who would expect to receive such a "welcoming" present?

You see, there's never good news when you open the newspapers these days. A couple of weeks ago it was the murder of the young girl in Penang. This week, what do you find? A chopped up body in the fridge.

Here's the picture from a chinese daily on how the body was chopped up and stored in the fridge. The new owner, bought the condo unit from a bank auction, without looking at it. I mean, who would expect to receive such a "welcoming" present?

It says that the body was discovered over the weekend when the new owner and his sister were there to clean up the place. To their surprises, there was more in store for them.

The investigations are still on-going. A lady, inclined to be named has gone to the police station to assist with the investigations. Today however, the newspapers reported that she has been arrested in connection with the murder. They report that she is the wife of the deceased, who now has still not been identified.

The condo in question is located in Mont Kiara, sigh, who would have thought that this would occur here in such a luxury district? Mont Kiara's been known for expats from around the world and countless condo units have been developed here. So, I guess that's going to cause a dent in the prices of property around this district.

Truly, this has been one of the most gruesome murders that we have had in many years. I can't really recall the last one where the body was chopped, which was the Mona Fendi case.

My gosh, it's scary to know that this place has only been vacant for 3 months. Come to think of it, the house next door to mine has been vacant for quite sometime already, definitely more than half a year.... hmmm....

grasshopper on the leaf

It has been raining every night this past few days and I was just wiping my car dry. Then as I looked at the plant, I noticed the grasshopper on the leaf. It really caught me by surprise but it's been so long since I've seen one. I guess it's a rare sight.

Must've been the rain I guess. It was one of the few plants under the roof, guess we all want to get out of the rain, don't we?

I still remember that we used to catch dragonflies and other insects during my school days. This one was quite a huge one, so I thought I'd take a quick snap with my K800i.

lobster promotion at Victoria Station

Well, our annual bonus has come out and I thought we should go out and celebrate. So what food to eat? I suggested lobster since it's been almost a year that we last had it. This time, there was a lobster promotion at Victoria Station.

Somehow, Victoria Station brings back fond memories. Since I was young, my parents brought my sis and I here for celebrating occassions. Mostly birthdays or Father's/Mother's Day. Both of them are not a big fan of beef due to religious reasons. However, my sis and I love it. This place hasn't changed much, you still tip the jockeys for parking your car cause there is no where else to park it. This time however, we managed to find a place just before the turn in and parked our car there.

We ordered a lobster, weighing at 1.2kg. I always forget that there will be a side main accompanying it here. Kinda like the surf and turf. The last time at Lobsterman in KL, we ordered a 900gm lobster, which was very filling. I had the lamb, while Yen ordered the chicken. She barely touched it after eating the lobster. On top of the main course, you'll get a choice of dessert, which is a fruit cocktail sundae or a chocolate cake. Fortunately we went for the fruit sundae. Otherwise, we'd have to take-away the cake as well.

So, if you are looking for a lobster promotion, head on down to the nearest Victoria Station near you. It's from 4 - 31 July. Sigh, wish I could have this on a regular basis. It's not that my wallet cannot handle it, more like my body cannot take the high cholesterol.

you mind to keep it down a little? We're trying to work here

You know, a lot of people go to coffee places to relax, chit-chat and catch up with friends. Yesterday was my off day and Merv came and picked me up together with Bobby. We headed to Gasing for banana leaf and then it was off to 222 to look at CCTV and alarms.

After that, we headed to Bangsar Village II for coffee. We headed up to Starbucks and after ordering our coffee, we proceeded to head to our table. You know, when we you get together with friends, you tend to chat and laugh a little loudly?

Well, halfway through our conversation, this lady sitting in the next table with her laptop says to us, "Do you mind to keep it down a little? We're trying to work here". So we just kept quite, Bobby turned on the music on his laptop, Usher's Yeah! on full blast and walked off to buy a cake. Merv and I were left staring at each other, hoping that the lady would not make another comment.

In the first place, Starbucks is a place for people to get together and talk. What did you expect us to do, whisper to each other and stay in silence in a public place? That's why they call it coffee joints, not Ms. X's private office corner. If you and your colleague are rushing a dateline, please bugger off to somewhere else more suitable, a.k.a. the office! That's what your boss pays you for, so why the hell are you doing your work in the coffee joint?

