Jumping Ship

Well, its official.I am to be relocated to another company in a couple of months time.Not that its all bad la, mostly the jobs the same with hopefully better career prospects, better pay...well at least thats what I've been promised la.My greatest concern would be my learning curve.I want to keep learning.Thing about me is, the second I stop learning, complacency sets in and I start to grow decadent and build a comfort zone.Which explains, probably why I like to read.

I've more or less decided to take up the offer.I need to save at a faster rate to realize my personal goals and ambitions sooner.I have someone to think of now.I have someone in my life who matters a lot to me, and I would like to marry her someday and start a family with her, and that would require capital expenditure.

Speaking of which, today she discovered two ways to 'melt' me.It has been her personal crusade to find out ways to 'melt' me and today she succesfully conducted two experiments (te nature of those experiments will not be divulged in this blog :P ) on the test subject, namely, me.The result: she now knows two soft spots and will probably never lose an argument with me due to this. :P

Not that I would want to argue in the first place o.O

Love her too much for that.

Soo's Birthday at Redbox the Curve

....what happens after u have too much to drink,and become very bored and all your friends are hogging the mic.
Soo, Engineer from 9-5, Hong Leong Idol from 6pm ono
My completed artwork.I call it 'Pravin smokes a Cigar'
'Pravin' gets a little tipsy and decides to rest a little bit

The Birthday Boy aka Milk aka Soo aka Hong Leong Idol also gets tipsy, and decides altitude has something to do with voice....

Happy birthday Bro!

New Year Fireworks Pics

The different colors of the Cineleusire Complex at Mutiara Damansara where I spent New Year's Eve

I Am So in Love...and a bad toll Experience

Its been 50 days since I started dating and its going smooth and silky.
Every morning I wake up thanking God that He gave me someone like this in my life and every night, I thank him again for another day with her.

And writing about her on my blog may seem mushy to some la, like certain individuals who call me and putting the worse girl voice ever says "Sorry darling I forgot your pasta" and proceeds to cackle away (basket Francobash, wait till you fall in love with a fat momma type of chick with a giant pottu on her forehead, chewing tobacco and making vadai the size of car tyres...then I will call you and go "Darling I forgot your vadai " and cackle)


So besides that, went to the Curve with my buddy Syer and watched Pathfinder which was basically a movie about a white confused dude who wanted to be Red Indian or something, since there were no black people in America yet at that time, and no rappers, and the only thing you could be besides a vicious white Viking was a half naked native American, so I guess being a rebel kids meant stripping and sharpening your stone tipped arrow heads and wooden spears.

On the way back though, my buddy decides to be adventurous and take an unknown route so on and on we drove on like the WORSE road in Malaysia.Seriously, I don't expect the Superbahn from our Dato Semi Value, but this was sad.Then as we got lost, I saw some 'Projek Kerajaan Barisan Nasional' signboard and reading closer it read 'Ditaja Oleh Kementerian Pembangunan Luar Bandar' OMG.....we were seriously lost.In some kampung somewhere.

Then after what seemed an endless drive....we finally see...a toll gate!

Imagine my shock ...a kampung dirt, lopak-lopak road, and a toll gate, which has a barrier that does not work, a toll attendant wearing a baju tidur (you know the loose batik type the makcik like to wear) and a display that does not light up (the on that shows u how much to pay)...instead they had some badly spelt stickers in the shape of "50 sen....trima kaseh" or something like dat....

OK now if that doesn't tell you we are overcharging for toll, I dunno what will.Damn stupid Gahmen.In English its called daylight robbery.

We are all Butt Kissers

Was with a group of friends the other day and one of them commented on the successes on some of our friends.Then he made a snide remark, calling this other friend a butt kisser.Two thoughts crossed my mind at once....one was my name calling friend was being a typical jackwanker as all at the table knew she was really a loser.Always competitive but almost always hollow inside la. This is the category of people I call, um, Hollows ( you know like the creatures in Bleach , except ghosts from the underworld is smarter than her)

Another part of me was thinking to myself....we are all butt kissers to a certain extent.Seriously, even the most good and holiest of us all.All job roles and descriptions requires it....Main job roles are placed first in the job description.

