Still Sick

Still Sick

 
I'm still sick. *cough* Due to this reason I'm not going for the Rave. So depress now. Was so looking forward to it but I dunwan to catch pneumonia or something. Hope you all have a good time while I suffer at home. *sniff* *depress*
 

Sick

Sick

 
Remember I was sick last week, well I'm sick again. I'm such a weakling. Must be something wrong with me but everytime I see the doc they can't find anything. Maybe I should find some alternative/ancient remedy. Been coughing so much that I get a migraine. Been burping so much that my chest hurts. Now to make it more worse I'm starting to get a sore throat. HELP ME!!!
 
I think I should go for a full medical soon or should I say before end of the month cause the new job contract comes into effect on the 1st and my medical allowance would be limited to RM80 per visit. I should think I have like RM400 left from my previous medical.
 
As you all know being sick is not fun but being on MC is nice cause I can afford to wake up late. Unfortunately being on too many MC's is troublesome. Mom kindoff questioned me on why I am always on MC. Well its Aug soon and I have only taken half of the allowed 14days. Is that too much. Not as if I fake being sick. Ok maybe 1/3 of it I did fake it cause I needed to go do my eye checkup. Anyway thats another story. I hate being sick. I feel so weak. So tired. Actually my feel light headed and sleepy right now as I am writing this. Stupid medicine. *Yawm*. Haii.. back to work *sniffle*
 

Long Weekend

Long Weekend

 

Friday
 
Friday went for a third meeting with Tey at his office. He wanted me to have a look see of the working environment. Not a very big company but the people seemed friendly. Then was told that the company is willing to give me a try but informed me that my askin pay was a bit high. As this is KL i can't possibly get too much of a pay reduction cause its already a bit difficult to live right now. Anyway discussed about it and was told that we would be meeting up again to discuss about the pay package after he has met with his partner. Hopefully it won't be too low.
 
Next proceeded to Jon's place for a bbq organised by Calvin. When I reached his place, I realised that I forgot something.. ICE!! So off I go searching for ice and luckily for me Shell station now has an icebox. Bought the ice and it was back to Jon's for some food. Kevin, Mel, Joseph, Teck Joe, Calvin and lina were already there. Was damn hungry by that time and unfortunately the fire was not even started. So had to wait.
 
People (ie wendy and Sam her bf,hooibien and melvin,margaret - the cute one, Kar Leong, Oswin) started coming and by 730 the food was starting to appear on the table. Ok food was on the table but where are the sauces. Someone or no one remembered to bring the sauces.. luckily the chicken were well marinated. So there we were chatting, having a good time.
 
After cleaning up, joseph and kevin decided it was time that someone needed a good dunking and nicky was the lucky person. Unfortunately for them... I had something better planned. As they were carrying nicky to the pool, yours truly decided that they all needed to go in and they did except for kevin who managed to stay out. MUAHAHA I rule man I rule.
 
The nite went on with a bunch of us heading to Bangsar for some drinks, Non-alcoholic ones as the pool was off limit after 12. Just sat at starbucks, bullshitting and looking out for chicks. After that it was back home to sleep as the next day we were going Karaoke.
 
Sat
Woke up at around 12 cause wanted to wake up fully refreshed for a long day out. Just watched some TV and drove to Sunway at 3 for the karaoke session. Took me 20 minutes just to find a parking space. I was going up and down the parking lot but still was unable to find a space. I just decided to go all the way down to the basement and hold and behold, parking space and a lot of them. I have just found a new place to park where nobody seems to know exist.
 
The gang was already there, some people decided to stand us up ie Jon, Mel and Margaret (shucks) kekeke thought got lenglui to see. Sang our hearts out..ok they did I didn't cause I can't sing any chinese songs and they chosed mostly chinese ones. Dunno why but I never choose songs at karaoke.
 
At 7 our session ended and we all went our separate ways except for me, calvin and teckjoe who stayed back to meet up with jon. Was suppose to meet him infront of levi's so went there and saw the rest of the people who somehow decided not to go off but stayed on cause of some change of plans. Waited for Jon and off to McDonald's (The new prawn burger is interesting but a bit on the sweet side) to use up our time before heading Thai Bar to meet Joeboys friend, Jeff,
 
Jon went back to have a quick washup and we went off to meet up Jeff. Thai bar is an interesting pub. The band was excellent. They belted english numbers to chinese one and what is more amazing is they were made up of malays. I feel ashamed to say that they can sing in chinese better than myself. The con of the place was that the DJ's SUCK. If anyone have been to Ipoh, they must have heard of Y2K before where cantopop is played and english songs are old. Ok Thai Bar played even worse that Y2K with their choice of Cantopop and even older songs ie Ace of Base.
 
