how may i be of service?

women in the workplace are actually more empowered than we are led to believe.

it's true. this empowerment doesn't just come from corporate or workplace policies (ie, harrassments n stuff), but from their male counterparts thinking more with their penises than their brains. of course, in most cases, this is subject to one or more of the following: 1)she's hot; 2)there aren't much competition around; 3)she's not butt ugly.

case in point, the place where i work. it's famous among the companies around there area for having lotsa chicks, and mostly hot ones at that. although i don't really agree to the second part, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, i digress.

now, here's what most people doesn't know - the abundance of the fairer sex is only limited to a few departments, with sales having the most, obviously. from my experience with them, i know they are used to getting their way with things and people. if wiles, charms AND threats don't work, you will get an email from their boss, or to YOUR boss, or worse. of course, when it's outside of work they have most guys by their balls, and this is only half metaphorically.

those in departments overflowing with male testosterone (mine being one of those) doesn't even need to grab anyone's ball to get what they want. guys will line up to lick their feet and ask to be of service in whichever way possible. again, this is subjected to the 3 conditions above, 'cos i can definitely see a couple of them in my department not getting any special treatment at all.

so, on and around valentine's day, christmas and almost any overly-commercialized holidays, flowers and gifts flood into the office, and cluttering the desks of (almost) every non butt-ugly chick. i still remember this huge ratan bird cage with a half-foot tall teddy bear holding a heart, sitting on a swing with flowers on the bottom from last year. the whole thing was probably 2-3 feet tall and this poor girl actually had to go downstairs to the employee entrance to collect it, then bring the whole thing up to her desk, going through probably half of the office's cubicles. actually, poor girl is probably a very bad adjective to use, seeing as she's getting such affectionate thoughts.

normal days, you got random gifts, cakes or other "designer" food on desks. extra help on work so that they don't have to strain their brains too much, in case of getting new wrinkles. help with sales leads, help with technical advise, help with taking weird hour shifts and almost anything you can think of. i think the worse part of all this is that this whole thing is being rubbed in as something guys should do to be more "gentleman".

this past valentine's day, i thought i'd do something to give the ones that seldom/never get any presents a little suprise. well, just the ones i know personally. so i made cards and buy small packets of chocolates, then left those at their desks before i went home the night before valentine.
two hours later i got a call from a co-worker on night shift that night, asking whether i saw anyone leaving the chocolates and card on this chick desk. he's been going after this girl on my team for quite a while and hasn't been able to get anywhere near her pants, let alone inside them. i don't think i want to detail how "psycho" (word used to describe him by her) he gets when it comes to anything that remotely concerns her.
an observation: he's still one of her best resources at work.

that's the power women hold at work nowadays - our balls.
no, wait. your balls, probably. 'cos i definitely don't give a shit.

i'm concerned, n i invent. (apparently)

now THIS, is some cool-ass personality test.
10 pages long, professional looking way to rank stuff. very interesting. anyway, after about 20 minutes of going thru the tests, here's my personal DNA report.
how the hell did i end up an inventor, i have not a clue. it seems like however i grow or change i can never get away from artistic stuff.
oh, n here's cute lil color map of my results. not very flattering, but hey...

Concerned Inventor

it june already?!

update: this car is in malaysia since last yr, selling at almost RM100K at a size of roughly a perodua kelisa. extremely over-priced. as of now, rumors of the 2007/08 vios, which is actually a yaris sedan, will be around RM60-80K is abundant. - 28/03/07

moved to more advanced product support partially, n gotten myself some extra mgmt responsibilities at work lately. still the same team, still the same grade, still the same pay.
things already gotten pretty hectic. extra long working hrs, with OT, luckily. it still gets very tiring at the end of the day. everyday. the only that really lighten me up with all this is that i get to learn quite a number of new things, just when i'm getting really bored with what i was doing.


