December 2004

I’ve got the cool shorts, the will, the technique. All I’ve left to acquire are a nice pair of powered goggles, and a bigger lung capacity. Damned pool has so much chlorine lately.

It’s been a while since I’ve done my laps. Only managed 12 this evening. Why the sudden urge to swim, you ask? Well, I was at the sports complex the whole day today, entertaining 300 users who’ve come from all parts of the country to shoot us down with regards to the new system. Since we were there, why not play squash after that? Call it stress relief.

I lasted only 45 minutes.

There’s a gym right next to the courts, but I’m not mentally prepared to go in. Malu. It was then that I remembered Yakitate! Japan episode 8, where Kawachi starts his rigorous training to gain solar hands, beginning with a daily 10km swim. If he could do it, and if JL could do it, why can’t I?

So here I am, aching all over with irritated eyes. A nice addition to the already troubled mind.

Heya. Just got back from a weekend trip to Singapore. The travelling was tiring, but I managed to clock in some great chill out time with great company. Yay for cuzzies.

Took Friday off to make time for the drive, as well as to run some errands around town. By the time I was done, it was already 1.30, and I ended up with some Sing dollars and a bad haircut. QB House is great, except that the results vary with the hairstylist. Looks like I’ll have to be careful the next time I go there. And I think I have to pay more attention to facial detail; I think the person who cut my hair may have actually been my evil neighbor upstairs.

And on top of that, note too much makeup = bad / evil.

Az called the gang out to Starbucks. Got caught up with The Apprentice and missed the few precious moments. Oh well, was feeling a little too tired anyway. It wouldn’t have turned into FFK if I didn’t agree in the first place. But, it’s not easy to decline the requests of an uncle.

Moments ago, I was trying to figure out how to remove the shrink wrap off Hayashibara’s center color album (thank Hemlocke! :D) when we finally got bombarded with news coverage of this morning’s tsunami. 5.4 thousand in countries across south and south east asia dead. About 20 from penang and kedah. Tis truly a tragedy this holiday season.

A discussion on the effects of coffee resulted in me getting to bed at 3.30am and realising that I’ve been dehydrated lately.

Note to self: water comes first. work, after. everything else, in between.

Didn’t lose much in last night’s game.

Since I was at the office till 8pm last night, I took the liberty to come to work 2 hours late today. 3.5 hours of sleep just doesn’t cut it for me. I wonder how I managed to pull all nighters when I was in college. Besides those anime marathons and last minute assignments, I’m still amazed how I survived packing and studying till morning, taking my last exam, and immediately boarding a plane back to Malaysia right after.

Guess life’s much more interesting that way.

Anyway, I now have copies of Taiko no Tatsujin: Go! Go! Godaime and Taiko: Drum Master, the first US version of this popular game series. They’re still on CD like their predecessors, so my PS2 had problems reading them (gotta send that thing for a checkup sometime soon).

I didn’t manage to catch the entire song list in the 5th edition, ‘cept for the original version of Natsumatsuri which has a slower beat than the Whiteberry remake. The new mini games are fantastic!

The English version on the other hand copies the intro from the 3rd Japanese installment; they didn’t even bother changing the in-menu music. Few differences were the song selection including Tubthumping, Toxic (yep!), etc. and everything reads left to right.

Conclusion: Jap rocks!

After redownloading and rereading Beck just to get a quick recap of what will happen after episode 8 of the anime, I’m now hooked on Hot Blooded Woman, a manhwa by some manhwaka. 😛

Woke surprisingly early today at 1pm, due to some freaking noise from above.

Also finished ObsCure. Not as tough as I thought it’d be; just had to grasp the killing concept.

Somehow, Monday doesn’t seem so bad this time. Looking forward to great times with less work. *crosses fingers* Really, really hope I get put into fulltime support mode!

The past week has been particularly significant to the project, and that includes me as well.

The main agenda was to get the agreement from the HR GMs to allow us to cutover to the new HR system. No more parallel, no more reconciliations, no more mess ups. Needless to say, it was tough, and it was good that these guys knew the pain and suffering that their staff have been going through.

All that’s left is to get all outstanding issues closed to make way for the second phase, which focuses more on employee development, career planning, etc. It’ll be interesting to see this work in line with the new corporate agenda of adopting a performance culture. I can still remember one of my user’s complaints about how useless people are being promoted. It’s just a matter of shaking them after 4-5 years and saying, ‘Hey, wake up! Promotion time!’. Needless to say, it made all of us young chaps feel sad.

It’s great to be in a two-day weekend. Think I’ve managed to recover most of my lost sleep time this morning, which I missed experiencing by 3 hours. The few remaining hours were spent watching Ocean’s Eleven and preparing more downloads for my pleasure tomorrow.

Tonight, gotta call the guys to find out what’s the clubbing plan.

Yesterday’s half day: Was supposed to take a day trip to Lumut to send my sister for camp. But since she had company, we sent her off by bus instead.

Today’s half day: Fever. Aches. Short of breath.

Finished BloodRayne 2 without cheating (most of the time). Love the evening gown and what’s under. Just started ObsCure, which is supposed to be scary somewhat. Damn tough game though.

Was supposed to go for Polar Express with Su after work. Sorry, girl.

Work wise, there hasn’t been much pressure on me lately. Still trying to finish up all the work from the first phase on the project so that I can concentrate on what’s next. Feel bad that I can’t contribute much to my new team, but it’s not like I wished for it. I’m glad and thankful for their understanding of my predicament.

Miss China is soooo hot. :D~ Her figure fits her red bikini so well the thought just gives me shivers!

I can’t believe Philippines was chosen above her though. Gosh~

But Miss Peru’s just as nice, so all was not lost.

Really thinking about it, the main reason China got into the finals was because she represented the host. But if she was given more coverage last night, I think she could’ve gone further. Her crew did a bad job on her web profile, which didn’t really bring out her finer points but instead presented a mish-mash of crappy photos.

Sigh~

Going back into time, I finally finished BloodRayne after lots of button-mashing and cheatcode-enabling. Why the rush? For the sequel of course. Just looking at the starting costume is enough to make lotsa men smile (in a certain way which indicates a certain something). Think my disc is broken tho, cuz I missed the intro FMV. Arg.

On Thursday night, I went to see Beat it, Sing it! at the Actors Studio Bangsar after much hassling from my colleague who took part in the show. I wasn’t expecting much, but it just blew me away. The Young KL Singers performed their vocals well, backed by astounding percussion music by Rhumba Nusa. It was great, ‘cept for the unnecessary dancing and the guy next to me who kept stomping his feet out of rhythm.

And I got to see some pretty girls in the audience too. 😀

As for what I did on Friday and Saturday, I forget.