Nothing But Best Wishes For You

20 minutes past midnight, I posted the following on my facebook:

Towards the stars I reach on a clear night sky
and grasps upon the stars within my reach I try
With nothing in hand I look above
and wish the best for all whom I love.

I didn't understand why I felt the need to write this.

Sometime around noon... while I was still at work... I was informed that my aunt (mum's youngest sis) had passed on. Her body had weakened tremendously in the past 2 months due to cancer.

Now I understand, that I probably sensed it was coming... to have written something like this in the first place.

Videos from 15Malaysia

The 15 Malaysia Project is a collection of 15 videos done by a group of independent directors in Malaysia. The topics in each of the these videos are related to things that are common in the socio-political space within Malaysia. Get ready to laugh your socks off... some of these videos are terribly hilarious while others are on a more deadly serious note.

Here's a sample of the hilarious-kind:

And another one:

To check out the other videos... go to the 15 Malaysia website.

p/s: They made it to the 2009 Pusan International Film Festival too.

It's only June? You are so kidding me!!

So many things have happened that I still can't believe that it is only June. 6 months into 2009. Yes, only 6 months?!!!

I've found new friends... including a few really great ones who helped me through the drama I've had to go through (see 2nd paragraph below this one). You people have helped to keep me sane and stopped me from going majorly bonkers or feeling helplessly shattered. Thanks for making me laugh and for showing me other perspectives when I needed it. Though I'm not sure why it does feel that as the dust is settling, some of us are drifting apart... perhaps you were just passing by to help me move on through a phase in my Journey. I'm kinda sad about this drifting thing but nevertheless I'm grateful that I knew you.

Not to forget are the people who will always make me feel a lot more anchored even when I'm not. These are the people whom I may not see for weeks or months or even years and yet we can talk to one another as though we have never been apart during our little gatherings. They are the same people whom I've known since school/college days. (Totally unrelated but I'm proud to say that we've successfully kept in touch... and that there are people who envy that little fact that we are still in touch after all these years!!)

Now to the drama part. I've been wrongly accused of being something/someone I am NOT by a frankly Super-Psycho-Delusional-Person. I've been stalked by same SPDP whenever tension breaks yet another high-strung thread in her weird mind... that has the unfailing ability to churn up yet another fictional bad soap opera-worthy story angle... and harass me whenever they pop-up in her pea-brain.

I've also found out that a certain person who claims to be a friend has absolutely no ability for remorse because he is too stupid to understand that what he says will have a cause and effect on other people... even when the fact is pointed out bluntly to his face. Loser. Moron. Nitwit. May Karma deal with you for the trouble that you have caused.

Bitter. Sweet. In. 6. Months.

Oops! My bad...

In the last few weeks, I've normally taken the following strategy when going for my weekly swimming routine. This normally takes about 40 minutes to complete:

- 2 laps of breast stroke
- take a breather and do some stretches (in the pool)
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 2 laps of breast stroke
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of breast stroke
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of breast stroke

Last week, I managed to use that same format and squeezed in an additional 2 laps

Today, I decided to try this:

- 4 laps of breast stroke
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a longer breather and do some stretches

Things were looking real good at this point since I've managed 8 laps in 20 minutes... so I tried to get to 12 laps again... and continued on by doing:

- 1 lap of freestyle
- take a short breather and do some stretches
- 1 lap of freestyle... err... then this happened...

A slight tug in my right calf muscle told me that a cramp was setting in halfway into my 10th lap. Luckily I was swimming on lane 2... which is pretty near the side of the pool... and doggy paddled all the way to the side of the pool where I could hang on too while I massaged the stricken muscle.

I finished my other half of a lap using the breast stroke and without the kicking action. It was super slow to reach the end of the lap doing this... but that's the only way I won't totally sink into the water since the calf muscle needed more rest time. Exerting it would mean a lot more pain that would extend all the way to the base of my right foot.

I guess I should have taken a longer breather and enjoy some stretches before I jumped into swimming my 10th lap...

So I've learnt my lesson. Even when the going is good... one needs to pace one's self according to one's physical ability at a certain point in time. Don't go beyond your limit!

