A Day In My Life

Feliz Ano Nuevo Chino

2008-02-10T02:10:00.000+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year!

To all who need to celebrate it or just bother to XD

May the Year of the Rat bring more luck and prosperity to all of us.

It would be freakishly lame for me to just end this post with a CNY greeting just like that so I'm just gonna go on describing the wonderful new year's eve celebration I've always had whenever i'm in the philippines. To be exact, only in manila perched on a rooftop. It had nothing to do with alcohol, food or people but it was the fireworks!

Yes people fireworks but nothing like what you would ever see in KL. Something worth mentioning though is how fireworks are actually not illegal here! They're only starting to ponder over a total ban on them. Then again there is always a loophole out of any rule of law over here if you get what i mean. An absence of a ban only translates to hoardes of filipinos and forigners alike =) buying boxes of fireworks. I repeat that its fireworks .. not firecrackers .. as in the huge ones we only see at like klcc or bintang walk.

They're even sold right by the roads. That was where I bought mine. Even stalls are put up in hypermarkets and almost every mall. Fireworks are sold all year long but sales are most rapid during the year end holidays. The dominant producer being Dragon Fireworks even has billboards put up along the highways. Sorry but I do not have pictures to prove how amusing it can sometimes be. Maybe next year then.

It was not my first witnessing this oh so loud happening so I was already perched up on our condo rooftop by 11-ish waiting for it all to happen. Some already started by then. To my surprise, a group of condo residents had even prepared to burn fireworks on the rooftop. It was kinda against the condo rules but I couldn't care less since I would watching these magnanimous fireworks popping literally in front of my eyes.

Jennifer and me

At the rooftop, you get a definite 360 view all around you. If im not mistaken I could even see parts of makati and surely eastwood from the top. People already started 'playing' and you could see fireworks popping here and there. However the amount starts building up as 12 am approaches and trust me when the new year came they were just everywhere. There was not a single neighbourhood without fireworks. It is hard to explain in words but fireworks were everywhere. It's like multiplying the amount of klcc fireworks by 100 at every location possible. So is the joy and exhilaration everyone gets once the clock strikes 12.

view of fireworks all around us

Four years ago, there were very few people who knew about the nice NYE views from the rooftop but this time around the rooftop had a much bigger and eager crowd. Going back to the residents launching fireworks on the rooftop, I had an impression they got rich the year before because the amount of fireworks they bought was worth scrubbing your eyes for a second look. There were bags all around off all colours and types. We even thought they were using their unsold fireworks but obviously they had better jobs than that to be residents at Phoenix.

fireworks on top of us

In addition to the 360 view of fireworks sorrounding me, I had fireworks popping right above me which is really something all of you must add to your "things to do before i die" lists. It was nothing like ever before .. they were so huge and loud that you were just left fascinated by it all. I even lost count of the number of times they launched those huge ones. The barrels contaning it all would shake vigorously with that *BOOM* each time.

fireworks on top of us

There you have it non-filipino people. You have now got a rather confuzzled but detailed explanation what a new year's eve fireworks display is like in manila, philippines. You'd better come experience it some day before some silly ban is implemented. Citizens rich and poor alike are willing to spend for this marvellous displays of colour. In the words of my mum, "The owner of Dragon Fireworks is now having his annual great laugh at how he's getting richer everytime someones starts burning his fireworks". His bank account must have grown three-fold in that one night.

Brenda, Mrs Yun, Me, Eric

News bulletins are especially interesting on the following new year's day with the usual 'fireworks related accidents roundup'. Yet another one of a kind 'only-in-the-philippines' kind of announcements. With an abundance of fireworks, these incidents are not at all rare. Back then, there would people going blind, losing teeth, losing limbs, dying etc. The funniest i've heard was when a drunk man placed some lighted firecracker in his mouth instead of throwing it. I doubt if I need to explain what happened to him. It was gory albeit being rather amusing.

Much to my surprise, it was announced this year that fireworks related deaths/injuries had actually decreased marginally compared to the previous years. Sounds sarcastic but its the truth. Another amusing filipino statement in my opinion. The story of 6 year old who has his arm amputated was by far the worst accident this year.

Hopefully the videos (if you bothered to watch) have managed to give you a better perspective of it all. I'll also upload a few pictures of everything that happened to leave you as intrigued and fascinated as you already are.

CNY on the other hand was very much more mellow perhaps to my dismay. Haha. There were a few at time but a majority burned the long red crackers. I believe these are the ones who need to proudly declare "I am Chinese unlike you other filthy ones". Do not be surprised but the Chinese community in the Philippines is substantially large with many already marrying locals. They make up a chunk of the population having first arrived to trade just like every other chinese ancestor who made a journey away from the mainland. My 'yew' is actually spelt 'yu' here. Only god knows why..

Another interesting fact about filipino chinese is how each and everyone of them are filty rich. I am proud to say that almost every large corporation here belongs to or was started by someone chinese. Google this up and you'll be very surprised. Therefore I feel much more respected even though im not filthy rich. Best thing is that there are actually NO LALAs here. Not a single one !! Most of the chinese dont even speak their mothertongue anymore.

Nonetheless, my very first CNY out of malaysia was not at all busy yet fun. Certainly is when i'm with my mum. We had our reunion dinner (3 of us) and waited till midnight. I woke up the next day to greet and receive limited amount of angpaus. Certainly not as much as I would have gotten back in KL but im not complaining. My sister helped me collect some. Thanks brenda!

We wanted to make a trip to chinatown in binondo to obtain some more authentic CNY goodies but couldn't make it. Well at least we have cookies from KL and oranges. Something new I found out was that koreans themselves also celebrate the new year like us chinese. So we still had our korean friends here to greet and celebrate. Jennifer came on the eve in her hanbok to greet us all. How adorable..

Before I end this post, one of me friends, the Peako we all know to well, will be leaving or rather has left for trinity in aussieland. Sorry I couldn't be there for your lil farewell but I wish you all the best for your studies and whatever that comes ahead. Don't ever forget me and all of us back home because we know where to seek for you. That sounded so tacky. By the way, I still have not catched cloverfield yet. Haha

-Adios y hasta luego-

A French Mistake

2008-02-04T01:52:00.000+08:00

Hola manusia sekalian,

Ignore the ridiculous condolences posted on my cbox because this blog ain't dead yet. It was in a partial coma caused by the endless procrastination of its owner. Plus life in manila thus far has been all but fun. Haha. I said in my last post that I would get a series of 07 posts up but i'm actually still thinking of what to blog about.

Back to business. The title of the post says it all. Those smelly french idiots committed the biggest mistakes in their lives in the last vote they faced. Yes people, i am here to bitch/rant about nicolas sarkozy (there's no need to even give him capitalised initials on his name). First things first, I have opposed sarkozy from the very beginning or rather when the french elections hype started. Someone who incited those violent riots in Paris back in 2006. Even after he won by a slight margin, he still remained on my personal hate-list. A fictional one by the way. It would be really odd if I actually kept one. Besides his role in freeing Bulgarian nurses in Libya, he hasn't contributed much to the progress of France thus far unless gaining headlines on French tabloids can be considered.

A president appearing on tabloids ever so frequently. Doesnt it just sound amusing. Well being the one and only French president in the modern history of France to get a divorce while in power gives you that privilege. This might be a result of marrying a cecilia sarkozy who never enjoyed the confines of the Elysee. The divorce resulted in a slight plunge in sarko's approval ratings. As i am not an anti-divorce person, I really couldn't be bothered by that issue. When I first read about it, I actually had a good laugh at sarko. What made feel even more happier was the fact that sarkozy actually felt sad over his divorce .. or so we all thought. Fyi people, this divorce occured about 4 months ago.

Only a month later, the headlines were blazing yet again. Sarkozy was now going out with that slut-model-singer, carla bruni. The one who has had relationships with men like Mick Jagger and Donald Trump. A young rich gal hunting for rich and powerful older men. It was shocking news for me as thinking about them actually made me wanna puke. The thought of them 'French-kissing' each other was enough to raise my goosebumps. As weeks gone by, people around the world like me soon realised that indeed the item actually progressed into some whirlwind romance. There were the trips around Paris as well as to Disneyland. Come on, what on earth is a 53 year old President doing in Disneyland. Who cares if you've got to entertain your perasan-ted girlfriend. Disneyland just aint the place for you. Go bring her to sotheby's or something. I wouldn't care as long as its not disneyland. Its already wrong that such a high profile couple goes canoddling around town. That's so not how a president acts for heaven's sake.

Next came their holidays in Petra and Luxor before sarkozy's official trip to egypt. The most unbelievable thing happened next. I am sure most of you would have heard or at least guessed. Sarko and carla bruni actually got engaged like 2 days ago. I am most disgusted by this. Who cares if I am not french and can't riot. At least I can rant here. President Sarkozy actually had the most insane idea of marrying the "I enjoy being polygamous" carla bruni only 3 months after first meeting her. Ever since the news broke out, sarkozy's ratings in France have been going down the drain. Fine they've only been plummeting but hopefully it'll reach that point. The people are unhappy that instead of attempting to reshape an already weakening local economic front, he has been focusing on this slutty polygamous model.

They're so ridiculous that Ryanair even decided to use them as an advertising gimmick for one of their promo ads. Carla bruni as can be seen in the ad says this --> "With Ryanair, my whole family can come to my wedding." How pathetic is that. Now both of them are suing ryanair when they're only as cheap as ryanair's fares. I've even seen guys over here perving over her pictures on newsweek going all "wow ganda and sexy talaga ah". Sarkozy's actions have even earned him the nickname President Bling Bling which need not be elaborated any further on.

Even the French themselves insist on making spoofs of Sarko's latest cheap act

This is a funnier one supposedly referring to carla bruni .. trust me it aint porn

Why this is truly a French mistake? Well they had every chance possible to vote for other candidates such as Segolene Royal. She had garnered so much more support comapred to sarkozy early on. Tough competition between the two only existed when the elections drew closer. Segolene royal would have done a far better job in office if compared to shitty sarkozy. She even has the elegance and grandeur fit for the Elysee Palace. She doesnt even look her age from all the pictures of her. Well you frenchys had a chance and you failed. So you're now stuck with sarko and problems with SocGen. Won't elaborate on that.

Moving on, Super Tuesday is coming up real soon. Super Tuesday is happening on a Tuesday by the way. It isn't just some pun. Though related to the USA, a country I dislike so much yet know so much about, I can't help but catch up with developments connected to kicking bush out of the white house at the end of his term. Super Tuesday is part of the election primaries scheduled way back before the official November vote. It is when voters from 24 American states (other states have their own respective primaries) cast their votes for their favourite candidates. I repeat .. 24 .. which makes it the most exciting and challenging of all primaries. With such a big majority, it more or less indicates the winning candidate for President.

Brandon is heavily rooting for the Democrats to lead the way to the White House. The way I see it, the true competition only exists between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats. The Republicans have a weaker side as of now since Rudy Giulani and dropped out of the race last week.John Edwards John Mccain and Mike Huckabee would seem too useless. I can honestly inform all you out there that I have been supporting Hilary Clinton's bid from the very beginning. Haven't changed my mind up till today. However a win by Obama would not be as disastrous as having Sarkozy as president. So I am joining forces with all the Clinton supporters who aint american in wishing her all the best in facing Super Tuesday. I am gonna wake up on Wednesday morning local time waiting for the outcome on CNN!

I have got to agree with anyone saying that the US elections are too hyped up when the actual thing is only in november. It started since like early 2007 with the campaigning and all. Seems too much doesnt it or maybe it's just because I live in malaysia where election time seems just like another suspenceful day of celebrations. As hyped as the election fever is, I repeat that it only means Bush is one step closer to being kicked out of the White house. Hahaha. Go to hell bush, you're just meddling in everything unnecessary and causing problems all round the globe. Eagerly waiting for the 4th of december to arrive. Remember the date 4-12-08.

-Adios from Manila-

Wewechu

2007-12-25T01:35:00.000+08:00

Without doubt, I may have somehow lost part of that passionate blogging mojo.

The last time I blogged was ages ago about Real Madrid winning the Primera Liga. They're still doing well at that moment without that moody Capello. In fact, they beat Barca last night. Who cares if it was 1-0 , they still beat them. XD

Procrastination works well through my system everytime I attempt to blog or maybe it was all the SPM stress. My Cbox seems to be the only thing keeping my blog alive.

A lot has happened over the past few months which I hope to blog about soon enough in a series of posts. I intend to use me blog to keep track of my life. Haha.

Enough said,

SPM is over .. (which just means no more BM for me!!)

Prom was fun ..

High school is so over =( ..

If only the results could come faster.. Best of luck to those PMR candidates obtaining their results in about 2 days time.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

-Adios from Manila-

Campeones de La Liga

2007-06-24T14:18:00.000+08:00

Raul draping club scarf over the goddess Cibeles

The hopes and dreams of all Real Madrid fans were answered last week. Final score : 3-1. As i had stated in the last post, Real would have won unless they could slump that badly against Majorca. As always, Real matches are rather unpredictable at the beginning and well their first halves are generally quite bland. The end of the first half of Real matches seem to always leave me pondering over all the high hopes I place over this numero uno team.

even tom and katie were happy over the win
of their good friend's team

So yeah, Real have won the La Liga for the 3oth time. Their first silverware in 4 years signifying the end of the galacticos era as Beckham and Roberto Carlos would be leaving. MU fans seemed to also have a reason to celebrate since they would be obtaining about 2 million pounds from the transfer deals of Beckham and Van Nistelrooy. There was a rather different pace to the 'last' match as Van Nistelrooy, the usual hero of the game limped out of the game during the first half. That was when I felt that their hopes of winning were gone as Majorca had already scored a goal before that while Barca was flying ahead with almost 5 goals in their game.

2nd half started without beckham but everything seemed to be playing out well. Real's first goal from Reyes brought a sense of relief while the 2nd one from Diarra just confirmed the win. The Bernabeu was already roaring with the cheers of fans at that moment. With the third and last one from Reyes again, you just had that exciting urge to just end the match and celebrate right away. The happiness of the fans was bringing down the house. All this is quite impressive especially coz it was about 5 am malaysian time. Very few people wake up at such times just to catch la liga matches. Admittedly, I have only woken up or stayed up for a few matches I hoped to be interesting.

Congrats again to Real Madrid and the whole team. Mixed feelings still remain over Fabio Capello's position as coach. Frankly speaking I wouldn't mind if he gets fired. I've disliked him from the beginning anyway. Till the next season starts lets hope that Calderon will be able to attract more star players to replace the great ones who left. Thierry Henry is moving to Barcelona so Real better do something or risk defeat again next season.

-adios y hasta luego-

Results That Make You Go Loco

2007-06-10T05:03:00.000+08:00

Real Madrid is so gonna win this year's Primera Liga !!

I was watching the match and it certainly was full of ups and downs. When Zaragoza got the frst goal in through a penalty kick, it definitely didn't seem to go that well. Zaragoza was leading till the end of the first half. Van Nistelrooy put in Real's first goal while Zaragoza had another ball going in. Their fans were euphoric and Real seemed to be at the losing end.

If Real were to lose, that would signal an end to their hopeful league win. With hearts of fans pounding, Van Nistelrooy managed to score again at the 88th minute. 2-2 it was and at the same time it was announced that Barca had also drawed 2-2 with Espanyol. That was without doubt a relief as Real would still be in the running for the title. One more match left against Mallorca which would lead to Real's almost definite victory.

So what if Real was the dumping ground for MU players. They all seem to make wonders particularly Van Nistelrooy and Beckham. It is gonna be sad seeing Beckham and Roberto Carlos play for Real the last time next week. I highly doubt we would be receiving coverage of Major League Soccer over here in Malaysia.

Let me also congratulate our 'beloved' PM Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi over his wedding today to Jeanne Abdullah aged 53. To Pak Lah, I hope you would be able to fill that void in your heart and achieve greater heights as our leader. To Jeanne (whichever way your name would be pronounced), you are one hell of a lucky woman. Haha ..

someone trying hard to act cute

Many question why a 67 year old man like Pak Lah would want to remarry just 2 years after his ex-wife died but it kind of gets lonely living alone in that huge Seri Perdana. It does however seem rather wrong in the sense that Jeanne used to be the house supervisor of Seri Perdana. Then again .. its better than Pak Lah going for his secretary or PA.

looks tai tai enough for a PM's wife

I have also this view about how PM's look much more presentable and capable with a woman in hand. Datin PM's wife would soon be escorting Pak Lah on his trips overseas and at most official functions. A penultimate end to seeing Pak Lah at official functions together with Datin Rosmah at times without Najib.

-adios y hasta luego-

Glorified Blades

2007-06-04T16:33:00.000+08:00

Believe it or not, I did manage to catch blades of glory on friday at klcc. I had seen a trailer of it on a news channel (?!?) a long time ago and was determined to catch it in the cinemas. Unfortunately the majority of reactions I got when I expressed my interest in the movie were "eww, why ?!?!" and "god, it looks sick".

I must say that this is by far the most Nacho Libre-like movie I've watched so far but trust me when I say that it is better than Nacho. The combination of sick twisted laughter with a weird sense of gay competition between Jimmy MacElroy played by Jon Heder and Chazz Michael Michaels played by Will Ferrell. Almost classic story of two enemies becoming team mates after they both get banned from men's figure skating as a result of their own actions.

There was generally something funny to laugh about every five minutes or so throughout the whole movie. What would you expect with such a hilarious cast. Who could forget Jon Heder on Napoleon's Dynamite. Another movie with a great production team who could crack out such lame stuff. There was this short part showing some dangerous kick-ass skating move being performed in North Korea which I found rather cool. Blek

Blades of Glory is a MTV Movies production apparently. Never heard of MTV Movies but are there any other movies they've produced ?? Pretty sure there are more movies like this to 'entertain' us.

