News Break on Daiso at The Curve

Hi peeps. I know that some of you are like me.. have been making visits to The Curve every other week to see if the Daiso there has finally opened its doors. The last time when I caught wind that there is a Daiso opening in Petaling Jaya, that was in October last month. Since then, I have been back a few times to The Curve checking up on it... and also my friend Mumsey has also been keeping me updated.

Last Sunday, I called up my friend JW and together we made it to The Curve, took the few escalators up and from a far, I did not noticed anything different on the outside of the boarded up area except for this little notice.

WAAAAAAHHHHH.. it is going to be soon. Have a good look at this picture and if you cannot read it clearly, just click on it to enlarge it.


The best part is there is a 2nd Daiso Branch too at IOI Shopping Mall... I am so excited.

Daiso at The Curve is opening this 13th December, which is a Saturday.. awwww.. I will be at the EAP Business Opportunity Fair (more about this very exciting event later) but first thing on Sunday morning, I am there before they open the shutters.

Daiso at IOI Shopping Mall in Puchong will be opened on the 15th January next year.

And oh.. they are interviewing Housewives and Students tomorrow at 3pm to 6pm at The Curve. If only I am financially free, I would love to work at Daiso.. haha.. and end up being their number staff and number one customer :D

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Daiso, Japan's No 1 Livingware Supplier is coming to Petaling Jaya

The first time I heard of Daiso was through my group of Bento Blogger friends. Before that, I thought the 100Yen shops in KL and PJ were the fantastic. But when I went to Singapore in August, I managed to drop in at the Daiso in Plaza Singapore and I thought I found heaven on earth, haha.. where cookingware was concern lah.

Daiso at Plaza Singapore

When I came home, I realize that Malaysia has only 1 Daiso outlet and it is all the way over in Kota Kinabalu. Hey, Daiso has more than 2,500 outlets across Japan and more than 470 shops in the rest of the world. These are the countries where one can find Daiso outlets.



In Singapore, you can find 3 Daiso Outlets. So, what happened here????

Name : Singapore IMM shop Address : 2 Jurong East Street 21 #0385 IMM Building 609601 Floor area : 30,100ft2(2,800m2) Opened : 23 March 2002
Name : PLAZA SINGAPURA Address : 68 Orchard Road, Plaza Singapura,Singapore 238839 Floor area : 7,300ft2(700m2) Opened : 18 September 2006
Name : VIVO CITY Address : No.1 Harbour front walk #03-0616A106B Floor area : 12,200ft2(1,130m2) Opened : 1 December 2006

Then, I heard from my friend JW that Daiso is having a year end sale or something in Singapore right now. True or not? Sob... this is so unfair.

Anyway, whilst walking around The Curve over the weekend, looking for nothing in particular, I saw this....


It is on level 2, next to nichii.


YIPPEE! Guess where I will be spending my weekends soon :)...ok ok.. Sunday will be still dedicated to my favorite Mid Valley Mega Mall. So, Saturdays will be at The Curve, Level 2. I am so happy :D

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I Have Finally Seen The Light

It has been exactly 1 month since I graduated from the Entrepreneurs Action Program (EAP) Boot Camp and having involved myself in a small business with an eLearning Portal called SkyQuestCom (CEO, Richard Tan also owns Success Resources, the largest seminar organizer in Asia) with low startup capital, low risk and potentially high returns, I picked up my first cheque of RM420 for one week of effort. Nothing to shout about but a start nevertheless. I have also been invited to make a presentation to some workmates and condo mates (4 fellas and a couple with 2 children) of one of my business partner. These were complete strangers to me and it was really my pleasure meeting them. Anyway, after the presentation, 2 of them signed up, one of the fellas and the husband of the couple. They were convinced that it was something they wanted to have a go at. And I say to them, congratulations for having that belief in themselves.



As I was eating lunch just now, I was thinking to myself. I may have just started on this business but I am sure as hell going to make it the right one for me. And I have already seen the money coming back to me, so, this business is real and its potential is limitless. But when I tried to share this with my family members and friends and colleagues, some of them listened out of sheer politeness (being Asian, I reckon) but some will cook up all sorts of excuses to end the conversation or change the topic and if it was over the MSN or Yahoo chats, they just "hang up" on me ... sigh.....They are not even giving themselves a chance to listen to what could be an opportunity or a solution to them to create the extra income that they want. Not that I am going to walk up and hold them at knife point (nope... I don't have a license for a gun) to sign up. Just that chance to see if it was something that could be right for them.

