New HP Laptop

I just got my new HP laptop and was so excited to install all the necessary software for it to run. It was preloaded with DOS only and I planned to install XP OS instead. However, it came down to many problems because XP do not have the hardware drivers preloaded in the installation disc. We had to download the drivers one at a time from the internet. But not all the hardware has XP compatible drivers due to push to support Vista. According to the HP support staff, we'll need to use Vista instead for my new laptop as not all hardware drivers are available for XP. If wanted to use XP, need to inform HP before purchasing any laptop so that they can recommend the model which is XP compatible. This is because all new models only support Vista due to the push by Microsoft. Curse Microsoft...

Party Party, Xmas Party

We had a Christmas party at our office last Friday where everyone chipped in by preparing food for lunch, except for myself :P. My goal of going there is to makan what they had prepared and join in the gift exchange. Everyone was supposed to wear either red or green for the Christmas celebration theme but since my body is still bloated, I was excused... haha

Wah... so many gifts

Chicken instead of turkey... budget problem mah...
Group photo before opening presents
So who got what?

Full Moon Gift

For the baby full moon, we went for 3 things:
1. traditional tumeric rice and curry chicken for relatives
2. KFC voucher for colleagues
3. gift set box for close friends

The first 2 items are very common. As for the 3rd item, I actually assigned my younger sister to prepare the special gifts to be distributed to close friends. After weeks of sampling and research, she manage to create very beautiful item which she made it herself which I liked straight away. Note that almost everything is handmade by her which are the brownie cupcake, cookies, poem message, envelope and the gift. Everyone who receives the gift box loves it very much, especially girls :P

Botak Head

My baby's hair was shaved to bald in preparation of full moon ceremony. Here's some of the photos taken during the event. I feels that he looks cuter with his hair instead. Need to wait sometime for it to grow back again...

hey... is it time for my feed?

What's going on my head?

Ah... I'm feeling some cool breeze...

I want my hair back!!!

New Arrival

I've finally delivered a baby boy last month. In fact on the same day where I wrote my previous entry here, i encountered some bleeding few hours later and the doctor says that I was in labour. Instead of being admitted to the hospital, I went back first to clear some things and only went back to the hospital around 9pm after feeling more frequent contraction. We went for induced labour as suggested by the doctor and the baby is born on 0056 the next morning (9th Nov 2008). Delivering a baby is extremely painful.

The baby is 1 month now and I was unable to make any entries here due to internet unavailabiliy during my stay in the confinement centre. Even back home now is extremely busy trying to cope taking care of the baby whole day and night. Will only post some photos later, I am super tired...

Still Waiting

2 weeks had passed since the doctor says I can give birth anytime soon and I'm still waiting for my baby to come out. My husband suggested to go for induced labor but I would prefer waiting for the baby naturally. But then again my husband warned that if opt for it to come naturally, the water may broke at someplace inconvenient or giving birth during time where the hospital rate is doubled or tripled. What to do... what to do... :(

Extra 16 Kg

In total now, I've gained additional 16kg for throughout my pregnancy. However, according to the doctor, the baby is currently estimated as 2.7kg only inside my tummy during checkup yesterday. Ahh... with so much excess, even my fingers and toes as swelling. My husband is having a good time calling me funny names at this moment ;)

Even though the due date is next month, the doctor says it could come out anytime soon. In fact I did fell some minor contractions for the past few days.

Recycling & Charity

We received an email recently stating that the Silver Jubilee Home for Old Aged is short of rice to eat, and is asking for the public to donate some rice over. Thus, my husband and I decided to donate some bags of rice and made a phone call to inquiry when is the best time to deliver the things over. However, the person on the phone answered that the article was 2 months ago and that they had plenty of rice instead. But they are short of other household materials such as detergent, cleaning products, cereals, cooking materials etc. We already went shopping for these items and will pass over to the centre this weekend. Note that they do issue receipts for item received which you can used for income tax exemption.

Also, while preparing for the baby's arrival, we've packed many old stuffs that need to be thrown away such as books, magazines, old computer parts, bottles etc. But since most of these items can be recycled, we've arranged for Eden Handicap Service Centre for collection instead. These items will be donated to them for recycling purposes, thus you'll be doing some help to the environment as well. For those who are interested to donate their old stuffs away for recycling, you may call 04 - 644 2912 and look for Ms Peggy. They'll come to pickup the items at your preferred location and time.