Accountants- Kiss CEO's butt. Fake numbers, cook the books and confuse the shareholders with numbers that look good, don't add up and/or make no sense.Or convince them that being 1 billion dollars behind debt and being in the red for the last 20 years is a good thing for the company.

PA to CEO- Kiss CEO's butt.Sleep with CEO.Book meeting rooms,karaoke rooms, hotel rooms and massage parlours for CEO.Provide female, or in some exceptional cases, male company/entertainment to CEO and charge to Accountant as 'entertainment allowance'. Effectively all XO and JD orders will be translated a 'seafood dish' or 'exotic fried rice'.

CIO- Kiss CEO's butt.Confuse the CEO with big jargons on technology that you read in today's copy of InTech and CHIPs.Always answer your PDA phone when asked on costing and walk away, never to return and pretend as if you forgot the question.

CFO-Be butt kissed by the CEO and everyone in the organization so everyone can go around their daily 'expenses' without hindrance.

Priest- Kisses God's butt.This is done by singing daily praises to him and telling everyone to do the same.

NGO worker-Kisses Opposition's butt.Although there is very little to be gained from that, being in the Opposition is already not financially smart, so its like kissing a broke person's butt. Might as well kiss the wall, at least you won't get investigated under the Sedition Act and placed under ISA.

Opposition-Kisses Anwar Ibrahim's butt.Why?Hmm...liwat charges....

Government-Kisses PM's butt.But only because they have to.Recently resorted to kissing DPM's butt, just in case.

Underwear model-Kisses everyone's butt to get where he is, then exposes his own butt.

Ancient Egyptians/college dorm dwellers-Kisses a two mounded stone called Butt.Then get high on crack.The ceremony is called ButtCrack.


Think of any job, and you will find some form of buttkissing involved.Sad but true.Now where's my lip gloss?

Apology has been Accepted

Hehe...in the middle of a few crises but the biggest to me, was my girl getting hurt on my account (see previous entry).Thankfully that's been resolved.Yep.

Now its back to worrying about my position being outsourced,a slowing economy, buying a house, a car and starting up my business.But thats all secondary compared to my girl.Love you tenshin..

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Apology to the Girlfriend

Feeling really really sad as I write this, coz I have made the ONE real person I care for, sad.I made her cry, all coz I was stupid enough to reject one real generous gesture, but only coz I was afraid for her safety.She offered to bring some food, that she had cooked for me, coz she worried that eating instant noodles everyday and it was bad for my health.... but I was worried coz the road coming into the work place is wet coz it was raining,and so asked her to bring it another day. Usually there is no such thing as too much love la, but in this case, concern+concern= miscommunication+hurt.

I understand how she feels, I used to cook (still do) and pasta is a biatch to cook.To get the texture right in hot water is a headache.So she must have felt hurt after the trouble, plus she made it vegetarian, coz I am now one.Especially for me ... I really felt so touched, I dated before, no one, has done this for me before...but I turned it down and asked her to bring it another time..

But I had a reason; or at least I thought so at that time...- I wanted to see her more,I wanted to date her an extra day.So asking her to bring it a day extra would mean an extra date, and it marked a special occasion, for which I've bought her something....but it was a miscalculation and now my girl is sad and its all my stupid fault.

Dear, if you are reading this I am really sorry k.After all the stuff I did for you, you should know by now I would never hurt you.Had I known this would be the result, I would have drove down to your place to collect it today itself....

Please don't be mad anymore.Sorry I bombarded your phone with apology SMSes, but the thought of you mad at me , the guilt is just overbearing.Especially when I swore to myself that you would never cry again.

I feel miserable at the moment.My only consolation is that she has kinda understood why I did it, and hopefully forgiven me la.But it still doesn't make me feel less guilty for the stupid thing I did today.

Sigh.

