Ask Nicely, Can?

Recently we just got this text message from a friend (that has a way of, well, irritating people with his attitude) that goes:

Janvier i got fren moving to KJ. Plz show him around, esp food spots. Name [Friend 1's name] n [Friend 2's name], tel [Friend's tel no]

Right. We still remember the last time he asked us for a favour, which include asking us to bring our collection of boardgames to introduce to some of his friends...which turned out to be the majority of his church friends in one of his friend's house. Awkward? Yes. It sort of felt like we were the entertainment he was suppose to bring for the event, sans balloons, monkey-playing accordian and the likes.

Now this. We think he overestimates our friendliness and ease at mixing with people. Just because we can get along with some people doesn't mean we're immediately able to talk to anyone.

The overestimation of our friendliness (if indeed that's what it is) we can take but we're irked at the way we were asked to do this. No phone call or text message to ask if we we could do him a favour, he's got some friends coming down to stay in KJ, if we were free could we show them around, especially when it comes to food areas (the emphasis for food spots here we gather is due to our numerous MEALWHAT(tm) updates on Facebook we suppose)?

But nooooo...just a, "Janvier, I've friends going over. Please show them around." Like we are only too please to do your bidding as and when you want it.

We're not saying that we don't do favours, or that we want people to bend over and grovel, but, ask nicely, can?

The style of the text somehow reminds us of womenfolk in church, who will ask other churchmembers or their children to do these kind of favours (and will do them if asked by others). The only difference here is that we aren't related to this friend nor does his attitude cause one to feel ready to help.

So anyways we're actually incline to refuse, because our normal eating hours will be some 3 hours later than everyone else (say, 10.30pm for dinner?) and we don't think his friends would appreciate waiting till then to discover food spots.

And we're tempted to just reply:

Hi we got horny gay fren moving near your place. Plz douche before meeting him, don't worry he likes it tight and is gentle. Name [fictitious name] tel [fictitious mobile number]

The Curve, Disconnected

Sunday came along and we found ourself at the Curve for lunch without our acPhone nor a book to keep us company. Double ouch especially since there's free wifi at Winter Warmers. Thankfully there were magazine to help occupy us even though they seem to be dated 2008, and after lunch while waiting for mum we decided to walk about the outdoor bazaar rather than wait in Winter Warmers.

Walking about with nothing much to see and buy, we paid attention to the singers (we can't really think of them as buskers now, can we?) entertaining the shoppers with golden oldies. The selection of songs actually reminds us of the singers that sing in the Klang Club restaurant, songs you'd hear on Light And Easy.

We spotted an old man happily singing along to 'Stand By Your Man', a smile on his face without a whit to what others may think of him. Seeing him enjoying himself put a smile on our face as well, as we caught ourself also singing along to the chorus (or, at least, to the line 'Stand By Your Man' since that's the only lyrics we know to that song).

We wonder: in the future will we end up like that old man, sitting about singing old songs to singers at a mall, and better still, if they would be performing Lady Gaga's Bad Romance for us to sing to?

Video Games Live In KL!

Ok the first time we heard of Video Games Live was after when we missed the opportunity to go hear Distant Worlds perform in Sporeland. VGL was coming up in Sporeland and we could actually get tickets, but we weren't too sure about it. One thing was because VGL featured music from loads of video games, including games we've not played like Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts and Halo.

Went to iTunes and found that they have an album out there, and checked the songs. Out of the lot, we were only really inclined to listen to the Civilization IV Medley. We're not really sure how the other songs would sound, and we aren't even sure if the Civ IV Medley would have Baba Yetu in it.

Anyways we skipped the VGL concert in Sporeland as we weren't too sure of the venue they were performing in and moped over the loss of Distant Worlds but got over it...

Then about a month back lad informed us that VGL was coming to KL. Since they were coming here, we made a spontaneous decision to go and immediately bought tickets for lad, esteban (the two most likely to enjoy video games music among the lot heh), and for Chief and us. And every now and then we would get paranoid that we would forget to bring the tickets on the day itself.

Come last Saturday, we drove everyone down to KL, making a dinnerstop at Yellow Cab near Asian Heritage Row for dinner.

So...we couldn't decide what size pizzas to order, and had the waitresses bring out all the pans so we could see just how large a 10" and a 14" pizza would be, and ended up ordering two 14" pizzas to share among the four of us - an anchovy pizza and a mushroom pizza.

Verdict? Rather good, but rather pricey at over RM40 per pizza heh. And these aren't the meaty options with chicken, beef pepperoni and salami and the likes. We've yet to try those. But they were filling, and the four of us were definitely full after that.

