Little Update

Not so much of a blogger I am, nowadays. Last entry on 4th.August. Pretty annoyed with a unit trust agent disrupting my peace of mind enjoying the therapeautic sounds of running water in this park. Many things has happenened since even the last few entries so I'll just summarise then here if you still want to know.

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Thanks to that unit trust agent, I have to continue writing this in the comfort of my cubicle rather than in front of that fountain while killing the last few minutes before Solat Jumaat came calling.

Athyra had her second birthday celebration and our raya open house in the dying days of syawal on the 17th.October, one day before her actual second birthday. Many thanks to zan, rotidua, bear, diah and pasha and the single-with-kids screwboy who took the trouble to make it. Really appreciated it despite the diminutive time I got to spend with you people.

Some view from the meeting rooms in the office, not from my cube which is located by a huge pillar in the middle of the building where I could only see the distant windows several metres away.

Nice new office mates, good food, great view



Credits to Irwan, my manager for the photos. It's not my work so I won't pretend that it was. Photos was taken during our quarterly potluck lunch.

What else is newsworthy? Nothing much for now I guess. Till later then.

Meet The Lollies

For those whom I have not texted or contacted directly and are very much interested to meet the lollies, you are very much invited to a go-dutch, no-purpose-whatsoever-gathering at MidV on Wednesday 12th. August, lunch time. Exact restaurant has not been decided yet but I doubt it would be some super-expensive place, considering my own financial state of mind.

Anybody interested to join, you can email me at suhairims [at] geemail [dot] com or text me at err email first lah. Then I'll give you my number.

Negative Vibes All Abound

It could be the alignment of the planets and the stars, if those horoscopes or quasi-science astrology were to be believed. Or the aura that has been circulating in this world. Or purely coincidental. Several people that I have interacted with for the past few days has not been feeling particularly happy about various things in their lives. And those are the ones that told me about it. In real life and virtually, as in the case of Mrs. KM here or even the ever-positive and vibrant elisa. And since many people who blogs around my circle of virtual (and not so virtual) friends would normally share about happy happy stuff, the absence of updates could be safely inferred as negative vibes enveloping them as well, no?

Myself included. Have not been feeling on top of the world for the past few days. I guess life is all about balance, especially after having loads of fun which I did not blog about going through this trip with 99% fun and 1% work. But, as usual, will ride through this, kalau umur panjang. No, I am nowhere near of committing the unimaginable. I have a full weekend schedule to go through which should be fun. And it's only Thursday today. One more day to go before the weekend starts. Almost there.

The Musang is a Man?

For those who are so infatuated with the musang yang bermata kucing, please click on this link. har har har!

But, fret not. Here's an answer to the conspiracy theory. zzzz! Get a life people! More pressing matters to debate on. Like world peace, for example.

Gambar Si Jantan yang Sorang

As requested by Zan yang dah lama tak submit entry tu.


Since I'm already submitting an entry, might as well list down some of his progress for future references

• about 7.5kg weighed on 28th.Jun, one day before he turned 5 months old


• can flip on his stomach and back at will


• will produce some cooing sounds with some effort and laughs when his kakak plays peekaboo with him


• not entirely static anymore. starts to move around quite a bit


• can lift up his butt already and has enough bodily strength to go astern


• can hold objects with both hands and put into his mouth but has not been seen passing the objects from one hand to the other


• can definitely recognise his sedara by exhibiting delighted expressions upon seeing ayah and mama coming home from the office. but peekaboo game can only be performed successfully by alyssa. i have tried and failed miserably


• word of caution! athyra has been caught grabbing him by the ankles and pull him towards her on the bed. definitely not safe to leave them together unsupervised especially on the bed, isk!

that's all folks!

The Powder Puff Girls

Lama dah tak tampal gambar anak kat blog. Here are some when they were the flower girls for my niece's wedding over the weekend. Bigger prospect for cucu's in addition to the 2 boys and 1 girl already. All from wifey's side and long way to come from mine.





No photo of the little anak jantan though. Not very trigger-happy with the crappy 2MP camera phone.

Cocktail of Emotions

Is the best phrase that I could come up with to describe how I'm feeling right now. Has that phrase been used before in some books, speeches or blog entries? I can't be that original, can I?

I'm hoping that it would rain though this afternoon, so that the open air futsal training that I have to go to would be cancelled. Don't feel like it but somehow volunteered myself. Never had been since the last game of meddling a ball with both of the feet or football if you can call me playing that game several years ago. And the prospect of injuries is always there especially after the long break. Don't fancy getting my other knee reconstructed and screwed. Though the rain wouldn't help in other departments like braving the severely clogged evening rush hour traffic to get home.

