Its tough having to meet Ah Geok's expectation and more so when she seems to be suffering from short term memory loss. When dear Ah Geok said give her all the potential problems that could have hindered the implementation of Project X, the project team faithfully provided the problems and recommended solutions. But no, she said it is not for us to come up with the solutions, for something as 'tua zong' as mandating, only top management got the power to push through solutions and so, we small flies should not waste time in trying to think of solutions but instead should give her all the problems instead. And so, problems we gave her but then lo and behold, in her email, she said, 'Now that you have given me all your problems, what's the solution?' Nabei!!! She siao or what? Now I began to see why Project X is still hanging in the air, going nowhere, despite changing hands 4 times...

So anyway, that's my work life for the past 3 weeks or so, in case some of you are wondering why I seem to have stopped mentioning about life in Ah Geok's Dept after my wonderful story. Its extremely tiring trying to anticipate what the old goose wants and make sure we make her happy, in order to avoid having to shower in her saliva when she went screaming and blasting everyone in her room. Even with the renovation, her powerful voice can still go through walls. Corporate Developement should have made her office sound proof.

You see, whenever Ah Geok replies any email with a 'Pls discuss', it creates havoc to the receipients. An emergency meeting will almost immediately be held in one of the Deputy Directors' room and we will all try to anticipate the 101 scenarios that can happen and role play for any possible ways the meeting will go, not unlike going to war like that. But sad to say, no matter how hard we try to anticipate, prepare and role play, most of the time, we still ended up being fucked left, right and centre. Well, not at me personally (at least not yet) but its quite paisei to be in the same room when my bosses endure the full force of her verbal assault. The thing is, there is truth and wisdom in what she says and sometimes, well most of the times, we find it difficult to argue and then we would exit her room, feeling stupid and dejected. We would then adjourn back to our DDs' rooms, cry father cry mother for about 30min, or more, depending on what we need to follow up after the 'Pls discuss' session and then we will revert to our old chirpy self.

Well, lucky there's no 'Pls discuss' session today but somehow I still felt drained after work. Decided to go gym cuz I have been inactive for quite a while and besides feeling like a lump of lard, I have 17 days left to pass my IPPT, not that I can't pass but you know lah, I dun usually jog and so 2.4km run can be quite a challenge. But sad to say, I did not manage to step onto the threadmill anyways. 45 min of weight lifting and my poor body refused to work anymore =(

Rach had been wanting to meet up but somehow, as always, did not manage to do so. Sorry my dear, but too nua to go out after I reached home... heheh...

Gotta go Sentosa early tomorrow, not for fun but to bring my trainees out for a sponsored outing and for the student volunteers to have a chance to interact with the intellectually disabled. Speaking of which, I was actually quite cheesed off with the organisers. The whole preparation was quite disorganised and a lot of last minute coordination was required, resulting in many email ding-dongs and much frustrations to those involved. But well, since this is all for the benefit of those who are less unfortunate, I suppose everyone started off with good intentions so ok lah...

Lastly, congrats to ROvers for winning the Inter Project Bowling Competition again. Hahaha, someone messaged me on the night of victory and said its tradition that the Chairperson must treat supper if we came in first. Well, I dun mind treating 'tao huay chwee' and 'tao huay' if you guys come in first again for the next 2 competitive events also... Being a former TAGL, my goal is to reclaimn the championship this year hor, so you guys and gals pull up your socks.... heheheh

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I got a little lazy. And there isn't really much to write about...

Oh, actually I wanted to write a complaint letter to Secret Recipe over an episode during one of those days where the whole freaking nation rushed to watch the firewerks at Marina. But then again, on second tots, I decided to be nice and let it pass but that doesn't mean I dun blog about it... And well this time, I'm gonna include names cuz I'm still feeling cheesed off...

And so it was on a Friday (17 Aug) and Little Imp, Bernice and bf and I decided to go have dinner and meet up with Val later for drinks after she's done accompanying her mum for dinner. Well actually, Val wanna jio us for firewerks on the 11th floor of our office after dinner but I can't cuz I was supposed to meet Fion but then I kanna tua-ed and so Val ended up having dinner with her mum and I ended up having dinner with the rest.

