KLite

Look out point and haze

2006-10-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

I went to a place called look out point on the edge of KL at Ampang last night for company dinner. In all to celebrate the end of a project that was so long overdue. I had never heard of this place and it seems to be a bit of a secret. The view is incredible if it wasn’t for the haze which has hit KL. I’m feeling it the day afterwards with a sore throat. I hope it doesn’t last long because i'm flying off to the UK soon. You can eat at the look out point and there is even an aviary and all manner of facilities on the other side of the hill. Getting there is a pain because of the traffic. Food was not bad and we had a few babes to join us. The parking gets difficult after 7pm or even on weekend so I’m told. If you want to find it yourself, just google Ampang look out point.

Zheng He

2005-11-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to a presentation at the museum negara. Presented by photographer Michael Yamashita to promote his film for national geographic and forthcoming exhibition at the museum. Any discussion about this guy often begins with who was he as he is until recently an unknown in western circles. It has been pointed out to me that he has been taught in the local history books, since he visited Malacca several times. There are many mysteries about this person including who was he, what was he doing and why did the Chinese subsequently hide / destroy all their knowledge of him and burn the fleet. For those of us in the west he will be part of a wave of revisionist history. The perceived idea that only the west or Europe was capable of true exploration. That “they found it first there is an argument put forward that he was a modern thinker way ahead of his time. And that he did not journey to conquer, colonise or convert as many other explore had done. But to explore the with the idea of religious and racial tolerance. It does sound a bit like something out of star trek, but that is the claim and if it is true then it not be out of place in today’s violent world where so much perpetuated in the name of race and religion. If you can, go to the exhibition at the museum negara which starts soon and watch the national geographic presentation on the 11th December. Photo courtesy of National Geographic

Music of the Moment : Craig Armstrong – Ruthless gravity

Deepavali and Aidil Filtri

2005-10-31T06:13:00.000-08:00

Well.. happy Deepavali and Aidil Filtri to you all. It’s been about two months since I last wrote in the blog.
A lot has happened in that time and I will eventually write the stories from this. In that time I have moved house, area, job and we have acquired another guest(cat).But for now we have the two festivals coinciding with each other. Deepavali being the Hindu festival of lights and Aidil Filtri being the end of Ramadan. I will be celebrating with my Malaysian family and I will write up on these. You can always googlise these for my information and I will introduce the Malaysian aspect. So for now enjoy

Music of the Moment : John Lennon – Across the universe

Normal service will be shortly resumed

2005-08-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

To anyone who is wondering why I am so quiet, I apologise. I'm currently in the process of moving to a new home. Its proving to be a nightmare chasing the developers to get off their sorry ass. Anyway a big blog will be winging its way here after I finish.

British Terrorists

2005-07-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

As everyone who hasn’t been hiding in a cave for the last seven days is aware London was bombed four times. Three on the underground and one on a bus. I waited a few days to let the dust settle before making any comment and hopefully have the facts.

Fifty people plus killed and countless more injured in an attack claimed in credit by Al-Qaeda. Apparently the intention was to create a symbolic cross on the map with the four bombs being on each point on a cross (note a Christian cross!?). I guess a crescent would have required too many bombs and it’s not exactly a join the dots exercise.

The media is claiming that people are surprised that the bombers were British. Well I was more surprised that the investigation got a quick result on the identities. It makes up for the intelligence flaws of 45 minute WMDs and the fact that this was achieved without the need for an ID card society which by the way wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference to this event.

I’m not surprised that the bombers were British Muslims. We knew that to be involved in Al-Qaeda you had to be a Muslim. Bit of a farce to ask to join them if you were say Christian.
“I say, Can I join you – Al-Qaeda?, by the way I’m a Christian but I so believe in what you are doing”
“errr”, scratches head, “ok, but you must grow a beard and blame western governments for all that is wrong with the world”

See? It doesn’t work.

If you search the BBC news website you will find a article by Brian Walden a long standing political commentator who has rightly pointed out these terrorists are not stupid, but cunning. Okay so maybe they are cunning idiots, but they are cunning and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can solve this problem. Who else could we imagine made such a cock up with poor intelligence on how this event would play out rather than what they wish. Okay there is the exception , the current prime minister and his best friend George (sounds like an episode of Rainbow?).

So what went wrong?.

Well they chose a bus that went on a diversion route that would have made that wonky symbolic cross look like something drawn in kindergarten. They blew it up in front of building full of doctors and near a square that has memorial to the victims of Hiroshima and one to Gandhi. Who in this tragic event do think is more likely to be remembered ? Certainly not the bombers.
Also that the bombers chose to bomb a transport system that is used to regular breakdown, so much so that travellers had at first the tube had broken down yet again!

They chose to bomb a city that has been bombed on/off for the last 65 years. Most people shrugged it off as one of the irritating things that Londoners have to put up. I don’t have great belief in this we are not afraid campaign that is meant to show defiance to the terrorist. I would have preferred a “sod you, I got to go to work to pay my crippling mortgage and student loans” campaign.

I know some sections of society thought that it unpatriotic and just damm right mean of some Brits who basically said we knew this was coming and it was a consequence of the Iraq war. Well guess what ? I’ll say it.

We had this coming when the government decided to invade(and say invade not liberate) another country without the support of most of the world, whom we so foolishly armed along with Americans as a means of picking a fight with another country on our behalf and because we wanted the oil – plain and simple

We were warned that this would happen not just by Al-Qaeda, but by our security forces. Remember the “not if, but when ” quote?

I feel sorrow for those who died and were injured. Their deaths made even more meaningless by our inappropriate actions on the world stage. It is scary what has happened, but this is only a taste of what and has gone on in Iraq and other countries around the world. Did the news of corporate manslaughter against Railtrack and Balfour Beatty for the Hatfield disaster being thrown out of court go unnoticed by most of us? Now that was a preventable death and yet the UK is condemned to repeat that mistake all in the name of profits. That is what Iraq has been all about from the day oil was found. Maybe it should remind us that when we play these games the consequences have a habit of coming back to bite us long after the initial action

So what about these young men who committed these acts. What is it that drives them to do this?
Is it because they are Muslims? No otherwise we would have the appalling stereotypical view that all Muslim are like this. Unfortunately some sections of our society have already taken this view such as those who have attack non Muslim Asians and Sikhs just because they can’t tell the difference or those who bombed a mosque in Auckland, New Zealand. Great move idiots just several thousand miles away from ground zero.
Is it because they are British ? No again we know that all Brits are no like this. There has been a comparison between these terrorists and the IRA and all they have in common is blind ignorance, British nationality, and a fairly young age.

This question and other comments is being addressed by another blogger
Go here to read up these views

http://thebritishasian.net/britishasian/
“Time to Change”

I think the problem may lie with the fact that these are angry young men, immature, easily impressionable, and deluded by their exclusion in society just like many young people (deliberately and indirectly). The term young adults say a lot about what we expect from them, but not we can offer them. The years between being a child and fully paid up member of adult society can be long. We give them responsibilities and our expectation, but not always the means or the support to make this transition. They have to take, but they cannot give and their views are disregarded. They have high political apathy (but then who doesn’t) as they will feel that they are not part of society.

In another time and place these men would have been a different nationality, different religion, but they would still be excluded and dispossessed. Such a section of society is a breeding ground for recruitment for such extremists.

Unfortunately the very people that we don’t want to associate with these young men are the ones who appear to listen to them and offer them a role in life. They go into an environment of peer pressure and support that blinds them to rationality. We all rebel against authority and our families (parents) in our teenage years. Its part of growing up, and most of us grow out of it.

Rationality is very hard to demonstrate to these young men when we are hypocritical in our actions. We all eventually come to a realization and understanding that what we say or preach and what we do can contains an immense gulf. We only have to look at recent history when we invade countries such as Iraq for the wrong reasons or when Islamic/ Muslim countries commit acts that are contrary to any belief system. This is what the twisted mind of the terrorists use to recruit these young men to their clause, which by the way is in their mind a just cause no matter how foolish the rest of us think it is.

The situation is made worse by the poor integration we have of the muslim/Asian community these men have come from. There is conflict for some between their parent’s generation, ancestral home, religion, language and culture. If you are born in the UK and brought up there as compared to your parents then there is already big difference. We use the term British Asian or British Muslim to define a new cultural identity that is straddled between many old and new different systems. Anyone remember the race riots of North East England, where there was a supposed idea that the Asian communities were getting more than the lion share of funding to regenerate the areas they live in. The records showed that they were actually getting less than anyone else and yet were the very people who had the greatest dire need of regeneration.
Unfortunately and I have to say this, the UK is a racist society, whether its institutionalized or aimed at certain sections of society. But then again the UK seems to be going through an incredible discrimination phase ranging from gender, race, religion, sexuality, disability and age. Note of the last two , for age its not illegal yet, for disability it is, but its useless given the poor legislation and enforcement.

Muslims in the UK do need now to be more visible and outspoken. In short it is time to get political. However I’m not happy with the current round of Muslims who claim to be a leader for the community , un-elected and unaccountable labour party tokens. Promising no more than a politician that we know we couldn’t trust. There needs to be an educating of everyone in UK to get rid of some the outdated ideas. One of the strangest is female circumcision, which I know is a culture issues not a religious one. But it is perceived by society as a Muslim “thing” reinforced by the knowledge that Muslims practice male circumcision!
We all know about the honour killings, the forced marriages, all are cultural issues.

So what do we do about all of this.
For now we pick up the pieces and carry on, we are rattled and there is no point pretending we are not. In the long term we need to start addressing the issues that affect all of us about how we are sharing this country to make sure no one is excluded from participation.

Music of the Moment : Chemical Brothers – Setting Sun

Hitchhiker, Thanks and so long for the Fish

2005-07-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

Went to see Hitchhiker last night, kind of regretted though. As this film stands on its own , it’s not too bad. A bit pythonesque. But I was bored, almost falling asleep . I think that if you have not read Adams work or watch the original TV series then you will like this as many people found it very funny. I was thrown out by all the missing details and the fact that the movie seemed to jump around, missing bits that I know should be in it. I know that Douglas Adams did not finish the screen play for the movie, but I hope that it was perhaps at the most 50% complete because the movie looks it. Hitchhiker didn’t seem to have enough detail to explain what’s going on. The original had to explain quite a lot since so much of the story is about the background of everything and this is needed to support some action or statement that you see and hear. I had heard that some fans didn’t like this because it was not faithful to the original and I had thought initially that they were just being too fussy. After seeing this I have to retract that idea. Hitchhikers reminds me of all those lord of the rings movies, TV series, cartoons that always never seem to be complete or thorough to the books.

A chapter in my life is closing and a new one opening. We have just received the vacant possession for our new house, so we can now plan a changing rooms blitz on our new abode, Lewellyen wig and psychedelic fashion optional. On top of this Mrs Klite is starting her job soon and so am I! I’m working for a multi media company who has satellite TV as their main bread winner. As soon as possible I will be whipped off to India to do some learning and technology transfer. So it’s going to be a hectic few months ahead, and I have to do the move when I come back. Our cats will be pleased since they will be able to roam outdoors to their hearts content without the fear of getting lost as they likely to do in our apartment block.