Then it dawned on me. My family, my friends and my colleagues are not desperate people. They have a secured job (until retirement), they are happy with their lot (they can buy everything they want to without having to prioritize their money) and they really have no financial worries. That is why I have not been successful even up to the point where they want to give me 10 minutes of their time to listen to me.

The 2 persons who set up EAP, Jerome Tan and Wendy Quek. Now, those 2 were desperate people. Jerome was declared bankrupt in 1997 and Wendy was apparently retrenched. Now, when one is bankrupt or retrenched, that would definitely make a person desperate to listen to any opportunity opening and to decide which one will give them the best potential to redeem themselves. Jerome and Wendy are both multi millionaires today.

But is it necessary to be successful and rich only after one has been touched by adversity? Why can't one take it upon themselves to want to succeed before such a crisis happen? Then as I was listening to Dr Jeffrey Goh, one of Asia's leading success coach speak at a seminar, he told this story of 2 monks crossing a river. Half way through the river, the older monk, who was walking in front, turned around and with both hands on the younger, shorter monk's head, pushed the younger monk's head under water. After letting the younger monk struggle frantically for a while, the older monk released the younger monk. The younger monk immediately jumped up, sputtering. Then the older monk asked the younger monk "During the time whilst you were under, were you trying your hardest and using whatever method you can think of to come up for air".

The younger monk answered, still heaving "But of course. It is a matter of my survival". The older monk said "If only you worked as hard in every facet of life, you would be extremely successful" and he turned around and continued walking.

Now I have understood. Only when people are desperate, when they are almost at their limits, then will they decide to take action to better the life they are in. If my family, friends and colleagues are happy and contented with what life is offering them now, it is with my sincerest wish that they continue to be happy and contented for the rest of their lives. I will only seek out those who are either desperately needing that helping hand or those who want to do have that chance to value add to their current financial situation, be it for themselves or for their family. I HAVE FINALLY SEEN THE LIGHT!

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So Very Angry

This incident happened last Friday evening and even as I think about it, I still feel a little annoyed. But at that time, I was fuming.

I decided to go over to the pasar malam (night market) in Taman Desa last Friday and it must have been about 6:45pm to 7pm when I arrived. As usual, I was quite careful where I parked as I know that many of these pasar malam sellers are not the most polite of people. I picked a spot which was almost at the end of the stretch, and I noticed that there must be at least 4 car lengths of space between the corner fruit seller (I think that is his fixed spot) and the next seller (who happened to be a key-cutter or something on a motorbike with a side cart). Anyway, I knew that I would only be a short while as I only wanted to get some corn for the sugar gliders and some flowers for the altar. But I had to walk quite a fair distance to these sellers so, I must have been away for about half an hour.

As I was walking back, from afar, I noticed that there were a seller was in the midst of setting up his stall behind my car. There were lots of space between him and the fruit seller, but he chose to set up right behind my car. But that was not made my anger rise. I saw him utter something to the lady beside him (who I suspect must be the wife) and then he started kicking the bumper of my car.

I went up to him and asked him why he did that. He had the cheek to ask me "Which of your eyes did you see me kick your car!" (literally translated from chinese). I told him I just saw him do it. Then he changed the subject and started accusing me of taking up his spot at the pasar malam and he waited a long time for me to come and remove my car. I really didn't want to argue with this kind of man as he uses his gender and his loud voice, in hope of intimidating a woman. So, I looked around the car and found that he left his partly set up stall behind my car on the ground and I told him to remove it so that I can move my car. He just stood there mouthing obscenities and not moving anything. In front of my car was the drain. And the only way I could get out of that spot was to reverse my car (obviously the car cannot move sideways).
After waiting for about 2 minutes and him not doing anything about moving his stuff out of the way, with me seething inside the car, I made a decision. I will just put the car into reverse and roll over whatever that is behind my car to get out.

That was exactly what I did.... crunch.. crunch...crunch... As I put the car back into drive mode, I looked at the back view mirror and I saw him standing there, still arms akimbo but a look of "jaw dropped". He probably didn't expect me to do that. I really was too angry to think of the consequences right then.

When I shared this story with one of my brothers on Saturday during dinner, he laughed. But his wife asked me "You dare return to that pasar malam after this ah?". My answer to that is "And why not? And maybe, I might just do it again.... roll over his stuff, I mean". HAHAHA...

