Busting My Back Gave Me a Renewed Perspective on Life

About three days after Yasmin Ahmad passed away, I busted my back. It's the closest thing to dying for me, because it was so painful, it felt like dying, honestly, what with Yasmin's death weighing so heavily on my mind.

Yasmin and I weren't any way close - our brief professional encounter several years ago ended in a misunderstanding. Nonetheless, she had been such an icon that her death actually left a hole in my soul.

It was like when P Ramlee passed away.

So much left undone. So much left unsaid. So much life to live. Yet, there was no more time.

And busting my back felt close to dying - so much left undone, so much left unsaid, so much to live for.

Fortunately, there is still time for me.

I am recovering as I type this blog entry, and soon, I'll be back in shape for more of what life has to give. But I'm not going to be so driven by the need to reap the rewards of living life to the fullest, because in the end, when death comes, we leave it all behind.

I'm not going to be driven by the need for fast cars, big houses, best paying jobs, etc because when death comes, what matters is whether or not we've done right by others and, above all, whether we've done right by the Almighty.

So, yes, I will continue to exercise to stay young and fit, but not for vanity. I have so much life to live, but not for glory.

This is the lesson, I believe, Allah wanted me to learn. In Yasmin's death, He reminded me of my own mortality. And He reinforced it with the pain of an incapacitating back-sprain.

Alhamdulillah - praise be to Allah - for such timely reminders...

Buy Osim and Win a Honda City

Went to Subang Parade today to polish my Ford Focus S2.0 at Cars International while having lunch. Whilst there, my family dropped by Osim's exhibition of its new massage chair uDesire.

We didn't buy the chair but we bought the uSqueeze, uMomo and uPapa for RM70+ per month over 36 months (3 years). This entitled me to several entries into the Osim competition held in conjunction with the launch of the uDesire massage chair.

And the grand prize is a Honda City.

What are my chances of winning it? Sigh! I dunno, I've never been good at winning competitions.

Yeah, I've won a few but the prizes were usually small and almost inconsequential.

But, hey, you never know. Rezeki is in Allah's hands.

If I win it, I'll sell it and use the money to buy, emm..., emm..., RX8? Subaru Impreza? Mitsu Evo?

Haa! I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll have to win the Honda City first :)

Ford Escape - Much Underrated, Much Ignored

There was a time when Ford cars were the preferred range of cars in Malaysia. Back in the 1980s, Ford cars were synonymous with style and performance.

Then, something happened that made Ford cars fall out of favour with car buyers. I don't know what exactly, but I'm guessing it has a lot to do with pricing for both first hand cars and spare parts.

For some reason, Ford cars became upper mid-range cars, albeit in Europe the blue oval Ford badge represented affordability (and still does).

But things have changed. Ford's new partnership with Sime Darby Autoconnexion is now making Ford cars more affordable again, a good example being the new 2.3L Ford Escape.

At RM135,000+ on the road without tax and insurance, the Ford Escape offers the kind of power and luxury that are usually found in more expensive SUVs or luxury 4x4s (see http://www.ford.net.my/escape_xlt.asp for key features).

More importantly, it's stylish and reliable, as previous Escape models have been known to be.

Personally, if I had to choose between a Toyota Camry and a Ford Escape. I'd go for the Ford Escape, but then, you'd expect me to say such a thing because I'm a Ford enthusiast.

Still, the Camrys are common these days and Escapes are not. So, if, like me, you prefer to look for ways to distinguish yourself from the crowd, you'd get something that's not so common and can turn heads, like the Ford Escape.

Even Cats Need to Speak and Speak Often

I never thought that speech was important for cats until, one day, I found my Mommy Gracie utterly depressed. My family had just moved house and, since we couldn't cope with cats in our new house, we decided to leave her behind in the old house - we'd come back during the day but would leave for the new house come evening.

As a result, I hardly gave my Mommy Gracie any attention. Whenever she meowed, I would think that she just wanted fresh food.

Without thinking, I would look at her bowl, fill it up to the brim and walk away. Poor Mommy Gracie was heart-broken.

All she wanted was a little attention.

About a week later, Mommy Gracie disappeared. We searched frantically throughout the house and outside of the house, but she was nowhere to be found.

