How to scare the buhjesus out of a 47 year old man

or how a DRE (google it) ruined my day.

Normally I wouldn't mention something this personal about my father but it's relevant and sets the scene for this post. Dad, if talking about this offends you please let me know and I'll remove all mention of you.

Malaysian Time, the intricacies are lost on non-Malaysians

As you all know, I have been living in Malaysia for awhile now, 7 years, and in this time I have, I think, adapted to most things Malaysian, most that is but not all. Time and how people treat it are things that I find interesting, infuriating, mythical but most of all inconvenient.

This and That

Getting Hits from unexpected places
I have had people from Canada and the US read this little corner of the Internet. This isn't really all that remarkable when you consider those are the places where I know people and have invited them. What's not

The "Train"

The word "Train" is in quotes for a reason, it's because riding the train is an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone, well may a few people, but not a lot.

As some people might know, I have recently started a new job in an international call center, The office is in the heart of K.L. and the only reasonable and affordable way to get there is by public transport. It really does make more sense than driving, there is the cost of tolls ( RM3.60 each way) then there is the

Agents over here

In Malaysia there are a lot of people who profit from the desperate, the naive and sadly the foolish, these people are commonly called agents. There are Employment agents, maid's agents, Immigration agents and GRO agents (I'll explain that later). These are the 4 basic types of agents prowling for people who want a job .

Employment Agents are probably the least offensive type, they tell you a lot of bullshit to get you to pay

Dickinsfield Crusaders

A few days ago I got a little nostalgic and was watching a few YouTube videos of Marching Bands, yes I was one of those geeky, uncoordinated kids that was in a marching band. Well because the Internet makes getting information so easy, I started poking around.

Worst/best analogies written by high school students

Apparently the Washington Post held a contest in which high school teachers sent in the “worst” analogies they’d encountered in grading their students’ papers over the years. (I place “worst” in quotes because many of these actually strike me as funny).  I'm pretty sure the students were going for bad analogies, if not, you really do have to wonder about schools. Enjoy!

Am I the only person in Malaysia that can hear?

It has been a little while since I posted last and I have been pondering if I should post this,  I don't think it's a rant, but it's something I can't do a single thing about.  I have been trying to paint Malaysia with nothing but a good brush, but I have to confess to not having anything good to post right now, I am not feeling all that warm to Malaysia right now, oh its nothing concrete and it'll pass.

Teaching English in a foreign country or why I giggle every time I think about it.

Ok, lets get the laughing and the jokes about me teaching English out of the way, I have heard or made up most of the jokes myself. When I first came to Malaysia I looked for a job, nothing to amazing you know, nothing like CEO of Proton, well I would take that job if they were silly enough to offer it.

Why don't we eat dogs?

I was talking to someone the other day and we got talking about weird foods, snake, rabbit, twinkies, you know weird things we eat or don't eat. The whole conversation got me thinking about things that I don't like to eat, and I decided that I am a little picky when it comes to foods I'll stuff in my mouth.

Happy Valentines Day

Yet another holiday invented by the greeting card companies and perpetrated by women who like chocolate and men who want some, no not chocolate. 

Why chocolate, a smart man would give something healthier and less fattening, just sayin.

I trolled for a few Valentines Day cards and of course I found the usual ones that looked pretty much just like every other card from every other year, but then there were some special ones that I have to share with you. I swear that I didn't make these up, they are real cards that you could buy if you were so inclined.

Why spell check is evil or how education is still useful.

Hi, My name is Anthony and I was a dumb ass in school.

As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I sucked in school, it took me 30 years to admit it out loud. I was one of those students that should have done well but I just didn't apply myself, lazy is what they would have called it back then, now they would have some acronym to explain it. But in all honesty, I was lazy, I hated school, it was just a social gathering that I felt out of sync with or better yet just not a part of.  In the end, I believe I manage to get what I mean across, or at least no ones told me otherwise.

Expats, who the hell do you think you are?

I have lived here for close to 7 years and I have become one with Malaysia, ok thats not true, I still don't like chicken feet, but the fact remains that I have never felt like an expatriate. I have since maybe the first month felt like this would be home for a few years at least, decades more likely.

To be blunt and honest, I don't like Expats, although technically I am an Expat but I have never been that arrogant ass who is always complaining about the way things are in Malaysia.

More Weather

Yesterday I wrote about the weather and I have many times in the past said that the weather here in KL is always the same, except when it isn't.

So some one reading the blog sent me a few pictures of the snow in Edmonton this year and while I was reading the email, the rain gods decided to dump the works on us, so I took a few pictures, but really the pictures didn't show what it was like. 

So here are a couple of videos I took a few hours ago, I would have uploaded them as it was happening except that the power went out.  I have to confess to being absolutely useless when it comes to video editing, so I'm uploading the raw footage from the less than stellar video camera function on my iPhone 3Gs, not Panavision for sure. Sorry if this post isn't all that pretty, but I am learning how to do these posts with video.

Weather WTF?

Well what the hell is going on with the weather?

