29th July 2006 Esplanade Sunset

I know this will sound odd but this picture I took does remind me of an atomic detonation on the horizon. Much like the atomic weapon tests performed on Bikini Island and such in the early 50’s.

This was the first sunset I’ve ever taken and I was happy that I added in the family and the military boat into the picture. It does give it some perspective, doesnt it?

Plus, I love the detail on the clouds above. The lighting and the shadows made the clouds stand out. In all honesty, I think this picture does seem too good to be true, doesnt it? Makes me wish for more beautiful sunsets to be honest.

Too bad reality isnt as beautiful as what a camera sees.

Perodua MYVI crashes and loses its engine block

What a way to start my new life aint it?

I was on my way to town with a friend of mine around 3pm today and was just cruising along the highway towards our destination. As we approached town, we noticed that the cars ahead of us were slowing down, which usually meant that it was either a police block or an accident.

We soon realized that what was going on in front of us was the aftermath of a car accident. A Perodua MYVI to be exact. It seems that the poor bugger had somewhat miscalculated his/her angle of attack and ended up somewhat upside down on a small ditch beside the divider.

Being the curious bunch we were, we decided to inspect the wreckage seeing that it was an extremely fresh accident. We soon located a small parking lot nearby and made our way towards the crash site.

It was obvious as to what happened. It seems that a black MYVI had rear ended a small Hyundai Atos and then clipped a tree. This soon resulted in him/her tumbling into the ditch that separated highway. What surprised us at the inspection was how violent the whole impact was. The whole entire engine block of the MYVI had ripped itself out of the front end of the car.

The cops were there and were interviewing the bystanders on the other end of the highway as to ascertain the reasons of the accident. There were some people who were taking pictures as well. I suspect that these people were from the Insurance company or from the local press. I noticed that there were others like me that were there as well, who had stopped and decided to snap some pictures with their handphones.

I was surprised that no one stopped us from doing that. Then again, there were only 2 cops and I am sure that they had their hands full rather than deal with us curious bystanders.

Now for what I saw at the crash site. I must apologize that my descriptions for the accident isnt as comprehensive as one might have wanted but then again, I am not a car person. So please bear with me.

There were small bits and pieces of the MYVI strewn all over the highway such as small hydraulic pipes, broken bumpers, its headlights and so forth. The bark some of the trees were also ripped from being grazed by the vehicle. Much of the traffic going on both directions of the highway slowed down to view the horrific wreckage.

I quickly noted that the impact alone would have killed the poor driver. Seeing that if the whole engine block itself flew out of the car, to about 3 meters or so from the actual point of impact, one must wonder as to how violent the immediate stopping force was.

I then calmly proceeded to inspect the insides of the car. I know I am going to sound cruel here but I was expecting to see a corpse in it. Yet thankfully, there wasnt one. All I saw was small droplets of blood and a shattered windscreen. On one side, laid piles of cds that had been flung about from the crash. I didnt see any airbags nor did I see any hints of violent trauma inflicted on the driver. I didnt see any brain matter so I concluded that the driver was lucky to have worn his/her seatbelt then.

Yet one must wonder as to the damage suffered from the impact and the resultant whiplash from it. Massive trauma to the neck is what I’d suspect from such an accident. Then again, that should be the least of their worries seeing that the resultant concussion to their head scares me even more.

Surprisingly, the whole frame of the driver/passenger compartment of the car was relatively intact. The driver was lucky that the roof of the car did not collapse on him/her. Otherwise it would definitely been fatal. It was a miracle that it didnt get much worse than what was initially perceived from the wreckage.

One thing I had forgotten to mention and this is related to the engine block. When we arrived, the engine block had a pipe that had a small flame burning from it. It was quickly concluded that this was probably left over fuel from the combustion chamber. This showed how ‘fresh’ the whole accident was.

Another point of interest here. The license plate of the car was still on it and we noted that the age of the car was only less than 6 months. It is plausible that the driver of the car was someone very young, around the age of 18-22. Probably the car was given to them as a gift from their parents, a normal practice for families here.

Sad that it had to end up like this.

Now looking back on it, even the tow trucks werent there yet. It is common knowledge here that tow trucks are the first to arrive at any car crash scene. It was quite surprising that on this very day that my friend and I were there to see this.

Let alone step down from our vehicle to inspect it.

A new life with a dramatic beginning. My life may have started again but it is possible that another person’s life may have ended.

