Eat Shit & Survive

Oh Grief... this HAS to be the funniest thing I've seen all month!



Norman: Which book would you like for xmas??

I'm a bad person...

I had the strangest dream last night.
I was married, and pregnant.
And that's not the strange part.

I was upset because the dog had vomited on the carpet.
And now I was going to have to clean the damn thing.
But it wouldn't fit into the washing machine.
And I didn't mean the carpet!

Yes folks, I was trying to clean the DOG in the washing machine.
Luckily for the dog, he/she wouldn't fit.

Brushing my teeth, I suddenly realised that my "husband" was, in *this* reality, a married man!
I've been trying to picture his face... to remember who it was... but no luck.
So I dream-stole someone's husband!

I wonder which is worse... me dream-stealing someone's husband, or me trying to wash the dog in the machine...

To iPad or not to iPad... that is the question.

Have been quite happy with my iRobot Android tablet... but it's broken :(
It's only been a couple of days, and I miss my ebooks already!
Now that I find that I do use the toy (and use quite extensively), am considering if I should get a better toy.
Better grades of Android tablets are the same price range as an iPad.
So now I'm considering the iPad.

Sigh.

In general, I hates Apple. Innovation notwithstanding, I hate how proprietary they are with almost everything & every part of the iPad/iPhone/iPod. Android is as innovative, as user-friendly, as flexible, without being panties-in-a-wad fanatical about making us pay for every damn part of the machine/accessory/app and controlling use of *ahem* evaluation software/apps/books/music. I really believe in the way Google makes all things possible for nothing (or next to nothing). However, there's no beating the iPad Human Machine Interface. It's mind-boggling & shineeeeyyyy. The gadget freak in me is, as sham says, perpetually Salivating.

For the same price, I have to consider the iPad because I don't believe in cutting my nose off to spite my face. Hence the conundrum.

What Carrie Bradshaw wrote for a wedding.

His hello was the end of her endings
Her laugh was the first step down the aisle
His hand would be hers to hold forever
His forever was as simple as her smile
He said "she was what was missing"
SHe said, instantly she knew
She was a question to be answered
And his answer was "I do"

You really can't go home again

I was watching a Sesame Street DVD with Akshara yesterday, and I suddenly went still. Something wasn't right. Something... Oh no! It was Bert! He was different. I'm not just talking about his voice - that didn't make me bat an eyelash. They changed the stuff inside.

Ernie always gets the spotlight. He's the kid in all the skits. He's funny and naughty, and decidedly gleeful when he gets away with being both. He's the one with the US Top 40 hit "Rubber Ducky". He's the one who whines till Bert gets him water when he's thirsty in the middle of the night.

But quiet Bert, poor Bert, kind Bert, book-reading, fish-gazing, pigeon-feeding, striped-pajama-wearing Bert, resonated with something in me. I got Bert. So I noticed, when Bert changed. I hadn't seen Sesame Street since my own childhood, but I noticed.

His personality was different. He wasn't the protector counterpart to Ernie's wide-eyed perpetual youth anymore. He wasn't the long-suffering, patient room-mate. He was smug, almost... and just the tiniest bit self-important.
"You may know about Baseball, Ernie, but I am the expert in Pigeons." he said.

I was gobsmacked.
Holy-attack-of-the-bodysnatchers, Batman! Who are you and What have you done with Bert???

Just like kids nowadays aren't like the kids from my childhood, the Bert Akshara will know, is not the Bert I knew.
I mourn.
I will miss you Bert.

Google Maps for EVERY occasion

1) Go to Google Maps
2) Click on Get Directions
3) From: Taiwan
4) To: China
5) Check out instructions no. 24.
6) Laugh your arse off

Curtesy of Choon. :)

P/S I'm off to Xiamen tomorrow. I will be flying. hehe

OK Even I am impressed

For all that I dislike about the i-anything, I must admit that they are blowing people's minds the world over.
This is one of those instances.

I now pronounce you Mr & Mrs Hoh

Choon and Jason got registered today.
The skies were clear, the day was sunny, the traffic was kind.
Things went smoothly, no hitch in sight (pun unintended).
Let this be the beginning of a beautiful life together.

For them who was askin'....

Mum's spicy pork ribs

6 large onions
2 whole bulbs of garlic
6 bird's eye chillies
1 heaped tbsp tauchu paste / blended tauchu (tauchu is fermented soya paste)
4 tbsp of vegetable oil
(Don't use olive oil as it doesn't have a high enough smoke point)
700gms of pork ribs

Method:
Peel onions & garlic.
Blend with chillies.
Heat oil in pot. Add blended paste & tumis (fry till fragrant).
STIR CONSTANTLY.
Keep fire at medium. The idea is to sweat the onions till it releases its moisture & natural oils. Too high a fire will burn the onions before it gets to that stage.