I have been hearing news about a major winter storm going through North America, so of course I looked it up and it looks like a huge storm. It doesn't look like Alberta is getting hit too bad, but I'm not 100% sure. Since my parents are living in Mesa Arizona, I had a look and from all accounts they are freezing their navels off, navel oranges that is. So Mom and Dad, if you are reading this could ya let me know you're not frozen? Then again being good Canadians they are probably bitching that the golf course is closed. :)

This image strangely, is from Edmonton

Changes

I've made, yet again, a few changes to the blog. I changed the way the individual posts are displayed, so rather than loading all the posts written, you will now see 1 post per page. I'm not sure I like this just yet. This should make the blog load faster and I hope make it easier to navigate.

I've also added the Mobile formating, simply means that if you want to read posts from your mobile device, you can and the looks are slightly different, better? Not too sure just yet.

as always, if you have comments please feel free to flame me or whatever.

Cheers

The Internet Facts of Life as Explained by a 12-Year-Old

The following was stolen shamelessly, but I thought it was too funny not to post. there is a link at the end for the original page, I "Borrowed" it from. I removed the photo that came with the article because, well I just thought it was creepy having a picture of someone else's 12 year old daughter on my blog, so if you want to see the original you'll just have to go to the original article (link at bottom of post).

Being Homesick

OK the title pretty much sums things up, we have all been homesick. I miss a lot of things in Canada but most importantly, I miss my family, not always, I only miss them when I think about them and thats a lot of the time lately, but thats something for a different post. I really get homesick when I am missing things, stupid things, but things I can't get over here and really its surprisingly not a huge list.

Facebook

Social Networking sites are or have been very popular in Malaysia, there was MySpace, Friendster, Hotmail, Yahoo and more, that were at one time very popular here, these things tend to go in cycles. But FaceBook is by far the biggest Social Network in Malaysia and I honestly don't know a single person here that doesn't have a FaceBook account. There are billboards, posters and fliers all about FaceBook over here, I have never seen advertising for a Social Network before. My understand is that FaceBook is not by any stretch of the imagination an Asian "thing" it is a world wide phenomenon. Try and think of 5 people you know who don't have a FaceBook account? Bet you can't, lets leave the old folks out of it anyone over 60 doesn't count.

Something I thought was funny

Ok I take no responsibility for this, I didn't write it, but I thought it was funny, so am going to share it. This was written by Desmond Warzel, and the complete text can be found here.. If any of you use any forum you will see the humour in this, I think.

Perception, its all perception.

I have been painting a dark picture of Malaysian living, I want to be sure everyone knows that Malaysia is a great place to live and if I am comparing it to Canada thats only because Canada is what I know, understand and is my only frame of reference.

I lived in Canada for the first 40 years of my life and of course I will naturally make comparisons, that said, Canada is more "Socially" different than Malaysia in so many ways.

A few changes

I have made this blog open to anyone that wants to see it, if this becomes a problem then I will have to restrict viewers to those people I trust and send invites. This only works if they know the URL according to the blog host blogger.com. So search engines shouldn't see this so, with luck, opening up access should just make things easier for everyone.

Please leave comments if you think this is or isn't Ok, or if you think I should change it back.

Cheers

Malaysian Weather

Because Malaysia is located only a few degrees north of the Equator the climate is equatorial, the temperature is quite uniform throughout the year with the temperature ranging from 21 °C to 37 °C. The humidity is consistently 75% to 80% all year. The annual rainfall is around 200 cm (80in) to 300 cm (120 in). For you people that can't picture that, just think of the deep end of the swimming pool or lets just say there's a lot of rain.

Malaysian Drivers

I have been here in Malaysia for almost 7 years and the one thing I have had a hard time adjusting to are the drivers, I have never seen a more varied style of drivers in one place before. My perception was that Malaysians are insane, but it all works out somehow, then I looked up the numbers.

The statistics I found after a quick google:

I Just had to try this

Sorry, this won't interest you unless you have a smart phone.

The reason this little corner of the Internet is invite only

Ok, first of all if you are reading this then you have been invited, by me, so think of it as a great honour.

Or not.

Smoking

I haven't really mentioned it here or anywhere else for that matter, but I quit smoking in May and I wanted to share the process.

I decided to quit smoking one morning when I got up and started coughing, turns out I had a cold, but I did decide to quit. I quit once before and I did it using Zyban and this time I figured it worked once it should work again. The only problem is that they don't sell Zyban here in malaysia, but they do sell Champix*, so thats what I decided to try. The idea is the same with both, you keep smoking for 2 weeks while taking the medication and then you stop smoking but keep taking the meds for 3 months or so.
I smoked while taking the pills for about a week and then pretty much stopped completely, with the occasional cheats for a month or so. To be completely honest it was simple, as long as I took the pills I didn't want a cigarette, but if I missed a pill the next morning I wanted to smoke, but didn't. I still get the cravings, but not as frequent as before, and I haven't caved in to them since about June 15th at 5:07 am, not that I'm keeping track.