Bill&Ted's Excellent Blood Donation

Now yesterday we headed to the National Blood Centre, and we brought Bill&Ted along as well. Bill&Ted had expressed interest in donating blood and he'd never donated before, so since we were on our way there we thought why not start now. We too were off to donate, as it's been over 8 month's since our last donation. :S

We did end up heading down to the NBC rather late, around 4pm. Bill&Ted was rather concerned that we would be too late arriving to donate blood, and that if there was time to donate that the nurses would make a rush job of it - a rush job translating to unfriendly painful jabbing of needles into the arm instead of doing it nice and easy. Knowing that the nurses at the NBC were very friendly people we told him so, and that he was sexy enough that the nurses are more likely to be carressing his arm more than necessary. Probably have him remove his shirt instead of rolling up his sleeves just to jab his arm, akin to this ad...



However when we arrived we were informed that they were open for donations till 8pm, so we didn't have to stress ourselves rushing through. A good thing too, as traffic around Jalan Tun Razak after 5pm can be hellish.

So Bill&Ted went ahead to fill the necessary forms and such while we had other stuff to tend to, and when we were done Bill&Ted was already comfortably lying down and was preparing to be jabbed for the first time. Seeing that it was also the nurse's first time at inserting the needles (by the way she was proclaiming out loud all her steps and seeking confirmation from the other nurses observing her...) we decided to be nice to Bill&Ted:

Janvier: So, you gonna look at her insert the needle?
Bill&Ted: No.
Janvier: Hey, look at this itinerary of ours.
Bill&Ted: You're just trying to distract me isn't it?

Well, it was either that or give him a running commentry of what the nurse was doing with a large 16G needle, then later pull the cotton slightly away so he could see the needle piercing the skin into the vein. Like this:

Even if we'd distracted Bill&Ted from his jab, come our turn he watched the nurse insert the needle into the vein. Good thing that didn't scare him off from future donations! :)

'Course, when we said that the nurses took a liking to him we weren't making it up. After donation we would normally head to the pantry area where we would be served a cuppa Milo, a bun and given a week's worth of folic and iron tablets.

With Bill&Ted sitting with us, the nurse came with a fully-laden tray of red bean buns, Julies biscuits, pizza bread, apples, cups of Milo and the iron and folic supplements. The sight of Bill&Ted must make the women all happy, we figures.

Now to see if we can keep donating regularly in three-monthly intervals!

Team Layton & Toyota Amazing Trails 2008!

This promises to be a MEGA long post as it's a session report. Scroll downwards to near the end (we'll tell you where to start) for the results of Team Layton!

Last Saturday, for the first time this year, Team Layton participated in the annual Toyota Amazing Trails! The team was pretty excited as the prizes listed were rather enticing - there were prizes for all participating teams, and the prize values from 10th place onwards were very very inviting!

On Thursday Team Layton met up for dinner and a quick discussion in preparation for Saturday, at which the Navigator for Team Layton (yours truly) was warned to sleep early to be mentally sharp during the hunt. The Navigator's reputation for late nights is well known to all members, obviously.

Come Saturday morning, all members (Driver, Navigator, Puzzlemeister and Triviameister) were packed up and ready, awaiting the team's Driver (and Toyota vehicle owner) to pick up all members before heading to UMW Toyota Motor Subang Jaya. We were all given our t-shirts, stickers with our Team Number, and directions before moving on to breakfast, which turned out to be Delifrance pastries. Somehow having a fair bit of sweet pastries isn't our kind of breakfast when there's such a competition going on, but the sugar rush does help somewhat.

A quick briefing on how to read the directions (the format is called tulips) and decipher the Clues (the answers being signposts of shops), and soon the teams were flagged off one by one! At the flag-off point we were given our clue sheet containing clues to finding our answers as well as clues for certain Treasures that we could obtain to snag extra points!

The start of the hunt had a chain of various Toyota vehicles tailing each other heading to Glenmarie (there was a MPV that almost headed down to Shah Alam/Klang!) in search for the first 3 Clues. Upon entering Glenmarie there was a slight problem with the tulips as it wasn't very clear as to which junction to turn in, resulting in Team Layton Navigator almost giving wrong information to Team Layton Driver! Fortunately, some cars ahead realized their error and were also reversing into the correct junction, and Team Layton was on the right track.

