Rubik's Cube & Rumah Hope

Had a trip down memory lane last Fri/Sat...SG bought some Rubik's Cube to bring to Rumah Hope. This will be the 2nd time our group is visiting Rumah Hope. To most of us old folks....it is a trip down memory lane playing with the cube (I still can't do the 6 sides, despite SG patiently explaining to me, I shall buy another and practice at home). I suspect to the children in Rumah Hope, it probably is a new toy to them since I haven't seen it being on sale for a long long time.

A while back I discovered some being sold in a small bookshop in Giant Kelana Jaya, so I bought 1 for RM 3.50 I think....opcors China mari....and there are lessons to learn here, cos SG was doing more repair work then actually teaching the kids on how to solve the cube on Sat. As the saying goes, cheap things aren't good, good things aren't cheap....so SG had his hands full "repairing" broken up cubes....

The kids looked genuinely thrilled trying to solve it. We had a great time there and cheah cheah Lee San and cheah cheah Hui Mei were really good with the songs. Arnold's group was there too and the kids had a great time getting him to draw Spiderman and Batman for their bookmarks. Mee Mee did a great job teaching and doing arts and craft with the kids....bookmarks, wallet cards and name cards.....they had great fun. SG & Dominic were guitar teachers for a day.

Back to the cube.....I always envied my brother who could do the 6-face cube and also the triangular 4-face what do u call it.......tricube....triube.....whatever.....in no time. Seriously I shall buy 1.....oh that's because the 1 I bought fell apart and not being an engineer by training and also the bulb was kinda dim in the brain....I just threw it away....not knowing it could be pieced back (again thanks to SG.....hahaha).

Holiday....yeah....yeah....

Well my company is requesting us to go on leave on 2 Nov, so I will have a 1-day week next week. Normally tht would mean planning for a trip somewhere, but not this time since I have to finish my last semester in Nov & Dec, so I have to stay home to finish off my research paper and read up on my last 2 subjects... :( :( :(

Come to think of it.....end of year is upon us again.....time of the year where much reflection and grey matter is put into use...........from the planning of what to do over Christmas and New Year to what to do next year?? 2006 hhmmmm.

Time to put on my thinking cap again.......

Can I try??

Did a "Can I try?" at the tax office recently.

What did I do? Well I wanted a statement that shows I have no outstanding tax but the lady at the counter says she can't print b'cos the program doesn't have such function. Not wanting to take no for an answer I asked and pestered her for awhile and she graciously let me look at the screen etc and I thot well if I can't get a printout at least get a screen capture print. In case my term seems like some high tech blabber to you, it isn't.......just press Ctrl+Prnt Scrn and paste it on MS Word/Notepad and you will get the screen shot. Thanks to windows based stuff.....at least I can do a screen capture and get the info I need on print.....even if it is not "official" but at least I have some backup just in case I need to show that I have done my part to get an update.

This reminds me of another incident a few years back when the doom of Y2K was upon us. Went to a bank to do some transaction and they just had an upgrade to a windows based system. When the girl clicked.....she was a bit confused.....she can't find the button to click next.....hhhmmm thinking to myself what's wrong after a couple of seconds. Then she called her supervisor who was equally blur.....so I kinda strained my neck to see on the screen and noticed the window has opened kinda half way across the screen, so the button that was supposed to show was out of the screen range i.e. "hilang" as the bank teller puts it...so I said "Just pull the window up and you will see the button". Both looked at me as if I was from Mars or something....then I kinda reached over the counter while asking "Can I try?". So I proceeded to click and pull the window up.....and both of them looked at me as if I was David Copperfield. Then the supervisor asked me if I work in a bank??!!

Well well.....don't ask me which bank.......

Isaiah 49:11

I will turn all my mountains into roads.

Whenever I face difficult times, God has a way of speaking to me. This verse appears today on my daily calendar. I always have difficulty reconciling that God will make my obstacles serve His purposes. Guess maybe I am too engross in my own problems that it just grew larger and larger.

We all have our own struggles, let us all look upwards for support.

cheers and have a great week ahead.

....so tired....

Went through 1 of those busy weekend thingy.....non-stop from Friday.....Fri nite went up KLIA twice to pick up mom and wife....yeah 2 different flights and 2 hours in between.

