New PC, new Windows and how things suck

Got my new PC at the office.

My new PC at the office.

Yup, they didn't waste time replacing the one I was happily using. Microsoft is forcing everyone to "upgrade" to Windows 7 by not issuing anymore of my beloved Windows XP. Of course, the Windows Office has now been "upgraded" to 2007 from the 2003. It's more of "updreaded" for me.

The only pros are I got a bigger screen similar to the one I'm using at home which is 1280x1024 pixels which is the comfortable size for office work and day-to-day tasks and the Memories are higher. Thank God they didn't change the monitor to the ugly 1399x768 pixels one. I don't understand this craze for wide screens. Day to day documents and office work need you to look faster at the pages from top to bottom not from side-to-side. These manufacturers need to produce computer monitors in equal quantities for both wide screens and regular office viewing. It's not like you watch HD wide screen movies EVERYDAY on your PC.

Remember when I told you about the I.S. people disabling the wallpaper change feature?
I rebelled by making full use of the Windows 7 slide-show Gadget with pictures of cute rock stars....ha....ha...!

They still allow us to make remote connection and at the moment they forgot to disable the "Display background" function so my Warren pic is safe. Still a bit sad though as I didn't get to purchase this beautiful picture of him.

If they disable everything, then I will just resort to the old-fashioned way of printing their pictures (with the office colour laser printer of course!) and stick each of them to my desk calendar. I will not be defeated in this battle!

Big Fish Moment with Pizza Hut....!

It was one of those days when I actually had the time to check my Gmail and saw a message from Nuffnang about this new "fish pizza" from Pizza Hut. I was like....hmm.....fish pizza? Frankly, I was skeptical as I never felt that fish and pizza really could go together. So, I got curious about this one. How would Pizza Hut pull off this one.....for me?

On a visit to Pizza Hut website, I found out that the fish they're using is called Alaskan Pollock. OK. I didn't know how this fish actually looked like but I was sure not like our "cencaru" or "kembung"..... xD

Oh, fishy! Fishy! Fishy!
OK people. This is NOT how Alaskan Pollock look like xD

Like most edible fish, they have grey skin. However, these are their colours after Pizza Hut serve them for us :-)

I was hoping to get the dining experience at a Pizza Hut restaurant but me being the working girl that I am, I could only leave my office at 8pm. So, dine-in was out of the question. For this working girl, take-away or delivery was the only answer.

The girl taking the order was friendly and told me that the take-away set was different from the dine-in set. Oh, really? There was no set for a single person. Well, fine by me as most of my family were not home. Only the little nephews and their mum and my brother. So, a regular size pizza was perfectly ok. Guess what, I was also told that by the girl at the counter that only regular size was available as the other sizes were completely SOLD OUT. So, that alone basically made the choice for me.

Upon opening the packaging, I fell in love with the set ♥
The Fish King Pizza on the left and the BBQ Chicken on the right there!

The overall take-away set of the regular Fish King Pizza. The Fish King Pizza, the BBQ Chickens, the coleslaw and two cans of Pepsi.

The BBQ Chickens were recommended by the girl taking the order and I thank her for that. They were delicious :-)

I just HAVE to give kudos to whoever invented the "Hot Pouch" as my chickens arrived home hot and crispy.
Hey, you can even "top" your pizza even more ;-)

I was initially worried the heat from the chicken would cause "condensation" in the pouch and make my chickens soggy. I had an experience of Pizza Hut Chilli Chickens delivery before. For that recipe, a little moisture is fine. How about this recipe? No worry people. Your BBQ chickens would be fine in that Hot Pouch.

So, how about the Fish King Pizza?

Here it is!
This is regular size. Divided into 6 with a fish stick for each portion. Nobody will be left out. There are also scatters of cut crab sticks, capsicum (pepper), onion slices and sweet pineapple chunks.....yummy!

Let's have a closer look, shall we?
See, I told ya. The colours of the fish are just what I told you at the beginning of this post.

You can see the crispy skin of the fish sticks, the little chunks of crab sticks, pineapple and red capsicum (pepper).
The most distinct feature of this pizza is it doesn't have the tomato sauce which is one of the 3 most prominent ingredients of a basic pizza i.e the base, the sauce and the cheesy top. This actually suits the Fish King Pizza in terms of taste.

This is how I would say about it in terms of taste. It was probably an idea of combining Italian, Hawaiian and Scandinavian. The Italian part is the pizza itself. The Hawaiian is the pineapple chunks. The Scandinavian is the fish itself being paired with what tasted like mayonnaise/tartar sauce to me. That's the taste of the "sauce" used to replace the Italian pizza tomato sauce for the Fish King. Not a trace of oregano in this pizza which is great for me. Somehow oregano as its taste and aroma always remind me of our "daun sireh". I wonder if we can actually replace oregano with finely chopped daun sireh xD. The irony is in these day and age, the imported oregano is more easily available to us than "daun sireh"!

