My luckiest Bejeweled Blitz game!

My first Annual General Meeting was...

...interesting and utterly boring at the very same time!


Interesting because it was my first, and concurrently my first visit to a resort the existence of which I only became aware of weeks earlier.

Utterly boring because the six or so minutes it took to pass the seven resolutions tabled failed to discuss the most pressing issue : a restructuring of the company!

It was performed with the mechanical methodicity of a typewriter.

Anyway, the lunch spread was very ordinary, and not in great quantity either.Fortunately, not many shareholders turned up.

I was told by the company registrar that this was the usual style of companies in this part of the world!

Anyway, I chatted up enough people to get 2 offers of a lift back to my neck of the woods, and ended up following a rather grouchy-looking woman probably pushing sixty driving a rather dirty-looking car.

I was eminently grateful though, and after thanking her, walked to the familiar shops of my neighbourhood, buying some cherries and a newspaper from the money I had saved from not needing to hire a cab!

Another BIG walk...and my day is MADE!

21st July 2010 ~

I decided, almost on the spur of the moment, to sally forth into the outside world at 12:12 pm, ignoring the almost-ferocious beating of the Sun's harsh heat.

Heading for the bus stop that I thought I had seen outside Pantai Hospital, I take another shortcut for the first time ever, only to arrive at the spot outside the hospital to discover that there was no bus stop at all!(Or maybe it had been moved or removed)

My original plan was to go to the registered office of a listed company, whose AGM I intended to attend the next morning.

After waiting for a bus for almost ten minutes, my patience wore out and I headed on foot towards the registered office of the listed company aforementioned, with the general bearing determined by my recollection of the Google map I had used to locate the given address.

Buildings on the route offered temporary shelter, and I augmented these moments of respite by sneaking into bank branches, fruit shops and a newstand & bookshop for short moments to cool down while browsing.

Finally, seeing that the time was smack within the two lunch hours between midday and 2 pm, I decided to head to my favourite coffee shop to enjoy a delicious cuppa tea.

There I spotted a hunk in a rather teasingly tight blue shirt who was with some colleagues at a table behind.

I stole some glances at him using the reflection from the drinks cooler's glass door, and I think he may have taken notice of my searching gaze.

However, my confidence and common sense were too pragmatic to allow my hormones to try my luck, which they wanted to badly, given that this was my 27th month in partnerless solitude.

Anyway, I sipped my tea ever so slowly and finally, he went by from behind, allowing me to see his rather buff physique outlined by a rather too erotically deep shade of blue. As he turned right to head to his office/car, I could see that he had a very attractive face, with heavy eyebrows and the look that I would just dream of having. A hint of chest showed through his shirt and I suppressed an urge to get up and follow him, my tea having been quickly consumed in the ensuing seconds.

He turned slightly to look in my direction, but seemed to only be searching the glass display case in between us.

Shrugging my shoulders internally, I got up after a minute or so to head in the same direction where the betting shop was and bought the numbers 8998 and 3773,the first number being one which I had overheard a man seated behind me in the coffee shop utter about ten minutes before.


On the way, I looked out for the gorgeous hunk, but he was no longer anywhere to be spotted.


After my betting slip was snugly in my wallet, I headed back the same direction I had come from, in the direction of a large shopping mall which was close to the registered office I was going to.

Deciding to take an unconventional route, which also offered more sheltering trees and houses, I walked past small terraced single-storey houses that looked like they were all heading into their golden years.

I welcomed the gust of air-conditioned coolness as I walked through the doors of Jusco shopping mall.

Then followed a long walk up to the first floor, around it, back down to ground level, back up to first, and repeated.

I visited a jeweller called 'My Diamond' and pretended to be shopping for a diamond ring and/or necklace.

The girl humored me kindly enough considering that my attire looked more in place at a construction site, showing me the sparkling 13-diamond necklace that cost over $16 000.She said that a 20% discount could be given when I then asked to look at diamond rings.

Dissatisfied with a rather ostentatious multi-diamond ring that I first asked to look at, I then asked for a ring with the largest diamond the shop had.

She then took me to a corner where I was shown a simple-looking ring that had a 0.78-carat diamond selling for almost $17 000.

After small-talking her through the next 2 minutes, I then enquired about the unmounted solitaires in their own display cases under the same counter.

The largest one, a 1-carat diamond, was said to cost $40 000.

Satisfied that I could afford each and every item in that shop even though I was merely feigning interest, I then thanked her, said I would consider the items, and walked out, heading for a perfumery if there was one.

