The Birthday Weekend

I am now 25. Is that supposed to be a great age to be in? Coz "a quarter of a century" sounds really old, although technically we are still qualified as a young adult. And apparently, we are supposed to be a bunch of confused people. This leads to this article about having the "Quarterlife Crisis" which I'm sure anyone would have received this through e-mails at least once. Ohh.. What am I talking about? It's my birthday, man! So we shall talk happy things here!

Let's start over. I am now 25. Had a quiet birthday weekend, nevertheless, am very glad to have celebrated it with my family and close friends. I guess, as we get older, birthdays are not so much of a huge celebration, playing games and receiving presents anymore. When I was younger, every year Daddy would buy a blackforest cake. When I say cake, I meant the 1kg one, with 12 cherries on it. That was huge, considering there were only 3-4 (3 was before Bel was born) of us eating it. Now? "Don't need lar.. So old already.. Pai seh lar.." Hehe..

Anyway, I had mentioned it here that it would be lovely to meet up with Winnie to celebrate our birthdays together on the 27th. We eventually did, along with our other halves, over dim sum in Foh Sun on Sat morning. It was too bad that Keat couldn't make it (some other time, perhaps?). It was also too bad that Roland is still in Perth, it would have been a sweeter moment to have all 3 of us celebrating our birthdays together (Roland was 5-7 hours younger than me, and 10-12 hours younger than Winnie). We had a great time catching up on each other's lives though, especially when I have not seen Ivan for 7 years now. Winnie brought her SAM photo album along, so we were laughing and relating back the good old days as I flipped the pages. It made me realize that I wasn't very close to our classmates and that I did not take enough shots as memories. Heck, even there were probably only 1-2 pics of us together! As of today, we have at least 5 pics! Hehe.. It was all good though. From what I wrote for Winnie's testimony on Friendster, despite the major glitch we had in our friendship 7 years ago, we were able to look past that and we are still good friends now like as if that glitch had never happened. :)

Winnie and I, on our 25th birthday

Next on the "makan" line was with my family at Eastin for the buffet dinner. As usual, I was more keen on the dessert but I forgot to take the custard pudding! Aw man! Every year, 27th Nov was always my day. But this year, I'm making it as Mummy's day. A day to remember how much of pain she had to suffer just to bring me into the world. Apparently, I was supposed to be out 2 weeks later, but the doctor wanted to induce Mummy, coz he was to go on a holiday! Before he even did it, I came out the very next day by myself. I must have been pretty scared about the Induction. Hehe.. As a token of great appreciation, I am buying Mummy a DECT cordless phone so that she can take advantage of the speakerphone feature. The phone of course doesn't cost as much as the pain she went through, but.. At least something lar, I hope!

With my family at Eastin

On Sunday "pulak", was another dim sum lunch, this time with Laine, Ke Yaw, Kai Ling, Zona, Julia and Sey Chuan. It was in Chynna, Hilton KL (the one in Plaza Sentral). Fulamak, I was pretty impressed with the fine dining environment, so not used to using gold cutlery and all. We were quiet amused with the way they served 'pat pou char' (Welcome tea) with this super long spouted teapot. Something like this. Actually not as huge as that, but something like that larr.. It was all gold in colour, and at the front of the handle was this gold dragon statue with florescent green pom-poms as it's tentacles. Very unneccessary, but.. Amusing lar.. Hehe.. It was a great experience, though, thank you guyz!

With Sey Chuan, Julia, sayang, Laine, Zona and Kai Ling at Chynna, Hilton KL

Finally, had dinner with sayang's family at La-La Chong Seafood somewhere near Terminal 3. The food there was not too bad, especially the 'ham dan' (salty egg) crabs. Was quite tension to sit beside Pik Ngan, coz she's like 8 months preggers and every now and then the baby would kick her. Kesian her larr.. Naughty baby.. Hehe.. We didn't manage to take any pics here coz our hands were busy hammering on the crabshells or scraping the flesh out.

Oh well, that was it, a weekend, just eat and eat and eat. And I did not even mention that I had steamboat dinner on my birthday eve with Zoe, Janan, Kelly, Godffrey, Sean, Jennifer and Stan somewhere in Mejalara. That was to celebrate Zoe's birthday in advance, actually. Wow... What a weekend! And I am now 25.

Just a quick note to thank everyone else who had taken the time to call, SMS, send e-card and what not to wish me on Saturday. Everyone like Sue-Anne, Derek, Huat Sing, Hochai, Aneh, Chien, Simon, How Han, Andrew, Eu Gene, Karima, Labu, Yoke Chin and Max. Thank you so much!!!!

Prayers For My Colleague

My colleague is going through a very tough period now. I shall not dwell into the matter, I don't want to betray his trust. I may not be the only person he confided in, but I'm honoured to be one of his listening ears. In fact, he shall be nameless here just in case if any of my colleagues are reading this entry.

But yes, he needs prayers. Please pray for him. Please pray that God will strengthen his soul and that he will be able to seek the answers he's searching for. May he find peace during this period and that he'll be back to his happy jolly self soon.

Little Kelisa..

.. Is now officially mine! Woo hoo! I have paid off the final installment and am waiting for the discharge letter from UMW. Yiiipppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! She turns 3 today and uhm... Needs a service. Hehe.. Got to go call Perodua to fix an appointment now.

