Tuesday 30 January 2007

Guess the tail of these tales

Was contemplating whether I should post an entry today. It’s getting late and I am feeling rather lethargic. But you know what? I think it’s meant to be.

I stumbled unto a very interesting blog, and I happened to know the author of it as well. Read 6 of her entries and I encountered … 1) a beautifully written poem and … 2) Two very interesting stories. With the permission of the author, allow me to share with you the 2 very interesting stories:



Story 1:

There was this girl (ahh… interesting right?)… she has got the hots for this dude and it appeared that this dude was perfect for her. The author referred to him as ROFH (Mr-Right-One-For-Her)… you know, stable career, has all the charm, strong chemistry… perfect … almost. But there’s a slight problem, this dude just doesn’t prioritise her. He will only call her out when he has nothing else to do. Knowing that she has got the hots for him, the dude maximise his advantage to the fullest and took her for granted. If you guys are asking whether she slept with him… well, I dunno la, you pervert!

Then… hmmm… along came another dude, this is OTRFH (Mr-One-that’s-right-for-her)… you know, the one who prioritise her, the one who would bow down at her skirt, the one who know what she wants and fulfil her wishes.

Now, who do you think the girl chose?


Story 2:

There is this really hot looking babe with guys always on her trail. But you guessed it right, she is obviously not interested in them. At least not in the way that they wanted her to.

To make thing things more interesting, she is current dating someone who is dating. Sounds confusing? Well, she is semi-dating someone who is fully-dating another person. Yeah, basically she is the 3rd party in someone else’s relationship. And hear this, she knows it’s wrong and once sworn never to do such thing for her previous relationship was wrecked by another 3rd party… talk about irony.


So what do you think is the conclusion? Will she snap out of it and move on to fully-date someone else instead of being a pseudo-lover? Or will she just continue with the dark side?

Tell me what you think... Thereafter, I will reveal the real tail to you...

Monday 29 January 2007

How was your weekend?

It was 23rd Oct 2000, my second Monday at my first job. I was in the pantry preparing my Milo and grabbing a few crackers for my breakfast. You know, I was so lowly paid at that time that I can’t even afford a roti canai at the mamak! Just as I was about to leave the pantry, a few of my new colleagues came in and greeted me (very nice of them). Then… they asked me a question that I couldn’t really answer… till at least a year later.

“Hi, how was your weekend?”… seems like a perfectly normal question right? Well, not at that time, so my answer was like…”Errrr, well, it’s normal. Why?” I can still remember the look on their face. Their look reads… “What a stupid young punk this boy is, a normal weekend?” Some didn’t bother to pursue further but others, perhaps trying to be nice, went a step further, “Well, what did you do?”. What the hell, don’t these people ever give up? It’s none of your business! (of course, I didn’t say that)

I was getting irritated but tried very hard to conceal that beneath my face, didn’t wanna piss off any of my new colleagues, some of them being my senior. In my mind, I was thinking, what nosy people this office has, what has my weekend gotta do with you? Of course, I didn’t tell them that.

“Well, hang out with friends, play some sports, the usual stuff, nothing much”, I said.

Now, my irritation went up a notch cause then, they said “oh, ok / oh, normal indeed / etc” with an invisible statement “What a boring weekend!!” tattooed on their forehead.

What the hell! First, they wanna know how was my weekend, then I told them it was normal, they asked more and now I am supposed to feel crap cause my weekend was normal? What is wrong with these people?

Have you ever been in my shoes before? I bet you had (for those who’re working). At that time, think most of us failed to grasp the full value of weekends. When we were a student , everyday seems to be weekend! Nothing special about Saturday or Sunday. In fact, some may even hate weekends, cause during such time, most of our hang out places will be crowded with people. Movie tickets are difficult to obtain, lack of places in our usual eating place and we may even have to pay extra for certain things during weekends. Weekend? Screw weekends!!

I was so tempted to tell all my colleagues that, perhaps even top it up with an aroma of sarcasm, just to make them feel stupid in return, but of course, I didn’t do it. I was a ‘freshie’ in the office, not about to offend any senior of mine.

Now that I have been rat race for a few years, the value of weekends has turned priceless! It’s the only time where we can take a break from our mundane work, no need to face our boss (I hope my boss don’t read this) and best of all, sleep a little longer. To all the working people out there, do I get 3 cheers for that?

