Telemarketers are getting more and more annoying! Not only do they invade your personal domains (your phone), they try to sell you stuff you don’t want.

On top of that, nowadays, they read make-nice sentences off convoluted scripts before even telling you what they’re trying to sell you.

You know how some pay-per-minute calls go on and on in their introduction menus, saying tons of redundant things, making you pay for precious minutes for nothing?

It’s like that.

Telermarketers now take two hundreds years to get to the point where they actually tell you what they’re selling, when you can safely say, “Oh that’s what you’re selling? I’m not interested.”

Seriously.

I don’t want to know your name.

I don’t want you to ask if it’s a good time to talk.

I don’t want you to tell me I’m one of the specially selected elite few to be receiving your call.

I don’t want you using formal, polite sentences as if you were reading a business letter to the Queen of England, adding a zillion redundant words to make yourself sound more polite but prolonging my misery!

“Good morning, m’am. Thank you, m’am, for your kind patience in hearing what I have to offer to you. I am quite certain that you will benefit much from our brand new service, which I will be most delighted to share with you in a moment. And, now, m’am, this exciting offer which I have right here, which I would like to share with you is…”

What is that?! Nobody talks like that in real life. Just get to the point already.

I don’t care if you have to do this job to survive. This is a terrible, evil job, next to flyer distribution, and you should rather starve than accept the job.

GO DO SOMETHING ELSE FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY!

I watched Avatar in 3D with my friends at Lido last night. We each received good quality 3D specs at the door.

There were repeated reminders outside the cinema, as well as on the cinema screen, as well as audio messages, for us to return the specs in good condition at the end of the movie, failing which we would have to pay $10.

All good there.

We watched the movie and immensely enjoyed three hours of a gripping story set in a fantastic, vibrant world.

And then the movie ended and the credits started.

Accompanying the initial credit roll were awesome 3D footages of the world of Navi accompanied by awe-inspiring music.

Unfortunately, we never got to enjoy it. Two seconds after the credits rolled, lights flooded the cinema, the music was muted and a recorded announcement came on, reminding us to return the 3D specs, failing which we would have to pay $10, blah blah.

I was annoyed.

The movie had ended too soon and I craved more of it. I was sad at having to say goodbye to the world of Navi and I wanted to enjoy the ending music and footages to continue the illusion of still being immersed in the world.

The recorded announcement and muting of the music shocked us out of our immersion like icy cold water to the face.

We endured the announcement for about 20 seconds, waiting for the music to come back. The screen was still showing footages of 3D scenery but it was hard to watch since the lights were all on.

Then the announcement ended but the music didn’t come back.

Three seconds later, the announcement started again. The same damned announcement all over again.

I was very, very annoyed. By muting the music, turning on the lights, and playing the stupid announcement, Lido had robbed us of our final few minutes of enjoyment of the movie, an experience which would have given us the closure we needed to wrap up our otherwise impeccable experience of the movie.

It’s like sex without a proper climax.

Did they really need to remind us to return the specs over and over again? After all, there were two guys collecting the specs outside a very narrow exit doorway.

No one could possibly escape.

We left the hall and the Goonfather demanded to see the manager.

We were shocked at what the night manager had to say.

He said we weren’t the first people to complain. Unfortunately, he can’t do anything about it because he is only following orders.

The management of Shaw Theatres had ordered the recorded announcement to be played before the movie officially ended. And even with repeated complaints and suggestions to play the announcment later, the management refused to budge.

The answer was, “Don’t care them lah.”

The manager also said that, by right, it wouldn’t hurt to allow patrons to take the specs home. After all, we paid extra for them. The tickets cost $14 each.

But Shaw wants to make more money, so the specs are collected back and recycled.

The manager also told us that care is taken to wash the specs thoroughly before they are reused, but he was probably lying. When we collected our specs, they were all greasy and covered with fingerprints on the lenses.

In the end, there was nothing we could do. Nothing he could do. He told us to complain directly to the Shaw Theatres management and, maybe, if more people complained to them, they would take notice.

This is very disappointing. Not only did they rob movie goers of the last few crucial minutes of enjoyment, the management of Shaw Theatres also showed great disrespect to filmmaker James Cameron.

To truncate his movie like that!

How grave is the insult for a pioneer of Singapore’s movie industry (Shaw made movies in the early 1900s) to disrespect a film like that, and all for the fear of losing a few plastic spectacles?

