Selamat lemangku, selamat rendangku~
Semoga berpanjangan nikmat dari-Mu~

So yeah, Selamat Hari Raya to everyone! Mohon maaf zahir & batin for all that I’ve done or said that may or may not have offended you.

Memories of the days coming up to Raya have been a blur. But there was definitely a lot of eating involved before, during, and after Raya. Here’s a quick summary:-

• Sahara Tent again on Tuesday with Fai-chan,
• A lot of lontong and rendang 1st day of Raya,
• 10(?)-course Chinese dinner at Merv’s wedding at the Renaissance (if anyone remembers what we had, please post it up),
• More rendang and lemang and nasi impit over the next few days,
• legendary kuih kacang and nasi tomato at Fai-chan’s, and finally
• lamb shank at Food Foundry Petit with Fai-chan.

Tis also the season of children. There’s always at least one cute kid or baby around when we went visiting, from the newly born to the constantly chatty. We had tons of children running around the first day, and it was rowdy in a nice way. ^_^

Wasn’t able to spend as much time as I’d like with Fai-chan during the fasting month, but I’m hoping to make it up after. While the things we do together many not seem exciting to some, but I feel very at ease with her like <insert flowery clause here>, and I hope she feels the same way. Of course there’s so much more that can be said about my feelings for her, but let’s just leave it at that for now.

Someone recently complained my blog has gone all mushy. Sorry dude, but you’ll have to live with it.

Yep, raids are off for me till Raya. There’s just so many things to do before hand. All the cleaning, the eating, the dating, and yet I haven’t really had the chance to maximise the latter activities.

Just within these 2 days, I’ve had to turn down 4 outings: Thursday dinner w/ Fai-chan, Thursday dinner w/ colleagues, Friday dinner w/ a vendor, and Friday salsa with the YKLS’ians. But tis all for a good reason, staying home and keeping my mom company (i.e. obey her cleaning schedule).

Come to think of it, I’ve been out so much this year, compared to last. Most of the time with Fai-chan, of course <nyaa =^-^=>. Still, there’s another week of yummy buffets to ‘raid’, and I’ve yet to hear any high school/primary school buka puasa reunion plans (hope they didn’t forget to call me >_<). No confirmation yet on buka puasa with Tiff and Fish either.

Oh well, think I’ll just worry about the weekend for now. Have to make plenty of trips to the pasar tani for ketupat and rendang orders, the grocer, PKNS for misc food and clothes, and Masjid India for cloth. And of course, lots of cleaning in between. There’s gonna be a lot of trash coming out of the house the next few days. ^_^;

And I still haven’t picked up a new hard drive for the server. Gotta slot that in somehow. On the other hand, Fish and I will be ordering our soundcards from Newegg earlier than expected, to take advantage of a rebate offer. <3 cuzzies for helping us out. ^_^

Gold Coast post is finally up. See previous post. ^_^ The pictures are supposed to be thumbnails, but somehow WPG2 decided to show the mid size versions instead. They’ve been scrunched in to fit the theme, but oh well, just click on em to see how it’s supposed to look like. Can’t add captions either, cuz G2′s edit photo options aren’t working somehow.

The visual editor for WordPress seems to be working fine again. Co-authors, feel free to enable it again in your profile to give it a go.

I now have a second monitor plugged in, so that I can chat on MSN and WoW at the same time. WoW now runs in maximised windowed mode, so that my mouse can actually leave the WoW area onto the 2nd display. I lose some FPS, but hey, it’s worth it. ^_^

Saturday night, Fai-chan and I, Shogun!
Yippie yay whoopie! Food for you and me!
Sashimi, tenpura, konyaku~ Kimochi datta yoo~
Sono ato de, karaoke! Minna ooki koe de!
Tanoshikatta yo~ Mou ichido, let’s go!

Life without Phoenix has been interesting. A lil boring, but interesting nonetheless. Finding myself in the living room much more often, on my sister’s old notebook sitting on the dining table. Strategically placed such that I can see whatever’s going on in the room and easily make comment on any funny thing that can happen. Although lately, the receiving end seems to be me, what with my slapstick antics before imsak. @_@

Doesn’t help that we’ve unsubscribed to Astro’s Variety package. Channel selection would usually be on AXN. And even that is usually short lived, as my mom has veto power over the TV set. I admit, Korean dramas can be very nice. But no, not going to sit down there and watch all of them.

Thankfully, I’ve received a care package from Fai-chan. X, Perfect Blue, Cinta, and the Ringu novel. Am now about 1/3 through the book, and it’s been very engrossing. Even having watched all the movies, reading this really gives some added perspective and insights into the characters’ feelings… especially their fears. Except Ryuji of course.. he’s just mad. Was actually planning to watch Cinta with my mom, but I surprised that she declined with the reason being it was too soppy. In fact, her reaction was very amusing. Imagine a contorted face with the exclamation “bleah!” Guess I’ll layan it myself.

