haPpiE nEw yeAr 2004!

the downside to today is i have to stay back in the office. the chairman's having his new year's party (cocktail & dinner!) up at the glam 22nd floor. i'll try to get the pics for u to drool at - all my colleagues agree the decor is simply stunning! each of the meeting rooms have been dolled up in various theme colours. they've used streamers made out of sequins to double up as curtains to each rooms. and scattered the same sequins on the laced tables together with candles in champagne glasses. *_*

it sounds kinda sucky having to stay back in the office next to the graveyard just to help out at a party for your bosses, but i'll be going off to countdown with my friends at church after that. that will be much much much better than staying back till midnight (like 2 of my colleagues) at the office! :P

time to count my blessings and remember the good/bad times :)

Michael Bublé

Have you heard of Michael Bublé?

I fell in love with his voice when i heard "Sway" on the airwaves. This must be another golden oldie, I thought to myself. His voice reminded me of Frank Sinatra. I may not be an expert on those music from my parents' era, but I can tell you I prefer songs and music from the 60's and 70's compared to those of the 80's! Imagine mismatched clothes, big shoulderpads, bright colours and thick kohl-lined eyes and that's enough to put me off :P

What a surprise when I found out he's only 25! If you were to take a black-and-white (or even sepia) photo of him, blur it a little and look at it while his song is being played, you'd be transported back in time.

I think I shall add this to my wish list for next year's birthday! :)

the christmas that was...

... quite happening! :D

had a few parties, got some really nice pressies and had a steady stream of delayed christmas wishes over the sms.

somehow the maxis network got flooded with too many messages flying about that i didn't get most of my read receipts. i was left wondering whether my friends got my wishes.

celcom was worse. my brother sent me a message in the morning. i only received it about 10 hours later! i also sent a christmas greeting to irene, which strangely was only recipocrated 12 hours later. upon reading the time stamp on the message did i realise it was replied almost immediately, but delayed over the networks.

it was tough having to decide which sms should remain in my phone, while i had to delete some to make way for incoming ones. although my sim card has the capability to store 20 messages, i could only hold about 15 or 16 at one time. some sms' were really sweet, especially those with text arts. some people just have so much time to create flowers, bears and blinking christmas trees! i also liked the one which goes :

"NOTICE : Christmas has been cancelled and it's all because of YOU. i told Santa that you've been good all year...





He died laughing!!!"

ahh... the wonders of technology!

LOTR 3 : ROTK

legolas is still the mostest cutest!!!! :D

ok, fine. maybe he's like the only cute actor around in the show, so i can't help but gush over him.

too bad he had minor roles in the last installment. the hobbits seem to be the main actors this time around. i think i'm gonna re-watch LOTR 2 again. LOL!

what a great way to start my christmas hols!

of porcelain gifts

was just rummaging through my gifts box. some of my pressies are still in their boxes and the wrapping intact. was actually looking for some christmas decor.

i saw a few porcelain gifts, one of which was a white angel with a garland around her. this was a christmas gift from one of my grrlfrens some years back. this would be perfect on top of the television! i took it out, washed out the dust and carefully put it next to the christmas cards. there, that should set some christmas mood in the living room.

but that's not wat this post is about. i'm trying to say i have too many of those porcelain gifts which i do not know what to do with, or where to put them. no offence to those dear friends who have been scratching their heads trying to think of something sweet to give me, but what do i do with a porcelain figurine of a boy holding a teddy bear sitting on a rock? or this victorian-era looking woman in those mary-poppins gown, also made out of porcelain?

if it was a porcelain trinket box, that would be have been more useful. besides collecting dust, it also keeps my rings and bracelets. or a photoframe with a porcelain frame. besides making the task of cleaning the frame a little tedious, it also holds my favourite photos.

but, tell me, what do i do with porcelain figurines???

of the rush job

On Thursday morning, boss emails me about this job that has to be completed in a week's time. Project brief: powerpoint presentation on the company by the Big Big Big Boss, to be presented to the dep. PM of thailand.

