Cuti gembira

It is the end of the year again, and the top management decided to send us a holiday message.

They even made the effort to wish us "Happy Holidays" in our languages. But it seems that they relied too much on Google Translate.

I checked on Google Translate myself, and it really did translate "happy holidays" to "cuti gembira" in Malay.

I also found out that the one after Chinese is Hebrew (I think it is supposed to be read from right to left, because it was right-aligned on Google), and after that is Danish.

I met a ladybird!

I saw this cutie in Courts today.

We were wondering what it was. There was no label or price tag at all. (The sign on the table is for the, uh, table.)

After a while, we discovered that its head could be lifted up, transforming it into a small chair (a kiddie chair lah!)

Cute, right? I want one! Though I would probably need a bigger one - a much bigger one - to sit comfortably.

Inconsiderateness

This could be like a Part 2 to the previous post, as it also involves trying to get people's opinions on Facebook.

But not really. This is really a full-blown rant on inconsiderateness.

Not long ago we went out for a team lunch. (please note the word "team")

We went to Tao in Times Square for a buffet. The place doesn't really matter, but I guess it being a buffet may explain something. (or not, you decide) In case you didn't know, the Tao buffet is not a self-sevice, "take-what-you-want" buffet; it is an "order-what-you-want" buffet (though appetizers and desserts are in the "take-what-you-want" category).

Our table was a long one, with long benches on both sides. Like illustrated below. (I drew these pictures - there's another one further below - to ask my question on Facebook. I think you can guess the question: A or B?) There were seven of us.

Two had arrived first, so they were sitting at spots 3 and 7 when we (the second car) arrived. They were already eating because, hey, this is a buffet, who cares? They won't finish our food anyway, we can still order.

The problem was that I ended up being number 4. And the others decided to sit as illustrated in the option B. (they filled up the seats starting from the right, and I was the last to go into the seating area (it was like a cubby-hole compartment for our table))

I was like, what? Why are you so squeezed to that side when the three of you can spread out evenly and occupy the whole table? (like in option A. I guess it is pretty clear which option I would choose)

Seeing these guys so oblivious, I decided to say something. I said, "Why are you all sitting over there?" I even said, "I feel like I'm eating alone", while gesturing to the empty space in front of me.

And no one saw fit to move their seats. Instead, number 2 launched into an explanation of why they were sitting there: because the food would arrive there (my side was the window to the exterior) and by the time it reached my place the plate would be empty. A very good explanation indeed. As a joke, you mean! As if there would be no food left (which would have been a very nasty thing to do anyway, if they had decided to do it, which to their (tiny) credit they didn't), and as if spreading out the seats a bit would change anything. It's not like an additional person would sprout out and grab their food.

I didn't laugh at their "joke", by the way. I would have laughed if they had made the joke while moving seats. But since they had their butts stuck to those places, I did not laugh. And they found everything very normal.

The others usually speak to each other in Mandarin. I usually don't mind, I just ask if there is a word or something in there I didn't catch, and they would explain. But sometimes the conversation flows to too "deep" wordy topics, and I give up.

That day was no different, except that I gave up sooner. They were sitting, to all means and purposes, at the next table. They talked about stuff. They looked at someone's photos on a phone. I didn't care. I didn't try to catch the words. I was seething.

Of course, it was not in my best interests to sulk. It was in my best interests to enjoy the meal. And so I did. I ordered as I would normally do, I asked them to pass dishes as I would normally do. No problem. Just because you don't care about me doesn't mean I should care about you. Right?

I was just aware of a chasm that had just opened up. One that was already there, and which I knew about (because hey, when you are chatting over lunch and your topics don't really match, you know there is a gap), but which had been sort of enveloped in a misty shroud. And now it was like, wow, what a clear day, I can see everything clearly now.

And the irony is that it was a team lunch. How is this a team when you willingly push someone to one side? And just mock them when they object?

Yes, I was upset. Very much so. Once I played poker with some friends (they taught me how) and they said I didn't have a poker face at all, I was too easy to read. But in this case, I must have had the best poker face. Because no one seemed to notice that I was upset.

Or of course, maybe they did and just didn't care.

Number 1 and number 5 were facing the other side most of the time (like I said, it was like there was a table for six and a table for one), and besides the times they were passing food around, I think the only time someone actually spoke to me was number 5 asking me (several times), "You want anything else?"

Yup, I'm an eating machine. Thanks for giving me food. (I am actually sincere in this, I just feel that it is kind of telling. Like the only topic we have is food. Though maybe that is true.)

Anyway, to get to the "opinions on Facebook" part. I posted the picture above, and this picture below. And asked people:

What would be your seating arrangement, A or B? And if you don't mind typing a little more, maybe you could tell me why too. As usual, I'm asking for opinions, not one answer. Thanks in advance to those who reply.

This five-person seating actually happened before. It was at a food court and two of the round seats were missing. (you can see the empty space, I'm sure) I was number 4 (coincidentally the same number) at the time, and number 2 and number 3 had taken the places in option A. I remember feeling awkward that number 1 had no more choice but to sit at the far end of the table. But I couldn't move my seat (those seats were all bolted to the ground), so there was nothing to do. I didn't say anything then because I wasn't sure that all three of them didn't like the extra space from spreading out the three people.

And number 1 didn't say anything either. But at least he didn't sulk. I think.

I received fewer responses to this question. (don't ask me why) A grand total of TWO people replied.

L's answer is exactly my thoughts. (you might have figured that out already if you read this whole post) F's answer is suitable for herself. (that's why I wanted explanations, though I felt it was asking too much from some people) As for the last comment, F was the one who "liked" it, so I guess that means she's saying yes, it applies to both cases.

The most dangerous emoticon

Some time ago, I passed something to a friend. And he sent this to me on IM:

>_<

That looked like a pretty upset face to me, so I asked him, "Why so unhappy?"

