Anyway running has taken over for now. To make sure I spend more time on my feet I have joined Mizuno Wave Run that will be flagging off on the 19th October 2008. It’s a 10km run. My second 10km event. My first was in 28th August 2005. It was a feat for me to be able to finish it. I blogged about this in my first blog in Xanga. I even got myself a hamper from a luckydraw then.


So far I have only managed to do a 7.5km run around my area. 2 plus more weeks to go before the event, my friends seems to be quite excited about it. I suspect my spike in jogging around might be related to the purchase of a new pair of running shoes. Haha. And another reason I joined the run was because by paying Rm35 in exchange for a running vest worth RM53.90 and a chance to get a shoe bag seems to be a good deal.

The same goes for the IOI Community Run in November. That is about 7.3km. Another Tshirt for RM15.
For details about this : IOI Community Run

Any of you joining? We can meet there and run ya. Do leave a message here if you do.
I forgot to mention that both of these event, it was girls who asked me to join. My guy friends all sigh… *shake head* One was my housemate SY and the other is JC.

I was rushing to go out for an appointment so I went up for a bath, a very quick one indeed. Got dressed and dashed downstairs. Before I stepped out I manage to steal a glimpse. She is cute all right. Adorable. But I did not stop for introduction. Save it for later. Maybe I shall get a hug from her, on pretext that it is customary for new housemates. Will try and take a picture of her. Not voyeur.

Planted myself with a loud bang against the partition and eyes darted in my direction. A weak smile and started poking at my food. The yee mee is a bit on the salty side and I had successfully managed to throw on my plate a compact mess of noodles, it lies there in dead calmness. Just like how a dead talapia would look, baking itself in a puddle of murky water, in this case my carrot and spring onion littered gravy. Fished for loose noodle ends from that pool and swallowed. Chewed on the thick mess but gave up soon after. I always kept food wastage at a minimal but today was not that day. So I headed for the bin, picking up the momentum whilst hoping that no one would notice me slamming a plate of noodles down. Two meters away from dump site and my boss appeared. I smiled. Looked happily at my food and poked it once. He went pass soon after a word of morning. Glanced left and right… coast is clear. Slam dunk!

The Score
Abner - 1
Cantonese Yee Mee - 0

New plate. 4 pieces of spring rolls. Re-enact the sit, bang on partition scene and munched. This time my ears cocked up on certain keywords and try piecing the stories they are exchanging. It seems my colleagues are tuned into some mild Tales from the Crypt and are quite excited about it. Well, for the guys that is. Apparently 3 of my colleagues was at work yesterday, a Sunday, from 11am - 3pm… 2 girls (i am being kind here) and a guy. They claimed to have heard noises and one of it being the sound of typing on a keyboard originating from my place or near my place. I sit in the far end of the office corner. It freaked them. The fact that the elevator was going up and down dinging and donging on a Sunday afternoon was not comforting. The last straw came when presence was felt sweeping across the small room. She felt as if someone was leaning inches from her cheek. They decided that they rather get screwed by the boss today.

I noticed that the two girls had puffy eyes today. Wonder if they were kept awake by the incident or …

Anyway, where their story ends is where we began. We add spices. Or one might prefer the word comforting them. Relayed to them that how lucky they were that they do not have printer or photocopy machine in there with them. What in the world would happen if the machines went about working on their own. About ‘them’ crawling out of 15″ monitors and getting stuck when they could choose the new 19″ Dell LCD Flat screens.  Or how your colleague turned out to not be your colleague when they answer your calling by twisting their heads 180 degrees back to talk to you in deep hoarse voices.

It seems that sounds of tapping on the Customer Service glass door with no one in sight is common. Oh and several of us flipped our punch cards to blue which is for the latter part of the month but only to come to work to find it in red. The girls are sure they left it in blue and they were the last to leave the office. I was puzzled today too, to find my card showing the red part. I remembered flipping it to the blue when I left on Friday night. And I was the last few to leave too. I am sure I won’t be the last few to leave today though. It’s still the Hungry Ghost month.

Nothing prepared me for it although I kept getting emails informing me of my domain is about to exceed it’s bandwidth limit. Final straw came on July 28th with the title… The domain has reached it’s bandwidth limit. Dang.

So may I ask any of you how should I keep it in check. Hopefully the craze will not last and the figure has dwindled to about 3k plus before we went offline.

On the other hand, it’s Hungry Ghost month and I am tempted to share some encounters here. Just did so with my colleagues.

I wish I was caught speeding instead. At least I could help their family buy some fish or new school bag for their kids after they had their “minum teh” rounds. My key was not even in the ignition. You dicks. Go sit on a wheelchair man. Don’t go driving around wasting petrol and let the ink bleed on pulp. Jerk offs. Yes I share a common interest with a lot of people.

Tomorrow I will have to park legally. The LRT station’s parking space has been reduced tremendously. The previous plot of land has been reclaimed and that means that the station parking lots has gone down and this makes the mad rush worse and the kind management sees this as a prefect reason to hike the price up by another ringgit to RM3 since their profit has been slashed. Duffy should scream her latest tune deafening them in process… and everybody goes:

You got me begging you for mercy
I’m begging you for mercy
I’m begging you for mercy
I’m begging you for mercy
I’m begging you for mercy

Why wont you release me yeah yeah

(continue till you lose your voice with your middle finger in the air)

Times like this calls for desperate measures. Luckily I had saved up some links and information for XP downgrade drivers earlier. With the help of my knowledgeable office techie Mr. K, problem was solved. Mr. K really made my day. Thank you so much! A meal is on me bro!

