At Home with Dobbs

On an indefinite blogging break…..

I told myself I would not forget about it this year. I even found 2 pics to choose from to accompany the post. But when the day rolled by, I totally forgot about it again!
Ah well, I had a lot of fun this weekend clearing stuff and throwing things away….. and my blog is now 5 years old

See other cartoons here

What boyfriends (and hopefully husbands) are good for…….

How to catch a herd of elephants (adapted from the book Malaysia at Random)
1. Cut giant poles from jungle trees
2. Drive poles in ground, tie with rope and make an enclosure 120 feet square
3. Build wooden platform on top of this barrier where people can stand
4. Place sugar cane stems and banana trees along a path leading to enclosure
5. Locate herd of elephants in jungle and drive them out by firing guns and yelling
6. Barricade enclosure after elephants have been lured into it by the food (see 4)
7. Prod elephants with sticks and swords when they try to break down enclosure
8. Keep the elephants in enclosure for 10 days without food or water to weaken them (Looks like there was no RSPCA in those days!)
9. Lower rattan nooses baited with bananas around the elephants’ necks and secure to trees
10. Fix chains to elephants flanks and lead them out of enclosure

What is the advantage of having a husband who is a gadget freak?
1. You get nice new gadgets without even asking for them
2. You get an upgrade whenever hubby gets an upgrade

Yes, I finally got used to my iPod touch and passed over my still functioning Tungsten T5 to my niece. And when hubby upgraded to the Palm Pre recently, I took over the Palm Centro. Just as well as the Treo 680 was giving me problems with frequent audio loss - needing the poke and blow maneuver into the audio jack! Funnily enough I rarely use my iPod touch to listen to music. Instead I use it mainly for reading ebooks, playing Scrabble and Bejewelled and checking mail and Facebook

……specifically people who stop at the top of the walkalator and refuse to move away, preventing me from pushing my cart off the walkalator. A few weeks back, I had 2 close encounters in Carrefour — the first when I was nearly mown down by the cart behind me, and the second when I nearly mowed down an elderly couple. I had to wrench back my cart, wrenching my L shoulder in the process *ouch*

Yesterday I was confronted with a walkalator that was out of order, which made me wonder how on earth I was going to get up to the floor my car was on. Hubby said I should have dragged it up backwards — dunno if that would work but I sure don’t have the muscle power to do that Thankfully a very kind security guard came to my rescue as not only did he show me where the lift was (yes there is one!), but helped me get on as well. I was joking with hubby that my visits to Carrefour seem to be very eventful, but maybe that’s because I hardly go anywhere else

One of the things I dread the most are power cuts which thankfully do not occur very often, as no electricty = No tv, no computer, no fan = disgruntled son.
So I was pretty dismayed when we had a sudden power cut this morning. After confirming with my neighbour that her power was also off, I rang TNB Careline and got through after a short wait. I was told that complaints had already come in, and that the technicians were already working on the problem. A short while after (after around 15 mins), the power came back on and so I was pretty relieved.

To my utter surprise the TNB technician together with another TNB worker in his van showed up half-an-hour later inquiring about the problem. I was rather embarassed to tell them the problem had already been fixed, but then again I assumed they would have known that! I was very politely told it was no problem and that it was part of their job. I couldn’t help but compare it to the shoddy service we received from TM the previous week when our phone line was down. After all it took them 3 whole days to show up, and another 5 days to fix an error which was made by them in the first place. TM could definitely do with some lessons on good and prompt service from TNB. We actually had another brief power cut this evening, but I waited awhile this time before calling up to complain, and it came on after about 10 mins. Sure hope this won’t be a recurring problem.

Just realised Christmas is only 3 weeks away… so a click of a button and the blog looks Christmassy again! Sorry for the long blog silence but I have been having the blues recently and not up to blogging anything much. Hubby and son were unwell but all recovered now even from the post-cold cough, and thankfully I managed to escape falling ill as well. However I have not been feeling so well recently with my IBS and my L frozen shoulder acting up.

Moreover I can’t help thinking of this time last year when I went home to spend time with my Mum in her final days. We are looking forward to our usual Christmas family reunion, but will feel the loss as this will be our first Christmas without her. This has been a year of great loss for us — my Mum in February, my aunt in July and several family friends as well. However we will be having a new family member with us this Christmas and I look forward to spending some time to get to know my grandnephew. It sure will be nice having a kid around the house at Christmastime once more!

And the Golden Turkey of the Year award goes to….. Telekoms Malaysia!

How long should it take to repair a home phone line? Well in our case it took nearly 8 days! The problem started last Wednesday when our Streamyx just died around 5 in the evening. When hubby came back from work, he discovered that our phone line was not working as well. So we called up my sis-in-law to help us report the problem, and was glad to hear that it would be fixed within 24 hours (hah!)

After 3 days and numerous phone calls they rang up on Saturday and claimed the line was fixed but we insisted that it was still down. Finally we found out 2 days later, on Monday morning, that the line had been fixed but they had mistakenly connected it to our neighbour’s phone line instead of ours. Even after we figured out the problem, we had to continue to bug them for over 2 days until the technician came to check out the connections at the telephone pole. It took him only 5 minutes to fix it and our phone line is working again. Thank goodness our Streamyx line is up and running as well.

I was in Carrefour yesterday when a lady sales promoter came up to me with what looked like a sanitary pad. Trying to put her off, I told her I don’t have need of them anymore, only to be informed that these were not sanitary pads, but rather incontinence pads and good for “long road trips” (Ewwwww!) I wonder why anyone would need them for road trips as there are so many rest stops along the N-S highway, but I guess it would be a better selling line than implying the customer has incontinence. I couldn’t help remarking that it is a very difficult product to sell

We just got back from a short trip up north to visit our parents. Hubby has been very busy with work of late so he badly needed a short break. We took up an old wifi router and wified the whole house with my sister’s P1 Wimax connection, which pleased the son very much. He really missed being online, especially watching YouTube videos on our previous trips home. Looking forward to a longer and more relaxing trip over Christmas.

On a personal note, my R elbow has gotten much better, but the L shoulder is much worse nowadays. Back to the same old problem with very limited movement in the L shoulder (due to pain) and difficulty undressing. Am trying some regular Celebrex 400 mg daily to see if it helps *sigh*