At the end of the nite, everyone was either pissed drunk or damn high as we opened 2 bottles of Chivas. Teck Joe was totally gone at the end and joseph was out as soon as we left the place. The gang proceeded for some mamak while I went to look for a friend. And yes it was a female friend and no nothin happened fortunately in one sense and unfortunately in another. Anyway that is another story.
 
Went home then took a shower and just slept.
 
Sunday
Slept till 130. Watch Everwood and Ed and then met up with Jon, Calvin and Lina for a drink at 4. Just sat around chatting and then left for home to spend a quiet evening just resting.
 

RAIN!!

RAIN!!

 
Rain Rain Go Away!!! Please Come Back Another Day!!...Preferbly on a day when I can sleep in.
 
Argh... Raining so heavily outside, cats and dogs...hmmm more like dinasours, yet I still had to drag my lazy ass out of bed to come to work. Traffic was extremely bad. From the traffic report, Ipoh is also raining heavily. Hope there is no flooding at home. The road to work was alrite after the traffic light at IOI. Sometimes I'm so glad that I work at Mines. Although the surrounding sux and there's not much shops to have lunch in, at least I dun have to get stuck in traffic when I go to work. Especially at the Sunway Tol. CRAZZYY!!!!
 
Anyway.. Got called up by MR CEO yesterday. Invited me to go over to their office to look see look see. Sound very promising. If everything goes as planned. I would be at a new job by Sept. A very interesting prospect but scary at the same time. Well can I be blamed that I'm a bit scared. First Sales and Marketing job. Selling a software to the printing market which are said to be owned by people with china man mentality.
 
"ChinaMan - One who has the kiamsiap mentality. One who does not feel
there is a need for change when everything is going fine.
One who takes into account every single sen that is used"
 
I think I can handle it but still I'm nervous of the prospect. Here I go rambling about the job when it hasn't been confirmed that I got it. Anyway am keeping my finger crossed. So people if you have the time, please pray for me.
 

VIRUS AGAIN!!

VIRUS AGAIN!!

 
I've been clearing virus/trojan from the server for 4 days already and finally it seems that I am winning the war. I'm so tired from running up and down the office whenever there is a new virus.
 
How you might ask can out servers be infected if we update our antivirus..well it is due to the incompetence of the previous person who is in-charge of the servers. It seems that there are some server which not only does not have the latest window patches (very important) but also does not have an updated antivirus list. It was 10 months ago that they last updated it. Come on. My dad's antivirus list is newer than theirs.
 
Anyway I so fed up of doing this. While running around I still had to deal with QA work, data patching for a customer in the US, Backup Procedures, Software Installations and last but not least support for one customer in Japan. This has been a very tiring week and there is still one more day to go. Hopefully tomorrow everything would be better and I can concentrate on my Citrix environment installation which I need to finish by tomorrow 230pm the latest.
 
OK time to get back to work. Still need to fix one more stupid server. Oh help me. Somebody. Need a drink tonite.. Luckily the gang is going out for a dinner and a drink at Soul Out. I really need it.
 

SKIP WORK

SKIP WORK

 
Skipped work today. Still feeling like shit. Wanted to take MC but was told that I have taken tooooo many... how can one control being sick? Anyway to prevent questioning have decided to just take one day off. Screw the network, Screw the virus. Got a call saying that the work has stopped cause the virus is still hidden somewhere. Feel sorry for those at work cause they have to settle it themselves while I slept.
 
Will be driving back to Ipoh later cause I felt like going back. Will be bringing back my aunt, niece,Natalie and nephew, Ryan. 2 of the noisiest monkeys. Hope they dun disturb me doing the trip back as I'm cranky.
 
I think I might have some heart problem. Left side of my body is numb. Hurts at the chest as well. Might see a doc when I get back if it persist. Anyway time to go. Next update would be on Monday if I'm not too lazy.
 

VIRUS

VIRUS

 
Virus attack!! Feeling like shit. Could be the drinking from the nite before. Having headache, fever, gastric - sounds like I'm coming down with FLU.
 
