Sat, 28 Sep: Worked 1/2 day (morning shift). After work, I went to pick grandpa up (as usual...) and took a slight detour to Garden Inn to purchase bus tickets to KL for the coming Friday, Oct 4, evening. In the afternoon, went over to Ling²'s house to hang out with her. Her sis-in-law cum friend, Amy, was at home too... and so was Amy's newborn. He sure is one restless little tyke - he never seems to stop kicking and punching the air unless he is napping. Evening, Pam called to ask me if I wanted to go out clubbing with her and a few others.... but sadly I had to take a raincheck. My throat had started to feel rather scratchy since late afternoon.

Sun, 29 Sep: Argh! woke up with hardly any voice. It's official! I'm ill. Anyhow... after a bath - I took mum & gramps for lunch. After dropping gramps home, mum & I went to town to do an errand for my dad, do our banking (bless those many different transaction machines), & then a little bit of shopping around... Bumped into Mun Wye while at One Stop. Ended up having dinner with mum and "ta-pau" dinner for gramps. Didn't go to the clinic today 'coz I was trying to sit this out & see if the infection will subside.

Today: Yipes! Throat is not getting any better & I feel quite terrible. Dropped gramps at work - went home first (coz it was too damn early... clinics have yet to open) - sat a while - waited for mum since she wanted to come along so she could drop by the bank... the clinic is in the banking vicinity.

At the clinic, the doctor confirmed that I have a pretty nasty throat infection. I asked him if I should take MC for the day since I was afraid that I might infect my 7.5-months pregnant boss... and he decided to give me an MC...

Later, mum & I went for some breakfast... the workshop lady calls to tell me that the spare part for my car door has arrived (finally!!)... So, after breakfast, dropped by the workshop... my driver-side door is now cured!!

Finally at home again, I took my medication... and played Disc1 of the Power Puff Girls movie VCD but didn't finish watching it coz I kept dozing off. The medicine sure is some powerful stuff. Was knocked out for 4 hours. Had my lunch at 4pm.

Bummed around before going to take gramps back from his office... and came home to a 2nd dose of the knockout cure... As I'm finishing typing this on notepad... I feel... drowsiness.... hit..... me....... once...... a g  a   i    n

Twas just another day... another day at work... but wait a second!! It feels like... it smells like... it breathes like... it's... it's... IT'S FRIDAY!!! Yes, indeed-dee-doo-dah!

Being the 'genius' that I am, I've conveniently left a part of my brain at home today. It's the part called Shot Short Term Memory. Yup! I've done it again. I've left something important at home... yup...

Now the genius factor comes in - I now have a valid excuse to go out of office... especially since the items I forgot to bring are several copies of required pre-meeting reading material for a meeting on this coming Mon - and my colleagues definitely need them this weekend. Woo-hoo!

As such, they say the rest is history - thus yours truly ended up being out of office for a total of approximately 3 hours... that's total time spent travelling around, getting the books... and of course the icing on the cake was - I also get to go hang out with a few friends for lunch at Kayu.

Oh... and I finally had my Kopi Ais there too... so now I'm truly awake and caffeinated!! yip-pe-dee-doo-dah-HEY!

Traffic Report: Accidents never fail to hold up traffic. It happened again today - this time, along the first half of my route nearby the Island Glades intersection.

Car quirkiness status: My left side-mirror has somehow loosened out of its hold this morning *raises-an-eyebrow* It is currently being held in place with masking tape. It does a little jig when the car is moving... I just hope it doesn't just fall off while I'm on the road and just *plop!*

The icky: On the way to my office car park, I wondered what was holding up traffic at the last major junction before I reached my destination... Sad to say, what I have observed -- I definitely didn't want to stare at long enough to know the extend of brutality that had happened. All I saw was a Factory Bus; a motorcycle pinned under the middle section of the bus; and a bloke sitting in the bus was leaning against one of the bus windows -looking dumbfounded as he stared at the passing traffic. I definitely did not wanna stay to look out for any signs of blood on the road. Hopefully the motorcyclist had jumped off in time and got away with minimal injuries.

The good: Malcolm played host to Peky & I for lunch today. He picked us up from our respective offices to his house (oh yeah! He also sent us back to work). Lunch was well... chicken rice (which he bought along the way), some soup (which he cooked), & dessert was a spoonful of Nutella. After lunch, we hung around the house & he let us tinker with his latest toy - the X-Box... it has pretty good graffic rendering I should say...

