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The first thing I read today on Star Online was this: Apple has just launched two new products: Mac Mini and Ipod Shuffle! I went straight to the Apple site to check it out! First…the Mac Mini…positioned as the most affordable Mac ever (duh, at USD$499, it’s half the price of an iBook and almost one third the price of a 20 inch iMac G5!) Finally…a chance to own a slice of Mac heaven! And how about the Ipod shuffle? Unfortunately, it really doesn’t look at nice as the mini or the larger sized Ipod, but at USD$99, it’s pretty affordable…=)

Oh…and the reason for the title of my post for today…a bear committed suicide. Was at KLCC for lunch yesterday and when I walked past the concourse area…lo and behold….this horrible sight unfolded before my eyes. Tsk tsk…what will the children think?!? *grin* Really couldn’t resist taking a pic…after all, how often do you see a sight like this?!? Plus, the bear looked pretty happy….

Anyways, I had KFC for lunch yesterday…quite a big change from my usual eating habits as I usually try to stay away from fast food (with exception for McDs french fries - but the quality of the fries in M’sia is another subject altogether! However, to digress…McD has brought back their Twister fries for Chinese New Year. Not a big fan of their Prosperity burger, but totally love the Twister fries! Even better than the original ones…just thinking about it makes me hungry!!) but for some reason, something made me agree to eating KFC. Well…I regretted my decision as soon as I bit into the first piece of oily, fat laden chicken. I could only make it through 3/4 of a drumstick and some meat off a thigh and that was it. Felt like I had just drank a whole bottle of cooking oil. Yucks. Never again for a long long looooooooong time.

Watched Manhunt last night on Astro…hubby actually watched it with me! He said that if us girls can ogle other girls on America’s Next Top Model (season three has just ended in US), then he can definitely ogle hunks with pecs and buns of steel on Manhunt. Riiiight. Methinks he’s using it as an excuse to watch Carmen Electra and her bouncing boobs instead…*grin* Lots of pretty and a few un-pretty boys…the best part was when they were all told to strip to their undies and they had to put on a pair of Calvin Klein boxer shorts and line up in a row. And this former male model started sizing them up…like…”Your chest is too big, yours is too small, you have chicken legs…etc…”…what a laugh!! Plus, they had to skydive…in their boxer shorts! One of them was complaining how uncomfortable the harness felt…apparently it was squeezing his family jewels. Or something.

Today was a pretty good day. Managed to have my yummy BBQ pork rice for lunch! Dear hubby drove me all the way to Tengkat Tong Shin and then back to the office just so I could buy the rice…was a really good lunch indeed! Left office at 6.30pm, went to Cafe 1920 at Bangsar Village to buy dinner (Mushroom soup, Pomodoro & Basilico spaghetti and Black Forest cake! 2 slices!), did abit of grocery shopping (bought bananas…am going to try making the banana and honey bread this weekend) and booked my mani/pedi appointment for this Saturday. Also managed to buy my strawberry biscuits (pic will be up soon)…it’s one of those Japanese ones…really nice! Came back just in time to watch season 6 of The National Headache Foundation, I kid you not…), ie.:

Coughing, sneezing, laughing or bending over may cause this type of headache, most likely by increasing blood pressure in the veins in your head. The headache typically comes on suddenly and lasts for a few seconds to several minutes. The pain is often described as sharp or stabbing and is typically located on both sides of your head and at the back of your skull.

…just that mine is located at the left of my head only. It’s pretty scary, and I’m quite paranoid about these things. The other thing that all the websites had in common was to advise that anyone experiencing this sort of headache to see a doctor, and that a MRI scan may be necessary to rule out brain tumors, etc. (touchwood!)

So, to take advantage of our company’s medical scheme, will pop by the doctor’s clinic tomorrow and see what he says. Hopefully, it’s nothing serious and it’ll go away SOON. Maybe it was aggravated by my bout of flu and cough 2-3 weeks ago? Will hopefully find out tomorrow. No x-rays or scans please!

Or better still…maybe a good night’s sleep will cure all! fingers crossed!

To welcome our new colleague, K, to the department, our Big Boss (BB) took the whole group of us out for lunch. Now, as expected, lunch with the BB is quite scary cause you really don’t want to slip up if you get asked anything. But surprisingly, this lunch was pretty relaxed and BB was quite chatty, telling us about her plans for our team, and giving us an insight to her working style and her personality. And despite us having to give a synopsis of our personal interests (yes, it was a go round the table thing…), I quite enjoyed this lunch. And one thing BB mentioned during lunch that really stuck…you are loyal to the people you work for and the people you work with, not the organization. How true. It is my immediate boss and my colleagues that have kept me going in this job…it’s the camaraderie between our team that makes the job fun and makes waking up in the morning a tad bit easier. And it looks like this year will prove to be an interesting and challenging one…considering the task we have lying ahead…!!