When you work at a coffee joint, you are expecting people to talk, laugh and chit chat. Cause that's what public places are for, I didn't see the word please keep quite or silence around. I had half the nerve to tell that lady off, what did she think, that this was her grandfather's office?

I on purposed turned on my PSP to the maximum volume. So we had the MP3 blasting off the speakers of Bobby's laptop and my game running at maximum volume. So call it a non-verbal protest from us, but tough luck.

Gone in 60 Seconds

So what's the latest news that we've heard on our shores? I read about this yesterday when a grand theft auto thief walked in to a showroom in Bukit Mertajam, Penang wearing a business suit and holding a cheque book. The guy requested for the keys to the Porsche 911 Targa 4, got into the car, started it up and in a blink of an eye, drove through the showroom glass doors. Sounds like something out from Gone in 60 Seconds, doesn't it?

Of course in the movie, our heroes was forced upon GTA due to life threatening circumstances and had more luck. Our poor thief got into the car, drove 2 kilometres and it ran out of fuel. This was the closest pic that I could find on the Net.

To think that it would have ended up there, the car was stolen again last night, from right under the noses of the cops. However, this time, it was abandoned 15km away from the police station. This time the car had fuel in it.

So will we be seeing more supercars being stolen over the next few months? The selection of supercars have grown over time and mostly are brought in by Naza. This car was one example of a Naza showroom.

This world is full of shit.

I didn't give it much thought that today is Friday the 13th. Thanks Cheryl for bringing this up, you just had to tell me. I was just thinking that it is the 13th of July, nothing more. So what happened to you today?

You know, it's funny. I was speaking with Chin Hooi today and he mentioned that his day was fucked. So I told him, blame it on Friday the 13th. So I asked him, why was his day screwed? He said that his subordinate lay some shit and he has to clean up the mess. In recent times, the shit are more watery, making it harder to clean. This was a good metaphor. It made me realized what I've been doing all this while, cleaning up shit! As Cheryl put it the last time when she was here, everyday we are dealing with shit. Others make the mess, we end up cleaning it.

It's because someone caused the mess and you end up having to clean up. The problem is, it's nasty, smelly and it's stressful. Sure you may try not to think about it, but in the end it'll stick to your memory. When you least expect it, you'll suddenly recall the nasty shit that you have had to clean up.

This applies to organizations the world over. The cleaners from the actual cleaning service providers who clean the company vacinities all the way up to the President has shit to clean. Just that the shit you deal with is probably of different proportion and stinkiness. I can think of a million examples about shits waiting to be cleaned up. From the bad shit in the toilet stall all the way to the "We did not find any weapons of mass distruction in Iraq", it's still shit. Someone came up wth a brilliant idea that failed, somebody's gotta do damage control. You try to contain the shit as much as possible, but if it's too full of shit, it'll just end up exploding. Look at Bush now, his ratings are at an all time low and they're calling for an impeachment.

Just take the recent example of the shit that Jess Teh caused. For those of you that have not been following the local Malaysian news, this mother, I'm not sure whether she deserves to be called a mother, tried to cover up the death of her daughter who was under the care of her boyfriend. So they lied to the cops, the press and even the MCA. She pleaded that her daughter went missing and that she had been kidnapped. The truth was that the daughter had drowned and that when she was told about it by her boyfriend, they decided to wait till dark to get rid of her body by burning it and scattering the pieces in numerous places.

Advise is, don't try to cover up shit that you cannot cover. I don't understand why she didn't just admit the whole story. Right now, she and the boyfriend could be charged with a different charge as the shit just got messier.

This world is full of shit. So is this post. We'll always end up thinking problems equals to shit.

the dragon and the phoenix

It's a shame, when I saw this photo in The Star, I thought it would win. It was taken by Crystal and it was a natural formation of both the dragon and the phoenix. I mean, usually you'll see cloud formations form and take shape of something, but this is a really huge coincidence that both the dragon and the phoenix should appear at the same time.

I don't think I'll need to talk about the dragon. It's been in countless tales from Chinese to the west. Sure you could count the number of movies that a dragon has appeared, but I really liked the take in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. There were a few breeds of dragons that appeared in the Tri-Wizard's Cup. It nearly got our young hero killed. To think at his age, he was battling dragons, what the heck was I doing? Playing tennis? Going into storm drains?