The first 3 Clues were easily solved, and thus Team Layton realized that the Clues were not as difficult as they imagined! Team Layton then realized that their actions must be reined in and thus devised the insidious tactic of random pointing and photographing. Once the solutions were noted down on a blank sheet, it was time to head down to the second location - Damansara Jaya, around Atria.

While Team Layton Navigator could understand the tulip directions quite well, he has this problem at times to 'forget to give directions', taking for granted that the Driver already knows where to go. Apologies to Team Layton especially to Driver, as he was probably waiting for confirmation of where he was driving. Also Team Layton soon realize that in order to increase efficiency to prepare to look out for solution to clues, more copies of the directions and clue sheet were needed.

At DJ Team Layton zipped past Clue 4-6 with no problems but was caught at Clue 7. So far whenever an answer was offered for the Clues, there was an unanimous agreement between all Team Layton Members. However, at Clue 7 the only possible answer was felt to be rather doubtful. As Team Layton could not spot any other answer, we jotted down the answer and left it as that. Clue 8, still at DJ, was thankfully easily answered and so we continued to TTDI.

Team Layton was rather confident with TTDI, as three of the Members actually stay in TTDI! Clue 9 however, while initially answered, was later called into question when a second possible answer showed up. Team Layton Puzzlemeister took the lead in photocopying the directions and clue sheet while Team Layton Triviameister and Driver walked down the Zaaba stretch seeking out the answer to Clue 10.

Clue 10 remarked regarding a member of the Talpidae family, which Team Layton had to resort to a quick online hunt to learn that it refers to moles. That piece of info helped us find the answer much quicker than resorting to ambiguous agreement of Members and then it was onwards to solving Clue 11 and heading to solve our first Task.

At the Bangunan Bakti Siti Hasmah in TTDI, Team Layton was tasked to drinking a blended mix of organic foodstuff. Puzzlemeister aka 'Beer Longkang' was designated and downed his concoction of bittergourd, dragon fruit, phyllium husk and goodness knows what else in 5 seconds without batting an eye! Cheers for Puzzlemeister!

Task done, it was onwards to Burhanuddin Helmi in TTDI for the next 4 Clues. When we arrived there though, admittedly Clue 14 had all Members walking up and down the road looking at the shops trying to make sense! At this point we had obtained 2 of our Treasures. It wasn't long before we found the answer we were looking for, and our next destination was Mutiara Damansara.

Still in an area that was familiar, we managed to make our way over in short time with only a slight misunderstanding over one tulip reading. Still, that didn't cost us too much time and we were back on track whizzing past Clue 16, 18 and 19. Puzzlemeister and Triviameister's trivial knowledge came into force here when they knew what to look for for Clue 17 (that the All Blacks perform a Hakka dance before a game), thus allowing us to speed on!

From this point on we were heading out of familiar territory and into Bandar Sri Damansara. Keeping to the tulips for directions, Team Layton had to stop at locations to find the answers rather than spotting them while in the car. When we arrive at the location to seek out Clue 23 and 24 Team Layton was aware that they were being filmed by the Toyota Tribes Crew. Playing it cool Team Layton proceeded to breeze through the clues with a bit of walking and searching, and a couple of quick purchases meant that Team Layton has finally collected all the Treasures for the hunt!

Note: this hunt required that we answer all the Clues, collect the 4 Treasures, and perform Tasks to score points. Positions are based on scores.

Confident with their progress Team Layton head to the next destination - Batu Caves. Here, our next Task awaited us. The Driver, designated for Task 2, had to climb all 272 steps up Batu Caves to obtain a 'passport ticket' before he was allowed to participate in Task 2 back down at the carpark. It seems that Toyota Amazing Trails requires participants to be physically fit too! Task 2, a teh tarik challenge, required Driver to tarik some liquid three times while avoiding spillage, and scores were alloted based on unspilt liquid. Team Layton Driver performed well to nab a high score!

At Batu Caves Team Layton ran into trouble and was stuck! Clues 25, 26 and 27 proved rather hard to spot, with Clue 25 being rather iffy and Clue 27 was spotted by Triviameister. It was after a long time searching and with most of the other teams gone when Team Layton decided to head on that they found the answer to Clue 26:
Navigator: "Sounds like a monkey next to a famous short call for the word 'extreme'." Don't know leh.
Puzzlemeister: Did you find anything?
Navigator: Don't know. Don't think it's those craft shops. We did see this 'Apex' sign tha-AHHH!
Navigator & Puzzlemeister: APEX!!!

