ASTRO CUSTOMER FROM H*LL

Gosh, I've just spent 20 minutes listening to a recorded call sound clip forwarded by a friend in an email. All this while, we've heard people b*tching about the bad customer service from Astro, but do we ever think of what type of people they have to layan everyday?

I feel very bad for this guy, all he wanted to do was help the lady with the 'technical' problem (which was as simple as replacing the old smart card with the new one) but nooooo, that lady was on a roll for a launch attack. I can sense that he was trying his best not to retaliate, but can you tahan after being slapped with the 100th 'bl*rdy' word directed at you? If it was me yang kena, I think my head would've exploded and rolled off my neck!

The lady even called for back up and another lady spoke through the phone in a nicer manner, a whole lot nicer, but what he got was an earful about how bad his English was (it was fine lah! hers was worse and thickly accented!) and how he shouldn't be in customer service at all! It was ridiculous and exhausting! I was giggling and shaking my head at the same time at this insanity.

I don't know, but I have a new found respect for Customer Service, and I'd surely speak more nicely to these people, knowing the h*ll they have to face each day.

So, have anyone of you come across the clip? I'd be gladly to forward to interested parties, if you have 20 minutes spare time, that is.

And lady, if that poor guy gotta have to take an extra customer service course, then you gotta go to anger management class.

GILA GOLAN

And so my trusty techie diagnosed this little virus (little only lah, not a big bad a** one that swallows files and the likes) as "Office Hour Virus". Actually, we're not quite sure if it's a virus, until we installed a new antivirus and see if it can be wiped out.

It really is the weirdest, funniest little thing. Happened since yesterday morning. I came in the office and turned on my pc as usual. Settled some work, turned on WLM and YM, and checked my emails. I didn't realize anything funny before that, but when I tried turned on my Google Reader, there was some funny characters or scripts on the home screen. Funny, I thought, further clicks on my subscription feeds seemed normal and I didn't see the squiggly scripts again.

After a while, I felt like blogging, so I logged in to Blogger. Suddenly the whole screen was FULL of those squiggly scripts! They looked something like WingDings 2 typefaces or when you're having a printing error and suddenly your printer prints a 'love letter' to you (you guys DO get these freaky messages from your printer, don't you? Not just me?)

Whatever I tried, I couldn't get to my dashboard, with IE or FF. I checked some blogspot blogs and true enough, the funny scripts appeared at the tops of most of those blogs, but the rest of the blogs looked fine. Then, I realized those funny scripts appearing at the advertisement box at the bottom of my WLM and YM, but it didn't screw up other functions. My Google search page worked, but MSN search looked exactly like my dashboard, full of foreign scripts. Other Google related services, such as Picasa, Gmail, etc. were also down. I checked with other PCs in the office, they too have the same problem.

The ONE and only way for me to post in this blog, was to post an entry on multiply and cross-post it to blogger.

I planned to do exactly that, but around 5.00-5.30 I glanced at my WLM and saw those funny things were gone, and it's place, the usual advertisements that I never paid attention to all this while. And boy, was I excited to see those ads!

Immediately I logged on to blogger again, lo and behold, everything went back to normal! Not a trace of those strange characters anywhere! So weirdlah, and all my techies and assistant agreed to this. We concluded that it couldn't be a virus in our office network, and might have been a glitch somewhere on these sites, although the weird thing was, it didn't seem to affect other people (kan Sasha, kan?)

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today, the same thing happened! Everything went crazy again, and my blogging urge was sated only by using my techie's laptop that wasn't connected to our internal network and nothing else seemed to affect it.

But you guessed it right, come 5.00 -5.30 pm, I can log on to blogger and the rest of the sites through my pc again.

Mujjin, is this gila golan or not?

Haha, BTW, what the heck is gila golan? Here's the story. When we were small, my brothers and I watched this old B&W movie (I'm googling now) ........

... titled Our Man Flint (oooh so it was a Bond spoof! And all this while I thought it was a real Bond movie!) . There was this beautiful actress in it that played the 'Bond Girl'. When we read the film credits at the end, we howled and snorted at her name - Gila Golan.