And he said, that's not an unhappy face...

How is >_< a happy face??

I stared at that emoticon for a rather long time, but could not make it look happy however hard I tried.

I got home and asked WW. He pulled a face to show me. Supposedly it was a smile with the eyes crinkled up. Supposedly.

I was unconvinced. I mean, how could everyone understand that when I couldn't? So I tried asking on Facebook:

Question: What does this emoticon mean to you? >_<
a. a happy face
b. an unhappy face
c. an angry face
d. a just-ate-sour-thing face

Because a friend and I have different interpretations...

Okay, then I edited it because Facebook converted my symbols to its own emoticon. And then someone said the answer was not in the a/b/c/d choices that I put there, so I requested for other explanations too.

Didn't work so well, really. As I have ranted about before (on Facebook, not here):

I hate it when I ask a question to multiple people, then after one person replies all the others decide that they don't have to reply any more. I'm not talking about factual questions, I'm talking about questions that different people will have different answers to. 

So can someone enlighten me? Why??

Not much people enlightened me at the time. The replies were pretty much un-noteworthy, I didn't even save them for my own reference. No help at all.

For this emoticon question, at least I got better responses.

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see, I kept trying to remind people to give their own opinions, because they don't have to be the same as everyone else's. Didn't really work.

So it is officially a frustrated emoticon. My eyes aren't wrong! Though it is still dangerous to use it because some people think it is smiling. Imagine showing someone this frustrated face and having them think you are happy.

I really appreciated the answers from those who replied. Really. It's so hard to find answers.

In my bid to get some extra answers I even asked a couple more people on messenger. One replied, the other one didn't. Either she didn't feel like replying after one person had (like I said in my Facebook rant above), or she was busy.

Anyway, the one who replied said this:

from this it looks like eat something not nice, then got this face

or its like an expression of oh no~

where got smiling

the mouth didnt smile also

>.< or >_< both also not smiling

And I agree!

I would still steer clear of using this emoticon though.

Beating the odds

We had an early Christmas gift exchange yesterday. There were ten of us, and we picked slips of paper to determine whose present we would receive. Before picking a paper, the first person hesitated and asked, what if I pick my own name? We said, you'll just pick again! Besides, it won't happen, there are ten of us here, what are the chances? (ten percent, to be exact)

And... she picked her own name. What a lucky girl! :P

Of typos and names

Today we had a departmental meeting. For my new department.

This department is currently expanding, so there has been a number of new people joining it. Either from other departments like me, or newly hired. So there were two whole presentation slides with our photos and names.

My name was close to the bottom of one of the slides, and when I saw it I groaned inwardly. They had misspelled my name, giving me a totally different name by substituting the W for a Y. (they wrote only the given name, without the surname) They were calling out the names one by one and we were requested to stand up to show our faces when we were called. So as they went through the names, I debated whether to point out the mistake.

In the end I did point it out, by saying "uh, there's a typo". It is what we should do, right? After all, it was just a typo, which everyone is prone to do (but which is rather bad for a name, but then that's only my opinion!) Nothing too embarrassing.

But that incident made me recall another situation that happened almost a year ago. We were having our badminton gathering (after winning 3rd place in the Penang Companies' Badminton Tournament). Someone asked me to pass something, but called me using another person's name. I didn't point it out, but merely passed the thing over, because it was really obvious that she was referring to me! But someone else decided to ask me "Your name is XX meh?", turning the situation into an embarrassing one for me. Because you see, instead of picking on the person who had called the wrong name, they started picking on me for not pointing out the mistake.

Sigh... just when I was trying not to embarrass someone else...

What would you have done in these situations?



Not sure whether I've mentioned it before in passing, but the reason why I am joining another department is that my current department is moving the software section to the US. Hence this latest sketch:

That sort of says it all, doesn't it?

Of Microsoft Office and household chores

There is a Microsoft Office commercial now playing on the radio. It starts with the narrator saying to three different background noises: "This is me at work", "This is my mother doing household chores" (with the clink of crockery), and "This is my brother in class" (with loud music, for some reason I cannot understand).

And then he goes on to say that Microsoft Office is suitable for any occasion, referring to the three situations above.

But what use is Microsoft Office in doing household chores???

Either I am missing something, or this is one badly thought out commercial.

Cities of the world

The latest quiz. Not much to say about this one. There were quite a number of cities I had never heard of. Still, a mixture of eliminations and guesses got me through with quite a good score.

Sick

I'm sick of people thinking that badminton is the cure-all for everything. People telling me that it's okay to eat anything and everything just because I play badminton. People telling me that I can do a marathon just because I play badminton. Wake up! If badminton were such a miracle, everyone would be playing it. And there would be no more sick people in the world.

I sure wish it were the cure-all you guys say it to be. But unfortunately, it isn't. The proof is my lousy health. Yeah, I've got more health problems than you can see on the surface. But you don't care. All you care about is getting me to do things that YOU have an interest in. Not caring whether I have an interest in it or not.

D Mana Lagi? Di Sungai Tiram

Two weeks ago, I discovered a delicious char kuey teow quite by accident. Here is how it happened.

I planned to go to Giant to buy some groceries after work. There is a food court and a nasi kandar shop in the same building (not to mention fast food like KFC and Pizza Hut), so I planned to have dinner there before buying my stuff. But on the way there, I happened to pass a row of Malay food stalls at Sungai Tiram, and on a whim, I decided to pay these stalls a visit and try some food there.

(I actually really like the Malay-style curry mee (not every time, but the better ones are really nice), and I was actually hoping to find it there. Unfortunately there was no stall selling curry mee, so instead I settled for char kuey teow.)

