walao.org

駕飛機

2011-02-14T05:35:00.006+11:00

I talked about my birthday present for 2010 here: http://walao-rayn.blogspot.com/2010/08/thanks-for-birthday-wishes.html. So, a flying experience... rite...

Walking to our plane with Robert.

坦白說，心中有些許忐忑。這麼多年以來，每當我從高處往下看，LPZ 都會緊張得縮起喔!

The plane model is Citabria 7GCBC. 1 propeller, 2 seats, very light. Because Robert is in charge of take off and landing, all I got is 1 joystick and 2 pedals (like kayak) at the back seat.

傳說中的 joystick,
and vomit bag in the seat pocket in front of you (in case of fail)

Robert: "Can you hear me?"

"Roger, Roger, Caleb"

It was very windy, the plane was very bouncy at low altitude. When the plane is bouncy and I am in the plane, and I am holding the joystick, and the joystick is very sensitive, mathematically, the result is BOUNCINESS++.

I did turn left, turn right, go up and go down (Rob turned the engine off for that...). Due to the turbulence earlier, I felt quite sick, and Rob said "Do you want to do some extreme aerobatic now, Rayn?". Well, I guess not, otherwise I will need that vomit bag.

Our first landing attempt was aborted, a strong wind hit the plane as soon as we hit the ground, so Rob pulled the joystick up. We ended up landing on grass instead of the runway, parallel to the wind direction.

That's all for this special flying experience at Camden. The registration of the plane is MWY, in case you want to 買馬票。

Some numbers:
Altitude: around 3500m
Wind speed: 10 knot
Danger wind speed: 35 knot

Lafite

2011-02-09T22:56:00.003+11:00

最近留意到一則新聞。事關法國拉菲酒庄在08年酒瓶加上了中文的“八”字，引起中國消費群眾的搶購，造成瘋狂的價格飆升。從 2,000 英鎊一箱升到 10,000 英鎊一箱，而今天（09－02－2011）的價錢是 14,000 英镑。-_-|||

有人說，中國消費者現在還不是很懂紅酒。“拉菲”也是機緣巧合下紅了起來，其他四大法國酒庄的名字不是太難念，就是不好聽。e.g. 拉图 Latour（广东话＝拉倒）。我個人認為，下一個可能會紅的區域，是“教皇新堡” Chateauneuf-du-Pape，名字夠氣派，所在地 Rhone 區的酒也有名。

開始看“神之水滴”漫畫。

偶爾看到故事里講的，跟自己酒櫃里的有類似($15)，感覺非常爽喔。

EUR06-Nice

2011-02-09T11:15:00.004+11:00

Nice

Nice, France, is a nice place. I first heard the correct pronunciation from Toff (NEEEESE). I guess I was quite excited because we get to say goodbye to tomato, cheese and olive oil of the Italy. Lisa and I watched "The Killers" the other day and the opening 5 minutes was shot in Nice, we enjoyed that 5 minutes even though it was a really crappy movie.

Hill

Climb, climb, climb and you see nice beach view from top of the hill. Behind is a park with the view of a port.

Beach

No sand, mostly rounded stone. Lisa took 2kg of stone home for her next art design project. Too cold, cannot swim but I enjoyed walking on the promenade, leisure and relax, a good break between intensive traveling.

Food

The hotel conceirge didn't fail us, both recommendations were excellent. The first one we went was Le Safari near the antique and flower market. Here, we have antipasti, fish and lamb.

someone wanna go here for TRUFFLE menu, but no open cos holiday

So we went to Le Grand Balcon, when the concierge guy read the name of this restaurant in French, I had no fucking idea what he was trying to say, until he wrote the name on our map, I was like OHHH WTF, Grand Balcon. Truffle menu (even for dessert, OMG), god bless the truffle girl. I had fish instead.

We stopped by a cafe after some intensive walking, all chairs in the shop were facing the street, very interesting layout. Here we played the "count the passing by Asian" game, we counted only 1 Asian in the end.

very 癡纏 couple (right side)

The Hotel

Hotel Palais de la Mediterranee on the English Promenade. We were lucky to get a room with beach view plus free champagne (pro tip: honeymoon upgrade). I drank too much and later cannot eat anything for 2 days...

Random

pirates candy

bird scissors

OK, now this is cheap

Jaume statue near Massena (Old Town?)

the roof top of contemporary museum, got nice view also

Next stop = Paris!
Other stories are all >> here <<

Bye

EUR05-Venice

2011-01-25T23:39:00.007+11:00

Venice

I saw buildings with Islamic features from the water bus, quite surprised but later Wikipedia told me it was the impact of the Byzantine empire.

Venice is really hard to navigate without a proper map. I can only go to St Mark and Rialto Bridge from the hotel without looking at the map.

Like what Josh S. said, getting lost in Venice is part of the experience too!

St Mark's Basilica

The Venetian merchants stole Mark the Evangelist's body from Egypt, rumoured to be covered in pork (Muslim cannot check), and missing his head. His symbol is a winged lion holding a book, you will be able to see it everywhere, if you pay attention.

Some mosaics in the church are very cute, the Byzantine influence (maybe Gothic?) made the mosaic quite cartoon-ish. It is definitely worthwhile to go upstairs because you can see the bronze horses, mosaic and many other stuff.

Murano Glass

factory guy making a glass horse

main street

Murano glass, if it is too cheap, it is from China. I bought some cufflinks for myself and a handbag hanger for my mum.

Food

Pizzeria alla Strega (the Witch) offers creative pizza topings. We tried the "Superman" pizza, squid ink spaghetti and the Venezia beer.

We went to Sangal for their NYE menu. The atmosphere was nice, wait staff was nice (guess what happened?) and the food was incredible. However, the pace was a bit slow, and I was really full by course #6.

We dined from 7 pm to 11:45 pm and almost missed the new year count down. The group of 3 opposite us showed up at 8:30 pm and caught up around course #5. So, pro tip: book 9 pm next time.

Count Down

before dinner, piazza

after dinner, count down soon

alrite, private firework is right next to us

the smoke

I see no official fireworks after the count down, and smoke from private firework were pretty scary. The only thing I want to say is, I saw the Sydney NYE firework on TV later and I cried. I have been away for 4 NYEs, maybe I should stay home this year.

Gondola

The gondola ride is part of the complete Venice experience, our driver (rower?) is quite good looking but he can do with a little bit more hair. He demonstrated his awesome skillz when he 漂移 near the narrow canal. We went pass Marco Polo and Casanova's place too.

see the winged lion or not?

omg grand canal

gotta kiss when you pass this bridge

Hotel

What can I say? Open the window, we can see the small canal. Wifi in the room. Situated between the two landmarks that I can go without looking at the map (St Mark & Rialto), Aqua Palace is pretty damn nice for sure.

Random

傳說中的"靚仔靚景"

mask, I find them quite scary looking

Rialto Bridge

OK, from Aeroporto Marco Polo, next stop = Nice (France)!
Other stories are all >> here <<

Bye

EUR04-Florence

2011-01-22T18:36:00.013+11:00

Florence

Firenze is quite easy to navigate, we visited 2 main shopping streets near Plazza della Repubblica, 2 leather markets, 2 museums, some Medici family buildings, and 1 Duomo.

Porcellino, lucky bronze boar near leather market 2

David by Michelangelo, Accademia Gallery

David has a small dick and a big head, there is a reason for that, but I am not going to tell you. You can skip the long queue outside the gallery by paying an extra €4.

Medici library, near Basilica San Lorenzo

imaginary creatures

Medici family was a very rich and influential banker family in Florence. I saw many crazy silver and gold items in the vault and chapel. There is a family library with lots of ancient manuscripts/books and often will be exhibited based on different topics, one particular topic that caught my attention was the "imaginary creatures".

Duomo 2

The queue and audio guide, Uffizi Gallery

The queue outside the old and famous Uffizi art gallery is pretty scary, you can buy a more expensive "reservation ticket" and enter the gallery at a specific time. The audio guide is easy to follow and you can see nice view of Arno river from one of the halls. "The Birth of Venus" painting is also here. Click here to see it in Google Museum Project.

Pisa

The Tower of Pisa is basically a fail bell tower for a cathedral (too heavy for the soil it is on). Many people go see it because it is leaning so it is a win instead of a fail now.

inspired by Shawn Sor

you will see many people doing this post

baptistery, cemetery and cathedral

cathedral

Medici coat of arms on ceiling

The Miracle Square actually has 4 buildings: the baptistery, the cemetery, the cathedral and the bell tower (leaning). The ticket office used to be an old hospital. So, one can come to this world in the hospital, get baptised, go to church, die and get buried in the cemetery, 一條龍服務.

Old Bridge

Arno is an important river in Florence, Ponte Vecchio is on the narrowest point of the river and is also the only surviving bridge after World War 2. All other bridges were bombed.

You can find lots of jeweleries and souvenirs here, and the happiest person gotta be the jewelry designer in training, i.e. Lisa.

Food

Don't remember where, but nice self serve food

traditional soup? (yeah, I was shocked too)

~~liver~~ stomach (portion too big)

t-bone steak (bistecca alla fiorentina), got 豬公味

tiramisu

Trattoria Marione serves typical homemade Florentine cuisine at a very reasonable price, therefore the line/wait is very very long. Get a bottle of Chianti, then your dinner is ready. This is where I found out tiramisu is not Japanese... its Italian, I failed for so long.

Hotel

Hotel L'Orologio is an interesting hotel, the 主題 is watches and clocks. The common area near lobby is decorated with antique Rolex and Patek Philippe. It is close to the Santa Maria Novella Basilica and the Santa Maria Novella train station.

I think each room is decorated differently, our "King of Saudi Arabia" room has a picture of a Saudi guy in a watch. The breakfast included is best, good selection of food and 很有誠意.

However, the air condition in the room will turn on automatically and maintain a very warm temperature, e.g. 28 ˚C. Also, the toilet has a "see through" feature from outside which I find very weird!

Random

Salvatore Ferragamo HQ & museum, don't play play

omg green C3

鎖

no title

act cute

act cool

Bye via Eurostar

Next stop, Venice!
Other stories are all >> here <<

EUR03-Naples,Pompeii,Vatican

2011-01-21T06:40:00.005+11:00

Naples

Bus trip to Naples and Pompeii, the only scenic stop at Naples was near the Egg Castle. I really like the wide angle lens, so everything will be wide angle from now on.

Dog outside the souvenir shop

I didn't see this dog and stepped on it a little when our tour guide was gathering the crowd. Luckily I didn't kill it or vice-versa. Sorry doggy :|

Pompeii

Once upon a time, a volcano erupted very seriously, and most of Pompeii was covered in ash. We visited the excavated Roman city. It is quite amazing that such a huge area with streets, stores, plaza, houses and even prostitute shops clearly identified and marked.

A penis carved on the roadway pointing in the direction of brothels, well, the oldest profession man!

Volcano in question, Mt. Vesuvius in the background. Ash can cover till where we stand and beyond, quite scary right? I see lots of small plantations (e.g. mandarin) on our way, soil is really fertile.

