Everything was going as I had planned earlier, sweet. But things didn’t go very smoothly after that. It was sort of a series of bad luck. I will pos my KL trip in few parts within the next few days, so do come back if you want to know what happened.

Sook Ying and I agreed to meet up again before she goes back to US in August, hence the meet up at Macro’s Pizza. I reached Macro’s Pizza at 2PM sharp and Sook Ying was late. I went inside and took a seat while waiting for her.

We ordered a regular barbecued chicken pizza with extra cheese, a mango pancake, a glass of passion fruit Italian soda and vanilla milk shake. Well, I won’t really agree that they are serving the best homemade pizzas, but it wasn’t very bad either; average. They were very generous with the cheese though. The mango pancake ought to be removed from the menu, it sucks.

I still don’t know why she didn’t allow me to take photos of her that day but you can view her photos in this post. She decided to abandon me by leaving at 3PM sharp. She came, she ate, she drank and she left. I cursed and she giggled. I paid the bill and we left the place.

15 minutes later, Emily came and we went to Macro’s Pizza. I know, even the waitress chuckled when she saw me again, but at a different table with a different girl.

We ordered fried ice cream and don’t-know-what-its-name dessert. Again, both are not recommended. We didn’t have the heart shaped dessert, I put its picture because its just lovely.

Emily, as usual, cam whored with my camera’s.

We bid farewell at 4.15PM as she wanted to go gym for her daily workout. With almost 90 minutes to spare and no place to go before I meet up with Tien Soon at 5.45PM, I did something which only EFNTD people would do. I boarded the LRT from Kelana Jaya station, passed by 19 stations, switched direction at Setiawangsa station and sat back to Kelana Jaya. The whole journey took 90 minutes, just nice for my next appointment with Tien Soon.

By the time I reached Kelana Jaya station, Tien Soon was waiting for me already. We boarded the LRT and made our way to Times Square. I passed by the same stations for 4 times within 5 hours. -sweat- We reached Times Square at 7PM sharp, and we waited for our friends - Mikel and Kai Hong to come.

By 7.30PM sharp, we were at the shop and 2 boxes of Panasonic DMC-FZ30 were waiting for us already. The 7.30PM event that I mentioned in my previous post was about buying my very first digital camera. This part deserves a post on its own, so stay tune.

The whole process took us nearly 2 hours. By the time we left Times Square, it was 9PM. We dropped Tien Soon at Puduraya bus station while the 3 of us went to Subang to have “Bah Kut Teh” for dinner.

When me and Mikel walked into the shop, the boss was shouting at the far end, “No more! Dah habis!“. I was cursing because I was very hungry at that moment. Then, the boss saw Kai Hong, and he shouted again, “Ada! Ada!“. Isn’t this customer discrimination? -sweat-

“Apart from its super nice “Bah Kut Teh”, another reason that made me come to this shop for the past 4 years is because they (the boss and workers) call me ‘leng zhai‘,” said Kai Hong.

By the time we finished our dinner, it was 11PM and I stayed overnight at Mikel’s place.

0730 - Wakes up for class.
0800 - Attends ECP 3086 Multimedia Technology And Application’s tutorial class.
0900 - Class finishes.
0915 - Withdraws money from the bank.

1130 - Enters highway.
1300 - Exits highway.
1330 - Parks my car at a LRT station.

1400 - Reaches Kelana Jaya LRT station.
1400 - Meets Sook Ying at Macro’s Pizza.
1530 - Meets Emily at Macro’s Pizza.

1730 - Waits for Tien Soon at Kelana Jaya LRT station.

1900 - Reaches Times Square.
1900 - Meets Kai Hong and / or Louyau aka Mikel at Times Square.

1930 - “JENG JENG JENG JENGGG…!!!” -drum rolls-

What will Jason do at 1930?
What will happen at 1930?
What will happen to Jason at 1930?

Stay tune… Or you can call me after 2000 / 8PM at 012-6842434 to find out.

6AM. 22nd July, 2006. Saturday.

While everyone was still sleeping like a dead log, I had to get up and get myself ready for work. After a light breakfast, I left my house and picked up my colleague, Vincent Tan. After 30 minutes drive from Vincent’s place, we reached our destination - Kem Terendak at 7.35AM. Kem Terendak is a military base camp at Sungai Udang / Masjid Tanah. Publics are usually not allowed to enter, but I was there to cover the army’s shooting competition, held every 2 years.

How is the shooting competition conducted?

A team of 4 marksmen will compete with another 4 marksmen, from diffent divisions, forces or brigade.

Teams will get ready at the starting point, with field marshalls and safety marshalls right behind them. They will load their guns and await for the signals from the marshalls.

“Sedia…!”

“Pandang… hadapan…!”

“Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttt…!” (Whistle)

Then, the teams will run for 100m.

Upon reaching the 300m point, they will lie down, unlock the rifle, and shoot the targets which are 300m away from them. The fastest team to shoot down all the targets will be the winner.

Here is a video of the shoot-out.

Then, the marksmen will have to unload their bullets and hand it over to the field marshall; while the judges will count the score and then announce the winner.

While waiting for the competition to end, I snapped a few pictures.