the extra money from the extra hrs should come in handy. yaris is finally launched in malaysia, although a bit pricey. i'm still gonna check it out n see if i can afford one. need to get myself a car. sick n tired of the sun n the rain.
since the sedan version is not available (at least i didn't see it in the toyota malaysia site), it's probably gonna be one of these. now, i just need to find time n visit one of their showrooms to check it out n see what price i can get it at. i bet it looks pretty damn nice in a city. :)
anyway, nearest prices i know if around RM100k for the yaris, about the same for a honda jazz vtec, and the 2006 honda civic at around RM117k. *sigh* money, money, money.

and then, there's the upcoming price hike for petrol again...

blew some money on a 24" wide screen monitor. haven't got my hands on it yet, but it seems i might have to go all the way to the mainland to get it during office hrs. not an option. hopefully i can get it arranged to be shipped to the island or something. cheap things usually doesn't come without problems, eh?
well, if everything goes well with the monitor, i'll be running dual wide screen displays. then my current 19" analogue LCD will be brought back to ipoh for my mom. she's using this pretty dated 17" non-flat CRT for movies. i tried it out n it pretty much sucks. mom deserves better.

shaved

OK. i haven't drawn anything for a long time, so the drawing looks pretty strange.
still don't think i wanna take a pic n post it here.

i've been looking kinda like that for 1 1/2 mths now. shaved cos i finally made up my mind to do it. thanks to my bro for the first shave, he actually did it better than the second one done here in penang in a salon that cost me RM18.

currently i'm keeping it at probably only about 1/2 inch in length. feels good. my mom says i look like an old man with this, so did +2 when she first saw me. everyone else was shocked. general consensus was that i got dumped. haha. james n a few others think that i look scary. a couple of engineers from taiwan who are over here for training said that i look like taiwanese mafia. (woohoo!)

the rumor that having such short hair saves on shampoo is not entirely true.
all the while i've been using my shower gel instead of my shampoo to wash my hair after shaving, but my hair just doesn't feel the same to touch. plus, i kept feeling that my scalp is not clean enough.
so the other day i just wash my hair with shampoo n voila! my hair feels much cleaner. well, probably i dun have to use as much as having longer hair, but i damn well need it.

my third shave will be this wkend when i go home. it seems like my hair is just growing too fast.

graveyard shift ramblings

work has so much ups n downs lately. not a day of easy sailing for the past month.
changes are coming though. some of the seniors are moving up, new people coming in. major re-organization ensured. i'm just hoping that what was promised for me comes true. too bad there isn't must black n white on that to guarantee it.

bought myself over RM400 of books the other day. out of the blue, i just thought to visit MPH cos my day of shopping was going without any success. the only pair of shoes that i wanted to buy was out of my size. the sales person (i think she was the boss of the branch) was very helpful, even called up other branches in the peninsular to check stock. too bad they didn't have any left.
so, anyway, stumbling on that many books i wanted was pure good luck. although they did not have everything in stock in the gurney MPH branch, the books were all available at other branches. at the same time, the 4 dan brown books were on 20% discount, so i ended up getting them too.
MPH called me up in 3 days time n told me the books were all ready. when i went there, they handed me a whole box. the cashier was pretty damned suprised that i was buying so much.

so far, i finished da vinci code, started on angels and demon.
i was really hesitant on jumping on the dan brown bandwagon. it's like everyone's talking about the book, how good it was etc. then there's the moving opening later this month.
honestly, the book was really good. good not just because of the story, or the suspense on every corner, or the nicely paced rhythm on how the story progressed. (the story actually happened in the short span of about 2 days!) the best thing about the book was how it painting a visually stunning n convincing picture of the famous da vinci paintings n frescoes n the museums.
this poses a challenge for the upcoming movie. i have yet to see the movie stills, but i bet it probably couldn't reproduce the stunning visual effects in the novel that dan brown has painted, especially when the movie is probably modified to fit the story into a 2-hour duration.
oh, i really dun think i'd like seeing tom hanks as robert langdon.