'FINAL DESTINATION' THIS IS NOT...

 On Monday morning, I almost had a head-on collision with a truck.

There, I blogged about it finally. I've been putting off to write this post with every excuses available under the sun, (although I could have tweeted about it almost immediately if it wasn't for M*xis zero-coverage in the area)

I swapped cars with Mom earlier that Sunday night, because I needed Mom's CRV to visit a construction site where we are servicing. It was a wet morning, been raining since the night before. Cruising along the North-South Expressway like I always do, I was relaxed and alert although I was fasting and running a bit late for the appointment with my client.

When I reached Km140, where the new flyover to the Prai Industrial area has just been completed, I remember overtaking several cars and I was on the third lane. All of the sudden, right before my eyes, I saw a cargo trailer on the fastest lane from the opposite direction of the highway, careened to the left  for a flip second, its tyres screeching and squeaking for the brakes before it lost control. The head of the trailer careened back to the right, hit the highway divider and overturned in a mighty, thunderous crash. I didn't see what was at the back on the trailer, but everything on it just spilled on the road.

The massive head of the trailer crashed on my lane, and it was moving straight at me if I didn't avoid it. I don't remember screaming at all, or panicking. But it my head, all I knew was to  keep my mind thinking of Allah, to keep my eyes on the moving trailer head, and to keep my hands steadily on the steering wheel. Puddles of water hit the car and I couldn't care less if there was any car on my right, there wasn't time to look at all. All I can think of was to not let the truck hit me.

And so I swerved to the left. I guess I wasn't moving that fast at all, and thanks to Allah there wasn't any car right next to me. Behind me perhaps, but goodness gracious, none on my left! Right beside the empty left lane was a concrete wall where the flyover to the Prai Industrial area just begins, and if the truck moved any faster, or I was any slower, I couldn't have been pinned to the wall by the truck. Subhanallah.

It was a miracle that I escaped unscathed. It took me several seconds for everything to register, but I kept the car moving. I do remember muttering omgomgomg under my breath and decided to pull over a good 50m from the scene, I think. The area was quite dangerous to pull over, after the flyover, the road further up is higher and if another vehicle from behind me got distracted by the accident, God forbids, it could lead to a pile-up. I stopped to calm my racing heart and thanked God for sparing me from the horrible accident. I couldn't see what has happened from where I was, several cars  from the opposite direction screeched to a halt. I contemplated to get out to help, but it was raining quite heavily. And how could I help anyway? I'd freak out if I see anyone get hurt. I called my staff to inform of the accident and told them that I'd be late. I decided to just make a move, drove a while and noticed the overpowering smell of diesel.

Disturbed by the smell, I stopped at a nearby petrol station to check my car. Luckily there were quite a number of petrol station attendants there and they checked my car to see if anything was wrong. Gosh, bless them all for calming me down! If I wasn't fasting, I could've gotten free coffee!

But in all seriousness, I wasn't being paranoid, some diesel did get splashed at the back of the car. Can you imagine how close I was to the truck to get splashed with diesel? I called my Mom, and she was so cool. Haha, although she was thankful nothing happened to me, she reminded me to read a particular 'zikr' to help me settle my rattled nerves. Then she told me to get the car washed. Heee.....

But life goes on, and I couldn't miss my appointment. Throughout the next 30 min of my journey, the images of the overturning truck kept rewinding in my head. Remember the burning truck in "Final Destination'? That's exactly how it was for me, minus the burning part and add some crashing truck coming at you instead. A series if 'what ifs' ensued, but in the end I stopped torturing myself and just concentrated on work. Couldn't see how I managed to do that, but I did. I didn't let it bother me for the rest of the day.

Is it a wake up call? I sure hope so. Perhaps it's a sign for me to pay attention a little bit more to the things around me, other than being too wrapped up in my own little world, in my own sea of worries and despair. Perhaps I should let go of certain things and don't spend too much time thinking of the unnecessary, don't sweat the small stuff. Perhaps I should live a little bit more, perhaps I should be more grateful I'm alive at all, stop all those suicidal and homicidal thoughts and crap. 

Today, I read in the news (The Star, Tue 13 Oct, N25) that the truck driver, died of serious head injuries. Innalillahiwainna ilaihi raji'un. But what saddens me is that the cargo, thousands of bottled mineral water, were being carted away by insensitive motorists who passed by the scene.

Tak senonoh punya manusia...

