Today I didn't want to wake up for work. But today, I still had to drag myself to go to work. Oh heck! What'a another day of work while still much in holiday mood?

My colleagues and I have already purposely went out for a longer lunch on Monday... the day we worked in half darkness... since the facilities folks were doing maintenance checks and we were on generators.

We felt more like sleeping than working anyway... what with the aircon and bare lighting in the office. But that was Monday. And today is the 2nd day of Raya... and I'm not goofing off with friends coz... why is that? Oh yeah... I have to work... *type,type,type...*

SELAMAT HARI RAYA!!! to all who celebrate the festive occasion....

and Happy Holidays for those just enjoying some time off from pure mundane routine...

Meanwhile... I only have 1-day off since I'm following the Singaporean calendar... and well... that's the only pain of being placed to support Singapore in the Customer Service side of things.

Other than that... I had a blast for my something like 36 hours of time away from work (including sleeping time). Finally managed to watch 4 movies out of my pile of DVDs that I haven't had time to watch over the past few mths!

(1) Spirited Away: Mighty weird story (but heck... it's a Japanese anime, no?) but I sure enjoyed watching this one... where the supposedly most evil one turns out to be the good one...

(2) The Majestic: I really loved this one. If you believe Jim Carrey is only good for slapstick comedy - think again! He did some serious acting for this one. Jase!!! I'll lend you this one if you haven't already watched this one!!! It's even better than...

(3) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: Well... watching this after having watch #2 was like watching something a little lower classed. It's a fun movie no doubt but #2 had a better story behind it.

(4) Catch Me If You Can: Its about this Frank W. Abagnale dude - a legend in bank fraud history. The things this guy does all before his 19th birthday... without modern day PCs and the convenience of the www.... whoa! Not bad for a guy to be able to change from being an elusive fugitive who siphons money from banks early in his life to become a person who legitimately earns millions by becoming a check security designer for major banks later in his life. Whoa.....

Ok... so I conclude that my Singaporean mentor is not all too bright after all. In fact, he could be the easiest person for anyone to bamboozle if you ever need to find a target.

Lifetime Award for the Dumbest SMS interaction for year 2003.... has to be for this:

"Hey! You went home early today?" - the mentor

So yeah... I did go home before 6pm for once and that's a good thing... and people do notice when I go home before they do... coz usually I leave after most of them have gone home... so how much dumber can that question be to lil' old me?!

"Erm... that's my evil twin" - I decided that this reply would be one that is sarcastic enough

"You mean... You are still IN THE OFFICE?" - the mentor

Gosh! How dumb can this dude be?! I shall not reply... I shall not reply... and may some light shed on my mentor's somewhat dim-witted mind

Don't get me wrong but he does seem to have the capability to ask everyone dumb questions that can irritate the hell out of our minds... even when we are busy at work... via yahoo messenger. How do I know all this? Gossip with my colleagues lar... when sudah the terlalu stress.

You are Form 1, Goddess: The Creator.

"And The Goddess planted the acorn of life. She cried a single tear and shed a single drop of blood upon the earth where she buried it. From her blood and tear, the acorn grew into the world."

Some examples of the Goddess Form are Gaia (Greek), Jehova (Christian), and Brahma (Indian). The Goddess is associated with the concept of creation, the number 1, and the element of earth. Her sign is the dawn sun.

As a member of Form 1, you are a charismatic individual and people are drawn to you. Although sometimes you may seem emotionally distant, you are deeply in tune with other people's feelings and have tremendous empathy. Sometimes you have a tendency to neglect your own self. Goddesses are the best friends to have because they're always willing to help.

Which Mythological Form Are You?
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12th day since I last blogged... and nothing much has really changed. Ho-humm

Have watch Matrix: Revolutions with Jase 2 Saturday evenings ago. Still gotta love the effects although the movie is as confusing as ever... don't mind the tons of loopholes in the movie that screams... "Oooh... we'll make a sequel in years time! Just you wait!!"

