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.

Tue, 24 Dec, Christmas Eve: Half-day at work. *Woo-hOo!* Then it was off to a lunch reunion with the XSC at Kayu. There was Angelia, Dan Khoo, Malcolm, Dominic, and also Pei-Ti who's just returned from Melbourne. It's really nice to see all of them... and I sure miss having some nasi kandar. :)

I went home with the intention of having a nap... but then again... my more creative side won. I soon found myself weaving waxed-paper ribbons into a wrapping paper - to wrap a nice little name card holder for tonight's Secret Santa. I finished doing that in time to go get grandpa home from his office. There goes my nap...

At 9:30pm - I rummaged for my Cluedo set from my bookshelf. Jocelyn had requested for it to become a backup game in the party. With that done, I did a mental check of the stuff I'm taking up to Andrew's place... Cluedo *Check!*, Gift *Check!*, Soft Drinks *Check!*, and Ribbon *Check!*. I arrived there early enough to do a minor decoration touch up. Aside from Andrew, James was the only one there... and they just started watching... "The Phone". The rest were most likely stuck in the spillover traffic holdup at Gurney Drive.

Slowly and eventually... the others came... Soon Beng, Daniel Chan, Shen, Austin & his girlfriend. Austin asked for a wrapper to wrap his present... Andrew does not have anymore... and so we find Austin wrapping the gift with a sheet of newspaper. When "The Phone" ended, Jocelyn, Deborah, Jamie, Andy & Candy arrived. All the food was brought out and a bottle of wine was opened. There was apple tarts, honeydew sago, chocolate cheesecake, almond cake, potato mashes & a cheese dip. Later on, another bottle of wine and a bottle of port was opened. The Secret Santa part was a bit funny... some people ended up with stuff they didn't want and there was an exchange going on. A select number of people were also chosen to take on dares to win some extra prizes on the table... hehe...

Wed, 25 Dec, Christmas Day: At 2++am, we started clearing out of Andrew's place and headed for the Penang Swimming club beach. Daniel went off to get Mervyn. Andrew, Beng & James went off to C'Front to drop in on Andrew's aunt's party. At the beach, we had bottles of drinks with us but we soon found out we didn't have cups... until Mervyn voiced out that he left some papercups in Dan's car and it should still be there. Deborah, Jocelyn, Jamie, and I left at 3:50am or so.

I was woken up at about 12++pm... Ah Good!! That means dad had decided to let me and my brother sleep in instead of dragging us to a temple thinghy. Rejoice! Oh-jOyoUs-be!! We had lunch at home... there were cockles, fish otak-otak, a soup & fried chilli-stuffed fish. *yum!* We went to visit Aunty Nelly & family after that. Sitting there... I felt really sleepy and nearly dozed off. Then dad took us for Ais Kacang and cucur at Swatow Lane... hehe... 2nd time in 4 days!

When we got home... almost everyone had a nap... I was one of them... *yawn!* Woke up just in time to go out for dinner at Ocean Green. We had Black Pepper Fried Soft-Shell Crab, Curry Fish with Bihun, Fried Spring Chicken, a plate of vegie and some satay. Very nice :) - and then to top it off... we went to Secret Recipe to buy home some cakes. We bought a slice each of Carrot Cheesecake, Chocolate Mud Cake, Cappuccino Cheesecake, and Baked Cheesecake. We also made some coffee... mMmmmMMmmm - perfect!

Thu, 26 Dec: Dad dropped me off to work today. I did nothing much except a lot of writing up, a trilogy worthy-worth, for the blog and carried out some data entry into the training management system. Later, I made the mistake of looking out for the Ford Telstar instead of the Iswara Aeroback - and was greeted with an "apaler" from my brother who came to take me home. The rest of the time was basically a lot of lazing in front of the TV and having some munchies. Ah... sweet rest!

Sun, 22 Dec: At noon... I had followed my family up to the Penang Swimming Club since its along the way down from Bt. Feringghi where the home of Kalamari stays hold... where Kotak & Dan are guests of the house. First, we followed Kalamari on his errand. Then... the Incredible Gastronomic Journey @ Food Tour began... where Dan had fun taking photos of some notable landmarks and every food item that we ordered!!

We parked in Prangin Mall (flat rate parking charges)... and walked over to the famous Penang Road chendol stall... but first... we went into the coffee shop and ordered a round of Asam Laksa... after that, it was time for chendol by the roadside! *yummy!!* Next up - we walked into Komtar and we stopped at the Super Komtar Toy Dept where Kalamari & Dan bought some Pokemon cards... before we headed for Active Lifestyle where the link between Komtar & Prangin Mall is. Again... we stopped at the Toy Dept. before heading into Prangin Mall for a quick browse around... (we also ended up browsing in Parkson's Toy Dept.)

We were there until the time we met up with Kalamari's brother. Next... we headed towards Swatow Lane for a round of its famous Ais Kacang... where Kalamari is finally enlightened that atap-chi is actually the seed/fruit of the nipah palm... and not made from flour. Each bowl of Ais Kacang was slightly different from the other. One had watermelon, One was the standard package, One was with Ice Cream, and One was with banana. We also had some popiah, cucur udang and fried taukua. *yumMMmmMMm!* After a really nice tea break - it was time for all of us to go home.

Later in the evening, I followed Guat May & Jocelyn out for some last minute shopping at Super Tanjung. We didn't have dinner until much later though... right after Guats picked up her friend Marcus. We ate at the Hillside Medan Selera before going over to Andrew's to do some basic decoration for the X'mas party on Tuesday night.

Mon, 23 Dec: It already feels like a holiday and no one was in a mood to do work today. At 10am-ish, I told Lyne (the VP's PA) that I'd be going to Angela's house to give her her souvenir vacuum flask that's been sitting in my drawer for the past month, some blank CDs, and X'mas presents for her kids (Angela's my boss in Agilent who's currently still on maternity leave). Lyne quickly asked me to follow her to the convenient store to get something for Angela's kids. Later in the office, Suat Lee the Admin passes a souvenir bag from an offsite meeting for Angela to me... and pondered a long time on what to write on an empty card before giving it to her boss, Himanshu, to sign. I pestered her to be faster because it was nearly 11am and I needed to get to the airport really soon. Meanwhile, Himanshu asked me to packed some of the Indian sweet delicacy that he brought to the office for Angela too. The sweet is made from cashew nuts and milk.

I arrived at the airport and parked next to Chris' car. I quickly chucked the meltable items into the paper bag and carried it with me into the airport while looking around for Chris, Pinky and anyone else who was there to send Pinky off. Just my luck, I saw Chris and Pinky at the Nandos counter... and Rusdi was holding the fort at one of the tables. I gave Pinky her X'mas-cum-farewell gift and we all talked and joked around for a while. Then surprised! Balan came... we continued talking. Then eventually.. Another surprise! Nicholas had come too. But all too soon... it was 12:10pm - it was time for Pinky to check in for her flight back to Medan.

We do not know when she'll be back again. We know someone is heartbroken. Before she went off, she gave me a hug and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. She hugged everyone else too... but Chris gave her the longest one. It was an awkward moment for the rest of us... we just started whispering nonsense stuff to one another and talk about something other than what we are looking at. She finally went through the door and eventually out of our sight... but he still stood at the railing looking at the planes for a good 10 mins or more before he felt like its time to leave. I know he's sad and crying inside... so I gave him a hug and told him to take care. The others gave him a pat on the back, a firm handshake, and told him pretty much the same thing. It's up to himself to come out of whatever sorrow he's feeling right now.

