Blissful Eternity

Enjoy The Show =D

2008-10-02T10:18:00.009+08:00

This is my first post since like... July I think or was it June.. just been busy and uninspired to write any blog posts though many things have happened since then, but anyways,

I just heard this song (The Show, by Lenka) on Radio Alice 97.3 and instantly fell in love with it. Such a cute song..It's one of those fun songs that makes you want to sing along and jump around.. good stress reliever. Check out the awesome music video (non-official) too! This is definitely one of the cutest music videos ever...

This one here is by Ingrid Michaelson, titled 'The Way I Am'. First time I heard this song I sent it to Vannessa just cause it's such a sweet song and I'm really grateful for her and her loving me the way I am just as much as I love her the way she is as well <3 <3 baby

And omg the 2 children doing the clapping are cute!

Sigh, why is it that no radio stations in Malaysia plays these kind of songs instead of just playing songs from popular artistes? Gah I want some Death Cab for Cutie songs as weeeellll!!

CSI: Malaysia

2008-07-22T00:13:00.001+08:00

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=ak2MYWhfudTI&refer=home

Let's put a smile on that face.....

2008-07-21T00:39:00.004+08:00

First of all, if you don't recognize where that phrase comes from, you need to go watch TDK (The Dark Knight). Even if you aren't a fan of Batman, go watch it and enjoy Heath Ledger's portrayal of the more sadistic, evil and psychopathic Joker. If he doesn't win an Oscar for his brilliant and genius performance, I'll /slit.

Anyway, I want to thank Suanie of Suanie.net for providing me with the means to obtain a ticket to watch TDK last Tuesday at the Signature GSC in MidValley, 2 days before the movie hit the big screen. Big thanks to Nokia too =D. Damn, wish I was popular enough to have people give me free movie preview passes haha.. Oh, and they had a contest too where anyone who dresses up in a character from the Batman comicverse has a chance to win an 8GB Nokia N95. Well, needless to say I didn't win the phone, but still had a blast dressing up as The Joker (which is the easiest character to dress up as, and considering I only knew I was going 24 hours in advance, didn't have that much time to go costume hunting, so hence Mr Joker).

Well, I didn't put on all that makeup by myself.. have to thank to my darling Vannessa for getting off work early just to help me put on that face makeup and assuring me that the Mid Valley security guards won't harrass me =P Sigh, I love her so much... Sorry baby I couldn't win the phone for you, there was just someone else dressed as a damn badass Joker... beat everyone else hands down. Don't have a photo of me dressed up as Joker, but if you look around you'll find some...

Rest in peace Heath Ledger, it's a shame you're not around anymore to provide us with more awesome screen performances. /signs petition to give Heath his Oscar .

Oh, and TDK just beat Spiderman 3 for the biggest weekend gross ever..

License and registration, no I won't say please.

2008-07-18T16:58:00.002+08:00

I was watching CSI last night, and the episode was about a case where there was a police officer pulling over women, often offering them a ride home because they're drunk or their car ran out of gas etc, then offering them a bottle of water laced with rape drugs and eventually raping them. Abuse of trust, power, and this sort of betrayal is something I hope will not happen outside television, though it might seem we're sorta heading in that direction with the way the law enforcement is in this country right now, albeit at a smaller, different scale.

The police are supposed to be the guardians of the people, the enforcers of law. Something is obviously wrong if the thought of police or the sight of a patrol vehicle in the rear view mirror strikes a certain fear inside. If they can go ahead and pre-emptively arrest a politician who has agreed to surrender himself at a certain time for questioning, one can only feel a sense of betrayal of trust. They mentioned they will not go ahead and make an arrest until 2pm, but they did so anyway (with special ops personnel, a huge escort convoy) .... say one thing, do another. And why is it when there are allegations against two different people, swift action is taken against one of them while the other just fades away under the radar?

I certainly hope the law enforcement does its job well this time and not recreate the 1998 incident. With trust in the police already running at an all time low, another wrong move will shatter the already cracked sheet of ice.

Promises on abolishing corruption. Probably empty ones, much like the same promises we all heard a few years ago. Deja vu?

A year now

2008-06-27T23:36:00.003+08:00

It's been a year since we've been together. Well, technically more than a year just that 6/26 is what we chose as the so called 'official' date.

It's been a year though it feels like only a mere couple of months. After all a year is relatively a short amount of time compared with the many more years that await us. I just can't describe how happy this past year has been for me, and those close to me will testify to that. Your love to me has brought a whole new meaning to love just when I was about to give up on it. You rebuilt the castle in me that was washed away by the storms of yesteryear, just when I was this close to drowning myself.

If I were to summarize the year in just a few words, I'd say it has been one helluva ride. Funny as it may sound, but I'm glad we experienced the sudden drops and sharp turns in our relationship. The fact that we're still here holding hands and moving forward on our journey, together as one, is a testament to our strength and love for one another and the will to keep the fire burning bright. For every good in a relationship there's bound to be some bad times, and I don't believe in a relationship that's only filled with good times and none of the bad ones.. that in itself is a bad thing. All I know is that there's no one I'd rather want to walk with and explore the paths of life than you.

I certainly could not have wished for a better year. Thank you for the wonderful surprise and well thought out plan for my birthday present/dinner/cake. I expected something but I didn't expect THAT much from you or even anyone else for that matter. Thank you for the i-love-yous every night. Thanks for the wonderful anniversary pressie which I will be looking through every single night before I go to bed =D Thanks for the kisses, the hugs, the caresses. Thank you for everything else that I'm just lazy to list (and also because I'll be called for a conference call anytime soon) but most importantly thank you for loving me and letting me love you.

Well, a year has gone by but there'll be many many more years ahead (I certainly am sure there will be =D, for I can't imagine the alternative). I don't know about you, but I'm excited for what the future holds for us. Be it dancing on a balcony under a moonlit, star filled sky or just making out on an empty sandy beach with the sun just setting on us and waves inching onto our bodies, I'm sure it'll be blisssss.

Happy anniversary baby, I love you so so so much.

Firefox 3.0

2008-06-17T23:04:00.003+08:00

T-2 hours before the launch of Firefox 3, the latest major update to the best free browser out there (yes, IE sucks, so if you use IE, you suck too).

What's new in Firefox 3.0? The most important ones I'm really looking forward to is much much improved memory management compared to Firefox 2.0 . Usually after long periods of browser use, the memory consumption of FF2.0 goes up to about 400 mb.

So for all you people still using Internet Expl.. I mean Internet Junk 7.0 out there, stuff it... seriously... and give Firefox 3.0 a try by clicking on the following link

update: So far the speed improvements are pretty damn impressive. Shifting from tab to tab and browsing in general has much quicker response times compared to FF2. Unfortunately the new FF3 has also broken some parts of our site (http://www.grouply.com), most notably some of the ExtJs framework javascript features ie dropdown boxes and calendar that we use doesn't work too well.

Damn, looks like it will be another web development nightmare, especially with the javascript incompatibilities seen so far, albeit not really serious issues but issues nonetheless.

As for memory management, it's better though not really to my expectations. I had about 2 FF windows open with 10 tabs each prior to installing FF3, and it took up ~200mb of memory. After installing FF3, memory footprint still remains at ~200mb. However when I close tabs, the new FF3 memory garbage collection works much better, reducing the memory used to about 170mb after closing 2 tabs, unlike in FF2 where it doesn't clean up memory that was previously used by tabs that you closed, resulting in memory leaks all over.

Another great feature is the new 'awesome bar'. By typing in a keyword, say 'stocks' in the URL address bar, it brings up in realtime a list of websites that I visited previously that had the 'stock' keyword either in its URL or web page title, and the order in which the results appear depends on my browsing habits (ie if I visit www.bloomberg.com often it will appear at the top of the list compared to say www.businessweek.com which I visit less often)

All in all this is still the BEST browser available despite it breaking a couple features on my work site, but it's a huge improvement in terms of performance. The new 'Awesome bar' is great, but can be a bit annoying at times, especially when it brings up results you don't really want, and it takes a bit of playing around to get used to it.

Motivation.....

2008-06-06T20:10:00.000+08:00

... is something I no longer have when it comes to writing anything (that isn't code) anymore. Today's not the first time I've visited the 'Create Post' page on Blogger in the past 2 months or so but today's the first time I've actually stayed on the page and enter more than just a mouthful of words.

Bah, well anyway, it has been a blissful past 2 weeks or so. Had the much needed 5d/4n holiday in Bangkok / Phuket with my darling. I must say Bangkok isn't exactly my kind of a city and I'd hate to live there >< Those that know me well will know how much I dread traffic in KL during rush hour. Well if you think KL traffic is worse, then you haven't been to Bangkok. Like zomg the main streets are jam packed with cars and the slowdown exists the entire day. As in, morning till evening. like wtf.... Just to give an idea of how bad it is, the trip from the airport to our hotel which was supposed to take 30-45 minutes ended up taking a little over 2 hours. Hell that's longer than the flight from KL to Bangkok.... zzZzzZZzz

someoneee's on a holiday hence the smile =D

Our place of stay was the First Hotel Bangkok. Situated on the Pratunam district, the hotel isn't exactly the best of hotels there is and is rated 3 stars. From the outside it looks like one of those cheap ass old hotels you find in downtown KL/chowkit, but the rooms are decent lar much like those in First World Hotel in Genting, but slightly better. The hotel is also located pretty close to the Pratunam Market and the Skytrain hence why we chose that hotel, as we wouldn't otherwise. So having arrived at the hotel at like 4pm, we were daaaaamnn hungry....

Our initial plan was to go grab some lunch somewhere near the hotel but because the damn trip from the airport to the hotel took so long, we decided to just go to the Pratunam Market and eat whatever food we can find while on our way there. The first couple of stalls we encountered were.... well.... a little unappetizing. Most stalls sold some sort of BBQ kebab sticks with pork/chicken/vege/squid on it and just the sight of flies hovering around the stall and even allowed to land on some of the food just made Vannessa and I cringe. There was this stall that sold BBQ whole squids, and the stench from the squid was just awful and we could still smell it after walking quite a distance away. Let's just say if you aren't the kind that would go for Jalan Alor food, then forget about the street stalls in Thailand. After a while we came across this seemingly better stall in terms of hygiene and type of food served.... The stall was selling deep fried pork strips for about 25 baht a packet. And well despite my reservations on eating anymore after passing by earlier stalls, we were damnnn hungry so we bought a pack and ate as we went along...

And omg the pork strips were crunchyummylicious. I mean seriously, they were damn nice and cheap. I would've went back for another 2 packs if we weren't rushing for time... argh damn traffic again. By the way, notice the two black and white pigs at the top right corner of the stall? It's their way of telling people (like us) that they sell pork. Cute. For some reason Thailand has lots and lots of these cute things everywhere. Seems to be part of their culture.

Pratunam market has shitloads of wholesale cheap clothes (mainly) and other stuff like handicraft, accessories, etc. I didn't really buy anything though, and Vanessa only bought a belt (50 baht) and a couple of shorts (180 baht for two).

Then there was this reaallly cute store inside one of the buildings that were stocked with the cutest soft toys / pillows/ plushies ever. We bought a fish minipillow and a cute crab minipillow, initially for Vann's car but ahhh the fish one is in my car now =P

We bought the crab on the left....

This bear was like 500 baht (unbargained price ofcoz) ....

Super-sized dog was slightly more expensive, cant remember the price though. But still half the price of what you'll get in KL at least...

More fishieessss.....

.. and funny looking minipillows, all for 100 baht each.

Anyway, we didn't buy much lar. Not enough time to go through all the shops at the Pratunam Market. Neverminddd..... next day = Chatuchak :D

On our way back from the Market, I remembered I had to go look for cheap Jim Thompson clothes for my mom cause apparently a friend of hers mentioned that Jim Thompson clothes are cheap over in Thailand. We hopped on a tuk-tuk (after frustratingly telling the driver to send us straight there and not to some other shop he wanted to take us...) to the Jim Thompson house, which according to the tuk tuk driver, is the place we can get Jim Thompson clothes. Well, he didn't understand the 'cheap' part, so yeah when we got there I took a look at the price of the clothes and they were like 500RM and above.. WTF....... Wasted money and risked our lives taking the tuk tuk... FYI the tuk tuk was going at about 80 kmh... bloody fast and sum more it was threading through traffic like nobody's business... damn pro I tell you .

Vann and I in a tuk-tuk. Never hopping on one again. Ever.

Oh and speaking of transportation in Bangkok, the cabs in Bangkok, unlike those in Malaysia/KL, comes in all sorts of colors! Omg we spotted pink, blue, red, orange, yellow and purple cabs. Apparently the color is used to distinguish between the different cab companies, so each cab company uses a different color. Most of the cabs are Toyotas with a few Hondas.. certainly beats a cheap-ass Proton. And the colorful cabs look way better than the typical cabs in KL that are covered in advertisements for 100001 jobsites. Some of the cabs in Bangkok also had spoilers and are modded cars. Pretty cool.

blue, pink and yellow ones!

On our second day, we took a half day tour around Bangkok seeing as it was our first time there so it would be good to go around to interesting places in Bangkok. Much to my disappointment, a huge part of the trip was just going around looking at temples, not something I really enjoy doing but still interesting nonetheless.

some monk sitting inside the temple and giving blessings of some sort to people who go there to pray.. The buddha statue at the very back is made out of gold (well most Buddha statues in these temples are made of gold) and there's some significance to this temple but I can't remember cuz there are so many temples in Bangkok -_-

I liked this room the best... look at the paintings on the walls!

Famous golden buddha at Wat Traimit. Weighing in at 5 tons (!!!! doesn't look that heavy but well it's made of pure gold) and built around the 13th century, it is said to have been wrapped in plaster (to hide its true value) before it was uncovered in 1955.

Vannessa and I at Wat Intharawihan, in front of this super-tall and huge Buddha statue which is about 32m tall.

RAWR! /flex

To be honest, the half day tour was reaaaally disappointing. We didn't even visit the popular and huge tourist attractions / temples. We were supposed to go to the Marble Temple as well but didn't. There were a lot of other places of interest we wanted to go too like the floating market, Wat Pho (reclining buddha), Grand Palace, etc but due to time constraints we couldn't. Plus we had to save the 2nd half of the day for Chatuchak Market....

Chatuchak! No trip to Bangkok is complete without a visit to this infamous market. We arrived there sometime in the afternoon at about 2pm and omg it was packeeeedddd. Not to mention the weather was searing hot too. That, sweaty bodies and crowded walkways did not however deter us from our bargain hunting shopping endeavours....

This milk/icecream/yoghurt stand was so cutee! haha look at the cow statuette on the counter !

Orange/Tangerine juice... a MUST while walking around Chatuchak especially in the hot weather. And they taste real good too.

'JJ Spring Rolls' Stall selling all sorts of fried stuff. We had the deep fried 'pork on toast', which was good but nothing special lar.

Yummy.

Who's that hottie in the middle? =D

Assortment of random items hand-crafted using coconut shells, bamboo, etc.

I wanted to buy this ant-lamp and hang it on my wall, but the legs look very fragile and I wasn't sure if it could handle the trip back to KL.

Sigh, we only spent about 3-4 hours there and we didn't manage to visit all the sections of the market properly. Kinda wished we had more time cause seriously it would take the entire day to go through the market in its entirety. Regretted not buying a few t-shirts that had funny / satiric images and messages on them just because the guy wouldn't bargain with me haha. Grrrrr. We managed to visit the pets section of the market, and holy crap the puppies and kittens there are SOOO cheap compared to the price in KL, like about 3-4 times cheaper. And the pets themselves look much cleaner, nicer and of better quality that that sold in most pet shops in KL. Sadly though bringing a puppy, kitten, or any animal back from Thailand to Malaysia is subject to import restrictions and require a ton of paperwork, so yeah that sucks ><

some interesting signs being sold at a store... WTF a sweet room??

At night after dinner at a small riverside restaurant and downing Tom Yam Gong, basil chicken and stir fried morning glory (what the hell?), we proceeded to indulge ourselves in watching a 'Tiger' show, where a bunch of women dance on a platform naked and do tricks with their vagina, like pulling a string of razor blades out, transferring the contents of a glass bottle of Coke into another empty bottle, popping open the crown/cork of a bottle of Coke using the vagina, pulling out a buttload (or pussyload) of flourescent paper strung together, writing the words 'Welcome to Thailand' using a pen held by their vagina, and a few others. There was also a sex part between a guy and a girl. I felt a bit sick throughout the whole ordeal, really.... And no, the women were not hot and were much older. I'd say it was an interesting experience and it's quite amazing how they can do certain things the way they did it, but I wouldn't go for it again.

3d/2n in Bangkok is not enough arggharahghh. Wanted to go to the Bed Club during the night but we were just too damn tired after the shopping and day trip. Will definitely allocate more time to stay in Bangkok the next time around...

Next up..... Phuket...

Connie Talbot....

2008-05-19T03:00:00.007+08:00

I heard her name sometime last year when she was participating in Britain's Got Talent - some talent competition like AI but not just singing - just that I haven't actually heard her singing till now...

and omg wow....... her singing Whitney Houston's (originally by Dolly Parton) 'I will Always Love You' kinda blew me away... for a six year old, she's unbelievable >< Not to mention that song's is imo one of the best and most beautiful songs ever ....

yarr i r teh feelings emo nauuuu

hooolidaayyyss

2008-05-09T07:27:00.003+08:00

T - 3 hours till takeoff to Bangkok (and Phuket a few days later) with my one and only baby =D~~~

hooolidayyyy....

2008-03-18T18:22:00.001+08:00

.... is what i neeed. Was planning on going HK/Jpn in May, but some complications arose ..

argh....

hoolleedayz.. i needs dem

Evilll eyyeee

2008-02-07T10:20:00.000+08:00

This one's a bit old, but still funny nevertheless

Gah, been extremely busy with work lately. Explains the inexistent updates in the past month or so. It's Chinese New Year today and I am working. Go figure.

Got lots of stuff to blog about, will do so when I have time (not sure when that is).

KK, back to work

Kittehs N catz N abductions!

2007-12-29T03:01:00.000+08:00

Couple months ago, there was this female cat and her kitten scavenging for food in the area outside Vannessa's house, and she wanted to feed them. Well I was initially against the idea, especially against her handling the cats using her hands as I was really worried about alot of things like diseases, fleas, hygiene etc, plus it's not like her housemates would agree with the idea of having the cats outside the house as well. Somehow I just went along with it and we went to buy some cat food for the cats (Vannessa named the mother cat 'Heng' and the kitten 'Woon' .... NOT MY IDEA ), and I surprisingly began to grow fond of the cats.