Franco, the local guide

original cat's eye tiles (brighter room at night)

shit load of birds making formations in the sky

Vatican

Vatican Museum is one very big museum, I suggest you watch ~~The Da Vinci Code (2006)~~ Angels & Demons (2009) plus check out the following guys before your visit:

Note that if you swap Donatello for Saint Peter, you can actually form the Ninja Turtle party.

Our guide Michelle (best guide of our trip), explaining Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel beforehand, because you have to remain silent while you are in the chapel. I have built Sistine Chapel multiple times in Civ3 and Civ4, it feels really good to see the real thing for once. If you are familiar with a painting with 2 guys touching finger, that's the painting we are talking about here, Creation of Adam.

You may be wondering why is the ceiling so yellow? Well, usually it is plated with real gold... I heard there is a secret vault not accessible by the public in the Vatican City. Imagine what could be in there!?

This is the symbol or coat of arms of the Pope, symbol is different for each Pope, but it usually features a crown and then 2 keys and then a personalised figure in round shape. You can find similar symbol on the wine bottle from Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Rhone).

St. Peter's Basilica, very impressive interior, but then I heard the building materials were "stolen" from nearby historical monuments including the Colosseum and Pantheon, I was like, WOOT?

After admiring at the colourful Swiss Guard, 指定動作 is to mail some postcard from the Vatican Post Office.

Chinese writing!?

errr...

Espresso con panna (coffee with cream) = nice

Bye Rome via Eurostar

Next stop, Florence.
Other stories are all >> here <<

EUR02-Rome-part2

2011-01-20T18:45:00.004+11:00

Spagna

用景點造句: On top of the Spanish Steps is the Trinità dei Monti Church, turn left and you can see Medici Villa, straight ahead is a park that oversees Popolo Square. Cool, 4 attractions done!

Nothing really interesting apart from Medici was a really rich family in Florence, and Popolo square used to be where people head gets chopped (Popolo means people :|).

Trevi

Trevi fountain is flooded with tourist, tripod is no good for our group pic. First pic is a failure by 路人甲 because you can no see fountain, so I said "more fountain please" and we got the second pic.

It was raining so we encountered a really WTF moment here, a very kind 路人乙 saw got rain water on our camera lens, being so kind, she used her finger to wipe our lens... Then we saw her holding a big umbrella to take pic... Her pic probably will look like this...

Some BS legend says if you throw a coin and make a wish, you will return to Rome again. An estimated €3000 are thrown into the fountain each day, WTF!

Basilica

Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Gothic), I think it is special because Minerva is a goddess (Roman myth), outside the church is a curious elephant obelisk (Egyptian), inside the church lies the tomb of 伽利略.

Gladiator

Colosseum, amphitheatre. A theatre is half circle shaped, amphi is double (like frog, an amphibian). Amphitheatre is 2x half circle = round. I wish I had watched Gladiator (2000) before I visit this place.

According to our tour guide, guys in the gladiator costume will often come take picture with you, then with your wife, then with both of you, then he will ask for €5 each = €15. (I think our guide looks like 莎莎 from 食尚玩家).

The tour we joined is called "Skip the Line: Ancient Rome and Colosseum Half-Day Walking Tour", sometimes I wonder why is Lisa so clever, know how to join this kind of tour, look at the line we skipped!

Vomitoria (stairs), like vomitting, designed to make people get out very fast. Wikipedia says this is a common misconception though.

I also learned about Emperor Nero, who has a tight association with the great fire of Rome. He had the city burned down in order to build a palace (rumour). The CD burning software Nero, brilliant name.

Random

Column of Marcus Aurelius, circa 176, 180 or 193

Pantheon, under restoration work, cannot go in :|

umbrella pine, very cute when they are in group

National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II, aka "the wedding cake"

excavated temples, remember why no subway line?

EUR02-Rome-part1

2011-01-20T08:07:00.010+11:00

Rome

Rome is very easy to get to, because all roads lead to Rome. Unfortunately, we opt to fly there, and for the first time in my life, I experienced baggage pickup time > actual flight time.

Hotel

Boscolo Exedra, most comfortable among all we stayed. The welcome drink and chocolate took 2 days to be delivered. We tried the "Turkish bath" included in our package, it turned out to be a steam room with a malfunctioning shower head, LOL?

Food

This is when I realised Picasa can make photo college so easily (thanks, Google!). Crispi 19, on via crispi 19, i.e. 19 crispi road. Remember what I said about Asian cannot finish 3 course meal? How about "8 course Christmas Eve menu"? The bread is not 1 course, we took away the "traditional Italian Christmas cake".

The Library is a very dark/romantic restaurant (not enough light for pictures). Nevertheless, the food and atmosphere have to be top 3 of our trip. The slices of white truffle on the pasta = explosive flavour when you chew it. The popular plate of pork is also very damn nice. The waiter was very nice, so I tipped him very heavily. Checkout their facebook page.

Here's a prime example of, good food vs crap photo. Tazio Ristorante Brasserie of the Boscolo Exedra (yalah, our hotel la). For some reason, I can finish all 3 courses this time! I ordered red shrimps with Asetra caviar (bottom right), while Lisa got the risotto (top middle). The waiter was very helpful, so I tipped him heavily.

After many pizza and pasta, Asian will often crave for rice, it is in the genes. I found out grappa is not a fruit juice here. One shot of grappa before meal, also work. Chinese food is very cheap, even when this restaurant is quite close to a major attraction - Trevi Fountain. This is a Chinese restaurant, no tip is required.

... and of cos, McDonalds

Random

Tea Room, not QVB

small shirts

small delivery van, parked side way

marzipan, all same flavour :|

傳說中的 traditional Italian Christmas cake

Transport

the dotted line (subway) and the attractions? no overlap

The subway system does not get you to the heart of the city, that is due to the fact that workers often uncover 2000-year-old artifacts during subway construction, then an excavation team is required to dig the whole ancient village out. I bought a bus map but could not comprehend, so we walk quite often...

Stay tuned for Rome part 2.

EUR01-Milan

2011-01-19T06:02:00.012+11:00

Our first stop was Italy, Milano Malpensa Airport (MXP). We took a train to the hotel, quite nervous, you know what I mean if you try to comprehend this shit on the platform.

We joined a half day sightseeing tour to see Da Vinci's Last Supper (fresco painting) and some other attractions. Most of the attractions do not allow visitor to take pictures, they believe the flash light of the camera will make building/painting explode. Being obedient, we do not have many pictures to show you.

La Scala

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele

Sforza Castle

Yes, it was fucking raining!

We visited La Scala (opera house), Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (shopping arcade) and Sforza Castle. The most geng building at Milan has to be the Duomo, it is a huge Gothic Cathedral with 3000+ statues on its facade.

Food

Hotel concierge recommended Andry. This is where Lisa fell in love with white truffle, see the oil on the pizza? This is also where we found out Asian cannot finish 3 course meal, so order 1 main next time! Later we found out that most truffle oils are fake (synthetic).

We had risotto and pizza at Savini near the shopping arcade, the waiter claimed that he looks like James Bond, I will leave that for you to decide.

We also traveled long way to find Rivareno Gelato due to the rave reviews on tripadvisor/stay.com. Too bad we couldn't try all flavours because we are going to a geng restaurant for dinner.

For dinner we went to Cracco, a restaurant with 2 Michelin stars. I liked the salmon and sweet. The sommelier was helpful and her hand-writing is very robotic.

Random

geng 藤

Central FS

shopping street

Can randomly walk into a cafe and get a hot drink, stand and drink at bar is cheaper than drink at table. There is no mocha, don't know why.

Next stop, Rome.
Other stories are all >> here <<

Euro Trip

2011-01-19T05:00:00.015+11:00

We went to Europe for our honeymoon, spent 2010 Christmas and 2011 New Year there. Special thanks to Ellen Eeyan, Josh S., Keiko and Todd+Alyda for sharing their travel tips with us.

Links to the EUR series:
EUR01-Milan
EUR02-Rome part 1
EUR02-Rome part 2 <- many people didn't read this
EUR03-Naples, Pompeii & Vatican
EUR04-Florence
EUR05-Venice
EUR06-Nice <- new
EUR07-Paris
EUR08-London

All the links for your viewing pleasure

2010-12-21T15:30:00.006+11:00

KL actual day video
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=468285973869&oid=237718283815
by istudio (Ian)

Prewedding picture slideshow

by Axioo (Ivan)

Sydney actual day slideshow

by Todd Hunter McGaw

KL actual day facebook album
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=186802658001737&id=113024845379519&aid=54700
by Cojack

Dgio Gucci's pictures pending

疗骨师

2010-09-24T23:54:00.000+10:00

昨天打喷嚏，打到脖子扭伤。唉，老了。
今早，去见疗骨师。
上次见他，是四年前了，都没变。

整个过程，我都在讲华语。
疗骨师还是一如往常。
一见面讲华语，接了一个电话之后讲英文，填了病历开始讲广东话。

唯一的变化，是办公室里，多了一张可以转来转去，非常神奇的新床。

Face recognition

2010-09-20T13:36:00.001+10:00

I am not the most up-to-date person with new technologies. The other day, while organising some pictures using Google's Picasa, I found one incredible/scary face recognition feature.

Basically, the software will scan all your pictures, show you some faces from your pictures and ask you who is who, from then on, it will start to pick up who is who!

Picasa can even find similar faces, and ask you for confirmation

Same for Apple iPhoto 09's Faces feature

Of course, our good friend, Facebook tagging

The technology you used to see in TV series is now available for personal use. My guess is, this is to increase the data accuracy for intelligence agencies all over the world, maybe...

You are probably thinking, I should be totally fine if I don't use this face tagging feature. Mind you, there is always this guy or girl in your group that will actually tag everyone in every pictures.

A picture taken by a modern digital camera already has time and other meta-data on it. Combined with the increasingly popular geotagging technology (e.g. iPhone), a picture can now tell who, when and also where.

Good bye, privacy!

Fishing (50) Journeyman

2010-09-08T23:54:00.000+10:00

Equip a fishing pole and find a body of water to fish. Right-Click on the bob in the water when it splashes to catch your fish. Higher skill increases your chance of fishing successfully in higher level areas.

Taught by: Xiu Wen Guo

The Coke Machine Fairy

2010-09-07T16:43:00.000+10:00

The Foursquare-Coke check-in fairy promo was quite fun.

friend the coke machine fairy on Foursquare
or follow him on Twitter
run to the coke machine when the fairy checks in
press the special button on vending machine
and a special bottle comes out
shout 'I got the bottle' on Foursquare
fairy came
fairy gave me a $300 HUM music store voucher
buy some DVDs

A true and GY story
It was a special bottle. I say give me. Fairy says cannot. I say I am very thirsty after all the running. So fairy went to a cafe and bought me a bottle of normal coke instead.

Paul Graham

2010-08-31T20:40:00.002+10:00

I have been reading Paul Graham's essays lately, very educational. According to Paul, text is most legible with no more than 70 characters per line, so below is the screen-shot on my computer.

(just wanna say my screen is wide la)

How did I find him?
TechCrunch > Ali Partovi

What have I learnt?
Lisp language, current school system, Google-Yahoo-Microsoft search ads history, nerd, VC and angel funding (the reading continues...)