New Baby Girl

My sister just gave birth to a healthy baby girl, weight as 3.2kg this morning. Hoho... it seems that it's a Hari Raya baby as well. I wonder whether the hospital will give something nice since it is Raya celebration as well. Better checkout the newspaper also to see whether this is also reported :P

Taiping Zoo

My husband and I purposely took leave (I need to clear my leave anyway due to the coming maternity leaves) to go to Taiping to visit the zoo. It has been more than 5 years since we last went there, and it was quite memorable. In fact, we prefered Taiping Zoo compared to National Zoo in KL and Singapore Zoo as the track is easier to walk and animals are easier to see, though this will translate to being a smaller confinement area for the animals which would be unhealthty.

Most animals are in the shades to avoid the rain

Too bad our visit was cut short as it was raining in Taiping throughout the day.

Shirt Eating Dog

We saw a cute t-shirt in Jusco for pets, super sharp pink colour with wording "Must Love Dog" and bought it so that Tanzie can wear it. It costs about RM28 if I remember correctly.

That night, we dressed her with the T-Shirt, and she looked so adorable. Since the color was so stricking, we can see her running happily around the house compound in the dark. Thinking only to remove the t-shirt tomorrow so that we can save it for her to wear during CNY but it was too late. The next morning, we can see pieces of the t-shirt lying everywhere on the ground.

Pet as Food?

There's an episode of the The F Word shown in the Asian Food Channel in Astro recently, where 2 pets (which are pigs) of Gordon Ramsey was slaughtered and cooked as food instead. Since these pigs were pets, they were given names as well. In fact, his children are happy when eating the pork and knowing that it was their pets. I'm not sure whether this should be a normal reaction, feeling happy of eating your own pets after loving and taking care of them for so long.

Lorry Drift Gone Awry

Last Saturday, while on our way to Equatorial hotel for a lunch treat by my husband, we encountered a lorry which somehow manage to crash on its side at the Yeap Chor Ee junction. The lorry driver must have tried to perform some of the scenes that we see in Tokyo Drift movie at the junction.

Apollo Wafer Biscuit

It has been quite sometime since I last had Apollo wafer biscuit. In fact it was about 1-2 years back since I had it, and it costs about RM2.15 then for a dozen pack, with 4 wafer sticks in each pack. The reason why I never had it for such long period is because it is very hard to find these being sold in supermarkets.

Last Sunday when I went shopping as Jusco in Queensbay mall, it was there on the shelf again. The price had increase upto RM2.85 for a dozen pack, but since it is hard to come by, I bought 2 dozens instead. When I reach home and open 1 pack to eat while watching tv, somehow it feels different, as the wafer seems to finish more quickly than I remember for my enjoyment. After eating few more packs, then only I realised that instead of 4 sticks in a pack, they had reduced it to 3 sticks in a pack. Now this is really bloodsucking. Not only they increase the price, but reduced the quantity as well!

4D Scan

Last Saturday I went to the hospital to undergo my normal monthly checkup of my pregnancy. One of the scheduled item for the checkup was 4D scan, though they did not reveal how much it will cost me later on.

The 4D scan consists of 2 monitors, one so that the mother can view it while lying down on the bed and another which is attached to the machine controller is for the doctor's usage. My husband was so interested in the machine that he stood there beside the doctor to see what he is doing the whole session. This trip, we brought along my mother-in-law so that she can see how the baby looks like.

First, the doctor will zoom to see the baby's heart and monitor the heartbeat, and we could hear it very clear from the machine as well. From there the doctor further explained the organs that had developed as well. The baby is kicking the whole time during the session. We can even see the baby yawn inside my tummy.

After the routine checkup, we moved on to see the baby's face, but the baby was so shy that it kept blocking the face with both hands. The doctor then gently tabbed on my tummy in effort to make the baby move its hands away. When the baby finally did, everyone in the room knew that the baby looked exactly like my husband from the first glance due to its nose.

