When Spetember ends...

Wow. Its already September the 30th. Time passed by so fast (so is my money in the bank T_T). There's a lot of things happening for the past few days hence the delay in posting up something new.

First is my friend's birthday. Or should I say best friend? Certainly, yes. His birthday falls on September 29th, which is yesterday and basically, he planned for a gathering with his fellow secondary school friends. It was fun, although his schedule is quite cramped. Dinner with his family at 6.30pm, dinner again with friends at AMpang Point at 8 and the third round at Taman Ikan Emas with some arcade friends. I'm so bloated yesterday. X_X

Today I went out with Weng Kit to the school (Victoria Institution) for a visit as Weng Kit has to collect his MUET files from Ms.Vasantha for dunno what purpose. Our hopes to spend some time to have a little chat with Ms.Vasantha was dashed because she has to relief another class as the school is facing a shortage of teachers. When I am back to the school, I'm still glad to see some old familiar cars around, such as Cik Rozina's Iswara, the counselor's Waja and of course the Civic I recommended Ms.Vasantha to purchase. XD

We left for Segi college shortly after because I have to hand in some documents to the administration to process. Since both of us went out of the house with an empty stomach, we decided to have something large for lunch. At first, we planned to go to Pudu for Hakka noodles but I grew impatient in the lunch hour congestion at Jalan Sultan Ismail and decided to have lunch at Pavillion instead. Since we have a very empty stomach, I suggested Carl's Jr.


Ice Cold and Refreshing and the best part is, it is free flow.

After going to here and there and wasting money in the process for this whole month, tomorrow marks my first day of returning to work at Sony. Damn. Somehow I feels lazy but due to the fact that my bank account is running low on turquoise, guess I have no other choice. I'll try to spend some time to update my blog, so stay tuned for October for more tasty food reviews/food critics and a chunk of of my life!

Money (Part II)

A continuation of Money Part I

My first job was a rather simple job as a waiter at a small little cafe named Vin'z Corner. The cafe was run by a couple as their "small business". My initial pay was only RM3/hour but back then, it is quite a lot for a 15 year old employee. I am very happy when I received my first pay- RM 101.40 a figure I will never forget. A year later, when I am in Form 4, I switched to Hong Kong's Food Culture at Low Yat Plaza. Over here, I earned more(RM4/hour) and gained much more experience since my customers is not limited to students only. The owner was a Hongkie couple and they treated me very well. Unfortunately, my days weren't long enough over there because they have employed a few full timers and me, being a part timer was forced to resign. During those days, I used to spend lavishly on arcade games and my lunch on every Saturday was McDonald's.

I wasn't employed in any single jobs from october 2005 till December 2006. After SPM, I worked for half a month at a boutique at Lot 10 and I earned my first RM500 (RM700 to be exact). Then college starts and I am occupied with studies right until this year May where my studies has ended. On May 4th 2009, I was employed by Sony Malaysia in one of their direct stores around Kuala Lumpur. I earned my first RM1,000. On July, disaster struck. My old rig failed me and you can read the rest of the story here.

A few weeks back, my cousin seek my help in assembling a new rig for him. I asked about his budget and he replied to me RM3,000. WOW! I was astonished and his mother who was standing beside me was shocked. My aunt is a housewife depending fully on his taxi driver husband for living expenses. My taxi driver uncle is a very stingy person and the fact that my aunt is his second wife just made her condition worst.

A few days ago, we went over to Low Yat to buy parts for the new rig. I am simply shocked by the way my cousin treating his own mother (my auntie). Making faces, throwing "adult tantrum" and sometimes even replied her in a rather inhuman way. My auntie must be really sad, because after forking out nearly RM 1,800 of her own savings (my uncle didn't contribute any single cent for it) for a brand new computer for him, he's simply ungrateful and yet still demand for this and that. His demands was as if my auntie is growing a money tree back home. Somehow he NEVER though of his own capability, his mother's capability and their family condition.

It is just sad that how money has made humans much meaner. I mean, that's his ONLY son and yet he didn't do his job when the time arisen.

The All Time Favourite

Almost every Saturday, when I am out for a meeting with Cypher, Dope and Max, most of the time we will just go Uncle Duck for lunch. All of us comes to an agreement that Uncle Duck is by far one of the most value for money restaurants in Times Square. Today, we had out usual lunch at Uncle Duck and this time, I'll decide to do a little bit review on this outlet.



