Calvaryzone

KFC tricks - Servings featured are for illustration purposes only (MUST SEE)

2009-09-03T11:42:00.004+08:00

Got this from email. I have not tried it yet.
Pretty hilarious.
For those who had tried this before, let us know if it is really this small.

saw the picture... 1st impression is... WAH!! SO BIG OO~~!!! + diff RM 1

from snack plate...

but get 2 BIG SHRIMP STIX~!!

give it a try... ^_^

after a while... the dishes come...

i was SHOCKED~~!!

i look at the dish... then look at the poster... then look back at the

cashier... = ="

he smile at us and say...

"hehe... sedap punya..."

i was really damn frustrated that time... i feel being cheated!!!

but i cant scold them... because they have written

"Servings featured are for illustration purposes only."

which is smaller than bacteria that we need to use microscope to see

it~~!!

Yeah.... this is business tricks...

BUT doesnt that TOO MUCH different from the picture and the actual size

??

no matter what angle i look at the "SHRIMP STIX" there is no way it will

be BIGGER than the CHICKEN >"<

can we SUE them ???

this is just same like showing you HONDA CITY @ RM 40K ~~ when you get

the car.. it was KANCIL !!!

TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE ILLUSTRATED PICTURE~~!!!

ARRRRGGHH~~~~!!!!!!!!

so dissappointed with KFC already...

LESSON from the STORY:-

ALWAYS SEE THE REAL THING BEFORE ORDERING TO MAKE SURE THAT IS WHAT YOU

WANT~

The advertisement:

Actual size:

Never Put Your Comment In Facebook, Here's Why

2009-08-13T13:50:00.003+08:00

Saw this post at PM, and would like to share.
This is a hilarious reason why we should never simply put stupids comments in FB.

Also, remember to never blog about your bad day at work cos your boss is a jackass, cos you'll never know who reads your blog.

Task #1 and #2. Paint guest room 1 and 2

2009-08-08T23:20:00.002+08:00

As i mentioned sometime back, i had already painted one of the guest room with my dad's help. I needed him to show me how to paint correctly and to learn from that experience so i could do the rest on my own.

The whole process took around 3 hours, which we painted 2 layers. That time, i was in charge of doing the corners/borders, and looking at how dad painted the main portion of the wall.

The end result was surprisingly well done, just like a pro. My dad is ever the handy man.

Guest room 1 in Lime Freeze.

Nice, right?
The green gave the room a fresh and revitalizing feeling. As though the energy has been super charged.

Ok, so the guest room 2, my wife and i decided to do it ourselves. The room is not that big, and we had ~~stolen my dad's painting techniques~~ seen how it is done, so how hard could it be?

For this room, we chose a very different colour.

Ok, so here is how the room looked like before we started.

Here are all the ingredients you need. Roller, brush, paint tray, paint, pencil, wooden stick, etc.
also remember to use masking tape to tape off all the bottom portion of the wall.

My wife doing the corners.

Note the colour we used is pastel purplish/pinkish.
We chose this colour because we liked the calming effect it gave off. You can really see if at the end when the room is done.

Reaching the high corners.

Progress at half time.

Once we finished the 1st layer, we let it dry for a while, then proceeded to do the 2nd layer.
We started with thicker paint for the 1st layer, and then the 2nd layer dilutes with more water.
And we had to be careful on the amount of paint we are using as we barely had any paint left once we are done.

* Note to self: 1 litre of paint for this room size, 2 layers.

Finally, the room is done. And that is after 4 hours later.

Nice or not?

The colour is just nice, luckily not too dark.
Hope anyone staying here could feel the calmness aura emitting from the wall.

The next time i have insomnia, i'll know which room to sleep in. hahahhaahha

Task #12. Kitchen wallpaper liner

2009-08-07T00:14:00.003+08:00

That night after i got my list of home improvements, we quickly decided to tackle task #12, which is basically the easiest of the lot.

I just need to stick some stickers, right?

Got this from Ace Hardware store at Sunway Pyramid for RM 54.90, 10 meters long. This is the self-adhesive type, so just peel it off like a sticker and stick it. There is another cheaper type, which is of cloth-type material, but is not self-adhesive, so you need to apply glue to stick it. I figured that playing with glue could get messy, so what the heck, for once in my life, i rather pay more.

So we start off with one section of the kitchen wall, as shown above, perfectly plain and boring. Time to jazz it up.

My lovely wife figuring out how to cut the liner. Note that it is not as simple as just cutting to the required length and stick it onto the wall. From the earlier picture of the kitchen wall, there is a light switch on the path where i need to stick this, so we have to cut around the liner to accommodate the switch.

Tada!!!
Looks nicer right?

Another part of the kitchen wall with the wallpaper liner.
Sure is cheaper than putting in border tiles.

Home Improvement plan

2009-08-06T21:54:00.003+08:00

For all married guys out there, there comes a point in time when our wifes would suddenly give us a set of tasks to do around the house.

This happens once you have settled into your new home, and is relatively comfortable living there. Then all of a sudden, the wifes would slap you with a list of what needs to be improved around the house (even though you may argue that everything is fine, why fix something that ain't broken?)

And that is the dreaded home improvement plan.

Last weekend my wife gave me such a list.
And her dateline is set for the end of Aug 09.

Here are the items in the list (not according to priority).

Tasks:

#1. Paint guest room 1 (easy)
#2. Paint guest room 2 (easy)
#3. Paint master bedroom (easy)
#4. Paint upper living hall (need to top up my insurance premium)
#5. Paint main living hall (a lot of walls to cover)
#6. Paint study room (easy, as soon as i can clear out the junk in the room)
#7. Paint outside (please don't rain)
#8. Window tint (please kill me!)
#9. Fix accessories for guest room 2 (drilling on tiles!)
#10. Fix kitchen curtain rod (easy, but messy)
#11. Fix study room curtain rod (easy but messy)
#12. Kitchen wallpaper liner (child's play)
#13. Living hall lighting (need more ^@#$!#@ $$$$$)

The notes besides the tasks are self explanatory.
Wish me good luck.

Thanks Panasonic for the free air conditioner!

2009-08-04T22:31:00.008+08:00

Sometime back in April i bought a cheapo Panasonic air con for my house's guest room where my brother-in-law's family would be staying for a few months.

It was the most entry level model that anyone can find in the market. And if air cons were shoes, then this would be the Croc knock offs that is being sold in the pasar malam. Basically it just blows cold air out. No fancy ionizer, plasma cluster, allergy free, death rays, or what ever new technology is being put into an air con nowadays. I got it for RM 1050, including installation, which i was lead to believe was a good deal.

Anyway, few days later, while i was reading the newspaper, i saw that Panasonic is having a contest, which is giving a way 333 prizes every month, for 3 months. That's like 999 total prizes up for grabs!!!
So without waiting, i quickly went online to check for details of the contest.
Found my way to the Panasonic website to download the entry form and get a better understanding of how the contest works.

So basically the contest is pretty simple.
Each RM 300 you spent on any Panasonic product entitles you for 1 entry. So the RM 1050 i spent got me 3 entries.
Answer 2 very idiotically simple questions. And no slogans whatsoever (thank god!)
Complete the form, attach a photocopy of the receipt and the original copy of the warranty card and send it back by post.
Cross your fingers, count your lucky stars and get ready for a lucky draw.

Pretty simple right?

Each draw happens at the beginning of the month, eg. i purchased my air con in April, so i am entitled for the May lucky draw. And each month, 111 lucky person would win an air con, another 111 would win a refrigerator and the remaining 111 would win a washing machine (crap prize).

I mean how hard would that be right? After all, i got 3 entries. Eat dust to those who bought a measly rm 300 product hahahaha

But then later only i realized that at that time, Panasonic was having a lot of promotions, especially with the Viera plasma and LCD TV (i too was almost tempted to swipe my card for a cash and carry 32" LCD TV promotion)

Then it hit me that my measly 3 entries might not even win me anything. Sure, there are 999 prizes to be given away, but we could be talking about thousands of entries. Anyone who bought the plasma and LCD TVs would get no less than 9 entries alone! Thats 3 times higher chance than me.

Well, if it is mine, then it is mine.

Very quickly i forgot about the contest. I did remember checking the newspaper in the beginning of May for the result but didn't see any. In fact the May results came out sometime in mid June i believe. Talk about being slow!

Then one fine day, i got a call from Panasonic that i had won the air con in the 333 contest. She asked me to check the past few day's newspaper. At first i thought it was a prank. I mean, i need to see some proof before i get too happy for the wrong reasons.

Sure enough, when i checked back the newspaper at the date she mentioned, there it was, the results.

Wohoo!!! That's my name!

Ok, so now i have to wait for a letter from Panasonic, informing me which Panasonic dealer i should contact to collect my prize.

After a few weeks of endless waiting (surprisingly the more you expect of something, the longer the wait seemed), the letter finally arrived.

The dealer was the shop where i bought the cheapo air con from. I promptly called the dude up and ~~demanded my well deserved prize~~ inquired about the prize.

"Erm, your air con haven't come yet lah"

"So when can get?"

"Donno leh. When come lioa, i give you a call"

Well, that's what basically happened and after another few weeks of waiting, finally the dude called me to inform that the prize is in his shop. After doing some research, i tried to persuade him to trade the prize (1.75 hp inverter) to a non-inverter 2.0 hp, which should roughly be the same price tag. But no deal he said, since the prize came directly from Panasonic and he won't make a cent from this (apart from the RM300 commission for being the dealer of the contest winner)

So after haggling with the installation price (yeah, inverter uses different piping and is much more expensive to install and service, which is why i preferred a non-inverter version), I finally got it down to RM280 (non-inverter installation is around RM150) and asked him to come today.