The fish sticks are nicely "flaky". They're real fish fillets as finger-food cuts. You can determine the size by comparing to my hand there (a woman's hand).

I had reservations about "fish sticks" at first as you know how fish sticks from supermarkets are. No worry people. The fish sticks were all fish with delicious crispy coating.

I was surprised as I wouldn't call myself a pizza person much and I was a tough one to please here. I was skeptical about it at first. Pizza Hut might have won me over with this one. I'm very specific about what I want in a pizza. It has to be Hawaiian with the pineapple chunks. Western food has always been a bit too rich and heavy for my Asian taste. To me the tangy sweetness of pineapple balances out the richness of the cheese. Replacing the oregano tomato sauce with the mayo/tartar-like sauce is a good decision. Since the fish sticks have this crispy coating, the best direction to go in terms of flavour has got to be the "fish and chips" way. The sweet and sour mayo is the better pairing for the fish. Traditional oregano tomato sauce would kill the taste of the fish.

Look, the missing slices all went to my tummy :-)
If it wasn't for my thoughts on my nephews, their mother and my brother, I would have finished 3/4 of it in one sitting.

Even as I'm typing this, I keep thinking of how the Fish King Pizza tasted. Really good....yummy. This is the first time in my lifetime experience in pizza-eating that I can actually eat more than half of a regular size pizza. Normally, I have problems finishing two slices. Not because it doesn't taste good but because the richness is a little heavy for my Asian taste buds which had been brought up on rice, vegetables, noodles, chicken and fish. Cheese and cream were out of my reach at the time.

My verdict. This one's a winner. This is no lip service as I once gave a bad review for another dish Pizza Hut promoted on this blog. The Fish King Pizza is worth my hard-earned money. Balanced taste. Sweet, sour, savoury in one. Not too rich yet not light or bland. The crispy texture of the fish sticks' coating gives the pizza a crunch factor too. Hey, we're Malaysians. Our crispy fried food is part of our gastronomic life :-)

Go people. Sink or swim. The Fish King is waiting ;-)

Rock & Roll Tales In My Wish List of Books to Read

I spent my weekends earlier this month browsing through a series of book titles on Amazon.

As well documented here on this blog, I have a deep liking of rock and roll stories. Since I was a wee kid, I have always loved hearing stories about rock stars, their ups and downs, switching bands, who fired who, the sad drug abuse stories etc.

Ever since I heard an interview with Bobby Blotzer of Ratt on YouTube that he had a book coming, I planted a wish in my mind to get my hands on it when money permits.


The following are the rock n roll books on my reading Wish List this year:





1. Tales of a Ratt by Bobby Blotzer

The LA bands always have the most interesting stories to tell. These men are the reason why the 80s was dubbed the "decade of decadence". Bobby is the drummer for one of the legendary LA bands RATT.

Saw the run-through on Amazon where the names of other bands/artists mentioned in the book are listed. Nearly all the big who's who of the time were there but what attracted my eyes was the name Queensryche. A-ha! Interesting. Especially knowing that Ratt dumped Queensryche from the opening slot back in the 80s. It was QR's Rage for Order era. Honestly, I do feel that they were a mismatch. Musically, QR could easily upstage Ratt. Even though Ratt did have some fine musicians in it but QR were far more cohesive as a unit. Not to mention far more innovative musically. With a top notch vocalist who was at his prime. The difference was like day and night. So, I would love to know what Bobby has to say about them.

Sadly, the limited edition personally autographed book will not be available to me because it's only available from Bobby's website and they don't ship to my country ......hwaaaahh!!!!


2. Confessions of a Replacement Rock Star by Stacey Blades

Frankly, I did not know who Stacey Blades was before I went through the synopsis of the book. Oh, so he's in LA Guns replacing Tracii Guns. It's confusing enough for me to know that there are currently two bands using the name. How is that legally possible is beyond my technical knowledge.

However, as soon as I read some excerpts from it, I realized that this one is no typical rock & roll story but more about a man searching for his identity. He began with his family background. How he was adopted as a baby and still not knowing who his real parents are. Then about growing up in Canada before making his move to the USA finally landing the the job of a guitarist in LA Guns replacing Tracii. Anyone who knew the band from their most successful lineup (Tracii, Phil, Kelly, Mick, Steve) would know that Tracii is synonymous with LA Guns. Hence, the "replacement rock star". So, even finally being in a band he liked when he was younger still doesn't give him a sense of real identity.

It's hard for me not to empathize with Stacey after reading that. I feel like I want to extend my hand to offer my friendship to him and be there when he needs a friend to talk to. I'd love to read the whole story.



3. The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx

I'm not really a Motley Crue fan but I have TWO reasons to want this in my collection. First, I want to know how terrible the effect of heroin on first-hand account by a real heroin addict. Second, I like the artwork. I think it's amazing. The clashing black and red splashing across pages. Even if I may not be able to fully understand the world of drug addiction, I certainly can understand how the artwork had been designed in such a manner to help tell the tragic story through visual means.


