So I Didn’t Go To The Bersih Rally… July 10, 2011

… because I had already signed up for this workshop from Shape Magazine! But no worries, I am a registered voter. I won’t be like one of those people who ask you to “Like” 101 different Facebook pages regarding “speaking up” and stuff like that and NOT be a registered voter “because what’s the point”. Hah.

Anyway, I signed up for the workshop because I’ve very, very recently become a Shape magazine reader. Started buying it when I found out they are doing a series with June Kwok, who is like, someone who I wish I could be like?? Physically, that is! Anyway, they were having a workshop that involved learning about Agility Circuit Training and Body Attack, plus, 5 people would get a chance to win a free pair of Skecher’s Shape Ups. I admit… I already TOTALLY know about Body Attack (-___-), but I was curious about the Agility Circuit Training, and I’m definitely lying if I said the chance to win the Shape Ups weren’t a motivating factor as well.

So, despite Tron telling me not to go to Jaya 33′s True Fitness on the 9th of July… I insisted on going. Tron said, “What shoe is that… I buy for you lah”. I said, “Why pay more?” Hehehe.

On the 9th itself, I planned to leave Subang by 7:30am (the workshop registration starts at 9:45am!), but I WOKE UP at 7:30am, with my mom saying that I should just GIVE UP going. My dad and her woke up early to go marketing at Seri Setia (as per their norm) and they said the jam going out of Subang was HORRENDOUS. Since I’m such a greedy biatch, I decided to try my luck. My dad told me to expect being stuck for TWO HOURS.

OF COURSE I WAS STUCK IN THE JAM EXITING SUBANG (from Jalan Tujuan, joining the Federal Highway).

But never fear, cos it was just a 25 minute jam… after that it was all clear to PJ! Ok, there was a wee bit of a slowdown nearing Seri Setia, but that time was still early, and there were only a few cars. I breezed past that road block (at that time there were still 2 lanes open).

Arrived early for the workshop in fact, and when the registration finally started, I was surprised when I was given a huge bag from the Shape registration team. It looks something like this :

And inside the goodie bag was a Skecher’s shirt (worth RM59… which was why I thought that paying RM20 to go for the workshop would be ok since we would get a free shirt anyway).. and this huge box :

Of course I was surprised! I asked the lady at the registration counter if the shoes were on loan to us for the workshop only, and she said no, it was OURS TO KEEP! When I opened it in the changing room later, I saw that it had tags on and all that! Amazing! Later, Skechers announced that instead of having a grand lucky draw to give away 5 shoes, they decided to give all 30 participants of the workshop a pair! Oh my!! So lucky! Definitely made the drive to Jaya 33 worth it!

The baddd part was that the shoe size didn’t fit me! In fact, out of the 30 participants, I think 60% of us felt the shoe size didn’t fit us? I am usually a US size 7 – 8, depending on the cutting of the shoe. I could fit into the shoe, but dang was it tight! But since we had to wear the tee shirt & shoes for the workshop, I squeezed into it and hoped for the best. We couldn’t exchange it as they brought exactly enough shoes in the size that we had specified over the phone. All the while, I was thinking that if in the end I can’t exchange it, I would give it to my mom. Most of the ladies I got to know in the workshop said that they thought half a size bigger would be better.

As for the rest of the workshop, we had:

- a guy named Raj from Fitness R Us gave us a talk about fitness myths and also about how we can enhance our own fitness levels. Most of it are stuff that I have read about already, but some were also interesting mind-openers. Also, nice to know the “further explanation” on certain fitness myths (or truths). However, this section was really really long, and since I didn’t know this was part of the workshop, I was getting a bit antsy.

- Body Attack class! Presented by Daniel, Edmund & tai kor Jason Y! I have not been doing BA in ages – it was a mix of old and new tracks, with the mainly newer tracks being presented by Daniel. Have not attended their classes in ages, so this was amazingggg… have forgotten how great Jason Y is! Hahaha.. But when Jason saw me, he said, “Eh, what are you doing here!” :p *paiseh* Well, he gets free Shape Ups from doing BA… I have to get my free Shape Ups in another way, right?

By the way, my shoes really started pinching at this point, so I had to change back to my other sneakers. And I have to say, it’s quite a challenge using Shape Ups for Body Attack! You really have to be careful to balance yourself properly. Choong (Body Combat instructor) saw me running out of the class to change shoes and he said that I should not even try to wear the shoes during BC next time because they are wobbly. But Jason Y, Edmund & Daniel had no problem!! How come?! Maybe it takes practice?