Installation was a breeze (well, i would assume so. But heck, i wouldn't know since i was at work today but my dad did called me up saying they broke a few roof tiles which by the time i got home was already repaired but the question is where did he find some new tiles to replace the broken ones?)

And why the heck was the air con unit installed so high up? And whats with the ugly white cable concealer?

* Note to self: remember to paint it over.

Now still testing the air con performance.
For a 1.75 hp, the blower is quite strong and effective to cover the whole living room.

Though at first it took some time to cool down the whole area (area was not confined and the air escapes everywhere), but once it is in high gear, we found ourselves shivering under its strong cold currents. Don't play play ar.

Ah... Panasonic... you complete ~~me.~~ my living room.

Business trip to Senai, Johor

2009-08-01T22:37:00.002+08:00

I just came back from Senai yesterday after a tiring week attending Baan training there.

Went over to Senai on Monday morning, taking the 7.30 am MAS flight, which means i took the taxi at 6.00 am, waking up at 5.00 am. Add that to the fact that i slept at around 12.30 am, that means i only got like 4.5 hours of sleep the night before.
So you can imagine how tiring it is to travel like this.

Once touchdown, it is straight to the office. And enduring another 8 hours of training (well, you know sometimes these can get pretty boring).

Once the Day 1 training is done, time to check out the hotel.
This time i stayed at the Puteri Pacific Hotel JB. Ahh, this hotel certainly brings back memories, as few years back, this was where i called my Second home.

It was called Pan Pacific back then, and i have stayed here collectively for more than 90 days throughout (probably even more, i lost count). Too bad they don't have any reward programme, otherwise i'll probably be a Gold/Platinum member by now.

And it is within walking distance to the City Square mall, so it was a good choice for me.

The comfortable bed. This will be my bed for the next 4 nights.

Just FYI, i slept on the left side of the bed (the opposite side of what is shown below).
No specific reason for choosing the sides, but just make sure the other side is piled up with stuff eg. clothes, bags when you sleep, to prevent ahem from getting too comfortable.

For dinner, my colleague and I went over to City Square and tried the Portuguese Chicken. At RM 11.90, it was a deal for half a chicken, but later we realized that the chicken was kinda small, and it was only so so in the taste department. But we saw a sizeable crowd there, so i guess we KL people have higher expectations on what we eat. (hahahaha)

After dinner, time to head back to the hotel and start working.
Yes, the perils of being on business trips. Seen it before, will again.

Sunrise the next morning.
Look at the dirty glass windows!

Another round of sunrise the next few days, greeting me in the morning ~~to endure more boring trainings.~~

So does the sunsets, greeting me when i get back ~~to continue working my ass off till wee hours into the night.~~

C'est la vie. What a wonderful life.

More kitchen renovation pictures

2009-07-23T09:27:00.001+08:00

These were taking like 2 months back.

6 concrete support beams went up. Hope this will provide the required foundation. As i mentioned before, the backyard area is sinking and the developer did not do actual piling there, so we can see alot of the neighbours doing such extension having cracks there. It is only a matter of time before the whole thing rips off (well, maybe not so extreme lah), so i pray pray ours will be ok.

Once the beams have set, time to put up the brick walls.
Look left. Wall is up.

Look right. Wall is up too.

The opening for the windows.

Next up would be the ceiling and roof.

Score A Programme - E-Learning portal for kids

2009-07-18T15:13:00.071+08:00

Score A Programme™

We Have Helped Thousands of Children Score- 'A's in UPSR & PMR...

We are The Top E-Learning Company in Malaysia...

We Bring Tuition To Your Home
24 Hours a Day, 365 Days in a Year.
Anytime ! Anywhere !

Score A Programme™ introduces your children to the world of IT (Internet Teaching).
Score A's inception in the OUTPUT Learning started in the year 1999 for students from Standard 1 - Form 3.
100% according to the syllabus of the Malaysian Ministry of Education.

Why Score A Programme (18 highlights) ?

Highly Interactive - Attracts students to have initiative to do more revision
Immediate Marks Given - Facilitates students to identity their mistakes without referring to the answers
Time Management - Students need to answer during the stipulated time given
eReport Card - Parents can monitor their child's educational progress anytime, anywhere!
SMS Report - Parents will be informed with regards to their childs' progress through real time SMS
Cross Referencing - If students do not understand, they can click on the eNotes and explanations will be given
Study Plan - Students can supervise their revision and study time-table from previous records
Number of Tries - Students can try a second and third time to get the correct asnwer
Motivational Quotes - Develop student's confidence with motivational quotes if they get the correct answers
e-Dictionary - Click to find out the meaning of words that they do not understand
Difficult Levels - Games Stimulation -Students need to achieve 80 marks in order to move to a high level
'Hot' Questions - Direct from Smart Teachers. Not available from any bookstore
Current Standards - The contents are always up-dated to meet the current standards required
National Competition - Students nationwide can compete and also know their current placings
Annual Achievement Awards - Every year, 'Score A Scholar Night' recognizes and rewards top achievers
Output Learning - Examinations are output learning
Easily Accessible - Anytime, Anywhere . No need to carry stacks of books when traveling
Financial Rebate - Study for free! Just introduce Score A programme to 4 families

Syllabus Contents

The Score A Programme™ covers the 100% latest syllabus from Malaysia Ministry of Education. For every single change on the syllabus, it only takes 24 hours for the changes to be updated in Score A system.

Score A database as of now hold over 250,000 high quality questions in the question bank, and it will always be updated. We have all the expert teachers acknowledged by the Ministry to safe guards and maintain those questions. They are the question creators approved by the ‘Lembaga Peperiksaan Kebangsaan’.

Primary School (Standard 1-6)

Bahasa Malaysia
Bahasa Cina
Bahasa English
Science (SK & SJK(C))
Mathematics (SK & SJK(C))

Lower Secondary School (Form 1-3)

Bahasa Malaysia
English
Bahasa Cina
Geografi
Sejarah
Mathematics
Science

Form 4 & 5 - to be launched soon

The Company

Kenshido International Sdn Bhd
Wisma Kenshido, No 1-1, 1-2, 1-3,Jalan PJU 5/6, Dataran Sunway PJU 5,
47810 Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya, Selangor Malaysia.
Tel: 603-6141 8286 (Hunting Line) Fax:603-6141 8126, 6141 8136
Website: http://www.kenshido.com / www.scorea.com
E-mail: enquiries@kenshido.com

Board of Directors

History

Kenshido International Sdn. Bhd. started in 1999 (formally known as Edu-2u Portal Sdn. Bhd.).
Pioneer E-Learning company in Malaysia.
R&D for 3 years to develop the system with capital of RM4.5 million.
In 2002, Score A programme™ was launched to 14 vision schools in Malaysia for free to test its effectiveness. The project was in coordination with and was supported by the Ministry of Education.
The vision school trials went on for 3 years from 2002 to 2005, with an astonishing 93% of students using the Score A programme™ getting 5As in UPSR and 8As in PMR.
Since then more schools have been introduced to the programme.
In 3 March 2006, the Score A programme™ was officially launched by the then Menteri Pelajaran Malaysia Y.B. Dato’ Sri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein after the programme has proven its effectiveness on students.
After gaining the recognition and support from the Ministry of Education, the Score A programme™ was launched to the public.

AJL License (931448) and Paid-up Capital (RM 5M)

The only E-Learning Portal endorsed by our Minister of Education
Y.B. Dato’ Sri Hishammuddin.

Support from National PIBG.

Media Report

Buletin TV3

Astro News

The Star

East Malaysia News

Utusan Malaysia

Tamil News

Testimonials

Appreciation and acknowledgment from schools

Students' testimonials

What is Score A Programme™?
Score A Programme™ is a fully interactive and effective programme to help students Be Exam Ready And Score A’s™.
What is "Input Learning™"?
"Input Learning™" is putting information into your "Neuron". Reading, studying, listening and memorizing are "Input Learning™". Many students only carry out "Input Learning™", that is why they get average marks. To score, you need "Output Learning™".
What is "Output Learning™"?
Output learning™ teaches students on how to apply what they have studied in school through specially prepared assessments in the Score A Programme™ - The Ultimate Output Learning Tool™
Why do students need Score A Programme™?
Score A Programme™ has been carefully designed to provide students with many features to help them prepare for their examinations. With Score A Programme™, students will be able to assess their level of understanding of all subjects or topics that they have been taught in school. Score A Programme™ also allows students unlimited practises to sharpen their examination skills, helps build their confidence, and encourages them to develop a Score-A attitude.
Why is eReport Card in Score A Programme™ important?
eReport Card is a unique feature that gives parents unprecedented first hand knowledge of their children's academic performances. Parents will be well informed of their children's strong and weak subjects even before their children bring home their actual school report card. The eReport Card enables parents to monitor their children's progress at any time convenient to them. Parents then can render assistance, if and when necessary.
What are the levels and subjects covered by Score A Programme™?
Score A Programme™ covers all subjects taught in National schools from Year 1 to Form 3. Score A Programme™ also includes all subjects taught in the National Chinese School The content of Score A Programme™ is in line with the school syllabus and curriculum set by the Ministry of Education, and covers all major government examinations - UPSR & PMR.
Will Score A Programme™ burden my children?
No. Score A Programme™ is not a repetition of "Input Learning" and hence, will not burden your children.
Do my children still need Score A Programme™ although they are currently attending tuition classes?
Yes, because tuition is another form of Input Learning. In fact, Score A Programme™ will complement the tuition classes attended by your children.
Why does Score A Programme™ focus only on objective-type questions?
Because Score A Programme™ applies Output Learning techniques and test students on their level of understanding through multiple-choice questions.The mastering of multiple-choice questions will enable them to do well in the subjective questions.
Is Score A Programme™ affordable?
Yes. Score A Programme™ is easily affordable. Score A Programme™ is very cost effective, and is value for money based on the following features:
1. Score A Programme™ is priced on a “per family” basis, regardless of the number of school-going children.
2. Score A Programme™ allows each user unlimited eAssessment and eTrial Exam practise at no extra charge. It is in line with the concept of “Practise Makes perfect”.
3. Score A Programme™ allows each user access to various school levels.

