Thursday 6 December 2007

i am obese!

our kompeni had a free health fair in the hq for 2 days where panel doctors and hospitals come over for free physical check-ups for the employees, courtesy of the panels i guess. all sorts of health barometer checks were provided, ranging from the normal blood pressure, urine sample, blood cholesterol up to a miniature camera probe into your ear canals to display the beauty inside and a rare opportunity to look at your own ear drums and displayed on a huge 29" inch tv for everybody to see.

i have never gone through these physical check-ups after the ones i had before the employment, or was it the check up required for the scholarship many many years ago. the results? nothing spectacular considering the sedentary life that i'm living right now. blood pressure normal at 120/80, urine sample clear of any abnormalities, cholesterol counts slightly above healthy levels, bmi slightly above normal at 26+. i even got to check the strength of my lower back even though i had to go through that little red-faced moment having the cute girl attaching the pad-like electrodes just slightly above the crack of the butt. on top of that, i had to unbuckle and unhook my pants to tuck back my shirt while her face were virtually a few inches behind my bottom in the minuscule makeshift cubicle provided. it must've been that obvious that she assured me there was nothing peculiar while she helped me tuck in the shirt, into the underwear, duh!

however, apparently my body fat ratio is like 26+% also! for the uninitiated, healthy males are supposed to have less than 20% body fat ratio and 20-25% body fat ratio are considered overweight and above that, obese! err, ok i might have the beautiful six-pack hidden nicely under a nice comfortable padding but obese?! let me google the meaning of obese...

from dictionary.com
[quote]o·bese (-bs)
adj.

Extremely fat; very overweight.[/quote]
hmmm! however, the more important fat, visceral fat stands at 11%. not bad considering the maximum level for a healthy man is 10%. just a little bit of exercise and some healthy diet bout will get me within the ideal range.

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so, we are not the all superior human being after all. bumped into this news while perusing the in-tech section of thebintang today.

Tuesday 4 December 2007

what the?!

received this text message at 12:41am this morning on my mobile. incidentally, read by wifey while i was busy on the pc in the other room.

for my english readers, i apologise for not translating because the joke would be lost

[quote]nite abg, tlg la bli ubt ilangkn misai dgN kning..min xpnh tgk pun prduk tu. nnti abg dtg shll, min byaq tau.. bring lar ada blu rma bnyk..[/quote]

in case you were wondering, i didn't get into any trouble of any sort :)

Monday 3 December 2007

his legacy

some of the things he left behind.


anybody for geese eggs? people came from as far as muar to look for those eggs for it's supposedly medicinal properties. or course he had chickens and ducks but they were camera-shy.


he was truly a cat lover. the others were simply not very interested.


he folds and irons his own clothes because mak doesn't do it as neat as he'd like it to be. i might take one of those black imam jubah for souvenirs. somehow, with the exceptions of tight-fitting sleeves, i could fit into it :)


at almost 11 years old, the payung indones1a (hura crepitans) stands at around 12 feet high. he had always wanted to chop down the tree for fear of the crawling roots to be uprooting the perimeter wall in front of it. my usual replies had always been [i]he doesn't need to worry about that. he'd be long gone before the tree grows big enough to uproot the wall.[/i] didn't know it's going to come sooner than later.

and of course,


the binmatsahs. mostly were (at that particular moment, there has been an additional 2 since) here except for my eldest brother's family. they were berayaing on the other side in phg. unfortunately, this photo was taken last year (and of poor quality as well). we didn't take group photo during this year's eid though everybody was around due to some technical complications :(

Friday 30 November 2007

heck, somebody saw me cry

al-fatehah to my dad

wrong timing. wednesday early morning. called my mum. she sounded very sad and ended up sobbing. put down the phone. boss came in to convey his condolences. couldn't even speak to him. damn...

otherwise, i am fine people. life is ok as ok can be. children are healthy. confinement is ending. pockets are burning. and life goes on, likes it or not.

Monday 26 November 2007

he lives on in our hearts

Mohammad Shah bin Halijah 13th.November, 1941 - 21st.November, 2007. Al-Fatehah

if you read my last post here, you might want to know if i made it in time. i did. i was finally at the hospital at 3:00pm on that 21st.November, 2007. had to ask my back door neighbour to take care of that &*^*$#*)%#)(* washing machine.

it wasn't a pretty sight. more tubes and wires and instruments of all sorts were to connected to him. he was no longer breathing on his own. tucked in at the corner of his mouth was what it seems to be painfully attached was the breathing instrument that was supposed to supply oxygen directly into his lungs. and i don't even know what it's called up to now.

at around 5:00pm, i received a sobbing phone call from wifey asking me to go upstairs into the icu waiting area, adamantly refusing to elaborate further while i was having my nicotine fix in the car park. when i got upstairs, i saw everybody, including my calm and collected mum sobbing uncontrollably.

my eldest brother asked me to go and see him once more before delicately explained to me that the neurosurgeon had given us three options. the second ct scan had confirmed that his brain had been eerily damaged beyond recovery due to the massive second stroke attack. the first option is to bombard him with full armaments of antibiotics and drugs while the second option is to let him go through another surgery and leave his skull open to ease off the burgeoning pressure brought about by the second attack on his right brain, even suffocating the left side which was operated on sunday morning. while there was no telling that he could survive both options, the doctor had reconfirmed that he would be unable to care for himself if he survived the ordeal, given how much damage that had been inflicted on the brain by the second massive attack.

the third option was a much simpler alternative. bring him home.

while the initial reactions to this option were outright rejections, especially from my mother and sisters, we collectively decided to bring him home when calmness reigned over chaos. my father had told my mum that he wanted to die on my mum's lap during the eid period last month and she took it as a sign as his final request to be brought home.

so, at 7pm, more than half of the family packed up our belongings that had accumulated over the 7-day period in the hospital to prepare the house which has been left at its own device for his homecoming, leaving my mum, my eldest brother, my youngest sister and my parents' eldest granddaughter at the hospital to accompany him. we waited, and waited, and waited at home.

it was around 10:20pm when one of my sisters burst out of the room at home, crying out loud saying that my father had passed away. few minutes later, i received a phone call from my brother-in-law on the house phone reconfirming the news. they had waited for the surgeon to come over before transferring him to the ambulance. he had passed away while still on the machine when the drugs supporting his heart was disconnected, possibly the only reason why his heart was still beating due in the absence of the devastated brain cells. while my mum was on his bedside all the time, he did not have his wish to draw his last breath on my mum's lap.

the body only arrived home at around 1:00am after all the formalities and documentations had been cleared. and we took turn throughout the night to recite our doa and yaasin.

so many people came over the next day to pay him the last visit that people had to walk up to a mile to find a parking space around my parents'. the sight of him lying there in his white kaffan brought down many mighty men, not to mention women, to tears. except for those occasional crocodile tears welling up in the eyes, i could not even remember any event that had occurred in my life i had cried over. on that day and thereafter, i cried with no shame. he had definitely touched many, if not all, hearts of the people whom has had the pleasure of meeting and knowing him. and he had the opportunity to have 2 of the most community-oriented jobs, a teacher, retiring 11 years ago and was still a serving imam of the local masjid.

seeing him lying motionless in the living room could have easily been mistaken as being in a deep slumber, the bathing time was a real revelation to me of his true state like a huge smack in the face. the sight of unchanged expression on the face when water was poured over the face will be something that is going be imprinted in my mind for many years to come.

he was safely buried at 12:45pm on thursday 22nd.november, 2007 before the dzhuhr' prayer.

he has had a full life. god-willing, to the naked eye, he has also enough preparation for the afterlife. he was such a loving husband to my mum, still holding her hands affectionately even after more than 40 years of marriage and his fatherly traits had simply dwarfed my puny attempt to be one myself. all he had left us were fond memories, blemished by one memory of me showing my displeasure towards him on one minuscule event at my house barely 3 weeks ago of which i sincerely hoped that i have been forgiven.

life has to go on, they say. but at this point of time, my life seems to be dragging its feet lazily, especially when i think about the life that my mum has to go through sans my father. how i wish she has the support of wonderful people around her like what i am receiving now from the others. which reminds me to thank all of you beautiful people for all those well-wishes, comments, phone calls and text messages.

Inna-lillahi wa inna ilaihi ro ji'un. Al-Fatehah.

Wednesday 21 November 2007

i am numbed

received a phone call from my elder brother at 1:30 this morning. unless it is an overseas call, the phone ringing in the wee hours in the morning will never bring good news. never has and never will be.

i was the first person to be informed. my father had another stroke attack on the (good) left side of the brain, while still lying unconscious recovering from sunday's operation. while the much-needed good news trickled in despairingly, bad news seems to barge in like a runaway locomotives. the neurosurgeon explained that if my father survived the ordeal, and that in itself is a big IF, chances of normal mobility and speech is even thinner than wafer.

and yet i'm still here in the office writing this entry, instead of my way back to my hometown. i need to submit the application forms for alyssa and amelya's kindy for next year. and that %^*&%^^&* 1 month-old front loading machine failed us. wifey found out yesterday evening after it finished the complete cycle of washing athyra's clothes, it decided that everyone in this world is a child. it's child-proof door simply won't budge. and it doesn't have a manual release. so we have to wait for somebody from the shop to prise open the door or i'll be an instant fungus and mushroom breeder in the estimated one-week homecoming time.

i will be there, hopefully sooner rather than later.

inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi roji'un.

