What's Your Seduction Style ?

Saw this from LMD .... Not sure how accurate this is ... but hey.. I was bored.. :P

Celebrations

Christmas celebrations are finally over, and I'm already back in the office. Although there really isn't much people here. Some 'No-Shows' and even my manager decided to call in sick for the day. Which means I could probably go shopping now (yes.. shopping) ... But since I only just got here, I might as well stay for a bit.

For some reason, something always dies (in the data center) when I slack off and leave early.

This is probably my first Christmas which I didn't end up flying back home to spend with my parents. It felt kinda weird actually. But my friends and my cousin here kept things busy.

We started Christmas Eve celebrations at a one of Pete's friend's place. But I was all doped up on Panadol, I spent most of my time talk to people but not really hearing what they were saying. I wonder if anyone else there actually knew what I was talking about - because I didn't.

Note to myself: You cannot cure a hangover with another hangover.

When they started the 'Ghost Story' telling part (when people try to out-do one another with scarier tales one after another). I wanted to leave already. Everytime someone starts telling ghost stories, it makes me think back to my childhood. Yes, I've had encounters. Although I'm not totally sure, I would like to think there is a medical explaination for everything I felt. But as much as I hated it, I can still remember how until the age of 14, I would never take a shower unless someone else was sitting in the bathroom with me and talking to me the whole time, or the reason behind why I still leave the lights on when I sleep.

Maybe one day I will tell my own ghost story encounter ... but not now.

Something else that was different was that I actually ended up cooking on Christmas day. We ended up with 8 people at our place, but I think I might have cooked enough for 12 people. It was kind of a last minute thing, so we had to grab whatever was available from the chinese shops (the only shops which were open), and cook whatever was left in my pantry and refrigerator. We ended up with BBQ Whole Fish, BBQ chicken wings, roasted veggies, pasta, fresh prawns and salmon sashimi.

We spent the whole of Boxing day just recovering from the night before, and trying to finish off all the leftovers. We managed to finish all the pasta, but I think it will take me another week to polish off the prawns. (Pete is allergic to them).

Oh... and I realised that Fashion magazines are evil. While I was waiting for my turn on the Wii, I picked up a magazine and started flipping through the pages.. which left me with totally new shopping list. Must.Find.Earrings.Shoes.. Must.Buy.. !!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Everyone ~~~~ !

iCush

The iCush - 100 Gaming chair ..... *drools ~~

Well... really no need to drool anymore... because I've got one !!

And it is truely amazing. It brings a whole new perspective to my gaming world and to my iPod. I've just spent the morning enjoying my new massage synced to the tunes of Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Even SHE's 'IO IO' song was magnified to totally new heights. (Think Simpsons episode when Homer gets addicted to this massage chair). Oh... and attached to my laptop... playing a round of AB in World of Warcraft is ... WOW ~! I could truely feel it every time someone landed a hit\blow on me.

Probably the only downside to this product is that the connection cables are a bit short (distance between TV and sofa). But it is incredibly simple to use. I guess all we need to do now is go out to buy the perfect arm chair for our iCush. (I use the word 'our' is because it was originally intended to be for Pete's christmas pressent).

If you are in Sydney and want to get your hands on one of these babies, just to let you know, Dicksmith powerhouse stocks them for $199 - but they have mostly been sold out (can be ordered). However, we managed to find ours at Harvey Norman (Moore Park Outlet) at a reduced price of $169 - in the furniture section.

Somehow when we asked the people in the Computer \ Gaming sections they had no idea what a iCush was ?!!

Directions

As I was coming out of the train station today, I was stopped today by a lady who asked me if I knew mandarin chinese. Funny thing is that she actually asked me in mandarin chinese if I could understand mandarin chinese.

I already knew what this would lead to. Directions.

I told her I knew only a bit .. (i den den.... I replied in my bad chinese).

Then with a relieved look on her face, she asked me if I knew where the supreme courts were. (or atleast thats what I think she asked).

I then tried to explain to her that she had to walk past this traffic light, to the next traffic light then turn left, walk past another two buildings then it would be on your right -- all in mandarin chinese. (to my dear friends out there who personally know me and are laughing right now ... Don't.)

I think I did ok with my broken-mandarin-mixed-with-a-bit-of-cantonese giving those directions. Atleast she was heading in the right direction when I left her.

Kind of reminds me of the times when I was in Singapore, and for some reason I would always have old ladies coming up to me and asking me for directions in Hokkien.... Yes ... Hokkien.

Or the numerous amounts of time when I was in Hong Kong and I would have Aunties and Grandmas coming up to me to ask for directions in MTR stations.

