apooweb

lost in translation

2009-11-16T22:05:00.003+08:00

I was at my favourite fruit stall near Pelita (Grand Palace area) looking for mangoes; theres this row of stalls selling fruits just after the traffic light. It is just shocking how bad the quality of fruits that we get here. I remember going to the supermarket in Sydney (woolworth's) just around the corner from the hotel and there in the basement, the freshest and most beautiful fruits and veges of all colours.... its so freaking amazing. Since the supermarket is so near I just take the lift down and like buy food all the time its so fresh and tasty. Even the eggs are freaking delicious. And tomatoes. And so on... and my parents; they were like high on fresh fruits and produce. The look on their faces when it was time to pay at the counter was priceless.

Anyway, was busy picking mangoes when the auntie keep talking to me in Chinese. She was pointing at something at one point, went to the back and came back with a mango cut in half covered with one of those food plastic cover and showed that to me. She was still talking to me in Chinese and I was not in a good mood at that time so I was just shaking my head. Was minding my own business picking mangoes, handed the fruits to her for weighing and she kept on pointing at some pulasan looking fruits and kept babbling in Chinese. I kept on shaking my head and with a sigh paid and left the stall. Sometimes it gets really annoying, especially if you face this situation every single day... and also especially when I have been buying fruits at that stall all the time... and seeing the auntie all the time!!..

When i was in Phuket people talk to me in Thai. I can be believable as a Thai but I think its the bushy eyebrow... (think Thai PM). Thai people are really "friendly" almost every thai person you see will try to sell you something or get you to go somewhere. I found out the most effective and polite way to get rid of them is to place my hand together (like the buddhist prayer), bow a bit and say kapkumkap. I have no idea but it worked for me.

The offshore visit aftermath

2009-11-08T16:23:00.002+08:00

I have been feeling rather under the weather since the offshore trip couple days back. I just recovered from flu before the visit, and getting it again in just a few days is not normal to say the least. Not that I am getting the normal flu sindrome like runny nose, high temp and all that, its just dizzyness and feeling wanting to puke. I think I have figured it out... I might be having the 'land sickness'. Thats when supposedly the brain gets used to the rocking and movement at sea and finds being at land and keeping still disorienting. Its worst when one keeps still, and driving your car around helps. I think that explains everything, or maybe its just another case of me trying to self diagnose and thinking doctors dont know what they are doing.

Having said that, I went to a private hospital here in Miri and enquired about tamiflu before my Sydney trip, and got a blank look from the doctor. He said why would I want a diarrhoea medicine, and he said that with 100% confidence and authority, the look on his face was as if i was talking nonsense. Its just a case of clueless people who gets credibility and or noted just because they are confident. The drug does help with diarrhoea but with Sydney on the top of any swine flu list at that time, why would anybody going to Sydney ask about tamiflu?

The company man

2009-10-30T00:16:00.003+08:00

During the days when I was still travelling back and forth to KL (then i took it for granted), I could always find the all out company man on the same flight. They would be wearing the company T-shirt, which they would have gotten a lot during good times at least. Sometimes the T-shirt comes together with a backpack with a huge company logo smacked on it. You could see the pride and arrogance sometimes, on their faces, mannerisms and body language, which was intended to be shown to everyone. They have this sense of entitlement that every confident, educated or worldly person seem to have, and sometimes that can be annoying. Usually my company t-shirt, regardless of from which industry, end up as the gym tshirt.

Then you have the polar opposite of the all out company man, the guy who complains about pretty much everything. The first thing that they complain about is of course the salary, of how low the salary is compared to other places. They would complain that their job is of little value and do not improve their skills, and if so happen that they leave the company it would be impossible to find a job outside. Dinner conversation sometimes revolve around salary and claims that a person can get double or triple of the current salary working for another company. I thought that I was a realisitc/pessimistic person until I sat down with such a negative person that talked about things so negative that they end up not making any sense.

Now that we are in the new world and nothing is ever gonna be the same again. It is interesting and sometimes funny observing how these different people react to the changes that are going on.

Benitez and Lucas Leiva

2009-10-06T23:05:00.002+08:00

By now I think every Liverpool fan has had enough of this Benitez and Lucas story, at least I have. Its either Lucas have been seriously underperforming since he joined Liverpool or he is Benitez's favourite.

Lucas won best player of the Brazilian League and thats no mean feat. But seriously whenever he played for Liverpool he sucked except for like one game.

One more problem is I am not quite sure what kind of player is he. Is he a Mascherano type? or Alonso or Gerrard type? The way Benitez is handling it now is as if he is replacing Alonso, but most of the passes he make are sideways.

Liverpool is struggling because nobody replaced Alonso. Liverpool's winning streak last season ended against one of the bottom teams, if not mistaken Stoke City, when Benitez rested Alonso and played Lucas with Mascherano and the performance was total rubbish. They lost couple more games after that. So I can blame that to Benitez.

My theory is Benitez has gone too far this time and it is all due to his infamous stubbornness to prove everyone wrong. I think no matter how professional a player is, if he is not good enough he is just not good enough.

Benitez and his stubborness is not something new as what happeneed to Robbie Keane last year when Keane was not in his plan and ruthlessly kicked out of the team (regardless of what he could have contributed). I am pretty sure if Keane was still around there would not have been 3 losses.

District 9

2009-10-03T23:34:00.002+08:00

I finally got to see this movie and after all that hype and expectations this movie is a dissapointment for me. It is not bad, in fact its entertaining but tomatometer gave it 90% so huge expectaitons. This movie has been on my radar since I first saw the trailer. The main concept/storyline alone convinced me that this was gonne be a good one. But it flattered to deceive and it was almost like another Cloverfield. I watched Cloverfield and I was already bored after 20 minutes.

The main problem is that I just dont buy it. Fantastic concept but the details are all over the place its almost absurd. I didnt like the documentary style that acts also as the narrative, not convincing and seem to be intended to be some kind of a joke or parody, but I do think the intention was to make a serious scifi thriller. The hero is stupid/eccentric/hilarious.... whatever the intention it was just confusing and evoke mixed emotions. Perhaps this is a serious movie but because the acting, screenplay and other details are so bad it was totally not convincing and could be mistaken for a joke.

Other details that bothered me when i was supposed to be entertained:
1. Alien fuel can turn human being into a prawn..what??
2. Why is prawn so secretive about the fuel? (Humans want them gone right...)
3. What is the big deal with alien weapons? It doesnt look superior to human weapons on the movie does it?
2. Stupid/psychopath/crazy hero guy....
3. Why are the prawns not doing anything? Dont they have alien weapons? I tried to convince myself that they are too stupid to do anything.... but failed.
4. Just have a genius baby prawn who can fly a spaceship and what not... thats just lazy
5. Aliens and cat food obsession...???(it makes the whole thing seem to be intended as a joke)

It is just getting harder to be entertained

The last grand slam of the year

2009-09-10T22:49:00.003+08:00

I have been getting on average about 5 hours sleep a night for the past week or so and I think my body just cannot handle it anymore. I was driving back home and stopped at a red light and almost fell asleep while waiting for it to turn green.

The US Open which is reaching its climax now is not helping with my sleeping pattern. Just as I thought that I would go to bed early and have a good night sleep, all of a sudden one Melanie Oudin dug really deep and out of nowhere produce shot after shot en route to an amazing comeback. Or sometimes just finding out grandmaster Federer was playing would keep me awake.

Melanie Oudin is out now, i just saw a rerun of her quarterfinals against Wozniacki in which she lost in straight sets. It is so refreshing to see these two women players. It is not their playing skills that impress me most, rather its their mental toughness. There was one game in the second set where Oudin was on breakpoint, and Wozniacki managed to keep her composure and hold her serve. I am pretty sure Oudin would have won that game if it was, say Safina that she was playing against. I am rooting for Wozniacki, she does not have the killer shots; at least she did not show that agianst Oudin; but I was really impressed by her composure and tenacity.

I think all these stories of women tennis players with their emotional meltdown, crazy nerve, 40 unforced errors and what not are getting old. The mother of all emotional breakdown-prone women tennis players, Elena Dementieva, just cant seem to deal with this problem despite all those years on the circuit and being one of the top players in the world. She was also the one who was infamously quoted saying " I dont know how to serve". To her credit her serve has improved tremendously, but despite possessing one of the best groundstrokes in the women's games she hasnt won a slam and I attribute that mainly to her nerves (now that she can serve better and get her double faults under control).

Dinara Safina is another tragic story. She is, thank god, a milder version of Safin but clearly it runs in the family. She seems to be on the verge of breaking down and cry in every game, and its is not fun to watch to say the least. And is it just me or does Safina alwasy look like shes 4 months pregnant?

The other day Sharapove had like 20 double faults (also lost to Oudin) but in all fairness she just came back from an injury. But still if not for the double faults she definitely would have won. Against the Italian player Zvonareva was really winning but in the second set she somehow had a meltdown and end up losing the match. At one point she looked like she was talking to her bandaged knee, as if blaming it for the shot caught in the net or a backhand down the line that went wide.

Change is here

2009-09-08T22:48:00.004+08:00

Slowly but surely these changes that has been talked about so much is finally taking place right here, right now. Sooner rather than later these changes, which started at the global level and logically travels top down, will finally reach my level the macai's. We will have to wait until then to see whats the impact like.

My guess is that the Mckinsey guys have got to have something to do will all these restucturing and cloud nine big ideas. Looking at how regularly things Mckinsey got featured in our intranet, it is easy for me to come to that assumption.

Having said that, having previously coming from an advisory outfit and a super lean cigarette organisation before that, it is quite obvious that a lot of things are done differently here, not necessarily in a good way. On the first day, I was quite suprised that I was served coffee by a tea lady, having getting used to bringing my own cup and make my own coffee, or in better times go to the coffee machine and choose one of them delightful coffee concoction on offer. It most probably is high time for major changes, and naturally that is discomforting.

Lala land

2009-09-05T02:14:00.003+08:00

I left office early today hoping to get to the bulatan bazaar ramadan fast. The last time I went there most of the good stuff are gone. Today apparently i was too early and the place was really packed, so I turned around and was headed to the other bazaar which is nearer to town.

I was walking around and saw this familiar face manning a stall. I was trying to recall where i met this man and after 5 mins walking around I remembered that this guy ripped me off and charged me RM5 for roti canai. I was sending my car for service and his restaurant is just opposite the service center so i went there to have breakfast and kill time. On the menu hung on the wall the price for roti canai is RM1. I got charged more because my kuah kari got like 3 pieces of meat.

I walked around some more looking for yogurt or the thing called dadih and found the stall with quite a selection of flavors. The guy manning the stall was entertaining this customer and I was just standing there waiting for my turn. But for some reason he did not notice me standing there and then sat down on his stool minding his own business and i was still waiting there. For some reason I started waving at him. This older guy who was standing there, whom I think also a customer waiting for his bbq fish from the adjacent stall, started yelling at him telling him he has a customer. The stall guy gave a sheepish grin and asked me what flavor I want. It has probably been a long day but strangely this has happened to me before. What the heck is wrong with these people.

2 year olds!

2009-09-03T02:10:00.002+08:00

I printed my boarding pass for my return flight to Miri the other day and put it nicely on the computer desk. We have got a new all in one printer which photocopies, prints, scans and does other wonderful things. Replace that ancient CRT with concave screen and we have a full function office.

We were enjoying our berbuka dinner when someone said
"Wheres Hakeem?". Hakeem is my 2 year old nephew, son of my sister.
My sister seemed to be not bothered at all... if anything she can finally truly enjoy eating without a hyperactive kid yelling every minute at her. Heck nobody bothered... food was damn nice.

I was doing my part washing my dishes when I remembered that I put my boarding pass printout and realized it was not a good idea when you have a hyperactive kid in the house. It was not a surprise that my boarding pass was no longer on the computer desk.

First I heard my sister yelling
"OMG Hakeem my credit cards... no wonder u are so quiet!"

I rushed to the scene and there it was on the floor, a crumpled piece of paper scribbled all over with red and blue ink. That is what is left of my boarding pass. I did not save the boarding pass PDF in the computer.... I will have to make do with that crumpled paper.

Thank god for speakerphone

2009-08-28T23:04:00.002+08:00

I was preoccupied by this email from HR, which says that some money will be deducted monthly from my pay, as per directive from LHDN. That email set the tone for my whole day. Checked with LHDN Miri and they confirmed I do not have any outstanding payment. When you try to be a responsible citizen and pay your taxes... and they come and deduct your money for no reason.... that really pisses me off.

Pretty much got that settled through the phone(hopefully), then opened my MAS itinerary for my flight to Kuching, supposedly at 6.15pm. I looked at the date and it says 27th august Miri-Kuching. Not again. Thats yesterday.. thats another missed flight. And this is not the first time. All this waste is driving me nuts.

That also means my return flight to miri, on the 1st september, is automatically cancelled. Like I said I have gone through this before. MAS has this idiotic system, which cancels your return flight, if you missed the "first flight", and you booked the return ticket in one itinerary (huh...what is the term for the opposite of return flight??). MAS is cancelling seats that are already paid by their customers (if for some reason they missed the first flight) and open the seat to other customers. That makes absolutely no sense. And they make double profit from the seat, as it is sold twice.

The last time my seat got canceled "automatically", the MAS staff that I talked to that day at KLIA was definitely the more proactive type and customer friendly. He got everything settled for me and put me back on the flight, no problem.

After work I went straight to the MAS ticketing office at Miri airport. There I saw the course director from our Learning and Development, slouching on the stained sofa of the dated and gloomy MAS office, looking really stressed out and tired. Hes a China national and on his way back to Beijing, and apparently missed his flight to KL. He really looked like he could use a shower.

Anyways, i knew I will be getting nothing from the MAS guys at Miri airport, because I have dealt with them before, they just could not be bothered. Apparently the odds of dealing with the same people at MAS ticketing office is pretty high. Its like dealing with the SAP system... they talk like computer with all the codes programmed in their brain. I heeded their advice to call the MAS toll free line just because I felt like I was talking to a wall. I know for sure how bad it is to call that infamous toll free line, nothing is infamous for nothing. However I managed to get a ticket tomorrow to Kuching, albeit on Mas Wings which transits in Sibu.

After iftar called the hotline and immediately transferred to the IT department which handles internet booking etc. I never got thru to the IT guys, they put me on hold until the line went dead. Thats another record for me. I called again and the cycle repeated 2 more times until I have had enough. I called again, and I made sure thats gonna be the last call that will settle my ticket issue. The whole process took almost two hours!! But I managed to get them to put me back on the flight and that gave me that wonderful sense of accomplishment... but seriously thank god for speakerphone.

Panasonic Lumix TZ7

2009-08-26T21:15:00.002+08:00

Also known as ZS3 in north America, this is my next big ticket item. Been browsing through photography blogs and sites and reading reviews, and apparently this is one of the leading models in the so-called "travel compact camera" category. Being out of touch with developments in the techie world, I would not have known that Panasonic makes pretty good cameras.

It has got 12 mpx, 12 x optical zoom and other "stuff". 12x optical zoom.... thats quite impressive. It will cost me around 1600.... not sure if its gonna be worth it.I mean no matter how good the camera is, if u just dont have it...

I have been surfing through flickr looking at people's photos, especially travel photos. There are some pretty impressive stuff in flickr. Other than flickr stuff on news websites like nytimes etc are really impressive too. One thing that I have never been able to acheive, whether due to fault of my own or cheapskate camera, is to capture the beauty of a place or moment in photographs. Hence, as a starting point... TZ7!

Cheapskate post

2009-08-25T22:30:00.002+08:00

Malaysia airlines is on sale now and i am contemplating to buy ticket to go somewhere. Most probably its gonna be a second trip to Australia, Western Australia specifically Perth, to accompany my parents, as the ever dependable all in one tourguide. Not that I mind.

They somehow have this romanticised fantasy of this foreign land with rolling hills and mountains in the background, with acres and acres of vineyards and grasslands and what not. And the weather is just sunny and pleasant and the markets selling the freshest local produce like apples, oranges, grapes etc. So far for me the closest thing to that is Stellenbosch in South Africa. Such a strange place where you have outragiously photogenic landscape with a shantytown in the foreground.

I am not sure if I can afford all these travelling. It certainly is not sound financial planning. But all these airfare deals are really working for the airlines. I have been buying cheaper tickets, but at the same time Ive been traveling around more, so that sort of evens out. Air asia had a huge sale a few weeks back, and all of a sudden I was buying a return ticket to Hong Kong. No planning what so ever. Who needs planning when a return ticket to Hong Kong is 200 bucks?? And a return ticket to jakarta costs 75 bucks. Thats like buying a bus ticket to penang or something.