May god protect you, nameless driver. I hope that you’ll come out alive from this horrible calamity that has occurred.

God bless.

Take That! Plus This and That as Well!

You know you’re old when you realize all that the songs you used to love are now considered ‘classics’.

I was down in town last night with a friend of mine and we were basically cruising around town. Earlier that night, I had treated my friend to dinner for I had a sudden pizza craving. Seeing that we were down in town already, it was decided there and then that we survey the town area for some ‘women’, my friend’s favorite subject, which utterly bored me to death. As a sign of courtesy, I complied and just drove around in circles around the general area whilst listening to the radio.

I had noticed that the radio station at the time was playing old pop music circa from the late 80s and the early 90s. Pretty good stuff I thought, seeing that I am actually biased to this sort of music than those new-fangled crap being played commercially on radio stations today.

It was there and then the song ‘Relight my fire’ was played.

Immediately in that instant, I felt like I was reliving my old high school days.

Take That!

No, no, no, I am not mocking you or anything but to show you how OLD I really am, Take That was technically the first British boy band and at the time was a global hit sensation. Heck, the New Kids on The Block were seriously outmatched by this particularly five-some for Take That dominated all markets except for the US market, which was oddly quite resistant to their particular brand of music. Hell, once the song started to play on the radio, even my friend started to chime in and told me that he still had one of their albums stashed at home. He casually started singing bits and pieces of the song as it went along.

It then hit me like a mallet to the face. I realized that we both were really old farts.

MOVING ON, it was quite surprising to hear this from my friend of mine that even he had their CD! I remember him way back during my High School days as a person who was quiet and truly wasn’t the sort of person you’d expect to own such music. Heck, back then my group of friends thought of him as an uber-traditionalist Chinese who would shun anything Western but once this fact was known that he liked Take That, I cant help but chuckle that even he was infected the phenomena of Euro-Pop.

What I remember fondly of Take That was their extremely catchy lyrics and danceable tunes. I loved singing some of their songs when I was a wee lad and technically listened to quite a bit of their songs on the radio when I did my homework. I am sure many reading here have thoughts of me being sexually confused at this stage but seriously, I loved Take That and I perfectly love women.

I also fondly remember a friend of mine who used to pack the latest issue of ‘Smash-Hits’ and would discuss about how East 17, a rival boy band at the time, would trample them and usurp their success. Hmmm, this sounds as if this could become quite a lengthy discussion on the historical progression of this ‘Boy Band’ fad that happened so long ago but I shall leave it to the readers to do their own research on it. Just follow the link below and just search Wikipedia. It does surprisingly offers quite a wealth of information concerning this topic.

Now back to my ‘interesting’ friend.

Come to think of it, he was quite a weird fellow in his own right, for he’d always try his best to emulate Michael Jackson’s great crotch pulling move along with the infamous ‘shriek’ during breaks in between class. To be honest, his performances were pretty good. It was just a pity that they were good only for comedic reasons and not for their artistic merits. Last I heard of him, he got a student of his pregnant during his stint as a teacher. One can imagine the sort of life he’s living now based on this fact alone.

Ah, my poor friend. Hyper Jamma Kappa will live on forever thanks to such weird stunts you pulled off! We surviving members will not forget your ‘innovations’ that were presented to us at the time. Never forget!

Still, Take That was awesome for their time. I was actually more into the Industrial, Grunge and Alternative scene during that period but one cant help but be infected by the bubbly yet honest songs sung by Take That. Heck, even as I write this now, the song “Everything Changes” is playing in the background proving that, good music does last the test of time. Or pessimistically looking at it, bad taste lingers on no matter how much older a person gets.

Now I understand the reasoning as to why I love M-Flo so much. I used to think it was because they had this interesting dynamic to their songs, in which it felt so retro, yet not. Get what I mean? Now looking at, the style of music that Take That presented does sound a little bit of M-Flo. Though I will admit that M-Flo was possibly influenced by euro electronica more than anything else but one cant help but see some similarities as to why both of these two seemingly different groups had such a large following. Then again, both originated from Euro themes so I guess that would be a better baseline for comparison.

Seriously though, I like old music. It always makes me feel happy and listening to such tunes that I loved as a child does brings back a lot of fun memories. Come to think of it, the older the song, the better.

Oh and to end this, I like the song ‘Sure’.

/me hides

Further Reading
Take That from Wikipedia