Weekend Stuff

Last weekend was one of the weekends that I did much more than lazying around the house, falling in and out of sleep. Brought about by 2 separate occasions in 2 different places. We had to attend this birthday do by my sister at the ikan bakar jetty on Saturday night and yet make it to the bowling alleys on Sunday morning 10am in the Lengkungan. Not that stressful, I know but definitely requires a lot more commitment then those sombre, easy weekend mode.

Initially, we had planned to detour to the beach home en route to the land of Tidak Melayu Hilang di Dunia even to visit the sis-in-law whom just came back from a Cik Kiah entourage to visit the Queen and maybe pick up some of her English while they were there. Fortunately (ahem!) due to some commitments that she had on her side, the detour was cancelled.

So we duly made our way to the Path of the Elephants after devouring some breakfast at Subaidah. Drove sanely around 120km/h mostly except at the only stretch that should've mattered, underneath that Pedas/ Linggi interchange when I drove slightly above 120 to overtake that coasting Proton in the middle lane only to discover a traffic monitor beaming his laser gun proudly under the shade of the interchange. I just checked the e-gomen service and so far, so good. No saman ekor yet. Arrived only to discover with the exception of my uncle's family, the whole gangbang was already there with the house bursting at its seams containing some 20 adults and adolescences and 25 little children running around minding their own businesses.

It had been been since I last went to those infamous ikan bakar venues. I don't fancy the weekend and long holiday crowds and considering the state is not that big, it will still take me quite some time to get to the other end of state, easily spending almost an hour despite the nicely built, traffic-light infested dual-lane carriageway door-to-door. While the fishes are generally palatable, stingrays were never my favourite fish and was more looking forward to those simple little nasik lemaks that I have failed miserably in finding its rival in the mighty Klang Valley for those little red spicy top. Since it was pre-booked Anjung Batu spot, we did not have to fight our way through the crowd and hung around for some time before making our way back to my mum's picking up some durians from my friends house which regretfully I had to live with the smell for the next 72 hours or so. But hey! At least the scale is still tipped to my side with wifey and Alyssa the durian-obsessed creatures and the durianophobic Amelya, Athyra and myself. And I fell asleep on the sofa in no time.

We had to set the record time to be coming back to KL to be able to make it as opposed to the 6pm norms and surprisingly we did. Shot off around 8:30 and arrived and the Lengkungan at around 9:40, also a record time. I was surprised that the old, twisted cow could still be cruising comfortably without much complain going by the minimum speed of 140km/h (apologies to pb). Somehow with the absence of gart and the prior advise to some of those really terrer people to screw up their games, our group managed secure the no 1 spot. I'm not complaining though while distributing the contents of the hamper among my 4 group members.

The rest of the family couldn't be there to witness my maiden victory because Alyssa had to be somewhere else accompanied by wifey at 12pm. The "workshop" (more like a promotion for their tuition class) about being left/ right brained kept me thinking of how left (means not good in their terms) brained I am.

That was the last real agenda for the weekend so the afternoon was happily spent on the normal itinerary of mass-napping, surprisingly joined by all of the kids up the wee hours of the afternoon.

Community Service Reminder

Received this from one of my MC friend in our mailing list. Reminds me of how fragile we are and what rezeki from Allah is all about. In just one single twist of fate, everything would go haywire and we are at the mercy of Him.

This event occurred recently while his brother's family were holidaying in London during the recent school holiday. Any advise in alleviating their predicament would also be welcomed actually.

To Xantheusian,

Thank you for the concerns, doa, advise and assistance given.

I arrive in London this morning, saw my niece and able to get a better understanding of the situation.

Basically, my niece was attacked by Pneumococcal Bacteria. So, it was classified as Pneumonia. Last Friday, she had difficulty breathing, and medical assistance was called from the hotel. Subsequently, she was brought to St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London.

Within hours, her condition deteriorated. Her lungs collapse. The bacteria also releases toxins into the body that affected her heart, kidneys and liver. She was very critical. Alhamdulillah, when I saw her this morning, her conditions has slightly improved. She has been taken off the drugs that helps her heart pumping (her heart is now pumping on its own), her lungs have partly able to pump by itself, and partly assisted by a ventilator, her kidneys is still not fuctioning, but generally doctors said it is critical but stable, and describe her conditions as day to day compared to hour to hour previously.

As far as she is concern, we believe she is getting the best medical treatment possible. Our assistance for her is to doa for her recovery. Many people have done solat hajat, yassin hajat and other prayers for her. Hopefully the doa and prayers continues. May Allah grant all the doa and prayers and she recovers back to health.

Her conditions have shown positive signs, and next is for her to be able to breath without machine help. Doctors mentioned that it will take to recover to the extend where she is in any position to be brought home.