So, there you go. Yes, among my collection of old clippings, tour books and magazines in languages I don't speak (Japanese, German, Dutch) I still have the common sense to at least get something I can actually read :-)

When they're replacing Chris DeGarmo and Warren DeMartini with Bill Gates......

When I talked about how bad it would be for me if I were forced to use the standard Windows background in my post about being stuck to a wallpaper here, I never thought it would be this quick. I knew it would come into reinforcement someday but I was imagining it to be next year the earliest.

Guess what? I was just informed by the Management today that the computer people are replacing my PC soon. I was shocked. What? It's been barely a year on my desk and now they're getting rid of it. With the ability to change our wallpaper being blocked, I will, like it or not, have to make do with the standard Windows background whatever that is that the Computer people set the new PC to.

Apparently, they're "upgrading" us all to Windows 7. I am still not a fan of Windows 7. I will have to get used to it no matter what. To me, it makes making the simplest task on Windows XP go a few steps further. I don't see where the simplification is. Maybe Bill Gates uses a dictionary from another planet.

Oh, they also will stop the remote connection to a mini server that we're doing now. It means that both my current wallpapers of Chris DeGarmo and Warren Demartini circa 1987-1988 will get deleted. This is really sad.

So, this means "Good bye Chris and good bye Warren"? Hwaaahhhh!!!!


*Update

Btw, I failed to secure this picture as someone else snapped it up. Oh, no! Hwaahhhh!!!

Yup....I missed Tokio Hotel first concert in Malaysia

That is so right. After all my blog posts about this band and even a blog Tag for them here plus the money spent on imported CDs and DVDs, I did not go to Tokio Hotel's first Malaysian concert on 1st May 2010 which was free, btw. What an irony. I really am nuts, huh?

I don't know why I was somehow unenthusiastic about their trip here. Not only my workplace is a mess but my finances aren't in the best situation at the moment. So, it was a choice of mine not to find a way to go see the boys. My hardened ego failed to stop me from feeling quite depressed though.

It started when my sister asked me to drive her over to the central bus station. As I was driving, a Tokio Hotel song called Hilf Mir Fliegen came on my MP3 player. That's one of my absolute favourite TH song as the lyrics speak to me.

On hearing the song, my sis had a huge grin on her face and told me that she was actually going to the capital city to watch TH live. I was shocked but calm. What?! Apparently, a friend of hers who's a TH fanatic won a bunch of tickets to the show and invited her friends to go. I said to my sis about her not telling me about going. Her reply was, her friend just told her the night before.

So, I dropped her off at the station and took my nephews to enjoy some chicken rice somewhere away. Trying to take my mind off it. This really sucked. Not only I am not able to go catch Deep Purple because no hotel room is available on the dates concerned. Now, my sis got to watch TH for free courtesy of her friend.

I struggled a bit to be matured about it. Yes, I survived the little depression by going on the net browsing through Amazon for rock n roll books I am planning to buy.

Oh, Hilf Mir Fliegen. I told you the lyrics speak to me. Help Me Fly.......


Come and help me fly

Lend me your wings

I'd trade them for the world

Against all that's stopping me

I'd trade them tonight

Against all that I have

That late noon, my sis texted me saying that she and her friends actually had extra tickets. Huh?! Well, what can I say other than, it was just not written in the sky for me.

How to torture like an Ancient Torture Device

Have any of you gone to any of those exhibitions of ancient torture devices? I have. TWICE. One of the items on display was a metal chair that one was supposed to be strapped buck naked onto then had the fire lit up underneath it.Since the chair's material is highly heat-conductive, you would be essentially grilled alive. Worse thing is, that chair was supposed to only torture you not kill you. In that situation though, you would be as good as dead.

That was how I felt yesterday as I was put on a hot seat. Really really hot. The highly competent people doing the Lab assessment ISO/IEC 17025 came to evaluate us. What I went through was the mental equivalent of the medieval hot seat.

As I did the recent `internal audit' on Quality Management area, I had to go through an `evaluation' by this lady who was the Lead Auditor. I will not reveal her name as she is a highly respected figure in this field in our country and overseas. It was impossible not to have admiration for this woman for her intelligence and spot-on method of getting to the roots of our problems. Man, did she put me on a grill! Yes, she grilled me. Really really grilled me!


I can't describe how humiliated I was when she asked me to explain some of the things I wrote down in my Audit notes when I couldn't answer a lot of her questions.

"What do you understand an improvement is?"
"How did you as an Auditor draw a conclusion based on this?"
"Did you check the implementation or just simply acknowledge such and such documents exist?"
"Did you get what I mean?"
"Can you see the overall picture?"
"This wasn't that long time ago. So, you should be able to remember"
"Look at this document, can you see the problem? The fundamental problem?"
"See, there is a change in the procedure. So, the policy has changed. Have you, in fact, created more ways for things to go looser?"
"By doing this, you are making things ambiguous...."
"Overall, I'm not going to sugar-coat anything, the system is very weak"
.........etc.....etc.....etc.....

