Tour De Langkawi 2011 in Sitiawan

If you've been reading the sports section in the papers or watch the television news these past few days (now doesnt this intro sound familiar.......), surely you'd know about the Le Tour De Langkawi taking place from 23rd January until 1st February.

Stage 3, took place from Taiping and ended in lovely Sitiawan yesterday, and fortunately I was able to be on site to witness the event. Dark clouds were looming so mum suggested I take the car. By the time I arrived some of the roads were already blocked off so I had no choice but to park a bit far and walk to the finish line. Howeverrrrrrrr, just as I was about to get down the car, (surely enough) it started raining cats and dogs. Could've taken a photo of the rain from inside the car to show you how bad it was... grrr

So I grabbed an umbrella, and wrestled through the rain and gusts of wind. By the time I reached the finish line though:

The rain stopped, but as you can see the roads are completely wet. So yeah I stood about 50 meters from the finish line and waited until the riders came in. Have to admit the LTdL theme song is really catchy. Anybody know where I can get it? =]

So here's the rest of the pics along with videos of the end of the race and a walk of the rest area. Seeing how I've only witnessed the race passing Sitiawan twice (and even that, was when I was at school when they cycle by), this was the best LTdL experience yet, and no, the rain didnt dampen spirits one bit. ;)

 Syahir dropped by for a surprise visit~ 

The Lotus Formula 1 Shenanigans

If you watch F1, or at least read the sports section in the newspapers, definitely by now you would know about the much-hyped return of Lotus to F1, in the form of our Malaysian-owned Lotus Racing F1 team:

"What's so special about this team?" you may ask.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s (when they were known as Team Lotus), they were the F1 team with 7 constructors' titles and 6 drivers' championships. When Lotus' founder Colin Chapman died in 1982, Team Lotus started to weaken until it quit the sport in 1994. Despite it's absence for over 10 years, it's domination during the 60s and 70s made them an unforgettable fan favourite, even more so now that the Lotus name has made a return starting last year. 

Also, if you have read the sports section in the papers over the last few months, you may have noticed some hoo-hah regarding Lotus, Proton, Tony Fernandes (team owner) and Renault about naming rights and lots of other gibberish when suddenly you might have seen this:

and you'd think,

"Oooh yay our Lotus Racing has a new colour!"

WRONG.

For most of us casual viewers and fans of F1 and/or Lotus Racing, this gets very confusing. That's why I'm here to (try) clear things up. 

You see, the main Lotus company has two separate divisions; Group Lotus which makes road cars, and Team Lotus that raced in F1 as I mentioned earlier. They are not related or linked to each other in anyway other than having the Lotus name. They dont support each other financially or technologically or whatever. Nothing difficult here, right?

In 1996, Proton bought over a major share in Group Lotus. 

Basically, Proton now owns Group Lotus (which explains why you see Proton cars having the "Lotus Ride and Handling" tag in advertisements).

Last year, Tony Fernandes bought the rights to use the Team Lotus name starting this year for his F1 team. To put it very very loosely, Tony Fernandes now runs Team Lotus.

Pretty easy to follow, right?

But suddenly in September last year.....

Proton claims that "Tony has no rights to use the Team Lotus name for F1 and we would do anything to prevent him from doing so". 

Now, if you read back what I've just mentioned above and look at the diagrams, Team Lotus and Group Lotus are not linked to each other in anyway whatsoever. They are both left to do their respective jobs; one makes road cars and the other goes racing. They do not and are not meant to poke their noses into the other one's business.

And as we can see above, Proton is violating that rule. Proton should just focus on Group Lotus making road cars and leave Tony to do his F1 business, but noooooooo they decide to kepochi instead.

And then at the end of last year.........

Group Lotus (owned by Proton) decides to make a joint effort with Renault GP (a currently existing F1 team) to form Lotus-Renault GP by buying a majority of shares in the team.

"So does this mean there are two Lotus teams this year?"



Err, sort of....

Lotus in Lotus-Renault GP is just a title sponsor, meaning they dont provide technology, engines or car parts. They just sponsor the team, like how Vodafone sponsors Mclaren,

and Petronas sponsors Mercedes GP.

Team Lotus on the other hand, is just Team Lotus. They do use Renault engines, but they dont have Renault in their name at all. Just call them Team Lotus.

So then, Lotus-Renault GP

versus Team Lotus

Who will prevail?

Before, During, and After

The day before I turned 18....

The 2-other-stooges, Chuah and Houey plotted to kill me take me out to dinner at Secret Recipe. How many of you know what's Garfield's favourite food?

Apple pie?
Pizza?
Spaghetti?



Nope. Its this:

Lasagna!




I've always wanted to try lasagna, so hey why not? Also had french fries with cheese, an Oreo Cheesecake and a banana chocolate cake. Heh, those two boys first first kept asking me to pay, then Houey says:


"Aiya, bill should be around 70 like that la...."







Jeng jeng jennggggg....

