Flasher

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Life's so fragile

On Sunday afternoon 24 September 2006, 1400 hours there was a startling discovery by a tenant in the flat that I stayed in. Since this incident happened not a peep of this has surfaced in our local newspaper. Placed on the ledge of the rubbish bin was a clean, white dry-cleaning laundry bag. Seeing the bag was still in good condition, he thought of wanting the bag for his own use, so without much hesitation, the tenant goes near and open the bag to empty out the contents.

He saw something wrapped in towel and he unwrap the white towel to find another layer of towel but this time its a pooh towel. His curiosity got the better of him and he unwrapped the 2nd layer of towel and pop out comes a small infant head wrapped in toilet paper. He quickly came and asked to contact the authorities. Hmmm seeing how capable our authorities on TV, we thought that its only a matter of minutes since there's a police station nearby.

The first sign of a partol car came to about 1500 hours, an hour later. Talk about efficiency. There's already a small crowd of tenants around the garbage area, wondering who would be so cruel, speculating that it might be the work of illegal workers as there is a few household of non-m'sian in the block. The officer was speaking with the tenant who made the discovery, held a lit cigarette, and was talking on his mobile while checking out the bundle. What the heck?!?

From first glance, the body is fair thus assumptions made are done by china residents as the hotel and apartment nearby does house a lot of china student and tourist. Day became dark as it started to rain quite heavily. Police are still hanging around 'chatting' while waiting for the photographer which eventually arrive. Who and from where, didn't stay long enough to find out but the whole ordeal ended about 1800 hours.

New Public Transport System (BUS)

I've not taken the bus for oh such a long time now, and today I had taken some time to look at the bees and the birds and the busses. There's been so many new addition to the existing fleet of busses. What's most interesting is the Big Blue and Green round sticker which is very prominently placed on the top right of the main windscreen of the bus.

Green means area bus, while Blue means inter-zone bus, or something similar. People used to be able to get a bus from their own home to downtown KL city, but now with the new system, the public would be paying more, hassle more since they will be required to change bus. Traditionally, one will be able to travel to KL for a minimal price of RM 2.00 from my home. Now I would have to take a bus down to KL Central, then change of bus to KL city.

I have now actually ride on the bus and have a first hand experience, but listening to my mom who uses it frequently, its quite a hassle. Instead of waiting for a bus, we would now have to wait for a few busses, and the cream of the crop is that there's tens and hundreds of people waiting for the same bus getting into KL city. Imagine this, elderly people who has a hard time climbing up the stairs, would now have a field day getting up and down from one bus to the next.

The new ticketing system of a fixed price for a day's travel is also something to shout about. Wow, imagine spending the whole day in the bus rounding the city getting from one shopping mall to the next for a fixed price of RM2.00. What a steal, this would make the lives of taxi cab drivers miserable and turn into rogues as they can hardly earn a day's living. How do they overcome these obstacles? The only method I know is to overcharge the customers by either price negotiation (IMHO will be cheaper than the next alternative) or by tampering with the fare meter (which was highlighted in our local TheStar newspaper few days back). They can change the speed of the meter to charge at a faster rate.

The bus companies once wanted a fare increase but was declined by public dissatisfaction to buckle up before charging higher price, but with this move it seems to be a loophole for these busses operator.
Public have to take more bus trips.
Pay more since there are different bus operators.
Wait for a longer time as everyone will be bottlenecked at some point of transition.