Yet Another Death in The Family =(

I picked up the phone, only for Wak Man to deliver the bad news... my 2nd cousin has just passed away. This is the 2nd death in the family within the space of a week, and you can imagine how I must have felt then. I've been hearing so much of death within the past weeks, starting with my friend Allahyarham Mustaffa's death, and on till now, that I've been questioning my own mortality.

Though I don't know my 2nd cousin well, and we only meet maybe once a year during Hari Raya, I still feel a ngeri feeling hanging over me. He died of a motorbike accident, and he apparently just passed his licence a few days ago. He was just using the computer and after Subuh, suddenly he left the house to go somewhere, God knows where. Apparently his bike skidded, and he was thrown into something, with no 3rd party involved. At least, that's the info I managed to gather.

I really felt pain for the family, because the mother passed away just last year. The dad suffers from kidney failure, and is on daily dialysis while driving a taxi. The sisters are both studying at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, and one of them is holidaying here and was going to return back there this Thursday. The other sister didn't manage to meet Allahyarham at all. Now the dad potentially lives alone, as his eldest son is married and has his own house, though he'll in all likelihood shift back in to live with the dad. And Allahyarham... he had just completed poly, and was serving NS, the youngest in the family. He was 2 years younger than me, I think.

Please, spare an Al-Fatehah for my late 2nd cousin, Allahyarham Abdul Malik B Sheikh Ahmad. Semoga Allah mencucuri rahmat keatasnya. Amin.

More Football

Did pretty much nothing the whole day, except for the night part where for the first time in about a few months or close to a year, The Clan played Saturday Night Football at Shell, a favourite staple activity of The Clan in bygone years. And now my body is aching, no thanks to 2 successive nights of intense, fast-paced football. And to think that I would have taken all this in my stride only a couple of years ago!

God I need to get my fitness back.

G'day Mate!

Khairul's back from Sydney! Maciam siak, dah balik tak tahu nak bilang orang tau. So we Clanners didn't sambut him from the airport, 'cos only after he got back then he informed us. Anyway, sempena Khairul balik, The Clan decided to regroup at... Where else? Simpang Bedok.

The original plan was to meet at 9pm at Simpang, but halfway through it was changed to 10pm, so me and Nawaz decided to hang out at Tong's while waiting. We watched American Gangster on DVD, followed by a part of House of Wax, before leaving for Simpang. It was good to see Khai again, he 'opened table' with a selection of Aussie keychains for us to choose from, and a goodie bag of Aussie nougats for each of us. How thoughtful.

Of course, a Clan get-together isn't complete with just maggie goreng and a couple of teh-tariks. So at around 1130pm we had the great plan to play football at The Cage. It doesn't matter that half of us didn't bring the proper footwear, that's what motorbikes and cars are for, so those with vehicles drove us back home to fetch our gear for the 1am slot at The Cage.

It's been a couple of months since I last played here, and I really miss it. The smooth pitch, the cushioned side walls, the funky music, the fast-flowing technical football all create a very conducive atmosphere for all the skills and tricks to come flowing out. I love playing technical football, it's football just the way I like it. Umar joined us late in the game, and that added some aggression and a whole lot more skills to the game. We played from 1-2am, though it's seriously not enough, 90 bucks per hour is prohibitively expensive =( Seriously man. The Cage should review its pricing system, especially when no one else booked the pitch so late at night!

After that, it's back to Simpang for a late-night supper of pratas and more teh, before we left home which I reached circa 4am. And after Subuh I couldn't sleep anymore cos I got Riding Theory class to attend at 830am! Gah.

STOPPIT MUSIC VIDEO OF THE DAY

U gotta admit the creativity of these guys. I'll never look at techno music the same way again! 0_0

Can someone please translate the lyrics for me?!

Metal + Techno make for strange bedfellows. Very, very strange.

Meh gi twimming...

Went to Anchorvale Swimming Complex last Sunday at Sengkang (?) with my dad, sister, and BIL's family, along with 2/3 of my nephews. It's little Tonet's first time at an outdoor pool, while Fikri is a swimming veteran. Poor Fikri then fell sick with a temperature of 38.1 deg C. Uncle Ikam had the job of guarding his two nephews in this outing...

