~ unsent ~

piss-o-meter cranked up

2010-05-05T15:32:00.002+08:00

some people just don't give up, do they?

this phone on my colleague's table has been ringing for like 15 minutes and still not stopping. i mean, what's that about? i can understand if this is a hospital emergency line, the police station or the grand central station but this is a memory chip company.

unless some bombs are gonna explode somewhere in 5 minutes unless you disable the memory chip component, there is no reason to hold on that long. even then, surely it would have exploded by now.

some people are just plain weird. i normally can tolerate weirdness because at least weirdness is amusing but when it gets annoying like this, i feel just like lady gaga in her telephone video when she was about to poison the whole diner.

one rank lower than annoying weird act like this, is boring people. i don't know, they must have 'being boring' as one of the recruitment criteria in this company lately, because all the new hires are plain dull-duds.

come to think about it, i suspect they are clones made from planet kamino in star wars, except instead of army clones, they made worker bees just to work in this company and nothing else. that would explain their over-dedication to work with zero sense of anything else.

as a result, when i am in between assigments like this, i'm bored to the core. instead of cubicle-hopping happily sharing office gossips, i'm reduced to checking twitter on my google nexus, and even then, there's not even a single tweet worth mentioning.

i just wish i were in cafeteria kitchen in white latex and a blue telephone on my head, mixing valium in lunch dish sambal tumis for the whole office people to consume. yes, that would do the trick. 20mg valium and maybe 2mg of klonopin will really boost up the fun-o-meter.

oh and you know what? the phone is still ringing, but i cannot pick it up with this valium in my hand eh...

...ed

maroon box in meeting room

2010-04-09T13:48:00.002+08:00

we had team building meeting yesterday in the company. at time like this, i just love this meeting, simply because..

1) i have nothing else better to do
2) no bosses in the meeting
3) we could talk about fun stuff, like where are good eating places in singapore.

no pressure at all, and also actually related to our everyday lives. i mean, who cares how many memory chips passing our test flow, right?

plus, yesterday when i entered the meeting room, i saw this maroon bengawan solo cake box on the table in the middle of the room.

it was a birthday cake! i was already hungry having been to office cafeteria but couldn't find anything edible to eat at tea break time just shortly before.

even better?

the cake was actually for me!

ok, me and this one other guy but still, it was for us!

you see, my birthday was just on last saturday on april 3. however, i was in a train somewhere in remote thai region when the clock striked 12, at thailand nongkhai and laos border when i woke up in the morning, at laos vientiane in the afternoon and luang prabang by sunset.

so i could barely know my barring, let alone to sit down and celebrate my own birthday.

in fact, the first person who wished me happy birthday in person, was lao immigration lady at the friendship bridge.

which is still cool for me. i mean, how many of you being wished happy birthday by a lao immigration lady before?

exactly.

so even with a bengawan solo cake that i was only entitled to 50% of it, i am still happy. hey, that might be, ok most probably be the ONLY cake i will have for me this year.

ok there weren't any singing and candle blowing, but that's ok. my wishes never came true anyway so why bother make any? somehow i always end up with the bad part of the probability. the queue line i choose is always the slowest, it always rain when i want it sunny and i'm never getting promoted.

most of the time now, i don't even have any preference anymore. i want to just lay on bed and close my eyes.

so tell me what else to be upbeat about a birthday? for all i know, the cake is the best thing that could ever happen. trust me.

that, and the team building meeting.

...ed

try writing with a broken mind

2010-04-08T13:32:00.001+08:00

ok now i'm having a bit of a time in my hand.

ok not literally, you can't REALLY have time in your hand. i mean, how are you gonna hold time? you cannot even see time right?

different case if it's a 'TIME' magazine.

what i'm saying is, i have free time.

not free as in non-PAID. in fact, i am actually being paid for my time now because i'm in the office and supposed to crunch up numbers to please some people now.

i'm just have nothing to do at the moment lahh...

see? my scatter-brain still works. i'm still able to write non-sensical stuff even if i haven't been writing much lately.

ok that's an understatement. haven't been writing much, i mean. in real world, i'm like that small kid who went missing for many years, started to get forgotten, and suddenly reappeared all grown up and everything.

and people was like, asking the boy what happened during all those years when he was missing? and that boy just gave them a blank stare, lost for words to describe the traumatic experience.

except in my case, i wasn't traumatic, kidnapped or anything. ok in a very lose term, i was indeed kidnapped.

by facebook and by air asia.

i am totally hooked by facebook. you know, sometimes when i woke up in the middle of the night after a nightmare or a wet dream or when some big hairy stuff trampled over me on bed (ok that last one never happened), i briefly opened my facebook account to see for any new notification, or if there isn't any, just to browse through the latest news feed.

so uncool huh?

i just couldn't help it. everytime after i wrote a status update, i felt like a pop idol who has just released a new song to the public via vevo. would it hit 10 million viewers in 3 days like that telephone video?

i know it's just pathetic, but sometime you just have to live in your small little world, don't you? and when it is getting too pathetic that you feel like jumping off the ledge, you go and get away from it all.

and it truly helps when air asia released all those zero dollars deal.

so it is not my fault that i have been flying quite a lot lately. everytime when i say i'm flying off to somewhere, my friends would ask.. again?

which i think it's a tad exaggerated. i mean, how many flights are there per day, per year and to how many destinations? i could not have flown even 0.01% of them all, right?

exactly.

so you see, i have been busy measuring mostly the south east asian region corner to corner for the last year or so, i might as well have worked in google map plotting company.

even before i had time to upload the photos and write blogs about the trip, the time is always due for the next one.

but i'm back now. for now at least. i promise myself i will stay in this island at least long enough for my seat warmed up, which should be shorter than what it takes for lady gaga to release her next hit single, before i go browsing the online flight booking website again.

...ed

into the inlet gates

2009-10-24T19:35:00.018+08:00

i just returned home from my journey to the east, and i am just so exhausted.

it's ironic how relaxing work is nowadays, and days on travel is far more hectic. i rushed flight departure time more frequent than boss' assignments dealines. i felt like working is actually my new weekend.

on the recent long deepavali weekend, we did the amazing race across macau, hong kong and shenzhen, rushing from spot to spot checking out local scenes and products. at the end of the day, we didn't win any money of course, heck we even got fake money in the process, but at least, we have gigas of photos and sunburn lines to tell our tales.

oh and impaired smell sense too due to over-exposed to that stinking tofu.

hereby, i'm gonna call this trip, the oriental express.

oriental express travellogue : part 1

of all the budget airlines i've taken, and this year has been A LOT, this recent trip must be the longest one. the journey i mean.

still, i was really convinced the airlines put in enough fuel inside and they were NOT comprimising anything in the safety department. hey budget airlines have flown all the way to london, right? compared to that, this trip must be just like visiting the neighbours.

we touched down at macau international airport on time at 3.30pm. the weather was clowdy. that weather bitch lady the day before must be lying on our faces when she said it would be thunderstorm.

we were greeted by the sight of a ferries-wheel on top of the building.

what a funny place to build that at huh?

we only stayed one night in macau, and it was at this grandview hotel. taxi fare from the airport was 20MOP, which we paid by HKD. HKD is only slightly bigger than MOP, so I guess it was an excepted transcation islandwide. after all, they gain, you lose.

i booked this hotel via latestays.com for only 80 SGD per night, which is cheap for a 4-star hotel in macau.

pretty nice place, although not exceptionally what you called 'grand'. only that it is in taipa island, but macau islands are small anyway, so moving around should be a breeze.

plus, our plan was just to visit casinos for that night, and what's better place to start other than the venetian macau at the nearby cotai strip?

venetian macau is very prominent on that cotai-strip. it looks exactly the same as the one in las vegas, so i wasn't really head over heel over the sight.

i don't even have a proper photo shot of the building, so i substituted with the one with me inside it. someone said BOF, that korean show, had a scene here. hah, no wonder people stare at me, they must have thought i was one of the actor....

the venetian macau

the grand canal was on the higher floor, and unlike the one in vegas, this one has very less people. it was easy to snap photos without people walking passed by in front of your camera making you wanted to strangle them alive. made me wonder, how could these shops here survived? the nasi lemak auntie in front of my block back home have more customers...

from the venetian, we hopped on the shuttle bus to get to the sands in macau island. you see, all these casino hotels each have their own shuttle buses, mainly to the ferry terminal. the venetian for example, have extra shuttles to the sands and the airport.

they are free, and the deal is, they won't ask you any question when to take them. so it all screamed 'let's abuse the system', like we did when we took the the shuttle bus to the sands when we actually wanted to go to the Wynn and MGM grand just beside it.

left:casinos at cotai strip, right:nearby wynn at macau island

after the grand canal at venetian, the insides of other casinos looked less impressive. we just briskly passed through the gambling dens then moved to others. MGM Grand was not bad with fake pandas scattered all over the hall. MGM = Panda? I don't see the connection. lion, yes, but never panda. whatever..

we returned to our hotel using our hotel's shuttle bus from the ferry terminal close to midnight, and then turned in for the night. god knows how our beds going to be in subsequent nights, so we better cherished the comfortable grandview beds. we got to wake up early to catch the early ferry to hong kong the next day. there were places left to venture in macau but we were going to do that when we returned to macau on our last day before flying back.

sounds like a plan?

...ed

quo vadis

2009-10-13T11:29:00.001+08:00

i have cough. i have flu, and till few days ago, i got a bit of fever.

urghh...

i don't mind getting sick you know, as it's just flu, not life-threatening (unless it's H1Ni but somehow i don't think that's what this is) and i can use a bit of rest at home too (whilst playing my new virtua tennis xbox 360 game that i just bought last week).

but i already took 2 days mc last week because of gastric pain, the week after my one week hari raya break, and getting one this week doesn't look too good from the eyes of the boss and HR no matter how you look at it. plus, i'm going on leave tomorrow till next week.

the timing is just all wrong lahh.. my body chose such an inconvenient time to fall apart. last friday night, we went to zirca pub in clarke quay. my friend asked me to go along since he could get us into the guest list.

you see, it was a mr singapore final event that night, and his friend is actually mr bukit timah. how he got a friend like that, i don't know, but i just wanted to go out and chill.

but then, my nose started running the moment i stepped inside. it was like a curse or retribution or something. i tell you, it doesn't make you feel good to be all wet and drippy while looking at those perfectly healthy bodies on the stage. i felt like such a reject.

and now, it's less than 24 hours till my flight to macau, and i'm not even sure i don't have fever yet. at least, i think i don't. this should be just the normal warm blooded heat. still, i must find a way to cool down the body today, be it by gulping liters of barley drink or wearing ice patch all over. it's just common sense to be prepared, or like the singaporeans say, be kiasu a bit.

i guess eating ice cream is good too, right? i already started coughing anyway, so it's not like it's a big deal. the company thinks it is though, because they think it's appropriate to reward us for getting through the pay freeze and retrenchment and zero OT through this difficult economic downturn by giving us ice creams.

yes ice cream. 2 cones of it. they even elected representatives from each department to decide whether their respective departments will get cones or scoops of ice creams. when other companies get bonuses or even outside outings, we get 2 cones of ice creams, and it's not even haagen daas, or one of those premium brand. i mean, what kind of brand is dairy farm??

well i guess at the very least, all those middle age men and women could flashback their childhood memory, to the excitement when their kindergarten class teacher treated the whole class ice creams to get them to cheer up. after all, this is what it's all about, the company tryring to cheer you up for 2 seconds despite all the shortcomings.

so, good job company x, keep it up! i almost forgot my pay is stagnant already.

the newspaper can say what they want, like today's headline proclaims that singapore is already out of recession, but for me, until we are feeling the benefits, it's all just empty words.

people say, until you walk the talk, you're just talking cock. if the company is doing better, then how come i still cannot claim medical expenses? if i go to work and spread H1N1 to the whole department then it's really not my problem.

when our friends will get married is also not my problem. well most of the times, but when your good friend suddenly announced he's getting married in few months time, it does send shock waves to the richter scale. i felt just like susan meyer suddenly being told that her daughter is pregnant by her neighbour lynette scavo in season 6.

the only difference is, nobody is in life support machine here. well, except PAS that just got whacked left and right after the malaysian state bagan pinang by-election last sunday. they deserved it though. my point is, what's up with endless islamic or secular state, canning or not canning, drinking or not drinking, covered up or not covered up debates? can we just concentrate on how to improve the quality of life of common folks?

but what do i know? i'm just a stagnant-paid employee of a company that rewards ice creams, with drippy nose and unstoppable coughing, and kept in the dark when his best friend was getting married.

quo vadis, ed??

...ed

three-some nines

2009-09-09T16:18:00.004+08:00

this morning my friend wrote on his facebook status that today's date is 09/09/09. at that particular moment i glanced at the clock and it was about 2 minutes more before 09:09:09am on this wednesday morning.

wow, isn't that cool? 09/09/09 09:09:09.

i heard that lots of couples in singapore registered for marriage on this very day. for the chinese, number 9 signifies longevity, so it's such an auspicious date to hold the holy matrimony.

plus, it will look good in the invitation card and easy to remember the anniversary too.

but that's as far as it gets. if you and your spouse are like cats and dogs, or like UMNO and PAS, barring machine-guns and C4 after every arguments, bunch of nines isn't gonna help anything at all. for all you know, you'll be dialing 999 instead in no time.

still, people like eventful numbers like this.

it's too bad my father isn't chinese. because if he was, i could just ask him to wait till the next auspicious date 09/09/99 for me to get married since I have already missed this one. that's another 90 years! plenty of time to stall him.

but apparently he's not. i bet he doesn't even realized today's date, unless there is a planned opposition party rally in the city or something. that's why the last time i met him, he said if i join my brother who's going to get married in june next year and make it a double wedding, he could upgrade the celebration hall package.

huh? i mean, excuse me. like i could just go to the shopping mall and buy a wife at will.

well, i could. there are plenty of organizations that provide brides from outerspace, but will i? this is so like that movie i watched about a rich dad left his son a fortune before he died, but only if the son finds himself a wife in a month time, or else he could be left with nothing.

me? i don't even get any incentive like that. plus, what should i say to her? 'let's get married so we could upgrade the caterers and perhaps add in 2 more dishes?'.

yeah that's romantic.

so for me, with zero plan to get married on this day, or even in june next year, today isn't gonna be anything different. sky stays blue, roses stay red and teoh beng hock death still remains a mystery. in fact, today so far is as uneventful as it can be, nobody paraded with any severed animal head or anything, and my attempt to work today has been F9. failed.

99 everyone.

...ed

Moo-points extravaganza

2009-09-04T10:19:00.000+08:00

i woke up last night before dawn to have a quick bite.

(you see, it's the fasting month now, time when we refrain ourselves from food and all things evil (read : sex) from dawn till dusk. so this pre-dawn meal is when you have your last meal to prevent you from feeling regret when your stomach grumbles the next day)

i took out the toaster, butter and jam (somehow i was craving for hot kaya toasts) and then the bread and.. realized the bread has already spotted green fungus.

eeekk...

so there went my dream meal. gone with the fungus down the rubbish chute.

so now i'm already hungry at 10am in the morning. what a bummer.

the good thing is, today seems like a free day for me too. i've been free since.. quite awhile actually. i'm handling this customer return parts analysis, and by the look of it, our customers are all satisfied. .

well, either that or our parts screw their system so bad that they don't know what's the source of the screwing-up.

not that i'm complaining. hey, I'm typing this, and the money keeps rolling in at the end of the month. only that this stalling around makes the time goes slow. i've already spammed my facebook account with status (err.. is there a plural for status?? statusses??) and comments, digged up all the malaysian insider news and spread the hate... and it's only just noon.

but i'm sure there are ways to amuse myself. for example, like reading the reasons why malaysian home minister hishamudin defended the cow-head stomping and spitting incidents last friday.

i'm telling you, does he think malaysians are stupid? ok maybe we are not, but reading these kind of news makes our IQ drop a few notches. youtube already showed that the recent temple relocation protesters in shah alam kicked and spat the cow-head, and yet he said they did not know where the cow-head came from.

please lah. the cow head dropped from the sky, is it? and they just happened to accidentally stepped on it?

he also said the police did not interfere the illegal gathering because apparently the bloody death threat they shouted was peaceful, and 50 people is a small number to cause security concern anyway.

yeah right. that's why they arrested the opposition candle light vigil gathering held in selangor months back. i mean, candles could cause fire, right? even if it's being done by less than 20 people. also it apparently must be a national security concern too if you wear black and flock together go drink coffee (err.. because then those people can hide behind the shades of the black coffee and avoid paying?? i dunno.. ask the police who arrested them).

i'm concerned actually. the other day i listened to the news when they interviewed local people there on why they objected to the temple in their vicinity. they said their's is a muslim majority area, so the temple should not be built there. plus, then the temple will be next to the playground, and the parents will prevent their children from using the playground if the temple is next to it.

you see, we cringed when minority muslims were harrassed elsewhere, but when they are the majority, they have to come out with ridiculuous reasons like this to deny the minority religion their rights. ok if we follow that logic, there won't be any mosque built in sabah and sarawak. and what's the problem with playground next to the temple? afraid the kids will embrace hinduism if they see the tnmple everyday??

i have no more say. last night, another ruling party parliament member Mukhriz said the police should not arrest those illegal cow-head-stomping protesters so that to avoid unrest. ok so charging someone of their wrongdoings can create unrest.

i rest my case. all these should just go down the rubbish chute, just like my fungus-spotted bread.

...ed

all that has (not) gone bonkers

2009-07-25T13:59:00.003+08:00

i'm having headache from laying on the bed too much. it's saturday noon, and i really don't feel like doing anything else. you know, i had plan to wash my car since i saw the rims were all dirty and yellow when we exhanged the punctured tyre. ok not we, but this guy from nissan emergency line that came for my rescue when i found out my front wheel went punctured in orchard's far east plaza carpark around friday midnight, in what was a fitting ending to my harry potter half blood prince night out.

but now i just don't feel like washing anything. hey it's weekend, why do i need to do something that i don't feel like it? i already have the whole weekdays for that.

by the way, is it me or the weeks have gone by so fast nowadays? one minute it's saturday and before i know it, it's already another saturday and i'm delaying the car wash plan to yet another week. it's horrifying. it's like some magical being somewhere is fast forwarding the time.

people said time flies when you're having fun, which i think should be true because if so, we don't put convict in prison if 10 years prisonment feels like 10 minutes. especially not when you get beaten and forced to eat faeces in the cell as were revealed during the recent singapore courtroom trial.

well you see, at least people here got fair hearings and their grieves answered, unlike in malaysia where you could get killed in the most suspicious ways but yet nobody cares when the killers are part of the government body.

nah i'm not gonna venture much on that here now. apparently if you have decided which side of the story you want to believe, there's little other people could do to change your mind. it's like the religion. each people believe wholeheartedly in their religion, thinking others are plain wrong, when the fact is there should be a greater truth out there and yours might or might not be it.

what i'm saying is, we should open our minds and see sense. when you think we should leave that MACC murder case solely to the police investigation when we all know police and the MACC are under one umbrella, you're obviously deluded in your own perfect little world.

the best thing is, i'm not in that country, and if that young ex-model kelantanese princess could escape her allegedly abusive prince husband only when they were in singapore with all those bodyguards, god knows we are in safe hands here. it's such a black period there back home, sometimes you just wish you wake up one day and it's already the 13th general election when we have the chance once more to make things right. which mind you, at the rate the weeks seem to blast past by me nowadays, shan't be too long.

being away from home, my year has been particularly not too bad if i'm being honest. just yesterday, we booked our way to boracay island in the phillipines for a holiday in november. i heard it's a lovely paradise beach there that is one of the top beaches in the world. how promising is that? i'm so excited. and not that i have nothing to look forward too until november. i have yogyakarta borobudur trip in 2 weeks time, and then macau and hong kong trip after my hari raya break. all i got to say is, so far i've been truly blessed.

i mean, who cares if my rims are all dirty and yellow?

...ed

the thorny affair

2009-07-16T13:46:00.026+08:00

i'm under informal quarantine now. ok, the actual words from the doctor were for me to rest at home and recuperate, which i then translated as, to do intensive facebooking and catching up with my blog.

so let me backtrack a little bit.

i want to write about the durian farm visit a couple of weeks back.

you'd think what's so special about going to some far far away places just to eat some durians, right? well let me tell you something about durian.

durian eaters are like cult members. they could go all extreme. they could splurge their money on the expensive clones, they find ways to smuggle the pungent fruit where its forbidden and for our case, travel hundred of miles just to hunt for it.

one more thing.. it's usually worth it.

i found this particular forum in the internet discussing about good durian farm places. it's not hard, you just google 'malaysia good durian farm' and everything pops out in a list, waiting to get laid.

the most prominent one from the conversations is the one in segamat. now, that sleepy town of segamat in malaysia's southern state of johore is well known for its durians. which makes me wonder actually, because it's not like segamat has different climate than the rest of the country. still, if you sell durian and you claim they're from segamat, you could bring the price up the sky.

ok so i set up my GPS that early morning and left north. the trick is, to cross the singapore-malaysian border before 7am because that's when the traffic normally starts to get congested. picked up some friends in johore baharu and then we convoyed towards the malaysian north-south highway.

tangkak town, heard that its well known for its textile

we took the tangkak exit, about 200km north from the singapore border. after the toll, we turned right, and travel about 30km more passing through tangkak town, then some palm oil plantation and sugar cane farm until we see a signboard to kg teratai. we took the right junction right and travelled about 3km deep and voila, we were there!

the target destination, kg teratai durian farm

the place is actually a just small shelter that have lots of durians just brought over from the trees. we paid RM22 and we could eat all that we want the whole day! well, theoretically, because normally you'd stop after an hour or two because they are very filling, and you'd be burnt hot by then haha... durian will make your body hot after consuming.

there are lots of durian types. normal village durian is the common, cheaper ones with thin meat and big seeds inside. the cloned durians like the D-series, XO and the most famous Mountain Cat King, have fleshier meat and smaller seeds. That's why they are more expensive, sometimes can reach about RM20 per kg.

those that we feasted on. there are yellow, bright orange and whitish...

for our eyes they might just look the same, green and thorny but there are ways to identify them. for instance, the mountain cat durian has distinct orange star at the bottom.

mountain cat durian, the most expensive clone

we had fun there. although the mountain cat durian was not included in the eat-all-you-can durian buffet, they gave us one to sample, and that was good enough. i mean, the rest of them tasted divine too. as the durians just fall off the trees the night before, the fleshy meat inside has not turn mushy.

opening the durian, and me fooling around haha

i plan to go there again next year.

...ed

the way he makes me feel

2009-07-02T16:39:00.003+08:00

i'm overly efficient today. it's just 3pm and i'm proud to say i've finished my work. not only my work, but my colleague's work too. she's down with fever today.

you know, getting fever today is a big deal. hearing people getting fever is just like hearing an interesting gossip that is worth to be passed around.

because having fever could mean getting the recent H1N1 virus outbreak, and being the first in our company will really make you popular. i bet people would even get jealous, because when else could you rest at home with nobody questioning your mc?

ok even if we do get H1N1, what's the big deal anyway? nobody dies yet, and none even seriously ill. thus, that 7 days quarantine really sounds like a good deal.

so anyway, my fellow colleague is away. actually my boss is away too. he is down with flu. you see, that just showed that i don't mingle with my boss much. either he only concentrates on someone doing more important stuff (read : that colleague of mine that got fever) or he trust me running my own show.

i prefer to think it's the latter. because gosh, i must be on fire since yesterday night when i stayed back late after work despite no overtime pay and no aircond. it really has been awhile since i lend myself top charity like this.

partly i guess because of michael jackson. he might have passed away unexpectedly last week but as far as i'm concern, or most of everybody else's concern for that matter, he's more alive now than ever.

i mean, when else could you have michael jackson's songs and performances played over and over again in pc, mp3 and youtube? i caught few of my collagues watching the history world tour on youtube during lunch break, and i already have michael's songs in rotating list in my mp3 while doing my lab analysis.

something in his songs could lift your spirit up. seriously, give it a listen. instead of feeling down and sleepy after lunch, i got all energetic in the lab humming man in the mirror while checking the leakage current characteristic. even when i'm walking with the way you make me feel plucked in my ears, it's hard not make a little skip or a prompt cool slide down the floor when nobody's looking.

before i know it, my job is done, and my colleague's job is done too. my hands must be unusually fast to keep with smooth criminal's beat. that's what music could do to you. have you seen those filipino prisoners that really got in sync dancing to the thriller? rapers and murderers got hand in hand trying to terrorize this poor lil' man-girl...

ok i still got some time left. maybe i'll go around checking if there's anybody else's jobs lying around to do. i'm already ready to play don't stop till you get enough...

