Those of you who uses a water filter at home, please raise your hands. Or if you don't use one but your brand new white shirt turns yellow after a couple of washes and you suspect the water is not as clean as it should be. How has the water quality been for the past 5 years? Any improvement which takes away the need for the installation of a water filter?

How about the street lighting outside your house? Is it adequate? Bright enough to deter would-be snatch thieves? I have seen many street lights which are nothing but dim lights which serve little function. Funnily, they seem to cost quite a dent in the expenditure budget of our local government. Who approves them anyway?

Do you have an acceptable public transportation system around the area you live? Or are they a mere fiction? Of course, you can't expect a public bus to be plying a route just outside your house but does it take you more than 2 kilometres to walk to the nearest bus stand? And having walked 2 kilometres, how long do you wait for the bus to arrive?

Now that the bus arrived, do you see a trail of smoke belted out by the exhaust pipe as the bus coughs and puffs away? And did you notice the bald feature of the bus tyres or were you more distracted by the bumper or side panel having been bruised by an accident sometime ago? I wonder what did the Transport Ministry do about these buses.

Oh, let's not talk about the taxis whom many passengers hail down with a 50/50 chance of being given a chance to take a ride. You only get to take a ride to your destination provided the taxi driver feels like driving to that part of the town. And having taken the ride, do ensure you have not been taken for a ride and having to pay like you have just sat on a stretch limousine when all you did was just cramping yourself in a Proton Iswara and going around the town in a big circle. I thought there were promises to crackdown on errant cabbies?

Was it a smooth ride? Or did you just felt that you have gone on a nature's trail with all those potholes and bumpy roads? I understand we have some of the best highways and road system in the world or Asia but it seems rather bumpy for me when I reach the housing estate where I live. Perhaps it is due to the fact that only certain designated areas like the U-Thant, Duta, Damansara and Bangsar enclave are destined for smooth as silk roads whilst less glamourous areas like Balakong, Cheras, Serdang and Ijok only get a coat of tar come election time.

Meanwhile, excuse me while I go replace the water filter cartridge since it is as brown as the cup of teh ais I had this morning. I thought I just replaced it last month...how time flies.