Archive for May, 2008

28
May

The Conversation

Last night, a friend of mine invited me to go to her house because she knew what had happened. So I went there, had a cup of nice hot coffee, and we started talking.

“I was trying to help, but at the end, this is the result of my good intention,” I said, showing her the SMS that I received that day, “I practically put my head in the line, took the risk, spent the money to get the things done, but she did not appreciate it. Hell, she’s even calling me a liar now.”

She kept quiet. She knows very well when to speak and when to listen.

“Do you know that if anything were to go wrong, I would be in trouble? I will be the very first person to be in trouble because I put my head in the line for them to chop. Everything was planned accordingly, and everything was OK. Then at the very last minute, she wanted to put a stop to it. I had no choice put to do that. Yet, now, I was blamed for putting up a show and being accused for being a liar.”

She looked at me, not saying a thing.

“But I won’t blame her. Really,” I added, “because I know what she is going through and that’s that. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“You poor thing,” she finally said something, “you are just unlucky, that’s all.”

“You know, I went to the grooming room today and I saw Fluffy,” and I recounted the things during our short reunion earlier that day, “Do you know, from that very specific moment, I know something for sure. Yes, now I have a good steady job, I have a place where I can call home and I don’t even consider the house in my hometown as home. No matter what, even if there is a wife now at home, or even 4 wives, my life is not going to be the same again.”

I covered my face with my hands, inhaled deeply, and said, “Ever since I departed with Fluffy today, and not knowing when I will see him again, I just realized that my life will never be complete, at least for the time being. It will never be the same again.”

“Oh dear. You poor thing…” she said, and patted me on my shoulder.

I sighed, “I am okay. I will be okay. But I am not ready for this,” pointing at the phone, referring to the SMS, “I received the SMS when I was with Fluffy. I was so overwhelmed emotionally so I didn’t want to reply. She has the right to suspect anything she wanted to suspect. She has to right to call off this relationship. I know for a fact that no matter what I say at this moment, she will see it under a different light and she will continue to blame me. So I take my stance and I shall remain silent until the right time, even if the right time does not come.”

She took the phone, read the message, and said, “Oh my god, Adrian, does that mean…”

“Yes,” I interrupted her, “she wants a break-up.”

“Jessus!” she exclaimed loudly, “You guys have been going out for only 3 weeks!”

I smiled at her, a tired smile, “I know. This is also some sort of a record for me.”

She said, “But you did good, the things you have done for her. She just doesn’t know how to appreciate it. Give her time. I won’t be surprise if she were to SMS you tomorrow to apologize.”

“Maybe,” I turned and looked at her, “But I don’t want to give any hope on anything now. I don’t want to think about anything now. I am tired, not physically, but mentally exhausted. I can’t handle this now, so I rather not think. Right now I just want to keep my mind off things.”

“So what are you going to do when you get home?” She asked with concern, “Are you going to be OK?”

“Yes, I will be okay, as usual,” I replied, “You should know me well enough. I am a survivor. Besides, when I get home, first thing first is to light up the scented candle, and then take a long hot steamy shower, and use the Bodyshop Passion Fruit Body Scrub thing, and then just off the light and sleep as long as I want without waking up.”

She smiled, “That sounds like a great plan.”

“I know,” I answered, looking at the ceiling, “It’s not easy. But I got to move on. I don’t want to relapse back into depression again, so I must move on, and not think about it at the moment.”

“It’s not easy,” she said, “for the things that you went through. Don’t worry, things will get better.”

“I certainly hope so,” I answered, still looking at the ceiling, “Guess what. I think I will go ahead and get a dog of my own for companion. No one can replace Fluffy, but I really do need a good companion now.”

“That’s good!” she exclaimed excitedly, “You should have done that much earlier!”

“I know,” I explained, “but I was hoping that I would get the chance of getting Fluffy back. Now, the only hope is if she is migrating to U.S. with her father, only then she might want to let me take him. But she might send Fluffy to U.S. as well, you know, since money to them is just a small issue.”

I looked at the watch. It was pointing at 1:30am. I covered my face with my hands again, inhaled deeply, slapped my hands on my knee and stood up.

“I got to go,” I said, “I really need some rest. I have been tired and after seeing Fluffy, it was a mental drain for me.”

“You look tired. Go rest okay?”

“I will.”

I walked to the door, and while she closed the main gate, I turned, looked at her, and said, “I guess you can understand the feeling of not complete part.”

She looked at her living area, at the cats, and she said, “Yes, I can.”

“Night.”

27
May

it’s not easy…

I was at the Postal Office, waiting for the number in my hand to show up on the red LED screen over the counter. I was thinking mostly on the things that needed to be done, and how I wished the receptionist would move her fat ugly butt to speed things up.