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Promised Pics: Christmas Trees

Pic 1: The Christmas tree we set up (Pravin,Yap and myself)....not bad for a last second, half an hour job huh?Night view

Pic 2:The Christmas tree in KLCC.....went there with the guys sometime before Christmas

Pic 3:The Christmas tree at my house again, morning view.Looks really different la.

Pic 4: Christmas presents under our tree : got Kudomono San something as well.Hope she liked it

Pic 5:Christmas tree at First World, where the gang and I spent New Years Day

Yea....finally can post the pics sooooo much promised but never came la.So a few posts of pics instead.Sorry could not post the Christmas trees from Midvalley (my camera died) or One U (My phone ran out of battery)...or the Curve (Too damned crowded) or Tesco (if you read my earlier post, you'd know why.

Suddenly feel warm and fuzzy inside.Was it the phone call I just had with my amazing girl, or was it the Christmas tree pics... ? :P

Is falling endlessly in love possible?

After I think it is... :D

Advance apologies to my dear readers, 'tis another sappy post :P

Basically it all happened when the girlfriend had a bad day.Instead of getting moody myself, I actually thought it was kinda cute.Then there was this time she wore this outfit that made me go awww.

Then came the little things like the playful facial expressions, the little, little ultra minute things ...the way she sighs, the way she acts blur.... the way she talks sleepily just before she goes to bed.

So yea, I am falling deeper and deeper for this girl with every passing day.Believe me you, I did not think this was even POSSIBLE in a relationship.

So dear, this post is for you, on the 43rd day after you said yes, the 40th day since we started dating and 23 minutes after the last SMS, which was the 177th since we started off 'us' . As Pelf taught........" Mina Rakastan Sinua..."

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Of Good Movies and Dumb People

First off, sorry for a no show on the earlier promised pics.My house suffered a power failure.That coupled with some personal stress, saw me going to work 5 hours earlier, spending 1.5 of those hours in the gym, and effectively spraining both ankles.Thankfully, by 6pm, some of those stress have settled, or more precisely 89% of that stress :P

Another 11% and other matters should take care of itself come tommorow morning.Went to some movies recently, back to back.First was Night at the Museum and it was to me, the best Ben Stiller movie ever made.His other movies like Zoolander was just a combination of slapstick, lame comedy and recycled, badly told jokes.Meet the Parents was OK, but it was De Niro who brought out the show.Night at the Museum's big selling point is its CGI and small minute details and a really comedic take on history.

The second nice story I watched was The Guardian, which was basically a ripoff of an earlier Japanese movie similar to the theme.But it was really well done.However I did not enjoy the damned movie at all- no thanks to this couple behind me who basically narrated a skewed version of the movie in Cantonese.Oh, the agony of hearing people talk loudly during movies.Oh, the even bigger agony of understanding what they say.And oh, the unspeakable agony of knowing what they are saying is basically nonsense.

Here is a sample...a really small sampling of the ordeal me and the gang underwent in the cinema...

Scene: Burning ship

Additional non-scripted dialogue cum sound effect by irritating couple- For ! for! Sei For lo.....Wah...kam tai for (wah...fire...fire...damn big fire!!!)

Scene : Someone dies

Additional non-scripted dialogue cum sound effect by irritating couple: Wah! Kam Wai Tai! Chee Kei sei em ser tak phang yau sei...wah chan hai kam tung (Wah! So noble! Self sacrifice for his friend! Wah so touching)

Scene : Someone may have died or may not have died, the scriptwriters have not revealed this

Additional non-scripted dialogue cum sound effect by irritating couple : Oi? Sei chor mei? Hoi sei chor?Yee ka tim?Eeng koi mei sei la (Has he died?How now?Don't think he died)

Scene : Separated couple trying to reconcile

Additional non-scripted dialogue cum sound effect by irritating couple: Lee kor hai meh yan?Hoi ker lou poh ah?Lei fan chor mei? (Who is this?the wife?Have they divorced or not?)

