Friday the 13th

It's Friday! Hooray! Happy Friday the 13th and, even if you're not superstitious, do look before you leap! :)

I'm Craving For...

Fried ice-cream! I first tried this wonderful dessert when I was a student in Melbourne. A good friend brought me to Chinatown and promised me the most delicious dessert ever! After a huge fried chicken rice meal (I miss the portion sizes there!) the waiter brought these two little round brown gems. Tasting it for the first time, I never knew what ecstacies I've missed! It's crispy hot from the fryer on the outside and cold creamy on the inside! I don't know what batter they used but it leaves a delicious buttery taste in your mouth which is simply divine with the cold ice-cream!

I thought that first encounter would be my last as I didn't know where they sold it here. I've recently, though, caught tantalising glimpses of it at the SS2 pasar malam though I never tried it. Sometime back, we decided to give a small neighbourhood Hong Kong eatery, Star Hong Kong Cafe, in USJ 9 a try and lo and behold! On their menu was the exact same fried ice-cream! It was like a reunion with a loved one and it was just as heavenly as I remembered it!

Do give it a try if you come across this elusive gem! :)

Off to Find a Kahuna

My little cousin made me watch Lilo & Stitch recently for the hundredth time. This time, instead of watching the little blue alien, I couldn't help but notice how beautiful Hawaii looked even in a cartoon. Surfing online, I found it to be an amazing island filled with beautiful beaches, huge surfs, a melting pot of culture, great food and gorgeous kahunas or surfer dudes! ;)

And to make it even more tempting, I found that Hawaiian Beach Rentals handpicks first class service environmentally friendly resorts in Kauai and Hawaii! I was very pleased to know they were encouraging ecotourism as too many resorts today spoil the beauty of the beaches and islands they are built on. This way, the damage to Kauai and Hawaii will be greatly reduced and we can continue to enjoy the beauty for many more years to come!

So who's coming with me? I'm off to find myself a kahuna!

LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.

Government Agencies

Recently I had to make a trip to a Government agency to sort out some matters. This is what I experienced:

Plus:

• Having a receptionist to find out what you want and press one of the many buttons there to guide you to the right counter.
• Having enough chairs to sit on.
• Having aircond and telly while you wait.
• Polite staff who did greet me with a smile. Looks like the campaign has worked! The days of surly Government staff are dead!

Minus:

• Whatever button the receptionist pressed didn't make much difference to me. The numbers weren't moving in sequence and until I left, I couldn't for my life figure out how the numbers were rotating!
• Screaming children running all over the place and crawling around on the dirty floor.
• At least 20+ counters out of which only half or less were open. They should go out for lunch earlier knowing that most people would come in during lunch to settle their matters.
• And my biggest rant - Having to wait for more than an hour just to submit my form and be thumb-printed for a simple change in personal details! Why can't we just be a little more technology savvy and allow changes to be made through the website?! After all, if people today conduct all sorts of transactions over the Internet, why still stick to the old-fashioned way of thumb-printing just for procedure's sake?!

I heard too that to register for tax e-filing this year means making a trip to the tax office. If I'm going to make a trip there, what's the point in me doing e-filing then?! *shakes head*

My List

*This is not a sponsored post*

When I started learning about Payperpost and others, I found that most blogs that gave tips on monetizing were mainly foreign-owned. So when Paris told me about this new thing launched by a local blogger, it was a very refreshing change indeed.

And recently, Daryl came up with this funky new concept to help all Malaysian bloggers gain links which will help them increase their exposure and rankings! How wonderful especially if you're a struggling blogger like me desperately trying to gain a small foothold in the blogging scene! It's something that'll benefit all Malaysian bloggers, whether new, young, old and not just the famous or celebrity ones. So if you're interested to find out more, moosey over to his page here where he details what you need to do. Hey, if me and my fluffy small brain could understand the instructions, so can you! :)

Presenting...the first batch of My List blogs which have been given the honour of rolling this out:

Earn Money Blogging
PabloPabla's Whatever
Make Money with blogging
Paris Beaverbanks
Free Links Giveaway
Free Blogger Templates
Blogsreview.Net
Making a Living
5xmom
How to be a Better Blogger
My Women Stuff
Hochiak! Delicious Asian Food
Best Recipes
Champagne Tastes on a Beer Budget
Daryl's Discovery Journey
The fluff must go somewhere

Indian Delights

I was tortured yesterday by Lemongrass' delicious Indian lunch that left me with a terrible urge for banana leaf! You see, no one ever wants to take me for banana leaf lunches as they claim I'll be a waste of money since banana leaf rice comes with unlimited helpings of rice and vege! I've been lucky to grow up with a dad who absolutely loves Indian food so after looking at all of Lemongrass' drool-inducing pictures, it was really nice to come home to find that dad had bought Indian food for dinner!

