go Bio~!

the haus tv has gone kaput since this morning ...
as i got out from my room still groggy, i saw dad poking at the tv set's power switch.. to nil response. darn... this is not good. when house appliances go dead, it's always not a good sign. and it has had to be the television this time. of all things hur??...

fast forward 10 something in the office, mom called on the handset, she had just discovered the news of the day... "what would Yang be doing without the tv set?" she sounded kinda lost seriously.. "well, i cant like go out and buy a new tv right now can i??"... so it was set. she'd get the repairman to come over... most likely they'd haul the set back to some workshop filled with lots of black, peti televisyens... poor thing. i culd already foresee the 10 year old ending up there never coming back to our abode... :S

anyhow.... so now back at home, without the tv, and before the lappie, i brought out the good ol' radio to the living hall, winding down while reading my asian geographic mag. yup, the articles in there are a damn lot.. i havent quite finished reading 'em yet...
which brings upon tonite's muse... Bio..-everything...!
biofuels... bioplastics... and pretty soon it'd be bio-everything~! (fingers crossed...)

so, what is it with bioplastics?

apparently, bioplastics are plant-based eco-plastics, or simply, your Organic-plastics..
~ made from renewable vegetable sources (instead of petroleum), bioplastics are currently already being widely used for everything from shopping bags to kitchenware... (like how the Jusco green shopping bags crumble after some months...)
and by 'renewable vegetable sources', it's often from non-food agri-products.

check these out...


"food containers made from 'polyactic acid', derived from corn starch / sugar"
http://www.packaging-gateway.com/features/feature736/

< www.bioplastics24.com
"... how plastics are made from plants!"

www.treehugger.com >

"biodegradable packaging tapes developed"

www.ecoproducts.com

"food service/ food containers for sale..."


this is pretty enlightening indeed... to know that we are heading towards greener living...

perhaps they could further bring down the costs, so that the anehs and the uncles by the road sides would one day, serve using biodegradable food containers, especially for our bungkus too...

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another itch scratched...

transform, shall we?

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the real thing on display at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia

the same thing (the SR-71 Blackbird) brought to life as Jetfire, the Decepticon who 'jumped-grass' to join the Autobots... complete with 'janggut' and 'tongkat'... lol~!



... barely able to differentiate the logos of the Autobots and the Decepticons, i bumbled along to watch the latest installment of Transformers, this round ambitiously named, the Revenge of the Fallen.. and i thought the Fallen was the good guy... nope, turns out the Fallen was the grand-daddy of the Decepticons...

and so .. the movie had exposed me to some cool names of the robots... Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Sideswipe, and the not-so-tough Bumblebee... (sometimes Bee just for short.. aww... Not~!)
well, since i was never a fan of Transformers, these cool names somehow added to the joy of watching the full-length movie in cinema, all 2 and a half hours of it, complete with jaw-dropping effects like when they transform from normal looking means of transportations to mega-robots.... neat, i'd hav to say...
and the way the NEST team trashed Shanghai right at the start of the movie.. uh-hur, 'nuff said i guess... btw, is it just me or is Shanghai everywhere now?

and i'd hav to say, this being after all, a fantasy film of sort (i'm sure fans of megan fox would agree).. they cleverly made it all kinda believable too... heheh.... Like how Sam has to go to college even after all the shits... like how Jetfire was all the while retired at some museum which actually exists.... ok, maybe not this one...

overall the film was enjoyable. boy saving the world from evil robots with cool names like Starscream, together with equally cool, good robots with names like Optimus Prime, not to mention really good-looking men like Josh Duhamel.
.. plus, all those slick transformations and fast actions are bound to get to you either way.
sounds far-fetched, but it sure makes going to work 8-6 sucks... @.@
guess i just need to lighten' up more...

another itch scratched...

gone Artsy'...

... got the tickets @ Borders on Wed nite... it was the last 3 tickets they had at the Curve outlet... pheww.. we took a pair.. glad that i'd not gone there for nuthin'~!!
and so it was set, after weeks of thinkin' whether the fest' wuld be somethin' worth visiting.. wuz finally there with sis from 2pm to 3pm today... yup, it only took us that long an hour to finish browsing the grounds at KLPac, Sentul Park, KL... =)

it was indeed, a verry, hot! afternoon... nevertheless, given the thought of "i-dont-think-i'll-attempt-anymore-of-these" at least not in the near future, i managed to snap away with my trusty (non-zoom) Olympus...


the KLpac (performing arts centre) building @ Jalan Strachan, KL .. they hav lots of these bricks-bunker style buildings inside... which was interesting~

nice building architecture they hav there... kinda bare and simplistic.. screams Artsy~!

the cement pillars match the real bamboo-like trees around at the foyer...

these ... bunch of enthusiastic 'street-performers' ...

right at the entrance to klpac building... tiny fishies swimmin' about in some creative displays...

the crowd at 2pm ++ ... we saw lots of interesting ppl...

an LCD twitter board... guess you just cant ignore technology...

the exhibits... no, i do not understand 'em... but i do respect their views and interests...

view of the outside, from inside...

the lil' festival guide book...

the Cinescapes Stage... which we did not sit in, which explains the 1hour of browsing...

this is something neat: the 24hr KL Photography exhibition...

i went there thinkin' they'd be plastering all the prints all over the place, 'stead, they had this clever projection on simple white boards hung from the ceiling...

