Gatherings and Reunion

Every year during the 2nd day of Chinese New Year, the Tang family will have our annual reunion dinner. Each of my father's siblings will take turn hosting the dinner (of course my aunt in KL didn't really get her chance as we were all too lazy to travel all the way to KL...she said she'd willingly host it tho if we want to go :P )

Back in those days when my grandma was still around, we would be gathering in Kulim every year but since she was gone, we started this 'rotational reunion' thing. It was quite nice first few years, when everyone actually made the effort to contribute to the potluck and steamboat but as years passed...things aren't just as nice anymore.

I wasn't alone in thinking that the reunion these few years seem lame and 'forced' as some families either worm their way out using lame excuses, or simply not making any effort during the dinner. One of my aunt has been 'absent' for 2 years straight, either because there's a newborn in the family, or they're expecting a newborn soon (like...in March =,= ) ....and that they'd be spending CNY in Singapore....when in the end they nicely planned to come back from Singapore RIGHT after our dinner. This, really pisses me off...but on the other hand, it is a nice drama for us as entertainment. See what 'alasan' she's gonna give next year, heh.

Last year, many of my aunts couldn't make it. One due to health reason and another 2 for 'newborn issue'....this makes the attending families 4/7. So...my other aunt kinda got pissed and suggested we go some fancy restaurant and eat instead. Food was great...so keke...your loss :P

Anyways...this year our reunion was...meh. Food was of little variety, venue was hot and uncomfy to sit and chat...so most of us pretty much just finished our meal and be on our way home...which was a bit meh. I remembered last time when the uncles stayed back and played mah jong or cards...earned quite a few bucks last time :P

Next year it's our turn to host the reunion...well...hope those aunts of mine dun keep bailing on us again -,- ...else the joke's really on them.

Pictures, later. Will be in Penang for these 2 days (going Pulau Jerejak tmr :D...and hopefully some shopping ;D ) before heading back KL then back Melaka...somehow I'm looking forward to the next semester...somehow :D

Happy Chinese New Year

Wishing you guys all a Happy Chinese New Year...happy moo moo year~

Seeing red at Mid Valley

QJ said: this is the first place that actually made me feel like CNY's approaching...

Hehe...indeed...with so much red-ness around...who wouldn't?

Not much of mall hopping for deco this time...not like Christmas. I've only seen Times Square, MV, The Curve's and Ikano's...and so far, methinks MV's is the best...althought Ikano's pretty pleasant and Curve's quite sweet too...but in terms of setting in the mood, you gotta give it to Mid Valley....especially when they have those lovely chinese orchestra music in the background (I hate those loud ones with lyrics...ugh)

Anyways...heading back to Penang tmr...meet up with Shindee (i hope) then join my sisters to go back home on the 23rd. CNY....lotsa food...lotsa cash...lotsa zzz-ing....hee!

In the span of 3-5mins I was there taking pics of these 'shrubberies', there must have been 5 ppl or so bending down and 'pinch' these cherries and then exclaim "Eh...its real wan wor!"....duh of course real wan la....

This is from Berjaya Times Square. Huge lanterns :P

Of misc outings

Random misc outings after Quj's finals and during my final weekends of internship :P

Gyoza and tori don (bbq) ...i think :P ...from Ichiban Boshi....no pics for the soba...cuz I ate it before I remember to snap any pics of it. Looks plain tho, but taste yum :P...gyoza was moderate tho (mine better..haha! :P)

Steven's at Mid Valley.....where San Francisco coffee was! Gah~...I loved that place...wonder if they opened a new lot anywhere nearby (at least there's still the kiosk)...

What's Steven's? Well....think of it as a semi-westernised mamak shop inside a mega mall...

With triple the price tag value too :P

Don't let this picture give u the wrong impression. I dropped by Mid Valley just last Sunday around 3pm...and it was bustling! It was full...much to our surprise! :P

What really made us go o.O? ...was this sign: They accept payment with Touch'nGo! Although....it took them considerable time to get the transaction thru...line disconnect or sumthing like dat... /shrug...

CNY's approaching...that means 1 thing for QJ: time for a haircut! lol! We decided to try out one of those 'speed-cutting' shops. 

Here's before the haircut...

Here's after! It was decent...not awesome but decent...

I think it was allright but, QJ's grandma and family was extremely happy...hee!

