Happy Merdeka!

Am sitting in the living hall going online (cause workroom's light died) and heard fireworks blasting distant away..... unfortunately, can only hear, can't see anything from my 4th floor apartment except for the smokes (mental note: get higher floors in future).

Our country has come a long way since 1957. I was born in 1977, 20 yrs after merdeka. Even so, I still remember during the early 80's, everything was still very 'black&white'. Meaning, owning a tv or a car is a big hoo haa let alone going abroad for holidays. It has been two decades since and I have 2 extra tv sitting in my store room and I am driving a nice car. Really nice car. Flying has been made easy too thanks to AirAsia :) Our standard of living has certainly improved tremendously.

We definately owed our better living conditions to the leadership of all our remarkable leaders.

MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA!

p/s: wonder how things will be 30 years down the road. Flying cars that can be parked right in front of our apartment? each household wil have a robot maid? hmm... not impossible.

Yummy Exhibition

Just something to share. I was at the FHM 2007 (Food & Hotel Malaysia) exhibition last week. It was a huge one. Upper level was for cutleries, utensils, furnishing and so on... and the ground floor were for food. Gosh.... there are so many exhibitors there offering bite size snacks such as chocolates, pastas, korean & japanese snacks, ice creams, breads, roast lamb, ducks.... the list just go on. After walking one round, am full already. Its an interesting exhibition. Luckily I was there helping out at my uncle's furniture booth, otherwise I sure missed out all these.

Besides all the various food industries offering sampler, another hall was dedicated solely for culinary competition. Here are some photos of their masterpieces to share with you.

p/w: conclusion is, chef are generally big size.

Flooded Keypad

Am finally 'online' after being away 4 days. Am currently using Harrison's notebook (so small and sleek... damn). Reason being, my notebook of 6 months finally died on me. Yup, 6 months only. There is an explanation to the short lifespan...

2 months ago, as I was squeezing the wrist rest which was made of liquid gel to check for leakage, it suddenly burst and 90% of the watery gel landed on my keypad. I cleaned and dried it as much as I could. Wanted to send it back to its service center for proper clean-up but i procastinated. Anyway, it works perfectly fine except for occassional sticky fingers resulted from the leftover gel in between the keypad. :p

So, it finally died on me last Thursday. It started to give me problem while i typed the last entry. Funny characters start appearing.... but i tried my best to type on. On Thursday morning, it just refused to be switched on. :(

Anyway, I've send it back to the service center and they've just called me to inform that I can collect my notebook tomorrow morning. They have changed the keypad as well as the mother board :p Hopefully it will be under warranty and not charge me a single cent. :p

Of all places, I wonder why does the gel have to land on my keypad. Of so many things to squeeze, why I have to squeeze the piggy wrist rest. And of so many places to squeeze that stupid piggy wrist rest, I must choose to squeeze it in front of my brand new notebook. So silly.

The Secret

I am currently halfway reading a book called 'The Secret' by Rhonda Byrne. It was a birthday gift from a good friend. After reading couple of pages, I just put it aside cause I find it very very bored. I am not a fan of motivational book.

Couple of nights ago, as I was turning and tossing trying very hard to fall asleep, I remembered an article I've read about 'how to fall asleep' and one of the tips were to read a boring book. I immediately reached out for 'The Secret' which were still laying by the side. I was so glad that I remembered that tips cause I was sure to fall asleep soundly soon.

As i read on, oh boy... its exciting. I am only at chapter 3 now, to cut long story short, I was still wide awake at 4am. The secret is the 'law of attraction', that like attracts like. So, when we think of a thought, we are also attracting like thoughts to us. However, the law only recognise positive command such as "I wanna be successul" and not negative commands such as "I dun wanna fail" (they only hear fail fail fail, thus attracts more failure). It further state that, when we thought & feel of something, it will send out a frequency to the universe to attract like things that are similar to our frequency. When the writer try to relate the law to some examples, I am convinced there are really such a force within. Anyway, its a good book. Go get it if you are interested.

The point is, if the law really exist, all we have to do is think thin thoughts (i want to have jessica alba's washboard abs), and feel thin like jessica alba. Then I am sure, Jessica's toned abs will soon appear on yours in no time.

Good luck & let me know if it works!

Good sweat out!

I was so motivated today that I worked out twice in the gym. First session was in the afternoon for weight training with a PT. Another session was in the night cause I wanna try out the Latin Dance cardio class.

Usually it requires lot of motivation to drag oneself out of the house and head for the gym. We would usually come up with hundreds and one creative excuses of why we shouldn't exercise that day. But, once we successfully step our foot in the gym with loud music blaring at the background, somehow it will seems like we are in the right place. And after a good sweat & a great work out, strangely, we would feel that we had had a great time and vowed to do that all over again.

I am dead tired now and I gonna sleep early tonight. Overall, I enjoyed all my personal training sessions. Hopefully, I'll have Jessica Alba's toned abs in no time. For time being, I'll just be contented with my less taufu arms.

Goodnight.

I was conned by a beautiful picture.

I've just read a good friend's blog and learned that she is planning to close down her flower business. Sad. Like me, she started her business not too long ago.