... the 'Sunset Disco' ... some bands were playin some neat music... of corz, it wasnt sunset yet...

the exterior of the building... some pretty neat courtyard overlooking the lake and the Japanese restaurant...

... steps leading to the 'koi pond' ...

no longer able to withstand the afternoon heat, we left at 3something ... me with some pretty nice shots, sis with some pretty nice bargain at the Marketplace.... =)

www.urbanscapes.com.my ... this, part of my endeavour to try somethin' different each weekend...

another itch scratched...

the passin' of an Icon..

"... i'm starting with the man in the mirror..
i'm asking him to change his ways...
and no message could have been any clearer,
if you wanna make the world a better place,
take a look at yourself, and then make a Change..."

Michael Jackson is seen in file pictures from top left, 1971, 1977, 1979, and bottom left, 1983, 1987, and 1990. Jackson has died in Los Angeles at age 50 on Thursday, June 25, 2009. (AP Photo)
... this, courtesy of www.thestar.com.my ...

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another itch scratched...

fed-up.. (and then but..)

... attitude at the workplace had gone sky-dived lately...
much to the extent of how free-fall machines would work...
urm... nothin' new there, .. knew it well enuff that wild-thots shud remain as just that... wild thoughts.
of cuz, sis was around to give that ever so prominent kick in the arse..!

late nights at the office aside.. (or should i say 'early'?)
- i'd done 10PMs, 2AMs, 3AMs, 5AMs, and that one record-breaking 21hours straight tender-marathon... :S
there are still, time for some R&R... good food, just chill & chat...
this round, Steven treated us to some good 'ol seafood steamboat at Damansara Village Steamboat (purportedly owned by local celeb & blogger mr Patrick teoh...)...



the place~ some 'resort-themed' establishment.. clever...

the 'tender-marathon' kakis: mr (and mrs) steven chai seen here...

... maam' audrey 'kao-tim' all the crabs that nite...


... ~the FOOD~ ... prawns were great, so were the mussels and the clams... :)





life's such... i guess....

another itch scratched...

double whammy day..

it's that time of the year again... where we show 'xtra' appreciations to our dear parents..

and this year, dad's day and mom's birthday falls on the same day.. today.. 21st June.. :)
and as per recent years, not much need to be said,.. me and sis will automatically arrange for separate makan sessions with each of them... :S

and, as per usual practice, ... to beat the crowd of parents-luvin' people out there, we held/ hold the makan sessions on anyday BUT today. mom's birthday was celebrated with a simple Crab dinner at Menjalara on Friday... dear Yang has the most to say on his t-shirt, and we all agreed ... it says it all...



as for dad's day... upon his request of feasting on japanese buffet with Haagen Daz ice-cream, we promptly made bookings at Tenji's for 5 on next Friday... :)

and today, waking up at 5.30am (..barely 3 hours from last nite's merry-making with the gang... which started innocently at Sagano but ended up at Hana's..) blurry-eyed, i joined dad & sis, driving to the nearby 'Taman Metropolitan Kepong' for this...

to dad: Happy father's day... this was waht we culd do to show u our 'enthusiasm' (or lack of) in the sports-field... =P
to sis: let's hope this'll be the beginning to better (and fitter) days ahead ya? hehehehh....

another itch scratched...

our luv-hates..

i suppose we all know and recognise by now, the many
"luv-hate" 'relationships' that we personally carry around in this life and times of ours (regardless of whether we consciously made a choice to, or somehow indirectly got linked to 'it') ...

and tonight, for me, these are the few that plays in my mind...

1. my job.
Yes, to me it's nothing more than a job; a means where i work to get paid, paid to pay bills, bills that keep the things in my life running:- just to name a few, transportation (my car), security (insurance), communication (my internet and mobile lines), sheer pleasure! (food and shopping) and god knows what else...

