10K Contest

Yes, this is a contest but no, I’m not offering a prize of RM10K for it. The figure refers to the copies of Honk! If You’re Malaysian in print.

That’s right, Honk! has surpassed the 10,000 mark! And in less than 10 months too! Two days ago I received an email from Eric saying that it’s gone into 6th printing, bringing it to 11,000 copies in print. (That’s not the number of copies sold, in case you’re wondering. Not yet.)

A very big thank you to all the readers who have made this possible. I would like to celebrate this milestone by organizing a contest for readers and bloggers. Participation is as easy as ABC.

Prize

1st – RM100 voucher

2nd – RM50 voucher

3rd – RM30 voucher

You can choose to feed your soul or your stomach : MPH book vouchers or MacDonald’s food vouchers. It’s up to you.

How

Just write your name in the comment box here. That will give you one shot of winning. If you have a blog and want to put a link to this post (this means you have to write an entry about this contest in your blog), that will double your chances. Please mention that you have done so. Then I will write two pieces of paper with your name on them and drop them into the hat for the draw. (Yeah, I’m doing this the old fashioned way.)

Who

Anyone can take part but the winner must provide a Malaysian address for the prize to be mailed to.

Closing date : Saturday, 20 October 2007

P/S : This reminds me : I have been dallying over the Zany Mum contest. I still haven’t announced the winners (response was no good but I still owe it to the respondents to give out the prizes.) So if you have sent in your question to Zany Mum, can you please send me an email?

Bulletin Board – Treasure Hunt

The Sunday School in my church is organizing a treasure hunt for children (toddlers to early teens) this Saturday.  I would like to invite anyone who lives in Klang to join us for a fun evening.

Date : Sat, 22 September 2007

Time : 4.00 to 6.00 p.m.

Place : Taman Rakyat, Sri Andalas (near Balai Bomba)

Please be properly attired in t-shirt, shorts/track pants and sports shoes.  Bring along some drinking water too.

There is no participation fee.  It’s FREE and every child will go back with a goody bag.  Prizes will be awarded to the winning teams.

If you are interested, please email me at tehlydia@yahoo.com.  I need to know the number of people coming so that sufficient goody bags can be arranged.

Bulletin Board

Some announcements :

• MPH has a book blog!  It’s updated by MPH staff.  Do check it out.
• Received the following email from Nor Ismat. If anyone can help him, please list the contact in the comment box.  Thanks.

I’m looking for people who are willing to adopt a stray dog. One of my senior colleagues rescued her about a week ago. For now she’s taking care of the dog (it’s a female by the way ^_^), but once the dog has recovered, she will have to find a shelter for the dog. She’s not comfortable with leaving it with SPCA, so I offered to help her find a shelter that can take care of the unfortunate K9. Do you have a contact that can help my colleague?

Who’s at the door?

My door bell rang. Standing outside the gate was a woman, about fortyish, clad in a pink sleeveless t-shirt and black lycra pants.

“May we have some of your money plant, please?” she asked. “It’s for a party decoration.”

She looked pretty harmless and I had a gut feeling that she was no con-woman out to fleece me. Besides it sounded like a win-win situation. She would get her money plant and my garden-which-looks-like-a-jungle would be cleared of some of its mess. The pink woman was joined by another middle-aged woman, also nicely made-up. They were driving around the neighbourhood looking for plants when they spotted my house. It turned out that they were decorating a venue for their line dance extravaganza. The theme was Safari night. Aha! I had seen the event notice in the studio where I go for my line dance classes. These women know my instructor. What a small world.

Usually I’m quite wary of strangers who knock on my door. If they’re not pesky tar-men who want to tar the front of my house for a bomb, they’re grass cutters or folks from the gas company who insist on checking my gas hose for leakage. Usually I tell them, “Tak mau!” and wave them off.

The tar-men in particular are very persistent. They would come in droves during the rainy season when they could see pools of water collecting in front of the gate. Sometimes in a week, I would get three or four of these people knocking at my door.

One chap, after I’ve yelled out “Tak mau!” from my living room, replied, “Free, you don’t want?  I have these leftovers from tarring the road.”  (The roads in Klang are being resurfaced.  Hubby says election is coming, haha.)

Free? Did I hear free? I opened the front door and by the time I got to the gate, the lorry had scooted off. So the smart aleck was trying to be cynical. Lesson learnt : there’s no free tar in the world. Free money plant, yes, by the bushel if you come to my house.