another foot in the mouth....

it was quite easy enough preventing singapore-registered cars from filling with subsidised RON 95 petrol. anyone can spot such a vehicle from miles away - just ask our highway patrolmen with speed cameras.

but just how are you going to make high-income Malaysians pay the full price for fuel? making such an announcement even before the details are worked out is typical of our faux pas-strickened lawmakers.

for example, how are they going to decide the level of high income? how are the petrol station staff to decide who these people are? what happens if the drivers of the BMWs & Mercs are really the lowly-paid drivers? what if i asked the wife to fill up for me? will there be separate pumps for unsubsidised fuel?

i can imagine the distress the petrol station owners are going thru. installing whatever system to discriminate the car owners is going to cost money & these won't be cheap because some crony will be getting this contract &, if true to form, this will eventually die a natural death ala AES.

however, if this bird-brained idea actually worked out well, i should stick my own foot into my big mouth.

another one bites the dust

anyone remember ericsson?

of course not, because no one remembers losers!

sony bought over the ailing swedish cellphone manufacturer some years back & that's that. now that microsoft has bought over nokia, the latter's name would soon suffer a similar demise. (read here)

but we malaysians have no fear of that happening here. with solid unfaltering government support, our distressed car-maker proton has more lives than a cat.

it almost became volksproton, though!

hidup proton!!

if your elderly parent is in hospital....

very often we have elderly patients coming for surgery & because they usually are afflicted with various medical problems, they take a myriad of medications for their ailments. sometimes they forget to bring these with them when they are admitted & their spouse/children cannot remember what these medications are.

so, i was pleasantly surprised when i saw this note attached to a patient's file.

not as detailed as i would have liked, eg. dose & frequency not stated, but it's good enough, esp when there are times i haven't the foggiest idea what some patients are suffering from & what medications they take.

and that would be like sailing into the high seas without a compass....

the fat lady has sung......finally!

it must be the longest school exam saga in history.

the final paper, mathematics, is held this morning & at 9.15am, the students will finally be freed from their angst, no thanks to the bumbling people at the ministry.

it was exactly one month ago to the day when the UPSR exam began. what was meant to be a straightforward 3-day exam has degraded into a 30-day fiasco.

even before the dust has settled, the same fellas there decided to thread on thin ice & proclaim that forecast results would not be allowed as entry requirements for pre-U courses, undoing a practice that had been in place for decades, only to do a U-turn after a public uproar.

this, and the debacle concerning language for teaching maths & science, & local universities not participating in the ranking exercise, has just strengthened the view that the name of the ministry should be changed.

to the ministry of un-education.

careless or forgetful?

i went to pump petrol this morning. imagine my horror when i realised my credit card is not in its usual slot in my wallet.

i retraced my recent movements. the last time i used the card was yesterday evening at jusco. i remembered i had hurriedly kept the receipts & card into the wallet & may have dropped it in my haste to pay at the parking payment machine.

so it's gone now. alarms flashed in my mind. did someone pick it up? how much credit did that person rack up at my expense? full tank of petrol? new LED tv? business class air tickets?

arrgh.......!!

when i got home, i quickly ran thru my clothes & other personal effects & the shopping bag but it wasn't there. i called the card centre immediately to cancel the card. to my relief, no one had bought a tv or air tickets.

credit cards, like internet banking, can be a double-edged sword. use it wisely & it's a great modern convenience. foul it up & you get nightmares.

this is not the 1st time i had lost a credit card but i have been fortunate not to suffer any loss other than a few desperate moments.

i need to be more careful. we all do.