Wan Yee's guide to enlightenment... "Ooooommmmm......" 

One too many? 

Zoe 

Group 1 

Group 2 

Yaz 

Vincent says, "Ushh, ushhh!" 

Now he sees you... 

Now he doesn't! 

Keep that hand steady 

What should I wish for...? 

Birthday Boy 

Wedding Reception

It's been a while since I've written anything and yesterday was Wai Sum's wedding reception. Got her invite about 3 weeks ago and it seems that one by one, all my friends whom I've known from childhood are entering to a new phase of their lives. The first wedding as I recalled was Elaine's. That was almost 3 years ago. My, it's just hard to imagine all my friends slowly growing up and becoming husbands or wives.

You know, I've always been plagued by the question of, "When's your turn?" That's an easy question to answer if you had a life partner that you intend to settle down with. Sometimes I think, how do you know if that person is really the one? How will you know that she's the person that you wanna spend the rest of your life with? I guess that's one question that I can't find the answer to. There is no way to see in advance, guess you really need to understand someone well enough before you decide to settle down.

The wedding reception was great and it was held at the Grand Ballroom of the Concorde Hotel, KL. It was a reception fit for royalty. They say on your wedding day you are treated like a king and queen. The food was great and manage to meet some people whom I haven't seen for many years. It was nice of Wai Sum to provide our table with a bottle of Chivas, but unfortunately I was driving so I didn't wanna indulge too much on that fine bottle of whiskey.

One complaint though, there weren't enough single ladies on my table! In fact there were only two, but they were already attached! Shimatta!

Oh well, one can't get everything that one wants. Was supposed to stop by Starbucks for a cuppa before we went home. Merv wasn't up for it as he needed to get up early today. Went straight home, dropped Merv off and took a shower before meeting up with Jackson and Wan Yee for tea. Finally, got my copy of The Urbz a.k.a. Sims 2! I can forsee that there will be many sleepless nights ahead.

Well, tonight we're off to Selayang to celebrate Andrew's birthday!

Twisty Roads of Bentong

The initial plan was to go down town for some lunch at Merv's shop and to pick up some new PS2 games, it was supposed to be an easy day. Had to bring Ka Seong over to Ah Keong's for a quote on his car's body repair. My dad woke me up in the morning saying that he'll need me to go pick him up from Bentong in the afternoon. At that moment, my blurry mind was still thinking about the sweet twisty roads and how much fun it would be to drive the 323 there. Apparently, my dad had other ideas. I had to take the underpowered 4WD as it just had a new battery unit fitted and needs to make up for under-use time. About a month ago the battery in the Kembara fell flat, suspect of under-usage. Don't blame me, it's not exactly the most exciting car to drive around. Overtaking's always a problem for me. I remembered back when I sold my Wira GSR before I left for Australia and I was confined to using the Kembara.

I'm so used to having ample horsepower that I never think twice before overtaking. See a slow moving car in front of me, I'd just squeeze out to the next lane and overtake it in an instant! Now there was once when I forgot that I was in this clumsy 1.3cc 4WD called the Kembara with an Automatic transmission. I saw a car driving leisurely and I just decided to overtake it. The moment I signalled right and put the pedal to the metal, all I heard from the engine was a loud grunt. The revs climbed all the way to the redline, which was 6,000 rpm but I wasn't going anywhere! It took quite a lot of effort to pull up beside the car that I was trying to overtake. Going uphill, made matters worst! As soon as I got side by side with the car I was trying to overtake, the driver of the other car looked at me and stepped on the gas. I was left at the sight of his rear tailights! Smoked! Then it finally hit me, I could use a little more turbo in my life! That was the reason why I've never bought an N/A car till today. From that day onwards, I've always been a firm believer that having excess horsepower under the hood will not hurt.