I am deeply disappointed.

Be warned. If you’re going to watch Avatar in 3D (and I absolutely recommend that you do), don’t watch it at Shaw Theatres.

When I’m sad and disappointed, I always tell myself that there are so many other people worse off than me. I should be grateful and happy for that.

And I know it’s true.

So, why doesn’t it work? Why do I still feel sad and disappointed?

I try to dissect my feelings to analyse them away. I imagine myself reaching for my heart, where bad feelings seem to congregate, throbbing and wanting to burst out of their prison, and I grab hold of it.

I grab hold of my heart and pull it out my chest and look at it.

It’s red and bloody and little. Yet it holds so much. So much disease and darkness and fear and pain.

I give it a squeeze. I put it under a running tap. I cut it in half. I slice it in pieces. I say, “Whatever’s in there, it’s just feelings. Intangible and invisible and nothing. So how could it possibly hurt me?”

It’s a nothing, my heart. Whatever’s in it, it’s nothing.

I put it away, in a corner of my room, in a shelf, in a box, wherever. I don’t want it anymore.

I dissociate myself from my feelings, from the pain, from the bad stuff. Because the heart, bearing all that hurt, isn’t in me anymore, therefore I’m not hurt.

I’m free! I’m fine! Life is absurd, anyway, so why let it bother me?

But I can still feel my heart inside me. It’s still there no matter how many times I take it out and put it away. It still provides safe harbour for my feelings, good and bad. It’s part of me and I can’t shed it.

So I get angry and I say to it, “You’re just an organ. A bloody, throbbing tool whose function is to keep me breathing and walking. Therefore you can’t hurt me.”

It’s silent. It continues to throb. And with every throb, hurt spreads out of it and travels in every direction until every part of my body is filled with the hurt, so that my body becomes weak and helpless.

I have removed so many hearts from me. There are so many hearts sitting around in shelves and boxes and bins. And yet it’s still in me, stubbornly beating away, wickedly gleeful.

Hah. You can’t get rid of me. I’m you as you’re me.

Defeated, I sit in silence and feel the pain, live with it.

Next time. Next time it’ll work and then it won’t hurt anymore.

Okay, now I have time to work on my Desaru post! I’m in a bimbotic chirpy mood today cos I’m happy for no reason! I can feel my heart smiling. For no reason!!! So I’m going to make lots of exclamation marks today like this!!!!

I’m kidding. Too many exclamation marks are irritating!!!!!!

Plus it’ll be a bit ironic cos the post I’m setting out to write is full of rants. HAHAHA!

Okay nevermind we’ll see how it goes.

We did an impromptu trip to Desaru last weekend. Me and Nanny Wen, the Goonfather and Unker Kell. Well, okay it wasn’t that impromptu. We planned it like two days before.

The road trip was as fun as all our past road trips have been. We had cushions and stuffies this time!

In the car, Nanny Wen was busy BB-ing away, so I decided to camwhore myself.

But she, being a consummate camwhore and multi-tasker, will abruptly abandon her Blackberry and stick her face into frame, every time her peripheral vision catches sight of a camera about to take a shot, never mind the camera wasn’t planning on capturing her.

That’s why you can only see half her face, cos I was aiming at myself when she stuck her head in! LOL!

We booked rooms at The Pulai Desaru Beach Resort because the Goonfather said it’s the best and biggest in Desaru, being the first resort to be listed in Google.

DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOOGLE RANKINGS.

Well, okay, maybe it IS the best. I wouldn’t know because I’ve never visited the others. I might never find out.

The first thing that greeted us after we parked at the open-air carpark was Thomas the Train!

Damn cute lah! But we didn’t get to sit in him cos we didn’t sign up for any resort activities.

My first impression of the resort was okay. It was spacious and the decor was decent and everything was neat and tidy. But I had a feeling it was, like, old and dusty, as if nobody had stepped in the place for a long time.

When we first checked in, we didn’t see anyone else (except the staff lah).

Our room, although large and seemingly clean, smelled old and musty.

But we had a great view!!

Beyond the swimming pool is the beach.

I took an obligatory camwhore shot on the balcony while Nanny Wen took a moment in the bathroom.

It was around noon. We were waiting for the boys to settle into their room and then tell us what they wanted to do next. So we went to bed while waiting.

