of new year and wishes...

Wifey and i would like to wish you a Happy New Year 2007.
if everything goes well, same time and same place next year, it'll be wifey, girl girl and I to0 be wishing you a happy new year.

Of Christmas service and evidence...

Christmas celebration was a bit different for us this year. For the past few years, we have out of Penang during Christmas. This year also marked the first time we went for the combined Christmas service our church had at a hotel nearby. Our church started having this big Christmas service thingy since a few years ago. It’s the usual Singing, presentations from little kids and young adults, message and followed by food. I think this year, the turnout was bigger than expected. I heard that they had expected 500 to turn up, but from what I see, all the chairs were filled up to the point that they have to ask some of the church members to surrender their seats to the visitors. They even added a few more rows of chairs. I’d like to think that the huge turnout might be due to this entry but I seriously doubt that that is the case.
Anyway, here is a photo evidence of me attending the Christmas Service.

of birthdays and Borders...

Last Sunday was my brother's birthday (Yup, he's a Christmas eve boy). Not knowing what to get we ended up with this little card from Borders. It's a gift card with a loaded $$ amount in it.

of pain relief and delivery room...

This is entry is a bit backdated. Anyway, we were finally graduated from our ante natal class. The last session was last Friday and was by far the most interesting. We went thru the talk on pain relief. The doctor talked about various drugs for pain relief, but I guess everyone were actually waiting for him to talk about epidural. The second topic was about the day of delivery. The doctor talked about what are the signs that indicate when we should be going to the hospital. As usual, Dr Tan was quite animated in his talk which makes it more interesting. The last topic was on demonstration on how to bathe a baby and followed by a tour to the delivery room. I must say that the delivery room looks pretty ok.
All in all we did learnt quite a bit from the classes and I guess we are better prepared now. One thing though, now that we thought about it, we did not remember there were any session on breathing technique…

of lunch with the ladies and something about wet nurse...

Went out to have lunch with Leader, Ah Ju, Isaac’s mom and Wifey at fisherman’s grill today. The place was packed. Well what do you expect when their food are good and the atmosphere is nice. Anyway, Ah Ju and Isaac’s mom told me that they also read this blog (and book mark it some more) and that can only mean one thing. No more bitch talking about them in this blog*. Leader is another case altogether, she no longer follow this blog, which also means one thing. It’s open season on bitching about leader in this blog*.
As always, it is a learning experience when I have lunch with these ladies as they always have new information about this and that. Today is no different and the interesting bit of information that I learned today are mostly about breast milk. Apparently (according to Ah Ju), there are women who sort of like sell their breastmilk (something about wet nurse). The scheme goes something like this, the women who are lactating (story goes that after they give birth) will offer to breastfeed babies born to families who are willing to pay her for her breastmilk. According to the story, these women are paid and fed very well. For me, I find this a bit too freakish. I mean how does the women advertise this service anyway? Wearing a T-shirt with the words “Breasts for rent! (Contents included)” and walk around town?

Anyway, it was a good lunch and it’s great to catch up with old ladies friends once in a while.

And before I forget, Wifey and I would like to wish you our readers (yeah all five of you!) a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


*note: Leader, AhJu and Isaac’s mom, I seldom never bitch about you one la. You know that you are always in my heart of hearts, (after wifey, girl girl and a whole list of other folks of course).

of wishes and singing...

It’s that time again. Yup you know it and I know it too. It’s that time again when people send out random Christmas wishes emails with heavy graphics of cheesey cartoons of pseudo cutesey photos. Then copies everyone in their distribution loop.
As the kiasu gene in me is potent, I would also like to join the bandwagon to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
Anyway, my Christmas and New Year wishes for this year are:
1. Wifey to have a safe and trouble free delivery.
2. Girl girl to be healthy and happy to see us. (we are keeping our fingers crossed that she will be happy to see us and not climb back into wifey’s womb)
3. People to wish each other Merry Christmas and not Merry Xmas. I know I am being a pain, but let’s not take Christ out from this celebration. After all it’s His birthday right?
4. Millions of ringgit to miraculously plop in front of my feet and release me of the drudgery called work. (don't ask me how it will happen. aladin never asked the Genie how he will make the 3 wishes come true right?)
5. People to be nice to each other and not to simply call names when sending emails esp. those that are work related.
6. For me to still have the energy and time to continue blogging and not become like this guy.
7. Wifey to prove me wrong on the weight thingy :)

There, 7 wishes, some are a bit far fetched and some are a piece of cake.

