No, not the Ayn Rand book…though you might find yourself starting to get as verbose as her after a couple of cans. I managed to find the best value beer in town just now. It’s Atlas Beer, weighing in at 12% – it beats SKOL for value. It comes in a 500 ml can – I love the feel of the substantial 500 ml cans. It just feels so solid! I have purchased a slab (24 cans) of SKOL and after calculations by my gf this one is just better. Every self-respecting alcoholic, I mean, ethanol consumer knows that the higher ABV the beverage is, the better. My current favorite.
It’s close to wine’s fortitude with the alcohol content – beer at 12%, it’s revolutionary! Bock style beer at just RM 7.90 per can and it’s made in the EU to boot! I suspect it’s one of the Eastern blocs though due to the ambiguity on the packaging – it would have shouted GERMANY had it been one of the more affluent states. It’s replacing my favorite beer (SKOL Super) due to the value – 500 ml @ 12 % is stronger at 320 ml @ 9 % any time. Especially if you binge drink. 😉
I’m going to be driving up to Cameron Highlands tomorrow at 6 am. Be good, coz I won’t have net access there. It’s a birthday present for my girlfriend, and I anticipate prohibitive traffic congestion, but we’re going to do the suites anyway.
I’ve always wanted to throw a party for the readers of sixthseal.com – in the height of it’s popularity, I actually enquired about the rates of renting a club for an invite-only event. I even had grandiose thoughts about having an open bar (as well as specific tables for different non-ethanol based products – remember, this was back in the castitas.com days ;)) all gratis for my loyal readers.
I never actually realized that dream of mine due to financial reasons. I was already pumping a lot of cash into the sixthseal.com universe and renting a place for a night would be way too expensive for me. It still didn’t deter me from putting that thought on the backburner though – with high-powered spotlights spearing the night skies, huge banners with the blog URL on it, me at the front personally greeting everyone that comes.
I’ll even throw in one of those wind powered dancing stick figures. 😉
Anyway, while updating myself on the latest happenings in Mumbai, I chanced upon this contest for a free party (!!!). It’s everything I could dream of…and more! This contest gives you the option to choose between a beach party and a hip-hop party (among others, but those two are the ones I’m going to choose), fully sponsored. Gratis. Free. Percuma.
The party is worth RM 15,000 and the only downside is that only 25 people can attend the event.
Still, it sounds like a great deal and I’ve sent in 6 entries together with the pull-tabs to increase my chances of winning. I have historically been very poor on winning contests – Lady Luck seldom favors me with her smile, but I’m hoping you all can help me out by doing this another way.
I’ve been hearing about invites to dinners and sponsored posts and all that (okay, I’ve been doing more than hearing, but that’s not the point) and I was hoping that the good people at F&N will take notice of my blog and my post and perhaps sponsor another event just for sixthseal.com.
I mean, it’s good publicity for them as well, since a blogger winning the contest (or being given the contest prize) will generate a domino effect of sorts. I’m going to invite bloggers to the party, which will in turn produce likely coverage of the sixthseal.com party. 25 bloggers writing about the party (26 including myself) is pretty good publicity.
Anyway, if you link this post, and the people at F&N notices it and squeezes some cash from their slush fund to throw me a party – I’ll be sure to get you invited to the event.
I’m even going to write in and petition them.
It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while, and I hope it happens. If it does, you’ll be the first to know (and get invited).
P/S – If anyone from F&N is reading this, I am kidding about the slush fund. I’m sure you don’t have one. 😉
P/P/S – Can the good people at Nuffnang and other Nuffnangers help me out on this?
I had a surface bar piercing procedure done about a month ago on my left wrist. I had originally intended to go in for a tattoo on my left ankle – a rotting, dead corpse hand with yellowing fingers grasping my leg and pulling me down with blood dripping from the fingernail rake marks, all in full color. It’s going to be a masterpiece!
Unfortunately, it would take about four hours to ink and an hour to draw so I decided to go for an unconventional piercing instead. My policy regarding piercings is simple – it has to be concealed (or at least concealable) due to my line of work. I have pierced most of my face since I was 15 and I only have my tongue and nipple piercings left.