- Agility Circuit Training (ACT) is a new program developed by the True Fitness trainers. The simple exercises that they ran through with us look simple, but it requires coordination between your physical actions and your mental thoughts. You will be juggling two to three different movements, and let me tell you — soon those “simple exercises” will have you fumbling! We only ran through two of the ACT exercises, but the second one had me panting already (especially after the gruelling BA class). According to the trainer, there are actually 15 exercises in total in the whole ACT exercise! I really wish they had shown all 15. It was a fun way to train.

I liked that after each session of the workshop, they didn’t pressure us, whether to sign up with True Fitness, or to sign up for ACT classes. It was not that kinda pushy workshop. Skechers also told us that we could exchange our shoes (yay!!) for another size within the next two days. So, I got to exchange my size 7s for size 8s today at One Utama. These are how my new shoes look like :

I feel so blessed cos the color scheme I got is totally the best (IMHO) out of all the color schemes they gave in the workshop. The rest were like … white & silver (looks like school shoes), white and purple, or silver & turquoise. I think the colors were given based on the sizes, lol. But I think the colors that the instructors or the organizers got were much nicer. Saw one organizer wearing black & pink combo that was very nice (like the one Kim Kardashian wears in the poster), and Jason Y & team wore black & orange. Very striking.

Is that all to the workshop? Nope! After that, we were also given one 1901 hotdog and a bottle of mineral water as well! Totally a superb workshop, I totally recommend you people to go for the next Shape workshops. Of course, I can’t guarantee you will get free shoes each time, but it’s all a very fun experience! By the way, the retail price of the shoes are RM439!! When I told the price to Tron and asked him, “So… someone said they will buy the shoe for me right? RM439 ok boh?” he just ignored me! Hmph!

I don’t have any other pictures because I was busy sweating up a storm… perhaps I will check out the next issue of Shape!

Body Combat Legacy April 13, 2011

… was awesome! 90 minutes of purely “old” tracks (from up to 5 years ago… or did Alex say “at least” 5 years ago?!)… which is right up my alley because I’ve always preferred the old tracks of yore. Nothing against new releases, in fact, I would be lying if I said I didn’t like any of the new releases. Just that it wasn’t so hardcore last time… it was much much more fun. As evident from last Monday’s class. Everyone was totally enjoying themselves to the tunes of Power of Love, Jump, Power of Snap, Mangas Verde, Shake, Dreamer, … the list goes on and on. You didn’t expect me to be able to remember a track listing for a 90 minute class, didja?

Actually, before the class, I kept “hinting” to both Terence & Alex that Iwant a prize. Hahahah! Cos I haven’t joined quarterly releases in a long while.. my stockpile of prizes has dwindled, e.g: tumblers and various TF memorabilla. They both ya-ya-papaya me, but in the end didn’t give me jack! Hmph!

But at least got some cool pics (thanks to Su Yee for uploading!) . Check it out:

This picture is of 2 of my fave Body Combat instructors… Terence & Alex! But I also have to highlight that I’m in the pic! ;p I always stand on the left side of the class… hehehe. And in front… cos I like looking at myself in the mirror. *shameless*

Quite like this photo… I look quite macho hor?

Group pic!

Group pic New Zealand ‘Hakka’ style. (By the way, the theme was “Army Green and Black” and from these group pics, I think you can tell who won the best dressed award. )

Have Your Pie and Eat It Too March 30, 2011

Weekend update again! Oh noes, I’ve fallen into the trap of only looking forward to the weekends. *slap slap* Well, I am still fervently trying to make my daily daze seem more interesting, but even though interesting stuff do happen from Mon-Fri, I usually don’t have time to update then.

Usual stuff that occurs during the weekdays :
a. how whenever we have lunch together and I order a lot (think : curry mee (large) + kaya toast + 2 boiled eggs + xi mut tea at Old Town Kopitiam), and Raymond orders normally (think : one nasi lemak), the waiter keeps on trying to serve my food to Raymond. There was once when Raymond was still eating and I had already finished my food, and was waiting for the 2nd (or was it 3rd?) serving when the waiter came with my toast. He kept on trying to put the toast in front of Raymond (who was still eating) while I was waiting patiently there with a big empty space in front of me, ready to receive my toast. Raymond kept pointing to the empty space in front of me, so that the waiter can put the bread there, but the waiter kept waiting for Raymond to move his nasi lemak so that he can put the toast nearer to him. HAHAHAHA! Raymond was so char dou. FYI, that was probably the FIFTH time that something like that happened to him.

