HB

A long, personal journey worth having.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back

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striped shirts

Last I checked, I wear Medium instead of Large and I don’t remember being so conservative in my tastes in work attire. Muted striped shirts?

Yes, this is a continuation of my laundry woes. I’ve put up with delays, misplaced clothes and the unreliable opening hours but yesterday the laundrette passed me the WRONG BAG OF CLOTHES.

It’s a good thing I checked when I got home and had to rush back to get the correct bag of clothes before they close. >.<

I’m going to use the condo laundry service from now on even though it costs about 50% more.

Top 10 mood killers

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When life turns a rather depressing bleak and grey hue…

#1 You didn’t get the memo?

memo

No, I didn’t dammit! What memo? *feels left out of the loop*

/cue late nights in the office

#2 Washing dirty laundry in public

laundry

This is my empty laundry bin. There is an equally empty wardrobe a few meters away.

I hate my laundrette with a passion. I have a very limited range of attire so I need prompt and reliable laundry services. Unfortunately the closest one to where I live is anything but.

#3 Red light district

red light

I ran a red light just now while heading to the clinic. In my defence, it was amber when I accelerated. On the way back, I found out that the very same intersection which I took the liberty of speeding through has a red light camera from my GPS.

Yeah, just add that on to my existing summons. 🙁

summons

Oh wait, you’ve already added it. Merde.

#4 Don’t drop the soap

water

I forgot to pay for my utilities, resulting in my electricity getting disconnected, promptly followed by my water supply. You know how it feels when you’ve soaped yourself up, with shampoo running into your eyes and no H20 coming out of the shower?

It feels like it’s going to be a bad day, that’s what it feels like.

#5 Bills, bills, bills

bills

Related to #4 there’s so many it’s hard to keep track and when you don’t, official looking letters printed on red paper comes into your mailbox. God forbid you have a busy week at work following that – you’ll end up coming home to a dark apartment, with light switches that won’t turn on. No matter how many times you try. Even if you ask it politely.

#6 Fortune reversal

savings

I lost RM 11,000 over the course of one week in New Zealand and Genting. I have a special account for the down payment of my condo later this year and this is what it currently shows. RM 27,461.04. I doubt that would get me anything more than shack under a bridge. It’s a good thing I still have RM 19,000 in cheques which I haven’t banked in.

#7 Shooting blanks

toothpaste

Toothpaste. Empty tubes. You can’t even squeeze a pea, nay, atom sized drop out of it…and just when you need to get ready for work too. I curse myself for not stocking extra toothpaste like my dad does.

#8 Your money hard at work

bank

My ATM card went missing last Friday. I think I might have dropped it somewhere or (more likely) forgot to take it out of the machine due to my haste that day. I cancelled it and went to do a new one – which took me a whole hour. Why? There is one open desk with the bank personnel just sitting there, hard at work doing absolutely nothing.

#9 Plastic surgery

credit-card

I don’t have a caption for this. Just look at the Outstanding Balance. >.<

#10 Workin’ 9 to 5

(except it’s more like at least 12 hours a day in my line of work)

working

What a way to make a livin’
Barely gettin’ by
It’s all takin’ and no givin’
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It’s enough to drive you crazy when you if let it!

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead, but the boss won’t seem to let me
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me!
9 to 5, yeah they got you where they want you

There’s a better life and you think about it don’t you? 😉

Now to add a splash of color to your life!

color

Release all that stress and pent up frustration now! Let your hair down, grab a nice cocktail, and go wild on the dance floor!

There are three parties coming up and I’m going to head down to all of them!

wonderland

WONDERLAND

Drop down the rabbit hole and lose yourself in Wonderland! There will be Alice in Wonderland costume shows, dance shows and…wait for it…

Wonderland Maids for you to take photos with!
smirk

It already sounds like an ideal party to me. 😉

EUROBEATS

There will be an orbit lightshow performance and it’s trance. Nuff said. 🙂

FASHIONISTA

The biggest and the best of them all! There will be a fashion show and after that, you’ll get a chance to dance on the runway. Now that’s not something you can do every day!

Also on the menu is signature cocktails and a chance to get up close and personal (no, not in that way, the bouncers will kick you out) with the international Mixologists and create your very own cocktail!

Encore by HORECA. It’s the new party in town! Admission is free! Click for more details.

cheers

Hey, come out and play! 🙂

O HAI! I IZ AN UNCLE!

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o hai uncle

I love this pic taken while I was in my sister’s place in Auckland, NZ a few weeks ago. I was carrying my niece and kissing her while my dad looks on. My sister is a bit of a private person (she is my polar opposite) so I am applying mosaic on her daughter (though to what purpose I do not know since all babies look alike).