I was a bit disappointed by the char kuey teow when it arrived, because the portion was rather small for four ringgit. And it looked more like a fusion of char kuey teow and char hor fun (it came swimming in gravy, you see). However, from my first bite I was pleasantly surprised by the taste. Delicious! The first time, the dish came with two prawns and two tiny kerang. But today (my second visit) there were two (slightly larger) prawns and four fat kerang! Why? Has it been a good season for kerang or was he just happy that I was a repeat customer? (Wikipedia just told me that kerang are cockles in English. Oh....so that's what cockles are. Seriously, I never made the connection. I just knew that cockles were a kind of shellfish.)

Here's a blurry look at the dish (because the plate is rather tiny (it was an oval-shaped plate), the photo had to be more close-up and turned out burry :( ).

See what I meant about the gravy?

I really liked the signboard on the stall too. I took a photo of it on my first visit, but didn't take a photo of the char kuey teow, because like I said, it looked disappointing. So the photo above is of the larger prawn version (the other prawn is hidden under the noodles).

Sedap bagitau kawan-kawan, tak sedap bagitau kami

I did bagitau kawan-kawan (by posting on Facebook), but I don't think anyone took notice. There is a general dislike of Malay food amongst non-Malays in Penang. Which is unfortunate, since I like Malay food (about as much as other food - hey, as long as it's good...). I mean, they will eat the food, but they won't go looking for it. And that is probably why I haven't found my curry mee. (also because Penang is kinda a Malay-minority place)

Opposite these food stalls there is a Malay-majority mini-supermarket (it's a supermarket because it's got about everything, but it is really tiny for a supermarket...). So on both visits I just went over to the supermarket to buy some things after dinner. (and skipped the trip to Giant). The store (yep, that's a better description for it) is called Longwan, and it has got branches all over Kedah, it seems (the branches are printed on their plastic bags). Kinda like Tunas Manja in Kuantan, I guess. A local supermarket.

Western and local specials

I have posted some photos of food from the Innoplex cafeteria before (bombs and fake rojak).

Here are a couple more.

charcoal burger

The charcoal burger looked good, but didn't taste as good as it looked. To be fair, the buns were good, but unfortunately the bottom one was soaked with gravy so it no longer had that "crunch" to it. Oh, and the chicken was more skin/batter than meat. Again, unfortunate. It came with some coleslaw (hidden behing the burger in the photo) which was pretty good. The fries, on the other hand, were crispy but hard (if you get what I mean... the best fries are those crispy on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside).

How much was it? RM7.50? RM8.50? Something like that. Not really worth it because of the lack of actual meat. But it was a huge portion... I regretted eating the bottom bun because it didn't taste good after having soaked all the gravy (it was more like charcoal mush). Instead I left the fries on my plate (just ate a few).

nasi rendang tok

This nasi rendang was today's special! Now this one was good. Really good, in fact. There are two pieces of chicken, making a whole leg, a beansprout side dish and two pieces of omelette with onion and long beans (or french beans, I can't tell).

I wasn't planning on taking meat today, but this one looked so tempting, I just had to try it. There was a plate on display, but it wasn't wrapped in cling wrap like the usual display plates, so at first I thought it was for us to take. But when I moved to take it, the nasi hujan panas guy said, "No, this one is for taking photos only. After taking photos, we throw it away." I wasn't sure whether he was joking...

There was too much rice so I left about a third of it on my plate. If I order it again, I'd better ask for less rice...

Oh, and the price for this one? RM5. Definitely worth it.

Hello Kitty in a car

How often do you see Hello Kitty holding an ice-cream cone? And sitting in a child seat?

Well, there's one near my place.

I took this photo some time ago. At the time I parked my car outside, and I passed this same car every day when walking to or from my car. I finally decided to snap a photo. Not sure whether it is still there now...

The day I requested volunteers

Over the weekend, I did some baking and brought some of the "results" to work. It is the norm for people in my department to send out collective e-mails inviting people to come and take some of the food or snacks that they have brought. Since I didn't have enough for everyone, I decided to write a slightly different e-mail.

For the title, I put "Calling for volunteers..." instead of the usual "[food name] at [location]". (You see, there are several people who have already offered to be in my QA (quality assurance) department)

I made sure to clear up any doubts in the body of the message:

For the taste test of a new product called latticed jam fingers. :)

Location: L3-W045 (software section)

While stocks last!

This certainly weeded out those who have a fear of volunteering and who do not read their e-mails! :P But by far the best are Citra and Swee Hak who came to volunteer without even knowing what they were volunteering for. They came over and asked, "You were looking for volunteers?" :D

Attending Hogwarts

I signed up on J.K. Rowling's post-Harry-Potter-books website, Pottermore recently. All because I wanted to read some of the new stuff she has written.

Besides going through the "books" (in quotation marks because they are actually some interactive scenes from the books, and not the whole story), we can "attend" Hogwarts by getting a wand and a pet, and then get sorted into one of the houses.

It seems that Ollivander has gone high-tech; he has come up with an automatic test to determine your wand. Here's what I got:

Vine with unicorn core, ten inches, slightly yielding

And in Hogwarts, I got sorted into Hufflepuff!

Good, badgers are good. As opposed to lions or eagles or snakes, I'd definitely like a cute furry badger. :P

How well do you know the Harry Potter characters?

I just took another quiz similar to one that I posted before. This time it was on Harry Potter last names.

If you want, you can try the quiz here before continuing on to the rest of the post.

I got a score of 37/42, giving me 88% correct.

However, that isn't really true because I didn't get Quirinus Quirrel (I had never heard of Quirinus before - not that I remembered, anyway*). But at first I thought we could only answer the questions in order, so I decided to cheat and search up that one, and just deduct it from my score later. Then I bumped into Amycus and couldn't answer it either. Not wanting to cheat a second time (and also thinking it strange that they would block us that way), I tried typing the answer to another question. And it worked! *sigh* How silly of me not to have tried it earlier.

I couldn't recall Pomona Sprout, though I know I have heard a professor being called Pomona before. Cuthbert and Wilhelmina stumped me completely, like Quirinus.