Alas, it was my turn. I quickly ran to the counter, submitted my paper, and paid the fee required for printing the relevant document. Before I took off, I had the courtesy to make a few jokes with her, light up her day, and then I made my way out.

Suddenly I stopped short in my track. For some unknown reasons, I suddenly had the urge to venture upstairs to speak to the groomers at Pet Safari. Instead of running to the carpark, I detoured to the nearest elevator and went up.

Once I reached the grooming room, I looked around and didn’t see Jackie, my god-son the Golden Retriever. I waved to the groomers, said my Hi, and was about to leave when something caught my attention. I ventured nearer and there he was, Fluffy, in the cage, bangging frantically at the steel door, looking at me, desperately wanted my attention. When he saw that I noticed him, he wagged his tail so fast that it kept banging on the glass wall.

I was stunned. It has been more than 3 weeks since I last saw him. I was denied the chance to see him, hold him, hug him, kiss him, and play with him. Suddenly, for no apparent reasons, I saw him right in front of me, and he was so happy to see me.

I walked to the cage as quickly as possible without tipping anything over or kicking any wires. I opened the cage, and he jumped right out, stood on his hind legs, scratching my legs frantically as if asking me where the hell I had been and why didn’t I go to see him.

I felt a sharp pain in my heart. I kneel down, scooped him off the floor, and hugged him as tight as possible, inhaled as deeply as possible to take in the familiar scent of his, and kissed his forehead softly and gently. I whispered into his ear, saying, “Sorry dear. How have you been? Have you been a good boy? Daddy miss you so much, do you know that?”

He looked at me with those huge twinkling eyes, and started kissing my face. I hugged him more tightly than ever, and I had the urge of just dognapping him so that he could be with me, living with me, so that I can see him daily, play with him everyday, and to take care of him.

I looked at the groomer, and I asked, “What time is she coming to pick him up?”

“She will go to our house at night to pick him up,” came the reply.

“Okay,” I answered.

I put him on the floor, and he ran around me, circling my legs, scratching me once in a while, sniffing me as if trying to etch the scent of mine into his tiny brain. I called him, and we both walked out from the grooming room. I kept watching him, afraid that he would bump into something or lost, and he walked as fast as he could with his tiny and short legs to keep up with me.

I smiled. The first smile I had for weeks, a real smile that came from heart.

I took him to Starbucks, and after I have ordered my drink, I sat there, my eyes fixed on him, capturing his every movement, trying to remember the day as best as I could since I do not know when will be the next time I’ll be seeing him. He looked at me, sighed, and crept up next to my leg, and slept. We spent quiet moments together, and sometimes I would scoop him up from the floor, hugged him, kissed him, and talked to him about the recent changes, what had happened to me, updating him, telling him how much I missed him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t speak, or else I would kill just to listen to him telling me how he has been for the past few weeks.

Time, as we know it, tick at exactly per second basis. But under certain circumstances, the concept of time is different. At that moment, I felt that the second was ticking way too fast, and I was trying hard to slow it down. Very soon, the sky turned darker, and I looked at the watch; it was time to go, no matter how reluctant I was. I looked at him, and he looked back at me, as if sensing what I was thinking. I told myself, “Just another 5 minutes.”

The extra 5 minutes turned into 20 minutes, but I didn’t care. I hugged him again, played with him, kissing his forehead, and told him how much I love him and miss him. Then I inhaled as deep as I could, stood up from the chair, and started walking to the grooming room.

At that exact moment, my phone beeped. I looked at the message, and I sighed deeply. It was more bad news, and at that particular moment, I couldn’t handle it anymore, so instead of replying and explaining, I decided to ignore the message, and continued the difficult journey back to the grooming room.

I put him inside the cage, and he struggled and ran out before I could close the door. He knew what I was doing, and he wanted to follow me. I scooped him up again, and put him into the cage, and this time I succeeded in closing the door.

He looked at me with those twinkling eyes again, and I could tell that he was asking me why I wanted to abandon him again, leaving him there instead of taking him home. I kneel down, face to face with him, and said, “Sorry…”

I turned, and I walked out from the grooming room.

From that moment onwards, I knew, I realized, for a fact that, my life will never be complete again.

26
May

Lebuhraya Damansara Puchong

Last night, after I sent her home, I took the LDP (Lebuhraya Damansara Puchong, known as Damansara Puchong Highway) to go home. It was late at night, so there were not a lot of cars and traffic was smooth, a sign we don’t see often enough during daytime.

