the body dost protest

Ah ... the time has come, that the body says, "Stop. No more. A break or else I'll break."

So, for the past two days, it has been nothing but sleep, sleep and more sleep.

This must be the longest time it has taken me to recover from any sort of sickness; chicken pox non-withstanding of course but even that didn't make me feel as useless as this. And what is this pray tell? I don't even know. I know that mid-ways during choir rehearsal, I started sneezing violant non-stop sneezes which made my eyes waters and made me look terribly sick cause some people mentioned that I didn't look well.

I probably caught a chill then. Didn't feel that great the next day but thought that it might pass after awhile so I went to work as usual. Luckily cause soon as I dropped my bags in my cubicle, my phone rang. The bosses were once again frantically trying to update the projects application that they hardly use except when meeting the Big Boss for update and once again, needed some last minute training on how to do that. So, off I went to train them, my eyes all swollen and the entire time on the verge of sneezing an yet unable to. I hate it when that happens. Just let it rip! Instead it teases me with wanting to and yet don't.

Finally, after making sure all the managers are updating everything properly, I tried getting to work. Alas, my brains refuses to work and my was feeling every inch of everything. I gave up trying to work and applied for emergency leave. Went home and slept the rest of the day. Still didn't feel any better by then. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow came ... head was still pounding and the throat hurts. So, I finally relented and went to the doctor's. Met two other colleague there ...hmmm ... Feng Shui in the office must be pretty bad huh to have so many sickos at the same time?

Doc says I have a slight fever (I thought I didn't have a fever) and my throat was pretty inflamed (I thought it felt better than the day before!) - tells you how much I know about myself being sick huh?

Well, feeling much better today but still on MC. Haven't slept as much as I did yesterday and the day before so that must mean that I'm getting better?

Guess I'm going back to work tomorrow.

ack! omg!

*cripes* What's happened?! This is not the virus that everyone's been getting (Blaster virus). Do go to microsoft for your patches if you haven't already done so.

So, what was it?

Well, I am one of the millions of subscriber of TechTV's incredibly regular spamming ... I did subscribe to be spammed so I guess you can't really call it spamming can you? Anyway, from the Screen Saver's most current newsletter [release: 3590], the blurb for Dark Tip caught my eye. Sarah wrote ...

Kevin's going to show you how to get your PC to automatically check for missing security patches and service packs. He's my little Dark Tipper, but he's still working for a better tomorrow!

Sounds great doesn't it? No more occasionaly popping into Mr. Gates' site to see if there are more problems with his brilliant creations. All bugs will come to you. Erm ... you'll be informed of the bugs found without having to move your lazy assed fingers away from all your online games - I can't name any cause I don't play them. Only things I play with comes with the Windows CD - and therefore not losing any precious ladder placing due to inattention.

Right ... blah, blah, blah and still haven't gotten to the problem.

The problem is ... finally she speaks! ... after I've installed the application, IE refused to serve me pages. I've also gone deaf cause I can't seem to hear anything coming out of my kazaa ... all those newly downloaded mp3 gone to waste!

I search here. I searched there. The audio seems to have dissappeared.
All IE settings looks to be unchanged and yet. Nothing works.

I desperately called Jayce to double check my settings. Jayce didn't pick up. Must be in the middle of a movie with his girlfriend or in the middle of something else ;)

Next called Ah Seng. His batteries went flat after I spoke two sentences. He called me back and I proceeded with the inspection, in the middle of which he asked me to call him back - hee hee, sorry for running up yer bill mate! Most things seems in order although his LAN connection settings seems a little odd. I distinctly remember the TMNet guy setting it differently. Mainly cause I only have two DNS addresses. None of which I was to set at the LAN connection settings only on the Streamyx's TCP/IP settings.

But I changed it anyway to no effect.

Courteously, I thanked him.

Looking through window's help I found an interesting link. Hmmm ... restore system. That might work. *ting* {lightbulb}

Please select point of restore ...
option Window's blaster patch
*click*
Windows will restart Sure! No probs!

