Safe journey

My dear friend, you are now on a plane with 12 hours to spare. I hope you enjoy your flight in BUSINESS class and soak in all the perks of it. :P May both of you make wonderful memories over there and have the best experience ever ever ever! I know you have all sorts of emotions running wild in you right now, I think I heard it in your voice but don't worry. As I always say, everything will be alright, in fact it will be AWESOME...no, it will be Legend-wait for it-DARY! Take care and see you when I see you. :) HUGS

R.I.P. PodPod

I bought my Ipod Classic more than a year ago and it was a joy to use. It has more capacity than I would ever get to fill but this lovely little thing helps me sleep at night. Then…I killed it. That fateful night, a couple of weeks ago. Pod Pod was plugged in and innocently lying on my desk. For some reason, I turned in my seat trying to get something from my bed and my giant leg swiped the USB cable, pulling my Pod Pod from the top of my table to its death on my cold hard tiled floor. I heard a loud smack. I froze. Then I went Oh My F-ing God! F F F F F F! I picked it up, I heard it whirring over and over. I was like going on along the lines of omg, omg, omg, omg, please work, please work, omg, shit, shit, shit, omg, omg. Sadly, it was stuck. It couldn’t boot, it just kept whirring in and out of consciousness. Out of desperation, I whacked it on the palm of my hand but it didn’t help. Nor did it do any good to my palm. The next day, I googled for help. Many forums suggested re-dropping it. Apparently it works for many. Alas, there was hope! I dropped it on the carpeted floor, not once, not twice…3 times. My hands quivered as I tried starting it up after each drop. Didn’t work. Genius! I ceased and called it a day on the dropping activity in case my colleagues thought I had gone cuckoo. (tried that again when I got home…no, it didn’t work also). Finally, I took it to the shop and tried to get them to fix it but I was told, my harddisk is bonkers already. I would need to pay RM500+ to get a replacement.

I thought about it. I was planning to get an Ipod Touch later this year or the next year. Why would I want to spend another 500 bucks for this now. After a couple of days of pondering and saying my goodbyes to Pod Pod, then it was the birth of my Ipod Touch. End of story.

And yes, that's Adam Lambert. I HEART HIM. Maybe I'll blog about the pathetic group of Idol contestants in the latest season after this. I miss Adam Lambert. American Idol Season 9 is sooo boring (except for an occasional few good performances that gave me bits of chills) and I used to like Kara as a judge but gawd, she's so annoying and fake this season. That crying bit she did to one of Big Mike's performances felt so ultra fake. It's like someone said, hey, a judge needs to cry this season since we lost Paula...so, someone please cry. Yeah, whatever, what do I know, it's show biz.

Aras

I'm liking his music very much. Very acoustic, indie songs.
http://www.myspace.com/oddus

34 degrees Celcius

I'm baking in the sweltering heat of a Saturday afternoon. My internet line has finally gone back to close to normal. It had been slow as hell for the past 3 days. Maybe the cables melted from the perpetual burning heat. It has been a somewhat blurry week. I've been slumped on my office seat wishing the minute hand would hasten its pace. Then my days started getting a little brighter and perkier as the week approached the weekend. But some things just get me down again so suddenly. Nevertheless, life is full of ups and downs.
Next update, my iPod Touch and the death of my original iPod.

Quick Bits

• Did anyone watch the Grammy's recently? It was interesting in some parts. I really liked the duet between Elton John and Lady Gaga. And Beyonce's performance was nice but I wished she had performed Single Ladies instead. It would be cool to watch. Pink's bit was awesome and surprising. It's so not like her at all but I like the song. I think I hated the Eminem/Little Wayne/what's-his-name performance. What's with the underwear-showing pants? It is so uncool, unhip & unfashionable. Btw, I wonder if there was a barricade of bodyguards surrounding the stage looking out for a certain Kanye when Taylor Swift got the album of the year award. My favourite bit of the show was when one of the announcer's (a comedian, I don't know his name), was joking around on stage and pulled out his Ipad from underneath his coat. That was funny. Didn't expect that.
• Ra ra ah ah ah, rama ramama, Gaga ooh lala. That tune has been playing in my head all week. I've been going ra ra ah ah ah everyday. It's a song by the way. Lady Gaga's Bad Romance to be exact. I love it.
• What's with American Idol having Joe Jonas as a guest judge?? All he did was nod and go YEA. *shake head* I enjoyed the Katy Perry guest judge segment. She's so direct and in your face and it's interesting watching her and Kara trade insults. I'm looking forward to watching Ellen Degeneres as a judge.
  
