Sunday, July 29, 2007

There are birthdays and there are birthdays~


It's been a full on week and I couldn't wait until the weekend was here to even catch up on some sleep. Ha~


I still had to wake up early to have a late birthday celebration with some close friends of mine. We decided to go to Alice Kuih in Thornleigh. A well known Malaysian restaurant in the Sydney circle whose owner is from Klang. She makes good kuih too. Check my food blog on my review.


Only problem was that it is so far away. We took the train and it took 50 minutes to get there. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait long for our food to come. Happy and satisfied minutes ticked away as we savoured our long lunch.


We even chatted with Alice and she gave us some of her kuih for free. Yippee..


Time to take the train back to the city and that was another 50 minutes. Funny thing that train rides are. I noticed this dude who was on the train when we were on our way there. When we took the train back like 2 hours later, saw the same dude coming onto the train and into the same carriage again. Talk about coincidence.

Got me some birthday cake back in the city, as you can see, it is "Matcha" cake. Yummy~ it was good although I wish that it was a tad sweeter to satisfy that sweet tooth of mine.

I suddenly realised when i got a few peeps messaging me that I had another colleague of mine whom I've known since uni who is having a birthday + going away party tonight! I totally forgot, scrambled to organise things and arrange transport and off I go to another party.

It was funny to see when our of our workmates decided to tease this couple that was there. She started hugging the BF and not let go. Next thing you know, the GF ran over in a dash and pull them apart going "What are you guys doing!". Funny stuff!

Party ended and the few of us who felt that we needed to replenish our strength trotted off to grab a bite. By the time I got home, it was nearly 4am. There goes me trying to catch up on some well deserved sleep and rest.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows


I've been so busy the past week that I haven't had a chance to blog about the latest Harry Potter book. I was so tired for working long hours the week before that I couldn't wake up to be at the bookstore by 9.01am to grab a copy of the book. I got it as a birthday present from the Behs! Thank you chiccies...

Started reading in the late afternoon and did not stop. Finished after 11 hours! I definitely loved this book. I feel sort of sad that it is all over but can't wait for the movie to come out. Hope that it is more than 2 hours. Can't wait to see the battle scene.

Did a search on Wikipedia to see what was written there and for those who have yet to read the books (although I highly encouraged reading the whole thing), it gives a nice brief and detailed enough analogy on each chapter of each book so that you know what is happenning.
I found a few interesting news, enjoy!

In an interview, author J. K. Rowling gave additional information about the characters that is not explicit in the book.
  • The epilogue does not directly state that Harry and Ginny or Ron and Hermionie are married, but Rowling confirmed that indeed they are.
  • Harry and Ron are both Aurors; Harry is the department head, and Hermione is "very high up" in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
  • Luna Lovegood has become a naturalist of sorts, searching the world for odd and unique creatures.
  • At Hogwarts there is a new permanent Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, since the jinx that Voldemort placed on this job is broken. There is also a new headmaster, as Professor McGonagall was getting too old, but Rowling did not say who either of them are.

Now I didn't know that there was a jinx placed on DADA teachers. I need to read my books again.

Spoiler embargo
  • Rowling made a public request that anyone with advance information about the content of the last book should keep it to themselves, in order to avoid spoiling the experience for other readers. To this end, Bloomsbury invested £10M in an attempt to keep the book's contents secure until the July 21 release date.
  • Arthur Levine, U.S. editor of the Harry Potter series, denied distributing any copies of Deathly Hallows in advance for press review, but two U.S. papers published early reviews anyway.
  • There was speculation that some shops would break the embargo and distribute copies of the book early, as the penalty imposed for previous installments — that the distributor would not be supplied with any further copies of the series — would no longer be a deterrent.


Now if that was the embargo, I wouldn't not be selling early either as it makes sense since there are no more Harry Potter books to follow!


Price wars


In the UK, supermarket chain Asda claimed that the retail price of the book (UK£17.99: equivalent to US$37 at the time of release) was "holding children to ransom". The publisher responded by threatening to withdraw Asda's supply of the book, claiming a previously unpaid debt. Asda issued an apology and settled the debt, and its supply of the book was restored.


