Semarang Day 2 ... movie day ... bad food day ...

It's late but not so late ... so here I am sitting in Whiz Hotel typing away ... and what did I do today?

Well, like all my trips with the Cor ... it's always about him ... I can tell him what I want ... he can even ask me what I want ... but at the end of the day, it will still be up to him all the time ... so if I want this relationship ... I am the one who is always going to have to compromise

Example: I wanted to see a movie .. I even told him that .. and kept the best movie on the list for him but guess what? He said it would finish too late ... however, in the end, we didn't see a movie and he ended up doing something else instead of going to bed anyway ... soo WTF right?

So aside from doing work ... I went to the mall and watched a movie ... heh ... thank goodness ... it was Liam Neeson's latest ... A Walk Among the Tombstones ... I had my own simple lunch from the food vendor across the road and basically chilled out doing more work until he came to meet me for dinner

I specified I wanted local like Lumpia but naturally he didn't give a damn ... so we went to this supposedly famous area (which we came on last New Year's eve) ... and chose a stall and yet again the food was not delicious while the price is exorbitant ... sigh!

After that, I suggested to go to the old part of the city ... naturally he didn't give a damn and we ended up at the mall over some J Co ... wasn't too bad though ... at least for once we could just hang out, talked about the problems in his family (tons) ... what happened to the wedding ... and the money ... and money ... and money ... hahaha!

Goodnight!

Hello Semarang ... again ...

It's always like this, isn't it? When you haven't been to somewhere for a long while, it's more than likely you won't be passing by in an even longer time but if you have just been there, then you will come by again. My last trip here was New Year's Eve 2013 less than a year ago and now ... well I am back

Why?

For a wedding ... my "brother in law" ... sigh! Long story there and can be depressing ... at least for me, so for once, the less said the better

Let's talk about other things that happened in this day ... for instance, even though my flight is 11:20am ... I still woke up several times with final round about 6:00am so I have a slight headache and feel tired all day long ... my worrying nature about oversleeping ... ugh!

At airport, as today is Lion Air, it means Terminal 1A ... no special cuties at check in ... all the way until we were boarding and then there was Indra Simanjuntak (I hope I got the name right) ... this guy was doing directional on the tarmac and I soooooooooooooo wanted to take his photo ... he is slim (naturally), tanned, average face and everything, but the way he fits into that uniform? WOW! An @$$ you just wanna smack ... hahaha!

Other than him, the flight over to Semarang was uneventful ... I took a cab to the hotel and was pleasantly surprised by how nice the budget Whiz was ... I kid you not ... I am sincere here ...

Unfortunately there are always surprises requiring money and the first is ... I forgot my belt so I had to go to the mall and find the cheapest on sale and buy it ... then tonight I realized the hotel doesn't give the small toothpaste amenities ... but I just brushed without any ... will buy tomorrow

Umm ... what else?

Well we went to the church for the reception. And it was a nice church with stained glass, high ceiling the works ... was also surprised that there must have been at least a hundred person attending the service ... however, as we are finishing up ... we were told that guests had arrived at the restaurant like 30 minutes early! This was a surprise for me ... as back home everyone comes late. Hah!

So Cor rushed over ... and I was wondering why only to find out that he had this huge collection tin to deliver ... apparently most people do not give presents or cash in advance but on the day of the wedding and if they don't see anything available they may just decide to skip it! Whoaaaaaa! How .. I am sorry to say this ... cheap is that?!?!?! That means these are not your friends as they don't mind making you have a huge loss for your wedding. Sigh!

And also typical of Cor ... he had all the ladyboy and cross dressers MC-ing and singing at the event. For me, it was a bit over-the-top and they were not really funny as the jokes they made were more for their own crowd i.e. inside jokes and most of the wedding in attendees didn't even bother to acknowledge the sound they made. I even saw a few people staring at them with frowns and when they cracked jokes almost no one laughed or even smiled. So much for Cor's opinion that his friends are good!

And Cor was bitching that there isn't enough food. I think there was. It's a buffet. Obviously some finished while others were left but as usual with "kampung" invitation, more than double the invitation turned up!

Anyway I am now back in my hotel typing this ... chilling out ... and plan to have an early night. Hope to get decent sleep first time this week! Hehehe!

Goodnight!