Note:
Depending on how large a pot you're using, you may need  more oil.
Add more oil if you see the paste getting gluggy as you stir.

Add tauchu. Mix well.
(Tauchu tends to burn, so we didn't add it earlier, and you want to watch it at this stage.)
Add pork Ribs.
Stir till coated.
Add water till it just covers the ribs.
Wait till it starts to boil, then turn down the flame till it's a gentle simmer.
Simmer till tender.

A random conversation

Ronald's FB Status: Gay for Pay sparked a spirited discussion, including but not limited to the excerpt below. :)

Lyn: omfg that is so funny
Ken: I've got about $13.78 in my piggy bank, how much do you have? Good thing these G4P guys are always desperate
Ronald: ... $13.78???? I can't even buy Castle Crashers with that minuscule amount!!! pfff you a cheapskate ken. matt & me are painting the town red! (lol however you want to read that)
Lyn: HAHAHAHAHA You're only worth $13.78???!!!
Matt: That's like a billion yen so there's still that big number...
Lyn: here are hubcaps worth more than that... so pimping my car is going to cost more than pimping his ass??!!

She's so my sister!

When you're angry, don't plot to kill someone. Plan to make it look like suicide.
Courtesy of Ann's FB status.

Kun Ming/Li Jiang

China was WET!! Didn't stop raining the whole time we were there.
I lost 1 umbrella & broke 2.
I lost a contact & broke my specs.
I superglued said specs, and the sole of my shoe.

Don't get me wrong - despite all the rain and mishaps, I had a BRILL time.
Lots and lots of photos to come *grin*... after catching up with Lots and lots of work which piled up on my desk. *pout*

Step away from the mangosteen salad and no one gets hurt...

Me: Where did your Chinese friend see Mich?
Sugee: Sao Nam, yesterday at Empire. When are we doing dinner again? I'm hungwee
Me: You're talking like you don't eat unless we meet! LOL
Sugee: which is almost true... have you not been listening to my mother in law cooking stories!

Phone booth/Parking meter

Another sample of why I love having lunch with Irene & how Irene enriches my life.

In some areas, instead of parking meters, they have self-serve  parking kiosks. Deposit coins, key in car licence plate number, place resulting ticket on windshield area for parking maids to verify.

Renu gleefully told me about the time Irene tried to get a parking ticket by inserting coins into a PUBLIC PHONE. The receiver was still on its rest, so the coins just kept shooting out into the receptacle. She turned to Renu to ask why this new machine wasn't working.

Renu laughed her head off, then proceeded to take picture of said phone kiosk for the "show" portion of show & tell. Irene's unsure if Renu knew it was a public phone and kept quiet just for comedic effect, or whether Renu herself didn't realise it was a phone booth till Irene asked her if it wasn't working.

Me? I'm still laughing. :D

Please don't hold meetings in my pantry

Had a meeting in the Main Conference Room at 11am.
At noon, tea lady drops in to ask if we're going to finish soon cos the boss is going to have lunch.
Yes. We had to stop the meeting.
So boss could eat in the meeting room.
Yes, the meeting in progress involved people fr outside my company.
Yes, they heard her.
No, they couldn't believe their ears.

Cooking School for Accountants

The School of Culinary Arts is parked under the Faculty of Business, Economics and Accounting.
I don't know why.

My boss: Cos they're teaching them how to cook the books.

OMFG that was BRILL!! And before 10am!
I never knew he was so witty.

Daya ada. Mutu lain kira.

I couldn't reach Rama on the phone.
Called Daya to ask her for alt number. Daya's with HR, so Daya pulled out his staff file. No alt number.Whatever.
Got add from Daya. Great.
Thank you Daya.

Daya: You couldn't reach him?
Me: nope. Got a recorded msg fr telco. Number not in use.
Me: never mind. Worse to worse, will go to his house.


10 mins later, phone rings. It's Daya.

Daya: Lyn - the phone rang. So it works.
Me: Did you wait past 4 rings? The msg only kicks in after 4 rings.
Daya: Nope. Heard the ring tone, hung up, called you.
Me: So let me get this straight... You know I'm looking for Rama. You know I haven't been able to get through to his phone. You dialled, you got a ringing tone, but instead of talking to Rama & telling him to call me, you hung up & dialled MY number to tell me that the bloody phone number works? So I could continue to call him with or without luck?
Daya: errr ..... yes.

OH MY FUCKING GOD.

...

Clement came by for small change.
Clement: For toll.
Me: Don't you have Smart Tag?
Clement: Nope. Don't use it much. I have Touch n Go instead.
Me: Then why don't you use Touch n Go?
Clement: It's backup in case I don't have cash.
Me: ....

So he's constantly queuing for the cash lane, when he has a perfectly working Touch n Go card.
Whatever.