To some, we even plan our weekends. We try to insert as many exciting activities into weekends and may even take leave to prolong our weekends. In some extreme cases, we do a countdown, starting as early as Tuesday! If you’re one who starts to think about the weekend even on a Monday, you’re normal, I will most probably join you soon. I am actually looking forward to the coming Friday night already.

So there you go, just like any other thing, we tend to be oblivious to their value until they became scarce, became priceless. Then only we will begin to cherish things. Now, I find myself asking almost all my colleagues the dreaded question every Monday morning, without fail. All the old timers (da*n, I am one of them!) will gladly tell me how interesting their weekends have been. Are you one of them who ask the infamous question?

Speaking of which, how was your weekend?

Thursday 25 January 2007

The right motivation

Tuesday evening, Wednesday evening, Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon, 4 days a week, that’s how often I go to the gym. Consider that the gym is just at the ground floor of my office, I can’t really find any excuse not to go regularly… or can I?

You know, the post-gym feeling is refreshingly good. After a good work-out, a short roasting in the sauna and then a nice warm shower, you come out of the gym feeling as though you can conquer the world. And of course, it also gives you the peace of mind that all the char-siew or siew-yok or bak kut teh in the tummy has all been burnt. Of course, that’s not true, but what the heck, it’s all about perception.

So yeah, the after effect is really cool, but you know what? The challenge is to drag your sorry ass to the gym through the glass door. Believe me, it’s not easy. It’s quite a mental challenge. The temptation to head for the building exit instead of the gym entrance can be quite strong, particularly if your day has been stressful.


My colleague, PUY, who knows I am gunning for 6-pack before I turn 30 said I should put up some kinda motivation in front of me. Naturally, a picture with of a guy with a nice body comes into mind. I’ll be damned! Imagine if I have this picture as my screen saver or wall paper! WTF! People will think I am bloody gay! You know, gay and gym kinda goes hand in hand. Anyway, I think his chest is a bit too big.

So what should be the right kinda motivation? I can’t have picture of topless muscular men around my workstation or in my computer. Gee, topless muscular men… even typing it brings me shivers!!


With the help of a friend, I came up with a… well, a more decent picture. I hope one day I can really have that body with that face on but for now, I guess I can only look and fantasise… err, I mean, be motivated! Heck, what was I thinking!!!


You think I can do it? By the way, I have never missed gym since I started working at my current work place.

Wednesday 24 January 2007

Modern Slavery - Part 1

Went to my first ever baptism class last Sunday (yeah, who would’ve thought huh!). Anyway, was going through the stories in the bible and we reached the famous tale in exodus, the part where the chosen race were delivered from slavery in Egypt. It was then that the Pastor said something which caught my attention… he mentioned something on modern slavery (Pastor, I know you might be reading this, don’t worry, that’s not the only thing I learn from that class I assure you).

The 1926 Slavery Convention described slavery as "...the status and/or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised..." A slave is not allowed to leave his owner, (and hear this) an “employer” or a territory without explicit permission. It basically means someone has got you by the balls. If you’re a woman, it basically means someone has got you by …(censored due to the anticipated presence of a Pastor).


In our current civilised world, one would argue that nobody owns us and we are free to live our own lives, do our own things, and have our own time… or is it? Let me ask you… have you ever whine that you’re a slave to your company before? Ahhh…I hear many yes.

The working world… the way towards financial independence… the glamour of being a professional (particularly this)… as long as you’re in the workforce, you’re a part of the modern slavery. Many professionals, driven by the desire to be at the top spot up the ladder, sign their souls away in their first employment letter without knowing it. Funny enough, some are actually very proud and will make a declaration to the world… “hey, I am going to join a-big-corporation-that’s-gonna-squeeze-the-shit-outta-me-but-I-dunno-it-yet-cos-I’m-a-sucker, are you still looking for a job?”

From the day you step your foot into the office, you will:

1. Lose count of the days you failed to see sunset (including the sunsets on weekends).
2. Your computer screen will probably made up 80% of what’s being registered in your retina everyday.
3. Skip lunch and consoling yourself that it’s a good way to diet not knowing your ass and tummy will most probably be inflated due to the junks you stuffed your face and lack of exercise and spending too much time at the mamak bitching about your boss.
4. Realise that there’s no such thing as working hours, but work-in-every-hour.
5. You have no time for everything else (but thank God you have time to read this blog).
6. Leaving your office (or client’s place) at 8pm is considered early.
7. Have a world that revolves only around your colleagues, your superior, and of course, your work.