Hmm.. I think I should stop eating so much! Food ain’t cheap, yo.

b. being harrassed to clean my cubicle, and then they say it ain’t something serious, but yet harass me to clean my cubicle. Now my cubicle is seriously sparse. I went into FFFFUUUU mode and just junked everything into cardboard boxes. The downside is that now I really feel sad and robotic whenever I’m at my cubicle. I miss the days when everyone’s cubicle was so personalised.. you would walk over to their place for work stuff, but stay because you saw something interesting and it became a conversation starter. Now everyone’s cubicle is just robotic normalcy. They praised me for cleaning my cubicle… I just replied, “Is this the kind of praise that an employee looks forward to when they do work? ‘You did a good job… cleaning your cubicle’?” Srsly?

c. doing my taxes… I’m actually one month in advance now instead of doing it at the last possible moment. I felt like… what’s the point delaying it, there ain’t nothing that I can claim that I don’t have the receipts for already. Except that I did delay doing my taxes for one week (after I got my EA form) and thank God that I delayed it because within that week of “I think I should not submit yet”, I got a receipt from Unicef. If you’re a Unicef donor, you’ll be able to get tax relief!

Off topic, but I’m getting asked a bit too many times whether I want to sign up to donate to Unicef. Kudos to those people who are volunteering to get people to sign up, it’s not their fault at all that I’m getting annoyed. It’s just that I’m already donating, but I wish that there is some way that I can tell them I already am AND prove it. Why do I feel the need to prove myself anyway? Well, I just do. Maybe a huge ass badge that I can wear… so then they will not waste their time asking me… According to Dull, in Austalia, WV donors get a pin or something that they can flash so that people can stop asking them to donate (cos apparently they are even more aggressive in seeking out donors there).

d. I’m going for this “foundation series” class in church… called Kingdom Keys. I go every Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. You might think that sitting down quietly for 100 minutes would be dead boring, but no! The pastor teaching the class is super knowledgable and answers all the questions that I have niggling at the back of my mind. It’s so interesting that I don’t even notice that time has flown by so quickly and that my leg is actually numb from sitting down for so long!

e. When I *don’t* have Kingdom Keys on Wednesday (rare, but it was the school holiday recently, right), I will go for dance classes at the gym. Haven’t been going for dance classes for a really, really long time. Was lucky that the class that I *did* manage to catch was Johnson’s Dance Mania class. He said that it’s in the style of Zumba, so every instructor’s concept of “Dance Mania” is different. Wow.. there was a whole lot of shakin’ going on in that class! Johnson also came down to the floor to dance with us. Super nice class, wish we can have it permanently slotted in in Taipan!! XD We learned how to dance the Waka Waka that day!

f. For those who are interested, True Fitness is having a “Combat Legacy” class… coming to you in April! Do check the schedules on their website for more information as I can’t remember the exact dates. What is “combat legacy”? Well, it will be 90 minutes of mostly old tracks from the good old days of BC! Like, maybe BC10 and onwards? I’m really, really excited already! I’ve always said that I prefer the older tracks, and I’m so happy that they are dedicating a “theme” class to it. Love it!!

Come one, come all in ARMY GREEN and black! The instructors will be Alex C and Terence. =)

Ok, seems like I’m a big cheong hei cos I managed to drag out “nothing” into 6 points. Back to my weekend! I was very excited because I managed to use my first Groupon… which is RM35 for RM70 worth of pies from Mr Pieman (6 chicken & mushroom pies and 1 large apple pie, can feed 10-12 people). When I told Tron that I would be getting some pies on Saturday and couldn’t meet up with him til 12pm, this was the ensuing conversation :

Tron : “Pies? Do I get any?”
Me : “Of course lah.. you think I can finish 6 chicken and mushroom pies for myself? I’ve already allocated 1 pie each for my family… then I’ll pass two to you, plus some of the apple pie!”
Tron : “You know, I love pies. I can eat two in one go! How much did you pay for it?”
Me : “RM35 for all, but I don’t know how much per pie lah…”
Tron : “Jusco selling chicken pie only RM5 you know!”
Me : “But this is Mr Pieman pies wor.. not Jusco pies.”
Tron : “Same thing la! And some more if you go after 9pm, you can get buy 1 free 1!”
Me : “Huh… like that it seems like my discounted pie is not really discounted, but the actual pie price…”
Tron : “That’s why la! I tell you those group purchasing websites are all cheat one… they tell you discount, but sell to you at actual price…”

I was super demotivated at this point, but what to do. I already paid for the pies, AND had phoned up the Pieman himself to collect the pies on Saturday. I kept telling myself “cannot be” that the pies are only RM5 because it looks big!

