Archive for 2004

December 20, 2004

aging sux

I inadvertently caught this Chinese talk show on TV today, where they kinda showed some veteran singers’ younger days’ photos. They’re like reliving their nostalgic moments of being young and beautiful, you know, that type of shit.

It should somehow be a beautiful program. But instead of that, I felt completely the opposite. I was traumatized by the entire show. Traumatized by witnessing how natural aging could do to someone as beautiful as them.

Take for example, one of them XXXL sized ladies, who used to be a bright eyed model, now looks like Jabba the Hutt without its on-screen make up. And another guy, whose name is Joe Junior or something, had turned from a baby faced Eurasian hunk into a piece of dehydrated junk.

The very sight of them made me shudder at the thought of myself getting old. If aging could make those pretty faces expire in that magnitude, what then could happen to us normal looking people?

Or simply, how would I look like when I’m old? Will there be any grey hairs on my head?… that is, if there’s any hair at all? Will I still be able club like how I love to? Questions… they are disturbing.

Disturbing because they somehow make me less worried about today, but perplexed about what could happen tomorrow. Not that I don’t know about the effects of aging before this, but, do I really need to be reminded in such a conspicuous and ‘direct’ way?

Damn, they should have censored shows like this on TV (instead of porns), you know, for causing such an emotional wreck in us. At least porns make us appreciate the human body more…

michaelooi  | thoughts  | 8 Comments

shock

This is super kanineh shocking. My mom just told me that her paternal grandmother was a Vietnamese… … …
Which means … I am 1/8th Vietnamese myself… coupled with my another 1/8th Siamese (my father’s maternal grandfather was a Siamese), basically that means, 1/4th of me isn’t actually Chinese.

This is so unbelievable.

What next? Another 1/8th of me is Negro ? Hmmmm… perhaps that explains my colossal prick…(though I don’t remember seeing any black people in our old family photo collection).

michaelooi  | personal  | 6 Comments
December 19, 2004

fengshui fever (take 2)

My mom was sneaking around discreetly, with something hidden behind her back. I caught her

Me : “Mom, that thing’s gonna end up inside the garbage bin if you put it anywhere in my room…”

Mom : “What what waht? This is for your own good!”

Me : “Mom, I have warned you…”

Mom : “This thing costs over 30 bucks, ok? You can’t just throw it away”

Me : “I couldn’t have cared less. It’s gonna end up in the garbage bin. Period.”

Mom : “If you throw it into the garbage bin, I’m gonna kick your ass…”

Me : “!?”

Look what has fengshui done to my mom. What next? Crashing furniture on my head?

No wonder we’re having so much domestic violence nowadays.

michaelooi  | dialogs  | 17 Comments
December 18, 2004

fengshui fever

Lilian Too is driving my mom crazy! Well, actually, not Lilian alone but, the whole bevy of self-proclaimed fengshui dunces that publish their smartass advices online. For free. Emily played a part too, she printed a stack of those materials for my mom… and my mom has since gone cracked.

Thanks to those divine fengshui advices, my mom’s now not acting so normal. She would walk around the house with a compass, and would speak to herself (that’s damn creepy I tell you). Then occasionally, she would give out a blood curdling yelp, that some piece of furniture shouldn’t belong to some place, or some table is at the wrong angle.

As if it’s not bad enough having a geriatric walking around mumbling to herself, I was constantly being badgered for not complying with their set of so called ‘prohibited acts’. I couldn’t recall what they were but, it was kinda like requiring me to sleep with my head facing north, my left leg pointing north west, my right hand pointing south, my right leg pointing north east… my left hand grabbing my own crotch and yell “Teeeheehee … owh” every 10 minutes. Or just simply, to sleep in a position that requires an intermediate level of yoga skills.

Supposedly, sleeping like this will bring me better luck and prospect for my career… (that is, if I don’t suffer major bone dislocation and subsequently lose my job). Of course I protested… and after debated for a while, they managed to come up with some remedy/solution. To place a bronze tortoise with a head of… some really weird looking horse with beard and horns… wait, that’s a dragon… on the small table inside my room. What the fuck !

I told my mom – if fengshui can bring luck and fortune by just complying a set of procedure, then there will not be so much suffering and pestilence on this planet. But she would always retort back “What’s the harm of believing in them ?”

The harm? To waste our money buying those weird and expensive fengshui paraphernalias… and making them fengshui masters richer and richer.

Denizens of Earth, if you want to be successful and healthy in life, the best thing is to work hard. Plan your budget. And use your brain.

Somebody please stop the madness already.

