Gruesome find

You would not believe what I found on the staircase to my office this morning. No, it wasn’t a bunch of dead flies or a discarded paper cup with leftover orange cordial or Ah Long’s namecard or a stack of Tesco flyers.

As I climbed up the first flight of stairs, I spotted some black stuff on the second flight. Mmm… did I drop some rubbish on the way out yesterday? I don’t think so. The rubbish had been neatly tied up in a bag before I disposed of it. As I drew closer, I saw what the black stuff was.

It was a decapitated rat head!  It lay on the floor beside some black and brown bits which I take to be the rat’s innards and a yellow lump the size of a thumb. I have no idea what the yellow thingy was.  I diverted my eyes from the neck portion and saw the pointy head with whiskers still standing erect.

Gross! Lucky thing I haven’t had my breakfast. I’ve seen a dead rat before but not a severed rat head. Urrggghh. Some cat must’ve gotten in the staircase through the grilles, mauled the rat and eaten it for supper and left the inedible parts behind. Obviously the cat isn’t Chinese or there would’ve been nothing left.

I swept up the rat’s remains and dumped them into the dustbin downstairs. Goodbye rat head. I hope your cronies learn a lesson from your gruesome death and stay away from this area.

Eh Poh Nim nominated for award!

The Star-Popular Awards 2010 is here. And Eh Poh Nim has made it to the non-fiction list! The full list of nominees is not available yet but I do know that MPH’s Urban Odysseys and O Thiam Chin’s Never Been Better are on the fiction list.  Competing in the non-fiction category is Tropical Affairs by Robert Raymer who is last year’s fiction winner. Will update when more info is available.

Entry forms for readers’ votes will be published in The Star and the award ceremony will be held on 6 September during Popular’s annual Bookfest at KL Convention Centre.

Brains, plates & cabbages under the sea

Not real brains, plates and cabbages but corals. I saw them during my trip to Tioman island last week with the family. I didn’t know what these corals were called but I told my kids that they look like a brain (to which no. 2 quipped: ‘It’s no. 3′s brain’ – yeah she can be so mean to her brother), a cauliflower and a big satellite dish. Just before posting this entry, I googled corals and discovered that the various types of corals indeed include the brain corals, plate corals, cabbage/lettuce corals, cauliflower corals and staghorn corals.

If you have not been to Tioman, you must make a trip there to see the beautiful underwater world. The water is clear and you can see the colourful fishes darting between your legs. The corals are really a wonder to behold. They were in shades of pink, red, green, white, and pink with blue edges. Think of the scenery in Nemo the movie, and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what it looks like.

And don’t wait ten years before you step foot on Tioman. An article in The Star (10 June 2010) reported:

A team of divers has found that corals here have changed colour, a signal that they are dying.

“The cabbage corals, brain corals and staghorn corals have turned white,” said Kids Scuba director and scuba educator Syed Abdul Rahman Syed Hassan.

He said the underwater temperature had also changed.

“In my numerous dives here previously, the temperature was between 25°C and 27°C. However, in my two days of underwater discovery, the temperature was at 32°C,” he said.

…. Syed Abdul Rahman’s forecast was that the corals in Tioman Island would die soon due to the warmer weather.

“There are some corals which are still intact and colourful. However, most of them are changing colour, showing that they are not healthy.”

He hoped that the wet weather would come soon.

During his four-day stay in Kampong Salang, he said the villagers told him that the climate was hotter now. “What is happening to the corals is quite sad. I would not be surprised to see all of them turning white and dying,” he said.

He also said that he found more sea urchins during his dive.

At one point, I saw a huge cluster of sea urchins. Good thing there were several feet below me.

Now tell me if this doesn’t look like a brain, not yours of course. (Image from http://www.floorcookie.com)

Unscrupulous advertisers

My office is in a block of 3-storey shops. We take up four units which means there are four post-boxes at the bottom of the staircase which belong to us. Sometimes thick wad of brochures would be sticking out from the slots. Name cards by loan sharks frequently make their way into the boxes. I have no grouse with those who want to promote their business by distributing leaflets. It is a common enough method of promotion. What I do mind is opening up the mail box to find 8 pieces of the same leaflet. Clearly someone is shirking their duties. Then I would call up the advertiser to let them know that they have been ripped off by the leaflet distributor.

I also hate it when advertisers resort to vandalism to promote their business. Loan sharks are unscrupulous (so what’s new?). The wall of my staircase has the contact of a loan shark stencilled into it. They come with their template and spray paint and leave their indelible mark on the pristine wall. They also defaced the door of the housing for the electric meters. I’ve also seen their ad in the toilet of the mamak restaurant near my place. I don’t know who’s more desperate, borrowers or sharks.

Other types of business owners are jumping onto the band wagon. Recently I saw an A4 piece of paper advertising cleaning services stuck to the wall near my office entrance. I tore it off immediately and white remnants were left on the bright red wall. I rang up the person listed in the ad and told her off for vandalising other people’s property. She sounded very timid. I hope I scared her (diabolical laughter). Hehe, but I won’t do it to the loan shark. If they send hooligans, red paint and Molotov cocktails to my place, habis-lah!