Yes. You didn't imagine it. My imood indicator says I'm feeling crabby. I am.

I just gave Daws a call to check if he has made up his mind on whether to attend Cat's wedding dinner in Taiping tomorrow. Apparently he doesn't feel like going just because she sent a card to KDU and collectively inviting them instead of giving them each a personal invite... and he's also waiting for Ida's decision. Meanwhile, I managed to weed out information that Ariani & gang is going.

I think I should have immediately retaliated and gave him my piece of mind with something more direct like, "If that's the reason for you not wanting to go, that's lame! She gave you a call to invite you personally too, you moron!!" - instead of telling him off with something else that was way less direct than that.

To top the icing to the cake (that is not much a decision influencing factor anymore) - those in KDU will be working full-day up til 6pm; I'm working 8:30am - 5pm; and the dinner is supposed to start at 7:30pm. I think I'll try to call Ariani... see if I can follow behind their car if their car pool is full... or if there's a place in their car, better still.

p/s: Last evening was a relatively happy time for me although there was a blackout for about 30mins. I think it was because that's the only time my mum won't bug me if I went to bathe 10mins before our household dinner time.

Mon, 24 Feb: Went to hang out at Segafredo's in Belisa Row with Jocelyn and her friend Samantha. Bumped into Hamlin. Lazing around playing chor tai dee while sipping my camomile tea was just what the doctor ordered.

Tue, 25 Feb: I wanted to sleep earlier... just that reading 3 days worth of news and articles took me longer than I expected. Ended up popping online slightly after midnight to check on my mail... and had a nice short chat with Pinky :)

Wed, 26 Feb: The Indian expat boss was out to rant about my not showing up to play photographer before I'm off from work. All I could say was I felt bad about it and I didn't turn up because the system decided to turn all buggy around that time. He then pitched in "You should have contacted me early so that I can carry out alternatives".

Like "HELLO-OH!!". How to contact him in a training room with no phone, about 2 buildings away, while the session was going on, and there was no one else in the office to send him the camera? Some people just don't really think when they talk... bosses included.

p/s: I noticed that my blog is getting more hits just because of a mention of the 7pm Korean series... looks like a throng of followers are surfing the net for more information on it.

Fri, 21 Feb: It has been busy at work for the pass few days. Everyone is preparing for the official opening of buildings 6, 7, & 8 of Agilent Technologies, Penang. Joining Malcolm, Pei-Ti, Julian, Steven, and Dominic for dinner at Malcolm's place was a fun and welcome break. Norman, Kevin, & Jacob joined us later. It's nice to chit-chat while playing some chor tai dee and Gin Rummy.

Sat, 22 Feb: Woke up early to drop gramps at work. I was thinking of refuelling the car... only to realise I have gone out without my wallet. So to home it was to do some surfing and to watch some toons.

In the afternoon, I went over to Malcolm's to meet up with Mal & Ash before going to the Star Education Fair in PISA. Saw my ex-manager from MIM at the IDP booth and chatted with her a while. I made some inquiries about the MBA course at the Olympia booth.

The 3 of us spent the most time at the KDU booth to chat with and to 'kacau' most of the KDU staff whom we know pretty well. Everytime we intended to leave we get caught up talking to someone else. Ashwin ended up being a volunteer mascot for the School of Hotel & Tourism since he just returned from Switzerland as a Masters Grad. Ms Susie Khoo sure had fun when he was around to help promote the courses.

Later at night, I had a really long chit-chatty late supper with Mal, Ash, PK, Jacob & Steve... from around midnight until 3am. Hmm... I just noticed that I'm the only girl in the group.XP

Sun, 23 Feb: PBA can't choose a better time to fix the pipes. Brackish-brown, bloody looking water from 12-noon-ish to 4-ish. Eww...

