Tue, 15 Apr: Had a sinfully heavy buffet lunch with my colleagues in Shangri-La's Coffee Garden... *burp* We were celebrating a belated birthday for Lyne (our secretary) and also the promotion of Angela (my soon-to be former supervisor).

Anyhow, my brother arrived home from KL in the afternoon but he'll be going back late tomorrow evening. For once after a pretty long while - I indulged in some "char koay teow" for supper...

I finally continued with watching my Smallville episodes of 15 and 16. I bet guys would love season1 ep15 (Nicodemus). Look out for it and you'll know what I mean *wink* May your jaws drop to the ground.

News of war is depressing yet I've managed to watch up to 6.5 of 10 episodes of Band of Brothers over the weekend. After watching so much about soldiers during World War II - my heart also goes out to soldiers who have been roped in to fight in arms. Some will lose a limb or two, some others severely injured and may not fully recover, some will not be able to even go home alive. It's a job they can't get out of even if some of them don't believe in the justification given by Bush/Blair and their respective military top dogs.

F1 Updates: Fisichella is officially awarded the win for the Interlagos GP! With the results now changed to be based on the results at the end of Lap 54 instead of Lap 53 - there were some winners and losers in this instance. Meanwhile, Fisichella will get his rightful podium for the Brazilian GP in a ceremony organized by Ford, days prior to the San Marino GP.

F1 Updates: It looks like the F1A is reviewing the results issued on Sunday and Fisichella may be announced the victor. Fisichella will not set himself for disappointment before an official decision is declared after an F1A discussion scheduled for Friday.

Looks like the Jordan team and Fisichella might be having a celebration after all... and also... Fisichella might finally get his first and well-earned GP win!

With so much being said and reported about Coronavirus Pneumonia (previously known as SARS) and the war in Iraq... that's all we hear about while walking in public areas, and read about in the newspapers. Heck! Even TV stations are putting up hourly updates regarding the war. There's no escape from it all!

For instance - last Saturday morning. While taking a "cool down round of walking" around the Botanical Gardens after hiking halfway up the tar road trail to Penang Hill and down a dirt trail with Kok Keong - a bunch of people jokingly asked their acquaintance, who they bumped into, if he had SARS when he was heard coughing...

Next thing you know, they were playfully interrogating him along the lines of making a diagnosis to confirm whether he is a health threat to the public or not.

Interlagos F1 GP Race, Sao Paolo, Brazil (Race 3 of 16, 2003 Season): IN A NUTSHELL

The Brazilian GP sure is one of those races we've haven't seen in a long while. It's very wet and high in drama. F1 is back to being an interesting watch after 2 rather boring seasons. Here's a run through of yesterday's race:

4 Safety Car (SC) Sessions: The race starts with an SC leading the pack for 7 laps. 3 more SC sessions were called for throughout the race with a possible 5th SC session to be carried out if Alonso (Renault) didn't crash into debris from Webber's mutilated Jaguar.

Turn 3, A Killer Turn (KT3): 7 cars spun there. 6 of them crashed into the barrier. Only one managed to get back in the race. There seems to be a mysterious source of water that keeps flowing across the race track here.

Only 10 cars finished this very wet and highly incident filled race... and Fisichella (Jordan) was assumed the winner after the Red Flag (Race Stop) was issued

Jordan's jubilation was cut short mere minutes later when it was announced that results will be based on the results of the previous lap, Lap 53, in accordance to F1 Regulations on Red Flag situations.

Hence the result for those in the points were - 1st: Raikkonen (McLaren), 2nd: Fisichella (Jordan), 3rd: Alonso (Renault), 4th: Coulthard (McLaren), 5th: Frentzen (Sauber), 6th: Villeneuve (BAR), 7th: Webber (Jaguar), 8th: Trulli (Renault)

Oddball fact #1: Barrichello (Ferrari) has been keeping a streak of incredibly bad luck on his homeland's race track. 9 out of 9 times - he did not finish (DNF) the race although he hungers for a win here.

Oddball fact #2: Both Webber and Alonso gets points although they crashed out.

Oddball fact #3: This is the first time a winner is absent from the winners' podium. The medics have since taken Alonso to the F1 medical facility for a check-up as a precaution. (News Update: Alonso is fine and only suffers from a sore foot).

Oddball fact #4: Fisichella wouldn't be on the podium if the race wasn't Red Flagged - being couped up behind a really slow SC caused his engine to burn shortly after his car was parked in the pit.

Oddball fact #5: This is a long-standing fact - Considered to be one of the best drivers ever known in F1, Fisichella has yet to win a 1st placing in his F1 career.

- - - The DNFs - - -

Car Failure #1: In Lap 17 - Heidfeld (Sauber) retired by parking his car on the grass as his car was losing oil.