One Piece

I've started to watch this series if not mistaken for the last five years and I've just watched upto episode# 354 last week. Will still need to wait for a long long time till the story actually ends. One nice thing about this series is that it always gives you surprises in each episode. Furthermore, there had not been any boring moment throughout the whole series when compared to other long running series like Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach, Inuyasha etc. (hope i did not offend anyone by saying this.. haha)

While it is always full of funny moments, there are many touching episodes that makes you cry, especially when revealing the dramatic past of each characters concerned. It even manage to make the audience felt very touched when their beloved ship burned down and sink into the sea. The writer must have really thought of the storyline very very well, as the recent episode that I had watched in fact is very very much related to previous episodes way way back, also many years ago :P

The story is about a group of pirate, each with their own agenda at first but soon developed a strong commitment and bond to stay together and see thru their adventure in venturing thru the great ocean to find the ultimate treasure called One Piece (though each will still want to achieve what they had wanted when they first joined the crew). Though the long running series, they still did not have a complete crew yet of a pirate ship and yet, they are powerful enough to fight with other group of pirates and make enemy with the world government while rescuing one of the crewmate in the earlier episodes. In fact, the recent episode that i watched was actually in the process of wanting to recruit a new member into their crew, which is a skeleton musician and will then make the total of 8, along with their idiotic caption, senseless first mate, sexy navigator, lying sniper, pervert cook, gullible doctor, smart archaeologist and a cyborg shipwright.

Refer to this link <<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece>> for more information of the stories and characters, as the story is running for soooo long, it will be tiring to re-write the whole thing again. My favourite character??? Well, it all of them! But I think you really need to watch the whole show to really understand what I mean.

Company Trip to Melaka

There's a trip to Melaka held by our company on 19th July and 20th July where all the staffs from 3 branches (JB, KL and PG) joined together for fun and games. In total there were 45 of us Visualians hogging the Mahkota hotel. For those from PG, the 7 of us started our journey from the Penang airport at 8.15am and reached KLIA LCCT terminal at 9.15am. From there, one of our management staff from KL pick us up with his Avanza and drove us all the way to Melaka. The rest of the staffs were already at the hotel eating their buffet lunch while waiting for us.

Show your love to the World

This is how you should pose with Company T-Shirt

One of the main event was the team-building activities. There were lots funny moments during the whole team-building event. To capture the group photo during team-building was very challenging but the photo came out very nicely.

After dinner, all of us went to Jonker Street to experience the night market environment in Melaka. We even manage to try out the "Gula Melaka Ais Kacang" and fried oyster ("Oo Chien") Melaka style. It was indeed a very memorable experience and our company did promise that we'll be able to go to a better trip next year. So to all Visualians, let's work hard and play hard!

Karaoke Hall at Jonker Street

Dog from Space

My dog was sent to the vet to be spayed yesterday. When she was discharged today, the vet told us that she will need to wear a plastic cover to prevent her from licking her stitch wound and wear a t-shirt as well to prevent any dirt from touching her wound when she is sleeping as we do not have a cage in our house.

When we reached home, i took one of my old t-shirt and wore it on her. As it was abit loose, we need to tie some part of the clothing with rubberbands. In the end, she looked so funny that we called her "The Space Dog".

According to the vet, our dog is so strong that he need to give her 2 dosage of anesthethics, and even then, it is very hard for her to fall asleep for the operation.

Sweet Cupcakes

My younger sister baked some cupcakes recently, and from the result, it is clearly shown that she is a better at baking than I am. However, since she bought the ingredients needed from departmental store, her costs per cupcake is quite high but it tastes really good. She even had the time to make some icing to complement her cupcakes.

It's a Baby ???

According to the doctor, I'm currently in the 20th week of my pregnancy. I've felt the baby moving inside for the past few weeks though, and must always sleep on my side rather than on the back. I'm starting to feel back pain again :(

The doctor had revealed to us on the baby's gender, and now my husband and I are trying hard to figure out a name for our baby. Just hope the doctor's guesses are right else we may need to rethink of other names when the baby is out.

It was the 80's and 90's

My husband & I was in the mood of the good old times and thanks to the Internet, we manage to dig alot of those things out. We started by downloading some songs from the 80's and 90's and when I heard some of these old songs, it gave me such a nostalgic feeling that tears just came down. Luckily my husband was asleep then and did not see me in such state, else he would have just laugh at me non-stop.

