253. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Wonder what crazy things are in store tonite. This will be the first year of not going out to celebrate Halloween, after 3 years of going out in costumes.

Yew Peng just came back from US this morning. We're meeting up for dinner later tonite with Chong.

Went home after dinner to find that Wee is at home and not at Soho. Was surprised! It seems that he didn't want to get stuck in the jam in town (I later found out that the town wasn't crowded at all). Edmund popped by as well and the 3 of us had a wierd nite of chillin. Wee wanted to listen to Mozart and Beethoven, but I couldn't find the CDs. In the end, we settled for Barry Manilow - live on broadway & Michael Jackson's HIStory.

252. A non eventful weekend of reflection

It was a "quiet" weekend spent with a few friends. Found out more than I should. Gosh, I hate surprises. But as they say, u learn to take the bad with the good. Well, better late than never. Life is a journey, enjoy the ride. Time to go on with the journey.

Couldn't wake up on time for church. Decided to spend sunday with family to soak in my lesson of the day. Spent the later part of the evening at starbucks gurney plaza with Adrian and Chong. A quiet end for the evening, which is what I needed.

Have to get ready for work tomorrow. :(

____________________________

My Random Thots:

1) People with no loyalty keeps you on your toes
2) To have a friend, Be a GOOD friend (paraphrased by me)

251. Flix & the Bat Signal

It's Flix's grand opening tonite. Felicia smsed and invited us to attend. We arrived at about 9:30pm and the place is packed! Never seen so many cars at E-Gate before. Was surprised at the turn out.


I was more fascinated with the search light that they had more than the whole event itself. Have always wanted to get close to a search light (perhaps like a moth to the flame). They had one at Berjaya at Dato Keramat road, but it's fenced off. This one however was very very accessible. So I just decided to see it up close. :)

Robin: Holy Bat Signal, Batman!
Batman: To the Bat Mobile, Robin! Looks like Gotham needs us!

250. I lost my green fingers

Went back and checked on the plant that was given to me by a dear friend and has been with me for more than 6 years. It has grown from a few small leaf to now a proper plant. But becoz i've been distracted recently and didn't top up the water for 2 weeks. The water dried up and the plant is withering. Hopefully I wasn't too late to rescue it. Sorry Mei.


I hope it'll pull through

249. WHY BLOG????

I've been asked countless times why I blog. Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) answers it best:

MY OWN DILBERT BLOG
===================

When I see news stories about people all over the world who are experiencing hardships, I worry about them, and I rack my brain wondering how I can make a difference. So I decided to start my own blog. That way I won't have time to think about other people.

People who are trying to decide whether to create a blog or not go through a thought process much like this:

1. The world sure needs more of ME.
2. Maybe I'll shout more often so that people nearby can experience the joy of knowing my thoughts.
3. No, wait, shouting looks too crazy.
4. I know - I'll write down my daily thoughts and badger people to read them.
5. If only there was a description for this process that doesn't involve the words egomaniac or unnecessary.
6. What? It's called a blog? I'm there!

The blogger's philosophy goes something like this:

Everything that I think about is more fascinating than the crap in your head.

The beauty of blogging, as compared to writing a book, is that no editor will be interfering with my random spelling and grammar, my complete disregard for the facts, and my wandering sentences that seem to go on and on and never end so that you feel like you need to take a breath and clear your head before you can even consider making it to the end of the sentence that probably didn't need to be written anyhoo.

If that doesn't inspire you to read my blog, I don't know what will. You can find the Dilbert Blog at Dilbertblog.

248. Trying to recuperate

Again another busy day of running around, especially since one of our sales staff has gone on maternity leave. Was suppose to send Chong's friend to the airport but he's got enough cars already, so I'll pass. It's nice that his friends actually called from the airport to thank me for taking them around and all. Didn't expect them to, but it's a nice bonus :P

Speaking of bonus, totally forgot about this. Hiromi bought it for me. It's a green tea flavored love letter. It's really unique and nice.