There are days like this ... and then there ARE days like these ...

It's late ... and I am sleepy ... but I thought I better get down to this blog keeping promise I made to myself when I turn 42 (yikes!) ... and type a bit more ... this is meant to re-start my "passion" for being a writer ... if I can just find some discipline to spend 15 minutes (minimum) a day in front of the keyboard ... hehehe ... suffice to say, I am failing most miserably (waugh)

So let's see what is significant today ... the morning was normal ... traffic jam heading out into the city ... not enough sleep ... laundry ... working with my new team of "karyawan" ...

Lunch ... I treated them to next door's Healthy Choice ... simply because we had a new DOSM onboard ... then it was off to Pub-Lic-O ... and once more, the new driver proved his awesomeness by getting lost and not wanting to ask for directions ... hehehe ...

To my utter surprise, when I arrived, typical of my best buds ... everything was chaotic with changes in scheduling and what-not ... we had 3 different groups of investors in ... we had sponsorships ... we had friends ... by the time everything was done it was around 8:00pm

And then to my utter surprise ... the Un-Happy Oz man ... wanted to talk .. and he led me on to do biz etc ... and apparently he had been planning this for weeks with a friend of his ... so now I am wondering if he is just using everyone at R-Y-S-T ... however, what the Yam told me is in contradiction to this chap's tale ... it's all such a mess!

Naturally I followed him back to his place to meet his secret partner ... and I was glad I did ... why? Because the guy is young, fair skinned, smooth skinned with the slightest hint of a baby mustache and sooooo cute ... I kid you not ... nice hair, nice eyes ... so my type ... in fact he has only 1 shortcoming ... a little bulge around the waist for someone not yet 25 ... other than that? Perfect

So now I am in a quandary eh? Business wise that is ... sigh ... although if I let my hormones have their way I soooooooooooooooo want a second meeting ... hehehe

Day 5 ... Cebu ...

One more day before this trip ends ... and I woke up with so many conflicting emotions ... or rather choices ... do I spend a lazy day in the apartment? Do I go to the pool and beach and hang out? Do I take the bus into the city for a final round of "getting to people watch" and eat more good food? Do I go to Shang for an awesome sandwich? Do I stay and surf and download pirated movies?

See?

So what did I do? Well, I did some work. Yes, I kid you not! Someone msg me and I ended up spending 2 hours doing work. After that is done, I went around looking for food ... and I decided as I stayed in Moevenpick, I should at least have a meal there and went to the coffee house ... the waiter recommended I do the chicken adobo ... and it was a very unique interpretation ... okay ... the chicken had that "frozen" smell ... but other than that ... it was tenderly roasted ... properly marinated/ seasoned ... and yummy ... the main disappointment is the lumpy gravy and "too old" beans ...

I did some walkabout and wanted to go for a spa massage ... and it was again surprisingly good ... although very odd ... at first I enquired and the Korean lady (yes Korean!) said no slots until 3:30pm ... so I walked up to Shang ... did some shopping at the kiosk outside the hotel ... had a nice margarita (while watching the only guy in uniform "sigh!") ... and indulged in ribs ... I needed to do a ribs since I am in Phils - pork country and the portion was big enough for two ... however as it was super sweet, I needed a whole lump of rice to even eat the meat much less touch the gravy hehehe

And finally for dinner ... CFW came back ... and we thought to go online and check ... number 1 rated restaurant was down the road ... unfortunately we walked there and it was full ... so he recommended Marybagio ... and we cabbed it there ... the cabbie tried to con us by saying hard to get a cab, he can wait for an extra 300p, then 250p, then 200p ... we decided no ... then he said how much tip for this ride as it is far ... the guy just went on and on and on ... you know the meter came up to less than 100p?!?!?!?! We gave him 150p

The restaurant? Awesome! Beautifully touristy ... lovely food ... slow service but hey ... it was overall just a nice place ... we had a great dinner (my 3rd big meal of the day) ... and went home to a beer each ... before calling tonight a gooooodnight!

Day 4 ... Cebu Holiday ... New Friend, Tour of the City

Super excited this morning because finally ... finally ... I am going to go out and see the country ... well, more or less ... and what's even more cooler is I am going to meet a new friend ... albeit a lady. She is a niece of my good friend from Maldives, the Con Woman and as CW is not available, she roped in her niece who had the day off to show me around

Isn't the lady nice?

