united malaysia for malaysians...

Got the link through a close friend's blog, and finally got to listen and watch the music video after numerous attempts, don't have a speaker you see, I'm poor...;) Goofy as it seems, the video served it's purpose to call for unity in our home, our country, our beloved Malaysia.

As of now (10.37pm, 28 May 2008), 59,469 individuals have downloaded the song, over 100,000 had listened the song through youtube, and thousands of bloggers are spreading the same message through their blogs: we all hope for a single united nation and we are all proud to be Malaysians. See beyond colours and you will see that we are brothers and sisters, after all.



Spread the love, Malaysians. Spread the love.

Our country needs it.

content...

You know, sometimes you really wonder if you're experiencing difference phases in life after being alive for a quarter of a century. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm not old enough to talk philosophy, but sometimes, at times, I begin to feel more and more content with whatever I have now in my life, or anything that may come in the future.

There has always been times when I felt that I do not make enough money to live a comfortable life. Call me materialistic, or anything you wish, but that's what makes the world spin, no? I want to, I need to, be financially-independent if I'm being serious in buying my own home to stay with my beloved one, and to take care of my family with ease, while at the same time making enough money to travel to places I have never been to, and perhaps going for some occasional fine-dinings if my financial situation permits.

I'd live extremely frugal at times in recent years, to the extent that I thought I can save a couple of bucks if I have bread for lunch instead of a decent chicken rice with iced tea. At times I'm very satisfied, but there will be times where I wonder if I'm doing enough.

But then again, from time to time, I'd have moments where I sit back to think, long and thoroughly that maybe, perhaps maybe, sometimes money isn't everything. I'd count my blessings to have a proper roof over my head now. I'd appreciate myself if I can spend a little more to have some decent dinner outings with my girlfriend. I would spend a little to pamper myself and the people surrounding me, just for the sake of spending. During these moments, I would think that there aren't more important things in life than having a good time, and enjoying life to the fullest in slow-motion.

I know it won't be long before I go full throttle in making money again, but it's always during phases like these I would tend to sit back and relax, and think about what's best in life. And a cup of nice hot coffee on a Sunday afternoon, with nothing else to worry about, it's as though the best thing that can happen to me at the moment.

Sometimes, after taking a couple of steps forward, you need to take one step backward just to have a wider view of the road ahead of you.

Sometimes, it keeps you sane.

Other times, it keeps you happy too. I'm content to be happy, at the moment.

tortoise...

I've uploaded quite some photos of Cactus lately, it'll be biased if I didn't put in any photos of my beloved tortoise as well.

Photo uploading will do for now, lately I'm a bit too busy to think of proper stuff to blog about. Things may change though after the Bangkok trip end of this month.

So for the time being, enjoy some tortoise photos!

crépes cottage...

Went to Butterworth and Penang last weekend (whew, I travel a lot lately...), and finally had the chance to stop by Crépes Cottage for some much recommended pancake desserts my friends have been praising non-stop.

Swoosh!

Crépes Cottage is owned by an old lady by the name Agnes, and is located somewhere along Gurney Drive. It's a very small cottage by the roadside, with ample parking spaces behind the comfy wooden cottage.

Strawberry Roll

Coincidentally, my girlfriend's best buddy worked for quite some time in this cafe, being the nephew of the owner, as a chef. Many of my friends have dined here and left with praises and good reviews, while for me, 3's a charm as I finally get to test the desserts after failing to have any meals the first two times I dropped by.

Traffic Light

Both my girlfriend and I met up with her other friends working in Penang just to have a taste of the much-talked pancake desserts, we ordered 5 different pancakes for our 11pm supper, one being a new dessert yet to be named.

Hot Apple

I personally find the pancakes very unique, you seriously don't find these kind of desserts at a lot of places.

Italian Iced Coffee

My girlfriend paid tremendous compliments to her best bud who has never served her any desserts available in the menu everytime she visits. And this time there's no difference, we have a specially-made chocolate pancake dessert pre-ordered.

Unnamed Dessert specially made for us!

Am pretty satisfied with the environment and food, I've never tried having supper in such cosy cottage with such colourful walls. And the final bill that came that night was pretty astonishing as well, we spent only RM60.00 on 5 pancake desserts and 5 drinks. Quite a bargain compared to any other eateries along Gurney Drive.

