27th & 6th

While-ing the hours away

2007-08-21T17:18:00.000+08:00

Well, not really. I have two deadlines tomorrow but I can't think of anything property-related, which really doesn't augur well for me since I've been told that ALL my bosses have read this blog. Wise men would probably advise me to stop putting incriminating actions down in ink, and they'll be 100% right.

I mean, the day I get fired, my boss'll ask me into his room, and I'll find myself facing a mountain of blog posts detailing my flagrant abuse of office resources, all printed out from our super-cool Minolta printer. No words will be needed. I will quietly slink away with my stuff and a potted plant (not that I have one now) in those brown cardboard boxes like they do in HK serial dramas.

Why does this post exist then? It's widely known I'm not terribly bright, so blehh.

Anyway, instead of working like a productive little citizen, I came up with a brand spanking new slogan for MCA.

MCA
MOAR Backbone!!11!
Sheesh.

PS: Because I am lazy, I have not inserted any links to the MCA's General Assembly 2007, or Ong Ka Ting, or Wee Meng Chee, or Nazri, or Badawi. Google is your friend.

Don't tell your kids to "Shut up and eat your food!"

2007-08-08T10:51:00.000+08:00

Via Bernama, Zainuddin Proposes Classification Of Web Bloggers
"We have to control this. It is feared that these (blog sites) will be misused by those who have an agenda to spread slander. By right, there should be a mechanism to control this phenomenon, including by classifying web bloggers as professionals and non-professionals," he said.

Via The Star, Zam: Few people read blogs
Political web blogs have a very small following of about 20,000 people, Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin said.

“Only that number out of the 11 million Internet users in the country are actively involved in political blogs. The political bloggers just write for each other to read; they are not a threat,” he added.

Via Malaysia-Today, (cos mainstream media links have expired QQ) Bloggers see red over tourism chief's 'insults'
Tourism Mnister Tengku Adnan allegedly quoted saying,

'All bloggers are liars. They cheat people using all kinds of methods. From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.'

He apparently also said: 'Bloggers like to spread rumours; they do not like national unity. 'Today, our country has achievements because we are tolerant and compromising. Otherwise, we will have civil war.

'Malays will kill Chinese, Chinese will kill Malays, Indians will kill everybody else.'

Via Bernama, Bloggers Who Slander Must Be Brought To Book, Says Khairy
"There are no laws in the cyberworld except for the law of the jungle. As such, action must be taken so that the "monkeys" behave,"

Via The Star, Zam: Ignore ‘goblok’ bloggers
The public should be wise in identifying the websites of goblok (Indonesian slang for “stupid”) bloggers, who are willing to be tools of others to destroy the nation.

There are many more, but I got tired of googling after I hit the fifth.

"So Saffy," you say, "I see tons of exposition, but what's the connection?"

The way I see it, if nothing else convinces you to train your kids to think before they speak, the above five examples should lure you to the dark side. In fact, if I ever have kids, I'ma gonna go to the national library, look through the archive of old newspapers (which I have already done twice, for assignment purposes) and photocopy EVERY ridiculous quote I find over, say, a period of six months. At the rate our highly-esteemed YBs are going, I should have my pickup truck filled in no time.

After that, I'ma gonna wallpaper my kid's room with those quotes. Every time *he doesn't give me a good reason why I should buy him an iPod or whatever it is kids these days hanker after, I'm going to push his face an inch from the closest quote and say, "You don't wanna turn out like that, do you? DO YOU?!"

Then he'll give me a dazzlingly good reason why I should spend my hard-earned money on him, and I'll be convinced, and everyone will be happy.

This works when you're exchanging frank and honest opinions about thermonuclear armament, the viability electro-magnetic pulses in a real war, Mahathir vs Badawi (c'mon, that's not even an argument anymore), Communism vs Capitalism, abortion, gay rights, whatever floats your boat. Cos, you know, my kids won't grow up to be idiots whose mouths are perennially stuck in their asses. Or, at least, they'll remove their heads from their sphincters before they open their mouths. That's good enough for me, really.

PS*: Before you scream sexism, I like boy kids. That's not sexist, that's a preference.

PS2: I'm hankering after an iPod too!

Contradiction much?

2007-07-30T10:59:00.000+08:00

The Star headline.
"No crackdown on bloggers", sez Najib.

BBC headline, appearing one day after the joker above.
"Malaysia cracks down on bloggers"

WINNAR?

What am I doing with my life?

2007-07-26T10:14:00.000+08:00

I think there comes a time where everyone questions the direction their lives are taking. I'm currently selling my soul at an advertising agency, peddling unnecessary stuff to people with money to burn. Before I graduated I wanted to
a) join Off the Edge
b) join Malaysiakini
c) be a social activist

180 degrees, I know. c) is still on, but right now, I need to know what I want before I can make a decision on what to do. Whatever course I choose to take, I must be good at what I do.

So who am I?
I advocate freedom of information, especially pertaining to elections. It's called an "informed decision" for a reason.
I am pro gay rights.
I am pro choice.
I advocate action instead of yapping, including sometimes-unorthodox methods to get the point across.

Who do I join?

Guess the occupation

2007-07-25T15:01:00.000+08:00

Wednesday, 25 July
At an undisclosed location in Section 14...ok lah it's Secret Recipe.

Me: Can we have the Frozen Orange Cheesecake?
Secret Recipe Girl: Sorry, frozen line has been discontinued.
Me: Apasal didn't take it down from your website? -_-
Secret Recipe Girl: You can try Marble Cheesecake.
Me: Hazelnut Cheesecake got?
Secret Recipe Girl: Don't have, sorry.
Me: Raspberry?
Secret Recipe Girl: Don't have also. You want to try Lemon Cheesecake?
MYSTERY MAN: No!

I concur with his vehemence. I mean, sour cheesecake? SRSLY?

Finally we settle on Classic Cheesecake, or maybe it was New York, I forgot. I'm not a huge fan of cheesecake, the way I'm not a huge fan of cockroaches. When we were waiting for the birthday message to be written on the cake, MYSTERY MAN said,

"Can we have it in Helvetica font? Bold the "Gratz" please, and make it bigger than the rest of the sentence, thanks."

To her credit, Secret Recipe Girl didn't sock him over the head with her rolling pin, so all was well. Now guess what MYSTERY MAN does for a living.

PS: Birthday message was "Gratz! 1 year older!" Lame, I know. I wanted it to say "You're 1 year closer to death!" but seeing that the cake was for my boss, it would be career suicide.

Misc bathroom observations

2007-06-08T09:39:00.000+08:00

In the vein of talking about toilets, the toilet in my office (meant for two, but only if you're really dirty, or married) is so freaking humongous it’s bigger than my room (meant for one, I'm so lonely QQ). Life is so unfair.

Let’s go over the features, shall we? It has marble counter tops, huge hotel-like mirror, two sinks, a bathtub wider and longer than my bed, a spacious shower stall, a toilet and a bidet thingy that I assume does not work cos it’s kinda cobwebby where bidets should never be cobwebby.

It’s so big that every time I go to the toilet I join the rombongan melawat tandas. Uber man, just uber. When I’m in there, I also get the insane urge to lounge in the comfy-looking bathtub, except it’s rendered not-so-comfy because it’s strewn with old newspapers.

Hmmm, perhaps strewn is not the right word to use. I suspect the management had someone cover up the tub to prevent workers from longing in the bathtub, so they’re instead forced to lounge in the extremely comfortable chairs at their workstations while Sam Hui’s Japanese Girl blares loudly from the speakers.

Working life is so tough man.

WTB RL aimbots for men

2007-06-08T09:34:00.000+08:00

You know the one thing I don’t like about sharing toilets with guys? Imagine a bladder about to burst. Imagine your smug know-it-all friend (or mom) saying, “Here’s an idea. Next time, try to pee before your bladder fills to bursting?”

Now imagine running into the toilet in a cold sweat, fuelled by horrible images of a literal burst bladder and a mixture of pee and blood and whatever else is in your bladder running down your leg in rivulets. Imagine surviving the rest of your life with no bladder, and imagine living down the notoriety of being forever known as The Girl Whose Bladder Burst.

You think that’s the worst thing? God no. No no no no. The worst thing is making it to the toilet and just as you’re about to take your pants off, you feel something wet and slightly sticky on your feet.

Face looks down. Face reflects confuzzledment. Realisation dawns. Face contorts in disgust and anger. Face screws up in pain.

Congratulations, your bladder has now burst because instead of peeing, you stopped to investigate why your feet were steeped in a puddle of pee, fresh from the urethra of some testosterone-filled jock who cannot aim.

Nice one, guys.

It’s not like the toilet bowl is two inches in diameter, thus making it insanely hard for even Stojakovic to hit the target all the time. The freaking thing is like 3 feet wide, you could drive a truck there and not miss, which is the whole bloody point.

And please don’t plead inconsistent pee volume, cos
1) If your pee velocity fluctuates that much, I think you need to seek help, and fast.
2) If you aim properly, even as the velocity wanes its not gonna fall that short.
3) If it does, you should know better and freaking stand closer to the bowl already!

I’ll avoid voicing the insinuation that you’re perhaps not as well endowed as you thought you were. Oops…

Hmmm, first time I’ve actually written a post with helpful suggestions. Milestone or what? ;)

DND @ work

2007-06-05T17:15:00.000+08:00

Saffron is officially a productive member of society, and no longer one of the 80,000-strong army of unemployed graduates Malaysia proudly boasts of.

I’m employed, and paid real money not beer, with EPF deductions and all, so I'm officially grown up HUZZAH!

In addition to blogging and spamming chatboxes, I also thought of "inspiring names" for phallic buildings that are the physical equivalent of e-peens, and came up with Hallmark-like sayings for an annual dinner invitation card, so there will be absolutely NO questioning of my productivity thanks.

FYI for noobs, those comment-on-current-event-posts are just fillers made to look pseudo-intellectual, kthx.

The difference between boys and men

2007-05-24T16:01:00.000+08:00

A boy can't help but touch something that he finds fascinating, which is why there is always breakage of glass and other delicate ornaments when my male cousins are about the house. A man, on the other hand, understands what it means to "look, don't touch".

Which breed of males do we have running the country?

Quoted for posterity
"Two Penang reps make an issue of women’s dressing", May 23, 2007
Permatang Berangan assemblyman Shabudin Yahaya and Sungai Dua assemblyman Datuk Jasmin Mohamed blamed women's provocative dressing for sexual crimes, raising the hackles of Tan Cheng Liang (BN – Jawi).

“The women’s dressing menggoda (lures) and mencabar (challenges) men,” said Shabudin, who interjected during Tan’s speech when debating the motion of thanks on the Yang di-Pertua Negri Tun Abdul Rahman Abas’s opening address.

(paragraph removed)

Shabudin then interjected that men were sure to look when sexily attired women pass in front of them.

“This is because there is a daya tarikan (attraction),” he said.

Jasmin said that women who dressed provocatively also forgot their family responsibilities.

Sheeple, sheeple everywhere

2007-05-09T19:40:00.000+08:00

Everyone is in a hoopla over this.

It's about time you politicians stopped talking to your constituents like we're idiots, mmkay? In case you didn't notice, huge afros and bell bottoms went out of fashion a whopping 30 years ago, and your puny talk-down-to-them-cos-they-don't-know-any-better tactics ain't gonna work now.

The sooner you wise up the better, cos you know what? People don't like people who insult their intelligence. You may be a dumbass who goes "Baaaaaaa" when someone says something, but kindly do not lump me together with them.

If I wanted "responsible" and "professional" reporting as defined by you, dear sir, I would hop out and buy a copy of the Star.

Quoted for posterity.
"Zam: Classify bloggers", Sunday, May 6 2007.
He said he believed that professional bloggers were those who were more responsible in ensuring that their web content was based on truth and not mere rumours.

“By right, there should be a mechanism to control this phenomenon, including classifying bloggers as professionals and non-professionals,” he added.

Zainuddin said this was important in enabling the people to determine whether they could trust a certain matter and whether the blog content was the truth or a rumour that could cause discomfort or undermine unity.

This was originally meant to be a WoW piece, but I lost it when I accidentally closed my window. Damn I have to remember to compose in notepad before posting it here.

Just a little note

2007-05-01T21:05:00.000+08:00

In case anyone apart from the Oaf is reading this, I screwed up my layout. Bear with the funky text for a while hehe.

The trip to La-La Land

2007-05-01T20:25:00.000+08:00

The other day, there was massive glass-breakage in my house. Mom, host of the family klutzy gene, (and of which I am the sole beneficiary QQ more), retrieved a bowl from the dish rack, lifted it too high, and shattered the glass door of the cabinet sitting above the dish rack.

The tempered glass door, according to her, cracked and then sent a shower of glittering crystal all over her, the dish rack, the sink, and the floor. Except for the fact that it could kill you, it's almost poetic.

As a result, the entire family was tasked with a noble quest: to brave a perilous journey and hordes of unwashed* to find a replacement for the glass door, cos seriously, no matter how slobby and unhygienic you are, you can't have lizards sleeping next to the corn flakes, can you?

The answer to that question, by the way, is no. Don't make the same mistake I did and say, "What's wrong with that?" Mom also happens to be the host of the fire-breathing dragon gene.

At the home of all things undead and woodsy** we trekked to the massive warehouse in an attempt to find doors that fit our 57 by 80 wall cabinet. Wrong move, seriously. They don't bandy around words like "massive" just for fun at the home of our Swedish friends, lemme tell you that.

Anyway, after a nice man told us we're shit outta luck (we didn't know the model of our cabinet, you see) we retraced our steps past the mirror section, back to the kitchenware segment, back up the escalators, over a winding hill and three rivers, and made it to the kitchen cabinet display area.

After looking at each and every cabinet door in that section (and the shelving section, and the office section), we began to be resolved with the sad fact that our kitchen cabinet is probably gonna be drafty for quite some time.

At that point, I was wondering who the hell builds cabinets that measure 57 by 80 anyway? Can't you just round up 57 to 60? I mean, it's only three cm geez, how much wood is that?

Defeated, the family trudged over to The Curve to have dinner (food review coming up next!). Now for those of you unfamiliar with the geography, there's a pedestrian crossing in front of IKEA, and the way it works is, you come to the pavement, glance left, right, and left again, then cross when it's safe.

Note: instructions do not apply to those who're Built Tough™.

Now I'd like to point out something so totally mind-boggling I found it hard to believe I was still in Malaysia. While we were standing on the divider in the middle of the road, cars actually ground to a stop to let us pass!

OMFGWTFBBQ!!!11!one!

I was so totally befuddled I completely forgot my manners and did not raise my hand in a thank you gesture to the nice and sweet drivers. The Oaf and myself talked about this amazing phenomenon all the way to the restaurant (about 10 minutes walk, I guess). What was wrong with them? What's wrong with this place? Are they Malaysian? Maybe they were foreigners (none of us had the presence of mind to look at the car plates, so dumbfounded we were). Maybe they were newbies to driving. Maybe we've been staying too long in Cheras, where the people are crude and the drivers just plain suicidal. Maybe we need to go out more. Maybe, just maybe, Damansara drivers are batshit crazy.

It just boggles the mind.

On the way back, as we were making our way back to the IKEA carpark, I'm glad to report that cars did NOT stop for pedestrians, and we had to go through the same old routine of self-pity and helpless rage of cursing cars and Fords.

Balance is restored, equilibrium is achieved. The world makes sense again, hurray!

* When I say perilous journey I mean the 3 hour drive from Cheras to Damanasara, and when I say unwashed hordes I mean the masses of people who, for some reason, like to hang out at IKEA.

** Again, I'm referring to IKEA.

Observations on the Road, Part One

2007-04-26T16:28:00.000+08:00

Malaysia is a land rich in cultures and traditions, especially when it comes to traffic customs and navigationary norms. All these, when done right, will most definitely kill you.

Part One*: If you’re not on wheels, you don’t use the roads
Might is right, people like to say. These same people also like to complain that Malaysian drivers don’t respect pedestrian crossings and cast baleful glances at big bad off-road vehicles like Ford “Built Tough™” Storms for terrorising the poor two-legged squishies who face mortal danger every time they decide to cross a road.

This is patently not true, that is to say, the meek pedestrians don’t really need your sympathy. You see, the constant bullying by wheeled vehicles has caused the Malaysian pedestrian form a common bond of brothers, to unite and develop a swarm mentality.

No longer do pedestrians wait for the lights to change before venturing onto the asphalt, nor do they huddle in oppressed groups looking for black and white paint to signify that yes, two legged squishies may walk here. Heck, they don’t even wait for a break in traffic before waltzing across without even a glance at the Fords and buses that are forced to screech to a halt to avoid crashing into exoskeleton-clad meatbags.

In fact, if you go to the Bukit Bintang area, you can actually witness poetry in motion, cos that area breeds a strain of especially hardy pedestrians that no one dares trifle with. Bukit Bintang pedestrians are like the X-Men of pedestrians, they don’t even bother to wait for a crowd to form before launching their attack.

A Bukit Bintang pedestrian (especially in front of Sungai Wang Plaza) will simply breeze onto the road regardless of traffic condition, and if a taxi so much as dares to lean on the horn the pedestrian will immediately unleash a series of Secret Super-Duper Karate Moves and completely decimate the offending vehicle.

Ok I totally made that up. I’ve been watching too much Heroes.

What the pedestrian would actually do is bang on the bonnet of the taxi, point at the driver and make threatening “Mau lawan ka?” motions with her arms while saying “KNNBCCB!” She would then stand immobile in front of the taxi while the line of cars behind the cab stretches back to Jalan Loke Yew, glaring as she waits for the taxi driver to take her up on her offer.

Finally, as her finishing combo move, the pedestrian will cast Level 5 Evil Eye at the driver for his utter ball-lessness, sniff disdainfully, brush imaginary dust off her sleeves and proceed to repeat the performance on the road in front of Lot 10.

I think this is what they mean when they mention “evolution” in Heroes. And they say the meek shall inherit the earth. Pah! In Malaysia, it’s pedestrians who are Built Tough™.

* Of many, or at least until my inspiration dries up.

Shrooms!

2006-09-28T01:41:00.000+08:00

I am currently summarising a 6-page paper into a 5 minute presentation because my lecturer said it is "important". When a lecturer tells you something is important it means 1 of 2 things: it is either worth a bloody lot of marks, or it will come out in the final exams.

So here I am happily going through para by para, until I realise that I've seriously never came across more ridiculously puerile PC bullshit before. In fact, it's not PC. It's delusional.

Paper presented at the Workshop on Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution held in Kuala Lumpur, August 7 & 8, 1993.
Conflict Resolution: The Malaysian Experience
By Ghazalie Shafie

Malaysia's political parties are not based on racial lines.
The NEP is for the benefit of all races in Malaysia.
It's all the fault of Colonialist Pigs.
BN is all for equitable balance, that is why the party symbol is a cheng (forgot what it's called in English)

This is a bad time for me to be doing this paper. I've just about had it up to here with the racist finagling that's been going on, and I can't take any more of this bullshit.

Whatever this Ghazalie dude's smoking, I want some of it. I also want to sleep, damnit.

Hello blog

2006-09-24T01:39:00.000+08:00

Poor old blog, you're so neglected it's not even funny anymore. If it's any consolation, I haven't actually touched my PS2 in more than a year now. :/

I never thought I'd live to say this, but Taste was right. I should never have gotten sucked into the unrelenting whirlpool that is WoW.

Okay, on tp the blog topic now. On Friday, I had an opportunity to chat with my J2 lecturer after class ended.

While we were waiting for the lift, I spoke about how my mom would hate it if I were to be a 'serious' journalist, and not a fluffy one working for The Star (though I heard the benefits are cushy hmmmmmm...). I don't remember exactly what it was that lead to this topic of conversation, but my lecturer said to me, "You have your life to live," which was strangely reminiscent of what another famous blogger once said to me, only he was less gentle.

I had intended to intern with Malaysiakini, but my mom was vehemently against it after she found out that the site was blocked from her office. "ANTI GOVERNMENT OMG! ISA OMG!" Okay, so she didn't exactly say those words, but that was what her shocked expression conveyed to my WoW-addled brain.

My lecturer then said something along the lines of, "If everyone thought like you who'd be the ones to make a change?"

I've always been an introverted bookworm. I have more books than shelves, which explains the perpetually-messy vibe I have going on in my room. It makes me look intellectual :p Anyway, I guess it was a natural progression to move from reading to writing, and I do love it, especially when I don't have deadlines and can write at my leisure hohoho.