Aside from the steamboat dinner my colleagues and I decided to carry on with last Tuesday despite the rain, life on weekdays is pretty mundane. I'm still working an average of 12 hours 5-days a week... and I carry work home on a CD every weekend. Life sure is mundane and pretty stagnant. I need to get out more. I need to see more sun.

Ooh... before I forget... outcast bitch of the office didn't leave on Tuesday as we'd much been looking fwd to... her last day was prolonged to Friday by some twist of events. Her courtesy farewell do was just really weird... no one had much to say to her... no one said they'd miss her... and some of us were just keeping ourselves from telling her, "Good riddance to bad rubbish"

As for how I spent my weekend - Sat evening was spent at Shen's BBQ. It was fun altho' I did stay away from the booze by keeping myself bbq-ing at the grill... hehehe... I didn't wanna get pissed that night coz I was already having an irritating headache.

Sunday was all about catching up on lost sleep, watching cartoons, ironing my 2 weeks worth of laundry, preparing some decorations for my team's official "Go-Live" party in about... 16 hours, and finishing whatever work I took home from the office on Friday.

Last note... am looking forward to LOTR: Return of the King... the new wallpapers are as darling as expected!!

Oh look... I'm starting to go home late again... 9:30 pm?!!! Crazy...

Oh gLeEEeeEeee! My manager had happily announced in a memo to the team that those of us who stayed til very late on Friday can go home early provided we have no work to do... and so... the happy campers of my team slowly trickled out of the office starting from 2pm... and I only went out shortly before 4pm... but what the heck?! I'm still leaving way earlier than I normally would...

Did I mention that one outcast colleague will not be eligible for this little bonus? No?! Ok... so she was the only bitch who left at 5pm sharp while everyone else in the team stayed back to help team mates with huge workloads to clear their pile. Oh justice is served!!

Btw... we won't miss her when she leaves on the 11th... it's no loss at all to the team coz she wasn't a team player in the first place and has been a pain in the neck although most of us gave her a benefit of a doubt on her personality... good luck to her next employer man!! Amen!!

During the weekend - I joined my colleagues, Michelle and Jeffrey (this guy is my Singaporean mentor), on an impulse trip to KL. Muahahahaha... Ok! So I had a pretty great time.

We left Penang late Saturday morning and stopped at Ipoh's Jusco for lunch. Then we headed to my dad's house in USJ to drop off our bags prior to a rendezvous with some other colleagues from S'pore in KLCC - had to battle some down nasty rain to get there

...and later a scrumptious dinner at Modestos in Bangsar... then it was off to some clubbing. We ended up in Beach Club after seeing ppl being true to the concept of the Barfly at the Bar (12 SI)... barflies all!!! I kid you not...

On Sunday... we more or less woke up between 10-ish and 11-ish. But my big surprise was that my brother actually woke up at 11! Usually he wouldn't be alive to the world until 2-3pm... maybe 4pm at times... and the reason that he woke up was "Kim Possible". Hahaha... so that explains why we can reach him over the phone by 12 noon on Sundays!!!

Prior to going back to Penang - Mich, Jeff, & I spent some time walking around Sunway Pyramid. It was a nice stroll... and it's still one of the malls that I love. Can never seem to leave without ending up buying something from there...

Before heading home - we decided to go for a seafood dinner at Batu Kawan / Tambun. The food was absolutely wonderful... aside from the fact that we have to constantly swat those big fat flies away who are just looking for a chance to get to our food... nyah nyah... nasty flies. BUzZzz off!!

29... 30... 31 Oct... 3-days in a row I worked from 8am til more or less up til 12 midnight as it was our year-end closing. Free dinner provided on 30 & 31 ~ I won't complaint coz I had a really great time with my team mates and our manager during our "Community" dinner.

Besides... we essentially had a fantastic Halloween... Although I must admit being initially disappointed for being unable to join my friends for a Halloween party.

