absolut ginger

I do not intend to elaborate what’s happening in Malaysia as the daily news is enough to leave us frothing in the mouths. However, I would like to highlight some news and poke fun at them. We need a little humour afterall in order to live our everyday lives here.

Two-tier petrol system

I’ve been receiving e-mails on this matter repetitively. I always ignore them. I know with almost certainty that it would never materialize. How the hell are you supposed to link petrol stations to NRD when you can’t even link the police station, JPJ and election committee to NRD?

“The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.” –Voltaire

Astro B.yond

When I visited my brother earlier this year at his house, I asked him if he has gotten the astro b.yond for his 42 inch LCD TV. It was a lucky thing that he is a miser and doesn’t believe in paying extra RM20 per month for the service. Thank God he didn’t! Astro’s B.yond subscribers will also have to manually reset the aspect ratios every time they change channels. Haha! Like that also can??? Imagine paying RM20 extra every month and then, having to do that all the time. It’s sure bad news for channel surfers like me! Read here to know what I am talking about!

Register as Voters

When you have reached 21 (Some of you maybe pushing 40 by now and have yet to register!), you should register yourself as voter. This is probably the ONLY undisputed right you could have in this country. Never mind if they can link petrol station to NRD but cannot automatically register those who have reached 21 to vote. While waiting for miracles to happen, why don’t you get your ass to Desa ParkCity Waterfront today (13/03/2010) and tomorrow (14/03/2010) to register? There’s a registration campaign going on there from 10 am to 9 pm. They also need volunteers to help out with the registration.

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Posted by Gina

Chinese New Year

The CNY came and went. All 15 days! The year of Tiger didn’t see many good things happening. I heard from most friends – someone in their family either passed away or hospitalized. Well, am sure not all things are bad. I guess we just have to pray for good things to follow for the remaining of the year.

Sip Tai Sui

Every year people born under certain horoscope signs would conflict with Tai Sui (the Grand Duke) resulting in bad luck and hardship for the year. So, in order to mitigate, devotees offer prayers to Tai Sui. An aunt’s friend had turned into a medium after she closed her coffee shop business came visiting my house yesterday. She said, when you want to “sip tai sui”, you don’t have to kan jiong coz, when you “sip” first, everybody else “sip” later, your offering would be covered by others , so the Grand Duke cannot see your offering. HAHAHAHA!! This is the funniest shit I heard all CNY! Haha!

So much to say

I’ve so much to say but just couldn’t find time to put things into words. Sometimes, whenever I was engaged in an interesting conversation, I would think it’s a good material to blog, only to forget some details that might be of great importance, hence I didn’t blog it. Must be sign of old age. haha. Maybe I should switch to microblogging like everyone else.

Ghosts

A good friend told us, immediately after her wedding, her family encountered ghosts in her house. Apparently, they didn’t pray to their ancestors to “inform” the ancestors of the wedding so, spirits expressed disappointment by creating unrest at home. She just finished her bath and she felt a hand brushed on her back. It sent super chills down her spine! Her husband and father in law “saw” the ghosts and sister in law had sleep paralysis, which many people would think it’s a ghostly encounter. They hired a medium and thank goodness, everything is back to normal. So people, it’s very important to honor the ancestors even if you now live in a “modern” society!

Back to daily grind

March got no public holiday leh! So sien!

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Posted by Gina

Perang Mulut

A friend shared with me her story in the office today. Her manager pushed her forehead when she accidentally caused her panic. Well, my friend is a very tiny girl who might even fly when the wind blows, so imagine. I was very furious. How can you use physical force to intimidate people, let alone in the office??

I told this friend that, if someone ever push me on the forehead or touch me for that matter, I’ll make sure that’s the last time he or she will be able to use his or her hand. She said, I am so ganas! Haha! Anyway, I don’t think anyone in their right minds would want to pick up a fight with me. They know very well that they will lose by sheer size alone. Haha! Normally, in office, so far, I’ll engaged in perang mulut if colleagues behaving moronically. The trick to win any argument hands down, is to listen to what the other person has to say first. Then when it’s your turn, use whatever evidence you have subtly. Best is, to use their own words against themselves. It’s akin to slapping themselves hard on the face without them even knowing and without provocation. I am pretty good at this. Haha!

Dead People Are Naïve

I was having this conversation about dead people with my mom over lunch just now. She said, an undertaker used to tell her, whenever she has problems dressing up a dead person because the body was too hard, she will trick the dead people by saying good things.

For instance, when my grandmother died a few years ago, she was dressing her but found it hard to clothe her. So she persuaded my dead grandma by saying, “Come on, let’s dress you up. You will wear very nice blouse so later you can go and meet the Buddha.” The body went relaxed automatically and made it easier for her to dress her!

The same happened to my cousin’s grandma. The daughters in  laws were trying to put on shoes for her but they didn’t fit because of her bloated feet. So, my aunt spoke to the dead and said, “Wah! This shoes cannot wear ah? Never mind, mother. I’ll throw this away and buy you a new pair!” My aunt threw away the shoes, then went to pick them up. This time, the shoes fit just nicely!

