Laughter is the Best Medicine
But What Exactly Does It Cure?

I live in an impacted environment.
My neighbour’s pushy, my life’s a drill.
I wonder what I can extract from this experience.
There is a void that needs to be filled.

PS: This wisdom is hurting me.

Escalator, Not Elevator

Something funny (somewhat related to an upcoming post) for Friday. :)

Be Careful What You Wish For!
Of Losing Weight and Wishing Well

Dear Secret Law of the Universe,

When I weighed myself this morning I found that I’m nearly 3 pounds more what I weighed in January. What happened? Was it the mindless snacking? Not enough of exercise? Water retention? All the above? I was mildly shocked but instead of planning to exercise more I decided that the best method to lose that extra weight was… to wish for the extra pounds to melt away. Not only that, I asked the powers of the secret law of the universe to reduce my weight by tonight.

At about 6pm, I had a funny feeling in my stomach and at 8pm I started having a bout of explosive diarrhoea that lasted for nearly 3 hours.

While groaning in pain in the the bathroom, I actually made time to appreciate your wicked sense of humour. Yes, I asked for this, yes, you granted my wish, and yes, you did it before the end of the day. When I weighed myself again just before the stroke of midnight, I was indeed 3 pounds lesser than I was in the morning. Very well done.

If you don’t mind, please automatically include the following addendum to all the wishes I’ve made and will make in the future:

1. No one is hurt — physically, mentally, spiritually or any other means possible– in the process of granting the wishes (and that includes me!);
2. The wishes are granted through means that are legally-, morally-, environmentally-, ethically-correct;

In return, I will do my best to:

1. remember to be grateful for all the wishes granted (lest I forget, I’d appreciate it if I’m reminded gently) and
2. have patience for the wishes that will be granted — I’m sure you’ve not forgotten my Macbook Air wish in January ;)

For that, I’d like to thank you for today’s lesson: be careful what you wish for — it might get your bum burned.

Gratefully yours.

Tomorrow, I’m going for a 2km run! :)

Idol Conversation

Me: “Ma, I’m going off now, is there anything you want me to get?”

Mum: “They shouldn’t have done it!”

Me: “Done what?”

Mum: “Boot Michael out last week. It was Idols Give Back week!”

Me: “Michael? Who? No, no, I asked if you wanted anything from the store. Milk? Bread?”

Mum: “Ryan shouldn’t have implied that there would be no elimination this week…”

Me: “Erm, okay… I’m going now.. bye!”

Ants in My Pants

I was out all day today.

In the morning, while waiting for a cab at a very crowded area, I felt a tingling sensation running up my legs. After awhile I realised I had my feet just an inch away from a mound of large, red ants and, predictably, a few had crawled up my feet! I started stamping about like a mad person in the middle of the crowd. Amazingly, I managed to shake every last one of the angry looking ants without getting a single bite! I did however, squash one particularly big one to its death. I’m so sorry ant, it was a reflex reaction.

The rest of the day went by quite uneventfully until the time I had to go home. I was happily hippity-hoppity-hopping way down a long stairway when I decided to skip a few steps. This proved to be a good move as I would have plunged my feet straight into a colony of big-headed ants otherwise. What are the odds of my narrowly missing stepping on an ants’ nest twice in a day!? Counting my blessings, I continued walking down the flight of stairs with trepidation.

A few minutes later, I was waiting for the traffic light to turn green when I thought I felt something crawling on my feet again. Obviously after two encounters with different groups of ants, I was extra sensitive today but what I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that I had my feet, once again dotted with ants — this time fast-moving orange (red? yellow? crazy?) ants. And once again I had to do my crazy dance to get rid of all of them. After moving away a safe distance, I noticed that I was standing just a mere inch away from a very bustling ant highway, 3 inches wide. An inch away! Again! The third time today! Thankfully, I didn’t get bitten at all! Phew!

Too much ant drama for one day.

Losing It for a Minute

At 630pm yesterday I realised I had not spoken to my black cat, Spooky Angel, the whole day. She’s a very talkative cat who can answer most of life’s important questions, sometimes, with great wisdom, wit and intelligence, so it was unusual that a day would pass without us engaging in serious conversation.

