Monday, October 31, 2005

A ghostly tribute

It's Halloween, my favorite day. If I was in US I'll be glued in front of the tv switching through channels, devouring whatever horror prgrams they're showing. Some of the channels would even have a Halloween marathon for 24 hours. Ahh.... a horror fan heaven...

Anyway, since this is the first Halloween that I have a blog, I would like to pay tribute to my favourite horror movies...

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
I saw this movie as part of a film course I took in US. I believe this is the first movie with the central plot of a group of people trapped with monsters or zombies or fog or birds or whatever it is that's threatening them gathered outside. They need to survive at least until the sun comes up. It's not enough that they have to face dangers outside their confinement, there's always a struggle within those protective walls. A very nice black and white horror film that started a whole new genre.


The Sixth Sense
I remember watching this movie alone because I was so bored and I haven't been to the movies for the longest time. The first half of the movie I was pretty bored and my mind even wandered off a little. But the story finally pulled me back in. The part that really got to me was when Cole peeked under the bed. Well, it was pretty obvious that he's going to see something there, but the girl looked creepy and sad. And that mixed display is something I cannot forget. I also love the part when Cole got locked inside the small hole by the stairs at the party. It wasn't as much as what happened to Cole inside that was scary but the fact that the mother outside couldn't do anything to protect him. Isn't that one of our worst fears, knowing that a loved one is suffering and there's nothing we can do about it.

Hellraiser
I love this one for its gore factor. It's a mystery how a man that looks like this

can create gruesome creatures like these...

Pinhead and Butterball

The Others
I liked this one because I didn't expect it will end like that. I liked it even more that they decided to stay and do whatever it is they were meant to do even though they were shocked with the nature of their existence.

Shadow of the Vampire
The story behind the filming of Nosferatu, the oldest vampire movie ever. Max Schreck the man who played Nosferatu was believed to be a real vampire and Willem Defoe played him perfectly. John Malkovich was also perfect as the eccentric director, Frank Murnau. My favorite part is when Max hang out with some of the crew one night and explained the sad existence of Dracula.
Dracula hasn't had servants in 400 years and then a man comes to his ancestral home, and he must convince him that he... that he is like the man. He has to feed him, when he himself hasn't eaten food in centuries. Can he even remember how to buy bread? How to select cheese and wine? And then he remembers the rest of it. How to prepare a meal, how to make a bed. He remembers his first glory, his armies, his retainers, and what he is reduced to. The loneliest part of the book comes... when the man accidentally sees Dracula setting his table.
And then he grabbed a bat out of the air and sucked its blood dry. Nice...

Amityville Horror
The ultimate haunted house movie. A classic.

Nightmare on Elm Street
Who wouldn't love good ole Freddy Kruger. Heck, even my mother knows who Freddy Kruger is. Being in a nightmare that never ends is pretty horrific to experience.

Poltergeist
A girl inside a tv, a sweet talking psychic, using the strong bond of family love to defeat evil, young actors die in untimely deaths. What more can I say.

Bram Stoker's Dracula
I like this movie more on the art rather than its horror factor. I love the book and I love movies that uses bright colors, and this one is a feast for the eyes. It has some great shots like the way Dracula's red amour contrasted very strongly with his wife's green dress in the flashback scene. In addition to its beautiful and lavish costumes, this movie is quite stunning indeed. I must admit that Keanu Reeves was particularly very bad that even I couldn't back him up this time. But fortunately Gary Oldman was there to level it out.


Ju-On

I've watched a lot of horror movies but nothing compared to this. I might be terrified by Freddy, forrified by Hellraiser and stupefied by The Sixth Sense but nothing compared to this. One simple reason, I couldn't sleep after watching this movie. I kept hearing the sound and seeing her face. I like to sleep under the covers and this movie covered that area as well. I considered chucking the blanket. But I'd rather have the blanket than leave my feet uncovered, so I kept the blanket and made sure that I don't peak under it.

It's 1:06 now and I don't even dare look for some stills for this movie.

