Combo! Super Combo! Bingbangbing Combo!

i am so lazy nowadays.

i need another two sales to go to move on from this cushy pay per hour to an even more cushier pay starting June. and i only have another two working days in May to do so.

cannot wait for Sin City!!!

littlesis has absolutely nothing to do at home, so most of the time she tapes tv shows for me (closet Eastenders junkie: oh the shame) and surfs the Net. she found this game on Yahoo called Dynomite. at first i scoffed. hey, don't we have that already on PS2, i said? albeit a different name but the groundwork is the same (to those who are familiar with PS2 games it's called Super Bust A Move). and she said, yeah, but this is more fun.

and she was right. in between them playing online poker way into the late hours of the night, i skoosh along and park my butt on the seat and start playing as well. Dynomite rocks! there's something quite disturbing shooting eggs that hang and wiggle and hearing them smash when we hit them... Combo! Super Combo! Crustaceus Combo! and another few combos (Biskut calls them every name on earth but the right ones everytime he watches me play) to DYNOMITE Combo! bang.... cue lightning and a you get a big bomb instead of the standard egg to whack the eggs. sometimes you get to whack an annoying flying dinosaur hell-bent on adding another colored-egg on to the maze, oh what fun. and sometimes if you're quick enough you can also smash a shaking egg and a baby dino falls out, earning you even more points. it's so freakingly addictive, i can't tear myself away from the PC on time for the past 2weeks to get to work on time. and we fight over control of the mouse.

the best level I've got to so far is becoming a Horned Lizard.

think I have too much time on my hands nowadays.

back then...

hey, i just realised my blog's backdrop/background/wallpaper/wotever has the same colors and patterns as Biskut's skanky ass boxers. the one that i always pinch, that's why they're skanky. hahahahaaa. subliminal message? or play on memory? wotever.

"wotever" brings me straight back to 1996. that was the year i found Clueless. alicia silverstone and her weird pouty mouth, that guy from scrubs (dijon sumthing? no that's mustard), Paul Rudd (one of my pin-ups) .... and brittany murphy: looking so bad back then. me and bigsis used to use 'wotever' to drive each other crazy. and only one other girl back home knew about clueless so we'd be using catchphrases from the movie in school, and didn't make sense to the rest of the world. making us the ultimate of cool, back then. i emphasise the time period: back then.

summer of 2000: ze Epong came rushedly into the living room where we staying then in Manchester asking us to look carefully at one of the music videos on the idiot box. was it for wheatus? or for sum41? or those guys who re-released michael jackson's smooth criminal? i can't remember... but there was brittany murphy a.k.a tai from aforementioned movie: slimmed down, ultra-hot, sexy chick.

how on earth did she manage that? well obviously she shed all the puppy fat and tamed her wild hair. and got a fashion sense all on, or, of her own. the costumes in Clueless were bad anyway. now she's chiselled and sorta punk rock like gwen stefani, and everybody wants to be her best friend.

i'll update later on my recent trips down memory lane. and before anybody asks, no, it didn't all just come back to me from the blue. all in good time, people. all in good time.

wicked day

today is friday the 13th. are we supposed to be extra careful today? what about normal fridays, or other 13ths? for me, i will proceed with caution as normal and remember to check my zipper before i leave the house.

have volunteered to do 40hours extra this month in exchange for 200pounds worth of vouchers. which most likely will be received in September when the sales are done and dusted. ah well. more weekly income hopefully, meaning more presents for people back home when littlesis goes soon. (did i give away the date she's leaving? hope not. i'd be roasted and toasted otherwise).

haven't wrote anything for the past few days as am busy (hah!) with other stuff, uni work, meetings, work in general, sightseeing... the works. am in trouble with dear lecturer as have not met him as scheduled. i cannot think of a suitable excuse anymore... does this mean my brain is finally mushing now?

beautiful sunshine for the last couple of days here in Edinburgh. wish everyone was here so we can have a huge BBQ in the meadows like we used to do. those were the days.... the carefree, guilt-free, fat-free days skipping and hopping about here and there and everywhere.

back to now: need to be ready to leave for yet another day in the steel three-storey cage i call my HQ

| currently wearing manky old pjs from 2002 and bigsis' treasured white flimsy top |

the joys of Bank Holiday Monday

Biskut has the day off today. yeay! today, we're planning to watch a movie at Omni but we still haven't decided on which. i can't believe it that it's may 2005 already and we still haven't been to the cinema at all this year. it's not like there's nothing good to watch (well actually that's true, nothing this year so far is worth us forking out at least £12 for the pleasure) but we have become so unbelievably busy with our schedules and work commitments (hah!) that possibly today is the first day in 2005 that we get to do so.