KT3 Victims, Part 1: In Lap 17 - Wilson's Minardi took a spin and is out of the race.

Freak accident #1: In Lap 18 - Firman (Jordan) suffers a broken right front suspension and the flying debris from his Jaguar takes out the rear wing of Panis' BAR Honda, effectively taking the both of them out of the race. The 2nd SC is called.

KT3 Victims, Part 2: In Lap 24 - Montoya (Williams) and Pizzonia (Jaguar) crashes into the same spot in 2 separate incidents. In Lap 25 - "The Rain Man", Michael Schumacher, loses his touch and crashes there too. The 3rd SC is called.

KT3 Victims, Part 3: Verstappen (Minardi) spins out in Lap 31. In Lap 32 - Button (BAR Honda) became the 6th victim of KT3.

KT3 Survivor: In Lap 45 - Webber spins at KT3 but manages to regain control of his Jaguar to continue in the race...

Car Failure #2: In Lap 47 - Barrichello's Ferrari shuts down as he was leading the race. It's heartbreak again for Rubinho (see above fact).

Freak accident #2: In Lap 54 - Webber has been destined to hit the wall one way or another in this race. He loses grip and takes a massive crash near the pit lane entry. A 5th SC was called but before it could be carried out - Alonso hits the debris from the Jaguar and takes a big crash into the wall. He limped out of his car, seemingly dazed but fine, and rests against a wall as medics approach him. The Red Flag was enforced and there will be no restart.

Fri, 4 Apr: Survivor 6: Bye-bye Dave! This dude, a rocket scientist by profession, was duped to think he had allies. HohOHO!! Well... and so... he bombed out. Next person to go would most likely be that crackpot named Matthew (If he doesn't win that chunky-funky imunity necklace). He's getting too creepy.

Sat, 5 Apr: Jelly-making experiment using the Konnyaku powder mix went rather well. Just gotta remember to lessen the amount of water added into the mix on my next try at this.

Update: I forgot to add - Went hiking up until 42 of Penang Hill tar road trail with Kok Keong. Sze Lin was to join us but we decided to let her recuperate. Poor gal had stomach problem and hardly sleep since Thurs nite.

Sun, 6 Apr: Ching Beng prayers at home OK. I don't feel as stressed out and irritated as I usually would when they do stuff like that at home though my legs are killing me. I definitely need more frequent exercise and a better warm up routine before a hike.

Anyhow, my 2 grandaunts stayed the day and a 6-yr old cousin followed her grandma here. Dad said she must have had the mojo to sense that I made jelly last night - it's been a long while since she came.

At some point, I became a "colouring book artist" for the lil' rat. She does get lazy sometimes and tries to get me to finish colouring the drawings for her while she shifts her attention to other "attractions". Oh yeah, had to be on sugar patrol too... had to make sure my parents don't give her too much sweet stuff to eat/drink.

She's already quite restless... if she gets on a sugar-high... gone-lar! I couldn't even manage to finish reading a page of any newspaper article without her interruptions... and I don't want to imagine her when she's officially in hyperactive-mode *sigh... kids...*

Peace and quiet finally reigned supreme after both grandaunts and especially my cousin was sent home after dinner. Tonite's episode of Phua Chu Kang was a real riot - Afdlin Shauki played a nice supporting role to teach PCK ala Yoda to a young Skywalker on how to get back his "Juju (Mojo)". After that - a nap was in store. I needed to stay awake for the Brazilian F1 Race that's scheduled to start at 1am, Malaysian Time.

The most effective way to waste time in the office is to get your PC formatted - leading to an endless bout of re-installation of everything you need to work & enjoy a full multimedia experience - and then to top it all up - a nice long wait for the system to finish defragging.

At last count: Total time wasted at work since last friday = 3.25 work-days (roughly covers 4 mornings + 1 day). Absolutely stressful when you know the backlog pile is growing.

Hap-pee A-pe-ral FooOOools' Day!!! *Puts on a clown's silly red nose, blows a party horn thinghy, pops a party popper*

Fri, 28 Mar: Stayed home and watched Survivor 6. Roger is finally voted out - as a member of the newly merged team of Jacare (Portuguese for alligator).

Sat, 29 Mar: Today I can withdraw my pay. Today is an expensive day. Money seriously rolled out of my pockets when I bought the OST of LOTR:TTT and the Princess of the Danish Court Barbie doll from Mattel's Barbie Collectibles - Dolls of the World: The Princess Collection series.

Finding the doll available in Carrefour is a really odd thing since all the other obvious toy departments in Penang have yet to stock it.

Dinner included fresh raw salmon that dad bought from Carrefour, sliced at home and served with wasabe and kikoman sauce. *grins from ear to ear*

Sun, 30 Mar: Ugh! I hate waking up to be dragged to the graveyard for Ching Beng stuff... and I won't bother to argue either. I'll just sleep in the car while on the way up to Balik Pulau and back.