Why do I think he is cool?
Graham's Y Combinator that funds promising tech start-up, is an example of "selling shovels when people are digging for gold". Instead of come up with an idea, assemble a team to build it, why not find these group of individuals, give them advice, find them funding, and watch them grow? (of cos later milk them hard hard if they turn out to be the next Facebook la)

Thanks for the birthday wishes

2010-08-18T23:59:00.006+10:00

62 wall posts
5 sms
3 private messages
1 phone call (Mr Chua)
1 failure (looking @ Huan)

If you look at the statistics, you can see that Facebook is dominating and causing phone provider to lose a lot of revenue.

(tag cloud)

(tag cloud without 'happy birthday', click to see big big)

Notice the word mofo is quite big (Andrei, Ben and Huan mofo!). Tag cloud generator does not support Chinese and Japanese character, so sorry to Arnold, Fate and Micheal Chin. Lenna, your post is too late to go into the cloud.

I went to try the degustation menu at Bécasse (Master Chef effect), no see Justin North though. Love the Banana crème brulée.

Awesome birthday present this year: learn to fly intro course. (After watching 2012 movie, I told everyone we should learn to fly a plane, just in case).

So, thanks everyone, love you long time!

Hello.... Is this real?

2010-07-26T22:38:00.004+10:00

Mr. Nolan has planted an inception in my head.

I spent some time reading and digesting information (SPOILER alert!) after watching the movie. It is quite deep, 5 minute = 1 hour. 12², 12³... + round house kick. Now, drink 2 glasses of Glenfiddich!

It blew my mind. I think it is better than The Matrix, maybe because I am older now, maybe I know a couple more English words now. I probably need to watch Matrix again this weekend to justify.

Normally, after a movie, you think about whether it was good/bad/fun/boring. This time, I wonder whether the couple that shared an elevator and parked their car next to ours is real/forged.

What do you think? You think it stopped? I am drunk.

[update] If you have not watched the movie, you can play the game.

Aroma Festival - The Rocks Sydney

2010-07-25T23:33:00.007+10:00

Total number of coffee consumed: 26 cups

People mountain, people sea - at the Aroma Festival this Sunday. I am already a PR, so a sustainable Australia by fixing immigration issue to tackle population problem, does not hit me as hard now. But, seriously, look at this, The Rocks... all because of coffee.

I tried Turkish coffee at The Oasis, there was a thick layer of powder coffee at the bottom of the cup, I almost died. Turkish coffee has a special strong taste, but I kind of semi dig it.

Also had a tea-cha at the Orient, and the 鬼佬 owner asked, in 半鹹淡 Cantonese, 好味道? I replied in 半鹹淡 Cantonese, 好味. Maybe he spent some time in HK and China doing his business?

As most of the stalls are using the same (award winning Riverina Fresh) milk, after the 6th cup and your hand started to shake involutarily, they all tasted quite similar. Two that stand out for me are: Voodoo and Grinders.

In 2009, a Mona Lisa was setup with coffee + cup. This year...

Other flyers/info I've got and going to throw away so better note the details down now, include:

naked berry - nice gift idea
keepcup - eco friendly solution for take away coffee

Lastly, thanks to SMH for the black carry bag + newspaper. I find reading newspaper during Masterchef commercial breaks a freaking good use of time.

photo credit:
Ted the "可是有手毛和鬍鬚的女生，一般都比較漂亮" Tsao

Shipment from HLJ.com has arrived

2010-07-17T21:23:00.002+10:00

The 400% C-3PO Kubrick figure has arrived.

also took some pic for the older 100% scale figures.

left: Prototype production version from Star Wars Series 8
middle: from Star Wars Series 3
right: from Star Wars C-3PO & R2-D2 box set

Quay & Tetsuya

2010-06-19T23:55:00.014+10:00

This month, we went to two nice restaurants. Mainly because Jane & Eric were here for a weekend, also it is World Cup season! Thanks, South Korea.

Tetsuya

Favourite is trout, matching wine not so much of a surprise.

Quay

Favourite is quail. Second wine is very interesting, very old, taste like dirty French lady feet soaked in 菜圃. Interestingly, I enjoyed it, quite an experience.

Update [1 month later]: Guava Snow Egg is Master Chef season 2 - final - round 3 - pressure test dish. Go Adam & Callum!

(view from Quay)

Opera House has interesting color too during Vivid Sydney.

[Update] I saw some organic google search for the price of "Guava and Custard Apple Snow Egg", so here's the Quay Restaurant menu. You can get the four course menu for $150+, with snow egg being one of the dessert.

bullshiz

2010-05-20T08:19:00.002+10:00

FUK 10 - Kagoshima

2010-04-23T20:05:00.003+10:00

Bullet Train

We took train to Kagoshima (鹿児島), interesting fact about the 2 hr trip. First 50% of the trip took 1 hr 30 min, second 50% took ONLY 30 min, Shinkansen (新幹線) Tsubame 800 wins.

Shochu

I felt in love with the area as soon as I get there, because Kagoshima is full of Imo Shochu. There is a wide selection of AUD$15 2L Shochu, that's definitely a 老闆不在亂亂賣 price in Malaysia. The initial plan was to bring the bottle back to KL to drink with my neighbour, but I accidentally 隊 finish it. So in the end, I bought another 1.8L 黑霧島. If custom ask, I can tell them it is a carton of milk (see shochu wiki link, the green carton on the left).

Sakurajima

Luckily we went to 桜島火山 not 冰島火山. Since the art student cannot ride a bike, so we gotta walk our ass to the foot hotspring (足湯) place. Since the volcano is still active, we can see volcanic ash here and there at the side of the road.

There were some nice cherry blossom tree outside the museum. This time, Lisa remembered to bring her infra-red lens. But realised she forgot to set the pic quality to raw file, after the ferry left the port (more about the infra-red pic later).

白熊

Took tram to 天文館 to have the famous 白熊 ice thingy. Nothing too special apart from the very big portion. This is baby size. Also bought some pudding and 枇杷 jelly.

FUK 10

2010-04-21T15:24:00.000+10:00

Best Part

You get to the subway station, you find the closest exit to the hotel, then you realise there is no esukareta, nor erebeta at that freaking exit, only stairs.

エスカレーター，エレベーター。
エスカレーター，エレベーター。
エスカレーター，エレベーター。
（This is an actual song, by ~~Olivia~~ Rayn Ong）

Sakura

The original plan was to go see some awesome sakura in a nice park, but we got there one week late, so can only see some 渣. No fish, prawn also good.

We went to Ohori park (大濠公園), the art student wanted to take some infra-red pic of the sakura, but left the infra-red lens at the hotel... (more about the infra-red pic later)

Tenjin

Tenjin (天神) is one of the one-day-cannot-walk-finish shopping place. Just head to the underground shopping street 天神地下街 and exit left and right to enter different shopping centers.

There is one interesting shop, Futata. I check the price tag for a suit that I like, ¥10000. Then the manager Mr. Tanaka told me that price is including the pants!!1!?! I bought two. Can wear to attend my cousin's wedding dinner next month.

Yatai

Yatai (屋台) is a simple stall selling simple food, very common in Fukuoka. We spent 1 hour looking for the stall 食尚玩家 recommended. Finally we realised that it is closed on freaking Thursday and Sunday. So we went to eat chicken wing instead.

Dazaifu

Dazaifu (太宰府) has a Tenmangu (天滿宮). Lots of student go there to pray for good academic result. I saw many Japanese school girls in extremely short skirt when I went there (see sample in 2nd pic, left side).

梅餅 is a famous snack here, so I queue up and bought two. Guess what? It has freaking red bean in it.

There's a monkey show in front of Tenmagu and a few cow statues in the temple.

One Piece BB Match

At night, we went to Yodobashi Camera (electronic shop). I found One Piece machine, from the size of the machine, I am guessing it is for kid. Even though I do not understand most of the info on screen, I managed to play till the security guard come telling me "soli, we are close" (making ultraman hand cross gesture).

FUK 10 - other food

2010-04-20T15:41:00.003+10:00

ひょうたん寿司

We saw long queue in front of the Hyoutan (葫蘆) Sushi recommended in the travel book, feels like its a safe bet. Had a weird looking, green ball-ball like thingy, Lisa says it's sea-grape.

駅弁

Ekiben on the train to Kagoshima (鹿児島), looks good, but it was not hot, so...

蜂樂饅頭

This shop is near Nishijin (西新). The red bean soup is too sweet, makes me feel geli when I see red bean related stuff for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, red bean related stuff was everywhere. The buns are good tho.

とめ手羽

Tometeba, serving one of the best chicken wing in town, the record is 50+ wings consumed by one customer on one single visit. Also tried marinated roe (mentai 明太子), the other famous Kyushu food.

The interesting bit is the motsu hotpot (もつ鍋)... According to Lisa, motsu is some part of the internal organ of some animal. It was white in color, very chewy, no taste, there were 20+ of them in the hotpot, Lisa only had 1...

This is also the shop where I learned LO-KU (rock) means add ice, and HO-TO (hot) means add warm water to the shochu (燒酒).

吹上庵

Walked pass this soba shop, saw the queue outside, cannot be wrong again. We tried chicken (地雞) and black pork (黑豚).

薩摩黒豚百寛鯵坂‎

This restaurant is near Kagoshima central station. I rank the food #2 for this trip, but the value for money and dining experience is #1.

The dinner set can be cooked in 3 different ways. Steam, shabu-shabu or lava BBQ (熔岩燒). We picked lava BBQ because there is an active volcano on nearby Sakurajima (桜島), so it fits the theme better eh!

We get to grind our own sesame and wasabi for the dipping sauce. The light brown looking one is a pork flavored soup, it is 24 times better than the normal black sour shabu-shabu sauce. The cartoon character like chef is very friendly too, a bonus!

華蓮

Similar to the dinner set above, but this time = steam, pork (3), chicken (3), beef (2) and vegetable. Portion is small until I can count the slices, so I don't like.

とりまる

Torimaru's half price alcohol is always a win. Beef tongue skewer, fried chicken cartilage, 呼子 grill calamari etc. The chef looks like the Korean waiter @ Norton Plaza that likes to put his hand on my shoulder when he serves me food.

季樂

季樂 is recommended by 食神蔡瀾. We went to Saga (佐賀) at 11am just for this (thanks! JR pass). A5 Saga beef steak BBQ, A5 Saga beef yaki-shabu and A5 Saga beef takaki. A weird combo indeed, but the beef was very freaking good, so this is rank #1 food for the trip. Dessert is quite special too, jelly that looked like orange slice.

白水館

Dinner at the osen ryokan (hotel with hotspring). Similar to the one we had couple years back.

Weight check before the trip 65 kg. Weight check after the trip 65.375 kg. Sorry to disappoint.

FUK 10 - ramen

2010-04-20T05:32:00.002+10:00

My dad has a Japanese friend name 小哲. Here's a conversation between them earlier.

Dad: My son is going to Japan.
小哲: Ohh, Where is he going to?
Dad: Kyushu - Fukuoka and Kagoshima.
小哲: Har? What is he going there for??!?

