Coolcat's Jottings

I got bored of exercising at home. There is so much one can take staring blankly at the four white walls and Denise Austin, the slave driver, chirping out, "I know you can do it! Give it your 110%! You'll look good. You'll feel good. Because you are worth it." Bleh.

I missed the green green grass of Kiara Park, Klang Hill and the likes of it. The invigorating fresh air. The feeling of being one with nature again.

And now that I'm a proud owner of an MP3 player, I thought it was high time to venture out into the 'wilds' again. Yeah, I'm a creature of comfort. The thought of trawling through traffic, fighting for space to park my car, battling with mosquitoes and the perennial evening rain was responsible in making me settle for exercising at home thus far.

But like I said, I was getting bored of that scene. And the thought of brisk walking at the serene and peaceful Kiara Park while listening to KT Turnstall and Sheryl Crow was just too thrilling to resist.

So I went for my first evening walk in ages. Alone. It's funny because most of my friends who heard that I went for an evening walk was surprised that I went alone. I suppose it would have been a boring affair trudging along the beaten path without a companion to pant or yak with. But who needs an exercising companion when you have a Zen?

And I really did have a most wonderful time sweating it out and de-stressing all at the same time. Nothing beats getting out of the confines of the gym (home or otherwise) and getting a great workout in such a pretty leafy place.

Two tips to remember:

1. Always bring a bottle of insect repellant along


2. Don't look, I repeat, do NOT look at the park monkeys in the eye.

We watched a sort-of movie last night during cell. In a house that had absolutely no white bare walls. Impossible, you say? Not when you have resourceful folks in the group like I do.

You would need the following items:

1. A projector - thanks, Eugene!


2. A laptop - thanks, Ju!


3. A white blanket - thanks, Nianci!


4. And of course, the vcd n snacks

And voila, you now have a cineplex right at the comforts of your home.

Cool, eh?

When Gmail first offered 1Gb of free e-mail space, their tag line was something like this - 'You never need to delete another mail again!' In that day and age where Yahoo!'s 10Mb and Hotmail's pathetic 2Mb of email space reigned, 1Gb was really the nirvana of all free web-based emails.

I've got my first Gmail account on 21st June 2004. And today on 21st April 2006, I reached that enigmatic 1Gb of space. It took me nearly two years, but I finally debunked the myth of that 1Gb is all you'd ever need.

But wait. Gmail has been increasing their space allocation bit by bit every day. To date, I have 2.716Gb of mail space, which means that with my current 1Gb worth of mails, I'm only utilizing 37% of my total mail space. I still don't have to delete any mails - hurrah!!!

I used to fret over running out of email space at Yahoo and heed the warnings sent for me to clear out my mails. Being a sentimental person doesn't help. Which of these precious emails should I delete? With Gmail, that is a thing of the past. I've been fret-free for almost two years now. No more frown lines anymore, people.

The people at Gmail are really smart. They know that free space, like money, is never enough. Bless their hearts!

Coincidentally, this post is labelled post #999. That's one more post before I hit the 1Gb mark on my webby. Imagine that, 1000 entries thus far folks. Wow!!

A friend asked me if I had a chance to relive my past, at which point would I go back to?

My answer would be, I wouldn't want to go back to my past. Even being forearmed with hindsight and what-nots, I have no intentions of changing anything - even the horrible mistakes I made. This is because I believe that everything happened for a purpose. The mistakes I made in the past made me the person I am today. While I may not be fantastically fascinated or overly awed with who I am now, I have come to love and accept myself in ways I never thought were possible. I've come so far, I really don't want to start all over again, re-learning lessons that I learned the hard way in the past.

Me, I'm more excited about the future. I want to see what God has in store for me. The past is the past. I don't want to go back there, no matter how nice a moment it was. I already know how it will end. Kinda like watching the first two episodes of Star Wars knowing that Anakin would end up being bad by episode 3.

See, if I had the chance to go back to my past and undo some decisions that I think were mistakes, I probably would not be where I'm working today. I probably wouldn't have met some of you, made the close friends that I have today. And even those friends whom I have made and lost over the years, I don't think I even want to re-do that. If my life was not touched by them, it would not be rich in experience as it is now.

So I'm thankful for the past. I do not want to relive it. I made my mistakes, I have come to the point of accepting them and I have moved on and grown in some of my struggles. I look forward to growing some more in future. Meeting more folks. Doing more meaningful things. Write more words that will give life rather than detract. Being more confident in bracing the unknown - one tiny step forward at a time.

On the way back yesterday, I saw this awesome sight - a double rainbow after a torrent of rain. Took out my Ixus and snapped it like a shot. How wonderful, how timely it was. For rainbows are a reminder of God's promises to us.

I had this for lunch today. And a photo shoot to go. It was a rush job, really. My friend WG wanted to test out his brand new Nikon digital SLR and I was the chosen guinea pig. Goodness knows why. Not that I'm a narcissist or anything. And not that I like posing and terribly vain-pottish stuff like that. But still. It is an honor.

WG thought of the perfect place to take my shots. A nice bungalow that has been converted to a quaint eating place near my office - RumahKu, which means 'My House' in Malay. Very aptly named, I feel.

After getting to that place, parking, showing off and trying out our new gadgets, yakking, ordering lunch, posing inside the place and eating lunch, we had approximately 6 minutes to take the outdoor shots. Talk about having lunch and a photo shoot on the run.

Below are the results of our 'Run and Shoot' efforts. Bear in mind, the model had no makeup on because she wasn't expecting to have a photo shoot session today. Thanks WG for the pics and lunch. You rawk!

And you are bad for letting me indulge in narcissism in such epic proportions such as this lar But what a blast of a lunch hour we had, eh? Hee!

Images From My Ixus 40


What I ate


Inside RumahKu


My Favourite Shots From WG's Nikon Digital SLR - They are untouched in any way except for the resize bit. Click on the pics for the bigger versions