Work on Saturday

I was mighty upset yesterday evening when I was asked to come in again this Saturday. I had a nice list of plans for the weekend already and all that was going to be spoilt just because I had to come in to be a glorified secretary to print and bind some stuff. Gosh, people should be taught nowadays to do these sort of basic things on their own instead of calling upon others to do it for them. The age of the secretaries is about as old as the dinosaurs now! Grr...all these bosses should just learn to do things themselves!

Wednesday Woes

Plagued with monthly cramps (damn those hormones!) and sitting in an empty office waiting to meet up after work. My desk is covered with rubbish and papers waiting to be filed, thrown away or looked at. If I had an option, throwing them away would be the one!

Taking a break from the pile of work that's covering my entire desk, nothing sums up Wednesday better. Hurrah that the middle of the week is over already.

Draining Day

What a day. Wonder why some people are so anal about what they do. Blame it on perfectionism I guess. I thought I was once like that. I wonder what's happened. Sometimes resources are just wasted on reprinting piles and piles of stuff IN COLOUR. Only to be corrected and discarded again over the smallest thing like a fullstop or a slight alignment which would probably go unnoticed. Worse is when a slide is changed or deleted which affects the paging of all the other slides and hence, a reprint! Oh well...luckily it isn't my own office!

Thumbs Down to Teppanyaki

Last week I met a friend at Teppanyaki, MidValley for dinner as we were both having a hankering for some teppanyaki. The trick about this place is that you must always try to secure a seat on the table right in front despite their efforts to push you into the back. Otherwise you'll come out smelling like a stale cooker hood.

First things first, it's quite rarely when I rant about food. Normally I'm quite a happy camper when it comes to eating things I'm craving for. However, this place really gets the thumbs down from me.

1. The servers are mighty rude. They glare at you without a smile when you ask for a seat and always very rudely try to shove you at the back.
2. That day we were there, they roughly plonked our plates of rice down in front of us as if we were some prisoners. Hello...we're paying customers! And when my friend asked for her favourite pickles, they just said we ran out, no apologies what so ever.
3. We ordered the beef set. The man brought over the beef really messily, spilling it all around my plate and when we took a closer look, found that it was undercooked in most of the pieces. When we asked for them to cook it a little longer, he messily scooped it up again to the griddle, dropping some pieces on the way.
4. Ditto for the vege. My plate was starting to resemble a dog's dinner and I hadn't even started eating!
5. The beef ended up being terribly tough and we couldn't really finish our dinner.
6. We had hot green tea which amazingly ended up into brown tea halfway through the refills, then turned back into green tea.

We paid approximately RM13 each for this terrible dinner. Will we be back? Definitely not! So I would definitely appreciate any recommendations for good teppanyaki! Thanks!

Paypal Still Under Fixing

I emailed Paypal again yesterday regarding their problem and asking when they expect it to be fixed and this was the response I got:

So, yes people the problem is still under FIXING and we'll need to PAY our patience on this issue. Gambateh!

Hitting Blanks

Blogging is ironical...there are times when my creative juices flow like anything and I churn out post after post without a doubt and there are other times when I just keep hitting blank walls when I try to write something.

Maybe it has something to do with how I'm feeling outside my fluffy dandelion life here. Things seem to be hitting a bit of a blank wall. Maybe because I still don't know what I want or maybe because I'm in one of those "blah" moments. I think back of the young, enthusiastic me while I was in University. At that age power suits, laptops, business trips and busy long days seemed to exciting! It was as if they were symbols of me arriving in the great big world out there. Now, all I feel is a little empty. Ironically, I haven't even reached that super-salary yet, meaning I can't retire! Outside work, I seem to be running into blank walls too. And you know something? Blank walls hurt when you run into them!

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to be a whinging post so I'll stop and count my blessings. I just wonder though, sometimes which is more important - the destination or the journey?

