Ktak..Bom (Murphy's Law in action)

Assalamualaikum :)..

23 December 2009

0730:

Received an order from bapak to buy a new cooking gas cylinder (wasn't the current one jz bought bout a week ago? No matter..)

1430:

Since I'm in no mood of cookin, and the fact that I can survive for a day without eating, I decided to buy that cylinder a lil bit late. Went to the grocery and order a cylinder

1500:

The grocery guy came with the cylinder. Was going to replace the old cylinder with the new one. “funny, the current one seems to be still heavy..”. [Malay McGyver Mode: ON]. After a few amateur-like inspection, I found the 'issue'. There's this turner on the hose connecting the cylinder to the stove. It's completely closed. So I turned it anti-clockwise to turn it on, so the gas could flow. Heard the gas hissing, and I said to myself, “that's the problem”.

Seemed to me I'm right. lit the stove and the fire came out. Then the fire went smaller before it went off altogether.

“Erm, I jz need to turn the knob (the turner that needs to be turned anti-clockwise..) even more”. I turned off the stove and went to watch some tv, knowing what the 'problem' was.

1730:

Knowing there's no problem with the stove, I decided to boil water to make Milo. “Ktak, Ktak” the stove flickered but no fire. “Ooh, the hose..”. I turned the knob anti clock-wise, all the way, knowing that when I turn the knob a little, the fire jz came out for a short period of time.

Heard the hissing. “Great, the gas is flowing..”. Turn the knob on the stove, “Ktak..Kbooff”. There's this big fire. Not that shocked at first, coz I thought the fire would subside. It took me jz about 1 second to convince me I'm wrong. Tried to turn the stove off. Then the knob on the stove came off. Literally. My sister watched in horror. I asked for some powder, (coz it would be stupid to pour water on the stove, there still traces of cookin oil left..). The powder did some good. Well, you can say no good at all, coz the fire was too big. Now, with this situation, even a moron wouldn't stay. So I went out of the house, with the fire still burning on my stove.

My little sister went to my neighbour's house. I ride my motorcycle, went to the nearest school, asked the guard for any fire extinguisher. The rain started to fall, I wore no helmet. The rain started to fall heavier, how dramatic. Good timing, hehe. Back to the guard, she said the school don't have any that she knew of (what??!!) . She asked me to ask the school office. I said I had no time. She offered me her cellphone to call the emergency service.

Lesson for all: On cellphone (in Malaysia), the emergency number = 112, not 999.

Thanks makcik :D :D

I dialed 112, and there's a beep, then the line went off. Great.

Lesson #2: If you can find a public phone, better use the public phone and dial the emergency service.

I found 2 public phones, tried to dial 999, heck, the public phones not workin.

Lesson #3: Public phones suck. Well, the ones who make the public phones suck, suck more.

Went to the nearest grocery, borrowed their phone to dial 999.Thanks Pacik kedai

Lesson #4: It's better if you could remember the phone number of your local fire department. That would save time.

After all that hectic, all I can do was wait. The agony of expecting the kitchen to blow, while at the same time you hope nothing would happen, was indescribable. Mind you there were 2 gas cylinders in my kitchen. 1 fully loaded, the other bout half. With big fire around, what else do you expect. Oh, 10 minutes has passed since the first fire.

To cut long story short, the fire engine arrived about 10 minutes after the call. It's a relief. They went inside and put off the fire. By this time, the fire was up to the ceiling. And the smoke, well, all I can say is, the deadly fume of melting stove, isn't a good thing to breath with. Fortunately, there was nothing around that can spread the fire even more, but the gas cylinders.

I asked the firefighter bout the cylinders, they said the cylinders were designed not to blow on this scale of fire. It will only explode when the outside temperature reaches 1000-2000 degrees Celsius. This fire juz now, was juz a baby (hehe, I add this myself :p). Well, baby or not, that really got me. Thanks Hollywood for showing every single fire with gas cylinders around, spells explosion.

Lesson #5: No matter how careful you are, when something bad is about to happen it just will. Just preparing not to cause something bad isn't enough, we also have to prepare for the worst.

Lesson #6: Accidents wont just happen on the news. If we're not ready enough, we will be the news.

