Champion

Hey ho everyone! Just wanted to inform you guys of the brilliant news of me winning a competition. :)

Well, I had two competitions over the weekend - Friday and Saturday. Friday night and Saturday morning (the whole day minus night actually) I was in a line dancing competition and then rush rush to a latin competition on Saturday night.

Anyway, I was hoping that we'd not get anywhere with the line dancing competition cause I'm not really into line dancing but it was something that the group I am (now was cause I've quit!) dancing with wanted to enter. We entered two categories; outlaw and standard. Outlaw being something completely choreographed by the team and standard is two dances - 1st is a fixed set of steps and song and the 2nd have to be a known line dance routine danced to a song of your own choosing. We didn't get into the semi-finals of the outlaw but we managed the finals for the standard. I found out later that night that we managed third placing.

The latin competition wasn't much of a competition really cause there was only three couples, me inclusive, but I am the CHAMP! :) It was a ladies event which meant that a lady dances the man's part as well, in this case, I was the man. Heh heh! I must have been quite a good man cause we won! Not bad for only two weeks of practise huh?

So, yay for me!

Plink! Plonk! Flop!

Hobbling out of balance on all landings. Terribly unbalanced on all poses. Forgetting the steps that I was suppose to do. Improvising to cover up and further messing up the whole routine.

That's how the gig went.

Yucks! Is all I can say for the dancing part of it.

The singing I believe I didn't do too badly. Hearing my own voice blaring back at me from the speakers was quite disconcerting though as I didn't sound at all like what I think I sound like. Must have been the mic or that's just how everyone hears is my voice.

Urgh! After that, I'm not sure if I want to try it again. I should maybe just slip back into hiding mode. Hiding behind everyone in a huge choir. Singing my heart out with no particular attention to myself.

Blend in. Just blend in.

Tricky tricky

Those who knows me will know that I have always dreamed of treading the boards. Ever since kindergarten, I can always be seen jumping around onstage in one thing or another. All of which abruptly stopped when I was 14; at the end of my ballet career illusion, when the parental units stopped my lessons.

Twas a sad sad day indeed.

Now that I'm independant (read: have some own money to spend), I have slowly crept back into the 'scene'. Starting with social dancing lessons at Benny's to the current lessons in PJ Dance. A few performances with the choir, a few latin competitions in 2002, a dance performance with MXV and a really short stint as a student at Batu Dance Theatre, which I quit cause 1. Contemporary dance is just too odd for me, and 2. they're in Klang and I always seem to be missing classes.

Anyway, in all of these, I've always been part of the group. Always blending in but always wishing to one day go solo. Never ever tried though cause I'm very doubtful of my capabilities.

All this is about to change come Saturday.

I was tricked ... yes! tricked! Into doing 2 solos. One's a ballet, which I have to choreograph and dance and another, 'I dream a dream' from Les Miserable. It's for a CIM function which Dennis, who's getting the group together, arranged with the organising committee of the function, which he only called to asked if I'd be able to join on Thursday.

He said ... it was gonna be a group thing.
He said ... I'll be dancing and singing.

I should have turned the thing down when he initially asked but being the hoarder that I am, I told him I'd do it. That was pre knowing about the he-didn't-says. I insisted on meeting him before the demo which we had to do for the organisers on Monday.

On meeting ... I found out that

He didn't say ... I'll be doing the ballet, solo!
He didn't say ... he doesn't have the pieces choreographed!

Well, he showed me what he had in mind for the ballet and I thought that it was absolute rubbish. Just a bunch of leg lifts and ron-de-jom en'lair. The audience must be incredibly stupid if they think that is ballet. It truly was rubbish. Believe me. I would not in a million years go up on stage and do what he wanted. Yucks! So, we/I started re-choreographing the piece. Can't manage to finish it though cause I ran out of ideas. Y'know lah, after 10 years of not doing ballet, suddenly asking me to dance it and choreograph, quite difficult. Can hardly remember steps. I had to go home and dig out all the movies I have that has ballet in them.

The day before the demo ... I found out that

He didn't say ... I'll be singing a solo.

He told me to do I dream a dream by memory for the demo! Yikes! Ok, I'm quite familiar with the song but I don't remember all the words. At least this is reasonably easy.

During the demo ...