Overall Rating : 3 / 5

-adios y hasta luego

Cancer

2007-06-01T16:07:00.000+08:00

Some very interesting and simple facts on cancer that I got through an e-mail :

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime..

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

Cancer cells feed on :

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one
important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. A better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

A few other preventive measures :

1. No plastic containers in the microwave.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body.

Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is 'nuked', the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

Just a friendly health reminder ..

-adios-

Welcome to TEMASIK

2007-05-31T18:32:00.000+08:00

I am very sure every football fan in Malaysia knows of the ongoing row between the AFC and well Manchester United since like half of Malaysia is filled with MU fans. This is all because MU's tour match in KL clashes with that AFC Cup which I've never even heard off. I guess AFC realises how unknown their 'Cup' is that they dare not face the competition from MU. Come on, no one I know would actually bother watching unless they hear that Malaysia plays Japan or something.

AFC wants MU reschedule their tour but MU won't budge even after a meeting a few weeks ago. Even PM Badawi wants the match to go on because of the VMY 2007 campaign. The match is of national interest and it was organised by Tourism Malaysia so AFC have no business at all to bother. Even Khairy Jamaluddin has expressed his support for the match to go on.

Imagine how shocked I was to find some of the comments of these damn unopen-minded jakun malaysians in the papers on why the MU match should be cancelled. Just comes to show how some malaysians still have this fucked up kampung mentality ..

How can Manchester United get us the Merdeka feeling? Looks like we still love the people who colonised us
We got Merdeka from England 1957. We r Asians. Don't support them again. Our future with AFC.

Football is about uniting the world and it has nothing to do with supporting your past colonial leaders .. Vision 2020 ain't gonna work with you jakuns around ..

This comes kind of late but I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 at Times Square aka. lala-land last Saturday. Wanted to catch it on Friday at KLCC but no one wanted to tag along.

I must mention that Saturday made me hate Times Square even more. There was this fucked up lala-convention to promote some taiwan tv show with that lesbo-like S.H.E. woman and some fahrenheit guy. The whole entrance was filled with these *insert word* people. Just looking at the way they dress and talk makes me wanna puke. Borders seems to be the only place to regain a touch of the real word in that dreadful mall.

1st things first, I was kind of shocked at first to find out that Pirates 3 was almost three hours long but then again it's worth it considering it cost me Rm 11 for a ticket. Two and a half hours for the second installment was long enough that I was holding my bladder to the max throughout the movie.

There had been many mixed reactions about this movie but personally I found it nice. It may have been rather draggy at certain parts but Jack Sparrow's lame yet spontaneous acting can definitely overcome any boredom whatsoever. Pirates is one of the few series-like movies which have to be watched from the start. If not, you'll just end up dozing off like my sis's friends sitting next to me . Haha

I must add that the animators involved in the production have done a pretty good job with special mention for the various fight scenes. Coolest being the part where two ships were sucked into the whirlpool of water. The topsy-turvy way of getting out of Davy Jones Locker was something interesting too. I must say that they could have done something better when Calypso reappeared bcoz I found that a little crappy. Who could forget the part where Will proposed to Elizabeth and well the way they were unofficially married.

The idea of the Brethren Court was plain cool. Its like a United Nations for pirates. The location of the fourth meeting was another fascinating animated one with odd looking structures and lights. The Mistress Cheng there was very freaky (chinese female pirate lord) while the indian pirate lord was just strange. There was a Spanish one too , Villanueva !!

I found the ending to the movie so-so. I think it would be difficult for the producers to create another sequel with such an ending. Elizabeth and Will evolving from being lovers to pirate lords ain't very appealing to viewers in my opinion. It was a relief to see that the 'fish-people' in the Flying Dutchman had transformed back to normal humans.

Chow Yun Fatt was very lame at the beginning with all the "more steam" parts. Plus, what kind of pirate lord resides in some stinky old bathhouse filled with low-class pirates. "Welcome to Singapore" was even worse. Since when did Singapore which is supposed to be Temasik become a pirate 'hub'. Why not something like "Welcome to Larut" .. fine, that's even lamer. The movie's depiction of Singapore was one hell of a under-statement though.

Something many of us including myself didn't know was that there was actually a scene after all the credits where they showed Will and Elizabeth reuniting 'after 10 years' with their apparent son which was strangely the little boy whom was about to be hanged when he started summoning for the Brethren Court .. my sis only bothered telling me after the movie ended ,, arghh

Overall Rating : 3.5/5

I still want to catch a few more movies during the holidays ie.

Blades of Glory
Shrek 3
Ocean's Thirteen
The Last Mimzy
Fantastic Four 2

-adios y hasta luego-

Cloud Nine

2007-05-30T03:23:00.000+08:00

Not many of you know but there was a new addition to the Spanish royal family (!!) last month. The Crown Princess Letizia gave birth to her second child which was yet another daughter. The delivery was done at Ruber Internacional which I can proudly say I've been to and where my mum went for her check-ups while in madrid.

Infanta Sofía de Borbón y Ortiz was born at 4:50 pm on the 29th of April by means of a caesarean section. She weighed 3.3 kg and was 50cm long at birth. Infanta Sofía was named after her grandmother, Reina Sofia. She will most probably be given the additional name of de Todos los Santos (of All the Saints), at her christening making her Infanta Sofía de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Ortiz.

It thus remains a question as to whom would assume the throne in time to come. Unless Infanta Sofia's elder sister becomes Queen Leonor, Crown Princess Letizia would have to conceive again to produce a male heir. I give my upmost respect to the simple Spanish royalty who are loved and admired by their people. The difference between them and the British or Japanese royal families is so obvious. Crown Princess Letizia didn't even suffer from any stress related disorders unlike Crown Princess Masako who could not bear a male heir to the Chrysanthemum throne or face the media. Maaflah tapi saya tidak berapa suka akan keluarga diraja di Malaysia.

Video of Infanta Sofia's first appearance outside Ruber

Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark also welcomed their new daughter who has yet to be named on the 21st of April. It is a Danish tradition that the royal babies only be named during their official baptism. A very 'perasan' tradition if you ask me since news of Infanta Sofia's birth was announced in Spain through SMS. By the way, Crown Princess Mary is actually an Australian who met her husband in a bar during the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Sounds like every girl's dream fairytale but it is true ..

Enough of royalty and babies, I will now move on to my favourite subject - airplanes. If you think i'm insane, you might as well skip the next part. Don't even bother letting the pictures load .. haha

These are some of the new airline liveries I so absolutely love ..

Cathay Pacific's livery to celebrate the delivery of its 100th aircraft. This B777 has surely flown a lot as it has been spotted at many airports.

This specific livery doesn't look permanent but it's aim is to promote Hong Kong. Well, it does state "Asia's World City". I guess it's similar to MAS's 'Freedom of Space'.

Qatar's new one is one hell of a eye-candy to me. This new livery comes at a right time when they are rapidly expanding their network. Their old one looked really outdated. I like how the fonts are now much bigger and that their antelope-like logo gas been enlarged. Thumbs up for QR. Most probably gonna fly QR to beirut at the end of the year.

This Jet Airways livery was launched about two weeks ago and this is the first aircraft with it. Definitely looks better than their old livery. Much more modern-like which makes you wanna fly with them.

United Airlines livery ain't very new but I just like the different shades of blue. The logo on the tail looks fantastic too. I feel that they should do something like extend the words "UNITED". Very empty body towards the tail.

This one here is dedicated to jiam since she was uberly excited when I first mentioned how the outside of the Aer Lingus plane was coloured. I'm not lying and this ones from Ireland. They were asked to fly to KLIA but had not enough aircraft to do so.

Another golden livery to entice travellers. Belonging to Gulf Air the proud-est sponsor of the Bahrain Grand Prix. I guess they copied us since their circuit is located really close to the airport that you always get a picture of their planes together with the track. Sad to say that their livery does not attract enough passengers on their flights.

LAN's livery is really nice too. I guess i'm easily attracted to bluish liveries. Funny thing is that this livery only looks good on certain aircraft (my own opinion of course) ..

Last but not least, we have Finnair which is supposed to have started their Helsinki flights via Bangkok to KLIA last week. There's no news about it on their website or our local news. Perhaps they decide to postpone the launch ?! Many have enjoyed Finnair's advertisements over the past few years. My favourite is the ad promoting their business class lie-flat seats which includes an animated panda travelling. You can watch it below ..

-adios y hasta luego-

In About 120 Words

2007-05-28T19:09:00.000+08:00

I have been a very lazy blogger. Lazy's just not the right word .. boring / non-existent seems more like it. Though it would be more logical to say that I was on hiatus, I must admit that I was either too bored or lazy to blog. Notice that these giant pauses in blogging always occur at about the same time every year.

A LOT has been happening since the 4th of April. The mid term holidays are going on at the moment which probably means that this blog would hopefully be getting sudden spurs of posts. These two weeks of holidays has been a much needed yet awaited one. My time this year's been passing like the wind. It's been homework and studying ever since form 5 started.

Then, the exams came. Doubt so if I would need to explain all the stress involved in cramming as much facts as possible in that precious brain of ours. Brandon has been a very bad example to follow in the two weeks that the exam was on. Procrastination just fills my life forever. You have matthews in the first week of may going "If you don't start studying now, you are a fool". I have that ringing in your head but the moment I reach home, there's take a nap, go online, watch more tv whispering in my ears. It wasn't till the weekends before the exam that I started revising. Some was even done the night before till like 2 am once.

Thank god I could go through every paper considerably well though I was dozing off half way through some of the papers. I actually had to be woken up by that goldfish dorothy during moral. I just hate moral and don't be surprised if I end up going for classes after school with matthews. Probably gonna fail miserably again. All I could remember was the first nilai (don't we all) and the last three. You can only imagine much tembak-ing I did in the span of two hours. In spite of all this, me and jiam share the same sentiment of eagerly wanting the holidays to end soon so we could get hold of our marks. Not sure whether you all out there got the same feeling but it is plain strange. Better just enjoy the holidays first.

Anyway, this is what's been happening throughout my apparent hiatus ..

Mummy back again --> but from beirut this time .. rather last minute as she had to attend my step-bro's graduation in manila first. Left April 23 .. was here for about 2 weeks

beloved hip mamma

Good Charlotte Live in KL (21 April 07) --> yet another 'let's wait and see whether I get to go' event .. my cousin surprised me with the 2 extra tickets he won from some MTV contest. Lo, One Buck Short and Estranged were the opening acts. They were boring except for Lo. GC's performance was not what I expected. Long and under-rated. Having Joel go "I wanna move to Malaysia" about 3 times ain't entertaining at all. Muse was so much better =)

Sports Day (21 April 07) --> Mummy got lost on the way there. Almost left out of the march past because I forgot my tie. Thank god for Johann's extra tie. Nothing spectacular. Yellow house won and red house was last

Physics PEKA Practical test --> Performed horribly. So little time given yet so many tasks to do. Couldn't finish a lot and simply screwed my measurements up. Yeah, I still cannot connect my own electrical circuit .. pathetic.

May was rather uneventful. Studying, exams and now holidays ..

So as not to bore you people any further, I'll just be posting some pictures of our favourite reality tv stars. Everybody loves their reality tv stars ! X)

Eric and Danielle - they won the Amazing Race All-Stars edition

ANTM Cycle 7 winner Caridee !! -- my favourite to win other than Brooke

I still hate Melrose . . she should have committed suicide after losing .. so i hoped

Another consecutive season of AI with me hating the winner. Sorry you Jordin fans but she's not appealing to me at all. I was counting on Melinda all this while but looks like she wasn't 'hot' enough for the american audience. Blake wasn't that bad too but his beat-boxing was just inappropriate at times. Hands down, i'm remaining 100% anti jordin.

-adios y hasta luego-

KL Hunting

2007-04-04T21:42:00.000+08:00

So yeah the MCKL treasure hunt was a whole lot of fun. Those who participated would know but those who didn't you missed out on a fun semi-amazing race-like adventure minus the plane rides. I'd have to day however that I somehow find last years much more enjoyable which maybe because that was my first.

Some say though that this year's clues were much more challenging but of course there were less compared to last year. I still think that going for the nature trail would have been more fun and much more challenging. Let us not forget to mention that there was a significant decrease in the number of sponsors this year as seen on the not very nice t-shirt we were given. Makes me wonder why ..

Well, as many of you also know my team, A380 which includes nicholas wong and I won the grand prize for the treasure hunt. You might just wanna stone me to death but then again no one does exactly know the right answers for every clue. There would be a long list of doubts which I can post up but i'd rather not. I wouldn't say that we were the best considering jiam and pia had the same answers as us and even clocked in earlier than us by about 10 minutes.

I was even giving out answers to some other teams after that. For those I kind of 'ran away' from, I'm sorry. They could have won too. Guess time really does count but that still doesn't explain much. Needless to say, coming in earliest does not guarantee you the winning spot. Winning the grand prize isn't that grand after all. I got a camera which requires BATTERIES as power but the rest got walkman phones and iPod videos. Heartbreaking indeed. Here's a rundown of what I won ..

Olympus 7.1 megapixel FE-210 camera (ain't that great after all but i'm not complaining)
Spalding limited edition All Stars 06 basketball (keeping it although i don't exactly play)
Morgan de Toi watch (to my mum)
MCKL bursary/waiver worth RM6000 (non-transferable blek!
Some shoe care kit
IMAX, Cosmoworld tickets
Kenny Rogers voucher
Putra LRT card worth RM 20

That's about it so if you are actually envious of me in any way, the other 1st place winners should deserved to be crucified. They could have gotten us more stuff of better quality than the crappy RM6000 waiver. What if I don't wanna go study there. Since its non-transferable, I can't even sell it unless you change your name to my name thats printed on it.

Did I mention that the camera I won is currently on promo in the papers for RM599. For gods sake, its even supposed to come with rechargeable batteries but looks like someone had klepto-ed it ahead of time. So much for "this camera is sponsored by the students of mckl themselves".

I'll be going to mckl to listen to some guy called tony anthony in his talk, "Taming The Tiger". Some kung fu champion who got jailed in Cyprus. I wonder whether mckl has that huge a hall to accomodate us all. Can't wait to know how the guy who 'made all the other prisoners look at him in a different way' get jailed in Cyprus. Good Friday's coming so I get a holiday where I need not got to church or do stuff like that.

Just want to thank anyone in wms who had bought stuff from 5L's moral food sale last thursday and friday. Can anyone who bought the pasta ala carbonara give some honest comments on how it tasted .. i cooked it and i don't exactly know. It tasted yummy to me but i'm not sure about the taste of all the other wesleyans. We gained a profit of about RM 5oo ++ which is good enough considering the fact that we had the food sale only to complete our moral SPM project. Still undecided as to where the amount would be donated to.

Chester Bennington of LP is in KL. He made an appearance at the minutes to midnight pre-order campaign launch in Tower Records, KLCC at 4 pm. I was very tempted to go but eventually didn't. I am so gonna pre-order the album as the giant poster that would come with it is a must. This reminds me that I should also start pre-ordering Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

This is the link to the video of the new LP single, 'What I've Done' on youtube. Your alternative source would be to switch on MTV the whole day. I got lucky and saw it the moment channel 71 appeared on my TV screen. I must say that the new video is not the same as other LP videos in the past. This new one seems to be a mixture of U2 and coldplay's perspective of MVs. Hardcore LP fans can now go stalk chester .. he is staying at le meridien at kl sentral .. i have my sources

-adios y hasta luego-

Ne me quitte pas

2007-03-22T22:38:00.000+08:00

Have you seen the mukhsin ad they run on local tv? Heard the french that plays in the end? Well, I happen to like it without bothering to understand it. The song's called 'ne me quitte pas' and that was the version sang by nina simone surprisingly coz it the voice in the song was very manly.

The add. maths project we have to do for SPM is just bloody pathetic. It is just a bunch of repeating crap on calculating lengths, widths and areas of sheep pens ! I don' think farmers would be using graphs or differentiation to determine measurements for their pens. Then again, 3/4 of the stuff learn in add maths doesn't seem related at all to daily life. Imagine using progressions to like find out how much fruit you'll eat next. What crap am I talking about.

Exam marks have so far been OK. No failures so far. It was a definite pass for moral =) and well i got 66 for my first accounts paper ever. All my science subjects are in the 60-65 range. At least, my parents won't get called for an exclusive parent-teacher meet.

I can't wait to catch these two movies in the cinema.

1. Pan's Labyrinth --> why must crappy m'sia make it 18PL =(

2. An Inconvenient Truth --> Al Gore global warming documentary seen by Brandon to contain elements of political propaganda

I'm supposed to go for the PBSM-Scouts camp in school over the weekends but i've been excused. All thanks to Qing Ming on Sunday. Looks like its gonna be fun though. On a brighter side, it means that i'll be able to attend the edu uk expo in klcc convention centre on saturday.

-adios-

Let's Start Over

2007-03-19T01:33:00.000+08:00

I can't believe I haven't blogged once this whole week. The holidays come but my blog isn't updated. At least I am now .. at the very end of a one week holiday. Truthfully, it's been a very unproductive holiday.

Not much work done nor did I manage to collect any cash like I did during chinese new year. I have to admit that this one-week holiday was already kind of filled even before it started. Add. maths project, moral essays, ICT projects, choir practice, arrangement of the school library. I have barely done any work and I just finished my ICT stuff a while ago. It's due tomorrow or 30 marks will be gone from my exam marks. I couldn't do any of the add. maths stuff so nothing could be done about that.

