I know there must be a million blog posts regarding the death of Michael Jackson. Despite all his weirdness, Michael Jackson has touched more lives than I guess he would have thought.Linda sent me an SMS yesterday stating,  ’sorry to hear your idol passed away’. Noticed how she text the message? I’ve always been a fan. His style is unique. Upon seeing and hearing him, one could only say, ” This is Michael Jackson”. I think he is the only artist I bought original!!

But that aside, wheter this man was guilty of all the allegations and the charges against him , his death,  in a lot of ways, can be seen as also a blessing for him. It has made people remember him for his greatness rather than his weaknesses. The saying, ” First impression is always a lasting impression” certainly holds true for this exceptional performer.

While I am at home, I thought I’ll do a bit of rearranging of the furniture in the guest room. Was told that the furniture put such is not good fengshui, therefore decided to change it a bit. Generally, I prefer the ‘AFTER’ arrangement because it makes it easier to make the bed and such. What do you all think ?

I am having a block module running now and have taken some time off from work to concentrate on it. I cannot imagine myself working and studying for 1.5 weeks. I will probably go mad!  Anyway, it is quite fun to stay at home!

Truthfully, it did not really occur to me how important this thing really is. But when recently my manager announced that for all our staff meetings no one should be answering phone calls within the room and also a recent episode where the GM chided a senior staff about talking in HIS meeting, then only I realized technology has weaved itself into our lives more than we know it.

Since it is an integral part of our lives, how we deal with it also requires some sort of etiquette or rather guidelines if you will. While reading the news this morning, I can see that many folks are struggling to deal with this. This piece of news, Bad Blackberry manners can be costly a lot of corporations are really taking very seriously how their staff use this technology.

p/s: but secretly, folks talking/texting on their mobiles during meetings pisses me a bit as well… lol

it even really began??

OMG, I feel like a school kid again. It was as though yesterday when I sat for my last paper and now, summer semester is start this Saturday. Sigh.. How come time seems to just zoom pass us when we are having fun??WHY????

Had a really good time with Linda & Chin Leong in Penang. Too bad si Miss Kecik a.k.a Chui Ying did not manage to come.

Took the Aeroline Bus instead of driving. The bus was rather comfortable but for the premium that you are paying, that is to be expected. They serve you a light meal and free flow of hot beverages on board. On the way there we had Subway sandwiches and on the way back we had Ayamas Charsiew Rice.  Don’t know if it is due to the rice or due to the bus shaking so much because of the traffic congestion, I had motion sickness and threw up. Gosh!

Back to the fun parts in Penang. Upon arrival, Linda picked me up and we went for lunch at this place where they served an unique kuey teow dish. Cannot remember the Chinese name, but it was Concubine Yang’s towel in English; based on the story told by Chin Leong. Despite its ‘geli’ sounding name, the dish was actually quite good.

After that, we went to have a durian feast much to Alex’s chagrin.  But Linda was kind to him and got him some rambutans while the rest of us enjoyed our ‘ang hea’ @ Red Prawn durians. These designer durians are really  not cheap. Each fruit was about RM20-45 depending on its weight.

In the evening, we went out for a good Penang Peranakan dinner over at Nagore’s. Things have changed and the food, sorry to say this, sucked!  We were the only patrons in the restaurant. Can you imagine that? On a Friday evening, yet the place is empty. But never mind that, we went over to the esplanade for some good balitong! It used to be our favourite chat food while studying in Johore. Linda and I would be sucking on those little shell fish while yakking away. It was delicious. Good to know that I still have the skills to get the morsel out of its shell!

The next day, we hiked up Penang Hill. Hard to believe isn’t it? But we did it. Bright and early, we were at Moon Gate, one of the many gateways up the hill, we started out. Though it was really really tiring, but the whole effort was really worth. We did pretty good time too. Linda said that we should do this only every 5 years once. Haha. Let’s see when we are in our mid-thirties we still have the enthusiasm to hike up. It is tough enough as it is!

After the great cardio-workout, we just ‘lepak’ at home to recuperate ourselves. Age is a factor now. After a nice afternoon nap, we headed out to Tambun for nice seafood dinner; might I add, a well deserved indulgence since we did work so hard in the morning!