My parents know that when I have a strong opinion about something I'm stubborn as hell and I won't budge, and I won't sugarcoat, and if I were to be a serious journalist this trait would most certainly land me in hot soup, and only hot soup if I'm lucky. I suspect this is what makes them worried about my choice of career.

I once said to my bro that I sometimes resented my parents for not allowing me to fall down and pick myself up. My brother said, "Jie, imagine if I were the one who wanted to do something dangerous. Wouldn't you stop me?"

Bugger him, he should've been the elder sibling and not me.

At the end of the day I do want to have my own life to live, but on the other hand I don't want my parents to worry about me for the rest of my career. A compromise would be working out a timeframe for me to work as a serious journalist that's acceptable to us both, but then again I might like it so much that I don't want to quit. It'll be better to not start at all, cos you can't miss what you never had.

This is the first time my imagine-if-you'll-regret-it-when-you're-80 rule of thumb has failed me. And I thought I'd discovered a fool-proof method of making up my mind. Blehhhh.

Oh well, it was never meant to be easy. One thing at a time, I guess. Right now, the immediate bane of my life is not being able to take notes as fast as a person speaks without relying on shorthand. It's harder than it sounds QQ.

Americans are nubs

2006-08-25T23:47:00.000+08:00

A few days ago I was chatting with Mr Yankee Doodle (hehe) when he mentioned that Americans are the most maligned people in the world. It's perfectly okay to insult Americans but when you do it to another nationality it's racist and politically-incorrect.

For instance, imagine someone saying one of the below:

Example 1: Americans are stupid idiots
Example 2: Singaporeans are stupid idiots
Example 3: Lebanese are stupid idiots

Example 1 is totally acceptable and even encouraged, example 2 is somewhat acceptable* (cos I'm Malaysian hey!), but example 3 is a definite no-no. If you do it you risk raining fire and brimstone on you and yours.

I blinked, then said that example 1 is acceptable because it's true. Americans display the most appaling lack of knowledge about other countries.

For example, Malaysians regularly flout international trade standards by exceeding the North American Rubber Export Quota, but Mr Yankee Doodle didn't know that.

See? Americans are stupid. Of course, the fact that I completely made that up at the spur of the moment has nothing to do with anything, obviously.

Hoho.

*for those who are particularly dense and humourless, that was a joke. Besides, I spent the better part of a year raiding with Singaporeans, and am therefore a superb judge of their idiocy. Ahem.

Goodbye

2006-08-25T23:25:00.000+08:00

Three months ago if anyone told me I would leave I'd have laughed in their faces.

But it was a lot easier than I thought it would be...and somehow that just makes it so much sadder.

Neither here nor there

2006-08-20T20:16:00.000+08:00

Blizzforums has always had an unfortunate history with database trouble. One time, the database was deleted because the owner wanted more space for his porn, and deleted the BF database. How amazingly smart. Okay, so he didn’t exactly delete it for porn, but still…

On the upside, we got to make fun of E-Man and his twitchy finger forever.

The last time it crashed, something corrupted the database and we had horrible temp forums that were churning cesspools of bile, whichy explains why I avoided them.

Recently I logged back into BF and found that I had been fired. Me, the uber Works-In-Progress moderator who single-handedly educated the entire populace of BF that clicking on your avatar leads you to your profile. Be nice and don’t ask what avatar I was using at that time.

Anyway, I passed my modelling pics to the Hogster and he posted them in Staff, and a short little note which basically had me say “Fuck you for firing me twerps!”. And now I’m an Elder, which means, in addition to having my name in a nice blinding neon green colour, I have access to Staff Forum as well yay.

What’s the point to this? Why, no point at all. This blog’s due for another name change, I reckon. There Is No Point.

Now to figure out how to incorporate His Royal Oafness into the name as well…

Hmmmm

2006-07-20T23:55:00.000+08:00

Playing WoW for a year+ must've killed off more brain cells that I expected. So far everything I've managed to compose has been really boring.

Perhaps I need to change my profile QQ

PS res, I've reactivated my hotmail account. Terribly sorry about that. :p

Spring Cleaning

2006-06-17T00:49:00.000+08:00

dusting cobwebs, opening windows, and surreptiously dumping dead rats into the drain.

Tentatively, I'm back.

2005-06-01T13:38:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I had a weird dream. I dreamed that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't type anymore. In my stupid @#$%! dream I was trying to blog but my fingers would not obey me and I kept flubbing up the words. I couldn't even type in the url to my own blog, it came out wrong every time.

I realise that in the past, I've cruelly mocked people who claim to be able to interpret dreams, so maybe this is retribution. This is actually the first time I've felt stupid in a dream. I desperately need to implement measures to separate my real life from my dream world or else I'd lose my sanctuary.

In other news, I've finally watched Star Wars. It's not bad, cos I went in expecting something along the lines of Attack of the Clones. I also whacked a jumbo popcorn all by my self while my brother had to pick from the tiny unpopped scraps at the bottom of the cardboard box.

Don't hate on me, I get special treatment 2 days in a month, unless I miss a period.

Now for a little WoW update. I hate fucking campers who camp corpses and quest NPCs. It happens both sides, this is not a rant about how the Alliance scum stink to the high heavens. It gets really scary when you factor in the fact that WoW players in general are in their 20s to 30s. I would expect juvenile behavior from mRO players, but honestly, if you're so free, go raid some towns or fight someone your own size.

I am struck with a case of extreme apathy. I don't care about blogs anymore. Even my brother's been commenting about the flies buzzing around this blog. I think the recent illness took more out of me than I thought. Or maybe that's just an excuse, heheh. Since I always come back and post more inane stuff after announcing a hiatus, I'll announce one and hope that my contrariness will kick in right about now.

Thank you for reading.

A day in the life...

2005-05-24T01:29:00.000+08:00

One fine sunny day...

The Saffron was on her way to the kitchen to look at the ice-cream when she passed by the Oaf standing behind the sofa, watching TV. Now, normal people will wonder, 'Why is she going to the kitchen to look at ice-cream?' Other normal people will be thinking, 'Why is he standing behind the sofa watching TV instead of parking his ass on it?'

As with everything else, there is a reason behind all this. The Saffron and the Oaf share the same blood. It is therefore in their genes. Which means it's none of their faults. *grins*

On the way back from her trip to the freezer, the Saffron passed by the Oaf, still standing behind the sofa, and her strides slowed. Standing right behind him, she starting making heavy breathing sounds.

The Saffron, "Hhhhhhorhhhhhh, hhhhhhorhhhh."

Without missing a beat, the Oaf also went, "Hhhhhhhorhhhh, hhhoorrrrrrhh."

After that idiotic exchange no one else on earth probably understood, the Saffron and the Oaf commenced laughing their heads off. When both of them have managed to unstitch their sides, they looked at each other for a while.

The Saffron then snickered and said, "Darth Babi," in her hoarse, raspy, but still squeaky voice, and happily skipped back to her room. The Oaf, perhaps mindful that his sister has been sick for the past week or so, decided that he could afford to be magnanimous and therefore did not slap her silly.

He went back to staring at the TV behind the sofa.

Taggety tagged.

2005-05-23T23:11:00.000+08:00

Tagged by IBlogMe a long time ago. The title is also shamelessly stolen from her, heheh. Ok, disclaimer. This could potentially get very nasty/disgusting/offensive, and may make you very disgusted/angry. Email and contact on the sidebar. :)

if I could be a monkey's uncle...
I'd have a legitimate excuse to fling soft clumps of 2-day-old shit at people I don't like (especially politicians), and then complete it with the whole point-and-laugh routine while they, red-faced, furiously (and futilely) try to wipe the shit off their specs, hair, expensive clothes and other misc bodyparts.

If I could be the Pope...
I will decree that those who attempt to convert other people, even when they are told repeatedly by the subject of conversion that he/she is not interested, will lose an arm. Do it again and you lose the other arm. Do it the third time and you're headed straight to the hottest pits of hell, son.

If you believe in god, you will believe in god. Everything will run its course.

If I could be an game designer...
Male characters will only be dressed in a butt-revealing thong and their bodies will be liberally slathered with oil. It does not matter whether they are questing in a volcano or in the artics, no change of clothing is permitted. They will all be manly and rugged, and they will all be big dumb warriors with shiny, shiny swords. The women will be dressed normally with no cleavage-enhancing porn costumes and they will not all be healers and archers.

Of course, the company I work for will go under, but then again like I'm actually gonna learn enough programming to make a game. I can't even make my own site layout. :p

If I could be the President of the U.S...
I would go to charm school and public speaking classes.

If I could be a Miss Universe...
I will be naive and idealistic, and think that my answer for the Q&A session actually matters more than the size of my boobs, the length of my legs and the perfectness of my features.

World peace, yo'.

In turn , I will now inflict this chain mail meme on:
Pebbles.
~~Bawang Merah~~. (Blehh)
Narrowband.
Arion.

Observations Regarding Kitchens

2005-05-23T01:08:00.000+08:00

I'd say that in general, having two people at the same time is just wrong, but then again I know what kind of kinky deviants lurk around my blog, so I'll just be more specific and say that there should never be more than one cook in the kitchen at any time.

Of course, by 'cook' I mean those tyrannical and generally obnoxious people who have no qualms bullying other poor souls in the kitchen (like me) into doing things their way. I mean, there're only so many times I can handle someone shrieking, "You're doing it wrong! It's diagonal, then horizontal!!"

'Tis the dicing of potatoes said Tyrant was complaining about. Who the bloody hell gives a flying fuck whether it's diagonal first or horizontal first? It's potatoes. If it's diced, it's done. I swear if I wasn't so doped up on flu meds I'd have clipped the ends of her pretty manicured nails off with my uber Meat Cleaver of the Boar instead of, well, mangling up my own hand. Oh well, it's just my left hand. I mean, it's not like it's a really important body part like my liver (for drinking) and my heart (for living), right?

Notice I never said brain. ;)

Another thing to avoid when dealing with damgerous, kitcheny stuff is people who react to things the way I do. In a nutshell: violence.

Anyway, back to my point about kitchens and cooks and violence and me. If you can cook alone, that would be perfect. If you have to share kitchens with other people, then share it with someone nice and easy-going. If nice and easy-going isn't available, either negotiate turns or keep the other bugger forcibly restrained onto something that isn't mobile (chairs are never a good idea). If you have the misfortune to deal with a Tyrant in the kitchen, it would be very convenient for yourself to develop a saintly disposition and handle every in-your-face yell with dignity, grace and beneficence.

Because when you have someone like the Tyrant and someone like me in a cramped and hazardous environment, things could go south really quickly. In between sharp knives, pointy barbeque forks, heavy-bottomed pots, boiling vats of soup, molten cheese that really hurts upon contact with bare skin etc, we could do a lot of damage to each other. Probably the last thing anyone wants is to have two hot-headed cooks armed with sharp and pointy stainless steel utensils duking it out in a really small space.

I mean, we could literally start flinging cheese at each other! Think of all the innocents!

Different Degrees of Chuff-ness

2005-05-20T13:35:00.000+08:00

Chuffness Level 1
The other day Narrowband informed me that I was nominated for Neophyte Blog of the Year. It was the same feeling I got when I was nominated for (and won) Best WIP Author in the BF Awards.

Thanks to Loonatik for acknowledging my existence. :)

Now to be pretentious and fake humble, I honestly didn't expect to have this many people read my blog when I first started it. It was more like a venue for me to write embarassing things about myself and not keep the incriminating evidence of my naughty past in my HD so that people like my brother or my mom would not stumble across it. Given that this blog's now jointly-named after my brother, and the kid actually laughs out loud when he reads the stuff I put here, you can all see how well my plan turned out. :p

I only got traffic after I whored myself out on PPS. So newbies, if you're looking to max the mass appeal of your blog, obviously you shouldn't be reading me because I practically do everything a neophyte blogger isn't supposed to do (except whore on PPS).

But it's ok, you can all worship me now. *grins*

Now for the clincher. I am disqualified from the category because my blog is more than 6 months old. It's not like I can win against supreme behemoths like Kenny Sia anyway, the bastard.

Chuffness Level 3
The people (not a lot la, about 3-4 like that) who've told me personally that I write very well. Obviously this is very open to interpretation, and I realise my style of writing doesn't really reach out to everyone, so I'm glad some people like it enough to recommend me to friends. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Chuffness Level 5

I wonder how long I have to sit there. The Oaf is also going. Working really hard in my first semester helped a lot, and I guess I'll have to pick up the pace in sem 3 to make up for all the slackage in sem 2.

In other news, I am doped up on cold meds, so I'm not going to update. I'm also coughing like heck, and my voice has taken the quality of James Earl Jones, so please don't call me and make me talk.

It irritates my throat and makes me cough more...so I'll end up being James Earl Jones level 2.

Right, I know the levels are just getting lame.

2005-05-17T17:07:00.000+08:00

Something's been wrong with my computer. I can't load hotmail, or google, and even blogger's giving me problems. If anyone's been sending me emails and is expecting a reply, I'm not ignoring you on purpose.

If it's really really important, call me, or you can register at one of the forums I frequent and leave me a PM. Haha free plug whee. :)

Okay, I got to go be sick again, cya.

Because it's the in thing to blog about Star Wars Episode III

2005-05-11T03:55:00.000+08:00

It just occured to me.

After the very expensive, very impressive and very high tech disappointments that were Star Wars Episode I and Star Wars Episode II, I wonder why I still carry a flicker of hope in my heart that Star Wars Episode III would at least match Episodes 4, 5 and 6.

I've been thinking about it for the past 5 minutes, and I still don't know why. Faith? Denial? Naivete? Idealism? Irrational hope?

Is anyone else hoping as I am hoping, or am I alone in this venture that borders on idiocy? It would really help for me to know I'm not alone (it's a complicated pyschology thing I don't exactly remember right now), so if you're out there, gimme a holler.

Last attempt to lull myself to sleep with my words.

Hmm, I just remembered that I had some weird chocolate ice-cream in Ikano from a corner shop called Becka Lecka or Lecka Becka. It wasn't good.

PS: I realise the last three posts were all over the place. I can't help it, I need to sleep but sleep eludes me. That's why I'm using weird words, remembering weird stuff and writing about weird things.

If I could bottle this I won't have to buy another lottery number again in my life.

Sook Chun-ness

2005-05-11T03:40:00.000+08:00

Originally titled: Insomnia 1, Saffy 0

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression does not equal to freedom from responsibility.

Sure, you can say what you want as long as you have the vehicle to transmit that message, but that doesn't mean people are going to agree with you. Controversial issues are, by their very nature, going to inspire (sometimes endless) discourse. That's why they're controversial.

The best way for these arguments to end is for all participants to agree to disagree. Not because that's the easy way out, but because they understand that there's no point in arguing any further, and each camp has their respective reasons for believing what they believe. Note that under my profile I have listed 'naive and idealistic' as one of my traits.

I don't see the point in stating your stance on something and not defending it when you're challenged. To me, that says one of two things:

You don't know enough about the subject matter to defend your stance, which leads to questions about the vehemence of your stance in the first place.
You don't actually know what you're talking about, and are opening your mouth because you are sadly deluded into thinking that everyone (including yourself) loves your voice.

Sometimes, Number 1 and Number 2 are not even mutually exclusive.

Lame excuses like "I already know what you want to say, it's stupid and I don't want to hear it", "I know you trollish liberals/conservatives/whatever people will flame me" and "I don't want to provoke a flame war and ruin friendships" are exactly that: lame excuses. If you really care so much in the first place, don't write about the controversial issue.

You can tell I don't like people who disable comments (and their minds, apparently) after they blog about something that other people disagree with. Learn to deal with the fact that when people question and challenge your opinions, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't like you. It just means that they don't agree with what you're saying.

Who knows, you might just learn something from one another.

And stop whining about flames already. If you're old enough to blog, you're old enough to know that it takes all kinds of people to make up the world. You can either ignore potshots or lob one right back at them. Pick one.

Insomnia strikes again!

2005-05-11T03:12:00.000+08:00

In the very PC world where we live in, I thought it might be prudent to insert a disclaimer. This post is potentially sexist and/or cruel, and could offend you if you are male or female.

Pssst, I was reliably informed that that line would get anyone to read anything, so we'll see if it works as a tantalising lead-in or not.

Okay, the real blog post.

"I dress for my man," proclaimed a girl friend, rather unabashedly.

She was very obviously expecting feminazi challenges to her statement, and was prepared to defend it to the very death, with her manicured nails and all. You can gather all that information from the slightly stubborn/challenging tilt of her chin. Boyfriends beware, when a girl looks at you at an angle, eyebrows slightly raised, head tilted, chin out, you just know you're in for a long night.

Of what, exactly, really boils down to the type of girl you're with. I just hope she makes up as good as she wallops.

Anyway, I got to thinking about who I dress for. Of course, it's a given that I dress for myself, because hey, I'm cool like that, and I have certain ideals that I aspire to. But apart from all the overwhelming coolness and individuality that I possess, do I dress in a way that gets men looking, or do I dress in a way that gets women looking?

If you're thinking, 'Hey, you forgot the kids!', kindly remove yourself from the playground in a calm and orderly fashion, and go get some professional help. Paedophilia (as a trend) went out about the same time we stopped burning women at the stake, so wise up already. Trust me, it's better than having to go through a million dollar lawsuit. [REFERENCE TO POPULAR CULTURE]

Back on topic, I pondered my friend's statement, and noted that she was taking the easy way out. I mean, how hard is it to attract (straight) male attention?

[WARNING GENERALISATION ALERT]

You just have to put on something that's tight, short, or low cut. Or, if you really wanna look like a cheap desperate whore, all three.

Women now, those are tough bitches to please.

With battle standards flying

2005-05-09T18:46:00.000+08:00

The story: When I registered for this course, I clearly stated that I wanted to major in Journalism. No where did I suddenly change my mind and decide to do something else. Admin staff were aware of my choice. Lecturers were aware of my choice.

A few weeks after classes commenced, I found out I was the only one who was going to do journalism. Not a problem, I thought, the less people who choose my same major = less competition in the field, hurray for me.

My third semester starts somewhere in July. This morning, I was jolted out of a deep sleep because my college called and told me to go see the bitch tomorrow. Apparently there's a problem with my major because I'm the only one taking it and they're concerned that 'I might be alone'.

Bloody hell, anyone can read between the lines, you asshats.

I'm still waiting for the call to confirm the time for the appointment. By the looks of it, I'm not gonna get it today cos it's already 6.51 pm. At any rate, my calm zen-like holiday-mode existence has been shattered. When I go, I'll be going in warrior woman mode. I hate people who stare me down, or at least attempt to anyway, so I retaliate in kind.

Turning the other cheek really does not apply to me. I plan to graduate with my ass planted firmly on the Dean's List, and I'm comfortably on my way.

Don't fuck with my major.

What happened on Thursday

2005-05-08T02:54:00.000+08:00

The most important part is where he mentioned that Saffy is t3h h4wtn3ss!!! *grins*

I never thought blog meets could be so fun. Stilted convos have always been a big worry of mine (it's one-sided), but I'm glad it turned out so well. It should be fun to do this again. Usually, the people I chat with online don't get much response from me IRL, and I'm glad we an be both friends online and friends IRL.

I had a great time, and I was very comfortable. From the looks of it he did too, heheh, so it's all good. I'm also looking forward to meeting her. Fingers crossed I'll still manage to be sociable then. *grins*

Something funny though. So far, I've met 2 male bloggers, and both of them are older, live in Setapak, and have conked front car doors.

In other news, I'm completely back to my normal self. I thought it was just denial at first, cos I didn't think I could get over stuff so quickly, but I could read something without feeling anything I shouldn't feel. Yes, tis hard to write cryptically. SMSes are expensive, and this is the easy way to inform people. :)

Fixations

2005-05-06T03:35:00.000+08:00

When I was a kid my maternal granma's jewellery drawer was like a treasure trove. She had all her jewellery pieces in this cake box, with a specially cut sponge to anchor the stuff so that they didn't slide around whenever the drawer was opened or closed. For a lady her age, she had a lot of jewellery, beautiful pieces that were magical to me.