I can't even read the chinese words on the MTR station maps. And no, I don't know Hokkien. (Swear words don't count right !?)

By the way, 'traffic lights' in Mandarin Chinese is supposed to sound similar to 'traffic lights' in Cantonese Chinese ... right ?

Maintenance Day ?!

I finally received my ADSL2+ router ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ! Yay !

For the past two weeks, I've been feeding my WoW addiction through a dialup internet connection.

I don't actually know what is worse.. Not being able to play WoW at all.... Or playing WoW on a painstakingly slow dialup connection and lag like mad.

But anyway, I'm glad its finally over.

I rushed home yesterday after work to setup my new router... only to realise when I logged into WoW that all the realms were offline.

Tuesday = Maintenance Day

Arggh ! Damn ! Need.. to.. wait.. one.. more.. day.... Must.. do.. battle.... Get.. more.. hk.... Must.. get.. GM.. gear...... Arggh !

Honey I did the washing...

I arrived home today to a very proud boyfriend who happily declared that he did all the washing.

-- Proof that he isn't spending all his spare time playing PS2.--

All the washing ?! (I asked)

All the clothes and dishes... and they are all dried as well (came the reply.. and continues to play on PS2)

I eyed the pile of clothes on the sofa. I supposed I should do the folding...

That was until I saw my white silk top, Cue pants and other woolen tops which now resembled something along the lines of a withered branch or the output from a meat processor.

"You do know that some clothes cannot be put in the dryer... right !?" (I picked up my now shriveled white top). "See the tag.. it says 'Do Not Tumble Dry'... !"

"Is it ? I thought you always just put the clothes in the dryer"

"Then why do we have clothes hanger on the balcony ?????????"

"Oh..... sorry" (continues to play PS2)

Seriously, sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with a 5 year old.... must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.must.calm.down.

Saturday Night Wii

Instead of going out to party on Fridays and Saturdays now, my friends now are more than content to come over to my place, to do battle on Wii.

And should our hands get too sore from all that Wii-remote swinging action. We'll just take out a deck of cards and play some poker instead. Yet no game is fun without some kind of wager, so to try to keep track with our newly found healthy lifestyle, we settled with using water instead of alcohol.

Instead of topping up the bowl with alcohol everytime someone wants to increase the bet, we topped it up with water instead.

After skulling 3 bowls (filled to the rim) of water, my body started to complain.

All I can say is by the end of the night, I had to frequent the toilet atleast 3-4 times - and I was one of the lucky few which didn't actually lose that many times.

Funny how I can last up to 1/2 dozen of beer without needing to go to the toilet and still feel great, but can't do the same with water.

Atleast I can say I've made my quota of drinking 8 glasses of water a day. But if we ever decide to play with water again, I rather volunteer to go out and pickup a carton of beer instead.

Trading Matters

One of my semi-full-time-share-trading friend gave me a couple of tips a few days ago. The type of financial advice which can be classified as 'All Care and No Responsibility'. The type which if i get burned then I'm not allowed to go and blame him.

He told me to buy a particular share at 23c. (It was at 24c when I wanted to submit my offer, and it had already dropped 0.005 for the day). So I thought I'll put it in at 22c - hoping it would drop a bit more. My semi-full-time-share-trading friend told me this one was set to double - within the month.

So I put in my offer at 22c yesterday and waited for it to drop.

23c..... 22.5c....... BUT NO 22c ~~~~~~~~~!

ARghghhhghhghh...... I just checked the price of it 5 minutes ago..and it was at 26.5c ~!

(Even bigger ARghghhhghhghh...........)

Me and my stingy fingers... :(

My Granny's Advice

I had a great chat with my granny last night. I think its great how a conversation between a grandmother and her granddaughter (which originally started with her complaining about when would I ever get married.. nag nag nag..) can transform to something that resembled a typical conversation between two sisters\friends.

Before I knew it, I was unloading all the current problems in my relationship and disclosing all details to my grandma. Shock horror

And when I did eventually finish, my grandma gave me only one advice - which left me slightly speechless.

"Give yourself a deadline.. 2 months.. 3 months, and if things don't change - leave him."

(My grandma can sound really fierce sometimes).

Then she proceeded to explain to me how it would do me no good wasting my time on any guy. And according to her, I've already wasted enough time. Apparently she was 24 when my mum was born and that was already considered to be late.