I am happy and proud to say that in fact the RM35 for all those pies are SUPER WORTH IT. Even Tron had to eat his words and Tron is doing more publicity on his Facebook account by telling all his friends about Mr Pieman. Hahaha! I really hope that more people get to know about Mr Pieman because it’s really delicious, plus the owner is a really nice guy! Though he sounded a bit gruff on the phone, when I met him in person, he was nice and smiley. =)

Basically, if you wanna order now, you just order online, and pick up from the SS5 “factory”. The “factory” is actually a shoplot, and it is open everyday. I went on a Saturday, quite near my house. Was there and back home in 20 minutes. Once I got the boxes of pies, I immediately SMS-ed Tron and told him that the pies were huge!!! I think his saliva started to drip already and told me to go to his house with all the pies ASAP so that he could start eating. -___-

Though the pies were huge and fragrant, the next step was the important one … the taste test! And what if it tasted good, but there was only a teaspoon of filling inside an almost-empty pastry shell? Well, it tasted good and was CHOCK-FULL with yummy filling and gravy. Wow, tasted sooooooo yummy, especially straight from the oven. It is really comfort food! The pastry was light too… By the way, Mr Pieman says that there is one way to tell if the pies are fresh or not — is the filling dripping gravy or is it dried up? Ours were dripping, of course. =)

That was just the chicken & mushroom pie… the apple pie was humongous and every bit as good as the chicken & mushroom pie. Not only was Tron pleased with his pies… my parents, were also very happy. They said it is super worth it, maybe the apple pie itself is already worth RM35. I want to say farewell to McDs apple pie. It cannot stand a chance against Mr Pieman’s apple pies!

By the way, Mr Pieman DOES sell RM5 pies… but they are smaller and they are either chicken / beef/ vegetable/ kaipaki apple pie. The ones that I got are from his “gourmet” range, which also has flavors such as steak & cheese / steak / chicken curry. So it is quite inexpensive either way. The bad news (to me) is that he has kiosks in shopping centers, but not the shopping centers near to home for me. He has one in Hartamas Shopping Center, which is good news for his new found fan, Tron.

Also, once again (sigh), this is unpaid advertising, but what to do, it’s not about supporting Groupsmore (though I’m thankful they had this deal that introduced this food to me), but about supporting Mr Pieman. Hehehe.. =)

After our little pie brunch, Tron said that he wanted to go to Pavillion to do some shopping. Tsk tsk… he wound up buying 10 shirts from Uniqlo. But in case you think he’s splurging, my one cardigan from Uniqlo cost 50% of all his shirts. Hahahaha! Anyway, I love the cardigans from Uniqlo. I think that’s their forte. I also tried on their boyfriend-cut jeans, really nice fit! But it costs RM169, bleh. Also, I found out that I wear a 26″ jeans in Uniqlo! I where got so slim. Or maybe you think it’s fat because girls should be wearing 24″ jeans? I used to be 28″ lo, so I am happy enough. Anyway, I think the cutting is loose.

Me all smug in my new cardigan on Sunday, after church. Tron says that I look like a teacher in the cardigan. -___-”

There was also a lot of stuff that I wish I could get from Padini. I know it doesn’t sound like I’m being all glam, but these are seriously places that I think are most worthwhile to buy stuff from. When I go into Zara, I wanna vomit blood because one t-shirt can already be RM150. In fact, even in Padini I feel like vomitting blood because one pair of shorts is RM100. I can get nicer shorts from Kitschen for RM49 lor…

We had late lunch at Coffee Club — really good service at the branch outside Fahrenheit 88. They also had some lunch promotion that made it a bit more worth while :

Dinner at Pepper Lunch :

Nothing much on Sunday except Teochew bak kut teh in SS2 after church was over. Oh, and met my future new cell group mate. By the way, I don’t quite fancy Teochew bak kut teh… I think it’s not as flavorful as Klang bak kut teh… but beggars can’t be choosers. Tron is a typical Chinese man who won’t allow his girlfriend to eat bak kut teh often, fearing that she will get FAT from all the pork!!! I have another colleague who does the same thing — will hardly ever eat bkt with his wife, but behind her back, he indulges. Hmph!

