And you call him/her.....?

My daughters call me Bapak. They call Yan, Mak. Simple. Very basic.

Both Yan and I call our fathers and mothers, bapak and mak jugak. When I was younger, I remember that many others - friends and cousins - call their fathers, abah. At one point, my brothers and I pun musykil jugak. Why bapak?

Anyway I just remembered that my Mak Temoh called her father (my Tok Temoh) ayah while almarhum bapak called his father, abah. Macamana boleh jadik bapak ni? And get this, both my parents called their mothers, Encik. Funny, is it not? Well, in the good old days ramai my sedara mara call their mother, Encik. Why? Don't ask me. It's a Perak thing, I guess.

Apapun, there's one time when I was in secondary school and somehow I managed to incur almarhum Bapak's wrath (can't remember why though, must be something about my report card, oh well!). Bapak simply went berserk and boomed at me:

"Kepala bapak kamu!!!!"

And I just stood there trying to restrain myself from bursting out laughing. Gila nak gelak, but I was very kecut then.

Demam oh demam!

I really am bad when I'm down with fever. Even a slight fever will set me off for at least a week, hence the no show in the entry. Whatever it is, I must be thankful that my wife is ever sabar with this old man and the daughters just carried on with their lives as nothing happened despite the fact that there was an old man mengeluh tak sudah-sudah.

On another note, just to inform sedara mara and those who are interested, that blog Asma dah kembali active and Alia has created another blog (though with a friend).

And Mak Temoh will undergo her surgery on 19.9.2007. InsyaAllah.

Finally! Its Deathly Hallows Guys!

Just came back from Carrefour. Got the much awaited Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows at a real bargain price of RM69.90. No wonder MPH and Popular and Times are freaking mad. Anyway, Ali, Asma and Bapak woke up early, very very early this morning. Kalau hari sekolah memang liat nak bangun but not today.

Left home at 6.20am. Drove to Carrefour. All very very excited. Reached Carrefour. Saw two lines already formed. Dropped Alia and Asma at one line. The shorter line. By the side entrance. Good move. Happened to be the correct line. Parked car. Saw people from the other line rushing to the other line. Ha Ha.

Queue up. It's happening. Felt good. There's a loooong line behind Alia and Asma. Only about 30 people in front. But as this is Malaysia, there are several late comers who went up to the people at the front asking them to buy the book for them. Some obliged. Some don't. Like Alia. Told one off one PakCik: "Tak Nak. Not Fair lar, Pak Cik."

7.20am: Finally, the book is ours. Yay

This is ours. In a car.

Alia and the book.

Asma and the book. She's already burying herself in the book. Wait seminit. Bukan Bapak ker yang dapat baca dulu...

Whaaaaat?

I was flabbergasted. Can you imagine, this happening on the verge of it coming out? And to think that I didn't see it important to pre-book. Oh Damn. I've to go to Carrefour, very very early tomorrow. Any way, here's The Star report:

Potter party goes on despite boycott (2nd update)
PETALING JAYA: The MPH Megastore at 1 Utama continued with its "Sorcerer’s Ball" party for Harry Potter fans at 6.30pm, despite having joined forces with three other bookstore chains refusing to sell the seventh final instalment in J.K. Rowling's bestselling series.
MPH, Popular, Harris and Times at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur at 4pm announced that they would not sell Harry Porter and the Deathly Hallows in protest against selected hypermarkets selling the book at a hefty discount.
The recommended retail price of RM109.90 is being violated by hypermarkets advertising and selling it at RM69.90, they said.
The four chains, with a total of 100 outlets nationwide, said they were protesting the indiscriminate discount and wanted to show customers that they were not "blatantly profiteering" from them.
However, they said they would honour all pre-orders.
"This means the book will no longer be available for sale at these stores nationwide from tomorrow (Saturday) following the worldwide release," MPH Bookstores chief operating officer Patricia Chen said.
"All events related to Harry Potter will be cancelled," she said earlier.
When asked if the move was to pressure sole distributor Penguin Books to remove the book from the hypermarkets, she said that it was not fair to allow hypermarkets to sell such a popular book when they were not in the book business.
On whether they had contacted Penguin, Chen said that Penguin had responded by saying that it was not aware of the hypermarket pricing.
Penguin also said that it could only set the recommended price and it was up to the retailers to market it at their choice of price.
Harry Porter and the Deathly Hallows goes on sale nationwide -- well, except for these four bookstore chains -- from 7.01am tomorrow.

Currently Reading....

I'm currently reading three wonderful books in one go. It kind of mess up my train of thoughts though as I keep on mixing up various characters. But still, it's heaven!

Robert Kiyosaki's If You Want To Be Rich & Happy Don't Go To School? is simply profound. An eye opener indeed.

Jed Rubenfeld's The Intepretation of Murder is an unusually intelligent novel which entertains, intrigues and informs all at the same time.

And I spent my lunch break by driving up to Kinokuniya two days ago for Khaled Hosseini's latest A Thousand Splendid Suns. Ever since I read his best selling The Kite Runner last year, I wouldn't want to miss his second novel. And what a masterpiece this one is! I'm happy.

But come this Saturday, I'll drop everything else to read this:

Thank God! Asma's got her trial exam coming up. So Bapak's going to read it first. I'm so excited. Beyond Words. Three days to go....