So anyways, we had wanted to go Vino Vino for some wine but we mis-timed and the whole bloody traffic came to a standstill after the firewerks, so we figured we will never make it to M. Sultan, so we decided to go chill in Marina Square instead.

Well, as expected, we couldn't find any seats in all major cafes but I did manage to get us 4 seats at Secret Recipe. Note that there was going to be 5 of us but we had only 4 chairs, so well naturally, I approached one of the waiters to kindly find me a chair.

'Yes sir, in a while sir.' replied the fat malay guy who then disappeared and never came back. I next approached a tall nerdy chinese guy with specs and repeated my request for the 5th chair.
'Its a bit crowded sir, but I'll try to see what I can do.' replied the nerd who also failed to find me that ever elusive 5th chair.

And throughout our 20min there waiting for our 5th chair, no one came to take our order. Just then, a table was being vacated and a waiter was clearing the table, so I walked over and asked the small sized malay guy if we can switch tables cuz we have 5 pax and there weren't enough chairs. He said we could and so I went back and told the others we can switch tables.

And so as we walked back (Val had joined us by then), a malay gal whom I assumed was the duty manager on duty, told me the table was reserved and demanded I joined the long queue outside. I then told her the small malay guy said we could switch tables but she wasn't convinced and told me they only have a fat malay guy but no small malay guy.

Nabei, I was by then starting to get pissed so I told her to stay there and I'll show her the 'small malay guy'. And so, the 'small malay guy' reappeared and I said, 'Here's your small malay guy'. To which she walked away and replied, 'He's not malay, he's Phillipine.'
What the FUCK?!?!? Does it fucking matter what race or nationality the waiter is? Oh I'm sorry I couldn't tell a malay from a Phillipino but that is not the fucking point now, is it?

We got the table but the next thing I knew, the 100% malay started shouting at the poor guy in plain view of other customers. I actually wanna tell her off then and there but decided not to make a scene. The 'big malay guy' then reappeared and was told by the manager to come take our orders. I then asked for the manager's name to which he replied Siti. I then asked Siti what, to which he replied, 'Siti Mariam, sir'... I swear that he was smiling with glee as he was spouting out the full name, probably happy that someone is finally gonna complain his manager. Dear Siti must thank her Allah that I had decided to be forgiving, for I had even recorded the time that the incident took place which was 10.34pm, according to my Adidas watch.

p.s. I am most certainly not racist, well maybe towards Bangalahs and cheena men from Cheena but I dun have a problem with Malays, in general. And oh, by the way, the name of the friendly and helpful Phillipino waiter who got scolded was called Rodolf, without the 'u'.

Val and Ee Lynn had been trying to get me play World of Warcraft since the begining of time.
And so, I have finally got myself to give the game a try. The process in itself is very painful though

First of all, I tried to download the free trial version but bloody starhub is so damn slow, it took me like one full day just to download a 3.16gig worth of game data. And then, at 82%, the download encountered error so I had to re-download everything.

This time round, I left my PC on the whole night but guess what? My bro shut down the PC on his way out to work the next morning! Then I realised that I had a copy of WOW, passed to me by Val eons ago in her attempt to get me started, so I happily tried to install the game instead. But Murphy's Law came into play and my CD-rom was somehow jammed. I cannot get it open!

And when I finally managed to somehow get it unjammed, and installed the game, I found out that the installed version was like a 1000 patches behind the current version (those who played online games before will know what I mean), and so I have to spend like another full day downloading the patches via bloody slow starhub.

And now, 3 days later, a night elf called 'Limpeh' finally came to the World of Warcraft.

Come this Friday, we'll loose another colleague and good friend... It had been a good past 2 years, and I'll miss the good o' days at Ya Kun where we will talk about stuff and complain about life under Ah Geok's evil clutches.

一起共过患难的好姐妹

Erm, we look like spokespersons for IKEA or Courts

The trio

This m'sian dude with an attitude is making the news recently with his YouTube vidz criticising his gahmen...
Check him out in YouTube, just search for Wee Chee Meng for his vidz.
Here's the vidz that he got into trouble for...



p.s. Most of his vidz contains vulgarities, dun say I din warn u...

I have always prided myself to be those sporty kinda guy who can learn and play reasonably well, any kinda sports and games in a short time, which is why I cannot live with myself for scoring my all time low during last night's bowling.
Although I dun bowl regularly, I have never ever scored below 90 pins before, but last night, I got 75 pins for the first game and 83 pins for the second game! Off form, maybe, but still...