Also in this time of celebration, I do like to extend an invitation to everyone to just gatecrash drop by your local church and join them in their singing and merry making. I have always enjoyed singing Christmas carols and I think I am not the only one. If you enjoy singing, then I suggest you just go and join in the singing. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding one.
Don’t worry about singing out of tune, Don’t even worry if you sing like Mumbles in Happy Feet. Don’t worry if you do not know the words. Just go and sing because I am certain that you will enjoy it.

of errands and down right freakiness II...

Last night, the dental filling (from my visit to the freaky dentist last friday). Fell off. Barely 5 days after the dental job.
I don't think i will even set foot at Marina Dental clinic again.

of amperage and almost dying...

We almost frigging died yesterday!!!!

Well, actually , almost carries a very broad meaning here. Anyway, here’s what happened. Wifey and I were relaxing in the 3rd bedroom after coming back from church. We were reading the newspapers while listening to some music. Then wifey went to the kitchen and suddenly she called me in some sort of a semi panic voice. At first, I thought it was probably just a lizard or a cockroach or something. So I put down the newspaper and walked out to see what the commotion was all about.
When I got to the kitchen, I saw that there was fire coming out from one of the 3 pin plug that I used to plug in an extension for some kitchen appliances. Wifey was panicking and I panicked for 5 seconds before I came to my senses and tried to put out the fire with a water soaked hand towel. The plug sparked a bit (indicating that there is still live current) I turned to see the other end of the extension and the lights were still on. The fuse must have blown but still conducting. So I told wifey to switch off the mains and proceeded to put out the fire again with the wet handtowel. There were some bad smelling fumes from the fire so asked wifey to stay away from the area. We don’t want girl girl to be impacted from the toxic fumes, do we?
Anyway, here are some photos after i put out the fire.


See how close we came to the 'd' word?

Closeup. Suddenly i have lost appetite for fried chicken...












Basically, what happened was that there was an electrical overload. That electrical extension actually goes to a bank of sockets which I plug in the washing machine and a water warmer (an electrical jug thingy that keeps water warm all the time). We also use the sockets when we need to boil water. Normally we don’t use the washing machine and kettle at the same time. But in yesterday’s incident, we made the mistake of boiling water with the kettle and the water warmer thingy (with the washing machine running). That definitely have overloaded the point. Admittedly it was our mistake in overloading the electrical point, but what really concerns me was that the safety feature of the extension and plughead failed miserably. The plug was still conducting electricity even as it burns, and by right, the plug head should not burn when a fuse is blown. Ironically the brand of the extension is “Safety” !

My priority now is to get a smoke detector and I do advise you to do so too. Another thing is, if you are using extension points, do take note of the amperage (amount of current) of electrical appliences that you have hooked up to it. Normally this value is in the manual or at the back of the appliance. (look for something that have X amp - where X denotes a value). Add up the amperage of all the electrical appliance that you have hooked up. And see if it matches (or lesser than) the fuse rated on the plug. Normally, plugs have 13 amps fuse (some have 3 or 5 amps), so make sure the total amperage does not exceed 13 (or any value rated on your plug).






Note: Girl girl, if you are already all grown up and is reading this. Don’t sue us for negligence ok?

of jokes and stomach bursting...

Someone sent me these jokes:











































































I almost burst my stomach laughing.
Then I realized that not everyone got the jokes. Maybe i am too nerdy.

of errands and down right freakiness...

After almost a week of dealing with crap (that’s another story anyway), I decided to take today off from work to run some errands.
I discovered some discrepancy in my BSN account last week and have been meaning to get the transaction printed out to check if there have been any hanky panky. Then there is my dental issue. There are already 2 gaping canyons cavities that are giving me problems. Then there is the astro thing.
Since NBA no longer interest me (except for all star weekend) and F1 will not be the same without schumi (plus the fact that Alonso is too arrogant for wifey’s taste). Then there is the news channel that I figured that I don’t really need anymore since I only watch CNBC and CNN, it really does not justify maintaining the news package.

