Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Female Wrath

We were talking about how some IT people are very highly paid. Still, most of us had experienced various IT-related problems at work. I pointed that out.

"You see, pay the fella RM15k a month and he does a lousy job!"

My lovely friend was already disgruntled with the highly-paid-IT-guys fact, and that comment of mine set her off uncontrollably:

"If my IT guy is paid 15k and does a lousy job..... I'll make sure I kick his ass every morning! And then I'll -

1. Add laxative in his coffee
2. Reformat his hard disk as and when I like
3. Unplug the server anytime I feel like
4. Make sure finance delay payment to TM, so no internet connection from time to time
5. Talk bad about him around the office and bitch about him anytime I like
6. If he has a GF I will make the GF so jealous that she gives him a hard time
7. Spread malicious gossips about him to vendors
8. Steal his mobile phone and flush his sim cards into the toilet
9. Purposely open all his letters and say 'Sorry I thought they were for me'
10. Steal his parking card so he has problem applying for new one
11. If he got touch n go or smart tag... throw them away or donate to ppl who need them
12. Throw rubbish at his place so the janitor will complain - you know aunty janitor can scold very long wan lar

All these good ideas are fun!"

Moral of the story? Never offend a lady. Never ever EVER offend a smart lady with creative ideas. Never!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Bodoh Bodoh Lunch

After being postponed 3 times, it finally happened. We were to meet at 1pm. The earliest to arrive was 10 mins late. The latest was close to 30 mins late, and it was because she actually thought the appointment was at 1.30pm. It was the first time the girls from Unihostel House No 12 got together, since everyone graduated. There were 6 of us in the house, but only 4 of us made it today. We met for lunch. The restaurant, built upon a Balinese theme, was renamed Bodoh Bodoh by my over-creative roomie, Bee Ree. Both she and Shell Shell looked great, whereas Mee Mee looked like she just woke up. It was strange and exhilarating to see them all at once. To sit down with them, all together again, after so many years was... funny.

Funny, that it didn't seem like years had passed since we last spent time together as a group. Funny, that it didn't seem like I hadn't met Shell Shell in about 6 years, and really funny that this (extremely rare) lunch gathering felt as familiar as if we've been in the habit of doing it all along. There were questions and answers, teasing and laughter, even a few slaps on arms. I enjoyed their company so much I didn't really taste the food I ate (therefore, can't say much about food at Bodoh Bodoh) Bee Ree got me a gift for my birthday (thank you so much! you shouldn't have...) and even entertained me with her classic facial expression () a couple of times. Mee Mee had gifts for everyone too (thank you!!!).

After lunch, Shell Shell had to leave. Bee Ree and I were not so ready to call it a day yet, so we crashed into Mee Mee's residence. There we took some photos, took some really silly photos and talked our hearts out. Yes, we talked our hearts out even though Mee Mee's other half was in the same room all the time (men never listen anyway...) We also took some time to admire Bee Ree's new watch, and comment on how heavy it was, and how you'd get larger muscles wearing it. It was just like the old times in our HB3 room (minus The Sims) If I could slow time down, I would. But I couldn't - so it was soon time to go, and we had to go.

Please visit Bee Ree's blog for more stories on this gathering, and for photos too. If the post is not there right now, it'll be there tomorrow. If it isn't, it'll be there the day after tomorrow. (My point is, Bee Ree is definitely going to blog about this)

I had such a great time today. Thank you, girls!