Speaking of Fai-chan, we had dinner at Prime right before puasa started. The food was absolutely divine, and the ambiance totally immersive. I had the Black Angus filet mignon, medium rare; she had the Argentinian filet mignon, medium well. Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuicy! But I’ve to admit, there’s only so much rare meat you can take in a sitting… medium would’ve probably hit the spot a bit more. We had clam chowder as an appetizer and that too was fantastic! Totally beats down the stuff you can find in San Francisco. We were also quite captivated with the presentation of things. The salt shaker, especially, were given honorable mentions.

So we spent most of the evening talking about stuff. Work, our families, our expectations in life. Sharing anime jokes. Poking fun at each other. I really love her company. You’ll never see me talk so much, or listen intently to any other conversation. Tis great to actually find someone in your life with so many similar interests. On the other hand, I’m not much of a conversationalist, so I guess I’ll have to work on that somewhat.

That’s it for now. I’m going to go take advantage of the pre-dawn darkness, and get cuddly with Sadako.

guys, let’s go here: Cava

colleague review:
main course
do try the prime ribs, bake cod serve with pasta, pealla is rice dish from Spain (serve 2)
tapas:- they do serve escargot,Spanish lamb boulette is very good
desert:- Chocolate Dream, i think this is the name, just describe it’s the hot crusted outer layer chocolate cake with melting chocolate inside.. the chef may need 20 mins to prepare. Most gals just dying to eat this even they had their dinner elsewhere. Trust me, if you are not going to eat dinner there, just order this as dessert, sit there and u love it man!

or here: Opus Bistro

colleague review:
(next door, same management but different kitchen)
i know u like seafood but dont order seafood antipasti platter.. i dunno.. i dont like it.
try the cod fish – with lemon caper sauce – fantastic!!!
wayu beef is superb – imported beef which was specially massaged, texture is so good, very tender & juicy ..yumm..
Set lunch is only 18++ – drinks, main course & dessert
dont worry! it’s halal, the chefs in both restaurant are malays.
U will see lots of datuk there.. and sometimes celebrity like models & actress or miss malaysia. I have seen bernard chandran’s sister there… err.. what’s her name?! Best time to go is on Friday and Sat.

food! food! food!

had a heng tai dinner with ka seong on saturday night at a restaurant in paramount. had my lil bro’s b’day dinner with my dad at chilis 1u on friday night. there’s definitely something wrong with their consistency. at times, the food and service would be alright. that night the service was ok, but the steak my dad ordered was raw. meh. overall i think they’re getting worse.

met up with ervan on sunday for lunch. altho technically i didn’t have lunch cuz my mom already bought nasi lemak for breakfast (which i ate at 12.30). talked abt lots of stuff, mostly industry-related. very tempted to join the private sector now. we met at pan’s bakery at pj new town. the food and drink are standard, but the service was good and their waiters honest. i accidentally drop an rm10 note and they returned it.

two pigeons have somehow migrated to the condo. some idiot must’ve thought they’d be good for the scenery. wrong! they’re totally messing up my balcony, destroying our plants and leaving their poop all over. have to write a letter to the committee and mgmt soon, before someone falls sick. i’m tempted to poison them myself. or better yet, drop them with a pellet gun.

so, anyone got a spare pellet gun i can borrow?

public holiday on friday! so what do i do? go for courses the entire week. on monday i was at bangi. from today till thursday i’ll be in kompleks antarabangsa learning SAP’s data archiving capabilities. not easy being a student again. man, i sound old.

cuzzies are coming up good friday weekend. mostly for shopping i suppose. hemlocke’ll be leaving for the US soon, so i should get her something before then. i also owe ichaya a b’day present, but i’ve something special in mind which will hopefully come thru, but it’ll take a long while longer.

but that means a weekend less of wow. ah, wow. lots of things happening on there. did Sunken Temple with a very good group. had a resto druid doing the healing so i was free to dps all the way. picked up [Rod of Corrosion] and [Vestments of the Atal'ai Prophet]. party chatter was lively, cuz everyone was picking fun at each other. especially the resto druid, who was in Tree of Life form. kinda ironic how a treant is skinning dragons for leather.

also got an invite for Blackrock Depths. i was a bit low for the place but the fella insisted, said he’d help with the healing. we didn’t get far. wiped a few times before the Golem Lord, and the party just disintegrated after we aggroed all the merrymakers at the bar. so yeah, will level first and do it again for quests. gotta do ST again for Hakkar too.

but i gotta say, the scenery inside Blackrock Mountain is just amazing. i felt so miniature in comparison. we even had to walk across a chain link to get to the instance entrance.

have also been grinding in Alterac Valley in between instances. managed to get quite a few external quests done, but i still need the level to do some of the more important ones. 35 more marks before i get my swift mount. also picked up [Cold Forged Hammer] for winning my first round. it’s been good actually.. i think we’ve won like.. 3-4 times within the two days i’ve been playing.