At this juncture, you will:

1. Realise saying “I’m busy with work” doesn’t sound that cool anymore.
2. Wonder why are you still doing this despite being paid peanuts.
3. Continuously remind yourself that the experience will get will bring you to greater heights.
4. Wish that you can just throw “the letter” to your boss and say “fu*k you!” but you know you can’t do it.
5. Tell yourself that you can’t leave because you’ve been in the line for too long or have not got enough experience or under some kinda bond.

Now, go back to paragraph 2 and read “A slave is not allowed to leave his owner, (and hear this) an “employer” or a territory without explicit permission”… so, are you a slave?


Tuesday 23 January 2007

Awesome!

Have a look at THIS!

I wonder how much was spent to produce it. One thing for sure, it's surely awesome. To a certain extend, I think the audio and video quality is much better than some of our local production.

For those who don't quite understand Cantonese, hang around, there's Malay towards the middle of the production. And for those who don't quite get the video, it's us saying 'thank you' to the Indon for the haze that hit us not too long ago.

I must admit, this one... Malaysia Boleh!

Monday 22 January 2007

Beyond the smashes...

I love watching live badminton tournaments (if they are being in KL la). If you’re close enough to the courts, the sound of those world class smashes can really make you high… err, ok, maybe not. But seriously, I wish I can smash like that. Maybe when I can smash like that, I will get high… err, ok, maybe not too. I shall stick with alcohol.

Anyway, there are some things that you can witness in a locally held badminton tournament that you can’t find anywhere else.

If you have been to Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra before, you will notice that some true-breed Malaysians who will still be late despite not being allowed entry until the interval, and MPO ain't cheap. But if you think the infamous ‘malaysian time’ is an incurable genetic disorder amongst us, you’re so damn wrong. For a mere Ringgit-Bolehland 32, can Malaysians afford to be late for the Malaysian Open? HELL NO!!! I was at the semi-finals and it was scheduled to start at 1pm. This photo was taken at 12.15pm.


If fact, if you were ‘on time’, you will probably need to stand to get a good view of the court.

If you have been hearing people talking about Malaysia tak-boleh, Malaysia mana-boleh, then you should have been at the tournament. Once a fellow boleh-mate is on court, everything boleh. There is this joker who never fails to appear in all local badminton tournament, he is like the official cheerleader of the Malaysian crowd (sorry, my phone not powerful enough to capture his photo, I need to get a cybershot perhaps). And when this joker shouted “Malaysia”, every Ahmad, Ah Kau and Arumugam shouted ‘boleh’, as if we truly mean it… err… ok la, maybe we did mean it, in the badminton sense that is.

It’s really quite a scene I tell you. And it’s also rather ironic because no matter how much you despise what is going on in this country, no matter how low your Malaysian-battery is, no matter how much you wish to leave, when it comes to national pride in sports, we will all suddenly morphed into a super patriotic being, albeit just for one badminton match.

It is also true for ‘the other side’. You can give those fellas MyKad, you can even give them bumiputera status, but when it comes to badminton, those fellas will stand up and shout… “In-do-ne-sia”.

Beyond the smashes, the game revealed what’s in us.

Thursday 18 January 2007

Support Bloggers United

Blogger Jeff Ooi and Rocky Bru are being sued by NST. Nowadays, speaking up may land you in court. This logo is a call for all in the blogosphere to support Jeff and Rocky.





Let's blog-on...

Tuesday 16 January 2007

They said “it’s just a number”

I was at a friend’s wedding last Sunday and happened to bumped into an ex-primary school mate. Damn, primary school… those days seem ancient to me now. Anyway, went over to his table, did the usual stuff, you know… Do you remember me? Where are you now? What are you working as?... the usual stuff.

After doing the usual ritual, I returned to my table…

Person sitting next to me: Who’s that?
Me: A friend. Actually, my former primary school-mate.
Person sitting next to me: What? You’re kidding me.
Me: Why would I fu*king lie to you?
Person sitting next to me: He looks like an uncle!!

It’s true, my former school mate seemed to have lesser hair than me (not that I have a lot), carrying a “prosperous” tummy (he is runnin a biz in Sg, what do you think) and seriously, he did looked like he was way into his 30s.

Person sitting next to me: And you look the same compared to when I first met you.

Wah, I felt damn good at that moment!! Hehe…

I remember a lot of my friends (and me… sigh, have to admit la), when we were young, all of us had the 1-wanna-be-older syndrome. Why? These are the reasons:

Before 12, wanna be 12 cos parents said we can do certain things only when they reach 12, which is of cos a big lie.

