Posted on 18 December 2005 @ 23:38 in Ramblings
Most times, I usually know what I’m doing. This afternoon was not one of them.
I’d gone to my sister’s after visiting mother and sending my brother to meet his taxi for the airport. I was hoping there’d still be lunch left, but I couldn’t even get into the house. There was no parking for my car - not inside the house compound and not anywhere outside the gate. Yes, there was a space almost near the top of the road but I was too lazy to walk that far. Just as well, too, cuz soon after I got home, it started to pour.
A while later, I thought why not HN as there was a gadget I wanted to check out there. So I got into the car, and within minutes drove myself into the thick of a jam headed for One Utama. What was I thinking of when I thought of going to HN on a Sunday afternoon one weekend before Christmas? But I was stuck in it, and couldn’t turn back, so what could I do but sit it out and crawl it through? Must’ve been a good 15 minutes or more before I cleared that part of Bandar Utama and was finally headed towards Ikano Power Centre.
More cars on the main road, many of them signalling their intention to turn into Mutiara Damansara towards another crazy shopping area - that of Ikano / IKEA, The Curve and Tesco. I thought about the parking situation and knew there would likely not be any available in any of the three. So where did I go? Burger King across the road from Tesco, almost at the other end of where HN is located in Ikano.
After a hearty lunch at BK, I started on the long walk to HN - across the road to Tesco, through the Tesco car park, in and out of Tesco, short walk to The Curve, past Borders (was tempted to go in but didn’t), down the corridor, left turn, past Secret Recipe and Starbucks, out into the open and cross the road to IKEA. Once inside IKEA, I walked into Ikano, took the escalator to the first floor and finally arrived at HN.
HN was crowded, too, with its 2nd anniversary celebration sale that included a selected range of items on offer at just 2% of their retail prices. Most of the items on the info poster at the entrance had the “Sold Out” sticker stuck across their box - I shudder at the thought of the probable mayhem when each item was announced as available for sale at their appointed time. Fortunately, none of that happened when I was there.
So I made my way to the gadget counter, and saw the item I’m thinking of getting. Unfortunately, there was no offer on this item at HN; instead, it sported the same price as indicated on the official web site. Oh well …
All that walk for nothing? Not really. I went down to Cold Storage and got the sweets my niece had asked for. She’d recently started on a regime of a bitter Chinese herbal concoction that she is able to drink with the help of a sweet. Not any sweet, but Fox’s, specifically Fox’s Crystal Clear Fruits. There was plenty of that at Cold Storage so I stocked up on her behalf.
So my long walk to Harvey Norman was not in vain after all.
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Posted on 5 July 2005 @ 23:17 in Ramblings
I’ve heard it said that if you smelled something too directly, the smell goes to your head and stays there so that you continue to smell it from memory, even tho the actual smell is long gone. Can anyone confirm that? Sham?
I sure hope so cuz I’m smelling shoe polish wherever I am, even places where there shouldn’t be that smell.
What happened was I spilled some shoe polish in the car on Monday. I was in a hurry so I ran the shoe polish sponge over my shoes while in the car (after arriving in the office and not while driving). It was an old bottle and the sponge fell off and a bit of shoe polish dribbled out. Quite a bit, it turned out, since the car still reeks of it, and I’ve been getting a good whiff of it everytime I’m in the car. I know, I know - I should’ve wiped it off the first chance I got, but I didn’t, so now I’m paying the price for it.
I even smell it in my little room at work (yes, I have a little room at work, altho it’s “borrowed” , cuz we’re in a different part of the building while our usual place is being renovated, and we’re supposed to move back there middle of this month, to an open-space department … but I digress).
Where was I? So, yah, okay, first time tomorrow morning, before I go to work, I better wipe off the shoe polish stains.
I still smell the shoe polish. I hope it isn’t killing off the cells in my brain.
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Posted on 1 July 2005 @ 00:27 in Ramblings
Goodness, it’s past midnight, which means it’s the start of another new “year” for me.
Another new “year” ?
Well, there’s the regular new year, 1 January. And then there’s the new year for work. You see, where I work, our financial year begins on 1 July, and for work reasons, I have to think “new year” on 1 July.