*update. Here’s some of the stuffs lying around my house. Taken right after I posted this entry.

michaelooi  | rantings  | 24 Comments
December 17, 2004

miss panda (extended)

Had a long chat with Wilson today, and I enticed him to reveal more about Panda. [apparently, she's much worse than I thought...]

*****
Panda’s background (based on what I can recall)
- Straight A’s in SPM
- Straight A’s in STPM
- MCSE (Microsoft Certified System Engineer)
- Intermediate certification in MS Office (or something like that)
- Bachelors Of Computer Science in UPM (with honours or something like that..)

A school teacher for 6 months before joining some roadworks company … for 1 year. Then she became jobless and joined some triad society specializing in pimping animal prostitution. Kidding. She joined some government jobless scheme … which I forgot what it was called. She was then employed in my present workplace.

A degree holder with strong technical background – everyone wants to hire her… but if only they knew…

—–
Case # 1 : Assignment in Singapore
Cast : Wilson and Panda
Location : On the plane

When the plane touched down at Singapore, Panda turned to Wilson and exclaimed “Wilson… I can’t believe I’m now in Singapore!” [teary eyes]

Wilson was stupefied by her eccentric behavior.
—–

Case # 2 : Assignment in Singapore
Cast : Wilson and Panda
Location : Hotel

After they checked in at the hotel, Panda gave Wilson an intercom

Wilson : [picks up phone] “Hello…”

Panda : “Wilson… I can’t believe that I’m staying in such a big hotel room in Singapore!”

Wilson freaked out and hung up immediately.
—–

Case# 3 : Assignment in Singapore
Cast : Wilson and Panda
Location : Hotel lobby

They were meeting up at the hotel lobby for a customer visit. Panda came down with a set of swollen eyes and lethargic look.

Wilson : “What happened to you ??”

Panda : “Oh… the TV programs were so good… that I stayed up until 3 am watching them…”

Wilson was dumbfucked.
—–

Case# 4 : Meeting with customer
Cast : Wilson, Panda and customer
Location : Customer’s office

When they were having a discussion with the customer about some support issues, Panda kept staring at the customer that the customer actually got freaked out and paused halfway.

Customer then looked at Wilson, back at Panda, then at Wilson, then at Panda… until Wilson figured that something went wrong. He later had to convince the customer that she was just being nervous.
—–

Case# 5 : Meeting with customer
Cast : Wilson, Panda and customer
Location : Customer’s office

The customer asked Panda a question. Instead of answering, Panda gave customer a puzzled look with her mouth wide agape. Customer repeated the question. Same thing happened. Customer asked the question for the third time. Panda responded “Haaaa…?”.

Wilson assured the customer that Panda was actually having a deep thought about something.
—–

Case# 6 : customer visit post mortem
Cast : Wilson and Panda
Location : office

Wilson asked Panda what was her professional take about the whole visit at Singapore (he was expecting some personal evaluation and a case study).

Panda responded – “They said they didn’t know who Clam is…” (Clam is actually Wilson’s boss).

Wilson almost killed himself inside the office that day.
—–

Case# 7 : Information scouring
Cast : Wilson and Panda
Location : office

Wilson wanted Panda to obtain some product information in the Excel spreadsheet. She was supposed to look for the information iin the table or something. Panda launched the spreadsheet and exclaimed “Wah… so many info, how to look ?”

Wilson had to teach her to highlight the columns and press CTRL+F (which is the shorcut for ‘Find’, a very commonly used function in Excel). A box popped up and she then asked “Then? What should I do\?”

Wilson shouted at her “THEN?? PASTE THE NUMBER INTO THE BOX… AND FIND LAH !!!”
*****

And many more tales that would shock the daylights out of anyone.

So, this proves to us one thing – that the intelligence of a person is not actually measured by their academic achievements. A person may flunk his/her exam, but that does not mean that he/she’s not intelligent. Vice versa – a person with excellent results in an exam, may not be an intelligent person at all.

Academic achievements and qualifications are just some man-made guides to determine a person’s capability… which has an efficiency of less than half. The remaining half, constitutes of disabled individuals and people who can’t afford themselves some basic education. Who knows we might have an Einstein inside the least fortunate half? We’ll never know.

If you think of hooting me for belittling Panda, think twice. I was one of those individuals who had to tutor her (and put up with her extreme incompetence)… and I am suffering high blood pressure getting her to understand stuff that she should have known better than me. I deserve some rights to bitch about my misfortune… after all, I pay for this space to bitch. So, if you don’t like this… screw you.

michaelooi  | characters  | 27 Comments