My grandfather was Hainanese and he worked as a cook for the British in Ipoh up until the 60’s. So yeah, he was an authentic Hainanese chef. But he didn’t pass down any secret recipes for me to open a famous Hainanese kopitiam. *** Here was born in 1899. That was two centuries before this current one, how cool is that? His IC showed his birth year as 1900 because it was registered late. So in 1988, he won a hamper from a local newspaper celebrating those aged 88 in the auspicious year of ’88. Which is weird, coz the hamper contained foodstuff that most 88 year old folks can’t…

A good TV show is one that is so popular that it lives on in syndication, watched by different generations over different decades. It pervades into our pop-culture, and easily recognizable. Like Happy Days. Or Chips. Or X-Files. Or the Simpsons. One step above is a show that is has all of the above qualities, plus a memorable theme song. A song that is people remember forever, pay tribute to it, cover it and parody it. Like Hawaii Five-O. Who can forget the catchy intro music? I watched it as a very very young kid (probably pre-school) on SBC5 (what is now known as Singapore’s TCS5), my dad and brother…

No seriously, what is it with ‘Pan Mee’ restaurants sprouting up everywhere recently? And how has it become like a pseudo-gourmet meal? (sori ah, lilian, i curi your foto. too lazy to take my own) Years ago ‘pan mee’ was just a dish you get at the hawker stall, the same place we get our chicken rice or wantan mee. Now they have specialized restaurants serving pan mee with 1,288 different varieties like dried chilli, spicy, spinach or Emperor noodles. Around my office there are no less than 5 restaurants dedicated to this dish, really, how much of it can you eat in a week. OK rant over. Now can…

With all the interested in the 100m world record held by Usain Bolt (9.58s) recently, does anyone know what the Malaysian record is and who holds it? Anyone? Without googling it? Before we get to that, let me tell you what the record was back when i was a kid in the 80’s. Back then everyone in school knew the record was held by the legendary Dr. M. Jegathesan (now Datuk). I can’t remember his time, but he still holds the 200m record until today, set 41 years ago in the Mexico Olympics back in ’68. Back when i was a kid, the older generation and my teachers spoke of…

So… 10 years ago after getting hitched, i went to Langkawi for honeymoon. This was the days before AirAsia, and since we were flat broke Langkawi was probably the only option for us (Port Dickson wasn’t even considered) So fast forward EXACTLY 10 years ahead… I’m back there with the wife. And two kids in tow. (yep, the customary shot at the massive eagle. Makes you wonder about the size of the bird’s droppings…) Before going I wasn’t really keen on going back to the island, thinking there isn’t really much to do in the island. But it turned out much much better than expected. Langkawi has changed a lot…

My 2nd kid turned 6th yesterday! Even though it was a busy busy month for all of us, we managed to have a small celebrated for her classmates in school and at home. She was cheerful and happy throughout the day (or so I was told) and was telling everyone that ‘today’s my birthday!’ This was the cake my wife baked for her classmates. And a kindy class photo… probably the last one before graduation soon… Kids aren’t fussy eaters. They’ll lap up anything with cream on it. Party packs for all the kids. Some of it was courtesy of my mom. Dinner with the family at night And for…

Last Friday WY and I celebrated out tenth wedding anniversary. 10 years in the old church, we got married by Reynold, amidst friends and family. This was my present to her. It isn’t something to last another 10 years, but it was something she really needed. Its a Sony Ericsson C510, nice or not? She got me this large (about 1m x 1m) display of Simpsons characters with poses from the Simpsons Movie. Cool eh? For our anniversary, we wanted to celebrate it on the day itself, which was a Friday. Because of the traffic problem, we couldnt really go anywhere far, so we settled on somewhere familiar – Tony…

During the 2 month or so I spent researching before buying setting up my saltwater aquarium, I spent lots of time reading the forums and visiting the local fish shops (LFS). For easy reference of other beginners, here’s a list of shops that sell marine / saltwater fish and equipment in the PJ/SJ/Puchong area that I have personally visited. First of all, you may know of a aquarium / LFS near your house, but the thing to note is that NOT ALL aquariums sell saltwater/marine fish, they usually ONLY sell freshwater fish. Actually very few of these shops actually sell saltwater fish because of the expertise required. The second thing…

Finally finished the second season of HBO’s True Blood. Short review? Quite disappointing. Above: Sookie and Jason Stackhouse are back. And so is that vampire without a sense of humour. Reading the reviews online, most people are saying its bigger, better, sexier (and obviously more violent) than Season 1. I didn’t think so. I was a little disappointed with the direction of Season 2 after the first few episodes, and by the end of the season, my mind hadn’t changed. Bigger, yes. More violence, definitely. Sexier? I didn’t think so. As Seinfeld says, there’s good naked, and then there’s bad naked. Most of it is the latter here. Unlike in…

I’m not the complaining type, but certain things really take the cake. Like in the gym, for example. See, i spend a lot of time in the gym. After home and work, there’s the place I spend the most time (driving in my car doesn’t count in the list). And like any other place with lots of people, certain things peeve certain other people. So here goes. Using the hairdryer in the locker room to dry other things than your hair. My gym has hairdryers at the dressing table in the locker rooms, see. Obviously, for drying for hair. But some guys use it for drying other things – armpits,…