We connected the day before via FB ... and today she arrived super early ... before our 9am appointment ... I will admit I didn't check her profile out except the picture of her head on the messenger and was not sure who or what to expect ... however, she was super smiley/ warm/ friendly/ touchy!

In fact, she is quite charming ... wherever we go, she would reach out and hold me by the arm and said this way or that way or come come ... like either I am a child or a doddering old man ... we chatted a bit to get to know each other ... and I found out a bit more about her family and CW's family too (single parent - that I didn't even know)

So what are the places we visited?

Well, first is the Lapu Lapu Monument (obviously) and we walked around the dedication park and even onto the rickety water feature ... there were not many tourists around ... rather quiet and sad looking actually ... after that, we rode into the city ...

Amongst the highlights include: the fort (where we climbed everywhere and took lots of photos), wanted to go to the post office for FDC (but it was closed as it was a holiday), the old church where we prayed with red candle stubs and then walked into the church proper (very beautiful and crowded), and out again into one of the older "shrines" (I think that's what it was called), we passed by 2 universities, we went to the 2 markets (one was selling all sorts of knick knacks and the other is the dried fish market), we stopped by a supposedly famous small old-time bakery (looks more like a cafeteria), and had YUMMY BBQ lunch where we ordered one of everything (hehehe) ... and for the final stop?

The Taoist temple in Beverly Hills, Cebu ... yup there is a Beverly Hills ... apparently the rich folks stay here and boy what a lot of huge villas and bungalows there are ... the oddest thing about the Taoist temple ... well more than 1 thing odd is that we are not allowed to take photos of the interior in any of the living/ praying spaces ... which is odd because they are not like covered with gold or some such ... but the landscape was very beautiful ... next odd thing? It is so clean not like the temples that I am used to

O yes we also drove and stopped by a few more places before the Taoist ... one was an old Chinese house ... the Yap residence that is actually charming ... then a monument to the key persons from the city ... and finally ... I ended up at SM Mall for a local coffee from Bo's Coffee ... expensive almost the same price as Starbucks but it was so thick, creamy and rich ... definitely a yummie experience!

And if you think that was all, it was not

At night, Me and CFW went out to the Japanese restaurant for a bento dinner along with this Indian gentleman, A-Sheesh who he met last year during this same period as Shangri-la hosts some kind of international telco conference cum sales event every year in Cebu

We even come back to the hotel and had a nice drink and chat session where they both regaled me with stories of the earthquake from last year (or was that typhoon?) ...

So all in all? Today was a brilliant day

Goodnight cyber world!

PS I forgot about cuties ... finally I saw at least a couple of decent uniforms ... hmm ... sad eh? Hehehe!

Day 3 Cebu ... Happy Birthday to Me ...

The first greetings I received to my surprise was yesterday from my parents! So nice! I am now 42 and next 12 months? I need to lose 24 kilos. I am now? 92 ... and this means I should target 68. Let's do this!!!

So what did I do today to celebrate? Well, I took the bus down to the city from Movenpick. And it was a challenge. I waited and was surprised to see that it was so full. Lucky thing they could squeeze me in although I was told to go and pay 150R ... and they don't give me receipt ... hmmm ... no negative thoughts, eh?

Anyway I went to the next mall - Ayala and this one was bigger than yesterday's, more modern and seemed more posh but again, it was a mix inside. It did start to drizzle and then poured. So I started at UCC cafe ... enjoying something called Halo Halo cake (local dessert turned into a cake) ... and for lunch I did the food court to try the crab shell and grilled pork ... both were nasty ... sorry ... and finally? I was surprised that today is also Mother Mary's birthday, Tess' daughter's birthday and of course, Jerry's birthday!

Dinner was back to awesome Fiesta ... and tonight I ordered the crispy pata (awesome), springroll (unusual) and pangsit noodles (awesome) ... and only then did I tell CFW it was my birthday. Heh!

All in all, a nice birthday because I am in a different country doing a different thing

Day 2 Cebu ... SM Mall ...

I think the challenge here is that they have the same time zone as Malaysia and Singapore when they are further on the East. Hence, even before 6:00am, the sun has risen bright and shining! The only positive consequence I can see here is that people should actually go to bed early and get up early and get more done. However, people are people and it doesn't seem to be the case. Hehehe!