Nothing was a blurry vision to me. It was just blank. Blank space. Our Quality Manager said to me not to panic. No, this was not a panicky situation. My mind just went blank. That was it. I never filled in anything into it since last year as a matter of fact. This is beyond humiliation.


These are some of the things that can be summed up on my competency (or lack thereof):

1.  I was immatured enough to write the very childish statement "Not yet" instead of "Not applicable" in my Audit notes.

2.  Apparently, I couldn't tell the difference between an "adequacy Audit" and a "compliance Audit". She said all I did was skimming on the surface without looking at the overall picture of the system.

3.  I didn't check the implementation at all. Just agreeing to everything based on paperwork. She said I was influenced by the Auditee.

4.  I relied too much on a "Yes/No" type Checksheet.

5.  What on EARTH is "anti-clockwise measurement of a Torque Wrench"? Worse is, I wrote that down in my Audit notes and didn't even bother to understand what it is.

6.  I have "inadequate understanding of the Accreditation Bodies' Policies" because my "Audit findings on the Policy series were inadequately documented".

7.  I have the "Parrot Syndrome". You can teach a parrot to recite what you say but it doesn't necessarily understand what you say. So, I was, most of the time copying what the auditees said without really understanding what their work was all about.

8.  Since everyone is unclear about identifying which areas to improve, she said improving the Internal Auditor is one area we can all work on. Why do I have this feeling that she was talking about me? I'm a weak spot in the system that needs to be strengthened, people :-(


So, below is my response:

1.  Yes, Ma'am. You are right.
2.  With everything that went on at work for the past several months, I was not at all in the mood of learning or giving my all to my job. My friends leaving, my useless management, my paltry salary increase, my family health problems. I was and still am more keen to forget everything instead.
3.  Yes, I believed everything the Auditees said to me because they are the better-trained ones.
4.  Yes, I just recorded everything simply to finish the assignment instead of delving into the core functions of the Lab.
5.  I wish I were heartless or at least separate professionalism from feeling sorry towards my friends in the Lab team.

Being a professional that she is, the lady did point out that our Group really did have selected the right persons as Internal Auditors as we are actually able to pick up problems that we see. All we need (what I need) is to polish up our (my)skill and further understand the requirements and the importance of looking at things as one overall picture.


Now I can tell you an additional reason why I went blank yesterday. I have to admit that during the Q&A session, I was there as my body only. My mind was totally somewhere else.....with a bunch of old geezers.....namely......Deep Purple!

Before going into the meeting room, I printed out some info on the upcoming Deep Purple concert at Arena of Stars, Genting Highlands on 16th May 2010. I was checking about any possibility of me going such as the available ticket and hotel room. The ticket I can afford is for seats furthest from the stage near the doors. Every hotel on that land was not available. It's useless to go to a night event there with no accommodation. This is not like the Capital City where you can simply get a cab and check into any of the many hotels available. Hotels on the highlands are limited. The only one available is the MYR1000+ per night. There is one affordable hotel available but it's at the foot of the mountains which requires you to take the Cable car. I don't know when the last Cable car leaves the centre of the highlands. Besides, this hotel costs more than the affordable ones on the highlands. It's just not worth it. It's even more not worth it now that Ritchie Blackmore, my "first love", is not in the band anymore.

So, with my mind meandering over the Purple geezers and the highlands plus my obvious "rock star obsession", I think you have a pretty clear idea of where I was. This Soldier of Fortune was speeding on the Highway Star. Before she realized, she was already grilled and was blowing it all up like Smoke on the Water.

My Package from Germany arrived finally.......yeah!

Endlich.........the package I'd been waiting for from Germany since 1st March 2010 arrived. Yeah....yeah....yeah!

Adding more to my rock and metal paraphernalia. I love collecting old magazines from my old days. It's a hobby of mine since I was a kid. This particular package is a bunch of Helloween old stories in their native German language. My German vocabulary is so limited but it's always fun trying to understand reading it one word at a time. Spoken German on the other hand is so out of my comprehension.

I was so sad when the package didn't arrive after two weeks. The seller was very nice though and offered to refund. I opted to hold on. Holding on to my faith that life was not cruel. The seller seemed to be a genuine person and I certainly was keen to give a fellow metalhead good scores.

There it is. Ooh...just look at those colourful pretty German postage stamps :-)
Yes, people. I'm an old-fashioned nerd. I love good old stamps. Even in this digital age.
For privacy reason, my full name and address are hidden.

Looks like He loves me when I think that my life was coming to a crashing end.

Who will be with me when everyone else is gone?

Another elder in the family passed away. One of my maternal grandfather's younger sisters.

