Got invited to neighbour's son's wedding on 9 June. Nice ! Chatted with them for a while. Its been six years since we moved to the neighbourhood. How time flies. We are lucky all our neigbours on our level are nice & friendly.

The book...George is all grown. He has mastered the training of fighting cocks for his "massa" (who is his father) & has been successfully winning fights & his massa who gives him some money from the wins. Just got christened Chicken George by all the other trainers. He "jumped the broom" (got married) & has two sons.

Not much at the office but work. Swapped speakers with ryan & brought his to the office. Now I can listen to music I like & not the Chinese ones which one of the girls plays (quite loudly) on her radio. I am considerate. My music is loud enough only for me to hear. The one who has that loud Chinese ringtone still has it loud. Its annoying when she is not at her desk to answer the phone.

CSI now, time out !

Lament for the day : Ah well..some people dun geddit.

Ohhh forgot to say we watched dvd, Flyboys yesterday. It was good. Had dinner at AMK Hub Fish & co after that. The mall is not any different from any other mall but lotsa people. Fish & co food standard seems to have dropped. Batter on fish was really oily but quality of service is still good. Good service seems quite consistent for all their outlets. I like that.

Watched the 1998 movie on dvd, emperor & the assasin the day before. Didn't really like it. Rather I didn't like the emperor. Shi Huang Di united the warring states to unify China & he was ruthlessly cruel, perhaps mad, sometimes muddled, sometimes weak & wimpy. He be the one who's royal tomb consists of the life-sized terra cotta warriors & many other treasures which accompanied him in death.

The saga continues...Toby married Bell, Massa Waller's house slave. They have a daughter Kizzy who was sold at 16 becos she forged a letter for her boyfriend so that he could run away. She became pregnant by her new "massa" & now has a son, George (whom those who have read the book or seen the series will remember as Chicken George). Kizzy is ashamed becos her son is half white, & she worries what her parents would think. Massa Waller's estate consists of all pure black slaves, Bell would boast. Toby of course hates the white man for having snatched him from his family in Africa & hates the "sasso borro"; blacks with some white blood.

It was a weird day but in a good way. Within a span of an hour while at the gallery, I met 2 old friends whom I had not seen in at least a dozen years.

This man, walks into my path while I am talking to the technicians so I move aside & he gets in my way again. I look up & was about to tell him off & I see Michael an ex-colleague from my second job in an ad agency. We reminisce about other ex-colleagues. Then I had to get back to what I was doing.

About an hour later I see 3 guys standing outside the gallery deciding whether to come in & so I approach them. And one of them yells in excitement "heyyyyyy how are you ???? Long time no seeeee !!!" Its Richard whom I met in my next job at raffles hotel. Richard has been in Bali with his partner for the last dozen years & now is back as his partner is now working here. And so we reminisce too.

Met sarah after work & headed to J8 as she wanted to look at shoes. Bought 2 pairs for her. Picked up a nice ring from Swatch. They have some nice costume jewelley & we have a few pieces from there. She has this bracelet I bought her last year that has a heart & you slip in the arrow which clasps it on. She gleefully tells everyone who asks her about it that her boyfriend bought it for her. And she comes home telling me who believed her LOL.

Planning to take her out on Friday afternoon again after the meet the parents sessions in the schools. Have taken half the afternoon off. Not sure if sarah's school requires me. She says unlikely cos she doesn't have disciplinary problems, never had since P1. We did go last year but it was misinfomation lol. Only she needed to go pick up report book, parent not needed if the student has not been problematic. But I am hoping to see her teacher this year as I have a few questions which the school principal did not respond to despite my 3 emails & a hand delivered letter. That really irks me !

Meeting with ryan's teacher should not result in anything negative as he has A's for english, math & science. He doesn't have disciplinary problems either but at least one parent is required to chat with class teacher. I will meet 2nd lang teacher as well as I will be interested to hear how much improvement he has made with chinese.

Lament for the day : Sarah & I were waiting in line to buy bao from a new store at J8. The customer before us had ordered & they got her orders all wrong. Only 9 baos...3 of each type also can salah. Better not buy, so we walk away. Then we queue for bakchang. The sales lady is busy chatting to a friend who is buying from her. She takes her time chatting about personal matters. Loud enuff that I could hear. We wait for a bit & she still ignores us. I walk away exasperated. We picked up some items for breakfast at polar, without a fuss !

How nice to have my blog read by someone else other than family, friends & sarah's friends ! Thanks hawk for your message. Please visit anytime !

Had a very nice lunch at the chinese restaurant at cathay. Tried new dishes. Creamy pumpkin soup with seafood & beef in special sauce. Beef dish was so succulent & tender. I also enjoyed the deep fried scallop with a dash of salted egg yolk over bits of deep fried vermicelli. All atop a leaf of lettuce which you wrap around to bite. Ohhhh so yummy that I forgot to take a pic ! And dim sum was very nice; deep fried yam with bits of pork & mushroom. Plus the steamed onion pancake. All portioned nicely which doesn't make you drowsy at work after.

