End-of-week bitchin.....

Ah, Friday.....that lovely day has yet again come along, and the week's drawing to a close. As always, my mind's not quite here at the office with the rest of me, as witnessed by the fact that I'm blogging when I really should be finishing work on that file thats been sitting on my desk all morning.

Got to the office and got an sms from a dear colleague of mine, H. Horror of horrors, dufus is at it again. This time, in his sick little mind, he's decided that he, as head of department, can stake a claim to crediting himself for our work. We've been involved in this major telecommunications deal for ages....H has been doing a bulk of the work and dufus came in far too late to be involved in any significant part in the project. Besides, with his kinda intellect, even if he did start it off from the beginning, its unlikely he would have contributed much anyhow. Think 1st generation ATARI PC and you'll get the general idea where dufus' intellect lies. If he were reborn with his current brain, he'd likely be an amoeba............


Meet my Head of Department

In any case, it transpires that H managed to take a peek at dufus' CV and guess what? He's claiming he "lead the team" that drafted those landmark agreements! Can you beat that? What the heck does he mean by "lead the team"??? The only thing this man could lead is a horse drawn carriage.....with him as the horse! And even then, with hi puny little physique, I doubt he'd get very far.......

You know, I really, really, really wish I could somehow rig his chair with some form of microwave generating device that would cook him to a crisp in under 5 minutes at a push of a button.

In any case, he's a nutter that deserves to be given the boot, but alas, its not the Firm's style to kick out unwanted baggage.......

If theres a bright side to all this is the fact that I have 2 clear days to forget about the numbskull.

Ah...the weekends..ain't it a lovely concept? You know, whomever thought that it'd be a good idea to have 5 days of work and 2 days of rest needs a slap on the behind. Why couldnt it be the other way around? 5 days rest, 2 days work...now THAT would be just SMASHING!

Its odd though - you look forward to the weekend with anticipation akin to a guy waiting for his bride-to-be to say "yes" to his proposal, and yet, when it does eventually swing by, you just wanna do NOTHING! For now though...that sounds a whole lot better than being at the office, so I shant complain....

Cars, gadgets and such.....

Ever wonder why people aspire to owning german automobiles? Its odd, isnt it? These cars - BMW's. Mercedes-Benz' and Audi's - all do pretty much the same thing your good ol' Toyota does....except its double, if not triple the price.

This train of thought left the station cos a friend of mine just splurged 150 big ones on a 15 year old Mercedes! Why? I honestly don't know. Prestige, they say....the satisfaction of driving something engineered by the same people who almost took over the western world.....

Thing is, for that kinda money, there are a heck of a lot of brand new cars at his disposal. But he didnt want Japanese. Didnt want British either.......DEFINITELY didn't want local....OK...after having a brand new Proton act up on me the day I took delivery of the blasted car, I can perfectly understand the last write off, but Japanese?

I like JapMobiles. They're usually cheap (though anything above 90k can hardly be called cheap in my eyes), cheerful and go on forever and ever an ever as long as you stick to their service intervals. They're very well oiled machines, and that perhaps is their ultimate failing, as strange as it seems.

This is my theory......when you take something for granted - that the car will start first time, everytime, and will get you from A to B in absolute comfort and minimum of fuss, you tend to forget the machine that makes that possible. Drive any modern Japanese car and you'll understand. They're so utterly efficient that they are deviod of any characteristic that endears you to them.

Wanna test this theory? Drive a Toyota Corolla fo 30 mins. Then hop into a Honda Civic for 30 mins....then hop into a Mazda 323. They drive the same, feel almost the same and in many ways, look almost the same unless you have a keen eye for detail required to tell them apart.

On the other hand, "continentals" as we've come to term them, are utterly unreliable, expensive to maintain, temperamental, fuel guzzlers and often have baffling interiors. Their equipment can equally be as baffling as the cars themselves. Whomever thought it was a good idea to put HEATED mirrors in a tropical - spec Citroen Xantia really, ought to be shot......Same goes for cars from Mercedes.....what kind of "luxury" car makes do with vinyl seats? They call it "MB-Tex"....fancy name for "taxi seats", really......

Fact is though, these quirks make us remember these cars. They leak oil, guzzle petrol, have air conditioning that doesnt condition air at all....but these are things we love. It gives the car "character", as car enthusiasts tell me.

And of course, living in a typically asian society, a person's worth is measured directly by his posessions, and having a "continental" car parked in your porch can sometimes mean the difference between being accepted by your future in-laws and getting the boot out the door by the very same people......drive a Mercedes, no matter how old, you're brilliant son-in-law material...the type mothers would pay you to marry their daughters. Drive anything Japanese and you're "trying to make it".......perfectly acceptable, but you'll always be subject to the "upgrading anytime soon" questions and looks......

