simontalks.com

“Like That Also Can Ah?!!”

Archive for April, 2007

Tumpang To Buy, Get Discount (and my dream Camry)

Published by simon on April 9, 2007

You know how when you want to buy something from the sundry shop, you always ask around your friends / colleagues to buy together so that you can get better discounts? Now there is a local website that is expanding this idea online called Tumpang.com.

The idea is simple - first you gather some people who want to buy the same thing - books, movie premier tickets, anything. Then buy in bulk at a lower price, and everyone shares the savings. Great idea, right?
As an example, there is an offer to get Spiderman 3 movie tickets at RM4 here.

Great idea, cool website design. You know how it is with Malaysians and discount / sales, right? Thanks for the heads-up, James.

I wonder if a few of us ‘tumpang‘ together, any chance we can get an awesome discount on the new Camry…? I totally fell in love with that ride, man…

(pic from carbuyersnotebook.com)

Technorati Tags: , ,

Sanjaya, Oh Sanjaya… And Don’t Forget to Vote For the Worst

Published by simon on April 6, 2007

The other while walking around in Ampang Park i saw this PS2 game on sale:

WHAT?! An American Idol game? For PS2?!

(not sure if the pic shows up, but if you click on the image you can see the details of the game on Amazon’s page)

So how do you play? Sing into your mike (or controller?) and let the 3 judges rate you?

Too bad i don’t have a PS2 or else i’d tried it out. If i get to play Simon Cowell, now THAT would make a good game.

***

Speaking of American Idol, this season is turning into almost a fiasco. Yes, I’m talking about Sanjaya Malakar. Frankly, i think he’s one of those contestants the judges (or producers) put into the final 24 to attract a certain demographic of viewers, like they did with the Chicken Little guy and Bucky from last season. They don’t seriously believe that these contestants can go on to win, but they sure can draw in the audience.

But this has gone a step too far. he’s now in the last 8, and have no signs of losing steam. But he IS definitely getting the buzz American Idol sorely needs. If you remember, there’s this Myspace blogger known only as J who has vowed a hunger strike until poor little Sanjaya is voted off the show. But due to medical reasons, the hunger strike was called off after 16 days…

also, you may want to check out this funny website also about AI and sanjaya: Vote for the Worst

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Untitled

Published by simon on April 5, 2007

I can understand if there is any confusion on the matter, but i’m not an MMU student, and not involved in organizing any of their activities. Any views stated in this blog is my own, and nothing to do with the good students there.

If anyone is offended by what has been said here before, i apologize, it is entirely unintentional and i will gladly remove it, but as i said, it has nothing to do with Emina or MMU. The only thing i have in common with them is our appreciation of anime, but of course, to each his/her own.

Cheers.

Ching Ming (All Soul’s Day)

Published by simon on April 3, 2007

Whenever Easter comes, Ching Ming comes with it. Not sure if it’s a coincidence or what, but it’s been that way (more or less) since I was a kid. As a Christian I don’t really delve into what Ching Ming means, except I know that when I was a kid, we used to go every year to the graveyard and do what most Chinese do.

I remember it very well. My paternal grandparents are buried side by side in a huge cemetery in a place called Jelutong in (no, not Penang) Malacca. But at the time when we went regularly, my grandmother was still among us, so it was just one grave to clear. Every year, we would have problems locating the exact spot, this was a huge hillside without any system of graves, unlike those modern cemeteries they have with lot numbers.

My dad always said just a ‘few meters from a small tree’, but as time goes by, the tree grows bigger and along with the other trees, so it’s never any help anyway.

First we took a good look at the tombstone, gazing picture to remind myself of what my grandfather looked like, trying to decipher the deep Chinese words (curse of the banana people).

What we did was clear the whole area of rubbish, undergrowth and whatever else. Then we cleared the burial area and put hell bank notes all over it, each held down by a small rock to prevent it from flying away in the wind. Then the adults will burn something somewhere, while we kids hid from the scorching sun under the above mentioned tree.

There was one year we went to my uncle’s first wife’s grave, situated slightly away from there. 12 years before I was born, she died giving birth to my eldest cousin. My grandmother disliked her, after her death my grandmother cut away all her pictures and burnt them. The only picture I saw of her was at the gravestone there on the hillside of Jelutong, she looked beautiful, somewhat like my cousin.

It’s been almost 25 years since I went there, last month I passed Jelutong enroute to another funeral. I only have old photos to remind myself of the place and location – 4 of us kids standing below a very, very young pokok cempaka, laughing.