She was sleeping beside me when I was reading a publication at 8 in the morning. Being the affectionate lap cat that she is, she’d wanted to sit well, on my lap, but I wasn’t in the mood to entertain the fuzz ball as I had to concentrate on an article, so I nudged her away.

A few minutes would pass and I’d fallen asleep sitting. When I woke up, I found the little Angel asleep, beside my right thigh. Aaaaw… I felt a little guilty for not letting her take a nap on my lap, especially when I was more asleep than doing anything else, but then she woke up and looked at me with the look — yeah-you-know-you-want-me look– anticipating that I’d take her and place her on her rightful human cushion. I thwarted her happiness by pushing her off the couch! Ha ha ha! So evil of me!

Anyway, it was 630pm and I’d not seen her since then so I called her name. There was no answer. I looked around the house. Under the couch, in the kitchen, in the bathrooms, under the beds, on top of cupboards, everywhere. She was nowhere to be found. And then it hit me that she might have slipped out when I went out at about 10am.

I went to search for her outside, bracing for the worst - she might have been ran over by a car, eaten by a pack of wild dogs or was taken by someone - someone better, someone who wouldn’t mind her sitting on his/her lap all day. Strangely, only the last thought made me wanna cry.

I got very worried because she’s a black kitty and it would be very difficult to find her in the dark . And then all that I felt was guilt. Guilt. Guilt. GUILT. Am I being punished for being mean to her? Will she forever remember me as the evil witch that pushed her off the couch?! Do I have to live with this guilt forever?!!!

.

.

.

It took me all of two minutes to find her. She was asleep at my neighbour’s steps. When I called her name, she just opened one eye, and looked slightly annoyed, like “Wha? Don’t be disturbing my sleep, woman”.

She was very calm when I carried her back home. I smothered her in kisses and showered her with words of love but when I tried to put her on my lap, she sneered at me and went off to eat instead. Oh well… Thank God I found her. I’ll never deprive a cat of my lap again.

Related links
I can has cheezburger
Cute Overload

Related posts
Power Control
Happiness Is…
Tablet Do’s and Don’ts
Pencil Thief and A Little Faith

Tablet Do’s and Don’ts

As you’d remember, my table is now clean and tidy. But since I have only a tiny space to put my things on (the cat is still occupying a good half of the desk), I tend to place my folder on top of my Wacom tablet. I’d usually move the folder away when I need to use the tablet.

You know what? I just discovered that I can use my tablet with the folder full of paper on top of it! How great is that? How can I not know this before? I’ve used a tablet while working in another company years ago and the most I did was to trace a thin sheet of paper with my sketch on.

I tried piling different things on top of the tablet to see how much it can take before losing sensitivity. Results vary with different material. It can safely take up to 1.5cm of copy paper. One CD case if fine, but not two. It didn’t work over a sachet of instant coffee. It worked up to page 328 of W magazine (the one with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman on the cover). It even worked over a box of chocolates! What else is there to try?

Naturally I thought of experimenting on things more… desk-related…like…the cat. Yes the one that’s always sleeping on my desk (not Moo Moo, she’d be stealing my stylus if I were to try that).

Result? Apparently cats are allowed to take up any amount of space they desire, but one should never, ever attempt to poke a sleeping cat with a stylus.

Pencil Thief And A Little Faith

I lose a writing instrument every other day. My cat, Moo Moo, has been stealing my pens, pencils and markers. She used to target only thin cylindrical objects but now she’s expanded her collection to include rulers and erasers. She just grabs the items off my hand while I’m writing or drawing and hides them with the rest of her loot under the bed. I think she’s opening a stationery store.

Moving on to a less scheming animal, this video made me cry…

Renaldo Lapuz (American Idol Hopeful)

“We’re Brothers Forever” is playing repeatedly in my head now. If we had more people like him in the world, there wouldn’t be a need for wars. Seriously! Even Simon Cowell was smiling. Ha ha!
Watch his performance on youtube here