that is if Biskut and little sis wakes up in the next hour.

there's so much to do actually today. we need to shop for food, shop for shampoo, shop for little sis' suit, shop for jeans, eat, have fun, drink and be merry. and that's only items on the 'to do' and 'be merry' list. more serious stuff have been put aside, as they always are, as i cannot bring myself to do them until there's literally only sixty seconds left on the clock and you see a mad dash of me whirling about finalising bits and pieces. you should know by now that i am a professional procrastinator. yup, i'd be paid a fortune if people did this as a living.

last night there were some fireworks shooting off not too far from our flat. according to missA back home in Malaysia, it's pagan time yet again. pity little sis as it's her third time here and she still missed out on the whole extravaganza. tee hee.... better luck in 2006 (we both know she'll be back here. again.)

ah well. must stop here as the sun is shining and i want to start shopping. till the evening comes, in the words made eternally famous by Cilla Black, taraaa for now:

lazy afternoon

Biskut went to work at 10.48am today leaving me and littlesis scrabbling for the warm duvet. both of us didn't sleep at all, maybe we're still in Malaysia's time zone, but who are we kidding? she's been here since January and the last time I've been back home was a year and some extra days ago. surely the jet lag's worn off by now. who can fight temptations of the mighty mighty duvet? i salute you.

am skiving since last week when i was supposed to hand in two 5,000 words papers on Mon 25th. on possibly the two most far apart subjects from one another you can expect to find on planet Earth. yes, yes. i am exaggerating. and yet the 'materials essay.doc' template is still empty save for the references (i always do them first. makes it look better.) so far i have another 3,000 words to go, and i'm ready to slit my wrists now, my back feels like it's been ten rounds with Tyson/Lennox/both, and my eyes are starting to see weird images on the screen. how i miss sahak and his calming ways.
today's Labor Day in Malaysia if i haven't mentioned it yet. so happy skiving for all my working friends and family. tomorrow is a Bank holiday for UK and Scotland, and i remember loving them so much as you get a lot of them in the year (meant that i got more time off from college/uni back then, like i didn't bunk off school greatly already.) Tuesday is Babah's 60th. putting it in writing makes it so much alive, real. happy birthday to the funniest dad ever... funny in only the A H clan understands how.

woke up at exactly 52mins after Biskut left again for work (he came back for an hour's break at 3.30) and started on the dishes that's been there for two days. also gave myself a good hard wake up call with ice cold water (it's always ice cold in Edin, since i can remember) and did another round of laundry. the cupboard's empty, all we have is some rice, some crushed chillies, two eggs, two packet loads of glutinous rice, a piece of shrivelled garlic, and a box full of herbs and spices. can't even do my famous 'Nasi Ayam hainan' (chicken rice) because we don't have any chicken.

It's Sunday evening and the buses are slow and sparse...

silly people

i guess if you've never worked in customer service, you would never know the joys of communication and interaction it allows you to participate in everyday of your career. it's an absolute joy to have experienced and take part in.

i lie.

being at the HQ for almost a year now i've lost count of how many people find it acceptable to shout down the telephone, purposely waking up as early as 8am (that's when the lines open) on a Saturday morning, and proceed to wait in line for up to 15minutes for that elusive once in a lifetime grab it while you can moment of being able to rant and moan and bitch and shout and scream at another human being as appropriate behind the strong shield of the telephone. maybe all the years of obediently forming a queue for everything has snapped the British public's patience.

my afternoon after a lousy lunch (no surprises there at the HQ, sometimes they don't try as hard anymore) was interrupted by a call from a calm gentleman at first, but soon flew into a screaming rage and spitting blood as the call progressed. i sat there listening for an attentive 8mins (my stats are shot every Saturday because everybody calls at the weekend since they have more time to blether).

this guy didn't want to give us his name, and has tried many times before, waiting for a tired agent to finally give up and just give him what he wants. honourably he does want a good thing, which is to pay off his bill for a certain period. now the pickle lies in the name used for the account. as it's not his name we can't divulge how much he needs to pay, and he wants to pay so bad but can't as he doesn't want to give us his name. so he's been shot backwards and forwards in the game some agents call "ping pong for the uninitiated". at least that's what i think they call it.