Ah well, Peky & I would have loved to hang around and laze the afternoon away - but we had to go back to work. *sigh*... ah well...

Party! Ladies Night @ Shamrock: Picked up Jocelyn & we arrived exactly @ 9pm. Needless to say, the rest are as usual - LaTe. While waiting, both Joce & I called up Ying Lai who's in KL... we just wanted to bug her a little. Jamie arrived some 15 minutes later (her office is pretty nearby the pub actually)

Nearly 30 mins later, Fiona arrived with some friends & colleagues (they continued trickling in throughout the night); Chin arrived a little later; Su Jin even later (coz she waited for Erh-Pin & his brother who wanted to come along at the last minute); and lastly - Boon Hui & Rosalind. With the last arrivals, the group had somewhat grown rather huge that we filled up most of the top floor's seating.

The gals had free flow of cocktails from the bar... the guys had to order their own beer. Bless the people who had to hear us bergila-gila-ing and screeching out in glee each time someone made a toast. Some of us wanted to leave earlier around 11pm but we were all trapped inside since it had been pouring outside since 10.

Chin left the earliest at 12, soon after the rain subsided. The rest of us left Shamrock around 12:45... and then there was Joce, Jamie, moi, Suj, ErhPs & EhrPs' bro - who regathered at the mamak shop for some makan (and a little sobering up). Yeah... we also had a waiter who is definitely GAY (oh yeah... he flirted with the 2 guys & thought that ErhPs was Japanese... in which case - ErhPs started speaking a smattering of Japanese just to play along... *lol*)

Finally watched Signs last evening @ MegaPav, Prangin Mall - with Jase. Spilled some popcorn when Houdini the dog barked suddenly (when he started turning hostile). Crap. Last time I got a shock from the audio of a movie was while watching MIB - the part when the alien gets slammed into the glass panels... XP

Now... I feel like I'm shouldering some mega-weights on my shoulders. Gawd! My muscles do feel awfully stressed... ouch....

Additions at 3:53pm: I feel somewhat better now... la-la-di-da-dee-dum-dee-dum-dum... ooh... the big boss (a VP no-less) just came by and gave each of us a bar of Tim-Tam chocolate!! woo-hoo!! She's just full of surprises.

My oh my! Yesterday was full of physical activity (of the decent kind! what were u thinking?!) - In the afternoon, I was summoned to help out with the re-arranging of some furniture in mine & my parents room. Don't ask me why... I only know that it has something to do with the result of my dad's feng shui consultation.

Later in the evening, the exercise involved was more my kinda thing... swimming!! I finally managed to do 10 laps in an Olympic sized pool... hmm... me thinks it's time to establish a new target # of laps to hit.

Didn't sleep much last night tho' - could be because I wasn't used to the new sleeping location. I'm feeling quite awake now tho' coz perhaps I've managed to get loads of sleep over the weekend. Erm... the other thing is... I have some fresh-squeezed celery juice to drink today coz' me dad packed it into a 500 ml bottle for me... ish-ish... not the greatest tasting stuff but it's healthy stuff.

Took on a call to do 2 hrs of freelancing y'day evening in an office in Gurney Tower. Didn't have transport but as luck would have it, my friends and I had originally planned to go to Gurney to have a stroll before going to watch Bourne Identity at Island Plaza... with Vijaya being our driver this time round.

Nothing to complain about the freelance thing - the work was easy & there were a few guys worth looking at in there... engineers working over the weekend to complete a project. Pretty decent bunch of people - someone was playing mp3s - and there was the occasional sing-a-long to certain song choruses 'on air'

After earning my keep (enough for a movie, dinner, and a bit to keep) - I met up with Vij & Sze Lin once again. But first things first, we dropped Sze Lin home coz she she'd seen the movie already.

The movie was OK... tho' there were quite some cliches. Didn't enjoy it much cause I felt super-uncomfortable in my seat to the point of being nauseous. It was not very ergonomically designed. I now remember why I have reserves about going to the theatres in Island. After the movie, Vij was trying to analyze the irregularities in the movie plot when we were stuck in the infamous Gurney Drive traffic jam.