When it restarted, *clang*. A miracle has happened. I can hear! I can hear again! Tis a miracle!

Timidly, I connect to Streamyx. That was never the problem cause even before that, I could get in. Just no google in IE.
Opened IE.
Typed in google.com
Et voila! Good as new! Hurrah!

I can surf! I can hear! I can blog!

I think in the process, I got a friend to think that it was the patch that caused the problem. She kinda logged out before I got to tell her that it wasn't. She's also been recently told about this little blog of mine ... so, if you're reading this Irene, go download the patch! It wasn't the patch!

friday five - holiday destination

1. What's the last place you traveled to, outside your own home state/country?
England. Was there last December for a triple celebration - birthday, Christmas and New Years. Oh yes! To visit the aunts as well.

2. What's the most bizarre/unusual thing that's ever happened to you while traveling?
A bunch of teenage girls trying to matchmake me with an asian guy sitting across me while I was in the train in London. I think he was kinda young though. Could have been a student. Cute though.

3. If you could take off to anywhere, money and time being no object, where would you go?
The question should be where wouldn't I go. I'd go everywhere if time and money permits.

4. Do you prefer traveling by plane, train or car?
Plain or train is fine with me. I don't like the car much. Too cooped up. I like big spaces. Put me in the car too long and I'll feel sickly.

5. What's the next place on your list to visit?
Europe? OR ... Brazil or New Orleans during the Mardi Gras.

the old lady

The door bell rang. It was late that night. Very late. In fact, it was just past midnite. Who could it be? Everyone in the family is already in bed sleeping. Even Aunt K is sleeping soundly as I sat there watching the fillers in between Buffy and Angel. I was the only person still awake.

Who could possibly have the bad manners to come visiting unannounced at this godforsaken hour?

I opened the door. There was someone standing at the gate. "Someone or something!", thought my overactive imagination. The 'someone' was just a shadowy figure; lights from the porch did not travel enough to light the gates for a clear view.

After much neck craning and eye squinting, to no effect, I decided to go out and check who might be out there. All the time worried that I'm doing that; going out into the night alone, with no one else in sight on the road. Quite different from walking alone at 2am on well lit and populated places after clubbing hours. I know I am at home and everything but it just seemed a little scary.

It was a lady. An old chinese lady with short curly hair. She was holding a plastic bag in one hand and the other was scratching her forehead in a gesture much like when you're confused or worried.

She's lost. She spoke in cantonese. She said, "Oh no! I think I took the wrong turn."

I asked her who she was looking for. She mumbled a name. A name which I did not quite catch but didn't sound like anyone of the people I know that lived around my place. Not surprising as I don't know a lot of people living on my street. Only my immediate neighbours and those two to three doors on the left and the right. Anyone beyond that I do not have an inkling if they were chinese, malay or indian or if they were a family or not.

I told the lady, "No. Nobody like that lives here."

She walked off as I was saying that. Walked towards the other houses as I walked back into the house.

I was tempted to offer to take in my car and drive her around to look for the house she was looking for or maybe send her to the police station so that they could help her but I didn't. I didn't because I keep hearing the horror stories of kidnappings. How the get some innoccent lookin lady to ask for help and then when you get out to try and help, they snatch you.

She didn't seem like she might be though. I suppose that they would have to look that way. Believeable or else the trick won't work, right?

But then, she really didn't seem that way. She just looked like a little lost old lady. Someone's lost grandma. Someone's grandma can't find her way home. What if that was my grandma and nobody will help her because they were afraid?

I watch her walk all the way to the end of the road, stopping in front of a few houses wondering if they were the house she was looking for. I watched her through my locked grilled front door. Hoping that everytime she stopped, that was the house she's suppose to go to. But it never was. She walked all the way to the end of the road and turned back. She passed my way as she headed for the other side of the road. I stood there watching.

