Saturday, August 26, 2006

Marley and Me by John Grogan

A funny, heart warming, and tear jerking story about a man's best friend. Highly recommended to all animal lover!!!

More on the book and the author here.

PS: If you promise to be nice and good (with the book) we may consider to lend our book to you :)!!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

(don't want to) back to work ...

Some of you might know that I was out of town in the past few days for vacation. Oh well, I really think I need another one to recover from it.

If you think that going on a shopping trip with this buruh-kantor is tiring, try one with my Mom! She can move as quick as a fox if she want to, (mostly not in the right direction though) .. and require full-time attention as she can dissapear in the blink of an eye! I learnt it the hard way by going up and down this Giant Budha twice because I can't find them :( ..

As the theme of the trip was sightseeing, we did not really get chance to go for proper shopping :(. Surprisingly this buruh-kantor actually managed to "shop" more than us without her joining the trip :)!! My Mom manage to snatch 5 hand bags along the way though, while my haul is just 3 Giordano boxers :(. Maybe next time we should go with an empty bag so we are forced to shop :)! Sounds like fun isn't it (just learnt from Princess that I am actually quite stingy in shopping for myself, other than electronic probably :)... ).

Went back at wee hour this morning due to our flight delay, we reached home to found that our bathrooms are in complete mess. Apparently some smart ass decided to clean the exterior of the building with blower and all the dust end up messing up our bathroom :(!! Argghhhhh end up having to clean both toilets in the middle of the night (was planning to knock off rigth after we reach home).

Lucky for me I can "work" from home today, but poor Princess has to face the reality earlier this morning and I wish her all the best!

Current state: Extremely tired and broke :(

... a puppy called Panda (no ?!?)

... ding!

Message from my Sis-in-Law, "we are buying a puppy, can we call her Panda?" Ehm ehm (pretending to think hard) ".. of course, as long as she is cute :)!"

Well it turned out that she is Panda no more :( ..

To quote from my Sis message "After calling our pup "Panda" for a day, we realize that the name doesn't fit her as she's too hyper and has shown her no-fear quality. So with great regret we let go of Panda and now she's Zoe :-P"

Hmppphhhhhhh! I wonder what does that mean?

Anyway, got her picture today and she is soooooooooooo adorable and kawaaaaiiii! How I wish she is mine :( ...

Can't wait to play with her and teach her all "nasty stuff" this Feb :)!!!

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Sunday, August 13, 2006

.. the invasion of Mama Panda :)

Nothing beats home cooked food, your Mum's cooking that is ...

This morning I saw my childhood flash right before my eyes. Not that I was halusinating or in a life-threatening situation (like those in Hollywood flicks) but I just spent my entire morning looking at all my childhood favorite dishes, Gule, Rendang, Garang Asem Ayam, Garang Asem Iga, Gudeg (complete with chicken, koyor and krecek), Rendang, Tempe Bacem, Martabak Manis Jagalan and the list goes on and on and on ...

My Mum is in town. Despite numorous attempts by her daughter in-law to "tone-down" her enthusiasm to cook for her starving and underfeed boy, she still managed to prepare tons of home cooked (enough to feed small army), and packed it along with her to Singapore :). And so, with the "if-looks-could-kills" eyes of Princess Panda behind my back, I spent the whole morning unpacking, reheating and repacking all the dishes (two big boxes of them). To make things a little bit more complicated, we found out that we don't have enough pan and bowl to store/reheat all the food at one go :)!

My Mum loves to cook, which can be easily seen in how healthy my brother and I are :). Unfortunately, or actually fortunately for me, most of her dishes involve meat! Raise from not-so-meaty family, Princess Panda really struggle to eat meat and meat and more of them :)!

My Mum also have a very short term memory problem, especially related to my diet. In between her constant nagging of me to slim down and Princess Panda to watch over my diet, she continuously ask us to eat more of her food, which cannot really catagorized as healthy food :)! Luckily for us we have our tetangga and this poor buruh kantor that drop by yesterday to help us savour portion of the Gule, Rendang and Martabak Manis :). So watch out guys, in desperate measure I may call out to you again!

Oh well, at least we don't have to think of what to cook for the next 3-4 months!

Thursday, August 10, 2006

.. sejuta Coro dan istri tercinta

Sebetulnya kejadian yang saya blog ini gak baru .. tapi berhubung terlalu banyak hal-hal yang gak penting jadi gak pernah kesampean menulisnya ..

Coro dan HDB sayangnya adalah dua hal yang tidak bisa dipisahkan :( .. mau sebersih apa rumah anda, pasti ada juga coro-coro canggih yang bisa mampir, entah terbang lewat jendela atau menyelip ke kiri dan ke kanan lewat lubang-lubang yang tak terbayangkan sebelumnya .. dan jangan keliru antara coro sama Churos ya .. kalo yang itu sih saya suka :) ..