Score A programme™ Unique Features

eTopic - Topical questions

eTopic is a revision module that allows students to do short regular exercises and provides instant Output Learning to assess a student's level of understanding of a particular topic taught in school. Students can select a particular topic taught in class that day and instantly find out if they have understood what they have learnt and review their understanding of that topic. Parents will be able to monitor their children’s academic progress and help them identify their children's strength and weaknesses so that timely measures can be taken to correct any shortcomings.

With eTopic, answers are corrected instantly to allow the student to learn from their mistakes. Each question allows the student four attempts to find the right answer. Each attempt that is incorrect will have 1/3 point deducted, and when the wrong answer is selected, the student will be informed instantly, thus "forcing" the student to re-read the question before his or her 2nd, 3rd or 4th attempt. This instills the habit of reading the question carefully and understanding it before attempting an answer.

eAssessment - General questions

eAssessment™ was carefully designed to allow your children do exercises as often as they want and provides instant Output Learning to assess your children's understanding of a particular subject taught in school. Your children can select a subject at any one time and instantly find out if they have understood what they have learnt and review their understanding of that subject. As parents, you will then be able to identify your child's strength and weaknesses so that timely measures can be taken to correct any shortcomings before the actual examinations.

The key objectives are:
1. To provide instant output learning.
2. To sharpen exam skills by allowing students unlimited practise.
3. To help students to answer correctly, 1st time, every time.
4. To establish the habit to read and understand questions before answering.

When a student is practising with eAssessment™, answers are corrected instantly to allow the student to learn from the their mistakes. Each question allows the student four attempts to find the right answer. Each attempt that is incorrect will have 1/3 point deducted, and when the wrong answer is selected, the student will be informed instantly, thus "forcing" the student to re-read the question before his or her 2nd, 3rd or 4th attempt. This instils the habit of reading the question carefully and understanding it before attempting an answer.

eTrial Exams

eTrial Exam™ module is designed to simulate actual exam environment for UPSR, PMR and SPM. It further enhance your children’s exam readiness. This module will help your children condition themselves to the pressure of completing the exam in a specific amount of time allocated according to Examination Board's Standards. eTrial Exam™ was designed like an actual exam and the student will have to submit it for correction or grading after they have completed it. The grading is instant. This module thus help and condition students to be confident, exam ready and score A’s.

ePast Year Exam

ePastYearExam allows students sitting for national examinations to practise on actual past years’ examination papers. These are actual UPSR, PMR and SPM examination papers set by the Ministry of Education and is made possible through our affiliationship with Cerdik Publications Sdn Bhd, who has been given the exclusive rights by the Ministry of Education to publish and distribute past years’ examination papers. Each exam paper is set exactly as the actual examination paper format and students have the options to select questions either by “year” or by “random” and have to complete all exercises within the time allocated. This exclusive and invaluable feature allows students countless examination practices thus helps and condition students to be exam ready and Score A's in the real examinations.

eProgress

eProgress is a monitoring chart that allows parents keep track of their children’s performances on eTopic. This feature is an effective monitoring tool that is designed to keep parents informed of their children’s work schedule, ensuring parents that their children eTopic exercises are done and completed accordingly. Parents would be updated on the number of attempts their children has done on each topic, thus specifically highlighting the “difficult topics” faced by their children. This information will help parents identify specific topics in a subject that their children have difficulties in, instead of generalising and categorising weaknesses by subjects.

eReport Card (Online and SMS)

eReport Card™ is A MUST HAVE feature for any concerned parents. It records all your children’s output learning sessions, be it eAssessment or eTrial Exam. This feature gives parents unprecedented 1st hand knowledge of their children’s strong and weak subjects. It records and displays your children’s average scores for each subject for that month. You can also check on previous months’ results to compare the difference.

Click on “More” & it will display the actual score of each output learning exercises. Furthermore, the eReport Card™ records the last 10 completed eAssessment™ or eTrial Exam™ to give you a review of their performances & identify weakness so that timely measures can be taken to correct whatever deficiency before the actual exam takes place.

The key objectives are:
1. Allow parents constant & timely monitoring of children's academic performances.
2. Evaluation of performances to render assistance, if & when necessary.

Trace and keep an eye on your children's studies and lesson movement. Without going through any third-party, parents are able directly encourage their children with this eReport Card™. Undoubtedly, this evaluation tool is priceless for those who want to score straight A's.

eNotes

eNotes are brief notes but compact especially prepared for use for all subjects in the Score A Programme™. eNotes is specially suitable for students wishing to do revision on any subject before practicing. It is prepared topically. Therefore, students are encouraged to go over the eNotes before answering questions in eTopic.

So that, students will be better prepared when they start to do exercises or answer questions in the eTopic specifically when looking for the correct answers.

eDictionary

To further help student better understand questions in English, we provide an eDictionary to help define or explain the meaning of any words in question. At the same time, this will help students learn English while preparing for exams.

Nationwide Honour Roll

Through this Nationwide Honors Roll, students from all around Malaysia (and abroad) competes among each others to achieve the highest ranking. This encourages more practices and ensures better understanding in the subject.

For more information about Score A Programme™, please visit : http://www.scorea.com/

For online demo Score A Programme™, click on

Demo ID: 82828

Score A Programme™ – 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, anytime, anywhere !

How much does this cost?

Single Starter Package
Each Portal will cost you RM298.00

Package of 1 parent account and 1 student account per portal
Consist of Activation Code: RM50.00 and Top Up Code: RM248.00
(RM248 + RM 50 = RM298)
1 portal for one parent only
Additional fees of RM50.00 for additional student account
For usage of 3 month

Starter Package
Each Portal will cost you RM596.00

Package of 1 parent account and 2 student accounts per portal
Consist of Activation Code: RM50.00 and Top Up Code: RM248.00
(RM248 + RM 50 = RM298 x 2 = RM596)
1 portal for one parent only
Additional fees of RM50.00 for additional student account
For usage of 6 month

Top Up Charge

RM248.00 for 3 month usage (irregardless of number of children)

Overview

No. of kids	Pay (RM)	Consist Of		Duration	Monthly Average per kid
No. of kids	Pay (RM)	Activation	Top up	Duration	Monthly Average per kid
1	298	1 x RM50	1 x RM248	3 Months	RM99.33
2	596	2 x RM50	2 x RM248	6 Months	RM49.66
3	596+50	3 x RM50	2 x RM248	6 Months	RM35.88
4	596+100	4 x RM50	2 x RM248	6 Months	RM29.00
5	596+150	5 x RM50	2 x RM248	6 Months	RM24.86

Activation fee RM50 is only paid once for life per kid to register for his/her account.
The RM248 top up can be used for all kids in one family, thus more kids will enjoy much cheaper rate.
All registered students are entitled for all subjects according to Ministry of Education syllabus applicable to their school level.
Eg. for 2 kids package, it only costs RM1.65 per day for each kid! Divide that by the multiple subjects, it costs a few cents per subject. Topping up the next 3 months will be even cheaper. Now that's a cheap and affordable investment for your children's future.

If you have any questions about the Score A programme™, please drop me an email at calvaryzone@gmail.com or leave a comment here and i will try to provide you the answers.

If you are interested to purchase the Starter package, please let me know.
Or if you know someone who could benefit from this programme, please kindly direct him/her to this site :)

Life without blogging - I am back

2009-07-16T13:29:00.004+08:00

Wah, been almost 1 month + since i had my last post. Sorry for the long hiatus.

Too many things going on that i have to take a break from blogging. I needed the extra time to organize and prioritize my life back again. :)

Short post this time, just to let you know that i am still alive.
Summary of what went on during this period of time.

Went for a quick business trip to Zhuhai. Just 3 days with no weekends. Rushed like hell to get back. And a shit load of work waiting for me ~~with open arms~~. Its a wonder how some people get to go to business trips for relaxation, while i am totally the opposite. I go there to work like crazy for the project during office hours. Go back to hotel to work like crazy for my other projects. Quickly get the hell out of there by catching the next available flight back. Only to realize that once i am back i still need to follow up and support the project. And did i mentioned my other projects as well. Die die must do.
My kitchen renovation is still not moving as quickly as i hoped due to most resources taken up by my brother-in-law's house renovation. We have the same contractor, and since his house is more urgent, his house gets priority (yeah, now i know how second class citizens feel). But it is moving back on track in the last few days and considering how a (and i quote my contractor's own words) "simple 3 weeks job" had dragged on for over 2 months lioa, i have to pray hard hard for this to be over with cos now we can't use the kitchen at all, meaning cannot boil water and wash clothes and dishes.
Painted the feature wall of one of the rooms with lots of help from my dad. It is not easy ok. Bought 9 cans of 1 litre paint for 6 more walls to go. Damaged? approx RM 270. Slogging for the next few weekends to get them painted. Priceless.

Kitchen renovation progress

2009-05-28T23:54:00.006+08:00

Here are some progress for the past week on my dear beloved kitchen's renovation works.