Monday Morning Moanies

• Paypal's been out all weekend with that strange message requesting for a US bank account to be added on before any transaction can be made. It's been a terrible pain as it has thrown a spanner into my plans for greater things to come!
• I couldn't wake up this morning when my mobile phone alarm went off. It somehow had worked itself into my dreams and I couldn't understand what that buzzing sound in my dreams was!
• Traffic was, as usual, "excellent"! The government should really do something about the crazy motorbikes who have a death wish by weaving themselves in and out of traffic.
• I have indigestion from a weekend pig-out and am now nursing a sore tum *whimpers*
• Got a huge pile of work thrown at me first thing when I came in *ducks and runs*
• Having said all that, I've been browsing The Secret and if nothing else, it's teaching me to be positive and breathe to see myself through this week! Ommmm.....

Happy Monday everyone! And something just to keep you smiling till the end of the day:

These are real answers given by children.

1. Name the four seasons - Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
2. Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink - Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.
3. How is dew formed? - The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire.
4. How can you delay milk turning sour? - Keep it in the cow.
5. What causes the tides in the oceans? - The tides are a fight between the Earth and the Moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature hates a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight.
6. What are steroids? - Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs.
7. What happens to your body as you age? - When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental.
8. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes - Premature death.
9. How are the main parts of the body categorized? (e.g., abdomen) - The body is consisted into three parts - the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels, A,E,I,O and U.
10. What is the fibula? - A small lie.
11. What does "varicose" mean? - Nearby.
12. Give the meaning of the term "Caesarean Section" - The Caesarean Section is a district in Rome.
13. What does the word "benign" mean? - Benign is what you will be after you be eight.

Don't we love them?!

When it rains, it pours

I woke up on Saturday morning to the sound of rain in my room. In a state of sleepy semi-consciousness, it is NOT a good thing to wake up to! Peering blearily up at my aircond, I noticed a steady trickle of water coming down from the unit, hitting my shopping bag of clothes which was strategically placed right under it! Should have heeded mom's words about cleaning up my room! I swear, there's nothing worse than having your weekend lie-in denied by things such as dripping airconds!

The persistent peeing from the aircond stopped after 2 days. But that also meant it was already the start of the working week which meant no more lie-ins! Then this morning after my shower, I walked into my room, switched on the light and *POP* my buggering light blew! All 3 beautiful bulbs! Now I'm hoping very hard that the electricity wasn't affected by the water from the dripping aircond! Maintenance is going to have a very big piece of my mind *shakes fist at contractors*

I need me a Bob the Builder! And a good one at that!

Government Agencies

Recently I had to make a trip to a Government agency to sort out some matters. This is what I experienced:

Plus:

• Having a receptionist to find out what you want and press one of the many buttons there to guide you to the right counter.
• Having enough chairs to sit on.
• Having aircond and telly while you wait.
• Polite staff who did greet me with a smile. Looks like the campaign has worked! The days of surly Government staff are dead!

Minus:

• Whatever button the receptionist pressed didn't make much difference to me. The numbers weren't moving in sequence and until I left, I couldn't for my life figure out how the numbers were rotating!
• Screaming children running all over the place and crawling around on the dirty floor.
• At least 20+ counters out of which only half or less were open. They should go out for lunch earlier knowing that most people would come in during lunch to settle their matters.
• And my biggest rant - Having to wait for more than an hour just to submit my form and be thumb-printed for a simple change in personal details! Why can't we just be a little more technology savvy and allow changes to be made through the website?! After all, if people today conduct all sorts of transactions over the Internet, why still stick to the old-fashioned way of thumb-printing just for procedure's sake?!

I heard too that to register for tax e-filing this year means making a trip to the tax office. If I'm going to make a trip there, what's the point in me doing e-filing then?! *shakes head*

How to take a train...

In Boleh-land during rush hour.

• First get to the station and hope very hard that you haven't missed the nearest train. Otherwise the arrival of the next train will probably be anyone's guess.
• Hope very hard you've picked a vantage point and the doors will open right in front of you. According to Murphy's Law, it will not.
• Do not queue. Nobody does. Shove your way to the door and ignore the poor passengers who are struggling to get out.
• Once in, scramble wildly for seats which again according to Murphy's Law, there will not be any available.
• Grab on to something when the train starts to move but the tightly packed bodies should keep you upright anyway.
• If you're a lady, hope that you're not near a lecherous man who gets a thrill of having some form of bodily contact with you.
• Hope the people around you have showered or at least used some perfume.
• Hope no one around you decides to release some foul-smelling bodily odours!
• Hope again that the train does not shudder to a stop in between stations due to congestion of the train lines.
• Finally, do enjoy your train ride :)

Kamikaze Bugs

My office room's recently been plagued by this slew of little bugs or as my expatriate colleague charmingly puts it - little animals. They're tiny, they're toony and they're a little loony...heh...well, they're indeed tiny but damn irritating!