Monday 19 November 2007

fateful day

13th. November 2007

it was 45 minutes past 8 tuesday morning. i was somehow early in finishing up my early morning routines and i had some spare time before the 9 o'clock meeting so there i was in the canteen having breakfast when i received a call from my sister. her first words were simply ayah kena stroke!. dad had a stroke attack it took me quite a while to swallow the words that i had to ask her to repeat several times to ensure that i heard her correctly.

if you know my father, you would be as surprised as i was. i am not ashamed to admit that he was fitter than i am. he managed his 2 acre orchard by himself on which he had spent his 11-years retirement day in day out, if he's not out and about visiting his children in the city or going out makan angin (sightseeing). my non-smoking, in-shape dad definitely had done multi-fold of the recommended 3 sessions of 45 minutes in a week workout recommended for healthy living. at 66 years old, he has the adult-onset diabetes and hypertension which has been kept under close control through medication and has always been given thumbs up when he goes for his quarterly routine check-up at a local hospital.

and it was his 66th. birthday. my sisters were indeed planning to surprise him with a little ceremony and birthday cake when they were supposed to get home at the end of the day. however, it was us whom were surprised.

he was sitting in the kitchen having breakfast with my mum before going about to manage the orchard when she suddenly noticed that he was suddenly dreamy and had a drastic change in his voice and whitish bubblish saliva started to trickle down the corner of his mouth and was about to fall of his chair. she yelled out loud to my brother-in-law whom thankfully were still at home and they quickly sent him to the local hospital where he was stabilised and transferred over to the state hospital with an ambulance.

upon hearing the news i practically dropped everything, gave a call to wifey (whom i was not in speaking terms at that point of time) to prepare the necessary stuff to go to my parents' and picked up alyssa and amelya whom i had sent to their respective nurseries less than an hour earlier.

arrived at the hospital around noon. i was glad to see him lying down awake while queuing up to do the ct scan. he could still lift his left arm and leg even though he could barely carry a conversation.upon seeing that, the optimistic me kept convincing myself that it was one of those minor one where one would be in and out of the hospital within a week and would carry on the daily life with little or no rehabilitation.

towards the end of the day, he was resting most of the time and with the help of me and my brothers, still insisted to go to the toilet to pass urine, refusing to use the bedpan. determined to fill up my bedside watch quota early, i volunteered to sleep by his bedside that night.

and slept i did. did i tell you that without wifey, i would require a minimum of 2 alarm clocks to ensure that i would make it to the office by 8 o'clock and very little things could wake me up in the middle of the night, sparing wifey's nag and repeated smacks? while they provided a very uncomfortable and battle-hardened chair by the bedside, i slept on a long chair about 5 metres away from the bed. dazed and confused, i was awakened in the middle of that night by the commotion of nurses and attendants rushing into the room to find out that my father had fallen of the bed trying to get to the toilet by himself.

the following day, the ct scan results finally came in. along with the dreaded news that my father had a significant haemorrhage that came with a stroke which required him to be transferred to the city hospital because the state hospital doesn't have a neurologist to perform such operation. while the surgery might be considered urgent, you'd still have to get in the queue as in the norms in government hospital so we decided to transfer him to the nearby private hospital for the surgery. while neurosurgery is not really a palatable solution, it was still the lesser of 2 evils right?

we breathed a sigh of relief when the neurosurgeon in the private hospital decided that we might be able to hold off the surgery for a few days and monitored the extent of the haemorrhage. the good news that came during the following days that the intercerebral haemorrhage was not spreading paled in comparison with the fact that there were virtually no motor control on his left side of the body and he was responding less and less to stimulations and by saturday 17th.november, he was virtually in a semi-comatose state and looked like he was sleeping the whole day. and more and more drugs were required to keep his upwardly spiralling blood pressure at bay.

on sunday morning 18th.november 2007, the neurologist informed us that there was not much choice left but surgery. while the haemorrhage hasn't been spreading, he suspected that the cranial pressure is excessively high in tandem with the spiralling blood pressure which was the in-built bodily mechanism in keeping up with the increasing cranial pressure in order to supply the brain with its much-needed blood to carry its food and oxygen. given that we had not much choice left, we consented and he was wheeled into the operating theatre at 1pm for the estimated 4 to 5 hours operation which carries a 20% risk (as opposed to a 10% risk for an open heart surgery according to the neuro, can't exactly google so we had to take in what he said at face value)

my heart nearly dropped when my father's name was called out at 4.30 pm, a wee bit earlier then expected, hugely relieved when the surgeon declared that the surgery was a successful one. looking for any positive signs, we were overjoyed that his (good) right hand which were void of any movement before the surgery twitched.

however, up to now, we are still waiting in vain for him to regain consciousness. unfortunately, i am running out of annual leave and i have to start working again tomorrow, very very reluctantly. i pray to god that i would be able to see my father's eyes when i go back to the hospital this coming weekend.

all these events reminded me so much of how fragile we humans really are. we could be running a marathon one day and be a complete vegetable the day after as easy as a flick of a switch. in the case of my father whom i could never measure up as a father being one myself, i had never imagined him to be in that sorrowful state and the optimistic me had always imagined him to live like his brother whom he had lost 3 weeks ago at the tender age of 82. we humans can only plan and there would always be the higher powers to decide if things will go according to plan. all we can do now is just pray and hope for the best outcome. inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raa ji'un.

Wednesday 7 November 2007

photolog

i am really not in the mood to write anything interesting so i will just dump these photos into the much-needed updates of the blog.

some photos of athyra

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2247/1891221361_21456de78c_m.jpg[/img]
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2196/1892068882_35aef3152c_m.jpg[/img]

a rare ppg photo
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2230/1891236819_ad39caabbd_m.jpg[/img]

alyssa's taska's graduation day

the ever-present plastic smile
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2204/1892104664_61fd677d42_m.jpg[/img]

the rare natural face
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2228/1892097010_74dd566116_m.jpg[/img]

amelya the most overdressed audience
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2052/1891250285_d7db9d79eb_m.jpg[/img]

the 2 princesses
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2402/1891256721_81e8cbb237_m.jpg[/img]

alyssa the storyteller (cerita semut dan belalang)
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2404/1891244459_1b252ebe26_m.jpg[/img]

alyssa the pelajar harapan
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2210/1892062862_b637fe1e12_m.jpg[/img]

one of the prizes for pelajar harapan taken by incumbent
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2002/1891277801_516c02e7b2_m.jpg[/img]

Friday 2 November 2007

saved by the bell

her mobile phone, actually.

today is 2nd. november. not a significant date? to me it should be. it's a day before my (counting fingers) seventh anniversary. and yes, i wholesomely totally, totally forgot about it yesterday.

as i was snuggling into bed minutes before midnight last night, my journey towards lala land was interrupted by the persistent beeps from her mobile. though one of her well-established job function at home is as my fail-proof biological alarm clock, she was not moved by the beeping phone so i had to get out of the comfortable bed to silence it. and there it was, clearly visible with the blinding backlight in the dark room: [b]Seventh Anniversary[/b]. she must have set that well in advance, a function that i even have with my very "advanced" up-to-date phone that i obviously didn't remember to do hehe.

so, what do i get for somebody whom is home-bound on a shoe-string budget? thought of getting her a long stalk of rose, cliché as it may sounds, it is something that i haven't done for a long time. what colour would be it be? i'll go0gle later for the right colour.

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and by the way, i finally succumbed to the social pressure and are already in the process of procuring a maid. hopefully everything goes as planned and she'll give me more quality time with the children and lastchaos. and she'll take care of athyra as well as we hoped she'd be.

Monday 29 October 2007

malaysian blog open house proposal

just in case you didn't realise, i submitted an entry in the malaysian blog here. go give your feedback on my proposal :)

raya and more!

in case you were wondering if we managed to beraya sakan before the baby came, we DID. well not exactly beraya sakan if you asked me because even though this raya would be the longest break that i've taken so far (in total it will be about 2 weeks off, i wonder if the people in the office still remember my name when i got back), we went back to the hometown for only 4 days. ok, we love live to the max but don't want to risk it too much don't you.

if you don't know what raya is, you can read more about it here. it's a big celebration among the muslims here in malaysia.

yes, me and wifey got to eat so much lemang and rendang and ketupat for raya. if you don't know how a lemang is made, there's one photo of it. we did risk it a bit because on raya eve, wifey said that she felt some contractions already but while we could go back to the city on the day itself, the contraction didn't feel that bad during the day so we continued on until the second day of raya (sunday 14th. before heading. plus her obigyn was also on raya leave until thursday 18th. and frankly i wouldn't know where should the baby decided to come earlier.

so, we went back to the city very early indeed on sunday the 18th. considering that the monday and tuesday are still a public holiday. we had no prior experience of rayaing in the city that we were at loss of what to do. we even thought of going to one private tv station's open house on that monday but shelved the plan because it finished too "early". even our uncles and aunties who were residing in the city went back to the hometown so we stayed at home mostly and did some minor shopping for the the baby's last minute preparation and stock up on dry food which was also difficult because most of the little shops that we normally patronised were also closed while praying all the time that the baby would at least stay in the tummy until thursday for the obigyn to come back from her raya holiday as well.


here's one raya photo for you, with a purple theme, of course! what else would it be?

