That’s suppose to be your bid to vie for a position with a handsome paycheck that he wanted to hire for his team.

How do you reckon would the engineering manager react?

a) Ask for your credentials, qualifications, experience and a barrage of questions before asking you to go home and wait for his phone call.
b) Ask you to fuck off.
c) Hire you on the spot.

If you’ve been around looking for jobs, most likely you’ll pick (a), if not (b) – because nowadays, you can’t simply show up to whore yourself and expect people to hire you happily. You apply for a job, and get shortlisted before you can even get to speak to the fucking manager. So, it’s very likely you’d get escorted out by the security if you show up without an invitation..

Anyway, what happens if you do not have a track of records, or the required experience to fit the job? You will not get hired. Well, unless if you’re a hot girl and the manager’s a pervert but that’s beside the point. So what do you do after that? You can try harder. But if you fail for a number of times, circumstances will force you to go for a job with lower requirement, and of lesser importance. Even when you get hired to a job, you’d get a probation period before you’d get a permanent employment with full benefits. If you can’t perform up to the expectation, you’d be booted out. Basics of survival in the working world. Everyone goes through the same shit.

But what about our members of parliaments or state representatives? How do they get their job? For some strange fucking reasons, it doesn’t work that way for them. They get voted into office, and to get shortlisted, they’re nominated by someone you do not know in a political party. You do not know their qualifications. You do not know if they have experience. Hell, you do not know if they’re even fucking fit for the job. All you see, is their names when it is near the election date. You do not get to review a list of qualified applicants vying for the position, or get to shortlist the good ones. All they do, is convince you with words that they’re awesome for the job, and you should totally vote for them. When I wanted to vote, I see 4 – 5 names on the ballot paper, that I do not know. So I had to vote for the political party which I think is the most prospective one. Go figure.

Having said all that, can’t you see what I’m seeing? Isn’t this the same scenario as the example given above about whoring yourself in front of the engineering manager and hope you’d get hired? Sadly, it’s like that in the political world. Politicians whore themselves in front of us with merely words (and accusations). Most of them, have zero track records. Just names. And I’m expected to trust them with blind faith. It doesn’t work that way for me. That, my friend, is my qualm about democracy. It’s flawed.

And what if the person you’ve voted doesn’t win? You’ll have to deal with the nincompoop who got elected (whom you didn’t vote) for the next term and be content with him. !@#$%^&*()

In my world, I’d say, these people should prove themselves first. Much like a probation period. You want to be a wakil rakyat/MP? Do something that makes me happy or meets my needs. Repair some longkang. Patch some potholes. Do some flood mitigation project. Solve the crime problems in the neighborhood. Whatever. Just get a good track of records first. Then the party (or public) will review your performance and decide if you’re good to be shortlisted and subsequently, nominated as a candidate. You’ll be competing with the other assholes who are trying as hard to vie for the position, so it will be all good for the community. It will force you to be on the ground and get dirty with the people. You’ll be forced to gain the trusts through real work, not just some empty talk/promises. If you’re better than the others, you’d be voted into office and appointed as the representative in the state assembly (or parliament). If you fail, well, try harder. That’s what I call a real ‘meritocracy’ – at least in the world according to me.

Because we’re not like that – I reckon – we get all sorts of incompetent shitfucks running the government and equally useless simians populating the opposition parties. Just look at the headlines lately, some MCA / PCM dickheads ranting in the mainstream media that they’re withdrawing all support for the people because they’re not getting enough votes. (It should be the other way round you fucking idiots! People won’t vote for you if you can’t prove yourself useful!) I always like to say, voting for me is like given a choice to eat either a cockroach or a stinking bug. I just have to choose the one I dislike least. Why can’t we be given a choice of choosing someone really good? That’s because we do not have a check and balance for these people. It’s the system that failed us.

First, let me introduce the terrible family of 4 – the dad was fair porcine guy with thick specs, and the mom was a this short fat fucking bitch who had an ass so huge that it dimpled even her pants. With them, were 2 kids – boy aged about 6, and the girl about 2.