I came to this tattoo place to get my nipples pierced about three months ago and asked about flesh stapling and other hardcore or extreme piercings that they do. They couldn’t do it back then but I noticed they have some paraphernalia for it now. However, they still couldn’t do proper flesh stapling so I went for the next best thing – three surface piercings down my left wrist. The piercing guy told me I’m the first one to do this, so I’m the guinea pig.
I like the sound of that. 😉
Thus, I signed the indemnity form and proceeded with the surface piercing.
I originally planned for three similar length and gauge surface piercings but the piercer told me it would look disproportionate due to the widening of the arm, so he suggested 22 gauge, 24 gauge and 26 gauge bars in ascending order so it’ll look straight. It turned out to be an excellent suggestion.
Surface bar piercing is the exact “opposite” of flesh stapling. Flesh stapling allows the “bar” to be visible, but the “ends” to be invisible while surface bar piercings has the “ends” visible while the “bar” goes under the skin.
The skin is clamped together at the wrist and then pierced through with a large needle before the surface bar is inserted and the end screwed in. The entire bar goes under your skin so you can feel it beneath your skin, somewhat akin to a sub dermal implant.
This is the process flow of the surface bar piercing procedure:
The site of the piercing (in this case my left wrist) is marked with a pen with horizontal and vertical lines as a guide for the three bars going in.
The skin around the wrist is clamped together – not a very easy task for the first one since it’s located quite high up on the arm. The clamp marks alone took over a week to heal!
A very thick needle is poked through the skin from A to B so it goes under the skin between the two points.
It is temporarily stopped with a cork for safety purposes.
The surface bar is then inserted all the way in…
…before the clamp is released, putting the entire bar under the skin and leaving the ends up. The side of the surface bar is screwed in with a ball.
I did all three in a row which amazed the staff, as did my tolerance for pain. I don’t mean to brag, it’s none of that macho shit, but I honestly don’t feel much pain at all. It hurt a little after a couple of days though, especially when it snags on clothes and hair. I look a little like a porcupine at the wrist, but I kinda like how it looks now.
It’s supposed to take six (!!!) months to completely heal but I think mine is pretty much healed now. It doesn’t hurt anymore, even when slightly snagged. It’s different and I get a lot of double takes and people commenting about it (one guy even wanted to take a photo of it) when I go out.
It’s technically a transdermal implant since part of it is inside the skin and part of it is outside and is considered a little on the extreme side, so that’s something you might want to consider if you’re doing this.
…a video of the third and final wrist piercing going in.
This is what it looks like when it’s done.
It looks horribly painful especially for virgins to the world of self-mutilation, er…I mean body modification but it’s not as painful as it looks. 🙂
…a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. I hooked up with Ringo, KY and Xin and arranged for dinner at Fong Lye Taiwan Restaurant. It’s been over a month and I realized I haven’t even blogged about it until I was browsing through my archives. I didn’t manage to get a shot of Fong Lye’s exterior too, coz the place was closing when we finally left. I have been meaning to reshoot the exterior without the shutters half closed, and went back last weekend.
Fong Lye Taiwanese Restaurant is a franchise operation that is constantly packed, even late at night when we went. It’s pretty amazing how these Taiwan/HK/Chinese eating establishments can maintain such a high capacity in the current economic situation. The place is literally packed when we arrived. Fong Lye Taiwanese Restaurant has different seating arrangements to cater to different groups of people and we got seated at the corner before ordering our food.
KY had the Pork Intestines Set Meal (RM 17.80) rated as spicy by Fong Lye. He was seated too far away for me to taste his meal but he thought it was pretty good. I can’t actually remember if I ate his pork or not, since we were staying at the Boulevard Studio Suite at that time and I took advantage of the free beer at the Executive Lounge.
Ringo had the healthy sounding Hot & Spicy Dim Sum (RM 16.50) after most of what she ordered wasn’t available. I remember having some of her dish – it was pretty good, except for the tofu. I don’t like tofu. I’m more of a meat person but two pieces of something I had from her order was great.