We headed to Cravan for dinner. As we were looking for a parking space, we're lucky to find quite a few empty spots... but when we saw someone leaving a spot nearer our makan-spot -- we waited for it to get out. Next thing I know, we are parked right in front of Daws' car. "Oi-vey! That fella is around here someplace!"... and so I made a call to find out where he was (the place was called Fusion & sounded very familiar to both Vij & I) - we tried looking for it but we didn't see it.

After Vij & I finished our dinner, we decided to walk around the area again... and suddenly there it was!! How could we have missed it the first time round? It's just right next to Cindy's mum's restaurant too! Gave him a call again as Vij & I were strolling along that little street... only when I saw him peeking out of the restaurant did I put down the call... we ended up chatting outside Fusion for quite a while before he went back in to rejoin his god-bro & pals... After which, Vij & I made our way home. Carpe Diem!

p/s: Interesting fact... Vij drives a Mini. Matt Damon drives a Mini in the car chase. Boy! Were we inspired to mengganas in Vij's Mini and barge thru the darn traffic!! *grins*

I had the most eventful drive last evening.

1. Saw 2 cyclist, both wearing helmets, darting around on one lane of a fast-paced road doing lawak bodoh... would have been perfectly excusable if not for the fact that they are dressed quite formally & they definitely don't look like some juvenile delinquents. They didn't stop being stupid until one old car honked at them.

2. I had to squeeze my way through a very narrow path. Stupid lorry double parked on one side on the road while on the other side there was this hawker cart parked... the lorry passenger came down and actually waved me to continue my journey. Geesh!! I had roughly only 1-2 inches left on each side of the car... damn takut to have scratched my car... I bet the BMW behind me was even more freaked out.

3. In traffic moving at snails-pace... I was following behind this bus kilang... then I heard weird, loud creaking noises! It sounded pretty creepy... ewwWww... then it happened! The bus put on emergency signals - it has broken down. Luckily I had put some distance between my car and the bus... if not I can just imagine that I would be stuck behind the bus for a long time... no one wanted to give way as usual (it did take me a while to barge my way into the other lane)...

Just noticed that I have the tendency to make calls from my mobile when I'm leaving the office to go to town to pick my grandpa up. Yesterday was a record-breaking feat for me. 3 calls. 1^st one was short; 2^nd was to Jase (about 10+ mins); and the 3^rd was to Pinky (about 15 mins).

Jase had plenty to say about his very productive shopping trip in KL... yes! He is a shopaholic and very proud of it. The call to Pinky started out on a more serious-note it soon became super-nonsense when Christopher (the one & only Mr.KDU Pg 2002) walked into the room where she was hanging out. She even passed her phone to him...

...and what did we talk about? Nonsense... pure crap & crazy talk about Pinky-supermodel-natural-catwalker-Kamino-Miss-Popular... though I did tease him for being Mr. KDU & that Pinky was doing a great job juggling "being popular, layan-ing her fans & being his Press Secretary/Personal Assistant"

Later last night, I took Pinky out for supper at Chulia Street since she's never been there before. Hung out there for quite some time. Even called Chris just to kacau him and say that "the food smells great & taste wonderful"... coz he was too busy to join us... hehe!

Also called Daniel, who's has been posted for work in Malacca for 4-5 mths, so we could "tanya khabar"... it's only his 3rd day there... though he said he'll be back every weekend... hmm... (poor chap is just adjusting now... though many of us are giving him calls like every other day to make sure he doesn't feel too lonely)

This morning... I was just plain bored outta my wits... ended up surfing the net... collected a few images... tweaked & compiled them into a teaser poster to sorta motivate Daws to work towards his intention to hold an exhibition on collector dolls... damn bored... but felt damn good to have designed a poster once again... after a 1 year hiatus of doing such stuff. *beams*

Had dinner with some schoolmates last night at Swiss Garden, Gurney Drive. The food there was *bleah*. Not recommended!! Hmm... let's see... who was there? Fiona, Chin2, Su Jin, Jamie, Jocelyn, Christine, Guat May! Yup... that's about it! :) Anyway... after makan & some chit-chat, we went over to Screwball for some pool, foosball, some drinks (I didn't drink) & more chit-chat.

Now, I'm still posting web-updates. Argh! OK! Major deadline to catch. Later people!