We really like this stall's fried chicken but yesterday, there was only 1 left so dad bought a piece of fish to supplement it. The fried chicken was a bit hard as it was already quite late but it's really delicious when eaten there and a steal at RM2 for a drumstick!

So since they were out of fried chicken, we had this little fried chicken pieces too. I'm not sure what they're called but they looked like they were marinated in tandoori mix before frying as they had that distinctive red hue. I found bits of curry leaf in it too. This is seriously addictive stuff! The chicken are in delicious little bite-sized pieces that's nicely flavoured and dry.

A nice bowl of mutton curry rounded it off. It was a pretty big portion but went down well since it's a firm favourite! This was well-cooked, one of the better mutton curries I've had. The meat was well-cooked and filled with flavour, it didn't take jaws of steel to eat them!

And to combat the heatiness of the meats and soothe our guilty conscience, a big plate of stir-fried vegetables with fresh shitake mushrooms.

Really good but oh...so filling! Not the best thing to have before a couch potato night with Desperate Housewives! :p

BloggerWave Goes Live

Recently, I found that Payperpost has stopped giving opportunities for blogspot bloggers. Since they never wanted to approve my blog, I stopped trying after a while. However, a new site called Bloggerwave caught my attention while I was surfing.

It's the newest thing to join the monetizing bandwagon and unlike some other sites, Bloggerwave welcomes bloggers from all sites, whether free or your own domain. Signing up your blog is easy and I got mine approved within the very same day! They've finally gone live and are actively looking for bloggers who are interested in making some money and participating with them.

So if you've been discouraged by some other sites out there, go give Bloggerwave a try and see how you can start monetizing your blog too!

I'm a Woman...

Hear me RAWR!

Monday didn't start too well. Couldn't find my parking pass, turned the whole house upside down looking for it and got scolded terribly by dad for being forgetful. I swear my brain has deteriorated drastically! I'm becoming such a scatter brained bird.

Anyway, it being a dreary Monday, I dolled up nicely this morning to cheer myself up a little. Wore my nice flair black skirt and my nice little pink jacket, both of which I've never worn before! Spent some time doing up my face which I've neglected for a while and put on my squeeky shoes (heh..haven't gotten round to finding a pair I like yet!)

Came into the office and my colleague beamed and said, "You're looking VERY elegant today!" Woot! :)

I love compliments and this unexpected one definitely made the day a little brighter! *grin* Sue me, but I'm a woman! We were made to be complimented!

Busty Issues

Lots of jokes are made about women's bust sizes and men even have their own rating for them! What they don't realise though is how cumbersome it can be sometimes for a woman who's trying to shop for something nice. A friend is quite well-endowed and here, where everyone seems to be tiny with equally small busts to fit, she always laments how difficult it is to find something nice to fit her. She's not big-sized but because she can't find something that fits well around her bust, she ends up having to buy clothes in larger sizes which ends up hanging on the rest of her slim frame.

However, recently when I met her, she was dressed in a lovely dress that fitted her beautifully in all the right places. Excitedly, she whispered her little secret - Styles for the Busty Woman! It's a new online store with unconventional sizes that caters for average built but busty women. My friend now has a brand-new wardrobe which makes her feel like a million dollars!

LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.

How to take a train...

In Boleh-land during rush hour.

• First get to the station and hope very hard that you haven't missed the nearest train. Otherwise the arrival of the next train will probably be anyone's guess.
• Hope very hard you've picked a vantage point and the doors will open right in front of you. According to Murphy's Law, it will not.
• Do not queue. Nobody does. Shove your way to the door and ignore the poor passengers who are struggling to get out.
• Once in, scramble wildly for seats which again according to Murphy's Law, there will not be any available.
• Grab on to something when the train starts to move but the tightly packed bodies should keep you upright anyway.
• If you're a lady, hope that you're not near a lecherous man who gets a thrill of having some form of bodily contact with you.
• Hope the people around you have showered or at least used some perfume.
• Hope no one around you decides to release some foul-smelling bodily odours!
• Hope again that the train does not shudder to a stop in between stations due to congestion of the train lines.
• Finally, do enjoy your train ride :)

Kamikaze Bugs

My office room's recently been plagued by this slew of little bugs or as my expatriate colleague charmingly puts it - little animals. They're tiny, they're toony and they're a little loony...heh...well, they're indeed tiny but damn irritating!