With Clues 28, 29 and 30 being easy ones to find at Gombak, it was onwards to the MTD R&R for the final Task and submission of our answers. There we were faced with identifying 5 spices out of a mix of 7. Triviameister provided rather good facts and were able to spot on certain spices and so we were able to make an educated guess.

Transferring our answers in neat handwriting to the clue sheet, and Team Layton proceeded to submit their answers and Treasures.

IF YOU'RE SKIMMING FOR RESULTS, BEGIN HERE.

Once we were done submitting our answers with half and hour to spare, we then proceeded up to First World Hotel where we were all staying. Much to our pleasant surprise Toyota had actually gotten us Deluxe Rooms! After we had rested it was time to head for the dinner, group answer session and prize presentation at the Genting International Convention Centre.

Dinner was okay, with a rather long queue for the buffet line but with ample free seating for everyone. Team Layton shared a table with a couple that participated for the fun of it and didn't complete the hunt. This inspired confidence in Team Layton as it meant probably not all teams seriously completed the hunt and just gone up early to Genting. :P

The answer session revealed all the locations we were supposed to spot, and much to our delight Team Layton only missed one Clue! Ironically it turned out to be Clue 9 in TTDI (malu sikit the three Members that stays in TTDI!), which was located on the other side of the road. All other clues, even those that had all Members in doubt, were correct!

Next, the Treasures. Out of the 4 Treasures we collected, only 3 were correct. For the 4th Treasure, while the brand was correct, we'd gotten the wrong range of the product. :(

Finally the Tasks. Scoring quite well, Team Layton grew rather excited. Doing a quick calculation Team Layton stood a rather high chance of getting within the Top 10! Yes, Team Layton had aimed to be in the Top 10 for this hunt. The prize would have paid back for our registration at the least.

So Team Layton waited in excitement, assured that their team wasn't called in positions 20-80. These contestants won Toyota service vouchers. Then came places 11-20. Team Layton was not placed 11-20. We were so excited - we made it into Top 10! Hearts beating fast, we waited for our team to be called in places 6-10.

Still our team wasn't called for places 6-10! Team Layton made it into the TOP FIVE! It was as if, to use an American Idol analogy, we joined in hopes of getting into the Top 12 and found out that we made it into the Top 4!

The results, Team Layton made fourth placement in their first Toyota Amazing Trails Challenge and won a US Nintendo Wii (with extra Wiimote and Nunchuk)!!! A great moment for us!

Unfortunately for us, Team Layton lost out to another team (who got 2nd place) for the Rookie Award, an award given to participants joining the Amazing Trails for the first time. The Rookie Award was 4 Bluetooth handsfree sets, which had Team Layton Members going, "Awww shucks, so close." Also, it must be admitted that Team Layton had expected, based on the website, that the prizes were cash prizes and not otherwise. Still, as only one Member did not own a Wii, all other Members gladly gave him the Wii. In return, the other Members of Team Layton did not need to pay for the treasure hunt registration as well as meals for the rest of the trip (it meant that he paid about RM600+ for a Nintendo Wii).

And how did Team Layton celebrate at the end of the day? Once back in their room, Team Layton members whipped out their Nintendo DSes and began playing Professor Layton And The Curious Village. :P

Charging...Charging...Charging...

Which has been what our L'Amour's been going through the past few months whenever we needed to charge the mobile up. It irked us slightly as every time we plugged in the mobile to charge, it goes *beep* [Charging]... *beep* [Charging]... *beep* [Charging].

Now when it initially happened we wondered about it but it wasn't a big issue. After all, we normally leave it to charge overnight and we'd be sleeping through the near-endless beeping.

For the Wesak Weekend we decided to leave it charging while we used the Nok7710, only to discover when we returned on Monday that our L'Amour's battery levels were still low. :S Nearly two days plugged in and it wasn't charging? 'Course, we came to the conclusion that the mobile charger port's connection was faulty. So Tuesday we headed down to the Nokia Care Centre in KL to have it looked at.

Nokia Care Centre was crowded. :S Took us over an hour before it was our turn, thankfully a few Layton puzzles kept us occupied. :D

So we were told that they'd take a week before we would get a quotation for repairs, which we didn't mind as we still had a couple of other mobiles to use - the Nok7710 for main usage and the Nok7650 for old times' sake. We still like using the Nok7650 but it took a bit of getting used to midi ringtones.

