Recently in XM Malaysia Category

L-R: May, Shirley, Anthony, Suzanne, TK, Loh, Azli

Here are the photos of the foosball championship finals at the office yesterday evening. XM Malaysia has a foosball table in the rec room and it was decided in the last TGIF meeting that there would be a competition with several events like foosball, pool etc. I'm in Geng 69 (the company is divided into six teams) but I wasn't going to play foosball - I volunteered for pool coz I think I'm pretty handy with a cue, unless my skillz has atrophied significantly, which could very well be true if the last time I played snooker with my friends is any indication.

Here's the score list. The finals yesterday was Team Tofu vs Screaming Chihuahuas in the winners bracket and Geng 69 vs Junkies in the losers bracket.

Final result:

Winners bracket

Team ToFu vs Screaming Chihuahuas (female doubles)

Tofu

May
Shirley

Chihuahuas

Catharine
Sherry

Chihuahuas win!

Win: Screaming Chihuahuas

Team ToFu vs Screaming Chihuahuas (male doubles)

Tofu

Azli
Tek Khoon

Chihuahuas

Jae Sern
Soffian

Azli with the ball.

Win: Tofu

Tofu #1

Losers bracket

Geng 69 (Ranggi Fellows) vs Junkies (female doubles)

Geng 69

Mandy
Joanne

Junkies

Felicia
Winnie

Mandy Chan and Joanne with team captain VJ.

Win: Junkies

Geng 69 (Ranggi Fellows) vs Junkies (male doubles)

Geng 69

Two own goals and some skewering going on.

Wai Hing
Huai Bin (me)

Junkies

Loh
Thee Heng

Win: Geng 69

I actually made two own goals. Heh! I was sitting in for Chia who was on annual leave and played offence with Loh on defence. This was the match that would decide who gets the last place and I thought all was lost due to those two own goals. However, my skillz (okay, luck :p) prevailed at the end when both teams were at 4/5 goals...one goal would mean the difference between winning and losing. I made my men dance and scored the winning goal by...ok, luck lar. :) Geng 69 didn't get the last spot. :p Yay!

#1 = Team Tofu
#6 = Junkies

I went into the office today and found all the lifts being upgraded, with the exception of one...it took ages to arrive too, coz Kenanga International has quite a number of floors. Anyway, I went up to find the office devoid of people...and I did not have the key today. I had the key the two weekeneds I came in but I figured I won't need it today coz I thought they'll be people in. Anyway, all is not lost, I went to Bukit Bintang and caught the Kempen Kerjaya PDRM thing, photos will be up soon!

I was eating my lunch yesterday when Janet, Chang and Wang came over and told me the paychecks were ready and so down we went to the 12th floor to get them. Pictured above is my first every paycheck, for RM 1,790.32. =D

Mutiara Hotel

That's not what I earn per month though, my monthly salary is only RM 1,500 (yes, please feel sorry for me). The amount was pro-rated from last month. I went into XM Malaysia at the end of August. Anyway, I figured my first paycheck is cause for a mini celebration so I went to Hotel Mutiara.

I was wondering why a lot of my coworkers were going off at 5 pm and coming back with Mutiara Hotel bags until I was told about the 50% off all cakes at Tiffins.

Tiffins @ Mutiara

Anyway, after getting the cakes, I bought a celebratory cigar at this place in Hotel Mutiara (forgot the name). It was a walk in humidor and I was tempted by the Cohiba cigars on display but unfortunately could not afford one so I settled for a Montecristo Tubos (review later, probably at castitas.com).

Montecristo

I also got a bottle of sparkling wine ("California Champagne" - only wines from Champagne, France can be called champagne) from the wine shop at Isetan, KLCC. It's Cook's California Sparkling Wine, selected for its price tag. :p Oh ya, Isetan has a sale so if you want to go it's open from 10 am to 10 pm tonight.

Cook's California Sparkling Wine

Here are the photos of the XM Malaysia office gathering just now to celebrate Jae Sern's (from Creative) birthday. I couldn't get shots of everyone coz of the distributed congregation, so the photos mostly feature the birthday boy. :)

Azli putting up the candles on the Secret Recipe chocolate cake.

Happy birthday song. L-R: Shen (Project Manager), Jit (General Manager aka the boss), May (Project Manager), Jae Sern (birthday boy).

Jae Sern blowing out the candles.

The cake cutting begins. I helped myself to a rather large slice too. ;)

Jae Sern smiling at the digicam. Jit is to the left and VJ is to the right.

