My One Cent Worth of Thoughts

The link to Extreme Ironing has been given to me by Tripps. He has never ceased to amaze me. He has been able to conjure up various links related to the subject we talked about, all in one minute. He claimed that he had a troupe of little green men on his payroll, searching for these links! Haha! Try harder, Tripps!

Anyway, coming back to the subject on Extreme Ironing. According to the website, it is “a new outdoor activity that combines the danger and excitement of an ‘extreme’ sport with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt. It involves taking an iron and board (if possible) to remote locations and ironing a few items of laundry. This can involve ironing on a mountainside, preferably on a difficult climb, or taking an iron skiing, snowboarding or canoeing.” (Totally ripped off from the FAQ of the website. Am I infringing some copyright laws here?! Hmm…)

Well, I am not too sure about that. In the first place, I hate ironing! If I get to go to one of these exotic places, why would I bring along an ironing board?! Or perhaps I can do this on Singapore’s tallest mountain, Bukit Timah Hill, standing at 163.63m. Now, wouldn’t that be REALLY EXCITING?!

New Year Resolution: I shall endeavour to complete all my tasks way before time. Hey! Doesn’t this sound familiar? Yeah sure! I have made this resolution every year, for the last 20 years.

It is 8am now, and no, I didn’t wake up early to blog. I haven’t had my owed sleep yet!!!

I should thank my dilly dally nature for it. I have enrolled into a writing course, spanning across 3 whole months. Yesterday was the drop-dead deadline for all submissions. Yikes! I was going to fail my course! Therefore, I had to cram 1 and half month’s worth of homework into one night. The whole of last night was spent squeezing words out of my saturated brain and *hugging the Buddha’s familiar leg (We are buddies! I have done this same task for more than 20 years! SO you can imagine the kind of friendship we have!!). I am sure my *GP tutor will be doubly proud of me, knowing the number of essays I have churned out in record time!

Tragically, I am a person who can only work under time pressure and I am probably the most ill disciplined human being, I have ever met. I confess to this sin. Then again, I must never let my boss read this article, or else, I will have short deadlines for all my projects, thus causing my blood pressure to rapidly increase, bursting my brain and finally grey matter will flow out of my ears. Eeewww.. Gross!

Anyway, I am beginning to sound incoherent. I need at least 8 hours of sleep per night. I calculate that last night’s activity has led to a deficit of 8 hours plus 50% interest from the sleep bank. I have a loan shark for a sleep bank. Sigh….

*Hugging the Buddha’s leg comes from the Chinese phrase “hugging the Buddha’s leg during the last minute”, meaning… that one keeps procrastinating doing one’s work, until it is too late and so has to hug the Buddha’s leg, hoping that help will be given.

*GP = General Paper = English

They must have heard me up there! I have been lamenting to my colleagues that I would not get to see snow before I leave… blah blah….

Today, just as I stepped out of my front door to get to the laundry place (Ta dah!!!), snow fell lightly from the sky and the ground was blanketed with a thin sprinkle of it. Yikes! “Virgin SNOW!” I yelled. Dropping my laundry, I ran upstairs, called my friends in Singapore (They don’t get snow there. *evil cackle*) and bragged about it. After being blasted by their envious swears and curses, I hung up the line with much satisfaction and snatched up my digital camera from the midst of my mess and hopped outside for a photo mania! Anyway, I finally remembered my forgotten mission and made my way to the laundry place, dumped my clothes into the automated washing machine and ran outside for another photo snapping spree! The trees were really a pretty sight, especially the Christmas tree look-alikes. I walked around a little, letting the white flakes settle upon me. Bliss!!

The darkness came really swiftly in winter and that put an end to my joyride. Since I had to wait for 2 hours, for the slowpoke machine to be done with the clothes, I decided to drive home, instead of loitering around the streets in the dark. The light snow has become heavier by the second by the time I returned to the car. The innocent white layer on the roads has become killing machines. Besides, I suspected that they have not fitted winter tyres onto the car! As I made my first turning, I could feel it skidding to one side, onto the opposite incoming traffic! I hurriedly swerved it back again (perhaps a little too hard and sudden, which incur another skid!) and decided to go really slowly. However, it went totally out of control, whenever turns on parts of the roads, where the snow was thick, were made. I was a bundle of nerves when I finally crawled up the steps of my apartment. I was a newbie to all these difficult driving conditions – winter, driving on the wrong side of the road.

I dreaded the time when I had to collect the clothes. After 2 hours, the streets have become horribly dark. Even in Singapore, where the streets were brightly lit up, I had difficulties with directions at night. Somehow, to me, everything looked totally foreign in the dark. I had to manoeuvre through the darkness, slippery snow (skidding a few times, after which, it didn’t look so pretty anymore!) and the lack of road lanes (they have been covered by the snow).

Touched down at home base half an hour after I left for the 2nd trip. Phew! Still in one piece! If I were a cat, I would have only 1 life left after all those heart stopping skids (I counted!!!) Anyway, I’d better return the car to the company tomorrow, as it is a really cranky antique piece. It died a few times on me today, due to the extreme cold. Car towing doesn’t quite appeal to me.

Rather sick of this doggy layout, still massaging my head, hoping that this will help generate ideas and initiate the flow of my nonexistent creative juices. Maybe the new layout will come to me in my dreams (or nightmare, whatever..). Next, I will have to set up the whole new template. Looks dubiously at calendar. 5 essays to finish, one whole room of junk to pack up, skiing trip to be planned, workplan for the next fiscal year to be set up (Take note! Work comes last!). Arghgh! Why can’t there be more than 24 hours in a day, or more accurately, I wish I don’ t have to waste my time sleeping. THen again, that would mean that the new ideas won’t come. They come only when I dream or daydream (I have managed to perfect the art of daydreaming during work. Perfect!). Life is a contradiction.

Have you ever wondered, why companies create websites and print brochures? The most obvious reason to me, is to spread the names of their firms to the whole wide world and then…. that’s it?!

Then why have they stopped at that point? Why spend tonnes of money on advertising, when they neglect (or forget) to leave their addresses, fax, emails, websites, etc behind? What is the rationale behind the beautiful glossy pages, mind boggling websites (with flash) and all, when the customers cannot locate which hole they have been buried under? The advertising companies or, perhaps, the people who have given these projects the green light, ought to be shot! They have brilliantly helped their firms lose potential customers and millions of dollars from sales, just because, they are idiotic enough, not to leave their contact details behind! Looking on the bright side, maybe it is a good thing that they have accomplished that, for who knows what they will do with the tooling if they are lucky enough to clinch the deal. Or even better, they might keep the tooling but misplace the machine. DUH! Oh great! Just great!

I have been complaining to Ern about these morons, for wasting my precious time, hunting around for their bloody blackhole. A smart quip from him, “Oh! This is a perfect chance for you to join them and transform them into world class companies!”

“Yeah, so where can I send my resume to?!” *Roll eyes*