I went to Shangri-la and have a walk through. It was amazingly huge and beautiful and the breakfast looks so sumptious. Sigh! I do miss a good buffet. Hahaha! Says fat me

After that we hopped on the bus to the city and came to SM. CFW took me to this Chinese restaurant across the road that serves some dimsum and chinese food. It was nice but just normal Chinese food. The mall is quite busy and designed all over the place. However, as I am following CFW, we didn't do much waltzing around and I have yet to taste the local coffee! We did stop at a French bakery for a coffee though. It was nice!

Dinner was at the Italian across the road and that too was another good meal. The starters of broccoli and shrimp was great. The pesto pizza was nice but a bit sad because the pesto was a drop per slice and that's it! Ugh! Finally the spaghetti carbonara had flavour but waaaaaay toooo saltieeeeee!!!

Tomorrow? My birthday! Hehehe!

Cebu, Phils ... Holiday tiiiime!!!

The last time I planned a holiday with my sweetheart, it was in Jul and when the time came, I had flu and my ear got so stuffed up, I had to cancel to avoid a flight ... so this time around ... you can imagine the fear I have ... especially when true to form, early this week, from having recovered from a persistent cough that's been bugging me for the better part of the past 3 months ... I had a bout of sore throat

Now we all know what this means ... sore throat, phlegm and cough, cold and dripping nose and ... fever! In the past, I tried to cut it short by taking meds but in the end it merely prolonged the agony ... so rather than tackle the entire bout ... I got meds for every part of the cycle ... basically allowing it to happen as nature intended and then using the meds to cure each part faster sort of like hurrying along a stray kid ... hehehe ... so hope it works

This morning, I woke up with a drippy nose and it is sooooo annoying because I didn't have anything for it ... and the same was at the airport ... but hey enough about illnesses for one post!

What's new?

Why - Cebu of course. Inspite of having many Filipino good friends since 2000, I have never been here for work or holidays and I am finally heeeeeeeeeere! So excited. The only sad part is that all my Filipino friends are working abroad at this time ... but hey instead of meeting my Filipino friends, I met an old Singaporean friend ... we used to work together in the Maldives

Mr C ... and now I am staying in the Movenpick residences ... hehehhe ... it's an old tower but the view is awesome ... we can see all the way across the two sides of the island ... saw the airport landing and what not ...

And the sea breeze is just so intoxicating ... now if only I was in perfect health ... this would have been perfect ... anyway I am taking it easy ... catching up, chilling, chatting ... we walked out to a local diner with local food (awesome taste) ... and had a good time sitting at the beach chairs until sunset drinking San Miguel Light! Hehehe!

Let's see ... do you want us to mention cuties? Well, at KLIA 2, they were flooded with cuties in uniforms at all three parts of security ... young, slim, nice ass! And as for the Phils side ... the only one that made me stare was the security on duty at the jetty ... I am sure there are more to come ... but it's almost 11:00pm and for once I am trying to sleep early

So good night and sorry this is such a rush especially when I really have so much to share

Re-inventing myself

I am torn ... it has been nearly a year since my last post ... and it's not that I am not keeping up with this blog but rather ... I was indecisive on whether I should be more open or more conspicuous about what I post ... you see, my dilemma is that I want this to be like my real-life diary ... except that to avoid problems later on with friends and family (if I were to type really openly) ... I would use either initials or nicks of people I am describing ... naturally if you know me at each period I am typing you would know who I am talking about ... hahaha ... so the question then becomes do I sanitized my post?

I know if someone were to really try, they can find out who we are i.e. not really anonymous

So where do I go from here? That's why I started a new blog a few months back ... but now, I kept on thinking ... and I left the new blog hanging as well ... and thought some more ... and for now, I  think I will go back to this ...

So let's do this in short bursts, first, okay?

Today is Saturday and I am in Jakarta, Indonesia ... staying at A.M ... nothing significant happened today because I basically hung around my apartment ... I did finally do some housework like laundry, cleaned the balcony and a bit of vacuuming ... but mainly because .. of anticipation ... giving back this apartment to B ... as he wants me to move to another apartment ...