Now, back to the twisty roads... it was remarkable. Never thought that there were such nice back roads in Bentong. Once I cleared Karak Highway, it was off to the sleepy town of Bentong. It wasn't as busy as I'd expect it to be. But then again, it was a public holiday so that would explain the absence of cars in the town area. I made my way to rendezvous with my dad. That led me to this very nice twisty road all the way. It was right and left followed with the same twisty 'S' curves. I really wished that my 323 was there with me! Would be a good place to test the suspensions. Hmmmm, might return there another day to see how it handles in the curves.

Flooding in Bangsar... and one lousy "Coffee House" called One Station!

Flooding in Bangsar 


It's the first day of Hari Raya, traffic was rather light around Bangsar. Went to Nam Chuan restaurant in Lucky Gardens for the usual lunch. Got there and it started to rain. So decided to sit outside as my car was double parked. Didn't want to walk so far in the rain. Ordered the usual fried kuay teow and when the food got to me, the rain started pouring down heavier. At first, thought nothing of it but as I took my first bite I saw water rushing out from the drains. Slowly the water started to crawl all over the floor and what happened next was totally a shocker for me!

It's the first time I've seen it flood there. I've never seen a flood there in my 20 years of experience eating there. It was kinda scary as I was rushing against time to finish up my food before the flood got any higher. Had my feet lifted from the floor suspended on a plastic stool. With water levels rising each minute, it was like a race trying to see who wins, the water or me. Finished lunch, and managed to take a photo of the place with my cellphone. The water level you see there in the picture is the maximum level that the water reached. After that, it slowly subsided.

After that scene, there was no where else to go except home. Tested out Hitman Contracts for an hour. Testing turned out to be playing, hehehe. Kinda nice, assassinating for a living. Unfortunately that's a career that I can't consider in real life. Or can I?...

At night went to this lousy coffee place called One Station in Taman Connought. For heaven's sake, don't call yourself a coffee house if you don't plan to serve decent coffee. I ordered Ice Coffee from the menu since I was not in the mood for smoothies or milkshakes. A few minutes later, my drink arrived. It was black! If my friends know me well, they know that I DO NOT drink black coffee, or even order one in the first place! It wrote Ice Coffee, not Americano or Ice BLACK Coffee! I was taken back with the drink. To make things worst, imagine a tall ice espresso! How in the world does anyone expect one to drink that? It's a screwed up concoction left for people with very bad taste! My friends were saying that it's probably a 'special' drink that the place has come up with. I didn't know that they started redefining coffee in Malaysia! To make matters worst, I asked for milk and you know what? They cheekily charged me extra for it. I'm like, what the hell??? You write ice coffee in your menu and serve me black coffee. If Malaysia had better consumer laws and protection, I'd be writting a very long complaint letter by now. Hmm, or do they? I'll have to look it up. But take my advice, if you ever go to this so-called "Coffee House", don't drink the crap they call coffee there! I'd honestly rather prefer to drink coffee from the local chinese coffee shops that offer a more decent brew than the crap they serve there!

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket 


Since I was in the mood for a movie with a Vietnam theme, thought I'd watch Full Metal Jacket. After playing Shellshock, it just goes to show how much the game was based on the film. I could be wrong but all the elements in the show really reminds me of the action in the film. Oh yea, for you guys who remember the group 2 Live Crew, the have this song where you hear a sample that goes, "What do I get for $10?" and the female hooker replies, "Anything you want," and "Love you long time"... that's from the movie. Hehehe.

I never really watched the film when it first came out in 1987. Maybe the reason was that I was too young and there weren't any VCDs around that time. Kinda hard to go out and pick up a movie when you're still in primary school.

Overall, it turned out to be a very entertaining show. Good music score from the late Sixties. The show begins with recruits joining the marine corps. with a nasty Drill Instructor who throws very interesting insults about the recruits mothers.

Here's a sample of his over-utterly witting sense of intellectualness: -
"Tonight, you pukes will sleep with your rifles. You will give your rifle a girl's name, because this is the only pussy you people are going to get. Your days of finger-banging ol' Mary Jane Rottencrotch through her pretty pink panties are over! You're married to this piece. This weapon of iron and wood. And you will be faithful!"