Up till about 3 months ago, 'Woon' just disappeared. Despite our efforts to look for 'Woon', he couldn't be found, and even after a week it was just a lonely, sad 'Heng' waiting outside the house every night for us to come out to feed her. We didn't find any white kittens lying on the roads around the area so could be that someone else took 'Woon' away... hopefully that, and not death.

Well animals are animals, what can you say. Not long after that, 'Heng' was pregnant again, and about a month ago gave birth to a litter of 4 kittens! And omggg they were the cuuutest things ever.

Kittehs galore! One more is hiding under a box elsewhere...

'Heng' and one of her kittens...

siblings unite.... the other kitten doesn't seem to liek coming out from the box

More pics.....

But unfortunately, out of the 4 kittens ,only 2 remains today. The two prettiest kittens went missing about 2 weeks ago, and again we think they were abducted.... That is seriously saddening... sigh.

Blisssss....

2007-12-28T21:04:00.000+08:00

I am the luckiest, happiest, and most loved person in the entire universe. It was so totally unexpected what she did for me on my birthday, which was on the 14th for those of you wonderful friends that seemed to have forgotten. Grrr.

Anyway, I was really tired and sleepy on the morning of the 14th. Work kept me up throughout the entire morning and the previous night, and despite the lazy self in me telling me I should just take a day off or at least get more sleep, work seemed to exert a greater force of persuasion on me at that time. Besides, I had a ton of code and stuff on my plate that I had to finish before the end of the week.

At noon, just when I was about to go to sleep, my darling called me up and asked if I had picked up this thing that I was supposed to pick up for her at Midvalley. At first I was going to pick it up after I had some sleep, but then it sounded urgent so I went, dragging my tired zombie ass self into the car and drive off to MV. As short as the distance is from my house to Midvalley, I really worried I'd suddenly doze off and get into an accident or something cause my eyes were about totally shut the entire journey, but thankfully I didn't.

So I went to Memory Lane to pick up the stuff for her, after looking for parking for blardy 45 minutes. What the hell, noon at Midvalley on a Friday and there wasn't any parking.... grrr.. I showed the salesgirl the receipt for the items, and she took this bag from under the desk area and I grabbed it quickly before heading back home. Didn't look inside the bag or think too much about what was inside as my mind was too preoccupied with the thoughts of me and my bed. So I was about to go get some sleep when Vannessa called me, asking me if I picked up the stuff already. Told her I did, and she started going what-the-hell on me... Turns out the salesgirl was supposed to just give me this envelope instead of just giving me the entire bag with the envelope conveniently tucked at the bottom of the bag. I didn't even realise there was an envelope there...

But yeah so I opened up the envelope, and inside was a card, a map of Midvalley, and a bunch of receipts. When I realised what it was, I was like zomgwtfbbqwhatthehell and at that instant, the intense sleep deprivation that I've been feeling just disappeared. Present hunttttiinnngg!!! O-M-G. I was soooo ecstatic, yet stupid at the same time, because I was supposed to open up the envelope in Midvalley instead.

With sleep totally out of my mind, I jumped out of bed, got into the car and literally sped to MV. Again. This time I didn't bother spending 40 minutes finding a parking that was close to the elevator and just parked at the first empty parking spot there was. Still, I had to spend 15 mins finding one. Cursed MV.

21 Presents! 1 for each of the birthdays she didn't spend with me. The 22nd and 23rd present however, I would only get later at night. I think I was the happiest person in MV at that time, and probably people were thinking I was some crazy gay person with a huge ass smile on my face the entire time. My baby even planned the route I was supposed to take through Midvalley, arranging the receipts in order so I wouldn't have to walk around MV so much. Then there was the map, which totally helped in my quest to retrieve all that was purchased for me days ago that were kept under the respective shops' cashier counters. There was even a Baskin Robbins receipt - good for one ice cream cone - that was placed in the middle of the bunch of receipts so I would be having it after I've gotten the first half of the gifts that I was supposed to collect. How can anyone be more thoughtful and sweeter than that???

All in a couple hours work!

Pressies!

Let's see..
#1 - birthday card
#2 - some cute japanese cat-like soft toy
#3 - handphone holder
#4 - scented candles set with holder (yay!)
#5 - famous amos cookies (<3 prunes =")" style="text-align: center;">colorful lights! they change color every now and then, pretty cool.

The view from the other side of the table

The view from my side ( yummy :P )

After dinner, we moved to a table nearer to the balcony to escape the loud music so we wouldn't need to talk too loud to be able to hear each other..... and there was cake!

Balcony table.. and the cake, with candles unlit

The sweetest, most beautiful and loving person that planned it all!

Cutting teh caakee!

Baby and I...

And to cap off the night, she gave me a nice back massage back at her place.. my 23rd birthday pressie. I so totally needed that massage with all the work and stress I had to cope with in the past couple days, and she knew that. This, among other reasons, is why I love her so much, and why I couldn't ask for a better person, friend, and lover in my life. This was the best birthday I've had in my life so far.

Thank you baby, for planning it all out, for everything you have given to and done for me in the past 6 months. I love you so much.

He's really good at being offensive....

2007-12-17T18:37:00.000+08:00

ROFL, and I can't stop......

Good morning

2007-12-12T09:42:00.000+08:00

It's almost 9:45am on a really wonderful morning. If only the temperature was about 2 degrees C cooler and a bit more breezy, it would be a perfect morning, but that's probably wishful thinking being this close to the equator. But other than that, it's all good =)

I haven't been so ecstatic being about in the morning since... don't know when. Maybe it's because I've been up since 9pm last night working on a really cool feature for Grouply and I'm seeing the results of my creation. It's like building your own house and doing the interior design yourself - you watch it slowly shape up into that image you have in your head of how you'd want it to turn out, and then when it's done, there's just this surge of pride, happiness, relief, and sense of accomplishment that you experience, albeit a temporary one. This is why I LOVE doing what I do. This is why I can miraculously go on for hours into the night building and designing a part of a web application and not stress or groan about needing sleep. Also, the thought that what I build with the help of my peers will be used on a global scale by people everywhere is what makes up part of the fuel that keeps my engines running.

What makes today such a good morning also, is the half empty cup of toffee nut latte right next to my laptop. I know that coffee is probably the last thing I need if I were to sleep within the next few hours, but I just had to satisfy my craving of toffee nut latte, so here I am at the Jalan Telawi Starbucks in Bangsar. Toffee nut latte = heavenly goodness. It's what makes me think of getting my own mini Starbucks in my kitchen with my own personal barista making me a cup of toffee nut latte whenever I please. I still have some left in my cup but I'm already thinking of getting another one since it's not going to be enough. Must. Resist. Argh.

Well, I'm going to see Vannessa tonight, so that's another yay :P I'll probably give her a nice massage since she's been studying real hard and her exam's today, and I don't want her to get too stressed out since she has another one on Friday. Another key ingredient in a wonderful morning - knowing that tonight I'll be holding my love to sleep.

I need more mornings like this =) Usually what's missing is the weather, or just me being asleep throughout the entire morning / afternoon. I wouldn't mind staying up all morning if every day's just like today.

Good morning to everyone, and have a great day ahead!

Back to work.

Visit Malaysia 2007... O RLY?

2007-12-08T17:41:00.000+08:00

Here's a pretty interesting and enlightening blog posting by pinkpau about our oh-so-wonderful police force... It's a good read that certainly struck a chord in me, kinda says what I've wanted to say and what I've been really pissed off at regarding the issues of corruption and lack of police presence/enforcement/action in our country, which leads to a lot of other things I've been angry about ie lawless Malaysian drivers, errant parkers and tokyo-I-want-to-drift-to-Hell drivers in their rice rockets.

I shouldn't have came back to Malaysia. I was such a fool thinking you meant more to me than anything else at that time. Still feels like a dagger through my heart whenever I think of it. At least I've managed to lock up most of the memories in a dark, distant corner of my mind and throw away the key.

On to the happy things now - I can smell something cooking for my birthday... though I don't know what she's cooking (not literally).. Excitedddnesssss =D

If someone said three years from now you'd be long gone...

2007-12-08T16:26:00.000+08:00

This one song's been stuck in my head for a couple weeks now, and it's a really good, heartfelt song about losing your loved one or friend to suicide/drug abuse. Well, I guess anyone who lost their loved one because that person 'strayed' away from the relationship/friendship or ended up doing things like drugs, illegal stuff, etc can relate to this song. The emotions in Pink's voice and well, Pink's voice itself, just makes this song so beautiful. <3

Learn 2 park, not double park.

2007-11-28T15:16:00.000+08:00

Disclaimer: Rant ahead, please stop reading if you dislike the use of cursing and evil words in things that you read or hear.

The deplorable state of common sense and civic mindedness in Malaysian drivers when it comes to parking and driving has really gotten on my nerves and I'm just a molecule away from going berserk at people that double park their cars without consideration or having the least common sense that their actions are obstructing traffic and creating an unnecessary crawl throughout the day.

I mean seriously, unless these drivers are in a world of their own, I don't see how one can be so damn fucking oblivious to their surroundings and the cars that are waiting behind them, with some even refuse to budge when they are getting honked at. Sure you can say that in Malaysia it's like this, but no it does not have to be like this. Just because so many people do it doesn't mean it's right, and if you think that it's ok to double park or swerve in and out of traffic at 120kph you're probably just a typical ignorant Malaysian who doesn't give a fuck about what is or isn't being done by the people, the govt, the police force, etc.

In places like Bangsar, around the Telawi area, people park as if they own the roads. These people don't bloody care if their super huge Mercedes is double parked, taking up half of the available lane space. These niggers think just because they drive a bloody big ass car they can just park where ever they want. Hell I bet if an ambulance, in urgent need of transporting a person in critical condition, was stuck behind them, they'd sit in their comfy leather seats looking ahead with such a cool expression on their faces as if no one else existed in the world except them and the person that they are waiting for.

One can just wonder how the hell did these people go through school (if they ever did) and not develop even a slight hint of civic mindedness and common sense? Oh right, our country's education system (amongst other things) are so fucking screwed up. Hello Education Ministry, see what teaching Pendidikan Moral does to our society.

As for the Police force / dbkl etc, hellloooooooo, can't you see that places like Bangsar is a gold mine waiting to be exploited? With the amount of traffic / parking offenders in the area, just a month of issuing summonses would net enough money for the government / authorities concerned, to do something to curb the limited availability of parking that cause these idiots to double park in the first place - build a big ass parking structure (more money to be made there too). Yeah I'm over exaggerating about the one month period, but you get the point.

But seriously much needs to be done about the issue of ignorant and inconsiderate drivers. Why not set up a joint task force / program between civilians and the police, with both parties cooperating and working together to crackdown on these errant parkers? It is just preposterous to have to spend 20 minutes in traffic just to drive through 3 blocks. If towing companies here in Malaysia had rights to tow any vehicle that's obstructing traffic or parked illegally, I would start a towing business.

End rant.

Christmas wish-list

2007-11-27T13:41:00.000+08:00

Christmas is only a month away, and it's time to build my Christmas wish list for this year. Last year, I only got one thing off my wish list, which is Sarah McLachlan's Wintersong album. My parents got my self help books again (they do that every year), and I get the common stuff like Body Shop products, tshirts etc from my relatives. Maybe it's because the list of stuff I wanted last year were big ticket items, and I don't usually ask my parents/relatives to get me this and that for Christmas, but this year I'm scaling down :P

So far I only have 3 things I want for Christmas :

- Hardcover edition of 'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

- Carrie Underwood's new album 'Carnival Ride'

- Tickets to a Bon Jovi concert anywhere in the world ( all expenses paid of course :P )

It's flat...

2007-11-26T16:56:00.000+08:00

Life can suck sometimes (maybe all the time for some people), and today is just one of those days for me. Just when I was happily seated down taking my first sip of overpriced regular house coffee at Starbucks@Borders, The Curve, I got 2 calls - one from my dad, and another from my mom, both asking me if I received my mom's SMS informing me that one of the rear tyres of my car had a nail in it and was flat. Luckily for me I did NOT receive my mom's SMS which was apparently sent a couple hours ago just before I headed out to send Vannessa to Setapak. Don't know how I managed to drive all the way to Setapak, then to PJ, then over here to the Curve on a flat rear tyre, but I think I'm pretty screwed. Hopefully the tyre will last until I head over to an auto repair shop in about 30 minutes.

S i g h.

Wanted : A nice, relaxing, fun holiday on some obscure, serene and pretty island

2007-11-22T11:13:00.000+08:00

After reading Su Ann's recent blog post about her trip to Pangkor Laut, just makes me want to go on a holiday too. Last time I went to Pangkor laut was a few years back with my family, and I don't remember it being as beautiful as it is in the photos. I want to go to the Maldives or the Bahamas, but Pangkor Laut seems more appealing to my wallet :P

Genting.

2007-11-20T11:13:00.000+08:00

Here's a mashup that Vannessa did of pictures that we took on our trip up to Genting last month ...

And yeah, I look really stupid with the wannabe-spikish long hair. I was just having a bad hair day.

Scarlet?

2007-11-19T16:20:00.000+08:00

So there's this new bar / lounge in Cineleisure called Scarlet that Vannessa and I went to on Saturday evening just to check it out and have a drink after dinner at Italianese. The place wasn't really that great, though I do kinda like the 'red/scarlet' theme. But I just felt like there was something missing to the place, maybe it's just the lack of decorations / interior design. Basically it's just like Sanctuary, but less decorative/colorful/fancy. One thing I must say about Scarlet is that their tequila sunrise is the first that I've tasted which does not taste like cough syrup.

Christmas is coming. >< Let's just say I have a love/hate relationship with this bank breaking, dilemma/headache inducing festive season. Firstly, I suck at buying pressies. I can spend an hour at a gift shop and end up empty handed. I can spend an entire day at the mall and maybe.. I stress MAYBE... go home with one or two people's names checked off on the list. I hate being really indecisive sometimes. And yeah, since I'm working from home and Christmas != holidays anymore, it just feels like any other time of the year. What I do look forward to in Christmas = pretty decorations everywhere, getting presents, knowing that our savior Jesus was born, singing Christmas tunes, and going caroling (ok no, not really)

I've gotten books that I never read EVERY single Christmas. I bet my month's salary that I'll get books again this time. Self help books that I end up chucking in one corner and never open. Come to think of it I've never really gotten anything 'big' before for Christmas. Why do some people get PS3s, a new computer, an ipod, etc for Christmas while I get books that I don't really need? Yeah I'm being materialistic, bite me. :P

If you don't like our service, there are 6 emergency exits...

2007-11-19T05:23:00.000+08:00

LOL?

5 gigs of email?

2007-11-18T08:05:00.000+08:00

You are currently using 4891 MB (97%) of your 5010 MB.

Yeah... I used nearly 5 gigs of email space. Go me.

RM 14.70

2007-11-16T10:32:00.000+08:00

Here I am sipping on a cup of hot coffee at Starbucks@Telawi Bangsar and slowly indulging in the cold chicken sandwich on my plate. I've been up since 10pm last night, so coffee's definitely what I need right now.

I didn't actually plan on coming to Starbucks. Rm14.70 seems a bit too expensive for breakfast, and you have to admit Starbucks IS an overpriced kopitiam. My plan this morning was actually to take my darling out for breakfast, but turns out when I reached her place, she was already at college. *Sigh*. There I was waiting outside her house giving her a call, thinking she was probably still asleep, cuz she usually sends me a SMS when she gets up and I hadn't gotten one the entire morning. Ah well, surprises have a way of surprising even yourself sometimes.

I heart working at Starbucks. Despite the overpriced coffee, I like the environment. Maybe working at home all the time's starting to get a bit dull, and it would be nice to have some people around me, albeit strangers, while I work, instead of being alone in my study room grinding away at code. Some fresh air never hurts as well.

Back to work. Wonder if I'll get company for lunch, maybe with the usual Rowan and maybe Shaun too, since they work pretty nearby. Will see.

The pieces don't fit anymore...

2007-11-14T04:34:00.000+08:00

Or rather, words don't fit easily into sentences anymore when it comes to writing. I remember being really good at writing stories, poetry, blog entries, but over the past year or two, I just seem to have lost touch with the skill. Words, phrases, ideas used to just pop into my head like schools of fish converging and appearing from the depths onto fresh bait thrown into the water. Fitting them together was as easy as connecting the dots, but now every time I try to write something, it's as though I'm putting together pieces of a puzzle where they don't fit with each other or there are just some pieces missing.

I long for those days where I can pour my heart and thoughts out into a piece of fine writing. With that long gone, most of my frustrations, hurt, anger tend to get expressed in outbursts where I'd just turn red and vent out to the world around me even though I know no one's listening and not that it helps the situation other than relieving the pressure inside of me and preventing me from going amok and doing god-knows-what.

I've been frustrated alot recently. Angry. Sad. Annoyed. At what? Well amongst other things - the current political and social climate in Malaysia, incompetencies of major Malaysian companies especially in the customer service department, the recklessness and lawless attitude of some drivers on the roads, the fact that I'm losing touch with God/being a Christian and being in a I'll-go-to-church-tomorrow-but-I-end-up-not-going-anyway situation. Sometimes I just look at myself in the mirror searching for that person I once was a couple years ago but I just come up empty. Many things have happened that changed who I am. Many things that happened changed my perspective and beliefs in the world, life, relationships/friendships. Most of the changes were unfortunately on the negative side. People / friends who are close to me and have been so since my secondary school days would notice the change, and even enlightened me of some of it which I hadn't realised. Yeah I'm being vague but I am not going to elaborate on it but all I know is that I'm no longer a tree-hugger.

I've been busy. Busy with a lot of different things, which I guess is good. Work's been taking most of my time, followed by my significant other, and then my friends and playing World of Warcraft. Yes, I've gone down the dark path of playing World of Warcraft again, although I'm finding it easier to control my playing times on that God-forsaken-addictive-game than I was when I was studying in the US. The most important of them all are both my work and my baby Vannessa. I honestly don't know what I would do or become if it wasn't for those two. Work keeps me on my feet and gives me a sense of direction, goal, and achievement. Vannessa just keeps me going and going and going, supporting me in what I do, being understanding/loving and most importantly being a good listener, friend and lover whenever I need one. I just can't overstate that which has been said and heard all over - the cliched "Behind every successful man there is a woman". That is just so true.