One RM50 note flew out from each of their pockets.  Then we thought of going to Tesco  (yes Tesco Manjung is now open! :D) , but omgosh you should see the parked cars overflowing and spilling out into the nearby housing area. O.o So we went to McD then! So we sat and talked and talkedandtalked until Delia and Audrey came! LOL they went two rounds around the parking lot but couldnt find any space~ xD We talked and crapped and craptalked until it was 12, then they sang (in public......) The Ketchup Song Happy Birthday and the two boys gave me this!

Complete with red kung-fu headband! :D



It was weird staying out until 12.30am. Never been out that late before. o.O

The day I turned 18......

The computer came back! :D

The day after I turned 18......

I started work as a men's clothes promoter at The Store! :O

So for all of you asking what it's like, here you go:


What I do, basickallyyyy, is to just find the right size shirt/pants/jeans for people, write the receipts, and stand/walk around for 8 hours. Not literally promoting a product like what most of you would be thinking:

"Buy this drink! It very good and refreshing! Very cheap! Come buy come buy!"



Noooooo.... very very much different... So, today, I helped to sell 3 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of jeans, and 2 boxes of underwear. Yes, underwear. I'm awesome. xD It does take a bit of a toll on your legs, but I should be adjusted to it pretty soon. Thats pretty much it I guess. Pretty straightforward job if you ask me. Now let the moneys rollllll~







Who the hell buys plain water at Secret Recipe? XD

Top 5 School Moments

I was supposed to get this done before 2010 ended, but then the computer died. It was diagnosed with a failed motherboard (if you dont know, its the entire circuit board inside your CPU with all the components attached to it), which means all the innards and organs (except for the hard disk, RAM cards and graphics card) will be replaced. Technically, its a new computer, since almost everything inside is changed. Its like changing all of your body organs except for the liver and small intestines. So, technically, here's a little last respects for our Acer Aspire M1600...

You've been faultless in your (I feel) short 3.5 years of service, when suddenly *BAM* this happens. *salutes*

Okay now that's done...

What have we spent the first 11-12 years of our lives doing? Going to school right? And so, this first chapter of our lives is almost (if not at all) made entirely of what happens in and around school. So then, here are my top 5 memorable moments in school:

5. A birthday "surprise"

Not trying to be syok sendiri here aite fellas... It was my birthday last year, so I came to school like usual, had nothing to do in the morning, so I did some leftover tuition work from the previous day. Then friends started hushing to each other as one by one they left the classroom. Getting suspicious already. Then Arif walks in and calls the remaining classmates to go to the canteen. Ah, can more or less guess edi lah what everyone is up to.  Arriving at the canteen, indeed a bunch of friends were there, a cake was waiting there, and yeah, you know the proceedings. 

"Happy birthday to you.... happy birthday to you...."

Clap hands, blow candles, the norm. Well, it was a surprise in the sense that one CSW was wiling to go through all the hassle to do it, since I've never had such a celebration in school, but in the end, kinda figured it out to really be surprised. But still, memorable nonetheless. Awwhh you shweet shweet boy you CSW. =)

4. BSMM Camp 2010

I'll admit it wasnt a grand, fantastic, marvellous, stupendous, fantabulous camp, but at least nothing went wrong and nobody got killed. It was a lot of pain to plan and execute the camp, so I'm glad it came out alright~ :)

Watch a slide show of the camp here.

3. My first kis............. slap.

Ha, fooled you there didn't I? =3

It was 2008, we were in Form 3. Me and the new prefects for the morning session had to prepare a performance for the annual Prefects' Nite. So at first we thought of doing a parody-like sketch, with one of the scenes involving me getting slapped. We were just rehearsing, so I told the slapee, Delia, not to go full strength on me, but then apparently the word "dont" slipped out of her mind, and, well, you could imagine.

2. A hug from me, to you... <3

A classmate of ours, **y, who isnt what we'd call slim, brought this cute little furry-cloth pencil bag shaped like a ladybug. She held it close to her, squishing and hugging and cuddling it like her favourite pillow. Our dear Houey, who didnt see the hugging and the squishing, asked her to pass the pencil bag over to him.  Then HE started hugging and squishing and cuddling it.

"Erm, dude, she was hugging it earlier"

"So? I can hug it tooo..."

"I saw her pull it out from under her uniform. Like, between the blue pinafore and the white shirt underneath. She was squishing it against her, well, you know. her two 'chest fruits'"

And then he went

Priceless reaction. XD

1. That poor boy.

This was waaaaaaaay back in kindergarten. One day, I must have eaten something bad, because I suddenly had the urge to launch my breakfast out of my mouth. But, I was shy (awhhhh), so I was kinda hesitant to tell the teacher about it. But I had a handkerchief! I thought I would be able to hold it in (as I would find out, big mistake). We were seated with tables arranged in a 2 x 3 grid, so it was kinda like this:

Slowly, the urge to puke got stronger and stronger, trying to hold it in with one measly piece of cloth, until finally......

 Okay, the image isnt drawn to scale, but yeah, my vomit launched across two small tables, covering the boy opposite me in a slush of milk and half-digested food. I hope I didnt traumatise him.  But I'm pretty sure somewhere out there is one young man remembering some kid who threw up on him in Tadika Morning Star.