'Aqil
Fikri
'Aqil and 'Ainul

Bambam's 1st time

The GuardianAtok, 'Aqil, Angcle
Kesian gosok² mata demam

Meh sini kish...

Allahyarham Muhammad Bin Kasri

Please I ask all of you reading this, to baca and sedekahkan pahala Al-Fatehah to my uncle, Allahyarham Muhammad Bin Kasri @Wak Mat.

I was woken up yesterday morning to the news that Wak Mat has passed away. Wak Mat has been in poor health for the past few years, a victim of stroke. We left our house shortly for Wak Mat's house at Teban Gardens, only to be informed that the hospital couldn't determine the cause of death. There was a bit of a wrangle as the family fought to get the jenazah back, but the hospital wouldn't give in and insisted on a post-mortem, and subsequently, Coroner's report... which meant that we would only receive Allahyarham's jenazah today.

We went again, and this time, after receiving the jenazah shortly after Zohor, a few male relatives including myself helped uruskan jenazah including the mandi mayat process. It was an eye-opening and harrowing experience for me, though I've witnessed it before, I've never actively participated, and being so close to my beloved uncle gave me a heavy heart. Soon, we left for Jalan Bahar to kebumikan jenazah and at the same time, visit the graves of my arwah Nyayi, arwah Atok, and Arwah Bik In.

Again, an Al-Fatehah for my late Uncle, semoga rohnya dicucuri Allah dan diterima disisi para Syuhada'. Amin.

Anak Bulan dah timbul, Selamat Hari Raya!!!

My sis and BIL have been planning to shave off 'Aqil's hair because his head was growing, but the hairs weren't cooperating by growing at different rates, resulting in patches... so they decided to shave his head off altogether. Got the shock of my life one morning when I woke up to see little 'Aqil planted on my stomach, with a shiny round bald head, shorn of his Alfalfa standing hair, which made me think that anak bulan dah timbul and it's Hari Raya again~... 0_0

anak happy, ibu kancheong...

he keeps looking down at the blue apron (?)

"aper ni ibu?"

"oohhh!! what is that buzzing thing i hear?"

"ibu said must keep quiet. but why is that thing everywhere on my head?"

His fans!

"waaaaahhh!! sedapnya dapat uruuut!!"

"aahhhh... xie-xie auntie!!"

"apa benda bulat ni?"

"oohhhhh.... bestnya main air!"

"hello Uncle Ikam! meh lah join!""Run ducky!! I'm catching youuuu!!"Bald is sexy... balding is not.

"ohh...kena pose utuk Wan pulak?"

"This is my Seat!! nice or not??"

"nak bangun lahhh! dah penat duduk ni!!"

Zhafir before and after.

It's gettin' hot in here, so take off all your clothes Tong~...

Clan Chalet yest nite! Well, technically it's not a CLAN chalet per se, it's a chalet organized by Abbas for his girl Ifah and the Clanners are invited. Holy Hospitals, the chalet was at Cranwell Bungalow 3 which is like directly opposite Old Changi Hospital uh! 0_0

I can tell you, walking past that place alone can be quite freaky, but even then I've been known to explore/wanna explore OCH so its ok I guess. What greeted me with surprise when I got there was not The Clan of course, but the no. of female guests present. Like what Nawaz said, "Ah Hikam kau gi tengok pat blakang tembok tu, there's about 30-40 chickies waiting for u there"... Wahahaha. Met some unexpected people there too, namely my VS juniors Khai and Fauzi. We feasted on some... ok, plenty of barbecued chicken wings, sausages, satay, fishballs and lambchops and when the girls were gone and only us Clanners were left, we made a music video... of sorts... starring Tong! It's gettin' hot in here, so take off all your clothes...~

Anyway. For a couple of hours we did nothing but watch TV, so we contemplated... urm, to be precise I suggested... going round to kacau the bapoks at the nearby Changi Village (it WAS Fri night after all)... heh. To be even more precise, I suggested we bring back a bapok to our chalet, only instead of the urm... expected thing, we tell the bapok to help us clear up the mess from the barbecue. WAHAHAHA! Otherwise, maybe just pay the bapok what she... he... shim... charged for an hour, and instead of what the bapok was expecting, we have an interview session, grilling the bapok and asking questions and finding out how and why shim came to be in this line of work. I was serious, I mean I can't fathom why a guy would ever wanna lose his manhood and wanna give up luscious ladies to become a semi-one himself, and I was dead curious that I was willing to shell out bucks just to interview one. Yeps, I can be quite adventurous/crazy like that. Heh. In the end, due to our tiredness, we settled on the pending arrival of Arman who was to bring our saviour from boredom... RISK! We played RISK from 2+ am all the way to Subuh uh, but not before ordering McDonald's for breakfast.