I've been busy, but that's not the reason I haven't been updating the blog. Like I mentioned, most of the times I want to write something but words just don't come to me so easily anymore. Then there is the laziness issue. I would throw in the 'I didn't have time' or 'I was reallly busy' excuse but I have come to realize that there's no such thing as not enough time if one just manages their time better. Which reminds me, I need to start going to the gym - something which I haven't been doing for the past 2-3 months. It's bad. I paid about 4 years membership worth for a lifetime membership, and I should definitely put that to good use. Not like Midvalley is far from my place anyway.

Well, it's almost 5:30am, but I'm wide awake. For the past month or so I've been sleeping at around 9am up till evening 5pm or so. Basically it's as if I'm living in a totally different time zone. It's just that I like being up at night and working at night as it provides me with more concentration compared to the mornings/afternoons where there's the chirping of birds, sound and smell of neighbors cooking / going about their daily chores, phones ringing in the house, etc. And at night, it's just soooo damn quiet and peaceful, except for the nights when it rains really heavily. Not to mention I loooove driving out after midnight to go get some food as the roads are really empty and void of the pathetic, reckless drivers honking for no reason, cutting queues and slithering in and out of traffic.

Parents are leaving for Korea tomorrow on a church trip. I wanna go on a vacation sometime in the next 6 months too. I NEED a vacation. Planning to go on one somewhere with Vannessa if all goes well (her parents allow, my parents are good with it, enough $$$ etc). Destinations? I'm thinking somewhere in Europe (I so want to go back to Switzerland), or Hong Kong / Japan. Australia is alright too, but that's not too high on my list. Oh well see how things go.

Going AFK to get a break from the computer screens, and it's back to work after that.

Grouply on Techcrunch

2007-11-12T14:09:00.000+08:00

Here's another posting (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/08/grouply-gives-a-much-needed-upgrade-to-the-board-scape/) about Grouply on TechCrunch, a popular tech blog that profiles and reviews new Internet products/companies. And if you take a look at the image wrapped on the right side of the article showing the Smart Digest, guess who built that functionality ? =DD

you is reading?

2007-11-09T22:42:00.000+08:00

I r tire an haf nuthin too seyz!

sleep sleep.

Oh pink bear where art thou....

2007-10-14T12:36:00.000+08:00

Another busy busy week gone by. A week of frustration and fun. Frustration = work. Fun = trip with Vannessa to Genting.

I think this is the first time I am getting so damn frustrated with my work. Bloody hell IE7 browser and Mozilla browser both interpret HTML code and the HTML standards differently to a certain extent. IE7 (Internet Error 7) is just a pain in the ass as it's always rendering the page slightly differently, choking on certain javascript code that works fine on other browsers, adding extra spaces here and there, and not to mention being really really slow when it comes to doing those show/hide animations. what. the. fuck. My internet connection's also been terribly bad (har har no surprise there I have streamyx) - disconnecting every couple minutes or so certain times. Can't get anything reliable in Malaysia nowadays.

Thank God for the trip to Genting with Vannessa.. that was something I definitely needed and at the right time. We drove up to Genting on Thursday and came back on the next afternoon. And why can't the typical KL weather be like the weather in Genting (minus the rain of course)? My electricity bill is probably going to hit the roof this month with the air condition on almost 24/7 in my room... seems like KL is getting a lot hotter.

Genting was fun. When we got there we relaxed a bit and took a shower first before heading down to walk around and have dinner. We decided to eat something nice, so we looked around for about 45 minutes for a nice restaurant before Vannessa's feet started hurting and some skin started peeling off her heels because her shoes were a little tight, so we ended up buying a new pair of shoes. ><

Finally we went over to The Olive at the Genting hotel for dinner, but not before we had some fun playing darts and pyramid cans, netting a purple bear and a pair of kissing pandas. The Olive was pretty good. We had escargot for appetizers although Vannessa was a bit hesitant to eat them. I ended up eating most of them. Vannessa then had some pasta and I had a rib eye steak. Both were equally good, and my the steak was full of awesomeness and damn juicy. Argh thinking about it just makes my mouth water >< grrrr

After dinner we went to the casino and dabbled in some slot machines that Vannessa wanted to try, and went around just looking at people gambling their life away. Seriously some people are just crazy. The next day when we went to the First World casino, we played the money wheel which was fun, and there was this lady beside us that lost a thousand bucks, went off for more money, came back with another thousand, and lost more.... damn sad.

Well anyway, the trip was really really fun. There wasn't much to do up there other than gambling and we didn't gamble much, but just being with Vannessa up there and having fun together - be it throwing baseballs, hoops, dart - was all that was needed for us to enjoy ourselves in the company of each other.

I wanna go on another trip! Maybe to Australia or Hong Kong.... who has money to give away and wants to pay for our air tickets? :P

And #2 Cal just lost a game to unranked Oregon State... nooooooooo there goes the national championship. All we needed to do was kick that last field goal and tie it to go to overtime, but we didn't make it in time =\ #1 LSU also lost to U of Kentucky, so down goes the top two teams =(

another wild college football weekend

2007-10-08T02:55:00.001+08:00

zomgwtfbbqhaxroflmaoUSCsuxors...

The mighty #2 ranked USC Trojans fell to an unranked Stanfurd team yesterday 23-24.... Of all teams, to STANFURD..... But gotta give credit to stanfurd though, they played pretty well and capitalized on a sloppy USC offense. Cal is now ranked #2 after USC's loss (USC tumbles down to #10) .... and yeah that's the highest ranking ever for Cal since 1951. woohooo! All Cal needs to do now is win all it's remaining games and yeah we're probably going into the national championship game! Though I'm a bit worried about Cal's consistency and hey we still need to beat USC when they come over to Berkeley, but man this year's gonna be big. If not the national championship game, at least the Rose Bowl.

Next week Cal vs Oregon State. Must.Win.Game.

Hawt.

Another hawt thing is Vannessa's coming back from Malacca tomorrow afternoon. Wish I could go pick her up from the bus station but I got a conference call at noon tomorrow =(

.... and ew I saw a big fat rat in the kitchen just now.. bugger dashed across the sink and jumped a feet high into a half open window and crawled out. Fuck... gonna ask the maid to wash every single dish left in the open tomorrow. Don't wanna get weird diseases.... or die from rat feces even.

touch wood.

Sony is ghey

2007-10-05T23:16:00.000+08:00

I'm pissed. Pissed because the 42 USD MDR EX-52SL in-ear earphones that I bought a week+ ago now has a malfunctioned left earpiece. There's no sound coming from the left side.. only the right. So I went over to Sony's Service Center in Midvalley this afternoon and they said because they don't cover accessories and don't provide warranty for them, they are unable to replace mine.

Ok, that is just soooo wrong. How the hell does a new pair of earphones, sold at the price of 42 USD, malfunction just a week+ after purchase?? So accessories arent covered under warranty, that's fine if the accessories can last at least a couple months. TWO FUCKING WEEKS and something's broken, it's a defective product that warrants replacement. I don't see how such a big corporation could produce defective products, sell them for 40 USD, then say 'oops, we are sorry but the shit you bought doesnt fall under warranty and yeah we might have missed a couple wirings here and there but too bad for you because our policy dictates that we do not replace products that we know could be defective and thus is not covered under our warranty'.

Pure BS.

Buying Sony is just buying for the fucking brand. I swear the products are subpar (like the VAIO), and a big chunk of the price you pay for the product's for the brand name. I should've chosen the philips earphones instead of the Sony one, but Sony sounds like a better brand for about 5 dollars more expensive. Apparently I thought wrong.

If this was the United States, I would've gotten my replacement right away no questions asked.

Cal 31, Oregon 24

2007-09-30T15:27:00.000+08:00

Wow, that was just such a phenomenal and nail biting game between the Cal Bears and the Oregon Ducks. It was a nerve wrecking moment in the first half when Oregon seemed to be the better team overall, despite the misleading 10-3 score. Good thing we (Cal) got things going in the second half but Oregon sure was tough. Hats off to Oregon and Dixon, who's such an amazing and athletic quarterback. Kinda sad for him that he threw two interceptions in this game, when he hasn't thrown any in the past 4 games. Those turnovers were definitely the key in the Bears holding on to the win (not to mention that late fourth quarter hit by Marcus Ezeef on Colvin right at the goal line, forcing Colvin to fumble the ball in the endzone resulting in a touchback instead of an Oregon touchdown). Seemed like Oregon was going to tie the game but it was an awesome hit by Ezeef. DeSean Jackson had a great game too, catching the ball 11 times for 161 yards, including two touchdowns in the second half. (click to watch ESPN highlights of Cal-Oregon)

Cal-Oregon aside, it was a weird week for college football. A bunch of top ranked teams lost on Saturday, opening up the national championship race for Cal certainly. With #3 Oklahoma losing to unranked Colorado 24-27, #4 Florida upset 17-20 by unranked Auburn, and #5 West Virginia losing 13-21 to #18 South Florida, Cal (ranked 6th in the nation) would most certainly move up the ranks to at least #4 (maybe #3, but unlikely) with the win over #11 Oregon. If we're lucky, we might actually get into the National Championship game this year.... and I do think Cal has a good chance of beating USC this time, and especially when USC will be coming to Berkeley

Anyways, I'm back from my business trip to San Francisco. Was a helluva trip, tiring as it may be. Every single day I came back from work I'd be dead tired, often times dozing off to sleep right after dinner. Got a chance to meet my colleagues for the first time, and work with them in person, which was a great experience. It was definitely more productive with me working at the office, discussing work related stuff and just plain working together without a 16 hour time zone and a couple thousand miles difference.

Other than work, I went go-karting with my colleagues as part of a company outing/party to celebrate our product launch (http://www.grouply.com). It was zomgwtfbbq exhilirating and fun. It's not the slow go karts you see in Disneyland. These are real go karts that go up to 35mph (or 60 kph) and the G forces you pull on one of these go-karts are pretty huge. Not to mention exhausting and dehydrating as well.. halfway through the race my throat was painfully dry. Ended up 5th out of 10 in the race, which was decent considering it was my first time and I was sliding across the entire track most of the time.

Well I'm back now. I'm happy to be back in KL, despite the fracking hot weather here. It's not only hot but humid, and the air's full of smog and dust particles. While driving Vannessa back to her place yesterday there were a couple of cars and motorcycles that were just farting out smoke and contributing to the pollution that's already bad as it is. Honestly these people should be fined or have their cars/bikes impounded. I mean c'mon do people really not care about the air we breathe at all? Or are they just plain ignorant and typical Malaysians with the i-dont-care attitude?

Did I say I was happy to be back in KL? Alright, on to the happy stuff. Vannessa surprised my at the airport yesterday by just being there. I called her as I got off the plane cuz I kinda had the feeling she would come and greet me, but somehow she managed to convinced me she was at home. Didn't hear any background noise when I called her so I didnt think she would be at the airport. I love surprises like this. I. Love. Her. Just felt so happy to be able to see her, kiss her gentle lips and hold her in my arms again after 2 weeks of being away. I guess sometimes being apart for a short period of time is a good thing.

Edit 1/10: Cal is now ranked #3 =) Now if Cal can keep a perfect season, definitely going to go to the national championship game. Go Bears!!!

Grouply is now live!

2007-09-24T05:11:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone!

As some of you know, I joined a Silicon Valley internet startup called Grouply and I am excited and pleased to announce that Grouply is now live and available to the public! Grouply is basically a Web 2.0 service that works on top of your existing Yahoo! Groups and Google groups (coming soon) while offering a more centralized and enhanced experience with your groups.

There are over 300 million users of online groups—alumni associations, hobby clubs, youth sports teams, professional organizations, discussion boards, mailing lists, Yahoo Groups, Google Groups. People love their groups, but they are frustrated and overwhelmed by all the events, announcements, classified ads, job postings, and questions and answers piling up in their inboxes. Are you suffering from information overload, too?

There is a better way. With Grouply, you can keep up with your existing online groups in 80% less time. You receive a Grouply Smart Digest™ email each day that summarizes what’s going on across all your groups, highlighting what’s interesting to you and hiding what’s not. You can view a single cross-group event calendar, see what’s interesting to fellow group members, and quickly search or browse across all your existing groups from one place.

Grouply is free and takes just seconds to join!
If you're not completely satisfied, immediately go back to accessing your groups via Yahoo and Google, but I will assure you that once you try Grouply, you'll love it!

Click here to sign up now!

Do you know of anyone else who might like Grouply? Please tell them! The more people who use Grouply, the better it gets. Messages become better organized and you can more easily discover people who share your interests. To spread the word, simply click Tell a Friend in the upper right-hand corner of any Grouply page, or just pass along this email! Don't forget to tell your existing group members about Grouply too!

Thanks for trying out Grouply, and please let me know what you think. Any feedback, criticism or praises will help us to improve your experience with Grouply!

Next gen iPhone..

2007-09-18T23:35:00.000+08:00

3G with assisted GPS chip?

Guess I'm going to wait till the iPhone hits Malaysia instead of getting one now and unlocking it to use back home.

Sleep deprivation....

2007-09-18T22:23:00.000+08:00

Jet lag sucks. I thought that with my random sleeping times, jet lag wouldn't be a problem. I thought wrong. I had trouble keeping awake yesterday afternoon, dozing off to sleep for a couple minutes every once so often. Then last night I couldn't sleep too. Ended up watching an episode of CSI Miami, troubleshoot and fix some bugs with my colleague till 3:30am before heading off to sleep. Woke up this morning at 6:30am feeling (surprisingly) energetic. Had to wake up early to get to work, so not like I have a choice.

It's 7:27am now and I'm at Peet's Coffee in San Mateo sipping on a cup of medium house coffee and munching on a 'Sweet Cheese Pastry', which is just a crossaint like pastry with sweet cheese inside. Yummy. Probably going to be here for another hour before heading off to the Caltrain station to catch a train to Redwood City, where a colleague of mine will pick me up to get to the office.

I watched the Season 3 premiere of Prison Break last night and it was good, but seems to just lack excitement. There were a couple of expected things and a few unexpected ones. Obviously the game is to break out. But it's not just breaking himself out of Sona. It's why they want him to break out, and why he's there. The episode sets up the storyline for the next few episodes, if not the rest of the season, as well as connect a few dots with the previous season. I really do hope they don't drag the 'breaking out of prison' part for one whole season though...

Just had my last bite of the sweet cheese pastry, and I'm craving for more. I'm gonna gain alot of weight by the time I get back to KL. Aside from going to the gym more often, I need to cut down on food. Argh.

Anyway, did you know that Starbucks Coffee originated from Peet's Coffee? Without Peet's Coffee there probably wouldn't be Starbucks. Even the interior of the store originated from the interior of Peet's. The original Peet's coffee store is in Berkeley, and I used to frequent it when I was studying there. The first Peet's Coffee store opened in Berkeley in 1966 by Alfred Peet. Then in 1970, Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl, three Seattle college students, spent the summer in Europe and became addicted to dark European roasts. Someone gave Baldwin a bag of Peet's coffee, and soon Siegl was working in Peet's Berkeley store to learn more about the trade.

When the threesome decided to open their first Starbucks coffee shop, Peet agreed to supply them with his roasted beans, and helped them find suppliers for grinders, roasters and other essential equipment. With his permission, the first Starbucks store was designed to look like Peet's coffee mecca in Berkeley. (source: sfgate.com)

In SF...

2007-09-17T14:52:00.000+08:00

Man, that was one hell of a long and tiring flight from KL to San Francisco. Having traveled to and from both places frequently during my 4.5 years over here, I thought I'd be used to it by now, but I realised how much I dread sitting up in the air for 12 hours, eating plane food, and having a really big sized guy sitting next to me with his arms going across the armrest into my 'space'.

Then just when I thought the nightmare was over after stepping off the plane, I had to endure a 1 hour wait for a 30 minute interview at U.S. Customs. I go through the same shit everytime I travel over here but this time it just took really long...

At least I'm here now at my uncle's place in Hillsborough, just 30 minutes south of San Francisco city. Weather's been really really awesome, none of the 28+ celcius heat and high humidity environment in Malaysia. None of the aggressive, discourteous and dangerous drivers that plague the roads in KL. No potholes. Nice friendly people. Amazingly fast Internet. Great customer service at stores/restaurants.

And good cable/satellite TV. Speaking of which, this coming 2 weeks is one of the biggest in terms of TV premieres. Let's start with tomorrow (Monday Sept 17th) at 8PM on Fox, where Season 3 of Prison Break will premiere, followed by America's Next Top Model on Wednesday Sept 19th, and Survivor:China the next day. The next week will be even bigger:

Sunday Sept 23rd - The Simpsons (8pm, FOX), Family Guy/Cold Case at 9pm on Fox/CBS respectively.. still undecided on which one to watch, but I'll probably go with Cold Case. I like Family Guy, but not mroe than Cold Case.

Monday Sept 24th - Heroes Season 2 at 9pm on NBC, followed by CSI: Miami at 10pm on CBS

Tuesday Sept 25th - NCIS at 8pm on CBS, The Unit at 9pm on CBS, Boston Legal at 9:30pm (which I'll probably TiVo or download since I'll definitely be watching The Unit - awesome show), and Law & Order:Special Victims Unit at 10pm on NBC.

Wednesday Sept 26th - Bionic Woman 9pm on NBC (new show, gonna see how it goes), then CSI:NY at 10pm on CBS.

Thursday Sept 27th - My Name is Earl and Ugly Betty at 9pm on NBC/ABC (Damn, I want to watch both), CSI/Grey's Anatomy at 9pm on CBS/ABC (Omg I want to watch both too....), then Without a Trace at 10 on CBS.

On Friday Sept 28th - Las Vegas on NBC at 9pm (There's a new show, Moonlight at 9pm on CBS about some werewolf transformation thingy I think. Sounds interesting, might watch that one), Numbers on CBS and Stargate Atlantis Season 4 at 10pm (Arghhhhh.. again, I want to watch both).

As you can see, there's more than enough TV shows to watch on Monday-Friday from 8pm-11pm. The ones that I'm most excited about is Heroes, Prison Break, CSI (all 3 - Miami,NY,original), Grey's Anatomy, The Unit and Stargate Atlantis. I was hoping to see Six Degrees continue on but doesn't look like it is. I wish Stargate SG-1 was renewed to Season 11 as well but I think they're scrapping it at Season 10. Battlestar Galactica season 4 is in November.

Ah busy busy busy.. with work, and TV! Need to go shopping too for stuff, ie dried mangoes, french truffles, stuff from Berkeley, something for my baby V, and maybe an iPhone/iPod or an external hard drive. I'll only have 1 weekend to do all that too since I won't be free on weekdays. =(

Sigghh. It's only my second day here in California with 2 weeks to go and I'm missing Vannessa like crazy already. Argh! Thank God this time it's only going to be for 2 weeks and not a couple months or a year even.