As busy as my colleagues and I were over the week, I must say that it's pretty amazing how we even managed to squeeze a bit of time thru-out the whole week to produce some pretty decent last-minute custom-made Halloween deco and to put it up during the nite of Hallow's Eve. Hmm... musta been all those de-stressing breaks we take... hehehe...

5pm on Halloween - the freaking system was down and out. People were tensed. We NeeeEEeeed the system... but we can't do a bloody thing... so we did the only thing we could - take a goof-break. Apparently something always happens to our system every 31-Oct... sPooOooOOky...

But before you knew it - it was back to work... just 30 mins later... yeah... so it would have been mundane, senseless toil yet again at work again - but the whole office suddenly became alive!

Hmm... what's up? What's up? It seems like we have "uninvited" guest. 2 Chinese Ghost!! One totally decked in black, the other all white... hahaha... OMG!!! Those 2 are part of our team of Singaporean colleagues...

Wait! A look around entailed us to discover that there's more - Our dept. manager is in a cape with a "Scream" mask... my direct manager had put on a "paper bag" with a monster's face drawn on it, one of the supervisors was a fairy, and another was an angel... and all of them went around the office handing us goodies!!! Meanwhile, some ppl in my team (including me) put on our "crooked witch hats".

By now... no one was working. Everyone was taking whatever candy that came our way, everyone was taking pictures with our costumed managers and colleagues. We were just plain having fun in the midst of a tensed period in the office. Woo-HoOOoOOo!!

Infinitium's version of Happy Birthday...

Happy Birthday to you... Happy Birthday to You... Happy Birthday to You-u... I~~~ REMEMBERED THIS~~~ YEAR!!!!!

That really cracked me up. Thanks for the good laugh man!!!

Exhaustion from work.

3 Thursday's ago, my supervisor told me to pick up some reporting thinghy from the BPA. The next day I found out it was his last day. I also found out that he hasn't been collecting data as he should have done for his remaining days at work.

This daily reporting thinghy is purely the shits. Gotta pull data at 4pm daily. Gotta prepare numbers and compile a report by 10 am the next day... and weekly report... die also must try to produce by 11 am on Monday. It's not easy to have to handle incoming transactions that should ideally be completed within the day while also trying to finish this reporting shit.

Thank God they are discontinuing the need for the report and giving me something else to do soon.

Love my new phone. Btw, mine's in Volcanic Red. Now I just gotta explore the software CD for the phone-Computer interaction.

And most importantly for today -- IT IS THE FIRST TIME in eons since I got back early from work... and am back early just because I'm suppose to visit a granduncle in the hospital.

*sigh* He's in coma. I don't know the full story yet. Depressing thought indeed.

Also... am again containing potential sore throat. Lack sleep. Panicked 2 mornings ago when I woke up with terrible pain at my right abdominals. Luckily it was something other than the worse thing that first popped into my mind.

Yup. Wasn't appendicitis. Some muscle spasm/cramp. Maybe because it was too cold the night before... coupled with my having suffered diarrhoea since the evening before.

My 3310's screen has said goodbye / No call ID, No SMS, No message of any kind I can read / Life is tough without a gadget I once could live without.

Ok... so that pretty much happened last Wednesday. By Friday, Chin2 & I had plans to go phone-hunting on Sunday after watching the earliest show of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Bonus trivia... movies before noon coz only RM5 per head. Woo-HooOooo!!!

Over the weekend I was mulling over whether to get a Nokia 6610, SE T68i or to go for the SE T610... so many things to consider... but eventually... I set my heart to one and felt the pain of having to spend so much cash in such a short time after getting my replacement home PC...

And all I have to say now is... it was well-worth it. Let's just hope I don't so something totally brainless to my new phone like what I did to my 3310. *crossed-fingers*

F I S H

Yup, that's right! Fish! My office has lots of it. Paper fishes and cardboard ones... they are everywhere!