To make things even worse, the company network and servers has been infected by virus. I'm already feeling like shit but still had to bloody look into the problem. Scanning servers, figuring out why the network is going up and down. Looking for a new hub. This were so bad that it escalated to the higher end of the hierachy. First to MIS manager of Malaysia and Singapore and then to the director of MIS for AsiaPac. Then when Holland office started working, their MIS called me. Wow... we are in deep shit. Being the temp MIS in Malaysia office I had to do all the work tryin to figure out what is wrong. No one else was willing to help out or just didn't bother. I'm starting to feel overwhelmed with MIS work. I have other stuff to do at the same time, QA work which I manage to look into. I'm gettin paid shit while doing 3 persons work. I need to leave.
 
You must be wondering why I can still manage to do this with all the commotions happening around me. Well I've just pulled out the network cables for the so called infected machines and scanned them. Screw them. Will continue on them tomoro. Need to get more rest as I'm still feeling like shit. Going home now. Bye
 

Matrix

Matrix

 
Yesterday was suppose to be a movie nite. Suppose to go catch Spiderman 2 but as usual being last minute ppl, we (Jon, Calvin, Mel, Joeboy,Peter and Myself) did not manage to get any tickets as the cinema was full as usual with only the 1st and 2nd row available. We didn't wanna strain our necks and eyes sitting so close so decided to just go for dinner. Ended up at SS2 'Wai Sik Kai'.
 
After dinner, we were unwilling to go home so decided to head to Matrix for some 9 ball and foosball. Haven't been there for such a long time. Use to be our weekly haunt, so much so that I knew the captains and also the waiters. Anyway just hung out, played pool. No foosball was available. Ordered some 'kwai lou leong char'. Ended up drinking like a jug and half myself as we were playing those chinese drinking game ie sap, sap mm.  Got bloody trashed by Mel who somehow figured out my routine so we were just a happy bunch of drunk pool playing noisy people.
 
Had such a good time that we forgot that we had to go to work the next day.. ok it was only myself and jon that needed to work the rest are twats who just slept till late. I'm so jealous. Ended up being there reanacting (is this how you spell it) scenes from Star Wars with joeboy till like 2am. Was totally knackered and high when I got home.. Wish we could do this more often. Been a while since I had such a good time during weekdays and also getting filled up to the brains with alcohol.
 
Things to do - *do it more often*
 

Uneventful Weekend of Sorts

Uneventful Weekend of Sorts

 
Friday
Nothing much happened during the weekend. Fri went for dinner with nana. She's a nice girl. Can bullshit with her about everything. Had a good time daring each other to do stuff while we were in the Jap restaurant. We had a noodle slurping competition to see who can slurp louder. Wanted to have one where we wrapped wasabi with ginger but I dare say I chickened out cause first I hate ginger and secondly I dunwan to start crying cause of the wasabi. Haha. Guess I'm a yellow ass chicken. Hope to meet up with nana more often to hang out. After dinner went home and stayed home. Caught up on the DVD's and TV series that I have missed and FFK Calvin who I was suppose to go to RUSH with but my usual weekly headache decided to kick in and had to wake up early the next day.
 
Saturday
Sat was a busy day. Woked up early to go to the Income Tax Department. I wasn't there to get interviewed for tax evation or anything but to actually pay off my outstanding total. I'm a good citizen ok. Anyway got there and waited for 1 hour just to talk to someone. Should have woken up a lot earlier cause that place was such a bore and I didn't have anything to read so I practically just tried to entertain myself by staring at the different type of ppl in the crowd. From young families to elderly ppl to a father and son who are so update in fashion sense.
 
Anyway when my turn came up, I just staggered out of my seat and ask the person in charge to find out how much I owed. Much to my relieve, it ended up that they still owe me money...muahahaha so I didn't need to pay a sen. What a waste of my time? Why can't they calculate everything and insert it into the J form instead of making me wake up early to go there.
 
Well was driving home and then decided that I need a haircut cause... I dunno I just felt I needed a haircut. Went to a new hair saloon near where i live. Walked in, hmm small, 3 hairdresses...not bad lookin... one of then looked like a china girl. Settled in for the haircut and then was given a hairwash which came with a short massage session which felt oh so good. I need to get someone to go with me for a thai massage or something...maybe in Haadyai. Who would be interested? Please contact me.
 
After haircut went home to rest a while and then went for a meeting with a COO for a job which was suppose to have been done the week before. Anyway everything went smoothly but I do doubt that I would be given the job as I don't have enough experience. Well sot it, I can still look for other opportunities. Met up with Elaine Phung for dinner after the meeting. Went to MidValley for KimGary. Been a while since I have seen her and also been to KimGary. Had a good time catchin up although Elaine has changed a bit or maybe it is just me. Thats life I guess. People change as they get older. Sometimes I wish no one changes but stay the same as they go thru life but that will never happen.
 