I have my tickets booked for this whole year, since two months ago. If not for MAS's "Get the Deal" scheme, I would have booked tickets for half of next year on Air Asia. ("Get the Deal" offers last minute cheap but limited weekend tickets)

Not sure how these airlines do their accounting, but I assume their current cashflow includes advance purchases. I remember not too long ago buying ticket 2 months in advance is considered early. Now people are buying one year in advance! And I notice airlines are selling tickets much further in advance of the actual travel date. Not sure if thats ok, but for me it just does not seem right, even if I cannot explain why.

Ramadan feast

2009-08-23T23:36:00.002+08:00

Ramadan is here again and this means a lot of feasting to do. Its not supposed to be that way but what do you expect when you have people who are really hungry, and you have this proliferation of bazaars and buffets and all this food.

We have our fair share of ramadan bazaar here in Miri but I really miss those in KL. I have yet to find nasi kerabu which I have been craving for, found one yesterday but I was certain that the seller was not from West Malaysia and her Nasi Kerabu looked kinda funny. There was this stall claiming to be selling authentic kuching kolok mi, but it did not look like kuching kolok mi, at all.

Today decided to go to a buffet. I chose to go to Parkcity hotel Miri, just because I have never tried it. We had the Dynasty hotel buffet last year, it was cheap and decent. Marriott was RM85.... unlike in KL, if u pay 85 here u dunno what u gonna get, for me unless lobster is in the menu I will think twice.

Parkcity buffet was dissapointing. It is cheap at 32++, almost the same price as Dynasty hotel but Dynasty have so much more variety. It definitely did not look like a feast. Well when u pay peanuts u get peanuts.

There was seafood with a barbecue station near the pool area. I did not have any fishy aftertaste, but it is not necessarily a good thing because the prawns and squids are tasteless and rubbery. Bad seafood is usually fishy, but in this case they are tasteless. I have had "farm" prawns... and they are not as tasty as sea prawns and leave weird aftertaste. I suspect they use farm prawns, but one thing for sure the flavors of the sea are all sucked out of all the shellfish and fishes on display today.

Dessert was nothing much... just some sponge cake and fruits.

What a dissapointment... should have gone to the Dynasty buffet.

On the wonderful city of Miri

2009-08-18T20:59:00.002+08:00

I am still suffering from backpain and looking to short cut my way through everything. This evening that meant going to the infamous Thai restaurant in Lutong Baru, 5 minutes away from office, to tapau dinner.

Since its not even 6 and I was tapau-ing dinner, no customers in sight. This place is infamous for making customers wait till the cows come home. One time I had lunch there and had to wait 1 hour plus.

And there are only like 5 tables for sit-in customers. Half of the total space occupied by the kitchen at the back, and half of whats left is occupied by a huge chiller and 2 huge stations in front of the restaurant complete with Thai wood carving, ornaments and what not. They have a whole load of stuff in the chiller like frozen green curry paste, tomyam paste etc. Its one of those type that have glass doors you can see through. And the two huge "stations" or stalls, thats for packaged snacks like potato chips, spicy nuts and a stack of menu, they have like 10 books of menu.

So I stopped by earlier, flipped through the 20 page menu, at least, looking for dinner. It is thoughtful of them to include pictures of the dishes because some of them have long and exotic names; so much easier to just point to the picture and say "I want this".

So I ordered spicy fried rice with fried egg, of the seafood variation. So I reached home, vigorously unpacking the dinner. In the polystyrene is the plain white rice with fried egg, sunny side up, on top. Separated in another plastic bag is the lauk, some sort of Thai style stir fried prawn and squid. It was actually quite delicious. LOLOLOL.

Why am I not surprised?

2009-08-17T21:59:00.002+08:00

It is reported in the star that the Bakun dam developers are planning to burn an area roughly the size of Singapore (!!) to clear that area from debris before they flood the reservoir.

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/8/17/nation/4532291&sec=nation

It is mentioned that there is no burning permit (yes... open burning is still legal in Sarawak as long as you get the permit) applied YET for this. I do not think anyone in the right frame of mind would apply, let alone approve of a permit to burn an area the size of Singapore.... thats just MADNESS.

Where are the tree huggers, environmentalists, greenpeace et etc....

It is raining

2009-08-11T23:09:00.002+08:00

I think they are doing cloud seeding here in Miri. It was drizzling earlier today for about 5 minutes. Obviously that didnt help the haze situation at all. But it was really dark with storm clouds everywhere... probably thunderstorm elsewhere or intended to target the hotspots ie near brunei border where it was reported that controlling the peatfires is a struggle. Now that would be impressive.

Its 11pm and its drizzling again... hopefully its a thunderstom at the border area and tomorrow I will wake up to smoke-free air and sunshine. It has got to the point that it is so bad that the air literally smells like smoke. The fires are not too far away... about 1 hour's drive.

Open burning is not banned in Sarawak. Apparently people can apply for open burning permit. I dont know the details but that just do not make sense. To my knowledge this is still in effect? And open burning is banned, at least in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah I am not sure.

Anyways... open burning is still legal in Sarawak. Most if not all of the hotspots are in the Miri division.

This evening, I was home from work and went to my backyard. That is my routine now, go home, go thru kitchen to the backyard and go see my backyard fence. About a month ago someone disentangle the chainlink and made a huge hole. Neighbours saw secondary school kids hanging around in the backlane. Sometimes i feel like I should get a gun... it seems easier. When my house got broken into it took them almost 2 hours to find my house. Sometimes I can have compassion for the Americans.

Went to the backyard and saw one of them neighbours burning stuff in his backyard. Unbelievable.

I could not be bothered... this place just sucks.

this is so weird

2009-08-10T22:55:00.003+08:00

Don't know what happened.... but somehow I kind of forgot that I had a blog. Having no internet at home has got to have something to do with it. Well I remembered just now and logged in for the first time since like chinese new year. The message box is gone.... the banner gone. Heck I have no idea how i got to customize the original homepage... where did I put the banner? It has got to be hosted somewhere... I kind of looked at the codes for like 2 minutes and just couldn't be bothered.

Now I start to worry about declining cognitive ability, alzheimer and what not.... how the heck did I forgot i had a blog. Cant get over it. Gotta have coffee....

The banner is gone. The layout is practically gone. I created the banner using photoshop just after graduation, while hanging out in ann arbor doing nothing, waiting for the free ticket home. The layout is just html. Got to find time to customize the layout.

Man i like the banner... I consider it my "artwork". Since my old laptop got stolen... the banner together with loads of pics post US gone....

First entry of the year....

2009-02-06T11:49:00.000+08:00

Chinese new year

It is more than a week after Chinese New Year and here in the Miri suburb of Senadin people are still playing firecrackers. On New Year’s Eve quarter to midnite, the firecracker supernova started and it lasted for at least 20 minutes, non-stop. Complete with fireworks, those BIG fireworks they usually have during big events like Independence Day. And those produce the cannon-explosion like sound, the loudest of all. Children, who couldn’t have possibly stayed asleep with all these things happening, went out to see the fireworks, parents tagging along. Senadin was like a war zone. I have never experienced anything like this….

The dinner

As per previous years, the office had the New Year dinner for the project team. We were in KL that time for the kickoff meeting and teambuilding…. So included in the agenda was the new year dinner. As usual it started with the tossing of the yee sang. I could see the sudden explosion of pure happiness and delight as people started to toss the vege-raw fish-crackers mixture as high as they could. Every year (and seemingly at another new company…) people are happy at a CNY dinner. What is with tossing food that make people so happy?

Easily amused

It is a given that as you age it gets harder to make yourself feel happy. I remember how happy the anticipation of getting on the plane made me when I was 10. Now I go to the movies and its getting harder to be entertained because I will be bothered by over acting, weird facial expressions, unrealistic plot, or stupid dialog. As Oprah would say, true happiness comes from within you, when you are at true peace with yourself, with God, etc etc and all those Dr Phil crap.

Slumdog Millionaire

Got a copy of this movie from Hafiz and probably had too high an expectation of it. This is like the ‘darling’ of critics now, dominating the oscar nomination, winning the golden globe best picture and basically capturing a lot of attention from moviegoers, perhaps helped by all the attention to Mumbai; where the film was set; when the terrorist attacks happened.

Five reasons why I think this movie is overrated:
1) Fairy tale. Guy from slum, got separated from pretty girl, wins Who Wants to be Millionaire, reunited with girl, girl likes guy… oh come on!
2) Poor justification. Guy can answer all those questions from his own life experiences. Very not believable.
3) Plain bad acting.
4) Sometimes Hindi, sometimes English, I got confused at times; whether the characters are actually speaking English or they were speaking English just to make it easier to the audience, when in fact they were communicating in Hindi. And then, they were actually speaking English, kids from slum speaking perfect English. How ridiculous is that?
5) There were many lines that bothered me, but this one I remember the most. This was when the older gangster brother talking to the hero, which goes something like this: “This is a city of 19 million people….”. I bet you that no one in any slum in Rio, Cape Town, Jakarta or any parts of the world would even care about that, let alone talk like that.

European footballer of the year

2008-12-05T11:03:00.001+08:00

Ronaldo committed one of the most bizarre incidents in football that I can remember last week during ManU's last premiership match. He tried in vain to imply he heard the refs whistle... but i think no one bought that. And espn rerun the clip of that incident so many times but nobody could hear any whistle blown, whether from the referee or the stands.

I think he got a little off balance when one of the defenders gave him a slight nudge when he was jumping to head the ball. He kind of panicked and while trying to quickly think what to do to protect his precious face from the ball... he unconsciously did that.

I dont think there is something wrong with this guy.... but in one of the previous matched when he was substituted towards the end.... to end a rather subdued and ineffective performance form him.... he was clearly unhappy with the substitution and looked really pathetic on his way toward the tunnel.

I think he is overrated and will never repeat his performance last season. His stepovers and tricks no longer fool defenders. He was never, in my opinion, beautiful to watch.... hes more like an efficient German attacker with some tricks here and there.

It is just a matter of time before messi or robinho can become the best players in the world. Robinho i think has got more talents than Ronaldo.

recession or no recession

2008-12-03T16:12:00.002+08:00

It was announced that the US is officially in a recession. Apparently there is this group of economists who can officially make the call. And the definition of a recession is not that straight forward after all. What I understand is a consecutive quarter of negative growth constitues a recession, thats what we have been told. Now the "officials" are saying that they are looking at a broader set of indicators to determine the state of the US economy and specifically the US recession.

I remember our central bank governor declaring that Malaysia will not enter a period of consecutive quarter of negative growth, hence no recession. Our deputy PM also said that no recession, only slowdown. Also other Malaysian economics and analysts and whatnot. So are these statements no longer relevant, now that apparently recession is defined differently, and what can we say about our economy next year?

Mentor mentee

2008-11-17T19:00:00.005+08:00

I am not a big fan of the mentoring program. I have read somewhere that a research says that factors that promote career advancement include formal or classroom training, networking, on the job training and mentorship program. What the research found surprising was networking is not really a big factor to go up the ladder - it constitutes something around 15%, which is considered less than expected - and on the job training is really the big one. What I found surprising was mentorship program is even on the list in the first place, taking something like 15% off the pie. I thought its just chit chat.

In order for the program to work being frank and honest to my opinion is the utmost important. And of course to have this you need mutual trust and respect from both mentee and mentor. What I really not want to happen is the mentorship session turning into somekind of appointment with the career shrink. But most of the time when the trust is established it has always gone that way for me. And then it starts all over again... all these dilemma and writings in the blog on career path and changing careers and am I doing the right thing and what not?

When faced with uncertainties go to education - I am actually not just "simply say"-ing this, some article by some economic expert suggested education during this trying time of credit crunch and economic crisis, be it the academia as in becoming a professor or back to studying. I was looking at post graduate possibilities and looking at some sample of the GMAT.... 1st question looked REALLY simple and it has got something to do with equilateral triangles and squares and finding the perimeter.... and I was like what the hell is equilateral LOL.

Obamamania

2008-11-10T15:05:00.003+08:00

Articulated perfectly by Dr Chandra Muzaffar

Excerpt from NST:

IN the wake of Barack Obama's electoral triumph in the United States, some Malaysian politicians, non-governmental organisation activists, newspaper columnists and members of the public have made utterly shallow and superficial comments about the significance of his victory to minorities and ethnic politics in Malaysia.

The US' majority-minority dichotomy has very little relevance to our country. Though a member of the African-American minority, which is about 12 per cent of the US population, Obama subscribes to Christianity, the religion of the white majority.His mother tongue -- English -- is the mother tongue of the majority community. His culture is, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from the culture of the majority.Like most other African- Americans, and indeed most of the other minorities such as the Latinos and Asians, Obama has been absorbed and assimilated into what is sometimes described as mainstream "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" (WASP) culture.

However, for African-Americans, in particular, their total assimilation was hampered and hindered by the racial barrier of colour. It was the colour bar with all its historical (slavery) and sociological (lower economic echelon) implications that underscored their minority status.Compare their minority status to the position of the Chinese and Indian Malaysian minorities. Most Chinese and Indian Malaysians are non-Muslims and have no affiliation whatsoever to Islam, the religion of the majority Malay community. The Malay language is not their mother tongue. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the Chinese community, in particular, remains deeply attached to its own mother tongue. More than 90 per cent of Chinese parents send their children to Chinese primary schools. For the most part, Chinese and Indian cultures have preserved and perpetuated their distinct identities.Chinese and Indian elites, whether in government or with the opposition, have always been opposed to any attempt to absorb their communities into the cultural ethos of the majority community. Neither has the government been inclined towards assimilation as a cultural policy. By and large, it is the path of integration that the government has chosen, which accommodates cultural diversity and seeks to promote unity by emphasising the primacy of the nation's lingua franca. The Chinese and Indian communities prefer integration to assimilation.Since this is their preference, they should not expect an assimilated "Obama" to emerge from their ranks.To explain this in more concrete terms, one should perhaps try to visualise the life story of an Obama equivalent in Malaysia. His father would have come from a Buddhist, or Hindu or Christian family outside Malaysia, married a Malay-Muslim woman from say Kedah or Kelantan, and produced an offspring who would have spoken Bahasa Malaysia as his mother tongue, studied in a Malay-medium school, graduated from a Malay-medium university, and would have been thoroughly assimilated into Malay culture and society. How could one regard such a person as the poster-boy of the Chinese or Indian minority in this country? This illustrates the danger of making simplistic comparisons between minorities in two totally different situations without any understanding of their respective milieus.Rather than indulge in such rhetoric which invariably has a communal edge to it, our politicians and media commentators should help to promote our Bahasa Malaysia-based primary school as the school of first choice so that young Malaysians will, at least, have the opportunity to interact with one another during the most impressionable stage of their lives.Of course, interaction alone will not enhance national unity if we are not just and fair to everyone, regardless of their cultural or religious affiliation.
addthis_pub = 'nstonline';

The election

2008-11-05T10:59:00.002+08:00

As of now Obama is the runaway leader over McCain. After so much politicking and so much money over a period of 2 years or so. I personally have no preference. Main issues like the American economy, health care, war in Iraq etc etc in this election do not directly affect me in any way and I am less informed on other issue that may affect our country, so to be objective I dont have any preference. But based on his seemingly more open view of the world, being exposed to a lot of different cultures especially Islam... there is hope that Obama is going to be the one who is gonna change Americans view on terrorists and the Islamic World. And also during debates he just looked such a superior person to McCain, he is so eloquent that sometimes I have doubts whether hes just BSing his way through, like many BSers do or hes just a super smart man. And I just can't imagin Palin being VP. Her only having her passport done like 2 years ago is so American.... I have known quite a few during the Michigan years who had not been out of Michigan! This is one American thing that I totally cannot understand.... cant imagine that someone is settled being under the tempurung without any curiosity to see the world, meet other people etc.

On killing time

2008-10-17T16:44:00.003+08:00

Today we have the half day off. That occurs for every 3rd Friday of the month. Can you believe that? Where else can you find such policy. Who else can afford to have so much time off. If I were in KL I could really use a half day off. In Miri we, or at least I, seem to have so much time in our hands.

Its not really literally a half day off I think. Its supposed to support the "work hard play hard" culture the management are supposedly trying to instill into the organization. And people were supposed to organize activities, things such as jungle trekking, team building etc etc. Sometimes we dont have these kind of things, although they did organize a hiking expedition on top of Canada Hill just a few weeks ago. I missed that one because it was Ramadan.

