Monthly Archive for June, 2006

Page 2 of 3

north and back part 1: penang

the week after my cuzzie visit, my schedule at work became more packed than ever. i was in Bangi conducting a system training class whole day Tuesday, and i only found out that evening that i need to go outstation sporadically for the next coupla days.

and i had to be in Penang on friday.

having discussed the schedule with my assistant Amin, we decided that both of us should be there for the first session of this ‘roadshow’. me being the presenter, and him being the apprentice. due to the short notice, we had very little time to prepare the mini manuals needed for the stuff we were going to demonstrate, and we barely finished before embarking on our drive up Thursday afternoon. Amin drove of course :) ; his perdana v6 was in better shape than any of my cars.

it rained quite a bit throughout the drive. the mood was dreary, but we managed to counter the effect by talking about a lotta things. guy stuff mostly. colleagues should be treated as friends, even if they’re your subordinates. since i’m not good at scolding people, this would be a better alternative.

when we reached the island, it took a bit to get our bearings right. i had to step up my role as navigator since Amin needed to pay full attention to the mad Penang drivers. after some turns here and there, we finally reached our destination: The Sheraton. working with my company does have some perks. :P we were each settled into separate Deluxe Rooms. needless to say, it was very very nice.

that night we took flight to Batu Ferringhi (not sure i spelled that right) to grab some DVDs for our other colleagues. well, actually Amin did. i just tagged along. then we went back to town to sate our hunger with Line Clear’s nasi kandar, located near The Oriental hotel. it was gewd.. very gewd. i rarely eat nasi kandar, but this one was just mind blowing. loved the fried chicken.

after dinner, we just went back to our rooms and chilled. i had my copy of Inkheart, which my cuzzies recommended, to read in bed. the story is a bit too slow for me, so i could only read 2-3 chapters at a time before i’m unable to resist the urge to close my eyes. slow, but good. finished it the next day before we left for home.

i was also tempted to call Fiena, an old college mate who now lives in Penang. i think. but there wasn’t much time for me to go out and meet people, so there wasn’t any point in doing so. next time perhaps.

in the morning we were up bright and early for our session. it was supposed to be in the afternoon, but we managed to squeeze in our material before lunch and was able to leave for home early. even so, it was dark when we got back to KL, with the heavy rain pounding at us all the way south. still, there was enough time to meet up with Merv for dinner at Chili’s. his treat. thanks Merv. :)

shopping spree

whee. me dear singapore cuzzies came to visit last weekend. i like spending time with them; somehow all the stress from work just disappears. they went shopping for the entire weekend (including monday), and it was a little tiring, but i don’t mind. good company will always bring out the joy in anything. :) and i got a nice new shirt and mirrormask, which i’ve yet to watch just yet.

i knew you girls would pull something like that in the last minute. :P

anyways, it’s amazing how women can shop so much. and i’ve yet to be exposed to the hardcore shoppers. :O

so, after they left for home, Merv called and we had tong shui in SS2. Vivien’s in town too. i forgot to mention, she’s his wife. :)

in the following days to come, i managed to cover some movies i’ve downloaded. The Island was nice. storyline was a little weak, but the cool chase scenes and Scarlet Johannsen (atsui!) saved the day! Doom was fun to watch. a little mindless havoc never hurt anyone. :) the first-person perspective scene was nostalgic, altho the actual game is more fast paced. :P Hitch was a great movie. Eva Mendez! :D

now i’ve Ong Bak, and a little bit of Bewitched left.

at the office, i’ve finally finished B13, a French action flick. it has elements of those people who like to jump and scale tall buildings.. can’t quite recall their name. anyways, it’s directed by Luc Besson, the guy behind The Fifth Element. it’s great work. :) and Dany Verissimo is cute too. :D

don’t worry, i only watch during break time or after hours when i’m waiting for things to finish running. :P

speaking of downloading, my server’s been acting up a lot lately. somehow the power died during the weekend, then there was a power failure on tuesday. and the router’s DDNS function is starting to crap out every week again. i thought D-Link was bad, but Linksys seems to want to take their place at the bottom of the crap jar.

if i had a JTAG cable, i’d switch to DD-WRT in a heartbeat.

a bump in the night

just watched The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, screening courtesy of Catcha. lotsa eye candy for sure, girls and cars alike. more girls than cars actually.

anyway, i parked me car at a very difficult spot to get out of. not because it was tight, but due to the heavy volume of cars leaving the parking structure. a civic had just passed behind us (merv, fish, and henry were passengers) and there was a gap for me to reverse into the queue. but what i didn’t realise was that the queue had stopped right there behind me, and i didn’t notice the guys’ oi’s before it was too late. luckily, it was a lil bump and no major harm was done.

thinking abt what got into me tonight, it was probably me assuming traffic flow would go a certain ways, or me assuming my passengers had me covered. anyhows, it was bad driving on my part. but this points out one funny characteristic abt me: when i’m alone, i will somehow or rather always keep myself on the ground and out of harm’s way. but when i’m with people, i start getting complacent, somehow subconsciously hoping others would do my thinking for me. remember the low yat parking ticket incident? :(

maybe it’s a part of me being easily swayed by others. a part of me that can’t stand confrontations. a part of me that is always agreeable. a part of me that will always leave me being second best at most. a part that will leave me having what i need but not what i want.

or maybe i just think too much. rarely emotional. whenever i do get angry, all the arguments would play out in my head and never out of my mouth. afraid of losing; afraid of rejection; afraid of getting hurt. afraid of getting the people close to me hurt. maybe.

well, at least one thing amusing abt this whole incident was that there were two lost girls taking camera pics of the scene of the crime.

happy birthday mom!

mum turned *censored* yesterday. was going to get her a new phone, but the particular model i was looking for, the 6230i, was out of stock. well, i’ll just get it sooner or later. instead, i picked up a card from parkson sungei wang, and the sis picked up a cake.

so it’s a non-school holiday monday today, and the roads are almost as packed as it was 2 weeks earlier. luckily i still managed to get to work on time, despite being nocturnal over the weekend to finish watching gundam seed and destiny. monday’s are usually the hardest workdays, as you struggle to remember where you left off the week before. but because i’m afflicted with a ‘dreaming of work’ syndrome, it wasn’t so hard this time.

feeling under the weather tho. sigh…

gundam seed: 50/50.
gundam seed destiny: 33/50.
my name is earl s1: 19/?? awaiting download
house md s2: 5/?? on hold
WoW: on hold.

importing goods

things to – buy from / do in – sydney:-

- MCE remote
- extra cutting discs?
- cheap devices?: sony t-30 / nano ipod / thinkpad X60?

- watch silent hill!
- go snowboarding?
- see the sights?

i need ideas people! :D and anyone wanna tag along? :D

yeah, i’ll be going to sydney sometime july/august. my sister’s been admitted to UNSW with a scholarship to boot. :) i’m so happy for her!!! at the same time, she got a silver for selangor in SUKMA. terer siot.

it’s going to be fun to get to visit another ‘western’ country. and with my sister there, i can take the opportunity to order stuff via her. :D

anyway, i just saw a video of the demonstration held in front of klcc when petrol prices went up. those people got a free shower. :) can’t blame them though: although our gas is still subsidized, our relative cost of living is still pretty high. heck, i don’t think i’ll be able to afford a house within a 50km radius of my office.

might just execute my plan to migrate. let’s brain more drain! i mean drain more brain!

gundam seed: 15/50.
my name is earl s1: 19/??
house md s2: 5/??
WoW: on hold.