Read finish Adrian Mole – The Prostrate Years, a book that Tron bought for me when we went to SS2 mall… YES THERE IS AN SS2 MALL! :3 I think Adrian Mole has truly redeemed himself in this book. Earlier, I was getting really annoyed at his whininess (through the “Wilderness Years”). But this one is really touching, quite sad at some points, and rather tragic, actually. He is so naive and trusting that at some points you don’t know whether you want to slap him silly to wake him up or hug him and protect him from getting hurt by his own guillibility and understanding on how life is.

I’ve been reading this series since I was 13, so it is really interesting to see how all the characters grew up. Actually, I really wonder if Pandora likes him or not. She seems to care for him, but at the same time makes it seem that she only does because it’s for her own political advancement. Hmmm… anyway, I finished this book within 2-3 days. Doesn’t really warrant the price one pays for it, right?

There’s also another book that I’ve been reading, but Tron told me to throw it into the river. It’s called “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, and it’s rather extreme, tbh. The author is saying that “dating” is like the start of a slippery, downhill slope into Hell and if we are to save ourselves from sin, we have to stop dating in the “secular” sense. I’ve only read about 3-4 chapters, but it was mainly about how when we give in to your partner when dating, you end up regretting when you guys don’t get married. So in fact, you should only date the person you end up marrying. But not all of us are that fortunate right? I find the book pretty unforgiving, but kudos to all those who manage to save their first kiss for the altar! Or even first hug!

I’ve read online reviews that stress that it isn’t about NOT dating, but about God’s place in your relationship. Maybe the title is just to ignite your curiosity? I have to say, after 70 pages, it is mentioned that dating as we know it is kinda bad. The whole wanting “romance”, movies, expensive restaurant dinners and first goodnight kiss. Ya, I do agree to a certain extent that sometimes, it’s not good to expect such things, and having candlelit dinners are not conducive to “getting to know someone”. However, he also says that you can get to know someone without having it to be a one-to-one basis. This I do agree to a certain extent… but what about people who you do get to know for a long while and it seems ok at first… do you just GET MARRIED as what most of the “success stories” in the book seem to point to? Like knowing someone for a year and then get married? Cos it’s one thing to “know” someone while working with them, and actually being on a one-to-one relationship with them. I really believe that those who manage to have their first kiss at the altar only “seriously” dated for max a year…

I still plan on reading finish the whole thing (sorry to Tron — not going to throw it into the river) cos it’s just toooooo interesting to put aside. *grin*

Okay, ending with some random pictures that I’ve forgotten to upload :

My one and only souvenir from Beanz from his trip to Europe.

Only because my black heels super failed and the heels are all smashed up. Again.

From my team mate SL’s family orchard! I had no idea that THAT is how passionfruit looks like! The whole thing is very light, I thought it was “gajus air” at first aka “love apple”. Passion fruit is basically a bunch of seeds in a gooey bright yellow mess. ^^ (No pics of the inside as I don’t bring my camera with me to the pantry wtf)

P.S : As an added bonus, Mr Pieman also sent out an email rewarding “loyal customers” with a 30% discount! Yay! Looks like my next purchase will be cheaper than normal too.

The Physically Tiring but Mentally Awakening Weekend June 25, 2010

This was a pretty sporty weekend for me, because … JENG JENG JENG.. guess wot party people? It was True Fitness’s 2nd Quarterly Launch in Jaya33! As usual, I always aim to go for my 3 favorite launches – Body Combat, Body Jam and Body Attack. I loved the timing this round… could finish by 4pm. Usually Body Attack is the last one, which means we finish around 5. There was also less lagging between classes, everything just proceeded uber smoothly.

However, sad to say that I didn’t like most of Body Combat new moves & songs, and I didn’t like most of Body Jam new moves and songs. Body Attack… well, got special place in my heart, so I think it was ok. Generally got nothing REALLY special for BA to me, and the movements.. gosh.. even some instructors have come up to tell me that BA69 is hard to teach. =\

The best part of Body combat 44 to me is the latest “core challenge” move… the side kick challenge. I think it’s great! Balance + strong core needed… And the “Ignorance” song by Paramore is one of the new tracks for BC44… I am actually quite sick of the song IRL, but somehow for BC, it becomes cool again. Hahaha! Other than that, I am neither super excited about doing BC tonight, nor am I dreading it. The “alligator crawl” is something that I don’t look forward to, not because I think it’s soooo difficult but because I really think the studio is too small for such fancy moves.

