No, You Cannot Have Burgers For Chinese New Year

John 'The Orange' checked his watch. It's five minutes to midnight, five more that he needed to remain alive. The dimly lit hypermarket offered many places of refuge and he was more than thankful for a life-sized vat of wasabi peas at the centre of the SNACKS/BISCUITS aisle. Personally, he'd prefer pistachio but those half opened ends looked like they could hurt. He sank his arms under the peas leaving only the top of his forehead visible. There were whispers. John closed his eyes and strained to hear the words."Concentrate," he said to himself.

"Look, he doesn't have to do anything but if we don't kill 'The Orange' in the next five minutes we don't get paid," 'Brinjal' hissed at 'Ramly.' "We need to split up."

'Ramly' nodded. "I ambil section 'ni, you cari dekat 'tu susu dan jus."

'Brinjal' turned and ran. He's going to find that bloody 'Orange' and skewer him with sharpened chopsticks. Literally. Eight hours earlier, twenty-five men from various organizations had each been give a pair of chopsticks and a mission - kill the assassin 'Orange' before midnight. It would be safe to assume that 'Orange' himself had a pair too, judging by the wounds on the twenty-three deceased men so far. 'Brinjal' turned a corner and spotted the lifeless corpse of 'Baked Beans' impaled through his heart with, you guessed it, a chopstick.

"Unnngghh....hnnngghhh....urrgghhhh!"

'Brinjal' stopped dead in his tracks as he heard 'Ramly' struggling. He ran back to where he had left him only to find 'Ramly' crumpled on the ground with a chopstick sticking out of his jugular. He clenched his chopsticks. Surely 'Orange' can't be far...

"Shhheeeeeeuuuwwwtt!"

The lights went out. 'Brinjal' was crying.

"What the f..."

The tears kept flowing from 'Brinjal's' eyes like a full bladder at the urinal after a beer drinking contest. It took him some time to notice that the tears more viscous than normal tears should be. He felt his face and for the first time realized that the lights hadn't been switched off but rather there were chopsticks pierced into his eyeballs. They were heavy, weird almost. He looked up and felt the blunt end of the chopsticks brush his eyebrows. With a quick bone-twisting crack, he fell to the ground with his head facing the back.

"Mahai!" Orange shouted. 'Noobs! All of them!"

Clicks! (There were more than one...) Light flooded every corner of the hypermarket now. A large contingent of men in suits made their way towards him. He saw his employers - 'The Committee.' A large man spoke.

" 'The Committee' thanks all the representatives from various Guilds, Associations and Unions for participating in the 2011 membership application of the 'Chinese New Year Essential Items Register.' We regret to inform you that there will be no new additions this year. Please try again next year." The crowd dispersed.

John heard the President of 'The Bak Gua Producers Union' offering his condolences to his counterpart from 'The Brinjal Growers Association'.

"Close fight this year! Better luck next time!"

Of course, 'Bak Gua', 'Nian Gao' and 'Mandarin Oranges' are permanent members on 'The Register.' John wondered what it would be like had 'Brinjal' won. 'The Committee' being men of their words would've gone all out, conjured a brinjal dish/snack and marketed it as the 'must have' this season. These were powerful men - they owned countless chains of stores, markets and restaurants globally and every decision they make influence worldwide consumption. That's unlikely to happen though with 'The Committee's' last defeat in the annual event occurring half a century ago to a well funded consortium of various farmers, manufacturers and fishermen. Everyone takes Yee Sang for granted now.

John headed for the main exit. The staff were hard at work mopping up blood and storing body bags with lamb and beef parts in the freezer. Fireworks lit the sky outside as people celebrated New Years Day. John's mind was already on his next job two weeks from now. By then he'll be 'The Chocolate.'

Once A God, Now Not Even Acknowledged By A Dog

I'm a dog person. One of the reasons that I look forward to visiting my mother-in-law (MIL) is to see Shiki. Now I don't know how Shiki does it, but each time our car appears from a distance he will already be barking and jumping with joy. Shiki will not stop the barking till we're inside the house or have given him a pat/belly rub. Sometimes both.

Shiki

Frankly, I enjoy the attention. I had a cat for quite some time and all it ever does is eyeball me with an expression that says 'you wanna fight?' Being greeted so warmly makes you feel godly - like having your theme music played whenever you arrive. This must be how the WWE stars feel as they enter a ring.

Unfortunately the theme music stopped a couple of weeks back.

Shiki doesn't welcome us nowadays. Sometimes he'll wag his tail, sometimes he'll totally ignore us. Not a single bark of acknowledgment.What's gotten into him? The only way I can coax some response from him is if I have a doggie snack.

I'm thinking teen angst. Shiki will turn 2 later this year, meaning he's almost approaching puberty in dog years. All those raging hormones and potential territorial disputes with the more established dogs in the neighborhood must have got him depressed. MIL, however, offered a different explanation.

Normally MIL will unleash Shiki once we arrive and put him back on the leash after we've left. Recently she's stopped doing this, preferring to unleash Shiki once we've left. So before this Shiki has equated our arrival with his freedom, and he was so happy to see us because of that!

It seems like we've read this one wrong... we were the theme music all along.

It's all about me...

Mousehunt

"There are rats on the roof."


"Are you sure? I thought that's the sound of water running through the pipes."