Anyhows, heading off to bed. Gotta be up early tomorrow. Ah sweet Monday.

Now boarding ....

2007-09-15T14:59:00.000+08:00

Here I am blogging from Gate 32 at KLIA, killing my time while waiting for the signal to board. A short line of parents with children has been forming for about 5 minutes now, so it probably won't be long before the PA system fires up asking everyone else to not board, but stay put and allow parents with children, disabled people and first/business class passengers to board first.

I'm actually quite surprised that KLIA actually has free Wifi. Even SFO (San Francisco International Airport) does not have FREE internet access. One up for Malaysia!

As much as I am excited about going off to the States and get away from the monotony of life in KL, I'm beginning to miss my baby V dearly. This morning she did the sweetest thing ever - woke up at 7am and cooked tiger prawn fried rice for me as breakfast. Last night I kinda had a hunch she was up to something, just didn't expect that I would wake up and have breakfast all cooked and prepared for me. I.Love.You.Baby.

And I'm gonna miss her so much!

Well, time for me to board. Gotta jet. Literally.

If you're going to San Francisco

2007-09-14T17:39:00.000+08:00

My flight leaves for San Francisco in less than 24 hours. I won't be wearing flowers in my hair, but I'm certainly excited about heading back there, though I'm only visiting for 2 weeks and it's a business trip. At least I'll have 2 weekends to go around on my own and relive my times there in the beautiful Bay Area when I was studying at Berkeley.

Excited as I am, two weeks there means 2 weeks without my baby V. Kinda feels a bit of a deja vu, and I don't want to think about it but things like that just hit you before you know it. Nevertheless, not going to delve on it any longer, and sweep it aside I shall.

2 weekends to spend my time. I'm definitely heading back to Berkeley for a visit, munch on a hotdog from Top Dog, and definitely a carne asada burrito from La Burrita. Hopefully I can get a weekday off from work and visit Berkeley on a weekday just to experience the busy 'student' atmosphere again instead of visiting an empty campus on a weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to get tickets for a Cal football game too.

Well... lots of other stuff that I'm planning to do. Shopping's definitely one of them. Right now, have to go pack my stuff. I'm leaving tomorrow in the afternoon but I'm gonna be at baby V's place till tomorrow morning so, better get packed.

Flight sim on Google Earth?

2007-09-02T12:12:00.000+08:00

Apparently, Google Earth has an hidden inbuilt flight sim, which was just recently discovered. Haven't tried it out myself, but it looks pretty cool. You get to choose between a F16 and a SR22 plane, and also the airport that you are flying from. If you have Google Earth, run it and press ctrl-alt-A to bring up the flight sim. If not, head over to http://earth.google.com and download it. Here's a blog article with more information.

On another note, Cal just beat Tennessee 45-31. Yay for Pac-10, yay for Cal. Sweet sweet revenge after last year's loss to the Tennessee Vols =) Go Bears! And man that 77 yd touchdown return by DeSean Jackson was just electrifying, albeit expected of him. All hail the wizard of returns! Looks like Cal got off to a good start, hopefully it will stay that way for the rest of the season.

Totally zomgwtfbbqhax.. see how he makes guys miss tackles. DeSean for the Heisman!

All I Need

2007-08-29T19:23:00.000+08:00

Been listening to this Dutch gothic rock band 'Within Temptation' and I'm loving it. Their songs are a little Evanescene-like, but IMO much better. Alot of the songs have this really surreal feeling emanating from them, much thanks to Sharon den Adel's angelic vocals coupled with the symphonic-metal-orchestral music backing. Enchanting. Spine-chilling. Melodic. Some songs are a bit emo though.

I've only listened to two of their albums - 'Mother Earth', 'The Heart of Everything' - and all I can say is that they are amazing. 'Mother Earth' is a real emotion-filled masterpiece (love 'Our Farewell' and 'The Promise') with a bit of Celtic, while 'The Heart of Everything' is more goth / haunting, nevertheless still great. If you didn't hate Evanescence, you'll love Within Temptation. Did I mention Sharon den Adel's voice is amazing....?

Just checked out their albums at a record store in MidValley, and their albums are at least 90RM. Store salesperson said that it's hard to get their album in Malaysia as the music companies that do all the importing of music don't import Within Temptation's for some reason. Who wants to donate me some iTunes credit? :P

Anyway, here's a few videos for 2 songs from each of the two albums:

Frozen (Album: The Heart of Everything)

All I need (Album: The Heart of Everything)

Our Farewell (Album: Mother Earth)

Mother Earth (Album: Mother Earth)

The Sweet Escape...

2007-08-22T02:18:00.000+08:00

Oh...my... gawd.... Gwen Stefani's concert was just fracking awesome!!!! From the opening act / song (The Sweet Escape, obviously) to the end (What You Waiting For?), it was just an electrifying concert, well worth the 700 bucks forked out for two tickets. The crowd played its part too, with 10,000 odd screams and roars throughout the stadium during the popular pieces like The Sweet Escape, Hollaback Girl, Wind it Up, Cool, and 4 in the Morning.

The song selections were quite expected, coming from both her albums - L.A.M.B. and The Sweet Escape. The only song I didn't like was Yummy - which should have been replaced with Crash (omg Crash wasn't on the list of songs!!! =\ ). The concert certainly wouldn't have been as entertaining as it was, if it wasn't for the Harajuku Girls with their well choreographed dance moves. It was great to see them performing live outside of Gwen's music videos. One thing I was surprised with was Gwen's vocals, much better than I initially though - evident in her serenading the crowd with her slower and softer (albeit slightly) songs such as Early Winter, The Real Thing and Wonderful Life. Loved how she ended the concert with 'What You Waiting For?', talk about ending the concert with a bang, and also leaving us in the audience wanting for moreee... Kinda wished she did 'Crash' and 'Harajuku Girls' from L.A.M.B. but oh well... did I mention the concert was farking fantastic?

Heard on the radio that Gwen's probably going to be in the ~~Hitz~~ Gwen FM studios tomorrow morning with Rudy / JJ. That's going to be interesting =). And yeah, I think the Gwen FM thingy and playing Gwen Stefani songs and ONLY Gwen Stefani songs the ENTIRE day was a bit overdone, dontcha think?

Can't wait for her new record (maybe with No Doubt, rumors though) in the future, and I certainly hope Malaysia's on her tour schedule then!

No pictures, cuz we were too busy jumping around like mad monkeys to the music and enjoying ourselves, and too dark to take good pictures anyway (if only I sat in the front 5 rows...)

Piano - D.H. Lawrence

2007-08-21T02:51:00.000+08:00

So I was bored waiting for my work to be sent over to the servers, as well as updating files from my work servers. Gotta heart Streamyx. Tired of blog-hopping and keeping up with the evils of reality on the internet, I went to my room and took out a folder containing a number (not all, unfortunately =\ ) of my work in the Introduction to Poetry class that I took at De Anza College in Cupertino, California (yeah, near Apple's HQ) - one of my favorite classes during my 4 year stint studying in the States..

I love poetry. I love how poetry is a language in itself, used as a medium to express ideas, experiences, mood, emotions, visions and that which cannot be said through other means or languages. I love how a poem can be interpreted in so many ways, often not what and how the author intends it to be. I love how analyzing and being a critic of one's poetry work can be a thought provoking and often exciting process.

I used to have this uber thick, light blue poetry book that I used for my Introduction to Poetry class. Not sure where is it now, been rummaging through all my stuff and my room looking for it but alas, I can't seem to remember where I put it, or if I lost it in the States. >< . The book contains quite a number of famous, as well as influential and the less popular poets' works - my favourites being Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, William Wordsworth, Langston Hughes, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head. Well anyhow, I sifted through my past work, and I came across a poem that I really enjoyed reading - 'Piano', by D.H. Lawrence.

Piano

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
D. H. Lawrence

This poem paints a sweet and comforting memory: one filled with love, joy, safety, and security. The writer's warm and fond childhood memory of time spent with his mother as she plays the piano and sings is captured wonderfully in this lyrical work of art. 'Piano' also seems to suggest that even though the writer tries to recoil from the overwhelming emotions of the past, he is unable to deny the sweet longing of a time lost - evident in the last two verses of the poem. I think this poem is written elegantly and really beautifully, expressing the writer's return to an earlier time filled with love and kindness all around.

We all, like the writer, will at some point of our lives look back and reminiscence at the past, at a time when we felt the comfort, security, happiness and love offered by the people closest to us that are not around anymore, and long for that one or two distinct and unforgettable moments that we shared with them.. In my case, I remember clearly when I was about 8-10 years old when I used to hang out at my grandparents home with my cousins, and my grandma, at that time, was always at the organ playing Christian hymns such as Amazing Grace, Great is Thy Faithfulness, Trust and Obey, whilst my cousins and I would be playing around with our train set, transformer toys and fighter planes not too far away. If she wasn't playing the organ she would be cooking lunch for us, and she makes a wicked yam fried rice, which I constantly beg her to cook. Well, it's sad that she isn't with us now, as she was called home to God a few years ago during Chinese New Year.

Having said that, this poem really strikes close to my heart, which is why 'Piano' is one of my favorite poems that I would never get bored reading and taking in...

I miss you grandma, and I hope you'll have a plate of yam fried rice ready for me when I see you sometime in the future... please? :P

One Venti Mocha Frappucino please

2007-08-20T03:14:00.000+08:00

It's 3:15am on a quiet Monday morning (doh, everyone else is asleep), I'm busily tapping on my keyboard and mouse looking for that one Starbucks store in Malaysia that opens 24/7, or at least at this hour. Switching back and forth between my work and blog hopping / espn, I could really use a venti mocha frap, or even a java chip frappucino right now. Stomach's also complaining and begging me for some food....

Think I'm gonna go get some McDs or nasi lemak or some other mamak food, considering I'll be awake for another 12 hours.

Someone please open a 24/7 starbucks outlet!!!

Gwen Stefani in 3 days!

2007-08-18T03:31:00.001+08:00

zomg Gwen's Sweet Escape concert is only a couple days away!! Pretty sure it's going to be a blast, despite her having to tone down on her outfits and not put on anything revealing (hooray for msian censorship and conservative idealogy /sarcasm). Cant wait!!!

I just read an article on thestar.com.my which I think is pretty funny...

PAS protests Gwen Stefani concert

By LOH FOON FONG

KUALA LUMPUR: Federal Territory PAS Youth Exco members have handed a memorandum to Kuala Lumpur Mayor Datuk Hakim Borhan calling for the cancellation of Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape 2007 concert next Tuesday.
A five-man team, headed by Kamaruzaman Mohamad, handed the memorandum Friday to KL City Hall Enforcement Inspector Adnan Baba at the City Hall lobby. Adnan passed it on to the Special Officer to the Mayor, Mohd Nazam Harun.
“This concert does not bring any good to Malaysians except invite youngsters to enjoy themselves, mix around too freely, get drunk and commit sins,” he said.
“We want City Hall to be more responsible when giving out licences,” he said.
Asked why they still protested despite Stefani’s promise that she would abide by local guidelines, Kamaruzaman said it was not just about her dressing but her image, which was obscene and would bring down the moral of youths.
Asked if he had seen any of her concerts, he said he had not but had seen her pictures on the Internet and advertisements on television and they were indecent.
Earlier, the team also handed over a memorandum to Maxis Communications Bhd, the parent company of Hotlink, the concert’s presenter.
The National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students also recently protested against Stefani’s concert because of her past record of indecent dressing and obscenity.
Maxis has give an assurance that the show would go on with a promise from Stefani that she would abide by local guidelines, which include “no revealing costumes”.
Stefani, 38, a singer, songwriter and fashion designer, will be performing at Putra Indoor Stadium, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur at 8.30pm.

I mean come on..'This concert does not bring any good to Malaysians except invite youngsters to enjoy themselves, mix around too freely, get drunk and commit sins' ... YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING. And how is Gwen Stefani indecent? Her outfits, if anything, are creative and original. I guess Gwen is going to perform in a baju kurung/kebaya onstage.

On the scale

2007-08-17T17:12:00.000+08:00

Wow, a two week hiatus from the gym, and I'm up to 88kg, from 84kg a couple weeks ago.

No thanks to the two back to back buffet weekends.

On a totally unrelated note, wtf I just heard on the radio that the government was thinking of stripping the citizenship of the guy that made the 'Negaraku ku' parody, but then said that they wont do it. They are also looking into whether they can take the guy to court and charge him for breaking the law. Talk about being over the top. The parody(here) brings to light a couple of important FACTS and issues that are plaguing our country, ie corruption, difficulty of non-bumiputras getting into local universities, etc. Those issues should be what the government should be focusing on instead of making a big hu ha over a song that in no way mutilates the national anthem. It's not like he changed any words of the original Negaraku.

It's just disappointing when we look around and see all sorts of issues that need to be handled, but the government prefers to spend it's time coughing up intimidation tactics (not the first time this has happened - ie the whole Jeff Ooi issue) against its citizens who are outright patriotic but just choose to voice out their concerns regarding valid negative issues plaguing our country today (corruption, lack of police presence/enforcement, education etc) - all for the best interest of Malaysia. Government buildings not being built properly, errant bus drivers with outstanding warrants being allowed to operate a bus (I mean wtf how does the law enforcement not follow up on the warrants and allow someone with a history of traffic offences continue driving buses?? ).

It's been 50 years since our independence. But how much have we developed? A decade or so ago Malaysia was in front of most other south east asian countries in terms of development and economic growth. Since then we've gotten nowhere (or backwards, rather) and other countries are starting to catch up, attracting more foreign investors, etc. I echo what Anwar Ibrahim said a week ago that we need more “open minded and forward thinking leaders,” not those still “trapped by outdated political culture and unable to grasp the technological realities of today.”, if we were to uplift Malaysia to the forefront of South East Asia and in the global market in terms of technology, economy and growth.

We love our country. We do not want to see it go down the drain because of current issues that are having a negative effect on our country - current issues that are ineptly handled. Is it wrong for us caring citizens to voice out our concerns and demand that something be done by the people whom we elect to lead the country?

From BBC.com:

Malaysia's new prime minister has signalled his support for a more open and tolerant style of government.
In his first speech to parliament as the country's new leader, Abdullah Badawi committed himself to strengthening Malaysia's democratic culture and its checks and balances on power which critics say his predecessor undermined.

How is supressing the people's voices, concerns and dissatisfaction with the country's state/administration 'strengthening Malaysias democratic culture' ??

Edit: Kennysia just posted a blog entry relevant to this coincidentally. Comments are also pretty interesting =)

Lemon Garden Buffet @ Shangri-La Hotel KL

2007-08-08T16:11:00.000+08:00

If you're looking for the best buffet dinner in town, you'd definitely want to be at the Lemon Garden Cafe @ Shangri-La Hotel in downtown KL. Located at the ground floor of the Shangri-La Hotel which sits along the busy Jalan Sultan Ismail, Lemon Garden Cafe is a modern, buffet style cafe with an open kitchen boasting an array of extremely fresh seafood, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Italian cuisines as well as two chocolate fountains and a vast selection of delectably scrumptious desserts.

For the seafood enthusiast, Lemon Garden is heaven. On Saturday evenings (or afternoons, I can't exactly remember), there's a special seafood buffet for RM 120-130++ per person, which I heard is packed most of the times so an advanced reservation is strongly recommended. I haven't been to the seafood buffet, but the normal buffet dinner (~Rm100++) on Sundays and weekdays also serves up a huge selection of really fresh seafood served cold - sushi, sashimi, big-ass oysters, scallops, baby lobsters, 'lai liu har' (mantis prawns), crabs, jumbo tiger prawns, mussels.

I've never seen sooo much fresh seafood served at a buffet before.... baby lobsters, mantis prawns, crabs... which other buffet does that??

I had about 3 rounds of the fresh seafood myself, and yes, it's really THAT good. First up, I had a couple of oysters, scallops, baby lobsters and tiger prawns..

Then I had the mantis prawns, more baby lobsters and tiger prawns..

And finally:

More mantis prawns, crab, tiger prawns and scallop.

Mantis prawn roe... yumm

Yeah I know I got carried away with eating the seafood, and stupid thing is I kinda realised that while on the 3rd round of seafood. I kinda forgot that there were a TON of other food that I probably wouldn't have space for even if I only had a round of seafood. Having said that, I took a short break from food and soon later went on to grab some of the other stuff at the buffet.

I decided to visit the Chinese food section just because I didn't have enough stomach real estate to do so on my previous visit. There was steamed codfish (like those you get at Chinese restaurants), dim sum, fried wan ton, hokkien mee, fried rice, stir fried brocolli/vege, cheese lobster (ZOMG orgasmiicc) and a couple other dishes I didn't really bother with. Anyhows, I had the cheese lobster, some codfish and dim sum.

The cheese lobster was just absolutely fantastic - the cheese was warm and the lobster cooked to perfection. *sigh* I'd kill for more of those right now. The codfish however, was sub par and wasn't really fresh. Dim sum was decent, nothing to hu ha about.

Another must-try dish is located at the Indian section of the buffet. There's a wiide variety of hot, spicy food such as a range of different curries, rendang, tandoori chicken/lamb, cooked whole fish, etc, but what's not to be missed is the satay. I don't know how they do it, but the chicken and beef satay's always cooked to perfection - soft, juicy and sweet. The satay peanut sauce/dip is also extremely good as it's creamy, nutty, spicy but not over-the-top spicy, and full of flavor. Trust me, it'll make you feel like having the peanut sauce as a dip or complement to all your other dishes. One thing to note though, is that you usually have to wait for the satay because they run out really quick, so grab em when you see them, before other people do.

Satay, tandoori chicken, mutton, and roasted beef (from the Western section)

In the Western section you have the usual roast / grilled beef cuts as well as the stuff you find in other buffets - potatoes, soups, more meat, etc. Except for the roast beef, I hardly visited this section of the buffet... wanted to save stomach space for dessserrrtss.. There's also a small Italian section that serves pasta (bolognese/carbonara) and pizza (vege, hawaiian, chocolate - which varies randomly on different days).

Which brings me to the other highlight of the buffet @ Lemon Garden - desserts. From the popular chocolate fountains (they have two fountains, one is usually the normal chocolate, the other white chocolate) to ice kacang to mini-pastry desserts and cakes, just be sure that you save some space in your tummy for dessert.

Being a bread pudding lover, I had the bread pudding and pancake to start off. The pancakes were only alright (probably because it wasn't fresh n hot), but the bread pudding was pretty good (the caramel syrup at the bottom of the bread pudding made it even yummierr) . Even my mom, who initially did not want some, asked me to go get one for her after she tried a some of mine.