According to the Doctor, pneumonia is an illness not covered under the free treatment given by NHS for foreigners. Therefore, my brother have to pay full amount.

Amir, maybe you can help ask your old consultant about NHS coverage on this matter or if any special appeal could be done and considered for atleast some reduction in medical cost.

Currently, the ICU charges is 2500 UK pound a day (almost RM15000 a day). If she improves and able to be put under normal ward, the charges would be around 750 UK pound a day (almost RM4500 a day). At the ICU rate, the travel insurance that my brother took would cover for another 2 weeks. After that, is when we need to have some sort of funds for the medical cost, as we don’t know how many weeks she will be in the hospital until her conditions allows her to come home for treatment. That is why I am trying to find out any form of advice or assistance available in coping with the cost after the insurance runs out in 2 weeks time.

Swiney Thingy

All these while, I have only been reading about it in the newspapers or seeing and hearing the news bulletin. Well, yeah, it is up to the pandemic level declared by some god-knows officials in the WHO whom are sitting very cosily in their hermetically-sealed office somewhere up there in the Alpines. Or how our own gomen are giving conflicting messages by saying both people should not be panicking because everything is under control and all these cases confirmed in our bolehland are in fact "imported" ones from overseas and no local transmission has been detected. And yet, at the same time, reminding people how easily this disease could be transmitted and proceed everything that you do in life with extreme caution and avoid unnecessary socialising stuff etcetera etcetera.

However, somehow slowly this virus seems to be inching towards home ground. Surely, my desk job, deeply rooted home-bound lifestyle does not much translate much into the risk contracting the disease under foreseeable circumstances (or wifey for that matter). But signs of the impending approaches are already rearing its ugly head. A colleague who came back from the land down under (not the epicentre of the spread though thankfully) was showing signs of either cold or flu symptoms (definitely not observations as made clear by hafiz in one of his entry) such as sneezing, red and runny nose about a week after she came back. And the last I heard (and I don't bump into her that much it seems) she was just dismissing it as a common cold which has nothing to be worried about. True enough, under different circumstances, I'd be one of those last ones to be rushing to the clinic to at the first sign of fever or coughs and would bear through it until wifey would be sick enough of listening to my big baby whining and forced me to get my big butt to the clinic. But this is not a normal circumstance and I surely would hope she would get herself checked. On second thoughts, I did not see her at the office at all today so probably gart or somebody else has finally knocked some senses into her head.

Moreover, I was also informed by my colleague this afternoon that his sister has been sent away to the Hospital Sungai Buloh because she has become a suspect case of one. And she has not been travelling anywhere lately so would she go down the record as the first locally-transmitted swiney case? Only time and some samples of her blood would tell, I guess.

As for now, I am not in the panicky stage yet. Shaqeef has been enduring his cough for about a week. Not those disheartening, consistent cough but more like a little coughing in the morning and almost non-existent throughout the day kind of cough though it did degenerate into those deep, chesty cough but Alhamdulillah he recovered by the time we got back from the office in the evening so considering that he's only turning 5 months old at the end of the month, I have held out the clinic visit for now. Not quite a big fan of drugs especially given to such a small baby unnecessarily.

Or should I be panicking now already?

For Fathers and Mothers too

I have always been subscribed to Saifulislam.com. One thing that I like most about the ustaz is how he incorporates things that can be viewed as very secular such as watching movies, books, current political and historical events from an Islamic perspective. Here's an excerpts of one of his entry entitled Tidurlah Sayang.

Semasa bermastautin di negara Barat, ada banyak perkara yang saya perhati dan kemudiannya menjadi pelajaran buat diri. Saya selalu berasa teruja apabila berinteraksi dengan anak-anak Irisih yang datang berkunjung ke masjid. Ramai dari kalangan mereka mempunyai budi bahasa yang baik dan tertib semasa masuk ke masjid. Hingga terdetik di hati saya, bagaimanakah cara ibu bapa mereka mendidik anak-anak ini?

Saya yakin, tidak ada cacat dan kurangnya pada Islam. Tetapi mengapa sebagai Muslim, ada kalanya budi bahasa dan ketertiban diri anak-anak itu sukar untuk dicari?

Tanpa Islam, bagaimana mereka mendidik anak-anak dengan nilai yang murni?

Ada sesuatu di sana.

Also from the entry, he quoted a poem by Diane Loomans.

If I Had My Child to Raise Over Again
By Diane Loomans

If I had my child to raise all over again,
I’d finger-paint more, and point the fingers less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.

I would care to know less and know to care more.
I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.
I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.

I’d do more hugging and less tugging.
I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.
I’d teach less about the love of power, And more about the power of love.

Definitely a food for thought for me.

7 Thingy Tag

Ok Famy. Another hutang from you. Here it comes.

