sixthseal.com – Page 261 – Leading the wild into the ways of the man…

Murder! She wrote…

January 9, 2004 by HB

There were drips of blood in the room…no body was found, but the
blood wasn’t voluminous enough to suggest that someone died from it. It
was a mystery though. Who did the blood belong to? What happened in
this god forsaken room? Why am I posting about it? Burning questions
that only an intoxicated mind could think up. Burning like…like
something combustible. Worthy of an Agatha Christy novel, but I
couldn’t be bothered.

Scene: A few dismal drops of blood in a room. What happened and why and who and what and but and lah and di and dah.

Answer: Fucking veritas broke his meth pipe in my room,
resulting in me stepping on the glass and embedding a small piece into
me. Dickhead. 😉

Oooh quick!

January 8, 2004 by HB

Oooh quick quick let’s cover up the stupid previous post with blurry
out of focus pics of a slug crawling up the kitchen sink. Quick before
someone sees it!!! Quick, they’re coming and reading , quick add pics
cover up cover up coz ppl dun read anything but the first one on top
anyway. Cepat!!!~~ quick lar

A snail crawled up my sink just now. He didn’t have a shell, so that makes him a slug.

He looks around, puzzled. He spots my digicam!

He ignores it and moves along.

Thanks for visiting, don’t read the post below, have a nice day and come back again (later).

No, actually, I kinda squashed the slug to make him pose for the final photo just now.

I slug, you slug, we all slug for ice slug!

Shall we dance?

January 8, 2004 by HB

I did it. Like all big decisions it has left me thinking about
whether it was the right thing to do. I’m not so sure really, but I
like to think that “No remorse, no regrets” and “Hard to port, steady
as she goes” are good phrases to live by. Contrary to the image I like
to portray, I’m really an emotional sucker at heart and I do have
“feelings”, strange at it may sound. I do “miss” people and places,
even though the feelings may or may not be reciprocated. Plus, the
bottle of hand shampoo hardly even got used.

I am not exactly sober right now though (not anything illegal, mind
you, just my script and good old neurotoxic but legal ethanol) so
everything I say is just me talking out of my ass. Forget I said
anything. Big boys don’t cry and all that.

Hey ho, let’s go! 🙂

Oh yeah, the photo above was taken earlier today, at Suria KLCC
center court. I’ll be celebrating Chinese New Year this year for a
change, it’s been a while and we only live that long so every new year
is a good chance to get all (emotionally) touchy feely with the
extended family and friends back home.

Now what the fuck did you just say young man? Put that bottle of vodka down and keep in mind that Xanax is not candy.

Excuse me.

Let’s dance…

Tandoori Chicken @ Ali Maju

January 6, 2004 by HB

Tandoori Chicken at Ali Maju, Pusat Bandar Damansara. It goes well
with garlic naan and I always ask for the drumstick – it comes with the
upper part of the thigh too at Ali Maju. A tasty and filling dinner
would be one tandoori chicken (shared between two people), garlic naan
(a must have, one serving each) and maggi mee goreng (one serve each).
I don’t know why but that combination tastes really good. The best way
to enjoy it is to alternate between naan + tandoori and maggi +
tandoori i.e. one bite of the first, then one of the second, repeat
till plate==empty or person==full. One ABC special with ice cream (they
make huge ones here) after that and you’ll be sorted. 🙂

On a more serious (well, perhaps personal would be a better word)
note, I’m about to decide on a very, very big issue which may have long
lasting and severe consequences that will affect me on a personal
level. Of course, I can’t talk about it here due to my readership, and
if you know about it (yeah, both of you), you shouldn’t comment here
coz it’ll jeopardize me. I’ll think it through, discuss it with several
people and then we’ll see how it goes okay? I’ll post about that when
it’s set.

Oh yeah, would someone please come over and run a needle and thread through my lips? I just did a very stupid thing today. I’m famous for that, you know…

Famous Amos Premium Chocolate Chip with Pecan Nut cookies

January 5, 2004 by HB

Famous Amos

I love Famous Amos cookies…have a fondness for them ever since I
was a kid. There wasn’t any in Sibu at that time, and my dad travels to
KL very frequently so I always get him to buy some back. Much later, a
franchise opened in Kuching, which makes things easier. Anyway, this
200 gram bag of Premium Chocolate Chip w/ Pecan Nut is one of my
favorites. I usually go for this or the Double Chocolate Chip w/ Pecan
Nut. I proudly present to you, the return of the HandCam [sixthseal.com] after more than a year:

*lights* *camera* *action*

Thanks for all your concern everyone, I appreciate all the emails,
SMS, IM’s and phone calls for support. I’m glad the blogger community
is looks out for each other. I’m okay though, and I’m still in a
relationship. 🙂 I’ll post again tomorrow, too sleepy right now. Take
care everyone!