She smells nice. She has a milky scent and it still puts a smile on my face when I think about her. 🙂

Pin Kee Restaurant

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pin kee restaurant

Yuen Yee suggested this place called Pinky (Tham?) or Binky for dinner. Since she’s the incumbent of Sunway, having made her bones here, we went with her for the famed buttermilk sotong.

pin kee interior

I would vote for this little girl (being 7 years older allows me to say crap like this ;)) if she ever runs in the election.

Okay, here’s what we had:

pin kee venison

Black pepper venison

I loved this dish. It has a nice and suitably peppery taste to it (suspect it had a lot to do with the name of the dish).

pin kee kung pow pork

Kung pow pork

It’s pork with dried chillies. I love both. I have no complaints. I am a happy man. 🙂

pin kee mapo tofu

Mapo tofu

It’s tofu. I weep tears when I see tofu. I’m not a big fan of tofu and other Healthy Stuff (TM) to that effect. I had one though.

pin kee veggies

Vegetable with siew yuk (roast pork)

See above. The only redeeming factor is the roast pork fried with the veggies. smirk

pin kee buttermilk squid

Buttermilk sotong

Last but not least (fucking cliched) this dish was pretty good but I would have preferred the calamari (it looks more like calamari than squid to me) to NOT be deep fried before cooking.

pin kee us

L-R: Yuen, Sheng, Kadazan Warrior a.k.a. Karen Mayer, Michelle, Nic, Fresh, me

Conspicuously missing from the photo – Jestina (O Great Leader who guided us to the finale of Left 4 Dead) and Nicholas.

The best part is that is only cost RM 11 per person for dinner!

I have a revelation

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spider

The world really is as bad as all your ketamine trips tells you. In fact, it might be a tad worse.

Everyone is out there to get something out of you.

Be careful…be very fucking careful.

This is not a WUI (Writing Under the Influence) but something of supreme importance that I feel obliged to share.

The world is a spider web of abused relationships, people gossiping and conspiring everywhere, fucked up marriages, and betrayal most foul.

It’s not the land of milk and honey we’ve been promised.

Nostalgia Glasses!

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doris memories

Selling fast! It only comes in one color – Rose tinted. 😉

Okay, I was talking to a coworker yesterday when she mentioned something that made me think of my ex gf. I realized how much I have wronged her.

I called her last night (against all the Time Tested (TM since Time Immemorial (TM) by Adam) advice that THOU SHALT NOT CALL EX GIRLFRIENDS WHEN DRUNK).

Well, I wasn’t that inebriated, was quite sober actually. It’s good to touch base though – not the third/fourth base kind of base but the get-your-mind-out-of-the-gutter kind of touching base.

It was good – updating each other on our lives right now and how far we’ve gone since we came to KL together.

Thanks for helping with me with my taxes! <3

Funny how photos turn B&W with age. smirk

Anyway, remember the new Toyota Vios? They’re running a Twitter contest where you stand a chance to win TRD merchandise just by RT their tweet. Follow @ToyotaMY for details!

RM 62.85 bowl of Maggi Mee with Tiger Prawn, mixed seafood and oyster

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start

Okay, now back in the days, my parents don’t exactly let me indulge in instant noodles, due to their misguided belief that it will cause your hair to fall off.

I’m now 29 and I have a healthy crown of hair so I can say with all enthusiasm (complete with an I-told-you-so) expression on my face:

tiger prawn me

MYTH DEBUNKED!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, back then my idea of cooking MAGGI® Curry (it’s my favorite flavor) is pretty basic – 2 packets with 2 (or sometimes 3) eggs.

maggi mee

You know that TVC where this nerdy guy cooks it his way and goes out to the balcony to enjoy his supper of MAGGI® and meets this girl?

boil

Well, that didn’t happen to me but I went to university in Australia and as EVERY person who did their undergraduate degree overseas will tell you – instant noodles is a staple in our diet due to budgetary issues.

However, I did manage to come up with some creativity in my cooking while down under (if you eat it every single day, you gotta find stuff to spice it up, so to speak). I started experimenting and adding in stuff and now that I’m not a poor university student anymore, I still enjoy MAGGI® Mee (Curry of course) but with more…premium, shall we say, ingredients.

recipe

You will need:

MAGGI® Mee (Curry Flavor)
Mixed Seafood – mussels, shrimp, crab sticks
Canadian Oyster
String cheese
Large Tiger Prawn
Eggs

MAGGI® Mee My Way circa 2010 costs RM 62.85 per bowl. Heh!

tiger prawn cook

Tiger Prawn @ RM 34. Don’t over boil this – make sure that it’s tender and juicy when you eat it. It’s actually pretty easy to cook, just chuck it into boiling water seasoned with salt.

mixed seafood

Next up comes the mixed seafood (after you take the tiger prawn out) – use the same stock as the prawn will impart a lot of flavor into the broth.