From what I heard, my grandfather refused to leave her side the night she was brought home from the hospital. In her lifetime, I never really saw her getting too affectionate with her grandkids but somehow she would always shower me with hugs and kisses every time we met. I don't know how or why they found it difficult. To me she was hilarious. I could always joke with her and tease her. I liked giving her hugs and she would always return the affection.

I went to the burial ceremony with guilt. That's because my mother asked me to take her to visit this ailing elderly woman but I was not too keen. I said that she was placed in the CCU and it would be a waste of time to go since they allow only two people at a time. To me, it was better if we gave way to her children and grandchildren. Besides, my mother was not feeling very well anyway. Just a few hours later, we received a call from a relative that she was gone. I don't know how to describe it other than oops......on my part.

Later in the day, I asked my mother, since all my younger brothers would be working in the capital city and my elder brother is scheduled to move out with his family, who would be the one to take care of her and my father. She said "You". I was taken aback. Look. That's a horrifying thought. The thing I certainly do not want in my life is to grow into an old maid who has to live with her parents because she can't afford to live on her own and has to take care of them in return till the rest of their lives......or hers.

Another horrifying thought came to my head. What if my sister moves out? Then, all will be up to me? I have never been keen on the idea of my elder brother moving out. In my mind even back then, since he was the one who definitely isn't leaving the village and being the eldest, he should be the one inheriting the family house. I don't want to be stuck here. I have always been the one who wants to go out and see the world. I want to be out there seeking adventures. Yet, everything that's happening just chains me here.

If only I had the salary befitting my job title, I would definitely be living in my own condo unit somewhere near the city and spend my money on trips to overseas to catch my favourite bands in concerts.

There is only one thing that's actually scaring me. What if I'm confined to life in the village, unable to move out? What would happen to me once my parents are not with me anymore? My siblings would have their own lives to live. Would I be left alone in that big family house with old memories of what things used to be? It scares me to the core. Just thinking about it upsets me. Dying is a sure thing but it's more tragic that I haven't really lived.

I'm not even worth MYR50 to my company

Got our new salary today. Very very disappointing. As I'm typing this, I'm trying to hold back the sadness that feels like a heavy stone in my chest. I am very very sad that I am not even worth MYR50 to this company that I've been working like a slave for in the past 10 years.

The last time I felt this way was when they "upgraded" me to the non-overtime-entitlement salary bracket. It was so minuscule that I spent that whole year suffering from paycheck to paycheck scratching my head and scraping to the very bottom of my bank account to pay my car, petrol and bills.

I'm not even worth MYR50. What do I have to prove to the management for monetary appreciation? It seems like nothing I can do would get them to notice my contribution. They only pick me to do things that everybody else is not capable to do. That's all.

This "increment" is not even enough to cover my weekly petrol expenses. It's so comical that before handing over the payslips to my subordinates, I gave a short speech congratulating them and asking them to be grateful for whatever they would get. What a hypocrite I am.

No! I deserve what I wish for. Please Almighty, please open up a whole new world for me and take me through a new road where the path is obstacle-free.

20th April is here and it's Ratt's Infestation album launch day....yeah!

I survived 20th April. Yeah!

I dreaded today as the it should have been the day that I had to join the Management 5S 'factory tour'. I did. Good news is our Managing Director is in Japan at the moment and he wasn't available for us. Alright! He did, however, ask another Japanese to join us. I wasn't sure what his name is as he's fairly new in our branch. He previously was in the China branch. He mainly speaks Japanese and Mandarin and very little English which somehow worked out to our advantage later.

My legs ached as I trailed behind everyone. The men were much faster. Even the fat men were faster than me. This isn't right! After it was all over, we all gave only short comments about the overall condition of the factory as the guy was not proficient enough at intermediate level English.

Ok. Enough about work as I have a reason to celebrate. Checked my mail to see a message from Amazon that my Ratt's Infestation CD is now on the way. Oh, I'm so frigging happy. Let's pray that it arrives in my mailbox safely. I even resisted listening to the `streaming' offered by Roadrunner Records online. I want to be surprised, you see. I have this feeling that it will be a nice surprise too :-)

My week didn't start well as I let out my anger during Monday morning Division briefing about unco-operative people who were not being nice to my subordinates regarding Engineering documents control. My Manager gave me a short lecture instead in front of the WHOLE division about me being emotional in giving instructions. What the heck was he talking about?! I wasn't giving instructions, mister. I really was letting out my anger.

Ok. Back to my celebration of Ratt's new CD. Now that my April 'gift' is out there, I can personally celebrate this special occasion. It's sad that I'm thousands of miles away from all the action. So, last night, I happened to stumble upon an old video of Warrant performing in the Gazzari Club in 1987 on YouTube. Hey, that's the place that Ratt is launching the new CD according to Warren DeMartini except the place is called the Key Club now. Oh, I'm wishing him well :-) In a way, it is his birthday gift too ;-)

I cranked up Eat Me Up Alive this morning in the car on my way to work. Thanks Roadrunner for that free download :-)

Suddenly I'm reminded of a question from a friend at work who asked when I told him that I'm feeling like 15 when I have actually stated here on my blog about feeling 18 in my opening lines.