I loved exploring, laying them all out on her bed and pretending that they were all mine. It was easy to pretend to be a princess, even with raw scraped knees and a tongue green from sucking sweets, when you have a ruby brooch on. I'm still waiting for my Prince Charming though. :p

Of course, any sane adult would declare that precious drawer off-limits to my clumsy childish hands (they're still clumsy :p), so whenever I was caught red-handed I got whacked. As Calvin's dad likes to say, it builds character. *grins*

I had a favourite. It gave me a thrill every time I saw it in the box, twinkling at me. It gave me an even bigger thrill when I wore it (I wasn't supposed to). For some reason, I always played with it the last.

The other day, I finally got to wear it. Legitimately. I didn't even have to sneak around and preen at the mirror with the door half-closed. No one would come in at an unopportune moment and whack the bejesus out of me if they saw me with the pendant on.

I don't quite know what to feel though. It's a piece of beautiful jewellery, that's for sure. It's just not magic anymore. Thrill's not there. Maybe it takes being 6. Maybe I get off by being a kleptomaniac. I'm hoping it's the former more than the latter though.

I don't know why

2005-05-06T03:11:00.000+08:00

I just had a nice cold shower, late late at night, and my toes are cold now. Instead of WoWing, I've been thinking about some stuff.

A blogger whose blog I love to read is experiencing a personal tragedy that I would not and could not even begin to understand. As such, I can offer no words of comfort because I really don't know what to say. I hope I can be as strong as he is when I am faced with the same inevitable situation someday, which I hope remains in the far, far future.

People would normally label me under the good girl category. It would be nice to be a wild happening party chick, but I'm realistic enough to know that in actuality I'm the plodding, goody-two-shoes type.

I live a very cloistered and protected life. My parents worry about me, probably more than most parents with daughters who're 22 going on 23. Sometimes it gets to me, when they make noises about me going out of the house in low jeans exposing my belly button. Or when I show more skin than they're comfortable with. Sometimes they don't like the people I hang out with, sometimes they ask too many annoying questions, sometimes they irritate the hell out of me by thinking that I'm 8 years old. Sometimes I get fed-up with them calling and calling and leaving messages when I'm out late with friends. Sometimes I want to scream.

But then, to be honest, I have a hand in this, because I always capitulate. It's almost become routine that they know I will give in in the end, so when I don't it's like the end of the world. Sometimes I feel that things are starting to get ridiculous when I wake up wanting soft-boiled eggs for breakfast but my granma insists that I eat cornflakes instead. I'll sulk a bit but end up eating the cornflakes at the end of the day.

Sometimes, friends have asked me why I put up with this, why I don't rebel, why I don't try to be more independent.

When you live in close proximity with some people, I think you'll invariably end up taking them for granted. I know I do. I think it comes hand in hand with intimacy. Sometimes I get impatient, I give short-tempered barks, and I'm defensive. The whole thing I'm focusing on now is to try and not to do this so much. Keyword try.

When I was a child, I remember being happy most of the time. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for my parents. There was a host of problems that they had to deal with, and they were under a tremendous amount of pressure that no one sane should have to go through. I didn't understand it back then, but I do now, and it's only made things more complicated. Up to now, the whole point of my life has pretty much been to make my own life better, not anyone else's.

I think I will never know what it's like to be a parent until I've had kids myself, and understand what it's like to read newspaper articles about rapes and murders, and worry that the very same thing could happen to my sons and daughters. I suppose it takes pushing out a kid to understand, really understand, what it's like to live life where the main objective is to do all you can so that your kids have a better life.

There have been times when I doubt my ability to survive should I suddenly be tossed out into the world with no one to help me. If I had no one to depend on, what would happen to me? In complete honesty, I will say that I'll probably stumble and fall, and end up bruised and (hopefully just) a bit battered , but I know I will learn, and I know I will survive. If I really wanted it, there's no reason to think that I can't.

So, back to the question.

I tend to treat people more or less the way they treat me. If you think I'm nice to you, it's always because you've been nice to me first. Ditto bitchy. Hence I always have a problem saying no to people who've been good to me.

My family is under no obligation to give me everything that I have right now. It sounds 'holy', but I earned none of it, everything was given to me.

Every battle fought has a cost. A battle won is a battle where the benefits outweigh the sacrifices the entire army has to make. I won't make a good general. I fight some battles; I let the others slide. It's just not worth it. It's hard for me to be angry at someone whose intentions I know, for sure, are for my well-being. It may not necessarily be the way I want them to love me, but it doesn't mean they love me any less. Changing my clothes is not a big deal when I think about it.

Maybe I really don't know where to draw the line. Maybe this is just a whole guilt-trip thing. Maybe I'll never be an individual of my own right as long as I keep demuring to my parents and my grandmother. Maybe I'll be a child until I'm into my 30s.

It's a choice I made quite a while ago. I don't regret it now. I think I will doubt the wisdom of this decision when I'm the only 30-year-old (and embarassed) kid around. I hope I won't regret it in the long run. Doesn't mean I won't bitch about it on bad days though. :)

We'll just have to see how it plays out.

In addition to being the Lich Queen

2005-05-04T18:08:00.000+08:00

...I am also the Gazelle Killer.

Plugged to show that I am a magnanimous person who does not mind being the butt-end of jokes, heheh. Stop slandering me, btw.

Also, dear friends, my handphone no credit liao, so to everyone who've been calling/SMSing me, I'm ignoring you out of necessity, not because I want to.

Non-WoW rant

2005-05-04T01:44:00.000+08:00

Today I went shopping with my mom. On a fine, sunshiny Tuesday when
a) normal, productive citizens are stuck in their dreary, boring offices till 5pm, or
b) normal, procrastinating students are b1.1) stuck in lecture halls listening to boring lectures, or b1.2) rushing assignments in computer labs.

Yeah, sucks to be you, doesn't it? *grins*

Anyway, I bought two tops that make me look fairly anorexic, both of which are identical except for colour. Don't pass judgement, that's what Saffron does when she shops. In the future, there will be a photoblog series on the 5 identical sweater tops that I own. It'll happen, once I get over the fact that people I have never met would have seen my mug here.

By the way, judgement is spelled judgment. Did you know that? I didn't, not until I woke up at the unholy hour of 6am to sit for my MUET last Saturday.

Okay, today's post is not to talk about how sorry your life is or how weird I am. Nopers, today, I want to blog about PDAs.

Taken from here

Oh no, not PDAs PDAs. PDAs as in Public Displays of Affections.

In case you're wondering, no, playing WoW has not magically morphed me into a PAS member. I think holding hands are fine. I think an occasional cheeky slap on the ass is fine. I think walking arm-in-arm is fine. I think walking arm-over-shoulder is fine. I think a peck on the cheek is fine. I think huge and pretentious displays of happiness when you meet someone is fine. I think hugging is fine.

What is not fine is when you walk around with your hand on your girlfriend's ass, inside her jeans. Notice I said 'inside'. It's generally not acceptable to shove your tongue down your girlfriend's throat and slobber spittle everywhere in full view of the entire promenade. It's also considered very bad form to dry hump your girlfriend's ass when she's leaning against the railing watching a show in the open area a floor below. Especially with kids around.

Imagine this happening. Little 5-year-old Tommy is skipping around (or skating in one of those wheel-shoe-abominations) happily in the mall when he suddenly stops short and points. Mommy looks adoringly at what he is pointing at and gets the shock of her life.

"Mommy, why is that kor kor acting like Bobo did before we took him to the vet?"

Oopsie, what in the world should mommy do?

People don't generally get this insane urge to be sinfully passionate with their partners while they're strolling around in a shopping mall. Not even when they look at various lady mannequins in various states of undress posing in shop windows. If you beg to differ, please, go get some professional help right now before you endanger anyone else.

Rooms don't go for very high rates in KL, you can usually get one for RM50, which is value for money considering you get to spend the entire day and night there, and you get breakfast as well. 24 hours or so should be plenty time for you to tire yourself out doing whatever it is you do when you have a girl with you. If you're cheapskate and don't want to blow RM50 (or if you can't last 24 hours or so), there're always those skanky hourly-rate motels you can go to in Kotaraya. When push comes to shove, cars work pretty well too. However, if you're really cheapskate, you can always ask your mom, very politely, to get out of your room so you can snoogle with your girlfriend and hopefully not make any Ah Beng babies.

In short, plenty of options for you to pick from.

Just don't do it in a place where I may see you on one of my many shopping excursions, because I don't want to gouge my eyes out mid-splurge. It goes against my mission to look pretty because I can't be pretty if I can't see what I'm buying.

Edit: Spectacular, I'm bleeding. Thursday will be day 2, sob sob.

WoW Screenies

2005-05-02T01:33:00.000+08:00

From the title, you know that this post is graphic-intensive. If you didn't, well, now you do.

Me in my full Undead glory.

Sometimes I embarass myself by behaving like a snivelling rat.

Standing in front of a bonfire, cooking my Undead flesh. Actually I just like the sparks. I think they're pretty. :)

My batride.

The reason these pics look so dark and gloomy is because they were taken while I was still stuck in Undead territory. In keeping with the general I'm-dead-boo-hoo theme, everything's bleak and, well, dead.

The next series is better, cos Arion took me to The Barrens.

Okay, so not such a big improvement, with the dryness and the parchness. :p But it gets better...

See? Told ya. This is so pretty. Of course, I was too busy snapping pics that I lost sight of Arion. Luckily there was only 1 road to travel on. :)

We saw a herd of passive kodo beasts. There're matriach kodos, mommy kodos, and even baby kodos. That's Arion posing in front of the herd.

Kodo asses galore!

Unfortunately, Arion, like Lance, cannot leave passive herds alone. Arion chain lightning-ed them and they dropped dead, resulting in the carnage above. Bye bye poor kodos, it was nice meeting you.

We also passed by a group of gazelles gracefully leaping over the road, but then Arion killed them all before I could take a screenie. :(

Riding a chimera. Notice he has no balls.

Windrider platform in Oggrimar. The circle is where I accidentally fell off the stupid thing.

Yes, I waste a lot of time flying around. I try not to spend so much time in the Undead territory. It's pretty depressing.

You can really see the rot in this pic. Note my elbow joints and knee joints. Ugh.

If you read the conversation going on between the rest of the guys you'll notice that this is like one big gay fest. :)

The moon. Lance and I are actually in the water, but I'm so petite you can't even see my head.

Finally, the gazelle pic I've been wanting to take for so long! Not a very good shot though, cos they're bloody fast. Or I'm bloody slow, whatever.

Blade and Frosty lying on the ground in a dungeon. Doing what? I have no idea. :p

I died 4 times in that dungeon. Party wipes are so fun. :p Bloody end boss so sook chun, teleport here and there. Okay, to explain a bit, if you die, you're resurrected at the nearest graveyard and you have to run back to the place you died to retrieve your body. So, after 4 cross-country marathons, we got fed-up and cheated a bit.

Actually, I'm not sure how many times our party was wiped. I remember 4, Lance says it was 6. Someone correct me please.

So in the end, Arion brought out his level 60 character and beat the living daylights out of the end-boss. Here, you can see that dungeon clearing has become a spectator sport. :)

L-R: Blade, me, Frosty and Lance. Arion's the uber-cool troll with the blue magic. Standing in front of him is the poor Undead bastard who's getting his ass handed to him.

More gazelles, yayness. The only reason I was able to take this pic was because neither Lance nor Arion were with me. :p

Tranquil night.

Tranquil night, part 2.

This is the extent of my travels so far. I've died twice today, once cos I was lagging, and the other cos I was stupid and jumped off a zeppelin (flying transport) before it stopped. The whole zep-ful of people were watching and I guess they were laughing as well. Boohoo.

Come join me. :)

sook chun: no-balls kind of wimpy bastard.

WoW

2005-04-29T03:05:00.000+08:00

As expected, I'm having a shitload of fun in WoW. This game gives a whole new meaning to the term 'vastness'. It's incomprehensibly huge. The downside is I have to walk everywhere, so that sucks. I am now a level 19 Undead warrior, who's really petite. That makes me less menacing than, say, a tauren warrior (screenshots tomorrow, or sometime later). On the upside that's a lifelong dream fulfilled (the petiteness, not the menacingness).

Unfortunately, I can't brag, because Lance and Arion collectively babysat me for more than 10 of my levels. I have become the kind of person I hate the most in an MMORPG: the useless bugger who tags along and leeches exp. And money. And loot.

Oh well, I can only hang once, so I might as well milk it for all it's worth.

In the process of my 19 levels, I have also discovered a few things about myself that I never knew before.

I can't type for shit when I'm doing something else (like walking). This is not new, cos I know I can't multitask. I just didn't realise how utterly bad I was at it. :( I'm also very incompetent when I'm with someone whom I know will protect me. It's at situations like this that I do stupid things like walk too close to aggressive monsters, charge a bunch of fish people (and die), forget what I need to fulfill my quests, get lost in a new city, etc. By the way, someone please remind me to repair my weapons and armour before they break, thanks. :)

As per usual, I'll end with a funny story. In WoW, there're living things you can sit on that'll transport you from one place to another. In different locations, you sit on different animals, for example in the Undead town (me me me!!) you ride bats, and in the Tauren area you ride chimeras. I have no idea how many types of animals there are because those are the only two places I've been to. :p

Anyway, the place these animals are kept by the keeper is called a windrider's platform. Or something like that. Basically it's one seriously tall tower you have to run up, and on top there'll be this person you talk to, just to let him know where you'll be flying. On one such ocassion, I fell off the platform.

Now that doesn't sound very funny, but let me explain. There're some very impatient people who like to jump off platforms, because no one likes stairs. There's no alternative when you're going up, cos no one can jump that high, and flying hasn't been implemented yet. But going down, there's when you see completely normal players go suicidal.

Personally, I like to yell "GERONIMO!!" before doing the leap of faith (and end up with roughly half of my hp left). Okay, back to the story. You have people jumping off platforms, which denotes intention, but never people falling off them, because no one is so bloody ham-fisted that they can't maneuver the directional keys to avoid falling off a platform wide enough for 5 people to stand on at the same time.

To make it worse, it was my first time in a new city, hence I had no idea WTF I was. So Arion, who was on babysitting duty that day, jumped down right after me. Only I didn't realise he jumped down, and I was too busy adjusting camera angles to try and find the tower, resulting in him having to scream at me three times before I heard him.

I'm as much of a klutz in real life as I am in a game, boohoo. I hope I provided, at the very least, comic relief.

Notes:
I actually took loads of screeenshots, but I'm too lazy to convert them to jpeg. Also, there will be a real update tomorrow because Knight's playing. Three cheers for the three musketeers! Five if you include the really old guys. :)

Again, words cannot describe the gratitude I feel towards the people who've helped me out so much. Arion, Lance, Frosty and Blade, who saved my life once when I was GBed.

Why can't I reload my Smart Tag when I'm passing Kesas Highway toll booths?

2005-04-27T02:39:00.000+08:00

The first thing they teach us in Business school is Planning. Chapter 2, right after Introduction, which is not a bloody waste of time, contrary to popular belief. Any idiot knows that to do something correctly, you must have some semblance of planning. Even I , the Queen of Winging It (and lately the Queen of Leeching Stuff) understand the importance of planning.

It's bloody simple, really. If scientists can calculate this, right down to the year, how much brain power do you need to guess, just fucking guess, that the people who use Smart Tag on the Kesas Highway would eventually run out of credit, and would like to reload their Smart Tags when they're passing the tollbooths ON Kesas instead of going to the next nearest reload booth on the Seremban Highway?

At times like this, I can't help but think that there's a test they make everyone take before someone's allowed to hold a position of authority, where their decision-making skills would be tested daily, and where those skills would have great ramifications in the daily lives of us lowly peons. Then, after everyone has submitted their test results, the graders do something that directly contradicts the way schools and universities grade papers: they throw out scores higher than 40 and pick people who score below that to fill out the positions.

Don't ask me why, I don't know. I'm still trying to understand how something so logical could have escaped the minds of EVERYONE involved in making Touch n Go the only tag thingy to use in the whole of Malaysia. I don't care if the concessionaires can't agree on a suitable cut of the profits, I don't care if someone didn't get his kickbacks, I just don't care. The whole point of using one single tag thingy is for 'the good of the people' or 'the convenience of taxpayers'.

I am not convenienced.

So while I am fuming and growing wrinkles on something that should have been thought out beforehand, I open the newspapers and I see this.

Newsflash, darlings. Apologies mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING if you have to ask for it. If the guy's truly sorry, he wouldn't repeat the mistake again, and it's understood that the issue is over. Water under the bridge. The past. It will never be brought up again. Let go, move on. It's been 60 years, how long do you wanna keep harping on the same thing over and over again?

I would actually have more respect for our MPs if they'd raised this issue before Japan apologised to China. What a bunch of wimps.

People I need to thank

2005-04-25T18:15:00.000+08:00

I believe people will generally be nice to me if I be nice to them first.

Today in WoW I met a few people who gave me stuff and buffed me in return for nothing. I feel so bad for messing up my comm channels and not saying thanks. Horde may be fugly, but deep down they're all marshmallows. *grins*

The other day in KLCC while I was buying a mango citrus tea blend from Starbucks, the guy at the counter chatted with me while I was waiting for my order, and even called me back to give me one of those loyalty card thingies and stamped it three times (I only bought 1 drink).

Yesterday, I was at APIIT (yes, I risked sanity and found that the place was actually quite fun. Figures it'd get better after I left, bleh) watching my bro play CS. There was actually a tourney going on, but I decided not to stand alone amidst black-clad guys. Anyway, the guy playing next to my bro left his game, got up and carried a chair over for me to sit on, saying, "Have a seat. You don't have to stand."

Enough about Frosty already. He gave me 2 gold ingame. That's a heck lot when you consider 100 copper = 1 silver, and 100 silver = 1 gold.

Blade (Frosty's friend) sent me a bag, and since I'm a girl there's no such thing as too many bags. He also sent me a sword and some armour.

Arion spent the better part of an hour explaining WoW terms to me, and though it was a Tuesday night I'm sure there were better and less boring stuff he could've done than explain farming and dungeons.

Lance practically did all my quests for me yesterday night, cos I was laggy and dared not venture into aggro areas. He also gave me shitloads of stuff, some of which I accidentally sold because I'm a klutz. :(

Finally, a big big BIG shoutout to Knight, because without his benevolence and generosity, I would not even BE in WoW in the first place. You see, I'm leeching on his account.

As if that wasn't enough generosity to last at least a few good years, Knight has decided to top it all off by offering to host me for free. I just have to decide on a domain. I've also had offers of technical assistance from Lance and Knight, and even Trak and Elcap. Thank you all for being nice. :)

Notes:
As you've probably deduced from this post, I am the worst kind of MMORPG player. I am a Monster Leech. In fact, I think I'll change my name to the Lich Queen, har har har.

GUM

2005-04-25T00:18:00.000+08:00

Today, I met the legendary elite buaya Frostheart, the guy Knight warned me never to meet because he was treacherous, very treacherous. I'm glad to report that I survived the encounter with my virtue intact, and that Frosty was actually gracious and kind enough to travel to Sunway Pyramid to drop me his copy of WoW, and then travel back to his house to continue his game.

OMG the playboy-poetic-heartbreaker image is almost down the drain, uncle. But then again maybe that's the way he lures innocent little girlies like me down a path of sin and debauchery.

So, dudes and dudettes, this will be what I'll be playing from now on.

If you see me online and I don't reply you, this is the reason why. I'm already a level 6 Undead warrior, and the reason I'm out here typing this is because I clocked a latency of 1698!!

I'll be going in to try my luck again, so cya around.

Back from the Land of Karaoke Hell

2005-04-24T02:22:00.000+08:00

I attended my mom's brother's wife's mother's birthday party tonight. Digest that first. Okay? Well, I attended the birthday party, and for the life of me I have no idea why people choose to throw birthday parties in Chinese restaurants. In Serdang, no less, The Land of Karaoke Hell.

"Why 'The Land of Karaoke Hell' though?" you ask.

Time for another history lesson, standard fixture in any authentic Saffron post. I once had the misforune of attending a wedding dinner in a Chinese restaurant in Serdang, complete with the whole Let's Sing Bad Songs From The 60s karaoke theme. That's not so bad, right? The difference though, is the fact that they cranked up the karaoke machine even before all the guests have arrived. Maybe some asshat thought he/she was being smart and decided to do a pre-dinner show. Well, my dears, it was a pre-dinner show gone horribly, horribly, horribly wrong.

I was near tears even before the dinner began, and they were not tears of joy for the happy couple. I felt a great rage and wanted to kill them, slowly and painfully, cos I don't think even Abu Graib used torture devices so cunningly.