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Durian Bombs

I was walking along the 5-foot way near MPPJ on Friday doing my errands when I saw a poster which read "Durian Bombs". Mmmm.. durian..that was the magic word for me. Went into the shop, was rather excited at the thought seeing what these bombs were. Left my handphone in the car, so I was not able to take the poster outside the shop but it looked similar to what they had on the box.


Oh this is one of the outlets or were they distributors of the goodies that Babe told me about a long time ago... Restaurant Sri Karak.


They had quite a good spread of pastries and breads but my intention was to go in to try the durian bomb and their durian tart. But when I looked at their siew pow and egg tart, I decided to get one of each to go. The clever salesperson who served me said "Miss, if you get another 2 pieces, we'll put them in a nice box for you". Sigh.. ok lah.. picked up a chicken pie and a curry puff.


The tiny little round thing at the top right hand corner was the durian bomb. It was so tiny and it looked nowhere near how I imagined a bomb should look like.



The pastry looked a little like the yam puff but the pastry was not as crispy or light. When I broke open the bomb, I was rather disappointed. The filling was so little that you better not breath too hard or it might just fly off.

Durian Bomb

I think it would have been better to stick to their durian tart. They didn't have the durian puff. Perhaps that too would have been better than the durian bomb.

Durian tart

Overall, I was rather disappointed with the pastries there. The siew pow's filling was dry and the rest were average, at best.


I am not sure if the prices of these pastries were cheaper than other places. If they are, then perhaps that could explain their quality :(

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How to save petrol, thus saving money

Like every good citizen of Malaysia, I am still reeling from the shock of such a drastic increase in the price of petrol as of midnight yesterday. Every other blogger has a post up on this issue and why should I be different. At the same time, I was also frantically googling for suggestions on how to save petrol, thus saving a little of my hard earned money.

There were several sites which I visited that gave pretty good suggestions like keeping your tyres inflated, not speeding and braking too often as this will cause more petrol be to consumed, not leaving the engine running (and the air conditioning too) whilst waiting. But there was one particular website which managed to put a smile on my face despite such a gloomy scenario.



This post was published by a person call Mike at blogiseverything. Mike suggested 6 ways to save petrol (which I think was rather tongue-in-cheek as some of these suggestions may save some fuel - which he even gave the percentage possibility of fuel saved - but may lead you to more expenditure, in the event you have an accident or you need to fix your car later.



These were his suggestions in brief and to have a more detailed description of his idea, do visit his website.

1) Properly Inflated Tyres (Average savings: 3%. That reminds me, better get my tyres checked.. i think they are kinda of deflated and balding too)

2) Tailgating NASCAR style (Average savings: 16%. This one, you had better work out the cost of fixing your front bumper, radiator and anything else that is busted, plus the fella's car in front too)

3) The Brick Trick (Average savings: 21%. Now this one, I really have to think about it)

4) Forward Momentum (Average savings: 33% to 42%, depending on wind direction. Haha.. this makes me think of sailing)

5) Gravity's Rainbow (Average savings: 54% plus. Hard for me as I live on flat ground. Not going anywhere too far too soon if I took up his suggestion)

6) Cut their throats (Average savings: Nil but supposed to make you feel better. But you have to replace US Govt with Malaysian Govt)

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Borders' Staff Gave Me Extra Discounts

On the 3rd day of CNY, I decided to ignore the old folks' comments that one should not go to books stores to buy books (shue, in Cantonese sounds like "loose" as in loose money) if one wants to gamble during the new year and win money. Took the Monorail to Berjaya Times Square and headed straight for Borders.

I like shopping at Borders Book Store as their selection is rather wide and I simply love their Bargain Corner plus their special promotions. They were having the 3 books for the price of 2 promotions and I simply could not resist picking up several. After spending almost close to an hour browsing and selecting, I decided to make for the counter to pay for the books as I only had about 30mins left to get home as my brother was going to belanja (pay for) dinner at Klang that evening (read previous post).

I already did a mental calculation as to how much I am going to have to pay for all those lovely books and it should be around RM210, plus minus RM1. When the cashier was scanning in the books, I realize that she was likely to make a mistake as she totally ignored the fact that some of the books were under the 3 for the price of 2 promotion. When the final amount was tabulated, she asked for RM248.90. I knew that could not be right. So, I politely asked if she could print out the bill so that I could check it. She curtly replied "Cannot" and she called her colleague over. I tried to ask her colleague if I could have a look at the bill first before I paid for the books and he replied (at least a little bit more politely) that they don't do that for the customers. Customers only get to look at the bill after they have paid for the books. Alamak.... how can that be right?