For the time being, I look forward to 7pm every Mon-Fri... The Korean drama series, "The Successful Story of a Bright Girl", is very amusing! Basically about a spoilt rich orphan who falls in love with an independent, straightforward, and naive country girl. She thinks he's weird 'coz he keeps acting weird in front of her. She was hired to be a maid by his adoptive mum and she resigned when she won a drawing competition and uses her lucrative winnings to pay off her parents debts (oh... her parents are con-artists and she disowned her ties with them). Ahh... it cracks me up alright... can't wait to watch the rest of the episodes. :)

"Are you secretly sad?"

I remember reading an article with this title in Cleo magazine some many moons ago, and the question pops up in my mind once in a while. So... maybe I am.

Sat, 15 Feb, Chap Goh Meh: Followed my parents to hang out at Uncle Dean's place. I bet the other kids were just as bored. We're all in different age groups. I ended up amusing myself by playing Snake & Bantumi on my h/p most of the time.

Sun, 16 Feb: *Yum!* Lunch was home-cooked lamb chops, pork chops, and potato-parsley salad. Dessert was mangoes & persimmons.

Mon, 17 Feb: It rained on most of the later part of evening. Stayed home and watched Ally McBeal.

I should have gone back to bed and sleep and just forget that it's a working day. Happy Valentine's day everyone!

Anyhow, I watched "Ever After" on TV last night although I've watched it at least twice already... but I was bored. Certain parts of that movie still makes me wanna cry.

If you ask me what are my plans tonight - I have one. It's yet another mission for "Aewis: Couch Potato". "Survivor 6" premiers tonight. OR... maybe I'll see what impromptu plans that may come-by with my gal-pals...

Update: Couch potato celebrates as flailing "Amazon women" of the Jaburu tribe make a last minute comeback to upset an over-confident male tribe, Tambaqui.

Hard Lessons from Episode 1:

When too bloody cock-sure, some things are bound to go awfully wrong.

Men can't balance as well as women can.

Are guys that disorganized in solving jigsaw puzzles?

Valentine's Eve, CNY (Day 13): *Yay!!* The quirk with my Valentine's Day web banner has been resolved and is behaving as it should when compiled as a GIF. This is how it looks like now. Happy Valentine's (in advance) to all.

By the way, my bro will be back later this evening... with a few of my angpaus from relatives in KL. Hehehe... ah well... that reminds me that I should go buy him his bus ticket to return to KL on Monday. His new semester begins on Tuesday.

Mon, 10 Feb, CNY (Day 10): John Cage & Liza Bump are absolutely, and insanely adorable(!), as they defend a woman being prosecuted for committing bigamy, in tonight's "Ally McBeal". The Mariachi thing is cute too :)

Tue, 11 Feb, CNY (Day 11): Got a ride from John Paul to work & back home today. Car has been sent for some major repairs (read... O-V-E-R-H-A-U-L)... I'm carless today n tomorrow... *sigh* Spent time at home watching Steve's Story - a documentary of the Crocodile Hunter for Animal Planet, Discovery Channel - on TV3. It's amazing that there's someone whose energy seems so ultra-boundless - much like an extremely excited and overgrown hyperactive kid. By the way, I decided to troubleshoot a minor quirk in my Valentine's Day web banner on Thursday.

Wed, 12 Feb, CNY (Day 12): Woke up at about 8 to make pancakes for breakfast. I drowned my share of pancakes in maple syrup... luckily homemade pancake sessions are a rarity... else I'll probably be diabetic already. Watched episodes 4-6 of Smallville before lunch. The sun was shining brightly yet it suddenly poured for a short while... and it continued to be cloudy until twilight. Spent my afternoon at Peky's place. Back home - I continued watching ep.6 of Smallville. I eventually finished watching ep.7-11 too... that's watching in between advertisements for the 7pm Korean drama, a break for dinner, and in between ads for StarGate: SG-1

*After a total of 8 eps. of Smallville, I very much agree with Chin2 that Lex Luthor is much sexier than Clark Kent.*