Thankfully, tonight was easier, meaning they started the karaoke session at the 4th dish or thereabouts. Unfortunately, the dishes started slowing from that point onwards, probably because they wanted to let people sing, which really sucked for the rest of us non-singing guests, because all we wanted to do was finish and get the heck out of there as fast as humanly possible.

Karaoke sets aren't really expensive, if you really wanna sing that badly, go get a set and stop torturing other people's eardrums. To make the situation worse, the sound crew (or whatever sorry excuse of a sound crew tonight) had the volume up at max. There was virtually no bass, it was all high-pitch screeching. I actually got a headache at one point, cos it was so goddamned loud, bloody hell. There's really no winning in the hall, cos there was a huge ass chandelier in the middle and wall-mounted speakers on the sides, so you're dead no matter where you sit.

I don't know what it is with aunties and uncles who like to sing in public. I mean, do they have no sense of what they sound like? If a lifetime of singing in the bathroom will create people like them who have delusions of singing grandeur, by god, I will stopping all my Saturday Night Fever moves when I'm shampooing my hair, cos I do NOT want to hobble on stage when I'm 70 and sing Tian Mi Mi.

I always thought weddings and, in tonight's case, birthdays, are supposed to be happy times. For the life of me I don't get how subjecting people to 200 decibels of caterwauling is going to make any of your guests happy. In the end, I took to stealing a sip of my bro's liquor whenver it got too much, and then alternating with a sip of my mom's Sprite, cos I'm a wuss and can't take liquor by itself.

In the end the Oaf and I spent night playing American Idol judges. Unfortunately, we were both Simon Cowell on crack, which resulted in uproarious laughter from people sitting at our table. Hey, you burst my eardrums, I make fun of you in public. I still got the shit end of the stick. :p

CHANDELIER SEZ, "I'M A SURVIVOR!"
SO AM I, DEARIE, SO AM I.

Notes:
Chandelier pic from here.

CNY 2005 Part Dernière

2005-04-23T03:08:00.000+08:00

I'm so proud of myself for taking these. *dances*

CNY 2005 Part Quatre

2005-04-23T03:07:00.000+08:00

CNY 2005 Part Trois

2005-04-23T03:06:00.000+08:00

CNY 2005 Part Deux

2005-04-23T03:03:00.000+08:00

CNY 2005

2005-04-23T02:55:00.000+08:00

Camera conked, hence the 2 month delay.

dog mauls girl, takes off arm and half of torso

2005-04-21T02:14:00.000+08:00

I was halfway through my post when I suddenly remembered the spate of dog attacks on kiddies recently, and thought that writing this in a news column style might not be in the best taste. So I deleted it all, and that's half an hour of my life gone. :p

Yeah, I'm slow. Why? Read the title again, thanks. Psst, I'm the girl, not the dog.

Okay, onwards. Over the years, there were times when I was required to sacrifice personal interests to contribute something back to the family in return for them clothing, feeding and loving me over the past 22 years. Today was such a day. My granma sent me downstairs, across a road, up some rickety stairs and into the sundry shop to buy some eggs.

Because I just woke up from a nap (I'm on a break, napping at irregular times is a perk!) I decided some exercise would be good for me. After grabbing my wallet, I bent down to grab my slippers from the shoe rack and came up breathless. Ooh, not a good sign. Note to self: get off lazy ass and start exercising so I don't die by the time I'm 40.

If I'm fated to die at 40 I would sooo regret the time I spent on the treadmill.

So off I went, happily singing to myself while swinging my wallet in my hand. I've developed a nasty little habit of singing to myself after my stint as Saffron the Super Salesgirl, and I suspect it was due to extreme boredom. Little did I know that might have sealed my fate today.

I went downstairs with nothing out of the ordinary happening to me. Crossed the road without being honked at, thank you. Went up the rickety stairs and didn't fall into the drain. Bought the eggs while chatting with the store owner for a while. Tried to talk him into giving me a free egg since I bought a dozen, but he was a crafty little man who's an expert in his field, so my cheapskate attempt was foiled. Bought an ice-cream cone as well cos it's been ages since I've had any.

As I was stepping off the rickety stairs, I was licking the cone, swinging the bagful of eggs (very carefully) and singing to myself, when I met The Behemoth.

Now generally, I'm not scared of one dog. Heck, I'm a little doggie myself, and I figured if it was going to bite me, well, I have teeth, I'll bite it right back. This one though, this one was black with big nasty yellow teeth, and I can just bet you he (I spied balls swinging around) chomps through the neighbourhood kids for lunch. Or just for fun, cos you never really know with dogs. Did I mention it was also behemothic? Cos it was. Behemothic.

In the tune of bad-timing ruling my life, I wasn't armed with a stick or an umbrella that would be of some help to me in situations like this. Worse, I was wearing a Mickey t-shirt and shorts, so if he decided to bite it would go right through to the bone. Much worse, I was wearing big chunky slippers that makes my feet look small, but I can't run for shit in them. Worst of all though, was the knowledge that you can never outrun or outbite a Behemoth that has 4 legs and mandibles the size of my pinky finger.

PANIC PANIC PANIC

A while later I realised I was waving my ice-cream at the Behemoth like it was some kind of melting baton. A longer while later it came to me that maybe the dog was just hungry. If I throw the eggs at him they might hit him so hard that he thought I was attacking him, and scenes of a mangled and bleeding body flashed through my mind. I wanted to die pretty, but most importantly, I wanted to die painlessly.

Sadly, my dream was never fulfilled. The dog attacked me and took off my arm. And while I was screaming and the blood was gushing out of the hole where my appendage used to be, he decided that it would be fun to gnaw a chunk out of my torso while he was at it. And he did.

Now I'm typing with one hand and no liver. :(

2005-04-20T00:48:00.000+08:00

Background: My friend is interning at a rather prominent advertising firm, who's not paying her an allowance for anything. She spends an average of RM15 a day on food, petrol and parking. She also wants to quit, but apparently this internship counts as her practical, which is worth 4 credit hours, which we were supposed to do in semester 4, after we've taken our specialisation subjects, not before. I think someone got shafted.

It's her second week interning now, and she's screaming bloody murder. She has 6 more weeks to go, and was saying she wouldn't make it. While chatting...

Saffron: i think you will die lor
Saffron: can tell them you wanna quit?
Wei Wei: I ALSO THINK SO
Wei Wei: but what is my valid reason??
Wei Wei: then somemore
Wei Wei: if they need to talk to parents leh??
Wei Wei: then dunno wat will tengku think also
Wei Wei: aih
Wei Wei: eh
Wei Wei: if i said accident
Wei Wei: got no MC
Wei Wei: they need MC i think
Saffron: you run out and let a car knock you down la
Saffron: see how
Wei Wei: wah sei
Wei Wei: need ah??
Wei Wei: later i die how??
Wei Wei: i jz wanna get hurt
Wei Wei: not die
Wei Wei: wahahhaha
Wei Wei: not my time yet!!
Saffron: erm...let motorbike hit you la then
Saffron: dun pick car
Wei Wei: i still wanna enjoy life.....appreciate a lot of things
Wei Wei: wahaahahaha
Saffron: or if you pick car, pick the kancil in small road
Saffron: dun pik volvo or benz
Wei Wei: hhahahahhaah
Saffron: hahaha, eh, you blog about how I tried to kill you la
Wei Wei: u ah!!!
Wei Wei: hahaha
Wei Wei: ive u da credit to go n blog abt it

So, tonight's blog. Actually, I was writing another blogpost about dogs when Opera closed. I never take advice and compose in notepad first, and I don't feel like re-writing the same thing again, so this is sort of a filler post.

3 in 1

2005-04-19T02:02:00.000+08:00

My Streamyx really conked. Called the helpline, did a whole shitload of pushing, plugging and restarting, filed a report and the guy said he would get back to us in 3 working days.

Obviously, I have my net back now. It's really handy to have an inside man in Streamyx. Foreigners who're thinking of moving to Malaysia can pick up a clue from this blogpost. Nothing ever gets done unless you're famous, you're a datuk, or you know someone inside.

Malaysia Boleh indeed, bleah.

To remove the distaste, I will blog about something nice. Just now while I was looking for pictures of Hugh Jackman, my brother walked over, stood behind and gave me a massage.

I love massages. *grins*

Of course, the reason for that massage may very well have been due to the fact that I wrote his entire ad copy (and it's a pretty good one, if I may say so myself) for him, and thus saved him a lot of work, but it's nice that he's so appreciative.

Ho ho.

Okay, now to balance things, my results are out. We can check them on the USM website, but it doesn't tell me anything apart from the fact that I've passed all my subjects. No grades, nada. *sigh*

The next few days are going to be very worrisome. I'll be greedy and say I hope I don't get any Cs, but I'm expecting at least 1. *sigh*

Screamyx!!

2005-04-18T09:19:00.000+08:00

...is cranky. Took me half an hour to load 1 page yesterday night. It's getting better now but it chokes up occasionally. Let's see how long it takes to get this posted.

Bonsai Kitten! Oh The Horror!!

2005-04-17T18:25:00.000+08:00

I'm not really tall, I'm only 4'8".
I am not a gamer, I just pretend to be one.
I never actually went to Little Genting.
These are actually my legs.

Can you tell which part is true and which part isn't?

Now, more importantly, does it make a difference?

Writing is a creative process. There's always an element of imagination and invention involved if you want to write interesting pieces and not just report dry facts. If you don't know me personally, or don't make an effort to know me personally, I'm not going to explain it to you.

I'm the most gullible person around (I believed Carnage when he said he was leaving, all 6 times, and my friends never play April's Fool jokes on me because I always fall for it, so there's no fun in tricking me), but I am of the opinion that some blogs are too fantastic to be true.

That's actually a snap judgement, but heck.

Finally, are you one of the 3030 people who believed this?

Zorgs!

2005-04-17T03:03:00.000+08:00

WARNING: POST IS OVERLOADED WITH ITALICS
AND MAY EXPLODE AT ANY TIME

About an hour ago I was stranded in the Bukit Bintang area because the lout I was with got too inebriated to drive us home. What kind of blockheaded Ah-Bengish idiot gets wasted to this extent before 2am? That's not rhetorical, btw. Just come up with the worst names that you can. He has really thick skin. :p

So, in the cool night air, with the raucous sounds of merriment and drunken debauchery coming from the the Pusat Maksiat behind me, I stood there, on the pavement outside, with an intoxicated baboon next to me. An intoxicated, drooling baboon, who was, get this, crying about his ex-girlfriend.

I think all the italics just killed me.

Thankfully I had a nice little buzz going from all the (free) beer, or else I swear on everything green and pretty that I would have commited bloody murder, right there and then.

What a fantastic way to spend the Saturday night. *rolls eyes*

The only thing I had going for me was free beer. For some reason it puts me in a good mood. Heh, free beer, whoohoo! Hmm, now that I think of it, I'm thankful that the bugger didn't throw up on me. That would've really sucked.

Anyway, in the end, I managed to SOS someone to come pick me up. We all went for a drink (to get rid of the putrid fumes and the slight high-ness) and some supper, while the wasted lunk of ham snored (very loudly, no doubt) in the car. Hmm, now that I think of it, I'm thankful the bugger didn't throw up in there.

It would've sucked for GT (car owner), heheh.

So, to recap, never bring up sordid past relationships when you're with a guy. Or, if you wanna do it, do it in a place where there's no ready supply of alcohol, or you're really just screwing yourself over. Lesson number 2: never go drinking with guys. It's like, "Look ma, no hands!" followed by a crash. Or "I promise I'll pull out," and hello bun in the oven. This time, it's "I swear I won't get drunk tonight," followed by projectile vomitting.

Ugh.

On a final note, thanks for answering the SOS, babe. Love ya! :)

On a serious note, standing alone outside pubs and bars definitely does not feel safe. That night, I trusted the lout, and therefore did not have my usual arsenal of weapons (umbrella, pepper spray, craft knife, assorted rubber bands, water bottle etc) with me cos I didn't bring my big bag along.

I know better now!!!

Thimbles galore!

2005-04-16T18:16:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking.

That line is a classic example of how to prepare your readers for what is an abnormally profound and thoughtful post. Or, if your readers are smarter than the average thimble, they'll know that the author doesn't usually exercise her brain cells very much.

Anyway, before I digress further, I've always had a problem with the way people see me, mostly because what they see and who I am don't really gel. Of course, I'm not a passive participant, so maybe I'm doing something that creates that false perception.

I found out some time ago that a lot of people thought I was lansi, because I'm tall, hence I look down on people, I don't smile a lot, and most importantly, I seldom initate conversations. I remember feeling shocked because I thought of myself as, well, not quite humble, but not quite lansi either. So I went and asked my best friend if she thought I was lansi when we first met, and she said yes. Then I went around and asked some other friends who don't know me that well, and they answered in the affirmative too.

Whoa, news to me. I didn't change so much from secondary school, so I think I still give off that lansi vibe. But who cares, you insignificant little twerps. *grins*

There're not a lot of things I did that I can be really proud of. After all, I'm 22 going on 23, I still live with my parents, I'm not self-sustainable (I need people to feed me and give me money), I don't like responsibility, I don't score straight As, I haven't achieved anything that would make my parents really proud of me (like be a doctor or win a Pulitzer), and I do things that our stupid moral textbook specifically told us not to do. I don't usually feel guilty about it either. :p

Although I don't like responsibility, I've always thought that I'm the kind of person who does what is required of me when I am given a particular responsibility. That's why I generally think things through before accepting any position, because I don't want to quit halfway. I also don't think I'm the type who'll push blame to others, principally because I hate it when other people do that. I also don't like hypocrites, so I try not to be one myself.

Then again sometimes the way I see myself and the way others see me can be on totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Back in secondary school, I'd worry and worry about this, because I don't like it when people have a misconception about me. Now that I'm older, I realise that a lot of things are out of my control. All I can do is try to explain it the way I see it, but if that doesn't work, then they'll have an opinion about me that I disagree with, and let's leave it at that.

Notes:
Parallel Lines was removed because I edited it, and then felt that I shouldn't have edited it, but the original draft was gone and I couldn't let the edited one stay in place.

The title is in no way meant to be offensive, hoho. I just like the word 'galore' today. If you can manage to come up with a better title that doesn't sound pretentious, by all means go ahead. I'll give credit where credit is due. :)

Airing dirty linen in public

2005-04-16T17:48:00.000+08:00

Writing personal blogposts directed at a particular person has never been my style, but since you wanted to make this public, I can play along. I take offense at the implication that I left without saying goodbye, so here's the chat log, verbatim. For those of you who care to be embroiled in this little bitch fest, judge for yourselves.

Pink font belongs to Seanna. Black font is mine.

Seanna: hi
Saffron: hello
Seanna: you won't believe this
Seanna: but i just woke up like 1 minute ago
Saffron: spectacular
Saffron: enjoying your hols, I see
Seanna: huh?
Seanna: no no
Seanna: you got it wrong
Seanna: i slept earlier
Seanna: i woke up
Seanna: wondered, is anybody online
Seanna: err
Seanna: wait
Seanna: slear stuff my dad left on my desktop
Seanna: clear*
Seanna: ah
Seanna: done
Saffron: ok
Seanna: then popyou come on
Seanna: yay, i'm not alone anymore
Saffron: eh, not in a talking mood la, cya around, ok?
Seanna: now that i'm done rambling, how are you?
Seanna: ah
Seanna: no problem

At this point I closed the chat window.

Seanna: just
Seanna: that night when you left for a while with the "brb", was that about the cat?
Saffron: I don;t remember
Seanna: oh
Seanna: checking email?
Seanna: got the video clip i sent you?
Saffron: Seanna, I don;t want to talk tonight, ok?
Saffron: cya around
Seanna: okay
Seanna: just take a look at the video clip i sent you, okay?
Saffron: ok, thanks. :)
Seanna: you'll love it
Seanna: it's no problem
Seanna: :)
Seanna: nite...

At this point, the chat window was closed again.

Seanna: ...
Saffron: what?
Seanna: i don't even get wished back...
Seanna: not that i blame you, since you said you're not in a talking mood... i just had to say this, so don't mind me...
Seanna: just saying it
Saffron: can you at least respect the fact that I don;t feel like talking?
Seanna: i know
Saffron: I listen to you when you talk, despite the fact that sometimes I don't like to have problems heaped on me
Saffron: now you're bugging me because I didn;t wish you goodnight?
Seanna: i'm just saying it, you don't have to even read it
Saffron: then why say it?
Saffron: why say it at all?
Seanna: i dunno... i do that sometimes when people leave suddenly
Saffron: I told you twice I wasn't in a talking mood
Seanna: i guess it's my way of making up for it
Saffron: that's called 'suddenly'?
Seanna: i talk to this air
Seanna: thin*
Saffron: you should really try not to be so selfish and actually LISTEN to other people for a change
Saffron: thw world does not revolve around you
Seanna: i wasn't
Saffron: good night
Saffron: I hope you're happy now
Seanna: i was just talking to thin air

Blocked.

Was I harsh? Yes. Did I leave without saying goodbye? NO I DID NOT. The next time you're feeling bad/lonely/depressed/whatever don't try to lay the blame on me. I haven't been in a good mood in the past few days. To my credit, I warn people beforehand if I'm feeling moody, so you poke me at your own risk.

Parallel Lines

2005-04-15T20:45:00.000+08:00

...will never meet.

Entry has been removed.

What's your name, darleng?

2005-04-15T01:48:00.000+08:00

No, don't tell me, I don't want to know. It's just that I've been chatting with Res and suddenly had an inspiration to blog!

The previous filler post can be thus disregarded, but still, think about the little snippet, ok?

People with names that should be spelled with an 'i' but are, for some reason, spelled with an 'e' are the people who get screwed over the most. Didn't understand that sentence, did you? Being me, there will always be examples to the rescue!

Wai Ting Wai Teng
Ai Ling Ai Leng
Kien Sing Kien Seng
Cheng Ming Cheng Meng
Dar Ling Dar Len...oops.

Obviously, I am one of these people who get screwed over. The source of all this screwing could be the fact that your parents can't spell, your parents tried to be creative, or your parents had siblings who can't spell/tried to be creative. Either way, the common trend here is parents.

Uhh, hi mom!

My case is actually worse, because my middle name should be spelled with 2 'e's, but it is spelled with an 'i' instead. I'll be lucky if people spell one of my names wrongly (Res got both wrong, haha).

This entry obviously doesn't make any sense. It's a bad filler post to replace the previous filler post.

On a sidenote, there will be a Warcraft Tourney at APIIT's TPM campus on the 23rd of April. For more information, erm, actually I don't have more information, but I know there will be prizes, there will be many teams, and there will be a lineup of guys there waiting to pass my inspection because Suanie promised me so.

There will be further updates when I get more information. I can't believe I'm actually promoting a place that took my spleen. *shakes head* It's all Suanie's fault. ;)

Random Snippets of Conversation

2005-04-14T23:10:00.000+08:00

"What kinda guy do you want?"

"Someone who treats me the way I treat him."

Not a bad way to go, actually.

Mystery of the Year

2005-04-14T02:33:00.000+08:00

So I was sitting here contemplating a proposal and trying to understand tech jargon, when I heard some faint mews. "Stupid cats mating again..." thought I, and went back to chatting.

Suddenly, I spied something moving underneath my desk. Holy cow it was a freaking cat! Obviously, I made like a dog and shooed it away. The cat pretended to be Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and leaped gracefully into the sitting room and into the kitchen. At least, there's where I think it went, cos it was really too fast for me to see.

Naturally, because I know a cat has claws, I went to hunt for the stick that His Royal Oafness plays with when he gets home from college. Because he's playing Dynasty Warriors (*Cow Pee! Cow Pee!), he likes to pretend he's Guan Yu, complete with whooshing sounds.

In the interests of my general health and wellbeing, I totally made that last paragraph up. I swear. Anyway, I tried to look for the stick, but apparently Guan Yu took it to bed with him, so I am equipped with nothing against fangs and claws.

In ideal circumstances, you want to be wearing thick dog bite-proof pants and a jacket as well as electrocution-proof gloves when you're hunting cats. Unfortunately, I was clad in a Mickey t-shirt and boxers, leaving my legs exposed to the ferocious feline. In desperation, I grabbed a puny little hangar plastic hangar that would do nothing to protect me if the stupid cat jumps at me, claws tracted.