Just stood there and watched. All the while thinking whether I should go out there and maybe walk with her and try to find where ever she was looking for. Help her.

But I didn't. I didn't even wait till she got to the other end of the road.

I walked back to my chair. Went back to my tv. Sat there watching while my aunt slept, while my parents slept, while the lady keeps on walking, keep on searching and nobody in my family knew that it happened. Nobody knows what an unhelpful person I have been cause I was scared. Or is that my excuse?

Was fear my excuse for not wanting to help? I'm hoping that it's not.

That was two days ago. I hope the poor old lady's found the house she was looking for. Maybe she found someone less afraid to help her. That would be good. I hope she's safe.

disposable digital cam

Have you heard? There's a disposable digital camera now! They've done it! They've made it disposable. Not only that, they've made it affordable ... at least to the US citizens living in the US of course. Only $11 bucks! It's true I found out about it through boingboing.

Eleven buckaroos for a disposable camera. I remember the one and only time I ever bought a disposable. It was when I was in town and heard that Human Nature was going to be at Tower Records that very afternoon. I'm not a big fan of Human Nature but I absolutely love their version of 'People Get Ready' and I had just got back from the land down under; fresh from listening and liking to their latest single 'Cruel' at that time.

I paid over RM50 for that little baby. The pictures that I took with the boys didn't turn out well but those that I took during graduation ceremony was ok. Seems that the flash should be on when I took the pictures at Towers. How was I to know?!

Anyway, I wonder how well this digital disposable cam would work and how it works as well? Will it even get to our shores? And most of all ... how much will it cost?

breathing again

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Ah ... space.

After the emotional chaos that was last week, things have settled slightly. Papa's home after a month in Sabah and the parental units have gone for a few days to Genting.

Ah ... breathe. Air.

The faraway aunts have decided that Grandma's going with Penang Aunt when she goes home. It's sad though when grandma said to me, "Don't send my things away. I'll be moving to the faraway aunts' new place when it's ready".

*sniff*

It's so sad when you get old and the children that you thought would take care of you don't want to. Sad when you don't get along with the spouse of the one who would. Sad when your children can't take care of themselves well enough so that they can take care of you. Sad when sisters disown their brother (this I can relatea though). Sad when a family tears apart from each other. Sad.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

My car is well again. Papa wanted to have a look at it on Saturday and I took him there eventhough I was exhausted as hell. Had already planned on skipping the 4pm dance class while at work to just sleep. It's great that we went though cause the car was all healed and ready to go. They were bathing it when we were there.

*smile*

My car is back.

The Littles

It's true! There was such a cartoon. I didn't dream it up.

Why does nobody remember it? I followed it almost religiously. ... I think.

They're about little people who lives in houses with regular sized people and I think they have a tail much like a mousy's tail. A lot like 'The Borrowers' if you've seen that movie.

Doesn't anyone remember 'The Littles'?
Was I the only one sitting in front of the telly while everyone was out playing?

A Computer Poem

A Computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A Window was something you hated to clean
And Ram was the father of a goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And Gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really Mega Bytes.

An Application was for employment
A Program was a TV show
A Cursor used profanity
A Keyboard was a piano.

A Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3-inch floppy
You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you Unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for a while.

Log On was adding wood to the fire
Hard Drive was a long trip on the road
A Mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a Backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A Web was a spider's home
And a Virus was the flu.

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the Memory in my head.
I hear nobody's been killed in a Computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead.

Author Unknown

Second guessing

It is too much to hope for, isn't it? To have an uneventful day? Or at least a day when I'm not reminded of my incompetence or of someone making me second guess my decisions and the things that I have done?

Why, event my laptop protested. It displayed the dreaded blue screen of death while I was typing. Something which I have not seen in an age!

From a day that went pretty well - she has called an end to the cold war, indicated by her willingness to speak with unworthy me, and me being slightly proud of myself for having called my credit card company for an increase in limit so that I can settle my grandma's hospital bill, something which I have not done before but seen it on the adverts that I can be done.