Left: Pancakes drizzled with honey....Right: bread pudding

I'm not a chocolate fountain lover, but pictures:

double fountains

marshmallows, fruits, all sorts of stuff you can cover with chocolatey goodness at the fountain

Mini pastry desserts on a spoon

Ice kacang

Tiramisu (the one in the cup thingy), mini pastries, chocolate cake (5 oclock), chocolate mudcake and some other cake which I didn't eat.

Well, that's it for the food at the buffet dinner @ Lemon Garden cafe. At about ~RM100++ per person, it is a bit pricey, but it's well worth every single cent. If you have the Shangri La member card or something, you'll get a 50% (for 2 people), 33% (for 3 people), 25% (for 4 people) and 10% (for 5+, i think) discount. The food is great. The ambience / atmosphere however could have been better. One thing about Lemon Garden Cafe is that if the place is packed, it is really noisy - ala food court noisy. The lighting's pretty bright, so if you're expecting a quiet romantic atmosphere, then you'd be in for a surprise. Then again, it's a place where masses of people with great taste meet masses of food at tastes great. A match made only at Lemon Garden cafe =)

I think I've reviewed Lemon Garden cafe before, but this is probably a slighty more in depth review. Here's the restaurant details:

Lemon Garden Café
Phone
(60 3) 2074 3900

Hours
6am – 1am daily

Location
Lobby Level
11 Jalan Sultan Ismail
50250 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Dress Code
Smart Casual

My rating?
Food - 9/10
Décor/ambiance - 7/10
Service - 7/10
Price - 8/10
Avg budget - RM100

*photos were taken using my Nokia 5700 phone, so quality isn't that great. Didn't want to lug around the Canon EOS Rebel XT.

Did I just get conned?

2007-08-07T11:16:00.000+08:00

So last night I was browsing the dell site for an LCD panel to compliment my laptop.

* Note the price after redemption, and the redemption amount

LAst night, at 7pm:

Now (11:30am):

WTF? Price of the E228WFP last night was RM849 after RM380 discount (Which means the original price was RM1229) . PRice of E228WFP today: RM 849 after RM250 discount (Which means the original price = RM 1099) .

So, did the price of the E228WFP drop RM130 in one day, or did Dell hike up the 'original' price to RM1229 in the previous days and slapped a RM380 discount to make it sound like a hot deal?

Or is the price actually RM1229, and whoever made the changes to the site forgot how to subtract RM 250 from RM 1229 ?

Oh well, that is the nature of sales. So the next time you see a product at a store for 70% discount at RM 100, don't be surprised to see the same product at the same store some time later for RM 100 at 30% discount.

Now I see why girls get PWNed by 50% discounts at MNG, etc. LOL.

August

2007-07-31T22:39:00.001+08:00

It's AUGUSTTT!!! Or it will be, in roughly 1 and a half hours.

I don't recall being so enthusiastic and excited about a month before. Most of the excitement and huu hah can be attributed to the Gwen Stefani concert on Aug 21st, which I'll be going to with Vannessa =D Gwen Stefani r teh shizzleesss and I cant wait!!!

Then there's the prospect of me travelling back to California for a couple of days or a week at the end of August. It's sort of a business trip as I need to settle some stuff with my US employers, nevertheless I will take a day or two travelling around hopefully, and I'm definitely going back to my uni for a visit. Maybe buy some memorabilia that I missed getting when I was coming back last year.

My best friend Rowan's coming back for a while too, before he jets to the USA at the end of the month as well for some business trip, though we won't be travelling together (Thank God :PP).

Ah the excitement!

Can't..

contain...

it...

*hops around in glee*

Yeah, all these hysteria is making me look like a mad man. I know. I want to fly!

Durians!

2007-07-30T23:47:00.000+08:00

Just had durians... again! I've been having durians for a month already, and even gotten a terrible sore throat as a result a couple weeks back. But it's worth getting sick =p

Was at the SS2 pasar malam, bought about 40 bucks worth of durians. I went to a different stall this time as the one that I have been frequenting in the past month wasn't selling the king of the fruits. 40 bucks: 3 D24s, 1 101, and 1 huge durian with a weird name that I can't remember and c0sts 23 bucks (which filled one styrofoam pack, but was nevertheless extremely creamy, meaty and bitter - I heartttt!!). 40 bucks for 3.5 styrofoam packs filled with durians. And mind you, it's 3.5 styrofoam packs completely filled with durians, totally unlike those prepacked ones containing only a few pieces in one pack. It seems this stall's durians are somewhat creamier, more meaty, and has a smoother texture than the durians from the stall I usually frequent - which sold pretty damn good durians too.

But anyway, if you're looking for high quality durians around, head to the SS2 pasar malam (on Mondays only). There's a stall at the very end of the pasar malam, right outside McDonalds, and another stall somewhere near the beginning of the pasar malam - the beginning being the popular and only 'chau lo bak gou' stall.

The daily grind....

2007-07-30T13:52:00.000+08:00

Yes, the past week's been nothing but a grind for me. Been sleeping really late lately, and waking up late of course. Work's been fun yet a pain at the same time. Worked till 630am today, slept and I just got up - it's 2pm now. I know it's unhealthy, but I'm a night person, and I work much better at night.

The past few days have been reminiscent of my days at UCBerkeley, where the best place you would find me after midnight would be in the computer labs located just 5 minutes walk from my apartment doing what I do best and enjoy doing - hitting the keys on the keyboard producing lines and lines of code incomprehensible to the lay man. Even the cold, quiet surroundings in my room resembles that of the underground computer labs where I, along with a couple other late nighter-CS students, used to spend most of my late nights hanging out till about 5am.

I don't know if this is true but it seems people in the computer science field tend to like staying awake till the wee hours of the morning, compared to most other fields. Rarely do I see any of my English, Economic or Chemistry major friends stay up past 2am. But head into the computer labs past 3am and you'd see quite a number of computer science students slaving away at the computers. Some even bring blankets and pillows with them. There's always one or two people asleep on the sofas in the CS building lounge, clutching their laptops as if they were bolsters while they rest.

Anyway, I miss UC Berkeley. I'll be going back to the States for a few days at the end of August, and I'll definitely pay a visit to my Uni, and hopefully there'll be a college football (that's american football, not the sissy pansy soccer) game happening when I'm there. Go Bears!!!

Our song....

2007-07-26T05:04:00.000+08:00

Bryan Adams / Barbara Streisand - I Finally Found Someone

I finally found someone
It knocks me of my feet
I finally found the one
That makes me feel complete
It started over coffee
We started out as friends
It is funny how from simple things
The best things begin
This time is different
It is all because of you
It is better than it has ever been
Because we can talk it through
My favourite line
was 'can I call you sometime'
It is all you have to say
To take my breath away

This is it
Oh I finally found someone
Someone to share my life
I finally found the one
To be with every night
Because whatever I do
It is just got to be you
My life has just begun
I finally found someone

Did I keep you waiting
I didn't mind
I apologize
Baby that is fine
I will wait forever
Just to know you are mine
I love your hair
Are you sure it looks right
I love what you wear
Isn't it too tight
You are exceptional
I cannot wait for the rest of my life

This is it
Oh I finally found someone
Someone to share my life
I finally found the one
To be with every night
Because whatever I do
It is just got to be you
My life has just begun
I finally found someone

And whatever I do
It just got to be you
My life has just begun
I finally found someone

Yes, it is funny how from simple things, the best things begin. Our paths crossed just over two months ago on the calm, cool night of the 11th of May, when a mutual friend (Nicole) introduced us to each other outside the busy, hip club Poppy Garden. Amidst the noisy traffic and growing crowd, a simple hello was all that was exchanged between us, with the four of us all eager on getting inside the club and settling down with some good whiskey, and music thumping in our ears.

For much of the night we hardly conversed, other than the usual 'Hi, how are you? What are you doing / studying / working at now?'. I had plenty to think of that night, and after a busy stressful week of work all I wanted to do was chill and relax. Keeping mainly to myself and my company of close friends, it wasn't until much later in the night that I was brought out of my comfort zone by the words 'Hey, you wanna dance?' that just came across from the far right corner of the table where you were sitting. I don't really dance, in fact I've maybe danced a handful of times in my entire life, and I'm terrible at it. No way that I'm going to dance I thought, but next thing I knew I was there on the dance floor. It was a mixture of embarrassment and shyness that was all that went through my mind, and it really didn't help when she started dancing like a seasoned clubber, busting out some pretty hot and scintillating moves. I HAD to do something better than just grinding to avoid looking like a fool - and when I did try, she pulled me close and in between giggles and laughter ...

Her: Your dancing's really cute lar.. *giggle*
Me: CUTE????? omg.... okkkkk.... fine laa... let's go inside...
Her: Yala, cute la... dance some more la...
Me: ......

Ok, so yeah no idea why but we continued dancing for a while, and of course I continued embarrassing myself. But it was all in good spirit and fun. And somewhere in the middle of all the dancing, the smell of her hair, the glistening of her eyes when she look at me, the gentle grasp of her hands on my back when she pulled me closer to speak, and the mesmerizing display of her dancing, there was an aura around this girl that sparked in me a tiny tingling feeling of attraction towards her. That feeling was almost non-existent, but it was there, for a brief moment, before disappearing somewhere in the back of my mind....

Couple days went by and life went on as usual. That Friday night soon became a thing of the past, as work amongst other things kept me busy - until a few days later whilst lazing on my bed and browsing the contacts on my phone, I came across a familiar name - her name - which then brought about faint, vague memories of her and that night. Unsure if she would remember me or not, I hit a couple of keys on my phone and wrote a message that started a chain of events that would change her life, and my life, and hence. Though I didn't send that message till a couple days later. Yes I'm a pussy.

Well initially, there weren't any intention of going after her - other than that of wanting to know her more as a friend and person - in my actions of sending the first sms to her and consequently replying the ones she sent. I guess at that time there just wasn't any sense of attraction significant enough to be worth mentioning or taking notice of. At that time I wasn't looking or wanting to get involved with any girl, especially after my previous experience. Conversations through the phone soon moved to the online world as we exchanged IM contacts. Friendly conversations soon turned playful. Playful then became casually flirtatious. My emoticons list soon started filling up with the cute and funny ones that never cease to bring a smile to my face.

Fast forward a few outings together with friends, a dinner date at EEST@Westin Hotel KL, a couple of club nights, it became obvious that it was starting to become more than just a friendship. It became obvious that the girl's starting to like me more than just a friend. It was also quite apparent still that I was beginning to like her more. Keeping my distance, I knew that I had to be careful, as going past the friendship line would mean there was no turning back, and I wasn't ready to give up the friendship for a romantic relationship just yet. Plus a couple of comments from my friends did add to my reservation in pursuing something more as well.

After a few late nights out for supper, sitting in the car chatting till the wee hours of the morning, one day I just knew I had to stop whatever was happening, as it was happening too fast. I was fearful of hurting her. I was fearful that my liking for her would only last a few weeks, ie rebound case. I was fearful of getting hurt myself again. I wasn't ready... and I let her know that.

We toned down on the flirtings, the playful conversations, the phone calls, and the conversations in general. That lasted maybe a week. I felt empty, dull and the days just didn't seem right without throwing a couple of /kicks, /bler, /dance and sweet talking in each other's direction. Some nights I just spent sleepless - thinking about her and I and whether I should let myself out of my comfort zone and give romance a try again. Day by day, week by week, we started to become more like a drug addicts, needing to get a daily fix of seeing each other, which if we fail to do would end in a not-so-good-night's-sleep. Wishes goodbye turned into hugs and eventually kisses.

Baby and I at Poppy, where it all began...

As I began to know her more for the sweet, loving, playful, appreciative, intelligent, funny, responsible, independent, unselfish, adorable, beautiful and sexy self that she is, my liking for her began evolving into something much more. I've never felt so happy in a long time. She makes me happy. She makes me whole. She takes my breath away. While our relationship is admittedly still at its infancy and our lives have just begun, I can't wait for the rest of our lives..

Cam whoring @ 1 Utama

Baby, I wish I hadn't said no to you before.

Why hadn't I known you much earlier?

Did I keep you waiting? I apologize... I love your hair, I love what you wear. You are exceptional. I cannot wait for the rest of my life. Whatever I do, it is just got to be you.

Everything in this song expresses what I want to say. Baby I wish us all the best in our days, weeks, months and years to come as we walk hand in hand along the life's windy and rocky path. Thank you for being who you are, for being such a great person, friend, and lover. I could not ask for better or more from you. /muaxx

She loveees orange juice (especially the one at Murni SS2). Here, she has to settle for orange juice at One on One, Le Meridien KL Sentral, where we had our dinner date =)

I love you baby.

It is funny how from simple things, the best things begin..........

At the lobby of Le Meridien Hotel, KL Sentral.

I miss you....

2007-07-25T22:26:00.000+08:00

It's been only 12 hours since I last saw you. It's been only 11 hours since I woke up to the sound of the alarm clock and the oh so familiar smell of your hair on my face. It's only been maybe 10 hours since I woke up for just a handful of seconds to lean across and kiss you on your lips before falling back to sleep - something that I remember doing a couple of times throughout the night. It's only been a few hours, and here I am missing you, craving for your warmth, dying to taste those cranberry / 'rashberry' flavored lips of yours, looking deep into your eyes for that same sparkle and inner beauty that somehow never fails to send soothing waves of calmness, happiness as well as contentness to my soul, and most importantly the soft utterances of 'I love yous' coming from my own as well as your heart.

Baby, I wish you were here. I wish I was there with you. I want to see you, hold you, and kiss you to sleep tonight. I want to be with you, every night. It's the eve of our first monthly 'anniversary', so much has happened and so many memories shared in what seemed like only a couple of weeks. Well as everybody says, time flies by real quick when you're having fun, and I've had more fun than ever in the past month.

I love you baby, and maybe I'll drop by later after I'm done with my work tonight.

/muaxx *hug* <3

Lalalalalalala

2007-07-22T20:23:00.000+08:00

Here's a quiz :
Which place in KL has the highest density of 'lalas' (people, not the food) after 10pm?

Ruums.

I'm never going back there again. We didn't want to at first, but Vannessa's friends asked her to follow them there so we did. I honestly didn't think the place was THAT lala. When I arrived there, I felt a little queasy and seriously felt like puking, with a majority of everyone at the entrance dressed up like sluts, with overly done makeup and omg-look-im-so-lala hair colors and style. Some of the girls might as well have not worn anything. Ugh.

The place was packed. Music was decent and the DJs knew what they were doing, which was a consolation. Still, I'd rather stay at home or spend a night munching on onion rings and curly fries in A&W with my baby. Anyway, night ended pretty quickly, thank god. Just when I thought we were able to head home and get some good sleep finally, we were held up for about 20 minutes by some guy who puked all over the floor behind my car and passed out right underneath. Tried to help the guy but he didn't have any ID and the phone number he gave us went to voicemail when we tried calling. Not sure if his 'friends' dumped him there or what. Nothing we could do, so we just called the car park people to handle him and we went home.

Never. Ever. No going to Ruums again.

On a totally different note, I'm watching F1 and it's one of the weirdest races I've seen.

...

And my work's servers are down, so I can't get any work done =\ Oh well, another pretty uneventful Sunday.

Responsibilities

2007-07-17T20:37:00.000+08:00

Tireeed....

Spent all night last night up till 530am this morning working. Slept, woke up at 1pm, and went out with my parents to the HSBC bank in KL to open up a bank account for my company, as well as a USD account where all the good stuff that comes out of my hard work will go into, ie $$$.

Came back, went through all my books, documents, junk that my relatives brought back from the US and organised them into nice neat folders. Threw away stuff I didn't need, and stuff I didn't want to keep - stuff that brings about the not so pleasing sensation of hurt, disappointment and pain. Hesitated throwing away some stuff for a while, but I figured it was for the best. The past has come and gone, no point holding on to it as I look onto the present and future and what's to come.

.
.
.

On another note, looks like I won't be able to use or sign my credit cards until I get my monthly salary from the US. I have maybe just about enough in my bank account to pay for last month's credit card bills, as well as whatever I spent using my CC from last month up till now. Can't believe all my accumulated salary since January is almost depleted. Just checked and I spent Rm4000+ from early last month up till today on my credit cards alone. GAWD.

And I thought earning RM3000 per month was enough to live on. Heck I don't even have to pay for car loans / house rent.

Sigh.

Going to take a short rest before I continue my work with my US company later tonight.

I like this photo....

2007-07-14T01:33:00.001+08:00

Gwen Stefani Live in KL...

2007-07-14T00:34:00.000+08:00

Just got two tickets to the concert on Aug 21 wooottt!!

Damn, if I knew Hotlink subscribers could buy tickets starting July 1st I wouldve went and gotten it then =( I guess I'll have to be content with the 20 something-th row.

And stupid Bukit Jalil front section seats are not stacked.. FLAT floor. Hopefully not too many 6 footers in front of me...

But still, wooooot =D

Moving, shopping, work, old friends, food, cellphone, and the flu

2007-07-12T02:07:00.000+08:00

Well it seems like forever since I last blogged. It's been a pretty hectic, busy and a rollercoaster week this past week, and I guess I can take that as an excuse for not blogging. =P

Here's a quick rundown of the previous week:

Fri 7/6:
Friday was my last day at my KL fulltime job (Slashes N Dots Sdn. Bhd.). Was kinda reluctant to leave at first cause I really liked the company and what I did there, just that the idea of me starting my own company and taking up a fulltime contracting offer with my US job (which was part-time before this) was too good a thing to resist.

Took a half day off, and spent the latter half helping my baby Vannessa move into her new room / house, which was just a couple houses away from her old one. We went over to Ikea first to get some furniture and for lunch. It's been a while since I've eaten at the Ikea cafe - couple years I think. At least the food still tastes pretty good =)

Was thinking of getting the usual Swedish meatballs, but settled for the fish n chips instead..

while she had spicy chicken and mashed potatoes... everything else was either seafood or meat which don't to appeal to her palate.

Went back to her new place after buying a coffee table, a mirror, a wastepaper basket and a multi-socket power adapter from Ikea and a wardrobe from a small furniture store in SS2. Spent the rest of the day assembling the furniture as well as moving all the stuff from her old place to her new place. Needless to say, there were a ton of stuff to move. Magazines, clothes, shoes, shelves/racks, soft toys, mattress etc. And after moving everything, came the arranging / tidying up part. By the time everything was nicely arranged and done with, it was past midnight. DEAD TIREEEEEDDDD.