A university friend of mine, L, just emailed me today! She has just set up her own website…am looking forward to browsing through it once I’ve finished this post.

OK…things on my to-write list today:

The Five People You Meet In Heaven….this book is a MUST READ. MUST! The writing style is simple, the story is simple…but it just touches the heart so deeply and when I finished the last page, I (truly, honestly) just sat there…thinking through the whole story and…just thinking. It’s not one of those long preachy stories. Again, a simply amazing book. I can’t review it without giving away the story, but here’s the review and synopsis from Amazon.com:

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie’s world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie’s birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie’s own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom’s telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It’s A Wonderful Life. –Patrick O’Kelley”

From the author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, a novel that explores the unexpected connections of our lives, and the idea that heaven is more than a place; it’s an answer.

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It’s a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie’s five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his “meaningless” life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: “Why was I here?”

If you haven’t picked up a book since the new year, this has really got to be your first book for 2005. Honest. 9.5/10. Easily.

An old school-mate, BY, stopped by our place last night to pass us his wedding card…and boy…this card takes the ‘most creative card’ award. Kudos to the couple for choosing such an unconventional card. Take a look:

Above: Step 1 - unfold it

Above: Step 2 - pop up the bride and groom!

Above: Step 3 - fold along the lines! Ta da! =)

The final episode for season one of The 4400 was aired over Astro last night (it’s actually a repeat) and as expected, it kinda leaves the viewers hanging…what are these people here for? Looks like we’ll all have to wait till season two…!

Also managed to catch the ending of the first episode of The Apprentice 2 on TV3 last night…was surprised that TV3 actually beat Astro to airing it!

Morning sky looked so nice that I couldn’t resist taking a few snaps before changing and rushing off to work. My whole body was aching though…thanks to yesterday morning’s yoga plus 60-odd balls at the driving range last night…yeee-ouch.

Above: KLCC at dawn…still covered by mist (mist and not smog, I hope!)

Above: the sunlight starting to filter through…

Oh yeah…resolved my yoga class problem. We dropped by at the yoga centre after work today and was told that the dateline has been extended to 31 March 2005 and if we can’t finish by then, we’ll be allowed to convert the remaining classes in to massage sessions. Furthermore, the classes are now one and a half hours (god help us!!) so we instead of about 17 one hour classes, we now only have to attend 11 one and half hour ones. Plus, the new studio is now offering Capoeira, so maybe I’ll get a chance to tick off one more item on my ‘to-learn’ list!

Anyways, we wandered around Plaza Damas searching for a place to eat after resolving the yoga class thingy and we stumbled across this little cafe called Bistretto. And I think hubby might have finally found his ice-cream place in KL (there was a really nice one in Ipoh, but it closed down…)! =) The cafe serves Italian food…spaghetti, pizza, Tiramisu, etc….but seeing ice-cream on the menu was truly a surprise! I tried the bruschetta, as usual….and the one served here was quite different. No fresh tomatoes and basil on top. Instead, it was more of a tomato paste-y thing. Didn’t look all too appetizing at first…but it tasted surprisingly good. The bread was well toasted, but not to the point of burnt charcoal and it was quite chewy. Not too bad! The ice-cream was great…good end to the meal! It was probably Walls or Nestle or something (I usually don’t take those cause it’s not creamy enough), but it went well with the chocolate sauce, bananas and peanuts. One scoop was more than enough for me but Eric had three!!!

A full stomach and eyes tearing from yawning too much….that about ends my first working day of the second week of 2005. Nites!

Finally managed to attend my first yoga class for year 2005! Unfortunately, our instructor will be leaving and today was his last class with us…=( Furthermore, we all received letters from the yoga class management that we are supposed to finish all outstanding classes by 28 February 2005. The thing is that we bought a package of 25 lessons and at the time of purchase, we asked and were told that there is no expiry date…which was the main reason why we bought 25 lessons at one go in the first place! Naturally, I was furious when I read the letter and when I checked the calendar, the only we could’ve finished 25 classes was if we attended one every Sunday which was impossible cause there would definitely be times when we won’t be able to go! So Eric and I were prepared to argue our case after the class today…but the lady running the place wasn’t there. Don’t like having unresolved ‘issues’…it’s very bothersome. Anyways, if they are adamant about not compensating us in some way, I’m going to publish the name of the shop here in big bold letters and discourage anyone from ever going there again….! Hmppph. So there.

The afternoon was spent finishing up Still Thinking Of You by Adele Parks. I found the characters pretty shallow, and the story just sorta like skimmed over the 8 characters without giving much details. Some characters were given rather fickle minds in the story and while it was an OK read, I don’t think I’ll be buying anymore books from this author in the near future.