Sat went to Cameron Highlands, took the new road from Simpang Pulai, slightly further I think, but definitely easier to drive - wider and less winding, no need the walkie-talkie to overtake safely. Was drizzling Sat afternoon but stopped at nite, so we could go to the pasar malam which had moved a bit further up from the "square" in Brinchang towards the army camp/bomba quarters. Guess what?? there is a Secret Recipe right on the main road opposite the square. opcors steamboat dinner.....using charcoal and had tonnes of organic vege too and opcors the meat, fishballs etc etc, very nice, just opposite Hotel Casa Passadena, where we stayed.

Sun morning was raining again......didn't stop until like 11am. Well, did the usual thingy....Kea Farm for strawberries, flowers and fruits, Rose Garden and Strawberry Farm and went off about 2pm and headed to Bidor for duck noodles.....and mom bought like 20 packets of "little chicks biscuits".

Woke up at 5.30am to send mom to KLIA.....so I am very sleepy now.... :(

Ah....ha

After reading CYP's master piece a bulb kinda popped up.....I have been using the caveman to describe a lot of actions/things that a woman will roll her eyes and scratch her head wondering why a guy did it/said it/etc.

Examples:-

• Asking a girl if she blows and set her hair b'cos it looks frizzy and unkept today.
• Referring everything made of flour as bread thingy, never mind they all have nice alien sounding names.
• Asking point blank to a girl how old are you ah? When you getting married?

The ultimate of unpolitically correct and also socially-challenged.......let's see what other caveman thingy I do......oh yah.....most of the actions of Shrek 1 would find its way into Caveman 101 Handbook.

old jokes

Overheard this a while back.....

Girl 1 : Eh look at this, a book on investing

Girl 2: See here is another one

Girl 1: You think Idiot's better or Dummy's better

*Thinking to myself - Both also won't do both of you any good.


Next story, probably had told to some of you. About the episode where wife had to go report an accident in PJ.

Was waiting for our turn to explain to the officer on what happened. There was a chinese guy there reporting. He started very animatedly with hands all over the place, explaining the traffic and the directions of cars etc and how it knock onto his car. Then the police was confused and asked him to draw on a paper instead. After 2 seconds drawing he reverted to using his hands and "drawing in the air", which the police said "lukis atas kertas, jangan lukis atas angin".

After a couple of minutes drawing, the police was still as blur as before, so in a very cool move, stopped the guy with a show of his palm and said "tunggu" and proceeded to open his drawer and took out 2 toy cars and asked him to "show" him how did the accident happen. Me and wife was almost rolling on the floor. Then we had to go and take pix of the damage, so we went to the parking lot. On the way back to the police station, we saw a police car on the way out and in there is the chinese guy (presumably bringing the policeman to the scene of the accident - which we later confirmed with the chinese guy when they came back). Guess the toy cars didn't help much too.

The curse of Ctrl+S

One of the most important advise from any computer user is to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE your work periodically......so being almost programmed like a rat.....Ctrl+S is almost come without thinking, somethng along the lines of reflects action - avoiding hot stove, duck when something is thrown at you and picking my nose when it itch....oops not the last one....

Well just did a Ctrl+S in "blogspot" and kept my finger a tad too long on it (which is totally harmless in MS Office) but major in "blogspot" - it publishes as many times as the computer pickes up. So Ijust spent the last 10 mins clearing the 20/30 posts of the last piece. Quick......don't blink I am trying another Ctrl+S.......

blocked, blocked....totally stuffed

Can't think of anything worthwhile to blog??!! aiyoh my life so miserable..... :( need a break soon.....but can't have 1 until my research paper is done.......how lah?! like that??

Suddenly had a feeling this year my life has been rather eventful (to my standard at least).....forgot when was the last time I had time to sit down read a book (other than for exams - I have written more for exams this year than I have written in 5 years of working - writing....you know pen and paper......rings a bell??)

Can't wait for everything to finish.....I am not getting my hopes high.....I just need a pass for my research paper so that I can graduate and return back to my own life......yeah the piece of paper is just an itch that I had to scratch and have just in case I come up short on "real" competencies.....at least I have a piece more than the next guy (hopefully) and the scale will kinda tip to my side.....albeit however slightly.