By Bee Ree


Oct 24 edit: Thank you dear friends for all the birthday greetings and wishes!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Laugh With Me

This is a parody of Banana Boat Song by Stan Freberg. Listen carefully:



A decade+ ago, I recorded this song from my (then) favourite radio station - Radio 4, and played the cassette for my friends. We'd listen to it repeatedly, each time laughing out of control. I still have that the song in a cassette somewhere in my piles of my old stuff, but I haven't played it since that decade ago. I'd never thought I'd stumble upon it again, and that someone had made such a funny, adorable video to go with it didn't hurt at all :)

The lyrics:

Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and
Me wan go home

Day, he say..
(Man, I'm gonna have to ask you not to shout like that)
Well.. (it's like right in my ear)

It goes with the song
(Yeah, but don't holler in my ear, man)

Well, it's authentic Calypso shout
(Yeah, but try standing next to me, man)

Well, the shout go with the bongo drums
(Not my bongo drums, man I mean, move away)

Well, I don't see why
(No, no, no, stand over next to the guitar, man)

He sent me over here
(Yeah, well, then sing soft, man you know, I mean like, wow)

Ok, day... (It's too loud, man)
Day... (that's better)

Me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day
Me say day-o, daylight come
And me wan go home (Yeah, man)

Work all night on a drink of rum
Daylight come and
Me wan go home

Stack banana till the morning come
Daylight come and
Me wan go home

Lift six foot, seven foot (Hold it, man)
Eight foot bunch (Hold it, man)
Daylight come and (Too loud, man)

Me wan go home (Too loud)

Lift six foot, seven foot (Hold it, man)
Eight foot bunch (Hold it, man)
Daylight come and
Me wan go home (My ears, man, like my ears)

Day... (no, hold it, man)
Me say day-o...
(It's too shrill, man, it's too piercing)

Well, I don't see why
(No, it's too piercing, man, it's too piercing)

Well, I got to do the shout
(No, man, it's too piercing, like I don't dig loud noises)

Well, you ruined the whole (Piercing) record is what you did
(Yeah, well, tough, I'll take my bongos and go, man)
(Cause the whole is like bugging me, anyhow)

Yeah, well, wait a minute I won't shout
(No, man, like I didn't wanna make this gig in the first place)

Oh, no, wait a minute I'll be soft
(Yeah, well then back off from me, man)
(It's too piercing)

Okay, how's this, day-o (Too loud, man)
Okay, day-o (Too loud, man, I can still hear you)
(Would you mind leaving the room)

Okay
*footsteps leaving*
Day, me say day-o (Crazy)
*footsteps entering*
Daylight come and
Me wan go home

*footsteps leaving*
Day, me say day-o
*footsteps entering*
Daylight come and
Me wan go home

A beautiful bunch of ripe banana
Daylight come and
Me wan go home
Hide the deadly black tarantula

Daylight come and
Me wan go home

(No, man, don't sing about spiders)
(I mean, like I don't dig spiders)
Well, that's how the song goes

It goes hide the deadly black tarantula
Daylight come and
Me wan go home

(Is that it, can I leave now)
Not yet, we got a big finish

*footsteps leaving*
Day
Me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day
Me say day-o

*knocking*
Hey, I locked myself out (Crazy)

*window breaks*
I come through the window (Yeah)


Daylight come and
Me wan go home

Hahahahahah. Laugh with me. Wahahahahahahah!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Drunkards

It was late and we had just finished yoga class. We were inside the car, getting ready to go home. A man was walking past in front of us, at the corridor of the shoplot, carrying a huge umbrella. The umbrella was opened and he had it over his shoulder. The corridor was spacious, except where there were pillars, creating a narrower pass between them and the wall. As he went through one of these, which were indeed too narrow for his large, opened umbrella, the man got jerked back by his umbrella which couldn't pass through. Following that, he attempted to take another step forward and jerked back again because his umbrella still couldn't get through. And he was clueless. It was like a scene from a Disney cartoon. We looked at one another and at him again and laughed! "He must be drunk!"

And we drove off. There was a taxi on the road, moving extremely slowly, uncertainly and we were right behind it. "I've never seen a taxi go so slowly before!" and a millisecond later, the front wheel on the driver side hit and went up the raised divider in the middle of the road, followed by the rest of the wheels, until the whole vehicle tumbled onto the other side. And the driver still drove on, at the same crawling pace - in the direction opposite to traffic! "This one must be drunk also..." Was it a let's-all-get-drunk night?

Reasons Why Alcohol Should Be Served At Work...
1. It's an incentive to show up.