So, I asked if I could borrow a calculator. They were both ignoring me this time as they were busy taking all my books out of the plastic bag. I noticed that they were scrolling the bill out of the cashier's machine and checking it against the books. They must have realized that they did something wrong. I decided to fish out my mobile phone and using the calculator function, I managed to determine that the cost of the books should total RM207.80 exactly.

When the two of them finally finished re-keying in the cost of the books, the value came out to RM204.90. Yikes.. how come? So I asked them if they were sure?? I can check for them. This time all I got were blank stares. Sigh...so, what to do.. cough out the RM204.90 and the get the bill first after paying then only check lor. By then, I have already spent a good 10 minutes at the counter and I had only 20minutes to get up the Monorail to get home on time.

When I got home, I found out where the problem was. I bought 2 lots of the "special 3 books for the price of 2". The sticker clearer stated that one can buy 3 books from a collection, and the cheapest book out of the 3 selected will be given free. The mistake of the cashier was billing me for all 3 books from the 1st lot ... no free book from this lot. But for the other lot (which was more expensive), she billed me for 1 book and gave me 2 books for free...yeah..

So, all I have to say is "Thank you Borders for the angpow of RM2.90... which is the difference of what I would have had to pay if your staff had been nicer and more responsive to your customers". Kong Xi Fa Cai!

When things go downhill.....

I say man... when things go downhill... they really steamroll down. Since the start of the year, lots of people from the company have resigned and left. The office is such a dark, cold and lonely place. Then the blardy internet connection got slower and slower and since last week, it was almost going at a stand-still pace. Time-out is almost happening on every page download and it is so difficult to work when you are doing research on the internet. Plus of coz I cannot even get on the MSN. Discussion with colleagues meant either sending them SMS-es or actually taking a lift 4 floors up to speak to them. I tell you, if the blardy internet goes any slower, it might be going backwards... if that is possible.

Worst things are yet to come are yet to come. Today, when I came to work, I saw a notice stuck on the lifts. It read...



hey.. do you know that we are 22 floors here, office lots.. full occupancy. What about another 20 floors of service apartments above the offices.

Grandma from Hell!

I have always thought that most if not all grandmas love and spoil their grandchildren until they are rotten to the core. Until I "met" this grandma across from my place.

Actually I have never met the grandma in person but I hear her voice almost every day, be it weekday or weekend. She hardly every talks in a normal tone of voice. She is perpetually screaming on the top of her lungs and the receiving end is a kid or kids. I know from the "conversations" that it is never an argument with adults as there is always only whimpering, sobbing or whining in between the screaming and shouting. Perpetually it is about "eating the meals too slowly", "fighting over toys", "not doing homework" or something or other. So, far.. it has been only verbal abuses and punishments. I don't think its physical. If I sense that physical punishments starts being meted out, I'll be the first one to call the police in.

At times, these verbal abuses starts getting at me too.. not only the little kids. Imagine on a weekend, when one is trying to relax and read the papers.... "HURRY UP AND TAKE YOUR BATH..... HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO TURN OFF THE TV....DON'T HIDE YOUR BROTHER'S TOY CAR.. BRING IT OUT ...NOW!!...". I feel like marching over and slap her silly.... just one of these days......

Actually after posting this, I want to check out some blogs and stumbled upon this very interesting blog by ShowdowFox. A bit long but very interesting...and it had made be conclude that the Grandma may not be from Hell after all.. just a Mental case :)

Hey.. What's your hurry??

Yesterday was not that a great a day for me... on the road that is. I think I've had this conversation before with a friend on the internet and we ended up pretty upset with each other. I was complaining about how irresponsible motor bikers were on the road, weaving in and out. He owns a car and also rides a bike and he was arguing that car drivers were worse. But what happened yesterday really proved me right :(

Morning jams are a norm anywhere in Kuala Lumpur and the bikers normally in their hurry to get to their destinations will weave in and out plus "eat" into the opposite side of the road. Yesterday morning, during the crawl to work, my car was stationery. Suddenly I heard a "bang" and felt my car jerk. Looked at the rear view mirror and saw this bike stuck between the right side of my car (boot area) and the car on my right. The bike's 2 side mirrors were caught and the biker's poor passenger behind him probably got jerked off his seat or maybe he jumped off seeing what a tight squeeze they were heading for. The cars were not moving, so we were not able to do anything to get him out of his tight predicament. Both the biker and his passenger had to pull the bike back to dislodge it and moved on their way, weaving in and out again once they passed my car. When I got to the office, checked my car, there was a very minor dent near the side :(