Then as I was happily engrossed with the second episode of 'Children of Dune', they came by to visit grandma - my uncle, aunty and cousin and his girlfriend. He, my uncle, asked about my car. After telling him that it's still in the workshop, that I saw it last week, that it'll probably cost me RM1000+, he asked about the claims.

Uncle: How will you be paying?
Me: I'll pay them first and then the insurance will pay me back.
Uncle: You think they'll handle that for you?
Me: *beat* Yes. They said they will.
Uncle: Do you have the other party's police report? Claim information?
Me: *beat* No. They'll handle it. Anyway, I've made the police report and if the other party doesn't report it, he'll be called to court right?
Uncle: You think the police will bother with such small matters?
Me: *shrugs and walks back to the TV*

All the while thinking, I'm freaking hoping that my colleagues are right and that I won't need those information. Second guessing myself here cause as soon I realised that I didn't have any information about the other party, I was tempted to call the police station to ask if I can have that information. Also asked the workshop agent if they could give me that information but the assured me that they'll handle it for me. Now I'm thinking I should get it in black & white.

Gad! I don't want to think about this. Don't want to not have the other party's insurance not pay me back and then have everyone else coming back with me going "I told you so!"

Please, please Mr Workshop Agent. Don't screw me over. Make sure everything works out like I thought it will. Please!

Crying

"Hey look. That girl looks like she's crying."

I hope nobody was thinking that while I was sitting there in the kopitiam waiting for the tai chow fella to cook up my order of Hokkien mee. The waiters keep coming over to ask if I wanted to order drinks. I think they came over like 5 times. Don't they keep watch of who's ordering and who's not? Leave me alone.

I'm choking there. Trying to hold the tears in. Knowing that my eyes are slightly wet with the few runaways tears that I couldn't hold off. Knowing that it would look obvious that I was going to cry if I let anymore more to escape. Then I'd probably get told off again by her when I finally get back in the car with dinner.

I kept quite the whole time driving home. Hoping and praying that I can hold it in. Hold in it just enough for me to get into the bathroom so I can let it out.

So, I unlocked the door. Left dinner on the table. Rushed up into my room, brushing pass my sis who said hi, knowing my voice would quiver if I spoke, grabbed my towel and headed straight to the bathroom ... and finally let go.

When it rains, it pours

So much has happened in the last week.

Grandma was sick. Sick enough to be admitted into the CCU (Coronary Care Unit). She much better now but still looks a little weak. Not as sprightly as she used to be.

The doctors at the emergency room seems useless and not to mention really slow. It's a wonder that anyone can survive should they be brought into the ER for anything more than a cold or fever. They did some readings and scans for my grandma and said that they didn't find anything. I paid over RM500 for them to find nothing ... well, they did make an appointment for my grandma to see the neurologist tomorrow though, on a FIFO basis so what the appointment was for is still a mystery to me. I suppose that we could just turn up and see if he's free, no appointments necessary.

According to my mom, the neurologist took a look at the readings and imaging the night before and immediately saw what was wrong with me granny - low in sodium and potassium. Guess, that RM500 was of some good after all but they should really fire the people posing as doctors at the ER. The neurologist (Dr. N) said that my granny could have had an attack and it was a good thing we came to him when we did. I say according to my mom cause I was unable to bring my granny to the hospital myself. Terrible deadline at work.

Now that another thing ... work.

It's sick working for an idiot who wouldn't listen to your concerns and just insist on a deadline. Especially on something that you've never done before and do not have the skills for. Urgh!

Which explains why I'm sitting in the office right now on a Sunday afternoon trying to get the idiotic scripts working. I'm not sure what's wrong. There seems to be something wrong with the interpreter or settings of the machine or something. I can't get the bash scripts to work (: bad interpreter: No such file or directory) and running javac seems to give me 'error while writing ... (No such file or directory) on line public class LogFileWriter {' with the pointer under the 'c' of class.