Leaving the airport, I headed for Sg. Ara and arrived at Angela's place not too long afterwards. I felt like Santarina lugging littles bags of presents. That's how much stuff I had with me. I had lunch there and had a nice chit-chat with Angela. Her sister was there with a 2 year old and twin baby boys. In total: 3 babies and 3 kids in that house... what a commotion! They provided much entertainment though... kids... :)

I got back to the office at 3 to clear of some work... and went off at 5pm. I decided to stay home tonight to to tackle the ever-growing stack of cleaned laundry for ironing. It's getting a wee bit too high a stack for my liking... and I think I'm running out of things to wear. I also checked with Andrew when it'd be OK for me to go over tomorrow to do some last-minute-minor-decoration work... since I'm feeling too tired to go all the way up to his place to handle that tonight. Anyhow... no one feels like going up to do remedial decoration work tonight... it seems the X'mas lights we put up on Sunday have fallen.

To all who drop by this blog

...and Happy New Year! May angels look after you; By day and by night...

To people who don't celebrate - in the spirit of muhibbah-ness... join in the cheer and festivities... and Happy Holidays!!

p/s: I had actually wanted to do a little website for an X'mas display but I can't because of a really packed schedule during the past few days... I guess this will do too!

Thu, 19 Dec: Grandpa has finally agreed to take the car to the mechanic to fix the jammed wiper system today... I'm carless. And so the story goes... I had to stay on in Agilent until about 7pm, waiting for Jase... Anyhow, time was definitely not wasted because I was only given some last minute do-or-die task to complete at about 5pm. When Jase came by, we decided to have dinner at Dave's Deli... after I verbally slaughtered him for being a total moron for spilling the beans on something that he shouldn't have let on that he knew about. Yeah... Jase just laughed it off (what's new?)

1. The inevitable: Halfway through dinner, Grandpa called from the neighbour's house to tell me that he's locked out. Erm... ok... apparently he hasn't yet gone to make a new copy for the door that his current 1 or 2-month old faulty copy fails to open... I told him mum should be back by 8pm. By 8++ pm, my dad called me to scold me for not going home to open the door for my grandpa... "Excuse me, I'm CARLESS and my ride for dinner and LOTR won't be here until his shift is over..." was my story of the moment.

2. False alarm ala Amazing Race: After dinner, Jase and I picked up the movie tickets and we had actually wanted to do some shopping around... but seeing we had time (and getting a 2nd call from an irate dad 20-30 mins from the first call), I told Jase I better go back to check - just in case my mum still hasn't gone home. I had earlier tried to call her once or twice but no answer. Jase being helpful as always - gave me a ride home...

   Upon arriving in front of my house, I saw that my mum was already home. I decided that we needn't stop but head back to BJC... Jase said this unnecessary ride was like getting a false alarm or wrong interpretation of a clue in Amazing Race. Now, to make my story to my dad complete... I called mum's h/p to ask if she's home and we made jokes about grandpa's key situation. Our conclusion: This episode was inevitable to speed up the need for him to finally go make a working copy of THE KEY.

3. "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers": Ho, ho!! Before leaving the office, I found out that my bro would be watching the 10++ pm show in Mid Valley. Meanwhile, I watched the 9:45pm in BJC's MegaPav.

   The opening scene of Gandalf vs a Balrog is a magnificent piece of work. The whole show was packed with action - enhanced with plenty of sound and visual effects wizardry. I do however have to agree with a movie review published in The Star - the storyline is rather choppy although it runs more closely to the book. Last but not least, I was a bit flabbergasted to find that a part of Book Two was not portrayed in LOTR: TTT. Looks like it's being pushed to the 3rd movie.

   I feel that Gollum's part was very well portrayed and rather comical at certain points. Merry & Pippin were more serious this time round... leaving Gimli to provide most of the comic moments. Legolas had a pretty unbelievable horse mounting scene... and a superb surf down the stairs while shooting arrows at intruding Orcs. The Elven armor is impressing and very shiny... although the design does remind me of Marvel's comic book superhero costumes. Theoden's transformation was really smooth... Eowyn gets a nice swordplay scene. Samwise does a good job keeping Frodo from wearing the One Ring... and Daniel Khoo mentioned that Gandalf kinda reminds him of Moses. The Ents were rather a comical sight... I believe some of them should have been made stockier - they all looked a bit too gangly. Overall... it was an enjoyable movie if we don't know the book and don't care much about logic.

Fri, 20 Dec: A night out - farewell outing for Pinky cum welcome home for Shakila. Shakila just came back for a term break from UK yesterday morning while Pinky will be returning to Medan on the coming Monday. The 3 of us went to the Sup Kambing place for dinner. Later on, Sha had the sudden urge for an Ice Blended... so we headed over to Gurney's Coffee Bean. It was nearly 12 when Ethan, Chris & Boon Guan finally came to join us. We had so much to say to each other that we didn't leave until 2am. During that time, Sha also pointed out and confirmed a certain observation that I have been noticing about a certain 2 persons... *sigh* The end of this story is going to be bittersweet indeed!

Sat, 21 Dec: The night before, I told dad I'd leave the house at about 6:15-6:30 pm to pick up Jocelyn, Wan Yee & Vijaya before dropping him off at uncle KS's place. When we left the house at 6:15pm today, he ranted that it was late. I told him not to complain coz yesterday he said 6:30 could be too early... and that he's panicking because some of his friends who were also going to the Xaverian's reunion had started calling him, as early as 5:45pm.

Meanwhile at 6pm, Joce called to say that she just got home from a trip to the beach and had the nerve to ask if I can pick her up later. I wasn't in a mood to be nice. I frankly told her "Be ready by 6:15pm or else!" She knows that she's not the only person I'm picking up... and she knows I have to drop my dad off by a certain time. Knowing about the time constraint that I have, she should have the common sense to be home earlier to get ready for our Annual Reunion Dinner with our CGL schoolmates from the class of 1997. I'm sorry but I won't be nice about something so stupidly unthinking and selfish on her part.

After picking up everyone along the way, dad suddenly decides it'd be better for me to drop him off directly to SXI instead of uncle KS's place. He also abandoned the kuih talam he intended to pass to Aunty May. Dang! I don't see why he can't take it with him. Nevermind that... I'd just leave it in the car while I have my own reunion dinner.

Dinner was at Mario's - way up in Batu Ferringhi. The food was nice although it's a bit pricey. I think I still like the food in Dave's of Gurney Plaza better. Anyhow, the other people who was there were Chui Ying, Soo Foong, Hui Chin, Guat May, Deborah, Jamie, Li Siah, Sze Lin, and Pei Ling. Lots of photos were taken... and the waiters and captain of the restaurant thought we were still in school. We told them we were already working and a few of us were graduating soon. Jamie's immediate comment was, "I feel so flattered! *giggles*"

With dinner done, some went off for a mamak session while some others decided to go hang out at the Mansion @ 32. On the other hand, Vijaya had to go home while I wanted to meet up with Kalamari for the purpose of checking out his family's new home. So, I dropped Vijaya home... before heading back up to Batu Ferringhi to meet up with Kalamari, Kotak & Dan. The house is really nice... and I gave them the kuih talam since they'd appreciate it. Anyhow... it was the authentic stuff made with real pandan juice and not just green colouring. I think it was about 2++am when I left for home... whoa... 2 super late nights in a row.

There's nothing much to be said about the past few days... except...

