Sunday, July 30, 2006

A review of THE Social Event of the year for a bunch of involuntary workaholics

Edit: The preposterous spelling - socila (instead of social), and some other things which make this post one of the most incomplete I've ever done...
It's 1 something on a Sunday morning, and I'm doing the cheat blogging method... the eyes are too tired to face the computer, so here I am, on the floor, writing this out in an old notebook. (Tomorrow as I sit and type this out, I know that I'm gonna curse myself - update Not Yet - meaning I haven't began cursing myself just yet)
Clothes maketh the man... NOT
With a theme like 'celebrity night', clothes were definately something to look forward to. Especially since most of us are decked in a light brown shirt, dark brown pants, safety boots (which used to weigh a tonne but miraculously don't anymore) and an off white baseball cap on our work days (and nights).
The clothes were alright, though.... (The ones used in the function)
Of course there was no direct imitation of any real celebrity save for a few guys who donned RnB type costumes... (think of Baby Face and you should get the idea). The ladies were mostly in dresses, and skirts and blouses/tops.... maybe the dresses could be worn on the Red Carpet? Hmmmmmmmm
There was a skinny Frodo too!
But yeah, it was a nice change checking out what everyone wore (and also what they looked like with a little extra effort!)
Food
The usual fare of an 8 (or was it 10?) course Chinese dinner, but honestly I don't think that it's that great of a choice for several reasons
a) Shark fin soup
For years I've heard the horror stories of the cruelty done to the poor sharks in order to get the fin. They catch a shark, chop off the fins and chuck the poor fella back into the ocean. (Need to verify the facts though....) So while eating this part of the meal, I was thinking of the shark carcass that gave away its fin so that I could eat... (when there are so many other things to eat out there) - Confirmed with Wikipedia, the act is known as finning
b)Most of the functions of this sort have rather similar menus (Our dept had one 8 course dinner in February/March of this year, and it has only been a few months since). It would be great tro try something new... for instance ant eggs and cactus (something a friend once had the opportunity to try)
Or perhaps pasta, or salad, turkey (it's not very popular around here, except during Christmas), Japanese food?
c) I don't know. Ha! Ha! Ha!
P/S: Don't get me wrong. I dig Chinese food. Only thing is I prefer the roadside hawker's Char Kuey Teow... it's got so much more character!
Entertainment
Our MC and her troop of fellow entertainers were... um, nice? (Loud, and too boisterous if you ask me) The song selection was not too bad either, though rather reminiscent of 70's disco.. (Not that' I've been to any disco parties in the 70's, hehehe wasn't even born then :) Anyway, yeah... the music was good. [The first dance performance was err... jaw dropping. Seriously.]
Some other people, on the other hand (not paid to entertain) did their own personal entertaining. One stood up and started singing a song. Another one went forward and sang to the singer herself... Hats off to the brave souls :)
A secret revealed
This was the highlight of the day... a top secret relationship between 2 people was made public in front of all the staff, announced by the friends of one of the persons involved in the relationship (maybe he didn't want it to be a secret anymore). However, the girl looked so pallid (and I'm sure she wished that the floor would swallow her up) The whole thing was made worse when she was asked to sing with the singer and dedicate it to the guy.
And that is the review of the social event that everyone looked forward to for the last couple of months or so.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Who would it be?

Cousin Archsh sent this to me through SMS the other day:

'If you were to kill 1 person and walk away free from the claws of law n punishment..Who would it be & why? Reply is a must.. Pass it on and see..Someone might be aiming you!'

Before I answer, I must add that my eyes caught this - claws of law. Notice how the word law nests right in the middle of claws? There's just something about it....

So, right after marvelling at claws of law (geekiness shining through!), I hit the reply button, but I couldn't find 1 person whom I'd want to finish off. Not at the moment anyway. No one deserves the top spot... It's all tied between several people, groups and associations, and other people, those who are long dead, and those whom I wanted to (ahem) kill sometime back, but don't need to anymore, because they have ceased being annoying.... In the end I didn't answer the SMS

But... nevertheless, I could have a list, couldn't I?

1. The person who came up with the idea of long winded, high tension meetings that make your fingers freeze with the chill of the air cond, and your voice tremble as you're trying to explain things out. I'm pretty sure that the original idea for a meeting was to solve problems because of the so called saying of 'two heads (or many, for that matter) are better than one'... but when the meetings are held in a manner of interrogating (for hours and hours and hours... -tired), and other members are falling asleep (or yawning like crazy) then something must be severely wrong.

2. Photo grabbing nutters on Friendster. (Yes, it is an invasion of privacy... but do they deserve to meet such a bad ending? I'm kind of undecided, but based on my mood as I'm typing this, the answer is yes.

