Category: What da f***!!

Here you go…one of the Transformers.

I wrote the following in a political forum this morning after having completed a political speech for someone:

Apabila wang menjadi tuhan
Maka diri tiada bernilai
Yang kaya bertertawaan
Yang miskin hampas tersadai

(When money becomes the aim
Self-dignity goes down the drain
The rich cling on to their fame
The poor continue to wallow in pain)

For the past two nights, I have been whacking two lamb kebab sandwiches for dinner…each night. Don’t ask me why. It must be the medication I’m on. But then again, some two weeks ago I was hunting for lamb kebabs at a Lebanese restaurant. There are locals selling kebabs but are mostly beef and chicken. Chicken is okay, but lamb has that distinctive taste. It’s bad…but it’s nice.

My first taste of lamb kebab sandwich was back on Boxing Day of 1980 at Picaddilly Circus in London. We had arrived from New York, smack bang in boring old London where everything was closed for Christmas and Boxing Day…and our saviour was this kebab joint there. As a student I would save up just to be able to eat my lamb kebab sandwich there. Just there, and nowhere else. Not even at the arab enclave at Bayswater would draw me away from the joint at Picaddilly Circus…and I was staying near Bayswater then (Porchester Terrace to be exact). So, imagine, I’d walk to the Queensway tube station, change trains at Oxford Circus, and down to Picaddilly Circus just for that (I never took the bus).

I don’t think I ever had lamb kebab again until 1998 when I performed my Umrah (minor pilgrimage). I had my first lamb kebab for buka puasa (breaking of the fast) in Madinah, and sat on the floor, in the open, with several pilgrims from Indonesia. It was during the Asian Financial Crisis, and I pitied them who were eating yogurt with salad. So I shared my lamb kebab with them (in Madinah, the portion’s huge). The next year I would do the same again, this time adding another joint above the Marwah hill in Mecca as a favourite joint (this joint had fresh mango juice. Just mango..no water or sugar added. Indah Water would have loved me if they were there to suck sh*t). Then, my one month in Mecca and Madinah in 2001 during my Haj, I had lamb kebab everyday until I got so sick of it and vowed never to eat lamb kebab again.

However, in 2003, I missed that distinctive taste again. And in Geneva, my colleague and I frequented this Lebanese joint and pigged-out. It was lamb kebab again from the moment we arrived, until the day we left Geneva. And this happened again during the next trip to Geneva so much so that I got special discounts for my visits there. Well, I tried the one at the Lebanese Restaurant at the President Wilson Hotel (on Quai Wilson, 5 minutes from Lac Leman) but it can set you back by close to RM200 just you alone. So the RM24 per piece lamb kebab sandwich at that joint by the rue de Lausanne (on the way to the Gare de Cornavin) was the best choice…and cheap by Geneva’s standards (a Big Mac can set you back by RM15).

After that it was the usual trips to Kyros Kebab…now that is where I get my lamb kebab sandwiches from.

My doctor’s going to kill me.

Went for it this morning.

I am not happy with the result.

Now my medicines alone cost me more than RM1k.

Dang! 😦

Thursday – 28th July 2007…my next medical…JENG! JENG!

People come, people go! How long I’ve got I just don’t know!

Choy a.k.a Metalized will be coming back from China on 10th July, oneday after my 41st birthday. Maybe he’s finally tired of the “dragon ladies” and reading Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book of Fables. I got to know this from Icecool a.k.a Tony. So I have forwarded the following message from Icecool to Countloon and Mocha:

Fm: Icecool
To: SeaDemon, Countloon, Apek Ming
Info: BAKAT
Perjenisan Keselamatan: RAHSIA
Nombor Penghantar: G/01

Op Saving Kpl Choy. WNGO 01/07. One. Bde is to conduct attk on en posn & save Kpl Choy. Two. Three Hour Notice to mov fm Delta minus 101750H. Three. OGP at Bde loc at Delta minus 101800H. Four. No mov before Delta minus 101750H. Five. To bring one day attire n enuff $. Ack.