When it comes to moral, I keep telling myself that I can write one damn essay in an hour but everytime I think of doing it, I'll end up doing something else. Just hate moral. From the subject, to the exams and down to that stupid doraemon teaching. God knows if she failed me in moral again.

However, I did go out a few times this week. Went for the University of London thing in mandarin oriental last sunday. Went to school on monday and times square after that. Managed to even watch the ex-form 5s scream happily over their SPM results. I went to times square again on wednesday since my sis was going. Bought some books in borders and watched a movie! Hate the lala people there though.

You wouldn't believe me but I actually watched Mukhsin. I don't care whether its a Malay film but people said its nice and they even won that award in the Berlinale. I would recommend everyone out there who preferably is malaysian to watch it.

Being true to its tagline "everyone has a first love story to tell", it tells of the not so puppy love that blossoms between 12-year old Mukhsin and 10-year old Orked. The character of Orked appears yet again in this Yasmin Ahmad production for the last time but going back into her childhood love. No gangsters, no pirated VCD peddlers, just pure childhood cinta sejati.

On an interesting note, Orked being a Malay girl happens to study in a Chinese school. Another common touch there by Yasmin Ahmad which more or less represents an image of multi-racial Malaysia. Orked being Chinese educated still speaks very fluent English and BM having a English educated mum and a malay speaking dad. There was also a comback of Ng Chee Siong as Jason in Sepet in one of the scenes.

Minus the lovey-doviness (if that's how u spell it), the movie also includes a few comedic scenes which coincide with the malaysian way of life. This movie uniquely slips in other elements not entirely related to the main theme without making it too obvious. In my opinion, Yasmin Ahmad and crew made an excellent choice of filming in Sekinchan, Kuala Selangor with its vast green paddy fields as well as blue skies. It would without doubt enthrall audiences particularly those overseas.

Indeed this movie is heart wrenching not in a 'a walk to remember' way but still worth a tear parrticularly towards the end where Mukhsin tries to hold back his tears in the midst of trying to make Orked speak to him before he left. You cannot help but feel sad for such a character rough and innocent but yet so compassionate.

I wouldn't mind making every malaysian watch mukhsin but then where is the freedom of choice. Go watch it but try avoiding times square for you will 100% be watching the movie in a hall filled with jakun malays. Try mid valley or klcc.

Berlinale jury’s citation: “A wonderful, almost magical atmosphere, enhanced by a striking soundtrack, poetic images of the closeness of a family and community. Witty script combined with well-rounded and humorous characters. All this in a story of a friendship that dared not cross into love, and a love for which friendship is no longer enough.”

Overall Rating : 4.5/5

On Screen Success

2007-03-04T19:19:00.000+08:00

Exam terror is around the corner again. More studying and late nights to come for me indeed. Considering its our third last school term exam ever maybe there is some delight to it after all. Another term exam, the trials and *poof* ~~it became koko crunch~~ SPM comes. 3 alphabets to strike fear in the eyes of every form 5 in the country.

Time does pass fast considering it's already the 3rd month of the year giving us only another 8 months or so to literally prep ourselves up for SPM. It seemed barely yesterday that I came back from spain and started school again. Wish me luck for everything that's coming up.

Something weird, funny and maybe inspirational took place for 5L-ians last week. Gnerally, leong collects our diaries every month or so for her checking pleasure I guess. This time around it all came back with angpau's in it. My first impression was like she must have striked the lottery for this sudden surprise but it was still chinese new year. Still she wasn't married. It turns out that every angpau contained some sort of advice/message personally from her mind and soul. Guess what I got ..

"Brandon, i only find out that u'r very cute in this year =) U'r a smart boy, i hope u'll get straight A in SPM. Wish u've a good year .. "

Confusing as it may be, it looks like a whole mix-up of insults, encouragement and praise. I mean what's with - 'very cute this year'. Seems so wrong. Clearly she doesn't know me well based on the message which is very vivid. Mind you that all the grammatical mistakes ie. find as well as the smileys are as written on that piece of paper.

Moving on, both my mum and step-dad are finally in beirut, lebanon. My mum left madrid on the 1st sadly but I have yet to hear from her since she called from the airport. Hopefully she hasn't been gunned down. Haha

Believe it or not, I actually spent 4 hours of my life watching the Oscars last week. Wonderful show overall with ellen degeneres being one of the most entertaining yet spontaneous hosts i've seen. Wasn't truly happy with some of the winners but it wasn't as bad as last year's.

Here's a rundown of the main award recipients ..

Best Motion Picture - The Departed

Frankly, I found this movie really boring. I feel asleep watching it on the bus trip to pangkor last year. I know its the remake of internal affairs but I think we asians make better kick ass movies related to triads. I think less talk and more action's the key. Maybe i'll have to rewatch this dreadful movie. Even Babel or The Queen deserved this award better.

Best Lead Actor - Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland)

Haven't heard much about this guy but I guess his acting must be good which also means his movie is a must watch. Still downloading on my comp. The only skill I can think of from him is speaking with a almost pure african accent throughout the movie. Try it if you think it's easy. He played the character of Adi Amin, a Ugandan dictator. He has a really hot wife. =)

Best Lead Actress - Helen Mirren (The Queen)

She has won every single award she was nominated in this year for her interesting yet controversial role as Queen Elizabeth II. She just suits the character 100% coz i dun think i can find another actress who looks like the real queen so much with or without make up. I've watched half the movie and she totally emulated every aspect Queen Elizabeth has to offer. Sadly Penelope Cruz didn't win for Volver.

Best Supporting Actor - Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine)

This came as a big surprise since he was up against actors like Eddie Murphy and Mark Wahlberg. Played the drug addicted, fowl mouthed grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine which to me is one really amusing movie to watch. I still remember him telling his 16 year old mute grandson to "fuck all the women you want". I'm serious ..

Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)

Many may still remember her from her American Idol days but I didn't till someone told me. She is like the newest thing Simon and gang can probably boast about. I wanna watch Dreamgirls before the cinemas stop showing it here. There's Beyonce in it too. Pretty great achievement for her since dreamgirls is like the first production she's ever been in.

I was unhappy over the fact that Volver didn't grab the award for best foreign language film. Pedro Almodovar is such a great director. At least Inconvenient Truth won best documentary. Hope I do well in my exams ...

-adios y hasta luego-

Still Cannot Believe It

2007-02-26T01:31:00.001+08:00

The muse concert rocked ass ! I'm currently still overwhelmed by all the fun and exhilaration. Muse is truly one band passionate about their music with all the spontaneity. I'm actually rather surprised that I haven't lost my voice. My, was I screaming and shouting.

Just so you know, I eventually got The Pitt tickets after a rather huge series of events. Reached stadium negara at about 6.30. Met up with peako, clarissa, sarah and all. Then, me and me sis went looking for nick to get our tickets. Peako then got my tickets so he could accompany clarissa while I waited for tickets from his god-brother/uncle. I was expecting another numbered seating ticket somewhere else but it was a 'The Pitt' ticket.

You can't imagine how happy but shocked I was at that moment. I immediately dashed to the entrance to then look for my sis and nick. I thought the gig had already started but it only started way later at about 8.45. It was pure rock throughout finishing at about 10.30. The lighting made the concert even better. Clarissa spotted me at the end of the concert and I guess she wasn't really pleased ..

Well we all did get in even though we were all under 18. The concert was surprisingly filled with almost every jakun malay mat rempit you could find. There were so many of them. This event was supposedly for non muslims only. Lol. It also made me realise that we actually do have many expat-kuai lou's living in kl.

Bought the muse album with some limited edition DVD for RM 90 ! Burns a hole in your pants but then again there are only 99 DVD's available so consider me lucky. I got posters too. If the pictures suck, blame it on my sucky phone cam. Muse I will forever love and enjoy ..

-adios y hasta luego-

Believe It Or Not

2007-02-25T02:08:00.001+08:00

As sudden as it seems, yes i'm going for the muse concert which is happening less than 24 hours from now. I've thought of going ever since the date was announced in december and especially after I couldn't go for the akon concert. Still can't believe I missed that. Changed my mind though coz I heard kanye west (April 4) and probably justin timberlake MAY be coming.

Some things change though and it was just about four days ago that I knew I was gonna go. Fuck this is starting to sound like some epic journey for muse in kl. Turns out my sis's friend's mum managed to win 6 tickets for the muse concert from some Tiger Beer event. Mind you she even won a iPod nano and 3G phone together.

6 tickets --> 2 'The Pitt' ones
2 assigned seating
2 free seating

What would one person do with so many concert tickets? Sell them of course. There you have it, people like Brandon buying tickets which states RM 0 on it. I'm not getting it free though but at a hugely discounted price. Assigned seating for Rm 60 when its originally Rm 143. If you think I'm lucky, you're so wrong coz my sis gets 'The Pitt' ticket free to go with her friend. Free, damn it ! Chances are she's gonna get effing close to muse.

I have another predicament now. I need another person to go. There's two assigned seat tickets so I'm only taking one. It'll be odd sitting alone with an empty seat next to you and come on it seriously sucks stooging there alone watching a muse concert. I've asked - daniel yee, amanda, yoong jie, pia, the list goes on - but everyone seems to not wanna go or just not allowed to. The event is apparently for those above 18 so hopefully I look mature enough for tomorrow night . .

So, anyone who's reading this - Call me if you want that other muse ticket. Stadium negara/merdeka at 8 pm. You got to sit with me though .. Don't worry coz I don't bite

Hope I'll enjoy the concert alone or otherwise ..

-adios-

C.N.Y.

2007-02-20T02:35:00.000+08:00

I've been abandoning my blog yet again. It's 2.38 am and I'm desperately trying to crack up something short.

First things first, Happy Chinese New Year .. Gong Xi Fa Cai !

san lin fai lok
san tai kin hong
sam chong lai kin
pou pou kou sing ..

I feel so damn ah sou knowing all those irrelevant phrases which I only say to one or two people every year. Quote Suet Fong, "whatever you say sounded really smart but it just doesn't make sense at all".

Cny has been pretty fun this year or so it always is. Angpau collection has been a brisk affair so far. Telling anyone the exact amount would be fun but I'll just leave it as a four figure amount so go figure.

True enough, cny is one time where i guess everyone gains weight. You have the mouth-watering biscuits, family dinners etc. The 2 kgs I so desperately lost must definitely be back in my body again. I've already had 3 rounds of fine dining for free, treated by family that I'm almost sick of any of it. Reunion dinner at Imbi Palace, first-day dinner at Ritz-Carlton and dinner just now at Soi 24 in Pacific Regency. Don't you just hate being forced to eat up everything the smaller ones can't finish coz that's just exactly what I go through eating with my relatives. Being big and fat doesn't mean I need more, help me lose weight instead !

It is interesting to note that it's only been less than a week since Valentine's Day. Such minimal separation between CNY and valentines day. Guess it isn't too late to give a sad belated You're Still Single Day shout out to everyone. I still can't believe our school banned roses for friendship day (because they think valentines day is wrong) this year to prevent any acts of lesbianism. Matthews may deep inside be one with her inner lesbian fetish being that fucked up Goh. Does anyone think of a gigantic box of sweets and chocolates as an ideal valentines gift for a girl? I just happen to know someone who got that.

I hope I'll be able to post something up again soon. Hope everyone enjoys their cny holidays. Another 12 more days to go ..

-adios y hasta luego-

Dover

2007-01-28T02:43:00.000+08:00

29 days since 2006 left. 26 days since i left spain. 25 days since school started. a month since I last blooged and i'm finally back. No, i wouldn't blame it on the taiwan earthquake coz i got rather perfect internet connection the moment i arrived home. Maybe the blogging bug is just starting to rub off or its just plain laziness.

In case you're still that blur, i am without doubt back in malaysia. the humid tropical country which is far cry from the spanish land i miss so much. for now, i'm gonna contain all my spanish craziness inside but it might probably come out one day which probably explains why i keep a copy of a madrid newspaper in my file. i was watching cheetah girls II with muah sis just now and it seriously reminded me of spain though it was in barcelona but not madrid.

i had intended to continue all my spanish antics back here but so far all have failed. No hola's while answering calls, no si's when talking and definitely not once have i said "vamos a comer" since i left madrid. 'Beso-ing' would be a straight no among my friends since i go to a school where sitting on another's lap would be deemed indecent. intregating siesta into the typical malaysian joe's life would be something only almighty god can succeed in.

those in 5L would certainly have heard james or wee lik loudly declaring "brandon can speak spanish" all friday, at least 5 times or so - i bothered to count. is it that great a fact assuming james probably speaks a even higher level of french. what do you expect after living in a country where hello's are as rare as bonjour's here. without knowing a single phrase, you might as well stay at home and sulk though with that amount of conversation making a new friend would be a tough one. i know you wouldn't be reading this but james, it would have been much more worthwhile if the situation had been something like "brandon can speak swahili !".

school so far has been ok. i have not reached the point where i would wanna commit suicide. form 5 now=spm year=last year in high school. pivotal point in one's life i must say. preparing for one very stressful year ahead but i just look forward to the end of it all. i realised i had actually missed my last ever 'first day of school' by extending my time in madrid by 3 days. was supposed to have left on dec 30 but left on 2 jan instead.

the new kapal korek aka. tin dredge building of our school is finally completed and actually ready for occupancy. at the pace it was going last year i never thought we would even have a single lesson there this year. needless to say there still is lots of work being done all around at this moment. the leadership camp which i wanted to but could not attend is currently being held in school. sobs. the new block looks nice from the inside but the reverse on the outside. the overall look of the school has changed a lot that i even kinda got lost on my first day.

now that our we have a new principal, there were bound to be some new ridiculous changes. the girls luckily need not wear pinafores as suggested last year but are now forced to wear camisoles instead. 3 layers of clothing will seriously be hot and stuffy. i shouldn't bother much being a guy but we don't have anything new besides the bloody school socks which i'm not buying and the new librarian attire ie. black shoes. before i forget, we're also supposed to risk our eyesight for the sake of the school's electricity bill. Not passing up your homework is also now known as a "perbuatan yang dikeji" meaning despised action by that goh nutcrack. i really miss the days of a.r. peter.

i have already commited the 'despised action' twice for bm that it has become mdm anelyza's deep sense of resentment against me. i'm lucky to actually have her since she has corrected so many of my flaws which i think vicky didn't even know exist before.. the teacher i regretted most getting was pearl moses. she taught me way back in form 3 and seemed to have something against me. she has gotten better so far so i don't think she hates me anymore. she even picked me and a few others to participate in the commonwealth essay competition. that would now leave mdm selva as the worst teacher i got. she is good when it comes to moral but she just sucks in sejarah. however, she is funny at times. can't believe her main subject is actually sejarah and not moral.

-adios y hasta luego-

*does everything look weird with all the non-capital letters ? *

Casa del Libro

2006-12-28T17:32:00.000+08:00

As always I've always devoted the end-year holidays to reading books which I've bought all year round. Fine, not always but I started to do so last year. I finished the adrian mole series last year and h.p. n d half blood prince as well as that dreadful bukit kepong. This time around, I brought a huge number of books again along with me to madrid.

I had two more to bring but I didn't as it would take up weight and I wouldn't be able to finish them. From that pile now, there are still a few which I haven't even started on.

Books I've finished :
1. The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks
2. The Wedding - Nicholas Sparks
3. True Believer - Nicholas Sparks
4. At First Sight - Nicholas Sparks
5. Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger

Books I've not touched yet :
1. Harmony Silk Factory - Tash Aw
2. Memoirs of A Geisha - Arthur Golden

Looking at that list, I find it funny that i've read 4 nicholas sparks books and one chick lit book. They're nice books though.

Currently, I'm dwelling on The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. Great book kononnya since it won The 2006 Man Booker Prize. I have to admit that it's kind of boring for me. She just seems to be repeating the same stuff over and over again. Some of the stuff doesn't even make sense to me. The fonts are so bloody small I tell you that it strains my eyes. Then again, i'm not even in the middle yet so it'll hopefully get better.

Did I mention that I even completed that Konserto Terakhir for next year. I haven't even started on the synopsis yet. Gonna have to do it soon since school's gonna be starting. I'm sure every Form 4 reading it would agree with me that this is so much better than all the war crap in Bukit Kepong. This novel is just more understandable and all but it kinda reminds me of Panas Salju. If you must know, Konserto Terakhir is one hell of an incestuous story to me.

I'm now reminding myself that I would have to seriously complete all holiday homework or I'll be suffering like shit again like this year. I have the konserto synopsis plus that silly add maths paper leong gave. I've kinda forgotten how to do some of it so I'm referring to the analysis series book non stop. Better complete it or risk being murdered by leong.

Worse still, I completely forgotten about the moral assignments which I told myself I would do at this time of the year. Jiam reminded me two weeks ago but I still haven't started. I have 4 to do and I haven't even started on one! Reminds me now on the computer assignment I was supposed to e-mail to lalitha. I haven't started too .. can someone just strangle me now.

Student life sucks .. blame it all on stupid homework especially the holiday ones. I'm gonna calm myself down, stop fuming and probably start on them. Tranquilo ..

Before I go, I just have to show you all this bottle of El Gaiterro champagne I think which we opened last night. It was absolutely good. Very good quality spanish champagne from asturias. It was not too bitter but not too sweet. Perfecto taste. Expensive stuff from some friends though. I wanna open a bottle of cava tonight.

-adios y hasta luego-

Ni Una Sola Palabra

2006-12-28T12:27:00.000+08:00

The past week I dare say has been a week full of 'action'. Lots of unexpected and fun stuff happened.