• My current obsession (mild obsession btw) is Glee. This show is colourful, bright, funny, smart and the music's good. I really like Kurt (the gay dude). He is so funny and cool at the same time. Then, Rachel, annoying but adorable with a weird fashion sense. There was one part when Kurt and Quinn were saying that Rachel dresses like a grandmother and a toddler at the same time.
  
• I watched Legion recently, despite Soon Yee telling me that it was a load of crap, I still had to see this load of crap myself and agree wholeheartedly that it is a whole load of crap. Don't get me wrong, the action and effects are fine but the story line is bullshit. Angel's with machine guns, God instructing an army of mean angels to annihilate human race by seeking out and killing a certain baby mama not so Terminator-style(why need to send a bunch of useless angels that can't do their job? Just send the Terminator) , and what's with the zombie-ish human possessing angels with sharp teeth..are they demons or angels?, and where did Michael hide his huge angel wings after he cut it off?, and that final line between Gabriel and Michael "You gave him what he wanted, but I gave him what he needed"...WTH??. Yiiisshh.
  
• I just realised all my quick bits above only had to do with either TV or music. God, I have no life. Well, what do you want me to talk about right? Work?! (LOL, roll on the floor LOL). I have enough of that bullshit to give me stress pimples.
  
• Happy Chinese New Year!
  

Glee fever catches on

Filled with colourful characters and catchy songs. Glee is a must watch and it ain't no High School Musical (Thank God!).

Friday night

Now playing : Norah Jones - Chasing Pirates

Dinner at Equatorial Hotel, Coffee Garden last night was pleasant. It was our annual department gathering and the buffet was varying. Most of the food was acceptable, quite a number of choices but some were too salty. They served 3 types of potatoes and I'm a sucker for potatoes. Nothing else mattered after that. I tried the Portugese Barbequed Chicken. It was very tender but please, if you ever go there, don't take the BBQ sauce. It tastes like soap. Not that I have eaten soap but I imagine that's what soap would taste like.
We had a lucky draw after that at this OB Irish pub in Bukit Jambul Country Club. I got number 23 in the queue and then later on exchanged with another colleague who had 15 because we carpooled there and all of us wanted to go home early. I had a glass and a half of beer, and we all sat there looking bored, music was loud. I couldn't even hear myself think but I enjoyed the experience. I told my colleagues that it was my first time in a pub. They couldn't believe it because they said I didn't look so 'lau beh'. But it's true, although I actually prefer lounge than pub. Lounge music with live bands is so much better than the loud pumping, ear-splitting music in a pub. And finally, what did I get for lucky draw? Not so lucky...I got chopsticks. I wonder what I'm going to do with all those chopsticks. I could stick it into my hair like a kungfu gal!

Side note: Yes, Jo..that is the lyrics of my favourite Lee Hom song at the moment. But you should know better since you say I'm a banana.

My week as it was

I'm sitting here in the living room on 31st Dec 2009, Thursday at 5.00pm watching Can't Hardly Wait on tv. I've watched this movie dozens of times since high school. Ethan Embry is so cute. So, in the blink of an eye, this week has gone by before I can fully grasp it. How did my week of shutdown go? Let's rewind.

Monday, 28th Dec 2009
I slept my morning away until 11.30am because my head was pounding like a nail or was it hammer? Then I went for lunch at Passions of Kerala (banana leaf rice) before heading off to Gurney Plaza to look for some gifts. I managed to spend about 2 hours watching some shows after that. haha. But I felt too sick to enjoy it, my head was spinning.

Tuesday, 29th Dec 2009
I woke up today at 9.00am down with flu and cough. After an hour of lazing around I decided to head to office to get some things done. Spent about an hour there and went off to Queensbay for a walk. It was followed by a trip to the bank to settle some discrepancies with my gift redemption and then followed by a reluctant trip to the doctor. My throat was killing me. The rest of my afternoon was just an hour or so of tv time.

Wednesday, 30th Dec 2009
This morning, I woke up at 8.00am! Woohoo....waking up after 10am makes me moody. Thus the woohoo. At the spur of the moment, I decided to go for facial to kill time and zits. Then I had lunch at Batu Lanchang market before heading to Prangin mall for a while. Again, I spent 1-2 hours of my remaining evening to watch Bones.