Mango Cup

Crépes Cottage is located at 77-A, Gurney Drive, Penang Island. You can contact Agnes at 019-448 1680 for reservations especially on weekends as there are limited tables in the air-conditioned cottage. For a large gathering of sorts you'll need to sit in the lawn outside, but you'll get the enjoy the breezy wind at night.

Great place to hang out during weekends, too bad they closes at midnight. But they don't mind if you sit around chatting the night away as long as you pays the bill!

whisked away...

I took the last Friday off and left for a short relaxing trip to Malacca. Time to take a short break from work before the busy season approaches. And it's 0.5 of another resolution fulfilled for the year 2008.

Took off around late noon and arrived Malacca Town in less than 2 hours, my girlfriend and I went straight to Jonker Walk's dessert house for a nice bowl of durian cendol. Hanged around until 6pm and when our ex-housemates were off work, we met up for a satay celup session, slurp!

After dinner, we headed back to Jonker Walk for a little shopping spree, but I was obviously very exhausted that night, my legs were wobbly and my eyes were watery even though the clock has not hit 11pm yet. Spent the night at my ex-housemates' rented apartment, which was quite comfy (and those buggers are renting it for RM2XX a month, OMG how the prices differ from KL properties!!!).

The following morning we headed back the street again for some chicken rice ball, before going to the infamous A Farmosa and the Santiago Fort. We took a trishaw ride around the Stadhuys just to kill time, before heading down to Muar to look for my ex-housemate (the same one, working in Malacca but went back to hometown in Muar). We again had some food fest, went for some char koay teow, pork and pork intestine satays and the last but not least, Muar's signature food otak-otak! Well, there's nothing much about the trip other than food, but when you travel for food you go for good food, hahahaha...

Meanwhile, I've captured a better picture of Cactus, this time with a decent camera.

Introducing, Cactus!!!

I like to pretend to look like some soft toy...

Uploaded a large image, but I reduced the quality because this blog kept returning errors when I tried uploading a bigger file size.

cactus...

Finally, some photos of my hedgehog...:)

I've decided to name this little bugger 'Cactus', for obvious reasons. He has a bitemark on his right ear, and I don't think it can fully recover and grow back the missing part. But this guy's still as handsome as ever.

Made him a tupperware home for snuggling during the day time.

Busy exploring and sniffing around in my room when I brought him up first time.

More interested in nibbling the tissue. Bad boy!

Trying to run away when I picked him up. This fella can't sit still.



After all the hassle, decided to take a nap and ignore me.

Yummy!!! Dinner time for Cactus. The bowl's always empty by the time I wake up in the morning.

Took these pictures using my camera phone, hence the bad quality. Wait till I bring home a DSLR, there'll be better shots for uploading...;)

Someone has offered me another female salt & pepper hedgehog, together with the cage, food, and the wheel as well, at quite a bargain price because he is moving and is no longer able to keep it. I'm still wondering if I should get it, will it be too early for me to have 2? I'm still learning new things with Cactus everyday, I doubt if a second one coming now would be a good time. Heck, today I spent half an hour chasing after the little bugger in the house when I took him out to clean his cage.

money come money...

If all goes well tomorrow, I'm officially an online trader, hahaha...

I've been putting up my comic collection up for sale in the internet, just started the web running last month and it got picked up real quick. Of course, being a regular member in a few forums does help my advertising.

Tomorrow I'll be meeting my first buyer who'll be the recipient of my Age of Apocalypse comics, that lucky bugger. AoA is my favourite title in X-Men, the first storyline I collected which started over 10 years ago. I'm selling off my collection of 26 issues, which will be quite some healthy 200% profit roughly.

Hopefully end of the month the second buyer will have time to meet up for another collection of mine. If everything's good I'll be putting in more effort in online trading and put up other second hand stuff for sale in the future.

Wish me luck...:)

broken...

Hopefully I can catch this tonight. If time permits.

hoglet in the family...

It's working hours now but what the heck, now it's officially lunchtime and I'm gonna blog this anyway, hahahaha...

I went to collect my hoglet (baby hedgehog) from my breeder Dickson last night, boy, it was a tiring journey to drive all the way to Batu Caves. But thankfully, it was worth it.

