Sunday, February 26, 2006

Otsuka Ai - Planetarium

Well, okay. Rain is making me mellow :p

Rain...

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Rain - Madonna
Rain, feel it on my finger tips,
Hear it on my window pane,
Your love's coming down like,
Rain, wash away my sorrow,
Take away my pain,
Your love's coming down like,
Rain...

November Rain - Guns N Roses
And when your fears subside,
And shadows still remain,
I know that you can love me,
When there's no one left to blame,
So never mind the darkness,
We still can find a way,
'Cause nothing lasts forever,
Even cold November rain...

Lady Rain - Indecent Obsession
Lady rain, I hear you at my window,
Lady rain, I need you softly falling on my face,
Why did the sun shining come and take you away,
I wait for you again my lady rain...

Kiss the Rain - Billy Myers
Kiss the rain, whenever you need me,
Kiss the rain, whenever I'm gone, too long,
If your lips, feel lonely and thirsty,
Kiss the rain, and wait for the dawn,
Keep in mind, we're under the same sky,
And the nights, as empty for me, as for you,
If you feel, you can't wait till morning,
Kiss the rain, kiss the rain, kiss the rain...

Early Morning Rain - Bob Dylan
In the early morning rain with a dollar in my hand
And an aching in my heart and my pocket's full of sand
I'm a long way from home and I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain with nowhere to go

An apt theme for a rainy morning. Though anyway after listing all those songs that have to do with rain, I just realized that most of them are sad songs. I wonder if the portrayal of rain is as gloomy as that. Granted, too much rain is not good but occasional rain is fine. I love the smell of rain on freshly cut grass, but I definitely dislike the smell of rain hitting the hot tarmac road (now I sound more or less like my brother's recent entry on rain). Still cloudy and rainy outside...

Thursday, February 23, 2006

A Day In The Life Of A Nadiah Part 1

10.30am:
Ms. L: Diah you wait over at the office for our new tractor and then you go to PI and ask our boys to get the old tractor up on the lorry to be repaired
Diah: Okay Ms. L

1.30pm:
Pakcik Lori: Dik, ni traktor nak hantar mana?
Diah: Kejap ye pakcik, saya turun, tunjuk pakcik site.

2.00pm: Phonecall
Mr. L: Diah how's things with the tractor?
Diah: The pakcik lori is showing our workers how to drive and take care of it
Mr. L: Okay good. I'm on my way there actually.

Pakcik lori: Awak ada kren ke nak angkat traktor rosak tu?
Diah: Orang tolak boleh kan?
Pakcik Lori: Boleh tapi maunya nak 8 orang
Diah: 5 orang tak boleh?
Pakcik Lori: Tak bolehla berat

and then come the boss
Mr. L: Okay all done here, sana mau angkat traktor 4 orang boleh kan?
Pakcik Lori: Boleh
Diah: *dalam hati (aik, tadi cakap lain)
Mr L: Okaylah of that's the case you arrange lah

2.00pm: PI
Diah: Okay tolak.....
after few minutes
Anto: Tak boleh lah kak, berat bangat
Pakcik lori: hah tu la saya dah cakap maunya nak 8 orang
Diah: *dalam hati (Eeeeee depan bos cakap lain)

phonecall
Mr. L: Diah, how is it?
Diah: Stuck at the bottom, hard to push it up to the lorry, Mr L
Mr. L: If that's the case ah, you go around the site and see if you could ask help from any jcb (backhoe). You kenyit-kenyit sure dapat punya - laughs
Diah: *dalam hati (aisehmen)

10 minutes later
Aha, a jcb and 4 workers resting
Diah: Bang, mintak tolong boleh?
Anonymous JCB operator: Tolong apa?
Diah: Tolong tolakkan traktor naik lori. Orang saya tak cukup
Anonymous JCB operator: Jauh tak?
Diah: Tak, sebelah sales office aje.
Anonymous JCB operator: Okay no hal punya.
And they pushed.....

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*meaow meaow meaow meaow

Diah: Siapa pulak ni... hello?
Someone from my not very distant past: Apa khabar awak?
Diah: Baik
SFMNVDP: Busy ke
Diah: Busy
SFMNVDP: Pagi tadi pun busy jugak, penat-penat saya call awak
Diah: Baru sekali pagi tadi dah penat? Been a month already, no calls, sms tak balas, no nothing, ingat awak dah pergi Miri and already married to your mother's choice.
SFMNVDP: Saya still kat KL. Awak pun tak call saya.
Diah: I don't know where I stand, and cara awak cakap last time pun macam endah tak endah aje. Awak, saya nak kena hantar workers saya balik.
SFMNVDP: Bila lagi saya boleh call?
Diah: Entahlah. Saya pergi dulu *and disconnected the phone.

That's all folks

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Finally

After pestering Sue and Bangbil on all the 'how to', I managed to upload Arashi's Yes, No into my blog, yeay!! Honestly, even though I only understand little bits of the songs, I just love the beat and of course there are always english translation on the net so it's not that difficult understand the message.
Drag... site measurement tomorrow...