"They're rats."

Entrance to the roof

So says my wife. I think she must have x-ray vision because I wasn't really convinced that they were rats. Since the noises kept her awake at night, something had to be done.

I bought a steel cage, armed it with a bait that no rodent can refuse and set it on the roof. It was a piece of chicken skin (KFC, taken from the thigh, Original Recipe) dipped in some cheese sauce (from the cheezy wedges) and marinated for few hours in a container of leftover gravy (from the mashed potatoes). My mouth's watering as I type this...

There was a loud 'PRRRAAAPP!' slightly after 1am and I immediately knew the trap had sprung. I thought of dealing with it the next morning, but it was making such loud frantic noises trying to escape from the cage that you can hear it from downstairs. I left it outside with its final meal.

Lil' Jimmy

Problem solved? My wife still hears some sounds. Probably Jimmy's siblings. Timmy...or Tammy. I'll have to make another trip to KFC soon.

Unexpected Gift

Yesterday (Christmas Eve) at 3pm, I received a package that I thought would not arrive within the week. A very unexpected but delightful christmas gift!

It is a photobook of my recent trip to Australia! I started working on this project earlier this month and I surprised myself when I finished it in a record 2 weeks. It shows how you can get many things done when you are as disciplined as I am...

Ok so I lied. I was supposed to have the project wrapped up by October. October turned into November and very predictably November faded away faster than Rafa Benitez managed to lose his job at Inter. I decided that I was not going to let December slip away too. So I clicked and tapped away at the keyboards as much as I could. I devoted a couple of hours each day to sort through the photos that I've carefully chosen to ignore for the past few months (By the way, ask any photographer this and he will tell you that one of the worst things about photography is what comes after you're back from a long trip or a wedding. I don't think I've met anyone who enjoys sifting through gigabytes of pictures on his computer).

When I uploaded the finished files last weekend, I read the FAQ and noticed them mentioning that due to the festive season it may take longer than usual to process and deliver. To their credit they delivered on time. I must say that I'm very pleased with the finished product as well.

Since some of my favorite shots from the trip had been taken with a film camera, I had to include them in the album. I was a bit worried about the quality of the lab scanned images since a lot of them were averaging around 1MB but they turned out great. Even the cross processed ones.

Four of the pics you see in here are taken with the Olympus Trip 35 and FED 5C film cameras

If anything, seeing our finished album has made me want to go and travel even more in the coming years. Ok, I said ours but If you flip through the book, its more like my wife's album. Since I'm the one behind the camera most of the time, I can count the number of times I've appeared on the album with the fingers on one hand. We'll need to work on that for our next adventure.

All in all, its been an eventful year for us and I hope its been one for you all as well. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011!

A Thousand Words

A local hypermarket put up on its notice board the following picture. Its a picture of a charity home that they support.

Baby A: So what are you in here for?
Baby B: I smacked my brother in the face with a Ben 10 watch.

Now I'm sure the photographer had nothing but the best of intentions when he snapped that pic but it turned out to have a different feel to what he or she was trying to achieve. What do you think?

Turning 28

I celebrated my 28th birthday last week in a very quiet manner. Not that I mind. For the better part of this decade, I feared birthdays. Birthdays usually involved lots of lies and deception...along with plenty of flour, eggs and water. There were always 2 birthday cakes - one for the guests and one for your face. More time was spent in the planning of the 'sabo' and the cleaning up than the actual celebration itself. And that's why I know I'll be safe at home where my cleanliness obsessed wife will never pull off such a thing. My wife did give me something else though.

I really appreciated the gesture and thought it was very sweet of her. It did leave me thinking... who did I have to beat to be the Best Hubby of the Year? Who were the other contestants?

"The people in this house" she said. "That means you, you and you!"

"So who won?"

"You lor!"

Heh. Ask a stupid question get a stupid answer huh. Its a good thing she didn't do this in an elimination style voting, kinda like the World Cup venue picks. I'd be pretty suspicious if I (either you or you) had been eliminated in the first round like England. Also retaining the title will be pretty much a cinch. I've (you, you or you) got this title in the bag for many many years to come.

How I Inspired A Stranger To Be A Doctor

Its the school holidays. Everyone loves holidays. For the adults they can wake up later in the mornings knowing that the roads are not as clogged up as usual. For children, well they can pretty much do whatever they want.

There are a small number of high school students who take up temporary jobs, some I'm sure not by their own decision. There was this girl who had just finished her SPM and was working at the hypermarket in front of my pharmacy. My staff befriended her and they had something of a hi-bye friendship.

After the SPM results came out, this girl told my staff that she was leaving to continue her STPM. She confessed that thanks to us she has decided to pursue medicine after her STPM. My staff wished her well and asked what was it that made her decide to study medicine? Then she said she wanted to study pharmacy initially, but after observing us and seeing how boring it can be in a retail pharmacy, she decided to switch. Furthermore, she was convinced that I was a bit not right in the head because she saw me smiling and grinning to myself at times (I blame various people on my MSN contact list for this). So yea thanks to us...

I've never spoken a word with her before but at least I've influenced others in a way (though you can also argue that an outbreak of genital herpes influences the way people make decisions as well). That happened 3 years ago. I'd like to think that because of us and our example, she's in a med school somewhere. 

You're welcome.