... then nothing will ever be busy.
Moz Monster's itinerary:
Nov 30-Dec 1 - Singapore - Work
Dec 3 - Dec 7 - Manila, Philippines - More Work
Dec 9 - Dec 13 - Hanoi, Vietnam - Thank goodness this is a holiday !!! =)
Entries might be sparse, unless something interesting comes along in my travels. Do check, I have been known to be unable to beat off the temptation to blog something ...
Duty free requests will not be entertained.
You know what they say about getting phonecalls at very odd hours?
That it's probably one of two extremes - either very good news, or very bad news.
One year ago, on this day, it was VERY bad news.
I remember the phone ringing that woke me up at around 6-ish in the morning. I normally sleep very soundly, and phonecalls don't wake me up. Something was different that morning. But I didn't think twice about it. My mum, who was overnighting in my place, picked it up.
When I later woke up to prepare myself for work (I had some really early morning work, and I was planning to work from home that day ...) ... my sister told me the bad news.
Our cousin called her.
Grandma has passed away.
There are moments that language fail to describe. The depth of despair that amplify the sense of hollowness in your soul, the sudden onset of sadness that simply drop your spirit to its lowest point. English doesn't have enough vocabulary to even scratch the surface when it comes to describing how I felt then.
We dropped everything. My sister and I took emergency leave ... I let the Hong Kong project team run the show. We took the long journey to Kluang. It's normally a long journey ... but that day, it felt even longer than usual.
The coming days were a lot of soul searching, reinforcement of family ties and closure for many of us.
Grandma had been suffering - her passing away, in some ways, was her release from her worldly pains. I, for one, while sad to see her go, was happy for her as well. I see it as closure. I'd appreciate it if you disagree to keep it to yourself.
And with the soul searching, I took a new direction in my own life. One year is a lot of time if you are willing to change.
Over and above all I owe her when she was with us, I owe her a lot too now ...
My chinese sucks, but if you do read blogs from heaven, grandma ... "我很想念你。。很久没在梦里见到你。我想，你现在比以前快乐。"
I always knew this would be a hectic week. Just how hectic it turned out to be, turned out to be a big surprise. I literally woke up this morning with a headache, from all the lack of sleep and the amount of work that materialised. I went back to bed to give myself the best chance of recovery.
Just look at the calendar for the week. And that's just the confirmed meetings ...
Thursday and Friday was spent in Bangkok. Arrived at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport for the first time. I like the fact that I cleared Immigration really quickly. But it was chaotic on the inside. And our place parked far away from the terminal and we had to be bussed into the terminal. So, why do you build the world's largest airport terminal and have planes park away from it?
On the positive, it's really huge. Like huge. Like you better check in and be in the airport an hour before your flight time. There must be a few Changis worth of duty free ... and plenty of food joints. It's definately a nice airport. So when it rained and I had a lot of time to kill in the airport, I sat down at this observation deck bar and had a nice, cold beer. *buuuuurp* ... there goes my week of gym work ...
Thursday and Friday were a blur of meetings, preparing the meeting materials and nice food after the meetings.
Food highlights is from dinner at the Erawan tearoom. Anyone who serves lemongrass tea is good in my books. Everyone should try this drink at least once.
Just glad it's over.
Dear Silver Proton Waja With Heavy Tinting Bling Stickers And Stupid Halogen Light,
First of all, I would like to apologize to you for having to eat my fumes all throughout the LDP stretch. It must be no fun. I would also like to apologize to you for nearly losing control of your car. That must suck. I hope you will find someway to nurse your ego back.
As you would now have learnt, Proton Wajas are no match for me. Not even if you try. Not even if you ate a few babies for fuel before hand. And no, not even after Lotus tuned it. I hope that is absolutely clear to you.
While I make it clear to everyone that I drive nicely, and appear to be a domesticated road user, I was once a daredevil like you too. And I became smart - while still in my Proton, I realised that Protons can speed, but they don't necessarily stop when you want them too. I offer to share this piece of important advise with you.
Granted, all cars travelling at very high speeds would have problems stopping rapidly. However, I would like to point out that you inferior Proton doesn't have ABS. It can't do EBD. When you want it to stop, it acts in funny ways. Well, not really funny considering lifes are at risk. But you get my point. My humble little City has got that ABS and EBD thingy that you don't. My ability to stop rapidly would probably be as good (or as bad) as your car's, but at least I have some control over my car's steering while under braking.