Actually, there’s another reason why I’m celebrating new year on 1 July. It gives me another opportunity to start afresh, to make amends (or try to) for things I meant to do but never got round to doing in the past six months. Things like resolutions. Not that I made any. Cuz I knew I wouldn’t keep them, so why bother?
I guess I just like the word “new” and the opportunity to scratch what’s come before and start on a clean sheet.
Not that I want to scratch everything that happened so far this year.
I’m just letting my fingers loose on the keyboard and trying to write a weblog entry. Not that what I’ve written so far is rubbish.
Don’t mind me. I think my senses have gone to bed. And now it’s time for the rest of me to follow.
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Posted on 26 May 2005 @ 12:06 in Ramblings
Yup, especially when in the hands of the wrong person!
Audrey from GT Heritage had called yesterday to say that she was a little worried about mother. Apparently, mother was showing the Parkinson’s like stiffness that we’d earlier managed to overcome with an adjustment in her medications.
I next called Dr R to let him know and he made a suggestion that I duly called to tell Audrey. I also asked her to keep monitoring mother, and that I might go over after work to see mother.
All well and good after those three phone calls. Or so I thought.
A while later, my handphone rang. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the caller ID.
GT Heritage.
Had something happened to mother since the earlier calls? I pressed the answer button.
Me: Hullo?
Unfamiliar voice: Apa? Siapa tu? (What? Who’s that?)
It was Grace, one of the residents who’d recently learned how to use the redial button on the cordless phone in the office. She’s forever using the phone to call her children.
*relieved*
I later called Audrey to tell her about the “surprise” call. She said they really have to put the phone somewhere higher where Grace cannot reach it.
A few Sundays back, while at GT Heritage, Betty’s handphone rang. She looked at the caller ID.
“GT Heritage? But I’m here.”
Yup, Grace again.
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Posted on 24 February 2005 @ 21:36 in Ramblings
This year, more people will get to travel thanks to the cheap airfares made available by Malaysia Airlines at its Travel Fair last weekend.
This was the second year MAS organised such a fair. I was at the one last year, part of the huge crowd that queued and waited for the doors to open. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to use my ticket as mother fractured her right wrist and I had to cancel my trip to help care for her.
That’s the thing about cheap airfares offered at such travel fairs. Money-wise, the fares are cheap. But there is a price to pay for such cheap fares. For one thing, you have to travel within a certain period of time. For another, you forfeit quite a bit if you have to cancel. Something like 50% of the airfare, plus an admin charge imposed by the travel agent that did the ticketing for you.
I was fortunate, tho. I knew someone who knew someone who knew a senior MAS official. I got back almost 80% of my airfare. No strings were pulled, it was all legit cuz I had the doctor’s letter to prove that I had to cancel due to medical reasons (not my own, but mother’s).
This year, I wasn’t going to be in the crowd for cheap fares again. But at the last minute, I remembered I really should be looking at travel arrangements to see Hua Mei and her twins later this year. So I went to the travel agent a floor below my office to ask. As it turned out, MAS had extended the fare promotions by two days (not sure if that’s a good sign cuz it could also mean they didn’t meet their sales target over the weekend and had to extend).
I wasn’t interested in just the airfare, but well, not exactly a tour package either. I found what I wanted - a semi-package comprising travel, room and board, and freedom to go around without being part of a tour group. After giving me the necessary info, the rep added that within certain travel periods, there would be a discount of RM90/-. Wow, what a deal, huh?
But wait, there’s a catch. The minute a booking is made, a non-refundable RM500/- deposit is required, followed by full payment when ticket is issued. What’s the catch? No refund at all if cancellation within 14 days before the trip.
The way things are going for me, I cannot book anything and be sure I can go ahead with the trip. For a RM90/- discount, I risk losing RM500/- or even more. Is it worth the risk?
And that’s the other thing about such fare promotions as those offered by MAS at its recently concluded Travel Fair. More people get to travel due to the cheap fares, but at a price dictated by the airline. Is it worth it?
If one can afford to travel, why look for cheap fares and be bound by rules and regulations?
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