381. HAPPY LABOUR DAY!

It's labour day tomorrow! A day for us laborers to relax :P Here's a link that explains the origin of Labour Day. So today, I get to party late into the nite as it's a public holiday tomorrow.

Spent the day just chilling at home. There's a pot luck organized by Wee & Raine. They invited the usual bunch. I was contemplating if I should stay or just go straight to Lai's place for the BBQ there. After much deliberation, decided to stay for the pot luck & then go over to KB for the BBQ. I cooked my *ahem* infamous Maggi mee goreng. Much to my delight, many approve of my culinary skills. Anyway really loved the coconut pie from Phillipines which Say Keat & Ee Lyne brought. Yummy.

The "crowd" @ the pot luck; the food

My Maggi Goreng; The Coconut pie from Phillipines

Then it's off to KB and bacon, sausages and chicken :) lovely. We end up playing baseball & soccer in Lai's backyard.

At Lai's house; Nicholas attempting to score a goal

380. Breezy day

Friday went by so fast and before I knew it, it's Saturday already. Was super busy during the first part of the day catching up on all the work that piled up while I was in S'pore.

Jack & Ann, managed to get the 12pm flight to JB, so I send them off and headed back to my office. Basically stayed till really late and spent the rest of the evening setting up my Treo to sync with my PC and playing with the new phone. It's awesome. Apart from some minor SMS issues, loved the phone, especially the display. It's just gorgeous.

Today went by rather fast too. We left the office at about 4pm. Got home and took a quick nap. Was greeted at the dinner table by my mom's infamous mutton curry! Heavenly! Then it's off to Soho with Seng, Wee & Raine to meet the usual kaki. Stayed there till 2:30am. *yawn* How time doth fly.

379. Back to Penang

Spent the past few days having ERP migration meetings in the office, meeting customers, visiting supplier's factory & also a day at the exhibition.

The fun bit of the trip was learning all the new things and seeing all the new printing technologies on display. In the evenings, we did visit a few watering holes and Sin Lim Square.

For the 2nd nite, we went over to this place called Crazy Elephant at Clarke Quey for a few drinks with Victor. I loved the place as they have a blues band playing. Have way thru, I went next door to get me some Chocolate Gelato. Yummy. After that, we stopped by Victor's friend's joint called Jupiter.

Crazy Elephant @ Clarke Quey


@Jupiter - Wee, Me, Victor & Kay

On the 3rd nite, it got interesting, our collegue took us to Chijmes for dinner & drinks. When we first arrived at the place, I thot, "Wow! look at the nice church building." I was surprised when he turned in and parked the car. Turns out that this is not a church (well, it was a convent, it was previously The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus), it's now a trendy mix of makan place, watering hole & retail outlets. Very interesting concept. You can check out their website to see the full list of Retail and F&B outlets. Kinky. We proceeded to Balaclava after that. My bro and our collegues can really drink. Apparently there's this online publication called mumtazz that took our photos that nite.

Shot of CHIJMES


@ Balaclava with Des, Wee, CS & I (pic taken by Mumtazz photographer)

And on the final day, after we're done with the exhibition, we headed over to Sin Lim square. I wanted to check out the price of the Treo 650 to see how much cheaper it is over there compared to KL. One of the shops gave me a deal I couldn't refuse, my browsing turned purchase. I bought the limited Blue edition. It was a good deal at SGD920. I get an extra battery, screen protector, an extra stylus, a casing, a 256MB MMC Card & also a bluetooth headset. With this phone, I can finally send my old Treo 600 in for repairs.

My Treo Blue edition; Allure Sport

Once we reached the Penang Airport, I rushed over to the Duty Free shop to get my fragrance. Raine picked us up and we headed for Bah Kut Teh. Yummy, then received a call from Jack. Apparently they were suppose to fly to JB tonite, but they missed the flight. So we met up at Starbucks to share our sad stories. :)
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My Random Thots:

After a few drinks, the topic of women comes up (surprise, surprise):

Wee philosophized,"For the guys, beautiful, smart & loyal, you can have any 2 combination in a lady."

My thought for the ladies, handsome, rich and loyal, unfortunately they can only have 1 in their mate.

378. Manic Monday

So it's off to a busy start. Had to clear everything before flying off to S'pore later.

Rushed to the airport to check in at about 4:30ish. Everything going well. Raine came to see us off and while at the waiting Hall, was contemplating whether or not to buy Channel's Allure fragrance since mine's running low. Dowan to be smelling like sweat when meeting customers now do I. Tried Allure Sport, quite like it. I've been using Allure & Egoiste Platinum for a number of years now. Guess it's time for a change. I'll go over to S'pore and see if the perfumes there are any cheaper.