Remember how previously they dug 3 grave holes at my backyard?
Well, they quickly filled it up with concrete the very next day, and upon coming back from work, this is what we saw.

My wife looked at me and asked "Erm, why only filled half only?"
I had no idea, but i tried to tembak the answer "Cos they ran out of cement mah"

Of course, that has got to be the stupidest answer ever, since earlier in the morning i saw the contractor with the concrete mixer truck, so it is impossible for them to run out of cement.

So i called the contractor and he told me "No worries Mr. Wong. That one is just the footing, as the base foundation. The other half will be filled up later"

Ok lo, since i know nuts about construction, better leave it to the experts.

A few days later, once the footing concrete has dried up, they proceeded to the next step.
I came home and saw this.

Wah, good progress *clap clap*

Looks like they have all the steel bars tied up and ready. These bars will act as the foundation to strengthens the concrete structure from the inside.

Another closer shot to see how they all come together.

The new steel bars are connected back to the steel bars in the existing structure for added strength. The whole house's foundation will support the new area from this, preventing the kitchen from sinking.

Yes, my house's backyard actually is on soft ground, so it is actually sinking slowly. Some people said we should not touch this area until it settles, which takes around 5-10 years. It has barely been 3 years, so we are actually risking the whole kitchen sinking ~~into the abyss~~.

Even some of the neighbours' renovation works have resulted in cracks appearing due to the sinkage. Only time before their kitchen (the extended area) will be ripped off from the whole house.

But of course our contractor ~~promised us the Sun and the Moon and~~ gave us a lifetime guarantee that it will not sink.

Well, either he is that good, or he has a short life span. hahahahah

Ok, everything looks set with the steel bars structure.

The next day, the concrete mixer truck came again and filled up the area.

Everything that needs to be done to make the foundation strong has been done.
Now only time will tell if it could withstand the sinkage.

As they say, the foundation is the most important in any structure. If it fails, there goes the kitchen.

With this in mind, every night before i go to bed, i pray that my contractor may live up to 99 years old.

His lifetime guarantee better be good. He better not die on me dammit!

DIY Mee Hoon Kueh

2009-05-25T21:36:00.011+08:00

Some time back, when my kitchen was still functional and in one piece, we found time to experiment and tried making our own mee hoon kueh (flour cake soup).

We have all seen how easy our friendly neighbourhood mee hoon kueh/pan mee stall owner casually toss the noodles into the boiling soup, cooking the flour to perfection, to the extend that we thought could do the same.

How wrong were we!

Anyway, to make the mee hoon kueh, we need our main ingredients: flour, eggs and water.

Toss everything into the Breadmaker ™ and wait for it to knead the dough.
Once done, set it aside while we work on the other ingredients.

First, peel off the head and guts to clean the dried anchovies.

Separate a portion of them for the soup base (or you could use stock cubes if you are soooo lazy) and another portion to be fried till crispy.

But instead of the conventional deep frying in hot oil, my wife suggested we could toast them in the oven instead with the same effect.

Of course, i raised an eyebrow to her suggestion, and said...

Can bo?

And i had to eat back my words after that.

Ok, moving on... toasting the anchovies in the oven is actually a brilliant idea, the final result is almost the same as deep frying them in oil, but is less oily (the only oil comes from the anchovies themselves) and i don't have to waste a wok-full of oil for the frying.

Sorry, cooking noob learns new things everyday. hehehehe

Ok, next we need to deal with our next ingredients.
Soak the mushrooms and tau foo pok to soften them, and the slice them into bite size, along with the fish cake.

Marinate the minced pork with char siew sauce for an hour and clean the sayur manis (i only knew what is it called after being educated at our friendly neighbourhood market. You know what they say, "You learn something new everyday")

Then stir fry the minced pork till fragrant. Add salt to taste.

Then blanch the sayur manis to ensure they are properly cooked.
Drain off the water and set aside.

So now you should have already made all the side dishes to accompany your mee hoon kueh.

And make sure your soup base is ready before we begin the next step.

Now we go back to the dough and make some mee hoon kueh.
First, divide the dough into smaller balls for easier handling. Make sure you have plenty of flour on the table to stiffen the dough in case it gets too sticky. And yes, they could get very very sticky. And messy.

Using a rolling pin, quickly flatten the dough as thinly as possible. The thinner the dough, the easier it will cook and the smoother the texture will be.

There, all done and ready to go into the pot.

Before tossing them into the pot, casually tear them into bite size pieces (how big is bite size depends on how big your mouth is lah) and flung them into the boiling soup base to cook for approx 10 minutes. Remember to add back in the sayur manis.

Cooking time varies depending on how thin you managed to get your mee hoon kueh to be.
Too quick and you'll end up with portions uncooked in the middle.
Too long, and the whole thing become soggy and slimy.

This one comes with the experience, so the more you cook, the more you could judge and estimate the timings.

Finally garnish with coriander (only if you love them) and you are good to go.

Ah.... a satisfying meal indeed.

My dear beloved kitchen...

2009-05-20T21:56:00.004+08:00

Of all the parts of my house, we love our kitchen the most.
This is where we enjoy doing what we love most... cooking.

Well, actually i love the bedroom as well, but that's another story. hehehe

But as much as we loved the way it is now, we have always thought that the kitchen is too small for the both of us. We practically can't move when both of us are cooking, and that is something we would like to improve on, getting a better kitchen!

So after spending some long and brain-wreaking days trying to justify and calculate our financial standing (well, more like a constant nagging from my wife to demand me to do it), we decided to extend our kitchen.

We can get another 5 feet worth of space for our wet kitchen area.

And how much is the damage?
About RM 20k for everything. (holy cow!!!!)

Here is how our wet kitchen looks like before.

Here is how it looks like from the outside, the extra 5 feet that we can utilize.

That was how it looked like before.

Now?

It looked like someone dug 3 grave holes at my backyard.

There, can even fit dead bodies in there.

Anyone has got some dead bodies but no where to dispose off?

MAS Enrich Redemption - Look what i've got

2009-05-16T15:58:00.009+08:00

For the past 8 years, ever since i joined the workforce in 2001, i have been actively traveling for my job.

Initially i flew a lot on Singapore Airlines (SIA) and have accumulated lots of points on Krisflyer but ended up not using any of them.

Why?
Because even if i redeem the points for flights, i still need to pay a lot for the airport tax and fuel surcharge. I mean, those alone costs hundreds of ringgits, eg. the last time i wanted to redeem flights from KL to Singapore, the surcharge and tax itself cost about RM 125 per person. Since i am so ~~kamsiap~~ financially wise, i have always thought that getting a bus or a train, which would only be a fraction of the cost, is the better option.

Anyway, those just got burnt away (expired lahhhh)

So back to the point.

Throughout the years, i flew a lot on Malaysia Airlines (MAS) as well. And have accumulated lots of Enrich points. I have not redeemed any since day 1, so when i checked my points last months, surprisingly i have accumulated up to approx 51,800 points.

That would amount around RM 740 (per enrich redemption average 70 points per RM 1)

So it was time to splurge.

I promptly checked the Enrich website to see what goodies i can get.
Imagine my horror when most of the things that can be redeemed ranges from cosmetics, fragrances, and jewellery.

Well, lady luck smiling to my wife i guess.

So i asked her what she wanted and she picked these:

1) Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Duo Value Set: RM 65 - 4550 points

2) Lancôme Travel Must Have Beauty: RM 172 - 12040 points

3) Dior Diorissime Makeup Pallete: RM 200 - 14000 points

4) Cristix Mikimomo Mini Massager: RM 299 - 20930 points

Well, actually i insisted on getting the mini massager for her, so she could use it whenever she has her back pain. Hope this will help relieve her pain, however little it may be.

So i collected them from the Subang Airport Complex B the other day.

The Lancôme Travel Must Have Beauty. Nice packaging. Looks exquisite.

Dior Diorissime Makeup Pallete. Very nice packaging as well. She has always wanted a complete makeup set.

Fuyoh, Dior somore.....)

Cristix Mikimomo Mini Massager. I wanted to say great packaging, but i could not. Imagine my surprise when the staff presented this to me without any packaging.

So i asked,

"This one no package one ar?"

"Sorry no"

"Then got any box can put in ar?"

"Sorry no"

Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Duo Value Set. Erm, first impression for this one is.... very small, very small indeed.

How small you ask?

The size of a cigarette box lo (or a deck of cards for the non-smokers)

So small leh....

Now i have a remaining balance of 333 points.

I guess now is the time to start flying again.

Cake decorating

2009-05-12T12:56:00.007+08:00

As you all should know by now, my wife loves baking. It is her passion, just like mine is photography.

And this is somewhat of a handy skill to have, since we no longer need to go out to buy cakes for birthday celebrations. Anyone's birthday needs a cake? We provide. Hahahha.
And she is getting better each time. With each experiment, i can see her cakes can begin to rival those sold in shops. Watch out Secret Recipe! Hahahaha

And we only made them at a fraction of the cost sold outside. And healthier too, knowing what you actually put into your mouth.

So 2 weeks back, we decided to make a cake for Mei Mei's birthday.

Since she likes Dora, my wife bought the Dora sugar picture to decorate the cake.
That can be easily purchased at your neighborhood bakery shop.

Ok, once you have baked your cake, splice it in half (horizontally ok, not vertically)
This time my wife did a splendid chocolate cake with chocolate chips. And it was moist and dense, almost like fudge texture.

First, apply some whip cream onto the surface of the cake.
Once fully covered with whip cream, put another layer of blueberry jam.
Then drizzle a layer of crushed roasted walnuts to add taste and texture to the bite.