I think this should be pretty easily solved if I am not so entirely dependant on the ANT's build scripts.

Wonder if it has anything to do with path settings.

Oh yeah also ... I was in an accident on Friday while on my way to meet the MT folks for dinner and maybe partying with the kotaraya folks after that.

This idiot was stopped at the tip of the island turning into the area with Victoria Station on the Sprint H/way. He signaled that he wanted to come into my lane and was inching into it too, move-stop-move-stop. Since I was already really close, I honked at him. Thinking that maybe he wasn't looking at his mirrors and so to warn him that I was there. I thought that he'd stop but apparently he's either stupid or deaf cause he kept on coming out. Therefore, I had to slam on the brakes!

*phew* Managed to stop in time.

Just as I was thinking what a close call that was, I was bumped. Quite a hard bump at that but luckily I didn't hit the steering wheel nor was I thrown through the windshield.

Upon recovering from the bump, I saw the idiot in front speed off. Looking at the rear mirror, I saw that the car that bumped me was a taxi.

Having heard all the horror stories about taxi driver, I was kinda afraid what he'll do. But he was really reasonable. Didn't yell and scream at me. Asked me why I stopped and if I got the plate of the car in front.

"Of course not! I was too busy being bumped to take it down. Plus I stopped cause if I hadn't, I would have bumped into that idiot."

I tried calling my brother but he didn't pick up the phone. Couldn't call my dad cause he's in Sabah and he has 013, in other words, useless! So, I thought I'll call the people closest, the MT group that's already in Bangsar. I needed to get someone cause I absolutely don't know what to do and the vultures has already descended upon us and I think I was in shock. My hands were shaking slightly and I was mad. Mad at the idiot who caused it.

I signed with one of the vultures to get my car towed. The damagae isn't that bad but I hear something dragging behind when I drove my car to the side and thought that I shouldn't drive it anymore. Of course, I got an earfull from my dad for this when he called 4 hours later for signing but what did he want me to do? Leave the car on the road? Anyway, too late anyway, accident 8.30pm call, 12.30am. Nothing can be done then. No use lecturing now. If you were home then I could have asked you but you weren't and koko didn't answer my call. I did what I thought was best at that time. If it was the wrong decision so be it. No use crying over spilled milk.

I'm hoping to go visit my car in the car hospital tomorrow. Plus bring the necessary documents to the vulture. I hear rumours that they'll mangle the car even more before the insurance evaluators come by. I'm hoping that's not true. Please let it be just that ... a rumour.

Right! Will get back to work now. If I can't figure out how to get it working then we'll just have to do the UAT with the development server instead. Too fucking bad!

The Blogger Meetup Report

Finally, a real bloggers meet. I've thought about having one when I found out about Meetup.com. However, I don't know the bloggers in Malaysia and therefore, wouldn't know how well attended it would be. That was about a year ago anyway and needless to say, I didn't follow up on it.

So, when I found out about the bloggers meetup through PPS, I thought I'd just drop in to check it out. ALONE. I didn't know Rach was going until I saw her postings at the Kotaraya group and Grace's replies to them.

Off I went on an ungodly hour of 9am on a non-working Saturday to pick up Rach and head towards KLCC. We were suppose to meet up with Grace prior to the meet but I was late.

Rach and I was outside the front entrance, she needed a smoke and to get in touch with Grace, when I saw a guy looking slightly at a loss trying to get someone on the phone. "A possible bloghead?" I thought. Ha ha ... turns out I was right. He was seated at the table with all the blogheads when Grace finally came out to get us. I learned later that he is Khalil.

First impressions? The first one that stood out must have been Kaz. Big guy, long hair, looks like someone who's willing to sit in front of a terminal indefinitely. I didn't even notice the SAP t-shirt until someone pointed it out during the introductions. Then there's Adi who was sitting quitely in the corner wondering what he was doing with this bunch of people. Sarini is tiny!

