When Life Throws You A Curveball... or a Hundred

When life throws you a curveball... usually, you would muster all you can and try to hit it... unless you miss... that's another story. But what do you do when Life decides to use a ball dispenser with controls adjusted to highspeed curves one after another? Hitting is an option but can you hit and dodge at the same time? It is painful.

Recently, a good friend of mine, an interior designer and renovation contractor, had about 3 projects on-going. Everything starts off smoothly, then...

1. one of the clients loses his job
2. another client fell to her death
3. all their payments were late and stopped due to assets frozen.

On my side, work is not smooth flowing. My company sells mainly illegal sites which means, nothing is for certain when it comes to confirming a contracts as if a site gets taken down, it automatically means my generated sales will be deducted which means, i might not hit the target after that and get zip for commission.

Curve balls. There's one after another every single day. I envy those people who have no worries in life.

PC Fair II (2010)

I took a day off from work to attend the first day of the PC Fair. Unfortunately, freakish turn of events made me reach KLCC only around 1pm. Anyhoo, this year's event seemed significantly quieter compared to previous years. Yes... there is the usual stacks of brochures and fliers being shoved into your hands. And yes... there is the usual forced long walk that makes you walk through almost EVERY, SINGLE, hall that's occupied by the fair!

The difference this year was there is a lot more breathing space available. There's significantly less people than the previous years. Organisers and participating outlets beefed up their showgirls by making them skimpier than ever.

By the time I got to the last hall (Hall 5) where the magazine subscription counters are located, I missed out on the best package which is the one where they gave away an Imation RMVB together with a 1 year subscription to PC.Com. So I went to HWM and got a slightly lesser known brand as well as a bloody spiffy Energiser portable charger. Will post up photos later of the charger and the player.

My Favourite Soundtrack Scores - Themes

I love soundtracks and collect them be it new or used. Only ones I regret not buying are not available for sale anymore, some of which I have on cassette tapes but don't know how to transfer to digital to save them.

Anyway, I do love scores a lot. There are many that I would say are faves. I'll put down a few that I can think of now, most of which gives me warm fuzzy feeling when I hear them. Helps when I'm down in the dumps.


1. Celeste - Alan Silvestri (from "My Stepmother Is An Alien)















2. My Land - Jerry Goldsmith (from Bad Girls)


















3. Practical Magic - Alan Silvestri (from Practical Magic)













I'll stop at 3 first. More later.

Landlords from Hell

I believe everyone who's renting a place has tasted this bitter bitter occurence.

Landlords.

Many questions have come up in my mind as to why so many landlords are total assholes and bitches. Do they think just because they have property they can treat tenants like shit?

I do understand that there are tenants from hell. Those who don't pay rent, utilities, ruin the property and simply destroy (beats me how that happens sometimes) the property. But then, for those like me who couldn't be bothered to nail things into the walls or even stick posters with cellophane or double sided tape, its hell for me when landlords I meet are total jerks.

Recently I have to give up apartment living because Malaysia condominiums do not permit pet dogs (I have to specify clearly that ONLY DOGS are forbidden in condominiums). So I had to hunt for a landed property to accommodate everyone who will be living with me and their wishes. Newer properties were always too far or too congested to get home to, or there is no food right in front of the house or simply, I don't think there's any public transportation here. Thus we settled on TTDI. An old neighbourhood where many houses have freshened their image. Unfortunately, due to extreme time constraints didn't have much choice. We went to see this house in the evening where we couldn't see all the problems. Doesn't help when the real estate agent isn't very responsible or ethical for that matter. Once we agreed to take the unit, we asked the landlord to fix basic stuff that was left in ruins :

1. pipings were shot. Water leaked through walls (unpaintable), landlord said he got plumbers to fix it but 2 weeks later its still wet and some parts mouldy.

2. Window handles were broken. Landlord asked us to replace the parts ourselve and bill them but no more than XX amount per unit or the handles.

3. Doors to bathrooms, bedrooms and main door were old, had holes and couldn't be closed.

4. Place didn't have phone line at all.

5. Fencing was falling off (normal wire fencing that is easily cut)

6. Infested with Termites.

And all the landlord could answer with all requests to at least get the place fixed to be livable was, "what do you expect, it's an old place". What's more their demand was to have a family live there. I've got my brother and cousins living there and none of us dare to show our parents where we are living. The house is unfit for family occupation.

Note to everyone : Please, if you are a landlord, please appreciate your property even though you are going to rent it out. Be a responsible landlord. For tenants, please do pay your rent, until you can afford your own place, forget about nailing and sticking, it won't do you any good.

Life isn't always sweet

People say, take things as it comes, one at a time.

I'm so tired.

I'm mentally, physically and morally exhausted. This may sound like just another complaint but it's not about just complaining. Its a place for me to release and rant about all the roadbumps and portholes along the road I call "my life".

1. I did well in school. I did well in college. I did well in University. What the hell went so wrong with my career?

2. I'm trying my best to be successful. Outcome? I'm not as lucky as most. I try to give my best. Learn as much as possible. Result for it : low pay job with no job advancement. Nothing good comes to good people.

3. I've lost faith in any religion.

I'm planning to do something about my life ... again.

Totally Whacked Case Landlord

Currently I've moved to a house but have promised the apartment landlord we will repaint her house as we've painted it to pleasant colors while we lived there. (learnt my lesson, do not use good paints when renting, landlords do not appreciate)

Perdana Exclusive Condo - Block F #706

If anyone see's this condo up to let or for sale, please... avoid this at all costs. Reason's being :

1. Landlord does not make an effort to do repairs to their furnishing with problems. 4 air conditioning units in the house, none works properly. 1 doesn't work at all, 1 leaks like a sieve, another one cannot be turned off (it turns on and off on its own) and one simply isn't cold. It took her 9 months to come fix one of the aircons while conveniently forgeting the others. Same goes with her water heaters.

2. Landlord comes after midnight to harass whenever she feels like it. She likes to come 'chit-chat' and takes up precious time when we are rushing off to work. Also midnights are worst, she rings the bells continuously to make the dog bark and wake neighbours.

3. Electricity bills. This is the most outrageious things here. The apartment is less than 900 sqft and other than the faulty aircon, only one other aircon is turned on for a couple of hours everyday. Electricty bill average per month : RM400. Friends and family living in landed property with more consumption of electricity only utilize between RM200 and RM300 of electricity.

4. Landlord does not pay maintenance, quit rent, sinking fun etc to the management office. What the heck, the taxes also isn't paid. When we brought this up because we weren't allowed to use facilities due to her negligence, we were told to shut up and mind our own business. She never continued paying but harrassed us when we withheld rental to her because of all the problems.

This is really not worth the pain, stress and frustration. By the way, we may not be able to get back our deposits which comes up to be quite a lot.

Sometimes, no matter how good you think your life is going, something ALWAYS comes up and tears away all the good things that is going on in your life. I thought I was doing pretty okay. Unfortunately, simple mistakes and ignorance leads to big disappointments.

The first mistake I made was to try hard at being efficient and eager to work. What I get in return is people treating me like shit. Treating me like I’m someone to push around. Ordering me around. Being labelled JUNIOR doesn’t help much either.

The second mistake made is something that I have been trying to work on. Talking too much. Giving out too much information. Making a fool of myself for doing so.

The third… at times when bad things start happening, I get to think. I regret choices I’ve made since high school and now, it feels like I’m more lost than ever. Now I ask myself, am I really suitable for the job I’m in. I know I didn’t do great in design and now…

Sometimes I wish something comes up and just takes everything away. My emotions, my desires, my hopes and my life.