Cheese Baked Rice is synonym with Hong Kong Restaurants. In malaysia, cheese baked rice was made famous by hong kong style restaurants such as Kim Gary (the pioneer in the industry), Wong Kok Char Chan Theng, Tsim Tung and many more. Those who frequented these restaurants mentioned knows little about the existence of Uncle Duck, particulary its first outlet with a different name- Hong Kong Food Culture.

Today I'll focus more on the Cheese Baked Rice. It costs RM 14.80 per plate, a little tad higher than its competitors but it is worthy. First of all, the rice is fried with some egg, to give it some distinctive aroma before it was loaded into an aluminium foil together with other ingredients such as your choice of meat (chicken, fish, beef, pork etc), ham bits, peas, white sauce and cheese before it was brought into the oven for baking.


Chicken Chop Baked Rice with Cheese and White Sauce

Cypher's all time favourite. Maybe it satisfies his big appetite since he's kinda err.... =X


Seafood Baked Rice with Cheese and White Sauce

My choice of Baked Rice. However, compared to 3 years ago, the seafood variant inside has dropped significantly because of rising costs. 3 years ago, this particular baked rice comes with oysters, a piece of scallop, a generous amount of lala, squids, cuttlefish, prawns, a slice of Grouper fish and a few slice of other fish (two types of fish given). Now, oysters, scallop, lala and grouper fish has gone. What's left now is just a few slices of fish meat, some fish cakes, prawns, cuttlefish and a generous amount of squid. But hey, the price has only risen RM1 comapred to 3 years ago and the baked cheese rice at Kim Gary is practically empty. Just some cheese on top of your meat of choice and some corn and that's it. The rice is not even fried.

A good meal have to be accompanied by good drinks. Another specialty of Uncle Duck/HK Food Culture is its Lemon Tea. Brewed to perfection and one can savour the unique taste of lemon and tea infused perfectly together. Whenever I drink Lemon Tea at any restaurant, I'll pit them against this lemon tea as benchmark (and usually they would fail badly XD)


Iced Lemon Tea at front and Ribena Special at the back.

There's some rules to follow when drinking this marvelous beverage. One need to poke the sliced lemons at the bottom to bring out the lemon juice which will flavour the tea with zesty lemon taste. A small hassle but definitely worth it.

There were more good things in this restaurant but unfortunately there's always circumstances. First, I don't have a huge wallet and secondly I don't have a huge tummy like... =X

Uncle Duck (HK) Steamboat
得哥火锅餐厅
Lot 03-107, 3rd FLoor,
Berjaya Times Square
No.1, Jalan Imbi
55100, Kuala Lumpur

Bad Brunch

Secret Recipe was well known for its cakes. Other well known food from their menu is the Irish Lamb Stew, Singapore laksa, Chicken Cordon Bleu and a lot more. Today, Weng Kit, Kim Bee, Andy and I meet up at Times Square for a mini reunion after each of us was busy with each others stuffs after high school. We decided to have a rather scrumptious lunch at Secret Recipe.

My expectation towards Secret Recipe has always being high since I usually goes for their cakes and Cornish only when I am there. Today I decided to call something from their menu since I haven't even had breakfast yet.



I ordered the Roasted chicken with Tumeric Sauce. Costs me RM 14.50. The chicken is hard. Very hard. It's either they over roasted the chicken or the chicken used isn't fresh at all (second one is highly possible). The fries and vegetable portion isn't that generous either. For RM 14.50, I'm sure I can get a better deal at Vivo. The turmeric sauce is very very yellow, but the taste is no where to be found. Worst, I shat brixx right after having this.



Iced Lemon Tea was rather tasteless. If I could turn back time, I rather have the iced water at the back instead.



Andy ordered the Meatball spaghetti. Portion is quite small. I don't dare to curi sikit. XD


Kim Bee and Weng Kit go for the set. Both of them choose Black pepper chicken chop with black pepper sauce and rice. They are very kiam siap with the rice it seems.

The overall experience I had in Secret Recipe isn't that good. I think I'll just stick to cakes, brownies and Cornish when I'm at any Secret Recipe outlets next time. A great reunion ruined by a bad brunch.