Mon, 31 Mar: My boss is getting a promotion. We'll be missing her. At home, I reworked on my soon-to-be launched personal website's design. I love it!

Office Incapacitated

Firstly, yesterday, a major power surge to the office takes out:

• 4 UPS units - smoked came out from them and the fumes smelled horrendous. Plastic fumes are poisonous. Our region VP ran out from her room and opened our dept's office main door to the great outdoors. The feel of fresh air never felt better;
• 1 desktop unit - fried;
• 1 notebook power adapter - also fried; and
• 1 laser printer - at press time, suspected fried... need to do a little bit more of testing first

Then the big bomb came along... those of us with email accounts on a particular server can't reach our very important means of communication... A call to the IT Dept confirmed our worse fears - a variant of the W32.HLLW.Lovgate@mm has infiltrated our Intranet (I'm not sure which variant).

My few colleagues and I ended up having a community coffee break made of a hot drink and some cheesecake. I eventually ended up declaring "woefully" *rolls eyes* - "Since there's nothing that we can do - here we are wallowing sinfully in our sorrows" - to much laughter of my colleagues.

And so... here I am, today - DAY 2 of Office Incapacitation and the virus on our email system is now widespread. Looks like containment has not been successful yet. Well... I seriously still have no idea what else to work on... and it doesn't feel right to just go home either.

Must find something to do... hmm... file backup? Hmm... that's a start.

Hmm... occasional odd traffic jams here and there - and there're also the few odd roads with strangely free-flowing traffic during rush hour for the past few working-days... maybe this has something to do with the random setting up of police blocks around the key areas in Penang. Btw, there seems to be a permanent police block along the FIZ Phase 3 - Kg. Jawa main road, for now until the heightened security alert gets taken off.

Anyhow, I found this year's Oscars a tad more interesting although it's much more toned down in terms of pomp and splendour. After all - we get to see:

1. a very pregnant (and glowing) Catherine Zeta-Jones singing on stage and looking as big as Queen Latifah for their number from "Chicago";

2. Michael Moore being literally pushed off stage by the producers by means of playing up the music and pulling down the microphone - to stop him from going further with his very-anti-Bush statements in his acceptance speech for Best Documentary Feature;

3. and definitely the 75th Oscar's most memorable moment - a firstly superbly dumbfounded Adrien Brody slumping paralysed into his chair as soon as he realised he won Best Actor for his role in "The Pianist" later gets on stage and surprises the award presenter, Halle Berry, with a big wet kiss that lasted for a good 15-20secs or so before taking his award and giving one of the most meaningful speeches of the night. In a replay of his reaction when his name was announced, if you listen carefully, you can hear him muttering out "Holy Shit!"

Memorable excerpts of the 75th Oscars as covered by Entertainment Weekly...

Michael Moore's moment of glory: "On behalf of our producers, I'd like to thank the Academy," says Moore, who's greeted with a standing ovation. "I've invited my fellow nominees on the stage with us, and they are here in solidarity with me, because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction, and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time when we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president."

And though we interrupt here to mention the boos and shouting now competing with Moore's speech, the determined Oscar winner continues...

"...We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush! Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you!"

Well, it's not an awards show till somebody gets booed off the stage.

And the Best Actor goes to... Adrien Brody, a surprise winner for his role in the Roman Polanski-directed The Pianist.

And a little gold dude is not the only thing Brody is taking home tonight...he takes the stage and plants a full-on wet one on Berry. "Whoa! I bet they didn't tell you that was in the gift bag," Brody says to a still shocked Berry.

"There comes a time in life when everything seems to make sense. But this is not one of those times."

"This film would not be possible without the blueprint of Wladyslaw Szpilman--this film is a tribute to his survival. And I'd like to thank Roman Polanski for the role of a lifetime." Brody is about to be scooted offstage as the music cues, but the first-time Oscar winner is having none of it.

"Wait one second, one second, please, one second, cut it out...I've got one shot at this," Brody says, as the music dies down. "This fills me with great joy, but I'm also filled with great sadness tonight, because I'm accepting an award in such a strange time. My experiences making this film made me very aware of the sadness and the dehumanization of people in times of war, and the repercussions of war.

"And whatever you believe in, whether it's God or Allah, may he watch over you, and let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution," says a teary Brody to a standing ovation. "I have a friend from Queens, who's a soldier right now in Kuwait, Tommy Zarbinski, and I hope you and your boys make it back real soon. God bless you guys, and I love you."

Best Song - Eminem (How'd that happen?!): Babs Streisand, donning tonight's oh so popular black garb, lists the contenders for Best Original Song. And the winner is Eminem, for his 8 Mile soundtrack tune "Lose Yourself." It's the only song not performed at tonight's ceremony.