There wasn't any specialty perfume shop, but I visited the Christian Dior counter in the department store, and investigated a 100ml bottle of 'Midnight Poison' EDT that I had read good reviews of online.

The smell was quite enchanting, but I was put off when I saw 'patchouli' listed as the main ingredient; the night before, I had read that patchouli root was one of the known carcinogens in perfume, together with civet musk and other ingredients.


However, some of the scent rubbed off onto my left hand when I handled the attractive flacon, and it stayed with me for another hour.

On I proceeded to my intended destination, but it proved harder to pin down than I'd initially thought.

What Google maps seemingly showed to be one building turned out to be several rows of various double-storey shops.

After walking along three rows of shops fruitlessly, I asked an employee of an Indian food stall if he knew the named location; he didn't, but gestured to a Malay man seated at the only occupied table in the restaurant,claiming that he would definitely know where I should be headed to.

Suppressing a wee bit of trepidation, I approached the Malay man with my inquiry. He gestured in a roughly North Northwest direction and said 'belakang McDonalds'.

Thanking him and walking on, I then tried to reset my coordinates, and ended up going along a route very familiar to me as I usually traversed it in a car, but now was going about it on my own two-legged engine.

After about ten minutes, a kilometre and a half, and crossing two roads, I saw the so-called Golden Arches marking the 24-hour burger joint that I hated and yet adored so much.

As I walked past the petrol station neighbouring it, I found to my great dismay that the specified location was a building getting off the ground, with the third floor still being completed.

At that point, I told myself to just attend the AGM the next day and hope for the best, with heat exhaustion beginning to set in.

But my hope wasn't totally extinguished when I turned back the way I had come to see another row of shops that I knew about but hadn't yet traversed.

Keeping these fragments of hope in my bosom away from the heat, I walked slowly along this row, and spotted the name I was looking for on an envelope in a mailbox outside an office. I walked on, past car repair shops, interior decor outfits, and stumbled upon a name I had associated with registering listed companies : Symphony.

The moment I entered the office, the fragments of hope in my heart blossomed into conviction that this was, after all, the place I was seeking all along.

When I mentioned the name of the company whose AGM I was attending to the lady at the counter, she turned to an unseen colleague in a back office and repeated the company name out loud. I then looked through the lists of the hundred or more companies the office serves as a registry for, and spotted the one I was looking for.

After waiting a little while, the lady from the back office came out to hand me an annual report and some instructions on what to take along.

Satisfied that it was mission accomplished, I headed back out into the Sun clutching the orange, white and green booklet and retraced my steps back home.

Along the way there, I had suddenly remembered that it was Wednesday, and that a student was arriving at 2 pm for a class.I gave up on the idea of returning immediately to attend to him, justifying it with the fact that he had not come for over six weeks without notification.

Well, when I finally returned home, tracing 228 paces from one end of the road to the other, there he was, still waiting for me! It was a miracle that he had waited so long, unlike the previous week!

2nd highest Bejeweled Blitz score ever; also bested my 2010 high of 9,101 points in 'Spot The Difference'

After yesterday's surprising all-time high of 548,950 points, the same 3 'boosts' yielded the second highest score 354,200, beating the previous high of 342,800.


Also, a rather quicker-than-usual game of Spot the Difference yielded another year high by just a narrow margin : 9,256 - 9,101

My monumental Bejeweled Blitz Game! (of course, with the help of three sanctioned icons)

My little Adventure!

Today was the most stimulating day I've had in months!

My parents and I have not been on speaking terms for almost 2 weeks now.

So although I had decided to move some funds from foreign banknotes to a time deposit that will yield a not insignificant amount of interest every month, I hadn't the option of asking for a lift from either of them.

I had to take several thousand-dollar banknotes from a bank's vault to a suitable money changer to convert to local currency before depositing the latter.
The prospect scared me, to say the least: my country is well-known for petty snatch thieves and daylight robberies aplently.

But I was determined to carry out my plan despite the dangers.

So,at around 10 am, after politely refusing my mother's forced offer to give me a lift, I wandered out in search of a taxi.

After a wait lasting between twenty and thirty minutes, I managed to flag down a taxi driven by a decent looking Indian man.

When I reached my specified destination, I deposited several hundred dollars into my savings account, and then walked to another bank in whose vault my cash was stored. I inquired at two other banks along the way whether they purchased banknotes from individiuals.

After I discovered that,despite displaying buy and sell quotes for various banknotes of different countries,none of the banks actually bought any!(unlike in China).

