Jokes anyone?

What is the Employee Provident Fund for Singh?
It’s Kumpulan Wang Singhpanan Pekerja!


How do you order a house specialty from a singh restaurant?
May I have your Singhature dish please?

Some silly singh jokes that I came across… no offence to all the Singhs out there. :D

Lucky Draw - Count ME IN!!

I have won something during the lucky draw from the last 3 companies' annual dinner that I have attended. Yes... I feel kinda lucky!

2007 - A brand new Artek portable hdd casing that comes with 80GB Hitachi 5400rpm 2.5" hdd.







2006 - A brand new toaster and a water filtering machine










2005 - A brand new 512MB Ipod Shuffle








Anyone that needs some lucky draw "drawing power"? :P Please invite me to your company's dinner!

I'm a Foxprorian

You must be thinking that I belong to some computer geek club that is very crazy about foxpro.. sorry.. you're wrong!

Foxpro is the sports team that I belong to in SITI. This saturday will be the annual inter-dept basketball competition and I am one of the chosen one to play! :P

Basketball has been my favourite sports ever since secondary school.. I used to play basketball everyday after school.

My new pair of sports shoes... in 4 years

I have been searching for a new pair of sports shoes for very very long and now I've finally found it!!!

See it here!

My first painting

Since the first time I saw the painting more than a year ago…. I was captivated by it.

Yesterday, when I walked past the gallery. I made the decision to purchase it and this will adore the wall of our new house.

It’s a good investment, and I am very happy with the painting. Some facts about the painting.

A Special Moment (Le leçon de tricot)

45 x 33 inches

Oil on canvas

Signed and dated 1874 (l.r.)

Emile Munier (1840-1895)

Munier was the must favored and prized student of famed French artist, William Adolph Bouguereau. It was as a result of Bouguereau's training that the porcelain-like features of the skin are derived in his paintings. He traveled with Bouguereau and A. Lucas studying and painting in the various museums through Europe.

His favorite subjects, as those of his teacher, were genre scenes and portrait paintings (primarily of peasant girls). Munier exhibited frequently in the Parisian Salons between the years of 1869 and 1895. At the Paris Salon of 1882, Emile Munier received honorable mention for a portrait of a young girl.

Today, Emile Munier has become the artist to watch. Most collectors are comparing him to William A. Bouguereau. They feel that his works are very under valued. Works by Emile Munier can be found in important private and museum collections through out the United States and Europe.

Stitch!

Panaromic view of the Perth City and Swan River from the Kings Park.

Fairy

We've met a fairy just right infront of London Court, Hay Street Mall in Perth.

Baby Dee calls these ----- Fairy Dust! :D

Fremantle Harbour... breathtaking view

Kailis

Kailis, in one of the native australian aboriginal language, means the boomerang.

Well, but I am not talking about the boomerang this time. Kailis - Fishmarket Cafe in Fremantle, WA is one of the oldest and more well known seafood restaurant. (actually, most the the cafes around there claimed that they're the oldest and serve the best Fish n Chips).

Some photos of the restaurant.

More on Swan Valley

Picturesque view of a lake during our wagon ride

Rocky bringing us down a rocky trail! :)

Sheeps grazing on the open land...

Swan Valley Vineyard

During our visit to Swan Valley in Western Australia, we have had the chance to get pretty up close with the vineyard around the area.

It's a beautiful sight, too bad it's just after the harvest season thus we don't get to see or pluck grapes directly from the vines. Anyway, it's still an eye opening experience.

Do you know that table grapes are usually grown on T-shaped stands because table grapes needs plenty of shade thus T-shaped stand is ideal for the grapes to grow and be sheilded from the sun.

Where else, wine grapes are grown on Y-shaped stands because of the totally opposite reason. They need plenty of sunlight thus Y-shaped stand will enable to sun to penetrate deeper into the middle of the vines.

Interesting indeed......

Quack quack...

A signboard found in the little Guildford town.

Guildford

Guildford is a small town located at the northeast of Perth. It's the gateway to the famous Swan Valley and it's a beautiful quiet little town.

I just love the european style architecture found all around Perth. It just makes it that much interesting and unique to look at.

See, this is how a small town post office looks like :

Friends from Perth

Yup, we are back from Perth. It was a lovely trip. Nice country with plenty of genuinely nice people… seriously, this is the most friendly and polite country I have visited so far J

Along the trip, we’ve made a number of friends, here they are in no particular order.

This is Rocky the Stallion










This is Tommy the Fearsome Donkey! Yeah, he actually "HE HO HE HO"angrily at us when I tried to immitate their sound :P Baby Dee actually ran away!! hahaha

This is Tas the Devil.. they're actually quite cute :P

Kitchen Cabinets

The first room that we're going to furnish in the new house is the kitchen. Yes, the all important kitchen where we will definitely spend a lot of time baking and cooking next time.

To me, kitchen is the heart of a home, it is a place where conversation takes place... it's a place where you can be at your creative best .. or worst some times :P

We've been searching for a good kitchen cabinet shop for a long time (almost 1.5 months) and we've finally decided on the shop to buy from.

Kent Kitchen that is located in Dataran Sunway (slightly further in after The Curve Damansara) offers good price with excellent worksmanship on their products. The owner Ken is an experienced professional (> 15 years) in the field. He offers good advice and insight into the whole kitchen planning process and would recommend the best product that would suit your budget and needs for the kitchen.

IKEA offers good innovative products, however their pricing is a little bit on the high side. For something that is going to last for 10 - 20 years in our house, we're definitely going to invest for better material with quality finishing.

HSBC – Starbucks

So, what is the relationship between HSBC and Starbucks in my life? There’s only one connection, I always use my HSBC card to pay for my starbucks coffee. Why? Because I enjoy a 10% discount on the purchase.

Well, you can imagine how disappointed I am when I found out that HSBC has discontinued the privilege program with Starbucks coffee. Basically, there’s no more incentive for me to hold on to their credit card anymore.
Yes, after this I shall draft the cancellation letter and fax to them…

9878999 088 099 9878999 0098797

Yes, I am bored today... try entering the numbers listed in the title with your phone while listening to it...

