Skin And Bones

Back when I was a little kid I was a very skinny little fellow. I could eat and eat and eat and not put on an ounce of weight. And I could really eat those days. In fact my world revolved around eating and sleeping. I was like the glutton of the family. If I wasn't sleeping back then, I was eating. And no matter how much I ate, I was always the same skinny fellow. Even up to my teens I could never put on weight.

These days though, I don't even want to bother talking about my weight. I've been having this see saw battle with my weight for as long as I can remember. The only good thing is ever since I started my diet a few months back, which by the way I'm still on, my weight has been a little more constant and stable :D And the diet has helped me crave for lesser food though once in a while, the glutton in me will awaken and I'd feel like eating everything insight, including the kitchen sink ... LOL!

We had a big family when I was growing up. My cousins and me all lived in the same house. There were six of us plus my mom, grandpa and grandma, my cousins parents (three families in all) and me. When it came time for dinner, us kids would have our dinner first followed by the elders simply because the dining table couldn't accommodate all of us.

Grandma would do the cooking and she'd cook a big huge pot of rice for everyone. I remember there were times when the rice would not be enough for the elders and grandma would have to cook more rice cos I'd eat at least 3-4 huge servings of rice. Really I did. I could eat like a champion back then.

And that wasn't all, before actually having dinner, I'd already be stuffing myself with snacks from the sundry shop across the road with stuff like chocolates, sweets, twisties snacks (one of my favourites back then) and immediately after dinner, I'd rummage through the fridge and whip up one of my favourite snacks back then which was a condensed milk sandwich.

I'm sure some of you would have whipped this up before. Take two slices of bread, smear it with a thick layer of condensed milk, close it and dig right into it. I can still remember the condensed milk dripping out the sides of the bread on my finger and licking them clean after that ... yummy!

And through all this I remained the same weight for as long as I can remember. No matter how much I ate, I was always skinny and my cousins were envious to the point they said I had this huge worm inside me eating up all the food. They were simply jealous cos I was so urrmmm, slim and they were fat little kids! Hahaha ... Even up to my late teens I was still pretty small sized. I think my buddy Adrian can testify to that. When he first knew me, I was way smaller than I am now.

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Hehehe ... ok, ok, I know that was a cheap shot at squeezing in an assignment but hey, at least it was original!

Ok, where was I? Oh yes, about me eating like a pig and not gaining weight. Those were good times. I could still remember the size of my waist when I was somewhere around 23 yeasr old was just a mere 28 inches! And no, I'm not going to tell you what my waist size is these days. I think maybe my cousins were right about me having a huge worm in my stomach or something.

I guess I started losing the ability to eat and stay slim the moment I bought my car. Before I had my car, I used to take the bus wherever I needed to go and that required quite a bit of walking. But the moment I got my car was when I really started to bloat up a little. I stopped 'walking' and drove everywhere and that probably was one of the reasons why I could not stay slim anymore. That and also the fact that I got lazy.

These days I really have to watch what I eat and also the amount of food I take. Eating a little too much will make me feel bloated and uncomfortable the whole day. The diet I'm on has helped me quite a bit I must say. I can't eat big portions of food anymore and that really is indeed a blessing for me. I'm more comfortable with my weight now. But I do long for the days when I could eat a barbecued horse, two steamed dinosaurs, four fried wholly mammoths and a dozen grilled whales and still have room for desserts and not grow an inch bigger!
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Of Accidents And Unscrupulous People ...

Phew, I'm glad Monday is over. After the horrible day that I had yesterday, I'm just glad to be able to put it all behind me and start the day fresh. Tuesdays aren't so bad for me. Tuesdays don't hate my stinking guts all that much ... hehehe ... It didn't start out as an easy day though but towards noon it got better.

Anyways, on the way home from work yesterday, I met an accident. Now, before you all ask me how serious it was, don't worry, there was hardly any damage. In fact, it wasn't even a real accident to begin with.

My usual route on the way home would take me around the park near my house and normally, the time I drive home, which is in the late evening, that park will be full of kids playing and things like that. I'm always careful when I pass by the park cos you know how kids can be when they're in the park.

There I was just rounding the corner of the park when I notice these 3 kids riding their bicycles out from the park. Kids just love doing stunts with their bikes here. Since the park is in a residential neighbourhood, there were the residents cars parked all around the park which can sometimes obstruct your view.

These 3 kids, while after doing some silly stunts just rode out of the park without bothering to check if there were cars or not. Like I said, I never speed when I'm near this park cos my boys also play here and it's a good thing I saw these 3 jokers. I knew they didn't see me at all and so I stopped my car to a standstill in the middle of the road.

There they came, 2 of them saw me at the last instant and narrowly avoided me while one of them was not so lucky and rammed his bicycle into the front of my car! It was such a comical sight, something you'd see happening in the movies and I would have laughed my head off if it wasn't such a dangerous thing. Before I could even get out to check on the boy (and also give him a tongue lashing for being so careless), he got up, got on his bicycle and rode away like a scared rabbit!

I guess he wasn't hurt at all but I seriously would have loved to have given him a lesson in road safety. You all know the mood I was in yesterday so he was lucky he just decided to cycle off and not face my wrath. LOL! It's a good thing I wasn't going too fast and I happened to notice them and stop, otherwise I'm sure it wouldn't have been such a comical sight to behold. I'm going to be extra careful when I pass there today. Hmmm, maybe I should go find him and scare him or something ... hahaha ...

And on another note, I'd like to talk a little about the reality show Gangstarz which is aired on our local TV3 station. I didn't really want to bother about writing this but I just couldn't keep it inside any longer. Now, I'm not really a huge reality show fan. In fact I don't think all that much about reality show though I do have a few that I simply cannot miss.

Gangstarz is a locally produced reality show searching for the best group from South East Asia, namely Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. The show is into it's second season and I watched it last year and it was a pretty decent production. Now, this year, the show as far as I'm concerned has deteriorated in terms of the talents participating.

Except for two of the groups, namely One Nation Emcees from Sabah, Malaysia and Paragon Child from the Philippines, the rest as far as I'm concerned should take a running leap of a bridge. They're so bad that I think I sound better in the shower ... LOL!

Everyweek, as with all reality shows, someone WILL be eliminated. That's the way these things work, right? You send in sms's and vote to keep you favourites in, right? And the one with the lowest number of votes get the boot, right? Well, that's how it should work anyway. But how can you have a reality show where there were NO eliminations for 3 concerts and 2 of those back to back at that!

Don't tell me that no one got the least number of votes? How can they not have any eliminations for 3 concerts? Just because one of the favourites possibly got the lowest number of votes, they decide that there will be no eliminations?

Once, I can live with, twice is a bit too much, but 3 times? Now that's like cheating all those people out there who actually spent so much money on sms's to keep their favourites in the competition and the producers decide that just cos one of the favourites got the lowest votes, they will not eliminate anyone just to keep them in the competition.

Well, that's what I'm speculating anyway. I mean, why else would there be no eliminations. like I said, don't tell me no one go the lowest vote? This is a reality show after all and the winners are decided by people who spend money voting through sms's and this borders on cheating as far as I'm concerned.