The 7 Things Tag

7 facts you may not know about me:

1. I'm short. Well not midget short but definitely not as tall as I would like it to be. Well, apart from aesthetics, would've been nice to be able to spike those volleyball wherever I fancied if only I were taller, and when I could jump before


2. I had an ACL reconstruction surgery on my left knee a very long time ago, possibly in 1995. A quick check by my ortho friend 2 weeks ago pronounced that it was brilliantly done and my knee is still almost as good new.


3. I was breastfed until very late apparently. In tandem with my younger brother who is 2 years younger than I am. That should explain the everlasting fascination with the upper torso region of the opposite sex.


4. I started getting my wisdom tooth really early. Probably when I was 20 years old or so, if I remember correctly. And had the complete set of adult homosapien teeth by 29 years old. All still there, the last time I checked. Biologically aging faster. Ah well. At least somebody told me before I look better as I age :p


5. Only had 1 other girlfriend before I got married to the One at the age of 28. Somehow I found it difficult to find a suitable one when I was really looking


6. I used to drive very fast. Not anymore. At least I did not change into those low profile, 17 inch rims for cosmetic purposes only. I have been caught (and got away scot-free) driving at 150km/h in an 80km/h zone


7. When it comes to appearance, I'm very seasonal. There are times when I just don't really care how I look like and when I am so vain, checking out the mirror all the time. But lately, it's the former rather than latter mostly

7 things that scare me:

1. Commitment. Refer to no. 5 up there


2. Road accidents. I have been in a few though Alhamdulillah now all had been material but not mortal damage


3. Wife?! Bukan takut... sayang...


4. Going downstairs in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. But then, if the man of the house takut, who else la kan. So, gain enough courage and just go lah


5. Creepy crawlies really creeping on my feet. I don't mind chasing after or use a broom to brush it off but if those damn lizards somehow landed on my feet, those minute cold paws would bring shivers down to my spine... grrr!


6. Height. Imagine looking downwards from a 25th floor apartment's balcony. Heavenly.


7. The opposite sex. Or at least I used to be when I was in secondary school. Now I've learned to live with many of them around.

7 songs that I like the most:

Many, this one. I'll give the first 7 songs that I have in my recent playlist

1. Dewi by Dewa19


2. Aku Mau by Once


3. Ayat-ayat Cinta by Rossa


4. No Air by Chris Brown


5. Bohemian Rhapsody by Fugees


6. Won't Go Home Without You by Maroon 5 (my ring tone also)


7. Kekasih Gelapku by Ungu

7 phrases that I say the most:

1. Salam. Standard intro in chats


2. How are you today? That would normally come after no 1


3. Adess


4. ooooo


5. Ngantuk!!!


6. I'm hungry!!!


7. Apa nak makan ni? (while scratching my head thinking of what kind of canteen food that I can stomach for another day while pacing up and down the aisle)

7 of my precious things:

1. My glasses, definitely can't live (see) without it.


2. My wedding ring. While the silver ring has many scratches due to the normal wear and tear, the amethyst stone is still shining brightly.


3. My watch, bequeathed from my aruah father. Battery is dead but I am still wearing it everywhere


4. My pants. I'm not really into a habit of walking around naked you know. Ok should include t-shirt, shirt or anything to wear on top also


5. My hair! Or should I say the lack of it. Cannot see those receding hairline or thinning population of those black thingy? You're not looking hard enough


6. Ah well I don't need to be explicit about it. I won't be a man without it.


7. And of course the cliche, my family ehehehe. Hey I'm running out of smart ideas here

7 memorable first timers:

1. First time I was away from home at 13 years old in a boarding school. Superbly homesick and was compounded by loneliness because I was isolated in the district hospital. I contracted chicken pox on the first week.


2. First time the opposite sex expressed her interest in me when I was 16 years old. Rasa hensem, cakap lu. Especially when the woman said something like why was I born 6 years earlier than you are


3. First time I could not answer the Add Math question that was presented to me, and it was in SPM! Had my first experience of mental block, in the exam. Damn! Sweating profusely. Needless to say, I did not get the coveted A1 that I expected to get :(


4. First time setting my foot in the land of down under. So gayat and surreal to actually feel cold while the sun is shining brightly in the sky.


5. First time breaking up with a girlfriend. Heartbroken wa cakap lu. Cerita lama sangat dah tu


6. First night sleeping with my newly-wed wife only to find her sleeping on the floor. She could not sleep due to the melodious orchestra that I would conduct in my sleep. Ah well, no more complaints nowadays. Alah bisa, tegal biasa.


7. First time holding my own daughter. I'm not really a baby person but when it comes to my own, a different sensation altogether.