Still, I went into the kitchen to check. I looked on top of cupboards, underneath cupboards, behind the rice container, underneath the stove. Nada. No trace of the cat. I thought maybe it didn't go into the kitchen. So I checked the bathroom, under the sofa, behind the TV shelf, behind the bookcases. Still nothing.

Now, a bit of info. I live pretty high up in a flat, and the doors and windows were all closed (I checked after the cat made like a ninja and disappeared :p). So now I have a few pressing questions.

If all the doors and windows were closed, where did the cat come from?
If all the doors and windows were closed, where did it go?
and more importantly,
Did I hallucinate the whole incident?

Maybe I just need to sleep.

Notes:
*If you get the reference you win a cookie!!

To Arion

2005-04-14T01:16:00.000+08:00

You are now officially an Old Guy.

How to completely shrivel a guy's balls in 15 minutes

2005-04-13T03:40:00.000+08:00

Arion is forcing me to listen to some mushy bittersweet love song. In an attempt to fob him off, I will write another embarassing post about myself.

Back in the good old days when I was still in Form 4, boys and girls in school uniforms were really cute and innocent. There was to be no holding of hands nor touching of other miscellaneous bodyparts until the crucial question has been popped and answered in the affirmative. That crucial question is, "Ah Lian, will you be my lub lub?"

OMFG I can't believe I actually typed that out.

Of course, before you jump the gun and call me sexist with the Ah Lian statement, I'll have you know I was, and am still, the proud owner of two rather harsh rejections over the course of my short life.

My nerve-tingling Ah Lian moment occured in the Coffee Bean outlet in BB Plaza. Back then, my ex and I had this habit of exchanging novels to read. I suspect that was just a very Sek Kin-ish plot to draw my interest, because I'm nothing if not a bookworm. (Evidence here)

Anyway, I remember the book he promised to lend me was about the Nan Jing Massacre, and I was supposed to read it when I got home. I would like to take the opportunity to remind everyone else that if you decide to copy this kao lui tactic, please choose a book that does not invoke images of rape, pillage and mutilation of human bodies k thx.

On that fateful day, however, my itchy hands decided to play with the book when he was fiddling with his handphone, and there was a piece of cardboard slipped in between the pages. At first, I thought it was his bookmark and wanted to return it to him, but when I turned it over it had my name on it, so naturally I kept reading. It was some sort of love poem.

After I read it, I took one look at him and I knew I blew his plans wide open. I can't help it, it's a natural-born talent that I have. Anyway, being the usual speak-before-I-think person that I was back then, I asked him, "What's this?"

At this point, it was out of sheer politeness that he didn't grab me by the scruff of my collar and shake me awake, because if there was a Stupidest Question in the World to ask, that was the winner.

He blushed. I remember thinking that it was really cute, but then he spoiled the moment by throwing the ball back into my court when he asked me if I would be his girlfriend. Like, for real.

Fuiyo, panic. It's kinda weird, cos it wasn't like I didn't know he was going to ask me that, not after the poem I just read. But I still panicked. It's really a wonder how I manage to ace my presentations. :p

Anyway, in the vein of the usual weirdness which I usually deal with things, I reacted to his question in a way that would have completely shriveled up the balls of a lesser man.

I laughed.

Out loud.

In a very crowded Coffee Bean outlet during lunch time.

And I didn't stop.

Seriously.

I think it was a laughing fit, cos I get those a lot. My Psych notes say that people deal with stress and traumatic situations very differently, though none of the case studies mentioned stated 'laughing fit' as a possible reaction, mainly because I think they were surveying sane people.

The guy just sat there and looked at me, and he didn't know what to say. Or maybe he was just too polite to jump out of his chair and put as much distance between us as humanly possible. I knew I was being very rude, and I knew I should stop, but you know sometimes when you're laughing and you want to stop, but the harder you want to the harder you laugh? Jesus, I really need help.

After 15 minutes passed (this is just a guesstimate, it could very well have been longer), I said I needed to go to the loo, and he walked me there and waited outside.

Once safely locked behind a dirty loo door, I swore at myself. How stupid can I be? I really really liked him a lot, and it appears that he likes me too, and I go and sabotage myself. I mean, seriously. A guy just wrote a mushy poem, elected to make himself as vulnerable as anyone can make themselves, and what do I do to him? I laugh in his face and I didn't stop. There're a lot of things I've done that I'm not proud of, but this is possibly the one I feel really really bad about.

So, now for the ending.

When I walked out of the loo, surprise surprise, he was still standing outside in the corridor, alongside all the other boyfriends who were waiting for their girlfriends to finish their peeing. As we walked back out to the main complex, he said, "Can you forget that I asked you to be my girlfriend and go back to being friends?"

How do I convey how I felt at the moment? I felt really, really, REALLY bad. Then, on an impulse, I slipped my hand into his, squeezed it once, and, I'm sorry for using this cliche, his face broke into a smile so wide it made me feel, well, many things. Relief that he still wants this mental bitch to be his girlfriend, happy because I didn't screw up his life, and power because I had the capacity to affect him like this.

We were happily boyfriend-girlfriend throughout the rest of our secondary school life. During that period, I was very, very nice to him. *grins* Happy ending. :)

Well, almost. After school, we maintained a long-distance relationship for half a year before breaking off, but we still keep in contact via email and he's been sending me greeting cards since then. I guess he didn't hate me.

MUET

2005-04-12T01:11:00.000+08:00

Now that I've gotten all that shit out of my system, I just realised that I have MUET test somewhere in April, and I have no idea what the format is like. :(

I need a Band 4 to avoid resitting, and apparently the stupid oral is damn complicated. You don't talk, they tolak markah. You talk too much, they tolak markah also.

Whoop-de-fucking-doo.

Off to play The Sims.

Creaking doors

2005-04-12T00:05:00.000+08:00

Skip this if you're not in the mood to be assaulted by blocks of text. That's the disclaimer.

Recently, I've been reading some blogs about insecurity, forging new paths, change, relationships, mother-in-laws and Terri Schiavo. They're not necessarily related, but my mind links stuff together sometimes in a totally weird way.

I don't like being disappointed (who does, honestly?), and I don't bounce back as quickly as other people do when I face some bumps in the road. Knowing this, I don't get my hopes up before something is triple-confirmed, mainly because I'm not a masochist. I work to maintain my grades but I don't expect to score anything higher than a B, because I can't deal with the disappointment if I don't get what I expect to get. This way, if I get a B I won't be demoralised and quit studying altogether, and if I get anything higher than a B it's a very nice surprise.

Generally, I don't like it when people have expectations of me as well. If you don't expect me to succeed then I can't disappoint you, therefore it's less pressure on me.

Some of my friends confuse my attitude for humility. It's not. It's mostly a combination of the way I deal with things and a low self-esteem. Funnily, my best friend WS does the exact same thing. Birds of a feather must really flock together.

The very few times where I've allowed myself to actually fantasise about what-it-might-be-like ended up with a very disappointed me, so I think my way works. As usual, bad timing comes into play whenever I hit bumps (notice the plural), so it's even tougher. Breakups coincided with exams, family arguments coincided with exams, bad bad health coincided with exams. See why I have more reason than ever to hate exams? :)

Next is a few paras about my idealism and naivete that borders on insanity. I like my life simple and uncomplicated, and I try to keep it that way as much as possible. Of course, the older and more experienced you get, the more complex relationships become, but then again I believe in freewill. It's only complicated if you choose to let it be that way. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, which explains why I believed Carnage when he said he was leaving BF. All 6 times. :p I am also extremely straightforward and direct. Some of you have experienced this first hand, and Im sorry if it made you feel uncomfortable.

Obviously, that puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with more seasoned (read: manipulative) people, and you'll be surprised at how seasoned some people are, even in college. I've tried being manipulative, and even though it was an astounding success (I got what I wanted and the other parties weren't any wiser), I still feel a bit dishonest when I look back at it.

I don't think it's worth the sleepless nights. Okay, exaggeration, but I really regret doing that. Just as well I decided to abandon Business and go after Mass Comm. :p

Now about openness. I've actually closed myself off for the past 4 years, due to reasons that may be apparent to some and yet not apparent to others. I doubt my decision-making ability, and I don't feel safe enough to trust other people. The total amount of real-life new guy friends I've made in the past 4 years is practically less than 5.

I decided a while back to take a step forward, because 4 years is way too long even for my standards. It felt really great for a while to not worry about stuff all the time, but then my expectations were raised, and I was disappointed. There was a point when I decided to close this blog because I was uncomfortable with some people reading it, hence the hiatus post.

Luckily for me, the very next day after I'd decided to close this thing I had a date with Suanie, and she said some things that triggered a lot of deep thinking. She made me realise that a perspective change was all I needed to look at things differently, and to be at peace, if I can use that extremely cliched phrase. I was no longer preoccupied with the WHY WHY WHY, complete with hand-wringing and hair-tearing, and saw that there're actually more answers to a question than the obvious ones you'd expect. As a result, this blog is still up and running, with plenty of sexy pics to boot.

I remember chatting with Narrowband about some stuff my girlfriend is going through. In a very ironic way, the very advice I gave to her came back to bite me in the ass. Another lesson learned in life: don't go around giving advice like some know-it-all, because you just know your best friend Murphy's gonna drop by for a visit.

Bad timing and irony, the story of my life. :p Okay, I was exaggerating. It's really not that bad.

When all's said and done, I'm still glad that I took the steps that I did. You live, you learn (Alanis Morisette).

Now about Terri Schiavo. I can't imagine the amount of trust and love you need to commit the rest of your life to one single person. Likewise, I can't imagine the level of betrayal when that someone whom you love and have sworn to live with forever decides to let you starve to death.

There's euthanasia, which I support, and there's torture, which I do not. Obviously, I don't know the whole story, but I don't think I can starve my worst enemy to death. If a man can do that to his wife, whom he purportedly loves, he can do that to anyone.

To Jodi Centonze, I know being the third party always gets you maligned and pilloried (Camilla comes into mind), but I also know very well that it takes 2 hands to make a clap. I don't wish you any ill-will, and I hope you'll enjoy a better fate than Terri.

I guess when you think you know someone, you never really do. Or else they're capable of change so drastic that it makes them a totally different person from the one you thought you knew.

I'll still pick flying blind. Just hope I don't end up with somoone like Michael Schiavo.

This is very confusing, innit? I think I'm all over the place with no clear direction. My dream of being a journalist might have just been truncated. This is why I very seldom let people into the inner sanctum of my mind, cos it's really a very confusing place to be in. I won't do it again for another 3 months, I promise.

APIIT Queen

2005-04-11T16:45:00.000+08:00

As some of you know all too well, APIIT is the much-maligned hell hole where I spent 2 and a half years putting up with all sorts of unholy incompetence. My opinion of certain people is still the same (they SUCK), but thanks to the existence of Suanie I don't shudder every time I think about the place now.

Anyway, today, I would like to introduce a game to you.

Hot chicks, yes? Go vote for them here

Notes:
Got the link from an APIIT classmate who's still stuck in the gulag. She's doing a cyber marketing tutorial project something and needs to get 1k unique hits within a month. Help make her life easier by clicking on the link, please please pretty please? If you like you can even play the reality game they've set up. :)

Thank you very much.

Clarification (for Frosty :D)
My friend is not any of the above girls. Neither am I any of the above girls. Wow, that sounds weird. Basically, just click on the link and then close the window, sorta like porn sponsors, okay? :)

I don't recognise any of the girls though.

2005-04-11T00:32:00.000+08:00

A friend who drives all the way from Subang to pick you up to have supper in Pandan Indah, and then drives all the way back home.

A friend who woke up at 4am to go to the airport with you to see your boyfriend off, and she even brought a pack of tissue paper cos she knows your hanky won't be enough.

A friend who calls you up every day that you're sick (and it's a LOT of sick days) to ask how you are, and to give you information about homework and deadlines. Every day.

A friend who cares enough to start a boring lecture about not eating ice-cream when you're suffering from bronchitis.

A friend who reads your blog regularly, even though you've written some pretty disparaging remarks about her in the past.

A friend who worries about whether you're hungry or not, and who lets you pick where to eat (even though you hate deciding).

A friend who does so many little things for you it'd take a lot to write it all down. But the devil's in the details, and it's the small things that say more than big gestures.

What do you do for a friend like this?

Just to clarify that I'm not being nice for helping out at her cousin sister's kiosk. I'm a selfish person, and I admit that very seldom will I do things that don't benefit me. I'm merely repaying all the nice things she's done for me over the years, by being there when she needs help.

Sometimes, it's really not about the money.

It's about helping her out this time so that she feels beholden to me, and will feel guilty because I didn't take her money. This way I have leverage over her for the rest of her natural life, muahahahaha. You still owe me a birthday present ler, JW darling.

Spider legs

2005-04-10T21:41:00.000+08:00

This post is specially dedicated to Narrowband, who said I have a tendency to post more pictures than needed. Of course, he said it in a more polite way, but being that I'm the author of previous blogs like this one about mangosteens, I'll have to say, point taken, Narrowband!

Okay, I'll concede that the mangosteen one was really pushing the limits of human intelligence, but at least I was original! *grins*

Anyway, because I'm still in the process of sorting out my thoughts, I decided to continue in the vein of Posts With Useless Pictures, and therefore will be writing an all-new instruction booklet on how to use Veet, complete with pics, exclusively available at 27th & 6th only, whoohoo!

Okay, for the uninitiated, Veet is the name of a hair removal cream, which girls use to get rid of hairy legs so that little frilly skirts look good on us. To those who're blessed with non-hairy legs, I say, very vehemently, "Screw you!!"

THE BOX IT CAME IN. READS LIKE A GAME REVIEW, DUNNIT? :p IGNORE POLI SCIENCE BOOK K THX.

Step one, which is not included in the Official Veet Instruction Pack, is to moisturise your legs before depilating any natural hair from any part of your body. Scaly skin is not pretty to look at. Of course, when I say moisturise, I mean do it an hour or 2 before you start slapping Veet on yourself, otherwise you're just wasting moisturiser.

MOISTURISED HAIRY LEGS, PRIMED FOR DEPILATION.

THE BOX ACTUALLY TELLS YOU TO SQUEEZE THE STUFF OUT IN VERTICAL LINES.

I forgot to take a picture of the spatula that comes with the Veet, so please note the sky blue thingy sitting quietly next to the bottle of Veet in the upper right hand corner of the above pic.

According to the instructions, I'm supposed to spread the cream thickly enough to cover all hair. The box also says DO NOT RUB IN in blue capital letters (as shown), so I suppose it'll be wise to heed the advice.

SPATULA SEZ, "HIYA FOLKS! SAFFRON THINKS YOU'RE ALL BLIND."

Nothing like red to point you to the bull's eye. :)

LEG #1, AFTER PLAYING WITH THE SPATULA.

YET MORE FUN WITH MR. SPATULA. I THINK I'VE BEEN REPEATING SPATULA TOO MANY TIMES, COS IT'S STARTING TO SOUND REALLY FREAKISH.

At this point, I would like to remind users that the box says you should leave it on for five minutes and, again in big blue capital letters, NEVER MORE THAN 10. They should add "...if you don't want to end up with pus-sy (root word pus, okay?) legs." That'll put an unholy fear in the hearts of all estrogen-producing units.

Anyway, I usually take a middle number so I leave it on for 7. I have tough hair. *grins* By the way, this Veet company has got things down to a fine art, cos the box also says DO NOT GUESS THE TIME ALLOWED. USE A WATCH.

How cool is that? :p

HAPPY SCRAPING. KINDA LIKE SHAVING, BUT WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF CUTTING YOURSELF.

After you're done scraping, you haul your ass to the bathroom and rinse off the stickiness so your skin doesn't feel tight anymore. Towel dry and tadaa!, you're now the proud owner of a pair of silky smooth legs ala shoe model.

Personally, I still prefer shaving. Takes less time, I can do it in the shower, and I don't have to sit around with gunk on my legs all the while looking at the clock.

Notes:
Model who generously provided her legs for your viewing pleasure has elected to remain anonymous. Requests for her contact will not be entertained.

If your intelligence feels insulted, I've already warned you in the first few paras, so don't come bleating to me about wasting 5 minutes of your time. :)

Insomnia is just so cool

2005-04-10T05:18:00.000+08:00

I'm dead tired but I can't sleep.

Ok, I think short statements are best. Saw flying roaches today which brought on an anxiety attack. I didn't see just one, mind you, which is already bad enough. I saw five, count em, five.

Holy shit.

Been thinking about Teri Schiavo, flying blind, stuff Suanie said, stuff Minishorts said, and stuff IBlogMe said (will link after some sleep). Will blog about it coherently, also after some sleep.

I'm not bleeding anymore, hurray. To everyone I've gnawed and pok mung-ed, I won't do it for the next 28 days. I promise.

Boyfriends are pretty much useless. When a girl asks you which bag you think looks nice, don't say, "Just buy the one you like, honey. I'll still love you." If the chick knows which one she likes more, she wouldn't be asking you that question, would she?

Shit, what a bloody waste of time. Who the hell wants to put up with that?

I'm not cut out to be a salesgirl. I go crazy/extremely lethargic (depending on sugar intake) during periods of extreme boredom. I think I need more stress.

Porn isn't much fun when you have a headache. :(

Work work workity work.

Bird Day Boy

2005-04-06T23:59:00.000+08:00

There's a reason this blog is called 27th and 6th. :) Cheapskate way to get out of buying him a present is to dedicate a blogpost to him. I bought three watches for myself today. The best part is, I didn't even make that graphic, the Oaf did. *grins*

I'm such a great sister.

More about work

2005-04-06T00:45:00.000+08:00

I've never actually held a real job before, so forgive me if this blog is starting to sound boring.

Today, I managed to close almost RM200 worth of sales. Unfortunately, it was a lot of work because somehow, I can't manage to sell the big expensive bags. I can only trick schoolgirls into buying little pouches and hairclips. I think the most expensive bag I've sold to date is worth a measly RM33.90.

On the upside, I chatted with a very amiable Indian lady today and made friends with the girls manning the next stall. I've also spotted a watch I really really like. Maybe I can steal a bag tomorrow and barter trade for the watch. Here's to hoping. *crosses fingers*

Now, I'll just talk about the evening.

I was replying Suanie's SMS when I saw this guy looking at me in a very disconcerting way, like he knew me. He was also playing with his handphone. I stared back at him and tried to remember if he was one of my secondary school friends, cos my memory's not bad enough for me to forget college buddies. It also crossed my mind that he may be eyeing the cash drawer I was standing next to, so I made ready to grab the scissors to stab his eyes out if it came to that.

The next instant he said, "Saffron?" And I remembered that Resurrected said he'd dropped by and saw the wildly unsuitable bags, so tentatively I said, "Resurrected?"

It was him. The scissors were not needed today. *grins*

I took a break then and chatted with him while poor JW served the customers alone. When she came back, I introduced Res to her. Or at least I tried. After I opened my mouth I realised that I didn't know his name. In the end, we were all introduced to each other at the same time. All's well that ends well.

Pushing my luck further, I sat down on one of the benches with Res and talked about my sales philosophy (don't speak unless spoken to), capitalism, Chili's (it sucks. Don't go to the Mid Valley branch) and debating the pros and cons of muscular legs while looking at real-life examples.

Tomorrow I'm meeting Suanie for sinfully chocolate cake with a layer of cream cheese on top and hopefully a lunch date if things aren't too hectic.

I'm sorry for reacting weird when we met, Res. I was really tired and demotivated by bad skin. :)

Things I did on Sunday

2005-04-05T02:50:00.000+08:00

Things I did on Sunday:

Accidentally gave some girls a RM2 discount when I wasn't supposed to.
Forgot to give a Mid Valley employee her 10% discount when I was supposed to.
Chipped 5 of my nails trying to screw a keychain onto a zip.
Cursed people who:
- preen in front of the mirror (held up by me) for 15 minutes (I timed it) trying on a RM19.90 bag. It's a freaking 20 ringgit bag, you're not trying on your wedding ring. 5 minutes is bloody enough to make up your mind.
- take out 15 different hairclips from their anchoring cardboard thingies and try them on, only to decide not to buy any. Saffron goes, "@#$%^!!1!"
- think that sales girls have the IQ equivalent to a gnat. I can bloody own you all the way to Saturn, you stuck up bitch.
- think about "Blue bag or pink? Pink bag or blue?" like they're deciding on which contraceptive to use so that their Ah Beng boyfriends won't further populate the Earth (or just Cheras) with yet more Ah Beng Jrs. If it takes you so bloody long to decide, just buy both and go without 3 cups of over-priced coffee.
Tricked a little kiddie into trying on hairclips, and subsequently sold some by urging her into a temper tantrum so that her mom would buy her the hairclip.
exposed my ass crack to every bugger walking past because I was rummaging around in the secret compartment trying to restock the bags sold.