It's totally unfair to the fans who vote very week. They might as well just not vote cos for all you know there will be no eliminations again this week. Why waste their money, right? The producers might as well just decide the winners for themselves if they already have a group in mind, right? What a bunch of cheats and the telcos are probably laughing all the way to the bank as well! I have lost all interest and faith in this show.

It's a good thing I've never ever voted for shows like this, well, I did vote for Stacy in the recently concluded Akademi Fantasia but that was only in the finals ... LOL! I just had to bitch about it cos unscrupulous people get on my nerves! Gee, I guess I'm back to my old self again ... hahaha ...
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A Not So Nice Day ...

The picture below sums up exactly how I feel right now. I always knew for a fact that Monday really hates my sticking guts. It's not even noon yet and my mood is screwed already. I'm in absolutely no mood to do any postings so I'm going to do something totally uncharacteristic of me and end my post here for today. I'll come back later and post something when I'm in a much more improved mood. Maybe then I'll be able to even look into the Apidexin review that I'm supposed to be doing.

The Roti Man

What a great Thursday it's been for me. The whole first half of the morning was extremely free for me, which was a relief compared to the past two weeks crazy schedule. And the second half of the day was even better cos I was not working at all :D I took the day off after lunch cos wifey and me had some stuff to do which surprisingly was completed pretty fast and left me the rest of the day to just laze around with wifey.

After coming back from our errand, we just lazed around in bed (and don't get any dirty ideas, ok? LOL!) and just chit chatted until we both dozed off for an hour or so. Now, that's what you call life ... hehehe ... It's not often I take leave and enjoy the day at home on a working day. It's really a very different feeling and atmosphere compared to being home on a holiday or the weekends.

Somehow, the neighbourhood seems all that much quieter, no kids playing outside, most of the neighbours have gone to work and it gives a really deserted feel to the neighbourhood which is a nice change for me to experience. But lying there in bed enjoying the tranquility of the moment, I was aware of a different kind of noise that permeates through the neighbourhood.

Every half an hour or so, I'll hear the 'old newspaper' guy in his small little lorry going 'old newpaper (and it's 'new' paper not newspaper), suratkhabar lama, old battery, bateri lama' over and over again. Then it's followed by the gas lorry honking away trying to sell his gas cylinders. Not to be outdone, another lorry will soon pass by blaring away 'tilam, tilam' (mattress, mattress or something like that, wifey says our younger boy knows the exact words. LOL!) bringing mattresses right to your doorstep for those who actually buy mattresses from these people.

I look at wifey and she's not really bothered by all the noise cos she says it's a daily thing and she's grown accustomed to it that she hardly hears them anymore. For me, even though I know these 'entrepreneurs' do go around daily, it was like a new experience for me. I don't remember having people like these going around back when I was growing up. Back then we didn't have people like these driving around every day bringing goods to your doorstep. How the times have changed.

Back in the old neighbourhood that I lived while I grew up, if we needed things like a new gas cylinder, we'd just walk over to the sundry shop which really wasn't too far away from my house and order the cylinders and they'd send it over in bit. There was no such a thing as anyone driving around trying to buy your old newspapers back then. In fact, I don't even know what happened to all our old newspapers, maybe my grandpa burned them or something.

But one thing I do remember back then very fondly which they don't really have these days anymore is the old 'roti man' (bread man) on his small motor cycle with this huge storage cabinet, for want of a better word, attached to his small motor cycle which will be adorned with all types of breads, buns, snacks and junk food.

Sometimes it amazes me at how he actually balances the motorcycle! These 'roti men' were normally Indian Muslims and they were such nice people. I actually remember our 'roti man'. He serviced our neighbourhood for as long as I could remember and all the kids just loved it when he came by every evening, honking away his air horn.


Every time he came over to our place, me and my cousins would always rush out and grab all kinds of things from his motorbike and one of my favorites was this huge square kinda bread with sugar and raisins on it. It was about 12 inches by 12 inches and about 2 inches thick. Any of you guys know of this bread I'm talking about? I don't know how else to describe it but it was huge and that would be the first thing I'd grab every evening and not share a single crumb with my cousins ... LOL!

Another one of my favourite items would be this coconut bun that he'd have. I'd grab as many as 3-4 buns (I was a big eater back then, ok!) and armed with my square sugar and raisin bread and these coconut buns, I'd gleefully run in and sit in front of the TV and proceed to ruin my appetite for dinner ... LOL!

And through the years, this 'roti man' fellow would become a family friend who would see us grow from small little brats to grown up adults. I still remember my 'roti man' to this very day. He always had a smile on his face and never failed to turn up, come rain or shine.

There was a time when he met with an accident and had his son took over his route for a time until he recovered. We were all so worried about him and was so relieved to see him again when he finally recovered. Life was so much easier and people were so much more friendlier and concerned about each other even though you were practically a stranger back then.

Sadly, these days I don't see them anymore. I suppose they are still around but they don't come anywhere near my neighbourhood. These days, you get this Gardenia sponsored van going around blaring it's Gardenia tunes selling nothing but bread. How boring! No character at all unlike the old 'roti man'.

And somehow you can never relate or build a friendship with these new breed of bread men like the one I did with my 'roti man'. I guess the times really have changed and in a way I sometimes feel sorry for my kids at not being able to enjoy the things I did when I was growing up. I wouldn't trust my kids with anyone out there and strangers will just remain strangers unlike the old days.

All this reminiscing has made me long for the old days in my old neighbourhood. The carefree times I had, the friendships I made, the experiences I went through, the ups, the downs, all of it. Some were bad, some were good but one thing is for certain. They were all such fun times. And I'm glad I was able to experience and cherish all those times. It will never ever come around these parts again.

But then, these days, I have a whole new set of experiences to live through with wifey and the boys and that will be something to cherish and remember years down the road :D
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The Eye Of The Beholder

It's the halfway point of the week and I finally managed to clear all my work, well most of it anyway and have managed to get some time for myself. I haven't been blogging from the office for quite a while now. Well, not as often as I used to anyway. These days with the workload I've been having, I've only managed to get a couple of minutes free time here and there to check on my blog and do a little blog hopping.

I haven't been this busy in god knows how long. Not that I'm complaining that much mind you. More work means more business. More business means more money for the office. And more money for the office means I'll get paid every month :D We can't be too choosy with the work we have right now. Not in this day, situation and age anyway.

But the workload is kinda taking it's toll on me. The moment I step in to the office, it's right down to work. No chance to check into my blog like I used to first thing in the morning anymore. It's work, work and work right through the day. And by the time I get one project completed, a new one is already coming in demanding attention.

By the time I'm done in the evening I'm totally drained out. I'll be driving home with a mentally exhausted mind and feeling lethargic and can't wait to call it a night. My average day these days revolves around coming to work, working like a slave, heading home feeling like a zombie, prepare my usual diet dinner of salads or a chicken sandwich, watch a couple of hours of TV, then head to bed, not even bothering to log on and check my blog. And you all know what a blog addict I am.

There was a time I use to even catch a few hours of reading in bed before calling it a night. I love reading and it's something I love to do before sleeping. Wifey will normally be blogging away and I'll be cuddled up in bed with a recycled book waiting for her. Now, I'm fast asleep even before she comes in to bed. Man, I hope to get back to some semblance of my normal routine sometime soon and get back on track with my daily postings ... hehehe ...