The best Friday in a long while

Gluttony Session #1

It all began with a team lunch with my colleague's at OXO (Queensbay) to celebrate 2 birthdays and 1 farewell. Here are a few photos of what we had (wasn't quick enough to snap a photo of some of the other dishes before the food was attacked)...

After the main course, there was desert... and yup... I didn't take a photo of that either.

Anyway... gluttony session #1 was pretty good. We enjoyed the food. However, I must say that the waiters have to be a bit more alert since they didn't even know how to clear the butter plates without being prompted.

To be fair, as a considerably new outlet, OXO probably needs a little more time to get their staff up to speed in terms of service skills.

Gluttony Session #2

Dinner was at Spice Market, Rasa Sayang Resort, Batu Ferringhi. This was with my parents to celebrate the 31st Anniversary of their ROM. Among the stuff that we ate included lobsters, scallops, plenty of fresh sashimi, oysters, mussels, yabbies (crawfish), and etc. This was accompanied by at least 2 glasses of wine each.

We had so much food that we needed to take a breather before going for the desert. So while just sitting around, I decided to take a photo of the table deco-piece: spices on a stone plate.

After some time, we headed on to get some dessert from the buffet line. While we were having our 1st coffee, the Rasa Sayang staff surprised my parents with this:

It tastes as awesome as it looks. So yummy! ...and with all that chocolate goodness, we decided to have a 2nd coffee.

After dinner, we decided to go have a nice long walk up and down the Batu Ferringhi night market. That really helped to ease off the feeling of being utterly bloated. *phew*

The Sing Song and Drink Beer Session

Ho ho! It's not yet the end of my very long Friday night... it goes all the way into 4am.

When I got home, it was about 12:30am but I am in no mood to go to sleep yet. Joce was pretty much up to going out and about too. She found out that her friend was in Red Box and does not mind extra company.

So we headed to Red Box, sang a lot and drank a few bottles of beer each.

The best part of all was it was raining when we were leaving! We giggled like little kids as we ran to my car (it was parked in one of the public parking lots along Gurney Drive)

Seriously... running in the rain was kind of a dream come through. It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to run in the rain ;)

Of course... by the time I got home... it was a must to at least take a shower... because I surely do not want to catch a cold.

In short, it was a way incredibly awesome Friday!!!

Hot, hot, hot day out!

The day started early enough for me today... mmm... say like 7:15 AM... so that I could go for an early morning swim with my dad.

Before leaving the house, I remembered to send a message to wish my buddy (Hun) good luck for the Penang International Dragon Boat race... and a playful note of caution to not walk into anymore gaps in the ground. In reply: aside from a laugh and a note of thanks, I was asked to go back to sleep... bugger that!

Anyway, I finally got about to my swimming around 8:30 AM and I must say that I'm pretty happy with finally managing to squeeze in 12 laps (in a full Olympic-sized pool) within 40 minutes. The most important part is I could walk out of the pool without feeling that my feet would give way... you know... as in the jelly-legged feeling... when your leg muscles totally refuse to hold you up anymore.

This surely is quite an improvement from about a couple months back when I could barely squeeze out 10 laps in about the same amount of time without feeling all jelly-legged by the time I got out of the pool. Getting back into some kind of weekly exercise routine from an almost no exercise routine was kinda tough... but it had to be done to drive up my energy level (and hopefully my immune system too).

Anywaaaaay, when I got out of the pool... it seemed that I may not have a chance to go to the Teluk Bahang dam to be a spectator at the PIDB race. Seems like everyone who originally planned to go decided that they didn't want to go after all. That's kinda sad really... I've never gone to check the event out even after saying that I'll check it out next year in every year for the past few years.

Then I just chanced to ask Chin if she's already there or planning to go watch the race... and it turns out that she's planning to go there after lunch. So we decided to have an impromptu lunch together at about 1:30 PM before heading up to the dam.

Boy it was hot, hot, hot! Luckily we brought a supply of water to drink. As a precaution, I had also made sure that I had applied some sunblock before going out today... best idea ever... if not I would suppose that I'd be sunburned to a crisp!