With dinner over, walked around midvalley and then sent her home. Went home myself and just hung out at home. Suppose to go over to Eliza's place but then it got too late by the time they went home from Cafe Flam so decided to stay home. Stayed up till around 4am just watching and changing channels on Astro.
 
Sunday
Sunday nothin happened except for dinner with the rest ie Jon, Calvin, Oswin, Eliza and KarLeong. I do think I need to open up my circle of friends but I find it difficult at times. More comfortable with them. Well I just have to find a way to make my life more interesting.
 
*Mission for 2nd Half of the Year - Look for more interesting things to do in life*
 

Web Cam

Web Cam

 
Yes!! I've finally figured out how to link my webcam to my blog. Although it only refreshes like every 5 minutes, I do think it is an accomplishment. My next project would be to find a way to do it in realtime for FREE! If anyone knows of any place I can get a free software to do it, please do help me out. Thanks.
 

English Language

English Language

 
Today as I was driving to work, I was listenin to Mix FM Perfect match. Today's contestant was a chinese couple and I was lookin forward to it as it is seldom you get a chinese couple playin it for some reason.
 
Anyway it was decided that the female half was to answer the questions first so I was like tryin to anticipate the questions. Ok when she was asked the question, I was horrified to hear her reply, OK maybe not her reply but the way she used her English. It was full of lah's and leh's and ah's and mah's.
 
I'm not trying to say that I don't use those words or that my English is superb but why can't she speak in a proper way. I know kids who talk better than her. If she had used the words sparingly I would be able to accept it but she was like emphasising the words in every sentence. ie 'Cause he is a fun guy mahhhh!!' or 'Of course a diamond ring lahhhh!'.
 
How did Malaysian English come to this state? For goodness sake, we used to be under the rule of the British who invented English. I know that the Government has heard the cries of the nation on the degrading state of our languege and decided that enough is enough, but how would it help if they have only decided to put more emphasise on teaching in the English language for Science subjects.
 
Before that, I think they should consider lookin for teachers with better qualifications and maybe introduce English Literature as a core subject. A lot of the teachers teachin English Language did't come out of college with a diploma with it. I know of teachers who are asked to teach Math when obviously they are not qualified to do so and this goes the same for English. Considering all this, how can they hope that the state of the nations English will rise to be on par or maybe even better than the Brits. Come on Malaysian, show the world that we are not only good at constructing the tallest buildings or have the best ICT infrastructure but we also put emphasise on good language skills.
 
Once again, before people who knows me start to cry foul on my writing today, I'm just like to state that my English is not the best in the world but acceptable and with the occasional lah's and mah's that we all tend to add in at the end of the sentence. I hope something can be done about it and soon before things get out of control.
 

Hong Kong Mari

Hong Kong Mari

 
My friend from Uni days, Stephanie came down from Hong Kong for training yesterday. It is the first time I've seen her in nearly 5 years. She was like one of the first HongKies that I met when I was in UK. She use to stay with 3 other guys from HongKong as well and they took good care of me. Use to hang out at their place, playing games and having dinner. Those were good times.
 
Initially was suppose to go to her hotel to meet up with her at 7pm but she didn't call me up so I thought she forgot about me and since it was raining I was to lazy to drive all the way down to kl.
 
At 630 she called up and was like telling me that cause it is raining I didn't need to go down to meet her. At first I was like, 'Yeah, raining quite heavilylah. So how?' We ended up chatting for an hour when I decided to just drive down cause haven't seen her in such a long time.
 
Arrive at her hotel, Westin at 830pm and proceeded to bring her to KLCC cause it was still rainin outside. Brought her buy some Mango Gummy which I was told was popular in Hong Kong and then went to food court to makan cause she wanted to eat something spicy. She had nasi lemak which I was told was not too bad. So we chit chat for a while then since everything was startin to close decided to bring her to Petaling Street and guess what she bought. She actually bought software there cause it is cheaper to get it here than in HK. So after a bit of walkin around was time to send her back to the hotel as she had an early mornin and I wanted to catch Euro Finals.
 
EURO 2004
 
GREECE!!! Wei hei, Greece won. What an unexpected turn of event. From a team who no one gave a chance to Euro champions. For a team that never even passed the first stage before this they really shocled a lot of people. I was actually cheering for them cause I think they deserve it as they were playing good football. Portugal also did well but just unlucky. I felt sad for them when I saw ronaldo crying after the final whistle. Anyway after a month of football, the world would be without football for a while that is until the Premier League begins in August. What can one do without football? I guess I can tune in to the Olympics but what has it got to offer...hmm ladies gymnastics... synchronise syimming... ahhhh. Hopefully can catch up on that.
 