Sigh. The poor Nok7650. The sliding mechanism's slightly loose and a couple of buttons take a bit of pressing. And tisn't our fault too! But we don't hold it against the people whom we loaned the Nok7650 to (when we moved on to the Nok7710), plus we've also been told by Mitch recently that the sliding mechanism for the Nok7650's not that good.

Using the Nok7650 was rather fun - there were old contact details that made us wonder, "Okay, has this fler changed his mobile number yet?" and we even had YMLau's (and some others) old Vodafone number! Calling people had us wondering sometimes if we have the correct number, heh.

Then yesterday we got a rather dodgy text:

ur phone is ready 4 collection,pls bring the jobsheet together.frm nokia

Ho-kay...that's as dodgy as it comes so far. We were expecting a call, or at least a much better written text. Not some unprofessional text-shortcut filled unpersonalized text! Say, a template like this:

Dear [Mssr Janvier], your [phone] is now ready for collection from the Nokia Care Centre. Please bring the jobsheet when you make your collection. Thank you.

Can?

Anyways - we called up today to verify their text and it seems that there's nothing wrong with L'Amour, thankfully (we had not backed up our data and L'Amour should have the updated contact lists among all our gadgets :P). So now we have to see if the problem lies with the charger, or with the battery.

Both options don't look cheap. Sigh. While we're still waiting for the new iPhone, we want a clamshell to use especially when we want to text while driv can only use one hand!

May Weekends 2

Wesak Weekend continues!

Sunday afternoon we were called for a game of Starcraft - and we haven't had had a game for quite a while now. Had 'Nic pick us up and landed at Mage early enough to lunch before the battle began. We didn't get the Zerg this time, but ended up as Executor Tassadar of the Protoss.

And just like the PC game, we tend to favour Zerg > Protoss > Terrans. In fact, in both the PC and the boardgame we have no idea how to play the Terrans! For the PC game we tend to deviate from the tried-and-true Battlecruiser fleet and instead bring out Ghosts and nukes, while for the boardgame the Terrans are too versatile that we had no idea what strategy we should be aiming for!

As Executor Tassadar, our job was easy. Reavers, High Templars and Archons. Unfortunately we fell foul to an early Zerg rush by 'Nic the Queen of Blades, thus hampering our resource and expansion for a round.

4 Zerglings vs 2 Armadillos Reavers. Massacre.

The Chief picked us up after Starcraft for dinner followed by some R&R at the Chief's place - although all that took place was that we ended up sleeping while the Chief played Professor Layton. That is one game that's easily accessible to anyone and everyone!

The night wasn't wasted - we did wake up to end the night with supper at Murni's because we had this craving for Indo Mee goreng and claypot lou shi fun.

And Wesak Monday had the two of us braving the traffic at SS2 so that we could walk about the pasar malam. Honestly, it's our first time at SS2's pasar malam and we both made a foodfest out of it: XXL fried chicken strips, guava/lemon/assam juice, corn in cup, sugar cane and lemon by the bottle, crispy apam balik, taiwan sausage, fried pork slices, char tau kuey, assam laksa, coconut water, and er er er some sort of kuih we can't recall what it's called.

And there was choir after that. And all the Tenor Ones weren't around. Lucky for us we the place didn't start smelling of char tau kuey when we sang.

And to cap the Wesak Weekend? DotA. Yes well we're a wuss as we only play against the AI but then again we all wanted a happy ending so that we could go to bed happy to face the working Tuesday. :P

This coming weekend? High Altitude Fun!

May Weekends 1

Because this month is quite the birthday month. Not to mention that every single weekend this month there seems to be something on! First for the Labour Weekend there was the Music Camp. That was a good trip overall. The following week was the Camland trip, short but great nevertheless. Then for the Wesak Weekend it started with birthday celebrations before some time-out and time alone with the Chief. The next two weeks prove to be busy too!

Cave-weekend-time necessary, although we don't think there'll be time for that till sometime next month.

So the Wesak Weekend began on Friday with a dinner with batchmates, otousan, the Chief and us to celebrate otousan's birthday. Surpringly for all our visits to Coliseum, otousan had never eaten there before - so for his birthday he wanted to be adventurous a bit and have his birthday dinner with the batchmates there. It was a bit adventurous indeed, as no one except us knew where the place was. We'd planned to meet at Sogo first and then walk down to Coliseum, it seemed the easiest way.