Ok, so Chin headed first towards her ex-team. She used to row but have now shifted her attention to competing in marathons. Then we went to see the next race that was running.

I even had a butterfingers moment... dropping my bottle of water. Dang... 60 degree downward decline! Thank god I was wearing my sports shoes and that I am pretty good with hiking. Climbed down to retrieve my water bottle... the precious ambrosia that I probably couldn't do without on a day like this.

As the races were going on, Chin told me a lot more about the stuff that normally happens during a DB race. Not bad... learnt something new today. Spotted Hun as he was walking back to his team's tent after a race so I waved to say hello.

Chin and I did a lot of walking from the viewing area to her ex-team's tent. We normally walked to the teams' tent area in between races ^_^

Other people I managed to spot at the race included Jibby (the photo-sniper); and Azmy and friend. It so happened that Hun and his brother were walking back to the team tent area (one of those occasions) when Azmy was spotted... so we all had a little chat session.

It all finally ended around 5:30 PM. Ahh... my water supply was depleted by then... I must say it was rather interesting... though I'm not so sure that the best was done to get people up to the dam to view the race. Maybe there'll be more people there tomorrow as the International races are scheduled to commence throughout tomorrow...

Oh I have to say this though... the poster design for this year's PIDB is really nice!

Hope...

Though I know that we may never be
what I hope we could some day be
Does it matter that I care for you still
when all I can see is a cold empty void
where there should be more soul in you?

You may never know what I feel for you
I was never brave enough to tell you so
I can see you when I close my eyes
and smile to myself when I remember
something silly that you have said or done

Wistfully I hope against hope
but it's a dream I can never hold on to
So I tell myself it's time to let go
be thankful of what I have in front of me
and yet hope has a life of its own
I can only hope that time will lead the way

*sigh*

The more I think about it, the more my head hurts.
So why do I think about it?
I might as well flick a switch to forget about it!

*Sigh*
But as usual...
Things are easier said than done.

*flush!*

Nope... that didn't work either.

About an epiphany I had about myself

A few months ago, a friend told me that I have set up invisible walls to keep people away from coming close to me. Even though I appear at a glance a most cheerful and friendly person, I just have a knack of keeping people at arms length away from me and never allowing people to get within that wall.

I just realized that I do have these invisible barriers set up around myself. I don't really know how or why exactly they were built up around me unconsciously... but it sure is time to start letting go and start living.

I guess I'm just starting to tune-in to knowing myself better... and I sure need to learn how to give more trust to others like how a child would trust a person they are comfortable with.

Probably the "trust no one" concept that was occasionally droned on by either one of my parents throughout my teens and college years caused me to do this to myself... but nevertheless... it's not something that I should hold on to.

My dear friend, thanks for spotting all this about me. It's slowly helping me to be my own true self. I know it's been annoying for you to point things out to me point blank without my initial recognition of what you see in me... but hey! It's starting to hit me in the face... so yeah... thanks.

Last Day for Submitting Borang BE

This year... there is no community service announcement from me... so I'm just gonna gloat.

All you last minute people out there, happy queueing at the LHDN offices. Alternatively, happy trying to get the e-submissions page to load.

I heard it's loading extremely slowly from a colleague who stayed up until 5am to complete filing his income tax claim... just because the site was not responding at about 10pm... so he tried to get into the site again at around 3:30 AM (after watching some EPL footy and playing games)... completed submission only at about 4:45 AM... HEBAT!

May patience be with you... but you should have done your income tax submissions earlier... like me... and whoever else who did it more than a week ago.

To rub it in... I did mine like 3 weeks ago. Go me!

Good luck, all you last minute kakis!

Watch out for team Brawn GP in the 2009 F1 GP season

Those who have followed the F1 sport will know that Ross Brawn was a technical director in Ferrari - back when Michael Schumacher was still driving for the team with the prancing horse.

Today, Ross Brawn has his own team. It is simply known as Brawn GP and he has financial backing from Richard Branson. "The" Richard Branson who owns the Virgin group of companies. And... this team used to be the Honda team that was No. 9 on the Constructor's Championship at the end of the 2008 season.