As soon as I see the title of the VIP, i start panicking. What the...? Me? A corporate profile to be shown to the 2nd top guy in our neighbouring country??

I am already imagining myself suntanning with the Aussie hunks in the beaches of Phuket or shopping away in Bangkok. If he liked my presentation enough, perhaps I would be rewarded with a free trip to Thailand! heheh...

But reality starts to sink in. Real fast. My boss didn't say anything much, just some details of what had to go into the presentation. I have to think of the layout, design, sequence, information, who to get the various data from, and of course, the animation. And the Big Big Big Boss is known to be rather fussy over details. He even came up with his own anthem for the company!

If I was given, say, 2 weeks at least, I'd be able to come up with something reasonably good. But because boss is going off on her christmas holidays next week, I have to rush and come up with something mediocre. :(

I just hope when I present the draft to her tomorrow, she'd be gracious enough to accept my humble work!

the botizen named angel

Seeing that Bengie had a little chat with Ms Angel, I decided to check her out too. Maybe she ain't that bad, you know.

Me : Good morning angel
Angel : *Yawn* same to you, Snoflek.
Me : Did you have a good sleep?
Angel : I'm glad.
Me : er, ok. Good to know you had a glad, i mean good sleep.
Angel : You can have BOTizen Lite ASP for $100 a month and you will save $400 if you choose yearly plan. Click our purchase page for more info on BOTizen Lite."
Me : What if I don't want to have BOTizen?
Angel : BOTizen is a Cyber Customer Service Agent that automates your CRM activities. BOTizen engages your customers online and while assisting web site administration at the same time. Here, Snoflek. I've brought up just a little more information on the BOTizen."
Me : Can you say something else?
Angel : This might sound a bit funny, .. something else.. "
Me : Ok, let's try this. How old are you?
Angel : Please, Snoflek. I am a lady. Be nice.
Me : I am a lady too, but I'm not interested in you in that way!
Angel : Please, Snoflek. How do you expect to pick up any girls that way
Me : Fine then. We'll chat more next time.
Angel : Sure, Snoflek. I was getting bored of the silence anyway
Me : What the ....?!
Angel : I couldn't say for sure, Snoflek.

* sighs.. i give up! *

you'd never guess what happened yesterday...

My mum picked me up so that we could do a bit of christmas shopping after work. Just after paying for the parking ticket and walking no more than a few steps, her phone rang.

I didn't care much coz I thought it was one of her church friends. But after talking for awhile, her steps slowed down and her face looked strange. I gently nudged her to the side as she continued the conversation.

"What?! You sure it's my car?... Yeah, it was parked at the road side... right opposite my house..." Something must've happened to mum's car as she looked troubled.

Later as we got back into the parking lot, mum told me that it was the Siamese neighbour who called. Seemed that someone had banged into my mums' car, banged into the bumper road sign, and finally banged into the wall of Kesas highway.

Thus began a series of phone calls to friends and neighbours in our housing area. Mum was trying to get someone to check out the situation while we tried to get home as fast as possible. I was more interested in seeing the damage. How could anyone have banged through the sound barrier of Kesas highway?

As we neared our house, we saw cars and people surrounding the accident area. Thank God my mum's car wasn't THAT badly damanged, but the guy's Wira was stuck at the wall. I was like, "Good grief!!! If that guy didn't brake in time, he'd have flown through the wall and onto the Kesas highway!!" That would be a sight.

And you'd see that car on the front page in your newspapers today.

imposter alert!

hmm, methinks there's an imposter out there trying to impersonate snoflek.
so far, he's posted 2 comments and signed off as "snoflek".

is there something i can do about it? hmm.. like track who was the imposter.. oh, that will not do, coz it won't tell others who he is. or, maybe i can sign off in a way which is only uniquely me...

but at least i know he means no harm. well, at least that's what he said lar!

i need to ...