Asda, plus several other UK supermarkets, had already taken pre-orders for the book at a heavily discounted price. Asda then sparked a further price war two days before the book's launch by announcing they would sell it for just UK£5.00 a copy (equivalent to US$10.28 at the time of release). Tesco also lowered its price to UK£5.00, but only if customers spent another UK£50.00 in store (Asda did not impose this restriction). Morrisons lowered its price to UK£4.99; the cheapest retail price in the UK, although cash & carry chain Costco offered the book for UK£4.98.


At these prices the book is a loss

leader, with the supermarkets taking a loss of just over UK£3.00 on every copy sold, but attracting large numbers of customers to their stores. This caused uproar from traditional UK booksellers who argued they had no hope of competing in those conditions [25]. Independent shops protested loudest, but even Waterstone’s, the UK's largest dedicated chain bookstore, could not compete with the supermarket price. Some small bookstores hit back by buying their stock from the supermarkets rather than their wholesalers. Asda tried to counter this by imposing a limit of two copies per customer to prevent bulk-buying. Philip Wicks, a spokesman for the UK Booksellers Association, said: 'It is a war we can't even participate in. We think it's a crying shame that the supermarkets have decided to treat it as a loss-leader, like a can of baked beans." Michael Norris, an analyst at Simba Information, said: "You are not only lowering the price of the book. At this point, you are lowering the value of reading."


I agree, they clearly don't understand the value of reading! However, they are just looking at it from a business point of view I guess. I still believe that some things such as iconic events like this should not be messed with!


In
Malaysia, a similar price war brought about controversy regarding sales of the book. Four of the biggest bookstore chains in Malaysia, MPH Bookstores, Popular Bookstores, Times and Harris, decided to pull Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows off their shelves as a protest against Tesco and Carrefour hypermarkets. The retail price of the book in Malaysia is MYR 109.90 (about GBP 16.05), while the hypermarkets Tesco and Carrefour sell the book at MYR 69.90 (about GBP 10). The move by the bookstores was seen as an attempt to pressure the distributor Penguin Books to remove the books from the hypermarkets. However,as of 24 July 2007, the price war has ended, with the 4 bookstores involved resume selling the books in their stores.

Cheap Air fares

JETSTAR'S MALAYSIAN OFF-PEAK SPECIAL!

Travel Dates Economy ClassFares From MYR 09 Sep 07 - 11 Dec 07

Kuala Lumpur - Sydney MYR488*
Sydney - Kuala Lumpur MYR488*

For my Malaysian friends, Time to come VISIT me in SYDNEY!!!!! Book your tickets on Jetstar!!!

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Busy season starts...

The time comes when the hours seems long...day turns into night through the tiny windows or none at all...the task at hand seems overwhelming and your health takes a turn for the worse.
Some cope well..better than others...some just got it plain unlucky....

It's busy season again for those in public audits. I've been putting in 13-14 hours straight for a few days now. You just want the weekend to never end. I started getting headaches which I rarely get...(unless I'm drinking of course =P)!

It's now the weekend and the worse is over but another is to start next week. Time to get some serious R&R before Monday hits.

One of the grads on my team was so sweet. She got us chocolates as she enjoyed working with this team and learned a lot, we also laugh a lot (when we can!). It was delicately wrapped in a box too~




Thanks Anita. hope to work with you again.






Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Happy Birthday to Mua?!



It is my birthday today and I totally forgot! Had a celebration dinner with a few of my closer workmates the weekend before and it turned out to be a really good night. 17 of us sharing two long tables and having a banquet. We sure were a noisy crowd! Thank you to those of you who gave me this flower~ that was really sweet! Thank you to those of you for those lovely lovely presents~
Anyway, on the actual day of my birthday (which is today), my laptop decided to crash on me the night before and I just couldn't use the internet at all. In this modern world, I CANNOT not have internet. So bright and early I woke up to rush to work to get the IT people to look at it. Saw an sms on my phone and it was a long known friend of mine who wished me a happy birthday. Thanks Michael, you're the first one. It didn't even register to me at that point, I couldn't' believe it.
There goes my free Boost juice drink as I forgot to mention the special occasion.
Anyway, I just wanted to shout out to all of you who remembered and took the effort to send me messages, be it in any form!

Monday, July 16, 2007

When a stroke of bad luck hits you...