Sat down at the KFC with Dickson and his girlfriend, and chatted on the basic necessities of this hoglet. Apparently the hoglet belongs to his cousin, and fortunately I reserved this young fella earlier because when the hoglet began quilling, this kiddo turned to be a beautiful salt & pepper snowflake, and his cousin must be thumping his chest, Dickson said his cousin claimed that if no one has reserved he wanted to keep it, hahaha... I'm lucky that Dickson kept his promise. It was originally more of a standard salt & pepper. Dickson confessed that this is by far his most beautiful hoglet he and his cousin managed to breed.

It had an injured right ear, part of it bitten off. Got it after a fight with siblings (what a loser). But anyhow, it'll be fine, in fact now I can recognize my hedgehog easily, hehe, still applying some medication though... And for a hoglet, it is unusually tame. When we first met this kiddo let me hold it and it doesn't ball up like other hedgehogs (hedgehogs recognize smells, and usually rolls itself into a ball when they see strangers or smell different stuff). It was already running around actively, and not making any hissing or puffing noises. Hahaha, I think it's my fate that I always end up with pets that are unusually tame. ;)

Reached home very late, and took the hoglet out so it can adapt to a new environment. Dickson said usually his hoglets take about a couple of days before they get used to the new surrounding, food and stuff. This little guy doesn't look like it needs time though, this morning when I woke up it already pooped all over the wheel I left in it's box.

No doubt I'll start posting pictures here when I have the time, but now it's back to work. I'll be attending a play tonight in PJ, entitled 'Broken' if I've not mistaken. Hope it turns out to be good. And tomorrow I'll be back to the alma mater to resolve some issues, you guys know what they are. So after that I'll be back home playing with my hoglet again!

our spm level...

"help me..i m fill the jpa scholarship..closed by this midnight..i want to ask about pharmacy..i got 7A1 and 4a2 in spm..my chem and bio got A2..am i will be shortlisted??or better if i choose the engineering??"

I copied the above from somewhere (not going to mention where) because I find it extremely shocking.

Please look at the sentences and check out the grammar mistakes.

Then proceed to read what kind of SPM results he/she obtained.

Surely it's not possible right?

How can he/she get an A1 or A2 for English? What the heck? Has the SPM standard dropped so low? Dear oh dear, now I know why we get students with crazy loads of As in their certificates.

Shit, and I only got a C3 for my 1119.

I must've been crapshit back in Form 5.

just another manic monday...

Or not.

General Election 2008 is over, and things are back to normal. At least things look to be normal to me. In fact, Sunday was pretty normal too, much to my surprise. But I'm proud that this time around, Malaysians are mature enough and did not cause any troubles anywhere in the country after the elections.

A quick recap on what happened on Saturday, few prominent BN candidates were ousted from the Parliament.

S. Samy Vellu himself, with G. Palanivel, S. Sothinathan, S. Veerasingam and Dr K.S. Nijhar; the top five in MIC, won't be sitting in the Parliament for the next four years, arguably the worst casualty in BN's group of parties.

Gerakan's leader Dr Koh Tsu Koon lost, and lost big, in Penang, with only two of his party members remaining in the Parliament. PPP president M. Kayveas is in the losing end as well.

MCA's leader Ong Ka Ting stays, but many won't be joining him as Tan Chai Ho, Ong Tang Chuan, Wong Nai Chee, Fu Ah Kiow, Donald Lim and Chew Mei Fun among those rejected by the people.

Umno did not fare too well, big names Sharizat Abdul Jalil and Zainuddin Maidin are out.

Of all these names, Sharizat must have been the biggest surprise. Although Nurul Izzah does ooze some confidence and a leader in the making, I did not expect Sharizat to falter after all she has done for the country for the past few years.

Tsu Koon's defeat was down to his Motorola deal, obviously, and Samy Velly didn't make a good impression with his threats. MCA's list of losers are clearly due to their inability to voice out the people's unrest.

I believe the major reason why the Opposition had so much support this year is due to citizen's rejection to the Government. Easy assumption, with all the prices hiking up, poor management of funds ending up with hundreds of millions going to the drain (90 million to send an idiot to space as a participant? what the hell?), corruption, racial polarisation and discrimination among few.

Of the late 2 weeks, they did not do well even though the managed to control the local medias to broadcast and channel their 'successes', while hiding all the flaws from public. What they did not expect is that the internet nowadays provide more than adequate news, unfiltered ones, for the citizens. The Star, NST, TV3, RTM and the others, you guys should be ashamed for letting BN control you guys like muppets.