Hartamas Square @ Sri Hartamas

January 3, 2004 by HB

Hartamas Square

I just came back from supper at Hartamas Square at Sri Hartamas. I
was there for supper with Richard, Alice and my gf. I was already
inebriated before coming due to liberal amounts of vodka and the
consumption of a certain number. *cough*

I thought about what to eat (besides beer) and decided on this
Taiwan Pizza outlet, since the concept sounded intriguing to me.
Seriously man, I was that blur…I looked at the “Taiwan Pizza” menu
long and hard and was wondering why the menu doesn’t seem all that
Taiwanese to me. I finally saw something that looks good – Dragon Pizza:

It looked good in real life too, nice shape. It also looked a bit large for me to finish, until I poked it with a fork:

It deflated to a reasonable size then. It had egg, mushrooms (the
non magical kind, the soft mushrooms that’s flat and semi transparent
and gooey and tastes nice, can’t remember the name now), ham and
probably some other stuff.

Several large TV (plasma? LCD?) screens there.

Anyway, I only realized that it wasn’t Taiwan Pizza but Italian
Pizza when I was asked what I ate and I said “Taiwan Pizza” and they
were like “huh?” and I siad “Taiwan Pizza, over there” and Alice said
“That’s Italian Pizza” and I was sure it said Taiwan and I asked my gf
to look and she said it was Italian Pizza and then I looked harder and
it still registered as Taiwan and then I looked even harder and
well…it was Italian Pizza after all. Duh. 🙂 I can’t believe I kept
on seeing Taiwan instead of Italian.

Harmatas Square is popular – packed with people.

I’m sleepy now, did more ah…numerical work when I got back, so here’s another shot of Hartamas Square:

Okay, I’m going into work tomorrow (willingly) so I’ll just finish
that bottle of vodka that’s been sitting in the fridge for…er,
several days and put another one in. Good night everyoine and have a
nice supper!

Melbourne: Day 4 – Melbourne Changes (Part I)

January 1, 2004 by HB

Day 4 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

Part I: Melbourne Changes

Queen Victoria (QV) complex

The QV site is one of the changes I noticed – the development work
has completed for some buildings and there were several shops already
open. This is the area beside the State Library and used to be the
Queen Victoria Hospital site before it was demolished. I remember
seeing the QV block being in development for a long time, last I saw,
it was a huge pit in the ground and now the QV complex has sprung up.

There is a bowling bar called Strike bordering the edge that faces
the State Library. I would assume a bowling bar is a bowling alley that
has a liquor license, but I didn’t have time to drop in and check. I
had to cover a lot of places before the convocation later in the
evening.

This is the other end of the QV building – it has banners proclaiming the opening of Big W and Safeway.

The escalator goes straight down into Big W (a department store
chain). I had to navigate through the store before exiting to the main
square.

I later found out that this side alley beside the escalators leads
directly to the central area and to Safeway (a supermarket chain).

This is the central area/food court. There are several food outlets
here – off the top of my head, I remember seeing KFC, Wendy’s, and some
fruit juice shake franchise.

There’s also a bakery called Breadtop. I misread it as BreadTalk at first, found that funny.

Melbourne Central

I found out that Melbourne Central has undergone development work as
well on the first day I arrived. I saw that the escalators from
Melbourne Central Station has been boarded up and redirected to another
entry point.

Prior to that, signs of construction work can be seen – the area
after Nando’s on Swanston Street is covered up until the newsagent’s
opening.

There isn’t much going on inside either – most of the mall seems to
be closed and boarded up with a notice about development. The newsagent
is open, as well as several shops on the ground floor. The upper floors
seem to be devoid of commerce though as can be seen from this photo:

Guess the price of my nasi campur (photo included)

December 30, 2003 by HB

Guess how much this combination of nasi campur costs? There’s more
sotong pieces than meets the eye, some of it is obscured by the chicken
drumstick. No, I didn’t play “Hide the sotong” intentionally, it was
due to the real estate on the styrofoam packs. By the way, “Hide the
(most expensive item)” is a technique where you cover up a more
expensive item with a less expensive one – like covering a drumstick
with cabbages. This is an extreme example, it’s just to illustrate the
point. I’ve never done that intentionally though, not for any moral or
personal reasons, it’s just coz I don’t bother.

