I was alone at home today. My wife, kid and sister went to KL for a reason. So I had KFC’s Dinner Plate for my break-fast yesterday. I was flat out on the bed right after break-fast, being a result of feeling amazingly sleepy.

I woke up at 2 in the morning, feeling funny. Where am I? What did I do just now? Where’s everyone? Whatever it was, I now felt pretty hungry. I did some laundry, packed the bag for balik kampung, and decided for an early sahur. And so I’m off.

It was slighly raining when I started to drive. Wandering around Kerteh town, I stopped at my favorite restaurant which looked like they were still open, just to hear the guy yelled “Dah takde pape dah bang!“, right after I got out of the car. And so I continued to wander. There were few more restaurants, looked like there were still open, but I had bad experience with the first one, so I refused to try.

I headed on to McDonald’s, which has a huge 24-Hour sign, thinking this will surely be my resort for sahur, surely. Arrived, I parked the car at the disabled space (I didn’t think any OKU would’ve come here for sahur anyway). I went straight to the entrance door, after passing three couples comforting each other, cuddling to get some heat in the chilly rain. Get a room, guys. This was by far, the worst view I’ve ever seen during Ramadhan. Even worse, they were all Malays, with the girls were all nicely covered with tudung. Shameless.

Back to my McDonald’s quest. The door was locked. Puzzled, I waved at the floor-cleaning girl inside.

“Dah tutup ke?“

“Ya. Dah tutup.“

“Drive through?“

“Tutup gak.“

“Kata 24 hours?“

“…….“

There I was. Puzzled. No satisfying answer. Hungry. Pissed.

I left, and had my sahur at this weird, all Indonesians restaurant. Even the customers were all Indonesians. I didn’t really care. I had a plate of fried kuehtiaw, a glass of iced Nescafe and a trembling chest watching Liverpool walked away with a 1-0 win over Debrecen in Champions League. I was never a fan of Liverpool. Not that I hate them. I just hate that cocky Rafa.

Conclusion here? I’m right at your side, McCurry, no matter how crazy McDonald’s suppressed you before.

PS: It sucks just to think that I’ve been lied wholly at 4 in the morning.

SCENE 1

When I finally arrived, the queue was quite long. I was seventh in the line, yet I still think it’s fine. So I waited. When I was third, suddenly a short fat plumpy lady (yes, it’s Ramadhan, but I don’t care anymore) came in from the main door and straight away headed to the guy in front of me. “Tolong cucuk duit saya sekali..” she said, in heavy Terengganu. She was smiling annoyingly, bitching with the guy (who I think in his 40s). There were 8 or 9 people in the line behind me. Shame on you, fatty.

SCENE 2

I finally got my money, and left with curses in my head. Next destination is Maybank. So I headed on. Parking was trouble, but my brother is a magistrate, so I didn’t really care. It was crowded as well in Maybank, but as usual, being positive is one of my good abilities. When I finally reached third in the cash deposit line, SCENE 2 took place. There was a 50+ years old stooge, trying hard to bank in his money, helped by his 40+ years old friend, who turned out to be a stooge as well. They kept trying to key in the account number, and for God knows how many times, they still couldn’t fill up the 12-space Maybank account number. They only have 10 numbers. The younger stooge finally decided to back of, as he realized that people were waiting behind and the line had already reached the entrance door. “Takpe, kejap lagi kita try lagi…” I unintentionally saw a piece of yellow colored paper in his hand, which was surely the carbon copy of a bank-in slip, complete with an account number. I believe that number is the same number they were trying to fit in the electronic form of Maybank’s deposit machine. They took like half an hour, and still didn’t manage to figure that they were in the wrong bank. The slip has a Public Bank logo.

Oh dear…….

SCENE 3

After the stooges walked away from the machine, the guy in front of me started to bank in his money when suddenly another ugly-faced guy greeted him. “Masuk 200 nih skali, nih nombor akaun dia…” he said while handing the guy in front of me with four pieces of RM50 note and his state-of-the-art Nokia E71 with a set of numbers on the screen. Apparently, they were frineds. What a true unmannered @$$#0le. They had a short chat. I listened. Kelantan accent was pure. The ugly-faced works for ******** Carigali.