They are from Australia, who came to Malaysia under an exchange programme for 3 months. They came all the way from Butterworth, Penang.

Some of the rifles being displayed at the press conference area.

These are the live bullets that they use everyday, in the competition and during practices.

That’s me posing at one of the armed jeeps.

After the shooting competition, marching, speeches, prize giving, parades and flag off ceremony had ended, finally came the session that I had been waiting, which was also the main reason why I chose this assignment over a food carnival.

Before we were allowed to shoot, we were given a short briefing on how to handle the rifle and safety issues.

After about 15 minutes of briefing, we walked to the shooting range, 100m away from the target. On the ground was a rifle - Steyr AUG, an empty magazine, 2 empty bullet casings and a display unit. The display unit will show the result of your shooting, without going up front. From there, you can adjust your aiming for better accuracy.

This is an empty magazine, which you can load up to 30 bullets in it. That’s me learning how to load bullets into the magazine.

Vincent getting ready for the shoot out.

Then, it was my turn. Vincent is not a blogger, hence, only 2 pictures of me in action. If Jolene was the one to take picture for me, at least 10 - 20 pictures.

This was what I saw (my target) at 100m from the zoom in scope; just a slightly bigger dot (target) in my view finder.

My shooting wasn’t accurate, but consistent.

The whole experience was simply awesome.

The moment I pressed and released the trigger, the explosion sound was very loud. My ear had this “yiiinnnnggggg…” sound even after I finished shooting. Then, when the empty casing was unloaded from the rifle, I could hear “ting ting ting” sound too, just like in the movies. All the mechanism sound effects were utterly cool and totally new to me. The recoil wasn’t as strong as I had expected. We used live bullets, hence, my hand had gun powder smell too.

I don’t even have to join National Service to have my hands on rifles.

It was indeed once in a life time experience.

6 days without a single post, some people maybe one or two of you might be wondering where have I been. Even Boss Stewie doesn’t get grumpy anymore from not reading my blog. -sniff sniff-

Actually, I am still around, reading blogs, leaving comments, chatting on MSN, attending lectures and tutorial classes, eating and sleeping. Just that my life is too dull and nothing has happen lately, I don’t have a SINGLE, S-I-N-G-L-E blogging material.

My two guest bloggers - Ah Nee and JiNz are not doing anything either. -shrugs- One is updating her blog almost on daily basis but gives me lots of excuses when I requested for help. While another, was busy with her new job just plain lazy.

This was how I looked like when I looked at my own blog for the past 4 days.

I can’t update every 2 days like I used to already. So, I guess you need to bear with me and don’t be surprise if you don’t see any updates even after 1 week.

-sighs-

P/S : JasonMumbles.com is looking for guest bloggers. Serious! I need help lah!

How was “Spirit Of Melaka“?

First, thanks to Danny, Gabriel and Jeremy for the participation. Ha!

Well, I certainly had fun but it was tiring and suffering at the same time. The tiring and suffering part was the running part. Obviously, with my size, running is extremely not recommended. They had to select the first station at the top of St. Paul’s hill, which nearly killed me. Not even 20 minutes from the flag off, I was out of breath having heart attack already.

After that, it was better but I still couldn’t run except the occasionally jog. I couldn’t run much towards the end of the race as my legs were on the verge of cramping. But none the less, we managed to finish all the tasks. We went to Stadhuys, Jonker Street, Temple Street and etc, where most of the historical site are situated.

We had to…

1) Finish a bowl of chendol in less than 45 seconds. (I did it in less than 10, if not mistaken. The marshall was looking at me with his disbelieved look.)

2) Finish a glass of bitter herbal tea in less than 30 seconds. (Less than 10, nothing much.)

3) Finish a packet of dodol.

4) Play traditional game. A teamate sits on coconut tree and another pulls.

5) Juggle a sepak takraw ball in the air for 10 seconds. (Danny, you are the man!)

6) Make a 8*8 square field using strings.

7) Dance for 60 seconds.

8) Draw the “Spirit Of Melaka” logo on a wooden clog.

9) Count number of steps from point A to point B.

10) Solve a few questions. (With the help from friends (You know who you are.), my dad and Google. Thanks a lot, guys and girls!

Overall, it was fun but very tiring. I didn’t know I could do 27 ear squats at 1 go. By the time I came home, my whole body was aching like a 80 years old man. My afternoon nap didn’t help much as I was interrupted by a few phone calls, which I blasted it out when talking to Ah Nee. Ha!

When I first signed up for the race, I wasn’t expecting anything except just to experience something new. Told you, it was an EFNTD action. I had done it, and I suppose, this would be my first and last.

After the result was announced and we didn’t make it to the top 10 (like we could), we went to Mahkota Parade and had Burger King for lunch. While queueing up, someone came up to me.

“Are you Jason?”
“Yes.”
“Jason from JasonMumbles.com?”
“Yes. And you are?”
“Yen.”
“Nice to meet you. Do you have a blog?” -shakes hand-
“Yes.”
“Remember to leave a comment at my blog so that I can visit your blog.”
“Ok.”

Finally, someone recognizes me! Finally! -puts on kembang look-