Sunday, February 19, 2006

What's My Age Again?

My mak is away for the weekend for my cousin's wedding at Serdang. I didn't go because of work but I would certainly go during the double reception in March. Yesterday was Ijal's wedding, next month would be Yus'. Fairuz and Faizal Hussin, no kidding, just don't mistake them for the celebrity siblings. They're both males hence for the double reception.

The bittorrent was a drag, I was expecting my downloads to be done today but I guess not. Apparently there were not enough seeders online. So anyway I found myself reading Hana Yori Dango comics and watching Arashi concert the whole morning (MatsuJun!!! Aishiteru!!!). Then it hit me. Boy, I'm nearing 25 but still going goo goo gaa gaa on a band - thanks to my friend & collegue Aidah and her sisters who kept on supplying me with Arashi stuff. At this instance, I have a very strong feeling that she's having her first driving class. Intensive driving for 3 hours. Hope she's doing well since she was asking me a lot about driving yesterday. I hope she understands my analogy of scales on the clutch-accelerator control. And then I learnt how to spell my name in Japanese.

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Cool isn't it? That's only my first name actually.

Then I was bloghopping to everyone in my list, finding myself laughing silly at Zamose's entry on finger expression, smirking at Dayah's entry, hoping for the rest to just update their blogs hehehe and feeling melancholic at Sue's entry since she was talking about our secondary school friends. In school we were known for our obsession (whoa strong choice of word) on BSB - though I guess some of us managed to outgrow that fact (ye ke?). Let me see if I still remember it - Eena, Esah, Intan: Nick, Sue: A.J, Along: Brian, yours truly: Howie D... I forgot if anyone gone bonkers on Kevin... oh yeah, Harlin: Kevin.

16 years old trapped in the body of a 24. I'd better grow up, hahahaha.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Last Night

On a working weekday, you could expect me to sleep at 9 and then wake up at 2 to do some work I brought home. As for today, I woke up to a very peaceful dream. I dreamt that my arwah atuk came back wearing white, looking very healthy, wearing her sun-shade, very sweet fragrance with a very peaceful face smiling at all of us at home. Dayah and her whole family was in it too as if everyone was there to greet atuk back. Subhanallah.
Moga Allah mencucuri rahmat arwah atuk.
Al-Fatihah.
It has been nearly 3 years I think.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Work In Progress

Behold.

My desk.

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It is impossible to get the desk neat and clean for more than an hour. There you go, genius at work, hahahaha. Time to get back to the papers staring at me right now. Ciao

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Freaky Friday

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Image from www.ristoklint.com

Yesterday morning as I was driving the workers to one of our sites in Tebrau, by some freaky chance I witnessed 2 minor accidents by drivers who 'didn't-know-how-to-budget-their-car-while-overtaking-the-others'. One was between a Toyota and a Waja, the other was a Mercedes and a Wira. The foreign cars were just scratched but yet again the damage on those 2 Protons were bad. It was already a common knowledge that most Proton are not hardy. When I was 5 or 6 a Proton Saga crashed into my mom's Morris Minor. My mom's car was only scratched, the Proton Saga looked like it smashed into an electric post.

And then my phone fell off the dashboard. It didn't manage to detect the sim card after the fall which is a surprise since it survived numerous fall harder than that one. The phone is old. Bought it since 5th July 2003. Thats the date on the battery sticker since I managed to smash the original housing on the edge of the desk in lecture class after a month using it. I'm not going to say that I am going to buy a new one as last time I just thought of it, my old Nokia 3210 was stolen in a bus ride. Just hope this one would stay until I couldn't even use it. After a few knocks, the phone went okay. *sighs, I really love my LG5300 even though the silver colour at the battery side already faded from my hand mark. I have never changed the battery unlike last time, I changed the 3210 battery 4 times in 3 years before I lost it. The phone is still good, minus the 'can't detect sim' hiccup that it gave me once in a while.

In the past, mobile phones are not a necessity. Time changed and seems like it is impossible for anyone not to have one. I need one for work since my bosses, the workers and I could communicate from the sites we have, chasing for suppliers, etc. For this weekend, I'm just going to spend it with my uncle's family. Going to go around with my cousin Irra for her new phone, so I'm just going to stay at the sideline and survey while I'm at it.

And today... aaargh.. I just have to stay over supervising at the site for a VIP visit for the grand launch of one of the housing developments that we take care of. Happy weekend \(^_^)/

Sunday, February 05, 2006

And The Weekend Ends

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This is the part of the day when I think of the things that I have done for the weekend. I guess that this would be the very first time when I found myself feeling bored on a Sunday. I don't know what went wrong but the Streamyx line have been going on a havoc. There were no connection as afternoon comes until just now. My mind went on a dead end on my story and so does the showhouse design that is due next Tuesday, so I read Odd Thomas - Dayah, kita dah habis baca :p

It was about a guy named Odd Thomas (like duh) with a special gift of seeing the unseen (I see dead people, LOL). Everything at the town of Pico Mundo seemed fine until Odd saw a man whom he called Fungus Man was followed by hoards of bodachs. Think the movie 'The Eye' when the girl saw black figure waiting for the dead, only that in this case the bodachs were only attracted to menace and horrific deaths. The ending however was a sad one. Guess that's why my intuition was telling me to put the book on a hold... but not for as long as 2 years, hehehe.