Curiously, despite placing the order at 0500 am in the morning, the salesperson said the delivery wouldn't be executed til maybe around 0650 am. Hmmm, we were massively curious why it would take McDonald's almost 2 hours to deliver to nearby Changi, but we concluded that no delivery boy in his right mind would wanna ride alone to a dark secluded part of Changi at such an ungodly hour (eh Nabil?), that all is forgiven. After Subuh prayers at 0615am, me and the gang settled down for a light nap... ONLY FOR US TO WAKE UP AT 0900++AM AND REALIZE THAT NOBODY WOKE UP TO COLLECT OUR McDONALD'S DELIVERY AND SO THERE WAS NO FOOD!!! Curses!

We left at 10+ am to follow Nawaz collect his brand-new bike from Bike Productions. I was quite worried riding pillion on my cousin Aizad, since none of us had more than 3 hours of sleep but Alhamdulillah we reached there safely. True to his word, Nawaz rolled out a bike which he said none of us had probably seen on Singapore roads! What a (black) beaut, if I had to say so myself. Sort of an overgrown Gilera Runner + Spark spawn Hmmm. After that we left for Jalan Kayu, leading Nawaz on his maiden(virgin?) ride out on the roads, to have our breakfast, before heading for Punggol End to have our turns each trying out Nawaz's bike. Wahaha. All this on 3 hours of sleep mind you!

Then I balik, then I tido. Like a baby. Snores.

Finally Ku Luls!

Bangs pags ku ters mans tengs bols. Bras kals kans Pors 6-2. Memalskans. Leps tus kus tids bals japs 1 jams. Leps tus bars kus mans. Tids lups mengs gos gigs. Taps habs mans ku taks tols ibs. Membs tems tids kus. Sebs kus ads bikes pracs. Naiks gils hents kaks pats Pracs 5. Nars das tujs kals. Kals dua puls dolls, da $140++ burnts ons Pracs 5 sehs. Poks pocks kus. Da braps kals ku gis, daps 50 perms, 30 perms, 28 perms, past 30perms lags. Ishs. Gers sehs. Doa² kans aks daps luls kals nis! =)

______________________________________________________________________

ALHAMDULILLAH!!! =) (ni takleh shortcut). Aks das luls Pracs 5s! Cun² 10 perms! Da leps sats balks. Skars das bols daps PDL dans kels pat road taps kens tungs RTT leps duls. Ish. Menyus kans sehs. Taps takps. Kus cubs habs kans Pracs yang bels² ceps, leps tu Insya'Allah daps les. Hoo-ahhh!!! =)

Freaky Friday

Went to town after Friday prayers yesterday, due to hangin' out with me Homo (wahahaha!) Homie, Mr.W, and also to collect my ORD plaque from him.

Went to Far East for lunch with Mr. W, me was absolutely starving. Then, missing the feeling of firing a weapon, me and Mr. W went to Cineleisure only for us to discover that Cineleisure don't have no arcade! So we made our way to Plaza Singapura just to play 1x round of Time Crisis 4. Wahaha. Unfortunately we didn't last long.

After that it was splitsville as my I had an outing with my BMT section mates. Section mates here meaning basically my room mates for the entire 3 months of BMT. So we headed off to Seoul Garden @ Takashimaya, to catch up, joke around and basically reminisce about old times. All bona fide civilians now, we could afford to laugh at ourselves during the army days.

A curious thing happened before that though. While still walking with Mr. W along the streets of Orchard, Mr. W was stopped by a flirty and attractive young girl doing a survey, and he quickly pointed towards me. He must have learnt to point fingers back in Army. Sheesh. Thanks eh Mr. W. So the girl quickly came over to me, pleading in that irresistably girly way to just do a quick survey. Here's the transcript:

Me: "Eh, which one of us is the more handsome one, you go and ask him to do the survey k"
Girl: "You!"