Anyway, sampai di mana ya saya tadi, oh ya .. coro dan HDB .. Nah di HDB tuh biasanya ada acara bulanan untuk mengasapi lubang sampah (jangan keliru dengan acara bakar-bakaran tetangga kita di bulan ke tujuh ya), tujuannya adalah untuk membunuh coro-coro dan binatang binatang lain yang dengan happy-nya menghuni lubang hitam nan seram itu. Biasanya beberapa hari sebelum kita sudah di wanti-wanti sama HDB untuk menutup lubang-lubang sampah di hari itu sehingga binatang-binatang jahanam itu tidak mengungsi ke rumah kita, dan beberapa minggu yang lalu kita lupa :( ...

Pagi-pagi bangun dan mau mencuci baju eh tiba-tiba saya melihat satu, dua mahluk seram berjalan jalan dengan happynya di dapur .. hiyaaaat gubrak .. kuhajar dengan semangat .. eh ada lagi, satu-dua-tiga-empat .. wah mulai keringat dingin .. persenjataan mulai berubah dari gulungan koran ke semprotan baygon .. eh bak pahlawan kemerdekaan, mati satu maju seribu .. gawat bok .. terpaksa mundur teratur dan mengatur strategi baru ... ternyata saudara-saudara dengan bodohnya saya baru melihat kalo ada lubang di samping gorong-gorong sampah saya .. lubang kecil sekali tapi entah bagaimana si coro-coro ini dengan langsing dan rampingnya bisa merambat masuk :( .. gak heran kalo ada yang bilang coro adalah "the last life-being on earth that can stand a nuclear war", biarpun sudah habis satu kaleng baygon dan dapur mulai berkabut mereka masih dengan gagah-gagahnya main petak umpet di dapur :( ...

To cut the story short .. setelah dengan paniknya melihat rumah di serbu mahluk-mahluk seram dan bisa terbang itu saya hanya bisa bengong, mundur teratur, ngegebukin coro yang berhasil melewati kabut baygon dari dapur, dan menelepon 911 eh istriku ...

Untuk yang mengenal nyonyaku ini, sudah pasti dong tahu betapa takutnya dia dengan coro .. eh ternyata hari itu beliau dengan gagah beraninya menawarkan diri untuk kabur dari kantor dan membantu seekor Panda yang lagi histeris di rumah!!! Do'i yang sakit perut dan pusing aja susahnya setengah mati di bujukin ambil MC or pulang pagi, eh tanpa di minta langsung pulang untuk bertempur dengan coro (not one of her favorite past time) .. Sampai rumah, berbekal amunisi baru (3 kaleng baygon), si Panda yang acem dan belum mandi ini dirangkul dengan penuh cinta dan dikasi semangat untuk menghajar jahanam-jahanam itu .. hiks .. jadi terharu ...

Yah biarpun kita sering berantem tentang hal-hal yang gak perlu, it's really comforting to know that you have someone to rely on when you need it the most ...

So ... untuk istriku tercinta .. Cup-cup .. makasih ya ...

Luv, Panda :) ..

Foot note (from wikipedia):
"Cockroaches are insects of the Order Blattodea. The names of the order are derived from Greek language blatta, meaning "cockroach". There are roughly 3,500 species in 6 families. Cockroaches exist worldwide, with the exception of the polar regions and in elevations above 2,000 metres (6,500 feet). Cockroaches are also simply known as "roaches".

Among the most well-known species are the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, which is about 3cm long, and the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, about 1½cm long. Tropical cockroaches are often much bigger, and in turn prehistoric forms such as the Carboniferous Archimylacris and the Permian Apthoroblattina were several times as large as these. When infesting buildings, cockroaches are considered pests; out of the thousands of species, however, only a handful fall into this designation."

"A churro is a fried-dough pastry-based snack, which originated in Spain, and is popular in Latin America, the USA, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands. It is sometimes referred to as a Spanish doughnut or Mexican doughnut. Porras are similar but with a round thicker cross section, so named due to the fact that they usually resemble the form of a club.

The traditional seasoning of churros is sugar. Many churro connoisseurs swear by the combination of chocolate con churros, wherein the churro is dunked into a mug of piping hot chocolate, thick in the Spanish fashion. Churros may also be served sprinkled with cinnamon. Like pretzels, churros are often sold by street vendors who in many cases will fry them freshly on the street stand and sell them warm or hot."

Monday, August 07, 2006

... [13294116]

"But touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
And we can have forever
And we can love forever
Forever is our today

Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever
Forever is our today"

Queen - Who want to live forever?
Words and music by Brian May
An email from our alumni mailing-list strucked me last week, the subject is, translated loosely in English, "I hope I got it wrong, but I heard Bakul passed away due to work accident". Few emails later, the news was confirmed.

No, I won't over dramatized the situation by telling you how close we are or anything like that. The truth is we barely close :( and our interaction was limited to the first 1-2 years in college and a few off-class room activities (read: HME). In fact, we no longer talks after college. This was the first time I heard about him after so many years and not really the news I expected to hear.

My condolence to the families and friends he left behind and I pray that the Above give them strength to move on. While it is hard to believe the reason behind His early calling, I do believe that it is all part of God's plan.

No one want to live forever, but I believe many want to live for a little bit longer ...