Brewing Now

People often call me mean. Fresh calls me mean when I hug Michelle instead of her. I'm called mean when I refuse to let other cars cut in my lane. I'm mean when I cock-stare little kids making an unnecessary amount of noise in the general public. Well, guess what! I'm not mean!! *injured look*

Say Hi to Audrey Chan Hep Burn

Those weird scribbles on my left hand are the 7 sins: Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Pride, Wrath and I dunno la, 2 more that I don't remember. Gettit, Devil = sins ? Hardly anybody got it :( I think perhaps because halfway through the night, it got warmer and warmer (guests very generously brought beer instead of food) and I think the eyeliner eventually smeared off T_T So I went around most of the night with a dirty arm T______T

This is my WATCHU LOOKING AT face, or as some would say Yong Sui :(

Please excuse my tulan face in the photo, this was the only photo I could find on Facebook with the right side of my face in view. Instead, please take note of the markings around my eye. Okay, because I wanted to add a little something to my cliche costume of devil horns & trident thing, so I decided to go a bit tribal-devil and add some weird ass markings on my face. I grabbed a random photo that I thought would be easy to draw, and got Audrey Itomaki to draw it on for me.

The rest of the night, people ignored my DEVIL HORNS, POKE-Y TRIDENT, and instead asked me "eh, you Mike Tyson ah?" FML .

How la, you tell me, how la to be evil.

But even then, I'm picking up hints everywhere around me on how to be more assertive, and strict *strict face* It doesn't help that I realize more strongly how unfair and tedious and unkind the world can really be :(

I can now understand why there are so many people who resent big huge MNCs and call them soulless corporations with no heart. I recently switched to a brand spanking new BB (corporate sial) but it was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. I wanted to maintain loyalty to my long-time telco (cheh loyalty my ass, I was actually just damn lazy to read and understand new phone plans :( ) and after some Q&A sessions with telco people during their roadshow, I got my BB packaged with a Data plan. It was then that all things mobile & wonderful were revealed to me *_*

To be honest, I succumbed to the Black Army in the office, but I have few regrets about it. The BBM features are a win no matter what, no other phones have that feature, and iPhone's Whats App is a serious lag and fail because FatFingers don't do well on touchscreen. But the big difference was that I suddenly became totally in touch with the constant communication that is the Internet. For instance, I don't think I've emailed/chatted with Rubee but I've tweeted @rubeeshareen from UberTwitter more times than I can count. I can word mole with Fresh at night even if she's in a dodgy Cybercafe in KL and I'm in my bedroom in the suburbs. I've BBM-ed Kareen to buy that classy black trench/blazer while she was shopping in London.

And I have absolutely no hesitation in downloading lots of useless junk like 1 level games, weather applications, animated themes for my phone because tadahhhh! my data plan is unlimited!

This in contrast to my old clunk of a Dopod, kononnya a smartphone, but good god, it had pretty much the functions as an old school monophonic Nokia phone. I didn't get a data plan for that phone because it was all too expensive and I alread found the Windows Mobile system to be near impossible to understand, let alone troubleshoot connection problems. I finally gave up when I asked a technician to help me connect to the internet via the Dopod and he gave me a blank look. As it turned out later, there was an error with either the phone's software or hardware, but I never bothered to send it for repairs because data plans were just too expensive! They charge something like Rm 0.01/Rm 0.10 per kb okay, so one website would be like frigging Rm3 or something like that.

So finally I got myself a decent phone + data plan. I rushed down to the mall to take advantage of the CNY promotion because it was going to end that day itself, settled all the bills then realized I would have to switch accounts because my dad was the principal holder. It took me 2 hours just to line up to switch accounts, which took 5 minutes -_____-All in all, I was at the mall dealing with all this for 5 hours -_________________________-""""". But I had a new phone at the end of it, and a pretty good deal for my data plan.

Then the next day I find out evil soulless corporation is still running their CNY promotion. So I rushed like mad yesterday for nothing.

Then the next week DiGi comes out with their BB & data plan and after calculating, in 2 years, DiGi's promotion would have come out to half of what I paid. If ooonnnlyyyy I had held out for 1 more week!

