Shot a few months back. Never thought it would come in handy.
The darnest thing happened as Vern Jun and I made our way to meet a few friends for DotA. What was to be a short detour to the petrol kiosk turned out to be quite an exciting roadblock. It all happened so fast; I was fastening my seatbelt as Vern Jun was happily telling me how it usually costs him RM50 to fill up but today it took only RM30. When he started cursing the next second, I knew then that Petronas wasn't having a mega sale.
Well, it turned out Vern Jun had accidentally fed his car the wrong fuel and since his Proton isn't made to run on diesel, we were in deep shit. At that point, we couldn't help but wish that the folks at Proton had been smart enough to build a petrol/diesel hybrid car.
That brings me to the main point of the day: Metaphorically speaking, Malaysia is like a hybrid vehicle; it's fuelled by people with diverse cultural practices. The distinct combination has served us well; no worries that you'll spoil the engine for filling the tank with the "wrong" stuff.
At what was supposed to be a camp that inculcates patriotism, however, we were subjected to statistics and opinionated speeches that served more to divide than unite the nation. Something along the line of "diesel is better than petrol" was suggested and that "since the vehicle was originally powered by petrol, the proponents of diesel should be thankful they're part of a wonderful hybrid engine of growth".
That was exactly a week ago. That fateful Tuesday scores a 10/10 on the worst-day-in-my-life-O-meter. I was made to sit in a stuffy hall (the hall had air-conditioners but there wasn't enough power supply at the camp). I was sleep-deprived (less than 3 hours of sleep the previous night). And worst of all, I had to listen to a fanatic babbling inciteful nonsense.
For lectures, it is not fit;
Listening to the twit,
Is killing me bit by bit.
We're sleep-deprieved,
The day is long still,
I'm filled with grief;
Tormentors, one; sleepyheads, nil.
The 6 hours of lectures that followed weren't as bad on the fanatical scale, but were sleeping pills nontheless. Why couldn't they give inspiring speeches like the one Steve Jobs gave on Stanford Commencement Day (text | audio | dowloadable audio)? It's short and sweet and actually makes you feel good; no ill feelings whatsoever towards the guy next to me for taking away what's supposed to be mine.
As to what happened to the not-supposed-to-be-filled-with-diesel car, a few photos here might worth more than a thousand words.