I told my wife maybe next year I’ll go down there again. I’d be nice to be able to find the twin graves just below the tree. And maybe visit my late auntie’s grave, and see the photo again. That grave hasn’t had a visitor in more than 25 years.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Where I Would Like To Go… (Rather Than Sitting Here at Home)

Published by simon on April 2, 2007

Got this from the washing machine mom, laundryamah, supposed to do it last weekend but my host provider was migrating servers, so kenot do, this morning doing halfway my Screamyx died on me, so now i’m doing it again… remember to save the draft… remember to save the draft… remember to save the draft..

Anyways, its a travel tag, and i kind of like this one. I’ve recently been bitten by the travel bug and have started going on lots of holidays with my family, after NOT going anywhere for about ten years. You see ah, when i got married last time, my wife and i got no money one, so we never go anywhere, then like 2 years ago, i got fed-up, went to make NEW passport for my whole family (teh very special one, with canggih microchip one) and we only started to travel.

Where would i like to go? Lots and lots places - Gold Coast Australia, Japan in winter, England and France, Italy, New York, you name it, I want to go. While I am dreaming, i might as well ask for a Mitsubishi Evo X.

But seriously, the place i would like to go next is, of course Hong Kong. We are planning to go real soon, like in a couple of months, hopefully. I only need to settle one small problem, persuading my company to approve my precious annual leave for the whole week.

Why Hong Kong? No particular reason, really, it’s affordable (its affordable if you compare it with all the places mentioned above), and it’s a great place for a family to go. Plus, both my wife and i grew up watching lots and lots Hong Kong TV series and movies, so it’ll probably be cool to see all these places… Actually, my wife watch a lot, i didn’t really watch that much…

Hong Kong Disneyland

Victoria Peak

What to see in Hong Kong? There’s lots to see and do, you can find a lot of helpful resources on the Net, as we are researching these few days. But some places we are definitely seeing are Victoria Peak, Kowloon Park, Ocean Park, Hong Kong Disneyland (hopefully we get to spend the night there), the famous markets and shopping centres, etc. By the way we’re not going to Shenzhen even though ALL the promoters at MATTA were pushing it heavily. Why would i want to waste a day there?!

Ocen Park

So there, hopefully i get time off from work and i can go… for the dim sum… for the taan tart… for the scenic ferry across the Harbour…

Okay, now i’m supposed to tag 5 people… let’s take the usual suspects.

Consuela - well travelled, where to next?
Patrick - not counting our trip to Ireland, where else do you want to go…? :)
Ponytales - this one dying to travel, i KNOW, one!
Clement - just started reading his blog recently…
pelf - i see earning a lot from PPP, sure can go very far, hor? :)

(all pics from Wikipedia)

INSTRUCTIONS:

**Start Copy**

Proposition : Where do you want to go Next, OUTSIDE OF YOUR COUNTRY, for tourism, work , study, whatever.

Requirements: Find some info about the place, itinerary etc, pics if possible so you get MORE Traffic coming in, and maybe some people can find somewhere to go to. Excludes your NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR, ie Singapore,Malaysia,Brunei, a country that borders yours.You must register for MyBloglog so we can blogwalk ah…..get it?

Quantity : FIVE PEOPLE.

Tag Mode : Chain Link. 15 of them.You leave 15 people and their DEEP LINK of their Blog Name and TAGGED POST and hit out for five more. So it will look like

Laundryamah having fun with Hyun Bin in Korea
Azrin going Down Under
MaRLinda in Disneyland Paris
Athira and her Balamory Antics
Msau to Japan
Shoppingmum to Europe
Angeleyes off to Bora-Bora
Giddy Tiger snorkelling in The Maldives
Jess to Europe
Mybabybay wants to go Round The World
Immomsdaughter visit World Heritage New Zealand
Just My Thoughts whale watching at Monterey Bay
Bubba Stuff lomancin, in Tuscany, Italy

**Add in the blog you got the tag from and tagged post.** (In this case, for example, you should add :Simon living it up in Hong Kong”)

Extra Rules: you cannot Tag another person who has performed the Tagging Rights to Travel. Check yr commentators.
You MUST PASS this tag within 7 days of receiving it , or lose a day’s worth of Blog Revenue or $10 to charity. Can?Makes it interesting anyway.So no Lazy Tags running about, and yeah, eventually, there will be less than a 1:3 chance you can’t tag that someone. And pay those people in the list a visit, you never know if you can pinch / recycle some ideas for your next entry!

**End Copy**

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Blog Down Over the Weekend

Published by simon on April 2, 2007

Some of you may have noticed my blog showing an error over the weekend, it was due to server migration which too some 72 hours.

Everything should be fine now, i think.

More updates later.