I was hungry so I didn't really look around the table but reached for the menu instantly. However, I did notice that all the guys were on one side of the table and the girls on the other. Is gender segregation still in? :)

Anyway, it was interesting meeting everyone ... well, everyone that I dared talked to anyway. I'm not comfortable talking to strangers and I must confess that I have never read the blogs of everyone present save for Rach and Grace and of course Aiz.

After the meet, Rach, Grace and I went shopping. I actually bought some stuff. Surprising cause I usually just window shop but I bought a hairband and erm ... some unmentionables. Found out that I left the latter package at Evita only after I sent Rach home so I had to drive all the way back to KLCC for it, making a pitstop to drop off that night's complimentary ticket to Tosca at Prem's.

I got Grace to pick up my package. That was an exasperating exercise on itself due to my chronic mobile's battery. Urgh! I've lost count of the time I turned the bloody thing on just to get two sentences to Grace. So frustrated I was that I went shopping for a new phone. :D Excuses? Maybe but I really needed either a new battery or a new phone. I got myself a Nokia 2100. Never heard of a 2100 before but it's relatively small compared to my 3210 and light and it was only RM499, way below my budgeted RM600 so I'm happy.

Basically, I spent almost the whole day at KLCC that day. By the time I got back to KLCC the second time, it was already 4pm and since I'm suppose to be at Istana Budaya for the night's performance of Tosca at 6pm, I just lepaklah at Burger Kings reading my never ending copy of Mansfield Park and dozing off several times. :D

screwy windows

Something is terribly wrong with my windows at the moment. I wonder if it's that virus competition someone's told me about and I seriously don't remember who this someone is.

My taskbar is useless, system tray is blank and unclickable, windows button is a black hole and the windows button on the keyboard does not work.

I wonder if it has anything to do with MT's comment. All this started when I clicked on some comments link at some blogs. oops ... apparently my yahoo messenger's still working cause some person just messaged me. no idea who this person is.

Completely relying on my incredible Alt-Tab skillz and Task Manager now.

*sigh* I think I'll pack up and head home. Then hopefully my shitty Streamyx line is still connected and I can finally blog about that Blogger Meetup on Saturday. Haven't been able to get connected all through the weekend. Only managed to this morning. Can anyone say sux!

disciplinary action

In all my life, I have never been called in for anything to do with discipline. Always the goody two shoe, I have never even seen the headmistress's office except once when our whole form 5 class were called in due to our dismal results in the trail exams. Of course, I've passed the office often enough and have been in it to retrieve and place things in/from it but I've never been called in to be reprimanded.

So, I was suitably surprised, although I shouldn't, that I was called into Mommy J's office for a discussion on Tuesday. Mommy J's the HR Manager. She's been with the company since her teens. I think this is her first and only company that she's worked for and she's due to retire sometime this year. Everyone knows Momma J. She's nice and all but she tends to talk to everyone like she's your mother. Hence my nickname for her here.

Anyway, the ass of a manager wrote her emails about my late comings and of my one incident of not returning to the office after a meeting.

Ok. I admit it. I'm always late for work but I don't always go back 5.30pm on the dot either. I didn't know that I was signing into a clock watching company. I didn't plan on becoming a clockwatcher but if they insist, I can always do that. BUT ... they argue that staying late is our responsibility cause we couldn't finish our work. Like that is our fault when they keep piling work on us. Even work that we insist we don't have the skills required for it. "You'll just have to learn it." Geez!

So, I sat in Mommy J's office listening for about an hour of punctuality stories and about the previous GM who was a stickler for puntuality, blah blah blah ...

Of course, I gave her back my two cents about the ass manager as well. About his double standards; "I don't mind if you come back late for lunch as long as you're with good company.", about his deficiencies at meetings and understanding clients and of his uncaring for his subordinate's welfare.

Then today, he talked to me after a discussion on a project. Going on and on again about how he doesn't want to be our enemy that he's been trying to help us (In some invisible way? Nobody knows how he's helping.) and hopes that we will invite him along for lunches and dinners.

