Mon, 27 Jan: Went out with Jase (gave him a mini pack of assorted cookies)... dragged him with me to look for 2 shirts for grandpa. Then it was time for "Two Weeks Notice". It's a true blue, no-brainer, romantic comedy... Light entertainment with predictable twists and turns - Just gotta love Sandra Bullock. :)

Tue, 28 Jan: I knew I bought wrong-sized shirts for my grandpa when I measured one of the newly bought shirts with one of his current shirts... So, I went off from work slightly earlier today, detoured to collect dad's cheque, and then I when back to Prangin Mall's Parkson Grand to get those shirts changed into the correct size.

I am getting irritated by both mum and dad. They are giving away the cookies I've made like they grow on trees... I think there won't be enough left to standby for serving during CNY. Dammit!! Looks like I'll have to get some extra ingredients and toil, toil, toil again... Man... and they were the people who complaint about the amount of ingredients that I bought... Especially mum... I'm sure she's gonna give to her sisters too... and we definitely don't have that much to go around... AaaArrRrrgHhh!! I most absolutely certainly need to make more... moRe... MORE!!!

p/s: I packed 4 small boxes of assorted cookies - One each for Daws, Chrissy-boy, Ewen, and Rain - before going to bed. Had to put Cheese Cookies in cling-wrap less it stinks up and overpowers the scrumptious smell of the others... *bluergh* XP - After this... I'm not sure if I can pack anymore for anyone else... *sigh*

Wed, 29 Jan: Before I rant on... I'd like to present a CNY greeting to those who celebrate it... Erm... Ideally I should change "We wish you..." to "Wishing you..." but I don't have the liberty to tinker with this... so... erm... Just imagine it says "Wishing you..." - This is actually a seasonal banner that took me one whole working-day to produce, to be put on the APHR Intranet Web Site.

On with the ranting!! A certain Indian-expat boss is always insensitive to other people's workload. He was trying to get me to convert about 1hr worth of video from the viewcam into VCD format - preferably by Friday... no way, dude! I have a lot of work to do and I have no time to spare for a horrendous duration required to render the video, which will in consequence leave me incapacitated to clear other work because there's no other computer to use.... Even our supplier fella said he needs 4-days at best to convert a 1hr video.

Weekend achievement: Cheese Cookies & Orange Shortcake... those yummy melt in your mouth kind of cookies... hehehe... The cheese cookies taste good - especially with coffee or milo or tea... but gee-wHiZ!! The Cheddar cheese, fresh from the pack, has an awfully strong smell... Guess how my house smelt like for the duration of the baking... ;p

It's a small world after all! Dan Chan's grandma passed away on Thursday. I know my dad know's his parents. What I didn't know was this grandma of his knows my grandparents too. To cap it all... his mum was my primary school teacher... *sigh* I decided to follow dad & gramps to the wake thinghy on Saturday night.

Oh... little rubber ducky, rubber duckYyyyy.... Okay, so I finally went for some exercise... 10x50m laps... Those tense shoulder muscles feel much better after the swim. Yahoo!!

...and last but not least... I believe that some evil hobgoblins have taketh my pReCioUsSSs set of keys along with my mini Victorinox thingamagix on Sat. It's a total mystery... I thought I had it with me... I didn't hear it dropping anywhere... yet it is nowhere to be found... Strange..... sTrrrranGe.... anyway, I made a duplicate set of keys on Sun to grant me an open pass into my home once again....

Tue, 21 Jan: Back to work after a long weekend - my boss is finally back from maternity leave! Rejoice!! My colleagues miss having her around too... *sniff, sniff*

Wed, 22 Jan: Brought some of my CNY cookies to work. Am happy that they like it *Beams with joy!* I need more coffee!!.... Anyway, I joined Jocelyn, Ai Luen, Francesca & Guat May for dinner at Raffe's. Soo Hoo met us there but didn't eat until much later when we moved to the McDonald's drive-thru to hang-out and have dessert.

