Rewards for bums?

Read the newspaper lately?

Here's an intereting scoop -

• Gifts for late ID subscribers
• Empowering the street menace, and Incentives for snitching on own kind
• Rewards to photograph law breakers

Is this strange or what? This brings me to a statement once made by my immediate Manager:

When we become a leader, always remember "Do not reward the good worker with more work because they do things well, and reward the poor worker with less work because we cannot rely on them"

Now, that seems like good advice. Why are the efficient ones always having to do more, whereas the ones paid to do the job gets away with less?

Did we appoint the right people to run this zoo?

Happy Birthday Mummy!

Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday dear Mommy...
Happy Birthday to you...

Mummy you're the greatest
You gave years of yourself,
To feed us, cloth us
Without grumble
Without regret

There would be no words
To express my love to you
Nor actions to tell you I remember
Only me, myself, and I
And the return of endless love
Respect
and friendship that you so deserved

Happy Birthday Mummy.

Happy Valentine's!

Yup, Happy Valentine's to the positive, lovey-dovey, warm, encouraging, bubbly, beautiful souls out there, who still sees some silver lining in dark clouds.

Just Ask!

I received the following text from my insurance agent. A good read, for those of us who are too timid to ask.

It was 11am on a Sunday and I was due to catch a plane to Singapore at 2.30pm. Next day in Singapore I was to give a speech to 5,000 people. Suddenly I realized that I had lost my passport.

Julie said, “I’ll get you a passport!” She grabbed the phone and started calling emergency immigration numbers all over Australia, but all she got were answering machines or people who said, “Impossible on a Sunday!”.

Finally, after 25 calls, Julie spoke to a government official who was at home suffering from a severe hangover. Julie convinced this person to crawl out of bed, drive to the Australian passport office in Currie St. Adelaide, turn off the entire twenty-storey security system, fire up the computers and make a passport for me by 1pm.

Julie is amazing for many reasons. One of them is: she knows how to ask. Julie once rebuilt an orphanage in Indonesia with no money. She visited CEOs of corporations all over Jakarta and asked fro donations of bricks, timber, plumbing, paint, roofing iron and labour. Once the orphanage was complete, she kept it supplied with drugs and bandages using the same strategy.

Julie’s philosophy is:
If you ask, you’ll often get.
If someone says “No”, don’t take it personally. Ask someone else.

YOUR success and happiness depend on you asking for things. For small things… “May I have a refund, an upgrade, can you reschedule my appointment?” “Will you go out with me on a date?”
And for big things… “Can I WORK for you?” “Will you MARRY me?”

People will often say, “Yes!” Other people aren’t mind readers. Often, they will happily agree to your request if they KNOW what you want.

USA Today recently ran a report on people who asked for a raise in salary. The study showed the 45% of women and 59% of men got more money when they asked for it. It’s worth asking!

If you never ask – if you suffer in silence, if you always act the martyr and allow yourself to go without – your stomach keeps count. Asking for what you want keeps your happier and healthier.

IN A NUTSHELL

If you ask for it, you just might get it!

Happy Birthday Camelia!

Hey old buddy.
Another red carpet to the ThreeOh Club. Of the many friends that I have, you're one of the few whose birthday I could remember without fail. Must be close proximity to Valentine's.
Wish you a really joyous day to be remembered.

Happy Birthday!

Dear Jaimie,

Many Happy Returns to you, for the wonderful life you have, and the great future ahead.

Welcome to ThreeOh Club!

I'm leaving..

Hey.
I've done it. I've put the wheels in motion, is what I'm saying. I will be leaving the Company for sure, once I get an offer.
Today, I had a good chat with my immediate Manager. The verdict, she start looking for a replacement, I start preparing a handover.
Big world, here I come!

Useless "people"

If anyone had been following my blogs, you may be forgiven to think that I have some kind of low-sugar problem. What with all the rantings of Useless "people", time after time after time..

