Month: May 2004

Free McFloat with Big Mac McValue Meal

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big mac mcfloat promo

I haven’t been to McDonald’s for a while…dropped in this afternoon
for a quick lunch after ironing out some annoying bugs and noticed that
McDonald’s has a promotion going on where you get a free soft serve top
up with every Big Mac value meal. It’s basically an upgrade of your
coke to a McFloat for no extra charge.

mcfloat meal

I’m rather partial to Spicy Chicken McDeluxe myself, but I thought,
why not, and got the Big Mac meal instead. I haven’t had one in ages
and I’ll need to start pre-loading for my Weekend Warrior Thing (TM).
😉 Big Macs sure tastes good after you haven’t had one in a while. The
coke float (or spider, as some people call it for reasons that escapes
my comprehension) was a welcome addition as well.

mcfloat stirred

I like ice cream with McDonald’s and this McFloat substitutes that
well. 🙂 Head down to McDonalds to take advantage of this promotion
where you get a McFloat for free with every Big Mac McValue Meal!

This post was sponsored by McDonald’s. 😉

Treasure chest

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treasure chest

A mysterious ancient treasure chest in the middle of nowhere! I
wonder what lies within! I did not get to find out though coz I’m
afraid of spiders and I have a feeling that the chest is likely to
contain several specimens of the larger kind. :p

Anyway, a good piece of news semi related to treasure is that I’ve
just been told by my CTO that my salary will be permanently increased
by 10%. This makes my base salary RM 2,200 effective immediately. 🙂
However, this means that I’ll have to shoulder more responsibility and
now I’m developing a custom software for the company, which is due in
two weeks, just in time for our first exhibition and a road show a
couple of days after that. I’m starting to bring back work to meet that
deadline, which results in less personal time, but hey, I don’t really
mind. RM 200 would be enough to cover my VPS (Virtual Private Server)
costs, so I can factor that out of my budget. =D

Another piece of good news is that one of my co-workers have invited
me to come along to his longhouse for Gawai celebrations, so I’ll be
indulging in copious amounts of alcohol, as is the tradition of the
harvest festival here. 🙂 They have this locally brewed wine called
tuak, which is nothing to sniff at – it has a high proof alcohol
content. Debauchery awaits!

Manly burgers

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man burger

This is Man Burger, a burger stall under the Satok bridge. It
remember that a bunch of us used to frequent this place for it’s fabled
RM 1 beef burgers when I was in college here. It was a bargain. I used
to attend Inti College in Kuching…come to think of it, I went through
two high schools and three colleges (apparently, I wasn’t exactly a
model student). I re-visited the stall again last night, with the same
bunch of friends and I sadly report that the RM 1 burgers have ceased
to exist.

manly burger ingredients

Thus, I decided to opt for the largest (and most expensive) burger – the manly Special Burger – an extravaganza which has beef patties, chicken patties and sausages with egg.

man burger cooking

The interesting thing about burger stalls here is that they all have
different implementations e.g. different sauces, methodologies and
such. This one cooks the egg a la egg banjo, i.e. in a round steel
container instead of spreading it out into a large thin egg which folds
in everything. They also cut the sausage into small bits and put it
into the cooking egg so that it solidifies around it. Nice.

manly burger assembly

The manly stack is placed on a butter grilled bun with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, sauces and the kitchen sink. 😉

manly special burger
The manliest burger you’ll find in Kuching!

Behold! The new bright pink “Custom made” Perodua Kenari

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bright pink kenari

This picture practically speaks for itself. 😉 I noticed it when I
came in to work today and just had to stop and take a photo. I must
applaud the owner of this car for having the courage to modify the car
to such…er, interesting specifications. It’s bright pink with
a ground clearance that makes me wonder how the driver navigated into
Jalan Padungan in the first place, with all the speed bumps along that
road.

pink kenari back

Here’s a closer look at the posterior of the car. The identifying
features like the Perodua logo have all but been displaced by a “Custom
Made” sticker. I wouldn’t even have recognized the make and
model…except it’s pretty hard to mistake the distinctive Kenari form
factor. Oh, and it doesn’t even have a car license plate! I think the
color of the car gave me diabetes just from looking at it. This is car
modification gone horribly wrong. 🙂