Went to dinner tonight to meets some new friends and a matsalleh who had married a local like I had done. Being the only matsallehs at this dinner made an interesting conversation that was very British centric. Everything from Marmite, egg and chips to deep fried mars bars. The rest of the table around us could only stare in wonder at the rapid words being exchanged confirming the view of eccentricity that others have of the British.

Music of the Moment : Vangelis – Rachael’s Song (Blade runner)

Batman Begins

2005-06-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

Went to see Batman Begins Friday night. Wanted to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith at KLCC but even trying to get tickets first thing on Friday morning proved difficult because it was booked so far ahead. I guess Pitt and Jolie are so popular that the film is over subscribed. I have heard that the film isn’t that great, but Hollywood have obviously got a winning combination one for the women and one for the men, and not forgetting the “are they or aren’t they” scandal that is surrounding them. So we gave up trying to see it here and tried at the summit. Again oversubscribed so we opted for our second choice “Batman Begins”, and by god was I glad we did. It stars a good range of actors from Michael (Your only supposed to blow the bleeding doors off) Caine, Morgan Freeman to Liam Neelson. Those of you who are big fans of the comics will obviously compare the film and maybe note that this isn’t true to the comics. But it compares more favourably than all the other batman movies we have had. This is a better reflection of the dark knight that is Batman from the murder of his parents to his relinquishment of his desire to kill those who commit wrong. Batman is played by Christian Bale who I’m told played the kid in “Empire of the sun” . But I know him better as Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho”. The action is good with the special effects especially the scenes involving the effects of psychedelic drugs on the various people in the film. If you get the chance watch it in a THX cinema. The aural special effects add to the atmosphere of the film. I was more than pleased with what had been a second choice of film to watch that night.

Music of the Moment : Collective Soul – Shine

Trojan Odyssey

2005-06-12T04:10:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading this book by Clive Cussler , who is probably famous at this moment for the movie rendering of his book “Sahara” (see past article).This is the final book of the series involving the character of Dirk Pitt who has been retired to more quieter pastures of NUMA. His role is taken up by Kurt Austin in the series which Clive is writing with Paul Kemprecos. This was inevitable in much the same way as the actors who play in the Bond movie, time moves on and so must the characters. The basis of this story is based on Homers epic of Odysseus and his odyssey from Troy with a twist of rewriting the history of this period. From thereon Pitt and his sidekick Giordino battles new bad guys in Nicaragua. The usual background of information is injected into the book about the subjects of the Panama canal and the Celts. The book follows the formula set in the past of bad guys, babes and adventures, but with a difference in which there are some very unsubtle hints about Dirk Pitts change of future. These were almost boarding on annoying and I felt they could have been done more gradually. The end of the book brings a conclusion to the adventure so dirk pitt and opens the way for a new adventurer – Kurt Austin, very James Bond..ish.

As I’m writing this, one of our many cats has decided to bring an offering to us, I suspect this may have something to do with us looking after my sisters kitten while her family are in Sabah. Midnight being a street cat who adopted us may have felt that the new arrival would mean us pushing her away, but anyway look at the offering in the photo below, its as big as my hand, must be the steroids in the water.

Music of the Moment : Icehouse – Great Southern Land

Madagascar

2005-06-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hey it Friday! Its Suntory time! Went to see this at the Amcorp mall because my usual cinema at KLCC was fully booked and so I thought this must be a good movie. I was disappointed, the Amcorp mall cinema is very small compared to others. Think of all the old cinemas in the UK before they were rebuilt into multiplexes, that what it is like with its old uncomfortable dirty seats, litter everywhere and a small screen that is half of what you get anywhere else. The movie itself I feel was overhyped, seems like the trailer was made out of all the good bits. It started off very well but once they got to the island it went downhill, it just wasn’t that funny. My favourite characters were the chimps with one having a British gentlemen’s accent and the other was a signing chimp (sign language). Also the penguins were excellent and it’s a pity they didn’t get more of a starring role. This movie is from DreamWorks the people who bought you monsters Inc – remember that? Madagascar to me had all the fun of an anti Iraq war joke at a New Labour party conference.

Spent most of today perusing around KLCC. In a coffee shop I went into I noticed that a staff member was staring at something on the window whilst he was trying to clean it. I only glanced briefly to see what looked like a cut out of something stuck to the window. Later whilst glancing out of the window overlooking the pool outside I noticed some scuttling by my seat and it was a butterfly or a moth, a little bigger than my hand. By the time I got my camera it was gone wherever , hopefully it had managed to get outside. I wish I could identify it, anyone know a free online photo source to compare against? Goes to show that no matter what we build, nature will always be there in one form or another showing us that our concrete buildings will eventually be taken over by nature.

Noticed this downstairs in the KLCC station. It’s a promotion for the "Double A" photocopier paper. The one with the advert where a photocopier takes a transformer moment and turns into a giant robot. Only this one in the photo was a bit of a let down. Don’t they look bored? Poor sods. There is a bigger robot in the station that used to show videos and talk to the people as they hurried to the trains.

Music of the moment : Balligomingo – Purify

Wesak Day

2005-05-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

Today is Wesak day. This is the holiest of all Buddhist days to mark the birth, enlightenment and final passing away of the Buddha. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the 4th lunar month each year. For many people it will be a good time to get together with friends and family for good food and celebrations. For others it will be a sincere moment to reflect upon their own lives. So for all you Buddhists out there a happy wesak day to you. For non Buddhists who want more information you can simply googlise “Wesak”.

Here in Malaysia we try to respect all religions, so today is a public holiday. With it falling on a Monday it means we have a holiday weekend. For Malaysians that means “sales, sales sales !!!” and so the shops are full.

So Mrs. Klite and I are at the curve to get a few items and some food from Tescos. Of course we notice a few sales, so naturally we look. We discover a few items that have been on our “to get” list for a while. So with as much gusto as possible we dive into the crowds all fighting each other for that inevitable bargain. Having come out happy as larks we pass the next shop and see other bargains. So with abandonment we dive in yet again, and we repeat ad infinitum. Now we have done very well out of this and we are pleased, but it turns out my credit card company were not so happy as alarms rang at their security center and so my parents in the UK were getting phone calls from them to try to talk to me, even though I have told them that I’m in Malaysia with a contact number here.

So eventually I have to call them via mobile oversees just in case they suspend my card at inopportune moment. The quality not being good with the noise of Tescos car park I asked Mrs. Klite to take over the conservation as she could hear them better. It turned out that the alarms had rung because my spending patterns had dramatically changed to one that looks like my card was stolen. When Mrs. Klite explained that we at the sales I think there was a groan on the phone. The sort that may accompany a rolling of the eyes, with the thought that a woman and a credit card have gone over to the dark side (star wars).

On the wesak day itself we did consider to join the throbbing millions of lemmings to watch "Revenge of the Sith". I had wanted to go after dinner in KLCC, but the crowds were very long, and I hate queuing. When Star Wars first came out my father took me to watch it at the Granada cinema in Harrow. I’m not sure whether he was trying to be a good dad by taking me or he didn’t want to look like a sci-fi geek so “taking the son” would be a good excuse. The queue for this cinema was very long – all the way around the back. We waited outdoors on a cold afternoon for what felt like hours. So eventually the queue moves to let people in and I'm thinking thank god for that – warmth here we come, only for the doorman to stop us. The person in front of us was the last person for a seat and after him there were none left. So there we were, first in the queue for the next showing! This was going to be several hours later because in those days they show a prequel film as well. So decisions to be made, first in the queue, but a long wait in the cold for what would eventually be a word wide seller. Most people would say “sod it” come back when there are fewer people, but we persevered. I think it was worth it, I hope it was.

So back to wesak day, too many people for star wars so we leave it until the crowds quieten down a bit. So how do we make the most of this day? By colouring Mrs. Klites hair ?! yes you did read that right, Now I have never done any of this stuff before except helping my brother bleach his hair a century ago with this product called “sun in” with some strange results – but that’s another story. There is a reason that people go to a saloon to colour their hair, namely to get it right. So I follow the instructions on the box and apply this brown goo that looks like it belongs in a diaper, smells like it too. Twenty minutes later – result, but not the one Mrs. Klite wanted.
“well done Mr. Klite – you have done it so well – too well!”

Mrs. Klite hair had gone several shades too light and her description of what she now looks like was a reference to a certain type of character from the streets of Malaysia. I can’t repeat the words because they are deemed offensive. I swear I saw one of the cats either yawning or laughing in a mutely dog manner. So we had to swan off to shops again to pick the “right” colour. Here is a tip for married men, when your wife ask you if you think the hair colour looks right for her think of the dreaded question “does my bum look big in this dress” and proceed with caution. Also take a book to read because women take forever deciding the colour they want. So I had to do the whole hair colouring business again and Mrs. Klite was finally happy with the result. Doesn’t look any different from the original colour to me.

Music of the moment : The Killers – Smile like you mean it

Broken China and Bad Manners

2005-05-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

A trip around Jusco’s to find a suitable wedding photo album for our photos. One of many projects put to one side in the rush to up sticks and move country. We had one last Jusco voucher so why not use it. Out of curiosity Mrs. Klite is looking at some money banks also known as piggy banks. This one is particular is a bit weird because its difficult to figure out what creature its meant to be. Closer inspection reveals it supposed to be an owl!. Oh well so Mrs. Klite goes to put it back, it slips out her hands into an upward trajectory, panic sets in and its caught on its way down only for it to bounce out again, panic again and another attempt to catch it again, down it comes into the hand and slips out again. I swear I saw the final moment in slow motion watching it smash into a million pieces on the floor. What the first thing we do? We look around to see if anyone has seen us. In the middle of a busy department store on Labour Day , of course we were bound to have an audience, yet we were looking around like guilty children ! I guess some thing we never leave behind in our childhood. So the thing about breakages in any place is that you have to pay for them. So much for the voucher, it’s gone in a moment. I tempted to take what’s left of the broken china with the barcode on home to justify what the money was spent on!

As with the title of bad manners which the astute of you may remind of a skinhead group from the eighties (showing your age- ) give yourself a point if you can remember the name of the lead singer who is now running a B&B somewhere in England. Anyway bad manners are something I’m beginning to notice more and more here. Does this mean I’m become more like a local in picking up these things or are my expectations from England unrealistic? The one example here is queuing. Now the kids here are always having drummed into them to be respectful of others and not to push in, but when you are obviously queuing for the toilets (notice how everybody’s bladder seems to be synchronized- maybe its herd mentality) you all queue up, then along comes an middle age adult who just pushes in front of everyone especially the kids who they would probably lecture to about good manners and queuing, talk about practicing what you preach. I don’t know whether it a general dumbing down of the population or something they are putting in the water. You’ll find littering is bad, people will throw their rubbish into the drain blocking it. Even in my apartment block there is a notice asking people not to throw their rubbish/ cigarettes out of the window onto the street or play area because the management have to clean it up, which all of us have to pay for. What’s worse is that the rubbish attracts flies and vermin causing further problems. The blocked drains will trap water which becomes stagnant and a breeding ground for mosquitoes and the inevitable dengue fever outbreak will occur again all because of a lack of common sense. Maybe it would be better if these people would catch dengue fever therefore weeding out some the worse parts of the gene pool.