Once you are done with the first layer, put on the other half of the cake to make it complete.
Apply a layer of whip cream to it, covering the whole cake.

Once done, now it is the time to flex your creativity muscles.
Place the Dora sugar picture on top of the cake.
Then apply some whip cream on the side of the cake.

Shown below is my wife working on the sides with a piping syringe.

Then we add some chocolate shavings to the top and sprinkle colour chocolate rice to the side.

Trust me when i tell you that sprinkling the chocolate rice is the hardest part in the whole process. And not to mention the messiest as well. But no doubt you'll all enjoy making a mess in the kitchen. Hahahha

See the chocolate rice flying everywhere.
And my wife had to re-pipe the cream side so it looks nicer.

Here is the final product.

Have a wonderful time decorating your cakes!

And Mei Mei, have a Happy Dora Birthday!

Carrot Walnut cake

2009-04-28T21:18:00.006+08:00

Last weekend my wife made carrot walnut cake.

This by far must be the easiest cake to make. Ever. (i swear)
You'll probably bang you head when you look at the instructions.

So let's start with the pictures first, shall we?

Nice right?

Ingredients:
- Walnuts 200g, chopped and toasted
- Grated carrots 200g
- Raisins 100g
- 3 eggs
- Butter 200g
- Baking powder 1 tsp
- Baking soda 1 tsp
- Cinnamon powder 1 tsp
- Brown sugar 100g
- Salt 1 tsp

Steps:
1) Toss everything into the Breadmaker ™.
2) Set to program 9.
3) Start.
4) Wait for 1.5 hours while the Breadmaker ™ does its job.
5) Done. Take out. Let is cool. Eat.

See, easy right?

The cake was moist and soft, similar to the texture of banana cakes, mix fruit cakes, etc.

Even after a few days, it won't dry up but will remain pretty much the same from when it came out from the oven (of course not hot anymore la)

Definitely a fav for me.

Krispy Kreme 1st prize winner - 65 hours wait

2009-04-28T20:12:00.003+08:00

Would you wait 65 hours under the heat and rain, just to get doughnuts??!?!

A follow-up from my earlier post.

Well, apparently that is what took Joey Tham to get that 1st prize, 1 year supply of doughnuts (1236 doughnuts to be exact)

She and her friends banded together to claim the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th prize in a sweep-all fashion. (fuyoh, no give chance at all)

I thought people would start camping at 6:00 AM that morning.
Or worst, start the night before at 10:00 PM.

But who knew they would be crazy enough to start camping since Friday evening.
That totally blew the competition away.

Which makes me wonder, how did they decide to give Joey the 1st prize anyway?
I mean, they basically camp there together, so i would assumed all of them spent the same amount of time there.

Well, it is their piece of the doughnut, so congrats to them. May the doughnut force be ~~in your stomach~~ with you.

Krispy Kreme lovers on 65-hour vigil to win 1,236 doughnuts
by Isaac Hiew

Berjaya Corporation Executive Director
Datuk Francis Lee presenting grand prize
to SMK Seri Suria student Joey Tham
Li-Yen the "Gold Ticket" of winning a
year's supply of free Krispy Kreme
Original Glaze doughnuts for being the
very first Malaysian Customer of Krispy
Kreme.
KUALA LUMPUR (April 27, 2009): When Joey Tham and her friends heard about Kripsy Kreme Doughnuts’s offer of a year’s supply for the first customer at its flagship outlet’s inaugural opening at Berjaya Times Square, they decided to give their best shot.

Tham and her friends, Alex Leong, Bilal Ahmee, Vincent Chen, Liang Jo Yi and Nicholas Yap, all 17, all from Ulu Langat then put into action a plan to win.

The plan led to them camping in front of the store for 65 hours since 5pm last Friday, fighting off mosquitoes at night and bearing the heat during the day and even missing their baths, -- taking turns to zealously guard their position at the head of the queue while waiting for the iconic Hot Light to be turned on for the first time today.

It was well worth the wait. Their patience and tenacity paid off. The school-mates won to top six prizes offered by Krispy Kreme for the first 300 customers, sweeping the Gold, Silver, Bronze tickets and three others, which will give them a total haul of 1,236 free doughnuts.

The Gold Ticket entitles the winner to free supply of one dozen fresh Krispy Kreme Original Glazed doughnuts per week for a year, while the silver ticket awards a dozen doughnuts for 26 weeks and the bronze, for 13 weeks.

The fourth to the 100th place customers a dozen doughnuts free for four weeks while the 101st to 300th customer received a special Krispy Kreme mug.

Read the rest

Would you have ~~been that stupid~~ done that?

MAS Let's Go Now contest

2009-04-28T00:55:00.004+08:00

I am sure many are aware of the on-going MAS Let's Go Now contest that had been running for the past few weeks.

The requirements are simple: submit a photo related to that week's theme, and write an interesting/witty caption for it. The top 5 pic will be selected by the panel of judges and is open for public voting.

Captivating prizes as below, for each of the waves:

PRIZES

Wave 1 four (4) days three (3) nights holiday package for two (2) to Bangkok
Wave 2 five (5) days four (4) nights holiday package for two (2) to Perth
Wave 3 five (5) days four (4) nights holiday package for two (2) to Delhi
Wave 4 five (5) days four (4) nights holiday package for two (2) to Beijing
Wave 5 six (6) days four (4) nights holiday package for two (2) to London
Wave 6 six (6) days four (4) nights holiday package for two (2) to Rome

I have earmarked this contest ever since i saw it on the newspaper, but upon further understanding of the terms and conditions, i have decided to forgo the entry for wave 1, basically to observe the quality of the contest submission.

And besides, who wants to go to Bangkok anyway, at least not for the time being.

So wave 1 ended on 21 Apr 09, and i decided to check out the competition from the contest page above.
And for the first 10 minutes i was staring blankly into the screen, wondering where are the 5 finalists' pictures open for voting.

See if you could tell me where to click.

No? Yeah, i figured so.

Then only i realized that the Vote link will only appear on the subsequent pages, eg. after you click on the Stories or Terms and Conditions link.
So.... no Vote link from the Main page, but got link from the sub pages.

Hm. Is that an easter egg?

Ok, fine. Then you click on the Vote link and it requires that you login (or create a MyStar account if you don't already have one) first.

Then comes the voting page.
You see 5 pictures relating to the that week's theme.

But wait, spot anything missing?

Where are those witty and interesting captions that were supposed to go with those great pics?
Are we just voting based on the pictures alone?
Are those captions merely to get into the finals?
For the panel of judges' eyes only?

Man, die lah. Like that how to check out the competition?

Ayam Penyet AP

2009-04-24T21:56:00.005+08:00

Yesterday, after we went visiting to a friend's place at Kelana Jaya, we were looking for a place to have our dinner. Initially we planned to go back to Kota Kemuning to grab a bit at NTS, but then i remembered reading about the Ayam Penyet shop from KY and had wanted to try that for a long time.

So off we went towards Sunway Mentari and tried to locate the shop. After a while we got to the shop and saw the familiar signboard (i didn't take a picture of the shop's signboard lah, go to KY's post to see it lo).

They have an outdoor area (for smoking customers i guess), but of course we took our seats at the aircon area.

We ordered:

Ayam penyet RM 7.00
The chicken was deep fried, and of course the bones have been smashed (hence the name ayam penyet) resulting in soft and tender meat that does not stick to the bones. I was surprised at how easily the meat was pulled apart from the chicken at the slightest touch. And despite being super deep fried, it was not at all dry, but my wife did complained that the whole meal was a tad dry. I had to agree to that.

Lele penyet (cat fish) RM 6.50
Another deep fried dish, but the fish was tender and moist. Though it was a tad small, but the succulent flesh made up for the lack of meat. Needless to say, every bite needs to be treasured.
But of course, i doubt the fish was hammer-smashed since the fish's back bone was still intact.

Terung penyet (brinjal/eggplant) RM 2.50
Another amazing dish, the brinjal was deep fried to perfecting without feeling dry. The flesh were soft and easily pulled apart with the fork. Something you can never replicate in your kitchen (unless you have a heavy duty industrial cooker at home hehehehe).

And 2 plates of white rice.

Every dish comes with a piece of fried beancurd and tempeh, boiled kangkung, cucumbers, raw cabbage and sambal. And those crispy bits. The more the better. :)

And the sambal was too spicy for me (but then again, i can't eat spicy food if it was to save my life) but my wife could take a little of it.

And about the comment on the dish being too dry, thats because there was no gravy accompanying those dishes. Unless you mean the sambal, which we can't really take in.

Damaged for around RM 20.00 for the both of us.
An eye opening meal nevertheless.

Who wants a Camry?

2009-04-22T13:28:00.004+08:00

Well, who doesn't?

Source

Excerpt from The Star

Perak to auction off Camrys
IPOH: The Perak state government will auction off the 16 Toyota Camry 2.4 cars that were used by the former executive councillors under the previous coalition government.
According to a tender notice sent to the advertising division of a Malay daily here yesterday, the auction would be held from May 4 to 18.

The tender statement issued by the Perak State Secretariat yesterday said the auction would be carried out at the car park of the Bangunan Perak Darul Ridzuan here, from 9.30am until 4pm.

The statement said the vehicles could be bought either in bulk or individually at the reserve price of RM148,000 each. A brand new Camry 2.4 costs RM170,000.

The cars, with registration numbers AGS10, AFD11, AFD22, AFD33, AFD55, AFD66, AFD77, AFD88, AFD99, AFD333, AFD999, AFF33, AFF88, AFF99, AGS828 and AEU606, were all registered on Jan 9, this year.