now at level 53. 17 more to go! but before that i should try and get my [Leech Pants] replaced. >< a shaman on the BRD group offered [Dalewind Trousers] but i wasn’t willing to pay 15-20g for it (auctioneer price was 10g, so i offered 8g and he laughed ).

as always with the gang, we always find occasions to eat our fill. be it the roadside stall or some fine dining, our activities always revolve around food. good food, of course.

this time we tanked up at the boathouse restaurant in taman tun. it’s on the same row as muhibbah. the place is run by merv’s acquaintance, or ex-employee, or something. the food was awesome. most of us had pasta, but az had some lamb (he’ll have to tell us what the name of the dish was), and i and viv had gratinated tenderloin with cafe du paris butter served on a bed of honey … carrot slices. even the broccoli that came with it tastes good! merv had some chicken.

ambience was nice, and loved the background mariachi-like music.

movies watched since last movie update:-
Flushed Away – nice feel good movie.
Little Miss Sunshine – another nice feel good movie. i’d love to follow grandpa’s advice, but i don’t see it happening.

same goes for this quaint little town in Pahang called Temerloh. takes 2 hours to get here from KL northwards via highway, and i can talk abt it being next to the huge Sungai Pahang, but it’s not that much of a deal.

the best thing about Temerloh is its specialty dish: Ikan Patin Gulai Tempoyak! we found this nice place next to the river, and next to a sewing shop, that serves this every lunch hour.

ikan patin is basically a type of fish that’s quite big and can be found in this river. some of us call it a naughty fish cuz it eats everything, hence its size. you usually find its meat steamed or simmered, never fried, cuz it’s too soft and flaky.

tempoyak is fermented durian. durian is the king of fruits here in malaysia, for taste and ‘nasal impression’. tempoyak tastes great, especially with sambal belacan. but for most, it’s an acquired taste.

ikan patin + tempoyak = bliss. every time i balik kampung to Raub for a kenduri, they’ll always have it! and here in Temerloh is where the main ingredient comes from. our group of 6 cleaned out 3 bowls of it. should’ve eaten more, cuz now that i’m back, i yearn for more…

cuzzies and relatives visited from Singapore, and we had fun with the limited time we had. loitered around in the morning having breakfast, reading, and chatting before they had to leave for a wedding. spent some time then doing SFK. at night we younglings spread our wings and flew to The Curve for good overordered food and shopping. got myself a book for my upcoming roadshow. the rosti at Marche is good as usual, but the beef pepperoni sausages were a bit too much. sauteed mushrooms also ftw.

Sunday
Cuzzies!
Briyani
Star Movies

traveling day. could only spend the morning with my relatives and cute cuddly niece. by 12.30 Sue picked me up to go to the office, and then to Haz’s housewarming in Puchong. she had hired our usual office caterers, Asyura; they make a mean briyani. there were also sweet butterfly-decorated cupcakes, and moist choc cake. and those prawn crisps junk food we used to eat when we were young.

after eating we headed on to Muar for the first day of the roadshow on Monday. the group was feeling too lazy to go out and look for Mee Bandung, so we just had Kak Ita’s leftover mee goreng that her mom had made. i was planning to read the books i brought but there were good shows on tube, e.g. the original Poseidon, and National Treasure. oh, and we stayed at the Classic Hotel. rooms were great since they were recently refurbished.

Monday
The Giver
Academy Awards

started reading The Giver, which i found resting on a bookshelf at home. i’d always wanted to buy this, but i guess i don’t have to now. by this time, we were already in Melaka, staying at this old hotel called Emperor. it’s so old, the elevator buttons reminded me of the ones you might see in black and white movies. creepy place.

there wasn’t much on TV too, except for the Academy Awards. NTV7 did a great injustice to viewers by mutilating the show. what’s the point of watching if you can’t catch the presenters’ jokes and the performances lined up in between? argh. luckily we got a somewhat-stable tranmission of Singapore’s channel 5. but they only started at 10pm, and we were really sleepy by the time they got to best actress in a leading role.

at least i finished the book. hate these kind of endings.

Tuesday
Discovery Channel
Belgariad: Pawn of Prophecy
Newsweek

we’re in PD now, staying at our company condo. nice place, well maintained. has a nice pool, and it’s right next to the beach. but no, none of us got ourselves wet, except for Sue on Sunday morning. i might be imagining it, but the PD beaches seem a little cleaner than before.

wasn’t much on TV except a special on volcanoes on Discovery. HBO was showing crappy old movies. so it was back to reading. finished the 1st book of the Belgariad, which i bought on saturday. it didn’t have an ending, so i guess i’ll have to get the other 4 books.

Wednesday

i’m hoping to WoW a lot today.