Of work and off work

As of last Friday, I'm officially 'jobless' again...hahaha :P ...I've finally finished my 12 weeks period of industrial training with Express ICT...We've (me and my fellow interns) been waiting for this day for a long time but for me, but when I was walking out of the office door for the last time...I have mixed feelings bout leaving.

Firstly, my boss is one awesome guy, we couldn't have asked for a better supervisor...then there's the job scope, which I actually really like. I have probably mentioned before that I've always wanted to learn about PHP and etc, but never know where to start...doing my internship here in ExpressICT, is like hitting 2 birds with 1 stone....and yes, I've picked up a lot on PHP and web hosting...and I'm really glad that I've been assigned there.

The only 'ugh' part about this job, is the unfamiliarity with new 'stuffs' and not knowing how to use them, best example being OSCommerce. OSC is a shopping cart system that many of our clients use in their website...so obviously, we had to deal with a lot of OSC related issues. Not only were we not familiar with OSC (we've each trashed at least 2 fresh installation of OSC before finally getting it to stay 'error-free' for further testing purposes), OSC has their own 'language' in their scripting which is not very easily understandable so modifying/customizing them is SUCH A PAIN...royally! I did get a few stuff my superior wanted me to do using OSC but evertime we had to do it, we all dread it. I wish my junior interns luck in taking over our place....they WILL need it.

We all thought it would be easier on us on the last week, since we needed to hand over our jobs to the newer interns. They're both not familiar with PHP (but one of them know html and the other knows mysql so its fine i guess :P ) and we didn't want them to 'langgar dinding' as much as we all did....but noooooooo....clients have to all call in at the same time and 2 of us were rushing to finish the minor changes here and there as per requested by our clients. The 2 interns either get to just 'lepak'....or they might have to do some script writing on the other leftover PC..but yeah...both me and my colleague agreed that our last week, was the worst, busiest one. Meh.

But well...all was well...and my big boss even treated us to this 8 course lunch (meant for CNY menu I'm sure) which cost a bomb (we joked that it was enuff to hire another one of us for a month) and stuffed ourselves silly....but too bad that my direct supervisor couldn't join us. Heck, he wasn't even around when we left on the last day so no pics of him :( ...meh. Ah well...

That's about work...now off work:

I've been surprisingly excited and curious over the upcoming expansion for Magic: The Gathering's Alara set (Nicol Bolas...woooo) and a conversation with Quj during my last trip back Melaka kinda made me wanna work on a mini-project of sort: a deck proxy generator. The first parts were quite easy. The form interface made me think awhile, as I'd want it to be user friendly, easy to use, and yet still flexible if you decide to write down your own card type. The database structure had to be modified a few times...random aprostrophes gave me quite a headache and wrong placement of while loop made me go Aaaaaaa....but as of last night.........I think I've gotten the whole thing up and running...only 2 things left to do now: fix the page printing (now it overlaps to the next page and the deck is sorta....cut off halfway) and fill the database with MTG's many many many cards ...that...is gonna take awhile....

I surprise myself getting so interested in Magic.... (no Quj, I'm still not playing for Nats >.<)

Nuffnang gave me 2 free movie tickets for tonight's show: Rise of the Lycans...yay...hope its good :P

Now back to my drama....~ Laters!

A little simple surprise

It took quite a bit of planning...and bits of risk here and there...and slight discomfort to lie to QJ just to keep the surprise a surprise. Well letting him know would have made things much easier but meh....don't want every single surprise I have for him to turn out to not be a surprise anymore just because its more practical and safe.

Last Friday after work, I made a surprise trip back to Melaka to pay QJ an extremely short visit. Tho it was short and a bit rush...and we didn't exactly do anything much...it made us feel extremely happy. He didn't expect me to be back in Melaka until after CNY, so when I reach the house he was really shocked. Especially when he thought I was in MPO with my sis at that time...sowie dear~ :P

Leaving the house to guys...I kinda expected it to be kinda messy. Thankfully the front was still quite neat but the kitchen... ^^; ...lets just say I got busy right after I came back (funny that I didn't mind a bit XP )...what surprised me was that the money-plant that QJ told me had died...actually survived! True, 2 of the stalks had kinda rotten off, but one of it was still quite healthy! I quickly changed its water, cleaned the vase and rinsed off the rotten leftovers, and added some wellgro into the water. Hang in there till I get back after CNY! I'll give u some proper nice direct sunlight then :D