1.5 weeks to D-day, Friday, Oct 3 - a group of unsuspecting employees where pulled into an organizing committee. Gosh! That's not a lot of time for us to help pull things together. Everyone is busy with month end closings... At the same time - each team in the dept had to think of what's a good fish deco to make for the competition. Best fish wins a prize for the team.

1.5 days to D-day... the project chieftess came by and told me... "Hey, I need you to play only parts of so-and-so songs". I broke the news to my partner in crime, James. We sorta-panicked... we lacked the proper tools.

And so we found ourselves stealing whatever time we could to pull bits of small wonders into place for D-day with what limitations we had... of course this included a search over the net for freeware or shareware to aid us. We ended up with only one useful tool. All others were essentially crap to us.

D-day finally arrives. Chaos! I spent more time than I would prefer in reacquainting myself to sound editting via Flash 5.0. James forgot to prepare music for one whole section in the itinerary... The food arrived late.

Later, halfway into FISH - the chieftess asked if we could edit some song like an hour before a scheduled item. We tech fellas nearly fainted... but luckily we managed to make it clear that it would have been impossible to get things done with such short notice.

Considering that our playful boss really dressed up like a pirate and that we all got to see our project chieftess boogie-ing her bootie during one of the games... this event lacking good organization... with no proper rehearsal for the events sequencing and the like... the event was successfully fun! Not bad at all... not bad at all :)

Last Thurs (25 Sep), mum has gone off to KL to follow my dad off for a trip to East Malaysia. The house is all mine and there shall be no mum to nag me for until the end of next week. Friday (26 Sep) - Gosh... landslide of work to deal with and had to sit through a meeting. Bleh... tiring day.

Saturday night... went to Prangin Mall with Jocelyn coz she wanted to buy some stuff from the Thai Fair before they their last day there. Then... we hung about Starbucks for a drink and some scrumptious cake.

Sunday... woke up late and thought "Damn... cannot bathe. No water!"

Then a curious gesture to check if the taps were really dry prooved to give me a pleasant surprise... My house STILL HAS WATER!!! Muahahaha! I can wash my clothes and mop the house and... do all the other mundane stuff... including having a nice cool bath.

F1 Race. US GP, Minneapolis. Rainy day with surprising results... bad day for Williams as Ralf Schumacher spins off while Montoya suffering from a spate of ill-judgement and really bad luck. Meanwhile, the Sauber team has much to rejoice for earning 10 points in this race with Frentzen in 3rd and Heidfeld finishing in 5th. A much deserved break for this team indeed.

The whole of last week was much a blur. For one... there was much to do prior to Gramp's birthday celebration on last Saturday. If there was one word to describe the whole of Saturday - it's "Non-stop". There were relatives coming and going from my house from mid-morning to til the afternoon. There were little kids running everywhere... some of them are just darn cute. *EEeeeeEEeeEEEEe... geramnyer*

At night, it was dinner out at the restaurant and well... again... playing usher and host... and I don't even remember at least 35% of the guests' names or family titles (who are they in the first place?!) and how they are connected to us. hehehe... all in all... was so poofed over the weekend.

Now back at work once more on the 2nd day of the week, it's been busy. Had to take up my colleague's workload yesterday since she was sick and on MC. Again.... damn... bzler... so... forgive the lack of updates.

Arrrrgggh!! It's Monday!

Ok... now that that's over with, let me recap on a few things that have happened since my last blog entry.

Work's the same... except I dunno why I had a sudden landslide coming in on last Friday. Didn't go home til 8pm... and sent some work to my "Yahoo! Briefcase" although I wasn't sure whether I'll have access to a PC at home over the weekend. Luckily, Mal brought my PC back on Saturday afternoon.

Got a haircut on Saturday afternoon prior to going out for a wedding dinner and didn't have much time to get ready after that. I'll go get my hair highlighted sometime during this week if I get home early enough.