So that's it. That's my list of movies that thrilled, chilled and scared the desire to sleep out of me, for a while. I'm not afraid to go to sleep now so goodbye and goodnight. I wish everyone a Happy Deepavali.

A pleasant doom

Another game to movie adaptation. Hollywood has proven time and time again that they really are running out of original ideas.

This movie is not one of those highly anticipated movie of the year like Harry Potter 4, King Kong and Sin City was. So I didn't know that this movie is coming out until they started to run the promos on tv. I saw this weird scene where you can only see the front of the gun and monsters getting blasted one by one in front of you and I thought, that looks very familiar....

Oh yeah... I've done that before. I've had my share behind the gun and shooting a significant amount of monsters back in the day. I played Doom before although for a very short time. I was in US and just got my very first computer. Of course I was very gung-ho to try all those cool games I was only able to watch other people play. One of the perks of being in the US is that they sometime sell old game titles really cheap and that's how I got my hands on Doom.

I guess it's true what they say, there's nothing more satisfying than blasting the heads off of some stupid, ugly monsters without the risk of hurting yourself. However, I did kind of hurt myself playing Doom. The interface was a bit confusing and moving around the maze while keeping your eye out for monsters and crazed scientists gave me a headache. This was my first first-person shooter type game. After a few rounds I called it quits and decided that this type of game is not for me (I'm more of a role-playing, strategist, Gabriel Knight, Civilization, Zeus type of gamer).

I was excited that someone wanted to adapt the game to the screen. Finally, something familiar for a change Image hosted by Photobucket.com. And I was excited that they brought in the first-person shooter view into the movie. I was even more excited to learn that The Rock is going to be in it Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

But the excitement didn't end there when I got another pleasant surprise a few minutes into the show. This guy was in the movie too.

Hehehe... Karl Urban... aka Eomer aka Ceaser from Xena the Warrior Princess
He was like icing on the cake Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

What was I talking about? Oh, the movie... yes... ehemhem... focus Kampung Gal...

The plot was as unoriginal as the basis of the movie. I don't remember the story of Doom the game but the movie is nothing new compared to other sci-fi action movie. A group of soldiers were sent to some far-way place to answer a distress call. The whole team seems to carry personal baggages heavier than their guns and survival kit. We got a psycho, a nervous wreck, the guilt ridden and a horny toad to name a few. For an elite team they don't look pretty elite to me. I wouldn't trust these guys to exterminate the rodents in my house. I'm afraid they'll end up blowing the whole house and the tenants along with it. But don't worry, they don't last very long. The only different thing about this particular movie was that a black dude was not the first to die.

However, they saved the best for last. It was what we were all waiting for... the first-person shooter view that they've been promoting left and right for.
I have to admit, it was pretty cool. I even remembered shooting this little guy,
Pinky Demon

But it was too long for my comfort, I started to get dizzy and I recalled why I stopped playing the game in the first place. I think it would be better if they didn't focus all the first-view shots at this one sequence. They could have used it a few times throughout the movie with different characters and different weapons, then the audience would really get the feel of the game.

To conclude, let me just add one more good thing about this movie, this makes one hell of a cool group photo
Shoulder your weapon soldier!

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Current update - 30/10/05

Why do I do this?

Read: Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton, The Runaway Jury by John Grisham
Reading: Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens, Imajica by Clive Barker
CD: None
Favorite song: Eleanor by Low Millions, Other Side of the World by KT Tunstall
Playing: Freecell
Watching: Desperate Housewives, Amazing Race: Family Edition, The Drew Carey Show

*No. of times asked if I have a boyfriend: 6
*No. of times asked when I will get married: 16
*No. of times asked when I will have kids: 2
Note: * Since I started this blog of course. I've been getting these questions lots of times before but you can't honestly believe I would count them, right? I just thought of this lately. It's interesting to know the average number of times a single girl at a marriageable age get that million dollar question. I hope other single bloggers would do the same. Maybe we can write a thesis on it! I also change "ppl" to "times" since one person can ask all three questions.