You know those movies and stories you watch and read of people having a bad day! I've heard of knowing one piece of bad news or something unlucky happening, but I have not experienced a few in a day.
My day started off well enough until I was in the office at 8.3o in the morning. My laptop decided to throw a tantrum and just didn't want to connect to the internet nor the office server. This means that I can't access my emails nor am I able to print any documents. Sigh~ before I could get the IT people to do anything, I had to head off to a client.
The end of the day hits and my colleague was driving along the Harbour Bridge back to the office when her tyre blew out. OMG! This was the Harbour Bridge that we are talking about. We managed to scoot to the side of the bridge where the staff building was. Got the staff to help us called NRMA but apparently they don't go on the Harbour Bridge. They manged to get another toll company to arrive though. So although I was like two minutes away from the office, pedestrians are not allowed to walk on the highway so I had to catch a cab to take me just round the corner.
Got to the office and they couldn't fix my laptop as the IT personnel in Sydney have all gone. Now I have to get into the office at 8am in the morning again.
Decided to console myself by getting me some 70 cents Krispy Kreme donuts but got frightened by a huge rat/possum running across the park at night. Eek~
I'm just glad that the day is over.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Office Network

Isn't it amazing how extensive and fast the office network can be. Just a whisper and news travels as fast as the speed of light and suddenly, everyone seems to know about it. This is probably relatively true in office places where people do actually stop to chat to each other.

Heard a piece of news only yesterday morning and now it seems everyone knows. Well, at least it was good news.

Although quite a number of us (me included) was quite surprised when I heard that two of my closer work friends have been going out. Needless to say after scrambling around trying to see if this is true, I decided to go straight to the source. That is always the best way!

Haha...I have to say that the source probably got a bit more than bargained for when I threw my pen which hit the head and bounced off a wall after that. That was definitely more than "I knew I had to face the music sooner or later"! Ha~!

That was still a good ending to the week. I have to say that lately I've been thinking that my gums seems to be really weak and maybe I should drink more milk. Why do I think that? Well, my gums seems to get bruised easily when I brush my teeth. Later, it hit me that it might not be weak gums, that irritating spot on my gum could actually be an ulcer.

Pardon me but I've not had ulcers in my mouth before. How long does it take for the ulcer to go away? Do I need to do anything about it? I am hoping that it will just go off on its own like pretty soon.

Anyway, I'm can't wait to watch the Harry Potter movie as well as having a joint birthday party celebration dinner tomorrow. Time to sleep now. Have a good weekend everyone!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Harry Potter


The Harry Potter movie started today in Australia. Unfortunately, I have to wait till the weekend to watch it. I can't wait...and 9 more sleeps before the book is out. AAaahhhhhhh~




Friday, July 6, 2007

Delectable Cakes of Art

I got this in my inbox and they are just delectable, not to mention real works of art! Sigh~ I want to be a patisserie too.

Let's all drool over them.... :P~


Bags ~ If you can't own 'em, eat 'em!


I need a holiday...


Shopping Time
Let's go Party
Back to hitting the books!

I Love Pressies~



Snacks on the way...

Finally, taking a break!

Whoosh...goes the wind



I keep this handy little widget at the side of my monitor screen that shows me the weather for the next few days. It's the first time that I see "leaves being blown by the wind' icon. That was probably something that I should have taken note of. Instead, I was thinking "Ooh. cute icon something new. I think that means that it is going to be windy"!

Boy, was it windy alright. I couldn't really tell being inside the office. Rays of sunshine peeking through the clouds, it seems to be a nice winter day that would not be too cold! Happily, a friend and I went out for a walk. We got the rays of sunshine but we also got hit by gusts of wind. I could feel myself being swept away a little at times and had to stable my footing (wearing heels did not help!). That walk turned out to be quite an interesting experience.

Inevitable

There comes a time in your career when it's time to open your eyes.

Where you can no longer hide and it's time to play the games.

To react in a different way, to see a different perspective.

Be strong my dearest, for there will be tough times ahead.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Happy Birthday



Happy Belated Birthday Mili!!! Yummy~ I think you will like this one. :P

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Random Ingenious Slogans

It's great to come across funny, witty or sometimes just corny slogans at the most unusual places and spots when we run around in our daily lives. I saw these two when I was travelling away at work last work and they just made me laugh!


Saw this at a gourmet shop at the cheese section. How true! Although this does apply to wine too.


Travelling along the highway on the way home. Now the car really doesn't look that ancient but it still is funny!