7 people I would tag:

1. you
2. you
3. you
4. you
5. you
6. you
7. you

Da Little Fella

I am bored obviously. So I'm submitting another entry today which is not quite like me. But anyway, I have not submitted smiling photos of the little fella. So here they are at 3 months old.



As you can see, he can already smile widely with those both dimples showing (though not visible in the photos) and will make those funny faces with big widened eyes, enlarged nostrils and pouty lips trying to squeeze out those ever elusive voice that will occasionally spring out. And yesterday he finally succeeded in turning around, lying on his stomach.

Thoughts of the Day

If women in stilettos are such sights to behold, why don't women in stilts bring instantaneous orgasmic pleasure?

The Three Tags

I'd better do some tags before everybody gives up tagging me. Looks like majority of them are already

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Thr33 Things Tag

The three names I go by
- Mosh
- Real Name
- Mohamad

Three jobs I have had in my life
- Waiter
- Cleaner
- Wood Oven Pizza Maker

Three places I have lived
- Kuala Kangsar
- Alor Gajah
- Kota Damansara

Three TV shows that I watch

Not a regular TV buff but will watch if bumped into
- Nip/ Tuck
- House
- Whose Line Is It Anyway

Three places I have been
Today?
- Meeting
- Toilet
- Kak Zah's

People that e-mail me regularly
- Wife
- officemates
- koleq old boys

Three of my favorite foods
- mee goreng mamak
- mum's (and wife's of course) cooking
- tiramisu

Three things I would like to do
- play online games
- play games
- play "games"

Three friends I think will respond.
- have no idea
- same here
- same as above

Things I am looking forward to
- sleep
- weekend sleep
- "sleep"

Eh abih dah? Tu la dia...

Kuala Visit Part 1

It is Thursday the 23rd already so I have to write about the 20th anniversary trip that I was talking about in the previous entry before I forgot all about it. I think everybody that turned up have the same general conclusion about it, superbly excellent!

I'll give you the rundown of the informal itinerary of the trip. Formal means the planned itinerary for the weekend planned by the MC0BA organizing committee (which is almost identical annually) and informal means whatever that was planned by our very own batch committee to commemorate our own experiences there that would run parallel to the main one.

Ideally we had to be there at 2pm on Friday 17th. Aplril at Safar1 Resort at 2pm even though my initial plan with my car-pool mates were shooting off at 2.30pm from KLSeeSee after completing the Friday Prayers there. Not surprisingly, only me and the driver adhered to the plan and we ended up shooting off from Jalan Doota toll booth after rendezvousing with our final car-mate chauffeured to the toll plaza in his brand spanking new German mark at around 3:30pm.

The trip up north was itself an event. With music from the mid 80's blaring through the very loud sound system dwarfed only the loudness of hearty laughs all around, it was definitely a trip back across time, with 4 almost-40 lads ganging up together, trying very hard to forget the 20 years that has passed by.

Is this love that I'm feeling
Is this love that I'm feeling
Is this the love that I've been searching for
Is this love or am I dreaming
This must be love
Cos it's really go a hold on me
A hold on me

After several stops while we were traversing the highway, we only arrived at our destination around 7.15 pm despite the driver clocking a minimum speed of 150km/h while we were cruising to be greeted by the sights of many almost 40 overgrown boys, laterally mostly, chatting up in the parking lot of the resort. It was not a minute before half hour that we finally offloaded our bags, shaking hands, hugging and reminiscing about old times. As for me, I am glad that I could recall the names or nicknames of almost all of them, save one or two of the pretty inconspicuous ones, despite not meeting some of them for almost 20 years compensating how age has taken the toll on the wrinkles and significant lateral expansions. Looks like my long term memory has not failed me as much as my short term ones. Signs of old age with silverish, receding hairline? Possibly. But at least all of them recognized me at first sights as well :p.

I wanted to choose the upper bunk beds but despite the fan spinning at full speed merely 5 feet above our heads, was a bad choice because in the prevailing hot weather, that would be suicidal considering that you will not feel a thing on the upper decks so naturally I moved into the lower deck of the bunk beds. So there we were, CEO's, SVP's, MD's, Macai's and Kuli Batak's alike bunking in double-decker beds, wet to the bone due to perspirations in those air-conditionless dormitories, sharing showers and toilets.

After maghrib prayers, we performed a solat hajat for our batch-mate who was supposed to come but unfortunately was diagnosed with AML about 2 weeks ago and is currently undergoing chemotherapy session and hospital confinement for at least a month. The solat hajat was also dedicated to one of my batch-mate mother who was at the time has been hospitalised in a semi-comatose state for about 11 months due to a stroke-like attack on the brain triggered by an asthma attack. She passed away on Tuesday 3:30am on Tuesday 22nd. April. Innalillahiwainnailaihiroji'un.