...ed

if today was your last day

2009-06-26T17:36:00.001+08:00

wow i almost forgot my password for this site. i entered my facebook password instead, or was it my twitter password?

it's hard nowadays to remember each and every password i have. of course it would be easier to use the same password for all, but some websites tried to be more intelligent than the others by giving so much password-making restrictions.

i mean, duh.. it's not like i have any earth-shattering secrets that hackers feel the need to hack my passwords.

but i guess, being paranoid is a way of life nowadays. we look at unattended bags and think it belongs to some terrorists. people sneeze and we thought he has H1N1. i got a page from an unknown number in the office and i thought it was from HR.

you'd think what's so scary about getting a page from HR, right? it normally not, but that time i received it in a brink of the company implementing the RIF, or reduction-in-force. by the way,this must be the work of some think-tanks that thought replacing the word 'retrenchment' with some abbreviated unknown word will make the impact less devastating to the common ears.

''company XXX will implement RIF' certainly sounds better than 'company XXX will implement retrenchment' in the news. but for us that potentially affected, who are they kidding?

ok so i got that unknown page, asking me if i'm inside the plant, and if i do, i need to call a certain certain numbers. you know, at that moment, with every heartbeat, i was wondering, oh gosh oh gosh this could be from the HR telling me that i'm RIF-ed.

it turned out a page from another department about some work stuff. what a momentary relief. even when my boss put my fellow colleagues in the mail cc list when he replied me making me think that he was laying some groundworks for people to take over me. paranoid? i do think so.

so you see, that was why i was away for a while from the blogsphere. do you think i will blog when my rice bowl is in jeopardy? it's so much easier to just put vague status updates in facebook that only relevant people that know what's going on can relate too. at least you'd get some replies and know it wasn't totally all inside your head.

in the end, i survived the RIF.

or did i? define survive anyway. because when i think about it, i would get quite a huge payout if i were to (ok i still need to touch wood here) be affected. think about what i could do with all the money that could easily last me for a year. i could travel the world and reflect the reasons of my existance among other things. because let's be honest, when god created mankind, it's not purposely so they could work their asses off in some multi-national company, right? plus, what's good staying in the company that needs to do RIF anyway? maybe survive means the ability to get out sooner with a huge payouts.

instead, now the people who made it through are spoilt. how could they ever tender resignation anymore after this? there will be no payouts whatsoever. you leave empty-handed to a new place. doesn't sound attractive, huh?

but that's life. we go through it in phases. one time you're an active blogger, then you converted to a full-time facebooker and even forgot your blogger password. one time you're living a life that felt so stable, but then things happened and now you're not even sure if you could take another storm unscathed.

i guess, that's what makes us survivors. the dinasours probably couldn't handle all this changes when they were alive, so that's why they got extinct. you know, except those in the museums at night and land of the lost.

tonight, we are going to the KTV in town as a farewell gesture to this friend of us who got affected by the RIF. now that we all live in the world phase which is the aftermath of michael jackson's sudden death this morning, we are probably ended up doing an MJ tribute because truly, as recent events higlighted, nothing ever remains the same.

...ed

whyyawannabringmedown

2009-04-28T23:05:00.003+08:00

i learned a new word today. swine, as in the swine flu. when i first heard it, i thought it sounded country, you know, just like 'wayne'. but apparently it refers to 'pig', which then makes it, well.. not so nice a word anymore.

lucky i haven't resorted to naming my character in my xbox game 'swine adams' or something like that yet...

so swine flu is just pig flu. pig flu on human that swept across mexico all the way to europe and no, i'm not talking about any episode of heroes here. scary huh? that just shows how vulnerable we are. one pandemic comes out of nowhere and humankind would be swept clean, no matter how many nuclear warheads you have...

those virus might be all the way across the globe from us here in south-east asia, but that doesn't mean we are safe. especially since last week, there are fierce rumours that our company is planning to sweep part of her employees clean, a head count cut.

so we are totally far from safe here. if we were in american idol, we are those bottom-2 vote-getters standing waiting for ryan seacrest to say, 'american voted... you are...' then briskly go to commercial break. in fact, maybe we are even in a worse condition. i mean, for swine flu, at least you could wear mask, swallow all the tamiflu you've got and stay safe, but for us here, nothing could shield us from that probable pink letter verdict. nothing.

it's as if you've got a cancer, and the doctor refused to tell you if you would survive or how long more before you die. plain vain, right? i say, let it over with already but no, they are gonna squeeze every ounce of your efforts first, and then shoo you off with pathetic compensation package.

so at the moment, we live with this uncertainty. every now and then i would forget this dilemma when my hands are busy typing those numerous work reports while my headphones blasting lady gaga's poker face over and over again, but when i passed by every corners every cubicles there would be whispers speculating about this, making me all depressed again.

i wonder, so what's their evil attitude?

...ed

hoe down throwdown

2009-04-26T21:07:00.010+08:00

there is a dog lazying on the grass just beside the road that i take every morning to enter the highway. it's black and shaggy, and i call him, ..well, shaggy. it's at that part of the ground in between major roads, so nobody comes and disturbs. so every morning i will see shaggy curling to sleep, or just on lying his tummy watching the cars pass by. it kind of starts my day...

nowadays, i just wish that i were that dog. because there is definitely no time for me to laze around and enjoy the surroundings anymore at work. the workload is just crazy. when you have to plan to walk by the canteen on the way to the lab so that you can grab some bread and eat it during that 5 minutes walking journey, you're not exactly having a walk in the park working time.

but i'm not complaining. at this recession time, i'm just blessed to have some work to do. god knows how many people out there willing to do anything to just make ends meet. anything, you know, other than being a cleaner, or a maid in singapore which i don't understand why. the point is, job is precious.

it just means that i'm always operating on low battery mode at the end of the day. i feel just like a soldier who has just survived a battle, and have to get ready for another battle the next day. it's physically draining, which is why i no longer do occasional gym at night anymore. should be fine, because with all the walking up and down the lab, i bet i clock in enough miles to stay fit.

it's mentally draining too. i can't stress this enough, but having some peace and quiet after the long working day, is totally a bless. you would understand after having a pager that beeps and a desk phone that rings all day long, knowing you'd be interrogated for data each and every time you answer them. that is why i find solace in my xbox top spin 3 and facebook mob war because they don't demand anything from me, and the fact that i could just shut them off whenever i want.

so what makes my day on this sunday night, on the brink of monday blue (which to be frank, doesn't feel much like a monday blue to me because every single working day is a monday for me nowadays. in fact, i worry more about nadal's performance in barcelone open tonight) is that i'm going for a vacation this thursday.

yeah baby, vacation! it's a good friday holiday this friday (duh!) and we're going to take a night train the night (double duh!) before to kelantan the northern state of malaysia. then we are going to proceed to perhentian island the next day to live and breath as islanders till the middle of the next week.

even better? there would be no pager and no phone for me there. even if the world stops spinning, then be it. i'm sure the president won't take calls either on his vacation because the vice president takes charge. you know, unless the aliens come and invade the earth or something...

i just feel that i deserve it. with continuous 12 hours a day work with no overtime pay, and no aircond past 7 at night, surely i'm due for a short break. ok, maybe i just came back from bali a few weeks back, and the labuan trip a few weeks before that but those were short trips, so they don't count.

this time round, i bet shaggy is gonna miss me. not that i think it notices me all these time, but again, i bet it's hard to notice things when you're that relaxed anyway. i will know in a few days time.

...ed

all i ever wanted

2009-04-03T00:00:00.003+08:00

you know, i tried hard to treat today just like any other day.

..because for all we know, today is indeed just like any other day. nothing significant, just another page in the calender. come tomorrow, i'm sure nobody's gonna even remember what's going on today.

unless, you know, if japan really shoots down that north korea's satellite, or abdullah, uppss.. tun abdullah badawi suddenly decided not to pass down his job to najib tun razak.

man.. imagine the chaos.. ppl would be talking about 3 April for years.. just like 9-11 has become.

however, chances are, nothing of those are gonna happen tomorrow. why should they? nothing fascinating happened in the world anymore nowadays since everybody is busy facing the recession.

3 April is gonna come and go, and let's face it, even if they skip a day and let the date be 4 April tomorrow, nobody's gonna even notice.

but still, i couldn't help it. by right, i should just do my routine weekdays night - play mobwar, facebooking, check the latest tennis score, catch the latest episode of lost, then sleep while watching friends.

except, everything i do tonight i feel like there's significance to it to my one year from now. like just now, i even made my bed, and tidied up my room a little bit because i was afraid if i left them all messy by the time the clock striked 12, they would be messy all year long. i threw away the garbage and also opened my windows up wide to let all the good wind inside. even my underwear i chose a bright red coloured one.

i never think myself as superstitious. ok sometimes when i watched tennis live on tv i felt that my sitting position could affect the outcome, or everytime when i blow the birthday cake candles, i really thought my wish would come true but i'm sure those are the only ones. full stop.

the fact is, i'm really emotional facing this day. i know ultimately age are just numbers but people judge you by that number. i mean, let's say you look for a job, wouldn't it make a difference if you are 25 vs 35? or even 45? it really affects your chance on landing the job, isn't it? .. and people say age are just numbers.

the truth is, i'm pretty comfortable at where i am now. and when i'm comfortable, i wouldn't want to leap out from my comfort zone. especially when the zone is probably moving towards the natural path of life.

they said, 4 things we cannot avoid in this life - birth, sickness, old and death. and i'm probably already more than halfway through there. if i'm the petrol meter inside cars, i couldn't even get through singapore custom to get to malaysia without being fined.

there, i mentioned the word 'fined' in my first blog after 3 April. you'd think i won't freak out...

anyway, i just wanna state down that for another year, i wish to be more prosper, happier, healthier, and blessed.

amen.

.. and now blow the candles...

...ed

strip party, no. STRIPE party

2009-03-04T00:02:00.004+08:00

i have a friend in the office. his hobby is to participate in contests, you know, those in magazines, brochures, radios, etc etc... and you know what? HE ALWAYS WIN. i'm not kidding! even in those lucky draws, he always win. it's like life's one big wonder, the one that mulder and scully tend to end up investigating...

he's sweet though, he always forwarded us the contests details and even wrote up the answers for us but when the result comes, he still wins. to which i'm not complaining. i won sometimes too, but that's really once in a blue moon kinda thing...

last week, he forwarded us this nokia stripe party invitation details for the launch of their new 5800 handphone. you wear anything with stripes and you are entitled for the lucky draws.. 58 lucky numbers can buy the SGD700+ phone with just 58 cents, and another 58 numbers to get SGD258-off voucher for the phone.

58 cents!

that's just ridiculous.. i mean, that's cheaper than one piece of roti prata, right?

so the party was held in zouk's car park last friday, starting at 10pm. we wore stripe shirts to work and then started queuing for the numbers from about 830pm.

by 9pm we were in.

and my number was 20313.

hmm.. 313? that doesn't look like a lucky number...

anyway, while waiting, we signed up for nokia online music account. not that we really wanted the account but actually to get the free t-shirt. hahaha!! we saw the crews walking around in that nokia music t-shirt and we thought they really look nice.

i got my t-shirt just on time when all american rejects started to play their music on the temporary stage just above where we signed up for the online music account.

yeah that's right. ALL AMERICAN REJECTS!!

can you believe that? when i first read the itenerary for this stripe party, i couldn't believe they would have all-american rejects the band. first, they are such an international artist. their song 'gives you hell' is currently at no-4 on the american billboard top 100 chart. then, this party is held not inside zouk, but zouk's CARPARK!

and i must say, it was not even a nice carpark too. the surface was stony, uneven and rough, no proper borders, and there were even some constructions going on just beside it.

in short, the place WAS UGLY.

but still, there they were, just few metres away from me singing their hit songs. it was surreal, but i was not like those teenage girls who went ga-ga. at most, i just shook my butt once in awhile whilst maintaining my cool hahahaha... to be frank, i had no idea how the members of this band looked like until last friday. i knew their main songs though..

all-american rejects playing on the stage

so in the end i didn't win the lucky draw.

not surprising. i didn't put much hope anyway. so i didn't manage to buy that latest cool touch-screen phone for 58 cents. big deal. i could do a lot more with that 58 cents that i saved.

...like, buying sticks and pike those who won that night.

the night was not totally lost though, i gotta see all-american rejects and their live music, i got cool free nokia music t-shirt, many many bottles of nokia water (which tasted funny but hey, they were free), and managed good gossips with my friends..

oh yeah, my other 3 friends didn't win anything either.

except this friend that i mentioned earlier that always win.

he DID WIN that night, the SGD258 voucher.

...ed

racha-yai giant leap underwater

2009-02-20T12:08:00.009+08:00

Phuket vacation : Prequel

WE ended up taking a stroll along patong beach during sunset. this may sound romantic but our actual purpose, well, at least my friend's actual purpose was to ask the owners of the various boats along the beach if we could hire a boat to nearby islands. me? i was just tagging along.

it turned out, the boats were not very cheap. man, these people are bunch of blood-suckers, aren't they? blame us for competing with those euro-paying tourists.

there were still people jet-skiing and para-gliding at the beach. i guess it gives them a different experience doing those in that dim lit redish sky. more sentimental perhaps?

patong beach goes all golden at sunset

one thing about the westerners is they are very easy to strike conversation with. plus, they are on holiday here, so everybody is in a good mood.

this may sound silly but i found this similar like when i was in las vegas, in united states. both places are full of tourists so you get this party vibe all over. everybody is vacationing, you don't see locals hurrying up to work or doing daily routine chores. it feels just like disneyland, minus the rides and of course, mickey mouse.

one of them ended up talking to us while we strolled on the beach. he's an iranian enjoying the freedom in thailand. ok maybe he's not a westerner but still very chatty. then my friend somehow joined some australian guys playing takraw. i didn't play as i suck at takraw and didn't want to make a fool of myself in front of strangers. they said they would be in phuket for another 3 weeks. now that's what i call life. and we have to be back home in.. (what?) few more days...

ok let's not think about that just yet.

Phuket vacation : Part 2
o1 Feb '09

it was 6 months ago when i got my diving license, and this was my first dive apart from my diving teacher. so naturally, when i got my tank strapped behind my back and a big blue sea with god-knows-what's-undernearth just one big giant leap away, i got a bit of adrenaline flowing in a negative way.

me doing the giant leap while going 'oh god oh god oh god...'

that was why when the mask on my face started leaking in water again and again, i got panicked and surfaced up barely 5m down. i know this is a big violation in my diving class but to my defense, this was a case of a defective gear. you don't fail a driving test student just because the tyre got punctured half way, do you?

a change of mask later, i started descending again and slowly my heartbeat frequency returned to normal. all the excitement of exploring underwater world came rushing back in. my dive master, holger, led me and my friend while taking our photos and videos along the way. i think that was one of a few time when i didn't really care how i would look inside the photos because with a diving gear, you could do lunges and still look cool...

do we look cool? haha.. ok the fishes definitely are..

other than those butterfly fishes, we got to see a giant morray eel lurking from between the rocks (my friend got a photo with it. damn!) and there was also this bearded scorpionfish that the dive master quickly signalled dangerous (he meant don't go near or you'd cry all the trip back bearing the pain).

the other good thing about this diving trip was, the boat ride itself. it was a speed boat and they even had this cook that prepared us omellette for breakfast. the crepe she made tasted like heaven especially when i ate it at the opened boat deck after the dive. i remember thinking, god, this is what holidays should be like, and then, have i said this more than once already during this trip?

me and my dive master, holger from germany on the right. he's such a nice guy

australian open tennis final between rafael nadal and roger federer just started when i reached my hotel room that late afternoon. i was all tired from the whole day at sea so i watched the match from my bed but all the suspense was killing me. i have used all my adrenalin for today so i figured i should watch an hour later if nadal is leading the score. i decided to go out for a massage instead.

ok it turned out i took 2 massages in a row. can you blame me?

...ed

it ain't over till the fat lady sings

2009-02-18T22:22:00.007+08:00

a week ago, elizabeth wong won't ring any bell inside my head, or any bell inside most of street malaysians' head.

but today, she is like a celebrity. you can go around and say, hey what's up with elizabeth wong?, and people know what you mean.

well at least, people in my office where i had actually given it a try :)

she even has this group supporting her in facebook and that says a lot. this morning, she was the face that greeted me from the front page of singapore's newspaper that i picked up from underneath my main door.

ok maybe i'm not totally impressed by that. news are lame here in singapore. barely anything happened in this country, making reading the newspaper here is like reading the textbook. boring.

plus, if they have 100 news, 99 of them is about the economy and how bad is it now. i mean, what's up with that? that's why people gets so phobia of spending here, pushing the economy further down south.

no wonder the newspaper guys have to go an extra mile to get juicy news from across the causeway.

ok back to elizabeth wong. i just want to say that i support her.

so her nude sleeping photo were exposed through e-mails and mms by her ex-boyfriend. big deal. yes, she would be embarrased but is that her fault? i think she has no reason to quit her post as selangor's state assemblywoman which she did yesterday.

the only problem is, she is a member of the opposition party in malaysia. so naturally she was under attack by the opposite party leaders.

they even made this case similar to that of their own branch party leader who was caught having sex in a hotel room some time ago. so they had pressured her to step down as well.

i say, how could it be the same? that guy is married. he was having sex with his mistress. hello, no matter how you look at it from the social norm point of view, that is just plain wrong.

elizabeth wong is a single lady. she was nude in her own bedroom and it's not like she was doing raunchy sex stuff for the camera. the photo was taken without her permission, and was distributed without her permission.

if you asked me, this smells thick of conspriracy to discredit her and her party.

i mean, how come nobody points finger to her ex-boyfriend whom i heard is a malay? if he is indeed a muslim, surely he broke the islamic syariah court law by being with a non-married woman and thus, could get himself in all sorts of complication. what's the merit of him exposing those photos then? either he is that stupid or he has other unknown benefits...

anyway, we can only speculate for now. the reality is, this is another news, yet another colourful news in another week in malaysian political scene.

the other day, i was talking with my friends and we agreed that with all that has been happening in malaysia's leadership front, hollywood could come out with one hell of a movie.

i mean, malaysia's political world has all the ingredients of an entertaining show. it has lies, deceptions, conspiracy, street protests, people missing, kidnapped, ambushed.. there are explosions, murder, sodomy, sex scandal and now nude photo exposure.

my other friend said, those are too many plots for a movie. maybe more suitable for a tv series, you know, ala 'lost' or 'heroes'. each week there will be a new episode, a new twist in the storyline, and people will just have to keep guessing.

and i'm like all the malaysians, are currently guessing who would be the next casualty after elizabeth wong because make no mistake, things seem to be very very far from over...

...ed

long lost encounter

2009-02-16T19:16:00.001+08:00

god. i'm coughing coughing coughing...

it's been a week, hasn't it? my flu is better now but god, my throat itches like crazy. it feels very dry too inside there, which is weird because i swallow my slivers everytime.

wait, do we normally swallow our slivers?

anyway, cough or no cough, i'm still going for my tennis later. i might give reason not to swim before because my body is still weak, but i'm never gonna give any reason for not playing tennis.

even if nadal has lost his final against muray last night. god that was so irritating. i'm never gonna open any tennis site now for a few weeks.

ok what else should i write? hmm.. i guess this is part of the year when suddenly things become uneventful. except the suicide of our colleague last week of course but even that, nobody was talking anything about it in the office. like it's one big taboo now in our company.

gosh, why does everybody wanna keep things hush-hush? just now when i was busy doing my weekly report, few of my colleagues behind me got together and started whispering to each other. as if i cared what they were talking about. for all i know maybe they were discussing about work.

ok maybe i did care a bit.

at least one of my long lost friend suddenly dropped me a message today at work, just when i thought facebook has became so boring with no new notification for a long time ~gosh my contacts/friends are all so passive and boring~.

wow we haven't been in touch for.. close to 9 years! can you imagine? actually come to think about it, we tend to move through different stages of our lives and unintentionally dropped our friends along the way. such a waste huh?

ok me going to grab dinner (as usual, milo and oat biscuts again...)

...ed

flour pills and red sugar syrup

2009-02-12T19:15:00.001+08:00

i woke up this morning with a painful dry throat and a running nose i had difficulty to keep still. i even have cough now.

now what did the company doctor gave me few days ago? flour pills and red sugar syrup? for all i know, i AM NOT getting better.

so i didn't bother to drive 12 km to my company and wait half a day to see the same doctor and get the same medicine and be expected to work after that. my cubicle mate already closed his nose whenever he came near me, which i don't blame him because he has a daughter who gets all the illnesses available all the time.

i went to this neighbourhood family clinic instead. the doctor is always this young chinese guy who always look as if he just won the lottery. well, considering the money he could get after every patients visit, he probably is.

i got some medicines, and to my surprise, they even include in vitamin C capsules. errr.. i do take vitamin C at home so do i really need this? but i couldn't make myself to stop them to include that in. oh well, at least my company will reimburse half of the cost.

so i am on MC today. YESSS!!! a whole day to rest and recuperate to get well just in time for the weekend. whole day of bedtime rest and i must remind myself, NOT to write blogs.

...ed

how many days in a week?

2009-02-10T19:13:00.000+08:00

i had conference call early morning. after japan hang up their phone, and i was all alone with my boss, my boss asked me..

if, touch wood, the company were to implement 4-days a week scheme, which day would i prefer to be off?

dang! there we have it. i knew it would come to this finally. i mean, our japanese branch and our italian branch already implemented a shorter week work-time as a pay cut measure to get through this economic downturn. what are the chances that singapore won't get hit too?

i asked my boss, if this is for real? but of course he said that nothing has been confirmed yet, that he was asking just in case.

yeah right. if he was asking just in case, he would be asking about all sorts of other stuff, wouldn't he? like what if the government refused to reduce the transportation fare, or what if i won that 1 billion toto. see? but he didn't.

recession sucks. i tell you, never have i been in this period so gloomy, that everyone that i met, sighed during work. a big, loud sigh that sounded like, god i wish i were somewhere else.

but you know what? there's no place left to go during this downturn. i heard 2 of my ex bosses are now still unemployed since the expansion plant was shut down. and there are many people in the interview fighting for that few empty spots.

so if i think about it, still having a job is still a bless. the point is, there's always people that fare worse than you. at least i can still go to work and bitch about the conference call or the bosses at night.

...ed

romance of the full moon

2009-02-09T23:21:00.000+08:00

ok i figured i must write this now. it was getting harder to write nowadays. i don't know, maybe because it was due to the holiday season from christmas last year all the way to the recent chinese new year, making me abandoned all my routines. then even after that i had to go through holiday withdrawal phase, or HWP as i called it, so awhile more after that until i could come back to my senses.