Seriously though, it was a pretty good day. Not once did I have an insincere smile on my face, though my facial expression did show extreme boredom about 3 times in that one day.

I'm volunteering my services again tomorrow. I really should sleep earlier to I have more energy to stand around and curse people.

Notes:
Some of the numbered items above are fictional. Let's see how well you know me by guessing which ones are true and which ones are false. :)

Shameless Self Promotion

2005-04-02T23:48:00.000+08:00

No, this ain't about the whoring of blogs. I ping PPS, it's not like I have the moral highground anyway. :D

On Friday afternoon, I spent more than 6 hours standing at a kiosk in Mid Valley, located near U2, peddling cute little bags to unsuspecting school kids. On the upside, I managed to sell 3 bags (spectacular achievement for me yay cos I'm not one of those natural-born charmers) and I got a free pau for dinner. On the downside my feet hurt, I was bored, and I wasn't paid.

I've been drafted for duty tomorrow as well, because there's no one else who'll do it and it just feels so nice to be the last person on JW's People To Call list. Anyway, this is a first, I think, someone using a blog to promote a kiosk. Just to refresh, the stall's near U2, about the third from the huge space in the centre, if I'm not mistaken.

If you're around Mid Valley, drop by for a chat. The minute you see a girl standing standing around with flies buzzing around her head, you'll know that's me. Or you'll know it's me if the first thing that crosses your mind is 'Wow she's tall'. Of course, it'll be great if you'll buy something while chatting. *grins* Anyway, crack a joke to relieve my boredom I promise I'll give you a discount if I'm allowed to touch money tomorrow.

We've come a long way from fig leaves

2005-04-02T23:36:00.000+08:00

1. Boy-leg shorts

There're basically 3 reasons why I like boyleg shorts. They're comfortable, you don't have to worry about wedgies, and they're low maintenance (think shaving). Besides, you can wear em to bed, and anything that makes you look cute while sleeping is good in my books (ref: Sylvester the Cat boyleg undies). My favourite pair is bold-striped with maroon, light brown and white. Thank god it didn't fly down along with my lucky black tangas.

2. Low-rise (hipster) tangas
The undies I lost are called low-rise tangas, and the reason I like them is because they're low enough to not show under my jeans, but they're not that low that I have to drag em up everytime I get up from sitting down. It doesn't help that there're 3 underwear bins in every Jusco outlet, with a combined amount of maybe 3000 3-pack undies, and they only have 10 units of low-rise tangas. To make it more challenging, the stuff I want is usually hidden 20 layers below the granny underpants. You can see why underwear shopping isn't a very happy time for me.

3. Lacey stuff...
...is pretty to look at, but unless it's one of those RM2k a meter Chantilly lace or what not, it's not going to be very comfortable. Besides, maintenance is a bitch. On the other hand, if you're wearing lace and it stays on for more than 10 minutes, maybe it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing anyway.

3. Matching bras and panties

Sets are pretty, but then they're usually very expensive and I rarely, if ever, find something that I really really like that would justify the amount I will have to pay (through my nose). But hey, since this is nothing more than a badly-disguised attempt to post pictures of near naked women, I'll put some up anyway.

Thongs/G-strings
Everyone knows what a thong is. I don't get people who wear thongs, actually. There's no support involved, it's like having a permanent wedgie, and it's unhygienic. Figured if I'm wearing something that requires a thong, I might as well go commando. :p However, it's hard to go through underwear sites without stumbling across a thong (and a nice ass), so here's one anyway. Once you manage to tear your eyes off her cheeks, check out the butterflies.

Finally, I would like to end this with a word of caution. Unless you're campy like Britney, you never EVER want your thong strings to show. Ah Lian-esque trends should be strictly confined to places where Ah Lians hang out (mainly Cheras). No surprises elsewhere, please.

Notes:
Underwear pics sourced from Victoria's Secret and La Senza. These places desperately want you to believe that the only difference between the highly-airbrushed models and your wife/gf is some expensive scraps of lace and silk.

Sourgrapes, yessir. :) I lost my lucky black underwear, I'm allowed to sulk.

Related posts:
How I Lost My Lucky Black Underpants
Bras

Thief Be Gone!

2005-03-31T01:23:00.000+08:00

Today, I lost 5 pieces of underwear in less than 10 minutes. I even lost my lucky black ones. :( The story: I was in a rush collecting the laundry and accidentally swiped the hangars with my underwear off the line, dropping them 5 storeys below. I didn't want to miss CSI, you see, but it's been a while since Murphy's been around. Of course, because my lucky black undies were in the lump, I had to go retrieve them ASAP. Muttering curses while running down the stairs, I didn't expect anything to happen to them, cos they were boring stretch cotton stuff, but when I got down there they were gone.

Bloody hamsap underwear thief. Wanna steal also pick some lacey sexy stuff to steal la. May your balls rot while still attached to your scrotum and infect your penis, thus making the act of peeing excruciatingly painful. I hope it's like passing stones through your urethra, you bastard. Maybe I should rename this post Pentagrams and Black Candles, just for a little more oomph.

So, to help me take my mind off my lucky underwear, cruelly taken from me before it's time, I decided to look at pics of underwear. Don't say anything about the way I get over stuff, it's already a given that it'll be weird-ish.

Who says you don't learn anything from Victoria's Secret catalogs? *grins* I found out that the type of underwear I like, the type that's notoriously hard to find in Jusco's underwear bin, is called a tanga.

Notes:
Underwear pics are actually from ASOS, not Victoria's Secret. The reason I didn't post any pictures is because I like most of the stuff in VS, and it'll be a waste of space to upload everything from there to Imageshack anyway.

Actually, I think I'll write another post about undies I like and undies I don't like in my next post, probably due tomorrow cos I need to sleep now.

Things that make me happy

2005-03-30T18:37:00.000+08:00

NO, NOT SHIT. BELACAN. :D

Making up your mind

2005-03-29T17:08:00.000+08:00

I was reading Eve's post and happily posting comments when I realised that I've identified the way I solve problems. You know the standard problem-solving procedure (no, not this one) where you have to identify the problem, set the parameters of your options, generate as many options as you can and assign weightage to the pros and cons, and then finally decide? On a sidenote, I can't believe I still remember all the Business stuff I did. :p

Well, I don't do it that way. Whenever there's something I can't solve or something that bugs me, I find out what exactly is bugging me, which usually surfaces about 10 minutes into the thinking. Immediately I'll go by instinct and limit myself to maybe 3 options, and then do the whole pro-and-con thing. It's at this stage that I'll fret and worry about the right decision and all the possible impacts, cos I'm kinda anal like that.

This stage usually lasts at least a day. Anything less and it's not really a big problem. :p After that one day I'll feel so fed-up and frustrated over the whole thing hanging over my head that I'll just wing it and do what I feel like doing.

Justification: Whatever I plan to do will not work out the way I want it to anyway, so I might as well just do something and force it into action rather than wait around and try to decide. At the time that something happens, I'll just try to be as 'sing muk' as possible, wing it and hope for the best. Actually, those 7 words pretty much sums up my life: Wing it and hope for the best. Hmm, maybe it's time for a blog-name change...

This also explains why I'm not a chess player. On the rare ocassions that I do play, the average time it takes me to make a move is 3 seconds, which would be really Grandmaster-like if I can actually manage to keep at least half of my pieces by the 13th moe. Real chess players would probably feel an insane urge to strangle me now, which is another reason to be thankful for blogs vs real-time convos.

I have a nagging feeling that this is the reason why I keep making bad decisions. Maybe I need my very own Monica (been watching the friends reruns). :D

Notes:
The reason for all this manic updatin is because I'm still evacuated from my flat, and am now stuk in my aunt's house, which is a place where Cartoon Network is on all day. I'm not exaggerating. :(

Nothing in Particular

2005-03-29T13:37:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I hopped over to KLCC and met up with Suanie, my uber-garang PIT lecturer back in APIIT. Fortunately, I don't have to call her mam anymore, but that didn't stop me from sweating profusely and giving her a complete explanation as to why I was 10 minutes late for the appointment. Old habits die hard. :)

I'M PARTIAL TO THE ONE
WITH THE LOP-SIDED HALO.

Actually, I'm just an extremely punctual person who's not used to being late. Hahah, ok, let's try again. Actually, I don't like waiting for people, so I try not to do it to others. -->

She was pretty cool about it, and suggested that we go for a pizza lunch. Happily, I agreed, for three reasons. One, I hate deciding what to eat and can't be happier than when someone decides for me. Two, she seemed to know what she was doing and where she was going. Three, you never disobey your uber-garang PIT lecturer Miss Suan. Sorry, old habits die hard *grins*

I'm glad to report that I was behaving myself very properly despite the swollen-beyond-all-recognition eyes, except for the incident where I spoke with my mouth full and spewed something onto her arm. Or somewhere thereabouts. Overall, I didn't embarrass myself too much, and managed to speak like a normal human being.

Over a pizza and some pretty spectacular salad, we talked about the wonderfulness of blogs (cos it brought us together) and gossiped about blogs we liked (a lot) and blogs we didn't like (quite a lot too). Because limiting our convo topics to just blogs would be something too blogger-ish to do, we also talked about family, friends and bitched about APIIT. Or rather, I bitched and she listened. :) She also gave me some very good advice, which I'm going to take after I stop being stubborn and adamant about my stupid prinsip hidups.

It was a good day.

Sidenote:

Apparently FootFoot loves the place but couldn't make it cos she had to work. I think Suanie said something along the lines of "Tough nuts!" which resulted in a barrage of SMS harassment. Tsk tsk.

Whenever the word 'lecturer' is mentioned, a vaguely vampire-ish image of a hawkish woman flashes across my mind. Never in a million years would I have expected to be willingly eating lunch with a lecturer, and enjoying the experience.

Family problems solved due to earthquake. Personal problems solved due to some hard thinking. I like being happy again. Moping around saps too much energy.

Night of Unbelievable Firsts, Part 2

2005-03-29T09:12:00.000+08:00

Not as enjoyable as NOUF1, but still, in the never-ending attempt to chronicle my life, I'll blog about the good and the bad.

I was sitting in the jamban reading a book when I felt the room move. I thought, 'Oh no, I'm not gonna faint again!' and held onto the sink, ready to slide onto the floor in a practiced maneuver (Backbone Be Gone!) in order to not hit my head (again). Some people think I'm crazy enough as is, heheh. A minute later dad was banging on the door yelling at me to get the hell out because it was an earthquake. He'd already herded my mom, granma and bro out of the house onto the corridor.

It was then that I realised I had a very slow reaction time cos the only thing running through my mind was WTF. The minute I was out of the loo WTF evaporated cos my dad grabbed my arm and left faint bruises as he practically dragged me out of the house and down the stairs.

I also realised that I have a pretty relaxed attitude about tremors and collapsing buildings, which probably infuriated my panicked dad at the time, now that I think of it.

Anyway, we were the first family to reach the ground floor, I think, but it didn't take long for other panicked residents to get there with us. It was then that it hit us how unprepared we were, cos everyone else took their wallets/handphones/bags with them, while my dad didn't even have a shirt on his back. We were a grand sight, dad half naked, mom was okay, granma was also okay, bro's hair was spiked at awkward angles (he has a crew cut and he sleeps weird), and me, I was braless and in fugly blue sweats.

After about 10-20 minutes standing in the badminton court, dad decided we should pack up and leave. Incidentally, the badminton court was still in the range of my flat if it were to collapse, so I really don't see the point in rushing down the stairs like there were rabid dogs on our tail. My parents then went back upstairs to switch off various appliances and get our handphones/wallets and drove my granma to my aunt's place in Subang, while we spent the night at my maternal granma's place in Taman Pertama. Don't ask why, it's complicated.

Spent a half hour calling and SMSing friends in Penang and around KL to see if they were okay, and checking up on my Indon friends. Phone credit habis liao, so I'll not be replying any SMSes until I can manage to raise some money to buy a reload card. Also, I want to say thanks to Angela for updating me about the earthquake while I was still clueless, and for calling to check if I was okay. Love you girl, muaks. Also, I want to mention that Jun either sleeps like a dead pig, or has her handphone switched off before 1am when she's on holiday. Both are decidedly uncool.

When my parents got back, we had the sleeping bags rolled out and slept in the living room of my grandparent's house. Sleeping bags are surprisingly comfortable if you're the type who can go to sleep flat on your back. I can't. Also, very unfortunately for me, both my dad and my bro snores, and my mom gnaws her teeth. I was smack in the middle of the three of them. Don't ask me what I do when I'm asleep, I don't know, but I'm willing to wager that I'm the only who managed to get the normal genes in this FUBAR-ed family.

Now I'm home again, persuading my dad that it's safe to stay here while blogging this. When I fire up PPS I'll probably see loads and loads of eathquake links, but hey, I'm nothing if not a spectacular follower. On the upside my family problems are solved and I'm perky again. On the downside (or upside, depending on your POV) my perkiness is tempered by the fact that I have had about 4 hours sleep in the past 2 days. Exam season wasn't this hectic.

Finally, I'd like to say thanks to Bawang for abusing the comment system in the I Don't Like Whiners post. :) And I'd like to say sorry to Resurrected for going offline suddenly.

The Firsts:
First time I've felt tremors in a building (my first earthquake!)
First time my dad bruised me. First time I've seen my dad this frantic.
First time I've been out of the house bra-less.
First time I've actually shown the world my fugly, mismatched PJs. First time I've slept in a sleeping bag.
First time I've woken up at 7 with no place to go when I'm on a break.

Hope everyone else is okay.

Fireflies

2005-03-28T05:56:00.000+08:00

Since Buaya's no longer around to claim the moral high ground, I think it's pretty safe to announce a hiatus. There're some family and personal problems I need to deal with, and depending on the severity it could take anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks. Sometimes these things sort themselves out, sometimes they don't, in which case I'm expected to be the pillar of strength. Hooo! What that means is that I really don't know how long I'll be gone.

COLEOPTERA LAMPYRIDAE.

Just a little heads up in case I disappear for a month. Then again, maybe you'll see me again tomorrow (this line is basically a repeat of the last sentence in the above paragraph). Late nights aren't good for concentration.

By the time you reach this line, you'll probably have surmised that this is a completely pointless post when you think about it. So to be safe, I've turned off the comment thingy. If you feel the need to wish me well, harness your mental powers and channel em to me, I'll get it all.

Unless it's within this week, I'll ping PPS when I'm back. I would also like to say thanks to everyone (especially the regulars :D) for reading, I really appreciate the support.

I don't like whiners

2005-03-25T21:38:00.000+08:00

Okay, pointless statement. No one likes whiners. Lemme rephrase that.

I don't like whiners who whine at me.

For some reason, people like to talk to me. I think that's because I usually mumble in reply. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I actually sympathise with you, it's just that I really don't like to talk unless it's with my best friends or my bro, so mumbling is sort of the polite way of telling you to get out of my face.

Unfortunately, people (read: whiners who whine at me) appear to have developed a nasty habit of sustaining an entire conversation by themselves. Here's a tip, next time, talk to the wall. It'll save me a lot of grief and it'll save you a friend. Unfortunately #2, these people don't appear to take hints, so being me, I thought the direct way is the best way.

Wrong again. After I told him to never call me again unless he had a real problem, he heeded my advice for all of 2 weeks. After that he came back to me about his stupid relationship problems, which can be easily solved if he just grows a backbone and bloody picks one guy.

At this point, I would like to clarify that if I find out someone I know cheats/cheated on his girlfriend/her boyfriend, I immediately lose all respect for him/her. To me, respect and trust is a very important part of a relationship, any relationship, so it's kinda hard for me to be good I-tell-you-about-my-period-you-tell-me-about-your-blueballs kind of friends with someone who doesn't understand this basic rule of relationship-ology.

If you have a problem and you wanna talk about it, that's fine. If you need help solving it, I'll suggest taking the advice of someone sane because I don't want to live with the guilt of ruining your life. If you insist on my advice, that's also fine but please sign the form absolving me of all responsibility should you become suicidal and succeed. What's NOT fine is the fact that he comes back with the same bloody problems over and over again without doing anything to make it better. It's like someone who sits underneath a dripping roof and complains that he can't sleep, but he doesn't get up the roof and patch the leak, so the water just keeps on dripping and he just keeps on whining.

If it's something serious, like your family not accepting your orientation despite all your efforts, okay, talk about it all you want. I know it's a tough life. If you've been raped and you can't get over it, talk about it all you want. I know what it feels like, a bit. If you want to talk about two-timing your incredibly sweet boyfriend while worrying about whether your secret lover loves you for your looks or your brains, please, for love of all things green, find someone else (The wall, the wall!).

The point is, a lot of the problems can be solved if you'll just get your lazy ass off your fucking chair and actually expend some energy to do something about it.

You'd think this is something incredibly easy that a toddler would understand, but noooo, this guy is 23 and he's still clueless. And I thought I live a cloistered life (sadly, I do)

Everything in life is a choice that no one made but yourself. Stuck in a dead-end job? You got yourself there, get yourself out. I don't understand why some people like to go around whining for help when they made their own decisions in the first place. The thing about decisions is that they always ALWAYS have consequences, and being a adult means dealing with the consequences of the decision that you made. It's not like someone had a gun to your head. If you fuck something up, go unfuck it. Sitting around talking about it isn't going to help.

So don't bloody say you don't have a choice and whine and cry and say you want to die because you don't have a choice. EVERYONE has a choice. It's just that you didn't make a good one.

Notes:
As I type this out, I'm still on the line. I'm not the kind of person who can multitask, which explains why I don't like 69, so guess how much attention I'm paying to him. :p

Jeez, I really need to get one of those nifty call-screening things.

Saffy's Arts and Crafts

2005-03-24T02:04:00.000+08:00

Hair product container/pencil case for JW, 2004.

Height: about 26 cm
Base: about 9 cm (measured from the outside)

Materials: discarded DHL cardboard boxes for the frame, UHU gum, papier mache, normal white glue, white mural paint, orange poster colour, gold paint, de-skinned cardboard, photocopy of photograph, tea, scrunched up Ferrero Rocher gold wrapping paper, regular metal wire (tit sin), assorted glass beads, black ink pen, piece of sponge about 13 cm high and cut to fit inside the container, a pair of steady hands, intense boredom and about 3 free days.

Cheapskate way to get out of paying for expensive birthday gifts (haircare products are not very expensive when the cost is halved *grins*).

Keyword: try.

2005-03-24T01:37:00.000+08:00

Just came back from yamcha session. Things that I have been doing these few nights:

sleeping late
eating a lot of you tiao
drinking wine
sleeping late
shoving loads of seafood down my throat

As a result, skin is getting a bit patchy and acne is popping up. Should cease and desist immediately before I get full-blwon pimples, cos then I will look fugly, and since I am a girl that means the end of the world for me. I never thought I'd actually get sick of seafood, but I'm getting there. :p

After-exam resolution: try to sleep early, try to not drink, try to work out at least once a week, try to eat less meat, try to shit once a day, try to eat more fruits, try to be good.

"dad, is port klang in klang?"

2005-03-23T02:26:00.001+08:00

We were all sitting in Fara's car, all excited about our seafood dinner, when we were suddenly struck by a revelation. None of the 5 girls in the car had any idea where the heck Port Klang is.

Hence the title of this post, an SMS sent by none other than yours truly. Yes, I realise the utter stupidity of that SMS (you can tell by this alone that I probably didn't do very good in my exams). But hey, imagine my dad's consternation when he got that from me. Actually, you don't have to, cos I'm gonna tell you.

The moment it said "message sent", 2 seconds later I got a call from the guy who's responsible for my existence (so to the people who hate me, hate my dad instead *grins*). With the help of my superb communication skills, I managed to reassure my dad that we knew what we were doing (we didn't), confirmed that Port Klang was in Klang (double duh), and we went along our happy way.