Yeah! Sure. Like when hell freezes fucking over mate!

You report me to the management and you're expecting to make nice NOW?! Get fucking real you asshole!

groupie me

Over the weekend, I received confirmation for membership to two projects.

1) The nervousness project
After much participation in the forums, and of course, of the exchanges as well, I was finally nominated and seconded two months after my first exchange - The Super Postcard Swap II. I think the reason was because my exchangees haven't received my cards (my ATCs not the postcards). Takes about 2 weeks to a month for people in the US or New Zealand to receive them, it seems. So, I got recommended after they got my stuff. :) Thanks guys!

Soon as I got my codes, I signed up for two postcard exchanges. :) My batch of postcards are almost ready for mailing. Just need to write some blurb or message on them before I send them out. They've been stamped an addressed.

2) The Project Petaling Street beta testing
I applied to be a beta tester for Project Petaling Street. Although I don't really have any idea what I was signing up for when I applied, I thought I might lend a hand anyway. It sounded like we are suppose to test out the new funtionalities for the community blog or blog-tal, as they would call it, and I thought, yeah, I could probably help out. So I signed-up.

According to the email I received, they say they've selected 26 out of 117 possible applicants. Guess I should be honoured that they selected me huh? Some of the other successfull applicants seems to know each other or at least have been frequenting each other's blog. I think I only recognise two blogs from the list. Anyway, that would mean I'll have more blog to lurk in.

Got the email with the instructions as well. Am currently awaiting confirmation of registration. After that, will get right onto testing. ;)

super download frenzy

Woo hoo! Broadband. No worries about rising access fees. No more taking forever just to download a song. Can finally download Buffy ... hmmm was the last one me being repetitive? Have I talked about downloading Buffy before?

Well, anyway, managed to download two episodes of Buffy while I was out today for Tosca rehearsal. While I was out shopping for shoes for to match my costume. Yup! Footwear not provided by the costumers. While I was getting some 'cheaper' DVDs. I bought Frida, Simply Irresistable and one with Maria Tallcheif.

Now all I need is a CD writer to store all those downloaded stuff.

Right. If you could please excuse me, I should concentrate more on Buffy. Typing all this while watching. So cool!

friday five - summer holiday

1. How are you planning to spend the summer [winter]? Well, we only have one season throughout the year - the rain or shine season so, things will be as usual.

2. What was your first summer job? Summer job? I'll take this to be between semesters break instead. The first one would be as a sales girl at Evita Peroni. It's a shop selling hair accessories. We played with hair accessories and people's hair all day long. I quite sucked as a sales person. Tried to butter up to a customer but I felt kinda sick after that. Never did that again. Just recommended them what's appropriate and that's it. I don't like pushing for a sale. Either they want it or they don't. It's their choice.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer [winter], where would you go? I'd go back to London. Spend more time walking around instead of just going into shop after shop after shop during my trip there last December. I'd probably visit some of the galleries and the museums. Didn't go in any of them.

4. What was your worst vacation ever? Hmmm ... can't think on one at the moment.

5. What was your best vacation ever? My Gold Coast trip after my final year university exams. A bunch of us went up for a few days. Visited the usual suspects - Movie World, Dream World, Sea World. I loved the sand in Surfers Paradise. So white and fine. And the atmosphere, so relaxed. It was towards the end of schoolies week so there weren't that many students left, not overly noisy. Oh! I remember a brilliant craft market the had on the weekend. I don't think its a regular market cause I was on the telly just after I went back to the room from roaming the market. It was a fun trip!

super speed service

Whoa! Talk about speedy service! Having been a great proponent of government services bashing I'm currently in a state of shock speed of approval of my broadband application.

Complaints about the wait time for Streamyx installation has been rampant ever since TMNet offered their broadband packages. Some wait for a few days, a few weeks and even a few months before they receive any information about their installation. Mainly due to the massive applications from the speed hungry netters who's sick and tired of their 56kpbs lines and the provider's underestimation of the willingness of the people to pay for fast internet speed.