Aside from that, I managed to persuade myself to do miniscule exercise. I know, I know. Lame, right? I simply cannot control my food intake and exercise ... but I HAVE TO BE SERIOUS THIS TIME

I do want, for once in my life, to be fit! Hahahahahahaha! It's true, I was not fat as a kid but was sickly and for some reason, my belly was always a bit flabby even when I was thin ... o and let's not forget my wide hip translates into a big butt ... ugh ... I know, some like a shapely tush ... not me!

What did I eat today then? I went down to lobby's FH for my usual of fried rice with tea ... then around tea time, felt a bit peckish and had a cup noodles ... for dinner it was McD's 2 pieces of fried chicken, fries and coca-cola ...

I did a fair bit of work today though ... like Paku's 2015 budget, write up for Yangon potential, follow up on some accounts etc ... and a nice discussion with JCool ...

And finally, I am back to my art ... the last time I did something decent was 2012 ... the past 2 years I tried but honestly nothing I liked ... so the past few weeks and months I have been having new ideas but I kept them all stewing in my brain ... until I worked out the mechanics mentally ... tonight wasn't great but it wasn't bad either

And now? Well watching tv and typing this - hah! Alright back to TV ... cheers all!

Do I Need Oysters???

Okay ... this post is going to be about libido and what-not so for those of you who frown on such topics, kindly DO NOT read this. You have been cautioned!

So what the heck am I rambling about? L.I.B.I.D.O.

It seems like at the ripe old age of 41 I have been hit by a serious drop in sexual appetite. What am I moaning about? You see, I used to get "s"excited easily and whether I scored or not, a H-job (fast or slow) is a requirement a few times a week

Then suddenly it hit me that of late ... read that as past several months that I can remember ... most nights, even when my mind is thinking how about a little H-job ... I just turn over, grab a book, settled into bed and read. Yup, read!

Or worse yet, when I am with someone in bed, I don't even feel the need to want to do a little lovey-dovey, touchy-feely, kissy-kissy!

Worst yet, just a few months ago, I would be complaining if I am in the same city and my darling is not spending time with me but now? Now I actually tell not to bother even coming, to stay and rest because the truth is ... I am not bothered anymore!!!

ARGH!!!

Does it mean that I am becoming sexually uninterested? Libido issue? Or that my love for my other half is waning? Some serious food for thought here

Even last night, I was half in the mood but decided to "do it" and it took me several hours to build up to a decent "climax" after watching clips of "men in uniform getting it" and stills. Sigh!

So what do I do?

Oysters?

[O yes nothing of significance happened today except me going home from Damansara to the sticks]

Hottie alert!

Well the morning started off like normal ... feeling a bit down actually! Lately with my health the way it is, I am not sure how I can find the energy but I must ... so I guess I will start with eating enough and to heck with losing weight, eh? Hahahaha!

For those wondering, I am about 200 that's TWO FREAKING HUNDRED pounds!

I have never in my life imagined I would be this hulking fat man. And yet, there are those who said I am not that big for my height as it seemed that I am only a bit fat around the stomach and arse! Are they BLIND? I would say blind as a bat but hey bats have radar sensors and they can see the shape of my FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT

Anyway today's big topic is not about me being fat or even the title but rather the shocking TOSHIBA EHDD. I bought a new one less than 2 months ago. A few days ago, it started coughing up problems. When I tried to use the fix function on my laptop, it didn't work and always hang at 43%. Finally today I went to 2 different shops to check and to my utter horror they quoted me a min of RP750k or the price of a new EHDD to try and extract the data from my EHDD. ARGH! What I am annoyed is that it crashed so fast and now giving me a nightmare. I am going to see vendor next week with my warranty and ask them to extract for me and I want to be around when they do it because I have sensitive information inside. So fucking annoying!

Okay now we come to the cutie part. As you know, Indo is full of thin/ skinny/ slim dudes in uniforms (satpam). Well today's hottie isn't one of them. I was at the restaurant to review some work for a new client and then they ushered me downstairs saying that the vendor has arrived for the software demonstration. Now I am not expecting anything much because it is IT and like Finance, they tend to be geeks who are like me - FAT! Okay, I won't go there again but anyway here we have 2 young (at least they look young below 30) Chinese dudes who speak fluent Indo so I guess they must be local. One guy is doing the demo and the other guy doing the business end and I am guessing he is the boss. He is the one I was immediately WHAMMED with. Hehehe!

