Nice quote!

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

- Mark Twain

Too much on the plate

I should not be writing in blogs, not when there's so much to do here. Dunno how I manage to cope with the job. I've got two articles due for the bulletin by tomorrow. Neither of which have even started. There's 5000mt or more of ethylene need to be moved in 7 days or the damn plant shuts down. Where am I going to find a buyer in 7 days? Or even a ship for that matter? They just gave me the wonderful Aromatics section - thats another 1 million tons of product to handle, as if the current million tons is not big enough. That' s just the tip of the iceberg. I think I need to get a new job and get out of chemicals.

BMW Sauber F1

Yes I am an F1 fan. Today as I walked in the office (late as usual) and passed by the front of KLCC what do I see in front of the building? Are those BMW cars? Usually there are two protons outside KLCC - two protons with the recognisable green labels of the Sauber Petronas F1 cars. Today there are two BMWs. That only means the deal has been done and BMW's purchase of Sauber is done and complete.

Upon reaching the office I did some digging around. Found out the official name for the venture is now BMW Sauber F1 - headquarters still in Hinwil, Switzerland. And our company involvement is more on the lubricant. So we can expect a big Synthium logo on the car. Dunno if the oil drop logo will remain yet. Official announcements will probably come in December.

But regardless, it was weird looking out the front of the building and seeing two beemers. Though I can't say I miss the protons. Hahaha.

My wife says she wears the pants..

Skirts or pants its all the same to me. At least I don't complain about it. Sure there are a lot of things I cannot do, there are also somethings which I do pretty well. There are also things which I know how to do - but I absolutely cannot be bothered with. In fact quite a lot of things fall into this category which include - doing things around the house, fixing anything wrong with my car, and generally teaching dense people new things. I like teaching people, but stupid people are just a waste of time. This is more in relation to my work.

I've got no problems with wearing a skirt. Having a dick is overated anyway - sure its easy when you're peeing but try masturbating - messy messy. Also it sticks out and stands on attention when you want it to shutup. It practically has a mind of its own and is generally a nuisance unless its time to fuck: when it kinda becomes an option. (Yes you don't need a dick to have sex either).

My friends in the office say I deserve to wear a skirt because of how my golf is. I hate business golf so it would explain my performance and the fact that in our internal tournaments I'm playing a handicap of 30. For those non players out there - the highest handicap given to men is 24. Thus the skirt reference.

We may not realise it but skirt wearers get it all out there. As long as it doesn't have anything to do with work or politics - where pants still rule the day. In fact pin-striped Hugo Boss pants rule the most. But skirt wearers get everything else: they get doors opened for them, dinners bought for them, gifts bought for them - all because pants wearers constantly want to get into those skirts. But I digress.

Wearing pants all the time is really nothing to be proud of, but neither is being in a skirt all the time either. Ideally we should balance our skirt and pants wearing days. Some days call for pants, others call for more skirts. Personally I'm lazy - get me in a skirt and I'll figure out ways to avoid wearing the pants. So really.. its no big a deal to have a pants wearing wife. In fact independent women are a turn on.. or used to be at one point in time.. in any case I'm not complaining.

Puasa

Its more than half way through puasa and raya is just around the corner. Time flies. Before you know it we'll be celebrating christmas and new year. I'm not in the habit of making resolutions - never had. Well that's a lie. I did make one resolution two years ago. Resolved to remember birthdays and send cards. And today? I still only remember a handful of birthdays - and actually know just a little more than that.

Thinking about resolutions and birthdays during puasa month is a bit odd. But its quite simple. My sister had her birthday 2 weeks ago, mother had hers last saturday. There's another one coming up this weekend. In November I know at least 4 people with birthdays then - myself included (of course the exact date is written somewhere). I'm not sure if its a fluke that I know more scorpios than anything else.

Soon it will be Raya.. this time I plan to visit more relatives.. usually we get away to early and never bother visiting my uncles. Anyway.. birthdays are one thing, but it'll be great to see what the rest of the family are up to. I just realised I know nothing of what they are doing.. I don't even remember who are my cousins.

Anyway.. looks like I have more things to add to my resolution list.

Migraine

I have been having a migraine since last Thursday. Ask anyone and they will tell you that 4 days consecutive headaches is probably not a good thing. People have so many opinions about how I got my headaches. Here are some of my favourites...

1) Not enough sleep - my mother's reason for being sick, any kind of sickness. Coughing? Not enough sleep. High Fever? Not enough sleep. Denggi? Not enough sleep.
2) Hair too long - another friend of mine suggested this, told one of my schoolmates and he agreed. Duh.
3) Lack of Salt/Water - basically the idea is that my body is short of some minerals and headaches are a sign. Hmm.. interesting, but its never happened before so quite unlikely.

Well, the headaches are getting less frequent, less intense. Must be all the sleep/water/salt I've been having over the weekend. Migraines probably caused by a crick in my neck. Happened earlier this year and I got a better pillow. Now I may need my neck stretched or massaged.

Also bought an Ipod finally. Couldnt get it to work with my super high tech PC. Damn computer thinks any hardisk you plug in (which is essentially what an Ipod is) is something you can run programs on. So it tried to access and boot from an Ipod. If I plug in the Ipod after startup, the screen goes blank and nothing else happens - means the motherboard is trying to access the Ipod as a hardrive and failing miserably.

Sucks

Felt: Stress/Anxiety
Heard: Green Day

Bluefish

Ever wondered what it's like to drive an F1 car? Fly a fighter jet? I found this interesting site, maybe I just discovered this late but its awesome anyway. Go to www.thebluefish.com and ask them to make your dreams come true. There's a catch.. you've gotta pay lah. If you've ever wanted to be James Bond for instance, a 1 week package will start from $75,000. That includes suite accomodation, driving fast cars (and boats), flight and space training - from Monte Carlo to Russia. Kidnappings and mock fights come separately.