Truly, I really have problems with these particular race of "people". In fact, I'm in the process of seeking employment:

• that do not require giving instructions to these "people"
• that do not require selling anything to these "people"
• that do not have such "people" like these in authority
• that will not allow a Company to be jeopardised by these "people"

These "people" cannot work and cannot be trusted. And there are so few of such capable "people" around.

I really need to get away from here.

Happy Birthday to me....

This is it! I'm 30, officially.
My take of what's it like to be part of the ThreeOhClub:

• For a brief moment, all joy was sucked out of me, realising it's now time for facing responsibilities, loss of care-free, care-not moments; for a brief moment.
• Health, and fitness, is now an issue, not an option.
• Celebrating birthday, is avoided at all costs (I spent it at client's place, earning my keep).
• Club membership is gonna start growing, populated by school mates, housemates, childhood friend.
• Old.

Then again, I'm not giving in that easily.Life, begins at thirty, right? Older and wiser, spicier like ginger, tastier like wine, wrinkler than prunes...

Many thanks to friends for remembering my birthday. I received all your messages. So so sorry if I replied late to you.

Speedy roads, bloody drivers

Truly, our Malaysian highway had improved tremendously, what with the on-going upgrades and expansion. By improvement, it's indicating a better ride, than before.

Then again, with progress, comes opportunities for many, and the mushrooming of more idiots. Our neighbours down south would definitely be raring to tryout our newly paved expressway. Little did they forget that with more lanes, it meant there's obvious difference between fast, slow and DEAD SLOW!

Would they ever learn that fast lanes have specific uses? If they're travelling at 110km/h, stick to the mid. The fast lane is for over-taking, and OVER-TAKING means going FASTER than the car on your LEFT!

Progress

It's been 20 odd days since I underwent the eye correction ops. Today, I was asked how my condition now.

Honest feedback? I'd say my vision's good, though I still believe my left has better focus than my right. Will know better once I go for my 3o days check up.

Experience-wise, there's more pros than cons to the treatment (no serious side-effects). Only thing that sucks is I seem to loose my line of sight where snooker is concerned. Back when I was wearing glassses, the frame helps me focus a straight line from point to cue. Now it's more guess work, since I don't really know if I'm looking straight, or slant.

Oh well, a good time to correct my aim, anyway.

TKit, if you're planning on doing it, go get the assessment done. You'll know for sure then.

New Year, New Resolution?

Happy 2007!

I was asked this morning, what were my New Year resolutions?

To think of it, I switched from 2006 to 2007 without really feeling the euphoria of celebration. Might be because I've had too much celebrating since Christmas..

Or perhaps, simply the realization that I've hit the big 30.

What's resolutions for, anyway? Every year, in and out, I'll decide to get something done, and along the way, it's either I forgot what it was, or some weird circumstances will bar me from it.

Still wanna put a resolute (is this how the word's used?) for the year?
Let's see....

• Quit swiping the credit card! ~ There's no way the statement is gonna appear as ZERO, if I keep adding on to it.
• Get fit! ~ I'm exercising. But I love food!!!
• Stay young! ~ I gotta find a fountain of youth. Someone told me to laugh always. A little silly, but what the heck!
• Change job! ~ Easier said than done. (Cammie will be laughing if she reads this. I owe her my resume since 6 months ago). But it might just happen this year. ;)

I think that's about it. Anybody wanna ask me to add anything else?

P.S. To Hsin Yee, the passing of a friend, is to be mourned. Mourn then, by rejoicing for the happy times, for the moments of joy that was had.

I'm 20/20

I got it done. Yesterday, I spent RM3800 to get my vision corrected to near perfect, via the use of Lasik technology.

That's me, prepped for the surgery. Here's what they did.

28th, Eye assessment to see if my eyes are suitable for the treatment. Droplets were placed in my eyes to dilate the pupil, to determine the thickness and pressure. Also checked were my vision diopter.

29th, 11am appointment. Last assessment by the doctor, and then they prepped me to undergo the zapping.