Xin, for some mysterious reason, did not order a main dish at all. She had the Beef Roll (RM 10.30), which we all had a piece so she was left with only two slices. It tasted pretty good though but a tad overpriced for what is tantamount to a souped up popiah.
Doris went for the Taiwan Braised Beef Noodle (RM 19.80). It is served with several side dishes, like most of the meals. The side dishes contain various snacks and vegetables and makes the presentation immaculate. The Taiwan Braised Beef Noodle is spicy and piping hot, with a rich broth that must have taken a herd of cows to make. 😉
I went for the Three Varieties of Supreme Diced Chicken (RM 19.80), which turned out to be the best dish of the night. The chicken is tender, and cooked to perfection. This dish is also amazingly spicy, something that always rates highly in my books. The chicken claypot is literally full of chillies!
I love this dish and would do a return visit to sample it again (despite it numbing my taste buds for a while). Those who tried it also agreed and pronounced it Good (TM).
Ringo also ordered this weird desert called Peanut Snow Mountain (RM 8.30) that we all shared. It tasted gooey and saccharine sweet and elicited quite a number of jokes related to scat (not skat, the card game, and certainly not scat as in “go away”). It was alright as a dessert though.
The total came up to a RM 151.35 for five people, inclusive of a beer on my end and drinks for everyone else. Fong Lye Restaurant is a great place that opens till (relatively) late so check it out at The Gardens @ Mid Valley if you’re into Taiwanese food. It’s definitely worth a try.
The new guy wolfed down the Koko Krunch (a sweetened cereal) with the milk his parents brought him as though afraid we might grab it from him and have it for ourselves. We had formed a pretty nice and tight clique by this time, the only ones with cigarettes inside the center. Fong with the money, Ming with the means, Seng with the might and me.
I don’t know why they took a liking to me, to be honest. I was tough, and showed it when confronted the first time I went in. Respect? I asked at the end of my stay and it turned out that they found me “different” and “interesting”. I’m not the usual type found in drug rehabilitation centers. I’m intelligent and possess a certain charm that got us away with little more than a slap on the wrist from the center’s administration.
Different – that’s the quality that got me into the crème de la crème clique.
We have been watching the new kid for a while now; inmates tend to regards the newbies with more than a little suspicion, if not downright hostility. He doesn’t share his goods and eats his bowl of Koko Krunch TOGETHER with the center’s ration of noodles (for breakfast), rice (for lunch) and biscuits (for supper).
It’s a cardinal sin according to the law of the jungle, I mean, rehab.
He probably sensed our hostility towards him and made overt attempts to get back in our good books. He knows we’ve been smoking and wanted in. He has nothing to offer in return (and neither did I, and to this day I still wonder why I was invited in the first place) and his selfish acts did nothing to gain our favor. He’s also a methamphetamine user – as most of us in there are.
I think he figured out our rules the second time his parents visited him, bearing gifts of two extra large boxes of Kellogg’s Chocolate Frosted Flakes and 2 liters of milk. He quietly arranged five plastic bowls on the table after lunch and opened all two boxes and started dividing it into the five bowls.
Ming: What are you doing? Newbie: It’s my treat, I want you all to have this too. Fong: Never heard you say that the first time your parents gave you stuff. Newbie: Well…now that I’ve gotten to know you guys better… Me: I don’t feel like I know you at all. Seng: Yeah, and don’t think we don’t know why you’re doing this. You want in on the cigarettes right? Newbie: No, it’s not that at all…though it would be nice…
We proceeded to help ourselves to several bowls of the stuff. He only ate a single lonely bowl, taking care to choose the one with the least cereal inside in a last ditch attempt at establishing good will.
We never invited him to either our afternoon or night contraband cigarette breaks.
The rule of the jungle…
You’re either the pack of hyenas, or you’re the dead carcass.
I went to DucKing at Jaya One for our monthsary dinner on Friday night. DucKing (“The Different One”) seems to be wordplay on the story The Ugly Duckling (which turned out to be a swan if you forgot your Hans Christian Andersen).