2. It leads to more honest communications.
3. It reduces complaints about low pay.
4. It eliminates vacations because people would rather come to work.
5. It makes fellow employees look better.
6. It makes the cafeteria food taste better.
7. Bosses are more likely to hand out raises when they are wasted.
8. Employees work later since there's no longer a need to relax at the bar.
9. It makes everyone more open with their ideas.
10. Sitting "Bare ass" on the copy machine will no longer be seen as gross.

Cheers! It's past noon on a Wednesday and the work week is half gone :)

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

What Makes Me Happy

Last weekend, I went shopping with my friend. We've been walking for hours without getting what we wanted, when we came across an Estée Lauder promotion booth for their fragrance. I didn't notice the name of the fragrance, but I noticed their very nice posters... something like this one I found on their site:



Since their line is "life is sweet", they used delightful little (non-edible, I believe) cakes and such to decorate their display cases. As we walked past the booth, I noticed they placed a large tv at one side, showing a cake decoration demo. Being the curious thing I sometimes am, I stopped to watch. And being a blur thing I once in a while can be, I realised it was a live demo only after a few minutes. A lady was decorating a cake at the other side of the booth, and there was a camera on her work, feeding live to the tv. Silly me.

I marched straight to the spot where the demo was, with my poor friend trailing behind. The lady completed the cake, and turned it towards the audience. People started squeezing to the front and taking out the handphones to snap photos of the cake. Why, never seen a decorated cake before? But I did the same too (if you can't beat them, join them). It was really very lovely:



And there were some others:



Then the lady said "Now, we are going to decorate some cupcakes to be given away", and she did one immediately, while her assistant decorated another. I've never seen such adorable cupcakes (except in cookery books):



The first two cupcakes were taken by aunty#1 who stretched out both hands and took both. (Yeah, some people have the nerve!) The third cupcake was taken by aunty#2 who passed it to her somebody and immediately waited for the next. The lady picked up purple icing for the next one, and upon casting eyes on it, I decided I must have it (i.e. beat aunty#2 to it). So the moment the decorating was completed, I stretched my short arm out as far as it could possibly go, and flashed the lady my best can-I-have-that look. Of course, I got the cupcake. It made my day:



I was so happy! I was happy not because I love to eat cupcakes - but because I got a cupcake, and such a delightfully pretty one! I kept telling my friend how happy I was, over and over again, that she probably had the urge the smash that cupcake into my face. But I was so happy!

We continued walking around, with me carrying the cupcake in my hands, as if it was the greatest treasure I could ever have had. I must say the marketing team for Estée Lauder had done well with this promotion, because twice shoppers came up to us and asked where we got that cupcake and twice I sent potential customers to their promotion booth. And here I am now, writing about it as well...

Princess E wrote about the little things in life that makes her happy (read it here). I can't help thinking of her post when I saw how happy a little cupcake made me. Of course, there are a lot of other things that can make me happy as well (like $$$ maybe?). So people, start looking around you for things that make you happy :)

Friday, October 5, 2007

Old Ladies & Computers

Senior citizens should pick up computer skills? I say - please spare them. Take my mom for example - Microsoft should appoint her as their official bug-finder. I don't know how she does it, but she always managed to discover never-before-seen-or-heard bugs in her MS software. One time, it was her MS Word auto-changing the font type every other word she typed. The "bug" persisted despite my having formatted the document as a whole several times. Then, there were times when she copied photos into a folder only to find that they were not really there later, "mysterious" duplicates of files appeared out of nowhere, "mysterious" icons suddenly there on her desktop, her printer printing only alternate lines of her document... the list goes on. (Once, it was "I cannot log out of the website!" and upon further questioning, I discovered she didn't log in in the first place)

And the latest case - her Windows Media Player went berserk. I had previously shown her how to use that to copy songs from audio CDs into her HDD (she wrote down the steps; she writes down steps for doing everything on her computer - even accessing a website) and since then she'd copied tracks from a few CDs. Of course, she left them at the default location, with the default folder & file names. A couple of nights ago, she complained that something was wrong. She just copied songs from a CD and all her previous songs went missing! I was like "Har?" Some of the existing folders were empty, some still had half the tracks (the other half missing), one had duplicates of several tracks, and she claimed the tracks in that folder were from different albums. It was like her whole My Music directory were rearranged in a random way, with some of the tracks missing for good.

