Simon’s Awards for 2007

Wow, is it the year end already? Time sure passes quickly when you aren’t keeping track.

It’s been a fabulous year for me, really, although it has it share of sad moments. But i was thinking of what to write all today to sum up the year, but i couldn’t really think of anything. Maybe i’m not that big on New Year celebrations and resolutions…

But instead, i’ve give some awards to the highlights of the year according to me, Simon…

Movie of the Year - i’ll go for a tie between Superbad and The Simpsons Movie.

Website of the Year: Facebook. Like, everyone’s on it, man… Beyond the surface superpoking and zombie battles, it’s an excellent way to connect with your friends you don’t see often (i know e-mail and text messaging can do the same, but this is different…!) and also find some long lost friends.
Runner-up: Digg.com. Yeah, bite me.

TV Show of the Year – Amazing Race (Not the Asian edition one). Probably the only show i still watch on TV.

Quote of the Year -

“Korrect, korrect… Ok Datuk very best. God bless you and your family.” Cracks me up every time…

Award for Most Popular Malaysian TV Personality – Hannah T.

Award for Most UN-Popular Malaysian TV Personality – Shebby Singh.

Award for Most talked About Live Performance of the Year - Britney Spears on MTV VMAs this year. Was she drunk or on drugs?! And if you’re going to wear that on stage… never mind.

Freakiest Video on Youtube of the Year – in reference to Britney Spears above…

Award for Funniest Joke Heard on Radio – “What do you call a Happy Burger? Bergembira!” Why didn’t McDonald’s think of this for their Happy Meal?!

Award for Most UNFUNNIEST Radio DJs But Who Think They Are Really Funny – JJ and Rudy on Hitz.Fm.

Award for Most Expensive Place to Eat Penang Hawker Food -Gurney Drive at Mid Valley Gardens. RM20 for a bowl of kari mee!!

Award for Most Naked Flesh Shown in A Movie That Isn’t A P0rn Movie – Those poor under-clothed Spartans in 300.

Gayest Character in a Movie of the Year - 70′s gay disco reject Xerxes in 300.

Ad of the Year – Very ingenious marketing ad. Just watch it to the end.

Award for Funniest Children Playground Punch-up – MIC vs. PPP.

Award for the Most-Likely-To-Be-The-Most-Popular-Baby-Boy’s-Name in 2008 – Mohd. Angkasawan.

Award for Actor That Should Just Retire and Stop Tormenting Us With His Lame Movies – Eddie Murphy

Hottest Performance by An Actress Award – Megan Fox in the Transformers.

Best Performance by An Actor Award – Cristiano Ronaldo in the Penalty Box

Happy New Year, y’all.

Overhead On The Night Before Christmas

“I forgot all about Steve! What can I get Steve for his Christmas present? I know! I’ll recycle that hideous T-shirt my mom gave me last Christmas… He’ll never know.”

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I swear to Gawd if i hear another song about Rudolph or Frosty or freaking drummer boy, i am going to explode…”

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“Who’s Arsenal playing in the post-Christmas Day clash? Got live telecast or not?”

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“Oh my Gawd!! I spent 1 HOUR waiting for a parking spot in 1-Utama this morning…! Why does everyone have do their last minute shopping as the same time as ME?!”

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I can’t believe Suria KLCC brought out that old tallest Christmas tree thing again… This is what, the 5th year? Somebody should pulp that thing after this.”

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“The management is sad to announce that due to hygienic concerns of the recent flu virus and customer complaints, kissing under the mistletoe will be prohibited in the premises. Any inconvenience is regretted.”

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“You know what, I DESERVE a guilt free break from my diet for Christmas! It’s been 2 WEEKS since i had chocolate cake!!! One bite won’t screw up my diet plan.”

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Merry Christmas, everyone, from me and my family…

TRANSOTOBOT UNIVERSAL RANGER and Why It’s Always Handy To Have A Camera Phone Ready

Yep, you never know when you see something strange, all you have to do is whip out you camera phone, pretend to be text messaging, and then snap the photo. Just don’t forget to turn off that ‘click’ snapshot sound that your phone makes.

I was scrolling through some photos from my camera phone and here’s a few good ones:

Want to sell your products by using a popular cartoon character, but don’t want to pay for the royalties? Easy! Check out the latest robot movie here – TRANSOTOBOT UNIVERSAL RANGER!!! Please do NOT confuse with Optimus Prime…

Speaking of superheroes, here’s one of a book i snapped at the store. After Spider-man, Superman and Wonder Woman, the next big thing is a local SUPERHEROINE that will take the world and Hollywood by storm – it’s Zettina Gadis Cantik Penyelamat Dunia!!! Check out the nifty mini telekung, man. That said, her outfit looks strangely like Ultraman’s discard, dyed pink.

Here’s two from taken on the road. Is it just me or is the mental image of a banana with a face and limbs a little creepy? And why’s he (or she) licking his (or her) lips…?