Thu, 23 Jan: When I got home, I couldn't recognise my dining-room-cum-kitchen. My mum moved so many things away from the wall that parts our house with the neighbor's house that's being renovated. Ok... I just hope that the renovation next door is over soon, SoOn, SOON!

By the way, I've cut my hair short... I am wondering whether I should get it highlighted too... highlighting cost RM95... am very tempted to go for it although the pocket will definitely suffer a little. I'm also waiting for my paycheck... I'm supposed to get an increment... the new contract is here... and this coming paycheck should include the increment amount that they didn't give me in Nov & Dec 2002!! *does a little dance of joy* :)

Fri, 24 Jan: Morning began with an attempt at installing the full version of Adobe Acrobat... that lead to the hunting down of the Adobe PostScript driver... and finally - installations and setting up. Then it was time to consolidate 39 pieces of PDF files into one single mega-PDF thinghy... wahahaha... >:)

Fri, 17 Jan: When Sleep Won the Battle... I had intended to join Ashwin, Malcolm, Pei-Ti, Julian (and Angelia?) for a little gathering at the beach. Ash & Mal said they were taking a telescope (for star-gazing), a guitar and some finger-food there. And then of course I was tired. I was also not too keen to battle the traffic for some 45 mins (courtesy of bottlenecks caused by Thaipusam celebrations); hang out with them for maybe 30 mins; and take another 45 mins to go home and sleep... I had to go to work on Sat morning.

Sat, 18 Jan: Alone in the office... This morning, I went into Agilent to clear up some of my backlogged reports instead of going into MIM. I'm happy!! In between compiling reports - I did some major downloading... including some from The Official LOTR Website. p/s: Only on Sat & Sun... A radio channel gets aired over the factory-wide PA System. Bliss!!

Packed like sardines!! I took mum to Sunshine Farlim knowing that most roads to town would be hell to cross. Parking was hard to find... err... danger bells rang... Then getting into the hypermart - Holy Cananoli!!! There was a huge swarm in there. Mum was deterred. I don't fancy it either but I didn't want to waste the trip. I dragged her in, grabbed a basket, and asked her to grab one too. Armed with a shopping list - our shopping mission was super-focussed. The faster we are done - the sooner we get out of this madness. I got home in time to help unpack the groceries before rushing out to for the 5:20pm show of "Hero" in BJC.

An appointment with "HERO". Dan Khoo & Malcolm took turns to call me while I was on the way, while I was stuck in the parking queue, and when I was parking... we got into the theatre a few minutes late. ;P Anyhow... about "Hero" - it's a highly artistic classical Chinese martial arts action movie. The storyline focuses on some fighters/assassins who work together towards uniting a nation. The brilliant effect of color-coding by Zhang Yi Mou (director), to unfold the story as each angle is told, is not mere eye-candy... it also lends character & moods to the story.

Dinner at home...? After the movie, Malcolm had to go off for a dinner and Dan had other plans. "Oh well... to home I go then..." - As I got into my car, I saw Sze Lin & Kok Keong walking right in front of my car. They saw me too!! And so the story goes, we end up having dinner together at Kenny Roger's before we walked around the place to lepak while Sze Lin managed to find her glass item (bottle or drinking glass). She's into doing those glass art thinghys... quite easily found sold at stationery corners nowadays.

Sun, 19 Jan: Prepared a few ingredients for my planned baking session in the late morning. Went to do more CNY stocking with my parents in the afternoon. Started "Cookie Baking Project: Round 1" after an early dinner.

Mon, 20 Jan: Happy Birthday, Pei Ling! I nearly forgot to wish her until the day was nearly over... *aiks!* Anyway... throughout the late morning until night time - I was occupied with "Cookie Baking Project: Round 2 and Round 3"... and I'm not quite done yet... I still have round 4, 5, 6... and I think 7 too. Managed to catch ER & Ally McBeal. Truly? Ally McBeal is actually picking up on entertainment value... too bad it is the last season.