Dr. Frankenbean I presume?

We're having dinner in Alexis.
Sugee: I already know what I'm eating. Mee Hoon Siam, cake and coffee.
Lyn: lol I tell you ah... I never knew you'd turn out to be such a coffee monster
Sugee:  hahaha..yes, you brewed me to the dark side


Apparently, I introduced Sugee to coffee many many beans ago, when we first met in Coffee Bean, Telawi.
*laugh* I've created a monster!

H1N1 vaccinations

I've spoken to so many ppl and hardly anyone knows about the free vaccinations.
Sorry - I have no details beyond what was published in The Star yesterday.
Call the numbers provided if you need more info, but Please DO take advantage of this!!

Ricky and Ronald... back together again. However briefly,

God it was good seeing you again.

You're easy. And in a good way. It was easy to fall back into the old rhythm. You're different, but the same.

You're a bit too skinny. Eat more.

I'm glad you're doing well. It's good to see you happy.

Don't think so much. I know it's *you*... but try. You're a good person, you do good work, you do good things, and the world is paying you back in spades. Count your blessings & play hard!

Fall in love with a girl who won't call the cops on you.

Can you please talk prices before you take her back to your place? RM50 is way too low a fee for services rendered... even if it was just for use of your equipment! ;)

I don't know what wind blew you back to our shores, but it was *Really* good catching up with you. Thank your friend for getting married *laugh* Was it only last month you were telling me to yumcha with you in Shanghai?

Come home more often - or more importantly, tell me when you do, goddammit. You know my number.

Lasik is like Golf...

You swing... and sometimes, you have to putt it in.

Pearls of Wisdom courtesy of Norman.

Dell 7n557

.Am writing this entry on a Dell 7n557 tablet PC. It isn't half bad really. The handwriting recognition software is rather intelligent & can interpret most of my usually illegible squiggles. However, I think the predictive text only works in English. Bahasa Malaysia, for example, doesn't stand a chance in neraka ofbeing spelt right the first time." Wo ai ni," needed to be written 4 times before it was correct -either due to the program trying to auto-correct the damn words or misinterpreting what I was_Xwriting in the first place.

That having been said. I haven't discovered much else. Been too busy playing with the handwriting function! Haha. More later I guess.

Ummmm....

What do you do when you open your boss' notebook and the header reads: Audio Visual Issues at Clinique?
a) Automatically transcribe minutes to read the correct word: Clinic.
b) Marvel at how in touch he is with his feminine side
c) Tsk at how he has never been able to tell the difference and really, you should know better than to be suprised by now...
d) All of the above.

CNY was teh HAWT!

... and not even in a good way! :(

If reports are to be believed, it was 36C in the shade in Taiping.
TAIPING.
Once the wettest town in the whole goddamn country.
36C in the SHADE.
Fuck does not begin to cover it.

We hid in air-conditioned rooms (where available) and took umpteenth baths a day. What rain there was only made matters worse (read: HUMID). I had to wear sunblock in the house! OMFG I am SO brown now.

Being home with family was of course, terribly wonderful and wonderfully terrible. *laugh* Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that!

Tue - met up with old friends & gambled till 3am.
Weds - drove back to KL & had dinner with some friends & chatted till 3am.
Thr - worked, tried to sleep, but for some reason, slept only past 2am.
Fri - worked, partied till 5:30am
Sat - worked, yoga, partied till 4:30am
Sun - woke up @ 7:30am to sms my cousin that I wasn't coming for his fucking dawn breakfast, went back to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oy.... I don't recover as fast as I used to! *laugh*
The days when Pauline and I used to party till 5:30 and go to work the next day (and repeat ad nauseum till the weekend, when we *still* partied but didn't have to work!!!) are *SO* gone.

The week after CNY was peppered with company dinners and department lunches and CNY lunches with vendors, etc. I can NOT look another yee sang in the face! I am *so* keeping to a clean, refresing, simple diet for the next month or so! *laugh*

Simple diet (she says, googling for the choc lava dessert she saw on the food channel last night)... *giggle*

Welcome home Doreen :)

She's home and she brought pressies! :D
Dark Choc Biscotti... SIGH... entirely TOO yummy & COMPLETELY sinful! I don't know whether to thank her or berate her :P

Nick got me a Gorgeous Amber pendant. Doreen *swears* there's a dead insect there (Jurassic Park style!) but I've been staring at it till I'm cock-eyed and I still can't see anything! *laugh* I'm ecstatic in any case! Thank you Nicky baby! :)

We're going for a mani-pedi t'row, and maybe clubbing tonight. :) I'm so excited :)

Honey I'm home! :)

I'm home from my food trip to Penang!
I seem to be having too many of these... *laugh*
This last one was with 6 other colleagues.
Made many many stops.
Great fun, but I'm Exhausted.
More later.

