Greetings from Malaysia

I flew down to Malaysia on the 25th of November via Jetstar. You'd think you'd get pretty crap services and facilities with the budget airline, but it is quite decent. I only paid $240 for a one-way flight.

Flight was smooth and had no issues at all. I bought a book at the airport which I was planning to read on the plane, but ended up just watching movies and sleeping.

So what have I done so far ever since I touched down? Eat eat eat. :S

Food here is soooo cheap that it's hard to say no to seconds. I've been having mamak & chinese food mainly.

Also I've been fishing with my highschool friends at some man made pond in Sri Petaling. Costs around RM23 for 4 hours on Mondays. We ended up fishing for 8 hours hehe. I didn't catch anything though, so unlucky. My friend caught a 3kg pachu fish and we traded it for two 2kg patin fish.

I've also been doing a little bit of shopping. Not as much as I want though. Only bought a pair of boxers so far. Will be going to Lowyat today to buy a bunch of electronic goodies.

Not sure if you've been to a pub called Wabisabi here. Had beers with friends there last night. Gosh, it is soooo expensive! RM42 + 10% surcharge for a jug of beer. I've always hated having alcoholic beverages in Malaysia because it is so expensive compared to Australia.

Well my reasoning was I'd rather eat 40 roti banjir instead, hehe :P

Anyways, if any of you want my Malaysian number, just send me an email and I'll get back to you.

And you thought you've heard everything...

until this guy gets caught having "sex" with his bicycle. WTH?!?! Seriously, the perverseness that you come across nowadays is just ridiculous.

Cleaners of a hostel caught the guy with a singlet and naked waist down, holding his bike and moving his hips back and forth. The 51 year old bachelor claimed he was drunk.

Read more here.

Squirrel Fight!

I love their fighting stance and agility.

It's Cooking Time!

I decided to cook something tonight and flicked through HungerHunger's blog and discovered Steamed Chicken With Chinese Ham n Mushrooms!

Now the only deviation I did from the recipe was that I used normal soy sauce because I couldn't find light soy sauce, and I used normal bacon because I had no clue where to find ham that's asian. Also I used chicken thigh only because I couldn't be stuffed cutting up a whole chicken. Besides, I was only cooking for two: myself and my sister.

Oh, I'm not sure whether the chicken was corn-fed though. Didn't get a chance to ask it. Anyways, I followed the recipe and mixed it all into a bowl. Refrigerated for an hour.


Now the mixture was smelling bloody good and I was kinda proud of myself. Everything was going good until I came to the cooking part. A huge stumbling block for me, but perhaps not for others.

The instructions said "Steam at high heat for 25 to 30 min. Serve hot with plain rice". Me being a guy, didn't really understand this in full detail because I need step-by-step instructions. I wondered to myself, "How on earth will I steam this without the sauce dripping away?". I didn't think this through thoroughly and so I proceeded with the assumption that you're meant to simmer it. Oh how wrong I was!

Now I think the correct way is to place it on a heat tolerant plate or pan, and place it into a pot of steaming water and steam it! Aha, why didn't I think of this earlier?!?

Another huge mistake was not doing it in a non-stick pot. If you see the picture above closely, you'll see that the bottom is burnt and the food is stuck as well. I must say the aroma still smelt nice though!

The end result?

I didn't bother decorating and positioning the food in a presentable way because I was about to devour it in a few minutes.

The verdict? Very niiiiceeee...



Ignore the head piece and don't ask why.

Boring 22nd

Happy birthday to me!

Anyways, was a pretty boring day for me. Woke up 9sih cos Sahar called me. Then had a dentist appointment at 12pm. After that I played dota all afternoon pretty much, hehe.

After getting sick of dota, I bugged my sister and then went outside to do a bit of weights under the sun. Man, really need to get into the workout routine again. It's been a while.

Dinner at Big Johns with family and cousin. Then got a call from my girl to pick up my present from abercrombie.

Here it is!


Thanks princess! :) Funny message though on the card, hehe.

"I did not know" - Yahoo acting dumb

Chief executive Jerry Yang said his firm had always been open with Congress and that it was "fully committed to protecting human rights".

Mr Callahan said then that he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao - who was jailed for 10 years - but it has since emerged that other Yahoo employees had a document stating it was to do with the "suspected illegal provision of state secrets".

"Yahoo claims that this is just one big misunderstanding," Mr Lantos said.

This is one funny article. If you didn't already know, Yahoo recently gave information to Chinese officials leading to the arrest of Shi Tao, and jailed 10 years for sending an email to a foreign website, warning journalists not to cover the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004.

Shi Tao's mother who was present at the hearing only received a silent nod from Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo and Michael Callahan, execute vice-president of Yahoo.

I guess Shi Tao's mother can be comforted from Yahoo's "I didn't know" defence which lead to her son's jail term, with a silent nod.

At least offer her monetary compensation, gosh. Oh wait, Google's owning you at the moment. Gotta save every penny.

uncapped

woot, once again i rejoice at fast internet.

lay-Z-ness

Why is it so hard to do something so easy? Especially after what I've gone through. I have a 10 minute presentation worth 20% tomorrow. That's like 10 or so slides and rehearsing my speech a few times to get it in sync.

I've done 7 slides already but I think that's too many because I haven't even got into my main work yet. Terribly hard to condense the explanation of Ajax, Ruby on Rails and Web 2.0 into 3-4 minutes. Now the weather is gloomy and slightly chilly, ideal conditions to hibernate. Ok, wake up hong yi. You're sleeping in the computer labs again!

As I type, I begin to wonder. Wonder what's it like to rest my head upon my soft sheridan pillow.

Need I wonder for much longer?

Thailand anyone?

Ah it feels so good to be sorta free. Watched Rogue Assassin yesterday (crap), and The Kingdom today (good). Two movie in two days. Man I'm spoiling myself silly.

I'll be flying to Malaysia on the 25th of November for holidays and would want to go to Thailand, sometime in December or early January for about a week. So far the people who enlisted are:

• Me
  
• Suren aka thambi
• Sean

I know, not a very impressive list but I haven't really asked many people yet anyway. Not that I'm looking to run a contiki group to Thailand either.

Anyhoos, if you're keen to go Thailand during those periods, let me know k? Don't be shy.

[edit date="5/11/07"]

Newly acquired member(s):

1. Wern
   

Quick quick, don't be shy!

[/edit]

80% down, 20% to go

Woot! After 122 pages and 14,419 words, I'm finally done with my thesis. Stayed awake for 38 hours or so as well (sorry hy, not really keen to break your record).

Now all that's left to do is a 20% presentation on Tuesday and a work experience report to hand in before I graduate.

Can't wait.

Wings of Red Bull

I've stocked up on 2 cans of Red Bull to last me all night tonight. Yes, just two. Don't want to end up on the floor. That's the recommended intake anyway.

Another 14 hours till my thesis is due. 109 pages and 11,919 words so far.

"Victory!" - Viking Quest shout.

Its an entourage thing.

C'mon...nearly there!

It's 5.25am now and I've just finished my 90th page of my thesis. Due in another 34 hours. I still need to print and bind it as well.

So so tired. Can't wait till this is over.

Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus - Philippians 3:13-14

Feel like that now, hehe. Different from how Paul intended it to be though but nonetheless, handing in this thesis seems like a heavenly prize (but its not really!).