[IMG]http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o67/suhairims/misc/blogs/raya07/FamilyRaya07.jpg[/IMG]

finally, the long-awaited thursday the 18th. arrived and we paid a visit to the obigyn. and right on cue, she said that wifey is already dilated by 4 cm and will be admitted directly to deliver on the same day. i must it was one of the easiest helped by the fact that she took epidural (she insisted on trying one even though it has been foreseen that it wouldn't be long that she had to "suffer" because even at 4 cm, no contractions were felt whatsoever) and finally, athyra (final spelling, unlike the name i spelt in the text messages keeping the 'y' convention with alyssa and amelya) came out at 5pm and i this is the first photo i took of her.

[IMG]http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o67/suhairims/misc/blogs/raya07/modified.jpg[/IMG]

and the powerpuff girls are complete. she is definitely the champion among the 3 in terms of birth-weight at 3.68kg, hair thickness and her latest passion, crying her hearts out when she found out that she has nothing in her mouth when she wakes up. i have yet to be able to take her photos with eyes wide open so i guess this one should do for now.

[IMG]http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o67/suhairims/misc/blogs/raya07/athyra_second.jpg[/IMG]

i thank god for listening much to our prayers, giving us a healthy baby and timing couldn't even be more perfect than that for almost everybody. we are happy that we had plenty of time to prepare for the baby, the obigyn is happy that she did not decide to come out in the wee hours in the morning and all my family members are too because it was almost weekend and for those who were not residing in the city, that weekend would be the time for the home-town people to come over to the city to visit their relatives there as well. and to cap things off, another record set by the delivery was that wifey was already discharged on the day after only after spending one night in the hospital for the delivery. and thanks to auntie olab for the visit, present and duit raya. what else can you ask for? she even washed my dishes and cleaned my floor, hehehehe.

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wikied athyra and found this.

Thursday 25 October 2007

easy does it

first day at the office after two weeks leave. thousands of e-mails, letters and alerts to be cleared. need to crank up those rusty cogs and wheels. feels like a clueless prick. eyes hurts due to the late night last night, thanks to lastchaos. what do i do? submit an entry and add another alert for you people, hehehe

will get there. will get there. it's hard to live in a real after living a fantasy la la land for 2 weeks.

Tuesday 9 October 2007

selamat hari raya aidil fitri semua orang

to all the visitors here i would like to wish:

[SIZE="5"]Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri[/SIZE]

why so early of raya mood, you might ask. because today is my last day working before raya. i'm taking the rest of the week off (and seriously thinking of even taking half day today) plus the whole week off next week... huhuhu! [I]raya sakan![/I]

and guess what? maybe even more off days expected thereafter. the baby is expected to be on the 20th and i'm really wishing it'd be on the 20th. so that we'd have a [I]sakan raya[/I] instead of a high-speed car chase scene at the highway.

dengan yang demikian, sepert lazimnya, saya ingin mintak maaf banyak-banyak zahir dan batin kepada semua orang. kalau ada salah dan silap meninggalkan komen yang tidak wajar dan ada yang berasa hati, silalah maafkan. saya pun dah maafkan semua komen2 yang tidak membina yang telah saya terima :laugh:

*break into raya tune* Selamat Hari Raya, Hari Untuk Kita Bersukaria, Selamat Hari Ucapan, Moga Girang Hingga Sampai Tahun Depan, Selamaaaat Haaaari Raaayaaaa!

Friday 5 October 2007

tags of 4

hehehe. if you're thinking that this is the tag of 5 currently reticulating in efx2blogs, no it's the tag of four that i have to do first coz i got tagged by this earlier than the 5 tags by our qisst. ok?! will do that one later don't worry err che' chomeyll and cikbee.

4 things that scare me
  1. women in the mornings when they wake up! hehehehe
  2. lizards crawling up upon my arms
  3. airborne cockroaches
  4. stray cats getting trapped in my house while nobody's home and pee/ poop in the house


4 people who make me laugh
  1. myself sometimes
  2. the car mechanics while looking at the bills
  3. my daughters, in their good days
  4. wifey, when she's rolling her eyes at my antics


4 things i love
  1. love thyselves
  2. god, parents, family and those
  3. definitely not the car mechanics
  4. my pc at home that had served me unquestioningly while i play the online game


4 things i hate
  1. i do hate myself sometimes you know
  2. have to relieve those bowel motions desperately despite being in not so conducive toilets
  3. red traffic lights all the way home
  4. flat tyre or stranded


4 things i don't understand
  1. myself can eh?
  2. women
  3. cats
  4. dogs


4 things on my desk
  1. buku kod etika
  2. my staff card
  3. some strewn papers/ un-filed documents
  4. the pc's monitor


4 things i'm doing now
  1. not being entirely truthful
  2. talking to a sulking wife
  3. sratching my head
  4. sulking myself


4 things i want to do before i die
  1. all the religious obligations
  2. live a debt-free life
  3. dentures maybe, if i live long enough
  4. die before wifey


4 things to describe my personalities
  1. male lion: sleeping all the time
  2. cockles: grinning for many hours of the day
  3. polar bear: huggable?
  4. panda bear: dark circles, clear sign of lack of sleep


4 things i cannot do
  1. dance, thank god you've been spared the embarrassment of not being my dance partner
  2. sing, ok i can a bit but not in a way that can impress the girl next door but i think much better tone control than my neighbour hehehe.
  3. get below 70kgs, not that i've really tried
  4. play field games like soccer, rugby or hockey. court games ok


4 people i want to tag
this one i want to tiru qisst
  1. first blogger to leave comment
  2. second blogger to leave comment
  3. third blogger to leave comment
  4. fourth blogger to leave comment

with the exception of qisst, of course

Thursday 4 October 2007

love me for who I am ……

Love me for who I am ……

********************************************************************************************

One evening last week, my girlfriend and I were getting into bed.

Well, the passion starts to heat up, and she eventually says, "I don't feel like it, I just want you to hold me."

I said, "WHAT??!! What was that?!"

So she says the words that every boyfriend on the planet dreads to hear...

"You're just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man."

She responded to my puzzled look by saying, "Can't you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?"

Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to sleep.

The very next day I opted to take the day off of work to spend time with her.
We went out to a nice lunch and then went shopping at a big, big unnamed department store. I walked around with her while she tried on several different very expensive outfits. She couldn't decide which one to take, so I told her we'd just buy them all. She wanted new shoes to compliment her new clothes, so I said, "Lets get a pair for each outfit."

We went on to the jewelry department where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you... she was so excited. She must have thought I was one wave short of a shipwreck. I started to think she was testing me because she asked for a tennis bracelet when she doesn't even know how to play tennis.

I think I threw her for a loop when I said, "That's fine, honey." She was almost nearing sexual satisfaction from all of the excitement. Smiling with excited anticipation, she finally said, "I think this is all dear, let's go to the cashier."

I could hardly contain myself when I blurted out, "No honey, I don't feel like it."

Her face just went completely blank as her jaw dropped with a baffled, "WHAT?"

I then said, "Honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for a while. You're just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me to satisfy your shopping needs as a woman."

And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me, I added, "Why can't you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?"

Apparently I'm not having sex tonight either....but at least that bitch knows I'm smarter than her.


Alright girls. Repost this if you agree. Hell even if you disagree, repost it.

Men, repost this because you have balls.