An amazing feat was done today. Brawn GP drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello passed the checkered flag first and second respectively in the Australian GP (Albert Park, Melbourne).

In short, a new F1 team makes an incredible debut by sweeping in a big bag of points into their pot.

Oh... and the Brits must be awfully proud. A British team and a British driver won the race. Moreover, there is also much hope that they can dominate the season and take over as the best constructor. Last but not least, there is a likelihood that they can help put another Brit up there as a world champion (driver's championship) after Lewis Hamilton's feat last year.

What's not to like in the eyes of the Brits?

Another realization sets in

In just a few days, it cannot be more apparent that my grandpa's mind ability has deteriorated sharply.

The clue was when he kept talking about his next appointment with the specialist on Friday morning.

But the clincher was when he asked me, were were we earlier.

Oh - my - gawd !!!

And the other thing was he speaks a lot more than he normally does at home... but mostly to ask about the most mundane of things.

It was a matter of time before it happened. We knew it would get full blown one day. It seems, he's almost there. The dementia thing. Ahh... time to hone more patience when talking to the old man.

Living with a stubborn geriatric

Everyone gets older. Your systems slows down eventually. It's common sense.

However, gramps doesn't seem to think that he is any older than he was 5 years ago. He's been having vomiting spells in the last few months. He's been choking on food. Why? We know why...

Firstly, he still stuffs his mouth full as though he has not had food in days. Not a very wise thing to do when the muscles in his digestive system is obviously slowing down.

Secondly, he obviously doesn't take his time to chew his food properly.

Thirdly, he is too stubborn to steer clear of foods that he should try to eat way less. When he gets annoyed that we are nagging him too much, he shouts at us saying we want him to go to the netherworld ASAP. WTF!

Fourthly, he seems to like avoiding the doctor... because he thinks he is his own best doctor. That is sOOoooo annoying. We have to nag him and drag him to go for a checkup.

Lastly, did I mention that the only person he may listen to is my dad? Bless mum and I if for any reason dad is traveling and we have to deal with the old man on our own.

*sigh*

And yes... I do wonder why my grandpa would rather suffer with the vomiting than to take the necessary precautions to avoid this complication in the first place. That's what any other sane health conscious person would do though it seems... that kind of logic just does not compute in gramps head.

The most I can do is watch and probably help to clean up after him... and have a superb amount of patience. I've been known to answer back to his more ludicrous comments... but I know... I should hold my tongue more in front of the old man... even if it kills me... I just need to vent my frustrations and opinions elsewhere. Like now... on this blog... or to my friends.

Edit, 2:30pm: Oh god help me! I've just spent the last couple of hours... cleaning up the house... this time... drips of diarrhea leading from the living room... and bombs away in the bathroom. Oh man... the walls, the walls... were hard to clean...! And all this before gobbling lunch too... errRrrk... o.O

The Ghost of Friday the 13th

Amazingly, today was the one time that I'm not aware of Friday the 13th. Coincidentally, it's also the day that things decided to take a life of its own at the office.

All the task I had for the day were lined up pretty and I had all the confidence in the world that I could get things done... until of course... the LAN port at my cube died. It totally died!

And get this... the office phones are VoIP ones... which means... I'm doomed with no cabled network and phone to use. As if that was not bad enough, the wireless network signal where I sit... is next to useless during peak office hours.

Yeah, if it was any other day where I don't have tasks to complete... I would be more than happy to bask in the glory of being literally cut off from the basic things that we need in modern office life.

With no obvious empty desk(s) on the 1st floor, the only thing I could do in order to get some work done was simply... to park myself at one of the empty cubes on the ground floor... one where I can see a wireless access point just about right above my head.

Oh yes... I went to squat at some "abandoned" cube.

Well... if that is what it takes to get my work done... so be it... amen to that and next time... I will try to remember to notice you - Friday the 13th... you sure know how to strike when I don't joke about you or notice that you are here.

If my computer could speak...