Countloon replied with the following:

Saving Kpl Choy brought to you by Icecool, producer of Terminator 9, RMK 15, Jangan Pandang Pandang, Sepet Sikit and Transformer TNB.

Hahahaha!

I was asleep with the notebook on my chest when Besut Stud buzzed me informing that he would be having lunch at Uptown. So I sent my kids to school and went to join him and the rest at this new restaurant. Azlan Chao a.k.a DITC had wanted to join us as he was nearby but because he was with 4 other colleagues, he decided to show that he is potentially a good employee.

What did we have for lunch? Well, if you want to taste a fish that sweats, has three distinctive tastes including sour, this is the place to be.

Or maybe it includes the sweat of the chef.

For those who received a SMS message from me early today would have read the following interview by The Star – Farish: Look to Indonesia.

Thursday June 14, 2007

Farish: Look to Indonesia

By LOH FOON FONG

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia and the rest of the Muslim world have much to learn from Indonesia’s progressive approach in Islamic education, said political scientist Dr Farish Ahmad-Noor.

Indonesia had a big number of moderate scholars that even if a few radical groups emerged, the mainstream groups would quickly silence them, said Farish, an Institute of Strategic and International Studies consultant.

During the Suharto era, the Muslims expanded on cultural Islam rather than dogmatic politics-based Islam, he said. After that, it was taught in a scientific way.

In comparison, Islam in Malaysia is politicised and there is no independent space for it to be in the public domain, he said when interviewed at the ISIS International Affairs forum on “Jihad revisited? Shifting dynamics of radical movements in Indonesia” yesterday.

While banning militant groups worked, he said he was concerned that if there was no deep understanding of religion at the public level, the state would continue to be the “big brother.”

“What if one day the state is replaced by a fanatic prime minister? There will be no mode of civil defence underneath. This is where Indonesia is different from us.

“The rejection of terrorism in Indonesia did not come from the state but from the people. They didn’t want to see mosques or churches or Bali or Jakarta bombed,” he said.

Farish said Malaysia, in the 1920s, was more open, with people discussing the applicability of syariah law in the modern world and the role of Islam in politics.

Syed Sheikh Al-hadi, for instance, wrote Hikayat Faridah Hanum, the first modern Malay literature about women’s rights.

Farish, a visiting professor at the Sunan Kalijaga Islamic University in Jogjakarta, said he is often asked: “Why is the interpretation of Islam so narrow in Malaysia when historically and culturally we (Malaysia and Indonesia) are similar?”

I would agree with him that most Muslims have a narrow yet shallow understanding of Islam because to them, what the ‘scholars” say goes, and to go against the “scholars” would be regarded as unIslamic.

They fear the “scholars” more than they fear God Himself. Now, what does Islam say about blasphemy?

Oh, one former neighbour in Gombak, a staunch member of a certain political party, who could have made it as the Director-General of Melaka’s Skuad Skodeng was once being busybody with me. I had just arrived from a long-distance drive as he was leaving for Maghrib (dusk) prayers at the nearby mosque when he asked me in English, “Not going for prayers?”

“That’s okay,” I replied with a sigh. “Maybe later.”

“You should come to the mosque often because we never see you there for prayers nor for the ceramahs. We are all God’s soldiers and we must soldier on for his cause. I’m sure you understand that because you were a soldier once,” he began lecturing.

“I am one of God’s Soldiers,” I replied, disgustingly. “The only reason you people don’t see me is because I am in God’s Secret Service.”

It’s what? June 9th today and do you also know that they year is 2007? The year 4 billion tourists should be flocking to Malaysia to visit it? I was talking about this with one of the divers recently and among the things mentioned was that VMY2007 lacks the hype…or shall I put it bluntly: NOT ONE CRAPPITY SMACK HYPE except on New Year’s eve of 2007 last December.

A reader of from Kent, England wrote in today saying how Tourism Malaysia has failed to promote Malaysia in England. I don’t think it’s just England. Even Malaysians don’t know it’s VMY2007 unless they pass a billboard saying it is.