There was once a friend send me a URL while I was shirking around the office. Thinking that it might be something of interest, I clicked at the URL without giving much thought. It was a flash site, and not long after it started loading, a scene of a cartoonish old woman appeared… and then it happened.

All out of a sudden, my speaker blasted out this ‘ketchup song’ loud. It went like, “Le je… Le je…” or something, and the granny started to do some really absurd hand flailing dance on my screen (full screen). The most unfortunate thing was, I had this Altec Lansing home theater system hooked up on my office table, and as a result of that, half the office actually heard what was going on in my cube.

For a second or two, I didn’t know what to do. I was literally stunned. And then panic sets in, and I was fumbling to find a way to close the fucking thing from doing further damage. But because I was panicking, nothing seemed to work. The ketchup song would continue to pump out loud through the entire office floor. Curious heads started to pop up from cubes to see who was sledgehammering the office with a loud-fucking-speaker… I continued to look for ways to end the whole thing and finally, decided to unplug my Altec Lansing speaker to stop the whole disastrous episode from jeopardizing my career.

And there it was… the granny… still doing her ketchup dance on my screen, with sounds unplugged. But the damage had already been done. Some of my colleagues were already annoyed… while some were laughing at my ass off for being such a dolt. My reputation went down a few notches after that day. But then, I was very grateful, now that I think that the situation could have been worse. If it was porn that I was loading, and the noise projected out from my speaker were to be pornstars moaning in climax… I would have lost my fucking job right away.

Hate it when things like this happens. Sites with intrusive sounds. Man those shit should be made illegal. They make our lives difficult.

On Wednesday, a fellow colleague from Australia (let’s call him Sangeeth) emailed me to request for technical assistance for an issue which he couldn’t solve. But his mail didn’t quite sound like he’s requesting something. It was more like, a command. He wanted me to do it for him. There was a heavy presence of arrogance in it, and it sounded very authoritative. Not wanting to create a fuss out of it, I decided to help anyway, partly because I was professionally obliged to do that (ahem).

Because he was too busy insert his arrogance in his email, he somehow forgot to include the details which I need to be able to help him. Amongst them, photos depicting the problem. I had to send him a reply to request for that. But being somewhat of a dolt, this Sangeeth sent me a mail asking me to provide him an FTP address (File Transfer Protocol) for him to share an oversized video file. Yes, a video file. I was asking for photos, but he wanted to give me a video file. Video file of something static. What the fuck. Following was our actual email communication :

“Michael, do you have an FTP site I can access ? The tech has taken an Mpeg video and sent it to me. It is 3.2MB so I cant email it”

I replied him: “Sangeeth, unfortunately no. Perhaps you can try to share it out from your PC and let us know your domain/computer name… we’ll try to link up from here”

Sangeeth, apparently dissatisfied with the fact that we do not have an FTP site, replied with a one-sentence harsh mail - “We should have an FTP site”.

That was when I snapped. I was fucking pissed. I was trying to help him with his problem, and this guy’s trying to make it like I’m the problem. I decided to send him a retort and this time, with less courtesy:

“Sangeeth, Like I have requested, just snap some pictures. They are of smaller size and should be good enough for us to check it out. I know we should have an FTP. In fact, we should have a lot of other things… like a big car, higher wage and a more comfortable cube as well. But the fact is, we still don’t have them. So why don’t you live with it and go to work?”

My reply aggravated the mental ape and he sent me a nasty flame mail reprimanding me. He criticized me for being too passive and being reluctant in helping him to solve his problems. And he ended his verbose mail with loads of bullshit technical jargons (which I knew more than himself, and was the reason why he was asking for my help)… and still, no photos or useful details.

That was the last straw for me. I decided to give the motherfucker the final blow. I sent him a blunt but succinct email asking him to CUT THE CRAP, PROVIDE THE DETAILS and copied his boss. And I p.s. the mail with a note asking him to improve his command of English to improve his comprehension…

I didn’t give much thought about the testosterone influenced angry reply, and expected it to draw much flak from my superior. But fortunately, Sangeeth’s boss dug my message and personally called my team director to apologize. His boss probably felt the same way I did about Sangeeth - that he is a nincompoop and should probably be hired to do something not so important. Like wiping tables or cleaning toilets. And I never heard from Sangeeth after that round of altercation.

