Holiday? Hardly a holiday for me...

Even Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah was happy for us and had some fireworks display for us to see...=)

I was damn happy after Friday's late evening lab session (thanks Monash U) ended. I could finally go back home and rest for the week. I went to the Bukit Jalil temporary bus station to take my bus back to Malacca. I have to admit, the place is dreadful, filthy and worse because Friday was a rainy day. I had my usual light dinner consisting of nuts and pokkie sticks or whatever its called...balanced diet.

Above: The only thing nice about this place is everybody is nice and is trying to know you and everybody thinks that you're good looking, "Leng zhai...pegi mana??"

I finally reached home at night and I had a damn good rest, so good in fact I became too lazy to bathe my dogs. My grandaunt came over on Saturday and taught me to cook one of my favs, mee goreng which I will blog about soon. Lazed around and then went out for a movie and mamaked with my friends. Then came Sunday, churched, came back, rested for a moment and down to work. Bathed 3 of my dogs, trimmed them, cut their nails. Finished bathing the dogs and had a nice home cooked dinner with assam parrot fish. First time having parrot fish. I thought they were too pretty to be eaten but the meat was good. Very finely textured.

Above: Parrot fish...it was actually pretty before being mutilated.

Above: Assam parrot fish....yum.

    Then, after dinner I went straight away to clean up my guinea pigs' cage because it was flooded because of a faulty drinking bottle which I had to buy a new one to replace. Lastly, I cleaned up my filthy toilet and myself and then gave out a sigh of relief. Finally, all done. Or is it? What about the quizzes? What about Chemistry which I completely and utterly do not understand everything about it? Gosh....I do hope everything will go well in the next month leading to the exams. God help me!

    

My Daily Roti Movie Reviews - Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Wow...it's been awhile since my last movie which was The Expendables which I wrote about more than a month ago here. Finally I had a one week break and had time to catch up with my homies to watch Resident Evil: Afterlife. I knew from the start that it had to be a shit movie with lotsa blood, gore, dead people and a woman.

    And.....I was right. Basically had a very poor plot. Lotsa zombies killing people and a woman killing more people. Milla Jovovich isn't all that hot either. In the beginning there were all these clones of her running around. I thought they were trying to do something like Nutty Professor where Eddy Murphy acted as every single character in the movie. Fly plane, met old friend...boom boom bang bang boom bang. Dead zombies, dead people....explosions. The 3D graphics were rather good compared to other movies I've watched in 3D though. In the end, I found it to be more of a comedy rather than a horror movie.

    My Roti Rating: 4/10 (edible)

My Daily Roti Kopitiam - Are Traditional Holidays Still Significant to Modern Children?

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, otherwise known as mooncake festival for chinese people all over the world and I am stuck in my room doing my lab report. The mooncake festival really brings back a whole lot of memories for me. Not only the mooncakes I used to eat (actually I don't really like mooncakes), but especially the lanterns. I remembered the days when I used to go over to my granpa's to have sort of a gathering with all my cousins and we used to light up (sometimes literally) and take the lanterns and stroll around the taman at night. I also remembered that besides us there were also kids from other families strolling around the taman and we used to join them and play together. Also, not to mention we used to look forward to Chinese New Year where we would run around the taman chasing after lion dances, playing with fireworks (those days they were legal) and fire.

"Yeeer...mama, why this cake so weird de? Got egg inside de? No nice leh", says the kid wearing thick spectacles sitting in front of his computer creating a new strain of computer virus.

    However, all these activities just started to fade away with the advancement in technology. Today, it is a rare sight to see children still playing with lanterns and chasing after lion dances. Because they rather stay at home shooting up people on their computers. Very few children realise the significance of traditional holidays. They are actually important because if they weren't, you wouldn't be having a day off from school. A lot of modern parents don't help as well, they don't seem to feel it is important to educate their children on the importance of festivals. Sooner or later, these holidays will just become another day off school or work.