Music of the Moment : Tpau – China in your hand

Sahara

2005-05-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

Sahara is hitting a movie screen near you right now. The story of Dirk Pitt, a NUMA engineer/ modern day Indiana Jones searching the world for treasure and adventure. This movie based on the novel by Clive Cussler takes Pitt to West sub Saharan Africa on an adventure of plague, rogue dictatorship and a mysterious ironclad from the American civil war. The choice of lead role was ok although I notice he was also involved in the production. The choice of Penelope Cruz as a support role I thought was weak but I guess this is all part of the tweaking and artistic license the producers had granted themselves. The actor who plays the French villain is good and most people will note that he is also known as the Frenchman in the matrix series – possible typecasting here. Cussler fans and those who have read the book will find the movie a little puzzling and missing in parts. The book covers a confrontation with the Benin Navy, a UN female Egyptian general executive, a UN rescue team for a gold mine and a good twist in America history from the civil war period which you would have to read to believe. Maybe the producers felt they couldn’t get all of the story into the movie, fair enough but the part at the end where the gold is left with the Tuareg who in the book are the captors in the gold mine felt mushy and spoilt the movie. As the movie stands its ok if it was written independently of the book. But the book is always going to be looking over the shoulder of the movie and a comparison will always be desired. If there is going to be any more future movies of the Dirk Pitt vein .I hope that artistic license will not be any abused more otherwise it should be referred to as based on some concepts of a novel by Clive Cussler. This is one movie in which people might wish to read the book for more details as it is quite rich. If you do, don’t read the book of the film. Read the original made many years ago, and you will find possibly as I did that it is more exciting and can demonstrate some historical/ geographical detail that would too boring to learn about in school. This is what initially caught my eye in picking up some of Cusslers work. So for my klite movie rating and because I'm a fan of the authors work I would give this movie 6 out of 10 eagle eyed action men.

Music of the Moment : Beck – E-Pro

Diabetes

2005-04-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

I looked after my father in law for one day last week whilst my sister took a well earned break and took her family for a day out to Gentling highlands for the birthday of her eldest. Now my father in law is diabetic and is still recovering from a recent stay in hospital after a decline in his health. He requires careful monitoring of his diet and need to receive his insulin jabs. I had to take in a lot of information very quickly about what to do and when, since I would be performing his blood test and injecting him, so already the concerns of him ‘OD’ing if I get it wrong have reared their head. When you are an insulin diabetic your life is not much fun, you have to be careful of what you eat to ensure that you don’t get an imbalance.

Breakfast had already been taken care of since I had a very early appointment with immigration who were trying to break the world record for how much time they could waste in stamping a piece of paper (currently stands at three hours!).

So in time for lunch I attempt the first blood test. You have to jab the persons finger for a blood smear and rub this onto a sort of litmus strip which has one end inserted in a blood sugar measurement instrument. You have to get a good dollop of blood otherwise the test will fail. The first jab produces a slight smear, not good enough so onto another finger. Since he has low circulation I have to rub the finger to stir up the circulation. The second jab gives a nice healthy dollop to measure the blood sugar, so good that I have to wrap his finger in tissue paper so now it looks like a shaving cut !

If the sugar level is high enough then insulin has to be injected. The dose settings are easy, just turn the dial to required amount and then press the button on the top like a ballpoint pen to push the dose through the needle. Then this is the uncomfortable bit because I have to do the injection since my father in law is very weak and does not have the strength to do it himself. There is no alcohol swab like you get at the doctors, you just do it straight in and by the way did I mention that I hate needles even if its stabbing someone else because that’s what you have to do, imagine that day in day out. So the point of injection has to be the stomach because it’s too uncomfortable in the arm. I look like a junkie trying to find a suitable vein to inject into. I have to tell him to take a deep breath to tense the stomach muscle apparently for better delivery and then bang – the needle goes straight in and you push the button to deliver the dose. You can see he is uncomfortable with it through the tension in his face. Its over for now until the next injection a few hours later, all in all about four injections a day, not something to look forward to. In addition to his diabetes he has not been eating properly and is having bowl problems so I ended up have to help him to the bathroom. That plus the lack of control of bowl movement makes him very embarrassed with a lack of dignity in front of his son in law whom he has only known for less than a year. I had to search around for a new towel, and not knowing where they were I had to go rooting through various cupboards and at one point I had opened an overhead door to reach in for a towel, only for the door to be whacked by the overhead fan as I hadn’t realized how close it was, typical developers cock up when they built the house. It could have been my hand or my head, but it was the door and I guess my sister is going to love me for that!

So perhaps the thing is from all of this is – take care of yourself so that you hopefully never have to go through diabetes.

As I write this there is a great storm of thunder and lighting far away over the houses. It looks and sounds like a battle of some sort, reminds me of war of the worlds.

Music of the Moment : Peter Namelook & Richie Hawtin – From Within III part I

Qrio

2005-04-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

At the weekend we went to Tescos in Mutira Damansara. On the way in we popped into the Curve to see if it was busy yet. Alas it looks like only about two-thirds of the unit are occupied, can’t be good for business. We were given a leaflet about Sonys new store opening that day, so we had a look. Not bad so far, just like any other Sony store , nothing special. Then we came across this show they were holding to show off qrio. Now I know they were the latest in the line of robots, but that was all. So eventually they bring on two qrios. Now I was expecting a near life size robot like the Honda Asmo and its predecessor, but what we got was the size of a five year old kid and they were like ‘tweekie’ out of Buck Rogers but not quite with the same dysfunctional attitude. Once they started dancing then they started to look good, not fast but as least not clumsy, but smooth. After they finished they stood down and everyone waited thinking that perhaps the show was over in five minutes, but then they started to speak, welcoming everyone in several languages. Then proceeded to a new dance in a Hindi dance style which although was not fast required a lot of balance which impressed me since I know that it’s a real test of any machine, the ability to balance as a biped. They then finished, a little more chat and then it was over – so quick. Overall it was impressive, but I think I would have got bored the second time I watched this. I would preferred that they got into a dissing match with each other about something trivial like who had a face like the back of a garbage truck and then scrapping with each other in the style of Fraiser crane and his brother Niles !

Music of the Moment : Elecktroids– Japanese Electronics

Bukit Merah and Orang Utan

2005-04-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

Last week we went up to the resort of Bukit Merah which is just outside Ipoh( location of the movie Sepet). It’s a long journey, about 600km round trip from KL cruising up the north south highway which runs up the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia. If you have never truly been outside of KL then the scenery will claw for your attention, since it is quite raw and dynamic. The road will sometimes wind along a valley floor surrounded by huge steep cliffs of what I think is limestone. Looking like giant pebbles or boulders which have just been dumped there. Their shape being the product of natures erosion. They remind of the limestone island somewhere in southern Thailand made famous by the Bond movie “man with the golden gun” whereby the villain scaramanga lives on such an island in a tropical splendor. Anyway back to the trip, after three hours and one near scare of running out of petrol we arrived at the said resort. Now this place also includes a township to one side leading down to the shore of a very large natural lake. There were a few exclusive properties that were on a small peninsula mimicking the cape cod ideal of secluded homes.

You can opt for three separate parts of the resort or get a combo package. We opted for the combo. So first up we head for the orang utan reserve on an island in the middle of the lake reached only by boat. It wasn’t busy when we arrived so I assumed that the novelty has probably worn off. We were guided through a short walkway which ended in a small area with a warden and one of the younger orang utan(“man of the jungle”) who was not so shy about visitors. She looked like a younger version of Clyde from “Any which way but loose”. We were warned that we could not touch the orang utan because the reserve was trying to prevent them catching germs and bacteria off the humans for which they had little or no resistance to. As you can see from the photo she is a handful. We did get to see the alpha male of the pack, initially from what I thought was some distance until I realized that “Mike” as he referred to was huge ! about a 100kg and a walking carpet of hair. Like most alpha Sumatran orang utans he has grown these large flanges of skin on the side of his face in response to his position, a sort of mutton chops for orang utan. I was disappointed that the walkway was only about 20 metres long, but the observation of these creatures is meant as a sideline to the purpose of conservation of these gentle creatures whose habit is disappearing day by day. We rounded off this part of the trip by watching a few monkeys on a table situated in the water by the jetty whilst we were waiting for the boat. Surprisingly these monkey can swim, well a sort of doggy paddle, so when there is food on the table they jump as far as they can and then swim the rest. They are not part of the reserve but were original inhabitants of the island before the orang utan came.

On to the ecology park- it’s a criss cross of walkways to take you to various parts of the animal kingdom that they keep. Due to the rain and some renovations some the animal were not available, but we did see a very large python that they never let out as part of their snake show because it’s so big its capable of squeezing a full size adult easily. We came across a king cobra who was some what agitated and reared up in our presence. As soon as I moved it spat, so thank god for the glass cage, but I did not see any evidence of venom on the glass, so either it had run dry or more likely it had been milked for the day.

Onto a short chair lift ride over the water park which I did not think much of. It doesn’t seem to have been well planned. Changing rooms are a distance from the park so you have to walk there after getting changed and they charge you for use of the lockers as if you have much choice. There were so many rules about what you can wear and do in the park that I sense they had become obsessed with being sued for any legal infringement.
I had been warned that Bukit Merah is not that great and I would agree especially in comparison with other international theme parks. This place is meant to appeal to international visitors but I think it would have hard time. It felt a little tacky at times with the video arcades and endless souvenir shops that remind me more of Blackpool than Malaysia.

Music of the Moment : Goodies – Funky Gibbon

Thunderbirds and House of Fury

2005-04-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

Went to the movies to watch “House of Fury” a Hong Kong movie. A sort of secret agents past catches up with him and his family. The martial arts action is good and obviously fantastical with some speeded up action. Watch out for the little kid called nelson! It has a few laughs and is worth watching. We watched it at the summit cinema in an area where generally there are no matsallehs, so people tend to stare a bit either thinking I’m a lost tourist or maybe it’s the halo above my head? There were no lovely Chinese ladies to vie for my attention like at “Seoul Raiders” but I guess when Mrs Klite goes into Pitbull/Rottewiler mode people tend to place great value on their extremities.

Best part:
Elle the daughters (Natalie) best friend playing femme fatale to an almost innocent speechless brother Nicky by offering him a French kiss and changing her mind at the last moment because his time is up!

Before we went into the movie we got some Chinese food – I had something called Kon Nam Mee. It came with a few slices of a jellied egg considered a delicacy and an acquired taste. I know it makes Mrs. Klite feel sick so I could at last have revenge for the durian she inflicts on me. For the uninitiated, the egg is treated in such a way (perhaps someone could comment on the process?) that the egg yolk turns black and has a dry texture like that of a hard boiled egg. The egg white however is a different matter and one which I suspect is what’s makes people feel sick since it turns in a sort of dark translucent jelly with little taste. I just popped one in expecting some foul taste, but it was palatable but with very little taste, but it does remind me of the consistency of the jelly you find in tinned cat food- not that I have tried it. I think I have an idea of what goes through a cats mind when it looks at this stuff and its one where they stare at you in disgust and then later vomit on your nice new shoes for insulting their gourmet taste.