Darn it... Italian F1 GP at Monza didn't go the way I hoped it would... but anyways... non-biased view --- It's a good sign for Ferrari that they could still win after a poor showing for the last 5 (or 6?) races... and that Montoya is still close in the race for the driver championship by keeping 2nd place. *Yay!*

5 Aug, Fri: Bowie & I went out to shop for stuff that was on bargains at Super Komtar... and I ended up spending like RM120 for 4 pairs of it. Pretty good buys I'd say.

On the other hand, my home PC is currently under scrutiny at Mal's - troubleshooting in progress as we try to pinpoint which piece of hardware is the cause of system instability... It could very well be because of the motherboard which can only mean... *gasp!*... I might as well look into getting a new PC.

6 Aug, Sat: Went to Komtar again after dinner. This time round - my dad and I went to look for the clear plastic wrappers at Popular Bookstore while mum had her fun looking through the same bargains I was looking at the day before.

Oh yeah... borrowed a laser pointer set to the Jumbuck too... that's the least I can do since I sure as hell am not sure where in the shopping complexes to buy one other than from the pasar malam's around the island.

7 Aug, Sun: Well... smrphhh... I slept for most of the day. In the afternoon - my mum and I went round to Gurney Plaza to pick out something as my treat to her for her birthday. She ended up purchasing a perfume package. Oh yeah, she also accidentally sprayed some perfume she was testing on me, before the purchase, into my eyes. Ow!

8 Aug, Mon: Wha...? Oh it's dark, it's raining... it's... gosh! Monday! Get out of bed you lazy pig! (but it's nice and cold... lemme sleep 5 mins more...)

The road is full of water... luckily there's less traffic on the road during the time I usually am on the way to work... I love school holidays!!! Apparently I escaped being stuck in a jam because *gasp!* ...Well whaddya know? An accident happened lar.

28 Aug, Thu: Met up at the sup kambing place to hang out with Shakila & Peky at about 10pm... and as expected, Dominic performed the concorde on us.

29 Aug, Fri: What did I do on Friday? Hmm... stayed home and hugged my pillow while watching TV and contemplating what else I have to do before I format my PC and upgrade from win98 to either win2k or winXP. Which one shall I pick? Heads - w2k; Tails - XP.

30 Aug, Fri (Eve of Merdeka!!): Traffic around Komtar was already horrendous by noon. Ack! Where did all these people come from?! My mood turned sour for the fact that I have 3 places to stop for errands and its been raining constantly too.

I dunno lar, I feel that I just can't quite tolerate standstill traffic and having to listen to my grandfather making unhelpful (duh! fact) suggestions at the same time - especially when it also involves a suggestion for an additional unnecessary errand plus use of an alternative route that, to my knowledge, will also be jammed...

Decided to follow my parents to dinner at the City Bayview revolving restaurant. The buffet was really good *burp! excuse me* At 10pm, I went out to hitch a ride with my colleague Christabel to go to Soho with her and some others. Parking was a whopping RM5!! That's expensive by Penang standards.

So Christabel, her bf and Jeffrey (our Singaporean visitor) went on to Soho and... gosh golly!! It was packed already. Then suddenly I saw Hooi Keong dancing like a man crazed... and on the other side of the joint - Erhps and Pam. Kewl. Later, Irene came in to join us. The music was ok at first but after the midnight countdown... it started to suck... big time.

31 Aug, Sun (MERDEKA!!!): The day started with glimpses of a 10 minute fireworks show from outside of Soho... and the countdown in Soho itself was late by about 4 mins... it's about time they calibrated their clocks :/

It's very anti-climatic to have a countdown after seeing the fireworks fying in colourful splendour in the night sky. We hung round until about 2am. By then, we have seen 4 girls who can't dance to entertain a crowd dance on the bar... Some of the things they did up there were just plain distasteful. No class at all. The girls dancing on the barstools next to us were way better in dancing.

