And here sitting at the office, I am getting completely sozzled with champagne. Seeing that I have been drinking since 8am, it’s been a slow but steady drinking session – there are still bottles and bottles of opened yet undrunk champagne on the desk next to me.

Was thinking of heading home early,but I think I shall just stay till 5 to finish at least another bottle of champagne..

Ahhhh…I’m starting to love my job

0.59am
*cat scrambled out of the room whilst the wardrobe rattled*

me: OMG WTF?? (no, I don’t speak in abbreviations in my sleep) Is that the wind shaking our house?

bacon: Huh?? Is it me?? Why is the room shaking?

*both of us remembering the day of the tsunami when we had to run down 28 floors*

both: GROANs

Yes, once again I got into an earthquake where it does not usually happens. It did not help that it had been an extremely windy day and I was under the impression, in my sleep-induced brain, that the wind was going to blow the house away. At ritcher scale 5.4 and with us only 3 stories up instead of 28, this was not as bad as the tsunami induced movements, but bad enough for bacon to spend the next 30mins waiting for internet reports of the quake to filter through.

What was odd about it all was that it had been an extremely windy day – it became very calm after the quake with not a puff of wind.

/———————————————————-

In other news, yes, I’m back safe and sound. Been terribly busy with sleep and also catching up with work – should wind down and I would probably be able to upload pix over the weekend. It just shows how long I have been away, streamyx upload speed was absolutely shocking with only 40 pictures getting through after 2 hours, so I did not upload any of my pix whilst in Malaysia. Lots of stuff happening as well here:

Bad news
I did not get paid for the 3 days I was off sick last month, which really pissed me off with a deduction in salary
Did not manage to pay ccard in time (due yesterday, payment to arrive today) AAARGH.First time I’ve missed a payment of anything!!!

Good news
I won a competition for £20 worth of vouchers. Yippie! I am on a winning streak, after winning a year’s subscription to Cosmo off borders.co.uk as well earlier this year.
We got £250 bequeathed to us in someone’s will.
Bonus news came through and I did not get £0.75 as I expected – far from that. So I’m happy. Investing the whole lot so I don’t blow it on another handbag! Now slightly sloshed on celebratory champers at 10.30am…

OK I really gotta run back to work – I’ve come back on a perfect week where I will be in office by 8am every day for a week – today I clocked in at 7.30am just to help prepare the champers. Hopefully will start blogging again by this weekend.

A couple have been accused of being freaks in a town near me, and bus drivers have been less than receptive of their patronage. In one of the ‘Only in UK’ stories, Dani Graves from Dewsbury have taken to walking his fiancee Tasha Maltby around in public on a leash. Gives a different spin to the term on a short leash innit?

Incesed that bus drivers have been either chasing them out of the buses or just not stopping for them, this lovely couple had taken to complain about the bus drivers’ attitute. One bus driver had insist that they were not allowed in his bus because the company have a “No dogs allowed” policy, with exceptions made on guide dogs only. Understandable no? Since Ms Maltby is only human she really should be allowed…

Quoting the 19 year old girl:

It is definitely discrimination, almost like a hate crime. I am a pet, I generally act animal like and I lead a really easy life. I don’t cook or clean and I don’t go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It’s my culture and my choice. It isn’t hurting anyone.

But would YOU allow this anywhere near you?

For the complete article see the Daily Mail

One of my personal resolutions was to get back to blogging 5 days a week like what I used to before I got distracted. Obviously the past week have been empty…and I am seriously not making up excuses, but I was terribly ill.

We went out last saturday night, and when I woke up on Sunday I felt the onslaught of the flu…which is extremely annoying as I had my flu shot just before New Year. Nevermind, I thought it might be something minor. So Monday I felt a little worse for wear but still went to work. Monday night I was feeling worse, but as we were discussing my workload for 2008 I had to turn up on Tuesday. Wednesday saw my snot building up so I skipped work…and Thursday saw me losing my voice completely. So I got bacon to ring the doctors, but they had no appointments till next week. Bastards. This is what happens to socialist countries that nationalise healthcare – there is no private doctors in clinics like the rest of the world. Unless you need a hospital, you do not have a choice of private medical care

So anyway, he called the NHS direct, which is the national call centre for health queries – apparently this minimises the need for people to turn up at doctors if they can get meds from pharmacist. Bacon rattled down the list of my symptoms, including me croaking instead of speaking. When the nurse on the other line insist on speaking to me, bacon told them that they might not understand me (obviously due to me croaking instead of speaking)…and that damned nurse asked if they need an intrepreter! Damnit..you would think her brains would tell her that if I can only croak she won’t understand me.

Lovely nurse still insisted to speaking to me irregardless of the croaking, so I did. She went down some checklist, and if I can still breathe and painfully swallow, I do not need the doctor. Instead, she asked me to go to the pharmacist. Bastards. I hate healthcare here,unless you are dying or dead, they would refuse to entertain you. She did not believe that I had laryngitist, and encouraged my Strepstil OD…even though I said that Strepstils and my cold/flu meds have not been working.

Honestly, I bloody pay for the national healthcare and I demand some sort of bloody service. So on Friday bacon rang the doctors again, and they had an open appointment, which I grabbed immediately. Even with me just saying hello, the doctor told me that he could tell from my croakings that I had laryngitist. And the stupid nurse actually recommended me to stick with my Strepstils??? She even mentioned that there is no point me going to the doctors because he would not prescribe me any antibiotics, only paracetemol. So I am now on a course of penicillin, AS PRESCRIBED BY THE DOCTOR.

Slightly better now, even managed to go out yesterday – admittedly I was drinking non-stop water instead of my usual whiskey. I just need to finish my course of penicillin and I should be ok. Just getting slightly hoarse at the moment, good for bacon as I can’t shout at him like usual. I may completely lose my voice if I listened to the damn nurse who asked me to stick with strepstils.

I sometimes think that the NHS (National Healthcare System) is trying to kill me. Bastards. Bastard Labour Government trying to create a communist country with equal healthcare crap.

my mountain of snot…

When I see this at 4pm, I know that the dark nites are slowly but surely comming to an end.

I am adverse to early darkening of skies. Growing up in Malaysia, the sun sets around 7-7.30pm daily. With sunset comes dinner – my regular dinner time for as long as I can remember had been when the chinese serial starts at 7pm. During my first winter in CA, I had dinner at 5pm (watching Simpsons) in Nov & Dec – my body clock tricking my mind that its late. The problem with having dinner that early is that I am hungry again by 10pm!

The past two months or so in the UK had seen the daylight savings timing enforced, which means the sun have been setting just before 4 each day. It doesn’t really matter as most of the time its gloomy and grey here anyway. But I know from experience that when the skies starts to look blue at 4pm, longer days are on their way.

Incidentaly, it had actually been getting colder with typhoon-like winds lately…don’t let the skies fool you. So yours truly is sick now – I had a flu jab this year and was hoping I won’t be sick. I don’t think I’m sick with flu though, it looks like I’ve missed the main part of the flu and skipped straight to the sorethroat-cough part. Hmmm.

In other news, it is now 30 days to Chinese New Year…:D. I hope cookies are currently being prepared on anticipation of my return…I am partial to home made choc chips – failing which I am VERY partial to Famous Amos freshly baked cookies. Yummm. And KFC mashed potato. Or Ramly Burger Special with ketchup.