What Babies Want

Hsiang, what do you want for your birthday?

Aunty.

Aunty?!?! You want aunty as your birthday present?

*nodes* Uh-hm.

...

Flash back of another birthday wish from a colleague, something to do with having another lady colleague wrapped...

Later in the day...

Hsiang Hsiang, it's your birthday tomorrow, what do you want as present?

Laptop.

Why do you want a laptop? A laptop is not a toy, Hsiang.

Later still in the day...

Hsiang, what do you like for your birthday present?

Ali Baba.

Ali Baba? You want Ali Baba?

*nodes* Uh-hm.

After you shower mama reads you Ali Baba, okay?

Okay.

He ended up with this toy cashier from Tesco, which he happily told me is a "laptop".

Sexual Wellbeing Facts

Dear wifey took the trouble to cut out the following from the newspaper to show me...



Yup, this is the fu.. fact!

If you have missed it, wifey showed me some other fun stuff earlier this month.

Me is happy

"Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth." - Mark Twain

Sing like nobody's listening... hell yea!

I close my eyes most of the time when I am really putting myself into the song, so I won't see if anyone is listening.

Me, myself, in la la land.

=P

Thanks for the karaoke session my friends and colleagues, you know who you are. =)

*Fingers crossed*

Here's hoping that after the "battle" tomorrow, work life will settle back to the norm.

Let the working till late everyday and working through weekend stop, please.

I am tired.

Can't be bothered with most things nowadays, they require more energy than I possess.

I am a boring person to begin with, now I am downright dull.

So very tired.

Sparkles

So much for being glad I didn't have to work at home yesterday night. Another bomb shell hit today and I am back to working till late night, and most likely will have to work through the weekend again to get the job done in time.

Meh!

However, there were two things that happened today that simply lifted my mood and made my day.

The first thing happened before I left home this morning.

His Royal Highness King Baby Hsiang was up early and after being coaxed by his mommi, gave me a kiss on my cheek and wished me: "have a nice day, papa."

Even though it's really a caring thought from my loving wife, the fact that my son actually did what was told was really sweet. It warmed my heart.

Since almost everyday he refuses to give me a hug and a good night kiss no matter how nice me and my wife asked him to.

So his action this morning let me feel that, yea, for my wife and my son, all the frustration at work is worth it.

Motivation!

The second thing happened in the evening, around one hour before I left office.

Found out that a friend has made the change and is embracing happiness.

I'm genuinely overjoyed to know that.

Changes have to come from self so I am so very happy for my friend for the switch in attitude, no more being sad always.

This news made my day, and calls for a celebration! =)

Stay happy, my dear friend.

I just want to say...

...that after so many consecutive days of working late into the wee hours at home, it's so nice to not have to work at all tonight.

...that I have been bogged down by work lately and if I have been dull, not paying attention, and generally disinterest in things, please forgive me.

...that I do care, I just don't have the energy to do much.

...that if I look tired, that's because I am.

...that I could use a gentle pat, a warm hug, a loving peck.

Sam, happy birthday!

Polly, may you recover soon from ditching your appendix.

Long Weekend

Penang's governor's birthday on Saturday so today's the replacement holiday, giving us a long weekend to rest and relax.

Well, I should say for the fortunate ones to rest and relax. For me, it's work throughout the long weekend.

Thanks to the colleagues from the other department who produce such filmsy and out of spec product, the days of task force shall never end.

May the Force* be with you.

*task force

And thanks to the stubbornness of these same people tunnel visioning trying to force the solution for an entirely different issue to fix their one of many new found issues, and their "we don't care about thermal concern" attitude (exact quote), the shit has hit me straight in the face.

Since it's not a "let's work it out together" attitude but instead a "this is what I am going to do and your concerns be damned, go fix it" attitude from those lovely colleagues, you can imagine what a swell time I am having at work nowadays.

Like, shit being forced down the throat that kind of swell.

Anyway, those "my way or the highway" colleagues have requested thermal model prediction for 5 configurations. Since I know their 5 configurations are never going to cut it for us, I am enveloping around those to look at different configurations that will satisfy our requirement.

What it comes down to is that I have to create 8 different models and 16 cases for each model for enveloping purposes, that's a total of 128 cases. As usual, the results are wanted yesterday.

Swell.

And that, dear reader, is why I have been working everyday throughout the long weekend. And no, I am not done with the 128 cases yet. =(

On a much brighter note, got woken up by a phone call today that led to a full day outing with my closest friends at work, plus their families.