In the evening, the jam back is even worse and going back after 8pm or 9pm does not really make a difference in the inner city. I was driving along Jalan Tun Ismail. The traffic lights in front of me was green but as it was a yellow box in front of me, I waited for the car after the lights to move on before I proceeded. There was a policeman at the side of the road and I didn't want to be summoned for "standing" in the yellow box. As the car in front of me moved, I checked the traffic lights. Still green on my side. So, I moved and in a split second.. WHAM!!

Slammed on my brakes on reflex. A biker beating the red light hit me on my right front skirting. I saw his female "tudung" passenger slipping off the bike but managed to steady herself by gripping on his shirt. We were in the middle of traffic and I really didn't bother to stop to check the car as I know for sure the biker will not admit his fault or pay damages. True enough, the biker and his passenger rode off and I knew the policeman saw the incident but he didn't move a muscle. Nothing much he could do either.

When I got home, I checked my car...sob...money out of the pocket soon to repaint the skirting...

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How to Cross the Road Safely

Have you ever caught the advertisements on the radio lately on how to cross a road safely? As I listened to the advices, I wondered to myself, how applicable and "safe" are they? There have been several (I think) but there are two which I felt that I needed to comment on.

The first one talked about how suicidal it was to cross half a road first, stand in the middle of the 2-way road whilst waiting for the traffic to clear, before crossing to the other side. Yeah.. they mentioned that it was suicidal to do that. But wait a minute. Have they tried crossing Jalan P. Ramlee during a working day? There is no way you can make it across to the other side of the road in one "dash". Now, that would either be really suicidal or you can opt to stand there and wait until the cows came home just to cross to the other side for lunch. Sure, there is a set of traffic lights somewhere but this also takes blinking long to change for the pedestrians. It seems that this set of traffic lights has been designed to favor drivers on the road. With only 1 hour to eat lunch, do some banking (now that banks are not opened Saturdays) and a mite of shopping, no choice but to attempt to cross the road without the help of the (no help at all) set of traffic lights.

This is followed on by the next advertisement where a kid tells her dad (who apparently has poor vision) to stop looking left and right and left...but just take it easy and cross at the zebra-crossings. Buahaha.. now that is suicidal. Firstly.. are we really sure that our Malaysian drivers (most anyway) knows what is a zebra crossing, what it means and more importantly, whilst they are busy talking on their handphones or yakking with their passengers did see those stripes painted on the road. Then we also have plenty of selectively "vision-impaired" drivers who at times miss any lines drawn on our roads, be it a zebra-crossing, yellow boxes, bold yellow lines which denotes no parking and also yeah.. even double solid lines for strictly no overtaking. Then there are those (I am sure that there are plenty around) who chooses to rev their engines and to pick up speed just because they know that you intend to cross the road... zebra or no zebra....now that really sounds suicidal to me.

See, if one knew the mentality of our Malaysia Boleh drivers, there is really no safe way to cross our Malaysian roads. It is really and truly cross at your own risk. Too bad our KL infrastructure is so unlike Singapore... where one need never surface above ground level at Orchard Road... I think that is so neat :).

So, what is my safe way to crossing the roads? Me.... i follow a bunch of people crossing the road and I try to stand in the middle of the bunch....more buffer for me hahaha (kiasee)

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Why do you look like a Geek?

Why is it that when you attempt to take your own photo, either with a camera or a camera phone, you always turned out looking like a Geek.. or looking slightly better than Goofy? I asked my friend this question yesterday and the blardy idiot replied "Hey.. you look goofy what..even if you get the best photographer to take a shot of you". SMACK!



Honestly. I must admit the photo is much better (ok lah.. in my case.. slightly better) when someone else takes the photo. But I managed to solve the problem when I realized that if you had those 3G phones and you opt to use the secondary camera, at least you can position yourself a bit better before taking the shot. However, I think the pixel for the secondary camera is much much lower.. perhaps even in the range of 0.03 mega pixel or something like that..(actually I have no idea..just guessing).