Headed straight to KLCC with barely fifteen minutes to spare! Arrived at the Plenary Hall just in time to seat and let the show start.

What can we say about the concert?

Ninty to ninty-five percent fanboy attendance. Rest, fangirls/girlfriends/wives.



The opening had everyone excited. This concert was one where no one sat quiet throughout the performance. Everyone was cheering and clapping at every point of the show! Hearts were plucked at nostalgic 8-bit games coming up on screen with the music supplied by the orchestra, everyone laughed to see Tetris played as the screen slowly filled up with Tetraminos (accompanied by music from the NES version of the game, oh and there was a choir too! They had to shout 'HEY!' at the end of the Tetris piece!), everyone shouted to see old games pop up.

In between performances there were videos from the composers, a Skype conversation with the creator of Pong, and games! One dude was invited on stage to play Space Invaders, he had to wear a t-shirt with the picture of the spaceship and ran left and right about the stage to shoot the incoming alien invaders. He didn't manage to win the top prize, but the goody bag he got had pretty good premiums too! Portable Space Invaders, an Earthworm Jim CD, he got to keep the Space Invaders t-shirt... The fun bit was the orchestra playing the background beat to Space Invaders, which got consecutively faster as the invaders approached closer, and the audience clapped along as well...

It was when the host asked for the winner of the Guitar Hero competition held earlier that we only found out that we missed out a fair bit going on before VGL started that night. Anyways, the winner was invited up on stage where he got to play Guitar Hero: Van Halen. The song? "Jump", accompanied by the host, Tommy Tallarico on electric guitar, the orchestra and the choir (who shouted "Jump!" at every point in the song hahaha). Initially the winner was supposed to play the song on Hard, but the entire audience made him play it on Extreme - which he did quite well!

So there were music from Metal Gear Solid, Mega Man, Kingdom Hearts, Halo (this one we found the music very good even though we've never seen or played the game before), World Of Warcraft (there are more choral pieces than just A Call To Arms!), Sonic The Hedgehog (the choir even sang the "Sega!" bit at the start!), Super Mario, Shadow Of The Colossus, God Of War, a special appearance by Norihiko Hibino (composer for the Metal Gear Solid songs) playing 'Snake Eater' on the sax, and Laura Intravia dressed up as 'Flute Link' playing a medley of Zelda songs, and at the end...

Tommy (host): The company is...Square Enix!
(Audience goes wild.)
Tommy: The composer...Nobuo Uematsu!
(Audience goes wilder, shouts, cheers and whoops.)
Tommy: The game...Final Fantasy!
(Audience claps, cheers, shouts out their favourite series.)

Jack Wall, that is, we think it's Jack, the conductor, raises up one finger. No response from Tommy. Two fingers. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Tommy: ...SEVEN!
(Can audience go crazier? Apparently so.)
Tommy: THE SONG!
(Tommy and audience in unison, audience in fevered pitch, we too guiltily shouting along.)
Tommy and audience: ONE! WINGED!! ANGEL!!!

Seriously, has there been such fanaticism ever for an orchestra performance? Even for the Lord Of The Rings Symphony everyone was civil. No screaming fanboy singing along to 'The Bridge Of Khazad-Dum' or 'The Black Rider' for that matter. This was a rock band concert kind of audience reception to an orchestral performance.

There's only eight choir members which meant that they couldn't really be heard that strongly but the sound set up was very good. Lyrics from the original One Winged Angel, with music arrangement from the Advent Children movie with electric guitar bits. Absolutely grand.

For their encore performances, they gave us not only one, but TWO encore songs! First was a forum request for Chrono Trigger, which sent lad straight to heaven as he loves the game and wasn't expecting them to perform it. The second? Castlevania, performed by the orchestra, Tommy and Jack on guitars, Norihiko on sax and Laura on flute.

All in all, an awesome performance. Now...merchandise.

When it comes to musicals we would normally get the programme and probably the CD as souvenirs. But for this event, the programme booklet was RM25 for photos from their past concerts, no text, no credits to the National Symphony Orchestra or the VGL Choir or such. It really didn't feel something worth getting. As for the CD, it was the same one as we would find on iTunes, except almost twice as expensive. Somehow we refrained from getting it too. Could have gotten something else since they had other merchandise, like t-shirts, but we walked away with just our tickets and the event leaflet.

Now it turns out that members of the YKLS Chamber Choir were singing as the choir for VGL! This, we did not know as we decided to take a break this year. Met the bunch of them after the show where they let loose some steam over the short period of time they had to learn the songs, the difficulty of some of the scores...talk shop, basically.