Wed, 15 Jan: Malcolm and Ashwin picked me up first before turning back to Gelugor to get Shakila - they didn't know how to get to her place. We then headed to our favourite "Sup Kambing" place opposite Hotel Malaysia to meet up with Julian, Pei-Ti, and Jayson. Dominic joined us a bit later. Considering that I only started "organizing" this on Monday... the attendance for this was amazing! ...there were minimal "fong-fei-kei" cases... all the better! :)

Oh yeah! Gay jokes aimed at Malcolm & Dominic were abundant tonight since Mal gave Dom a hand massage for a pretty long time. It's supposed to help ease blood circulation for Dom since it wasn't too long ago that he came out from a minor surgery for appendicitis.

As we were leaving the mamak shop, Shakila had taken some tourist-worthy photos of Penang Road to show to her UK roomies. She also took some photos of Gurney Drive much later. Dominic & Jayson had left earlier while the rest of us moved on and stopped a while at Gurney Drive before going to the Sandy Bay beach for more chatting.

Thu, 16 Jan: Arrived at work at about 9:30am. Had earlier taken mum over to the flat unit to check on the electrical meter. The reading wasn't abnormal... so mum called our TNB contact to let him know the current meter reading. He said he'll rebill us. Happy that we were done with that, we decided to drive over to "So Young Coffeeshop" to have some breakfast with mum.

At 5pm, I couldn't find my car keys!! Panic attack!! I tried recalling where I might have put it... erm... the toilet!! Ok... so I went there and looked at the first place it might have been - wasn't there!! Panic!!!

I quickly went back to the office and asked where I might find lost keys - Lyne said Amy. Ok... so I went to find Amy - no one handed her any keys... Panic!!!!! Then.... I thought that I should give the toilet stall a thorough search... and there it was... hanging on the hook behind the toilet stall's door. PheEeeewWwwWw!!!!

I'm sO scatterbrained sometimes....

Mon, 13 Jan: Didn't do much. Had a discussion with DC... wahaha... at least we have a common view about the Jocelyn thinghy. Had a TV marathon night with a staple back-to-back diet of - "ER" on TV2 & "Ally McBeal" on NTV7.

Tue, 14 Jan: Mum's coming back tonight. She's definitely going to get irritated with the dust situation. Yes... dust... dust from the renovation work next door...

More bad news? The new tenant at my parents low-cost flat unit, brought us the electric bill from last month. The amount owed showed 34+K... and Dec 2002 usage amounted to nearly 9K. THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE... that's not household usage - it's like a mini factory's usage!!! That house had been empty then... no one was there... it's been empty for 6 mth or more ever since my aunt moved out!!! The last known bill with my mum is of Oct 2002 - it's in credit. We are looking for the Nov 2002 from my aunt (if she has it). This reeks of foul play.

Mum wasn't too pleased to come back to all shitty episodes... Oh woe!! Dad asked to fax previous bills n latest bill to him - why wait for the morning when we have the use of a scanner & computer? It's quite a start for the new year... Oh woe!!!

Thu, 9 Jan: Over and MSN chat-session, Chris informs me that his god-bro and my dear mentee - Jayson - is driving down from KL. We have no idea how long he'll be here. Stayed home tonight watching videos.

Fri, 10 Jan: Did a pit stop at home to drop off my gramps and to change into something more comfy. Then it was off to Malcolm's place for the BBQ. The host-chef had not finished cooking yet when I got there. I ended up volunteering to fry the springrolls, while Ashwin cooked his famous cream of mushroom soup. I jumped for cover each time he over-vigorously stirred his pot of liquid - causing some drops of water to fly into the hot oil in my wok. Turns out that we have enough food for 2-3 times the number of people there.

Scared the shit out of Malcolm when I said, "Tai kor chai lor. Sang seng tee, ok?" - as I passed to him a flat and small black-box... and that it was a belated birthday present from Peky & myself. He didn't dare open it until much, much, much later (after I've assured him continuously that it was nothing NaUghTy). Much to his relieve, it turns out to be a really nice namecard holder. Reached home at nearly 2am. ZzZZzzz.