EXHALE

I was flipping through a stack of 2 weeks worth of Harian Metro The Star and found a hard time digesting a piece of news.

If a lawyer is reading this entry, tell me how could this be.

A father, was sentenced to 56months in jail, charged with "culpable homicide not amounting to murder" of his son.

56 months, that *tap tap calculator* four and a half years in the slammer.

The boy suffered severe head injuries and autopsy showed signs of physical abuse & that he was beaten with a blunt object.

The father admitted to spanking & beating the child for defecating & urinating around the house, despite his several warnings.

I couldn't possibly imagine, how could someone lose his cool, or his mind, for that?

And, oh yeah, the boy - was just a YEAR old.

DOUBLE ENTENDRE

The MP's are at work again! Which MP? Well the notorious MP with the blurry face, of course!

It's like a circus in there!

Most shameful Mother's Day in nation's history

Enam kebocoran siling dikesan di Parlimen

Speaker tolak usul dua wakil rakyat BN hina wanita

No, raggedyanne is not talking politics again.

You people are in the dignified positions in the honorable house of parliaments. At least, treat each other with respect, if not chivalry.

RAGGEDYANNE MENONTON "HUJAH" DI TV9

If there is one thing that I'd like to avoid blogging about, it's politics. To tell you the truth, pontificating current affairs is darn taxing to the brain. If you happen to see a tinge of it in my previous posts about the Nila saga, well that's only because the news affects me as a blogger, and I really am appalled at the turn of events following the bloggers issue over here.

So, I watched the news, read Harakah & Aliran that Martian brings home on a regular basis but kept my mouth shut about what happened in Ijok. Now, I wouldn't even have touched this issue if it wasn't for last Tuesday night, when martian made me I had to give up watching

this guy...


to watch......

this guy...



faces off with.....

this guy



If you're interested, you can click here to read about what transpired on that talk show. Or you can click here to find out why the man in the blurry picture is such a notorious MP.

I was disgruntled, all right. Just imagine, Scofield was just about to hoist the pretty lady doctor up to the ceiling to escape the rioting mob, when I was instructed to switch the channel to TV9! Aarggh!

To my relief, it wasn't all that bad. Sometimes you gotta let your man have his way (heh heh) It really was interesting to watch a calm & collected man producing hard facts & strong arguments against an 'empty can'.

Which became more interesting because the MP with not much ammunition left brought up the blogger issue (which is entirely off the track) but his attempt to raise his point fell flat on his face when Saifuddin's Nasution's counterargument left a much convincing mark on the the issue of the government trying to put a chokehold on blogging citizens.

Ah, amacam? Dah letih, kan? I'm panting already.

So, this is raggedyanne, NOT talking politics.

This is just an excuse for me to post more pics of droolworthy Wentworth Miller (Pinkyj, is he one of your boyfriends too? Eh come on lah, yang hensem2 semua you nak kebas)

Come & pant with me!


What's with that hand in front of your face all the time...


Ooh, migraine. Sama lah kita...



I actually like him better with more hair & that shy smile on his face.

Hey, I actually have a picture folder of a male celebrity in my computer now! Wohoo!

Okay, since I spent waaaaaaaay too much time on this post, I might as well add in a useless (but not pointless) trivia about WM. This is totally 'cut & pasted' from Wiki-the-free-pedia.

In 2003, Miller was cast as 'Coleman Silk' in The Human Stain. It was revealed that he had an intense personal connection to this mixed-race character. Not only did Miller possess a similar racial background, but he also was involved in a controversial racial incident during his time at Princeton, when he was mistakenly believed to have written a derogatory remark about African-Americans, similar to the situation with his character in the movie.

In 1994, while Miller was a junior at Princeton, he published a cartoon in The Daily Princetonian featuring Cornel West, who was then a professor of African-American Studies there but who had just been hired away by Harvard University. The cartoon depicted Muffy, a white Harvard student, imagining her first class with West, who is saying, "Today's lecture is entitled, Rhythm—Why None of You Have It, and How You Can Get It." It also described West as "newly purchased," which is an innocent academic term for newly hired that was taken as a reference to slavery.

Within days the paper had run angry letters signed by dozens of students and faculty members, including novelist Toni Morrison, who according to the The New York Times wrote an angry letter to Miller. A symposium was even convened on campus on the issue. Miller, who everyone assumed was white, was considered a campus racist. Like 'Coleman Silk', Miller declined to bring up his own African-American heritage.