Excel excel excel.. I wanna excel!

Yes, I wanna excel in using Microsoft Excel. :P hehe…

I love the versatility Excel offers and recently I have been trying my hands on writing VBA (visual basic for applications) codes to design my own functionality. Have managed to produce a module for comparing values in different columns and also another one in generating an HTML outlook message directly from Excel.

I have not been writing any programming codes for more than 4 years already and it is rather refreshing to use it again.

Pretty cool!!

Busy weeks ahead

We have just received the house keys last week and we have been busy meeting up with contractors and drawing plans on the renovation of the house.

I am definitely delighted with the news that a traffic light will be constructed on the cross road leading into the housing area. There has had been couple of accidents at that cross road already and I have been constantly thinking about it.

Been getting lots of referral of contractors from our friends and colleagues as many of them are doing renovation to their house as well. It is good to share and see a lot of examples before making our decision.

Well, I am going to KLIA after work to pick up our flight tickets to Perth. Yup, the trip is pretty much confirmed and I am also busy preparing the itinerary for the trip as well.

Qing Ming Jie

Everytime when I think about this “festival”(well, personally I don’t take it as a festive period meant to be celebrated happily), I can’t help myself but to recite the following poem made famous by 杜牧.

清明时节雨纷纷,
路上行人欲断魂,
借问酒家何处有,
牧童遥指杏花村

5th April 2007, tomorrow will be the day when we remember and honour our ancestors. It is not necessary to pray and give offering on the actual day itself. It is common for people to perform the rites 7 day before and after the actual date.

Last Saturday marked the first time I carried out the rites by myself and my wife. This year, I have opted for something different as well, instead of going to the crematory where my father’s bone ashes were kept, I have gone to the Kwan Yin temple where the ancestor’s plate has been placed.

It was a more personal and quiet experience, and undoubtful a more welcomed one. How often do you remember your deceased family members? I feel particularly ashamed of myself, as father has always been left at the back of my head, washed away by the daily hassle of living and present problems.

It is a struggle some times, trying to recall his image or his voice. The serenity of the temple, the continuos chanting of prayers, has given me the opportunity to actually sit back quietly and remember him.

Cherish those whom you loved, count the days when you appreciate them.

The Lunar Warriors - Book of Seed – Chapter One - “Brothers in Arms” - 4

Realizing that Bertrand has arrived, Alden exchanged a quick glance with him before continuing his conversation with the Grand Master. Bertrand could immediately tell from the expression on his brother’s face that something has gone terribly wrong. There was that dark cloud of concern looming over Alden’s brows. Walking down the aisle, Bertrand quickly found a seat at the front row bench and sat down.

Bertrand could faintly make out the conversation between Alden and the Grand Master, “Yes, tonight .. to depart…..” “ Yes, it… not encouraged… seek….” Shutting his eyes, Bertrand tried to concentrate on their conversation. However, their conversation ended abruptly when Solvin interrupted to inform the Grand Master that the hall was ready. Taking a step back, Alden bowed to the Grand Master, and took his seat beside his brother at the bench. A clearly excited Bertrand nudged his brother and whispered, “Hey Alden, what’s going on? What is the commotion all about?” Alden just replied, “Be patient brother, just listen to the Grand Master announcement.”

Fidgeting in his seat, Bertrand was very anxious as he looked around the hall, wondering what had happened that such an urgent gathering was called. All attendance has taken their seats around the oval-shaped hall. Two rows of benches encircled the main stage, which was located in the middle of the hall. Grand Master Eldorn took the stage and raised his right hand up, signaling the hall that he was going to speak. The hall immediately fell into silence, and all eyes was resting on the Grand Master, as Bertrand found out that he was not the only one perplexed with the happening of events tonight and there were many hoping for an answer.

Clearing his throat, the Grand Master voice filled the room, “Sons and daughters of Lunar, we are gathered here tonight as a matter of emergency. We have just received news that the Sunis tribe has resurfaced after laying dormant for the last four decades. The village of Moonlit up north has been caught by surprise and they are currently under continuous assault of the Sunis tribal army.” A wide-eyed Bertrand looked at Alden sitting beside him, while gasps of air swept across the audience. The Grand Master continued, “Casualties have been limited, as the village elders have managed to put up a magical barriers to ward off the intruders temporary. However, the situation is dire and they have called for help from all the nearby lunar tribes.” Thoughts raced through Bertrand’s mind, “We are the nearest to home and we are hundreds of miles away!!” Being a nomadic tribe, Lunar tribe members were scattered around the Land of Wayworth. While some were nearer to each others, some were extremely far apart.

Shocking Burglary

Just chatted with one of my ex-colleague, she’s just lost all her hard-earned money two weeks ago to bunch of f@$%^ burglars. The house was ransacked at mid-night, when all the family members were fast asleep upstairs.

She’s lost two laptops, handphone, wallet, digital camera… and the worst -> her new Toyota Vios!!!
I can’t help but to feel the pain for her… all gone in just one night. It also made me think of my newly completed house. I gonna plan and do all I can to secure the house.. but we can never be too careful in this country now.

Udang Besar (M) 9.89/kg only!!

This was the scene when you’re selling king prawn (m) @ 9.89/kg in one of the hypermarket.

It was all started by Tesco Malaysia during the CNY 2006 period to sell prawn at a ridiculously low price. The move was soon matched by the others hypermarket operator and the price have never gone down for a long period of time.

The tussle is most evident between Giant and Tesco. With the most recent price lowering exercise by Tesco, consumers can be guaranteed a prolonged price war between the two hypermarket operators and reap huge savings as the margin were lowered for most of the goods.

Always remember, to shop at Giant hypermarkets that are within the vicinity of a Tesco outlet and I can assure you that you’ll be finding a lot of cheap goods on sale.

Sunway Alam Suria – Our Home

Yes, we’ve just received the letter from Sunway City that our house is ready for vacant possesion.

