Banjir alert!!!

Come December, Malaysians who live in flood-affected area will once again prepare (hopefully) for the worst - the disaster with the most casualties in our country, annual disaster at least. For those who lived to experienced & survived the disaster, it was no joke. Just ask those who live Johor, Kedah, Perak, Pahang, Terengganu, rural Kelantan & sometimes even KL.

But there are some people who will make a feast out of the flood - these people are none other than KOTA BHARU FOLKS! (which is why I use the sentence 'rural Kelantan' above to show the contrast between rural & KB). Actually that is the place where I grew up.

While our brothers who live in the earlier-mentioned place suffer, Kota Bharu folks simply dress neatly to wade the flood water & even dating in the flood (see 2nd pic above) in Kota Bharu town. If the water level is to high, no problem - the kid'll just bring the pelampung.

Some of them, will become KB cowboys - taking their horses for some run across the town.

Some of them, it's time to rev up their 4WD vehicles' engines.

Even if the water is too high - so what? KB is Venice of Malaysia, just take a stroll around the town in speedboats.

See, the buildings & shophouses in KB are specially designed for flood. Their are all elevated compared to buildings in other states in M'sia.

Even the Bomba & Rescue Dept is on standby, in case of shortage of water for the flood festival...


The mindset of Kelantan folks are very unique, which is why they elected a cleric as their MB for 18 years straight.

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Why I use the word 'they/them' instead of we? Coz I never took part in the annual KB 'flood festival'. I swear it by the holy book!

(many thanks to www.banjirkotabharu.blogspot.com & nazri4x4.blogspot.com for the pictures)

Cinema Experience in Miri

I was chatting with a friend via YM last week & it reminded me of a trully extraordinary cinematic experience that I had in Miri. Miri was a cool resort city in Sarawak, after Kuching of course! And being the heart of oil & gas industry in Sarawak it's a common sight to see foreigners & night clubs but it's quite hard to catch a glimpse of luxurious or fancy sport cars compared to Kuching (again, Kuching wins!) but maybe my timing was wrong.

I was in Miri a few months ago (August) for a business trip which gave me some extra tan (thanks to my short sleeved t-shirts). Also the trip usually started early in the morning & I returned to the hotel nearing the sunset. Not much opportunity for sightseeing - pity me... One evening I decided to check out the cinema in Miri & bought a ticket for The Dark Knight (still a box office at the time) & also intrigued by one of my friend's warning about an ecounter that may wait in the cinema hall.The ticket costed RM10 & computer printed just like any cinema ticket we found in Peninsular. (But this one beat Kuching coz 1 cinema in the Cat City still uses manual ticket... Ceh!).

Scheduled to start at 10.45pm, I entered the hall at 10.35 only to found out the movie has started (WTF?!, I missed nearly half of the Joker bank robbery scene). The quality of the projector & sound will disappoint those who only familiar with TGV, GSC & Cineleisure in Midvalley, 1utama & Mutiara Damansara but of coz I didn't expect much.

However about halfway the movie, I heard 'chip-chip'chip' sound from the back of the hall followed by something running on the floor. That's it - RATS in cinema hall! Honestly it was very annoying & I advice those who have fear of rats to cross their legs on the seat (bersila) coz sometimes the rats literally run around your seat.

To make things worse, the rats sounds are clearer than the movie's itself. I guessed the rats are Dolby Digital - Surround.

Mr. Christopher Nolan will be jealous of the rats coz his TDK (partially shot with IMAX camera) was beaten by Miri rats sound.

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I paid RM10 to hear rats humping under my seat?... Hehe

The Legend of Bruce Lee - Wachaaa!!!

Being a martial arts fan (even though I have never seriously learned any - save for a few basic steps of karate) I could not resist gluing myself to 8TV every night to watch "The Legend of Bruce Lee" series. It claimed to be a proper tribute to Lee compared to the movie "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story". The script of the series was also approved by Shannon Lee - Lee's daughter who's also served as executive producer.

Honestly I was fooled by the uncanny resemblance of the actor, Danny Chan Kwok Kuen with Bruce Lee himself. Ceh! There will also be guest appereances by Ray Park (Darth Maul), Mark Dacascos & Michael Jai White (Spawn & Gambol in The Dark Knight), among others who will fight Chan' Bruce Lee.

It also claims to tell some untold stories about Bruce Lee, which I hope will include the highly controversial (or fabricated & exaggerated) fight with the Silat Gayung Master Dato' Meor Abdul Rahman (arwah) but that seems unlikely since promotional photos/clips never show Lee fighting a Silat practitioner.

Some silat students (mostly teenagers) claimed that the fight was the cause of Lee's death due to Meor Rahman used a special (ilmu batin) palm technique called "Kipas Senandung". While a high ranking Silat Practitioner who claimed he witnessed the fight (which took place in a private room in Hong Kong Airport in early 70's) said it was just a skill sharing fight between 2 martial art grandmasters without harming each other.

To me, whether the Jeet Kune Do vs Silat Gayung fight really took place or not or which story is true is not important.

The most important thing is that I have an exciting TV series to watch so that I can spend my boring & lonely evening in Tronoh... haha...

And as Lee's widow last line in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story :

"All these years later, people still wonder about how he died. I prefer to
remember how he lived. "

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Wachaaa!!!

TG Nik Aziz's Off The Edge

I was wondering around in the newly opened Tesco hypermarket Station 18 (For those who's not familiar, it's not far from Ipoh, Perak) when a magazine cover caught my attention. The title is Off The Edge & featuring the photo Chief Minister of Kelantan as the front cover.

After going thru a few pages of the magazine, I ended up buying it. Hmm RM6, quite reasonable price, even Mangga cost higher - I dunno, never actually buy it!

The interview was very nice & transparent. The interviewer asked in Kedahan Malay, while TG Nik Aziz answered in Kelantanese Malay and the magazine literally published the original interview while adding the English translation. They touched many interesting issues: from Nik Aziz's personal & political stance & view, his origin & even his future plan.

However there is also 1 article on Kelantan under Nik Aziz's admin which ironically written by former victim of PAS's huge victory over BN in 1990.

End of story: Buy the magazine on your own to read it. Hoho
If you're an Opposition supporter you'll like it.
If you think Nik Aziz is Taliban-style leader, it will clear some things up at least.

Quoting Nik Aziz's question: "What race was (prophet) Adam?"

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'Nuff said.