When I walked in, he was of average height, slightly wavy hair, nice features with hint of pimples when younger and a hot hot hot bod! He was slim with potential stomach bulge in future if not careful but now? Wow! And his butt in those brown pants?!?!?! Woof! He made brown pants look good. Hehehe! I kept on checking him out and his pronounciation? It sounded as if he was educated overseas for a long spell the way he rolled the words out. So sexy! What a turn on! Sigh! I managed to get his name card though but found nothing on the web. ARGH! Jap ... you are so cute for me!

Anyway, that's it for me tonight. Feeling so incredibly sleepy. I am really hoping this health problem gets resolved fast yeah?

Good night!

Flu ... again?

What is flu? At the ripe old age of 41, I must admit I always thought that flu came in a package of 4 illnesses ie sore throat, block nose, cough with phlegm and fever. And anyway, this is the normal cycle, right? Even if you detect it early and you go to physician, usually, for me anyway, what it does is merely delay the cycle and the fever will still come before it goes backwards of the cycle to get better. So perhaps it is better to wait for the fever to hit before going to a physician?

Anyway, I was on the mend after being down for the past like 10 days but thanks to this morning's early waking up (one round at 4:00am and finally around 6:30am), I felt my throat a wee bit raw and I have been hacking up phlegm. In addition, my head has a few sore points like insufficient sleep kind of issue ... sigh!

Sorry if you feel this particular blog entry is not revealing but hey this is my blog and I am keeping this like a diary filled with my ramblings, okay?

Other than this, I had a decent morning, actually?

I went for the ID meeting at Jl Gunawarman and met a potential new client. I managed to get them to go to lunch with me at Publico restaurant and used the opportunity to sell my services. They are interested and she asked for my contact details. She even hinted at fees and said she will discuss further with her husband and see if we can meet up to talk more later. So I am keeping fingers crossed here. Something positive albeit small opportunity is always good!

Next is that finally everyone I wrote to for the Johor project? Everyone replied in the positive. So I know it's a matter of negotiation now to get a good deal for my client. If I am lucky, we can close the deal fast probably by next month before Christmas. And if the client is happy, maybe will recruit me for the next stage of the project, eh? Hehehe! Again, keeping fingers crossed

The downer?

My new HDD that I have been using for only about a month actually crashed on me. I tried to use auto-repair but it got stuck at 43%. I managed to copy out the business folders before it totally died off more or less. I am hoping I can find someone who can fix it so I can retrieve the rest of my files. It's annoying because I am almost finished with my writing! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pixoto + 1

Today on Facebook I saw someone posted that they won this week's challenge on something called Pixoto ... so here I am clicking it and creating my own account and uploaded over the past 12 hours ... 4 photos ... damn ... what is it with me and this need to be recognized, eh? Hehehehehehehe!

Hope I at least get a decent rating and not just get kicked out within 12 hours ... my first 2 photos got "paused" as I lost so many "duels" with other photos ... I was shocked that my Dubai photo with the beautiful orange sands were not getting votes ... sigh!

I had a look at some of the photos and you can clearly see that while beautiful some of it is soooo doctored to the point it is not realistic. So why bother, right?

Okay.

The + 1 is because after FB linking, I decided to meet this chef as he was an old acquaintance of R-Pie ... Thai chef mate of mine ... and turns out he is quite a nice chap from Malaysia ... he is here for past 6 months working as a chef ... we went to Le Grandeur where he started ... and to my surprise the food is soooooooooooooo yummy ... we had the staple of siu mai, some green type with light sauce and Chinese pancake ... then he ordered the siew yoke and I had wan than mee ... all yummy! He also called over the restaurant manager, a Chinese Singaporean who has been in Jkt since the 90s and actually saw the riots!

Other than that, it's been a quiet day as far as business and work goes. I worked on my book and did some sketching. I am going to take it easy until end Dec and Jan onwards is where I start working on SOPs and what-not

Currently, what I have on outstanding?

1. Spa college

2. Lombok development

3. Retail group - new and I really hope can take off!

Okay - that's it for me for this day! Goodnight cyberfriends!