One habit I’ve never managed to break is using my fingers to test the readiness of MAGGI® Mee – I know it’s two minutes but without a timer, and with my Time Tested (TM) method it’s actually quite easy – just take a bit of noodles up and squeeze it in between your fingernails – with enough practice, you’ll know when it’s cooked.

runny yolk

I like my eggs to have runny yolks so this is another thing you should watch out for. I like to think I’m pretty good at this – making a perfect bowl of MAGGI®. 😉

seafood

Okay, this is cheese. Cheese and MAGGI®, you say? Heresy right? No.

cheese

It’s actually pretty good….provided you don’t let it melt in the soup – just heat it up in the hot soup so the string cheese will be chewy.

prawn meat

The oyster on the top is a appetizer of sorts – a way to make MAGGI® Mee a complete meal!

I’m sure you have your favorite MAGGI® recipe right? If you don’t, you’re not Malaysian but I’ll cut you some slack and point you in the right direction – you can view some past recipes here. Wanna join the MAGGI® Mee My Way contest? There are RM 30,000 worth of prizes to give away with a top prize of RM 8,000 + a RM 100 hamper. All you need to do is to record a video of yourself cooking MAGGI® like the one I did above.

slurp

Your video should clock in at 2 minutes coz that’s the amount of time it takes to cook a packet of MAGGI®! Give it a nice and creative title and make sure you feature all the ingredients you used in the recipe, method of preparation and best of all – how you enjoy the dish!

You know all about the Tim Tam Slam right? Now, here’s the MAGGI® Slurp (TM). =D

I’m sure you’ve all done it before. DON’T PRETEND! I know you do it too. 😛

end

Surf on over and do your best on the MAGGI® Mee My Way Contest! Good luck!

Frasers Cafe @ Mt Eden

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frasers

Frasers Cafe is a rustic nook in the corner that’s very popular with the locals in Mt. Eden, Auckland. My sister is a huge fan of their breakfast and just before I was due to fly back to Malaysia, she brought me there to check it out.

frasers interior

It reminds me a lot of the little al fresco cafes in Melbourne, with pretty similar choices.

hot chocolate

I went for a nice bowl of hot chocolate with marshmallows on the side. I’m just decadent that way, bowls > mugs any day. 😉

Eggs Benedict with bacon

This is my Eggs Benedict with bacon (NZD 17.90). Just look at the poached egg – pregnant with possibilities (well, egg yolks at any rate), the juicy strips of bacon and the generous topping of warm Hollandaise sauce. It tasted marvelous, with the runny yolk and butter permeating every single bite.

French Toast served with fresh fruit and mixed berry maple compote

My dad went for the healthier option of French Toast served with fresh fruit and mixed berry maple compote (NZD 17.50). It comes with fresh fruits on the side and a sprinkling of powdered sugar. I thought this was pretty good too.

Pancake Stack with banana, crispy bacon, maple syrup and berry compote

This is the Pancake Stack with banana, crispy bacon, maple syrup and berry compote (NZD 17.90) that my sis had for breakfast. I think the home made blackberry and blueberry compote (Google says this means fruit stewed or cooked in syrup) is the best part about this dish. A dab of that on a piece of warm pancake with a slice of bacon tasted divine. Sweet and savory.

Frasers Omelette of potato, capsicum, tomato and mozzarella served with onion jam

Alvin had the more subdued Frasers Omelette of potato, capsicum, tomato and mozzarella served with onion jam (NZD 16.80). The omelet was good but what made this special is the “onion jam” which tasted sweet. Nice!

frasers cafe interior

Frasers is a nice place for a huge cooked breakfast. I recommend you sit inside during autumn so your food doesn’t get cold as soon as it’s served. It can be a bit packed, but service is quick and efficient.

eggs benedict

…now tell me this doesn’t look good. =D

A bottle contains more philosophies than all the books in the world

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jerine acrylic painting

I got this acrylic painting from Jerine as a present. I managed to meet up with her just now at 1U and she drew me down to a T. Heh!

Guest writer taking over:

(coz she says I write too much like a copywriter)

Ahahahaha… WTF man! I don’t even have time to blog on my own blog now I have to write here? Oh well… That’s one of my recent masterpiece. The story goes back to when I wanted to paint one for my boss then he (HB) said “Eh, draw for me also lah”. Since he’s so nice, I can’t refuse his request. I’ve already done thousands…. oh no… I’m exaggerating… maybe a hundred of such paintings for friends. Normally, I just draw my friend with a hint of that person’s personality. But HB is like sooooooooooo random and he has sooooooo many interests, I had a hard time to draw this one. Should I draw him with casino chips? Or him with exotic foods? Or him with all the six seals sign of the end of the world? Like what they say, alcohol probably is the most inspiring thing in this world. There was a bottle of beer right in front of me. And the voila!!! You have that painting of HB with a bottle of beer in his hand!

I really like this one and it’s moving with me along with Jammie’s table. I’m going to hang it on the wall of my new place. I do wish that artistic liberty was taken to make me look better though.
smirk

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