SeaDemon Says

I wonder if a busybody called Shikin is reading this now.

If you are, go buy a dildo and entertain yourself instead of adding fuel to fire.

No wonder you and her love politics.

POLY = many TICS = blood-sucking parasites.

It was a year ago that I wrote “Hey, I’m 40”.

The sun set just now as I was driving towards TTDI from PWTC after the end of the third day of MIDE 2007, signaling the end of the 40th year of this miserable life of mine.

Yes, miserable.

To tell you the truth, there have been several times that I’ve wanted this life to end. If happiness is what I cannot have, then I shouldn’t be here. I think I’ve been in more depressions than I have had happiness. Seven years ago people always wonder why I always open my parachute low after removing the automatic opening device from the reserve chute. Two years ago when the wife chose to do long distance quarrel from Beijing, I did three decompression dives in a row all in a day but never did any decompression stop and my buddies Dennis, Yusmar and Mervyn were horrified because towards the end I was so narced that I saw a pink Great Barracuda behind Dennis and Mervyn.

It is a bad thing cause the sport I love to have bad publicity just because of me. So I simply drive fast nowadays. I keep telling my wife that it is probably due to the fact that whenever I leave the house I come home in one piece that she takes me for granted, thinking that everytime I go out of the house, I’d come home alive or in on piece. Oh, there were several close calls when, in anger, I replied to her SMS and almost drove off the highway.

It’s 22 minutes to the end of my 40th year of suffering.

I don’t want to go through another year, please.

Time to relax a bit and talk about the world other than my own.

No, I’m not going to talk about Altantuya or C-TOS. I’m going to talk about global politics this time.

Recently there was a spate of terrorism acts in the UK. The UK authorities have done a good job in arresting suspects, and Muslim leaders in the UK were correct in distancing themselves from these extreme idiots and denouncing their acts. The acts, including the ramming of a passenger terminal at Glasgow’s airport, came as a surprise to the British authorities. However, it was revealed later that the US Department of Homeland Security knew about the imminent attacks on British soil, but prefered not to inform the new government led by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Welcome to the real world, Mr Prime Minister.

George W Bush was busy courting Vladimir Putin, that he invited the latter to his family home. It was an ad-hoc summit to discuss the working relationship between the US and the Russian Federation. The US was more interested in getting the Russians to play game in applying economic sanctions against Iran, while the Russians wanted to say their piece on the encroachment of US Missile Defence Umbrella in the former Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland. In the end, it is suffice to say that the summit ended miserably with a no-tie result.

Russia has everything to gain by NOT supporting the US stance. By supporting Iran, Russian has a card to play against the seemingly hegemonic approach provided by the US Foreign Policy. By supporting Iran, too, it would seem that Russia will have a plus point with the other Islamic countries, save for the ones under US “rule” such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and a few others. And by doing so, Russia can get support from the Islamic world, in ending the separatist terror in Chechnya and other minor Muslim republics. It is not that far-fetched, and Russia knows this.

Iran, too, has been playing its international cards correctly. It has cemented a anti-US pact with Venezuela. Ahmedinijad and Chavez both announced a US$2 billion rollover fund to counter US economic pressure n the two countries. And the Organisation of African Countries recognises these two countries’ effort in being non-aligned with the US.

So, it would be interesting to see this development as it goes along. We’ll see who will have the upper hand.

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.