soon enough.

Ok. So the story really ain't that short. Sorry. But anyway, we've been really going out alot these past few months, this is after I'd already confessed my feelings (she asked). Honestly, I was damned sure on this one, cos it seemed like we got even closer after that.

Anyhows, her LDR drops down, looking to settle down here, and of course, like any real man would do, I haven't seen her since. It's been three weeks. Three weeks of wondering, of waiting, and wanting. And she'd never ever told me a straight out no.

Until today.

I'm crying on the inside. Really, I am. You get to a point that you wonder all that bullshit about whether it pays to be a "nice guy" and all that. You hope that somehow a miracle Hollywood ending will take place and it'll make all the uncertainty and effort worthwhile. You smoke a ciggarette. You listen to "Sparks" by Coldplay.

And you stop typing, because you really don't feel like saying much else.

I had an epiphany today. In fact, it just happened. Less than five minutes ago. I'd just finished watching The Weatherman (now crowned The Movie That Best Describes My Condition), and I was thinking about GoMD and some other things, and an idea popped into my head.

What if I were to start a forum in which people could ask questions about love life? Then I went online and sure enough, there's LoveForum.net.

Wow.. that was like the shortest epiphany ever.

Anyway, I feel myself having another one right now. What if, you didn't have to sign on for membership or anything like that, and you just submitted your advice under Positive, Negative or Neutral? That way, depending on whether someone needed to drown in their sorrows or hear some optimism, the choice was theirs.

I just wanted to type in an example of myself and my current situation, but i figure that might be too much information to divulge on something like the internet.Someone once said that blogging should only be done in happy moments. In that case, I'd better shut the hell up right now.

Sigh. Self Censorship. knew it would happen someday.

PS: Hey... does anyone think the Loveforum idea is cool? If it's been done before, I'd like to see the link. Otherwise I'll propose it to my lead guitarist cum internet marketeer.

So today, me and two recently-singled friends of mine decided to do something different. This weekend, I've been given the privilege of reviewing the most expensive car I've ever had the pleasure of driving. It's an Audi A6 Quattro 3.0.

We figured 3 guys, all single with a nice expensive car... we'd go to Zouk, valet-park in front and go inside to see whether we had what it took to chat up a total stranger (female). None of us had tried it before, so there was no wisdom going into it. More importantly, there wasn't any pressure either.

Valet was fun, with the valet-dudes being extra polite to us 'rich spoilt brats'. We got inside, liquoured up a bit, and started checking out the scene. It being Velvet, there wasn't a shortage of good-lookin women, and some of them were conveniently in girls-night-out mode, dancing right in front of us. But we couldn't do it. We couldn't just walk 2 metres, and say hi, despite a few of them giving us coy glances.

Still, it was a good experience. I think at the end of the day, we found out that we just aren't wired that way. Maybe it's a product of our unhappening childhood, maybe it's just that each of us was checking for messages the entire night from the respective real women in our lives.

I've decided that I'm just not the guy who can go up to a girl, start a conversation, and feel totally at home with it. I just feel fake. And I end up just missing GoMD more.

Yet at the end of it, the three of us had figured out a life-experience together, and come out realising that we're the same chickenshits. In a weird way, it sort of felt good, knowing that we were one and the same. We had a good laugh about it, collected our car from the valet and proceeded for some indo-mee goreng.

I think it'll be a while before we do this again.