The weird bunch

The other day I went out on a limb and join my friend for buka puasa with a bunch of strangers at least for my part. The event was organized by the guy she's currently dating and she wanted me to meet him. He's a doctor, good looking but supposedly confused about his sexual preference i.e. is he gay or not? He even admitted to my friend that he's attracted to her contract fiance.


You remember My Best Friend's Wedding where Julia Roberts made a pact with her guy friend to get married if they haven't found anyone at a certain age. I forgot the details. For simplicity's sakes I will call it a contract wedding, and the intended, contract fiance. Well my friend signed up for one of this contract wedding, her idea actually, with a good friend who happens to be relatively open about being gay. He has a boyfriend and she knows about it.

This friend of mine, let's call her N, seems to have a lot of gay friends because I met more of them for this buka puasa at Kelantan Delight KLCC.

We started the day by getting our hair done. Well, she had her hair done, I just desperately needed a haircut and this place I frequent is terribly cheap albeit quite far from my house. Wash and cut for RM17, where in KL can we get that? Then off we go to KLCC at about 4pm to catch a movie at 4:30. I wanted to watch Doom but she wanted to watch Goal. Image hosted by Photobucket.com no football movie for this gal. So we took the middle road and agreed on Transporter 2. But I don't know what she did when she booked the tickets online, Transporter 2 was not at 4:30, it was 5:15. Not enough time until buka puasa.
"What's on at 4:30 then?"
she asked.
"Doom"
, said the person at the counter.
"I guess I'm doomed then."
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
So that's how we ended up watching Doom. Hehe some things are just meant to be. More on the movie if I have the mood to blog about it.

After the movie, we met up with her friend who's going to join us for the buka puasa. Total, four guys and all of us headed to Kelantan Delight where another friend is waiting.

The next part might be confusing. Heck I'm still confused so just bear with me.

After a while, the table started to fill up minus a few. The doctor (the guy that N wanted me to meet) couldn't come because of an emergency operation and another girl, O was going to be late. N's fiance was invited but he couldn't make it. By 7pm there was 9 of us.

Looking around the table I thought, man I couldn't be with a weirder bunch than this. Keep in mind that not all of us at the table actually knew each other. Most of us just met each other for the first time that night. Me and N were seated next to each other at the middle of the table laid out for 12. On N's right are the four guys we met earlier consists of her friend with his boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend with his current boyfriend. Ok, let me rephrase that, beside N is B1 with his bf B2, in front if B2 is B1's ex-bf, B3 and next to him is B3's current bf B4. Got that? Good. Let's move on.

Seated in front of me slightly to the left, there's this girl who works at the same office as B1. This girl, as N described her to me, is a pengkit but not really a pengkit. If I'm not mistaken a pengkit is a tomboy lesbian (someone better help me here, I'm too kampung to know about this stuff). Definitions aside, she really looks like a man, if she doesn't go around with her real name I can go on the whole night thinking she's a man. However, N told me that she has expressed her desire to be married and have a family (with a man to set the record straight) but realized that her appearance doesn't help. Let's move on.

On the left and right of this girl sat her two friends. On her right is her old friend from school Juan aka Juanita (not his real name). Yes he's one of those effeminate guys. Ok, ok I'll say it... he's a maknyah, I don't know what's the politically correct term for them. And on her left is Juanita's roommate another maknyah. They sure do talk a lot. It was like they haven't seen each other for years. It's interesting listening to them. But after a while, their conversation turned into a friendly bicketing on who left the condom by the bedside table last night which was when I stopped listening and pretend I haven't heard that.

Then O finally turned up, better late than never. This girl I do know from my student days. But as time passed and we all went abroad and came back, she got more affiliated with N than me. She was a colleaque of N's ex-boyfriend and after awhile started to hang around with the same bunch of people as N. O also has something special going on. She's jealous that N has a fiance, no matter that he's gay, that she wanted a gay contract fiance for herself and she's got her eye on B1. I don't know if it's suppose to be a joke among friends or she was being really serious, but I was so overwhelmed with all these new people and strange lifestyles to believe that she was serious.