Handphone mahal, kerja bagus, tapi takde adab. Down the drain, dear.

SCENE 4

My turn. Click here click there, I finally got my money into the deposit machine, to be deposited to my friend who’s handling my investment. RM3500.

Darn! The amount should be RM4000. I screwed up. Since ATM machine can only dispenses a maximum of RM1500 per transaction, I had to do three transactions to get my four grand. RM1500 + RM1500 + RM500 = RM4000. Smart ass, Skis.

PS: 1MALAYSIA without manners. Down the drain !

PSS: A1 in Mathematics, SPM 2000. Down the drain !!

PSSS: Puasa hari ke-23 di bulan Ramadhan 1430 with a lot of hardcore curses in the head. Down the drain !!!

Not so many pictures this time, as the place is heavily crowded. Can hardly move around. But I have to say that Awana did good job preparing the food. All of them were much better than past years, although there are still rooms for improvement. The marinated fried beef was the man-of-the-match last night. Nice.

PS: Alhamdulillah.

PSS: Today we’ll meet again for next iftar. Venue? Awana, again!!

Imran was the limelight, maybe because he’s the youngest. Or maybe because everyone was expecting to see him. Or maybe simply becase he’s too cute to resist (papa’s son, where else would you think he gets his cuteness?).

Well, he almost scream last night, right after that funny guy announced we can start the food feast. But we somehow managed to put him into sleep, and eat happily ever after.

We left at almost 8PM. Heavy-headed and filled-tummy. There goes my diet, yet again.

Click on the picture for more images in Flickr.

PS: Mrs. Herbalife, I will need your great product again the soonest after Eid.

PSS: Ms. Coach, your order is done.

PSSS: Oh, free breakfast feast again tonight? Text me the place!

FRIEND: berbuke kat mane arini

tak p param ke?

MIND : param? mana tu?

apsal cam nama pelakon india tuh je?

FRIEND: PAsar RAMadhan la

pelakon india tu ANAMALAY

And within the quietness of the office, suddenly a huge laughter bursted out. A psychotic one, in fact.

PS: Tak bole tahan….

Right after work, I headed to the bazaar located at the central of Chukai town in Kemaman. It took me almost an hour to reach there, thanks to the heavy traffic at the bridge near my work place (thank you Mr. MB for your concern).

My wife was already waiting for me there after she finished her tasks with the banks. We had a brief walk around the bazaar. We got ourselves some junk food and a half of honey roasted chicken as our main course.

Exactly RM28 spent. I really feel it was such a waste when we had our break-fast at 1916 hours. Nothing tasted as good as its look. RM28 can get me few kilos of bloated fish (translation for ikan kembung, by AA once ago), a kilo or two of fresh meat and probably a whole chicken, which equals to almost a week buka puasa supplies. Putting it in other way, I have actually spent the whole week’s supplies expenditure for a one time buka puasa.

The day before yesterday, we spent RM50 for Pizza Hut. I didn’t feel bad at all.

I have a policy of no matter how expensive a food is, as long as it tastes good, I won’t mind. What pissed me off just now was those people who sells craps and bullshits for living.

Bila tanya, semua claim sedap. Fools.

We decided to get a fresh buka puasa after a week of only-inside-the-house Ramadhan. Pizzas  sound nice compared to a bowl of whatever at Secret Recipe or a Mushroom Swiss at Burger King (unlike in KLCC, here you have to pay to top up your drinks, or else, it would’ve been our first choice). Starbucks and Big Apple are out of the list, completely. Who would want to break their fast with flavoured doughnuts or with a cup of RM15 bitter macchiato plus the ridiculously priced cookies?

At 1644hrs, I went to make reservation and straight away ordered the meal (we had, in previous Ramadhans, experienced unnecessary effects of sudden decision to have our breakfast away from home), including regular-sized Pepperoni, large plate of Platter, sweet and spicy chicken wings and of course, the compulsory value meal extras like Pepsi, breadsticks and mushroom soups.

It was slightly raining as we reached Mesra Mall around 1900hrs and managed to have a good browse of baju raya (2 females with me, surely), before we head to Pizza Hut few moments later. Imran had his meal 10 minutes before Maghrib, but of course, nobody cares. He’s 2 months old today, so he will not be going around the town in the white van as a result of fast-skipping in this holy Ramadhan.

