To Penang

Am writing this weblog entry from Penang Island – my backyard and home for six years of my professional life. It was a four-day vacation back to simple and familiar sights and sounds, a chance to escape from Kuala Lumpur for a while.

The traditional gastronomical tour was, of course, mandatory…

Char koay-teow 炒粿條 at the famous Burmah Road coffee shop (still the best!). Note the glass of heng-jin peng 杏仁冰 (iced almond juice) - you can't get it in KL coffee shops!

Quee Mei eating cendol at the Keng Kwee Street coffee shop

Drinking fresh pandan coconut juice at Aboo Siti Lane

Gu-bak koay-teow 牛肉粿條 (beef noodles) at the Beach Street corner coffee shop

Ark-bak kuey-chap 鴨肉粿雜 (duck innards noodles) in Ayer Itam

Frankly, the char koay-teow diet was a bit of an overload, as I had it for three days in a row!

The only disappointment was that Sar Chew Restaurant 沙舟餐室, my favourite Nyonya-style keng-chae pnui 經濟飯 (economy rice) shop in Cantonment Road has now been turned into a roast duck rice shop. They used to serve lovely chicken curry and otak-otak, which goes so well with rice.

Ending a vacation in Penang with a nett increase in calories was not acceptable, so a hike up Penang Hill (via the traditional Moon Gate route) was scheduled in with my ex-housemates. Having not hiked up for years, it was expected that I could not complete the hike to the summit within less than two hours as before. Was quite happy to settle for a 2hr:20min timing… not bad for a guy who weighs 0.1 metric tons! The weather was unusually good at the summit – cool air and nice breeze – probably because we arrived early (before 10am).


Along the Moon Gate trail

The Grace Deu mansion, close to the summit


Ice kacang 紅豆霜 at the summit

View from the summit, with Georgetown and the Penang Bridge in the backdrop

I really miss the convenience of having a hill so accessible for regular hikes… which is, of course, a lame excuse, since a drive from my house to Gasing Hill is not really that far away.

And had I known that my trip up here would coincide with a huge Mini convoy at Penang Island's Gurney Plaza, I would have driven my Mini-Cooper up this time round!

Bok House - End of an era

And so it goes... the famous Bok House - that grand old mansion built by millionaire Chua Cheng Bok in 1929, has been demolished in the name of development. If such a grand monument, and surely one that qualifies many times over as a heritage building, can be destroyed, one need only venture a simple guess as to the fate of the lesser-known historical buildings in and around Kuala Lumpur, and the rest of the country.

To me, the use of the 'definition of a heritage site' is a lame excuse for the monument's destruction. Let us be totally honest about this - it is all about whether the powers that be really want to protect it or not. I think we know what the answer is.

And the other excuse - financial - is even more laughable. We can spend untold sums of money building giant artificial flowers and birds in an effort to 'beautify' our country, yet we cannot afford to upkeep an existing and real historical and cultural heritage.

I weep for the historical states of Penang and Malacca. Even as we boast about the large number of pre-war and historical buildings still extant in these two historical enclaves, they are sytematically being eaten up by these vultures of so-called development.

To those in power, here is my message: Please stop boasting to our foreign tourists about having historical and cultural sites in our country on one hand, while on the other hand you allow them to be destroyed. If your ultimate agenda is to have whatever that is left of history in the country to be annihilated, then kindly keep your mouths shut, lest you be accused of double standards and hypocrisy.

The two most beautiful equations in mathematics

This goes out to all of you mathematicians - academic, professional, amateurs or aspiring wannabes. Can you name the most beautiful equation(s) you have ever encountered?

Here are my two (2) votes:

Euler's equation:


Lagrange's equation:


Next question: Why did I choose them?

Euler's equation provides the link between three areas of mathematics: complex numbers, trigonometric functions and the exponential function. Amongst many other applications, this has provided us with the key to solving 2nd order differential equations. And in the specific case of



we obtain the equation that links the five major constants in mathematics:



Lagrange's equation successfully reduced Newtonian mechanics from graphical to purely analytical. While credit for pioneering analytical mechanics is due to Euler, the true champion is Lagrange. Lagrange's equation eliminated the need for an inertial axes of reference.

My first attempt at Sudoku

What a great way to spend a Saturday night in the company of close friends... sitting at the table together, pounding our heads over a stack of Sudoku puzzles. Well, a stack for them, anyway; for me, one puzzle was enough. And since it was my first ever attempt at it, you can imagine my frustration.


Head pounding

Needless to say, I did not succeed in completing my first puzzle. Part of me is convinced that there is a flaw in the puzzle I was attempting, that it was indeterminate (for those of you who are not mathematically-savvy, go look up that word in the dictionary yourself!), but the reality is, I probably ain't as good with numbers as I would like to think (how I muddled my way through engineering school is fast becoming a miracle).