On the last day, we went to Chowrasta market. Hehe,  sudah makcik, so mesti pergi pasar pagi!  It was a good experience though. Linda and Chine Leong did not know that this market existed in the middle of George town and a lot of the traditional food are sold here i.e. the pig’s spare parts porridge, paddy chicken, hand-made popiah skin, tnee neah kueh etc.

Overall, I find this trip very enlightening. Linda is without a doubt, my ‘oldest’ friend. We have progressed together in life despite its ups and downs with the relationship, we did stick together no matter what. With this trip, we can see that our friendship has grown and we are very comfortable in each other’s company. Of course, our activites have changed to more of the ‘mature’ crowd. It was still great fun. I hope that our children can be as good friends to each other too! And on that note,  let’s have some pictures shall we? Can’t have me going on and on without a picture or two eh?

A couple pre-wedding; so much in love!

A couple post-wedding; boh chap and sendiri makan kacang!

Seriously, I bet many of us have been receiving those spam emails stating that there is this rich fella who died and now his wealth is transferred to his only living heir i.e. his nephew who is writing a love letter to you to help him in his bid to claim inheritance. Lo and behold, in order for him to claim the aforesaid inheritance he needs to have X amount of money to process it.

This is the gullible part begins. Despite numerous warnings from authorities, you’ll be surprised how many professionals will fall for this. These professionals are university graduates and working for quite some time. And making the headlines in today’s newspaper is “Black Money”

In the first place, when these folks promises you that you’ll be able to get a chunk of the money that you help ‘wash’ (gives a new meaning to money laundering doesn’t it? Then you will ask yourself, isn’t what you’re doing is illegal? Greed is reallythat blinding sometimes! Sheesh!

Was pretty excited about the new Pyrex set and straight away starting formulating what I could cook with it. Over the weekend, I invited my parents and brother, who is back from Penang, to come over for Sunday lunch. Usually, I go over to my parents’ place, but for a change, they came over.

After planning for the menu a few days in advanced, this was finally decided to go with this menu: -

1. Mustard & Honey Oven-Baked Chicken
2. Grilled Vegetables
3. Roasted Pink Potatoes with Rosemary
4.  Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

The dishes were quite a hit especially the stuffed mushrooms but the same cannot be said for the grilled vegetables. Probably it is the way I did it. Need to find a good recipe. The chicken, I didn’t manage to snap a picture of it since it was the last dish out of the oven.

I’m loving my new casserole set!

Can now be a real possibility. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I begin, I must state that I have never read any of Dan Brown’ s novels therefore, when I enter the cinema for both the adaptation for the silver screen, I can say with a degree of certainty that I went into it with an open mind. With aside, let’s go into the real review about the movie.

 After watching Da Vinci Code, you cannot help but expect much more for the installment of the Dan Brown’s series. You have the high hopes of being whirled through a nail-bitting string of mind-numbing codes and clues. But somehow, this movie did not manage to give me that feel. It felt rather mild infact compared the DVC.  The cinematography, however, was more spectacular as compared to DVC.  Despite it being night shots mainly,it made me  want to just go and visit Vatican City!

The acting. Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor are definitely the two top actors. Flawless performance. The lady who played Vittoria Vetra somehow felt like she’s a ‘ka la fe’ (canto for rookie actress holding a secondary role).

The plot like all good plots had a twist in the end which made it rather interesting. Unlike the DVC which caused quite a stir with the Catholic Church, this movie however showed the Church in a very good light. I particularly like Cardinal Strauss when he told Langdon that the religion is flawed only because men is flawed. Truthfully, when I was growing up, this was basically taught to me by the dear late Reverend Father Arthur Julien; truly a servant of God. So while hearing Cardinal Strauss saying those word, it remindedly so much of Fr. Julien.

After watching this movie however, I do have some desire to want to read the book because the movie did leave out more ‘pockets’ of details which entices the viewers to want to know why things were done the way they were done!

Overall, I give this movie very worthy rating of 8/10 (you will want to go into the cinema to watch it again !  )