Watched thunderbirds on DVD Saturday night and I kind of wished I hadn’t. Now I know why it went to DVD so quickly. It spoilt my childhood memory of the puppet series which looking back today was sometimes so bad that its good, and the modern version could be described as wooden as the original. Odd that the world of the Tracey family looks futuristic but old London of 2065 has not updated except for a monorail along the Thames. Can you tell that they put much effort into it? Even the efforts of Ben Kinglesy could not save this movie. It has that awful boy band blue contributing something they call music. I think Bill Nighy character got it right in “love actually” when he referred to blue as a bunch of W.. ell you work it out. Oh well chalk this one to experience I think. I watched it with subtitles, which were not well done but did provide the funniest moment referring to lady Penople as lady banana cave and she certainly was!

Music of the Moment : Echobelly – Fear of Flying

Simple Truth and Dog collars

2005-04-08T04:14:00.000-07:00

Finished David Baldaccis “The simple truth”. An okay book but I was guessing the whodunit about halfway. Very crime and law orientated, I’m trying to work through his work in chronological order and I can already see the difference in style between this and what I thinks is his latest “hour game”.

We in the Klite household have decided that the cats need a collar so that when they do go out they will be identified as having an owner and not nicked or shooed off with a broom or even worse dumped by the dumpster as seems to be the habit of the moment by whoever ! The job of choosing the collar fell to Mrs. Klite since I was carrying the litter and food bags, so I got to look at it later. Now cats generally don’t like collars unless they are put on at an early age so heck knows what the mother is going to be like. We only bought one collar to try it out and see if there is any adverse reaction. So we chose tigger to be the guinea pig. We had to wrap it around twice because he has a scrawny neck. This collar came with a bell which was not intentional. Ten minutes later I hear this snarling and wailing mixed with the sounds of a bell, and when I looked at him the bell was driving him nuts when he was trying to reach it to rip it off. The other cats would examine him with a strange curiosity thinking it was all part of some game. I managed to calm him down and had a closer look at this collar. It was a day glow orange colour with the word written on it – “DOG”. So now we have a cat who will be billing us for his identity crisis therapy. Well as least know when he is around at night because he bounces around with that bell when the rest of us are trying to sleep !- I think that bell is going come off.

Music of the moment Joi – Fingers

Yasmin Alibhai Brown

2005-04-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the pleasure and good luck to meet the British journalist Yasmin Alibhai Brown. She is probably famous for speaking out on issues of women and race. We were in a party of no more than twenty people at an NGO and the room was quite packed. She talked for about an Hour and a half and then answered a few questions. It was good to hear some serious debates about the issues affecting both the UK and Malaysia. Having heard in the past in the UK about the issues of forced marriages and honour killings upon which the government had finally decided to take action on, I was not happy to hear about the new phenomenon of bounty hunters. Yes it sounds very wild west, but basically a group of men will hunt down a woman who has run away from her family or marriage, beat her up to subdue her and then returned her to whoever has requested this for the 3000 pounds that is the bounty fee. The men have been asked why they do this, and some are under the mistaken belief that it is their duty. This plus the number of women sold into slavery for prostitution in the UK is showing that a woman’s life has become cheap.

Music of the moment Bacuzzi – Why

Piarl Lsoof day (Peace and Conciliation)

2005-03-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

Today is Piarl Lsoof, a tradition that goes back a long way to the period of the Mongolian khanates of Genghis Khan. The Mongolians were a warring conquering nation and took any opportunity to expand their power base and empire. The problem was that sometimes even the simplest of things such as criticism couldn’t be done because of the fear that your head would be cut off. So in an attempt to pacify the known world and to shown that even the Mongols could be a peaceful nation Genghis declare that on one day of the year there would no violence, bloodshed or war or even that harsh words could be spoken. That people were free to criticise anyone else without fear of retaliation from that day forth.

It appears that several of our world leaders have taken note of such a day and made their own attempts at Piarl Lsoof.

Today prime minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi astonished hardliners by offering a conciliatory offer to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim the disgraced former deputy prime Minister of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed to take up a position of a second deputy prime minister in order to bring into the fold those supporters of Anwar. His intention he declared was to unite the Malaysian people so he could concentrate on more important matters which affect Malaysia.

In a move which some critics could describe as “jumping on the publicity bandwagon” the Israeli leader Ariel Sharon has declared his own Piarl Lsoof in that his intention would be to create a united Israel which included all Palestinians, Arabs and Jews. Also that the illegal settlements would disbanded with some compensation to the settlers, but that they would have to go through the proper channels if they wanted to live in the predominantly Palestinian areas. The much hated and divisive wall sometimes nicknamed the second Berlin wall would also have to come down. He described his reasons as many citing the crippling cost of just “having to live in your own back yard” and that world opinion was getting harsher for Israel. He denied comments that the real reason was because one of his grandchildren had asked him why he was called the butcher of Beirut and realising that this was not a legacy he wanted to be remembered for by his loved ones.

In a follow up to this the White House Administration has admitted that there never were any WMDs in Iraq and that the real reason for invading Iraq was firstly for the oil, secondly was damage control since they had armed Saddam Hussein and let him loose on Iran in return for the embarrassment of having several Americans held hostage. When asked to comment on this in a presidential address, Mr. Bush laughed and said “Gotcha!”

All eyes are now turning to Prime Minister Tony Blair to see whether he would admit to any knowledge of this. These revelations could damage his chances at the next general elections as an unconfirmed source claimed that at a recent cabinet meeting that Chancellor Brown was heard to utter the words “I told you so”.

Music of the moment Stone Roses – Fools gold

Earthquake

2005-03-29T01:27:00.000-08:00

Very early this morning an Earthquake erupted on the western side of Sumatra on the Richter scale of 8.7. The estimated loss of life was about 2000 but officials admitted that it was based on the building damage. Now we felt it here in KL, but only as a mild shaking akin to that of a heavy lorry passing close to your home and certainly not on the scale anywhere near that of Sumatra. Our cats for the best didn’t budge or respond to it in anyway, however they had for most of the day and especially the evening been acting out of character. I even found them trying to hide amongst some of the storage boxes left over from the last move. However the thing that struck me was that when I was reading the BBC news website , the reports for Malaysia seem to center on the comments made by various subscribers from KL and Singapore. Most of these came across as if the earthquake had had a greater impact cue stories of shaking curtains and rattling crockery and building evacuations. I sensed a great deal of unfounded panic. I didn’t even feel the last earthquake in December, so I can’t see how this was likely to feel any worse. KL and most of Malaysia is sheltered from most of the effects by the island of Sumatra as seen from the results of the Tsunami. Despite KL being in the vicinity of the earthquake we are quite lucky. I am under the impression that these reports coming from Singapore and KL demonstrate that either the building they live in has poor foundations which means that a lot of people are going to have a lot more questions about their building other than the possible effect of the earthquake or we should handing out a few Oscars. At the very least this event will remind the world that has begun to forget December 26th that there are a lot of people who still need our help.

Music of the moment Vangelis - Conquest of Paradise

Robots

2005-03-26T06:48:00.000-08:00

Went to see robots last night because I couldn’t get tickets for House of Fury (sounds like my wife when’s she annoyed!). Animation very good and very detailed in its mechanical detail. Storyline a bit vague - robot goes to big city in search of fame and fortune. However it is very tongue in cheek, you get references to movies such as star wars and takes on the magnificent seven. Most memorable moment – fender the robot attempting to defeats his enemies with no powers other than the ability to impersonate Brittany spears dance routines which did seem to physically blow the robots away. A very quick one and half hours I think.

Music of the moment Adam and the Ants – Killer in the Home

Hadamar

2005-03-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

Today I watched a recording of a BBC special edition of a program called “See Hear”. It’s a special interests program of a group which I will get to in a minute. The program was a shortened version of one that appeared last year and was broadcast I assume because of the recent anniversary of Auschwitz. The program was about the persecution of the vulnerable groups in Nazi Germany starting with sterilisation and leading to mass murder. This persecution being a state sanctioned one in that it was enshrined in a law aimed specifically at the disabled. As I said earlier the program is a special interests, one which covers the issues for deaf people and focused on this group as being one of the many that came under the Nazi German state’s benevolent eye.

Watching this program for the second time still left me with the same quiet anger that you could have for any psychopathic insane individuals who would leave a bloodstained mark on history

The children who fell in the various vulnerable categories were the first to feel the hand of the Nazi state having been betrayed by the very profession that all parents trust – teachers.

They were identified to the medical authorities as candidates for sterilization.

These “patients” in this mass sterilisation program were as young as nine years old. The efficiency of the Bureaucracy that rounded them up did not apply to the practice of good medicine as there were often cases of septicemia.

Having already taken the step to ensure that these people would die out within a generation, the regime took the next logical step in removing them from society. This was done by transporting groups of people via ambulance or coach with blacked out windows to a special building. There up to sixty people at a time were crowded into a room and told to take off their clothes. The doctors would check over them pretending to perform a medical examination. They were then told that they were going to have a shower and with these last words the doctors left the room. Having locked the door they turned on the tap to release carbon monoxide into the room to suffocate them.

After their death their bodies would be taken to the basement after having first removed any gold teeth. Moved to the basement they would be loaded several bodies at a time into an incinerator and burnt. Up to 70,000 people were murdered here, most of whom could not even physically defend themselves if need be. The parents were often told that their children had died of natural causes. The operators of this facility even held a death celebration with beer and food around the 10,000th corpse, being so proud of the statistics of death. Eventually the local civilian population and various groups became suspicious about the number of people not coming out and the chimney incineration smoke and they protested about what was going on. The Nazi government in an effort protect its image, closed down the facility and shipped everything east towards Poland.

If any of this sounds familiar then it would be because this art of death learnt, practiced and perfected by its operators was eventually used on Jews and other groups in the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Birkenhoff and Treblinka

All of this was justified by the state declaring that these groups were useless eaters or a “burden”. Roll that word around your mind and the image you get from it

BURDEN - load, encumbrance, incumbrance, onus -- (an onerous or difficult concern; "the burden of responsibility"; "that's a load off my mind")

Now cast your eyes and ears over the media events that have recently occurred from the UK about the issue of who should be allowed into UK and the scandal over who should get Incapacity benefits. The conservative party wants health checks on all potentional immigrants refusing those who do not meet the health criteria. Citing the need to avoid “burden ” on both the country and especially the NHS although they don’t know what to do if it’s an asylum seeker / refugee, I would be curious to see what they would do if it was a disabled person. The labour government in the meantime has decided to reform the incapacity benefits system into one that gets the disabled into work. Which in theory would work only if:

a) The government made sure the NHS did their job of giving the disabled or incapacitated the support they need to either recover or get on with their lives.
b) The government enforced the law of disability discrimination on the employers who just don’t want to know and sees such a group as burden on their finances.

Recently on BBC on a program called the politics show the minister for the disabled referred to the issue of a toothless disability discrimination act as one in which it was expected that the disabled should be pursing legal action against those who break the law in order to enforce it. Could you imagine taking the same action if the law was for gender or race discrimination?