Consequently, there was a BBQ dinner. Courtesy of Gromm Hellscream aka Bawal, here's a cool video clip of the event. Great job Bawal! I can't view the video proper while in the office here so I'll link the video properly when I get home. As for now, anybody curious enough can go with the link here.

To be continued...

edited to add proper yootoob link and XC:XX. Copyright reserved ke? I don't know. Just nicked it off my FB XC Group

Alma Mater Revisited

All set to go! Kuala here we come!

To be conveniently ignorant, it is really hard to believe that it was 20 years ago I was in form 5 in this school, more than 10kg lighter. While they have this MC0BA weekends every year, I haven't been back for eternity since 2005 when we celebrated our 100th. anniversary of the school. Old school, old boys, old attitude, at least when it comes to the old boys weekend. This is the opportunity to "relive" the heyday days with no worries, no responsibilities and not much care to the world. Forget 3-star, 4-star and 5 star hotels. CEO's, CFO's, office boys and balachi's alike would be staying in dormitories where bunk beds are the not optional and common toilet is the theme of the day.

Furthermore, to commemorate this special year indeed, thanks to the hardworking committee they have prepared additional itineraries for us which includes an open air BBQ and football and hockey matches against the current Form 1 children. Ah well. The current U-18 boys might be too tough to be handled alone so let's see how the coming-to-middle-age boys will fare against the almost-pube ones.

Hopefully will get more interesting photos to be posted about the event later even though I'm not bringing my own camera. As for now, this emergency one would do. You can actually click at the photo to get a larger version if you are curious enough. Weekend's starting early today for me. Have a good weekend, boys and girls. Salam.

Scare Tactics

If you have bought a pack of cigarettes lately, you would definitely notice a refreshing change on the latest adornments displayed on the new batches of boxes. I am not referring to those toll-free customer service phone number should you have any queries and encouragement on how you are actually contributing gargantuanally to the government's coffers or the missile money to bomb those helpless women and children. Nor I am referring to those stale simple warning of Smoking is Hazardous to Health. I am referring to those gory images that is prominently displayed at the top part of the front and back of all cigarette boxes. While those images serves as shock therapy to all the smokers out there, apparently it has some added bonus to it as well.

I started smoking regularly when I was 18 years old, starting with a pack a week until now to a-pack-a-day basis. Which means I have been smoking for almost half of my entire being and the fraction will only get bigger if I were to continue along. Wow! I only realised that as I am typing this entry.

Apparently, the bad habit (hey! All smokers do realise that it is a bad habit thank you very much) persisted throughout, braving through the thick and thins of my life such as no smoking zone in the office, severe financial depressions (still is), nagging girlfriends (not that many :p) and consistent hourly harassments from a newly-wed wife for several years to name a few.

And these new graphics has brought up a new kind of assault to this evergreen habit of mine. Similar to the last one I mentioned except that it comes from a smaller yet powerful voice of a very persistent 7 year old girl. Now, simply said, I just can't have my relative peace outside puffing the blues away at home without this little noise in the background saying Apasal ayah hisap rokok lagi? Nanti jadi macam kat dalam gambar tu And the irony is that I can't exactly rationalise my bad habit without actually promoting the habit to her, can I? For all you know, before long, the "newly-wed" wife would find a renewed enthusiasm in her fight for a smokeless environment and tobacco-free smell from me seeing the support that she's getting from her smaller counterpart.

Maybe I should quit. It would do wonders to my bank balance.

p/s: photo courtesy of http://www.quitsmokingpainlesslynow.com

A Rare Post About Work

Did you guys enjoy your Earth Hour on Saturday? Well, we did, for the better part of it. Emitting more COx, NOx and SOx while idling in the gridlock traffic going from Rawang to Bukit Beruntung via the old trunk road without any food only to find out that the candlelight dinner was not a viable option upon arriving at the destination at 8:45pm, 1 hour and 45 minutes later from Selayang Hospital was not exactly the best way to start the Earth Hour. The host ended up turning up the lights at around 9:10 in due sense of pressing demands of hunger, fatigue and restless kids and over-aged adults alike. All for a noble cause of visiting an elderly ailing aunt. According to the the brother of the host, he did his part the night before for 3 hours when the electricity supply was not forthcoming to his house between 12:00am to 3:00am.

How is this about work eh, you may wonder. It is all about work. Working with this KompeniKedekutLetrik, we expected to experience a reduction in demand in relative to the normal demand profile that we normally see on Saturday nights. Well, if you read the papers, our little teapot CEO, our demand dropped by about 550MW as reported here. It is really a gross figure giving the benefit of the doubt saying it in laymen's terms.