My director later called me up and told me, that Sangeeth almost got fired because of what I wrote in my last email, and I was made to promise to be more diplomatic in my future communications… Bah! Like I care. Serves that bastard right I’d say, for being such an ass.

Luis has been longing for the Friday special seafood buffet at Evergreen for a long time. Especially his girlfriend, Karen - who could not resist the big tempting oysters that we always talk about. That was why he organized an outing this Friday. The mission = to eat as much oysters and lobsters as possible at the buffet.

We duly appointed Karen as the person in charge to make a reservation (for 8 hungry gluttons). But she faced a challenge while making the reservation: should she opt for a smoking or non-smoking section? She sent out an email for us to vote. Alvin, one of the smokers in our group, responded:

Alvin - Oh yea baby, smoking area definitely ….. no doubt ’bout that…

Henry, a non-smoker:
Henry - This is a very tough question to answer.. for me of course non-smoking lar .. but others i dunno ler…

myself, also a non-smoker, hinted for a non-smoking section of course:
Me - Smokers = alvin, cindy, luis. Non-smokers = me, henry, emily, karen, amber. So, do u still think smoking area is an excellent choice? If yes, go ahead and book it.

Luis justified for the obvious:
Luis - Non-smokers outnumber smokers. Alvin, I think there will be empty space for u to smoke (lobby, toilet, etc). Your consideration is highly appreciated. Non-smoking pls

I quipped further in the growing thread:
Me - Karen, book 1 ’smoking’ space for alvin .. the rest of us ‘non-smoking’. Alvin, we can watch u smoke across the table ..and if u want to speak to us, call our cellphones

Alvin made his first response:
Alvin - Damn

Followed by another junky reply :
Alvin - hello people. Quit smoking doesn’t mean you will be more considerate. A level headed considerate person is something from the heart, something from the heart is actually you learnt from young, things you learnt from young comes from a decent family. Luis has all those, thus he’s considerate as you guys wanna be. He’s also as considerate as an average considerate person. In fact, he surpasses normal considerate everyday people like you and me … what else could you want ? - alvin

He then quoted an absurd poem (which, I was sure he got it from somewhere) :

i smoke 2 joints in the morning,
i smoke 2 joints at night,
i smoke 2 joints in the afternoon,
it makes me feel alright,

i smoke 2 joints in time of peace,
i smoke 2 joints in time of war,
i smoke 2 joints before i smoke 2 joints,
then i smoke some more…..

I made a counter to his self-absorbing reply:
Me - Alvin, the problem doesn’t lie on being considerate. It’s because, it makes u broke. When you’re broke, u won’t pay for the buffet. When u won’t pay for the buffet, we’re gonna have to pay extra for the reservation. When we have to pay extra, we get upset and piss-off. When we’re pissed-off, we might burn your car. If we burn your car, you won’t have a transport to come out drinking with us. When u can’t come out, we will be short of a member .. and the parties won’t be that happening no more. So, smoking still sux in whatever way.

And the BODs lived happily ever after.

Hence, to all the ciggy chimneys out there, give yourself a big smack on the head and ask yourself - “why the fuck do i smoke ?”. Is it something that makes you look cool? Is it something that makes you healthier? Is it something that fills up your empty stomach? Is it something that helps you solve all your problems and worries? Answer is only ‘No’.

It’s ironic actually. The scientists are working so hard to find a cure for cancer, while governments all over the world are allowing cigarettes to be marketed extensively at the same time. It’s like making a research to find out why your cat gets fat while you are feeding him lards everyday. Morons.