To the dear auntie and uncle who was irritating us the the point of diaorrrhea...PLEASE FOR GOD's SAKE... get a bloody DVD next time.Call me and I will buy one for you.Watch the damn movie in the comfort of your own damned house and if you feel like it,or get too confused, you can just shut the movie off and have like,kinky old people sex or something.Leave us, the already depressed population suffering from rising fuel,toll and living cost, premature ageing, heightened racial and religious tensions, a thinnning ozone, global warming,a whole range of new livestock borne diseases, raging wars in every corner of the globe and the possibility that Spongebob Squarepants may be shut down next season due to maritime life insensitivity.

We have to put up with enough crap as it is,we have friends in MLM, trying to sell us overpriced vinyl handbags and scented candles that smell like ...wax.

We have a PM who gives us heartwarming speeches than announces another price hike somewhere.

We have floods everywhere , and no money to give them, yet enough money to build a giant, bigass keris pewter monument and place it in the middle of nowhere.

So, please by all the names of all the gods, prophets and TVB movie stars that you idolize,stop talking.If the Benedictine monks can survive years of not talking, and lamas in Tibet can observe silence , and Phytogoras demand a vow of silence as a prerequisite to learning from him, I am SURE you will not die if you do not speak for the entire, long duration of 2 whole freakin hours.

There.Peace be with you.Amen.

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New Year Resolutions and Spoof Kaizen

So the New Year has came and went, with no major event happening in my life.Been a pretty cold day for me.The weather's been sucky these few days and the girl's feeling down too .... somehow I feel connected to her on an emotional level.I am sure Bodicea's gonna call me an Emo (the natural enemy of her pet evil Grues) but hey, this girl is special k sis =P

So that apart, and the fact I cannot post pictures from where I am (relax la will post it in a few hours time from home) Just thought it would be nice to reflect on the year that was...Have a lot to be thankful for the last year I guess.

-Developed many great friendships, at work, further developed my friendships with my closest friends, rekindled some friendships from my younger days and made some new blog-friends even.

-Met and fell in love with this amazing girl and admired her for a year plus before finally fate forced me to ask her out in a series of bizzare but fortunate events.And thank goodness it did :). And now we are a couple, again as fate would have it.Have always believed things happened for a reason.

-Became closer with my parents, since my sister left for the States, its basically just me and them at home.

-Felt appreciated at work.And to a certain degree, some recognition.May not seem much to many, but to me it meant that working extra hours, and trying my best paid off.Its a great morale booster for me to strive harder.Plus I have someone in my life now, that makes striving harder much more meaningful.

-Started listening to Praise and Worship and more hit pop songs,so I guess I am moving radical in both directions LOL.Started picking up Japanese movies

-Started learning Japanese, though its moving at a glacial pace, gave up smoking.For matters of the heart.

-Starting reading again.After abandoning my long lost love for reading, rekindled it last year, bought about 15 books in all,mostly classics, some to re-read.Especially loved Les Miserables (re-read), the Great Gatsby(re-read), Tess D' Ubervilles and Let's Roll (on Todd Beamer, the 9/11 hero).Also finally got down to understaning WTF was Kaizen all about (the 5Ss) and trying to practise this at home and at work.Not doing an amazing job at it though- bedroom's still a mess.Basically Kaizen is all about cleanliness la, no amazingly new formulae like BPR or TQM

To the uninitiated-

SEIRI: create tidyness. Throw away all unused stuff, file away the rest
SEITON: keep evertything at the right place. Keep the tools you need accessible, hide materials you don't need regularly
SEISO: keep your space clean, remove all traces from the previous task before starting the next
SEIKETSU: develop a personal sense for organizing your things. Develop routines, optimize your system according to your needs
SHITSUKE: stay disciplined doing the above, make it a habit and permanent practice

So I was thinking ...maybe I should start my own business-idea-acumen-thingie-based-on-some-pesudo-socio-cultural-cocknbull.....

I was thinking of calling mine the Panda Path.How to succeed in the corporate world.

Since my name starts with E, It will consist of 5 (as usual) Es la.

1.Email- Send out lots of email no matter how useless they may be.

2.Eat-Always bring your clients out to makan and bill to your company.

3.Enjoy-Same as Eat, but involves alcohol and other mind-altering substances.