In response to that, the answer solely lies in this Ratt's new CD.

Frankly, I wasn't that big of a fan back then when I was a teenager. Dokken was and still is my favourite LA band. Their only album that I was able to buy Dancing Undercover didn't stay with me that long. It got stolen. I'm not a fan of Stephen Pearcy's vocals but I really liked Warren's guitar playing which unfortunately didn't sound like it was mixed loud enough in the studio back then. The Infestation album on the other hand put a lot of emphasis on the guitar sound from the two songs I've heard so far.

So, what does being 15 have anything to do with it? It's because this excitement that I'm feeling right now is exactly what I would have had back when I was 15 when a band released a new great album. I would feel like the world is my oyster. I would feel high up in the air. My beautiful world from the great 80s is back :-)

Tonight I'm feeling 15 again ;-)

*Update*

I just have to link to this video. It makes me feel like I was part of the celebration every time I watch it.

Warren DeMartini looks so good here ;-) during an interview at the Key Club with XtremeTV (check them out!).
It's always great to see someone from that era still looking good when many of them are trashy wasted. I have never ever heard or read a single sleazy story about Warren.
Here he is with Carlos Cavazo, the man he chose to be part of the band.

Rock on everyone!

Beware......you may be stuck with that wallpaper for the rest of your life

The computer people have blocked the users' accessibility to another level!

Ok. Nowadays, with the advance in digital technology, it is unfortunately a necessary evil to implement such control especially for a manufacturing plant like ours. Yet still, my feeling about it is ....it sucks!

It's bad enough that I am no longer able to access this blog and the entire MySpace pages as the Internet usage is strictly firewalled. Now, we can't plug in any of our personal flash drives. Well, it means I can't access the pictures taken by my digital camera as the images are stored in a memory card. Cameras with internal memory is OK though. I can live with that.

They also auto-lock our PC if we leave it unattended long enough which really isn't long at all. I went to the ladies' room and came back having to re-enter my password for not only the "mother" PC but also the remote connection login. Good for security but can get haywire at the same time when my keyboard keep saying I have the "caps lock" on even though it is not.

However, the worst thing is we can't change our wallpapers. Oh, come on. What is this? How is that a threat to company computer system and intellectual property security? Which reminds me of that dreadful Windows 7 Starter.

Thankfully, on the day before the implementation of the "locking" system, I happened to set my wallpapers to these.

This is what I chose as the wallpaper for the PC. That's Mr. Cool Chris DeGarmo performing circa Operation Mindcrime.

This what I chose for my "remote desktop" connection wallpaper. That's the beautiful Warren DeMartini from what I believe 1987.
*On a side note, I found this image online and I may have to purchase this photo now that I'm stuck with it. Maybe later when I have extra $$ ;-)

This is what happened when I leave the PC. I have to re-login.

Then re-login for this one too. So, double logging in through these two fine men.

OK. Now, all the images and wallpapers I have in my collection have been rendered useless. How sad my life has become, huh?

But then what is there to complain when I'm stuck with Chris DeGarmo and Warren DeMartini?

(*Unless they forced everyone to the blue Windows background in the future. Now, that would really suck!)

Just a Girl Living in Captivity.....that's me

Remember more than a decade ago when No Doubt released the song Just A Girl? I bought both versions of the CD single in the UK as I found playing the song "charged up my batteries when they were running low".

There is a line in that song which I really like that goes.....

"Oh, I'm loaded up to here..."

....which perfectly expresses a girl's frustration to the max and that's exactly what I'm going through right now.

It's about the messy politics at my workplace, of course. So, yes, my dear friend is confirmed to be leaving next week. The management hastily got a fairly new guy to fill in his place taking over some of the tasks. The problem is our management are so clueless about what it takes to get someone to fill another person's shoes.

As expected, right after the Manager had a face-to-face talk with my friend, I was approached to give support in 'training' the new member especially in Supplier Audit matters. As soon as he opened his mouth, I said "NO!" Within seconds I went into a near-teary outburst about how "loaded up to the max" I am. I basically told him that I can't afford the time to take any other extra task as I've been jeopardizing my own responsibility in the Engineering section quite a bit lately. I'm just lucky to have a right-hand guy who is there supporting me and picking up my slack all the way without complaining.

I said that all these years, each time a key member resigned, I would be the person that their workload got dumped upon. Let me list them out:

1. An XRF activity in-charge colleague resigned back in 2004, I had to step in. Continuing with the daily inspection monitoring, revising and perfecting the procedures he left behind.

2. A colleague who was a member of the environmental & Green procurement committee resigned, her position in the Committee went to me. They said I had the knowledge, duh!

3. A clerk resigned, her education & training co-ordination work went to me as I am the main Trainer in our division. I must be the highest-paying "clerk" here.

