Gong Hei Gong Hei! Kick Ass Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year was so fun because I get to spend time way before the eve of CNY up till last night at my parents’ (As Chinese's custom, daughter who's married are consider out of the family and will only come a-visiting on the 2nd day during Chinese New Year. Since my husband is non-Chinese, this is not applicable. Yay for that!)

And this is also Jason’s first official CNY. He was beaming in glee the whole time because “wah so much of good food! This is the bestest Chinese New Year ever man! Evah!”

If there’s anything at all you should believe in what he says, this is the one. My grandma prepares so much of beautiful food, he had to refill his rice like, 3 times! Oh, and if you ask, he'll happily show you his wardrobe full of festive red shirts and polos too. Yes, he is THAT excited.

As the family along with my uncle's is growing in size as well as numbers, our dining room is no longer enough to house the dinner. So dad brought back 3 long tables and we combined it to make it one large table in the living room. We dined in the luxury of an air-conditioned room. It was beautiful (anything without sweat is always beautiful, I tell you).

First day of CNY also means vegetarian food, forbidding oneself from doing bad deeds, and saying bad words. But by midday, my bro and Jason were openly demanding to go hunt for meat. So we went out to tapau McD’s, and smuggled the food to the attic right under my parents’ nose, where we shared the love with my sisters and chomped the juicy meat patties away, and of course, we gambled, by our own rules. It was heaps of fun. I, of course, was the winner! A total of $4.10! So cool!

Second day was meat day again, and all’s happy! We visited my maternal grandma in Tampin, and then headed to my big aunty’s place in Kuala Pilah where we ate more meat! Do you see a very happy boy at the background? Uhm hmm.

On the 3rd day my family went up the mountains for 3 days while I had to stay at my parents’ to take care of Polly, simply because Jason couldn’t get his leave approved thanks to his boss, “You Cina kah?” -_- And then went on leave with the rest of the Malays in the office for the rest of the week. Nice one sir. You came to our wedding, remember? Dad was of course disappointed as he planned for this trip to be a close family retreat with a new addition to the family.

But time spent at home with Polly was not a waste either. I was able to set her meal time right (she refused to eat her main meals for the longest time!) and kept her busy by playing with her and going on walks with Jason in the evenings. She’s a happy, tail wagging doggy again! Now she follows everywhere I go and always casts me that puppy look when evening comes (and refused to sleep in my mom’s room at night when my family came home from Genting! Ahahahaha! Who’s your daddy now?!)

Oh how I love her!!!

Saturday night, the 7th day, was another crazy day of cleaning, preparing, cooking, serving, and entertaining guests as mom threw an open house party. There were the embarrassing pouring rain, amiable wet crowd, more fantastic food, and a culture shock for me…

Stick around to find out what's that all about? Tis to be continued...

More Money? Most Definitely!

PayPerPost is up to something again.

First I got sucked in because I was told I get paid blogging. I wasn’t too into it even after my blog was approved. And then I was told I’ll be paid more for blogging; looking at the dollar signs clearly displayed on the dashboard on PPP, they got my attention.

Today, I was told yet again that some “Big News” is about to burst from the office of PayPerPost and suddenly, I’m curious as a kitty cat! Oh boy what could it be?

My page rank has always been between 0 and 2 although I get satisfying hits. I said “between” because whenever I check my page ranking, the rank differs, at times I even get a N/A. I’m not too savvy with this whole PR stuff but I do know because of that, opportunities to blog for big money are slipping me by and that can be quite sucky when I have a lovely puppy at home to maintain for and their food and medical bills don’t come cheap!

If you ask me, I would guess and hope and crossing my fingers madly that PPP will not just help its lower ranking bloggers boost their PRs, but also come up with a blog directory open to the public to browse through. I think currently their directory is for members only. Anyway, bloggers shall then be paid for the clicks to the open directory from their blogs.

Besides that, they’ll give out freebies to the bloggers who, in return, must give out to their readers in whichever form deem appropriate, i.e. contests organized by the blogger. I think interactions like this are most valuable to boost readership and sales of the advertisers.

And lastly, maybe they’ll launch video-blogging services too! Instead of “writing” about it, imaginative bloggers get to let their creative juices flow free by coming up with videos relevant to the advertisers’ requirement. Well everyone can make a video these days with their digital cameras, so!

Since such jobs will require a little more work and time, the pay shall be higher too! And since PPP pays for real, blogging for a living is seriously no longer too far a dream.

Watchful Eyes Lurking In The Dark

The Blogger Power project is a campaign to safeguard children on the internet from pornography. I was requested to post this up in order to reach out to more site owners and to create awareness.

Although it is common sense that websites with adult contents should be password protected and be made difficult to gain access to the explicit material; however things are still not moving to the benefit of our children here online these days. So I guess a little reminder and request shall be in order.

Here’s The Official Request To All Webmasters Of Adult Sites:

“Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to
explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we
respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate
concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your
websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the
warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts
and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more
“free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information.”

If this matter speaks to your heart too like this mother of 3, simply cut paste the above short letter to your blog or website and let to campaign go on.

It Pays To Have High Traffic

I am so jealous!

Remember I blogged about how you can get paid to blog a coupla days ago?

One of my blog posts-sponsors, PayPerPost, came up with a new segmentation system, awarding bloggers with high traffic blogs. These bloggers can simply earn up to USD$ 1,000.00 per sponsored post! Can you imagine that?

Oh, picture my agony! I can see all those dollar signs but I can’t click on them and claim blogging opportunity because well, I’m not qualified. Boo hoo.

But if you have a high traffic blog, you don’t have to sulk like me now (BOO!!!). Click on the PPP button on my left sidebar, and go to payperpost.com to sign up for an account (remember to mention me as your referral, c’mon! At least share a bit of moolah love ya? :), and you’re on your way to pocketing big bucks.

Are you serious you ask? Well, apparently, PPP only charges 35% of service fee compared to some other sites like ReviewMe that charges a 100% mark-up. Hence you get high paying opportunities.

Having said all this, no sweat either if your blog doesn’t generate a high traffic, because like me, you can still sign up and earn a small decent amount over time. You’ll never know! If you work on your blog hard enough, it might just turn out to be the site that advertisers love!

The Real Reason I Eat Fries?

Just so that I have an excuse to eat salt. Really.

Review My Post & Get Paid, Interested?

If you noticed at all, some of my postings these days have this button at the end of it,



and true to what it suggests, you will get paid in reviewing my post in your own blog.

If you have a blog, and don’t mind a few extra dollars (who does?!), why not get paid to blog? It’s a neat way to earn a little extra pocket money and at the same time, do some blog marketing for yourself! And this “little extra pocket money” can really add up to a sum! (Oh they sure do! After gotten married, instead of receiving ang paus, I had to fork out money to give ang paus instead, so this really helps to minimize the damage to my wallet. Hehe)

Just click on whichever posts that you want to review from my blog, talk about it in your blog, and you will get a total of USD$7.50 per post. Simple as that! And don’t forget to add the button on your own posting too, because then others can review your posts instead and the good news is, not just they’ll get paid, YOU will get paid too! Go do the math!

So spread the news and share the love. This will help you earn cash and expand your networks and contacts. And by doing so, you will also generate thousands and thousands of links back to your site, and that means for every link and review by other bloggers, your account will grow fatter.

Now is that cool or is that cool? Give it a go!

Of Flu & Fun

So down with fever and cough. Blah.

But on the contrary…

We are going to Genting this Chinese New Year! Dad booked an apartment for 3 days 2 nights. But I think I can only join 2 days, as I’ll be starting work on Friday. Will see how Jason’s leave application turn out…

Got an email to quote for a translation project: English to French. Now that’s a start! My blogging is finally seeing light. Dad has been relentlessly cutting out recruitment ads for me and sis, I was like, “yo dad, I’ve got a kick ass job already! Plus, I’ve got a blog!”, and he went like, “block? Got blocked already some more so happy!” hehe.

Oh and by the way, today is Thursday, and I had frigging no idea! I thought it was Wednesday and that the week had just started! My flu bug is for real, seriously.

Anyway, come what may! Happy Chinese New Year y'all! Can't wait for the yummy reunion dinner!

A Starry Evening

It was a quiet night. I was home early from work. Lady boss had asked me to wrap up work at 5:30pm instead of 6:30pm. It was really nice of her. I guess. And I guess I was in such a chatty mood that I held up Jason for a good one hour after I reached home and I talked, and talked, and talked.