Anyway, I spent the whole morning going to 3 different banks updating my accounts and get the BSN thingy done. Apparently all the withdrawals tally and were made from all the normal places that I normally do my transactions. So, probably I must have missed tracking one of the withdrawal. Oops!

Then it’s to the dentist in the afternoon, and this is where it starts to get weird. The dentist that I used to go to is the one in Pulau Tikus. Although a bit pricey, they are really good, the dentists there explains everything to you and discuss on the best solution for your dental problem (and I have lots of that). But, the one thing that I really cannot get used to is the appointments scheduling. Their dentists seems to be booked and appointment s usually have to be done nearly a month ahead. It’s not like I can schedule to have a toothache or something but I find that too much for me. So today I thought of trying out another dentist nearer to bayan baru. What a mistake it was.
I should have sensed something at the reception it self when the receptionist greeted me with “what you want to do?” instead of the standard “Hi, have you been here before?” or something like that. To her credit I think she’s just trying to assess what might the treatment be and how much it will cost so that she can check if I have enough credit in my company medical scheme. Oh ya, the medical scheme episode is another thing….
Since there is no other patients there, I got to go into the dentist room thing after the receptionist sorted out everything. This is where the freakiness begins. I was seated on the chair (the dentist thingy again) and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Then after it seems like a long time, the dentist showed up.
Check out the freakiness:
Dentist just asked me to open my mouth, didn’t say anything else. I tried to gesture to him where my problems are and he went straight to look at them. No comment, no pip, no squeak nothing. Dentist said nothing at all but went strainght to work on the teeth.
And that’s not all, after a bit of blowing and a bit of digging, he filled up the cavity. No drilling no discussing on what he plan to do, nothing. The only few times that he spoke is when he asked me to wash and bite hare and even then the only audible words are “wash” and “bite hard”
When he had done everything he just said “don’t bite into hard food for a while” and walked away. The only indication to me that everything is over is when the nurse gestured me to the door. And all that for rm95. luckily it’s covered by the company. Else….

Oh ya, there is also a faint smell of cigarette on his hands. And he was wearing latex gloves…..

No points for guessing if I will go back to that dentist again.
BTW, anyone know of a good dentist in Penang?



Anyway, i just checked. Already have the sport and news channel cancelled and get to see cartoon network now. that was fast.

of water retention and smooth skin...

For some time Wifey have been piling on the kilos. That's pretty much expected considering that she is pregnant. Based on what we know, most of it is due to water retention.

Anyway, in our last visit to Dr Tan, he sort of helped us discover something quite interesting. He squeezed wifey's ankle and when he lifted his fingers, there were indentations on wifey's ankle. This gave us something new to do to fill up time between boring commercials on TV. ;)

Check it out:



See the indentations left by wifey's fingers?











Anyway, i also wanna note that all these putting on weight and getting poofy thing does has it's advantages. Wifey's skin has become so smooth!

of sugarcane and kung fu...

An ex colleague of mine sent me these photos of her daughter. I think it's cute especially the serious expression on her face. What do you think?

of 'Do i look fat?' and 5takes...

Have you ever been asked a question where you will turn out to be the nasty guy either way you answer it? Like those 'Do i look fat?' kind of question? Well i had one of that question from wifey last nite (although in this case it's a funny one). I was explaining something about the logistic of the show 5takes to wifey and after a few rounds of explanation, wifey finally got it. Then came the question. Wifey asked me if being pregnant had made her brains work more slowly. Being the supportive and say-the-right-thing husband that i am, i instantly answered, 'No lah'. then came the punchline from wifey, "So you mean to say that I am slow all the while lah." Oops... it was then that i realize that i fell for that 'no good answer' type of question.

of bonding and t-shirt...

