Thursday, March 31, 2005

House of D.

If this isn't fate, i dunno what else it is. Look what i came across:

http://lionsgatedirectors.com/duchovny/index_flash.html

David friggin' Duchovny's BLOG!!!! Ok, ok before you go all cynical and pessimistic on me (shame on you), you have to check out the blog and judge it for yourself. I had to read several entries and after a while, i'm quite convinced it's The Man himself. Basically, the blog talks mainly about his directing projects and upcoming movies. Nothing like the "I had a cup of coffee and counted the cracks on my ceiling" kinda entries. It's strictly about his work.

But i just can't get over that it's DAVID DUCHOVNY blogging! Those of you who know me understand what the hype is all about (I call it my X-Files collectibles, Sel calls its my 'Shrine').
Wow. I'm getting all excited here. I've got ants in my pants. I loved him as Mulder. Heck, I LOVE Mulder. That whole trenchcoat, alien-chasing, sunflower seed-eating extreme paranoia thing....Now that's sexy. And those droopy eyes and trembling lower lip just begging to be nibbled...

Ok let's keep this PG rated.

But seriously, i just find him magnetic. And his work ain't half bad, heh heh.

People, i have news: This just in: My GM is sending me and three colleagues to KL tomorrow night to watch The Sound of Music! Yippee kai yay! Ok it's kinda work-related- we have to check out the production set and take notes for our own future events and stage productions. We're getting an up close and personal tour of the stage, double yay. I'll be back on Sunday. Ok ok here's what's really on my mind about the trip: SHOPPING!!!!

"Such a feeling's coming over me,
There is wonder in most everything i see...
Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eye
And i won't be surprised if it's a dream :)"
-Tukang Kayu, Atas Dunia.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

What's that smell?

My office stinks. I mean, literally. They’re doing renovations in the ground floor and the smell of paint has somehow traveled to the top floor. Thing is, it doesn’t smell purely like paint. It’s like a mixture of paint, sweat and –as my boss puts it- someone’s armpits. Yes, not pleasant.

So far I’ve rubbed on The Body Shop body lotion (ooh, free promo here) on my arms four times today, in fear that the horrid smell might actually stick to me. That and the fact that I need something to mask the stench. What are your favourite smells? Here are some of mine:

1. Freshly popped popcorn – I had a whiff of these during lunch time. I nearly bought myself some just because they smelled so good. Popcorn AND caramel…

2. The baby’s department in any shopping mall – The talcum, the new clothes, the baby wipes. I can spend ages just sniffing baby clothes (not in a perverse way, mind you). And no, it’s NOT my maternal instincts kicking in. There’s just something very soothing and clean about the baby scent.

3. Clean sheets – I love it when I change my sheets, fresh from the clothesline. It’s a combination of washing detergent and warm sunshine. And they feel so clean!

4. Fried chicken – or anything similar in my kitchen. I can always tell if my parents are whipping up something amazing for dinner. Drool.

5. Brownies in/fresh out of the oven – Need I say more? Which leads me to…

6. Famous Amos cookies – commercial or not, I think they smell divine

7. Bak kut teh – I used to stand in front of the bak kut teh stall in Foh Sang when I was younger just to inhale the herbal aroma. Not only do I love the smell but have since developed a taste for this delicious dish (minus the innards please, ugh). My parents still don’t touch the stuff though.

8. Clean hair – Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Inhale.

9. Lester – A familiar scent that I never grow tired of (maybe because he’s a constant combination of bak kut teh, popcorn and clean sheets).

I can’t think of number 10…. Oh wait, I got it:

10. Books – Especially new ones. But old books have their own charm too. The fusion of paper and ink is quite intoxicating. Mmm, nice oh…

All those happy thoughts of my favourite smells have made me forget the icky paint/sweat/armpit smell.

Now I’m just hungry.

“Alright stop, collaborate and listen,
Ice is back with a brand new invention
Something grabs hold of me tightly…”

- can’t remember the rest of Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby. Maybe that’s a good thing.


Monday, March 28, 2005

Technical problems. Right.

Yes, I've been gone. Well, not quite. I haven't had internet access for more than a week (yes, and i'm still alive) due to some 'technical' problems in the office. I'm rather suspicious because we couldn't get into most websites and the only one i could get into with no problem at all is sabahtourism.com. How convenient.

But enough complaints...I'm back! It's been a better week compared to the recent ones. Work's been kind, health all good and Lester was back for the weekend *big cheesy grin*. Went to church (Good Friday and Easter) , watched Hitch (Will Smith still rocks) and played squash. Let it be known it was the first ever squash game for yours truly. I picked it up pretty fast but i won't be in the national championships anytime soon. Still, there is something therapeutic about slamming a ball full force against the wall. Recommended for the angst-ridden.