During the journey, my speed was not more than 60 kmh (kilometer per hour), and that’s a first for me except during traffic jam session. For my many years driving on LDP, I had never for once gone slower than 90kmh, and many times I would travel much faster (don’t make me say how much as the police might be reading this post and decide to summon me). The speed freak in me still alive, after so many years. I still like to drive fast, but I don’t drive recklessly like a mad man anymore.

Last night was also the first time that I took notice of the undulation on the highway, the street lamp that was missing in some section, and also the many drainage systems cover along the highway. Normally I would just speed past them, remembering which turning has holes in order to avoid them, but last night, I noticed all that along the whole stretch of LDP from Puchong to Damansara.

The stereo was tuned to 94.50FM, but it was barely audible as I turned the volume to the minimum. My mind was clouded, and I had to use all my effort to push away all the thoughts, the negative thoughts, to concentrate on the matter in hands. I couldn’t afford a distraction, so I lower the volume of my radio to the minimum, and I listened to my heart and soul, searching the next course of action, thinking on what I should do, what I should have done, and what I need to do.

Before realizing it, I turned to the direction to my place, and then I realized that I wasn’t ready to go back. So I went to the nearest mamak (wikipedia reference here), ordered myself a drink, and sat there, looking at the projector TV but not seeing a thing. My mind was still racing, but there was a sliver lining in the clouds and I was closer to seeing the lights, the truth.

Sitting at the mamak alone, drinking the hot Nescafe, watching the football game (no idea what it was as I didn’t pay attention), and thinking, and thinking. I was there for more than an hour, and finally, I inhaled deeply, and I took out my phone. I punched the number pad frenziedly to compose a SMS (Short Messaging Service) to state the things that had been clouding my mind. I read it again and again after composing the message, and when I was satisfied with the wording and the meaning, I hit the Send button.

I exhaled. The rock inside me has been released and I finally could breath again.

Then my phone beeped. I opened the message and the reply was totally unexpected. Again, I was surrounded by dark clouds.

21
May

Short Vacation

During the weekend, I went to Penang on a short break with her. Nothing fancy, just a weekend get-away from the crowded KL city lifestyle to relax and recover. So on Sunday morning, I picked her up from her house and then we went off to our 4 hours journey (actually it took us longer than that because we stopped by Ipoh for the fantastic food and also I was not in a hurry so I was driving pretty slow).

During the trip, we talked, and we talked. It’s about revealing our stories, our sadness, our happiness, our dreams, our hopes, our future, and many more. We could spend hours talking but it felt like there wasn’t enough time to talk about everything. We talked and showed our love towards our dogs, our dislike about people in general, and we found out that we have a lot in common. Sometimes it’s like we could see ourselves in the mirror when we look at each other, and a lot of times we can finish each other’s sentences.

We walked on Gurney Drive (the road along Gurney beach), enjoying the sea breeze (spoiled by the smelly trash that people threw), holding hands, walking leisurely, and talking. I told her many of the difficult times I went through, how I got my depression, and how I overcame this illness of mine. She told me about her stories, and I was touched by her stories.

No one is perfect, and all of us made our mistakes. I certainly knew I did a fair share of mine, and I was sad to hear the mistakes that she has made. How I wish I am a kick ass-vampire (immune to daylight, knows the secret that rice tastes better than blood ) or a kick-butt Aeon-Flux (cat-like assassin, engage in guilt free sex as hobby, orgasms every time, recovers and dresses up in 2 nanosecond). But that’s just fantasy and it will remain that way.

Then we went to Queensbay Mall, and we just walked leisurely, checking out the items, window shopping (well, its not like KL do not have the things they sold there, but its just some time together). She checked out the many outlets while I was waiting, and she waited for me while I was checking out the things that interest me.

After that, we explored the city, and stopped when we saw a street filled with hawkers. We walked around, spotted some famous Penang food, and we found a table to immerse ourselves into the great Penang food. The “Char Kway Teow” (fried stick noodle) is extremely good and not even a single store in KL/PJ is comparable to the one we took.

At night, we went back to hotel to rest. Rest we did, and we woke up early in the morning to continue exploring the Penang island. We talked, we laughed at our jokes, and we just happy to be able to spend time together. But the trip wasn’t perfect because our beloved four-legged sons were not with us.

In the afternoon, we packed and left Penang island, coming back to the crowded KL.

We had a great time.

17
May

Customer Service

The other day I suddenly had the urge to test drive the brand new Honda Accord (which I wrote about here), and to be honest, I had been checking it for quite some time. I was thinking to visit the Honda showroom, give it a test drive, and then go ahead with the purchase (like settlement on my current car, the sales and purchase procedures, etc).