First of all, my mum's maid, Annie whom she brought along from manila ran away. Yes, RAN AWAY! Dia telah LARI. She was supposed to go back to manila on the 29th as my mum didn't want her anymore. We even issued her air ticket already. She didn't wanna go home and thus felt it was better to run away which we presume was partly caused by the influence from some of her friends.

She went out in the afternoon and she was not back yet even at 7 pm. It was then only at about 8.30 that she sms-ed my mum telling her that stuff and that she was with her new employer in pamplona. That we didn't believe coz she couldn't have reached pamplona in such a short time. Trust me we're still happily surviving here. In fact we're really happy coz there are just times when you won't be able to stand her attitude. Changing the lyrics of a PCD song, it would be "I don't need a maid to make it happen" .. sounds so wrong. Enough of this now.

Remember when I blogged on how there was only one computer to be shared with four people under one roof. The situation now has changed thanks to my step-dad who recently bought a brand new computer! The old one just couldn't start anymore so yeah it should just end up in some junkyard. Pretty much explains the sudden fluctuation in the number of posts on this blog. This ASUS system is working well for me despite having a spanish OS. Intel Core 2 Duo processor mind you. =)

The highlight of the past week was something I eagerly wanted to blog about but just didn't find time to. I saw Real Madrid yet again. My fourth time having seen them thrice last year. I was lucky to see them for their last match of the year as we had previously missed them two times since we arrived. Trust me you don't really feel like waiting for them after so many times but we didn't have much to do so why not. I know anyone reading this would probably feel like slapping me but it really ain't that fun to wait that way anymore.

I must say that my photos this time really sucked coz the stupid guard kept on blocking my camera at the wrong times. I must say however that it was definitely worth seeing Cannavarro and Van Nistelrooy. The rest were just the usual. Did I mention that I almost got the chance to shake Casillas hands but just missed it. Ohh yah, Fabio Capello's face is just as sui-yong-ish as you always see in his pictures. Funny thing is that my sister's best shot was of that effing coach. I'll just show you all pictures of the RMA bus. Don't want people stealing the players pics. Kiamsiap ..

That same day, Real Madrid signed on another new Franco-Argentine, ex-Boca Juniors player, Gonzalo Higuaín. I'm not sure why but he just looks like some glimmer of hope for RMA. This is what I just presume from looking at that beaming face but I can't be sure as I'm no fortune teller. What's more, he's only 19. I'm sure female fans out there would be screaming for him soon coz I can already hear my sis and mum doing quite so.

A few days later, ex-River Plate player, Fernando Gago was signed on. If i'm not mistaken, he was very much sought after by RMA and there was a lot of talks between Real and River Plate. Pray and hope RMA will do better with these two. One way or another, Ramón Calderón's promises are kind of fulfilled though he initially promised to bring in Kaka and Torres as well. That would make it 6 new signings this season including Diarra, Marcello, Cannavarro and Van Nistelrooy.

The Malaysian embassy staff had their x'mas party last thursday at this buffet restaurant called sigland. They decided to invite us too since they love my gila mum so much. We try avoiding coz we didn't wanna fatten ourselves with another buffet but they insisted. My mum is also sick of the food there coz she used to go there every single week for the parties of various filipino associations in madrid. It's just silly that they keep on using the same place. Don't people get bored?

Sigland has a cool ambience the moment you step in and it was rather filled that day during siesta. Like every other buffet there's lot of filling food like sushi, pasta and pizza which would make you full real fast. Stupid people always tend to take lots of this for some funny reason. It ain't worth it. We even skipped all the oriental food served coz it will obviously taste horrible. My mum would be able to cook the same stuff 100% better. Thus, the only thing really worth eating there is the seafood, meat and the desserts especially the crepe which I didn't manage to try.

The staff had some exchange present thing among themselves which was really funny. It had something to do with my darling or something like that. It took me a while to get the game. At the end, I was glad I didn't overeat like how I always do in buffets. Only makes you feel horibble and it only makes you FATTER ! Overall, sigland ain't that bad but I doubt so if i'll go there again for lunch.

Group Pic (L-R) : Jenny, Shakira, Mum, Brendi, Me,
Syam, Enrique, Fauzi, Faridah, Ayub

My sis, Brendi's got something brand new to show off to the world which is her new phone. The latest Nokia 5300 which looks superbly good especially with its music player function. It has a rather clear screen and camera too. My sis lost her phone sometime this year so now she has a phone to use. Hopefully she keeps it safe. I know her Fernando Torres waallpaper seems strange but you just cn't stop any girls obsession over hot futbol players.

If my sis got something new, so do I. I recently bought a new mp4 player. No, it's not that expensive yet bulky Zen Vision M but it's close enough. A Creative Zen V Plus was what I got. Bought at Mediamarkt for the price of 199 euros. I knew I needed a new player so I canvassed around for almost a month. I had enough cash from some savings and my PMR cash from last year. I actually wanted the Samsung T-9 but it was out of stock. Opted for Samsung K-5 but it was only available in 2 GB.

So my final choice was the Zen V Plus. I must say that i'm not entirely satisfied with it but it's better than nothing. However, if I do find a 4GB samsung k-5, I'm so gonna switch. Here in spain, everything you buy is refundable as long as it does not exceed 21 days. Cool rite but many spanish kinda take advantage out of it.

Here's some of its specs :
- 4 GB memory
- Brilliant full color 1.5" 128 x 128 pixels OLED display
- Up to 15 hours for continuous audio playback
- 43.5 x 67.5 x 15.9mm
- 43.5 g
- FM Radio
- Voice Recording
- Mass Storage Device
- Built-in Microphone
- Image and Video(AVI) viewer

So far it's been working really well. It produces sound of superb quality and the screen colours are amazing. The only complaint I have is that the player freezes and hangs when playing certain videos. The only way to solve this is by pressing the small reset button which can only be reached using a needle. Frustrating . . really.

Another purchase I made at mediamarkt was the zapatillas, el canto del loco's album that came out last year. El canto del loco is like the best spanish band ever if you ask me. Just love all their songs. I had downloaded all the songs but I just had to have the original album. Lucky for me, it was on promotion and I bought for only 5 euros ! That's like only about rm 20. There is this other new ecdl dvd which is out. Wanna buy it too but it's 19 euros. I only have like about 10 euros left ..

Since we were all shakira fans, my mum decided to buy the shakira two in one album which was also on promo. For the price of 13 euros, you get Fijacion Oral vol. 1 (spanish album) and Oral Fixation vol. 2 (english album) plus a limited edition dvd. It's seriously worth to buy. You would never find such a good deal back in kl. One of the reasons why I fucking adore mediamarkt. They're even selling original Lost season 1 and 2 discs for 45 euros! If only I had more cash ..

Lastly, my sis and I received a shared x'mas gift from my step-dad and mum. They got us a external hard drive for our computer which we kind of need too. For 89 euros only and we got a 250 GB Lacie external HD. 250 GB is a LOT !! I just can't imagine how both of us are gonna fill it up. It would probably last for 10 years or more. A thoughtful yet very useful gift indeed.

-adios y hasta luego-

X'mas Is So Over

2006-12-27T14:30:00.000+08:00

I have nothing much to do so I decided to this thingy. I did not get tagged by anyone but who cares. The last time I did one of this was on friendster last year. Boring or not ? It's all up to you.

Layer ONE : On the Outside
Name : Brandon Yew
Birth Date : august 26 1991
Current Status : single
Eye color : i would say black but i think its darkish brown
Hair Color: black
Righty or Lefty : lefty
Zodiac Sign : virgo

Layer TWO : On the inside
Your Heritage: chinese
Your Fears : saying the wrong stuff at the wrong times
Your Weaknesses : expensive stuff
Your Perfect Pizza : pepperoni

Layer THREE : Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Your thoughts first waking up : what am i gonna be doing today
Your Bedtime : any time i like
Your most missed memory : lots

Layer FOUR : Your Pick
Pepsi or Coke : coke
McDonald's or Burger King : McD
Single or group dates: single ones
Adidas or Nike: nike !
Lipton tea or Nestea: i like both .. just depends when
Chocolate or vanilla: any
Cappuccino or coffee: coffee

Layer FIVE : Do you
Smoke : nope
Curse : definitely

LAYER SIX : In the past month
Drank alcohol: almost every other night
gone to the mall : yup
Been on stage: nope
Eaten Sushi : nope
Dyed your hair : nope

LAYER SEVEN: Have You Ever?
Played a stripping game: nada
Changed who you were to fit in: sometimes ..

Layer EIGHT
Age you're hoping to be married : no less than 25

LAYER NINE: In a Girl/Guy.
Best eye colour: bluish
Best hair colour: anything that fits
Short or long hair: doesn't matter

Layer TEN: What Were You Doing.
1 minute ago : doing this
1 hour ago : taking a bite
4.5 hours ago : sleeping
1 month ago : dunno .. shopping mayb
1 year ago : where i am now

Layer ELEVEN : Finish The Sentence
I love: airplanes
I feel : delighted but sad
I hate : lala people
I hide: secrets
I miss: my frens
I need: to get out

Layer TWELVE : Tag 5 people
1. Brendi
2. Jiam
3. Amanda
4. Peako
5. Yoong jie

Before leaving, I'll just leave you all with some pics of what I did on christmas day this year. Generally, it was just a friendly lunch at the home of the pang family (rmbr them). It was really nice of them and there was just too much food there. It was good that I limited myself to how much I ate.

After that we had a short hop to a mall called Xanadú. Funny name rite. The main attraction of this mall is it's gigantic artificial skiing facility. It is nothing like those you find in genting or singapore as they seriously remodelled it to look like an original mountain. You even get those cable car thingys to get up. Ski or snowboard down the long slope plus a guarenteed supply of snow at -5 degress.

Xanadú

the snow place

the tremendous length of the skiing slope

I hate how bloody fat and gay I look like in all those pictures. blek. i blame that stupid jacket i'm wearing.

-adios y hasta luego-

Feliz Navidad !!

2006-12-25T04:08:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas To All !!

Or as the Spanish say, "Feliz Navidad"

Christmas time is here again. Time to rejoice .. time for presents. Christmas in madrid I would have to admit just isn't that interesting. It's just all quiet and moody. However, the christmas mood here has certainly improved compared to the last year. The Comunidad de Madrid probably had more income or something. One noticable thing this year would be the various lights around the main roads of madrid.

My best christmas celebration would certainly be the one in manila. In philippines, you can help but feel the spirit of christmas. It's just bloody joyful. At midnight, you would just hear firecrackers going off non-stop for an hour or so. Then you would hear news of those hurt by them the next day. Haha. Somehow I've been listening to a reasonable amount of fireworks here too.

I have nothing much to say so I'll just leave you all with some pictures of the x'mas decoration around the condo which were rather last minute. They were like bought and put up all in one day about two weeks ago.

1. Mini X'mas Tree

2. Ribbons and a Christmas plant

3. Hanging Santas outside the window

4. Christmas Lights on the railings

The x'mas tree I know must be unique to many of you all. We decided to buy a mini one since my mum already has two big tress stocked up in manila. Silly to buy another.

Hanging santas are really popular here in spain. So many condos hang them. They even have just one huge santa. Trust me it looks freaking attractive when you see it outside.

-adios y hasta luego-

Salamanca y Avila

2006-12-21T20:13:00.000+08:00

Another effing long absence indeed. One computer broke down, lots of activities, korean dramas, spanish reality shows, The O.C ... just some of the reasons for my lack of blogging. I know you all wanna know more on spain but three people sharing one comp. here just ain't an easy feat so enjoy this one.

As I said in my last post, we made an out of madrid trip to salamanca and eventually avila two wednesdays ago. There were public holidays here in spain on that wednesday and friday. Lots of madrileños took thursday off to travel out while schools closed till monday. Madrid was rather quiet those few days.

We also had a similar trip last year to navacerrada and segovia. We were again guided by my step-dad's friend, martin. He is a filipino who has lived in spain for quite some time and trust me who knows LOTS about spain .. every aspect of it. Not just about spain but almost anything knowledgeable to the extent that he talks too much without knowing it. He'll be fun to listen to at first but you'll get bored after some time. I just wonder how awfully pain my step-dad's ears would be at the end of the day. Being the evil ones we are, we just 'bitched' about martin in canto behind his back ..

Enough of martin now and more of salamanca shall we. Salamanca is about 200 km out of madrid which is almost a 5 hour drive. Salamanca is Spain's great education city. The earliest and best universities in Spain were set up here. Quoting what martin said to me, "Salamanca is the place to head to if you plan to study in spain particularly the spanish language. It's the best".

The first place that most people come to is usually the Plaza Mayor. No, it's not the same the one in Madrid. It's just similar in the sense that it functions as a town square. Huge squarish space sorrounded by tall buildings with exits at certain sides not forgetting a clock tower. They even had a gigantic decorated christmas tree right in the middle.

There are numerous universities in Salamanca. You'll never finish seeing each and everyone but there's just two or three main ones which are like the most important. Somehow, I never noticed they were universities till they were pointed out by martin. Every building just looked almost similar. All old looking but architecturally HOT.

We entered various gift shops in Salamanca and most of their souvenirs were of frogs. Frog magnets, frog keychains, froggy postcards .. We were curious and asked martin. There was a true meaning behind all the frogs. There is this tall facade of one university with lots of like small sculptures on it. Among all the sculptures there is one of a skull with a frog sitting on its head. It is a local belief that if you succesfully locate this frog, you'll succesfully pass in your course/degree or as some say get married soon.

As for me, finding the lil frog would just benefit me for my SPM next year. I'm neither doing my degree nor planning to get hitched anytime soon. We ended up at that facade place eagerly looking for that frog. We gave up after almost 10 minutes and spent another 5 looking for it guided by martin. I must have look bloody foolish at that time. There were some 'not so blind' germans and americans who succesfully found it.

More walking around salamanca, looking at various beautiful sights including some building with lots of shells on its walls. There was one particular huge building which I found to be all majestic and nice. Apparently you can pay 8 euros to go on top of its tower but we didn't have so much cash to waste. Had pictures taken though.

We then decided to drop by Avila which was another place located on the way back to Madrid. Avila is one place i've longed to visit since last year and finally i get to. Avila's actually one of the few remaining walled cities aka. 'negara kota' in spain and the world. The walls here are just really high and long. Not forgetting its unique shape which makes it even more beautiful particularly in winter.

I feel asleep in the car on the way there. By the time, we reached there it was almost 3 hours later. It was getting dark rather soon so we quickly took pictures. The moment we stepped out of the car, it was freaking cold added with the blowing winds. Avila is without doubt one of the highest points in spain thus explaining the cold and strong winds.

We didn't do much inside avila as it was already dark so we focused on the walls outside. They switched on the lights when it gets dark so the walls just looked magnifico then.

A little further down from Avila, we sort of stumbled across this huge stone cross on top of some not very high hill. There were people taking photos there so we decided to do the same. We walked further into that area and found out that we were right across Avila overlooking most of the walls. What a sight to behold added with its lights in the night. Took some pics of and with the cross. Next thing, we were back in the car.

It was yet another long journey back to madrid. Reached home at about 7 pm if i'm not mistaken. You don't wanna know how much my ass was aching throughout the day. Martin had dinner at our place so I was forced to eat even though I was already kinda filled with a sandwich.

That was kinda all that happened that day. Hope you all didn't get bored and sorry if any of your systems crashed as a result of the incredulous amounts of photos.

I feel glad having already visited all the 3 UNESCO World Heritage sites located near Madrid. Avila this year while last year I visited Toledo and Segovia. Plus Salamanca, that would make it four. Anyone visiting Madrid should include these three cities in their itineraries. They're seriously worth seeing.

Contrary to many people's believe, I do not always have such outings like the one I've blogged about it neither do I do stuff tourists do like tour all sorts of places. One reason to explain this - i've done it all last year. There's not much of madrid that I haven't seen or visited. I kind of live a normal daily life here even though i'm in spain. There's just times where I go no where else besides the supermarket or the oficina laboral.

I think that would be enough excuses for now. haha

-adios y hasta luego-

El Viernes y Sábado

2006-12-09T20:32:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the long absence but beautiful spain has been eating up lots of my time. Then again there were just those times where you are just uninterested to blog at all.

It's already been almost a week but I'll just blog about what i did sometime last week. There was this huge sandwich holiday in spain this week so we made a 'out of madrid' trip on wednesday which i'll blog about that real soon.

Last Friday, we had dinner at this beautiful chinese restaurant aptly named Restaurante Royal Fenix. There is no spelling error here as it was seriously spelt FENIX and not PHOENIX. I kind of burst out laughing when I first saw it.

When I went, I was rather surprised. The place looked really nice unlike other horrible chinese restaurants i've seen though this is the first that i've eaten in. They decorated the place nicely in a modern like way. Best of all was how they placed hundreds of paraguas as in umbrellas on the ceiling. Light would have to pass through these red paraguas thus creating this gloomy reddish effect in the resto. Unique deciration if you ask me.

I must add that I absolutely love the design of the chairs they used. The cloth used was just so attractive I wanted to bring a chair home. They made the chairs look cheap though coz they attached hooks behind them. You must look at it to understand. Before I forget, they have a rather attractive bar as well.

As for the food, it ain't that good compared to the chinese food in kl. Even my mum cooks better than them. Not only was the food not tasty, it was bloody expensive. I can't really blame them coz they have to cater to the taste buds of the local madrileños. They generally like their food sweet. The tip for chinese visiting spain is to avoid all chinese food here.

We ordered ice-cream for dessert which came in a effing cute cup. My mum liked it so much she even asked the owner where she bought the cup. Silly of me to be eating ice-cream in cold winter ..