Would we have joined as part of the choir instead of the audience if we knew? In this case, we think we best enjoyed the entire thing as audience. The choir couldn't see the screen to see what was showing when songs were playing, so it was hard to make out why the audience were all so hyped up. The energy may be infectious and you'd feel chuffed up for the performance, but the experience just would not be the same.

Plus, asides from Warcraft's 'A Call To Arms', the chanting from the epic-sounding pieces of Halo, FFVII's 'One Winged Angel', we don't think there was much songs we missed singing. Hmmm if they performed 'Baba Yetu' it might be touch-and-go between audience and choir...

For Distant Worlds, if they need choir members, oooh yes count us in straightaway!

So, will we watch this again? Sometime in the future, yeah!

Angels And Demons Go Vietnamese

Now just last weekend we celebrated the birthdays of March babies esteban and CherubCel. While most of the planning was done early thanks to OC lad, and it marked the return of thematic birthday parties (as we chose to keep ours simple and somehow it didn't happen for Puddy's birthday). The theme was chosen rather late as everyone chipped in their suggestions and it was up to both birthday boy and girl to agree on a theme.

What with the venue being Cungdinh Vietnam Restaurant at One Bangsar, certain suggestions like 'Topless Night' and 'Tarts And Vicars' certainly spelt Bangsar Social Suicide. And in the end, it was decided that the theme was 'Angels & Demons'!

And the cool bit? Lad informed us that we were to decide which side we were suppose to be on, but not to tell the others. And the end result was that our party of 14 had an even number of angels and demons! Even with the short time to prepare for costumes, everyone had props, and were either dressed in pure white or black and red! Even the birthday boy and girl were on opposite teams! The theme turned out to work surprisingly well!

...yes, we had the other diners giving us double takes and grinning. But we all had good fun.

On the good side...

And at the other corner...

The food at Cungdinh was excellent, and the service was wonderful. Waiters and waitresses discreetly made their way around clearing the table and setting dish after dish, and each dish came with its own specific sauce! The price, we suppose, would also be excellent. Lad has yet to tabulate the bill...

And once everyone filled their stomachs, it was time to parade our costumes, haha.

"Good morning Charlie!"

'Course, not everyone followed the stereotype Christian-depicted angel or demon. Here we have otousan as...we're not sure, but it was horrifying nevertheless.

And everyone started playing with the props! Goes to show that angels can be tempted. Here we have a good girl gone bad...

And the good girl was carrying a rose instead of a wand or a harp (interestingly no angel brought a harp or horn or flaming sword...). She gave that up, which the Angel Of Death (on the demon's side) used to become Tuxedo Mask instead...

And the Angel Of Death's scythe went to the Angel Of Music instead, who took over the role looking far more appropriate...

Demonic transformations were aplenty, leading to otousan changing to The Horny One with three pairs of horns...

...and the rare appearance of the unihorn. Unlike the unicorn which can only be tamed by a virgin maiden, we guess the unihorn tames virgin maidens instead.

It was a merry night and after the present-giving ceremony, the birthday boy and girl went aside to discuss whom should win the Best Dressed Award. The winners?

The winged ones! Germ, with her wings tied to her dress for the angels and lad, with his DIY unfoldable wings for the demons! In fact poor Germ couldn't dismantle her wings until she got home, she had to sit rather uncomfortably in the car on the way to and from the restaurant! Imagine if she had to park at Bangsar Village and walk all the way for everyone to see. Or if we all decided to continue the night by going clubbing or something.

Happy birthday again to esteban and CherubCel!

And The Parents' Job Is Done

When their kids get married. And then they can celebrate and be happy and joyful. Which was made very obvious in the case of Ivan's wedding.

What can we say? More Klangites are getting married this year. There's gonna be...three? Three weddings, are we right, 'Nic? Or more? It's getting more and more obvious that we're falling out of the loop when it comes to news from the Klangites.

Anyways. We attended Ivan's Klang wedding last weekend, but we can't make it for his upcoming Penang wedding (to the same girl, of course).

Had to get up early for 'Nic to pick us up to make our way down to Klang for hengdai duties in the morning. While waiting for the groom and to head off to the bride's place, some of the others actually mentioned that they were keen for the challenges the zhimuis would throw at them - because they hadn't had breakfast and were hungry! This of course reminded us that we too were hungry, and the mental image of a celery with condense milk kept popping up in our head (courtesy of ethancya and Renzze's wedding!).

Interestingly, since the bride's family stayed in Penang, the bride and her zhimuis actually rented an apartment to hold the challenges! We wonder if they had to rent the place for a month, or for a couple of days only, or how did they go about that...