The way things work over here is like this – you get handed a plate
or take away pack filled with rice and you choose whatever you want
from the array of dishes displayed. You can opt to have as many items
as you want and the portions you choose is up to you. The price (which
can vary depending on time of the day, whether you’re a regular, as
well as many other factors) is tallied up when you’re done, based on
your choices. However, “Hide the xxx” doesn’t work all that well
nowadays, because the proprietors usually check underneath due to the
popularity of this method.

Back to the post, my lunch has a drumstick, sotong and chili covered
brinjals. You don’t eat for a couple of days and then you feel hungry
enough to eat a horse. 😉 Anyway, guess how much this nasi campur pack
costs?

I cut my finger for RM 2000

December 29, 2003 by HB

Okay, I had this big bag of trash with me when I came into work
today. When I say big, I mean huge. The plastic could hold one man
quite comfortably, if he’s willing to go into the fetal position.
Whether it’ll hold his weight or not is another matter, but I
digress. Anyway, this bag had 4 smaller bags inside, all filled with
trash. Don’t ask me why, some thrash is private you know…

Back to the bags of fun, I opened the big bag and stuffed the first
of the smaller bags into the DBKL garbage cans opposite the building
where I work. This one went in relatively easy since it’s one of the
smaller ones. I went to the next one and shoved the bag into the can.
If you’ve seen one of these things, you’ll notice that it’s no mean
feat – the holes are very small…

All is good though, two down, two to go. I crossed the street and
went to one of the cans further away and jammed one of the large ones
into the trash can. It wouldn’t go in. A homeless man looked at me
greedily, probably to see what it was I stuffed down. I don’t want
anyone prying into my trash so I glared at him and went to the next can.

I stuffed it in. It wouldn’t budge. I used brute force to jam it in,
and it slowly…gave…way…and then I noticed that I seem to have a
laceration somewhere because I could feel blood dripping. No, that’s
not good. I’m already dehydrated, I need ALL the blood I have or I’ll
probably pengsan [pengsan.com].

No, I didn’t just pimp that site for fun. Er…maybe I did, but
anyway, I realized all too late that the particular bag I was trying to
get rid of is the one that contains Sharp Things. Anyway, I was pretty
pissed at it by this time and really jammed it in…and gave myself
another cut. Not to worry though, the Sharp Things are mine and at no
point did the laceration or Sharp Things come into contact with the
thrash can’s germ filled side.

However, I naturally did not appreciate being given a subcutaneous
incision for no good reason, especially when I’m dehydrated. But at
least that’s 3/4. I looked at plastic bag #4. It’ll never fit in, it’s
physically impossible. Well…yours truly isn’t exactly stupid, so I
took plastic bag #4 out and emptied most of it’s contents into the
original giant plastic bag and stuffed THAT into the next garbage can.

Actually, a single sentence does not do the act justice. There were
plenty of grunts, maneuvering, crude levers, back support, standing
back and analyzing with the little pats here and little ruffles there
method to make it go in. It took about 5 minutes and 10 profanities
before it was finally in. If anyone had seen me then, it must have
looked like I was humping the DBKL garbage cans. That’s the effort I
had to make to stuff it in – by giving it a counter weight on the other
side.

Now there’s this last one, it’s a Myers bag, festively decorated,
not too dodgy except for the blood stains, so I took that into the
office. I unlocked the door and was confounded with a problem…my
right index finger is bleeding. My right index finger is the one I use
to authenticate myself with the biometrics scanner. I didn’t want to
authenticate myself with an open wound, in the interests of my fellow
coworkers.

No, I don’t have any dangerous pathogens. I just have a high level
of civic consciousness. Oh, and also, doing that would introduce
bacteria and other nasties into my wound. 😉 It’s bad to touch anything
with an open laceration, especially for hypochondriacs like me. All is
not lost though – I remember my thumb (which was clean) was another one
that I could authenticate with. It just never did work for me before
though…

I tried anyway. Nope. Nope. Verified! That’s just on the third try –
praise the Lord! 🙂 I went in and took a photo of my finger and then
went out to dispose of the final bag. This was one of the bags that
have an open, unsealable top. I noticed something that should have been
in my backpack – a bank draft for RM 2000 from one of my bank accounts
in Kuching, which I never got around to transferring to my main one.

There you go, a little anti-climatic, granted, but that’s how my cut
finger saved me RM 2000. I went to wash my finger and wanted to put a
Band Aid around it, except I wouldn’t be able to authenticate after
that, so I just wrapped a clean tissue and used my thumb (which worked
again – whee!) to get in.