Admittedly it's been over a year since we've been there and so the experience was somewhat new again for us. For everyone else, there were Kodak moments whatwith the look of surprise on their faces...

Captain Ho: Are you all ready to order?
Everyone: Just a moment ya. (Browses menu.)
-couple of minutes later-
Everyone: Okay, we're ready.
(Captain Ho walks away.)

Asides for the bread-and-butter set and the mix-up of our steak, the food was still good and filling.

We'd to rush off after that to head for Jin's birthday, which was celebrated at Frangipani. We've never considered eating here as we heard that food there is slightly more than we would consider forking out for a meal. :P Take a look at their menu from their website! However, the decor at Frangipani was cozy - the kind of atmosphere you'd have a candlelight dinner, soft music and whispered conversations. After dinner it was upstairs to the bar for drinks and cake. We basically chilled out and help ourselves to the vodka (Frangipani brand vodka, unbelievable!). Must say that the bar looks much better now after renovations.

Saturday we celebrated both otousan and 'Vin's birthday at Jarrod & Rawlins 1 Utama with the gang. Otousan, 'Vin, Germ, Jo', Puddy, Esteban, lad, NJAPF, Juangtis, Juangti, Chief and us had a long table all to ourselves, and instead of ordering separate dishes we basically ordered almost all the pork in sight - sausages, knuckles, ham. The food was just. So. Mouthwateringly. Good.

Enough was ordered to go around for everyone, but there's just one particular sausage to be warned about - the Dynamite. This spicy sausage needs to be eaten last else it'll overpower all taste buds that you can't taste anything else.

While confectionary dolls seem to be becoming a tradition, this time Pikachu suffered terribly by 'Vin's hands. Immediately after showing up on the cake Pikachu was beheaded - accidentally, we're sure, even tho' 'Vin had had a fork jokingly poking near Pikachu's neck. This before the birthday song was even sung.

The birthday song did catch the attention of Shuku and Jer, who were dining at Oriental Cravings. Which came in rather handy, as she could then help us take the group photographs. :P

The night ended with us all having drinks at Deutsches Gasthaus 2, where attempts at beer-drinking Il Divo shots were made...

Haptic Touch

One of the next keywords for our next mobile phone purchase. Well, maybe it isn't so necessary for us as of yet, since we've our L'Amour whenever our fingers itch to use a proper keypad, especially when we have to text in the car.

Haptic? Oh. To our best understanding it means that a touch screen that has force feedback, so that if you touch a 'button' on the touch screen you can actually feel as if you're pressing a button.

We must admit that we still have an iPhone itch, although it's an itch we have under controlled as till now. But we're keeping an eye out for the 3G iPhone first, to see what new upgrades there are (aside 3G connectivity). Just that, even when the iPhone has them upgrades, we'll still be viewing the iPhone more as a iPod/PDA with some phone capabilities instead of a mobile phone with great PDA capabilities. Why?

No MMS. Limited Bluetooth - it's only used to pair with a handsfree - so no transferring pictures and songs. Thankfully Apple updated so that mass SMS could be sent.

But we like the iPhone because of the responsiveness. Things load quickly, so much better compared our Nok7710. And we don't need to worry about using a stylus too.

Still...it's gonna be quite likely that we would be getting an iPhone. Unless our favoured mobile Nokia can come up with something better...like the S60 Touch.



Or the sweet-looking Nokia Aeon.



It'll be nice if the new Nokias have haptic response. And another concern with Nokia is with their OS - you know how it tends to slow down after a while.

Ah heck it. We love our gadgets and these are catching our eyes.

Camland Strawberry Suite Getaway

And so our last weekend was spent up at Camland. And there were a number of firsts for us for this trip.

It's the first time we're having a holiday up at Camland with Chief, Aidan, otousan, Germ, lad, 'Vin, Esteban, Puddy and Juangtis. Our last couple of trips were with Klangites.

It's Aidan's first road trip. He took the journey rather well, all things considered. On the other hand...

While it's our first time driving up to Camland, we ought to make a note to always take a travel sickness pill before beginning the long wind up Camland. Because even as the driver we felt a wee bit green some 20km from Brinchang already and was counting down the kilometers.