Though somehow I feel that the film should've ended differently. I don't know about what others think, but I feel that the film left the ending hanging. Probably that's one of Stanley Kubrick's signatures, but I'm convinced that it could be better.

Washed, Waxed and Polished

Yesterday was a slow day. It seemed that everything was getting on my nerves. It didn't improve as the day went on. Seems like you do a favor for someone, you get not a "thanks" but get called, "Stupid" instead. Yea, I'm talking about you Iris! "Thanks a lot" would have suffice, but no, "Stupid" is the only word that seems to exist in your vocabulary.

After that, found out that Gary arranged a nice outing in 1Utama at night. Thought about calling me perhaps? Ohh, no! Think we'll leave Henry out. Alright, I know when I'm not wanted Gary. Just remember, what goes around comes around buddy. I'll remember this... Grrrrr!

In the evening, my sis drove her bf's car back home. To my surprise, she took out the vacuum machine, wax and the works. She practically washed and detailed the car inside out! Hmmm, looks like love can do mysterious things after all. In her whole 20 years of existance, I've never ONCE seen her wax, let alone wash my mum's car that she uses so often.

Well since there were no plans yesterday, didn't think about going out. Everyone had their own thing to do, so it's times like these that the PS2 is indeed a companion.

Seemed like a good day to wash, wax and polish the car today. Since I've had it repainted two months ago, I haven't waxed it yet. Bought a new bottle of tyre shine. Good stuff! Seemed cheap, RM16.90 for two bottles, good enough to last me for quite some time. Think I'll wax the tyres every other day now. Since I was doing the tyres, thought I'd polish the whole car too.

Cold and rainy weather...

As usual, started the day with lunch. Messaged Jackson on MSN and went to pick him up around 1 something. Had our lunch at Nam Chuan coffeeshop and it turned out to be one of those routine days. No job interviews or anything. Has been like that for the past two months. I think, this should be a busy month for me. It's been very quiet since I sent out my resume about 2 months back. Hopefully I should be hearing some feedback from the companies that I've applied to.

After lunch, rushed back home to catch a few episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation. Downloaded season two of the series, just for the sake of watching it again. Since there's nothing much to do nowadays.

Iris messaged me on MSN and told me that she's submitted her resignation letter. It's about time, cause she's been complaining a lot about the company. Why work for a company that will not treat the staff good? Who makes you work every day for a whole month, and we're not talking about Saturdays, we're talking about Sundays and public holidays. She's been working really hard and there are times, I'd like to give that boss of her's a piece of my mind. How do you expect a girl to do lifting and shifting of stocks? He should hire some lifters, talk about a Scrouge! Shimatta!

Went to Megamall with Wan Yee tonight. He wanted to pick up car polish, looks like I know what he'll be up to over the holiday weekend. Took the opportunity to pick up a bottle of battery water and some tyre shine. Hmmm, it's been a month since I've waxed my car. But looking at the weather, I think it's better if I put it off for another month. It's just been raining the whole week. Talk about rainy and gloomy weather.

Shellshock Nam '67

Shellshock Nam '67 


It's a lazy Sunday afternoon. Woke up at around 1pm, yes it's good to sleep in. Had something to eat that my dad bought. From the reminder from the ex-smbb groups, it's Y'ng's birthday today, so thought I'd just send her an SMS to wish her happy birthday. Got a reply a few minutes later telling me that her birthday was tomorrow instead. Kum Wah, you've gotta update that reminder!

