4aunties.net

This is what happens when 4 quarter century old aunties speaks our mind. :)

Thursday, June 06, 2002

The saga contiunes...
Angeline, you’re right. It’s great to be home just in time for the football season! The streets are football-crazy, and we get to watch football in every hawker center we go to. ‘Tis awesome indeed. :)

As you pointed out, I have been slacking as far as my blogs go. I simply have no spare time to even check my emails, much less to blog. I’m gonna go look for some souvenirs in Central Market in about 15 minutes, followed by my quest to look for the ultimate luggage bag. Last week, I managed to squeeze in some rock climbing at the climbing gym in The Summit. I’m so proud that I have successfully introduced climbing to my brother, who was previously too chicken to even try it out. Now he wants to climb all the time! I climbed again a couple of days ago, and that is good exercise for me … actually, it’s the only form of exercise that I have gotten, aside from swimming and walking long distances in KL and PJ.

Angeline, you will be disappointed that I only managed to find ONE pair of shoes!! It’s a closed-toe high heel shoe with an ankle strap … a pair of beige work shoes that I had to get from Padini Authentics since it only cost me RM60. I did buy a whole bunch of work clothes from Edmundser though, only cost me RM636!! Got myself 2 suit sets (jacket and skirt), an additional skirt, and 2 blouses – 7 pieces for only RM636 … what a steal!! Usually for that price, I can only get half a suit set from Ann Taylor. So needless to say, I was very pleased with myself that day.

Last Thursday and Friday, I was actually working in Malaysia. The Asia-Pacific product launch event in Malaysia happened to fall on May 31, and so I was invited to my very first press event. It was a blast! The press conference went well, followed by a successful dealer event. We had buffet-style dinner that night with all the dealers, and our new Malaysian image, Sarimah Ibrahim, was sitting at the same table as me! I have a picture with her; let’s hope the Singaporean office sends it to us. Debra and Gregg were such good sports to try some durians in SS2 on Thursday night, followed by some drinks in “SS2 wai-sek-kai.” I went home after that, but they apparently went on to party in The Beach on Jalan P. Ramlee, and drunk-called some colleagues in the US at 3am in the morning! On Friday, we went for store visits in Imbi Plaza and Mid-Valley. I had such a good time, and after working hours on Friday, I took Debra and Gregg to see the Petronas Twin Towers up close, followed by an aerial view of the city from KL Tower. They were very impressed with the city (guess I did a good job playing tour guide).

I went up to Genting Highlands on Friday night after I delivered Debra and Gregg safely back to the Regent Hotel. As usual, the drive up and down was nauseating. And I had forgotten all about the smoke-OK policy up there … couldn’t get used to all the smoke that was constantly being blown in my face by all the “uncles.” Apparently, men are no longer required to wear batik or formal clothes in Genting anymore. They will let men in just wearing a polo t-shirt. Needless to say, I saw some “uncles” there dressed pretty sloppily. We ended up losing RM20 each that night, but I guess the experience (reverse culture-shock once again) was worth it. One trip to Genting per trip back to Malaysia is enough!

Then I attended a wedding ceremony in JW Marriott on Sunday night. It was OK, but I felt kinda bored because I knew nobody there. Monday came quickly, and my mom/dad insisted that I go back to kampong to visit my gramps. It was a quick trip; we left early the next morning. More rock climbing on Tuesday night followed by mamak with my high school friends. I found out that some of them are now single, so I’m gonna try to set some of them up with Mike’s best friend Don. (That’s gonna happen tonight)

So I guess that’s it for all my updates. I’m not looking forward to my long-ass flight back to the US this Saturday afternoon … that’s gonna be such a drag.
Oh Angeline, just read about your Germany v. Saudi Arabia thing … can you believe 8-0?! How ridiculous is that! Side note: Korea played really hard, I loved that game … watching them fight soooo hard just absolutely made me appreciate World Cup even more. Ole, ole ole ole!!

Additional update since yesterday:
Can you believe France performed rather poorly yesterday against Uruguay? I can hardly believe this is the same team that won the World Cup 4 years ago. I was sitting in the Ming Tian hawker center in Taman Megah having dinner with my friends while watching the game on big screen TV, and boy it was just such a terrible disappointment.

Tuesday, June 04, 2002

Footbalitis
WORLD CUP has started!!! *Woo Hoo!* Elaine, what a perfect time to be home, you get to hang out at mamak place watching all the games. I bet the streets will be as crazy as it can take when England takes on Argentina this friday.

It really sucks to be in this part of the world during World Cup, because all the games are played at 1.30am, 3.30am and 6.30am!!! I've ran out of VHS tapes trying to get all the recording done. Hehehe. So far I think the most interesting game is actually the first half of Italy vs. Ecuador. Christian Vieri's first goal was just awesome! The England vs. Sweden game was sorta disappointing. I would've expected to see England played better... oh well. It's really not that easy, especially with Argentina in the group too. But the Runner Up of group F - which most likely will be England, will play the Winner of group A - France (maybe?) *Thanks to Chris C for pointing out second round match-up :)*

Speaking of football fever, has anyone seen the Adidas ad 'Footballitis'? That was an awesome advertising piece. It was a brilliant idea and extremely funny too. For those who have not seen it, I won't spoil the fun for you. But here's the gist of it: There is a fictional Institute that researches Footballitis, a condition that exists among football player, making them twitch and flex their reflex. Who's in it, you ask? Zidane, Beckham, Del Piero, Raul, Barthez, Gerrard...

In contrast, Nike also has a football ad named the Secret Tournament that features *drum roll* Eric Cantona as the ringmaster! It is a 3 on 3 football concept, whoever scores first wins the tourny. It was very impressive too, but I thought the Adidas ad will do a better job because humor definitely travel faster, and Adidas' Footballitis is getting lotsa word of mouth referral... a sign of effective advertising.

Wait, I'm not done yet. One last comment on football advertising, has anyone seen the new Umbro ad? It is wickedly funny, definitely European coz only they can get away with such twisted sense of humor. It is strictly an R-rated so if you're under 18, you're cautioned to NOT download this mpeg file.

Alright, that's it for tonight. Gotta wake up early tomorrow to watch Germany beat the hell out of Rep. of Ireland.