Darts, anyone?

At some point, EY's ladies futsal coach decided it would be a good idea to drag this squash-ball-whacking, soccer-ball-kicking girl to a darts training session to see if she was any good. From very limited experience (say, a couple of attempts over maybe 10 years), she knew she was going to suck big time. Little did she know, that (for a girl), being able to actually get points on your first attempt is already impressive. And the rest, they say, is history.

Well, not quite. After playing in the training rooms at the office twice, I finally went along to training in a pub, and found the very different atmosphere took a little adjusting-to. Before the training, the coach had already told me that I was on the team, and this was before the ladies captain (the only other female on the team) had even seen me play/throw/whatever the term is.

At my very first session, I was told by one of the guys that he thought I was pretty decent considering it was my first time, because I managed to get quite a few points. Needless to say, I was really surprised, because up until that point, I'd thought I was doing pretty shocking. Today, the owner of the pub said the same thing, that I was pretty good for a beginner. Apparently, most girls are lucky if their darts even reach the wall in front of them, nevermind hitting the dartboard and accumulating points. I still think I'm playing at a very embarrassing level, each game there is an outlier of above 80 points, and the rest of the rounds could be anything from about 50 down to a single digit. So much for consistency! Sure, it may take a very different set of muscles from what I'm used to using, but it's just a little annoying because I'm not getting it as quickly as I could probably pick up some other sport (which has been a while so it's possible I've just forgotten how it feels to try something out for the very very first time). And who can concentrate when the futsal coach is making you laugh because he's frustrated that you're not getting it, and calling out stakes of mi or nasi goreng and orange juice and goodness knows what else if you make the bullseye?

Last night, I attended squash training for the first time in a fortnight, and felt really sorry for the girl the guys asked me to play with first. I was in 'the zone' without meaning to be, and didn't give her a point in the first 2 sets. whoops... It was downhill from there, but I had my good moments. And I love the new string and tension on my racquet. Much better than the ones that were on the racquet when I bought it.

I ****** a ****

Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause, please, for the Malaysian Censorship Board has managed to amuse and entertain the public yet again. You see, there is a song on the pop charts at the moment by Katy Perry called "I kissed a girl." Obviously, this sentence did not go down so well with the censorship board, who first decided that they should censor the word "kiss". This, however, left the bleeped out word too open to imagination, and people who hadn't heard the uncensored version thought that it was something far worse than merely "kissed." So, plan B: leave the word "kissed" in, and bleep out the word "girl" instead. So the word "girl" has joined the ranks of the word "gun" and "murder" and yes, "kissed" as a bad word in Malaysia. And if I didn't know better, I'd have thought Katy had said the 5-letter word starting with B or something. Heck, why not just censor the whole song, given that all the lyrics may be construed as bring a "bad example" to Malaysia's obviously robotic and dumb "rakyat." Yes, that's what they call Malaysian "citizens" now - can't even be bothered to say one extra syllable.

On the subject of connotations, there is a new shop in Bangsar Village II that is called brutally yours. It sells lingerie. 'Nuff said.

I had a pleasant weekend, despite the fact that that it was really uneventful, and I felt a bit pathetic for having absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go, and no one to see... I ended up going to Bangsar Village to look for a nice quiet cafe to sit at, maybe have a slice of cake. I chose Bangsar Village II because it is usually really quiet, even on Sundays. Not today, though. As luck would have it, just about every cafe in the building was packed with people! Malaysians are supposed to be feeling the pinch of higher petrol prices and the general increased cost of living, yet you wouldn't have known or thought it from the number of people there today! I finally came to the last one on the top floor, and was glad to see that at least this one was really quiet. Should have been a bad sign, I know, but I really didn't want to be around the crowds, and when I looked at the cake counter, they had a tiramisu cake that vastly resembled the heavenly tiramisu cake that I shared with my sister last Sunday at Alexis. To my huge disappointment, it tasted nothing like it: not as fresh, the sponge was a little too soggy, and the caramelised nuts coating not as, well, caramelised. I also decided to order an iced coffee, since it was only an extra RM2, but even this really disappointed me. It was so watery, tasted a little bitter, and that was about it. I'll have to go back to Alexis soon to erase the memory of this second version!