My laptop screen froze when I had typed a nice long email to a reporter this afternoon. Which led to loud curses from my corner. sigh...the last time this happened was worse, I was editing a 20 page document & after I restarted, couldn't find the damned thing.

Oh I told the tea lady I forgot the curry puff & that I was truly sorry. One of the guys in the office (who is abit annoying & tee ko) was there when I was speaking to her said, "Can eat lah, just heat up in the oven & eat". I was like...left it in the office over night, no aircond on & the filling is curry. You mad or what ? Get food poisoning how ? Was sooooo tempted to tell him "You eat lor & then kena lau sai then good for you lor." Gila ! Auntie tealady said dun eat.

Hubby & ryan went to watch spiderman 3 at the cinema with the sony 4K. It was good they told me & with such clarity. Met them around 6.30pm after work & headed to have ryan's fave hokkien mee at beach road. The hawker centre with the shops up top selling army stuff, dunno what that hawker centre is called. Parking was a pain as usual. Had my satay fix but very unsatisfying. Meat was so tough & sauce lousy. One of the worst satay I have ever had. Have not been able to find a good satay place since the one outside sembawang shopping centre closed. The whole place including the shopping centre is a construction site. The one at clarke quay no longer has the ambience. Satay in an enclosed area restaurant style. Where got shiok ! It was better before the renovations, more local, now too touristy.

I am still happily with Kunta Kinte who now has to embrace his ang moh name, Toby. Sadly, he has just had his foot cut off for running away. I must get hold of the DVD so that kids can watch. It was an excellent series.

Sarah is out with a friend watching A Midsummer's Night Dream at fort canning park. A play in the park...nice. Lucky no rain today.

Lament for the day : where to find shiok satay & sauce.

Ahhhh I feel really bad ! The tea lady bought me a curry puff when she came back from lunch & I didn't eat it cos I had already fixed to go out for lunch. I planned to take puff home BUT I left the office & forgot. Sigh...its sitting on my desk. I will apologise to the tealady tomorrow.

I had a meeting out of office today & it was pouring when I was done. Had no umbrella, was with colleague & both of us ran across the road in a shower to catch a cab. There was no cover. So we were wet but thankfully not soaked. The taxi stand outside the building was blocked off by heavy vehicles of the building next door which was doing construction work. They have been doing this just about everyday. I am heading that way again tomorrow so if I remember, I will take a pic & send to LTA.

Hubby & Ryan watching Spiderman 3 on the sony 4K digital tomorrow. Sarah has seen it already. Doesn't bother me to miss it, not really a fan. But looking forward to POTC, Shrek & HP.

Lament for the day : I am so sorry about the curry puff auntie tea lady !!!!!!!!!!

Deal or No Deal is quite interesting. 'The banker' has a fat silhouette lol.

Seems like blogger is working fine now. Can remove page elements & the posting page is back to normal. That is great !

Ryan has A's in 3 subjects. Only Chinese koyak but got improvement from before. Sarah has an A for math which she was failing before & that is great. She didn't get an A for English as we expected as she has been for the past 2 years' exams. Nevermind, there is the final term exams to do it.

I received an annoying call today from a vendor selling his services to our organisation. I kept telling him we have other priorities etc & we are not in need of such facilities. He doesn't get it that his services do not really enhance what we already have. Very annoyingly persistent. Cannot tahan. Plus the audacity to say that it is a "special price valid only for the next 14 days from quotation". That is such a turn off. Such questionable tactics.

Lament for the day : mio replied to our email but never answered our questions.

Ohhhh aircond is back to working order. No more leaking ! Thank goodness as it has been very humid.

Mio/singtel customer services called hubby again today, apologised etc etc. He asked for an explanation in writing. Then later in the evening, a manager of the technical side called me cos the supervisor I was talking to on Sunday said they would check back with us on Tuesday. I told him we solved THEIR problem. wah liao ! It was so simple...maybe too simple that they didn't see it. Just change analogue phone to digital.

And this time around I am impressed becos the tech manager did get a copy of our email & he had our history even able to tell us what phone model we have now lol. And I told him that I am glad finally someone has our history lol.

4 telephone calls to tech helpline & 3 technicians didn't figure it. Its not as if we hid our phones when they came. Perhaps they themselves just figured it out cos I dunno why it was only with the 4th phone call that they asked about what kind of phones we are using. The manager says that if I get anymore problems, can call & ask for him lolol, he will take care of matters personally. Which we appreciate but think it may no longer necessary.

I think testing should have been properly done before they launched mio. The sales/marketing & tech people should be properly armed with all the info. They should highlight certain issues to the customer when they sign up so that when there is a problem, the customer can tell the tech helpline & this will then help to solve the issues more efficiently. I wonder if the immediate reactions was because of the cc to st forum & whether the reaction would be so immediate if there was no cc. I do understand that some issues only surface out of the blue but this phone thingy seems very basic particularly for a company of such stature & experience.