Then we received a call. The Goonfather said he wanted to go to the beach, so we changed into our beach wear!

HAH. No bikini pics for you!

The pool:

We each get a towel card to exchange for towels. If we lose a towel, we have to pay RM50!! Crazy lah daylight robbery. Who wanna steal your lousy towels anyway!

The beach:

The water was a bit murky cos of the rainy season. But the waves were nice! NO ONE ELSE AT THE BEACH.

We’d only been there for two minutes when it started to drizzle. Hahahaha so loserish.

Nanny Wen and I hid under a shelter while the Goonfather and Unker Kell went to sit at the shore to let the waves hit them. They ended up with pants full of sand.

They finally gave up the beach for some reason and went back to the pool, where the two of them spent 20 minutes showering at the public shower, trying to get rid of all the sand without stripping.

Nanny Wen tried to get a tan but the sun kept alternating with the drizzle.

You can see the rain clouds gathering!

Another 10 minutes or so and we totally gave up and went back indoors.

It was an epic phail.

Before heading back, though, we made a small detour to the resort’s mini farm, which turned out to be a small chicken coop plus a cage with, like, three bunnies. Hahaha.

With nothing else to do, we went to the resort spa and booked a two-hour package each, consisting of 1 hour massage and 1 hour scrub.

It was a total rip-off! It was RM180 each but it was so bad I expect them to pay me money to compensate!

Firstly, the massage wasn’t very enjoyable. My masseuse didn’t hit any right spots and she kind of glossed over everywhere quickly. Not only that, because we were in a couple room, the two masseuse kept chatting.

I didn’t mind the chatting because they were speaking in low voices. But at times, she would suddenly concentrate on chatting and STOP MASSAGING for like half a minute! Very unprofessional.

And there was one time she stopped in the middle of massaging my shoulder and disappeared for five minutes.

I don’t think they did a full hour because, very quickly, the massage was over and they started on the scrub.

She said, “I leave the scrub on you for seven minutes to dry, then I’ll come back later to scrub it off.”

The scrub beads were cold and I was shivering the whole time I was waiting, even though covered in blankets.

I estimate that we waited at least 30 minutes before the two of them came back, giggling, to massage the scrub away.

That was done quickly AND THEN WE HAD TO TURN OVER TO DO THE OTHER SIDE.

Once again, they left us shivering with cold for 30 minutes before coming back again, giggling.

It was the most horrible scrub experience in my entire life!! Okay, not that I go to scrubs a lot. I’ve only done it twice in Batam and I think once in Singapore. The Batam one was so awesome I fell asleep.

After the scrub was done, as we were freezing, they slathered ice cold yoghurt all over us (to soothe and moisturise the skin). Nanny Wen and I shrieked in tandem each time the yoghurt splashed onto a sensitive area.

Once our whole body received the yoghurt treatment, we were able to rush to the bathroom to wash off and hopefully get some warmth back into our shivering bones.

THE BATHROOM HAD A DEAD COCKROACH WITH ANTS SURROUNDING IT.

And the shower was a small drizzle when turned to hot. And hot wasn’t even hot. It was warm. The shower was horrible and there was only one bathroom for us to share.

At the end of the ordeal, I didn’t feel relaxed at all. Bah.

We visited a nearby fruit farm after the massage! It somewhat saved the day.

Giant jackfruit!!

But we didn’t get to see the actual farm. I think you have to book a tour for that. We only had access to the store, which sold fruits, tidbits and souvenirs.

After the visit, I was forced to play Monopoly with the guys at the resort lobby. WHYYYYYYYY?!

The Monopoly set provided by the resort looked pirated!!

By the time we finished our game, it was, like, 8 pm and time for dinner. We were starving so decided not to drive out to search for food. We went for the BBQ Buffet at the resort’s restaurant.

It cost RM65 per person and the food was bad.

It looks decent but when you start biting into things, everything is bland. Even the sauces provided are weird.

Only the satay was good. And the satay sauce.

Unker Kell asked, “Can I eat RM65 worth of satay?”

The answer was no, because the satay (only chicken and beef) kept getting snapped up really fast.

And the bread and butter pudding looks like this:

Small piece of it:

You probably think it’s nice because it looks edible in the photo, thanks to my kind photography and the cute dollop of custard on it.

But bread and butter pudding is not supposed to be like that!! You can actually taste the bread, which tastes just like bread straight off the loaf!

