Mosquitoes

there must be a godzilion of them out there, i've been rendered sleepless because of them.
don't know how they get in, there's mosquito netting in my room and i do give the room a good spray before retiring for the nite.
2 days back, my wife and i were having killing mosquitoes in my room by the dozens, it's a nightmare ! went to sleep well after our sleeping time.
anyone knows any good tip for keeping mosquitoes out ?
going home early to spray them mosy !

places to be

of all the places to be during this long break, i have to be in the office.
anyway i wasn't going anywhere, just a house to paint. but....
the producer who was to hold the fort had to take emergency leave. his wife's handbag was snatched, and some important documents were lost.
that happened last friday so today he's getting all those things done (ic&driving license).

of all places to be, last saturday we (my family & i) were at plaza masalam, shah alam to get our ics changed to mykad. my wife had called up on thursday to check if they were opened on saturday. the officer told her yes, and people will start Qing as early as 7am. we reached there at 7 and there were not a should in sight except for the security guard. he sort of asked 'encik nak ke mana ?' and we told him to get our mykad done. he hesitated a moment and told us, 'tingkat 7'.
when we reached there, we're saying, this must be the right day to do our mykad as we're the 1st in line. we heard the lift and thought, at last someone else is here. but out came the guard, 'encik, hari ini pejabat tutuplah'. ????
well, we'll have to go again some other day.

messy table

my table is one of the messiest around. i really don't know why. there are paper and other stuffs everywhere. of course my the ideal table top would be a clean table with only the pc. as we're now in the computer age and was suppose to have got rid of papers 20 years ago.
anyway will try to clean up on Wed and see if i can keep it that way.
i also cannot stand it. wonder how anyone can find anything on the table.

have a good break as i know most people ( except those who work in FT ) will take Monday off to get a loooooooooooooooooooooong streach of off days. i am doing that !

happy times

today on my way to work, i drove past a little girl on an oversized bicycle with her dad pushing it, sending her to a kindy nearby. her face beamed with happiness and it got me thinking.
children don't really need lots to make them happy. if you ask them i'm very sure spending time (which means playing) with mummy or daddy is at the top of their list.
my children is always wanting me to play with them or read to them. of course there are times when they misbehave and had to be given 'time out', but generally they are a wonderful lot.
we should be more like them. love people, use things not use people, love things. take for example children jumping or stepping on car seats, you could be driving a BMW for all they care (sorry JK). they'll still step on those expensive leather seats ! but will love you the same even after you yelled at them and tell them not to do it again.
hehehe...enjoy them while they're still 'small' coz when they reach teenage years, you most probably won't be their hero anymore.

bad greeting

today i came in slightly earlier and was greeted with ' mr chief, are you early today or am i late.' now that's a sure way to pi.. off your superior.
don't they teach thinking in colleges anymore ? sigh.

Blackout

i was ok as our office had UPS (uninterrupted power supply)system and a huge generator. it happened as we went for lunch and the 1st thing that came through my mind was my wife will not be able to get out of the house for a doctor's appointment. also my land line phones is a cordless phone, so no point calling home.
my sister from Klang called me to find out if we had power as she had already know that there's a blackout in KL.
when we got back to the office, we found out that the blackout had affected Malacca as well. i wonder how these news spread so fast.
thank God power was restored within a couple of hours. TNB i must say have improved much but lots more to improve on. still in today's it had managed to cause much discomfort to lots of people.
i'm glad i was not one of them.

Office Gossip

i'm not one who gets involve in these things, they're really unhealthy - to both you and your career. but after having nothing but that during lunch, some of them have to go somewhere. it's mainly about superman, he's new and high up the corporate ladder, actually all about him, there are some about others but they're the commercial breaks.

of course i will not post all of them, just enough to help me learn something from him.

well he's asking ppl under him to get things done the unreasonable way.
- i'm thinking to myself, now how is that going to work since the ppl under him don't have the ace or triumph card. i think the better way would be to try to get all involve to agree or to at least see things from your perspective.

ppl under him really thinks that he does not know what he is doing, and have set unobtainable targets for them.
- in this case, it'll be good for superman to maybe pick up a project and supervise it through, to both show he knows what is going on and that what he asks of his ppl is not unreasonable.

he seem to be treating ppl of different levels differently,
- these things happens and most ppl can understand. but if the way you treat ppl varies from day to night, you're just setting yourself up to be hated. everyone deserve to be treated right.

and will not hesitate to 'fire' his staff in front of others.
- this is a no no but lots of bosses still do this. such actions will only get you reactions and not the response you want. if you make them 'loose face', they will look for a payback day.

having said all that, i think most of us have not worked for a boss that is perfect.