Oh and i went to look at property yesterday. It just further fuelled my need to be a homeowner ASAP. Sigh. I dunno how much longer i have to wait. The property i was looking at will only be completed in 2007 but if i want it, i'll have to put a booking fee sometime this year. It's a duplex, three bedroom, two baths and a kitchen that's not too big. Perfect for me and my cat :)
Now to buy that lottery ticket...

"To market, to market to buy a fat pig
Home again, home again
Jiggety jig."
-To Market, To Market, traditional nursery rhyme. I'm outta lyrics this morning.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Laugh it off.

It’s been a long two weeks. Murphy’s Law: If things can go wrong, they will. Sure we have our good days, but lately the office seems to be the epicenter of disasters. From missing documents (“It was on the table, I swear on it”) to fickle-minded powers that be (“Yes I know you’ve printed RM11,000 worth of banners but I’ve decided to change the venue for the event”). Seriously, I’ve been trying to work on meeting the magazine deadline but something always comes up. I was rushed to do a press release for an event yesterday. After two days of interviews, phone calls, research and two drafts, Big Boss decides (two hours before the press conference, mind you) we won’t need a press release after all. Ta-da.

But after these things happen day in day out, there is only one way to deal with it to ensure sanity: Laugh it off. It’s just too tiring to get angry, frustrated or annoyed anymore. So yes, I just laugh it off. Make a joke of it and rectify the matter. I mean, what else can you do anyway? When my boss said I didn’t need to issue the press release anymore, I just shrugged and said, “Great, less work for me” and went back to reading the newspaper. When they told us we have to make corrections on 400 banners, my boss and I laughed and said, “What’s 400 banners? We’ve done corrections on 13,000 copies of the magazine in three days!”

So I haven’t been having a good week, big deal. I’m just gonna let it go and take things as they come. Plus all this stressing out cannot be good for my skin. La-di-da, I know.

What’s that line again? Oh yeah…Hope for the best and expect the worst.

“And I wanna believe you,
When you tell me that it'll be ok,
Yeah I try to believe you,
But I don't
When you say that it's gonna be,
It always turns out to be a different way,
I try to believe you,
Not today.”

-Avril Lavigne, Tomorrow

Friday, March 11, 2005

Lovely, lovely day.

Pardon the brief absence. It’s been one of those weeks. All I need now is a cow to fly over the moon and shit on me. But I resolve not to dwell on the bad stuff, especially as the weekend is approaching (please, please, please let it be nice).

Let’s see, what have I been doing? Had dinner with the Ferrari engineering team from Italy at Nexus Karambunai Resort, went for a hand and foot spa treatment at Six Senses and had an exquisite Italian lunch at KK’s newest restaurant, Danieli’s, to do a magazine review. It sounds oh-so-exciting but in between all that, I’ve had a myriad of dramas that I could seriously do without. From screwing up at work to arguments (that should have and could have been avoided, I’ll admit), most days I come home and crawl into a hole, hoping Happy Elves will appear out of nowhere with shopping vouchers from my favourite stores. Oh and Lester’s going out of town for six weeks. Icing anyone?

Today has been a roller-coaster as well. The morning started off well as my muse finally decided to pay me a visit: I managed to write three articles all before 11:30am. Lunch was uneventful but when I got back to the office, it was as if someone decided to press rewind, fast forward, pause and play all at the same time. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing, my boss is angry at the printing company for botching up a delivery, the Big Boss is angry at my boss over something else which is actually beyond our control, I have to make five million phone calls to fix the matter, all my office-related emails from the morning bounce back, the Internet is down (and then up again)….

Oh and did I mention I’m supposed to finish at least three more articles today?

Instead of tearing my hair out, I figured it’s far more therapeutic to blog it out. My highlight of the day? I’m waiting for Lester to come back from Far Far Away this evening and forget about everyone and everything else. Till he leaves again on Sunday that is. But that’s another blog altogether.

“It’s gonna be a lovely day…”
-Bill Withers, Lovely Day

Agnello alla Griglia: Lamb chop with mint, honey and apple brown sauce. Danieli's finest by far. Posted by Hello

A little show for the Ferrari engineers during their dinner last Tuesday.  Posted by Hello

Yes people, it tastes as good as it looks. Compliments of Danieli's. Posted by Hello

Monday, March 07, 2005

It's a sign.

Do you believe in signs? Sometimes you can’t help but believe in them. Like when you’re thinking of having a Whopper burger and then you flip open the newspaper and it’s right there on page 3. Or you can’t decide between taking a trip to the mountains or the islands for the weekend and suddenly you spot a huge billboard of sunny skies and sandy beaches. It’s like God sending you a memo.

I think I had one of those moments today. It’s Monday morning and the first thing I discover as I walk through the office door is that there’s a major boo-boo in the monthly magazine I work for. Long story short, oversight on my part, made my boss VERY unhappy and now I’m gonna spend a good part of my night in the office sticking correction stickers on 13,000 copies of the magazine.

But back to my ‘sign’.

