But has it been a memorable CNY? I fear not because the CNY mood diminishes as years go by. I simply cannot compare the CNY celebration that I had when I was five years old than the one I have now. Back then, there were fireworks, lion and dragon dances, barbecues and many friends and relatives coming to visit. Now, it is quiet outside and here in Ipoh, there are no street decorations that mark the celebration of CNY. It is as if that CNY is no longer thought of as an important occasion. Gone is the culture when people stream into your house visiting friends and relatives. I am the one going visiting most of the time.

Nevertheless, the CNY mood in restaurants have not changed. People flood the restaurants to the point that there is simply no more space to move about, which will bring me to the main point of my entry here soon.

In Ipoh, it is indeed a quiet CNY, but in my mother's hometown of Sungai Siput which is not very far from Ipoh, CNY is still celebrated as how it was done ten or fifteen years ago. Lanterns are hung on lamp posts, bandannas depicting CNY greetings can be seen on every house and people are moving about with their own tasks to welcome the year of the boar.

So, what's with Absurdity At Its Best, huh? Well, today, my family decided to have a meal of "dim sum" （Cantonese for 点心) and being the second day of CNY, you could, of course, expect a big crowd. This "dim sum" eatery has become one of my family's favourites because they have chefs who specialise in "dim sum" making. Business for this restaurant has grown fast, to the extent that customers have to help themselves with the refilling of hot water for tea.

Well, that seems acceptable to me. Customers who want more hot water to brew their tea don't mind the "self-service" for such a trivial task.

But things certainly go out of hand today. We settled down on a table and got ourselves a pot of tea, and then waited for some "dim sum" to arrive. We waited for about five minutes, before deciding to ask the waiter nearby to bring us food. His reply shocked us all.

He said, "Today you'll have to get the food yourselves." We were dumbstruck. GET THE FOOD OURSELVES? BE OUR OWN WAITERS?

How absurd! How ridiculous! HOW UTTERLY PREPOSTEROUS! But we didn't allow that to spoil our mood and decided to grab a tray and helped ourselves with the food.

It just proves one thing - they are short of manpower. How could you expect your customers to do all these by themselves if you have waiters to do the job for them? Speaking of customer satisfaction, we had to pay just as much even though we served ourselves!

Thankfully, the quality of the food did not drop. However, as we were dissatisfied with such a poor service, we had one round of "dim sum" and decided to stop. Had they sent their waiters around with more food, we might have considered taking more, but as they showed such atrocity towards their own customers, we couldn't be bothered to patronise them any further.

To end this entry, let's have a RANDT: what do you say to a Valentine with rocks?