Speaking of reading in bed and all that. I've recently noticed that my eyesight has deteriorated considerably. I have problems trying to make out those fine prints in some of the books I read. I have a whole load of books at home and I've gone through them all at least 4 billion times (ok, I exaggerate, maybe a little over 2 million ... LOL!) and I had no problems before reading them even with some of them having fonts are are pretty small.

When I read them again nowadays, I don't remember the fonts being so small that I have trouble trying to read them. And the position of the lighting in my room doesn't help all that much. Maybe if you keep a book too long, the fonts tend to shrink? Or maybe the ink fades in time and makes the fonts look smaller? Ok, ok, I'll stop making up excuses. I've got bad eyesight due to old age! There, are you all happy now?

But the thing is I hate and I really mean I HATE wearing glasses. Glasses can be so uncomfortable for me. After long periods of time wearing them the bridge of my nose hurts. I actually wore glasses at one time and being the vain pot that I am, I threw them away after a few months. I have astigmatism and was prescribed glasses especially for when I drive at nights. Even wearing my sunglasses for too long a time makes me feel totally uncomfortable. And I'm using pretty light weight Ray-Ban wayfarers and even then, they can hurt.

You know, the funny thing is at one time when I was a kid, I so wanted to wear glasses. I remember my cousin was prescribed to wear glasses and I pretended that I was having headaches and blurred vision so that I could wear glasses too. In those days, it was so cool to be seen in school with glasses on. It made you look intelligent and I did everything I could to get a pair but my mom saw right through me ... LOL! Now, I wouldn't be caught dead in one! How times change, ya?

But the sad truth of the matter is my eyesight have gone bad and I probably would one day really need to get myself a pair of glasses. But that was until I heard of LASIK! I'm sure you all already know that LASIK (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) is a type of refrective laser eye surgery for correcting myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism, right? Well, if you didn't, shame on you ... LOL! This sounds like the perfect option for me. Instead of having to wear some uncomfortable not so happening set of glasses or even contact lenses, I could go get my eyes lasered (is there such a word?).

I'm told it will take about 2 hours for the examination of your eye that will include 3-d mapping (sounds cool and high tech!), get a customized wave-front measurement of the eye (whatever the heck that means) and also get my corneas checked. It's supposed to be a fast and painless procedure but I was also told that not everyone is eligible for it. I guess I need to check out a lot more LASIK information if I ever decided to let some guy in a white coat (they call them ophthalmologists, Nick!) shoot lasers into my eye.

Whoa, will you just look at the time, I'd best be getting back to work now :D Hope you all have been having a great Wednesday so far. But before I even get back to work, a little blog hopping is due ... hehehe ...

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The Five Question Interim Tag

It's been a while since I did any tags but they do come in handy at a time when you need an interim posting and so this tag or meme, whatever you prefer to call it that I got about 6 days ago from Kadus Mama comes in handy ... hehehe ... It looks like an easy tag, at least I hope it is.

And to all of you who have tagged me and I haven't got round to doing your tags, I promise I will do them soon. Really, I will, no joke, honest, cross my heart and hope to die ... urrmmmmmmmm, well, maybe not die la, get a stomach ache or something la ... LOL!

Anyway, let's get down to completing this tag now. Aaaarrrrr, by the way, I have no idea what the title of this tag is called. I'll just make my own and call it the five question interim tag ... LOL!

Question No. 1
What were you doing 5 years ago
Gee, I can't even remember what I was doing 5 minutes ago and you expect me to remember that far back? LOL!

Question No. 2
What were the 5 things on your to do list today?
1. Get through the day!
2. Find time to blog! LOL!
3. Blog hop ... ROTFL!
4. Answer all my comments ... hehehe
5. Urrmm, get some work done :D

Question 3
What are 5 snacks you enjoy?
1. Mr. Potato sour cream and onions chips
2. Salted peanuts (I can't get enough of this)
3. Mars bars
4. Muruku (A savoury popular Indian snack)
5. Mamme Mee ... LOL!

Question 4
What are the 5 things that you would do if you were a billionaire?
1. Quit my job right this instant!
2. Happily pay off my debts!
3. Buy an island
4. Build a mansion
5. Buy Blogspot! LOL!

Question 5
What are 5 jobs you've had?
1. Cashier at 7-11 for one month
2. FA Artist (equivalent to these days Desktop artists)
3. Production cum Studio Manager
4. Art Director
5. Account Manager

Well, there you have it. It really was an easy one :D I'm not going to tag anyone cos I know you're all busy but if you feel the need to have an interim post, please feel free to tag yourself :D
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My Adrenalin Rush Saturday Night!

We had some pretty bad drama happening in my neighbourhood last night. There I was just after dinner, quite a while after dinner to be more specific, working on the handcrafted jewelry that I was making for wifey, ok, ok, I'm fibbing here ... LOL! Wifey and me were actually watching Grey's Anatomy and and suddenly half way through it we heard this loud sound of a crash coming from just down the main road.

My house happens to be about six houses away from the main road and a sound like that could only mean one thing. An accident had happened. I run to the door and try to peek out and can't see anything. Then I see all the neighbours also coming out their houses so wifey and me were not the only ones who actually heard the crash.

Being the busy body that I am and since all the neighbours were all heading towards the main road to see what was going on, I naturally follow them. As I reach the main road I see this car lying on its side in the middle of the road and another just beside it with the front totally smashed.

Oh my god, it's a major accident! No wonder the sound we heard were like two elephants crashing. The car that was lying on it's side looked like it was hit on the side head on and flipped over and must have spun a few times cos it ended up against the flow of traffic. The damage was horrible. It was one of our teeny weeny national car, the Perodua Kancil and it was hit by a heavy duty Volvo sedan. You all know how tough that car is so you can imagine the damage to the other car.

Now, I'm a person who is squeamish when it comes to accidents and blood and seeing the way the mangled car is lying in the middle of the road, I stop in my tracks quite a distance away from the scene, too afraid I'd see body parts and blood all around (gory, I know, but I am terrified at the sight of blood!). After my initial shock, I slowly inch my way nearer and discover that the occupants all managed to crawled out of the car and are all not in too much of a bad shape.

Thank god for that cos there were two kids involved as well and though they were crying they seemed okay with one of the younger kids sporting a flow of blood on his left leg just below the knee but he was standing up so I presumed he was okay. I'm surprised that they actually lived through the carnage cos their car looked like a total loss.

Then the kid with the blood on his leg ran crying towards the house three doors away from me. I was perplexed as to why he did that and only then did I look closely at the victims and discovered they were my neighbours from3 doors away! Now, what are the chances of the accidents victims being people you knew. Man, I'm glad they were okay. They all didn't sustain any serious injuries and if I were them I'd be thanking whatever gods there were that were looking out for them. It was a terrible accident.

I'm not really sure whose fault it was but I'm betting that they actually made an illegal u-turn and on the main road and this Volvo just slammed into them. It was night and there was a slight curve at this particular junction where you're not supposed to make a u-turn but which people totally disregard and make u-turns anyway. I've seen so many people just ignore the u-turn sign and I've even seen police patrol cars doing the same!