And while you might point out your car is a 1.6 car vs my paltry 1.5 car, I would like to remind you that engine capacity counts for little. I believe my car accelerates better that yours. Just like it stops better.
And finally, next time, on any road which you share with users like me, please, don't be a fool and flash your halogen lights at me. Or anyone else. It's not as if I am delaying you. It's not like cars on the LDP would part as if it's the Red Sea under Moses' control if you continously flashed your lights at all the cars.
And believe me, it shrinks your ego to the size of a subatomic particle when you flash your lights at someone and then get soundly pwned. Understand or not?
But more than anything else, it ain't your ego, it's the other people on the road, ok ?
One more thing, next time, when I pull away, get smart lah ... don't start racing. Otherwise, you eat fumes.
It's James Bond season again. Once in a while, when a new Bond movie comes around, the whole world stops and watch.
Pierce Brosnan was a slick Bond, but he appeared more capable of talking his way out of situations than blasting the enemy to pieces. I like him, but I wanted a bit more grit. And when they announced the new Bond - Daniel Craig ... I thought ... Daniel who ? But from the teasers, this is a gritty Bond .... I like what I'm seeing.
That said, it's probably time to break my self imposed cinema ban and step back into a movie theather. But you know, there are many movies where you realise after watching that the best bits were the ones in the trailer. So, I'll be watching closely to see if there are any differences in the new Bond movie that might render this movie limp ...
Some sins, you can repent and maybe forgiven for committing.
Some sins, you simply have to wait out in the purgatory of guilt.
Yet some other sins, you simply have to conquer with retail theraphy. I committed one in this category ...
When sometime last month, I decided to part ways with the first MozPod, a 4GB iPod Mini which had served me well for more than a year, I never imagined the guilt that I would face.
True, I wanted to sell it because I want the new iPod nano ... but I sold it first without replacing it immediately, because iPods are more expensive in Malaysia. I was waiting for a trip to Singapore or Hong Kong where it's cheaper ...
But the trips never came !!!! ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!
So, when I got this package hand delivered to me by a colleague who came in from Singapore ... I was deliriuos with joy ... it costs SGD331 from the airport duty free ... which prices it around RM 790. Compare that to the Malaysian price of RM939.
I hereby christen you ... MozPod Jr. You are from a lineage of impeccable pedigree. You are born to please, to serve and to play nice songs to Moz ...
It's sooooooOOOoOoooOOooOoooOOOOOOOoooo small, a 1 ringgit note easily outsize it. Heck, you can make a simple, economical wrapper for the iPod nano using a 1 ringgit note. And it's really cheap ... only 1 ringgit.
I love this iPod - the menus are better, and improved compared to the previous MozPod's. And it's so smalll. Just looks at it when placed next to the skin of the old MozPod ... it's teeny ...
Did I mention it's small?
Some days, it just doesn't pay to step out of the door.
I worked from home today. Had a very long night oyesterday, felt a little under the weather this morning. But not bad enough that I can't work. Just bad enough I don't need traffic congestion, bad take away food and wasting 2 hours on the commute.
So, I decided to stay home and do my work.
How hard is it? Or how different is it?
Well ... when there's a lot of work to be done, there's a lot of work to be done. Where you do the work doesn't quite matter.
The plus is there ... dress as casually as you want, sit in whatever posture you wish, save petrol and time, the aroma of incense / joss stick / perfumed wood grain wafting in the air ...
And so are the minuses ... it's your HOME ?? Why are you working there?
But, tomorrow, it's back to the office ... *sigh*
Sundays. Sien. The last day of your weekend. The day before the blues hit again. That day.
I was really caught in a bind today. Dunno what to do. Caught in the classic Sunday dillema. How lah?
I don't like to shop, so you can scrap retail theraphy. I am very mindful of where my $$$ end up, so you'll find me super budget concious. And no fun to shop with, anyway.
The weather sucked too. Right around 2 pm everyday, or maybe just a little later, heaven would open up. Rain. Every golfer's worst nightmare. Even if it doesn't dump water during your game, you can bet that most courses in Malaysia can't handle all that water, and you end up with very damp, muddy courses. Sien.
Add to that the fact that it usually rained around the same time when I jog, and you get a double whammy.
That sucky weather affects Astro reception. I wonder which brilliant soul thought that all Malaysians should have satellite TV systems, fully aware that we live in a place where rain is common. So much for TV. Triple whammy.
