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.