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[I]i'm not reposting this as a proof that i have balls. i just think it's funny. and pretty smart guy![/I]

rezeki (bequeaths?) in ramadhan

i know i have 2 tags to do which comes with numbers 4's and 5's but i'd like to put this much delayed entry first, can eh?

if you were wondering why my blog has been lacking photos that i've been capturing lately, it is mainly due to the fact that the video camera that i bought early october last year (which i am still serving the 24-month interest period by the way similar to the one pictured on the left) has died on me for a very long time ago. the last time i used it was when i got a cracked windshield en route to kluang for my cousin's wedding and i can't exactly remember whether that was 2, 3 or 4 months ago.

no it didn't die a "shocking" violent fate befallen unto dropped items or had any dysfunctional parts due to excessive handlings by my two daughters. it died a slow and natural death of battery drain and was in a prolonged nap like sleeping beauty because the charger could not be found anywhere. the fact that the trip to kluang also included a stopover at my parents', i was at loss to think of the exact location of the last time i used the charger among the three separate venues inclusive of my house.

with the raya and baby impending arrival, it would be silly to have spent (or still spending coz interest-free period is still ongoing) that obscene amount of money and did not get to capture those occasions, because that was the sole purpose of buying it in the first place. so, last weekend, i was all set of giving up on looking for it and was finally going to the shop to get another one.

we planned to look for it on sunday afternoon last weekend at the lengkungan, the place where we bought the videocam. in the morning, i was doing some lightweight cleaning in the lounge room which involved some dusting, collecting strewn papers and pamphlets to be organised for recycling purposes.

there is this little basket in the living room which serves no purpose other than being a supposedly-temporary holding area for little messes and magazines when clearing up the coffee table. somehow as i was membebeling about the magazines being in the temporary place for many moons, i lifted up the magazines to the placed into their rightful places (either recycled or reorganised onto the bookshelf) and viola! the charger is just curling pretty underneath the magazines like a little phyton sleeping with a full tummy. suddenly, my videocam is full of life again and those kids certainly enjoyed the session afterwards looking at the 500+ photos that we have taken throughout the entire life of the videocam.

and all i could say is alhamdulillah. after those months only to find it on the very last day before we were to buy a redundant but surely expensive accessory to the videocam owing to the brand name, it is one of those little things that we sometimes forgot to thank god for the rezeki that He showered us.

Tuesday 2 October 2007

this will do, for now

found out when i was clearing my alerts today that the old style commenting facilities where you can actually see the entries and other people's comments when trying to comment on a post have been implemented by some people. so, full of envy, i browsed through the leaders page looking (and expecting) a simple way of implementing those. so, the next best thing would be to install a new template that will implement that automatically. and viola! all the little customisations that i made previously just vanished into thin air obviously.

furthermore, i found that the right-side column is waaaay too small to my liking. spent the rest of the hour combing the html codes only to find something remotely legible to possible to modify the column width. suspected that it has something to do with the td.rightside thingy finally after several swears and curses. but somehow the very very thin right-side column just simply wouldn't budge!

after trying for an hour and beginning to realise i might have to live with the thin right column which is so not like me, i reinstalled the shoutbox and somehow, magically it expanded. needless to say since it's almost 2 am already, i don't have the luxury to even dwell into the aesthetics part so i guess my blog will stay in this very basic, boring and colourless format for now. at least i got the right-side column to be generously proportioned, right?

and guess what? only after i submitted this entry, and tried to post a testing comment, it does not come with the inline form or whatever they call it as stated by lollies in the shoutbox! damn! well it's too late and i'm going to bed. tomorrow then, bah!

Friday 28 September 2007

balik kampung! yeay!! yeay!! yeay!!

since it's already 1 in the morning and i can't exactly submit an entry tomorrow in the office, i'll do this quickly then, on-the-fly.

sounds like a happy happy title but i'm really  hoping it wouldn't be a wishful thinking only for the raya period. wifey went for a check up 2 weeks ago (i know, i know that long ago) and guess what? the baby is already engaged! edd (estimated date of delivery for the uninitiated) is supposed to be 20<sup>th.</sup> october (ok that's only one week after raya) and she/ he (most probably she) can't wait to come out? alaaa please laa my little baby. give me a chance to eat to my heart's content all those cholesterol-brimming home-made lemangs and oil and fats laden rendang please!!! and what should i do with those fireworks that i've spent some good money on? don't go out yet, please my dear baby. i wouldn't fancy celebrating raya in the hospital.

which brings out the other question? should i balik kampung (go back to the hometown) at all, considering that the baby is engaged already and raya is like 2 weeks from now? historically, both alyssa and amelya were induced so not much history there. alyssa however came about around the edd time when the water bag broke and not much choice there but to be induced.

my only feeble justification for balik kampung this time around has always been that the three lane highway has been completed all the way in addition to the short 6km dual lane carriageway all the way to in front of my parents'  so hopefully, hopefully we won't be seeing those 3 4 hours of horrible jam every raya balik kampung period for a journey that would normally take about an hour and a half. plus, there are hospitals along the way to deliver the baby right? hmmph! tak mo kawan...

need to pay the fitrah (alms) for 4, for now. even that wouldn't be a problem should the baby come when we were in me1aka. i can just pay that to my father whom is collecting in the hometown anyway.

so, should i? should i? i know seremban also one private hospital beside the highway what..... huuwaaaa!

Sunday 23 September 2007

g00gle reader unofficial tutorials

*write entry! write entry! write entry!* ok doing well so far...

hah! it takes such great willpower to be on the pc not playing the lastchaos but writing an entry instead here at home :D. so here it goes.

if you were wondering, no i am unfortunately not a shareholder of the internet behemoth to be promoting the use of their reader. not that i didn't dream of buying one when they went public a few years ago. but at usd70+ per share, i could buy the whole lot of penny stock in my local bourse. plus i'm not really into the equity market anyway.

it is funny to be somebody who is almost a virgin in a rss feeder software to be writing about one. but as far as my knowledge goes, there are two types of readers available to be used nowadays. one is a local software based to be installed into the local pc and it will pull all the subscription information from the net once the pc got online. the second type is the web-based one which normally wouldn't need any installation and g00gle reader falls into the second category. the obvious advantage of a web-based one is that you can access it from anywhere and your subscription will not be tied to a local pc only. another nifty feature of this reader is that you don't even need to the website or blogsite that you would like to subscribe to and can do it internally without leaving the reader.

for g00gle reader, no installation is required and all you need is just a valid g00gle username/ password used for gmail or any other g00gle applications in the net. if you haven't got one, give me a buzz and i can use up my 50 invitations that has never been sent to anybody. oh yes, i nearly forgot! the url to go is http://www.google.com/reader

here is how it looks like once you've logged in. ok not exactly true. yours would be totally void of subscription of course. this is how mine looks like.



if you are familiar with the gmail concept of tagging, it is an obvious and simple way of "grouping" your items together. rather than file and folder concept applied by most of file management systems of linux, mac or windows where it is modelled on physical concepts of documents and filing, tagging systems means the same document or item can have multiple tags and will appear in all groups when the selected tags is chosen. confused? let me give you an example with my little nifty subscription here. say i have yeop's and lollie's subscription tagged as blogspotter and i also have lollies subscription tagged as efx2ers, so lollies subscription will appear in when both blogspotters and efx2ers groups are chosen. still confused? try it out then you'll see.

for blogging sites (blogspot and wordpress), blog alerts subscription can be added internally by using that add subscription link highlighted in the screenshot by simply adding the address (works even without the http) such as blogname.blogspot.com or blogname.wordpress.com or myfriendurl.whatever.com. you can rename and group whatever subscriptions that you have to your heart's content to be more palatable to your own eyes.

for comment alerts, it is only slightly trickier. the same add subscription link will still be used though. for blogs hosted in blogspot and using the built-in commenting tools, the url will be blogname.blogspot.com/

feeds/comments/default. but for those people who are not using the default commenting facility of blogspot like our yeop there, you can either jot down the rss feed address while hovering on the link in their blogsite and re-entering the address in g00gle reader or the easier way would be just click on the link and you'll be presented an option of how you'd like to subscribe and please choose g00gle reader if you would like to use it, right?

for wordpressers (the name given by themselves), the url for comment subscription would be blogname.wordpress.com/comments/feed. and voila! you've got yourself all your subscriptions in the reader and no more excuse of not knowing whether your friends blogs have been updated or that little smart comments that you left in their blogs have been answered.

enjoy...

Friday 21 September 2007

be positive!

positive thinking, easier said than done. but not impossible definitely. and what could be anything positive that could be coming out of this efx2 downfall, you might ask.

for me, i've learnt to utilise the g00gle reader to keep up with bodies of stars scattered across the blog universe after the efx2 big bang! thankfully, whether they realised it or not, most of the people that i normally get in touch with within the efx2 community with the subscription facilities have built-in rss capabilities in their new blog hosts. initially i thought i would only be able to keep up with their new blog alerts because that is the most obvious way to subscribe to the rss service. but voila! thanks to <a href=http://hafiz238.blogspot.com>hafiz</a> i found out that i can even keep up with the comments posted on each of their entries like the little subscription utilities in our old efx2 service. so now, i've arranged everything nicely into the reader that i am able to keep track of the alerts as easy as it was during the heyday of efx2.

the bonus points? i can even easily monitor the ones i normally patronise outside of the efx2 blogosphere as well, most definitely. so, my little subscription facilities, though not as nicely integrated as the internal service of efx2 even has its own positive points, like previewing the entry without actually going into the website.

so, there you go. again, i would like to reiterate the whole point of this entry; some good will always come out of any mishaps or calamities, no matter what they are.