He didn't say ... that they got turned down the first time!

Well, the dance wasn't completed so I just fudged through the rest of the music. Music which I'm not familiar with cause I don't have a copy of it. Got some applause after my rendition of "I dream a dream". I was shaking throughout the song ... needless to say, mucho vibrato! LOL

After the demo

He didn't say ... I'll be doing two other pieces.
He didn't say ... there will hardly be any practise, only one arranged is this Friday! The night before the show!

He's lucky that I did not balk when the head organiser said that they got turned down the first time. Why I was still smiling and agreeing to do the thing while I was driving him home? I'm still quite puzzled by that. I was slightly pissed that he didn't tell me the truth and slowly adding into my repertoire every time we speak. I was still being nice.

Why? Why? Why? I should have just said, "Sayonara mate! Not doing it anymore!".

And so I went to look for him yesterday to tell him that I won't be able to do the extra pieces. To tell him that the event organiser needed to know what to put down as our group's name for the programs. But he wasn't home and so I left him a message.

He called after 11pm. I told him all that. He kinda begged but I just can't do it. He'll just have to get the other girl to do it. I've not met the other three person who's in the group.

So, I'm finally doing a solo. After much prodding from Suzan and others in the Phil. I just hope I don't shake too much on that day. *fingers crossed*

thank you for the music

Funkapella was rockin'. The Wicked Pitches were in good voice indeed today. This would be the first that I've seen of their performances. They would usually come in during choir rehearsal, when they have a show coming up, for a little preview and they've always sounded great but I've never ever been to their shows. Why is that the case I don't really know. Busy mayhaps? Or just not my cup of tea? Not really cause I'm in a choir! Heck! If that's not my cup of tea then what is? Most probably just being an el cheapo and don't wanna fork out moolah for a full singing show.

I got a comp this time so no money forking over. Yay! And what a show. Some out of tuning happening but it was mostly good! Great harmonies and effective staging.

Wonder if JC knows this blog is mine. Anyway, this was the sort of staging I thought we were going to have for our choir's MMM. Not that funny amaturish rubbish that we did on Wednesday. *shudders* Been bitching and complaining about it with some of the other about it too. Don't we always think we can always do better, huh? ;) Yet, when asked to volunteer, we never raise our hands. Hee hee.

But seriously, that thing we did on Wednesday? Seriously won't do. Nah uh. No way, Jose!

Hoping for a serious brainstorming exercise before Monday's practise to point this out to JC and get the opinion of others! Sheesh! You won't believe what we did and what JC wanted to pass off as movements. Ewwwwe!

My new purchase

These are absolutely brilliant. I've been wanting to get a pair of my own since forever and I did get a pair an age ago but it's not been seen after their first wash. I still wonder where they'd gone. Runaway perhaps.

My sister have a brilliantly coloured and striped pair which I often wear as if they're my own. I would not be surprised if I wear them more often than she does. I just love them. I tried looking for one which were similar to hers but they're nowhere to be found. Those that I've found were either really dull looking, gawdy or with emboidered flowers. Can we say "Ewwwe"?

Anyway, I was resolved to buy a pair and I'm quite happy with the plain black pair that I bought.

I'm wearing them as we speak.

My brand new toe socks.

the lomo experience

Well, I finally sent two rolls of film to the shop Thursday night. Two rolls all taken with that cool looking cybersampler. Yups! The roll with the incriminating photos from Rach's farewell with people snogging people. Yeap! All there ...

AND all not there.

Nothing came out!

I'm so disappointed! Pictures of the gathering! That fab gathering! All gone. Nada. Zip! Argh!!!

This sucks! The girl at the shop said maybe the camera was low on battery. The cybersampler's all mechanical! Batteries not required. Maybe it needed more light. This one could be true but I used the 800 tester film that came with the camera. Wouldn't 800 films be able to work in that restaurant? Or the Shangri-La ballroom where I clicked like made to get pictures of people dancing during the competition?!

Darn it! I think I'm really going to have to test it out to know how to work this camera. It sounded easy enough. Just load, wind, click, wind, click, wind until you can wind no more and the rewind it. How hard can that be?!

Sheesh! I'm going to try it in daylight tomorrow. There are still some films left in this third roll in that camera. Hopefully something turns out!

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!