And for the benefit of laying, laid, soon-to-be-laid and will-never-be-laid men and women, I give you this little tutorial about Power which is expressed in the units of MW and Energy which is expressed in the units of MWh. If you're observant enough, you'd notice the little h in Energy which is just the measly hour. When you talk about energy, it is fixed and finite. MWh, Joule and kCal all measures the energy. For those counting the calories would know that however fast or slow you devour those teh tarik and roti canai, you would still ingest the same amount of energy that would correspondingly be converted to some milligrams of fat if it goes unused. Power (MW) however, denotes how fast the energy is consumed. So that roti canai and teh tarik would be used up faster when say, you're walking and chatting with gartblue when it is more than 10 minutes to 8:00am or half-jogging your way through swiping the door if your watch is showing the time to be 20 seconds to 8:00am. Even though some fitness buffs might refute my hypothesis, the same amount of energy would be used getting from the exact spot of parking space to that punch clock in both occasions. And the only difference would be ... time taken. Hence the Power (MW) is latter option would be much higher even though it lasts much shorter than the former. Hence I stop there before rambling on and on about the useless stuff. There's always Goog1e and Wik1 if you are curious enough, you know.

Anyway, back to the topic, I did some number crunching on the dip shown in KompeniKedekutLetrik demand profile on Saturday night and came up with this one. And to save my pretty ass, I used relative instead of absolute figures to be published here.

Viola! Err ok maybe it needs a bit of explanation. The blue curve shows the 'typical' Saturday night demand (MW) profile whereas the yellow one is for that particular rainy Earth Hour night starting from 7:00pm to 12:00am. While whatever manipulations that I have made does not account for the difference in weather patterns for those nights that I was comparing, it has minimised it to the point of hopefully not being significant enough. With that assumptions, a host of other assumptions can be derived from the change in demand pattern eh?

So, why don't anybody just give their piece of mind trying to explain the difference in demand. I'll start with one or two first and you can continue later.

1- Some people started way too early. Hey you're seeing the demand dropping already starting 8:00pm. Could it be possible some people were actually confused about the time?

2- Demand only started to recover at around 10:30pm. It seems that many people liked the darkness so much that they remained in the dark for an additional half hour after.

3- Demand never actually returned to their 'normal' level even past midnight. Some people enjoyed it too much or just too occupied to turn on the lights perhaps.

So, what's your take on it?

Si Rambut Lebat

Due to some requests on the latest photos of si rambut lebat, here they are:


And some more
And a video to boot for a bonus



Disregard the booming sexy voice, thank you.

My Take on Gender Inequalities

On parenting boys and girls that is. It is now already 40-odd days since my first boy was born on 29th. January. Oh yeah, since I have not been updating, his name is Mohammad Shaqeef by the way.

1. We are such inefficient creatures: Referring to the utilization of diapers as an example. While girls would thoroughly fill the whole breadth of the diapers, boys would only utilize the frontal portion mostly unless they poop while leaving the rear portion as dry as my butt. Maybe they should produce diapers specifically for boys with those moisture-absorbing materials concentrated mostly at the front portion and leave the rear section with minimal padding. Or, they should design diapers which are fully reversible. Then possibly we could reduce the landfill of diapers by one quarter not to mention being easy on the pockets as well.


2. All about breasts: I have not seen any babies whom would throw tantrums craving for milk while feeding, except for the baby boy. Though I have to admit my scope of watching breastfeeding mothers closely is albeit limited. He just simply could not get enough of it. Reminds me of my long time dear friend Shankar who said to us once in one hot summer Tu lah korang, kecik2 tak mau menyusu puas-puas. Dah besar barula kemaruk tengok... replying to the bountiful fruiting summer season that we had while strolling in the scorching summer heat in the city. To him I would say, my take is that boys (and men alike) and breasts are simply inseparable. Deny them the right to one, they would throw tantrum, regardless of age.


3. We are comfort-craving creatures: Despite the tough, hardcore or suave facade, we the male species crave for comfort that comes in the form of the opposite gender. I am perplexed to see that the baby boy cries most of the time when he is awake and I did not think the three girls were as restless as he was at his age. But then again, this is the baby that I have most contribution on my part, not due to the fact that I had to do many things for him but mostly because wifey is so tied up entertaining him that I have to do more on my part to take care of the other 3 including the adorable, gung ho 17-months old rambut lebat.


4. Smells odd: Seriously! I'm not sure due to the difference in physiology or the fact he has some cradle cap on his head but he sure smells different than the other three as far as I can remember. And I can't recall thinking of the different smells of the three when they were his age.


5. The mother: Not quite related to the gender of the baby but since it was her first C-Section, err how many days to pantang eh?

