Playing With Fire: A Mid-Autumn Night’s Dream

Yes, I know it’s a bombastic title, but i couldn’t resist it…

Anyway, we had a (very small) mid-autumn festival thing at home last week. We had a lot of mooncakes, and brought out all our old RM1-for-three paper lanterns we kept from last year. For candles, we had three boxes, supposed to be for birthday cakes.

Anyway, i’ll let the pics do the talking.

Below: lighting the lanterns (and trying not to get them burnt in the process…)

Below: Finished product. I need more lanterns. (and GAWD, i need to paint my wall!!!…)

Below: My second kid lighting candles. Hard to get a clear pic without using the flash. The next pic is better.

Below: Aftermath of playing with fire. We used plastic egg cartons, which in retrospect wasn’t a fantastic idea.

Below: A moth decided to watch us from the roof of my car. Looks spooky up close.

Hope everyone had a great mid-autumn festival.

NasionCall Has Gone Bankrupt!

My wife and her sister has been trying to call through to NasionCall for weeks, and recently we found out that the reason why we have not been getting through, is because
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NasionCall Has Gone Bankrupt!
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Arrrrgh!!!

Actually we only have one card remaining, with about less than RM30 left in the card, but it’s still money.

The least they could have done is notify us that they’re going kaput. We’re writing in to get a refund, which isn’t going to be easy, since they’re, like, BANKRUPT.

NasionCall provides discounted STD and IDD calls. Or USED TO, i should say…

Manga Talk

I was going to blog something about a boy named vincent, but after mulling about it for 2 minutes, i decided not to.

I decided then to blog about something else.

I’ve been reading quite a lot of manga recently, and spending less and less time watching anime. Some have been quite bland, but i found a few good ones. Ironically, the ones that caught my attention were the outside my usual sci-fi and fantasy diet, which is probably a sign i should read more of other stuff.

Here’s three that i liked.

Yotsuba&! – This is really cute. It’s a comedy manga about a small orphan girl who has boundless energy and is pretty ignorant about the world around her. It’s really funny, trust me. She lives with her stepdad, a young guy who’s a writer of some sort, and usually interacts with the family of 3 older girls next door. The manga is one of the genuinely funniest i’ve read recently, but at the moment there are only 6 books in the series.

Train_man (Densha Otoko) – i actually found out much later that this manga is part of a media phenomenon in Japan, that started as a purportedly real story, and spawn a movie, television series, manga, anime, novel and theaterical play. It’s the story of an Otaku (japanese nerd) who falls in love with a girl he rescues from a drunkard while on a bullet train. The story revolves around the hero and his group of friends in a online chat room.

Rahxephon – Back to the mecha stuff. This one is pretty much a lighter version of Neon Genesis Evangelion, without the psychological mumbo-jumbo, and a simpler drawing style. I’m also looking for the anime that goes with it.

Anyone wants to recommend more to me?

Technorati Tags: manga, anime, Yotsuba&!, Train_man, Densha Otoko, Rahxephon, Neon Genesis Evangelion

Bye Bye, Jose

Okay, footie post.

So after three seasons with Chelsea FC, Mr. Jose Mourinho has left the London club, through mutual consent.

Let me just say that while i first thought of him as an unnecessarily arrogant jerk, and still think of him as one, he was an excellent manager, and brought success to Chelsea where many others have failed. Of course, there are some qualifications – good as he may be, he isn’t in the same class as Wenger or Ferguson, and the other one that will haunt his short stay in England – that a huge part of his success lay with the obscene amount of money spent on players.

There are many unanswered possibilities that arises from this unique situation in Prem football – would Jose has been successful had he been in a club without the cash? Or would, with that kind of cash to buy world class players, would any other Premiership managers have achieved the same number of trophies or even more had they been the manager of Chelsea?

For me, Jose will be remembered for two things. for bringing trophies to Stamford Bridge – more trophies in 3 seasons they ever had in the past few decades added up – an also for failing to win the Champions League. Not even reaching the finals.

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For Chelsea, i think it will be a tailspin for now. A new permanent manager, who has not been named, will take time to get his style and philosophy to the ground.

Perhaps Mourinho should not have left Chelsea in a lurch 2 months into the season. If he felt it was untenable for him to complete this entire season, perhaps it would have been better for him to have left in the pre-season.

So bye-bye, Jose, and to your arrogant whining and complaints about not having enough money to buy another 100million pound galactico.

Technorati Tags: jose mourinho, chelsea, epl, football

And The Picture of the Day Is… Malaysian Starbucks!

Looking for frappuccino, but not willing to pay like RM12 for it?

Stuck in the neck of woods and craving for espresso and bran muffin but there’s no Starbucks within 134km radius?

Don’t worry…

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Check out the pakcik out front, man. And the kampung style authentic timber decor…

If you need directions there, turn left at the Restoran Mak Doner, just before the Pizza Hock stall…

Technorati Tags: starbucks

Food Trek in SS2

Sunday lunch has become a big deal for us these past few years. It’s a time when we meet up with our friends to have lunch together, and recently we’ve been eating around SS2 a lot, since that’s where we’re at. SS2 is a food haven really, you can check out any of the many food blogs that have sprouted out of late.

In recent times we’ve found that we’ve always gone back to these favorites:

Friendship Herbal Restaurant (捕一宝) in SS2 – We love the set lunch – RM9.80 gets you claypot meat, vegetables and rice (white or brown).Ironically we’ve never tried the famous coconut chicken soup, we should address this problem in the next visit. It’s a few doors away from Kayu Nasi Kandar. Incidentally, this was featured in last Sunday’s episode of One Day Five Meals.

Melaka Street – Ken brought me there for lunch one day, i loved it. Their set lunch on week days gives the best dishes at affordable prices, but on weekends you can try their equally good ala carte dishes like curry mee and fried rice. Their nasi lemak is quite good, so’s their cendol.

Restoran Lorong Seratus Tahun – Further up the road is this Penang favorite, with their curry mee and char kuey teow. The choice of food is really wide, but stick to their recommended dishes. Lunch crowd is quite heavy.

Chow Yeang Restaurant - This isn’t the original restaurant or coffeeshop, the restaurant has been taken over by the aforementioned Kayu Nasi Kandar, while the famous coffeeshop is now Lim Mee Yoke. The owner of Chow Yeang apparently moved to this endlot a few doors down, it’s now a restaurant and not a coffeeshop. The food is generally good, but the killer dish is their crispy skinned duck. You’ve got to try that one.

So guys, where are we going this Sunday? Not that wanton mee again…?

Facebook & Tower Defense

Yep, more of my time is disappearing like fresh oysters from the free buffet spread.

Consuela and Pat have both gotten me onto the Facebook bug and it’s addictive…

I’ve never got on the Friendster / MySpace craze, now i can see what the whole fuss is all about.

If you guys are on Facebook, come look for me! And by the way, the photo there isn’t of me, if you guys still haven’t figured it out yet…

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Right.

Speaking of wasting time, this is another thing i’m doing that is really addictive. It’s simple, all you have to do is stop the creeps from reaching the right side of the screen. Keep upgrading.

Technorati Tags: facebook

My House Has Been Taken Over By High School Musical Freaks

It’s Sunday night and I am at my PC blogging and surfing instead of watching TV.

You know WHY i am not watching TV like every other Sunday night?

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Because my kids are watching the premier of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2, that’s why.
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Ever since they announce the date Disney Channel is going to show the SEQUEL some months back, i have not stopped hearing about it. It’s HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL this and HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL that.

There’s HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL special version, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2, dance along, the books, the soundtrack, bengangnye aku.

It’s 8.10pm, i won’t get the TV remote until after 9.30pm. After that the dancing and singing in my living room starts, probably lasts until February…

Technorati Tags: HSM, high school musical 2, high school musical

Mocha Mud Pie at TGI Fridays

Before we get to the Mocha Mud Pie…

Cost of changing 4 NCT5 Goodyear Eagle tyres – RM640
Cost of new car battery – RM160
Full tank of petrol – RM69.14

Driving on the LDP with excellent grip knowing my family is safe and sound – PRICELESS.

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Well, i finally got my tyres changed (the story can be read here)

To cap my day off from work to go shopping with family (I call it my BIG DAY OUT), we spent the entire day at 1-Utama (that was after dim sum lunch at Bandar Puteri). We even bumped into Amylea of Akademi Fantasia 3, and had dinner at TGI Fridays. Their mudpie is sooo-ooooo SINFULLY GOOD.

Anyone who appreciates good chocolate *MUST* try it…

Now to work it all off this weekend… I reckon 8 laps around the field should do it. Yeah, right…!

Anyone Remember Vivian Chow?

Oh wow, she was super popular back then, wasn’t she?

My pals were like totally worshipping her, with huge posters of her on our college dorm walls. She did this series of ads for Canon BubbleJet, and one of my pals even managed to swipe this life-sized cardboard cut-out of her holding the small printer…

Seriously, she wasn’t that great a singer (nothing compared to Anita Mui) but she looked really cute, and that’s probably the main reason the was so wildly popular back then. She also acted in a few forgetable films, you know those with more singers than actors appearing in them. One of them was Fruit Punch, which distinctively remember…

I remember later in the mid-90′s she suddenly disappeared off the Canada, but returned some years later for some concerts. Googling her up, there’s no shortage of stuff on her on the ‘Net!

I couldn’t find a clip of her singing my fav song, but here’s one of her from the peak of her popularity…

Okay, back to the books…

Technorati Tags: vivian chow