We had chicken hot soup, sweet sour fish, and my favourite stir fry bayam with teeny tiny anchovies for dinner. Coming home to our apartment, instead of heading straight up to our house, we hung out at the play ground instead, on the swing, under the starry night sky.

And yes, we chatted. About so many things. Sometimes I shock myself that I’m actually capable of talking non stop!

The eve of valentine’s when my dad gave his blessings to our marriage one year ago. Yes, it was a gorgeous evening, and lovely memories.

Fly Phones

About two years ago my siblings and I chipped in and bought a cell phone for my dad as Father’s Day gift, I was using an old brick Nokia model I had since forgotten, 3330 or something.

Fast forward a month, and you had me in the toilet, a squatting one for that matter. And yes, you guessed it, my trusty old brick was in my back pocket, which I conveniently forgot, and yes, it went tumbling down the toilet hole :)

As sad as I was, I mean my old Nokia was really very trusty; you can drop it however you want and it will survive. In fact, after it was fished out, cleaned, and dried, it still worked. But that also meant I get to have a new phone.

But I was also very broke. And dad “borrowed” me his Father’s Day gift, the one my siblings and I bought for him.

Up till today.

I’m still having my dad’s phone (hey, I’d be darned if I have the cheeks to return the phone back to him!); and so I decided to get a phone for him this year, either for his birthday or well, Father’s Day. Whenever I get to save enough money. I know, it sucks, two years down the road and I’m still broke! :]

I found some really cool cell phone deals at Wirefly’s. My dad is an average, basic phone user and wirefly seems to have just about all the good options. All he needs is to call out (obviously, duh!), SMS, take pictures, and MMS. Most importantly the phone must be user friendly, so I’m looking at Sony Ericsson or Nokia’s as we are so used to using Nokia’s phone by now, and SE’s layout and functions is similar.

But wirefly.com carries a wide range of phones and service providers; they even have unbeatable plans for you to choose from. Don’t know what to get for your pumpkin pie who resides half a globe apart this coming Valentine’s? Think Motorola RAZR in pink or hot magenta complete with a talk plan to sizzle up to. Oh how cool!

I especially like their cash-in-your-old-phone deals. Just find out the phone that you want and correctly assess its condition to get an instant trade-in quote, print out a prepaid shipping label, box your phone up properly and ship over to them free of charge. And all you gotta do now is to wait 14 days for a check. Neat huh?

I might do just that for a spanking new phone!

The Lil Details That Made Our Day

Being different has always been a tune I sing to, well as much as I can! And for my wedding, I’m glad I have my hubby to duet with! Heh.

He’s been a sport and took all my idealistic concepts in and tried so hard to accommodate to. Thanks largely to him, most of my ideas were able to pull through and made a difference, and hence, leaving behind a string of sweet memories for us to savor up to our ripe old age.

Here I’m going to share a few things and who knows! Maybe you’d like my idea enough to incorporate in your events, or better yet, weddings!

This is my favourite. We used a birdcage in replacement of a ring pillow. The cage was bought from a flea market at The Curve's Streetmarket.

I loved it so much, Jason had to part with RM50.00 for it. That’s a splurge, I know. But I love it!

The cage is now a deco on our coffee table, with 2 mini teddy bears in groom suit and gown in it, and a mini plateful of mints!

This is a banner Jason’s colleague got for us for free! We hung it right at the road junction where guests turned into the parking lots, so they could confirm yeah, this is the place.

It reads: You Made It! We’re So Glad To Have You With Us, along with our picture, names, time, date, and venue.

This one is Jason’s “vision”. He saw it in his mind when we were scouting for venues, and came right to this foyer at Equatorial, Bangi-Putrajaya.

We contemplated many other options, one was suggested by his very helpful friend cum bestman, Kevin P, to print curtain-like backdrop on perforated material, so that the glare from glassed wall will not annoy the guests and at the same time, the wonderful view will not be blocked out. It’s a good idea, in fact we may use it as curtains for our home, but it is one costly idea though.

So finally we decided on this one, with the help of the hotel designer, we had this up and it was stunning against the sky!

This backdrop idea was from Jason too. He was flipping through wedding magazines and came across one that is similar. After communicated with the hotel’s designer, this was the elegant result. We still have the doves with us at home. Recently we lend it to another couple who was getting married too and they love it!

We had striking gerberas dotting the aisles. My parents and I went flower shopping a day before and bought these lovelies. I then had a friend who’s amazing with floral arrangement to do this for us.

I really love the splash of colour! I don’t remember how much the gerberas cost me, but I only bought a dozen of them. Do scout and buy from wholesalers instead of your usual neighbourhood florist which will save you loads.

This, is the program I designed, printed on white paper, and had Jason photocopied by the bulk. David Bong was a sweetie in helping with the alignment. And it came out quietly striking.

There’s this little boy & girl figure holding hands walking towards eternity image at the bottom of the program which was not shown here. That’s the special touch I so adore.
The papers was bought from bookstore around the range of RM4.20/60pcs.

The handmade flower cones were made by my friend, Stephanie, it was really quick and easy to roll them up. Just make sure of the size of the cones, cut the papers to halves (or whatever size deemed appropriate) and then roll! You can get the coloured A4 papers from all bookstores for a couple of dollars.

The flowers were bought together with the gerberas and it was a bag of assorted flowers (mainly orchids, which lasted forever!) for RM8.00. I had wanted rose petals which were relatively cheaper, RM1.00 per handful, but then again, I guess it’ll come back to the same: handful vs bagful.

And my favours! They are lollipops in assorted colours. I don’t eat sweets, but I don’t know why I love the sight of lollipops so much I had to have it in my wedding. Wanna know my earlier, idealistic…uh, idea? I wanted a candy bar!!! So badly. A candy bar with big ass lollipops, popsicles, jars and jars of jellybeans. Yes, even though I don’t eat them. :)

I had cupcakes towers at my buffet lines but alas, I don’t have any pictures of them. I didn’t even get to taste them! :(

The necklace was my aunt’s. She wore them during her wedding! They are faux diamonds but totally lovely and blingy! I also love, love, love the earrings, they are my sister’s. Price RM 29.90. (They’ve since become my birthday present! Hehehehhe)

And that’s my beautiful veil. Yes, MINE! Not from the bridal shop. It was a gift from my ex-colleagues from Debenhams if I got the spelling and name correct. Priceless. And I had white roses as my hair accessory.

Living The Dream Shower

13 years ago, when my dad bought our family house, he brought us out for tiles shopping. I loved it! Mainly because I aspired to be an interior designer then but that’s a different story all together.

When we were contemplating over the tiles for the shower, I insisted my dad to get the high-gloss, marine blue tiles on display. It was obviously one of the most expensive tiles there. But they are really cool. It’s as if water was trapped in the tiles, hence making it look super cooling and it’s as if you are in the ocean. (Disney’s Little Mermaid was the “in” thing then for a girl, you see :)

And he never regretted the choice.

Besides wanting cool cookery gadgets in MY kitchen, I think the next most important space in MY house has to be the shower: the only place where privacy is promised.

It has got to be spacious, preferably with dry and wet area. Oh how I love my shower/bathroom to be dry! The shower head and taps would be the stainless steel types, the set of toilet bowl, basin, etc would be porcelain white.

The whole setting must have loads of natural lights during the days and softened, down lights at nights. So darn relaxing!

I found just the site that provides really cool shower/bath sets and parts. You should check out their designer taps! I love, love their designs!!! Really cool stuff. The only boo-boo for me is that the site, taps4less.com, is UK based, hence if you are from there, rejoice! And double rejoice because delivery is free to mainland UK!

Now, if you would excuse me, I should go sketch a picture of how MY future house would look like, just you know dear hubby, for your reference ;)

I Hate To Glamorise It But Hey JJ!

One goofy smiles.
Two starry eyes.
Many skipitty heart beats.

Those are what your favourite DJ can do to you by just simply dropping by your blog.

Until, your editor emailed you and gives you an assignment *abrupt halt of euphoric music*

So.Kill.Joy.-_-.

Me Grandma From Jamaica

Today is, as informed by JJ and Rudy of Hitz.fm, Robert Nesta aka Bob Marley aka Tuff Gong’s birthday, da man who popularised reggae outside Jamaica.