Kyushu is not the number one tourist destination in Japan, but Fukuoka (褔岡) city has a very nice FUK baggage tag code. So I like it very much. Someone told me it used to be called Hakata (博多) , which is the origin of very thick pork bone soup (tonkotsu豬骨濃湯) ramen. So I like it even more.

一蘭

You can fill in a form customising almost every bit of your ramen at 一蘭. Special bit is the spice (七味粉) they added in the soup. My advice, big group sit separate, otherwise, you will wait until you cry.

我流風

If someone can say "yummmmm, this ramen is very good" 64 times during the meal, you can be assured that the ramen is certainly quite good.

Of course la, we cannot eat ramen every meal, so I will talk about other food tomorrow.

Grange

2010-04-01T22:34:00.000+11:00

禮拜六，是好友Jane和Eric的婚禮。
以前喝醉，說過會開Grange慶祝。
三五個朋友，一起飛去新加坡參加婚禮。
廖董也在其中。

記得廖董說，可能會改變回台灣發展的計畫。
喝醉了，也答應廖董，如果他留下來，要開Grange慶祝。

他奶奶的，既然大家都在，不如開一瓶，同時慶祝？
俗語說的好，能省則省，不要說我Kiamsiap。
我的計劃原本是在2020年，馬來西亞成為發達國家後才喝的。

再見了，編號28912

排隊

2010-03-29T17:02:00.009+11:00

從小，我便對排隊有著一種變態的情意結。
聽說NGA最近每個週末都可以排很長的隊。
便約了三五個朋友一起去排隊。

凌晨三點開車。

隊，長到沒有令人失望。

從巴黎來的傑作（Masterpieces from Paris），有6間展覽廳，112幅畫。
親眼看，的確有不一樣。Reprint的，沒有了光澤，立體感和小細節。

Room 1最特別的，應該是志玲姊姊（Madame Roger Jourdain）。

Room 2，有很屌的點點圖。近看全是不同顏色的點點點點點，最喜歡水手的。

Room 3，有梵谷的名畫。現場看，跟下面翻拍的，差很多。

其他的Room，沒有非常喜歡的。只有Room 5的這很有detail的。

兩點半起床，看別人開車六個小時。＄25入門票，排隊排到爽。
如果你問我，我說，相當值得。

甲磅

2010-03-27T21:55:00.002+11:00

之前到了甲磅(Jia Pang)一趟。

吃了一隻緊捉住我的筷子不放的蝦。

找到一家賣很多懷舊零食的店。

看到一個很欠打的河童。

戴了一下Trooper頭盔。

相當充實的一個旅行。

corea

2010-03-25T21:00:00.000+11:00

之前到了韓國一趟。
吃了一點烤肉。

還有“人參小鳥湯”。

做了一點泡菜。

非禮了一下大長今。

民族意識強，“身土不二”意思就是 - 支持國貨。
買電視買Samsung而不是Fujitsu。

車上攝影師是特色之一。
基本工作是跟出跟進拍照，搬行李，添飯加水。
最後一天就會叫你幫他買幾張相。
這一團的，長的像明星。

Lulu 般的投入

2010-03-25T12:10:00.003+11:00

雞和豬走在街上。
雞突然對豬說，“不如我們合作開一間餐廳吧？”。
豬回答，“好啊，但是我們賣什麼呢？”。
“就賣火腿煎蛋吧！”。
豬生氣的道，“他奶奶的，你當我是Lulu嗎？”。

深鎖的大門

2010-03-21T17:15:00.010+11:00

廖董聽說我買了今年的Penfolds。
還有跳樓價的$150酒櫃。
便約了我禮拜天一起去Wine Society看看。

click to see promo

十點多到，付了Ticket。
結果，酒舖大門深鎖。。。

草枝擺。(mv)

算了，繞去附近喝Campos的咖啡吧。
停好了車，付了Ticket。
結果，咖啡店大門深鎖。。。

趕羚羊！ (mv)

順便講一下，2007年天氣不好。
所以BIN28，407還有389，能免則免吧。

屬狗的虎年吉祥物

2010-03-19T20:00:00.003+11:00

今天，收到了一個獅象石牌。
據說，是屬狗的虎年鎮邪吉祥物。

陪Nancy玩老虎機。
自己卻不小心贏了多多錢。
可能，獅子和大象把老虎吃掉了。
有些事，還是寧可信其有。

希望，這個吉祥物，繼續發揮其無敵的功能吧！

得与失

2010-03-18T22:24:00.000+11:00

昨天，因為自己判斷失誤。
輸了一千四百萬。

數目說小不小，心中有少許失落。
但是，不要緊，可以再賺。
至少，最重要的人，還在身邊。

不要誤會，是Zynga Poker的籌碼啦！

€

2010-03-17T12:05:00.003+11:00

學校規定，平均分沒有達到55，就要留級。
我的朋友，曹小白考了54分，真的被留級了。
這，就叫做制度。

新加坡規定，走私毒品，就要判死刑。
另一個朋友，阮小卡被海關發現帶了毒品，真的被判了死刑。
這，就叫做制度。

歐盟規定，要加入貨幣聯盟而使用歐元，就要遵從條例。
其中一條，就是赤字不可超過GDP的3％。
不太熟的朋友，希小臘多年來都沒有遵守，也沒事。
這，就叫做欖賽。

12% 的欖賽。朱家 (p.i.i.g.s) 什麼時候會被抄？

你家裡有歐元嗎？
有的話，不妨換成日元，然後下個月去日本花掉。
是的，下個月我會去日本花錢。

睪欖

2010-03-14T17:42:00.003+11:00

看電視，蘇民峰說。
房間正南，放一棵紫羅蘭，可以增加正能量。

媽的。你知道正南在哪裡嗎？
曾經，我覺得 iPhone 的指南針，是睪欖的功能。

對不起，Mr. Jobs，我錯了。

english translation

HK Chirstmas Trip 09

2010-01-21T13:15:00.000+11:00

Rice Pizza
Rice base, no bread, quite special, from Japan.

Other Food
Pic stolen from sister's facebook album. 翠华茶餐室, 旺角臭豆腐, 尖沙咀澳門茶餐廳, 發記甜品, 大家樂, 西贡洪記海鲜, 滿記甜品, 中環泰昌蛋撻, 中環镛记烧鹅, 香格里拉聖誕自助餐.

My Dad
Must post, at the peak.

Prosumer Camera
Sister uses a Lumix camera, professional->prosumer<-consumer series. Inspired by her, we bought a GF1, and Apliu Street @ Sham Shui Po (深水埗鸭寮街) is where to get cheap accessories and shit.

One random test pic for quality check

Avatar 3D

Most people say it is awesome. Maybe the cinema I went to was crap, or maybe there was a problem with the red-green-thingy. The only 3D effect I saw was the Chinese subtitle. I personally think Teldrassil + Un'Goro Crater + Sholazar Basin ~= Pandora, other World of Warcraft similarities include:

Login character (operate Avatar via link bed)
Gain reputation with faction (Na'vi)
Level up
Acquire ground mount (Pa'li)
Acquire flying mount (Ikran)
Acquire epic flying mount (Toruk)
Battleground raid (bomb teh Hometree)
Boss encounter phase 1 (Colonel Quaritch on Dragon Assault Ship)
Boss encounter phase 2 (Colonel Quaritch in AMP mech suit)

1st Jan

2010-01-04T14:39:00.000+11:00

I spent new year day flying back to Sydney. They asked me 4 times if I wanna move closer to other people in case I am lonely, I said no.

The Great Sic-Bo Theory

2009-11-30T12:04:00.003+11:00

I like sic-bo, for historical reason, I play it on every visit to the Star City. A typical sic-bo layout looks like this.

Let's forget about all the crazy betting options and focus on just the big and small. If the total is 4 to 10, small wins 1 to 1. If the total is 11 to 17, big wins 1 to 1. This excludes triples, like 111, 222, 333 etc. Now, imagine if Star City change the payout structure to 1 win 3. How can you make unlimited money?

It does not take a genius to figure out that all you need to do is bet $1 on both side. However, a triple may come out once in a while (approx. 3% chance) and you will lose $2, but that does not hurt much.

Let's apply this sic-bo rules to a larger scale, like, international level. Say country A declares war on country B. Both countries need $1 war funding. You happened to be the richest man on the planet with $2.

Country A and B both approach you for a $1 loan, promising to repay $3 if they win the war. What do you do now? Fuck man, of course you finance both side, because no matter what the outcome is, you will be $1 richer.

Unfortunately, country B (n00b!) lost the war, and has to cough up $100 in war reparation. You happen to be the exclusive issuer of government bond for war reparation because you funded the winning side, and you charge a 1% fee on the total amount. So, before the war, you have $2. After the war you get $3 from country A, and $1 from the bond job. So, your bankroll will be $4. How finger licking good is that?

Now that you have influence on country A because you have some control over the $100 war reparation, and also some influence on country B because they need to borrow more money from you to rebuild their homeland (also, they still owe you $1 remember?). You suddenly became not only the richest man on the planet, but also a powerful man. Powerful enough to change the payout structure to 1 win 5, and to stir up more conflicts + wars, until no one can stop you.

If you think this is all bullshit, go read the history of the international bankers. And no, Star City is not going to change it to 1 win 3, stop dreaming.

If you ask me who is the richest guy in the world and who is the most powerful man in the world 2 weeks ago. I will tell you it is the guy that topped the Forbes list and the President of United States. Now, my answer will be the guy with that $2.

Almond van Buuren

2009-11-27T17:11:00.005+11:00

Marwan is a big fan of Armin van Buuren (a state of trance). So, Mr. G made "Almond van Buuren" for Marwan. (#asot with Almond van Buuren live at Energizer Hi-Energy).

He posted it on twitter. Some people RT-ed it.

Then, we realised, there is a twitter widget that is sensitive to #armin and/or #asot tag on http://www.astateoftrance.com/

Tasmania Trip

2009-11-25T09:55:00.001+11:00

The Tasmania trip failed, only 5 out of the 46 people that signed up went. However, they seem to enjoy the trip.

Especially these 3 guys.

Good News & Bad News

2009-11-13T23:19:00.002+11:00

real news: smh

Good News

Bad News

Wonderful

2009-05-31T16:53:00.002+10:00

Wonderful Man, wonderful hand.

Also, bought some Penfolds with my recent poker winnings.

MySource Mini Launch

2009-05-01T09:31:00.006+10:00

Mr. G giving a demo

The Team

Here's a link to Jonathan's blog about the system. "The future of CMS" wow!

冤家牌

2009-04-17T10:42:00.004+10:00

I played Texas Hold em with Lisa yesterday, I lost, Lisa 5: Me 4. She kept asking me 欠扁問答題 as the game progresses. Then told me stories happened at her workplace, also kept topping up my red wine. But I don't account those for my defeat.