When we reached there, we initially thought we’re going to have a tough time putting up with 2 obnoxious kids next to our table (because, you know, they seem to fit the profile). But we couldn’t have been so wrong. It was the fucked up mother that was the worst. When she first saw us, she started by loudly exclaiming ‘Oh no, I hope the other patrons won’t mind sitting beside us because our table would be so noisy!’. I immediately knew that we’re in some kind of a trap, and avoided eye contact immediately… but my wife being a somewhat friendly person, did a grave mistake of smiling back at her. It was one of the many things she regretted in life.

It started after we sat down. The bitch started her drama by starting to talk to her kids in fake Queen’s English accent loudly – which got both her kids startled, because it was so strange seeing her mother suddenly being such a strange attention whore. When she figured that we weren’t interested, she would spontaneously break into an unprovoked cackle, and prod her husband for a reassuring response. Then she’d again look at us if we’re reacting in any way. At that time, Emily and I started to get really scared, and we were trying not to move too much – just like what people say about feigning dead when you’re near a rampaging bear. Regine on the other hand, was all pale and quiet because she was so fucking scared that the bitch might charge at us with a fork or something.

The wacko fat bitch would go on babbling non-stop loudly (her peripheral vision all the while trying to catch us paying her the attention she vied for), sometimes she’d yell at her kids for no reason at all and if not that, she’d suddenly preach them about science, tell them about English grammar and some other shit that didn’t fit in a restaurant. The husband would laugh retardedly at every single thing she said. The daughter would cry on and off (probably scared at her mad mother) and the boy would just behave like a spoilt fuck like dumping the utensils on the floor, and saucers into the pot of steamboat (because her mother’s nuts).

I was both scared and mad at the same time. The right thing to do, would have been to usher my wife and kid out of the view, before I shove the scorching hot electric steamboat up her dimpled ass and beat her to pulp with a ladle. Then I’m going to cook her kids and husband. But that could only remain a black and white thoughts of fantasy because we’re living a society that practices courtesy and we’re bound by the penal system. I wish I could do something about it but I couldn’t. So, I just hoovered my food with a straight face until the dysfunctional family finally left and only then we managed to properly eat our lunch in peace.

When my wife found out about the incident, she discussed it with me, and told me about her intention of wanting to talk some sense into that samseng girl, to which I opposed. My argument is, YOU SIMPLY CAN’T TALK SOME SENSE INTO A 7 YEAR OLD. If they have senses, they wouldn’t be watching shits like Barney or Barbie. I told my wife – If you talk to her, she’d just hear a bunch of bullshit and probably gonna nod or something, and then she’d go back to business as usual. How do I know that? Well, I was once like that samseng girl. I could imagine myself in her shoes.

It happened when I was also 7 years old (Standard 1). I was in a fight in the schoolbus I was in, with an Indian boy named ‘Xavier’, who’s 3 years my senior (Standard 4). Let’s just say, it didn’t go quite well for him. He ended up with some really nasty bruises, and a bite mark that scared his parents shitless (yes, I bit him. He tasted like curry). What happened next was hilarious. Xavier summoned his father to ‘talk some senses’ into me. You know what happened? I didn’t hear shit. All I remember was Xavier’s dad standing next to the schoolbus window (that I was hanging out next to) like a fucking idiot talking loudly to me, emotionally charged. The only thing I had in mind then, was how hard I am going to laugh at Xavier’s ass for being such a loser, and how much harder I am going to hurt him in the next fight. See my point? Kids don’t give a shit.

But I know, the situation would have been different if Xavier took it to the school and had me incarcerated. I’d be shitting in my pants (for some strange reasons, kids are scared of authorities). So, that’s why I suggested my wife to take it to the class teacher instead. That samseng girl will definitely pay some attention that way, and she will get monitored by that teacher. And if we’re really lucky, she might even shit her pants, and she’d think twice before messing with anyone again.

And Emily did just that. Too bad the samseng girl didn’t shit her pants. But I think I’m going to send my daughter to a Taekwon-do class that I’ve been wanting to. The time is ripe for her to stand up for herself. That incident could have been a great opportunity for her to put her skills to practice, but we missed the chance. We’ll take the next one.

Ask any managers (or even higher ranked leaders) about this, and they would agree with me. It’s prerequisite even at a lower scale, eg. in an organisation within a company. You have to be tough to be at the top position. You know what happens when you’re not tough enough? You’ll get people walk all over you and you’re not going to get your shit together. Just look at the previous Chief Minister of Penang (who is now an epitome of cowardice – even garnered enough fame to have a breed of seedless durian named after him – an allegory of not having ‘balls’).