But, Lily Potter? I feel so cheated... I kept trying to recall Harry's mother's maiden name, but I never thought of putting Potter! (her name was Lily Evans) Or maybe they meant Harry's daughter, but that would make me feel cheated too; she is such a minor spin-off character!

So I guess my actual score is 36 out of 42, giving me 85.7%. Not bad, but I did think I could do better!

*Note: After some research, I confirmed that Quirrell's first name is not mentioned in the books. It was mentioned in a trading card game and on J.K. Rowling's site Pottermore. Can't really confirm for Professors Binns and Grubbly-Plank, though.

Welcome to our Pokemon Center!

Remember how I said that the koalas would be there for a long time? Well, they were... for the whole month that they were entitled to.

Past that deadline, I pulled out my "happy family" (previously hiding in a cupboard because there were still some things unfixed on my cubicle) and decided to draw them a home.

It didn't go so well behind the scenes, though. I had a red marker pen that I had gotten from the stationery person some time ago (we only had black and blue ones before that). For this occasion, I wanted to use the red for the Pokeballs. The first one came out fine, but for the second one my first attempt was a little skewed. So I rubbed it off to try again. Or tried to. Because it wouldn't come off!

That was when I discovered that I had just been using a permanent marker.

I didn't think of taking this photo until I had rubbed off the second "skewed" Pokeball.

I went off to get some dishwashing liquid to wipe off the ink with a tissue (someone had recently brought a bottle of dishwashing liquid to the pantry). It wasn't until halfway to the pantry that I remembered my no-water-needed liquid soap. No matter, I tried the dishwashing liquid first. And then the liquid soap... it worked better.

And so I cleaned up my mess and borrowed a red marker from a nearby whiteboard to finish the drawing.

Now that the "happy family" is out here, suddenly someone came by and said they would fix our cubicles this Saturday. So I thought, does that mean the family had better leave for vacation this Friday?

But I forgot all about that before I left the office today, so too bad, the family will have to fend for themselves this weekend.

Here is a closer view of the Jigglypuff I made. I had printed it out quite a long time back, but made it only recently, maybe two weeks earlier?

And this was where they lived before the Pokemon Center was built.

(The Totoro is the one who was involved in the earlier case.)

Nasi hujan panas

Today I decided to try the western food in our cafeteria. Lamb chop, to be exact. I had seen other people ordering it a few times, and it looked really appetizing. So today when there was no queue at the stall, I went and ordered myself a lamb chop.

As they were grilling my lamb, I looked at the other stalls (there were less people around at that time) and I saw "today's special" on a whiteboard: nasi hujan panas.

Now I think I've heard of nasi hujan panas before, but I didn't know what it actually was.

So I asked the guy who was standing there, "Apa tu nasi hujan panas?" (What is nasi hujan panas?)

Not sure whether this guy didn't speak Malay or what, but he gestured to another guy who came over to see what I wanted. (actually he did the same thing earlier when I wanted to order, and it was the second guy who took my order)

So I asked the second guy, "Apa tu nasi hujan panas?"

He told me it had sold out (it was quite a late hour for lunch, around 12:45pm), but then showed me the nasi, which was some light-yellowish rice with specks of colour. (an online search told me that it was actually the same thing as nasi minyak, but with some colouring for the rice) When I asked whether it came with chicken (just a guess, but which is usually right for these kinds of rice), he said yes, it comes with chicken and *something else* (that I didn't catch). Probably the sauce.

After that he said again that it had sold out. So I said, it's okay, I'll try it another time.

Then he said, "Ooh, susah lo... ini bukan hari-hari ada punya... kena ada hujan, ada panas, baru boleh buat... macam semalam hujan, hari ni panas, baru ada." (It rained quite heavily yesterday, causing a massive traffic jam when we left work. :s )

Haha... that made my day! I just laughed and said, okay, next time after it rains, I will come and see!

As for the lamb chop, it was not bad but not quite tender enough. A bit hard to chew at parts. The sauce (mild black pepper) was good though, and so was the coleslaw that came with it. Considering the price (8 ringgit), I guess I shouldn't complain. It pales in comparison to the hujan panas joke though!

And I also just found out that to make nasi hujan panas, they cook the rice until it's done, then immediately poke "wells" in the rice to add the colouring and let it seep in before mixing the cooked rice. I always thought that the rice had to be separated and coloured before being mixed in. You can check out this recipe if you want to know more.

Hakka food in Cheras

To wrap up the posts on the KL trip (see the two previous posts), here are some dishes from a Hakka restaurant in Cheras. We went there specially for their claypot lamb brisket. Not that the other dishes were in any way inferior...actually all the dishes we ordered are the house specialties.

steamed fish (can't remember the name of the fish)

stir-fried long beans and brinjal

claypot lamb brisket

claypot vinegar pig trotter

It was all very yummy :D

In case you want to pay the restaurant a visit, here's the name card.

French crullers

I don't know where I first heard of French crullers, but I never knew what they looked like.

Until I saw them in a donut shop in 1Utama. The shop was called Mister Donut.

We bought two, because there was a buy 1 free 1 promotion (on the crullers only). There were a few types; some had the chocolate frosting (like above) and some only had sprinkled sugar on top. There were even more kinds of "normal" doughnuts.

But all in all, the crullers were rather disappointing... they looked really good but they tasted more like stale puffy bread. Not sure whether it was because we didn't eat them on the spot... but then, what use are doughnuts that can't keep for a few hours?

Of candy and Pokemon

Two weeks ago, I was in KL for a few days. We stayed near Petaling Street, and went there to buy the famous (and highly expensive) muar chee.