DucKing is packed pretty much all the time – we waited 15 minutes for our turn to be seated, but the waitress was gracious enough to let us in when she couldn’t contact the previous two ahead of us on the queue list. There seem to be some problems with communication though – I got four calls during dinner saying that my seat is ready and I told them each time that I was already inside.
Price for this menu: RM 1,500 ++. I have been trying to spot this when I saw it on Cheesie’s blog and true enough; it’s in there. Haha!
I ordered INTIS (RM 78) an Argentinean Merlot meaning Sun God. It’s the cheapest wine on the menu – I haven’t started working yet, tomorrow is my first day at work so we figured we needed to conserve our funds. My girlfriend went for the Chinese tea, although she had a small amount (slightly more than thimble sized) of red wine as well.
You can’t go to an establishment named DucKing and not order duck so for the appetizer, we had the Marinated Duck Tongue with X.O Sauce (RM 16.80). It tasted surprisingly good, I can’t remember ever having duck tongue before. This one is served with the tendon (bone?) under the tongue intact, and the slight crunchiness adds to the appeal.
Next on the menu was the Beijing Duck Two Varieties. I ordered 1/2 a duck. It’s RM 38.80 for 1/2 a duck and RM 62.80 for a whole duck. I love Peking Duck, especially the process that goes with it. Unfortunately, DucKing does not have the chef carve the skin off the duck in front of you.
Peking Duck comes in four (4) dishes – the crispy roasted duck skin, the paper-thin flour wrap, spring onions and other vegetables for garnish and flavor, and the sauce itself.
Basically, you take one flour wrap and place a piece (or two) of crispy roasted duck skin on top before adding some spring onions and dousing it with sauce. It is then wrapped like a tortilla. There is some debate about whether the sauce goes on first, but I prefer it just before I wrap up the entire thing.
The Peking Duck at DucKing is great! I love the soft, fragile flour wrap. I’m amazed at how tissue paper-thin it is. Excellent.
Beijing Duck is usually served in two or three courses – the skin in wrap, the meat cooked with vegetables and the bones in soup. Most establishments nowadays do away with the third installment though. DucKing gives you the choice of a wide range of preparations for the second course – we opted for the Deep Fried Bun with Roasted Duck Meat & Black Pepper Sauce (RM Included in the price of Beijing Duck).
The vegetable component of the food pyramid is completed with Braised Baby Kailan with Crab Meat (RM 28.80). DucKing cooks this dish with egg and starch and they’re very generous with the crab meat – it’s definitely proportionate with the price. There are huge chunks of whole crab meat inside the dish. Very nice indeed.
For the last dish, we indulged in the Braised Abalone with Shimeji Mushroom and Broccoli (RM 72.80). The abalone is indeed cooked to perfection and matches the sauce well. The mushroom is paired perfectly with the abalone and came out juicy and tender. I used the broccoli to mop up the sauce, that’s how good it was.
DucKing does a very brisk business and the food is good, although it comes out very fast, suggesting mass production (or a chef with really deft fingers). The bill came up to a total of RM 280.85 but the bulk of that is from the wine and the abalone.
Happy monthsary, dear! Love always.
Yes, that is our couple t-shirt and also the distinctive look of a bulge in my abdomen from eating excessively these few weeks. 😉
I caught a haunting acoustic version of Leaving on a Jet Plane sung by an unknown female singer at Jaya One over the weekend. She has great vocals and a melodic voice that instantly grabs at your auditory senses.
I’m going to start work on Monday, and I finally got Streamyx in my condo. It doesn’t give me much time to do much (some really bad syntax going on here) but the recap of the previous week:
Met up with Yee Hou and Nicholas from Nuffnang. Also hooked up with Doreen (post on TGIF soon) and boyfriend, KY, Eiling, Rachel, Horng for dinner at SS 2. It took me a whole hour to get from Aman Suria to SS 2, which I’m sure is a record of sorts.
It also took me more than an hour to get from Sunway Pyramid to Aman Suria, but in my defense, I’m still unfamiliar with KL roads. I managed 1+ hour from KL (BB area) to Aman Suria today while playing host to my girlfriend’s ex-colleagues who came over from Sibu. It’s pretty good time, considering the fact that I nearly drove to Kuantan.