And also, what’s with the paranoia about Lim Guan Eng having a mistress? So what if he has a mistress? Ask yourself, do you mind what your boss does after the office hours? Does it affect you and your job? Doesn’t fucking make any sense at all. If his morality is at stake, then why are we ok with that Chua Soi Lek – who has a 30 min long video of him porking and howling – running a vernacular political party (representing us Chinese, fucking hell) and going around giving his opinions like it matters? And what do you guys make of the incident of Lim Guan Eng protecting the innocence of a child whom he didn’t know, and had to go to prison for that? If I were to judge him by his acts of morality, I’d say he still has a few hundreds of mistresses to go before I’d *even* consider him a crook. Yes, that is how high he is in my respect book. Going to jail for some whipper snapper he doesn’t even know, that takes a lot of courage. He has a pair of balls bigger than all the men in Penang combined, and he has my respect for that. (I can’t name anyone else in the country who’d get that kind of respect from me.)

So, instead of instilling rancor to that tough image of this guy, shouldn’t we all be fucking glad that we have a badass CM running the government? Fuck yeah for me. I’m going to fucking vote for him if given the chance.

Regine: “Daddy, do we have the year of a mouse?”

Me: “No, but we have the year of a rat. Why?”

Regine: “Hmmm, I have a friend who looks like a rat”

Me: “So you think she might be born in the year of a rat? Because she looks like a rat?”

Regine: “Yes.”

Me: “Well, she might be.”

You know what? Big mistake. NEVER, EVER, FUCKING, DO THAT : Decorating your cubes. It should be in fact, left as bare and empty as it can be. I understand that some people may just want to get comfortable working by personalizing their workspace, but trust me, it is not worth it. And you’re not suppose to get comfortable working. Reason is simple, let me quote you a few examples.

1) You have some change that you want to dispose of very badly, and there are 2 beggars in front of you. One emaciated with torn rags, and the other is a fat fuck wearing a sweater. Who would you give it to?
2) You wanted to organize some charity work. Maybe paint a building or something. You have a choice to choose between a run down orphanage with fungus all over it, or a spanking new old folks home housing a bunch of old farts telling dirty jokes. Which would you choose?
3) You have a thick need to get laid. You have a choice between 2 hot chicks with great bodies. One a drunk demanding you to pay for her next drink, and the other demanding you to do it to her at least 2 hours or she’ll die of cancer. Who would you give it to?

You’d choose the one who needs it most. If you don’t get the gist of it, you’re probably retarded and should fucking take a dive into a toilet bowl.

Your boss sees the same thing. He sees a choice. When a boss runs a department, he runs it like a business (if a boss is claiming otherwise, it’s bullshit). It’s all about statistics. Every year, he’ll have to figure out who gets the raise, and who doesn’t. The distribution curve, he is governed by it. He has to pick the top and the bottom, doesn’t matter if he likes all his employees or not. But things do get easier if he hates everyone who works for him though – he can just do it with no qualms, you know, to select the bottom guy in the curve. It gets a bit complicated, however, if he is cool with everyone who works for him. In such situation, everything will matter in the complex equation of determining who gets the pay snag. Letting him know you’re comfortable with your job, is one of them. When he sees that you have a very decorated and personalized cube in the office, you’re telling him this – “Don’t worry about me. I am comfortable with my job and I am happy with what I have. I’d stay here for as long as I can, even with no raise.”… and your boss is going to give the raise to the guy with the most empty and lifeless cubicle, because his cubicle just told the boss that he’s prepared to leave anytime if shit doesn’t get any better. By doing that, he’d more likely get to keep the happy employee and the unhappy one (who’s about to get happy with the raise). It’s a situation he needed to address, and logic tells him it’s the only way.

Me? I never decorated my workspace in my life. It’s as bare as a hyena’s bunghole in an open savannah. A lion can never tackle it. It’s unintentional, however. It was actually a habit I picked up when I was working for Company X, which had a tradition of shifting its employees’ workspace around a few times in a quarter, and I worked out the fact that the less things I have, the less fretful I’d get when it comes to that. It was a blessing in disguise though, and I continue to tell people that I don’t hate to never decorate their cubes.