Friday 7 September 2007

our pride and joy?

when i checked my own blog, it seems that the last entry i posted was like 2 weeks ago. no, i am not that busy and i'm sure you know that because you have seen my comments splattered all over other people's blogs. it is just that currently my life is going through that phase that has nothing interesting to be shared with all of you. interesting enough for me that i don't have to peel myself of the bed reluctantly everyday but i doubt those things would make anybody curious, happy or wiser.

that is until the kompeni published this news item in our intranet website. i am not sure whether i am jumping the gun or revealing any p&c info of the kompeni but the models are on public display in our headquarters anyway so i don't think it is such a bad thing to be published here. however, if you get a phone call from me looking for a job after this or put up a job search entry, you know why that would be.

what i am talking about is our new headquarters building as pictured in the artist illustration, to be built within the same proximity that we are now. we are talking about a 36-storey structure to be nestled within the same compound in which at the moment has an 11-floor building as the highest! and to stress the point further, it is in addition, not replacing any of them. what will be displaced would be some very very low density semi-detached staff quarters which includes the building that houses amelya's nursery.

should i be concerned? of course i am. because if you work in this vicinity and trying to beat the punch card or go home during the rush hour, it is simply helter skelter. few minutes before the 8am are always the most treacherous where you would see any clerical or admin stuff, executives, managers and senior managers alike became half breeds of f1 drivers or motogp riders and the crews of the flying dutchmen, in a trance-like state rushing to swipe that silly card which bears not your worst ever photograph before the dreaded display of 8:01.

while not as bad as the morning sessions, the gasoline burnt by those queueing cars to go home everday should be enough to light 1000 houses for one night. add some heavy rain into the formula and you'll get an interesting mix of wet bike riders, car drivers and umbrellaed jaywalkers all jostling for the same, limited exit paths.

so, imagine those multiplied by ten and you'll see why i am a little concerned with the new kid on the block, planned to be fully completed and occupied by 2010. hopefully the relevant people have done their paperwork and have some decency of thoughts to us the commoner who has another life at home and don't spend the whole time in the office.

Wednesday 22 August 2007

don't worry, be happy!

first of all, apologies for not being able to visit any of efx2 pages or even reply the comments that you beautiful people left in my blog. either my proxy or efx2 server doesn't like me very much. i can't even get into any single page without waiting for gazillion of hours and patience is one thing that i'm severely lacking when it comes the internet and or any other IT equipments in general. if fact, it would be a miracle if i could submit this entry.

i must've woken up on the wrong side of the bed (even though it was the same one as yesterday or many days before) because a lot of things that could go wrong went wrong. initially, when i went down to clear up the last few remaining dishes, there was a very scared feline that was running around the house looking for an exit. opened up all doors and windows but the horrified cat just could not think straight and kept bumping into furnitures and brick walls instead. after several minutes of running around, i finally managed to corner the cat and picked it up. the worst thing that you could to a terrified cat. it was gnawing my fingers like it was enjoying its best catch of the day and unfortunately the f word slipped out of my mouth and i seriously hoped that alyssa who was running around with me did not register that into her fairly impressive long term memory.

when that was all settled, i went back to the business as usual routine. i was thinking of sending the car for a regular maintenance service which will also provide me the opportunity to fix the non-functional spare key. i remembered that i stashed the key somewhere around the house so that i could easily find it should the need arises but ironically, i just couldn't remember where that place is. spent a few precious minutes looking for the spare key before finally giving up and postponing the plan for the car service until tomorrow so that i can look for the key tonight.

as i was sitting down to wear my shoes, a loud ripping sound suddenly came from the worst place possible. checked it out and found a good and airy centimetres of split pants. and like most of the people i know, we don't exactly get ready to the office with hours to spare and i simply didn't have the luxury of time to let wifey sewed it up or went upstairs and ironed another one. moreover, it happened in the most obscured place possible so unless i'll be walking around upside down eagle spread the whole day, nobody would notice anyway. so, i'm feeling a little airy today and please don't ask me why i would be sitting with the most civilised poise for the whole duration of the day.

if you're thinking that i would be grumpy with such a bad start of the day, i can tell you that you are very wrong! despite all that, i'm still happy. happy, happy, happy!

Monday 20 August 2007

persons behind the avatars

warning, this could be long! proceed with care

before i stand to lose the last few remaining minuscule readers of this semi-stasis blog, i am going to submit a "properly" written entry. but what do i write about when all my life nowadays revolves on lastchaos? about the game, naturally.

and before you hit that 'x' mark thinking that this is about another video/ computer game review, don't! because this is not about a game review. it is the human side of the game and somehow, the wonders of human nature never fails to amaze me, more so when they are safely obscured behind the avatars of the game.

for the uninitiated, mmorpg games stands for multi-media multi-player online role playing game. while you could still play the lone ranger and be oblivious to your surroundings while playing the game, interactions between players are encouraged in the forms of added bonuses, complementary skills and powers between characters to coerce the players to play together. so, what do you get when you team up humans with superpowers to be playing together with practically nothing to lose (especially since it's a free-for-all kind of game?

the first interesting type are the ones whom have serious inferiority complex issues. i am talking about those higher level players that are virtually invincible to the much lower level players and just go around killing lower level players senselessly without any much logical reasons and nothing to gain except bad reputation. that's why the only reason i could think of is serious inferiority complex issues. when one person whom doesn't have anything to be proud of in real life are given powers beyond their imagination in the virtual world, what do they do with it? establish their superiority towards the lesser beings would be a logical step. imagine what would happen if those kind of people are given real responsibilities in real life?

as the cliche goes, there are these group of high-level, good samaritans as well to provide the check and balance. these defender of faiths are the ones that hunt for those inferiority-complexed scums and provide a carefree environment for those lower level players devoid of those void-in-the-donkey's-behind players, also with no apparent tangible gains except for goodwill. doesn't it say a lot about the player behind the avatars?

while theoretically avatars are supposed to provide a gender-free, race-free, age-free and discrimination-free environment, as you all know they don't. the game servers are located independently both in the you-es-ay and bolehland but i have found one s1ngaporean guy whom had relocated from the you-es-ay server to the one in bolehland just to feel closer to home. interactions play a vital role in the game and and when you have to communicate with other people, as always, language barrier notwithstanding, people tend to feel easier and be more open with their own kindred. even though he reaffirmed that the social network in the you-es-ay servers are a lot more helpful than the ones he found in bolehland where people there sometimes go to great lengths to helping him out instead of generally a more kiasu (selfish) crowd at home whom would just ignore him many times he was asking around. reminds me of that hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri malay proverb (sorry can't think of the equivalent one in english).

when you are dealing a lot with teenagers, those raging hormones definitely provide an interesting mix into play. despite being busy slaying monsters everywhere, believe it or not, you have some of these teenagers suggesting directly or indirectly of different kind of activities that would involve a different kind of excitement. usually, i would just dismiss all these as background chatter but there was this one time that it had became so unbearable that i had to make it stop. not that i'm completely sterilised and became oblivious to that kind of excitement but i was more interested in avoiding her to quit the game altogether and depriving me of the crucial support line that i have been enjoying in her company. oh no! now i beginning to sound like an old man.

i have a lot more pointers to say but i think this should be long enough. hopefully it's enough to keep my readers coming to this blog, or NOT!

Friday 17 August 2007

jazz i am

just one of those silly quizzes that i got from a hard-core transformer fan, my normal supplier of a much more "inspiring" stuff whom is floored by a dental surgery, resulting in a much more subdued e-mail garbage.

I AM

61%

JAZZ
Take the Transformers Quiz

Tuesday 14 August 2007

another gift!

please excuse my lack of updates. too busy levelling up four characters and chatting with teenagers in the game :D.

anyway, i should have submitted this post last week but ... (no excuse forthcoming). the rezeki that came upon this blogging world seems to be very murah for me. who can claim to have received something from two people that they have never met within one year? i can.

last week, i received another gift from makteh for leaving a comment at the right time as described by her here. so, i would like to say:

Thank you mak teh

the acar buah is nice. sorry no photo. gambar hiasan is the one nicked from makteh's blog. it came by post to my office last week in a bubble-wrapped parcel. my kids and i had fun popping up the bubbles also, hehehe. that's a bonus.

Monday 6 August 2007

fierymaiden!

"o fierymaiden! whence art thou'?" uttered the weary knight ShiningArmour "for i fear we are kindred spirits"

i was tagged by yeop the cyborg with his fire tag. the tag says:


  1. Just write ONE sentence with words or even only one word related to "fire" and post it (can be in any language).


  2. Then tag as many people you think reads your blog.



tagging time. of course you know whom you are, the ones reading my blog. since this is a one line tag only, i am therefore tagging everybody who's reading this, hehehe.

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you are forgiven for not understanding the sentence at all, for only the fierymaiden a.k.a primarybasic (who seems to have only a header in her blog, not sure why) would understand what i am talking about. unless you are also one of those whom has been sucked into the lastchaos mmorpg game introduced by pb. people, meet my latest cyber world alter ego, a knight that goes by the name of ShiningArmour. but in all those endless hours i spent playing, i have only bumped into her once!

did i tell you why i don't want to play any games nowadays? ok, i am going to tell you again anyway. because if i were to play games, i would be that obsessive, compulsive and megalomaniac game player. i would stop at nothing. hence, no quality time with family, no putting daughter to bed, no household chores, no 8-hour sleep everyday and until recently, no new blog posts! i am hoping i'll be coming to my senses soon enough (and hopefully this post will be the starting point).

here is another snapshot of my knight in action slaying a great horned beast.



