broody

I miss Sahak.

I am missing him even more now that a second or maybe third generation of the cencorot he caught has now been spotted running a mini-sprint in the tv room.

I am missing him more now especially when I see that Whiskas ad on tv where the full-bellied moggie jumps on the sofa to catch a wink or ten on his daddy's snoring belly.

I miss him so much that I wake up asking for him. (ye ke? Biskut tipu.)

don't even get me started on the discovery channel feature showing two tiger cubs being separated temporarily from Mommy tiger for their 3 month jabs and electronic tagging session. however garang they seem... you can't deny they're oh-so-cute!!!

can i use broody for this longing for a pet cat? and there you were thinking a mini-Biskut or a mini-Sh was on the way.

popular

wasting yet more of my borrowed time online, hopping here there and everywhere, and got to know so many trivia in the process. found AFDLIN SHAUKI has a blog as well--woohoo!

Sultan Brunei has remarried a TV3 presenter who is the same age as me. googled her name and found her on a list of people wanting personalised number plates in Malaysia.

from here I also found out that my (desired) number, RM5, is getting quite near on the list. kakUmi did say I'd had to wait a bit for it to come up (I asked her to book me the number in 2003). the only downside is that as 5 is a single number, it is deemed as a nombor bernilai utama (high value number). so the deposit I need to pay should I so desire to have it on my car would be RM2,000 (around or about £300). that's worth a small Gucci bag, or that Nokia I so covet.... or again, a lifetime supply of socks for Biskut bought at Poundstretchers.

I also found out that my dad's plates are both classified as popular numbers. good on him, it only cost him RM200, which I think he didn't even have to pay back then when he got the cars.

all this when I have about 20,000 words to write for a deadline on Monday.

waaarrggh!

Dear Sir/Madam:

I have now moved on to another department in the HQ as of last Wednesday. it was all very hush hush, last minute and sorta dodgy and I can't believe a lot of people do not feel the same way about this arrangement. I am kinda dreading the day that they turn around and say to us "please collect your belongings and make your way to the front door where we will proceed to kick you hard out on to the turf and don't bother to come back. ever." Ilyas has been reassuring me that this cannot happen so easily as we are now one year into our employment, there are new procedures to be followed (like giving us a month's notice in advance and then sorting out the severance/holiday/maintenance/grievance pay as well) and like all the other big companies, the HQ isn't really prepared to do so. yet.

our contracts will take another month to be drafted and John Hancock'ed, that's why I'm jumpy. it also means we're off the phones (three cheers for me please!!): no sales targets, no AHT to adhere to, best of all--no grating, complaining, insolent voices coming thru an earpiece non-stop for the best part of the day anymore.

boohooo tho as it also means that we're leaving Mr. Nice Guy behind. he's now found peace with the people dealing with ETMs, which is more his speciality. but as we leave him, we also leave fat b*st*rd behind as well (which is obviously a hoooraayyyy waiting to happen), who doesn't seem quite happy as he now has a team of only 3: 2 processing debit card payments and one who is so far up his ass fat b*st*rd can't see him anyway. so he drops by now and again(and again and again and again) to check on us who've moved to pastures anew.

in this new department I have decided to kill myself two days of the week by coming in as early as 9am and leaving at 5pm with squares for eyes, a cricked neck and dodgy wrists. nothing short of a horror movie. I tried wearing glasses instead of contacts on Thursday so that I wouldn't go home with dry square eyes like I did on Wednesday--only that I left with partial vision and had to squint to see instead. I need new glasses, pronto. curse that day I tried bigbro's glasses in 1993!!

we are now responsible for spewing lightly disguised sarcasm in words no less than a hundred to disgruntled customers who feel that shouting and swearing down the phone is not enough. our target is 45 letters per hour. I have managed to rustle up a good score for my first week, on average, I did 40/hour. only I know if I want to come out alive and still resembling a human being from this place, it will have to go down to maybe 30/hour. I got my stats by not taking a break so often like the others in the team, and it is true: Ruby only got 22/hour, George a.k.a Mr I-Love-My-Wife-So-Much-It's-A-Wonder-I-Don't-Make-Myself-Sick managed 14. bleehhhhh.