Eminem couldn't--or wouldn't--be in the hizzouse tonight, so his sport coated and basketball jerseyed cowriter Luis Resto accepts. "This all goes to Marshall. He's creative, and he has symphonies in his head."

Most deserving of an Honorary Gold Dude goes to... Before we get to contemplate the fact that Eminem just won a freakin' Oscar (!), Meryl Streep is at the podium to introduce the man who's nabbing tonight's Honorary Oscar, Peter O'Toole. The clipfest of O'Toole's greatest hits unfolds, and the actor, who had initially refused the invitation to tonight's festivities, takes the stage to yet another of tonight's standing ovations.

"Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, my foot!" quips O'Toole, who had been oft nominated without ever taking an Oscar home, prior to tonight. "You've given me this delightful shock. Good night, and God bless you."

And the woman taking the most eligible gilded escort home with her tonight is -- as Denzel says, "by a nose"--Nicole Kidman. (Or as we're saying, "scoreboard" to Tom Cruise.)

The Hours star, sans schnoz, steps up to accept her award. "Now I have to think. Dave Hare, I need your words. I have such appreciation and gratitude for this. Oh, Russell Crowe said, "Don't cry if you get up there," and now I'm crying." Sniff, sniff. "Sorry. Um, Stephen Daldry, you took a huge chance on me. I'm so grateful. David Hare, you gave me wonderful words to say. [This is the part where Kidman exceeds the five-name-maximum thank-you list.] I'm absolutely thrilled to be standing up here tonight. Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important, and because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that, and it's a tradition that needs to be upheld. I'm standing in front of my mother and my daughter, and my whole life, I've wanted to make my mother proud, and now I'm going to make my daughter proud."

The 2nd "heart attack" at Oscars: If you've stuck around until now, you're as curious as we are whether Martin Scorsese will break Gangs of New York's losing streak (the historical epic is zero for eight at tonight's ceremony) and his own unlucky streak (the famed director has been nominated four times but never won).

And getting right to the point in announcing the Best Director nominees is Harrison Ford. Indy rips open the envelope and reads the name--Roman Polanksi for The Pianist. Wowza! That sound you heard was our jaw hitting the floor. This has to be one of the biggest upsets since, well, since the unexpected Best Actor win for Pianist star Brody. Because first-time winner Polanski is indisposed (that is, he's a fugitive living in exile in Paris), Harrison accepts on his behalf while the audience tries to adjust to the shock.

[Click here for the full account of the Oscars]

Ok - last week was essentially dull excepting my glue-ing to the TV for F1 in the weekend, dropping into Lush on Saturday night for Merv's birthday thing organized by happy-camper Shen, and the quite so-so-and-borderline-boring dinner that dad dragged the whole family to last night. Mum thought it was supposed to be only the 2 of them going... "Well, mum *rolls eyes* - we do know that dad can be scatterbrained and give 5 people each a different story/impression".

I also enjoyed a trip to Island Plaza on Friday evening for shopping, alone. It's amazing what "Alone Time" means when you are beginning to feel like everything and everyone wants a piece of your sanity. Got back in time to observe Survivor 6 and the voting to throw out the ever whiny Shawna. Oh JOY!!! It is an extremely good choice although potential contest between Alex and Matthew for Shawna's affections could have been a tad entertaining.

Kimi "Iceman" Raikkonen wins his 1st F1 GP race in Sepang! Yes, Wonder-boy has finally done it! Ron Dennis was seen crying tears of joy for his young driver as he crossed the finish line while Peter Sauber publicly congratulates Raikkonen... probably as the proud man who talent-spotted Raikkonen. Don't ask me why I'm so happy about this but it might have something to do with having observed his F1 career grow from the very start. *Dances in Joy!*

Come to think of it - this is a pretty amazing feat! Firstly, KR was intro-ed into the 2001 season by Sauber with only a temp. super license and a contract for a few races (try out basis) - very obviously a wild card entry. Prior to F1, he did pretty well in 2-yrs of Finnish Karting and 1-yr at Formula Renault.

At end of 2001, he was "Rookie of the Year" in favor of a very publicised Juan Pablo Montoya who had competed that year in the stronger Williams' car. And to add icing to the cake, he was offered the 2002 race seat in McLaren Mercedes in favor of Nick Heidfeld who was much rumored to be the top choice to replace 2-time World Champion, Mika Hakkinen, who was "taking a break to spend more time with his wife and newborn son".

In 2002, he showed potential of being a more competitive driver than his experienced team mate in David Coulthard... but car reliability to finish a race was something the 2002 McLarens' lack. There were countless times that his car failed while he was in contention for a top finishing... and of course there was that famous let down at the French GP, Magny-Cours.