On my way to work this morning, my mum was asking me about switching jobs. There’s a job opening I have my eye on but I haven’t seriously considered it. And then this mishap occurs on a Monday morning and I think, “It’s a sign. Gotta be.” See, I enjoy what I do now but the new job is supposedly offering a pay 40 percent higher than what I’m making. Sounds inviting but I need to find out what the real deal is. Oh and the job description is alright, it’s a communications-related post so I figure I’ll still get to write.

In the meantime, I still have to face the wrath of my boss for the rest of the day and it’s only ten a.m. Gulp.

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

- The Police, 'King of Pain'

Friday, March 04, 2005

Surfing.

I did myself some surfing today. Internet surfing that is. Found some interesting reads (hey it's Friday, i deserve to sit back and relax. Wait a minute, don't i already do that every other day?)
Anyway, here's an article i thought was worth posting:

A Different Life by Jennifer Tai

Last month, Reuters published an article about how Japan is facing a failing birth rate because of a growing number of Japanese women want to stay unmarried.
The article also reported that seven in ten single Japanese women surveyed by a conservative Japanese newspaper said they would rather stay unwed, and thus reflects the recent trend among single women who no longer attach social stigma to choosing the single life


..............

Of course, Japanese women are more than the sum of their clothes. Apparently, they are also very forward-looking - and forward-being. Which Asian country can profess to have a majority of young women who are comfortable with being single for the rest of their lives?
Can a Malaysian young woman today, claim the same? And should she?


I'd told myself that I'd marry late. Get a career going, see if climbing the corporate ladder suited me, see if I could find a guy who could tolerate a gal who was not afraid to speak her mind AND smoked.
The day finally happened when I was 28, exactly the age I predicted that I would get married - along with an allegedly clairvoyant colleague of mine from another life.
Thinking back - and this is something a lot of women are ashamed to admit to - I could have never imagined a life without a man and eventually, kids. No matter how gung ho I was about my career, I knew one day that I just had to nest. Deep inside, I was as traditional as the next Chinese-tea drinking, Chinese-calligraphy-writing, cheongsam-wearing Chinese girl.


So what is with this complex of women wanting to be out there alone, doing our thing, making it in the world? It's like we are overcompensating for centuries of oppression.

Do the men harbour ambitions of a lifetime of singlehood?

................

As a woman and a mother, I believe that it is the right, and privilege, of every woman to seek companionship and to bear children. While we have more opportunities today than ever before, we must not forget our eternal roles as mothers and nurturers.

You may not want to get married or have children, but don't let it be in the name of gender equality. In the same vein, don't get married and multiply because of peer pressure.

Things that make you go hmm... You can read the whole article at http://www.msn.com.my/women/love/article1/default.asp

Oh, also worth a visit is www.baltimoresun.com. I highly recommend Kevin Cowherd's column, heh. Thanks for the tip, Lester!

Time to greet another weekend. Over and out.

"Whenever we kiss I get a feeling like this
I get to wishin' that there was two of you
My heart cries out 'More baby!'
I love you so much
I wish that there was more of you to touch
-Smashmouth, Can't Get Enough of You Baby

Wednesday, March 02, 2005


Joy Juice anyone?  Posted by Hello

Tooth fairy.

I've got a toothache. It might be my wisdom tooth but based on where the pain is coming from, i doubt it. Ah crap. Now i have to go to the dentist. Right up there under my list of 'Really REALLY Dislike With a Vengeance' are roaches and...Dentists. No offense if you are one but it's just something i've had an aversion to for quite a while now. I'd sooner have a needle in my arm than a stranger probing my mouth whilst holding a drilling mechanism in his/her left hand. *shudder*. I hate the whole dentist experience. Sitting in the waiting room, nervously flipping through an old issue of Asiaweek - pretending to really care what the GDP of Mongolia is - while listening to the drilling sounds coming from the dentists' room. And then when it's your turn, there are all these evil nurses lurking around, carrying weird metal tools. And then the dentist starts asking you questions, tells you to open your mouth and he methodically begins the 'torture'. He takes a small poking device, starts digging around and goes, "Pain? Here? Here?" and *BAM* he hits jackpot. As your body goes into convulsions and beads of sweat trickle down your forehead, he takes out the drill/needle/weed-whacker and proceeds to hurt you even more. All the while, you feel like gagging and Evil Nurse sticks the spit-vacuum even further down your throat. Bi***. Just when you're about to go towards the light, everything's over and Dentist goes, "See? All done. Wasn't that quick and painless?"
In the land of flying pigs, maybe. You know why dentists wear those white face masks?

So patients can't identify them in a police line-up.

I've got a Snickers bar sitting in front of me, just waiting to be gobbled up but alas, my hurting tooth denies me the pleasure. So to fulfill my sugar craving, i've opted for a healthier choice: Orange juice. Ok, it's not exactly chocolate but better than nothing.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

"Pain my head, oh i'd rather be dead....
Spinning me round and around."
-Boyz II Men, End of The Road.