But I also put a little of the blame on the Volvo driver cos for that car to be as badly damaged as it was, the Volvo driver (who was a kid hardly above 21 years of age) must have been speeding. I would bet my last dollar on that. You should have seen the front of his Volvo and must have been speeding to damage a Volvo that badly. I'm just glad no one died from it. And most of all, I'm glad there wasn't any blood all over the road, otherwise wifey would have to come carry me home cos I would have fainted at the sight of blood ... LOL!

Anyways, after they all checked each other out, the blame game started. You know, the usual 'you must have been speeding and you must have made an illegal u-turn' nonsense. I didn't really see what happened so I won't blame anyone. All I know is an accident of that kind at that particular junction is going to happen again cos everyone just disregards that no u-turn sign and drivers from the other direction just zooms along the main road like as if it's a race track or something and I know one day an accident worse than last night will eventually happen.

People these days just have no regards for traffic laws and couldn't care less about their safety or the safety of others. But till then, I'll just be a lot more careful when I'm crossing that junction from now on. And I really hope that my neighbours are okay. I told my mom about it and I'm sure she'll drop by their place to find out how they are so I guess I'll know the outcome later.

Well, that was my adrenalin rush drama for the Saturday night, made me miss at least 20 minutes of Grey's Anatomy though! Just though I'd share some of my more 'exciting' moments with you guys ... hehehe ...
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The Six Million Dollar Man

Friday is finally here. I thought the week would never end! I was so tied up with work that I hardly had time to even breath. It was a really frenzied 10 days for me and I'm glad it's over. I still do have quite a bit of work to complete but at least I can do them at my own pace.

I'm really looking forward to the end of the day and to the weekend especially. I'm just going to stay home and do absolutely nothing. Maybe sleep in late (not very likely with my younger boy around), maybe laze on the couch and watch tv (again not very likely cos the boys will hijack the tv for their Saturday morning cartoons). Gee, maybe I'll just sleep all day ... LOL!

I'm hoping to have an easy day today and so far it looks like it's heading in that direction. Nothing to stress me out has happened yet and I hope nothing will. And even if some doofus client calls, I won't let them get the better of my nerves. I've had my nerves frayed enough the past week or so to last me two lifetimes! I even have a lunch date with wifey later so I'm really looking forward to that as well ... :D

But one thing I really need to do is go get my left knee checked out pretty soon. I've been having this pain in my left knee for a very long time and in recent weeks it's kinda getting worse. Ok, maybe not kinda, it IS getting worse. My knees have always been a problem ever since I took up running all those years ago.

It's basically a common problem with anyone who runs. All that pounding the knees take when you hit that asphalt will eventually one day catch up with you and give you problems like these. And no matter what kind of high tech fancy schmancy running shoe you have, it never really is enough to cushion the pounding all that much, especially if you run seriously hard.

But that isn't the only reason contributing to this pain in my knee. The amount of times I hit that knee real hard on the sides of tables, beds, cabinets, edge of the car door and whatnots could fill a whole novel. And these were not soft knocks mind you. There were hard enough to bring tears to my eyes! I'm sure most of you would have hit your knees on stuff like these once in a blue moon, right? Well, a careless doofus like me can hit my knee on stuff at least once a day, minimum!

I can't even count the number of times I have hit my knee on the edge of my bed. When I have the urge to pee at night, I'll walk to the bathroom in pitch darkness and even while doing my business I wouldn't switch on the bathroom light. And I aim pretty well in the dark, just in case you're all wondering ... LOL! Then I'd groggily head back to bed and on more than one occasion I have slammed my knee (especially the left one) on the sharp edge of the bed, leaving me in absolute mind numbing pain.

I'd be standing there not able to move and trying so hard not to scream in pain and wake everyone up. I've done that so many times that you'd think I should be more careful in my bathroom excursions at night by now. I think that and a whole load of other knockings have totally ruined this knee to the point that it's worrisome these days.

There are days when the knee works just fine and there are days when I'm walking up the stairs and it's just give way from under me. And when that happens, I'll feel this jolt or snap, for want of a better word and I would have to hobble up the stairs like an old man! It doesn't happen everyday but it's beginning to happen more often that I am getting a little, no make that a LOT more worried. In fact, it's hurting right now even as I write this post and I know it's going to hurt when I walk downstairs later.

I need to go get some professional help and get the knee X-rayed or something. I think it's begining to lead to something a little more serious than old age. My right knee seems fine, just the left one. It's put paid to my running career (or what little I had of it the past months that is). I know I can't put on my running shoes and go running until I find out what's wrong with it. I don't want to go running and have the knee give out from under me and have to get the security guards send me home on their motorbikes or something.

Wifey has been nagging me to get it checked for quite sometime but being the boneheaded typical male that I am, I've been putting it off for sometime thinking it will go away on it's own. But it's been months and there is no sign of it ever 'going away'. In fact, it's just getting worse each day. I try to not put too much pressure on it but unfortunately I also drive a manual car and the darn clutch happens to be controlled with the left foot. And the fact that I have to drive for appointments most of the time doesn't contribute to the well being of that knee.

What I'm worried about going for a check up is I am sure they're probably going to discover something really horrible with it and tell me it needs to be operated on and replace some part of something in there, drill some screws and such and I've seen a medical show on tv before about knee operations and it was so darn painful to just watch them drill this poor guys knee and insert stuff into it. And it took a hell of a long time for it to heal. And I am afraid of pain like that!

I wonder if they could give me a bionic knee or something, maybe they could even rebuild me like that Steve Austin fellow. You know, 'Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive, we can rebuild him, we have the technology ...' and all that. Though I don't suppose it would still cost only six million these days, ya? LOL! But bionics or not, I do have to get this knee checked out pretty soon before it even gets worse. And this time I can't blame this pain on old age ... siggghhh ...

That aside, Have a great weekend folks :D
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Me And My Howlers!

I was on the way to an appointment this morning. It was a nice cool and rainy morning, the kind that makes you want to spend the day snugged up cozily in bed. The rain was kinda heavy and the traffic was a little slow moving which is always the case when it rains, though there are those three or four daredevils who would zoom pass you like nutcases not realizing how slippery the roads could get on days like these.

Anyways, there I was nicely humming away to the tunes of Santana coming in from the radio in the slow moving traffic when all of a sudden I see this small little Perodua Kanchil (one of our national cars) passing by. And what I see hanging and trailing on its back window wiper caused me to laugh my head off and almost rear-end the car in front of me.

There dangling in the wind on the back wiper of that little hatchback was 2 sets of bras! One was red and the other was cyan in colour. Yes, I kid you not people. It was happily flapping away in the wind and rain. The driver either wanted to flash the colours of her underthings or she probably used the wiper as place to hang and dry the bras and forgot to remove it when she drove off cos she was oblivious to it flapping at the back of her car.

God, I was laughing away hysterically that I was afraid I was going to cause an accident or something and I don't think I was the only one, cos I'm sure every other driver that she passed by would have had fits of laughter. I seriously don't know how she could miss it cos it was flapping wildly in the wind. Maybe she doesn't use her rear mirrors or something but I sure would have loved to have seen her face when she parked the car and got out only to find her bras still hanging on her wiper! That would have been a riot to see ... LOL!