... sleep!

this is the 2nd week i'm beginning to dread driving to work!

the blockage at the NKVE is still not cleared and the traffic from there is clogging the federal highway. even though i stay back and lepak around pj until 9pm, the jam is still there! *horrors*

worse comes to worse, i'm gonna park at tmn jaya and take a nap. might as well do something productive instead of getting stuck at the crawl :P

kiasu/inpired?

when i introduced the world of bloggering to john, i didn't realise it would be a competition.

the first week of my blog saw a rather plain looking, obviously-taken-from-a-template webpage with enlarged fonts and minimal links. i took my time to refine the look by tweaking the codes.

when his page was up, i could see that he had carefully thought out the layout before displaying it for the world to see. he had comments, tag-board, cute picture of a wine bottle and glass, and a breezy cool look to his page. plus, some philosophical view of life as compared to a glass of wine.

i knew i had to do something about mine. (let's not use the word kiasu, i prefer "being inspired"!) so i changed the font sizes, enabled the title bar, added my blogchalk and changed my comments to snowflakes. nothing spectacular, but at least it looks better now.

and now he wants to get a guestbook so that he can "go one up against" me. bleh :P

wondering whether i can add snow flake cursortrails....

comments

yay! i've got my comments feature up. feel free to leave your snowprints around :)

hmm...

my boss approached me just 10 minutes before balik time and asked me if i could come up with an interactive website. my first thought was "not another one!" you see, i was hired to do some major touchup to the company's website. but until today, i have not even touched it because i've been creating websites for our subsidiary companies.

i'm not shying away from what's supposed to be my job responsibilities. but this is too much! i've been here 2 years, and i'm still not doing what i was hired to in the first place :P

actually, this sub company was about to hire a so-called professional web consultant to do the job for a smooth rm18k. my boss had earlier said that i was busy with the main website, so they brought in the pros. when she heard how much they were going to be paid, she stepped in and offered to do the job for rm10k instead.

meaning, i'm going to do freelance and earn rm10k. well, that's a pretty kewl offer, but i don't wanna be unnecessarily excited in case she was just joking. what kinda boss asks her staff to do freelance??

:)

today feels like a good day. i woke up early to escape the morning madness of the past 2 days. and God blessed me with a sunshiny morning. :)

i hope the rest of the day will be as sunshiny as well!

of the morning crawl to work

the traffic was so so unbearable today! i thought it would be as smooth as yesterday, considering that the fasting period is over and it's still the school holidays. but noooooo, everybody decided to come out at the same time, the clouds cried, and the obstruction at the NKVE wasn't completely cleared yet.

driving out of the usj area into subang, cars were whizzing by. however, they started to slow down at the subang traffic lights. little did i know this was the beginning of a horrendous drive to work. i pressed on the odometer to reset it. when it clocked 5km, i was still in subang, and that was 1 hour after i had left the house!

there was no way i could turn back and feign sickness, and escape the nightmare that was before me. i was already halfway there, might as well go through the whole thing and pray that my boss will forgive my lateness.

so there i was, crawling along federal highway with the rest of the valley folks. it was still drizzling and many were impatient to get to work. anyways, i finally arrived at work 45 minutes late. that means i will have to stay back and replace the lost hours. wooohoo! :P

dress sense

i bumped into a colleague from a neighbouring department while washing hands in the wc. as she eyed me from top to toe, she made some comments on how i was dressed in blacks, a lot. i told her black was a very easy colour to match, especially when it comes to black slacks or black cardigan, or black hair even.

then she said "aiyo, amoi! you manyak slim, cantik dan muda lagi... mestilah pakai colour-colour lain!" for awhile there, i didn't know how to interpret her comment. the first part sounded like a compliment. but the latter sounded as if i have limited colours/clothes in my wardrobe, which also sounded like an insult.