Morning log: sleepy... ZzzzZzz... *mumble,mutter,mutter* anNnnnd.... c-ch-c-cO-coLdddd.... *brRrrrr* *yawn-stretch-stretch* *plop!* zZzzzZzzzz

Morning Quiz (after I finally woke up):

The Tough Power Puff Take the Cartoon Hero Quiz?

After lunch: ^{*munch,munch*} yummy ciku!! ^{*grins like the cheshire cat*} _*ptui-ptui* (spitting seeds onto a tissue)

Saturday (14 Sep): Went to work in the morning. After lunch, dropped my grandpa off at the barber's before I went to collect my dad's bus ticket from the express bus' office at Kampungku. Ok fine... Next stop. Took my car to the workshop to get them mechanics to fix my central locking system... they had somehow disabled it... probably while they were fixing & testing my rear-lights. Told them to help me look into my jammed driver door too. Luckily I was smart enough to take a book with me... it sure was a long wait.

While still waiting in the workshop - my dad calls again... wants me to go all the way back to Kampungku to ask the girl in the shop to sell off the ticket!! WTF?!! I didn't have time to go back there... I mean WTF?!! He forgot that I have a mighty tight schedule today... and he did remind me to straighten up the house before my mum arrives home with him. At that time, I haven't even started my house-cleaning!!! By the time the car was ready, I had a total of roughly less than 2 hours for a major house-cleaning, eat my dinner, bathe, dress to go out, & pick up Deborah to go for 'The Continentals' concert at Trinity Methodist Church.

Before the concert started - gave Mun Wye a call to wish him "Happy Birthday!", tease him a little & talk crap. After the 2 hour concert, I went to pass the car to my parents who've just arrived from KL at Kampungku... after arranging for Daniel to meet me at Kampungku & the rest (Malcolm, Peky & Peky's 2 colleagues) to go up ahead to Coffee Bean @ BJC - before I left TMC. Yeah! We hung out there til about 12... nice :)

Sunday (15 Sep): Being a homebody in the morning is the name of the game... lunch outside... afternoon had heavy showers... did grocery shopping with mum & dad... evening - dropped off m'dad at Kampungku for his bus ride back to KL... watched a little TV... had dinner... went to find Pinky for a while... went to Prangin Mall Mega Pavilion to catch the 9:45 show of Lilo & Stitch on my own... 2 of my friends who earlier said OK had some last minute family stuff to attend to.

No Regrets! The Disney toon was worth watching in the Cinema!! Will wait for the DVD to come out... hehe... Stitch is cute (and fluffy!)

Major panic yesterday when I realised I may not have transport home -- in time to go for Irene's wedding dinner. In the end, worked it out & Kok Keong gave me a ride home... b4 he went to Shane's to freshen up. It was kinda freaky tho'... KK's brakes were not exactly in fine working condition. 1 hr later, Shane with KK in his car, came to pick me up & off we go!

At our destination, we waited for familiar faces - our other collegemates to arrive. Ended up feeding some mosquitoes too! Woo-hoo!!

The whole dinner thing was quite interesting... let's see... the emcee told Irene + hubby this when they were on stage... "When I say start - u start to kiss... BUT you do not stop until I say stop." Hehehe... but of course they cheated a little. Irene moved around to show her back to the camera for quite some time (oh yeah... there was a camera that was broadcasting the stage ongoings to a big screen!!)

Today: I will go get my car back today!!! yay!! carless no more shall I be!! ...erm, btw... forgot to bring my h/p out with me today... so... hopefully... not too many people call... or else... hell hath fury! Into the frying pan I'll be thrown into.

Evening news: Car is back... went to the tyre shop to check out my car's tyre alignment & condition. My 2 back tyres had to be changed - they are not fit 4 use anymore... not to mention - they both have huge nails in it. Wonder where they came from... *ponders*. My driver door suddenly couldn't be opened (at all!). I knew my door latch had problems... but it only gave way today. Dang. Gotta climb into the driver seat from the passenger-side.

Did I mention that I met up with the Kalamari? nO?! OK.... so I did meet up with him @ the Green Lane McD (he says the place now feels like the outlet in Bangsar). Ooh... kewl... an upmarket McD in the neighbourhood. Ah heck... not much of a novelty anyways *rolls-eyes*. Am too used to it already.