Believe it? You betcha!

Water bed

Last night as I was preparing myself to go to bed, I found my pillow and bolster were wet! Then my blanket was also wet! So was my comforter! I thought QQ must have slept here in the afternoon and peed on my bed! I was furious because I had to change my bed sheet and pillow cases in the middle of the night when I was so damn tired! Just when I was about to sleep, the neighbour’s house alarm was set off! It’s happening rather frequently that I thought of the story – the Boy Who Cried Wolf. I think nobody is going to give a shit if it happens every 2 nights and no one is going to render help if one day, the house is really being broken into.

Anyway, this morning, I discovered that, my “water” bed was due to leakage on my room’s ceiling. Apparently, there was a heavy rain in the afternoon yesterday and since I was in the office, I didn’t even notice. Poor QQ kena cursed for no reason!

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Posted by Gina

No Mandarin orange kah?

This year, Chinese New Year falls on 14th February. Till now, there is no mandarin orange in sight. For the past few years, a month before CNY, my house would be packed with mandarin oranges, courtesy from our suppliers, vendors, contractors, clients, etc. The office is always very generous in giving out oranges given by our counterparts. Almost every day till CNY, we would be getting 3-5 oranges per day to bring home. So, we would end up with 1-2 boxes by CNY, so we save a lot of money! My family don’t really eat mandarin oranges. We just give them away for our visitors or bring them with us when we visit other people. This year, nothing. Tarak. Zit. Elek. Zero. Then some people say economy is recovering. Recovering my ass. Orange pun tarak.

Speechless

Every day without fail, you will get all kinds of rubbish spewing from the mouths of our so called leaders. Like everyone else, for a very long time, we read papers these days not for news, but more for entertainment. Who needs gossip magazines when you have them every day in the national newspapers?

Busy Week

It’s already the 21st day to the new year. How time flies! For the past two weeks, I’ve been busy catching up with friends. Want to watch tv also no time! Sigh! So that explains the lack of updates. Simply no time and no mood, actually. And I am also mentally tired. I think I’ll write something when somebody pisses me off. Haha! I am getting very, very absent minded as well. If Kat didn’t sms me last week, I would have totally forgotten to pick her and Rob up from KLCC for dinner!

Credit card

I have yet to decide which credit card to forego because I don’t want to pay for the stupidly imposed RM50. EON Bank is solely for insurance because I could save the 5% interest if I pay monthly premiums to ING and 2% savings of total premiums if I pay annually. That’s a lot of savings if you bought a lot of insurance! Maybank, well despite it being an obnoxious bank, I kinda like the points redemption free gifts that came with the card. You get to redeem cool things with the least credit card points.  I think it would be good to have an international bank card if you are traveling, so I am keeping Citibank as well. Macam mana ni? *Scratch head*

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Posted by Gina

Movie Marathon

I was glued to the tv during the weekend. Had a movie marathon. I find as I aged, I prefer dramas instead of slapstick or action packed movies. Even my cousin who tend to watch more idiotic ghost movies than any other movies, prefer to watch dramas now. I am surprised. The dramas I watched over the weekend – Milk, Skin, Seven Pounds and Changeling. I think all of you should watch Changeling. It talked about being in a police state, very much like the problem in our own backyard. Other than that, Tsunami is a big crap. So is Pelham 123. GI Joe is quite ok though. And I love 500 days of Summer.

Ancestral worship

I find the ancestral worship among the Baba & Nyonya’s heritage bear some resemblance with the Hokkien’s. We also serve dishes, tea and Chinese rice wine on the altar for our ancestors. Over the weekend, my late grandmother’s house was bustling with activities. My mom and her sisters cooked up a feast for our ancestral worship. Too bad they didn’t make the lobak this time round. Terrible lah me. Think of food only!

Black shit

Cousin bro: Did you shit today?

Me: Of course I did!

Cousin bro: Is it black in color?

Me: …It’s dark in color lah.. why ah?

Cousin bro: So I think I am normal lah. Must be the tom yum last night.

Me: *Grunt*

And he had to mention this when we were stuffing our faces with wan tan mee for dinner just now.

7 digits

A new colleague asked me for my mobile phone number. Actually, my office never paid for my mobile phone expenses. I had to bear it myself. Then, I gave him albeit reluctantly. He called me and said I had given him a wrong number. How so? He said that my mobile number only has 7 digits. What’s the 8th digit? Hello? All mobile phones in this country have seven digits lah, uncle!

Adopting a Child

I read with disgust that some people would just go all the way to create babies to be sold to childless couples as if they were herds of cattle! I am very shocked that there were such ruthless people in this world. It saddens me that, instead of just punishing the culprits, the childless couples were also punished. Is it wrong to desire to have children? These couples were already devastated by the fact that, they were not blessed with ability to have their own kids. That is why they resorted to adopting children by illegal means. I was told by a friend who is also childless that, it’s so difficult to legally adopt a child that they have given up hope. Why can’t the government make it easier to adopt children? Guess what? A quick search on the new Malaysia.gov.my website on adoption and it says, “page cannot be found”. Way to go, Pakcik N!

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Posted by Gina