Doodling and swearing

I think I'll stick to calculus and algebra.

Malaysia - Paradise lost

Malaysia's 50th year of independence looms ahead, and with it, the Visit Malaysia Year 2007. While many may look forward to next year as a spearhead to boost Malaysia's tourism, I find myself looking more cynically upon it. For the paradox is, even as we paint a beautiful front of our country as a tourist's paradise, we need only to look in the backdrop - and at ourselves - to see that whatever that is left of Malaysia's true beauty, is falling apart. I have not the faintest clue what we are so darn proud about.

We pride ourselves as a bastion of cultural heritage and historical enclaves, yet every year, dozens of historic buildings in the inner cities and towns are being torn down in the name of development. We claim to have one of the largest rainforests in the world, yet we read countless reports in the newspapers about the destruction of Belum Forest. We spend money constructing hideous plastic flowers to adorn our streets and highways, instead of spending the resource to plant real flowers.

The worst part about it is the pathetic combination of short-sightedness and apathy that those in power have to stop the festering before it eats up whatever that is left of what is truly beautiful about Malaysia. The threat of encroaching development to PJ district's beloved Gasing Hill makes the headlines for a few days; but after the bravado is over, another few hundreds of trees are quietly felled. We talk so much about saving our rivers, and yet every day I see selfish and uncivilised scumbags nonchalantly dumping their non-biodegradable trash into the drains. We are truly a society which is not yet ready to embrace this technology we call plastic.

To my fellow Malaysians, I send out this sombre message: Stop fooling ourselves. We are losing all those things that really make Malaysia unique. Let us stop deluding ourselves into believing that visitors from abroad would rather see the Twin Towers than historic Chinatown; that they would rather soak in the air-conditioned air in our one-too-many shopping malls than breathing in the fresh air in what's left of our forests; that they would rather view Klang Valley from the top of the KL Tower, than to view the land of Borneo from the summit of our very own Mount Kinabalu.

In our blind quest for materialism, our narrow-mindedness will not cease until every last tree is felled, every last heritage building is demolished, and every last river is poisoned beyond rescue. And then, only generations later, do we sit up and wonder what the s**t happened.

We are so blind.

Restoring classic Mini's

I actually wrote this as an e-mail to my cousin who is interested in buying - and eventually restoring - a classic Mini. After re-reading it in my Sent Items folder, I figured I had composed such a work of art that it warrants being planted onto my blog. So, here goes (well, an abstract of it, anyway!):

For starters
Start stocking up on the necessary parts. Seriously. Someone advised me to do that. I did not heed the advice, and regretted it. The last thing you want is to be caught with your pants down during the restoration stage, realising that some critical screw, bracket or steering wheel is missing．For me, it was the mistake of buying the door rubbers after the welding and painting was done. I ended up with so much trouble fitting the rubbers because I did not have them on-site at the panel beater's shop to test-fit them (a critical step in the door alignment process). Arm yourself fully to the teeth before you enter the maelstrom of no return.

Welding
If you are serious about doing restoration on a Mini, this is a must. Do not listen to the crap that people tell you about using fibreglass sealant and putty. Rust is to metal what gangrene is to flesh - it just propagates and eats the body up. The only real cure is to amputate and replace the section. Workmanship varies from once place to another, but you generally get what you pay for. If you are lucky, your shell is not too rusted, and you could get away with an RM600 job (I did). Someone I know up in Northern Malaysia, reputed to own the most pristine MkI Cooper S in the country, reputedly blew RM5,000 on the floorboard alone (but this could be an urban legend). And if you are going to do real welding, it is best to have the engine complely pulled out, and the interior stripped bare. Leave only the bare shell exposed.



Painting
This normally goes hand-in-hand with the welding, while the shell is bare. After the welding, insist to the painter that he is to blow-torch the old paint layer down to bare metal (yes, strip off the old undercoat, too). DO NOT, on pain of death, allow the lazy bastard to paint over your existing paint layer. Make sure he scrapes or sandblasts every square inch till you see bare metal (I did it myself - armed with a hot-air gun, paint scraper and a then-strong right arm). After that, he has to immediately apply the undercoat, else the rust will set in within 24-48 hours (due to our country's high humidity levels). Then only can he start the paintjob. Last I heard, a reasonably good paintjob in Kulim would set you back about RM2,500.



Uphostery
Prices vary. And if you choose to import all your original uphostery from Newton Commercial UK (they are the best), expect to blow about RM3000. I did mine under RM1000 - seat cushions, carpet, roof lining, the works. It was a shop run by an old man in Penang, obscure place. Recommended by my trusty mechanic (it pays to have good contacts!). I gave him some photos of a typical original MkI interior, said "I want my car to look like this". His terse answer, "Leave your car here with RM200 deposit, and come back in a week." The rest is history.