So there I was with four gay men, a pengkit who's not really a pengkit, 2 maknyahs, a girl short of her contract fiance and a girl who's looking out for a contract fiance. Where do I fit in with this picture? I was supposed to meet N's friend who didn't turn up and of course I was there for the food Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

Hehe... If I was somewhere outside of Malaysia, I could turn this bunch into a movie.

Howhow.. Howwwwlllll!!!

I finally ventured into Diana Wynne Jones after finding out Hayao Miyazaki did an animated adaptation to one of her books, Howl's Moving Castle. This happens a lot, I would read a book just because it's being adapted to the big screen which is also the one and only reason why I read The Da Vinci Code. Darn it, if they didn't think of making it into a movie, I'd still won't touch that book with a 50-feet pole.

The first rule of comparing one form of art with another is to evaluate it at its original form, in this case the book. I read the book last month. It's pretty short and not really my cup of tea. But I like some parts of it. I love the idea of a moving castle having the efficiency of going to four different places with a turn of the knob. I like the characters like Sophie with her newfound spunk after being cursed, Howl the powerful wizard with his eccentric and diva-like personality, and Calcifer the living breathing fire devil with an attitude.

After finishing it I have the trouble accessing the movie. But a solution arrived in the form of another book.

The movie was adapted into a comic book in four parts. A practice also done for Spirited Away and My Cat Tortoro. However the downside of 'reading' the movie is that it's very slow. To date the forth part of the film comic series still haven't come out yet.

One day, a colleague saw me reading the film comic number 2 in the locker room (something that's frowned upon around here).
"Hey, have you seen the movie?" she asked.
"No, I don't know where to find it."
"They sell it at S&M."
S&M! Why didn't I think of that. I thought the vcd is not available yet. Aiya... so slow la nowadays...

But I was saved again when she said, "I have it, I can lend it to you." hehehe

This is the forth Miyazaki film that I have seen and I love them all. His animations are always simple but stunning, the story a bit formulaic (sweet innocent girl thrown into a strange world, ended up doing a great deed) yet still interesting. His visions always save the day. Check out the details from this scene in Howl's room.

I'm grateful that his visions played a big part in this adaptation. I love the way he depicts the moving castle, the dog, Calcifer and of course, Howl the man himself. I love the way he played around with Sophie's various stage of ageing to coincide with the way she feels at the time.



The movie is claimed to be 'loosely' based on the book but the first half of the story is still intact. He still maintains some parts that I personally like, like Calcifer's fiery personality and paranoia of being put out, Howl's diva-like persona (though a bit toned down in the movie), and Howl's sludge-attack. There are some cute factors in here as well. With Spirited Away it was the three heads and baby that was turned into a fly (or was it a mosquito) and the fat mouse. In Howl's Moving Castle you can get it by watching the dog. He was so cute trying to roll over at the top of the stairs with his short legs flailing trying to get some leverage. Kawai! And the Michael's voice is cute too.

I'm happy with the way the story folds out in the movie. I'm glad that Miyazaki chose to totally eradicate the love triangle, quadrangle or whatever angle that was featured in the book. Instead he chose to focus on the war and Howl's struggle to get out of it.

Conclusion: I prefer the movie than the book.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Things to do before I die 1 Nov

  1. Send raya e-card to everyone
  2. Finish Imajica
  3. Buy kuih raya
  4. Clean the room or try to, at least
  5. Iron baju raya
  6. Put money into raya packets
  7. Blog as much as possible
  8. Watch Howl's Moving Castle I borrowed from friend (and maybe blog about it)
  9. Think of 50000 words for my Nano


I'm way overdue with the raya cards. The ideal time of sending the e-cards should be last week because most of my friends use their work e-mail. Since I'm working until Tuesday, I kind of assumed everyone is working as well. I guess they will get their raya wishes a bit later than usual. Kira ok la... raya is one month wat...

Read 200 pages in 2 days... that's impossible considering my reading speed. But I want to finish it as soon as possible because I'm overwhelmed with books that I haven't read yet. And I think like any other bookamaniacs, more books are joining that line. I have two books on hold at my office right now just waiting to be bought. I imagine if my books have lives they'll be screaming and jumping, "Read me! Read me!" like the numbers in the Digi ad.