The challenges were...mild. We put this down to not having enough time. And to top it off, everyone spoke in Mandarin, which left us as the bemused but uncomprehending hengdai.

It started off with the zhimuis applying lipsticks to the hengdais, after which they were supposed to kiss a cardboard until the heart-shaped bit in the center was all covered in kisses. Something to remember: the zhimui applying the lipstick started off by putting on the lipstick properly on the first hengdai...but after that she started going haywire, making everyone else look like the Joker from The Dark Knight.

The most interesting challenge would be a game of Suck-And-Blow using seaweed strips instead of a name card/credit card. This game failed as the seaweed strips tend to stick on the tip of the nose more often than on the lips! The zhimuis at least put some thought into this one, choosing wasabi seaweed strips instead of the normal flavoured ones. There was a good profile photo of NJH and Ty smooching, 'cos the seaweed strip couldn't be seen!

Oh well. The hengdais hit the table spread of food while the groom had his younger brother translate a paper full of chinese proclaimations of love which he then shouted out into the bedroom.

So, the challenges were mild. This was a good thing, because cal_el brought along his Thai girlfriend for the challenges, and she was certainly busy taking photos and notes of the happenings! Their wedding will be coming up later this year and we wonder if she will want to have her own hengdai/zhimui challenge...if the challenges were much more 'creative', imagine what the Thais would come up with!

After the morning's activities and lunch back at Ivan's, we headed back to shower, change, and rest up before the dinner back at Klang.

Leaving the Chief's place in the evening to head for dinner, we decided to head down the Federal, once past the toll after Subang and somewhere along Shah Alam, cut across to get to Kota Kemuning and onto the Kesas Highway, then continue our way down to Klang. We used to do this during our uni days, but have long forgotten the exact route.

And as expected, we got lost.

And found ourself at Alam Idaman. Trying to find our location on Google Maps showed forests with no roads, and calculated routes always took us to Klang via Federal Highway rather than via Kesas. And so we gave up and took the Federal into Klang...

...we could feel our soul slipping away as we slowly crawled our way towards the Klang Bridge.

Miraculously when we arrived an hour late for the dinner, it still has not started! And once seated a Carlberg was put into our ready hands to restore our soul! A cold beer does do wonders for low traffic EQ.

And it was here that we come to realize how happy parents can be when their kids marry. While yes, of course, parents should be happy to see their kids finally tying the knot, most of the time we observe parents either getting sentimental or being rather reserved. Ivan's dad was bursting at the seams! It was obvious where Ivan got his humour and happy-go-lucky attitude from!

Do we need to wish the couple happiness in years to come? Probably no need. But we'll wish them all the best and many great years ahead!

Angry Birds Catapulting!

Ok so every now and then, like on late Tuesday afternoons when the iTunes Store puts in fresh material, we'll take a looky for free music, vids, and app recommendations and the likes. Occasionally they'd recommend something that we like, occasionally we'll start from one app, head on to 'apps like this' or 'apps others also bought' and browse till we give up at the sheer amount of apps available that we have no interest in.

Or we might end up with a few different apps, mostly (if not all) free. A good thing is that there's always a 'lite' version of an app, which lets us know if we'd ever buy the app, keep the lite version or delete it.

Especially now that otousan has gotten himself an iPhone, and we're both still fresh comparing apps when we meetup, even we get to know a few more apps that we never noticed before. Well ok mainly otousan downloads games, and the games (as we notice) that normally grabs our attention are well-known games or PC games (ie Monopoly, Command & Conquer, Monkey Island, Beneath A Steel Sky, Zooloretto) while the new games that crop up don't usually get our attention, or, if they did, we've only put in about an hour of gameplay before we forget about the game.

So sometime last week we were hunting about the iTunes Store when we came across the lite version of Angry Birds. We'd never clicked onto the app to see the description of the game before and so, judging from the fact that it spent quite a while on the top 10 paid apps (for the Malaysian iTunes Store that is) we thought we'd give the lite version a try.



Turns out that it was a catapulting game. And to think not too long ago we just pooh-poohed another catapulting game otousan was showing to us. Anyways, we played the free six stages offered, and we thought we would forget about the game after a while.

And given the fact that a stage takes less than a minute to play, we've been replaying this game nonstop.

And paid the skimpy 99 cents for the full version.

Hello, the cause of our battery draining even faster. Who knows how our battery will last when they finally make Street Fighter 4 for the iPod Touch much more worth it...

It Starts In College...

...and this is the second story we know of where a relationship started off since college, and after nearly ten years, ends in marriage. The first being 'Nic and LiL. This time it's beween Puddy and her beau Eddy - knew each other since school days, started going steady in college when he offered her a ride, and now, ten years later, have tied the knot.

