me sour face today

So, last night, I was still online for a while after my previous post. Then it turned midnight, and the dial-up connection went cinderella on me. I was supposedly connected, but nothing was loading. Hung up and dialled again. and again. and again. and again. FINE! went zzzzzzzzzzz. *sigh*

This morning, tried to get online - still not able to. FINE! Damn TM Net! *sigh!*

Then, me being as hung up as I was about the phone, forgoed (forwent?) my morning exercise because I wanted to just get my phone looked at. Of course, I didn't know when the shop opened on Saturdays, hoped it would be at 9am,and went to went to AmCorp around 815am. Parked at their open air car park - deserted. Walked thru barely alive mall to the Sony Ericsson service center: the sign said they opened at TEN on saturdays. bummer. over 1.5hrs to wait. *sigh*

So I figured I might as well go get some breakfast. Walked to a mamak shop waaaaaay on the other side of the street,,, only to pass plenty of public parking, that would cost so little compared to the RM2 for 1st hour, RM1 for every additional hour fees I was going to have to pay at AmCorp. Try to remember that next time, okay Lynne?? *sigh*

Slip-slided alllll over the place - the floor was SO GREASY, damn these places should know to use SOAP/DETERGENT/WHATEVER when cleaning the floor, just wiping with water isn't going to get the grease off, y'know! *sigh*

Kakuro'd while eating "roti bakar": which was lightly toasted bread with a disgusting amount of margerine, and just a slight touch of kaya. Will I ever remember to order it with "kurang majerin, lebih kaya"? *sigh*

Back to AmCorp. The slight good news was they tested both my phone and charger, and declared it a charger problem. Replacement: RM30. Well, better than it being a phone problem requiring me to be phoneless for the day/weekend PLUS risk losing all my data. So, fine lah... fork out RM30.... Add the parking charge of RM3 (managed to get outta there before 10:15!! whoohooo!), plus breakfast of RM2, that's RM35 that I wasn't planning on spending at all if you'd asked me last night. *sigh*

And since I knew I wouldn't be able to get to the 'net from the apartment, figured might as well get online from Beanie. I *had* brought the laptop with me, after all. Attempted to go to the PJ Hilton one. Went round and round and round, no parking. FINE. Tried Section 14 instead. Went round and round and round and wahoooo found one! Fed meter till 1pm.

Figured might as well get some photos done for the hoops i need to jump thru.

• One government department requires 2 50cm x 50cm pictures.
  
• Another government department requires 2 40cm x 55cm pictures.
  
• I know these photo places sell them by 4's, and quite expensively too!
  
• I also know they usually print them all out in one sheet, then cut them to the required size.
  
• I figured I could get them to print out the 4 pix, and cut them to two different sizes.

I figured wrong:

Me: (after having had the picture taken) Here's the sizes I need. 2 50x50, 2 40x55.

Jerk: We only sell by 4's.

Me: Don't you guys print the pix on one sheet and cut accordingly? Surely you can just cut it to two different sizes.

Jerk: No, cannot. If you want, you need to get 2 sets of four.

Me: That's ridiculous. I've observed most shops print and cut to size, surely what I'm asking isn't difficult.

Jerk: You observe only, you don't know. Ah, you come and do lah (gesturing to me to sit at the puter and play with whatever program was open right there)

Me: (totally put-off by that attitude) Okay, never mind.

I walked out.

Only when out of the building I realised I should have had them delete my photo they took (and empty recycle bin!).. if the jerk is even MORE of a jerk than he showed, he could very well do something with it - photoshop it to some nude body or something. Well, if i *do* stumble across anything like that, I know where to go to sue someone's pants off! :p

Found another photo shop, and, since I do learn from mistakes, asked upfront whether they could do what I wanted. She said no, but also immediately supplied a reason: the proportions would be wrong or something. Didn't quite get it, but at least I got a reason lah. The funny thing: she recommended I go to the jerk's shop instead. Har har har.

I'm not ready to fork out RM48 (RM24 x 2) for photos I don't need. The passport-sized photos business is such a friggin ripoff! :( Maybe the place in KLCC can offer more flexibility? I wish things like the SIZE of passport-sized photos could actually be CONSISTENT everywhere!!! *sigh*

By that time, my mood was quite sour already, and was really not in the mood for anything, but heck I'd paid for parking till 1pm, might as well fully utilise it. So even tho I don't even have the taste for it, got myself my ice vanilla latte regular skim milk, and am the Beanie looking at Jaya @ Sect 14.

When paying, the guy behind the counter looked at my name on the credit card, and asked "Malay?". You know, usually, I just give a wry smile and say "mixed" and silently forgive the small-mindedness, but this time, I just glared at him and said "MalaySIAN". He wouldn't let it rest! I was collecting my drink, and he said "Little bit Malay?" I just ignored him. WHat the fuck is so important whether I'm "Malay" or not???!!! So *not* in the mood to put up with people who just can't see beyond racial classifications. I'm a Malaysian. That's all that *should* be important. Break free, dude, open your mind! *sigh*

Bleh.