This one is taken at Campbell Street. It’s piles, the ailment, not the civil engineering works. They’ve pictures of their patients in the window, but i won’t make you guys sick…

The Hunt For A Renovation Contractor

A few weeks ago, we decided to do some renovate our front gate and brickwall fence, after more than 8 years of putting it off. We estimated it to be about RM5,000 judging from some of the works done by our neighbours.

Here’s an interesting fact – our house is probably the ONLY house left in the whole housing estate that has NOT been renovated – front or back. I have to admit – it’s really for friends to find our place… “Easy to find one, just look for the only house that looks ORIGINAL…!”

So we started to look for a renovation contractor. Obviously we aren’t going to get any fly-by-night con job or any of those that drop their namecards in your mailbox. We decided to get quotations only from contractors that were highly recommended by friends.

Contractor #1: This was a friend of my sub-contractor. Used to be a big-time contractor, now doing housing renovation. Price was okay, but my wife says he looks very blur. Looks like he just woke up from sleep – all the time.

Contractor #2: This guy did my neighbour’s renovation last month. Gave me a handwritten quotation. Can’t read his bleeding handwriting, except the grand total.

Contractor #3: My friend’s brother-in-law. Took 3 hours to find my house – got lost, had an accident, got lost again… but gave a good quote, but didn’t get the job. As a consolation, managed to get to a small tiling job from John who was at my house when he came.

Contractor #4: This one was my friend’s church member. Apparently he heard i was working in property development, and the first thing he said when he reached my house was, “you interested in BUYING THIS PIECE OF LAND OR NOT? This DATO’ FRIEND of mine want to sell, CAN DO RESORT OR BUNGALOW PROJECT…” while showing me all these plans and land titles. Only after 10 minutes that i managed to get to talk about my renovation. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t really interested in doing the job, saying, “you all got another contractor to do the job or not?”

Contractor #5:This guy is doing a major job for my pal in PJ, and we’ve seen a lot of his work, too. Gave us the best quote so far.

Contractor #6: Two old men who’s doing some work for my brother-in-law. Has to come during the day to see my house because they “can’t see well in the evening” (what was that again?).Took dozens of photos with their digital camera (probably because of POOR MEMORY due to OLD AGE…). Everyone else takes one or two days to give me a quote, these uncles took more than a week. Plus they hod the record for the HIGHEST PRICE of the bunch. Why, need to add to the retirement fund izzit, uncle?

Anyway, we’ve had enough of quotations and are probably going with No. #5…

Weekends

When I was in college, there was one sure sign that the weekend was here – when you come back to the dorms on Friday evenings, you see the laundry hanging out to dry. So typical of guys to leave all their dirty clothes to be washed once a week.

Weekends take on a whole different perspective when you are working, and an even deeper relevance when you have a family.

After working jobs that require me to work on Saturdays (and some Sundays) for more than 6 years, I’ve recently just moved to a new company that has one of the best perks a job can offer – a five-day week!

When you are young and ambitious, you probably think nothing of working late hours and weekends to impress your boss and ‘further your career’, which was something I did when I first started.

But these days, I think the I tend to look for other things when considering my career, like flexi-hours, freedom to make your own decisions, that kind of thing. Six months ago, I took on this new job with a slight paycut, because it offered more time to do my own interests. I lost my company car, and had to borrow my dad’s old car until I can afford to buy my own car.

But I think I prefer it this way. For example, these past few weekends – I spent them mostly with my family and friends. I took them to the pasar malam, watched 2 movies with my family last night, took them and my brother-in-law’s family shopping, went to eat all our favourite hawker food, etc. Yep, I’m living it up.

And I am not dreading work come Monday tomorrow. But maybe that’s just because Tuesday’s a holiday!

Don’t Cry by Guns N’ Roses

Reading this by bob reminded me of Guns ‘N Roses, and i went on a little journey of re-discovery of one of the greatest metal bands of the 90′s over the weekend, many thanks to my old CDs and Youtube.

I wasn’t exactly a rabid fanboy of GN’R, but i did have their albums and listened to them quite a lot back in college. But i suppose in my book, they’re probably up there along with Metallica, Bon Jovi and Manowar.

Gn’R's fame is largely based on 4 major studio albums (among other factors) – Appetite for Destruction, G N’ R Lies, and the double album Use Your Illusion I & II (not including their cover album ‘the Spaghetti Incident?’ and their self-produced EP).

Everyone has their favorites, a testament to their popularity – the old-school fans would usually name “Welcome to the Jungle“, while purist which favor “Sweet Child o’ Mine” (with probably the most recognizable opening riff in rock), the casual fans would hum “November Rain”, etc.

My favorite is taken from Use Your Illusion I, the first song Axl Rose wrote for the band, taken from a poem for his then girlfriend, Erin Everly. The song holds lots of memories for me, least of all the one about my ex-colleague Daniel getting annoyed with me turning up his car stereo each time it came on the radio…!

The band and i go a long way back with me and my friends. Maybe one day I’ll reminiscient more about Slash, Axl, Duff, Izzy and Steven…

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