i always thought i had considerably OK dress sense. while i don't have the moolah to buy each lovely dress i set my eyes on, i do try to wear classy pieces hopefully to suit the occasion. if you were to see me on the street, i wouldn't stand out too much coz my clothes ain't loud nor too outdated. i would probably look like one of those young urban yuppie trying to make an impression in the office! :D

i daresay my taste is quite good for i've received compliments before. so therefore, this was a strange comment. since i do not know how to make of it, i will take it as a constructive comment.

now... who's game for some shopping? hehe....

the one i call "dad"

i was just having a chat on icq with my "dad". been calling him dad since my industrial training days. i was working in this e-commerce firm in pj together with a classmate then. chatting over y! messenger was our way of communicating with the outside world. over the 3 month period, we kept in touch with our friends in uni and those who were based all over the country for training.

dad was the most unlikely person whom you would just call "dad". most of the time, he looked like an unshaven grunge rock artist strolling around on campus with his cap pulled back the wrong way. often times i found myself saying hi to this person who was singing the latest hit song to himself. but deep inside, he was really a sweet kinda guy.

since he was still studying in campus and had all the luxuries of campus life (read : 24-hour internet connection), he would sometimes message us and just say hi. when my friend and i were bored with office work, we would start a yahoo conference and chat ourselves silly. he would always end with "take care, i'll miss you and love you lots". very unexpected if you knew how he looked like!

so we decided to call him "dad". my friend and i ended up as his "daughters".

anyways, back to the story of me and him icq-ing one late night. at the same time, a guy messaged me. i had known him a few months back, but never met. so i told my dad about it.

me : hey, guess wat? some guy's trying to kacau me.
dad : over icq? who's he?
me : dunno, some guy i met thru icq. we've been chatting off n on for some time, but i hvnt actually met him lar
dad : who's he lar?
me : some 20-something catholic male, working in singapore, interested in photography n trying to impress me by making cheesecake
dad : lonesome male trying to pick you up. i must admit, he's got good taste though *grin*
me : haahah.. of course! how could it be any less when the dad's a trusted brand himself...
dad : awwwwwwwww....thank you thank you.... now you better be careful with these types. they're surely up to no good, n arent interested in anything serious.
me : ok dad.. i know what you mean. told you i dun really layan him.
dad : in any case, be careful ok?
me : dont worry lar. i wont end up eloping with him and running off to singapore.. haahah...

that wasn't exactly how we ended the chat, but we always had a father-daughter kinda conversation online. haven't met up with dad for a long time already. wonder how he looks like now...

piggin' out

I am totally zombified after getting only 2 hours of sleep last night. Must've been the 2 days of Hari Raya, been sleeping till early noon. After having brunch and doing some reading, dozed off to another few hours of afternoon nap. It's been some time since I did this - marathon sleeping. The last was during my uni holidays. What bliss it was. Waking up to a cool afternoon after a morning downpour, looking at the clock, recalling for a moment and realising that it's a holiday after all. Then snuggling back into bed and having the luxury to sleep some more.

I'm beginning to sound like a pig. ^@^

grOsS!

my, my, i didn't know i could actually post something as erm, gross as the prev post. LOL

anyways, i'm feeling great today *grin*. that's the wonder of being a woman. the mood swings - sometimes you feel terribly down and ugly, other times you feel wonderfully beautiful!

i got 2 mentions in johnsee's blog! tinge of sarcasm, i noted. :> hmm... now i feel the urge to do something about MY blog. haven't actually sat down to add comments and watnots.

growing pains

i wonder if *this* is worse than labour pains. it certainly feels as if an alien is growing inside of me and can't wait to explode outta my abdomen.

i wonder whether there are any other easier ways of being a grrl without having *this*. this almost killed me the whole morning.

i wonder whether giving birth will be any less painful for those who are having something as *this* painful. :D

*whew*

now i can breathe a sigh of relief. vacation bible school 2003 is finally over! no more typing of kids' names, their parents' names, contact numbers, age, sex and t-shirt size. i have been adding & editing the details every day for the past week or so.