This is our first house, and we’re both very excited about it.

Planning planning and more planning on what to buy and where to put em…

Shall post some photos on the new house soon!

My new Compaq nc6400

Just received my new notebook from the office administrator yesterday. It’s a new Compaq nc6400.

It’s a T7200 2.00GHz Core 2 Duo with 1GB DDR2 ram…

I’m the envy of the dept right now.. the first one to receive the first batch of the new laptops.

To my fans -> Haha.. if there’s any

Well, I haven’t written anything personal on my blog for quite some time now. Been busy writing my own fictional novel. Yeap, for those who have been following Lunar Warriors, it is my own creation. Still lots of ideas and images in my mind that I would definitely like to put in words. It’s still at its infant stages, hopefully I will have the motivation to keep writing and finish the whole story.

The Lunar Warriors - Book of Seed – Chapter One - “Brothers in Arms” - 3

Bertrand was tossing around his bed, unable to sleep because the night has been unusually hot and humid. With his eyes wide opened, Bertrand stared blankly at the barren ceiling, hoping to find some sleep before the morning begins. Hours have passed, and his eyes were finally getting heavier, slipping into the dreamland.

Suddenly, a series of loud bang on his room door jolted him wide-awake. “For heaven sake, what time is it now?!!” he cursed at the perpetrator that has ruined his sleep as he dragged his unwilling body out of the bed to open the door. Bertrand found the night watcher, Solvin standing outside the door with a brightly lit night lamp. Bertrand shielded his eyes from the lights instinctively with his hands as he grumbled, “Argh, I was just falling asleep..” “Master Bertrand, sorry for waking you up at this hour. Grand Master Eldorn has summoned for your presence in the great hall. Please make your way there now.” said Solvin. After delivering the message, he nodded slightly to Bertrand and left the room, bringing away the little night lamp that he has brought along, and the whole room was plunged back into darkness. Caught completely by surprise, Bertrand paused for a moment and tried to gather his thoughts. “This must be something important.” he uttered. Bertrand fumbled in the darkness and slipped into his shirt and pants before hastily making his way to the great hall.

Walking along the long corridors leading to the great hall, Bertrand could feel that the temple was unusually alive at this hour. Torches along the corridors were brightly lit and there were the occasional group of aides hurried by. Doubling his pace, Bertrand reached the main entrance to the great hall and he could see that the hall was already filled with apprentices like him and also the other masters of disciplines. At the center of the hall, stood his younger brother Alden, exchanging words with a very solemn faced Grand Master Eldorn.

The Lunar Warriors - Book of Seed – Chapter One - “Brothers in Arms” -2

Alden put his hand into his pouch and took out some dried raisin. Leaning against the wall, he started popping them into his mouth, chewing while his eyes were closed, grabbing some much-needed rest, as he had not slept for the past 2 days.

There was unmistakable resemblance between the two brothers. Both of them carried the same hawkish features, almond-shaped eagle eyes and sharp noses. Both of them sported a tattoo of the Red Crescent on their left arms, a clear signage of their descendant from the diminishing but powerful Lunar Tribe. Bertrand was much bigger in stature, with muscular arms and well-toned muscles all over his 6ft. 5 body. Alden stood a head shorter than his elder brother, with a leaner and slender body.

They were on the journey back to their village, after they had received the news that their beloved native land was besieged. Three years ago, they embarked on a journey to the sacred Temple of Moon, located deep in the heart of the Land of Wayworth. It was part of their journey in becoming a true lunaris. A journey, that would take at least six months of traveling through treacherous mountain terrains and poisonous swamps, through the Woods of Dead before ending with a one-week hike up Mount Moon, where the temple was located. The journey was to test them mentally and physically, as well as to attest their skills in preparation for the training in becoming a Lunaris – which meant the “Capable One”. However, reaching the temple had only marked the beginning of their grueling training in becoming a lunaris. They had since spent their last two winters at the temple, trained under the masters of their disciplines.

It was two days ago, in the wee hour of the morning that Alden was aroused from his sleep by a repeated tapping on his room windows. Alerted, Alden’s body sprung to life as he quickly grabbed his staff and recalled a spell of shielding to his mind. “Tap tap tap.. tap tap tap… tap tap tap.. tap tap..” the tapping continued outside the windows. Alden heightened his senses and listened intently to the noise, sensing no immediate danger after a while, he eased his guard and moved nearer to the window.
“Eeeeakkk..” he swung the windows opened. A familiar sight greeted him. A silver owl was perched on the hinges. “Silverhood, what are you doing here at this hour?” Alden said to the bird while extending his right arm. Recognizing the master’s gesture, Silverhood immediately hopped on to Alden’s arm. “I see, you’ve brought a message.”

The Lunar Warriors - Book of Seed – Chapter One - “Brothers in Arms”

“Tik…. tak.. tik.. tak” the sound of rain drops on the roof, echoed through the room. Bertrand was sitting at the corner of the room, cursing at the rain, his clothes soaked wet with water. His brother, Alden sat quietly across him. Weaving his fingers in the air and chanting the words of magic, he’s trying to conjure the spell of fire, to light up the small pile of firewood that Bertrand has made out from the broken pieces of furniture scattered around the room.

“Give it a rest Alden, those darn woods are too wet to be of any use. We’ve fought hard and long today, better save your energy for tomorrow’s journey home.” Bertrand uttered. Alden just stared blankly at his brother, too tired to even think about arguing such matter with him. He took out a wooden staff, pointed directly at the pile of wood and shouted “fireball!” out loud. A burst of energy channeled through his body, and a fireball shot out from the tip of the staff. For a moment, the light emitted by the fireball lit up the room. Bertrand lifted up his hand and shunned his eyes from the burning light, while mumbling some words to himself. Alden looked at the pile of wood that he had just ignited, shaking his head in disappointment that he needed the help of the staff again to cast such simple spell. Clutching his fist, Alden smashed the staff to the floor, and at the same time he shot a glance to his brother, warning him not to say a single word.

