Shellheading Days

My renovations contractor (an Indonesian PR) lamented about the recent hikes in building material prices.

“Saya block harga lama pun tak guna, Boss,” he said during on those chit chat sessions we have every now and then. Apparently, cement is now RM17 plus per bag, from around RM14. Ouch.

You’d be forgiven to not see this creeping up of prices of late: it’s very much below the surface especially where construction costs are concerned.

I’d be in the dark too had it not been for the renovations I’m currently undertaking on my house. Or the fact that the Base Lending Rate is now 6.05%, the announcement slotted quietly via a single column advert in the back pages of a weekday.

Now the government is again talking about subsidies; about reviewing them, that is.

Why does the government need these so-called “Say your piece in Open Day” thingys when we supposedly already have our respective elected mouthpieces to say our piece(s?) in Parliament?

Is this an open statement that these Yahoos are not doing their jobs of representing the population’s interest?

Anyway, a half-day session in swanky KLConvention Centre can hardly accommodate the millions of voices wanting to be heard, so I suppose this is more a “Hey, we’re a People’s Government” move at best.

Back to my reno contractor’s complains.

I suppose this situation of creeping inflation is inevitable given our “fantastic” 1st Quarter growth. (Wait a minute! Singapore bested us with a 16% growth! Nah, probably Spore just up their figures to best us. We all know (wink wink) how Kiasu our southern neighbour is, now, don’t we?)

Yudy – the contractor – is doing our awning, landscape and “batu cantik” (that’s what he call the pavement, by the way) and his prices, while slightly on the high side is compensated by a meticulous attention to details and quality.

My house is, by the way, near Meru, which is like thousands of miles away from KLCC. I jest, but it does seem like so especially to relatives who comes visiting.

Barely six months after I sign the S&P (Sales and Purchase) agreement, was the new phase launched with an additional RM50K price tag. Last I heard, the specs are about the same, except that these get an extra balcony in the master room.

Compared to property prices in those areas closer to KLCC (heh), the levels we’re looking at are quite cheap.

I shudder to think of the pricing in a few years time.

Back to my house, we still haven’t install the Astro dish as yet and as such the TV sets stay in their boxes; the kids whining notwithstanding. Hasn’t had such serenity of surrounding like this for a long, long while but the day of succumbing to crass entertainment isn’t very far away.

I am, of course, talking about the World “Ole! Ole!” Cup.

In the meantime, here’re two images of no relation at all to the article which I’m putting just for the sake of it. No, I haven’t seen any of Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man and yes, I think the Mark “Ultimates” Milar version is the definitive Tony Stark aka Shellhead.

The new and the old.

Hairy Humour

“Most victims are women. What do women do? They go to the hairdressers... they chit-chat and suddenly it is everywhere and cause people to fear,” he joked.

What an S of a statement.

Why, oh why, do our politicians keep opening their big mouth and say utterly inane things?

You do expect politicians heading Ministries to be a level above the riff raffs but then, some seemed adamant in cementing their inter pares position with the mob, it seems, where drivels, crass generalizations and horrendous sensitivities are the order of the day.

By the way, he here refers to our Home Minister and the Malaysian Insider has a nice picture of him smiling away as he spoke to our students in London.

“Let’s not get emotional” was another quotable quote from H.

Do read the article itself, which I do hope is both audio and visually recorded as politicians also have this penchant to turn and say the following words: misquoted, misrepresented, misled, mis this and mis that.

Dear God Almighty.

Is H not in tune with the overall scenario vis-à-vis the community outlook on crimes at home? Why gated communities are more and more the preferred choice and non-gated turning into a semi-gated ones?

What are these all about? Suka – suka residential committee things? Kopi / Hair Salon sessions ideas?

Could it be that H is spot on in his assessment of things?

After all, he must be getting inputs from his officer on the grounds (snooping around hair salons listening at women’s chit chats assignments included?) on the Malaysian crime levels.

I would love to read on the crowd’s response to H’s “talk”, something which the article did not reveal. Hopefully it was either one of aghast, disdain, confound, shock, dumbfound and related responses.

Sniggers, guffaws, laughter or snorts of approval would however place H is the right company though.

One fully deserving the other.

Tragic Consequences

The death of teenager Aminulrasyid Amzah was tragic. My heartfelt condolences to his family.

Reading the Sun’s report of the incident indicated so many wrongs, accumulating to the deadly one that ended the life of the 15 year old.

Was it a heat of the moment incident? Will we ever know?

You tend to get mixed feelings when reading news of the police shooting “alleged criminals”.

On one hand you think “Good riddance”, but on the other, you are disturbed by the seemingly “shoot-first-ask-questions-later” gungho-ness in these incidents.

Most of the times, these deaths become mere statistics, and their stories left untold except for the few paras in the mainstream newspapers.

Many more find their way into the courts, but to date, nothing concrete has taken place. I stand to be corrected in this.

We read that the crime rate has fallen of late, and yet, at the same breath – often just pages away – we read of victims shot gangland or assassin style, maimed and injured while their belongings snatched away, robbed in the wee hours of the morning or late at night.

Both sides of the coin seemed to be going towards extreme ends.

My neighbourhood is not a gated community per se. We have a secured single entry point, but as often is the case, the barrier only filters those who drive into the area. Motorcycles and pedestrians come and go as they like as there are far too many entry points to guard.

Still, the residence is relatively safe to the point of you being able to see a woman – a neighbour two doors across – jog the stretch of the homes in late evenings.

Even then, sometimes you catch unknown faces on motorcycles looking at one house to the other. Suspicious, isn’t it?

You then make judgement call in whether these are bad hats, whether a report should be lodge with the police, whether you should alert others to the same.

Once upon a time when life was far simpler, whole residences know each other well enough and knows exactly who they need to be wary about, but usually this wariness is more the form of missing coconuts, cooking utensils and so on.

These days, you just can’t help but be paranoid. There are just too many scums amongst the local population to not be so.

Talking about that, I felt the same measure of disgust when reading this Malaysian Insider’s report on the tragedy.

Politicians. Some of them just can’t seem to get away from being self serving.

Disgusting.

Anchor by Amy Sol.