1. Jocelyn came over on both Tuesday & Wednesday night to copy some CDs.

2. I've finally sent out my Christmas cards after toiling over it (on and off) over the past 2 weeks or so... and by the way, I still have to finish my Christmas shopping... *crosses fingers*

3. ... Biggest heart-stopping adventure? My car wiper suddenly jammed and refused to work on Tuesday evening while I was driving in town. It was freaky! I had a waterfall on my windscreen, everything looked blur... and the rain was really pouring. I drove real slowly and tried very much to stay on my lane and avoid hitting the curb, other vehicles or even pedestrians that have been obscured from my view. Thank God the rain slowed down during the last league of my drive.

Looks forward to:

1. Strangling Jase(!!!) until he runs out of breathe for not keeping his mouth shut about a certain 2 persons and their respective (welcome/unwelcome) admirers. I have specifically told him to keep quiet until things settled down or blew over... but NooOooo... he had to go tease one of the "targets" about it. Sheesh... I have just effectively being put in a precarious situation. I hope she believes Joce's cover up.

Jase, if you don't know how to keep your mouth shut about certain things I tell you that I'm incidentally not supposed to know - I'm not gonna let you in on anymore tidbits!! You were not supposed to know about it... nor use it as a means of your entertainment... please lar pretend as if you do not know anything, IDIOT!!! You are not supposed to tease them and drop obvious hints of your knowledge... how MoRoNic can you get?!!

2. Watching LOTR tonight at Mega Pavilion, BJC, 9:45 PM... come.... come.... my pReCiOusSSss...

Quiz Results:

Which M&M's are you?

Friday, 13 Dec: Damn blur! Didn't remember it was Guat's birthday until in the evening. Blur, blur, blur... Anyhow, after dropping my grandpa home - Joce & I went to One-Stop to buy blank CDs. We also stopped by Watson's coz I needed to get a new lip gloss. The old one is finishing. Was thinking of buying the ZA one until I used one of the Revlon LipGlide testers to put a tiny dot of the lippy on my lips. Omigawd!! It felt super!!! The area that had the lippy on felt so moist compared to the other parts of my lips that were actually very parched and dry... that one hasil from sitting in an aircon office without properly protecting my lips with lip balm or whatever...

After that, we went to the Mount Erskine place for western food. I had the Boneless Chicken Cacciatora. *Mmm... slurp! yummy* Joce ordered the Chicken Maryland. Just love the price for the portions that they give us. Half-way through our meal, Andrew & James came to join us. After that we headed home... thought I'd take a rest... until Joce called to say that she'd ask Joyce, Andrew & James out for a game of cards at a joint in Prima Tanjung. So... off we went out again - I can't remember the name of the place but it sure is pretty cozy. We stayed there until nearly 2am... erm... wait! I am working tomorrow morning... noOooOooo...

Eh... did I just do a product testing review for Revlon? I guess I did, didn't I?~ Hehehe...

Sat, 14 Dec: I was the only one in the office. Had to hold the fort until 12-ish. Luckily I brought along my X'mas card project items with me... it was a slow morning. After I closed the office - went to get grandpa before waiting for my dad's bus to arrive at Garden Inn. Parked the car at G.Inn... but since the wait was gonna be quite a while... I went over to KDU for a while. Passed Chris & Daws their X'mas cards since they were there... the others... erm... I didn't finish colouring the cards yet... so... that'll be another day. Dad's bus arrived nearly 30 mins later.

Went home after that and had a light lunch while waiting for Guats to come by. The plan? To go for some coconut water / ais kacang at Swatow Lane. Joce & Joyce was there with us too. Shen & his friend "Hose" joined us a little later. After that, we gals moved over to Gurney Plaza and met up with Andrew & his "siamese twin", James. We hung out at Segafredo's and treated Guats with a slice of Blueberry Cheesecake, as a token for her birthday celebration. Shen & Hose joined us after they went over to Lush to collect/send some documents. Btw, Lush is the latest night spot in town serving techno music and where the drinks are priced really cheap compared to all the other places in the area. I know where it's at but I haven't been in there yet.

We left Gurney at about 6:30pm... and went right smack into a traffic jam. Arrr... Later at about 8pm, Andrew & James came to pick up Jocelyn and I for dinner at Genting. Genting is still badly ventilated but the food is still good. We had a call from Jamie to join them for Erh Pin's little party... I told Joce that I'd skip it and gave excuse that I'd rather wait and see if Vijaya wanted to go out coz I felt bad for having to ditch her the last time round.

Sunday, 15 Dec: Woke up about noon-ish. Ahh... finally caught up on sleep after 2 weeks of 4-5 hrs sleep per day. Dad rushed me to get ready for lunch at the Penang Swimming Club. He was supposed to meet up with 2 of his friends from the Penang Tourist Guides Association. I hopped into the car with my hair still dripping wet. Driving into the parking lot, looking for a spot... I noticed Andrew's car was there. Ha... messaged him for the heck of telling him I saw his car... but never expected that he'd call back. It was funny - first question from him after pleasantries was... "eh, u are a member here?" - "ah... yeah..." - "I didn't know that" - "err.. yeah... am very much so :p"... Also found out that he just came up from a swim. Crazy-niaAaaaAa... not many people in their right mind would be swimming around noon...

4-ish - I followed dad to collect his ticket... and then we headed over to Island Plaza since I wanted to check for a specialty item there... he wanted to check the pricing for something... and we also needed to stock up on some of our groceries from Super Tanjung. It was a really rushed trip since we had to quickly grab stuff off the racks, stock up Christmas presents - queue up to pay... and pick mum up from Penang Club... drop groceries home & pick grandpa up for a steamboat dinner at ET Steamboat with uncle Dean's family. *phew!* *takes a breathe* The steamboat was more vegies than meats... nice.... :)

Fri - Mon, 06 - 09 Dec: On Friday, 6:30am - I met up with the church group at Green Lane Heights. Our bus will be leaving for Sepang from there. We stopped at Sg. Buloh for lunch. We arrived at Seri Malaysia Hotel in a very secluded part of Sepang at about 1:30pm. To make a long story short - the itinerary of this 4 days, 3 nights camp is something like this. Mornings and afternoons were for preachings, testimony, bible study, sharing, and etc. of the more religious nature. I'll just sit in to observe and listen because I don't buy all that's being said 100% because I believe I'm taking a more liberated way to spiritual growth without all the trappings, certain hipocracies and symbolisms.

Evenings were more like entertainment sessions with skit performances & presentations. A few friends of mine acted in 2 of the plays. One of my friends played Joseph (in the story of Joseph who was betrayed by his brothers, sold as a slave... blah-blah... and ended up becoming a governor... in a dry-spell... famine... his brothers came to get supplies... he pardons them for their sin against him) cracked everyone up with his acting and comical facial expressions. After supper events included playing a complicated game of cards called Nerds. Fun to play... but I am not very good at it. Mostly collected negative points.

On the last morning there, Sharon had a bad bout of migraine - her pain was so great that she fainted. No detours for shopping when we left the camp site at 2pm. I had decided to sit next to her on the bus since I knew how to give head massages to relieve pain from massive headaches (she was so weak that they had to carry her up to the bus). Furthermore, throughout the camp she had been using my h/p # as a contact with her boyfriend. Her 016 had no signal there... so I played "operator" and nurse until she was better. About an hour++ later - she was much better and very chatty... so I talked with her until we stopped at Ipoh for dinner.

Ipoh is her hometown & her sister hitched a ride with us to Penang from our dinner-stop. When we went back to the bus, I happily gave up my seat to Sharon's sis and went to the back of the bus to cajole with the others... and especially with one 6-yr old called Charissa. She's so adorable, cheeky, a bit mad perhaps (at one time she asked me if I ate glue and if I ate pencils)... but a really bright kid.

