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Books that I've won

Lydia autographed her book, Life's Like That - "Dear Robert, Congratulations on wining this book in my blog contest. Hope you like the book. Honk!"

Life's Like That is a collection of amusing meditations on Malaysian life written in a humour way. This book is worth reading, for its exciting story and its insight into life in contemporary Malaysia.

I rarely recommend a book, mostly because my tastes differ from those of other people. I must make an exception in the case of this book.

Unless you are fundamentally opposed to facing some of the harsh realities of this bolehland, I highly recommend this book. It will dedicate some smiles as you read through chapter by chapter.

The author, Lydia is aggressively making publicity for her books. Her appearances are not limited only on papers and books stores. She was also having her chitchatting on page 205 of CLEO Feb. 07 and was showing up again her same old personal photo. Perhaps that particular photo is her favorite one, I think so!

I got a "honk"

I'm going to buy the book "Honk! if you're Malaysian" by Lydia Teh. This had been one of my new year resolutions to be accomplished. This is perhaps my most frivolous resolution. You may snigger at the implication that one can simply determines to do such little thing. But I figure I can at least get some credit from it. Doesn't mean for the reason just to keep my word to buy it. It's my anxiousness to be enlightened by its contents and be learnt from how Lydia narrated about honk. Last Friday, I finally got it. unintentionally also got another copy of "Secret of Graphology".

With a cup of coffee, few pieces of cookie and a pack of cigarette put in order at a corner of the Gurney's Starbucks, I sat down and started to use my index finger to moisten with saliva at times so as to flick over these two books.

A sip of coffee follows by several flicks of pages. My brain which is retarded has gradually building up some implications on the "honk". To be frank, I'm quite concerned with or about the outlook, footprint, and the presentation, rather then its contents. Maybe I'm a businessman who has lessened with other predilections, being business minded, have had built up these concerns.

I remembered, the time when I had walked out from the MPH to gather with my wife, I immediately received her usual initial query. "you buy what?" "nuh, 2 books for reading." I answered and concurrently passed the whole plastic bag to her according to my established habit. Means that whatever my newly shopped goods would be passed on to her for carrying. That's part of my bad addictions, It's too bad!

As she took out the books from plastic bag in order to have a visual percept of what's that, she felt out and rose up the "honk", "wah! 29 bucks for this comic book you also 'seh tak' (deserved) to buy." "no lah, it's a book about the contemporary instincts of Malaysian. That stupid publisher have had over cover it like a comic book, don't you open up and see?" I explained and added, "Its cover had also caused my misconception at first sight as if it was a comic book which was oddly displayed amongst other conventional books in the shelf. A half covered background graphical image would just be nice."

"Nah! this one "Secret of Graphology" is worthy lah! only 5 bucks." Another comment she had made. I smiled with advice, "don't ever try to judge beautiful woman by her rear appearance. Sometime at the back "sui sui" but the front like a "kui"."

Okay! let me beg a pardon to compare my said 2 books; It's completely based on my own thoughts after my Starbuck's digest. "honk" hereafter be referred to "honk! if you're Malaysian" & "graph" hereafter be referred to "secrets of graphology".

Honk priced at 29 bucks, graph priced at 5. Of course the price differentiation does concern me.

Graph is bound with much smaller size about 4x5 whether honk is bound with about A5 size. I love a smaller one for the advantage of handiness for travel.

Graph has plenty of colorful images and illustrations inside, making reading be blissful. The not so many black-and-white cartoons found inside the honk were small in size and less freshened.

The font used in honk is much larger than graph. Ah! it probably suits my old eyes.

Graph is written in a directive way whereas honk is written in an amusive way by using simple English. I like that because I don't have to get frequent helps from dictionary.

Both contents which are of different categories are not fair to be compared hereof. Meanwhile some phases of honk do really delight my heart and has given me mettle to read on. I've reckoned especially if I were a Chinaman who're not typically wearing Pagoda singlet and baggy drawer, wouldn't be punched & kicked if I'd tried to kiss the author, referring on her saying in chapter 1. Some more, luckily I'm not an industrious wife (car) washer! Hmm! I'm pulling the leg of Lydia!