Because the hand was
Me: 3, 4
Lisa: J, K

Flop: 2, 5, 10
Turn: A
I got a straight (A2345) here, but I checked to act cute in order to bait her, she also checked and can see next card for free
River: Q
She got a stronger straight (10JQKA) here, and I freaking went all in, she called

I cried

0rsm Ape

2009-03-30T17:08:00.003+11:00

picture credit: 0rsm (http://0rsm.com/)

Japan 08 - Day 3 - Shinjuku

2009-02-24T22:35:00.010+11:00

Wonda Coffee

I sampled Wonda coffee because the drink vending machines were everywhere ("left side, right side, many whelps"). We saw the ads at the subway station and took this pic. It looks really good and I reckon Asahi should pay me for promoting their drinks.

Ekiben & Jack

Bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo, we bought some ekiben. Marwan told me his fave TV show is Lost, and I got 2x Jack from the blind boxes, so I decided to give him one of the Kubrick as he is doing my alchemy transmute while I am travelling. Cost $5, cheaper than the bento.

Hyatt

We stayed at Hyatt for a day. It was a nice stay because it was free! What happened was, Hyatt was doing a "stay 2 nights, get 1 night for free, anywhere" promotion earlier while Lisa was on assignment at Brisbane. So IBM paid for the "stay 2 nights", we used the "free night" at Hyatt Shinjuku. Sometimes, SAP consultants make me jealous.

Izakaya Snack Bar

Izakaya (居酒屋) is a popular kind of snack bar in Japan, salary man and office lady like to hang out there after work. The one we went to was very small, only about 1/3 the size of a normal shop, but it was highly recommended by our friend.

Now, how many snack can you name in Japanese? The answer for me was "none". That's why when the shopkeeper asked us "what you want?", our answer was "random 5". The snacks were so good, so we ordered another "random 5" when the 3rd snack was served. The shopkeeper asked "you eat intenstine?", hell yeah! The salted pig liver was a highlight (see animated gif below).

If you looked at the slide-show very carefully, you may wonder, how come only 6 out of "random 10"? The answer is, "too delicious la, forgot to take pic".

The middle-aged bald man that was sitting next to me ordered a sake (or shoju, I cannot really tell). The shop-keeper poured this mysterious liquid into his sake, and the sake turned pink. OMGWTF! (it turns out to be a bottle of plum syrup). Note: you can see his shiny bald head in the 2nd pic of this section, pay extra attention to the light reflection.

The middle-aged man sitting next to Lisa ordered a soup. This is the soup from the pot in front of the shop they use to cook food, so the flavour must be very 勁. Our friend also recommended it so we have to try it.

Me: Can I get 1 soup?
Shopkeeper: Just 1? (looking at me curiously)
Me: Yes.
Shopkeeper: It is free.
Me: I want 2.

That's it for Day 3, stay tuned for Day 4.

Renew Passport

2009-02-11T23:19:00.007+11:00

I have to renew my passport before CNY holiday. Here's the epic story.

Day 1

There was a KIPPAS kiosk that scans your thumbprint, id card and passport, take $300 then issue a receipt for next-day-collection. I was like, "OMG IMPROVEMENT"
The Q was not moving for about 15 min. Turns out the machine will crash after reading 2-3 submissions, has to restart and wait. ONLY 1 MACHINE in the whole fucking area.
Finally it was my turn, but CANNOT DETECT PASSPORT, smart chip in the passport = failed.
The officer took my passport out, bended it, and DPS (hit) it very hard on the table, and CAN DETECT PASSPORT, miracle! (you have to spank it so that the chip stays smart)
Now, CANNOT DETECT ID CARD. Unfortunately, you cannot DPS id card to make it work, so I have to renew it before I can renew my passport.

Day 2

It takes 2 weeks to renew an id card, unless you do it in Putrajaya.
Massive government buildings left side, even side at Putrajaya
Submitted everything, Putrajaya and the gov worker there gave me really good impression.

Day 3

Went to Putrajaya to collect new id card.
Went to Immi Department to renew passport.
Officer at Immi told us, we cannot renew passport there, even though their building is massive, they do not have the ability to renew my passport.
I have to go back to Subang (40 min drive)
Reached Subang, no people at the Kiosk, very nice.
Need to photocopy new id card first, need $0.40, but I don't have change.
The guy made me wait, until he gets some small change.
waited like 10min, fed up, ask him to photocopy and gave him $1 and keep the change
went to the Kiosk, door locked, LUNCH BREAK 11;30AM - 1;30PM, WTF (also, FUCK the photocopy guy without small change)
2 HR OF FUCKING BREAK, no concept of SHIFT WORK mie?
no choice, submitted my application manually without the kiosk, the whole process finished @ 1;45pm, kiosk was reopened

Application form: $1.00
Pen (no pen at the desk where you fill in the form): $1.20
FUCK IT, TAX PAID GONE WHERE? Need to eat small money like this and make people fed up mie?

Going to collect new passport tomorrow. God bless me. If something fuck up tomorrow, I am going to get an Aussie passport.

Like what my dad said when we found out about the 11;30am-1;30pm break: "Boy 我看你還是拿澳洲 passport 好啦，留在這個國家沒有前途"

Japan 08 - Day 2 - Osaka

2009-01-28T22:17:00.009+11:00

Sorry, if some of you wait until flower also withered.

Here's Day 2.

Early morning, my friend made breakfast, so delicious, kid also wanna rob me. So I have to hide in the kitchen while consuming it.

Because I brought many many present, my friend treat me eat nice udon for lunch. You can order 2x, 3x, 4x extra portion without extra charge. Delicious too.

Also tried Peko's pudding and takoyaki @ Dotonbori (道頓堀).

Found an "Engrish" example.

Finally went to Matsuyamachi (松屋町), where we bought toys last time. Reached there quite late, so shops were all closed. Lucky enough, we found the snack and bought 3 big packs.

Because I brought many many present, my friend treat me eat dinner as well, plus nice dried fish and shoju. It was a happy night.

Seven Things - tagged by Kim

2009-01-07T11:18:00.003+11:00

I've been tagged for this meme by Kim, so I can hardly ignore it now!

Seven things you may not know about me:

My original surname is Peng, my father was adopted by the Ong family few weeks after he was born.
I worked as an assistant Taekwondo instructor for a couple of years, after obtaining a Kukiwon registered black belt 1st dan rank when I was 17.
I got rolled over by a school bus when I was in primary school because some bastard pushed me in order to get into the bus, my ankle was squashed as a result.
One year after the school bus incident, I won a gold medal in the long jump event during Sports Day.
I was the Art Section Leader in my high school's English Language Society, I can draw stuff, but I can't speak English.
I could not get into a Malaysia uni, nor a Singapore uni, that is why I live in Australia now.
~~My porn collection is about 200GB.~~

And the three ~~seven~~ lucky people I have picked to do this next are:

My sister - L
My cousin - C
My high school friend - P

And here are the rules of the game:

Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some wierd.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Update: added a pic because this post has no pic, click to see more

Japan 08 - Day 1 - Kobe

2009-01-06T23:55:00.009+11:00

Background Info

Happy 2009 everyone, as you can see from the post rate on this blog, some people might have already figured out that I have been busy playing WoW. In fact, my boss Mr. G, my team lead Marwan, and Mr Kim are all playing too. hehehe, will take a screenshot of four of us in game soon.

Lisa and I went to Japan early December, we then went to Korea, so I only have to time blog about it now. Like usual, I want to thank Jetstar Airways for selling super cheap ticket and Lisa's ability to book cheap but nice hotel for this trip. Aussie dollar exchange rate has been like shit for a while now, 澳幣不好用, still, it was a nice trip.

Kobe - Day 1

Kobe (神戸市), is famous for Kobe Beef. Premium grade AAA cost about AUD$200 per 100 gram.

The picture above is not AAA, but the main course I had for lunch. Tenderness++; I realised I forgot to take a picture half way through my meal, very de sorry.

We went to China Town, 2 shopping complexes and the 商店街, walk walk see see eat eat. Nothing special apart from this cover.

Walk too much, and this is the first day, hence leg pain++;

Tried this with soya sauce (don't know the English nor the Chinese name of this food, 小丸子?), quite nice.

Also tried the beef and the pork bun (豚饅) from the stalls.

I was wearing my Evisu jeans, and the sales at Comme ca Store said "your jeans is so uber nice, you have nice taste and fashion sense", he also told us today is the yearly Kobe Luminarie festival. Dog shit luck, we saw some nice light display (not planned).

Finally, we went back to Osaka and stayed at Jikuya's, of course la, Yen is so expensive, can cut cost, sure cut some cost.

See the baby so big now, and Shingo got much more hair, compare to 1 year ago

That's it for day 1. Bye.

Leave a comment else it will feel like no one is reading and then I will lose motivation to write Day 2. Bye

MMIUC 2008 & MySource Mini

2008-11-07T12:00:00.001+11:00

Every year, our clients gather together to share their experience at the MySource Matrix International User Conference (MMIUC). I was lucky to attend the event with the MySource4 team to show case our MySource Mini system this year.

My boss, Mr. G gave an awesome 30 min presentation of the new product. His blog post can be found here. Nick, our client from US also posted an article about the user conference this year at Coogee Beach Crown Hotel.

(4min)

If you want to know more, you can watch the full 30min video here.

Our demo video was featured on Ajaxian.com, one of the leading Ajax tech news site (avg. 100 views/hour so far). If you like it, please rate/digg/comment so that more people can see this awesome product.

Diablo 2: First Uber Tristram

2008-09-23T21:10:00.007+10:00

Uber Tristram was added to Diablo 2 during the patch 1.12 update, currently rated as the newest and probably the hardest quest. My paladin smiter solo-ed his first uber run, and got the Hellfire Torch today! The stat is not too bad oh! Quite song.

The guide to obtain it: http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?t=372426
Total time taken: around 10 minutes
Total death: 8... walao because my finger is too fat.

My Blog is Spam

2008-09-23T13:15:00.000+10:00

I got this today, maybe my posts are too crappy, blogger identified my blog as a spam blog... 三條線 -_- |||

Blogger

to me

Hello,

Your blog at: http://walao-rayn.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?

Your blog will be deleted within 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and you'll be unable to publish posts during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, you won't be able to use your blog. Click this link to request the review: http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?

Cool 3D Flash Tool

2008-09-09T11:58:00.006+10:00

http://www.hige-chen.com
Upload a pic, and add beard or moustache. If you cannot figure out how to do it because it is Japanese, give up. (thanks Caleb)

(need quicktime to watch)

Chinese Random Upate #523

2008-09-03T12:10:00.000+10:00

Long time no post in Chinese, so I am going to do it today.