Trust me, I couldn't stop laughing for a couple of minutes, so much so that I didn't even have time to snap a quick shot of it for you guys to see. By the time I stopped laughing, she had already zoomed pass. Man, I've seen a lot of howlers in my time, but that the cake. In fact, come to think of it, I've made such howlers too. No, no, I didn't hang my underpants on my wiper or anything like that but it was equally embarrassing.

Back when I first got my car, a nice little second hand Honda Civic hatchback, I proudly drove it home from the used car dealer and I had only just gotten my driving license a month or so prior to that and was not very well versed with the basics of driving a car. My cousin, who had already been driving years and years drove me to the used car dealers to pick up my car and he followed me back home to make sure I didn't get into any trouble on the way home.

I've always envied him cos he was younger than me and already had his own car so you can imagine my smugness when I finally got mine. So there he was following me as I drove like a novice back home. When I finally reached home, I stopped the car in front of the house gate, walk out, close the door shut and went to open the gates so I could park the car inside. I knew the neighbourhood kids were watching as I got out of the car and I had this smug 'look I've got a car now' look on my face as I opened the house gates.

After opening it I walk to my car to get in and guess what? I had actually locked the darn door accidentally with the keys in the ignition and the engine still running! Oh man, you should have seen the smug smile vanish from my face. The neighbourhood kids all start laughing away and I see my cousin in the car behind slap his hand to his forehead and give me this 'you absolute doofus' look. God, if I wasn't already tanned, you'd have seen me turn bright red!

And don't even bother asking me how I accidentally locked myself of out my car with the engine running cos till this very day I don't even know how I achieved that feat. When it comes to goofing up, I'm the king :D Anyways, there we were, me, my cousin and some of the neighbourhood boys surrounding my car trying to figure out how to help me get the doors open and somehow we finally did. I couldn't wait to get in, park the car, run into the house and find a hole to burrow my head in.

And then there was this one other incident. I had spent the whole day washing, polishing and cleaning my car (the same Honda Civic) and was pretty pleased about it. It was gleaming if I do say so myself. I just had to show off my shiny and spankingly clean car around the neighbourhood. After taking a bath, I got into my car, switched on the music and drove off with the windows down and start cruising the neighbourhood with my cousin.

While driving around, people were pointing at my car and smiling. I guess I must have done a great job with the polishing and cleaning up. I even told my cousin that the back glass looks so clean and crystal clear that it looks like it isn't even there. And everywhere I drove everyone and I mean EVERYONE was looking at my car. I was beaming with pride. That is until I actually parked the car outside this restaurant and got out the car with my cousin.

The reason everyone was looking at my car as I drove around was cos I had actually forgotten to put the hatchback down! No wonder the damn glass looked like it wasn't there cos it really wasn't! I had driven around the whole darn neighbourhood and was thinking I had done such an excellent job on my car that people just couldn't keep their eyes off it. The true fact of the matter was they were all probably laughing their heads off at my stupidity. My cousin looks at me and slaps his hand to his head and gives me the 'you seriously are an absolute doofus' look once again. Suffice to say, he never went cruising with me again ... LOL!
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The 'Jambu Air'

It's really been a tiring week and my workload is still the same. And the darn load looks like it's piling up even more ... sigghhhh ... I'm still not done with my work yet and am at this point of time totally exhausted both mentally and physically. But I need a break and so I decided to just dump all my work aside for a little bit and take a breather and see what's been happening around the blogsphere.

I don't even want to begin to talk about how much work I still have waiting for me cos it'll only depress me even further. Lets just say I'll probably be busy till about the time the world starts to end! Damn those pesky clients for ruining my social life. Not that I had any to begin with ... LOL!

You know, I never realized that sometimes we take the things around us, such as fruits for granted.

'Fruits, Nick???'

Ok, before you all start thinking that maybe I'm losing it from working non-stop the past week or so, let me explain myself a little here. And no, it's not going to be one of those long winded explanations. I don't have the energy to be so long winded today.

This afternoon or rather just before lunch time, wifey called me and said to get some 'jambu air' literally translated as water apple or scientifically known as eugenia aquea on the way home for lunch. I knew the mini vegetable mart across the road from my place sold these fruits and popped by there to get her some.


But I was shocked at the price of it. It cost me RM7.90 for 4 miserable pieces! And it's not like it's any exotic fruit or anything. Back when I was a kid growing up, the place I lived had a tree growing the fruit albeit the green version and we could eat the fruit at any time to the point we got fed up of eating it. We even gave permission to the neighbours to just come into our yard and pluck as many as they wanted.

If I had known I could charge so much for the fruit, I would have taken the tree with me when I shifted out of that place years ago. I could probably corner the world 'jambu air' market by selling them at such exorbitant prices! Back then we didn't need to pay for it cos we had the tree right in our compound.

We had quite a few fruit trees back in the house where I grew up in. We lived in this semi detached bungalow and it had quite a huge front and back yards. And we had a mango tree, a papaya tree, a jack fruit tree and of cos the 'jambu air' tree. In fact, the whole neighbourhood had all kinds of fruits trees and we allowed each other to simply take what we like cos we had so much of them.

And I love this 'jambu air' fruit. It was and still is one of my favourite fruits. I'd pluck as many as I can, wash and cut them up, then eat them with either salt or sugar and 'kicap' (don't know how to describe this but it's like soy sauce) Oh man, I can feel my saliva accumulating and my jaw tightening up just imagining the taste ... LOL!

I remember the neigbour's kids coming in and plucking as many 'jambu air' as they could fit in their pockets. Me and my cousins in return would go over to their place and pluck 'rambutans' (a lychee/longan type fruit) from their compound cos we didn't have that fruit tree at our place. And we all enjoyed sharing the fruits around the neighbourhood. Those were such fun times.

The fruits were in abundance and we could eat it all year round that we'd all grow fed up of it sooner or later and most of the fruits would just end up falling off the trees and rotting away. These days if I wanted to eat mangoes, rambutans or even some 'jambu air', I would have to go to the supermarket or some fruit shop and pay crazy prices for it.

The world isn't really the same anymore. The place where I currently live doesn't even have a yard big enough to grow grass let alone fruit trees. Granted, I do have a mango tree but just having that tree alone takes up a big portion of the yard and besides that mango tree has only given us its fruit twice in its entire lifetime.

And as for the rest of the neighbours, well, they don't even have a single fruit tree to begin with. And the ones that do have, I don't think I could just walk in and pluck the fruits. They'd probably let loose their dogs on me!

Siggghhh ... how I miss my childhood days when things were so much more fun and life was so much more simpler. Everyone knew each other and gates were not pad locked, we could trust everyone and no one would call the cops if you happen to walk into their compound and try plucking their fruits or anything like that.

I guess as far as I'm concerned, I'm probably going to have to be paying pretty steep prices for fruits that I used to eat as a kid which I could just walk outside my house and pluck anytime I so desired. I wonder if there will even be anymore fruit trees in the years to come?
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Working On A Sunday!

What an absolutely mad week it's been for me. This is the first time in god knows how long that I actually haven't checked my blog for 3 whole days. For me that's like a miracle! I actually had to work today, a Saturday, can you believe that? And you wanna know what's even more worse? I have to work tomorrow too.

I'm totally exhausted from all the running around from one end of the world to the other and any sane person would be in bed right now sleeping blissfully but I just couldn't ignore my blog any longer. I haven't even gotten round to answering my comments from my previous post yet and I don't like leaving comments unanswered for more than a day.