A hybrid car / Prius is an underpowered piece of junk.
If you’re comparing to performance cars with twin turbos under the hood, yeah it’s underpowered. Otherwise, it is as normal as any 1.8 cars you can lay your hands on. Prius has 3 driving modes to choose from, depending on your needs. With a push of a button, the modes will change the accelerator’s sensitivity accordingly. Eg. if you need to go somewhere pronto and need the car to be as fast as possible, you can select the ‘Power’ mode. It’ll blow your mind away (at least it has blown mine). If you need to save some cash and pissing people by driving slowly isn’t an issue, select the ‘ECO’ mode. It’ll blow your mind away too, with the amazing fuel consumption (haven’t tried it before though, this mode). Otherwise, get a mix of both worlds by not selecting anything (the normal mode).

Air-conditioning also stops working when the car stops.
On a Prius, the air-conditioning would still work when the car stops. That’s because the air-conditioning system uses an electric compressor, just like your household fridge. So when the engine goes start-stop mode, the compressor would still be functioning. Well, unless your car’s air-conditioner is fucked up. Get it repaired. However, I can’t comment on Honda Insight though, as I do not own one. It uses a belt driven compressor like a conventional car, so I guess in a certain mode, the air-conditioning will turn off if the engine stops.

The battery needs to be replaced every now and then, and it costs a bomb to have it replaced.
EVERYTHING needs to be replaced every now and then in a car. And it does cost a bomb to have them replaced. But I think having saved on the low fuel consumption and the lack of need to replace belts – it’s a reasonable trade off. (it costs about 9 – 11k to replace the battery I heard. Cheaper than a gearbox.).

The car gets better fuel consumption in traffic and by braking, than driving in the highway.
That’s a fucked up notion propagated by guys who suck their own dicks. No car in this world saves more fuel/energy by being in traffic, and by braking a lot. Regenerative braking is a way to salvage the lost energy when you try to slow the car down. The best way to get optimum fuel consumption, is by braking less (or not brake at all), and to drive every drop of your fuel at about 80 – 90kph (city driving speed). If you get traffic, your fuel consumption is going to spike up no matter how hard you fucking brake.

The electronics in a hybrid car are annoying and mostly redundant.
Quite contrary, I think it makes the car fun to drive. Apart from the auto headlights, auto wipers, track charts, and shitloads of other screens, there’s this particular ‘summary screen’ after each drive, that gets to me every time. It’s like a scoring system for your journey. It makes you feel compelled to plan your route, and study the physics behind the drive (uphill, downhill, acceleration, traffic, et al) to get a better score in your next drive. So much so, that it turned into a fetish – in another words, it makes you plan to be more efficient, without you realizing it. I think it’s a good thing (that’s at least better than you switching off your lights to save the Earth or some stupid shit like that).

It’s inconvenient for me to charge the fucking car because I live in an apartment
A hybrid car does not require to be charged from your 3 pin plug socket you numb nut. It charges itself automatically when the petrol engine turns on, or when you brake. That’s why it is called a hybrid.

Prius is too quiet that it endangers the pedestrian.
Fuck the pedestrians, but it is not a quiet car. It does get eerily silent when it goes into full electric mode, yes, but it still emits some strange buzzing noise. But then, it escapes me why would anyone get concerned about this. Just honk at the motherfucker, he/she will know you’re coming.

The low fuel consumption isn’t good enough to justify the cost of the car.
Get a fucking bicycle. It’s cheap and it doesn’t use fuel. (nothing justifies the cost of a car in Malaysia).

A diesel car has a better fuel consumption without needing a battery.
Well, what can I say, it’s true. Get a diesel car then. But have you considered a bicycle? It doesn’t need a battery either, and it’s ZERO fuel consumption. How about that?
(Prius gets about 4.8 liter/100km, that’s about 21 km/liter, just by driving normally. If you use techniques, it can get as low as 3.8 liter/100km or 26 km/liter. My previous ride? Best I ever got was 10 liter/100km, or 10km/liter.)

Toyota service sucks and even suckier to service a complex Prius.
If any of you think Toyota service sucks, you suck. You obviously have not experienced what really is ‘suck’. Try to get a Chevrolet, a Proton or a Naza car. You’ll learn what ‘suck’ means. I personally think Toyota service is good as it is and they’re definitely good enough to service a Prius (which, by the way, is serviced like any conventional petrol powered car).