Oh besides EURO, it was the Wimbledon Finals. Federer Won against Roddick. Good match. Manage to catch the last 2 games.
 
It was also the French Grand Prix and guess who won, Schumacher again. This is gettin toooo boring. Come on ppl win some races man. Out of the 9 races ran, he has won 8 of them. Not interesting one. Last season was good. Hai someone should ban him from racing...
 
Ok time for me to get back to work. Been distracting myself from work the whole day. I'm so lazy... haiii.
 

Futsal

Futsal

 
Who was the smart person who invented this wonderful sport called Futsal? Where a bunch of unfit maradonna wanabes could show off their dribbling skills?
 
Anyway Friday nite was all about futsal. After an eternity of not exercising, Jon came up with the idea of gathering a bunch of ppl to play futsal at Sports Planet. Everyone was so enthuthiastic about it but once the games started for... hmmm 5 mins you could see most of us trying to catch our breath as if the world is running out of oxsigen and that everyone was tryin to get substituted. Unfortunately for all of us, there was only 10 of us to begin with and no chance for substitution. Due to that reason, all of us had to hang on to our dear lives rotating being the keeper so as to be able to rest for awhile. All of us played on until, praise God 2 more players arrive and substitution started. In the group of people, only myself don't smoke but I seemed to be running out of breath more frequently. Maybe its due to the fact that the last time I actually exercised was like 4mths ago.
 
Oh well the game went on for like 45mins but everyone was so darn tired. Erwindo came up with an idea to make things more interesting which is to put some money into it. When that happened, things started gettin more interesting. Although it was just a small sum, everyone started puttin in more effort and so did I. At the end, my group won. Oh how it felt good to win. I wanted the feelin to go one but a new feelin caught on, which was the feelin of tiredness. Anyway game ended, went home, slept and I actually slept for 11h. I can't believe it myself but when I woke up my body was aching like mad. I think I need to exercise more.
 

Ok its 3.40pm on a thursday, nothin has been done except for surfing and chatting. OK maybe an occasional attempt to actually do some work. The reason for this laziness is that there is like a gloomy cloud hanging over the team. There are only 4 of us working today. 3 on leave, 2 onsite and 1 on MC. Another reason for this is cause yesterday, 2 members of the family left the nest in search of greener pastures with juicier worms.

Penny and Wan has left us and although they have found jobs with better opportunities no one among us was happy about it. The EXE family has gone from a team of nearly 20 ppl to 10ppl and the numbers would slowly deteriote somemore. MunChoong would be leaving in August and only God knows who else would be leaving during the next few mths.

Actually I myself has been looking for a job. Some of you might be thinking, 'Alvin, didn't you just change jobs'. Well yeah this is my second job and come November I would have been working here for 2 years. How time flies? But I guess it is still not a good reason to be leaving right. Here is the main reason. Last week our MD came down to have a chat with the EXE team as one by one, ppl are leaving. His task was to find out the reason and to.. I guess reassure us, that are left that we have a future in SSA Global. Unfortunately, he failed to do so but instead decreased our confidence in the company. He kept on going that we have a future in SSA, that we can talk to the management regarding our aspirations and they would do watever it takes to make sure that comes true. Although that sounded hunky dorie, he also added that his position is only guaranteed for the next year. How reassuring can that be? I know he is tryin to be honest but who would actually say that to a team where the members are leaving one by one.

Well thats not the only thing he talked about. He tried to explain how the SSA business actually works. First of all let me tell you what SSA does. SSA is actually in the game of purchasing/acquiring/taking over companies which it sees as worthy, with the right technology. EXE is like the 5th or 6th company it has acquired in the last few years and there are more to come. OK back to the MD's explanation. He explained that as SSA keep on buying new companies, they would compare the current crop of workers with the new company they have bought over. If they decide that the current crop is not as good as the new one, then byebye. HELLO!!! Why are you telling us this? Don't you realise you are frightening us even more and encouraging us to look for a new job. Do you think I wanna wait here for you to sack me. I don't think so.

Anyway what am I to do? Look for a job lor although I know I would miss the ppl here if I left but I need to take care of myself since the management don't seem to be doing it. So ppl, do pray for me that I would get a new more stable job yeah.