It was so darn funny listening to them Jamaican accents, and speaking da patoi, which funnily reminds me of me grandma, who was born in no other but Jamaica, da land of reggae. (Tis whole accent thing is so infectious! Me now slurrin' me words and slowin' me speech pace with da imaginary breezy reggae music at da background! Yah Mann!)

So yeah, me grandma, she was born and bred there as her family was doing business there (and some other relatives in Suriname, up until today). Do you see what I see here? You just dump a Chinese any where you want, and they’ll just start a business and do the whole survival thing for you. Talk about money minded? Or survival instinct? You tell me!

She’s got an old Jamaican passport with her baby photo in it. It’s priceless, really. Back then, da day when she was born in da hospital, they need an English name to register her birth, so da nurses in the hospital actually helped in coming up with a name, and her name, complete with a middle name, kicks arse mann!

Clarice Carmen.

Uhm hmm, that’s me grandma’s name. Me have been thinking since young that maybe me should adopt her name for me future daughter. Heh.

Me have also always thought that had me great-grandpa not fallen ill and was not on his death bed, maybe he would nebba request to travel back to China on a ship that took months to arrive.

And maybe me grandma would actually grow up there.

And maybe she would marry a local tall, 6-packed-abs, muscly-arms, strong Jamaican man.

(uh, not to say that my actual grandpa is not the above, he’s actually a very sweet… actually I’ve never met him in person… but from the pictures and stories, I can say that he’s more of a studious, goody-2-shoes sorta nice man.:)

And me father would actually be a Mista Dominique Lauren Jamaican something…

And maybe me would have those dark olive skin and sexy ringlets me so talked about!

And me name would be Maxine Lauren Jamaican something…

And me would be roaming the beaches in ma bikinis with ma pouty lips, ma big brown eyes, and uh… ma mountainous… front…?

Just… maybe :)

He Remembered The Dates!

And I didn’t.

Last 1st Feb was our 4th year 1st-time-meeting-anniversary which I nicely forgot! Boo! Anyway we were out at my mom’s the whole day and maybe I was too occupied… with the TV. Heh.

At night, when we reached our apartment, I walked into our home with tea light candles forming an aisle and candles all around the house!

Some Italian dude (well he scrambled through my CDs) was crooning from the player and a hand was offered to me for a dance.

He wished me Happy Anniversary, and then I was like, GASP! Yeah hor! :D

Schweet!

We danced, laughed, chatted in the dark amidst the candles and cooling breeze (3rd floor from the ground always promises nice, strong winds in the house… and hence dusty floors too -_-)

It was, indeed, a night to remember, its been a real long while since we had proper time off for each other, and actually talk! Couple talk! Ha! Its amazing how we are just two of us but always seem to be busy with something even though we are together, I wonder how’s it gonna be like when the kids come in!

Happy anniversary to you too babe! May our love continue to grow healthily in a million more years to come! (Hehe, yeah, no running away! :)

Three Candles' Up

Today's my big baby's birthday! Have a good one dear! :)

I'd Do It Again

After seeing this gown on ebay, I wish to have a wedding all over again. Like, right now.

Doing The Work Scene In Style

I haven’t gone on any shopping sprees for a real long time, mainly due to time constraint, besides I want to save more for our plan of buying a house.

Thank God for the nature of my job, I’m not required to wear professional work clothes, i.e. mini skirts/pants with shirt, and a blazer over it, complete with court shoes, yadda yadda yawn. On the contrary, I was asked to wear casual work clothes, like jeans and such :)

Basically my work place wardrobe consists of mainly jeans, top, and most of the time, sneakers, which my grandma makes so much of fuss about. “Aiyoh! What is this? Where got girls wear like this wan? Please lah, can you be a girl?!” that’s the gist of her Hakka shrieking.

And have I mentioned already Jason bought me a jacket for my birthday? Well he bought one saying when I attend and cover events, I can at least look more professional. Heh. (Tomorrow I have an event @ Hilton! Yay! Can wear my gift and look plofayshenal leh!)

Anyway, I’ve surfed over to BananaRepublic through couponchief.com and I found loads, and I seriously means loads of great casual office/weekend wear which I’d love to own! I love their pants selections which simply oozes attitude. Oh you know how big I am with the whole attitude thing!

The website is almost like a one stop shopping centre, you can get everything you need to cover (or uncover!) your body from head to toe: tops, tees, skirts, pants, cropped pants, jeans, suits, sweaters, swimwear (!!!), oooh and shoes and handbags!

And to relieve the dryness of your wallet, BananaRepublic is offering free standard shipping orders worth $125.00+, now that’s good news for me! The promotion ends on the 30th of April. So do head on over to the site and start filling up your shopping cart, quote them the BananaRepublic coupon code (BRFREE) and be set free from worrying about shipping fees! My fingers are all tingly with shopping bugs now! :)

Birthday Weekend

Counting my blessings on my 27th birthday:

Jason took a day off just to spend quality time with me! But I ended up keeping him waiting because I was rushing to meet my articles’ deadlines. (but then ah, he never give me notice woh!)

Jason brought me to Mid Valley (on a work day! *cough*pontengkerja*cough*) for lunch.

Jason got me a jacket which I’ve drooled after for half a year now. Amazingly he still remembers the location of the shop in Mid Valley (he tends to get lost there) and the exact camel brown jacket (!!! for a guy, it’s amazing!!!) which I’ve been dreaming of and later given up hope in.

Jason made booking in one of my favourite Italian Restaurant for dinner. But the boss didn’t honour the booking by giving the table to another customer only frantically apologize to us when we showed up, citing reason such as his staff mistaken the customer as Jason. After a 10 minute wait, dinner was on the house. What’s sweeter than free dinner?!

Actually, there is something sweeter than free dinner: the petrol kiosk cashier (accidentally) gave us an extra five dollar worth of petrol. If I wasn't too sleepy at that time, I'd be laughing all the way home.

Besides the free dinner and the free petrol, Big Guy gave me another present too! But let me savour it first before I show you the picture :)

When They Tag, They Come Pouring

1. Are your parents married or divorced? Of course married!
2. Are you a vegetarian? Wish I have the willpower to be one.
3. Do you believe in Heaven? Yup. I’ll be meeting Jesus one day up there!
4. Have you ever come close to dying? I’m still needed down here.
5. What jewellery do you wear 24/7? My wedding ring kua.
6. Favourite time of day? Breakfast time!
7. Do you eat the stems of broccoli? Yes.
8. Do you wear makeup? Sometimes.
9. Ever have plastic surgery? Thank God I don’t need any!
11. What do you wear to bed? Are you kidding? For Malaysian weather you actually
wear something to bed?!
12. Have you ever done anything illegal? Uh, beating traffic lights?
13. Can you roll your tongue? In what manner?
14. Do you tweeze your eyebrows? Nothing to tweeze.
15. What kind of sneakers? New Balance
16.Do you believe in Abortions? Oh no.
17. What is your Hair color? Brown. OK lah, dark brown.
18. Future child’s name? Cannot so anti-climax, wait till the baby comes.
19. Do you snore? No.
20. If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be? Depends lah: HK and Taiwan for food; India for those shimmery salwar khameez and bangles; Ozzie for uh, more food; US for Victoria’s Secret; Italy for gelato; and I can dream on and on.
21. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? Not a stuffed toy person.
22. If you won the lottery, what would you do first? Make sure the money is in my hand and evade tax.
23. Gold or silver? Can depend ah?
24. Hamburger or hot dog? Both also I like.
25. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? I cannot imagine lah woi!
26. City, beach or country? City and beach.
27. What was the last thing you touched? Before answering this question? Heh, you don’t want to know.
28. Where did you eat last? Mamak for lunch. Forced to take their “Briyani Fashion” (?) and cost me RM 10.20.
29. When’s the last time you cried? Yesterday morning. I was very confused and overwhelmed.
30. Do you read blogs? Of course.
31. Would you ever go out dressed like the opposite sex? No, I like my curves too much, though not much of curves lah…
32. Ever been involved with the police? I used to have a friend from the NYPD. Big, burly guy!
33. What’s your favourite shampoo conditioner and soap? Still looking for them.
34. Do you talk in your sleep? Uhh, would I know?
35. Ocean or pool? Ocean I think. Got pee in pool.
36. So, who has the original missing questions? I do. The question is, who so free to actually come this far with this I’m-really-duh mime?
37. Who would you take on a ménage à trois for a dirty weekend? Thiery Henry, but I don’t want ménage à trois!
38. Window seat or aisle? Depends also. Window if domestic, aisle if international.
39. Ever met anyone famous? Leishia.
40. Do you feel that you’ve had a truly successful life? Heading towards there.
41. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? Twirling is oh so sexy.
42. Ricki Lake or Oprah Winfrey? I watched Oprah like, 10 years ago, I liked her then.
43. Basketball or Football? Soccer.
44. How long do your showers last? Depends lah!
45. Automatic or do you drive a stick? Stickless. Easier to manoeuvre
46. Cake or ice cream? Neither a fan, but hot chocolate pudding with freezing ice cream is cool.
47. Are you self-conscious? Oh yes. But not enough to spend tons on cosmetics.
48. Have you ever drank so much you threw up? Yeah. And blabbering too. It was Smirnoff straight. How smart am I huh? And it’s adios alcohol for me since then.
49. Have you ever given money to a beggar? Yeah.
50. Have you been in love? This is a trick question man!
51. Where do you wish you were? On a lavishly plush bed, in an air conditioned room, right now!
52. Are you wearing socks? Not now.
53. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? No.
54. Can you tango? Yes if I learn.
55. Last gift you received? A jacket!
56. Last sport you played? Uhm………………………………..
57. Things you spend a lot of money on? Actually if you care to know, it’s on stupid Malaysian toll and petrol.
58. Where do you live? Unfortunately, Malaysia.
59. Where were you born? PJ. There is a difference between PJ and KL, please ah.
60. Last wedding attended? Just a week ago, cousin bro’s.
61. Spit or swallow? Euw. But spit lah.
62. Favorite position? Depends.
63. Most hated food(s)? I don’t have food that I hate with a vengeance, but dislikes got lah.
64. What’s your least fav.? Mee Goreng.
65. Can you sing? Yeah!
66. Last person you instant messaged? Uh, Aunty Khim and Sailorsim.
67. Last place you went on holiday? Phuket. Not nice wan, don’t go!
68. Favourite regular drink? Water and coffee.
69. Current Song? P. Diddy/Nicole Scherzinger, Come To Me.
70. Tag 3 friends: I’m not tagging anyone, if you want, feel free to help yourself.