Tue, 10 Dec: Went to watch Die Another Day, 20th James Bond Film. It's the 40th anniversary for 007 franchise. Made bookings for the show before I left the office... Am very happy to say that Jase and I was given very good seats at the cinema. Prangin MegaPav - Row F, center!! *woohoo!* *does a little dance of joy* My movie review: The movie was not all dynamic... but it didn't really follow the previous formula as observed in the other 007 movies. That sure made things interesting. The Ice Palace was beautiful!!! The villians were rather charming, and the girls had pretty strong characters. A moajor improvement from being mere playthings for the macho-men.

Today, 11 Dec: Prior to visiting Angela at her house, my manager in Agilent, we ordered pizza from Pizza Hut. Her new baby girl is absolutely beautiful. *aww!* *koo-chi-koo-chi* Then we had an after lunch adventure! - my colleagues Peugeot 306 engine suddenly stalled in front of Krystal Point... right after we came out from the busiest roundabout in Penang. Panic ensued when everyone else thought there was no way to summon for help... until I told them I had my h/p with me. They had abandoned theirs in the office. We managed to call the workshop, and waited a long while on the phone before someone told us to wait a while before trying to start the car again. Seems like the workshop was understaffed at the moment... some people were still on Raya vacation. It was about 20-25 minutes worth of baking in the car under the hot sun before the car could start again. *sweats!* *fuh!*

Mon & Tue, 02 - 03 Dec: The last working days in Agilent before the Raya shutdown. Didn't really have a heavy workload but some things that happened in the office were enought to drive me crazy. Hmm... yup, I still have my head attached.

Wed, 04 Dec: Went back to the MIM office to work today. It's a real freezer. Had lunch with Chris, Ewen, Pinky, and Ethan at Gurney's Nandos. *yummy!!!* (It was a belated birthday lunch celebration for Ewen)

Dinner was at a little restaurant called Palate in Pulau Tikus. The food is really good, the cooking style is rather unique - very much one of those western-oriental fusion food joints. There was Will Choon, Erh Pin, Emilia, Jocelyn, Cheryl, Deborah, Ai Hua, Guat May, Jamie, me, and of course our guest of honor - Chin. It's a farewell for her 'coz she's going back to MMU to finish her coursework after completing her industrial training here. We later went over to Segafredo's along Belissa Row - Andrew & James came to join us there.

Thu, 05 Dec: Getting out from the lift, I took a few paces towards the office door. A notice printed on yellow paper took my attention, so I read it... "On Thursday, 5th December - MIM will be closed at 1:00 PM". Still pretty blur, I opened the door and saw my colleague. I said, "Hey Michelle, we're working only half-day today?". Michelle answered, "Yalor. You didn't know meh?!". I shook my head feeling comfounded and rather dumb.

Later I joined Chris, Pinky, Angelina, Rusdi, and Kant for lunch at the Tenaga canteen. It was Chris' birthday... and he got creamed pretty well. The first round of creaming he ended up with a green nose, a red moustache and a red goatee. 2nd round of creaming - he looked like he had war paint on him. Pinky, Angel, & Kant was also creamed when Chris had his "revenge". As for me... Pinky put a thin streak of cream on my cheek. Chris thought I wouldn't do anything to him but he underestimated what I can do using the innocent looking fries on my plate. By the Power of Potato dipped in Tomato Sauce - I dabbed some tomato into his hair... nyahahahaha!!!

Oh well... after that I hung around KDU for a while n berborak with the likes of Kevin, Daw Seong (explored the menus on his 7210 too... too bad the keypad is quite badly designed - cool phone otherwise); Ewen, Rain, and Celine. Went home at about 3pm... then went back to town to get Joce & my grandpa at about 5pm. Lazed around before and after dinner... and made a few Christmas cards. My dad arrived back from KL at about 6-ish - he drove the Iswara back. I only started packing for the camp at 11pm and finished doing that at about 12:30am...

Worldwide on this day - we commemorate World AIDS Day. Although Malaysia had progressed greatly in many areas - I find that awareness on HIV/AIDS is still disappointingly lacking among many of her people. It is sad to read the multitudes of stories in the newspapers that report about the misconceptions of people towards PLWHAs (people living with HIV/AIDS)

I'm hugely saddened too to remember that Facets! Online, a project that was once my baby, is currently not being continued by my juniors in KDU Penang. It felt like only yesterday when it was launched at the 5th ICAAP (5th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific), Oct 1999, in the PWTC.

Would you like to be part of an awareness campaign? Go to Link and Think and select a graphic. For information on AIDS, try AIDS 101 or better yet... check out what the United Nations AIDS Project has in store.

     

On a personal note: Let me share with you a little something that really moved me to the edge of tears. When I was at the 5th ICAAP, I've heard speeches from many who champion to spread awareness about the disease... they even lowered the lights and screened 2 videos showing the lives of PWLHAs in 2 very different scenarios.

One was about a husband and wife who are outcast by their families, who have exhausted their finances to get treatment, living in poverty & currently getting treatment from charity AIDS clinics. The other showed a young man who was luckier than the unfortunate couple - he had the understanding and support of his family.

When the lights came back on, the young man was on stage with his mother. He gave a short and emotional speech to everyone in the auditorium and told us that without the support of his mother, he would have given up the hope to live on, a long time ago. When they both started crying on stage and hugged each other... I felt tears forming. What would you do if you found out that someone in your circle had HIV/AIDS? Will you be a fair-weathered friend or a pillar of support?

The haze that has been clouding my mind for the pass few months is finally gone - BRING IT ON! I feel like I can take on the world!! It just kinda happened when I saw something today. I am so glad that this one thing that I had been awfully blurry about is totally over, O-V-E-R... ovAaaaAAa!! No weights, no old burdens... It's just so blardy awesome!!

Wed, 27 Nov: I had dinner with Pinky at a western food place along Mt. Erskine, after we took about an hour's joyride up to Batu Ferringhi and back. The place is basically a little atap house with tables set up all around its compound... where the food is considerably cheap and really good. I had a really nice & succulent pork chop, while Pinky amazingly ended up having 2 servings - 1 grilled fish & 1 garlic butter fish. You can bet that after you eat the latter, no vampires would dare come near you... hehe...

We called up Chris just to kacau him a little... hehe... Anyhow, we hung around the place until nearly 10pm. By then, I had decided that there was no way I'd like to join Joce and the others at Shamrock - so I called Shen to let him know I won't be there. I really wanted to just go home, kick back & relax... and watch the last episode of 10th Kingdom! *grins*

Thu, 28 Nov: Nothing significant happened - I slept early for the first time in 5 days. p/s: No prizes for guessing why I was sleeping late.

Fri, 29 Nov: Stayed home tonight to clean up the entire website that I had held captive from the Student Council of KDU Penang for slightly more than a year. I only did what I can - the rest they'll have to add in on their own.

TODAY: The later part of morning was dedicated to banking and running errands with my mum. We had dropped dad off at the dentist before we headed for the banking district. After alls said and done, we had some time to kill before its time to pick grandpa from his shop. I decided to drop by to KDU to pass the CD containing SC related files to Chris; return the Evita VCD to Daws; and to say hello or have a chat with some of the many people that I know in there... everyone should be there today since it is, after all, Open Day. But firstly, I showed my mum where the canteen was, so that she could have a drink while I gallivant about.

So... what did I learn from this trip? It is possible to have a nice chat with Kevin... that doesn't happen too often in the past though. SweEeeEet... Leaving KDU, I read a message from dad. He said he'd walk over to grandpa's shop from the dentist's. Good... no extra detours.Later when my dad got into the car, he told us he bought some layer cake from Sunflower. Hurrah!! We have cake!!