With BN denied their craved 2/3 majority, what will happen in the Parliament? It'll be some time before we can expect some major changes towards our lives, especially now that the combined PAS, DAP and PKR seek to make some voices heard with the five states won.

But still, expect changes. For better or worst.

and mommy told me tomorrow will be better...

So the Opposition did what they set out to do, deny Barisan Nasional the 2/3 majority.

My plea to the Opposition leaders,

We have made our voices heard now, we have shown that we can make a difference, and we have voted you all to help us achieve a better tomorrow.

Now it's time for you to show us what you can do, and don't let me and my fellow countrymen down.

We have gone lengths to show our support, and while I believe changes may not necessary always be better, at least we have hope. We can hope for a better governance and future for our beloved Malaysia, for the sake of every single Malaysian who stepped forward to be counted.

We voted you in, and we have the power to vote you out.

Goodluck, and God bless Malaysia!!!

tales of inks...

Flipped over the NST this morning and to my disgust the Election Commission has declared that the indelible ink will now not be used during voting procedures, 3 days before the big day.

News splashed across all national newspapers and blogs, internet news all over the world.

47,000 bottles of the indelible ink, costing the government RM2.4 million, was brought in over a week ago, and after 'much discussions' the EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman has confirmed that it will cause plenty of troubles and misunderstanding at the polling stations and decided against it.

Why, for Pete's sake, does he only manage to figure that out after spending RM2.4 million of us taxpayer's money is beyond my imaginations. I mean, look! I am paying my tax to subsidize the government to buy bottles of inks which are now practically going to be stored in some whoknowswhereisitgonnabe storeroom until they get expired and be disposed off!

This news just pisses me off and flipped my day.

I'm sure we will not be facing petroleum price hikes if these funds are used to subsidize petrol, plus all those cash gone in transactions in government bodies, or in another word, corruption.

Why is Abdul Rashid the EC chairperson? I can pick up a stone and throw it across the street, any man who gets hit can still make a better judgement than this guy. Especially when it involves so much money!

resolution no. 7: check...

Had to separate the posts despite writing at the same time, just for my preference's sake.

Was browsing through my new year resolutions for 2008, and am proud to say that I can cross of my no. 7 from the list.

Bought a couple of Public Mutual funds last month after much consideration, and am pretty happy with the funds I've selected. One of it isn't doing too well right now, but overall I'll be content considering that KLCI isn't performing that good anyway. For a long term prospect, I'll be hoping that this will be the first step in my unit trust investments, and hopefully these will help me cover the inflation rate and rising cost of living in Malaysia. Will be looking forward to get a few more after more research and discussions with some experts.

Some of the resolutions look to be on course as well, of course, the majority of them are year-long targets, I won't know until 2008's over, but at least I'm yet to break any.

Plus, if all is according to plan I will be receiving my hoglet in approximately 10 days from my breeder. He has shown me the pictures, and boy isn't the little guy handsome! A standard salt and pepper hedgehog with unusually huge amount of white quills, making it looking like a snowflake.

I guess you guys won't know what I was talking about there, when I receive the hoglet I'll post some pictures in my blog, so be prepared to be poisoned with hedgehogs!

deaths come too often...

Just received news from relatives that my mother's younger brother had passed away last Saturday due to kidney failure, the same day my sister's having her birthday bash.

Mom took the news quite well, managed to cook up the party without a sweat, and cleaned up the mess too in the aftermath.

Is she feeling tired of facing the same emotional agony once too many times? I won't know for sure, but her eldest brother passed away a few years back, and not forgetting my great-grandma and grandfather had left us for good too last year.

I suppose she's pretty sad, but she's not showing it I'm sure. What could hurt more than deaths of loved ones, though they live so far away? Life's cruel, and definitely testing faith at times.

Sent my parents to the airport yesterday morning so that they can catch my uncle's funeral in time, and they'll only be back tomorrow night.

Counting my uncle, this will be the seventh of the unfortunate many which were happening to people around me. My great-grandma, grandfather, and four of my colleagues have had close relatives passing away in these few recent months. Sure a lot of deaths I'm looking at, too many in fact.

But as our lives goes on, so do the people around us. Time to appreciate loved ones, no?

election...

So here it comes, election day next weekend, are you voting?