Do you still need to come to office if you dont have anything organized? Thats the big question right. I used to come to office during such predicaments before. But usually the office was always deserted, only a couple of senior guys who were obviously very busy would be there. Sometimes Ill be there and one or two of them would ask me what was I doing there and told me to go home.

Miri has got Starbucks...

2008-10-11T18:46:00.003+08:00

For some reason all these chains of restaurants and cafes are popping out of nowhere here. I returned from Raya leave and suddenly now we have got our own Starbucks... It is occupying this one new lot in Bintang Plaza that has been vacant for as long as I remember. Me trying to contribute to the local economy of course dont mind at all spending 8++ bucks on a cup of coffee... is it me or is it cheaper here cause I remember starbucks coffee cost at a least 10 bucks... or is it that they actually reduced the prices....

Now if they did reduce their prices thats really good news in these times with all that financial crisis and credit crunch. It is jut so mind boggling to me... how can all these behemoths of investment banks and financial institutions just failed the way they did.... I mean these investment bankers are supposedly smart people making lots of money for their companies and themselves right... and the next day the whole company just failed.... I still dont understand how these investment banks are so adversely affected by that subprime mortgage thing... now i am just happy that I still have a job. Or should we be worried about our jobs? I mean the way that the companies just collapsed.... it seems like that could happen to any company.

Looking forward to night race

2008-09-26T10:40:00.002+08:00

I cannot understand what is the big deal with the ruling on Hamilton's case. I thought it was so clear that he gained an advantage over raikkonen after cutting the bus stop chiccane or whatever it is called. Yes he did let Raikkonen through but it was so obvious that he got the momentum with him. So yes he slowed down like 5 kmh or so but that doesnt mean anything as with his momentum he could effortlessly pass Raikkonen again.

So much has been written about the FIA being biased and favouring Ferrari and I dont quite agree with that. Maybe its a case of english journalists/commentators favouring a british team and driver. There was a point raised about Raikkonen ramming into Sutil at Monaco and he wasnt penalised, but I thought that was not his fault at all as clearly he lost control of his car after running over a puddle of water. And I am not a fan of Hamiltons at all. He seemingly is becoming the second Montoya and looked really careless and unreasonable in recent races.

I think it is a two horse race between Massa and Hamilton. But it is still one of the more unpredictable and exciting seasons and anythin can happen to open up the race again. Especially with the Singapore night race coming this weekend adding to the unpredictability factor with huge uncertainties surrounding the race. Sepang is said to do a night race... but Singapore with a racetrack smacked in the middle of the city at night.... and Sepang in middle of palm oil estate???

Back from unofficial hiatus

2008-09-14T15:28:00.002+08:00

Its been a while.... I just simply dont have internet. Miri has got a free wifi service in downtown, but me being like 20 kms away, so dont think our area is gonna get the signal anytime soon.

Liverpool
Now that Manu have got Berbatov they are looking like they gonna get the double again this season. But last night's match showed that if theres one area they they could use some reinforcement its midfield. I have always thought that Mascherano and Alonso is the perfect midfield pairing for Liverpool. Gerrard should play off the striker or on the wings. But Liverpool is really looking good this year. And now that Chelsea lost Essien for 6 months.... they are also looking less invincible.

Work
I have not been offshore yet. Looking at how things are going now, I dont even know when can I go offshore. There is a possibility that I would never go even until my project finished.

Things are picking up now... it has been really slow. It has been so slow it stressed me out. But now its getting better. Really hoping to get a transfer to KL by end of this year. Im not really loving Miri right now.

Secret Recipe
Secret Recipe just opened in town. People are saying its not as good as those branches anywhere else. People are talking about nasty stuff like fishy fish n stuff like that. Probably because they just opened and well, thing screw up during opening right, to give them benefit of the doubt. But im still looking forward to try their tom yam noodle thing... tom yam kung or sumthing. Might be unexpected but I find their tom yam kung really delicious.

EP00ing and enjoying it....

2008-07-02T21:51:00.002+08:00

Fourth week into my EP00 course and I do not feel like going back to office. It is busy and packed, an introductory course on the exploration and production business with intro to multidisciplines from geology, geophysics etc to surface engineering and production, all within 5 weeks. I learned a lot to say the least, gives you an overview and awareness about other things going around working together to get that black gold. If only I could go to this course before applying to shell.... then would have a better idea of whats interesting and whats not....

It has been stressful at times but fun all the time. It is the first time since I moved here that I am surrounded by people my age; most of them younger anyways making me feel like an uncle; and so glad that met new people and made new friends etc etc. Thats one of my main objective of joining this course anyways.... but worded it as networking. Shell is such a different environment from my previous companies, at BAT we had a function head who was 29 and at PwC most of the people there are fresh grads or less than 30. So it can be a huge difference in the environment and team dynamics etc etc.

Well its one more week to go and hopefully once in office I can get going with my project. It can be hard not practising engineering 3 years after graduation. Not being that good in it doesnt help either. Not having the 'passion' in this subject definitely doesnt help at all. But I am so beyond the 'passion' phase and just doing whatever that seems right.

Harvest Festival

2008-06-04T14:33:00.002+08:00

The whole company is off this week, three public holidays (2 day gawai and King's birthday) and 2 bridging holidays which will be deducted from the annual leave. I was contemplating of driving from Miri all the way to Kuching. But just a few weeks before the holiday week I changed my mind and decided to take the flight.... but it was too late and I could not find a plane ticket that meets my budget and timing criteria. It was a 13-hour journey.... long, bumpy and winded road. But surprise... they actually did some maintenance work on the trunk road. I remember there was a really bad stretch from Sarikei to Kuching, and they actually fixed it..... quite impressive- relatively.

But it is still relatively impressive, maybe if compared to Sabah its impressive. I heard from people who have been there, Sarawak is so much better off than Sabah. Everything there seems to be dilapidated and run down. It makes perfect sense for the state leaders to threaten to leave BN for the opposition. I mean, in KL people are rioting because they dont want to pay toll. Here in Sarawak more than half the people dont have access to clean water.

I have been watching a lot of French open because there is nothing better to do. Rafael Nadal had been really impressive and I bet he will win again for the fourth time. Even if Federer looked really impressive in his last game.... hmm I dunno cause Nadal is just on fire. And he is in tip top condition. In my opinion Federer has never been in top condition physically, and its maybe because he doesnt need to. He could have done more like improving his strength or reduce body fat....

Updates

2008-05-01T15:15:00.004+08:00

Champions League

I just had the feeling that this was not gonna be Liverpool's year after the last minute chelsea goal. After the miraculous comeback against Milan to win the cup, we cannot blame it on luck. Now that I am a neutral for the final, I am rooting for ManU to win the cup as well as the English premier league. ManU probably play the better football, even if they did not really show any appetite for attacking fotball over both legs against Barca. Better ManU than chelsea...

Miri Update

Even if Kuching and Miri are in the same state, it is quite obvious that things are not the same. This goes to show how big Sarawak is. I have been hunting around for the usual Kuching fare like laksa Sarawak, Mee kolok etc etc, I could find all the stuff here but they just taste and look different. For example, never in my life that Ive had laksa Sarawak with hard boiled egg and crab meat (???). Dont let me start on the weird taste of the gravy.

Been driving around buying stuff, and bad news is things are expensive here. Tried to find second hand electrical goods but so far no luck. Bought a philips 21" tv for 500, thats probably the chepest that I could find, and I saw in the newspaper that Giant in peninsular is selling at 350+. My house is still empty totally void of any furniture. I wish there was an IKEA here, cheap stuff but at least to my taste and lots of choices.

Honeymoon month

2008-04-17T19:10:00.002+08:00

Surviving the first month in Miri. Nothing out of the ordinary, pretty much as expected. Still staying at the hotel.... 3 weeks in hotel. Fortunately have "secured" a place to stay. Very lucky indeed because I was the second in line to get this house. The european guy, who is also shell staff, who offered the owner almost double the rent for the house, albeit demanding airconds, beds etc etc.... didnt want to commit. So the owner, whom I am pretty sure not fond of the idea of drilling holes into the walls of his brand new house, gave it to me......

Its 100 bucks more than the upper limit of my budget.... but its a nice new house and it is just what Im looking for. The options within my budget so far were crap.... so didnt hesitate to book it. Trying to look for single story house all for my own is not that easy. European who mark up the rentals dont help with anything for sure.

Staying in Marriot Miri.... I always make the effort to have the breakfast buffet. This hotel is old, but it is very well maintained. I stayed here when I was like in standard 3, and I can say that they did not do any renovations and it still look as good as when its new. Trying to familiarise myself with water and utilise the pool during the so many free time.... sort of preparing for the sea survival course. How Im gonna get through 2 of my greatest fears, water and height, I have no idea.

Will begoing to KL for a few days next week. Planned to stay for the weekend, but preoccupied by the move into the new house.....

Starbucks in Catcity....

2008-04-01T17:37:00.003+08:00

I am currently at the first starbucks ever in Kuching and Sarawak (I am very sure there is no starbucks in Miri). The barristas, whom I am very sure are locals, spoke in this weird accent seemingly American. Dont know whats up with that, either they were unsuccessfully trained to have an american accent.... or theyre just a bunch of american wannabe.

Its in "The Spring"... what I consider the first ever mall in Kuching. Its weird to see all the shops and restaurants suddenly popping out of nowhere in "the Spring".... before this here was like stuck in stone age. All these sushi kaiten belt chains and roasted chicken and cafes.... will this be the start of the mall invasion like what is happening in KL? Will we see kuching folks adopt a full day trip to the mall as thier compulsory weekend itinerary? What do they do on the weekends now anyway?

There are a few firsts here at the spring. The other day my cousin pointed out... the first auto pay parking system lol. Of course starbucks and other shops/restaurants, the first mph.... by the way I like mph the best because they let shoppers read their magazines.... so I only get my books at mph. And probably the first gsc/tgv....... this is like in those american movies where old people go back to their hometowns, go visit the old diners or sundry shop and reminisce the old times.

I dont mind spending so much on a cup of coffee in my hometown. This is me contributing to the local business.... if there is any time to spend money on starbucks... this is it. Im just hopeful that all these places will not go bankrupt.

Switching channels like mad.....

2008-03-26T01:02:00.003+08:00

This was one of the nights when there was nothing much to watch on Astro so I tuned to mtv. VH1s I love the 90's was on and the Cranberries' Linger video was playing. This is one of my favourites and its one of those that I can listen to no matter how old the song is. Totally love the cranberries.... dont really listen to their albums through but they did have gigantic hits with their trademark catchy hooks didnt they.... remember zombie.... heck the 90s were about all these catchy rock songs with great hooks and melodies. The cornier of the crop would be hootie n the blowfish or sixpence none the richer and the likes, man they had really catchy songs....... and all those great bands like radiohead, pearl jam, oasis, blur, manic street preachers peaking. I was like... I love the 90's...

Then VH1 I love the 90's suddenly got into this boyband mood..... this boyband with 3 guys that i forgot existed but was surely reminded of as I could totally recall their hit song which was kind of rocky with catchy chorus.... I was quite impressed with the video as it didnt look like something from the golden oldies of the 90s unlike the Linger video. It became apparent that it was shot in London... in the tubes, London eye etc, and it looked like it was made yesterday. Kind of reminded me of the Nissan Fairlady or 350Z or the Adidas superstar sneakers.... good designs that stand the test of time. In case of the Adidas sneakers a classic.

Halfway through the show came on Savage Garden with their super sappy ballad Truly Madly Deeply. I also almost forgot the existence of this band.... however unfortunate to have to be reminded of the sappiness of this song. It pretty much went downhill from here with the VH1 I love the 90's...

But after that at around 1 am the so called ACDC(Adult Contemporary Definitive Chart- whatever that means) came on. This was quite good.... they were playing quite a number of interesting songs from 'alternative' artists...... and Emmy Rossum was on number 4! For those not in theknow, shes an actress and the only movie she was in that came to my mind was Mystic River where sheplayed Sean Penn's daughter. I am sure she was in many other movies but cant recall. But who knew.

March 8 aftermath

2008-03-13T22:42:00.007+08:00

Only 4 days after the so called political tsunami and the press was shouting 'CRISIS' in Perak. What did I tell you about Perak being interesting. As of today Perak still do not have a menteri besar and basically no government. The chosen PAS guy was supposed to be sworn in today.... but after all the huha leading up to the scheduled 4 pm ceremony, it was cancelled. If I was the king I would also choose the PAS candidate cause its a no brainer.

Lim Kit Siang rallying to boycott the MB sworn in, Perak DAP having no clue about Kit Siang, Lim Guan Eng equally confusing..... there was so much going on today. Lim Kit Siang in a desperate attempt to calm things down apologizing to the Regent of Perak. To me that was it.... a desperate and pathetic apology that meant nothing. Perak exco is seemingly heading to the circus direction.

What the hell did we expect? PAS and DAP are like ying and yang. At least to me PAS couldnt care less about non Malays and DAP couldn't care less about Malays. Any Malay in the right state of mind will not vote for DAP. Any Chinese in the right state of mind will also not vote for PAS. We know this will not work here in multiracial Malaysia and there is no point voting for these bozos.

Anyway there are still 5 years to go and it is still interesting to see how they will run Perak.

Its time to stop being apathetic

2008-03-09T13:25:00.002+08:00

I am one of around 4 mil unregistered eligible voters in Malaysia and pretty much couldnt care less about voting, always presuming BN will win 2/3 and any politician does not deserve my vote. Totally apathetic, ill informed and ignorant. That was until today when I woke up, loaded thestar.com and saw the shocking news.

Last night I was not even bothered to switch on the news to get the results, more concerned about whether Liverpool would finally get into some kind of form and looking forward to the rest of the EPL top 4 losing. I woke up at around 11 am, then drove to the nearest newpaper stall where I get my weekend papers regularly. The indian lady newspaper seller saw my car as I turned the corner and knowing me started waving to gesture she ran out of the Star. I still asked for NST or BH; and she ran out of those too. Then frantically I drove to all 3 service stations and 2 7-11s here in Taman Equine area and all basically ran out of major papers.

This news got me a liitle bit concerned about the future, immediate as well as a few years down the road. But thankfully so far everything seems to be calm and peaceful.

Totally a wake-up call for me as now I can tell you that I am so voting in the next election. Thankfully BN still form the federal government by a simple majority. I dont even know whats the difference if BN still form the gov but without 2/3 majority. I cant imagine, at least now, how PAS, DAP and PKR could form a coalition to run this country as it looks impossible. It will be really interesting how this coalition run states that they won like Perak..

The fitness first top 5 list

2008-02-20T21:36:00.003+08:00

It is time yet again for me to crack my head to come up with some list. What easier list can I think of other than the top 5 things that went on in the gym(Malaysian) that left me dumbfounded.

5. Guys that wear really short shorts. Sometimes the vision reminds me of the volleyball playing girls in mero attack but in a really scary way. I think the safe length is knee length or just above the knee, or even better wear long pants. Short shorts just plain ridiculous lah.
4. At times the gym can look like the United Nations, what with the IOI mall gym, that I usually go to, being so close to colleges which students come from all corners of the world. With that of course you get to experience the different cultures of the world as well as exotic smell. You know its one of those things like durian, which can be offensive to other people. Safe to say, remember to bathe before going to the gym, especially in the morning.
3. The makcik who bring tupperware to tapau the free soft drinks. Typical ugly malaysian.
2. Malay dudes who talk loudly in the locker room, talk in Malay but refer themselves as "you/I"..... wat the hell is this mann..... this is just plain weird
1. The dude(s) with headphones on, listening to mp3 player, dancing alone in the corner like a madman. I mean what the *&^%?

Lets recap the last list that I did(this is like 2007 list).... and these things still happen....
1. Resting on a gym machine, while picking nose. This is top notch skill indeed.
2. Use hair dryer to dry arm pit. I can still tolerate people drying their body and feet (from a distance) with hair dryer, but it is just ridiculous on armpit. I am just waiting to see someone using hair dryer to blow their u-know-what hair. I think I will lose my mind and smack the guy on the head should this happen.
3. Pee in the shower. These people think their pee smell like perfume and make the whole shower area stinking like animal cage.
4. Fill 1.5 litre bottle at the water cooler. Yes I understand we want cool water to refresh after a good workout, and they dont serve cold water in the jugs, but out of courtesy, use a cup or smaller bottle la. The water cooler is not discharging water at jet speed...
5. Produce 'orgasm' sounds when doing weight training or whatever. This is totally unnecessary, and it doesnt help with anything. If anything, it just make u look plain ridiculous.