Next it was a stop at the kedai mamak (sup kambing), home, sleep, and awake again at 9+am. Prayers again. Ack! Ok... I don't fancy all this ancestral prayer stuff but ok lar... I'm in a pretty ok mood today. My 2 grandaunts came over and we also had a surprise visitor in the form of my late grandmother's best friend. Sweet!

The house never sounded more lively - especially since one of my grandaunts is pretty deaf. It's quite a challenge when we all try to communicate with her. She'll smile and look like she understood and then suddenly - she'll ask us a question about something we might have just previously mentioned. It's kinda cute and funny actually.

Later in the afternoon, we went to stock up on Baskins. Even later in the afternoon, my brother and I scooted off to Prangin Mall to shop for some CDs and DVDs. I like what I found!! Just can't wait to find time to watch them.

1 Sep, Mon: Ooh! It's Monday and it's a holiday!! O yeah... I had a hiking appointment with Shane, Ah Siah & Bowie. We went up a trail from the Youth Park to some stop on the hill. It had a pretty good view of the town from there... the day was cloudy so it was nice. No worries about sunburn.

Anyhow, there was something interesting about what we saw. There was a small gap among the clouds that gave the sea a great big blob of sunlight... the like reflected off the sea's surface sorta looked like a footprint of some sci-fi alien aircraft. ;P

Anyhow, it started to drizzle lightly and we decided to hike our way down before it pours. When we got down - it stopped drizzling so we all went round the park to check out the newly installed facilities... including the new Xstreme sports arena. It's really huge! Too bad we didn't see any stunt skateboarders or rollerbladers there.

After exercise, pump up the calories! That seemed to be the case since Siah wanted to go to McDs... luckily we all got our Big Breakfast sets a good 10mins before the great Malaysian blackout. Hehehe...

Well whaddya know? First it's North America; then London; and guess who joins in the fray for a major blackout... Our very own TNB. Kiasu, I say *chuckles* *just kidding*

It seemed like some areas also had their water supply and telephone lines (those on digital transmission) cut off during the blackout. This prooves that too much technology may not always be good. Luckily, power came back 4 hours later. Hurray! ...and the first thing we did - was to switch on the TV... XP

The beginning of a new era in F1 racing

Hungaroring F1 GP, Budapest, Hungary: Fernando Alonso made F1 history yesterday to become the youngest F1 winner. This also means that it is the first win for Renault after their return to the world of F1 racing... the first win in 20 years! Alonso heading a podium with Raikkonen (McLaren Mercedes) in 2nd and Montoya (Williams BMW) in 3rd, consists solely of a new generation of F1 drivers marking the beginning of a new era.

On the other hand, is Michael Schumacher's luck running out? It has seemed that way for the past 2 races. What's even more upsetting for the Ferrari bandwagon has to be the fact that Schumacher was lapped by Alonso who maintained an amazing lead in Budapest.

And what about the tyre war? Michelin has been giving Bridgestone a run for their money. The cars on Michelins have been dominating the races since the last half of the 2003 season.

Lastly, a big hooray is in order for the Williams team. They've managed to spruce up their whole package in time to catch up for the driver's race title - where the top three consisting of Michael Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya, & Kimi Raikkonen - are just 1 point ahead of one another in that sequence... and of course, not to forget, Williams is now leading the constructor's championship!

19 Aug, Tue: It's way too cold in the office... I'm freezing... *shiver* No appetite to finish lunch. By 1+pm, I have a fever in reaction to extreme cold. 30 mins later, my supervisor tells me to go home. It took me one hour before I left the office. That one hour was used to leave my cubicle and to stand around the sun filled region of our teabreak area. I only left the office at 2:30pm - just after feeling warmer and fit to drive home and make a visit to the clinic.

20 Aug, Wed: One thing about medication - it really makes you sleepy. So... no one will seem surprised if I'm resting on my desk for a while. Anyway, during our team communication (briefing session) - I was leaning my head on the side of a cubicle for a rest everytime I felt like dozing off for a few minutes. :p