Goats respond to bleating

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i see a goat

I was driving to a client meeting with DBKU (which is the city
council for Kuching North) when I saw this goat by the roadside. DBKU
HQ is located opposite Kuching city (there’s a river separating the two
districts) and the area is less developed than Kuching, so there’s
still plenty of nature and animals like goats and cows (privately
owned, bred for food and left to graze on public property).

goat communication attempt

I decided to make some small talk with her as she looked lonely, and I was early for the meeting anyway.

The conversation went something like this:
Me: Mmmeeeeekkkkk!
Goat: Mmmeeeekkkk!
Me: Mmmeeeekkk!
Goat: Meeekkkk!

goat ignoring me

I seem to lack the linguistic capacity to communicate with the goat
though, because she turned her back on me and resolutely ignored me
after several unsuccessful exchanges. I think that’s rather rude of
her…I know I may not speak Goat well, and I may have accents which
further complicates the comprehension of my phrases, but that’s no way
to treat a well-meaning, friendly stranger. 😉

Anyway, if you haven’t had contact with a goat before (all you city
folks out there), yes, they do reply when you say “Mmmeeeeekkk” to
emulate a goat’s bleating. There’s this friend of mine who makes it a
point to roll down her car window and go “Mmmeeekkk!” enthusiastically
every time she passes by this goat near the race track in Sibu.

Goats really do reply.

I’m totally serious, try it next time you see one.

Can you tell if this man is blind?

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kenyalang blind

I spotted this man playing his keyboard at Kenyalang Park and
wondered if he really is blind (or visually impaired, if you want to be
PC and all that).

kenyalang blind man

I walked closer to scrutinize him.

Oh well, it seems that he is indeed blind.

Or he’s doing a damn good job at playing one.

What is wrong with this picture?

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stone age sunflower kernels

This is a container of Stone Age sunflower kernel chocolate candies. It’s a product of Korea.

stone age candies

Here’s what the multi-colored chocolate coated sunflower kernels looks like.

Q: What’s wrong with this picture?
A: Product may contain traces of nuts. 😉

Note: Ionamin 30 (30 mg phentermine resin capsules) should never
under any circumstances be ingested…unless you have nothing else.
*sigh* It’s dirty as fuck, and you’ll regret it very much. It takes a
very desperate tweaker (the kind that looks around the floor for any
dropped bits of crystal meth when the stash is finished) to resort to
the appallingly inferior phentermine and you will feel very ashamed of
yourself afterwards. It’s also very hard on the cardiovascular system,
since you’ll have to take high doses to get slightly stimulated (if you
have tolerance, personally I have to grind up 8 capsules (240 mg – this
is not a dosage guide!)) and that barely gives me the wanted effects
and each booster dose drives you closer to Paranoia, Population
378,378. It’s even worse than methamphetamine in that sense, and it’s
very likely that you’ll start thinking that the ink stain on your hand
is a nasty insect (visuals starts early with this one) and jump while
trying to brush it off frantically.

Currently thinking: “Why, oh why, did I finish the weekend’s ration of crystal meth so quickly?”

Also thinking: “What are the fucking chances of two contacts
being arrested a week apart? God? Can you hear me? I’m running out of
contacts for crystal meth! Please send down half a gram using your much
lauded Devine Lightning Logistics (DLL) Private Limited (TM) delivery
system. God? You there? Have thou forsaken me? Your only Son!”

/me dodges the wrathful smiting hand of God.

God: That’s enough blasphemy for one day. Don’t make me come down there and rip you a new one, asshole! Oh, and it was my
divine work *preens* that’s striking the fear of God (that’s yours
truly) into the hearts of dealers in Kuching by the insistent string of
arrests. Your new contact is also in jail. Should you attempt to source
another one tonight, it is my Divine Will that you will be next to join
them. Just eat those damned Ionamin capsules, they are part of my
divine creation too, ignorant mortal, and I’m rather proud of them, so
you should be too. Be content with what you have! Bo hu, he mah eh sai,
right? Go to church tomorrow, and repent for your sins and I’ll take
your request into my divine consideration. Go forth, and I will make
you fishers of meth! Oops…I mean, fishers of men. My bad.