Years later when discussing the controversy, Miller remarked: "To be perfectly clear, passing is something that has never crossed my mind. Instead of stepping forward and explaining what I'd meant by the cartoon and positing my own racial background as evidence that I'd really meant no harm, I chose to remain silent. My attitude was, If they don't get it, I don't have to explain it, which was my way of saying that if they don't get me, I don't have to explain me. The people who knew me on campus and knew my background knew where I was coming from, but I think for most people I was just a name in the paper, and they probably assumed I was white."

After filming The Human Stain, Miller wrote a letter to West apologizing for the cartoon, but received no replies. However, West was present at the premiere of the movie. Incidentally, West is a friend of actress Anna Deavere Smith, who played Coleman Silk's mother in the film. He unexpectedly gave Miller a tight hug. Miller was glad to know that West had decided to forgive him.

Wow.

Isn't that something? How's that for an attitude & a strong stand? "If I have done nothing wrong & is being accused for something I didn't mean to do, then there's no point explaining myself".

So very Scofield, kan?

BLOGBUSTING BY BLOCKHEADS

Pinkyj wasn't the only who choked on her breakfast when she heard this news. Coffee sprayed from my nose as I was trying to hold back my chuckles.

It's the fashionable thing to do nowadays, blogger-bashing statements by ministers. Seems like another minister had made another unfavourable comment about bloggers. But can we take his suggestion seriously? Must we have a license from the government to have a voice of our own? Did it ever cross his mind that if a blogger ever intent to post critical opinions about the country, they won't even bother to register?

I mean, he actually thinks that by enforcing bloggers to register with the ministry, the government can have some form of control over blogs with seditious contents? So they want to put a name and a face to a blog so nobody can be anonymous? So that they can go sue people or press charges or sumbat more people in jail under ISA?

Hmm, I have to stop posing questions now.

Coz, yah, it's believable coming from a paranoia-stricken government that is struggling to retain some semblance of hegemony in the country by keeping a tight grip on the media. Come on, there are more than a 100 ways to 'create national disunity' in cyberspace, and it doesn't involve asking permission from anybody.


A grown man's foot in mouth is not quite as cute as a baby's

ADWAVE 10TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY DINNER 2007

Two Saturdays ago, was my first night without Nunu by my side. It's about time really, I keep hearing people say in utter disbelief, "You've never spent the night without your baby before? How absurd!"

What can I say, it's an unthinkable thing to do (though I've thought about doing it for so long :D)

OK, It crossed my mind before, but I never go ahead with the idea since she's still being breastfed to sleep, and I didn't think she could last for a night without her comforting binkies (binkys?). I have no solid reason to have her away from me anyway.

So, the invitation to the ADWAVE dinner was a good enough reason, and I think I deserved the treat of a night out & a hotel dinner (which is not necessarily great anyway, that's another story). Made arrangements with the nanny, who didn't mind taking care of Nunu for the night. The neighbours' kids were ecstatic, coz they could play with Nunu a while longer. She's Block E Miss Popularity, heheh.

I successfully talked Martian into driving me to Penang, but I didn't manage to get him to stay for the dinner. He wanted to have nasi kandar instead (sheeeesh!) and see if there was any 'ceramah politik' going on that night that he can attend.

A good friend bailed on me, citing exhaustion during the day's ADWAVE exhibition as an excuse. So I was pretty alone that night. No other seniors from ADWAVE 2002 were coming. Which is a blessing, because I was upgraded to the VIP table! Well, I couldn't stay in an empty table all by myself, right? I was chatting with my lecturers in the VIP section when they simply invited me over to join them. Sat next to Abang Razak, who is such a dear to personally call me up and invited me to the dinner, and a lecturer whom I harbour such a dreaded feeling when I was her student.

Now, don't get me wrong, I loved ALL my faculty lecturers. Frankly, I think they are the best and I rarely miss a class (hey, I still remember those 'hegemony', 'discourse' and 'ideology' topics!). But dear Dr. Hamima Dona, meek students like myself would rather stay out of her way and not cross her path lest you displease her in any possible way and risk getting brushed down. I admit, I tremble at her presence, because she made me cry once (story upon request). Haha, I make her sound like Prof. Snape, right?

How pleasantly surprised I was to find her a different person altogether, inhibitions aside, hers and my own. Fun and funny, cracking jokes through out the dinner. Even though some of her comments were made in her stern and formidable 'standard Dr. Hamima character', I still found her hilarious.