..like now. so.. what's up with me nowadays? well nothing's up, all down. nothing much really. work has been neither here nor there. but still, i have to wake up early tomorrow to attend this conference call with japanese branch at 8am. deep in my heart, i wonder, what's the use? we always communicate through e-mail anyway, and it's not like we have big issues to discuss. plus, it's a dinasour-period device i'm handling as far as i'm concern. what the conference call means to me, is that i will miss my daily breakfast in office canteen.

but i guess, the boss has his own means. so i will have to be there before 8am. which means i have to try to sleep early tonight. which is kinda impossible since i have to write this, and then watch star wars the clone wars new episode after that. before i knew it, it will already be 6.30am and i have to curse and swear to wake up for work.

at least, my body seem to be holding fine after tennis just now. like every monday, it was a tennis day today. the only thing different was, one of our usual partner was hit by flu, so my another friend asked her husband to join our session. the thing is, he was so good at playing tennis. he striked the ball with ease and he could do spins and stuff. i was in total awe. if you must know, 2 things that could get me drop dead envious, are people who can play guitar, and people who can play tennis. i mean, good tennis. because i'm so hopeless in those things. for all i know, i have 2 left hands when it comes to playing guitar or tennis. so in the court just now, i was a bit stressed-out.

by the way, have you seen the moon tonight? while i was in the office today, my colleague told me that the moon tonight is going to be the biggest viewed in about 50 years. i searched for that news in yahoo news but couldn't find it. he must have got it from some chinese news websites. he surfs the chinese news a lot. it's amazing things that he knows from reading those chinese sites. anyway, i already happened to know that tonight is a full-moon night. so when we were at the tennis court just now, we got the chance to have full view of the moon. it looks like this.

of course i didn't take this while i was on the court. after my friends went back after the game, i went up my house, took my camera and my tripod, came down and shot this using my telephoto lense. some people walking by must have thought that i'm a moron who never seen the full moon before. because for one thing, it didn't look that big to me. it looked pretty normal, i'm sure i've seen the moon bigger before. it was very bright than usual though. still i couldn't see chang-er from the photo. maybe she was at the other side of the moon.

ok it's already almost 1am. did i tell you the clock always tick faster after midnight? one glance it's 12am, and another glance it will be close to 1am. and i haven't even start watching my clone wars.

so later guys...

...ed

sleepless in phuket

2009-01-31T18:13:00.013+08:00

Phuket vacation : Part 1
30/31 Jan '09

WOW my body felt so wonderful. i just had this wonderful thai traditional body massage at C&N hotel and it costed only 200 baht. that's like, what? ..less than 10 singapore dollars for an hour of pure relaxation and joy.

i'm in phuket, thailand right now. we just landed a bit more than 24 hrs ago, and already life in singapore felt like in a galaxy far far away.

my first view of phuket from air asia plane window

we are staying at this 2 storey hotel called the beach safari hotel, just 50m from patong beach. the hotel is pretty ok, the service is quite good, the building is not shoddy and the amenities are what you could expect from a 3-star hotel, if not slightly better. plus, they have free internet access, provided you have your own laptop, even though the connection could be slow sometimes.

so i'm writing this while my buddies are outside enjoying the beach. i already went swimming in the beach this morning, and even fall asleep for awhile on that reclined plastic rest chair facing the sea, awakened by the slight havoc when the water line reached our chairs and i had to quickly grabbed our slippers before they got washed out into the sea.

it was very relaxing. with my rayban sunglass on, i could see people of all shapes, wearing swimming suits that mostly had to work extra hard to counter the gravity pulling effect. if not because of the tropic weather, i would think i was in some european cities judging from where most of the crowd was from.

patong beach: my view of a perfect vacation

there were people doing para-gliding, and man, i would love to try that. they would tie you up to the parachute and then pull you up using the speed boat. we checked the price and it costs 1000 baht, which should be about SGD40. not too bad, considering even cable skiing in east coast back home already costs SGD30 and that's crap. you just go round and round at the same place hoping some chicks walking pass by would gawp in awe admiring your skills. duh...

only that i just spend 3400 baht just now to book for a diving day trip tomorrow to racha yai island in south phuket, so i wouldn't want to spend more now just yet. so i chose to stay in my room when my friends asked me to join them.

plus, dinara safina was battling serena williams in australian open final on tv (they have sports cable here! o bless this hotel), so i was glued in front of the tv for awhile. until i realized serena was in annihilating mode, making the whole match unbearable to watch. there goes my hope of someone defeating serena. oh well, at least i could still hope for a nadal win tomorrow against federer in men's final.

before that, i have to wake up early morning tomorrow because they will pick us up from our hotel in patong tomorrow early morning, and then charter us to the harbour and then to the island for our 2 dives trip. i'm really excited, and a bit worried too because it was more than 6 months ago when i last did the diving. man, i better look out for some notes off the internet to refresh some of the skills. the good thing is, that island is supposedly suitable for beginners.

so i wouldn't want to venture the night that much tonight. last night, we roamed the bangla street until after midnight, which includes some UNO sessions somewhere on the street. i said somewhere because the streets transformed from relatively quite, innocent roads during daytime, to become lively, loud and bustling with activities streets at night. it was really like 2 different worlds out there.

innocent daytime bangla street's hell breaks lose and gets sleazy when the sun sets

you know what, now that i think about it, maybe it's a different beach now compared to this morning. maybe i'll go hit the beach for awhile, maybe check out the the sunset by the beach too. after all the day is still young, safina already lost and it's not like it costs any money.

...ed

OXpicious & PrOXperity

2009-01-23T22:30:00.005+08:00

you know, in many years that i'm in singapore, every year i would still go to chinatown to submerge myself into the festive mood, and every time too i would act like a newly landed tourist who just discovered chinese.

so for this year, here are the photos...

this is the main CNY arch entrance. i felt like it was a bit toned down compared to last year. cost cutting? not very glittering and glamour but still, not too bad i guess. it's chinese new year, i'm sure they could do even with just a piece of red cloth.

unusual friend?

but to be fair, most of my friends are unusual anyway, in a unique way of course haha....

the final moment of that uncle...

..before he went home with his CNY goodies hahaha.. gotcha?

but seriously, pedestrians in singapore are notorious. they would ignore your car all the time. i guess they expect the government would grant them a new life if they got killed or something..

it's not the first time i see this kind of signboard but i'm still amused. like they say, low crime doesn't mean no crime and i applaud this effort.

malaysia should learn a thing or two on this. except, if they start to put this notice at every snatch theft spots, they would run out of boards in no time. in fact, i'm even convinced this board would get snatched off too.

tan in chinatown. i just love this photos, we have the main object, a curious auntie, some street shoppers, red lantern background to symbolized lunar new year celebration, old flat and an indian temple, all in one shot.

this one i took with the flash accidentally turned on. i think it captured the classic vibe of an old bustling chinatown.

they have performances in an outdoor stage in the heart of the shopping street, nearby the big temple. last time i watched a bit of opera here, and bunch of old hokkien songs performers. this year, there was some acrobatic show, which was truly impressive. i just sit by the stairs and blended in with the crowd, imagining myself in shanghai in 1950's.

this temple is called the buddha tooth relic temple. almost everytime i let someone know of the name, they would ask me, is buddha tooth really there? you know what? i don't know. what i know is, there are whole lots of activities inside there. i imagine if i look hard enough, maybe i could spot shaolin students too.. haha...

a repeat shot, this time to show the light up. hmm..

"HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR everybody!!!"

...ed

chronicles of the daily news

2009-01-23T10:34:00.001+08:00

wow singapore headlines nowadays are full of recession news. they are the same news actually, only arranged in different words. the message are the same :- 'the economy screwed up, so save your ass suckerzzz...'

somehow singapore is the worst hit. i never heard any recession news from places like laos and cambodia. singapore news said that the GDP is expected to shrink by 2 to 5 percent this year. to tell you the truth, i don't even know what it actually means when people say negative growth. i mean, let's say we have negative growth over many years, do we eventually go back to stone age?

it's still not too bad for the singaporeans because the government will give them money through GST credits as announced in yesterday's 2009 budget, but what about us permanent residents? it's not like we pay less taxes and not contributing to the country at all. ok we don't don the army suits and walk around proudly as if we just came back from iraq but surely we play a large part in the country's growth too?

i heard some of the companies already opted a 4-days a week approach by making monday an off day so that they can cut the salary. drastic huh? but then, it's better they make an off day rather than cut your salary 20% and still expect you to work like normal. at least you can do something on that off day to make up for the money that you lost, you know, like working part-time, beg for money or something.

things are somehow grim in our company too. we can't help it. because when the first thing you read during the long morning breakfast in company cafeteria are grim news, it can hardly liven up your day, can't it? so most of us are just busy asking each other what to do during our 11-days long chinese new year break starting next week.

you see, we are forced to take days off in the next 2 weeks. they called it 'company slowdown'. in fact, many companies in our industry do the same thing. sounds bad? well, at least our shares don't dropped 69% in one day.

so i'll be flying off to kl on monday to spend a few days with my family. what better way to face this downturn than being in the company of our loved ones? when i called my father to tell him that i'm flying back home, he promptly asked, is everything ok? you're not affected by lay-offs or something in your company? you see, family is very understanding, although secretly i suspect that was because me coming back without any reason is just out of my norm.

and i'll be flying off to phuket after that for the remainder of the break. yaay!! ok i know it's recession and we are supposed to tightened our belt and eat boiled ubi kayu but what am i supposed to do during this unusual off days? stay rot at home? plus, everybody knows things are much cheaper in thailand due to the currency difference. i read in yahoo news that singapore is considering to lower its currency value to stay competitive in the market, so all the more i better spend my singapore dollar now when it's still worth a lot.

not only phuket, i actually have plans for april's good friday long weekend, and also may's labour day week. if it's inside my new year resolution to always plan ahead, i am so there and ready for 2010 resolutions. except it's not. i don't even remember what my resolutions for this year were. the only thing i know, things are not actually superb for my first few weeks in 2009.

but hey, everybody's not doing so great too. have you read the news?

...ed

thar she blows...

2009-01-16T12:47:00.003+08:00

After lunch just now, my friend asked us where to buy a kite.

A kite!

I never thought of buying kite. ever. I mean, kite for me is those stuff the teacher made you do in primary school classroom.

Apparently not only me, even my other friends were dumbstrucked when we were asked that question. Where can we buy kite in singapore? One of us even wondered, do they sell kite in toy's r us?

In the end we found it in one of the variety shop in front of our company little shopping street. Wow, I never know. Probably because on my free time lately, instead of going out enjoying the recent strong wind flying kite, I has been staying indoor playing with my xbox 360.

Seriously, the wind is so strong recently. Last Monday when we played tennis, our balls made tricky spins as if we were roger federer and rafael nadal. They even have an article today in the news about the recent windy trend.

"Some feathers have certainly been ruffled by the winds in Singapore this week. In a country where the average wind speed is around 15 to 20 kilometres per hour, it has reached the time of the year when that figure goes up to 30 to 40 kmh.

Yesterday and on Wednesday, when this newspaper checked the National Environment Agency’s website, which lists a range of forecasts such as fair, cloudy and rain, there was only one outlook for all five districts and 45 town areas — windy."

So you see, maybe it's time to fly kite. Or for us engineers, to fly it with bunch of keys when the wind become a storm with lightnings. That would be fun. No wonder people long time ago was able to get all those interesting findings. They worked in such a fun environment.

Today at work, i spent the morning reading some analysis data done by my fellow team mate, and I just realized how I loved reading those technical stuff and tried to understand them. It was fun you know, like trying to solve clues in order to get to the final findings. In a way, it feels a bit like a perfect job for me.

Except, the analysis data is not for my device, and that team mate is not really my team mate. No longer anyway. Well, I used to be in the same team until I decided to leave and then found it impossible to get back in. So currently I'm just working on this matured, old technology device that nobody cares about.

Seriously, I don't know what am I doing. I couldn't even bring myself to look at the architecture because I don't feel the excitement. I bet benjamin franklin wouldn't be so intrigued if he were to be forced to find a vaccin for ebola instead in the lab, and just peeked at some other people flying kites outside the window.

In a way, I am like a soldier being trained for a land battle, and when the war finally comes, I am suddenly posted to the airforce department and have to start from learning how to fly the jet fighter. my land combat skills that I've learned in those years go down the drain.

Now tell me, will we win the war that way?

No wonder the company stocks go down faster than the world oil price. But hey, I'm not complaining. What do I know? I'm the worst decision maker in the world anyway.

If I were not, I would have bought the kite just now.

…ed

maverick hunter walkthrough

2009-01-06T18:14:00.003+08:00

it's one of the time that make you feel so lost. i ended up doing things that i don't really like at work just because there is no vacancy left at my previous job scope. It just made me realize that I had my world almost on top of the mountain, only to be falling down hard face down in the deep valley. If I was in the cartoon, there would be human-shaped hole on the ground, with probably some stars and birds floating in circles on top of my head.

But I guess, that's life. You get some and you lose some. You just can't get everything, or else everybody will become Paris Hilton or Brad Pitt. But work is such a large part of our life that it gives a significant impact to our overall existance. So it matters whether we like our job or not. It kills me to see some other people doing my previous job that I believe I could be good at. The only thing that got me going is that at least I'm still in the company. With the economic turmoil outside, at least I have some buffer to shield myself from whatever crap there is going to come this year. That's why the least I can do is try to contribute to the company whichever way I can, just like Mr Noah Bennett in Heroes.

Except the assignment haven't really come yet. I have this big red button at my side with the word 'push' in big bold capital letters but no instruction. Nothing nada. So I'm just stalling around and just checking some other people's data. Which is a bit of a bummer if you asked me since I'm in a new year full-gear spirit. Add that with no money to spend and no tv series to wait out and I'm practically already having the knife half way closer to my wrist.

Only that there will be some gathering at my place this weekend! You see, at least things are not so bad outside work. My friend will come down all the way from malacca and we have plan to hang around drinking hot milo together. O man, that would be like heaven on earth. Plus, I already booked the tennis court and we are gonna roam about ubi roads to test drive cars!

Plus I finally found a perfect song for my sister's wedding video soundtrack. I'm so proud of myself. It's by.. Ermm.. Ok I'm gonna sensored it here and reveal when everything's been done. Let's just say it's a ballad and it's a duet and it's not by SM Salim and Rafeah Buang. I have been doing the editing for a week now, on and off, and still need some time to complete because the software apparently got some kind of bug and I had to arrange the photos so that it would flow in rhythm with the music.

Just like I hope my work will flow in rhythm with my life, so that I won't feel so lost anymore. If you watch the tv series Lost, even those stranded and lost in that mysterious island just finally got rescued. But then, that was after 3 years in living hell, and especially for my case, it's not like I can press fast forward anyay.

So to add some spice in my bland weekdays, and also add extra qualification, I'm seriously considering to enroll for a part time course. I just dropped them an e-mail asking if I could get away with the application without any TOEFL result, which is needed for me because I graduated from a non-english as medium instruction university. We'll see what they would say tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm just gonna climb myself outta this hole.

…ed

if today was your first day

2009-01-05T18:08:00.004+08:00

it's a new day at work today.

a new day because it's the first day at work after new year, and also the first day at work after i cancelled my USA transfer.

and i must say, things went not too bad, you know, except the fact that everyone who saw me today reacted as if watching george bush in white house after obama's inauguration. i felt like i've explained about the transfer a million times, i almost wished i had a t-shirt on that says 'yeah i'm back for good' at the front and "for more information, dial toll free number 1800-GET-A-LIFE" at the back.

ok maybe i should just cut them some slack. they were just concerned surely, even though the things most of them concerned for were my house and car (ok for athousandth times, i didn't sell my car yet so i still have my car but i did signed the rental agreement for my house with i had to break with 2 full-months compensation. it was a big bummer with a capital B').

except this colleague whom i worked with a lot last year. she was very good in solving technical issues and i had a weird feeling that she could solve me too. she said, knowing me, she could understand my decision. previously, rather than asking whether i've sold my car or rented my house before the trip like everybody else, she asked me whether i was ready to go 'at heart'.

which i so thought i did, but apparently her concern was spot on. i wasn't ready in the end and i learned that in a painful way. she also said she would have guessed i would prefer to pay big money to keep my house rather than thinking about saving money, which was spot on part 2. she probably could read my mind from the thought bubbles hovering on top of my head. so you see, i have a feeling i could learn so much about myself from this girl. maybe i should, you know, learn from her. just like yoda.

but first, i have to learn and find out what to do now at work since someone has already replaced me. so i had a personal, intimate discussion with my boss the first thing in the morning. to my surprise, he said one of our group member has just quitted and me coming back is just the right timing because then i could take over his job.

you see, this is so meant to be.

in fact, come to think about it, all the signs around me were as if saying something about the transfer. like for instance, during my way back from office just now, n-sync sang in the radio, "..bye bye bye bye bye", just like i byebye-ed the transfer. then britney followed, "oops i did it again..", just like i did the big oops for not taking the transfer. spooky right? even tony braxton claimed, "...he wasn't man enough for me".. ermm.. ok maybe this one is not related.

since the colleague who quitted wasn't ready to do the pass-down because it's monday, i ended up with nothing to do the whole day. so i changed back my correspondence address for my great eastern policies and starhub accounts to my current (old) address. then i called IRAS so they would adjust back my property tax to enjoy owner-stay rebate. i even browsed through qantas website to find ticket to australia.

it was actually during lunchtime when my colleague brought to my attention that we would have 12 days off during the chinese new year break plus our plant slowdown. 12 days! that's almost twice the time that God made the earth, right? i wasn't ready to just let those days go by just converting oxygen to carbon dioxide on my bed, so i figured i could probably go to melbourne and watch australian open tennis.

except, after calling the ticketing agents and worked out all the possible expenses, i found out it could totalled up to more than SGD2000.

the thing is, i have used quite a lot of money recently. first, i told you about the compensation i had to pay to break my house rental agreement, right? that was about >SGD4000. then, i would have to pay the company for my pre-transfer trip to USA since i cancelled the transfer, inclusive of the actual transfer plane tickets that they could not cancel, which should summed up to be about SGD7000.

so you see, i'm nowhere in the ability to spend further big money in near future. in fact, it would be some time before i'm able to purchase any island again. that australian trip i could still afford to pay though, but that would not be so appropriate surely? this kind of harsh decision needs some retributions.

plus, i'm sure my Yoda-girl would not approve of it. or would she? she was the one who said i would not jeoperdize my lifestyle just to save money.

o gosh.. maybe i should think harder and search the force to find the answer. yeah, i would do that at work tomorrow, you know, on top of converting oxygen to carbon dioxide.

...ed

NY2009 ~our silver lining

2009-01-01T22:18:00.011+08:00

before we knew it, it's the year 2009.

as always, we wanted to welcome the new year with a bang. last year we had quite a number of friends gathered together and had fun but this year, i just managed to get 2 of them.

oh well.

we celebrated at (where else) marina bay. last year we were here too, but there were lots of construction going on and we had a bit of nightmare going out of that place.

this year, things were more proper, they even had tickets seating ($25 and $18 sections) and the first time ever new year concert in marina bay! ok at least there are something different.

they set up this stage at the arena. pretty impressive ensemble for an outdoor settings. we chose to seat a bit higher on the stands so that we could get beter view of the fireworks later, you know, rather than gurmit singh and barbarella posh beckham.

this was the man behind the stage. ermm ok he was on the stage all the time, but only in between the live telecast. when the advertisement kicks in, he would tell us what to do, when to cheer and do the kallang wave, and well, tried to make us go wild and crazy.

but this is singapore. we prefer to just sit and watch hehehe..

we had performances by taufik, hady, fiona xie, gurmit singh, band group ash, phillipines band etc etc. if you are not into singapore music scenes, just enjoy the live music. oh yeah, they had that MTV VJ Utt too.

i quite like the sound system, it made our heart felt like dropping, you know, despite being outdoor. and that multiple display panels making the screen behind the stage there were pretty cool.

this is one of the participants who stick with me to greet 2009. Mr Tan.

notice the singapore flyer on the background? it was still closed to public after the incidents few weeks back, but at least it was still in its full lightings glory.

and this is cikgu bedah from anak manja hehehe.. ok this is nora, she came straight from work today ok. give her a big round of applause.

what's impressive is her workplace is among these skyscrappers buildings! waa very the metropolitan girl hahahaha..

anyway, this is our view of the marina bay from out seats.

sharp at 12 midnight, the fireworks began. the firework this year was in rhythm with music, which btw sounded a lot like deepavali music.

engrossed looking at the fireworks display, i didn't notice when they had this balloon up.

we are already in 2009!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!

wooohoooo...

(though another year means another birthday... oh well..)

some other photos..

this was with the lights on after the events. see the green field behind the stage? that is the floating platform, they were supposed to have after-midnight party after the countdown there but it was cancelled few days ago, i don't know, maybe due to security reasons.

it took awhile for us to get out but at least the crowd moved in order. we avoided esplanade area and straight away headed to marina square so it was not at all chaotic like last year. i guess people learned from experience haha..

the end of a new beginning. may year 2009 brings us love, health properity and happiness.

...ed

what a pig year

2008-12-31T08:24:00.006+08:00

i woke up today to the last day in 2008.

hmm.. i'm not sure what my feeling is now. maybe a bit happy to have a new start in every aspect of my life.

but again new year means one more candles on the birthday cake and that's a waste of resources, not to mentioned more polution caused by open burning.

looking backwards in 2008, there is nothing worth remembering. or should i say, nothing that i want to remember. i don't even want to write about it much.

if i have a choice, i would like to wipe year 2008 clean from memory. format the whole brain partition associated with 2008. or brain system restore to 2007 year end.

even tonight's countdown celebration is almost becaming such a no-show event. i think it will be. a no-show with surely rain and thunder. last year was so much fun but i guess, this is a suitable ending for a sub-mediocre year.

it's official. i hate the pigs.

so what am i looking forward to in 2009 the year of the cow?

ed's 10 commandments for 2009

1) to give 110% at work and make the best out of it
2) to save more money in a more organized way
3) to call my mother more often
4) to further study if possible
5) to keep current friends and make new ones
6) to be more friendly
7) to join charity works
8) to work out/exercise weekly
9) to restart learning guitar
10)to gossip less

ok maybe 9.5 commandments because i don't mean item 10 that much. gossip is fun, and it's not like anybody's getting hurt. ok maybe the peson being gossipped but i'm just being friendly (see item 6).

hopefully the economy will improve next year too, although apparently the economists don't think so. hmm.. mabe they should just lie, cause at least people would get false hope and start spending again, and in return, improves the economy.

i don't know. i guess i should start with a smaller scale, like improving my house economy. i really shouldn't leave my kitchen light on when i'm inside my room, or leave the tv on when i'm sleeping. i should stop buying deodorants and use just one hair products.

the point is, let's make the best out of what's given to us in this cow year. hopefully by the end of it, we won't say...

'2009? what a cow...'