When we were there, we happened to see someone selling this candy:

ting ting candy

Ever heard of it? It's a traditional candy, but this was my first time trying it. Very sweet! :)

And then we came across this:

So cute!! ♥

I wanted to buy it, but the seller wouldn't reduce the price enough for me. (the cloth was rather thin, so it didn't seem worth paying too much for)

On the subject of Pokemon, I saw these Nanoblocks in a supermarket:

Pikachu and Eevee

Bulbasaur and Squirtle

These were also too expensive, or else I would have bought one :P

Today's special

Last Thursday, there was something new on the "Today's Special" menu. I was wondering what it was when another person ordered it, and after taking a look at the dish I decided to give it a try.

It looks like rojak, doesn't it? Everyone around me said that the sauce looks like rojak sauce. There are even crushed peanuts sprinkled on top, completing the "rojak" look. The actual name (written on the menu) is "mee sotong Sabah style". The noodles are spaghetti, and there are fish cake, fish balls and squid under all that sauce too.

As for the taste, it was slightly similar but not exactly the same as rojak sauce. It was rather spicy, too; after a while I kinda regretted mixing in almost all the sauce. But overall the taste was only so-so. It wouldn't be my choice again unless if I got tired of everything else the canteen has to offer (which is quite likely; what is unlikely is that this would be on the menu again on the same day!).

Actually two of my colleagues were also looking at it, but they decided against ordering it. How about you? Would you order it if you saw it on the menu, picture included?

Lync traffic light

In the office, we use Microsoft Lync for instant messaging. Lync uses these three basic colours for the different statuses:
Green for available
Yellow for away
Red for busy

The other day I had three conversations open with three different people. And I happened to see a traffic light.

Albeit an upside-down one.

And if you use Windows 7, you'll know that when your cursor hovers on one of the taskbar items, a small preview window will come up for each of the open windows of that item. For Lync conversation windows, there's no actual preview; instead there is - another traffic light, in my case.

This time a horizontal one.

Of manners and legs

This is something I've really got to blog about. Because it is really such a good idea. Ever heard of manner legs? I hadn't until a friend posted this on Facebook:

According to this article, it is a Korean thing. (though maybe they just coined the term) But at first I thought this was done in everyday life, whereas from the article it seems that they only do this for photos or filming. Which means that it may not really be due to good manners, but only due to the director's orders, for a better photo/scene. Hmm...

But then again, my friend did mention that her boss did this... in real life. So I guess all hope is not lost.

Now to wait for the people around me to catch on to this trend...

How many Pokemon types can you name?

If you're a Pokemon fan and want to try the quiz first, click here.

I'm pretty well-versed in Pokemon. The first generation, at least. I played Pokemon Blue/Red (can't remember whether I played one or both) and Yellow, then played Gold/Silver followed by Crystal. Starting from Gold/Silver, there were lots of Pokemon I didn't know, and even though they were in the game, I kinda forgot them later. The first generation (Blue/Red/Yellow), on the other hand, I knew very well... I could recognise and name any of the 151 Pokemon at any time. (well, nowadays I still can recognise them, but I'm not sure whether I can still recall every name... it may take some time)

So I thought I could at least name all the original Pokemon types, even if I missed some of the newer ones. I thought wrong.

Darn, I missed one of the original types! (ice type)

I almost missed bug as well... I thought of it close to the end. I don't mind missing the steel and fairy types, because they are new (I actually knew of the dark and steel types, but I had never heard of fairy, it came too late)

We have two minutes to get all the types. Once you type out a correct answer, it appears in the list, so you know immediately if you've got it right.

Oh well, I'm no longer a Pokemon Master. A retired one, maybe...

Pony vs zebra

Talking about slips of the mind (see previous post), there was a really funny one on Running Man (episode 168).

(Running Man is a Korean variety show that I wrote about before)

In this episode, they were in a museum which had a lot of stuffed animals (I don't mean plush ones, but actual taxidermied ones) on display, and the mission was to find something wrong with the picture (the producers placed some everyday things on some of the displayed animals). After discovering the answer, the participants had to run to grab a mike and then they would be allowed to answer.

For one of the items, Gary (one of the members) managed to get the mike first. His answer was: The pony had a brush on its head. Wrong! He was shocked, and kept asking, why is it wrong?

Then IU (a guest) grabbed the mike and answered: The zebra had a brush on its head. As soon as Gary heard the word "zebra", he went "Aaahh!" Yep, it was a zebra, very clearly so.

That was one of the funniest moments on the show, because Gary's face had a truly bewildered expression on it! After that he tried to argue: "But don't we also call it a pony?" Well, the answer is still no.

Coming soon to a cinema near you... in 3D!

Well, not really. But doesn't it look interesting? Even the "poster" has 3D koalas. :P

Here is the story of the koalas' journey.

On our last day in Cyberplex, I saw a few koalas at a cubicle near us. They had been there for longer than I had, and their owner had already left (the current occupants of the cubicle were also newer than the koalas). Rather than to leave them behind (alone and defenceless!), I decided to "rescue" them to our new office. But since we didn't immediately move to our actual cubicle in Innoplex, I brought them home first.

After we actually moved to our actual cubicle, there were still some odds and ends to be fixed (there still are, actually; they are really treating us (us, aka Accessory Software) very badly, but that is a rant for another time), so I didn't want to bring them there yet. I was planning to wait till everything was fixed properly, but since it is still not done (it has been what, four months?), last week I finally decided to just bring them to their new home anyway.

koalas exploring their new home

Remember my last post on the whiteboard sketches?

The "movie poster" above is one of them. The two rows of coins at the bottom were hard to draw... my wrist hurt at the end (and that's probably why the coins got bigger and bigger too :P )

Here are the ones I did in between the last post and this one.

At one time we hadn't all moved to our actual place yet (as mentioned above, we had to use other cubicles when we first moved in, because our own ones were not ready yet). Several people thought that the unoccupied spaces were free, and that led me to draw out this occupancy/reservation chart.

