I had a dream

Theoretically, one only dreams in deep slumber - roughly hours into sleep that is also known as R.E.M. sleep. I am not too sure about other people but I do not usually dream during that period. Interestingly, most of my dreams largely come between morning alarm snoozes.

My dreams are usually about people that revolve around my day-to-day activities – colleagues, family or the cannibals I saw on Discovery the evening before.

While nightmares that wake me up with a sweaty back and rapid heartbeats are quite rare , very weird dreams do pay their visits once in a while.

So, ‘weird’ in this context really does mean unexplained, unrealistic and occasionally funny.

Probably because my dreams take place within the period of a 10-minute alarm snooze, my semi-conscious mind always does its own film dream editing. As such, most of my dreams do not have a beginning scene like Star War’s scrolling text. Instead, they start off with me in the middle of the heat like running, screaming or flying (in cases, where I dreamt of myself being Superman).

I had one just a while ago, a weird one, after a long absence.

Again, the curtains lifted with me running, trying to escape from something. I was in my pajamas. Whatever that was after me, it was pretty determined to burn a chunk of my calories. Judging from the pace and my rapid heartbeat, I knew it had to be something horridly disgusting.

A quick look to the back revealed a silhouette of a thing roughly the size of a domestic pet that ran on four legs. I would have guessed it to be a dog but the shadow of two massive feelers rooted to its head had me thought otherwise.

As it gradually outpaced me, the figure soon came out from the dark, revealing itself a little bit at a time. I saw whiskers, but no fur. I saw teeth, but no lips. I saw a pair of cattish ears, but it extended into feelers. I saw wings, but no feathers. I saw a body of a mammal, but covered in shiny carapace.

While I was still pondering over what it was, its wings started to buzz . On second glance, it was no longer on the run as it paws lifted from the ground and had gone airborne. By then, I knew it could not be a cat. It had to be some kind of a mutated bug.

Having flying closer and closer, it horrifyingly turned out to be a disgusting, gigantic, flying Cat-Roach hybrid. Geez, Mr. cockroach must have been humping the wrong species.

No difference from any other dreams, things can simply come out of thin air. An insecticide sprayer was so conjured onto my sweaty palms while my legs was exhausted. I pointed the sprayer to where the cat bug monster WTF thing and squeezed. While I thought it worked as the puff managed to irritate its eyes and slowed it down substantially, the thing growled and in its deep cattish tone, it roared wickedly, ‘I’m a cat. That does not work on me! Muahahaha!’

Landing on its paws, it paused for a split second and made a strong leap that I was very certain it would get him to me. I shut my eyes and braced for the worst……….

I wondered if it was due for maintenance as it repeatedly produced a cracking sound on every spin. Never realized it could be so annoying without proper oiling and regular cleaning. With my face still flat on the pillow, I reached to the left where the snoozed button was last pressed.

6:53am. The dream took only 8 minutes.

Another 2 minutes before it rings again but the sight of the cat-roach thing still lingered. That drove me out of bed to turned off the annoying fan, went downstairs and checked the hot spots for cockroaches. It was wise of me to let the 2 minutes go because, in case I found one, getting rid of it might probably make me late for work.

While the dream did not earn its place in the league of nightmares, to me, weird dreams like this augurs well for the day. Unlike the masses who believe that unpleasant dreams hint at mishaps, my personal experience believes that a strange dream more of a consolidation of hard work and over spilled focus during the day. To put it simple, if I am Firefox, the dream will be the ‘Clear cache and cookies’ function - refreshes the mind to start anew.

Today FML

Today is probably one of the worst day I had in the past 12 months. Everything just kept on falling apart. I tried to be nice but the whole thing turned out nasty. I tried to be friendly but the whole thing backfired. I tried to be helpful but ended up in total disaster.

I just desperately wanted the day to end. I just wanted to go home ASAP, take a hot shower, lock myself in the room and rot myself away while hoping to start anew the tomorrow. It was purely denial.

Indeed, it was nothing but a chain of coincidental events, but I just couldn’t help but to see it as a day that come once in a year on a sole purpose to FUCK UP MY LIFE!

Arghhh ….!

No more queuing!

Tried out my GSC credit card yesterday, finally.

Purchasing a movie ticket in Mid Valley on a Sunday afternoon had never been easier.

Before this, the scene of people in a long queue fanning themselves while getting squeezed by a mob of sweaty strangers can really be a turn off.