Then, when we had nearly given up, seemingly out of nowhere, Mommy Gracie appeared, looking weak and depressed. As much as I tried, Mommy Gracie wouldn't say a word.

She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't drink. She just sat in front of us, as though she was about to die.

That was when my wife said, "We're taking her with us to the new house."

And so we did.

About a day later, at the new house, Mommy Gracie started becoming happy again. She ate and drank and, most important of all, she meowed. And meowed. And purred. And meowed some more.

And we listened, and we meowed right back, making Mommy Gracie purr even harder.

I now have a completely new perspective on cats as pets. Yes, they don't really understand what we're saying, and neither do we humans understand what they're really saying.

But listening to them telling us something that appears important enough for them to meow is very important to cats. It makes them happy, because it makes them feel loved.

K&N Filter - Performance You Can Feel!

Finally, after nearly three years of owning my Ford Focus S2.0, I've put aside enough money to put in a K&N filter for my Focus' air intake. And as expected, the K&N filter allows my car to perform better.

I didn't dyno the car. So, I don't quite know how much more brake horsepower (bhp) the car has now.

But from what I can feel, my Focus revs more smoothly and is more eager to go, just like how it had been with my old Waja when I swapped its air filter out for a K&N filter.

To be sure, it's not very expensive - about RM330 after discount from Eneos. But in light of all the other things I have to spend on the car, the filter isn't priority (which was why I put it off till now).

And it's not difficult to install. Just unscrew the air intake box and drop the K&N filter in (hence, the term 'drop-in' filter).

But I didn't have the tools and didn't want to dirty my hands. So, I asked an Eneos mechanic to do it.

Although he was quite happy to oblige at first, midway, he started swearing something about his mother's private parts in Cantonese. He had dropped a screw driver head into my engine bay and couldn't retrieve it easily and had to unscrew my undercarriage engine cover to retrieve it - all for a tiny screw driver head!

Anyway, it all ended well. He got his screw driver head and I got my filter installed.

And I drove away, shouting "Woo-hoo!" when my car accelerated with more gusto.

What's next? I dunno. I'm thinking of getting the engine "port and polished", and then "blue-printed". These would take thousands of ringgit and months of workshop downtime.

And I would have to get another car while the Focus is in the workshop.

So, I suppose, these will have to wait till much, much later.

20 Per Cent Toll Rebates is No Small Amount

Hurray! I'll be getting toll rebates effective 1 September 2009, along with thousands of other tolled road users who pay tolls 80 times or more a month.

While it has been decried by Opposition politicians, especially Uncle Lim the Elder (Lim Kit Siang), as being nothing but a populist measure, money is still money. And if the government of the day wants to give me back some of the money I pay to use tolled roads, I'm not going to be so silly as to look a gift horse in the mouth.

For someone like me who lives in Klang, who commutes to and from the PETRONAS Twin Towers, KLCC five times a week, I pass through at least 40 toll gates a week (eight a day multiplied by five days). In just two weeks, I qualify for the 20 per cent discount.

How much does that translate to? Each month, I spend about RM324 on toll charges. Twenty per cent of that would be RM65.60.

Now, that's a heck of a lot of savings. It's like nearly one week's worth of petrol.

Of course, Prime Minister Dato' Seri Najib's detractors say that he's being short sighted, but - come on! - haven't the Opposition been full of populist measures to increase their popularity?

Take the water bill rebates in Selangor, for instance. The amount is small but geared to be populist, as it supposedly alleviates the suffering of the poor, albeit the rich benefit too.

So, do I complain? No, I don't. if the government of Selangor wishes to empty its coffers faster than it can replenish it, then it will be to Pakatan Rakyat's own undoing.

With no long-term solution in sight, come election time, Pakatan would be thrown out of power for mismanaging Selangor.

Meanwhile, I get to spend about eight ringgit on a nice meal every month.

Similarly, I'm not going to complain about the toll rebates that I would be getting. Rather, I'll be holding Prime Minister Najib to his word when he says that it's only a temporary solution, in that the 20 per cent rebates would be handed out until a permanent solution is found on how to reduce the burden of motorists using expressways (see http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/20090715073940/Article/index_html).

If Najib fails to deliver, well, I'll just throw in my protest vote like in the last general elections.

Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying a nice family meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken each month using my RM65.60 toll rebate.

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Addendum: The poor always subsidises the rich. That's the tragedy of our economic system.