Money (Part I)

Money is the new modern tool to judge the person around us. Long time ago, people worship the sultans, maharajas and kings because these figures, as a symbol of leadership is always the one with the most wealth. In the modern days now, we rarely heard anyone talked about our Yang Di-Pertuan Agong nor any of the sultans of the states. Tan Sri lim Goh Thong, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Ananda Krishnan and Robert Kuok are among renowned figures among Malaysians. What makes them famous? One simple answer, MONEY.

In this modern world, money is indeed everything. One only needs to experience it in their life. Some are born in poverty, and some are born in a luxurious family. Some are born in a poor family, but personally witnessed their family's rags-to-riches story whereas there's some who are born in a corrupted rich family which in the end saw their family members all either being sent to jail or has ranned away to other part of the world living a solitary lifestyle.

I would say I was born in a poor family. My mother's side is a family of 6 members and they used to live in the unit above Dynamic bookstore at Pudu. I remembered my mother used to tell me her stories about how poor they are, especially after the Japanese occupation and the May 1969 incident. In order to feed my mother and her brothers and sisters, my grandmother was forced to pawn off her jeweleries to the pawn shop at Pudu. She always reminds me to be grateful for what we have and never envy other people for what they have.

My father's side is at least a little brighter. The price of sky rocketing rubber during those days brought some fortune to my father's side. However, my grandfather was a stingy person and this influenced my father's side grandmother as well. However, when synthetic rubber was invented and mass produced, the price of rubber plummeted and this forced my father to come to the mighty Kuala Lumpur to earn a living. The rest are family history.

On October 14th, 1989, I was brought out to this world after I'm inside mother's womb for 9 months. Being the first son, my father's side grandmother fought for my guardianship. However, my mother disagrees and I was then raised in Kuala Lumpur by a babysitter at Petaling Jaya till the age of 4. I only have vague memory of my child hood life. I remembered my home isn't this complicated back then. It was simple with only the basic necessities such as a tele with no video tape player. Life was simple back then and when shopping, I will be denied almost everything I wanted because of financial constrain. I still remembered I used to cry like there's no tomorrow when my mother denies me a candy bar or cookie.

When it is the time I step in primary school, I was only given 70 cents per day as pocket money. Those days, a bowl of noodles costs 50cents and the gardenia "EVERYDAY" bread is 30 cents. I got my allowance increased to RM 1 when I am in primary 3 and when I'm stepping into Secondary 1, my daily allowance was increased to RM20/week, RM 30/week when I'm in Form 2, RM40/week when I'm in Form 3 till Form 5. It was when I started working, my perception about money begins to form.

to be continued... =]

Raya

Well, its second day of Raya. Some of my friends have came back to malaysia and some even went oversea to travel around. Initially, I planned to work at Sony just for the sake of 3x pay. However, I backed out the last minute because I wished to spend more time with my family. This is extremely important, because once I'm officially start working back next month, I'll have lesser time for my family and also, friends.

This year, I spend my two Hari Raya at home painting. The walls in my living room was given a new fresh coat of paint in preperation for Chinese New Year. Yes, I do know that CNy is 5 months more, but hey, its freaking 5 months!!! Time passes by rapidly. Today is second day of Raya, next two weeks is Mid Autumn festival, then followed by Deepavali, Christmas and then Chinese New Year. Painting the living room was the first thing to do in the list. Next is the doors and windows. Then as CNY comes near, I'll have to shop and make cookies (due to the fact that I'm able to make certain types only).

After two days of painting, I'm all worn out. However, those efforts pays off because my living room is such a comfortable place to live in now. Coupled with Warm White lighting, the ambiance is simply fantastic.Now I only know why some people love to spend their holidays for home improvements.

Vivo

Allow me first to apologize, because this post, by now, should be the post with the most food pictures. My apologies again for making you hungry. I've been to Times Square on the Raya eve with Cypher, Dope and Max and to be joined by Wei Zhen sometime later. We had lunch at Vivo, which is situated at LG floor, opposite to the crappy Room 18 restaurant. Vivo is an American style Italian restaurant.

We had mushroom soup as starter. Soup was creamy, and there's some mushroom chunks as well. Definitely not those served straight out of a can of Cambell's.



A mushroom soup isn't complete without garlic bread.



At almost RM 1/piece, I'll say its quite small. But hey, it certainly smells good and makes a good dip for the mushroom soup.

