Top Ten Things Not to Say to Your Girlfriend on Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day, folks. Simon does a list. Ten Items. So its a top ten list.

Enjoy the chocolates and flowers, everyone, while they last.

Top Ten Things Not to Say to Your Girlfriend on Valentine’s Day

• “I hope you don’t mind I go out with my friends to the watch the football live telecast tonight, dear…”

• “Hey, did you know that the initials of Valentine’s Day is VD – the same as Venereal Disease…!”

• ”Guess what? I ex-girlfriend called me today! We spent almost two hours chatting…”

• ”I wanted to buy you this fantastic gift at the Shell service station just now, but it would seem that my credit card has maxed out… so I hope you like your new alarm clock…”

• ”I wanted to get you this fantastic box of Belgian chocolates, but seeing that you’ve already put on 3 pounds since Christmas, I bought this Jane Fonda exercise video. See, I’m a thoughtful boyfriend, aren’t I?”

• ”Can we skip dinner tonight? I ate too much potato chips just now, and I’m not feeling hungry at all.”

• ”Look what I bought you, vouchers for 4 free sessions at The Fat Farm Slimming Centre! I know you’ll love it!”

• ”A fancy dinner is an over-priced restaurant is so-ooo boring. Let’s try something different… have you tried the new vegan burger at McDonald’s…?”

• ”I hope you don’t mind my mother joining us for dinner tonight…? She’s staying with me for the next two weeks.”

• ”Aw, man! It’s Valentine’s Day again! Who invented this holiday, anyway?”

Top Ten Excuses For Not Buying a Valentine’s Day Present

Right. Only less than a few days to the big V-Day. If you’ve got a present for your loved one, well and good. If not, well, now’s a pretty darn good time to start panicking. Seriously. But just in case as of February 14th evening, you still haven’t got a small package wrapped in either pink or red, well then, here’s some excuses.

But of course use only as a last resort. And don’t use the same excuse for 5 years running.

Top Ten Excuses For Not Buying a Valentine’s Day Present

• Look, you know I don’t believe in all this crass commercialism and superficial American consumerism. I’d thought our love was NOT as shallow as that, right? (This is the ‘moral higher ground’ excuse. To use with a holier-than-thou look on your facing when delivering this line…)

• What did I get you for Valentine’s Day? It’s a fantastic gift that money can’t buy, I’m sure you’ll love it… Are you ready? It’s a beautiful day of sunshine, just for you! Good, eh? (Well, you’ve gotta admit, takes a lot of cheek to pull this one off.)

• I wanted to buy you this huge bouquet of beautiful red roses, but then I thought to myself, ‘do you REALLY want a Valentine’s Day gift’? I mean, in less than a week, they will be dead and brown and scattered all over your floor… so I bought you this magnificent stapler shaped like Hello Kitty.

• Remember the box of chocolates I bought you for Christmas? Actually, I meant to tell you that it was for both Christmas and Valentine’s, combined. Economic slowdown, you understand. (Ooh, this one is risky. But worth a shot. But only works if you ACTUALLY bought her that box of chocolates last Christmas…)

• Oh, you didn’t know? It’s my family tradition to celebrate February 15th, not the 14th. It’s been practiced for a few generations… (buys you an additional 24 hours of time. Failing which, refer to any of the other 9 excuses listed here)

• I refuse to buy you another Valentine’s Day gift until you start wearing that beautiful fluorescent purple and green turtleneck sweater I bought for you LAST year. (“What? Who says you look like Barney the Purple dinosaur…?”)

• Whoa, Valentine’s Day is TODAY?! (Okay, fine, this is an awful one. )

• I bought you this beautiful pair of ear-rings, but my dog Fido swallowed it… (gives a new twist to the ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ routine)

• You know I can’t get you a gift this, and the next. I saving money to buy you that diamond ring, remember… (use this one with caution… absolute last resort. )

• I forgot…

Technorati Tags: Valentine’s Day

Top Ten Things You Didn’t Know About About Valentine’s Day

OK, newsflash: There are only 4 full shopping days left to Valentine’s Day, so if you still haven’t got that gift for your girlfriend / boyfriend / husband / wife / secret admiree, then… hey wait a minute, I HAVEN’T BOUGHT A GIFT YET!!!

Okay, calm down… there’s still Saturday… maybe then this fantastic gift at a super affordable price will just appear before me… saving me the hours of frantic shopping.

Anyways, for the rest of you, here are some things you may or may not know about the Feast of St. Valentine’s. These facts may or may be true. So you may or may not want to believe them whole sale. I also got a friend called May Oh Mei Not. Bwahahaha.

Top Ten Things You Didn’t Know About About Valentine’s Day… (according to Simon).

• Valentine’s Day was concocted by flower farmers back in the ancient Roman times. It is traditionally believed that February 15th is the last day that flowers such as roses and lilies stay fresh from the Christmas harvest. On the 15th of February, most of them will wither and turn brown. So, in order not to lose money, these farmers came up with a fantastic idea to dispose off their stock on February 14th.