Saturday 7/7:
Went shopping for clothes at MidValley with baby =) . Shopping for clothes - that's something you won't see me do often, maybe once in 6 months. Ended up buying 3 collared t shirts from G2000 for RM158 (thanks darling for helping me pick out some nice clothes =p). Did some grocery shopping so my baby doesn't starve at home, before heading back to her place to drop her off, and then heading over to Souled Out @ Sri Hartamas for a primary school gathering. Met up with a couple of old classmates (Boon Yong, Wai Luen, Hui Minn, Yen Ni, Sin Jack, Li Ling, Shing Jy, and a couple more I just can't recall - it's 3am in the morning =\ )

the girls (Li Ling, Shing Jy, Mei Theng, Mei Ying , Mei Ling, Sin Jack, Hui Minn and Yen Ni

Me, Kian Boon

with Boon Yong

Boon Yong, Kian Boon, Me and Wai Luen

Everyone =D

Sunday 7/8:
Japanese buffet at Kampachi @ Equatorial Hotel KL with my relatives from the US (who arrived sometime midweek) and a couple of my other relatives. Haven't seen a lot of my cousins for a long time, and man have they grown into rebellious, naughty and real playful, good looking kids.
Missed church again. Third week in a row I think. Sigh. I should go this week.

Twas my grandpa's 80th birthday on this day too, so we had a huuge extravagant dinner at the Noble House restaurant in KL in the evening. Heard each table cost about RM2000+ .... swt....
Arrived at the restaurant at about 6:30pm, spent 2 1/2 hours taking photos of each family together with my grandparents, before settling down to eat what was a Rm200+ per person dinner.

Cousins...

Uncle Chin, Uncle Daniel, Aunt Oi Lan, Aunt Tiffany..

My 3 beautiful cousins (the one on left and right are my cousins from the USA, the one in the middle is getting married next year to a PhD holder, and she's the same age as me .. >< )

Justine, Iok Ngian, Jacqueline

The best parents in the world...

The food was pretty good, though I kinda expected it to be much better for that price. I still prefer Elegant Inn over in Taman Connaught. They don't have much room though so I think if we go we'd have to book the whole restaurant.

The menu.... Pan friend foie gras.... zomggg.....

Drool... the foie gras.... absolutely orgasmic.... I had 3 because some of my cousins didnt want it.

Next up.. shark's fin soup. This isn't the kind of shark's fin soup you get in other restaurants... it's real shark's fin soup. Just shark's fin, and soup.

Abalone with oyster sauce. First time I've eaten abalone cooked like that. It's a WHOLE abalone too... yumm...

Think it's time for a break from food pictures.. too much drool all over my keyboard ><

The guy on the far left is my cousin's fiancee

My cousins are sooo good looking!

Mom and my cousin Rachel.

Here's Rachel's sister - Tanya - the newest addition to the entire Hong/Ong family. She looks like an elf doesn't she? Pointed ears and that thing over her head.. cute!

adorabble!

More food pics? Well up next... the Roast Piglet with buns.....

Roast piglet with buns...

Poor thing... skinned, roasted, and ready to be eaten =D

This is the Dragon Vegetables with garlic. Probably one of the best vege dishes I've eaten in a while.... Never eaten that much greens in my life. I wouldn't mind going vegetarian if I had this dish every day.

Deep fried piglet meat... they took away the piglet after we ate all the skin, and they chopped the meat up and fried it.

Longevity Noodles... nothing really special in terms of taste.

All in all a great dinner. Didn't take any pictures of the cake / aloe vera dessert though.. They were alright, but nothing to hoo-ha about.

Perfect example of underaged drinking...

Cousin drinking some beer.. hell even I don't drink beer. Give me some whiskey / tequila though and I'll gladly drink.

More random pics:

My aunt (who's from Taiwan and looks like a model...) with my newly engaged cousin.

Monday 7/9:
Official date I start my full time contracting job with my US company. Treated my US relatives to lunch at Nero Vivo (?) - an Italian fine dining restaurant that was recommended by one of my uncles - as a token of thanks for all that they have done for me while I was in the US (helping me move from apartment to apartment, taking me on skiing trips, making sure I was doing alright, providing me a place to stay while I looked for a job, and many many many thanks to my uncle who helped me get a job with the US company I'm currently working fulltime with). Don't know what I would've done without their help. Thanks Uncle Chin / Aunt Tiffany =)

Tuesday 7/10:
Registered for a sole proprietorship at the Companies Commission of Malaysia. My company name is officially 'Hyperion Technologies' - which I admit sounds a little geeky. Spent the evening and night over at Vannessa's place. Was supposed to work while at her place, but seems like the internet connection there doesn't like me =\ Not sure if it was her housemates downloading stuff or what but I couldn't get online - thus couldn't get any work done. Argh. At least I get to spend the night sleeping holding my baby in my arms =D

Wednesday 7/11:
One of the worst days ever. Well at least the first half of the day was terrible. I came home from Vannessa's place, put my bag in the living room and my maid took it to wash. She emptied everything in the bag, except for my handphone. So yea, it got soaked and pretty much unusable now. I lost all my contacts, all my pictures / smses and you wouldn't want to be near me when I just lost it after trying in vain to fix the phone. I was starting to get a bad sore throat and flu too so that didn't really help at all.

My baby was nice enough to accompany me to Low Yat Plaza later in the day to get a new phone. Having her around really made the day much much better. (Thanks baby ! Muackz =D )And I wouldn't have known what phone to get if it wasn't for her tagging along and offering me advice on what phones are nice. Sigh I so didn't want to get a new phone. If given a choice between my old phone and a free new phone, I'd keep my old phone. There are just some things that have sentimental value that are priceless.

But anyway, got a new Nokia 5700. It was a toss up between the Nokia N73 and the 5700, but this one guy was like telling us that the Nokia N73 'hangs' a lot (which doesn't seem to be surprising considering how slow the response time of the Nokia N Series functions and menu selections are), so I went with the 5700 instead. A little too thick for my liking, but the features seem pretty good.

Went back toVann's place, and almost rammed into a car on Federal Highway. Think I fell asleep for maybe a second there, if it wasnt for her waking me up and the car next to me swerving away, would've been pretty bad. I was reeeaely tired, had a bad headache and I could sense a bad fever/flu/sore throat coming. The air that I was exhaling was really hot - not a good sign. Figured that I wasn't in a condition to drive so I slept at her place for a couple hours. Throughout the entire time she was beside me holding a wet cloth and wiping my forehead, face and neck, keeping me cool while I was resting. It's things like these that makes me feel so blessed and lucky to have her by my side. It's things like these that makes me love her so much =)

That's about all that happened up in the past week or so. I could certainly have done without my phone getting ruined. Sigh. Oh well what's done is done. Just have to make sure it doesnt happen to my new phone.

Oh, and I heart you baby =D

3:45am, and I got a conference call in 9 hours. Need to sleep.

Things you really need to know

2007-07-02T23:00:00.000+08:00

Sand More Deadly Than Sharks at Beach

Doctors Say Sand More Deadly Than Sharks at the Beach With at Least 20 Deaths Since 1985
Waves and sharks aren't the only dangers at the beach. More than two dozen young people have been killed over the last decade when sand holes collapsed on them, report father-and-son doctors who have made warning of the risk their personal campaign....... (Read More at http://abcnews.com)

ZOMG really? Ok seriously. Is this what doctors do in their free time? Well well I bet the sand's pretty hurt at this accusations. After all, it's the people that step on it all the time. Rumors also have it that the sharks are planning a massive attack on beachgoers and surfers worldwide in an attempt to relieve themselves of such humiliation.

Up next : Research shows lawyers would rather be disbarred than go hunting with Dick Cheney.

Song's I'm currently in love with....

2007-07-02T11:18:00.000+08:00

Gwen Stefani's '4 In The Morning'

James Morrison's 'Pieces Don't Fit Anymore'

Fergie's 'Big Girls Don't Cry'

Bon Jovi's (You Want to) Make a Memory

All emo songs yeah....

Speaking of emo, here's an emo piece of writing I wrote for my dear sis...

Cry no more
For tonight has come and gone
Wake up to a brand new day
The hurt and anger will all seem far away

Pick yourselves up you will
Walk hand in hand, up this treacherous, rocky hill
Believe not in himbut in love
for true love will not falter
even amidst the most difficult of battles

Tonight has come and gone
when all hope and love seems forlorn
Know that at the end of the day
Love will pave a way

Leave for now he might
Angry he seems, but at midnight
he'll come knocking again
standing in the pouring rain
You'll pull him through the door
and he'll be yours forever more.

Food and I

2007-07-01T17:11:00.000+08:00

If there's anything I spend most of my money on, it's food. Not clothes, not shoes, not gadgets, but foooood. When it comes to good food, I don't mind splurging. But when it comes to getting a new wallet or clothes to replace what I have, I'd hesitate and probably not go through with it. And yes, I need a new wallet. Mine's kinda old and getting torn. I need new clothes too - kinda tired of wearin the same shit everyday. I'm good with my shoes - they can probably last me another year or so. My original Swatch watch bought while I was in Switzerland has been serving me well for more than 5 years. Do I really need anything else?

But all that said, the mega sale carnival is going on right now. And it's July. Maybe for a month I'll save on food, and spend more on stuff that doesn't go into my body and back out to the sewage treatment facility. Think this coming Saturday I'll be heading to Ikea @ Mutiara Damansara with Vannessa to help her buy some furniture stuff for her new room. Probably will be going to do some shopping of my own later on =)

and ZOMG speaking of food, I've been drooling all over while writing my previous post ......
Need.. to... stop... posting.. pics.. of .... foood...

Zipangu @ Shangri-La Hotel KL

2007-07-01T15:18:00.000+08:00

Last weekend, we continued our weekly run of eating mouth watering, delicious and moderately expensive food. This time our stomachs brought us to the Shangri-La Hotel in downtown KL.

We were there just the week before at the Lemon Garden Café having a scrumptious and filling buffet dinner, and at about 90RM~ per person, it might be a little pricey, but it's one of the best buffets and well worth your money (especially if you have the Shangri La privilege card =D). Serving a huuuuuge variety of food such as sashimi (salmon, yellowtail, abalone, tuna, etc), oysters, crabs, baby lobsters, mussels, prawns, tandoori chicken, satay, curry mee, roast beef, dim sum, pasta, pizza (they had chocolate pizza wtf? And their cheese pizza is daamn cheesy and yummy), a huge selection of desserts (their choc mud cake = orgasmic), a big ass chocolate fountain that you just wish you could take a shower in... and much more that I can't remember. There was so much food that I felt bloated before I even got a chance to taste everything.

And I didn't take any pics as I didn't feel like bringing my camera out that day.

I'd say definitely the BEST buffet dinner you can find in town. If you fancy buffets and haven't been to Lemon Garden @ Shangri-La, you're missing out on a looot. Find me a place that serves better buffet for about the same price and I'll jump off one of the Twin Towers for you. Oh, and you definitely need to make a reservation for Lemon Garden, as the place is usually packed. Go figure.

Lemon Garden Café
Phone
(60 3) 2074 3900

Hours
6am – 1am daily

Location
Lobby Level
11 Jalan Sultan Ismail
50250 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Dress Code
Smart Casual

My rating?
Food - 9/10
Décor/ambiance - 7/10
Service - 7/10
Price - 8/10
Avg budget - RM100
.
.
.

So that was 2 weeks ago. Back to last week, where we headed to Zipangu - the hotel's Japanese restaurant - for some ala carte Japanese food. I was kinda hesitant to go at first because we've been eating out at hotels every weekend for the past month or so already, and I kinda wanted to eat some fried hokkien mee / yee mee / wa tan hor at the 'tai chow' nearby. But ah whatever since my parents already made a reservation, what the heck.

When we arrived at Zipangu, the place was dark. Not dark as in totally dark, but the lights were dimmed quiiiite a bit. Felt like the place was running on generators but I guess it's just how it's supposed to be. Adds quite a bit of mystery to the place too.

View of the kitchen from our table

As we sat down on our table, I noticed something weird with the arrangement of the chopsticks. Mine and my mom's were placed right in front of us between us and the plate, while my dad's was placed above his plate, and my brother's was placed to the right of his plate. WTF?

Took some time before my eyes adjusted to the overly-dimmed lighting, and after we placed our orders I proceeded to take some pictures of the place with my EOS-350 Rebel XT. Still trying to get the hang of the different camera options and selecting the right one for the right occasion, but yeah I'm still a noob. Anyway, I didn't take many pictures of the place because people were everywhere and I couldn't take any solid pictures without them staring at me as if I'm some papparazzi taking pictures of them for an inexistent newspaper/tabloid.

Anyhows, it wasn't long before the food arrived. Quite fast and efficient I would say. Here's what we had:

Shishamu for appetizers....

My dad had unagi-don, *drool*

I had the ebi tempura don

My mom had the beef udon and my brother ordered the cold soba - which I didn't get a chance to take pictures of as I was totally obsessed with and indulging in the hot, crispy ebi tempura and sticky japanese rice in front of me.

We were supposed to have assorted sashimi for appetizers too, which came after all of us finished our main course. Reason? There were a couple of tables before us that ordered shitloads of sashimis. We were forewarned, but we didn't expect it to take that long for the sashimi to arrive..

Yellowtail, salmon belly, red tuna, scallops, and some other fish...

Nevertheless, it was worth the wait as we were treated with superb-quality, fresh and perfectly cut sashimi. Took almost 45 minutes for it to arrive at our table, but it took only 5 minutes for all the fish to disappear into the abyss of our stomachs.

As you can imagine, we didn't order much, as the place was quite expensive. Not really a fan of ala carte Japanese food anyway. Though the food was great, but it wasn't exceptional. Zipangu has Japanese buffet on Saturday and Sunday during lunch too, but I haven't read much great reviews of it yet. I think for Japanese food/buffet, I'll stick to Kampachi @ Equatorial Hotel KL, which has one of the best Japanese buffets and the freshest fish in the city. The lighting in Zipangu could have been a liiitle bit brighter as well. And surprisingly, the place was as noisy as a typical Chinese restaurant. *Shrug*

Zipangu

Phone

(60 3) 2074 3900

Hours

Lunch: Noon – 2.30pm
Dinner: 6.30pm – 11pm
Bar: 6pm – 11pm

Location
Level 1
11 Jalan Sultan Ismail
50250 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Dress Code

Smart casual

My rating?
Food - 7/10
Décor/ambiance - 6/10
Service - 7/10
Price - 5/10
Avg budget - RM 80

Gwen Stefani, Aug 21 Bukit Jalil

2007-06-26T12:04:00.001+08:00

OMG Gwen Stefani in KL. Who wants to go ???

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/6/26/nation/18130483&sec=nation

Update:
Tickets vailable from 14/7/07
RM382, RM362, RM282, RM172, RM122
-- Axcess Box Office, 1 Utama New Wing Basement 1
-- Rock Corner, Mid Valley Megamall
-- Hard Rock Cafe, Jalan Sultan Ismail
-- Planet Hollywood, Jalan Bukit Bintang
-- Axcess Office, Jalan Semangat

Ticket Hotline : 03-7711 5000, 03-7781 7302

*cry* time to save up money. Who else wants to go?

Chocolate factory and I...

2007-06-25T12:53:00.000+08:00

Recently I've acquired an almost daily craving for chocolates... not a good thing considering I've only been going to the gym once a week. Chocolates with almonds and raisins and walnuts.... Popping a couple every other hour while at work.

Need..

To...

Stop..

And thanks to Nadia, I now have a craving for a nice hot cheesy pepperoni pizza from Dominos. *Drool*

An oldie...

2007-06-20T13:21:00.000+08:00

Haven't heard this song for a looong time.... brings me back a couple years =)

Do dreams come true?

2007-06-18T13:12:00.000+08:00

I wrote this for my ex-girlfriend a couple years ago. At that time we were having our golden moments. Reading this poem and reminiscing about the past brings about mixed emotions of joy, hurt, regret, anger and sadness. I miss the times we had together. I miss the times when we would look past each other's flaws and focus on what's important - us.

I remember writing this in her room while she was showering and putting it into her journal that time. Sigh. It hurts. Do dreams really come true? Apparently not the dream I had when I wrote this.

Dreams Come True (19 Dec 2003)

Dreams dont come true
that was what i thought
before i met you
angels dont exist
they were just a myth
till an angel was sent down from above
you're the angel that i love
days were lonely and down
but those were the days you werent around
who says dreams dont come true?
who says angels dont exist?
who says days have to be blue?
dreams, they do come true.

- Dedicated to the person I love dearest, JMHW

Prime @ Le Meridian KL Sentral

2007-06-16T13:07:00.000+08:00

Went to this restaurant named 'Prime' at the KL Sentral Le Meridien Hotel. I have to say that the hotel is one of the most amazingly beautiful and well designed hotels I have seen. The food at Prime (which is famous for its steak) is absolutely heavenly, not to mention the ambience, design, and well the entire place redefines luxurious and comfortable dining.

We went there at about 8pm. With Brickfields being the quickest (or so we thought) way to KL Sentral, we drove through Brickfields only to be caught in traffic for 30 minutes when we should be taking only 2 minutes to get to KL Sentral. The reason? Surprise surprise - double parking.

It's utterly pathetic and disgusting how some Malaysians are so fucking inconsiderate and double park on a 3 lane road, reducing it to one lane. These people actually have the conscience to WAIT for another car that's leaving a double-parked space, holding up traffic behind him, and then proceed to double park in that space. WTF???? Where the hell are the police (heck the police station was just a minute away). 20% increase in govt workers salary not enough incentive for the police to do their jobs?

Anyway, we reached KL Sentral at about 8:30pm. Before we entered the parking lot for the hotel, we had to have our car inspected by 2 guards before being allowed to enter. The boot compartment, under the car, etc. First time I've seen such high security for a hotel parking lot.

Once we entered the hotel, I totally fell in love with the place....

Walkway that connected the car park area with the hotel lobby. <3 style="text-align: left;">

Lobby centerpiece.

The lobby was dimly lit, which provided a really warm aura to the place. They had candles like almost everywhere. It was pretty quiet in the lobby, with only the rustling of paper and the lowered voices of the frontdesk staff and my own footsteps travelling through the lobby's expanse.

Next to the lobby is the 'Conservatory', a spacious bar/lounge that serves unique cocktails, light food. The glass panels/windows with the huge sheer curtains and the blue-lit ceiling panels kinda provide a unique feel to the place.

The Conservatory bar.