Dope's main course came first, which is the Chicken & Mushroom Baked Rice.



From the looks and smell, it is great. Taste? I don't know because I didn't "curi makan".



Cypher's Meatballs Spaghetti came right after and followed by Max's Baked Meatballs Spaghetti



These two might look similar, but the baked one carries more cheese and has a slightly better aroma due to the fact that it has gone through the "oven torture".



An empty table on my side, watching them enjoying their own respective meal. =[

5 minutes later, my Tropical BBQ Chicken Chop was served right in front of me.



It comes with well fried crinkle cut fries, a huge portion of salad and two grilled pineapple slice. The grilling of pineapple slice further brings out the sweetness of it but it is too sweet because the pineapple slice is from a can, not freshly cut.

I even have a bowl of mashed potato thrown in as well.



The mashed potato was done perfectly. With the right amount of cheese and seasoning. However, the chicken was a let down because some part of the chicken is overly seasoned with too much pepper. The pepper just overpowered the sweetness of BBQ sauce. The same chicken chop I had last few months tasted so much better with the right amount of pepper and the sweetness of BBQ sauce seeps right into every flesh of the chicken.

The beverage which accompanies my meal is the Sparkling Lemon Kiwi juice. Tasted funny and extremely sour. Avoid at all cost.





Damage done was RM 110.65. However, this is definitely more worthy than Room 18 situated opposite. By the way, Cypher's friend encountered a cockroach in his Kai Lan when dining in at Room 18 a few days ago. Another reason why the outlet should be shunned away.

Alive!!! =D

Yes. My T-Rex. It is finally ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best part is, I don't need to travel up to Rawang just to get it done. What I did was simply swapping the optical drive with my current computer and tadaa.....





Windows XP ahem version installs perfectly smooth. However, after setting up the XP, I had a hard time finding drivers for audio, Ethernet and on board VGA display. Took me nearly two hours to search, download, install and restart the machine.

Perfect time to enjoy it with my brand new mouse.



Went over to Low yat Plaza today to buy parts to assemble a new PC for my cousin. Couldn't resist the temptation to grab one. XD

Cookie

This time, I’ll go much more in depth about this famous in Ipoh biscuit shop. This shop was set up back then in 1949 by Ching Han Guan’s father who is a baker from China. This shop is currently being run by Ching Han Guan himself now.

Trust this old label.

Inside the shop, it was the typical traditional set up. Glass cases decorate the wall and huge glass bottles filled with various cookies such as peanut cookie, chocolate cookie and cream crackers. There are also ready packed biscuits such as the shop’s famous lotus meat floss biscuit (肉丝莲蓉), the traditional Heong Peah (香餅), Sa Ke Ma (薩騎馬) and Hap Tou Soh (核桃酥).

Cui Mah Fah

Forgotten what this is called. Inside is filled with gula melaka. My sister’s favourite.

Egg Biscuit (Kai Tan Peang) was flavourful and very "sung" too. Best served with a cup of ceylon tea.

Rice Biscuit (Mai Chang). One of my friend joked that eating three pieces of this is equivalent to a bowl of rice. lol

Sa Ke Ma. Enjoyed this sweet delight ever since I was a kid. I will always request my father to get some home whenever he went to Ipoh for business purposes many years ago.

Dragon Pearl Biscuit (Loong Zhu Peang). Looks exactly to Penang’s version of heong peah (Tambun biscuit) but both has their own specialty. However, I still prefer Penang’s Tambun biscuit, especially the one made by Lim Wah Thai at Gotlieb Street.

The famous Ipoh's Heong Fah Peang. Looks like mini Hup Toh Soh, but it is actually soft cookies with lots of sunflower seeds in it. I tasted the similar Heong Fah Peang from Foh San too, but I like this one more.

The gem of all biscuits. My favourite biscuit among all biscuits. Looks very plain and drab, but it is bursting with rich flavours and aroma.

There are three types of fillings if I am not mistaken but the best is still the one pictured above with Pandan Coconut filling. I bought this together with Mai Chang for each of my aunties and uncle. This cute little biscuit is so delicious that one of my cousin finished it in one day while watching television! (and got a tongue lashing from my uncle as a result)

When you got the chance to visit Ipoh, make sure you don’t lose the opportunity to visit this biscuit shop. Their biscuits might look drab and plain, but it is actually a hidden treasure. It is located on the same row as Yee Hup Biscuit shop and only 5 minutes walk from Lou Wong Beansprout Chicken Restaurant.

Kedai Biskut Ching Han Guan

钟汉元饼铺

145, Jalan Sultan Iskandar Shah, 3000 Ipoh, Perak.

Open 9am till 6pm (8pm on weekends and public holidays)

Tel: 05-2545126

Engrish

Todai I iz see my fwen's blog lo. He blog food one. But his blog hor, very nicer because not of the pictar, but the england using lo. Make me oso wanna activate mai super england.

http://thegutterfood.blogspot.com/

Go copy and pasta on your browser and start laughing ah. Niasing I edi raff out roud whole dai now wanna shitbrixx edi.

Distinct

"Ayam Percik. Hingga terpercik air liur anda. "

That's one of LYN's member signature tag line. I was on my way home this evening from Times Square. Upon reaching Steven's Corner, the urge to devour into ayam percik suddenly just struck me. So off I go towards the Ramadhan Bazaar at Padang Perbandaran Ampang Jaya.

The crowd there is quite heavy, but not as heavy as the weekend crowd. The hunt for ayam percik instantly starts when I am there. I feel so distinct when I reached there. Everyone walking, buying and selling there are all Malay. Some even looked at me awkwardly and in their heart must be like "Ini Cina buat apa kat sini? Wah! Beli murtabak lagi!". The murtabak girl even stunned a while when I told her "Ayam dua".

It doesn't take long enough for me to find the best ayam percik stall among all over there since there's only three stalls offering ayam percik (If it is Kampung Baru it will reach a staggering 15 stalls!!!). First stall I saw is offering ayam percik at a reasonable price, but the chicken is so badly burnt and the color isn't that nice. So, off I go to the second stall. Colour wise it is nice but the size is quite small. The third stall I went offers the best of all- moderately sized, colour is beautiful and the best of all is, IT IS FRESH FROM THE BARBEQUE PIT!!!!

Then, dillema struck. Apparently the best ayam percik stall is only next to the ayam golek stall. So, I just stood in between the two stalls thinking to get 4 ayam percik or just a whole bird of ayam golek. Both stall operators was staring at me and in their heart must be like "Ini Cina buat apa?" lol. In the end I decided to buy ayam percik and save the ayam golek for other days. Bought 4 pieces at RM10.




Ayam Percik



Murtabak ayam


Tepung Pelita as dessert

Definitely the best dinner ever.

mooncakes =D

The Chinese Mid-Autumn festival is here again. It was also known affectionately as mooncake festival due to the fact that mooncakes only make their special appearance for this particular season. Mooncakes has evolved greatly in modern times with more distinctive flavours apart from the traditional lotus or red bean paste and mixed nuts with ham. Now mooncakes often comes with different flavours such as pandan lotus (pioneered by Oversea), yam, walnut, jingsa, green tea, coconut, mint, chocolate and even DURIAN!

For this year celebration, I am lucky enough to have mooncakes from Ipoh. Baked in a more traditional kitchen, one can’t complain about the amount of oil used in it. I bought four pieces of mooncakes from Ching Han Guan (钟汉元) while I am on my way back from my Penang-Kulim trip two weeks ago.

-Picture taken from wikistreetfood.com-

I bought four pieces from the uncle and 2 of them was the owner’s recommendation, which is the Mixed Nuts with Ham Bits mooncake (apparently Ching Han Guan is very proud of their Mixed Nuts mooncakes) and Meat Floss (Rou Xi) mooncake. The uncle’s recommendation is indeed a good one, the mixed nuts with ham bits definitely lives up to his fame. When you bite in the soft nut feeling (yes, it is soft because the various nuts are compressed by hand using molasses as bond instead of machines), there’s a sudden burst of “golden” taste lingers around the mouth. Fantastic. I had never enjoyed mixed nuts mooncakes but this one certainly makes me craves for MORE!

Mixed Nuts with ham bits

The lotus paste single yolk was opened to serve my aunties that came over for a visit. Both cant stop praising the and a bite instantly reminds them of the mooncakes they used to have during the 70’s and 80’s- laden with lard, oily but has a very nice fragrant and tasted smooth.

Lotus paste single yolk

My personal favourite, the pandan lotus or also known as “Golden Emerald” because of its semi translucent green coloured filling which resembles the emerald gemstone.