Almost a month after drawing that, I realised that I didn't have an idea for a new drawing. While thinking about it, this idea popped into my mind (time bomb, anyone?) so I decided to draw it.

The next idea came after hearing a lot of stereotyping around me. I'm not sure whether I've blogged about it before, but I hate stereotypes.

Stereotypes stink!

I liked the idea of the drawing (and I still like it), but after drawing it I didn't like to see it. I'm not a fan of shit (not the swearword, not the actual thing, and not even the soft toy - I have no idea why they want to make a plush toy of shit :s ) And also, it was in direct view of my cubicle-mate, and I wasn't sure that he liked it either.

So I came up with the koala heist idea soon after that. I like the new one because it's cute, so it'll probably stay there for the full month. I will be sad to erase it...

By the way, my koala thieves got themselves an apprentice:

baby koala wants to learn from its brothers

My colleague had a koala too, and he decided to put it with its "brothers". (his words, not mine)

Oh, and there's another anecdote: When the little brother was just joining in, another colleague passed by and asked, "Can anyone join or only pandas are allowed?" I said that anyone could, but pointed out that these were not pandas. He was probably still thinking about it when another guy pointed out to him, "These are koalas". Then he went "Oh!" Haha... the slip of the mind lasts longer than a slip of the tongue.

Teambuilding at Pantai Merdeka

Note: Sorry that there are practically no photos; more details at the bottom of the post.


Date: 18th June 2014
Time: 10am
Location: Pantai Merdeka, Kedah

On this beautiful sunny day, the Accessory team set off from Penang to Pantai Merdeka where the teambuilding activities would be held. Date? Check.

As the clock ticked closer to 10am, more and more cars arrived at Pantai Merdeka. But at 10am, as everyone gathered with their respective teammates, we realised that there were some people still missing. Time? Not so successful.

The five teams had been set up a week before the actual teambuilding date. As a pre-activity, each team had to come up with a game to play, ideally a game that they had a good chance of winning. They would then prepare the materials/equipment to set up the game on the actual day.

The first game scheduled for that day was the Red Team's. Unfortunately, the person holding the game materials had not yet arrived, so instead of sitting around and waiting, the Green Team was asked to start their game first.

Green Team's game: Obstacle course relay

Participants must cross different types of obstacles till the final line.The team flag is used as a baton.

Obstacle 1: One member of the team has to walk on evenly spaced reflexology mats (each "mat" is a square foot of plastic with pebble-shaped contours on it) to reach their teammate at the 2nd obstacle.

Obstacle 2: One member of the team has to place a biscuit on their forehead, and then successfully bite the biscuit without using their hands. They have to start over again if the biscuit falls to the ground.

Obstacle 3: Four-legged race - Three members of the team have to tie their legs together and then walk (or run) to the end of the path.

Obstacle 4: One member of the team has to drink a bottle of Vitagen and throw the empty bottle into a rubbish bin placed a few metres away. If they fail, they have to drink another bottle and try again. Each team has up to five bottles to try with; if they still fail, the team will incur a 3-minute penalty.

Obstacle 5: One member of the team has to place their forehead on a cone (a construction cone) and turn around it 10 times. After that, they have to pass the baton to their teammate a distance away.

Obstacle 6: Two members of the team have to do the wheelbarrow race, ie. one person holds the legs of the other, and both advance together with the one whose legs are being held using his hands to walk.

Obstacle 7: One member of the team has to kick a football 10 times in the air. If the ball falls to the ground, they have to restart the count from zero. Once the ten times are done, the time is stopped.

The team with the fastest time wins!

As expected, the Green Team won their game as a result of their hard training sessions before coming to the teambuilding.

After that, it was the turn of the Blue Team to set up their game.

Blue Team's game: Cross the river

Each team has two pieces of cardboard with which they have to get from the starting line to the finishing line. If the feet of any member of the team touches the ground, the whole team has to start all over from the beginning.

Each team should have nine members, so members of the committee helped to fill in for the missing (late) members.

The team with the fastest time wins!

In this game, there were two different strategies used by the five teams. Most teams packed all their members onto a piece of cardboard and then moved the other piece of cardboard forward. The Red Team and the White Team, however decided to send half of their members ahead first, then have one member come back and get the remaining members.

However, strategies aside, every team except the Green Team ended up touching the ground at some point and needed to restart from the beginning. Even the Blue Team fell despite their having a chance to practice. As a result, the Green Team wins again!

The second game over, certain members of the Red, White, and Yellow Teams were still nowhere to be seen. These five people were coming in the same car (from this point onwards referred to as the Lost Car) and were carrying the materials needed for their team's games. Suddenly, we got the news: They had arrived at Pantai Merdeka! The only problem: It was the wrong Pantai Merdeka. Instead of setting their GPS navigator to "Pantai Merdeka Resort" as instructed by our transport coordinator, they had set it to Pantai Merdeka and ended up on the beach opposite ours. Location? Fail!

No matter, it was time for lunch! The committee had already started the fire for the barbecue while the second game was being played. As we waited for the occupants of the Lost Car to figure out how to get to our location, it was time to dig into the food.

It turns out that we should have started the barbecue earlier. For not long after we had started eating, the five people from the Lost Car appeared in a motorboat on the horizon, heading towards our beach at full speed. Who knew that the smell of barbecue was the only thing that was needed to point out the way? (just kidding)

Proof: I am not joking about the boat!

After lunch, since the all-important Lost Car cargo had arrived, the other games could proceed without a hitch.

Red Team's game: Perfect distance

Each team is given a case of needles, a reel of thread, and a block of sponge. Each team has to thread ten needles and position them on the sponge block, with each needle exactly 20mm away from the previous one. The rule is that no ruler (or mobile app with a ruler) may be used.

The distance between the needles will be measured with a caliper (because we are engineers!). The team with the average distance closest to 20mm, wins! (In case of a draw, the faster team to complete will win)

This time, it was the Red Team that won their own game. Despite taking the longest time to finish, they had the best precision in the end.