Now, with an exclusive lane for cardholders, I could just walk on that specially laid out red carpet, act like a celebrity, pick my seat and voila - a movie ticket that comes with a RM5 discount!

However, before last week, my concern was their marketing campaign. While it was wise to come up with this feature to benefit the movie-goers, too aggressive a marketing campaign might in turn erode the exclusivity of this privilege.

Yet, thanks to Budget 2010 where each credit card will be subjected to an annual RM50 government tax, the widely practised strategy of getting an extra credit card just for its unique feature could very well be obsolete.

I bet people will soon have to choose which card they will want to retain and which is best discarded. And, given the rarity of hardcore movie addicts, I would say my privilege is here to stay.





PS, I don't get any commission out of this, okay? =P



Update 27/10/2009
Credit card service tax may be absorbed

1Blogpost

I don’t know if you realise that ever since our 6th Prime Minister announced his idea of ‘1Malaysia’, a lot of government officers have started their suck-it-up campaigns by attaching a ‘1’ to literally anything.

Okay, to be fair, echoing the idea of the Prime Minister is logically fine, at least there is a common direction. But going too far or doing too much would only make the idea look like a hardcore advertising campaign. Instead of being a glorifying vision, it may very well be perceived as an idea with the sole purpose of garnering cult-like followers.

As this latest craze gains popularity, the prefix ‘1’ began to mushroom everywhere. We have the “1MCA, 1Team” war cry, the “1e-Government” and also the “1Malaysia F1 Team” followed by numerous 1this and 1thats, and recently another one popped up that took idiocy to a whole new level.

KUALA TERENGGANU: The state government will introduce a “1Toilet” policy in a move to liberalise education, where teachers – and even principals – will soon have to share toilets with their students.

State Education, Higher Learning, Human Resource, Science and Technology Committee chairman Ahmad Razif Abd Rahman said the policy was mooted in line with the 1Malaysia concept, and teachers and students could have a feeling of “oneness”.

“We want students to have a sense of belonging that we believe would inspire them to excel further in their education.

“When students share the toilets with the teacher, they (students) will believe that they are on par with academicians and this automatically invokes a sense of being important to an organisation, which, in this case, is the school,” he said here yesterday.

“We are not compelling the school authorities to apply the policy. It is their prerogative,” said Ahmad Razif.

“So far, we have one school in Hulu Terengganu that has implemented the policy a few days ago. It has received positive feedback from the school management although it is still premature for us to evaluate its efficiency,” he said.

Ahmad Razif said that under the policy, teachers and students would also be encouraged to sit within a common space at school canteens during recess.

The feeling of ‘oneness’, according to the State Education, Higher Learning, Human Resource, Science and Technology Committee chairman, was to invoke the sense of importance in students by letting them feel that they are on the same par as their teachers.

If this policy is going to erode the student’s sense of respect for their teachers, I am particularly concerned if the teachers would ever be able to command the obedience of their classes. After all, it is exactly this sense of fear that keeps students’ discipline at bay.

Also, with this ‘1Toilet policy’, no one is to blame if a few discipline teachers or headmasters get beaten up in the toilet during recess anyway, right?

But at the end of the day, he is the chairman, not I. Therefore, I’m quite sure he has better reasons supporting his policy – maybe he doesn’t want to go unnoticed when everyone else in the ring comes up with their ‘1this and 1thats’. *Shrug


I used to read Old Master Q or Crayon Shin Chan when I needed a good laugh but ever since I began reading the local dailies, especially the local political news, these books seemed mediocre.

Of Malaysian Taxis

You know, whenever you decide to take a cab, it is mostly for convenience. It is either that you want to avoid getting lost while finding your way through the city's unforgiving traffic or you are just plainly too lazy to drive.

Horrifying encounters associated with Malaysian cabbies are omnipresent. While I've experienced it once, here's a whole new episode.

====================================================

8:30am, I knocked the window of the first cab heading a queue of taxis not too far away from Pasar Seni LRT station.

He wound it down.

'Securities Commision, Mont Kiara,' I said to the Malay dude, inquiring if he wanted to take me there (yes, in case you've conveniently forgotten, this is how it works in Malaysia - the deal has always been at the mercy of the taxi driver).

'Okay,' he reassuringly replied.

And there we were cruising smoothly against the morning traffic. I even praised the cleanliness of the car's interior and comfortably whipped out my phone to send out a few morning texts.

Then he popped me a question that had me held my breath, "Erm, tu tempat kat Mont Kiara mana ye?" (where in Mont Kiara is that place?)