...ed

lost in washington dc

2008-12-24T05:50:00.017+08:00

this was where i stayed in man@assas, virginia. it's a branch of marriott, called residence inn, conveniently located just at the exit of interstate highway 66.

it looks small, but the area occupied is pretty large, i got lost a couple of time inside. i must say, until you step outside, you'd think that we are somewhere in spain because almost all the workers inside are spaniards. the stay there was pleasant though.

this was the car that i drove around in, a Mazda 5. the first one hour after i got this car, i kept turning on the wipers instead of the left right signals because i was not used to left hand drive. once, i even entered the opposite lane!

then i didn't know how to open the lock of non-driver doors because when i pressed unlock on the car remote, only the driver's door opened, until my brother told me few days after that i must pressed twice consecutively to open the lock for all doors. oh i see...

my brother visited me from new york since he had a function to attend in washington dc just 40 minutes drive from where i was. so we arranged a trip to, where else, washington dc.

i decided not to drive there because i heard it's hard to get parking in DC area. even if there is, it's parallel parking, and i cannot do parallel parking. so i drove to this metro station, parked my car and we took the train to dc. it was $2.35 one way for a 25 minutes ride.

btw, nearby the metro parking, there were traffic signs saying, 'kiss and ride' and 'park and ride'. now i finally know what those mean :)

i could see a lot of writings all around DC area, on the wall, on arches and like this one, is on the walkway. i didn't bother to read what it's about because it's all poetic and complicated. god knows who understood them. for all i know, this could be part of some hidden clues that should lead you to some holy grail or something. on that bone-chilled day, i'm just so not interested to poke my nose around, so i just snapped this photo and then made a pass...

washington dc reminds me a lot of.. ok some may hate me for this.. malaysia's putrajaya! why? because there were all buildings and so less people around. at first you would be mesmerized by all the buildings and structures but after awhile, they just looked the same and started to feel pretty dead. not what you would call a lively bustling city.

this one is the treasury department building. something like minister of finance i supposed. someone in green rides on the horse in front. not hulk, but must be one of the past presidents. not george bush definitely, he would get thrown down by shoes in no time.

there were lots of squirrels by the carpark where there were trees. i thought they should be hibernating by now? squirrels do hibernate right? anyway, caught this one in its cute act, eating chips out of the dumpster. i envy those americans sometimes, even their pests are cute and adorable.

i think this is called washington monument on my background. i wanted to walk all the way to the base but it was so damn cold so i just be content by looking from afar. after all, it's just a piece of plain sharp structure with no colour with at most, probably some writings or quotes on it. big deal. my shoes has more details.

few more buildings which i won't bother to describe. by this time, i thought i have seen this building before a few blocks away. or was i just making a circle? anyway, i'm sure it must be some important ministry building. FBI or CIA headquarters probably? hmm should not be, or else i would see mulder or scully hurrying by carrying some X-files heading to north dakota or something.

one place that got me excited once i arrived in washington DC is the smithsonian's museum of natural history. this is the washington branch, not the new york branch, so it's an elephant at the main hall instead of the T-Rex. better, at least at night when all the displays come alive, it's just an elephant running lose.

i made my way straight to the dinasour section because for me, museum of natural history = museum of dinasours. i like dinos. i guess i'm just a kid at heart. the fact that once these gigantic creatures roaming the earth is pretty cool, don't you think? my favourite is the triceraptops. gosh it was enourmous ok , and i read, this was not even the full-sized one. gosh..

this one is the fossil lab where volunteers help to do the sample preparation. cool right? i don't mind volunteering myself doing this kind of cool stuff in that glass box and have sam neill and laura dern gawping in awe as we demonstrate how we used the dino DNA extracted from preserved jurassic age mosquito to create dino eggs.

one section of the museum displays this 45 carats blue diamond. it looks all shiny and glittering but it could be due to the lightings. actually i was quite surprised we could go near to look at this. shouldn't they be installing infrared beams that go zig-zagging crossing each other around this display box? maybe they thought since tom cruise could descend from the ceiling using rope and steal this anytime he wants, the infrared won't do any good anyway.

ok this is me outside the museum. full stop.

and below are some other buildings blah blah blah..

at last we arrived at the white house. i asked if it's possible to get in the whote house but get this, i was told that apparently even the americans need 7-8 months reservation in advance because they want to check your background and stuff before allowing you in. huh? that's insane right. i felt stupid just asking the question. unless you're the nightcrawler in x-men, don't count on it so soon.

there were works around the white house compound. i guess must be for the inauguration ceremony next month.

i was walking along when i noticed this. ok this is obviously some protest banner. but what's that white lump in the center? we turned around and ok.. it was a tent. the lady inside asked us to come near and take some pamplets but we politely refused in case some FBI or CIA would come out of nowehere and detain us in guantanamo bay. you don't wanna mess with american government.

my brother and me. he's studying in new york at the moment. he paid me a visit in virginia since he just finished his exams and need to be at washington DC few days after.

one last look at washington/virginia region, then i'm gone.

...ed

the second coming

2008-12-23T05:28:00.000+08:00

i'm currently at washington dulles airport waiting room for boarding, and just found out i have to pay USD5.99 for 2 hr wifi connection.

huh? it's airport for god's sake, can't they just give us free internet access? after all it's their fault that we had to come early to accommodate their stupid endless security checks anyway. as if mr L would turn up in american airport and bring goodies in his bags.

you see, this is exactly how singapore changi airport has spoiled me. in singaporean life, being cut off from digital data stream exchange is equivalent to living in a cave. so until i return to civilization, i just have to write this entree on a notepad and copy them later into blogger.

so the last time i wrote was when i just arrived in the states after that 3 hrs misery in washington highways. after 5 days (though somehow it felt like ages ago) i could now bloat that i have the roads network all at the back of my hand (in form of scribbles notes jotted off google map though). like just now, i got to the airport from the city in a breeze 40 minutes drive! how bout a round of applause?

and also now, i have decided that i do not want to work in the states anymore.

shocked? well.. me too to be honest. i hit the brake and made that 180' U-turn when my life was about to jump off to a new start in a new land. it's a long story really. which involved phone calls in my wee hours to my bosses in singapore and a few teardrops in the script.

the thing is, i always thought this new place was like a fairy tale ending for me. everything about it sounded superficial. the work has more prospect, and i'll be living in the states! which, you know, is where all dreams come true.

but now after i'm already here in the states, i found out that it was just another massive land with different landscape and culture. working here means i have to stare at white house or capitol building every weekend, or spending time at the smitsonians museums after work on friday nights. that's why when i took the surprise elements of a new environment out of the equation, prospect at work became the sole reason for my migration.

that for the expense of my family and friends back at home.

i didn't know what was i thinking. last time, one of my friend asked me whether i am ready at heart to leave, and i said yes within 2 seconds. now to think about it, she must have some phsycic power, because she totally could see this coming! for me, it was just a classic example of not knowing what we got until it was almost gone.

stupid huh? i know i am but i couldn't help it. i just don't know what i want sometimes. ok many times. even when we go starbucks, i would stare the menu for like 5 minutes thinking what i want, and then still ended up with some prompt random decisions. i'm just like a flip flop, going from north to south and north again all the time when it comes to make decisions.

but thats just who i am. i'm defective, but i guess it's just the way i evolve. what i'd do is to learn along the way to be a more consistent person. i'll make mistakes, but let's just treat it as a lesson. even if i have to spare more than a grand learning fees to cover up the mistakes.

sigh.

well, at least i don't have to dispose any body yet. although, people might have to dispose mine when i show up in the office after new year.

...ed

touching down old dominion

2008-12-17T12:00:00.011+08:00

aboard United Airlines flight

i'm currently about 11km high up in the sky aboard united airlines flight heading towards tokyo narita. the cabin is all dark after breakfast just now. i'm sitting beside a lady who did her hair high and hard, like no storm would ever messed it up. we never talked, which mainly because i fell asleep after take off, woke up 10 minutes for breakfast while watching the end of journey to center of the earth movie, before falling asleep again. as a traveller, i'm blessed of having no problem at all sleeping along the journey.

i must say, i'm not at all impressed with united airlines so far. this boeing 777 looked old, thank god we have our personal screens but there are only movies and no game! and we couldn't even chose the timing of the movies. i mean, at the time when people start taking A380 with big screens and all, i ended up in this junk. it's sad really, when you realized that the company is trying very hard to find the cheapest deal when arranging the travel. made you think how much you are worth. this flight should be business class in the first place. to think that i have to spend 20 hours on this flight till it lands in washington dc, and then take the same flight back to singapore after 5 days just gives me shivers. well, serve me right for wanting to take this non-compulsory house-finding trip just because it was included in the transfer package.

at least i know i'm coming back to singapore after 5 days. i cannot imagine taking that final one-way flight after new year. the thought of leaving my current home for at least the next 2 years freaked me out sometimes. gosh, did i make the correct decision? i totally wrote and made peace about this last time, but the doubts keep coming back and i have to find reasons again.

ok this plane is a bit shaky. from the map on my tiny screen that i almost need a magnifying glass to look into, we are now just passing through taiwan, which means 2 more hours before the transit in tokyo. and that's not even half of the trip yet! oh gosh. you'd think with so many inventions in the world, someone could have invented time travel machines, or at least commercial sound-speed jets. but instead, those nobel prize winners got their recognitions for their work on some crap like world peace activities and stuff. i mean come on, we have beauty pageants for that.

somehow my laptop battery is draining fast. i'll write again after recharging at narita.

beautiful top of mt fuji while approaching tokyo

----------------------------------

ok. the transfer in narita was nothing great too. the first thing i did in the terminal was to find public phones since my mobile was unable to connect to any network. at that point, i wasn't sure if it was due to my mobile setting or the japanese network. the point is, i was so lost without connection to the outside world.

i changed 30 singapore dollars to japanese yen, and got only 1600 yen. hmm.. not as many as i had expected, but with some coins, i was able to make a short call to singapore. it was a relief actually, just like finally finding toilet after some frantic search. with the yen remnants in my pockets, i bought a box of sushi by the waiting terminal. was it good? hmm pretty decent, though frankly i think ichiban sushi in singapore tasted better heh heh...and much cheaper too!

apparently there was no free internet offered in the terminal, and i couldn't recharge my laptop because i left my plug adaptor in my checked-in luggage. damn it! good preparation huh? i almost wanted to hit my head on the wall. things like this made me miss changi airport so much. at last, i found my last 100 yen coin after rummaging my pockets, so i used that for a 10 minutes internet. which was freaking expensive but hey, it's japan, everything should be expensive here. and i got to drop mail to starhub complaining about non-connectable roaming network too (which might not be their fault but i got to release some steam).

then.. another flight to catch. oh god.

----------------------------------

my first look of washington DC shortly before landing at washington dulles

finally, i am now in man@ssas residence inn, virginia.

after a 12 hours flight from tokyo-narita to washington dulles, which involved 2 turbulences and a coca-cola-spilled-to-next-passenger incident, and a 3 hours lost on washington highways.

the roads here are so confusing, and me not knowing the area made it worse. it's like when you finally came to a junction, you have X town to the east and Y town to the west. and you wanted to go to Z town, so which way should you go? plus, i was not quite used to the car. it's a 6 seater mazda so it's bigger than sedan that i usually drive, and i somehow couldn't work out the view in the side mirrors, and here being left handed drive didn't help at all.

then while i was busy running down every roads there were in the east coast, the day got dark and it rained! so i was like, o god why? why??? one time, i managed to get into man@ssas, which i think was pure miracle, but then i accidentally went into another highway. when i finally got out off that highway after many miles, it was only to enter another highway and voila! i was lost again. at that time, i seriously considered finding a police station and ask the sheriff to send me home. anyway, after a few phone calls with the hotel personnel, i managed to get into the hotel.

here are the room photos (i better take this before i mess it up).

man@ssas residence inn, for $109/night, which i don't pay

not bad huh? but i can't help feeling lonely here. if only... hmm but i guess, nobody can have everything, so let's try to make the best of what we have currently, shall we?

tomorrow i'm gonna find a way to go to my new company and sign some letters, then maybe have a look around. and i must remember, to NOT enter any highways.

now i'm gonna watch heroes episode 13...

...ed

The Butterfly Effect

2008-12-09T20:11:00.007+08:00

just now after work, i stopped by the post box in front of the office and dropped in a few letters.

few minutes later after i drove away, i realized i forgot to put stamps.

could you believe that? i put in mails inside the post box without the stamps! gosh, i'm so screwed up right? this is so up there like going out of the house without wearing pants.

i mean, what kind of person would forget to put stamps on mails? a crazy person. mr bean. and then me.

either that ginkgo biloba i've just started consuming lately had an adverse effect (note: ginkgo biloba is supposed to sharpen brains and improve memory. i must remember to check if this is expected), or a million and one things in my head finally caught up with me.

maybe the latter.

i've made up a list of things i must do before moving to the states. it has things like, to cancel my credit cards, to request change of address to banks, to terminate my starthub accounts etc etc. i saved one copy to my desktop in the office, and sent a copy to my private mails. this is because i figured, i can no longer handle all these stuff in my brain with the verge of emotional outburst that i'm almost having right now.

seriously, it's not easy to suddenly take a 180 degrees turn and change my life like this. it's easy to just look ahead and anticipate all the excitements of a new environment, but that's before i realized all of the things i have to give up and let go.

especially things that are close to the heart. leaving your current life behind is such a big deal apparently. call me stupid and ignorant but the fact is, i just realized that. this is not like setting my automatic fish feeder before leaving house for a week. this is like writing the final will knowing there is no way you could alter the final decision.

last week when i was leaving my grandpa's house for the eid-adha break, my grandpa hugged me, broke down and cried that he's already so old and i'm gonna leave him to be in the galaxy far far away. that was just my grandpa. what about the time later when i have to say goodbye to my parents?

this is so not the situation i had in mind when i decided to click that button applying for the job. the same way that i bet the Heroes writers didn't have in mind when they decided to kill of elle bishop. kind of make you think, what the hell were they thinking? what the hell was i thinking?

but you know, among the things that eid-adha teaches us is that we have to make sacrifices in life. maybe this is the sacrifice i have to make in order to lead a better life. life inside work at least. if i have a choice, i would like to take all the people that matters to the states with me but then, that's not possible.

so for now, i just go through with this mixed feeling. after all, who'd say that i won't return after that? the earth is round, so we could go around and always end up in the same place in the end. i was so engrossed thinking about this the other day till before i knew it, i drove in my condo entrance using the visitor's pathway.

i just have to have a good grip of things.

.. or a larger dose of ginkgo biloba.

...ed

good boy gone bad

2008-11-19T20:04:00.014+08:00

ok this is kinda a backlog. so much have been going on, i felt like i'm consistently playing catching-up with my life and then finding time to report it.

and me being a bad, lazy, uninspired reporter obviously doesn't help :)

ok first i want to write about rihanna.

in case you live in a cave, or in some felda estate off the country-side (read: batu pahat), rihanna is one of the most consistent hitmakers in current pop music. she had like 8 top 10 hits in the US in just over 3-year period (ok i read that from some websites but i do know she have lots of hit songs).

and i saw her live and raw last week in her singapore indoor stadium gig! woohoo!!

i just wanted to say..

oh.

my.

god.

i love her. this might sound superficial but i really do. as a fan i mean.

just because that was one of the best concert i have been, and i had been to some of the big concerts before.

ed's list of concerts that he had been to

janet jackson
alanis morissette
deen (a japanese band, i've seen them twice!)
madonna
christina aguilera

and rihanna topped them all!

ok here's what happened.

i picked up this friend from aljunied mrt at about 6.30pm and headed to singapore indoor stadium, which is a short drive away. did i mentioned i took half day afternoon off from work that day? yeah i just wanted to play safe hehe..

we arrived at the venue at about 7pm. there were few cars around the parking lots, which was a bit puzzling because rihanna's concert was about to start in an hour time, and the parking lot was only half full? i took out the ticket and confirmed, yeah we did get the correct date.

so we went in. ok so where are our seats? we walked down the aisle closer and closer to the main stage and oh gosh.. there are our seats, a short distance away from main stage.

o man, that $225 dollars looked to be so worth it.

then we patiently waited. the crowd slowly filled in but was it me or the crowd was much less compared to christina aguilera's? well maybe rihanna was too new to the scene.

my million dollar ticket

me + friend ready for a good time

close to 8.30pm, half an hour late from the original schedule, suddenly the stereos blasted britney's womanizer. it was.. very very loud but i liked it! my heart started beating in rhythm, all the more because, ok this might be superficial part-2, i do love this britney's song. have you seen the video clip?

right after i finished mouthing 'womanizer womanizer u're womanizer babeh..' and got my foot back on earth (and sincerely hoped nobody was watching me), the familiar bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum.. got off the air.

disturbia!!

my eyes quickly scanned the stage through the black transparent veil and there she was perched atop a tower, started to sing the first lines to her latest hit as she descended onto the stage amidst screaming audiance. it was so cool.

rihanna made the entrace with 'disturbia'

but that’s as far as she got, because her microphone decided to quit on her, leaving her rather inaudible for the remainder of the song.

i looked at her in disbelief. how could this have happened? yeah her microphone really f**cked up. damn! that was one of my favourite song. ok it's official at that moment i was really in disturbia. she appeared agitated but what could she do? there she was trying to make a grand entrance but straight away spoiled by technical glitch.

good work rihanna! what a way to make a memorable entrance.

she walked to the backstage towards the end of the song (i guessed to kick some sorry asses) and by the time she reappeared on stage to start the second song (breaking dishes), she got her sound back. o thank god!

and so the concert began...

the rest of the show was like an express joyride. maybe more like a rollercoaster ride without the ascending parts. she sang hit songs after hit songs without any break, it was like a prolonged orgasm without foreplay.

she had this big deep voice that she used to sing upper registers, so she tend to sometimes mute lower notes when she interchanged them but as her songs were all familliar to us, we got the missing half words in our heads anyway.

her concert team was pretty small. only her bands, 2 backup singers and 4 dancers. that was all. and she changed outfit only once for the encore. the rest was just her strutting through her songs.

me with rihanna backdrop hehe..

all hail the good girl gone bad

my favourite part? when she sang 'unfaithful'. man, i was so inspired by that. 'please don't stop the music' got the loudest cheer but i felt that she could have stayed on that song longer since that's one hell of a song on the dancefloor. after all, she did sing to not stopping the music, right?

she surprised us when she sang 'paper plane' originally by MIA. i don't know what's the significance of this song for her, except maybe when she sang the line, 'all i wanna do (gunshots).. is take your money..' she really meant it.

because when she completed her final song (what else, her monster umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh hit), the clock just hit 9.30pm. so the whole gig was just over an hour long, which means i paid $3.80 per minute for that show! eeeekk!!!

but again, you cannot put a price on this kind of joyous experience. i don't wanna be all old and grumpy in the future watching rihanna on a tv that hasn't been even invented yet, and thinking, man i should've gone and see her.

and i was glad i did. ok the show was a bit short and there was that microphone glitch at the beginning but the rest of the show was compact with fun moments, when the audience sang or waved throughout the hour. i guess rihanna's songs are just plain fun to sing along and move the body to. i mean, there must be a reason why her songs topped the chart one after another. that was what made the concert very special and enjoyable.

plus, i gotta see her up close :)

as she says it herself..

Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
You got no time for no hata's
Just live your life (Oh!), ay ay ay.
No telling where it'll take ya

how 'bout a round of applause?

...ed

under my microscope

2008-11-06T21:46:00.009+08:00

ok i'm just going to try to put things in perspective here.

nothing's been confirmed yet. my boss seems to have a funny way dealing with this. i thought it was a pure technical matter but during our tea-break chat today, my colleagues made me realized it might not.

upon that enlightenment, you know i actually stormed right away into my boss office but found out all the bosses were in team building outings already. apparently they went for bowling. team building? yeah right.

hmm that just showed that i'm so bad at reading people. my boss said that he's discussing the matter with his supervisor so i should believe him right? not. i read somewhere before about the rules of life, and one of the key point is that when people speak, do not only hear what they say, but also why they say it.

mind you, it's not that easy to do. every now and then we have visitors from our HQ in the states. these caucasians always get the first class treatment here, the local bosses would stand beside them and blow fans, while the project leads would prepare red carpets on the pathway. we had to do speial presentation for them and when they shoot questions in between their sips of coca-cola in their thick american accent, i have problem understanding.

you see, i couldn't even hear people properly, let alone listening the motif or anything else.

maybe i just need to learn how to read people properly. one fella that i met for 2 seconds ended up being a stalker. seriously now i'm not taking any phone call that shows private or unknown numbers. the insurance agent that i politely refused but enganged in some casual conversation ended up shoving me bunch of personal messages that i did not appreciate.

i just don't know how i got myself entangled with these morons. did i read the wrong signals? even my friends could give me few hell-of-a-lifetime surprises too. i thought i know them much while we stayed at boys hostel during high school but after so long being lost contact, i met them again in facebook but this time they donned night gowns and low cut dresses spotting international supermodels names.

i was like, what on earth had happened during all these years? it was like i've crossed over to my parallel universe or something. more over, this another friend, who was a lawyer the last time i met him shortly after i started working, literally went short in the head because of ecstacy overdose and i heard last people saw him he wandering around unbathed and all smelly in town.

see, i did not at all see these turned-up-of-events coming.

one other thing that i did not see coming, was my dear friend's answer when i asked him what should we do this coming weekend. i was actually thinking of a visit to singapore omni theater or a short escapade to nearby kusu island but he said that his company will hold this green earth movement day programme this saturday, so they will be going to the east coast and collect rubbish.

excuse me, but collect rubbish? i'm sorry, i'm all for mother earth oriented activities but surely there are other things we can do other than collecting rubbish on the much-awaited weekend? i am so not gonna buy this idea. besides, i cannot even see what his company ST marines has to do with rubbish-free beaches. unless the rubbish starts to entangle their submarines or something.

but of course, as always, what do i know?

...ed

please don't stop the music

2008-11-02T21:35:00.005+08:00

i'm getting my umbrella-ella-ella ready, not because it's rainy season, but because i'm going to the good girl gone bad rihanna's concert at singapore indoor's stadium on nov 13th. woooohooooooo!!!

i like rihanna. she's like the hottest singer nowadays with everything she touches turns gold. ok everything she sings actually turns gold, even platinum certified. with hit songs like unfaithful, umbrella, take a bow, don't stop the music, disturbia etc etc she's the queen on the dancefloor.

and i'm gonna see her from the front row with my popcorn on nov-13th!!

hmm. my sister wedding is on the 14th. i guess i must not party till too late that night since i plan to drive home to kl the next morning. well worst case, i can just depart a bit later 'coz as rihanna says, i'm 0 to 60 in three point five, baby i got the keys....

the concert is just called rihanna! .. which if u asked me, is a bit too-simplistic. i mean, she sang about not wanting to be her ex's murderer! the least she could do is name her tour something.

i wonder why she didn't retain 'good girl gone bad tour' she used in the north america and europe legs. maybe she thought asians with all the goody-goody cultures couldn't handle the thought of a girl gone bad. i bet that must be the reason she skipped malaysia too.

anyway, here's where i will be that night, if you plan to stalk me that is.

i paid $225 for that seat. pretty unear the front huh? i haven't been this close to a big celebrity since janet jackson's velvet rope tour when i could see her non-stop flowing sweat trying to give her water-proof mascara run for the money.

for rihanna, i guess i'll just be aware if the sprinklers come on (come on).

i'm so excited. don't tell anybody but i got my twice-a-year performance bonus this month and it's almost half a month's salary! which means, lots of party money. ok with the recession and stuff, maybe just this once because god knows my mind is in disturbia (..am i scaring you tonight?).

now i'll just sit and wait. hmm seems like that's all that i do nowadays. sit and wait. everything's got me tossin' and turnin' but i still can sleep at night. i just can't wait the point when i could say..

how 'bout a round of applause?

...adie @ good boy gone bad

black and white halloween

2008-11-01T14:24:00.008+08:00

it's saturday noon and i'm at the office.

this is so not normal for me. in fact this is the kind of weird stuff people could say you did before you got into some fatal disaster. or if in court, this could so become the kind of behaviour that raises suspicion and spells guilty all over the place among the juries.

there was this tiny lil' work that i had to do this morning. it was not that bad actually, i didn't feel particularly crushed having to do so. i even thought i should do this more often if that what it takes to show my boss that i'm all content and dedicated.

even though since last tuesday night, this does not matter anymore

that brings me to the point i've been pondering about over the last few days. remember the work offer that i got on tuesday night? i never saw any follow up on that yet, no black and white or even coloured details, no papers to sign, no nothing, nada and it's been what?.... 96 hrs.

gosh is it time for me to freak out yet?

when i asked, my soon-to-be-boss said he expects me to be there by end december. which is just nice because i heard there will be a massive forced vacation / plant shutdown for my current office from christmas until the new year. even if i have to pick up toys from the north pole factory and distribute it through the chimneys all over the world, i should be able to just about make it.

the problem is, without black and white transfer details, i must consistently pinch and convince myself that this is not a mere dream. i had a conversation with my favourite property agent yesterday and he suggested that i rent my house instead of selling. he said the property price is lower now and expected to pick up in 2,3 years time when singapore's integrated resorts are up and running. what's more, he said i could get >2000 dollars rent from my unit! woohooo!!

renting out makes sense to me too since i just refinanced my home loan last july, so i need to hold the contract for the next 3 years. but you see, i had to stop short from telling him to market my place because i don't have that damn black and white details yet.

urghh.. i don't know. it was halloween last night and i swear i felt like bitting someone's neck so badly. if i had my way, some city or some HR department is gonna be seriously bitten and haunted.

anyway, the trick and treats are all over now. i'm just gonna go home and do something that is my norm and won't raise any suspicion. which is to have a long undisturbed nap in my vampire coffin.. i mean, bed.