It would tell me that it needs an overhaul... software-wise. Oh yes indeed!

A lot of little niggling bugs are creeping up and the best way to go around that would be to totally wipe out the main partition and reinstall Windows XP.

The only reason why I haven't already done that is because the time taken for me to totally rebuild the software on the computer is honestly... way too long for my parents to bear... they want the computer working whenever they want to use the computer and that won't happen if I can't locate all the necessary CDs... it's been ages since my computer had to have a major software overhaul.

Besides... I'm not even sure if the installation CDs that I have can still be used... because some CDs do seem to have some data deterioration after time.

So for now, I will settle for stop gap measures that can be found via Google... but those are surely temporary... until my brother can send back his old PC to me.

By the way, his old PC happens to be actually newer than the one I'm currently using at home right now... my trusty old clone desktop powered by a Pentium III. Yes! A Pentium III machine!

To Hoard or Not to Hoard

...that is the question!

I think I may have thrown out one too many of my clothes prior to Christmas since I am beginning to think I am running out of options for my normal mix and match routine. Thus... I am thinking of breaking into my CNY hoard of new clothes. :P

It is time to call onto the power of self will to not break into the CNY hoard...

Sidetracking #1:

You will never know when you will bump into another person who is on the same wavelength in terms of thoughts. Some may even call it a kindred spirit. I am super lucky to have found another one recently. Oddly... this person would be the 2nd Taurean in my mini-list of kindred spirits. Go figure... o.O

Sidetracking #2:

Some people have no idea how fortunate they are and go on lamenting about how life is so unfair and nothing ever seems to be going right for them. I do not pity those who fall under this category if you are perfectly healthy and do not have the decency to find at least one perfectly and positively good reason to live on for yourself.

You see, everyone should have a healthy goal and steer oneself in reaching it in the most positive way.

Case in point, an old friend from college who is about the same age group as I am has cancer in his brain. He has just gone for a second major operation in 3 years and had his right eye removed. He has an admirable will to do all he can to appreciate life while he still can. Read his blog. His name is Brendan Leng Kavern.

If Brendan can do it, you can too. Think about it.

Happy New Year!

Whee! And so far... I must say that I have had an awesome start stepping into 2009. Beginning the year on a high note sure gives one a sense of euphoria.

New Year's Day was greeted in a super-non-boisterous way... away from being in a crowd. Essentially, I was just sitting in front of my PC chatting away with like-minded friends over MSN. After the stroke of midnight... it was all about watching the Miss Universe 2008 pageant on NTV7. The added sense of fun came in via the discussion that I was having with 'the Hun' during advertisements as the pageant progressed on... nyahaha... madness!

In the afternoon... it was off to Kay-el for my once a year mega-shopping spree! Upon arrival, a girl on the same bus asked if I knew how to get to the KTM commuter station and I was like, "Hey! Just follow me! I'm going there too!". Along the way, I advised the girl to make sure that she notices the name plate placed at the windshield of the arriving train... or she could end up heading to the wrong location. One good deed completed on the 1st day of 2009... not bad at all!

Towards the end of New Year's Day... the Hun apparently sent out a (mass?) message to make us think about how time flies and it's almost the 2nd day of 2009 *le gasp!* - pure evil that one!

Day 2 of 2009, Shopping Day 1: Joy! My brother is not working for the day and he told me I could take the car. So off I drove to Sunway Pyramid firstly for lunch and then yup... it's time to shop, shop, shop! Oh... and it was kinda weird... the new wing in SP still had a Christmas display/stage while the old wing had a CNY-themed one all done up. Luckily I had a camera with me to take some shots of those displays. Probably I'll put them up on FB at a later time... if I don't conveniently forget about it first.

Day 3 of 2009, Shopping Day 2: Hitched a ride with my bro to Mid Valley in the morning and made the mistake of going into MPH a little too early into my shopping spree there. I should remember never to buy books at the early part of a shopping spree... that is a lot of weight to carry. Darn...

