What other way for a newspaper to kiss the ass of the Prime Minister than to give his son-in-law, the non-elected politician, a column in its pages? Thank you, New Straits Times, for ruining my Sundays by having Khairy Jamaludin’s smug mug looking at me over breakfast. Honestly, that man has no shame. No wonder Dr. M is disappointed with Pak Lah.
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I was pleasantly amused to see Cineleisure Damansara provide several parking spaces for Single Female Driver located near the escalators in its basement car park. Someone obviously gave some thought to the escalating number of violent crime in the Klang Valley and the horrendous rape and subsequent murder involving single females that have made the headlines in the past few years. What really amused me was that these spaces, which were painted bright pink, were mostly empty on a busy Sunday afternoon. When able drivers will blatantly park in spaces reserved for the handicapped, it’s amusing to see that being pink and marked female has deterred a lot of errant drivers (which I am guessing to be male) from parking in these spaces.
Kudos also to Cineleisure Damansara for only charging RM1 per entry for a parking space in an area where parking is in great demand, considering there are three popular malls located side by side here. RM1 for parking that’s clean and spacious in the Klang Valley? Shocking. Let’s see how long this will last before they start charging higher. Still, that hasn’t stopped people from reducing traffic lanes by parking on the street. Can you blame them though? A ringgit saved here and there on parking means a lot when you can’t move from one end of the valley to the other without going through a toll booth.
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A shout out also to Amcorp Mall for only charging RM2 for the first four hours to park in its basement. Sure, it’s not exactly the trendy hotspot like Damansara or Bangsar but it’s still a good local mall with lots of traffic. It costs more in the open air car park but there’s plenty of room on the lower basement, if people would only drive further down instead of insisting on finding a space on the higher level. That’s what drives me crazy about Malaysian drivers. They would rather park in spaces not designated as car parking thereby narrowing traffic flow instead of just going down or up another level. It’s not like they have to get their ropes and spikes out to climb to the shops. They take the same stinking lift anyway.
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If eating is the number one hobby for Klang Valley’s residents, then shopping is its definite number two leisure activity. There’s no limit to the amount of tat you can buy in its myriad stalls, shops and boutiques. Although I would probably fail any residency test by my dislike of shopping and eating different things, I do understand the need and place for having such things catered for. What annoys me is that these supermarkets, or rather hypermarkets like Giant, Tesco and Carrefour, construct purpose-built monoliths to not only sell their wares but also every other rubbish that you can get at a hundred and one malls and backstreets throughout the valley. To get to the supermarket proper, you have to pass through food shops, telecommunications shops, stalls selling cheap jewellery and dubious health products, over-enthusiastic salesmen and just people loitering in the aisles. Grocery shopping is serious business and it’s stressful enough as it is without having to navigate a laden trolley through crowded hallways and misplaced advertisement boards.
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A gossipy neighbour has been gushing to my mother of how an acquaintance of an acquaintance of hers has just moved into their brand new house furnished completely by items from Ikea. They only brought their clothes with them to their new home. By said neighbour’s ecstatic raptures, you would have thought that stuff from Ikea was gilded with gold and hand-crafted by blind Italian craftsmen trained from birth in a secluded monastery instead of cheap mass-produced plywood that falls apart with a good kick from an anorexic twelve year-old. But then, maybe I’m being one of those cynical, arrogant posers of the new generation who thumb their nose at everything just because I’ve been abroad for a few years. Yes? No? Yes? Ikea dahling? So passé.
I’ve just noticed something: the spelling police in Microsoft Word actually recognises the word Ikea. Frightening.
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Speaking of my mother, we have been getting along relatively well. I still phrase all my requests as, “Mum, can I……” but she always answers, “Yes, why not? You are 27 after all.” I tell you, it’s downright spooky. Unless she’s being sarcastic. Which she is not.
I think.
Anyway, we were sitting down watching Kidnapped on TV one night. It’s one of the few shows that I find tolerable enough, since my obsession with Supernatural has rendered all other shows near impossible to watch because it can never hold up to the beauty and radiance that is the wonderful Dean Winchester and his fierce and protective love over his baby brother Sam and the tragedy that is their……… okay, I’ll shut up for now.
Okay, so….. Kidnapped. It stars the darlings of yester-year: Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany and the whole series is about the kidnapping and subsequent negotiation and twisted dealings for the release of their son. Yes, that’s right folks, it’s a whole series not just an episode. So far, both my mother and I agree that there are no cute guys in this TV show. She grumbles about the fact that one of the heroes is a scruffy moon-faced man with a pot belly. (Don’t get her started on the very pretty Boone getting axed from Lost). Thinking we were on a roll here, I start to comment on Timothy Hutton; he has several chins, he looks old, he looks fat etc. My mother then gets all huffy with me, saying don’t you start dissing Timothy Hutton, I like Timothy Hutton, I love Timothy Hutton, he has such a sweet face, you just don’t like him because he is old. Uh, cool it, mama, I like plenty of old people and I liked Timothy Hutton well enough in Taps, but you gotta admit, he hasn’t aged very well. No, mother huffs again, he’s beautiful, I love Timothy Hutton, he’s better than your Dean.
No way, a-ah, no way can pudge-faced Timothy rival Dean Winchester. Dean has curly eyelashes, beefy muscles and does tortured man-angst better than Timothy Hutton ever did!