At this point, of course I relented. Wahaha.

But after looking at the first question, I knew it wasn't a survey suitable for me at all.

E.g. "Where do u prefer to go clubbing the most, 1) MOS 2) Zouk 3) Whatever random club la (I forgot)"

I told you it's not my kinda survey.

So I passed the survey to Mr. W, and made small talk with the girl.

Me: "Are u Filipino?"
Girl: "Why does everyone ask me that! I'm local!"
Me: "Because you have the accent! Eh? Are u Malay? What's your name?"
Girl: "Azura"

At this point Mr. W decided to bast*rdize me by putting my name as the surveyed person, and he was about to put my e-mail address and phone no. before I snatched the paper from him and filled it in myself. Mr. W then decided to ask her a question.

Mr. W: "So did Zul ask you for your name?"
Girl: "Yeah, but he don't want to ask me for my number!" (cue hurt face)

Wahahaha. I passed over the survey paper with my details, e-mail and phone no. on it, and embarrassedly gestured her to contact me thru the no. I gave her.

Of course, the e-mail I gave her was bogus.
And the no. too, was my now-defunct, first-ever phone line back in Victoria School. Wahahaha.

Mr. W was incredulous that I didn't take the opportunity to get the girl's no. I laughed it off then, but on hindsight... maybe I SHOULD have gotten her no. eh? 0_0 !

*Man U SPANKED Stoke City 5-0!
So much for Rory Delap's long throws, its the Ronaldo Rockets which destroyed them.
Ronaldo, Carrick, Berbatov, WELBECK, Ronaldo. Glory Glory Man Utd!

EH-YAH-OH-WAH INFANTRY AH!

Adapted from the Eh-Yah-Oh-Wah Infantry Ah! song...

"...Eh-Yah-Oh-Wah Infantry Ah
We Are the Men from ****** Company ah
Got no time to eat orange ah
But got time to go for Range ah... " (repeat with different verses each time)

Finally its time for me to sing the CIVILIAN version!

"...Eh-Yah-Oh-Wah CIVILIAN Ah
We Are the Men who you call 'MISTER' ah
Got no time to dig toilet uh
But got time to eat chocolate uh!..."

Let's have some fun with this!

"Got no time for IFC uh
But got time for KFC uh"
"Got no time for standby-bed uh
But got time to m********* uh"
"Got no time for SOC uh
But got time to PCC (do YOU PCC?) uh"
"Got no time to do high-beam uh
"But got time to eat ice-cream uh"
"Got no time for 5BX uh
But got time for S-E-X uh"
"Got no time for chin-up bar uh
But got time for chocolate bar uh"
"Got no time to strip rifle uh
But got time to strip my girl uh"
"Got no time for LBV uh
But got time to watch TV uh"
"Got no time to go outfield uh
But got time for football field uh"
"Got no time to hold my gun uh
But got time to hold MY gun uh (eheheheh) "
"Got no time to throw grenades uh
But got time to go for dates uh (true²) "
"Got no time to take cover uh
But got time to be lover uh"

So ladies and gentlemen, have fun making up YOUR own military-civilian pairings! Just remember, for the military version you've got time to do everything military, but no time to do anything civilian. For the civilian version, you got all the time in the world to do civilian things but screw the military, you got no time for all that nonsense. Have fun!

ORD LOH!!!

I, 3rd Sergeant Zulhikam, graduant of the 43rd Advanced Section Leader Course (43rd ASLC), has now officially, earned the rightful prefix of MISTER (MR.) to his name. Henceforth, I shall no longer be known as 3SG Zulhikam, but rather 3SG(NS)/Mr./Abang Zulhikam. In other words...

I'M AN EFFING CIVILIAN!!!

Oh the JOY. The Day I've been waiting for, this last 22 months, is FINALLY HERE! When I enlisted on 11 January 2007, little idea did I have of what was to come in the coming months. NS has made me new friends, brothers-in-arms with whom we've trained and suffered together, pushed my mental and physical boundaries beyond my imagination, afforded me an experience unlike any other which is definitely unattainable anywhere else, taught me weapons systems and fighting, people management, especially with the responsibility of leading the men under you and earning their trust and respect and yet meeting the expectations of your superiors, sent me overseas to Taiwan for training which was a priceless experience, and much, much more.