"Saya tak tau. Cuma tau ia kat Mont Kiara," (I don't really know. It's somewhere in Mont Kiara anyhow.) I replied while looking anxiously at my watch, wondering if I could make it there in time, given his level of 'expertise' in navigating the roads.

Thinking that showing him an address and a glimpse at the logo would ring some bell, I passed him the exam registration sheet that has all the relevant details for his reference.

Looking at Securities Commission logo, he exclaimed, "Oh, itu Sime Darby kan?" (That's Sime Darby, isn't it?)

I literally slapped my forehead at that very moment.

Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed by the effort he put in to find this place. As he asked every passer-by and every passing taxi drivers for directions, he showed the correct attitude to face a problem as one arose.

In stark contrast, it reminded me of another taxi driver who got lost during the early days of my college life. Being a bit timid during my younger years, I gave in as he decided to drop me off at an isolated place providing me with nothing but a vague direction which later turned out to be entirely inaccurate. Instead of responsibly and professionally search for the destination to honor the deal made between him and his passenger, he brought shame and dishonesty to the already severely despised Malaysian taxi industry.

I entered the exam hall with a few minutes leeway before the exam commenced. Despite the flawed journey, there was no reluctance in paying the driver, as he has shown me that, in the sea of annoyingly rude and vulgar cabbies, some still put work ethics before profit.


Relevant posts:
April 30, 2009. Thursday: For sentimental reasons
My super mom

Joke of the day

JasonL:
you know, something embarassing happened =.="

aLe:
Obviously I don't.

JasonL:
It was a video conference I was at just now. The camera was on, but I didn't know it was connected because there was no sound coming out from the speakers. So, I started utilising it to check on my hair. The horror was that, while the monitor was showing our side, the video feed from the other end was hidden. It ended up with everyone in the Singapore office laughing like mad the moment the sound system was re-established. =.="

aLe: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA>HAHAHAHAHAHA **fainted.

It's War !

The hotheads, who call themselves Benteng Demokrasi Indonesia or Bendera in short, have already amassed an arsenal for their attack - arrows and bows, samurai swords and bamboo spears.

….over 1,000 volunteers had been recruited and another 300 were expected to sign up soon.

And they include the disabled - 40 are deaf, 10 have limb deformities and 10 are confined to wheelchairs.

….also claimed that 10 "spies" had been sent to Malaysia to conduct reconnaissance and draw up battle positions, adding that the strike would be launched by “air, land and sea”.

When asked by the media how the volunteers intended to get pass airport security with their weapons, he replied: “It’s just a matter of technique. But of course, we are not telling you how."

-dailychili.com

Fellow Malaysians,

Be prepared, for their arrows, samurai swords and bamboo spears will overcome our ancient firearms and pierce through our antique bulletproof shields.

Be vigilant, for an army of 1,000 strong , plus a possible 300 more, will invade our nation of 28 million citizens.

Be aware, that among the 1,300 invaders, 40 are deaf to our taunts, 10 have lost what we are afraid to lose and another 10 will come in battle chariots.

Be watchful as 10 spies are already in our country mapping out 13 states, which total 127,355 square miles, to draw up a battle plan.

Be concerned, that on D-day, they will meteor from the AIR like laser-guided missiles, will forcefully barge into your bedroom like indestructible LAND tanks and will swim across the punishing South China SEA culling our corals.

Be grateful, for we have a humorous neighbour that cracks international grade jokes.

A recruit training for the 'invasion'. - Antara picture

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the TANK.

DISCLAIMER: This post is not meant to offend the disabled.

@ Biow Ming's 2 - Part 1

Something happened that day and I was the unlucky one.

In the end, everyone got their wishes granted but I had to be the clown.

This post is dedicated to Joo, the one responsible for all my mishaps. (I'm so going to post up a few ugly photos of her)

My eyes - with mascara and eye-linings.
NO, I'm not showing you the one with eye-shadow!
..and NO, not even the Titanic scene which I had to be Rose!

Beautiful Geek

I got a bit nosy lately and came across a conversation between two fledgling love birds. One of which, a university mate of mine; the other, a computer science graduate.

When it comes to you, not even a mathematician can escape from being irrational;
Equations break down and numbers never tally;
With you always on the left side of the ' > ' sign.

When it comes to u, not even a programmer can escape from being logical;
Codes break down and bugs never get solved;
With you always increment in the loop of love and never break in the for loop in love.

Who said geeks can't be romantic? =P