Between 13 – 15, wanna be 16 cos wanna enjoy the honey-moon Form 4 year and apply to be prefects / librarian, it’s a cool thing then.

Between 16 – 17, wanna be 19 cos those Form 6 jie-jie are so damn hot! Wanna be older so that we can ‘kau’ them. Also, wanna be older so that we can fearlessly walk into arcades and play StreetFighter. Not that we don’t anyway. Remember those days?

Between 18 – 20, wanna be 21 cos then we can go clubbing (I don’t really club then… hey, it’s a fact ok!). Wanna be 22, cos then we (well, most of us) would have graduated and it’s friggin cool to be a graduate. It’s friggin cool to start workin! We were all friggin morons then.

Now, things usually change after you hit 23 or 24. You will probably think like this…

At 25… Fu*k! I am a quarter of a century! But it’s ok, maybe at 27, I will be a manager and will be making some mega big bucks.

At 27… Double fu*k, I am heading to late 20s, I dunno what I am doing at work, I am not making big bucks, my bf/gf just dumped me and shit! I am gonna be 30s!!

At 29… Can I be a 12 year old again?

Are you one of those?

Well, there’s no turning back in age. Some people say ‘age is just a number’… but have you ever met anyone who wanna be 55 so that he/she can retire?

Thursday 11 January 2007

Have a good read... and a good laugh

Hahahahahahahaha!!! This is by far one of the funniest blog I’ve ever read. Patrick Teoh in his famous “Niamah” blog contains his signature sarcasm, but this guy writes with absolute brutality, you can only love him! There is no subtle sarcasm, just being brutally honest with himself and I truly recommend all guys to read it.

As for the girls, well, you might find it funny. After all, I bumped into this blog via a female friend’s blog. If you think that’s weird, wait till you hear this. She is actually taking time to go through all his entire archive!

Guys (particularly my fellow council members), I would recommend this, this and this.

When creativity = stupidity

I was driving yesterday when one really stupid advertisement came up over the radio. It goes something like this:

Girl: Hey, that’s a pretty cool car!
Guy: Yeah, it’s brand new. And now I’ve got a job, I can afford one,
Girl: Oh really? Must be a very cool job you’re having.
Guy: Yeah, it’s through .com. You check it out.

Them the narrator came in with the usual marketing bullshit and how you can find your dream job through .com and how you should log on and register immediately. And the last line goes something like this:

“Register and get your dream job, and a brand new car”.

What the f**k!! Just after I posted an entry about the ever increasing traffic fiasco in KL, some supposedly creative punk came up with such stupid advert. So this is how you attract people to whatever you’re trying to sell… by telling them they can get a brand new car.

I wonder how many people will go… “Oh yeah… I want a brand new car, let’s register with .com!” Not to underestimate the level of intelligence of people nowadays, I am pretty sure there will be some.

Great… come, come… get a brand new car… join the KL jam. Come.. Come…

Monday 8 January 2007

You wait, I wait, he waits, she waits

Traffic jams, the mere mention of it can make some people start cursing everything under the sun till the cow comes home. Can’t blame them really. I think any typical Malaysian driver spends about 1-2 hours in the jam on a daily basis and if you are rushing, it tends to raise your blood pressure of a bit.

Ask any of these victims and they will most probably tell you one thing… “aiya, don’t drive very inconvenient la. Public transport so cacat”. Have to agree with them. How many times you heard your friend or read in the papers about how ‘efficient’ our buses and LRTs are. Countless perhaps.

Things like… bus always not on time la… bus stop too far away la… not LRT around my area la… the air-cond in the bus not cooling enough la… the fella standing next to me got B.O. la… no parking at the LRT station la… not safe to walk to the bus stop la… make up the usual reasons.

Now, have you ever considered, if the public transport went through a miracle revolution and was transformed into a super efficient functioning system. Will you make public transport as your mode of travel? How many of us will… please stand up.

The reality is this. I am waiting for the public transport system to improve so that you will take it. You are waiting for it to improve so that your friend will take it. Your friend is waiting for it to improve, so that his ex-gf will take it. The ex-gf is waiting for it to improve, so that her current bf’s ex-gf will take it. That ex-gf is waiting for it to improve, so that her ex-bf’s current’s gf’s ex-bf will take it.

The thing is, every friggin idiot is waiting for the public transport to improve so that other idiots will take it and in turn, they can drive without any jam. I think of all us KL-ites have to admit one thing. We have all developed an I-must-drive mentality. And to some, they suffer from if-I-take-public-transport-I-am-not-cool syndrome. This syndrome is particularly apparent amongst yuppies.