I’ve just started on The Five People You Meet In Heaven, just the first 5 pages or so…looks pretty promising so far.

Chinese New Year is just around the corner…well, exactly one month away. And it’s the whole routine of reunion dinners and visiting relatives again. How absolutely dreary. Over the years, I’ve sadly come to dread Chinese New Year. I hate being dragged out of KL (especially when it’s so empty and quiet…no jams, no queues for movie tickets…!!), get stuck in never-ending traffic jams and super-hot weather, visiting and making small talk with people that I see only once a year….it’s only a short period but it feels like a decade filled with nothing by utter boredom. Given a choice, I would like to spend time with my parents….but only them and not with people that truly won’t miss me if I’m not there. And that’s the truth! Does it REALLY matter if I don’t go? I doubt my presence will be missed. I bet my parents was secretly glad when I got married cause the burden of hearing me whine about CNY was shifted to my dear (and suffering) hubby! Sigh. If not for my parents not being around during CNY when I was in uni, that would’ve easily been the best (three) Chinese New Year(s) that I’ve experienced! Sigh…and I can already imagine all the questions that will inevitably pop up:

“When are you planning to have kids?”. Oh, I’m pregnant with triplets now!

“Do you know how to cook? Do you cook for Eric?”. No I don’t and he cooks for me. Ha.

“Do you do the housework?”. Of course not. And dirty my hands?

Ha bloody ha.

Truly…all I want to do is stay at home and enjoy the public holiday and do what I want to do at home…eat, watch DVDs, surf net, sleep…in the comfort of my own home.

Anyways…moving on…

The wedding last night was fun…pics are up here! And the seating arrangement was just superb. Everyone on our table knew someone else on the same table. Genuis!

The weekend has just gone by so quickly. It’s already the second week of January, though it feels like it’s the middle of the year at work. Monday blues again tomorrow…I think I wouldn’t be so grumpy in the morning if work started at say…12 noon? Just in time for lunch too…goodie! Am really not a morning person. Or maybe I’m just not a work person. That’s probably it. Though the days when I’m sick and stuck at home, I find it so incredibly boring. One can only watch that many dvds. Speaking of which…am planning to get the whole set of Sex And The City…it really is a great show, one that you can watch over and over again without getting bored cause the characters are so interesting and the dialog is just absolutely witty! I also love hearing Carrie’s comments and observations and the way the screenwriters play with the words.

Have decided to give titles to all my posts….it’s just too boring with the dates and for the life of me, I can’t remember what I wrote on a particular date…so off I go and a happy speedy monday to all of you!

Just found out this morning that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have separated. Sob sob! They are my favourite Hollywood couple…am so disappointed! Are almost all hollywood marriages doomed to fail after a certain number of years?

Anyways…to fulfill my rant and rave for the day…I’ve given serious thought and came up with the following topic: Stupid VIP convoys. If there’s one thing that really ticks me off when I’m driving…it’s those extremely stupid VIP cars/convoys together with the police and their irritating siren. It’s ironic how a VIP that is probably not so very important can have the police to stop the traffic and clear a nice path for their car to go through, while an ambulance with a probably critically ill person has to fight it’s way through a traffic jam? Where’s the logic in that? Idiots. All of them. Every time I see a police barricading part of the road and then a car with tinted windows (I thought we weren’t allowed tinted window anymore?!?!?) zooming past, the first thought that comes to mind is to wish that their car will break down and whichever stupid person in the car will get stuck in the middle of nowhere for hours and hours and hours (preferably days!!!) and all the passing motorist will just laugh and jeer at them and not stop to help. Grrr.

Popped into Kino during lunch the other day….was so inspired by my resolution to start cooking/baking again that I went to search for more cookbooks! I ended up with the following three books:

1. Still Thinking Of You by Adele Parks
2. The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom (been on the top seller’s list for quite some time now, so thought I’d give it a try)
3. Ta Da! Jamie’s Dinners by Jamie Oliver (love him! love him!)