In that now infamous scene, KR was leading by a margin of 10-secs or so when his car loss speed with just a few corners to the finish line - handing over the much coveted win to none other than Michael Schumacher. On the podium in 2nd, he was one very disappointed guy. But then of course - that's racing! Nothing is definite until you cross that darned finishing line.

Back to 2003! The McLarens returned to the 2003 season with a much improved 2002 car, in interim until they are dead sure of the 2003 car, and opened their season with a 1st (DC) and 3rd placing (KR) in the Melbourne race. Now that's a very optimistic start under a totally revamped F1 race qualifying system with new rules and totally new strategies. F1 is officially exciting again after being awfully predictable in the last 2 years. With KR's win in only the 2nd of 16 races, it could mean that McLaren is once again back on the right track to compete strongly for the constructor's championship after losing it to Ferrari since 1999 and only managed 3rd-placing behind Williams last year.

*Ahem!* So... OK! After all that swooning about a Potential Future F1 World Champion... I'll first have to say that there are basically 2 competitions in the F1. Nombre un: The Contructor's Championship... and this is subdivided into 2 sub-competitions #1a - The competition for the top 3; and... #1b - The more interesting competition for the 2nd rung, the 4th-6th positions. Nombre deux, #2: The Driver's Championship.

[Erm... can you now please shaddup and tell us who you are actually supporting-ah?]

Oh, right! With reference to the above numbered references, here we go... #1a - Williams BMW; #1b - Sauber Petronas; and for #2... I fervently root for Montoya ('coz he's got attitude and seriously not afraid to be outspoken), Raikkonen (coz he did start from Sauber) & those current Sauber dudes...

Btw, I'm also jubilant that Ralf Schumacher made if to 4th from starting 17th on the grid... and rather disappointed 'coz Montoya couldn't have a better race as a result of Antonio Pizzonia's Jaguar clipping his rear wing at the Sepang GP's opening lap; and well... the Saubers did experience lousy pit stops.

[But that's racing lar... things happen, we've seen stuff like that happen in all races with all the different teams] Yeah, that's true. *Sigh...*

Air-NeEee-waAaay... team Sauber Petronas has come a long way since Petronas invested in it... and *Omigosh!* I just realised I'm a closet patriotic Malaysian. *aH-aCks*

Who's next?

Deceit fails trust the world over
A madman can and a madman will
Do what it takes for image cover
While people for peace take vigil
Trying to be heard to unavail...

Bright skies swiftly darken
As war drums murmur to a thunder
Bleak news can only harken
What a madman will soon order
It is nothing we wish to wonder...

Cries of peace over deaf ears fall
While leaders choose for their people
With tied-hands some decide with risky pall
For to object may mean to get a cripple
By a madman who rocks the cradle.

Emotions rise and impatience grow
The madman demands a sworn rival surrender
Unheeded it stayed - the world now know
The madman will commit without consider
What could be history's biggest blunder!

Thus across the pallid sky with lightning strike
Fire breaks and hell set loose
A nation is attacked in growing might
The world looks on without amuse
Who will he put next on the noose?

Chronicles of Dim-Son Jorge

Dim-Son Jorge: Father, our economy has not been stable since the Otter-AntDerSon scandal arose. We've tried to find ways to get it stabilized but the damage is too severe. What can I do to not look like a failed president?

Loth Vater: Dim-Son, you need to take the eyes of others from your internal problems. Why don't you stir up the whole world and destabilize the economy of countries worldwide? That way you are equal or stronger than them.

Dim-Son Jorge: Father, you mean...?

Loth Vater: Yes, Dim-Son. You attack your archenemy using some lame reason. You must also convince all the other nations to believe in the lame reason that you will be using.

(3 months later)

Dim-Son Jorge: Father, I have failed to convince all the other nations. I only have a few loyal allies. The others were cleverer than I thought. They know that I want to have control over my archenemy's oil reserves. Furthermore, quite a throng of my own minions is against what I'm doing. What can I do now to save my image?

Loth Vater: Dim-Son, you must stand your ground or you'll end up looking like a wuss. Creating false evidence against your archenemy was sheer evil genius. However, your deceit has been found out because the intelligence of the other nations combined was stronger than you thought it was. They trust you no longer. You must go on - with or without full support from your minions and also the other nations.

Dim-Son Jorge: Father, I know what I can do now. I will issue an ultimatum to my archenemy. If he does not obey, I will unleash war upon his land.

* Newsflash: Dim-Son Jorge's archenemy has at present snubbed at the ultimatum of leaving his land within 48 hours.

* Disclaimer: The above is a parody of current world events based on some general views that people have on it. The names have been changed for the sheer delight of it.

