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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Happy Weekend - New Toys (Again)

I had a great weekend cause I had a great day today! Yeah, that's the highlight of the weekend. Lols... Was in 1U today to meet up with a friend of +1. As we were walking towards the meeting point, I wandered into Celcom Cube. Checked out their Blackberry Storm2. Kinda like it. Planned to get it another day. Walking on, I accidentally wandered into a camera shop. And there goes my Blackberry. :( I didnt know what happened.
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I accidentally gotten myself a len's hood, a speedflash and a 55-200mm lens *happy* no, should be *very happy*. Of course with all these new additions, I can no longer stuff them all into the old camera bag. Therefore, I got myself a new camera bag too... it was inevitable. Not that I wanted to. Just that I dont have a choice ;) Yeah, it was like that.
It only dawn on me much later of the dent I've caused in my piggy bank *sakit hatinya*... Then someone really kind and generous offered to sponsor a part of it. Aww... it is a wonderful world afterall... I think I even walked with a little skip after that and went lalalalalala... hehehe...

Thursday, February 25, 2010

A Simple Night Chilling Out With Friends

Entertained some friends at home last night. They planned it weeks ago to visit and finally popped by last night to chill out and we had a fun filled night.
They were altogether 8 of us including Dennis & Evie (the MRS' sifu) who Harrison invited at the very last minute. As it was a late dinner/supper kinda thingy, I fried some seafood tomyam beehoon and cooked some curry chicken to go with it. Forgot to take picture of the food. Was busy catching up on gossips and laughing like a crazy woman...lols... However, judging from how they constantly go for an extra helping, it should be really yummy. I didnt eat. The weather was too hot. It spoilt my appetite.
Some of them left early. Derek & Florence stayed on till 1:30am. In the end, we finished two bottles of wines Florence brought... *hic* and had so much fun laughing away. What my girlfriend said is right, that, we dont need to jemput sekampung. So long as the few that can 'click', cukup liau... lols....

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Polarizing Happy Moments

In the midst of packing up the office (yeah, moving to new premise soon), I got bored and decided to do something. I have always envy the few friends of mine who owns an Iphone cause that niffy gadget of their's comes with a preloaded 'Polarizer' software. Secretly, that's also part of the reason why I wanted an Iphone... hahaha.... I know I know, silly, lols... This polarizer thingy basically makes your picture looks like it has been shot from a polaroid camera. I thought it look cute. Classic kind of cute. I like and I want and so, after packing up boxes after boxes of files for awhile, I decided to surf the net for that cute little software. I searched hi & low for:-
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"Polarized Software"
"Polaroid Generator"
"Polarized Photos"
"How To Polarized Photos"
"How To Make Photos Look Like Polaroids"
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And taa...daa...! At last, I found it at Poladroid. It was a really simple and cute application. Simply drag and drop the photo you want to polarize. Then wait or shake the picture a little to see it developing slowly. Just like the real thing. Cute!

Here are some photos I curi from JonRaj which was taken in Cherating on the night we celebrated Terri's birthday. I polarized it using Poladroid. They looked so cute! By the way, the mahjong tiles are not edible ok. They are real.

Other than loving it's polaroid effect, I especially love this photo cause I look 8 years younger... hahahaha... Vain. I know. Oh also, I think my face look thin lor... quite cun also la... But, but that so-called goodfriend of mine hor (the birthday girl la...) cannot see me happy for awhile one or shiok sendiri a bit. Not even for a second. She must go and say... "It's the lighting la...." wtf?!? hmmrrfff!

He looks like he is singing in this picture but unfortunately he is not lor... Otherwise William Hung would need to hang up his 'mike' and stop banging. He was just blabbering something about have to drink more Tiger Beer in the year of tiger, hahaha...
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Anyway, so if you want your photos turn out cute like mine, go try out the link...;) Have fun!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Our Extraordinary CNY

As we were driving out yesterday evening for an impromptu dessert outing at Swensen with the Fernandez, I told the man... "Today already 7th day of CNY. CNY passed so fast hor..." and he went like... "mm hmm..." and I continued, "But then again, luckily we went for a 3d/2n trip to Aunty Ruby's Resort... otherwise sure bored until chau ken (cramp)...".. :p
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CNY has finally come and gone. Not entirely but can be considered so la... Afterall, work starting tomorrow (I know some of u started way earlier, aww... poor u) and things will fall back to normal routine once again.
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Didnt take any photos of CNY this year. Probably too tired from rushing about getting things done until no mood to even lug my camera about. What shutter speed la... aperture la... aiyah... fuck it la... Might as well just sit down and relax and arrange tiles and pong hung zhung, pak pan, fatt choy better... (mahjong) hehehehe....