Body Jam was only nice because the presenters that day was AWESOME! Su Lin, Leonara, Azie, Simone and Shirlyn were part of the launch team, but I can tell that if it’s not the whole lot of them doing the class, I will be very bored liow. =p What I found funny is that there’s a Body Attack song for Body Jam! Namely, the “Lala Song” from BA68. Hahaha! Aiyo, there were some real sissy moves for that song. Disco la. Yeah, I like the disco performance track. Other than that.. sheesh, I’m starting to not like Jam so much liow. I really miss the old days of Jam. The song selections are getting yucky, honestly. But here’s a pic looking like I’m very syiok sendiri during the launch :

I look syiok sendiri here, but actually the instructors on the stage were all still super hyped up wan!! I’m not being siow!! Everyone else is too tired… come on, upzz the stamina, pple!

A lot of repetitive posing… yes, I’m holding a banana in my hand. BTW, the theme is “HOT SUMMER”, so everyone was asked to wear either orange or yellow. I love it when everyone shows a lot of support for the themes!

Body Attack has 2 particular super syiok crazy moves… the super fast easy walk with travel forward. And the plank and push-up. Seriously, the upper body workout for this release is sick. But I like how Jason Y motivates with statements like, “Being sexy isn’t easy!” (the track for the upper body workout is “Sexy Bitch” by Akon). Thats true, yo. The 4th track (plyometrics) was very good… that’s all I really remember lol. Tonight, hope to be doing BA again, if I have energy. I was actually quite worried that I wouldn’t be able to go for the quarterly release as I overexerted myself the night before, and after that, my knee felt a bit funny. Gosh!

Here I am looking lost in the middle of the er… agility track. I think. But everyone else looks kinda lost too, so I think Edmund was merely demo-ing… *consoles self*

After my super duper workout (BC started at 10:15am and BA ended at 4pm), I had to attend my colleague (Andric’s) wedding at Tai Thong in Puchong. I was not sure how to get there even though I drove past the place 1 week ago wtf. So in my nervousness, I arrived at the restaurant 5 minutes early, and was too shy to enter the place. Hahahha. The upside of all this is that I got great FREE parking. The downside is that I wound up waiting 90 minutes before the wedding actually started!

Camwhoring before I left the house

Showing L my bling… fake wan, hahaha!

Another one, cos bored waiting in the car. -__-

The funny part is that Andric placed me at a table with all the hardcore “drinking” gang. WhyyyyYYyyyy!! That night, I didn’t even drink at all because I drove myself there that night… what a pity. :p The wait for the wedding to start was so long that we finished all the peanuts that they served us and asked for a refill four times. -__- At first I asked Binz if we could get refill, and he said that’s such piggish behavior. I got a refill ANYWAY, then he syiok and got the next rounds refilled (same person keep asking, quite shy also mar… :p).

With JY, WeiNee and Jane and the groom, looking for the seating. Shit la this photographer make me look so weird! -__-

Since we had 90 minutes to spare, most of the time was spent reminiscing about Andric, hahaha. About all the vomitting sessions he had to go thru when drinking with the guys. How they once tricked him to drink a graveyard all in one go because he arrived late, and that was his punishment… and how we all took pictures with vomit spewing out of his mouth. In Victor’s words, “Very hard to get picture of someone like that you know! From the time you snap the picture, the vomit is all still flowing out.”Imagine how much vomit was inside him, hahaha. =p

Also saw GKL and his wife’s super cute baby Gabriel… who was non-stop eating. Gosh. Everyone kept looking jealously at Gabriel… as Raymond said, “He is the happiest guy at this table.” At 8pm, we were all still starving, but lucky Gabriel had his lovely mummy cutting some sausage sandwich for him and feeding it to him. Everytime she stopped (because she’s talking / listening to us), he would tug his mom to remind her that he is still waiting, ahhaha. So cuteeee! In fact, when the mom took out the tupperware with the sandwich, his mouth started moving like goldfish already… anticipating the meal. Aiyo…

Baby Gabriel, GKL and Mr AIP

Tun, Zona and Binz

Mr AIP, CCL and Tun (who is looking at live update n the World Cup from his laptop… gambler. :p

Here’s the food pics…

And the funniest pics of the night goes to Andric… he was so scared of us that he ensured that our “yam seng” table was the last! HAHAHAHA! You can see from the pic how Tun is restraining him (that arm over the shoulder is not just a show of buddy-ness) and not letting him go til he has finished all the red wine…

He came to “yam seng” at our table last cos he knows the guys are gonna “tui lam” him.