The weather there felt nicer, the wind chillier and the water in the tanki (for shower) felt warmer...bed felt good :3 ...aaaa so syok. What was even nicer was the stroll along the quite road late at night (or rather very early morning) for supper-something I hadn't done in a very long time. And I missed the yong tau fu near our place. The 'rat tail' noodle here tasted so much better than the stall opposite my office...hmph! I can't wait to be back there again...somehow...eventho it means start of another semester...>.<

Was it worth the trouble to be back there for just a little more than 12 hours? Totally. :3

p/s: Currently working on a lil PHP project of my own. Kinda excited about it...hope it works out how it's supposed to :D

Movies in abundance

Just awhile ago I was complaining that there was simply nothing to watch...and nothing much (that I know of, anyway) to look forward to....then there was Madagascar2, Bolt, then Ip Man, The day the earth stood still, The Spirit, Australia...and a bunch other that I find quite interesting :DDD .....problem is....the lack of money and time to go watch....^^;;;

During the last trip to the big screens with QJ last Saturday, we saw the trailer for Underworld : Rise of the Lycans. I didn't know they were doing a 3rd film so it kinda made me go 'O.O another vampire film?' when I saw the trailer that day...hee! This would be the 3rd Underworld movie, and a prequel to the first 2. I remember going gaga over it last time with my friend, Sue-Ann (two of us being a bit crazy over Anne Rice and vampires then...hehe) and then getting our hopes soaked by wet blanket as the movie got tossed out by our dear Malaysian censorship board.....jeez....Well Ann, this time can go watch ade la! Hahaha :P

The Rise of the Lycans starts Jan 09...I've watched the first one and the 2nd one....wouldn't wanna miss this one too! :P (especially if its free...hee!)

The Last 10 Days

As much as the bunch of us are looking forward to the end of our industrial training, I just have to say that the last 10 days wun be as easy as we thought it would be.

To begin with, our company seem to have gotten a new guy (another branch) and has been emailing us everyday asking us to change this and that and rushing us to finish our projects. As much as I'd like to finish them all fast, all of us are just interns. Not only are we kinda short at manpower, our lack of experience with php coding as well as OSCommerce really doesn't help.

Starting this Monday, each of us interns will be assigned another new intern to be guided to take over our place, for both UG and Express. From what I heard, none of them are 'well versed' in php either (at least one of them that I've met last Friday knows photoshop and html so I guess she'll catch up pretty fast)...well...at least they know programming so that helps I guess.

Most of my friends have (and will) told me "New slaves!" but really...I don't really see that coming. As of last (shitty) Friday, my mailbox is trashed by my boss with urgent tasks, as well as tasks that is to be followed up as soon as I finish the urgent ones...I kinda think he forgot the other 2 interns existed just because they took the day off the other day...meh. So...how exactly are we gonna let them do some hands on training, if we ourself (being the blur and 'trial-and-error' us) need to rush those other tasks first? I'm talking bout 6 interns on 3 PCs...when you're supposed to be doing something that heavily (if not fully) depend on PCs and internet connection....well..I guess some ppl would say "Well at least u get to chill a little in betweens...."

The worst part of all this, having to share computer, also means I don't think I'll get to chat and surf as freely as I used to anymore for these last 10 days...well not that I do that very often either but... Pft...heck I haven't even had the chance to open my facebook last week...

Well I guess all this doesn't come without a brighter side of things:- at least after these 10 days, we won't have to be the ones dealing with the crap our current projects are throwing at us. Heh. All that being said tho, I actually do enjoy what I'm working on....well...minus the crap and the awful-toned emails and the bus waiting...and my boss is actually a very nice person.

Well...Happy Monday, people.

Chilled tofu with century egg and oyster sauce

Sis and I are crazy about tofu dish, simply because its so easy to cook and taste delicious! The other day, we went to this snack joint in Pyramid..I think it was Shilin. They had this dish on the menu. Being curious, sis ordered the dish and it was totally worth it...well not to say it was very cheap, but we kinda 'bought' ourself another new idea to add to our dinner menu :D

We attempted to recreate the dish with our own version and it tasted quite good.