ADD105

on my way to office this morning i was overtaken by a car bearing the number above. this is one of the cleverer words formed by a mixture of alphabets and numbers on malaysia number plate.

other nice ones that i've seen are :
R10 - nice place to spend your summer
BAB1 - a must for taukey khinzir,
JED1 - diehard starwars fan,
WAL1 - own by an imam,
DR6161 - dentist,
ADA8 - read in the papers that it was much sought after by chinese but have not seen it on the road,
AU1 -on a gold coloured epensive car,
PEN15 - why would anyone want a number like that?!

new member of the family

please join me in welcoming Methuselah,

an Indian Star Tortoise, named after the oldest living person in the Old Testament. He lived to be 966 years old !
it's a birthday present form me to my wifey. the enclosure for the tortoise is courtesy of a friend who's star tortoise died ( blog about it another time ). despite being named methuselah, i worry for it as my children can't seem to get their hands off it. hopefully such behavior won't last long and they soon will not volunteer to help it from one place to another.
yesterday my daughter gave the shell a scrub and it does look shinier. guess as long as she doesn't polish it it should be ok.
i must say it sleeps a lot and most of it's waking moment is spent looking for food. my good wife say it's still a baby and that's what baby does. ( good thing this one doesn't cry in the night.)

2 bags

yesterday all the children that's of age, went to school, my daughter and son included. my son's in kindergarden, and it's his 2nd year, so he's spared lots of stuff - for now.

this year, my daughter is in standard 2 and her class room is on the 3 level (2nd floor) of the school building. her bag weights as much if not more than her & mrs chief had to help her carry her bag (roller bag) up to her room. i can believe it when her class teacher said that her mum had to help her carry her bags to the classroom too, and suggested we get 2 bags for my daughter to 'spread' out the weight.

yesterday nite we went out to buy 2 new bags for her. one for her to backpack and the other to hand carry up to her class. sigh....if this goes on,
we'll be able to identify those from chinese schools by their height, for they will be stunted by the heavy load school bag they have to carry from a young age.
or
identify them by their built. you'll most definitely have nice bulging muscles after carrying those weights school bags from 7 years old.

if students have to carry such a heavy bag/bags, the least they can do it let them have their classes on ground floor.

my son is even scrawnier ( if there is such word) than my daughter and would roll down the stairs if required to climb 3 flight of stairs with a bag this heavy. i better feed & fatten up my son up for his standard 1 ( going to same school as his sis )

Eating see ham

for those of you who are not hokkien, see ham is cockels after all the mouth watering posting on sotong & ketam, i had cockels in my char kuey teow. it's been a while since i had them, - worried about getting hepatitis !
they tasted delicious and brought to mind the good old days when we ( my family and i ) had cockels by the dulang ( didn't need to worry about hepatitis then ). we would rinse them after buying them from the pasar and pour hot water over the whole lot. everyone would then grab a choice spot around the 'dulang', brave the hot vapour and with a small plate of chili waited for the hot boiled cockels to cool a bit.
as soon as someone was brave enough to put their hand in and grab a cockel out, the feast started ! it's ever person for him/herself.
now that's the way to eat cockels.

2005

Happy New Year !
it's here but does not feel 'new' at all. btw i'm working, .....yeah, what a bummer.... would be better if someone else is the one working. ooops someone else is working, he takes the day shift and i do night. Sleepless_mah.
well we walk the path we choose.
anyway it's for a good cause - the tsunami relieve fund. money collected will go to the Red Crescent Society.