So will the traffic jam problem in KL can ever be solved by an improved public transport system? I doubt it. Just look in the mirror and you see an idiot waiting for the rest to take public transport.

Last but not least, for those who thinks widening roads will solve the problem. Just have a look at these pics… can anyone count how many lanes are there?



Just imagine you being amongst them.... Now... for a night view

Wow... for a while, you thought it looked nice right? Not the case if you're part of it.

Wednesday 3 January 2007

WANTED: Good News

Define desperation…… when there is no good news to report and you kinda beg the world to send some happy stories to you. (click on image to have a better view)

This is truly the Malaysian boleh spirit. Just because we have morbid news filling our headlines, we should go find some jolly good news to cheer the people up, you know, so that things-don’t-look-so-bad. Speaking of which, is it me or has the paper stopped reporting the flood in JB?

I am quite a regular at theStar blog. It’s quite a good place to gauge the sentiments of the people. And of course, the sentiments of the people have not been overly jolly although many of us sang “… tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la” not too long ago.

For those who don’t know, theStar will usually publish 3 or 4 entries from its blog in their paper (I’ve got 3 entries published before hehe). Lately, I noticed no entries have been published and I wonder why. Do you know why? Exactly… there’s nothing boleh to report.

So have you got something ‘boleh’ to report? Go try your luck, your entry might just get published and you may be 50 bucks richer. Yeah, not much, but at least it will fill half your tank.

Oh, notice the picture on the right? You should go read that blog here. Indeed, we need some boleh news.

Monday 1 January 2007

Speak the right tongue!

I was having my Christmas lunch in a restaurant (yeah, it’s a while ago but I only decide to launch my blog now mah) and sitting next to my table was this Chinese young couple together with a young daughter. After placing my order, something about this family caught my attention. No, it’s not that the mom is hot, nor was the daughter a babe, the daughter was just about to pick up the art of speaking (which happened to be the point of this blog).

The peculiar thing about this couple was that the husband and wife were speaking in full swing Cantonese with each other but when they turned to their daughter…”don be notti la, daddi gip u sotong, u eat sit down don run here run there la”. This went on up till the point I left and hear this, not a single word of Canto was spoken to their daughter.

For goodness sake, what the fuck is wrong with people nowadays. I am not saying that my English is stupendous but if you’re struggling to speak English yourself, don’t drag your lil ones into the Manglish gang. Maybe you think getting your lil ones to speak English is gonna make them blend in with the yuppies. But if your lil ones ended up going “hilo, my lame is xxx, I cum flom peejay. U wat lame ah?”, that ain’t gonna go far either I am telling you.

And more importantly, what is wrong with teaching your lil ones Canto? There seems to be a growing community of ‘bananas’ nowadays. But go ask any sensible banana and you will realise that most of them really wish they could speak their mother tongue, particularly Canto. When your name is Tan Ah Ching or Lee Ah Kau but you can’t differentiate between “chau hai” (fried crabs) and “chao haeii” (smelly … err, you know what), it ain’t funny.

Hey, if you’re a Malay and laughing at us Chinese, don’t laugh too soon. On another table was 4 young angmo-wannabe Malays speaking English with each other, some were clearly struggling. The funny scene began when they wanted to place their order. They speak to the waiter in English, waiter replied in Malay + little English, process kept repeating till orders were placed.

Can you imagine if the Malay community loses command of their language? Imagine some Malay yuppies dunno what is the meaning of ‘batu seremban’. That fellow may go overseas (cause he is probably rich) and proudly declare to his overseas friends that our hero astronaut is conducting some research on a rock taken from Negeri Sembilan.

So folks, teach your kids some Canto if you’re a Chinese and your mother tongue where appropriate. It’s never a lost cause.

Zewt 1st Talk

Finally decided to start a full fledge blog. It’s not exactly a very easy task per se. Besides the ‘setting up an account’ thing, I am wondering if I can consistently post interesting stuff here.

Further, blogging has been a centre of attention lately due to some bloggers having fascinating thoughts and thus, their verbal diarrhoea ended up in some forbidden ‘toilets’. Blogging may get you into trouble some say but hey, life is about taking risk, else, where is the excitement in it?

Last but not least, my main concern is whether anyone will ever read my stuff. I am not exactly a famous dude (well, not yet hehe!). But then again, I guess if I never write, there will never be any reader, if I do write, there’s a glimmer of hope, so what the heck!

Alright, hope you guys and gals like my stuff!