Mon, 17 Mar: Well... what significant thing did I do today? I went to watch the 9:50pm show of "Star Trek: Nemesis" with Jase who said he's bored. This coming from the genius who took 3-days off and ends up with a week off since he only has 3-work-days this week... He now regrets not having a proper holiday plan... *LOL* The sheer genius of it all.

Saw the DVD for "Tuck Everlasting" but didn't buy it. I'm not sure if I already have the VCD of that... or am I confusing it with the fact that I've watched and liked the trailer? One word - BLUR.

Fri, 14 Mar: Well... today is the day when work was a never ending influx. It overflows into Monday's work bin. Yeah, I'm pretty bored. Anyway, later went home and was told that the fridge is KO. Repairmen can only come to work on it tomorrow morning.

I needed an icebox to at least make sure that the meats in the freezer survive overnight. So I made a few calls before finding out that the only person that has an icebox is the one living in faraway, Sungai Ara. With slightly more than an hour before Survivor begins airing, I got the icebox from Malcolm, made a dash into the Jelutong 7-11 to grab 4 bags of ice while the cashiers gave a puzzled look that screamed "So much ice for what?!"

Anyhow, I made it back in time to salvage freezer items, a few minutes late in taping Scrubs, and in time for Survivor.

On Survivor 6: The show takes a new twist as Dave and Jenna were told to take turns to pick members of the tribe - by first choosing a member of the opposite sex and to alternate the gender in every subsequent turn until the last choice has been made.

Sat, 15 Mar: Forgot to bring my set of the office keys and had to wait like an idiot with the MIM students until my colleague came to open the doors. I hate having to go into my employer's office on Saturdays (even if it's only alternate Saturdays). Luckily it's a morning 1/2 day only. Later at night, I followed my parents to watch "Cradle 2 the Grave". I think it wasn't too bad. It's after all an action movie with Jet Li in it.

Sun, 16 Mar: Woke up with the odd realisation that I had 2 dreams, back-to-back, where both have the same plot and the same key characters. The only difference was one was more like a feel-good-romantic-comedy, while the other was a bit more detailed albeit with a more freaky-sci-fi-soap-opera twist to it. Now that's weird!

I never sounded more nasal. My nosh is schtuck. Oh yay! My ears just popped... I can hear normally again. I think medication makes me feel giddy. Or maybe that's because I've automatically woken up at 5:30am for these 3 days.

I find steaming my nose using some menthol crystals in freshly boiled water interesting. It clears my blocked nosh and makes my face feel kinda minty and a bit stingy.

Oh yeah... I only worked 1/2 day, yesterday. Having afternoon afternoon naps 2 days in a row never felt more luxurious... its good recuperation for the sick.

Btw, I noticed Blogger is having problems (again) lately... thus, I'm making it a habit to compose my postings in Notepad first. That way, I won't have to retype my postings when it gets 'lost'.

Thu, 6 Mar: Hmm... nothing much happened - I had a happy time getting some songs downloading in the background while doing some work... noted that PC is crashing more often. Erm... yeah, I just remembered that I did go out for supper with Sze Lin.

Fri, 7 Mar: PC kept on crashing while I tried to update a webpage using Dreamweaver. Defragmenting the disk is definitely something I must do no matter how many times it crashes while in the middle of defrag. Yup, I could only stare at the screen as it defrags, reboots itself and to relogin to Win2k before restarting the process again and again. By 5:30pm, the PC defrag was only about 30% at last reboot. I decided to continue the battle with my PC on Monday.

Watched Survivor 6. Gotta say that it gets more and more interesting when the number of tribe members get even on both sides. Loser at the 4th Tribal Council is JoAnna (Jaburu) - the others felt threatened by her physical and mental strength. Later, I watched Scrubs from my earlier video recording. It's quite amusing.

Sat, 8 Mar: Woke up in time to watch the 2nd qualifying round of F1. I must say that the new rules and new qualifying format does lend an edge to a sport that was less than colorful last year. In the afternoon I went out to have a swell window shopping time with Sze Lin. After a late dinner at home, I joined Malcolm, Ashwin & Jacob for a chat-makan-minum.

Sun, 9 Mar: "Look, the world in sepia" said my brother while waiting for the rest of us to get ready for dinner. It was sunset amidst a cloudy sky. I told him that it seems a bit eerie - like we are in an old movie. Shortly after, the whole family was headed for Mario's to enjoy a cosy belated b'day dinner for my bro... the food was really *YumMmm!*

Earlier today, watching the Melbourne F1 race, I was elated with the drama from start til end of the race. The weather caused most teams to choose the wrong tyres - Barrichello lost control of his car and went into a wall at round 10-ish and Da Matta suffered the same shortly after - quite a number of pit stop errors caused by people and machinery - a few other cars sorta blew up - 2 safety-car sessions.