Drinking the full glass of red wine that Tun and GKL poured for him. Easy peasy?

Looks like trouble. Tun is comforting him, his wife cannot do anything at the back, lol.

Tun is making sure he does not run away!

Continue… Tun gave him some chinese tea to “calm the stomach” lol.

Andric’s wife (LihYee), Zona, Binz and Raymond at the side, laughing!!

Game over liow.

When we left that night, Andric actually told me, “Do NOT upload the pictures to Facebook!!” HAHAHAHAA. Sorry, that’s something I did not promise…

On Sunday morning, I got a phonecall at 5am… and it was an international phonecall. Now what would you think if you got a phonecall in the wee hours of the morning? When I asked Raymond that, he said, “Erm… the computer operators at Cambodia or Laos encountered an end of day error?” And he would be absolutely correct. However, me being me… I was spooked out by some stuff that L was telling me, so I was afraid that it was a ghost calling me. -____- At 5am in the morning. -_____- So at first I contemplated not picking up the call. But as it rang on, I thought that it was someone from overseas calling me to tell me that I had won a contest. -______- So I picked it up…. and it turned out to be a Cambodian staff having an end of day error wtf! Hahahaha!

Well, I mean, I am supposed to help lah, so I don’t mind, but when I remember back my “thinking” process at 5am, I really wanna slap myself for being so stooooopid. ;p Anyway, so I was up from 5am til 6:30am troubleshooting. When I think back about it, I get quite pissed off for the following reasons :
a. my company never provided me with a support phone for times like this. I answer calls using my own h/p personal number, and there was once when I picked up a call from Laos, my credit went down to 0 from a previous RM85! And because at that time I was using prepaid, I didn’t have item billing, so I couldn’t claim back my money. I dunno how much it cost me to talk to the staff that night.

b. the staff asked me to go online and talk to troubleshoot + he can forward me stuff that I require for troubleshooting. How did we do the troubleshooting? OVER GCHAT, how classy. At first, he asked me to use Yahoo chat, but I gave up on that long ago due to lagginess.

c. At the end of the night (or morning) when everything was resolved, the staff said, “Why don’t you install SQL profiler on your PC for faster checking next time?” This was because he sent me the SQL profiler file which was 22MB. I don’t have that program installed on my PC (it’s my home PC btw, not my company laptop), and because it’s so large, it cannot be opened with notepad / wordpad or it’ll hang. Or maybe my PC is just lousy. So I told him.. SURE I’ll install it if PB sponsors me the software. He told me to go and install pirated software on my PC. Which is not like I’m so holy and I’d refuse to do it… but… why should I clutter my PC up for this?

FYI, it’s not that I’m not willing to help as obviously I just sacrified 1.5 hours of sleep for this matter and I don’t get jack for it (not like I can claim any $$ for additional support), but I have asked many times before for better support tools. I even said that I would buy a laptop and install all the tools and programs required for my programming… all my company has to do is not even to buy the laptop, just sponsor a small amount, like 30%? And it’s so that I, a staff, CAN WORK DURING THE WEEKENDS FOR YOU. And they still decided not to. And they are soooo adamant about not copying out source code (which is written by ME) out, but if I didn’t have the source code with me during that Sunday, how could I troubleshoot properly? So utterly rubbish, their thinking. It’s not like I got the company laptop with special log in to be able to remote in to the work PCs.

If they suggest that I drive back to the office to work, let me tell you… production EOD problems are TIME CRITICAL. I live 30-45 minutes away from the office. The system had to be up by a certain time… if you fail to solve it, do you know how critical those 30-45 minutes are? Also, you’re asking me to drive out at 5am in the morning. As we all know, our country is not the safest country in the world lah… if anything happened to me… WHO IS RESPONSIBLE TO PAY BACK MY LIFE!!!!