As we were in a rather big group, they gave us two free bottles of Freixenet Cava. Cava is kind of some Spanish variety of alcohol. It wasn't that bad and it was very nice of them. Needless to say, I drank about three glasses.

We were all belanja-ed by Miss May, the Welfare Officer at the Oficina Laboral and Merlyn. Miss May's one really nice lady and its certainly not just because she paid for dinner. It's hard to explain but yeah she's really friendly and nice to talk to. Merlyn is Miss May's assistant she brought along from Manila. She even invited the Pang family which is one of our friends in Spain.

L-R : Veronica, Merlyn, Miss May, Mum, Sis, Me, Step-dad, Felipe, Mr. Pang, Fernando

I met the Pang family last year. They're a Chinese-Filipino-Spanish family. Mr. Pang who is a Chinese came from Hong Kong to Spain many many years ago. He's a wonderful cook and once opened a chinese resto here in madrid. Mr.Pang married Veronica, a Filipina he met here. They've stayed here all this while and have two sons, Fernando and Felipe.

You might wonder why I say that they're a Spanish family but they don't a speak a word of any other language but Spanish to each other. We speak english to all of them except Mr. Pang who speaks cantonese. Since we don't know much canto chinese in spain, Mr. Pang's like me and my sis's grandpa in Spain. We call him kong kong while my mum and step-dad calls him Papa Pang. =)

They're very nice to us. Always inviting us for dinner and stuff. Not to forget, they even presented a plaque thing during my step-dad's farewell party which stated like "Familia en España" meaning Family in Spain. How sweet of them.

Proceeding to the next day, there was yet another important event. It was the Deeparaya celebration of the Malaysian Embassy here. It would also be the 1st anniversary of the Malaysian Association in Spain (MAIS). The celebration comes really late coz Deeparaya already like passed more than a month ago.

Everyone who went was supposed to bring a dish of their choice so my mum brought 4 steamed fishes and it was a definite hit particularly among the spanish who attended. Their cuisine does not have anything similar to it. The curry was rather welll received too.

There was generally just lots of socializing involved as always. I would say there was about 60 people who attented the event at the embassy. I wasn't really interested in the malaysian food so I ate a little. When we were bored, me and my sis went out to the building's fire escape. It had really nice sights and was preety windy. With such nice sights, we had some camwhoring done. Haha

One of the highlights of the event was when Datuk gave his speech. He announced that he would be retiring soon, going back to kl. Furthermore, he informed everyone of the resignation of my mum as MAIS President. My mum was awarded a certificate of appreciation and was given a personal gift from Datuk and Datin, some bell they bought when they were assigned in Nepal. I was really proud of my mum at that moment.

L-R : With Datuk Yusof and Datin Niki

I must mention that me and my sis met someone new there. It was this 14 year old guy named Alex whose malaysian mother is married to a spanish man. It was actually my sister who desperately wanted to know him. She was almost begging to know the 'hot' guy but she didn't say much to him when we were talking. Haha

I did most of the talking and found that he kind of loved computer games. He's a gamer type of person. It was good that he spoke fluent english. Another thing worth mentioning was his height for a 14 year old. I so envy him. I feel short ... blek

When everything was over, a few of us went to Latheral, the bar across the street from the embassy for some drinks. It was my second time there but I must say that I like that bar for some reason. Look how unique those colourful vodka bottles look.

That's all for this post. I'll be posting about our trip to Salamanca and Avila as soon as possible.

-adios.hasta luego-

Sinful Nights of Alcohol

2006-11-29T21:39:00.000+08:00

Before I start, I would like to truthfully deny something that was posted by this blogger as stated below .. haha

to ask for sexual favours, leave a comment
here :P

By the way, the here links to travelfiles.blogspot.com which happens to be the blog you're at now. I would nonetheless give anyone sexual favours if asked but I don't think anyone would want anything like that from me. So yeah, thanks for the promiscous publicity blogger .. haha

However, I would like to point out that sexual desires may without doubt be easily appeased here in europe. Though not in spain, let's remind ourselves of the fact that prostitution is legal in germany, holland and greece. No optical illusions involved here. All you sexually deprived ones out there may very well rush to the nearest travel agent to book yourself on the next flight to amsterdam.

Prostitution may not be legal here in spain but the funny thing is that there's like free porn on tv. Makes it sound like japan. I had not known of this till it was pointed out by no one but my gila mum.

How she discovered it, i'm not so sure as they only start showing them sometime after midnight. I mean its not all porn .. some still show normal tv and no, I am not hooked on porn but I have come across them while flipping channels. So for porno freaks, madrid it is for you ..

Look at what was featured on one of the bus stop advertisement columns. If there was a similar ad in kl, the government would be fuming while the MPs would be debating it all day in the Dewan Rakyat. Proves how open europe is.

Forgetting everything sexually related, we now come to the original topic of alcohol.

Let me first mention that alcohol mostly wine and beer is almost dirt cheap here in spain. My mum even substitutes water with white wine when cooking certain dishes. The proff is as shown above. Only 0.75 euros per bottle of wine. The trick is that the cheaper wines generally don't taste as good as the more expensive ones. However, it's still alcohol-ish and well tastes like wine. An unexperienced cina pek won't even notice. Still purple corour mah ! wtv

That's one of the huge rows of wines you can find at the local supermarket here. That's just like one rack. Let's say in total you find triple the amount of alcohol seen above there of all kinds of prices.

As such, I've been all kinds of I would say cocktails prepared by my mum without the knowledge of my step-dad of course. I credit my parents who exposed me to alcohol with beer at first when I was young and of course my mum for developing my taste in it. I sound like I'm addicted to it ..

I'm including minor instructions too so you all out there can try it yourself. Those of you who drink will like it.

1st Night - Sangria

Sangria is like some authentically Spanish drink. This is a mixture of many kinds of fruit which I suppose are mainly citrus fruits together with like red wine and honey . They just ferment it next till it becomes alcoholishly wine-like.

This you probably can't make yourself. It's however sold in like cartons here in any supermarket. I would recommend the one above, Don Simon as it's one of the best in the market though you could have better at Botin. It's a lil different from wine. Since it has a mixture of fruits, it tastes more sweet than normal wine. Fruity aroma and taste ..

2nd Night - Bacardi Coke

added with

you get

Bacardi Coke ain't exactly my favourite but it's still nice. Bacardi with a hint of coke. Simply add like 1/4 parts of bacardi and 3/4 parts of coke in any cup of your choice. It looks pretty much like a cup of coke but you'll know when you taste it. Worth a try. I would recommend using normal coke although we had used diet coke. Throw in two ice cubes.

3rd Night - Gin Tonic

added with

you get

Gin tonic is one conconction known to many. Making it is the same as bacardi coke just that the 1/4 part should be gin while the other 3/4 should be tonic water. Place together a few slices of lemon to kind of give it slight flavouring. Like how you add strawberries into water so do not even bother squeezing the lemons.

It may however get a tad too strong for the unexperienced few. Slight headaches included but rest assured you'll get a good nights sleep. Strangely, this is what's experienced by my mum, not some weak drinker but not me. Maybe its because I'm still young .. perasan.

I would recommend using Gordon's London Dry Gin and Schweppes tonic water. Best of its kind. We used the Caprabo tonic water since we ran out of Schweppes. Caprabo's the supermarket I've blogged about and their tonic water ain't that bad.

4th Night - "Screwdriver"

added with

you get

This one here is my personal favourite. Nothing complicated nor scary here as it seems to sound. "Screwdriver" as told by my mum is just the name given to this drink by the spanish. It's generally carbonated orange juice mixed with vodka. For this drink, you generally add the amount of vodka you can bear with and just fill with the orange.

Absolut Vodka as many know would be the best to use. It's sad we don't have fanta in kl. All we have to substitute it in kl is F&N Orange .. yucks. Even orangina which is no longer on the market tasted better. F&N's one just tastes like food colouring completely. This one is seriously worth trying. It won't be as strong as the others. Sadly, vodka just isn't cheap in most parts of the world.

I've even a few times added orange fruit in it together simply giving it a silly name such as "Orange Surprise"! lamenya ..

5th Night - Shandy

added with

you get

I'm quite sure that the first thought that came in my mind upon seeing the word shandy would be a can of ready-made Anglia shandy. Not that Anglia shandy sucks or anything but why not mix your own equally delicious shandy since shandy esentially is just beer with lemonade. It is best that you use a glass like above for shandy. It's ok to have more.

The way we prepared it may be different from the actual way but it's still ok. Just pour half a can of beer and equally add lemonade preferably carbonated. Weak drinkers and first-timers can easily opt for this. I still remembered how happy I was drinking shandy during the pangkor trip .. siau.

Sinful or not ? It's up to you. So, grab hold of some alcohol when you can .. As I'm ending this post, I'm sipping a glass of rose wine produced by Familia Torres from Catalunya. Makes me wonder whether Fernando Torres is realeted to this Familia Torres ?

-adios y hasta luego-

I´m Very Much Alive

2006-11-26T22:21:00.000+08:00

Time has been passing real fast this week. As of now, it's already been a week since the school holidays started. As for me, it´s been two weeks. Reason is that I had voluntarily took the last week of school off. If you know me well, you'll know that I'm know in the country I love most, Spain. Beautiful .. sunny spain.

As said of the title of this post, i'm doing fine here. Adjusting to time was fast and I absolutly love the cold climate. It's still autumn now and it's 7 hours behind kl here. Temperature today is about 14 degrees celcius. It's been raining though almost every day this week. Sorry for my long absence from blogging.

I'm just enjoying everything out here and there's only one computer here to be shared by everyone at home here. My step-dad's been sick this week so he's not been using the computer as regular as usual giving me more time on it.

I promised myself that I would blog about my journey here as soon as I arrived. Then again promises are meant to be broken. All I did was read other updated blogs. My sis progressed more having already blogged quite a lot on what we've been doing. It will however come up soon maybe sometime next week. Non-aviation enthusiasts need not find any reason for excitement on that ..

As for now, I'll just update you all on what's been going with my life here in madrid so far.

Saturday/Sábado --> 11 Nov 06
Arrived in madrid at about 9.35 am. Was just so effing happy to finally be on spanish soil again. Immigration line was rather long and I found my mum waiting for our bags at baggage belt no.7.

Narrowly passed the customs people who randomly opened the luggage of certain passengers for checking. They would have been shocked if they opened ours. I had brought stuff like some huge whole dried fish, pau, cong (chinese rice dumpling) and some kaya. All those foodstuff would have probably been confiscated if found and immediately INCINERATED. You all know how europeans are wih our asian foodstuffs.

a view of madrid

Anyway, we proceeded back home which is to some new place my mum moved into around august. I stayed in a different condo when I was here last year. I realised that the new place ain't that far from the old one. Just a short walk away. It's just nice to actually walk around madrid which is essentially how europe is.

After packing, we went out to the mall nearby which is Centro Comercial La Vaguada mainly for the paella which I've been dreaming about every single day. One of the best is sold freshly in this huge supermarket there called Alcampo.

Imagine how delighted I was to just enter the place. You people must be finding it funny why the first place I head to is the supermarket but i'm not exactly a tourist .. Knowing my mum we bought like almost a full cart of stuff.

Went back for lunch. I felt kind of sleepy later on so I went for nap. Was kinda tired coz I had no proper rest for nearly 24 hours. Next thing I knew it was the next morning.

Sunday/Domingo --> 12 Nov 06
When I opened my eyes it was already 9 am the next morning. Imagine how shocked I was. I slept like almost 15 hours continously without realising. No one had even bothered to wake me up for dinner the night before .. just my luck.

Still everything was just normal. "Good morning" greetings and breakfast. I was not very hungry despite missing dinner. Didn't do much that day just like the lazy spanish on sundays. All we did was take the dogs for a walk dropping buy a cake shop for pastries and baguettes.

Monday/Lunes --> 13 Nov 06
It was another normal day. Did nothing much. I did accompany my mum to the supermarket (yup, again) around the area, Caprabo. Before that, I met up with her in the bank, Caja Madrid down the road. I kinda just helped carry all the stuff back home. Lots of coke, beer, alcohol ..

the oficina laboral filipinas, madrid

We did folow my mum later on to my step-dad's office which is the Oficina Laboral Filipinas in Goya. I finally got to take the public transportation here again. I just love the buses and metro here. It's so not like kl. Clean, consistent, systematic and can be found anywhere. Needless to say, there's almost a metro station every 500m so it's not easy to totally get lost. Went home in step-dad's car.

Tuesday/Martes --> 14 Nov 06
Yet another uneventful day. Generally there's lots of relaxing involved here in madrid. Everything's just cool and fresh here.

In the evening, I accompanied for her medical check-up's and results at the hospital she goes to, Ruber Internacional. For you info Ruber Internacional is the hospital where the Crown Princess of Spain delivered her first child last year. They have some preety modern tests here not like the backward ones in Asia. Hospital's nice but spent a lot of time there. I just read whatever that I brought.

Wednesday/Miércoles --> 15 Nov 06
Woke up a little earlier. Both me and my sis followed my mum to the hospital again. She had some short tests. She was also told that she had allergies to moulds. I told her to ignore it coz she would have been dead by now consuming so much cheese, wine and beer. She had to go back in a weeks time again for some results.

me and mum in the bus

Then she told us she would treat us out for lunch today. Giving us a choice of lasagne or some mexican buffet. Opted for mexican buffet at this place called Sí Señor. My mum came to this place for one of her female friend's 'bachelor' party.

She funnily recounted what she did there as we entered. Her girlfriends and her were drunk. There was something rather embarrasing involved which you can find out if you sincerely ask me personally ..

Sí Señor

Sí Señor was truly mexican and delicious. Really filled me up. Won't mind recommending people to eat there. Nice buffet at an affordable price. 10 euros per head which includes drinks ie. soft drinks and even beer.

After lunch, we went to the El Corte Ingles on the opposite side of the road. I must mention again that this area is relatively near the Malaysian Embassy. Lots of shopping in El Corte Ingles which is one of the biggest departmental store chains in Madrid.

You'll find these green-themed stores all around Madrid. I bought a few sweaters for like daily use. The ones I got were like about 9 euros each. Considerably cheap when compared to european standards.

We went to step-dad's office again in the evening. All of us went home together. Spent the night finishing my mum's hong kong serials together. I'm such a serial drama addict ..

Thursday/Jueves --> 16 Nov 06
It was raining today. I don't exactly like the rain here in madrid. Very much similar to kl. When it rains here, it's just bloody cold and gloomy. Worse still rain here generally continues on for two days. Not like cats and dogs but just minimal water droplets falling continuously .. you can imagine it.

me and mum in the metro

All me and my mum did today was kinda visit this malaysian lady who stays at the Plaza de Castilla area. Her name's, Chan Che and she rents out the TVB Hong Kong serials here. She's a long timer here in madrid and speaks spanish like she was born with it. Her job may not seem so glamorous but being the only authorised dealer in madrid, she's commisioned by the head office in London to catch those selling these serials illegally. Sounds fun to me ..

Friday/Viernes --> 17 Nov 06
As planned today, my mum would have her usual happy hour in tgif with her malaysian friends. Had been loking forward to it the past week. Before that, we went to my step-dad's office again.

the metro

This time me and my sis went ourselves to the office. Trust me it's very safe here and everything's just systematic. Yup, we do it all the time. We had lunch at KFC. I must admit that their chicken here tastes better than the KFC back in malaysia.

Only at about 5pm did we leave for tgif very near the santiago bernabeu stadium which is the real madrid stadium by the way. Seeing those malaysians again was delightful. Rather fun ones to mingle with even the malays.

Mereka tidak terlalu konservatif di luar .. haha. Without naming them, some even consume alcohol. No tudungs mind u for the ladies. No indians in the group though. I just forgot to snap some group pics together.

Had some food like my fav. potato skins. I've had better trust me. Had a number of cocktails. I first ordered a strawberry daquiri and next a piña colada. I also had some of my mum's tasty margarita. Still I was very much stable unlike some I know who would already be drunk. *cough cough*

metro station

By the time we reached home, it was almost 8pm. We had dinner later on. We're just like the spanish here who have dinner at about 9pm daily ..

Saturday/Sábado --> 18 Nov 06
Today's schedule was just spent over lunch at a friend's place. It was this nice Filipino couple, Chema and Shantha who have been residing in Spain for a long time. In fact, Chema was born in Spain while Shantha's actually a British-Indian. Chema who's a great cook actually prepared the lunch. They also have a daughter who's like almost 24 named Pellar, i think that's how it's spelt.

It was the first time meeting them as I had ony heard of them during my last trip. They had such a nice place which was small yet spacious. You could have imagined how glad I was when I was told that Chema had worked for Phillipine Airlines and that he knew lots about the aviation industry. He was even once the airline Head Manager for the Middle East.

There was a different look on his face when my step-dad told him that my ambition was to be a pilot. It was like he felt better that he could talk about those stuff with me. We had a few short convos here and there. He even convinced me to instead join the airline marketing sector like him. That was when he was told that I wanted to see the world.

Apparently, you still get to travel a LOT without being a pilot. Chema added that almost 90 % of his job involved travelling. He spent little time at home. Travel times just took up all the time. He even gained a fear of flying to some extent as a result. He said that being the top executives who knew the 'going-ons' just made him fear the reality of that industry. Furthermore, he said that pilots would only be able to make friends with other pilots .. so its kind of limited.

From stuff like how the in-flight food was prepared and how pilots sometimes flew the planes just shocked him. Upon mentioning the fact that Phil. Airlines had stopped its KL route, he was kind of surprised. He later explained that MAS ain't that bad. His MAS friends were apparently immediately snapped up by Qantas when they migrated to aussie.

