This country is going to the shit hole! Look at what is going on the past week, never mind the past month! Sigh… and people wonder why some of us don’t go and vote during the recent election. I mean WHO TO VOTE FOR???!! Both sides are practically as screwed up as the other….

When I started writing this entry, I was thinking of yet another “BOOO!” to the Malaysian government. But I think there’s more than enough of that on the Internet.. my adding to it won’t help matters.

The fact is, petrol prices have gone up. And we have to do something about it. No, not by complaining.. but by changing how we do things. Here I’ll present to you what I’ve been doing to save petrol.

1. Avoid taking unnecessary trips.
2. If possible, do your driving in the morning or evening. Cooler temperatures mean denser air which is easier on the engine. Plus, cranking up the air-conditioning in the afternoons just adds to your petrol consumption.
3. Similarly, top up on your petrol when it is cooler. The cooler temperatures mean denser petrol.
4. Don’t drive aggressively. Curb that right foot! The harder you accelerate, the more petrol you burn.
5. Plan your trips to avoid jams and heavy traffic.
6. Let your car coast in neutral. Of course, you have to make sure the situation is safe as a neutral engine means a lack of engine braking.
7. Don’t leave your engine idling. When waiting for someone, turn your engine off. Too hot? Get out of the car and in the shade.
8. A friend of mine does this in Australia, he turns off his engine when waiting at a long traffic light. Of course, you need to be familiar with the lights and anticipate when the lights will turn green so you don’t bring any unnecessary attention on yourself.
9. Don’t drive with your windows down or your sunroof open. These create drag. The more drag you have, the more your engine has to work. Remove that bicycle rack when you’re not using it! Thinking of adding some cool rear spoilers? Think twice… those spoilers may look cool, but they also add drag. Besides, how fast do you think you’ll be going that you’ll need to add more rear downforce??
10. Ensure your tyres are properly inflated. An underinflated tyre creates more rolling resistance. It also wears your tyres out. Oh, and remember.. a tyre’s pressure goes up after some driving due to heat build-up. So, if you drove 10 minutes to the petrol station and then inflated your tyre to the recommended pressure, chances are, it’s still underinflated. The recommended tyre pressures are for COLD tyres. So, overinflate your tyres at the station, get a pressure gauge and measure the pressure in the morning when they’re cold and adjust the pressures down accordingly. Need I mention not to overinflate your tyres past their recommended limits?
11. Make sure your car is in tip-top condition. If your spark-plugs aren’t working as they should it means your petrol isn’t burning as completely as it should. Keep your air filter clean… a dirty filter means an inefficient engine.
12. Polish your car! A clean car means less drag.
13. Carpool! Yeah.. the added weight makes your car less efficient, but it sure beats driving two or three cars to work or to that mamak.
14. Reduce weight! Stop carrying that bag of golf clubs in the boot!
15. Do you leave your car to warm up in the mornings? Don’t! Just drive gingerly and you’ll be fine. Leaving the car on idle for 10 minutes is a sure fire way to increase your petrol consumption.

I’ve been practising some of these tips for the past 3 months. And it does affect my petrol consumption. My car’s trip computer calculates an average distance (km) per litre of petrol (L)consumed, or km/L. I used to get about 9.8 - 10.1 km/L. Now, I’m averaging 10.8 - 11km/L. At the maximum, it’s a 1.2km/L increase which means I can go 50.4km further on my full tank (42L) of petrol.

Give it a shot… and see what kind of improvements you get!

Every morning.. I take the same route to work. And every morning.. I’m stuck in a jam. To while away the minutes.. I listen to the radio, waiting for the DJs to make fools of themselves again, thinking they’re funny..

Every so often, I’ll hear a siren coming from behind the jam. A quick glance in the mirror confirms that a VIP wants to get somewhere fast and has a police outrider to move the traffic aside. So, where does he have to be in such a hurry that he gets priority? I’m pretty sure it’s the same VIP.. cos it happens around the same time everytime I see him (it could be a ‘her’ for all I know… I can’t see through tinted glass).