Bid to keep this alive

2008-02-07T00:29:00.000+08:00

Yee Sang

This probably is my favourite raw veggie/salad dish. I dunno what exactly are in it, but one thing for sure it either comes with fish or jelly fish, well at least these are the ones that I have had, and a host of colourful finely sliced mix veges and crackers, all kind of 'united' by the plum sauce. I know for sure there is a lot of orangey stuff in it, which I presume to be carrot. If thats the case, I cant imagine eating raw carrot any other way. And of course the tossing, as high as you can. This is one of the purest moments of happiness. I mean if tossing food dont make you happy or at least smile a bit, I dunno what to say.

Yam Seng

It always start with some "yam seng". You know dinners that usually require some lucky draw to actually prevent people from leaving.... as people start to get full they just want to go back. What wonderful way to spice up the occasion, just get someone to start the yam seng thing. Next thing you know, everyone would be yam senging and people just get comfortable. Usually one thing would let to another and people would start standing on chairs or acting weird, or even worse reveal their true colors.

Balik kampung rush?

Quite surprised that quite a number of people were in office today. Figured that those who were are KLites, most of them left after lunch anyways. Quite a few for sure braving the north south highway traffic during this peak season. Really wanted to go back to Kuching, kinda depressed that I cant. I feel like I have to become a strategist now. For example, lunch strategy. People who seem to go to zen or secret recipe and all those places all the time for lunch.... I just dont get it. I mean where do all these people get their money from... considering some of them are fresh out of college. For lunch, really need to go with people on the same page, ie either broke or dont mind cheap food.

whatever happened to Tom Brady

2008-02-04T23:17:00.002+08:00

Superbowl

I have not been following football for quite a while now, be it college or NFL.... but Giants winning the superbowl, now that is shocking. I wonder what Rafiq is gonna say to that tomorrow....

Super Tuesday

Based solely on an article in Time magazine I am rooting for Hillary Clinton LOL. Shes got plenty of experience and is definitely ready. Obama.... hes the spring chicken but have the charm and the wow factor as well as a symbol of hope. Ideal scenario is Hillary become president and Obama vice president....

What would voters base their decision on? Based on my experience in the US, they are pretty ignorant on politics, international affairs etc. Now these are college educated people, let alone an average American living in the corn fields of iowa.

To vote or not to vote

When I listen to speeches given by our politicians, sometimes its like theyre trying to communicate with a retard. Sometimes they do customization, highly intellectual forum in urban areas and speaking like a retard to villagers and those less educated. They need to adapt to the audience, but thats not the point here. I mean voters can be swayed just by the charm of a politician who stressed on retarded points.

Treasure Hunt

2007-12-03T03:28:00.000+08:00

I have never had high hopes whenever I participated in company event like treasure hunt or team building etc. Most of the time the judging process is so messed up... in the end there would be no justice. Similar for the treasure hunt yesterday, looking at my team I had high hopes and wanted to win something (never won anything b4 except for thumbdrive), but I just knew the judges will mess up. Going through the answers for the hunt, it seemed like we nailed it if not for a few questions.

But finally... I won a portable 120gb hard disk.... thats for third prize for the treasure hunt. So dissapointing... aiming for 1st. As expected, judging was suspicious. As far as I am concerned, there were only like 3 team including us who are eligible for the top 5 prizes because the rest arrived late and should have been disqualified..... The judges decided to ignore that and count the points only. We skipped like 2 questions to save time and I drove like a maniac albeit arriving in one piece... but what morons!!!

But it was a decent event, started in bukit jalil and ended at Pulai springs near JB. Drove past PD beaches, Melaka and Pagoh (!)..... I really like Melaka but didnt go into JB. I asked one of my colleagues from JB whats good in JB..... she replied there are quite a lot of snatch thieves....

Career talk again

2007-11-20T21:48:00.000+08:00

This is like the gazillionth time that I (and many people) talk about career etc, I mean... will this ever end?

The new crop of management trainees
I look at the new batch of management trainees here, young, innocent, fresh out of college, energetic always with that huge grin on the face and a cheerful "Good Morning" everytime you see them at the hallway. I used to be one of them, and know I know exactly how people felt about us when we first joined. Just wait, maybe 1 year/1.5 year, and we will see if you can sport that cheerful nature and humongous smile again. If yes, fair enuf good for u, if not welcome to the club.

On leaving
Such a huge relief when I finalised my resignation from here. It is like a huge burden off my shoulders. When I went against basically everyone's opinion and joined here, people were almost shocked on why I did it. Had to deal with comments like "you selling ciggies or what", or one from my favourites was when I went to UK to conduct training, and someone asked me in serious tone "what u doing there, are u training people to smoke?". Me being a non-smoker, and strictly against it.... it made me feel like a total immoral person.

I am no engineer
I think most people have no idea what my job is. My Family at least have no idea. Some even think I am still an engineer. Even when I explained to them what I do, I dont think they understand. They have got this ciggie image in their head, and when trying to superimpose that with the image that I tried to portray of what I do, it does not make sense. My dream was to be an architect, but I am beyond that already. Dream to be an engineer in oil n gas..... over that as well.

SAP no more
SAP is such a lucrative industry, and I am leaving it so it does not make sense. People always say that the chance will come with patience. I think they are absolutely right but I'm leaving anyways. And on my new job.... I cant even explain what the job is in detail to other people. To be truthful, I am not quite sure myself. It is strange that I feel 100% that its the right thing to do when I am not even sure what my job scope will be.

On karma, luck and sweat and blood

2007-11-14T09:35:00.000+08:00

'My Name is Earl' is one of my favourite tv shows, it is quite funny I must say. I really like the whole concept behind it, the whole bad karma thing. I think its quite an original idea at least for the first season, before it started to get dare I say it old?

I am quite a believer in this karma thing myself. Not in such a way that people would start screaming syirik or khurafat like madmen, I believe. I just believe that you do good things and God, whichever that you worship, would make good things happen to you, just the same way with the whole karma concept.

Another topic related to karma is how 'lucky' a person is. For me, as cliched as it sounds, no one is born lucky to an extent ( if u are born a royalty you are definitely lucky I guess, unless, retarded or with other complications. If u are born Bradd Pitt but very low IQ, it is kind of lucky but unlucky so it cancels each other?). Luck is earned, and for me there are ways to get lucky: work hard and do good deeds.

If you see a guy getting a damn good new job, job scope matching all criteria that you would define a dream job has, at a world class MNC, and he was your slob colleague, 100% you will think that guy got it just by sheer luck. But then again, he had worked hard to make this happen, and that includes spamming countless companies with resumes and cover letters, or pretend to have thick face and make countless annoying phone calls to HR personnels all over the country to follow up on all his job applications.

Not forgetting doing so much research before interviews to gain as much knowledge and skill that he never had in the shortest time possible, in a manipulative attempt to oversell himself to prospective employers as one with all the required skills and experience for the dream job. Yes he was hired, but on the job, as work started piling in, things would start to get tricky as the defficiencies were exposed and he would feel helpless. And as the confirmation deadline was approaching, things would turn scary. This is when karma comes back to haunt him.

One thing in the news that caught my attention was one about a man who lost an envelope of money earned from tireless hours working at a restaurant in UK, bunch of money termed his sweat and blood. Ironically he lost it upon arriving at KLIA, when he flung his jacket over his shoulder and accidentally the envelope was dropped. In a magical turn of events, a couple found the envelope and manage to return the money to its rightful owner. Such stories give us so much hope at these times when KLites seem to be the most opportunistic, immoral people on earth.

However what I want to know is why the man with his sweat n blood in hand would be so careless to put the envelope in his jacket, and furthermore flung the jacket over his shoulder? Didn't he carry a briefcase or sling bag in which he can keep the money securely? If for some reason u have your sweat and blood in your jacket's open pocket, at least don't flung it as if nothing would come flying out of it.

Smelling coffee early in the morning

2007-11-08T08:52:00.000+08:00

The last Raya trip home further reminded me that I am turning into an old man and getting really out of sync with the 'younger generation' in general as well as my extended family. Raya is really the only time that we all (almost) can meet as a family nowadays. It used to be such a close-knit group, with get together or makan makan used to happen at least once a week or so, that was before kids started to grow up and starting moving to other cities in search of knowledge, money etc.

I love my hometown Kuching, it is such a nice city (for retirees....), but as long as it stays as pathetic as it is right now (the best cineplex there is like 15 years old with speaker bunyi pecah..... how can??), I dont blame other young people moving to other cities. I just dont understand, it is a common fact that Kuchingites are not that poor at all, and they always fly to KL for shopping or whatever (I see them here every school holiday....).... why dont anyone just invest there.... ie: GSC open cineplex in Kuching.... and then no need to fly to KL anymore??

back to family matters. My nephew was 7 months already, he has grown quite big and turned out to be one hyperactive baby. I have seen him being thrown into the air by his parents (hands-off!!)... on another occasion he was in the baby seat (the baby basket thing) and there he was swinging quite extremely with his father holding the handle..... and he had the loudest baby laugh that I have ever heard (macam org tua). I came to knew from my younger sister that these 'extreme' things happen quite often..... at some point I was not sure if these people knew what they were doing to the baby lol (but pretty sure no harm done).... but at least the baby had a lot of fun. One extreme baby indeed.

I also found that I do not know what is going on with my younger cousins. I see myself imitating those whom I regarded as 'silly old people' when I was young(my uncles and aunties)... everytime I went back I would ask the young ones what standard/form they are in.... or what course they are taking, when theyre graduating etc.... but by the next visit I would have forgotten all these and would start asking them all the same questions again....

Don't you find your self imitating those exact people that you thought had no idea what they were doing (eg your parents?)..... I have always thought I can be better parents than my mom and dad. Their parenting style to me at least was suitable only for the 60's, to me their skills were solely derived from their own childhood experience, and what they thought were the right thing to do as parents (this was in the 60's).... which I concluded as irrelevant when I was growing up (in the 90's). So now, I am supposed to know the right thing to do based on my childhood experience (90's)... but if I ever had a child... thats like at least 5 years from now, then by then what I perceived as the right thing to do to my children would be irrelevant????

Post Aidilfitri

2007-11-02T22:34:00.000+08:00

Still stuck in office having to listen to all those noises coming from the people drilling. Cant believe they are doing that while we are still working. Apparently they are taking out the gate-thing at the door, perhaps installing something more modern that produces less noise (I like the one at fitness first the Curve.... we also have that in our London hq..... very sleek)

I have finally made the final decision. Cant believe I will no longer have to deal with this shift thing again in 2 months. Shift work can go to hell hahahahaha.... It all started with a chat with an old friend..... who was also in the same line and basically same predicament. I didnt expect her to be so frank in expressing how she felt about work.... it made me analyse my situation more truthfully and I guess that I need not be in denial and accept the fact that I hate the f87678kin system and Im outta here lol. Forget the dream of getting 5 figure contract.... realistically how can u get there when you have hate deeper that Mariana trench of the true essence of the whole thing?

Cant help it, I just have to say how good radiohead's latest, In Rainbows, is. After listening like 20 times through, I had to switch on hitz.fm.... too much. Among my favourite tracks are Bodysnatchers, Arpeggi, Nude, Jigsaw falling into place, and the mother of all tracks, Reckoner.

The Malaysian melting pot

2007-10-12T04:13:00.000+08:00

Aidil Fitri is just around the corner again, and with that droves of KL-ites rush through its exit points, be it highway tolls, airport, bus station et cetera. All so excited to reach their final destination; the thoughts of awaiting family members, lemang and ketupat and family cat or whatever making the journey seems so exciting. Yeah thats what usually happens right, but I remember last year during Chinese New Year, I was in KL and thought all KLites left for the holidays, so I was going to Midvalley to catch movie; with no one around, the easy parking is worth the journey. And yet...we end up taking almost an hour to find a spot!!.....

It seems that every other person u know in KL is not local. In my team, final count reads one sarawakian, 1 from kedah, 1 penang, melaka, ipoh, seremban, couple from johor, mentakab...probably 3 from klang valley...... my neighbour's johorean, and he left like last weekend for Raya. And my ex housemates..... 3 from Johor, 1 batu kurau. A couple of houses along the row opposite mine, whose owners are Malay, have been vacant I think.

I was planning to catch a flight yesterday, but on air asia thursday was fully booked. So settled for Friday morning. And this was way back in early September. I am going a bit early to Lcct tomorrow... I am pretty sure the lines are gonna be long, and its gonna get ugly. All sorts of people are gonna be there.... entry level execs like me.... mbak mbak and ibu ibu.... students.... Sarawakians from Kuching.... Sarawakians from Kapit or Bau or Sarikei.... young family... u name it, theyll board the flight with you. Students are like the poorest people around..... they look for the cheapest of everything, I know because I was one.

And yet.... my Raya flight bills as follows:
One way to KCH on Air Asia: 385.00
One way to KL on MAS: 218.00

This does not make sense at all to me. On the same day of my MAS flight back to KL, on air asia the cheapest price was around 300++. I was just glad that I got the 218 deal. I just could not believe my eyes. Was it a system glitch.... or a super saver ticket.... regardless its all good, it just made my holiday season more wonderful with extra like 100 bucks.

Final note, Selamat Hari Raya to everyone... maaf zahir batin, and take care.

P/S: Radiohead has released their latest album 'In Rainbows', now only available as online download, will be available in hard copy format end of the year. You can get the download here: http://www.inrainbows.com/, very easy u place ur order, u get a link, and download. The cost..... anything...... u can put 0..... u can put 50.... can u believe it... Radiohead rocks.

what to do what to do

2007-09-28T02:40:00.000+08:00

I feel like good things seem to come to me all at the wrong times...... for sure I need them but to have them all at the same time means that I only can choose one and this decision making process is where I will most probably mess up. It is like going to the bazaar Ramadan and with so many stalls with smoke from the bbq or ayam golek and the unmistaken aroma from such a variety of glorious food.... I just have to go buy food from three stalls which are probably the worst.

Read somewhere that Ramadan is more of a 'feasting' month here than a fasting month. I cant agree more. With buffets skyroceting to 50-100 bucks per head, look around KL and you will think that we just have too much money to spend. Now how much food do you need to eat to make you feel that the 100 bucks are worth it? If they serve lobster maybe 2-3 tails would do it.... but I dont think that many buffets have lobsters....

Yes indeed I went to the Taman Equine bazaar which is the nearest to my house for the first time yesterday, but the food that I got were not too good. I usually go to the one near UPM cause they have more variety, and for some reason I have this mindset that old, kampungy places (like Serdang...) have better food?? This is just based on my 'feel', no fact to support this. But so far all the foods from Serdang bazaar have made me happy during breaking of fast.

And then the Putrajaya bazaar. Out of boredom I just decided to take a drive there and see what can we find there. Dam the biggest bazaar so far. So many stalls with so many variety.... you can smell the smoke and aroma from one mile and salivate all you want.

Theres this roti john stall which have always had at least 10 people lining up for the roti.... very curious about this but so far I have managed to control the urge to just get in line to find out what the fuss is all about. Also a popiah stall with as many people lining up always... how good can a freaking popiah be??? Never tested this also. A stall selling 'satar'... I have never heard of such a thing before, apparently its like otakotak of some sorts but in pyramid shape.

Then theres this kerang bakar stall. The first time that I had it it was like the most delicious kerang bakar ever. The kerang is marinated with spices similar like ikan bakar; the kerang itself inside the shell gets the marinade somehow. Before this when I had kerang it has always been the kerang taste purely like kerang.... no spiciness or marinade and what not, but this one was so different. But the second time was not so good. The spice-marinade thing was still there, but the kerang was not fresh, at all. I had to throw away the whole thing. But Im gonna give the kerang makcik a second chance, just because of her spicy wow factor.

Club Med!!

2007-09-08T21:24:00.000+08:00

Just got back from Club Med Cherating. Went there by by coach wednesday and returned today. Thursday the whole day was all about meeting, officially called the 'post implementation review' for our already concluded programme. Yesterday was what we were anticiapting for though.... all day activities and fun the whole day.

The resort was quite nice, well maintained and elegantly designed with traditional malay architecture and modern style blended together. The rooms were quite small though. I still vote Westin Langkawi the best resort that I have ever been to.

But its not about that in Club Med. Here its all about fun activities, free food all day (except fine dining of course) and free drinks and booze for alcoholics. To tell you the truth this is the most fun that I have ever had on a resort holiday (holiday.... sort of), considering that my expectations was low as we were there 'mainly' for the meeting... . I must say that if you want to have a good holiday with your family, this is a very good place to go and it is worth the money (it is quite expensive though).