Gas for power is subsidised, petrol is subsidised, diesel is subsidised, rice is subsidised, at the expense of, among other things, the nation's education system.

Threaten to take those subsidies away, and guess who are among the first to take to the streets? Populist politicians out to get cheap publicity and the poor whom they have rallied by stoking anti-establishment sentiment.

I admit, I don't agree with the one-sided deals from which toll concessionaires have been reaping what appears to be windfall gains. But that's a long standing issue that can't be solved overnight.

Meanwhile, whatever little consumers get is bonus. And as bonus' go, I'm not going to complain.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm going to turn a blind eye to better and permanent solutions.

What I suspect, instinctively, is that, in the end, the cruel reality would turn out to be that toll roads must only be for those who can truly afford it - the rich with private transport.

Those who cannot must take the public transport system that uses or doesn't use toll roads.

This is, of course, a chicken and egg scenario. People would rather take private transport than public transport because, well, because of subsidies.

The public transport system, meanwhile, languishes in a state of disrepair and poor upkeep because of the low profitability of the business.

But there will come a time when the government cannot afford to give as much subsidies and people will be forced to take the public transport system. As we've seen when the price of fuel at refuelling stations went up, people would just hunker down and do what they must.

Yeah, they'll be kicking and screaming about their happenstance, but they will take to the public transport system however rotten it is.

But then, as demand for public transport goes up, the profitablity of the business improves due to increase in volume . This would, in the long run, result in better buses, trains and taxis, just like in many European countries.

Should the government take over the bus companies that are providing services in city centres? Civil servants shouldn't be in the business of running buses. Generally speaking, it's just not the way forward for modern cities, be it in Malaysia or in Europe, or the US, due to efficiency issues, remuneration issues and market distortion.

While we want the government to be more benevolent in providing for an ideal public transport system, the imperitive would come more from free market forces as opposed to government intervention.

For as long as we have the subsidy mentality in Malaysia, people will not take to using the public transport system, no matter how good or efficient it may be or have the potential to become. We'd still clog the roads with our single occupancy vehicles.

Why? Because fuel is subsidised, gas for power is subsidised, cooking gas is subsidised, etc.

In the end, it's still the poor who suffer because of allocation of government funds to subsidies.

Instead of spending on quality education (by increasing teachers' pay and thereby attracting more talents), quality national health services (by increasing allocation to staff and infrastructure development), poverty eradication over and above hard core poverty eradication, the government is forced to spend more and more to subsidise this and that.

Eneos, Bukit Tinggi - Klang's Little Automotive Heaven

I love going to Eneos. I can get lost in it for hours.

I love looking at the sports rims and tyres on offer, among other things. And I usually end up buying something as a result.

As I said I would, I went to Eneos to increase the pressure of my nitrogen-filled tyres to make my car go faster. I've done that and my car is more responsive when accelerating.

Also, I finally put a down-payment for a drop-in K&N filter for my Ford Focus S2.0. The list price was RM385 but I got it at a discounted price of RM335.

Once installed, my Focus should run even faster.

I know my Ford Malaysia Enthusiast Club (FOMEC) friends are going to say that I can get the thing cheaper at e-Bay. But I don't want to handle the shipping hassle and other possible hassles, which is why I'd rather go through Eneos.

Anyway, I also changed out the wiper blades of my Focus to PIAA silicone wiper blades. At only RM88 a pair, the blades cost far less than what Ford Service Centre - PJ (FSC-PJ) would charge for a pair of wipers (last time I checked, a pair cost RM380).

Unfortunately, it took some doing for the mechanic to fit the new blades in. They weren't perfect fits and, so, he took close to an hour to slide them into place.

These blades should last a lifetime, however.

Still, the wipers do look a little worn out now, what with all the manhandling. So, next time I need to fix my wipers, I'll have to go back to FSC-PJ.

Hopefully, they would have wised up by then and get their supply chain management correct - I heard that they've begun offering Focus wiper blades for only RM180 but can't confirm this yet.

I'm so glad there's Eneos in Bukit Tinggi, Klang. Each time I feel like going to automotive heaven, it's only a ten-minute drive away :)

Nitrogen Gas - Makes Tyres Softer, Cutting Back Top Speed

Commuting from Glenmarie Cove, Klang to SPCA in Ulu Klang is such a long drive that it's almost like travelling from KL to Melaka and back. Fortunately, being able to drive fast makes the journey a little more bearable, but it also reveals a major drawback I didn't realise about my Ford Focus S2.0 till now - my soft tyres are holding it back.