Ok, so for 'Nic it probably wasn't ten years. But close enough.

It's a rather small world when at the dinner reception we were grabbed by the elbow to face to of our college classmates, and somehow we stopped ourself from blurting, "Eh why are you here?" We chatted a bit and found out that they were friends of the groom (as we were the bride's) either since Taylor's or while at Imperial. So at this dinner we had friends from college, our pharmacy coursemates and the Taman Tun-ites as well.

We wonder what kind of wedding dinner it would be if we had the bloggers, the Taman Tun-iutes, the Klangites, college friends, and pharmacy coursemates in attendance. Quite likely our own wedding, if it ever happens!

One thing of note at Puddy's wedding - there weren't any reminders that this was a Chinese wedding dinner in any way by way of decor. Some handcrafted trees with wellwishes written on the paper leaves, everything in a thematic robin's egg blue, and an absence of the chinese word 'Hei' or the colour red anywhere. Otherwise, we still had a bilingual MC and the shouts of yamseng to remind us where we were.

Another thing of note. We're still not used to Puddy's and Eddy's first names.

Jon Low handled the photography and after having his name appearing at the opening and closing of the wedding shoot, we were sure to remember him (and the photos were rather good). If ever we want wedding photos done this would be another photographer to think of.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay long after the dinner was over to chat with the couple, as the Chief had work to do and it was already past 11pm, so we made our quick apologies, congratulations, took a quick couple of photos, and left.

There's still many years to go, but seeing how they've already managed these ten years, we're sure the future's no obstacle for them! Congratulations Puddy & Eddy!

MEALWHAT(tm) Bangkok Photolog I

Inspiring Video

So esteban sends an email to the lot of us, titled 'Inspiring Video', saying:

Hi All....
Just stumbled on this video... very meaningful and kudos to the director...
Must watch soonest....

Plus a link to the video. We know esteban to be someone who would actually watch inspirational Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul kind of videos, so for us there wasn't really any urgency to follow the link to the video immediately (that, plus the fact that the video couldn't play on our iPhone).

Then, the other Taman Tun-ites start replying to the email, and the general gist was that it wasn't so much a motivational inspiring video but a comedic one. Still, since we couldn't watch it on-the-go we pretty much forgot about it, until lad asked us about it today.

lad: hey
lad: did you check out esteban's movie yet?
Janvier: not yet!
Janvier: cos it doesn't play on the iphone
lad: oh
lad: i think you'd appreciate it the most
lad: takes time to load

And so, we followed the link to the video. And waited. And waited. It really was a rather long wait. And in the end, the video played... Midway watching it at the height of suspense, we were slightly puzzled and freaked out. Then we started laughing, realizing why lad said we would appreciate it the most!




And we forwarded it to the BFF, thinking that the video would be personalized to the person watching it! Sent out this email:

If you're feeling lost, or down, or just feeling uninspired, this is the best time to watch this.

For the divas, you know this video was meant to be for you.

In any case you guys should watch this ASAP!

That, and the link to the video. Only...after a while chatting on with lad we came to the realization that the link we sent to the BFF might be misinterpreted as being rather muka tebal, and so we quickly emailed them again saying it was a wrong link and that we would send them the correct one soon.

Then everyone got a personalized one, much to different reactions!

Oh well, if you've watched the video already, go have fun!

Dental Dramas

It started sometime before Chinese New Year. Eating lunch one day and we bit on what we thought was a pebble. Then a few days later we started feeling our right backmost molar getting a mite sensitive when it came to certain foodstuff and cold drinks, and especially if we actually brush there. After some probing with a finger we discovered that we had a small hole on said sensitive molar.

Thankfully for us that the molar was rather inaccessible to most foodstuff, saliva and brushing there was awkward - so that while we had sensitive twinges from time to time we didn't have to rush straight off to the dentist in pain.

But still, an appointment with the dentist was a must. It's not as if a decayed tooth was going to get better by itself, and waiting for the problem to go away by itself would mean waiting for the troublesome tooth to fall out (which we think would cause us much pain in the process). So we headed back to our dentist, whom we haven't visited for...some five years or so. We're not very comfortable visiting the dentist, friendly and professional and gentle as he may be. The sound of the drills or his other devices always conjure up the worse.

So altogether now, we've already been to the dentist three times. In this past two months.

First for a filling on the decaying molar.

Then for scaling.

And just recently, the veneer of two particularly rough teeth plus the repairing of some fillings.

And each time, it's always the same. We come in relaxed, we get into the seat and relax, we discuss with the dentist (and let him scold us, yes), we open our mouth for him to do his work, and we occupy ourself by closing our eyes (partly due to having a bright light shining on our face) and trying to relax our hands from clenching.