Oh, and parents coming back today. (They've been in Bali since Tuesday)

Double bleh.

oh bloody hell

I am so pissed off.

Okay, so recently my phone flipped me off.

I whined about it, saying RM50 would be too much to replace it.

Then I was quoted RM46. It was like a challenge for me to put my money where my mouth was. So I got the flip replaced.

So, everything was all fine and dandy again, right?

*WAS* being the key word.

I am so pissed off.

Because now. Just right now. For no apparent reason. It's. Not. Charging.

It's not an issue of the electricity/power point.

Dunno if it's the charger itself.

Or the phone.

Or the battery? that is doubtful.

Oh bloody hell.

Just getting the problem identified is going to cost $$$.

I am so pissed off.

The phone seems to be falling apart.. I suppose 2.5 years is the limit of its durability or something?

I know phones nowadays aren't made to last since they are more like fashion accessories than functional devices.

I am so pissed off.

I'd have thought the less fashionable / more geeky phones would last longer. Or is 2.5 years already "good"?

Or is it just because it knows I'm not going to be holding on to it much longer that it makes trouble for me?

How much more $$ is going to be sunk into this friggin device that I want to get rid of in a few months??

I am so pissed off.

Can you tell?

100s of stuff :-)

Have been adding some more blogs to my sidebar (and I mean in the "usual / permanent" section, not just the temporary Lost Bloggers list).

Got pointed to Mostly Crap, where I found some cool stuff:

1. 100 things to do before you die. I'm sure there are other lists around, but i thought this already gives an interesting selection (dunno if i'd want to do #19, for example... teeeheee!) ... so far I've kinda got 15 of the 100... hmmm... I should make a list of my own. yeah right :p

2. bummer, there were some cool looking quizzes i wanted to take and share, but can't seem to load the pages. here and here. see if you have better luck. :-(

Elsewhere (sorry, i forgot to take note!) i was pointed to this very interesting interview with William Blum. I'm only 1/3 of the way through, but I think it's certainly worth reading. Do check it out.

okay ... time to shower, then look for something light to snack on ... that briyani bukhara I had for brunch at 11am is finally wearing off (yes, 9 hrs 10 hours later... it's THAT filling! wasn't as nice as i remembered it tho, good also lah, i won't be tempted to throw RM9 away on that anymore, teehee!)

cheers!

it's here!

For those who know what I'm talking about: the package arrived today.

My immediate reactions:

1. I was really surprised to see a checklist that hasn't been officially revised since 1991?
   
   
2. Especially when it certainly seems to desperately need official revision, looking at the FIVE amendments to the instructions SCRAWLED IN BY HAND! I'm sorry, but that strikes me as *so* unprofessional...
   
   
3. So is having the checklist refer to some forms as, let's say ABC-123, but when you look at the attachment, it's form XYZ-123. Can we have some quality check please?

*sigh*

... These hoops are made for jumping (thru), and that's just what I'll have to do ...
(with apologies to Nancy Sinatra!)

(UPDATE @ 7pm: I just realised that one of the forms attached is Rev Version x-x-84. Guess what the current version online is dated? y-y-04. OUTDATED BY TWENTY YEARS, PEOPLE! Hello, someone somewhere is NOT doing their job... this is making me *SO* irritated...)

Joke of the Day: Last Rites (& HTML testing)

I thought this was SUCH a laff riot, had to share :D

Last Rites A Catholic man is struck by a bus on a busy street. He is lying near death on the sidewalk as a crowd gathers. "A priest. Somebody get me a priest!" the man gasps. Minutes drag on and no one steps out of the crowd. A policeman checks the crowd and finally yells, "A PRIEST, PLEASE! Isn't there a priest in this crowd to give this man his last rites?" Finally, out of the crowd steps a little old Jewish man of at least 80 years of age. "Mr. Policeman," says the man, "I'm not a priest. I'm not even a Christian. But for 50 years now I'm living behind the Catholic Church on First Avenue, and every night I'm overhearing their services. I can recall a lot of it, and maybe I can be of some comfort to this poor man." The policeman agrees, and clears the crowd so the man can get through to where the injured man lay. The old Jewish man kneels down, leans over the man and says in a solemn voice: "B-4 I-19 N-38 G-54 O-72"

Waahaahhhhahahahahahaaaaaa!

(and yes, I'm experimenting with the little bit of HTML i know / got from Kosh / from Blogger Help to tweak stuff in preparation for next week :-) )

Good resource for color-experimentation: Web Color Reference

Originally (read: FIRST) posted a bit after 12 noon. Now = 1:15pm. Bleh. This'll do for now :p

I'm happy that ...