• Valentine’s Day was actually named after my friend Valentino Tan Lap Sing.

• In some South Pacific islands, Valentine’s Day is NOT celebrated, since it is viewed as a pervasive western culture. Instead, the men just treat the women as any other normal day. And vice versa. The flower and gift shops there don’t make much money in February.

• The traditional symbol of Valentine’s Day is the Roman God Cupid (Eros), usually pictured as a angelic baby with wings shooting love arrows. Due to the age of politically correctness, he/she is now an androgynous looking, hermaphroditic baby of mixed origins (wearing a multi-coloured diaper) and shooting a non-violent, non-penetrating, non-harmful eco-friendly rubber balls.

• According to Rojaks, the respected and definitive online opinion poll website, 60% of women give men clothing, 30% give gadgets, 9.99999% of women give chocolates. The remaining 0.00001% of men get manties.

• Let me tell you a joke:

  A guy walks into a post office one day to see a middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter methodically placing “Love” stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. He then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying scent all over them.
  His curiosity getting the better of him, he goes up to the balding man and asks him what he is doing. The man says “I’m sending out 1,000 Valentine cards signed, ‘Guess who?’”

  “But why?” asks the man.

  “I’m a divorce lawyer,” the man replies.

• Don’t buy gift vouchers as a Valentine’s Day gift. And no exercise or slimming equipment either. Don’t ask why.

• When you buy a gift, the first thing you must do is remove the price tag before you give the present to your partner. When you receive a gift, first thing you must do is check the return policy.

  Valentine’s Day sucks when you’re alone.

• Let me tell you another joke:

  A young woman was taking an afternoon nap. After she woke up, she told her husband, “I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine’s day. What do you think it means?”

  “You’ll know tonight.” he said.

  That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it–only to find a book entitled “The meaning of dreams“.

Ipoh Sights (Part 2)

This is a continuation from yesterday’s post. Go read it first. No, seriously, go!

Just one more shot Coronation Park (DR Park). Nice trees, my teacher calls them ‘cemetery trees’. I must say MBI is doing a decent job of maintaining this place. On weekend mornings, lots of people have picnics under the shady in the background.

Right, moving on. It’s the train station in town. This is the last scene in Lat’s book ‘Town Boy‘. He rushes he to see off his best friend Frankie, who leaving for the UK for studies. The station still looks imposing, but they’re doing some renovation works at the side and on the front. The road is in bad shape, and you can see the contractor’s cabin in the foreground. Hopefully, the works are for the better.

The front of the station. I really wish they think of a better place to put those air-con condensers.

This is the other side of the station, Hotel Majestic has been here a long, long time. I think they should replace the old signs with some elegant ones, to match the architecture of the building.

Then, we went all the way to Ipoh Gardens. Most of the Ipoh people i know stay there, or in Canning Gardens. En route, I had to snap this building… Anyone know what is it?

It’s the Freemason building. I recognized the symbols engraved on the perimeter wall and on the entrance, when i passed here a few years back. I didn’t know Freemasons had such a huge presence here, i always thought most of them were concentrated in KL, maybe some of the pioneers like GED Lewis came here one time or another. If you don’t know what Freemasonry is… well, maybe you can wait for Dan Brown’s next book.

I had to snap this next one. It’s the St. Andrew’s church. I’ve always liked it, even though i’ve never been inside. I think it looks a little similar to its name sake in KL. The place was locked up, so i couldn’t get a half decent shot of it, i need to come back another on a SUnday morrning when its open.

Okay, at least i know when it is open.

I really wished i had the time to take more photos. There were so many places i wanted to snap, but didn’t have the opportunity… Lat’s favourite haunt at Jalan Yang Kalthom, the ais kacang stall at the bus station, or maybe find Frankie’s parent’s coffeeshop in old town (that might be damn near impossible, i know), or visit some of my own landmarks, like that shoplot on Hugh Low Street, Batu Gajah, Kampar…

But as for the last shot, I managed to go to Kampung Sungai Rokam, Lat’s home when he’s family moved to Ipoh (he stayed in the hostel in the first few months). According to him, it was one of the first few public housing schemes in the country, and he and his family “had finally become town people.”

This isn’t his EXACT house, (I might have found it if I had bothered to come out of the car and asked the penghulu) but this is the closest one i could find to the original design drawn in Lat’s book. My apologies to this house owner…

And so i bid adieu to Ipoh… until the next time, i can still picture the dim sum in Foh San, the pomelo stalls along Simpang Pulai, Sam Poh Tong, the magnificent limestone hills…

Technorati Tags: Ipoh, Freemason, Freemasonry, Dan Brown

Ipoh Sights (Part 1)

Amidst the long Chinese New Year holidays, I managed to send at least half a day to visit the sights and lights of Ipoh, the city of beautiful architecture (by Malaysian standards la…) and glorious food.

I have been to the city countless times since i was a kid, and my perception of Ipoh has always been shaped by Lat’s book “Town Boy“.

