tipped!

i have joined the ranks of malaysians who gape at road accidents, today. but one couldn't help but look (and one had to carefully make one's way round the police-guarded heap of metal anyway) - a concrete mixer had flipped on its side at the junction of jalan ara and jalan maarof near the mobil station. from the position of the ill-fated vehicle, it looked as if it was coming down jalan ara at considerable speed and momentum, and flipped as it attemped to brake and turn left. hope nobody was hurt!

trivia: at this same junction, many years back, a lorry had lost control while speeding down jalan ara (which starts to slope rather steeply downhill towards the junction from quite a distance back), and plunged right into the compound of the house situated at the junction. - an incident my mom used to like to use as an example of a logical explanation behind the superstition that it's bad luck to have a house situated at a T-junction!

evil!

last night some young punk parked his car at the side-lane next to my house and started blasting music from his car radio into the starlit sky. at midnight. first it was a malay P. Ramlee-esque tune, and then some hip-hop by Nelly.

i wasn't asleep yet, but i was trying to read something and all that Nelly was beginning to bother me after a while. even my radio couldn't drown it out. not unless i upped the volume till my room turned into a disco.

so i whipped out my halogen torchlight (which beams penetrated even thick fog in winter back in University days), walked down to the 2nd floor leaving the lights off, opened the window that overlooked the side-lane, and blasted a beam of light down onto the windscreen of the offending car. you should have seen the guy's face as he peered up into the black void into the glare of the halogen torch. i think he got the message - he turned off his radio.

the next time he decides to blast music down my tranquil side-lane at unearthly hours, i shall cover my face with my green avocado face-mask, dress in black, walk out to the side of his car, and shine my halogen torch on my face. (and maybe take a photo of his expression and paste it up onto the net for all to see!) *evil laugh*

nouveau annee?

another new year..

i don't do resolutions cos i never remember them or the fact that i went thru the resolution process at all. perhaps reducing them into writing may help..

- try and squeeze some time out from study (it should be easier this time round, since there won't be any weekly groupwork)
- start studying earlier to avoid last-minute mess (it should be easier this time round, since there won't be any weekly groupwork)
- hit the gym (it should be easier this time round, since there won't be any weekly groupwork). achieve 25-inch waistline (yeah, right)
- eat healthily (this is gonna take some time. bakuteh and satay are hard habits to break)
- the domain name needs more to the website than index.htm
- watch all those DVDs which are currently crowding up the coffee table.
- read the newspapers
- room needs clearing up (still)
- guitar needs playing (still)
- violin needs playing (stlll)
- piano needs playing too!

and, by the way, to all ye who have been waiting patiently, 'grape' in french is 'raisin'. (now WHY didn't i think of that.) so Raisin au Fromage it shall be.*

*[What?] See, my usual party/potluck contribution is an hors d'oeuvre of grape and cheddar cheese on a stick. Never had a name for it (it was usually "Hey, dad, I'm heading out to get stuff to make the grape-cheese-thingy!" or "Hi guys, I've brought grape and cheese!" (duh)). At a recent Xmas party, the suggestion of "Chapes" was adopted for about fifteen minutes (punctuated by a possibility of "Greese") when it was unanimously decided that if any name were to be given to the glorious dish (ahem), it should be in French. Without much difficulty, 'cheese' was translated to 'fromage'. Since nobody had the foggiest as to what 'grape' was in French, the creative suggestion of "Nouveau vin", intended to mean 'new (i.e. untrampled) wine', was adopted till the end of dinner. It is with great delight to announce that the revered dish is hereby officially dubbed "Raisin au Fromage".