Yes folks, it's that time of year again...

No, not Christmas (though it's about a week or so away...).

But rather (for those in Selangor, anyway), the Sultan's birthday - the day of the year I find myself to be a monarchist. Though I have to give this member of monarchy props for not dishing out titles like candy (at this rate, we'll ALL be at least Datuks in a decade or so) and not to the politicians. From what I've read in the papers, this year he's given out 20 of them to non-politicians.

Went to Midvalley to see if I could get myself, if nothing else, a new pair of sneakers (as the pair I've got is about 5 years old, has been halfway round the world with me and back, and could stand to be replaced, I reckon). Terrible crawls going there and back. I wonder if it's anything to do with the time of day (left about noon-ish and was done about 2 odd hours later)... took me an hour to get home. Gah. I think at least half of PJ was there, taking advantage of the RM1 parking - that's my theory.

After looking around the usual places (RSH, Why Pay More, etc), I settled for a pair of men's SKECHERS (A brand I've been meaning to explore, but had no excuse till now, heh heh) sneakers which was 20% off, where in the end only paid less than RM200 for. Mind you, they're men's shoes, but since I'm not one to pay extra for the gender discrimination in shoe fashion...

(why is it that women's shoes cost more than men's shoes, anyway? We buy more pairs per person - shouldn't they make it cheaper to entice us? back to the monologue)

...and I already had a colour scheme in mind (nothing white and/or white detail cos I don't want to have to WASH the shoes if they got dirty for some reason - doesn't show up on grey as much, haha), which I didn't find in the aforementioned places (they were mostly white or white-ish Reeboks for some reason, and the non white shoes didn't scream out to me, "Buy me!! Wear me!!"). There was a girl's pair (also got 20% discount) which caught my eye, but paying the extra RM30 wasn't worth it : P

Nice thing was the shoes came with an extra pair of laces (to add to my collection of old shoelaces of shoes worn and gone)....err... woo.

[Shoes are so old they're not listed on the site... should I be worried?]

While I was in the area, I checked out the new JK Rowling book, Tales of Beedle the Bard in MPH. I recognised the cover on the shelf and I went, "WTF - liddat only ah?" Because it was slightly thicker than one of those Ladybird children's books. -_____-" I'd probably get it if the price was right, not at RM44.95.