Cheat Work Thursday

I hate guns and cigarettes. And I'm annoyed with Betty Draper most of the time. But this is one of my favourite Mad Men scenes. I watched Mad Men some time ago. What an excruciating several episodes, a lineup of work DBs that I don't get why haven't been charged with sexual harassment already, cheaters and annoying housewives. There's not even a single character to root for. Watching them just makes me mad, not entertained. Fine, if they succeed in making viewers like me annoyed with the characters, they are probably doing a good job with the show. Still, I want to slap the characters in their sleep. An example of the obnoxiousness of Pete (17 minutes into episode 1, speaking to the new hire Peggy): "Who's your little friend here? ... Where you from, honey? Are you Amish or something? Well, you are in the city now. Wouldn't be a sin for us to see your legs. And if you pull your waist in a little bit, you might look like a woman." What an a**hole...

So, since there was no parking at this 7-Eleven, I decided to go to the other one, which is a little further, on the other side of the main road. The road was congested for a housing area tonight. I was approaching the main road to make a U-turn, mostly looking to my right for cars coming that way. As I turned left, suddenly -- shoot! Two people, on my left, walking, were about to hit a car! Thankfully, I managed to hit the brakes and maneuver the wheel as fast as my mouth could blurt out the appropriate profanity. The car next to mine, coming from the same direction, honked and stopped. I was not sure whether they were honking at me or the jaywalkers. But nothing bad happened, except that I almost hit the divider, and the jaywalkers magically halted. Two seconds after, life goes on again for everybody. That was a pretty scary stunt, and I've been tested properly tonight, but I finally got my Maggi goreng kicap and now live happily ever after.

I promise you there's nothing particularly interesting about this story that it needs three parts, but here we are. So, I drove to the 7-Eleven in the area, and man, this place really has changed. When I first moved here after uni (I've never moved out since, told you, love this place), the neighbourhood was very quiet. There were a few rows of shop lots, eating places, banks and clinics etc, but we didn't have any night markets (except during Ramadhan), supermarkets, huge mamak restaurants or a business centre back then. Now I can't even get a parking space at a 7-Eleven. They now have an 'Uptown' here? Who needs this concept? It's like a new city is born at night in this area. Who are these people?? Since I have no right to complain about the world's need for evolvement and economic expansion -- I'm sure this adds to the tax collection that will benefit me in the end -- I'll stop complaining now. I don't own this place. Oh, how I wi...

It was 10+ PM. I'd already had bihun goreng, six pieces of peanut butter bread, an apple, coffee and green tea today. So, I wasn't hungry. I just wanted to eat something, like Maggi goreng kicap. The only place that I could think of was 7-Eleven because other places would probably require me to wear actual pants . I grabbed my cardigan, keys and wallet and went down to my car. A few things again about my apartment: The neighbourhood is just a 10-minute drive to the city centre. But the apartment is made up of six five-storey buildings, with the ground floor being the parking area, so it's not crowded (or it's not supposed to be). I love the privacy. A neighbour one floor below me has teenage sons who love to bring their friends to hang out at the staircase, playing with their laptops and cards, and sometimes smoking. Every time they hear footsteps, they'll stupidly hide the cigarettes. So they were there on the staircase today. You see, 17-year-olds in Ho...

It's good that we are all celebrating raya after a month of puasa, visiting friends and relatives, asking for forgiveness, catching up and stuff, but tell me we are not overdoing this. Puasa month (and buka puasa) is already a celebration by itself with preparations for raya may have started even way before puasa. After the public holidays and more, apparently not enough, there comes the open house season resulting in this... ... everywhere we go for the past two weekends so far. It's 45 minutes (10 rounds of We Rock ) to get out of this stretch of the road, 43 more minutes than usual. It's the first day of raya all over again, and it won't be long before Hari Raya Haji arrives. I love my country.

I want to show you something gross. It's my bleeding nail (ok, finger). My bathroom tap is old. The metal plating that covers it has chipped for quite some time now, because who has the time to replace bathroom taps? So, the plating cut my nail and finger Thursday morning. (Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting something major, but I promise you it's still gross.) I tried to pull the chipped plating out using a needle and tweezers, but it went deeper into my skin. After more blood and pain later, it still didn't come out, so I went to the clinic. Too bad the doctor didn't think this was very life threatening, so he asked (who I supposed was) a nurse to attend to it. I didn't see what she actually did, but after 10 minutes of me trying not to scream, they were positive the whole splinter had come out and gave me some ointment to apply at home. I just agreed as I couldn't bear any more poking. That was RM31, by the way. One day later, it bled...

There is this movie that I don't remember the title. It's the story of two women whose supposedly ordinary day goes all wrong, starting by only missing the freeway exit to work. It ends with one of the women dead, shot by the other, who loses a leg when their cars collide. Last Friday, I had a challenging (and very long) day too. It included a tricky puzzle that I had to text three people for an answer, "Can a motorcycle and a car share the same plate number?", a two-hour drive on an unfamiliar road in the heavy rain with one missing contact lens, and another hour of complete loss of direction. Thank God I'm still alive and I didn't shoot anybody either. (I'll spare you the other details.) But Saturday was ok. I had dinner at TGIF and a little shopping with my siblings. Anyway, back to the movie -- ever since I watched it, whenever I see a real life scene of two strangers wanting to strangle each other, I can't help but have this picture in my ...