The more I think about it, the more indignant I get! And if you ask why am I the one who has to do it, why not someone who stays closer to the office, firstly, don’t you think it’s unfair to the person who stays nearest to the office to do support ALL THE TIME? In this case, that person had a bit too much red wine during Andric’s wedding, and couldn’t wake up when the staff called him. He called me at 930am, super kan cheong voice to ask me if I managed to resolve the problem, HAHAHA. Secondly, I am only one of TWO staff that have the handphone number given to the people overseas to be on call. I can also say that at least 3 others if you call them, you won’t be able to resolve the problem. (Not boasting here, just that to solve production problem, you need 3 things : skills, experience and GUTS.)

Anyway, don’t want to talk about work anymore…

In the afternoon (after I woke up at a glorious 11:30am…!) I went to Salvation bookstore in SS2 and got a bible. Hahaha. L kept asking me to get some brown leather covered holy bible which is like his, but I thought it looked fuddy-duddy and did not appeal. =__= I know that if push came to shove, I would probably get one like that, but I want to look for something that I would like looking at. In the end, I found this super awesome LAWN GREEN and BABY BLUE bible with a soft leather cover! And a tiny metal plaque in front stating it’s the holy bible!! And it was the last copy left!!! Got it straightaway… There were other books in the bookstore that I was interested in reading… like one called “The Hole in the Gospel”… I got another book called “10 Lies the Church Tell Women” … which actually addresses something that I feel strongly about, as when researching, I noticed a lot of people saying that the bible is sexist and God is misogynistic. So this should be a good / interesting read.

There was also this book called “HELL”, written by this guy who said he spent 23 minutes in Hell.. (must be some near death experience kinda thing)… and I considered getting it, but in the end don’t want to… I think that it’s not good to scare people into Christianity… and despite what he says about how even “good” people will go to Hell, I would like to believe that they won’t, that they might find grace in God’s eyes…

Anyway, the conclusion is that there’s a lot of interesting books there. But first.. I started reading the bible last night. And after 11 pages, I have like 50 questions. Maybe I will write it out here for open debate… I just hope that the debate won’t end with “You are not to question God” or “I’m not God so I won’t know”.

By the way, the cost of my books from Salvation was around RM160… and recently, I got a cheque from GlobalTestMarket for RM162.50!!! What is the money for? Well, around 2 – 3 years back, I signed up to be a volunteer to do online surveys for them. It’s been a longggg time, but I finally managed to accumulate the 1,000 MarketPoints required to cash out my USD50. Honestly, when I first signed up, I thought that it would be FOREVER before I saw the money, and if you compare this to blogging, etc… of course it is a long time. But the fact is that I managed to cash out with minimum effort and I ACTUALLY HAVE THE MONEY. O_o It’s like money from the sky for me, haha. The surveys are sometimes very long, but when it’s very long, the pay back is like 50 MarketPoints or so, so I guess it adds up? For me, I’m online A LOT when I’m at home, so while I’m playing Mafia Wars, I can answer surveys too. I get nothing from referring you to the website, so really, just spreading the good news around. =)

My letter and my cheque.

But aside from my uber cool bible (never thought I would say this), I had a relaxing Sunday… watched “Seducing Mr Perfect”, a Korean movie starring Daniel Hennley… so darn good looking, gosh gosh gosh!!!! He was quite a bastard in the movie though… the movie itself is also quite silly … but heck, I bought that movie ages ago in Petaling Street (at least 3 yrs ago!) and now only found the time to watch it! HAHAHA.

I also got to try my friend’s “Super Mop”… designed to make housework fun. Well, I won’t say it’s FUN, but it was definitely easier. Hahaha. That night, celebrated Father’s Day with family (minus sister and bro-in-law who are in PANTAI CINTA BERAHI) at Gou Yan Yuen in SS15. Not a bad place, and the bill came up to exactly RM111.10. My dad liked it, so that’s the most important part.

Andrew and mother.

Mother and father

Our food, clockwise from top left :stuffed tofu, simple fried kai lan, steamed fish in chilli bean paste and steamed chicken with ginger and rice wine.

Only Andrew and I had desserts… he had some soya thing, I had my favorite “gwai ling gou” with honey.

Happy Father’s Day to all the cool dads. By the way, one of my friends from gym baked bacon, cheese and beer cupcakes for her dad! It’s like an explosion of flavors, something I really cannot imagine. Should I try that too… ? Hahahhahaa…