White Team's game: The egg cage

With only a limited number of straws, cellophane tape, and scissors, each team has to construct a cage for a raw egg. Each team is given 2 eggs so that they can test out their cage if they wish to. The cages will then be subjected to a four-foot drop, and the egg inside should not break.

Rule: The teams are not allowed to apply cellophane tape directly onto the eggshell, so that we can see if the egg is broken. Similarly, we must be able to see the raw egg in its cage, otherwise we will not be able to check whether it is broken.

The initial rules involved gaining points for surviving the four-foot drop. However, during the judging session, all the eggs survived extremely well, and the committee (and players) had to improvise and find better ways to test the cages.

We started off with a six-foot drop instead of a four-foot drop (because the committee ruled that Motorola products are designed to perform better than their specification). This was followed by drops from progressively higher levels, and when that still failed to determine a winner, we switched to crush tests. Instead of dropping the egg cage onto the ground, the egg cage was placed on the ground and progressively bigger rocks were dropped onto it.

In the end, the Red Team's egg surprised everyone by surviving the longest, even though its cage had taken the least time to complete.

Yellow Team's game: The bomb grid

The goal is to start from one end of a 5×6 grid and reach the other end. The members of each team has to take turns making a step. Each step can be taken forwards or sideways. If you land on a bomb, you have to start over from the beginning. If you land on a puzzle, you can continue if you manage to solve the puzzle. But if you fail to solve the puzzle, you have to start over from the beginning.

Among the puzzles were tossing a coin into a cup several feet away, a "win, lose, or draw" game, and cutting a piece of paper into the shape shown in a picture. There were time limits for the games; if you can't complete the puzzle in the allotted time, you fail the puzzle and have to start the game from the beginning.

The Yellow Team ended up winning their own game.

After that we had a bonus game designed by the committee members. We had to solve a highly complicated equation. But given that we are engineers, we overcame the impossible (please play Mission Impossible theme in your head while reading this) and managed to solve the equation, with the White Team being the quickest.

(The equation was something like [? + (?-?)] / ? = ? (not sure whether I got it right, and I'm too lazy to verify) And we had to replace all the ? with the numbers from 1 through 5 (no repetitions))

There was also a prize for the best game, voted by the committee. The Green Team's game was chosen for its fun factor and fair play.

After a closing speech by the department head and the committee, we cleaned up the area and had tea before heading back home.


As promised at the beginning of the post, here's a short explanation. I wanted to write this immediately after the teambuilding (and I did), but I didn't post it because I was keeping it to be published in the Accessory department's newsletter first. (don't want to give a sneak preview away, you see) But when the newsletter kept getting delayed, I decided to post it anyway. But I didn't take any photos that day, and as I have mentioned before, it is a pain getting photos from people who don't really want to give them away, so here you have a photo-less post. The photos of the boat were actually sent out by my manager, but since he sent out that compiled picture instead of the originals, I don't have any zoomed-in views either.

When Facebook helps more than Google

Recently I heard a song on the radio while I was driving. I caught some of the lyrics, and decided to look up what seemed to be the title ("belle of the ball") when I got home. Unfortunately, even though I found several songs with that title, none of them was the song I was looking for. I then typed in extra lyrics from the song (aka "sweet September" and "cold December"), but found nothing.

I thought I wouldn't hear the song again (Lite FM sometimes plays old songs once and then you just don't hear them again), but then I did...just one or two days later. I wrote down more of the lyrics and then searched again. Still no result. In desperation (I really like the song!) I posted the lyrics on Facebook and asked whether anyone knew it.

Miracle of miracles, I received a reply in less than an hour. The song is called Belle of the Ball, like I thought, and it is sung (written and sung, actually) by Juwita Suwito (I had never heard of her previously).

So here it is, so that you can enjoy it too.



 

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Quite some time ago (more than a year, at least) I printed it out some tearable puns and put it up at my office (IQ Group then).

This photo is not from the first location, but from the third... read on.
(Original image is at the end of the post)

I placed it at a common area, a place where practically everyone walked past. A lot of people read it, but no one tore any of the puns away. After some time I took it down. It seemed a waste to throw it away, so I kept it... and brought it home with me when I left IQ.

At Motorola it was some time before I put it up again... next to my cubicle this time. But the location wasn't really ideal... the path was narrow and it was hard to read the puns because they were at waist level. I left it there for some time before moving it into my cubicle ("into", as in in front of me, for my own use instead of for others). Because, you see, no one took any puns away either.

When we moved office, I kept the paper again. This time the paper had actually gotten a bit crumpled, because like I said, the pathway was narrow and when some people passed, they accidentally brushed the paper. At that time, I already knew that we were moving, and that we would be sitting with our department (as opposed to sitting with software people from other departments), so I decided I would keep and re-use it one last time.

And that photo above is the paper in its third (and supposedly final) location. A week has passed since I put it up, but again no one has taken any puns. (I guess everyone is being kind and generous and wants to let others read them) So I guess I will leave it there for a while more... and then it will be time to throw it into the recycle bin. (By the way, after seeing a few people tilt their head/body to read the puns, I turned the paper 90 degrees. Some parts of it would still need some tilting, but at least it's less...)


Edit: Following a comment that the puns above are unreadable, here is the original image that I printed out (rotated for easier reading):

A couple of food discoveries

Our new office (though it's not so new any more) has a roti canai stall in the cafeteria. Besides the usual roti canai variants (roti bawang, roti telur, etc) they also have murtabak (which is huge, and which I have tried before but I'm not going to write about here) and a few other "specialties" like roti john and the dish I will tell you about below.