So I set off to view it at the nearest Honda Dealership just nearby my office:
Sumber Auto Edaran Sdn Bhd
76B, Jalan Universiti, 46200, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

I don’t want to waste my time to describe in details of my customer visit experience there. But the summary of this whole saga is just this: extremely disappointed.

For the whole 20 minutes while I was viewing the car, checking the interior, sitting on the seats to find out how comfortable it is, peering into the engine bay, turning the knobs to get a feel, and not one, and I mean NOT a single sales representatives, walked to me to serve me. Some of them were just sitting around, ignoring my presence, and some were pretending to be busy doing nothing.

I stood there, looked around, sighed deeply, and just walked back to my car.

Okay, I might not look like rich guy (even though a lot of people said that I do look like one), but at least have a freaking courtesy to come and talk to me. No, not even a single person came to me to say HI or at least ask me “Hi sir, how can I help you?”

If this is the kind of customer service I am getting from Honda, I fret to imagine how they would serve me when my car got a problem.

My other Honda showroom experience at The Millennium Auto & Carriage Sdn Bhd (2007, Wisma Mofaz, Jalan Damansara, 60000 Kuala Lumpur) was just way better. So I think I will go back there to have a look again some time this weekend.

15
May

Going down

“You had gone down a lot,” a girl told me recently when I was in front of the payment counter.

I gave her this facial reaction —> o.O

At first, I wondered why would she say that. I am yet to turn gay, so why would I “gone down a lot”? (If you don’t catch the drift, ignore this post completely as this is the essence of the whole post) By the way, I just had a new romance interest with an opposite sex, so how is that possible that she thinks I had gone down a lot?

So I asked, “Why did you say that?”

She replied, “Oh no, don’t get me wrong. The face is still the same, but your body has gone down a lot!”

This time, my facial reaction is like this —> O.O

I looked at her, stunned, and didn’t know what to say. She returned the gaze, and finally she realized something, and blushed.

“I mean you lost a lot of weight,” she added quickly.

“Oh! That!” I said, “Yeah, been trying to lose some Michelin. So you mean my face is still HUGE?”

She blushed again, “No no, you slim down. What I meant was that you are still recognizable, but it is a big difference compare to few months back when I first met you.”

“No worries,” I smiled, “but I was wondering why you said I had gone down a lot. I am straight.”

This time, her facial reaction was first like this —> o.O, and then she turned this —> O.O

I laughed, and I walked away from the counter.

13
May

A Little Update Here and There

Some of you might have noticed that the frequency that I put up a post is lower, much lower, than the previous months. Unfortunately, the lack of update did not translate to higher quality post.

I apologize for that.

I have been very busy for the past month also, because there is a new venture for me and it takes up a lot of my time and energy. I have to give it an undivided attention to ensure fruition of the effort, and for that, I rarely spend time to do personal things during working hour. But I still try to whip out a post or two during lunch time because I do not have internet connection at my new place, so I do not have the luxury to write, double check, and post. All the previous few posts had been done in a rush, and few readers did notice the lack of quality of those articles.

Furthermore, after working hour, I would call up friends to catch up for old time sake. During the previous relationship, I shamelessly ignored my friends and as a result, the distance, not physical but emotional, between my friends and I had been great. So now, it is time for me to do damage control and salvage whatever friendships that I had left. I admit my mistakes, but life has taken its toll on me previously and I dare not let go of friends easily anymore.

Last but not least, I am venturing into a new relationship. For the first time, this is someone who does not require me to be a romantic hack. Instead, she appreciate who I am, a realist, and we are going towards the same direction as she is very down to earth, straight forward, and honest. That’s something I appreciate too. Most importantly, we don’t try to spend every single minutes of our free time to be together. After work, when we have time, we would meet up. Or else she would join her colleagues for drinks, or go home to company her mom and dog. For me, I would have dinner or drinks with friends whenever I am not around her, or sometimes I would go back early to do some house chores, read a good book, and things like that.

So yes, the new transformed life has taken a lot of my time. But those taken time are well fulfilled and it gives me immerse satisfaction. As a result, I didn’t have hours and hours, like what I did previously, to sit down and write, double check, edit here and there, double check, and post. Nowadays its a more straight-forward approach; write, post, log-out.

For my readers, I apologize sincerely for the lack of quality in my post, but I am working on balancing my life and also spending more quality time for myself. I am planning to subscribe to broadband, and when that happens, I will have more time to write and also ensure the quality of my post.

Before that happen, I hope you can tolerate my posts.

Thank you.

12
May

How much do you worth?