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i would also like to use this opportunity to declare officially that i now have an additional nagger in the house. while i have been living with one (and getting use to the nags) for the past 7 years, another one has apparently blossomed to pick up the necessary skill in no time.

apart from the usual nightly nags before she goes to bed with:

ayah, bila nak tidur ni? hari-hari nak main game. hari-hari nak main game. kakak nak tidur dengan ayah. nanti esok ayah and mama lambat pergi kerja. ayah tidur lambat nanti esok mengantuk (dad! when are you going to bed? do you have to play games everyday? why don't you put me to bed anymore? if you sleep late everyday, you'll be tired tomorrow and wake up late and we'll end up being late getting to school and work);

she surprised me with another one today.

but let me give you a little background story. when you have been waiting in a car for an hour, with two very boisterous children, one perfectly healthy and one is coughing non-stop with shortness of breath, and upchucking the whole bottle of milk and her lunch onto her clothes and all over the seat, after issuing a crystal-clear instruction to come home slightly earlier so that we could bring the ailing one to the clinic, patience would naturally run on the lighter side.

so, when the awaited one finally arrived (with a good excuse, mind you), i was delivering my usual sermon when she suddenly interrupted with her very loud voice even though she would usually pretend to not listening and watch the movie or being more boisterous than ever.

ayah! hari-hari ayah nak marah je mama tu. cubalah ayah sayang sikit mama tu. ni hari-hari asyik nak marah je (daddy! why do you have to argue everyday with mama? why don't you show a little bit of compassion to her?)

well, kids are always exaggerating, of course. it's not everyday and i was not even raising my voice! if they say that your children are your mirror image, it's definitely wifey's and not mine :p.

needless to say, my sermon screeched to a halt and we ended up with sheepish laughs en route home.

Friday 27 July 2007

mini me! (not quite)

on friday 22nd. july, i brought alyssa to the hospital mata to see an ophthalmologist. i have always suspected alyssa of not being able to see clearly because she would never last more than 10 minutes when i asked her to read anything before she gets teary-eyed and scratches her eyes.



after waiting for half a day at the hospital, we came back with a prescription of glasses. my suspicion were confirmed because alyssa has astigmatism of 2.25/1.50 on her left/right eyes. blame it on my gene? :rolleyes: maybe :D



anyway, we went to get her the glasses during that weekend and this is the result.









and here is a photo of my daughter and my "son" :D



Tuesday 24 July 2007

size definitely matters

i am not sure whether more males or females would be interested in this news. but like it said in the news article, about 70% of women in the uk are wearing a wrong size. now instead of having to comprehend inches and alphabets, females have to contend with even more permutations? won't that lead to more mistakes in choosing size since, correct me if i were wrong, they can't exactly try it on when buying due to hygiene purposes.

but, as an "interested party", i guess now it is more difficult to impress women with the skills of guessing the right sizes because now we also have to contend with more variations, hence more likely to get it wrong.

i wonder why a developing nation, while a huge one at it too, to come up with the new standards. could be because of this, in keeping up with "burgeoning" demands?

i am also wondering if it is possible to submit a proposal to our women minister or standards departments to set up a similar research centre over here in the country. that would definitely helps alleviate this problem and will surely generate a lot of interests , one way or another. which brings up the question, what kind of qualifications required to take up such research?

Wednesday 18 July 2007

not bald, thinning!

just a photo i nicked off the kompeni's intranet website about the event described by gartblue here. showing off my half-week-old stubbles and thinning hair with amelya looking on curiously. in the background, mr gartblue was busy with gartblue, small enough (lepas ni bole belanja makan) to be hidden behind aliya in the photo.



p/s: btw, the title is quoted from a line by king neptune in the mr sepan movie, hehehe.

Monday 16 July 2007

where was my weekend

i finally collected the contact lens that i ordered 2 weeks ago in 1kano on friday night. ok, in addition to caving under my vanity demands, i am also getting occasional bouts of headache with the glasses and i suspected it to be attributed to the glasses. and i was correct! the check revealed that my power has been reduced by more than 100 (or 1.00) on both eyes! yippeee! (or am i getting that old? :D)

so now i am google-less people, wuuhuuu! unfortunately, i am not one of those people who would wear contact lenses effortlessly. my eyeballs are not sufficiently lubricated so if you see me blinking at you all the times, it doesn't mean that i am trying to score a point or two but it is merely my puny effort of trying to lubricate my eyes. (gart! can i have more of those eye drops given by your nobita) and i would definitely stick to that 10-hour-maximum regime. which is why i have ordered a new pair of spectacle lenses to replace the totally screwed up lenses on my glasses now.

on saturday, we (as in the whole family) met lots and lots and lots of people, including gartblue in our kompeni's family day. it was hot hot hot! nowadays, the family day has become a biennial event instead of an annual affair, most probably due to cost savings, i guess. we also bumped into alyssa's babysitter whom had loved her so much before the kindergarten was "privatised" and she was transferred to another department and needless to say, she was hugging alyssa left and right.

didn't come back with any other additional prizes apart from the standard bag given to anybody whom registered. didn't join any games, disheartened to see very very long queues everywhere. forced by gartblue to join in the make-up your wife/ girlfriend competition where the guys were given make-up set and 15 minutes to make up their respective partners. but no, both mr gart and myself who were rushing throughout the 15 minutes session with our "canvass" did not even get into the top 5 out of the 15 couples that participated.

we went back totally knackered and severely dehydrated. those free-flowing soft (and free) certainly was not enough to replace the lost liquids under the hot blazing sun. en route home, wifey received a call from the casting agent, asking alyssa to come by to their jalan ampang office for another casting session on the very same day but i just waved it off. we were too tired and dehydrated i just could not bear the thought of driving across kl for another session of casting. moreover, wifey's sister would also be coming over to our place that afternoon, so squeezing in another activity would be tricky.

with more company coming in, those girls did not proper rest except the little catnap that they had on the way home. by the time their cousins went back at 6.30pm, they were too tired and slept readily after the shower throughout maghrib and the night and only woke up morning after.

i woke up early and refreshed on sunday morning. seeing how dirty my car was, i decided to clean the car. but can anybody tell me why does it always has to rain on the same day or the day after i washed my car even when it hasn't rained for one week?

went to another optical shop to order my glasses. somehow, i thought of asking the optometrist to check alyssa's eyes because she could't seem to concentrate much longer that 15 minutes when it comes to reading and we have always blamed it on short attention span before she gets teary-eyed and started rubbing her eyes. surprise surprise! according to the readings, she has astigmatism and surprisingly high at it too at 2.25 for both eyes. oh no! i really hated wearing glasses so i pity that she would have to go through those also, starting from a very tender age as well. so the opto advised us to take her to a ophthalmologist for further checks. will have fit that somewhere into our schedule this week then. hoping for some good news there.

to make a long entry shorter, we were finally back home at around 10:30 last night after spending some time in 1kano/ lengkungan looking for some baju raya and birthday present and went for a birthday party celebration afterwards. really felt like calling of with emergency leave today but somehow managed to peel myself of the bed and headed to work today. last weekend was definitely not my ideal definition of easy-going, lazing, doing-nothing and idyllic weekend that i'd love to do most.

Wednesday 11 July 2007

i scored a distinction!

i got this when i was blog-hopping and found it in oldladylincoln's. :D

75%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle2 - Online Dating

wedding photos

no, not my wedding photos. this is the wedding that i had to put a lot of commitment too because i seem to find myself being the saksi (witness) for the akad nikah ceremony, the "relative" for the tea ceremony and one of the escorts for the bride's reception. the groom was my former school mate and he was thankful enough that several people had devoted the almost two full saturdays of 30th. june and 7th. july for his wedding.



what made this wedding interesting is that my malay friend got married to a chinese lady. so, instead of our usual customary rites of the akad nikah and reception performed on the ladies' side first, the akad was done in the hotel before the guys reception.



here are the photos of the 2 weekends event with some descriptions afterwards (thanks nonah for the f1ickr tool tutorial :D). and couldn't find another photo to make a complete rectangle.



description: left to right

1- bride and groom, NOT!

2- saksi sitting behind pak imam. akad done in hotel, on stools rather sitting on the floor cross-legged

3- the bride

4- batal air sembahyang (nullifying ablution?)

5- groom's reception

6- bride and groom mingling around

7- the koleq boys

8- heading towards bride's house for tea ceremony

9- creating a heart from pomelo skin with no tools but bare hands (and teeth)

10- groom displaying successfully carved hearts

11- no-hands apple-on-a-string

12- lending a helping ear

13- delicacies? nope!

14- show of manliness

15- first bow

16- hello, are you there?

17- serving tea

18- mounted soldier- house deco

19- fully dressed "bodyguard" with wifey



we also got to scream heart out "yaaaammmmm seeennnnggg" with grape juice on the stage. but have no photo of that.



while it was tiring and certainly required a lot of commitment, i enjoyed myself throughout. it was indeed a rare opportunity to be involved in a cross-cultural wedding like this one. especially the tea ceremony part where supposedly the accompanying balachi's are supposedly relatives and not friends.



to my friend zef, we pray that you wedding will have limpahan rahmatullah and may you enjoy your suffering forever and ever (finally!)