Next we watch some clips in YouTube of some the 80's and 90's cartoon opening songs, and each of us kept comparing "hey, i watched this before" etc. From there on we realized that most cartoons from the 90's are quite bad and not as good as compared those that we watched from the 80's. It was like the downfall of the cartoon kingdom and Disney took over with their range of series created from their cartoon movies. Now we ended up downloading some of the old cartoons from the 80's.

Mushishi

Similar with Girl From Hell, it was the live-action movie that prompts me to purchase the anime version. However suprisingly, I prefer to watch the live-action rather than the anime version, perhaps because it had a closure to the main character's past rather than the anime version. Though the story is not that scary, but it is very chilling and touching to certain aspect that I had disturbing dreams (can't really categorize it is a nightmare) for few nights after watching the anime version. The manga version is still ongoing though, perhaps that's why the anime seems incomplete.



The story is about another type of living creature that exists in the world known as mushi. However, only limited number of people is able to see mushi. Those who able able to see mushi may understand what these creatures are while some mistaken it for evil beings such as demons or ghost, or even god. A majority of people that is unable to see these creatures will also treat that those people who are able to see them as crazy or even accuse them as the cause of disaster or strange events that occured in their live. Ginko (the main character) is a mushishi (mushi master) that researches different kind of mushi and helps people in dealing with mushi along the way. In the live action, Ginko's clothing is more forgiving but in the anime, his clothes are too modern for the era that the show is based on (though as a child, his clothes does match the time period).



In my opinion, the live action explains more than the anime version, and makes it more easy to watch. However, I can't really comment which one is closest to the manga as I have never read it before. It may be possible that the closure to the live-action is made-up by the movie producer as I do not see these in the anime version at all. It is a recommended show. In fact I finished the whole anime series (26 episodes) in just 2 nights.

Petrol Price Hike Announcement - Traffic Jam

The recent petrol price hike annouced by our government recently really makes the traffic very bad. I've asked around and especially places where there's a petrol station, we are sure to find jams and long queues. My friend on her way back from work, usually reach home at about 15 minutes, only reached her home 2 hrs later as she's stuck in the jam with all the people trying to get their petrol saving for the last time. I was lucky as I left the office early and manage to squeeze through the jam and reach home 1/2 hour later, thanks to the size of my car.

As on the same night I need to go to my parents house to get something, I need to drove a longer route which does not have any petrol stations that can hinder our journey. This is when "lorong" knowledge came in handy.

But if you think rationally, do you think it is worth the time to spent hours in the jam just to save few ringgit (for my car case is RM20 which will finish up easily if "makan ho liao"). Not to forget that your car also consumes petrol as well while waiting for your turn. In Penang where everyone likes to cut queues, imagine the heat and frustrations as well. Mother Earth also took a big impact from all these. Most important is if there are any emergency cases and with all these jams, how can one travel to get the help needed or for the help to arrive?

Happy Mother's Day

This year, we celebrated mother's day at Hainan Restaurant located in Bukit Jambul (just few doors down the famous Kayu Nasi Kandar). This year there are total of 12 persons joining the celebration on the same table. My mom commented that next year there will be 3 additional baby chairs stuck between, and will need a bigger table to fit everyone. My hubby suggested to throw all the kids in different table instead :)

Some of the highlights:

1. my oldest nephew loss of his baby tooth at the front, and you can see one tiny hole whenever he smile :P

2. my youngest nephew demonstrate how a body should react whenever you say 'I love you' in English and Mandarin (so cute).

3. we did not manage to drink any wine during the course of the dinner as the one and only wine bottle opener belong to the restaurant broke while trying to open our wine bottle (we'll save this bottle for Father's Day instead)

4. Each mother are presented with boxes of lovely cupcakes, courtesy of Hainan restaurant.

This was the first time that I ate at the restaurant, and the food is quite wonderful. But note that most of the recommended foods are quite spicy (due to it's Hainan and Nyonya origin) thus it may not be suitable for kids. However those that really handle spicy food will says that it is not spicy enough. Not sure about the total price as I'm not the one who's paying :P

RM 206.00 vs RM2.00

The laptop that I had been using for more than a year started to give some problem for the last few days. The letter 'N' on the keyboard had pop out. Even though i had insert it back, it will pop out again after few hours.