We had lunch together at Bukit Mertajam, as usual the ones who live closest to the place were the last to arrive, typical! =P

After the nice lunch we went around to see the two newly born babies, in between visiting the two babies we had a durian feast, courtesy of Chang, or if you are close to him, you can call him kacang, and if you are closer to him still, Yun Yun. =D

So today's not too bad really.

Let's hope the 32 cases from the last two models will go smoothly, so I can post-process all 128 cases tomorrow. Oh, and there is that 07:00 hours meeting to attend.

Swell, just swell.

Three Musketeers

The office seemed a less cheerful place when I found out that the three charming musketeers had tendered their resignations this morning.

Since I am not "8" enough, I only got a gist of the circumstances that led to their resignations. No matter the reason, the presence of these dynamic three will be sorely missed.

Ah Lian, Dareen and Leng Chai, who shall we used to attract the ladies now that you are gone?

Best wishes in your endeavour and don't be strangers.

分享

亲爱的老婆大人见了这篇文章后特地剪下来给我看，我觉得务必要和大家分享，造福男士们。

切记：重点是美丽的女人，不是任何女人都可以的。每天凝视丑女可能有害健康！ =P

This is a translation of the article by yours truely:

-----

Looking at beautiful women is good for men's health

Modern science believes that looking at beautiful women for a few minutes everyday is good for men's health and lifespan. According to the observation of a research done on 200 men over a 5 year period, guy who looks at beautiful lady/ladies on a daily basis has lower blood pressure, slower heartbeat rate, and less heart related disease compared to those who do not look at beautiful lady/ladies daily.

The researchers say that a polite and decent viewing of a beautiful lady, similar to admiration of a breath taking scenery, is good for body and soul. The benefit of looking at a beautiful lady for 10 minutes is almost equivalent to a 30 minutes oxygenated exercise*. Exercising this viewing pleasure everyday for several minutes can reduce the chance of getting stroke and heart attack, and a guy who is persistent in this viewing exercise can on average extend his lifespan by 4 to 5 years.

-----

Note: the operative word here is beautiful woman, not just any woman. Looking at ugly woman everyday may be harmful to your health! =P

*direct translation, I have no idea what "oxygenated exercise" means, exercising without oxygen can die lor, not meh?

This very moment...

The accumulation of the frustration at work, the badly managed stress, the onslaught of depression, those pent up anger and sense of helplessness, resulted in this oppressive negative energy that is surrounding me.

You know what?

I don't care anymore!

I am going to spend the rest of the day killing some monsters in a virtual world, real life be damned.

Thoughts from replying to a comment

This is the "longer version" of my reply to a comment in the previous entry.

The thoughts came and I kept writing until I found it too long to be a reply for the comment, so I saved it as another entry instead.

-----

Thanks for the offer GP, much appreciated.

But no, I don't feel comfortable opening up to just anyone.

Actually, I am a deeply private person, at least that's how I perceived myself.

It may come as a surprise since I share a lot of things openly online, but there are things that are just too personal to share with everyone.

The level of trust needed to expose the vulnerability and inner emotional layer of oneself to another soul is substantial, and it has to be built over time, mutually.

It's my own fault that I have pretty much stopped putting in effort in connecting with my friends in that way. Probably because I feel that mutual trust becomes harder as we get older. Unlike when we were younger, when motives were simpler, purer, less tainted.

Oh, I do care, I just no longer care as much as I used to, and I give up caring easily nowadays.

Perhaps it's just me getting sinister and less trusting as I accumulated life experiences. Or perhaps it's the painful experience of getting hurt deeply by trusting and caring for those who took advantage of me in return.

The effect was profound.

Perhaps it's simply because we get more and more commitments and responsibilities as we age, and we no longer devote our time to build and maintain a deep level of caring, sharing, trust, and communication that resulted in a relationship with someone or someones who we can just bare our soul. You know, soul mates.

I have to admit I find it uncomfortable to talk about sentiments, emotions, feelings, to a guy. Maybe it's a masculine thing, guys don't talk about such things to another guy. Or maybe because I find women to be better listeners, they are more empathetic and emotionally sensitive so they can resonate with my sentiments or feelings.

When I am pouring my heart out, the last thing I want is to hit a brick wall with someone who simply doesn't get what I am talking about, or worse still, make fun of me. I'd rather just keep it to myself so I think I have built walls around my inner sanctum.

Forgive me if I have ever turned down your act of caring, I am just so used to my cocoon now.

Say, where to get a soul mate, eBay?