I inherited a map of Klang Valley from KY, who also gave me a pack of Chung Hwa cigarettes, which in turn came from Cheesie.
Eiling was kind enough to bring back a bottle of Absolut 100 all the way from Dubai for me and won’t even accept payment. Thanks Eiling!
I also celebrated our monthsary last night. We went to DucKing and racked up a bill of RM 280. I had trouble finding a florist and got Bloomings to deliver it to her office instead…all done online.
Shrimpz is a small little eating establishment located at Aman Suria that we discovered one night. We have been eating a lot of nasi kandar lately and wanted to eat some Chinese food (or Thai food, which is about the same in my books) so I stumbled upon this little gem quite by accident.
Shrimpz is apparently the sister restaurant of the flagship Shrimpz restaurant in Langkawi, according to the table liner. I can’t remember the last time I was in Langkawi, but the leaflet claims that Shrimpz Langkawi was and still is the only dining venue in Asia located within a shrimp farm, which is where I imagine they got their name.
Shrimpz Kuala Lumpur is not located inside a shrimp farm, but they managed to re-create some of that ambiance with a water feature I like to call the “Sobriety Test” that is currently in vogue. The water feature is made up of stepping stones, and while it’s not as challenging as the bla bla bla Sobriety Test in Kuching, it’s still requires a certain level of dexterity to navigate.
Shrimpz is decorated Thai style, with a lot of Buddha statues (sans the body and head) and the al fresco dining area is interspaced with a lot of water features and bodies of water to simulate the Shrimpz Langkawi dining experience in a residential area. It looks clean (probably coz it’s new) and elegant, but the place does not serve alcohol, which is unusual for a restaurant like this.
It is almost heretical to not order shrimp in an establishment called Shrimpz, and beheaded (Convert or die!) we might be have we not, so we requisitioned for their renowned Shrimps / Organic Tiger Prawns from Langkawi menu and had the Stir Fried Tiger Prawn with Petai and Belacan (RM 34.90). It had the exotic sounding name of Kun Pat Khapit Sator.
It was alright, quite nice actually, but paying RM 34.90 for six (6) tiger prawns seems a little bit steep. It amounts to RM 5.81 per shrimp – not exactly cheap, but worth the price for the occasional indulgence. It tasted great with the petai and belacan gravy and I ate the entire crustacean whole, much to the horror of my girlfriend. It takes a man to eat the shell of a prawn. 😉
I had the Shrimpz Special (RM 8,90 – comma done either to emulate the French, or coz I had to much to drink is up to you to decide), which is a mixture of lime, lemongrass and mint leaves. I will not delve into the drink my girlfriend ordered, which would usually be OJ or watermelon juice or some other citrus based drink.
This is the appetizer that we had – Shredded Crispy Duck Salad (RM 26.90). I know the dishes are coming out ass backwards, but I did it in chronological order – the exact same succession that night. The shredded crispy duck salad is excellent! My girlfriend loved it to bits (no pun intended). The fried shredded duck skin is sinfully delicious, with a satisfying crunch to it. Lovely.
My girlfriend had the Thai Fried Glass Noodles (RM 13.90). It looks rather sad and much can be done about the presentation, but tastes fabulous. It was seriously mouth-watering despite the sorry looking presentation. It’s definitely one of their best mains.
I had the Fried Rice with Anchovy Sauce (Budu) and Petai (RM 9.90). I like the petai, I read an article not long ago about Malay families nowadays excluding this traditional dish from their diet. It’s raw vegetables, dipped into sauce. The fried rice was plain though, nothing special, but tastes great with the prawns.
The food at Shrimpz is mostly good, especially the prawns…
I am going to start work on Monday so I guess the days of drinking cheap wine while enjoying a good book at night is over. 🙂
I’ve just finished Stephen King’s latest (Duma Key) and it really is one of his best in many, many years. It’s technically not his latest, but the last one I read was Lisey’s Story. I saw another hardcover out at MPH – a short story compilation.
This is obviously a filler post. Wait, I’m getting a proper one up. :p
