Obsession with branding could be noted among them, which turned into humor when they describe their day in brands through the often imitated, Dear Jane Sample’s Fun with Brands.

This got a few of my chuckles, too.

I’ll leave it to your kind interpretation. And perhaps I might attempt the same too, when I have the time.

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

And then, the slightly different version, by Mother Theresa, as inscribed on the wall of her children’s home in Calcutta:

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Me: Our kids won’t be like that.
Her: Yeah, they’ll talk Ruby and Perl.

And I was told that I laughed the hardest she has ever heard.

One could’ve imagined for a restaurant with a typical 4-hour queue and managed to offer a ludicuruosly expensive dessert could afford at least a decent sanitary practice.

I mean, is it really too hard to pay a regular visit to the cold and damp areas to check on vermins?

And by the way, here’s a recipe for the famed Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, courtesy of Oprah.

Halfway through development, I was introduced to PHP3 and MySQL. And I feel there’s no need to continue working on it. It’s been sitting on my hard drive for ages until I decided to release it after those years. It may not be relevant nowadays in the world of complex CMSes and stuff, but who knows, somebody might find a use there :)

I’ll let you judge it yourself:

The list of Guestbook entries page, with a link to the Add new entry page. This will be the where the visitors get to view and add entries.

The GuestMaster Admin screen. This is where you get to manage the posts. Username: admin, Password: admin. The change password function won’t work, though.

And the download links:

GuestMaster 0.1 Beta, Gzipped Tarball, 11kB

GuestMaster 0.1 Beta, Zipped, 16kB

I wouldn’t recommend you using it in production environment as it is not tested. Besides, it is flawed security-wise on many areas. I trust you people to figure it out in a short time.

I am offering this script with no warranty. No support or whatever. Use it at your own risk.

The day before ‘Eid, we went shopping. While browsing through the departmental store, I found these:

Pilsbury’s Devil’s Food Cake mix, for the unholy ones out there.

And Buddha Jumps Over the Wall is the one that made me laugh really hard.

Her: how far and long uve been seperated from her?
Me: her who?
Her: ur mom lah
Me: i guess since birth.
Her: …
Her: *cubit*
Me: what
Me: betul laa

That is why the number of times the soles peel off, I’d superglue it back on. Some of my friends even advised me to get a new pair (can’t say I’d disagree, it is 4 years old and worn already) and each time I defended the shoe. It’s comfortable and I like it.

Update: I’ve posted images of the mutilated shoe.

Also I’ve got it all set up like a slip-on shoe. No need to fumble with retying the laces. And if you live in Malaysia and you visit many offices a day, this will save you precious time.

Till one day…

I was getting ready for work when I noticed that my left sneaker is missing.

Before that, allow me to highlight the nature of my house. I live in a two-storey shophouse. I have to climb a flight of stairs to reach home and as I’m living in a typical Malaysian house, footwears aren’t allowed inside the house. I put my shoe at the topmost step.

Imagine how odd the situation would’ve appeared to me. No thief would settle for a left shoe. Especially when they’re neatly placed side-by-side. And I wouldn’t think anybody would think to steal my shoe. It’s not remotely attractive at all. I’ve brought it along to mosques and other public functions and it has never been stolen.

As my home is also a tuition centre (my mom teaches,) and we receive guests almost all the time, it is quite normal to have footwears scattered down the stairs, kicked around by those brats. So I searched at the bottom, and outside. It might be under one of the cars parked outside.

But Nada.

I went to work with a pair of sandals. Then when I returned home at night, mother brought to me the news of my other pair:

Mom: Omar tau tak kasut lagi satu tu kat mana?
Me: Mana?
Mom: Kat belakang rumah, dekat dengan kedai keranda. Mak selalu lalu-lalang situ masa nak pegi pasar perasan ada sebelah kasut kulit kat situ. Sebelah je lak tu. Dah tiga kali mak perasan.
Me: Laa…
Mom: Mak ingat anjing bawak lari la. Mak ingat nak bawak balik, tapi tengok kat belakang kasut tu dah koyak-koyak kena gigit, mak biarkan aje.
Me: Dah memang patut kena carik kasut baru dah pun. Biar je la.

I think I’ll keep the other pair, in memory of the faithful sneaker.

Here are the pictures of the aforementioned victim. I hunted for it according to mom’s directions. It did not take long:

Him: nak tau satu kisah?
Me: apa kisah?
Him: ada la sorang kwn aku ni.
Him: dekat status y! dia.
Him: “i love you 218.111.150.10″
Him: 218 tu IP awek dia.
Him: ahahaha.
Him: ini sudah kronik.
Me: WTF

I don’t know about you, but this is just sick.