For me, though, if I had 150k, I'd be bloody happy with a Subaru Forester in Reddish Blue Metallic - all 177bhp of turbocharged performance;) To hell with what others think. They don't like what I drive they can catch a cab - likely fitted with "MB-Tex" upholstery too - LOL!


The brilliant "Scooby" Forester

Thursday, bloody thursday.....

Ain't it odd whenever you get up, its a thursday, and you wish it wasn't? If I were born as a day in the week, I'd really hate being Thursday.....or Monday for that matter. Thursday's always that pesky little day you have to get over to arrive at Friday, which is when the REAL party starts.

Honestly, I don't even know why we bother showing up for work on Fridays. No one gets anything done on Fridays, for the simple fact that our minds get into warp 9 from the word go and zooms right into the weekend leaving our bodies to go mouldy sitting down in the office.

Assessment day is over, thank goodness! One thing I've learnt from last night's assessment video.....NEVER, EVER watch yourself on playback when you record yourself. Its perhaps odd, but although I stand a pretty tall 6ft 3.5in, I've never seen the world as a small place where a person my size would dwarf anything. I mean, I used to drive a Kancil, for crying out loud, and I felt the car was perfectly fine. If you don't know what a Kancil is, well, picture a one-seater lawn mower with a roof and air-conditioning and you'd not be far off ;) But seriously, looking at myself on playback, the bike, itself a solid cast metal contraption standing at least 3 feet tall and weighing a good solid 75kilo's, looked like a kid's tricycle beneath me!

I was really touched though.....some members of my class who normally didn't attend my Wednesday classes took time off to head down to the gym just to give support to their gargantuan instructor for the night. Some of them I actually thought of as complete asses till last night.

Theres this one guy, Mr. X, who annoys me as much as flies do when you're trying to have lunch. The type thats loud, brash and smells oddly like durian even if you're 6ft away from him . If you wonder what Durians are, its a fruit revered here in Malaysia as the "King of Fruits", though a friend once put it quite aptly into descriptive words as "the best textured pudding eaten in a very badly kept toilet". He wasnt very far off, truth be told.


The offensive "King of Fruits"

But anyway, Mr. X actually took time off work, drove halfway across town and fought KL's infamous gridlock to get to class to show his support, though I thought his whole "thumbs up" action at the end of the assessment in front of the video cam was a bit OTT....;) But that kinda made me realise one thing - people you want to write off for the smallest faults often can surprise you in the biggest of ways.....

The opposite, of course, can be true as well, that of people you hold in high regard only to realise that they are complete asses.

Take one example - my Head of Dept.....popularly known as "Dufus" in my office. We had such high hopes for this man when he was hired to take charge of our department. That illusion however, was quickly shattered when he started snoring at his cubicle within the first week at work. I kid you not. The man had, somehow, somewhere, mastered the art of sleeping in vertical alignment on his office chair without keeling over. Thing is, if he limited that whole act to the office, it'd not be a problem, really....I mean, maybe the man has an over-active sex life (though if you looked at him you'd never believe it - he's best described as looking like a confused guppy at feeding time) and can't catch a wink of sleep at home, but noooo......the man has to fall asleep even when we're at meetings with clients! Its awfully humiliating to justify to clients why your boss is snoring during a meeting with the top management staff of the company present. Amused, they're certainly not. Neither are we......

In any case, getting back on track, we expected a whole lot from this man, who once owned his own firm prior to joining us here at the Firm (I capitalise this name, cos its very much like the movie namesake....once you sign up, you've sold your soul to the Devil). Let's just say that we were mildly dissapointed. OK...maybe not mildly. This is a man who claims that software can be patented, for crying out loud! In the US, maybe....but any first year law grad could tell you thats BS.....I think our clients realised that too....but despite our constant protestations to our senior partner about the state of stupidity that our head of dept is obviously a permanent resident of, he remains in the Firm.....and constantly makes life a living hell for all of us in the department.

If there's a bright side to all this, is the fact that we don't really see him much these days in the office. Marketing. What a convenient term for "I'm sleeping in late/going out for an extended lunch with friends". He often disappears for days on end, but really, I'm not one to complain. The less I see of dufus, the happier my life is in the office.......

Gloomy day again in KL.....haze is back and so is my sore throat....the day's only beginning. My body is here in the office, but my mind is really in bed, saturday morning, curled up in cold sheets kept icy cool by an air conditioner set at maximum chill....ahhh....now THATS life!