Oh, and I actually finished a new book a few days ago: Handbags and Gladrags by Maggie Alderson. Problem is I took it into the shower with me (nasty habit, not the right way to treat books, shower hogging….yes, I’ve heard all the comments and complaints!) and now it’s all crumpled and the cover’s peeling…haha…so it looks pretty awful in the photo. Anyways, I would rate it a 7.0/10. The story is something like a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada if Andrea did not quit her job….so you get to have a teeny weeny glimpse of how a senior fashion editor in a magazine works…the perks sound too good and unrealistic to be true at times, but it does have it’s down-to-earth moments. Overall, it’s a light and fun read. Back cover synopsis:

Emily Pointer would rather jog naked through Harvey Nichols’ beauty hall than be seen with last season’s handbag. A fashion stylist with Chic magazine, Emily is a natural blonde, an effortless size 10, travels the world for work and gets 30% discount in Orada. As far as she’s concerned, life is perfect. So surely a night of wild sex with a hunky Australian photographer during the fashion show season in Milan will be just another fabulous experience to add to the package? Instead, Emily starts to discover that life can be messy â??Ã?ì and the designer clothes in your closet can be squeezed out by the skeletons lurking in there too. From the bestselling author of Pants On Fire and a former magazine editor herself, comes the delicious tale of a woman who was kidding herself that another Birkin bag was all she needed to achieve fulfilment.

Been spending the past two days researching Mercedes’s new A-class. The car is so cute and compact looking (actually saw the real thing down in the basement car park the other day…really nice!) that it’s well on it’s way of joining my I-want-it-now list. Gorgeous!! I can imagine zipping around with it…will definitely drive a lot more if I have this car! Will also definitely have to eat bread and butter for the next…oh…10 to 20 years?

Finally picked up my memory card for my XPhoneII from Low Yat yesterday. The phone has been pretty good so far…battery life not too bad though I’ve been tinkering with it ever so often that it’s hard to properly measure the proper standby time, etc. Joystick is a bit fiddly…don’t know if it’s because I’m not used to it or it IS fiddly. Still trying to get use to the navigation…a slight problem cause there’s just so many things inside that you have to either remember what keys to press to reach a certain function and be very very patient. Anyways, on the way back, I happened to catch a glimpse of this really yucky yellow dress which was being displayed along the roadside. There was also a horrible (really!) black and pink cheongsam…was about to snap a picture of it but a car pulled up beside ours (we were actually at a junction waiting for the traffic light to turn green)…darn! Anyways…behold…(what’s with that swirly thing at the top and side of the dress?!?!??!)

Hubby’s out attending a friend’s church wedding at Concorde hotel…he’s actually one of the groomsmen….and we’ll be going for the dinner tonight. Hopefully will be able to get some good photos…=) Was actually suppose to join him this morning…but I really couldn’t drag myself out of bed…!

Surprisingly…today was a pretty quiet day. Roads were clear, no traffic jams, reached office on time…and there was actually parking spots on the 3rd floor of the basement! Hurrah!

Still…had a pretty heavy head at office this morning. Somehow, I couldn’t sleep last night and while hubby was sleeping peacefully like a baby next to me, I continued tossing and turning till about 2+ a.m. and while I was trying hard to count sheep…I started thinking of death. How morbid, right? But not surprising considering the recent events and news…anyways, it just popped into my head. But i wasn’t thinking of my own mortality. But that of the ones I love. And it just hit me right there and then….when you fall in love with someone - the type of love that is all encompassing and irrevocable - it rarely occurs to you that one day (touchwood a million zillion times)…you might have to face the rest of your life without him/her around. And there we have it…love and death. Part and parcel. And you know what? I don’t think I can face life without my parents, without Eric. I don’t think I have that strength in me to see the endless stretching future that contains only me, myself and I. And then I wonder if it’s better to quit this world first. As Grace Chow puts it in her blog, Dying Is, quote:

“…is how dying will be more difficult for the people around me than it’ll be for me. I, for starters, won’t need to cope with my death once I’m dead.”

And the quotation of “tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” came to mind last night. Is it really better to have known the soaring happiness of loving and being loved in return and later, pay the price by having to face the deep despair of losing your beloved…or to live life not ever knowing the extreme ups and downs of love but also being safe from knowing the pain of losing someone as well? And since I have chosen love without considering death…I was struck with a sudden fear of what I might have to face at the end of love’s journey while I laid there in bed, in the middle of the night. And it’s the type of fear that grips your heart, constricts your chest and causes tears to appear. And i quickly muttered a fervent prayer, one that I used to recite many many times as a child before sleeping….may god, whoever he or she is, keep the ones I love safe and sound. And somehow, that prayer was comforting enough for me to be able to drift off to sleep after that.

Still, the effect of thinking too much and sleeping too little last night flowed over to this morning and I was quite the grumpy bear. Not helped by the fact that a colleague totally ticked me off today. So I’m now listening to a couple of my favourite songs to cheer myself up, namely: The Way You Look Tonight by Michael Buble (though in my opinion, the best version is the one in the My Best Friend’s Wedding soundtrack), Someone To Watch Over Me, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, and A Love That Will Last by Renee Olstead. Comfort songs in place of comfort food.

It’s now 11.55 p.m….just about bedtime. Fingers crossed…let me fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow….