Faat-Faat-Faat

Got this tag from Ponytales. I know I have a few tags outstanding (like from God’s Little Angel), so bear with me, I’ll get to it…

The question is, what will I be doing on 08/08/08?

The more important question is – What is this UNHEALTHY preoccupation that we CHINESE have with the number 8?!

Oh never mind, there are just some things that are better left be.

What am i going to do one year from now? No idea, but i would think it’ll be something like this.

1. Wake up.
2. Look at clock.
3. Go back to sleep, after convincing myself that i can squeeze in a few more minutes of precious sleep and yet still make it on time for work.
4. Wife kicks me out of bed.

Okay wait, this may take forever to finish. Let’s go for the shorter version…

1. Wake up.
2. Go to work.
3. Go for lunch.
4. Back to work.
5. Come back from work.
6. Short nap.
7. Jogging.
8. Dinner.
9. Since it’s Friday, go to Cell Group.
10. Come back and sleep.

Wow, I can predict the future!!

But seriously though, I’m a little pre-occupied with finishing HP7, so excuse me for being less than focussed.

Let me torture a few other people with this tag…

ThatJames!

mott!

Bengbeng!

pelf!

Jangan marah ye? I’m going back to the book…

Sponsor a Blogger And Help MAKNA

If you are looking for a good cause to contribute your money to, there are a bunch of bloggers participating in a 24-hour Blogathon to raise cash and awareness for a particular foundation or cause of their choosing.

This Blogathon has been around for a few years, and it started this year at 9pm last night local time.

There are a few local bloggers involved this year:

pelf for the Eden Handicap Service Center [Pledge]
Edrei for the Association for International Cancer Research [Pledge]
Serge Norguard for UNICEF [Pledge]
Yee Pei for the Malaysian Mental Health Association [Pledge]
Ja Mustapha for MERCY Malaysia [Pledge]
Kelwin for MAKNA Malaysia [Pledge]

What you can do – Pledge money to donate to the blogger’s chosen cause, by clicking on the ‘Pledge’ button above and following the instructions that follow. Every little bit counts.

In particular, you may want to help Kelwin achieve his target of USD$400! I support MAKNA too, so i contributed an article to help in a small way for him… He needs 49 articles - one blog posting in every 30 minutes… not easy i tell you.

Go on then, do you bit if you can, folks. You have another few hours…

UPDATE: The Blogathon 2007 has ended, but the public still has 48 more hours to make a donation if they want to.

Technorati Tags: blogger, blogathon, cancer, makna, blogging

Cutie In My Backyard

During the infamous Weekend Without Internet ™, I visited a place I had not gone to in a very long, long time – my backyard.

The first thing I notice is that almost all the homes in my row had renovated their backyard, except mine that is. Mine is the only one I can see that is in the original state – not by some stand on architectural integrity, mind you, probably it’s because we’re the only family in the area too broke to do anything with the house.

But anyway – I found something else of interest in my backyard. A new addition, judging from the looks of it.

I’m not a cat person, but it’s really cute, no? (what do you think, anjali*, hmmmph?)

My wife says no matter how hard she shoos the cutie away, it comes back everytime.

This, below, is mommy cat, resting from a long, tiring day of sleeping.

This, (below) I presume is daddy cat, having a well-deserved break from licking himself and defending his family’s honour against strange humans taking photos of his family.

This other kitten, shown below, also keeps getting onto the couch. Eats more than any cat I know. Hates mice.

Rule Of Four

Tagged by both 2ann and ponytales…

It’s all about fours. Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Four jobs I have had in my life :

1) Working in a T-shirt printing factory – my very first job waiting for SPM results. I joined with my then best pal Kit, i lasted 3 months, he quit after 2 days. It was hot, tiring, and strenuous work. Hated every minute of it. Worse of all, at that time my Hokkien was really bad, and everybody spoke it, so i had no one to talk to.

2) Cashier – Needed to get pocket money in university, so I signed up to be a cashier at one of the convenience stores on campus. I knew the student manager, so he helped me get extra overtime hours. It was quite an easy job, 6-10pm. The shop never really had stock of the important items…

3) Chinaman contractor - Yep, with the sloshing boots and all. Long time blog readers will remember.

4) “Dad” – Tiring, but fun.

Four of my favourite foods:

1) Pastries
2) Ice-cream
3) Chocolate
4) Crispies. Good Lord, i just noticed they’re ALL junk food!

Four Countries I have been to on vacation:

1) Hong Kong
2) Singapore
3) Thailand
4) Erm, does Malaysia count as one country?

Four places I would rather be right now:

1) On a beach in Greece, reading a book.
2) London
3) Tokyo, at some anime convention
4) Anywhere but work. Now you know where my priorities lie…

One Weekend Without Internet…

Last Saturday afternoon, while I was doing some work on the Internet, out of nowhere I heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of my PC. After a few milliseconds of confusion, I realized that the power in my house had tripped and I just been hit by the scourge of millions of computer users all over the world…

My PC had just been struck by lightning.

I quickly snapped the DB switch back on downstairs, check the phone line (dead like MPH’s reputation) and turned back on my PC to assess the damage. Anyway, after some time, I found my network card damaged, and at least my PC was still in working order. But since the network card was on-board, that would mean I’d have to change the entire mother-#%*$&!-board.

Thus began my first extended weekend at home without Internet in a long, long time. What a strange feeling it was sitting around at home without anything to do!

Well to be fair most of Saturday night and Sunday I was out and about with my family on out usual business, but for most part (including Monday night) I had to amuse myself with other stuff.

Here’s a few things I discovered over the weekend, while away from my 17” flat screen monitor:

• There still not much to watch on TV. Even Astro. But I still managed to catch this new reality series called ‘Number One Single’ on E!. It follows the single life of former pop star Lisa Loeb while she goes about looking for love and happiness.
• I still have plenty of books yet to be read.
• My daughter’s PC (which was formerly mine) is REALLY slow.
• My living room walls are no longer white anymore.
• Anyway, everything back to normal now, more or less.
• My kid’s hair is really short now.

The most important lesson for the weekend – get a power surge protection.

What the Mott?

Took me awhile to figure this one out… but after reading a bit i got the hang of it.

I first came to meet mott online, when i she commented on my blog and I visited her blog. The first thing that struck me is that her blog used the same template as my *other* blog (yeah most of you will know which one).

The only time i met her in real life was at the Together Gather Blogger Bash held recently, when i sat down to chat with James and Mae. i stayed a little longer than expected, and was finally introduced to her sitting across the table. And i finally got to find out what ‘mott’ stands for, and i still call her that name these days.

Over the year or so of reading her blog, i’ve come to know her as a funny and vivacious mother and blogger, always with lots of funny stories about her ‘tykes’ as she calls them. These days we’ve been sharing tips about making money online (well it’s more like she’s giving me the tips…)

For those who are wondering how she looks like, my first impression was this – do you guys remember the sitcom from a few years ago called ’8 Simple Rules’ starring the late John Ritter? Remember Kerry (Amy Davidson) the second daughter, the smart one that has red hair? Well, i thot mott looked a lot like her! With black hair, of course…

(that’s Amy Davidson on the far left… mott looks a bit like her)

***
Instructions.

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra link back.

2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.

3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.

4. Add at least 1 new blog that you KNOW is using the DO FOLLOW plugin to the list in the “My Adds” section. (Add no more than 5!) Let the people you’ve added know, so that they can keep the list going!

My additions:
Not many bloggers have met me in real life, so i won’t tag anyone, but if you want to do it, go ahead…!

Originals:
(Took me a good hour to list down!)
mott’s island
Kev’s Walkabout
Down Memory Lanes
Woof & Arf
Lovely Mummy
Bubba Stuff
Mommibee
Moments in My Life
Rambling Moo
All about Zara & Zaria
Hip n cool momma
Random Thoughts of a Blur Mommy
Mylittleanelqianyi
Bits & Pieces
De’moments
chinneeq
Giddy Tiger
Huei Rabbit
Rinnah
Simple America
Niceheart
Ethel
Sanna
The Queer Chef
Shoshana
Leah
gina>
Haze
Ghee
Neng aka Sirena
Angelo
Ju aka The Border aka Juana of Femjo
Tina
Keep the Faith
jsonvlog
Suncoast Scribe
Blogging Kenneth
My 2 Centavos Worth
Manila Mom
3 Dogs, 3 Pigs and A Family
Cafe Romanza
Earn Global
Credit Ability
Macuha
Flee the Cube
Smart Wealthy Rich
MomReviews.net
Fellow Eskimo
Pajama Mommy
Amanita.net
WebStyle
Meredith’s Weight Loss Blog
Pink Blog
Tricia’s Musings
Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot
Midlife Musings
Utterly Geek
Whatever I Feel Like
My Dandelion Patch
Surviving NJ
GeekySpeaky
Simple Kind Of Life
3DayMom
BuyMeBlog
The Hockey Dad

How Malaysia Can Beat China, Uzbekistan and Iran at Football? Bring Back the Bomoh Lah

How Malaysia Can Beat China, Uzbekistan and Iran at Football?

I have an idea.

Bring back the bomoh, lah.

That one dem popular back in the Eighties one. This guy will come and fling air jampi on the field to make sure it rains 2 hours before the games starts. How do you make sure you can beat teams from the desert-dry Middle East? Play in water-logged becak pitch la.

Players should also wear tangkal (amulets) to make sure they are kebal and cannot be tackled by opposing players, unless they are women.

The bomoh will also merenjis sacrificial animal blood on the goalpost to make sure our goal is impenetrable against the opponents. Even if it doesn’t work, the sight of a deranged man slaughtering goats and chickens at the touchline will surely scare the bejasus out of the Iranians.

Go find some unemployed bomoh la. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of them floating around doing side jobs since times have gone bad for them. I’ve seen some of them selling minyak dhab along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman the other day. Just last week another very powerful bomoh who used to work for this famous politician approached me to buy Amway.

Bring back the glory of Malaysian football, man.

Technorati Tags: football, malaysia, fam, bomoh, afc

Melaka As I Remember It

We just came back from a 3-day holiday from that esotoric historical city to the south – Melaka.

Yeah i know everybody has been to Melaka a gazillion times, eaten everything that worth eating and seen everything worth snapping your brand new Sony Cybershot at… i get it.

But we needed a holiday, and Melaka seemed a good place enough.

For those who do not know – Melaka is the hometown of my forefathers. My father was born there, went to school there. I didn’t grow up there, but spent almost all my childhood holidays there. So there, now you know.

Melaka has really grown up that much over the last 20 years, traffic is still not as bad as Penang or KL.

When we were young, there weren’t any shopping centres. When Chinese New Year, all my rich cousins got their clothes at Madam King’s and Lian Fatt in Bunga Raya. I remember when i was a teenager, one of my cousins set up a stall selling CNY cards along the road. Don’t think she made much money.

Me and my cousins used to walk along the beach in Ujong Pasir towards the Portuguese Settlement, behind all those terraced houses cramped for space. The beach was as dirty then as it is now – when low tide came, we would chase all the mudskippers away. Sometimes we walked the other direction towards Umbai, near the jetty to Pulau Besar. In the mangrove, my cousin told me there was a shrine where if you went at the stroke of midnight, and brought the right offering to the unseen guardian there, it would show you anything you wanted to see in and out of this world. I never tried to do it, maybe i should have… Anyway the mangrove is now gone and there are hundreds of houses built there now.

Two of my relatives still live in those long old houses along Heeren Street (Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock), one of the few ones not torn down or converted into some Singaporean-owned backpacker hotel. Or some Nyonya restaurant.

Melaka, or as i call it – Malacca, will always have a special place in my heart.

Simon Was Pretty Naughty in Skool…

Got this from mott…

How naughty was i in secondary school? Not very, but very a goody-goody kid either.

I came from a racially mixed government school – with boys and girls. So i suppose it was kind of boring most of the time and a little fun at times.

Let me see what naughty stuff did me and my friends do?

You know those string of firecrackers that popped loudly when you pulled them with both hands? We tied them to the girls’ bicycles – one end to the spoke of the wheels, one end to the body of the bike. Some bikes we tied a FEW together. Too bad we missed it when the girls actually got on the bikes.

***

We used to let the gas out during the Chemistry lab classes, especially when the teacher got boring. Sometimes we go to the lab for double periods, but we don’t do any experiments… Why bother going to the lab then?! I know it was a pretty stupid thing to do letting the gas out, but halfway talking the teacher would go, “can you smell something?”

***

For some strange reason one of my classmates brought a piece of fresh underwear to school in his bag (i think he wanted to change after playing football in the waterlogged field). Someone found it… then there was some bullfighting with said underwear as the red cloth attracting the bull… owner comes back, blows his top, chases culprits round the school…

***

Okay, not very naughty, but let me hear YOUR story…

I’m tagging…

– din! Long time never hear from him…

- ahpek!!!

1. Write about one of your naughties moment in secondary school
2. Story must not be shorter than 20000 words. Jk. Just dont make it too brief lah
3. Tag bloggers who you think have really interesting stories to tell. Don’t go “ah i wont tag anyone” .

My Brand NEW Air Cooler

We bought an air cooler the other for my daughter’s room. What’s an air cooler?

This is an air cooler.

Wah, pretty buttons! Comes with remote control some more! As you can see, it is manufactured by Malaysia’s 36th largest electronics exporting company, Yamada. Read carefully, it’s Yamada, not Yamaha.

Some more got filter, just like your air-conditioning.

The model we got came with two icepacks that makes the air to be slightly cooler, although not as cool as an air-conditioner. The icepacks are the same as the ones for coolers used for camping.

This is where you put the frozen icepacks. Lasts for a few hours.

So now you know what an air cooler is. Total damage? RM250. Still slightly cheaper than fixing an air-conditioner, and VERY much cheaper in the long run in terms of energy consumption.

But of course, not as cool as air-conditioning la. Damn this global warming thing.

My room doesn’t need one of these things, because daddy’s room’s is magically cooled by this heavenly contraption…

(hey, I’M paying the electricity bill, okay?!)