So I was 'forced' to check out the most suitable moneychanger. Fortunately for me, there was one just across the road from the bank that stored my hard-earned banknotes.

It looked decent enough to me, with sufficient seclusion from passersby to give me the assurance of a safe transaction.

After enquiring about the rate and deciding it was good enough, I proceeded to the bank to fetch my banknotes.

The transaction at the moneychanger proved to be a little more nerve-wracking than I had bargained for: they hadn't enough local currency to satisfy my order, and the lady at the counter requested that I wait ten minutes.

Having no other alternative outlet, I handed over the crisp banknotes to be scanned, after which it was handed to an employee stationed at a desk in front of the counter,who was to deliver the foreign currency to another location and who was to collect the local currency to pass to the counter.

I was glad that the rate quoted was one hundreth of a unit higher than the displayed rate(probably due to the large size of the transaction), but nervous that the courier may get waylaid and result in huge complications!

The cool and calm manner in which the courier strode out and mounted his motorbike assured my nerves a little.

With a not insignificant amount of relief, he returned within seven minutes with the same cold demeanour, and I got 161 of the largest banknotes in local currency that was due to me.

After they were counted mechanically, I plopped the two piles of banknotes secured with rubber bands into the left pocket of my safari pants, sealed it, and proceeded to another bank to open a time deposit.

After being irritated by an ignorant staff there, I returned to the bank in whose vault I had stored the banknotes I had just changed, deciding that it was more convenient for future transactions.

The deposit and associated paperwork proceeded without a hitch and I returned to the vault to place my deposit receipt there.

The slip of paper looked so frail that I joked with the counter staff that it looked like toilet paper!

After completing the main task of the day, I then walked around the area a little, before proceeding to one of the most famous eateries in the city.

I ate more than my fill, taking my time to enjoy each bite, all this while consuming two iced drinks!

Relief that I had surmounted this apparently tricky challenge so uneventfully served to whet my appetite!

A Pakistani/Bangladeshi man whom I guessed could be in his late twenties to mid-thirties was trying to sell a rather noisy toy parrot to the patrons in several tables.

I told myself that I would give him a dollar gratis if he tried to sell me his items.

Fortunately, he decided that my rather rough attire probably meant that I wasn't a worthwhile prospect so I saved my dollar!

After about forty minutes of lingering over lunch, I walked out and thought about getting some exercise to unload the extra calories on.

On the way to the new bridge over the main river running through the city, I wandered through a quaint alley that had the typical shophouse architecture that must have dated from the 1940s or even earlier!

A restaurant at the end of this alley was packed to the brim with a lunch crowd, and I reminded myself to try this place out next time.


Having passed some empty goldsmiths on the taxi going into town, I passed them again on foot on the way back, feeling a little sorry for the business owners whom I predicted would probably not last for more than another year or two.

As I kept moving in the general direction of home, I stumbled upon a bus stop.

Having promised myself that I would ride one of those rickety buses plying the town one day, I sensed that I would try it out for the first time in my thirty odd years of living in this city.

I approached a bus driver asking if he would pass a location just a stone's throw away from home, but after he pointed to the vehicle directly in front, I climbed into that bus and confirmed that it was indeed headed in that direction.

The ride in that half-rusted vehicle was quite pedestrian, although the vehicle was actually less off-putting from the inside as it was from the outside!

After a fifteen minute ride while taking in the sights I was already so familiar with anyway(but also noticing details I had never really paid attention to before), I pressed the buzzer and was dropped off outside a Thai temple,and walked a familiar route back.

I had forgotten that the city council was hard at work felling a gargantuan tree abutting my parents' house and stumbled on their handiwork just metres from home.

Two massive branches had already been felled and the road was totally closed off by the sheaths of fallen greenery. I lingered to watch how two men on a perch secured a cable that dangled from a giraffe-altitude crane around the branch they were targetting before applying a chainsaw to the base of that branch.

The branch was then lifted to a safe, unoccupied part of the road and lowered to it, whereupon it was further cut up by another team with another pair of chainsaws.

When I had cleaned up from the morning's exercise and gone out with my video camera to take some snapshots of the dying moments of a 30-year-old tree, some of whose branches were tall enough to be trees in their own right, I returned to observe the stockmarket online.

To my delight, a stock that I had been stuck with for over two months was generating huge volume and rising steadily after morning weakness.

I spent the next two hours slowly disposing of the stake that I had purchased at a low price, while the rain descended outside.

The sounds of the chainsaws stopped shortly after 4 pm, and I revelled quietly in a most fruitful day!