好久沒有寫中文，所以今天練習一下中文拼音。記得以前華文課，老師常常讓我念我的作文給同學聽。不是因為寫得好，而是寫得屌。初中二年級以後，華文老師大部分都不欣賞我的屌，所以往事只能回味。

春天來了，天氣轉暖，心情也比較好。之前太冷，病重，一個周末瘦了2公斤，非常的不爽。生日還要吃抗生素，不能喝醉，也不能吐，超級的不爽。

最近有參加籃球賽，如果想看我上氣不接下氣的樣子，禮拜四晚上，The Rocks KGV免費上映。打了兩場，第一場投了6球，被蓋火鍋5次，主將被蓋火鍋，很明顯第一場輸掉了。第二場得了10分，險勝2分，很明顯的，你可能也已經猜到，最後兩分是我得的。全場女生的尖叫，令場面一度失控。

那天開車上班，一群小鳥無緣無故出現。其中一隻還撞到擋風鏡，還好時速只有60 km/h，擋風鏡沒有裂，但是可憐的小鳥。。。說到小鳥，想談一談最近的熱門話題－－ “Ted的小鳥“。但是有小朋友在看我的Blog，所以還是等小朋友長大再談。

那天MSN，Ted要我到公車站帶他，然後一起到籃球場。我要他慢慢等，問他song ma (爽嗎），他竟然回答song YY (爽歪歪），真有創意。以下是另一次談話的重點。

最令人擔心的是，之前他竟然跟Lisa說生日想要以下的物品。。。
http://www.speedo80.com/lzr-racer/products/female-bodyskin-no-arms/

Internet Acronym

2008-08-22T12:18:00.002+10:00

Sometimes, people use acronym in emails, sms and instant messages. I want to introduce some to you guys today.

When you ask questions in a product forum, and the developer ask you to RTFM, it means "Read the fucking manual". When you post a youtube link in the chatroom and your boss ask you to GBTW, it means "Get back to work, you fool!" If the youtube link is too shit, your boss might say GTFO, which means "Get the fuck out, you are fired!".

Now, guess what is DPMCICTTE ITNTLMH? (credit to Marwan for coming up with this shit)

Don't Push Me Cuz Im Close to the Edge

2008-08-20T17:14:00.007+10:00

This song, is currently, very popular in the office. Made popular by my boss, Mr. G. (Credit to Ben for cutting it from "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash).

DPMCIMCTTE

26th Birthday

2008-08-18T08:46:00.001+10:00

Today (18th) is my birthday, thanks to everyone that sent me messages at 2 am non-stop (Aussie time is 2 hr ahead of Malaysia time). Love you all. By the way, check this out

Random Update #760

2008-07-30T16:59:00.020+10:00

update: I have just noticed that the alcohol content of this post is very high. Pointed out by my YS cousin.

Wine Drinking

Few weeks ago, Lisa's family went skiing, so we organised a wine drinking + Wii fit + Jenga night at her place. I bought 12 bottles of wine because I recently joined the Vintage Cellars Wine Club, I think it is the perfect club for a newbie like me. Anyway, my advice is, wine + Jenga + eyeliner = not a good combo. See what happened.

(Lost the last round)

(姊妹）

More pic: Ted's album.

Good Food and Wine Show

Few weeks before the wine drinking night, we went to the Good Food and Wine show 2008. I don't remember much because I drank too much, so nothing much for me to talk about. Basically, you bring your ticket to one of the counter, claim your free wine glass, then you walk around and try all the wine (and food) like there is no tomorrow.

(尾指要微微翹起）

More pic: Ted's album
(I think you can tell by now, Ted is our camera lady)

Barcardi 151

Mr. Howard's birthday. His famous quote: "I don't care about the quality of the drink, I only want to get drunk". I got him a perfect birthday present this year. A Barcardi 151. What does 151 mean? It is a measurement of alcohol content called 'proof', the formula is (proof / 2 = alcohol by volume), so 151/2 = 75.5% ABV. Normal spirit is usually 40%.

Being an attention whore, he didn't want to open it, until Shawn did the heroic move. Everyone had a shot, and the night was quiet, more quiet than usual, maybe because of the burning sensation in the stomach. I totally respect Shawn's heroic move to grab the bottle from Howard and opened it, because we can still hear the line "I cannot believe you opened it" today.

Brisbane trip

Lisa was on a Brisbane project for 5 months, she has to work weekend one time. Company policy is, if you work interstate, and you cannot go home for the weekend, you can choose to fly someone over. So, I got a free ride, quite song.

(See the 'moonrise' at the back!)

I called Glenn and Joanne, a Brisbane couple I met weeks before I went to Brisbane. They brought us to Mount Coot-tha, which was very nice. We had coffee, enjoyed the sunset, and as a bonus, we saw "moonrise" too!

We went to have nice dinner at ChaChaChar, I ordered a Wagyu steak. The 05 Bowen Estate Cab Sav went well with the food too. The desert, I forgot the name liao, some sort of brûlée, very nice also. Recommended if you go Brisbane.

I seldom go shopping, so I don't know the price for many thing. I saw a really nice sofa.

The price? (Note: does not include the smaller piece on the bottom right)

To all my friends, I know you guys will not get me Mazda 3 SP 23 Yellow for my birthday this year, so I will settle for this instead.

Blue Label

The number one mofo, Huan, came back to work after relaxing in Vietnam for a month. Scott and I both changed our status message on facebook trying to get Huan into trouble.

Number one mofo bought me a Johnnie Walker Blue Label! I opened it this Friday and shared it with everyone, it is really smooth, no wonder it cost $200+... Definately not a drink for Howard. Why did Huan buy me a Blue Label? Because I am a good mofo. hehehe

Labs and iFailed

2008-07-21T23:38:00.008+10:00

Update: just read the same "iFailed" story on my boss's blog, same event, more detail

I got a MSN message the other day, asking me why long time no post (not you Caleb). So I am here to write some shit.

Squiz Labs

Earlier this month, the developers formed a new company - Squiz Labs. Same office, same manager, same just about everything, just a name and company structure change. Mr. Peters made a ambigram for the new company, you can flip it, and it will still be SquizLabs, cool eh.

Baz's iFailed

Baz, the #1 Apple fanboy on T2, took half day off and went to queue in front of Optus store since 6 am to get his iPhone. After waiting in line for more than 4 hrs, he finally got into the store. As we all know, you must sign up for a 24 month data plan to use it. BUT HE DIDN'T BRING ENOUGH ID to sign up for a plan, so LEGENDARY FAIL.

My boss Mr. G made an iPhone mockup for Baz later that day, before he came in for work.

That was the first time when someone came in for work and everyone in the office cheered. We also made a motivational poster to mark this epic incident (also sent to the company joke mailing list).

The Optus store guy BS Baz that he didn't have to wait when he brings his ID the next day, it turns out he has to wait for another 3 hr! WAHAHAHA FOOL!

Total wait time: 7hr.
Medicare care card: application lodged.
iPhone: priceless.

Sparta!!! This is Madness!!!

2008-06-23T18:27:00.006+10:00

Squiz (Sparta) Umbrella

So Apple fanboy #122 got the Apple umbrella, I was so jealous. But we got our own Squiz.net umbrella today, and we did something awesomely stupid just before lunch.

(Photoshop credit goes to Caleb, the CS3 leet)

For those that are less geeky, this is a reference to "This is Sparta!!" from the movie "300".

(near 16 sec, with the shield and spear)

Very Geng Search Engine Optimization

Weeks ago, Alfred sent me this, he was searching for something to do on Queens Bday Holiday @ East Garden near Maroubra. Check the first result.

Apple Store Sydney

2008-06-19T18:58:00.007+10:00

UPDATE:
I met fanboy #122 right after the event. Actually it is good to be an Apple fanboy. Apple handed out umbrella and nudie juice to everyone in the line, and here's also a pic of the T-shirt. #122 didn't take it out of the box because he wants to eBay it. Damn!

-end of update-

I looked outside my window, while doing some soul searching. Feeling very SONG, because it is raining. Apple fan boys are q-ing in front of the newly opened Apple Store, enjoy your 2,500 limited free t-shirt, and the RAIN. WAHAHAHAHA.

It is amazing how much hype Apple can create, by packaging some stuff with a decent amount of "coolness". iPhone launching in Australia next month, hope it rains too.

News about the q

The NextByte store, which sells Apple product, on the other hand, will not be laughing like me. The new Apple store will probably affect their sales in some way. I hope they don't start selling Dell to make up the loss in the next month or two. :)

ps: I use a Mac, and I don't hate apple.

Random Update #659

2008-06-02T19:13:00.013+10:00

A Review for myself

I had my performance and pay review few weeks ago. Unlike the previous 2 reviews, most of the devs know what we will be getting 3 months ago, so it was not that exciting under comparison. Time really flies, and I have been working for almost 3 years. Working on MySource Matrix requires me to solve logical problem everyday. As a result, I use my brain almost everyday, which is a good thing.

One interesting that I have found is that my logical thinking and problem solving skill is above average (I think). I was playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village (2nd game of the puzzle solving series) with Lisa yesterday, and I did quite well. I remember when Lisa and Heidi were playing the first one in the hotel room while waiting for New Year Eve firework in HK, they got stuck on a few questions, and I solved it quite quickly. I think my mum will be proud if she is reading this.

I am in the R&D team for MySource4 now, and the work I have to do is quite different. We are building stuff from scratch, so it involves a lot of discussion and I have to make architectural decision everyday. I hope that will help me in my career advancement from a lowbie programmer to a leet architect in a few years time.

Picnic with a Frenchman

Remi is going back to France. So we had a picnic near Manly beach few weeks (maybe a month) ago. Frenchies really know how to enjoy life. We had Pâté (鵝肝醬), salad, red and white wine with cheese plus some finger food. Steve brought beers that he brewed, tasted like Heineken, which was very interesting.

Things that I have learned:

If you spread Pate on bread like how you spread butter on bread, you are a noob
Supposedly, you only "put" the Pate paste on the bread, otherwise you are ruining it
The farmer does not "force-feed" the goose, the goose just ate too much during Xmas period

It was a great experience for me to meet a bunch of SAP consultant, because I have been hiding in the dev cave for a really long time. I hope one day I can have the people skill they have. Of course, when your friend is going back for good, you take his furniture.

A Huge Rice Dumpling

Picture says it all, lunch + dinner, from a fund-raising thingy.

Office Stuff

We had poker night again, and I WON the second round! Before the poker game, Scottie was playing guitar and everyone was not paying any attention.

I don't know if you are familiar with 3 Minutes Angels or not. But Scottie organised one to give most of us a massage in the office, heroic. To protect the French girl's identify...

The cute receptionist resigned, so I took a pic with her because I said my mum wants to see it. Now Huan has no more reason to order parcel anymore.

Bunker Bed

So Kebin moved out, and rent increase by 100%. I got over it. I was free last weekend, so I disassembled the bunker bed. Leet skill because I only used a ruler and a giap giap as I couldn't find the right tool.

Conspiracy

2008-05-21T00:45:00.008+10:00

Have you ever tried using MSN Spaces on a Mozilla Firefox browser? I am a web developer (kind of), and it took me 1 hour to setup http://imxuyu.spaces.live.com. That's because I have VMWare so I can use Internet Explorer to customise and save my settings.

When I add a new blog post, it says "This service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later".

But when I preview the frontend, I see MANY POSTS!!!! REPEAT 又 REPEAT!!!

I then went to change my title and tag line, I get "There was an error while saving your settings. Please try again later."

ONLY CAN FREAKING SAVE THE SETTINGS ON INTERNET EXPLORER (developed by Microsoft!)

OKAY FINE! I then went to read Judy's blog (also on MSN Spaces), I posted a comment. ALSO SAY GOT ERROR, AND LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED!!!! I became a spammer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!