even though the dateline is far over, malaysian parents tend to think that as long as the event hasn't started, there is no such thing as a dateline. for every name that comes in, i have to allocate a slot, check for errors, sort out the whole file in alphabetical order, renumber the list, and make sure that MS excel doesn't screw up the dates. you see, in some parts of the world, dates are in this order : mm/dd/yy, whereas in malaysia its usually written in the format of dd/mm/yy. and after this list is done, i have to carefully extract 4 columns out and paste them into another file for the attendance list. and of course, there are the boxes that form the table, highlighting of parents who will be helping out during the 3 days, parents who are only going for the outing, and and kids who will be staying over.

now before you think i dislike doing this, let me tell you that it's not as bad as it seems. seriously. not when you have committee members who are there to help you laminate the name tags, burn the ends of the string so they don't fray, and help keep the typos in check. :)

plus, the kids can be really wonderful. the last 3 days of vbs has been quite an experience for me. personally, i never really liked the idea of handling kids, not when they start screaming for attention or cry for no apparent reason. the ones who were under my charge were pretty adorable. they look at you with dopey eyes and think you're some god. some demi-god who can take away their pain and answer all their questions. ok, maybe that was an exaggeration. but you know what i mean. they look up to you. and all of a sudden, you start acting all mature and responsible. LOL!

at the end of the 2nd day, when simone & i were winding down, we shared with each other about the antics of the children that day. she was sitting down with jayse, this 8-year-old girl, who showed her her "diary". in it jayse wrote about the day's events. there was also a page where she listed her favourite people. under the "favourite teachers" column, she wrote "teacher simone & teacher mee keng". i was like "aww, that's so sweet!" i never really considered myself a teacher of any sort, whatmore a children's teacher.

so i guess, children ain't that bad after all!

have your mammies grammed

For years and years they told me,
Be careful of your breasts.
Don't ever squeeze or bruise them.
And give them monthly tests.


So I heeded all their warnings,
And protected them by law.
Guarded them very carefully,
And I always wore my bra.


After 30 years of astute care,
My gyno, Dr Pruitt,
Said I should get a Mammogram
"OK," I said, "let's do it."


"Stand up here real close" she said,
(She got my boob in line),
"And tell me when it hurts," she said,
"Ah yes! Right there, that's fine."


She stepped upon a pedal,
I could not believe my eyes!
A plastic plate came slamming down,
My hooter's in a vise!


My skin was stretched and mangled,
From underneath my chin.
My poor boob was being squashed,
To Swedish Pancake thin.


Excruciating pain I felt,
Within it's viselike grip.
A prisoner in this vicious thing,
My poor defenseless tit!


"Take a deep breath" she said to me,
Who does she think she's kidding?!?
My chest is mashed in her machine,
And woozy I am getting.


"There, that's good," I heard her say,
(The room was slowly swaying.)
"Now, let's have a go at the other one."
Have mercy, I was praying.


It squeezed me from both up and down,
It squeezed me from both sides.
I'll bet SHE'S never had this done,
To HER tender little hide.


Next time that they make me do this,
I will request a blindfold.
I have no wish to see again,
My knockers getting steam rolled.


If I had no problem when I came in,
I surely have one now.
If there had been a cyst in there,
It would have gone "ker-pow!"


This machine was created by a man,
Of this, I have no doubt.
I'd like to stick his balls in there,
And see how THEY come out!

matrix, anyone?

I got this in my mail this morning :

A hilarious two-minute animated short called "The Meatrix" has exploded across the web, putting a comic spin on an uncomfortable issue -- factory
farming.

Watch it now: The Meatrix

* * * * * * *

On the other hand, a Matrix-freak friend of mine offered his version of the movie : Leonng.com.

breezy driving

Driving to work today was a breeze. It felt like driving on a Sunday. Traffic lights changed colours in mere seconds. Only 5 rows of cars in each lane, or less. No crazy road bully tailgating at your back. Cars zooming down the ramp from Subang to the Federal Highway. No unnecessary pressing of the brakes when cars start to clog up the road.