Ohhh Kunte Kinta...reunited ! Ryan says my Roots book pages so yellow. Of course maaah, my book is almost 18 years older than him lol!

Lament for the day : I need to go through my mum's store...I may have more hidden treasures in there ! The Good Earth, Huckleberry Finn, 1984, Tess of D'Ubervilles, Wuthering Heights, Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Thorn Birds, Shogun, maybe a couple of poetry books & shakespeare from schooldays, Enid Blyton's books & Disneyland magazines which would be some 30 over years old.

On our way home, we stopped by the shops to get some things. On the way back to the car we spotted a tortoise about the size of my palm, happily strolling. There was a guy seated at the bench & I asked him if the tortoise was his. Who knows ? Maybe he was taking his tortoise for a walk ?? He said not. So it came from the landscaped garden & pond just a few feet away. Dunno why he was just sitting there & watching it.

So I picked it up & put it back in the pond. Didn't want it to come to harm. I had to toss it in cos there was a fencing around. For a while, it turned turtle heh but swam after a bit. Thought I killed the poor fella ! The tortoise must be cursing me...stupid idiot ! I wanted freedom & it took me 3 days to get where I was, now have to start all over again. lol Forgot to take pic to post.

Yesterday hubby had to do a blowjob. Our bedroom aircond is still screwy. Kids' units are working fine. It has been like that for the last 3 days. He took the vaccuum cleaner to suck out the algae from the outlet pipe. There was muck. Then we turned on our bedroom unit & it worked fine. Half an hour later, it started to leak again...sigh. Happiness shortlived. So told hubby to suck it again lor. But he decided to get the repairman instead. Guy coming tomorrow.

heh...I am so enjoying Roots.

Ohhhh singtel called hubby cos I signed off hubby's name & number on the email. They apologised & said they would write. Okay lor apology accepted but they better answer our questions when they write. Our phone has been working all day now. wah liao ...maybe all it needed was the digital phones. 3 (or was it 4) tech help officers & 3 visiting technicians couldn't figure it out. Conversation with tech help line "turn off your modem, turn on your modem, is the green dsl light on, is it flickering, is the filter there" etc etc...we know SOPs by heart already. Then the technicians changed new modem, fit in a new outlet for plugging in the phone line, still didn't work. Crap.

Lament for the day : why can't I change the 'browing now' book pic ...getting error message.

The technician came by today to see if the mio problem can be resolved. We are still plagued by the same problems with home phone; can receive calls, then cannot, can make outgoing, then cannot. The phone worked for a while today & this evening after dinner, we checked. Can receive but cannot make outgoing.

So I call the tech helpline & told them not to go through the same old routine again ; turn off modem, turn on modem, is the green light for dsl on , is it flickering, are there filters etc etc etc. We wanted to speak to someone senior. But before that the officer asks us what is our house phone brand. And we were so rudely surprised to hear that analog phones cannot be used for mio & that it has to be digital. To top it off, must be a brand & model compatible to mio !! What the fuck ????? How come we weren't told in the first place !!!

So we send an email off to singtel (with cc to stforum) explaining the whole situation from when we got our modem on 30 March till now. And we asked them to be transparent about the do's, do not's, can, cannots etc etc etc of mio. Why was this never ever told to us when we signed up, actually before we signed up, during the 3 or 4 calls to the helpline & when the technicians came. Or do they not know & only recently discovered this ??? Why should I have to change my home phone to accomodate mio when it should be designed to accomodate the consumer ??? I will wait to see what singtel has to say.

Another annoying thing is that they have no email address for feedback. Its those feedback forms & accepts only 850 characters. My email far exceeds that so I sent to their corp comms department instead. How to give feedback in so few words ????? Or maybe it is so designed such that they don't give us a chance to properly complain. Wah liao !!!!!!!

On a happier note, we had dinner to celebrate mother's day with my mum, godma & aunt with the spouses & kids. Was also to celebrate godma's birthday. Seafood lah & shiok as usual. Makan too much as usual too. The place was crowded, everyone doing the mother's day thing. Kids gave chocolates to all the mums & we bought a cake to celebrate the two occasions.

Ryan got a new ipod nano from my godpa. So bladdy lucky ! 8 gig some more ! Not even his birthday or christmas etc. And my shuffle is sooooo pathetic compared to his lol. But I still love it cos its cute & cos its from hubby & the kiddos for mother's day. Hubby said he will swop our 2-gig nano with ryan's lololol. Better that he falls & crushes the old one than the new lolol. Told him better to get a protection case cos he damaged his previous nano when it was in his pocket & he accidentally fell, landing on that particular pocket. Sigh...so sayang.

On an even happier note, my mum passed me my book, Roots. It was published in 1977. I think I have a lot of books in my mum's storeroom older than the kids lolol.

Lament for the day : mio still sux !!!!

And why can't I edit settings to change book I am browsing.

Arggggghh why can't I edit my settings?? I want to change book image. And this post page is all weird. Can't use the align para buttons, the bold & italic buttons, can't preview. But can add pic & use ctrl function for bold & italics. Wassup leh !?!!