Chilled tofu with century egg and oyster sauce 1 tube of smooth tofu (not the japanese tofu)
1 century egg
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
about 3-5 tbsp of water, depending on how think you'd like the sauce to be
spring onion for garnishing

1. Prepare the sauce. Mix the oyster sauce, sesame oil, sugar and water together. Heat them up on a saucepan until desired thickness and taste.
2. Slice the chilled tofu and arrange them on a plate.
3. Roughly chop the century eggs and garnish them on the tofu. Pour the sauce on top of this.
4. Garnish with spring onion and serve.

Hard Boiled Egg Sandwich

Sis made me some egg sandwiches the other day...and I simply loved it. It's one of those egg sandwiches you'll always see packed up nicely and sold in those convenient stores or cafes...always been wanting to know how to make them but never quite remember to find the recipes online or ask anyone :P Here's a rough recipe of those yummy sandwiches:

Hard Boiled Egg Sandwich

2 hardboiled egg
1 tbsp mayonnaise (can put more if you want but it made mine kinda a bit too sweet)
a dash of pepper
cucumber (those dark green types are good)
bread

1. Boil the eggs. 5 minutes should do the trick.
2. Mash and mix the eggs, mayonnaise and pepper in a bowl/container.
3. Spread butter onto bread, add cucumber slices and spread the egg mixture.

* You may serve the sandwich with tomato and cheese if you want.

Flowers at Home

Pictures taken from my house garden in Sungai Petani, using Olympus SP510UZ, Manual Zoom.
Wanted to learn how to use more of my camera's features. Still very underutilized, as it's a pro-sumer, not a point-and-shoot. I love taking outdoor pics with this baby :D


















I could never focus properly with AF for this flower, ever. Finally got a sharp pic of this :P














My favourite picture in this batch


My 2nd favourite....really love these two pics...although, I had to feed a lot of mosquitoes while taking this picture...dammit.





Not a flower... :P ...fliflaaa~

Happy New Year~

Honestly, New Year felt like any other day to me...well...except the fact that I didn't have to go work this morning la..haha! I actually woke up and terkejut when I stare at the bedside clock showing 11.11am and went like "SHIT SO LATE ADE" thinkin i'm late for werk....and then realising...'eh stupid....holiday la today' ...hahaha :D

2008 seem to have been a pretty sucky year for quite a lot of ppl I know. There's a number of blogs, facebook messages and etc they wrote that either say '2008 sucks' or that the year before that was better than last year. /shrug ....

Mine was pretty decent IMO. There wasn't anything spectacularly significantly awesome, but I remember a lot of happy times. Langkawi trip, moving in with QJ and the guys, multiple cooking 'projects'....many birthdays and BBQ parties...and of course the other small simple times I spend with Quj.. :P ....and my family. And oh yeah, my nieces :D Cute cheeky 2 year old niece and newborn Minn-Wern (cries all the time but is still pretty damn adorable when she isn't)....

So yeah...2008 has been pretty good a year for me.

Now lets rollback a bit to last year's Christmas :P

Christmas the other day was spent at home in SP...was pretty 'tame' cuz we were all damn tired/malas to go out buy groceries to masak sumthing. So end up, we went buy mee rebus/mee goreng from this local mamak stall that's really 'must try' if u're in SP. Gift opening at night, red wine....that was it. Could have been better but yeah....we all got lazy. Having to take care of those 2 kids kinda made everyone busy too...the chipmunk is too adorable to ignore. LOL! End up spending almost a week at home, which was very pleasant. Long extended holidays FTW! The downside of spending so much time at home is you might end up talking like a kid after awhile. Story story tell story...no no no no no no.....animals animals! I want to watch animals!...Buy another one! I duwannn I duwannn! ....it really gets to your head :P

Presents this year were pretty decent I suppose. Best one I've got (so far) was actually from Mum, who got me an Amy Beh recipe book... Actually made an effort to buy presents for everyone in my family this year since I'm paid and all....and glad that they seem to like them. :D

Pictures....are still in my camera. I'll get them processed today I suppose and try get them posted soon...erm... :P

On a totally different note, I'm supposed to be training 3 new interns tmr at work. Interns training interns...hahaha.....celaka part is my colleagues all took leave so I'm kinda stuck with them. My last 2 weeks at work would be....I dunno. I mean, how are 6 interns supposed to work on 3 computers, in an fully computer-internet dependant job? We'll see.