It is said wait has been reduced considerable. A friend got his applications installed approximately two weeks after applications. I never suspected that they could be even faster than that!

I have finally succumbed to the lure of broadband internet due to my frustration at having to wait an hour for an mp3 and forever just to get bits of Buffy. Since my company's having a promotion for the service, my company's a distributor(?), where I get the modem for free and I have my laptop that is equiped with a network card, I'm happily jumping on the broadband bandwagon.

Alright! Uncensored season 6 Buffy here I come! (I'm suspecting this season to have heavy cuts due to the Buffy-Spike factor.)

So, I handed in my application to my colleague and he signed me up. Less than an hour later, the lady from Streamyx called - *eyes wide* - saying they'll be over to install it tomorrow morning.

Woo hoo!

I'm taking leave tomorrow. Skipping morning Tosca rehearsal. I'M GETTING BROADBAND! *grin*


[addendum] Oh yes. If anyone of you want Streamyx and free modem, shoot me an email and I'll get the applications for you. Klang Valley people only please; cause that's where I am. Offer's until 3rd July only.

Discovery

As an owner of a site, I have, naturally, always hoped that people would come across it and occasionally like it enough that they might come back for a return visit. What I have never really counted on was for people who I have a semblance of regular contact chancing upon the site and reading it. Which is why I seldom censor the things that I write in here.

I have met a fellow blogger and latin dancer once and do sometimes visit his blog as well but I don't mind that cause I don't really know the guy so he can make whatever opinion he have of me and I won't give a damn. Nor do I really mind Colin, whom I've met but he doesn't really know who I am, cause the chance of me ever meeting him again and telling him who I am is zippo.

But these are people who I meet weekly. Yes I'm talking about you two bozos. Yep. You know who you are. I do implore the two of you not to leak out this little spot of mine to the others. Please! I'll belanja you teh tarik. Just don't, ok?

From now on, I'm not gonna post overly personal stuff (not like I do much of that anyway) and keep it more to what's interesting that comes across this puny unimaginative mind of mine. Stuff like the Bahasa Malaysia post ... which makes more interesting read, no? Therefore, postings might be few and far between from now onwards ... ie. fewer than now.

I'm gonna find another hole to moan about all my personal crap.

Cheers all.

high ambitions

For someone who has no props, no costumes and not to mention time, what Dennis have in mind seems quite ambitious.

What he had in mind is something akin to what was done for Hey! Mr Producer. Singing, dancing and some serious blocking. We have no money so getting props could be a problem and costumes ... we'll just have to scour our wardrobes for them. Ok. That's fine. I'm sure we can find things appropriate enough.

The thing is ... he's aiming for corporate shows. Sound systems would probably be provided by where ever the show would be. The likelyhood of getting body mics for such shows so that we can do the dancing and blocking is slim to nada. Think ... if we're gonna do It's a Hard Knock Life, he has in mind us on all fours pretending to scub the floor. Now, which hand would I hold the mic and how will I be able to sing while scrubbing, holding the mic to my mouth and trying to balance so that I don't fall flat on my face?!

Well, me and another girl pointed out that for things such as corporate shows, maybe we don't need such serious movements. Just some light blocking. I also suggested that we get notes for the pieces that we're going to do so that everyone will be singing the same note at the same time and so that our entries are clean. We might know the songs but we'll have different interpretations and emphasis and that wouldn't work as an ensemble. It'll sound a mess.

Dennis says he'll rethink things.

They went off for a discussion after that to discuss the possible Kuantan gig. The company only wanted 3 people so I'm out.

I'm wondering whether they're discussing about me as well. Y'know whether they should let me into their little group. Or maybe Dennis is thinking letting me in is not such a good idea anyway since I seem to be giving out just too many comment/criticsm.

He's suppose to call me today to see if we're going to rehearse tonight but my phone hasn't rung even once today.

Am I out then?