    I actually rather prefer to live back in the days when there were no computers in every house and children propose their liking for each other with scented love letters rather than email that would end up in the junk mail. Those days were more interesting. When my parents proposed to go to a restaurant to have our reunion dinner on the eve of CNY, I actually objected because it would be meaningless. Yet, many families do that nowadays. Some even decide to skip CNY and go for a vacation. These days, holidays have become rather boring. Probably the only interesting thing about CNY nowadays is I get to rest longer, eat better and get new clothes. Children have become soft nowadays with over protective parents. They don't get to play with fireworks a lot while in my childhood, me and my cousins would try to think of interesting ways to demolish stuff, blacken the walls of other people's houses with fireworks, strap insects to fireworks. Nowadays children are happy with even the "sand fireworks", heck, we used to pop those with our fingers while children nowadays think its dangerous to throw it at each other.

    It is a pity to see this happening. I guess when new things come in, some older stuff have to give way and be sacrificed in place. The world is getting worse and less interesting. Back in the old days, many of us didn't even knew where babies came from until we were in high school while you can probably catch your 9 year old brother looking at dirty stuff on your com, or you wouldn't because he knows how to delete the history.

    It is true that traditional holidays are getting less significant for the younger generation, but however bad the situation is, there will still be those that treasure them. The festivals might be less interesting but they will never die off.

My Malaysia Day, how did I spend it?

Ah..the 16th of September, Malaysia Day. 47 years ago Malaya merged with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore to become what is now our country, Malaysia. I woke up this morning aching all over my body due to my gym session the day before. Another boring day and I didn't know what to do other than to munch on some M&Ms and Cheezles. I was lazing around and figured out that instead of wasting time I should finish up my Chemistry lab report but then laziness set in as I realise I have a week to finish it and I decided to go to gym....and I brought "my" trusty LX3 camera to Sunway Pyramid for some Ah Beng and Rempit spotting. Besides, I can further fade my jeans with some leg stretching (will blog bout that later).

    What better to do on Malaysia Day than to go Beng spotting? Basically its like bird spotting but spotting bird brains. Ah Bengs and Rempits are after all national treasures and not many things are more Malaysian than them. Click on Ah Beng and Rempit to find out more if you have no idea what they are. Basically they are just a subspecies of primitive Malaysians.

    For an Ah Beng safari, the ideal place to go to would be places like Sungai Wang or Times Square, which are sort of like the Masai Mara Reserve for Bengs/Rempits. They like to roam about the concrete jungle, pristine habitat for them, but those places are too far away from where I stay. Despite being smaller, Sunway Pyramid is quite a favourable habitat for them. The best place in this mall to spot Ah Bengs and Rempits is the ice rink. The ice rink is just a fantastic magnet for them, its like an oasis or a waterhole on the Serengeti, it attracts them in the hundreds. You can most probably see them standing near the ice rink watching individuals of the same species skating and laughing like a pack of hyenas when they see people fall down. You can also see Ah Lians and Minahs there as well, female counterparts of Ah Bengs and Rempits respectively.

Below: Ah Beng and Ah Lians shopping, note bad fashion sense. Crocs with knee high socks??

Below: Rempits watching humans skating. Note revealed underwears, "stylo" or "killer" in Rempit language. Possible form of displaying dominance.

    It was quite interesting to note their odd behaviour as well. They behave somewhat primitively and tend to like to travel in packs of 4 to 10 as shown in my pics.

Below: A pack of rempits and remplets(juveniles)...note specimen with striped polo shirt on far right with sunglasses and popped collar.

    Other primitive behaviour include wearing sunglasses for no reason as the rempit below.

"Mall nie cahaya kuat gilerr!"

    In both Ah Beng and Rempit societies, popped shirt collars are used to state dominance. The higher and brightly coloured your collar, the more attractive you are to Lians/Minahs, much like crests and feathers on male birds. It would be better if there are words depicting expensive brands like "Paul Smith" or "Ed Hardy" behind the collars as seen in the below Ah Beng and Rempit.

Below: Ah Beng with popped collar with printed "Ed Hardy" behind. Though I don't think this sort of polo is sold at Ed Hardy.

Below: Rempit with popped collar displaying dominance over rival rempits.

    Lastly, in Beng/Rempit society, pants are extremely important. As shown in an above picture I had taken, revealing your underwear is extremely important. It is also better that the pants they are wearing have a loud design that screams "Look at ME!" to attract mates. Straps on pants, metallic or textile, display rank. Jeans are preferred to have lots of highly defined fades and written words on them. Skulls and bones on shirts or pants make them look aggressive to repel rivals. Example below.