The statement also said that all the cars were bought new and used between one and two months with low mileage and were under three-year warranty by the manufacturer.

Anyone intending to buy the cars must submit their offer before noon on May 18. — Bernama

Starting from RM148,000 each!
Dateline before May 18, so start collecting your funds now.

On another note, next thing you'll hear is the BN reps will start buying back Proton Perdanas for their official use, with the pretext of support the buy Malaysia campaign.

Then when the maintenance bills start piling high, and when investigated, they will probably blame back Proton for such a high-maintenance car, yadda, yadda, yadda, and then change it back to a fleet of Camrys.

Or worst still if they decides to change to Mercedes Benz cars!

Sakae Sushi - Spot the Errors, Spot the Bugs

2009-04-21T22:30:00.010+08:00

Last Sunday, my wife and i decided to splurge a little and have a good meal of sushi.
After all, sushi is her favourite and we haven't had any for a long time.

So off we went, heading straight to Sunway Pyramid. We decided to go to Sakae Sushi instead of the usual Sushi King.

Once we got there, we were seated after a short wait, and when we got to our seat, my wife immediately grabbed 4 red plates off the kaiten belt (fuyoh, i have never seen her move that fast while doing housework hehehe).

So i warned her not to be too hasty, in order for us to maximize our culinary experience, we have to carefully select what we would eat (each red plate costs RM 5.90 dammit!).

Note to self: Money is everything

But one thing i noticed is that the Ajitsuke Idako (Seasoned baby octopus) and Chuka Hotate (Seasoned scallop wings) that we took was bigger portion compared to those from Sushi King. And i mean around 20% more. For those 2 dishes, Sushi King also priced them at RM 6.00 i think.

So once we polished off what was on the table, it was time for us to order more. So we browse through the menu on the screen, and confirmed our order.

And then we waited.

And waited.

So while waiting, we basically had nothing much to do, so we were scrutinizing the order application program on the screen.

And then we saw this.

Can you spot the error?

The button should say "View Confirmed Order", right?
Confirmed as in past tense mah.

And then we clicked the button and saw this.

Fuyoh, same mistake again?

Or, we haven't really confirmed our order?
Maybe that's why our order have not arrived.

Or, they haven't even catch the tuna, let alone serve it! *sic*

We tried to look for another button to finally confirm our order (if we had not done so) but could not find any.
So it couldn't be our mistake right?

My wife asked me to snap some pictures and post it on my blog. hahahaha.

After waiting for like what seemed to be eternity (oklah, it was more like 10-15 freakin long minutes), we decided to click the "Call for Help" button for assistance.

Barely a few seconds after that, our order came.

Shit, later that waiter who responded to the "Call for Help" will think that we were fooling around.

Anyway, we quickly make short work of the Maguro (Tuna) and Tako (Octopus) and decided to order some more. So we placed our next order for Tobiko (Flying fish roe sushi) and had another good laugh at the grammatic mistake again.

And then we waited.

And waited.

Damn, not again.

After another agonizing 10 minutes, we decided to utilize the "Call for Help" button again.
And lo and behold, barely a few seconds after that, our order came.

Deja vu?

So in the end, we had some good food at a good price, dealt with the slow service, and some laughs over the English proficiency (i thought such big corporations would have higher standards).

And also some bugs.

Literally.

Ghost on my chest - Shocking true story

2009-04-20T11:25:00.006+08:00

On one quiet night, you were sleeping soundly like a baby. Everything was calm and peaceful. You might even be having a sweet dream which you were enjoying.

All of a sudden, you felt a huge pressure being placed on your chest area. You were jolted awake due to this, and your senses tried to make sense of your surrounding. You eyes opened and scouted the room, revealing the familiar sight of your own bedroom. You ears listened intensely for anything unusual, but heard nothing.

That was when you tried to sit up, to wipe the sweat off your forehead, when you realize that you can't move. Your arms, legs, your whole body, all paralyzed. You clinched your fist, but realized that it is not responding. All your muscles refused to follow your command.

The pressure on your chest gets stronger, and you struggle to breath. You tried hard to gasp for air but can't. You tried to scream, but nothing comes out. You knew you screamed with all your might, but no sound was heard. You heart beats faster as you began to feel a presence around you. Something sinister is lurking in the dark, you can't see it clearly. But you KNOW someone is there, looking at you struggling.

The harder you struggle, the harder the pressure gets. You were almost out of air. Your mind wanders around, thinking what was going on. And then your body began to move again. And you sat up in bed, sweating all over and wondering....

Is a ghost really sitting on your chest?

Source

Well, not really.

I have had such encounters during the past. I am sure many have had them.

The earliest i remembered was when we were still staying in the old house in Subang Jaya. I should have been around 17 or 18 in age. That night when i had this, i was scared shit. It was the most horrendous nightmare i ever had. Because it was a first encounter, i had no idea what was going on. Did we really had ghosts in the house? I told my parents, but of course they just brush it off as a dream.

I then had a second encounter the next few days. Shit. 2 times within the same week. Bad huh? Still same as the first time, i woke up sweating like crazy, and could not sleep afterwards.

That was when i had enough. I knew i need to know what is going on. Remember those horror stories your friends told you before about ghost babies sitting on your chest, or bouncing up and down on your chest? I am sure many would logically think that is the cause of the misery. But of course i was skeptical and hit the Internet for answers.

That was when i found out something called Sleep Paralysis.
The descriptions, symptoms, signs all seemed to point to this.

Sleep Paralysis happens because you suddenly woke up while you still are in REM state, which your body has been paralyzed so that you don't act out as in your dreams (imagine giving a flying kick to your partner, in case you were dreaming of a kung fu action scene hehehehe). So basically your brain suddenly becomes lucid so you are aware of whats going on in your surroundings, but just can't move. That is the cause of your fear.

Realizing this, the next time i had sleep paralysis, i did not put up a struggle, but instead just try to relax and let it pass. I know that i am not really short of breath, so i did not really struggle for air. And just bear with the pressure on the chest, and take slow and deep breaths, to remain calm. And after a while, you begin to feel your body again, and it ends.

And the sinister phantom in the darkness, i would imagine that to be the Devil himself.

"Well, just ignore him" i told myself.

And the next time he visited me, we had tea together.

So, suffice to say, the Devil himself is no longer an issue to me.

But yesterday i had sleep paralysis again. And i woke up sweating all over.
And after that i did not managed to get much sleep.
I was too afraid and kept waking up to check my surroundings.

Why you asked?

Source

Cos female ghosts in red dress scares the shit out of me!

Share your stories.

Picture Post - Cup cakes

2009-04-19T13:27:00.004+08:00

My wife made cup cakes last weekend.
So before we start to eat them, i had to borrow them to take pictures first.

Remember, pictures comes first. Hunger is always second.

Cup cakes are easy to make and really challenges your creativity.
Imagine almost any decorations can be made for every theme, with the sky as the limit.

Now close your eyes and imagine chomping onto a clown.

The full assembly line. :)

Oh no, another by-election!

2009-04-17T14:47:00.003+08:00

Found out yesterday that we will have another by-election.

Excerpt from TheStar.com.my

Penang Speaker confirms receiving copy of letter from Penanti assemblyman
GEORGE TOWN: Voters in Penanti state constituency in Seberang Perai will go through another by-election in under eight months.
Former Penang Deputy Chief Minister (DCM) 1 Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin, who is assemblyman for the state seat located in Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency which had a by-election on Aug 26, quit as assemblyman yesterday.

Penang Speaker Abdul Halim Hussin confirmed receiving a faxed copy of Mohammad Fairus’ resignation letter but refused to reveal who the letter was from.

“We will inform the Election Commission (EC) as soon as possible,” he said, when asked to confirm that the Penanti seat had been vacated, adding that he would provide more details today.......

What's up with the politics nowadays?
We have had one too many by-election burdens recently.

The first one was feverish and exciting.
The second one was ok.
Then the next got tiresome. (yeah, we all know who will win anyway)
Then another seemed to dragged on and on.
And now, not another one?!?!?!

It seems like we get a by-election for almost every imaginable reason.

Someone died. By-election.
Someone resigned to make way for husband. By-election.
Someone was about to be charged with corruption. Resign and fled country. By-election.
Someone resigned. By-election.
Someone caught with compromising pictures. Almost resigned but did not. Almost by-election.

Whats next?

Someone took your parking spot. By-election?
Someone honk you on the road. By-election?
Someone resigns and go sell char kway teow. By-election?
Someone puff smoke in your face. By-election?

Man, what the heck am i talking? *brain freeze*

Ok, so that's not the end of the story.
Fairus somore threaten PKR not to main-main with him, else he will expose the juicy details on the internal operations of PKR.

Hm, i bet now the BN folks are getting ready the popcorn to enjoy the show.

Source

The Fish Lesson - What do you learn from it?

2009-04-15T17:32:00.006+08:00

Was forum browsing at Photo Malaysia when i saw something interesting and would like to share.
Source from here:

A Fish Lesson
You heard of the FISH Philosophy ... now there is a fresh fish lesson.

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price.

So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? If you were consulting the fish industry, what would you recommend?

How Japanese Fish Stay Fresh:

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.

IMPORTANT LESSON

Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired & dull? So we need a SHARK in our life to keep us awake and moving. Basically in our lives, sharks are new challenges to keep us active and taste better.....The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a challenge. If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are Conqueror. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun and you are alive!

Ok, after reading the above, what are your thoughts?

I myself have to fully agreed with the lesson above. We need competition to get better. Knowing that someone else out there could challenge your status quo, you will put up more of a fight. We strive to do better, in order to avoid being eliminated.