I guess that's all I could think off for now. I'm sure I would discover more as he grows older, if I get to see him grow older. Al-fatehah to my dear friend Zul whose passing was described by gart in here.

p/s: To Myra, Famy and Diah, I still know I owe you guys the tags huhuhu. At least niat nak buat tu ada lagi.

p/p/s: I know somebody who read this entry would demand a photo. I'll edit later to include his photo ok? No suitable photos with me as of now.

Are you sleeping, Brother Lah?

Funny how a person who was chairing a meeting discussing about toll hikes did not realise that the toll rates were going to be increased. Maybe it was beauty nap time when the decision about it was made. Sleeping over the matter definitely will make me be able to clearly imagine what transpired in the meeting.

He is finally here

I don't know if I can still proclaim myself to be a blogger or not, seeing how I have been away from this blogland for quite some time. I have been reading some of your blogs without leaving any trails, if any of you are still going to read this.

Well, like the title says, my son has finally arrived (but not my maid). He was born at 9.05pm on Thursday 29 January 2007. And like all things last minute, the name has not been finalised yet due to one interesting late entry. Of course, Arman has not been received mutually so we had to find another name and it was almost certain to be Aryth though yours truly is not really in full agreement with it. And the last minute entry that was adored by both is currently Shaqeef but I have googled, wikied, answered and tried many other avenues but could not find a meaning to it. Can somebody more enlightened than me or speak Arabic, Latin, Turkish or whatever language that is tell me it does not mean anything bad or even better means something really well? Thanks in advance.

A little story on the delivery day itself. We went for a regular check-up at around 10am that day when the O&G informed us that wifey was already 4cm dilated and advised us to admit her ASAP. Which we did not because we had to go to the immigration office to get the approval letter for our maid to be sent to the agency. Which we did and when wifey was finally admitted at around 3pm, she was already about 5cm dilated. Settled all the administrative stuff and I had to leave her alone in the delivery suite to mail the documents (and had cendol while I was at it), pick up the other 2 from their daycare and inform Athyra's babysitter if she could stay overnight (well, she had not much choice then). By the time I got back to the hospital at around 6pm, wifey was already 7cm dilated. By 7.30, the midwife told me that she was already 9cm dilated even though the baby was way up the passage and took down my mobile number and told me that I could go for dinner and she expected the delivery would take place at around 8.30pm and I could go out for dinner first. Which I did, with the 2 children when she called me at around 8.20pm saying that the O&G was there to deliver the baby already when I was on the way back to the hospital.

By the time I got into the delivery suite, they were already packing up saying that they have exhausted all avenues (including vacuuming) to deliver the baby normally and wifey will be moved to the operating theatre. At least I was glad to be informed that I could go into the OT.

There I was, suited up and video camera in hand, only to be told by the paediatrician who happened to be the medical director of the hospital that no photos/ videos were allowed in the OT. But at least I got to witness first hand how they actually cut open wifey's womb (not very gently occassionally) to see the elongated vaccumed head of Shaqeef popping out of the incision at around 9pm while maintaining my composure. Well, out of 9 people in the OT, only the paed, one medical auditor who sat in the corner without doing anything and I were the males around and it would be so not cool to be fainting at the first sight of blood and I survived watching closely all the butchery in progress. And the anaesthesiologist where quite a looker too. Digressed too much there.

Only after the paed left, assuring me that the baby is fine, everybody in the room said now I could take some limited videos/ photos of the baby and the mother but not how they stitched her up. Which I did but not quite the ER, Nip/Tuck or GA kind of videos because they did not allow those too.

So, to cut a long story short, while Athyra is such an angel during the day, she is not quite so at night and I ended up sleeping with 3 girls at home during the night. And Alyssa was not even late for school the day after while keeping the breakfast and bekal tradition intact.

Wifey would stay at her sister's place until Thursday when hopefully we can borrow her sister's maid and tonight, I'll be sleeping with 2 schoolgoing children alone and hopefully I can wake up myself upon hearing the alarm clock at 6am tomorrow morning.

Some useless trivia for you:

1. The first C-section delivery for wifey. Some grand entrance he's putting up there.


2. While Alyssa's and Amelya's age gap is 23 months, they were born on consecutive years (2002 and 2003) whereas the 15 months separating Athyra and Shaqeef are 2 years apart (2007 and 2009).


3. On wifey's side, 3 of her sisters has only 1 boy in their family while on 1 had none (with 4 girls) and 1 had 4 boys and 3 girls.


4. On my side, Shaqeef is only the second boy by Arwah Matsah's 3 sons (and 8 girls to go with it). Plenty of boys coming from my sisters though.


5. At the rate of RM120/ month, my salary would possibly deducted until the boy goes to school by the KompeniKedekutElektrik that now limits the maximum claims for C-section deliveries to slightly more than 3k only.


6. Quite unrelated to the post but my last entry was posted on 22 December 2008 so this must've been the longest break I took for submitting an entry.