Thursday, 31st Dec 2009
Today is the final day of 2009. Shouldn't it end with a bang or some sort of celebration of what I may have achieved this year? Yeah...no bang, no obvious achievements anyway. Worked from home this morning and completed it in the nick of time. So, I went shopping for some clothes. Out with the old, in with the new. Make new memories. Which then brings me to sitting in front of the tv watching Can't Hardly Wait.

I guess I didn't rot in front of the tv with the whole pledge of tv series marathon I mentioned in my previous post. It's strange how time flies, I didn't really do much this week as you can see but the hours flew by like a Boeing 747. I figured nothing out and everything is still the same old story. Tomorrow we begin a new year. Happy New Year anyway.

Out of office for a week

I'm gonna be off work for a week. Not by choice anyway but not saying that I would choose to be at work also, yiisshh WTF right? I'm hoping for cloudy days so my plan is to just crash at home and watch endless marathons of shows. I can picture myself at the end of the week, unkempt, wide-eyed, groggy and a little bit stoned. Besides just being couch potato and relaxing with me time at home in the quiet peace and comfort and also bask in the fact that a monkey-poop is out of my sight, so besides that I might just get a few important things done.
1. Call the banks and cancel cards. (I hate dealing with them, douchebag horrible service)
2. Shop for belated Christmas gifts...yea yea I know Xmas is over, shush.
3. Do something with my hair, maybe a whole Kristen Stewart-ish theme.
4. Go to the gym...will try anyway.
5. Have to work on Thursday.
6. Jobstreet, jobstreet, jobstreet.

Basically I don't have much valuable stuff to attend to besides those. I'm just really looking forward to just tv time and sorting out my thoughts. These past couple of months have not been great. All those nights, starring wide-eyed at the ceiling trying to get some sleep but ended up hyperventilating. My thoughts on my career..or lack of, my bleak future, stay or leave Penang, life in general...it's all crazy at times.

Shortnote: My f*cking office pc seems to be turned off, I can't connect and I have to go into office to turn the f*cking thing on. I shouldn't even care at all.

Soundbites

I watched New Moon. Wouldn't miss it for the world. This time around it's a lot of Team Edward versus Team Jacob. I'm loyal Edward follower...all the way...even though Jacob's body is so darn hot. I only begin to start liking Jacob a liiiittle bit in Breaking Dawn.

I watched this movie called The Canyon too. It's not too bad, nothing high profile. It's about 2 honeymooners lost in the Grand Canyon. Only familiar face is the girl who happens to be Sarah, from the show Chuck.

I am so exhausted. That's what I feel inside me anyway. It feels like I have not slept for a week even though I actually did. Every waking moment is so tiring. I wish there is a pill that will just make the troubles go away.

And, only good thing is MU won Portsmouth 4 to 1. Go Rooney! I hope Arsenal burns Chelsea's bum.

Top 10 songs on my Ipod, November 2009

November...going into December then going into a new year. Time is inevitable, deadlines are inevitable, I hate my life already. Nothing worth looking forward to, except for nice songs that will take my troubles away for a few minutes a day.

01. John Mayer - Who Says : It sounds a little different from his past songs. I absolutely love this song, it's so simple yet so mesmerizing. Only complaint is that it's too short.

02. Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway : The rap part of this song is the best. So infectious.

03. Craig David - I'm Sorry (I Just Don't Love You No More) : Thanks Soon Yee for this song. I'm so hooked, it's so emo. I think the word 'emo' is also the most said word by us this month.

04. Lily Allen - Fuck You : I don't think I'll ever make a good teacher in this lifetime because I actually think this song is so good as a kid's song. Because of the upbeat, cute-sy tempo. And wth, those kids gotta learn to defend themselves verbally somehow.

05. Kate Voegele - Angel : This one's got a kick-ass chorus. I love her voice, so smooth and blue-sy.

06. One Republic/Sara Bareilles - Come Home : Another emo emo song recommended by Soon Yee. "Come home, come home, I've been waiting for you, for so long, for so long".

07. T-Max - Fight The Bad Feeling : Ballad version. A korean song from the drama series Boys Over Flowers which I was so freakishly hooked on the past month or so. I've finally finished it and hey, even my grandma enjoyed watching it.