Next weekend, we’ll probably be in KL for a quick raya shopping at IKEA, and have our sahur and buka puasa around there.

PS: The image is from HTC Touch 3G. Shouldn’t expect any better, should we?

Orang kata puasa ni bagus. Boleh mengurangkan berat badan (kepada orang yang mempunyai berat yang tak sepatutnya). Boleh juga merehatkan organ-organ dalaman badan yang kerja tak berhenti-henti sepanjang tahun. Boleh juga menguji sejauh mana ketahanan mental dan fizikal. Boleh kurangkan belanja dengan mengurangkan belian barang makanan harian, kecuali la kalau jenis buka puasa makan macam 765 tahun tak makan. Memang peniaga pasar Ramadhan tersengih lebar la kalau nampak muka yang macam tu.

Semua benda berkurang. Kecuali satu. Beban kerja.

Yeah, I know. I’ve been mumbling about this over and over again. And yes, I want to stop complaining about it. But before I stop, let me say a few words as closing.

Schlumberger, I hate you.

Friends of Schlumberger, don’t worry. I don’t mean that to you guys. Just to those “certain people”.

Sekian, terima kasih.

And yes, I am still here. Not knowing what to do. Everything fails. I got shit from those people of Carigali Hess. I got bigger shit from the biggest man in Carigali, the Drilling Superintendant himself…

Adoila…mampuih aku camni… It was a complete disaster. The logging unit mobilized here was taken somewhere from Iran, or India, I’m not so sure. The management people of my company, especially the sales engineer, uttered the sweetest words to the client, saying that the unit is in good condition ( I think he said excellent…). The reality? That stupid logging unit is actually a piece of crap, ready to be junked by the Iranians, but my manager brought it here, thinking that we can turn the reality into fantasy, assuming the unit will be perfectly operational within two weeks.

Ok, here it is. Number one, back here in Malaysia base, we normally use the conventional unit, more than 50% of the structure are driven by mechanical and hydraulic system, 15% of electro-pneumatic system and the rest, the electrical and electronic take places. The workload of performing maintenance and breakdown troubleshootings are crazy, but acceptable, as it usually requires physical energy rather than brain-sizzling efforts. But the unit that they brought here from Iran that I mention before is totally different. 30% of mechanicals, hydraulics and pneumatics. The rest? Electronics.With this unit, we need to deliver our physical strength together with squeezing our brains macam perah susu lembu kat kandang. Actually, these electronics appliances were created to make the life of its users easier than few years back. Yes, I said the USERS, not to those who need to maintain its credibility and accuracy of collecting variable oil well data.

Number two, hell. We know nothing at all about this unit. We took the whole week to study how it works and how the systems are. We got a blur picture, but we basically understand the unit pretty well. But that was the problem. We spent a week already, and all we had is just another week to repair it (as I said earlier, this unit is a piece of junk…major repairs needed badly…)

Number three, again, it’s a piece of junk. The aircond didn’t work. The presurrization blower was down. The Control Safety Panel was turned upside down. The programmable logic control was somehow, non-understandable. The power distribution panel wasn’t really friendly to the technicians as it was to the engineers (the users of course…) and the list goes one….endless…

Now it’s here. At Tioman T-10, standing like a robotic-zombie, just few feets away from the well head. It can be run, but that unit will heat you up like hell when you work inside it. And there is no existence of pressure differential between the outside and inside of the unit due to its failed blower, so you might have to risk your life breathing freaky gases that exist in the air around the wells.

I’ve been working here day and night to solve the problems. Tapi aku hanya insan biasa. The limit has been reached. Nothing much can be done here. Otak pon dah nak pecah. Sakit badan. Rindu bini lagi….

Oh Tuhan, dalam bulanMu yang suci ini, peliharalah aku dari anasir yang bertentangan denganMu serta permudahkanlah jalan bagiku. Kau jauhilah segala cacat cela, segala niat buruk, segala hasutan syaitan, segala ciri kejahatan dan segala kemungkinan keburukan dari isteriku. Jika takdirMu tertulis bala akan tertimpa dirinya, bawalah segala malang itu kepadaku, agar dirinya sentiasa terpelihara. Amin.

Aku nak balik!!!