I use nitrogen gas in my tyres to keep the car from jarring too much on the roads. This means that my shocks, springs and tyres would last longer.

Unfortunately, the major trade-offs are acceleration and top speed.

The Ford Focus S2.0 can do 180Km/h easily, but with nitrogen gas, the car struggles just to go beyond 170km/h. This makes overtaking kiasu rog hoggers (who hog the right lane and speed up just to cut you off when overtaking) a lot harder and more frustrating.

This reminds me of the Top Gear episode when that cock Jeremy Clarkson, the Hamster and Captain Slow took their cars to the American salt flats to go as fast as they could flat out. The Hamster deflated his tyres to see if he could get more traction and the result was that his muscle car ran slower.

Likewise, by making my tyres softer with nitrogen, I'm making my Focus S2.0 go significantly slower.

Solution? I'm going back to Eneos to increase my Focus' tyre pressure from 35 psi to 37 psi. Hopefully this will help restore the car's speediness.

Of course, if I used normal air, I only need to inflate up to 34 psi - a tyre with nitrogen gas requires a higher psi to make it as hard. But then, I'd have to fill up every week with normal air, as opposed to every five to six months with nitrogen.

Anyway, I'll be going to Eneos today and will blog about the results after.

Move Left You Idiot. How Difficult is That?

Malaysians are some of the stupidest drivers in the world. How do I know that? I meet them on the roads each day!
Particularly stupid are those who think that the fast lane is actually the slow lane. For some banal reason, they stick to the fast lane even though they have no intention of overtaking or when there are no cars to overtake.
Perhaps in their utter stupidity, they think they have the God given right to stay in the fast lane while going slow.
Equally stupid are those who reason in their heads that they can only overtake other cars as fast as the speed limits would allow. Well - hello! - if you're that legalistic, the law also determines that if you are not overtaking (because you're going too damn slow - duh!), you must move left.
So, why do you choose to follow one law but ignore another? The answer is plain kiasu (selfishness).
You get a ticket for speeding, but you don't get a ticket for being kiasu in hogging the right lane.
In any case, being kiasu is for idiots because you not only endanger other motorists who have to overtake you from the left, you also open yourself to road rage.
Just the other day, a stupid kiasu road hogger was nearly rammed from the left by someone who just lost it. Serves the kiasu bastard right - each time the guy wanted to overtake from the left, the kiasu road hogger would speed up, closing the gap for overtaking and then would go back to being slow.
Is this kind of road behaviour really worth it? What's so difficult about moving left if you're not overtaking?
I guess kiasu road hoggers prefer to play dare-devil, hoping that the person they're dissing isn't a road bully.
What a laugh! Road bullies can be meek accountants who need to get to work before the boss shows up or that desperate sales exec who needs to close that important deal at the meeting he's already late for.
Everyone is a potential road bully. Just keep pressing the right buttons, you idiotic road hoggers, and you'll get one who's ready to shove a hard one up your tail pipe.

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Addendum: Yesterday, in the SMART tunnel, an idiot driving a Honda City like the one above decided that he 'owned' the right lane, refusing to overtake the car on the left and refusing to move over to left. I overtook from the left and moved into the right lane in front of the idiot just when there was enough space for me to fo so.

Waah! The guy marah sungguh (got so mad)! He started honking and flashing his lights.

So, I did what he did. I slowed down, causing him to be even slower.

And then he backed off, realising that I could be a road bully.

When I was satisfied that I had made my point, I sped off, leaving the idiot in my dust and exhaust wake...

Twin Enemies of Good Health - Fat Accumulation and Age

Have you noticed how different you look the older you get? Just look at your teen photos and then look at yourself in the mirror. What are the main differences?

Well, for one thing, you don't look as thin and as lithe. That's because of the amount of fat you've accumulated over the years.

If, however, you look thinner, then it's because you're not getting the right kind of fats for your skin (I'll talk about this in a bit).

For another, the older you get, the slower your metabolism becomes.

These two factors alone are enough to make your state of health go downhill the older you get.