4.Essentialize- Means do only what you need be done today and keep the rest for another day so you always look busy.

5.Evoke God- No, I do not mean pray, I mean when all else fails, throw religion in their face, i.e. its an excuse they cannot say no to (e.g. Boss, I did not complete that assignment coz its against my religious beliefs).Generally speaking bosses do not usually like to mess with God, not because they are a religious lot, but because they fear lawsuits and demonstrations by MCCHBCHS,SIS, PPIM,Persatuan Bekas Polis Malaysia and all other organizations that enjoy demonstrating.

My relationship with Kudomono San was hands down the biggest upper for 2006, turning it from an OK year to a great year.Yep, so perfect its almost heavensent.And perhaps she is.

OK, here are my resolutions for the new year, some already known.

-Never ever make Kudomono San feel sorry for the decision she made on 3rd December

-Learn enough Japanese to have a meaningful conversation apart from the two words Ie and Itai.

-Stay in touch with those friends whom I re-acquainted myself with last year

-Try not to neglect the Myopic Lion Gang while I build a relationship with Kudomono San.

-Strive harder at work

-Read up more on history.

-Be more active in UPP, IKD

-More gym, less TV.

-More blogging, less Friendster.

-Less Genting.

-Give up more stuff for my yearly fast.Ask for less (I am only asking for one thing only this year :)  )

-Give back more to society by work, deed and kind.

-Learn to accept that God has a plan for me and trust Him to do it.He's never failed me before and I should stop fearing that He ever will.

There....is some of it.The idealist in me would love to add crap like save all the whales, stop global warming and preach to MENJ, but we do what we can, when we can , believe it is enough and hold true to the hope that everyone else does their part,if they can, when they can.

Alone we are one, Togather we are many.If every man scooped a glass of seawater, how much shallower would the oceans be?

To a beautiful, fruitful 2007.

 

 

 

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New Year Post

Sigh.Its been too long and I've grown lazy of posting LOL.Not a pretty good way to start the New Year but damn it I had a lousy New Year celebration.Had dinner with my colleague, Chua at Bukit Tinggi and it was packed with humans.At least they looked humanoid though totally lacking in parking ethics,eating manners and sometimes leaves you wondering if we are evolving for the better or worse.

So after eventually getting a place and fending off some DVD sellers, we eat up and enjoy the New year concert featuring a cultural show and a ginat Chicken Little that looked like the organizers stole a KFC Superchook outfit and gave it a hairdo.

Then my buddies, Myopic Lion and Alcaholic buzz me asking if I had plans for New Years Eve.I had none.At that point at least.Buzzing Pogo was out of the question- he was religious and spent New years eve praying for world peace.Buzzing Milky Boy was out as well, as unlike us, he had a social life (BTW its his birthday today- so happy birthday dude)

Then Audrey buzzes me asking me to join her,and gang in the Curve.EJ weighs his options.Chicken Little doing the Numa Numa versus fireworks at the Curve.So he calls the two and within minutes they are off on a road heading into a traffic jam and hopefully at the end of it, a New Year's celebration.

I have NEVER been for any fireworks show in his life for New Years so it was kinda exciting la.As a kid I was pretty much useless la.Lion Dance,Dragon Dance, Fireworks, Santa Claus and turtles, basically anything that did not look or sound normal, scared me.The  when I was a teenager, my dad forbade anything flying and sparkly near our house, no thanks to my childhood pyromanic tendencies (I once lit about twenty candles in my dressing cabinet and scared my parents half to death).Then there was the Chinese New Year (I think I was in Form 2) where my dad bought a huge arsenal of fireworks, and for a few days I got worried, coz I was sick a few days before that , and when my dad bought all those forbidden items, I thought I was suffering from a rare disease and was going to die soon, but my parents was not telling me :P

After I was convinced that all I had was a sore throat and not a terminal illness , and that my sore throat is not likely to deteriorate into  a terminal illness, happy me started launching rockets into people's houses.But its been a while since I burned pretty fire.Yep I was a highly pessimistic child.So sue me =P