Yesterday basically the whole day we were just trying to try as many activities as possible. I managed to do sailing, wall climbing, beach volleyball, aqua gym, ping pong, tennis.... my goodness I have never done so much in a day. My whole body is aching.... sore muscles, burning surnburn and whatsoever

Sailing was OK considering that could be the only time I am gonna have the chance... it was a small cantamaran that could fit 4 people. Go the chance to be the captain (hold the steer)... not bad but quite boring as the wind was not that strong. Aqua gym, kinda dragged into it, was relaxing at the pool when the instructor came and asked us to join. We did join somehow.... aerobics in the water... what can I say... what a waste of energy and dignity.... So dissapointed I didnt have time to try the trapeze (circus) as well as the bungee bounce (human slingshot of some sorts).

There was a show every night.... some variety stage performance. Catered mainly for kids I think, as I really find the comedian annoying, and others plain suck. Either that or they think the guests were retarded. But still its good for the kids. Also got the chance to watch the circus (trapeze) show... not bad, quite professional. And of course the open bar with free drinks.... what can I say.....

I must say Club Med did really well in making sure that their guests enjoy the holiday by trying to get them out of their rooms, join the activities and party. What I really like is they try to get the people to mix around.... I mean they saw a bunch of tourists lepakking near the volleyball court, and suddenly a beach volleyball tournament.... and made sure everyone wanted to join.... that sort of thing....

Liverpool 6 - Derby 0

2007-09-01T23:52:00.000+08:00

The title says it all, doesn't it...

Liverpool looked awfully too strong for Derby tonite. In fact this could be the strongest Liverpool team ever since the premiership started. I cannot remember such a balanced Liverpool team. Most of the times there were always something wrong here n there... sexy attractive footbal of Roy Evans era let down by comical defending.... or Houllier's superbly organized defence but lame attack.... or early Benitez era when the strikers get chance after chance but could not seem to find the net.

Well in Fernando Torres Benitez got the man who can get the job done and get the goals. This guy is strong, quick, clinical, hardworking and skillful.....could be the most complete striker in the premiership currently. Babel has looked sharp and full of ability albeit not looking gelling yet with the rest of the team. The two other new guys are not bad as well. So solid.... this is the best chance yet to win the league!!

Areas that I feel could be improved... could do with a new central defender. A backup might be sufficient right now, but since Hyppia and Carragher are already veterans... Benitez might want to get one for the longer term. I really like Micah Richards.... the thing with Liverpool defence is they are not quick and could be troubled by players like Drogba. With Micah Richards, you get Drogba in the form of a defender. A speedy winger would be welcome as well.

Also Liverpool IMO need to depend less on players such as Kuyt and Pennant. These two are not good enuf for me, just do not posess the quality to kill off games. Kuyt is such a frustrating player.... he could have scored a hattrick tonite but instead got none. These two players had always seem to play well and involved in a game.... but always do not produce the results. Whereas someone like Babel was anonymous the whole game tonite up to the moment he scored that wonderful goal.

The Killers: Sam's Town

2007-07-28T01:04:00.000+08:00

This band's career did not really take off as many predicted. From the success of their first album, people were talking about them being the next big thing etc etc. Strangely since they released the second one last year, they kind of faded from the spotlight.

Probably this has got to do with the lead singer's comment about the second record being the best record of the decade or something like that. As well as so many other commnts similar in nature. To some people this could translate into an arrogant or condescending statement from a relatively newbie in the rock scene, and can really piss off a lot of people especially music journalists.

Well one thing I am sure of is that the guy at Rolling Stone who reviewed this album is one of those having a problem with The Killers. He gave this only two stars out of five. It is not that bad, not bad at all.

I much prefer this to the first one. Actually I did not really listen to the first one, just played a few times. The second one was a bit of hard to listen to at first, but at least for me I could see so much potential in it, did not lose faith, this album just grows on you. My favourite track is Read My Mind; they did a strange video in Tokyo for this one. The rest are really good as well, I can just play this album over and over again.

For me this album is very refreshing. Such a relief from crap produced by the so called big names of today?? namely Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy, Daughtry, My Chemical Romance etc etc and the whole army of Canadian bands (especially the one with the lead singer who looks like jesus... forgot the name already, but what a bunch of rubbish). Add Avril Lavigne to that list I swear that the world is going deaf. (the 'girlfriend' song, can anyone possibly create a more annoying tune than that???)

I really miss music of the 90's. Cannot really listen to the mainstream music nowadays, except for a few. I think I am listening less rock and more of other stuff. The 90's.... miss the days when you have something like 'Jagged little Pill' which sells 16 mil copies.... or classics like OK Computer that I still listen to until today..... or even plain old Sheryl Crow.... I blame Britney Spears. Since her debut, it has gone downhill.

Back to the Killers, for me this could be one of the best of the decade. Been quite a while since I like an album so much (maybe since wilco's last). Talking about Wilco, they just released an album. Until I get streamyx, no idea how am I gonna get hold of it.

Macam P*&%

2007-07-21T00:32:00.000+08:00

I am working shifts now since project completion. Today I am on 10 pm - 6am shift. I am man of few words, pls refer to blog title and use your imagination. Sometimes I feel I rather die. What a difference changes can make. Its like I have founded India like Columbus did, or should I say the west Indies (thats what he thought, though he actually found America and west indies). What a dumass.

Moving on to things more cheerful in nature. Influenced by food shows on tv that seem to get ever more interesting everyday (Favourites are Tony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver, Iron chef - no more!!), I feel like I need to share the food knowledge I have to the rest of human kind, be it good eats, sucky food or whatever.

Nasi Lemak - Village Park Restaurant near Uptown
Found out about this place from my sister. How someone living in Kuching know places to eat in KL show how fanatic Msians are about food. Went there for lunch earlier this week. Since then, went there 2 more times!

The three times I went there I had Nasi Lemak - with rendang kerang, ayam goreng and sotong sambal. The most important thing for me is the sambal. The sambal is very intense, very salty-spicy, a bit sweet, not too hot. I would say its very solid. The rice - fragrant, not sticky, not lembik like bubur (some people like bubur-like nasi) and just enuf santan. But, hit the jackpot with the side dishes. The rendang kerang and sambal sotong I can say the best that I ever had in my life!! ..... unbelievable. There is something special in it I cannot explain. The ayam goreng berempah is also fantastic, tho not yet there with the kerang and sotong.

If not for the sambal which is only solid, I could say this is the perfect Nasi lemak. But I had the best ever sambal at the project site canteen in Bako, Kuching, when I was working for my 1st company. The thing looked so bland, but wait until u taste it.... tried once can still remember till now. That set a very high benchmark. Very outstanding.

Roti Bakar and Kopi Ais - Kluang Station
With the global coffee madness around the world, what with Starbucks opening and later closing a branch in China Forbidden City and whatever, locals seem to catch up with kopitiams mushrooming everywhere in the Klang Valley.

My favourite has got to be Kluang Station. The killer here is the Roti Bakar. They use white roti, toasted to perfection, crispy outside yet inside still obtaining the fluffy and soft texture of bread. With the overflowing kaya and melted butter meleleh.... man, u will meleleh also. The kopi ais is not bad, but I feel its too 'Kau'. But the roti bakar- gold medal.

Ikan bakar Bellamy - behind Istana Negara
I used to frequent this place, but since I usually order sotong, they dont come cheap (First time I ordered 2 huge sotong and my bill went up to 30 bucks - madness). Therefore, I tend to have an opinion that this place is pricey, considering the place is like warung (macam williams). Also the makcik there can be kerek at times, like shes the king of ikan bakar or something like that, or maybe thats me being paranoid.

Sotong can cost 8 to 12 bucks each, ikan around 6 bucks. I dunno bout the ikan, but people claim theyre good. i have only had sotong, the sotong is fresh and the marinade is nice- very spicy but not hot. But I feel that as long as sotong is fresh, it WILL taste good, so not really crazy about the marinade. So for me, this place is ok onli, and I dont understand what the fuss about this place is all about. I think my dad make better bbq sotong, with minimal marinade (oil, kunyit and seasoning). I just feel grilled seafood do not need too much marinade, just need them to be fresh.

Surgery

2007-07-17T04:57:00.000+08:00

Just got back from Kuching yesterday. Got sms from sister earlier last week that my father was having surgery the following Thursday. So I flew back to Kuching Wednesday.

Total Knee Replacement
After years of suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), my father finally decided that he had had enough. So he listened to the doctor and went for the total knee replacement surgery, on both knees. This is still OK considering some even have to do this on both knee and pelvic joints. Before this I sort of knew that the disease was arthritis, but not specifically rheumatoid. In fact, I am not even sure if my father knew what he was suffering from!

I have seen the x-ray and I think the prosthetic looked exactly like this one in the picture. The surgery took 6 hours, and it was not as straight forward as per normal. According to the doctor due to prolonged damage to RA and subsequently bad posture, the knee joint was no longer straight and scar tissues were accumulating. So he spent a lot of time fixing that.

Just 5 days after surgery, my father had been able to walk(on crutches of course) and the pain was gone. Now he is recovering doing physio to recover the muscle strength at the joint as well as getting the coordination between joint movements and the brain right. No surgery complications, so everything looks good now.

I guess my point here is that surgery was quite cool. Especially when it can show elderly people, who are understandably sceptical (even I myself would think twice if I were to replace both my knees), what modern medicine can do.

Stim or no stim

2007-06-29T20:24:00.000+08:00

I was really looking forward to meet up with my ol buddies from Sunway. As we get older and people start to get attached (to other people, job and etc), we naturally grew apart and we just never see or talk to each other again. I initiated communication earlier the week, and after emails flying all over the place, it was decided that it needed to be tonite, at 10 pm. Then, dear Mr JD Jamal suddenly at the last minute declared he couldn't make it... damn giler potong STIM.

Heck i was trying to initiate sumthing to get the Sunway geng (including girls) together since early May. But that didnt go through as well as I had to go to the middle east, and no follow through after that. I have realized that all my life I have been making a lot of friends, and losing a lot of them too. So really want to do something about this. But it is so hard to get people together, everyone is so busy and has some wedding to go to every weekend lol.

Now that I have discovered that people from work are reading my blog, there is no more freedom of speech here man. This IS the place that I want to go if I have something to say about work. But cant do that now, and that sucks. Not stim at all.

ZJ's food review - Tony Roma's

2007-06-23T21:16:00.000+08:00

Initially I had no idea about this place and a bit sceptical (thought that it was a mickey mouse western restaurant). Then I remembered reading excerpts from the star on this new restaurant chain from the states opening a new branch in Cineleisure.

We went to the one in Sunway Pyramid, the only branch that I know of is in Cineleisure. Well, it is has got this TGIF and Chilli's theme going on, a place where workaholics go on Friday nights to have good food and chill out.

Decor
If you compare this to TGIF/Chilli's, I would prefer the latter because TGIF/Chilli's got this casual/fun theme going on (I especially like TGIF's 'ritual' for birthdays--cheesy likehell, just what we need on Firdays!). Whereas Tony Roma has this more high-end exclusive feel to it. It looks a bit like some hotel restaurant and feel less personal, again the lack of a fun factor. It does look trendier though.

Service
Service is crap and obviously being a new chain, the staffs are not that well trained. I also had difficulties understanding what the waiter was saying, on top of that my food arrived last when some even had finished their meal. Thats really bad.

Price
Price is at TGIF and Chillis level, so nothing much that I can comment here.

Food
I like the steak I ordered, cooked perfectly to my expectation, tender and fresh. I didnt like their fries and their sauces; there are 4 type of sauces available and I didnt really like them all. However, the menu is verybasic and limited. Strictly steaks and burgers and some fish, none of those tapas or mexican delicacies you can find at TGIF. Portion is a little smaller here compared to TGIF/Chillis, so those with bigger appetite might feel value for money is less.

Final verdict
It is actually not bad. I quite like the steak (strong point here) but the side dishes were poor. But for me the main thing is the steak, so I would say Tony Roma's is between TGIF (good) and Chilli's(bad). However the decor is more formal and less fun, which I thought was out of place.

What is it with this starbucks guy????

2007-06-16T20:00:00.000+08:00

I really felt like I wanted to smack someones face the other day. Or at least just freak out and lose it and just use the can opener and let the worms outtt!!??? But my brain keep telling me to keep cool and just shut the hell up, well thank you brain.

Right now, I just want a cup of nescafe 3 in 1. What is better than a cup of nescafe early in the morning, particularly after the latest version of the 3 in 1 with improved taste and aroma. No need for starbucks latte frappucinno and free internet plus free paul mcartney music. Not to mention free aircond. If i were given a choice between the starbucks package and a cup of nescafe tarik at the dirty neigbourhood mamak stall, I would take the latter, now.

The starbucks package was initially tempting indeed. Good ambience, good crowd, again free aircond, nice huge cup... and wait until u taste. OMG taste like the coffee bean (litterally the beans) hangus man.... totally deceptive cup of coffee. My conscience is almost clear... I need to switch to coffee bean (the franchise)... heck I might just want a cup of nescafe 3 in 1...

Such a coincident that I am actually at a Starbucks and my mocha taste like the bean or chocolate hangus. So I went to the counter and vigorously sprinkled vanilla over my cup. The waitress look at me with round eyes with the 'hello wat are u doing' look. What is wrong with these people????

Argh anyway, yes my entry this time is really random. I have alot of ideas usually, sometimes during office or watching TV, I just want to write something here. But still no internet at my home man, really need to record my thoughts somewhere as as sson as Im in cyberspace, all the ideas are gone. Tmnet....please do the promo for streamyx again (because unless u do, I wont subscribe).

I have been craving for Sarawak Laksa for quite a while now. I know there is a stall in Rasta TTDI that sells Laksa Sarawak, plus other traditional Sarawak food like ikan terubuk, nasi aru etc. I drove all the way there last week at lunch. Unfortunately the stall was closed. I am not sure closed for good or what, if anyone has any idea on this I would really be grateful. I know there is one aunty selling Laksa Sarawak in a Bangsar cafe (near mahbob/the beriyani ayam madu mamak), and according to a fellow Sarawakian, it is authentic. But its non halal, so thats out.

Sigh... next time I go back home I am gonna tapau a bunch of the laksa paste and cook it myself here. And for you guys KL-ites and west Malaysians (if you dont know already), Laksa Sarawak at Laksa Shack is crap (taste more like pathetic curry laksa to me).

In my conquest for the authentic tasting laksa in KL area, I came across this interesting website by a bunch of interesting laksa loving Sarawakian chaps still living in Kuching:
http://real-sarawaklaksa.blogspot.com/

From Beirut to Dubai

2007-05-21T02:58:00.000+08:00

Arrived in Dubai early yesterday morning, will spend 4 days here.

Beirut on last day, had a 'surprise' tour organized by the wonderful people of BAT Lebanon. Work ended noon, and after lunch immediately we hopped into a cute Nissan (as featured in Heroes lol), driven by a Lebanese Jean Reno look-alike. We told him we got a plane to catch, need to get back to the hotel by 6, and yes he rushed allright. It felt like I was in Ronin, truly a unique Lebanese experience.

Situated in the outskirts of Beirut, the Jeita grottos are quite a marvellous spectacle. It consists of a network of underground cave systems, with magnificent rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites and pristine underground river system. Too bad no pics allowed. I was quite sceptical of this initially (Im from Sarawak and we have the most amazing caves), but it was better than I expected, beautiful caves minus the guano!

After that with little time to spare we headed to the ancient city of Byblos. Declared a UNESCO heritage site, a crusader's castle dominates the archaelogical site, surrounding it ruins of temples, ancient settlements, Roman columns etc. The site is a rojak of structures built in different era; from neolithic settlements to Phoenician temple to Roman necropolis to the grand Crusaders castle. So much history and culture evidently displayed by the different styles of architecture.

After all that history and culture, were now in Dubai!! 1st day, first thing on my mind is... mall of the Emirates. Rushed there first thing in the morning, straight to the ski slopes LOL. Cant believe I went skiing in Dubai. It cost us around 200 dirham (around Rm200) for a 3-hour-pass, but man it feels good.... lepas gian ski. Quite worth it, considering my colleague has never skieed before, nor has he seen snow, and the snow was fluffy!!

Arrived in Dubai early yesterday morning, will spend 4 days here.
We decided to warm up after that, and went for the Arabian safari. Hopped on the land cruiser and off we went into the Arabian desert. The driver was quite an expert, always trying to entertain us passengers by doing insane manouevers over the desert dunes, seemingly trying to go down the steepest of the hills and up the highest ones. A few people (fortunately not in our car) vomitted. After all that, late into the evening, went to a arabian camp site, complete with belly dancers, camel rides and bbq.