It's the first time we were heading up Camland at night! All these time everyone kept saying how dangerous it is to head up there at night and we can see why. The road condition wasn't bad, thankfully, and it didn't rain, but the lack of any lights on a winding road meant slow going.

Now, when we followed our Klangite friends up to Camland, we admit we don't pay attention to the road, being more busy 1) fiddling with our iPod; 2) chitchatting; or 3) sleeping. So this time we knew we had to do a bit of homework and check for maps and such. Which led us here. While definitely helpful, what caught our attention was the following bit:

Which route to take? Tapah or Simpang Pulai?
Your choice:
Tapah - CH
- shorter drive time if you're driving from the south (KL)
- get to experience the "real" highland driving
- can stop by at Lata Iskandar waterfall and dip your feet in the water
- wave at the aborigine kids along the road

Blink.

Right. Imagine now waving at the kids as we drive up the Tapah - Camland route at night, if there were kids to wave at in the first place.

So. Picked Chief, Puddy and Juangtis up, left KL at 7pm and reached our destination at nearly 11pm (well we stopped for KFC). Strawberry Suites had our jaw hanging wide open!

A cozy living room with the fireplace grilled up, large bedrooms, a separate dining room - this trip really was meant for comfort.

Our first night was spent playing Munchkins - well, rather, we just help set up and introduced a bit on rules, then while the others were playing and with lad to clarify rules, we spent the night making friends with a bottle of Baileys.

Next day after a breakfast of soss and eggs and toast, it was time to round about Camlands - Sg Palas Boh Tea Centre being our first stop. This time we were in time to follow a grumpy tour guide (we thinks he's done this waaay too often and is bored sick of it) who showed us about the factory. And now we know - the contents of our tea bag? Tea dust. It stuck so much in our head that when we were buying tea at the shop, we looked at the varieties and went, "Right, so there's the loose tea leaves, and there's the tea dus- we mean tea bags."

:P

After a quick sit-down for tea it was off for lunch at Brinchang. Then to Kasimanis Strawberry Farm and goodness knows where else to see cacti already. Since lad didn't manage to get a frisbee to bring along for the trip, he bought birds instead.

A Nightingale and a 'Pergrine' (yes, spelt like that). Due to an old podcast by mrbrown, they've been named 'Ong Chiao' and 'Lam Chiao' (sometimes purposely mispronounced).

Headed back to the bungalow to play with the birds while waiting for tea and scones. We thinks the caretakers make their own strawberry jam - the lot of us go through almost an entire jar each time they serve us. After tea it was more birdplaying while waiting for dinner.

Oh yes, this was one makan trip.

While waiting for dinner Juangtis and us were introduced to Professor Layton and the Curious Village, and was totally engrossed in the game. Puzzles after puzzles after puzzles! A great game for the NDS.

When it was time to leave for dinner we found the guys outside balancing on tables and chairs...turns out Lam Chiao got stuck in the gutter. Hilarious - it was as if a real bird broke a wing and was stuck on the roof. Only with a real bird you don't have us using branches and a broom to try and rescue it. Anyways all our efforts were in vain - Lam Chiao was stuck for good.

Steamboat dinner at Tanah Rata, followed by the pasar malam at Brinchang where we saw this for the first time.

Crystal guavas. They looked like large green water balloons. We were offered a sample and it was very sweet. [So we bought some home, and mum tells us that it's been soaked in syrup or something so that it's super sweet, and that they'd used some sort of colouring to get it green. Oh, and not to buy any more.]

Came back and introduced Puddy and Chief to the Puerto Rico boardgame, a mistake we still think as PR has a sorta high learning curve for boardgame newbies. Lad acted as advisor for Puddy and we teamed up with the Chief - however, part-time advisors aren't really good advisors: lad went off for San Miguel and we were busy with Professor Layton. The game ended late and it was time for bed as we all wanted to make it back in time for Mother's Day dinner on Sunday.

Instant noodle breakfast then we cleared off to Kea Farm, where roses were selling at RM5 for 24 stalks, and veggies were going at 14 packs for RM10. At this point both cars were FULL (ok we think 'Vin will still say that there's space in Aidan but there's already too many things). Then we stopped by Bidor for lunch before we reached back KL at 4.30pm.

After Mother's Day dinner, we crashed and slept for a blissful 9 hours straight.

