Confessions of a Facebook Hacker

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to put on a serious face, pretending to be working hard on a story for the Sunday Times, when what you are actually doing is hopping from one Facebook account to another? All courtesy of one sayang mama who had actually left his/her Facebook without logging out!

MUAHAHAHAAH!!! (I've always wanted to do this!) And this is not the first time. This sayang mama is so going to get it from his/her siblings! Muahahahaha!!!!!!


I have resisted Facebook invites mainly because I am loyal to blogspot. I enjoy blogspot and I enjoy interacting with my readers in blogspot. I don’t need to be prodded and pelted with tomatos or being superpoked, whatever that means.

So, my darling Facebookers:

Dena, you are hungry all the time – it runs in the family. What's new? And the wait will come to an end soon and I will be lumbered with another cucu saudara! Life is so not fair!

Wani in Manipal, you are supposed to be studying forensics and not eyeing your lecturer! And while you are doing that, close your mouth! You're drooling.

Norashikin Amin, so, what’s the 20 year old mystery? I thought Man is no longer a mystery.

Nazrah, when you’ve finished shampooing Dena, I need my hair done too.

Nona, are you serious? You are reading Roots and VS Naipal????

and to Nona and KakD, your posing memosing in Yvoire is soooooo Minah perasan!

Oh the list can go on, but I need to get on with my work and my stomach is aching trying to suppress laughter while Sayang Mama is sitting in front, unsuspecting of my forays into their worlds!

Happy Facebooking my sayang mamas, MUAHAHAHAAHA!

Kak Teh's other confessions:
Confessions of a Compulsive Liar
Confessions of an Aunt
Confessions of a Techie Idiot
Confessions of a Spoonerism Surrefer
Confessions of a Spoonerism Surrefer and other Weird Things
Confessions of an AlleyCats Die Hard Fan

Confessions of a Compulsive Liar

My dear faithful readers,

This is confession time. To those of you who have followed entries in my blog and believed every word that I have written here, to those of you who said my writing inspired you to write or whatever, please read this entry very carefully.

I apologise for you have all been had. I am a liar. Like allother women bloggers in this blogosphere, I am a liar who blogs. It is official because it has been said by someone high up there.

Remember that heart wrenching piece I wrote about my fear for my mother's health when she was diagnosed with cancer? The piece that had many people in tears and writing comments of support in my blog? Well, like all other bloggers who wrote about their illnesses and deaths of their loved ones, I wrote one big lie. The same goes to the mothers who wrote about their anxiety and concern about their children whom they suspect have autism - again a big con job to get sympathy from readers.
And the single mothers who wrote entries after entries about how they learned to cope after a breakup of their marriage, how they fought against all odds to bring up their children, well, they are all liars too. For we are part of that community of women bloggers who have been condemned to have the chants, "Liar, liar!Pants on fire" thrown at us from now on. Everyday, when we write a new entry to vent out our feelings and to show our concern or even our euphoria, we are simply lying, perhaps just to get attention. Perhaps because we have nothing else to do.

I will now tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. My mak is 89 and she is healthy and jovial and fine and is out there doing breakdance with her grandchildren. There’s nothing to worry about her at all. The fact that she sometimes even forgets the time of day, or where she is at this moment in time, she is just lying through her false teeth, just like the rest of us. After all she is also a woman. Given a chance and a computer, she will also blog and she will be that 8001^st liar who blogs.

And so so so very sorry too because when I blogged about poor little Syazwan who is at this very moment fighting to save his eyesight – I was actually what is now termed economical with the truth. He is in fact seeing everything clearly (poor soul) with his brilliant pair of eyes. I just like to spread rumours about someone who perhaps doesnt even exist. But sometimes I wish I am blind too so that I wont see things that clearly. But don’t take my word for it because I could be lying.

And remember my passion and obsession about old Malay sailors? Well, I must say, this is just a figment of my over active imagination. I have such romantic ideas about sailors, and being the kinky liar that I am, I go for old Malay sailors. (and old British servicemen too!) The fact that there is a whole community of Malay sailors in Liverpool is one big ... yes, you guessed it...LIE. So, so sorry! No such community exists. Please erase all these information that I have written about Pak Cik Hamid Carpenter who floated in the Bay of Biscay for three days and three nights when his ship was hit by a torpedo, about Pak Cik Mat Nor who came here after working Jalan Ampas, or recently about Pak Cik Ngah Musa who is now recovering from a cancer operation. Sometimes, I allow fact and fiction to merge and then I dont know which is which! So, sorry, after all I am just a woman blogger. What can I do! Sigh! (slap on wrist several times!)