Everything works fine, only if you use INTERNET EXPLORER.

CONCLUSION:

MS developers spend their time writing something like this

if (browser.user_agent !== 'Internet Explorer') {
throw error;
}

Please don't sue me.

and here's a link to download firefox. KTHXBYE!

Google Treasure Hunt

2008-05-20T17:19:00.007+10:00

I tried to solve Google Treasure Hunt question #2.

Question

Here is a random zip archive for you to download:
GoogleTreasureHunt08_5807738401376244803.zip

Unzip the archive, then process the resulting files to obtain a numeric result. You'll be taking the sum of lines from files matching a certain description, and multiplying those sums together to obtain a final result.

Sum of line 3 for all files with path or name containing pqr and ending in .rtf
Sum of line 5 for all files with path or name containing jkl and ending in .pdf
Hint: If the requested line does not exist, do not increment the sum.

Multiply all the above sums together and enter the product below.
(Note: Answer must be an exact, decimal representation of the number.)

Your answer:?

See the comment section for my answer.

You can generate one for yourself simply by entering your email address here.

Update:
Answer: 1350325782
I have decided to hide comment area until Google announces next puzzle so that other people can enjoy solving it.

and OMG, series 16 Bearbrick got this, don't know is what, but I like.

Air Asia Crap

2008-05-14T19:53:00.009+10:00

Today, Lobang-King sent me a link that leads me to the following ads. "Pay only taxes and charges, and we'll fly you for FREE" on the Air Asia website.

I was like "發達啦!" (my lucky day). Quickly did a calculation 137 x 2 = $274 for a return ticket for Chinese New Year period. That is freaking awesome!

Only $172 fare left, I was like "OK, unlucky! but still cheap, that's including taxes, surcharge and fees right?"

WRONG!!!

Next screen I got was $589, no breakdown of what cost how much... That's not 172 x2 = $344 man! Must be including tax... But the ads says only pay tax, not need pay ticket, and the terms and condition says if price quoted in AUD, tax has already been included... VERY CONFUSING RIGHT? HOW COME TAX COST ALMOST $600, THIS IS NOT PETROL STATION MAN!!! DONT ROB ME!

Conclusion: $589 crap. (still cheap tho)

Can someone also explain to me why would you call your service "something X", like the logo below? THAT IS VERY WRONG.

If you manage to get the promo to work, please let me know. KTHXBYE.

Update (2hrs later):
After talking to very pro ticket finder - Lisa, we found this: $0 !!!!!!

So I am crap. Happy treasure hunting, if you are going back too.

香辣小龍蝦火鍋

2008-05-13T20:44:00.007+10:00

We planned to eat Sichuan hotpot at 水井坊 on Tuesday. Met 2 English speaking friends at the restaurant, don't know how to describe "香辣小龍蝦火鍋" to them, so I took a picture. Basically eat lobster, then soup will be added, then can start cooking hotpot, very clever one.

Earthquake hit Sichuan yesterday. So the restaurant is doing a charity donation, all proceeds will aid the rescue effort. We made a donation, and got this. 水井坊－中國白酒第一坊。

I wish the best for the rescue team, more info about the earthquake here.

Red Pill or Blue Pill

2008-05-08T21:28:00.018+10:00

Two superhero movies are getting lots of coverage lately. So far, I am getting very good recommendation for Ironman, not sure when will the Dark Knight (Batman) be out. The costume of the two superheroes? Mainly red, and mainly blue (or black), which reminds me of...

If you are not geek enough to tell where this screenshot is from, here's some help. So, I came up with this idea, but no nice camera, hence very crappy pic quality.

Morpheus:

Red hero, or blue hero?

Now, you must be thinking: "Gan, how come he has Ironman Kubrick also!"

Also, while getting the image from my mobile phone, I found the following:

1. Taken @ Rengaya, while eating wagyu yakiniku.

2. The very GY thing happened on Earth Hour day, worth $238

[pic removed]

3. I cook dinner last week oh, basically put everything in the pan and heat up, no recipe
note: almost died

4. A book about tomb robbers I found @ Kinokuniya, but no $ buy, so took a pic as a reminder...
update May 12: found it online! now reading chapter 5.

and shit, my post is getting more and more 無聊。

Anzac Day Long Weekend

2008-05-05T00:29:00.005+10:00

Some people like to 自殘 (self abuse). My good friend Shawn, is one of them. He read weather forecast, found out possibly shower/rain on Anzac weekend. So, he planned a bush walk @ Bouddi National Park. Typical path as shown below:

I don't remember how long we walked, but I do remember lots of "walao!", "are we there yet?", and cursing along the way. One of the fun thing was this weird looking tree we found.

and 3 sorjei (fools) jumping around

and 1 sorjei playing with waves

and lots of spanking with the little hand of love (愛的小手)

After the walk...

we went to see Pelican feeding @ somewhere (don't remember cos I fell asleep in the car).

which reminds me of this youtube video, and my advice is, "Keep your Chihuahua in your handbag".

and how can I not win the $40m lottery [blogged] after winning this seagull bomb? 媽的。

More pic: Ted's album

My Weekend

2008-05-04T19:13:00.013+10:00

I went to Metro Theater to watch "One Man Star Wars Trilogy". Imagine, 1 man, with a microphone, on a stage, performing Star Wars 4, 5, 6 by himself. Quite geng isn't it? But you have to watch the trilogy before the show, or is a hardcore fan, otherwise you won't get all the jokes.

There was also Free Comic Book Day @ Kinokuniya Bookstore. We initially thought we can pick up anything we like (like Bleach), go to the cashier and tell them, "I would like this one, for FREE, KTHXBYE!". But no la, you can only pick the one they prepared for the event. We got Simpson, Xmen, Shonen Jump, and Superman.

Also I bought a book by the very popular Taiwanese Blogger, illyQueen - 我是女王. I think the book was written for female reader, but still it is a nice read for guys, especially Aliao.

Lastly, Jetstar has crazy anniversary sale again. We are going to Japan, again! end of this year. Damn good timing for the new Kubrick releases.

Star Wars series 8: really like the naked C3PO, when young Anakin first created him. (2nd from the left)

Sweeney Todd: dont you think they make really good Johnny Depp figure? - Edward Scissorhands (I dont have yet, and my bday is around August *wink*), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Carribean).

Indiana Jones: failed @ hair coloring.

乃姬

2008-05-02T20:14:00.006+10:00

今天看了 Ted 寄給我的 “無名小站” 高人氣 blogger。
其中一個叫乃姬的給我留下了印象。為何？她也是暴牙喔。
可是綁了一年又八個月的牙之後。有差。

Blog 上講

So, I am not gonna post the picture here, just a link ba.
I don't know what a 網址 is, hopefully it does not mean link.

Before
While...
After <---- Must see, very gorgeous.

Which makes me think, when I get my bonus, should I go 矯正 my very own 招牌暴牙。
HEHEHEHEHE.
But then Howard only can laugh me 禿頭。

花了幾個小時看她的澳洲遊記，不錯看喔。

$40 million Lotto

2008-04-29T21:17:00.005+10:00

I joined the company's syndicate for the biggest Lotto prize in history, $40 million. The winning numbers are 2, 6, 11, 13, 16, 23, 40 with supplement number 3 & 15. Only win 1 supplementary number, I guess I have to go to work tomorrow. Good fun and anticipation for my $5.

What are the chances of only getting 1 number correct on a system 11 entry!

意外的晚餐

2008-04-08T23:03:00.003+10:00

意外的晚餐

Skim and I finished work late today, figured better get dinner together and play some pool. Went to Kmart to take my developed pictures. I pick nice pic from various events, and turn those highlights into real pics. Don't trust your hard disk or DVD, one day, they will break. ~~Some of my porn CDs do not work anymore, so, remember to backup, guys~~.

So we went to this Korean restaurant near Broadway, we went there last time for Skim's birthday dinner, I think I mentioned we got free shout of 百歲酒(bak sei ju?) from the owner. Surprisingly, we ran into Skim's sister and Aki.

It was a nice dinner with some nice and interesting conversation and discussion. We talked about all kind of shit and Aki is an interesting person. I also learned how to pour/accept drinks as part of the Korean culture, with some Japanese flavour in it (Aki is Japanese).

to Japanese, leaving a glass empty at any given point of time is very rude
when you pour for your senior, use both hand
senior pour for you, can use 1 hand, but you have to put both hand on the glass when you accept it
grab the bottle over and pour when senior is pouring his/her drink
when you drink in front of your potential mother/father in law, you have to turn and use hand to cover your glass when you drink (??? this one is funny)

Gina paid for the dinner, just like what I have seen in the Korean TV series -- senior pays! Definitely will ask them out for dinner next time, my shout. Because the Chinese say, "If you give me gift, I have to give you something in return, otherwise, it is not polite" (來而不往，非禮也）

Was talking about our frustration on the bus, but after the dinner, I became happier, for some reason.

Jetty Dive @ Coffs

2008-04-01T21:22:00.017+11:00

Update:
Uploaded another pic @ big banana to fix a broken heart, and a pa.pa.pa.pa.panorama!

OK, finally got the pictures from our diving instructor, and its Tuesday (server maintenance)!

(Shino, very nice instructor @ Jetty Dive)

(Handsome boy, and so-so-looking girl)

First day, we went to a swimming pool.

We learn some standard hand signal. Like something-is-wrong, up, down, watch-me, stop, no-air, and ok.
Then we learn how to clean the mask when water goes in.
Then how to use the buoyancy control device (BCD) to float and sink, and balance it with the air in our body.
Then we swim around and learn how to use other people's backup mouth piece during an emergency.

(No one @ the swimming pool)

Conversation when we were getting some sea-sickness medicine

Lisa: Got 2 type, strong one will make you drowsy, normal one is ginger tablet.
Me: I don't think I want to be drowsy when I dive.
Lisa: OK then we get the ginger one.
Me: Damn, I am so clever!

(This is NOT a wallpaper pic, is the dive spot)

Early next morning, we got on the boat, after 1 hr, we reach our diving spot. No sea sick, strong! Once the anchor is down, the boat was goyang goyang like crazy. So I felt a little dizzy, and made the most most most cleverest decision in my life, I went into the cabin room. You know if you feel dizzy, you should really stay outside and look at the horizon to reduce the disagreement between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system's sense of movement.

So I threw up, 5 times. Lisa better, only twice. But we still went for the first dive. It also turns out that the ginger flavor makes me want to throw up more, and the instructor actually told us the strong one is better for us. By the way I also almost threw up while watching the cloverfield movie.

OK enough bitching, now let's see some nice pic and fish, shall we?

(Too sick, didn't go for 2nd dive, so we missed the sea turtle)

(Found Nemo)

(Decending, have to equalize, like what you do when you go Genting)

Lessons learnt

Always get the strongest motion-sickness tablet possible
When you do get sick, stay in open area and look at the horizon
Air compresses under pressure, so we have to surface slowly to prevent lung over expansion
If you cannot get underwater camera, try your luck with the instructor
If you give Malaysian divers a lift back to hotel, you will end up drunk @ their party

Random Update #598

2008-03-31T18:04:00.010+11:00

About the Pay
MD said we will get our bonus and new salary rate this week, I hope there will not be any trouble or delay. I was quite unhappy for a month, thinking about how much I lose each week (after some calculation, it turns out to be approximately $500 take home pay per week for 4 weeks, song rite?). So, as soon as I get it, I will take it to Star City, and perform a double-or-nothing action.