At this point, I would like to say that the collective knowledge level and navigational skills inside Fara's car did not increase. Because we were all young and therefore brainless, we decided to wing it and follow the signboards to Port Klang. Stop looking at me, I had nothing to do with the let's-wing-it decision whatsoever.

Now if you're Malaysian, you will reread the second last sentence again, and you will be overcome with awe, because Malaysian signboards are hopeless. For the benefit of the filthy foreign dogs whom I hope are reading this, there is only one reason for the existence of the Malaysian Signboarding Authorities Department, and that is to make driving in Malaysia as challenging as possible to those with absolutely no knowledge of which road leads where.

For example, imagine you're on a highway (freeway, expressway, etc) and you want to get to Banting. Obviously you can't stay on the highway forever or it'll take you to someplace completely ulu like Bukit Kayu Hitam (I paid attention in Geog *grins*). So you need to keep your eyes for big shiny blue signboards that spell out "Banting" in white letters so you know where to get off the highway. Very easy, yes? Not if the Malaysian Signboarding Authorities Department has anything to do with it!

FIGURE 1: PINK FUGLY CAR IS DOING 60.

The Banting signboard will be placed exactly 1 meter into the off-ramp that you're supposed to get on, so you'll see cars slamming on the brakes and leaving about an inch of rubber on the tar roads. It's still an exercise in futility because even if you're a slowpoke and drive at 60km/j, there's no way you'll be able to stop in time.

Some things are incomprehensible to the human mind, like the utter vastness of the universe and the utter stupidity of the Malaysian Signboarding Authorities Department, so for clarity purposes I've decided to flex my MSPaint skills and show you a little drawing I made. Complaints about confusion or the suckiness of my line art will not be entertained, thank you. Please note placement of the blue square that's supposed to be a reproduction of our signboards.

Now for point number 2, referring to the same picture (figure 1), I would like to draw your attention to the little blue square again. The names of the locations are actually nicely spaced and straight in real life, unlike the little lines on mine, so pretend it's perfect, ya? Anyway, your location is pretty hard to miss if it's the first one on the list, but again, the Malaysian Signboarding Authorities Department likes to place really obscure places on the top, like, I dunno, Kuala Krai or something, so if you want to bet on anything, you can bet that the place you want to go to is listed as item number 27 on the board. By the time you actually manage to spot it and wave excitedly, you're already well on your way to Bukit Kayu Hitam.

FIGURE 2: TREE SEZ, "HI!".

In the event that you DO manage to find a nice, clear, shiny signboard that's placed at a strategic location in plain view of every passing motorist, the Malaysian Signboarding Authorities Department will quickly remedy the situation by planting a fragile little sapling smack in front of it. Because we're in the tropics, trees grow at an alarming rate. Give the little sapling 3 weeks and it'll be a towering behemoth with huge wavy branches that will block the entire signboard except for Kuala Krai.

Again, those unable to imagine the scenario can refer to Figure 2, which is essentially Figure 1 but with more oddly-shaped cars and a tree.

I think that's enough examples for one night. So you see, driving is hopeless unless you know exactly where you want to go to. Think of it as a very sick sort of state-sanctioned punishment for not paying attention to the road when your dad was driving you to Banting, cos when you need to drive to Banting yourself, you will invariably end up somewhere far, far away. Like maybe Klang. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we ended up in Banting (because we wanted to get to Klang for seafood, remember?).

However, don't think too harshly of the Malaysian Signboarding Authorities Department. That which does not kill you makes you stronger, they say, and in Malaysia, that which does not make you go completely bonkers and start flipping the little birdie at everyone else on the road makes you a survivor, to fight another battle another day.

Now for the conclusion of this drawn-out post. Although we took a few wrong turns, drove on the wrong side of the road and made a few U-turns (some illegal, some not), we eventually managed to get to the place we wanted to go to, and had some pretty spectacular chili crab. We were all survivors that day. Except maybe the crabs.

Notes:
Malaysian Signboarding Authorities Department is not the real name of whatever department it is that supervises the manufacture and placement of signboards in Malaysia. Like I would actually do research before typing something this long, tsk.

Iced berries

2005-03-22T16:30:00.000+08:00

Over a tall glass of thick chocolate milkshake, the topic of conversation turned to inter-racial marriages. As he blew smoke rings right at my face, he told me that Ivan was getting married soon, and we were all invited to his Operation Freedom One Last Night to party.

"To be honest, I didn't think they'd last this long," I flicked my shake-laden straw at him and managed to splatter his t-shirt. He shortens my life-span, I make him do extra laundry. It's a fair exchange.

"Hoi! Don't la, I'm not going home this weekend," he said, as he slapped my hands lightly. "To be honest, I didn't expect him to marry her. Thought it was just one of those flings."

"O ye of little faith..." I grinned.

"Said the resident cynic!" He retorted.

We went back to sipping our drinks, when suddenly he asked me if I would date a Malay guy.

"Why not?"

"True also, but then you dated Chai, haha."

I narrowed my eyes at him. He never did like my ex.

"You have a lot to say about the people I date hor? So free ah? Want to talk about Ah Bin or not?"

Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes, and feign some nasty blubbering. I shrugged and sipped more milkshake. The thing about being with secondary school friends is that we always know where to hit where it really hurts.

"But then hor, you'll have to wear tudung ler."

The other thing about being with secondary school friends is that you know when to acquiesce to drastic topic changes.

I said, "Wear what tudung? I said date, not marry."

"But if you date then eventually you'll get married right? You girls, all one-track minds one," he said, then ducked as I flicked more milkshake at him. "Hoi!"

"Dunno who told me I would still be a virgin at 30 one hor?"

"Maybe you'll get married at 31," he grinned.

"Haha, I also hope la," I smiled, "but no Malay guys, thanks."

He raised one eyebrow, and asked, "Racist?"

"No, I'll date but I won't marry."

"Why?"

"The whole convert thing la."

"If you love him you will change for him ler."

"I'm not gonna start liking footie just because the guy I'm with likes Man U." I stuck my tongue out before thinking.

"Different ma, cannot compare with football. Eh, I thought you like football? Last time dunno who scream OFFSIDE!! loud loud and curse the referee one?"

"That time betting money ma!"

"Haha, suck la you. But really, you're not a very religious person wat, what's the problem with converting? I mean, it's not like the universe's laws are overturned if you become a Muslim right?" He blew more smoke rings, much to my disgust.

"That's the whole point. If I'm going to convert, I want to believe then only convert. Otherwise why convert? Wasting time only, and bloody hypocritical wei."

"Ask you marry the guy only, you think about hypocrite for what?"

"This is called prinsip hidup la, something you don't understand one." I ducked as he flicked his pineapple juice at me.

"Ceh, copycat. But seriously," I continued, "I don't believe in forcing people to do things that they don't want to do. I also believe that if you like someone you take them as they are." I paused here before adding succinctly, "That's why I don't ask you to stop smoking, dear."

He chuckled, and said, "True also, but it depends la. If you're in love with him then how ler?"

"Dunno. If you're willing then I suppose it's ok ler, but if you're not willing ler? Then compulsory conversion's a bit like emotional blackmail la. If you love me you will do this this this for me. What bullshit is that?"

"Hooiyo, people's religion la, don't go and say bullshit."

"I'm not knocking their religion, I don't care about what you believe in as long as you don't try to convert me. That's all. If I really believed in your god and I wanted to convert, then awal-awal I'd have converted, no need to wait till marriage. If I don't believe, then what's the point of forcing me just so you have one more ummat Islam? No point right?"

"Love ma."

"Eh, don't make me bring up why you went and studied in Nilai, ok?"

With an injured look on his face, he said, "Lowblow la, Saffy."

I laughed.

"Eh, enough with the interrogation la. What about you? You'll marry your girl if she's Muslim?"

"Dunno. Never thought about it."

"I give you time to think now," I smiled sweetly as he grunted.

"Probably ler, not a big deal. Except the bersunat part."

At this point we talked about something else. Superb memory I have, yes? Parts of the dialogue was reconstructed cos seriously, I don't have a superb memory. We should've been talking about lightweight stuff like how much he had to spend on fixing his car after his latest accident. Instead, we went deep into prinsip hidup and stuff like that, bleah.

This is why there should always be beer around when you're chatting. Or maybe beer wouldn't have been good in this case. He tends to want to discuss crazy physics equations when drunk. :p

The calm before the storm

2005-03-18T23:59:00.001+08:00

What's worse than painstakingly accumulating 1 million Gs in 3k amounts in FF3 just to find out that the cute little white chocobo in the Aunction House ain't for sale?

Ans: Having a Pysch exam on Sunday. Yeah, you read that right. On a fucking Sunday, bloody hell.

There's no better way to completely screw up my weekend, cos being me, I haven't started on anything yet, so I have 10 chapters to cover tomorrow. Hooray!

On top of it all, it has to be Pysch. I hate pyscho-analysing people (actually I'm just really bad at it, so I pretend that I don't like to do it), and I hate having people pyscho-analysing me (they're spot-on most of the time, which makes me very uncomfortable).

So instead, I'll continue to annoy people with my disgusting, irritating I'm-perky-always-look-on-the-bright-side attitude, and focus on the things I'll be doing at exactly 5.15pm on Sunday.

boy

really

Nothing can stop me now, muahahaha.

PS: Surprisingly, I feel so calm now I'm lazy to even start studying. Maybe focusing on imminent death (when my parents see my result slip) would be better motivation to study. Oh well, too late now. ;)

Late Night Cravings

2005-03-16T01:55:00.002+08:00

I was watching Jamie Oliver grill hunks of meat over a barbeque and got hungry. Of course, the night when I'm craving greasy meat is the night we have vegetarian porridge for dinner, yucks. Don't you just hate it when they put foodie shows when it's really late at night?

Because I have nothing to do (I refuse to touch my Psych notes) and I'm hungry, I've decided to make a list of the stuff I'm craving right this minute. Also, it's an opportunity for you Yanks and Canucks to see what you're really missing. *grins*

PIG'S STOMACH IN WHITE PEPPER SOUP,
ZHU DU HU JIAO TANG.

This is my favourite. I'd eat this for every meal of every day for 3 days straight (3 days is a LOT!) if I didn't have abnormally large tonsils (they get infected very easily which causes fever). As it is, whenever we go for bak kut teh dad orders a little claypot of this stuff, just for me, that no one else can touch. Not even the Oaf. Hey, get your own claypot, grrr.

The place where I get my fix has either moved or closed shop, so it's been a while. :(

VARIOUS PIG PARTS IN HERBAL SOUP, BAK
KUT TEH.

So far my favourite haunt is a shop on Jalan Imbi, which sells out before noon, so we have to wake up early to get the stuff, which is not a good incentive, especially on Sundays. My mom is a meat-phobe, so she just takes soup and yau char kuay, and maybe a mushroom or two. My brother goes for the 3 layer meat and maybe some ribs if he's feeling happy. Everything else in the pot is whacked by dad and myself.

I like my bak kut teh with the whole works: chopped garlic, thick soy sauce and cili padi. Figured if I'm gonna do it I might as well do it right. Dating is completely out of the question when I'm doing bak kut teh. It ain't pretty.

DEEP FRIED CRULLERS, YOU TIAO.

Popularly known as yau char kuay. This stuff'll put doughnuts out of business. I get mine from a dirty little stall in Yulek, where I get my bubur chacha as well. I hate it when they over-fry the you tiao to the extent that bits of razor-sharp dough stick into the roof of my mouth, killing any pleasure of food for the next day or two. The perfect you tiao is one that's crunchy on the outside but soft and doughy in the inside.

My record so far is eating 7 pairs at one sitting (after dinner). I would've polished off the whole plastic bagful if not for the enlarged tonsils in my throat.

SWEET POTATO, YAMS, SAGO WITH PANDAN
LEAVES IN COCONUT MILK, BUBUR CHA CHA

Notice I have a little tag game going on here. :)

The time I tried to make this, it was a colossal failure. After that debacle, I decided to just buy em from my favourite hawker stall instead of going through all that trouble again. A bad habit of mine is eating all the other-coloured yams first and leaving the purple ones behind, cos I like the purples. Yellows are ugh-est of all.

I wanted to go on with my list, but after spending the better part of an hour looking for the bubur cha cha pic, I think I'm gonna call it a night and leave the rest for part 2.

Saffy's Expert Critique on Trendy Fashionistas

2005-03-14T02:59:00.000+08:00

I have to wake up early tomorrow (6.30 am) to make my brother's breakfast, so I figured I might as well hang out till it's dawn. To explain, I need to sleep 7 hours at a stretch or I'll be growly all day.

My aunt had a little celebration today: her 15th wedding anniversary. I'm not going to give my very opinionated opinion about massive anniversary celebrations here (and it was MASSIVE. The entire extended clan and then some came. Even my 90+ great granpa :p). Instead, I'm going to talk about something completely girly, mundane and pointless, which is the way some people like to dress when they leave the comforts of their home.

To illustrate, I'll quote some case studies I managed to observe during my 2-hour stay at my aunt's place.

Auntie #1:
Wore an animal print top. If you think that I'm being intentionally vague with the description, rest assured, it's because I really don't know what animal that top came from. It was a nightmarish amalgamation of zebra, leopard, snake and even a giraffe or two, I think. I never thought this was humanly possible, but someone just topped my fugly green shirt in the Scale of Utter Horror.

That top itself is a travesty to good taste. As if scaring the bejesus out of kiddies with that hideous thing wasn't enough, she had to pair it with green camouflage pants. And diamante everything else, from earrings, necklace, hairclip to bracelet, anklet and heels. OMFG!! Considered poking my eyes out with the plastic fork in my hand, but then decided to stuff my face instead. Oh, the trauma.

Auntie #2:
Wore a black top with a huge sparkly patch in front that covered her entire chest area. Wasn't too bad, and she paired it with blue jeans, but she also wore a huge blue stone necklace with a 'centrepiece' the size of my palm, and it dangled smack in the middle of the sparkly patch.

Okay, admittedly, that's not too bad. The purpose of this blog post is just to illustrate the utter horendousness of Auntie #1's complete lack of style.

Yours truly wore a white ribbed tee and navy jeans, which is very casual indeedy, but hey, I don't want to stand out for the wrong reasons!

Scribbles:
All pics from E!

3 Strikes

2005-03-14T01:55:00.000+08:00

Me, the Oaf, and my dad were walking back to SJMC after dinner. We were walking in front while dad was playing with his Pocket PC thing about 4 paces behind us.

Oaf: Jie, got longkang. Don't step in it.

Me: Ok, I saw it. *smile*

Walked for 5 seconds...

Oaf: Jie, longkang again.

Me: Ya la, can see.

Walked for 5 seconds...

Oaf: Jie, longkang.

Me: Oi, any moron can see that they actually spaced the drains out regularly here. Planned township dei. Moron in question can also predict where the next drain will be and avoid it la. You think I blind or stupid? Babi.

Pause for 1 second.

Oaf: Babi mia kakak.

Me: [CAST EVIL EYE LEVEL 1]
One step removed from you is good enough liao.

Walk for 5 seconds.

Oaf: Eh, belakang tu babi mia ayah.

Me & Oaf: giggle uncontrollably while walking to hospital lobby. Dad clueless behind us.

Oh ya, my mom confirmed dengue case. The tally so far is my granma, my bro, and now my mom. The odds of either me or my dad getting it is significantly higher already. The best news? No one came to fog our place since my granma's case. Anyway, the story about super-mutated mozzies appears to be playing out in my house. It's either that or someone has a serious grudge against our family and is exacting revenge in the sickest possible way.

This blog is now officially renamed The Dengue Blog.

Humdrum day out of the roost

2005-03-13T01:06:00.003+08:00

Yesterday night I went yamcha with a secondary school friend. This is the guy I used to whack on the head with my uber thick Bio textbook, because he called me turkey in school. To be honest, I also called him Polar in return, cos, well, retaliation is fun. He's one of those maniac drivers you read about, the kind who hurtle through highways at speeds of up to 170km/j and the ones who don't hit the brakes when they turn a corner. Obviously, I'm taking a huge risk whenever I step into his car, but I never mention it while he's driving. You don't poke a bear when it's holding the keys to the rapidly-submerging cage that you're trapped inside, duh.

His insanity has nothing to do with me and my bio textbook. He was just born like that.

As I was waiting for him to get to my house, it occured to me that it was really very sweet of him to drive from Yulek (where he lives) to my place, and then back to Yulek for our drinks again. I also love him for being punctual with me after I screamed at him once for making me wait at the bus-stop. Alone. The screaming was completely justified, thank you.

When we got out of his car, I noticed that he was wearing a t-shirt that was the exact same shade of red as the polo t I was wearing. What's more, we were both wearing the exact same bootcut jeans, and they were in the exact same shade of, uh, washed blue!

I told him about my upcoming 3 month break and asked for suggestions on how to earn as much money as I can in the shortest time. He suggested selling beer to horny old men, which, I admit, is an idea I've also entertained before. After I agreed with him, he looked at me over his drink and said, "But I don't think you can do it lor."

"Why wor? Doubting my sweet-talk ability meh? I know I don't talk much, but when the situation calls for it, I can one ler!"

"No, it's not your mouth. It's your body. No tits, no hourglass figure, who want to buy from you?"

"I got leftover kam from CNY. Maybe can put those in my bra."

"Wah, so long liao still got kam? Your family weird one ah? I finsh one crate by myself you know? But yes, that's a good idea."

"Sadly hor, my bra not big enough to fit a kam inside. How?"

"You stay at home and sleep better la."

Thanks to constant ribbing from him and a few other secondary school guy friends, I've completely gotten over the utter suckage of not having a chest. In consolation, I have legs that go on forever and pretty nice ass.

It's funny how I never really developed any close relationships after I left secondary school. Almost every single one of the people who can really claim to know me are either related by blood or are people from my alma mater. It's hard to take things at face value now, especially after my stint at APIIT, where all manner of despicable slugs reside.

Oh, he also suggested that I start smoking to get more friends. When smokers go on a smoke break, they have to talk in between breaths, so that's a nice little common denominator. If I didn't know him that well, I would've thought he really cared about my social life, as opposed to wanting to paw off a free stick or two if I had my own pack.

And I found out that a friend actually went and named herself Swallow Cheong, cos her name has 'yen' in it, which means swallow (the bird) in Chinese. She's either very naive or has a wicked sense of humour, cos all that name's gonna do for her is inspire a lot of ribald ribbing.

In the end, we caught up on a lot of stuff, including but not limited to: our schedules, the utter banality of our daily routines, the complete non-existence of anything even resembling a sex life, etc. I found out that a friend was sleeping with his neighbour because he misses his ex-gf (guy logic. I don't pretend to understand, I just nod along). He found out that some of our classmates were gay. I found out one of our classmates was rumoured to be prostituting herself. He also told me about the time he was almost raped by his big-titted colleague.

"You'd have been lucky!" I pealed with laughter.

I also found out that I'm one of the girls predicted to be a virgin at the age of 30. It's supposed to be some sort of pathetic label. It obviously has an effect on me. :p

After that, a few other guys friends (all smokers) dropped by and as we sat there chatting while munching chips, it was almost like BM class again. I suppose the whole outing was worth shortening my already-very-short lifespan by about 2 years.

Lizardus Terribelus

2005-03-13T00:40:00.000+08:00

I used to be the proud owner of a Nokia 8210.

TEH RAWR! RAWR! RAWR! RAWR!

My 8210, in the exact same shade of red as this one, was affectionately refered to as the T-Rex, lovingly by myself, scornfully by my polyphonic-MMS-Bluetooth-canggih-phone-wielding friends.

My T-rex wasn't in as good condition as the phone pictured though. The silvery thingies by the sides of my screen were cracked, and the red edges were worn and discoloured. Being a typical girl, I also had a little pucca dollie hanging from it. Take a look at the pucca doll pictured, mine is exactly like that. Maternal granma bought it as a souvenir on her trip to Korea, and it matches my phone colour, so bleh. That was also the period in my life where everthing I owned, and I mean everything, was red. Bag = red. Phone = red. Pencil box = red. Wallet = red.

I AM PUCCA! TOUCH ME AND DIE!

The 8210 is a tough phone. You really wouldn't guess from its size. This lil bugger can be (accidentally) dropped, thrown (with empathic force), dunked in (toxic) toilet water, and used as a replacement for brass knuckles. That's apart from the usual phone functions of receiving calls, sending SMSes, etc. Isn't it spectacular?