For The Love Of Ringlies

I was reminded of a wedding dinner some months back, where a Chinese lady walked in to the restaurant with her African husband and a son a little under age 10.

The boy has a face that strikingly resembles a Chinese’s, but there were traces of African. So you can’t really pin-point exactly whether he’s Chinese or African. Not even a Africhinese, you know, like you can tell if a person is a Chindian.

“He’s Chinese!”
“No lah, African!”
“No, no, maybe Hawaiian!”
“No, no, no!”

Silence.

“Then?”
“He’s an African but half a Chinese with ancestors from Hawaii who’s also African who married Chinese! Hah!”

Oh well.

And his hair, I can’t forget his hair. They were little blobs of really short curls, like when you had your garden newly planted with patches of grass. It was so cute.

I think I would like my children to have curls too. The boy would have… a dark chocolaty subdued afro-do, you know, like those yummy Spanish/Italian guys who grew up in California combing the beach; while the girls would be head full of ringlets, like Corinne Bailey Rae's. That’ll be so cool. Yes?

A Crowning Problem

I recently chopped off my long, wavy hair to a little-under-shoulder length, straightened it, and spotting bangs now. I can’t exactly say I love it because I actually feel sassier and thought I looked better when my crown was a wavy perm. But I do love the fact that my head feels so much lighter to shoulder now!

Hair stylist after hair stylist never failed to be amazed with my hair; not that it’s all jet black, shiny, and water fall-like, rather it’s so thick and… well, thick, they could snip the scissors twice and the floor will be mounted with hair. It’s that scary (but fortunately too! I know!)! Contrary to during my baby days though, I had only three strands of hair above my forehead and that’s about it! Hehe.

When I was younger I did envy those with thinner hair and it seems so manageable although of course, I could hear them lamenting about how problematic thin hair is, and how they are trying all kinds of potions and shampoos to cure the problem. Ah well, human being human, whatever we have, we’d still complain eh! :)

However, I do strongly believe that if you have problem with thinning hairlines, over-the-counter shampoos and remedies will not work, so it’s a waste of money to spend on those. You reckon? Although I’m not too sure how effective it is if you were to spend thousands of moolah in hair restoration centers though because I don’t need it (yet? Oh God please, I definitely don’t need it!).

But this URL - fellermedical.com, sent over by my sponsor housed a whole range of before-and-after pictures of patients with thinning hairlines who underwent their surgical hair restoration procedure. And well, I gotta say, it’s quite convincing. They even put up videos of the procedures and offer “Lunchtime” procedures for those who are always on the run! Now that’s what I call going the extra mile in the customer service department. Heh.

Now the only sad news is, this surgical hair restoration specialist center is only available in New York. So for you who’s living in Big Apple and think you might need a consultation or two about your receding hairline, check them out, and let me know if they deliver well! :)

The Reason Behind MIA

I know, I’ve been missing in action from my own blog for a week now. No thanks to the internet connection from my office. The technician was saying it’ll take a week to fix, now that a week’s gone and the up-time is still pathetically down! And our deadlines’ up!

So I spent most of my work time at my parents to well, write, initially. It’s always initially. Until, you get distracted! Oh there’s so much to be distracted with! Polly my baby girl, the coffee machine, the left over steamed sweet potatoes, my grandmother, karencheng.com.au, the bed (!!!), you name it, they are all there calling out your name! Hehe.

This evening was my cousin brother’s wedding, it was so sweet for Jason and I to relive those moments, you know – wearing wedding gowns, the glitz, the glamour, the hair, the makeup, the attention!

I still feel I had the bestest wedding, ever! (beating my cousin’s, hands down! Shhhhhh! :p). Everyone was so involved during our tea ceremony, so many came to support, my girl friends especially! My lovely ex tuition teacher and wife, Uncle Felix and Aunty Agnes who attended our wedding ceremony, although he had had a knee surgery days before, he’d still insisted to come! And Dewgem who uh… hardly know me but still came and accompanied me from the morning till evening! I was beyond words and honour! Yeah, it was a woah for me. And yes, if you let me to, I’ll continue to talk about my wedding till the cows come home. Hohoho! :D

Of course that’s not to say my cousin’s wedding was lousy, in fact far from it! Theirs’ only a tea ceremony and a wedding dinner but it was really sweet and lovely. My cousin brother was so excited and happy that his face actually spells the words! The bride was lovely in her mermaid-bustier gown. They’ve got 2 kick ass (free) emcees, and sweet presentations by the hotel, equally kick ass zhi-muis (who came out with so many weird and gross games and tricks for the groom and his wedding party) and heng-dais (who sportingly donned the underwear-worn-outside stunt, and downed some yucky concoction of banana, chili, bitter gourd, and some other… interesting stuff…). It was really joyful and memorable!

Well, here’s to the lovely couple, Tam & Irene, and a lifetime of happiness! (and my internet connection to be quickly restored!!!)

5 Things You Don't Know About Me

I got tagged. It’s been a realllll long while! Haha.

Well, so, in order to upkeep the blogger-spirit, I guess I’m going to continue the tag.

5 things that you don’t know about me? I guess that would be everything? :)

I was fat, like 62kg fat, during my pre-uni days. Oh and tall too, so that makes me a gigantore, to quote Owen Wilson.

I’m a totally introvert. I only look tough on the outside if you happened to see me braving the streets (or shopping malls!) alone! Self-protection mah! Gotta look and walk purposefully! Oops, now you know!

I can’t stand eating out alone.

My personality is always a borderline case / mixture of this-and-that. Companies want to hire me mainly because of that, because I am uh… well, this-and-that. Can be one-leg-kick.

If you don’t know yet, I’m an extreme case of ailurophobic! I’m scared of cats. So I don't eat-out at mamaks/roadside hawker stalls if there's any sign and trace of the feline family. So now you know, don't bring me to these places already! Or I'll embarass you with my shrieks and what with my sudden jumps, and constant look out for cats, a definite conversation-killer.

The next 3 person I’m gonna tag are:

Dewgem
Fay
Jonnie

Ego Stroking

I think it’s a hoax. Or some sort of prank these crooked minded business people is pulling on us *ahem* innocent girls.

So I was approached by a female “talent scout” and asked to be model.

I laughed in her face so loud, I almost shook the ground of Mid Valley. And OF COURSE I proceeded to give her my… I mean, Jason’s number.

Tsk tskk! Such big ego!

By the way, I attended this event by L’oréal hair styling range, thank goodness I did my hair on Sunday (I straightened my hair, I now have bangs!!!), otherwise really men-siasui-kan; anyway the (male) model(s) and the stylist were so yummy and young, they made me feel pedophilic! O_o

THE AUTHORITIES OF MALAYSIA, CAN YOU PLEASE ANSWER WHY?

How many more of this picture we need to see for a change to take place? Zoe, a 9 year old dog went out of the house to relieve herself only to come back all slashed and stabbed for reason only those cold blooded stupid scums know.

Oh the best part? When lodging a police report, the dog owner was told that the police do not have control over what happened to her dog, and when told of suspicious men around her neighbourhood, she was told that she doesn’t need to make report for that.

O_o HAH???

So what then? We wait until ugly things happened then only we lodge report lah? Do they have brains or not in the first place?! Gee I’m never short of amazements what the government is doing with our tax money by hiring polices who couldn’t care less about the people’s security, let alone a harmless dog’s.

ARGHHHHHHH. I have it up till here! My blood is boiling with vulgarity now!!!!!!!!!!!

100 Posts Of Memories

This is my 100th post on letsbrewlove.

Just a hundred posts and we got through what felt like a lifetime of ups and downs:

1. We fought with my parents’ objection to our relationship for 2-3 years, 2006 being the climax because we started talking about getting married.


2. Jason followed my family on 2006 New Year’s day to my ancestors’ graveyard (as invited by my dad) to demolish the tombstones. It was dad’s decision as he feels being a small family with 3 daughters and 1 boy, eventually all of us will ditch going back to Pahang, his hometown, to clean the alters, so he hired help together with us all, dug out our great/grandparents ashes and scattered them down the Pahang river. Kinda like burning the bridge, especially for dad, because there’s no more reason for us or even him to go back there already. I’m not sure if it affected him, but the sentiments of it all makes me feel sad about it.


3. The second day of New Year, Jason and I went on to the bridal studio for our engagement picture-taking. I felt so pretty in those hand-picked gowns. I wore my first pair of fake eyelashes. And I felt like a million buck professional model as the whole shoot took only like 6 hours to complete as compare to a whole day for most couples. And hey, I get a variation of “Leishia you are very photogenic!” statements from A LOT of people! Hohoho! To that I say, of course! Whose genes izzit in the first place hah? :)


4. Had a(nother) serious discussion with my parents at my home. My parents were still hoping we won’t make it with the age-old reasons of racial and religion problems. But obviously, they’ve mellowed down a lot, and they showed obvious signs of acceptance. The day was Valentine's day eve. God is wonderful and merciful to both sides! The whole chat was so lively and vibrant; we had so much of laughing! My parents are amazing! (That explains why their daughter is amazing too :)


5. letsbrewlove was born. And hence the whole madness of preparing for a wedding started too. We didn’t have a lot of money to splurge on our wedding either, so a lot of times we both were torn between practicality and dream-atology, on top of that, being 2 different individuals, obviously we both have different tastes and opinions. Lots of laughter, tears, and quarrels took place. The amazing part? Along came hope and love too, not just between the 2 of us, but with our family too.


6. I quitted my previous company in the automotive line, a place where I’ve spent all of my "formative" years in. God is good; He really does have a whole life blue print for me even before I came to know Him. The day I attended my uni convocation, I was hired to work for the company. From contract based I became a permanent employee, from doing translation and intepretation I became an assistant to the director, from no one I became some one. There were of course, goods and bads, but I went through it all. And on top of that, made a handful of really great girl pals from the office who even after I’ve left the company for good, they continued to stay back after work to practice an Indian dance for my wedding. I was really speechless, up until today.


7. The wedding day came, and gone. Everything went so smoothly and so beautifully we can’t stop thanking God and all who supported and helped us through out. The attendance was overwhelming so much so there weren’t enough seats during the ceremony. Jason was handsome in the mandarin-collared suit my dad tailor made for him. My dad walked me down the aisle like a champ, and he’s my dad! (Damn, writing this line makes me want to cry! LoL). We were able to cover the hotel bills from the ang paus collection, and actually have extras to move on and we splurged a little by treating ourselves to the hotel’s buffet dinner at night after the wedding ended... OK, truth is, I was so overwhelmed with bottled up emotions and missing Polly and my family, I couldn’t stop crying, so in order to stop the tears, Jason stuffed me with food! (Anyway! :)) Oh, and I was transported around in my dream car on the wedding day! How cool is that?!


8. The following day, we rushed in packing and transporting all our belongings and gifts from the hotel to my parents’ place, and my dad, mom and sis sent us off to the airport for our honeymoon. They were so much more light-hearted during the journey, heck, they were in such high spirit even during the wedding dinner which they called for! I guess they felt finally a burden (that can’t be me now? -_-) has been lifted from their shoulders and all’s well, we are a family now.


9. I’ve, of course, moved to Bangi, where my hubby, Jason lives and works, and we started to build a family and a home of our own from scratch. It’s not all rosy, and the house is always in a mess because I’m such a lousy housekeeper but I believe we are enjoying it. And the most important thing is, it’s Jason who’s living in the mess with me and not anyone else!


10. After 3 months of resting (uh, more of procrastinating) God blessed me with a job, no, a career that I could only dream of in the past, in the most amazing way! I’m a writer now. I do creative writing. I go to cinema to watch movie for free before it’s released and test food from hotels and Bangsar-gy bistros and restaurants when you’re sulking over your boss at work (LOL I can’t help boasting this bit, whoo hoo! Oh forgive me dear Lord! Hahaha OKOK stop it, seriously!). I’ve got a friendly team to work with (basically that’s me, my editor and my designer). I’m given free hand to design and write whatever I want in my sections and I hardly get the cut! Seriously, I’d be lying if I tell you I don’t like to go to office now :D And you know what? The beginning of the month is always more relaxing because we’ve finished with the magazine for a typical month, and so, I have all the time and freedom to type this long ass post to torture you readers now!

Here’s to the 100th post of letsbrewlove, and many more 100s to come! And to you, like I always say, who made it this far too! Chin up! :)

My First Books

Yup, I’ve published a short poetry e-book!

I’ve been meaning to do some publishing work on my own but never gotten to it. So this New Year I reckon I should get my ass moving before I get too old and regret!

To kick start, what I did was I published some of my old pieces in the form of an e-book. Hopefully I’ll get my way around this whole self-publishing thing and produce more good works.

Surf on over to my host and lend me some support will ya? :)

P/s my first issue of magazine’s out too! You can pick up free copies from Starbucks Coffee, Coffee Bean, San Francisco Coffee, Domino’s, Shakey’s, Secret Recipe, Strudels Café, Haagen-Dazs, Dome Café, Red Box, MPH Bookstore, Kenny Rogers, Delifrance, Seed Café, Austin Café, Austin Chase Coffee, and BHP outlets.

P/s/s I hope you’ll enjoy reading the January issue and give me feedback for improvements. Thank you!

P/s/s/s advertising overload, I know! Hehe

Blogsvertise: Got A Blog? You'd Want Some Cash Too

Hailed 2 hours drive down south, miche, the lady who has the perpetual ability to sniff out the smell of greenback has introduced to her world of bloggers about blogsvertise.

The site allows you to talk about their listed advertisers and actually earn some cash from doing it. I thought it’s pretty neat so I jumped on the bandwagon too; I mean, hey, a girl’s gotta earn her living man! And if this pays her bill, she jolly well get it on! :)

So when they do approve my application, I guess I’ll be doing a little bit more reviewing here on top of the places and movies which is what I’m doing now; the only difference is, I’ll be hearing the kaching sound a little louder this time around! I hope this'll work out!

Check them out yourself and see if we can be fellow reviewers. Heh.

A Pleasant Surprise

No, no, the toll rate didn’t go down; my pay check is not raised, yet; I still have bills to feed; and my Adsense is generating me nil income!

Notice how everything is about money, money, and more money? Haiks… anyway the pleasant surprise came in the form of Joanna Siew Lian - a high-school-through-pre-U friend whom I’ve lost touched with many, many years ago. I was having dinner at a kopitiam I never thought I’d go to have it not been pouring like cats and dogs last Friday!