Firefox Leetness
I found a HSBC phising email in my junk folder the other day. Bored, I did what any sane person would do, I opened it, and actually got this Firefox warning. I think it is a very good feature, I don't know if Internet Explorer has the same warning. Anyway, don't get tricked by this kind of noob forgery.

Rabbit
Also found a cute rabbit pic on the internet via Digg.com
Customer: "I just downloaded the Internet. How do I use it?"
[more stupid quote]

I got Mr. Pinchy
Fishing is for no-life, I finally got the Magical Crawdad pet.

Friday Night
Friday poker night was ruined by the unexpected MacBook Pro shipment at around 4.45pm. All the Mac fanboys were busy checking out their new shiny laptop, and no one actually joins the poker game. Damn!

Chinese SMS
新年的時候，老爸口述給我聽，大陸流行的短訊。描述有錢和沒錢的心態。

沒錢的時候，養豬；有錢的時候，養狗。
沒錢的時候，在馬路上踏腳車；有錢的時候，在客廳裡踏腳車。
沒錢的時候，想結婚；有錢的時候，想離婚。
沒錢的時候，老婆兼秘書；有錢的時候，秘書兼老婆。
沒錢的時候，假裝有錢；有錢的時候，假裝沒錢。
鄉下早晨雞叫人，城裡晚上人叫雞；
狗穿衣裳人露肉

Earth Hour
A very GY thing happened, 哎，還是不要講啦！

New Kubrick Pic

2008-03-26T00:30:00.002+11:00

Last time I posted a pic on my Kubrick Flickr page was Jan 1, 2008.
Added 4 more today!

and yep, we went to Coffs Harbour for easter weekend.

Rabbit & Hamster (actually is guinea pig)

2008-03-25T23:55:00.006+11:00

Alfred and ML keep 2 ~~hamsters~~ guinea pigs, Wonton and Prawn Dumpling (Ha Gao).
Kebin and Judy keep 2 rabbits, Muaji and Wanwan. (note: very big size)
Ben and Vicky keep 2 rabbits, Muaji and Snowball (aka ChiongFan).

Here's some picture

(snowball)

(Ben's Muaji, and the 2 hamster)

Foon Yew High School

2008-03-16T22:34:00.003+11:00

I think this brief history of my high school is very well done, and it sure does bring back some memories. (thanks Caleb)

Funnies

2008-03-10T13:44:00.001+11:00

Received this in joke mail (boxing kangaroo)

and took this on Friday, this is our entertainment hub @ tower2.

Random Update #431

2008-03-06T00:54:00.005+11:00

Update: got new poker pic from Mr.theOne, holding double Jack, won the pot!

I called my mum the other day, and according to her, my tech-savvy dad has been checking my blog and saw no update and was quite upset. So I am here to update some stuff. Hehehe!

PingPong
There is a table tennis table now, so I leave office 1 hour later nowadays. I love to play 'smash-n-return' with Tof, but he is leaving the company to become a .NET developer next week. Here's a video taken by theOne. I think I will miss him (Tof, not Mr.theOne).

Moonlight Cinema
Went there last Saturday, it is an outdoor cinema, bring-your-own blanket and chair. It was dark and cold, and Centennial Park is freaking big! I have back problem because I have a desk job, so settling down on a nice pose to enjoy the movie for me was quite hard. But I still recommend it!

Kebin House Warming
Kebin, thanks for moving out, my rent has increased by 100%! Shawn showed up with 2 bottle of Chivas at the house warming, now you know why I like him so much? Kay also showed up, long time no see that crazy guy liao.

Poker Night
We started playing poker after work on Friday sometime ago, I think Mr.theOne got hooked so he ordered a 1000 pc chip set from eBay. Finally not ordering a weekly hard disk this time. Now that we got the PingPong table, we can use the old meeting table for poker, neat! Winner so far, 1.Baz, 2.theOne, 3.1 Me 3.2 Baz (again!)
I like to play with Mr.Skywalker because he knows all the rule, do you know what to do when a card is accidentally revealed by the dealer? Mr.Skywalker does, good work!

Korean TV Series
I bought some from Malaysia, god bless plastic surgery, Korean actresses are so pretty! TV series = funny. Now watching "Coffee Prince".

初一至初五

2008-02-12T12:25:00.000+11:00

一如往常，初一回馬六甲，初二回外婆家。
今年的新年，帶動 “不賭錢，純聊天” 的風氣。

雖然聊了比較多的天，錢還是有賭的。
有一個刺激的遊戲，叫做 “in between”。拿兩張牌，pot有多少錢任喊，如果開出兩張牌之間的點數，喊多少就贏多少。反之就輸多少。特別的地方是如果開出同樣的點數，就要賠雙倍。例如 A－K 是最好的組合，但是如果開出 A 或 K 的話，就要賠雙倍到pot裡去。和一群小朋友玩，pot竟然升到＄500。我拿到 2－Q 的組合，理所當然喊全部，結果開出 A 。。。一個字。。。冷！＄900多的pot，最後被別人贏掉，爽！

年初三，回去新山（JB）同學聚會。
好久沒見，聯絡＋update一下最新消息，也很爽。朋友裡面就衛東最快手腳，結了婚，買了房子，planning寶寶on the way。恭喜恭喜。晚上到宜榜裝修到很像度假村的舊家打麻將，好久沒有看到雞，蜈蚣，貓，老鼠（花）和飛了，胡了一盤十三么，兩家的籌碼爆，爽！兩點就睡了，他們玩到七點。隔天還要開長途車，don't play play。

初四，回到Perling探兩個老朋友，藝騰家裡很誇張，他老爸準備的酒。。。你自己看

身為大廚的他，炒了麵請我吃。吃飽飽好開車回KL。

禮拜一開工。Highway應該很多車，但是沒有想到可以多到那麼誇張。原本4小時的車程，開了6小時才到。而且車太多，來不及break，把人家的屁股撞扁了。破財消災。爸爸的新車被我開包了，hehehehe。由於我長得帥，又很有禮貌，對方並沒有給我any shit,交換聯絡電話後，很快就解決了。

對方的車。很誇張。

老爸的車，車牌沒了。
經典對白，對方：“哇，你的車很solid hor?”。

First Day in Malaysia

2008-02-06T09:39:00.000+11:00

Nando's
I was going to post something about Malaysia, and found this picture I took in the exploded Nando's shop near Chippendale few weeks ago. Kebin and I drove pass that shop the morning before the explosion and I even asked him whether there is a Nando's near his new place. Last time when Lisa and I dine there, they even offered us free corn! (I hope they will re-open). News story here.

Doughnut
I bought some Krispy Kreme at the airport, when I told the guy I want 4 dozens of originals, he was like "?!?". I remember Ellie from Canberra taught me how to microwave it for 10 sec for a totally different doughnut experience, you guys should try it if you get the chance. Also I used 1x 'buy-1-get-1-free' voucher in the Entertainment Book to buy 4! How smart!

Da Bao & Xiao Bao (大寶&小寶)
One of them (or maybe maybe it was their team effort) destroyed my favourite slipper after I left it outside for only 5 mins. R.I.P, my dear slipper! Warning to everyone, take your shoe with you when you visit.

Vote: spam or no spam?

2008-02-04T15:12:00.000+11:00

I think it is, and this is only the first page...

That good Friday night

2008-02-02T03:40:00.000+11:00

I mean, when Huan wakes up tomorrow morning, and when the building manager ask him about the missing picture outside of his apartment, no one is really going to know for sure what has happened. That's is totally the point why I am writing this post.

Elly, I am glad that you like the picture.
Leo, good luck, and have a safe trip back to Italy, (I seriously hope that I will see you again), and I will remember the "pistol rule".

I am also glad that the management made a really good decision, the whole team is very motivated, and I think we will have a very nice 2 years ahead of us.

I also want to make a point that when a Chinese order Wonton soup at China town, you will get a really big bowl, OK? and thanks Scotty for the supper.

This Friday night is really good!

I am going back to Malaysia next week.

kthxbye.

The HK trip continues

2008-01-10T20:24:00.003+11:00

Ted recommended me to include address for all the food places featured in my previous post, sounds like a good idea but I am not going to do it, because of two alphabets: G.Y.

Lan Kwai Fong

Went there with Ziyi and Jane, there was actually a Hong Kong beer called "Lan Kwai Fong" (蘭桂坊), same name as the clubbing district, how cool is that?! Drinks were about A$10 avg. The taxi driver drove us back at around 2 a.m. He asked "Are you guys going home now?", we said yes, and he was quite surprised (too early according to HK standard). Asked him where Dragon-i (the club where celebs hang out) was, he has no idea, and started to talk crap with half-salty-plain Mandarin.

Transport

Our hotel is pretty close to the ferry terminal, so we took a ferry to Central one day. Cost HK$1.7, MTR (train) to the same place cost HK$11 !!! A real WTF moment.

You can normally hear a "dududududu" chimes when the MTR door is about to close, the poster shown below can be found everywhere. One day, me, Walter and Lisa was on our way back to the hotel. Lisa rushed into the MTR when she heard the "dududududu" chimes, Walter followed, and me, holding all the shopping bags went last. Guess what happened? I was stucked... between the doors... together with all the bags...

My life flashes before my eye (a typical experience for someone that is about to say goodbye to the world). Luckily the door reopened before the train started moving again, otherwise I will not be writing this post.

The sign reads: rainbow (where my 2nd aunt lives)
(It has the rainbow color ok?)

Also we went to Xi Gong (西貢) for seafood dinner, we had to take a mini-bus (小巴) to get there (outskirt). I was quite surprise because we can also use the Octopus Card (prepaid smart card 八達通) for a mini-bus ride. Yes, the kind that you have to shout "前邊有落" (read: "me getting off next stop, kthxbye") like you see in the movie.

(Seafood seller, on a small boat)

Random Stuff

Of cos need to say Hi to WongTaiXin (黃大仙)

Superman Toy Display, MongKok (旺角)
(I only saw the do-not-take-picture sign after, sorry, too late)
(Kubrick++)

(Harbour that has HK island view, with my 3 cousins)

Cousin on the left has IMBA SLR camera, hence IMBA night scene pic

My mum (left) and dad (I bet you know which one is he by now)
How come I see my dad no matter where I go!

The Peak (山頂)

Q: Where does the peak tram take you to?
A: The peak

Q: What is 'panorama'?
A: click me, baby!

Q: Why am I so smart that I know how to use the panorama feature when I see it for the first time?
A: Ask my mum.

(This is a panorama pic using the 4 pics below)
(Thanks to BenC, read: CS3 photomerge)

The super rich lives at the peak. So I was like...

The wax museum is at the peak too

(Ronaldinho's teeth is actually better looking than mine)
(no wonder he is richer! Damn!)

(Of cos has to say Hi to Johnny too)