And those lovely dovey entries that I wrote about my family, about my sayang mamas? Hehehe! You’re right! I LIED. And I am getting a bit hysterical here. Hehehe! I don’t have any children that I called sayang mama – sometimes I get a bit high from drinking too much coffee and my imagination runs wild and I must admit I do have a lot of coffee as I blog.

But enough of lying for today. Lying can be so tiring! But the reason for this confession?

Someone said this about us women bloggers, and on International Women's Day too!! Ouch! It hurts.

“Bloggers are liars. They use all sort of ways to cheat others. From what I know, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.
“Bloggers like to spread rumours, they don’t like national unity. Today our country has achievements because we are tolerant and compromising. Otherwise we will have civil war.
“Malays will kill Chinese, Chinese will kill Malays, Indians will kill everybody else.”
He asked people not to believe bloggers and gamble away Malaysia’s future because 50 years of Merdeka (Independence) takes a lot to achieve it.
“We have to show to the people our positive attitude. If the world learns from us, there will peace and no civil war."

Read about what other women bloggers and therefore er..liars say about this here,
here and here and here

So, what do you say to this, women bloggers?

The weird wide world of Kak Teh

I have been pronounced mad many times. Once, it was because I refused to join in the crowd and buy Royal Doultons and Queen Anne trays and accessories that people have gleaming on their dinning table. “You giler ke tak mau beli Queen Anne?”said the lady whose marketing tactics left a lot to be desired. For one last aggresive marketing push she bellowed; “Semua bini diplomat beli Queen Anne daripada I”. That did it – I refused to join in and be one. I will continue to serve in my Royal Plastic and Queen Takeaway containers. Thank you.

The second time was when at a very late age in life, I decided to do my MA – not just one pronouncement of my mental state – but a chorus of “You giler ke?” still ringing in my ears and these from people I call friends. And I still love them. And I better add this one for the glam factor. When a close friend invited Sharifah Aini to her house, I said "Shall we have a karaoke session then? " And guess what they said? Yes, you’ve guessed it.

Anyway, that’s just the mukadimmah to this week’s entry. So, officially I am mad. And now I am risking my reputation further by telling you six weird things about Kak Teh. I have been tagged by Ruby Ahmad but I begged her to let me delay the entry before I lose anymore readers on account of my mental state. So this is the rule:

RULES: People who are tagged should write a blog post of 6 weird things about them as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

Weird factor 1: I am a creature of habit. The avatar that I use in this blog- the cheerful redhead – is one that I have been using since I started roaming cyberworld. It was given to me by a dear friend who thought that that avatar suits my personality – whatever that means. And I have since refused to change and continue to let people think that I am young, cheerful and a rehead!
Everytime I take the train, I will only buy coffee and two mushroom croissants, which I will only eat one. For train journeys, it has to be mushroom croissants. Just like Mak in those days, for train journeys, it was boiled eggs and nasi lemak and ayam goreng.

Another bad habit of mine is year after year, come Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Christmas and whatever, I will always buy a brand new pack of greeting cards. With good intentions too. Sometimes, these cards will remain on the shelves to gather dust or sometimes when I feel the urge, I’d write in the cards, put the address and stamps on the envelopes and post them in the drawer. It is the niat, you see. There’s proof of intention, and that’s what matters.

Weird factor 2: I do not know my left from my right thus my driving examiner failed me for the sake of the safety of other roadusers. How considerate. It has long been a standing joke among friends, foe and children that whenever I say turn left, just turn right. Once I was walking with my husband and when we reached a small junction, he said; here we turn right. And there we parted company.

Weird factor 3: I have a bad case of spoonerism. And this serious condition worsens in the company of certain likeminded friends and fellow sufferers such as ena samad and fati. How we understand each other – only God knows. And we have been friends for a long time. I was with Fati going to an assignment. We jumped into a taxi and I said – “Pak Cik, Jubang Saya Please”. I know it sounds crude but I can promise you I didn’t mean it.

During our goodnight session in the dorm, it’d go like this:

Ina: GoodniteMia.
Mia: Goodnite Riza.
Riza: Goodnite Fati
Fati: Goodnite Kak teh
Kak Teh: Goodni tinite.

And we’d all go to sleep with the understanding that I had said: Goodnight Tini.

And did you know that my favourite actor is Harifon Sord? And that I have a friend who used to work in Shongkong Hai Hai Bank? And my shoemaker friend is Chimmy Joo? How I get to be a broadcaster is also a mystery. During the height of the Salman Rushdie’s saga, I had to practice very hard and breathe in and out several times in case I said Rahman Shurdi. And the list goes on. I have written a letter of explanation about this matter to Ms Blarabella. So read here.