Therefore, we started to use her name to describe anything that went crazy around us. Sikit-sikit, gila golan. Nak maki sikit, gila golan. Our mom couldn't chide us for swearing.

I know, I digress. But that's my story of my gila golan PC. Do let me know if you've come across the same gila golan problem.

BAIK PUNYA CILOK

(I'm helping out to get the word around actually here, at least to my small circle of readers. After all, plagiarism is a serious offense. Thanks Chech for bringing this matter to my attention)

But first things first - what do I think of Natasha Hudson prior to this furore? Well frankly, just like milo skilos, I was a little enthralled by her actually (I DO have a soft spot for models, don't I, Lin, especially if they're more than just pretty faces).

Model, actress, veejay, poet-author, well-spoken, posh demeanor, a young Datin and a soon-to-be-mommy to boot - she's in my good books. Never mind the goss about her marriages, her sob story of being a child of a failed marriage and the hovering doubt of her actual writing talent, I thought she's doing pretty good in the rocky business of entertainment.

I've skimmed through her books at MPH once, but honestly, though I found the overall appearance of the books pretty impressive (they have this whimsical, fairy-tale, dreamy look about them which is very fetching indeed) I wouldn't buy them coz, for the lack of better words, they're really not that good.

Anyway, kasi chancelah, it's not easy to get published, kan? The problem is, isn't it pretty disturbing if not one, not two, but three of her so-called Malay poems have uncanny resemblances to famous (and not to mention, published) English works? As first revealed by blogger Jannah, her poem "Kek Coklat" is a direct translation from Roger McGough's poem titled "Cake".

I have to say, the phrase "kita tidak dapat makan kek coklat, jadi kita makan sesama sendiri" is not only hilarious, it doesn't have any artistic meaning at all in Malay!

Ms Nat herself is vehemently denying the allegations (including declaring ignorance of the original author), preferring the beat around the bush about how her book is not meant to be educational in one way or another.

You know, if you're penning poetry about chocolate cakes, favourite tea-time snacks and turtles, even if you're a small child at the time, the thoughts must have come up from somewhere, or something. Simple things or events that evoke that special spark in your mind (a lightbulb, maybe) that we all call inspiration, whether you were in despair, in joy or in love - we can all recall that one moment in time, even for someone who has a memory of a hamster like myself. So if I've written a poem called chocolate cake as a kid, I'd surely remember it, and I'll set the record straight.

So, a word of advice for Ms Hudson, from a poet wannabe (and a closet plagiarist, if I might add!) if these poems you claim as yours were conjured from distant memories of your childhood, at least offer some valid explanation. If you can't, just own up then, it'll be much less painful.

But things don't look so bad for her exactly. It is true, a bad publicity is still publicity. The last I heard, her books are flying off the racks, and they're not being recalled ;p

Hmm, any chance this issue's gonna be on Melodi?

Anyway, to wrap up for the weekend, let's do do do the Hudson as suggested by Liyana with one of Nunu's favourite rhyme.

"Jack dan Jill naik atas bukit
Nak ambil sebaldi air
Jack jatuh dulu dah pecahkan mahkota
Dan Jill jatuh tergolek selepas dia"

I know! Hahaha, it's horrendous!

Other reads:

An article from the Star about Ms Nat and her works
Da Cookie
Sharon Bakar
re-arrange
A fine balance

THE PLAYGROUND BULLY

I've always though that Nunu's gross motor and coordination skills need a little bit of work, so I thought one of the solutions for this is to take her to the playground a lot. There aren't many around near my place, most of them are either too dirty or close to dereliction. So my top choice is the one at Carrefour. Rain or shine, I'll make sure I'll take her there at least once a week.

But does it bother you when you see children of unsuitable ages terrorizing and monopolizing the place? I understand, children are children, and we shouldn't discriminate against big kids having fun, but if they're too rowdy and bang the whole structure up and down like there's no tomorrow, doesn't that pose a danger to other kids?

