I went to Donald’s Durian which is just beside SS2 durian over the weekend to binge on the King of Fruits. The price has gone up since I last went – it’s now RM 10 for the durian buffet…but there’s heaps of people even at midnight!
You don’t get the good durians like Musang King/Raja Kunyit/D197 at that price though – it’s sold separately, was quoted RM 22/kg here which is quite cheap. Musang King apparently means Elvis Presley, an interesting name to call a strain.
The RM 10 durian buffet is everywhere in SS2 now and you can eat to your hearts content on various lower grade durians. It’s a very good deal, and you get tissues and water to go with it. 😉
There’s a lot of the common but relatively premium D24, D101 and Holo/Labu/D163 durians for sale too. Funny thing was, we almost forgot to pay, we were leaving and then I suddenly remembered that we haven’t paid and went back to do so. No one stopped us, probably coz of the crowd. Heh.
I’m looking for Durian Botak (D172) and the Sarawakian durian called Kepala Babi (D170) – anyone seen them around? 🙂
I totally missed this event. It’s the all-new Ford Ranger launch in KL but unfortunately I was overseas at that time. I’m reading the official Ford Ranger Facebook page and it seems that everyone had a blast.
Shake that. There was a lot of beautiful people performing at the launch and the best part was when they towed in a bus with the Ford Ranger.
The all-new Ford Ranger is completely re-designed from the bottom up – everything is new, from the engine to the frame and even the interior of this compact pickup. It is powered by a Duratorq TDCi 2.2L Variable Geometry (BG) Turbo diesel engine with six-speed auto or manual transmission producing 150 PS and 375 Nm of torque. The 3.2L version comes with auto transmission and has a power output of 200 PS with a staggering 470 Nm of torque.
However, despite all that barely constrained power under the hood, the fuel consumption is quite exceptional.
The all-new 2.2L Ford Ranger offers 8.1L/100 km2 while the 3.2L weighs in at just 8.91L/100 km2.
This is one pickup that knows the fine art of sipping diesel instead of guzzling it. 🙂
It’s no surprise that Ford Malaysia has already surpassed 800 pre-bookings for this vehicle.
The higher fuel efficiency and exceptional driving experience is not all it has to offer. There are several active and passive safety features besides the usual ABS and EBD – LAC (Load Adaptive Control) optimizes the vehicle stability when carrying heavy loads, EBA provides additional brake pressure in emergency stop situations and the EBL (Emergency Brake Light) will kick in the indicators when the Ford Ranger suddenly decelerates to alert other drivers.
The Wildtrak 3.2L variant ups the ante by having ESP (Electronic Stability Program) built in so there’s advanced sensors that monitors the road (what road? ;)) or unforgiving terrain the pickup is driving down and compares it to the path the driver wants to go from the steering wheel.
It also has Hill Descent Control (HDC) to make steep downhill descents easier, Hill Launch Assist (HLA) to give a boost when you want to go up a steep climb and Roll-Over Mitigation (ROM) which is quite self-explanatory – it helps prevents the vehicle from rolling over.
The all-new Ford Ranger is also capable of wading through 800 millimeters of water even when fully loaded! Some variants can even pull a payload of 1,400 kgs which is quite impressive and demonstrated by the bus pulling.
There are three variants that’s available in Malaysia:
2.2 XLT 4X4 6-AT Double Cab – RM 95,888
2.2 XLT 4X4 6-MT Double Cab – RM 89,888
3.2 Wildtrak 4X4 6-AT Double Cab – RM 116,888
(all prices OTR for Peninsular Malaysia and private owners)
This is one pick-up that you can really drive anywhere. The all-new Ford Ranger has a comfortable interior too, with user-friendly technology like Bluetooth Voice Control! Heck, in a perfect world with no border controls, I can drive this all the way to China, swing back west and trail-blaze through Mongolia, Russia and Europe.
I only managed to get it right on the third shot and that’s coz I flipped the LCD screen 180 degrees so I could see myself and frame the shot. I was aiming for a dSLR look with a heavily defocused background. I’m really bad in self-portraits – I think the technical term for this is camwhoring. 😉
That’s the most famous Protestant church in Dresden right there. I travel around quite a bit – I just came back from Germany and I went to Jakarta before that. I couldn’t make it to another one this month due to a conflicting date but I’ll be heading to Nepal and the Philippines next month.
I’m what the industry call a FIT (Free and Independent Traveler). Basically, what that means is that you’re the adventurous trailblazing type who tends to go backpacking alone. That perfectly describes my two previous trips to Europe. This is the third.
I’ve had no problems with people running away with my camera, not even in the slums of Sri Lanka (don’t ask) or going on a totally badass adventure in Georgia with strangers. You need someone to take your photos when you’re traveling alone and while I’m not a huge fan of camwhoring, I concede that it’s very useful sometimes.
The picture above is of the Sony Center in Berlin – the only one that has a cinema which shows English movies without subtitles. I brought the Sony NEX-F3 to Germany. All the photos in this post was taken using that. I wanted to see if it would make me take better shots. I have a dSLR but I wanted a more compact camera that I can stuff into my windbreaker pocket. You can try that with a dSLR – but be prepared to get tackled by the London Metropolitan police. 😉
The Sony NEX-F3 uses a large, high performance Exmor APS CMOS sensor that allows it to capture dSLR quality photos even in low light. It has interchangeable lenses and it’s very easy to use.
Let me show you my awesome photos!
This is a view of Dresden late at night. I was surprised at the low noise and incredible detail. I used this as my Facebook cover photo. Heh.
Old school cash register. Appropriately shot in Retro mode. I normally wouldn’t get a good photo in the lighting conditions of the restaurant but this turned out very well.
Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski in Dresden – a view from my room. President Barrack Obama also stayed here when he visited. I doubt it’s the same room though.
I like how you can set manually adjust the Background Defocus, Brightness, Color (compensate for Warm or Cold), Vividness or just let it go on auto in Superior Auto mode. It usually gets it right.
There’s also scenes presets and settings inside to let you easily shoot in a wide range of picture effects with the full time continuous auto focus:
Pop color. Flowers in summer. It was unusually cold for the first few days, which was why I had a windbreaker on and just a shirt for the last few days.
These are all shot on the Autobahn from a fast moving vehicle to demonstrate:
Partial Color: Red
Partial Color: Green
Partial Color. Blue
Partial Color: Yellow
Back-light auto compensation of a faux stained glass window. There’s also a built in flash that pops up if the scene is too dark! 🙂
Videos are shot in HD and you can use the modes available – this is shot using Retro mode. 🙂
Schloss Charlottenburg (Schloss means Palace) in Panoramic Mode. You can also do this in 3D (it saves in an MPO file) and display it on a 3D TV.
Automatic scene detection and Auto HDR makes skin tones amazingly natural. I literally shot this from the hip so you can get a sense of how fast the auto-detect works:
Imagine the stuff you can do with this! There’s lot of customization possible. You can make the sky bluer for example.
Please…tell them, I am God. 😉
Do you want your very own Sony NEX-F3? Join The Ultimate F3 Photographer Contest and get a chance to win one of 3 cameras! It’s very simple – all you need to do is drop by any of the 10 participating Sony Outlets on a Saturday or Sunday, take your own photo using the Sony NEX-F3 and upload it (the promoters will assist you). Click on the link above for the Sony Outlet closest to you.
I love it! The Sony NEX-F3 makes me look like a better photographer than I really am. 😉
Ergonomics is important, particularly if you’re doing something for a long time. You know, like how they have ergonomic keyboards for cubicle warriors. Now, beer lovers in Malaysia will have the same consideration – this is of particular import for those who loves their beer. 😉
Finally beer drinkers everywhere would have a more comfortable bottle to hold on to! I reckon that’s quite thoughtful of Heineken – designing a new bottle that’s not only looks cool, but feels good. The new bottle has an embossed curve on the neck and back with an embossed Heineken logo and the iconic star. It’s also slimmer but don’t worry, it contains the same amount of liquid.
The new bottle of Heineken is going to replace the current ones for a more modern and easy to hold long necked design. I like it coz I can hold the bottle by the neck and not unintentionally warm the beer with my hand. There’s also a thumb groove that gives a bit of traction and grip! Nifty eh?
…and with Heineken being a premium beer, they’re not pinching pennies with the launch. It’s going to be an exclusive party where YOU can get a chance to attend as well. 😀
Let me tell you about the party, my friends. There will be plenty of Heineken flowing to fuel the energy, which is turn in provided by DJ Ferry Corsten (a.k.a. System F) who will be spinning that night with VJ UTT as the host. It’s another money-can’t-buy experience that is a signature of Heineken events – it’s invite only and there’s an extremely limited amount of open spots.
The only way you can score an invite is by participating in the Heineken to.a.star app on Facebook.
I’ve already received a couple on my Facebook Wall. All you need to do is to send your friends on Facebook a virtual new bottle of Heineken. Quick, send one now! Here’s how it works:
Go to the Heineken to.a.star app and virtually scan your palm to pull out your Facebook details.
Toast Your Friends by sending them a Heineken bottle. Choose them carefully coz you only have a limited amount (20 bottles) to send and you want them to return the toast. 😉
Be a nice person and send one back coz it’ll give them points in the form of “bottles”. I currently have 3 bottles.
Collect as many bottles/points as you can, you need to receive at least 10 bottles to qualify and you just might win 2 exclusive invites to the Heineken bottle launch party! DJ Ferry Corsten is coming in all the way from the Netherlands, which is the birthplace of Heineken! 🙂
It’s going to be big. It’s going to be epic. It’s going to be…wait for it…legendary! 🙂
You’ve gotta try this when you’re in Berlin! The word “curry” in currywurst might make it sound like it’s not an authentic German dish but it’s 100% from Berlin. It was invented in 1949 according to Wikipedia by a lady called Herta Heuwer.
The Volkwagen Autostadt in Wolfsburg produces it’s own currywurst but but we unfortunately did not manage to try it coz it was raining heavily and we had a train to catch.
Thus, we had the one in Berlin – it’s a takeaway food and currywurst is made of pork sausages drowned in ketchup and a healthy sprinkling of curry powder before being cut into slices. The proprietor told me that the steamed currywurst originates from the former East Berlin while the currywurst that’s steamed, dipped in batter and fried are from the former West Berlin.
I tried both and I preferred the ones without the skin. It’s delicious, I was really full from lunch but ate both types anyway and despite being a tad salty (which is really something coming from me), it was absolutely fabulous!
It’s one of those local snacks that you just have to try. It’s sweet, tangy and salty – the Germans make good sausages. The currywurst stand in Berlin that we went to serves organic pork sausages for 3.30 Euros. 🙂