They fly around my line of vision at lightning speed, darting away before you can smack them. Then they fly around my computer screen, irritating me to no end. The worst is when I leave my drink unattended for a while. When I next pick up my cup, I'll see a tiny bug curiously peeping over the rim, surveying its contents. And sometimes, I get kamikaze bugs, dive-bombing themselves into my cup! It irritates me to no end and the pest control people who come around every month can't seem to do anything either!

They seem to have invaded my home as well! Recently, we forgot to take the garbage out for a couple of days and when we opened the bin, a cloud of these little animals flew out! I believe they're fruit flies who apparently live for only a day or two. No wonder they try to make the most of their short little lives by bugging their giant human hosts!

Clicking Cleaner

I just had my lunch of that horrid fried rice and was enjoying the peace and quiet of an empty office when I heard little clicking sound - just like a camera phone.

Puzzled, I peeped out through the glass walls of my room and, lo and behold! The cleaner whom I let in a while ago was standing at our pantry taking pictures with her camera phone. Bemused, I watched, unnoticed, as she proceeded on to the toilet to take more pictures. As I couldn't see very clearly, I wasn't sure if she was taking pictures of our pantry and toilet or whether she was camwhoring!

It did put a smile on my face though and made me appreciate a little of what our modern office had. There could be some people back from where she came from ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the nice stuff we are lucky to get here. Either that or maybe they'll be laughing at how spartan our office looks in comparison to their cushy one! ;) There are always two possibilities!

Nasi Goreng Kampong

After a busy morning, I was really hungry by lunch but didn't want to go down to the food court to pack lunch. A short minute or two in there leaves you coming out smelling like the food court itself! Luckily a colleague was going down so I got her to pack me some nasi goreng kampong which I've been craving for a while. So much for attempting to be healthy!

She came back with this. When I opened it, my heart sank. Firstly, I hate my food liberally sprinkled with tonnes of fried onions. I don't mind fried onions in small quantities for flavouring but I hate the sweetish commercial types which this was. The fried ikan bilis wasn't fresh and the rice was quite empty except for 2 tiny pieces of chicken that were so small, I mistook them for pieces of garlic at first!

Grrrr...don't you just hate it when your cravings aren't filled?! I sulkily attempted to eat about 1/3 of it before giving up. Not only was it oily, it didn't have any taste sans fried onions.

And that won't be the only reasons why I won't be buying anymore food from that stall. As I was uploading my photos, I discovered something I didn't see on the pack itself!

*pukes* I think, or rather hope, it dropped off after I took the photo and before I started eating! *shakes fist at stall owner*

All My Bags are Packed!

The great deals on Disney World tickets jolted the travel bug in me wide-awake. It's time to plan another vacation!

I'm a real wanderlust. I often try to go for at least a big holiday once a year, with some small ones in between, depending on what good deals I can get. However, the problem I tend to find with holidaying in Europe, Australia or US are the cost of the hotels. In Asia, I get to enjoy fantastic 4-5 star rooms for a price which will get me a tiny pokey hotel room in any of the Western countries.

So while researching Disney World, it was nice to stumble across some Orlando hotels offering great deals and discounts on their hotel rooms and vacation homes! Staying within Orlando would help me save heaps on travel to the theme parks (52 in that area!) and beaches and golf courses which are only 40 minutes away! They not only offer great deals on accommodation but car rental, vacation packages and theme park tickets too!

Time to pack our bags...we're off to Disney World! :)

Pudu Pan-Mee

I recently took you on a little tour of Pudu for delicious soup. Now, to introduce it's neighbouring pan-mee stall! It's right next to the soup stall and I usually end up ordering pan-mee too while having soup. Got to kill two birds with one stone since Pudu isn't that close by!

It's manned by this husband and wife team and they do a brisk business to both their own customers and the soup customers who don't mind something extra soupy! They only have one version - soup but you can have the option of either hand-cut pieces or long noodles. I prefer the hand-cut ones. It tends to leave it with a rough, uneven texture that makes good chewing!

A bowl comes piping hot with lots of vegetables, pan-mee pieces, mushrooms and lean pork slices and topped with a handful of crispy anchovies. The meat and mushrooms have been pre-cooked in a savoury gravy which adds a nice flavour to the soup.

I find that it makes a nice dinner if you're looking for something light. Then again, I am quite the pan-mee fan! Do give it a try if you are ever in that area!

Who's Weird?