After taking a nap, met up with Josie, KJ, Lorna, Mithi & Siew Bee at Starbucks E-Gate. Siew Bee is leaving for Singapore to start her new job tomorrow. So it's her farewell of sorts. It's also Lorna's B'day tomorrow. So we're here to be the first to wish her in person.

Lorna & Siew Bee

When I arrived, Jo was also there with her 2 happy friends, wasn't introduced to them, so I didn't get their names. You'd have to ask her why I say they're happy. Heh heh.

Jack and Ann also showed up later but they have to leave earlier to pick up Ann's parents.

247. Cruise

Mom went for a cruise this morning to no where. The ship goes out to international waters, people gamble their life away and they come back later in the evening. What does that mean to me? Well, no dinner tonite. Ciak Ka Kee.

After waking up earlier to visit my customers, I headed to E&O to meet up with Chong at a quarter past eleven. The suite (their tagline is: "there are no rooms, only suites" :P) they had was huge and tastefully decorated, and this was one of their smaller suites. Their rates are ridiculous though.

After Hiromi's family checked out, it was already 12:30pm. We took them to Swatow Lane for lunch and off to Kepala Batas because Hiromi's family wanted to see Chong's house. We took the ferry over to let her guests enjoy the view and experience. Apparently Chong also haven't taken the ferry for more than a decade. Me? I take em all the time. So I wasn't as fascinated with the whole ride as they were. I just went about taking random shots on the ferry

This is a Star Cruises' ship VIRGO, nope, mum didn't go on this one

When we reached KB, Ah Lai was there as well so he took over the responsibility of chauffering and I went back to my office. Glad I went to visit my customers early in the morning. The rest of the afternoon was rather quiet.

Had a good dinner with Seng, Fen, Wee and Raine at Taman Pekaka. Miss all those hawker food. Thank God I'm in Penang. But relocation does seem attractive too :)

246. Chong's Wedding

Saturday
Finally the day has arrived where our good friend Mr Tan is going to tie the knot. Their guests will be arriving later today and Mr Lai and I will be taking them to town for dinner at May Garden with Chong & Hiromi's family. Turns out the 4 flights doesn't arrive on time as planned. the first one arrived on time, the 2nd cancelled and the passengers were pushed to a later (40mins later) flight. Good thing the last 2 flghts arrive within 30mins of each other, but the were delayed for 2 hours. So we actually went to the restaurant first for makan and then back to the airport to pick up the 2nd Batch :)

El Piggy with Mantou

The food was excellent, but turns out, we chatted more than we ate. the other 2 tables finished all their food, but our table has lotsa leftovers. And our table are all guys except for Tomoko. It's amazing, this is the first time I'm meeting Arai (Hiro) San and Tomizawa (Tomi) San and already we've bonded :P guess ham sap ppl flock together. But seriously, despite the language barrier, they are very fun people to hang out with.

After dinner, it's time to party. This is suppose to be Chong's bachelor nite. So hang out we did. After coming back from the airport with another 3 guests, we head to Cititel to let them check in.

Our first stop was a dodgy bar that Chong's dad found right across from Cititel. It couldn't be any emptier than that. So many happening places in town, and His dad managed to find that bar. It was so boring, I didn't even bother to find out it's name. All I know is there's a huge lighted sign outside that reads, "HEINEKEN".

Next is SS. We went over for a while and got bored. So we then went back to the Heineken place. Finally, after Chong has excused himself, Lai took over of the helm and guided us to GLO. It's the first time actually went inside GLO and stayed.

Oddly, tonite feels more like Lai's bachelor nite :) The bridegroom has already gone to sleep and Lai is still in such a party mood.

We were out till 4am again.

Sunday
Woke up at 9:30 and was late for church service. I went anyway, I was late 45mins. The sermon was good, learnt something. Basically it was about insecurity and it's sympthoms. Had lunch and hanged around church until about 2pm and proceeded to pick up Lai from City Bayview.