I'm still at the office...I've got some stuff to do, sorry about not having time to reply the comments. I want to get my work done with and head home.

It's already 10:30 pm and I'm still at the office...can't complain though, the stuff I was working on just went live and dinner was provided. This is the first time I don't have to come back on Saturday or Sunday (since all the work was completed) so it's all good!

Yes, a photo of a huge, thick, and long yellow (with black spots to boot) banana. I just learnt today that these bananas are edible (without cooking). I've always thought that these bananas needs to be cooked (in goreng pisang) before it's edible, but apparently not. The banana is courtesy of Janet, who got it during the TGIF meeting last time and gave it to me because I have to eat dinner leftovers as lunch everyday because sixthseal.com is running over bandwidth every month (I'm already over this month). Sorry for not updating, I'm working on a ColdFusion and SQL Server thing that I've just sent to QC, it's been a long week...

Do we teach the scanners to recognize our fingerprints or is it the other way around? I used to have to make at least 10 tries to log in and out of my work place, but now I've learnt how to put my finger just right so it always works on the first try...

Anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm feeling sleepy and tired and I need to sleep coz I'll be working late tomorrow. I'll reply the comments tomorrow okay? My apologies...didn't get much sleep last night.

This is the view from the break room window of my workplace. I cannot take photos of the interior to avoid violating the non disclosure agreement I signed.

We had a TGIF monthly meeting at my company last Friday and someone raised the question about how I have the time to update my blog. Just to make things clear, I DO NOT use company time to write. Since I don't have net access at home right now (going to Telekom now to sort that out), I write the posts BEFORE going to work (usually at night) and do post production on the photos then, so I just need to cut and paste and click Publish on MT and I do that during lunch hour or in the mornings. I have made short posts in real time though (like the cereal giveaway one) and that just takes minutes, plus it was before working hours (I came early). For the readers, this is only a temporary measure due to my lack of net access, all posts will be real time (or as close to real time as a blog can be) once I get my net connection up (probably a couple of days, depending on how efficient Telekom Malaysia is).

I'm sorry I have been kinda neglecting the comments and daily visits lately, my apologies, I have a lot of work to do and by the time I get home it's time to sleep. Anyway, that would get better once I have a net connection, I will reply every comment and mail soon. Thanks for your patience!

P/S - sixthseal.com is expanding. New domain up within the week. :)

A bunch of us programmers left at about 6 pm yesterday and grabbed some dinner before going to the bowling center. We ate at Restaurant Hameed Ali (pictured above). It's somewhere in Ampang...near Ampang Point if I recall correctly.

There's this interesting thing that I've never seen before...they have pre-packed nasi lemak in paper on the tables! It looks like every table has a plate in the middle with about 5 nasi lemak packs. It's like the way small towns in Sarawak are with eggs - they put boiled eggs on the each table. Interesting. That's what all of us ate anyway, except Chia who had another roti telur. He picked up the bill, thanks!

Here's a group shot - from left: Kok Sing (partially hidden), Giat Yeng, Huai Bin (me), Wang and Chia. One of the people working at the restaurant took the photo, so my apologies for the blurry and partially cut off shot. Most people tend to press hard on the shutter release (which causes the image to blur).

Anyway, I'll update with the actual bowling photos during lunch, I'm just taking a short break from work. Will reply all comments during lunch hour. :)

I stayed back instead of going with my colleagues for lunch because I needed to find out where the nearest Western Union outlet is (for my excess bandwidth bill, what else), re-check the convocation dates and ask about leave so I can actually attend the ceremony - that would happen after lunch though. Oh yeah, I asked the technical director about taking photos inside the office and yeah, it would violate the non-disclosure agreement if I post them, so er...that front door is all you'll see of my work place. Sorry. :)

I guess that means I'll have to write a thousand words to explain - it's a rectangular room with a joined desks around the corners, and there's currently 13 people in the room - 1 technical support, 2 quality control, 1 temp and the rest are programmers. 1/4 of the staff is female, the rest is male. Opposite us is a room with a somewhat similar configuration, that's the creative team work place and that's not a thousand words, but I've got other stuff to do during lunch hour. Oh and btw, it seems that we have 2 hours for lunch - 12 pm - 2 pm. Anyway, I'll reply the comments when I get back, the Western Union is really up there on the To Do List, I will pop out if it's near. I'll post again tonight and reply all the comments, thanks!