Touched down in S'pore and met our counterpart. Checked into our hotel (this time, at least the hotel was decent unlike the previous trip where we had to stay in Hotel 81) & had dinner at a makan place appropriately named "Chomp Chomp".

After dinner, we adjourned to Coffee Bean nearby for coffee and he briefed us on the latest development in our S'pore office and the new projects they're undertaking. Very enlightening.

377. Sick sunday

Didn't feel too well the whole day, so stayed in until later in the evening. Cannot tahan d. Have to go somewhere and do something. Even if just to go out for a drive. But decided to go watch a movie instead. Watched "The Sentinel", pretty good movie. I had a low expectation of it, thought it's the typical plot. Wrong man accused ala Harrison Ford in the Fugitive (It wasn't me! It was the one armed man, I tell u!) of planning the assasination of The President of the United States. Bla bla bla. It's nothing to shout about, but entertaining. Just the escape I needed for a boring Sunday.

Tomorrow will be a very hectic day with our flight to Singapore at 6pm. That means a full day at work and then rushing to the airport.

376. Sicker

But after a dose of 1000mg vitamin C and some sleep, feel a lot better. Adrian's house alarm was triggered and went over to check it for him. Everything is alright, so we head over to MPower to check on Chong's car.

That followed with dinner at Passion of Kerala. We're the only table there, so the service was excellent. Because we're all so hungry, I got a tad greedy and asked for more rice. I've never seen a pile of rice so high before :O even more surprising, I managed to finish it.

After that, Jack called so we head to meet him at Chef & Brew. Then it's back home for more rest.

Did managed to paint the remaining 2 layers on my helmet in the afternoon. Rather pleased with the result. :)

The final result

The reason I love this helmet; the faceplate can be lifted to become an open face helmet

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My Random Thots:

Suppose to be sound asleep now, but my blocked & runny nose is keeping me awake. It's now 430am and I'm still awake. My mind goes awandering and I figured if I don't "pen" my thots down, I'll probably forget them come morning light.

One of the reasons why I blog is to keep my memories, without which, I might as well not have lived. Lived as I may, but morality determines what kinda life I lived. Hmmmm, I wonder if I'm making sense. :P Anyway, people tell me morality is directly related to one's belief in God. I'd like to suggest that morality is directly related to how human you are. What differentiates us from other animals, some argue intelligence, others opposable thumbs, me? Morality.

For those who don't struggle with morality, congratulations! Whatever your religion advocates, be it heaven, nirvana or higher state of consciousness, you're on your way there.

In my humble life, I've been tempted many times, be it just to take a peep at the answer my neighbor has for question 5 in the exam hall, peep at a porn site and progressively serious stuff. The thing is, with every step you take towards the dark side, the next becomes easier. The question is when's the next step after which I lose my humanity and are no different from animals? Hopefully I've not cross that boundary and will never have worry about ever nearing the threshold. But only time tell and the people around me know. Is there a way to redeem points? To ammend my wrongs? To have it all forgiven......but then again by who? Perhaps therein lies the charm of religions. Miracle cure (pun intended).

MORALITY as defined by Dictionary.com

375. Sick!

Down with flu :( Well, I'm just gonna stay home and paint my helmet anyway. After a while, got bored of it and head up to Batu Ferringhi to get some DVDs and talk a walk. Hope I get well before my trip to S'pore. Hate travelling when not feeling well. Especially with the recent bird flu scare, bet people will look at me funny if I keep sneezing in the flight :D

My current project, the first coat of flat black, another 2 to go

On the way back home from office, caught this photo when I was waiting for the lights to turn green. This is typical all over Malaysia. Makes you wonder what's the use of the dumpster. I've seen people driving by and just attempting to dunk their rubbish. Guess they don't realise that they're no Michael Jordan or Larry Bird. Their dunks & 3 point throws suck big time. I bet there's more rubbish all around than actually in the dumpster. I've also seen a site near my house where there's trash all around a sign that reads, "Di larang membuang sampah di sini, denda RM500" (Do not litter here, Fine RM500). The council will come clear up the trash and put up the sign, guess what, a week later, there's a mountain of trash there. Guess as long as it's not their backyard, they'll continue to throw their rubbish there. Sigh! Malaysia Boleh!

374. My dad's b'day

It's my dad's b'day today, so we decided to have dinner to celebrate. We went over to Foong Yean at Jalan Tengah. Dunno if it's me down with flu or the food were just normal. Wasn't as good as I remembered it to be. Oh well, that was that. After dinner went back to stripping the paint off my helmet. I'm respraying it flat black. :D I just need something to occupy my free time :P

Yo! Yo! Yo! A pic of ma main man, Isaac in the car

373. Eat snake

Met up with Ed, Chris, Lau & Ann at Gurney plaza in the afternoon (left work earlier) and after that we're off to 3 Guys @ E-Gate to meet Ramen, Lewis & Alan for dinner and a few drinks. Had a good time catching up with them. Left at about 10ish. Wanted to go for ladies nite at Flix, but figured against it as they need to head back to Ipoh. Good for me too, I can call it an early nite.