I'll definitely consider Chema's advice in case my eyesight deteriorates badly or a barrier of some sort. We only left their place at like 7pm. My step-dad had so much to talk about with Chema while me and my sis just sat with my mum listening to her talking to Shantha. I think even my mum got bored. Believe it or not, I spent nearly 5 hours listening to two ladies blab about rubbish ..

Sunday/Domingo --> 19 Nov 06
Our malaysian friends had invited us to go for a picnic with them at some place near some stream at Navacerrada. It's scenic and apparently you can pick mushrooms nearby. However, we couldn't go as my step-dad had some other event to attend plus it started raining the night before. Thus it was cancelled.

in the bus

While my step-dad was not at home, we had the computer to ourselves. Later in the evening, we took the bus to the chinese store as my mum wanted to buy some foodstuff. The 124 bus brings us to the Tetuan area where it is located and back home.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As for this week, there's not been much to talk about. Step-dad fell sick so he didn't go to work from monday to wednesday. He sleeps all day making me wonder how he'd manage to fall asleep at night. Furthermore, it's been raining almost every other day this week. Thank god this ain't my first visit to Madrid or else we wouldn't be able to go see the sights around madrid.

Preety much stuck at home. Did lots of reading and watched some korean dramas. Shockingly, I'm currently kind of hooked on 'My Lovely Samsoon' being rather interesting which was originally my sis's idea. Have been doing lots of surfing online but its usually done at night so I finish really late. Latest being 6 am .. haha

Other than the above, there were short visits to the supermarket and my step-dad's office. Something I ought to mention is me helping my mum completing my step-dad's annual reports. His secretary was sent back to manila and he doesn't get a new one. She finds it tedious but it's kind of just similar to projects that I ussually do.

Finally, I think I need to start regularly talking the dogs out for walks. I need the exercise especially when I'm constantly being bugged by mummy's cooking.

Congrats to my sis, Brenda for her 3A's in her UPSR exam ! You did your best ..

-adios-

I'm Leaving On A Bus

2006-11-03T00:04:00.000+08:00

In a matter of hours, I'll be leaving on a bus .. yes a bus, not a jet plane .. to a place by the name of Pulau Pangkor. Terlalu dramatic. Me together with a few Form 4's and a huge bunch of Form 3's will be heading to this island. I shall spare you all from all the fake beauty of this place till I see it for myself though I remember going there during Chinese New Year almost 5 years ago.

This will be a short one so i'll just present you all with some celebrity news.

First, some shocking news. Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe has filed for divorce recently. This is rather un-becoming of Hollywood couples and come on, this couple was the last couple I thought of on this issue. They had always been all sweet and lovey dovey. Some clear examples include their appearances at award shows in particular this years, Acadamy Awards where Reese won an Oscar for her appearance as June Carter in Walk The Line while the movie Ryan acted in, Crash won the "Best Movie" award ..

This is sad. The only long-lasting couples I can probably think of now are the Beckhams as well as Justin Timberlake who's with Cameron Diaz.

Meanwhile, TomKat have announced that they would be getting married soon. TomKat as in Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have announced they would be taking the next step in their relationship on the 18th of November. They will have their weeding in Italy. I suppose it will be held at close friend, George Clooney's villa there.

Congrats to TomKat !! Hopefully you do not portray so much of a Datuk K-Siti Nurhaliza image.

I just finished packing all my stuff. Will be sleeping soon. I hope i'll enjoy this trip. Will post again when i'm back. Also hope Osaka trip students have a fun time.

-adios-

20 Orang

2006-10-29T03:38:00.000+08:00

I know this thing's really old already but it's fun so I'm gonna do it too. haha ... Sorry if you didn't get tagged ..

1. jiam
2. amanda
3. yoong jie
4. krystal
5. caryn
6. brenda
7. peako
8. dexter
9. pia
10. isabel
11. timothy
12. adam
13. daniel
14. jason
15. sean
16. carmen
17. denise
18. jia wei
19. kenneth
20. suet fong

How did u meet #14? [Jason C]
funny, i've always seen him around school. Got to know him particualrly well this year. if i'm not mistaken it's probably the fact that he sits right in front of me and jiam for bm.

What would your life be if u haven’t met #1? [Jiam]
i got to know her well in form 2. i would dare say that i would be less random and creative in certain aspects. she sits next to me in class and almost every other lesson. i would probablu fail everything if she was not there patiently explaining stuff. physics woman .. blek

What would u do if #20 and #9 dated? [Suet Fong, Pia]
that would look rather wrong .. a lesbian relationship. i dun think that would ever happen unless either one decides to change preferences.

Would #6 and #17 make a good couple? [Brenda, Denise]
what the fcuk. another lesbian couple? they've never met each other nor talked before.

Describe #3. [Yoong Jie]
this one is a penguin. i may say he's esily intimadated. saya telah melukakan hatinya beberapa kali. sounds so gay. tall and scrony. nice person. can be extremely irritating at times. may be very quiet and blur at times but hyper another. especially if SOMEONE's around. haha

Do you think #6 is attractive? [Brenda]
this is getting freaky. yes, she's hawt but gawd she's my SIS !!!!!!!

Tell me something about #8. [Dexter]
smart and eccentric ... really messy. blek

Do you know anything about #12’s family? [Adam]
i can say i know his family all too well .. couz what

What is #7’s favourite? [Peako]
i dunno , # 1 i guess

What would you do if #11 confesses that he/she likes you? [Timothy]
i would bring him to a psychologist to get his head checked .. i'm not gay and he's too young anyway.

What language does #15 speak? [Sean]
English , cantonese and maybe mandarin

Who’s #9 going out with? [Pia]
no one

How old is #16? [Carmen]
ironically .. 16

When was the last time you talked to #13? [Daniel]
on friday .. we went to klcc

Who’s #2’s favourite singer? [Amanda]
she has lots of fav singers .. she did tell me yesterday she loves The Fray.

Would you date #4? [Krystal]
Nah, someone might kill me .. hehe

Would you date #7? [Peako]
No !!

Is #15 single? [Sean]
Yup .. u can have him

What is #10’s last name? [Isabel]
i know her family name's - Chaang.

Would you consider being in a relationship with #19? [Kenneth]
Never .. he has someone too

What schools did #3 go to? [Yoong Jie]
Sri Cempaka

Where does #6 live? [Brenda]
we live under the same roof

What is your favourite thing about #5? [Caryn]
i dunno .. she's rather quiet

What do you think about #13? [Daniel]
quiet and irritating at times

What do #4 and #19 have in common? [Krystal, Kenneth]
they're siblings .. haha. lots in common

What special qualities does #17 hold in your life? [Denise]
not much. she saves me when i forget to bring my reader's digest to school.

What is the most memorable memory you had with #18? [Jia Wei]
lots especially on mondays when we stay back waiting for her sis, jiam .. share lots of stuuf together. she's gonna be leaving school this year though. sobs

-adios-

A Really Long One

2006-10-28T23:24:00.000+08:00

This one is gonna be considerably long as I've said. There have been things happening while I was not blogging. Some important but some just so bleh for everyone but me.

Let's start with my dearest mum. As many of you would know, my mum is currently living in Madrid, Spain. No, neither is she running away from me nor is she working. She's there because my step-father has been posted there since 2005 as he is a diplomat (Labour Attache) with the Philippines Embassy / Labour Office in Madrid.

So, you can say she's kind of enjoying herself there but still does minor stuff to help my step-dad. His workers there are silly. They work so bloddy slow I feel like slapping them when I look at them. So is the attitude of these workers in Spain. Mind you the Spanish may just be declared the laziest .. ahem of all Europeans. Nonetheless, I still love Spain.

Going back to what I meant to tell, my mom's gonna be moving again soon. This is sad news for me coz I really love Spain. Anyway, we discussed through sms. She first said it was gonna be hong kong. My step-dad likes it there and he was posted there for a few months in 2004. My mum then felt worried because most of the condos in hong kong don't usually allow dogs. I asked her what other choices were there. There were two other choices - Dubai and Saipan.

I told her the other two were okay. Dubai's a muslim place but its very much foreign so dogs can be kept there. Saipan wasn't that bad but it's really far out in the Pacific Ocean. Refer to the world map and you'll know - its near Guam. After a few days, she sms-ed saying they decided to go dubai. I was kinds happy coz I could explore a new place and see the Burj al-Arab. My mum asked a few friends including the wife of the Malaysian Ambassador in Spain who happens to be mat-salleh/ang moh. They all said dubai was fun and my step-dad does have a few friends there.

Then after two weeks or so, my mum said it was gonna be hong kong. Turns out the Secretary (similar to Minister in philippines) of Labor had kind of reserved Hong Kong for my step-dad so it was kind of confirmed. He's that special ! They just didn't get the job order yet. They still haven't found a place to stay so I'm kind of helping to search online. It's kind of heard coz they need a place which allows pets. They apparently had to be there by january so my dreams of seeing spain again were kind of wrecked then.

That's almost about it on my mum's status. All I have now is to look forward to visiting hk next year. I wanna go to disneyland. Its nearer to home so its easier for mum to come back to kl and to go ONLINE. No time difference so it'll be easier to chat. Yup, she does go online - chanphelicia@hotmail.com. Plus I may get to meet my step-siblings in hk too when they visit from manila.

Well, I'm sure both my mum and step-dad are happy with hk. My mum has all the food and chinese shows she desires while my step-dad who almost hates his posting in madrid, loves hk. He is a total workhaholic. He likes hk coz there's lots of work there compared to madrid. In hk where there are almost 1000 Filipino maids, he has to hand-sign 2500 documents a day. My hands would probably be aching. There's really not much to do in madrid. One word, the employers treat their workers well. They got lots of human rights there in europe.

That's all on my mum. We now focus on me. so vain. Our school's organising another trip to osaka, japan this year. I was so happy when I heard about it. I really wanted to go since it was the last year i could follow the school on an overseas trip. Mrs. Peter was kind of insisting me to go. She wanted me to ask my dad as soon as possible. In the end, I got a straight NO from my dad. Saddening, i know. He said it was too expensive and all.

At that moment, I was telling my self that I would have been in malaysia one whole year without going out. No passport stamps for 2006. Zero airplane rides in 2006 not even to manila. It was horrible. The last time that happened was like back in 1998. I wasn't even gonna go to madrid coz I just went last year and my mum would have started packing if we went.

Sneaky brandon here then decided to ask mum to allow me to go. We discussed over the phone. She wasn't really to happy with it. She was running quite low on $. She also said the price was kinda high and that I've already been to tokyo two years ago. We decided we would take some cash from my bank account and my PMR cash. At the end of the conversation, she wondered what my sis would do all holiday. Its been ages since we were in kl throughout the year-end holidays. Then, this most important convo came up ..

Mum : So, what's brenda (my sis) gonna do when you are in japan ?
Brandon : She has the computer ..
Mum : How bout the whole holiday ?
Brandon : We'll be bored and all but at least we have the computer.
Mum : That's so unfair for brenda.
Brandon : Then what ?
Mum : Maybe you all wanna come over ?
Brandon : I would love too but you're moving rite? You gonna be busy and all.
Mum : Dunno, maybe you both can help me pack. It won't be as fun as the last time butt maybe a fun experience for both of you.
Brandon : Sounds good to me (Brandon grins happily with so much joy)
Mum :I'd rather pay for both your air tickets here which maybe almost the same price as your osaka trip. Plus, you can stay here longer. This is not confirmed yet but in the meantime go scout for airfares.
Brandon : Ok, I understand. I'll go check for fares and hopefully it'll be cheap when matta fair comes around.
Mum : Do it fast .. you're slow sometimes (haha)

*Convo continues on other stuff*

I was so happy after the conversation. I was being so high and all. As for now, its confirmed. I'll be going to madrid on november 10. Anyone who wants to tag along is welcome to do so .. just pay for your own ticket. The booking was easier this time with the help of a family friend, adel.

To all, Adel is the country manager for Lufthansa. I would love to have her job. Sounds so bloody fun. So we consulted her to get the cheapest fare. I thought she would give us lufthansa but she gave us thai airways instead. I would have loved to fly lufthansa. It would have seemed like she was backstabbing her airline but then again thai and lufthansa are both part of star alliance. I've never flown on thai anyway plus they have a new, beautiful livery.

* Non aviation enthusiasts can skip this part *

I had actually few other routes in mind to reach madrid. I wanted to try other airlines which I've not flown on. I was however determined not to take austrian airlines as much as possible. Their food and sevice is good but I didn't really like their seat pitch. Their timings suck too. I had too wake up at 4 am last year for my 6 am return flight. If that wasn't bad, the flight got delayed because of snow in vienna and I missed my connecting flight back to kl.

Our asian airlines are better some way or another. I must commend austrian for their service though. They never seemed to stop serving bread and drinks throughout the flight. KLM didn't really appeal to me because I flew with them to manila once. Anyway these were my other choices ..

Lufthansa --> Kuala Lumpur-Frankfurt-Madrid
Qatar Airways --> Kuala Lumpur-Doha-Madrid
Thai Airways --> Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok-Rome(stopover)-Madrid
Singapore Airlines --> Kuala Lumpur-Singapore-Barcelona-Madrid

Qatar Airways would have been the cheapest but Adel said it might not be safe for us to travel alone. I don't really see why because I don't think that doha's that dangerous. I did think we were obviously gonna fly Lufthansa because we went through Adel but turns out we got Thai.

As for SIA, that would be long way round. There was gonna be two stops plus the SIA flight ends at Barcelona so thinking that they can get connections through Star Aliance it might happen. I personally would do anything to fly SIA if not for the price.

* You can start reading now *

So Thai (TG) it is. Leaving klia on 10 nov at 9.00 pm on TG 418 which is a Boeing 777-200 flight landing at Bangkok at 10.05 pm. I leave bangkok at 12.01 am on TG 942 which is a Boeing 747-400 flight with a stopover in Rome for about 2 hours finally landing at madrid at 1.40 pm on the same flight. The idea of transiting at the new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport really excites me. Can't wait to see it. I also hope we'll be able to venture into Rome Fiumicino airport during the stopover. Some sightseeing, plane-spotting and who knows duty-free shopping.

Our tickets are not issued yet. Prices are not confirmed as Adel is trying her best with her TG friend's help to lower it. I hope to receive the tickets at least after the deeparaya holidays. As you can say through my timer, it is only about 15 days before I leave. Gonna be packing soon.

Throughout all this, there have been some bumpy events. I got a call from one of my mum's malaysian contacts in spain, an indian lady named veny whom I got to knew during the Malaysian Embassy Deeparaya celebrations last year. Fyi, my mum's the vice-president of the Malaysian Association in Spain (MAIS). She was asking whether her 15 year old daughter could follow us on the flight to madrid.

I was never quite happy with the idea so I just told her I'll check on it. I discussed with my mum and we decided we would just lie coming up with an excuse which would not allow her to travel with us. Veny couldn't help telling me that her daughter is "small but very BIG" in a thick indian accent so it was very funny. You can just imagine ...

That problem was gone but a new one arose. I was told that two of the nephews and nieces of my mum's friend wanted to follow. We kind of just know these two rascals as we see them like sometimes once a year or so. Mind you they're not that modern and all and their upbringing's different. They're the rough ah beng ah lian, cina cina type if you get me. I was shocked at that coz I would have to handle these menaces on an almost 20 hour journey in an enclosed 'metal bird'. Though they were not confirmed they had a huge chance of following.

In the first place, I was wondering why they bothered visiting madrid. It is so not their place so they wouldn't enjoy it. Its not like you go out and it's all joy and fun everywhere. You move around using public transport to see art generally i.e. buildings, parks, museums etc. Not to forget, you should embrace the european diet. They would even be staying with us which is even worse. Without doubt, this comes at quite a cost and less privacy. Me and my mum were bitching (lol) about them hoping their plans would not push through.

Last week, my mum was told that they would be following and staying on for two weeks. I felt my world crumble then , nah too dramatic. We were all shocked. She then inquired whether they would seriously enjoy and how they would go home since we wouldn't be bringing them. She didn't get much of a reply while Adel didn't even say anything when I was talking to her. Again we're unsure of their status but hoping it won't come through. This is what I call hukum karma - from indian girl to these two rascals. I can't believe I used that many paragraphs to bitch about cinacina punya orang.

Enough of spain and we come back to another school trip. Mrs. Peter had 'declared' that all the librarians not going to japan should go for the pangkor trip. The Pangkor trip is actually Mdm. Mano's 3C class trip but we were allowed to tag along. I asked my dad whether I could go so he said yes since it was only about rm 300. Those who would be going are yoong jie, krystal, caryn, nee ling, kai li, melissa, may ling and ka mun. I succesfully pulled in jiam and denise to go to since we needed more people. We are gonna go on november 3 coming back on the 5th. Staying at some place called seaview resort I think.

Don't tell her this but I'm really hating what that someone who is the 'leader' for the trip is doing. When she put us all into teams and team leaders she made it seemed like we have to be nanny's and big shot facilitators. Its supposed to be a leisure trip so why bother. We just kind of watch though I'm just gonna to nothing else but tell them I'm your group leader with jiam. That's all.

Then it came to the rooming. She put me in a room with arthur chia and connecting rooms with hari kumar and yoong jie. Why arthur chia !! When she told me about it during english class, I shouted a big "NO" that even people around had to tell me to calm down. I'm probably gonna be dragging my bed or mattress whatsoever to the other room away from arthur. Eww ..

That would be the end of this 'very long' post. Wish me luck with all my grouses here. I'll have more pictury, topical posts coming up though they may be rather long ..