So yeah, back to the story.So we arrive at the Curve and Audrey and Shum were there and we waddled/scuttled our way through drunk revellers and some people pretending to be drunk while holding a bottle of Heineken.Oh yeah, Heineken costs 20 bucks per bottle on New years Eve.We bought 3 buckets and waited for the fireworks to start.The music was crappy.There were too many people and when the countdown started, I was not nearly as drunk as I hoped to be.So when you're still sober, evidently seeing some lights in the sky is about as exciting as turning on your house flourescent lamp.I am convinced that if I was drunk enough I could enjoy anything, even some dude trying to sell me MLM.But nope, all I see was some lights and people pretending to be excited about these lights (To fully illustrate my point will be posting the pics soon)

So yea.Watered down Heineken in hand, not nearly half as drunk, DJ playing lousy songs and some Ah Bengs singing 'Auld Lang Syne' which sounded really like a Beyond song from the way they were singing it in the background, warm night , boring fireworks display and people spraying potentially deadly 'snow' foam in my face.Yep.Whee.

Then as I thoght things could not get worse, the DJ starts shouting F u.....F u....

I did not believe my ears.A scan in the crowd will show we were generally not high.At 20 dollars a bottle, to be drunk you'd either have to be an above average income earner or a below average drinker and I think most of us were neither.So when the dumb DJ who's been playing crappy songs all night did that, I have never felt a greater urge to slug someone (to the uninitiated, shouting F U in a club when the patrons are high is common, it gets the mood up...but in this case you feel like throwing beer at his face)And I was so tempted to launch a bottle his way, but starting a riot is probably not the best way to start the New Year.

At about 4 am we slept, woke up at 6 to go up Genting, with the two again, plus Pogo .We were this time armed with tonnes of meat (ham, baloney,etc) , wine, junk food etc.And we were NOT going to get stuck in the casino, or at least that was what we thought.The first day was OK.The rest of the gang lost money, and I was losing money too, but when my lucky angel called, luck spinned and I managed 3 minor jackpots within the hour :P

But the second day, we insisted on going to the theme park even though there was a big ass announcement on the ticketing counter-"RAINING SEASON"

So in we go, paid 37 bucks for what we thought was gonna be a long day.First we take the spinning swinging thingie (they put you on something that looks like a swing and spin you above ground).Been on those in Disney and Alton Towers before.Somehow it seemed more cool when I was a kid (read : midget like)

Thats about it.Coz then it starts raining cats and dogs and everything closes.We lined up for 45 mins to take a stupid ride (I think it was called Cyclone) and it looked as about as exciting as taking the Komuter from Teluk Gadong to Klang.And when it came to our turn (we were on the railing, next to go...) it stops.So there we were stuck with our safety harness on.Sigh.And some Japanese tourists started pointing and giggling some more.

Really disappointed that Genting made clean RM 33 from us (the swinging thingy cost 4 bucks per ride) we wanted to watch the Salsa dance by some Latin dancers.But as luck would have it, just as we approach the stage, the last few steps were being danced and they bowed and scurried away.So back to the casino it was.And there at least I learnt a lesson before going down la.Stop trying to understand the Genting jackpot machines.Put in 50 bucks into one unit, which features rabbits and lots of cool animation.So when you are betting 25 credits or 50 sen a swing, and your whole screen stops , some music plays and some rabbits do some hoppy thingy on your screen you'd be hoping for something big right?Some winner music plays and the credit column announces that I won a whooping.......4 credits.Or basically 8 sen.

Disillusioned I thought I'd just finish it and get some Genting points (like Bonuslink, but for Genting) and one of the pulls, I got something that seemed to ba a fart-like dynamite explosion, and since the big animation got me like 8 sen I was expecting like 0.005 sen or something.But the counter went up to a few puluh ringgit la.So I pulled out my money and left.Moral of the story, just play and stop trying to understand anything.Machines , croupiers and dealers cannot lie, they will pay you out.So just play la hehe.

Time to make some resolutions.But that will have to wait another day.Have a great year ahead my friends!

 

 

 

 

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