08. Someday - Algoinnayo : Another Korean song from Boys Over Flowers which I think this song is the best of all in the soundtrack. It had been my ringtone for a long time. Just fyi, now my ringtone is the Fuck You song minus the chorus as people might find that offending. I don't want to be bashed up in a coffeeshop or get kicked out from a classy restaurant.

09. Michael Buble - Hold On : This song makes me feel like wrapping my arms around someone to feel safe.
10. Adam Lambert - Time For Miracles : He is so perfect for this dramatic songs and I can just feel the tempo building up to that end note where he goes to his trademark Adam Lambert high pitch scream.

A toast to this f**ked up day

What a f**ked up day it is. What stupid monthly maintenance downtime?! It is giving people nothing but issues. Everytime there's a downtime, something will go wrong whenever the system is back up again. Am I suppose to follow-up this crap shit every single month? What difference does it make staying with the stupid dinosaur system or this?!
I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm sick of my life and I just want to eat and I don't f**king care about that weight...this is a grand way to cap a miserable couple of weeks that have been nothing but shit for me. It has been all f**ked up weeks in every aspect!

Time Traveller's Wife

I finished reading Time Traveller's Wife last week just in time before the release of the movie. And I watched it yesterday. 2 words. Loving it. It's a nice story. The book was a bit of a long, merry-go-round read which took me a couple of weeks to finish but at the end, it was worth it. So was the movie.

Top 10 songs on my Ipod, October 2009

The music world has lost a wonderful talent. Stephen Gately. Not many would know him worldwide but he is very famous in Ireland, UK and Asia as far as I know. Boyzone, they are one of the best boybands I've grown up listening to and my favourite member was Stephen Gately.

01. Kate Voegele - Angel : Who's Kate? I heard of her through One Tree Hill. She's a regular guest star in that show as Mia Catalano, a budding singer. Features her songs occasionally. on the show. A pretty good way of promoting her album. This is her latest album (A Fine Mess), and it's really good. The kind of music I love.

02. Gavin DeGraw - Glass : I have heard this song for some time now but it never really clicked with me until they featured it in the background in one of the scenes in One Tree Hill.

03. Heart - Never : They are more famous for their other songs like Alone or All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You. I love the chorus of this song, brings a nice vibe.

04. Justin Lo - 三十日 : Totally got whacked big time by that Gary Chaw. But unrelated to that, I love this guy. Justin! Not Gary...don't even care who Gary was until the news broke about how he bashed Justin up. My friend introduced this song to me. Hooked on it ever since.

05. Nickelback - Far Away : I didn't even know this was by Nickelback. I heard Ace Young (guest starring on Bones) singing it the first time. Then recently I watched Bones season 3 again and this time I heard him mention Nickelback. Oh this is good.

06. Mandy Moore - I Could Break Your Heart Any Day : Not a big fan of Mandy Moore at all. But definitely a big fan of her latest single. I just wanna clap away with the song everytime I hear it.

07. A1 - Living The Dream : Old song from old boyband. A sweet little ballad. This song goes into my special little list. SY, I'll show you the compilation if you are interested. It's still growing very slowly. Haha!

08. Michael Buble - Haven't Met You Yet : His latest single from his newest album.

09. Elton John - I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues : I don't know how to describe this song. What to do, I love old songs.
- No mood to find a 10th song now...I don't know why my mood changes so suddenly. Shit.

Waiting for the sizzling hot albums to be released soon by Carrie Underwood, Michael Buble, Adam Lambert.

Boyzone's Stephen

Omg...I just read. Stephen Gately has died! One of my favourite members of Boyzone is gone.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091011/en_afp/entertainmentirelandmusic
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/10/11/boyzone.death/index.html

Top 10 songs on my Ipod, September 2009

01. Shania Twain - Nah : Off her Up album. Haven't heard this for a long time? The other day I was playing it in my car and kept repeating it since.

02. Uncle Kracker - Smile : I love this part in the song where he sings the chorus and the background music is all gone "You make me smile like the sun, Fall out of bed.."