Melbourne: Day 3 – McDonald’s Salads Plus

December 28, 2003 by HB

Day 3 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

I woke up after a solid 26 hours of sleep on Monday. This is the
third day I’m in Melbourne and I realize that I’ve technically wasted
one whole day sleeping. 🙂 I woke up feeling famished and went
in search for food again and to take some photos of Melbourne city. I
went pass a McDonald’s and saw that they had this Salads Plus menu with
healthier options. McDonald’s in Australia has been pitching this angle
for quite a while now so I decided to sample their Salads Plus menu.

The Salads Plus menu consists of a variety of low fat and more
nutritious options that have 10 grams of fat or less each. I’m not
watching my weight or anything…people say I should gain a couple of
kilograms, but work and the related necessities to maintain
productivity has the effect of suppressing appetite and increasing
metabolism at the same time. I digress. The reasons I’m attempting to
eat the entire range and review it should not be foreign to long time
readers – I just want to. 🙂

Chicken Foldover

This is touted to have only 9 grams of fat per serving. It’s made
with Bega So Light cheese and has roasted chicken breast meat and
veggies on a herbed toasted flatbread.

I didn’t expect much from it, but was pleasantly surprised to find
out that it actually tastes good! It could be the 26 hours without food
though, but still, it’s pretty good.

Vege Burger

This one has 10 grams of fat per serving and it’s Sanitarium vege
patty in a herbed foccacia bun. The patty is made from chickpeas,
vegetables and spices a.k.a. fake meat. It also has a piece of beetroot.

I didn’t like this one…the patty tastes like potatoes. Not that
there’s anything wrong with that, but generally vegetarian meat
substitutes tastes unpalatable to me. The only thing that saved it is
the sweet chilli sauce inside. I couldn’t have chocked it down without
that.

Berrynice Yoghurt Crunch

It just says 97% fat free on this one. It looks like ice cream, but
it’s actually yoghurt. There’s strawberries and blueberries in it
though, and it’s topped with oats. They use Nestle low fat yoghurt.
McDonald’s partners up with other food manufacturers in the Salads Plus
menu if you haven’t noticed.

That was what I had in the first sitting. After walking around and
taking more photos, I passed by a different McDonald’s and decided to
see if I could eat through the whole Salads Plus menu. 🙂

This McDonald’s has a fridge at the counter with the salads and other stuff:

The salads occupy the first two layers and the third one has yoghurt
(including the Berrynice Yoghurt Crunch) and fruit juice. It looks like
the Berrynice Yoghurt Crunch is prepared and packaged instead of made
during your order. I decided to have a salad this time, since after
all, this is the Salads Plus menu. There are two salads – Garden Mixed
Salad and Roast Chicken Salad. Naturally, I went for the second one.

Roast Chicken Salad

This salad features roasted breast chicken, Bega So Light cheese,
lettuce, tomato, and cranberries. It’s 97% fat free and there are three
dressings to choose from – French, Low Fat Italian and Mango and Sesame.

It’s served with bagel chips. The above shows the salad with the
small container of bagel chips and a packet of dressing. Here’s a close
up of the bagel chips (croutons?):

This is the dressing I chose – Mango and Sesame:

The salad looks like this after everything is added in:

No, I didn’t toss it because I wanted to eat it like this. It tastes
surprisingly good (again). I was puzzled to find that I actually
enjoyed eating this salad. The mango dressing is really good, goes well
with the salad and complements the cranberry pieces well. It’s also
very filling, but that could be due to the fact that I’ve already eaten
two hours ago…

Orange & Poppyseed Muffin Lite

This is also 97% fat free and it tastes like the normal McDonald’s
muffins…I could barely finish this one. It’s quite large. It’s a
muffin, can’t describe it much more than that. It’s had orange pieces
in it and crunchy poppyseeds on top. I reckon I’ll have an excuse
should I test positive for opiates at customs…”Officer, I swear, it
was those damn poppy seed muffins I had. I hear they produce false
positive for opiates in urine tests”.

That’s true by the way – poppy seeds have morphine and codeine which
(if you eat enough) will cause you to fail a drug test. You’ll still
have explain away the cannabinoids and amphetamines positives though. 😉

Anyway, I didn’t manage to eat through the Salads Plus menu…I
didn’t go to Melbourne just to have McDonald’s everyday. However, the
only items I missed out on is the Garden Mixed Salad, Raspberry Muffin
Lite and the Granny Smith red & green apples (which you could get
at the supermarket anyway). My apologies for not eating though the
menu, but I covered the meat (no pun intended) of it, so this ends day
three of my Melbourne trip.