This all from your local friendly neighborhood government who talks about social inclusion for this group and for some of its own departments are strangely exempt from this law, for those who are not are breaking the law. Very much the “do as I say “rather “do as I do” Even amongst the debates that were held on the BBC website “Have your say” there were many members of public who would refer to the issue of burden both on immigration health checks and especially incapacity benefits. I see this as an underlying trend of national discrimination of many different groups from age to gender. For the disabled and in particular the deaf I have seen the trend of ignorance getting worse since the early 90s as if a whole new generation had taken the reins of society with their ethos of eugenics. Is the UK going back to the dark ages? The last time a country made an issue of burden, they murdered the group in question.

By the way the name of the facility where 70,000 vulnerable people were murdered is HADAMAR

Some links for further information.

www.bbc.co.uk/seehear/extra
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/closeup/holocaust/faq.shtml
www.bbc.co.uk/seehear/extra/nazispecial/ www.bbc.co.uk/seehear/extra/nazispecial/nazifactsheet.shtml

And then there were three

2005-03-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

Well some unfortunate news about the Anak Kuchings (child cats). We put the three oldest plus their mother outside for some exercise and breathing space since they were tearing the place up for some space. The mother needs to go out anyway since she like to “patrol” her territory since we discovered she had disappeared one day by climbing out the toilet window. We are three floors up and I’m not happy about the idea especially as I had caught the kittens trying to climb out of the lounge window – the window ledge has nowhere to go. So when it was time to call them all back in, only Tigger and the mother could be found. We searched up and down the apartment block and found Cole curled up on a ledge off the main balcony and unable to climb back up. Sparky however we could not find. But we believe that maybe he is being looked after by someone else in another apartment since Midnight (the mother) keeps staring at that residence. They were never really our cats anyway since they adopted us to look after them and they were free to go as they pleased. Goes to show that nothing is permanent in life, its ever changing, so enjoy it while you can. Here is a photo of a budding Louis Armstrong (Tigger)

Music of the moment : Susumu Yokota – Suku

Hitch

2005-03-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

I went to see Hitch last night. You may have seen the trailer for it when viewing other movies. Will smith was well..Will smith – the same as he is in most movies, but at least the overall impression is that it was funny and I’m sure there were many of us men out there who were cringing at the thought of recognising some of the mistakes that we make being shown in the movie. I’m sure most of us have wished that we had known a “hitch” that we could ask for help. Kevin James who plays the co lead Albert Brennerman was very good and I would think he would be an actor to watch out for in the future.

Memorable moments: the 90% 10% kiss scene – funny

Quote of the movie :
Hitch: You.... are an iceberg
Albert : Errmm.. I know I guess I’m a little heavy
Hitch : No.. It means we only know 10% of you because the other 90% is hidden.

Music of the moment : Garbage – You look so Fine

Sepet

2005-03-15T08:59:00.000-08:00

I went to see Sepet last week at the request of Mrs. Klite. For those of you who don’t know what it is, the word “Sepet” is taken to mean slant eye, referring generally to the Chinese. It is a sort of west side story or Romeo and Juliet. The story of love between two people from different backgrounds( Malay girl and Chinese boy ). It’s an idea that has been covered countless times throughout the world. Now people maybe wondering why I would watch a movie where the main language spoken is not English. But then for most of my movie going life I have watched movies from around the world where English is not the spoken language, in fact there are many people who do this. Most of the time they do have English subtitles, where they don’t you can rely on the emotions and body language portrayed. There appears to be a bit of lull in the standard of Malay movies and I’m told that the movies were better quality back about 30 years plus. Now my Malay and Cantonese are poor and the English subtitles was not that great, but I found the movie easy enough to follow and judging by the laughing in the cinema its funny. I went with the preconceived idea that it might be a bit conservative and stuffy. I found the overall movie refreshing modern, although a little spoilt by the silly censored scenes. There were plenty of parts that some people might find offensive such as the word put down on the scrabble board by the father. If you don’t know what the word means just type it into google. At times it didn’t quite flow properly and then it would catch up. It deals with a lot of misconceptions that goes on between the Malay and Chinese of Malaysia and does at one scene point out that things were a lot easier several hundred years ago compared to todays unnecessary and pointless complexities. My most memorable part of the film which I think Mrs. Klite will be reminding me of in years to comes was:

Husband: “I will never understand you women, even if I live to be a hundred”
Wife: “Darling your job is to love us, not understand us!”

I have found that a majority of the Hollywood movies of late are not that entertaining, memorable and are even lackluster, yet I find Sepet good enough to remember it a week later.
If you want some giggles then go see.

Music of the moment : Beck – Golden Age

Dave Allen

2005-03-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

By now most of you would have heard that the comedian Dave Allen died last Thursday. I considered him to be an excellent comedian even though I had only grown up with his later work. His shows used to be few and far between with his barstool, cigarette and whisky style of presentation. His material was often wrapped around religion reflecting his contact with the church in his upbringing. He also introduced the ups and downs of life dealing with teenage children and getting old. A man sadly missed.

Music of the moment : Beatles – Yesterday

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2005-03-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

I went to see the movie Lemony Snickets: A series of Unfortunate events last Friday. It was a choice between this, Hide and Seek with DeNiro and a local movie called Sepet. The others I will watch later, but LM was a lot better than I expected. A sort of Gothic Harry Potter on Acid and based on the first two or three books of the series. I hope there will be a sequel, even the ending credits were different and went on for ages. I may consider looking at the books because the style is good. It had a host of famous stars ranging from Jude law to Timothy Spall, who is probably best known for Brummie Barry from Auf Wiedersehen Pet. The villain character Count Olaf does remind me of a few posturing wannabe actors

Music of the moment : John Foxx – Shifting City

Lucky

2005-03-09T07:33:00.000-08:00

Last week we acquired the newest member of the mother cat’s litter of kittens. This kitten wasn’t just recently born(the mother has since been spayed), but found. We came home late to find the kittens all missing, so I had to search for them. Normally its not a big deal if they can’t be seen since they are usually around somewhere. But ever since the oldest kitten (sparky) had somehow climbed into a cardboard box belonging to a neighbor and the said box had been thrown into the large trash container by the Indonesian cleaners who keep the place clean we have had to be wary. Sparky was found two days later wandering around the container. He is not big enough yet to climb the stairs up to our apartment, this very fact is what stops the kittens wandering off too far. Anyway back to the main story, it was whilst searching for the kitten that I went to the most obvious place – the trash container considering past history. I found what I thought was one of the kitten in the dark and bought her up to the apartment only to realise that this was an unknown kitten, espcially since our kittens decided to come out of hiding and run back to the apartment. Before deciding to put the kitten back on the street where I found it Mrs. Klite had a look at her and realised that his kitten was about the same age and looks as the kittens we had. Also that the mother (midnight) did not hiss, scowl or threaten this stranger. So we assumed that this might be one of the many kittens that had been abandoned by the mother for the survival of the fittest. We took her the vet next day and checked her out since she has a limp where most likely someone has kicked her and she was painfully thin. This may explain the abandonment. There is no real mother daughter bond between them but the other kittens have accepted her. We call her lucky because she would not have survived much longer and was only found because when the other kittens had gone into hiding I had to search for them. Fate can be both cruel and kind.

Music of the moment : Bob Marley – Could you be loved

Fatherland Security ( Reichssicherheitshauptamt )

2005-03-03T05:37:00.000-08:00

I went for an interview south of KL the other day with what I thought was a professional company. They went overboard about this constantly repeating the word professionalism. But then despite being told that they would let me know one way or the other – they didn’t. Surprisingly they appeared very keen, although they made a mistake claiming that the spouse visa could not apply to me because it was for Malaysian men with a foreign wife and that they had checked. I too had checked and was adamant that the gender of the foreigner was irrelevant. I even went to Putrajaya Immigration the following weekend to seek reassurance. I was told the gender of the foreign partner was irrelevant. I asked for something to back this up and why is it that companies in Malaysia don’t know this. I was answered with look at the website for proof and the rolling of eyes for the companies. Since the government wants the economy to do well perhaps they should make this situation and whole lot of other things clearer !

Most of you , if not the world are aware of the illegal workers crackdown. An estimated 1.65 million workers are here illegally. I have sympathy for them as a lot of them if not most have very poor prospects back home, are owed back wages and are willing to do the three Ds – Dangerous, Difficult and Dirty. It would be a lot better if these people were hired legally assuming there is a low supply in the area they want to work in and the employers despite all their claims about rising prices/costs will have to pay a fair wage with benefits just like everyone else, the extra cost can come out of the employers exploitive profit margin. Maybe then the prospect of hiring locals will look more attractive rather than throwing them on the current unemployment scrap heap just because the companies can hire some poor desperate soul on non living wages.

Good news in that I heard from an old friend in Sweden who I had lost contact with several years ago. Lifted my spirits to hear that she is doing well as an interior architect. Nice to know that Sweden can rise above the Ikea standard !

Onward to fatherland oops sorry homeland security. You may have noticed in the news about John Gilmore who I believe was refused boarding of a U.S. domestic flight because he didn’t have any id on him. Does this mean that the terrorists are already in the U.S.A. How overboard do you have to be for your minimum wage! Here s a hint- If a terrorist is boarding a domestic flight it means they are already in the country and it’s a bit late to be bolting the stable door.

In other news relatives of mine who are overseas Americans went to Florida - Disneyland in fact. They had a wonderful time with the giant mutant rats and ducks wearing gloves! But to spoil it all they got home to find their luggage all busted up with a polite notice in each one explaining what had happened. Who could do such a thing?

Was it the pissed off baggage handlers? ….NO,
Was it the tired overcharging taxi driver?…NO
Was it giant mutant rats who objected to being referred that way ? ..NO.

It was none other than good old US customs?! So take a step back here and think.. Customs? Don’t they usually check when you enter a country ?

Well these guys were thorough, so thorough that they broke all the locks thus rendering the baggage about as useful as a garnish on a smelly rubbish dump, There was apparently quite a few pieces of luggage broken since they had to all be put into a special container. Now I suspect it was probably minimum wage fatherland oops sorry there it goes again!… homeland security looking for those giant mutants rats who were probably on some secret presidential hit list just because they always look happy/stoned. Well if you were a reformed alcoholic and you saw only three fingers on someone hand wouldn’t you think you had fallen off the wagon. How many brain cells would it have taken to tell passengers you are going to unlock your luggage in front of us and we are going to rile through your dirty laundry and laugh at your fashion tastes. Maybe their X-ray scanner didn’t work? Maybe due to the wonderful process of competitive tendering and backhanders of shoving business my way the staff all got those super x-ray specs that you can buy in the back of the comics. If you think they work maybe you should buy shares in company that makes them.

Just for the benefit of the Customs kindly stop viewing Europeans like that because we are viewing Americans like this .

reproduced with the kind permission of J. Sherffius
See his and other cartoonist works at :
http://cagle.com/

Music of the moment: Henry Mancini – Pink Panther theme

Thunder .. Thunder.. Thundercats.. Ho !