...ed

let's touch base

2008-10-29T20:57:00.004+08:00

yesterday i got this mail from the company HR which goes...

'let's touch base. i got important news to tell you.'

full stop.

can you believe it? i scanned the bottom of that sentence like 20 times hoping to find some hidden messages or secret codes that could tell me more but none.

as i stared at the blank screen, i even hoped this was like that mail which had a ghost or something suddenly cropped out from the static picture as you were staring to freak you out but nada.

what news????

some people are just plain vain. this HR guy is just like those tv series writers that always like to have someone opening up the door expecting the killer inside the room, saying 'oh it's you!' without showing the killer face and then abruptly ended the scene with 'to be continued'...

except this one, i couldn't download the sequence off the net or read the next episode spoilers from wikipedia.

fortunately, my ex-colleague who was transfered to the branch where i'm applying for few years back spoiled it for me. he sent me mail which goes...

'congratulations! i heard you got the transfer'.

see? plain and simple and nobody died from this short statement. nobody i know anyway, but oh my god oh my god oh my god my god...

I GOT THE TRANSFER???

apparently i am. later that night at about 10.30pm i got a call from the new HR and i had to play surprise. ok this is so confirmed.

wow i was so ecstatic. i felt surreal, like my spirit just jumped out of my body saying banzaiiii and then came back in a second.

this is so classic example of how things turn out when you least expect it. this is like when you thought the causeway would have heavy traffics but ended up with a smooth ride, or the time when you thought nothing worth checking out the cheap sale but ended up buying lots of ripped-off discounts.

i mean, when i got a mail saying this another branch was laying off people, i kinda put my hope off. after all, when everything went mute after you asked about the result, in normal world that was never a good sign.

but i guess, good things do come for boys who wait.

at least i hope it would be good. mind you it was not easy making this decision. this is not like deciding what movie to watch for a night out, or whether my car would be white or black. this is like jumping off the ship and hope there is no shark in the water.

and i have not even told my parents yet. i told my friend this just now and she said, what a fillial son you are. i know she meant to be sarcastic, but if this sudden move could cause heart-attack, then maybe i am being fillial.

i'm just afraid how things could turn out, like people would get sad and stuff. i just like the way things are, at least for the next 2 months or so before i make my move. i felt just like becky bloomwood when she was having secrets about her 2 weddings from her parents, and look at how did that turn out.

ok maybe i should give my father a call. or maybe an e-mail saying...

'let's touch base. i got important news to tell you.'

...ed

life lockdown

2008-10-24T23:49:00.004+08:00

i was behind the wheel waiting for the light to turn green when i saw a car almost hit a motorbike on the opposite road, causing the poor biker to slid and fall down.

ouch.

while i was glad i was not the person in the car or that injured biker, i couldn't help feeling how things could change in instant seconds.

i mean, one minute the only thing in that biker's mind could be what he should have for dinner, but out of a sudden situation changed and i believe all he wants to do now is strangle that driver alive. well at least i wanted to.

you bet i drove a bit more carefully after i witness that all the way home, feeling grateful of all the road near-misses i've had.

i guess this kind of things occur in front of our eyes are meant as a remembrance. i don't know about other people, but i'm sure guilty of taking things for granted sometimes.

be it being reckless on the road taking my safety and lawsuit-free life for granted, or playing catch and run ignoring people that matters taking their affection for granted, or even being too stagnant and easy-going at work taking the job security for granted.

after all, we never know when things could turn to the worse. just like the recent economy meltdown. few months ago my worry was which destinations to select for a year-end trip but voila, all i care now is to secure my position in the office.

especially now that it is almost confirmed that i'll be staying put in this island. to some extent, it does feel a bit relieved that i don't have to trade my current life, even though for something that could be better, but hey, i've learned to believe divine intervention by now.

you see, the company extention branch-out in the north that i almost joined last year if not for a sudden blank-out during interviews when the interviewer asked why i wanted to work there, ended up laying off 95% of its people.

ok i could be among the 5% (positive thinking) but if i were not, i'd like to believe that it was work of a higher being.

so now i look at my home and life in general from a whole new more-appreciative eyes. but as time goes by, i would tend to forget and go back to point zero and start taking everything for granted again.

until i see another near-miss incident.

...ed

last night was a flyer

2008-10-18T11:02:00.020+08:00

Singapore Flyer

as what the stone says...

yes. i went to the singapore flyers. ok i know this Singapore Flyer has been opened to public since.. like forever (**i checked this, it was opened on 14-feb-2008. yes, on valentines day which is so 'cliche) but i guess, just like everything else that are close to us, we tend to ignore them because they are near anyway so we thought we should be able to visit them anytime we want. i mean, i'm sure there are many parisians who haven't even go to eiffel tower yet, or egyptians who never been to the pyramids, or malaysians who haven't been into the ISA cells.

anyway, the real story is, i was driving through raffles boulevard heading to marina square when i discovered the singapore flyer entrance. this might sound stupid but even though i know the flyer is somewhere close to AYE that i always drive through, i never really properly figured out where the entrance is.

until accidentally today.

singapore flyers in many colours

ok maybe this flyer isn't the first-thing-in-the-world invention at all, but as it is one of the prominent landmark in the heart of singapore city, i did feel a bit surreal to finally see the base structure. it's like when you visited a friend's house for the first time, and felt like you know him more thereafter.

we didn't ride the flyer though. i know the flyer looks impressive and everything but there is no way i'm gonna spend 30 bucks for that merry-go-round ride, watching singapore skyscrappers view that i've seen like a million times it's practically already etched inside my corneas.

maybe in the future though, when i play host to some outside oh-my-god-i-visited-singapore-so-i-must-ride-the-flyer visitors.

where people pay to get locked up for 30 minutes of their lives

this was from the spot where i realized that the flyer was actually moving. ok i know it should be moving but the movement is so slow that it is not obvious at all from afar. as captivating as it looks, one cells exchanged people one after another before rising up high in the sky, i'm pretty captivated to the view underneath the boarding deck as well. they planted this whole mini-forest down there, complete with fountains and banana trees. i expect if i look hard enough, i would find tarzan there too, not sleeping on the park bench because then he would be fined 200 dollars, according to the new singapore law released last week (can you believe that? we cannot sleep in the park bench in singapore anymore. so if you have 200 dollars to spend, get a hotel room instead. you have been warned.)

mini-jungle underneath the boarding deck

there were shops inside the building but not many people in them. it's a joy really, to be visiting a place in the city on friday night that is not packed with people in singapore. it's like you have just found a secret underground celebrity-only spot. hip, grand but not crowded.

except this particular place...

when i first saw this bunch of legs from outside the display window, at a glance i thought the mannequins were taking a rest. until i realized that the legs were actually moving and there were zillions of small fishes nibbling on them. like they could feel anything. i say, since you pay 30 dollars for the this 30 minutes fish-nibbling session, why not put something more prominent and more value-for-money inside the water? like alligators.

Marina Bay

from the singapore flyers, we then walked down to marina bay. you know, the marina bay is just around my backyard (everywhere is around our backyards in this tiny island), but believe it or not, i think this was only my only second time being there this year, after the new year countdown.

gosh. have i been this unhip and boring?

the most recognized singapore skyscrappers view

i had camera on my hand and this night view of singapore most famous skyscrappers in front of me. so what should i do? snap them, although i've snapped this view many times before.

but wait. what's that construction underneath the highway bridge? are they building new road or something?

it looks like it. what i realized about singapore is, they are very fast in putting new stuff out. one moment it's not there, then u look away one second, and it's there. most clear example is the ERP. i mean, how many times was i shocked to find a new ERP gantry suddenly popping out like mushrooms after the rain while i drive through my normal route? just last week i found one ERP popping out near the eunos exit on the PIE (my line when i saw that was - damn you blood-sucking LTA).

i snapped these from roadside contruction board notice

ok according to the notice board above, they are building a pedestrian bridge across the marina bay.

you know what? i think that is such a good idea. many times when i drove through the AYE across marina bay, i wish i was walking instead so i could stop and enjoy the view for a moment, and embrace the metropolitan life that i'm living. it's a feeling i guess new yorkers feel everytime they walk through the time square or the rockerfeller center, feeling every bit as though they were casts of friends on the way to the central perk, and that they really belong there...

am i making much sense? anyway, it looks like a nice modern bridge. full stop.

looking at the other side, the night was still young from the sounds and lights of (which i believe is) the marina bay casino construction site. who won the bid to build a casino here last time? was it the sands or something? anyway, the construction is going full gear to get this casino up. i'm so excited. not for the casino as in i want to gamble, but to check-out the whole new singapore outlook. i mean, how many of us could say we spend the day hanging around casinos? exactly.

under the spotlight

just beside the esplanade (or as the locals fondly call 'the durian'), we heard some balinese kind of mystic music being played. i was like wow, since when the ministry of sound dj changed trend to playing this kind of traditonal music? i mean, how are the disco-goers gonna strutt their stuff to this anyway?

wait. can we really hear the music that clearly if it is really from the ministry of sound disco bar?

oh some guys are playing the instruments in the performance arena just beside the esplanade near the ministry of sound. ok this makes more sense. apparently there were some traditional music and dance festival going on and it was the balinese music session.

me? not really in the mood the check this out, so after snapping some photos, off i went, faster than you could say 'babi guling'.

submerging in balinese feel with the fullerton in background

ok basically, those were what i really did last night, nothing out-of-this-world but like the flyer, we don't always have to be on full speed to be high up.

...ed

say hello to the big R

2008-10-12T11:17:00.011+08:00

if you guys for once switched out of malaysian tv1 and tv3 channel, which kept on boasting about how US was immitating malaysia on ways to tackle the economic downturn, you'd realized how bad a shape the world economy is now.

when i said 'world' here, i meant the US and singapore.

the first thing i saw after i came back to civilization from hari raya holiday, was this great big headline in yahoo main page, 'it's official: singapore is now in recession'. and today it got more interesting. the line goes, 'jobs cut likely to start in december'.

aren't those make your heart skip a beat? i guess santa clause would be busy distributing job vacancy pamplets instead on the eve night this year.

my company has not been doing great for quite some time, just like a long lingering cancerous growth, all blamed on the world market price. last year i bought an 8G thumb drive for 80 dollars. early this year it was sold for 45 dollars during Comex 2008. recently my friend purchased one for only 30 dollars plus. by christmas this year i expect we have to actually pay people to buy our products. market price is free falling. how are we going to make profit? it's a matter of time before it drops six feet under and we have to start chanting lament.

to cool down some hot asses, the management clarified yesterday that there won't be any lay-offs for us. which is great, but before we went out of the room popping party balloons, they added that they do consider implementing pay-cut measures though.

excuse me, but pay cut? that's like end of the world too, right? how on earth am i going to pay for my house, my car, oversea trips, country clubs, butlers, designer clothes, jewellery, personal jets etc etc?

plus, now that US is into this bad recession, i guess i can say goodbye to my plan of making it big to the dreamland. now suddenly everything went quiet, as though a disconnected phone call when you go through a tunnel. it's understandable, because when the water level is already up to your nose, you won't think of anything else but your own survival.

one thing for sure. i must resort to being frugal from now on. if i have to, i must take drastic measures ala becky bloomwood in the shopaholic series. for example, my car is really dirty now in the parking lot below, but the new me won't send it to drive-through car wash. i must wash it myself instead. or if i'm too lazy, just leave it dirty. people say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, so people should not judge me by seeing my dirty car exterior.

in the meantime, let's just hope for the best. what else can we do? it's not like we can influence the way the world economy is run anyway. i mean, i can stay late working my ass off but the company is still going to lose money anyway.

i wonder whose fault that the world economy is going haywire like this? sometimes i think, now that all company make losses and everybody is like losing billions of dollars, where does the lost money go to? stock investors? surely someone somewhere is doing the joker laugh now while having money shower.

*bastard.

...adie

reaching for the light

2008-10-11T20:28:00.005+08:00

so it was friday night. it was time to put the work mess on hold and moved away from the hari raya trails. who says the party is over now that all the lemangs and ketupats are all history?

this month, the hindus will be celebrating their diwali which is also known as the festival of light. so when we pondered where to go for the night, i thought let's give little india a visit.

Diwali (Deepavali) in Little India

true enough, when we arrived in little india, the street was already submerged in the glowing light of many blinding colours. i felt like alice just found wonderland. ok maybe not really, but still it was nice to look.

even the smaller streets were decorated. wow someone do have lots of money to sponsor this. this is many times better than the hari raya light-up, which is pretty sad actually. but again, nothing should ever be compared to this mother of all light-ups. after all, the lights for hindus signifies victory of good over the evil within every human being.

and from the look of it, it was a one sided victory, hands down.

actually, it's quite a good place to buy things around little india, because you know you're not gonna be slashed off your throat. price wise i mean. having said that, i didn't buy anything. i was just got curious by that tangles of flowers beside this fruit stall. there were many tangles of flowers like this sold at every corners. my friend said they use those during prayers, and i thought, really? like how??

while strolling along the main street admiring the beauty (most of the time through my canon G7's LCD screen), we found this small roof-covered street that was packed with goodies. i never noticed this street before. looks like a lot of activities inside there so we ventured in, feeling every bit like harry potter just discovered diagon alley.

you know, if harry potter was mesmerized by the magical stuff on display in diagon alley, i was mesmerized by all these diwali decoration stuff. i thought wow, are there people actually buying all these things? everywhere i set your eyes on, there would be things on sale. everywhere. if my eyes could choke, it would by grasping for air in no time.

we bought a couple of these sweets. it costs 70 cents a piece. i don't know what they are called, but what i do know is that they were freakingly sweet. very very sweet. it's like stuffing sugar in my mouth, only in different texture. as i chewed those stuff, my mind went, 'diabetes.. weight.. diabetes.. weight'.

and i guess these bad boys do not need any introductions. what's interesting is that they were on air. bottles and bottles of muruku hanging for their lives. someone please save them and buy one quick!

all in all, it was quite a good night stroll. well, good in the sense of something different anyway. at least, we were together celebrating the victory of good over evil within ourselves.

and hey, maybe the spirit will carry over to next week when i hope the light is strong enough still to help me fight the evil in the office.

...ed

ode to the cow dung

2008-10-09T20:50:00.015+08:00

i've completed my mission.

hari raya was fun. well, as fun as it could be now that i am celebrating it as an adult. which means it was just like any normal day but with nicer clothes and yummier foods on the table.

oh and significantly less money too. but again, i go through that in many parts of the year as well.

i could not believe how much meat i consumed. gosh, i think i ate more meat in that few days than what i ate the whole year. no wonder at my grandpa's village in rembau, negeri sembilan, i could only see dungs on the road but no cow.

mind you, that was so a sight to behold right now because, get this, i heard they are going to demolish the whole village by next year. yes demolish. which means by this time next year, there will be no more village and no more cow dungs on the road.

evil? i think so too.

you see, my grandpa's village in negeri sembilan is located just by the railway track. it's so strategic that we could enjoy the peaceful environment of the countryside one minute, and get a taste of urban development by the sound of the rushing train in another.

apparently someone has just decided to add in another railway track beside the existing one. which by the way, is so puzzling for me because who on earth takes the cross country train in malaysia these days? like 3 people in the whole year.

anyway, so they are going to add in new track. now, how wide is the train track? less than a meter wide. and how wide area beside the existing track that they are going to take for that so-called railway track building project? almost 50 meters. do the math.

hmm i'm not in a position to comment because i'm not as intelligent to understand the logic behind this. for all i know, i'm dumb-founded, as were my grandpa. these people, they can travel through time. or else, how could they enter the villagers property and did some area measurements stuff before even discussing anything about the plans, the compensation etc etc with the locals?

deal or no deal, we just have no say. it's the government anyway, it's not like they can ever do anything wrong. so it's a safe bet to say by next year, all the cow dungs on the village road would have become history.

i guess, that's the price we have to pay for development. we would want our country to prosper. we want to build the tallest building in the world and live in flat houses like the singaporeans, even if it means letting go of our own wide land for some stuffy houses with zero compound.

so where will we celebrate the next hari raya? in the city and the supermarkets just like what the singaporeans do. it will be ok. we will still have our nice clothes and yummier foods then.

even if it's made of frozen meat that did not litter any countryside roads.

...ed

10 thoughts on hari raya

2008-10-09T20:47:00.005+08:00

1) hari raya is such a family day
we prepare for the big day together (clean and decorate the house, prepare the foods etc), then we spend the big day together (have the same sumptuous meals, go to the mosque in the same car, visits relatives) and then spend the after raya effect together (getting sick of the same food, feeling bumped out about having to return to our lives) too. in short, for that few days, we always see the same face, and we liked it.

2) duit raya giving should be abolished
i mean, that money in green packets all working people is expected to hand out to non-working people during hari raya, as if we didn't already spend a lot preparing for the day. well at least, make it to be given only by married people. it's not fair for non-married people you know, who's already miserable answering question about marriage plan by relatives, and then have to part with our only money soulmates. ok it's not like i'm miserable, but still... hey, teach our youngs the pain of earning money, shall we?

3) forgiveness is such a sad gesture
really. everytime me and my siblings asked for forgiveness from our parents on the morning of hari raya day, we cried. almost, for me anyway. my sister is the worst, she could barely speak and her mascara and eye liner all went down the drain.

4) it's a drive-cow-towards-extinction day
because that's all that we eat for that few days. beef. eat lemang (that glutinuous rice wrapped with banana leaves cooked inside bamboo pieces) with beef rendang, eat ketupat (that compressed rice cooked inside coconut leaves) with peanut sauce added with beef serunding. these dishes were in almost every house we visited too. no escape. our bodies are screwed.

5) i have 1001 living relatives
i may not meet them for any other part of the year. for most, i don't even know their names or remember their faces or know how we are related, but man, do i have lots of blood relatives. when i was in my grandpa's village, people kept coming in visiting and i was like, who the hell are these people? it's almost a wonder why siti nurhaliza wasn't one of them.

6) teenagers do the craziest(stupidest) things
like sleeping on the train track. i heard that during the last fasting month, 5 teenage students from nearby hostel escaped from nightime hostel curfew, then somehow ended up sleeping on nearby railway track. in the middle of the night, the train came and 2 of them didn't manage to wake up on time. stupid? well, my auntie said they were sniffing glue that night, which would make more sense...

7) ghosts do exist. or do they?
ok i risked tagging this site with RA-21 with this. i heard story about this black furry without-head figure that likes to pin people down on the bed from a neighbour's house at my grandpa's village. that house has an old grave underneath the stairs. plus, the old abandoned houses in the village has many 'mysterious beings. apparently, last time the villagers like to rare these, well, paranormal beings to help them in their everyday's work. when these villagers die, these 'things were left unattended in the emptied house. have you ever wonder why some abandoned house become bad so fast, but when people stay there without doing any house fix it won't become bad at all? call mulder and scully!

8) the government is evil
they want to add in a new railway track in addition to the existing one that runs across my grandpa's village but i heard they are going to take the villagers' land that could make 20 railway tracks. the notice is up but the villagers were not told of any compensation deal yet. this looks like a losing battle. if this is true, i'm left without a village by next year.

9) everybody looks for chicken after hari raya
call it post hari raya effect. after we returned to the city, we decided that we were sick of hari raya food. so we went out to buy some kfc. the take-out line was long. looked like everybody was sick of hari raya food too. alternative? chickens. everybody was buying in buckets until they ran out of fried chickens. so we drove to mc donalds instead but there we were told to wait 30 minutes for them to prepare another batch of sold-out fried chickens. it was a night of fried chicken hunting and we failed. we ate pizza hut instead. not without queing.

10) ermmm.. i thought of writing this haha...
ok no more thoughts. i'm sleepy. it has been a busy day so i want to sleep now.

..till the next year hari raya!

...ed

mission (im)possible

2008-09-27T10:54:00.006+08:00

ok don't panic, don't panic.

24hrs to go before the mission to kuala lumpur.

time for last minute check-outs. everything must be covered. all stones should not be left unturned. zero miss tolerated.

checklist for today

1100hrs
go to the bank in smart black suits, complete with latest design wide black non-see-through rayban and hair gelled neatly. limousine drop-off preferred, right in front of bank main entrance. don't forget the briefcase.

1130hrs
make the withdrawal. few millions dollars should cover the green packets money.

1140hrs
still counting money and arrange them neatly inside the briefcase.

1200hrs
ok the briefcase overflows. stack the remnant notes inside double-layered NTUC plastic bags which i happen to be carrying my carton of soya bean milk for healthy morning snack.

1215hrs
leave the scene. speed through the highways towards the east. make sure not being followed. if there is any helicopter trailing, make use of the new underground KPE tunnel.

1300hrs
expected to be at tampines courts. ok we need to find the item fast and efficient before the clock with big red numbers countdown ticks off. should swarm in with bullet proof SWAT jacket together with other team members. some should drop in from the ceiling using ropes. lights dimmed. let the search begins.

1321hrs
ok cannot find what we seek for. time to just ask the customer service or the electronic section salesman where to find creative 2G mp3 player. my brother in kuala lumpur requested this device and i am not leaving till i get one.

1340hrs
make the exchange deal. this should happened in the big unloading bay with both parties team members watching closely from afar. i give money, they give me the requested gadget. beware of any miscue.

1400hrs
limousine pick-up in front of the building. heads to simei eastpoint for an important appointment.

1430hrs
discussion in the hair salon on the 5th floor. the agent is an undercover hairdresser. i should pretend to do my hair while he surrepticiously whisper further instructions for my mission. do not take any drinks or foods offered as they may be contaminated.

1700hrs
make over complete for the upcoming undercover mission in kuala lumpur and rembau negeri sembilan. this look should go with all new clothes prepared for this event. nothing unmatched that could raise suspicion.

1730hrs
speed through the pan island expressway heading to orphanage house for the alms-giving and more. this act should be left unnoticed. make sure to wipe all the fingerprints clean and most importantly, no paparazzi shot should take place. capture and erase etheir memory if needed.

1830hrs
head back to the home base. final review of kuala lumpur mission plan. make sure all bring-along devices and gadgets are intact in the luggage. get the passport ready.

2100hrs
confirm departure time. communicate with kuala lumpur base about arrival time. this conversation should be brief and quick in case anybody is tapping this conversation and track our locations. remember to use the secret code identification.

end the conversation with,
"SEE YOU SOON FOR HARI RAYA, MUM"

that should cover it.

may the force be with us.

... ed signing off.

the eggs fanclub

2008-09-25T21:24:00.007+08:00

the other day i watched malaysian opposition's MP teresa kok's interview on tv after she had just been released from that draconian internal security act (ISA) body that has power to detain people without trials (read: without no apparent reason).

she said she was given a rice, 2 boiled eggs and a cucumber to eat while in prison, which she then added, just (a little bit better than) like a dog's food.

in a normal world, that's a normal no-harm neutral statement. because let's face it, prison food sucks. i won't expect people to eat buffet there. so when people ask if you liked it, then you say no, the food sucks.

full stop.

but apparently teresa kok is about to get sued because she spoke ill of the eggs. normal boiled eggs, not even some cute humpty dumpty or anything.

because those retarded people said eggs are poor people's food. so when she said boiled eggs menu in prison sucks, she must have meant poor people's food is not fit for human consumption.

meaning, she's insulting the poor people.

i mean, just how ridiculous is that?

ok so i don't like that smelly tofu dish. i say, i think the smell is like garbage, make me wanna puke. will you get angry with me because then i'm being disrespectful to the chinese people who eats it? will you sue me in court and demand millions of dollars in compensation?

i can understand if those people that complained are from some global egg organization that spend their entire life taking care of egg's human rights, no, egg's food right, but that is so unlikely.

or maybe because people are just angry she mentioned eggs are dog's food. apparently you are a dog's class if you eat the same food as the dog. my grandfather feeds his chicken rice in the village, so i expect i'm a chicken class now.

i'm just relieved nobody has find out yet if our prophet ate eggs so they can start accuse her of insulting the religion.

seriously, this kind of news made it to the pro-government's mainstream media. what does it tell you about the mentality of the people in that business? or even in this country that made it like it's such a big deal?

i rest my case.