Like, once when I was confused at which ADWAVE year I was in (people all around me kept shooting questions OK, gimme time! I'm not used to having so much adult conversation happening all at once!) and told them sheepishly that I have a problem recalling dates and years, and names and faces - generally a memory problem, Dr. looked me in the eye & asked me in the most serious tone, "Eh, really? You must do something about it. Get your head checked. I know, I know the feeling, I can get worse you know. It could be serious. Eh, hangpa semua tak payah tanya dialah, dia apa pun tak tau!"

Okaaaaaaay, confirm kena chop 'minah blur' kat forehead!

And when Yasmin Ahmad made her entrance, she made her admiration for the film maker quite obvious too. She went up to Yasmin for a while, and when she came back with Yasmin's name card, she said, "Bukan senang nak dapat ni tau. I habaq kat dia, next time kalau ada movie role orang tua nyanyok ka, bagi la kat I."

And I was quite surprised too that all of my lecturers at the table were rib-ticklers. Here we were, a motley crew of nine not-so-VIP-looking VIPs, shooting brickbats in jest and making enough chatter and noise to earn wary looks from the busboys :D

Also, I shall remember the lovely time I had that night for these people - Dr. Adnan, our dean who joked about his inclination to be attentive to cute girls (read: casanova!), and his wife Puan Kamaliah, who feigned defeat at his 'womanising' ways but still came up with one-liners that sent us all clutching our sides.

Special thanks to Dr. Hasrina and her husband, who provided us with tips for a happy marriage, if you have a weekend spouse, that is :D - and Helmi and Yanti, the RTM newspeople and ADWAVEian 2001 who gave us an inside story of newsroom gossips but suffered the most ribbings that night.


standing: Helmi, Dr. Adnan, A.Razak, Dr. Hasrina's hubby, Dr. Hasrina, hantu lilin 2 orang kat belakang tu tak kenal :D
seated: Yanti, Pn Kamaliah, Yasmin, Dr. Hamima

I have no regrets whatsoever for being upgraded to the VIP seat, even though I had puny little ala carte portions of our meals on tiny little plates, and got to eat less shrimps and mushrooms while I eyed enviously at those less-important tables, but overflowing with leftovers because the exhausted ADWAVE students were too preoccupied with posing in front cameras.

Got home around 1 am and missed Nunu terribly. But I had a solid 8 hour sleep for the first time in 16 months that night.

And according to her Nanny, she slept through the night too :)

THE KU NAN & NILA SAGA (PART I)

Last Monday, I received a survey in my inbox. It came from a university student who's conducting a research on bloggers, demographics, psychological well being, motives - the works.

I wouldn't be interested to participate in the survey if it wasn't for the recent brouhaha created by our dear Tourism Minister who 'accidentally' insulted the entire population of Malaysia's women bloggers & incurring the wrath of bloggers in general .

To the uninitiated, the minister was reported to have made these statements to Sin Chew Jit Poh:

Dumb dumb statement No.1:
"All bloggers are liars, they cheat people using all kinds of methods. From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.”

Dumb dumb statement No.2:
“All bloggers are not in favour of national unity. Our country has been successful because we are very tolerant with each other, if not, there will be civil war, the Malays will kill the Chinese, the Chinese will take revenge and kill the Malays, and the Indian will kill everyone"

This statement was made in response to an Indonesian TV presenter, Nila Tanzil who complained of bureaucratic red tapes while shooting for her travel show in Malaysia. Nothing in her entry smells of malicious content to me, and even her friend's post about their experience while filming was not offensive in nature. They were disappointed, but as a Malaysian who loves her country no matter how sucky it is sometimes, I can relate.

Who knows why he lashed out to women bloggers in general & accused the unemployed women bloggers of disrupting unity, thus offending some of the most respected, heavyweight women bloggers such as Susan Loone, Elizabeth Wong, 5xmom, Kak Teh and *gasp* Marina Mahathir?? (I'm sooooo gonna blogroll them) If you need to hear more nasty things bloggers have to say about the uproar, you can go here and here for more whatelse, links lah :P

In his head he could have composed this gem, or something along the line:

"Blogger-blogger ni semuanya penipu. Suka memperbodohkan orang menggunakan bermacam2 helah. Pada pemahaman saya, daripada 10,000 orang blogger yang tak ada kerja ni, 8000 daripadanya adalah perempuan."