Finally, for the 35th MYG performance, we have decided to split our members into 2 groups, with 1 group performing wushu and the other group, kickboxing, since they had done these before and they had enjoyed the lessons previously. I'm in charge of the wushu team while my good o' partner handles the kickboxing team. For a while, it feels like back to the good old days when I was not the 掌门... Jia lat, my predecessors will give me another round of prep talk when they read this...
Managed to come up with a set of moves for the wushu part, but it seems that the moves are a bit challenging for the members. Even some of my volunteers can't get all the moves correct. But I think with somemore practise, we can still make it in time for the D-Day in Dec.

I met the story teller the other day and he told me that things are now turning out to be rather fine in the land of the evil queen. It seems that the characters in the story are able to put their differences aside and are now on talking terms again. The road of recovery may be long but everyone is making progress which is a good thing. Somethings are still unspoken but I guess somethings are better left unspoken.

Maybe its because everyone now realises that the ultimate enemy should be the evil queen instead of each other, or maybe everyone is just sick and tired of the thick tension that makes breathing difficult, especially with the recent flu bug floating around in the atmosphere...

One thing I haven sorted out yet though, there is one or maybe more than one villians in this whole saga not mentioned in the story who has/have been going around sowing seeds of doubt, pretending to be kind soul/s but in actual fact is the ultimate bad guy.
Too bad, I dun have the full details or else... hiack hiack hiack...
Anyways, if you are reading this now (oh, I'm sure you will sooner or later), you may be disappointed to know that you may have failed in your attempts, and pray real hard that your identity remains hidden...

And with this, it truly marks THE END of The Story...

Our New Pledge
I, the citizen of Singapore
Pledge myself to strike on Mon, Wed, Thur, Sat and Sun
Regardless of TOTO, 4D, Big Sweep or Football
To buy a striking hope and earn extra money
Based on Quick Pick, System 7 to 12, Big Sweep Tickets with 4D bonuses
So as to achieve Car, Cash, Condo and Credit Cards

Curse this super duper strong flu bug which has been hounding me for more than a week.
It manifested in many evil forms, first sapping the strength out of me by making me feel constantly bloated and killing my appetite. It then decided to burn me down with fever but I still refused to yield.

I finally surrendered when the bloody virus decided to attack where it hurts most, the nasal passage. I simply cannot stand cough and a runny nose, and so, I conceded defeat.

2 visits to the doc and after downing many pills later, I can finally say I regained a wee bit of strength but I'm growing weak at the knees again, thinking of the long list of unopen emails and tons of piling up work that awaits me back in office -_-

Was reading Xiaxue's entries the other day (I'm not particularly fond of her attitude sometimes but hell, she's entertaining), and I came across this recent entry where she openly dissed some 7 bloggers which, in her opinion are the most disgusting bloggers she had ever come across and among them include people like Maia (yupz the Singapore Idol dropout) and the ever so gross Steven Lim (another Singapore Idol wannabe who would do anything to have some screen time, if that includes dancing in his luminious yellow briefs).

Well, that sparked off a retaliation You Tube video from the man himself (although I think he had just further humiliated himself with that).

So now the question is, will Xiaxue's legion of readers really be affected by what she wrote and starts to spit at the 7 featured bloggers whenever they see them in the streets? Will the fans of these 7 featured bloggers turn their back on them and stopped reading their blogs? Is Xiaxue the evil gossip monger who should be burnt at the stake for spreading 'untruths'?

In my opinion, she has the right to write whatever she wants, although whether the contents are factual (being factual may not not neccessarily means it is accurate though) or it's pure fabrication, we are none the wiser. But I do think that most people are mature enough to take what they read with a pinch of salt, without blindly jumping to conclusion.

If mere words from an individual could sway people's opinion, that would be due to 3 reasons:
1) those who believe what they read are actually dumbass with no thinking of their own
2) they are plain immature which then ties back to the point above or,
3) there is some truth in what was being written

So of course the people who got dissed would most likely be pissed. Hey, I dissed people in my blogs too although I dun reveal the actual names, and I dun get personal but I guess I'll be affected too if one fine day, I chance upon people writing not so pleasant things about me. But then again, no one truly is a Mr/ Miss Popular among everyone, so I dun really give much of a damn. They have the freedom to write what they like.