2005-03-02T02:09:00.000-08:00

The other night after a very hot day, relief came in the form of a very heavy thunderstorm. It even woke me up at 3am and I can usually sleep through a storm. However the squatters cats didn’t see it like that and proceed to poop on the floor instead of their designated tray. We have to resort to this simply because this is what cats do. I have heard of stories whereby owners had trained their cats to do the business in the toilet bowl similar to the dog in the movie Bruce almighty -remember ? however I'm not sure that is such a good idea for a cat as they might fall in. The kittens will definitely fall in. Mrs. Klite recently disappeared cat was a rescue cat(adopted from cat charity paws) who had been so well trained that he did his business over the drainage hole (a feature of all wet bathrooms). Since they (the thundercats) were a bit crowded in their loo and a bit reluctant to do it without privacy(well how would you feel ? – besides they can’t hold a newspaper in their paws – the paper too big) we thought something new was in order. So we took them to the vet to get them checked up.

Apparently they are in excellent conditions for stray cats probably due to our care, but they did have fleas. The very word makes me itch as I have bad memories of a neighbours cat we befriended in my family home called Ronnie who returned our gesture with a few stowaways of his own. It took a long time to eradicate the fleas.. see ? did the word make your skin itch ? By the way this expert on cats – the vet has 33 cats of his own in his home! I am amazed at how he copes with them- has “paws ” relocated ?? I get freaked out when I’m trying to have a bowl of cornflakes in the morning in my armchair with three kittens all sitting on the arm licking their lips and staring at me like something out of the “Midwich Cuckoos”

The cats were a bit temperamental about being in the vets, I guess it was the equivalent of us going to the dentist. They were spared the trauma of a thermometer to check their temperature and I do mean trauma because they don’t put it in their mouths. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the destination. So they had jabs, worm tablets and an appointment to be spayed/neutered. Before anyone writes in complaining about how cruel that must be .. well you are not the one who faces the prospect of three kitten becoming fully reproductive in two months, yes I said two months and they are only about 2 months old now !

We stopped off at Ikano which for the uninitiated is a shopping area in Mutaria Damansara (Mutaria means pearl) which contains a Tescos, Ikea and a shopping mall called the Curve where a young woman was recently murdered in the back of her boutique – just to paint this pretty suburban picture in your mind!. We went up to pets wonderland to get a new bigger litter tray. I was tempted to look in Ikea but somehow the idea of a flat pack pine finish litter tray with a strange brand name like smorgasbord didn’t really appeal to me. So we grabbed this thing that I can only describe as the cat equivalent of a porta loo. The kind you find on building sites and in jack ass style programs where they like turn it upside down and shake it with some poor unfortunate soul inside who gets a real live close up experience. We grabbed some cat litter as well to fill up and it turns out I'm entitled to a free gift chosen from a “spin the wheel board” I had to do it three times because they had run out of the first two items. I won a tin of M&Ms “which was nice” and thought they were cat M&Ms, well it is a pet shop after all.

Before I forget .. the little game where I had you guessing the delicacy that looks like lumps of coal in the photo? (see article 2005-02-14 Chinese Lions, Kembung and Valentines) – well they were salted eggs.. and they are very salty- probably not a good idea to eat too many of them, your blood pressure will soar not to mention your raging thirst.

Prizes to anyone who can name all of the Thundercats in the cartoon of the same name. Don’t you just love this trip down my infantile memory lane !

Music of the moment: William Orbit – Barbers Adagio for strings

Toilet freshener and Boogymen

2005-02-26T02:03:00.000-08:00

A short blog today. Went to Ikano the other day, had a quick lunch including a strange desert called nasi dangang made out of glutinous rice and coloured blue so that it reminds me of a block toilet freshener. However it taste lovely – the nasi dangang that is. Although I’m not sure if I will ever look at a toilet freshener block the same way again. Two days ago I went to help my father in law check out from the government hospital he was in for three days. He is 80 years old and a diabetic. It was his diabetes that got him into this place because he hadn’t eaten properly and went into hypo. Anyway I had to help him dress and its strange helping your family realising that one day this could be you. He was still trying to get into his 20 year old fashion trousers that were too tight for him. Guess he has plenty of spark in him.

Last night went to see “boogyman” – utter @@!£$%%. Great acting but lousy storyline, wish I hadn’t spent my money now !

Music of the moment: Boards of Canada - ROYGBIV

Free Mojtaba and Arash Day

2005-02-21T22:01:00.000-08:00

Free Mojtaba and Arash Day
Free Mojtaba and Arash Day
Free Mojtaba and Arash Day
Free Mojtaba and Arash Day
Free Mojtaba and Arash Day

cyber-dissidents Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran for blogging their thoughts.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being breached. Iran is acting in defiance of this global standard.

Reporters Without Borders

Committee to Protect Bloggers campaign

Mont Kiara Shaolin Chinese Lions

2005-02-19T11:40:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the Mont Kiara plaza with Mrs. Klite, my sister and nephew to watch a Chinese lion dance. Since I had missed some not so good performances I had hope that this would be a lot better. Plenty of people were there and crowded in for a good view. Some had decided to watch from above in the car park and others decided to take the weight off their feet by watching from the coffee shops. Everyone had pushed for a good view but the many children were able to push to the front and sit down rather than be trapped behind too many giants. There were a few matsallehs – no surprises there given that Mont Kiara is an expat area. The show started off okay with the drummers and few sword dances, with no fear of injury waving the sword around fast since they were made of looked like wobbly sheet metal. Then after some obvious heated debate amongst the organizers the rest of the show was moved because of the oncoming rain. It was just pushed back further into the open air plaza under some simple sailcloth coverings that graces the entrance to the plaza. After preparing the props for the lion dance, making sure they were safe and dry, the show proceeded. As you can see from the photo below there were two lions in this set who then danced and climbed up the poles. As you can see one of the lion dancers threw in a cheeky grin posing for the cameras.

A few times one of them would slip but easily recovered making it look possibly as part of the show. This was followed by a second lion dance involving some fruit whereby the pair of them would devour the fruit only for it emerge much later as a prepared dish ! The kids who were sitting around the edge with a much closer view than they previously had, were regularly pushed back as they were getting too close. One such little toddler probably thought he deserved a much better view and barely walking, went out into the middle of the set not once but twice and had to be rescued by security. The final dragon dance was pushed back to the original location, I’m guessing because they needed more space to maneuver than the other acts. When this was finished everyone moved quickly and one poor woman fell into the fountain that the crowds had enclosed. I’m glad I went since for me this is the best so far, being better than the ones I used to watch in London Chinatown.

Music of the moment: Massive Attack – Protection

Chinese Lions, Kembung and Valentines

2005-02-14T08:39:00.000-08:00

Being a Sunday you would expect to have a lie in since it is great tradition practiced all over the world. But for this Sunday we decided to get up early and head down to the wet market in Subang Jaya near our former home. Now back in the United Kingdom(UK) the tradition of the wet market which those in the know is the selling of fish in the open (not in the refrigerator like the supermarket ) has died out save for a few locations such as wholesalers. They do sell vegetables and meat in this market held in the local council car park but it still mostly fish. So the last time I remember a wet market in the UK was when I was a wee lad in the town of Warrington where I spent the first few years of my life. The memory of the smell of fish and sawdust doesn’t go away. Neither does the sound of my grandma cursing in German as I did one of my many disappearing tricks to satisfy my curiosity about something I spotted - but that’s another story. Now if you are like me with an innate sense of curiosity about food then you will search for unusual foods that you have never seen before and thats what I did. Like a irritating six year old kid on a long car trip who says “are we there yet” , I was pestering Mrs. Klite about the different species of fish.
“what is that?”

“.. that’s a fish”

“oh.. what is that there then ?”

“.. that’s another fish”

“oh.. and what about that ?”

roll eyes back “that also is a fish”

“ah.. but what is that?”

“that is fermented prawn paste!”.

That is when I decided I better keep quiet until I found this little gem. I wasn’t sure just by glancing at it and so I had to ask. Now I have decided to play a little game with you all. Have a guess what theses delicacies are and let me know via the comments. First of all they are not lumps of coal, they are delicacies which mean edible. So unless you are pregnant with a craving for coal, coal does not count. Rude comments will be promptly removed.

So after all that we bought some vegetables and Kembung (a south east Asian fish).

I did want to see the Chinese lion dance at Midvalley and One Utama malls but unfortunately I had too much on to go. My sister went and tells me that the Midvalley one wasn’t really great. The One Utama version was advertised for 2pm but when they got there they were told it happened at 1pm, that’s Malaysian time for you ! However apparently there will be a Chinese lion dance at Mont Kiara (the expat area) this Friday, I believe somewhere around 7pm , but if you want to go check the times first, I may have got it wrong.

On the way back from the market we bumped into this little crowd going off to a lion dance in preparation. Once they saw me with the camera they put on a song and dance in the back of the lorry carrying them and said a few American phrases that you would hear in some of the stereotypical sitcoms. I don’t know whether they thought I was a yank(American) even though I have American heritage or they had been watching some Sunday morning sitcom and cartoons. but anyway they looked happy and having fun

I was sent this link in an email today and its probably doing the rounds in the email circles. Its looks an amazing idea to be underwater and watch the undersea life swim around you. I’m sure most peoples first concern will be, is it safe and what happens if there is a leak!

http://www.poseidonresorts.com/index.html

Valentines. To all those out there with no one to celebrate – it isn’t a big deal okay because I’ve been there. Valentine is meant to be to tell someone new that you fancied / fallen in love with them. For your current other half there are 364 other days that you are supposed to tell them and not leave it to this one day of the year! Your best bet is to read up on the origins of saint Valentines and understand what was behind it. At the moment the whole Valentines scene is over commercialised just like the Christmas scene. I believe it can be a bit insulting to spend vast amount on something for your loved ones that 10 times the normal price because the amount you spend doesn’t prove your love, it just looks like you are trying to buy love and its tacky. You want to show your love?

1. Tell your other half that you love them on the other days of the year.

2. Take them out for a meal if you wish, but do it somewhere you both will enjoy without worrying whether your credit card can take the battering. If you are any good, cook them a special meal- read up there plenty of ideas. Something made by your hands and effort shows you care and are prepared to make yourself look silly for their benefit. One tip though – practice a couple of times first!

3. Actually listen to your half, not just “yeah yeah whatever” whilst watching “Neighbours” or the sports channel.

4. Do something different that would surprise your other half, it can be something so small or simple that they wouldn’t believe it at first. I once left a small box of 3 hand made chocolates in an old girlfriends handbag so that when she went rummaging around in something that resemble a Tardis ( Dr Who fans apply only) she found this surprise with a smile on her face when she opened it. The simple things are the nicest.