Tuesday 10 July 2007

blogger meet at midV (post analysis)

this is going to be my first buddy entry ever. so, if you're receiving this alert, you are included into the not-so-exclusive my buddy list.



first of all, let me say this: TRANSFORMERS ROCKS! (must go and get the dvd). we managed to catch the 10:45 shows and as advised by theotheraj, the show definitely ended in slightly less than 2 and a half hours.



apparently, it wasn't in vain that i postponed the lunch event to 1:15. by the time we got there at around 1:20, there were famygirl and boy, zan, mr gart alone (with gartblue), che' chomeyll and mr aie and theotheraj. so, we had to wait for pb, gartblue and and lollies clan. on the table, there laid two boxes of doughnuts, as olab's representative, passed through che' chomeyll when the meet in the morning. the waiters were definitely not amused that we are hogging a large part of their table without ordering anything yet.



when gartblue, pb and lollies finally arrived, we ordered our meals. gartblue made her grand entrance and immediately took a seat at the opposite end of where mr gart was sitting, as if they were in a big fight the night before and never reconciled, hehehe. in fact, i didn't see them talked to each other at all thoroughout the lunch except that little wave and flying kisses when mr gart was leaving. but i've been assured rigorously by gartblue that they were not fighting.



things finally settled down and the seating arrangement were like this one.



we ordered individually. and yes, we ordered three lobaks to be spread around and no complaints about the lobak. it was very nice indeed. sorry rotinotti. i have no photo of the lobak but i impatiently made sure che' chomeyll took the photo of that before allowing myself to some generous helpings :D.



i didn't get to be involved much towards the male end of the conversation, so my overall judgement might be slightly impaired. but on the ladies' side, the award of the chattiest lot is definitely tied between gartblue and che' chomeyll and pb would easily won hands down with the least chatty one. maybe she was too tired with the hard work. moreover, i spotted her leaving comment in my previous post at 3 am the morning before!



these are the real photos of the occasion. hence the need for a buddy post. no dirty secrets or juicy gossips here. just because i'm not sure if people would like to see their faces pasted around because the only people i remember putting their own photo on their own blog among these people were che' chomeyll and pb.













for those who were looking forward for a nice wonderful photos, you have to excuse those inferior ones. those are the best i could do with the inferior equipment while trying not to be left out of the conversation at the same time. you'd have to rely on other people for better quality photos, hehehe.



while i was savouring my chilli-less fried kuey-teow (which was supposed to be shared with alyssa), somehow i remembered that ld was supposed to come with her hubby. sent her a text message with the reply not forthcoming for another 45 minutes. apparently they couldn't resist the temptation of holding hands passionately over the transformers movie and caught the later show. so she replied asking whether people are still around and if it's still possible to join the gathering.



the day before, che' chomeyll sent me a text message asking if it is possible to give a little surprise to mr aie with his birthday being on the 8th. july. thinking that i'd be too occupied with transformers movie to buy the cake so i had asked lollies to buy the cake. appparently, resipi rahsia in mid valley has moved to a different, unbeknownst to both me and lollies but let's just say, it was a happy ending and lollies managed to find the new resipi rahsia and coming over with a chocolate indulgance cake, not caving in to my continuous plea of a cheesecake. che' chomeyll managed to surprise her lovey dovey with the cake and chalked up a few notches towards the ultimate goal.



so, the demure and selim-melim ld came over beaming with hubby and even when had been factored into the now-well-nourished adults could not finish the cake. so, in the end mr aie had to bring back the unfinished portion home. and the seating arrangement during that time was like this, with theotheraj proudly proclaiming that the conversation on the other end of the table were too matured for a twenties like him among the near forties husbands, totally ignoring the fact that mr aie is much younger than him. and with the absence of the children terrorising the cafe and sliding down the internal stairways.



so, in the end, it was all fine and dandy and the first one to leave was famygirl because she had a meeting at 3:30. gradually people excused themselves and we finally gave up our seats in the restaurant at around 3:30pm. and we gave up the idea of bowling because there was not enough quorum left and it was getting late too late anyway.



so, what do i think about the gathering and the feedback that i've got? so far, i've had nothing but positive feedback even from wifey even though some people thought that she was not in her most friendly mood yesterday speculating that i was getting too comfortable with the others. :-P :P so not very true, i'm telling you.



it was definitely a lively meeting. even mr aie who presumably is in mid-20's looked at ease chatting away with the mid thirties mr gart, mr lollies and famyboy. and the girls (women?), well do i need to say more? i am definitely looking forward to any future gatherings of bloggers, with elisa's one coming up on our merdeka day and will definitely make an effort to be there. and i would like to thank everybody who paid their share and reduced the burden of me swallowing the 300 bill alone (*gulp*).

Friday 6 July 2007

blogger meet at midV (final update!)

ok peeps. this is going to be the last update for the blogger meet at mid valley 9th. july monday. just to reconfirm to everybody who'd like attend, it is still on. because i'm the organiser, i've decided to postpone the lunch to 1:15pm so that i would have enough time to catch the 10:45am transformer movie (hehehe!). any complaints? put down your piece of mind in the comment box. venue still the same. i have made reservation for 20 people at little penang cafe, first floor, centre court mid valley under my name. i'm not going to put down my phone number here either. so, you can either get in touch with each other or can pm me if you don't know my real name or would like to have my number. for non-efx2'ers (if any), can send e-mail to me to suhairims [at] gmail [dot] com.



list of people coming:



almost confirmed of coming:



1- lollies (maybe with the whole clan)

2- che' chomeyll (with mr aie but maybe not for bowling)

3- me, gart and theotheraj

4- pb and intysaar

5- zan and famygirl

6- ld (with little bodyguard)

7- dory



eh! looks like the number would be less than 20? hopefully can fill up with the maybe's.



maybe's



1- ondeonde

2- mommyalif aka rad

3- mamarawks

4- amyra



unfortunately, olab and rotinotti won't be joining us.



ok. yebbedee yebbedee yap. that's all folks.

Wednesday 4 July 2007

charity is what i

i've been tagged by oo and gartbiru somehow (obviously she hasn't read oo's, hehehe) by this charity thingy. well, since i am very much lacking in this department, here's my piece of mind. see if it's decent enough to be printed by this very honourable idham guy.



---



first copy and paste. here:



If you are tagged, you need to write an entry related to the meme. At the end of your entry you just need to tag as many person as you like. You will then leave a comment in their blog to let them know they have been tagged. And to include this message, "By doing this meme you are contributing rm127 to the Darul Izzah Orphanage".

Then please copy and paste this rule somewhere in your entry.



The meme is about completing at least seventeen out of the following twenty seven sentences.



1. A person is only as good as what he/ she wants to be.

2. Friendship is always used as an excuse for declining a relationship.

3. To love is to be loved back.

4. Money makes me wants to spend and spend and spend.

5. I miss my no-responsibility days.

6. My way of saying I care is by trying to cheer up that person when i am not the target.

7. I try to spread love and happiness by err, physical gestures.

8. Pick the flowers when it would be glad to be picked up.

9. To love someone is to be each other's witness of one's life.

10. Beauty is part of a complete package.

11. When I was thirteen, what I remember the most was getting chicken pox on the first day of being away from home, alone in a hospital compounding the homesickness.

12. When I was twenty one, I remember being head over heels.

13. I am most happy when i am loved.

14. Nothing makes me happier than a full stomach.

15. If I can change one thing, I will change my height (among others).

16. If smiles were cheap then I am a cheapskate.

17. Wouldn't it be nice if we could rule the world.

18. If you want to qada' hajat then you have to go to the toilet.

19. Money is not everything but a lot of things.

20. The most touching moments I have experienced is seeing wifey impressed with what i did.

21. I smile when i have things to smile about.

22. When I am happy, I talk a lot.

23. If only I don't have to wear glasses, then i would think of dozing off with the tv on or running in the rain with no qualms.

24. The best thing I did yesterday was being irritatingly funny to wifey.

25. If I ever write a book, I will give it this title,"this is a man's land"

26. One thing I must do before I die is live and prepare to die (eh! those are two, but ok lah).

27. Doing this meme, I feel like i can't exactly reveal everything. it wouldn't be pretty to say the least.



there you go. who to tag? how about our mak buyung yang malas update, zan and famygirl (whom also hasn't updated for quite some time). ok?

Thursday 28 June 2007

hello, anybody home?

i am in no mood to work today. and efx2 seems to be haunted on this very day. so, this is my to-do (and have done) list for the day:

1- text che' chomeyll offering her the free service to put in the shoutbox in her deserted blog.

2- maximum procrastination with the resume building exercise.

3- apply half-day leave (that afternoon meeting could use my absence once in a while)

4- meet up with an em-ceed wifey for lunch.

5- get early update on pregnancy status.