After lunch, I thought I'd just give this game that I bought about a month ago a try, called Shellshock Nam '67. I tested the game when I bought it but guess it never stuck on. Since Gungrave, I was pretty interested in games with some shooting action. Shellshock seems to be the appropriate one. Nothing like getting into the trenches of Vietnam during the war and shooting some renegade rebellions from the Vietcong era. It takes a little getting used to as the controls aren't that friendly on the PS2. I think this game like Max Payne is a lot more suited to the PC, with a keyboard and a nice optical mouse. It's from Eidos, so it's pretty much like Lara Croft's adventures but minus the hot chick. Speaking of chicks, as a G.I., the military knows that every good ol' American G.I. needs some 'entertainment' for well, how do I put it? De-stressing?

You get to collect Chits in the game and once you've gotten a reasonable amount you can go up to this guy in the camp named Duece, who by the way goes with the tagline, "The Duece always produce!". You buy these passes and you get to go up to the mamasan in a village behind the base for some 'Boom-boom' with some local chicks. Unfortunately, the game's not rated X, so all you see is the hut shaking with lots of grunting and moaning. Yeap, what a total waste of time and chits!

Other than that the game is pretty entertaining, with this field commander who looks suspiciously like Agent Gibbs from the NCIS series. Oh well, talk about reality. Back to the game for some fraggin'!

Disarming the booby traps... talk about doing all the dirty work!

Disarming a booby trap 


In Shellshock Nam '67, you play the newbie in the squad. Since you are the 'cherry', besides shooting some 'Charlies' from the missions, you are also required to disarm booby traps in the missions. Shit, talk about hardwork. In the beginning of the second mission, you have to go in to rescue a missing reporter. You get a pointman named Monty, a local who's turned over to the US side. He guides the platoon to the village and every so often he yells out to you, "Hey new guy, booby traps up ahead..." Bahhhh, that means hey, you're the newbie on the block, so get your ass up here and disarm that bomb before the whole platoon takes a hit. I managed to disarm the trip bombs where u have to crawl up close and disarming by a series of movements before the timer runs out. If you take too long, boom! Apparently disarming a trap made out of wooden spikes ain't that difficult. Just shoot it! I tried crawling real close to it to cut a wire or something and all of a sudden, Whoosh! In my face! Shimatta!!

Tag, you're it!

Ohh by the way, do check out the new tagboard I've put up in the page. Thanks to Rudy's suggestion I've decided to put one here as well. Good thing that this is pretty easy to use. Well guys, have fun with the scribbles!

Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Carbriolet 

Korean Food.. and a Carrera 4...

Today's a pretty standard day. It's Friday so had to wake up early to move my car outside cause the maid washes the garage. I was up till 4.30am yesterday clocking some good time on the PS2. After I woke up, it was practically impossible for me to get back into bed. So went through the daily routine of reading the newspaper over a cuppa juice and feeding the fishes. Checked my downloads and completed 5 episodes of Drew Carey's Green Screen Show. I was also doing some other downloads at the moment so took the opportunity to burn some stuff out to clear some space in the ol' hard-disk. Wan Yee called to meet Jackson and me for lunch. Was supposed to go to Chow Yang but it was pouring the whole afternoon, so we changed location to 1 Utama. At least we won't be drenched in there.

After lunch Wan Yee headed off to his appointment, while Jackson and I spent the rest of the afternoon in 1 Utama. Walked here, browsed there, and ended up in the old wing and straight towards Eneos! Can't resist a good accessory shop now, can I?
Picked up some sponges for washing and waxing and also checked off the list for a polishing cloth. After that, Wan Yee called to meet up for tea in Lucky Garden in the evening.

Met up with Merv, Andrew and Wan Yee for dinner. Merv was supposed to come pick us up, but Wan Yee showed up instead. He told me that Andrew had a changed of plans and decided to take the 2 seater tonight. I was like, hmmm.. his Pajero is a 2-door, but that doesn't make it a 2 seater. Then, it hit me! He took the other 2 seater, one that started with the letter 'P' as well, but this baby ain't any Japanese marque. It's the finest from German motoring and the only thing that I can think is better from Germany is a RUF tuned version of that car. The sweet and sexy Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Cabriolet.