A great trip, only it was a bit short because we could only leave on Friday night and had to be back early Sunday afternoon.

Bookline Meme

Right. Since we've pics to rename and upload and such to do first, we'll write up on Camlands later. Needless to say Camlands was great! :)

So in the meantime, we'll do up this meme, tagged by both QR and Little Dove. Of course, since we're sorta surrounded by books and am not holding one at the moment, they're all technically equally 'nearest'.

Damn. Most of our books need to be wrapped. :S

On with the meme!

Pick up the nearest book (with at least 123 pages).
Turn to page 123.
Find the 5th sentence.
Post the 5th sentence.
Tag 5 people.

So. Nearest book is Moving Pictures, by Terry Pratchett.

' "I'm an old man and I demand someone tell me what's-" '

Right.

We hereby pass this meme on to the following:
NJAPF (please don't use a Ladybird book :P)
Shuku
Drownedglass
Alex (don't worry no need to be fiction book)
RPMNut (altho' we thinks there's gonna be more than just a short meme post on his blog...)

Sticky Tick Tick Tick Six

Langsung No Idea

Is what sis says and how we both feel.

Mother's Day is coming up and we have yet to think of what to get mum. This could possibly be quite the closest sis and us ever gotten to last minute yet. Last year there was the picture book from Pixart, and even for that sis and us had a fair bit of time to figure out what pictures to use and all. Surely not the same idea this year?

There's really no time for us to throw together a scrapbook for mum. We're not even sure if mum would be the kind to work on scrapbook projects. Maybe a small one for Christmas.

More wooden mandarin ducks? Maybe we can get her enough to fill the entire staircase - currently we've only reached the second landing. Of course, sis and us agree that there's already too many ducks for Mother's Day already.

Shopping for a handbag for mum once before was a tough job already, we dragged NJAPF along for that particular shopping trip so that she can show us numerous stores while we looked for something conservative.

Mum's not one to welcome technology with open arms so gadgets are thankfully out of the equation.

Brands? Sis thinks mum isn't aware of Coach and well, it isn't like we can afford Coach or LV offhandedly without mum questioning our expenses.

We don't do flowers. Period. We're not into sentimentality.

Maybe we'll just keep it simple and get something from L'Occitane. Moisturizers and all that.

Best thing yet? We've got till Friday afternoon to shop - 'cos we'll be headed up to Camland in the evening and won't be back till Sunday afternoon itself. Thankfully mum already decided where she wants to have Mother's Day dinner, so that's settled for when we return from Camland.

The Chief Cure

You know you're sick when you start coughing a chesty productive cough that sounds like you're drowning. You know you're feverish when you feel both hot and cold and have the body aches.

You know you're feverishly sick when, addicted to the 'net and withdrawn over the weekend, you suddenly find that the backlog of blog updates and emails (and uploading photos from the Music Camp trip) doesn't seem important anymore and all you want to do is stay in bed with the fan blowing to keep you cool.

Sporeland weather was HOT as usual - so much so that the moment we step out of any air-conditioned place we start sweating automatically. By the second day there our jeans started chafing, badly. By the third day we were going out of our mind whatwith the nonstop sweating and the chafing, and was already beginning to cough and sneeze.

Thankfully for us, on the third day salvation came in the form of the Chief.

The Chief had reason to be down in Sporeland too, and met up with us at Bugis after the Music Camp activities were over. Chief even had a surprise for us too - bought us a nice t-shirt as a gift (no, not a NUM tee tho'). After warning the Chief that the past few days have made us rather irrational, we both headed to shop for shorts for us (we really needed to get out of those jeans at that point). By dinner, we were certainly feeling much better. Being with the Chief certainly did do wonders for our constitution.

Of course on the return trip back yesterday the fever took a turn for the worse, and we spent the entire trip back sleeping at the back of the bus (as a heavy sleeper, the noisy kids didn't bother us) and popping Panadol Cold & Flus. The Chief had arrived back earlier yesterday, and at 11pm thereabouts texted us to tell that we have herbal tea and guilinggao sitting on our fence...

Thank goodness we woke up at 4am to read that text, then hurried down to retrieve them. If left till next morning we could just picture mum finding them with a puzzled look and dumping them into the rubbish bin grumbling about the neighbours.

Thing is, we have been feeling better, and much sooner than expected too. :)

Sticky Tick Tick Tick Cinq