At the end of it all, Coulthard won by sheer luck (he started on 11th), Montoya was 2nd because his car spun and he loss some time, Raikkonen (who had nothing to lose starting from the pit lane) was in 3rd. Lastly, Frentzen's Sauber managed to maintain a pretty good position throughout - he was 6th. For more news on F1, click here

Mon, 10 Mar: Started my day with 2+ hours of computer defrag. After countless reboots including those on Friday's - my comp finally is behaving better. It's been well worth the time sacrificed. Now... I just need to clear my backlogs.

Tue, 11 Mar: Woke up feeling like my throat is going to throw itself out. I am officially sick and on MC for today. If I'm not much better tomorrow, I'll have to go to the clinic again to get another MC. Mum thought I was crazy when I started chopping and cutting some potatoes, carrots, and onions while leaving some Shitake mushrooms to soak - shortly before dinner...

What she didn't know then was that I intended to cook the soup for supper, and maybe it'll be part of tomorrow's breakfast or lunch too. This sudden urge to cook is probably because I noticed that one onion was growing shoots and our few potatoes are beginning to have shoots too.

Tue, 4 Mar: Working on a public holiday has its perks - no traffic jams! Free lunch again today since there were plenty of leftovers from the buffet prepared for the Coffee Talk Session's audience that was conducted earlier. Today's main exclaimation of amusement came from the Indian expat guy when the rest of us in the office started rattling on about breast-related stuff when my boss started "leaking". He said that we were very liberal and we could get sued for talking about this so openly in the office, if we were in the US. Night time was mamak with Jocelyn at the Sup Kambing place. Her friend Michael joined us there.

Non-major news event: Bored worker misjudged speed of a heavy drawer slamming shut. Curse of Butterfingers claims left middle finger as its victim. Typing became a sore task.

Wed, 5 Mar: And the winner is... About lunch time, Joce calls up to ask one of the ultimate dumb questions - "Will the shop charge me if I ask them to check what's wrong with my PC; even when they end up not doing anything? My PC won't go into Windows. It just keeps showing a blue screen. They want to charge RM35. Should they even charge for this?". Well... the answer is an obvious YES, provided that its after the warranty period and RM35 is cheap.

Then she asked again, "Why must they charge?!!". You are buying their service. "But why must they charge for something like that?!" she wails. Hey gal, previously, who checks your comp for you? A friend? If a friend did it then of course its FOC-lar! You are going to a shop and its after warranty some more!!

"Really-ah? How come they charge?" she whines. Oi! Where do you come from? Anything electronic that is past its warranty, those people who service your stuff sure charge you one-lar. Aiyo.... *Patience exhausted trying to explain something so simple to someone who is either very naive, plain dumb, OR seriously too jaded

Alalalalalong... Later at night, I was at Shamrock to hang out with Suj, Shen, Jamie, and Jocelyn. Some Mild Seven gals came by and asked us to spin the wheel to determine questions about the Renault F1 team. We got it right twice, so we had 2 sets of prizes - altogether a total of 4 really cool lighters, and 4 passes to the F1 party at The Bungalow this weekend. Mei Ling (who was there with her friends) gave us her passes - 6 passes in total.

Next thing I know, Joce goes on and on about going to the F1 party... and inviting who-so-and-so to join her... but dunno if they'll come... blah-blah... before going - "You wanna come?". Sorry to be a party-pooper but I will not go to an F1 party organized by sponsors of an F1 team I do not support AND with people who know next to nothing about the race itself. I'd rather watch it on TV with friends who understands what goes on in the race.

That takes the cake!... Anyway, a little rewind... Before Jamie came to pick us up, Joce called to rant about some stupid thing about Suj and Jamie. Not exactly in the mood to be just a listening post or Agreeable Annie after our conversation in the a/noon - I just told her off with:

"Stop being petty! So what if you can't stand how they do certain little things? You think that people change themselves just because one person feels they should? Not that you are going to bring it up to them anyway. You gotta learn how to accept the flaws that your friends have or you'll never be happy about anything."

She later told me thanks for making her stop herself from being in that destructive cycle of hers. Hopefully she'll never have another petty issue to rant to me again after this episode. Sometimes being brutally blunt is the only way to wake some people up from their unrealistic ideals (or their own imaginary Utopia).

Get this - I was awake for a total of maybe less than 8 hours on Sunday.

The long Saturday I had sure took its toll on me. I arrived home with a splitting headache and couldn't sleep until I've taken a painkiller and 2 Panadols. But before that, I managed to give Daws a courtesy call to say that I'm home and Ariani's on her way home. I also gave my brother a call to wish him Happy Birthday although it's still 20 mins to midnight. And lastly, I called my dad to tell him I'm home from Taiping less he gets worried.