So, when one of the HH (shhhhh.. HeadHunters) called the other day for me to send in a photo of myself, I decided to take a photo of myself ... by myself. Sent the photo over to him via MMS. 5 minutes later...he replied "Hey.. stop goofing around. This picture of Frankenstein's sister is you meh?"...:(

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Monkey Graveyard - Witch Hunting Now

Is cruelty a base nature of humans? I hope not. There was this article in the Malay Mail (MM) this morning which read "Monkey Graveyard". My immediate thought... "Was this Monkey Graveyard" a similar concept to what the Americans have for their pets... a Pet Cemetery? Until I read this "A group of monkeys huddle in fear at a corner of the container, clinging to each other, trembling at the sight of humans."

It is so very sad to read such articles which clearly shows the evil side of man or the "tidak apa" (couldn't care less attitude). It was reported in the Malay Mail that for many nights, the residents of Mont Kiara have been disturbed by screams coming from the forested area near their condominium and only with checking by the curious residents that the gory truth was discovered.

They found a metal trap with 18 monkeys trapped inside. Apparently some were already dead in this trap, due to starvation and dehydration. I would think that even with the kind residents and security guards trying to feed these trapped monkeys with food and water, if they are not let out soon, more will eventually end up dead.

It was also reported in the MM that this metal container bore the name of the Wildlife Department's name and telephone number. This could be their attempt to remove the monkeys from the posh residential area as they were proving to be a nuisance. However, there are better ways of handling the problem and if the intention was to trap the monkeys for relocation, then more efforts to follow-up on the exercise.

When the various departments were finally contacted and queried, that is when the Witch Hunt started. MM called it the "Blame Game".




‘We admit that we had requested for the trap as we had monkey problems in our compound, but we are not responsible for the monkeys that died in the trap. It is the department’s responsibility to take the monkeys away’ — Brian Withers, Mont Kiara Pines Management Corporation council chairman

‘The officers’ cell phone numbers were given to the management but we did not receive any calls from them. Our enforcement officers took out 21 monkeys from the trap. Those alive were sent to the Gombak forest reserve while the dead ones were sent for post-mortem — Siti Hawa Yatim, Federal Territory Wildlife and National Parks Department. Basically, The Federal Territory Wildlife and National Parks Department denied that it was their fault.

'IF you requested for a monkey trap to be placed in your housing area as a solution to end the nuisance monkeys cause in your area, then it is also your responsibility to inform the Wildlife Department as soon as a monkey is trapped.' Vice-president of Bukit Bandaraya residents’ association, K. Kanagaandram, made the statement to refute accusations by Mont Kiara Pines Management Corporation council chairman Brian Withers on Monday. He further went to thank the Wildlife Department for its excellent service in trapping more than 100 monkeys in the area the past year.

The Malay Mail reporter and representatives from the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had been denied entry into the compound where the trap was located until after the meeting. SPCA representatives took an injured monkey, which they found some 20m from the trap, which they deduced was suffering from heatstroke as well as head and tail injuries, to the Veterinary Services Department for treatment.


For details, please click here and here.

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When your Management Sucks big time!

I really have to get this off my chest so that I can enjoy my weekend without having irritating thoughts at the back of my mind.

This has everything to do with the management of the company that I am working in. The company started very many years ago and under the leadership of one man, the company has come a long way.. from a small group of individuals making up that company to a group of company with no less than 14 subsidiaries. We were all enjoying the good times until a couple of years when our group of companies was merged with another group of company. The man who led us to these great heights had to take a back seat after the merger.

That is when everything started to go downhill. The merged group of company is run by people who don't f**king (pardon me) know which end of our corporate ship is the front and they are practically running this ship to the ground.

It has been more than a year since the merger has concluded and more than half the original set of staff have left. And more are leaving and that includes some of my closest friends. And people are still leaving on an average of at least 2 a month.

It was raining pretty hard yesterday evening and one of my colleagues came over to chat with me just to wait out the traffic jam. She remarked "All those who have left have called her to ask her what she is waiting for...there is a better world outside waiting for her". I asked her "Are you happy to stay here?". Her reply was "I have been here for several years and of late, I have this feeling that the company is just waiting for the staff to resign. They load us with lots of work especially so as it is now the policy not to hire to replace staff who has resigned. I have worked longer hours and weekends handling at least 3 people's workload. When I get sick, not only am I not appreciated or encouraged to carry on, but I get reprimanded for not completing the work on time".

We both noticed that the situation has gotten to a stage where the only way to stay "well rewarded" here is to "tikam" people's back (back stabbing). As long as the staff is excellent at this and "tripods" the boss' balls (our “she” boss is known to have balls of steel), then that staff can virtually get away with anything.