Collected these lovely cupcakes which I ordered from Terri for my in-laws as gifts for visiting guests on eve of CNY. It was not only xtreme pleasing to the eyes but to the palette too. Yummy! The kids love them so much.
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Had reunion dinner at home that night. I always love to reunion at home instead of makan-ing outside at restaurants. No.1 cause restaurants are jam packed with people and I can't stand crowd. No.2 cause need to dress up. No.3 cause they are not only expensive, mass produced food are yucky too and have to wait forever to be served. So, we had a really nice reunion dinner at home. Mom-in-laws cooked up a storm.
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Day 1 & 2 of CNY was basically comprises of visitings. Relatives visited us and we visited some others. Like that la... standard activities. Eat, talk, laughed....
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A little out of the norm for this year's CNY would be, instead of going back to Kluang, we went to Aunty Ruby's resort in Cherating on 3rd day of CNY for a 3d/2n trip instead. It was simply perfect.

Other than mom, Terri's family joined us too. Lagi perfect. Ngam ngam 3 kaki (me, mom & terri). Lols... Aunty Ruby took out her brand new mahjong set for us to play. She said must give her angpow wor... virgin mahjong mah...lols... damn sam pat lor...
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On the first day there, we started to play after dinner at Duyong. About 11pm like that and played right thru to 6am. It was really nice. Playing mahjong by the beach while enjoying the sea breeze and the lapping sound of the waves in the background. What a holiday! The initial plan was to play till sunrise but somehow the plan changed along the way. Decided to snooze before the sun rises. Otherwise, sure difficult to sleep. Heard the cockerel cocking away as we walked back to our rooms...lols... then the birds began to chirp and then the insects too...lols... Didnt know it was like that. The cockerel is the alarm clock to the others. :p The wonders of nature.
Awaken rudely the next morning by some uncivilised barkish dogs few doors away at 8:30am. Got up, went out, gave the owner a look of disgust of their untrained dogs, slammed the door and went back to bed. Woke up later at 10:30am. Though still a little grumpy due to the earlier incidents, it was nice just lepaking at Aunty Ruby's cafe over some simple breakfast of mee siam and coffee. At least the hati lega a bit la... that's the magic of that place. Very laid back. Wanna feel angry for long also difficult.
Went lunch at Malaysia Restaurant (the only one that opened) for stuffed crabs in the afternoon. Evelyn & Dennis joined us too. After lunch, we proceeded to Hai Peng for some local coffee. We make mom belanja us. Lols... picture above shows the Ah Pek who started the kopitiam.
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Back at the resort, we continued with mahjong. Stopped at 6pm to take the dogs down to the beach. Mana tau, after changing into our swimsuits, the weather suddenly changed. Strong wind coupled with drizzle. Everyone was running back from the beach. We lepak in the room for awhile and my Mr Macho said... "Aiyah... already changed... will get wet anyhow... might as welljust go swim la...". So off the two of us went, down to the beach. It was so freaking cold. Along the way, Aunty Ruby spotted us as she was washing down the yard and start spraying us with the water hose somemore and yelled..."wah... so romantic arr... "... kanasai.... I tell you arr... really really really cold lor.... my teeth were chattering non stop even before reaching the beach... :p Once there, quickly jumped into the sea. At least the sea is warmer...
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That night, being still pretty full from all those sumptuos meals, we opted for cup noodles instead. Having nothing much else to do, we started to play with bubbles.

The culprit who started it all, my mom, the dai kui tao. See.. see... the 54 years old aunty playing bubbles. Somemore dancing around with it until Terri have to say... "eh, your mom got take her medicine or not??" lols....
Then the engineer also got addicted while trying to repair the bubble gun and started blowing bubbles.

The little boy said... "I want to go into the bubble please....."...lols.....

Christian (the boy) had the most fun. 7 adults + 6 dogs entertaining just one kid.
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Come midnight, we had a not-so-surprising birthday celebration for Terri as it was coincidentally her birthday the very next day. 'Not-so-surprising' thanks to the-love-of-my-life. He burst the bubble. What's new... Twice to be exact.
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1) When Evelyn said she will go get the thing, he have to ask not once but couple of times... "what thing???"
2) When Evelyn smsed into his phone to tell us that she already got the cake in her room, he have to read out loud... "cake???"
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You see la.... hehehehehe.... serious blur case. Lols.... Nevertheless, we had a great time. Tokkok, sing song, joked and laughed. 'Someone' ended feeling extra jolly and puking by the tree after 4 bottles of Tiger beers in half hour. Mad fella... must be extreme thirsty. It was really funny. Though it was just a simple celebration, nothing great, it was really nice.
The weather was really nice next morning. After lunch at HaiPeng, we went down to the beach to take some photos.

