That day I screamed at the McDonald's delivery guy.

Har har har.

I woke up, hungover as hell. And realised that my lifeline (coffee) has depleted. Duh.

So, being so bloody hungover, I decided to ask Ronald to deliver a cup of coffee to me.

No problem, they said. Its not an issue, they said. Sure, ma'am, they said.

So I lay around in my underwear in front of the TV with the dog and the cat running around below me and hastily threw on some clothes when the doorbell rang.

Can you say rempit.lookalike. ?

Its ok, I thought. He is just delivering. I thought.

I handed him 10 bucks.

The fella, being the typical description of everything I hate about that particular category of people, (trying to be diplomatically correct), sighed dramatically, leaned on one arm against my grill, swept back his disgusting Tancho covered hair, checked his pouched, sigh dramatically again, looked at the ceiling and back at me with this sleepy stupid expression and said "Takde duit tukar".

Lol.

He didn't know he said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

I said, that.is.not.my.problem. Go.back.and.get.change.

He said no.cos.its.far.

My voice got dangerously low and I said, I.am.not.gonna.donate.rm4.to.you.cos.you.are.a.lazy.dick.

He then proceeded to repeat the entire sighing-hair-sweeping-eye-rolling ala-ala Drama Minggu Ini alllllll over againnnn!

I called his supervisor.

Ha ha ha.

Then I told him, wait.here.while.i.call.your.supervisor.

Who LAUGHED when I told him to send his staff for training at Dominos (cos he seem to understand what I was facing at my front door at that minute) and that I refuse to donate RM4 to a lazy prick who wasn't gracious/polite/apologetic.

If he was all of the above, I would have.

Also cos he was a rempit. And i HATE rempits.

Anyways, they sent someone else to me. Because the rempit RAN AWAY.

Yup, you got it. RAN.AWAY.from.his.responsibilities.

I still remember that stupid look he had on his face and that entire drama minggu ini gimmick he did after every question I asked and I had to wait a full minute before getting an answer from him.

I enjoy making lives miserable for stupid lazy dicks.

Happy Raya everyone :)

Har har har.

I love the Malaysian 50 cent coin.

*Image by Andrew Dyer/Flickr

I love how its so round... so, so wholesome. How it feels "full" when you hold it in your palm and squeeze it shut. I love how it makes my coin purse feels heavier, and how it shines brightly like a tooth after a good dose of Colgate... glittering brightly among all the lesser coins in the depth of the coin purse.

I love the sound it makes as it slides against all the other 50 cent coins. You try it... The sound it makes is different from the sound that any other coins make.

It reminds me of my favourite fruit, the watermelon, cos the watermelon is the roundest, most "happening" fruit yet. The watermelon always makes a shopping basket look full. It completes a fruit centrepiece. Well, either that or the pineapple. Just like a Mr Potato Head, the 50 cent coin doesn't do much, but is most interesting due to its size and "roundness".

Even when we had that gold one ringgit coin, the 50 cent coin is still my favourite. I never mind it when I have to mix my 50 cent coins with the notes. "Oh its ok for the 50s to mix with the higher ranking notes cos it is almost there and not really quite a coin" goes the general idea.

When I was a kid, an amah from my grandma's household caught me sobbing (or in Malay, menangis terngongoi-ngongoi) in the corner cos everyone else went out and refused to let me follow.

I tried to follow them into the van but they pushed me out. Someone yelled at me to go away. So I cried in the corner.

The amah found me and told me to stop crying and she will give me a present. I looked up long enough to see her placing a shiny new 50 cent coin into my little palm.

I stopped crying.

The coin looked so nice and cosy sitting in my little palm, almost covering the entire palm as my little fingers stuck out on all sides. It wasn't the value of the coin that shut me up, it was just the shiny-ness, the feel and the look of the coin that distracted me long enough for me to get off my ass and stopped crying. For the rest of the day, I carried that 50 cent coin in my pocket as I played alone in the garden.

The weight of the coin is just right, I think, to make one feel fulfilled. It is heavier than most coins, and even though it can only, today, buy a few sweets and tissue papers, it still makes me feel richer than a wad of notes can.

You can try it if you want. Carry a couple of 50 cent coins in your pocket and see if it makes you feel better. It always had, for me. Especially when I was a kid back then, crying in alone in the corner... :)

Analysis: Malaysia Has First Class Infrastructure But Third World Salaries

By G. Gnanalingam

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 (Bernama) -- After 50 years of development, we can say that we have one of the world's best infrastructures in terms of roads, airports, ports and even the Multimedia Super Corridor.

We only realise this until we travel overseas or to neighbouring countries or when we get visitors from the United States or Europe.

As visitors leave the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, travel on the highway, visit KLCC or the surrounding shopping complexes, they can immediately access the Internet. They all say we are better than the developed countries.

The government has done a lot in that we have a roof for every head, a desk for every school-going child, a bed for the sick and even jobs for 2.5 million foreign workers!

Lately, the government has been taking strides to improve the salaries of the government servants while businessmen have had to increase the cost of food items at groceries or restaurants.

Whilst we have first class infrastructure, we still have third world salaries.

While the economy has grown in the last 50 years -- at 6.0 to 8.0 percent annually, salaries have not matched these types of growth. As such, most of the private sector companies still pay third world salaries.

We cannot afford to measure ourselves against the McDonald's index in terms of how many people can afford to buy McDs. We can't even say we can use the Astro index in terms of how many people can afford an Astro at home, which I believe is less than 10 percent.

It becomes worse when we say how many percent of our population can afford to buy computers for their homes.

We can ask for first class infrastructure but can the population afford to use it?

The key question is: can the population afford handphones, highway tolls, computers and high taxes on cars?

As such, to keep astride with our economic growth and our super infrastructures, private sector salaries need to be increased.

It is sad that after 50 years, we still don't have a minimum salary structure and we bring in foreign workers whom we are happy to pay below RM600.

On top of this, we have 950,000 Malaysians working overseas, including 150,000 professionals, because the salary scales abroad are better.

Maybe we have to compare not only taxation in other countries, and ask the government to reduce income tax and corporate tax.

The government has done well to increase the salaries of civil servants by 35 percent.

The private sector complains bitterly that petrol prices have gone up by 100 percent, steel prices up by 100 percent and food prices by 50 percent. However, they try to contain salary increases between 6.0 and 10 percent.

We need to have a minimum wage urgently because even at RM600, who can afford to live in Malaysia?

Just look at cost of rentals for homes and the cost of a loaf of bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is even before we add the cost of transportation, amenities at home and the cost of educating our children.

In the last 50 years, salaries in Singapore have gone up by 7.5 times that of Malaysia.

Fifty years ago, our salaries and currencies were the same. Today, salaries are three times higher and the currency is 2.5 times higher across the Causeway.

Comparatively, the Hong Kong people are earning more than the Singaporeans and the Japanese are earning more than the Hong Kong people.

The government is responsible for first class infrastructure and as well as the hefty 35 percent increase in government salaries.

Who is responsible for third class salaries in Malaysia? Who is driving away the more than a million Malaysians who work overseas? Don't we need that human capital at home?

-- BERNAMA