Got to Merv's place and he said that we will take it easy and have something simple. The moment he said that, it reminded me of what Gary said to the gang, "Simple guys, ok let's go Korean!". That was Merv's plan as well, so off to Hartamas to the Korean restaurant. I was a bit skeptical at first cause I haven't been to any good Korean restaurants in Malaysia. The last time I ate Korean was in Brisbane and it was good. Merv drove instead cause Wan Yee decided that taking 2 cars to Hartamas would be a hassle especially on a Friday night because of parking problems. As tempting as the Carrera 4 was, it wasn't designed for 4 people! Have a friend who calls the coupe's back seats the 'dog-seat' cause she didn't like climbing into the back of my 180SX. So in the end, we went in Merv's car, looks like it's really handy to have 4 door car after all.

I must say, the dinner at the restaurant was excellent! Really authentic Korean dishes and well I never doubt Merv's choices of restaurants. We had Kim Chi Fried Rice for 4, Kim Chi soup, BBQ beef, pork and chicken. I'm tell you guys, we over-ate! After the whole meal, I could hardly get up! Well, enough about the food, though my compliments to the chef... but there was some more important things to turn to. Back to oogling at the sexy German that was parked right in front of Merv's driveway.

Got back to Merv's place and the rain had just stopped. The Carrera 4 looked great even in the rain, it's got all the right curves in the right places. I never quite fancied Porsches, but the Carrera 4 proved to be a fine sports car. We were supposed to go for a ride in it, but with the rain and wet roads, we called it off. Managed to sit inside the cockpit and the leather trimmed bucket seats really provides good lateral support. As it is Wan Yee's dream car, Andrew gave him a chance to fire the beast up. He switched the ignition on and all 6 cylinders fire-up giving a sweet purr to the engine. I tried to convince Andrew to take the car for a spin and these wet conditions were well suited for 'dorifto...' Looks like I didn't convince him enough to do that. Come to think of it, it is insane to take an RM 700 THOUSAND car at high-speed sideways with the tyres screeching and struggling for traction.

Sigh, looks like all I can do now for the moment is dream about owning a car such as this...

Gungrave Overdose!

Gungrave Overdose 


You know, I actually didn't quite like the beginning of this anime. My sis had a copy of the anime so I just picked it up to see if it was any good. I forced myself to get by the first four episodes, and it kinda got a little more interesting after that. Talks about how a street kid named Brandon Heat ends up being a mafia assassin. Finally makes it big alongside with his best friend Harry 'Bloody' MacDowell. Long story cut short, he's betrayed and killed by his best friend. Ends up being an undead in some mad scientist's experiment and is reborn as Beyond the Grave... Gungrave. The game actually picks up from where the anime ended. Shall not spoil it for those who haven't watched the anime. A little note is that the characters from the first Gungrave makes a return cameo in the game, with a lot more cooler moves and are a lot harder to kill as compared to the anime. Why can't they make the game as easy as the show? Rudy, interested? Wan Yee's gotta copy of the series. Hehehe.

Chilli's... Yumz.. and Completing Gungrave Overdose!

Tried to write yesterday but I couldn't log in. Blogger was having some problems I guess. Let's see, had to do some chores yesterday. A plant outside my house had water stuck inside the pot, so I had to 'unflood' the darn thing. It took a good 30 minutes to drain it, now all that's left for me to do is to fill it up with fresh earth. Ahhh, it can wait.

After that, I just spent the entire afternoon just watching 5 episodes of NCIS. What a 'fruitful' afternoon. Clocked an hour of Gungrave Overdose on the PS2. The controller's starting to gather some dust. Seems like I haven't been touching the PS2 as often as I should. Played an hour before Wan Yee called, told me to get ready by 7.30pm.

