Archive | May, 2010

Oil palm or palm oil

20 May

I have a confession to make. I can’t differentiate between the two (and you call yourself a writer? Ayoyo!). Should I say oil palm estate or palm oil estate? Do I cook with oil palm or palm oil? Finally I laid the matter to rest by consulting the dictionary. And the answers are so obvious too.

Oil palm is the tree.
Palm oil is the oil.

So it should be oil palm estate. You wouldn’t want to go to a palm oil estate or you’ll be drowning in oil.
And I cook with palm oil. I can’t stir-fry vegetables with an oil palm tree complete with trunk and leaves, can I.

Have a chuckle on me. But if you’ve learned something, thank me.

Clever thieves

13 May

A friend of mine fell prey to a new method of thievery. She had gone jogging and left her wallet under the seat, thinking that it would be safe. But thieves nowadays are too smart for their own good. They knew where she had kept her stash but they didn’t steal the wallet. They filched only her credit card and replaced a similar one back into her wallet. Of course the other card was somebody else’s card which had been stolen. She wouldn’t have been any the wiser had she not gone to pump petrol after her jogging. Now these thieves had immediately gone on a spending spree and had chalked up RM5,000 worth of purchases. If she had discovered the theft a few days later, imagine the hefty damage that would’ve been done. By right, the bank should’ve noticed something fishy if a card suddenly registered heavy usage and alerted the card holder.

Another novel thievery involves cheque books. Don’t ever leave them lying in your car, especially with documents containing your signature. These thieves don’t take the entire cheque book. That would’ve raised the suspicion of the owner straight away. They only tear out a few cheques from the book and quickly cash them before the theft is discovered.

Why don’t these thieves use their ingenuity to earn an honest living instead?!

What’s that again?

3 May

I was watching American Idol last week but my heart wasn’t really in it as I was going through the proofs for Fun for Kids in Malaysia.

No. 2 said something about Lee DeWyze’s singing.

He sounds pitchy, she said.

“What is ee-ching?”

Pitchy.

“Itchy? How can a song be itchy?”

No, pitchy.

“Bitchy? How could he sound bitchy?”

NO, PITCHY!

“Oh, pitchy!”

How could I have misheard Pitchy which is a common word in the vocabulary of American Idol judges? Must korek my ears more.

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