To switch or not to switch,

that is the question.

While blog-surfing, I came across some nifty blogs hosted by Wordpress/Blogsome. They're also free. The coolest feature I like about Wordpress is that they can organize entries according to categories.

Blogger can't do that. To get around the problem, I have to create the categories using a New Post entry. Each time I make a posting, I must go back to the relevant category and insert a link to the latest posting. In Wordpress, all you have to do is to create the categories and when posting, you just have to tick the relevant box. So easy. But that's about the only thing that is simple about Wordpress.

I give the thumbs-up to Blogger for its user-friendliness. Its Help function is easy to use. Posting entries and loading images can be done quickly and easily. With Wordpress, it seems to take a longer time. Maybe it just needs some getting used to.

I've created a test site here. Still hesitating whether to make the switch. Thanks to Lydia Teh from Singapore who helped me get this started. She's all for Wordpress. I'm still trying to figure out how things work.

Anyone has any suggestions or comments on this?

Little Gems #3 : Grass Rice

No. 3 : Mummy, what is chao fan?
I : What is fan?
No. 3 : Rice.
I : What is chao?
No. 3 : Grass.
I : Grass rice? No! It's fried!
No. 3 : Oh, fried rice.

The hanyu pinyin for fried and grass is almost the same. Fried is chao, grass is cao. But both sound the same.

Cranberry Cheese etc etc

One could be forgiven for thinking that Cranberry Cheese is a cheesecake.

Well, it isn't. It's a mooncake. So are these unusual and exotic flavours : Southern French Apple & Chestnut, Szechuan Seaspice, Malay Sunshine, Caramel Coconut and Green Tea Red Bean Milk.

These six mooncakes which came in individual tins were given by a Taiwanese business associate to my husband. He gave away four to his colleagues, so we only got to taste the Cranberry Cheese which tasted nothing like a mooncake and Southern French Apple & Chestnut. Both have a soft and crumbly texture. The former tasted like a cheesecake and the latter like pastry.

Locally made mooncakes are not lacking in unusual flavours either. Chocolate, mixed nuts, durian, mocha, green tea and of course pandan, have been around for some time.

After tasting a couple of innovative varieties, No. 1 said, "I want original mooncakes."

Lotus paste and red bean. Have we forgotten the old with the advent of the new? New experiences can be exciting but after a while the taste buds can get numbed by them and one starts to long for the good old, same old.

Old is vintage. Old is gold. Mooncakes, antiques, people, values, etc etc.

Eh Poh Nim Goes Colloquial

I've created a character called Eh Poh Nim, a talkative young woman who's something of an English expert. Appearing in The Star's Mind Our English page today is the third article on Eh Poh Nim. The link to the article, Eh Poh Nim goes colloquial is here but after one month Star will remove it from the online archives.

Note : I've decided to paste the entire article here.

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Eh Poh Nim wakes up late this morning, so she rushes to work without breakfast. At ten-thirty, her stomach starts to growl. She decides to pop over to the bakery downstairs to grab something to eat.

“Good morning. May I help you?” the salesgirl in the bakery greets her cheerfully.

“Yes, please. May I have a baker’s dozen of those doughnuts?” Eh Poh Nim points to the small sugary doughnuts piled up on a tray.

The girl counts 12 pieces and puts them into a plastic bag.

“Excuse me, you’ve only given me 12. Thirteen please.”

“You want thirteen, is it? You should have said so.”

“I did. A baker’s dozen is thirteen, not twelve.”

The girl rolls her eyes as she hands the bag to Eh Poh Nim. Just then, the bell chimes as another customer walks into the bakery. He stops in his tracks and exclaims, “Eh Poh Nim, is that you?”

Eh Poh Nim squeals in delight. “John Toh? I haven’t seen you since Form Five! What have you been doing?”

“Went to USA to study architecture. Just came back a year ago.”

“It’s great to see you again. Are you married?”

“No, I don’t have a ball and chain attached to me.”

“Ball and chain? That’s not very nice, John. A wife is a good thing, not a hindrance as implied in this expression.”

“Heehee, I see your linguistic skill is still intact. How about you? Are you married?”

“Still single. Why don’t we have a drink and catch up?”

They settle themselves at a table in a corner of the bakery and order their drinks. Eh Poh Nim offers the doughnuts to John.

“Your breakfast?” he asks.

“Yeah, I woke up late this morning and had to skip breakfast. I forgot to set my alarm and my roommate didn’t wake me up either. She was all schnozzled up and overslept.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words. All schnozzled up. That’s American slang for alcohol intoxicated. But then you’ve always been a smart one with words. I remember you were always the top scorer in English.”

Eh Poh Nim blushes. “I remember you as a ball of fire. You were so energetic and ambitious. So, how’s it been since you returned? What do you do?”

John tells her where he works. “I’m giving myself another year to get a promotion.”

“So fast?”

“You’ve said it, Eh Poh Nim, I’m a fireball. They took two of us in as architects but I can easily beat the other guy to the promotion. He’s a cream puff. “

“Cream puff?”