Lesson #7: Fire extinguisher isn't a bad investment.

See all those wires? Scary huh..huhu

Thank God nothing bad happened :D :D, other than the experience. Well, it's a quite nice experience actually. Not everyone had this happened in their own house other than watch it on the news happening to others.

Thanks to everyone for your help. Thanks to my neighbour for giving the first shelter to my lil sis. Thanks to my other neighbour for entering the house with his fire extinguisher. Thanks all :D :D.

Jz sharing my experience. Cheers :D :D

Right? Nee? Meh?

Assalamualaikum :)..

yoshh~..

It's been a very d very very n beri2 while eh :p..

I watched this morning talk show on RTM this morning, something bout the happiness of marriage. The thing that caught my attention was not the topic (well, I'm not an RTM fan anyways..), it's the way its guest talk about the topic. I only watched a small portion of the show when I decided to change the channel. The thing is, there were 2 presenters for the talk show this morning, a Muslim guy and a non-Muslim woman. Yes, I wanna talk about religion-related stuff a little bit. How the guest showed a little consideration towards how he talked. He was talking bout Adam and Eve. How they were created, and so on.

1^st thing is, the story was a bit, I dunno, unconvincing? When I said unconvincing (Islamic related), it's something that I never heard of before, and the guest never cited his source(s). I mean, it's a national TV program, if what he said, was not right, the wrong idea of Islam will be passed on not only towards non-Muslims, but also to Muslims.

Secondly, the thing that quite got on my nerve a bit, was his insensitivity towards the non-Muslim presenter. He was saying something bout how a woman was given the blessings of the instinct of a mother on the moment she's officially declared as someone's wife. The problem was, he gave that description in term of Islamic point of view, and he was like forcing, people to agree with him. It went something like this:

“On the moment the husband declared his akad (the declaration of agreement on something, in this case the marriage), the wife will cry. This is because Allah put His mercy and blessings to the woman; the instinct of a mother. Am I not right(and he was asking the presenters, both of em, and to the viewers)? I guarantee this. If you don't believe me, just look at all other newlywed couples when the husband do the akad. If the wife's not dropping her tears, then something is wrong”

This joke-like statement made me somewhat uncomfortable, as I saw the female presenter's reaction. Even if the presenter didn't show any reaction, I'll still feel uncomfortable as I personally think it's not the right thing to do. How can we 'force' people to agree with us, on something that seems to be hypothetical, especially, when it comes to faith-related issue? When the Holy Quran itself stated that there's no compulsion in religion[HQ 2:256]. Then who are we 'forcing' people to agree with our non-cited, unbacked claims?

And we shouldn't be prejudice, should we? Just because the bride didn't wet her eyes, doesn't mean she's not normal, or something is not right, right? We are not that desperate to make people believe in us such that others who witnessed something other that what we claimed, to be from out of this world, are we?

Everyone makes mistakes, and so do I. In fact, I do lots of 'em, hehe. It's just that, there are some things that really get on my nerves. The lack of tolerance towards others who are different than us is one of them. Sorry if my post this time sounds a bit emotional, hehe. It's not easy to satisfy everyone eh? Just simply don't, it's plain impossible :D. He was saying what he wanted to say, and so do I. Freedom of speech in a non-abusive manner, how sweet :D.

It's been a while since my last post, yes?waah!!

Well, I got a lot of things to write, just don't have enough writing skills to let me post anything (laziness is one of em, thanks..hehe :p). And I think if I got nothing good enough to post, better for me not to post at all, ne?

Jz sharing my 2cents. Cheers :D :D

p/s:

• I wanna take this opportunity to congratulate all of my friends who are ending their bachelorhood this holiday season. Just to name some, Mus'ab, Musa, Tono, and to all of you guys who do the same la :D :D

• Congratulations to Abang Aliem and Kak Husna for their newborn baby. Born as a Kiwi, raised as a full-fledged Muslim i'Allah :D :D

• My deepest condolences to Kak the for her loss. It may not physically seem to be long-lasting, but it surely seemed to be ended after u guys did it the right way. May His blessings be with you, your late hubby, and your family i'Allah. Amiin.