Whenever we hear someone saying that they are doing their own business, we would always be envious of their flexi working hours, the 'big bucks' we assumed they are earning and the freedom to run the business however way they like cause there will be no bosses to report to. They never told us the in-between stories of being your own boss. So basically, we only have the beautiful picture. So, with that beautiful picture that I've painted, I embarked on my journey of being my own boss only to realise later that it is not as beautiful as I've imagined it to be.

As I've mentioned in my earlier post, we still need $$ to feed Sunshine & Rumba. So, when business is slow, it could get very very demotivating. Morale will be low... especially when we had put it lots and lots of effort, yet results are minimal or almost none sometimes. Sustaining the monthly business overhead is already a struggle let alone drawing a salary from it. So, usually we go without salary. Therefore, little luxuries in life would have to be sacrificed (don't worry, Sunshine & Rumba still gets their premium kibbles).

Besides the $$ issue, I sometimes wonder whether I've chosen the right path? Perhaps I should have just stick to my day job, chat on MSN 70% of the time and still get a salary come end of month. Easy money. Then, a little regret start to creep in. If I would have just stick to my day job, and not conned by the beautiful picture which I've painted, I would still have that chunk of savings sitting safely in the bank generating at least a montly interest. I am not even sure now, whether I would ever recover that investment.

With all the negatives thoughts created by the devil in my head, I've to try extra hard to dig deep within me for a little hint of positivity in all the things that I have started. I've to constantly try to convince myself that the picture that I've painted is indeed beautiful. Just that I need to put in a little hard work first before it become all beautiful. Kept reminding myself to be patient and persevere. Afterall, God did not built the world in one day.

I am just thankful that I've a supportive other half, who never fails to give me a moral boost whenever I feel demoralized and also not forgetting a great funky mom who always help me in whatever way she could to bring me closer to my beautiful picture.

Moral of the story is, starting a business is easy, but maintaining it is never easy. I am just sharing the real picture with you so that you won't be conned like me.

P/s: As losing my investment is never an option for me, I will try whatever I could to make it works. Will be partipating in the upcoming 2nd Malaysia International Wedding Expo in Kuala Lumpur Convention Center from 5~7th October '07. Hopefully, it will set off from there.

Thai? No? Oh!

After yesterday's waterless episode, I went on full gear today for revenge... I used water to the max. Mopped, cleaned, washed, watered my plants, refill my fish tanks and so forth... afterall, they are already charging RM6 monthly (min. chargeable amount). Meaning, my monthly water usage, in actual fact, was way below that RM6 quota...so, might as well.... Now my place is 70% sparkling clean... the revenge shall be continued tomorrow...muahahaha.....

Anyway, back to the title. I was browsing thru my photos & came across a photo that reminded me of one of the silly stuff me & my mom did. So, I suppose it is not just me that does silly stuff. All this silly-ness could just be a genetic defect.

While we were in Penang early this year. Armed with map, we (mom, me & harrison) decided to visit a nearby Thai temple which supposely have a Sleeping Buddha statue. Found a nice spot for our car and headed straight for the temple. Sleeping Buddha, here we come! The temple were magnificent, the architecture were beautiful and the design on the walls were intricate. As we were walking from hall to hall, we were charmed by all the Buddha statues that were donated by devotees (none were sleeping thou).

Mom: Peng, how come didnt see the sleeping Buddha one?

Me: Hmm... must be in one of the halls. Keep walking....sure got one. (was thinking to myself, sleeping buddha mah... how to see...the almighty is asleep!)

So we walked on, taking in all the beautiful sights (not often we visit a temple, especially my mom, so a bit 'jakun').. at the same time, the curiousity within were growing with every steps we take...where is HE sleeping? I was looking around the temple viccinity hoping to spot a building that gives a hint of the almighty... but there were none. Then...

Mom: Peng, see see.... got monk doing blessing.... let's go get blessed..

Me: Ok..

We knelt in front of the monk waiting to be blessed and dunno what else to do. Then he told us to kneel closer to him as his arms were very tired....we started to giggle. It just felt funny. After the blessing procedure, the monk goes on to tell us what a busy day he had and that he had been blessing devotees since morning...hence the tired arms. Flashing my charming smile, I began...

Me: Master, may I know where is the sleeping Buddha statue? We don't seems to be able to find it here.

Monk: This is a Burmese temple... the sleeping Buddha is in the Thai temple

Me: Oh? This is not the Thai temple??? (looking blank)

Monk: Oh no.. this is the Burmese temple. The Thai temple is across the street.

By now, my mom & me were giggling full fledge on our own blur-ness and the monk too were laughing. If it's right opposite, how did we missed it?? And ended up in a Burmese temple for a freaking 45minutes thinking it is a Thai??? Having one blur fella is acceptable, imagine having 3 of us!!!!! Sigh....at least we entertained the monk and he had a happy day I am sure!

We did found our way to the Thai temple at the end and made peace with the sleeping Buddha. Knowing my mom, she sure have prayed for luck in her 4-ekor... lolz. As for me, I prayed for good health for everyone & world peace. Very noble, I know.

Conclusion is, being silly is not because I wanna be. It's a genetic defect... hahaha... whatever it is, it is nice to sit back and be able to laugh at our own silliness.