I can see why playing cops and robbers on the slides and stairs are helluva fun, but smaller kids are scared to death to play along. And don't they ever get off the swings?! Can't they see a lot of other kids are waiting for their turns?

I see some of them whizzing around and rushing to get past slower and smaller kids/toddlers like Nunu. Thankfully, Nunu shows extreme caution when playing, and does not display her normal rambunctious self, probably coz the place is a little intimidating.

How intimidating, you tell me. Once there was this girl, about 9-10, quite big-sized and aggressive, impatiently charged her way into a tunnel just before Nunu, who was there first, could enter. I let her go, since she barely touched Nunu.

The second time they were in contact, Nunu was making her way out from the tunnel, and the big girl got in. I heard her say to Nunu, "Tepi lah. " Then, "Apa tengok-tengok?"

I was sure Nunu gave her a glare since she was so rude!

I looked around to see if the girl's parent/s was/were watching, but after observing for a while, I knew she was on her own. Probably they're sick of her bossiness and decided to dump her at the play area while they do their shopping, haha!

I have no right to tell these kids off, so the only thing I could do is to make sure Nunu stays clear out of their way.

But if I see anyone messing with my daughter next time, you're messing with me. *puts on shades and acts like a playground cop*

IT'S HER

It's Nurin. I can hardly believe it. Neither can her parents.

But you can't beat science, can you?

I hope there is a lesson to be learnt from this horrific tragedy. Now that the saga is almost over, cops - do you job & nab that creep. I'm sure a lot of people have a long list of suggestions on what they'd like to do to him in their minds.

My prayers & Al-Fatihah for her & condolences for the family.

I'm so appalled & saddened by the news that I'm postponing my FGF for another day. I'm just gonna spend the whole afternoon watching sad youtube video tributes of missing girls.

Rest in peace now, my dear.

LITTLE GIRLS

Once in a while, you gotta talk about not so nice things. In fact, this piece of news is so dreadful, my yuppie bangsar bro felt the need to ring me up early yesterday morning to relay the news.

Only a demented mind would do such things to a small girl. Brutalized, strangled & stuffed in a bag. I couldn't imagine what horrors she went through and what her last thoughts were as that/those sick b*stard(s) snuffed out her life.

And as we await the latest update on the search of Nurin Jazlin, three more girls were reported missing (or maybe they ran away, I'm not sure).

I'm a little behind with current affairs, but I don't think I heard any word anymore about the little girl who went missing a couple of months ago in front of her father's shop, reportedly kidnapped by a 'catman', a man who pretends that his cat is missing, and offered little girls to find it for him.

*long sigh* I keep telling myself, this is old. Apalah heran sangat, the world is full of crazy, inhumane people committing all sorts of sordid cruelties, how depressing it is see the world going topsy turvy? And I vowed, sheesh... I'm never gonna read the papers/ watch the news ever again. Yeah, I'm easily affected like that (kan Nadia kan? :)

But every time news like this comes up, my heart broke anew.

Like today, they showed the picture of the nameless dead girl on most major publications.

Tell me, how do we live without having this constant fear in our hearts, for our lives and our loved ones'?

Addendum: OK, the 3 silly girls I mentioned earlier, they really did ran away from home. Tsk. And about the catman case, apparently two girls were abducted & returned alive, but sexually abused. The catman was never caught, still on the loose.

HOW NOT TO START YOUR RAMADHAN

How do you respond when you receive this text message from someone you barely know:

"I've to be honest with you that your voice through the phone is extremely sexy... sorry!"

~*!??!#*($#&$*&#?^%&!!

This struck me as hysterically funny because prior to the message, during the telephone conversation with that person, I choked on my own saliva, coughed & pretended that the line was terrible!

But come on, for fun's sake, what would you text back to the person?

Ramadhan Al-Mubarak, everyone! Jangan notty-notty!

FEEL FRAZZLED FRIDAY

Drats! Curses! Woe! Ayoyooo!!!

It's confirmed! My external hard drive where I keep all my precious photos went kaput! It's been sent for warranty, but I'm pretty sure what's inside aren't salvageable.

Oh well, at least I have some back up of some sorts in the form of CDs.