They fly around my line of vision at lightning speed, darting away before you can smack them. Then they fly around my computer screen, irritating me to no end. The worst is when I leave my drink unattended for a while. When I next pick up my cup, I'll see a tiny bug curiously peeping over the rim, surveying its contents. And sometimes, I get kamikaze bugs, dive-bombing themselves into my cup! It irritates me to no end and the pest control people who come around every month can't seem to do anything either!

They seem to have invaded my home as well! Recently, we forgot to take the garbage out for a couple of days and when we opened the bin, a cloud of these little animals flew out! I believe they're fruit flies who apparently live for only a day or two. No wonder they try to make the most of their short little lives by bugging their giant human hosts!

Nasi Goreng Kampong

After a busy morning, I was really hungry by lunch but didn't want to go down to the food court to pack lunch. A short minute or two in there leaves you coming out smelling like the food court itself! Luckily a colleague was going down so I got her to pack me some nasi goreng kampong which I've been craving for a while. So much for attempting to be healthy!

She came back with this. When I opened it, my heart sank. Firstly, I hate my food liberally sprinkled with tonnes of fried onions. I don't mind fried onions in small quantities for flavouring but I hate the sweetish commercial types which this was. The fried ikan bilis wasn't fresh and the rice was quite empty except for 2 tiny pieces of chicken that were so small, I mistook them for pieces of garlic at first!

Grrrr...don't you just hate it when your cravings aren't filled?! I sulkily attempted to eat about 1/3 of it before giving up. Not only was it oily, it didn't have any taste sans fried onions.

And that won't be the only reasons why I won't be buying anymore food from that stall. As I was uploading my photos, I discovered something I didn't see on the pack itself!

*pukes* I think, or rather hope, it dropped off after I took the photo and before I started eating! *shakes fist at stall owner*

Manta No More

1,000 kg manta ray gets caught in fishing net off Labuan shores

LABUAN:

A group of fishermen with a manta ray, or giant manta (Manta birostris) weighing more than 1,000kg that got caught in their fishing nets in the waters off Sungai Pagar, Labuan, at about 10.30am yesterday.

The creature was found by Awang Japrin, 35, and four of his friends. With a distinctive "horn" (from which the common name devil ray stems) on either side of its broad head, the manta is a prized sighting by divers.

I read this in the NST Online this morning and it made my blood boil. Firstly, I don't proclaim to be a conservationist and secondly, I'm a diver.

Yes, I eat my sharks fin occasionally because I know that in Asia, walk into the wet market and you'll find fish sellers hawking fresh shark cutlets to be cooked. In Australia, go into any local fish & chippery and you'll find flake offered. That's shark so eat it. Here, sharks aren't just killed solely for its fins. The meat is sold just like any other fish meat.

But what makes me mad is when a graceful beauty like this manta ray which isn't used for food or any other form of use is mercilessly left to die and hauled up on to shore like a prized trophy. Yes, I'm sure seeing a 1-tonne manta in anyone's fishing net is every fisherman's dream but before rejoicing and pulling it up to die without a thought, maybe a fleeting question they should have wondered is whether there was going to be any commercial use for it. I know that didn't cross their minds because all these fishermen thought was the fame this manta was going to bring them.

No thought of how many decades it must have taken for it to grow to that size, no thought of what joy it might have brought divers catching a glimpse of it in the shadows of the sea or any thought of how a magnificent and gentle creature like that should have at least the right to swim freely wherever it chooses.