We met up with Chong, Ishiguro, Tomi and the rest and took them to Soho to kill some time. Decided to take Ishiguro and Tomi to try the famous Penang Road Cendol. After that it's time to get ready for Chong's wedding dinner. Lai & I had a crazy idea of sending their VIP guests from Cititel to E&O hotel in trishaws :) They loved it. I wanted to get on one too, but someone had to drive the car to the hotel :(

The trishaws arriving at E&O Hotel

It's was a lovely dinner. Everything was as a wedding dinner should be, but the dancers stood out. Well, they were very interesting. I didn't expect something like that. Nonetheless, it's really nice to see everybody having a good time.

Wat The!?!?!

We adjourned to Coco (previously known as The Bungalow) after dinner to unwind. It was a relief that all the work and responsibility has passed and all can just chill and take it all in. Gee, 4am 3 nites in a row! It was worthwhile.

__________________________

My Random Thots:

Excerpts stolen from the sermon on sunday morning (paraphrased by me)

Insecure people
a) will COMPARE themselves with others
b) Is self centered (COMPETITIVE)
c) Is JUDGEMENTAL (CONDEMNATIONS)

is there a tablet/pill that we can take?

I was told that God can help heal everything....
.....too bad I don't have what they call an open heart.

245. Ai Fen's B'day!!!!!!!!!!

The day was spent as usual running around with the exception of having lunch at Megamall and wanting to buy a guitar. Chuwy got a very good deal on his Ibanez bass guitar and I was wondering if I could too. But unfortunately the boss wasn't in so I'll probably wait until monday and try again.

Headed over to Soho at about 11ish to celebrate Ai Fen's B'day. As with all b'day celebrations, we stayed until about 3:30am and headed out for supper. Wanted to have Bah Kut Teh at Gottlieb Road, but unfortunately it was already closed, so we had Bah Kut Teh at Green House instead.

To think that tomorrow I'm suppose to drive Chong's wedding guests around. :D

244. Pix from Pulau Perhentian

............CONTINUED FROM BLOG ENTRY #242

Had a great 4 days and 3 nites at the Island. Wish I had more time there. Because we're the only guests left on the island, all the staff really took good care of us.

On the way from KL, I had to chat with the dive instructor to keep him awake. :) Was nice chatting with him and finding out more about the life of a diving instructor. About how he travels to Thailand, Bali and Sipadan Island in the monsoon season. He really enjoys it. A carefree life doing what he loves.

Anyway, the Bubbles Resort at turtle beach creek is a really quiet secluded resort. Just what I needed. A quiet diving getaway.

Being nice to the diving instructor has it's priviledges. He decided to give us 2 free dives and 2 free snorkelings. He was gonna throw in a nite snorkeling too, but, it rained on the last nite. But he said he'll make up for it the next time we go. What a salesman.

Basically we saw everything I wanted to see. I saw Nemo playing in it's home, 3 black tip sharks (including one that's 2+ meters long), 2 huge Green turtles, a baby hawksbill turtle and a Stingray. Of course we saw other marine life too including a cute little yellow box fish.

We also took some underwater shots. Hopefully my dive instructor gets the uploaded soon. Can't wait to see how that turns out.

All good things must come to an end. Made a couple of new friends during the trip. The instructor for one, will be coming to Penang for White Water Rafting. So we'll probably meet up when he comes. As for the other friends, we're supposedly planning another diving trip. If they're leaving the planning to me, guess we'll not see each other for a while :D

Glad that I actually went. Was a tad reluctant to go initially becoz it's the monsoon season and all. It was an amazing experience. I also managed to get started on Carl Sagen's Demon Haunted World.