Mother started hitting me in defence of old Timmy, so for the sake of peace and to stop me from being tickled to death, I chose to shut up. Dean still rules though.
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I was pleasantly amused to see Cineleisure Damansara provide several parking spaces for Single Female Driver located near the escalators in its basement car park. Someone obviously gave some thought to the escalating number of violent crime in the Klang Valley and the horrendous rape and subsequent murder involving single females that have made the headlines in the past few years. What really amused me was that these spaces, which were painted bright pink, were mostly empty on a busy Sunday afternoon. When able drivers will blatantly park in spaces reserved for the handicapped, it’s amusing to see that being pink and marked female has deterred a lot of errant drivers (which I am guessing to be male) from parking in these spaces.
Kudos also to Cineleisure Damansara for only charging RM1 per entry for a parking space in an area where parking is in great demand, considering there are three popular malls located side by side here. RM1 for parking that’s clean and spacious in the Klang Valley? Shocking. Let’s see how long this will last before they start charging higher. Still, that hasn’t stopped people from reducing traffic lanes by parking on the street. Can you blame them though? A ringgit saved here and there on parking means a lot when you can’t move from one end of the valley to the other without going through a toll booth.
-------------------------------------------------------------
A shout out also to Amcorp Mall for only charging RM2 for the first four hours to park in its basement. Sure, it’s not exactly the trendy hotspot like Damansara or Bangsar but it’s still a good local mall with lots of traffic. It costs more in the open air car park but there’s plenty of room on the lower basement, if people would only drive further down instead of insisting on finding a space on the higher level. That’s what drives me crazy about Malaysian drivers. They would rather park in spaces not designated as car parking thereby narrowing traffic flow instead of just going down or up another level. It’s not like they have to get their ropes and spikes out to climb to the shops. They take the same stinking lift anyway.
---------------------------------------------------------------
If eating is the number one hobby for Klang Valley’s residents, then shopping is its definite number two leisure activity. There’s no limit to the amount of tat you can buy in its myriad stalls, shops and boutiques. Although I would probably fail any residency test by my dislike of shopping and eating different things, I do understand the need and place for having such things catered for. What annoys me is that these supermarkets, or rather hypermarkets like Giant, Tesco and Carrefour, construct purpose-built monoliths to not only sell their wares but also every other rubbish that you can get at a hundred and one malls and backstreets throughout the valley. To get to the supermarket proper, you have to pass through food shops, telecommunications shops, stalls selling cheap jewellery and dubious health products, over-enthusiastic salesmen and just people loitering in the aisles. Grocery shopping is serious business and it’s stressful enough as it is without having to navigate a laden trolley through crowded hallways and misplaced advertisement boards.
-------------------------------------------------------------
A gossipy neighbour has been gushing to my mother of how an acquaintance of an acquaintance of hers has just moved into their brand new house furnished completely by items from Ikea. They only brought their clothes with them to their new home. By said neighbour’s ecstatic raptures, you would have thought that stuff from Ikea was gilded with gold and hand-crafted by blind Italian craftsmen trained from birth in a secluded monastery instead of cheap mass-produced plywood that falls apart with a good kick from an anorexic twelve year-old. But then, maybe I’m being one of those cynical, arrogant posers of the new generation who thumb their nose at everything just because I’ve been abroad for a few years. Yes? No? Yes? Ikea dahling? So passé.
I’ve just noticed something: the spelling police in Microsoft Word actually recognises the word Ikea. Frightening.
--------------------------------------------------
Speaking of my mother, we have been getting along relatively well. I still phrase all my requests as, “Mum, can I……” but she always answers, “Yes, why not? You are 27 after all.” I tell you, it’s downright spooky. Unless she’s being sarcastic. Which she is not.
I think.
Anyway, we were sitting down watching Kidnapped on TV one night. It’s one of the few shows that I find tolerable enough, since my obsession with Supernatural has rendered all other shows near impossible to watch because it can never hold up to the beauty and radiance that is the wonderful Dean Winchester and his fierce and protective love over his baby brother Sam and the tragedy that is their……… okay, I’ll shut up for now.
Okay, so….. Kidnapped. It stars the darlings of yester-year: Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany and the whole series is about the kidnapping and subsequent negotiation and twisted dealings for the release of their son. Yes, that’s right folks, it’s a whole series not just an episode. So far, both my mother and I agree that there are no cute guys in this TV show. She grumbles about the fact that one of the heroes is a scruffy moon-faced man with a pot belly. (Don’t get her started on the very pretty Boone getting axed from Lost). Thinking we were on a roll here, I start to comment on Timothy Hutton; he has several chins, he looks old, he looks fat etc. My mother then gets all huffy with me, saying don’t you start dissing Timothy Hutton, I like Timothy Hutton, I love Timothy Hutton, he has such a sweet face, you just don’t like him because he is old. Uh, cool it, mama, I like plenty of old people and I liked Timothy Hutton well enough in Taps, but you gotta admit, he hasn’t aged very well. No, mother huffs again, he’s beautiful, I love Timothy Hutton, he’s better than your Dean.
No way, a-ah, no way can pudge-faced Timothy rival Dean Winchester. Dean has curly eyelashes, beefy muscles and does tortured man-angst better than Timothy Hutton ever did!
Mother started hitting me in defence of old Timmy, so for the sake of peace and to stop me from being tickled to death, I chose to shut up. Dean still rules though.
Comments
But yeah he's so ugly now I shed tears for him.