I usually just order the normal roti canai, which is already pretty good. But then the other day a friend ordered a "set" with four mini roti bom (or roti boom). It looked really good, so another friend and I decided to try it another day. Which we did:

Each "bomb" is half of a normal roti canai. And like roti bom, it is filled with butter, which makes it very oily, and condensed milk (instead of sugar like I'm used to), which makes it very sweet! And the outside is super-crispy (while still hot), which makes it delicious :D

We were watching the person preparing it, and instead of folding the roti dough into a square (like normal roti bom) after putting the butter and condensed milk, what he did was to cut it into half lengthwise, then roughly roll it up into a "rope", then roughly (again) "coil" the "rope" (a lot of quote marks because I don't know what to call these things) onto the cooking surface. The roti puffs up quite a lot while it is cooking, then slowly goes flat after being placed onto the plate.

I wonder whether this kind of "coin bomb" is being sold anywhere else. Since I usually just order normal roti canai, I never even look at the menu... next time I should take a look.


On to the second dish.

A few days ago I read about a kuey teow thng place in Georgetown (Lebuh Melayu, at the end close to Carnavon Street; the shop is called 113). Actually the best kuey teow thng place in Penang to me up to now is the 7th street (Cecil Street) market. This one is pretty good, but still can't beat the Cecil Street one. But they have add-ons, like this plate of "a little bit of everything":

In the article, they mentioned the duck meat and duck intestines (the intestines have a slight crunch, not sure whether duck intestines always have that texture or whether it is due to the preparation method). But when we arrived there, we saw that they had duck gizzards, duck wings, and duck feet, amongst others. So we ordered a mix of everything. This plate had duck meat, duck intestines, duck gizzards, pig intestines, and beansprouts. (I don't think I left anything out) They also had a lot of braised stuff (pork legs, pork intestines, eggs, ...) but since there were only two of us, we decided not to order too much.

I wouldn't say that the taste of this dish is particularly special, but since we don't find this stuff very easily, it is nice to have once in a while. :)

(No photo of the kuey teow thng, because it didn't look that special anyway :P But you can see more photos on this blog. )

Lady Luck visiting

Yesterday Motorola held the official opening of our new building, Innoplex. At the same time, it was also the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Motorola Penang.

This is a sticker they included in our door gift (though there was no door). The door gift itself contained small snacks and for some, a lucky draw ticket.

They had caterers from Eden to provide food; there was a canopy under which a row of stalls were set up, with briyani, char kuey teow, apom, pandan chicken/nuggets/wantan/squid balls, burger, ais kacang, and also a vegetarian food area. They also set up a lot of tables for you to sit down and eat, but of course there wasn't enough seats for everyone... so we had to play our own game of "musical" chairs, sitting down to eat while others went to get their next round of food.

At another area they had ice cream and popcorn. There were also caricature booths, photo booths, face-painting booths, ... stuff that I wasn't interested in (this only applies for this last sentence; the ice-cream and popcorn I was interested in! lol ), though the caricatures were very popular among other people. They also had musical performances and a discotheque...but again I wasn't interested. :P

And then there were the games. Basically the games are short ones that involve something like throwing hoops, balls, etc and getting points. If you get more than a certain number of points, you get a stamp on your "fun card".

The map seems to be a little wrong...I think they changed some of the locations after printing it.

The other side of the card, where you get your stamps. (this one is filled up, as you can see)

Actually the games were not easy...a lot of luck was involved (since I have no skill in throwing things). I did manage to get a stamp by pure luck once (we needed to throw a hoop to go over a red nail, and I nailed it - pun intended - on the first out of three throws), but that was about it. After that I had failure after failure... and then we received a tip that this game was easy:

Catch the Owls - my game!

For this game, we have to shoot a dart gun and hit three owls (the yellow ones are chickens, by the way). Of course, everyone aimed at the bottom right because that was the only area that had two owls together. We had four darts for each attempt.

Even though they said it was so easy, I managed to fail on the first try (Hey! It takes skill to fail! :P ). As all guns do, the dart gun also had a recoil when it was fired. And so my first two shots landed too high (on the chicken). Even though I had lost, I tried shooting the other two darts and managed to figure out how to shoot it properly. And that is why I said that it was my game... after that I had 100% accuracy and didn't even need four darts to win the game. :D

If not mistaken, I actually played this game six times (including the first one where I lost). We kept playing and then going back to the end of the queue to wait for our next turn. Because you see, the goal was this, in exchange for eight stamps:

In case you're wondering, it's a pen drive, and the design is a Motorola radio (walkie-talkie).

(This wasn't the only choice to redeem for eight stamps, we could also choose a power bank or to enter a lucky draw for an iPad mini. But knowing my luck, I decided I would rather get a pen drive than take my chances. There were also other gifts to redeem for four stamps and six stamps.)

Back to the owl game. The thing is, at the beginning we needed to shoot three owls to win. During our second try, they had lowered the requirement to two owls for "Happy Hour". (both my friend and I had managed only two owls on our first try, so we went "Why didn't they start the happy hour earlier!" And then on our third try, they had started the "Happy Happy Hour", meaning that if we could shoot two owls, we would get two stamps instead of only one. Later it increased to three stamps (which really helped us fill up our cards more quickly), and even later in the night, it had gone up to five stamps. I think they were trying to make sure all the gifts were given out. I guess it worked, because in the end, the prize booth was closed even though some people wanted to redeem gifts! (and that is why I had one card with eight stamps left over)

Now I said I didn't want to rely on my luck for the eight-stamp lucky draw (a lot of people did, though; the lucky draw line was always longer than the gift redemption line). Initially I had even decided that I would probably leave early, once I had gotten my pen drive (that was my only goal for the night). But in the end we ended up playing the games until they closed, so we decided to wait the few minutes until the lucky draw.

Which was lucky, because... I suddenly won the 8th prize. :O

A 32-inch LED TV

And that's my luck for you. I'm not sure whether it will happen again, but I'm sure not going to count on it. I'm still in a daze over this win... still can't understand how it happened.