Disclaimer: Obviously the conversation with God did not take
place (it’s called embellishment), thus by inference and extrapolation,
everything else in this post is fictional too. Ignore the logical
fallacy in the previous statement. I, upstanding citizen of Malaysia,
has never touched methamphetamine in my life. I also do not possess any
other illicit drugs or controlled substances without a valid
prescription. The image above is Photoshopped.

It doesn’t look Photoshopped and you don’t have the skillz to do that kind of thing anyway!

Okay, so it’s not Photoshopped, but I have a valid prescription for Ionamin. It’s for…er, my obesity.

You’re not even fat!!!

Well, there you go. The wonders of modern medicine.

Kuching bloggers meet @ Hot Seat

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hot seat padungan

Fina organized a Kuching bloggers meet today at 7:30 PM at Hot Seat,
Jalan Padungan. I’m not the most sober person on the planet right now,
but I’ll try to do a write-up of what I remembered. She picked me up at
around 6:45 PM and we went to pick up Dee before heading to Hot Seat.
There were some bloggers there already, here’s the list of attendees:

Syarfina [syarfina.com]
Dee [blogspot.com]
Huai Bin (me)
Wena [mum-mum.info]
Joyce [livejournal.com]
Georgette (Tarlia) [xercix.com]
Aida [blogdrive.com]
Lisa [blogdrive.com]
Mac [blogspot.com]
and the two non-bloggers – Raya Aida and Melvin.
There’s a group shot at the end of this post.

hot seat interior

The interior of the place was nicely decorated with tapestries and one of those oil lights on every table.

hot seat oil lamp

Nice. I had three plates of food, though I didn’t eat the rice of
one of them due to it being bland (plain rice) compared to the other
dishes. I also had two glasses of 100 Plus and dessert – I was
pre-loading for the weekend warrior thing. 😉

aqua find nemo
Aqua Find Nemo
Deep fried dory with batter
Served with potato chips and coleslaw

aqua find nemo cut

It’s a generous piece of fish and I love the decorative fish made
with various sauces on the side. It seems to be a signature of this
eating establishment – most dishes come with this edible decoration.
It’s made with thousand island for the outlines and some mint based
sauce for the green bits and I believe the red bits are some sort of
sweet chili or some fruit preserve. Highly recommended!

gothika
Gothika
Sauteed with chicken, green veggie, shrimp, onion and chili paste
served with egg pan cake, deep fried chicken wing and crackers.

gothika cut

It’s one of their specialty rice dishes. I found it tasty, very much
so that the third main dish I ordered paled in comparison with its
plain rice.

hot seat satay
Satay chicken/beef/lamb served with steamed rice

hot seat rice

This is one of the off-menu items, recommended by Wena, the person
to ask if you want to know what’s good in Kuching. The satay was great,
the plain rice was…er, plain.

hot fried ice cream
Deep fried ice cream

hot fried ice cream cut

This is the deep fried ice cream I had for dessert, also recommended by Wena.

Mine came with yam ice cream, most of us ordered this, some came in different flavors of ice cream.

hot seat kid

We also got acquainted with one of the proprietors (?) son/daughter. 😉

I had a great time talking with all the Kuching bloggers, most of
which I’m not familiar with, with the exception of Wena, Dee, and
Joyce. Introductions were made and business cards were exchanged.
Unfortunately, I had to leave early at 9:30 PM to meet up with a friend
at Riverside for some brief but urgent issues, so I had to excuse
myself. It’s good to put a face to the people behind the blogs though.
It was fun, and I’m looking forward to the next Kuching blogger’s meet
– some people couldn’t make it today.

kch bloggers
KCH BLOGGERS!
L-R: Huai Bin (me), Dee, Aida, Lisa, Mac (holding the Kuching bloggers sign), Georgette (Tarlia), Joyce, Fina and Wena.
Not pictured: Raya Aida and Melvin.