The flickering flame brought much needed warmth to the room. Alden wrapped himself up with a blanket and sat in front of the fire. His hand extended to the flame, warming his cold and slim fingers. Not wanting to waste the fire, Bertrand quickly sat down beside his brother, and pulled out a package of sliced meat that he has salvaged from the battlefield this morning. He skewed the sliced meat with his knife and started roasting them over the fire. Licking his lips, Bertrand eyes lit up in excitement as he watched the meat getting cooked. His stomach started to grumble as the smell of roast meat filled the air. Within minutes, the meat is cooked with its juice dripping into the flame below. Ignoring the heat, Bertrand’s hunger took the better of him as he swallowed a mouthful of sliced meat fresh from the fire. “Ummphhh, Arldennn.., yumm… the meat is pretty good, want some?” Bertrand mumbled to his brother while his hands were busy skewing the meat again. Alden shook his head slightly, he signaled to Bertrand to hand over his pouch.

Monday Moaning

People like to say good morning… but I prefer not to be greeted this morning. I am moaning over the complaints and sh*t passing acts that have magicked into my mailbox this morning.

It’s a common process where sh*t will fall into the mailbox over the weekends because I am not in the office to shove the sh*t away before they get to me. The sh*ter most probably is having constipation during weekdays because sh*t happens usually over the weekends (coincidentally I am off during weekends)

There’s a huge difference between taking responsibility & taking respons(h)i(t)bility.

Respons(h)i(t)bility usually carries the following characteristics :

- Fall from the sky
- In huge volume that will usually get you stuck knee-deep
- It strikes you right in the head and you don’t even know what is happening, and when you realize it, you are already dirty and stuck thus need to clean up the mess to set yourself free.
- If you get lucky once and you manage to clean up the sh*t, the probability of you being hit again dramatically increased!

Chap Goh Meh

Today is Chap Goh Meh, the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year and the first full-moon for the year. The phrase is a direct translate of Hokkien-dialect which means the night of fifteenth.

It is also known as Chinese Valentine's Day, where in certain parts of Malaysia you can see unmarried young ladies throw mandarin oranges into the sea hoping that it will be picked up by their future spouses :) This can be seen from "Number Eight Bridge" in Klang, Selangor and also Gurney Drive, Penang. Well, I only know of these two places so far...

Today is also a day where one of my ex-colleague's wedding dinner. It will be held in one of the famous chinese restaurants in Subang Jaya tonight.

White, black, blue and golden.. Cod cod cod!

Nowadays we get plenty of variety of cod fish in the market. Sometimes it is easy to get confused with all the fancy names around.

It’s best to buy your cod fish from reputable retailers as some times it is not easy to differentiate the quality of cod fish if you’re not very familiar with them.

You can easily get cod fish from Isetan, Jusco, Cold Storage and Giant outlets. The best cod fish is the white cod with its extremely fresh taste and smooth flesh. To my knowledge, there’s no fresh cod being imported to Malaysia and all the cod fish we’ve got in the market are imported in frozen whole fish form.

When you’re buying cod fish, you’re offered the choice of fresh cod slice (actually they’re thawed) or frozen vacuum-packed (Cold Storage and Giant offer this). It is actually better to buy the frozen cod as they’re essentially from the same source. Buying the thawed cod fish means you will need to cook them immediately and freezing them again is really not a good idea.
Remember, it is never good to thaw and refreeze your meat or seafood as it will ultimately spoil the quality of the product.

Fishy fishy where r u?

Our local fresh seafood supply is very dependent on the moon. The best way to determine when to buy marine fish is by checking the lunar calendar (chinese calendar).

Unlike western countries that practise deep sea fishing a lot, our regional fishermen are still pretty much using the age-old techniques in catching fishes. During full moon period (12th to 22nd in lunar calendar), the night sky is brightly lit and marine fishes (like kembong, mabong, sardin, cencaru & etc) will be diving deeper into the sea thus making the effort to catch them so much harder. When the supply is scarce, most fishermen would not opt to venture out to catch fish because the return simply doesn’t worth the effort.

During this period of time, fresh seafood will be fetching higher prices in the wet market. You will also notice that the quality of fish are less desirable. The wholeseller or distributor will be using their buffer stock or thawed frozen seafood during this period of time.
If you’re unsure of the quality of product, it’s better to eat freshwater fishes (catfish, patin or tilapiah) or frozen seafood (dory fillet or frozen wholefish) as that will guarantee you better product quality.

Let’s go super buy things (as Penangites like to call it) :P

In today’s retail landscape, we can see many new retail establishments being categorized as hypermarket, superstore or supermarket. The categorization is mainly done based on the retail floor space that a particular store offers.

Then come an interesting question, for an item purchased in the same retailer, let’s say Giant, will the price be the same in their hypermarket, superstore and supermarket?

The answer is no. All the stores of a retailer are often grouped into different banner. The grouping could be geographical, competition (example Giant outlets neighbouring Tesco or Carrefour stores) or the store’s categorization (hyper, xstore or super).
The grouping would enable to merchandising team to come up with their pricing strategies. Generally, supermarket will have premium pricing because the main selling point is convenience and not cheap goods.

Unwarranted Efficiency

I’ve been using HSBC mastercard for more than 3 years now. I’ve been a good customer, with perfect payment history and I’ve never failed in remitting my payment before the cut-off date until this month.

I missed the payment, mainly due to the fact that I was out of town for the CNY holiday.

I’ve just received a call from HSBC staff :

HSBC : “Hello Mr.Bryan… Ini Mr.Bryan ke??”

Me : “Yes, speaking”

HSBC : “Oh Mr.Bryan, saya telefon dari HSBC credit dept.”

Me : “Yes, anything?”