4. A close colleague resigned last year, I had to take over one of her jobs going to suppliers for Sony models process verification as I am the person who normally has to do the presentation with Sony people.

5. Now, another close colleague is leaving, do I have to take over his job too? Heck, no way!

Here are some other reasons why (among many more reasons):

1. I'm already a permanent TS16949 system internal Auditor as almost half of the trained auditors were granted VSS. I'm one of the unlucky few who didn't get it.

2. They just made me an Auditor for ISO/IEC 17025 system on top of that. Apparently, I was selected for "being enthusiastically serious" during a Training session with an independent consultant. Now, they're already talking about sending me to a one-week training again in the capital city in May "to further deepen my knowledge". Heaven, help me .....aaaargghh!!!

3. I'm doing many of our Division's instruction manuals besides being the main active Trainer as nobody else seems to be making them now.

4. I've been forced to be in this year's Annual Dinner committee again as the Alien has taken a liking to me being the Secretary. I have instead made no secret that I dislike him.

5. My slackening with my own section caused a major demerit when Sony people came to audit their blu-ray model recently when my members put in the delivery quantity of one component incorrectly. It caused confusion to everyone as we never ordered that high of quantities ever. We had to correct everything there and then. I still feel bad about it and I admitted to having mis-looked that particular detail as at the time, I basically had to handle the project on my own. My section was left with only three people in those desperate times.

6. I'm very angry with the management for not listening to my plea not to interfere with my friends' Section. Now both of them have chosen to leave the company. Can't our management see that people are unhappy? So, why should I be supportive when our management don't care about us?

7. Why should I be the scapegoat working my brains coming up with improvement plans proposal for our Suppliers when there is someone here actually making money out of those defect parts? Yes, that's an open secret that nearly everyone knows here. Unethical if you ask me.

So, everyone, I have declared to my management that I will not be giving extra support anymore. Yesterday, me and my soon-to-resign buddy might have scared the new guy when we told him to be ready to :

1. "stand on your own two feet",
2. "face the battle as a Pawn parading around as the Knight because everyone knows the King is useless",
3. "be creative to cook up an answer in a meeting when your Superior never shows up"....ha....ha....ha!

We laughed hysterically when he said something about "a real soldier will not turn away from a battle". Oh, youth naivety xD I have only one thing to say here. Soon you will find out who are the ones "running away from the battle". I said to my buddy, "I have battled with every weapon and shields there can be from Samurai sword to auto-machine gun and have no more to battle with other than detonating a nuclear bomb and end it all". Ha! Ha! So, this tired soldier has decided to retire :-)

The new guy must be so scared that he called in sick today. Hey, me and my buddy were just opening him up to reality ;-)

Yes. Right now, I am "just a girl living in captivity" and that "I'm loaded up to here". Gwen Stefani really knew how to work that to her advantage, huh?

Am I the Queen of the 'comfort zone' now?

My father was back home yesterday. I kissed his hand. He was smiling. Knowing him, I think it's his way of keeping himself positive. As usual, he said he's fine. He'd only say he's sick when he wants attention and pampering. If he says he's fine, it means he doesn't want people to worry.

I don't know why but the house felt half empty for the past several days. It is the same way if my nephews are not around. One thing for sure, a full house with all the family members is the best. I may live in my own little cocoon but I love the sounds of 'family' around.

My grandmother was over at our place last night saying that I should get a new car when she saw me arriving home with my uncle's borrowed 'antique' Toyota from I don't know what year. It is strange that I grew up wanting nice things in life yet I'm living my life surviving on very little in my own strangely comfort zone. I've read it a lot that successful people are those who don't like to stay in comfort zones. What does that say about me, huh? Lately, I'm feeling scared of myself when I think of it like that.

I certainly don't want to dampen my April but today, I've been receiving about 3 pieces of news that make me unhappy.

1. Following my rant about the month of March especially at work in my post here, a friend informed me that the tough-talking lady from procurement group was not too pleased with the email I fired at her for constantly following up with me on matters that are not within my responsibility scope. It's not fair that everything has to be burdened on my shoulders when I have already clearly defined what my job scope is. Is it so hard to go to the correct person for whatever the concerned matter is? Also, why wouldn't she cc her emails correspondence to my upper management? I'm not happy with that at all.

2. The HR people sent me an email saying the Alien wants me back this year as the Annual Dinner Committee's Secretary. That Alien saw me this morning and from 20 feet away, he shouted about making me the host again. I rambled on as I walked on the sidewalk of the old factory building about the job not worthy of the paltry pay.

3. My dear friend really did get the new job. Not that I'm unhappy for him but I'm unhappy that I'm losing a `little brother'. For the many years that I have worked here, he has always been a constant source of laughter and some spats (of course xD) but it's mostly laughter. He was my emceeing partner last year. Our first emceeing job. I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else. What people saw that night was two friends joking and goofing around, having a good time being crazy. I wouldn't do anything if what heart is not in it.