Email me if you need to know anything more about my Prius.

Anyway, those of you who knows me well enough should be able to tell that I dig movies with guns, gore and girls. And if the plot – be it simple or complicated – manages to keep me glued to the flick for the entire length, it will get inducted into my book of ‘must watch’ list. This flick ‘Dredd’, is one of such flick. It has guns, gore and girls. Plot’s simple, but interesting nevertheless. For those of you who does not know what ‘Dredd’ means, it’s actually the short for ‘Judge Dredd’. It’s an adaptation of a violent comic series that revolves around a futuristic era that is so rife with crime that law enforcement is overseen by individuals who act as an enforcer, a judge and an executioner (hence, the tag ‘Judge’). Go wiki it you fucks.

So there’s this judge called Judge Dredd. He pretty much goes around ruining every bad guys’ shit, as appropriately intro’ed in the beginning of the movie. Instead of flying around with a hover bike (like that first lame instalment back in the 90′s starring Sylvester Stallone), this one made it gritty on wheels. He is all good and awesome, until he gets assigned to assess a trainee female Judge – which means, babysitting and dealing with crappy judgement of a noob (but this female rookie possesses some psychic abilities that allows her to read minds). And as if it is not enough, his next assignment is to investigate a triple drug-deal-gone-wrong-murder case reported in the nastiest mega tenement cum slum in the city. The ultra cool Dredd, along with his rookie female colleague (who is, by the way, quite hot), then stumble into a massive lockdown by the drug lord during their assignment… The drug lord, a sadistic, violent and scarred ex-prostitute-turned-boss called Ma-Ma, is trying to prevent both of them from leaving with one of the murderers – which is Ma-Ma’s marketing man or something, and she is afraid he might cave to interrogation and bring unwanted attention on her flourishing drug business. Shit then goes bad in the lockdown, that entails the most awesome as kicking ever seen by yours truly in years.

What really blows my mind about this flick is, the way it manages to capture the emotion and feeling of every scene. In another words, the flick is so good that it makes shooting someone’s brains out beautiful. I love the slow motion and that psychedelic effects of people on drugs. If you love gun battles and gores like me, go watch this flick. It’s damn fucking good.

7 out of 10 (would have scored higher if not for the main actor whom I think is not tough enough to play Dredd)

Anyway, that was six months ago when I first joined Company T. The feeling of him looking awfully familiar eventually faded away… until the other day during our regular meeting, when my wilting memory suddenly hit me like a freight train, on where I might had seen Vlad before. It was in the school magazine, many years ago! I didn’t know him, this Vlad, but I recalled him being one of the top scorers in the A levels back when I was in my primary years, and his picture was plastered in a page, dedicated to high performing scorers basking in fame. I wasn’t sure at first but, I confirmed it after excavating for the said old school magazine and found the page I was looking for. It was Vlad in his old glory days, the same person I saw years ago on the school magazine.

Now, there were hundreds of such individuals (top scorers) in the stack of school magazines I own, one would probably ask – what makes it so compelling to remember his face, even after all these years? (for the record, I don’t remember anyone else other than Vlad) Well, it was for the same reason – the doubt I had when I first see him. The picture of Vlad being a top scorer was as unbelievable as when I first learned he’s the boss at Company T. I was like “What? This guy? Top scorer? He looks like a burglar!”. For real. Who would have thought, after 20 over years, I’d meet this guy in the most unexpected way, and to have the same deja vu feeling of “What? This guy?”. Shit can get pretty weird sometimes.

And as I found out, he turned out to be a great guy.

That prompted me to wonder, why do kids have to carry so many books to school nowadays? It was fucking mind boggling. Shouldn’t the school be teaching them how to be efficient instead? The energy exerted by them kids lugging the damn bags could have been used to grow a little more intelligence in them, but instead, we’re churning out mindless fucks that only know how to complain about life. Just look at the suicide rate nowadays. It’s sad, really. And all this could have stemmed from the need to carry a fucking heavy schoolbag.

Like most parents, I decided to get my Regine a trolley bag too. Costed me a hundred over bucks. Was it worth the money? Fuck no. But then I had no other choice.