Stomachs growling, we headed upstairs to Prime, the best place for steak in KL. And I mean, the BEST place for steak. It's pricey, but my parents are Starwood Card members so we had a 25% discount for the food (since we had 4 people, 25% discount. If 2 people, 50% discount =D).

This place is usually fully booked at nights, and we didn't have a reservation, but were fortunate that there weren't many people that night.

When we entered the place, first thing that caught our eye were the .....

CHAIRS!

Big ass seats. Like those you find in the first class cabins of the top airlines, just a little bigger. Damn comfortable I tell you. I wish I had these sort of chairs in my office or in my room.

I look like my brother here. And I look a little nerdy. wtf.

The tables next to the walls are the best. Has the words 'plush', 'romantic', 'privacy' and 'comfort' next to it. Awesome place for business meetings as well. I hear the place is fully booked at nights because the turnover ratio is low - people usually stay the entire night at a table doing business meetings.

Nice paintings on the wall, and great lighting.

Like most fine dining restaurants nowadays, we were greeted with some complimentary home-made, just-off-the-oven bread and a selection of three home-made butter - bell pepper, plain butter, and sesame butter (I think, can't exactly remember). Gotta admit the bell pepper one tastes real good. I have yet to see durian butter.

Now onto the mouth watering stuff.....

For starters, we had applewood-smoked salmon....

Anyone want to guess what's in that pouch thingy?

My mom ordered the Kimberly Red set meal. Kimberly Red is a kind of beef, you know like Wagyu and Kobe beef..

From http://eats.emedia.com.my/VCNY/promo.html?&query_start=106 :

Kimberley Red is a multiple medal winner of the acclaimed “Paddock to Palate” competition held in Australia every year thus making it renowned for its high quality beef that assures one hundred percent natural feed with no chemicals.

The appetizer:

Salad of asparagus, wine ripe tomatoes, seared kimberly red tenderloin end cut, sea salt and truffle dressing

The set also came with a Kimberly Red Goulash soup and the main course was an 8oz Kimberly Red char-grilled cube roll with eggplant tournedos and garlic infused potato gratin as sides. Didnt take any photos of that though =(

My dad had the ribeye or something, can't exactly remember cuz the menu had like 30 different types of steaks that you could choose from, be it Australian or US beef, Black Angus 200 days grain-fed steaks, or Australian 120 and 80 day aged steaks, and I believe there were other types on the menu. We couldn't decide on what to order at the start. Usually you just pick the part of the cow and how it is cooked, not how the cow was fed or aged. There's also the Cabana Las Lilas beef, which apparently is the most sought after beef.

My brother had the T-bone (not sure which type)

I had the signature Prime Rib

Yummm...

Check out the thickness of the steak!! Needless to say I couldn't finish the whole thing. Damn huge.

And my dad had something else which I couldn't remember. Argh should've blogged this when I got back from the restaurant instead of waiting a week+ to blog about it. Was too busy with work recently.....

3 steaks, 3 dressings. One was black pepper, the other was mushroom, and the last one was some butter creamy kinda dressing. And yes you get to choose which sauce/dressing you want with your steak.

Anyway, the steak was perfectly cooked. We had ours medium-well, and the centre was pink and juicy, just how we wanted it. The beef was also extremely tender, and I've never tasted such good steak in my life. The other good one is at Prego@Westin, but that feeds 3-4 people.

Took a good while for us to finish our steaks, and then it was dessert:

Mom had carrot cake with cinnamon ice cream, glazed with brown sugar syrup - was part of the Kimberly Red set.

My dad, brother and I shared the moist chocolate cake with ice cream and hot melted chocolate syrup:

=)~

All in all we were extremely satisfied with the meal and the experience. I'd recommend this place for steak-lovers, though the place is a bit extravagant and pricey. If we didn't have a 25% discount we probably wouldn't have gone there simply because it's a lil expensive and we don't print money at home. Budget for this place would most definitely be about 100+ a person.

Prime
Location:
Le Méridien Kuala Lumpur
2 Jalan Stesen Sentral
Kuala Lumpur Sentral
Kuala Lumpur 50470
Malaysia

Hours:
12:00 PM - 2:30 PM; 6:00 PM - 11:00 PM

Tel No.
+603 2263 7555

My rating?
Food - 10/10 (Best place for steak in KL)
Décor/ambiance - 9/10
Service - 8/10
Price - 6/10
Avg budget - RM100+

Took a couple more photos before we left for home...

Outside One on One, the Fusion restaurant next to Prime. Mom the Invisible Woman.

My lovely and awesome parents.

Mom, brother and Dad.

My turn.... camera's tilted a bit though =(

Candles candles candles.. they're everywhere!

Disgusting..

2007-06-08T21:45:00.000+08:00

I was driving home from work today and I saw a real disgusting and vomit inducing sight in my rearview mirror - A girl (probably 14-16 yrs old) was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car right behind mine. She was using her index finger to pick her nose and then she proceeded to suck on her finger... like what the shit?? Does it really taste that good? And she was doing it like repeatedly...

Blegh.

On another note, it's a Friday night and I'm working my butt off trying to get this new web page coded for my US job. I. Need. A. Break.

Dyin' ain't much of a livin'

2007-06-08T10:55:00.000+08:00

One thing I'd want to do before I die:

Go to a Bon Jovi concert.

No, I'm not dying anytime soon..........

2007-06-01T13:44:00.000+08:00

This song perfectly describes how I'm feeling right now. ><

Just one of those days...

2007-05-29T20:38:00.000+08:00

I can't believe how uber-ly awesome this week started out. Woke up yesterday to a dark, dull room with the incessant beating of raindrops on zinc roof that has year after year been a total nuisance when it rains (and it's raining right now... argh). Turned to my alarm clock and it was 930am. Sweeeeeet. Just what I needed. Monday blues + dark clouds + rain + being late for work + rain + hunger + craving for more sleep = hengwoon-wtfpwned-haha. Sat down in the office right in front of my two huge LCD screens staring at me and screaming 'switch me on right now and start working you !@#$%^'. Wasn't long before hunger and sleepiness got the better of me and I started fishing... the only thing I (or my forehead rather) caught was the RTYUDFGKJVKLDSMLMXCVOR keys of my keyboard.

Well don't want to bore myself writing about my fishing adventures (yes that was all that happened the rest of the day) so let's fast forward to the jucier stuff that happened towards the late night. Was at Kanna Curry House in PJ with Julia for 'supper' and when we were about to leave, Julia's car went into a coma. After countless attempts at trying to bring Mr Proton out of the coma, we gave up and decided to just leave the car there and have it checked at by a mechanic tomorrow, so I dropped her off at the cow farm in Taman Desa.

Went back home, thinking I could get some work done despite a tiring and obviously a fun day, and then the icing on the cake came when I pressed the button to open my house's automatic main gate... and it wouldn't open! No electricity in the whole area. So much for having an automated gate for convenience! Locked outside my house with no one but blood thirsty mosquitoes keeping me company... Thank God it wasn't raining. Woke my parents up, they tried to open the gate manually using the key, but surprise surprise it didn't work. It was like almost 130am and I was dying to get into the house as the mosquitoes weren't very friendly and I was sweating like a pig.... Ended up having to walk to the back alley to enter through the back door.

No electricity... No fan.. No air condition... No.. wind... no Internet... no worrrk arghhh12345! And no sleeep.... ...

....

.....

until the power got restored at 3am. Too late to do any work... and I had gym at 7am the next day, so I just tried to get as much sleep as I could - which wasn't much anyway.

Well, had a pretty fun weekend, so I guess it's fitting that my week started out like this. Balance.

Oh and that 'Have a Nice Day' song by Bon Jovi was playing on my playlist at work..... Who the hell is playing games with me.... argh1

Emil Chau July 14th

2007-05-21T13:13:00.000+08:00

Emil Chau is performing in KL on July 14th, anyone who wants to go?

The weekend that was....

2007-05-20T22:45:00.000+08:00

Well, for some reason, this past weekend just flew by real fast. Woke up today thinking it was Saturday, till my parents came into my room and told me I had to get to church early today to snap some photos of the kids in my mom's Sunday School class for a key-chain project thingy. Apparently they need the photos to be printed out on a special paper, tossed into the microwave for a few minutes to be shrunk, then placed in the key chain thing.

Sunday school @ Wesley KL

Back to the weekend, nothing really interesting. Came back on Fri night, slept, woke up a few hours later, went to get some late dinner, came back, worked a bit, and slept again. Before I knew it, it was Saturday afternoon. Saturday was basically work, play, work, play for the most part. Went out to Laundry with Nadia and Thomas later at night, had a cocktail and a beer before heading over to Mystique for more.. beer.. ugh! (Nadia you're so going to be drenched in beer one day).

Mystique was surprisingly... pretty happening. And packed. There was some Carlsberg thing going on, the whole place was jammed with people, a girl was dancing crazily (and funnily) on the podium, there was this Victoria Secret-ish video clip playing repeatedly on the wall, and the music was going back and forth between rnb, house, and some oldies.
Oh, and this one girl was dancing damn sexily and hawt on the podium too. Quite teh pro. Wasn't that gorgeous, but she had the bod and the moves.... All in all the night was alright, wasn't really in the mood for dancing or moving as my legs were aching (thanks to gym on Fri morning) and I was kinda dying for a place to sit.

As for today, nothing special except for Hi Tea at Nikko Hotel in KL. Mom had a Citibank card so we got a 50% discount. Well my parents have all the cards from all the banks, so most places we go can get discount - which is nice =D Ended up with a RM120 check for 4 people. Talk about cheap =)

Oh and there's this garden-waterfall thing in the courtyard next to the cafe area where we had the Hi Tea, and it was pretty. Gave a really relaxing feeling like we were dining in the forest or something. Wish I had that sort of thing outside my window.

Anyhows, the weekend's gone =( Tomorrow's Monday and it's back to work =( My body's been aching everywhere since Friday's 2 hour gym session at 6:30am. Was thinking of going to the gym before work tomorrow, but I think I'll give it another day's rest.
I sense another busy week coming up ahead. Gotta start revving up my work engines and pick up steam in my work with iGroup Networks Inc (my part time job) and also Slashes & Dots Sdn. Bhd. (my fulltime job). Good news is, iGroup just got more funding =D (yay!) and our new product release so far has garnered some good (as well as one or two negative) feedbacks. The feature I worked on (which was a redesign of an existing feature) was the main highlight of this release and so far it's been mostly good reviews =D

As for my full time job, we just renamed our company to Slashes and Dots Sdn Bhd (which I admit lacks some creativity - see Slashdot) but ah whatever. So far product sales has been pretty good, but not really up to the point where we want it to be. Still some things to be worked out. In the past two weeks we've also been throwing some ideas back and forth on what we plan to do next, websites / web apps that we could develop, whether it's viable to do this or that, etc. Kinda nice to be able to take some time off development and spend a few days brainstorming ideas. I was getting pretty restless at developing and improving our products over and over, day after day. Change is good - for the meantime.

Oh, and we've also hired a part time customer support staff, and a fulltime staff (who will start only next month). So all we need now is a software engineer and a graphic designer. So far we've interviewed quite a number of people, but we haven't found anyone that's really good and up to our standards (yes, skilled people are hard to find =\ despite them having some pretty decent resumes, having graduated from UM or another local university, some with honors too), and we'd rather continue looking for someone that's top notch instead of hiring a couple of average Joes. Here's a question that I like to ask our interviewees, just to see how they think and gauge their problem solving skills:

Suppose you have 8 balls, and all of them have the same weight except for one that is lighter (but you don't know which one it is) and you have to find the lighter ball. You have a balance, which you can use only TWICE in your quest to find the lighter ball. (Amazingly some people don't even know what a balance is, so FYI a balance is a weighing tool where you put something on one end and another on the other end, and the heavier side will fall while the lighter side will obviously rise)

There's also a couple more 'logic puzzles' that are fun, and are usually bonus questions. The point of these questions is to gauge how someone thinks, approaches, and solves a problem. Doesn't matter if you get the answer or not, it's how you approach it and solve it - something which many people seem to miss. There was this interviewee we interviewed that was actually offended when asked a question like this, and he said 'What has THIS got to do with what I'm interviewing for??' . Well, that's not something you'd like to say to your interviewers. A straight no-hire.

Yes. Good people are hard to find. I'm not even talking about those people that are exteremely smart, creative and one-of-a-kind. I'm just talking good people. Or maybe all the good ones are all hired by the big companies already. I don't consider myself top notch, but I dare say I'm better than many here in my field in Malaysia. It's all in the education I believe (and also motivation, enthusiasm and the desire to succeed).

I, for one, am thankful to God, and my parents for providing me the excellent education I've received. If it wasn't for them I'd probably be stuck in a local uni, and end up working a job that probably pays me half of what I earn right now. I have the awesomest parents in the world, I'm grateful for that. Guess what I need to do now is work hard, earn some good $$$, provide a better life for my family, and be a better son, brother, and person.

<3 you mom, dad.

Off to do some work then head to bed.

And the week starts all over again.

Starcraft 2

2007-05-19T18:16:00.000+08:00

Prettttty.

stabs america

2007-05-17T21:05:00.000+08:00

What the.... !?!?@#?!#?! Melinda got voted off?? FFS.

Melinda should be joining Jordin. American Idol = battle of the looks. Considering a huge chunk of the demographics watching the show are teens and female, somehow I am not surprised.

2007-05-15T19:53:00.000+08:00

Somehow I feel like I'll be disappointed and I shouldn't be expecting much or even anything at all. But still I can't help thinking about it....

If only there was a sure way of knowing if the seed you're going to plant will turn into a tree that bears fruit, or just a plant that will wither in time.

Sigh.

hungry

2007-05-15T19:45:00.000+08:00

Came home today and realised my parents are going out to Bukit Kiara for dinner at a friend's place, and I was told to go get dinner myself outside. Argh.

Well I just ate a cookie so I think I'll be fine for another 10 minutes before my stomach starts making noise again.

>< Anyone up for dinner?

pretty

2007-05-14T00:51:00.000+08:00

Saw this nice lamp that was on sale at Bangsar Village .. me likey!

I liked how this picture turned out =D

Japanese dinner @ Mizu, Bangsar Village

2007-05-14T00:12:00.000+08:00

Just came back from a Mother's Day dinner at Mizus@Bangsar Village with my family. First time I've been there, and priced moderately, I can say that the food's pretty good and the fish's fresh no doubt.

Mizu's entrance

We had an assorted sashimi platter that we shared...

Droool.. =D~

and also 2 plates of softshell crab rolls (which were deliciously cruchy ...)

I ordered a tempura don,

... my brother ordered hot soba noodles, my mom had the beef teppanyaki dinner set, and my dad had the unagi don (no pics unfortunately cuz everyone went right into it and started eating before I could take any pics)...

Food here's awesome don't you think?

Happy Mother's Day mommy!

All in all it was a good dinner. Definitely worth the money (for good ala carte Jap food), and we had 10-20% discount because of some credit card. Goodness.. think my parents have like credit cards from all the banks. Not like they use all of them to buy stuff, just that they get them for discounts at restaurants, hotels, etc. Everywhere we go we seem to get a discount.

After a satisfying meal...

Mizu
Location
L6, First Floor
Bangsar Village I
Jalan Telawi Satu
Bangsar
Kuala Lumpur

Tel No:
03 - 2283 6988

My rating?
Food - 7/10
Décor/ambiance - 6/10
Service - 7/10
Price - 8/10
Avg budget - RM50

Came home, processed the images, and while waiting for the RAW images to be processed, started cam whoring a little =D

I do look kinda old ><

Alright, off to watch some Battlestar Galactica eps.

2007-05-13T19:29:00.000+08:00

Working from home - that's what I'm currently doing for the US-based startup company which I'm working part time for. Though this isn't exactly popular with companies in Malaysia (I don't even know if there are any companies that allow working from home), I'd be surprised if there aren't any companies asking their employees to work remotely in a couple of years time, especially in my field (software, IT) - where the working-from-home/remotely idea is extremely suited for.

Here's an article from Businessweek.com that talks about the trend that's picking up pretty quickly in the US working culture:

Working from Home: It's in the Details

The benefits include lower costs and greater productivity, but figuring out how to communicate with off-site employees is crucial
by Rachael King
Traffic surrounding Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., has become so congested that Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire nearly missed a 9 a.m. speech at the company's main campus one recent morning. Roads leading to the software maker simply weren't designed to handle the 35,000 commuters who report for work there each day. The gridlock that greeted Gregoire was just the latest reminder that Microsoft needs to tackle its commuter crisis—and quick.

So Microsoft (MSFT) has embarked on a program aimed at getting more employees to work from home and other off-site locales, joining the growing ranks of companies to catch the virtual-workplace wave. About 14% of the U.S. workforce gets its job done at a home office more than two days per week, says Charlie Grantham, executive producer of consulting firm Work Design Collaborative. That's up from 11% in 2004, and is set to grow to 17% by 2009 (see BW Online, 03/12/07, "Telecommuting Now and Forever").

Pros and Cons

Benefits of letting employees work from outside the office include keeping cars off the road, helping a company to bolster its green bona fides. But the practice can also foster employee retention, boost worker productivity, and slash real estate costs. At IBM (IBM), about 42% of the company's 330,000 employees work on the road, from home, or at a client location, saving the computer company about $100 million in real estate-related expenses a year. VIPdesk, an employer of at-home customer-service reps, hangs onto 85% of its employees each year, compared with the 10% to 20% rate for traditional call centers, according to consulting firm IDC. And virtual workers are about 16% more productive than office workers, according to Grantham's research.

For all the benefits of freeing workers from the office, drawbacks abound. First, not everyone wants to leave. Some fear they will step off the corporate ladder, while others need a busy environment to stay productive. Some managers are reluctant to scatter direct reports because keeping tabs on a virtual workforce can be harder than managing those close at hand. Some virtual workers can feel lonely, isolated, or deprived of vital training and mentoring. And communication breakdowns can impede innovation, trust, job satisfaction, and performance.

Obstacles like these have prompted IBM, Sun Microsystems (SUNW), and other companies to seek out a host of creative solutions to the problems that virtual work presents. Some turn to a combination of mobile devices, e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration software to help colleagues stay in touch.
[Read more at http://www.businessweek.com ...]

Japanese buffet

2007-05-13T19:21:00.000+08:00

Japanese buffet at Kampachi @ Equatorial Hotel KL this coming Saturday 5/19. Anyone interested? Been ages since I've been there, and I'm craving for some fresh sashimi.