So for any one interested in what I did with Mrs. Klite for valentines? We tried to go for a simple meal at Chillis at KLCC on Saturday night having spent a few hours late afternoon helping out with her work in her office (that’s how much I care!). Unfortunately Chillis like most other food places was fully booked by couples in anticipation that Monday the Valentines Day it self would be fully booked. We ended up eating in the food court from one of the Indian eat outs which were not particularly generous with their servings. Won’t be going there again. On Sunday after coming back from the wet market Mrs. Klite wanted to make a romantic meal with a fish dish which requires some Daun Kesum ( Laksa leaves ). In my stupidity I had thrown them out the day before, I found them in the fridge looking wilted and a little brown thinking I bought some herbs and forgotten about them I threw them out. Mrs. Klite was very pissed with me, a quick look around reassured me that there were no heavy objects to hand. But for a few hours I was contemplating sharing the front porch with the cats who would probably roll back their eyes and tut at me for missing that one. We made up a few hours later and that I think that hopefully demonstrates one of the aspects of valentines showing that you can accept a loved one for all their faults!.

Music of the moment: Eels – Something is sacred

Seoul Raiders

2005-02-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

Wednesday went to see Constantine at midvalley. The queue was very very long. Couldn’t get the time we wanted so I had to book for late afternoon which left us a couple of hours to kill. So we wondered around window shopping and eventually popped into pets wonderland. Ever since that cat and her kittens have popped up on our doorstep like a bunch of orphans Mrs. Klite has taken a shine to them and henceforth they returned the gesture by pooping on our doorstep! So that’s why we are in pets wonderland to buy kitty litter. I figure that if they are going to make use of our front porch then they better well poop properly- I’m British and we expect that. It can be a sad sight in the said pet shop when you see the cats and dogs looking fed up in the small glass cages. The idea that they have some value is removed when you see that they are having a discount on these creatures – a discount on the value of life ?? Bought some snot rags for Mrs. Klite because she kept pinching mine!. Would you believe they don’t do handkerchiefs for women ! – so we had bought a packet of men’s instead!

Anyway onto the movie – its good, a little dark humour and the effects are good. Not one for people with religious sensibilities though, good twist at the end. Keanu Reeves is good although I’m sensing a little Neo here, but I guess typecasting comes with the territory. I think this is his first movie since finishing the matrix series- I might be wrong . if so let me so, you know the where the shiny comment link is below

Thursday went into Mrs. Klite office to help her catch up with some work during the holidays. Absolutely mind numbing, never realized that we were there until 11pm ! – I can think of better ways to spend my time.

Friday the lino Mrs. klite had put aside to put on the front porch was beckoning to be done and muggins here was volunteered. I should mention that lino used to be on the all the floors of a Malaysians home. With the exception of a few people most Malaysians have now moved over to stone/marble floors which is easier to clean, maintain and cooler in the hot weather. Some lino is used instead on the front porch of a home rather than spending money on marble or a boring cement floor. However there was the issue of some squatters that had to be moved before I could put the lino down. So Mrs. Klite was volunteered to handle them by washing them. Oh the screams from the cats was so loud, you would think they were being baked into a pie! Anyway the front porch looks nicer now and with resident squatters back in clean condition it looks okay.

We went to watch Seoul raiders Friday night at the summit hence the title of this blog. With Tony Leung Chai Wai and Shu Qui. This is the sequel to Tokyo raiders which i'm told by a leading film critic(Mrs. klite and no I can’t argue back- she has a mean right hook) is much superior to this movie. However it s worth watching for the action and I think it okay. If you like a bevy of Asian beauties in your movie you will be alright here. Now we were supposed to watch Bridget Jones – edge of reason which was unfortunately no longer available in KL (so there is a god after all!).Now I was the only matsalleh in the cinema in this predominately Chinese area and was joined in my row by a group of nice ladies who were curious about this matsalleh in their cinema and proceeded to make a few whispers , giggles and looks in my direction. I thought this was a nice complement, but I had to remember the image of Mrs. klite waggling her finger at me about such women and the lecture that came with it about Malaysians who are fascinated by the matsallehs who they dream of whisking them away in some romantic whirl.

Moving on from fantasies I want to mention two website here which are also in the links to the side.

First up

Speakers Corner – London. Described as

I am a Londoner in the heart of what makes Great Britain featuring the
good, the bad and the ugly, charting its slow decline into chaos. When a Man is tired of London he is tired of Life… Samuel Pepys 1633-1703

http://londonerslife.blogspot.com/

If you ever wanted to visit London or have been, then you must have wondered what it is like for the people who live there. It’s not quite the picturesque, glamorous city that is made out in the movies of Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a funeral or even Wimbledon. I think many of you will see the commonalties between London’s problems and the one s affecting where you live. Its still in the process of some modifications– enjoy

Second up

Enviroman Says – Described as

Enviroman is very concerned at the state of planet Earth. Enviroman wants to do something about it. Enviroman wants to create a greater awareness of the need to protect and conserve our environment because the first step towards solving any problem is an awareness that there IS a problem. He wants more ideas about how to deal with the problems of environmental degradation. Please help Enviroman in this noble endeavour. Please help put words into Enviroman's mouth

http://enviromansays.blogspot.com/

Take a look at it if obviously you are curious/interested in the environmental issues. Environman is currently trying to setup a network of environmental reporters to record the state of our polluted Klang river which is currently in the gunsight of the Malaysian prime Minster. Armed with a digital camera/phone you can contribute to the identification of the pollution that makes the river look like untreated sewage. Its our river and its our home so why not get involved in any way you can. If you are a matsalleh then why not contribute in some way to show Malaysians that westerners are concerned about other countries environment but not at the expense of the people who have to live there. Visit the web log for more details.

Music of the moment: Captain Sensible – Wot

Bureaucracy

2005-02-08T05:32:00.000-08:00

Today we went to Putrajaya the new administrative capital upon which all government function including the prime Minster will be moving to. It is almost complete with only a few touches to be done and I didn’t see much change from when I first went there nearly a year. One of the aspects of this city is to project a first world mentality for Malaysia to show that they are developing and on target for the industrialized nation target of 2020. A lot of design and effect has obviously gone into from the choice of building materials to the layout. We went to the immigration dept to extend my visa as par course of my settlement here under the spouse program. From there it went downhill. Two and half hours to get this simple act done all complete with the grumpy cashier moaning about her not having gone to lunch yet. First of all neither have the rest of the people waiting here who have not had lunch yet. It just too difficult to do so, not knowing when your tickets (any one of three different groups of numbers) will be called, even a bathroom stop is risky. It was evident at one point that several people were for whatever reason held up because they did not respond to the calling of their ticket. There are nineteen counters spread over an approx distance of 100 metres. You fill your form at one end and then sit down for 2 hours. You get a call to the cashier right at the opposite end and you to pay. You don’t get your passport back as it sits in a pile behind the cashier waiting for someone to pick it up. 30 minutes later you get another call at the opposite end of the hall to where you are to have someone just hand over your newly stamped passport. Now I know the government is worried about the fitness and health of Malaysians but I can think of better ways to make them fit other than have them running from end of the hall to the other. I know that the government is running a campaign to get public servant to be better mannered to the public they serve, the bureaucracy and attitude ranges from bad to appalling. My father in law used to be a civil servant and he loathed the way the civil service comes across and I have seen him frustrated by the said service when waiting to pick up his IC for the umpteenth time as they upgrade the system yet again. The building is which immigration is housed is a nice building which I think most people would love to work in. its comfortable and well designed except for this immigration hall which had litter everywhere and no bins. The floors are still scuffed with black marks on a cream coloured floor which were still there from the first time I went there. The saying in Malaysia is “first world buildings- third world mentality”.

On a more positive note there are a lot of cats in our area albeit with no owners. One cat that we were always kind to whenever she appears and who follows us around obviously hoping for food. This morning we walked out of our door to find this site on our front porch. Maybe the cat knows she is on to a good thing.

Music of the moment: Groove Armada – At the River

Sega Rally & Lightning

2005-02-07T03:11:00.000-08:00

Ok this morning I was helping my sister out with her scratched "estima" mpv. Everytime a car has to go to the garage it becomes a two person job. One to drive the vehicle in question and the other to follow them and take them home. Now to me it was a small scratch and not noticeable unless you are looking for it. However I am reminded that this humid climate is corrosive. Look at some of the buildings around you to get the point. Anyway since this barely noticeable scratch has gone through the anti rust coating we have to take it to a mechanic she knows. So off we drive on the local roads me following because a) I don’t know the area and b) I don’t know where this mechanic is. Generally when you follow someone the aim is to keep within a reasonable visual distance because if you lose him or her you’re lost. It took me nearly 5 minutes to nearly lose sight of my sisters’ car, why because I faced the wrath known as a Malaysian driver. Indicators are unknown to these people, maybe because they think they waste electricity. A two-car gap between you and the next person is an invitation for these driver to shove in without thinking is it safe. And it all reminds me of Sega rally except that the vehicle impacts are real and so is the potentional loss of life. It seems to be the common complaint of visitors to Malaysia- “wonderful country, but bad bad bad roads and drivers”. I’m curious why hasn’t Malaysia produced a contender for the F1, we could beat the pants off Schumacher with a school run mother, not forgetting that she must have those strange armlets they wear so that their arms don’t tan in the sun- strangest driving gloves I ever saw! In case is thinking that i'm blowing this problem all out of proportion I would say watch your own government advertisements telling drivers to behave on the road – “get in line” being the classic one.

We had a storm this afternoon with plenty of lightning, am I like a good old thunder and lightning storm but not when they trip my electrics for the 2nd time in a week. Seem like power outages are becoming common given the recent outage of Selangor by the national electricity company. The storm has also had the effect of undoing all the effect I put into cleaning up the utility room which we use for cooking because it open and the cooking smells don’t go back into our apartment. Unfortunely the storm blew all manner of rain, debris and bugs onto my nicely just cleaned floor. Oh joy of joy I have to do it all over again.

Now that Chinese new year public holidays is upon us Mrs. klite and I were going to visit friends in Penang and since I have never being up that way I was looking forward to it. But its being cancelled and I’m looking for something to visit to spend quality time with Mrs. Klite because we wont get this much leave in one go until Hari Raya later on in the year. Any suggestions please leave a comment

Music of the moment: Depeche Mode – Route 66

King of Fruits

2005-02-05T06:19:00.000-08:00

On the way home from playing badminton Mrs Klite decide in one of her favourite pastimes. Indulging in the delight of Durian. The prickly fruit so smelly that it’s banned from airlines and hotels. The fruit they claim smells like hell and taste like heaven. I unfortunely can’t stand the stuff, its smell like rotting flesh and I’m sure I have never smelt rotting flesh. Mrs Klite has threatened to kiss me after eating it. We get home and the car stinks of it. We get out of the car and theres a stampede by the local wildlife in an effort to get away. Birds drop out of the sky and plants wilt.”Ooh wonderful durian sayang” mrs Klite whispers to me and I’m praying I will wake up and it will all be a nightmare.

On the plus side our full water pressure is back. Seems like some scallywag turned the pressure tap down which is situated in the public hallway outside our apartment. Maybe the same fool who nicked my trainers a few months ago. Now these were not expensive trainers. But when you have feet like gajah they are expensive to replace! Took me a month of “sorry don’t have that size” and looks like I was dr McCoy – the beast out of the x-men.