3. Miss Annoying Blamer (a newly created pseudonym) - I wanted to 'bash her up' somewhere in mid June. But when i say 'bash someone up' it could mean things which are more serious. Problem is, i don't feel that way anymore.

4. If I could get rid of this person for my sister's sake, we'd both be happier people... can't say much, but I'm sure she knows who I'm referring to!

5. The person who invented/introduced skinny fit jeans to the general public. How dare you?

6. hoever-way ho-way ontrols-cay the rice-pay of mported-ipay ooks-bay.

7. The mixed group of other cold bloodedmurderers, rapists, snatch thieves, pheadophiles (spelling? I need to find my dictionary!)

Am I gonna get in trouble for this?

Monday, July 24, 2006

Attention seeker...






In the middle of the room amidst a family conversation suddenly a pair of glasses slid across the floor in a rather abnormal speed... This was right across the dressing table. Upon closer inspection of the pair of glasses which had now stopped moving, we saw that it had a fingerprint on it... not a smudge, but one that was quite obvious. In the moment of confusion, she decided to appear in front of us...

Let's call her the little girl that was stuck in the 80's. That's how she looked, anyway. Little girls (below the age of 7) were usually dressed in cute frilly white knee length frocks, with flower designs on them (the dress, not the girls) At least that's how I remember it.

Knowing too well that she didn't belong there, dad took her by the arm and led her out of the house. We tried to explain to her that she did not belong here and had to get home. Her own home... At the same moment, 2 motorbikes with headlights flashing, but with a rather low rumble instead of the noisy revvs, followed by a family (with a few other little girls) walked towards the little girl from our house. The father (most probably) took hold of the girl's hand and led her away with the rest of the family.

There was suddenly a bunch of cars passing our house, and the motorbikes that led the way had to stop. The little girl took the opportunity to escape from her family and ran back towards our house and disappeared. Disappointed, her family turned and moved away, only one other little girl remained behind, and she and I sort of chatted about her sister...

"yeah, she's a real attention seeker" she said

"what does she want? why doesn't she follow you all back?" I asked in return

The other kid gave a shrug and a half smile.
"I think she likes it here" she said

Oh well, that's the fourth consecutive dream about ghosts I've had. Not really frightened, but feeling a tad bit uncomfortable

Friday, July 21, 2006

The not such a big deal of a wishlist

Came up with these some time back... so it's not really impulsive, at the moment blogging. However, it's also not really edited to perfection (though i'd prefer to think that nothing is perfect) either.
1. Stripes, blood and fever
Morbid? Maybe...
The aedes mosquitos visit the house on a daily basis, and fly around as well as annoy some folks who cross their paths... some get murdered in cold blood, whereas others are allowed to fly around rather peacefully. Anyway, if you collect the blood they've cumulatively sucked out my blood vessels, I'm sure it would give Dracula a run for his money. Unfortunately, the dengue fever has avoided me thus far... It's not like I'm wishing for the hemorragic dengue, just the plain old one would suffice. A few days away fom the mundane routine would do me good.
2. Paranoia and the family
Well, almost everyone at home (unfortunately I'm also included in this statistic, therefore the correct way to put it should be: Well, everyone at home) has the biggest fears of 'something bad happened' whenever somebody is back late or is going somewhere alone (the degree of paranoia, however differs quite remarkably)
Reality check: Yeah, it's a bad world out there, but it does not mean that we (as in your children, nieces, nephews, etc) will be the victims. Have some faith!!
3. The quaggas will run again
When I was a kid and learning my ABC's Q always stood for quagga, a zebralike animal that is now extinct (somewhat tragic I know... when I first heard about their extinction, I felt a kind of pain that cannot be explained) It's kind of weird that you don't really hear about the quaggas being extinct and all, not as much as the dodo. I mean you don't really hear people saying 'dead as a quagga' (as opposed to 'dead as a dodo' ) And if we're not careful, someday E will not stand for elephants, and neither will T stand for Tigers. And so the future history teachers will say... "we had some pretty dumb ancestors who couldn't share their planet with the wild animals, and then they all died out one by one, and we end up living in a fake world with fake animals as pets and zoo exhibits"
Check this: science Africa: quagga
Err... that's it for the moment. Should it be longer? Something to think about... :)

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Days like these...