-tata-

Stormbreaker

2006-10-24T01:34:00.000+08:00

I went along with a few others on friday after school to klcc to watch stormbreaker since school finished early at 12. The others who went were yoong jie, krystal, caryn, kai li, adrian, kenneth and his friends. We were kind of in a hurry to get our tickets because we needed to get the tickets in time for the movie at 2.30.

There were quite a number of wms students in klcc. I saw schwep bing, hann jiunn, irwin, terng sheng, kok mun and a few form 5's. Coincidentally, some of the form 3's i.e. brian mok, kevin tan and all were also watching. Quite a number of wms students there for sure that day. Before the movie, we had lunch. Instead of my usual yoshinoya, I had some teppanyaki japanese stuff.

Stormbreaker is essentially a teenage spy movie based on the book by Anthony Horowitz. I think its kind of true that almost every good book will be made into a multi-million dollar movie. Anyway, this movie is not one that every average adult would wanna watch. Some said it would be like Spy Kids but I would put it as Agent Cody Banks minus the cheesy parts. However this movie should stick to being a teenage/child kind of movie. Not many adults would enjoy it.

The main character here is Alex Rider played by newcomer Alex Pettyfer whose MI-6 spy uncle, Ian Rider died during a mission. All this he did not know till Alex was approached by MI-6 bosses who persuaded him to follow in his uncle footsteps. He was suited for the job since he has unknowingly been trained for it all this while. His uncle made him learn martial arts, mountain climbing and other outdoor activities. In addition, Alex speaks various foreign languages including Japanese, German, Spanish and French. Impressive if you ask me.

He finally goes on a mission to investigate some Stormbreaker program which would be launched in schools all around England. He finally uncovers the secrets of the program and most of the action generally deepens then. This movie has some good enough stunts and not forgetting all the usual must have spy gadgets, the best one being a Nintendo DS with different functioning catridges. Cool or what.

The plot of this show as you can see generally is like every other spy movie. It is worth watching but maybe on a dvd. Girls for sure will find it interesting. The British tabloids have indicated that Alex Pettyfer may very well be the next Daniel Radcliffe so cries of "Alex Pettyfer is so hot" will soon come from girls. Alicia Silverstone who acted in Miss Match is in this film too.

Overall Rating : 3.5/5

Away from the movies, yesterday night was one of my longest periods of sports viewing on the television. I watched the man u-liverpool match, then the Brazilian F1 Grand Prix and finally the Real Madrid-Barcelona match.

I was so freaking delighted yesterday coz real madrid actually won 2-0, believe it or not against Barcelona whom they teruk-teruk lost 3-0 to last year. I still remember in Spain last year whem my mum was wondering whether they had lost on purpose last year to barca since they were still partying in the hotel after the match. Yes, I lived next to the hotel that the real madrid team stays at before games in Spain. Its called the Mirasierra Hotel. I hope to see the team again when I go again this year.

Anyway, real really played a good game. The first goal by Raul came in like just around 5 minutes into the game. The second goal came from van Nistelrooy. There were two 'almost-goal' moments but the damn ball hit the cross-bar instead. I wouldn't say that barca played horribly but they just did not do their best probably. There were apparently a few VIPs watching the match yesterday namely Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal who were playing the Madrid Masters and surprisingly Scarlett Johansson.

The F1 race was interesting since it is the last race of the season and without doubt Michael Shumacher's last race. The race was actually shown before the real-barca match on the screens of the Bernabeu. Sadly though, Schumi only came in fourth while Alonso was second. Felipe Massa was first while Jenson Button was third. This only means that Fernando Alonso is again the F1 world champion. All because of Alonso, Schumi's profilic and illustrous carrer ends in a downfall. Similar to Zidane though.

I don't exactly like Alonso but then again I'll tend to favour him coz he's Spanish. The people in Spain must be really happy for him. It was funny at the beginning of the race when I saw Pele giving Schumi some commerative trophy thing personally. One sporting legend congratulating another. Pele doesn't at all look like a F1 fan to me. haha The really long post has yet to come.

Wait for it .. its gonna come soon. LAME-nya

-adios-

Hiatus No More

2006-10-23T19:17:00.000+08:00

I'm finally back again after almost a month of not blogging. All that's changing on this blog is probably all the bitching on arthur chia on the cbox. I wouldn't say that I've gone on a hiatus but generally people would assume so. I kind of lets say lost the interest to blog for some time.

Furthermore, the finals were around the corner so I had almost nothing to blog about unless you would all like to be bored on exam stress and how much I dislike it. As for now, they're over and we are all on a one week Deeparaya holiday. I will disclose my exam results only when I'm prepared to since they're all so horrible, I can almost cry thinking about them . Blek

Meanwhile, I must greet all you gracious people of the world a Happy Deepavali or Divali. It passed already but at least I greeted. Not to forget is the fact that today is the last say of Ramadan, the last fasting day. Tomorrow's hari raya so Selamat Hari Raya to all Muslims though it is strangely called Eid in the western world. It would be funny if they had to fast one more month because they could not see the moon because of the ongoing haze. The haze may just get worst with all the festivities i.e. making satay and playing illegal mercun. Stupid indonesians .. bcoz of them the choking haze might even stay till november.

Over here in Malaysia, something really big happened yesterday. Two really important people actually met after so long to clear the air over certain issues that have been plaguing the country's political scene. They are none other than ex-PM, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and current PM, Datuk Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The controversy sorrounding these two is something very much proudly dealt on in this blog of mine.

Today we were told of what happened throughout this very FRUITFUL kononnya meeting. If you ask me, all that happened in the meeting can be summarised to this - Dr. M was just blabbing throughout while Badawi was sitting there god knows why jotting down stuff like in some interview. According to what Dr. M told The Star, all Badawi did was either nod or keep quiet. When Dr. M said he would still voice out when he felt something was not right, Badawi didn't even say much.

I really felt that the timing for this meeting just wasn't right. It was held during Ramadan which just meant that Muslims should be nice to each other and all. I think that if it was not held during Ramadan, Badawi would have given Dr. M one hell of a scolding plus a sore eye or whatever that's equivalent to his position as a leader. He probably just didn't respond much so as to not break his puasa thing.

On a final note, Dr. M said that he was not entirely happy with the meeting but was 'satisfied'. I would have to agree with him at times. You don't get much out of it. All in all, we would just watch how this never-ending debacle would proceed. Dr. M would never shut up unless he probably dies. Certainly it will be juicier as time passes by.

I'll post again really soon with one really long post. Lots of other interesting things have been happening throughout my hiatus. You all would wanna know bout it so keep coming back.

-tata-

Paris

2006-09-10T18:17:00.000+08:00

Paris Hilton's self-titled album Paris is currently sitting somewhere in my house. I had bought it as an early birthday gift for my sis whose not exactly her best fan or anything. Ironically, I purchased it on hari merdeka.

After listening to the cd, I must conclude that it isn't that bad after all despite having my ears lambasted by crappy Stars Are Blind all this while. I would give it 3 and a half stars out of five. The tunes are really catchy but trust me are just so slutty, perasan and all "Paris is the hottest one on earth". Some of you will just be damn irritated by the lyrics. Unless you're that interested, there are a few songs with here horny sighs.

The tracks are as follows ..

Turn It Up
Fightin' Over Me
Stars Are Blind
I Want You
Jealousy
Heartbeat
Nothing In This World
Screwed
Not Leaving Without You
Turn You On
Do Ya Think I'm Sexy

Just look at the various titles and you can probably figure out how the songs are. The songs I like most in this album are Turn It Up and Jealousy. I used to like Screwed but I'm sick of it by now. All other songs are worth listening to except Stars Are Blind and the last, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy. Fightin' Over Me is a cool collaboration with Fat Joe and Jadakiss. I Want You has a weird Grease-like start while the start of Heartbeat sounds like Madonna's Get Together.

This album is fun and hip to a certain extent. Certainly won't waste your cash on this though some I've borrowed it to may not agree. The main reason why her album's probably this nice is because it was produced with Scott Storch. I doubt so if any album can go wrong with Scott Storch around.

I would encourage you fans out there to get. For some desperate guys, the album does come with a life-size poster of her which I don't wanna know what you'll do it .. blek. It is currently proudly adorned on the wall facing my sister's bed.

If that isn't pleasing enough, it also comes together with the VCD of the music video of that hideous Stars Are Blind. That very slutty .. frolicking in the beach one .. All at a limited time only ..

-adios-

Elected

2006-09-09T23:29:00.000+08:00

This must be really old news but for all you blur ones out there, the new Board of Librarians were elected on Monday during the librarian's meeting.

Head Librarian : May Ling
Deputy Head's : Hari Kumar and Yoong Jie
Secretary : Caryn Tan
Asst. Secretary : Krystal Lee
Treasurer : Wai Shan
Asst. Treasurer : Sherene
Form 4 Rep. : Johann Oh

Congrats to all of them. I together with nicholas, derek, serene, choon mui, yuen yi and kai li as you can see did not get any position. No grudges to all those elected though. I just can't imagine how empty my testimonial's gonna be. Full of crap and without doubt lies. I'll probably have stuff which i don't regularly participate in on it like pbsm. Sorry but i've only gone for about 5 meetings this year .. blek.

Meanwhile, the two future malaysian astronauts were chosen sometime this week as well. They are some medical officer named Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor and a army dental surgeon named Kapt Dr Faiz Khaleed. Before you think I'm actually proud of it, the answer's a big fat NO. There were actually four candidates where these two were part of. The other two unselected ones include a female engineer and a MAS Pilot. Instead they had to choose these two other fools whom I've never liked.

True to what Jiam had always concluded, both of the selected ones were gonna be malay's (no offence). Have we forgotten that this is Malaysia? The cutest thing to do would be to choose 3 or more astronauts representing the races of our country .. silly. When they get sent into space, they're gonna probably spend all their time looking for the arah kiblat. As for food, our scientists will probably have to develop some kind of halal space food. Yeah .. Malaysia's creates first of its kind halal space food (loud clapping from behind)

I do not mean to offend all malay's out there but those jakuns from the kampungs. We have malays in our school who I cans till hang out with but its just those breeds which you find in the streets and mall speaking like retards with a topsy-turvy sense of fashion. I shall relate to you all yet another silly cinema experience of my sis's this time. She watched little man today and there was this malay guy next to her friend who left like a bloody little girl at the lamest things. He had to even rock around and hit his chair, even hitting my sis's friends shoulder at times.

Come on .. be more civilised please. Let's hope our astronauts will be more civilised, less jakun-ised so as to not embarrass the nation in the eyes of the europeans or americans they'l be with in the International Space Station.

-adios-

Condolences

2006-09-05T22:32:00.000+08:00

R.I.P.

Steve Irwin

1962 - 2006

Steve Irwin aka. "The Crocodile Hunter"s death is definitely a great loss to the world. He died on Monday at the age of 44 after being struck in the chest by the stingray's barb while he was filming a documentary called Ocean's Deadliest in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

Having gained worldwide attention through performing dangerous antics with various animals especially crocodiles in particular, avid viewers and fans will truly be missing his sensational appearances. Even the the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard paid tribute by stating that Australia had lost a "colourful and wondeful son".

He had tried pulling the barb out of his body as seen on the video footage of the incident. The impact was so hard that the barb had apparently pierced through his heart. However, efforts to save him were unsuccesful. He leaves behind an American wife, Terri and two children, Bindi Sue and Bob aged eight and three respectively. I personally pity the children as they will have to grow up without such a fun animal-loving father.

He is said to be given a state funeral if allowed by his family. Meanwhile, mourners have been placing wreaths, flowers and cards outside the Australia Zoo which Steve and Terri operates. May Steve rest in eternal peace.

WMS Red Crescent Society 1st Annual Gathering 2006

2006-09-03T17:51:00.000+08:00

Our school's Red Crescent Society, PBSM had its first ever gathering yesterday after almost a month of preparation which I was gladly not involved in .. blek. A few other schools were invited so we had almost 100 participants including us converging in wms. It was a friendly kind of event to make friends and all so its not that formal and all. One thing to note down is that this is one of my very first PBSM events having being sunch an inactive, defunct member.

All the PBSM members were required to be in school by 7.15 but I apparently was not woken up and only woke up at 7.00. You shoulf have seen the look on my face when I looked at the clock. I started cursing and hurriedly prepared myself. Had to call the taxi and all.

By the time, I left home it was almost 8. I reached school finally at only 9 after a busy lrt ride. Thank god I wasn't that late coz some of the members were still waiting for one of the guest of honours who in the end didn't even show his shadow.

Easily fitting in, there was the opening ceremony and all. When it was mr.peter's turn to speak, you should have seen how perasan he was. He kept on boasting about the school's entrance exam and our exam results to all the uninterested govt. school students. As if anyone cares .. There were a few dances namely a very lame numa numa dance and a break dance from johnny and gang of our school.

The events for the day was the fun part. During the ice-breaking, the participants were divided into teams then played a mystery game. They interview a few people to solve the mystery where everyone died and all. I was one of the ones to be interviewed. I played the role of Dr.Acula, an eccentric, almost crazy doctor who did the post-mortem on the dead bodies. I tried my very best dressing up as a doctor and acted realy crazily. I shall not disclose what I answered as it was just so random and silly. Try interviewing me and I'll try answering you.

Later, we did a sketch to reveal what actually happened. It was just funny. Next up were the station games where I was the facilitator for group 2 (red group). My team was fun and all since I did know one of them. I surprisingly got to know them really well too. Some of the station games were really just thrilling. Group 2 ended up getting fourth place. We weren't first but at least we're not last.

It was overall a really fun event. Wore my PBSM uniform for the first time which i don't look that bad after all in, made many new friends, played a role in a mystery and became a facilitator for the very first time. To sum up this post, I'll leave you all with pictures from the event .. enjoy

the participants

me being dr. acula

me - yoong jie - krystal - jia wei

sketch

xae hoyy the maid

one of the station games where we were
all drenched wet

Group 2 rocks !!

me - tham - jia wei - krystal
denzie - kamal - edmond

denzie- kamal - mayling
me - edmond- yoong jie- krystal - jia wei

One thing I may regret that day was not attending socail night. I would have seriously went if more of my friends went and if it was cheaper. Come on RM80 for legend hotel .. blek.

-adios-

Budget 2007

2006-09-02T19:09:00.000+08:00

My last post had shown how separuh, half-malaysian I am. Make no mistake that I still feel the same though I did waste 2 hours of my precious time yesterday watching the live tabling of Budget 2007 by the Prime Minister. Many said I waste my time doing so since I can just read about it in the newspaper the following day. I somehow went on to actually noting down the key points coming out of the kayu old man's mouth. It almost came to about 2 pieces of A4 paper. Sad to an extent but then again I'm recognisably a future-minded malaysian .. blek.

Budget 2007 happens to be the first out of the 9th Malaysian Plan. Of all the three budgets PM Abdullah has tabled, this by far is the best in my opinion as well as most malaysians out there. Not only is it rewarding for malaysians of all ages and sectors but most of it is balanced in almost all sectors of the country's economy.

Almost not one sector has been left out of it. Ranging from agriculture, biotechnology, halal industry, Islamic finance, ICT, tourism, education, women rights, socio-economic equality, poverty eradication, housing, environmental preservation, creative arts, immigration, public service delivery system up to civil servants, it without doubt is one diverse but yet balanced budget. In total the expenditure for Budget 2007 would total up to be RM 157.496 million. View diagram below (click to enlarge) . .

There were five key thrusts as founded in the National Mission :

To move the economy up the value chain
To raise the capacity for knowledge and innovetion and nurture citizens of 'first class mentality'
To address persistent socio-economic inequalities constructively and productively
To improve the standard and sustainability of quality of life
To strenghten the institutional and implementation capacity

As not to bore most of you all, I'll just be stating most of the key-points of the budget which I find most relevant to us and the country and elaborating later. I couldn't possibly type everything out coz it might easily reach a minimum of 30 pages.

Corporate tax rate to be reduced by two percentage points in two stages - the tax will be reduced to 27% in 2007 and 26% in 2008.
Inland Revenue Board to issue advance tax rulings to ensure certainty of tax treatment and transparency in tax administration.
Biotechnology allocated almost RM 210 million.
Income tax relief of RM 3000 for the purchase of a personal computer every 3 years.
Income tax exemption for tour operators giving tours with at least 500 inbound tourists per year or 1200 local tourists per year extended for another five years.
RM1 billion will be channelled to 22 new primary and secondary schools set for opening next year and for the building of 198 more schools, including fully-residential secondary schools.
Chinese language will be taught in 150 national schools while Tamil will be taught in 70 national schools from 2007.
Students who obtain 10 1As in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia or its equivalent from families with a monthly income of RM1,500 and below will be given scholarships to pursue tertiary education.
Abolishment of fees for all public examinations in government schools.
Tax relief on book purchases will be increased from RM700 to RM1,000 a year.
Annual grant for non-governmental organisations undertaking women, family and community programmes has been raised to RM30mil from RM20mil.
One-off launching grant given to ministries to set up childcare centres will now be expanded to include all government departments.
RM50 government subsidy for mammograms done in private clinics and hospitals registered with the National Population and Family Development Board which is approximately half the cost of a mammogram.
Excise duty for cigarettes will be increased by one sen per stick while liquor with more than 40% alcohol will see an increase of RM5 per litre with immediate effect.
Police force will be given 2,000 extra patrol cars and create 3,000 new vacancies for police drivers.
Tax deduction increased to RM500 000 from RM300 000 for sponsorship of local arts, culture and heritage performances and shows.
Immigration units will be established at MIDA and MDeC to approve work permits and visas for expatriates.
Two new immigration departments will be established in Cheras and Wangsa Maju.
Spouses of expatriates with professional qualifications will be allowed to work in Malaysia.
Multiple Entry Visas valid for one year now given to tourists from China and India extended to tourists from the Middle East.
e-Passport Replacement Kiosks to be expanded to many more immigration branches.
RM 10 billion invested to improve the public transportation system i.e. buses and rail system.
Rapid KL to minimise waiting time for buses to 15 minutes by year-end.
2 month bonus for civil servants earning up to RM750 and 1 month bonus for those earning more than RM750, subject to a minimum of RM1500.
One-off payment to pensioners of RM400 for those getting pension below RM750 per month and RM200 for those getting RM750 and above per month.