I predict that I'll be spending all the free time I can get Nano-ing, so I won't be blogging as much. I hope I'll be too busy to blog. If blog a lot next month, it's very likely that I got stuck or gave up. So better pray that I don't blog next month.

Yes, I did it. I signed up for NaNoWriMo. I'm prepared to get stressed out, pressured, or just plain go crazy next month. What's my Nano?

I got the rough plot, got some character names picked out already, some possible outrageous plots in the event that the ending came before I hit the 50000 words mark. It involves a man who got it going (or so he thought), a hot mama, her angelic but obnoxious daughter, a stray cat and Jesper the Talking Hamster. One or maybe two of them will die.

Still haven't join? Still considering? Come la... let us all go crazy together this November.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Go K.G! Go K.G!

*tut tut*

1 message received

"You can start on 15th Nov. Will notify u once de agreement is ready"



It's not easy to make this girl do the happy dance. But dance I did.

I am now a semi-official translator for a local tv station, one step towards financial stability, hopefully.

The pay is not much and the job is time consuming but this is something that I need to do. It may ruin whatever's left of my social life (like I have any) but at least I'll sleep better at night. But, this also tips my scale towards NOT joining the NaNoWriMo.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Dumb waiter

No I'm not talking about that marvelous invention for the rich and famous so that they can spend more time on their ass than bring their own plate to the kitchen.

Why do waiters or anyone in the food service like to give these little remarks that are really inapropriate?

I went to Shakey's one fine day for buka puasa, and the waiter, instead of taking the order and walked away like he was suppose to went ahead and asked me, "Ni puasa ke tak?" [Are you fasting?]

I gave him a weird look and I hoped he saw it.

"Nak serve sekarang ke?" [Want the food now?]

Hell no! There's a guy sitting in front of me who's obviously fasting. Or maybe he thought he's so 'hip and trendy' to admit that not all Muslim fasts in Ramadhan month and this guy happens to be one of them.

The nerve of that guy to ask me that. No matter that he was right and I wasn't fasting. But did he really think that I was so disrespectful to eat in front of a fasting man. Some nerve Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

This incident reminded me of another one.

I bought papaya from a food court at a major shopping mall. And when he brought my order, he said, "Untuk senang berak ye... Image hosted by Photobucket.com". That was his exact words, I swear to God, I will never forget it for the rest of my life.

I don't know what annoyed me more, that he used the word 'berak' while serving my food or that he was right (I was a bit constipated at the time Image hosted by Photobucket.com). But the fact remains, what goes in through your mouth and come out from your other end do not go together.

I don't understand. I don't know what part of their brain thinks that asking this 'little' questions is appropriate. Did they think it was cute? Did they think it was charming making those remarks? Is that suppose to be a pick-up line or something? Heck is not even funny.


Man, the things you have to go through for some decent food.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

On the bright side

With the death of Datin Seri Endon Mahmood we are getting the first single Prime Minister in Malaysian history!

Hehe... sorry... bad joke...

Even though I fancy myself being a smart, ambitious, free-thinker girl with this weird interest in the nitty gritty of the dirty world of politics I find that I don't really know much about the players, especially those playing in our own soil. If you ask me who's the Minister of Health, I would say...


Minister of Foreign Affairs?


What is the purpose of Dewan Rakyat?

I wouldn't be able to pick Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin out of a line-up. Yep, I am that sad when it comes to Malaysian general knowledge.

Even though I have this great vision of myself being a great leader, making changes left and right, and everyone hanging on to everything I have to say, I have never taken any step closer to achieve that vision. The least I can do is officially join a political party or any charity organization right? But nooooo... I guess the Malay part in me dominates that part of my life. Yep, that's me, I'm the typical Malay, all talk no action, angan-angan Mat Jenin je banyak.