Love the blue sky, the long stretch of sandy beach, the island in the distance, the trees, the breeze, the gently lapping waves....


And especially love this one... it has been awhile since we last took any nice photos together. Always look better with sunglasses on. I got cacat sepet eyes that spoil photos... lols...

The tree house built by Aunty Ruby's staff. Pretty cool. Only shortcoming is not having a toilet up there. We had barbeque underneath it the last trip we were there last year.

Taken with the center of attraction of the trip, Christian who sometimes answer to 'Superhero' or 'Spiderman' too. Also known as Christian Girl/Christina when he gets too whiny.
Christian/Christian Girl/Christina/Superhero/Spider with Aunty Popo.
With his God a.k.a. his daddy.


With his mommi at the tree house' swing. It was a really cool swing. I had a great time swinging away too...:)

A picture with the birthday girl. My face look so big. Should have used my hair to cover half of it like how Terri did it. Then will surely look slim....lols.... Sigh... time to shed some weight.


The vain pot.

The birthday girl's feet. I was trying to be artistic. But it came out over artistic. Blur.

Faithful MU supported. Father & Son team.

Classic.

Mom had a go on the swing too. Heheehe.... Forgot to take med. Lols




We bidded farewell to Aunty Ruby after playing under the tree house for awhile. On way out of Cherating, we stopover at Chiang Kee for some sea goodies - ikan bilis, dried scallops and shrimps.




Keropok hanging in the shop.

Mom paying for her loots.

Dried cuttlefish. It goes well for soup.

Ramesh bought a lot too. Plenty of fresh ingredients for his salted fish curry.

These are pictures of some of the stalls next to the one we went to. That pretty much cover the eve of our CNY right up to the 5th day. It was good. Overall, though we did nothing much on our trip, we all had great fun. It was really really good and we already blocked another 3d/2n in August at Ruby's. That will be our 4th staying trip. Oh boy, that place must have casted some kind of magic spell.... it's addictive!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

GongXi GongXi

I am all ready to usher in the year of Tiger with a roar..... ROARRRR! And, cant wait to get it over and done with. I am exhausted and the hot spell is not helping at all. I was told that the weather are usually like that come CNY, i.e. extreme hot. But I never remember it was as hot as this past week. The sun practically burnt and water that flows out of the tap was actually hot. Really one... I am not exaggerating.
Am coming down with something. Cough & flu. Like I said, tofu body. Boycott already. Been downing lots of Vitamin Cs and cough mixture. So pardon me if I dont act/behave like myself. Cough mixture makes me *high*. Lols....

Been running around preparing for CNY. All are set. I even planted some arrowhead plants (ngaku) for the fun of it. That's what PP used to do come every CNY. She will make me go dig some sand from somewhere, put them in pots, add water to plant these ngaku in.

I've also taken out the Chinese Basket which mom gotten for me during our wedding so that I can filled it up with mandarin oranges.
I was never much of a praying person. When I was young, PP will prepared everything and I just left to help carrying the offerings to the table and offer joss-sticks to the almighty as I mumble my wishes which usually include...
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"that I achieve good grades in school..."
"PP strike 4d..."
"fast fast grow tall & big..."
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As I grew up, I identify myself as a free thinker and that, there is only 1 God despite of all the different faces. And now, though I still believe all Gods is in actual fact just one God, I introduced myself as a Buddhist. I 'felt' the connection. I am able to relate to its' teachings.
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Anyway, it is not about me. All I wanna say is, for a person who hardly pray and dont really know the procedures leading to it, I was entrusted by the man-of-the-house to get all the neccessary ready. So you can imagine. The headless chicken not only gone headless, but neckless too...lols... I managed somehow. The pamelo, the fruits, flowers, nien gao, peanuts, chicken, roast pork and etc... All are ready now awaiting for tomorrow.
The man said these two pineapples look weird. I should just get 4 of the plain ones instead of 2 plain ones and 2 weird ones. :p I told him I thought these look rather cool. It's like so many little little pineapples on one big one. So instead of just two pineapples, we get like 30 bijis? Anyway, this weird ones are more expensive ok....

...the fresh flowers, whatever that still can be found at the shop. Having Valentine clashes with CNY this makes flower prices hike ridiculously and limitation of stocks. Just make do with whatever I can still get my hands on....

Seriously, cant wait to get it over and done with so that my mind can relax and chill out a little.
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So, last but not least, here wishing you guys
GONG HEI FATT CHOY
SEM SIONG SI SENG
SEN TEI KIN HONG
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translation:
Wishing you prosperity
All wishes come true
Good health