What is a phoenix exactly? It's a mythical bird that dies in flames and reborn in it's ashes. I believe there should be an appearance by Dumbledore's pet phoenix in the upcoming movie, the Order of the Phoenix. Once again, another mythical creature that has appeared in both Asian and Western folklore. So, if a phoenix has the power to resurrect itself, how did it become extinct?

The Samsung LA32R71B

I haven't had the time to write more about the new visual candy that I just picked up on Saturday. The Samsung LA32R71B, actually comes in either black or white. I actually saw the ad for SenQ in the Star on Thursday morning and informed my wife about it. So since we were in Plaza Damas on Saturday morning, I thought that we should go check it out.

Here are the specs that I managed to find online:

Diagonal screen size: 32 inch
Aspect ratio : 16:9
Additional features : Digital Natural Image engine; 10-bit signal processing;
portable media device support; HDMI terminal.
Dimensions (HxWxD) : 548.5 x 800 x 80 mm
Weight : 14.8 kg
Surround effects : SRS TruSurround XT
Total output power : 10W x 2
Video input : S-video, VGA, Composite video, Component video
Contrast ratio : 5,000:1
Additional features : 1366 x 768 resolution; 500 cd/m2 brightness; 8ms response
time; 12.8 billion colors; 178-degree viewing angle; HD-ready

It came with one year full warranty coverage and 1 year from SenQ. I bought an additional 2 years just in case. So far, the pictures are crisp with RCA cables alone, however it has 2 HDMI terminals and one DVI input. I've activated the Game option on the AV port that I plug my PS2 in. So far I've only managed to try God of War 2 on it and it was fabulous. For the first time, I was able to run it on widescreen aspect. You kinda see a bit more of the background.

Yesterday was the first time I watched the British Grand Prix on it and it was fabulous. With the smaller tv that we had in the room, it took up more space as it was thick and it generated more heat. With the Samsung, it was just warm and the colours were truly bright. Now I don't want to watch the race anywhere else but in the comfort of the room.

I'm going to watch until my eyes pop out!

Ahhh... finally the last item is complete. A huge flat panel LCD TV for the room. Since Maybank was having an offer for all cardholders, it was time that I bought one for our room. I've always wanted on before repainting the room. Now we have one. A 32" LCD TV, complete with swivel function. It's competely crazy to watch TV on. At first I wasnted to mount it on the wall, but then again, you'll have to drill holes and then fit in the bracket, which would cost anothehr RM200.00 . For now, the current TV cabinet will have to do. We plan to get another slimmer one in the beige colour to compliment the rest of the fittings in the room.

Now if you'll excuse me, it'll be back to watching movies on the big screen now. I'm going to watch until my eyes pop out!

makes me feel like wanting to eat bread everytime I watch the series

Congratulations to Rudy who's been promoted to manager. Though he's taking up two portfolios, I think he'd be able to handle both of them. Just more beneficial for the company, pay one guy to be manager for both. Sounds like cost saving.

I've just managed to collect the pilot episodes for Battlestar Galatica(BSG) from Wan Yee. Though I'm already up to episode 8 of season 2, I felt pretty lost in the first season. For those of you who do not know what the show is about, a brief summary would be that there are 13 colonies of humans around the galaxy. Earth, being number 13 was the heretic. Basically, the 12 colonies are being terrorized by Cylons, these robots that were created by the colonies and they gained "consciousness" and were able to fight back. So basically after watching the first few episodes of season 1, I was pretty lost at what they were running from. Further on to the season, they reveal that Cylons took up human forms as clone. So each Cylon you kill, their memories get downloaded into another body, which enhances their learning experience. Talk about killing your enemy and for them to come back with a vengence.




I also picked up the anime, Yakitate!! Japan, which literally translates to "Freshly baked!! Japan", which revolves around a boy named Kazuma Azuma who has the notion of baking a bread that represents Japan. He was introduced to a baker by his sister when he was a young boy. The baker noticed that he had a gift, warm "Solar hands", which makes the yeast ferments quicker, thus making the perfect bread. He was the one who planted the idea into Azuma's head saying that the French, German and English all have their breads. Why not Japan?

Yen watched the show and she too enjoys it. Somehow, it makes me feel like wanting to eat bread everytime I watch the series.