I couldn't care less that the first lady of Malaysia had cancer. To me she's just another celebrity that the cancer society can use to further their cause. These celebrities are popping out everywhere and the organizations just gobble them up, milking their celebrity status for their cause. What I find funny about this whole celebrity spokesperson fad is that they (the celebrity) contract a disease then all of a sudden that organization becomes their main priority. They're suddenly promoting the importance of public awareness. Come on la... I know you don't really care about raising public awareness. You just want to help raise more funds to save your own celebrity ass. If they didn't get the disease in the first place, I'm sure they will never work so hard. I doubt that the celebrity even knows that the organization exists.

I think that her efforts to raise the status of batik and kebaya is a waste of time and over-publicized. She could easily use her status to highlight more important stuff like better education system or something, there must be other more important things than fashion, right?

Anyway, when my friend sms-ed me that Datin Seri Endon passed away this morning, I thought "Oh, okay". And then I hear the routine morning speech from a colleague. He announced the news to the rest of the staff and I heard some gasps from the back and kind of felt proud that I was not one of them. Then, he also mentioned that his aunt passed away recently because of cancer too. And the sadness finally hit me.

I realized that it is not death that makes me sad. I feel sad for the loved ones who were left behind. To my colleague's aunt, this stage of life is over. No more cares, no more worries. No need to think about the bills, about the kids, the husband, no house to clean. She just need to hope that her life's work and the strength of her faith is good enough in God's eyes. But to her loved one, they will never see her again, hear her kind words, feel her touch or her love. All they have is a memory which can fade away eventually.

Even though I don't really care about Datin Seri Endon in her living years, I do feel the loss. Only after her death does the news mention all the charity work that she has done. Only now do I know that fashion has not been her main agenda all this while. Her death means it's one less good person in this world. And we all know that we need all the good people that we can get.

My deepest condolences to Datin Seri Endon's family and friends and anyone who ever loved her. I'm really sorry for your loss. But remember every cloud has a silver lining, good things happen to people who die in Ramadhan month.

Al-Fatihah.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Please pity my nerves

Boy I really wish I didn't have to work today. Like a colleaque said this morning,
"Don't you just wish you have a friend like Doraemon? Then you can make him duplicate you so that she will go to work and you stay home."
"Yeah that would be really nice. Then you wake up and realized it was all a dream and it's time to go to work hehe."

What makes today even more difficult was that I didn't get that much sleep. I tried to go back to sleep after sahur but I just can't. The egg caramel must have got to me. I finally dozed off about 15 minutes before I have to get up for work Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

Warning: The following is for the sole purpose of me laying off some steam. My job really stressful you know!

This week is the week when my section has to do returns. Returns is an activity where you check your stocks for books from certain supplier that's been there for quite some time. You gather them, pack them in boxes and return to the respective supplier. It's a very tedious task especially if you work at the children section. You have to cover a very big area and it would usually take you a few days to cover the whole area. And it didn't help that one of the staff took 2 days annual leave and a part-timer was on mc. She really couldn't pick a better time to be sick Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

To make it worst, it is also during this particular week that the backoffice rolled out trolley after trolley of new books to put up on the shelf. And guess which section has the most books to shelve Image hosted by Photobucket.com. So I have to postpone doing the returns until I finished putting up all the books.

However, before I can even start someone came up to me and say,

Hi. Are you in charge of this section?
Yes Image hosted by Photobucket.com.
I have a 7 1/2 month old boy. Can you recommend any good books suitable for his age?
You can try one of these story boardbooks Image hosted by Photobucket.com.
I have this already. I have all this. (showing some of the ABC/123 books we have on the shelf)
What about lift-the-flaps? Image hosted by Photobucket.com
I have that too. I also have those plastic books. (indicating the bathbooks)
Then maybe you want to try touch-and-feel? Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Oh yes I bought those already. I got a lot from China.
Well, does your (deeply rotten spoiled) son enjoys all those things that you have? Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Yes. He liked to see the colors. I like to come here because I know you have wider range of products compared to ***.
Maybe you should try reading him a story once in a while (you lazy parent!) Image hosted by Photobucket.com.
Yes I do read to him. He likes to see the colors.
What about sound books?
Okay. Can I see those?
I showed her a few...
This is nice. But I think this is too complicated for him. He's just 7 months.
(Oh really now? He's just 7 months, I thought he's 70 years old already for you to buy him all these stuffs)
What about these then? It's soft so your baby can play with it. It has all these pieces that he can take out and put back like a jigsaw puzzle. It's soft so you won't worry that it will get damaged. And you can even bring it to the bath.
Yes I know this publisher. They make very good books. Hmm... made in China. All of them made in China nowadays.
They manufacture in China but the design still comes from the west.
This is good. But is it colorful? Do you think it's colorful?
I don't know ma'am... talking to you has made me color blind Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