I've been following the "10th Kingdom" mini-series on NTV7 since last Saturday night... it's a pretty interesting show! Today would be the last night I'll be staying up until nearly 2am because of staying up to watch 10K... and tomorrow will be the last time I'm going to have problems waking up for work. Hehehe...

Mon, 25 Nov: Had decided that it was pointless to follow my grandpa & mum to the wedding dinner since I can't very well taste anything much on my tongue. Everything I eat feels bland. I believe that we shouldn't refuse free food, but I wasn't too keen to go through an 8-course dinner when I can't very well taste the flavors... and not to mention to put up with a potentially horrible sound system & ludicrous karaoke singing. Thus, I find myself dropping them off at Marco Polo Restaurant, Garden Inn, for the dinner. (Oh yeah... I went home to find an SMS from my mum that went "Not even 5 mins here and I'm already bored"... hehehe... Damn! I had a good laugh reading that). Meanwhile, I drove over to Pulau Tikus to buy chicken porridge home for my dinner. After my simple dinner, I had gone over to Chin's place to help her solve a webpage design dilemma that she was having. We also had a nice chat analyzing a certain friend of ours who is kinda getting on our nerves at the moment. ;P I left Chin's place shortly after my mum SMS-ed me to start driving out to take them back from the dinner. Ah well...

Tue, 26 Nov: I had a good laugh watching some of the clips in Muffin Films. *laughs* Thanks for telling me about it, Chin! I think I wasted almost a whole good hour just watching them... and waiting for it to load over my slow modem line. Anyhow, Chin had come over tonight to brainstorm about what else she could do about the web thinghy. After she left, I just waited for 10K to start. So many fairy tales incorporated in there... and the colours are so beautiful... *sigh*

Fri, 22 Nov: Today is a public holiday for Nuzur Al-Quran, but it's still a working day in Agilent. *Ho-hum* At lunch time, Kenneth, Mook & I headed over to Batu Lanchang to feast on our super-duper-favourite chicken rice... except on the last possible moment... I decided that I miss the claypot noodles even more... hehehe... so I ordered just that. *yummy!* After finishing our food, we sat around for a while, looking up at the TV hanging from the ceiling, enjoying a documentary on Discovery Channel about speed - fast boat, cars & anything related to that.

After getting home, I quickly changed & gotten ready for Calvin's sister's wedding dinner... only to receive a call from JP that Daniel Chan is going to be late in picking us up. I decided to walked over to JP's house to wait for Daniel, who was late by an hour from the time he originally told me he'd pick us up *Applause* - Anyhow, we eventually arrived at the Penang Chinese Town Hall for and none too late... hehe... about 10 minutes later, Calvin's sis, with mike in hand, sang Ave Maria as she took her honorary bridal walk into the hall... her other hand was, of course, holding her husband's =) Now, that's unique! I don't think I'll ever see a bride do something like that in a very long time to come... or ever at all again.

Moving on to the other important thing - The food was amazing! I think it's even better than some of the course dinners I've had in some hotels. The bridal car's main adornment was simple and yet beautiful - no gawdy arrangements and soft toys... just some plastic lilies & orchids that seemed to grow flowingly across the bonnet.

Sat, 23 Nov: I had to go to work in the morning at MIM and was supposed to join my colleagues for a lunch with my recently resigned manager. However I needed to take a raincheck on the lunch thinghy because I had tonnes of errands to do for my dad. I went home for lunch. Jocelyn called & she decided to join me for my errands... before we headed over to KBJ for a little bit of window shopping. We also called Jaclyn to join us shortly before we arrived at KBJ. At the end of it all, Jac & I bought a Cleo each... while Joce "ta-pau" some lekur home. Jac had to attend a wedding dinner, while Joce was to go home to catch a ride with Chin for a seafood dinner at Teluk Kumbar with the gang. I was tempted to follow them but since I was starting to feel sick... I decided to take a pass on this one.

On an impulse, I gave Ling² a call on her KL registered company handphone and we had a nice long chat. The timer on my phone clocked something in the region of 21+ minutes. It was before 7:00pm. Damn. Gotta pay peak hour rates... but *oh heck!* it was worth it! Went out to pick my dad up from Kanpungku at about 10-ish. Later at about 11-ish, I got drowsy although I was supposed to wait for Vijaya's call to let me know when she's coming to pick me up to go clubbing... she only called at about midnight. Sleepiness had taken over my will to go party... thus I apologized and again... took a raincheck. Hmm... I guess it must be the effects of impending sickness... my throat feels rather scratchy and dry.

Sun, 24 Nov: Had woken up at about 8-ish but decided to go back to bed. I heard the house phone ring... and sorta just dragged myself up. Looked at the clock - 10:30am. My mum picked up the call, and yelled for me to answer the call. It was Joce. *Ohh...* I had forgotten to give her a call last night to let her know that I wouldn't be joining them... and she also wanted to know if I can go to the beach with her today. Sadly, my answer is a flat "No... I think I should rest & nurse myself". Yes... I'm afraid my throat feels worse.

After lunch today, I followed my parents for a ride to the banks followed by some grocery shopping. Yes! My breakfast stock is now replenished!! *Nyahahaha...* Uncle Toby's fruitty breakfast cereal bars. =9 After that, we headed for Lorong Selamat for an early dinner because my dad had to leave for KL on the 6pm bus. I ordered a soup Koay Teow without the Koay Teow... didn't feel like eating much. Took myself to the doctor's at 7:30pm. The doctor presribed, "Salt gargles, no oily food, no cold food/drinks (and gave me some lozenges, something for flu, and painkillers to ease the pain/irritation I feel whenever I swallow)" - *Sigh...* no more digging into the freezer for my Baskin Robbins for the time being. Nasty.

Who left the window open?! Brrrr.... *oops!* That's just some wind passing... <-- lame joke, I know~... I'm just kinda bored.

You're wind! You are a very kind and sympathetic person. Whoever DOESN'T like you has a mental disorder, because you are a loving and caring gentle soul.

What element are you?

Was hanging out at Segafredo's in Gurney Plaza last night instead of Shamrock. Chin & I were more than happy with the change of scenery... Joce just went along with it; while we let Shen, Andrew & James know that we've changed our destination. I definitely enjoyed the Midnight Mint I ordered - very refreshing... mmMmm... *Yum!* The whole outing ended up being dubbed "Study Group" because everyone was flipping through magazines from Sega's mag-rack, most of the time. Su Jin joined us a bit later & the conversation ended up being about gyms, health & fitness. Yes... we have 5 people who are avid gym goers... once again... I flip through a magazine.

Lunch today: A very nice makan at Sushi King, BJC. Oohh.... sushi and green tea!!!

Walked into office and heard from the secretary that the mail server my mailbox is on, is down. *Wahahaha....!!* What a nice start for the day after 2 days of sheer torturous so-called training. I'm handicapped. There is no way I can attend to user requests that sits in my mail accounts. Bliss!

Anyhow, after work yesterday - I went to get grandpa (as usual-lah~). Then as a favor to Daniel, I dropped by Garden Inn to collect his online-booked-and-paid bus ticket... only to find out from the ticket counter that they can only process that during working hours. *Gag!* There's no way I can be in town during office hours! So... contingency planning, called Daws to see if he's still in the office (it's just across the road) and... amazingly he's still there at 6++ pm?! Ok! Forget about that 'coz that was good news to me... I quickly went over to his office to pass him a printout of the email from Daniel, containing the booking & payment details. Meanwhile, I also found out that he has succumbed to his temptation and had just bought himself a deep turquoise-colored Nokia 7210. I also found out that he'd be on leave from Wednesday onwards and will be going back to his hometown... but he agreed to help sort out the ticket thinghy for Daniel anyway.