Anyway, the funniest thing that happened was getting a call from Kalamari when I was... in the fitting room. I bet the sales girl was probably cursing me for hogging the room a little longer that she would have preferred while I spent a little extra time to have a chat on the cellphone while separating the pieces of clothing that I wanted from the ones I didn't want. Talk about multi-tasking... it was actually quite hard to do all of that in one small space... lol ^_*

Eventually... it was time to meet up with Bowie for lunch and to past to her my copy of the Kite Runner. Oh... and of course... her partner was around too since both of them just finished their session in the gym. We checked out the food court in The Gardens and found that the food there is pretty good and the pricing is not that bad by KL shopping mall standards.

After lunch, we all browsed around and continued window shopping after I had dropped of my now rather-heavy-to-lug-around bag of purchases to my bro who's working in one of the shops in The Gardens. That was the best idea of all from Bowie... thank you!

Sure feels good to walk without the weights of my purchase... literally... lol. Anyway, we eventually went to the Body Shop where I purchased my all new favorite scent - Japanese Cherry Blossoms EDT. Bowie said it kinda reminds her of lychees... the ones that you can get from the tin. Eventually, it was time to part ways as Bowie had to go collect her car from the service center and well... that's enough shopping for me for one day.

Ahh... and the one thing that was a definite confidence booster? Seriously, I don't remember the last time a random rather cute and charming person hit on me... but it did happen as I was about to leave the place I was having dinner at on this particular day. It really did make me feel super-elated.

Day 4 of 2009: All good things must come to an end... it was time to go home. I had my last encounter with Astro and my bro's nice new Mac computer in the KL house... packed my stuff up... and got on the mid-afternoon bus home to Penang within exactly the scheduled 4.5 hours ride. That's rather amazing considering the fact that it was raining along some stretches of the journey.

Ah well... it's back to work tomorrow... first day back at work... and I am already all psyched up to face the traffic... it's going to be bad considering that it's also the first day of school for 2009... but who cares... bring it on!

We like to move it, move it

It's been a while since I've talked about movies or anything about the theatre...so here we go!

Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa is pretty original for a sequel... with exception for the overuse of the theme song "I Like To Move It". You would love this one especially if you liked the first movie. Another thing to note: you may not understand certain subtle references to incidents that happened in the first movie if you did not watch the earlier movie... i.e. Alex (a.k.a Alakay) the lion checking out Marty the Zebra's rear-end for the bite mark to confirm if he is talking to the correct Zebra.

The other thing that made the movie fun was the addition of some pretty interesting lines in the script. The most priceless one was with regard to the union of chimps negotiating for maternity leave when they are all male chimps (see more quotes from the movie here).

Quantum of Solace is probably the worst 007 movie I've watched. I could at least fathom the storyline in Casino Royale but the latest installment is riddled with enough black holes that it makes the story rather senseless. The character build up was well thought but the execution of the storyline was quite flawed for a Bond movie. The addition of Strawberry Fields seemed like an unnecessary diversion in the story. Besides, for a seemingly smart woman, it seems that this character was rather... under-utilized in the story.

Furthermore, although the motive of Dominic Greene (a philanthropic environmentalist with a dark side) was disclosed towards the later part of the movie, it was poorly explained... and if you happen to have dozed through the 5 seconds of the view of the underground water source and did not read any synopsis or spoilers for the movie... you will be hell bent trying to figure out what was the actual evil angle of the movie.

Among other things, I can't really fathom why the movie was named Quantum of Solace. Like seriously, are we talking about the consolation required by Bond, Bond girl Camille, and MI6 for the betrayal that each of them have suffered?

Lastly, if anyone paid attention to the ending of the movie... did you notice that Dominic Greene was found with oil in his stomach and 2 bullets shot through the back of his head? How did he get shot from the back when he was left all alone in the desert without a gun and no civilization in sight? Again... it all boils down to a badly written script.

Wanted is one of those movies that you would probably want to watch for the special effects and if you are an Angelina Jolie fan... you watch it because Jolie is in it. It's been a while since I've watched this movie so I took a look at the IMDB writeup first. I didn't know this was based on a comic book. That would explain how the more wacky concepts of manipulation of a bullet's path came about.