Sat, 11 Jan: I remember leaving a note for my gramps saying I'll drop him off at work - albeit a little later than usual, in the morning. Don't know what got into him. He was so adamant to be out by 7:45am. Dammit! It's a Saturday... we could afford to leave the house a little later coz I don't have to rush up to the Free Industrial Zone.

Dragged myself out of bed when I heard the slamming of doors. When I opened the wooden door, he was latching the gate shut - making a childish-tantrumised-face and shouting pissifiedly, "You go back to sleep lar! blah-blah-blah..." Knowing that by the time I freshened up a little - he would have reached the bus stop (and maybe caught a bus)... I decided to go back to sleep. I don't think I have the energy to chase after him today... was feeling rather zapped-out. I think I'm getting immune to all the senility degradation thing. I'll let him have his tantrum. Period.

Woke up to heavily vibrating walls and loud house-breaking activity. For a moment, it didn't quite register until I remembered that gramps mentioned that renovation work had begun next door. Drat! I could identify where they were breaking the floors, whether it's the front or back of the house - just by how loud or slightly muted the sound was... soooOooo irritating... had an early lunch before going to pick up my grandpa from work. I had him drop me at the MIM office. I hate working afternoon shifts. I had a mild headache.

Joce came to pick me up from work and we went to buy some party utensils - paper plates, plastic spoons, chinese soup spoon, and forks. After that, we went to pick up Debs from her house before they dropped me off at home. I needed to have a shower and to grab some stuff from my house. Walked to Joce's place for the pot luck thinghy soon after. Eventually - everyone came. Cheryl, Mervyn, Shen, DC, Steph, Adrian, Jamie, Ah Beng.

Taking a good look at our spread of food - I concluded that it was very potato. Potato salad, fried potato-seafood ball, potato-based crab mornay, potato wantan, mushroom soup with clams, tomyam-fried maggi noodles, microwave-grilled sausages, and fried chicken nuggets. Wan Yee couldn't make it but she made a mocha-chocolate cheesecake with an oreo-cookie base for us. It is sinfully delicious, I say!!! We had watermelon and apples to top it all off. Drinks were mostly sodas... liquors available were wine, port wine, and a wee bit of vodka.

For entertainment, we had UNO Attack... courtesy of Jamie. We were all fascinated with the card dispensing thinghy. When you press the button... it goes "Ding!" - you only press that if you need to draw cards or you were penalised to press it. If you are lucky, it dispenses nothing out. If you are unlucky, it will throw out 10 cards at most. Fun, fun, fun!!! At 1am, I told them I better go home to catch some sleep since I had no idea if the contractors might be going over to work on the neighbors house. Reason? It's near CNY - they might be working OT to finish the job faster. Joce dropped me home. :)

Sun, 12 Jan: Woke up at 8:30am and attempted to watch Pink Panther. Dozed of after the first 10 mins or so. Decided to go back to bed when I "woke-up". Officially woke up in time to watch The Wild Thornberries... and continued watching TV for the next 1.5 hrs. Meanwhile, I munched on a 2 slices of kuih talam. At 12-ish, Gramps was adamant to go have lunch but I wasn't hungry. I told him to go ahead while I watched more TV... this time - the videos... before I go for a bath. Some moments after my gramps came back - it suddenly hit me that I should CLEAN my house. Having to walk on heavily dust layered floors and touching dust layered furnitured tops were too much to bear. I spent a good hour sweeping and mopping the floors in the house. Spent another half hour sweeping the lawn, washing the lawn ground, and watering the plants.

Went out sometime before 4pm; picking up Sze Lin before going to Gurney Plaza to shop for Pei Ling's birthday present. Bumped into Ewen and then Mun Wye a little later. I asked MunY if the RAM worked fine and he said it's not giving any problems... Ahh... That's good to know. Anyhow, Sze Lin and I nearly went for dinner together until she remembered that she was supposed to go to the airport to receive her grandma who's returning from a holiday in Korea. Everyone seems to be going there ever since the Winter Sonata drama series came about!