The fact that this so called VIP has only one outrider leads me to assume that he isn’t all that important, hence VIP and not VVVIP or something. But still, where does he need to go in such a hurry? I bet the other people on that road are equally hurried to get to where THEY want to go. How come WE don’t get outriders? Oh wait.. if all of us had outriders, we’d just be jammed in the same place with our outriders cos everyone is in a rush to go somewhere.

So, to the ‘VIP’ who has to get the help of a police outrider to get to wherever he wants to, I don’t care what your reasons are: you woke up late, you have to travel a great distance, your other woman’s home is quite a distance from yours, whatever…  Either wake up earlier and leave earlier, or SUCK IT UP like the rest of us in the traffic! The police have more important things to do than to escort you to work.. or do they? Hmm…

Kechara Soup Kitchen feeds the homeless and urban poor on the streets in KL. I didn’t know such a charity existed in Malaysia. I only knew because they had a booth set up in 1 Utama.

It’s gratifying to know that Malaysia as a whole is moving in the right direction, albeit slowly. Any pace is better than not moving at all I guess.

With the General Election coming up, the campaigning and the voices shouting to be heard is steadily increasing in volume… Who are YOU going to vote for?

Here’re some well executed videos courtesy of Youth for Change.

Video #1

English translation:

Newspaper: Prime Minister Asleep Again.

When leader sleep, criminals rule.

This election, vote for change.

Video #2

English translation:

Joe Public: My life was ok before. Until oil prices starting rocketing up.
Politician: CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE.
Joe Public: But toll charges went up too!
Politician: CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE.
Joe Public: Every other bill has also gone up.
Politician: CHANGE THAT LIFESTYLE, CHANGE IT, CHANGE IT!
Joe Public: Prices of flour, sugar and milk have all gone up.
Politician: I feel… you should just wear these.

Change Your Lifestyle
Or Change Government?

Video #3

English translation:

To raise his popularity, the YB (Yang Berhormat) launched a stamp featuring his portrait.

After one month…

YB: So, how was my stamp in the eyes of the public?
Postman: Good YB. It was very well received. But there’s one thing.. there are alot of complaints that the stamp doesn’t stick.
YB: Why doesn’t it stick? Let me take a look.
YB: See? It sticks very well.
Postman: But, they don’t lick the backs of the stamps.
Postman: They spit… erm… they lick the front of the stamps.

Money can buy you prestige, but it cannot buy you integrity.

This election, vote for change.

It’s been revealed on Autosport that Sepang now too wants a night race and is reportedly working with the same team of people who are responsible for setting up Singapore’s lighting system.

Now, it’s known that Singapore has always tried to do a ‘one up’ on Malaysia. And generally, they’ve succeeded in outdoing Malaysia. Two most recent examples come to mind:

• The Eye on Malaysia (an obvious knockoff of the 135 metre high London Eye), a 60 metre ferris wheel has Singapore’s 150 metre Singapore Flyer to contend with.
• Then there’s the Singapore Grand Prix, which will be the first night race in Formula 1’s history.

The Singapore Grand Prix has already been dubbed as the Monaco of the East, and yet we have yet to even see F1 cars race in anger there. So, not wanting to be outdone, Sepang has also announced plans to run a night race, preferably in 2009. A case of too little, too late? Not only that… it just screams of “ME TOOO!! I WANT SOME ATTENTION!!!”

Doesn’t it remind you of something? “Ooo.. everyone has a sent a man into space, we can’t be left out! Let’s call ours an Angkasawan and let him hitch a ride with a Russian spacecraft!” Nevermind that we don’t have any program that deserves nor warrants the word ’space’ in front of it…

Sigh… When will there be some form of creative thought and initiative from our ‘higher ups’?