I know my friends have left for very many reasons but the most common grounds for them to leave are:

1) Management has no direction. Each subsidiary has their bottom lines to meet and it does not matter what we sell or into whose territory we encroach .. as long as we make the numbers

2) We are left floundering with no leadership. The company is captained by a CEO who has no business acumen plus his henchwoman who drives the ship with pure accounting figures.

3) Our CEO has no charisma or presence. Most of our existing customers have no idea who he is. Our potential customers are not interested to know who he is. None of the financial analysts have seen or interviewed him. Without presence of the CEO, we as a group of company is virtually invisible on the corporate radar

I could go on and on.... but I think really, unless we practice what most public listed American run companies where the top people get axed when the corporation is floundering... this group of clowns are here to stay until we run aground or they are “pushing up daisies” (dead).

We concluded that there is only one solution left for my colleague and I..... to look for greener pastures and follow our ex-colleagues and friends to graze over the other side… where “ming tien ken how” - tomorrow will be better.

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Writer's Strike and it's impact on the faithful audiences :( like MUA!

"Johnny Depp movie hit by writer's strike" read the papers today. I was just having this conversation with JW yesterday regarding the possibility of not getting anymore of some of my favourite shows from DC by December if the strike by the Writers Guild of America is not settled soon. Christmas time will be reruns... what a horrible thought.

The Los Angeles Times published a list of shows that will be affected and I have extracted the partial list here which includes those which I like to watch. Surely at least one of them is your favourite too :(.




Daytime
"Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show" - DeGeneres has decided to go ahead with her show.

Late Nite
"Late Show with David Letterman" - In repeats
"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" - In repeats

ABC
"Desperate Housewives" - Nine out of 22 episodes completed; production shut down. (awwwwhhh)
"Grey's Anatomy" - Eleven out of 22 episodes completed. Production shut down.
"Ugly Betty" - Will have 13 out of 24 episodes completed.
"Boston Legal" - Will have 14 of 22 episodes completed.
"Lost" - Expected to have eight out of 16 episodes ready. Scheduled to air in February.
"Private Practice" - Will have 10 of 22 episodes completed.
"Brothers & Sisters" - Will have 12 episodes completed.

CBS
"CSI" - Will have 11 or 12 out of 22 episodes completed. (bwahhhhhh)
"CSI: Miami" - Will have 13 out of 24 episodes completed. (bwahhhhhh)
"CSI: NY" - Will have 13 or 14 out of 22 episodes completed. (bwahhhhhh)
"Criminal Minds" - Will have 11 or 12 of 22 episodes completed.

NBC
"Heroes" - Production has been shut down. Will have 11 of 24 episodes completed (double bwahhhhhh)
"Scrubs" - Expected to have 12 of 18 episodes completed.

CW
"Smallville" - Will have 12 to 14 of 22 episodes completed.
"Supernatural" - Will have 12 to 14 of 22 episodes completed. (bwahhhhhh)
"One Tree Hill" - Returning in mid-season; will have 12 out of 13 episodes completed.
"America's Next Top Model" - Season finale is scheduled for Dec. 12. An additional 13-episode run scheduled for early next year.

FOX
"24" - Will have eight or nine out of 24 episodes completed. Originally scheduled for January, now premiere is delayed.
"House" - Will have 13 of 22 episodes completed. (bwahhhhhh)
"Bones" - Will have 12 of 22 episodes completed.
"Prison Break" - Will have 13 out of 22 episodes completed.
"Kitchen Nighmares" - Finale is scheduled to air in December.

FX
"Nip/Tuck" - Will have 14 of 14 episodes completed. PHEW!!
"The Shield" - Production on the series finale is underway. No air date set.

For the detail list, click here.

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Cleric: Women's Sexy Clothing Distracting Muslim Men From Sleep, Prayers

I must have missed this as the article is not new at all. This was just sent to me by a friend via the MSN. I find it extremely farnee as only this person would even say such a thing.

Excerpt :

Malaysia’s Muslim men are suffering sleepless nights and cannot pray properly because their thoughts are distracted by a growing number of women who wear sexy clothes in public, a prominent cleric said.

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said he wanted to speak about the “emotional abuse” that men face because it is seldom discussed, the party reported on its Web site Wednesday.

“We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen,” Nik Abdul Aziz said. “Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed.”

For more, click here.