...ed

boys just wanna have fun

2008-09-24T22:40:00.006+08:00

people say time flies when you're having fun.

you know what, i don't really think so. like today, i frantically tried to finish this report at work, shunning everybody else behind my back like the monitor screen was my only world.

i was not having fun.

but before i knew it, it was already late afternoon. i swear, it was as if the clock striked in twos. in the end, i could only managed to complete one tiny report in my whole day at work.

productive?

well it depends. on whether people actually read that report. chances are, it would just get ignored. later out of nowhere people would come and ask me about it when i already like moved on to the next life, and i would be like, dude, check your deleted mailbox.

ok maybe that's a bit exaggerated.

still, the fact is, people would only pay attention when something screws up. maybe if the ball dropped, then people would frantically trace back their steps to see things they had overlooked. like in this case, my whole-heartedly-completed report.

it's the same like that milk scandal in china. nobody cares about the milk they consume until suddenly some melanine, no, melamine tainted the chinese produced milk causing tens of thousands sick. i bet before this the word melamine was not even a word yet.

now the word melamine is as common as britney spears.

it's not fair you know. people would think consuming milk would get them strong, healthy and osteoporosis free like what michelle yeoh is all concerned for, on top of her ferrari man, but apparently not for those 6 who died of organ failures.

i mean, what do you have to do to be really healthy in today's world?

in the end, it's what others do that affects you. you could be all saints, eating rabbit foods, not smoking, drinking or whatever, even use overhead bridge to cross the road, but ultimately some bugger would pull the trigger, or release some poisonous gas, or just randomly detain you under ISA and you're doomed before your prime.

so what should we do to survive?

nothing. unless you're willing to sit still in a bullet-no-make-that-earthquake-proof safety box your entire life, you're gonna have to take risks.

as long as it takes for the risk to become a real threat to your own survival, you should just enjoy your life. even if it means to spend the entire night watching the new season of heroes.

if you ask me, my life is pretty enjoyable. that is, until i have to make another round of work reports..

..but at least the time will still fly then...

...ed

second step phone call

2008-09-16T05:15:00.005+08:00

when was the last time you made a bad phone call that could potentially affect your life?

i kinda just did.

oh god, i should have never opened my mouth.

i spent like few hours peeking through technical notes for this inter-continental conversation but what were the questions asked?

basic personality questions.

duh.. as if i work in a bank.

so i was completely caught wrong-footed. but i had to keep my composure and go through with it.

here goes..

how do you see yourself in 5 years?

err wait, let me consult my crystal ball. hmmm i think i see a haze. a blur. which should mean i'm so blur to answer this question...

seriously what is the correct answer for this?

i guess i could paint a prefect scenario where i am a high-flyer technically-adapt project lead that leads his engineers as natural as the sky is blue.

ok move on..

what do you think is your strong personal traits?

ok i have this on top of my head. i'm a goal-oriented person, very eager to learn.

actually i thought that's a pretty good answer until i was asked to give an example.

bummer.

so i had to go on and on about how i made effort learning some perl stuff to be able to write test scripts that would assist me in my analysis work.

what is your weakness and how do you improve it?

gosh how to answer this question? should i venture into 'that' area? ok ok this is strictly work related, so what's my weakness?

i said something in the line of being too careful in doing my work, until it takes longer than necessary.

i don't even know how to improve that. ok maybe if i be more confident, which comes from experience, i wouldn't be that sceptical in my work in the first place.

see.. those were the sample questions. i might have written them answers in perfect english but god knows i had difficulty string 2 relevant words together.

don't get me wrong, i think i'm highly qualified, it's just that these subjective answer is very hard to make. this is not like some technical transistor law that you have equations to work on.

plus, i was very nervous. it's like you're walking on plane of wood. which should be easy right? now let's say someone put a gun on your loved ones and say he will kill your loved one if you ever step a toe out of the plane. now try and walk as calm as before.

the point is, i just hope that they would look beyond those jittery answers and my blabbering to see the man inside, i mean, talent inside.

keeping my fingers crossed.

...ed

a date with a hairdresser

2008-09-15T22:06:00.004+08:00

i was sitting on the high chair feeling all happy and pampered, and beginning to understand the true meaning of heaven on earth, when the hairdresser put a plate of nicely cut mooncake on the desk in front, amongst the various magazines.

errr.. gosh.

god knows i like surprises.

and i like moon cake! it's the 15th day of the chinese lunar calender 8th month, but...

'i cannot eat this', i said.

'you don't eat moon cake? i'm afraid you're hungry'.

said the young hairdresser. i told him i haven't had lunch just a moment ago when he asked. i thought it was just a casual conversation.

oh if my heart can melt, it will.

what should i do?

'no no.. i eat, but i cannot eat now', i said.

he took a glimpse to the steam dome covering my head. he's not thinking i cannot eat because i'm being steamed at the moment, is he?

gosh, this is difficult.

'so you're not gonna eat?', he said.

'err no thanks'.

so he slowly took the plate away and i felt like curling my whole body inside the steamer.

i felt horrible. is this how i treat someone's sweet gesture?

but i have no choice. it's fasting month now, and i simply cannot eat in the middle of a hair salon in the middle of the day.

i could have explained, but then he'd feel embarrased of his ignorance. i mean, he's not local, so it's not his fault actually.

ok maybe a little, but still.. it'd be like telling off mother theresa.

well, looking at the way he did my hair in the end after the treatments (i asked to be cut short at side, spike on top, and long in front. yeah spell that - FUNKY), at least he didn't resort to mawning my head off.

i really hope not.

because he's my favourite hairdresser. i just need to remember NOT to be visiting during this particular month.

i'll take note.

...ed

the annual geylang serai 'pilgrimage'

2008-09-14T11:41:00.012+08:00

after the tanjong katong parking lot incident (previous entree), we proceed to the geylang serai ramadhan bazaar. it was my virgin trip there this year.

so.. how's geylang serai this year?

hmmm light-up decoration not as bad as last year, which looked kinda cheap. this year it was pretty ok, simple, pleasant but nothing special. i've seen this every single year, so there was hardly a surprise there.

what made me more excited? THE FOOD... haaa just now i broke fast at circuit road, eating vegetarian nasi lemak. the plan was to eat something light before going to geylang serai food sweep.

unique huh? i'm sure nobody else ever broke fast with a vegetarian nasi lemak before. it was nice, the sambal was just.. divine.

so makan part 2 would be in geylang serai. the reason why i didn't break fast in geylang in the first place, was because you need to make prior reservation, or else you'd end up eating beside the drain. and that was just too sad to bear.

as usual, there lots and lots of food in geylang serai on ramadhan nights. i expect we could feed the whole somalia with those food spread.

only that i was not very enticed. i didn't feel like eating those sliced bbq meat, fried mee, fried kuey teow, kebab, roti john etc etc. what i wanted? fried cempedak. i don't know why i had a crave for fried cempedak. so i bought 2 dollar (that abang gave me an extra piece, so i got 5 pieces!), and ate standing by the roadside.

there were lots of stalls selling raya shirts, raya curtains, raya cookies, raya cars, raya money.. i mean, raya money envelop.. what a large crown turned-out, it was as if we were walking towards a rock concert show entrance. shoulders rubbed all the time, i felt like we were in a mass orgy or someting.

i wanted to buy the monica lapis legit cake that i always buy every year. the layered cake is nice and cheap but last night, it was sold at 11 dollars, 1 dollar more than the usual price. what a blood sucker. so i didn't buy.

we made rounds after rounds of the many stalls. actually i was hoping to get me a new raya baju melayu, the traditional malay wear that we always wear on the first day of hari raya festival.

but then, the baju melayu dan baju kurung/kebaya (for females) sold in this lion city were.. well.. too glamorous. too modern! for the female's, there were glittering patterns here and there, with body-hugging cutting that gives zero tolerance to coughs or sneezes. very sexy, you could walk in grammy's red carpet in that but to my grandpa's malay village in rembau, malaysia? you'd get stoned for sure (ok this was an expression, haha.. of course we no longer stone people).

even for the men's, mostly the fashions were too daring. the last thing i wanted to do was being looked at as a lost-caused singapore guy in my grandpa's village. really.

so in the end i chose this simple but yet modern, golden-coloured ensemble (SGD52). i matched it with a golden-thread sampin, which is to be worn like a kilt (ok this sounded weird when i wrote it like this, i guess you have to see it actually worn to appreciate) (SGD40).

so one thing done for my hari raya 2008 checklist.

ok 2 things done. because by this, i have done my annual geylang serai ramadhan bazaar 'pilgrimage' too...

...ed

incidents in a dark parking lot

2008-09-14T11:39:00.002+08:00

i just managed to grab a parking lot just beside the tanjong katong complex nearby paya lebar station. there were so many cars, all queuing for parking spots to visit the annual geylang serai ramadhan bazaar, i felt like i stroke toto to be able to park within 5 minutes after entry.

the moment i set foot outside the car, i heard...

'peace be upon you...'

ohh i was surprised ok. it was all dark in the parking lot, it was like the voice came out of nowhere to my ears.

oh i just noticed there was this guy wearing a kopiah and a worn-out malay shirt behind my front door. hmm at first glance, this guy was surely not local. must be from bangladesh, pakistan sides...

suddenly he tried handing me a book. in that dim light, it looked like the holy book.

'take this.. i'm from pakistan... donation blah blah blah..'

i wrote blah blah blah because at that particular time, my ears had shut off from listening. i've met this kind of people a lot ok. let's say if he was really from pakistan, what the hell was he doing there collecting money? there should be a proper place for us to donate, so they don't have to ambush me in that dark parking lot.

quick walk away from there!

i barely made 10 steps when suddenly ...

there was a van stopped nearby me. then a chinese, late 20-ish, wearing a cap opened the van door and walked briskly towards me...

ok if he kidnaps me i'm so gonna scream.

'hey brotha... u want home theater system?'

what?? like a reflex i shook my head. when i'm faced with unexpected and suspicious incidents like this, automatically i'd pull out and say no. there's no time to analize the situation and decide the intention whether it's good or bad.

'brotha, i'm not selling, i have one extra. u want?'

the chinese guy asked again, while at the corner of my eyes, i noticed the white van with dark mirrors slowly moved closer to us. gosh, isn't this getting suspiciously dangerous?

why the hell is he insisting me to take his home theater system? looking at that old van, i'm sure he's not a millionare, tycoon or something that can donate without any reason.

i don't understand. maybe there's drugs or something he stuffed inside the home theater system and i'm supposed to carry that around. oh gosh..

quick! run away!

'it's ok, it's ok, i have already'...

i answered while turning 180 degrees and quickly walked towards some malay youngsters crowd at the other side of the carpark. what he did behind me, i didn't know.

oh gosh, i have no idea this parking lot beide tanjong katong complex is so 'eventful'...

...ed

a malaysian in distress

2008-09-13T00:55:00.006+08:00

i'm a malaysian. it's still in my blood eventhough i do not live in the country. after all, i'm just a causeway bridge away.

there are lots of things malaysian that i'm proud of. like...

wait..

ok there must be something.

.. well anyway, i'm sure there is, i just don't have to give example now.

but all i want to say is, the POLITICS is the one i'm very not proud of.

what's up with all recent yahoos in top managements?

i'm sorry but i don't like what i read about the governments. even with my durr-brain, i could see so many blunders.

apparently the government have resorted to arresting frenzy over opposition party's figures. that, i believe after all other means has failed in getting the mass crowds to support them.

the goverment uses the ISA, the internal security act, to detain without trial. the reason? non-official line says these loud opposition figures create all sorts of problem to the governments.

yes, it's not because whatever they did caused havoc to the country, but to the current 11-hrs governments.

for them perhaps, government equals country (citizens), but i say, not at all. how could anybody said that when the government did't even get clear majority of the popular votes during recent general election?

if we follow the commonly accepted logic, that ruling party member who claimed the chinese are mere squatters in malaysia, and by that comment, stirred the racial discomfort, should head towards the detention gutter first.

but call it the malaysian-way, the government sent the opposition party leader who made the police report about that racist remark under ISA. she was apparently alleged to have complained about the noise of morning prayers at a mosque in her electorate by the media, which she has said the accusation is preposterous and threatened legal action.

ok what about that reporter for the chinese-language daily that was also arrested because she reported about that squarter-calling incident?

the fact is that people in the government who make mistakes walk freely while the reporters, politicians and bloggers who said the facts are detained.

that is why that racist ruling party member though, is still free to roam the country doing his planned road shows to utter more offensive stuff.

i'm sorry but my intelect just failed to understand this.

is the government going all the way to provoke the opposition party members and supporters to create unrest so they will take matters to the street and thus, give the reason for them leaders to be arrested?

this could be among the attempts to dismember opposition-takes-over-the-parliment move planned for mid-september. this is despite the effort of sending a bunch of ruling MP backbenchers to oversea to avoid them from jumping to the opposition.

for me, do whatever they can. it doesn't matter 16-september, or 20-september when the opposition will try to topple the ruling coalition. sooner or later the citizen will have to cast their votes again, and my durr-brain is pretty sure which box they are gonna cross.

...a malaysian in distress

ode to the ice-cream pints

2008-09-11T22:24:00.007+08:00

you know, there's nothing going on in my life.

seriously. i don't know how people can blog every single day about their lives and make it sounds like a movie climax every single time.

because for me, every day is the same day. if i don't know any better, i'd say i'm the truman in the truman show movie.

if you ask me what did i do today, well i woke up, went to work, blew some fire inside my boss' office, worked some more, then went back home.

i'm pretty sure i could do all that in my sleep by now.

gosh am i leading such a boring life?

i guess, after so many years leading this working life, everything is already dangerously set to routines.

ok so maybe i'd be late for work one day. big deal. i've been late many times before too.

maybe if i were to wake up late to a completely another day, then maybe it could become something out-of-this-world but that's so not gonna happen.

so considering nothing on top of my head that is worth blogging for, let me just blog about ice-cream.

the other day i had a craving for a magnum ice-cream.

you know, the one with eva longoria on the advertisement. the sole reason that she was inside it made me wanna try.

because it's unusual. i mean, people endorse beauty products, watches, even shaving tools all the time but ice cream?

it's like madonna suddenly endorse a cup cake.

plus, it's eva we're talking about here, that classy ex-model in wisteria lane, who is by the way, as slim as a dance pole. she's the last object that ppl could associate with ice cream surely.

so i went to the store and try to find one. to tell you the truth, i'm not even so much of an ice cream eater. except maybe occasional cone ice creams in super hot weather, but normally in my book, it's a no-go.

to my surprise, it costs $3.90 for one. that's expensive, no? just for some sweetened iced thingy on a stick? you could almost buy a whopper with that money. or maybe half a seat in the cinema.

nevertheless, i bought it. that was after a few days of buy-no-buy because mysteriously the rain started pouring down like nobody's business causing the weather all chilly everytime i wanted to buy one.

my verdict? hmm ok it wasn't bad. i think it's kind of good, but nothing that made me lose sleep about. ok maybe fretting about the calories i consumed could made me, but the ice cream was fine.

i told this to my female colleagues the next day, hoping they could help explain the logic behind their spesies' ice cream demeanours but instead, they recommended me ben & jerry ice cream.

and i was like, 'did you mean, 'tom' & jerry?'

apparently it was not. in fact they said this is the closest you could get to heaven. in a female's world that is. you'd think they're having an orgasm hearing them describing the joy in consuming this ben & jerry stuff.

ok maybe i should give this a try too.

so just now while i was shopping in the grocery store, i detoured to the ice cream section.

ok there were so many boxes. which one? maybe the one with a cat and a mouse's picture on it?

oh ok i found it. there were so many rows of boxes, or pints as they called it, arranged somewhat neatly in the open freezer. some addicts must have scrambled through all this boxes.

and i glanced upwards to see the tag...

what? ..$13.50? ..and that was after the sale price.

wow what does the ice made of? some remote eternal youth spring water from barbados or something?

man, no wonder female is such a high maintanence walking machine.

i for one, definitely don't need a $13.50 ice cream to fly me to heaven. maybe a good movie show will. or a nice KFC outings. even just a hot cup of marble mocha macchiato.

only those aren't in my boring everyday routine unfortunately...

...ed

Ramadhan night food hunting

2008-09-10T00:33:00.004+08:00

last saturday night, a bunch of us went out to have our break fast together. it was the first time i broke fast NOT being accompanied by my 4-walls. ok actually it was the second time, because one of the night i broke fast behind the wheels..

so just the mere fact that we were going to do this together got me all pumped up and high. we went to eat at serangoon garden food court, near chomp2, off the north-eastern part of the island.

i like this place because it is easy to find a spot to park my car, and there are plenty of tables to sit on, you don't have to go table-hunting like most food courts. but most important, it has my favourite mee rebus stall.

i never actually liked mee rebus (how do i translate this, boiled mee?) until i ate at this place.

go try and spot the mee lol.. ok the mee was being covered by that thick, sweet gravy that is simply out-of-this-world. who needs drug when you can have this?

and this is the selling stall...

having that big-A-deal mee rebus like that, i don't understand why the stall signboard made satay as the main speciality. because the satay was so non-entity cum forgetable. in fact, i have never tasted satay in this Lion city that is as good as KAJANG satay in malaysian southern-KL small KAJANG city where satay is like what belgium is for waffles. simply divine.

at this pak jaapar stall however, satay is just a mere chunks of meat on sticks.

next destination? to changi village later during the night for supper.

this changi village is famous for its nasi lemak (malay dish coconut milk rice). you'd surely see long line forming in front of the stall at the corner of the food court, as if buying madonna's concert tickets. it's that long.

but if you ask me, i don't think there's anything special about the nasi lemak. i mean, there are lot more better place than this one surely. in KL where i grew up, this nasi lemak would have been very mediocre.

the good thing about changi village is that it is easy to find a spot to park my car, and there are plenty of tables to sit on, you don't have to go table-hunting like most food courts.(by the way, if you noticed, my idea of a good place are : 1) easy to find parking-spot 2) plenty of tables to sit at. none of these,equals to a crappy place).

my favourite stall at changi village is actually selling nasi ayam penyet. ok how should i translate this. squashed chicken rice? sounds gross huh. but assure you, it doesn't taste gross at all.

ok you almost won't be able to find this dish in KL. apparently this nasi ayam penyet diah is originated from surabaya, or so my indonesian friend told me. for me, squashed chicken just sounds like dead chicken being steamrolled on the road by cars.

eeeek.

it's just a rice cooked with chicken soup, eaten with crispy fried (and of course, later squashed) chicken, sweet and spicy chilli gravy, as well as friend tofu and tempe (fermented beans). for me, whether the dish is nice or not depends on the chilly gravy. score on this one, you score all the way home.

in this whole singapore island, i like this stall selling nasi ayam penyet the most. ok i don't remember the stall name, but it's at the same row with that famous nasi lemak stall.

however, when we went there that night, it was close. what a BIG bummer. especially we already craved into our minds we were gonna have nasi ayam penyet that very night. i mean, did we drool for nothing?

luckily we spotted this another stall that boasted, 'famous nasi ayam penyet : the first and the original'.

hmm.. actually it's hard to believe signboards like this. like you can find easily 10 stalls that claim their's are the original one, so which one you wanna believe? it's not like it's trademarked or anything. you can practically put anything up there.

because we have no other choice, we just sit down and ordered. turned out to be a very good nasi ayam penyet! the chilly gravy was almost as divine, although the fried tofu and fermented beans seemed like had missed the last bus. not in sight.

for me, this nasi ayam penyet was better than the famous nasi ayam penyet ria restaurant in orchard lucky plaza. what makes nasi ayam penyet ria special is that it has this crispy fried bits together with the crisply chicken. however, the chilly gravy there not on-par with my favourite. plus, it's expensive at 6 dollars per dish, hard to get parking, and have to pay ERP bla bla bla...

we went back at almost midnight, ending a night long of jalan jalan cari makan on this particular ramadhan night.

the end.

...ed

break fast countdown

2008-09-09T20:55:00.006+08:00

faster than a ray of light, it's already the 9th day of Ramadhan, the fasting month.

does it bare any significance to me? yes. well, today is the 2nd time i broke fast inside my car with one hand on the steering.

why? because some buggers decided it was a perfect time to do stunts on the road and caused accidents.

or else, how could any car meet with an accident in singapore highways? the road is 4-lanes big, very clear road dividers, super bright lightings, no construction holes whatsoever, and there are speed limit reminder every 10 steps, not to mention speed camera at every 10 breaths.

because of the road jam, i only drank a vitagen and munched some bread pudding that was so mediocre i forgot why i munched it in the first place behind the wheel at 7.08pm sharp.

the reason why i went back late just now was because i attended the weekly yoga class after work in the office.

yes, you heard that right. i did yoga. weird?

one thing i hate is that people tend to think that you are all weak when you're fasting. they expect you to look like old vegetable all day.

so i'm fasting. big deal. i still do my weekly badminton and you know what? i survived it. for all i know, i even felt lighter with zero foreign substance in my system.

the other day, i went to work all red-eyed, sleepy and miserable, and my colleague was like, 'oh you look tired. must be the fasting..'

which was so not. i played tennis the night before until late, and then some break fast late night rendezvous so i practically went asleep at 3am, woke up 4.30am for morning iftar, and slept again till 7am.

for all i know, the first week of Ramadhan had me all busy with activities, which god forbids my father from finding this out, has nothing to do with this holy month.

which should be ok, right? as long as i observe my utmost dedication to the rituals in daytime. not enough, i even extended my good deeds beyond daytime.

like just now. i never curse those accident buggers that held me up.

ok maybe i gloated a lil' bit.

...ed

disturbia

2008-08-29T20:31:00.013+08:00

i blasted my stereo the other day and rihanna was on. i've already had a miserable week, ok relatively more miserable than any other weeks, so when she goes..

Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum
What's wrong with me?

and i was like, yeah, what's wrong with me?

Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum
Why do I feel like this?
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum
I'm going crazy now

oh yes, i'm so going crazy now. why? because there were still no words, no nothing. nil. nada. every morning i woke up with a glint of hope but by the time i glanced through my mail before dashing off for breakfast, all hope gone leaving me with this big heavy load in my chest.

No more gas in the rig
Can't even get it started
Nothing heard, nothing said
Can't even speak about it
All my life on my head
Don't want to think about it
Feels like I'm hurting my brain..

i swear, i felt as if i was in her video clip or something. this song could easily be my life anthem. did i write this in my sleep? because god knows my brain is hurting right now.

or else, tell me why on sunday afternoon when it was all rainy outside creating a perfect hybernation nest at home, i grabbed my car key and drove all the way to my company to check my e-mail? it's like badawi suddenly wakes up and decide to debate in parliment.

i felt like i was living in limbo. neither here nor there, and it's tiring. it's like, gosh, show me the way already! you see, even the annual chinese ghost earth-roaming time is almost up and they have to go back to their realm very soon.

i on the other hand, have to remain in standby-mode.

only that it's getting worse. i think i've become weird with this anticipation. for instance, everything i do now that has anything to do with this subject, i think i could jinx my chance.

like this entry, i wanted to put 'my heart will go on' as the title, but i was afraid it will sink my hope just like the titanic.

ridiculous huh. am i losing it?...