I admit, I'm no nutritionist or physician. But I have been battling weight gain since my late twenties.

And in my over a decade's worth of experiential learning, I've made some startling observations.

Firstly, fat is like a beast that consumes you in the end. No, I'm not talking about the fat that you eat, but rather, I'm referring to the fat that you retain under your skin (which are not necessarily the same things).

My family line is not genetically predisposed to looking young for a very long time. In fact, my genetic predisposition appears to be one of obesity.

But by expelling fats from my body and controlling the amount that I retain, I find that I cause most people to guess my age wrong. They think that I'm a lot younger than my true age.

From this, I can deduce that fats draw upon bodily nutrients heavily in order to continue existing in our bodies. These are living cells that 'cry out' to be fed in order to thrive - 'Feed Me Now!'

But the more fats thrive, the more they constrict blood flow to themselves, until such a time that they can no longer expel waste matter efficiently, thus causing premature aging.

When coupled with decreasing metabolism as a result of aging, you find your health dwindling before your time.

So, for people like me, the key to staying young starts with fat expulsion and control. While that may seem pretty obvious, what isn't obvious is how.

Most people think that by dieting (loosely translated to mean calorie control), you are able to expel and/or control fats. This isn't really true.

Others think that they can exercise their fats away or control the amount retained. This is not really true either.

God knows, I've been dieting since I was 27. Although I gained some measure of success, more often than not, I failed - the pinnacle of my failure was when I had a waist size of 35 inches.

Of course, I've had my share of dieting success, having successfully reduced by waist size to 29 from 35.

But guess what? I couldn't keep to that size.

Fortunately, I've found an equilibrium of sorts, resulting in my waist size holding steady at between 31 and 32.

How have I achieved this? The simple answer is that I eat the right things and exercise quite a bit.

So, what's the difference then? Well, the difference is that I can eat as much as I want most of the time and exercise only when I can.

This is how it used to be before I turned 27, when I didn't have to exercise to stay trim and ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

What's my secret? No secret really. It's a combination of tea and supplements, as well as weight training and yoga.

Let's start with tea, specifically slimming tea. Traditionally used in Chinese and other eastern cultures, tea is consumed to keep the body healthy by expelling toxins and keeping cancer in check. Slimming tea goes the extra mile, in that it also removes fats.

A lot of people have problems coping with slimming tea because of their active lifestyle. Well, if you're one of these people, you can afford to take as little slimming tea as possible because you compensate by being active.

People with sedentary jobs are the ones who need slimming tea the most. Just go when you need to. What's the problem?

The reward is well worth it - slim midriff, healthy skin and youthful appearance, as opposed to looking bloated in the midriff (perut buncit), bloated (boyak) and looking aged before your time (tua sebelum waktunya).

It can be painful at first because the slimming tea can cause bowel muscle cramps and stomach cramps. But after a while, you get used to it, such that it doesn't hurt (much).

For that matter, I believe the reason it really hurts when you first start taking slimming tea is that the fats in your intestines and the skin of your tummy (the highest fat concentration in your body) have never been expelled in such droves before that, when they do get expelled, well, it hurts.

Anyway, with fat control underway, you need to get your metabolism back up. Exercise is one way, but it's simply not enough.

You need to consume a different kind of tea - misai kuching (Orthosiphon Stamineus) tea. While it doesn't cause your metabolism to go up directly, it has a lot of healing and rejuvenation properties that make you feel energetic enough to stay active.

For men, a good addition would be tongkat ali. No, it doesn't make you want to hump the first pretty thing that comes along, but like misai kuching, it does make you feel more energetic.

Other supplements that promote increase in metabolism are whey protein with amino acids, creatine, liquid L carnitine, vitamin E, garlic oil, air gamat, fish oil and milk thistle (for your liver).

Note that L carnitine can make you anxious or cause your heart to palpitate. So, be sure that you take it only if your health checks out.

But just because you take all these supplements doesn't mean you can neglect exercise completely. Exercise keeps your muscles in good shape and can be a good confidence booster (if you look good, you're bound to feel good about yourself).

So, don't make excuses for not wanting to exercise, especially since exercise directly promotes the production of growth hormones that help you to stay young.

There are also two kinds of exercise - strengthening mobilising muscles and strengthening stabilising muscles. Weight training gives form to your mobilising muscles, whereas yoga type exercises gives form to your stabilising muscles.