HSBC : “Ya Mr.Bryan, you ada outstanding bill untuk mastercard anda”

*still talking in malay although I’ve been replying him in english, the World’s Local Bank! Localised indeed as far as the language goes*

Me : “Ya, saya tahu, saya outstation jadi belum ada masa lagi untuk pergi bank”
HSBC : “Oh ya ke, Mr.Bryan sudah tahu. Boleh Mr.Bryan jelaskan bill sebelum minggu ini?”
Me : “Yes, boleh boleh.”
HSBC : “Ok Mr.Bryan, saya akan tuliskan satu note dekat system, jadi you akan bayar sebelum akhir minggu ini… terima kasih.”

Wow, all the effort from the bank to remind me of the outstanding payment. I really admire their determination in doing this, but some how I felt a bit insulted in the process…

My outstanding bill – RM79.85

Taxi… hello Taxi?? – Part One

I’ve never really taken taxi in Malaysia and after my most recent experience with them, I will pretty much avoid them in the future.

On the third day of the Lunar New Year, I was travelling back to KL from Penang. I’ve reached the Jln. Duta bus station and wanted to continue my journey to either KL Sentral or Puduraya. To my surprise, there’s no longer any feeder bus servicing the Duta station to other locations and due to its “unique” location in the city, we’re pretty much sitting ducks to the preying taxis lining up the station.

To side track a bit, the authorities tried hard to alleviated the traffic congestion in Puduraya by relocating the northern bus services to the Duta station, however they’ve only brought the buses here, without the connecting public transport infrasturucture. Trying to get to Duta station pretty much cost me as much as a bus ticket to Penang. Standard half-boiled implementation and short-sightedness of our local authorities.

Anyway, I was greeted with the usual “pick-up” line from the taxi drivers –

Driver : “Bang, mau pegi mana?”
Me : “KL Sentral, berapa?”
Driver : “ RM 12”
Me : “Oii, mahalnya..”
*Silence followed for 5 seconds*
Driver : “Ok ok…. kita pakai meter”

Without any other alternatives, I hesitantly agreed and hopped on the taxi. Few minutes later, we’ve reached KL Sentral with the fare meter showing RM5.40. I was laughing to myself, there you go… RM5.40 only. Who knows……

Driver : “RM7.40..”
Me : “Huh?? Meter tunjuk RM5.40 sahaja?”
Driver : “Naik dari Duta ada RM2 surcharge.”
Me: “Tadi tak ada cakap pun”
Driver : “Ini standard la, u tak tau ke?”

Exhausted from my travelling, I just don’t feel like arguing with him and paid the RM7.40. I’ve later checked the supposed “RM2.00” surcharge claim and found out that it’s untrue!!

To be continued….

Credit cards - Quest for rewards!

Just received the new annual credit card rewards catalogue. Out of curiosity, I made a comparison between the points needed for me to exchange for one x RM100 Hush Puppies voucher between my old and new credit card reward programs.

Old Credit Card
Spending required : RM17,000.00
Points awarded : 17,000
What you can get : 1 x RM100 Hush Puppies Voucher

New Credit Card
Spending required : RM5,000.00
Points awarded : 50
What you can get : 1 x RM100 Hush Puppies Voucher

I need more than 3 times spending to get the similar reward. The numbers speak for themselves.

I can only say that I can’t wait to have more points to bid for better items with my new credit card! All expentidure will go through my new credit card now… at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which bank I need to remit the cheque, as long as I am rewarded for using the card!

Holiday's over!!! Nooooooooooooooo

It’s the fourth day of the Lunar New Year and I am already back in the office typing away on my keyboard.

Gosh, the number of emails that I will need to go through is mind boggling. It is almost 6.00pm and I am all ready to go home, and suddenly THUNDER + LIGHTING… it is raining cats and dogs now…

Sigh……………

Sun Solaris Holiday Mode….

#init 0
ok>boot HolidayMode -rs
………….
……………………….
#showrev
“Happy Chinese New Year 2007!”
#exit

Yup... I am booting into holiday mode sooner that I'd thought. The sentiment is shared by a lot of my Chinese colleagues, tomorrow will be an extremely busy evening on the highway as many people will be making the trip back to their hometown to be with their loved ones and family members.

To all my readers, drive safely and may you have a prosperous and happy Chinese New Year!

Valentine’s Day

Ah, event of the year… always celebrated with expensive gifts and dinners in posh restaurant in most parts of the world. To those who wants a lengthy history of Valentine’s Day, please click here.

It is most interesting to note that this is the second largerst card-sending holiday behind Chirstmas. Also, in Japan and Korea, the role between male and female is actually reversed! It is more common for women to give candy, chocolate or flower to the people they love. How come our country look-east policy didn’t bring this back to Malaysia huh? hehe….

Mandarin oranges, Anglia Shandy & Me

Mandarin oranges and Anglia Shandy to me, are inseperable from Chinese New Year as mooncake to Mid-Autumn festival.

Having a chilled shandy is just pure pleasure in an hot & humid day. Ahh, that refreshing taste of the drink, gotta have one tonight! :)

Mandarin oranges, well you only get to see a lot of them during CNY period, so they’re not to be missed! Mandarin oranges is also known as “Kam” in cantonese, which sounds like “Gold” in cantonese as well, thus making it one of the must-have during the festive period. You know la, chinese likes everything that carry good meaning!

YEAAAA – NAMASAKE!

Err.. what? niamahsake? No.. no.. no.. it is NA-MA-SA-KE….

Heck, what is that? Sounds awfully like the catch phrase of a japanase manga character trying to conjure a ball of energy or something like that.. :P

Namasake actually means fresh salmon in japanese sushi. Sushi is one of our favourite food and we patronize Nippon Tei KLCC and Sushi King pretty frequently.

Thinking of salmon, there are 2 main types of salmon being sold in Malaysia, there are chilean salmon (imported from Chile) and atlantic salmon (more widely known as Norwegian salmon as mostly are imported from Norway).

People will usually think of KLCC Isetan, Jusco and Coldstorage when they want to buy fresh salmon. Actually, the salmon sold in these outlets are mostly from the same source and one do not taste better than the other. However, Isetan has the most premium pricing follows by Coldstorage and Jusco.

Isetan and Coldstorage usually sell only atlantic salmon and Jusco usually carries chilean salmon as well. For the readers information, chilean salmons are all imported in frozen form and retailers merely thaw the fish before slicing them to be sold in block. Coldstorage some times have smoked sockeye salmon that is imported from the US, however it is only for those with an acquired taste bud (I personally don’t like the taste of it). Occasionally you might see Cold Storage and Jusco selling salmon trout, this is actually from Norway as well (usually imported in frozen form) and the flesh is more reddish in appearance.

The grading of salmon is based on the colour of their flesh. However the colour makes no difference in the taste. The colour comes from the fish feeds and it can be artificially controlled by the farmers.

Fresh atlantic salmon is air flown into Malaysia on weekly basis and one of the major exporter is Hallvard Leroy. They are the world largest exporter of farmed salmon.

The best way to cook a slice of salmon steak, is to add a spoon of olive oil on the frying pan, heat it up and cook both side of the fish steak for around 2-3 minutes. Bon appetit!

Marinated raw meat or seafood - Yummy???

This is only relevant to the people of Bolehland as this is a localized content for Malaysian.

Well, sometimes when you visit hypermarkets or supermarkets, be it Carrefour, Giant or Tesco, you might find trays of marinated raw meat or seafood selling at a premium price. All looking nice and tantalizing, however be warned that chances are the marinated meat or seafood that you’re so tempted to buy is not FRESH.

Most of the time, it is done to disguise the degraded quality of products. So it is always better to choose your meat and spices separately and spend a little more time to marinate them yourself.
The deciding factors of choosing a fresh piece of chicken wing or ikan kembong are the physical appearance and smell of the products. Once those are taken away, it will delude the customers buying decision.

Will the real leader please SPEAK UP!

I am not a believer of seniority at work. I am a firm believer of appraised performance. However, very often we’ll still get people sitting on top of you because of their seniority. It’s downright frustrating that in the event of any incident or problem that requires their position to speak up, they’ll choose to keep mum over the issue simply because they do not understand what is going on to make any intelligent comment!

To manage does not equal to lead. To become a manager simply doesn’t make you a leader in the process. Leaders in any given organization or fields of specialty have clear authority over their comments and speech. We often HEAR our managers but we will only LISTEN to the leaders.

Cai Shen Ye (God of Prosperity) is coming to town…

You better watch out, you better not cry
Better not pout, I'm telling you why
Cai Shen Ye is coming to town
He's making a list and checking it twice
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice
Cai Shen Ye is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
Oh! You better watch out, you better not cry
Better not pout, I'm telling you why
Cai Shen Ye is coming to town

Time flies, Year of the Golden Pig, will come knocking on our doors on the 18th Feb 2007.

How to make it hard and “melt” slowly?

Hey, dun get too excited, I am running a healthy personal blog here, sorry to disappoint you but I don’t have any remedy to men out there needing a boost or two. :P

For those of you out there that fancy an ice-bed display during your next house warming or cocktail party, you can sprinkle some fine salt on your ice to make them harder. They will stay in shape for longer period of time and will not melt away too fast.

Mousey mousey where are you??

Baby Dee sent it to me today…



Caller : Hi, our printer is not working.
Customer Service : What is wrong with it?
Caller : Mouse is jammed.
Customer Service : Mouse? And how it is related to printer?
Caller : Mmmm.. Wait, I will send a picture.

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Perth -> Here we come!!

If you ask baby dee, the thing that she anticipates most from this trip -> she’ll tell you without hesitation that is to take a picture with joey!

Joey is actually the baby koala :D

The following website offers very good information about Perth, a must-read for people that is preparing for a trip to Perth. -> www.countrywide.com.au/

From my search for accomodation, the following websites came across as very comprehensive with good offers : http://www.wotif.com/ / http://www.asiarooms.com/ / www.australia-hotels.com.au/

Sorry sir, you cannot do that?

I was so excited about the MATF that I actually stayed up until the midnight on the day it was launched just to be one of the first to grab the air tickets, never mind that I was put on hold for more than half an hour -> I finally got the booking number, but here comes the twist, the holiday package is not confirmed as I need to make the payment.

I requested to make the payment via my credit card, but the answer I got is “No sir -> you cannot do that because you need to make your way down to either KL Sentral or HQ (@ Jln. Sultan Ismail) to do that because we need to issue all the vouchers and tickets. Gee whiz, when I was put on hold for half an hour the lady in IVR said to me repeatedly “You can now make your payment using credit cards over the phone, just check with our agents.” .. wat-te-verrrrrrrrrrrrr..

Here comes more, “Sir, please also remember to call in again on 4th Feb 2007, to make sure the hotel booking is confirmed.” I thought with all the advanced booking system now it could have been confirmed on the spot, obviously I was wrong. When I questioned them the answer given to me was 1st Feb 2007 is a public holiday, thus no one will be working, so they need more time to confirm??!!? I was then given a deadline of 4th Feb 2007 2.00pm to make the payment or my booking will be cancelled. So can I make a payment prior to 4th Feb? No sir because your hotel is not confirmed yet?!!?!

Frustrated and getting no help from the agent (whom even told me that they’re doing their best as this is a travel fair and everyone of them is working very hard and late). I just told him to cancel my booking.

Later in the morning, I booked and paid for the air tickets ONLINE and booked myself into the same hotel ONLINE at a cheaper bargain!

Moral of the story : Book your flight and Hotel ONLINE because it is FASTER and CHEAPER and not to mention that you don’t need to waste the time with some operator over the phone telling you that they’re doing wat-te-ver they could to assist you!

The art of storing seafood… yeah it’s an art

CNY is just around the corner and some of you housewives and househusband will be storing a lot of seafood for the festive season. Wet market will most likely be closed during this period because the Selayang Wholesale market (where most of the Klang Valley fresh produces are sourced from) will be closed for one week during CNY.

Well, since I am in the mood today, I will share some tips in keeping some of your seafood fresh for a few days!