Below: Very distressed jeans and straps on shorts. Typical behaviour of Ah Bengs.

    This is my first Beng/Rempit spotting experience and its very special. It was special to note that such a special subspecies is living among us. It made me realise that there are many things that we do not treasure and think about that live among us that are so interesting. They make Malaysia a less boring country to stay in. This will not be my last time. I hope you've gained insight on my experience and research from m observations. =)

Note: Ah Beng/Rempit spotting is extremely dangerous as you can be attacked and devoured. Avoid close contact and avoid making yourself look too obvious. They might be tamed but they can never be domesticated.

Lamborghini Gallardo vs Viva...=)

Been busy busy busy to update me blog. Came across some latest random shit, happened 2 days ago I think near Midvalley. A Gallardo crashed into a Viva while speeding...nice. Don't we Malaysians just love accidents? I mean we literally have one of the best road systems in the world (it's true, I'm not bullshitting) but one of the highest accident rates relative to population size. Link is here. Enjoy =)

Source:  http://theclippingpoint.blogspot.com/

Selamat Hari Raya Malaysians!

Wishing everybody a very happy Hari Raya....though Monash-ians will not be enjoying it for long thanks to our 1 day break....great....will be looking forward to some rendang and ketupats...=)

Changing the Old for the New

I have come to realise a while ago that it was time to change some of the stuff I have owned. Of course, there is a problem. Because I don't work I have a limited budget to do purchase new things so I only get to look for bargains online or elsewhere, and I did manage to find some worthy replacements for both my worn wallet and also my old and ugly Converse pencil box which had served me well over the past 2 years.

Above: My old and worn Converse pencil box.

Above: The new replacement pencil box.

    First up, my pencil box. Well, woman is always complaining to me how ugly my pencil box looked like and how embarassing it is for me to own a pencil box in such a sad state. For once, I did agree with her. Looking back, I wonder why I had the stupidity to fork out my money to purchase such an thing. But it has served me well. Broken zipper, holes and wounds from frequent mutilations by me...and it's finally time to retire and in it's place, I found a rather nice looking leather pencil box which might just be the best pencil box you can buy for that price range. Full Italian leather, bright, simple and nice. I am loving my new pencil box. Pics are below and it's up to you guys to guess the price I paid for it... ;)

    Lastly, I got a new wallet to replace my old torn wallet which I don't really like to talk about. Finally, a new wallet and I really really love it. Gosh the leathery fragrance smells wonderful and it's from one of my fav luxury brands and I happen to be lucky enough to get it for a bargain price from someone that doesn't want it....NEW! Pics are below...enjoy. =)

Above: Made of genuine leather and has magnetic zipper...wooo...

Above: Smells leather-ful.

I No Understand - Inappropriate Naming

Have not updated me blog for awhile due to a very hectic schedule. Another week has passed and another thing that I no understand. This has been going on for awhile after we were hit by an influx of japanese anime and stuff and is mostly a Chinese Malaysian problem. People start naming themselves after anime characters and giving themselves stupid names. I've met people who name themselves Shinji, Miko, Cross...even someone with the name Bangkai (I do not know what Bangkai means in Jap but in Malay it actually means corpse...HAHA!), like why the hell are these people giving themselves improper and stupid names?

    Ask these people, "do you know Japanese?" They don't, so why are you naming yourselves with Japanese names. Not only japanese names, many Malaysians are also obsessed with Taiwanese cultures and one thing that the Taiwanese are bad at are English names. Seriously...names like JoJo and NoNo come to mind. What next? Kuku? I found out that many people give themselves such names because they think its adooorable. No it's not adorable, it's hateful.

    So if you are someone who has a Japanese name who is not Japanese and do not speak their language or does not know anything about Japanese culture, history and such...you might be cursing me. You might be thinking why do I have to care about other people's businesses. Well, I just don't want you to embarrass the people around you and embarrass yourself and make people hate you. Another thing you should think of, imagine when you have kids in the future. Your kids go to school and someone asks your child, "What's your mum/dad's name?" and your kid says, "Cross/Shinji" or some shit like that....how embarrassing would that be? If you are infected with this disease, please...stop stupifying yourselves, go back, rethink and rename yourselves.