Golden Emerald

This certainly sounds weird. Till now, it is still in its packaging so I couldn’t comment much on this weird mooncake yet. However, my expectation to this is almost as high as the mixed nuts with ham mooncake.

Meat Floss (Rou Xi)

So how is your mooncakes? I’ll be glad to hear about your mooncake story too.

Dissapointment

Saturday was really a great day. However, the great day was hampered by the lunch at Room 18 at Berjaya Times Square. Room 18 was an oriental restaurant under the giant umbrella of Tai Thong Resources. The quality of cuisine carved out from the kitchen of Tai Thong has always been marvelous. However, this particular outlet failed to impress me although the ambiance is modern and doesn't shout out the typical oriental restaurant set up (round table that seats twelve persons, pink or red table cloth).


-Picture taken from KLUE-

Last Saturday was my second visit to Room 18 to further clarify my doubt when I visited Room 18 on the second day of its official opening. I went over there for lunch with Cypher, Dope and Max. We decided to order dishes and accompany them with plain steamed white rice. Cypher ordered the Braised Beancurd with Roasted Pork Belly, Dope goes for the Prawn Wantan Soup and I opt for BBQ Three Combinations (Rosated Pork Belly + Char Siew + Roasted Chicken) and Stir Fried Kai Lan with Garlic.

Then all things starts to turn upside down. Apparently, those working there has their common sense robbed off. Beverages aside, the first food that arrives to our table isn't any one of the four dishes we have ordered. It was the 4 bowls of steamed rice!



We were forced to stare at the steamed white rice for a little over 10 minutes and by the time our dishes arrives, the rice has lost its warmth and the texture is hard. The BBQ three combination was good, except for the char siew which tasted "slightly plasticky". Other dishes tasted only so-so and the portion is actually ridiculously small considering we are paying over RM12.80 for a plate of Kai Lan, RM 10.80 for a bowl of prawn wantan soup (6 pieces), RM 16.80 for the beancurd and RM 26.80 for the BBQ three combination.

The damage done? Well, for four persons dining in, it costs us RM 92.15. This price was after the 18% ala carte discount. Without the discount, the price is RM 106.05, which is ridiculous for a four person lunch. This restaurant is definitely not worth it despite it is under the TT Resources umbrella. I wouldn't recommend anyone to go to Room 18 since I could get similar food but with better quality and bigger portion with much lower price at various restaurants around KL.

However, if you insist on trying, just heed to my advice- just turn away the pickles they served you when you landed your bottom on their comfy leather chairs. The bowl of pickles isn't complimentary at all. It costs RM3 per bowl. As a side note, the wet towels (those yellow packaging you see in the pictures above) are charged at RM1/piece and even if you didn't use it you will still be billed for the towel(s).

Haircut =D

Today is just so yesterday. Once again, another delay for my T-Rex to back online. Couldn't resist the temptation to sleep till 12.30pm. Since I have noting better to do, I hoped over to Low Yat to meet my usual hair stylist to have my hair trimmed.

As usual, the sudden laziness just drives me to the Rapid KL bus depot instead of the LRT station. Waited a friggin 30 minutes for a bus to start its journey (I'm at the first stop). Those folks at Rapid KL keep on gathering to discuss about this particular bus that blocks their path.



Due to the fact that I'm inside the depot, I missed two Metrobus when I'm waiting for a U31 to commence its journey. Then it takes another 1 hour and 15 minutes to arrive Times Square because of the usual city congestion. (If you think I'll grumble because of this, then you are wrong. My worst record from the depot to Times Square is 3 hours.)

I went straight to Low Yat Plaza after aboard the bus. Went over to APT to find my stylist but he's not in because he's off today. So I settled for a Junior hair stylist to have my hair trimmed. I had a few conversation with her and from her action, I could see that she's quite a new girl and I am indeed right when I inquire her about her working period- this month is only her third month. Wow, I've just hand over my hair to a freshie! *shivers*

An hour later, my hair cut is finished. Not bad for a new graduate.



Me is handsome now. XD
I requested for my hair to be trimmed and cut short. The fringe I used to have was also trimmed during the process because as it grows longer it is getting more annoying especially when I'm outdoor.