The night's dinner was fun. Zoe came to pick all of us up. Chien was there to reserve the table so naturally we were late. Ohh, did I mention it was pouring out there? Guess going through the rain was worth every moment of it. Ahhh, nothing like red meat! Burgers from Chilli's always tasted nice. Had 4 cups of Vanilla Coke before feeling like I was floating on water. Zoe layed the gauntlet on the table to challenge Merv to a drink-down. But I guess she gave up after the 4th one, she said it was the gas in the Diet Coke. Well, at least she did justice as Gary stopped after having 1 and a half glass of ice lemon tea. Wuss! Dinner conversation was fun, though we had a nice go at Gary. I guess I shouldn't mention it on the blog, if the rest of you guys weren't there, too bad! You'll have to ask him what the conversation was about. But then again, I guess he'll probably claim that he's forgotten about it. Hehehe.

After dinner, it was off to the arcade on the 3rd floor of Megamall. Zoe was pretty disappointed not having had the chance to play the drum machine. Oh well, better luck next time. I was stuck playing some mahjong game there. Pretty interesting, though wasted a couple of dollars on it. Shimatta!

Back home, I wasted no time in firing up Gungrave. I was stuck at the last level and when I finally figured out the solution, Jackson called for tea. It was 12 am, and I thought, oh well, it's been an hour plus, might as well take a break from the game and go out for a short break. After that, back home, banged on the PS2 again and finally completed Gungrave Overdose! And guess what? I still haven't unlocked the Customize feature. Looks like I'll have to complete the game with the other 2 characters before I get to see the other features in the game. Back to the drawing board!

At 3.30am sharp, stopped the PS2, and switched to football. Pretty interesting first half, MU went up 2-0. Came half time, my eyes were totally heavy. I guess I fell asleep during half time. Woke up at 7am and saw another match showing. I switched off the tele and went to bed.

Cravings for familiar foods..

I read an interesting article in the Star today, by Mary Schneider. She talked about how one has cravings for food from their country, even when travelling overseas. This reminds me of the time in Brisbane, where I tried the Fried Kuay Teow and Hainanese Chicken Rice. I'll sum it up in one word, "Sucky!". Well so much for the intellectual speech. I'd say, nothing beats having Fried Kuay Teow from back home, it wins hands down even if the Kuay Teow seller was on a bad day.

Australia's a country filled with diversed cultures. With the great migration and all, you get some pretty decent food there. They have really authentic cuisines from all over the world, made by the natives. You don't go into some Japanese restaurant and find your sushi being prepared by a chinese chef. No offense to any great sushi chef out there, but it just loses the authenticity of it all.

Anyway, I guess what I'm getting to at here is that no matter where you are in the world, eating something familiar reminds you of home. I mean, living overseas and all, once in a while you would think about the things you missed back home. As for me, the first thing on my mind is the food back home. Now some people would argue that you can learn the recipes and all, but if you're an average cook like I am, it's impossible to remember every recipe that there is. Therefore the only thing that I could do was to go to the nearest place that sold chicken rice in Sunnybank, Brisbane... and order it from there.

Speaking of food, this brings me back to the first time I tried French food. Well, I had a French housemate, Cecile and one day she decided to cook a typical French meal. She researched some recipes and wanted to cook escargots. Now, I know that it's an exotic dish there but seeing that she was preparing it for the first time and going around Woolworth looking at the aisles for snails, that didn't quite appeal to me. I guess it was the way she put it, "I'm going to cook snails for you all." It didn't help the fact that I saw a few garden snails a few days before she said it, so I kinda lost my appetite. Came the big day, and was I glad that they didn't get the snails. I asked the other French girl, my neighbour Camille, and she said, "Not all French people love escargot...". I guess it's an acquired taste.

Thankfully, my housemate decided on cooking fondue. Since she couldn't get the particular cheese needed to make the cheese fondue, she decided on chocolate fondue. Interesting, now that's something that I could get used to. Talk about a lot of chocolate. All melted into a pot and we just dipped fruits, cookies, bread, berries and all. It was delicious!

Now that I'm back in KL, I haven't stopped sampling the food here. Ahhh, all the lost time... I need to make up for it!