It never stops. The brain may tell us, it's ok, he's not drilling although it may sound like it, it's just a pick that vibrates very fast to clean out the tartar, but our hands tell us we're afraid, clench clench.

And for our third visit, the good dentist starts off our appointment by telling us, "I'm going to give you a jab first yeah."

We would have much prefer if the jab was a GA that knocked us out. Still, what was interesting was that...while the two shots he gave us still had that slight sting, it wasn't the fire-hot stake in the gums that we always think it was. That was a bit of a plus point.

Then there was a whole amount of drilling, this and that we know not what because we chose to keep our eyes closed. There were times when he held a sort of lamp close to the fillings, and more drilling and chipping with something that caused a burning smell...seriously, the arsenal a dentist has scares us.

And at the end of it all, we survive intact! We got up from the chair to find that the LA not only numbed the gums, but the effect spread all the way to our nose! Now that was an interesting sensation. The nurse assured us that once the numbness fades off, there won't be any residual pain. Mind you, this bit is important! When we had our molars extracted previously in preparation for braces, we were bedridden for the rest of the day lethargic with pain, stuffed full of panadol and sucking on ice. We didn't want to be caught unprepared when the numbness wore off and suddenly poleaxed with pain while in public. If there was going to be pain, then we'll get the panadols and ice ready. But there was none.

Now if only the anaesthetic could numb off the shock of the dentist's bill for the anaesthetic, fillings and veneer!

More Book Juggling

While we've never really got off the habit of bookjuggling, we'll now thank BookXcess for taking it a step further. Because, just last week we browsed around and came across an audiobook CD of Making Money selling at RM24.90. With audiobook CDs normally costing well over RM100, can you say, 'spontaneous buy'?

Disregard the fact that said copy of Making Money was an abridge version instead of the unabridged version. It's our first Pratchett audiobook and we want to hear how it goes. Years of reading and rereading the Discworld series and we've a certain impression of how the characters sound (as for how the characters look, Paul Kidby has certainly got them spot-on that we cannot think of them any other way!), and we were interested to hear how the narrator would voice the characters.

We already like how the witches were portrayed in the Wryd Sisters cartoon. Not so much how they look, but how they sound.



And how Lord Vetinari was portrayed in The Colour Of Magic movie, to a certain extent.



Anyways we had the CDs converted to mp3 and synced to our iPod, and next thing you know, we're listening to the audiobook while reading another book.

It's possible, due to the fact that we've read Making Money before and was rereading an Eddings book. Familiar material. Not much attention needed to do both except to laugh to the jokes from one book or the other.

Our impression of the audiobook? Plus we're listening now to the unabridged version of Maskerade.

The narrators, as far as we hear, do a good job of narrating, with the pacing is good and the pronunciation clear and understandable. Only that most voice impressions for the main characters and inflections differ from how we would do it (but then again, they are the ones doing the reading and getting money doing it!). We understand, though, and wouldn't really expect the narrators to do an accurate impression of Granny Weatherwax or some of the others. It's good enough that we can distinguish different people, especially during conversations.

Great. Now we've more books to collect!

Yearbook Senility

Just recently we decided to look up our school yearbook due to a curious mention by Naughty Nyukster. We're not too sure when was the last time we actually picked up our yearbook for a flip, there really isn't any reason for us to do so unless we're feeling nostalgic, but we guess it would have been over three years.

Anyways, we started flipping through the yearbook, and skimmed through the photos and names.

Imagine our shock when we realize we couldn't place names to faces or vice versa! Of course, we don't expect to remember everyone's name, and since we've not kept in touch with everyone after high school of course faces would get rusty (we're reminded of the time some three years back when we were in a lift and caught ourself staring at this fellow, he looked back and smiled in acknowledgement which left us puzzled until much later after exiting the lift when we realized he was a schoolmate, oh the shame for acting aloof).

But we do recall that we could place more names to faces the last time we looked at our yearbook! Now just looking at the various clubs and societies, there are members whose names appear in the committee but their photos aren't in the group photo, and we can't even visualize a mental image of who he was! Even a couple of times, with both name and face, it tooked a bit of looking about to see which was most likely the face belonging to the name.

Certainly feeling our age!

CNY Recap, 2010

The annual CNY recap. With a few changes this year.

1. Firstly, the family reunion dinner where our sis and bro-in-law didn't come back this year, which allowed us all to fit in the kitchen rather than having to split into two different table (one in the kitchen and one outside at the dining table). This also meant that we didn't need to take any days off to hang out with our sis.