Ever since I started blogging, I've always answered each and every one of my comments (I've even answered spam comments ... LOL!). My policy is, if you took the time and trouble to leave me a comment, I'll take the time and trouble to reply. And hence I feel bad for not replying some of your comments until today. I'll get around to it right after this post :D And worse yet, I haven't even blog hopped in days! I'm sure some of you have probably even discovered some new technological breakthrough or something ... hehehe ...

The thing is I knew this was going to be a pretty busy week but I didn't expect it to be a horrendously busy week with everyone wanting all their things done at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if these clients think that we only handle their account and no one else's.

We don't really have many accounts with us. We have a couple of anchor clients and we're pretty happy with the workload they give. Normally we don't get jobs or projects that clashes with each other. But this week alone, both our main anchor clients, a financial institution and a government ministry decided that they need things done and insist on seeing me at the exact same time!

The worse thing is my work is done yet. Like I said, I have to work tomorrow and I have to be in Putrajaya, our administrative capital to install and modify some stuff for a gallery we did for them that is going to be the centre of attraction for their event on Monday. And the best part is I wasn't even informed by them that the event was on Monday. I was only aware of it on Wednesday and even then they couldn't give me the information I needed to get their work done for them.

Me: 'You mean the event this Monday, ah?'

Client: 'Ya, you know la, always last minute.'

Me: 'But today is Wednesday and I don't have info from you to get things done!'

Client: 'When is your cutoff time to get info from us?'

Me: 'Urrmm, by 5pm today!'

Client: 'Ok, I email to you tomorrow.'

Me: 'Urmmm, no, no, must be by 5pm today.'

Client: 'Ok, tomorrow first thing in the morning I email to you.'

Me: 'No, no, today! As in by 5pm. TODAY!'

Client: 'Ok, ok, by tonight I email to you.'

That was when I wanted to strangle them. I wanted to ask him which part of 5pm today didn't he understand! God, clients can be so daft and irritating at times and I think I pamper them just a wee bit too much sometimes. They actually only gave me the info on Friday and that is why I had to work today and tomorrow, a SUNDAY, just to struggle to get their stuff ready.

I still have loads and loads and loads of work still waiting for me in the office next week and the week hasn't even started ... sigghhhhhh ... I really, really could do with a lot more help. I'm getting too old for this already. I should just sit in the office and let someone else do all the running around but I'm a hands-on kinda person and besides I don't really have anyone else to help me out. So, I'll just have to suffer until then.

I'm really drained and can hardly keep my eyes open. My back hurts from all the work I did today and like I said earlier, I should be in bed. But the pull was too strong. Wifey is fast asleep already. She's been a little under the weather and we actually decided to sleep early today. We even gave Grey's Anatomy a miss and came up to sleep at 9.30 pm. Yes, it kinda early I know, but we were both tired. But the moment I stepped into the room I heard my PC calling out,

'Nicholassssss, Nicholassssss, you've been neglecting meeeee ...'

And I just had to log on and see what's happening around the blogsphere. I guess the sleep can wait for just a few minutes more ... LOL! I've also got a couple of assignments that was on the verge of expiring and I just couldn't let good money go down the drain now could I? Besides how hard could it be to write about farmhouse sinks? Damned hard I would say ... LOL! Ok, I think I should head to bed already. I'm beginning to write utter nonsense.

Hope you guys are having a way better weekend than I am and I'll drop by your blogs tomorrow, k? I'm just too drained out to blog hop tonight. I'd probably fall asleep at the keyboard soon. I'm going to hit the hay and dream of lazing around by the beach sipping some iced cool lemonade surrounded by a horde of bikini clad women or something (ok honey, maybe no bikini clad women ... LOL!). Happy weekend folks :D
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Busy, Busy, Busy ...

This is going to be a short post (don't hold your breath though ... LOL!). It has been a very hectic week for me. All that weeks of lazing around, shaking my legs and doing absolutely nothing in the office has come to an end. I've been up to my neck with work since Monday that I don't even have the time to blog! How horrible ... LOL!

All of a sudden, one of my clients suddenly remembered my cell phone number and that I still exist in this world and has decided to dump on me a host of new projects. And being the wonderful clients that they are, they need all their work completed like yesterday! Oh well, who am I to complain. Times are bad, if I don't do their work, someone else will, so I just have to bow down to their wishes, sacrifice my precious blogging time and rush out all their work for them. LOL!

In fact, my work isn't fully completed yet and right now, it's 11.30pm and I'm dead tired from the past couple of days rush work but I just couldn't stay away another day without updating my blog. I should actually be in bed right now seeing as how I'm going to be stuck with loads of work the moment I step into the office tomorrow but the pull of my blog is too strong. Told you guys I was addicted to blogging.

I also haven't been blog hopping and need to do a little catching up on what you guys have been up too the past couple of days. I know there's some new genie luck thing going around the blogsphere. I could do with some good luck but I'm wary of that conniving genie king fellow who stills owes me 2 wishes from the last round of magic carpet thingy. And don't think I forgot buddy! LOL!

And since I'm talking about that no good conniving genie king, I'd like to wish the bum a happy birthday. Urmmm, how old are you again buddy? 47? No? 50? No? Well, you're old enough! LOL! It's still not too late and there is 20 minutes to go before his birthday is officially over. I wonder how it must feel to be able to qualify for senior citizens rate for the the LRT! ... hahaha ... Anyways, hope you had a blast bud!

I wanted to get you a couple of personalized gifts but seeing as how I was too busy I just didn't have the time to go get you one! LOL! There were some pretty great ones I saw at Personalizedkids.com and one that caught my fancy was the photo personalized dvd for kids ... urmmm, I mean adults, that would suit you just fine. Maybe next year I'll check out their store for gifts cos they have over 150 products which includes personalized dud's, personalized gifts, dozens of personalized books and a whole load more.

Anyway, all that aside, I did get richer by RM625.00 yesterday. My road tax expired and seeing as how the government has stopped subsidizing the fuel over here and decided to give a rebate of RM625.00 as compensation to cars owners below a certain engine capacity which I happen to qualify for. So since my road tax expired yesterday, I qualified for the rebate and was smiling from ear to ear after getting my road tax done and walking out the post office with an additional RM625.00 in my pocket! Woohoo, that sure comes in handy seeing as how I had to fork out quite a bit to fix my car last month.

Ok, I can't really keep my eyes open any longer and not wanting to fall asleep right here in front of the PC, I'll bid you guys a good night and will drop by your blogs tomorrow to catch up on what you've all been up to. I must be getting really old. There was a time I could stay up till the wee hours of the morning and not feel the least bit sleepy ... sigghhh ...
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The Aftermath ...

It's been a wonderful weekend albeit a very tiring one. We were practically out of the house almost all weekend. Our day started very early on Sunday, well, if you consider 9.00 am early, that is. We woke up, did a quick laundry session, washed my car, it was kinda filthy since it just came out of the mechanic the day before. Was expecting it to rain but strangely enough, the weather was kind to my car :)

After that we had a quick simple breakfast at home and headed out to for lunch at one of the malls nearby. Spent almost the whole afternoon walking around window shopping and then headed home for some rest before we had to go for the barbecue session in the evening.