My car on the other hand had it's first good run after a major overhaul. The fuel consumption has much improved to my delight... a noticeable 1/4 tank for 220 Km. Hope this keeps up so that I don't have to fill the tank so often. Fuel prices are escalating too often for my liking.

Sun, 2 Mar: Had lunch with my grandpa before going off to post some letters. Called up Celine at the spur of the moment and asked her if she'd like something cold and refreshing to drink. Sunday afternoon is after all unforgivingly hot and humid. She was more than happy to have extra company and the idea of a cold treat. Ended up buying a few extra packets for a few others who are also working at the Open Day. Chatted and kidded around with quite a number of people there. Ah bliss.

Went home to read Sunday papers and dozed off again... skipped dinner... I continued sleeping although I did wake up before 9pm. The call of CSI and Gilmore Girls could not compare to my physical need for more rest.

I found out that the best method for me to kill off whatever is making me super moody is to write about it on paper and burn it. Haven't done that in a long time. Maybe that's why the volcano erupted.

Anyhow, I did call Ariani. The end decision is that Ariani will navigate, and I have both Kak Wan & Swanee as passengers. I also quite frankly told Daws off and all he said was he'll drive himself down if he wanted to go. Well... whatever~! Now, I'm just tired of putting up with the quirks of someone who is so emotionally and mentally immature.

The best thing that could happen after "killing my demons" was to get a "Hello...etc..." SMS from someone I didn't expect to hear from. Thanks Soon Beng. It's such a small and simple gesture but it meant a lot for that moment in time.

Anyhow, Survivor 6! Woo-hooo! I liked the reward challenge round. It was a pretty good ice-breaker game... and the one to bite the dust is Daniel of Tambaqui. Arr... it was obvious that he would be one of the earlier ones to get voted out.

Lastly, it sucks to have to work 8:30am - 5pm on a Saturday. I sure wish I had the liberty to watch some of those Saturday cartoons.

Updates: After work, I went to the bank only to find the cash deposit machine cheekily glaring "Out of Service". Oh well... Then a short trip to Giant was in order. I just realized I haven't drank a drop of water since having milk in the morning. 100 Plus is in order... and a spare bottled of water... and hey! Chuppa Chups lolly!

Next stop - KDU. Parked my car and grabbed the card down for anyone else who would like to sign a message for Catherine. Seeked out Ariani and found out that our "Mr. Pandai Tarik Harga" is made a decision to go only this morning. Perhaps my little tongue-lashing at him was one of the reasons. I prodded him about his decision and he muttered out with a smile, "Forced to". Oh whatever.

We wanted to leave for Taiping soon as we could but the Security Makcik, Mahliga, went missing. Later we found out she went for a shower. Finally leaving KDU, Daws took Wan, Lincoln & the Super Sr. as passengers while I had makcik. I led them all to my house first since I had to stow away the cash I couldn't deposit earlier and Ariani needed to park her car someplace nearer to her home... and she's now my passenger too.

The drive down was OK... except that Daws can be a lousy lead driver, especially when we were in the old roads off Taiping because he doesn't seem to slow down much after turning corners. Not easy to keep track of another car when it's nightfall. Anyhow, keeping up in terms of speed along the highway was not a problem but it also means that there was not much time to take a breather.

Another matter for cursing was because our main guide the Super Sr. wanted to go home to change clothes first although we are late already. She also picked up her daughter to join her for the dinner. We arrived at the Town Hall mere minutes before the couple of the day took their march to the main table. Ms. Loke and her hubby was there earlier and they saved places for us. The dinner was Malay style.

There was a lucky draw after dinner. None of us were lucky. We later went up to greet, congratulate and to pass our angpaus to Cat & hubby George. Ariani, Wan and the little girl took some balloons from the hall. We then had to drop Super Sr. & daughter home first... and well... the girl's balloons plus Ariani's balloons was a definite driving hazard. Couldn't start driving until they learnt to hold down the balloons.

At Super Sr's place, Ariani wanted to anchor her balloons down but in the process of it... she lost the most precious one of all - a gigantic heart-shaped balloon. Wan being really nice that night, came down from Daws' car to pass Ariani one of her many other balloons.

Back towards the highway, I lead until a short while after we were on the highway. I let Daws overtake after that and followed him at a comfortable speed of 100 Km/H until the Penang toll where we parted ways. He had to turn off for Butterworth where he needs to drop Wan & Lincoln off before coming back to the island. Good thing I told him that I was not feeling so well after the dinner and would appreciate it if he would drive slower on the way home. At least he listened this time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you secretly sad?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hard Lessons from Episode 1:

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

Men can't balance as well as women can.

Are guys that disorganized in solving jigsaw puzzles?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CNY Feasting - Thy name is Gluttony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

* 2 ang pows; 2-days to CNY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm sO scatterbrained sometimes....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quiz result of the day:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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