1. I'm happy that I watched The Inside Man today. Despite some holes in the plot, this was an excellent movie because it was surprisingly unpredictable (or, to be less gushy - nowhere near as predictable as I thought it was going to be). And i suppose sometimes it *does* help to NOT "research" a movie, and go see something when you're totally blank. Different, definitely different. Pity the ending was sappy :p And while it's great that older women like Jodie Foster still have job opportunities on the silver screen, I gotta say - wow, she looks old. Tired too.
   
   
2. I'm happy that I had already done my #1 & #2 as needed before the movie, and that I'd not consumed anything after that, so that I wasn't having to battle calls of nature while being stuck in the jam.
   
   
3. I'm happy that I had gone ahead and put in RM 50 worth of petrol in the car two days ago, seeing as mom had kinda left it to me with the needle pointing to quarter-tank. Cos otherwise, what with yesterday's travelling, and today's jam, I might have run the risk of running out of gas. In the middle of a terribly awful jam.

What jam?

• The one that I wish I'd avoided by immediately taking Jalan U-Thant to escape as soon as I'd come out of the KLCC tunnel southbound on Jalan Tun Razak when I saw it all jammed, but I thought it would all kinda taper out once past the Loke Yew interchange... oh man was I mistaken!!
  
  
• The one that had me so bored out of my mind that I snapped photos of idiot Malaysian drivers (well, their cars, anyway :p ).
  
  This fler was among those friggin smart alecks that tried to tail an ambulance that squeezed in between the two existing lanes. Of course, the rest of us let the 'bulance past lah, after that "close up" the gap lah.
  
  But this stubborn idiot kancil still insisted on squeezing as far as it could, essentially forcing the "rightful owners" of the lane to in the end to give way to him. Unfortunately, that's not an uncommon occurance here.
  
  
• The one that actually had me getting sick of playing Bon Jovi's best album *EVER* (New Jersey) over and over again... switched to normal radio for a while, got sick of the crap, hunted thru my mom's collection of CDs, and ended up listening to my donated to her copy of Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Hello, my old friends!
  
  
• The one that had me wondering yet again, how a tropical country like Malaysia continues to have water accumulating on roads during storms...
  
  
  ...it's not like the designers don't know that it rains, eh?

• The one that made the trip from KLCC to Sg Besi (where the "U-turn" is to head towards the Istana) take OVER ONE AND A HALF FRIGGIN HOURS!!
  
  I'd left KLCC around 315pm.
  
  At 445pm I was so close, yet so far away.
  
  It was only on Jalan Syed Putra that I saw one of those electronic signboard thingys saying there had been a flash flood at Jalan Kuchai Lama, or was it Jalan Klang Lama? Or both? Whatever. The key words were "Semua lorong ditutup" (all lanes closed). So I stayed on the right-most lane to avoid the spillover of the jam to that road which would start affecting the left lanes.

Oh yeah, "spillover" also on Jalan Istana heading to Sg Besi - can you say STUCK!!??!

Thankfully it was totally smooth sailing once I hit the Federal Highway. Of course, by that time I was two hours older, and the car substantially lighter in terms of petrol in its tank.

What a day...

drunk? me? i drove everyone home mah!!

hmmm, taking pressure off of one aspect reduces pressure off of another?

I really felt like puking after droppin off KS, but i managed to reach "home", went straight to the bathroom to relieve my bladder, and all seems fine,

except the pathetic typos.

wow tink and ej must be working overtime tonite, kosh!

anyways tonight (last night?) was a blast and a half!

and Uno was actually having a proper freeflow of drinks!

and their live band wasn't quarter bad (not as good as half bad, but better than average lah)..

yes we were at uno. cos we had made our way to planet hollywood only to find out that hte downstais was being refurbished so no ladies night per se till middle of the week

bummer.

so we went to what we knew - the p. ramlee strip.

went to this "R&B CLUB" downstairs from uno first - omg that was scary.. we three were the only people, and omg the staff was just freaky...

we got outta there after most of our first drinks were instantaneously refilled as soon as we put our glasses down - we wondered if they were locking the doors once enough girls made their way in or something... and once we got out, we were gonn ahead over to Thai but got accosted by the manager of Uno inviting us in... and damn the drinks we got actualyuy tasted of VK whoohooo! Then the live band came on. And we cheered. And the girls (NOT the cute one we all liked, oh but what the heck two out of three ain't bad LOL) came to say hello...

stayed on thru *how* many drinks per person???

*grin!*

no worries, I was still fine to drive.

and this is a sign of just how "sick" i am - no matter how tired i feel, i felt like i just wanted to "capture this moment" before hitting the hay.

HAY <<< hit! hit!!

g'nite!!