Anyway, have a great weekend and hope we can all sleep well with leaders of such calibre leading our country :D

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Things to do whilst waiting in a Traffic Jam :)

This morning's traffic was a bit bad despite many have taken off for the extended Deepavali holiday cheer. Must have been due to the rain. As I was looking around at the other drivers, wondering what they were doing, I spotted a lady doing her eye shadow and possibly her eyeliner. Wow.. that is quite a feat as doing eyeliners, one has to have pretty steady hands and any vibration will cause a possible Halloween look.

That set me wondering as to what other interesting things one can do whilst waiting in a Traffic Jam. I could only think of the some.

1) Read the papers or magazine or even a novel
2) Eat your breakfast (or lunch or dinner or just a snack, depending of the time you are caught in the jam)
3) Chat with a friend (using a hands free kit, of course)
4) SMS or MMS
5) Clip your fingernails (a bit difficult to do the toes though)
6) Clear your wallet, purse or handbag of all rubbish
7) Check your scheduler to see what meeting or appointment you'll be late for due the &#*W& jam
8) Listen to your radio, CD player or sing your most favourite songs really loud (only if you are alone unless you want your passengers to clobber you)
9) Have a dig at your ears, nose and/or teeth (yeeech)
10) When you run of ideas as to what to do, look around at the other drivers and see if they are doing anything more interesting than you.

Me.. I do some of the things above at some of the times when I am caught in traffic jams. But today, just to "up" that woman doing the makeup thingy, I took up my trusty little backscratcher, and scratched my back in ecstasy....ahhhhhhhhh

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Snatch Thieves

Not a day goes by without me having thoughts about looking for a better way to transport my worldly belongings safely with me. There will be at least one report everday of someone having had their belongingss snatched from them. Sometimes, the poor victim does not suffer only from the loss of the belongings but also her life as well. The situation has gone so bad that snatch thief victims are no longer women but men too.

It was reported in today's newspapers that the Nanyang Siang Pau crime editor (Chiew) has become the lastest victim of such a crime. His injuries are pretty bad from the report and when I read the article further, it was reported that the bag was slung around Chiew's body. I would gather it was not casually slung across the shoulder, where it would have been quite easily removed from the owner's grasp. Either the snatch thieves are becoming very desperate or they are getting more stupid. Don't they calculate the risks, the success and failure rates before they attempt to relieve their victim off their belongings.

Well, come to think of it, I had an ex-colleague who is a guy, about 5ft 8ins, weighs no less than 250lbs, had an idiot of a snatch thief making an attempt to grab his labtop bag. Mind you, that snatch thief was about 5ft 6ins, weighs no more than 140lbs. As expected, it was like a kind of tug and war thing for a couple of minutes.... with no prize for guessing who won. The snatch thief finally realized that he was not going to win this one, give up and ran off. The cheek of the man.. or the sheer stupidity. My ex-colleague could have just tripped, fell on to the thief and either suffocated the man or broke a few of his bones.

It looks like no bags are safe from being a potential target of these snatch thieves. It would also appear to be more dangerous if one attempted to sling the bag across one's body or wear it as a knapsack behind the back. I checked some websites with the hope of getting some ideas or availability of snatch-proof bags being sold in the market when I found these.



PacSafe City Safe 100 Secure Red Hand Bag with Exomesh Product Details
The CitySafe 100 is a secure and functional hand bag equipped with 4 anti-theft features and practical internal organization.

anti-theft features
- Tamperproof zipper
- Slashproof side and bottom panels
- Adjustable, slashproof wire-reinforced shoulder strap
- Snatchproof shoulder strap clips around a secure fixture




Security Neck Safe by PacSafe
Ideal for concealing your passport, money and credit cards in crowded places. This security neck pouch keeps valuables close, out of view, and protected from sneak-thieves and professional pickpockets.

Incorporated into the neck/shoulder strap is the patented Slash-Proof, adjustable, wire-reinforced strap, so it cannot be cut or broken. Comfortable and made with a breathable backing, the Pouchsafe neck pouch has a zippered compartment and two velcro sealed pockets for concealing valuables.

My friend JW has a great way of keeping her belongings safe. She wears tailor-made skirts with pockets. She will carry her mobile and keys in her hands and her purse will be in her skirt pockets. Well.. I suppose I can to... once I have gotten rid of my 3 sets of house keys, my diary, lip stick, lip balm, my loyalty cards and all the other stuff.. If only they allowed cargo pants to work, then I'd be fine. But until they do... sigh..

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