On the way from Kuala Besut Jetty to Pulau Perhentian


The view from the beach of the boat leaving


The beach from the resort (note the hammock on the right, spent quite a bit of time there)


Another shot of the beach, you can actually see the sea bed


The float reads "Diver Below" :)


Me in front of the Dive shop (the topless guy is my instructor)


My tan line


My diver pendant and my temporary card :)

Shots taken from the plane on the way back to Penang from KL

The following pics are taken by my instructor, next time, I'll hopefully be able to bring my own camera underwater

Batman in the water


Help!!! I'm being chased by a school of Barracudas


Me chasing da fishes


Peekaboo, I see u! Checking out the coral formations





Cute little Box fish


More of the cute little fella

243. Dave's Birthday

Took a nap after work and headed to Soho with Wee to celebrate Dave's birthday. Beau, Mandy, Howe and Dan was there too. Basically was a bit tired, but still managed to have a good time. Jo was there too. After Soho, went for soup and nasi lemak next to Soho. It's been a long time since I last ate there. When we finally reach home, it's already 4am. Yawn!

Happy Birthday Dave!

242. Back from Stop-over Island

Just got back from Pulau Perhentian this morning. So many things to write about my trip, but I also have so much work accumulated over the weekend. I'll catch up later, in the meantime, suffice to say I had a really really fun and relaxing time there. Just what the doctor prescribed. In fact, it was so relaxing, I forgot I was broke :D The wheather was amazingly kind despite the fact that it's the monsoon season already :D

to be continued........

THE PRICE OF CHILDREN

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle-income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That's a mere $24.24 a day! Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if you want to be "rich." Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?

· Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
· Glimpses of God every day.
· Giggles.... under the covers every night.
· More love than your heart can hold
· Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
· Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
· A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
· A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sandcastles, and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.
· Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus. You have an excuse to keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies, and wishing on stars. You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off a bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first date, and first time behind the wheel. You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so . . . one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost.

From:
http://www.allprodad.com/9priceofchildren.asp

[forwarded by Bob Simmons]

today's THOT
=======================================

Children and dogs are good judges of character.

=======================================

241. Nine Emperor Gods Festival

Today is the last day of the 9 emperor gods festival.

The festival is celebrated over the first nine days of the ninth moon in the Chinese lunar calendar. Devotees flock to the temples throughout the country for this religious festival. The Nine Emperor Gods are part of a spirit-medium cult known locally as ‘Jieu Hwang Yeh’. These Nine Deities are believed to dwell in the stars in northern heaven under the reign of ‘Thien Hou’ - the Queen of Heaven. They are believed to preside over blessings, life and death, peace and harmony on Earth. Thus the focus of rituals during the nine-day festival acts as a channel between celestial and terrestrial beings for the salvation and protection of mankind.

On the eve of the ninth moon, temples of the Deities hold a ceremony to invoke and welcome the ‘Jieu Hwang Yeh’. Since the arrival of the Nine Emperor Gods is believed to be through the waterways, processions are held from temples to the sea-shore or river to symbolise this belief. Devotees dressed in traditional white, carrying joss-sticks and candles, await the arrival of their “Excellencies”. A carnival-like atmosphere pervades the temple throughout the nine-day festival. During this period of time, the constant chiming of a prayer bell and chants from the temple priests are heard. Most devotees stay at the temple, take vegetarian meals and recite continuous chanting of prayers. A procession to send the Nine Emperor Gods home then takes place to complete the rites of this religious festival.

To welcome the Nine Emperors, mediums wielding axes and swords will perform evening rituals on odd numbered days. The spirits of the gods are entertained in the temple grounds with Chinese opera performances and fire-walking sessions.

The Nine Emperors are the Chinese version of Robin Hood, who during the Qing dynasty robbed the rich and gave to the poor. According to legend, they were cornered at a seaside by soldiers, but a giant red turtle came to their rescue and ferried them to safety on Tow Boo Keong island.

Devotees throng to the Tow Boo Keong Temple in Ipoh, one of the oldest temples in Malaysia, and Temples of the Star Deities like the Nan Thien Kwang in Ampang, in Kuala Lumpur.


A photo taken near the Gold Coast apartments. It seems the processions ends near here

______________________________

My Random Thots:

Learnt a new lesson today from Wee. Don't test people! Just move with the flow. Most people will fail. So will I. There are many different reasons. That shouldn't be the focus.

On a more negative note, someone stole my rims and tires from my car :(

REWARD FOR INFO LEADING TO THE ARREST OR CASTRATION OF THE PERPETRATORS