Yet, NS also has its share of bad experiences for me. The drifting apart of a relationship early in my NS career, the loneliness, the unhappy experience in Delta, the suffocating lack of freedom, political bickering amongst your peers and superiors, the extra duties given, the weekends burnt, the joyous family occasions missed (Sis and cousin's wedding comes to mind), the backstabbings, the jealousy of knowing your friends have much better vocations, the sadness of watching people ORD, and of course, the slipped disc injury I attained during these last few months that had caused to downgrade my PES status.

Anyway, I'm a free man now, and let it be known to the whole world that having completed the CIVILIAN CONVERSION COURSE (CCC) and successfully acquired his PINK IC, 3SG ZULHIKAM will henceforth be known as 3SG(NS)/MR./ABANG ZULHIKAM. ORD LOH!!! =) =p =D

A Tout Le Monde
A Tout Mes Amis
Je Vous Aime
Je Dois Partir

These are the last words
I'll ever speak
And they'll set me free...

*PS: I actually walked out of Pulau Tekong in this exact manner, in my smartest uniform, and Pink IC tucked inside my beret on my forehead, just like I had planned to all this while. As expected, it drew quite a few envious looks and jealous sighs from those who have yet to ORD, plus a few surprise ORD LOHS! from completely unknown people happy to see me being freed. Well, what can I say. When you're a CIVILIAN, you have to be proud of it. ORD LOH!!!

1 More Day left...

WORDS can't express how I'm feeling now... 1 more day to ORD!

REC... YOU. ORD... ME!

2 more days to ORD LOH!!!

Leading an ORDinary life soon... =) =) =)

Break Day!

For some reason the Break Day I scheduled for on Monday (my ORD date) has been changed to today. Hmmm. So in a burst of last-minute brain activity, I had to plan the day's programs (cheh programs pe!)

Decided to go Marina for the variety of entertainment there and also to leave some room for spontaneity (sepontan, kata orang). So decided to go bowling, but bowling waiting list was too packed, so decided to play arcade (yep you read THAT right) before watching the movie REC. Killed a few dinosaurs, got killed by dinosaurs, killed a few bad men, got killed by a few bad men, spent a few bucks on credits and then its off to the movies to watch REC.

AND REC RULES!!! Like whattheheck. I knew it was some sort of horror movie, but it was totally nothing like I'd quite imagined uh! Spent half the time with my body subconsciously tensed up, it was that scary. When the show ended the adrenaline rush was such that I actually felt exhausted from just sitting there watching the movie, can you believe that? It felt like I just literally got off a rollercoaster ride! I strongly recommend that anyone and everyone watches it, regardless of whether you're a fan of horror movies or not =) Best to watch with a partner and a perfumed jacket =) =)

Perang besar occured in my household when I got back later that night. It's Arsenal vs Manchester United, and as always, it'll bring out the tension in my family because being the lone Man Utd supporter in my family, I had to contend with my Father, Eldest brother, and Brother-In-Law (BIL), all of whom are Gooners. The other brother Beg Mal is a Tottenham Hotspur nut, but he's taken a shine to United lately 'cos he has a vested interest in Dimitar Berbatov. Heh. As you can well imagine, there was no peace in the house... especially as United lost, when they were expected to cream Arsene Wenger's team of 7-year olds. GAH!!!

Final Coy Cohesion

So that was it then. Yesterday (Thursday) was officially my last working day in Quebec Coy, and today I'm on off. Nothing much to do except for the company cohesion later on, the final one before I, along with Rand and Nabil, ORD.

So off I went to HarbourFront Shopping Centre, for a makan session at one Dragon's Gate Restaurant. It isn't Halal of course, so we Muslim eaters just ordered Canadian 2-4-1 PiZzaZ to eat at the table. And of course, I was fashionably late, thus I was tasked with collecting them pizzas at the taxi stand. Sheeeesh.

All went fine and dandy, finally got Encik's signature for my clearance form (he was gonna be a right bast*rd by refusing to sign it but somehow I got it in the end). After that, abit of drama ( -_-'' at Wachaoski), before the Melayu contingent Dids, Skeps, Wan, Asri, Bil, Mus, and Me left to pick up Dan the Medic for a round of Battlefield LAN skirmish till about 2am in the morning.

Looking to more of the same from the guys soon~...