Makes me wonder about what kind of dreams people have for themselves. There's this story of a couple that ordered to be marooned on a deserted island. They got their wish of a week's long vacation in Bora-Bora off the French Polynesia. Their accomodation on stilts with crystal clear waters and a glass bottom floor. Wah.. sounds cool.

I would probably like to do the same.

Seven

Seven things I plan to do before I die

1) Write a book - or compile my poems into a book.
2) Tie up any loose ends with my life - make sure things are ok with everyone.
3) Have kids and test my parenting skills.
4) Go back to Salsa and really pick it up all the way.
5) Travel to every continent and the following countries - Africa, South America, Canada, Antartica, Australia, Europe, Russia, India, China.
6) Learn to swim and sail.
7) To retire by the time I am 35 and start working on the above (some must start already).

Seven things I could do:

1) Have more clarity and focus in everything I do.
2) Spend more time with Pling.
3) Spend more time with Sasha.
4) Spend more time with rest of family.
5) Be nicer to friends and family.
6) Start working out and have a healthier lifestyle.
7) Do more - think less.

Seven Celebrity Crushes (huh?)

1) Jessica Alba
2) Aishwarya Rai
3) Lindsay Lohan (when she was chubbier)
4) Ashley Judd
5) That hispanic woman in Desperate Housewives
6) Kirsten Dunst
7) One of the girls from the Matrix - forgotlah

Seven often repeated word

1) Alamak
2) Aiyoh
3) Actually..
4) Aiseh
5) Shit
6) Dammit
7) Wat to do?

Seven physical traits I look for in the opposite sex

1) Nice hair - long or short doesn't matter, straight better than wavy/curly.
2) Not too skinny
3) Got boobs
4) Shoes - starting to believe good shoes means they care about their looks
5) Can eat - not diet obsessed
6) Nice skin/complexion
7) Perfume

Seven things I do to make myself happy

1) Read - anything, especially storybooks.
2) Bullying the cats.
3) Shop - buy something I normally won't.
4) Blast heavy metal music, or rock.
5) Seeing others happy.
6) Being with great company.
7) Looking up old friends.

Done..

Back again

This has got to be the most under utilised blog in the world. What to do? If I had a freaking internet connection at home it may be different. Let's get started today with this recent poem.. 

Untitled - 30/9/05

Late is the hour of this reckoning,

Night - we sang of the muse that cheers,

To forget, briefly, the dreams we had of tomorrow 

Just for the night. 

We sang accappella, 

A song of my distant past, 

Me trying to untie the knot that is my heart, 

Them to ode the muse of their dreams. 

Morning comes to some surprise, 

The tamil beats and raucous rhythm 

Of the tabla and drum 

Mixed with the feng-tau chinese american reject 

That made me laugh at their unoriginality. 

I crawled home - passing uniformed cars, 

That neither inspired nor wound me, 

The foul whisky-tea will last till morning 

Like the knot; 

It's tighter than I thought.

Still figuring this out..

I'm still trying to figure out this blogger thing. It doesn't have some of the things on my friends blogs - like a calender to note the last few blogs. I'm sure it should have a links page.. but can't figure that out either.

Oh well.. keep trying i suppose.

Haze, Americans and Putrajaya

The haze is totally gone. At least for now. Winds have pushed the smoky clouds northwards, so our neighbours in Perak, Kedah and Penang states will be facing the dense clouds until things turn back this way again. Definitely it's a temporary respite.

Had weekend with a very interesting American couple. Jamie and Kim, both living and working in Japan and are friends of an old friend (Chee Chuan). They were down for a holiday and both wife and me played hosts. They had a tough time in Pangkor Laut - haze and all, but they had 2 clear days just the days they arrived and left. Plane could'nt land and all.

I think we love playing hosts, taking people out to dinner and brunch seems to be our staple thing to do. Its always to Yut Kees over at Dang Wangi for brunch, and maybe a dinner of chinese, indian or malay food. This time dinner was Turkish - it would have been great but the Turkish baker (most excellent bread) was out of town. Back to Turkey it seems.

Playing host to foreigners is fun. For one thing, we meet new people which is what we both like doing it seems, and for me, its an excuse to go out to eat - talk about Malaysia and share a piece of local culture. At least for my part I make sure they go home having a good impression of the country. Somehow that's important to me. I don't really know why my wife enjoys it. But it's clearly a fun thing to do. We also went to Putrajaya to have a look. It rained most of the time, but we had brief moments to walk around. That was my first time looking around the Putrajaya main street. Nice place, would recommend anyone to take a look. Cool bridges and a good place to look at nice buildings.

Anyway we finished off the day back in KLCC. I went bag shopping while Jamie and Kim decided to kill time watching a movie. Their return flight is at 11pm so they had hours to kill. We finished at 4:30pm - and after dropping them off, had dinner and went home.

Wonder who's going to introduce us to the next bunch of tourists? heheh

This must be what wood feels like..

Been a while since the last item. Damn its hazy in KL. The bloody haze has visibly gotten worse over the last 4 hours and visibility dropped from less than 1km to now less than 500m. Folks in the gov say its not going anywhere for a couple of months. At least October it seems.

The Air Polution Index (API) is reportedly still less than 300 over here. Which is utterly bullshit considering just outside of town where they mentioned it was 400, actually looked clearer than KL. Damn buggers are still hiding the actual numbers.

I don't see the point of making the air polution index a national secret. Anyway since they released it recently that's no longer an issue, only question is: are they releasing the actual number?

So from my view here at the Twin Towers, seems like the haze is glued to the windows. Must be what burning wood sees.