OLD HABITS BECOME WORSE WITH OLD AGE

Someone from Match-room called today to tell me that I dropped my IC there. I was there Thursday for a meeting. I didn't even realise it was missing until they called. My God in heaven. Thank God I dropped it there and not somewhere else. If so, this would've been the fifth time I lost my IC!

Elsewhere, a prime suspect linked to the abduction and possible murder of Ipohite and old acquaintance Canny Ong has been nabbed. Police say that chances are the tragedy may have been more a crime of chance and instead of a premeditated act of passion. Far-fetched conspiracy theories are still abound though, that this may be a cover-up for the true motive. I think not. Ill fate is just a little hard to swallow sometimes.

Lokes and I are taking Raev to Genting tomorrow for the day's weather. Apart from Singapore, this is her second trip "somewhere else". I'd better start packing...

SWEARING IN A NEW GENERATION

No, this isn't another blog about the UMNO GA and Dr Mahathir's inspirational speech, so if you're looking for that, look elsewhere.

I was just perusing some blogs by young Malaysians and discovered that the faculties of eloquent debate have been replaced by delinquent swearing. Is this our legacy these days?

Now I'm all for freedom of expression and honesty but is shooting garbage off to anyone and everyone really the way we want our kids to converse in the future? While sudden combustions of fucks and dius are warranted when one's brain is seized with incendiary anger but these days, cursing has become part of even the simplest verbal discourse - even when it's to say something nice ("how the fuck are you?). And now, we're even colouring, bolding and italisingexpletives. Once vehicles for verbal abuse, a colourful vocab has become vogue. You wear it about your mouth like a fashion accessory.

Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe verbal decadence has become an inherent part of Malaysian life and polite speech has become archaic. Maybe it's just become less important amid issues of world hunger and poverty and making sure we have enough to enrol our kids in international school systems that will guarantee a better academic future vs. a morally sound one.

I remember the day after my SPM 13 years ago. After the last paper, my friends and I ran to the middle of our school field and fired a stream of expletives in an ultrasonic chorus. And then we fell down, laughing like fools about it. It was the ultimate method of putting an end to life as a teenager, an end to teachers breathing down our necks, of parents reprimanding us for bad report cards, of Add Maths and Chemistry and stupid PE lessons. It was like finding your dad's porn tapes and watching them, giggling away at how this strange 'grown-up' carnal obsession. In an expellation of all things adult and vile, we cursed into the wind.

Oh well. I hope it's just these blogs.

FICKLE ME
For some reason, this template wasn't available for me (which was I used the other Georgia-font one), until I clicked on an older test-blog I had created when I first signed on blogger a year ago. Have been searching for this style like forever! Anyway, this is gonna be here for a while.

Maybe. :)

I KNOW CANNY ONG
I must be the slowest person on earth. Despite having read reports about the recent abduction and possible murder of Ipohite Canny Ong, and having seen pictures of her plastered in papers everywhere, I did not realise that it was the same Canny I knew when I was a teenager. Although Canny was from Main Convent, a rival school of mine (MGS), we met socially from time to time during school dances and the like. I remember her to be this slightly chubby but gorgeous girl who had numerous admirers, one of those people blessed with effortless beauty that would no doubt bring her far. Because the 14-year old Canny looked so different from the pictures of her in the papers of late, I could not even recognise this old face from my past.

Sad that tragedy had to be the bearer of such memories...

Update: I found a site that her co-workers/friends have put up for her, simply named Bring Canny Home. Perhaps YOU may have something to offer...

RECIPE FOR UTTERLY DELICIOUS CHICKEN STEW
My mother-in-law whipped up this heavenly stew yesterday because I'm on a high-protein diet. I tell you - it was just...awesome! FOr diet food, it's just super. Here's the recipe for those of you who want to keep the carbs off and still have a good meal:

Ingredients:
Chicken drumsticks, skinned
Carrots, sliced thickly
Celery, broken into short sticks
Bombay onions, diced
Tomatos, halved
Soy sauce
Pepper

Marinate the drumsticks with a dash of soysauce and pepper. Leave for 15 minutes. Using a good stainless steel pot with a heavy bottom, throw in the chicken and onions WITHOUT any oil. When the onions are nicely browned, throw in the tomatoes. You'll see the juices from the chicken and tomatoes surfacing and thus giving your cooking dish a nice, wet base. When the chicken is cooked (test with a fork), throw in the rest of the veggies and stew for 15 minutes.

It's important to remember the stainless steel pot with the inch-thick bottom because if you use, say, a claypot or an aluminium pot, the juices will all be absorbed into the pot - not the point of a good stew. The bottom has to be thick to retain heat even after you've stopped heating. And DON'T add any water.