Music of the moment: Carter USM – The final come down

Chinese New Year

2005-02-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

Yes I’m back again after a period of writers blog, and just to let you know that this blog is not a daily but more of an if and when blog.
Anyway went to midvalley on Thursday afternoon because there was supposed to be Chinese dancing lions for the Chinese New Year. Unfortunely this was not to be the case as the lions will be there on sun 13th Feb. Instead we get the Chinese youth acrobats, which are not too bad. Obviously more skilled than I am at it and well received by the audience expecting lions. The photo below shows the skills of three girls balancing on a bicycle. Incidentally if there is no photo below – I apologise. I host these photos on Yahoo because I have no where else for them and the link does not stay very long. If anyone knows of a free hosting site that I can link my photos to I would be grateful.

Well I suppose that’s one way of solving the traffic problem of KL. I wonder how long before our intrepid moped rider come up with a similar feat. Oh of course they already do. Not 1, Not 2 Not 3.. But 4 people on a moped or rather a family. Dad on the main seat mums on the back seat. First child usual either between mum and dad or in front of dad. Second child usually in the shopping basket up front. Somehow I don’t think that’s what the moped designer had in mind when they thought about somewhere to store your books or shopping whilst riding. If the kids are fortunate they will get crash helmets, but likely they will not. I’m waiting for a rider to put two kids into a makeshift saddlebag to go over the back wheels. If I see one of these moped riders I will try and photograph it to show. It has to be seen to be believed.

Anyway to all the Chinese out there - gong xi fa cai

So then I’m off to the carrefour in midvalley to top up the shopping and I notice that one of the staff is on roller blades. Good idea, but a precarious surely? I’m waiting for one to crash into a palette of rice, or more likely a very recently stacked pyramid of cans. You know like you see on TV, where someone is running around the shop floor to avoid being caught for whatever reason in this great big store and they happen to run towards the only location in the store where some new person has spent 2 hours stacking a pyramid of baked beans. The person running like crazy has somehow managed to not run into anything but just can’t avoid these cans, oh its so keystone cops – its not.

Anyway I’m waiting for the rollerblader to get go faster stripes or even better a cherry bomb (sports cars exhaust) because there are quite a few young men out there who put these on their cars. Which leads me to the question. When you drive down the road and the first people know of you is when they hear the cherry bomb and they look round for this flashy sports car only to see a…… proton ! – Did you really think it would impress anyone? Maybe your girlfriend if it really counts. How about getting yourself a decent car or at least souping it up properly – and that means no furry dice or rear spoilers, or even rear spoilers with the neon light that looks like knightrider with a directional problem or a cylon with a twitching eye(think about it).

Ok next – Elektra the movie. Went to see it last night and it was .. pants (slang for rubbish) I was so disappointed, it looked so good in the trailers. Typical martial arts meets xmen hero movie. I thought the comic that it was taken from was supposed to be so good! But at least Terence Stamp who plays the blind leader of the good guys was good and if you want to watch the movie to see Jennifer good-looking body then you won’t be disappointed. Oh and something else what is up with the picture quality at the movies in KL. I haven’t seen so many scratches on film since I saw film matinees as a kid. And the colour looked a little washed out.

Well today it seems I have become a PC widower! You have heard of golf widows where the hubby plays so much golf she hardly sees him. Well I made my wife a PC widow recently whilst playing warblade- an addictive video arcade game (shareware version). But then Mrs. Klite ups the stakes and starts playing my game so I have suddenly become a pc widower! At the moment I am mostly hearing the comments of warblade shouting “game on” and “alright” in a demented voice that sounds like the cylons from battlestar galicatica. I think there will have to be an accidental erasure of the game very soon.

Moving on I received a DVD of 2 TV programmse shown on British TV from my brother- cheers bro!. An episode of the west wing (one of my favorites) and bill bailey in concert (comedy). I have only watched the first 5 mins of bill bailey and some of the adverts. I do miss the dry sarcastic wit of British humour. But I didn’t realised I would miss the TV advertising! Talk about quality! I don’t like the one they have here like one s that are badly dubbed into English from Hong Kong or are receiving a celebrity endorsement from someone we have never heard of!

Music of the moment: Poem Rouge – Garde du nord

Country Club

2005-01-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

I should mention something I forgot to say in yesterday’s weblog of KLCC. I was browsing in the Isetan bookshop in KLCC. In particular the section about Japan, a place I have always wanted to visit and no doubt one day I will! The book genre I was examining was on martial arts in particular Aikido. A lady who was also perusing the martial books struck up a conversation about the martial arts. I asked her if she knew anywhere that teaches Aikido. Unfortunely not, her art is karate. She pulled over her brother who proceeded to talk about ninjas, samurais and his favourite martial art Kendo. After about 20 mins. non-stop talking he finally ran out of things to say and had to make his excuses and dash off. It was at that moment that I pondered the question “Is it possible to be a martial arts nerd?” Anyway I was no nearer to finding a suitable Aikido school in KL. So if anyone can recommend a good one I would appreciate it (add a comment with the details)

So getting back to the country club. Its situated somewhere between Shah Alam and Klang. It’s obviously exclusive since the initial fee is 20k. I played squash with Mrs. Klite and her sister. Now I haven’t played in many many years but at least it didn’t take too long to pick it up, but my arm is going to be very sore. Looks like I’m a little out of shape. I managed to get the ball stuck in the fan grill high up on the wall near the ceiling, shows you how badly I play.

Anyway onto the outdoor pool, I haven’t swum in an outdoors pool since I was a kid. Heck it was that long ago that it was ever warm enough to swim outdoors apart from the hot August of 2003. It was a cooler day than normal but still warm enough to swim gently on my back and gaze up into the peaceful sky and forget your troubles. Until I'm splashed by one of the nephew and nieces I have inherited since I married Mrs. Klite. It’s kind of nice to play parent with the kids for a while and you can always hand them back when you get fed up – kidding. Funny how things go round in circle because I had an aunt and uncle that did exactly this with me when I was a kid.

Music of the moment: Pulp - Trees

KLCC and Incas

2005-01-08T01:10:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the day at KLCC, which is the shopping mall at the base of the Petronas Towers. I usually head up to the bookshop on the 4th floor to catch the latest titles that have been released. They usually vary between works of fiction and the latest business/self help guru- how to make you rich/better/successful or what ever latest desire we humans crave. It was whilst going up in the lift to this floor that I ended up talking to a complete stranger who turned out to be much like myself a matsalleh from London who have moved here in the mid 90s. I mentioned that being a recent arrival to Malaysia that I was looking for work and that I was having a few problems with the companies in Malaysia. He was kind enough to offer me a cup of coffee and we shared our experiences of working and living in Malaysia. Now I don’t normally talk to strangers since there are a few who will try and extract money from you in one form or another, that is a sad fact of being a matsalleh in this country. But this was just good banter from one matsalleh to another and this did lift my spirits somewhat to know that it will get better-it just takes time. Those business types amongst you may refer to this as good networking, which I did although I sometimes have my doubts about it. But when it happens it happens naturally and it produces a feel good factor about it. Anyway anybody out there looking for IT & Management people, I’m your guy, so give me a contact through the comments here.

So moving on around KLLC, which is unusually busy for a Friday apart from lunchtimes I bump into this group of musicians called Ecuadorian Incas. If you are into the “World / New age ” style music you will probably like these guys. They remind me of “spirit nation” where the traditional is blended with modern music similar in vein to ambient or lounge music. I’m told they have been touring for several months, working their way across from Ecuador. They go to Dubai soon and then go home. I bought one of their cd, which has the traditional stuff and it not bad especially as they autographed it. Ok so they are not going to be the next worldwide flavour, but it was a nice touch coupled with a posed photo with them.

Their website is
www.nazkaperu.com

Finished reading David Baldacci “Hour Game”. Its not a bad read if you are into crime/suspense book, but I’m told it not one of his better works. “Split Second” is likely to be a better introduction to this author.

Music of the moment: Cocteau Twins – Lazy Calm

Nasi Lemak and Petronas Tower

2005-01-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

This morning I'm up early with Mrs. KLite to go into the golden triangle, something I do on a regular basis. We often arrive into the outskirts of KL by about 8am. The sun rises and sets the same time everyday here 7.30am and 7.30 pm. We take the north south highway, which is a fairly new expressway, which cuts into one of the many mountains surrounding KL (KL is situated in a valley.) The photo was supposed to be impressive with the sunrise and the petronas tower (until recently the tallest building in the world) often shrouded in the early morning fog, but alas the photo did not capture the moment as I had hoped. You had to be there to appreciate it. I'm making the most of it because of the large scale building program in Mont Kiara that will block the view of petronas tower. Mont Kiara is where most of the expats live. It’s a sort of a Singapore. The kind of place where people claim they want to experience the real Malaysia and then go home to a cup of tea like they had been on day trip to the Natural History Museum. Reminds me of the lads/ladettes of Benidorm only richer.

We stop off for a typical Malay breakfast called Nasi Lemak that is coconut rice with all manner of things added to it from chili, egg, anchovies to cucumbers. I skip the chili of course, my stomach not fireproof yet. It kind of feels like I'm eating last night dinner left over- eaten fresh of course. All this to the sound of the road traffic that is less than a metre from where I’m sitting and half of KL has found 101 uses for their car horn!

Music of the moment: Blancmange – Living on the ceiling

Bugs

2005-01-05T23:48:00.000-08:00

I went to the doctors today because I have bug bites again. All I needed was some more of the cream they give you to calm it down. I only ever see my doctor about this problem so they are fairly used to me, even the reception staff who’s English is so vague as to make comminication awkward. I shouldn’t complain because my Malay is worse than their English. I’m the just the matsalleh who married a local and is always bitten by the bugs probably because I’m not used to the local food with the copious amounts of chili involved and therefore haven’t changed over to the this diet which is supposed to deter the bugs. I will get there eventually - just takes time. As my mother in law says “your blood taste sweeter to them”.

Anyway the local wildlife being in a tropical country is obviously going to be bigger and more visible. You get used to it from the geckos that runs across the walls of the apartment building not bothering anyone but at least eating the flies. The mosquitoes are not so nice and you do have to spray on a regular basis to keep them at bay. I’m not one for killing any living thing but when I'm bitten and I have tried so hard not to scratch then I lose all will and declare WIII on them.

At 2am getting up for a cup of green tea I stumble upon a cockroach. This is the first one that I have ever seen in life, with the exception of pictures. I stare at the cockroach, it stares back. I slowly reach for the insect spray and the cockroach starts to slowly retreat as if it knows what coming. Then it bolts off and we play a cat and mouse game- they can run quite fast I win in the end, but this serves to remind me that we share our lives with all manner of insects!

I should point out that matsalleh and gwilo (spelling not withstanding) is the nicknames given to us by the Malays and Chinese respectively. I think matsalleh originated from the term “mad sailors” which has altered over time to its new term.

Music of the moment: Jade Warrior – Grey Lake, Red Mountain
www.jadewarriorhorizen.com

A New Year

2005-01-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

Ok
This is a first for me. Who am I and what in the heck is KLite?
Well I'm a British guy living in Kuala Lumpur and the KLite is the name given to people who live there.

This blog is supposed to chart my experience in KL and Malaysia .

more to follow....