I wished this post could be titled “Joyful January” but I’m really done for January and really looking forward to a fabulous February with Chinese New Year on next Thursday, 7^th February 2008. Fabulous as in having the entire week off only having to go back to work (dirty word) on Wednesday, 13^th February 2008! Yeah!

It’s the Year of the Rat in this Chinese lunar year but unfortunately there are still plenty of ‘pigs’ around and there was another encounter with one the other morning who thinks his father or grandfather owns the road. *sigh*

Sometimes it can be hard to control the urge to scratch or throw a rock … *sigh*

On a much more pleasant note, I am almost done with the kayaking trips posts for January uploaded to our revamped www.kuchingkayak.com and you can check out them all out in the January 2008 Archive. I am glad that I’d revamped the site as it is now so much easier to update and we can now easily post the photos for our guests to download at their leisure there. They don’t have to come and search every corner here leafing through my lame posts and rantings …

Anyway I trust that your January was much better and here’s wishing you a fabulous February and may the only pigs you encounter are the roasted or BBQ kind!

On account of work and other factors, I’ve been away from the waters for nearly a month now. This is a deplorable situation and if I don’t kayak soon I think my spirit will be toast! *sigh*

What sustains me on the kayaking bit is Huey’s juicy dangling carrot of ‘paddling the super volcano’ in March which I’m hoping that all will go accordingly to plans and which you’ll get to read all about it here that’s for sure … eventually!

The ‘toast’ sustenance bit is easy - what with “Kayak & Toast” opening their 4^th outlet in Satok in addition to their existing outlets at Central Park, Petanak (where I frequent due to easy parking and spacious airy interior - they’re not air-conditioned) and Tabuan Jaya. In conjunction with the Satok outlet opening they have also launched the latest addition to their menu, the traditional and much loved Malaysian dish, Nasi Lemak Special and Tuna Sandwich.

For the ignorant ‘angmohs‘ amongst you - the Nasi Lemak Special comprise of rice steamed with coconut milk accompanied by sambal, marinated chicken drumstick, fried egg, peanuts, anchovies, pickles and topped with papadum cracker. Yeah, all the right ingredients designed to raise your blood cholesterol! So if you’re health conscious or “kia-si”, stick to the Tuna Sandwich made up of bread filled with tuna, garden-fresh salad greens and cucumber - or at least that’s what Kaya & Toast’s director, Joseph Tan claims. But don’t take his or my words for it - go check them out yourself and their prices wouldn’t break the bank either.

I must be getting bolder and bolder with age (or just plain old foolhardy!) - first I switched this blog from the blogger to the WordPress platform and now I have completely re-vamped my Kuching Kayak website all in the first few weeks of 2008! This is the ‘old website’ which I put up in 2006 with the kind help of Kawaras - much appreciation and thanks Khairul!

I like my old Kuching Kayak Website but once I get too comfortable with something, I tend to get worried!

And now this is the ‘new website’ which I’ve set up using a WordPress magazine style template called WP Magazine Theme 1.0 that I purchased from solostream.com. I’ve been working on it most evenings since last week and finally over this weekend, I managed to get almost all the things that I would like to have up on the site mostly done. I hope you like it and your comments would be appreciated so that I can fine-tune it, if I can(!) - but it’s really a cool and easy to use template. Thanks Michael Pollock! I trust that the change is for the better as I don’t think Michael Pollock will give me a refund! Hmm.

There were several reasons why I decided to re-vamp the Kuching Kayak website even though it has served me well.

• I wanted to make the website more dynamic instead of the current static pages.
• I hope that with this revised website, I’ll get more visitors and hence more people getting to know about our exciting trips through the rain forest jungles of Borneo. I’ve also re-named it so that the title will be more search engine friendly.
• I wanted to be able to easily post thumbnail photos of our guests whom we have taken photos of so that they can easily download them from this site.
• I wanted to blog about the trips taken by our guests here instead of at my blog.
• I am also contemplating blogging here instead of at my current blog FH2o: Kuching Kayaking to drive more traffic here as I get over 10 times more traffic from my blog rather than here. I hope things will change from now onwards with the revamped website. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway I’m glad I ‘worked on’ my blog and Kuching Kayak website as we’ll never get anything done in life if we procrastinate or worry about our world falling apart if we try something new or terrifying. Here’s wishing you all courage and luck in 2008 and may it be a productive and prosperous one for you! Be Well.

It rained heavily early this morning and put to rest any plans I had to go kayaking and so I stayed home instead to work on the new website for Kuching Kayak Sdn Bhd which I shall talk about more tomorrow.

Trusting that even if your Sunday had been wet that it was still a fruitful and enjoyable one.