What a strange experience, from skiing in sub zero temperatures to the Arabian desert in the punishing 40+ c heat all in the same day. I think this is what Dubai is all about.

Beirut update

2007-05-18T06:20:00.000+08:00

Surviving 3rd day in Beirut.

So many things going on here in Beirut, I do not know where to start. First of all, bullet marks and bomb holes can be seen everywhere, mostly from the 70's civil war, neglected until now. Army personnel are still patrolling areas especially around government offices, a few tanks here and there. Apparently there are still tensions among the different factions (even if the civil war ended almost 2o yrs ago).

Despite all these, we could walk around at 1030 pm, went through barricades and tents and army checkpoints, and just lepak at night. There's even a road here filled with nightclubs and bars, like Bangsar, only trendier and more stylish. Style is so significant here. The people here are really concerned about looks, and for the ldies it seems like everyday is a fashion show. Maybe too trendy and stylish.

Some parts of town are going massive reconstruction and restoration. The downtown is now well restored and the buildings look beautiful, with a lot of sidewalk cafes and restaurants. Also a lot of high end boutiqes in downtown, a lot of nice cars, I guess a lot of rich people here. Drivers here you can find nowhere in the world, this is the only place so far that I witnessed a car being reversed at a speed of at least 60kmh, on a busy main road!!! Even better, today I saw a porsche cayenne doing just that.

This place is surreal. Some parts make you feel like you are at a beautiful meditteranean city, and other parts make you feel you are at a warzone.

Off to the Middle East!!

2007-05-15T00:52:00.000+08:00

Flying to Beirut and later Dubai. Will be back in Msia 23rd. Lepakking at the lounge, there is no better moment to update my blog.

Quite nervous about this trip. This is the first time that it feels funny. I mean I am heading to Beirut. I think the war there just ended last year or something like that. I tried to search for pics of Beirut on the net, and came across a lot of graphics showing ruins in central Beirut or bombed cars and stuff like that. Those were from last year, but still the country is surrounded by Israel, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. Probably the most unstable region off the world. But my hope is to get a pic with a UN personnel with the UN tank in the background.

Looking forward to Dubai, and hopefully can see the Burj. Though dont think there much for me to do there, unless I have the money of course. Lets see if I can bring some Arabian desert sand back.

The Neverending Quest

2007-04-16T20:37:00.000+08:00

There was a moment when I remember waking up and then started asking myself what is the purpose(eat breakfast onli), nothingness can drive me crazy. That was the time gap between graduation and returning to Msia for good. But then, now I wake up and whats the purpose? To go through all this s&** again!!!! Damn I really prefer the former. Then again, we never can fully appreciate what youhave got, nor can we feel real happiness in the current moment. Then the moment passes and you start to cherish the moment and sort of living in the past???## You get a good job, then you look at other people and you want their job. You own a honda n you want mercedes. You have condo and you want banglo. Wil this ever end???? ultimately it is all about being at peace with your inner self, and each of us have different life goals that we consider to be success.

In next post.... I will put up pics from London. Managed to get the policeman to take pic of me in trafalgar square. Travelling alone sucks.... might as well not travel. The least is to have one companion, at least got someone to talk to.

I wish I have Hiro's power

2007-03-04T14:57:00.000+08:00

It seems like the traffic in KL is getting worse. Its been a while since I had to drive to KL in the morning rush hour, and last wed it took me one one and a half hours to get to KLCC. Even on weekends and recent example on chinese new year, there were just so many people everywhere, dunno where they come from. KL-Seremban highway is just horrible..... the crawl now starts from bukit jalil exit.... I wonder if the SMART tunnel will be able to make any difference.

We had our annual zone 3 asiapac meeting in KL convention centre last wed. It is quite a remarkable occasion, with all staffs required to attend and most of the leadership team flying from all around the world to share the results of the last financial year. Our meeting is different from other companies I think, because the meeting itself is morelike a side show. Most of the day is spent doing all sorts of activities with pre-determined teams, and it usually leads up to the prize giving to the team that scored most points.

Yeah it is a bit weird cause its not really a meeting actually, more like a team building event of some sorts. Nevertheless I quite like it, any free food or time away from office is good. My favourite activity for this years meeting was the rock climbing race. They constructed a rock climbing wall in the KL convention centre, and that itself was quite awsome. I have never thought that I would like rock climbing, and it has also proven that all that time in the gym has at least produced some measurable result......

This month is going to be a hectic month. Im flying off to hometown Kuching next thurs, just in time to see my new-born nephew. Its just scary how time is beyond our control, and now my parents are grandparents, couldn't imagine them doing stuff that grandparents do. The week after Ill be off to London for a few days, alone, and the thought of that brings chills to my bone. There will be a lot of public speaking to do in front of big bosses at the BAT world hq, and I have no idea how will I get through that. There is no other better time to apply Nike's motto, JUST DO IT. Then the week after that I plan to go to Taman Negara.... really hopeful that that will happen.

Tong tong chiang!!

2007-02-20T11:02:00.000+08:00

I am working today, and yesterday as well. No one else from my team is here in office, most of them only return next week. I as the one of the non-chinese felt obligated to volunteer myself to work on public holidays. Obligation or is it just plain ass kissing, I am also not sure. The other non chinese is travelling in europe to do some training. Sometimes i wonder why the heck am I doing this.

It always interesting when a chat with another individual can really mess up your mind. Mind you, this individual is like the type of worker who comes to office pissed off every day, no interest whatsoever feeling 'Im doing crap' with an end goal of to get the hell out of here. Sometimes I feel this type of people are too pessimistic and should be avoided at all costs; especially in one to one chatting sessions. But these people do give you a different perspective to a situation and get you back to reality and truth, which are usually not really good. They end up being pragmatic rather than pessimistic, messed up fuckedups.

i am getting free internet again yay

2007-02-05T21:42:00.000+08:00

I thought I was getting used to my 4-12 night shift. Now that latin america trainings are over, so does the night shift. It felt like I worked less hours, and I could do a lot of things during the day. It is weird and good at the same time that I could do groceries and go watch movies and theres like no one around.

We had our inaugaural foosball tournament a couple of days ago. After such a build up, with all that practise at lunch break; heck we spent way too much time at the lounge playing foosball; we went out in the first round. It was no peanut opponent though, and it was quite unfortunate that we spent our previous weekend in Langkawi, and literally didnt practise before the game, so were quite rusty. Anyway, they used a new ball for the tournament, a much slower one, and we just didnt deal with that change. It didnt help that our game plan was based on statistics (were like a foosball version of Bolton, with less skills).

It was ironic that the course in Langkawi was all about that, how to deal with change. I think it was a good course, and the group; which for me makes or breaks the course, was good, willing to participate. I am no fan of this type of courses, I only went after seeing pictures of the resort were going to stay in. Westin Langkawi is a fantastic resort; huge plasma screen in every room, biggest ever bathtub with view of the sea, infinity pool, and to top it off friendly staff and good service.

Anyhow, some of my favourites from the course. First, the mbti test, which determines your personality and attributes. Mine is entp(introvert, perceiving, thinking,intuition... or something). This allows me to understand myself as well as others better, especially in trying to make sense of why people react or do things in a certain way in a situation. The other is the take charge thinking model, whereby u focus on the goal and develop the steps to acheive it instead of allowing thoughts or feelings clouding your thinking and judgement. Its trivial, but sometimes its good to step back and take a more hollistic or process-driven approach to how our mind works.

The Ugly Malaysian.....

2007-01-22T23:58:00.000+08:00

I came across this article in the NST on the ugly habits of Malaysian shoppers list.... no 2 says people trying on bikinis and leaving their vaginal discharge on the bikinis. And the department store staff had to throw them away of course(sure or NOT!)... I have forgotten what number one was.... but my god no 2 is already like the most disgusting thing ever....

This has inspired me to come out with my own list of the ugly habit of Malaysians, when going to the gym. I had been going to the gym in umich and had never seen these kind of things. This is only in my beloved Malaysia. Here goes:

1. Resting on a gym machine, while picking nose. This is top notch skill indeed.
2. Use hair dryer to dry arm pit. I can still tolerate people drying their body and feet (from a distance) with hair dryer, but it is just ridiculous on armpit. I am just waiting to see someone using hair dryer to blow their u-know-what hair. I think I will lose my mind and smack the guy on the head should this happen.
3. Pee in the shower. These people think their pee smell like perfume and make the whole shower area stinking like animal cage.
4. Fill 1.5 litre bottle at the water cooler. Yes I understand we want cool water to refresh after a good workout, and they dont serve cold water in the jugs, but out of courtesy, use a cup or smaller bottle la. The water cooler is not discharging water at jet speed...
5. Produce 'orgasm' sounds when doing weight training or whatever. This is totally unnecessary, and it doesnt help with anything. If anything, it just make u look plain ridiculous.

It has been a while....

2007-01-17T18:46:00.000+08:00

They closed my mail account...

You know you have been offline long enough when hotmail closes your account..... they did reserve an account for me, an I just need to activate it, and that took like 10 seconds. Now i got 1GB of space(previously 250 mb), but they deleted all my mails??!! Having said that, when someone never login for more than one month....

Work

If you have been working for more than one year.... and still not sure if you are doing the right thing, or what the hell that you really want..... what does that mean? I consider a job is worth doing if it surrounds you nd engages you with smart people from whom you can learn new things. Or at least surrounds yourself with more smart people than dumbasses(because sometimes you still need them around). That is good enough for me. Then again, people always say that you spend 5 days a week at office, and basically you only have 2 days only for family or anything outside office. That a hell lot of time spent at work! And if work is shit, your life is shit too.

On being out of favour....

This is really a shitty feeling. This is when you find your superior is making decisions that do not meet your expectations. Everything was going as planned and predicted, and all of a sudden something out of nowhere which really was quite surprising. Being half paranoid, this made me analyse everything to the nitty gritty details, from whatever that ive said during the meeting to the look that I gave to the boss when I met him in the hallway. Or it could even mean nothing.

Who moved my cheese...

This is supposed to be one of the best selling business books. I am supposed to read this as prework for my eagerly waited training/course in Langkawi next week. The objective of this course is among others to basically unlock your potential, and for self reflection etc, in the ever enlightening process of determining what is that that you really want in life and what you are best at doing. Enlightenment is what I seek in Langkawi, and hopefully the course will give me some light on what i should be thinking about now. Nevertheless, I havent been to Langkawi and a long weekend plus two days in Langkawi sounds like a good plan, isnt it.

Cape Town part 2

2006-11-30T05:09:00.000+08:00

We managed to go to Cape Town last weekend to do all the touristy stuff. Taxi fare here is damn expensive and theyre not that safe either. We arranged the transport with the company driver who apparently do part time on weekends. It still cost us 350 rand (RM175) return trip (for 30 mins trip), but that’s significantly cheaper than taxis.

Its quite difficult to get around here due to security reasons. There are so many problems in this country, and it shows just how shitty it can be if you have a huge gap between the rich and poor, and especially when the majority are poor.

The ‘Welcome to Cape Town, prepared to be blown away’ signboard greeted us as we were exiting the highway. This city can do just that.

We took a boat tour, hoping to see some whales and dolphins. The tour operator promised that we would see dolphins, but whales migrated north during spring. But of course no dolphin can be seen, and if not for the fantastic view of the city and table mountain, it would have been a total rip-off.

Hopped on the ‘Topless bus’, a double-decker which gave us quite a good tour of the city and suburbs. It took us around the city center, and also the Bo-Kaap…. the cape-malay area. And of course to the table mountain, were we hopped off and took the cable car to the top. We could see everything from up there, fantastic view of the seas and city on one side, and the wine lands and mountains on the other.

Coming soon…. more pics.... from top of table mountain...!

Yello from Stellenbosch

2006-11-22T22:26:00.000+08:00

Im not exactly in Cape Town, but in Stellenbosch, about 45 mins drive away from the 'Mother City'.

Touched down Sunday morning via Johannesberg. On the way to Stellenbosch from the airport, we went pass a squatter camp. Its similar to the squatters in Jakarta.... only that its in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a 'fence'. That was going to be the only hint of Africa during my trip here that I would see up till now.

Beyond the squatter camps, its just endless vineyards surrounded by beautiful mountains. Stellenbosch is right in the middle of South Africa's winelands. This is where you can get supposedly the best wines in the world. There are a lot of guest houses, wine country resorts, wine tours and all that stuff here. I just never get this wine route tasting country-resort thing.

Stellenbosch is quite a beautiful town. Its a university town, with the university of stellenbosch buildings scattered around the town. Students form a third of the population, but theyre all away for the summer. So the crowd is a bit mature now, and less things to look at(all though its still not bad!). A lot of nice restaurants, bars and stuff like that.... all the fine dining crap. it reminds me of Ann Arbor in so many ways.

People here are predominantly white. Unfortunately, most black people I have met so far are the driver, receptionist or waiter. Standard of living quite high, and you can see a lot of german cars. The people here are beautiful.

We are staying in some guesthouse. Sadly to say, this place is more suitable for a couple in their 50's. Everything is 'old-fashioned'. My toilet seat is made of wood. Are you freaking kidding me. My room smells like some wood. It is just so weird when at the breakfast, 2 young asian guys among some old couple who are obviously here to enjoy the wine country stuff. I think my dad will love this place.

One week has gone by, and one more week of training to go. Tomorrow we are planning to go to Cape Town, and do all the touristy stuff like table mountain and the waterfront. Cant wait for tomorrow cause I feel like I am 50 already after staying at this place.....

Cape town, South Africa

2006-11-19T00:06:00.000+08:00

Blogging from MAS lounge at KLIA. On my way to Cape Town. Will be there until 4 dis. Its going to be 2 crazy weeks there.

The past week was hell week as well. So glad its over already. Screwed up so many things along the way.

Looking forward to get on the flight and have the ever fantastic MAS sate.

the third world

2006-10-20T04:38:00.000+08:00

It has been a while.... the last time I was in hometown Kuching was like 4 months ago. Even after 4 months.... nothing.... I thinks its becoming stagnant. Apart from the new flyover near the airport, I dont see many changes in this town. Kuching enjoyed its heyday in the 90's..... after 97 it was like nothingness..... even the roads look dusty now. It used to look like a garden, well kept decorative plants and flowers, tree-lined streets and boulevards....maybe the new mayor has got something to do with this.....

Houses dotting the hilly landscape of Monterrey. Its pathetic really.... this is like the only decent picture of Monterrey that I managed to take. I would probably never step my foot in this city again..... and yet I couldnt find the time to explore the city and take more pictures. The schedule and jetlag was too exhausting. Got the picture from my hotel room.

Luckily there was a mall across the street from the hotel. It totally reminded me of the mall near ann arbor.... the two-level one.... twelve oaks or something. The shops and brands were no different than those you can find in the US. In fact this city in most parts could be mistaken as a southern US city I think. Its cool to see walmart, ford trucks, mustangs.... I even managed to catch conan o brien on tv..... freaking hilarious as ever. American football was shown everywhere in bars...... prolly because americans were everywhere..... but too bad couldn't catch the Michigan-msu game.....

On my way back, was in transit in Mexico City. I was told by the other guys on how crazy the Mexico city airport is. Some people would prefer travelling to Monterrey via Dallas just to avoid this airport. It thought it was OK.... until I bought a lot of chocolates and candies and the security took ALL of them away. I was already late at the gate and didnt have time to argue with them.... in SPANISH. Anyway, the Mexicana flight gave us fantastic view of the expansive city.

The view of Los Angeles was also fantastic..... I could even spot rodeo drive from up there. It really felt good to be in the states again.... even only for a few hours of transit. The pure american accent was fantastic and refreshing...... such a relief from the fake accent of KLites and american wannabe malaysian. Too bad I couldnt spend some time in the US.... I only have business visa anyway.

Anyway its still good to get just a little bit of americana again. It must be realy gorgeous in ann arbor at this time of the year when the leaves change colors.

Hola from Monterrey

2006-10-04T08:07:00.000+08:00

Greetings from Monterrey, Mexico. I am gonna be here for about a week, coming back on a Friday flight. We have a training workshop here for our project, which is the main activity for global deployment.

So this one in Mexico is catered for Project Managers in latin America and the caribbean, 20+ of them. People from places like brazil, mexico, honduras, argentina and so on.... and 2 guys from KL and one from London.... it is just crazy. I have one presentation to do in front of these people... its quite scary and I hope my superior will change his mind about me doing it and he does it instead.

When we were in KL, were told jokingly by a brazilian that the training is gonna be in Spanish. Well, it wasnt a joke... the training is in Spanish. At least I have some use of the very basic Spanish that I studied in Michigan.