For those unfamiliar with the milestone comic book story by Datuk Lat, it’s a story of how Lat comes to Ipoh in the early 60’s as a schoolboy, meets a Chinese kid named Frankie, and how they grew up together until they finished school. Along the way, he tells the story of two distinct worlds meeting, the rural Malay kampung (village) boy and the urban Chinatown life. And some beautiful depictions of Ipoh’s landmarks.

I love Lat’s work. I have every single one of his books, and even have two autographed by him. Lately i heard he’s living in his beloved kampung somewhere near Taiping, after they built a condo right in front of his Subang Jaya house. But that’s another story for another day.

So on with the Ipoh pics.

The first one below is this pic of St. Michael’s. We just happened to pass by and i thought it would make an excellent shot. There’s a small surau in front of the school, and across the road, a large padang (field) located in Old Town Ipoh. Make sure you stop by there for their famous white coffee.

Then we moved on to Lat’s secondary school, Anderson School. The architecture here is not as intricate as St. Michael’s, but they’ve got that beautiful manicured field and the pinang tres… Somehow, I can just picture Lat and the entire marching band going past the field. He played the flute, I think…

Here’s a close up of the clock tower. I see they’re just painted a nice coat, although i don’t think pink was the original colour.

Below is another shot of Anderson. Can’t really get a better close up since the fence was high and closely wrought.

This next set of photos is taken at Coronation Park, now known as Taman D.R. Seenivasagam. In his school days, Lat had to jog 4 miles every week across town, and cross this river in the park - going through the water. Once he and his friend Frankie cheated and used the bridge, and, well, read the book if you want to kow what happened…

D.R. Seenivasagam was a prominent lawyer in Perak back in the 50’s. Together with his brother SP Seenivasagam, they formed Perak Progressive Party and did quite well in the local elections, i think. Both the brothers have passed on, and the party memory is vaguely in the current PPP.

Tomorrow: More pics. And some of Lat’s kampung in Ipoh…

Postscript - You can read the second part here.

Technorati Tags: Ipoh, Lat

Emergency Leave

Man, coming back to work on a Monday morning after a long holiday is a drag, man. What’s worse is that half the office is still on leave (how long a holiday do these people need?!).

But at least I can have a relatively peaceful day of work, at least until the phones start ringing.

The thing is, while some of my colleagues are on annual leave, one or two are on Medical Leave. Or as they call it ‘MC’ around here (MC stands for Medical Certificate, the little slip the doctor gives you). And one of them are on Emergency Leave.

What kinds of leave are there existing in Malaysia? Quite a few. Including the non-official ones.

AL - Annual Leave.

EL - Emergency Leave.

MC - Medical Certificate.

Mat. L - Maternity Leave.

Pat. L - Short for Patrick Lee Paternity Leave. For men who spouses are on ‘Mat. L‘ as mentioned above.

POL - Pissed Off Leave. When you’re super annoyed with something or someone at work, and refuse to go in the next day. Maybe in the form of MC or EL. Usually based on some trivial reason like ‘stomachache‘ or ‘cat died‘.

CL - Compassionate Leave. Usually given when a member of immediate family is sick or has passed on. Subject to rampant abuse by unscrupulous employees who say they ‘have very big but close family‘.

FL - Football Leave. Applied on the day your team loses the Champion’s League final at 3.00am in the morning.

SL - Singles Leave. For unmarried people who are ineligible for Mat. L and Pat. L, so they are given a few days off every year to actually go and socialize and find a spouse. Number of days you are entitled to increases with your age. To increase your chances, la.

FDSL - First Day of School Leave. Parents need to accompany their kids to the first day of school / kindergarten / nursery / pre-nursery / music appreciation class.

DVD Marathon

I’m at home, still enjoying my holidays. Most of my pals are still on holidays, too, like me. To sum it up, on normal days and months of the year, we work our asses of to pay for the car, the house, and every other doodad we’ve accumulated over our working lives. But for this week, we bumming around in our underwear, gorging our faces with dried meat and prawn crackers, watching DVDs or MTV.

I’m not complaining, life is great, as good as it gets.

Speaking of DVDs, my friend is a huge Renee Zellweger fan. She may not realize it (in fact she denies it), but she has every single movie featuring the Texan actress. Bridget Jones (first and second), Jerry Maguire, Down With Love, the works. I’ll admit I don’t quite like her (Renee Zellweger, not my friend), she mostly acts in these chick flicks.

If there was an actor or actress I was big fan of Meryl Streep in her day (but before that, I’m not that old!). I first saw her on an old Kramer vs. Kramer, alongside Dustin Hoffman. Then there was Death Becomes Her, Postcards From the Edge. I never got to watch her other movies, in those days it wasn’t easy to get movies you wanted to watch.

These days I can’t say I have a favourite thespian, but Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor seem to be making great movies I like.

And the bunch of goofballs I also like – Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. They really crack me up. For starters, try Dodgeball, Starsky & Hutch and Wedding Crashers.

Technorati Tags: DVD, Renee Zellweger, Meryl Streep, Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson