Argh!!

Oh my god! What a way to start the week. First, the 'wonderful' government of Malaysia increases the prices for petrol by 10 sen on Monday. Apparently the subsidy is costing them valuable money that can be put aside for development. Frankly speaking, I think the excuse given is bollocks. Increased petrol prices will mean cost of living will be higher. Even development funds will be affected by this. Of course, the papers published a stupid table comparing the prices of petrol in the region. Some bloody 'genius' then commented that despite the price increase, Malaysian petrol prices were still among the lowest in the region. The wonderful part was that no weighting was done to take into account the average income of the region. Sheesh!

Next, on Tuesday we have 'wonderful' Indonesia doing their annual forest burning. Morning was a beautiful day of clear skies (and traffic jams but that's just my luck). Then around 5.30 pm when I left my office, for a moment I thought I was on a different planet. The haze was SO bad that visibility was probably until 100 m at most. At 50 m, it was already very blurry. Indonesia can burn all the forest they want but for god's sake, DON'T let it affect any other country. Right now, Malaysians are enjoying a lungful of absoulutely crappy air but as far as I know, Malaysia does not get any form of compensation from Indonesia due to this. Sigh...I hope the air clears up by tomorrow!

On a happier note, I've recently finished watching Scrapped Princess, an anime about a girl who's destined to destroy the world. While the storyline was nothing amazing, it was enjoyable enough. The characters in the anime all have rather distinct personalities and the interaction between them was really wonderful! I really liked Raquel's character. She's generally a very blur person yet when her sister becomes threatened, she's a real lioness. The interaction of Shannon and the Scrapped Princess was also really heart-warming, with Shannon being a really protective elder brother who's determined to shield his younger sister from all harm.

Right now I'm in the middle of watching an anime called Beck. It's quite interesting so far. One thing for sure, this anime REALLY makes me wanna get back to being serious with my guitar. I'm saving up money now to buy a good amplifier and a multi-effects board. =)