Sometimes, you wish you could just disappear into a corner and not do anything until a brand new day arrives.
If you want to start on a story, you might as well begin at the beginning, but here the problem lies... where on earth is the beginning? Is it the day they built roads, or the days I encountered the potholes, or was it the day mankind decided they need to work for a living?
Hard to say... but beginning the story from yesterday should be sufficient. Besides, the yesterday I plan to talk about was only about 4 hours away from what we would all be calling today. I suppose I could say that it began yesterday, circa 8 pm, when the car I was driving to get back home started wobbling uncontrollably (you want to keep your wheel straight, but the fella decides to swerve to the left) Combine that with the driver with a rather wild imagination who at that particular time (or just before) was lamenting about the rather tasteless music that was playing on the one and only radio station she listens to and you get a very, very frightened person behind the wheels of a car that could think on it's own (though not sensibly)
Now we enter the day I plan to complain about....
Car is confimed by dad to be wobbly - needs to get sent to the mechanic, but I end up going to work anyway... Dad thinks that the car may be repaired within 1/2 day and the plan is he'll send the car to work during lunch break, and I'll give him a ride back... fair enough. As I drive the car begins wobbling rather dramatically - even worse than the night before. So back to the shop it goes... there we find out that the problem may be something more sinister... kind of, anyway.
Ended up going back to work much later after the official lunch break... and there are other types of problems awaiting...
A bloody product refuses to behave itself. The tyrant is unhelpable, and I felt so bloody helpless... lost and annoyed. And in the process of being a tyrant, the said product also decides to attack my shoes... and it was all soggy and yukky with material that will never be removed by water, my one side of the shoe will forever be shiny, whereas the other side will remain dull black....
Some things were solved, like I finally managed to tame the bad behaving product... (that's why I got revenged) and the car finally moves gracefully once again.... but the shoe, and 1 pant leg will always remind me of this day

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Neglected engineers?

A new self professed tv addict makes a discovery while watching Judging Amy on a warm Saturday afternoon. The tv addict finds the show to be a source of entertainment. "It's awesome watching a youngish lady judge in action" (She means to say, action in court, although there's really not much action going on... but her handling of obnoxious lawyers is to be commended - though it's all in the script)
Anyway, the self professed tv addict (everyone's a self professed this or that these days - (rolls eyes)) begin to let her mind wander during the commercial break (if the advertisers thought that people actually watch commercials, they've not fully considered the effects of the remote control in the viewers hands... commercials? you gotta be kidding!)[The tv addict however, claims to be rather interested in 'wholesome' commercials such as those produced by local ex-government but now privatised utility and oil companies for festivals and thinks that some commercials are ok to watch]
The wandering of the tv addict's mind didn't go too far... it remained within tv shows that she's either following, has followed at some time or another, or just heard off in her non tv addict days. She noticed that besides this ultra cool show a bout a coll judge, there are shows about lawyers (The Practice, Law and Order). doctors (ER, House, grey's anatomy), cops and detectives (CSI, NYPD Blue, X-files?), teachers (Boston Public), kick ass female CIA agent (Alias), housewives (Desperate Housewives), a criminal, doctor, rocker, painter/carpenter/artist, useless git, box company guy, ex soldier (Lost).... something's missing, though.... hey where are the ENGINEERS?
The tv addict is quite sure that her fellow engineer friends (tv addicts or otherwise, as well as ex engineers or non practicing but those who killed thousands of braincells during the years of getting educated type of engineers) will agree with her that engineers have been left out from the celluloid world... their existence on tv is merely as the tech guy behind some other expertise or in non entertainment shows such as documentaries in Discovery Channel or NGC...

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Bali - The finale

Now we have come to the end of the Bali adventure (I choose the word adventure, although it may not be altogether appropriate... none of us were huddled in an emergency camp for surviving bomb victims, and neither were we stranded anywhere without knowing the language, or forced to jump off a ship to save ourselves from a sinking ship...)
Digression!
A fine day for travel was how the last day was. It also involved a lot of picture taking... including that of the place we lived in... imagine checking out the pool in the hotel on the last day (after packing, and before checking out)
We had another nice long drive to the hills... to visit yet another temple (this one was on a lake) and it had a mosque and a Buddhist shrine around the area... the place was supposedly cooler than the rest of the island.
Next was a visit to the tanah lot temple located near the sea... part of the temple gets submeged under water during high tide, and the waves that hit the shore were indeed threateningly scary (so says the hydrophobic ;)) [most people go there to check out the sunset, which we didn't have the chance to do considering our remarkably short time span there], nevertheless, the pictures from the area are can be made into pretty cool postcard pieces. The surrounding area had tonnes of tourist type shops... and we did some shopping here as well, though the prices here were comparatively much cheaper than that at Ubud...
Lunch: bakso (something like chicken ball soup... i think) and drinks were chosen based on the adventurer's individual tastes.
Another long ride later (towards the town centre... and very, very near the airport) we were dropped off at a spa for some relaxation... (I, sadly, never got the hang of being totally relaxed and was tensed up for reasons I cannot completely fathom) and later on to get to the airport for our journey back... it was sad in a way, knowing that the thing that kept you going, the thing that allowed you to take everything bad that life threw at you with a smile had finally come to an end.
Well, just to complete the story, I shall add that we got on the plane (which was abt 1/2 hour late), flew through some turbulence (cool!), and landed safely and happily in Malaysia.
The other scattered posts!