6- try to be satisfied with the online-booked stale pirates movie if could not secure any transformers ticket (seriously a wishful thinking on its opening day).

7- go home and try to repay some sleep deficit brought about by 2 consecutive nights of 1:30 am bedtime routine.

Monday 25 June 2007

blogger meet at midV

in exactly 2 weeks time on the 9th. july, the blogger meet at midV will be a reality (if the world is still around). so, time is really running out for the gyrating olab to impress, hehehe.

this post is to remind people that it is still ON, barring any unforeseen circumstances. the list of people who have stated their positions are as follows:

guests of honour (read must-come coz we fixed the date for them anyway)

1- the currently very-quiet-in-a-rush to complete all the packings lollies.
2- the anak-mithali whom spends time in hospital even-in-winter-holidays che' chomeyll. she might be dragging along a reluctant mr aie, by the way.

most probably will come

1- the shy2 me.
2- gartbiru srp, spm, gce, bsc, msc (whom goes there every other day anyway).
3- another shy guy (NOT!) theotheraj (he has no choice but to come).
4- the gyrating olab.
5- the celebrity rotinotti.
6- THE very-busy-working-on-weekends designer pb and her painter medic student sister intysaar.
7- the very preggy zany zan.
8- the wedding planner, cat/vet lover famygirl.
9- the always-described as selim melim and demure ld.
10- the conspicuously missing-for-several weeks amyra. she said before that she could come on behalf of fd but definitely she could come as herself hehehe.

the in-absentia attendees

1- the germ-spotter layth-mother fd whom would be in another reunion.
2- the pr1ncess of pers1a jammer elisa who would still be enjoying the intimate ps2 moments with her children.
3- the "hardworking" isteri mithali bee-in-too-much-love currently.
4- the forever nesting mak buyung with a bathroom-cleaning 5-year old girl (wowser!) nazrah.
5- the soon-to-be-a-book-author our miss ar@b nonah.

the ideal workers whom cannot ponteng (hence most probably won't make it)

1- the reading-while-cooking mother oo.
2- the one who has a cooking hubby mommyalif.

the unknowns (i.e. no tangible response so far)

1- the busy new parents with pasha beary bear and diah.
2- the grieving dory (she could use some entertainment though)

the maybes

1- the blogsp0ter artist qisst.
2- the just-invited busy bee butterflutter.

ok. i think that should cover most if not all of the "regulars". did i miss anyone? please don't ambik ati if i didn't include any of you. i will edit the post if you give me a buzz, you know.

ok. in terms of itinerary, it's quite simple.

1- 12.30pm: makan, talk, makan, talk (suggestions of restaurant please! my suggestion is little penang cafe coz don't think our guests of honour would appreciate ma1aysian food instead of western)

2- 1:30pm: ibadat time.

3- 2:30pm: bowling time.

lollies had informed me also most probably she won't be able to accommodate the second get-together session at home. so this would be THE only gathering. so sorry olab and rotinotti, there goes your chance of meeting wifey in the foreseeable future. unless she would like to join that 9th. afternoon. (eh! ok gak yang! jom! kita lama tak pi bowling dah since we're not going to that kd9 one)

Friday 22 June 2007

pantang larang tok nenek

they say that marriage and partnership is all about compromise. true to certain extent, i say, if you still treasure your individuality. it is neither fun nor possible to have two people agreeing on all matters of life, living harmoniously hand in hand (though not necessarily happy) ever after. in the end, we all are the same because everybody is unique. the uniqueness in all of us would certainly paint a colourful picture in our lives even though the results would not always be pretty.

different approaches work for different people. some people would abide by the demands of others submissively and rants and rumbles in the background. some others would clash head on with endless bickering and still somehow manage to stay together forever. in my case, we set the extreme ends of the boundaries and argue our way forward within the grey areas.

while i will not bore you out of the juicy details in our relationship, what i am going to put down here are my extreme ends of my boundary, which i think is not too humiliating to be discussed in public, of course.

  1. carrying wifey's handbag: self-explanatory. one think that i hate to see most is when a guy is carrying a ladies handbag, ungracefully. to me, that is the most downgrading thing a woman could do to her partner, regardless how the situation look like. i mean, i would be ever-willing to substitute that half a kilo handbag to with two ultra-heavyweight 20kg babies any day. or those mountains of shoe boxes and multiple paper bags for the successful hunts of the day but no handbag please. i would make exception in life or death situation, most probably by keeping the handbag wedged securely in between my legs. or while clearing out the car when we reach home while babbling about it.

  2. honourable driver: in the confused world of ladies first and equal rights movements marching side by side, i perfectly accept the convention of male as the anchor, if not the only, driver of the family. but being an honourable full-time driver is a definite no-no for me. i simply could not fathom the idea of wives sitting in the rear with the children while husbands is driving alone in front. the title of the provider, head of the family and breadwinner is complementary enough but driver? of course i am a reasonable man so i would understand (and practised) the necessity those rear-facing child seat up front hence the need of the mother to be sitting at the back. but i couldn't wait for the baby to grow out of the rear-facing child seat and to be replaced with the forward-facing one and naturally it would be located in the rear seat.

i think that should be enough for now. no fun spilling all the beans at one time. so, care to share the lines not to be crossed of yours?

Wednesday 20 June 2007

16 word stories

i am sad. somebody is leaving the company for good. inspires me to do the same.

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i am bewildered! gartblue blabbered too much. maybe i should doink her on the head, hahahaha!

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i am not vain. but my belt is running out of free space. should play sports.

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i am planning to sleep early. i will not be the beloved pr1nce of pers1a tonight.

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i am really running out of ideas to tell any more stories in sixteen words only.

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i think it's better for me to stop this 16-word-story before i too blabbers too much.

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i have to admit that this is fun. thank you elisa. and i say goodbye now.

Friday 15 June 2007

balik kampung and superhero

for those who read the comments that i made in olab's entry would know what the title is all about. basically, my mum has had this polyccythaemia vera for a few years already. you can read about it more here (thanks beelove) and here. she has been suffering fever for almost 2 weeks and started to show those fingers and toes were starting to sore (what's that single word for fingers and toes again?) like when her ailment were at its peak about 2 years ago. according to the haematologist, those red sores is due to the iron deposits that could not be recirculated by the slow-moving blood hence reddish-bluish appearances.

initially, they thought of admitting her to monitor more on the progress. but thanks to the crony that we had in hospital me1aka, the results of the blood test, x-rays and diagnosis of the radiologist and haematologist confirmed that that ailment of hers is still in check (haemoglobin count of about 12 which is ok) so it could just be a viral infection. however, since i have already my bosses that i would take 2 days emergency leave, we still went balik kampung wednesday night and came back home at around 7pm yesterday. i could've gone to work today but just not motivated enough to wake up early to cancel another day of leave so just stayed in bed.

nevertheless, all the lembahkelang binmatsah (thanks mommyalif) balik kampung yesterday. almost everyone was there except for the one residing in the most north-eastern corridor of our semenanjung. a bit too far for her to come back. those sambal berlaukkan nasik meals that i had for the whole day long didn't help my digestive system that had to spent several hours within those 4 or 5 times to cater for those bowel movements. thankfully today, it has been re-regulated and it should go back to its once daily routine again.

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one of the interesting news that i gathered from the balik kampung was the experience of 2 of my nephews aged 14 and 16 who are staying there. there were having afternoon snack (after school i think) at one of our favourite eatery (nothing fancy just a roadside warung with the best food and long waiting period) when suddenly 5 masked ch1nese thugs, armed with samurai sword in a black-tinted 1swara screeched to a halt by the roadside and started slashing a group of 5 ind1an men in the middle of their meals.

the end result wasn't pretty either. three of the slimmer ind1an men managed to scramble but the other 2 were not so lucky. one of them succumbed to fatal injuries while the other one who was chased after far from the crime scene had a severed arm, dangling with the only a tiny piece of skin holding them together and still fighting for his life in the icu. the satay seller also got slashed unintentionally when the thugs were swinging the sword to hit the man.

however, far from being traumatised, the boys were excitedly telling the story and even went to check out the man with the severed arm. i think the violence that we abundantly being fed in movies does that to us, and them. latest news that we heard is that one of the thugs had been caught. but to think that such event could happen in our little sleepy hollow is unthinkable when i was their age. in the name of progress, i guess.

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in another news, i think i got all three categories above 99% for the heroes test which is totally illogical. so i'll do another one and put down the results properly here. i was the isaac guy when i did it and see if i would still be the same guy on the encore test.



Your Score: Isaac Mendez


You scored 29 Idealism, 45 Nonconformity, 70 Nerdiness



I need painting supplies.

Congratulations, you're Isaac Mendez! You're a talented, creative, artistic soul with a few demons you've been working to overcome. You are really passionate person and you are not afraid to express yourself or your emotions.

Your best quality: Creativity and artistic talent.
Your worst quality: A possibly addictive or indulgent personality

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test
hey i was right! all three was above 99% again! whatever that means. :-w but definitely very high on nerdiness. yay!