Cheers everyone!

P/S – Please don’t disclose where I live. :p

Why do cars have to break down in the middle of the road?

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why car stop middle road

…and other rhetorical questions. There was a minor fender bender
that rendered this car unable to move on its own accord (no pun
intended) near the King Center roundabout. This resulted in a massive
traffic jam (it’s already an area prone to traffic congestion). It took
me a whole hour (!!!) to drive out that stretch of road that couldn’t
have been more than 400 meters. Fucking waste of time, if you ask me…

In other unrelated news, this fictional phone conversation happened just five minutes ago:

Me: Hey, x‘s phone is off, what’s up with that?
L: His phone is not off, he “ki chia” already.
*ki chia is a Hokkien word which can mean a variety of things. The literal translation is “go up car” and it can be used to mean:
1. Arrested by police.
2. Dead.
3. Mobilize/regroup.
In this context, it means #1
Me: What happened?
L: I heard someone dobbed him in, was arrested just last weekend in town.
Me: Okay, so who’s the new contact for ice (crystal methamphetamine) now?
L: Here’s the new guy.
(gives number)

Now, this is a piece of disturbing news, not just because Malaysia
has declared “Dadah Musuh Negara #1!!! (Drugs is the country’s #1
enemy) Yeah! Kami menentang puas puas dadah ini!!! Kami perlu gahmen
beritahu kami apa nak buat kerana kami semua bodoh bodoh and just
waiting for instructions, sir, yes sir!” and all that shit, but because
Mr. L has a reputation of dobbing in people when he’s arrested – giving
out drug dealer’s (and when there’s none, he apparently goes for drug users)
personal details in exchange for his own freedom. He apparently has no
qualms doing that, his bread and butter lies (no pun intended) in the
prostitution business and drugs are just his sideline, which he is
slowly distancing himself from. Now, given this information, would any
sane tweaker (it can be argued that the two words form an oxymoron –
there aren’t any sane tweakers out there ;)) pick up from the new
contact?

It’s another rhetorical question.

Magic book

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magic book

This, my friends, is a fine work of literature. I’m sure most of you
remember these things from your youth…they retail for RM 0.10 (that’s
a scant 10 cents, though it was a large sum when I was in the target
age group). They come in a variety of cliched incarnations like “Rocky
Stallone” (shown above) to “Desperately Seeking Susan” (the Madonna
film) for the ones amongst us who has started to “feel funny” towards
girls. 😉

magic book back

The instructions for the use of this book is fairly
straightforward…basically, you use a pencil or a coin to reveal the
pre-printed (but invisible, thus the word “magic” in “Magic Book”)
images.

magic book blank

Anyway, the images are not invisible per se when you hold it
sideways against a light, but normally, you won’t be able to see it
until you shade it with a pencil or use a coin to rub the pages.

Here’s an example of using a pencil to shade:

magic book pencil

The best technique is to run the pencil sideways to get maximum
shadage (if there’s such a word, reading these magic books does not
improve linguistic capabilities, obviously ;)).

magic book pencil done
This is the finished page. It depicts some scene in Rocky (the movie).

Here’s an example of using a coin to reveal the images:

magic book coin

It’s important not to rub the coin too hard against the paper, as
this can result in tearage (there goes my vocabulary again, curse you
magic book) or if too much pressure is applied, the picture would not
come out at all.

magic book coin done
This is the finished example of using a coin. It also depicts a scene from the movie.

Now the funny thing about these books is – there’s only one or two
pages with what the cover suggests it contains. The bulk remainder
consists of images of generic robots and other stuff that presumably
appeals to boys.

magic book robot 1

magic book robot 2

magic book robot 3

Interesting stuff, I tell you. It’ll keep you occupied for…er,
seconds. We were trying hard to finish the book once the nostalgic
factor wore off. I never did bother with coloring the images when I was
young, I just wanted to make them show. Books are good for you – start
reading young! 😉

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