“Hey, I thought you were a hot shot with words? A cream puff is a wimp,” John says with a wink.

“If he’s the wimp, you’re the crackerjack then.”

“Touche, my dear. Yup, I’m the excellent, industrious one. He’s also a clay pigeon.”

“A gullible guy, huh? Why did the company take him on then?”

“He’s a nephew of one of the partners. What about you, Eh Poh Nim? What do you do?”

“I’m a marketing exec with a pharmaceutical company. My office is upstairs.”

“Do you sell that little pill that guarantees big results? Maybe I can get some from you at a discount, eh?” John says with a wink.

She bristles visibly. “There’s been too much ballyhoo about that one. There are other products that can do just as well a job. In fact, our R&D department is working on a product that can top it. When it’s ready to be marketed, we won’t create sensational publicity for it, we’ll just let the product speak for itself.”

“How?”

“I can’t say more, it’s still confidential.”

“That’s all right, Eh Poh Nim. Excuse me, I have to go check out the plumbing.” John gets up to go to the bathroom.

When he returns in a short while, he pulls a face at Eh Poh Nim. “Some people don’t have the decency to flush. The toilet was floating with caca. Eeww.”

“Must you say it, John?” Eh Poh Nim pushes her iced lemon tea away.

“Sorry. Are you feeling green around the gills?”

“It’s okay. I’m not nauseated. Just lost my appetite, that’s all.”

“Sorry for being such a beetle brain.”

“You’re not a stupid person. Just don’t bring out that subject during a meal. Let’s go. I’ve got to get back to work before my boss misses me.”

“Eh Poh Nim, before you go, may I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you know any A.C.-D.C. guys?”

Eh Poh Nim’s jaw drops.

“Close your mouth, girl. A mozzie is gonna fly in. You know what A.C.-D.C. is, don’t you?”

She nods. “Bisexual. Are you one?”

“Ssshhh...Not so loud. Give me a call if you do,” he says as he hands her his calling card.

Eh Poh Nim walks off in a daze as she tries to digest this piece of news. For all her forward loquaciousness, she’s an old-fashioned girl at heart.

Ref: NTC’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard Spears

Passionate about the traffic police

I must love my husband a lot. That's why I do his dirty work for him : take care of his laundry, file in his tax returns and pay his traffic summon. This latest errand here had me falling in love with our traffic police, so much so that my heart is racing be-de-gup-be-de-gup because of the passion they've inspired in me.

See, our venerable traffic police has offered a 50% discount for offenders to settle their summons. And hubby suddenly remembered that the traffic summon he picked up while vrooming to send a sick boy to the clinic, was still unpaid. Of course the errand fell on me.

So today after picking up no. 1 from school, I went to the police station. There was a long queue, about two dozen people ahead of me. Never mind, I have a book to kill time with. As soon as the counters open in ten minutes' time, the queue will get moving. Fat hopes.

The first few people breezed through the counter (only one was open though there were two). Suddenly the queue stopped moving for about 15 minutes. I wondered what happened as my view was obstructed by the people in front.

"Is anyone manning the counter?" I asked the big Indian man standing behind me. Large beads of sweat covered his face and his shirt was drenched. It was a small non-airconditioned room we were waiting in. The only ventilation came through the open door. The window was closed. Though a ceiling fan was on at full speed, when you have twenty over people crammed into a tiny room on a hot afternoon, temperature soared and so did my impatience.

"Why so slow?" I asked aloud as I fanned myself with the cover of my book.

Five minutes later I got the answer to my question. The guy who had just left the counter clutched a stack of inch-high receipts. It had taken this man twenty minutes to get his mountain of summons paid. Either he has a lot of friends in the fast lane or he was an office boy doing his colleagues a favour.

By then I was fuming. Long queues can be tolerated if they move, the operative word here being MOVE. The next two blokes in line made the queue stagnant again for another twenty minutes.

I'm puzzled. See, on the notice boards were two notices admonishing the public not to pay their summons through "ulat-ulat dan orang tengah." That's Malay for worms and middle-man. The only worms I know are of the insect variety, not the human species, so this word is quite baffling. But middle-man, I know one when I see one. I've just seen three of them hold up the line for forty minutes.

Fortunately after those three, the queue moved pretty quickly. When it was my turn, I asked the policeman, "Why don't you limit the number of bills per person? Like Tenaga, they limit five bills to a person."

He mumbled something from the comfort of his air-conditioned office. Then he gave me back my change together with the receipt. Two of the notes fluttered down from the counter to his desk and I couldn't reach them and I asked him nicely if he could hand them back to me.

He glared at me and said, "That's whylah. Why you're angry at me? Huh, now your notes dropped down."

I thought for a moment that he wasn't going to pick up the notes for me. It was as if he was saying, "Because you're angry at me, I'm not going to help you retrieve the money. Serves you right."

"It's not my fault, you know. Why you ask stupid question?" he said as he handed the money to me.