If we take out the competition, then we get above our heads and lose focus. Then we slack.
We get comfortable and refuse to work harder. Thats how we just die off silently.

I am sure this is the general sentiment. Pretty much of common sense if you ask me.
True to the Survival of the Fittest school of thought.

But of course there are always exceptions in life.

.
.
.
.

The more competition it is exposed to, the weaker it gets.
And simply just die off silently.

Krispy Kreme Donuts - First in line?

2009-04-15T08:12:00.003+08:00

Was reading the newspaper and saw that Krispy Kreme is coming to Malaysia. Well, i heard the rumours a couple of months back, but i guess this time is it certain.
And it is opening on the 27th Apr 2009 at Berjaya Times Square.

And whats the big deal with donuts huh? We have J.CO, Big Apple, etc, all trying to stuff us silly to make us fat Malaysians? hehehehe

Excerpt from TheStar.com.my

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to open store in Berjaya and Mega mall
By LEE KIAN SEONG

Doughnut chain plans second outlet in Mid Valley by May

KUALA LUMPUR: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, a well-known US brand, will open its first flagship store in Berjaya Times Square on April 27.

Berjaya Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Berjaya Corp Bhd, is the operator of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts chain in Malaysia.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc international marketing manager Carlo Fajardo said the company planned to open the second outlet in Mid Valley Megamall in May.

“The investment per outlet varies from RM500,000 to RM1mil depending on the store concept and location. Our target locations are shopping malls, transportation hubs, office buildings and colleges,” he told StarBiz.
The 1,600-sq-ft full-service Krispy Kreme store in Berjaya Times Square will feature the “Doughnut Theatre” where customers can watch the doughnut-making process.
“The store’s doughnut-making machine can produce and glaze nearly 18,000 doughnuts a day.

“We will give away the ‘Golden Ticket’ prize to our first customer in line to purchase a dozen Krispy Kreme Original Glazed doughnuts when the door opens at 10am on April 27,” he said.

The winner will win a year’s supply of Original Glazed doughnuts.

Fajardo said the company was optimistic on the demand for its products as more potential customers were exposed to the brand.

“We are confident that our customers will find our doughnuts and coffee are able to satisfy their needs. Hence, we are bullish that we will win a fair share of sales in the doughnut category in the local market,” he said.

Krispy Kreme appealed to consumers from a wide cross-section of ages, educational background, income and lifestyles, he said.

He added: “We look forward to accelerating our growth in Malaysia. We are sampling 6,000 boxes of a dozen each of Hot Original Glazed doughnuts in the Klang Valley and nearby communities to share the Krispy Kreme experience.”

Krispy Kreme will offer 16 varieties of doughnuts and two types of coffee in Malaysia.

So I went online and checked out their homepage and saw this.

Get there early and get these rewards:

1st Customer - Get Golden Ticket - ONE YEAR Supply
2nd Customer - Get Silver Ticket - 6 Months Supply
3rd Customer - Get Bronze Ticket - 3 Months Supply
4th - 100th Customer- Get 1 Month Supply
101th -300th Customer - Get A Cup of Coffee

Fuyoh, its on a Monday, and i bet people will be camping there from at least 7.00 AM onwards, so for those folks who works in that area, be prepared for traffic jam hehehehe...

I can imagine the trail of human traffic jam leading up to the Krispy Kreme store that morning.

Its almost like the last minute rush to pay your traffic summons, but instead with more passion and kiasu-ness (can win a years supply of donuts woh, the winner sure eat until fat fat)

Source

Dragon-i RM 1 Chicken - The Great Con

2009-04-14T01:02:00.009+08:00

I am sure everyone has heard of the fantastic Dragon-i offer of late.
Its on every blog, on radio, in the newspaper, etc.

This looks familiar? I bet it does.

So, just pay RM 1 for a whole chicken, right?
Just go in, and order 1 chicken, with 4 white rice. And 4 plain water.
Sounds good?

Well, if you think so, then read on.

Last Saturday, we (4 of us) decided to give this a try at the Sunway Pyramid outlet.
Being ever so kiasu (hehehehe) we reached the outlet at around 5.30 PM, thus ensuring a chicken for us (of course must go early lah, limited while stocks last mah). We went in at around 5.45 PM, and told the waitress that we wanted to try the RM 1 chicken, so she punched in our table order at exactly 6 PM, so we had to wait a while.

We had no expectations, so when the chicken arrived, it was a pleasant surprise. Visually appealing and it was tasty to boot. Certainly no shortcuts were taken in spite of the cheap price tag. 2 thumbs up on that.

The chicken was, erm, not to say it was huge, its not even a normal sized chicken, but i won't call it small either. Nah, judge it for yourself.

Such a dish itself would cost about RM 25 at least.

The four of us would have a hearty meal for less than RM 10.00, or even less than RM 5.00. (yippie kay yay)
Sounds like a good deal hoh?

Wrong!

Check out our bill that night.

Fuyoh, RM 63.85

If you are thinking, "Of course lah, you ordered so many things", here is a reality check:

- Wet towels x4 = RM 4.00
- Tidbits (Nam Yee peanuts) = RM 1.00
- Chinese tea x2 = RM 4.00
- Soya bean x1 = RM 3.50
- Rice x5 = RM 5.00 (small portion and no ISO, so need to add rice)
- RM 1 Chicken = RM1.00
- Tax (5% Gov 10% Service) = RM 8.33
- Beancurd (Vege) = RM 18.00
- Glutten (Vege) = RM 18.00

Half of the cost was for things we don't need, like the wet towels, tidbits, drinks, tax, etc, but could not be avoided.
Now i think you can begin to see why i named the title of the post as such.
Cos once you get inside the shop, be prepared to fork out RM 20-25 minimum.

So what happened to the "1 chicken, 4 white rice, 4 plain water" strategy?
I don't know if anyone will be able to pull that off, but i sure know i can't. Paiseh mah.

Let me know if anyone managed to pull that off ya, i'll add you into my 5 cents Hall of Fame.

Cooking Demo 19 Apr 2009

2009-04-13T10:07:00.002+08:00

My wife and her friends are organizing another cooking demo at my place at Kemuning Utama this coming Sunday.

Details
Place: Kemuning Bayu, Kemuning Utama
Date: 19 Apr 2009 (Sunday)
Time: 2 PM to 4 PM

We will be making:
- Carrot cake
- Chiffon cake
- Man Tou (steamed bun)
- Fatt Gou (steamed cupcakes)
- etc.

It's free and you don't need to prepare anything.
Just come, learn and meet new friends.

Anyone interested?
Drop a comment for more details.

Lunch Box

2009-04-11T13:09:00.006+08:00

Just came back from having lunch with my wife.
Today she has to replace Ms. Book, who is still on maternity leave, so my wife will need to teach her students in the morning as well (my wife teaches piano part time).

Her class starts in the morning at 9.45 AM up to evening at 4.30 PM, with lunch break at 11.45 AM. So instead of buying lunch for her or she having lunch herself, i have decided to ~~save money cos i am so kamsiap~~ show my love by whipping up a lunch box so we can eat together.

The lunch box consists of these goodies:
- Plain rice
- Sausages (her fav)
- Scrambled eggs
- Sayur manis (just found out the name from market. anyone knows what it is called in English?)
- Nam Yee pork with black fungus (leftover from dad, who still refuses to let me in on the secret. Bah, i'll try to replicate it someday)

Ok, time to do the dishes and clean the house (the perils of a house husband).

Picture Post - Guadalajara, Mexico

2009-04-10T14:20:00.010+08:00

Every once in a while i get to travel to Guadalajara in Mexico for business purposes. Mexico is halfway around the world from Malaysia, so you can imagine the 30-hour flight journey there.

Well, not all 30 hours are actual flight time, but only around 23 are (i think the new SIA direct flights to LA are much faster nowadays), the rest being the transit time. Normally i fly from KL -> Amsterdam -> LA -> Guadalajara. Or KL -> Japan/Taiwan/Korea -> LA -> Guadalajara. Transit time might range from 4-8 hours, so planning ahead is vital to ensure you are occupied for those waiting times.

One of the most anticipated thing is of course the on-flight movies (Yippie kay yay!) where i get to catch the latest blockbuster movies that i have not watched yet, which roughly means every freakin' movie available cos i don't believe in going to the cinema except for super super blockbuster movies. Watching movies should be on HBO. That's what i paid Astro for.

So imagine how many movies i get to watch on a 22-hours flight hohohohoh...
Ok, sharing some pictures of beautiful Guadalajara.

View more pictures from my Flickr set.

My Photographic Journey

2009-04-07T21:44:00.014+08:00

For as long as i could remember, i have always been fascinated with photography.

The thought of packing up everything you own into a small backpack and go globetrotting, capturing and sharing the sights of the world and the people you meet.
Or going front line into a war zone armed with only the camera, capturing the most realistic sight of the horrors of war, and making it back in one piece to submit the award winning picture to the publisher.
Or going head to head with a king cobra in a life or death situation to capture the precise moment when it pounces into the camera.
Or be surrounded by a bevy of beauties in a fashion shootout, capturing the essence of timeless beauty in the designer gowns. (I think i was more inclined towards this hahaha).

I could still remember clearly my first exposure to a camera, the first time touching and be fascinated by such an amazing tool.
The camera in question was my cousins' from Singapore. Long long time back they came visiting to Malaysia and brought the camera (actually that was the only time they brought the camera over).

I was still in primary school (can't remember actual age) at that time so handling the heavy camera was a task itself, but there was a feeling of empowerment, a sense of satisfaction (or maybe that was just my inflated ego. hey pretty girl, look here!) but at that time i knew that i would be interested in something called photography (well, at that age i probably couldn't even spell photography but you get my driff).

