They just want your money!

My running buddies and I were just thinking...
Running events were supposed to be a community social responsibility projects of mega companies to wash off their sins and write off some expenditure for income tax purposes. However, looking at the escalation of entry fees and the diminishing amount of freebies in their goody bag, the runs itself are becoming a money making ponzi scheme. In the name of health and zest to liquefy the fat accumulated from inactivity and fast food, more and more are participating in these runs but the quality of the merchandise remains mysteriously the same if not a turn for the worse!
The T-shirts are sponsored, so are the drinks, snacks and the contents of the goodie bag. So, why the RM60 entrance fee? To line their pockets?
Interestingly the last major running events had the same colour T-shirts (MPI, Newton and today event - Mizuno Wave 10km Run) - only the cuts are different. Did they use the remnants of the material from the same supplier?

On the ground, I started the week trying to recover from the sore calf muscles that I picked up from last week's 15km Sunday morning run but in vain. At the 1km mark, the sinking nagging feeling started bogging me at my right calf. I was asking myself, "Is this going to be my DNC (Did not complete) race?" The true mark of a sportsman is not winning in record times but in actually completing the race despite all adversities. Hence, dragging myself at a slower than usual pace to last the race, I persevered. Every kilometer covered felt like ten. After some time, at about 8km mark, the pain was actually bearable. I actually managed to scale the killer hill at the tail end of the run before the finishing line in 1h5m.
Now to recover to get back to my usual running mode.....

Chicks back to roost!

The slow family trip up north was an educational trip for the youngsters in the clan - that their parents were indeed not born with a silver spoon but rather through sheer hard work of their ancestors did they reach where they are. Hopefully the message synced in, minus the preaching on our part. A point to note too is that other people too (not RRB alone) strive to come up in life.
Two interesting stops in Ipoh were my wife's childhood neighbourhood and a famous Nasi Kandar restaurant whose co-owner (deceased) was my wife's family friend.

Fit old timer guarding nest

When I was small and 

Christmas trees were tall,

this drain looked a river!

The refurbished property where it began:

1lot with a house divided by 3 families,

to harbour wife and children while men

ventured far to bring home the bacon. 

Families weathered storm and went on by
with a little help from friends and neighbours.

Chicks back to roost, only that

now, it is a farm in a concrete jungle!

Happy to know your acquaintances!

The new village-like neighbourhood in Gunung Rapat had expanded in tandem with progress with the the rest of the state with tall buildings, highways, cars, KFC, McDonalds and Pizza hut to match. The atmosphere now seem so bright with loss of greenery and shady trees. Some landmarks have stood the test of time like the market and some of fellow dwellers who have somehow frozen in time living in their old pace 40 years previously. These people are usually senior citizen whose children have fled their nests for greener pastures and meatier worms out of town and out of country. They look forward for school holidays and celebrations for family reunions.
A fraction of the younger generation members felt satisfied in their cocoon and never progressed but went in reverse mode. Some houses have been refurbished and restructured whilst some lost their previous grandiose lustre of yesteryear and had fell prey to the elements of nature.
The next pit-stop was at what we affectionately referred to as Kamal's Nasi Kandar shop. For the global audience, nasi kandar is one of Malaysians indulgence in their favourite pastime and exercise (i.e.eating). In the pre-Merdeka days, mobile Indian Moslem vendors selling food (like meals on wheels) used to straddle around balancing a pole on their shoulder a load of pot of steaming hot rice, meat and gravies. Over time, this distinct taste of gravy with kaskas (a spice, distant cousin of poppy) was acquired by most Malaysians. Its taste too had evolved over the years to satisfy various taste buds!

1-Malaysia Shop

Just like that, many years ago, Kamal's grandfather landed in this land of plenty (Malaya) to change his fate. [From India]. His rice was enjoyed by his regular clientele, including the occupant of a suspicious looking  huge automobile with tinted windscreen whose driver would patronize his humble business and pack meals three times a week. All went on well till the peddler had to close shop after a brush with the immigration authorities or something like that.