Chris & Ed; The torch

Bought a torch to burn up carbon deposits for when my spark plug fouls. :D This will make the job of cleaning it up easier.

372. Long nite

We had to go over to O'Reileys after work for a drink. We were there till about 12ish and had to drive Wee & Pat back to his hotel coz both of them had a wee bit too much to drink.

On the way to Parkroyal, Wee had an inspiration, "Why don't we head over to Soho?"

Pat agrees and off we went. Ed and gang is in town as well because it's the Sultan of Perak's b'day tomorrow, so they get tomorrow off. I told them that we're headed to Soho and we can meet up there if they fancy.

It was good to see them Ipoh brudders again and after all the chatting and supper and sending Pat back to his hotel, it's already 4am.

371. Easter Sunday

RGBC church; the line for the Ice Cream

Hoorah! the Lord is risen. Which means I have to rise early too :)Picked up Adrian and off to church we go. The usual Easter stuff (Special presentations, water baptisms, preaching, lunch and ice cream thrown in for good measure). After church, we're off to Sushi King @ E-Gate. Then off to One Stop to get some DVDS and computer goodies.

When got there, the DVD shops were closed. Apparently there are raids planned by the ministry. How do they know? Hey, this is Malaysia ok, the land where they can fix even the English Premier League. Anyway, so we went shopping for computer stuff. Also looking for a camcoder and might even consider getting a pair of perscription glasses for me eyes.

After looking around, nothing catches my eyes. So we went over to Gurney Plaza to meet up with the others. We tried to look cool at Starbucks while waiting for them couples to finish their shopping. Tony is coming to town and we're having dinner at Bali Bali in Farlim. Haven't been there for a long time. The food is still good. Lovely. Then it's back to lala land. I can't believe I survived the whole day with only 4 hrs of sleep. *Yawn*

370. Underground Band

Went for dinner and live band performance at Church Street Cafe. The food was pretty good, but for a place that's trying to promote live bands, the sound system and setup was crap! And I mean really crap! The MC was very unprofessional and even got the band names wrong. There were 6 bands playing. Citizen of Ice Cream was good. I only sat thru 3 bands before my ears started hurting and I called it quits. The sound setup was so bad that u can't hear the vocals, the lead guitar is too loud and you can't even hear the drums clearly. Sigh.

Church Street Cafe, too bad the sound system didn't do the bands justice

Then went over to meet up with the guys at a steamboat place opposite Tari Cafe. As I've already had my dinner, just joined them for drinks and also Anthony made a caramel custard dessert. After that adjourned to Starbucks at Island Plaza. But they close at about 12ish, so it's an early nite. Good thing too since I need to rise up early tomorrow for Easter service.

Anthony's dessert

369. Good Friday

Today is Good Friday. What's so good about today? Well, if I'm in S'pore or Australia or any other country that declares today as a public holiday, it'll be better, but today is good becoz Jesus died and on Easter Sunday, he will rise again....also the easter bunnies will lay chocolate eggs and hide them. Hmmmmmm.

Like all good *ahem* Christians, went to church cell group meeting at Sally's house. Was pretty good. After that, suppose to go for movie at Gurney Plaza, but due to lukewarm response (all the guys weren't keen on it), ended up at Haagen Daaz for ice cream. Was a rather early nite.

368. Full house

Mom's back from China. Wee & Raine is back from Cambodia and Fen is also back from staying over at her sister's place. So everyone is back home and the house is alive again :) Wee and Raine got me a T-Shirt and a tie from Cambodia. I would've prefered them USD2 lonely planet books Bee Hong was telling about. :)

367. Headed home

Basically went to KLCC for some shopping and head back to Penang. We stopped by Ipoh for Ngah Choi Kai. Twas nice. We reached Penang about 10ish and knocked out after unpacking. :)

366. Sepang track day

Reached KL last nite and immediately disaster struck. My exhaust was leaking. So had to get that fixed. Problem was it's too late a nite and they can't do it. Arrrggghhhhh!!!!!!! I'm left carless! Darn it, after coming all the way here.

Lena took pity on me and offered her Kancil. I initially thot against it as I might ruin her car. Alas, temptation was too great. I'll baby her car on the track, as long as I get to go on track and learn the lines. Chong offered his car to me as well, but I turned it down (though very reluctantly) coz I figured he'd want to enjoy the track too. Appreciate the gesture though.