Last Friday, we went for our second session of ante natal class. The first topic was about roles of father in baby bonding and post natal care. The part about roles of father is pretty bland and the speaker seem like she is just reading to the presentation pages. One thing that caught my attention though is that she mentioned that the couple should discuss if the husband would be in the delivery room. She also mentioned that if the husband pass out, then the doctor will have one more patient to focus on. By default, we have subconsciously decided that I’ll be in there when wifey delivers, but then I do get a bit concerned when I think about the prospect of seeing wifey in pain and not to mention if I go through the sight of blood and all that stuff. Should I get a T-shirt with the words “Resuscitate me if I pass out!” printed smack in front of it? The second topic was about the 2nd and 3rd trimester of pregnancy. The speaker was Dr. Tan (Kok Joo as in our gynea). As expected his talk was really lively punctuated with jokes and interesting anecdotes. Best session by far. One key take home message that I got from that session is about how different it is now compared to last time. Another thing that we found out also is about the govt midwives. According to Dr Tan, the midwives will visit the mother after delivery and all this are paid for by the govt. We will need to check this out.

of whispers and old hand...

We went for our usual appointment with Dr Tan again last Wednesday. According to him everything is progressing as normal and he tried to scan girl girl’s face again, but like last time, she is still shy and turning her face inwards. Her head is now pointing downwards which Dr Tan said is on schedule. Our next appointment will be in the next two weeks and from now our appointments will be in 2 weeks period instead of 1 month. Looks like, need to save up more for appointments oredi.
Yesterday, wifey told me something interesting that I have not thought of before. She mentioned that she the normal procedure when going for the appointment is to take their blood pressure and then weight. They have to go to the scale and take their weight themselves and then inform the nurse. Wifey told me that she noticed that after taking their weight, the women will whisper their weight to the nurse instead of speaking in normal volume. Probably pai seh if people know their weight….

Last Wednesday, we saw another couple who seeing Dr. Tan. It looks like it’s their first appointment and when they came out of the doctor’s rooms, they seem excited. They were reading/looking at the articles/info pinned on the notice board had that excited look in their eyes. I mentioned to wifey “Look novices” and sniggered as if I am an old hand at this already. But wifey reminded me that we were once like them and that reminded me of the excitement we felt we were like them.

James Kim (1971-2006)

I just found out that James Kim has passed away...

For those who are not familiar with him you can read the details here and news of his death here. I am too depressed to write anything for the moment. Maybe will come back to this entry to update it later.

Additional entry:
I got to know about this guy when the Astro channel started airing (the now defunct) Tech TV channel. He was one of the presenters (most of the time on product reviews) of that show. Although a bit kayu and not my favourite presenter, he does share with the audience his enthusiasm on the new tech product that he reviews. When Tech TV went under, he went over to CNET as one of the senior editor. CNET has been all the while my go-to site for tech news and product reviews and I think James do mostly product reviews on MP3 players.

Based on the news report, he died while venturing out to get help for his family who were stranded in their car. Apparently they (he, his wife, 4yr and 7 months old daughters) had took a wrong turn while driving back to san fran after spending thanksgiving and vacationing in Portland. The car got stuck in a back road and they waited for a week for rescuers, when rescue did not reach them he ventured out to get help. He walked for 10+ miles before collapsing (just ½ miles away from the car). The rescuers finally found his wife and daughters and only discovered his body when they followed his tracks in the snow.

I guess I got a bit bothered by his death partly because he died while looking for help for his family. As a soon to be father I kinda felt how it difficult it must be for him. He had to leave his daughters and wife in the car, but he had to. He had to get help. He did what he had to do and that is an honorable act.

I guess, in the coming days, people will debate on his decision on leaving to get help instead of staying put, but in my books, it does not matter. He did what he had to do. He took charge of the situation. He was looking out for the best for his family and that to me is what matters most.

James, you have set the benchmark and may you rest in peace.

of rubber duckies and lame posts...

Rubber duckie, bright and yellow
Rubber duckie, cute lil' fellow
Rubber duckie, happy and gay
Rubber duckie will brighten your day.

yeah i know. it's a lame post, but it's my blog, so technically i can post whatever i want right?

Anyway, this duckie was adopted in Thailand at a Boots store. I hope boots open an outlet in Penang. Their stuff are really nice. Btw, we also adopted another little fella along with duckie. No points for guessing who the other fella is.

of last monday and nice or nots...