Bali day 1(part 1)
Bali day 1(part 2)
Bali day 2(part 1)
Bali day 2(part 2)
Bali day 2(part 3)
Bali day 3(part 1)
Bali day 3(part 2)
I guess i have actually finally concluded the trip... in a rather lengthy, many post system... Gotta go do somehing else which i've put on hold for about 6 months now

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

A letter to the band that I like

Dear band that I like,

Last month, someone told me that you'll be having a concert, right here in this country. I was elated.

It took me awhile to realise that besides the news from my friend who ended the discussion with 'see you there!', there was no news about your impending arrival and concert. No ticket giveaways on the local radio station, nor any news at all. (Of course in all this time, I did not try your official website - if you have one)

Anyway, some internet time led me to a discovery... You, the band that I like were having a concert in our neighbouring country. A tiny dot of land, with high rise buildings. No harm in that, but it only means one thing: you will not be performing here.

Of course there's no harm performing there, the people there have a superb deragatory term for people of your descent. And they are obssessively clean in their own country, but once across the border, they start throwing hazardous materials out of their car windows. There's one here too, but not too much of a bad thing though... one of our ancient freedom fighters went around with the same name too.

I'm truly saddened by the fact that you will not be visiting our waters... the long gone days of DMSK who managed to bring in some cool performers are ahem well.. long gone. Maybe that's why nobody called you to perform here... they couldn't care enough to entertain the young people here with a cool band that makes good music.

Well, maybe someday I'll see you perform. Till then, rock on, baby!

Sincerely,
Your fan

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Depiction of Gore

Someone I know had both legs broken yesterday, in what most people would call a freak accident. One leg was bleeding while the other wasn't. Both legs had to undergo surgery last night itself. Most probably they were shattered by the impact the monster (reach) truck had on them. I didn't see the incident, nor the victim, lying limply on the floor in agonising pain. Neither did I see the person who caused it, holding onto a fence nearby, looking in horror, stunned at what had happened.
But the picture of the incident keeps playing in my mind...in never ending cycles, even as I'm typing this. It was playing all through the night. My attempt to forget it by watching a movie did not help either. (The only movie that was on was a bunch of young people versus a stalker killer kind... of course it didn't help)
It's such a horrible thing to have playing in the mind. I wonder how the people who actually saw the incident are feeling...

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

An unsuccessful (and lame) attempt at matchmaking

There was a time quite a long time ago where I read this book that had this character who was about to get wet in the rain when her parasol (now commonly known as an umbrella) opened the other way and she was rescued by a dashing young man who held his umbrella for her so that
she wouldn't get wet. How romantic!


(you should be able to guess by now that they fell in love after that)

Now, that's the kind of incident I refer to as the 'thunder lightning' effect... the 'thing' that tells you
it's a sign! This following (very true) story however, involves a character who used to scoff at me
for bringing up this thunder lighting theory. Just so you all know, back then I used to tease her
with this 1 person (because I had nothing better to do, and enjoyed her reaction towards the issue)

Anyway, several years back on a somewhat blustery evening, some of us were forced to go for a 3 hour class... the subject had not much hope, and there was a test the next day, therefore, we did what most normal people did... leave the class during the 10 minute break with the intention to go back and study...

As I said, it was blustery, and there was a need for the use of umbrellas. Mine worked fine, but
hers opened the wrong way, thanks to the strong gusts of wind blowing. As she turned I saw a rather strange expression cross her face, and turned to look at what she was looking. It was the guy whom I teased her with! Now, tell me... isn't that a sign?

Unfortunately, he did not have an umbrella with him, and asked us to join him for tea instead. Throughout the tea (which was actually syrup, as that is all the canteen lady had at that time), I was staring at the rain pouring in buckets, grinning to myself like an idiot at this sudden turn of events... (what are the odds of having evening classes at the same time in the more senior years and then it rains, and the umbrella (hers) stops functioning)

Oh yeah, they both thought I had lost it... Well, to be honest, both she and I knew it. I somewhat think he guessed something was up, but couldn't exactly put his finger on it.

IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Time for the Annual Appraisal again.  It's a cloudy Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished giving scores to my subordinates on their ...