Of course I didn't say that to her face. But I wonder why she asked me for recommendations in the first place? It's obvious that she already have everything under the sun. She's just short of buying her 7-month old son the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I didn't know what the hell she wanted. What do you think? Is this colorful? I'm still color blind Image hosted by Photobucket.com.


This is one type of customer that could really annoy me and believe it or not I meet them all the time. After a while, she started to wander off looking at other stuff and I ran away immediately.

The time was 12:30, still a long way away to my lunch break. I finally managed to get some work down. I went on with my work, happy that no more customers are bothering me with stupid requests. I looked at the watch again, must be time for my lunch break about now, 12:35.
This is going to be a long day...

I know we, the retail workers, are paid to attend to all the whims and fancies of the customers. The customers always right! But sometimes they can really get on your nerves.

Once, I was asked if we have a book that teaches kids how to tie your shoe. This is what I said,
"Sorry we don't have any"
This is what I would really love to say...
What the %&^$? You buy a shoe and then you teach them la! No need to buy a book for that. What? So now you want to know if we have a book on how to teach a child to tie a shoe? Go to hell! Image hosted by Photobucket.com

And why do ppl keep coming to this bookstore to look for jigsaw puzzles? I mean, where do they get the idea that a bookstore must have jigsaw puzzles. This mall have two departmental stores. Why didn't it occur to them that they have a toy section, therefore the possibility of them having jigsaw puzzles are higher than a bookstore? I don't understand. Please help me understand. Did I miss a day in school when they teach bookstores must have jigsaw puzzles?

I hated it when they come up to the information counter and say...
"I'm looking for a book" long pause
Oh really? I thought you were looking for underwear Image hosted by Photobucket.com. Just give me the damn title la... what are you waiting for? An applause?
"Can you help me find this book? I don't know the title, I don't know the author, but it has a picture of a baby on the cover."
Thank you for that detailed description. There's like a gazillion books in here with a baby on the cover. Where do you want to start? Oh wait, let me google that for you... book with baby on cover.... Yes, you're in luck, there's 40,600,000 hits for 'book with baby on cover'. Let me see one by one if one of it is what you're looking for Image hosted by Photobucket.com.

I could have finish everything if I don't have to constantly tidy the same shelf over and over again and picking up books/magazines that are left lying around. Please la... if you have the energy to go round picking out all those books/magazines all the way from the other side of the store, why can't you at least bring the books/magazines to the nearest counter? It's just 3 freakin' steps away. You're not the only one fasting you know.

We have a section of self-help books for teenagers. You know, Chicken Soup, how to handle stress, drug issues, sex issues, bullies, those kind of books. Everytime I pass the shelf I will see books taken out and just left there. They didn't even bother to put it back properly. Books about prom la, flirtology la. I got something to say to you girls... if you can't even put one damn book back properly, why are you so busy reading books about flirting? Go back and study lagi bagus.

And customers nowadays are so quick to complain.
Why is it so difficult to find a book?
Why are your books so damaged one?
Why the books are not arranged properly?
Why is your system so slow?
I've waited so long for someone to attend to me!
Your books are so expensive!


Please believe me when I say this, we're doing the very best we can. If we're not so busy picking up after you or attending to your stupid questions and requests, I swear we would spend more time to improve our services.

Like I said, sometimes these 'paying' customers can really get on my nerves...

Please la pity my nerves...