I'm done with my car loan!!! YAY! Hehe.. Just wanted to brag a bit. ;)

Oreo = Fat?

We met up with Puneet for dinner on Wednesday night. Being a future doctor (gynaecologist, in fact), we threw questions at him about so-and-so medicines, about childbirth, and how to lose/gain weight. He said that I should take Oreo's. Apparently, it has some kind of ingredient that can make one gain weight. "Realllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy arrrrrrr?" Of course this sparked my interest larr... I don't know how true is this... Maybe someone can be kind enough to show me proof that Oreo's really does help in gaining weight?

In the meantime, no need to second guess what did I just buy and what am I munching on... ;)

Weekend Festivities

Just a super quick, advanced note to wish all my Indian and Muslim friends a very Happy Diwali and Selamat Hari Raya Puasa! As for the rest, Happy Holidays! I'm off on Friday, so yes, it's gonna be a super long weekend. Not going anywhere though. No $$. Hehe..

Sharing Birthdays

I blew off a birthday candle about half an hour ago. Colleagues celebrated the November babies' birthdays with a Chocolate Banana Walnut cake (or something of that sort) from, as always, Secret Recipe. I don't know if this is coz their factory is just BESIDE our office. Imagine going to the toilet/pantry and you suddenly get a swiff of the cake-baking or lasagne smell from next door... Hehehe..

Anyway. there were 4 of us this month - me, Yoke Chin, Ms. Hee and Henry. It was fun to know that Ms. Hee shares the same birthdate as me (but different year lar). Ever since I was born, I knew no one whose birthday falls on 27th Nov. Back then, it made me feel unique that way.. Until 1997..

Winnie was my classmate during SAM. She sat in front of me (or was it behind me?) on the first day of college, and she was probably the first few ppl I got to know of in class. I remember taking out my organizer and passed it to her, to fill in her personal details, like full name, address, date of birth, phone number, etc. I read her details after she handed the organizer back to me. I saw "2711" on the date of birth. I stopped there and I probably blinked a few times then. I thought I was imagining things or that she was joking with me. I remember asking her to show me her I.C to prove it. Hehehe. And true enough, she really shares the same birthdate as me! Exactly same date, same month, same year! Except that she was about 5 hours older than me. It made my birthday feel more special, coz I get to share it with someone! ;)

Winnie became my "Jie Jie" (elder sister). And I got to know from her that another friend, Roland was born about 7 hours later than me. Wow! Now that makes it 3 of us! Even more fun! *grin* Winnie and I did celebrate our 18th birthday together. It was at PD, during our class trip, in which after that, we all parted to each own's directions in life. I truly remember that celebration. We were having barbeque by the beach. When the clock striked midnight to mark the 27th, everyone attacked the both of us - Flour, eggs, sand, even the dirty water they used for the barbeque (that was already mixed with the marinate ingredients, and to wash the utensils). You name it, we got it. Thank goodness no durians involved! *lol* We ended up cleaning ourselves at the nearby public toilet, and we had a bit of a trouble going back to the apartment, coz we were still filled with sand all over. BUT, it was fun. ;)

Then about half an hour before 28th, we were presented a lingerie fashion show with Ming Hui and Hochai. Gosh.. You should have seen them that time. 2 straight guys parading around the apartment wearing satin lingeries with egg carton cardboards as 'breasts' with pointy 'Nips' and heart-shaped papers stuck on their 'breasts' and thighs. *lol* Sorry, Hochai, I can't help it. ;) And then came our birthday cake - Half of a watermelon! I'm not kidding. Watermelon, indeed. The watermelon was initially planned for dessert. They all tried going around town searching for a birthday cake, but they couldn't find any, so they resorted to using the watermelon as our birthday cake, with candles lit on it. *smile*

It was realllllly fun. A truly memorable 18th birthday. Yes, Winnie, that was 7 years ago. We talked about it recently during one of our daily MSN chats, and yes, it would be lovely if we can get to celebrate our 25th birthdays together as well. :) Since it's gonna fall on Saturday this year, hopefully we can arrange to meet up during that weekend?

It's really lovely (am I over-using this word here?) to share birthdays with someone especially if they're close to you. Even more so if they were born exactly on the same date as you, at the same hospital. Too bad Winnie nor Roland weren't from the same place as me. Soo Wai was born 1 day earlier than me, in the same hospital! We'd probably seen each other naked then. *grin*

The End-Users

Sometimes it's just so amusing that end-users must always be right and that the problems are always from the product itself. This particular end-user uses our Time Attendance system which requires the biometric fingerprint hardware (known as ET3K) and the integrated software known as ETWin.

1 week ago, they faced a problem where the ETWin could not poll any time clock transactions from the ET3K. So Yee Yong (the developer of ET3K) and I managed to fix it. Last afternoon, they called and said that the software could not poll data again! "Alamak... What went wrong this time?!" We tried calling the end-user but she was unavailable. We asked Boon Seong (of the Engineering dept) to feedback us as soon as possible if the end-user calls him.

This morning, he called Yee Yong and said "problem solved". I AOL-ed him and asked him what was wrong. Guess what he said..

Boon Seong: yesterday..is because the end user move the thing lah...PC , ET3K and forgot to on the power...yesterday I have called them and ok liew loh...

Adoiiiii.... "Forgot to ON the power"..... Imagine.....