I've called Dell support to ask for services, but since it was already out of warranty period, they sent me a quotation instead:
RM 37 for the whole keyboard replacement
RM169 for the onsite service to replace the keyboard
thus a total of RM 206 for the whole work to be done.

Instead, i bought a super-glue that costs less than RM2 and glue-back the key. Now it is working fine and fit as new.

Vanishing Twins

The recent ultrasound result only shows a baby instead of two, and the doctor says that one of the twins did not make it. Though the doctor says that this is quite common, we're kind of sad when knowing this as was already mentally prepared in having twins. I've did a search on the net before in preparing myself for the twins, and get to know the term for this kind of situation is known as vanishing twins. People are telling to look on the bright side, that is ease on the $$ and childcare, but it is still a life.

April Fools and It's not a Lie!

Big news!! My doctor had just confirmed that I'm pregnant recently. Another big news!! The doctor says that from the ultrasound results, there's a high chance that it will be twins!! While families and friends keep congratulating us, we're still yet to recover from the shock. When my husband heard the news, he's very worried about the $$. My in-law says that she will not be able to help take care of the babies.

My parents... well, they are just too happy (besides the fact that my younger brother and my elder sister will deliver another baby soon). This will make a total of 4 babies in the same year!!

Some people may had it easy with their pregnancy. For me, it feels like having minor food poisoning 24 hours a day (with all the vomiting, stomach discomfort, back pain, dizziness, tiredness etc). I've been sleeping at any chance I can get nowadays as well. Worse still I've discovered that I'm lactose intolerance, thus missing out on whatever "A" formulas that can comes with milk. Guess I just have to find other food alternatives to all these "A" thingy.

I do truly hope that I will feel better after the 1st trimester.

Government Survey - is it real?

Yesterday, my house received a call where the caller claimed to be a representative from Ministry of ???? (I can't really remember as the speaker was very soft-spoken). According to the lady, it was a survey on the election result as well as our views on the previous and new government. Some of the questions asked:
1. What do you think of our Prime Minister's leadership?
2. Name 2 things that our Prime Minister should do for our country.
3. What do you think of Najib's governance?
4. What is your main media in getting news about politics in Malaysia?
5. Why do you think people vote for opposition?
6. Why do you think people vote for BN?
7. How confident are you about opposition as your new state government?
8. Do you agree that Malays that joined the opposition are betrayer to the Malay's society?
9. Who would you vote again if there is a re-election?

There are actually more questions than the above, which i think took more than 1/2 hour. However, I feel that some questions are quite sensitive to even discuss through the phone. Though it was made known to public that our federal government wanted to found out what went wrong with their governance and campaign, we did not heard that a survey will be conducted in such a way. Does anyone of you received such call as well?

New Family Member

There's a new member in our family and her name is Tanzie.

She's brown and yellow and comes with spotty belly.

But some said her name is difficult to pronounce,

and thought of many names instead.

Suggestions like Hwang Hwang, Melbourne and New Zealand also comes to mind.

Pencil and Million also sounds just as nice.

But in the end it was decided that,

calling her Tanzie is still the best.

Yeah, yeah, i know it sounds corny, but what the heck....

Karaoke Taxi

During my business trip to KL yesterday, I manage to catch a LCCT budget taxi that is equipped with karaoke function. The taxi driver proudly pronounced that this is the first taxi in Malaysia that allows the passengers to sing karaoke inside the taxi. There's 3 mini LCD screens inside the taxi so that individual passenger can have their own view of the MTV if they are not travelling alone. You can even make request on the songs and the driver is glad to change the CD for you if he has it. The driver provided me his calling card, and you'll be surprised from the name printed that he's a Japanese. So for those that wished to sing to their heart content while commuting inside a taxi to/fro LCCT, do let me know.

The mini LCD screen for your own view

Feel free to use the mic and sing your heart out

T-Bowl Restaurant

This so-called popular restaurant in Taiwan is now opened in Penang, located in Queensbay Mall. We had a chance to try out the food there yesterday. The restaurant is relatively small but with cute interior design which makes you feel that you are eating inside the toilet or bathroom. You'll be seeing toilet bowls as seats, basins for the table, showers and toilet rolls all over the restaurant.