Should I stay or should I go now?

If I stay, there would be trouble

with your mother (for bringing food late)

and there would be double if I go

(and the food is up to her mark).

LOOK at the queue,

the food here MUST be good! 

The driver managed to track down our vendor to hear about his sob story. A few days later, Kamal's grandfather was pleasantly surprised to be bestowed a yellow engraved letter from the state monarch certifying him to a legitimate son of the State of Perak! You see, the occupant of the suspicious car was the Sultan himself! (After all he have met to the oral gratifications of a many hungary Perakian and had fed the King). With that authorization, our hero brought in, one after another, his relatives to help and expand his business. 'The shop' is actually a part of a Chinaman's coffee shop. Talk about racial unity - Indian man selling rice, Chinaman makes money from the drinks and the patrons are of all races, predominantly Malays!
Upon entrance to the premises, one can forgiven for thinking that the food is given free. The queue is so long as if that is the last meal anyone is having before Judgement day.
Of course, the food now is not up to our mark. Perhaps, we are comparing apples and oranges. At an era when we were perennially deprived, everything tasted good. After venturing of our comfort zones and being exposed to aplenty, having seen near and far, we have set our marks way too high. Or is it that the depleted nutrients in our soil, the environmental rape, the plastics, hydrocarbons, the ever emerging new molecules in our atmosphere or the radio-frequency waves having its effect on our palate, plate, taste buds and delicious index or simply lack of capable cooks? Or is it because they have banned kaskas for its phytogenetic relationship to the poppy plant and its hallucogenic addictive properties?

Stories from those days can never end....Gen-Y and dogs won't understand!

The great dictators...

Wow, I always thought that Charlie Chaplin only did slapstick comedies in silent movies. I was pleasantly surprised when I bumped upon an excerpt from his old movie (he does not have new movies anyway) titled 'The Great Dictator'. For indulgence have a listen to the greater orator of all time who managed to transform and hoodwink the minds of the Germans into thinking that they were from the superior Aryan race even though he himself was Austrian. If only the German Institute of Arts had accepted the application of this vegetarian, the world would not had to endure the misery of another great War after the Great Trench War 2 decades afterwards. We would have more pictures to appreciate of the German country side and of Oktoberfest!

No new dawn in the horizon

After a fascinating display of car chase in the streets of London in 'Ra One', I have to retract my praises on the advancement of movie making in Bollywood. It just does not appear credible when two Hyundais are involved in a car chase - no disrespect to the Korean automobile makers. I am sure there have improved by leaps and bounds in their engineering feat since their near collapse after their 1950 civil war. It somehow does not appear so credible when a lady driver can give a death defying car chase (ala French Connection) and when a Hyundai can outrun an Alfa Romeo. Come on lah! Yeah, I am talking about Don 2, the sequel to the 2006 remake.

Priyanka Chopra in Don 2

The only thing 'Indian' about this latest blockbuster is the spoken language - Hindi, even the title is English or Italian! Even there wasn't a hint of Indian dressing or a glimpse of the hazy atmosphere of an Indian town in any of the movie's sets. As in most modern Bollywood hits, at one look it feels that low cleavage revealing bare-backed body body hugging phallic teasing garments have evolved to replace saree as its national costume. It looks like Indian moviemakers are ashamed of their  motherland - they shot the movie all over the place (Thailand, Malaysia, Switzerlandy and Germany) except Bharat!
Personally, I think Bollywood should confine themselves to soapy tear evoking melodramatic dramas with family values rather than venturing into meaningless pyrotechnic filled swashbuckling cops and robbers type of feat. Perhaps, people like me enjoy the masala, family traditions upholding, ego filled and situational fate moments by act of God in the 'Kabhie Kushi Kabhie Gum' and 'Kal Ho Na Ho'.

Different meaning to different people!

The Beatles in Rishikesh India.
George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon,
Donovan, and Patti Boyd Where's Ringo?
He left early. He was allergic to Maharishi's cooking.