The barbecue session turned out to be as fun as I expected it to be. There was even a surprise involved when another close buddy whom we've also known for close to 22 years turned up. We haven't seen that guy for years now, so it was pretty much fun catching up on old times. I think all our wifes were probably bored of the same old stories we always bring up at times like these ... LOL!

The food was really great. My buddy Adrian did a great job of preparing the stuff for the barbecue. My diet went down the drain that night cos I think I ate myself silly. But it was all in the name of fun and I can always starve myself again this week ... hehehe ... I'm sorry people, I was having too good a time and slightly a little tipsy to even remember to take any pictures.

Our old friend of 22 years brought a bottle of wine along with him and between the 3 (Sean, being a new father with a 4 month baby left earlier) of us we finished the whole bottle in a matter of less than an hour. That was on top of the Shandy and beers we had a little earlier. People say it's not really good to mix your alcohol but do I listen? Being a smart aleck, I don't and paid the price for it the next day.

Strangely enough I didn't wake up with a hangover or anything like that. But my entire body felt like as if a herd of rampaging elephants stomped all over me. Every part of my body that could possibly ache, ached like crazy. I didn't know a little too much alcohol could even do that to you. Well, that was way better than getting one of those hangover headaches. The next time we have any barbecues, I'm just going to drink water! And besides wifey says I talk a bit too much when I'm tipsy. But honey, even when I'm not tipsy I talk a bit way too much ... LOL!

With the ache and all, we had to get up at 7am on Sunday cos the boys had Sunday school and we needed to see my sons Sunday school teacher too. I was looking forward to seeing what crap she was going to give us and with my achy body and all that, it would have been fun. But in the end, wifey went to see her alone, I think she didn't want me to create any drama there. You all know me and my drama king antics ... LOL!

Anyway wifey said she didn't give her any problems. It was to collect my sons progress report or something like that. I don't remember during my Sunday school days (yes people, as surprising as it may seem, I did go to Sunday school too ... LOL!) my mom had to go collect progress reports or anything of that sort. Things sure have changed a lot since my Sunday school days.

After Sunday school, we wanted to stay back for the San Pedro festival which was being organized in the church, but unfortunately the tickets were totally sold out. San Pedro festival or popularly known as the Festa San Pedro is a festival that observes the feast of St. Peter, the patron saint for fisherman and is generally celebrated in the Portuguese Settlement in the historic town of Malacca. It's a yearly thing and nothing beats actually going to Malacca and experiencing it there.

The church I go to in a place called Shah Alam decided to celebrate yesterday with their own festival seeing as how there are lots of Portuguese families in the congregation and the festival is really a dying thing among the newer generation of Portuguese people over here. In fact, I've only been to it once in my life and being of Portuguese blood myself, I'm totally ashamed to admit that I don't know much about it. All I can tell you is it's full of colours, fun, dancing, food and of course loads of drinking ... LOL!

My moms side of the family is Portuguese and are from the town of Malacca, unfortunately I was born here in Kuala Lumpur and lived here all my life and whatever Portuguese heritage I have is totally non existent to me right now. I can't even speak a word of Portuguese though I remember my grandma was fluent in it. They used to speak the language whenever they didn't want us kids to know what they were rambling about. Of course I know a couple of Portuguese swear words, but then I know a lot of swear words in various languages anyway ... hahaha ...

Anyways, since we didn't have tickets for it, we decided not to hang around and we headed home but being suckers for pain, we stopped at the hypermarket and did some shopping before finally heading home. I also wanted to check out some handhelds and PDAs that I've been wanting to get for a long time now. I actually lost the last PDA that I had. By the time we were done shopping, I was in so much achy pain that the moment I reached home, I headed to bed for a nice long nap! Being old is no fun at all.

But overall, I must say I had a great weekend and am looking forward to more weekends like this in the near future, aches and all ... LOL! And on another note, being a devout McLaren fan, I'm glad to note that Lewis Hamilton won in splendid fashion at the Silverstone F1 Grand Prix last night :D
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The Weekend

Woohoo, you all know what day it is today right? No, it's not the 4th of July, urrmmm, well it is but we don't celebrate that over here. Ok, I'll give you a hint. It's my favourite day of the week. What? Don't tell me you can't guess already now? Geez, what's wrong with you people ... LOL!

It's Friday and it's the time of the week I look forward to the most cos tomorrow is the weekend :D Okay, if you hadn't already guessed by now, yes I live for weekends. I've always lived for weekends and I'm glad I don't work on Saturdays. I pity all you poor souls who have to work on Saturdays. I'll spare a thought for you while I'm sipping a cocktail on a beach somewhere. How I wish! LOL!

Ok, Ok, I'd better stop being too happy. There's still a couple of hours to go before work finishes and from now until then, a lot of things could go wrong. But it still can't hide the fact that I love Fridays :D So, far all the jobs that I have ever worked in always had Saturdays off, well except for one that is. But I didn't stay in that company for too long anyway. There are quite a lot of companies that work half day on Saturdays and I personally think that everyone should only work 5 days a week (the less the better ... hehehe ...), well of cos not for service oriented industries like banks and post offices that is.

Anyways, just why am I babbling about all that. I've got a pretty hectic and full weekend. I have a barbecue to attend tomorrow at my best buddy's place. It's been a while since we had one, seeing as how he's been busy studying and all that but is currently enjoying a semester break (at least that's what I think it's called) so he decided to organize one at his place. Actually, all of our gatherings are always organized at his place. It's been like that ever since we first knew each other. Besides he has the house with the biggest compound anyway ... hehehe ...

It's been a while since we had our last barbecue session. We agreed to have one at least once a month or so but that never materialized cos we're all busy with our families and stuff. So I'm really looking forward to catching up with them. The usual gang will be there which means me and my family and Sean and his family. It's been a while since we last caught up. We've been friends like forever and even though we can go for months on end of not seeing each other but when we do catch up, we get into the groove of things pretty fast. How we stayed such good friends this long surprises even me.

We're always up to all kinds of pranks when we meet. And we never of tire insulting each other to the max ... LOL! But I suppose that's what good friendships are made of. I've known them for more than half my life (and that's a long time) and I don't think I could ask for any better best buddies than these two. So yes, I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow evening. I just hope the weather will cooperate. But rain or shine I'm going to enjoy myself. I'll take some pictures when I'm not busy stuffing myself silly with food! LOL!

Then on Sunday I've going to be giving some grief to my sons Sunday school teacher. Apparently there was a parent-teacher meeting last week and we didn't show up. First of all, I had some car problems so I couldn't send the boys for Sunday school and secondly no one informed us about the meeting. Not a note, not an email, not even a phone call. Then yesterday, they messaged wifey and said we missed the meeting and would like to see us this Sunday.

I've no issues with that, but the double meaning that was apparent in the text message to wifey was that it was a grave sin to not attend the meeting (which I knew nothing about) and that we would be sent to the depths of hell for committing such a sin! Oh, they don't know what hell is just yet. Wait till I'm through with them this Sunday, hell would probably be a nicer place to be than what I'm going to dish out to them. But of course I'll be polite first and see how it goes la ... hehehe ...