Your mind's in disturbia
It's like the darkness is the light
Disturbia
Am I scaring you tonight? Disturbia..

indeed. to tell you the truth, i'm scared myself.

but i guess, like i've always reminded myself, things happened for a reason. i just have to be patient and content.

so in the meantime i'd just go..

Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum (ba da da de din da)
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum (ba da da da din daa)
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum (disturbia ahh ohh)
Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum

...ed

a nation in distress

2008-08-26T22:52:00.005+08:00

so anwar ibrahim won the malaysia's permatang pauh by-election.

with a bigger majority too! you see, having found it impossible to topple anwar in this home turf, the ruling national front party resorted to this conception, where they would consider victory if they were able to only reduce the majority.

haha so eat that s*ckers!

now, do i think the EC is 100% reliable and clean from any misdeed? nope. there were far too many complaints, about the waxed voting papers, missing or duplicated registration names, phantom voters, to just to name a few. but at least, nobody think these so-accused-riggings have anything to do with anwar's victory.

this landslide win is all attributed to the power of the people, who have spoken loud and clear that they wanted anwar back in the parliment. personally, i hope he will quickly topple the current government because excuse me, i don't have much confidence in the government that only interested in investigating other people's anus and swearing on the holy book that they don't know a certain mongolian model.

seriously. i mean, what kind of government that increase and reduce petrol price to the function of election dates? where's the integrity of the government that sneaked in dna identification bill in parliment whilst the bulk of the opposition was campaigning in Permatang Pauh?

as long as there is almost 50-50 representative from the ruling national front coalition and the opposition in the parliment, they will continue condemning each others down. which means, we can safely assume that there will be zero development until at least the next 4 years, when it will be time again for the general election.

that's why i believe anwar wining is the first step towards creating an alternative govenment which hopefully can turn malaysia to a better future. until then, i would continue to hang my flag upside down.

...ed

the top spin affair

2008-08-18T14:56:00.019+08:00

rafael nadal won the olympic gold!

wow i'm so ecstatic, i'm practically in cloud-nine mode. ok i know it was not like i share the winning money or the gold, but still it was such a big deal for me.

yahoo sports getty image

especially considering nothing much else happening in my life right now. nothing that big a scale anyway. on the application, nothing has been confirmed yet. would it be my happy ending? i certainly hope so but for now it's all still grey.

i just bought myself a notebook, a sleek white acer aspire one with intel atom, 120G hard drives, 1G RAM, windows XP, for SGD799.

the acer is that small, not my hand is that big

i had wanted a notebook from like ages ago. every person i know has one. ok every cool person i know has one. not having one is just like not having a handphone! or a botox fix...

just plain wrong.

ed's top 5 reasons why he needs a notebook:

can blog and chat anytime anyplace
useful while travelling to upload all the camera photos in the run
it was on sale, at a totally rip-off price so i was actually saving money
makes me look cool and business-like
..err what else? ..to give something to do at starbucks?

so i bought it. in fact, i'm so happily typing this from the notebook right now, almost oblivious to the fact that the particular notebook is part of past week's costly expenditure.

seriously, the money has been flowing out like water. it was scary alright...

ed's past week's major expenses:

above acer aspire one notebook $799
wireless router to get it connected to the internet $82
wireless receiver adaptor that the shop person said i need, but didn't $50
house master bedroom's water heater replacement $580
kitchen's water heater servicing $50

hmm..

well i don't have much choice.

what am i supposed to do? bathe in cold water? surely that is a health hazard. look at the japanese, they always soak in hot ofuro and they live like a gazillion years long.

anyway, those sums up are still cheaper than, say.. a DLSR camera which i drool on despite having a G7. or maybe an LV bag for the ladies (which i don't understand the handbag brand craving but again, maybe i just don't have the proper hormones to digest that).

the point is, it's not like i'm throwing out money irresponsibly...

still, it would be marvellously wonderful if i have the ability to win an olympic gold medal and get all that prize money, while having some unknown stranger in some corner of the world gloating over my victory...

i wish..

...ed

i hate wireless routers!

2008-08-18T01:47:00.006+08:00

i hate wireless routers.

the last time i tried to configure one, back when i was still staying in a rented place with that horrible housemate, things went horribly wrong.

ok that horrible housemate was the one configuring it on my pc because he wanted to share the connection, but still i was left a few days with sero internet! it was like living in a cave.

losing internet connection is such a nightmare. for me, it ranks out there with other horrid things, you know, like hunger, death, and abdullah ahmad badawi.

so when i bought this wireless router just now, i had a tiny whiny hope that everything would work out alright. after all, the shop person insisted that the installation should be simple enough and fool-proof.

yeah right.

so when lee chong wei was fighting for his life from being totally annihilated by lin dan in beijing olympics men's gold medal match, i was fighting for my life from being tangled up in all those ethernet wires.

in the end, i managed to get things right... in the next morning! the remedy? i just had to restart my modem, and voila! everything works in place and i don't feel like burning the whole pc system anymore.

but that doesn't change the fact that wireless router is the ultimate evil evil being that the world could be better without.

or at least, just during lee chong wei's final gold medal match...

...ed

p/s to keep to record straight, linksys router is wonderfully simple enough, just maybe i was just 'that' dumb when it comes to router setting...

the ball game

2008-08-12T21:00:00.005+08:00

that's it.

i've pressed the button. now the ball is officially in their court.

there's no turning back. am i scared? honestly, a bit, yeah. but just like in malaysian politics, it's not a matter of whether can i afford to change things now, but rather can i afford not to?

now that i wrote this, i couldn't help feeling kinda deja-vu. you know, i've done this before. i've clicked the button too sometime last year but what where did the ball ended up to?

rot in their court.

but i'm sure this time is different. i mean, this is not like following the common trend and going with the flow without knowing if i really want it.

i had wanted this since years back.

in fact, this couldn't have come at a better time. it's as if the heaven's door was wide open when i was having my doubts about recent events and hoping for some enlightenment.

did i accidentally rub any magic lamp recently?

anyway, it's only fair. i've been in this tunnel long enough. longer than the time it took for my car to go through its first petrol kiosk car wash. heck, even cinderella has a midnight dateline.

what i'm going to do now, is just see how things go. if this doesn't work out, just like the almost-expired free movie passes i carry around in my bag failing to be utilized due to prolonged unmatched timings, so be it. everything must have happened for a reason so why fret over unsuspected turn of events?

except my friend said this is not enough. apparently wanting it just 80% will not get me what i want because i have 20% doubts. i need to be wanting it 110%. or at least the intention to cut my wrist if anything goes by negative.

hmm actually he has a point. my brain just shut down and i stuttered like a retarded shabery during his live debate with anwar ibrahim in malaysian tv during last year's interview, because i didn't know how to answer why i wanted that position.

if i were to rate how much i had wanted that job, maybe somewhere around 5%.

that was just slightly more than how i wanted that pink shirt in EDC but eventually backed out because i already bought the discounted green striped one and i wanted to be frugal. or maybe how much i wanted to watch dark knight at the cinema now that people said it was all talk an no action.

the point is, i just need to make my decision and stick to it.

yes. i mean, i had thrown the ball to their court, so if they want to play beach volleyball with it, then so i will.

...no matter how hot the sand would be under my feet like last saturday noon sentosa game. at least this time i will be prepared not to get sun-burnt.

...ed

because the family is gold

2008-08-08T23:22:00.002+08:00

it's the beijing olympic opening day today! sharp on 8 Aug 08 at 8.08pm.

wow it was such a great opening ceremony. i just loved the fireworks shaped like a foot step, shot into the sky one after another along the highway as if foot steps walking towards the bird's nest stadium. 29 steps altogether symbolizing the 29th olympic stop. creative right?

overall, it was such a grand, yet very culturistic performance. i think the performance managed to show the world what china is all about in just one evening. it was orchested by zhang yimou, so what do you expect?

it's almost scary how they managed to mobilized tens of thousands of people to create such a perfect show. i guess it helped that china has the most disciplined and most patriotic citizens i've ever known. seriously. i mean, hang the malaysian flag out of you window and you'd just be stamped as badawi ass-licker in no time.

i had just came back from a few days escapade in kota kinabalu. yes, again. twice in the last 3 months which is so unlike me, because when it comes to travelling, i prefer a one night stand approach. but this time was to bring my parents there.

to tell you the truth, i never thought a time off with my family would be so fun. not that we are not in good terms or anything, but things just somehow tend to get formal whenever i'm with them.

perhaps it all traced back during my childhood time when i used to be scared of my parents. i was the kind that ordered plain water during an eat-out session because i was afraid that other drinks would be too expensive.

in fact, now that i think about it, i was afraid of many things when i was little. ever heard of students getting caught smoking in the toilet, or skipped classes to sniff bicycle gums behind the school block? i never did those things because that would be against the norm and i so afraid to commit them.

that is why now when i'm all grown ups and no longer live with them, stepping my toes out of line feels like disneyland. freedom embraces me like drugs, i could get half of the singapore population into my bed and nobody's gonna even bother.

except those times when i'm in my parents company, when all these invisible rules come swooping back and haunts me like a lingering poltergeist. before i knew it, every words i said sound like work interview replies, and the shower room can expect me no later than 7pm everyday again.

so forgive me for being sceptical about this particular family trip at first. especially after i realized how fun it was spending time together, be it in our joined le meridien room, or while walking along the waterfront to find eating place that suited them, or even inside the cramped toyota uncer that brought us through 2-hours of bumpy ride to kundasang.

to make the trip even better, i managed to do thing that i missed out during my last visit. like spotting the raflesia, the world's biggest flower at kg kokob near ranau.

this flower takes 15 months to bloom and it lasts only 7 days

or so it was said because the version that i saw was just slightly bigger than a pensieve. nevermind that we had to pay RM10 per person just to see the flower, and we couldn't even get near to it to smell the stench.

the island outing also was better because this time it was all clear and sunny compared to heavy storm the last time i went. i believe that previous weather bitch must have had her ass kicked by the mt kinabalu bobohizans. we chose mamutik island because we have never been there, and it still has live corals.

where we managed to spot nemo! yeah apparently we don't need to carry like a tonne heavy air tank and dive to the sea bottom to spot one, just enough by glancing from the surface.

pulau mamutik escapade in such a blessed weather

at the end of the day, i just felt fulfilled. i mean after all, people might come and go, in and out of our beds but family will always be there to stay when you need them.

no wonder when sarah brightman sang the olympic song just now, i wished it was 'keep it together' by madonna instead.

...ed

so much for my happy ending

2008-07-31T19:54:00.013+08:00

it's one of those time.. again.. when you feel demoralized and everything just won't matter. one of my dear colleague said he was quitting today, and that was after i heard about another resignation during yesterday's team meeting.

so there were 2 of them. maybe there would be another one tomorrow and it would be a hatrick. it would then probably followed by a slow death of our acquintance, if the funeral parlour in front of the office is anything to go by.

ok it was not actually a funeral parlour but some temporary storage trailers but i swear they look like one.

these news just hit me off pretty hard. sometimes i just wished that things would remain as they are. you know, like we live in a time vacuum or something. i would then have all my close friends nearby having fun all the time and stay forever 25.

but now i felt just like those in Friends when rachel got a job in paris.

during lunch i returned to my cubicle and browse some sites that offer higher degree learnings. hmm maybe i should take some part-time course and try to change field. especially after my boss doesn't think i'm doing anything.

even if he was, it's not like i can strike a millionare doing what i'm doing. i mean, how many of those top millionares out there are from engineering fields?exactly.

i must first distance myself from facebook and find something constructive to do with my life, like thinking about my future and find an electrician to fix my water heater.

want to blame someone that i was always occupied at night after work? blame the facebook. it's the place where you make artificial friends that keep your friends counter going and nothing else. seriously.

you see, when a bunch of friends invited me for a durian fiesta recently, they were not originally my facebook friends, and we had fun.

and the durian was superb. we had it at this durian king stall in chinatown just beside that famous frog porridge restaurant. i didn't notice this place before, probably because the only time i went to chinatown, was during chinese new year festival to see the kereta ayer opera.

what was good about this place was that it had all the different types of durians nicely labelled, so you won't get cheated as you most probably would if you were in geylang.

those geylang durian sellers just wait while sharpening their knife by the chopperboard, on which people keep willingly put their heads on. it's amazing really.

facebook so-called friends just dropped into town and treated like you didn't exist. i guess, we are all 2-dimensional substance to the other internet end, who goes to screensavers whenever we idle, or downloads torrents while on standby mode.

another non-facebook friend invited me for a movie last weekend. we watched red hill. ok that was what i mistakenly called the movie until my friend corrected me. red hill was of course, the mrt station, and the movie was red cliff.

it was just another chinese epic war movie based on the famous 3-kingdoms power struggle period in chinese history. nevertheless, i enjoyed it. it was a kind that the good guy's army was greatly outnumbered and you kinda wait for every tricks to unfold during the war while fighting the bad guy's army. in the end, the good prevails and all of us left happy.

of course that was only limited in the cinema theater. the reality in the real world isn't exactly so. george bush will prevail, as will abdullah ahmad badawi. there will be no happy ending. if cinderella was in our world, she would be the maid that fall to her death when being forced to clean the balcony of a high rise hdb.

i'm not doing much better either. if i don't know any better, i would think this is all retribution. it's karma. i must be job hopping all my life in my previous life, making friends and then leaving them in misery, ignoring my facebook contacts, and being an assholes on the roads.

maybe i should discuss this in facebook's forums.

...ed
p/s add me @ facebook 'adie zulkifli'

jazzy lil' dives

2008-07-19T18:45:00.012+08:00

i woke up without a hang over today. ok it made sense actually, because it was not like miss chivas last night could do me any harm with that extent, but sometimes i could just only hope.

the clarke quay riverwalk outing was fun. sure, all was my colleagues and as crazy as we could be, i guess everyone figured it was wise not to smear our reputation too bad to someone who could end up being our boss in the future.

the result? a very business-like outing, the only thing missing was a notebook.

still it was a breath of fresh air to see them eye to eye and not mentioned about the yields. we stayed at the Jazz bar till almost midnight before i had to take leave and collect my car in my company, somehow feeling a bit like friday-night loser.

but again, maybe i was just not being soberly myself...

anyway, i opened my mailbox yesterday and there was a letter from PADI, piled in between junk mails.. i mean, bills.

it was my open water diving license! issued by PADI asia pacific which is based in australia.

sounds cool huh? i almost secretly wished someone was beside me while i opened that, so i could shrugged away and say, 'nah it's nothing, just my diving license' as if i got this everyday.

it seemed quite a world away when i was on that diving trip. ok it was actually a 4D3N diving course, held in aur island off johore's east coast shore in early june.

Aur Island Diving
07-10 June

to be honest, i've never heard of aur island before. apparently it's located not far from tioman island, but have much lower profile (thus much cheaper) because this place isn't really developed as a tourist spot.

for a start, we were stranded on boat early morning ~5am just offshore because of low tide. the beach looked ugly with lots of rocks, shells and dead coral pieces alongside a narrow white sandy area. the water looked clear though, i could see colourful fishes, even squid from the boat.

only at about 7am the tide was high enough for us to get ashore using a transfer small speed boat.

this was the extent of the low tide

the place we were going to stay was just consist of few dorm rooms, a couple of chalets and an eating hall. full stop. my friend asked beforehand if the room has aircond and stuff, and this organizer guy said, divers don't really care about those stuff.

huh really? guess i got my first sense of culture shock.

even in this remote island murphy's law still applies. as soon as we arrived, it got cloudy.

Day 1

at about 10am, all the open water students gathered and we met the instructors properly for the first time, a french guy named christophe and his helper, nas. ok they looked friendly enough.

they asked us to each took a bundle of instruments and introduced us piece by piece. it was the first time I saw a bc, regulator and of course, the tank. it looked complicated at first but we managed to put them together and headed to the water.

from left: christophe, nas, x,x,me! and the rest...

first lesson in the water was to kneel, as in doing a confession but to some god of sea or something. not that i do that, but just to give an idea. you'd be suprised how difficult it was to balance. we kept on being pushed by the current.

next, to clear water from inside the mask. chances are, water is gonna get inside your mask while you are deep underwater and you won't wanna surface up everytime to clear it. it was kinda tricky because water kept getting into our nose but it was pretty simple actually.

then, how to search for the oxygen tube in case it got knocked over and how to share oxygen point from buddy when ours somehow cut off.

after lunch we got back in the water. this time we practised how to completely opened our mask and put back on. having the mask nicely and secured was so our comfort zone, thus having to purposely opened it felt like a torture.

even more so, when we were asked to open the bc which kept us afloat and put it back on. i bet the instructors were enjoying this because i so wasn't. i mean, it was like when you are on a parachute and they asked you to fold it and open it back on while on air. evil? i think so..

the controlled emergency swimming ascent, or CESA as they called it, was more fun. we just need to take a deep breath underwater, then screamed Aaaaaaaaaa while paddling rigorously to the surface. useful when we are running away from sharks. haha ok that was actually in the event when we are out of air and no buddy in sight to share air nearby. the scream was supposed to even out the pressure in our lungs to the surroundings.

the highlight of the day was when we did buoyancy practise. by the way, the instructor always pronounced it as beyonce, which was kinda funny. he would be like, 'ok let's do beyonce today' haha.. anyway, we did the practise by swimming around following the instructors while starting to enjoy underwater scenery.

i had some problem to stay afloat at static level because i would either sinked and threating the corals towards extinction, or floated too high. the view was not as clear as in the morning, at one time i could barely even see the instructor.

Day2

our morning session dive did not start until 1015am. what i like about this arrangement was that we were not forced to wake up early and stuff. everything felt laid back and relaxing. after all, this was supposed to be a holiday too, right?

the weather was still cloudy and very windy. it even rained lightly when we got underwater. can you believe that? it could rain for another 364 days and it had to fall today.

this morning we did the yesterday's mask clearance, regulator drop and find, and buddy secondary air source sharing. by now we could do those with ease as if it was our second nature. ok most of the time anyway.

then the instructor led us swimming, or rather, diving through the sea bottom towards a deeper area.

man, so that was how diving feels like. it was like being on drugs, not that i've tried any but that was how i imagined it, being enclosed in another world with colourful sights and only air bubbles in our ears.

the visibility was not superb but pretty good. i could see various shapes of corals ~hard, soft, salad shape, mushroom shape etc.. you name it, it was there. ok i might blindly treat anything static underwater as corals but hey, who cares? you could not find these on land anyway.

the fishes were colourful but nothing too big. halfway through the dive, i lost sight of my buddy so I kept going up, down and around to search for her, feeling every bit like marlin searching for nemo. except i did find her later, she just had trouble descending.

we got back to shore by alternately towing each other with our buddy.

after lunch break, we rode a boat with our diving equipments to the pontoon further a bit from the shore for a swim test..

which i don't understand why. the basic concept of swimming is to stay afloat above water. what's the basic of diving? to stay submerged underwater. now tell me why we need to do the swimming test during this diving lesson?

plus, i'm not a good swimmer.

but my brain must have been affected in some way by nitrogen poisoning from the morning dive or something, because i found myself willingly jumped into the water and did breast stroke as if i have been doing it all along.

in fact, i was starting to feel proud of myself when i realised my mask was blocking my nose. i could not breathe properly but i could not stop to adjust it. ok this was so not good.

my heart started to pump heavily as i got more panicked. my head got lower and lower during inhalation when i got more tired from struggling to stay afloat. some water made it through my mouth and that was when i realized i was going to drown.

you know i saw a lot of movies with people drowning so i was very convincing when i cried for help. a diving friend was nearby so he let me hold onto to him but he started sinking as well. wait, this too was so like in the movie. or was it in the accident news?

anyway, i lived to tell the story after the dive instructor jumped down and saved me. never had i been so relieved being in a man's arms before. ok scratch that but the point is, nobody was harmed in making that little scene around the pontoon on that particular afternoon.

enjoying those on land moments by watching sunset by the beach

Day3,4

basically we just did dive after dive and learned along the way. there are few different dive sites around aur island with different water depth, but generally we did not exceed 15m. the weather started to improved too, and for the first time i was worried about getting sun burnt.

the highlight of the dive was when i spotted a blue spotted lagoon stingray on the sea bed. at last something big, and i know the name of (obviously i only knew it as just stingray, i checked the complete name thereafter), and then i saw a giant sea cucumber, which i thought was a bolster dropped out from the titanic.

before returning to the surface, we learned to do a buddha pose and hovered about 5meters under water for a few minutes to neutralize the pressure and get rid of access nitrogen in our blood. it was for safety precaution but for me, it was fun doing acrobatics like nobody's business when we were supposed to stay still like a yoga posture.

written test that night to see if we understood the theory

in total we did 6 dives altogether, which was pretty a lot for a diving trip. partly because after we were certified, we joined the rest of the experienced divers who mostly were hardcores. seriously, these people were like a whole other species. i guess when we evolved from sea creatures onto the land animal a gazillion years ago, some of those behaviour left inside some of us.

i got to enjoy the nice scnerey of the island during those dry moments in between dives.

we were fortunate that we had help in getting those tanks in and out of boats, because those things were darn heavy. during the first day when we did the initial underwater practise near the shore, we had to walk back to the beach with that thing on our back. i felt very much like a turtle that inched towards the sand to lay eggs. seriously.

the final photo before we left the island.. satisfied and certified but just without the official license which was just arrived recently. i was glad i did it you know, it was a totally different experience and moreover, one step closer to our dream visit to sipadan island.

till i wear this flippers again... in the meantime i'd be just content in spending time in some Jazz bars humming kelly clarkson's chivas.

...ed

wake me up when monday ends

2008-07-13T20:34:00.003+08:00

i'm exhausted. i don't know what i did. ok i did go to the gym before noon for about 20 minutes, then drove down to joo chiat for lunch at hajah maimunah, sending my friend off in toa payoh dan headed back home for an afternoon nap. from then on i have been in hibernation mode.

maybe that was the problem. too much slacking time.

i don't mind though. tomorrow is monday, and as if the normal afternoon weekly meeting isn't stressful enough, there will be a visitor from our main hq in US.

as with the past visitors, i expect she will be getting the normal red carpet treatment from her hotel to her temporary throne in the office, and the whole department 'kow-tow'ing to her feet chanting 'long live long live her majesty' all the time.

you see, i so need the energy to face all that tomorrow apart from my usual monday blues.

yesterday me and my dear friend went for a vegetarian buffet at ling zhi restaurant. i have heard about this place in chinatown before, but last week we spotted this new branch in novena square and found out about the high-tea dim sum buffet for dollars 15++ and figured, we must try this out.

i must say i'm not that all crazy about dim sum in the first place. in fact, i don't think i'm normally crazy about any food, except sushi, and hajah maimunah, and now the durians, but i'm all for new taste. plus, considering i'm trying to get my kilos one notch lower, i have been abstaining myself from the usual splurge so this felt like a treat.

there was not much of a spread, which i guess it's ok considering this is a high-tea, and me and my friend are not big-eaters anyway. here are some of the dishes we took. i'm sorry i don't even know what they are called. i mean, they are all steamed flours wrapping some stuff, what's the difference?

we were told we could order some off the menu, so i went for 'sauteed monkey head mushroom with dried chilli'. ok i admit, the monkey head was the one catching my attention. it turned up to be the one on the bottom left. we ordered 'bag of treasure' too for one obvious reason, and that was the one on the bottom right.

taste wise, it was alright. not very tasty and not very bland either. i guess that's what vegetarian is all about too : moderation.

after that we went to yishun avenue 7 choice optical shop because my friend wanted to buy glasses. his friend is working there so it was like throwing 2 birds with one stone. ok perhaps 3 birds in this case because that means genuine discount and no rip-off as well.

what i wanted to say here is that, after my friend did his eye test, they did mine too, just out of my interest, and here was the result.

the result was quite a relief. after spending about half of my life staring at computer screens (in romantic dim lights normally at home), i guess my eyes are still alright.

except a bit of astig on my left eye. the reading says 1.75, which i guess not serious since i don't notice it unless i'm on the back of the room trying to read the board in front. plus, wikipedia says Astigmatism is quite common. studies have shown that about one in three people suffers from it.

ahah. one in three, that's very common right? like when you see a family of 3 on the road, or say maybe the 'destiny's child', one of them would have astig right?

then the article goes, 'the prevalence of astigmatism increases with age. although a person may not notice mild astigmatism, higher amounts of astigmatism may cause blurry vision, squinting, asthenopia, fatigue, or headaches.'

hmm.. fatigue? maybe that's what causing me feeling fatigue all day. oh god i knew it! but again, it's for my left eye. must i feel fatigue on my left side then? gosh i'm so screwed.

i better close my eyes then and go to bed, hoping i'd wake up on tuesday.