Leaving that place, I called Daniel to tell him about the recruitment of Daws for help to retrieve the bus ticket... only to be told that Daniel had forgotten to inform me he had asked Ewen to help him. *AaaAarrRRrgh! Blardy-hell!* Rushed about for nothing. *Dagnabbit!* Soon as I arrived home, I logged on to the web and checked my personal mailboxes that have been somewhat neglected for the day. Seeing that Daws was still online at the office... I told him that there's no need to help Daniel with the ticket thinghy anymore and thanx for agreeing to help out earlier. He then told me that he is looking for a protective cover for his new phone but hasn't the time to do that for the time being... and I told him "Use Cling Film! =P"... *Wahahaha....!!*

Oh well... what else can I suggest? Condoms maybe?!
.
.
.

<-- I mean those phone covers made of a type of rubber, matte-surfaced, and semi-transparent... Now what were u naughty people thinking about?!

Arrived in my Agilent cube by about 8:30am today and took a quick browse through my Inbox. Among the items in it was a set of The Appraisal Form. *Gasps* I quickly printed it and stashed it into the folder containing the materials required for the training I was to attend at 9:00am. Overall, the training was rather boring. It did however allow me to meet one of my Hong Kong colleagues whom I've only communicated with via the phone & emails. She's a very nice lady.

At boredom level maximus: I started SMS-ing a few friends. I don't know how, but Kalamari's immediate reply to my boredom was to mention about his lack of food availability. *raises an eyebrow* Yes, the Kalamari wails for food once again! Hehe... ok! Sorry lar... my reply to him, soon after, was kinda mean but it just so happened to be after a tea break when I received his message. I offered him some cream puffs, black forest cake, and pizza slices. *Ducks! Runs for cover!*

A little later, using my need to be at my employer's town office for an appraisal, I left the training session a little earlier. Arriving in town, I took a detour to KDU to pass Daws the Maxis receipt my aunt asked me to pass to him (less I forget to bring it along the next time I see him... which is I don't know when either! *bluek*). Anyhow, minutes later I got into the office for my appraisal. I guess it went quite well.

Leaving the office, the howling wind and pouring rain greeted me as I walked to my car. My pants were drenched. Next stop? Go get grandpa, then homeward bound for a nice warm bath and dry clothes. Ahh... tis indeed a boring day with a twist of lemon.

Random ramblings from the heart…

I haven’t really thought about this much until a recent chat with Shakila over MSN. It went something like this:-

Shakila: I think I should match you up with someone when I come back. I’m good at this
Me: What’s with everyone trying to get a boyfriend for me?!
Shakila: I think it’d be cute.

Cute? Awww... erm... okaAay. Then I start reflecting other episodes with similar tunes. Here’s one from a recent gathering with some schoolmates:-

Pam: Do you have a boyfriend (Mei echoes the question)
Me: *rolls eyes* Erm... no.
Pam: Haiyar! You must be too fussy. *tilts head*
Mei: Don’t be so fussy lah. *smiles*
Me: *chuckles* Oh yes, I’m fussy. (Agrees so I do not have to elaborate further)

Here’s another episode that happens almost every time I have a gathering with this group of people - where the mother hen of the group, Ling Ling, steers most of the conversations:-

Ling2: Aewis, have boy-boy already or not?
Me: *shakes head* Nah... not yet =)
Ling2: Eh! If the rest of you see her with a boy-boy, please... tolong broadcast to the rest of the group.
Peter: Wei, wei, wei!! Not only broadcast to the group... must sebar for everyone else to know (and all others in the group start trailing on about this...)
Me: *wishes I could hide and attempts to change subject*

Alright! So what’s wrong with not having a significant other?! Gee-wHiZ!! Not that it’s a must. I’m still young. I love what I have now although occasionally for the past few weeks... erm... ok... months - I've asked myself whether I’m still sorta in love with a certain someone.

I know the people who knew what happened between us think that I should forget about him. I really agree with them and think that I should let him remain as the friend that I’ve now taken him to be. But it seems the question now pops its ugly head once in a while because we have stopped avoiding one another, and we have now become closer friends than before we broke it off 1.5 years ago. I know this is dangerous ground to thread upon... and yet I’m still walking on it.

I think I shall take this one day at a time and see what life has in store for me. I may yet meet my certain someone, someday, at the right time, at the right place... or who knows if in some odd twist of events I end up being with him again? By the way, what seems a good reason to reconsider about him is because of the bizarreness of how it happened and how it fizzled out. It was just really bizarre. But remember... I’ll let life lead me to my destiny. (I’m just pondering out loudly...for once... so please don’t bombard me, ok?)

Fri, 15 Nov: Yes! I've finally gone to watched "Harry Potter" (at 9:15pm, in Mega Pavillion, Prangin Mall) and I find it to be a really interesting show. Dobby the House-Elf is quite the riot. It's funny how he always punishes himself every time he thinks he's done something bad. Ron Weasley's broken-and-held-together-by-celo-tape-magic wand prooved an interesting twist too. Spells he casts using the wand backfires (note the slug scene). Ron's dim-witted owl, Errol, is also an added comic element.

There are so many action sequences that deserve mention and to swoon over... but I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't watched it yet. Go watch it! Anyway, in short - the storyline's interesting, the action keeps coming, and I thought the movie was rather short although it was 2.5 hours long.

Sat, 16 Nov: I had gone to do some shopping with Sze Lin in Gurney Plaza at about 4:30pm. We went to check out the Swatch Collections; browsed through the MPH book fair at Ground Floor (we later visited the book store itself), a few shoe shops and toy shops; and last but not least - took a good glance at the many new(er) handphone models showcased at one of the bigger handphone dealerships there... *ho-hum*

At the end of our trip, I ended up buying a pair of shoes from Vincci. On our way out...? We were tempted to check out a shop named Phenomena (I hope I got the name right) because they have an offer of RM18-58 for 2 racks of clothing but we decided not to go in because we had to leave already. *sigh!* So, what tempted us? The items sold there usually start at more than RM100... Did I mention that they specialise in selling really nice pieces that are a fusion of ethnic-western styles?

This morning, grandpa caused a riot in the house. He had driven out to buy something and had not noticed that he had stepped in a pile of dung when he came back. He walked all over the house with that same pair of slippers and soiled the floors. Later, we also realised that he had also messed up the car paddles and part of the interior. Eww... yucks! That can only mean that he had stepped into that thinghy before driving home from his little errand. No guesses what my parents & I were doing after our discovery - it was a hell lot of cleaning up to do.

After I took my lunch, Jocelyn & I drove up to Tanjung Bungah to hang out at the beach. However, we drove into rain at our intended beach along the Sandy Bay Paradise Resort and seeing that the sun was shining further up - we decided to try going up to Batu Ferringghi. It was also drizzling up there. Disappointed, we turned back...

Reaching Sandy Bay once again, we noticed the rain had stopped. Hurray! We parked the car & hopped out to the beach. We just walked around for a while and didn't really do anything else (our mood was already dampened by the rain-lah). A little later, we headed to Secret Recipe, Belisa Row. I snacked while Jocelyn munched her dinner. I have dinner waiting at home... so, no heavy meals for me.

Had gone home in time to pick my dad up and to drop him off for his bus to KL. Later, it'll be a TV marathon for me. I am contemplating to do my ironing... but i'm feeling lazy-lar... hmm... nevermind... and yes... I know... "Don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today" - Fine... fine... I admit it! I tend to procrastinate (a lot).