Cigarettes should be banned like how other cancer causing food chemicals are banned. Here’s what people do in my country to discourage dimwits from getting too ‘deep’ into smoking:

- Put health warning messages on cigarette boxes : hoping someone who already paid so much for a box of cigarette will read the stupid message and intimidated by their warnings to stop smoking. [Alvin stomps the cigarette box everytime]

- Ban cigarette commercials on tv but allow ciggy poster ads to be displayed publicly on walls of local “coffee shops” : Hoping that our kids will stay at home watching tv but would not go out to local coffee shops. [Alvin loves having char koay teow at local coffee shops]

- Allowing cigarette brands to sponsor our favorite sports program: To convey a confusing message to the kids that sportsmen don’t use drugs, but smoke cigarettes. [Alvin is a Liverpool fanatic, and he puffs 2 joints everytime they miss an opportunity to score]

and much much more, which I’m too lazy to cover.

Basically, our lungs are like a filter, that filters out foreign particles & traps oxygen at the same time. It then ‘embeds’ the oxygen into our blood cells. Then, the blood cells will carry the oxygen to be distributed to our entire body. Now, puffing a ciggy, is like pouring a bag of filthy water to the filter (our lungs) frequently. And eventually, the filter will all be fucked up and blocked sooner than it should be… and the thing is, you can’t change the filter because it is fucking BUILT IN. Ask your computer retailer what should you do when your BUILT IN display chip breaks down. REPLACE THE WHOLE MOTHERBOARD. So, in this case, the motherboard is yourself. When your filter dies, so are you.

But then, I’m pretty sure smoking has it’s pros too … like repelling certain species of nerds, chicks and vermin with your bad breath. However, it takes a lot more than coincidence & a lot of luck to repel the species that you intend to disappear… because the repelling process will repel those good ones as well. So, smoking still sucks in whatever way. Heed me.

I was a bit free at work today… so I browsed my archive to burn some time & I found one interesting email that was the first time me and my buddies coined the name ‘BOD’ (Board of Directors) for our group. You see, whenever we are all at work, we would usually send short emails to each other discussing about our plans for the weekend - something like, “apa kangtau saturday?”… “where are we going to float this weekend?”… most of the time, full of censored language. Then, I started to notice that my buddy Henry, he always changes the email subject to a somewhat formal title and replied all our correspondence with office level formality. His excuse? He was afraid that his boss would cream his ass for using the company email for private business. The ones full of fucks & asses were especially detrimental. One day, I decided to play along:
————————-
From: Ooi, Michael
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 9:21 AM
To: Luis; ‘henry’
Subject: URGENT: Request for schedule of meeting
Importance: High

Dear Mr henry and Luis
Would appreciate if you can confirm the activities that we are going to roll out tonight, as I would desperately like to know the schedule planned for tonight’s meeting. The intention is to allow me to pre-arrange my working hours to cater for the above-mentioned function.

Forehand, I have been pre-informed by Mr Luis that we are going to have Tony as company for the above function - with a bottle of Chivas for the occasion. As far as I understand, we may face a lot of inconveniences and difficulties if the Chivas were to be brought along into the Canto meeting room. As a result of that, we may need to meet-up in a separate venue before the meeting - bak kut teh , or animal’s corner.

Would appreciate your prompt response on this matter

With regards
Michaelooi
————————-
*Luis replied:

From: Luis
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 10:12 AM
To: Ooi, Michael; ‘henry’
Subject:RE: URGENT: Request for schedule of meeting

Good morning everyone.

As per discussion with our Thai representative, Mr. Henry - nothing is confirmed yet as of now. Our organizer Tony still hasn’t give me a call to finalize the time and venue. So, I guess we still need to wait for our boss, Tony as he is having the ultimate agenda for the meeting - CHIVAS -

But it still will be at night as usual, Director Michael, and what time will you be available? Do keep in touch for the plan tonight.

Regards, Luis
————————-

and that was how the BOD (Board Of Directors) was born. Our way of communication was never the same again.
Here are some explanation to aid your understanding for certain confusing words:
Chivas - a 40% alcohol beverage (whisky) made by Chivas Brothers.
Canto meeting room - a pub in Penang.
bak kut teh - a cafe in Gurney drive … we usually test our livers there.
animal’s corner - a kopitiam in Macalister Rd, Penang. My friend - animal…his dad owns a stall there … that was why we named the place animal’s corner.