Can you see why I'm so passionate over our traffic police? Of course, I had to retort, "It's not a stupid question, it's a valid question."

And as I walked out the door, I couldn't resist using that word on him too. I know, I know, I'm a bad example to my kid but I simply CANNOT TAHAN already.

I must tell hubby to please, please obey traffic rules. I don't want to have to fall in love with our traffic police all over again. This type of passionate experience, I can only take once in a lifetime.

Otaku, Geek, Dork, Ah Beng

Are you a geek? In Japan, if you profess to be a geek, it can help you save some money. Read the article here. All you have say is, "I'm an Otaku" when you go to a movie theatre south of Tokyo and they'll give you a discount off the tickets. According to the theatre, 70% of movie-goers made this claim. Since when has being an otaku or geek or dork been so cool, eh?

In Malaysia, there aren't any otakus, only Ah Bengs.

I can just imagine GSC or TGV pulling off a stunt like this.

"Say you're an Ah Beng and we'll give you a 50% discount!!" screams the promo poster at the cinema.

At the ticketing counter :

Scenario 1

A man wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses, a rainbow coloured t-shirt and baggy shorts with natural air-conditioning.

Ah Beng : "One teeket please. I'm Ah Beng."

Fine.

Scenario 2

A young man clad in jeans and a leather jacket accompanied by a girl in a baby-tee and capri pants.

Young man : Two tickets, please. We're Ah Bengs.

Cashier : She also Ah Beng ah? Hello, girl Ah Beng is called Ah Lian. Anyway, you two look so hip, how can you be Ah Beng and Ah Lian?

Young man : Look, man. Your poster here says, 'Say you're Ah Beng and you get 50% discount.' I've said 'I'm Ah Beng.' Which part of that sentence don't you understand? Just gimme my 50% discount and we'll quit being Ah Bengs. Okay, brudder?

That'll be the biggest gathering ever of Ah Bengs in one place. Perhaps the Malaysia Book of Records will organise an Ah Beng Fest?

Saturday conundrum

The Education ministry has put parents in a conundrum. It has given the option to schools to close early for the year-end holidays so that students need not go back to school for one week after the Deepavali/Hari Raya break (31 October to 6 November). In order to make up for the early closure, the five days of 7-11 November have to be replaced by Saturday classes. Since the September Saturdays have already been booked to replace the Haze emergency holidays and extra festival holidays (one day for Deepavali to replace 31 Oct and one day for Hari Raya to replace 2 Nov), it looks like all the October Saturdays may end up as school days.

If you don't have school-going children, I don't expect you to understand this complicated class-replacement affair. For those of us who do, it's already a headache and it's causing a huge mess up in our time-table.

1. Students who have tuition or extra-curricular classes such as music, taekwando, swimming on Saturdays have to reschedule.

2. Parents who have children in more than one school have to juggle the kids' different schedules if one school decides to close early on 28 October (before the one week festival break and one week early closure) and the other decides to go with the original date of 12 November.

3. As it is the 7-week year-end holidays is already way too long. If the schools close early, that'll make it a 9-week break if we count the one-week festival break. What are we going to to with the children for NINE long weeks? I'll be glad to invite an Education Ministry officer to stay in my home so that he'd get a taste of four kids running around the house, alternating between endless computer games, tv, internet surfing, getting into each other's hair and groaning, "it's sooooo booorrrring...."

Here comes the crunch. After all the hassle the schools go through to arrange Saturday classes, attendance is poor. Many students play truant, especially those studying in Kebangsaan schools. "After all, the teachers don't teach what," they say. "Why go and waste time there?"

Spoiler ahead

The family was standing at the porch, waiting for me to unlock the front door so everyone could go in.

No. 3 : So-and-so* died, you know.

No. 1 : Aaaaahhh....

I : Why you tell?

No. 3 : Don't worry. He -- -- --*.

No. 1 : AAAAHHHHH..... (smacked his brother on the shoulder.)

No. 3 cried. He'd just heard from his friend about this character's demise in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The word 'Spoiler' is not in his vocabulary.

*We haven't bought the book yet and in case you haven't read it either, I've left out the crucial details.

Lyric hunting

Young people these days are so lucky. They want song lyrics, all they have to do is to log on the Internet and search. A few keystrokes later, they've got the lyrics on the screen. What's left to be done is to copy, paste and print and they can sing their hearts out.

In my time, we had to listen and scribble. A lyric-hunting session would go like this.

1. Play cassette tape.
2. Sribble furiously.
3. Press pause when the pen can't catch up with the words.
4. Wait, didn't get the last few words of the second line.
5. Rewind.
6. Play.
7. Scribble furiously.
8. Repeat steps 3 to 7 till the end of the song.

Repeat these procedures for the next few songs on the tape and by the end of the lyric-scribbling, the tape would go into a slow-mo guttural mode which meant only one thing : you've played it to death.

Three cheers for the Internet. Hip hip hurrah!