Bad Luck and Bad Etiquette

There I was, parked along the road right next to the entrance of Pudu bus station, waiting for my girlfriend's bus to arrive, thinking that I had a good spot. I usually stop a bit further back as I didn't want to risk not finding a spot and having to one big round again. A lot of cars came and went, some stopping close to mine, so they could just drop someone off or pick someone up before going off. It was just my luck that this Kancil driven by a Malay girl (from the tudung, or head covering), with some driving skill deficiency, bumped her side-view mirror against mine, folding mine forward (I'm thinking it was really lucky it could fold). The Kancil just kinda slowed, slowed, then went off, the driver not looking back at all, not even a glance or stare, much less any apologetic signal. When I righted the side-view mirror again, I noticed a rather obvious scratched patch. Sigh. Just my luck. I cursed that driver a little. Even she had just stopped, glanced back, motioned something that I may interpret as an apology, I just might've spared her the cursing. Cursing someone is sinful. Darn it.

Handphone harrassing

I wonder if most have heard stories about people getting harrassing or prank calls from complete strangers. Well, it's been a few weeks since a friend of mine got a prankster coming from 012-9326934. It's not that I feel I'm helping to get revenge on that childish fella but attempts to actually contact that person was not successful; not that I expected otherwise.

I had even thought about writing about this and sending his number to our newspapers for publication. But I wonder if the newspaper would be allowed to publish the number without the owner's consent. So I'm placing it here. Hoping, just hoping, that if anyone knows the person holding the number, they'd be kind enough to let the fella know that I'm wondering about possible legal action. Yes, that friend, is a really close friend.

Gonna write to the network providers involved asking about this. Again, I repeat, 012-9326934, just so that search engines may find it easier, in case anyone searches for that number. Why someone would be so childish as to keep up prank calls and arrogant SMS is beyond me. I have reason to believe that the idiotic person behind this is a Malay guy. Why? Well, if I'm not mistaken, the '9' indicates Pahang. And the fact that the fella actually sent SMS in Malay asking why my friend did not pick up his call. Weird isn't it? Picking it up would merely result in some background noise. I once heard a girl giggling in the background from which sounded like a mamak stall. Some people have so much money they don't mind calling inter-state every once in a while.

Getting worked up for nothing? Well, when you start getting prank calls in the middle of the night as late as 2-3 am or as early as 5 am, then you'll see what I mean about getting harrassed. And it's not like it's letting up. Plus, I believe the number I posted is not the only one. There were at least 2 different numbers, both starting with '9'. The one I posted was just the most frequent. Sigh. Some people really have nothing better to do. To all who were kind enough to read this entry to the end: Feel free to make use of the posted number for any form of registration that would result in a lot of advertising SMS.

Walk, Don't Run!

I don't know if this situation occurs to people everywhere or not, but there's seem to be a breed of people who took the phrase "Walk, but Don't Run" to heart when applied to road-crossing. Just this morning, as I was driving, three men were leisurely crossing the lane I was on and coming pretty fast. I had to break before I splatter them all over my windscreen. And here they were, strolling along as if nothing had happened, as if I wasn't even on the road!! It's like it's their right to cross anywhere they want and cars have to avoid them rather than the other way around. Course, if it were pretty ladies then it's a different story (*snicker*). It's like this road-crossing equivalent of TV Smith's KLCC (Kuala Lumpur 'Cycle Club).

And speaking of road problems, we Malaysians appear to be rather famous for our statistics on road accidents. Everyone complains about how fast some drivers go in Malaysia. But nobody seems to complain about how slow some of them goes. It's like, I'm on this lane, you all behind me must follow my pace. And this is on the fast lane. Anyone who've driven on Malaysian roads in urban areas (and who drives at least 60 km/h on average) must have met some drivers who, for some reason, drives from 30 to 50 km/h on the fast lane. Flashing and closing in on them won't even make them notice you. Sigh. I don't mind if drivers want to drive slowly, but please do so on the left lanes, don't hog the fast lanes where people want to go faster. It's actually safer if they drive slowly on the left, so the faster drivers don't have to keep overtaking them on the left. The same applies to highways too. But this time, it's those "law-abiding" idiots who fervently stick to the fast lane driving at the permitted maximum speed. Anyone else speeding has to overtake them on the left, cos those "smart" fellas just won't budge, no matter how much you flash them, making it that much more dangerous in high speeds.