That's it. Enjoy!

LOVE IS...CHASING YOUR HUBBY OUT OF THE HOUSE
My husband has inadvertently turned into a homebody, and contrary to anyone's guess, it is NOT by my design. Because of his job, Lokes has elected to stay home the rest of the time "to make up" for the long hours he works. Apart from dinner, bedtime and the occasional quickie, that's all I see of him, really. I am glad he puts some effort into making up for his shortcomings. However, a few weeks before, he forgot all about his best friend's birthday until it was a day later. It was then he said that he is condemned to suffer a friendless existence. It hit me there and then - I hope his kakis do not think that I'm the one keeping him at home!! Hence, I told Lokes to please make a policy of going out with his friends, do whatever it is they do, short of getting laid, because I am NOT a prison warden. And to please make sure his friends know that! So, he's going out tonight to Viva - with his colleagues. I guess that's better than nothing. Good lord, it's raining cats and dogs again. Lightning is streaking the sky like nobody's business. Is my modem still working? Hello?

NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS!
The whole Half-Life/CS licensing ruckus caused by Adspace which resulted in the closing down of dozens of cyber cafes last year, based on the supposed violation of copyright laws, is now finally being turned on its head. A talk with a prominent cybercafe player who stood his ground on not submitting to these 'terrorists' of the Malaysian CC circuit revealed that cafes can actually use legal copies of Day of Defeat (distributed by New Era Interactive and not SM, as DoD is published by Activision and not Vivendi Universal) instead of Half-Life, to run CS. This allows cafe owners to only pay a one-time original copy fee and not the ridiculous monthly licence charges set by SM - a regulation which does not exist in any other country but Malaysia, and one that has caused the demise of many cafes. When asked how they managed to discover this loophole, my friend said "It just landed on our lap!" Rumour has it that SM is now trying to buy NEI over so that they can again cannibalise on the business and ironically put their very customers out of business. I really hope Microsoft (since Sega is out of the running) or some other conglomerate buys Vivendi (and hence BLizzard/Sierra) out so the cafes here have a chance to breathe. Sure, the software per copy would cost more but the monthly "protection fees" would stop. This extortion has to stop. THe irony is that these guys are being hailed as the intellectual property protectors. Let's see what happens when the axe falls. For all we know, it could Uncle Ho himself!

CULTURE TREK Being a fulltime freelancer has its perks, but the downside to spending most of the day alone in your home with only your PC and Astro to keep you busy can be numbing at times, and depressing after a while. After two years, it becomes almost surreal. Lokes (my hubby) told me that I should pick up a musical instrument, as well as make more appointments outside to fill my time. Having accomplished the latter (and in the process acquired two more contracts that have all but eaten up my Astro/gaming time), I began earnestly four days ago to play the flageolet, aka the Irish tin whistle. I used to play the recorder when I was a wee slip o' girl so learning to play the flageolet was a cinch. I managed to find some free lessons online, and am now trying to master the 'embellishments'. Quite tough. Now, instead of playing reversi on my Ipaq while waiting for the game servers of Age of Mythology to match me up, or when waiting for a page to load, I whistle away! Aside from this, I've also signed up for a Lit Appreciation course, conducted by NST literary columnist Alina Rastam, who also writes about women's issues, as I just found out by chance two days ago. This started two weeks back. Last Tuesday, we continued our discussion of the finer points of reading poetry, where we discussed Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est", which is Latin for "tis sweet and proper/honourable", the front part of a patriotic Latin mantra glorifying war. The verse's graphic depiction of the realities of the battlefield are graphic, to say the least, and it surprises me that one can wax poetic on such a subject. Look ma, I'm learning! So thus begins my cultural trek. Let's see if my taste for Nescafe see-kosong-ais will slowly change to wine or tea...

LAWSUITS GALORE There has been a a marked increase in lawsuits flying between stalwarts of the global IT sector these past few months. The first in this legal lineup is of course the now much-covered SCO vs IBM which has had Linux users in an uproar, in somewhat juvenile form, banding up and inviting more legal action from the purported 'owners' of the Unix platform. And then came Oracle's hostile takeover bid for Peoplesoft, with the latter now suing the former for deliberately interfering with its plans to buy over JDE. To this, Oracle upped its ante by over US1 billion and filed a countersuit yesterday against Peoplesoft and JDE "in response to their collective efforts to eliminate PeopleSoft shareholders' ability to accept Oracle's tender offer". Hours ago, Reuters has reported the state of Connecticut has filed an antitrust suit against Oracle to block its bid. And just yesterday, Microsoft filed suits against 15 firms for spam. Well, well, well - one thing's for sure. The lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank. They always do. Don't I wish I finished my law degree...