Today doesn't exist

I wonder what today will bring ... so glad today's Friday.

30 days hath September

April, June, and November.

All the rest have 31,

save February - the shortest one.

28 is all it stores,

till Leap Year gives it one day more!

- Extracted from Leap Year Day

A truck with a loudspeaker proclaiming the local DUN candidate's achievements just rolled by my office window, making its rounds in the busy financial centre of PJ. For the benefit of busy working people who cannot make it to ceramahs, they bring the ceramah to you! And even if you don't want to listen, they still invade your ears through your non-soundproof windows. So amazing, elections is like one big huge festival.

Oscar 2008

I didn't know Jessica Alba's pregnant. There seems to be lotsa hot mamas these days. Being a mother seems to be the happening thing to do.

No, not ready, don't ask.

I'm looking forward to this :-

Polls 2008

In today's Star papers : DPM says oil price to remain after polls. I'm still skeptical. We shall see how long that promise lasts - about a week or so?

The NST's headlines of "Expansive and Expensive" is also very unpalatable. "Expansive" manifesto by BN and "expensive" manifesto by DAP. The editors of the mainstream papers have all been bought, haven't they?

I hate that the papers have been allocating almost 80% of news to the elections - like there's nothing else to report. I didn't know the world stops growing and celebrating and committing crimes and revealing scandals or heck, even earning a daily living, when we're having elections.

Elections is a dirty business. I much prefer if dirty business is done behind doors and not publicly advertised in all papers and media. But, I am reminded by a quote I have on Facebook : Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair - George Burns.

2 more weeks to Europe ...

*panic attack*

Too much work, h-e-l-p!

KF's back from Kunming and we're 2 weeks away from our next Europe trip! Yippee! :)

Weekend was delightful. On Friday night had our annual SGP CNY gathering dinner at Shogun. Small turnout this year - BY, WC, SL, San, Nat, CM, JO, TW, tai lo, myself - and we spent the time talking about family planning :P

I spent Saturday morning clearing some work. Then had dinner with ex-classmates in SS2 Chow Yang - the crispy duck there is indeed yummy and dessert in Swensen's (though I had nothing cos I duwan to be coughing my lungs out in wintry weather).

Sunday bright and early we went for a Toyota Rush test drive. Urgh. The test drive turned me off the car. I floored the pedal and it couldn't go past 110kph. Pick-up was rather slow. The car's seriously underpowered. We did the test with 4 pax in the car - incl. driver. I cannot imagine what the car will feel like with 7 passengers. Going up Genting is not very likely with this car.

Then my dad's "kai zhai" and family came over for lunch. After that I went to my boss place for his open house. I was feeling extremely full by then. And by the time dinner arrived, KF was back.

I think the CNY festivities are winding down. This year was unlike the other CNYs - had no Shandy, nothing iced, no sweets, haven't even gambled! I guess everyone's back to work mode now - to work hard for the rest of the year. No more mid-month breaks.

And so polls will be on March 8, 2008.

I won't be able to vote - and I don't know if I should be happy about it or not.

On the one hand, I'd like to make my vote count. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter if I vote or not because I'm registered in the wrong constituency anyway. I wrote in a couple of months ago to change my details but EC's reply was that the list has been gazetted, no further changes allowed. Ah well.

The previous 2004 elections I was manning one of the polling booths, checking numbers and names and then counting votes. I guess I'll miss out on that this time. Instead, I'll be wishing for it to snow :)

Ooh Lah Lah

Parliament was dissolved by the PM at noon just now.

Ironically, yesterday the PM said the Parliament won't be dissolved today.

Oh, I tell you, our PM is a cartoon character indeed.

First day back at work after the (rather short) CNY hols. We drove back early in the morning yesterday so did not get caught in the traditional jam. Went to watch CJ7 with my sisters and the Lee brothers. I didn't know what in the world the show was about - because even the title doesn't say much - so it was a nice surprise. Not your typical Chow Sing Chi show, less slapstick, more moral story.

It's the first year I did not spend CNY at home. Was weird. Maybe it was because I was recuperating from being feverishly sick on Tuesday (getting old already, it's harder to recover fast), but Ipoh was tiring and I was very lethargic from all the heat.

I'm looking forward to "lou sang" tonight - only done it once this year so far. Tonight is when CNY really starts - when friends get together and make lots of noise at our house. Too bad KF won't be around this weekend, because I'm sure this weekend will be a merry one, I'll be traipsing around from one friend's house to another. He won't even get to properly celebrate his birthday! (A blessing in disguise because it'll give me more time to plan for a belated one, haha).

And now I've to get back to work. Amazing how work can pile up although the whole country went to sleep for 4 days.

Penang roadtrip

The weekend was one feasting roadtrip.

Feb 1 - Friday morning, at 9am, we drove up to Ipoh and had lunch at Kwong Hing - the usuals of Ipoh hor fun, pork satay and white coffee and ML introduced us to this tasty tau foo far shop run by youngsters (Funny Mountain).

Then enroute to Penang, we dropped in at Taiping (my very first time there) to see a friend who works in the Toyota showroom. So naturally, we checked out the new Rush. Too bad no test drive unit yet. But it's basically a dressed-up Avanza. Still tempting. We had yummy ice-blended red bean and lok-lok at Kedai Ais Kacang Merah Raex before going on our way.

Exiting at Juru, I dug out the directions CS had given us and we drove to her house in BM. Spent the rest of the evening catching up over her "pre-wedding dinner" and meeting her French family. The caterer that night served the most fantastic "lobak" I've ever tasted.

About 12 hours after we had left PJ, we joined the horrendous Penang-bridge jam. Took us about an hour and a half to get from BM to Gurney. For people who have small bladders and easily-overheating cars, the Penang bridge is definitely not for you.

Reaching the hotel was a relief. Some konk-ed out straight, while most hung around waiting for the bathrooms. ML's superb corporate rate booked us 2 corner deluxe suites on the 26th floor with a fantastic view of the Malacca Straits (I think that is what Gurney overlooks). A friend dropped by for a chat until most of us decided to turn down at about 12 plus.

Feb 2 - Miraculously, we were all bathed and ready to go out before 9am. Had loh mee in Poly, roamed around Botanic Gardens (still has monkeys) then went to Gurney Plaza. The guys did some shopping, I went for my pre-CNY pedicure at this Sally Hansen parlour.

Lunch was yummy o-chien at Swatow Lane (not Newton Hawker) and ice-kacang with atapci! Then, it was back to the hotel to just hang out, gamble abit, chat abit, ejek abit. We left the hotel at 6pm to head into BM for the wedding dinner.

The wedding dinner was typical Hokkien style. I now remember where I had "or ni" (a yam-type of delicacy with bak guo). It's yummy. But it was weird that it was served in between dishes, when it's meant to be dessert. After dinner, we traipsed back to the beautiful bride's house to have a last catch-up with her, knowing that the next time we saw her would probably be if someone bought us tickets to Paris.

Feb 3 - Everyone decided to sleep in. We finally checked out at about 11am and went to Pulau Tikus to grab breakfast (mee rebus, char kuay teow) and stock up on TVB serial DVDs. Detoured to this kuih outlet called Eaton to get the mandatory tau sar peah and some yummy ang ku kuih before hitting the Penang bridge.

Of course, we had to stop somewhere. They decided on Bidor for its duck mee in the Pun Chun restaurant at about 3pm. Finally arrived home in PJ at about 5.30pm after a long weekend of food.

(all wonderful photos courtesy of Jarod Lee KP)