Got home at 6-ish after dropping Sze Lin off. Called Joce about meeting up for dinner. I wanted to eat Tandoori Chicken and she suggested Kapitan along Chulia Street. Bought dinner for my grandpa before heading out to Chulia. Joce's friend Chun Woei joined us there. DC joined us much later. The guys naturally talked about business while we just listened. After CW left, the topics ranged from what office politics surrounding my office caused by one particular "hopeless" colleague, KL taxi drivers..., and friend politics. Pretty much a free for all. We knew Joce was a bit upset over some of the friend politics revealed.

She refused to know more... yet when I sent her home - she decided she wanted to know. I quickly called DC to warn him to cushion any news that may sound harsh to her... I SMS-ed him seconds later - realising I forgot to tell him "We never had this conversation". Joce calls and immediately asked if I called DC - I lied and said no... it's best that she didn't know about the request to cushion the blow. I sat down and went through the video tapes again since I couldn't sleep yet. Mere moments later, DC called to say, "I'm sorry, I told her you called... I only received your message after she called." That was sOooOo expected... soOooOOo typical of DC to have lapses of judgment...Yikes!!

Ok... nevermind... I think I know how to handle this. At least DC told her I said what a true friend will say when she asked what I said to him... *crosses-fingers* I hope she doesn't get all neurotic about it.

Quiz result of the day:

Who is your dragon spirit guide?
brought to you by Quizilla

Mon, Jan 6: Came back to work in anticipation of loads of work in my inbox. Luckily for me, it was minimal. Anyway... I decided to hold that for a while and housekeep stuff into my Outlook personal folders. It was time to clean up before I overrun my quota on the server. It sure takes a lot of time for the computer to compact folders... *yeesh...* Didn't dare to use any other memory hungry programs while Outlook did its thing - my computer is still quite unstable. Later in the day, I took a peep into the data-entry requests inbox... *eeks!* There's enough in there to keep me occupied til the end of the week!

Tue, 7 Jan: Yesterday it was housekeeping the online files. Today it's sorting and filing printed papers. *sigh* Finishing that, it was down to tackling that horrendous pile of work that came in late yesterday. After dinner at home, my brother and I dropped by Yoke Sim's house to collect a present she bought for Pei Ling's birthday. She'd ask her parents to bring it back to Penang. They had recently went over to Aussie to observe her graduation ceremony. After that, my bro and I took a trip to a nearby Maybank before going to a mamak stall to 'ta-pau' some fried noodles for supper.

Wed, 8 Jan: 3rd day lucky to find a parking space along the road outside the main entrance to the factory. *SweEeEeet!* Cleared 1/3 of the data entry work pile today... and went home from work at 4:30pm. Just gotta love the flexi hour system sometimes. I had to go home to get my mum and brother to drop them off at Garden Inn before 5:30pm. They are going to KL to meet up with my dad before following him for a trip to Pahang. I wanna go too!! (No such luck and liberty for now...)

After an early dinner at home, I went to get Joce and Sze Lin. I had asked them to come along for a present shopping/hunting trip at Gurney Plaza. Bought something for Malcolm and gave Peky a call to let her know how much it was. We also tried to look for something to give to Pei Ling... there will be 5 people sharing it (Sze Lin, me, Kok Keong, Shane, and PekYyy...) - we didn't find anything to buy but we gathered some ideas after browsing a little. Leaving Gurney, I dropped off Sze Lin at Freddie's studio before dropping by Mun Wye's place. Gave him the photos, his transcript and my old stick of 128MB-100MHz SDRAM. After that, Joce and I stopped by the McDonald's drive-thru before stopping by at Cheryl's place.

Back home, I finally planned for my CNY cookie-baking project. I finally know how much of ingredients I have to buy... wahh!!! It's quite a lot! Read a few more pages of 'A Widow for One Year' by John Irving before I went to bed.