Panes and windows
Apparently, the front and rear panes are easily available locally or in Thailand. The side ones are a little tougher to come by, especially if you want to restore your good ol' MkI/II sliding windows. Best to import new, since salvaging old glass will probably mean they will come with all those scratches. Make sure it is Triplex hardened.

Engine
The guts of the car. Never neglect this often-hidden, but crucial bit. To get the car in good running condition, it is recommended that after the engine has been pulled out for the shell's welding and painting, the mechanical does a full block conditioning. Pull out the pistons and change all the rings. Replace the gasket for the head. Polish the in/out ports. Heck, even service the gearbox, too, if need be. There are only so many times in your Mini's life when you will actually strip the engine totally naked，so you might as well bathe the bugger properly before he puts on his tuxedo again.



Miscellaneous nuts & bolts
This is the biggest headache, because there's so many of them! How much you can source locally really depends on how prepared you are to run around shops and scavenge scrap yards like a mad dog. Else, there's always Mini Spares and your Platinum Visa Card.

Finally...
GET A BOOK. I recommend two books: One Mini owners manual (available through Haynes) and a Mini Spares catalogue (so that you can easily look up the part numbers).

Hobbies

Every guy should have a hobby. An interest. A passion. Something that defines him as an individual. Something that, in moments of solitude - or an acute need for solitude - he fall back onto. That all-consuming activity that he can immerse himself in, drawing boundless energy and satisfaction from it, lost in time and space.

I once expounded this theory to a close friend (who - surprise, surprise - is on my Friendster list... you know who you are!). We both concluded that a guy without any hobbies or passions of his own is in a fragile state. This is especially so if his life centres solely around his other half. Don't get me wrong - I am not implying that a guy with a soulmate is a weakling, or that he should be any less loyal to that lucky lady. What I mean is that while a guy plays the role of being that special half of a whole (and wholesome relationship), he is, at the same time, an individual.

For want of a better analogy: Jackie Chan did not aspire to be the replacement Bruce Lee; he aspired to be the first Jackie Chan. Neither do I think Sean Penn (then) was flattered to be known as Mr. Madonna; I think he much prefers to be known as himself, and not some appendage to his (ex-)wife.

Okay, okay... every rant and seemingly thought-provoking blog of mine has some event behind it, and this one is not exception. I have been neglecting my hobbies for way too long, being all consumed by the maelstorm we call work. Over the past couple of weeks, I have gotten back into serious rock-climbing (I will clear that God-forsaken overhanging beam, even if I have to lose more skin from my fingers!) and... and... after two months of neglect, I resurrected my Mini-Cooper into action! Oh, what joy, what hitherto unforetold realms of sheer pleasure... vroom, vroom...

PS. I am aware that I sound rather sexist with all the words 'guy', 'he', 'his' and 'him' peppered all over the above paragraphs. I consider it presumptious to speak on behalf of the other gender, for I can never truly claim to fathom their state of mind and heart. Nonetheless, feel free to substitute the words with 'gal, 'she', 'hers' and 'her', respectively.

The asshole at the workplace

Of late, I have often wondered if an employee can be put in jail, if he is pushed beyond the limits of his tolerance by some offensive asshole colleague or manager at work, and ends up hurling a huge ring folder / coffee mug / paper weight at the bugger's face. Does 'psychological trauma at the workplace' qualify as a suitable defence for a moment of unbridled fury that can hold up in court? I would like to think so.

Right this moment, someone I am compelled to work with - and positively despise - is within a nosehair from getting his face flattened by a flying object coming from me. And that is before I proceed to break his nose, shatter his kneecaps, and rip out his nuts. I am past fear and into fury mode. Do not trifle with me.

Prologue...

I finally decided to upgrade from my regular Friendster blog to a **real** blogsite. Actually, the inspiration came from reading a little lady's (I don't know her personally, but someday I shall have her to thank for reviving the writer's spirit in me... hopefull!) blog on Blogspot recently, so I figured... why not?

A couple of close friends have told me that I have this "flair for writing". They're being nice... so sweet of them. I have had managers from my ex-companies copping out far more direct and less flattering comments (which I shall not attempt to reproduce here) in regard to my long-winded e-mails.

Why did I christen my blog "Augustine's Chronicles"? Augustine is my confirmation name. Chose it myself, a month short of my 21^st birthday. Why? Aurelius Augustine of Hippo was the patron saint of theologians, and a prolific writer. Quote from him, "God, grant me chastity and contenence... but not yet." What a rebel. Sounds like me. Minus the need for chastity. I'm celibate. Yep.