The reason horoscope (?horror-scope) columns in newpapers have stood the test of time and remained relevant to its readers is because of the way it is worded which is so vague and can be interpreted differently by different individuals. An individual reading the daily report will perceive it as if it was written for them. And at the end of the day, in retrospect, they would swear that what was written was actually true to the last alphabet!
Well, the truth is so malleable that you can bend it whichever way you want to satisfy your personal agenda.
I suppose in the same vein, a guru would appeal to his congregation in the same manner. The sermons that he preaches about good human value would pierce into the very heart he is trying to arrow via Delphyan type of double talk which can construed by his listeners as if He is communicating directly with him, about him, to him oblivious to the hundreds or thousands in the crowd!
Pearls of wisdom from FG: Just accept rituals that are not detrimental but has a positive message in it, do not ridicule them!

I write a blog...

After a few weeks of cerebral constipation and writers' block which was not helped by a vacation, (what do you expect when there is no substance between the ears?), I am sitting down to pen down a few words which are void of literary craftiness. Did I mention about of the nightly episodes after episodes nocturnal viewing of 'Law & Order SVU' (thanks to Uni-fi) which seem to be frying my brains of whatever there is of intelligence? Unlike Barry Manilow who wrote his songs for the whole to sing, I doubt Rifle Range Boy, the blog, is ever going down the annals of nostalgic history of mankind. But I still write....
Blogging is a catharsis of sorts. Ideas that nobody has the time or care to listen can be written in full glory at his leisure and pleasure in his own outlook for individuals with nothing else better to do (in other words, 'got no life!') to peruse, percolate and masticate before they spit it out or find common grounds. (Losers get together!). Blogging also helps to create electrical transmissions in the non dominant brain which has been lying dormant in the brains of most Asians and when you only escapism from the tentacles of poverty is academia, not creativity. Culture and creativity have been left in the back burners for too long a time.
Like other personalities in the creative field like Vincent van Gogh and Freddie Mercury who gained stardom post-humously, bloggers still stand a chance.....

 The song 'I write the song' was written by Bruce Johnston of 'The Beach Boys' and had been sung by 200 over artistes including Frank Sinatra. The original song was released by 'Captain & Tenillle' and David Cassidy in 1975 before Manilow skyrocketed it to the Grammy and beyond! 'I' in the song refers to God, not an ego trip for the writer. It is rather meant to sing the glory of God and the magic of music!

Swimming down the ladder (The Swimmer 1968)

A 1968 movie with a 55year old well sculpted Burt Lancaster who plays the role of a swimmer who decide to swim from swimming pool to swimming pool from house to house all the way from a rich man's mansion atop a hill all the way down to his home down below at the foot of the hill. The story, in my interpretation, is a symbolic cerebral depiction of the social structure in our society, the various ways different strata of society deals with its fellow men. As the swimmer swims from pool to pool, his past is slowly unravelled. The story unfolds from a very happy note with everybody jovial and chirpy with each other at the first house. By the time he reaches the third house, we realize that something is not right- he being snubbed by hosts for being poor, his landing in his ex-girlfriend's(an extra-marital affair) house who had it enough with him and has a new lover now and hostile treatment from a host when gate crashes into a cavier gobbling crowd filled bourgeois pool side party.
As he scales down the symbolic hill, the day becomes colder and darker. We discover that he must have been successful but certain turn of events made him a failure and bankrupt. His clandestine affair is discovered and he chose family over lover. All these peeling of events just made me more curious in wanting to know what actually happened to this man who used to move around in the circle of the rich and famous.
he finally reaches his destination.
As he finally reaches a public pool, he is looked upon suspiciously. The grocers and restaurateur speak lowly of him for owing money and of his wife and daughters for their demands and bad upbringing!
At his final destination, we then realise that his house is actually a run down abandoned cheateau with disused  tennis court and overgrown shrubs. He knocks on the door of a empty house and shrivels up in fetal position in his swimming trunk, hiding from the cold rain, crying like a baby!.