Thu, 6 Feb, CNY (Day 6): Back to work. I was happy that there wasn't much in the request inbox in the morning and joy was pretty shortlived... by afternoon - the request inbox seems flooded. Baka! So much for wanting to keep staying in party-mode until the weekend is over. Later on my way home... I thought the nice straight and non-bumpy road suddenly had bumps... until I realise the road was still not bumpy but the engine had been knocking/choking every so often... eeks! It didn't seem that serious the night before though... luckily we've already made an appointment with the mechanic coz I previously thought the timing was a tad too low to my liking. Did I go anywhere tonight...? Nah. I stayed home and enjoyed watching "Fighting for Love" on tv. It's a Hong Kong produced romantic comedy starring Tony Leung and Sammi Cheng. It's just really cute.

Fri, 7 Feb, CNY (Day 7): Lunched with Mook at Sunshine market... then detoured to Sunshine Square to takeaway a large Twister Fries. Munched it together with Angela as we chatted in the office. By the way, it feels like the car is choking less violently. Gramps later tells me that he's worked it out with a mechanic, who's more familiar with Fords than our regular mechanic who is actually more familiar with Volvos, to take a look for necessary repairs that had been overlooked by our regular fella... next morning. Fine by me - I'm not working... just that it looks like dimsum breakfast plan with mum & bro gets postponed to Sunday. TV movie for tonite was "Love is All There is" - apparently the first Angelina Jolie movie ever... ahh... :)

Sat, 8 Feb, CNY (Day 8): I had my brother drop me over to Sze Lin's place at 4pm, and we waited for about 1hr before Kok Keong came. Sze Lin said she wanted to drive. Whoa-NeLLy! The first time I'm being a passenger when she drives. I eventually remembered I forgot to bring the bag with all of Pei Ling's Christmas + birthday presents in my safekeeping, so we took a detour to my house first. Sze Lin can take a mean turn at the corner!!... but it wasn't all that bad - apparently she's a very much more stable driver now.

Once parked in Gurney Plaza, we walked over to One-Stop since Sze Lin was looking around for some presents. I ended up buying another TY Beanie Baby. We walked back to Gurney at before 7pm. Still early for our dinner gathering with the others in our college group, we walked pass Nandos, made a reservation for 10 at 7:45pm... and lepak lagi. This time I got myself a Stitch in a Hula Skirt keychain. It's so CuUuTe! We also managed to peek at some house/apartment models being displayed in the property fair that's currently going on. Remember those shoebox houses we made in school? This is of course the more canggih and sophisticated version with a minimum 4-digit cost for each.

Then I got a call from Huey Fen, indicating that most of the group have arrived. Everyone seems to be pretty much on time - quite a first! Mun Wye had informed me that he'd be late - and he actually came - that's also a first! For the last few gatherings, he'd said that he'd drop by or he'd be late and then... doesn't show up. Anyway, it was nice to see everyone who could make it... and especially Yokes who's back for a while from Australia. The others there were Geik Tiong, John Paul (not the Pope), Pei Ling & Poon Wei. Meanwhile, a schoolmate, Boon Hui who came with another group - first spots Mun Wye (her colleague), spots a familiar face (Pei Ling, her schoolmate), and another (Sze Lin, another schoolmate), and another (me! - also her schoolmate). Once again... it shall be said - Penang is a small place indeed!

Sun, 9 Feb, CNY (Day 9): Dim Sum breakfast for the family on me... and a yee-sang lunch at Jade Palace on dad. Burp! Later in the evening, I dropped both dad & bro off at Kampungku. They're going back to KL. Before going home, made a detour to my youngest grandaunt's place to collect some roasted pork that they'd portioned out to distribute out to us. Got home to laze with my John Irving book that I've almost finish with in front of the TV. Everyone felt too lazy to go out for dinner... so I ended up being tasked to grab McD take-aways. Drive thru line seemed insanely long, so I decided to go in and line up. It was way faster! Whoopee! Went home in time before the winds got too windy. It drizzled most of the night. Then it was couch-potato time! Munch (more Twister Fries!!!) + marathon of TV series (Smallville + Gilmore Girls + Geena + videotaped CSI)... and my eyes are not yet square

THE NOW: Mon, 10 Feb, CNY (Day 10): Work begins again... traffic looked bad until I passed the post-accident point... then it was smooth sailing. 1.5 days of work left to go - 1 public HoLiDay - then back to work again.... 2.5 days before weekend partydom begins!!