Finishing that, I went to town buying some toiletries just to kill time. No bookstores to hang out at since all the bookstores here are selling school books and comics. I'm thinking next weekend, I definitely have to go somewhere - preferably with a bookstore, or hunting for Hana Yori Dango manga collection on dvd ;)

Okay since I'm still in the HYD mood, here's the translation for Ai Otsuka's Planetarium. I definitely love the song.

Evening approaches and the voices of night-smiling children fades
I know that you are somewhere under this sky, far, far away
At summer's end, we snuck away together, we found this park
I kind of remember that constellation

Even if I don't meet you, I can search for memories
Of the same sort of happiness.
Both the smell and fireworks going "bang"

I want to go to where you are
I want to start running there soon
I can't see anything in the inky darkness
Even if I'm scared I'll be okay
The wisdom of this clear sky
Is here now all the time.
I didn't cry when I saw you in the past
Because the sky was clear.

Daily, from that road over there, I can only hear one sound.
Maybe you'll stare at your big shadow.
It is not in the least expected to change.
A sad feeling expands inside you.
This is the "you're not there" kind of feeling.

I really want to go and be next to you
Even though I am really, really small
I love you the most
I can be strong
I suddenly try to make a wish on a falling star
Maybe I'll reach the point where I don't cry
In a clear sky.

Even if I'm not with you, I can search for memories
Of the same sort of happiness.
Like the smell, together with fireworks going "bang"

I want to go to your place (The place that is with you...)
A small hand clenching yours,
I want to cry, that is a beautiful sky.
I try to make a wish on a falling star
Under this sky, I don,t think that I want to cry.

Hana Yori Dango

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One manga, 2 adaptations on tv - the well known Meteor Garden in Taiwan and the recently released Hana Yori Dango in Japan.

Conclusion - I'm smitten by both (though I love MatsuJun better playing Tsukasa than Jerry Yan playing Dao Ming Si).

The plot: Kind of like a modern day Cinderella with guts, minus the helpless shoe-lost scene. Put a middle-class girl in a high class school ruled by 4 spoilt rich brats and you get a very interesting story. Whoever offends the well-known F4 group at school would get a red tag and would be bullied mercilessly by the rest of the students. Kind of like kissing the F4's feet to the extreme since their families were the most powerful contributors to the school. Makino Tsukushi was the transfer student, very low profile, trying her best not to cause any trouble and graduate. Her plan changed when she defended her only friend, Sakurako whom accidentally spilled orange juice on Domyouji Tsukasa, the leader of F4 at the cafeteria during lunchtime.

She was, as predicted, received the red tag the next morning and the torture began. Since her family were cutting corners to the extreme at home just for her to attend Eitoku, quitting the school would be bad. She went through it courageously with indirect help from Hanazawa Rui, the quiet F4 member and managed to keep her cool- until Tsukasa threw her lunch on the floor and stepped on the shrimp (looks to me more like a lobster than a shrimp in the scene) that her mom put into her bento. Then she decked Tsukasa and declared war.

How does it end? for those who already watched Meteor Garden, it won't go through the same plot. As always, I won't tell :D

Acting wise, Hana Yori Dango is definitely better than Meteor Garden. MatsuJun nailed the character Tsukasa with flair (I prefer his hair better in Gokusen), and as for Oguri Shun who played Hanazawa Rui, who would have thought that he was Uchiyama Hirohiko in Gokusen? In Gokusen, he was boisterous, LOUD, stubborn and way too naughty. In Hana Yori Dango, he was quiet and mysterious. One of the highlights of HYD is that Nanako Matsushima acted as Domyouji Tsubaki, Tsukasa's 'always-hitting-her-baby-brother' sister. My brother likes HYD better because, as he said - 'Tsukushi is cuter and the F4 in HYD is less faggotty than Meteor Garden's F4, but nevertheless still faggot'. He couldn't stand watching Meteor Garden even for 5 minutes but he waited for my downloads to finish for HYD.

Plot wise, Meteor Garden is better than HYD, probably because HYD cramped everything in 9 episodes - and of course because of the different ending. The songs are great and I definitely love the song Planetarium by Ai Otsuka and of course, Wish by MatsuJun's group Arashi.

Definitely a must see - if you like teen drama, thee hee hee

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Trivia

Well, a trivia before I do my Maghrib prayers and baca yassin.

Whose hands does this belong to?

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Answer: scroll down
















Answer: From L to R - my hand, A'an's hand

Kind of disconcerting that my brother's hands are wayyyyyy fairer than mine. It's like a black and white kind of contrast. And he's a guy!!! Correction - as quoted by him just know "I'm an artist and I take care of my tools." Barf!

Oh well, I work outdoors.