...ed

tennis, the train and ghostbusters

2008-07-07T22:13:00.010+08:00

i'm ecstatic. ok i literally was smiling ear to ear from early morning. the moment i woke up, i jumped off my bed and clicked on yahoo tennis, and there was the sight of rafael nadal screaming on the grass and i knew it was all a happy ending.

that was just passed 5am, and i felt fresh as ever. although the truth is, i couldn't sleep all night. i know at that moment nadal was battling roger federer for the wimbledon tennis championship crown, so i kept getting these glimpses of nightmares of federer actually won (god forbids!) in my sleep.

i just couldn't watch the match live. i just couldn't. it was too heart-wrenching, the roller-coaster ride events were just too much to bare. i mean, i like riding the actual roller-coaster you know, but at least with that i know i won't feel like jumping off some cliff at the end of the ride.

so what i did was just have my panasonic HD recorder do the job and i just hoped for the best (spell: chickened-out).

and you know what, good things do come to boys who wait. never have i been so upbeat about going to work on monday morning, even with lack of the previous night's sleep just to share the joy with everybody who bothers. i think the whole company know i'm nadal's big fan.

work, well, went as usual. morning was spent preparing for the weekly meeting (whilst peeping in menstennisforums.com once in awhile when the computer was processing), then lunch, long meeting, then having the usual after-meeting withdrawal syndrome hanging around in other people's cubicles before dashing home on time.

to rewatch the good parts of last night's match.

gosh, now when i wrote about it, i do sound like a maniac, don't i? i guess these freaky little things make me happy in my pathetic little life. i mean, i really don't need to be climbing mt kinabalu up and down, or diving to the shore of the deep sea just to feel fulfilled. give me a nadal win from my couch and i'm practically in orgasm mode.

i just think that i'm easily satisfied. in fact, as a human being, i must be the simplest emotionally created version ever. there are no complex feeling whatsoever. like the other day when my internet acquintance happened to throw me a bomb, asking me what was i thinking about at that exact moment, and i figured, nothing.

nada. which made me think, am i that shallow inside?

maybe it's ok you know. i mean, do i need unnecessary stress thinking about stuff that might or might not happened? i might as well just enjoy the ride as it is. if there is even a ride in the first place.

oh yes, i must mentioned about this long time friend that i met last saturday. we studied our degree together in nagoya japan. we were from different universities though, me from nagoya university of technology doing engineering and she was from nagoya university doing medicine.

we haven't met since i left japan in year 2000, so when she said she'd be in singapore for some conference thingy, we just had to meet. eventhough the only time and place to do that was one hour before her flight in changi airport terminal 2 sakae sushi.

it was refreshing catching up with our lives. she was still as i had remembered her. all the deja vu of our students life came rushing back in. it was amazing how we were once in the same time and space, and now we have our own lives to live.

while updating each other about our lost moments, i kept on thinking, 'has it been that long?' it has been 8 years for goodness sake. what have i achieved for the last 8 years to update? only something so mediocre i must say. i haven't invent anything new, or make any beneficial discoveries, or even contribute anything back to the society.

my life has been a straightforward constantly-moving-way-under-speed-limit-in-singapore-expressway journey with little sights in between. with that sights being weekends.

weekends that include a trip to JB by railway train from singapore's tanjong pagar station recently which i couldn't understand why it has to be delayed every single freaking time. seriously. that railway company is a total disgrace. they charged me SGD10 for a 45 minutes journey which include super slow-motioned immigration checkpoint at woodlands. i spent like what, 5 minutes inside the train.

the stupid train was delayed by 30 minutes, at its starting station!

at least this still gave me a bit of childhood nostalgia

anyway, if it was not for the invititation for house warming cum ghostbuster mission made by my friend, i wouldn't bother to make the trip. she's from johore, working in singapore and recently just purchased an apartment in larkin. confused? well i couldn't write more about her since she's reading this blog haha..

the house by the way, is nice. the location was on this quiet suburb beside some greens, from where i supposed some paranormal instances could originate from haha.. (ok the truth is i'm always jealous of nice new houses). the gathering went ok too, it was a lot of fun.

ok now i am sleepy. i think i'll watch a bit more of last night match and go to bed feeling high...

...ed

no holds barred (not in batam)

2008-06-30T21:56:00.008+08:00

wow now only i got some time to write.

it has been quite some hectic weeks for me. it's not my fault. when the atp tour arranged french open grand slam and wimbledon lawn tennis championship head to head with only few weeks aparts, they failed to see that for a tennis freak like me, that means many weeks glued in front of tv after work and abandoned my blog.

plus, i was away last weekend. a friend of mine who works in a travel agency in raffles place got us a SGD98 deal for 2D1N batam purajaya resort escapade. that was cheap! i mean, the boat alone normally costs around SGD50 including taxes, now plus the seaport transfers, hotel room and lunch/breakfast for that amount is a total rip.

the whole trip, well, was pretty fun. it's batam so it's not like there was anything to see, we just had fun enjoying cheap nice foods and bargain hunting. there were 8 of us so our movements were quite slow, i didn't even manage to go for night live band and body massage which was kind of a bummer...

the resort itself was pretty far from town. it's a nongsa part of the island, which is about 40 minutes drive to nagoya, or about rph80,000 per taxi. that works about sgd12, which is not much cheaper compared to singapore.

in fact, in you asked me, things in batam was not much cheaper either. i guess it all depends on how we bargain. it's one of those places where every single tourist has the word 'rip me off please' firmly planted on their forehead.

i mean, tell me why a kilogram of rambutan at the roadside stall costs rph15,000 (sgd2.25) when in singapore i could buy for sgd1.50? we had to fight to lower the price for some fake goods too which the quality is of course, very questionable. it got so tiring after awhile having to argue every single time so i ended up shopping in local supermarkets.

when we got back to singapore, where there was internet again, a free internet unlike blood-sucking sgd8/hour internet at the resort, i found out about the new sodomy claim against malaysian ex-deputy PM anwar ibrahim.

that was quite a news huh! apart from a particular attention-catching keyword, this evolves a high profile figure. i have no idea politics in malaysia could get that dirty. who in a sound mind would believe such a claim? what's sad is that despite knowing that, there is nothing us, the civillians, could do, especially with election 4 (light-)years away.

well at least there's an infinite 4-years wait, but in my situation at work right now, i don't even know when things could improve. i had a talk with my boss this morning. it was a performance review actually. apparently he took notice that i had been losing steam lately. which was surprising considering i did my work as normal despite no longer feeling interested. man, was it that obvious?

ok maybe i wasn't producing much results to begin with, but that was actually because i figured i had been loaded with unmeaningful tasks. while i was busy doing a supporting role from the backseat, my colleagues have been consistently leaping over me scoring issues by issues and be like the darling of the company. so when the evaluation time comes, tell me what's stopping me from getting a pariah pay?

oh well, we did the talks and let's see how things go. at this moment, i just want to gloat over rafael nadal's victory to wimbledon's quarter-final...

...ed

all hail the majestic aki-nabalu

2008-06-16T21:28:00.029+08:00

golden week travelogue part 3 ~ mount kinabalu
07-09 May 2008

it was late afternoon when our royal brunei landed back in kota kinabalu. it felt funny just about 24 hours ago we left for brunei and now we were back again on this same land. it was like a deja-vu.

view from my flight window

my friend has already booked a room for us at le meridien, so we quickly grabbed a cab and headed to the city. i was hoping we could be at the waterfront in time to view the sunset.

by the way, this friend who booked the room is my dearest friend's friend. i met him for the first time in brunei. apparently he has like thousands of hotel membership points so he used those for booking.

little did we know when we arrived at the hotel and opened the room door, that it was a suite!

i know he's rich and all that but this surely a bit too much, i felt a bit obligated to sell him part of my soul.

oh well, probably the bank he works at in brunei pays his salary in oil barrels or something (thanks khalid! :)

the room was totally sea view, i could see the lighted-up sky from by bed. probably even from my toilet if i looked really hard.

but then, we were invited to have free reception cocktail buffet on top floor after doing our royal gold-class member check-in there. the lounge has this wide window panel we could see the whole sea horizon from.

ok forget the room-view sunset, we were gonna enjoy the sunset right here right now.

there were we sipping drinks while observing the sun in its final glory. so this is how being on holiday really feels like. a non-backpacked money-briefcased 6-star holiday that is.

by the time i finished my cocktail, i already forgot how it was like being a commoners.

mt kinabalu park

the next morning started with some minor misunderstanding with our mountain-climbing tour agent about pickup timing. we thought it was 7.30am, they thought it was 12.30pm, in the end we settled at 10am departure. oh well.

2 hours van trip later we arrived at kinabalu park resort at ranau/kundasang. after doing all the registrations and took note of the schedule, we wondered around.

frankly, there was nothing much there. none that excite me anyway. there were some dorm buildings, some food hall which mostly serves buffet style menu, botanical garden and some walking trails that i didn't bother go in. i mean, the greeneries all looked the same to me.

this is where we stayed for the night.

notice the mt kinabalu at the backdrop? i shuddered to think that we were actually gonna climb all the way up to the top tomorrow. i mean, it looked very far and high up.

oh god.

this lady briefed us about tomorow's climb route

night time local entertainment while we were having our dinner.. and this fella visited our room

On your mark...get set.. GO!

by 8am tomorrow morning, we already had our heartfull breakfast, picked up our mountain climbing passes, handshaked our guide and set to go.

oh and a lil' prayer too...

a van sent us to Timpohon gate about about 1.5km away to begin our climb. so this was it - the starting point. the feeling was just surreal. i mean, if everything goes well, i will be at the top by sunrise!

ok the first mission was to go from point A (timpohon gate) to point B (laban rata guesthouse, >3000m high) which approximately a 6km journey through various steps - earth, stones, tree roots, well.. anything that could get us a step higher.

the first few km were pretty boring i must say. all normal plants around, so there were nothing special to see. plus, somehow i got a bit upfront than my group so i ended up plucking in my headphones and started humming amuro namie's numbers while making those steps.

i started off the climb with a long sleeve shirt and a track bottom but they ended up as 3-quarter sleeve shirt and a knee length bottom. the wind was chilling but i still sweat, at least up to almost 3m elevation as what above photo tells.

there were many resting booth like this along the journey where there was toilet and supply of untreated water (which we were warned could make us sick because our stomachs were not adapt to it unlike the locals).

what's cool about these booths are they have information on current geography.

as we got higher and higher, there were much more things to see. the plants here are those that thrived in cold weather and thinner soils. my favourite? definitely the pitcher plant. i caught one in its full red glory.

before we knew it, ok after much anticipation, sweat and cramped legs, we were above the clouds!

Laban Rata (3272m) ~ one stop before the final climb

it took us almost 5 hours the reach laban rata guesthouse at 3272.7m elevation where we would stay the night and resume climbing to the peak at 3am the next morning.

by this time, me legs were killing me, so i quickly checked in the 5-double-deckers dorm room and took a nap straight away to recharge. my friends fared much better in the leg department, only they had headache probably due to the thin air.

the final climb to Low's peak

we woke up shortly before 3am. while we were having our early breakfast (a pot of horlicks with some biscuits and energy bars), we could hear the wind roaring like crazy outside.

seriously it sounded just like the apocalypse out there, so i was all,' gosh, are we really really gonna go out there?'

apparently we were, of course.
...because the truth is out there.

to my surprise, it wasn't as cold as i had expected. to me, i was just full of anticipation of what might come. there were like gazillion people who failed to get on top, and i was about to find out why.

it was dead dark most of the pathway, with the only sights being the headlight trails from the people in front.

the final checkpoint before heading to the peak

after about 2 hours of early morning hike through carved steps, slopes, and especially towards the tops, steep rocks that requires rope to pull ourselves up, i managed to reach the low's peak!!

the peak was just pile of rocks with signboards. if this were the everest, there would be flag poles. i was expecting some kind of wide flat clearance where we could do line dancing while waiting for sun rise but instead, only few person could stand on the highest point at a time.

i'm not bragging or anything but to tell you the truth, i did not think the overall climb was that hard. the only thing killing me was the coldness that started to creep in my bones once i became dormant. it was 5.30am and i had a good an hour before sunrise. the wind was strong so i had to curl myself behind some rocks. once or twice some chap would tap me on my shoulder asking for help to take their photos, and i had to reluctantly leave my comfort zone. after all, obviously i had to ask one of them to take my photo considering the fact that my friends were nowhere to be seen.

oh yes, i had no idea where were they at that moment. not until the sun had risen (which to be honest, nothing overly spectacular because i saw the light one minutes, and then the stupid clouds covered it all) and i was starting to climb down when i met my dear friend.

which was cool because now that we have each other to snap each other's photos, we could cam-whore over 4000m above sea level. of course, cool on top of the fact that i would want my friends to succeed in whatever they do too haha ...

and this pretty much summed up our feelings at the moment haha...

only after it was bright we started to appreciate the surrounding sights. man, we were very very high up indeed. we were literally on cloud-9.

not for long though, because then i just realized how painful it was to climb down. gosh i must have been so engrossed for the effort to get to the top, i totally mislooked the going down part.

i cringed everytime my knees had to stop myself from sliding the way down. and the fact that now we could see all the steep edges half a step away didn't help either.

plus, it rained when we were halfway down so it got all slippery. i'd never forget that 9km climb-down misery, i even vowed to never climbing any mountain anymore.

not in near future anyway.

group photo at the end of the climb with our guide

all in all, i survived. i survived big time. it was such an enriching experience i probably have found a new respect for life.

eventhough probably while it lasted only 5 minutes after we crossed the finishing line, or within the 2 days MC i got due to muscle pain after i returned home, or even within the 1 week when i still could not walk properly let alone using stairs.

all i'm certain about is when anybody talks about the tallest mountain in south east asia, i could go, 'yeah and you know what? i've climbed it' with a full smug on my face.

and of course, they don't have to know anything about the climb-down.

...ed

kingdom of unexpected treasures

2008-05-27T14:09:00.006+08:00

golden week travelogue part 2 ~ bandar seri begawan

whenever i told people that i'm going to brunei, they would look at me in suprise and asked, what's there in brunei?

exactly. that was why we planned this 'short diversion', to see what brunei is all about. i mean, do they drink oil after food? haha ok that was a bit too much.

our first stop in bandar seri begawan, the capital, was the royal regalia, a museum where they stored all the items which are deemed sacred and symbolic of the supremacy and authority of His Majesty.

for me, it was just a place full of stuff that commoners like me would never ever get to have in my whole entire life.

next, we made a stop at jame' asr hassanil bolkia, a gloriously golden domed mosque in town. for whatever reason, we were not allowed to take photos anywhere in the mosque area, but we took some anyway. i mean, it's not that taking photos are blasphemous or anything, we were just spreading the greatness of the house of god to other people.

by the way, it was a totally grand and exquisite mosque.

even more grand? the empire hotel and country club. man, this is what seemed like unlimited supply of oil could make. i heard this place was originally built for the royal's holiday escapade but in the end turned into a 6-star hotel.

despite such a big compound, there wasn't much crowd. it was as if the whole thing was made for display. probably the rich is allergic to sun, or maybe only royals could afford to stay in this place. i don't know.

we had fun exploring the entire place though, as if it was ours.

these pretty much summed up my feelings at that moment. gosh i wish i could do this every day.

the next day, we explored the famous kampong air. if you ask me, it's ironic that brunei is so well known of its water village when the common conception of brunei is their rich citizens.

we took a boat ride for 20 brunei dollars per person in that flaming hot afternoon. no wonder the boatman was only showing face while covered all over. worse, halfway our tour, the boat engine suddenly died in the middle of the river, and i felt very much like a piece of medium done steak under the heat.

i was not very impressed. i mean, i have seen this water village elsewhere in the world (venice, anyone?).

so at the end of the 2nd day, i still struggled to answer what was brunei all about. i feel it was just a place to parade oil wealth. all the rest has been sub par. the people was unfriendly. i encountered bad customer service at department store, even as early as at the airport.

in short, take the oil wealth away and you'd get dysfunctional community. maybe then, we would find the real unexpected treasures.

...ed

to the land below the wind

2008-05-19T22:03:00.020+08:00

golden week travelogue part 1 ~ kota kinabalu

being a malaysian, i've been to each states in the peninsular. somehow sabah and sarawak in borneo island escaped my radar, until this month. well actually we planned to go sipadan island but apparently the resort was fully booked, so we decided to go kota kinabalu instead.

we flew from singapore by silk air. now when i think about it, SGD350 fares sounds a bit expensive. oh well at least it was a full frill airline, which should not make me feel like a 2nd class citizen.

my first view of kota kinabalu

we touched down kota kinabalu international airport at almost noon. the airport was under upgrading but everything was straightforward and went on smoothly. i guess partly because there wasn't much crowd to begin with. i might be selfish but i would like the oxygen within 2 meters around me to only belong to me this week, so i must say so far so good.

the weather outside was wonderfully sunny with couple of clouds hanging in the otherwise clear blue sky of kota kinabalu. we bought the fixed rate RM20 town taxi coupons outside the terminal and off heading to king's park hotel.

by the time we were having our first glance outside the taxi window, i already forgot about silk air external power trip before we took off. i mean, really. that seemed like a world away now...

i prebooked this hotel from the net for RM128 per night for double occupancy. it's at the hill edge side of the town. still it's actually just a few blocks away from the sea front.

after checking in, we set our foot out of the hotel main door, took a deep breath and thought, kk town, here we come!

180 degrees view from Signal Hill

we could see people enjoying lazy afternoon fishing at the waterfront. while walking around the city, we also noticed this toilet direction signboard complete with the exact distance. i just thought it was unique.

this is the kota kinabalu state mosque. it's pretty out of town we had to take a short mini bus trip to get here.

from afar, the mosque looked nice. but a closer look revealed that proper maintanence had not been done. the building looked so worn-out, and to a certain extent, it looked abandoned.

late afternoon, we took a mini bus to tanjung aru beach. it's a very nice place just to chill-out. the restaurant by the beach was not very expensive too. we were hoping to see nice colourful sunset but there were too many clouds so it wasn't anything spectacular.

my only complaint, it was difficult to get out of this place. there were no public transport in sight at the entrance so we had to walk quite far outside to find the bus station.

kota belud

the next day, we took a cab to kota belud. it was sunday, and they have this tamu (open market) every sunday morning. kota belud is the main city of the bajau tribe, about 45 minutes drive away from kota kinabalu. the taxi driver charged RM15 per person for 4 passengers for a one way trip.

the tamu was just like the morning market in the peninsular, minus the backdrop of the majestic mount kinabalu of course. i was hoping to catch the bajau tribes donning their traditional costume riding their horses around, but either they were not there today, or they already left when we arrived. one thing that amused me though was that there were a lot of tabacco powder tradings, definitely not common elsewhere in malaysia.

we returned to kota kinabalu shortly after noon. after kota belud tamu, we decided to continue exploring the cultural side of the locals today, so we headed to sabah heritage museum.

frankly, i'm never a big fan of the museums. i always think it's just a short cut way of learning about whatever on display. plus, normally there are lots of facts cramped together which make you feel like living a school textbook.

the good thing about sabah heritage museum though, was that there were local people inside the various local house models. we even got to chat to some of them, and almost being offered their local home made liquor. we got to see some human skulls hanged on the roof too, although i did not know whether that was the real on or not.

we got back in time to catch the sunset from the waterfront.

at night, we went to sutera harbour magellan resort grand ballroom for sabah fest 2008. actually we only found out about this annual event from local newspaper that morning. it was a 2 day event, and tonight was the final closing night.

we paid RM30 for entrance, which was pretty worth it considering the colourful performances at such a grand ballroom. plus, at the end of ceremony, we got to join the dancers on stage to strut our stuff out in kadazan-dusun's way.

one of many thing's sabahan has to offer. but for tomorrow till the day after, we'd see what brunei has got to offer.

...ed

C-R-U-I-S-E control

2008-05-01T08:49:00.006+08:00

it's Labour Day today, so i'm off work. whilst celebrating economic and social achievements of the workers, whom should include myself, i'm glad i could wake up late too this morning after staying up past 2 last night.

i was at robinson's sale till late yesterday. i got a couple of vouchers, so i thought i'd check the sale out even though my friend already warned me about the crowd. man was she right. i took 30 minutes in the queue just to get to the cashier.

i bought myself a bedsheet, quilt and cover from balmain paris which had 30% off, plus another 20% off group discount since i am a robinson member (it was a long story). still, it ended up a good $200++ just for some bedsheets.

which was a bit pain in the ass, if you asked me. well, i've never had quilt on my bed before. after all i'm gonna sleep on it everynight, although now i'm not too sure about the brown ensemble that i chose for my blue bedroom.

sometimes i think i'm just prone to making bad instantaneous decisions, just like this. really. like when i chose to go home instead of staying outside hanging out and score in early part of the night just because i felt i was slightly out of my comfort zone.

i mean, what was that about?

you know, sometimes i wish we could abandon all those social integrities and all craps like that and just follow our inner instinct. like when we have to make decicion, we should just do what we want. full stop. you know, rather than thinking about the consequences it could incur in that split seconds.

not only instantaneous decisions, i made bad life judgements too. like how i ended up doing engineering in the first place when my interests were clearly in biology and chemistry fields. worse, deeper i went into this wrong till now i ended up doing semiconductor engineering.

being in this industry made me feel as if i'm on a sunken ship. or at least the ship that sail into eternity with zero assurance we would ever see dry land. every now and then, people took chances and jumped off the ship, leaving me looking at them enviously.

seriously, i really need to get out of this career mess. serious with a capital s. i've updated my online resume and actively buying saturday newspaper, although i still don't have any idea what else i could contribute in this work circle.

8 years into this business, and i still have the feeling that i was just fibbing my way through the promotion ladder. i mean, i'm not even technically savvy and all that. i seriously doubt i have any talent whatsoever to easily land me my second career.

gosh this is depressing. when i look at it, everything around me is a failure too. the house loan i'm taking right now sky-rocketed in the 3rd year to 5.25% interest when the average outside interest is about 3.5%. i mean, how on earth could this have happened?

ok ok don't panic. let's just put things into perspective.

first, i need to select a good plan for that house loan refinance. UOB quoted 2.8% per annum fixed 3 years interest, and OCBC already counter-offered 2.75%. I think I'm gonna take OCBC, so I better start preparing all the documents.

ok check.

about work, well i just have to keep browsing, don't i? probably look at the possibility of embracing a bit of paycut too to venture into another industry. the other day, my friend mentioned about doing logistic. hmmm.. i don't have any idea what that is but it sounds cool. maybe i should check out DHL.

foot note. check out DHL.

for my bed linen ensemble, i guess i have to be colour blind for awhile until i come across another sale rip-off. brown just look totally out of place at the moment. it's not even the same brown shade as my cupboards and floors. or maybe i just have to get used to it.

foot note. wait a few more days and decide.

what else. oh and i must remember to be bolder in every possible situations. everytime when people ask, always say yes no matter what it is. how hard can it be? i could introduce myself and offer to strip in the same sentence. no big deal.

best chance to do that, is during my vacation starting this saturday. i'm so excited. i'm going to sabah to climb mount kinabalu as well as island hopping, plus a night stay in brunei.

where i could forget about work, my home loan, and where hopefully the bed is not brown.

...ed