As the restaurant is new, the services provided are very in-experienced. Worse is different waiter will give different explanation on the foods and promotions available. The foods which we can easily make at home and will taste better are overpriced. Perhaps to encourage customers in ordering their signature food that are served in mini toilet bowl. However, none of us were ordering such food due to our mindset of eating directly from the bowl itself. My colleague ordered BBQ chicken which actually is just a fried drumstick and then covered with BBQ sauce that costs RM13.70. She complained the chicken was fried for too long and is very hard to eat. Furthermore the chicken was so small that she ended up feeling hungry again later in the afternoon.

Instant noodle with disfigured fried egg and piece of chicken ham that costs RM6.50

Hot Cockroaches

Last Saturday was an extremely hot day for me in Penang. It was sooo hot even at night. The reason why I said is hot?? Well, there were about a dozen of large cockroaches roaming around our bathroom when I wanted to take some bath to cool myself down. My guess was they were trying to cool themselves down with whatever water left on the wet floor. I quickly rolled few pages of newspaper and gave them a whack of the lifetime. It was a minute too late as after i flushed all the dead cockroaches down the toilet that I realised I've forgotten to take photo of my killing spree.

Another Baby Full Moon

My husband came back from work yesterday and presented to me a very cute packaging, saying that it is a gift for me. I never thought that he can be so romantic by giving me a surprise gift without any reason, and was very happy to accept it. However my happiness was short-lived as it was actually a thank you gift from a proud parents of a newborn baby boy.

This was the first time that we have received such thank you gift, and i find it is very special indeed. Inside the packaging was a small teddy bear, a cute Pooh mini mug, some candy, cookies and the baby's photo. Obviously from the photo, most of the candy and all of the cookies are missing, thanks to my husband for finishing it before passing it to me.

Le Chevalier D'Eon

Now this anime was highly publicized by Animax recently, prompting it was one of best animation in 2007. It has 24 episodes in all, and so far i only manage to watch the 1st half of the whole series. The anime is drawn in very nice detail, especially the lighting effect on water, background layout and the internal castle structure.

As I have not completed the whole series, so i can't really comment much on the show. The characters recite alot of words in the bible though. As the story is loosely based on historical facts, i can say that the creator of the series is very creative instead. The historical character, d'Eon de Beaumont as written in Wikipedia tells about a guy working as a spy for France, was insisting that he is infact a woman, and dressed up as a woman as well during his spy missions. In the anime series, it tells that the character had a sister named Lia (non-existant in the history) who also worked for the King of France, was killed during one of her own mission. As both d'Eon and Lia are very close to each other, the spirit of the Lia ends up possessing the brother at times. Of course to make the anime more interesting, you'll see people that can cast spells and control gargoyles to attack our heroes.

There's lots of blend between actual historical events in the anime. Of course, you can't really depend in watching the show in order to score your history exam. The examiner would not know what the heck you're talking about.

Knitting Project

I came across 2-in-1 knitting kit in Toys R Us store in Queensbay mall and bought it for RM42.9, reason being the kit will guide you how to knit a fashion bag, scarf and also a teddy bear. My husband paid for me during the trip, as he bought other toys for himself as well. I will pretend to forget in paying him back :P


I have not been serious in knitting all these while. The last knit i did was when i was in secondary school when my mother taught me when i was bored to death. But nothing materialized because my hands got tired after a while. Seeing the teddy bear picture on the box really tricked me 2 whole days in knitting.


The instruction book is very confusing for a beginner. It taught you how to make a slip loop in order to start, then following by casting. It was ok upto this step, but as when i start to knit, i noticed that i will end up with a very long tail by the time i start on the 1st row and i recall that when my mother taught me, there's no such long tail. I called my mother on the phone for help, but she was busy perming her hair with a hairdresser and did not answer my call at all. I end up surfing the internet for help, and realise there are 2 method to start knitting. I followed back the style which my mother taught me last time, to save up the yarn. Here's how the teddy suppose to look like from the box:

I ended up something else when i finished:

My husband called it doggie with fat legs. He even purposely tied the arms and legs to make them look fatter :(