Okay, to illustrate the utter spectacularness of the T-Rex, let me recount an experience. The year I was in Form 5, we decided to do an experiment and dropped a 8210 from the third floor of our block (that's where our class rooms were) onto the tarred road below. Upon impact, it broke apart into 3 pieces: the front shell, the battery, and the back shell.

Imagine the sight of about 10 kids of various genders in school uniforms rushing down 6 flights of stairs. Utter pandemonium, heheh. Anyway, after some hurried maneuvering, we managed to fix the phone and, with bated breaths, pressed the on-off button. Miraculously, the screen blinked to life and we heard the distinct and annoying Nokia greeting sound. Against all odds, that phone was still working! Gravity and force obviously had nothing on Nokia!

After ooh-ing and aah-ing over the spectacularness of the model, we quickly rushed back upstairs and replaced the phone in the bag of its clueless owner, and then each and every one of us went about our business as usual.

A few weeks ago my dad bought my brother a purple phone with flashy disco lights that's really a travesty to good taste, IMO. I said as much to my bro and almost got a black eye for that. Anyway, because my bro had a new phone, my dad pestered me to pick one as well. After much harangue-ing, my dad decided to pick the model himself, and my poor T-Rex was traded-in for the model pictured on top. Now, I am one of the masses who owns a phone with a colour screen and polyphonic ringtone. I'd like to try this model out in terms of durability, but I have a feeling it's not gonna be as tough as my Red Rex. Besides, it's in a wimpy blue and silver, blek.

*sigh*

I wonder where my beloved T-Rex is now...

Old English: lufu

2005-03-11T02:06:00.000+08:00

I don't know why, but "I love you" never made me grin like a cheshire cat and go weak in the knees and go all melty-like. At one point in my past relationship, I even told my ex to stop telling me that he loved me. That was back when I used to blurt things out without thinking, and I guess there's absolutely no doubt why that little relationship ended. ;p

Never did put much stock in words, but tonight I'm going to readjust my paradigms and re-evaluate the power of words.

GET THEM CUTE BEARS HERE.

The thing that prompted tonight's sappy-nightmarish blog is the amazing fact that a relationship in limbo can be salvaged by just a few right words at the right time (that's the sappy part). And a teddy bear holding a red lovey heart (that's the nightmarish part). Because I'm always nice and I hope other people can benefit from my friend's bf's genius, I'll reproduce the line he fed her, verbatim.

"You inspire me. You make me want to try and be a better person."

Three little words, but wow, packs a punch. Of course, notice he said "try", so there's no promise, and like I said, it could be just a line, but hey, at least it's a good line. Sometimes you just have to fly blind and not be cynical and blurty.

I think someone's happy tonight. And to fit in with the typical catty girl stereotype, I'm gonna end this by calling her a bitch.

The bitch.

de-stressing

2005-03-09T22:37:00.000+08:00

Today, I found out how much of a klutz I was. Well ok, I already knew how much of a klutz I was, but I was reminded again today. :p I thought my SP exam was on Friday, which was correct, only it was next Friday instead of this Friday, so I find myself with an excess of 9 days between stressful exam season, and what do I do?

I actually wanted to go out and have a drink so that I can get completely smashed and forget everything I've learned so far. Before you go and judge me, there's a reason why I want to do that. You see, I've sat for 4 subjects thus far, and I've memorised a lot of stuff I don't like, so in order to clear my head to memorise yet more stuff I don't like, I have to get drunk, hungover and recover over the weekend to start studying on Monday. Tadaa!

Love my logic, don't ya? My science teachers used to love me for that too. :p Unfortunately hangovers aren't conducive for lunches, so instead, I blog.

Hmm...The topics to choose from when I'm all calm and zen-like... Thought I might wanna talk about the kind of god I believe in, but that would be too philosophical for a relaxed post. Then I thought maybe I wanna talk about what Lorena Bobbitt did and how it's completely justified, but then again I don't want to deal with flames this close to my exams. So in the end, I remembered what a sort-of mentor told me when I said I wanted to be a writer. He said, "Saffy, write about something you know very well. And for the love of god don't write when you're drunk."

Sage advice. I should have that pinned somewhere in my room so that I'll remember it.

Anyway, I've decided to talk about how I de-stress during exam periods. Palpitating hearts and fluttery stomachs aren't good for writing clear, consice answers that will help me score a pass, so the trick is to relax.

Last semester, I had a subject taught by a lecturer that we called the Dragon Lady. From that name alone you know she's not someone you can play play with. 15 minutes before the exam, I was walking around the corridors outside the exam venue with my brother, and singing Close To You. Very warbly, very loudly, and very very off-key.

In retrospect it probably wasn't very de-stressing, especially if you were my brother, but at least I was doing something to distract myself from the impending doom (I scored an A, btw).

This semester, my trick to relaxing is by understanding and accepting the fact that there's no way I can get spectacular scores, so I settled for something lower, less stressful, and altogether more healthy. So that's the answer to life. Keep your expectations low and you won't get disappointed. Tadaa!

What an utterly useless post, eh? I have wine. *grins*

Filler filler filler

2005-03-08T19:09:00.000+08:00

circa 1998, probably done during chem class :p

Cropped pic cos my graphics cannot exceed 400 pix if I don't wanna completely weird out the alignment of my blog. This looks fine to me, but if you're on IE you're probably screwed anyway. Just a little heads up. :)

Click on the pretty little heads for the original image.

This is very obviously a filler post, cos now I need to take a shower, eat my dinner and get cracking at CTR, which I haven't even touched all day. I will be doing 2 questions out of the required 3, and I will be hoping that I will somehow, by the grace of whatever it is that protects me during exam season, pass my CTR.

I've been good, I just want a pass. It's not like I want something completely unachievable, like OMG Hugh Jackman OMG.

random exam update

2005-03-07T23:03:00.000+08:00

Today I was stuck in the exam hall for 2 hours with approximately 30+ other kids, and there was no air cond. Worse, the invigilators never thought about opening the bloody doors or something. Thank fuck I'm not claustrophobic.

I also found out that I cannot fan myself with a piece of paper and write at the same time. So much for crowing about multitasking, bleh. I also woke up with a crick in my neck, only it was in the left portion of my back. I sleep flat on my back or I sleep face down, so how the heck I managed to sprain myself sleeping is completely beyond me. Someone help me out with this, please.

In other news, I've recently (and by that I mean the past week or so) spent a lot of credit SMSing Jun while we're both supposed to be 'studying for exams'. Of course, sometimes she SMS to bug me about study stuff, of which I have absolutely no idea, thank you. Sometimes I SMS her and tell her it's futile to study and we should just relax and enjoy life. She told me I was very selamba about the whole exam thing.

I've blogged about how much it sucks to want to score good results. Surprise surprise, I got my total lack of ambition back. Right now, I'm just bumming around and studying when I feel like it, and updating my blog when I'm not in the mood to analyse scholars.

Of course, being totally realistic, I hope to get a 2.5 this semester, which would probably screw up my CGPA, but then I was never one to believe in exams anyway. Ren seng duan duan hau ji nian, don't waste it on studying.

The Queen of Winging It is back, folks, and she's enjoying every bloody minute!

Notes:
The relentless spate of SMSing I've been on probably means that I will be incommunicado sometime around the April-May-Jun period. I can't top up my credit before it expires, it's this thing I have.

Ramblings of a sotong

2005-03-05T23:57:00.000+08:00

I hate people who...

Ask stupid questions like, "Do you know you're eating a cow?" Like I'm the only idiot on the planet who doesn't know that, oh wow, beef comes from moo cows that like to chew cud when they're standing around meadows. Or your regular factory farm, whatever.

Ask stupid questions like, "Do you know that's cig's gonna kill you?" Like I'm the only...okay, so I don't smoke. That doesn't mean I don't cringe when people assume they're the only people who know that cigarettes are bad for health. So's drinking, so's driving, so's breathing, but I don't see anyone complaining about those.

In other news...

Exam season. Hate scholars. Hate CTR. Wished week was over.

Yet more news...
Was taken to an audio company on Friday. Was also given a grand tour of the rooms they use to make movies not sound like bad porn. Naturally I wouldn't know anything about porn, bad or otherwise. A friend of The Man also explained a lot of audio-related tidbits to me and I never knew how much work went into creating one simple scene in a movie. Well, if you wanna do it right, of course.

Went for some ice-cream. I love ice-cream, there's something about cold, sweet, creamy stuff melting in your mouth that just makes the world a prettier place. Went for a drive afterwards, exploring some places and watched a lot of scenery. Tarred roads are fine, especially if you're only clad in cheap plastic slippers, but I kinda like dead-ends more, especially if they're untarred with weeds and trees by the side. They're kinda mysterious in a way, cos you already know there's absolutely nothing when you reach the end of the road, but if you keep your eyes peeled there's bound to be some stuff along the way that makes your eyes sparkle and the whole trip'll worthwhile.

Kinda like life.

Went for wonderfully soft and juicy tandoori chicken. Not like the tree bark my dad bought once. :p Also went for beer later in the evening, and my magic lucky pen came to the rescue! Free beer, w00tness! Free beer always puts me in a good mood, heheh.

Expenses were all on The Man, who has this weird thing about splitting the bill and Swiss Mushroom burgers. That day we chatted about sunsets, my parents, tentacle porn, my normal-ness, relationships, bloggers, anal sex, rainbows and stalkers. Of course, there were other stuff, but I'm blur when I'm cramming for exams, so I can't remember most of the topics right now.

Thank god for Friday. Would definitely have not have been able to keep a sane mind today if it weren't for the relaxing bits. I hate exams. Can't wait for the end of this week before I'll be free, finally free of this stupid cannonball chained to my leg.

Then I can play KoTOR 2 with a clear conscience.

Scribbles:
The people who should be named have already been named, and those who have not shall remain unnamed for the time being. God I'm horny. And that was totally random. Thanks for wading through that block of text, and g'night.

Something new to try out

2005-03-03T01:39:00.000+08:00

Because I was not doing what I'm supposed to be doing (get cracking at my books), I decided to play a game with Jun and her friend Evelyn (hi Evey!). We'll do simultaneous blogs about the same subject.

My perfect Valentine's day

Being that I'm only in my early 20s, I don't really know what I want. I have trouble deciding what to eat for lunch, so when I think about the 'perfect' VDay, my brain short circuits.

(Of course, we can start by debating the existence of perfection, but that would be a kill-joy)

Instead, I'll talk about some sweet stuff people have done for me in the past. Let's see, the sweetest thing a guy has done for me was when my brother stole a purple balloon when he attended his prom thingy a few months back. It was helium-filled, and it came with a pinkish ribbon. The oaf tied it to his wrist and walked around the fashionable part of town with the balloon bobbing around like an inflated dog, all night, until he got home and gave it to me.

The thing that kills me is it was his prom night, he was supposed to be out having fun and kicking up some hell, and instead he saw purple floating balloons and he thought of me. How sweet is that? *melts*

My favourite ice-cream is Coffee Crunch that comes in a gold tin. 1.9 litres, about RM19. I think they stopped making it, but it doesn't stop the oaf from searching for it whenever he's in supermarkets. I don't remind him about this, but he does it because he remembers. This from the guy who forgets to pick up his dirty clothes when he showers. :p

I suppose what I'm trying to say is I don't want flowers and romantic dinners (ooh, especially not those) on a special day. Just sweet thoughts on normal days would suffice. Which is not to say that romantic stuff like this isn't appreciated, just don't go the whole flowers-to-the-office (assuming I have one) route.

The end.

Notes:
You may think that I have an unhealthy obsession about Vday. You would be wrong.
You may think this post reeks with heavy incestuous undertones. You would again, be wrong.
You may think this post reads like a kindy "What do you want to be when you grow up" essay. You would be right. :)

Perfection

2005-03-03T01:13:00.000+08:00

I stupidly closed my compose window earlier while typing a post, so potong stim. *grumble grumble*

Instead, I'm going to blog about something Seanna said. She told me that my blog's alignment was off . Apparently, the pic of the fugly CNY top I posted was too big, causing the lines to go sideways. Or something like that.

Apparently IE fucks things up, cos it looks fine to me in Opera. If you've been reading this blog pretty regularly, you'll know that fiddling with HTML doesn't really get me all excited, so I leave things as they are. It's pretty obvious that this blog isn't about flashy graphics anyway. :p

Seanna then said I should bullet my sidebar. She has purple/pink hearts. I hate hearts. I asked her for dancing condoms, she just laughed and pretended I was making a joke. So much for bullets, heheh.

The she told me my blog was disorganised (disorganised? My links are in alphabetical order!!) and that I should justify my text. At this point I told her, very sweetly, that I was gonna make her the topic of my blog post. This is the result. If you flip after reading this Seanna, let this be a reminder never to try and be perfect with me. :)

Explodes!

2005-03-02T22:18:00.000+08:00

I am just an ordinary person who is good in looking for excitement in this ordinary world! Blogging is my new found excitement and credit has to go to Saffy. Many people told me that I am creative, but I think my creativity only shows in my appreciation for arts. Like how I appreciate photography but it is not necessary that I take good pictures. I enojoy cooking and going for pilates classes. I have never smoke in my entire life but enjoy smoking cigar occasionally. I also like trying out new makan let it be mamak stalls or fine dining.I am blessed because I have people around me who love me dearly and that is the reason why I look forward to each brand new day!

From Suanie's profile.

Obviously, the most important line is the one containing my name, heheh. This is the one person I never thought I'd be sharing information about sexual preferences and manga porn with, blog celebrities notwithstanding. Reproduced in case she changes it in the future. :)

Have no idea how long it's been there, cos I don't usually read profiles. Kinda like the way I completely ignore the links in people's siggies. *grins* It's really remarkable what a single blogpost can do in terms of ushering along serendipity. Ex-classmates still can't believe it. They now look at me with awe, something I've never managed to achieve in all my years of schooling.

Good things come in threes, they tell me. The day I saw this, not only was I mentioned in Buaya's post, but I was mentioned in the same breath as Lilian. My life has meaning now. *grins*

Things to do before going to prom

2005-03-01T16:59:00.000+08:00

Being asked to go to prom as a date of the askee is pretty romantic, no? Unfortunately, it's not as much fun when you know you're the backup date because no one else is desperate/blind/adventurous/stupid enough to go with him. :p

So, Some Things I Need to Do Before Going to Prom:

One: find contact lenses

Because girlies look better in strapless evening dresses in contact lenses than in dorky specs. Unfortunately, I look like this if I wear em for more than 4 hours. More bad news: I think my lenses have expired, cos the last time I wore em was two years ago. Dare I chance it? Cataracts are extremely gross, I'm told, but I'm too cheapskate to go get myself a new pair of lenses.

Two: find dress
You generally need to be clothed in order to impress people socially, unless you're built like Angelina Jolie, in which case you can parade around with nary a stitch on and people'll still cheer. Or try to stab you with their jealous death stares, whatever.

My hottie friend with a body that makes men want to do naughty things to her has a lot of pretty gowns. Unfortunately, I'm flat as a slat and built like a boy, so none of that would fit me. I'm trying to see the logic in blowing more than RM100 on a dress I'll wear 0.8 times a year, if I'm lucky (running out of relatives to marry off), when I only spend about 40 bucks on jeans that I wear everyday.

Nope, doesn't work out.

Three: find make-up
I own a tube of lip stick (expired), mascara (ditto) and a stick of colourless lip balm (hijacked by the Oaf). He's not a trannie, btw. He just has fugly chapped lips. Now I have to borrow makeup from friends because I'm not terribly partial towards my mom's blood red lipstick and auntie-style makeup. Ever notice how auntie-fied women always wear blood red lipstick? I wonder if that's a requirement to join the Almost-50 Club.

Reminder to self: Also enlist help of erection-inspiring hottie friend in application, cos I always manage to stab myself in the eye while wielding the mascara stick.

Maybe my mom will read the first paragraph and kill me before prom rolls around.

Four: find shoes
I own a pair of pale pink (now dirty-looking) running shoes that I wear everywhere, a pair of sparkly sandals that I wear whenever "formal" exists in the dress-code, and a pair of clunky man-style slippers that I wear to the pasar malam or to 2020 for my supper. (if you live in Pandan Indah you'll know where it is) I also have a pair of inch-high wedges I bought on a whim.

Obviously none of these can be worn to prom, and it's kinda tough to find flats that flatter a prom dress. Unfortunately, I can't walk in heels. I can stand pretty spectacularly though.

Saffron admires women who can walk in heels. Respect maut. She has even more admiration for women who can run in stilettos. Tabik hormat.

Five: practice talking normally to complete strangers
Easier said than done. I wish we could revert back to stone-age grunting and moaning to communicate. Less chances of committing embarrassing faux pas, eep.

The whole point of this whole post is to play the sympathy card and ask if anyone would like to go to prom with my friend. He's pretty well-built with a head full of shaggy hair that falls into his eyes, and he's quite tall. When sober, he's also relatively intelligent and can debate chemical reactions. The downside of him being drunk is that he likes to talk about physics equations, and he drives like a maniac, drunk OR sober. Any takers? Free food and drink beckons, and I'll owe you a debt of gratitude.

Image of the Evil Eye monster taken from DarkFallOnline.

2005-03-01T02:34:00.000+08:00

Was half asleep when some stupid piece of moulding char siew on a motorbike decided to rev his engine up the little hill outside my flat and woke me up. I hate being jolted out of sleep. Now I'm cranky AND hungry.

So I got to thinking about marriage proposals ala baseball park style. The kind where they write "Will you marry me, (insert name here)?" and advertise it all over the baseball stadium and the audience enunciates "Awww" collectively and the girl says yes.

I don't like stuff like that. The very same reason why I don't want flowers on Valentine's day. Or any other day for that matter. Sounds kinda tacky and kitschy. The prude in me doesn't like PDAs either. Real love doesn't need any advertisement.

Friend says I make good mistress material. When I'm sober, I'm inclined to agree.

Scribbles:
A secondary school friend told me earlier that he reads my blog. So babe, the next time you SMS me, there will be absolutely no mention of me ending up alone, and there will be no smart comments about counting my chicks before they're hatched, or there'll be hell to pay.

Now I have to decide whether I should trek downstairs for more burgers, or if I should just root in the fridge for some cornflakes. On second thoughts, maybe I should just curse the char siew and go back to bed.

Bone Crushers

2005-02-27T19:10:00.000+08:00

I have this very weird habit of turning up in the same colour clothes as my best friend. We take 'sam ling siong tung' to a whole new dimension. Therefore, it should've been no surprise that we'd both be stuck in the same emotional dilemma at the same time.

Insane urge to swear is rising again, damnit.

Anyway, I'm not gonna talk about it anymore (privacy issues), so I'll just blog about something that I hate doing: shaking hands.

Usually when I meet someone I try to deflect the inevitable social practice of shaking hands by lifting my right hand and waving it around, kinda like the way you say goodbye to a kid, y'know? Unfortunately, being the bastards that they are, they always grab my right hand and give it an energetic pump before giving it back to me.

Okay, so it's commonly accepted that people shake hands when they meet, and they're not really bastards for doing it, but damn I hate having my hands shaked. I hate people who have a limp, wet (from sweat) grip. I hate people who grip so hard my fingers are squashed together and tears form at the corners of my eyes. I hate people who pump so hard it feels my arm socket's gonna come off. But most of all, I utterly, utterly hate people who grip hard and pump hard.

So, question time. What the heck is the common practice? Are you just supposed to grip till the other guy screams and chews off his arm from the wrist, or are you supposed to move your hand in an upward and downward motion (ooh, jackoff 101) while having a fake smile plastered on your face? Would it be bad form to completely ignore the hand offered and say hi with a sincere smile instead?

Can you believe I did 2 years of Business? *shakes head*

What do you do when you're locked out of your house?

2005-02-27T01:42:00.000+08:00

Happened today, when me and the Oaf came home with no house keys. Granma didn't answer the door cos she way busy yakking on the phone, and couldn't hear her handphone ring cos it was in the kitchen. After calling our parents, we had to wait outside the house in the corridor.

After talking for 10 minutes, we got bored and started a Bollywood dance routine with massively-exaggerated hip movements and wide toothy grins. Music was playing in my head, which, in retrospect, doesn't really augur well for my state of mind, but who cares about my sanity anyways?

Unfortunately, our road to international stardom ala Aishwarya Rai was thwarted when some guy and his girlfriend walked up the stairs. Stares are not conducive to dancing, unfortunately.

Some people can be so rude. *grumbles*