For any of you out there who are getting quite fed up with Vista making you look bad and is considering the downgrade option, I say go for it.
And if you so happen to be an owner of a Compaq 3795 who wants to downgrade from Vista to XP and are facing problem getting all the right drivers, let me know. I can upload them for you.

Anyway this Spicy Chicken McDeluxe ain’t something new. Many years back, KFC had this Double Blazing Burger which I loved dearly. Well, if put them side by side to compare of course. Am not a big fan of fast food ya. The smart people at KFC decided to scrap the Double Blazing and replaced it with a Hawaiian taste… giving the bloody burger a slice of pineapple. Had my bites of disappointment on that one. Their hula hula version with a wicked twist.

Here is something I did while sipping on my large coke.

Dark Knight. Joker. Clown. Ronald. It made sense to me. The corporate figure, the commercial freak that feeds on us or vice versa. It’s all part of the plan.

Met up with Food4Thot for some Ah Sang Ba Kut Teh around Kelana Jaya area. Let’s wait for her review on this place. Will linked it up if she does. I find it to be nice… with heavy herbs taste and Food4Thot liked the pig’s tummy most and her well trained buds tells her that those delicious slices of meat has gone through some pepper bath before ending up in a nicely simmered pot of claypot ba kut teh. I had two bowls of rice for my breakfast and a full tummy on a grey bleak morning does wonders. As we were enjoying this, a freak accident happened to an eight legged creature. Bless its soul.

Then hung around NZX for a while, checking the newly opened outlets… most of it being eateries. The Holly Coffee place seems decent. I could go there for my morning cuppa tea and hooked on to some Wifi and read a book. 2 hours should suffice and put me in a good mood for the day. It’s already in my coming to-do-list. SC insisted that I give Big Apple’s Durian infused donut a try. Since she is buying… naturally I did. I never reject free food. If I was a mouse, my life span would be so short. Managed to borrow 2 new books from her, Along Came A Spider by James Patterson and Socrates In Love by Kyoichi Katayama, my first Japanese translated book. Prepare for some different style of story telling, I was told. Oh and I finally finished The Little Prince. Go get it and read. It’s quite a read though it’s short. I mean the story not the prince with golden wheat hair. I left the place after gobbling the spiky doughnut. My burp smells of durian.

And the event of the day was the baking session once again after such a long interval. I was late so I was not eligible for any poser photos during the process. Hence I skipped all the photos of all of them and decided to post only what comes out of the oven. Ha… ha… ha…

First one to pop fresh out of the oven.

The Bread Butter Pudding. The crust is goooooooood. I only have a few bites. Was bullied into submission… had to eat a lot of the squishy part. Never let them serve me again. Hahaha…

The layered Shepherd Pie. Topped with cheese on top of an inch of mashed potato+onion+cheese on mixed vegetable and minced beef. Pardon the photo. It got attacked before they got a nice shot of it.

Made me skipped dinner. But had supper instead with my brother and friends. Slept early because the next day is a Sunday. And instead of joining the protest in red tshirts I went for the rocks. I had to officiate my new Evolve Defy. My third pair of climbing shoes.

Driven to climb more by the new acquisition, I did 6 routes at Nanyang Wall, Batu Caves. I led a 6A+ and did the Indecision 6B again but failed to redpoint it. It was good though. I only stopped to rest at the second last bolt. At the crux. Jammed my fingers till I tore my skin. No bloody scene, no worries. The other 4 routes was all top rope. A 6A, Lost Monkey 6C+, Old Shoes Beware 6C+ and Go To Hell 7A. Lost Monkey is considerably easy with loads of juggy handholds, the crux is the 3rd - 2nd last bolt area… a roof. With proper footwork and enough power and endurance it will be easy peasy. I think I will fall on that when I lead it. No doubt about it. Deep breath. It should be hell of a rush. The only climb that has been haunting me for the last 2 days is the Old Shoe Beware. I got my new shoes strapped on so I had won a quarter of the battle right? Fat hope. Anyway I kind of figured the move at the crux part. Left crimp, right hand over head crimp with a high step and a hard hard push on the right. Jam the fingers in the hole and go up… while stabilizing myself. Clip and exhale. That scene has been playing several times a day now and I am aching to get it over with. But alas, I would have to wait for 10 more days or so for I won’t be going outdoors this week. It’s resting time.

To my relief, the problem was with the rubber T hoses. The rubbers were all hard and crumbling. The mechanic suggested replacing them with metal T hoses. Twist, pull, poke, turn, squeeze and shake… tadaa… it’s done. It set me back at RM50. Grin.

Ha… got back home after that and the clock was showing 1230pm. Phone rang and surprisingly my climbing buddy was wondering if I wanted to check out some climbing shoes. Mmm… since I was home why not. I have been thinking of getting a new pair of climbing shoes anyway. Looked at 5.10 and Evolve. Was considering these two brands. I already have Mad Rock Flash and an EB lace shoe. Wanted to try a slip on too. After much deliberation and pondering, I got my rough hands on a pair of Evolve Defy from Camp5. The shoe is pure torture as would all new shoes. My right feet is half a size bigger than my left… and argh… I expect at least 2-3 months to break into the Defy. Won’t be able to slip on the new shoes in time for Summit Roxx competition which is going to take place on the 10th August 2008. A month left for training for it. The format this year would be different again. There would be a 3 person team… a female presence is compulsory. Or go solo.

Ops… time to hit the sack. A busy day for tomorrow too. Brunch with SC. Suggested ba kut teh. Then get a hair cut. Followed by a late afternoon pie making session with Qiqi and Jo while being watched on by Cicak, Evil and me. Yum. And a dinner with a long time no see friend. Lots to do. Enjoy your weekend people.