Paris B twisted my arm in doing this meme! Paris - how come your meme has 10 things?! The ones I saw were only 5! A friend recently called me weird so okay, I guess it's partly confirmed then! So *scratches head*, here goes 10 things that are different about me:

1. I don't like amusement park rides.
2. I'm guilty of anthromorphism - I talk about my stuffed toys as if they're human with emotions and feelings! ;p
3. Nutrilite daily vitamins make me throw up, so does spirulina in any form.
4. I have to floss every night.
5. I'm partly obsessed about cleaning the kitchen sink after I've washed up.
6. I get sudden cravings for certain foods and will eat it everyday until I get real sick of it.
7. I burn my bridges sometimes.
8. I have the attention span of a goldfish and get bored really easily. My many half-finished little projects are testimony to that!
9. I'm usually quiet and reserved unless you know me really well which leads many to assume that I'm really unfriendly.
10. I can't tell left from right :p

Now who shall I tag next?! Hmm...

Soo Yin - you up for another? I always tag you cos you mentioned you like doing them! Just yell at me if you're tired! :p

Angie - Here you go! :)

Alan - how about another meme? ;)

Dreams Can Come True

I caught clips of Disney World's 15th birthday bash on telly last night. 15 grand years already and poor ol' me still hasn't even stepped a toe, what more a foot in the place where magic comes alive! Blame it on the terribly high cost of getting there, visa issues and the steep tickets.

Doing some research, I found that their tickets cost a whooping US$63 to US$229 for one-day to five-day passes! And that's not even including the food or Disney stuff I know I'll buy - Everyone needs a pair of Mickey Mouse ears! So I was pleased as punch when I found Discount Disney Tickets which promise the lowest prices and the best service for Disney World and all Orlando theme parks and attractions including Universal Studios! That has always been on my must-visit list! And best of all, for foodies like me, it offers great deals on themed dinner shows where I've heard both the food and entertainment is good!

Hurrah! Now, maybe my dreams can come true too!

My Healthy Breakfast

It was one of my New Year's resolutions to eat healthier this year. However, it didn't quite help when I discovered a stall at the food court selling the most delicious fried beehoon for breakfast. The Malays called it Singapore Beehoon and it's beehoon that's fried with fishcake, lots of veges and a very healthy dose of black pepper, giving it a spicy tang that's quite out of this world in the mornings!

After falling off the healthy wagon, I've decided to pick myself up again and give it another go at a healthy breakfast! So, 3 days a week when dear dad's here, we wake up to a bowl of hot, tummy-filling and cholestrol-lowering Quaker Oats. He mixes it with powdered milk before adding hot water so we get our calcium intake in one shot.

This was my bowl this morning. I usually add half a banana (the other half goes to my unwilling bro who apparently hates bananas in his oats!) and for an extra treat today, I topped it off with a handful of raisins to give it some sweetness as we don't add sugar to the oats.

Well, oats definitely last longer in my tum compared to anything else I eat for breakfast so it does help me curb mid-morning snacking and after a while, it doesn't taste that as cardboardy as I thought it would. I'll try a drizzle of honey and maybe some fresh fruit next for some variety. If nothing else, at least I feel psychologically a little healthier!

My Arm's Alive!

Recently, my right arm's been feeling funny. There's this perpetual ticklish and thingling feeling in it that makes me want to stretch it to the max or to reach out and smack someone! :p It feels a little like pins and needles or something that needs a good, long stretch but yet stretching it doesn't help at all! And it gets worse when I'm in certain yoga positions that require me to be curled up.

I've never gotten this feeling before and I don't know why it's only in my right arm. It's been feeling really weird and it's especially bad when I'm at work typing away. It feels like it's raring to go! Maybe it might be useful for people I don't like :p

Help! What should I do?!

A house to have and hold

I knew my childhood years were over when I found myself signing on the dotted lines of a home mortgage. Goodbye innocence, hello cruel adult world! It's ironical how a house can be the most expensive thing you'll ever buy in your lifetime and yet the steps of buying a home is just the beginning. Looking at the various home loan options available in the market was mind-boggling, to say the least but hopefully I ended up with a decent package which has made my dream of being a tai-tai pretty hazy!

Googling loans, I found that our loan market here isn't as sophisticated as the UK. Their loans are termed endowment mortgages where an insurance policy covers the principle of the loan to ensure that you can meet the principle when it falls due. However, some got burnt when their endowments weren't enough to cover the principle amount due to rising interest rates and inflation. So the good British Government stepped in to legislate an endowment policy selling service which allows them to sell their endowment policies for up to 35% more than insurance companies would buy it back for!

While the second part of the deal about not having enough money wasn't very good, I found the insurance concept rather interesting. I believe some insurance companies here have started a similar system except in our case, the policy protects by only kicking in if you have lost your ability to pay the loan due to death or permanent disability.

It's a sobering thought sometimes about how short a time we actually have to earn our money that's supposed to support our dependents and ourselves till we depart. Scary...looks like I'd better keep my nose to the grindstone now instead of blogs!