Tomorrow will be a very interesting day. Sunway Pyramid, here I come. =D

Death

Death is inevitable. Shobaan's death is the second death related news I've received for this year. The first one is the death of the person that gives me the support and encouragement during my conflict with my family when I was sweet 16- my "kai goh" William Goh.

Last two weeks, I received a call from an old friend. She informed me about my kai-goh met with an accident while working. He is in the air conditioning servicing industry. One fine day, he went over to his regular customer's house to service his aircon. While tending the outdoor unit, he slipped and fell 7 stories down. He died of massive bleeding and head trauma. I was only being told about his death 2 months later. At first, I was shocked and couldn't believe what I heard but soon, I accepted it.

Then comes another landslide. Just a few moments ago, I was informed through MSN that the friend I knew since I was in Secondary school has passed away. Although he used to be a bully, but he was a smart person and I am impressed with his chess skills. It was him that gives me the encouragement to play chess. I never defeated him before in chess. Now that he's gone, I will never have the chance to beat him anymore.

Why so fast? Life is indeed short.

Rest In Peace Shobaan Pillai 04/04/89 - 10/09/09
May God bless you and forgive all your sins.

Late

Overslept today. I woke up at 12.30pm today. Damn. I've missed my ride to Rawang. My father should be at Rawang for two hours already now. Looks like another day delayed for my T-Rex to back online.

At first I wanted to go to Times Square for some games, but then I feel lazy to walk to the LRT station. So I just relax in my room sitting face to face to my monitor all day long. Then I remember that I'm only a few chapters towards the end for Call of Juares.



It is quite fun to play although old style guns can be quite annoying especially rifles. If only the upcoming Call Of Duty 6- Modern Warfare 2 incorporates its more in depth and flexible playstyle, it'll definitely be one of the greatest First Person Shooter game.

Oh, I've checked my Public Bank account. Apparently I got a very fat paycheck for the month of August. Time to go pamper my taste buds at Room Eighteen in Times Square with that suckling pig.

Rig

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm trying very hard to revive my T-Rex. The progress is 99% now. The remaining 1% is just putting in an Operating System. T-Rex aside, I'll introduce my real pride and joy.



My T-Rex died on my very second month of employment. That time, I only have RM 1,000 in bank. For two weeks during June, I'm living like a zombie. No computer, no internet, no computer games. Even my mom said I'm acting strangely ever since my T-Rex died. The sudden loss of T-Rex benefited me though- I'm motivated to work Over-Time everyday in order to fund for a new (and better spec) rig.

However, 60% of my June's paycheck is already reserved for other purposes. Thus, I'm only left with RM 500 for my rig. Hell no I am taking a Celeron. So, I have to borrow money- not from ah longs though. My dear sister agreed to bank in a thousand bucks and I shall repay her in the form of installment for 3 months.

So I went over to Viewnet at LowYat Plaza (cheapest in whole Low Yat, srsly) to have my dream come true. Stuffs I've taken are:

Intel C2D E7400 2.8GHz @ RM 394
Asus P5kPL/1600 mainboard @ RM 237
Kingston DDRII PC800 RAM 2GB @ RM 89 (x1)
Asus EN9400GT Silent @ RM 184
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB @ RM 189
Powerlogic Quatro 200 ATX casing @ RM 65
Coolermaster Extreme Power 460w @ RM 150



Total spend on 4/7/2009 is Rm 1,308.

So I went back home to put in Windows XP from my old hard disk but it showed blue screen. Then I decided to put in Windows 7 since my spec can support it and just for the fun of it. XD



However, the graphic card only performs moderately and I'm suffering from choppy graphics from the 9400GT when playing Call Of Duty 4. So a month later, I visit the same guy again and bought a XFX 9800GT for RM 355 and another Kingston ram for RM90 (Price increased... T_T) and at the same time, sold off my 9400GT for RM 120. 3 days later I even upgraded from a 17" to a 21.5" BenQ LCD panel for RM 467.



My almost complete (its almost because I didn't change the speaker, mouse and keyboard. XD) desktop overhaul costs me exactly RM 2,220. MY RM2,220. My own money, earned from working my ass out at Sony. However, all these money are well spend because I'm now pampered with exciting games with vivid graphics from the 9800GT and I no longer has to stare at the monitor when I'm watching movie since the video is so much bigger now.



Now I know why my friends told me that dumping money in arcade games is idiotic.