Sincee we didn't take any extra leave for Chinese New Year, we started work again on Wednesday, which was really all the better because if we took the entire week off, we would have gotten a severe attack of Monday Blues once we start work again. So starting work on Wednesday actually helped us ease our way back to a regular work schedule, because as expected the entire week was rather quiet.

Oh, the joys of absolutely zero congestion at 7pm!

2. Which brings us to something about Chinese New Year. Normally we don't pay attention to the Chinese counting of days post-CNY. Add that to the fact that we associate Monday with the first day of the week (ie Tuesday = day 2, etc) and we're capable of slight confusion if we're not paying attention. And yes, we did get slightly confused on the dating system.

Because we'd gotten a text from webchitect that said that he'd be hosting the usual Klangite Chinese New Year gathering on Tuesday, day 3 of CNY.

Message pretty clear, no?

Only we'd gone and kept in mind just the 'Tuesday' bit, and confused that thinking it was Day 2 of CNY. So on Monday night we almost headed down to Klang after dinner. Thankfully we decided to check the text again, else we would have wasted a trip down...

Anyways we made a trip down on Tuesday night for the Klangite CNY gathering, and lost a fair bit when we started gambling by playing In Between. It's the first time we've ever played In Between where the pot came up to around RM400ish (then again in our younger years gambling, we'd all bet less - those were the times when angpows still jingled with the sound of RM1 coins...). The pot got that high quite fast partly due to a couple of house rules: everyone had to put RM1 into the pot each round (to increase the amount available as well as to make players more committed to betting); and if a player did bet, and the revealed card was one of the two cards he has, he had to pay double.

With those two house rules, CYNg lost a hefty sum initially because each time he gets an ace and a queen (very good odds for revealing a card between these two cards), he bets a big sum...and hits either a queen or an ace. This happened a few times. Thankfully, CYNg manage to recover back most of his losses.

3. Asides from the Klangite gathering, we'd visited Clan Chief, once at their home for games and the likes, and once more for dinner.

4. Last Thursday was a dinner gathering at lad's place! A quick fun meetup where everyone caught up with each other while enjoying lad's mum's cooking (generous pork servings in the form of ham and bacon!).

5. Mahjong meetup at Leggie's place on Friday! With an interesting twist that there was no money involved! Played all afternoon till dinnertime, where we made our way to the Daily Grind for dinner!

Clan Chief CNY Celebrations

Regardless of how often we meet the members of Clan Chief, we still feel awkward when it comes to interacting with them. Because (as usual) we cannot communicate with the rest of the family except for a measly smattering of Cantonese which we have no confidence in, we find ourself discreetly quiet around the family members or hiding in the Chief's room watching telly or DVDs.

Then the Chief tells us that we're to attend the family dinner last night. A CNY dinner celebration with all the extended family. Oh, and to wear as red as possible.

We'll say it again. STRESS.

In retrospect though we think that there might be a slight plus point in having this communication barrier. Everyone was polite and we let the Clan Chief banter with each other while we focus on whatever dish is put before us by the waitress. And that helped to relieve some of the stress (most of the stress was relieved by occasionally chatting with the Chief).

We can only suppose that if we could converse with the rest of Clan Chief there might be more awkward moments and questions...probably. Or maybe just more requests to pass over the condiments.

Chinese New Year Valentine Photolog

Tutti Frutti Yoghurt Bitti

So there we were one night at the RHB Bank at Zaaba depositing our cheque when we saw this shop.

Caught us by surprise it did, for we never knew that a new shop had popped up in Taman Tun and was still open close to 11pm. And it was a store selling just frozen yoghurt by the looks of it. Nothing else but frozen yoghurt and canned drinks.

Ah well curiosity got the better of us and we ended up not only going into the shop for a look-see, but also ended up with a tub of frozen yoghurt of our own. How it came about? Tutti Frutti's approach to selling their yoghurt. We were looking for a menu with prices as to how much a tub would cost etc.

Instead of charging by the tub or by scoops, the store charges by the weight! It's RM7.30 per 100g, and they'll weigh your final product before charging you accordingly (interestingly we'd checked and some blogs/reviews are saying it's RM5.30 per 100g, price hike perhaps?).

So you pour out as much yoghurt as you like, mix 'em up if you want. We came across the following flavours that night: TF Original, Death By Chocolate, Verry Berry Raspberry, Strawberry Fields, Orange Cream and French Vanilla.

Our choice? Strawberry Fields and Orange Cream. Our more favoured flavours among the lot.

After pouring out the yoghurt there was the toppings to consider. And there were considerably many toppings to choose!

