On The Subject of Nothing In Particular

I am officially tapped out of ideas about what to write for today’s blog entry and it is only Wednesday! So instead of the enlightening pieces and brilliant wit that you may be expecting (as if!), today’s entry will be just a collection of my ramblings on no particular issue. Fell free to sign off now if you find them boring; I won’t take offense.

Still here? Well ... the water was cut off in my apartment again today. This is the 3rd time this week that the water supply was reduced to a weak trickle. I absolutely hate it when this happens especially when I am not given any advance notice. I called my landlord today about it and he informed me that it had to be cut so they could do some repairs on the main water tank for my apartment. It seems that it had been leaking for the past few months and the building management gave him notice just this week. Now I know why my water bill has been so high lately. I thought that one of my housemates was going through his obsessive mopping and washing phases again. The bad news is that it would take them 2 days to fix the tank and another one day before the water supply returns to normal. Until then I have to be patient with the weak trickle of water coming out of the faucets. I guess I just have to make do with what I have for the moment but I’m calling S to see if I can crash at his place this weekend. At least I can do my laundry properly at his place.

I also finally took the time to tune my TV to the latest public TV station operating in Malaysia. Someone told me that Channel 9 officially started broadcasting yesterday so I tried to set the channel up on my TV. I managed to get the station but the picture was terrible. I guess it is because the TV reception in my area sucks rocks big time. I guess that I could spend some money and get myself an external TV antenna to improve reception but I just feel the need to put in more money into my current apartment since I'm already trying to save for my new one. I may not be able to get a clear picture from Channel 9 but at least I still get clear sound from it. I still get to watch “Entertainment Tonight” on it although it feels like I am watching it on an old black and white TV set. Surprisingly for a confirmed couch potato, I don’t actually watch that much TV nowadays. The only TV shows that I watch on any sort of regular basis are Angel (Buffy for gay guys) on Thursdays, Charmed (wouldn’t Phoebe make a great fag hag), the reality show slot on Friday nights (for dateless guys who spend Fridays at home) and Smallville (watch it for the Clark/Lex HoYaY content, baby!) on Sunday nights. It is actually a bit sad that the only interesting thing happening on my social calendar this month is the premier of the new season of Survivor this week.

Last but not least on my random ramblings today is that I’ve decided that I’m quitting smoking (again) this coming weekend. The recent budget that was tabled in parliament increased the “sin tax” on tobacco and related products by 20%. As a result, my cigarettes now cost close to 10% more than it did last week. I’ve promised myself months ago that if my normal pack of 20’s went up above RM5 a pack then I would try to quit. I draw the line at paying more than RM5 for cigarettes since I could actually get a good hearty meal with the same amount of money I pay for a pack. I know that my Mum would be happy with this decision as she has been on my case about my smoking habit for the longest time. It wasn’t enough for her when I cut down from a two-pack a day habit to a single pack and I hope that she will finally be happy now that I have to stick to my promise to totally cut them out from my daily diet.

I’m actually a bit worried about cutting out my daily smokes. The last time I did it, I compensated by over eating (definitely a sign of the need to have something in my mouth) and my weight ballooned up to about 95 kg (209 lbs). It took me close to 7 years to lose 20 kg (44 lbs) of flab and I still have another 5kg (11 lbs) to lose before I come even remotely near to the optimum weight for my height. I guess I should consider going to the gym but I’m too lazy to get off my fat flabby ass and go for a workout. Maybe I’ll start going after I move to the new apartment since they will have a gym for residents on the ground floor of the apartment complex. I won’t be able to make the excuse of having to pay gym fees after moving in there since the gym facilities and instructions there will be free for residents. Who knows, I may finally be able to have the body of a Falcon model if I start going to the gym but I wouldn’t hold my breath for it. For now I just hope that I would have the strength to get through this coming weekend without lighting up a cigarette. Maybe I could rope in S to join me in trying to quit smoking. At least then I would have a support buddy to help me stay on course in this goal.