Although its hard to imagine it now, but I know that my grandma was once a young girl too. She has definitely 'been there and done that'. Maybe its time I do decide to take some of her advice in to consideration. 'Cos I for one don't really know what to do anymore...

greenhouse effect

The weather has been a bit topsy-wopsy today. One minute is was hot and humid, and the next thing I know I see a 'Severe Thunderstorm Warning' message popping up in my inbox. Its a bit uncanny though, there's strong winds, rain, thunder and lightning outside, but the inside of my apartment is ridiculously stuffy and hot. By this I mean really hot.

And I can't open my balcony slidng doors either. I tried, but the wind is so strong that for the 5 seconds I had my sliding door opened, I spent the next 10 minutes trying to pick up all the debris scattered around my lounge room.

I feel like I am living inside a greenhouse.

I did leave a slight gap open, just enough for some air to get through and not the rain. All I can hear now is the sound of the howling wind forcing its way through the gap of my sliding door.

Even Bunny is crouched in a corner of his hutch.

I got home today to one wet Bunny. (We usually leave Bunny outside to roam around - especially on hot days). I had no trouble getting Bunny inside once I opened the sliding door, but he did object slightly when I threw a towel over him and started blow drying his bum to dry him up a bit.

And I know for sure now that hot air definitely rises. It is so much cooler downstairs. The ledge between the stairs and the bathroom downstairs both look pretty appealing at the moment for sleeping arrangements later tonight. That's if temperatures don't cool down.

Still I think we only hit a max of 30°C today ... (certainly doesn't feel like it at my place)... but Melbourne recorded a high of 42°C today.

Can't really imagine what I would be doing if it was 42°C and I was stuck in my apartment.

Probably would call in sick, jump into my bathtub filled with cold water & topped up with ice cubes and stay in there for as long as I can.

No Internet Land

Just realised I've spent one whole week without internet. (See. Enough is Enough). After a week, I'm still stuck in no-man's land. The missing link that occurs when you change your Internet Service Provider.

I spent the first few days devouring through all the movies and TVB series I had previously copied off my friends. The contents of my 250g hdd didn't last very long. Then I realised that one of my neighbours didn't know how to secure his wireless internet connection. Joy ! When I discovered that, I felt like I had just discovered my bank account suddenly had three extra zeros at the end of my statement. (I need three extra zeros to turn the amount in my account to an amount I would be able to use - or withdraw).

It was also that night I realised that my neighbour secured his wireless connection by turning off his modem. The connection was only available after 6pm (when he\she got home) and was disconnected by 10pm (when he\she went to bed). 4 hours is not enough to warcraft. And 10pm is definately not the time I go to bed. I never thought I stoop so low that I would be leeching someone else's Internet connection just to play Warcraft. Sigh

Unarguably the most primative and the most secure method ever. Sigh

On the bright side, I've started cooking again. On Monday I made pan-grilled chicken breasts (wrapped in bacon & cream cheese) with dijon mustard sauce and did a creamy carbonara pasta was the left overs last night. Got to go think about what I want to cook tonight now.

Feeling so domesticated...

Never tell your clients...

I called up my vendor today to ask about the status of one of my cases. And also if they required any additional information. The usual diagnostic reports and whatnot.

But first I asked to be put through to my case's owner. (TSE or technical support engineer).

The guy on the end of the phone let me know that the TSE I was looking for was currently on another call. He asked me if I wanted to hold for a moment, and he would go and see if he could forward my call onto him. I told him to do so.

A moment later, the guy came back on the phone and told me that my TSE was currently busy on another case (apparently some other guy's system had died) and that he would give me a call back later today or tomorrow.

To all the tech support guys out there, please do NOT tell your clients, that the person responsible for your case is too busy to look\work on the case for you.

You can tell them that you are still currently working on the case..... Trying to reproduce the problem... Testing the new patch... ANYTHING .... Lie to them... But never say that you were busy on someone else's case.

No client is going to be happy to hear that.

I certainly wasn't. And so I asked to talk to their Manager instead.

I told the manager that my case issue was lodged a full week ago, and even though its not a priority 1, it still is important to us that it gets looked at. I also told him that since we have provided all the requested information already and that the current TSE was too busy, I would like the case esculated to the next support level.

The manager was very.... obliging. He was 'ok' with everything I asked for, and promised to keep me updated on the current case status. Although I know that once he put the phone down, he would be calling me a B**ch. How do I know this ? I'm a support engineer too. And I know I'll call her names too if I was on the receiving end of the phonecall today.

Reserved ?

A guy comes over, sits next to me and asks:

"So.. are you reserved?" - as he places a 'Reserved' sign on my lap.

I can't say I have heard this one before. But apart from laughing, there really wasn't much I could do. Atleast not while my boyfriend was sitting next to me.