1st time voter in the Malaysia General Elections

It was 8.00 AM and together with my family, we went for breakfast. Let me say this earlier, we have not had breakfast together like this in awhile. And I’m thankful for it because of this general election. In addition, I witnessed many other families eating together. One man with his grandfather looked so happy and proud – a sight rarely seen.

After a good breakfast, we left for the polling station and parked our car not far off to walk there. As we walked toward the entrance, we stopped at the SPR counter to check our room.

SPR clerk verification counter
SPR clerk verification counter

After the verification, I was given a paper with the room number.

Room number 8
Room number 8

And as usual, my Dad jokingly was talking about 4D when he saw I was room number 8. *facepalm*

So once we knew our rooms, we walked in and join the right queue. There were several lines formed and a paper stuck on the wall roughly indicated the location of the rooms.

My queue was stupendously long from 1 corner of the block, across the bridge connecting to the next block, up the stairs and all the way further.

I kid you not.
I kid you not.

The elderly and senior citizens had it easier because their rooms were on the ground floor. Some of the rooms there even had chairs outside for the voters to sit.

Sit once you're done
Sit and wait

Back in my queue, some voters were requested to proceed to their rooms ahead because the lines were short. However, mine was a long way to go.

ge13 006
My room was at the end of the line

When I reached the floor of my room, I was wondering that it would’ve been more systematic if they used the middle stairs you see in the photo for my queue. Because this would make it less confusing of which queue voters should follow. All the voters from Room 5 to 8 were in my queue, then formed more queues when they were on the top floor as you can see.

Anyway, when it came to my turn to enter the room, I was hoping to get the middle clerk to paint the indelible ink for me because I noticed he was neater. Whereas I got the first clerk and… -_-

Rather messy if you asked me
Rather messy if you ask me

Once we walked out of the polling station, I felt really proud to do my share this round and I was strongly hoping for a change. As much as I know it wouldn’t really happen, I was still hoping in this round we’d give them a run for their money and they’d be sweating buckets to know we’re the generation to deal with from now on.

And if you were wondering how to remove the indelible ink, I made a video testing 4 different methods and shared other methods found – like Clorox.

I just realized my meaning of life savings

Start saving. That’s the #1 advice I have for you. Gentleman or Lady, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is the dollars and cents. Heck, even if you were to elope, you’re still going to have to end up using money to do it. So start saving.

Sad as it sounds, I’m in my late 20s and it’s now only I realize why they call it; life savings. It’s savings for everything to do with your life – health, education, pleasure, weddings, family, kids, investment and retirement. Literally, everything.

Because I didn’t stick to a plan to save, I’m actually stressed out now with a few milestones in my life. I can catch up to what I want but I won’t be able to catch up to it fast enough. Hence, I’ll always be trailing behind it now unless I’ve a windfall of a savings.

So start early. Start saving today – I’m only in my late 20s and realizing the importance. There’s no such thing as starting too early. The next step is teaching our children to understand the meaning of a life savings and why they’ve to start doing it too. Then when they’re more matured, handing over your life savings plan you had for them.

Sigh. I feel really disappointed with myself. I hope you do the right thing and don’t disappoint yourself too. And most importantly, your continuity of your generations.

Tapping feet too

As a kid, parents called me a penguin for liking to walk like one. I’m not sure why myself but I think it was because I was mimicking Charlie Chaplin. And if you didn’t know who’s he, you can go jump off a cliff now. Seriously.

Rowan Atkinson's role model

Okay. So talking about penguins, last night I watched Happy Feet 2 with Ariel and her learning Japanese classmates. Their teacher has been only in Malaysia for less than 6 months so as hospitable Malaysians, we’ve made it our conquest to show her around including the cinema here. 😛

So how was Happy Feet 2?!

Right, coming back to Happy Feet 2. The first movie was about Mumble finding himself and returning with his identity. This continuation still focuses on Mumble, but from a fatherly figure.

And in this second movie, they’ve introduced side characters to the story. I suppose it’s to fill in for the gaps of not really focusing on Mumble’s kid. Then again, you’d want to just keep watching the little furball and want to squeeze the life out of him cause he so cute!!! 😉

Overall, it was entertaining for a family movie. It’s a movie kids should learn to appreciate from the moral lessons in it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWNUyTGqss]

What was the recent movie you watched?

Cool Ikea parents

We made a trip to Ikea today because we’ve been always thinking of getting a full-length mirror for our room but never got to do so. Thanks to one of my BNI members in real estate, I had this chance to use the gift card awarded to me – save money too. 🙂

Funny moment while we were there having lunch. Family’s kid sitting beside us came to the table, telling his Dad, some rude kid touched his butt. ROFL! I kid you not. He then was telling the parents how gay was the kid, while his parents were joking with him on how attractive his butt may have been. Lol! Kudos to the parents for being really cool.

When night came, we had a family dinner to celebrate my Dad’s coming birthday at Jake’s Charbroil Grill. They were having a steak promotion for US Kobe beef, Wagyu and Black Angus. I’ve never had a Black Angus so I decided to give it a taste – wasn’t too bad but think it was a little tough cause the thickness wasn’t ideal.

black angus steak
If it was only 1 inch thick

Though Jake’s charbroil in Bangsar isn’t an ideal restaurant for family photography, I managed to squeeze this much of creativity out.

balloon head
Ariel helped take this

The balloon was given to the birthday boy (my Dad, not me) including a mug. As much as I really appreciate the restaurants celebrating the joyous occasion with them singing, but do they have to be that out of tune?!

Restaurants who’d like to perform this act should consider tuning themselves, or at least, keep it simple and fun like what TGIF does. That way, it’ll be harder to be out of tune and it’ll still keep it fun.

Anyway, happy birthday Dad, and I’m looking to many many many more with you. 🙂