Greeting cards, past and present

I was browsing through a rack of Raya cards at the supermarket earlier. It has been ages since I actually gave out Raya cards, or Chinese New Year cards for that matter. Nowadays the wishes are mostly digital. A few years back I found a couple of funny Raya cards and bought them to give to friends. Another time, I sent out a few Chinese New Year cards, just for the sake of sending something (after all, I never know what to write in letters these days, when you can keep up on your friends' latest news more quickly online).

Anyway, seeing some cards with "Untuk sahabat" (for a friend) written on them brought back memories of when I used to buy stacks of cards in primary school, to give to just about every one of my classmates. After that, I also saw "Untuk Cikgu" (for Teacher) cards. Also something I used to buy.

I guess, in a way, we're helping the environment these days by not sending so many greeting cards. On the other hand, all the electricity we are using in its place may not be helping Mother Nature that much either. :P

Widening the market

This morning I saw a bread stall selling a pack of six buns...with free butter and sugar in the pack! The butter and sugar were in small transparent plastic containers...similar to the ones MAS uses to pack its ikan bilis for nasi lemak (if they still use the same these days... the last time I saw that was so long ago :P )

Pretty smart sales strategy, actually. I mean, if I didn't have any butter at home, that might increase the chances of my buying those buns!

I didn't buy that though. I bought something else. :P

Kuih serabai

I bought some roti jala yesterday, and that stall also had "serabai" written on its menu (technically it was not a menu, but the back of half of a polysterene box :P ) I asked the seller, what is serabai? She replied that it was sold out. I guess she didn't know how to describe it...

I didn't think of searching for it last night... but it just came back to me. Better late than never, right? :P

So I found this: kuih serabai.

"Ia popular di negeri Kedah, Melaka dan Sabah." (It is popular in Kedah, Melaka and Sabah.)

That's a number of disjointed states...but probably explains why I haven't seen it before. Not found on the East Coast, huh?

Turns out that it's made of rice flour, santan and eggs (plus some other ingredients). It sounds, and from the photo on Wikipedia, looks a bit like the Indian apom to me. Except that this has some sweet sauce to go with it. I will give it a try next time if there's any left!

The curve

I've always disliked it when people disregard the minority. They would make decisions that suit themselves, and conveniently "forget" that a few people in the group might not find it so convenient. Worse, when that fact is pointed out to them, they would say, "Oh, but it's just a few people..."

NO, that's not the way it works! The majority does not constitute the whole. Of course, sometimes you need to make decisions in a big group, and you can't please anyone. But the way to do that is not to exclude a few people "by default", just because it suits you! (okay, maybe you can guess that there was a situation that triggered this, but I don't really want to put the details here)

To cut a long story short, here is the result of that thought. I don't think it's very clear... I highly doubt that anyone would understand the message just by looking at the picture. Maybe I should have written the words "majority" and "whole" on it... but I was afraid I might later have to tell off someone using those exact words and the whole "origin of the drawing" would be revealed. (now that just makes it sound mysterious. lol)

Anyway... I didn't like the above drawing very much. So when I got a new idea, I decided to replace it immediately. I present you... the curve!

More accurately, the lunchmate curve.

Explanation needed? I used to have lunch with all my teammates. Then one left, and then another...one by one my former lunchmates deserted me. *sniff* Haha... it is not that sad, okay? (the number of drops in the curve is not exactly accurate; it is just to give a general idea) In this time, I had moved to a new team (all of us had; because of the company's internal re-organisation), and had also found a few other lunchmates.

Then the curve drops to an all-time low in the present day, because one of my current lunchmates is Muslim and is fasting for a month. Which also explains the prevision. Hehe.

By the way, to anyone who says "It's just a few people...", I have this to say to them: I hope that one day you will find yourself in the minority, and that no one cares about you. 

That would give them a taste of their own medicine.

Of bird thieves and cat murderers

I witnessed a thief making an escape at the market this morning.

Initially I saw a crow flying in the market. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Then I noticed that it had a fish in its beak!

Later I went for badminton... and this time I saw two kittens lying at the roadside. They looked a little like they were sleeping... until you notice that their bodies seem a little too thin. Probably crushed by some heavy vehicle. We keep seeing this in Penang! :(

Minor accident

There was an accident just outside my housing area. A minor one, I believe... I saw the car there only after the incident.

Looks like the car is just parked there...

...but no. Not really.

The car went straight at a T-junction... in a direction where it should not have gone straight. What else? *bang!*

Suka Hati U

I asked WW to put a few songs on a thumb drive for me. I told him to create a new folder for it. When he asked me what he should name the folder, I said, "suka hati you" (whatever you like). He went, "Okay, I will name it 'suka hati you'". I said, "Fine!"

That was some time ago... and I didn't copy the songs to my computer till now. I had forgotten that incident, so it gave me a good laugh to see the name of the folder. :D

Drive's Ass

What came to mind when you saw the title of this post? And what if I told you it was an occupation?

I saw this on the back of a lorry. There was a banner with "Vacancy" written on it, and a few jobs listed underneath. The first was "Clerk", and the second was "Drive's Ass".

I couldn't figure out what that meant. But the banner was also written in Chinese, and my mother was sitting beside me at the time, so I asked her to read it for me. It was night and we were in a moving car (not to mention that the lorry was moving too), so it took a while...but in the end she managed to read it. Turned out it was supposed to be "driver's assistant". After that, I did notice that there was a dot after the "Ass". :P