My Blog is Still Screwed

Argh this is driving me nuts! Two weeks already and I still cannot update my blog properly. For those of you who read this, you may be wondering what the F am I raving about, right? It's not this the blog proper but the side bars where I have comics and movies and novels. Last week, when I clicked on, all I got was a listing of "Edit and Delete" and nothing else. After several days, I sent a note to the administrator under feedback as apparently I cannot locate any other form of "help"

After that, when I clicked on Side Bar, it is still a long list of "Edit and Delete" but now at least I can see what I had typed. Unfortunately, the problem is still not resolved as it is a long list without wraparound. In addition, if I were to post a new entry it appears all over the place rather than as a new entry to my blog main page. So it's quite ANNOYING. So I have just zapped another note under Feedback and hope that things improve soon!

Oh please please please do!

We Bore Each Other

Today is supposed to be the day I spent taking my parents out since it is a Monday and my sis has to go back to office. However, by 9:00am, I was surprised that dad announced he is going to arrange for an earlier journey up to Genting with mom! I mean, I felt guilty almost as if he had managed to read my mind or something because there I was arranging breakfast with JLee that had become brunch and I was wondering how I tell my folks that I won't be eating with them but will drive them to the mall and what-not and BOOM this announcement!

Ah well ... I did drive them to 1 Utama and dropped them off ... least I could do, right?

As for the rest of today, I did have brunch with JLee at that Chinese eatery in Tropicana (Lower Ground) that sells all sorts of supposedly Penang food. It's been there for years and I never tried and now I know why. Taste is average but what really pains me is the $$$. RM21 for 2 cups of kopitiam coffee, 2 chee cheong fun and 1 plain nasi lemak street style. I mean, what the fuck, right? Bloody expensive! If the taste is good, it would have been fine but the taste was average especially the sweet chee cheong fun was missing the maroon sweet sauce

After that, at night, I went with my sis to Ikea. This is because of the card from the Gergaji family that I have yet to fully utilized. The magnetic strip had come off so I was worried because it was RM800 original value and I still had like RM650+. Thank goodness the serial number could work and guess what? It can be used in the food area too! So we had like free food. Hahaha!

Goodnight world!

Bule Bule ...

For those of you wondering what bule means, it is the Indonesian word/ slang for Caucasians. It is not derogatory or anything, just a word. My gripe for today is actually not just Indonesia but generally in Asia and the Middle East

I know from history we were largely colonized. However, didn't our forefathers strive so hard for independence?

Now that we have independence, why do we still every now and then you see this happening recruit a Caucasian over a country man simply because he is a Caucasian? I mean, seriously! If you hire someone because of his skill sets, I can understand. If you hire someone because you want to create an impression that your establishment has standards, even that I can understand as you are merely giving what the consumers want!

But if you were to hire simply in the naïve believe that they are generally still better than Asians, well, bullshit! I am sorry if this post is going to sound racist. If you think it does, please skip this, okay? What I am trying to get at is that due to cultural differences, Caucasians are generally more vocal. Asians tend to keep their opinions to themselves especially in front of elders and employers. Of course, they will grumble later at the pub! Hahaha! But that's the truth and we have to accept it.

I have seen, so often, we pay top dollar for Caucasians, young and old, who are simply unqualified for their job. Example: upon signing their contract, the employer has to do everything including helping them to settle into the country/ city/ company and everyone has to help him out. At work, all he does is call his managers to do their job while he does nothing. If they have difficulty, he is unable to guide or teach ... because ... he doesn't know. He got the job straight in at the top

Here is a real life example: I know someone who is a fresh graduate from university and came to Asia for a job as a management trainee of a small company for 6 months. After that, this person went to interview ... and got a job as a regional executive helping the company to establish new branches in different parts of the region. Now this company is not the same as the internship. So I asked you this: would someone with zero working experience and people management skills and cultural understanding be qualified? Seriously? Obviously this person fails spectacularly but because this person is Caucasian, this person is protected. Every three months, this person is sent to another locale and thus survives year after year! Lucky, isn't it? Sigh!