But since it was our first visit and we wanted to savour the yoghurt free from other tastes, not to mention we wanted to find out just how much the scant amount of yoghurt we poured costs, we passed on the toppings. On our next visit there with the Chief we will do our yoghurt with toppings (oh yes there will have to be a second visit!).

Our little cup of Strawberry Fields and Orange Cream, costing somewhere RM7.70. And it was good. It wasn't creamy, and so we thought that it wouldn't do anything to set off our lactose intolerance. However, after the yoghurt, and dinner after that, we found ourself meditating at the porcelain throne, so we need to have another go to find out if it was due to earlier dietary habits or it is actually due to the yoghurt. And Chief has yet to try the place out too, so yes we should plan a second visit, this time to really indulge.

Best bit? We thought the place just opened up the last couple of weeks, and when we casually asked the waitress we were told that they were opened for two months now!

Sibu Solemnizations

Now this is a tad late because we had to take the time to organize and watermark our photos, unlike the recent Sibu photolog which we could immediately upload since we've done the whole thing up via the Comic Touch app.

Of course, if we were to photolog the event of our entire trip we would run well over twenty photos, and that's way too much for a photolog! When we were making the photolog we initially included all the activities, but in the end it was too much for a comfortable read.

So our trip to Sibu in the middle of last month was to attend the wedding of our old coursemate and housemate during our uni days, ymlau to his Sarikei Sweetheart. We'd already missed the wedding of our other coursemate and housemate, AnTS, and whatwith us keeping more in touch with ymlau we dare not miss this one.

And it's our first trip to East Malaysia no less! And us being a blur case at times, it was rather a good thing that we didn't get our tickets early, because a) we would have bought tickets thinking his wedding was on 12th March instead of 23rd January; and b) we would have bought tickets to Kuching instead of Sibu.

Firstly, we must comment: the hospitality we received during our entire stay in Sibu was absolutely AMAZING. A couple of days before we were to fly over, we call to check the wedding itinerary with ymlau, and he assures us that he will be there to pick us up from Sibu Airport. If he can't make it, he will have someone come and pick us up, much to our protestations. Between Zinger and ymlau, we never needed to worry about transport to anywhere, and frankly we were rather paiseh to be imposing so much...

Upon our arrival we were greeted by the grinning faces of both our old housemates, AnTS arriving much earlier in the afternoon of the same day from Bintulu. We dropped our stuff at Kingwood Hotel, and were soon on our way to celebrate ymlau's bachelor party.

One thing we learn? ymlau's beer tolerance has indeed gone up over the years. His friends there have trained him very well. Drinks like a fish. Upon his arrival at the karaoke centre he was given a glass filled with three cans of beer to down in one go. And he did!

The amount of beer available!

This brings us to a very important lesson. DO NOT HOLD YOUR BACHELOR PARTY ON THE NIGHT BEFORE YOUR WEDDING IF PLENTY OF ALCOHOL IS INVOLVED.

The bachelor party ended by 1am-ish, and we had to wake up by 4.30am to get ready for ymlau to pick up his Sarikei Sweetheart. We got to see Sarawak's first toll booths that led onto a single carraigeway 'highway', and along the way we made nine pit stops for ymlau to get rid of yesterday's alcohol, the queasy way...Poor feller, it certainly was a day for him to remember.

Along the way we got to see large expanse of fields, and at 5am-something in the morning, it was all beautiful with mists rolling about the fields... Should have tried taking a photo during one of those pit stops.

Arrived at Sarikei Sweetheart's place to be welcomed by fireworks, and we got to try the Fuzhou Red Rice Wine noodles, which reminded us of mee suah. After which the hengdai vs zhimui battle commenced. Twenty-three hengdais. Five zhimuis. All that was involved was some declaration of love before the zhimuis would allow the groom access past the staircase.

It's Sibu. Conversation for most of the part was done in Fuzhou or Mandarin.

We're used to it, after living with two Sarawakians for 3 years.

More fireworks greeted us when we arrived back at the groom's place.

After the traditional Chinese ceremony was completed the throng headed to the church to exchange their vows. After the service, ymlau's brother brought us for a heavy seafood lunch.

We'd the afternoon off to take a quick power nap from our early morning, then it was around town going all touristy taking photos.

Come evening Zinger picked us all up for the wedding dinner at the Good Happiness Restaurant. Not all coursemates were here because it so happens that another coursemate was also celebrating her wedding on the same day! Some folks thought that they were both getting married to each other!

Day after the wedding we went about the rest of the malls, and got ready to leave by evening. Short trip indeed.

To ymlau and his Sarikei Sweetheart, wishing you happiness and joy in your marriage!