JPJ should start enforcing a mandatory installation of spittoons into cars, lorries, buses, motorcycles, etc. They can start with Proton. Maybe this will halt the problem of motorists spitting out of their vehicles…

Seeing a motorist spit is an almost a daily occurrence. A not so pleasant one at that. There’s all kinds too.. those that aim far, and sometimes either lands near your car, or on it. Then there are those that open their car doors and just let one drop on the road/pavement. Oh, about those that hold one nostril close and just exhale real hard?

On second thoughts.. will it really help? They’ll probably still be spitting all over the place. Excuses?

• AIYA! My spittoooooooon full laaa.. how?
• Lazy to dirty my brand new spittoon la…

At last! An honest politician! Blogs are abuzz with the latest revelation from someone I deem to be the bravest Malaysian politician ever. Eat your heart out Oppositions!

Now, we all expect the rest of his colleagues to follow in his footsteps, because he, unlike an American prez not too long ago, actually came clean almost immediately. So, let’s pray that in 2008, we see headlines like the such:

“Yes, I did blow her up”

“Yes, I pregged that 15-year old”

“Yes, I am a backdoorsman”

“Yes, I bought that jet”

and

“Yes, that ugly child is of my seed”

Now, since jokes are flying ever since the news broke, allow me to add one more.

Considering we’re a secular country according to some opposing E D yets, the moral issues of this reveleation should be pretty difficult to debate, due to a lack of standards. So, I’ll just focus on the health-related one:

DID HE WEAR A CONDOM?

Whiskers Spielberg

• … that a group that protested recently are linked to terrorists
• … that the nation is happy and prosperous
• … that the ISA is really to protect us
• … that the street demonstrations are pointless
• … that the government is doing a good job
• … that all is well in our glorious homeland, Malaysia

YEAH.. RIGHT!

Several Malaysians I’ve met automatically hear the word ’scam’ whenever I say the word ‘Nigerian’. It’s bad enough that the country is the most well known producer of fraud, but the fact is quite a few Nigerians are actually nice people.

I speak from experience myself, coming from the International Islamic University Malaysia. I had several friends there from Nigeria, whom I had the honour of eating, sleeping, praying and studying with. These are the people I would trust my life with.

Among them, Tijani was my best Nigerian mate. He’d saved enough to take him out of the country just so he could come to Malaysia to study. He spoke perfect English and Arabic and was studying Bahasa Melayu, so he could get a job here, just in case.

Outside of the nurturing walls of my university, I found that Nigerians was a dirty word, especially to those scameaters who regularly bait fraudsters. It didn’t matter where they were from. As long as they were black, and they had bad intentions, they were Nigerians.

Why my preceding story about Tijani? I had to make sure you understood the context of what I am about to write. Tonight, my wife and I were dining at Pizza Hut, in Mutiara Damansara, I noticed her watching a scene over my shoulder. So, I turned.

There he was, this huge black man in a green T-shirt, handphone in hand, chatting up a couple of Indian girls. I don’t know what skills he had, but the girls went from being suspicious to actually laughing at his jokes, to giving him their phone numbers. I know it was theirs, because he call-tested just to make sure. Innocent scene? I’m just being paranoid? Maybe, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it happen.

At cybercafes, busstops, LRT stations. Everywhere. These tall, dark casanovas are making a move on our women, and they actually have the tongue and equipment to do it! Go watch something if you don’t know what I mean.

Now, am I worried for our women? Yes. Why? Because I’m a mysoginist. But at the same time, I’m also worried for our men. True, the female population is rising. But remember this, they now have more options, what with all the Shah Rukh Khan and Denzel lookalikes running around (okay, maybe not as good looking).

But the point is this. Wake up Malaysian men! Enough of being metrosexual already! Fight for what’s your right! Pick up that club and let’s go drag some hair!

Seriously? You guys are on the verge of extinction. Bah!

Long John Whiskers