Nice or not?

Somebody got this last Monday.

of poop like orange and a bucket with hot water...

After chatting with my brother and SIL a couple of weeks ago we discovered that there is another item that is missing from girl girl’s feeding items. We still need to look for a milk bottle sterilizer. So off we went on another hunt. We found a few types, but generally there are 3 types. First one is the simplest which is basically a bucket where you put your bottles in and then pour hot water into it to sterilize them. The second one that we found is the electric steam type, where you put your bottles into a container (container do sound a bit more sophisticated than a bucket, so I guess you can imagine which direction I am heading in) where steam will be generated, thus sterilizing the bottles. The third type that we found is the microwave type, where you put your bottled into a casing or some sort and then put the whole thing into a microwave oven.
We figured that the first type was although cheapest, may be a bit inconvenient as you need to boil water (and lots of it) to sterilize the bottles. The second type looks more promising, but the only thing we don’t quite like is that it needs to be plugged in into a power socket and not very portable. The third type looks ok. It’s portable and no need external power, but will need a big microwave for it to fit in. Besides, my SIL mentioned that she is not very knowledgeable on the microwave type, that one option is out.
Anyway, we happened to let our wandering feet roam into the baby department at Parkson Gurney plaza last Saturday and ended up walking out as the proud owners of an Avent sterilizer. Yeah, I know, people might say that it’s a bit expensive and stuff like that but we want nothing but the best for our girl girl (note to girl girl: read this!! When you have your teenage-y angst-y feelings on your parents.)
Actually, when we did the math, it really works out to be not as costly as one might think. The model from tollyjoy is in the high end of rm100 (I think 159 or something), anakku ‘s price is almost the same. Then there are some which are a bit pricey like pigeon (?) which cost around 400++. The one that we got (Avent) falls in the middle of the price range (~300++). Our lame excuse rationale is that the model from avent comes with bottles, cup and lots wachamacallits (as you can see I am still not very well versed on babyspeak yet). We did a quick calculation on the stuff and found that it works out that the sterilizer by itself should be around 190++. So that falls into our price range. (See our logic to work ourselves into bankruptcy now?). Since we got some of the bottles that comes with the breast pump kit (gift from Bro and SIL), we thought that might as well use the same brand of sterilizer. The bottles from Avent are a bit fat and cutesey chubby and we were also concerned if the sterilizers from other brands can fit. But seriously, all those are just silly and lame excuses, we just got it because it looks cute ;)

An additional note though: wifey reminded me to mention that if you are shopping for your baby, do make an effort to check out the baby department at parkson gurney. The sales person who attended to us were super helpful. She explained everything, tell grandma stories (relevant ones of course), changed one of the bottles because wifey don’t like the poop like orange color and taught us a few things. I guess it goes without saying that she did spend extra effort to help us. probably because she saw how hopelessly clueless we were



OK la hor?

of massive traffic jam and certain fishes...

The day finally came. The much anticipated ante natal class is finally here. Like all clueless good and concerned parents to be, we enrolled ourselves to the ante natal class at Pantai Mutiara. The first session was last Friday.
I think probably due to the a few circumstances (read as massive traffic jam from Queensbay mall opening, PC fair, and heavy rain) there were not that many couples who attended the first session. First topic was on health issues during pregnancy. It was a pretty standard lecture on some typical health issues women have but things took a turn for the squeamish when the doctor started showing photos of some of the conditions. There is even one photo of a woman’s cervix that came out and sticking out from her peepee*. eeewww!
The second session was not that traumatizing. It’s about nutrition while being pregnant. I find it interesting that some of the information and advise shared are a bit different from other sources. E.g., some websites that I went to says to avoid/limit certain fishes, but the same fishes were suggest as nutrition.

Overall the first session was pretty ok. We finished ahead of time, refreshments were serves and we got a goodie bag from the hospital too.


*Madam, if you are reading this and the photo is yours, I am sorry for your condition but the photo is really nasty. Anyway, we do appreciate your generosity in sharing the photo for the purpose of our education.