They taught me how to correctly hold a SLR (which by the way needs one hand to support the lens), how to load/unload the film (yeah, it was back in those film days), change lens, etc.

After that short encounter, i never did gain access to a camera for a while as the family could not afford one. Sometimes when we go on holidays, we would borrow a camera from relatives to take the vacation pictures. That was as far as i got to touch a camera.

All that changed until one fateful day while the family was holidaying at Sunway lagoon.
Again, we were camera-less so the night before when i lit up the joss stick to offer my wish list to God, i prayed that somehow magically a camera would suddenly appear, thereby allowing us to finally take our own vacation pictures.

Ok, that was not the actual wish. the actual wish was for us to strike a lottery winning 1 million ringgit.

But surprisingly that night the inner core of the joss stick did not break (normally they just turn to ashes) and according to some urban legend, if that happens, then your wish would come true. (yippie kay yay!)

Ok, it is safe to assume that we didn't strike the lottery the next day. Or the next. Or anytime soon. Else i won't writing this blog and trying to earn a living.

So the next day we were having fun at Sunway lagoon, playing our hearts out (this was when i was still in secondary school). Lo and behold, at one of those rides (if i remembered correct, it was that ride with the spinning cups) someone left their camera on board.

Being the responsible family, we looked around to see if anyone was seaching for the camera. We paused for a short time (yeah, for like 5 seconds), wondering if the owner will come back and claim the camera, before we quickly took possession of it (yippie kay yay!).

Anyway, we got out of the ride, took the camera out from the camera pouch and lo and behold, it was a Canon compact film camera (i knew i should have prayed harder for a SLR hehehe).

That camera became my cherished treasure that accompanied me through alot. During family vacations, during special moments, during my oversea travels, it has captured a big part of our lives.

But of course developing the films is a pain, and very very expensive, so don't get me started on that. Whoever invented digital photography should be given a Nobel prize.

Ok, enough of text for today (wouldn't be surprised if you developed bloodshot eyes by now).
Here are some pictures taken with the film camera, developed and digitally scanned for your viewing pleasure.

Family vacation, Genting Highlands

Family vacation, Putrajaya

Cousin's graduation ceremony

My graduation ceremony

Collegemates during graduation

Ex-company, Sufsys gang

Business trips, Minnesota

Business trips, Minnesota, 4th of July celebration

Business trips, Chinatown San Francisco

Business trips, San Francisco

Vegetable Pau

2009-04-06T21:38:00.010+08:00

Last Saturday night, my wife and i found some time to make some vegetable pau to bring over for Ching Ming on Sunday morning. The process was fun but somewhat time consuming.

Here are some simple pictorial instructions.

First, to make the vegetable fillings, get some sengkuang, water chestnut and carrots.
And soak some mushrooms if you have some laying nearby. These add flavours to the end product.

Once washed and peeled (please ignore the sloppy job above hehehehe), then grate them into fine strips. This step requires some hard work and patience, trust me on that. And yeah, it could get a little messy too.

Anyway, you should get something like this.

Once you have everything ready, stir fry the vegetables and the mushrooms with oyster sauce and dark soy sauce. Of course, this is to taste, so you can judge this yourself.
As for me, i like mine salty, very hamsap hehehehe

Once you feel the filling is good enough, set it aside.
Now time to work on the dough.

Get the ingredients ready: Pau flour, plain flour, sugar, corn oil, a dash of salt.
The Pau flour could be easily purchased at your local convenience stall.

Pour all the ingredients into the Breadmaker ™ and wait for it to knead the dough.
Yes, if you are wondering, in this day and age, we don't need to manually knead the dough.

With our hands.

Just toss everything into the Breadmaker ™ and with a press of a button, everything will be done for you in 30 minutes.

And voila!

Perfectly kneaded dough to start making the pau.
The texture feels like abit like Play Doh (for those of you with a luxurious childhood) or plasticine (for those poorer people like myself with a not-so luxurious childhood)

Ok, now is the time to get your hands dirty.

As my lovely wife demonstrates below, divide the dough into smaller lumps (depends on how big you want your pau to be, either xiao long pau or Yip Chee Mei Tai pau, whichever tickles your fancy).

Then use a rolling pin to flatten the dough consistently. Or you could do this by hand.
That is if you have been training under a pastry chef for the past decade.
Else i would still suggest you go with the rolling pin.

Then, scoop up some vegetable fillings and place it in the middle of the dough.

Then slowly fold the dough edges back into the center, covering the fillings so that they get encased within the dough.
If you are having trouble with this step, good luck.
All i can offer you is a picture of my lovely wife doing it.

Got it? Easy right?

Ok, let's move on.

So the end product you should be getting would look like this. We still did not managed to get the correct way to twist the pau (you know how the pau at restaurants have those pleats, looks very professional), so if you have any tips, please let me know.

Once done, they are off to the steamer.

Our Elba 3-tier steamer can only manage 21 pau at one go.
Pop them in there for 20 minutes.

We had to switch the trays periodically as bottom tray gets hot and moist faster than the top, so switching them will make the steaming more consistent (not liked it mattered anyway, since everything will get cooked all the same. just do it cos you will feel more professional, knowing that you have followed the steps explained here hehehehe).

Oh, did i warned you on the burning steam?
Yeah, apparently playing with steam is a big no-no if you are below the age of 18. And if you are above 65.
I still have the scars from this to show, if you are curious.

Ok, enough crap talking.

Once the steaming is done, carefully remove the pau from the steamer. Remember the pau is freakin' hot (felt like picking up molten lava, some burning scars is inevitable here, so get ready some hand gel or toothpaste)

Place all the pau on a tray to let them cool down. We made around 35 pau this time.

There you go, simple steps to make vegetable pau.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Lastly, i'll leave you with a close up shot of the final product.

Happy pau making.

RAHMAN prophecy

2009-04-06T11:42:00.003+08:00

Najib is now the new Malaysia Prime Minister.

And with that, Malaysia has fulfilled the age-old RAHMAN prophecy.
You know, the one where you learned in school about the names of the previous and future PM of Malaysia.

I never dreamed that i would live long enough to see it fulfilled.
Well, you know, at that time, Mahathir didn't looked like he would go off anytime soon (he is still fiesty as ever), and who would expect Badawi to only survived 1 term.

Let me refresh your memory (tsk tsk tsk....)

R - Rahman (Y.T.M Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj)
A - Abdul Razak (Tun Abdul Razak bin Haji Dato' Hussein)
H - Hussein (Tun Hussein bin Dato' Onn)
M - Mahathir (Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad)
A - Abdullah Badawi (Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi)
N - Najib (Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak)

Ok, so what now?
It is already the end of the prophecy.

Will they start teaching in schools about a new prophecy?

Alot of speculation that's the end of BN rule, and start off with a new name A-N-W-A-R (go figure the names yourself).

Or will we get multiracial and fulfill M-A-L-A-Y-S-I-A?
If so, does L stands for Lim Guan Eng?

Thats wishful thinking.

Picture Post - Daisies

2009-04-02T21:02:00.004+08:00

Bought these for my wife's brother's graduation ceremony.

Aren't they lovely?
Love the burst of colours.

And they are rather cheap.
RM 40 for 10 daisies + wrapping.

Available at your local market florist. :)

Coffee Blueberry Walnut cake

2009-04-01T16:53:00.008+08:00

Over the weekend, my wife wanted to bake a cake for her father's birthday.
Her parent's are coming down to attend her brother's MBA graduation ceremony (now I feel a level dumber compared to him. If you must know, I only have a Degree, but lets not start with that...)

Her parents would be coming in on Saturday night, so we got busy on Friday, after dinner.
As usual, i just hang around the kitchen, doing mundane and irrelevant stuff, pretending to busy (like every other guy!).

Anyway, some shots of the cake.
Will share the recipe once she has perfected it.

Please ignore the cheesy Happy Birthday sign and the tropical umbrella. :)

Kindly place your attention to the side of the cake, the almond slice and crushed walnuts sprinkle. Done by moi.

Look at the oozing blueberry jam.

Sinful mess.
That's what i would call it. Yummy.

Verdict:
As mentioned earlier, she has not perfected the recipe yet.
The sponge cake was a bit on the hard side, but this made the cake had some texture to it, which I liked very much.
The blueberry jam. Yummy (I could just toss the cake and eat the jam any time).
The whip cream was not perfect, a bit wet i might add. Should have mixed it abit longer cos now it can't seem to retain the shape (how to say ler... it is flowing)

Overall, good try, everyone was having fun devouring it. :)

Why blog?

2009-03-27T17:19:00.005+08:00

Hi welcome to my blog.

"Why blog? Why now?" you asked.
Well, i am not sure, since i am like 5 freakin' years too late on this fad. hehehe.
But hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

Today is the perfect day for that. Heck, who want doesn't want to associate important dates to easily remembered dates like today, right? So if i ever get asked when i started blogging... April 1st!!!
And if i feel like it, I might even throw in a surprise "April's Fool" (this only works if the person asks that question on April 1st itself hehehe....)

So this would be my place to share with you my thoughts, photos, complaints, reviews, and basically anything that i would be glad to share.

And i am at the stage of starting a family of my own, and this would be the place for me to capture those precious memories, where one day I could show this back to my grandkids how "in" their grandfather was (and still is by that time :))

With the current economic state we are in, well, this blog better go make me some $$$.
What? You can't believe it? I can't do it?

Hymph...

Well, i'll be surprised if i am still blogging by this time next year. hehehe.
Stay tuned.