Well, my conclusion is, honk is value for capacity especially for the younger generation to recognize those old tricks and bywords. But the price tag might ponder some students pausing to put one's hand in one's pocket.

My 1st NY resolution came out of the blue

The real celebration for 2007 is all about moving forward. Okay, it's a bit late at this time of year, I would normally have already scrounged up PDA and have jotted down all the things I'd like to improve about myself in this new year. The year would already be in full swing, and I'd be on my way to checkout for completing my resolutions. But this year? What a lopsided vehicle.

My 1st resolution of which I've to subscribe for the Star's epaper. What I thought was a money saving conception because it would be paid less from the conventional delivery. But what Hokkianese had said, "tou chit kwan, too teow ah moh hwan." Something like first trimester blues!

Although I had successfully registered with ebrowse.bluehyppo.com but when it came to the payment session for subscription, It was a mad thing. Hmm, I did'nt know whether I was stupid or the Tmnet was stupid. Submitting my correct IC numbers in order to verify my online payment had has turned out to be incorrect, according to their return.

I remembered I'd have submitted a photo copy of my IC together with a duly completed application form when applying for the account of Streamyx many years ago. By right, they should have a right record of that. So I went to my Streamyx's account information page, thinking that it would be an ABC by just editing my personal info, but it was not that easy. It was completely chanceless to perform the task online. They made a written note asking for a personal handling of documentation. After many attempts, all were had failed. I stupidly laughed to myself, "It's called the Malaysian way of online business!" Let better make a highjump and forget about this at this moment.

Next, I'm going to buy Surbex 750, Abbott's vitamin supplements. I believe this to be a matter of concentration, nutrition, and the use of brain to trap certain special set of circumstances. I'll keep you posted.

Harmonious cattle of different colors

I took this picture while I was taking a short puff at the corridor outside my workplace this noon. My first glimpse on this scene was blissful. These three different colors of cattle were getting together in perfect harmony with a common objective of "cari makan" freely at the large green green grass of field.

Resource for living is their most important goal. There is no social malaise inside their circle; protectionism which is sometimes necessary in trade, is not required to be practical between them; no brutal attacks or arguments. So, do they require apologies?

Yeah! I'm No. 1 of TM's Merdeka Plan customer

I signed up the so called Merdeka Plan with TM on 16-09-05 when I received a brochure of invitation.

Yesterday, I was much surprised to receive a greeting postcard from the TM, saying that I was the No. 1 of their Merdeka Plan customer.

Wait a minute, Hat Chew! It sounds like they're trying to say that I was one of their No. 1 Merdeka Plan customers in the first sentence. But the third sentence then emphasized that being their "top customer" (singular). I think I'm No. 1 kuah!

The greeting message came together with a reward as follow - "Greetings! Thank you for being our number one Medeka Plan customer. We hope that you've enjoyed its benefits and will continue to do so. As our top customer, we believe that you deserve only the best from us. That's why, we've added more value to your Merdeka Plan and are pleased to announce that it now comes with extra talk-time minutes. FREE! Your new Merdeka Plan: 580 local call minutes + 120 national call minutes = 700 talk-time minutes. It's our own way of saying THANK YOU for you continued loyalty. So until our next reward, enjoy and happy talking! Warm regards from TM."

It has been a great job done by TM's customer relation department and is much encouraging.

Thank you TM for the reward! It certainly was nice to be remembered and especially nice to receive more talk-time during this 49th Merdeka!

Break

This evening I came across one of my collections of excerpt, titled "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There." from the World Executive's Digest 1995. The writer Richard Eyre cited about the need of fresh maxims to slow us down and make us more purposeful - that the nature of work and play has changed. Work used to be physical and tiring in this work-oriented world, so play was often passive. Often that work leaves us mentally tired and physically unused.

While looking back over the weeks and months but not see much of "up-colored" in my life. I was like sawing the trunk with a dull saw. I kept doing something and busying myself, never taking time to just sit there and sharpen my saw.

Well and so forth, I'll take a China vacation from tomorrow till the middle of this month, just to collect my thoughts, calm my mind, and regain my perspective.

Happy blogging!