As to what happened today, nothing monumental. I just had a nice site meeting where the Caucasian never showed up and again said he needed another week to do his job. This has been ongoing since August. So naturally if and when he finishes like 2 months or 3 months late, all of us are going to have to scramble to finish and make up for time. For a project of 12 to 16 months, he has caused us 20% delay. And the best part is? He and his team has zero experience in the field and I am left stunned how the investors thought he is good! Seriously, never done the job, never even study. So all his opinion is ... guess work at how things work! I mean come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Little Bit of this n that ...

I just checked and my last post is some time Sep ... wow ... I have been negligent ... should I do a back post? Hmmm maybe I should ... for completeness eh? Let's see how in the days ahead ...

I am still wondering for a blog ... since this is anonymous (unless you are a hacker and you tracked me down somehow ... and why would you do that when I am a nobody, right?) ... what type of blog should this be?

I still liked the idea of this being a real life diary with snippets of my life and all the bitchy nonsense that goes with it ... or should I do like some other blogs and used it to post deep philosophical yammerings or promote one's own projects or business only?

Hmmmm ...

Anyway I am typing this on a beautiful (cloudy) morning in Jakarta @ Ancol M ... I am staying at Level 28 ... and have an awesome view of the bay ... it's 10:45am Jaktime .. and in 45 mn I will head down to the lobby for my cab to my ... resto ... that's restaurant for short here in Jak ... for Jakarta!

Cheers all!

Old ties renewed

This evening, after a couple months of planning, I finally caught up with the Nazz, an old ex-colleague of mine from Langkawi days. Apparently after he left there, he went to Berjaya and subsequently came down to PD. I am surprised that he hasn't changed much still moving from place to place unable to make headway and making pittance. It's so good that they all survived yes? While my Cor just keeps on spending crazy amounts of money!

Anyway I drove him around the Bagan area, we had Ikan Bakar and to him and his mate the food was delicious even though to me it was just so-so?!?!?! Finally we walked through GEe Pee Tee and he loved it

So yes at least today we had some developments from this angle, right? Hehehe!

I also spoke to the Pee Woman on the phone and she is now in Malacca. So that's another corner heard from

Goodnight diary/ blog!

Painter's Block ...

When writers have a problem getting the words out, they called it writer's block. What about when painters cannot paint? I tried all evening and was struggling to get anything decent out. I even used the proper canvas (finally) and was doing such a bad job that I gave up

O yes and I learnt new things about watercolour that I didn't know before ... at least that was good!

After 4 hours, I went back to sketching and tried some different techniques to fool around and that's it.

Nothing else monumental happened today. I saw no one. I ate alone (ARGH!). I fought with Cory (as usual) on cars (as usual). About the only work I did is submit claims for Aug 2013 (one more to go) and wrote back to Shakur

Tomorrow I have to go KLIA to pick up my sis so goodnight diary-blog!

RM1 million ... really?

Here's a good one ... I am in discussion with a client ... potentially to work on their troubled projects. However, the more I discussed with them, the more it seems like they have things hidden away. Imagine saying you are land owner only then to disclose that you paid the deposit but never proceeded ... for years. But that the contract is still valid. Then next when pressed further, you said that the land owner has passed away and now it is in the estate but that you have to talk to the beneficiaries. I mean, what the fuck?!?!! Right?!!?!?!

Next, they wanted me to work on their project except that they are short somewhere in the region of RM2million to complete. My job? Operations i.e. pre-opening work for their nearly 300 room hotel. I am being nice by lowering my price to RM10k a month (freelance and not full time). So what do they do? Why in a meeting they asked if they can owe me because they do not have the cash?!?!?!?!

When I hesitantly said okay can be for a few months, guess what?

Now they want the contract to include clauses like I need to be responsible for finding the RM1million and they only the remainder. Well excuse me. Finding RM1m has a 5% fee or RM50k by itself and that has got nothing to do with a hotel operator's responsibilities. Really too much these people!

So naturally I am only pursuing sales of their properties and will be dropping everything else!

Aside from that nasty watsapp message and email, nothing else of note happened. It was generally a quiet day ... or do you want to hear about the massive argument in my non-existent love-life? Hahaha!

Imagine 2 birthdays in a row (one for each of us) and a trip to China and the amount of sex we had? None! The amount spent on shopping RM12k. The amount spent on fighting? Everyday! What kind of relationship eh? Time to end this if it continues - absolute bullshit here as well! O yeah today's topic is purchasing new car. It seems like he wants a new car every year or so! Madness!