The other thing that I am sure most of us can identify with from this movie is the feeling of being in an office with a bully of a boss/supervisor. It kind of reminds one of statistics with regard to the top reason(s) of why people would leave their well-paying jobs.

Mamma Mia is based on the theatrical portrayal of the same name. Having watched this performed way back in 2004 by the Australasian theatre tour group during my trip to Singapore, the movie does appear to come a poor second. Maybe this is because I normally find that theatrical productions are more expressive and comical compared to the movie portrayals.

However, to be fair, I think Meryl Streep was superb in her role as Donna the mum with an interesting past; Julie Walters was amazingly hilarious in her supporting role as the tomboyish Rosie and one of Donna's best friends; the 3 actors playing the 3 guys from Donna's past were quite interesting to watch... especially during the flashback scene when they were in the hippy/disco-age of the 60s/70s. Oh... and I didn't think that Pierce Brosnan was that much of a singer. The other actors were way better in the voice department.

p/s: I would recommend watching the theatrical portrayal... so if you have a chance to catch the performance at the end of this month in Istana Budaya... go for it! It will be worth it if theatrical performances are your cup of tea.

Another rare update and more random thoughts

In just a blink of an eye, it is almost time to greet yet another new year. However, much has happened in this short time. We've all seen the effects of the worldwide economic downturn. We have also not seen the end of violence and unrest in the world we know today.

Just a quick update on all sorts of stuff that I have in my head that I would like to share with all my buddies who do take a peek here once in a while...

1. For those who know where I work:
As far as the rumors that you have heard, there is some kind of reorganization. Due to this reason, many of us have been redeployed to other departments. Most of us have been given the option to take on a role that we would like to move into. While others were comfortable to continue seeking for a front line role, I managed to find myself in a back-end support type of role within the company. I am thankful that I have found my way into something closer to my interest and what I do best.

2. Regarding the recent disruptions of peace in Thailand:
In some way, I must say that I am glad that although we see a lot of argument about positions of power amongst our politicians (they could invest more time in spending more brain power on plans to help promote the healthy growth for the nation in all necessary areas... but oh well...) it has not come to a point that the public will hold innocent people hostage by forcing the shutdown of an International Airport. It really makes a person think twice if one should ever fly into Bangkok in the immediate future for any reason.

3. Regarding the recent terrorist act of violence in India:
In short, terrorism is not dead. It still haunts us all. After the Bali episodes, people grew a sense of paranoia about traveling there. With the recent incident in India where the similarity is the intention to strike where most tourists are (main targets being the Jewish), it makes one feel all the more cautious about traveling out of one's own country. Irregardless of who is the main target, the terrorists out there just doesn't care at all if non-targets are affected at all... it's sick... and really wrong... but what can average Joes and Janes like us do? All we can do is sit around and watch... and if we happen to know someone is in the affected area... we worry too. It's sad the way things are in the world.

The big birthday do for grandpa

Seriously, taking a few days off from work since last Thursday to have some time to help around with my dad's grand plan to celebrate my grandpa's 90th birthday bash is not all fun.

The word rest hardly has a meaning to it. There's been a lot of errands to do and chores to complete. The only two perks were: 1. I was able to squeeze some time to send my car to get a full wash, polish and vacuum; and 2. I get to finally go get a haircut.

The car smells so nice and fresh inside after that Nano Mist thing that I decided to splurge on. Of course, my mum is very happy at the moment because her nose is not reacting to the dust that was in my car and that the car interior does smell pretty good now.

Anyway, there were tons of food from the home cooked lunch to the big dinner do at Jade Palace last night. Lots of Rose wine and the Glenlivet single malt whiskey too. The booze... it was good stuff. The Rose wine was a little on the sweet side but not tremendously sweet, which of course is a good thing. The whisky was really nice for a 12 year old vintage.

Oh yeah, what about the part about not much rest? Errands, babysitting the little cousin Jolene (6-year old), helping out with food preparation, sending food, chauffeuring people around... ugh the list seems endless.

Am glad that is over with but I really do not look forward to going back to a ton of emails in my inbox at work tomorrow. Sigh...