and the letters that come in are so funny and so bizarre and so surreal at times, you just can't help it but laugh and point and share it with your team. just one example (partly coz I'm a bit tired now and I think I've gone on for too long), are the numerous letters we get from people writing in to say there's a gas leak, I'm quite sure there is, and it's an emergency, of that I am sure, and I think I'm getting quite dizzy and breathless as I write this letter, even Rover is not quite his normal rowdy self, and would someone please come to inspect my leak as soon as they bloody get this? sent in using second class stamps, which takes at least 4days to get to their destination.

surely by the time we get the letter we would know for a fact if there was indeed a leak by watching the news.

and they sign off in true Brit fashion: awaiting your reply with fervent obligation,

Mr James Smith

ever so polite even in times of despair and light-headedness.

Biskut et Bob

before we go on any further, CONGRATULATIONS is in order for Mrs Fadhil who has just been blessed with her firstborn nun di Australia sana. the experience of going thru 13 hours of labour means that you have definitely carved your name on the "greatest feats ever achieved on planet Earth" scroll, if there is one.

Biskut has inadvertently discovered a quasi-feat of his own in the last month or so. I can't remember exactly when the first time was but it went by unrecorded, albeit met with some astonishment and a snarky smile from me. The second time also is AWOL from my sixty-second memory span. it was just the other day that I decided this miracle,blessing,wonder? has to be shared with you guys.

He has a special relationship with Bob. Now Bob is not our butcher/fishmonger/postie/landlord (I wish!)/cat or other fleshy being, but more an inanimate object. Yes, Bob is our idiot box. (Bob wasn't christened Bob until after the fifth question). Seems that Bob knows when Biskut is asking me a question which I do not have the answer to or am too lazy-tongued to say anything (which is all the time), and rather than disappointing Biskut, Bob will then take it upon his responsibility to supply the answer.

first instance: (that I can remember)
we were lounging, as u would do, in the lounge room; channel hopping (with only 5 channels it wasn't really hopping, more like sprinting) when on BBC2 we found a discovery programme with an Ancient Egyptian anthropology dig of some sorts which delved into what they used for colors that contributes to our understanding of the periodic table today. confused? I am. anyway, the guy was talking about the gold used on the mummy tombs (I forget what they're really called) when Biskut asked, or rather mused, where on earth did they find all the gold as they were in the desert all day long. I sort of mumbled 'mmmhh', universal for 'donno, beats me' when lo and behold! Bob (or rather the guy presenting the programme) telling us that "the Egyptians had to travel miles and miles, digging deep into the desert sand, to actually find the gold to use..." and at this point I was no longer lounging but more rofling away for a good 5 minutes.

second instance:
nip/tuck was on channel4, the one where Julia and Sean hit the rocks, each trying to out-cheat on one another. cue scene Julia in a bar, drinking an apple martini. the guy on her left offered to buy her 'the most expensive green drink available' from the bar, and it turned out to be absinthe. at this point Biskut looked up from the papers he was doodling on and asked me what absinthe was. Bob quickly rose to the occasion, giving the answer to Biskut by getting the guy to tell Julia what absinthe was (Julia didn't know what it was either). again, watch me collapse with laughter while Biskut surprisingly was cursing Bob for upping him again. I mean, I would be over the moon if Bob had chosen me to have this special relationship with.

third instance:
this isn't really as good as the others, coz it has to be said that I expect my tv to be able to do this anyways. after ITV's summer movie ended last Tuesday Biskut asked rather softly-softly what was on next. Bob knew I couldn't be arsed, so he told Biskut there and then that ITV will be showing TV's Naughtiest Blunders in three. well there you go. enough time to make me a cup of tea then.

I'll keep you guys posted on how it develops, if I can remember, that is. and sorry bout the red missing from Biskut's name today seeing that my toolbar is missing some of its parts and I don't know how to get them back. oh, and Bob got named Bob just because. same with our two lounge cushions, Eric and Monica; Monica now more affectionately called Mona nowadays. don't ask me why!!