So, my weekends all planned and just needs to be carried out. Hopefully no one throws a wrench into the plans and I would safely say it's going to turn out to be a nice weekend :D Here's wishing all of you a cool weekend too. And since I'm kinda free right now, I'll be dropping by all your blogs in a bit. I see on my reader that a lot of you have updates in your blogs and it's probably going to take me a couple of hours just to go through all your blogs. You guys sure do update quite a lot, huh? :D
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A Watery Affair

This afternoon, I came back to the office after lunch and as usual headed upstairs to my room. The office was practically empty cos it was still lunch time. And I love the office when no one is around. So nice, quiet and peaceful. So I head up to my room to enjoy the couple of minutes of solitude before the rest of them come back from lunch.

As usual, I'll log in my account and check my blogs and emails and all that. After about 15 minutes, I hear the girls coming back cos I can hear them giggling all the way from my room upstairs. Suddenly, one of them starts screaming my name from downstairs asking me to come down.

I'm not all that bothered cos these girls most of the time will always scream for me for the slightest thing. They're still pretty new here and not being mean or anything, but they're a little blur at times So, I walk down and they're all excitedly jumping up and down and pointing at the area just behind the reception.

I look in the direction they're pointing and get the shock of my life! The whole place is covered with water coming from the back. It looks like a nice little river forming there. I'm stunned and my brains practically stop working. Instead of running to the back to see what's wrong I stand there like some moron and just look at the pooling river of water.

After a couple of seconds and with those 3 stooges still screaming frantically at the pool of water, my brains finally start to unfreeze and I run to the back to find the source of the leak and discover that some smart little person left the taps running throughout lunch and it overflowed and made its way all the way to the front of the office soaking up the conference room and two other rooms downstairs and practically ruined the reception area.

There was so much water in the corridors that if I waited any longer, I would have probably needed a sampan to go to the back of the office. The water was left running for about an hour, probably since lunch time for it to cause that much damage. And the best part is no one admits it was them who left the taps on. I mean, who would, ya? My boss is going to freak out when she finds out about it and she can be scary when she's in one of her bad moods.

I know I'm safe from her fury cos I was out of the office practically all day and only came back during lunch. Phew, thank god for small miracles. In fact, I think I'll try and make an appointment tomorrow so I don't have to be in when the boss comes if. I don't really need to see the fireworks. I've been on the receiving end of her fury on more occasions than I care to remember ... LOL!

Anyways, after switching off the tap, I had to figure a way out to sweep all that water back out. I was a little stumped for a solution though. The best option would have been to vacuum the water up but unfortunately our vacuum cleaner is not the wet/dry kind so there went that idea. In the end I used the dust pan to scoop as much water as I could into buckets.

That was really a back breaking job, the amount of times I had to bend down, scoop water up and then carry that heavy bucket all the away to the back to dispose of was unimaginable. Luckily two other male colleagues came back and seeing as how I was more senior in the company, I bullied the in completing the job ... LOL! Seniority does have it's benefits at times. I know my back is going to ache later tonight.

All I wanted was a nice quiet Wednesday and I end up being the water boy. The place is going to stink like hell tomorrow. I'm sure you all know what stale, dampy carpets are going to smell like, right? This isn't the first time I've experienced a flooded office. Once in my previous job, the same thing happened too but that was even worse.

Some moron left the taps on before going home and when we came to work the next day, we were all greeted by a nice cascading flow of water from upstairs. And the moment we opened the doors to get in, all that water inside gushed out like some scene from Indian Jones and soaked all of us. I took the brunt of it cos I was the fool who volunteered to open the doors! I had to even go home and get a change of clothes. And the office stank for weeks after that.

I'm really not looking forward to the smell tomorrow. Maybe I'll go on a quest to look for Shirley of Hollywood or something ... hehehe ... Actually I don't even know who the heck Shirley is and that she was even living in Hollywood! :D
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Oh, Happy Day ...

I've been having a pretty busy day today and wasn't really intending to post anything at all until maybe later tonight or even tomorrow morning. So this will be a short post, by my standards anyway. After yesterdays disastrous Monday which I shall not mention for fear of raising my blood pressure again, but you guys can take it from me that it was an absolutely horrible Monday for me.

If you're been following my blog, you'd all probably know by now that Mondays and me simply despise each other to the max and it would do everything it could to make my life miserable on Mondays. I'm just glad that Monday is over. One of these days I'm going to extract my revenge on you Monday, just you wait!

Today has been a so-so day for me until a little while ago. I had to go to the bank to get some transactions done, something which I just couldn't get done online. Yes, there are things that just cannot be done online even in this day and age. And my bank is located in a place where parking is like impossible to find. So, I find one hundreds of miles away (ok, I exaggerate too much) and walk to the bank under the blazing sun.

I reach the bank, take my queue number and walk up to the banking hall only to find that there are like 60 plus people waiting for their turn.

'Oh god, this is going to take all day!' I groan.

But I'm left with little choice cos the stuff I need to do cannot wait till tomorrow. I resign myself to the fact that I'm going to be stuck in the bank for at least an hour and a half. So I find a nice quiet corner and sit there with this pathetic and pitiful look on my face. I don't like waiting, I'm the most impatient person in the world. Suddenly I hear this whisper in my ear,

'What's your number?' says the voice.

I turn around and see the banks security guard next to me. I look at him with this slightly blur look thinking he's trying to pick me up by asking my phone number. In the bank at that. In broad daylight at that. I'm a guy for gods sake and I'm totally straight! And just as I was about to tell him I'm not that kind of guy, he points to my queue ticket and says again,

'What's your number la!' he whispers again, slightly louder.

Oh man, how dumb could I get. He was asking me what my queue ticket number was and there I was thinking he was trying to pick me up. What a conceited doofus I could be. Like as if I was good looking enough for anyone to want to pick me up. LOL!

Embarrassment aside, I show him my queue ticket and he says to give it to me. Not wanting to say no to a guy holding a shot gun, I hand him my ticket and he quietly slips me another one. I look at it and am absolutely delighted to see that my queue number has been reduced to just 3 numbers away from being called! From 60 plus to just 3 turns away, who could argue with that.

Than he proceeds to tell me that he gave me the ticket cos I had a nice face and the rest of the people in the banking hall had this arrogant look on their faces. It pays to put on a pathetic pitiful look at times cos you get security guards helping you cut queues, legally! LOL! And then he proceeded to make by day by calling me a young man! This guard looked way younger than me and he was calling me a young man!

You should have seen the smile that was on my face. I looked like an absolute moron with this huge big smirky smile and I couldn't care less. Someone actually called me a young man instead of 'uncle' and I was going to enjoy every bit of it. I just couldn't get the smile of my face. In fact I still have this smirk on me right now. LOL! Finally, someone acknowledges me for having a nice face and being young, either that or he really was gay and was trying to pick me up ... Hahahahahaha ...

Anyway, gay or not, I'm absolutely thrilled today. From a so-so day, it's become a nice and wonderful day and I have a little more spring in my step. I didn't even complain when I had to walk back all the way to my car under the blazing sun. It isn't everyday I get called a young man you know :D Oh and does anybody know what a Leptovox is? And don't go conning me it's some new brand of laptop or something? I may be gullible but I'm not that gullible, k? :D

And you guys didn't really believe it when I said that this was going to be a short post now did you? And here I am thinking I was gullible ... hahaha ...
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