So, in actual truth, all 3 of the above is interlinked with each other. When my dear friend leaves, there will be no one to take over his job and my upper management people don't seem to care which may put me in deep water. My friend has always been the star of the company's Annual Dinner and without him, I don't have the heart to be any part of it. As much as I wish joy and luck to my friends but it breaks me each time one leaves. They are moving on to something new and trying to turn their lives around for the better.

All these lead back to me and the comfort zone issue. Now, if everything that's happening isn't a slap on my face, then I probably had gone through a labotomy in a missing timeline of my life and not knowing it. Wake up girl! You have been semi-hibernating too long.

I'm going on tour on 20th April ('factory tour' that is, duh!) and the Alien strikes again (help!)

Oh, pants!

Something I dread just arrived :-(

Just checked my email and saw a message from the Admin people that I have been selected for the next 'factory tour with the Managing Director(MD)' which they officially refer to as '5S Rounding'. That's the thing about working for a Japanese company. They have all these concept and principles that we have to follow.

It used to be so simple. Only the MD and 2 or 3 people from the Admin would be involved. One of them would be a translator to the MD. That was it. All we had to do was wait for them to come over to our respective Division and then wait for the report maybe a week later.

Now, it's almost like a battalion of management people selected from different divisions/departments to accompany the MD on his 'tour'. The walking part is fine as we all need a bit of exercise every now and then. However, the thing I hate the most about it is going to other divisions/departments and picking out bad things you see about them. Then, at the end of the 'tour', you are required to highlight those bad points to the MD one by one.

Look, walking around all day with the MD just isn't my idea of a good time.

Another thing. When will somebody deport the Alien back to his planet? To those not in the know, the Alien is the name I gave to our HR Manager as he is so inhuman to me, he must be an alien.

Last week, the Alien said loudly to me from across another table at the factory canteen that he had been nominated again to head this year's Annual Dinner. Oh, pants, pants, pants! Why oh why?

On Monday morning, my Manager informed us all in the morning briefing that the Alien indeed has been chosen as the Chairman and that he wants ALL the people from last year's Committee to join this year. From the way he said it, I think my Manager already agreed to it. Oh, come one. So, if this Alien is chosen again next year, I'll be stuck to that Committee again? Yikes. Help!!!

I wasn't happy with the outcome last year. I didn't have much time to eat. My "professionally applied" makeup was a "fail". My "payment" as the emcee was paltry. Then, the worst thing is, they didn't even have it all on VCDs. The only time I was the "star" of the show, they didn't make a VCD. All the crappy events in previous years had double VCDs even. It's just so unfair.

There are only TWO things I can be grateful of with all these Management things:

1. Being in that Committee means I get to participate in food-tasting. Now, that is what makes life worth living.

2. As much as I hate the 'tour of duty' on 20th April, that date will also be the date..........



.........that RATT's new album Infestation will be officially released. Yeah!

I hate it when the doctors think we're all dumb!

My father is in the capital city at the moment for his first treatment of cancer.

My mother and sister are with him. Basically, my mother will be caring after my father and my sister will be caring after my mother. Yes, my lil sis is the one gutsy enough to stick a needle into my mother for her insulin shot. I was offered to do it once by the nurses at the hospital but I backed out. I'm not afraid of needles on myself but sticking them into other people is a different thing. I'm not keen on inflicting pain onto others.

Anyway, my brothers who were there are now at home. My elder brother isn't too happy that there is no info at all from the doctors about the stage our father's cancer is at. It certainly isn't Stage 1. Our old man has been going to the hospital since 2007. It means he had been feeling unwell for a few years already. My mother was suffering for FOUR excruciating years before being diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer.

My brother expressed his concerns about the kind of treatment the doctors plan to give. It's still unclear at present. He talked about the new treatment where patients swallow the chemo instead of being pumped with it. Having lost our cousin to cancer last December and another close relative before that, we are not keen on our family members being the experiment objects of doctors for treatment effectiveness study.

I remember my father lecturing the doctors at the our state's General hospital for a 'botched experiment' on my mother when the operation supposedly to reattach her colon was not successful once. He boldly told them that 'my wife is not a lab object and you can't subject human lives on 'trial and error' like that'.

Also, I hate it when doctors wouldn't let us go through the records they make for patients which they normally leave lying on the patients' side tables. I was reading through my mother's record once and the doctor quickly came and took it from my hand. He said something about 'family members not supposed to know'. Hello, spare us some respect, please. At the end of the day, we, the family members, are the ones who have to look after our sick ones. For me, it's easier for us to know everything as much as possible so that we can tailor ourselves to suit the patients' daily life requirement.

At the moment, yes, I do feel that the doctors think we're so dumb that we can't handle such matters. As for any kind of sickness, we have to take charge of ourselves or our loved ones when they're too weak. Isn't the best way to start taking charge is getting well-informed first?