The important thing is whether the stuff written is true. If it is, to some extent, I think I'll just have to live with it. If its not, well, then it depends on whether its worth my while clarifying with the writer, of course I'll take it offline instead of doing a You Tube video.

p.s. Of all the 7 featured readers, I most certainly agree with XX that SL is truly the most irritating blogger to have ever existed in the blogosphere, but to give him some credit, he is kinda entertaining, for a while... hahah

I thought last night's chapter was the concluding one but then, there was a request for a special chapter so here goes....

Story of 2 Maidens
Special Chapter

The Chosen One, with a dead weight in her heart turned back to look at the land she once called home. She was sad to leave her friends behind but utter disppointment with the Evil Queen and the nobles left her with no choice but to abandon her home.

Once a peasant, she rose quicky through the ranks but always stopped short of becoming one of the nobles. Time and again, she had been made to hold mediocore appointments where she has no chance to advance.

After toiling so hard year in year out, hoping to reap the fruits of labour one day... she was constantly denied the chance to greater success while the maidens reaped the fruits of her labour in mere months while she took years and could not seem to achieve. Not that she blamed it entirely on the maidens, she had reached the point that she had given up all hope to ever become one of the nobles

Just as she ran out of faith, she was appointed as The Chosen One with little tied to her name, except more work but no promise of giving her what she so desires and righfully deserves.

And when she thinks that there's no way out and all hope is gone, heavens took pity on her and presented her with a path to new lease of life. Bagged with her experience, she decided to offer her services to the ruler of a land where she can see hope and the possibility of a brighter future

As she requested to opt out from the Test, the Chief Examiner then decides to offer her a place among the nobles, but alas, with her heart already saddened and broken into a million pieces, she declined and decided to move on.

With one last look, and tears forming in her eyes, she bid farewell and prayed in her heart for the well being of those who are left behind and hoped that one day, they will be reunited, some how, some place... ...

Story of 2 Maidens
Chapter 5 (Concluding Chapter)

As the Test continues and the 3 rulers are being summoned time and again by the Evil Queen, the goings are getting tougher. For 2 weeks now, the Chief Examiner, the nobles, the maidens, the remaining Chosen One and the peasants had been working hard and laughter seem like a luxury in the land of sadness where its population is rapidly declining and people seem to forget what it is like to have fun and laughter.

Rumour has it going that when one is being noticed by the Evil Queen, you either make it or break it, and even if you do make it, chances are you will break it in no time at all. Everyone in her land is at her mercy.

And that being so, no one hardly has the time to care about rivalry anymore cuz it now seems like everyone is suffering the same fate
As the Chosen One was thinking of how to finish an assignment given to him and the nobles, The Holy One approached him and suggested the possibility of reconciling the maidens with the rest of the peasants, particulary those under his rule. The Holy One pointed out the fact that even though the general mass has their pre-conceptions about the maidens or even had conflicts, the maidens should be given a chance to voice their views.

The Chosen One agreed and decided to sound out the peasants while The Holy One would go and sound out the maidens. Although they have doubts that things will go back to the old days, they decided that this is for the benefit of everyone. At the very least, they have taken the first step into making things right, and hopefully some laughter can be heard and smiles can be seen once again admist the dark times that everyone is going through.

Will the maidens and peasants choose to reconcile and let there be laughter and smiles again or will the cold war continues? Only time will tell... ... ...

As the story teller puts down his pen, and lays back in his chair, looking into the ceiling of his small cottage, he wonders if his story will ever be told
A mere 7 people living or who had onced lived in the land of the Evil Queen knows how to read his magical scroll but he knows that sooner or later, more will come to know of the scroll and as of late, he sensed that that day may come sooner than he expected.

He hopes that one day, the people he intended to chance upon the scroll pick it up and read about the story and reflect on what was being written.
Although being a story teller, he knows that inevitably, his command of the written language may have amplified some details and he maybe deemed as The Evil One as had many story tellers before his time, he is contented that he has at least captured the essence.

The story teller sips his tea, closes his eyes and as he wonders how the mechanics of Fate will work in his little story, he realises that the time has come to move on, as there are greater stories to be told... ...