Cockles (Kerang) / Lalah / Live Oyster – our friends here are actually still alive when you buy them from the market, so please treat them with respect and do not just put them into the fridge as the temperature will kill them and thus emitting an unpleasant smell. If you have bought too much stock and unable to finish them :
- Get a small pail and fill it up with water
- Mix in few spoons full of salt and put them in.

They will be able to stay fresh and juicy for few days without you freezing them to death! Btw, I would not recommend putting them into the freezer because this will spoil the cooking quality.

Cut fish (Barred Mackerel-tenggiri batang/Threadfin-kurau/Grouper-Jenahak) – these are some of the more well known fishes that consumers like to buy in slices. Sometimes, they can’t finish at one meal so the uncooked balance will go into the freezer. It is again not the best method to store the fish meat, as during the process of being frozen the membrane of the protein cells will break and that will make the fish meat dry and hard the next time you take them out from the fridge to cook again.

- Best way is to take a clean plastic bag and put the fish meat inside
- Seal it up and put it in a container with water and ice (mix half container of ice with half container of water, make sure you mix the ice water first before putting the plastic bag in or else the normal water temperature will cook part of the meat)
- Put the container at the top shelf of your fridge (not freezer!). This will help to keep the meat fresh for 1 or 2 days without spoiling the quality.

Prawns, if you don’t intend to cook your prawns, make sure you dun soak them or put them under running pipe water. Our Bolehland pipe water temperature on a hot day is indeed “boleh” in cooking part of your prawn before you even put them into the frying pan.

If you plan to keep some fresh prawns, do the following:
- Leave the shell and head on. Don’t clean them yet.
- Take a container and fill it up with cold water (ice water is even better).
- Mix in few spoons of sugar (yeah, that’s the secret)
- Put the prawns in and make sure the water level is high enuf to cover the prawns.
- Put it in your freezer! This can last for months.

Why the sugar you might want to ask, the sugar will keep the prawn meat firm and juicy and apparently they’ll taste slightly sweeter too.. haha… for obvious reason.

Rules of thumb in handling fresh seafood :
- Make sure your hand is clean
- Do not leave any seafood expose to the room temperature for too long. Bacteria will grow very fast and thus causing it to spoil faster. Always prepare and store your seafood immediately after you bought them.
- Do not put / soak / cuci / clean / wash – wat-te-verrr… the seafood using pipe water, if you do not intend to cook them.

Well.. that’s all for today. Tune in later for more seafood insights!

I found the perfect credit card!!

You know what is the most frustrating thing I find about credit cards? It’s their reward programs! I feel like I have been taken for a ride all this while and I have ended up with nothing.

I have just checked out the latest reward program sent by one of the bank, do you know that I need 19,000 points just to exchange for a RM100 voucher??

19,000 points = I need to swipe RM19,000 worth of purchases to get that.

I use my credit cards to pay for everything, bills and purchases… I do make a conscious effort of not overspending. People tend to do that when they have a FEW cards in hand. So I am proud to say that I have no credit card debt and lots of points… but points that are practically useless to me.

Recently I have been introduced to a co-brand card issued by one of our local bank. I can tell you, it offers the best reward program that I’ve known so far.

I compare both of my cards, with the new co-brand card, I could exchange for the same RM100 voucher with only 5 reward points. (This bank awards 1 point per RM100)

I need to only swipe RM500 worth of purchases to get that!

Par to par, if I make RM19,000 of purchases with the new co-brand card in a year, I could easily exchange it for electrical items that is worth hundreds of ringgit!

There’s no catch to this, it is an honest and simple truth…

Direct Selling – No way!! But wait…

Well, I used to be like a lot of people, Direct selling companies = Direct rejection. Don’t come and talk to me about direct selling, must be asking me to buy lots of things and bla bla bla… answer is a simple NO!!

However, as I am growing older and wiser now (ahem..) and being a buyer for a hypermarket chain, it has taught me a lot more than what meets the eye, think deeper and explore a little bit more you’ll be surprised.

The simple truth is, tradisional buying and selling network is like this:

Manufacturer > Wholesaler > Retailer > You (Consumer)

Each hops, will incur a cost on you, as simple as it may sound, no business will exist without a profit being made. Being with a retailer for a year, to breakeven we’ll need to make at least 10-12% of profit. On top of that, manufacturer will be heavily advertising on their products, retailer will do the same as well in their weekly or bi-weekly press ads and leaflet. All the advertising costs, is against sum up in the chain and pass to normal consumer like you. Consumers are easily paying 40-50% more on the cost of actual product!

The coming of network marketing has revolutionized the whole buying & selling landscape, simply by removing the number of hops in the process of delivering a product from manufacturer to consumer.

Manufacturer > Network Marketing > Consumer

On top of that, network marketers will reward the consumer handsomely for staying loyal and market their products to others. This is because network marketing relies heavily on words of mouth marketing. The manufacturer and network marketers also eliminate the external marketing cost (press ads, leaflet, tv ads) and the savings are pass on the consumers as incentives. Annually billions are spend on advertising effort and imagine you could make a cut on this.

On top of that, being in a direct selling environment, a consumer is actually more informed about the products that they are buying. Monthly booklet is sent out with comprehensive information on the products being launched. In the comfort of your own home, you can sit down quietly to plan your buying. You could purchase your items online, or just drop by to the nearest stockist of branch outlet and pick up the items. No hassle and no long queue at the checkout counter!

Start now, start today and make the conscious choice to become a smarter consumer! You can drop me a comment if you would like to know more about the network that I am with >:)

Thaipusam – 1st Feb 2007

Excerpt from wikipedia - * Thaipusam (Tamil: தைப்பூசம்) is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (Jan/Feb). Pusam refers to a star that is at its highest point during the festival. The festival commemorates both the birthday of Lord Murugan (also Subramaniam), the youngest son of Shiva and Parvati, and the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a vel (lance) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman.*

To those interested to read more, please go here.

For the record, I have not been paying any attention to this festival that is celebrated by our Tamil friends and the only thing I know is that they smashed thousands of coconuts on the day during the procession to the temple of Batu Caves.