She’s a special girl, because she can’t speak, and she can’t hear. Through out her schooling days, she depended on her sheer will power to acquire knowledge and came out a champion.

She was also the one who taught me, along with a few other friends, the sign language. We learnt the ABC signs and a few other signs for basic words, and we would communicate by spelling out our conversations with our hand. It was interesting, and amazing, how relationships were bonded even though verbal communication was totally out of the picture!

I recognised her immediately from afar, and with a pumping heart, I approached her table. She was having dinner with her family. I was glad she remembered me, and I was even more glad I remember my signs as I tried to introduce myself!

It was really a sweet reunion even though brief. Oh this lazy bum, I shall be more in touch with my friends, and be reminded to keep in touch, even if its just through SMS. Now, that would be my first 2007 New Year Resolution.

Blood Diamond: The Bloodied Soil Of Africa

It was a fantastic movie, to say the very least. The poverty, the need for survival, the smuggling of natural resources to fund wars, the civil wars between brothers, the rich country made poor, the father who never gave up on his son, the same old story line; only a different setting, a different cast, a different twist.

The year was late 1990s, set against the backdrop of civil war and chaos in Sierra Leone. Danny Archer, a South African mercenary; and Solomon Vandy, a Mende fisherman; are joined in a common quest to recover a rare pink diamond, for different intentions. With the help of Maddy Bowen, an American journalist whose idealism is tempered by a deepening connection with Archer, the two men embark on a trek through rebel territory - a journey that could save Solomon’s family and give Archer the freedom he thought he would never have.

I thought all 3 leads were great in their roles: DiCaprio with his Krio speaking tongue - a Sierra Leone Creole based on a mixture of Nigerian and English languages, and convincing acting (confirmed out of his post-Titanic heartthrob image!); Djimon Hounsou for his wonderful portrayal of a down to earth, family-loving African father who is tough yet humble (his body build is amazing! O_O hehe) and witty even! And the beautiful Jennifer Connelly who looks so good yet so real on-screen and she delivered a plausible acting as a hard cookie too.

I must say, the movie can be quite gory and disturbing what with the blood shedding and killing; young male children were shown being thrust with guns and brainwashed with drugs, and taught to kill. You see them holding weapons shooting away, all the while with colourful school bags hung to their back, and they were told that all this killing is being a man and that they were doing it for the country. Can you imagine that, can you imagine your young child being taught to operate guns and kill civilians? It was unsettling. But real.

A quick search on the net and you will find the movie was actually creating somewhat of an uproar in the diamond industry. The De Beers Corp expressed their reservations that the film will reduce public demand for diamonds. But fact remains that they were, indeed, precious lives mindlessly killed to feed the (diamond) hungry market. While watching the movie, I suddenly remembered a statement made by an ex colleague, who happens to be a she, that an engagement ring must be the equivalent of the proposer’s 3 month-salary (note the usage of “must”).

And I recalled during the period of preparing for my wedding, I did a lot of research on the net on wedding related websites, I noticed how almost every woman put so much of attention on the cuts and weights and prices of their wedding and engagement rings, it was sad. Of course at that time, my focus was more on let the ring be symbolic to the unity of a man and a woman instead of the value of the bling itself (and I was being ignored when I made that comment in their forums, like, totally. -_- Heh.)

But of course not the entire industry is filled with blood diamonds, or what we called, conflict diamonds. If you insist on diamond to prove your love for each other, the least you can do is find out and insist on the authenticity of the stone. Alternatively, you always have the choice of synthetic diamonds. It all depends on you, really. Its cliché, I know, but you as the consumer can really, really make a difference! So be wise.

Movie will be released on the 18th of January 2007, go catch it!

Happy New Beginning!

My salary’s out! So cool! Me happy! The thought of being able to earn money is good. After 3 non-productive months, I think I'll lay off the idea of resigning for a long while now. Funny how time and extreme condition (hey, not being able to shop is an extreme condition!) can change one’s mind. Hehe.

I opened my bank account with my first pay check, yay! Treat dear hubby to a nice, filling dinner, and had really nice, fleshy durians!!! We bought 2 biji, ate one, another one left for tomorrow night.

Oh, and many thanks to Jonnie and Lenny who treated us to New Year’s lunch and bought us a nice gift. It was sweet catching up with you guys again. It has been so long!

Anyway, chubby is an “in” thing now... right? May the new year brings you loads of good food! :)

I'm A Geek. I Know.

I’ve come up with a, what I call, super die hard luxurious to-buy list. It won’t be a wish list because it’ll remain just a “wish” if it’s so, however a “to-buy list” means there are chances I’ll get it, either as a present *hint* or I’ll save up enough for the items, in a matter of time. It's all in the mind, ya know.

Yay! Just the thought of it gives me orgasmic shivers! Heh.

In no specific order, I present to you: Leishia’s 2007 Super Die Hard Luxurious To Buy List! *cue Superman theme music* Together with the justifications of why I need these babies.

Numero uno: SONY PLAYSTATION PORTABLE (PSP)

Why I need it? Because when it comes to punctuality, no one can beat me. In another word, I’m always made to wait. Now with my job I get to travel a fair bit, I always ended up being early, (as early as 1 and a half hour before the events start; why so early, you ask? Well I have a reason for that too, that’s because I live so far away from the town, so being early is the only way to make sure I’m not late. Another reason being, I’m a punctual freak, I can’t stand being late.) So being early means I need something to occupy my time; no, having breakfast and reading newspaper won’t cut it, because I eat and read pretty darn fast, and I don’t want to lug a book around. So OBVIOUSLY, playing games are the bestest past time :D

P/S: If PSP is really, really out of reach, Nintendo Gameboy Advance is good enough too.

Numero dos: A Canon digital camera. I haven’t done my rounds of research, but so far, my heart is for the Powershot and Ixus series: for its reputation and shape.

Why I need it? Because I am a *ahem* writer. It only makes sense that I have a camera with me to do my write up and couple them with photos from my point of view. OK lah, I lied. The real reason is being I got fed up with my current RICOH camera, because it’s just so… not nice to use? The picture quality totally sucks too! So it’s sitting in the drawer at home now. I haven’t even download my pictures from our honeymoon trip 3 months back!

Numero tres: A laptop. I don’t know much about brands and their models, but so far, just judging by the appearance and woah factors, I’m salivating over a wide screen Sony VAIO and a Toshiba Satellite, in black or chrome, can act as a mirror too! Mwahahaha!

Why I need it? Because I am a *ahem* writer. It only makes sense that I have a laptop at my convenience to capture *ahem* my inspirations and that I’ll be able to *ahem* work from everywhere. Me professional onot? ;)






Numero quatro: Fergie’s Dutchess album.

Why I need it? Because I love Fergie’s husky-but-sweet-and-almost-sultry-full-of-attitude voice. I love her attitude. I love London Bridge. I love the beat. I love how the music puts me in a party mood. I love how it makes me feel I’m full of attitude too. Hohoho. Never mind the fact that she is loud, and she can be vulgar, beyond this I see an entertainer in her and she doesn’t pretend or find the need to prove that she is a good, nice, girl next door. The rawness. I like.




Numero cinqo: An iPod MP3 player. In white, or black… or silver, fuchsia pink is OK too. Nah, I think I’ll stick to white…. Or black… argh.

Why I need it? Recently I find myself listening to loads of hip hop and R&B stuff, with some alternative and rock thrown in, besides some numbers I grew up with too. OK, that’s basically everything. Urgh, never mind. Bottom line, I’m getting back into listening to music, and I find myself strangely having cravings for a hitz fm morning crew dose every morning, and frankly, I can’t get enough of them. Hmm.

So yeah anyway, if my PSP tak jadi, then I’ll love myself an MP3 player. The reason for an iPod is because I like the colours and I like the shape. It’s all about appearance, I know, very shallow. But I want!

So there you have it! That’s basically all that I want, and that basically I’ll need a whole life to work for these babies. Oh well, no pain, no gain! :) Happy New Year y’all!

P/S: While I’m at it, I’ll also need a big ass, stylish bag, preferably in white synthethic leather, to carry all my babies everywhere I go! Yay! *Orgasmic shivers* again. Ooooh!

Throwing In Some Updates & A Recipe Too

The past weekend had been a glutty one! Starting with Friday night, the 21st of December, where Chinese normally celebrates the “arrival of winter”, or dong zhì. My mom asked us to go back home to have dinner; my grandma cooked so much of beautiful food which I haven’t eaten for like, ages! OK, I know what you’re going to say, that I should learn from my folks and cook at home. Go on, hit me.

But the point is, my grandma is the best cook on earth! She brewed one of my favourite soups! Onion chicken soup! It’s awfully easy to make, just boil a handful of onions till its soft and almost mushed and dissolved, taking care not to overcook and burn them, then put in some cubed carrots if you will and chicken parts, and some pounded pepper, (pepper powder is fine if you don’t have the grounds). Bring to boil and simmer over low heat for a couple of hours and add just a little salt to taste before serving; then dish out with more pepper powder if you like, and a dash of soy sauce. It’ll be finger licking good! I especially love the chicken breast when dipped in soy sauce (I love soy sauce in my soups! No need for salt, soy sauce is the way to go!)! Yummo!

So after dinner, we went straight on to join our home-life for another round of food! Not many turned up, but it was a good, quiet fellowship; until Jason brought up my creepy story in Mid Valley, then all hell broke loose and everyone shared their creepy, ghost stories! -_- I cannot sleep after that lah!

So with all the food to digest, and ghost stories to stomach, I couldn’t sleep till pretty late, and ended up waking up late the following day, the day which we were supposed to wake up early, clean up the house, and balik kampung to Melaka. Jason was a sweetie; he didn’t wake me up but cleaned up the whole house himself (which is what he does almost all weekends. Oops! :). Piggy me slept through the whole time what with his splashing of water to wash the toilet, and moving of furniture to sweep and mop. Heh. Tired mah.

Flash floods hit our southern states with Johor being the worst hit state during the pre-Christmas week. Melaka wasn’t spared either but thank God my in law’s place wasn’t affected. Scenes of submerged houses, floating cars, and rising death tolls bombarded the news and we half expected to see a ghostly Melaka town, but Jason (not me ah!) was rather disappointed to see all things were rather normal, and life goes on like any other day; but if we look closely, of course we see the terrible aftermath of the flood. Every family threw out minimum one set of their furniture, and all things were taken out from the house to be sunned, the houses were muddied, and evoked terrible fishy stench. And most victims are like any one of us, an average income earner with a family of youngs to support. It was sad.

We put up the weekend over at Sis. Chye Hong’s and we had a wonderful time fellowshipping. Her son, Zeph and Jason joined the church members and went on cleaning rounds to help flood victims to wash their houses on Christmas Eve. Jason loved it and said this should be the way to spend Christmas day - helping peeps in need instead of spending money for luxuries and jollies. The guy’s got a point.

I, the lazy bum, spent the day at David Bong’s cyber café to clear up my pending write ups; I still have 5 more articles to cover and it’s like what? 5 days more before New Year’s Day! But I’m so proud of myself because yesterday saw me churning up 3 magazine-page full of articles and by these 2 days I shall be good for the New Year countdown.

We’ve also met up Jason’s boss who’s spending the weekend holidays in Melaka, and we had thosai and Masala thosai! (I’m now officially a Masala Thosai fan!); spent Christmas Eve night having home cooked dinner prepared by Sis. Chye Hong before we headed out to the lovely Catherine and Say Wee and their daughter, Rachel’s place, where we had more food, Christmas carols, root beer float, Mr. Poo’s witty banters, and loads of laughing. The couple is one of the best house decorators in town; Christmas house decoration is an annually custom. And the home is a cosy whimsical land every year, without fail. We bought a Christmas cake and spend the quiet Christmas night with Sis’ Chye Hong and her children. It was nice. Too bad Chei Keat can’t be home for Christmas, but we all look forward to his home coming for New Year though! Oh, and Sis Chye Hong blessed us with Christmas lunch organized by the church, and we had scrumptious, village-style Chinese dishes!

You tell me, how not to get fat ah? Oh, and for Christmas, Jason bought me Starbuck's Coffee Frappucino and a box of chocolate! Bliss.

Lai Det Sure Kena Wan!

OK, I’m not complaining and I don’t want to complain, but I just find it extremely mind boggling every time I chew over it… what just happened this morning.

My company is having this little pre-Christmas party gathering thing, you know, with food, can drinks, and lucky draws. So the hype was building up since the beginning of the month about the lucky draw’s prizes: DVD and CD players, an expensive watch, thermos flasks, luggage bags, and oven. Every one in the office was eyeing the DVD player, of course. And its exciting for me too considering the prizes up for grab during the lucky draws at my previous company were, well can foods from the hampers presented by the suppliers.

So as the morning party started, food was shared and can drinks were popped, the time came for lucky draw too. Employee’s name was called one by one to pick their destiny. I thought I didn’t want to be an anti social so I joined the crowd, only to go back to my desk when I waited forever and got bored waiting. Many minutes later, some body called my name from across the room signalling me to “come draw your lucky number!”

I went over, and I saw only 2 numbers left, which were meant for me and the other new comer guy. And then I realized, hey, the container that housed the numbers was different. It was a pink Tupperware earlier, and now, it’s yellow. And hey there’s still quite a bit of nice items left, so how come both the new comer guy and I got the same item from a different but smaller box? We both got a ball point pen in an aged plastic box; obviously kept for many months, if not years.

And then it dawned on me, they actually categorised the numbers into 2 or 3 sets. One set of numbers was meant for the management / office execs, and the other set was for the so called lower ranking peeps, like the promoters, despatch, and new comers like me and the guy.

So naturally, all the good stuffs were for the first set of people, and the pariah things were for the latter. You tell me, got like that one or not ah? Where got lucky draw like that wan? They already predestined what we get. Cis! That's cheenaman company for you! :)

P/S The big boss got the expensive watch. Surprise!

Night At The Museum: History's Never Tis Real

Ben Stiller rocks my world! Totally!!! And “Night At The Museum” is the proof. I just came back from the media screening and it’s a beautiful world all over again after all the chuckling and laughing!

Stiller plays Larry Daley, a dreamy, almost geeky father who’s divorced with a son. Even though he’s perpetually down on luck, he believes he is destined for something big. The “big break” came when he accepted a job as a graveyard shift night watchman at a museum of natural history. What seemed to be a quiet night turned out to be a circus when the exhibits in the museum magically came to life after sun set.

As things spiral wildly out of control, Larry must find a way to control the magic to stop a nefarious plot and save the museum.

There are too many scenes that I love, love so much, and IMHO, I really think this flick is a good de-stress-er. With Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Robin Williams, Patrick Gallagher, and Brad Dumb-Dumb-wants-Gum-Gum Garrett, the movie sure came to life and sparks off many funny, heart warming scenes.

A sure way to go if your looking for a good time out laughing with your friends and family this coming Christmas! Night At The Museum will be released on the 28th of December 2006. I want to watch again!!!

On a very different note, I arrived at Mid Valley rather early this morning, at a little before 9, and I desperately need the toilet but all of them were locked and the mall was eerily quiet and dark. I managed to find one 1 floor down from the cinema and in I went. On my way out, there’s this kiddy-ride machine with a life sized boy figurine on it, “looking” at my direction; when I was nearing it, the figurine uttered “Hello! Would you like to have a go?” and I instinctively answered “No, thank you,”

O_o

After I said it, there was an explosion in my mind, like those when a rocket takes off, boom! And I was like, what the heck?! I answered a talking statue who was… talking to me?! And why is the machine turned on at that ungodly hour for a mall?!

Hey Mr. Shawn Levy, I think “Night At The Mall” will make a good sequel.

S.P.O.O.K.Y I tell ya!!!

Of Inhumanity & Strays

Last night we were out having dinner at one of those dirty chinese food court, and I met this most beautiful dog, well after my Polly! Hehe.

She has a coat of almost shiny short black fur; a pair of most striking, dark grape-like eyes, but she was kind of limping on her hind leg when she runs; it breaks my heart when I saw the fear in her eyes whenever she came across any on coming pedestrian, and she’d jogged away, with her limp tail tucked between her legs. Jason would call me paranoid (so you won’t be the first lah) but I really did feel what she felt!!!

You know how people cast you “puppy eyes” look? When they tilt their heads down and look up slightly with a subtle hint of plead and fear? That’s exactly how she looked at me when I fed her my stick of satay. So I begged and pleaded my way to Jason and got him to buy 2 pieces of duck… uhh… body part where it houses the brain to feed her (well they don’t sell chicken bones!) and went around searching for her. And finally she emerged from the crowd, and was wagging her tail when we motioned her to come over.

Came over she did, rather cautiously, and when she knew there’s no hostility, she went on to indulge her dinner. I was so happy! Well, at least if tomorrow those evil, worm-infested municipal council homo sapiens were to come for her, she’d at least die with a full stomach.


Edit: I took out my previous post full of uhm, bad words, on what I saw those brainless murderers did to harmless stray dogs near my office to keep you from getting shock with my beautiful vocabulary and language competency. If I’ve astonished you in any way (which I’ve already did to some, hehe, I was really very angry mah!), my apologies, however I reserve my right in free speech in my own personal blog. So unless we seriously strive to make this country a more humane place for all (stray dogs exclusively included), there’ll be lots more for me to bitch about.

The Beauty In Me: We're All Born With It

An invitation to Maybelline’s The Beauty In Me finale came to our office last week, and I was asked to go along. The dreading part? It’s down in KL, at the Espanda Club and I’m expected to drive there myself! (And the parking cost me $6.30! Gah!) Blah. But thank God! I braced the traffic and the whole idea of driving down to KL, and back! All. By. Myself.

I got first hand view by having a seat right beside the catwalk aisle and it was all cool. You can see the models’ facial scars and uneven skin tons! They are human after all! And the whole time I was wondering how they can stay so stick thin! Gosh! It’s like the slightest force will break them into 2. But they’ve got this attitude thing oozing from every part of them, and I likey! The only down side was I didn’t bring my camera. Ish! Speaking of which, I’d really like me a Canon or Sony. Fingers crossed I can save enough for one! You can really see the difference between a, oh I don’t know, say Sony and a… Ricoh? Heh.

Oh yeah, what’s the contest’s all about huh? Well Maybelline’s gone to all colleges to hand pick the girls to be groomed to the next top make up artist. About 400 girls from all over applied and it was down to 10, and along the way, 1 girl dropped out because she couldn’t cope up with the pressure and hence, last night we saw 9 young, college girls at work, vying each other for the grand prize of a paid trip to New York to learn make up from Maybelline’s top make up honcho, Troy Surratt. They are all so cutesy and small in size, and nervous too! The hosts were 3R’s girls: Rafidah and Celina. And the theme to which the girls have to work their magic on was “New York”.

The girl that I rooted for didn’t win, I love her model! First she looks like Lucy Liu, and then, she’s all smileys besides being cool, at one time she was wearing this huge ass white rimmed sunnies on her head, and the next she was wearing a camel coloured newsboys cap, with her hair all tied up to a pony tail and then plaited, and then I love I LOVE the way she interprets New York! She looked so fun, so autumn-y, so happy, so… New York! But alas, she didn’t win. Blah.

The show ended literally, with a bang, which scared the heck outta me with its boom of confetti, I hope no cameras captured that picture of me jumping off my seat. Hehe.

Oh hail Lucy Liu! How I love you!

Chic Est Mon Nom, Chéri

OK I know my wedding was 3 and a half months ago, and I'm practically got tired of arranging my wedding photo albums (alsthough I still feel very pretty every time I look at those pictures hehe). But here's a quiz no girls can resist, so I had to act all teenage-y and take the quiz and walk out being a "Monique Lhuillier Bride". Me happy! Je suis très chic et stylo, sais toi? :)

Which Beautiful Wedding Gown Are You?

You're a Monique Lhuillier gown! Tres chic and stylish!
Take this quiz!








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Gimme 11!

What tunes do you loop on your mp3 player while lunging for breath in the gym or out exercising?

On another note.

I’m a little cheesed. I was actually, supposedly, essentially, matter of fact-ly, get to go watch GIFA’s football match today, but my bigger boss wanted us to cover another event because the organizer’s our advertising partner, and hence making it important. But heck, what is more important than watching hunky, sweaty bollywood stars chase balls?! *sulks*

I mean… not that I so die-hard like hunky, sweaty bollywood actors lah…. No lah, not at all! *die-die also won’t admit!*

A Phone Of Our Own

The Telekom man finally came late last evening after much postponement! Today the line will be activated and we’ll have our internet connection and a, get this, house phone number to call our own soon! Yay to that!

Just a little before that, I covered an event of a newly opened karaoke joint; I even did it interview-style! LoL. Well it was funny. Uh… anyho! I guess I’ll be doing more reviewing jobs now on, which I kinda enjoy it, I mean I get to go places, and meet people instead of sitting in the office processing paper work to make OTHERS’ life easier. Plus I can punch out on time without bosses making noise of me “not staying 15 minutes more to socialize”, man I couldn’t get over that one! Ha!

After This Our Exile

Just came back from the screening of After This Our Exile (Fù zi in Chinese, meaning father and son) starring pop singer/actor Aaron Kwok, Charlie Young, and the lovable Ian Gouw Iskandar. The movie will be opening in Malaysia on Dec 7, so be forewarned that spoilers are ahead, hehe.

The story takes place in a small town up north of Malaysia about a man past his prime whose unwedded partner left him for his incapability of taking care of the family both financially and emotionally, leaving behind a young, innocent son, caught in a messed up adult world. The movie saw Kwok taking on a challenging role as a husband and father with a streak of abusiveness in him, trying desperately to be loving in order to keep the family together, only failing miserably due to his addiction to gambling and a proud attitude.

After this Our Exile won the Best Asian Film and Best Artistic Contribution at the recently concluded Tokyo International Film Festival, and has also garnered 3 wins at the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for Best Film, Best Actor (Kwok), and Best Supporting Actor (Iskandar).

Well, I don’t know if it’s just me or well, me. I feel both the lead actor and actress are trying really hard to speak with the Malaysian Cantonese accent which makes it a little awkward, for me at least, to totally immerse myself in the story and feel “Malaysian”.

But having said that, the movie brought a refreshing touch of reality which reminded me that how blessed most of us are to be surrounded by supportive loved ones, have education, a job, and basically a whole life in front of us to live! So what is it about a quarrel with parents, squabble with siblings, calculative boss, and bank loans to repay when tragic family dramas are taking place every day in some corners, away from societal help, resulting in irreparable endings?

It’s been awhile since I last saw this genre of movie, I enjoyed the slow pace set through out the film; it’s like a walk down a quiet kampung lane in the hot, humid afternoon: enthralling yet, disturbing.

If you have the time, catch the movie, and ponder, what’s the world like outside of your comfort zone? Think about it.

Staying Sweet

I think I’ve developed a sweet tooth lately. I’m all for cakes, muffins, pastries, and now, I’d give anything for a huge piece of warm chocolate (or apple crumble!) pie drizzled with some yummy chocolate or vanila sauce and a steaming hot cup of frothed coffee, like really now!

Oh boy, it must be the air con that blows directly to my face, I’m trying to keep warm with layers of clothes and cardigan topping it off with my shawl yet I still feel miserably cold.

Ah… I dream of pies and something hot to drink…

A Come Back Note

I’m at work! Well that sure sounds good. Hehe.

Life’s great, it’s getting back to how it used to albeit changes and adaptations got to be made, of course. At least I’m getting back on the job market. It’s a small company but I think I’ll enjoy it, especially with my job scope! I mean, hello, no administrative work!!!! Bring it on any time!!!

My write up on a restaurant last week will come in print this week, I’m excited. I mean, after all, it’s my first article gone public ;) I shan’t be complaining too much, despite for the fact that my computer has no UBS slots for me to stick my pen drive into. Heh.

So anyway, here’s just a little update, saying I’m alive!

Last weekend we went back to Melaka because Jason’s mom wasn’t feeling too well and got hospitalised, thank God she’s doing fine now. We attended a wedding too, one of Jason’s old church member’s daughter. It was simple and nice. How weird, just a couple of months ago, it was ours and it was practically madhouse. Hah. Anyway, no pictures, because need I remind myself? My computer has no UBS slots! Gah!

Oh yeah, a happy belated birthday wish to Michelle who celebrated her birthday on the Nov 30th. We totally forgotten it was her birthday and just went about having breakfast with her and David until the clock struck 12 midnight that day. Hehe. Good thing we had dim sum and we paid. So consider the meal was specially for you lah! :)