The other day I came across a website from another blog. It’s Human For Sale (no, for crying out loud, its not something kinky) and from the website, you can evaluate how much you are worth.

The interesting thing about this website is that it put a price on your age (older = cheaper), height, weight and all that into consideration. I can’t say for sure if the price tag them put is accurately reflected in the true value, but I am going with it as the fact that at least they put up a face value on almost everything.

I am not sure how much is the average, but looking at my value from the website, it didn’t look that bad at all.


HumanForSale.com - For Sale

Now, this is something different than the price of each and everyone before [here]. That’s the price, not how much you worth.

So how much do you worth?

09
May

A Good Time

It’s been a long time since I really had any good time and I almost forgot how it felt like. I think most of my readers forgot how a happy Adrian looks like as well.

But things are going to change soon. Because for the past one week I have been happy, and having a blardy good time! So if you are interested, read on. If not, well, you don’t care about my happiness so you should just read someone else’s blog.

Last Tuesday some friends invited me go for a golf driving range session near where I stay. I contemplated because I was tired at work and I didn’t bring my golf set, not to mention the proper attire. At the very last moment, at the very last turning on the highway, I put on the turning signal and turned into the driving range area. I parked my car, walked along the corridor and found my friends swinging their woods and irons.

I sat down, smiled and declined the invitation to play because I didn’t want to swear and stain my working attire.

And then, there she was. She just walked right into my life.

A friend of mine came late and he brought her to the driving range because he mixed up his appointment and so invited her along to join us.

She looked utterly familiar. I might have a bad memory for names, but I have a near photographic memory on people’s face, so I sort of recognized her, so I smiled at her, learned her name, and said, “You look familiar.”

Ooops. Old line. But I wasn’t joking and only later I found out that she attended one of my best friend’s wedding dinner just last year December (or was it November?). After further conversation, only then I found out she was sitting just a table away from me! No wonder she looked so familiar.

Anyway, we exchanged our phone number and we started to text each other quite frequently on Labor Day (that’s May 1st, for those who don’t know). By the way, she was on a trip for oversea vacation but we kept sending each other SMSs until she came back.

We took the first opportunity to meet up once she was back, and luckily her office is just 2 blocks away from mine. We met, we talked, and then we met again, and we talked more and more. Right now, we will find whatever opportunity that we can get to meet up, be it lunch or dinner. For example, I just came back from Johor on a business trip, and I came back early and she invited me out to company me for dinner, and we talked until 11pm.

Well, I won’t go into the details but rest assure that I have been happy ever since the day I met her.

08
May

Free R.P.K

Raja Petra Kamarudin, the owner and editor of the infamous Malaysia Today blog has been detained by police under the sedition act [here] on Tuesday (May 6th) after publishing the blog post titled “Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell” on April 25th, 2008. A very interesting read, I might add.

Now, in the old Chinese saying, “Kill one to warn many” and believe it or not, Raja Petra Kamarudin, or commonly known as R.P.K (his initial) is the first Malaysian blogger to be charged under Malaysia Sedition Act. Is this the warning to the people (blogger) not to write the truth or facts? Oh, did I mention that our dear people up there said they lost the general election to the blog-space before? So is this the way to ensure that they will win the next general election by jailing all the bloggers? Of course not. I think it is a way to stop someone like R.P.K when they get too near to the truth about the whole Altantuya saga.

Or some people are speculating that the government is using R.P.K as a test case because the Sedition Act has never been applied to a blogger before, so they want to see if it works. If it does, I believe more people will be dragged into the Sedition Act very soon.

After R.P.K was detained, there is an uproar in the blogger community to demand for his release. There was even an online campaign to raise fund for his bail, and rumors has it that the online portal has raised more than RM20K. Furthermore, there will be a Candle Light Vigil at Dataran Merdeka at 8PM on May 8th for the release of R.P.K. Go show your support if you want to because it is good that some one speaks the truth for a change. What we heard over the mainstream media are nothing but lies, and reading R.P.K’s post is like a fresh air, a change of time. But the truth in those posts are questionable, just like what the mainstream medias are reporting. But I choose to believe as I think R.P.K will not post something without the backing of some evidence.

My heart goes to R.P.K and I hope he will get out of this mess in one piece, and I will pray for his release. If not, if the cronies win, more bloggers whom dare to speak the truth will be put away for a long long time.

If you want to support R.P.K. but don’t know how, here are a few things you can do:
1. If you have Facebook account, join Support Raja Petra Kamaruddin [click on the link here].
2. Join the Candle Light Vigil at Dataran Merdeka on May 8th at 8pm.
3. Donate money.




 

May 2008
M T W T F S S
« Apr   Jun »
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  



Archives

Categories