I am still trying to recover from jetlag. So far have no time to go sightseeing. Looking at the schedule, it will get more hectic. Hopefully can get some picture of the city and buildings. Its a nice city, and is very similar to the US due to its closeness to the border. Too bad I cant extend my stay into the US... maybe couple of days in LA or something like that.

moronic car owners

2006-09-03T13:32:00.000+08:00

Someone left a dent on my car. Its a small one, one has to really look and explore all angles before it can be spotted. Nevertheless, it is such a sore sight. I would rather get a minor scratch than a small dent. At least the scratch can be get rid off by waxing. He who left the dent... i surely hope ur car's body is flawless and somone will do the exact same thing to your car.

This makes me paranoid whenever I need to park my car. I really need to choose my parking spot, preferably next to an expensive car or a really well maintained car exterior wise. I am also tryin to avoid family cars- suv, minivans, and mpv. More often than not, these are filled with a family, housewives or obnoxious kids who do not have a care in the world about how deep a dent to other peoples car their act of opening the door would result in.

You only get this kind of problem here in KL. You can park as close to any other car in Kuching and not to have to worry about your car being dented by morons.

Update!!

2006-08-24T19:29:00.000+08:00

Our project is nearing global roll out.... so its getting a bit busy now. Nevertheless, I can update this blog.... whenever i have internet lah.

I want to upload some pics.... but now at office cant do that. Im gonna do that some other time, not to distant future. Ive got some pictures from my trip to indonesia couple weeks back. Got volcano pic and stuff like that hehehe....

Lost at sea...

2006-07-26T20:23:00.000+08:00

In a bid to save this blog from extinction, I set a goal for my self, to post update of any kind, at least once a week.

Back to my post. I thought that it was the usual thing: go through the competencies... look at the rating i give myself for each competency, reasoning provided, area for improvement bla bla bla.... then out of nowhere came the soklan cepumas from my bosses: "Do you relly want to stay in this organisation?"

That totally caught me offguard. It wasnt the usual assessment after all. Totally unprepared for this. What the hell does that mean? I seriously thought I was getting fired. After that I was bombarded with torpedos, scuds, bomb so forth. Questions on how do i want to move forward, technical or business.... engnieering or stay in consulting bla bla bla.... my contract is ending very soon....

I went straight to the point and asked them if this is related to my performance or my lack of decision making on how do I want to progress with my job. They replied the latter.... but that didnt make me feel better at all. There is still this sneaky feeling that I am getting fired or sumthing like that.

After all... after 6 months in this IT consulting thing.... I still dunno what the heck that i want to do to myself. I have no idea if i want to go to the business side, or do technical things, or leave this consulting and go back to engineering altogether. And if pepople ask u what u wanna do and u reply u havent decided or dunno... I think it makes u look like a dumbass. Bottom line, I have some serious thinking to do in this couple of weeks, which hopefully will lead to some decisiion making from my side.

Satria Neo

2006-06-17T13:38:00.000+08:00

I just test drive the new Satria Neo 1.3 manual. Overall, I was quite impressed by it. Though they didnt really allow me to go anywhere.... just go one round around seri petaling. Pity they dont have the 1.6 manual for test drive.

I have no problem with the exterior. It looks really good to me. Build quality looks good. I really like the headlights, look like gen2 a bit, but more refined. The rear lights are ok, albeit a bit bland. The body looks beefy, due to the higher ratio of body:glass(window). Fancy the feline look also. But the gas tank cover is ridiculous. Despite hat...... still thumbs up for Proton!!

Interior is trademark proton all the way: cheap plastic. The round air cond looks ugly and cheapskate. The three knobs in the middle look like that of gen2 and dont look any better. Steering wheel feels plastic and cheap(why cant they use waja's wheel????). Dashboard:plastic. Meter panel is ok, but i dont really like the meter 'hood'.... looks like bra hanging. Door handle: round(very ugly) and plastic. Dont like the samurai sword handbrake, dodgy. Driver's position is a bit weird, quite high, which leaves not much headspace. Seat feels fairly comfortable. Not much room for the passenger at the back, but what do u expect from a satria right? Despite all these, I can still say thumbs up to proton for improving the overall look of the interior. It looks so much better than the ridiculous interior of gen2.

I am no car expert and I cant comment much on performance and handling. I was concerned about the high revving campro engine. Proton were supposed to tune it for this new satria. I have never driven a Gen2 and dont know how bad it is. But based on my test drive, the 1.3 manual version was ok, pick up was ok.

I only took the car out for like 15 minutes, so didnt really have a good feel of it. The handling feels really good. This should be expected from proton, with all that lotus involvement.

The most imnportant thing is..... the new satria is using a new mechanism for its power windows.... can we expect a no power window malfunction for the new satria???? Only time will tell.

The pricing, in my opinion, is spot on albeit predictable. The Satria is quite a good package overall.

Then we come to the holy grail of Proton: QC. I can just pray they did something to improve their Quality Management programme(if they have any...). Cannot tell.... only time will tell. But people claim that the quality of savvy models is so much improved compared to other models.

This is a good sign from Proton. I really hope they can continue to come out with models as good as this new satria... and improve quality.

It is raining outside....

2006-04-28T20:25:00.000+08:00

This week has been so good... it has been a long time since I can sit at the office and browse internet until the cows come home..... I can get used to this again...

Anyway, it has been almost 6 months since I joined my current company, thats the longest I have ever stayed in a company. Hopefully I can make the stay longer, even though I have no freaking idea what the hell am I doing right now lalala. Well.... fck it and I couldnt be bothered, now I just want to concentrate on being confirmed and get higher salary lalala.

This also marks the almost six month that I have been staying in KL. I couldnt help it but to compare KL to kuching. Though I have stayed in KL before during my A-level years. First thing that comes to mind are the drivers..... KL drivers are among the stupidest around. Not only they perform stupid acts all the time, they embed their stupidity with agression and speed.... stupidity with added danger to human lives make them all the stupider. Kuching drivers are stupid but dont drive fast at all.... so at least they dont get killed.

what the hell am i writing about, absolutely have no idea. This IT environment has depraved me of anything creative and artsy.

The makcik who sells nasi lemak in sri petaling is always in my memory for all the wrong reasons. This makcik you would never find anywhere in Kuching. With that motherly nature and kind eyes and all that, who would expect such a person to rip you off. Well she ripped me off my nasi lemak. I would have never imagined such a humble dish like nasi lemak could be so pricey.... to be exact the simple everyday nasik lemak with sotong sambal at the side for 4 ringgit.... freaking rip off indeed. I almost believed that she ripped me off cause I look like chinese and she was being rascist.... then again, maybe she was just being a normal KL folk.

I love astro

2006-04-02T10:44:00.000+08:00

I thought that it was the usual astro technical glitch, but the service is not back yet. So the support people were right indeed. It has got to do with the so called central system that we have here at arena green apt. Nothing to do with astro, everything to do with the central system. So there is a need to contact the management.

But people dont work on Sundays. No way to get people to fix the problem. I feel like installing the dish myself. We are put in this position where people can screw up and nothing can be done to fix the problems.

This astro service interruption is really getting on my nerves. Missed the "el-clasico" and the Liverpool match last night. Both astro and the management are morons.

I find that astro service here in KL is so much worse than in Kuching. Technical glitches, weird messages popping that cannot be deleted..... missing channels... wrongly printed bills.....omg i feel like smacking some people. The central system instead of individual dish does complicate the matter as well. This is because now we have to deal with 2 morons: astro and apt management. Sigh....

Its time to get going

2006-03-30T22:21:00.000+08:00

I am trying to update this blog as often as I can. Dont want it to be obsolete.... I first used the word obsolete in my final 450 report and now I will use it whenever I have the chance.

Anyways, try to do that at office (update blog).... after lunch or a couple of minutes here and there.... so far its not really happening. At home the connection is intermittent at best..... better use the online time to check email and other more important stuffs... right?

We have a full house at bkt jalil. Now I have 3 housemates..... thank goodness that there is no way that the number will increase any further. Anyhow.... with the cheaper rent divided by four, comes the catch. The house could not get any more messy, blocked sink.... and weird smell.... its getting disgusting lol.

The BTA's....

2006-02-28T22:21:00.000+08:00

BAT GSD is recruiting more Management Trainees (Business Tech Associate, BTA). I was in the first batch of 45 BTA's.... n now for the second batch I heard that they want to recruit another 30. For this position, you will most probably become a SAP consultant.... but others could be involved in other things like skyway, six sigma n MEGA. I am in SAP n have no idea about those other things. But for SAP, I think its not really technical. Its more important to understand the business processes and figure out how to make full use of freaking SAP as the supporting technology. The ad will be in THE STAR this Saturday, in "Jobs" section.

Regardless of whether you are interested in the vacancies or not..... GO BUY THE STAR this Saturday. It is imperative to go through the jobs section and take a look at BAT's ad. It is worth your money and energy to flip those pages... theres gonna be a surprise lol....

On the new T43

2006-02-14T21:53:00.000+08:00

I got a new laptop: a Thinkpad T43...!!! My previous hp was given to someone else cause we were running short.... just got the new IBM last week. Honestly, the only thing that got me excited about T43 is its price.... and the keyboard. Feels good indeed. Other than that.... I couldnt be bothered.

The T43 is the only good think I can mention about work. My motivation is decreasing slowly but steadily. I am sick of reading. I am in a vulnerable position.... it is easy for me to start thinking that I dont have anything to do and start surfing. 9 to 5 reading as your tasklist is not good at all.... especially for new people like me. What to do... just suck it up. Have to try to motivate myself.... thats not too easy.

Went to chili's for the first time. For some reason, maybe due to my experience of living in the US.... I got this notion in my head that chilis is a western food heaven. Its like if you want to have western, might as well go to chilis and nowhere else....Those baby back rib song and n sync singing and all those commercials surely do something to your head right. So I had steak.... and it wasnt good at all. Such a dissapointment.

And I think I know when a steak is good. I had "filet mignon" at michigan league.... supposed to be expensive and luxurious cut of meat.... catering got extra and everyone got free food..... it was the most delicious slab of meat I have ever tasted. Applebees' was not bad at all too.

And it is Valentines day........

On the project assignment

2006-01-26T21:59:00.000+08:00

Our group of 45 people is now segregated.... projects assigned and now we form smaller groups. A few people are going to africa after chinese new year.... to freaking zimbabwe.... what in the world is bat doing in zimbabwe right.... but how I wish I was assigned to zimbabwe.... not for the sake of travelling, nor the lions, baobab trees and victoria falls...... but the money.... man the allowance they give are freaking unbelievable..... maybe i am sick of reading blueprints already, cant wait to get going.... at least some trip to africa sounds like excitement and fun..... can look at lions, victoria falls, baobab trees, sand.....

What a wonderful week ahead.... I will have the whole of next week off cause im on leave next Friday...... this Sunday im off to kuching....

Confessions of a lady driver

2006-01-18T19:52:00.000+08:00

There was this creaking sound coming from the back of my sister's kancil, i repeat, my sister's kancil, It was really bothering me, but I somehow said "just ignore it". This would not come out from the mouth of a guy..... or so said my "pillion rider". Now that i think about it..... should the kancil broke down, I would have absolutely no idea what to do. I can change flat tires, but thats about it. I am indeed a freaking lady driver. I used to drive my parents cars... but never really care about their maintenance whatsoever. This is like the first time i am responsible for a car, and the kancil is already 1500 km overdue its supposed service maintenance ...... By the way, there is no chance that I would own a kancil ok. It is a freaking sissy car, you would not find me thinking about buying a kancil, at all, and the one im driving is my sister's. I would rather drive a Kangoo than a kancil. You know renault kangoo.... it has got to be the ugliest vehicle gracing our roads, and it looks kind of funny also. No offence to kancil owners.

Nasi Lemak Antarabangsa

2006-01-05T00:12:00.000+08:00

Grey's Anatomy is on every Wed night on tv3..... who would expect that to happen.... thats like the only thing im watching right now.... and its a good show by the way, so far....

nasi lemak antarabangsa kampung baru is so overrated, I have eaten it twice, and I still think it is so-so.... if not edible. There is nothing special about it. I cant understand y is it so famous. It was supposed to be the best nasi lemak in town. And its not cheap. So dissapointed..... and tom yam near KL international hotel is supposed to be the best in town.... ikan bakar kpg baru is also credited to be fantastic..... well just see abput that....

Direction to the Pot Luck House Warming

2005-12-20T22:37:00.000+08:00

Address of my apartment:
19, Blok F, Tingkat 3A(essentially 4th floor.... its complicated),
Arena Green Apt, Jln 1/155A Bukit Jalil
57000 KL

As shown in attached map below, the apartment should be very easy to locate, its directly opposite the stadium nasional, just down the road from Technology Park entrance.... if u see apt blocks in front of stadium.... thats the one. There are like around 6 blocks of apt.... with an orange/yellowish color scheme.

Directions:

From Seremban H'way/Bulatan lumba kuda: Go straight to Tech Park, Go up the ramp which leads to tech park, take a right turn (towards stadium).... my apt will be on your left.

From PJ: Various ways.... you can either use kesas or fed-seremban hway or puchong bypass(via LDP sunway toll).... very hard to explain lah.... i think its easy.... just know where technology park is.... and my apt is down the road from tech park entrance, and opposite stadium....

Map of my apt

Pot Luck Event

2005-12-19T22:27:00.000+08:00

Pot Luck is on this Saturday,24/12/05 at my apartment, 2 pm. Confirmed people coming from elly's emel):

Elly
Hafiz
Jirah
Hakam
Matde
Chen

Everyone is invited... so feel free to invite anyone else....

PS2 aku dah modified.... tak sure leh main vcd ke tak.... For pot luck.... ill be providing drinks or ice cream and paper plates/plastic utensils....

Menara tan n tan here we come.....

2005-12-15T23:33:00.000+08:00

My sister and my brother in law is coming this weekend.... I think im gonna spend most of the weekend with them.... the potluck thing i was initiating would have to be cancelled I guess....

Had my first ever futsal session just now.... and I think I managed to not make a fool out of myself. I am not blessed with athletic abilities.... the only sport that I can play decently is badminton.... and football is the worst. i have tried staying away from futsal at Komag.... now since other people are so gung ho about futsal... might as well join for the sake of getting together. As usual... it came to a point where I became the keeper.... when you become the keeper.... most prob ur the most useless member of the team..... looking at the brighter side.... i am so positive these days its not funny...I burned some calories. It has been months since I had any form of physical activities. I know tomorrow my whole body will be aching....

Next three weeks... we will have training at menara tan n tan. 1 more day of nothingness at the office, to go.... For the past 2 weeks at the office, I have not doing much... read all the blue prints, and tried all the coffee already.... it is time for free food again....

King Kong

2005-12-14T23:43:00.000+08:00

It is very easy to dismiss the new King Kong as another "Godzilla" (hmmm... the trailer also looks kind of cheap and too cartoonish), but the difference here is Peter Jackson. He made 3 top grossing academy award winning movies that became instant classics.... hence I have faith in him.

So far... it has received raving reviews.... CNN.com calls it "an Instant Classic" and "In a class of its own". AFI listed it as one of the top 10 movies of the year.... and tomatometer gives it a 86% freshness rating, which is good enough.... I am definitely sure this 3-hour epic (yes 3 hours..!) is well worth 11 bucks!

Got my PS2 modified already.... the thing has become useful again.... been playing WE9. Its too early to say how good the game is, but one thing for sure, it is better than WE8.....

Jom lepak rumah aku this weekend.... have a pot luck or something. We got a fridge already... food is welcome..... anyone?

The constant gardener

2005-12-13T11:03:00.000+08:00

Someone mentioned about wanting to watch "The Constant Gardener".... I thought no one would want to watch something with that as the title.... the title is just wrong. But actually, to my surprise the movie is actually really good... First of all it does not concern gardening.... its mainly about a group of people investigating the wrong doings of drug/pharmaceutical companies in Africa... and how Africans are used as guinea pigs and discriminated... whilst those companies continue to make huge profits.... I don’t know if this is what happening right now in Africa.... But it is believeable indeed.... and this brings me to this issue of whether it is right for me to work at a tobacco company.... This movie could be an eye opener to some.... tobacco is controversial, but at the same time, other mnc’s are no angels either.....

And I am really looking forward to watching this new soon to be released movie titled "Syriana".... its supposed to be about oil companies doing all the wrong things to make huge profits....

Narnia was such a dissapointmnt for me... Maybe it was me expecting too much of it. But it was still entertaining though... though more suitable for children. There was not a single drop of blood in the movie.