Minced pork & century old egg porridge is preferable anytime to tactless & thoughtless emails.

I’m no English Professor but compared to some of my colleagues I would qualify as one but I think a lack of command of the language is no excuse for the tactless email that was sent companywide to “All Staff” with regards to the euphemistically titled “Staff Movement” whereby the ‘movement’ of 4 staff were mentioned.

This ‘movement’ was defined as ‘promotion’ and ‘reassigned’; which is fine except that the author went on to congratulate 2 on their ‘deserving promotion’ while remaining silent with regards to the other 2 who were ‘reassigned’, leaving the recipients of the email to perhaps guess or conclude that the other 2 must be demoted!

I find this email to be distasteful if not in poor form but mostly I think a reflection of thoughtlessness as well as perhaps a lack of understanding about the finer points of the English language. You may sit down now students. *sigh*

Note: Chinese New Year is less than 2 weeks away now and this being the Year of the Rat, I was looking for photos of mice that I have taken in the past that I was contemplating to use as a header montage when I remembered this old post of the 16th May 2006 that have some nice pictures of mice and which I’m re-posting below. Click here to go to the original post if you want to read the (old) comments.

I was most pleasantly surprised when I chanced upon the only sensible music video I had seen for a long time on trashy MTV and Channel V. Not that I really watch them at all as they’re getting more and more semi-pornographic which really turns me off. It was Pink’s ‘Stupid Girls’ and she reflected my sentiments exactly. She’s sick of the current scene too.

What with all the young girls aspiring to look and dress scantily like prostitutes these days from the images they get from the music videos. I really do not understand why any female would want to debase and degrade themselves to look like that to impress the guys. You are a thinking person, not an object. Duh! If that’s not stupid I really do not know how to call it, name it or label it. All these young (and not so young) girls had been brainwashed and wants branded attires only and their role models are celebrities like Paris Hilton and the slutty likes. Is it a proud feeling that the whole world has seen you having sex? The strays on our streets do that too!

Yes; guess what - they all wanna be the same! Mindlessly mimicking their favourite celebrities. Whatever happened to individuality and the ability to think for oneself? To be true to who we are and not what other people would be ‘impressed’ with who we think they think we are. Surely we are not what we dress and what we own right? You are defined by what brands you wear or use and the latest handphones? This is massive brain hemorrhage …

Look at the pictures of white mice I took at the pet shop the other day. The aimless mindless but cute and pretty looking mice. All looking exactly the same. But look closer; as I did and you’ll notice that there are amongst them one or two brown colour ones. But unlike the mice we can choose to be who we are and not mindlessly following what the adverts and media are telling us. This warrants as much serious thought as John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men“.

Be who you are by discovering your authentic self and be free. And (unlike George) you don’t even have to kill anyone to achieve this!

Somewhere on a river in Sarawak and a long way from San Jose.

Diem Tran, 25 and Cam Tu Nguyen, 24 of Vietnamese heritage but who hails from San Jose, USA obviously do. However they do not know the way to Krokong, Bau where they went for our rain forest kayaking adventure trip with Azmi on Saturday, 19th January 2008 and ended up at the Wind Cave, Bau. Whichever way you looked at it - it was an adventurous holiday to remember forever.

But some of you are probably too young to know this famous Dionne Warwick’s song; so here goes:

My wife was stung in the palm of her hand early this morning just as she was opening the car door to get out. She shook off the wasp in a reflex action sending the wasp to the ground which she promptly (and wisely) stepped on to advert any further attack.

As her hand and arm swelled up, she sought medical attention and was given a jab, ointment and some medication to take.

I would do well to heed this incident as a warning about possible ‘attacks’ from unexpected quarters with a lot of nervous people at work from the uncertainty arising from an insane abrupt change in our senior management which is not so pretty. Not at all. *sigh*

Thoughtless and selfish drivers are not the exclusive domain of assholes driving expensive car but also stewpig losers who are totally unconscious of their actions causing nuisances and inconveniences to other road users; as I have the misfortune to witness while having my Sunday morning ‘kuey chap’ breakfast at Foo Chow Road No.1 watching this ass sitting in his red SLK (Stewpig Little Kancil) awaiting his takeaway oblivious to the cars struggling to get out of their parking lots with him blocking the way.

Different cars and economic background, but the same sickening low-level mentality. *sigh*

We were chatting about autocratic leadership and how some of our superiors would like us to be “yes men” to be seen but not heard and good old Charlie pointed out to me that the full saying should be “Yes sir, no sir, 3 bags full sir!” although he has no idea where it came from.

Well, it’s truly appropriate the saying on how we are condescendingly being treated like children would come from from a well-known children nursery rhyme “Baa baa black sheep”.