Eat out? Nah, besides my bulging tummy and my hurt wallet, I'm not a great fan of eating out. Not when in town anyways.
So, today, I signed up at Fitness First ... and decided that if I can't do anything else, I should do something for myself. Lately, I have not been feeling as energetic as I could be. And I felt like my stamina could improve a little.
And of course, 2 years off the gym and travelling to all the places in the world with great food meant that I put on the pounds. I'm way off my ideal body weight, and I think I should start working out now, while it's still possible for me to get rid of those excess fat.
Ah ... the irregular 30 Things You Don't Know About Moz posts is about to get a shot in the arm: an entry.
Look folks, please flood me with memes and tags because I'm really running low on ideas for new entries. The politics in this country hasn't been yielding anything really funny to write about. There aren't any big news I can make fun about. *Sigh*
Anyways ... in this new, irrelevant, and disinformative post about Moz, you're about to discover that Moz is an aromatheraphy fan ...
Yup, imagine scented candles and joss sticks burning fragrantly in Moz's room.
And on the subject of joss sticks, daisy commented about one of my pictures in the Green Monster post. Green Monster was me submitting my assignment to angeliuliu - I needed to post 6 mindless but color coordinated pictures to fulfill the assignment.
The first picture was a close up of my joss stick holder. daisy mentioned it was chan yang - that's cruel in cantonese for the unititiated.
Er ... it's a ceramic joss stick holder I got as a present from one of my friends who visited me and tumpanged in my apartment when I was working in Bangkok. It's really harmless ... I can assure daisy that no animals were harmed in the making of the joss stick holder.
See?
Oh, he's called Wibbit. And he's smiling too !!!
Angeliuliu gave me an assignment. Said she wanted to see more photos. *Next time, just ask me to bring laptop lah*
Her assignment is not easy ... it had to be color coordinated photo. And from the looks of it, there needed to be some color theme to it too. Anyways, since Moz has good vibes about Angeliuliu, he filtered thru piles and piles and sorted MB upo MB of photos in his quest to please Angeliuliu.
So, ok. Moz being a monster, is obviously a fan of the color GREEN. Yeah, green. How hard is it to make the color green stand out? Very.
So, I picked 5 green photos and 1 not so green, but extremely color coordinated photo for the viewing pleasure of angeliuliu and my 5, maybe 6 dedicated readers.
Enjoy.
My green joss stick holder.
Rice. The essense of life for most Asians.
Drops of water on a lotus leave.
See the ants? Scene from the Putrajaya Botanical Gardens.
Guardian watching over Bali rice terraces.
The not so green picture ... sandstone Buddha head rested on the roots of a bodhi tree in the compounds of Wat Mahathat in Ayuthaya, Thailand. The color just blends, no?La la la .. la la la la la ... la la la ... la la la la la ...
Suggestions, anyone? Fascinating as it seems, visited Hanoi a few times, but it was always about work. So, what's good in Hanoi?
Yesterday, while waiting for my turn to be served at the KFC counter near my office, I overheard a little conversation behind me in the queue.
Two college girls and a college guy (I'm making an assumption they're from college based on their appearance, clothing and demenour) were debating which KFC meal deal they should get to maximize their $$$.
Was this the best deal for their $$$?
What if they mixed this meal with that?
What about the drinks?
How much would 1 piece of chicken come up to?
What if they didn't take any meals?
Or could they just get sky juice?
That conversation sounded familiar. About 10 years ago, me and my friends from college would have sounded EXACTLY like that.
Despite what people say about rich college kids and how the younger folks have more $$$, I realise there are many more who just get by with a modest budget. 10 years ago, KFC meal is for ocassions like when you finish your exams, when a friend is dropping out of college, on someone's birthday - you know, the special ocassions.
Today, if I choose to (and I don't) ... I can have KFC meals whenever I want to. What a difference 10 years make.
I'm thankful for all the hard knocks I have taken, and I'm thankful for all the lessons I had to learn. And I look forward to the knocks and the lessons that I will have to go through in the future. Mum always said that if as a baby, we were all afraid to fall when learning to walk, we'd all be a race of crawlers ...
Each one made me that much better, that much smarter, and that much more thankful for my life.
And that's what growing up is all about, isn't it?
One year ago, around this day, I was feeling really bad about myself, and about my life. Read the archives for 2005. You might see a much darker side to me sticking out from time to time.
No more. What difference time makes.