Thu, 2 Jan: In the afternoon, mum & I were blazing the shopping trail once again. The destination: Sunway Pyramid. Total damage to my pockets - erm... about RM180. Mum bought herself a pair of lilac-colored pants... thus ensuing a craze for her to find a matching top - preferably in some matching shade of lilac or purple. Dad picked us up at about 7:40pm because he was stuck in a traffic jam. I eventually got to The Summit where I was supposed to meet up with Kalamari, Kotak, and Dan for dinner. Ah... eeps! I reached there about 45 mins later from the appointed time... KL/PJ traffic jams are such a boon! Anyway, we had a pretty good dinner in Johnny's Restaurant at a discounted price because Kalamari had a discount coupon.

Fri, 3 Jan: I actually woke up reasonably today... thus a TV marathon ensued. I watched whatever mum taped last evening and stopped at 11am to catch the 1-hr rerun of 2 episodes of Pokemon. The reruns just went into season 2. After some bit of housekeeping and stuff... it was all about waiting for dad to get us out for lunch. His 2pm became something like 3:15pm. Aiks!

Anyhow, he decided not to join us for a bite and dropped us off at Subang Parade. Mum wanted Nando's so Nando's it is. After that we went into Parkson... I told my mum that I did not want to get anything else - but I ended up buying a pair of grey pants anyway... eeks! Mum got herself a few tops. After that, we hopped over to a sports shop where mum bought some tees before we went to waste some time browsing around in Toys R Us. We saw this really cUuuUute and huggable toy dog that's about RM50. We nearly bought that. I am however happy with my purchase of a Power Puff Girls desktop calendar. PPG!! Blossom! Bubbles! and Buttercup!... and Octi!!! hahaha... I am such a nut for toons.

Later, after dad came to pick us up, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant nearby. Among the stuff I ate were sushi, sashimi, tempura, miso soup, a bit of rice, and... wasabi!! After dinner, we went over to Carrefour since dad needed to do some grocery shopping. We also bought some croissants for tomorrow's breakfast.

Sat, 3 Jan: Packed my bags in the morning and did anything else necessary while watching Saturday toons in between. Dad came back from work at about 1pm. We left soon after we chucked in all our luggage into the car... and a slight detour to buy Peking duck. At the question for our lunch destination - I practically begged my dad to stop by a place with Burger King. Any of my trips to KL/PJ is not complete without a meal at BK's. Their food taste so much better than McD's and also more value for the same price range. Dad eventually relented and we ended up stopping at the Sg. Buloh overhead joint. I decided to pay for the food since I was the one who so wanted to eat at BK's. ;P

I drove 1/2 the distance to Penang after that. Dad only drove after our later toilet stop at Simpang Pulai. We arrived back home in Penang at about 6:30-ish. It was drizzling. After we chucked in all the luggage, mum and dad rushed to get ready for their respective dinner outings. The rest of us stayed home. And once again - I find myself watching Pokemon... this time the more current series - the Johto (did I spell that right) Journeys. An episode on Slowpokes.... them lazy, sluggish, slow-to-react, pink fellas. Air-nee-way.... dad eventually called to ask if my bro & I wanted supper... that's something we won't refuse... haha!

Sun, 5 Jan: A day of Sunday toons, doing some laundry, plastic wrapping some of dad's latest book purchases... and I had a try at archery. 4:30-ish, Daniel and Joce came by to pick me up for the archery thinghy. It's indoors at what was once Lai Lai Air Itam Supermarket. Not very easy but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I shared RM10 worth of arrows with Joce. The others who were with us are Andrew, Beng, Dick, Melvin, Shen, and Suj. Deb and her friend dropped by. Andrew left early. Mervyn dropped in much later. After everyone had finished their arrows, the guys went for some pool.

Since there were only 2 pool tables and they are both occupied - Suj and I decided to go for a walk. We ended up walking halfway up Kek Lok Si temple. We decided to turn back because the shops along the track were closing and the path began to look too creepy. Suj later called Shen to come pick us up although I wouldn't mind walking back to the archery place. Next stop - Bak Kut Teh place next to the Air Itam Maybank. There we had some really crazy conversations... and well... this Dick fella was just really irritating. He seems to be trying too hard at being funny.