I heard on the radio yesterday where some people were discussing whether to vote the person or the party. Interesting debate, and in general the society (or the callers mostly) are bent on voting for the party regardless of who the candidate will be at their respective area. Is this a wise choice? Or will you choose based on a candidate who can help you and your community in general?

As for my personal preference, I'd like to remain on the fence in open blogs like this, so I wouldn't say what's my stand.

But I do remember back then in my university's election, I did encounter some laughable candidates. I remember a guy came into the lecture hall before the class begins, and tried to preach and convince us students to vote for him. On his manifesto, he vowed to discard MUET as a compulsory requirement for graduation.

I found it amusing and absurd, and I thought this guy would never win an election with silly ideas like that. In a world where people constantly try to improve themselves, why do we want to do that? Shouldn't we be looking forward to achieve better results and strive to be wiser?

How wrong was I. The idiot won, and MUET was discarded from the graduation requirement.

Our country is still young and growing. People, please vote wisely so that our country can prosper.

Happy be-earlied Election Day to everyone, may the best candidates win.

torty torty...

Took some pictures with the tortoise last Sunday and edited into one piece. Enjoy the pictures!

the pathetic state of malaysian football...

Did anyone else catch ESPN's Sportscenter last night?

There was this interview with some bigshot in the Football Association of Malaysia by phone, and throughout the conversation the screen showed FAM's emblem with the FA bigshot's name (I didn't notice cuz I was busy laughing at the emblem).

The emblem, instead of the words 'Persatuan Bolasepak Malaysia', has the title 'Persatuan Kenasepak Malaysia'. Boy, I thought it was some prank but obviously it isn't, I guess Sportscenter really did a lousy job in searching for our country's FAM emblem, or perhaps it's because that is our latest emblem design?

Wahahahaha!!!

festive season's back...

Going into holiday mood again, wahahahahahaha...

Been off work since last Saturday, went to Butterworth on Sunday and just got home today by plane. This must be the best travel I've had during festive seasons, why the hell haven't I thought of that all those years?

My father picked me up in his new Mini Cooper S, and let me drove home, hehehe... But anyway, having been stuck with Kelisa for so long, driving a MCS doesn't feel much different, but what the heck, it's not my car and I'm not gonna complain since I get to drive a fancy car.

This CNY looks to be a bit dull, I don't know, maybe it's because my grandfather passed away last year and we won't be visiting others, but I know I'll be breaking the 'pantang-larang' thing this year and visit some friends with my form 6 mates. It's been a long time since I've met them and I'm beginning to feel that they think I'm boycotting them, sigh.

ZH's back in town and from the last chat he sounded like he's going to set up a gathering or sorts the week after new year, how it will turn out to be we'll have to wait and see. But I seriously hope everyone here in KL can meet up for once, at least before Nic leaves to work again after his lengthy rest.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

days of past glory...

It's probably the worst possible time to be a Liverpool fan these days. All these results crises, Yankees takeover which left the club in debt, and the owner speaking to a potential replacement behind the current manager's back, humiliated by Luton Town last week, and 12 points off the pace in the League.

How bad can it go?

A year back, when Hicks and Gillette took over from Moores to be the new owner, much promises were made. New stadium, huge transfer kitty, free of debt, and a chance to challenge for the much craved Premiere League trophy.

One year later, the yankee doodles claimed that they don't have enough money to fund the new stadium, and are now in debt. How did these American buggers manage to cheat millions of Liverpool fans and most importantly, the Liverpool Football Club? How can millions of eyes be so blind to not foresee this will happen?

Rafa Benitez has had a run of poor results, and we all are pretty annoyed to be honest, but speaking with a clear conscience it's totally unethical to speak to Klinsmann in what was meant to be 'an insurance policy' when the club was still fighting in all four competitions back in November (although Liverpool got knocked out from the League Cup after that).

It's exactly like what happened to Tottenham earlier in the season, and we all see how low can Martin Jol bring the club down with all these turmoils inside a club. I don't have to elaborate much further on what outcome for both Jol and Tottenham...sigh...

Come on Liverpool, let's get things back on track and show what you can do. I sure can enjoy a good winning run in the league, and have another crack at the Champions' League trophy.

And while I'm still on this topic, I wish some club would just offer some big stash of cash to take away Riise, Voronin and Sissoko, watching them play is such a pain in the ass.