Now THAT's evil T_T

"I like it on the floor."

I've been following service industry blogs since the blogging phenomenon exploded into a blogosphere of epic proportions. WaiterRant, BarmaidBlog, and even a NYC escort girl, that I eventually lost track of.

But it wasn't until I joined Starbucks that I did some searching and stumbled upon BaristaBrat. The longer I was at Starbucks, the more I noticed universal trends that happen in Starbucks outlets across the yuppie-filled regions of the world.

Crazy stories of people coming up with devious schemes to get free refills (thank God not many people know about this. I think it only applied to morning COW during my time), behind-the-bar stories, and irrational customers who think they're entitled to 5 star service because they are paying a premium price for coffee.

I think the rational of the 'I'm paying a high price for this coffee/beverage and your salary, so you should GET ME WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW' deserves to be smooshed into their pretentious Venti COW which they end up sharing between 2 people or more because they're too cheap to buy 2 cups of coffee.

When Rachel asked me 'what was the worst experience I had in Starbucks' during Winter CFWM class, I thought of a few.

Difficulty getting drinks right during my first few days of training? Nah, Su was riding my ass, but I eventually picked it up after a couple of days and was quite the killer on the cold beverages, if I do say so myself.

The boredom in Pearl Point outlet? PP was a totally different environment alright, with more than its fair share of Cina-pek uncles who camp out at the lobby with his COW (at least he always bought one) for hours, and occasional nasty Middle Eastern tourists who, on the upside, spent loads of cash on everything.

But none beat that one crazy-busy afternoon in MV when I lashed out.

That one crazy-busy afternoon when I was stationed at the Point-Of-Sale (POS/register) and the afternoon crowd line was snaking out the cafe doors. An Indian middle-aged man with a beer belly and cross-eyes comes up to me. He's holding a Venti COW and points to one of the small round tables at the corner of the store, near the merchandise display racks.

"Miss, can you please clean my table?"

I pause momentarily while handling cash from a customer, marking cups, and shouting orders.
"Er, sure, of course sir. I'll just.." and gestured at the line of customers, but he's already walking away, and sits at the table.

I go back to juggling the swarm of customers, and I call out for a clean up for the man's table, but every other single barista is busy running their own post.

Less than a minute later, the man comes back up to me (me why me, there are 2 registers!) and is obviously miffed that I didn't attend to his beck and call immediately.

"Miss! My table! I-"

"Yes sir, I know, JUST A MINUTE" I stiff-smile at him while giving him a pop-eyed look as I'm juggling the register, orders, making fresh COW because we've just run out, and running the food area. The bar is now running full steam, orders being flung out left right centre, and the espresso machines going full throttle.Again I call out for the clean up, because the new #1 rule for the POS post is that YOU DON'T LEAVE YOUR STATION. EVER. New fangled station rulings from the HQ.

The last straw hits when he comes back up and the moment I make eye contact with him, he lets loose.

"MISS! I've asked you to clean my table already! Why you think you can ignore me is it?! I work for The Sun, you know! I know your boss, I'm going to write a complaint then you get fired, and then you don't blame me! What is this, I paid for my coffee already! I'm going to write about this, who do you think you are?!"

I am stunned at this outburst and when he pulls out his press pass I literally feel my jaw go slack. Not from awe that this man works at a newspaper, but because his abuse of the power of the press was just amazingly... stupid. At this point I am left speechless because I have also never personally encountered an outburst from such an irrational and obnoxious person.

Somewhere in between his tirade, I can hear Vishnu, who was manning the espresso machine next to me, step in and defend me.

"Sir. Please try to understand, we're running a really busy bar here-"
"NO, you wait! I'm going to write a complaint letter! You clean my table!"

"FIne." My eyes popping out and gritting my teeth, I abandon my POS and grab the nearest blue cloth for cleaning tables. I go to his table. I wipe the little puddle of water off his table. And I walk off without looking at him again.