"Mereka ni semuanya tidak memikirkan tentang keamanan negara. Negara kita telah mencapai tahap kemajuan sebegini kerana rakyat semua saling bertolak-ansur. Jika tidak, akan berlaku perang saudara (refer to 13th May tragedy) orang Melayu bunuh orang Cina, orang Cina balas dendam & bunuh orang Melayu, dan orang India akan saling berbunuhan"

Try to translate that (first to Mandarin and then English!) and you might get what he actually said in that statement! Anyone could get the wrong idea!

So he could be misquoted after all!!! Hey, give him a break. That's standard Malaysian's minister's form of "crisis management", after all.

Hah, why do I write about this after all the bullets have been fired, the dust has settled, the culprit stoned, slammed, crucified?

I'm here not to haul more criticism (or profanities for that matter) over the unintelligent ways the minister handled the matter. The damage has been done. Poor but very gracious Nila has been suspended from the show and she is grieving for the loss of a friend. The minister gets away scot-free and he would continue officiating events. Concerned bloggers (there are some of course who don't give a hoot), won't leave the memory of this dispute behind. A united bloggers has been formed, but they will move on & blog about something else.

And what about me? How am I affected? For start, I am now quite interested in the above-mentioned survey. So what if the English is less than perfect? Or the questions are poorly constructed (I know coz my professors made us re-write our questionnaires 30 times until they were satisfied) ? Or how nice it is if the student explains her hypothesis to add some credibility to her research?

If people take the research seriously then maybe the findings in the survey can contest the one of the said minister's sources :)

I do have a point, you know, but you'll have to wait until the next post :)

To be continued....

YOU WILL BE MISSED STEVE...

Everything's beyooootiful in Steve's eyes

Mama told me yesterday. I can't believe the Crocodile Hunter is gone. The gung-ho larrikin whom we ALL loved making fun of. The world won't be the same about him now. No wilderness adventure I see on TV will ever match the fun and laughter he brought to his audience.

There's still Jeff Corwin, thanks heavens, but he's on the list of People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" and he's just plain mad (the kind of cooky-crazy people who's on TV to entertain) , but Steve... dear darling Steve... I'll remember him for his 'regular Aussie bloke accent', his safari coloured costumes & pallor... and most of all, his genuine unpretentious passionate personality. At least he died doing what he loved best- in action, in the wild and in his elements.

I hope Terri & her two kids will find a rainbow after this storm.

Here's where you can read all about the passing of Steve Irwin.

I do seem like to talk about dead people a lot, ain't I? If I'm not mistaken, this will be the 5th time- 6th if I DID post my entry about the tragic passing of the dashing actor Hani Mohsein, the Roda Impian host and how brave her young daughter was, Hani Karmila, dealt with it. But I scrapped the idea because I didn't want to appear so morbid, talking about dead people so much.

GOSS FILE: MACAM MACAM LAA...

I feel like I'm reading the funnies .

catfight - drama divas in a shooting gone wrong

sorcery - apahal nak bomoh diorang ni? tak paham betul aku. Tobat le korang cepat2.

desserts - ini pun you all nak cerita dlm paper kaa??

When people are bombing each other in another part of the world, it's disheartening when these are the news that interest people here in Malaysia.

SITISITUSANASINI

Confirm liao...

Rumours finally put to rest. Read about it here and here. Everybody satisfied? I'm sure the talk won't stop here.

Alhamdulillah, I wish she'll have a glorious wedding & a happier marriage.

Oh, and another thing, when I said I'm not affected at all, I actually am. I had a late lunch waiting for the announcement, and right now I'm running late to pick up Nunu coz I have an inexplicable reason to blog about this darn thing...

SUSPENSE LIAO

Gosh, Blogger is taking forever!!!

At this very moment, there is a live coverage on HotFM of Siti Nurhaliza's official announcement of you-know-what!

I'm not one of those people whose life is affected by what's going on with the personal lives of celebrities, even my favourites. Like, there's a listener who called the radio station and berated that Siti should better end the 'teka-teki'/ puzzle today or else. She's soooo affected by the gossip that she, once a Siti fan, has become 'menyampah'/disgusted by all the hype.

I mean, what the fish! Getting married is a very personal thing, so even if you are a public figure, you have the right to expose the details at a suitable time. So if she refuses to answer to a microphone shoved in her face to a very rude & accusotary tone about her love life, she HAS THE RIGHT TO, you morons!

As for me, I couldn't care less whether she marries Datuk K or not, but decide to blog about this anyway, because I think this is history in the making. I'm still waiting for the announcement, clutching my headphones to my head & listening intently to Hot...