There you have it. A freaking long list of expenditure 07 key points which I will elaborate on.

One of the biggest allocations is for the education sector totalling up to RM33.4 billion. It is understandable since the government has to produce citizens with 'first class mentality'. More schools and universities to be built. Extra allocations here and there for teachers. The most beneficial part of this budget for the education sector is definitely the abolishment of public exam fees and the scholarships for 10A1 SPM students. It definitely helps those in the rural kampungs who have 9 or 10 children .. believe me there are. I've heard of urban city-dweller families with 7 children. Then again, I wouldn't benefit from it since I study in a private school .. crap.

I have good feeling the government's feeling the need to focus on biotechnology. There was quite a huge allocation for it focusing generally on agricluture and bio-pharmaceuticals. The government should really consider investing in food technology. Without doubt, there were certain allocations for the enviromental bio-diesel.

As usual, the excise duty for alcohol and cigarettes went up again. It goes up without fail ever since the last four budgets were tabled. I don't smoke but I do drink at times. In the first place, a 1 sen increase for one cigarette would not make much difference anyway. The huge impact would be on heavy alcohol. It may not really affect me since I doubt so if the alcohol I've taken is usually above 40%. Then again , I don't even bother checking ..

I can now probably convince my parents to get me a new PC in the three years to come since they can now get RM3000 income tax relief. More books for me to now that the tax cut has increased to RM1000.

Since the "Visit Malaysia Year 2007" campaign's gonna start next year in conjunction with 50 years of independence, the changes in immigration procedures for tourists come with no surprise. The influx of tourists from China, India and the Middle East can clearly be noticed in the country. The one year multiple-entry visas will truly ease their travels here as well as encourage them to come back again in the same year. The newly implemented visa-on-arrival thing is a significant improvement. More tourists will feel the ease and hopefully it will benefit the tourists from the West particularly the Europeans.

I shall not bore you all any further with financial aspects of the country's econom as I know not many of you all are interested. I do however find pleasure to some extent in dwelling with the country's financial figures. Clarifying for the last time, I am half-malaysian .. haha

-tata-

How Patriotic Are You ?

2006-08-31T21:10:00.000+08:00

Its Independence Day today but sadly I do not see any difference. It is just another public holiday to me and many others. I do not wake up at 7.30 in the morning to see the celebration what more go watch it live in person. I don't see the significance of sacrificing my time and energy to get cramped up among sweaty malaysians to see colourful floats being paraded.

While some of you may assume that the Merdeka craze, you are wrong because it all only ends on the 16th of September. It is even worse to think of the national day as the country's birthday cause that happens to also fall on 16/9. There is a difference between National Day and Malaysia Day. At least I know my facts on Malaysia since I'm as follows ..

Congratulations Brandon, you are 50% not Malaysian.

That means you're as Malaysian as...

Michelle Yeoh!

How Un-Malaysian Are You?

I would rather stay awake on the eve of Merdeka to watch fireworks grace the KL skies conveniently from my house's window or balcony. Its more fun .. haha. These are some before and after pictures from the fireworks last night which I spotted from Bukit Bintang and some place near Great Eastern Mall. Surprisingly, there was nothing from Suria KLCC or KL Tower. The colourful Malaysian flag-themed lights on KL Tower are missing this year. I presume there will be fireworks from KLCC tonight since all the Akademi Fantasia people are gonna perform. There's just so much of smoke after it all ..

I had even indulged myself in a Japanese film, All About Dogs which was shown on Astro AEC. Yes, a movie from our violent, ruthless penjajah's which have long left. A cute but meaningless film with no prper start nor end .. I have to also mention that the five new Astro channels starts broadcasting today. For anime fans there's Animax while I can watch lots of Filipino flicks on Astro Kirana ..

All the government has to advice us on the weeks leading to Merdeka is to fly our national flag. As if, all there is to patriotism is by flying you flag .. trash. Then, you have ministers telling the people the proper ways of flying it. Putting it on the toilet door would be disrespectful but wearing it isn't .. blek. Its just your intentions that matter .. The minister said that people in america use their flag as their tablecloths so I'm gonna do that. I'll probably laugh when I pour curry or something saucy all over. Some other ways to show your patriotism with the national flag ..

Keranamu Malaysia Underwear .. looks lame

Malaysia Truly Asia! Handkerchief

Tablecloth .. with a bigger flag of course

Wrap it up and use it as a condom to show-off ..
Bra/Coli Buatan Malaysia .. manually fold it
Think of one yourself ..

Look at how patriotic us wms students were yesterday. We were throwing our flags high up in the air and just throwing them on the floor. Disrespectful indeed .. the special guest must have been disgusted. Prof. Khoo to Mr. Peter : "What's wrong with your students" just as how Mr. Peter predicted. It was luckily not some government person or we would all be in serious trouble. We'll probably gonna be blasted tomorrow. Some Form 1's were actually given DC for throwing thier flags or laughing during the event.

I barely waved the silly puny flags we were made to buy. Felt like a fool waving it .. haha. I amazingly have a few other flags like that of other countries but surprisingly not malaysia. So, I now have a new flag in my mini flag collection. Notice that all the flags are the flags of ASEAN member countries ..

I might have to admit one day that I will nonetheless have this sense of attachment with Malaysia, tanah tumpahnya darahku, the country I was born in. Well, I am 22 out of 45 Malaysian as compared to some who got lower. I happen to also be as Malaysian as Michelle Yeoh meaning I'm a half-Malaysian. If only the government can allow me to have dual citizenship .. then I can truly literally declare that I'm 50% or half-Malaysian.

-Adios and Selamat Hari Merdeka-

A Matrimony & A Break-up

2006-08-30T22:50:00.000+08:00

Malaysia's "Wedding Of The Year" between Datuk Khalid Muhammad Jiwa and Siti Nurhaliza held last week will be definitely remembered by me forever and ever. It was shown on TV3 much to the delight of Siti fans starting with the bersanding ceremony, meet the fans session ending with the grander ballroom wedding all conveniently held in the grounds of KLCC. For the record, I've tagged this wedding as the "Lamest Wedding of the 21st Century".

Their wonderful broadcasted wedding however had fierce competition from the live appearance and reunion of Malaysia's most popular Akademi Fantasia winner, Asmawi Ani aka. Mawi and his ex-fiancee, Ina. Eww .. I look like I'm glorifying Mawi but I fucking despise him. He should be doomed to the ends of the Earth. Come on, what kind of male name's Asmawi Ani. They were both broadcasted at almost the same time. One started at 8.30 while the other at 9.00. The different Tv stations denied competition stating that the Mawi-Ina thing was planned long ago.

I had planned to watch Siti's wedding with Datuk Sakit Jiwa while rolling on the floor laughing but I instead fell asleep only waking up at 11.00. I managed to catch an hour of only the ballroom wedding part. There were lots of VVIP's who attented including royalty, seats of government and celebrities. Only about 4 Sultans attended while there were a number of ministers. There was without doubt lots of celebrity friends. One peculiar thing that I can't stop mentioning is the fact that Tun Dr. Mahathir and the DPM, Datuk Seri Najib attended while our PM, Datuk Abdullah Badawi was not there. It may probably be because Mahathir was there or he was busy. What are the chances that he was just not invited .. how malu !!

As I stated, the wedding was plain lameness throughout or a really 'plastic' event. The MC's 'entertained' the guests with Malay pantuns and syairs in between their ultra-long speeches. I just found it boring though I understood them as being meaningful and trying to entertain. The bride and groom then came in while there were traditional Malay dancers and little ballet girls dancing in the front. The ugly deceitful smirk on Datuk Sakit Jiwa's face just did not dissapear.

The lamest part of it was during the cake-cutting ceremony. By the way, they had a seven-layer modern kind of cake. Guess foreign influence has definitely seeped into even this grand Malay wedding. This was something similar to what the MC said ..

"Datuk Khalid sekarang dipersilakan menyuap kek kepada Datin Siti (so she's already Datin Siti) .. puts cake in her mouth with that smirk. Sekarang, giliran Datin Siti menyuap kek kepada Datuk Khalid .. the same to Datuk Sakit Jiwa. "

It may be sweet and all but I just found it 100% cheesy, lame and tacky since the MC's actually had to announce it. After that, Siti's parents also cut some pulut kuning cake coz it was apparently their wedding annivessary that day as well. Siti then enthralled the audience with a new song "Cahaya Cinta". The thing ended after it. I must comment that Siti's gown was interesting. Almost both her sleeves were fully encrusted with diamonds and jewels. They were really sparkling. Not to forget that she also wore one gown which had thousands of pearls sewn on together.

The verdict is it was 100% lame. If this golden couple ends up in a divorce, they would seriously be ashamed while I would be laughing my head off. Jiam did point out to me on the same day that Datuk Sakit Jiwa may just be after Siti's $$. He apparently married his now ex-wife, Tengku Zawiyah for her money then divorced her. I also just noticed on Monday that she has royalty blood in her. Let's hope Siti doesn't suffer the same fate.

During the wedding, Datuk Sakit Jiwa had that silly ham-sap lou smirk on his face so he can now be Datuk Gatal. Meanwhile, during the Mawi-Ina reunion, Ina seemed to be all sober and sad even weeping at times while Mawi just seemed calm. So much for "Saya tak akan meninggalkan bakal isteri saya" after he won Akademi Fantasia 3.

When the final ratings for both the shows came in, it was as follows ..

4.7 million viewers

6.3 million viewers

Quite a huge gap betwen the two though. I would have thought that many would have preferred watching Mawi. Take for example, our Biology teacher, Cik Siti Maheran who as I had pointed out before is one of Siti's greatest fans. When I asked her however, she said she was gonna watch Mawi because she dislikes Siti. Next thing we know, her initial on our books changed from "Ct" to "SM" meaning she only started disliking Siti recently. Wonder how many more out there are like her. She should seriously consider changing her initials befire she is deemed to enjoy bondage or something .. S-M woman.

Besides, there were many of such desperate fans of both watching both programs at the same time. Some would rather just flip channels. Who buys two television sets and places them side by side .. doesn't make sense. Then again, they may be jakuns .. lol.

Before I forget, I had received this message from Hotlink on my phone on Tuesday ..

Win limited edition Sony Erricson Siti Nurhaliza phones! 3 up for grabs. Send the best wedding dedications to 017 7707 177. 65sen/message. Contest ends at 9/9/06.

Siti fans better act fast to win yucky Siti phones. can't imagine how hideous it'll look like. I shall now go to wait for Merdeka fireworks to appear outside my window .. adios

Birthday's Over ..

2006-08-27T15:41:00.000+08:00

My 15th birthday was officially over almost 15 hours ago. I had one of the best birthday celebrations yesterday though I've had better. If you all don't know, me and my aunt jacklyn were actually celebrated upon yesterday at my uncle's house.

We had yummy steamboat with lots of the usual stuff. For dessert, there was cold cincau .. haha. As usual, all the cousins young and old retreated upstairs to mingle around. Its not fun being around the adults always. The camera played an all important part with lots of crazy pics and videos. The computer is another must coz we somehow always hog around the comp. to laugh at stuff .. lame.

I didn't get lots of presents this year but got lots of cash .. hope no one robs me. Altogether I've collected almost RM 1260. I can buy the stuff I want .. blek. I had a funny conversation with one of my young cousins. She overheard my sis saying pornstar and started asking. We didn't tell her the real meaning.She knew we were tricking her so she started crapping with the word. The funnist thing she said was "Your pimples make me feel like a pornstar". Freaking funny and absolutely wrong.

Next up was the cake cutting ceremony. Dunno why I bother to make it so official so its just gonna be - cut birthday cake. So there was the birthday song, candle blowing, cake eating yadda yadda. Mine was first then my reluctant aunt was next. My cake was some mocha cake while my aunt's was a cheesecake. Both from secret recipe. Love their cakes especially choco banana. I look bloody gay in the pictures ..

Later, we had a brilliant idea to make a home video thing since we had so many of the little ones around. I had actually wanted to make a video inspired by Justin Timberlake's new song - "Sexy Back" .. haha .. sick. Anyway, we changed it to a James Bond themed one. Its generally supposed to be about the fight between James Bond and some bad guy .. haha .. its really funny

So, let's meet the cast of the production ..

Jonathan Kwok - stage guy
Brandon Yew (me) - music person
Amanda Chaang - camera-woman / director
Brenda Yew - latin dancer
Nicole Chaang - arabian dancer
Isabel Chaang - arabian dancer
Adam Chaang - bad guy
Sean Chaang - James Bond
Timothy Chan - latin dancer n blur guy
Tiffany Kwok aka. San San the hao po pornstar - arabian dancer
Allison Chaang - latin dancer, James Bond's wife

The video is altogether funny. We retook it almost ten times. It funny with the diff. music and all. The Arabian dancers danced with a rubberband string .. how strange. The worst thing is when suddenly everyone hugs the bad guy and James Bond .. haha. For the end, James Bond's supposed to go "I'm Bond, James Bond" but it sort of got cut off so all you hear is "Bond" .. Enjoy

Happy B'day To Me !!

2006-08-26T15:17:00.000+08:00

* Selamat Hari Jadi Kepada Saya * Feliz Cumpleaños a Mí *

My birthday's finally here. My 15th by the way. Probably going to celebrate together with my aunt at my uncle's steamboat thing at his house at sierra seputeh later on in the evening. Its ironic that my aunt jacklyn's b'day falls on the same day as me. We just end up greeting each other every single year .. haha. There's probably gonna be lots of relatives there .. Counting on amanda to come coz I want the O.C. Season 3 DVD ..

In something unrealted to my hari jadi, there was an article on our school concert in the star yesterday. Really shocked to see it since like the concert has already past for almost two weeks. It appeared in the metro section, pg 19 so go check it out. Unfortunately there were only two pictures published, one of the dikir barat and the other of the thai soldiers dance. You can see me quite clearly all the way behind with the choir in one of the pics on the paper . . the red circle in the soldiers dance points to me ..

Chances are that our school probably wrote it and sent it to the star. Mr. Peter always says "we do not advertise in the newspaper about our school's achievements" but it looks like its happening though not directly. I didn't see any reporter person there at all or were we told of any ..

In today's newspaper, I was very much entertained by a caricature that had much to do with one of my posts. It was actually drawn based on the flight delays of our silly malaysian airlines. Passengers of MAS and Air Asia are apparently facing lots of delays particularly the domestic flights. Some last up to 3 hours apparently. They had been blasted by Transport Minister, Datuk Chan Kong Choy and have a week to start bucking up.

MAS and Air Asia however are pointing fingers at each other and to others including Malaysia Airports Berhad. They also claim that their delays were mostly unavoidable. There is also lots of congestion in klia because they apparently only utilise one runway at times. Its not like lots of planes fly in and out of klia. Compare it to Los Angeles and London Heathrow where planes literally line up on the runway to depart.

Gotta go prepare soon for steamboat ..

-ciaoz-

Sagano @ Renaissance Hotel

2006-08-25T23:10:00.000+08:00

You must be wondering why but I went out yet again today. Thanks to my aunt staying in china who usually comes back twice a year. Today we were treated for lunch at Sagano, Renaissance Hotel Kuala Lumpur. Its on the second floor so its not the yucky coffehouse downstairs.

Sagano is a really nice Japanese restaurant which combines buffet together with the usual ala-carte main course. Not my first time patronising it. If i'm not mistaken, its my third or fourth time. Their buffet has all the usual sushi, fried stuff and the little condiments plus dessert. The really good stuff only comes in the ala-carte main course.

I ordered Soft-Shell Crab and Prawn Tempura which came with rice, miso soup and cawan-mushi. Most of the others had Beef Teppanyaki though. I was desperate for something deep fried .. hehe. The overall meal isn't that expensive per person considering its in a hotel. If I'm not mistaken, its about rm40 to rm60 per person for unlimited buffet and one ala-carte main course.

Sagano has very nice decor suited to it. Being a Japanese restaurant at all, it isn't all bright and shiny. Quite dim and gloomy thus creating that silent relaxing kinda ambience .. lol .. sound like some kononnya astetic person. They used lots of those like Japanese paper screen things usually for doors I think. The place we sat was facing a huge glass panel overlooking the hotel front. Very nice and we saw paratroopers continuosly diving down KL Tower. Probably some merdeka thing.

I used to think that this was like the best Japanese buffet-like restaurant in town but after going to the one in Shangri-la, its kind of on par. The one in Shang is fully buffet and you can reserve a VIP Jap room if you have the Shangri-la members card thing. The room's really nice. There is also Saisaki Jap buffet at Menara UOA at Jalan Pinang.

Whichever one you plan to go to, you'll definitely enjoy the food unless of course you're some anti-japan extremist. For some top-class korean food, I would recommend Koryo-Won in Kompleks Antarabangsa, Jalan Sultan Ismail which actually is connected to Crowne Plaza Hotel. They apparently have a branch at Starhill Gallery but don't know whether that one's nice. I have lots of sentimental memories at the old one.

The holidays are ending and I still haven't done any of my homework. Gotta go to uncle's house for steamboat tomorrow night. Its my birthday tomorrow .. finally !! Enjoy the pics . .

-tata-