As soon as the line trickled down, I headed straight to the Back of House and grabbed the nearest 5 pound bean bag and deal a couple hard punches to it, before running back out to the register. Come to think of it I don't think I was the only barista who dealt out abuse to the coffee beans when you can't really direct that frustration to the customer in the first place.

ahhhh anger management tools of the trade :)

15Malaysia is a collection of 15 short film stories by Malaysian storytellers. Here are some of my favorites

Oh My God.

New distraction galore :D

Assignments piling up, Sydney trip to research and plan, and presents to buy and post.

And here I sit staring at the laptop screen scrabbling for a high score.

Olay is having this contest right now where you play 6 mini-games in 'Paris' and collect points. The person with the highest score every week/month wins prizes! To be honest, I find that I play the game for the fun of the game itself rather than for the prizes. It's that fun :D

My favourite-est game :)

This is my favourite game, the crossword puzzle! It's located in the 'restaurant' in Paris (the whole game is set in Paris). You just have to look for the hidden words and collect the vitamins (see the vitamin on the waiter's tray?) The more vitamins you collect, the fairer you'll be (ahahha see the fairness bar below), and the higher your score will be.

Supermarket pickings

This is the one in the supermarket, it's super easy to play. Actually all the games are pretty easy to play, maybe that's why it's so addictive. I keep on thinking "it's so easy, I can get higher score!" *Monica mode* You click on the items on the supermarket sheves according to what the little cloud pops up. The only complaint I have about this game is that out of the few hundred times I've played it, the vitamins don't show up at all! :( So even if I have a score of 1000, my vitamin score is only like 300++ which gives me a combined score of 1300 only :( I can usually score at least 1600 at this one okaaayyyy.

They also have other games, especially if you like games like bejewelled. The other games like the 'Metro' & 'Public Park' (which I suck at btw) are a bit boring, but the 'Shopping Mall' one is quite okay la. I cheat at that one a bit, if I get short words like 'Bright', I start a new game again cause I don't want to waste my time for short words hehehehe.

Dress up!

That's my avatar thing! You get to select the face and hair when you register. As you go around Paris you click on the Parisians and they will give you tips on how to look pretty and fair. These tips are sometimes quite funny, like wear short skirt with heels if you want to look tall but wear something underneath to protect yourself ahahahawtf. Sometimes they are also very true like make sure you have nice brows! Okay la, they don't exactly say that, but that's the gist of it.

Once in a while they will give you items like a skirt, or pair of shoes too! Then you can dress up your avatar and change clothes :D Before this my character was dressed like Snow White. REALLYYYY!

These are the prizes, I don't really care for an iPhone, but if I'm lucky enough to win that (which I doubt) I'd just sell it off ahahaha. I'd much rather have the camera though ;D Poor Daddy broke the battery lid off my old camera so he can't use that one. If I win this one he can have it, I love my Ixus just fine :)

There's also a voucher on the website if you want to buy their fairness product. It's got all this vitamin stuff in it, and everytime I click on the Parisians, they tell me stuff like you can put tomatoes on your skin cause it's got vitamins and stuff but Olay products will do as well. wtfwtf ahahah tomato mask.

my badass score

MY SCORE MY SCORE. beat that!

I tag:
Lydia cause I think she needs a new distraction away from Edward Cullen
Audrey cause I think she'd like the games.
Linda cause I know she's gonna be damn bored
Carmen & Cindy & Jacqkie cause they have no TV so this will save them from boredom :D

*edit* My high score just went up HOHOHOHOHO

Baby.

How many of us call our respective SOs by that name?

How many of us feel warm and fuzzy when you're on the receiving end of such affection?

How many of us feel offended enough to have a hint of sneer at the corner of your mouth when random strangers on Facebook Poker call you that?

But better still, what do I do?

People tell you not to respond to bullies because all they want is attention, and by giving it to them, you're feeding their habit.

But you can't just let it go! Not like that anyway. RandomFacebookPokerStranger has no redeeming qualities anyway; he looks fat, he looks old and he's overly friendly.

-Who you calling baby little boy
-little boy
-i'm not little boy in any situation

*psh please, i've heard this before. I'm surrounded by egoistical college boys obsessed with sizes*

-oh right sorry
-little girl it is then

*log off*

I say push that bully back into the ground and tattletale to the teacher.