Sun, 2 Feb, CNY (Day 2): The night before, dad insisted that he wanted to start the visiting rounds in the morning... the rest of us knew we'd be too lazy to go out in the morning. Today, dad ended up spending the whole morning in the kitchen to whip up lunch while asking us to chop 101 things for him... including some stuff he would be cooking tomorrow. Aside from the 'pat every dog you meet' thing... everything else is routine and mundane. We started our visiting round in the afternoon... my brother and I enjoyed playing with our relatives' dogs... they are such adorable mutts.

Mon, 3 Feb, CNY (Day 3): "Yup... Dad always cook enough to feed an army"... 2 days ago, he had a super-duper pot of 'kiam chai boey' prepared and distributed half of that out to some of his aunties and uncles.... Today, it's trays of his potted chicken pie... 3 for his friends, 1 for mum and her gathering with her friends, 1 for his aunt, and 1 for us = 6 trays of pie. That's a lot of cooking!!

Visiting started in the late afternoon. At night we went to visit dad's uncle in Tanjung Bungah. The traffic to go up there and back down to the rest of civilisation was really bad... and my brother had a dog's tick travel with him... I picked the bug with a tissue and I think I accidentally squished it... it was real stinky... eww!!

Tue, 4 Feb, CNY (Day 4): Well what d'ya know? We cooked a pack of spaghetti while I left some shelled pasta to soak. Dad thought the shelled pasta was too little... I tried to tell him it's enough to feed 3 or more people... it wasn't fully hydrated yet - "belum kembang"... but then... he thought the wiser and bought an extra pack of spaghetti... wasn't the purpose of having pasta today is to get rid of our pasta collection?

Oh well... nevermind, pasta has a long shelf-life. Anyway, we sent enough pasta to feed 4 to my youngest grandaunt's place... she can neither cook nor do housework on her own... her osteoporosis is really bad... and her daughter (my aunt) is not around today... so lunch provider we shall be to the old couple and my 2 young cousins...

I was quite grumpy towards the end of our afternoon round of visiting. I had a pretty bad headache. I decided that a nap would be best when we reached home. Nap didn't work. A painkiller and 2 panadols after dinner did the job. I decided to go meet up with Chin, Shae Lynn, Pat, and whoever else who was going to be at Belisa Row's Segafredo's. Glad I did.

Wed, 5 Feb, CNY (Day 5): Dad starts his drive back to KL in the late afternoon. I packed quite a number of boxes of assorted cookies today... Some were for dad to take back to KL with him... some... I packed it just in case anyone wants to give more of them away. Went to visit the Kalamari who lives at the other end of Penang, at about 9-ish pm.

5th day of CNY... way pass the average total...! Amen!

CNY Feasting - Thy name is Gluttony.

There is no better time to feel fat than during festivals. Aside from the various cookies, cakes, sweets, and other goodies... here's a list of what dad cooked up during the first 5 days of CNY:

