The Star newspaper - Opinion Section - Improper road planning

ORIGINAL VERSION

First of all, I would like to commend on the opening of additional lane on Penang Bridge and also the smoothly tarred road along the Jelutong Expressway.

However, the smooth travel stops the moment road users exit the bridge and head towards the Bayan Lepas area.

In fact, all the road users will have their smooth journey interrupted by the bottleneck at the exit point near the N-Park condominium.

The main reason of the bottleneck is the existence of a pedestrian overhead bridge which reduces the traffic from 4 lanes into 2 lanes within a span of 100meters.

In fact, this very pedestrian bridge affects the traffic flow of both sides of the road depending on the day-to-day traffic condition.

From what I noticed, most of the accidents happened directly or indirectly due to the bottleneck effect.

If the pedestrian overhead bridge is indeed underutilised, please scrap it off and expand the lanes to match the traffic from town or bridge direction and vice-versa.

This will save the state government or the traffic planning department from wasting their resources by conducting traffic survey only on appropriate and suitable areas.

CIPLAK, Georgetown

Sent on: 9 Feb 2010

The Ruthless Billionaire’s Virgin by Susan Stephens

Precaution: These are not a serious reading materials :-)
P/S: I am going to copy and paste the general synopsis on 2 different book reviews :-)

General synopsis
We see a lot of reviews on mainstream books in newspaper columns, magazines, talk shows and etc.
However, after some time, I grew bored and restless after too many thick novels; written on diverse topics and plots.
Thus, I decided to take a breather and read love novels instead.

NOTE #1: notice the usage of plural term here “NOVELS” :-D
NOTE #2: These are not the usual love novels. These are love novels with “LOVE” as in making love and loving each other in it.

Seriously speaking, lurid imagination prevails when I stumbled upon (and bought) titles like “Capelli’s Captive Virgin” and “The Ruthless Billionaire’s Virgin”.
With those eye-catching titles, I’m pretty sure parents will beat their kids silly if they stumbled upon those books hidden underneath their pillows :-D
Anyway, without further ado, here are the reviews (I purposely omitted the names and generalize the storyline) *drum rolls please*:

The Ruthless Billionaire’s Virgin
Note: This is the England Rugby series as evidently shown by the England’s Rugby Rose emblem on the book cover.
It’s about a new-to-the-trade singer getting the ultimate exposure via wardrobe malfunction ala Janet Jackson in a major rugby competition presided by the ruthless billionaire (he’s a rugby fan).
The ruthless billionaire with scars (both physically and emotionally) sweeps her off her feet and whisked her to his private castle in Italy.
The lady (again a fast talking lady) slowly changed the gloom atmosphere of the castle and after another usual stuff mentioned in Note #2, they go back to their separate lives and refrained from keeping in touch with each other.
In the end, the lady managed to heal the ruthless billionaire’s emotional scar and they got married to each other.

Personal rating: N/A

Cons:
1) N/A

Pros:
1) N/A

Capelli's Captive Virgin by Sarah Morgan

Precaution: These are not a serious reading materials :-)
P/S: I am going to copy and paste the general synopsis on 2 different book reviews :-)

General synopsis
We see a lot of reviews on mainstream books in newspaper columns, magazines, talk shows and etc.
However, after some time, I grew bored and restless after too many thick novels; written on diverse topics and plots.
Thus, I decided to take a breather and read love novels instead.

NOTE #1: notice the usage of plural term here “NOVELS” :-D
NOTE #2: These are not the usual love novels. These are love novels with “LOVE” as in making love and loving each other in it.

Seriously speaking, lurid imagination prevails when I stumbled upon (and bought) titles like “Capelli’s Captive Virgin” and “The Ruthless Billionaire’s Virgin”.
With those eye-catching titles, I’m pretty sure parents will beat their kids silly if they stumbled upon those books hidden underneath their pillows :-D

Anyway, without further ado, here are the reviews (I purposely omitted the names and generalize the storyline) *drum rolls please*:

Capelli’s Captive Virgin
In a nutshell, it’s about a fast talking lady (or rather a lady who talked and asked too much) looking for her sister who’ve worked with a ruthless divorce lawyer but absconded with the lawyer’s brother for an uninhibited sensual (or sexual *gasp*) escapades.

The lawyer whom hinted about free sex in practically everything he does (surprisingly he wasn’t sued for sexual harassment at all) challenged the lady to step in and take over her sister’s tasks at a private island owned by the lawyer.

Usual stuff ensued (refer to Note #2 for details :-P).

They go back to their separate lives after that and refrained from keeping in touch.
In the end, the ruthless lawyer had a change of heart; love prevails and they got married to each other.

THE END

Personal rating: N/A

Cons:
1) N/A

Pros:
1) N/A

A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

This is essentially an all American story.

The storyline is so simple that everyone who reads the synopsis at the end cover can basically draft out the overall plot in his/her head.

It is a story about a boy meeting up a lonely, dorky and goody type girl.

The boy initially disliked the idea of being around her or even to keep her company but they ended up falling in love with each other.

BUT THEN… jeng jeng jeng… there’s a twist in the storyline… *as usual :-)*

The girl is dying and the guy can’t do nuts about it…!!

Though Nicholas Sparks wrote this work of fiction on such a simplistic approach, he did it with bravado and managed to weave sentiment, emotion and breathe life into the characters. This is definitely a slow read but I find that the pace is just right for the character build-ups.

The progression of the couple’s relationship is so entwined that when the ball drops (figuratively speaking) towards the end, I had goosebumps all over and got all teary eyed.. I’m not joking.. :-S

This is a real tear jerker kind of book and little wonder it was adapted into silver-screen. I haven’t watched the movie though; perhaps its because I’m still having doubts over any mushy-mushy novel to silver screen adaptation after the disastrous “P.S I Love You” flick.

Personal rating: 7 out of 10 (points accorded by the sentimental side of me :-P)

Cons:
1) Slow pace of the novel can be a turn-off
2) Novel is based on a common plot which reads like the “Sup Ayam Untuk Jiwa (English translation: Chicken Soup for the Soul)” stories :-D

Pros:
1) Tear jerker :-S managed to make me have goose bumps and all teary eyed