Tears in the night

2007-05-13T19:08:00.000+08:00

Tears in the Night (9/19/03)

I cried in my sleep last night
You just looked so familiar
I've seen you in my dreams alright.
I cried because I met you, and
became a victim of love at first sight.
How oft I stopped myself from falling
so easily, this time you stopped me
from putting up a fight.
For once I let myself go
I don't know why, but I did, in the dim lights.

Losing myself

2007-05-13T04:26:00.000+08:00

In the past couple months I feel like I've lost track of myself and who I really am. It's like this split personality has assumed it's place in my body. Well not really la. I'm not talking about drinking and going out till 4am and all that, just some other stuff.

I think it's time to backtrack and rediscover who I was. Time to get rid of this part of me that was never and should never exist.

Bored and hungry

2007-05-06T01:24:00.000+08:00

It's 1:30am. Pretty quiet night, with just the whirring of my laptop fan keeping me company ><. I wish I hadn't woke up at 4pm, and now I'd probably need someone to stuff a couple of sleeping pills down my throat so I'd be able to sleep - not that I know if it's going to work or not. Argh. Well from the number of posts I made today (or in the past few hours rather) even Prez Bush would be able to figure out how bored I am. So bored that I started snapping pictures of my room after I finished uploading the pictures that I had in the camera. Here's a nice one that I like - it's a picture of what's sitting behind me:

What the.... does that look like a hand bag on top of my cabinet?

Starting to get hungry. Had one of the best curry laksa I've ever had this afternoon. Parents bought it back from this food and fun fair at my church that I was supposed to go for if it wasn't for me being a pig and sleeping till 4pm. So that was technically 'brunch' for me, and now my insula is telling me to go get that maggi goreng ayam from the mamak at the Mid Valley Boulevard. Or maybe I'll just go to Devi's Corner in Bangsar to get some food.

Soooo off I go.

More pictures of Sarah...

2007-05-06T00:34:00.000+08:00

Took more pictures of my adoooorable baby cousin Sarah Tan Ya the other day.. (Here's a previous post with more pics of her)

What's that thing spinning around up there?

Whatcha looking at???

My mom and Sarah Tan Ya

Tee hee!

She seems to like staring into the fan a lot

Ta daa!

Where does my heart beat now...

2007-05-05T22:24:00.000+08:00

Old song, but romantic, sweet, and the lyrics are awesome

Celine Dion's 'Where does my heart beat now'

So much to believe in - We were lost in time
Everything I needed
I feel in your eyes
Always tought of keepin-
Your heart next to mine
But now that seems so far away
Don't know how love could leave
Without a trace
Where do silent hearts go?

Where does my heart beat now
Where is the sound
That only echoes through the night
Where does my heart beat now
I can't live without
Without feeling it inside
Where do all the lonely hearts go

Candle in the water - Drifting helplessly
Hiding from the thunder-
Come and rescue me
Driven by hunger -
Of the endless dream

I'm searching for the hand that I can hold
I'm reaching for the arms that let me know
Where do silent hearts go?

Where does my heart beat now
Where is the sound
That only echoes through the night
Where does my heart beat now
I can't live without
Without feeling it inside
Where do all the lonely hearts go
Where do all the lonely hearts go

Then one touch overcomes the silence
Love still survives
Two hearts needing one another
Give me wings to fly

Where does my heart beat now
Where is the sound
That only echoes through the night
Where does my heart beat now
I can't live without
Without feeling it inside

I've got someone to give my heart to
Feel it getting stronger and stronger
And stronger
And I feel inside

Hearts are made to last
Till the end of time

I could use one of these

2007-05-05T22:20:00.000+08:00

typical saturday..

2007-05-05T21:32:00.000+08:00

Woke up at 4pm today and realised my Saturday's gone just like that. ARgh. Went to Laundry with a couple of friends the prev night, came back at around 3am, worked till about 6am, slept till 4pm today. Spent the next few hours working, and here I am right now, bitching about boredom and I'd kill to go out.

Getting my Dell LCD fixed...

2007-05-04T11:10:00.000+08:00

ZOMG. At first it was 2 vertical lines (Previous post). Now the beach vertical line in the middle of my screen seems to have found a friend. Bloody hell another blue vertical line has cropped up next to it in my LCD screen. I went over to the site http://www.dellverticalline.com to check for updates, and guess what? Dell acknowledges the problem and is offering free replacements!

Potential Vertical Line on Certain 17" Notebook Displays

Earlier this year, members of our Customer Advocate team posted a message that still resides front and center on a site called dellverticalline.com. That note says we were aware of some user complaints about certain notebook displays. Since then, the Customer Advocate team has coordinated with other Dell groups to help figure out what was happening with some 17" notebook displays.

Here's what they found: on some 17” LCD displays shipped with Dell Inspiron 9200, 9300 and Dell XPS Gen 2 notebooks, a one pixel wide vertical line may develop across the LCD screen over time. Systems that may be affected by this issue shipped from Nov. 2004 through Oct 2006.

Here’s what we’re doing: for affected systems, Dell is offering to replace any LCD that develops a vertical line within three years of purchase, at no charge for parts and labor. Also, Dell will offer refunds to customers who paid Dell to replace defective LCDs with this issue.

Dell values our customers, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

We will send letters to all potentially affected customers whose systems are out of warranty. We have already begun mailing them—letters will be sent to our customers at their last known address.

To summarize the key criteria:

* This potential issue applies to Inspiron 9200, 9300 and XPS Gen 2 models only
* Only these three systems shipped from Nov. 2004 to October 2006 are potentially affected

Not all systems are affected. U.S. customers who are experiencing this issue, or who have paid to replace an LCD for this issue can call 1-800-822-4730.

For customers outside the U.S., please send an e-mail to vertical_line@dell.com. To help them route inquiries to the right global contacts, please use “Vertical Line Issue, ” in the subject line of your e-mail—where refers to the country where you are located. If you are a non-U.S. customer who prefers contacting Dell on the phone, please:

* Go to support.dell.com
* Choose your country or region from the drop-down list
* Choose Contact Us
* Choose Technical Support
* Choose Call Technical Support

Note: I've amended the previous two paragraphs with updated information. Rather than strikethroughs, I edited the original text to help eliminate any confusion.

- taken from Dell's blog, http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/04/09/10675.aspx

It's about time Dell did something about the faulty LCDs that were shipped on some laptops (including mine) from 2004-2006 that resulted in vertical lines cropping up. Although they have acknowledged the issue, I doubt I will be getting a Dell in the future. First the battery replacements, now the issue with faulty LCDs. To get it fixed I probably would have to send in my laptop and get it back in a week or two maybe? For me, this is really bad considering all my part time work is on my laptop, and I have lots of work to do in the upcoming weeks. Not sure if I can 'chase' after them and have them get my laptop back to me within a few days, or just have them send a technician to my place and replace the LCD screens.

Bah.

Well at least this means I don't have to fork out RM5k to get a MacBook (which I initially planned to get before Dell announced any plans to replace the faulty LCDs) and can instead get the iPhone =D

back to work

2007-05-02T21:18:00.000+08:00

2 day break is almost over, and it's back to work tomorrow. Wasn't exactly a holiday for me..... Well it was in the sense that I got to sleep till 11am everyday, but the rest of the day (and night) was basically just work work work for my US job. Haven't got many friends that are back in KL anyway so work's probably the best I can do to pass time for now. Besides I've got plenty of stuff to do ><

Yes I need more friends... need to meet more people. Glad that my company is hiring 2 more people soon.

Oh well, heading to bed early. Gym tomorrow at 7am.

Goodnight

American Idol this week..

2007-05-01T02:27:00.000+08:00

Bon Joviiii's going to be the guest 'coach' .. ZOMG !!!!!! Can't wait to watch =D I totally heart Bon Jovi and their songs had quite a big influence on me during my high school days.. love their older songs like Always, Bed of Roses, Livin on a Prayer... most of the songs frm the Crossroads album. Think they're coming up with a new album sometime this month or in the next few months...

Why aren't they doing a concert in Malaysia =\

Back to American Idol, can't wait for the performances from Jordin / Melinda / Blake . Those are my top 3 =) though I think it will be a duel between Jordin and Melinda in the finals. Whoever wins I think Jordin will end up selling more records. Although Melinda's arguably stronger than Jordin and a better performer, Jordin's records will probably sell more as she's young and is more 'commercial' compared to Melinda. Would be interesting to see what happens =D

Looking for software engineers / graphic designers

2007-05-01T01:38:00.000+08:00

My company - Pocketcraft Software Sdn Bhd (soon to be known as Slashes and Dots Sdn Bhd) is currently hiring for the full time positions of Software Engineer (1) and Graphic/Web Designer (1). If you know any friends, relatives, family members, or whoever that's interested in the mentioned positions, please let me know or ask them to send me an email at hengwoon@gmail.com. If a person you refer gets hired by the company, you'll be paid RM 500 =)

Well a little intro on the company : Pocketcraft Software is a small software company founded by Azrul and Meriza (my bosses) currently based in Amcorp Mall in PJ. Right now, there's just Azrul, Meriza and I in the company, and we plan to keep it small while hiring the best people there is, instead of hiring like 10 average employees. We are also currently seeking MSC status as a company.

Right now our focus is on developing and selling extensions for the Joomla! Content Management System (CMS), but we are planning on venturing further into either producing our own shrink-wrapped software, or delve into custom web development. The products/extensions we are selling right now comprise of the _BEST_ commenting system for Joomla! out there (Jom Comment) and arguably the _BEST_ blogging component for Joomla! (My Blog) that aims to be the WordPress for Joomla!. Jom Comment is written by Azrul, while I have been working on My Blog since I joined the company.

So we are looking to hire a motivated/passionate software engineer and graphic/web designer to join us in our quest for total world domination =D . Requirements are basically:

1) Software Engineer
- Diploma or higher in Computer Science/IT
- Knowledge in PHP, MySQL, Object Oriented programming, design patterns, HTML, CSS, Javascript
- Pluses: Other programming languages (Java, C, C++, Ruby on Rails, etc)
- Good coding techniques, code reuse, understand programming concepts
- Preferably someone who can think abstractly and offer design suggestions, not just code.

2) Graphic/Web designer
- Diploma or higher in related field
- Knowledge in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Photoshop, templating concepts, image editing
- Knowledge in PHP a plus

Well these are not the exact requirements, but should be a good idea of what we are looking for. So if you know anyone who might be interested, refer them and if they get hired you'll get Rm 500. Simple as that. Just send me an email or have them send me an email with their resume/portfolio/cover letter at hengwoon@gmail.com, or give me a call at 012-2309677

2 days holiday...

2007-05-01T01:11:00.000+08:00

So what the hell am I supposed to do in the next 2 days. Labor day + Wesak day. Kinda wish I was working tomorrow and the day after... Well I will be, just not the entire day. Thank God for my part time job, otherwise I'd be driving myself up the wall figuring out what to do.

On a random note, I miss the times when I could spill every thought, feeling and emotion of mine into writing. I miss the times when words would just come to me when writing. Nowadays it's just _blank_ most of the times. Maybe all I need is a little inspiration. Where oh where shall I draw it from......

Arggh! Anyone has the dvd or vcd for Serendipity? Been digging and digging for it but I can't find it anywhere in my room. Think I might have left it in the States >< Yeah I've watched it probably 10 times or more and yeah I still want to watch it. Kate Beckinsale is just awesome in that movie. She's so damn sweet and her English accent is hawt =D~ Awesome romantic movie if you ask me.

1:30am and I dont want to sleep. Eyes are closing but I don't feel like sleeping. Craving a little for some nice cheese naan or ou jien.

ANYONE????

2007-04-30T13:10:00.000+08:00

Untitled (9/19/03)

Trapped in this room,
Cold, lonely, where darkness looms,
I'm sick, tired and exhausted.
Life's being a bitch, how am I not frustrated,
Locked in this room for years.
And everytime the door opens I try to leave
this darkness, these fears, but
You shut the door right before I could flee.
I'm sick, tired, exhausted
not caring even to rhyme.
Life you're really a bitch,
How long will you be toying with me?
I hope you'd stop doing that -
Opening the door,
Like you did yesterday,
And closing it right in my face,
like you do, always.

Double beef rack.... mmmmmm drool

2007-04-30T12:24:00.000+08:00

My family and I went out to arguably the best and most value (if you have the discount card) Italian restaurant - Prego @ Westin KL - for dinner last night. Initially we wanted to head over to San Francisco's Steakhouse in KLCC, but ended up going to Prego instead.

So, we had fried calamari and garlic bread (which is extremely delicious and worth it for RM10), my brother ordered his favorite Prego Carbonara angel hair pasta, while my mom, dad and I shared one of their special dishes out of curiosity - the double grilled beef rack. Took about half an hour before the pasta and the beef racks arrived (not that the pasta takes that long to cook they just cook it later and bring everything all at once).... and the grilled beef racks were huuuuge. One beef rack's like the size of two normal steaks, so it was pretty big. Amazingly, the beef was grilled to perfection (medium) and it was so darn good and juicy =D~ Definitely a must-try if you got a group of 3-4 people..... The mashed potatoes that each rack was placed on was really sweet, the asparagus stalks that came with the dish were really crunchy and sweet as well. All in all an extremely satsifying and worth-your-money dish (Rm156 shared between 3-4 people), definitely better than eating steak at a steak house. Plus my parents had this card where you get 25% discount if you have a party of 4, 33% discount for a party of 3, 50% discount for a party of 2... etc. So yea, it was pretty awesome =) Unfortunately I didn't bring a camera to take pictures =\ Anyone wanna go? =D

Speaking of food, a week ago my family and I went to try this Japanese buffet at Sheraton in Subang Jaya. For RM90++, we kinda expected it to be at least the same quality as Kampachi@Equatorial KL or Jogoya@Starhill, or better. All I want to say is that even for RM40++, I wouldn't even want to eat there again. Other than the oysters and baby octopuses, the food kinda sucked. Well it sucked. The tempura was terrible, not crunchy, and cold. There wasn't much variety. Clams had fucking lot of sand in them. Sushi was decent but not as good as Kampachi. Unagi was... ughhhh.... For Rm90++, wtf man, I'd rather eat zhap fan than at that Japanese buffet in Sheraton Subang. Good thing we had that discount card thingy.

I miss going to Kampachi. I want to go there again. Order 100 pieces of salmon sashimi at one go. Their fish is soooooo fresh. If you ask me, Kampachi has the BEST japanese buffet. Way better than Jogoya, or any other places for that matter, and it's reasonable at RM70~++

So tomorrow's a holiday, so is Wednesday. Still contemplating what the hell I should do. Maybe just work all day for the US company I'm working part time with. Unless anyone wants to go out =D

Blah.

laalalaaa

2007-04-24T00:05:00.000+08:00

Reflection (9/18/03)

As I stared into the mirror today,
I looked into the other's eyes
Who are you? Hi?
His lips could only mimic mine.
I wonder, if what I see
is what everyone else sees.
I see a person with a history,
I wish you'd tell me, I promise not to tell anybody.
Nothing, no reply, maybe he doesn't wanna say.
Yet I see
His eyes still gleaming with the tears from yesterday.
Tears from the past, not wanting to go away.
I see a soldier fighting an everyday war
His face scarred with wounds, with sores.
Not a victory yet to his name,
Will it forever remain the same?
Tell me! Sigh. Maybe another day.
For now I have to go, I can't stay.
I wish I'd knew you more
We'll meet again, I'll see you tomorrow

==========================================

Burnt out for tonight. Damn work. =\

zomg epf is included in the salary?!?!?? SRSLY

2007-04-18T08:13:00.000+08:00

Ok, so I was at work yesterday and my boss messaged me saying he was disappointed that I asked for EPF for the past 3 months (during my probation) and that he mentioned since the start that the company will pay what it can afford in terms of my salary, and that EPF was included.

First of all, that's just BS. What they said was that they wouldn't mind paying a high salary to someone who's skilled and good at what they do. I heard no shit about having EPF included in the salary, and them 'paying what they can afford'. SRSLY. If EPF was included in my RM2500 base salary then I would be getting a RM2250~ base salary, which is pathetic, and considering I had another offer at JobStreet for RM2500 at the same time (and JobStreet is a much more established company), I would've taken the JobStreet offer instead. Way to mislead me thank you very much. If he's disappointed that I ask for EPF (which in fact is my RIGHT), then I'm disappointed that the company would mislead me like this and undervalue my contributions.

FYI EPF is fucking mandatory even for probation, and that's the law. Even I have to pay for EPF for the past 3 months I was at probation, otherwise I would get in trouble too. And it's not like the company is going bankrupt that it can't pay for EPF. Besides the product that I've built has been selling pretty much like hotcakes.

Sometimes I just wish the company would take care of all this crap and not have me spend time worrying about it. That way I could concentrate on my job more and not whether I'm getting underpaid or not.

So he says he's going to have a new contract ready by the end of the month. To be frank, if I'm not happy with it, I have no problems leaving. Don't get me wrong, I like the company, I like doing what I'm doing there, and working in a small company actually allows me more time to manage my part time job with the US company. Come to think of it at the end of the month my contract with the US company would need renewing as well. So I'll see what my full time job offers, and if I'm not happy, I'll probably see if I can work full time for the US company.

Running out of poems..

2007-04-16T20:33:00.000+08:00

Was It Something I Shouldn't Have Said? (9/14/03)

The past seemed so far away
The voices long thought to be gone
Thought to be....
How I wish I didnt have this mind,
then I would remember nothing.
I would be free of any feelings,
And I would be empty of thoughts.
It is thinking which makes me foolish
to think about how today
I would be spending every minute
thanking God for this day 19 years ago..
I am foolish
to think in a different universe where everything,
and everything went perfect,
(is that not the universe of the Virgo?)
I would be right beside you tonight
watching the stars till they disappear into dawn,
watching everything else disappear,
everything but us two..
I am not, unfortunately, in that kind of world..
This is the real world, where goodbyes need to be said
where nothing goes the way you want it to
I hope one day,
I will be able to say
my final good-bye.

I'm too lazy to explain what this means. I kinda miss the times when words just came to me when writing these crappy lines. Nowadays I'm getting a bit too busy for that ><

On web development...

2007-04-11T21:26:00.000+08:00

This is so true...

taken from http://humor.beecy.net

Goodnight

2007-04-09T20:19:00.000+08:00

Yea it's Monday, but whatever. =D

Goodnight (9/01/03)

The night beckons.
It ends, a day of adventure,
wandering dangerously in a hostile world.
Nothing matters anymore,
Not even the raindrops on the roof
nor the howl of the wolves.
A smile, a kiss goodnight to reality,
As I close my eyes, and
enter a world of fantasy.