• Doctor first gave my eyes local anaesthetic, then fitted wires to hold my lids open (did I mention she tapped my eyelids as well..)
• She then capped a plastic ring over my eyes, and made an incision to create a flap, thus exposing my pupils.
• The lasers came into action, and started zapping my pupils to correct my vision (at this point, I could smell my pupils getting cooked...)
• Once done, she reattached the flap, and I'm off.

All this took place in under 5 minutes, and believe me, seeing the whole process thru certainly is odd.

No pain were felt, though the first couple of hours are quite uncomfortable. It was described as having sand in my eyes. To me, it was as if someone's pressing down on my eyeballs. Ergh!

Anyway, I now get to put behind the past 19 years of wearing a contraption on my eyes. I could see clearly, without any aid.

Eyahoo!

Flooding in Melaka

You've read it in the papers.
Exactly how bad is it? Generally water is around 4ft to 7ft high, depending on which part of Melaka you're standing on.

Some of the road are impassable to cars. The Melaka river is now as wide as the Pahang river (almost, at least).

Right now, we're all hoping that the rain will stop, and allow the water to subside. The rising tide certainly made things worst.

Brisingr!

That's from Eragon.

My advice, watch the movie, only if you had read the book. Otherwise, go read the book.
There is no way you'll understand what the movie was about, despite it being 2 1/2 hours long.

Wedding bells...

Congratulations to Camelia and Pak Wei!
Here's a snippet of the dinner reception, for those not present.



Wanna see more? Get on the Smartgroups (HY, I'm advertising for you here..)

Eragon

Believe you would have seen the cinead by now. For the uninitiated, this is another fantasy epic, spanning 3 books of entertaining mystical lore of dragons, magick, knights and valor.

What's it about then? I'm not going to spoil the movie for you. But if you wanna know more, suggests you go get the book: Eragon. There's two in the market, the third due out sometime 2007.

In general, Eragon's a young teenager (as always), living with a relative (of course), who stumbled upon a unique package which happened to be a dragon egg. Overtime, the dragon and the boy bonded, to become a pair and one with each other.

As the story unfolds, you'll find much similarity to our real world, of politics, wars, rebels, espionage.

The interesting part of book, is very much Eragon's discovery process of his ability, his learning curve.

I'd recommend this to fans of the fantasy world. It'll be a good escape from reality for awhile. Me, I'm going to catch the movie this Sunday. Hope it's as fulfilling as the book.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Hey everyone, Christmas is coming!!!

Black Forest Cake

Cakes.
Who came up with the idea anyway? Having one for birthdays, for anniversaries, for weddings...

Lately, my family had taken up the hobby of baking cakes. Cheese cakes, butter cakes, sponge cakes, now Black Forest Cake. Few years back, I was planning a trip to Germany. One focal point of interest was a visit to the Black Forest there, and seek the Cake. Is that the origin?

No matter what the interest, it's good to see my family bonding this way. Heart warming. Not that we're dysfunctional or something. It's just that growing up in a traditional Chinese family, meant silent nights in front of the telly, quick dinners, and to each our own.

Perhaps it's the age. As we grow, the "children" learnt to appreciate the parents more. We're more open, the topic of discussion gets more personal. The parents start to see and treat us like "adults". Hey! I'm turning 30 soon. Can't be looking at me as a kid no more, rite??

But I like it. We're close. Makes me look forward to coming back every weekend, even if it's for a quick dinner, a sound sleep. Not many understands my fixation of making every weekend a family weekend. Just spend time with them. They'll feel like they're still important. They'll feel like growing with us, not left behind as we seek our new family.

Ah...yada yada yada...

Long hiatus...

Been away, been away...

Phew! Just completed my Company's annual dinner, hosted for the southern region. What a rush! We got those fella trekking under a hot Saturday afternoon, all over the historical sites of Malacca. Needless to say, they were thankless bout it.

Whatever!