Recently, I read another article about a giant sting-ray being hauled up too in East Malaysia and the fisherman posing next to it grinning in glee. It saddens me to see this. There must be drastic changes happening in our oceans if giants like these have started to come towards the surface. I makes me wonder if our future generations will see these denizens of the deep only in the pages of a glossy magazine.

Small-Hearted People

Nothing better tells you that you've grown up when you realise that the world isn't the nice, rose-tinted world with talking bunnies, kind-hearted people like Mr Pink Whistle and good deeds ala Enid Blyton. Instead you begin to realise that the world actually has quite a few small-hearted people in it. Small-hearted...I like this phrase I picked up from my aunt - it conjures up the image of a small, wizened imp with malicious eyes.

They do exist out there, sad but true, and they seem to derive great pleasure in making their "lucky" subject's life a misery. No, not physical in this crime-ridden age but through harsh words, nasty thoughts or deeds which at times wound a lot deeper than any knife can.

I've had my fair share of small-hearted imps in my life. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way that the world isn't as rosy as it appears to be and trust between others is something so hard to earn, yet so easily broken.

So what to do with a small-hearted one?

I used to be filled with ill-feelings when wronged by a small-hearted imp. But recently, I've come to the conclusion that life's a bit too short to allow myself to be filled with so much negativity. It only made me into someone I didn't like so I've learnt to tell myself they weren't worth my time nor my emotions and after a while, their presence ceased to matter to me anymore.

Of the two - hate or indifference, I would have to say that the latter seems a lot worse. At least hate is still an emotion.

Midvalley's Rates Up!

Good things don't last forever. This is especially so in the case of Midvalley's parking! I remember when Midvalley was newly opened and their parking was free while they were testing out their system. I used to make several trips there on my way back just to enjoy the new mall while sitting out the traffic jams.

Their parking rate of RM1 per entry was still pretty tolerable even when they raised their weekend per entry rate to RM3. Every weekend would see a massive traffic jam just trying to get in and out of the mall, not to mention hours circling for parking which caused me to avoid it on weekends after a while.

Recently, I saw notices up informing that their parking rates are now going up! Here are their charges:

Weekdays:

• 1st hour - RM1
• Every subsequent hour or part thereof - RM1
• Maximum - RM7

Weekends:

• 1st hour - RM3
• Every subsequent hour or part thereof - RM1
• Maximum - RM9

So there you go...one less benefit in coming to Midvalley!

Smoke gets in your Eyes

Face, lungs and every other part of you too!

Ok, this is a ranting post but after I had to sit through a meeting last night where the attendees cheerfully chain-smoked their way through whole packs of cigarettes, I've had enough! Smoking if you wish to kill yourself by way of a slow and painful death is fine. Dragging others along with you with your secondary smoke isn't.

I've always found smokers rather selfish in that respect. They light up everywhere and anywhere as long as they have the urge with nary a thought for the others who are frantically fanning the cigarette smoke away from their faces and gulping for a breath of fresh air. Worse are those who happily smoke in the car with their kids or babies around them.

Having been brought up in a family of non-smokers who abhor smokers of any sort, we've become pretty sensitive to cigarette smoke. We'll deliberately move our chairs away from smokers or move to get a better table if we're near any. In fact, when we first went to Izzi without a reservation and had to be put in the smoker's area, we practically rushed through our dinner just so that we could leave before anyone in there chose to light up! I personally too hate the smell of stale smoke on a smoker. It's a certain distinctive smell that is a big turn-off.

I must say, though, that it can be quite amusing to watch those puffing away hungrily in the glass enclosed room of the smokers' lounge in airports. They always have this hunted look in their eyes as if they're on their death row which I guess no cigarette on a 20 or 30 hour flight is close enough to death for them.

I think Hong Kong has set the right move in banning smokers in most public places, even parks and main areas. We should do something similar here. It'll probably lead to cleaner air and healthier people. I know smoking is an addiction but I always believe that wherever there's a will, there's a way. And if you want to stop smoking bad enough, you will because your inner resolve will be stronger than any outside influence can be.

Maybe all we need here are glass smoking booths strategically placed at various spots of the city. That way, all smokers can cram in there to smoke and breathe in each other's toxins and secondary smoke without killing the rest of the population who wish for a breath of fresh air.