Chats with Daws within the past few days/nights have mainly been about handphones. He still can't decide what to get to replace his dying phone because of

1. the ol' purse strings;
2. yet he's always thinking of getting a phone with polyphony with/without colored display... phones with both of these features are mighty expensive now
3. ...and of course the thing we all quote "I want to have something different"

In summary, I just told him -- "Don't be kiasu/yuppie/"Ah Beng", be realistic, buy a phone that will cause the least regrets, and get something you will not be embarrassed to carry around 1 year later. So what if 7210 looks different? It's also expensive - and not to mention the design will be a passing fad."

The 7210 (one of his many considerations) is basically a seasonal fashion accessory... take it around pass the time of its hype and *tadah!!* We have a fashion victim! *Applause!!*

What's YOUR Writing Style?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are a freeform writer. Individualistic with a sense for the different and challenging, Walt Whitman and his poetry lacking meter and rhyme is just what the doctor ordered. You're quick to write something that the rest of the world doesn't accept as poetry, quick to separate yourself from the average joe. An author with a true sense of self, you have confidence in your abilities and aren't afraid to show it. :) GO YOU!

Forgot to add this 2 days back. I had met Jayson on MSN Messenger, 2 evenings ago, and had a very nice long chat with him. Caught up with what's going on with our lives and yadah-yadah. Also updated him about the "Stupid Thing That Happened, Ignited by Yasmin". He thought what happened was nasty... much the way we all felt about that.

I'm going to go off a little earlier today. Yay! I will be going to Shamrock again, tonight... it's officially a weekly ritual with the girls... and of course - a few blokes... [addition to posting] Tonight it was 4 girls and a guy, Shen. Lucky fella~. Anyway, it is his birthday. We gave him a bottle of wine. We contemplated going to Langkawi.

I am looking forward to watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Now there's just a matter of when to go... still no schedule observed to be released on CinemaOnline. Just waiting for that... and then bolehlah pick a date & time to make ticket booking. =) Tralaa-laaaa-la~~

A little Quiz...

What Is Your True Aura Colour?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmm... that's cool!
I like blue anyway...
Altho... the description does sound pretty deep and profound indeed... gee-whiz!

~ohmMmm~~ ;P

The First Post: Didn't have a good start for a Monday. I had to put up with some insane bout that my grandpa came up with this morning *boils*... but I'm over it now. Nothing like a good cup of coffee to settle ruffled feathers *cool...sizzle...psssht...ahh*

Sat, 9 Nov: Was bored & on the verge of having hypothermia during my morning, serving a half-day sentence at work. Thanks to Yahoo reminders - I remembered to send Yokes a birthday greeting. The cold didn't feel so bad with ICQ Lite running on the computer... at least I had Daws & the "Kancil Killer" to chat with. The Kancil Killer is one of the best people for me to chat with when it comes to Saturday & Sunday toons... or anything about cartoons :)

At 5:30-ish, I went to pick up my parents. They've just arrived by bus from KL. Later at about 7, my parents & I left for Penang Swimming Club. But before that, we had to detour to One-stop to send my brother's handphone to my uncle & aunt's shop for repair. Apparently my brother had stumbled into a puddle of water while drunk... and the phone got soaked.

Moving from there, mum decided she'd rather shop than just sit around while waiting for dad & I finish with our swim, so we dropped her off at Island Plaza. Arriving at PSC, the rain started. No swimming then. Dad decided he'd just go bake in the sauna. I went straight to meet up with some friends - I had promised to drop-by anyway.

Here's the thing - Shen had planned to celebrate his birthday at the beach by the pool area... but he's not there yet... and so are many others (he said they were elsewhere waiting for the rain to subside). Only Soo Hoo, Fran, Pam, Erh Pin, & me were in PSC. Oh well... I left with my dad about 9-ish & asked Erh Pin to pass my token present to Shen.

Erh Pin saw it and laughed - a bottle of Carlsberg Ice with a blood-red ribbon tied round its neck. He thought it was cute and asked if I bought it with a ribbon already on it. Haha... Grow a brain buddy! No bottle of beer will be readily available with a ribbon on it. I also asked ErhPs to tell Shen we'll give him his real present when we see him again (most likely on his real birthday). Later, Shen called to let me know when he was on the way up to the club. I unfortunately told him I'd left the place already, won't be back up there, and would most likely see him again another time (soon). Lalalaalala...

Today: Caught up with sleep. I FEEL GOOD!! I've gone for a haircut!! Woo-hoo!! Yeah... baby!!! Ok... it's not totally short, as in boy cut short. It's just shoulder length and looks much neater than before the massacre of my long, unkempt, untameable hair ends. *grins* ...Now all I have to do is tackle the ironing of my pile of clean laundry.

My colleague, Vimila, came back to work after a long break - today... and along with her, she brought a whole lot of Deepavali goodies for all of us. Oh joy!! The pantry will be stocked for the next few working-days!!

I am glad that I decided to bail out of going to hang out with the girls & a few guys tonight. I am really tired. My eyes felt like they are gonna pop out anytime... and then I got tempted to take on a last-minute invite to go out for a little bit of berjalan-jalan at Pesta.

Ok... luckily my better judgment won the battle. I decided to take a raincheck on this one too. Decided to drive out for a little errand and found myself struggling to concentrate while on the road. Good thing I decided not to go out for either events. I think I would have slept on the wheel either on the way to the destination; or back from there.

Have to work tomorrow morning... *sigh*

Wed, 6 Nov: Had asked my aunt to lookup for available Maxis numbers based on the three latest 4-digit combinations from Daws. Luckily I had took a sheet of post-it with me. My aunt returned my call when I was just starting up my car to go home. Quickly grabbed a pen, stuck the post-it onto my steering wheel, and scribbled all the numbers being dictated to me. That being said and done - I fixed on my hands-free, called Daws (and he said he'd call back...), drove my car out of the parking bay, picked up call, dictated numbers on the post-it to Daws, and my colleague (who was hitching a ride with me) laughed everytime I sounded a bit more animated/perplexed when replying to some occasionally silly question by Daws... at other times... I'm just being cute (as always... hehe...) He finally picked one number & went to my aunt's shop to settle the line registration with my aunt, after work.

Later, I went to get Joce at 8:30 PM. Picked her up early because I needed to make a detour to One-stop to buy some blank CDs. After that, we went over to Shamrock to meet up with Jamie, Shen, Erh-Pin, Fran, Pam, Mei Ling, & Calvin. The place was very dead. The pool table was ours for the whole night. Played cards & goofed around before we went over for mamak, right across the street. So much for all of us who said we would like to go home early.... we ended up going home at about 12:30AM.

Today: A box arrives for me in the office. Hmm... let's see what's in it... OK.... opened the box... put aside the packing foam... something in bubble wrap... "ARGH!! WHO PACKED THIS THING~?!!" - 2 layers of bubble wrap mummified by a 1.5 inch wide super-adhesive tape?! ...The last thing I need to do now is to be Ms. Butterfingers... consignment items read: 1 porcelain mug, 1 ballpoint pen, 1 Agilent ID badge holder. Ok... dropping this on the floor is definitely not a good idea.

I finally managed to unwrap the items after a long struggle. The mug is really nice & heavy (...it's all black with the a little Agilent logo & motto printed in white), the pen is rather nice & heavy too... and the badge thinghy... is a badge thinghy. What's all this? It's my consolation prize for a logo competition I took part in (there were only 4 participants worldwide... so much response, eh?). The task was to create a logo for a global function group in Agilent.