Nota is Spanish for Note

I've just watched "The Sing Off" and am *entirely* enamored.
Vincent recommended it yonks ago, but I've just only watched it.
It's a Heady celebration of A Capella in all its glory.
I love love love!
And my favourite team won :D

Suit Musical

Barney Stinson.
Musical.
About Suits.
OMFG
It's BRILLIANT!!

Men in TuTus

I had the BEST time!!

They are ENTIRELY Hilarious!

Les Ballets Grandiva was a Perfect blend of technique and down out slapstick comedy. They were obviously Excellent dancers, classically trained, with a well developed sense of theatre and comedy.

The 13-man troupe regaled us with a pas de deux from Satine, The Dying Swan from Swan Lake, a 4-person bit from Tarantella and a bit about 4 Divas who were hired to dance on the same stage. The guy who put that together was obviously not someone who’s used to thinking! The entire 2^nd half consisted of Act 2 from Swan Lake, which was BRILLIANT!

The dudes dressed like dames batteried, pirouetted, plied and fouetted their ways into the stars in our eyes and the shaking bellies of our laughs. That they had dancers bodies, was an added bonus! There was this one guy (who was actually *playing* a guy) whom I called “Mr. Nice Buns” for obvious reasons. *giggle* Some kindly stayed in costumes for photo ops after.

If you’re ever in Pentas 1 of KLPAC, try to get seats in the centre portion of row Q. They are Really Good mid-price seats, with a nice view and no row behind you to kick your seats. Close to the exits too!

They said they’re coming back again for another round of performances later this year. If you haven’t seen them yet, you MUST!!

Thanksgiving: More on the church bombings.

Thank Goodness the attempts have been mercifully inept.

Thank Goodness these utterly ridiculously uncivillised barbarians are stupid to boot.Next thing you know, they will start chucking shit like monkeys in trees.

Thank Goodness most of the "cocktails" chucked at various buildings didn't explode.

Thank Goodness my old school in Taiping is still standing, cos they either intended to damage the church next door, or they chucked the cocktail but forgot to light it, or the cocktail chucked at the building didn't go off. Whatever. I'm thankful.

Thank Goodness, though the Metro Tabernacle Church was gutted, no one was hurt.

Thank Goodness we have a grand government who have "condemned the bombings". About my PM's comment about being unable to prevent protesters from protesting... I guess they hocked the watercanons to pay for the New Year fireworks. Cos baby - how do you think we ended up on Al-Jazeera??

Local Terrorists

About the whole church bombing thing... 
I have Jeff Dunham's Achmed the Dead Terrorist on replay in my head.

Silence! I Kill You!

God makes really beautiful things...

Review: Avatar (3D)

Oh. My. God.
12 years in the making, and (depending on which reports you read) USD230mil - 500mil later, I think it's worth every penny and every day. The amount of technology Cameron co-designed for the film - the 3D cameras, the motion-capture tools, the virtual production pipeline... this movie has done a helluva lot to contribute to the development of 3D *anything*.

The effects are AMAZING, and more than compensate for the ecological messages and cheesy script. Some of the animals on Pandora came straight out from some acid dream. Really imaginative!

I have no words to describe how much I loved the movie, especially in 3D. Go watch it! Multiple times even.

Review: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Ummmmm.... I didn't get it.
It was visually pleasing, but yeah. I didn't get it.

Clickety Click to read more >>

Movie Freak 2009

Movies I watched in 2009.

Clickety Click to read more >>

BaZinga!

Lisa introduced me to The Big Bang Theory. I LOVE LOVE LOVE!! :D

I can't believe I hadn't noticed it before! I allowed 3 whole seasons to pass without notice. How?????? Now I am all over-enthused and giggly over it.
It is smart and geeky and ENTIRELY Hilarious and *SO* me! Not that I'm smart or geeky or hilarious... but you already knew what I meant, right?! *grin*

Jim Parsons as Sheldon is PRICELESS. There are no words to describe how much I adore him. I know John Galecki as Leonard is supposed to be the main character, but it is Sheldon who's all perfect and brilliant and awkward and evil and Spock-like and OCD and I can so see how he is the human C3PO, and I think I'm in love.

They cast Christine Baranski as Lenord's mother. I LOVE Christine Branski and she was PERFECT! *laugh* Yes, I am gushing. This whole damn series was written for Me. Just ME!

The clip below is from the episode where Penny told Sheldon that she bought them xmas gifts. Not knowing what to give to her in return, Sheldon bought a whole bunch of gift baskets from Bed, Bath and Beyond. He plans to open her present, assess the value, and excuse himself to select an appropriate present from the bunch, returning the rest later. However, she presents him with a conundrum. J'ADORE that episode.