Weird factor 4: As if suffering from spoonerism is not enough, I have also been afflicted with something called malapropism. I take astroids for my hayfever, we drove the children in our MP3 while our children listened to music on their MPV. But this is not as bad as my husband, who declared openly in public that we used Durex plates for dinner. What he earnestly meant was Duralex. When he saw me turning red, he profusedly apologised and said that that was the reason we have so many children, we didn’t know which was which. And certainly not as bad as Jade Goody of Celebrity Big Brother who declared she was made an escape goat in the spat with Shilpa Shetty.

Weird factor 5: I have an ongoing war with new technology. I have had arguments with answering machines, ATM’s and even the defenceless photocopier at the office. I am what you might call technically challenged. Perhaps this is because I can’t read instructions or maps. Read here.

Weird factor 6: I cried when I watched Little House on the Prairies, Extreme MakeOvers, Miss Saigon (five times!) and even Lassie.

Now, do I have any readers left?

I hereby tag ena samad, mak andeh, firehorse, x matters, wonda and theta.

Kak Teh vs Techie Thingies Part 1

I have waged this silent war with gadgets and gizmos for sometime now and its time to let it all out and declare an all out war. These thingies are invented to help us out and make our life easier, yet for me they served to do differently.

Take yesterday for example, I swear I must have demolished a whole forest before I could photocopy a decent page from a book. Either the top is lobbed off or the bottom half is amputated. At the end of the day, I had to cut and paste whatever I could salvage and the rest went into the recycle bin.

This is the new sophisticated photocopier in the department, which within a month of its arrival has had about three breakdowns.

Why can’t instructions be short and sweet? I, for one, do not have eyes for instructions. I go right when it says left, I pull doors when it says push but, hey, I do stop at lifting lifts. I am not that stupid.

Two weeks ago, I was ready to let go a kungfu kick at the ATM machine in Queensway. I have always had this phobia of ATM machines, not least because I fear the manager’s hand might appear out of the screen and catch hold of me for some obvious reasons. But this incident really took the biscuit.

Before I could even punch in my pin number , the wretched machine swallowed my card. Cold and hungry, I phoned up the bank only to talk to an answering machine asking security questions. I finally cancelled my card, making a mental note that the last transaction was £4.70 at the tube station.

Still worried, I called the bank again but because the computer heard me wrong, refused to give anymore information. I was already on the warpath because this happened right after a fight my hubby had with the automatic cashier at Tesco.

He is one who will test his wits against the might of any new inventions and so couldn't resist this auto cashier sitting there demurely waiting for us to put our purchase in the plastic bags, which under any normal circumstances would defeat the most genius of minds in cracking the code to splice them open.

Anyway, there we were scan, plonk, scan, plonk until we decided to check the products that we had plonked into the bag. That was when all hell broke loose. People began to stare as the wretched auto cashier started screaming (that was how it sounded to me): Suspicious item in bag, Please remove item. Suspicious item in bag. Please remove item.

We sure looked like shoplifters being caught redhanded as an assistant came to check what we had done. Apparently, once you put an item in, you are not supposed to take it out. Putting it back in will confuse dear stupid auto cashier. Hubby took offence to nagging auto cashier and said: oh shut up, after which an argument between human beings followed.

It must also be the same gizmo who dealt with my library books at the uni then. My account said I borrowed two books which were totally irrelevant to my course. I am doing Traditional Malay Literature but I had two books on Japanese checked out in my name. But of course, the half human almost machine behind the counter at first insisted the computer must be right until she saw that I was turning the colour of Hulk, muscles bursting out of my coat and all.

Sure, I do admit there are advantages of gadgets and gizmos. Take this blogsite for example..a place for me to vent out my anger. Even then, sometimes, I think it takes its revenge by freezing the screen. I have lost several beautifully composed features this way. Aaah, and many potential bestsellers too...

And of course, I am thankful for my new smart card IC! One swipe and it told me how much I had in my EPF savings!!! Soon, it'll tell me how much I don't have.

So, cards, passports, bank books are getting smarter nowadays. I went back to open an account. A young and eager clerk was helping me with what seemed a simple enough procedure. I was told to sign on the dottted lines. "Sign kuat-kuat sikit kak", he said helpfully. And I dutifully did as told.

When I received my brand new book, I was appalled that my signature, which I thought I had impressed quite hard onto the paper, did not appear. I offered to do it again, but the young clerk turned away, apparently to hide his smile. My friend, the bank manager, who was there to speed up the procedure, was quite embarassed and told me later that the signature was in fact invisible. Oh, gitu.....

But you know these smart thingies can have lapses in their memory too. Look at the queue at the airport. The line with old manual passport holders usually get processed first while people with new pasports containing the chips had to swipe several times before seeking help from the officers there.

There'll be more. There's one about my fight with the automatic flush toilets. I am not about to admit defeat. Not yet.