Anyway, we tried to fill ourselves with the satay, and then Nanny Wen and I retired to our rooms early while the boys stayed in the lobby to enjoy the complimentary movie at the lounge, played on a dodgy projector screen.

And that was when the real trouble started.

After staying in the room for an hour, I realised that the tip of my throat was feeling very itchy and irritated, and my eyes were almost watering and feeling strained (like it feels when you have fever fatigue). I thought I was coming down with something because I had only slept two hours the night before, and very little the nights before that.

Two hours later, when it became really uncomfortable and I started sneezing, I realised that I was getting an allergic reaction to the oldness of the room. You can’t see or feel the dust, but my body was reacting to something.

I didn’t think of it earlier because I seldom go to dusty places where the allergy will act up.

But I finally remembered the time when I was filming at this rented HDB flat. Nobdy had stayed in there for ages, so it was musty and dusty. For weeks, I suffered exactly the same thing I felt that night in Desaru.

I also get it sometimes when spring cleaning for Chinese New Year.

That horrible itch and irritation, fitful sneezing and watery, tired eyes. My lungs also felt irritated from the stale air I was breathing in.

I was planning to blog that night since there was so much time, but feeling the way I felt, I just wanted to curl up and pass out.

Anyway, the night passed. I read myself to sleep.

The three of them went to the the beach the next morning while I slept in, because I don’t like getting a tan. After that, I joined them for breakfast at the same place we had the horrible dinner.

Breakfast was complimentary.

And it was actually edible!

Well, I suppose you can’t go very wrong with toast and eggs!

The soft-boiled egg was a bit of a failure but maybe this is how Malaysians eat soft-boiled eggs. I don’t know.

BUT I LOVE IT. I love too-cooked soft-boiled eggs!

There was also nasi lemak and it was good.

This was Unker Kell’s original selection:

Nasi lemak with potato wedges and fried egg. No sambal!

When we pointed out the lack of sambal, he was, like, “YAH HOR, HOW COME I DIDN’T TAKE SAMBAL.”

CRAZY GUY.

And that ended our very quick vacation because Unker Kell had to be back in Singapore by noon to attend his grandmother’s birthday party.

We ended up reaching Singapore around 3 pm or 4 pm, delayed because we made a stop at the fruit farm for more fruits and tidbits to bring home, and then at JB for lunch. Haha.

Anyway, despite the dodginess of the resort, I enjoyed myself because, as always, it’s the company that counts!

It’s a bit hard to explain.

When I don’t post a blog for days, sometimes it’s not because I’m too busy. And it’s not because I have nothing to write.

It’s because I have too many things to write.

I get an internal conversation.

“Let’s write A today!”

“Alright…. No, wait. How about B? I think we should do B today.”

“Nah, B is boring. Maybe C?”

“Mmmm. Okay, but D is as important as C if you think about it.”

“Oh I just remembered there’s E!”

“Great.”

Then I get stressed about it and go do something relaxing, like stare at the buttermilk pancakes cooking in Cafe World.

I’m not joking. I do that. Looking at food in Cafe World fills me with some kind of profound joy. That’s why I can’t quit the game even though people are cheating in it.

Time flies when I’m messing around Facebook. And before I know it the day is over and I didn’t write a blog.

It’s the same as when I have too many games to play or too many books to read. I end up spending half the day deciding which to start on first, and then time flies away and I haven’t decided, and the day is over and I haven’t done anything.

After two recent book shopping sprees, I have acquired a large collection of books for my inbox. Well, call it inshelf.

These are books I just bought and haven’t read. Not counting the four books that are currently in progress of being read.

It’s very hard to decide what to read next. Sometimes I start reading a few pages, but my mind keeps yearning for the other books, then I will start on another. And it kind of goes on.

It’s like going to a buffet and wanting to eat everything at once.

Likewise, games.

These are the games I haven’t played.

And that’s not counting the seven new games I have lent to my friends.

Not counting the countless other games I have started and want to continue but have no time to because all these new games are waiting for me.

It’s like, which one should I play first? I want to play them all!

So, blogs.

These are the blogs I haven’t written.

And that’s not counting those for which there are no photos, therefore aren’t represented in my photos folder.

In the end, instead of trying to clear the stuff already in my inbox/inshelf/infolder, I invent new rubbish like this entry to write.

Woe.