That was until I reached the Motorola bridge. Whoa... it hit me that it wasn't Sunday after all. It is only Wednesday, the middle of the week. The day where Selangor, and some other states like Kelantan, Pahang & Perlis has a public holiday - the Nuzul Quran. Whereas, the rest of the country has to go to work. So all these people who are on the road are the ones who are working in KL.

No doubt, Selangor-ians will be having a gala time doing some festive shopping, since Hari Raya is near the corner. They will be coming down to KL to shop in places like Berjaya Times Square, Lot 10, Bukit Bintang, Maju Junction, and Midvalley Mega Mall. Oh dear, that would mean more traffic jams when I drive home later :(

If only everyday was like this :D Less stress on the road, less accidents, less hogging, lower blood pressure! No need to wake up so early LOL.

can this actually be done?

it has been raining for the past few evenings. the sky looks gloomy and so downcast. some would say the gods are crying. i'd say it's still a beautiful day. rain or shine.

but i prefer rainy days. especially when i get to snuggle in bed. covered from toe to chin in my softest blanket. tucked in with a good book. cuddled in a foetal position with the warm glow of the bed lamp by my side. sipping a frothy cup of milo. and then fall asleep with the rain pattering on the windows.

dj for the day

my ex-housemate, Adele recently got invited to be a guest DJ for Red104.9 (a local radio station) for today's breakfast show (The Kick Start with Terry and Shareena). She had the privilege of extending the invitation to 3 other friends to join her.

so even though i couldn't be on air with her, i managed to tune into Red104.9 this morning on the way to work. heard shareena introducing some songs and trying to chat with her co-DJ's. but the rest were barely audible. either their mikes were far or there was too much muffles in the studio. another ex-housemate noted that she could hear adele's laughter thru the muffles tho! LOL.

i sometimes wonder what it's like being a DJ. must you be articulate, chatty and know lots about music? or have a good sense of humour and able to connect to your listeners? or just have that charm that transcends the airwaves... whatever it is, i guess it must be comforting to know that you can be anonymous and not worry about your appearances. dress simply for work. have a good cup of coffee while the music plays. play your favourite songs the whole day (well, almost!)

daylight robbery

just the other day, the CEO's secretary sent an email out to all staff that all executives are supposed to pay RM15 as a contribution for the CEO's birthday gift. i noticed that at the bottom of her email : all managers, asst managers, presidents, asst vice pres & vice presidents had to fork out some amount of $$$ as well (of course, something >rm15). can you imagine, if everyone were to heed her email, he would be getting a complete set of brand new titanium golf clubs for his coming birthday! this is daylight robbery, i tell ya!

no one knows whether the CEO himself had a hand in this directive or whether his secretary just wants to $uck up to him. but i do remember when i was updating the corporate website, the CEO was "upset" that his face was not in the list of BODs. how could that be, when he wasn't part of the BOD of the holdings company?! he seems to like all the attention he's getting ever since he got promoted as the new CEO some months back.

anyways, i reluctantly parted with my (hard-earned!) rm15. i must admit though, that i needn't have had to. so what if he blacklists me and makes sure i do not get promoted/have a bigger increment next year?

to do or not to do...

wow, i didn't realise maintaining a blog needs discipline. feel so guilty for not writing for so long!

am in a state of semi-euphoria. i understand what Irene is going thru, coz i'm going thru the same thing as well! hehe... that attraction thingy again. but i'm not as excited as her, coz i hardly know that guy. you see, i was interested in which guy she described as "quite cute". so when i happened to sit at the same table as him (unknowingly, of course), she came by and started giving me "that look". i was like, "oh!". :o)

i just realised i shouldn't divulge too much coz this is for public reading! anyways, i am still learning how to blog.. so lemme know what a blogger should/shouldn't do, yeah...

i'm officially blogged on!

hey there! i got introduced to this blog by some friends of mine who have already blogged for ages. seeing that it actually links and brings people together, i decided to give it a go. so here i am, posting my first entry into my very own blog :)