Sun, 3 Nov: After breakfast, we went to visit Granny Christine's grave. Dad had actually forgotten about All Souls' Day until I reminded him about it last night. As soon as we got home Dad began his massive cooking project - fried bihun enough to feed the families of my 3 grandaunts, his best friend's family, and ourselves. I had actually invited Peky over for lunch when I saw her online before lunchtime but she said she was "pai seh". She also told me that a pipe had burst outside her house overnight - right at where her dad's beautifully tended garden patch was. Oh no! That once beautiful garden is now quite a painful sight, with all the gravel the PBA has put there temporarily before the actual fixing work begins.

Pretty much lazed around after lunch. I decided that I should cancel going for a badminton workout with Shane, Sze Lin, Freddie, and Kok Keong later tonight. I do not want to be feeling dead when I go back to work on Tuesday (The logic? Having only slept at 4am, and then going for 2 hours for badminton at 9pm - a person with no fixed exercise regime will definitely be a very tired & sore one...)

Had followed Peky to join Daniel, Dom, Malcolm, Julian & Pei Ling for dinner at California Cafe, Gurney Plaza. It's nice seeing this group getting together again. The food - edible but not incredible. Sadly I was in a rush... I had to leave them at 9pm because I have plonked on the alternative & less energy taxing activity - watching the 9:40 show of "Red Dragon" in Prangin Mall. All I can say is "I like the movie!! It's very smart & I would recommend people to go watch it. Anthony Hopkins rocks!!"

Mon, 4 Nov: Happy Deepavali!! Hi~ I didn't do much today. Just had a mite of a mystery to solve before we got the DVD of "Amelie" to run without the director's commentary. The font for the options listed for the audio features were so small that we literally had to be very near the TV to try to interpret what it was all about. I find the movie to be an amusing watch... and it was easy to relate to Amelie. The filming style & storytelling of this one is also intriguing. Oh yeah! Mum & Dad went to KL in the evening. Hurrah!! The house is mine!!! Muahahaha...

Today: Went to office - logged in as usual only to be greeted by a popup that "rudely" screams out - "Your account has been disabled. Please contact your system administrator". Just my lucky day... quickly figured out that I had to renew my account with the IT folks & found out that they'd only restore my NT account and Outlook Exchange by the next day. That's half the morning. The other half - I managed to borrow a colleague's terminal to check a few things and clear some stuff (she works from home then comes to work at 12:30... cool-eh?). Anyway... asked Daws via ICQ if he'd come up with another three 4-digit combinations for probing with Maxis. His original three combinations queried to Maxis via my aunt came back with only one option that he didn't like. Told him to think about it and let me know later coz I'm literally computerless.

The afternoon was spent packing a lot of packages to be couriered (... I still have some more to pack tomorrow morning too!). At about 4:40 PM, I tried using my NT login... woo-hoo!! It worked!! Next, I checked my Outlook... it still didn't work. One out of 2 isn't that bad for a start, right? With the long weekend & some lose ends to tie... I'm only afraid of what I might be greeted with when the Pandora's Box is finally accessible. Btw, Daws messaged to let me know the numbers... they even had a story to them... ;P Har har har!!! Will check them out within the next 2-days.

Sat, 2 Nov: Hurray! No work today means I benefit from getting to actually enjoy the long weekend. Woke up at 10-ish. Got online to check mails & had a rather interesting chat with Chris & Daws each. After lunch, followed my parents for another bank "La Tour de Penang". All went well until we went to Bank X - with intend to use the cash deposit machine. Main branch: machine "Out of Service". Komtar: bleah. Dato Kramat: more bleah *tut!!!*. The last ditch... look for a branch I remember seeing along Jalan Jelutong. Took a wrong turn. Ended up going a big round before we found it. Yes!! Yes!! Finally a machine that works!! Ok... well... it was quite a fussy one too... kept refusing the last RM50 note that we had to try swapping with other RM50 notes we had kept in our wallets.

Next stop, the market - I bought a whole watermelon for Jamie's pool party. Wanted to cut it, but I had sentry duty - peeling loads of onions & shallots for dad's cooking project tomorrow (let's just say he literally plans to feed an army). Finished that in time to pack for the party before Jase came to pick me up. The watermelon felt like it weighed a ton.

Turning into the apartment visitor's car park, I saw Doris, her parents & Jeffrey. Aha! I finally see who Jeffrey is... *chuckles* In the lift ride to Jamie's, I kinda told Jase that he was not a gentleman. He didn't offer to help carry the watermelon until I mentioned it... to which he replied "Ok, here's the deal - I carry it when the lift opens until we get to Jamie's place". My reply? "What's the point?!" - btw, Jamie's house is just right in front of the lift. Period.

After greeting whoever's arrived, I headed to the kitchen to cut the melon up. Hahahaha... at least Jase was decent enough to help cut it too. Vern Ying chatted with us while we were hacking it into bite-sized pieces. Jamie's dad came back with satay & 2 lobster termidors. Wow!! Thanx uncle!!

Once all the grub was ready, we moved down to the poolside. We ate, we goofed, we fed the mosquitoes, we swam, and some of us went into the pool for a swim - in swim gear, of course. Pool incidents: Su Jin pulled Jo Lynn, who was in normal clothing, into the pool. Shen jumped into the pool voluntarily before Su Jin pushed him in. Jamie slipped n fell by the pool side. Aiks! ;D

Now let me list who was there: Jamie, Su Jin, Shen, Doris, Jeffrey, Soo Foong, Sze Lin, Vern Ying, Jason, Jo Lynn, Deborah, Fiona, Tze Wei, Erh Pin, Soon Beng, Calvin, Shawn, James, Andrew, Stephanie, Adrian, and 2 girls who were Jamie's housemates in Uni. Dor & Jeff had to leave by 8:30 PM to catch a bus back to Kelantan (they study there). The remaining group: some left before 12:00 AM, while the rest of us stayed on til 2:++ AM before heading for Subaidah in Tmn Pekaka. I think most of us reached home at about 4:00 AM. What a night!

The world is getting weirder than it already is. Flipping through The Star newspaper last night, one headline caught my attention. It goes something like this:

Lankan man breastfeeds child

What I remember about the article is that some Doctor mentioned that if a so-and-so gland goes into hyperactive mode - a man CAN breastfeed... hmmm.... think I'll put up extracts from that article when I'm back home.

After picking my grandpa from his office, I had to detour to the workshop to get a bulb changed for one of my headlights.... but woe behold!! There was a massive traffic jam along all the roads leading to Komtar. Time spent getting from Penang Road to Carnavon Street - 15 minutes. Phew! I thought the worst was over... Then I got stuck in another standstill getting out from Chulia Street Ghaut to Weld Quay Road. Was stuck there for at least a good 45 minutes before managing to get into the turnoff leading to the workshop about 100m away.

The mechanic got the bulb changed in less than 10 minutes. From there, I decided to detour for some bank hopping and 'play' with some of the machines. The banking area was just round the corner. Got stuck in a queue at a cash deposit machine. Guy in front was depositing loads of cash and the machine seems to be fussy today. It 'spitted' out some of his notes quite a number of times. Ack! Wasted yet another 25 minutes. Took the alternative route home to avoid the crazy traffic situation up near Komtar.

Theory: Super Komtar Preview Sale + Rush Hour Traffic + Incoming Traffic from mainland via Weld Quay ferry terminals = horrendous traffic situation.

P/s: Forget about the article... I'm now too lazy to go dig it out of the newspaper stack. I chose to watch Charmed & Survivor instead