I do celebrate the public holiday that comes along with the festival. It’s a rare break that I will get in the middle of the week. However, those that know me well will know that I am not too happy as I am paid daily. More holidays = Less salary >:/

Talking bout holidays, CNY is around the corner… 2 more public holidays in February.. now where’s that calculator of mine…

OH Crab(p)!

Most flower crabs aka blue swimming crab(Portunus pelagicus) sold in Malaysia hypermarkets & supermarkets are frozen defrost seafood. Yup, they come in 10kg/carton box! They will claim that it is fresh but in actual fact they’re taken out from the freezer, defrost and viola -> on the ice-bed ready to be sold. Fresh flower crabs are still available at a slightly more premium price and usually found in wet market.

Male flower crabs have blue marking on their shell and the females are dull green. Most flower crab sold here are imported from India, Indonesia and Pakistan. Newly moulted flower crabs are being used to make the popular soft shell crab.

So, how do you tell a frozen crab from fresh crab so you’ll not get rip-off during ur next wet market visit? Easy -> just knock on the shell and the answer shall be revealed to you! J Hehe.. well actually there’s a simple check that you can do, look at the tentacles that’s sticking out from the front of the shell. For fresh crab, they should be intact and flexible to the touch. Where else for frozen crab, the tentacles are most likely damaged during the freezing process thus either broken or missing.

There, a simple seafood buying tip courtesy from your daily wat-te-ver moments!

Dory Fillet or Basa Fillet?

I have had the experience of being the seafood buyer for largest hypermarket operator in Malaysia (they’re expanding fast and deserved to be the market Giant by all means) for a year and that gave me invaluable experience in knowing the trade and tasted so many types of seafood!

I guess by now, many of you out there have tasted the dory fish. Do you actually know what is dory fish made out of? Mind you, it’s not the Ms.Dory from Finding Nemo.

Dory fillet, also known as Basa fillet (for US market) comes from the Pangasius fish. For Malaysian, it is ikan patin (river catfish). Surprised? Well, almost all the dory fillets sold in Malaysia hypermarkets and supermarkets are imported from Vietnam. Vietnam is the world’s largest producer of dory fillet now. The ones that we usually see in markets are in packages of 500gm up to 1500gm, containing 2 to 4 pieces of fish fillets. Those fillets are IQF (Individually Quick Frozen). During the IQF process, glazing (25-40%) will be applied to the fish fillets (to protect the fish meat and ensure its freshness). Basically, when u’re buying the IQF Dory fillet, 25-40% of weight are actually water!

There are generally 3 grades of dory fillet (quality and taste), the better grade of dory fillet is creamy and slightly pinkish in appearance. The worst grade of dory fillet is dark pink and yellowish (when cooked, the fillet is smelling and tasting very MUDDY)

When buying any fish fillet, if possible please go for those packages with large pieces of fillet instead of multiple small fillets in one package, this is mainly due to the fact that large piece of fillet contains lower glazing and you’re not paying more for water! Usually dory fillet comes in 3 sizes (120-170gm per pc, 170-220gm per pc or 220gm & above). The price per kg increases with the weight.

3 major hypermarkets operators in Malaysia carry this product. C4, Giant and Tesco. I have had the nightmares -> having only steamed dory fillets (without any sauce or seasoning) as lunch to try all existing brands in the market. The verdict as follows :

C4 – carries only a single packaging of 500gm per packet. Quality of product is ok. However the smaller packaging also means consumers are buying smaller fish fillets, which translate into higher percentage of glazing.

Giant – carries 2 types (800gm & 1.5 kg) pack of dory fillets. Quality of product is the best in the market. Good fillets size with reasonable glazing (you can test it out if you want. Just weight the fish meat before and after thawing).

Tesco – carries free weight. Products are usually repacked in food-grade wrappers or plan clear plastic packaging. Highest percentage of glazing (almost 40%) and product quality is the worst. Strong muddy taste when cooked.

The Country Farm (there’s an outlet at LG Bangsar Village) serves one of the best dory fillet dish around. Go try it out. The Vietnam Kitchen also serves a good dish using the dory fillet. One of my favourite outlets is in USJ Taipan (next to slimming sanctuary), easier to find parking and nice dining environment.

Shoes Hunt... Nike anyone?

My first pair of Nike shoes, was a gift from my bro. He bought it for me when he made a year-end trip home from UK. It’s been four years already… I am wearing this shoes almost every day and it has already spotted holes here n there which I had tried to patch / sew / glue too many times.

So I figure it’s high time for me to get a new pair of Nike shoes. Everytime I walked past a Nike shoe shop, I will definitely drop by to check out the latest design. So far, it’s been a fruitless search and I am really thinking that I will not be able to find any new shoes to my liking. Maybe it’s the age thing, I just think those new shoes with their fancy designs don’t suit me any longer. (or maybe I am sentimental, cannot part with the old shoes :P)

On the other hand, Baby Dee has got herself a new pair of Nike Free, one of her new fav now! It’s a beautiful pair of shoes… I love the way it looks on her… but I just couldn’t seem to find a pair that suits me…

Sigh.. the search continues.. tomorrow I shall go shopping with baby again!

MATF - What's that?

31st Dec 2007 – 6th Feb 2007 is the MAS Fair! Malaysian Airline is giving up to 70% discount on their airfares. Well, not going to miss this, been planning a trip to Australia with baby dee and this is a great chance to book our flight tickets! Well, hopefully we’ll be able to secure the tickets on the date we wanted.
Melbourne or Sydney -> Here we come!!! (haven’t decided on which city to go.. hehe, shall discuss with baby dee tonight over our Friday nite coffee break)

Hello World!! Wat-te-verrr

This is my first post into the myriad world of bloggers.....

I've created this blog to record all the wat-te-ver things that is happening in my life.

Work, life, sleep, eat, friends, colleagues, families - Wat-te-ver!!

It's therapeutic - say it now.. WAT-TE-VERR!