Kuala Lumpur's landmark obscured by the haze

Getting over the bump ever so slowly.....

Day's finally drawing to a close.....as 5pm swings around, all I can think of is whether I'm gonna royally screw up the assessment tonight.....

Got loads of e-mails from old friends today,....seems everyone is either married, with kids or dating....suddenly I feel so bloody old! Finally got my copy of the photo taken at the wedding of Kok Hoong, a good friend from high school. I MC'ed this wedding reception, mind you and in this particular picture below, there's only two guys (me inclusive) that remain single....a frightening statistic, if you ask me.


Hard to believe only two guys in here remain single

Its a funny thing, being single. You love it because of the freedom it gives you. I mean, think about it - you can be as disgusting as you wanna be, hang out with whomever you wanna hang out with and do whatever, whenever without somebody howling down the phone line threatening to rip your CD collection apart if you're not with him/her within the next 20 minutes.

But on the flipside, you realise your friends whom you hang out with aint gonna be single forever, unless you do everything within your human powers to keep them single. Thoughts of telling gals that my best buddy is gay or telling your best friend the girl he's dating is a pshycho stalker chick may come in handy, if thats the game you wanna play....

But no, thats not for me....A lot of blokes I know get involved cos its "natural". When asked why they are dating, they just tell me that its the "natural course of a man's life...". I disagree.....afterall - whats "natural" anyway? Who decides whats "natural"? Your mom?

I know my mom would kill to see me with a gal right now. I've been single for ages, and truth be told, I can't imagine myself dating anytime soon - just too much I wanna do with my life right now. Its like when you go on a short dream vacation - you pack only whats really necessary - and right now, a relationship for me is about as useful as a tank top on a skiing trip to Norway.

You know....that Carrie character in Sex & the City may be on to something afterall.......

Stuck on that silly mid-week bump-in-the-road...

Funny thing is, I've actually been looking forward to today for ages! Well, at least since January, when some silly obsession posessed me to take on training for RPM....a programme that I was so obsessed about I would throw fits if I missed class!

Anyway, today's basically assessment day. I've got to video myself (UGH! Hate self videos - what they say about cameras adding 10 lbs is a lie - it adds a good 20!) and submit the danged thing to the guys down under (no, not basement level of the gym, but the wonderful land of the Koalas and Kangaroos).....

Spent the whole of last night just going mad trying to perfect the choreography for the tracks I'm doing.........:( Well, hope all goes well tonight...

Still stuck at the office now though. On hindsight, maybe I should've just taken the day off.....my body is here in my cubicle, but my mind is elsewhere.............

Watched this silly marathon run of sex & the city last night on cable.......Honestly, its my first time watching the series and I already have issues about those 4 women.

Carrie is the one I really wanna hit her over the head with that book she constantly seems to be working on. I mean, c'mon......whats her hang up about letting her friends have their own fun? She seems single mindedly bent on making their lives centred around her. This one episode was hilarious - she was trying to get the rest of them to join her and Samantha in Atlantic city for a "girl's night out".....when the other two didnt wanna go cos they had LIVES to lead, she did everything in her power to get them to go.....I dunno bout you guys, but theres something seriously loony about a woman who doesnt understand the concept behind the saying "..get your own life, for crying out loud!"

And dont even get me started on Samantha....I mean, seriously, what the heck is the woman's problem with men and jewellery? She has this obsession with this Richard character...obviously rich, and she's obviously loving it not for the person.....I mean, have you seen the man? If he was a jar of jam, he'd be well past his sell-by date (but then again, Samantha's seen better days too...). Anyways, still, the woman is so insecure about herself that she runs 11 floors up the hotel emergency stairway in a pearl thong just cos she's insanely suspicious that her man is sleeping with the room keeping lady.....if samantha was a friend of mine, I'd do anything in my powers to get her admitted for a psychiatric evaluation.......Carrie too, if I have space in the trunk of my car......;)


The girls from Sex & The City in one of their silly little acts of female bonding

Just cant wait for the movie "Brokeback Mountain" to swing by. An Ang Lee production, its an odd storyline to have Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllendhall (not sure of the bloke's last name - some names are just un-spell-able) star as .....if you can believe this one....gay cowboys.....


Heath Ledger to star in Brokeback Mountain

I think Hollywood has run out of ways to make the whole gay angle for movies interesting. Nowadays, you can barely watch a sitcom without either some gay inferences being made or an outright gay character being portrayed as Samantha with pecs.....Its sad to see Hollywood perpetuate the old-fashioned stereotype of the gay man. Lets hope Ang Lee's movie breaks away form that mould......