I'm happy that ...

1. I'm happy that I watched The Inside Man today. Despite some holes in the plot, this was an excellent movie because it was surprisingly unpredictable (or, to be less gushy - nowhere near as predictable as I thought it was going to be). And i suppose sometimes it *does* help to NOT "research" a movie, and go see something when you're totally blank. Different, definitely different. Pity the ending was sappy :p And while it's great that older women like Jodie Foster still have job opportunities on the silver screen, I gotta say - wow, she looks old. Tired too.
   
   
2. I'm happy that I had already done my #1 & #2 as needed before the movie, and that I'd not consumed anything after that, so that I wasn't having to battle calls of nature while being stuck in the jam.
   
   
3. I'm happy that I had gone ahead and put in RM 50 worth of petrol in the car two days ago, seeing as mom had kinda left it to me with the needle pointing to quarter-tank. Cos otherwise, what with yesterday's travelling, and today's jam, I might have run the risk of running out of gas. In the middle of a terribly awful jam.

What jam?

• The one that I wish I'd avoided by immediately taking Jalan U-Thant to escape as soon as I'd come out of the KLCC tunnel southbound on Jalan Tun Razak when I saw it all jammed, but I thought it would all kinda taper out once past the Loke Yew interchange... oh man was I mistaken!!
  
  
• The one that had me so bored out of my mind that I snapped photos of idiot Malaysian drivers (well, their cars, anyway :p ).
  
  This fler was among those friggin smart alecks that tried to tail an ambulance that squeezed in between the two existing lanes. Of course, the rest of us let the 'bulance past lah, after that "close up" the gap lah.
  
  But this stubborn idiot kancil still insisted on squeezing as far as it could, essentially forcing the "rightful owners" of the lane to in the end to give way to him. Unfortunately, that's not an uncommon occurance here.
  
  
• The one that actually had me getting sick of playing Bon Jovi's best album *EVER* (New Jersey) over and over again... switched to normal radio for a while, got sick of the crap, hunted thru my mom's collection of CDs, and ended up listening to my donated to her copy of Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Hello, my old friends!
  
  
• The one that had me wondering yet again, how a tropical country like Malaysia continues to have water accumulating on roads during storms...
  
  
  ...it's not like the designers don't know that it rains, eh?

• The one that made the trip from KLCC to Sg Besi (where the "U-turn" is to head towards the Istana) take OVER ONE AND A HALF FRIGGIN HOURS!!
  
  I'd left KLCC around 315pm.
  
  At 445pm I was so close, yet so far away.
  
  It was only on Jalan Syed Putra that I saw one of those electronic signboard thingys saying there had been a flash flood at Jalan Kuchai Lama, or was it Jalan Klang Lama? Or both? Whatever. The key words were "Semua lorong ditutup" (all lanes closed). So I stayed on the right-most lane to avoid the spillover of the jam to that road which would start affecting the left lanes.

Oh yeah, "spillover" also on Jalan Istana heading to Sg Besi - can you say STUCK!!??!

Thankfully it was totally smooth sailing once I hit the Federal Highway. Of course, by that time I was two hours older, and the car substantially lighter in terms of petrol in its tank.

What a day...