The whole of yesterday was cold. Would have frozen if not for the blanket. Today it's slightly warmer... Today - we remember a tragedy 1 year ago... exactly a year in circa 10 hours time [Malaysian Time]. Heard this comment on Hitz.FM on the way to work with Peky & her sis - it basically went along the lines of

"..let your family, friends & other special people in your life know you care for them before its too late..."

So just on the record my dear family & friends (yes! online friends & fellow bloggers included) -- I'd like to let you know that I love you people no matter how infuriating some of you may be at times (vice-versa?)... I do cherish the time spent with each & everyone of you... hanging out together, chatting on the phone/online... or even just reading your blogs (even if I haven't met you b4... yo! the www makes the world much smaller... *whoops* sidetracking).

This quote I dedicate to you... that's how much you mean to me. =)

'Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.' - Anais Nin.

Just added a stat counter for my blog; and

modified the comment box settings

Hmm... stat counter seems to be healthy... but then again, that's mostly because I'm refreshing the page as I make changes ;)

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Aargh! No car!! Still no car!! ...it's still sitting in the workshop and won't be back until maybe 2 days later... I desperately need to go get a wedding card by Thursday afternoon!!! Irene's wedding dinner is on this Thursday & I still have no card... no present nevermind - I can always give her an 'ang pau'... but no card?!!!

arLo. Nice weather for sleep today. Could make up for lost sleep if I didn't have to work. Dang. Nvm. Nobody asked me to be so engrossed in trying to tweak a Javasript that I'm trying to incorporate into the homepage design I'm working on. Slept at 3am-ish and woke slightly b4 7am today. Still gRogGy... but I'll live!! muahahaha! It's near the end of my work-day.

Btw, whoever that's going to watch "The Sweetest Thing" - please wear your seat belts and watch out for the hilarious MTV-ish scene where the gals sing a provocative parody about the sexual adulation of a male anatomy. *wink*

Over the past few days, I've done what I haven't done in a long time - watching VCDs. So far I've managed to watch...

Scooby Doo - the movie: Noteworthy graffic effects but somehow doesn't have the original charm of the cartoon series
• Kate & Leopold: This Meg Ryan flick co-starring Hugh Jackman (Wolverine in X-Men) is definitely one of the better romantic comedies. Lovely.
• The Road to El Dorado: 2nd time watching this. Still do find it quite amusing.
• The Sweetest Thing: This is definitely the funniest Cameron Diaz flicks to date. Watching it on VCD, I realized why the Censorship Board has succesfully delayed its Malaysian cinematic debut at least thrice! (..am thinking that they'd end up banning it from the cinemas) Crude jokes aside - this black/romantic comedy is something I'd watch again for laughs.

Oh btw! I was at Chin²'s (schoolmate/collegemate) birthday barbeque last night. It was wonderful although the rain did visit us once or twice throughout the night. She invited her MMU, college, & school friends over. It was nice to see so many old friends in one place. SwEeEeeeet! :)

4 Sep (Wed): Was stuck in a massive traffic jam on way to work - inching so slowly that we (Peky, Peky's sis & moi) felt like turning home & back to dreamland. Lunch time - I finally! had the chance to eat nasi kandar... *grins-widely* This was also the first time in a long while since we had a big lunch group... Daniel, Dominic, Malcolm, Julian, Chin Chin, Peky, & Angela (who's my boss & also Daniel's friend) was there.

After lunch, Angela gave me a ride to the traffic police headquarters & kept me company while I collected my copy of report & waited 1 hour for my turn to make a report ammendmend. When my turn came - the cop scolded and laughed at me for wanting to report a fact I left out in my earlier report. He said it wasn't necessary for me to state that a 3rd car was in the accident. He would have added more salt to injury if his colleague hadn't mentioned that it's no harm for me to make the correction! *fumes*

These people really give irony to their motto "Mesra Cepat Betul". Do they actually think that I enjoy waiting an hour to do my public duty? This was more a move driven by "Prevention better than Cure" - it would be bad if the insurance companies asked why my police report differs from the reports of the other 2 car drivers'.