Later on, Joce & I followed Dan to pick up Mervyn from his house & Austin from his. After that, we were on the way to the beach strip by the Crown Jewel Hotel for Austin's gf's birthday BBQ do thinghy. Andrew, Beng and James joined in later on. It seems that most of us threw the vodka-soda cocktail that we were served, into the sand. It tasted and smelled of some medication. *Yucky! After more crazy conversations, some BBQ grilled thinghys and a soda or two - we finally decided it was time to go. After all... the next day is a *Gasp!* MONDAY!!!

Fri, 27 Dec 2002: Went out for some pool at Screwball after picking up Sze Lin. Personal new record - pocketed 4 shots in a row. Met Li Siah, Eddie, Jamie, Karen, Jocelyn, Wan Yee, Fiona, Dan Chan, Mervyn, Soon Beng, Andy, Shen, Su Jin. Later went for mamak with Dan, Merv, Beng, & Joce.

Sat, 28 Dec: Worked 1/2-day. Wasn't so bad a day. Had a really good but fattening lunch with my family before a trip to the temple (dad's orders!) - and a whole afternoon of shopping where for once my brother was in the mood to shop.

Sun, 29 Dec: Dad said we'd leave for KL after our lunch. As expected... we did not. We only left at 5:30pm after we visited a grand-aunt. We had dinner in Bidor. Dad asked me to drive the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the journey. Arrived in the USJ2 home at about 10:30pm... soon as I've completed my basic routine of setting up my bedroom and storing my baggage - I called Jayson to let him know I'm ready for a meet up. He came by 10 mins later and took me to Gazebo where he had his supper while I had a teh tarik. We also caught up with one another aside from sharing news about some common friends.

Mon, 30 Dec: Lunched at home and basically set to do house work - for me... it was mainly ironing. In the evening, dad took us to Wan Utama for a little bit of shopping. We ended up with nothing more than some groceried from there. Btw, I bumped into Hannah "the Blur" whom I met while at the camp thinghy.

Tue, 31 Dec 2002, New Year's Eve: Made a salad tossed with peach yogurt and tuna sandwiches for lunch, at home, with mum. Superbly healthy meal. Dad came back later than he said he would be back today. We left the house at about 7 and arrived at Bkt Bintang sometime before 8. The road was still open and parking was available - We ate at Esquire Kitchen *yum!* before shopping at Isetan. Later at MetroJaya, I saw a nice dress but my size wasn't on the rack - maybe I'll find that dress in my size in another outlet...

Then we went out to walk into the streets. It was crowded! Fog horn thinghys was sounded by some people outside Planet Hollywood tho' it is 10-ish... long way still to midnite countdown - the party spirit is hip & happening! Masks - spray streamers n frost... wahahaha!! - Dad n mum wasn't too fond of crowds so we headed back into Sg Wang for a sundae each fr McD before moving to Legend Hotel where we later saw fireworks, let out at KLCC-Bkt Bintang street parties, from the Hotel carpark. What a view! On the way back to USJ, I called Joce - she seems happy tho' apparently she had a cut in her leg from a glass she accidentally broke - Beng sounded pretty high - he's definitely wasted! - Meanwhile, my parents n I decided to head to Coffee Bean in Taipan for some coffee n cake. At home - we each had a shot of Sherry.

Wed, 1 Jan 2003, New Year's Day!!: Slept in til about 11-ish. Dad was painting his outer gate wall/pillar. Lunched in a coffee shop nearby - went to Kota Kemuning to drop something off for a grand-uncle. Nicholas the lil' cheeky cousin of mine came hopping out w/o his shoes - scampering across the hot simen surface. Left there for Nanyang Siang Pau building to visit a warehouse sale. Bought a new wallet there. It's pretty neat. Then it was off to KLCC. My mum and I ended up with a black dress each - I finally found it!! Dad came out from Kinokuniya with 2 books. Dinner at the food court - Japanese ramen for me, Western grill for mum, and Kelantanese for dad. That's diversity in food! Managed to have my trademark tour to Twinkles... hehe... didn't buy anything tho. phew! - then off to Sunway Hotel to buy their delicious breads at 50% off... we bought quite a lot of bread at a total of RM8-ish. Cheap.