My First TV Appearance

... was about seven years ago. The venue where the interview took place was at Petroliam Carigali, somewhere at the southern kingdom in which many dinosaurs slept but never wake up.

When I stepped into the air-conditioned lobby, one of the ladies who was in charge of welcoming the participants approached me and politely asked in her soft, heart-melting voice, "skews me adik, awak Sir Pok Deng ke?" (Excuse me, lil bro. Are ya Sir Pok Deng?). After introducing myself, she told me that I have been selected (randomly, I suppose) to be an interviewee who needs to say nice things about Petronas in front of the camera. The guy from RTM had been waiting earlier that morning, as she mentioned later. Indeed, I could see him sitting on a chair having a cuppa with a big black video camera placed beside him. He wore a sleeveless, oversize brown vest with a familiar logo at his chest pocket.

The lady, who smelled of talcum its brand name escaped me, gave me a piece of paper printed with list of questions that will be asked by the interviewer, like, how do I feel after being selected as Dungun's representative by the national petroleum company to watch Michael Schumacher steer his vehicle on Sepang's F1 race track. I said to myself, 'of course I'm happy', so I wrote that down at the back side of the paper she gave me soon after she excused herself to find another boys and girls to say nice things about Petronas.

Back in school three days later, with wonderful memories of witnessing white folks strolled half naked about Sepang International Circuit still fresh in mind, an ustaz called up my name when I was passing the canteen. I walked to him nervously as if I was doing anything wrong.

"Hey I saw you on TV yesterday!" he said. "How thick your Terengganu accent was you put shame on this school's name ha ha!"

I smiled and walked away leaving him make fun of my Terengganu accent with other boys listening.

Words That Change Our World

Words of wisdom are created by people who claim they understand the world. And we downgraded ourselves holding tight on what they said as if those are the words spoken by a saint on behalf of his God. As for me, I only believe in what comes out from the mouth of the prophets, saints of the past, and only a few chosen people of the present century whose background gives me a clear view that he is a good man - not a prick who deceits people with his holy look for his only own goodness.

When I wrote my previous post, I included two quotes from two people of the present century, who were Khalil Gibran and Paulo Coelho. Bet my right arm, I swear, I never met these two guys before. I do not know whether Gibran and Coelho are good people. When I googled them, all results shown are linked to websites that talk nice things about these writers. How do I going to agree with them whenever I do not know them personally?

Sometimes, I reckon modern philosophical words are ruining our world. Many people misuse them to make themselves feel better for the things they done even though they are considered as acts of sin by traditional religion's standard.

Speaking about religion makes people angry. I blame modern 'words of wisdom'.

You Are Now A Plumber

I learned to make this primitive device when I was in primary school. So far I haven’t met any Malaysian who knows how about this stuff other than my peers who gave full attention to Mr Kamarudin had taught in Kemahiran Hidup lessons’ class many many years ago. I think he impressed his father-in-law-to-be by this cool thing. This cool gadget is used to solve your kitchen’s pipeline problem. Codename: sinki tersumbat. Don’t spend too much time thinking of how this tool works. You are going no where with that. Shove it (the end with the ‘supek gelenya’ knotted together) into the exit route where water from the sink flows out into the drain. Shove it in, and pull it hard. Shove it in, and pull it hard. Shove it in, and pull harder until success makes you smile. Happy trying, folks.

Supek gelenya: ancient name of 'plastic bags'.

Update 2/10/2010: So 'supek gelenya' is not a Terengganu word at all. Seriously I never knew that! I have been using 'supek gelenya' in my entire life. :|