• On the First Day of CNY, the Chef Stormed the Kitchen to Whip Up: ~~A Lunch of~~ Rice with HuGe prawns!!! ....some vegies and 'kiam chai boey' soup... ~~And a Dinner of~~ More rice with huge prawns (cooked differently from lunch)... some vegie and more 'kiam chai boey' *yummy!*
• On the Second Day of CNY, the Chef Breezed Through the Kitchen to Whip Up: ~~A Lunch of~~ Hokkien Char with a pretty good dose of oysters. ~~And a Dinner of~~ Rice with some serving of a delicious steamed fish, 'kiam chai boey', some vegie.
• On the Third Day of CNY, the Chef Terrorized the Kitchen to Whip Up: ~~A Lunch of~~ Dad's Power-packed Chicken Pie!!! *BuUrrRrrpPp! Excuse Me* ~~And a Dinner of~~ Grilled Fish with Unagi Sauce, Broccoli cooked with Chicken Liver, and *gosh!* 'kiam chai boey' again!
• On the Fourth Day of CNY, the Chef Hummed a Tune in the Kitchen to Whip Up: ~~A Lunch of~~ pasta with some of dad's superb home-made spaghetti sauce. ~~And a Dinner of~~ Rice with a huge Deep Fried Chilli-Stuffed Ikan Bawal and a Vegetable Soup.
• On the Fifth Day of CNY, the Chef Performs a Grand Finale in the Kitchen to Whip Up: ~~A Lunch of~~ Nasi Lemak with Fried Asam Prawns, Fried Asam Fish, Fried Ikan Bilis, cucumber chunks, sambal belacan, and a side serving of cabbage soup. ~~Tea was.~~ A huge serving of 'Tau Hua'... that was earlier bought from the market~~And a Dinner of~~ the same as lunch

Other than the heavy meals of sinful gluttony, breakfast was cornflakes and milk or something or other... like kuih talam and the like of it... The only thing that's helping us neutralize the possibility of having a sore throat is to take freshly squeezed salted juice of cucumber (sometimes with carrot OR celery combined), almost everyday... Believe it or not... salted cucumber juice can work wonders overnight.

Thu, 30 Jan: The rest of Agilent's administrative offices are close - but my whole dept chose to work today. Anyhow... we went out for a lunch to celebrate the Indian expat's birthday... think it's in advance since it's sometime when we Agilent's still shutdown for CNY. Btw, both our region HR VP and Indian-expat bosses each gave everyone an ang pau... and also for my colleagues' kids.

Left work an hour earlier or so to collect dad's and bro's bus tickets. Crossed the same road twice, once up and then down the road... on the way up - clear road and one accident just pass the traffic lights; on the way down - traffic jam caused by kaypo people slowing down to look at the before mentioned accident. Yes... this is so typically Malaysian.

Found Power Puff Girls "Bubble-Stickers" at One-Stop for Lyne... right after I went to get a new battery for my bro's handphone. Arrived home the same time my brother did. He drove back from KL with his pals in Myron's car. Wanted to make more cookies but was too tired. Slept early. Apparently, dad arrived home from KL in the Iswara at 12am-ish.

* 2 ang pows; 2-days to CNY

Fri, 31 Jan: Prayers at home today... eeks! SmokyYyyYyy! After lunch, went to get $ for mum and to buy 2 quarts of Baskin Robbin's with my bro. After that, I followed dad to do his last minute CNY shopping. We went home in time for dinner. Started working on my last batch of cookies from cookie dough that has been wisely prepared during the late morning, while watching "Para Para Sakura". The cookie bakery officially closed at 3am... with an intermission taken to carry out the praying thinghy less I incur the wrath of my gramps and my dad... The staunch believers in unquestioned tradition.

* Still 2 ang pows... 1-day to CNY

Sat, 1 Feb, Chinese New Year (Day 1): GONG XI FA CAI! The weather is pleasant It's bearable compared to the unbelievable-beyond-comprehension-heat that was experienced last year. The prayer-choir group came at about 10am. Some distant relative visited us about that same time too... Horror of horrors - mum & I didn't get a chance to bath and dress up yet (We eventually took turns to excuse ourselves and do what we had to do).

Visitor's literally came one after another... though my brother and I did manage to go next door to Audrey's place to join in the festivities. Her 9-yr old sis managed to get us to play a few rounds of Harry Potter UNO with her too. Anyone for some +3, or +4 cards? I think I had quite a number of those throughout the game.

Back on track... THE GOOD THING about the whole day? We actually have an excuse not to do our visiting rounds until much later at night.

* 1st day of CNY, countless angpows (I didn't count how many...) - with a booster pack each from mum & gramps. Major fuss of the day was the 'kiam chai boey' soup