Going to the loo at my (other) grammie's house is sometimes an interesting event, because grammie's super-spoiled Queen Diva Feline likes to hang out in the spaceous bathroom.

So there I'd be, sitting on the throne, looking at the orange fluff ball, who'd blink her eyes coolly and stare right back. (Don't try to out-stare a cat. It never works.) It's really hard to focus on the task at hand when you feel like you're being evaluated for your performance.

Wow, I didn't even know who Natasha Hudson was until I learned that the book of children's Malay poetry she'd had published turned out to be filled with nothing more than translations of English poetry, the most prominent being the works of Roger McGough.

How's this for a blurb: "Natasha Hudson: Actress, Model and Plagiarist."

This blogger seems to be the one who first brought the matter to light in the blogosphere via this post. Natasha's own blog has been pulled from public viewing, but the above blogger has been helpful enough to save some of her comments for posterity (and amusement).

I'd always been aware that Malaysia has a very lax attitude towards piracy, but this is bizarre, hilarious and ridiculous, and further evidence on The Star's inability to do their research, poor things. The comments in the above blog have also had their fair share of anons trying to defend poor helpless Natasha, though it's likely that they're Natasha's friends or better yet, Natasha herself. Seriously, no logical person could be jealous of the fair lady's ability to use a bilingual dictionary.

A few other blogs have highlighted the story, among them being here, here, here and here.

Oh Natasha, you fail so hard.

I kissed my grammie on the forehead for the first time. Usually I kiss her on the cheeks. She was a little cold, but her skin was still soft to my lips.

I love you, grammie. I may not have made it clear when you were around, but I'm so grateful for everything you've done, and I'm sorry that I wasn't a better granddaughter. I'm sorry I've hurt your feelings when you mistook my awkwardness for aloofness, because I really do love you.

Maybe one day we'll meet again, and I'll be able to tell you properly.

There was a little family gathering at my place, so I turned on Legally Blonde: The Musical on the excuse that I wanted to watch it again, but really I just wanted to make my cousins watch it. It was an interesting venture taking note of how slowly one by one the ickle kids started turning their attention away from the laptop (in which they were playing whatever games) to the telly where the show was playing.

Anyway, at one point in the show, when Elle's dressed up in the bunny costume, Emmett sees her and goes, "Elle, what's up? (pause) Doc."

While two guy cousins (who funnily enough were the most into the show, talk about unexpected) got the joke immediately, their little sister went, "I don't get it."

Cue my going "WHAT?" Okay, so I didn't say it out loud, but I did think it, and boggled at her. Her brother had to explain it to her. "You know, Bugs Bunny."

Have we actually come to a point where the Looney Tunes crew are no longer part of the youthful pop culture landscape? Is it truly dominated by Spongebob and Hannah Montana and those glitzy cartoons with long-legged girls I can never keep track off but seem to originate from only one colour pallet?

HOW CAN KIDS TODAY NOT KNOW BUGS BUNNY AND HIS CLASSIC LINE?

Add another notch to my list of Ways To Know You're Getting Older.

I got my very first "please revert" in a business email today. Surprisingly, it's from someone I thought had very good English. I guess you really never can tell.

By commonplace standards, of course. I'm nowhere near a hardcore Musicals Fan. Stuff I've seen LIVE so far, roughly in chronological order:

1. Moby Dick: The Musical (1)
   
2. We Will Rock You (4)
   
3. Saturday Night Fever (1)
   
4. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (4)
   
5. Grease (1)
   
6. The Phantom of the Opera (3)
   
7. Les Miserables (3)
   
8. Mamma Mia! (2)
   
9. Guys & Dolls (1)
   
10. Mary Poppins (5)
    
11. The Lion King (1)
    
12. Jailhouse Rock (1)
    
13. The Producers (1)
    
14. Puteri Gunung Ledang: The Musical (3)
    
15. Evita (1)
    
16. Wicked (1)
    
17. The King and I (2)
    

1. La Cage aux Folles
2. Legally Blonde: The Musical
3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical
   
4. You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
   
5. My Fair Lady
6. The Little Mermaid
7. Beauty and the Beast
8. Avenue Q
   
9. Sweet Charity
10. Hairspray (musical)
    
11. Annie Get Your Gun
12. Anything Goes
    
13. Xanadu (musical)
14. Thoroughly Modern Millie
15. The Sound of Music
16. The Pirates of Penzance
17. The Wedding Singer
18. The Secret Garden musical
19. Jane Eyre The Musical
    
20. Once Upon a Mattress
    
21. Footloose
22. Sweeney Todd
    

In other news, Legally Blonde: The Musical has officially eaten my brain. It's totally unexpected, but there you go.

I have a colleague who looks like a Muppet. I don't mean this in a derogative way; I mean that when he talks, he looks like he wouldn't be amiss as part of Kermit's crew at The Muppet Show, all eyes, ears and mouth. It's distracting.

My M'sian theatre posse were already considering going down to S'pore to check out the WWRY tour show when it drops by the Esplanade early next year. I'd already seen the show five times but it's always awesome to watch something that fun with your mates, so I was up for it. (I was also curious about how it would feel to watch the show in somewhere that isn't the Dominion Theatre.) Having being burned by sub-par tour groups, I had my reservations about the quality of the show... Until I found out who's leading the tour.

And holy moly, it's my definitive Galileo. MiG Ayesa.

It's planning time!

Ramadhan is supposed to be the month of patience and moderation; yet this is the month when food sales triple their usual volume. Oh, people.

Sometimes you've got to do something because you know in your heart that it's the right thing to do. Of course, to others it may not look like the right thing, and that makes it all the more difficult, but there is such a thing as human resolve. I like to think that I can be a nice person on the whole, and it makes me sad when the people I care about think that I'm cruel, mean or vindictive because of my choice of actions, but the strength of their effect lies in the knowledge that no one but myself knows the reason for them.

Make it so, Number Two.