this morning alone he's been transferred, pushed, prodded and bounced from one office to another when all he wants to do is pay his bill. now i've had people in the past who wanted pay their bills but the name doesn't match theirs. as long as they know how much it is they're paying for then we won't have any problems to process the payment. this guy not only doesn't know how much he's supposed to pay but he's asking for a separate bill to be sent out in the name of the occupier. now it strikes me everytime somebody calls and does this because when they first moved in to the property it's just a phone call away to sort stuff out properly for the future. when people have stuff to hide, and try to worm their way out later, that's when all the fun begins...

so now this guy is extremely angry, effing and blinding here, sometimes interrupting his own thinking processes to answer his mobile/the door/his barking dog in the background when clearly he won't get anywhere. he starts to say that if we took him to court he would win as he was trying to pay in the first place, and the only reason why we need to know his blessed name is so we can earn commission from it. bloody valencia oranges now i'm starting to think that i've got Elton John on the phone. the answer is still the same: no, i'm sorry sir, but i can't do that.

8minutes passed, my team is listening in, i'm doodling silly faces on my papers.. and he ends the call by saying that he doesn't want our service anyway and we won't hear from him anymore as he'll ignore the bills. all this, on a lovely Saturday afternoon, where the sun is shining outside and undoubtedly where he is he'd benefit from a picnic in the gardens or something to that effect. and still he can't get the bill he wants so bad.

lucky us!

unlucky for him, I know where he lives.

that's always the one cardinal rule people forget when calling the HQ.

Yesterday

woke up early Saturday morning for another stoopid day at the HQ. things to do list: number one: take a cold shower so my eyes would be popping out so fresh. things to do list: number one: undone.

what is it with beds that lure you deeper into the furrows and folds of a cosy, warm duvet, makes you hit the snooze button ten times after it first woke you and however uncomfortable the position you're sleeping it's just ten times better than the prospect of getting up? i have a set routine on Saturday mornings. that is to wake up as late as possible, jump into the shower and dress in the space of 30minutes to get the bus to work (an hour too long journey that just makes you weep for your bed again). this routine has been shot to pieces since little sis came to visit in January. i'm bunking off work these days like it's my own company... luckily for me i have a superb (and slightly absent-minded) boss. every little helps. it's the b*st*rd from the other team that gets me going.

take for instance, today. i'd call in to say i would be late (on purpose, but they didn't have to know that, furthermore i always always make a point of calling in as they require). my boss didn't answer so all calls went straight to his voicemail. i was strolling along albeit not leisurely, 2minutes to go before my start time into the designated plateau when the b*st*rd was making an act of looking at his watch and shaking his head. now he has always found a way to try and talk to me, i say talk, but it's more like intentional verbal battering.

it went like this:

"you're late."

"i've called to say i'd be late (you fat b*st*rd)."

"when? who? i never got your call." (almost shouting at this point. he can't speak civilly.)

"i called S's line. i left a message (nosy bloody parker that you are.)"

"well, he's not in. you should've called me. or anybody else. and you can't just leave a message if you're late. you need to speak to me. "

i know that he thinks he's God so i decided to challenge him (that's what you do with God all the time, don't you? only you know God's more forgiving than a p*ick like this guy.)

"well i didn't know that.. (i do but it's fun to feign ignorance) no S never said he won't be in.. no, he never told me to call you, why would i have your number? why should i call you? anyway i'm here now."

all this in view of both the teams on the plateau AND a manager from the other side of the building.

this p*g of a guy is only 23 years old. and his attitude stinks already. plus he's short, fat and wears glasses. should you automatically feel sorry for him? no way. it so doesn't help that all the other team managers are twice as old. just makes him puff his chest out more. rumors are flying about that at the last office awards he had his entire team nominate him for best TM. twice. he won by default as none of the other teams bothered to fill in the bloody form.

so yeah, you can say i'm pissed off. my saturday was more or less the same as every other saturday since i've been here. and i can't believe it's a year now since i started at this hellhole! got home at seven, shot and drained as per, and hit my long-lost lover (albeit only lost for this morning) for a deep cleansing sleep. at 8.30pm.

hence me typing now accompanied with the chirping birds and an empty street outside. and i wanted to talk about a screaming guy i had on the phone instead, but that'll have to wait till the next sixty seconds i'm allowed.