Last but not least, stay away from liquor. This taxes your liver and other internal organs.

There's no sense in staying fit if your internal organs are all screwy.

Yes, alcohol does have some health benefits, but on the balance, it does more harm than good, causing you to age before your time.

Note that if fats and exercise are not your main problems, in that you look more gaunt the older you get, then what you need is a combination of oil supplements like Udo's Oil. Your body is probably too efficient in getting rid of fats. So, you need to take more good fats in order to stay young and lithe.

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Addendum: Oh! I forgot to add that I also take noni juice as a powerful antioxidant with healing properties as well as apple cider vinegar to keep the germs in my tummy in check (these germs contribute to the production of fats in your intestines).

Going Back to Ford to Avoid Cheating

I was at the Ford Service Centre - PJ, servicing my car when I met a nice old lady who said she's been sending her Ford Escape the service centre for the past nine years. She said she's afraid of getting cheated if she were to go elsewhere.

This is rather surprising for me, especially since the Ford SC-PJ has been rubbished quite a bit in the Ford Malaysia Enthusiast Club forums and in Autoworld forums. And from personal experience, Ford SC-PJ has come up short a couple of times for me as well, especially on lubes advice.

Still, the nice old lady had a point. If you go to a place you don't know, you're bound to be scammed. After all, if they do too good a job, you'd hardly need to come back.

Also, non-Ford specialist centres may overlook certain things that Ford SCs usually won't.

This is really why, despite my issues with the Ford SC-PJ, I find myself coming back to this place over and again, and it's not just because my car is still under warranty.
Unless I get solid recommendation from friends on a good alternative, I'm going to go back to Ford. And even if I do get a reliable referral, I'd still be super cautious.

Back when my late father was driving his Volvo 244 GL, a friend recommended that he go fix his car at a non-specialist centre manned by people who used to work for Volvo. At first, things seemed to go along well. Then, one after another, things started to go wrong.
He was told that he needed to change this and that, fix this and that; and the list kept on getting longer and longer, and the bills kept piling up higher and higher.

Granted that cars need a lot of fixing as they grow older, but come on! It's like, each time the Volvo 244 gets its service, something major needed to be fixed.
Till today, I can't help but wonder if my dad's old Volvo needed all that fixing to begin with.

And when I meet people, like the nice old lady at Ford SC-PJ who says she doesn't face major issues often with her Ford Escape in her years of servicing at Ford SC-PJ, I become even more convinced that sticking to authorised service centres is better than taking chances with non-authorised service centres.

It's not like I've never had good experience with general mechanics or general service centres. I used to send my old Mazda 626 at the old Shell service centre at Jalan Batai, Damansara Heights, Kuala Lumpur.

The service there was good and reasonably priced. But that was a long time ago, involving a third hand car that was already breaking down terribly anyway.

For as long as I can afford to, I think it would be safer to stick with sending my Ford Focus S2.0 back to Ford SC-PJ, for servicing.

As an added bonus, it has a nice waiting area with free Internet access, food and drinks :)

Transformers II - Hugely Entertaining (Critics, Eat Humble Pie)

I really don't know what the fuss is about when it comes to Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen. Mainstream critics tell me that there aren't enough reasons for me to like the movie from start to finish; that it's slightly better than shaite.
But box office figures are telling me something else; that Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen is a great movie to watch.
Granted, it's no 'Gladiator' or 'Lord of the Rings Trilogy'. But damn! It's so wildly entertaining, I just can't care less about what mainstream critics are saying.
And I can't help but think that mainstream critics are just a bunch of artsy-fartsy people who are so into themselves that they're actually disconnected from real-world tastes and preferences.
To begin with, I love the cars and trucks in Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen. Bumble Bee, for instance, is especially good looking, with knife-edge side view mirrors, and shapely curves and lines, giving him even more character.
Optimus Prime is truly amazing looking and built like a Mack. And I just love his one-liner, "I rise, you fall...".
Yes, the movie's editing is really choppy and rough-and-ready, leading to some continuity issues, but, amazingly enough, it makes watching Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen similar to reading a Transformers comic book.
In their fervour to run the movie down, the artsy-fartsy mainstream critics failed to notice this, among other things.

So, mainstream critics, go eat humble pie!