Free wireless internet??? .... hmmm

2005-12-07T23:38:00.000+08:00

I am connected to some netgear wireless signal.... dunno from where, but it works and I am connected to the net...!!.... wireless free ke apa.....

Last weekend went back home for my sister's wedding. what wonderful event that was.... albeit a bit kelam kabut. Not too bad for us first timers. But the tok kadi was unbelievable. He was like one hour late, and everyone had to wait for him...... But nothing was gonna spoil no one's mood that day. The akad nikah on saturday was kelam kabut due to tok kadi, while on sunday the kenduri itself was mayhem bcause there were too many ppl and the catering ppl were so slow like theres no tomorrow.... our neighbor was kind enuf to open their house and let some of our guests in.....

My job was mainly as the driver of the pengantin car, penyambut tetamu and to give out bunga telur..... I nearly lost my temper with those catering ppl.... guests waiting for tables to be cleared up, and there they were sitting around...

I think my sister looked really beautiful that day.... and apart from the tok kadi and catering everything went well.... One thing I learned from this, apart from what happens on a wedding day is that "bridal consultancy"(or more like bridal shop) is one freaking good business!!!

Personalize the experience.... managing expectations.....

2005-12-01T21:46:00.000+08:00

Been attending trainings for the past 3 weeks or so.... but the most interesting for me was the business consultancy course. I never knew such a course can be so interesting. That was a really good course. But it made me worry abit. The course somewhat gave me the idea that consultancy needs so much communication and salesman skill.... and ass kissing. I dont have those talents, nor am I eager to posess such talents.... well just see what happens with this new job.

I have been assigned to a project team.... but training is still on.... until middle of jan. Im just thankful that I am not with teams going to freaking mozambique or zimbabwe and stuff like that.....

The most pleasing thing about this job is that I am surrounded by 44 people of the same age group.... that makes such a big difference. It feels more like college than work.... I have worked with old people.... and it was not easy at all.

I am back

2005-11-15T18:08:00.000+08:00

Nope, this blog is not dead... yet....

Finally I am online after like a week+..... feel so disconnected.....

Had a wonderful raya holiday, after 4 years abroad.... reality kicked me when the takbir was on the surau loudspeaker.... what a good and wholesome feeling it created. Food was excellent.... gained a couple kilos along the way. Visited so many people... what a holiday.

In KL right now, still at my uncle's place. Should have moved to my apartment last night.... but there was still no electricity. Damn useless agent and owner... both blur cam cipan.

But I still want the apartment.... so I give them until Friday to settle everything. 750 per month at arena green bukit jalil, I am sharing it with lat fyi..... 2 rooms, semi furnished, with brand new nice furniture.... the furnitures are like 3 times better than those at home... Lol..... I feel like I cannot let this one go......

Oficially joined BAT GSD on the 14th... undergoing training for 2 months, first 2 weeks at parkroyal.... everyday fine dining... Lol.... add that with those raya rendang and kari... omg it is looking not good for my weight.....

on why Monday is a good day

2005-10-23T13:25:00.000+08:00

I always go to this shop for whatever photo errand needed to be done..... and I have just found out that they do digital enhancement to pictures. For my case, passport sized photo..... maybe I have repeatedly gone to this place because those pictures looked good.... they do the sort of things done to magazine covers and stuff like that. But on this latest occasion, this digital enhancement thing made me look like I was wearing makeup and lipstick..... way too much "brush up" and pimple deleting....

I have one more exit interview to go, and this is the official one with the MD and hr.... I have talked to the manager and director. I am trying to avoid HR people.... whenever I bump into them theyre like "why the @#@ are u resigning? Now I need to dig out those resumes again and find a replacement. What the hell is wrong with you?" I also need to clarify that I have no problem with anyone.... for some reason it is easy for people to think that there is some "rasa tak puas hati"......

Why does a resignation result in a backlash?.... people get fired, people get retrenched... promoted and demoted.... people come and go.

I am on annual leave tomorrow.... is it time for NFL action? Hopefully there is a game tomorrow morning....

apartment to let.. anyone?

2005-10-18T22:03:00.000+08:00

Greetings all,

I am looking for an apartment around the Bukit Jalil area.... preferably near an LRT station and/or near the Technology Park Malaysia.... anyone got tips or recommendation... kindly let me know.

Thank you and best regards.

Blue Monday...

2005-10-17T02:03:00.000+08:00

Anxious about tomorrow.... I didnt quite hand in my resignation notice to my supervisor in person.... he was in a meeting last Friday.... so just left it on his desk and drop him an email. He usually comes down to our office in the mornings. He should be no problem, has always been diplomatic and open, but I am not sure about the director.... hopefully there will be no exit interview or anything like that....

It feels good, so it cannot be the wrong decision. Next two week will be interesting, I am not that involved, but still there are some handover to do.... I wonder who will be in charge of my "son"... the facility monitoring system project. quite relieved to know that I will be dealing with those contractors no more.... quite unbelievable people. Just last week, a 50K "engineering and project management charge" quotation sent to me.... very2 shocking and ridiculous. I am more willing to pay like 50 ringgit for that kind of work.

Djibril Cisse scored the decisisve goal vs Blackburn... hopefully this will get him going and rediscover his scoring habit. He finally started a game and lasted the whole game.... in my opinion, he was improving as the game went on, and the climax was the goal. Liverpool need him to hit top form..... I think he will be important for Liverpool.

Cigarrettes anyone?

2005-10-12T22:23:00.001+08:00

BAT has offered me a job. I think I will accept it. I have no doubt about this apart from the fact that they sell tobacco products. But then again, like the saying of the wise men lol... petroleum companies, or other companies don't do that good a deed to the world anyway. Its all about profit.

Hopefully I will not mess up again. I will go into the realm of SAP, six sigma and crap like that, and leave mechanical engineering. I am pretty sure I am going into the right direction. Anyone know about BAT GSD's office in Technology Park? (The one in PJ is BAT, whereas BAT GSD is a sister company in Bukit Jalil). Hopefully the place is beautiful with shiny glass wall and steel structures... lol.... and not like in some shophouse. Then after this, theres the not so fun part of tendering resignation(omg again), figuring out stuff like house, car, bills......

"Helena" by My chemical Romance, "All that I could...." by the Killers and "Your Beautiful" by James Blunt. My "troika" of fantastic tracks of the year. Can't get enough of these good stuff.

"El Bob"

2005-10-10T21:00:00.000+08:00

There is no greater gift than the love of a cat...........Charles Dickens

You know my female cat that was going to be sterilised.... well she got flu that day and the vet's opinion was shes too weak for the procedure. We didnt get a second opinion, and she never got sterilised at all. And, yeah, she got pregnant again recently , and delivered 4 more kittens, and theyre not ugly, and they are all white; I would prefer more colours.

Her previous delivery produced 4 freaking ugly kittens; we gave 3 of them away(banyak sangat) and kept one. I thought of naming the kitten "Yoda" back then, because it was ugly and cute (almost) at the same time. It has got black fur with large white spots, much like the normal local tabby cat. "Yoda" was rejected, guess what my family call the cat: "Bob". Lol.... tribute to bob.

The Deluxe Containers

2005-10-06T21:00:00.000+08:00

The rumour is that production people will displace us Facility Department people, yet again. This time, rumour has it that Facility Department will move into the so-called "deluxe containers", to be placed next to the main building. We all just laughed it off, laugh with a hint of sadness and despair, but I think its not that funny. We are 2nd class workers indeed. And this week, rumour has transformed into cad drawings. And just last week, we were supposed to have spanking new cubicles in a spanking newly renovated office...... all that dream down the drain.

I think that is the most feasible outcome. I think we will have "kontena" office. Space is running out, headcount increasing, building expansion on hold..... The Ironic part is, we ourselves are planning this, since we handle projects. Our motto seem to be "we must suffer to provide service to other people." The only thing that we can do is to look for the most luxurious containers, or the "deluxe containers", as the vendors say it. The only way out is if there is a safety issue....

Why Liverpool lost.....

2005-10-03T21:04:00.000+08:00

1 Ramadan falls on oct. 5, Wednesday. So it was announced on tv, by the "penyimpan mohor besar...." It has been 4 years since my last penyimpan mohor experience.... it felt good indeed.

What can I say, the premership is turning into a 1 horse race. I predicted Liverpool to kick Chelsea's ass, a defeat that would see Chelsea lose 3 points, shatter their winning habit and give confidence to the usual suspects. It was bound to not happen...

Unfortunately, Liverpool have this player called Djimi Traore. Ive never liked him, I have written bad stuff about this guy. I wrote about him standing 6 feet tall, being outjumped by midget Fabio Cannavaro in Champs League quart final. He can do worse than that, as proven in last night's showdown.

I have no idea why he was playing. Heck, he should have never worn a Liverpool shirt, and the fact that Benitez wanted him to stay after last year's joke performance baffles me. I think Stephen Warnock was injured, but I would prefer Djibril Cisse playing at left back to Djimi Traore. By the way, Cisse is a good player and he is welcome at Anfield all the time.

Djimi Traore is a special player. He has this charisma. You look at his face and you think "omg dia ni mesti nak buat lawak". A quality he shares with players such as Mickael Silvestre, Philip Neville, Gary Neville(to a lesser extent), Jerzy Dudek..... you get the picture. Do not get me wrong, these players posess football talents. But the big problem is the membuat lawak part.

There is no way that Liverpool can match Chelsea if they do not rely on defence. However, defence only works if you dont commit mistakes, and after Traore's tackle, the floodgates opened. I dont know if Benitez changed tactics, but Liverpool attacked more after chelsea's goal. They should not have, and that's why they conceded 3 more.

Fantasy football

2005-09-30T21:12:00.000+08:00

Lets play fantasy football: http://fantasygames.espnstar.com/football/football_index.do?operation=logoutuser_football

I have a team already, but I forgot about it and it was sort of neglected until they sent me an email as a reminder. So, my score is already screwed up. But this is still fun, playing team manager, though they give away prizes to top scorers. The astro pundits each have their own team.... and they have their own so called celebrity league. Surprise surprise... mr Paul Masefield is leading.

The other night, was clicking the remote away when stumbled upon a rerun of NY giants vs San diego chargers game, and that was my first american footbal game since I left ann arbor. Though didnt watch the whole thing, the giants were staging a comeback when I decided its running late and time to sleep. Also witnessed one awesome catch made by jeremy shockey.... omg what fabolous catch, and that reminded me of american football's greatness. But it is so sad to hear the wolverines are at 2-2 right now..... I mean sad but not shocking at the same time. For me, Braylon Edwards is to the wolverines as Theirry Henry is to Arsenal, and he left a humongous gap indeed.

Die Chelsea, die!

2005-09-28T20:42:00.000+08:00

I think I have been very prudent with money since started working, because I value it more. But in college, I bought some useless things. On the top of the list is the sony discman that cost me like nearly 200 bucks. I cant believe I bought that crap, in freshman year. It is a quality product, but the problem is that its overpriced and I bought my ipod like a few months after I got the discman. So, never used the discman since. The motorola walkie-talkie is quite useless too. It is there on my desk collecting dust. I think I only used it like twice, when I called epol/jun to come over to my apartment to "winning". Yes, they bought the talkie also, but it was on 50% off, quite hard to resist.

But the other day, while strolling around in a bookshop, killing time, waiting to pickup my sister from school, I decided to buy a FHM. Wah, the stuff in the magazine would make anyone drool(this is open to interpretation). I think I have been so disconnected to the gadget world. I only knew ipod nano is out like today. I think my prudent spending is largely due to a disconnect to product marketing. I think I also have a watch fetish. Man, I wish I could have one of them tag heuers...

I predict chelsea's first loss tonight to Liverpool, the team that last beat them. A romantic prediction, isnt it? Another sleepless night it will be, and tomorrow morning I am off to KL for bats interview. Hopefully I can get some good sleep in flight. Anyways, the three favourites for the champs league in my opinion are chelsea, liverpool and juventus. Liverpool because they have that "mombok" aura(luck, european champs blood running in them, the kop and bla bla)... and the other two because they are simply good.

career path

2005-09-23T00:04:00.000+08:00

If I can turn back time, I would do this whole career thing differently. If only I was more optimistic and patient, I would have waited for a good offer instead of jumping into an offer and not drag myself into this whole jobhopping mumbo jumbo mess. I wish that I had the guts to reject job offers. I envy people who get many job offers all in the same time, and have the luxury to pick the best choice.

I wish that I applied to companies that I actually want to work for, instead of mixing them up a bit. But thats a good strategy for me considering my CGPA, pawe lain citer lah. And the not so interesting offers came first.... I think I had no choice but to accept, because I was such a realist. And once I had actually accepted offers, things would get complicated when more interesting companies came calling.

Anyways, I think I need to get out of my current situation. I think the whole place is in a mess, my department is in a mess, and I do not want to drag myself into this mess. I want to escape from the problem, sort of. I dont know about other companies or factories, but here it is chaos. Every request from production to us in Facility dept. is urgent. When every request is urgent, there is chaos, and something is not right.

I am in charge of energy conservation, every week they want me to update. And yet, they dont even have sufficient data of all the facility equipment, or any kind of documentation, or any kind of facility monitoring system. Can you believe it.... such a huge plant with no facility monitoring system? All the facility equipment monitoring is done manually, because the monitoring system broke down like 3 years ago.

Sometimes, when these people ask me to give updates, I fee like telling them " are you freaking stupid.... we dont have data, we cant analyse the equipment's performance... how on earth can we improve them?".... but the bosses are NATO's... No Action Talk Only, and they only want results.

I need more annual leave

2005-09-21T22:14:00.000+08:00

I think I am taking this BAT (british american tobacco) seriously. Although it would be really ironic if I do end up there. Me working for tobacco company, hmmm.... and family opinion so far are reduced to comments like "haa nak jual rokok kah".

I guess I will be going to KL again, for the next and final stage. A few more hundred bucks gone... just like that. The final interview format for bat is similar to that of shell.... proposal, case study, group discussion and final interview. Shell's was from 8 to 5. Bat's is from 1:30 pm to 7. Hmmm... I have no idea how they are gonna do this.... everything crammed together.

The position is not engineering related, which is interesting for me. (no engineering=interesting). It is also a trainee position, management trainee, though to be exact its called business technology associate. I have no idea what that is.

Anyway, I am looking for a trainee position, because I want to get proper training. I think I will be better off that way. Currently I am huffing and puffing, and there is no one giving me directions. Everyone including my supervisor is too busy, and no one is willing to help. I am treated like I am not new and it is frustrating. They give me projects and no directions, and I am held fully responsible. Due to my lack of experience, I have overlooked some fairly important things while executing work. My worst nightmare is that I would mess up critical things, and be removed from the project. Now that will be a blow to your self confidence and ego.

Boiling point

2005-09-19T21:52:00.000+08:00

Out of clutter, find simplicity.
From discord, find harmony.
In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.

I just cannot stand dumb drivers. Dumb drivers are those who hog the fast lane, and think theres nothing wrong with it. Plenty of them in Kuching. They think they are safe drivers. But they are actually selfish and single minded, and dumb. There are 3 lanes, and they go driving 60 km/h in the fast lane. Maybe they are just dumb and actually dont know traffic law. Sometimes, I feel like stopping these people and give them a slap in the face. Worse are cibai drivers, and these people actually deserve a slap in the face. These are people who for some reason drive slowly in the fast lane, and when you are about to overtake them, they speed up. Just because they dont want people to pass them, because kiasuness and/or cibainess and/or dumbshitness.

Knives out

2005-09-18T21:52:00.000+08:00

I cannot wait for tomorrow. It is monday indeed.... and so the cycle will go on. Tomorrow will be the start of a hectic phase of work, for the past month or so I feel like I have been slacking, and sort of got a wake up call last Friday. Now I am nervous and anxious, and thats good because that means that I indeed have awakened. Having said that, I do not like the fact that all of a sudden, time is running out for me to complete this project, after someone like asked to do freaking extra credit to be submitted together with the assignment, deadline not changed. And all that done in a meeting with the contractor and vendor. I was like omg, "just do it".

I have seen Chelsea and particularly Michael Essien play quite a number of times, and I could not be more impressed by both. Chelsea should win the champions league this time, at least they have the pedigree, if not luck. Essien is worth every penny chelsea paid for him, and I will go to such extent: he is better than gerrard and Lampard combined.

Chelsea has gone to 6 wins on the trot, zero goals conceded. At the moment, the only team that I can see beating chelsea is Liverpool. They play similar style, they will cancel each other, and Liverpool with the power of the Kop and a slice of luck will somehow win.