03. Pitbull - I Know You Want Me : This song is weird. I love it!

04. Colbie Caillat - Begin Again : Absolutely loving this song. It's off her latest album.

05. Human Nature - When You Say You Love Me : They had this song in the Walk The Tightrope album. Then I wiki-ed them recently and found out they have released a couple of albums since as well like motown hits and stuff. This song was released in the Symphony of Hits album where their songs are remade to be accompanied by symphony orchestra. I love this song and it features Darren Hayes. He made it sound so natural.

06. LFO - Summergirls : Still remember them? It's been so long. This song is so feel good and the video is colourful and nice. Who can resist Rich Cronin back then?

07. Oasis - Don't Go Away : It oddly puts me in a melancholy mood and I'm so hooked on it.

08. Human Nature - Everytime : Awesome love ballad. Also from one of their older albums.

09. Brooke White - Sometimes Love : She released her debut album recently and this is one of the songs in there. The albums pretty good, since I like her style of music. This is my favourite song in there aside from Hold Up My Heart.

10. Daughtry - Pokerface : Poker what? Uh huh...yup. It is theLady Gaga song but I saw this clip of him singing it acoustic on youtube and ...it was sizzling hot!

Those were the days

Do you still remember them? Try looking through the pictures. Maybe you'll find something that brings back some memories. Those times before all the Pussycat Dolls, before John Mayer, before Taylor Swift, before Daughtry and before American Idol ever existed. There were those boybands, Spice Girls and bubble pop times. They were the 'essence' of my school days & adolescence, musically. Some of them have become defunct, some became bona fide superstars bringing sexyback, some just grew up, disappeared from the spotlight or hogged the spotlight with all the bad press and a selected few decide to sing horrible versions of other people's hit songs and etc. Nevertheless, I kinda miss some of them.

The morning after

It's Monday, my close friends and brother and sis-in-law have all left or are preparing to return to KL. The feeling is a mix as it seems like the weekend just passed by in the blink of an eye. Before you know it, everyone has left. I'm just sitting here, nowhere to go, no one to meet, no place to return to because I am where I am. It don't feel like home so I spend most of my time in my room thinking about something to do. I need some company, or cheering up...I know! Ice cream! New Zealand Natural Ice Cream...that should keep me up for a couple of minutes.
P/S: See you when you get back from Europe, SY. Maybe I'll make a trip to KL when you guys are around.

_|_

Look what my idiot friend did. So free ah! Hng....adding spiderweb, my blog not that dead kua. 10 days isn't so bad.

Ramblings on life

I never thought of myself as a person who dreads getting older. Years ago, I couldn’t wait to be 21. Now I’m practically drowning in the late 20’s pool and frankly it freaks me out. For one, it feels like approaching 30 is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I have not achieved what I want to achieve nor do I know what I want to achieve other than the fact that what I want to achieve is definitely not this. Do you get what I’m trying to say? I don’t care if you don’t. :P
These days I don’t feel particularly proud of myself. I see people close to me whom I grew up with & some close friends moving forward in their lives and I admire them for it, going off to places like Australia, KL and other places and making a career for themselves. I’d like to do that too. Recently, I have been wondering a lot about moving out of Penang and maybe to KL, partly because one day my dad brought it up and asked me if I’ve ever thought of doing so (of coz I like Singapore though coz it’s clean and $$ and the system is so much better there! Education here has taken a backward step after the recent govt announcement. But anyhoo…). I told my friend, I wonder about that...just as far as wondering.. but I don’t know when or if I will ever find the guts to do it. I don’t think I’d be able to just go. But it’s a nice thought. That kind of change might be considered as a small achievement. I’m not really that brave to be honest because I tend to think too much, I’m not a change person. Change is good though, I want to embrace change. 
I just don’t look forward for my life to be like born in Penang, study in Penang, work in Penang, start a family in Penang, continue working here until the day I die. Life pretty much shapes into that, freakish but that’s life. Personally for me, my case, and I mean just my own opinion and not comparing with anyone else, not offending anyone else, I feel I got nothing to show and dreading family gatherings coz I’d be the only one who’s still here. Thus, that is why I don’t feel proud of myself anymore and lately it is like I’m having permanent PMS. Maybe I don’t have to think about moving away from here, I guess I could take baby steps and change work environment and find something new with better prospects to do. Maybe I’ve just really been doing this far longer than I really should. That could change my whole perspective.
And thus comes to the end of my post while I go scratch my eyes out looking at codes. It doesn’t feel so bad if I can solve it, but it feels horrible when your mind refuses to work.