I was so sure it was something she did, and to prove otherwise, she placed a CD into the drive, waited for the autorun action window to appear, and selected "Copy Music from CD" from the list. Windows Media Player appeared, and the tracklist was shown - all checked for copying. She clicked on "Copy Music" and the ripping began. Then I saw it - Windows Media Player copied tracks 1-3, skipped to track 5 (at the same time listed track 4 as "Done"), copied tracks 6 & 7, skipped to track 9 etc. And what's more bizzare, her "My Music" folder contained 1 folder for each of the tracks ripped (1 track in each folder) and when I stopped the copying process, all the newly-created folders were emptied out!

"I really don't know what is wrong. Cannot help you."

And she sulked a bit and grumbled about how "highly educated" I was in the field of computers and yet I don't want to help her. Sigh. Senior citizens! But to be fair, I must say she is a lot better than her peers. A couple of years ago, a friend of hers (also a senior citizen) called her to ask about something computer-related. As fate would had it, she was not at home, and I answered the call. After the caller asked if I was my mom's daughter and after getting the affirmation, she decided to direct her question to me instead. The following was our conversation, roughly translated from mandarin:

the aunty: What is installer?
me : Har? What installer?
the aunty: Yes, installer. What is that?
me: Erm... if you want to install a program, you use the installer.
the aunty: So what is installer? My computer instructor say can buy from computer shop.
me: Yes. What program do you want to install?
the aunty: I don't know. The instructor said get installer then can already.
me: Errr... but what program do you want to install?
the aunty: Don't know. So I just go into the shop and ask for installer?
me: Yes, but you need to tell them what program the installer is for.
the aunty: Don't they know? I just ask for installer they should know right?
me: I think you need to ask your instructor again about which program he wants to you install.
the aunty: Right. Can installer be easily bought from any computer shop?
me: Well, yes.
the aunty: How does installer look like?
me: ??????
the aunty: I mean what shape is it?
me: Ah... errr... round? It usually comes in a CD.
the aunty: OK. Thank you!

When my mom got home after that, I complained to her about her aunty friend. My mom went like "So what is installer?" (I should had seen that coming...) Fortunately, when I explained to her, she understood with relative ease. Then, I told her I am never going to layan her aunty friends' phone calls concerning computers, ever again!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Wholesome Lunches

There is this group of super health-conscious people at work, who pack lunches from home every day. Sometimes, due to the difficulty of obtaining (nice) food around where I work, I too will bring lunch from home. Such then, I ate together with the health-conscious group. The first time I did, I had a couple of coconut buns which I grabbed hurriedly from a bakery the evening before. What the others had astounded me. One had wholemeal bread with steamed chicken ham and fresh greens, another had a whole bunch of greens (salad without dressing), yet another had a container-ful of different shades of greens, plus carrots and corns. Gulp. Fine, I went on with my low-nutrition, high-saturated fat and high-cholesterol food. As we ate, they started talking about nutrition. Yoghurt, fruits or cereal for breakfast. Salads and wholemeal sandwiches for lunch. Oh yes, please steam whatever that needs cooking. We need to watch closely what we eat. Buy fresh organic vegetables only...

The more I listened to them, the more I thought of how abusive I am towards my digestive system and my body's well-being. So then, I must learn to eat more healthily. I need to increase intake of fresh vegetables and fruits, grains, yoghurt, and reduce all fat-and-cholesterol-laden stuff. Right, I must make it a point to watch my diet, to plan each meal carefully, do what's right by my body...

That was several weeks ago. My meals, as of today, are still low-nutrition, high-saturated fat and high-cholesterol. Never put off till tomorrow what you can put off today. Ahem!