TODAY: A Lil' Action Got Me Running. Colleague-A walked passed me & out of the office. Realising that she forgot that I was hitching a ride home with her... I-quickly-shutdown-the-computer-grabbed-my-stuff-headed-4-the-exit-n-paused-a-few-secs-coz-colleague-B-declared-in-shock-that-her-recent-call-was-information-that-her-indonesian-maid-had-ran-away-blinked-dashed-out-and-shouted-4-colleague-A-while-waving-wildly-hoping-she'll-notice-my-frantic-waving.

Luckily she was just about to get out of her parking lot when I caught up with her. She was laughing as I got into her car - to quote her "This is so embarrasing! I thought you were waving bye-bye". Man... I think my life is taking pretty interesting quirks off late.

Peky came by at 7:30am. Whoops! Wasn't quite ready when she arrived at my house coz she told me she'd be here about 7.45 - 7.50am. Anyhow... the rain started to pour... arrived at the Agilent guard house at about 8:10am... ran to my office entrance and got half-drenched. The secretary left me a little bit of breakfast, told me where the small towels are & also advised me to get a hot cuppa coffee. I was quite a sight. Wet hair, half-wet skirt & blouse. (cheers!)

The late addition: Felt rather dumb + amused. Common sense must have totally eluded me - should have called the secretary to come by the guardhouse with a spare umbrella. There're always 1 or 2 in the office. *DoHhhHhhhh!* (This certainly qualifies for a stupid-things-I-did story)

Meanwhile, lunched at KFC today... mmm... finger licking good! Was with Daniel, Kenneth & Malcolm. Later in the evening, I tumpang-ed Mook who also did me a great favor by helping me pick my mum up after work to go sign forms for the insurance claims at the workshop & later dropping us back home.

Merdeka Day, 31 Aug (Sat): Slept in til near-noon. Dad arrived by bus 2pm-ish, Garden Inn - came home with a car borrowed from one of his best buds. Yay! We have a car for the weekend! Took dad to buy network card - needed to network my PC & his notebook.

Had dinner with Jamie, Deb, & Ai Ping at a Vietnamese restaurant, Bingo, along Kelawei Rd . The food's good - we had our desserts and our main meal together. Mistake was courtesy of a statement by Jamie to the waitress. :)

After dinner, Jamie dropped Deb & Ping @ Deb's, while I decided to follow Jamie to meet Jocelyn & Su Jin @ Slippery Senorita's. It's great meeting up with these gals - especially since I haven't seen some of them in ages! Crowd at SS was rather deadbeat though... The only ppl having fun (...and not just staring at other ppl) were the ones who were on the dance floor.

Note: Had a great laugh when the band played the Sudirman song that goes "Tanggal 31 - bulan lapan, 57, merdeka, merdeka...", b4 the DJ jazzed up the atmosphere. They actually marched on their spots on stage while one guy held up the flag. Oh yeah! Went for mamak before we all went home.

1 Sep (Sun): Tried to interface the PC & notebook. Somehow can't work. Could be the urban-legendary problem of Win98 & Win2000 heing unable to understand one another. Dad decided to get external CD writer and dragged me along to the shop (just in case he buys the wrong thing - paranoid!). Spent afternoon helping dad to organize his computer files. Nasty task. Had to finish as much as I could before he goes off for his 6pm bus ride back to KL.

Today: Had bullied Jase to chauffeur me around for some errands before the 12.45pm xXx show in Prangin Mall. Good friend & such a good sport. However, we observed some really annoying bureaucratic stuff at the police station. Went there to make a very important ammendment to my report but was told to go get a copy of the report first. Next thing I know, I was told to come collect the report in 2 days time. What?! So what is the online system for then? Darn! Mission unaccomplished.

xXx is a pretty good show - slightly off the norm action movie... with some stereotypes remaining. Later, Super-chauffeur took me to KDU coz I wanted to see Pinky (and also coz I get to finally introduce Jase to her). These 2 ppl are of the same clique... your average very-friendly-next-door-chatterboxes.

Dinner-movie at home - continued watching Finding Forrester from chp. 5 until chp.10... must finish watching it another day. Waited a while for Shakila to come pick me up for her farewell coffee outing. Went to get Pinky from the hostel before meeting up with Chris & Ethan @ CB&TL along Gurney Plaza. Jen bummed into us a little later and ended up sitting with us for a while. Noticed that Jen's PK (the Penguin) has grown somewhat wider.