Well, woke up bright and early and headed over to the Dengkil rest stop to meet up with all the guys, then headed to the Sepang F1 Circuit. Didn't know what to expect, especially that now I'm driving a kancil :)

We reached the circuit and immediately registered ourselves. We're allocated 3 sessions for the day. About 15mins each with an hour breaks in between. As it turned out, I had a really good time. It was well organized and everything went smoothly. I'd definitely do this again. Seems like the next session is in June. :)

All of us at the track:
(Standing L-R))Dennis, Jack, Adrian, Chong, Lai, Roy, Nicholas
(L-R) Me, Tony & Wood


Me a.k.a The Track Clown; Chong getting ready to go out on track


Some of the guys lining up to get on track

Got back to Sunway area at 3ish, collected my car from the workshop. It costs me RM420 just for them to screw in a screw. Screwed I was. Apart from being the track clown (everyone wanted to take photo with my kancil), the RM420 bill became the joke of the day. One day, I'll be able to look back at this and laugh.....one day....some day.

We had dinner at Marché Movenpick, was really looking forward to the hearty meal after a long day. At nite, the guys decided to party at the Loft. I had enough fun for today already, so I'll pass. Some of us just decided to chill at Starbucks. After that, we just walk over to our hotel.

Dinner @ Marché Movenpick, The Curve; Wood molesting Marche's maskot :)

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My Random Thots:

Well, did 3mins 30secs on the track, not exactly blazin time, but pretty darn good for a kancil. :) Was really glad that I went ahead anyway. Didn't think I'd have as much fun as I actually did. Thanks Lena for loaning me your car. Thanks to Chong also for offering and the rest of the guys who had to wait with me while I get my car sorted out. Overall, this was a really pleasant trip. Oh, I'd like to thank God, my mom, all my friends and people who believed in me......bla bla bla.

365. 150,000km done


Finally did 150,000kms on my old work horse. 6yrs, 150,000kms and still going strong!

364. Woo Hoo!!!!!

3 more days before Sepang track day :) looking forward to it.

Mom left this morning for China. She'll be away for a week. Sigh, no more home cooked food for the time being. Wee & Raine will be leaving tomorrow to Cambodia. Then Dad will leave over the weekend to China. Fen will be staying with her sis, since mom's not around to take care of Ruyi. I'm going to KL this weekend, so that leaves Seng all alone to take care of the house and the dogs :D Boy, it's gonna be quiet.

363. Cheng Beng

Didn't sleep at all last nite as we have to leave 430am to my hometown. Took naps in the car, but it wasn't be enough to keep me fresh. Managed to take some interesting shots while at the cemetery, including one of the Mystical Lions. The day started with a nice sunrise, by the noon it was getting cloudy, but it didn't rain at all. It was a good day to pay respect to my ancestors. Visited some relatives too before we left. Stopped by Nibong Tebal for a late lunch.

The Mystical Lion guarding my grandparent's (mom's side) grave

After we got back from Cheng Beng, took a nap and headed over to Sally's place to celebrate Adriel's b'day. Got him a little something from Gurney Plaza last nite. It's a Magic trick set - The Chain Escape, it's a set which includes everything you need to escape from having your hand's chained. Haven't got a demo of the set yet as Adriel still haven't figured it out.

Adriel opening his presents

After opening all his presents; figuring out the magic trick set

Oh, the front of their house is now a bus stop. I thot it was funny and made Yat Por pose in front of it. :) But according to them, the bus only comes around once a day. So whoever's using this bus service will probably take this bus to town, spend the nite there and come back the next day :D

362. April Fools Day!!!!!!!

U know what, have been rather busy with work and also was looking forward to the evening plans (though still uncertain), totally forgot that it's april fool's day. Strangely no one mentions anything about today being april fool's day too. Am I that detached from reality? Hmmmmm.

Anyway, after work, got home and decided to wash the car. After that it's off to watch Lucky number Slevin on Wee's suggestion. He saw it with Raine the nite before. He liked it. I agree, it was a good show. The build up is confusing and takes a bit to figure out. Half way thru the show, we see people leaving the cineplex. Guess it's either to slow or confusing for them. Whatever the case, I enjoyed the show.

While at Gurney Plaza, dropped by MPH. Tening sent me some gift certificates as my B'day present. Finally decided on what to buy with the "money". Money well spent. "Car Hacks & Mods for DUMMIES" actually contains a lot of information which I took for granted. :) (Thanks T, u're gonna sign the book the next time I see u)

And then the nite activity starts. Initially, wasn't even sure if it was gonna be on. But everything was confirmed later in the evening. So met up with the guys at Flix 11ish. It was basically a guy's nite out. Only 2 brought their gfs out & oddly, 1 had his dad with him. :D Guy bonding I guess. Had fun. We left about 3ish.

Me, Chong & Anthony; On the right most is Felicia, Flix's boss/boss' daughter (whatever title u wanna put on her)