"There are a lucky few in the world who actually get to make a living doing something they “love”" so wrote Mr A Asohan some Sundays ago in the Star papers.

the article spoke of some 'compromised callings', doing something you were 'meant to do'.
i'd say: .. and then there are the unlucky few who actually don't know what their 'passion' are at all... let alone their 'calling'... but then again, what we warrant as passion, is but only, what we think are our passions .. sometimes we think we know something, but things end up giving you a lil' slap on the face.. you might as well stick to how things are! why move the cheese?
okey, i shall give the case its due rest here...


2. our country's leaders.
Yes, i'd been and will be, eternally grateful for having our dear Tun M as our PM for more than 20 years since i was born. in a way, shrewd or by any other way to call it, he sure had his way in bringing us to where we are today... for all of the good and the bad of it.

i was a lil' intrigued with what he had to say, on the MM of our neighbour down south visiting our shores recently,.. all these, can be accessed at http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/
apparently, the luv-hate shows evidently from the many responds and comments he gets from readers, .. some local, some from across the straits.
some were still full of awe and admiration; some were gung-ho about the (old) water issue; while, some .. plainly told him, in other words, to shut-up and move on.

the antics of our politicians... sigh, too 'kelakar' at times, you dont really want to have a say in it. with this, i rest my case too..

and so... in my attempt to list down my luv-hates here,.. well, i thought i could easily come up with more than a few, given how life's easily contradicting these days..... but i guess, these are all that i can manage to cook up tonight... after a day of E.L., the mind's not as erratic and provoked as it would be after a day of woes... i mean work.

another itch scratched...

the odd visit..

well-well, the recent haze attack aside, and the now-and-then afternoon showers here-and-there, we managed to make it nevertheless, to the zoo today.
yup... me, sis and yang... to the Zoo Negara.. located just a short drive away from our homeplace.
(btw, had been making trips to places nearby the house lately... ^^)

so, after a lot of pestering and attempts at 'con'-vincing ppl around me, i finally got my sis to agree. yes, she'd go to the zoo with me, together with Yang, finally. hehehe.... great.
so there i was telling my mates at the office about my elaborate plan for the weekend...

jess: the last time i went, it was smelly la... they have very few staffs working there.. (deciphered: the whole place's run down).
steven: you'd better not go on the weekends.. crowd's terrible! (deciphered: the place's run down but still packed???..)
jen: but i'm going this saturday! they close at 5pm la. how to go on weekdays then???

in a nutshell then:
met with a lot of hesitations and even resistance when i brought up the subject of visiting the national zoo (i'd been initiating this idea since a few months back..)
very often, it was compared to other better zoos around the region at point blank... especially that one across the straits, fully run with a night safari in tow (been there twice myself... =P)
very often, it was painted with an immediate impression of how it's still like, maybe roughly 10 years ago (with time, things change and improve.. dont they?)
and very often, ppl just dont GET why i would suggest going to the Zoo?? of all places too! (beats me, but, i seriously did want to go see for myself, the local zoo that i'd only been to once, when i was still a very, very small kid).

of coz, there were still some positive response from my mates.... (one to be exact). yvonne mentioned that her daughter suggested that she bring her there this sunday... so i sort of clapped-my-hand-to-my-chest and 'volunteered' to check the place out first! =P
so behold:

amusing... finally we were inside the zoo.. amidst all earlier gloom and doom of the impending rain clouds...

L: Yang walking past the gibbon display (not thaat smelly lar, ok-ok larh)....
R: after a so-so lunch at 'the Wild Restaurant' (we think it was the ex-KFC, and we think the zoo could use some better restaurants inside)..

pull & bear. Oops... i mean, Bull and Bear... their enclosures somewhat lack creativity, but still, acceptable i guess... at least the animals were up and walking around! ^^

Yang's favourite. he insisted we go see his 'fren'... the giraffes... and the elephants. :)
the giraffes were indeed in good shape. their enclosures were wide and airy too... both were favourites with the crowd there too...

a good shot, i tink~!!! Mom and Son - mother giraffe and baby giraffe too!

the Multi-Animal Show @ 3pm daily! ~that's the sealion, the 'star' of the show... and the background, the 'amphitheatre' for the animal shows... not bad at all!

some generous visitors offering rm10 for a taste of the show.. a flying 'cockatoo' will fly towards you and nib your note, then make a u-turn back to its trainer. in fact, we could see many hands waving their red notes in the air... unfortunately, the bird chooses its notes... not everyone is up to its standards kut....

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we thought we could cover the whole area within that few short hours. but alas, by 4pm the clouds were already a very dark shade of black, and thunder were already sounding its final warning. we missed the leopards, tigers, and kangaroos... (they were all in the map that we bought for rm2). by then also, we were all pretty worn out too.. our next trip to the zoo? well, maybe 5 years from now.... =)

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http://www.zoonegara.org.my

another itch scratched...

blast from the past..

they were showing 'Funeral March' (starring Eason Chan and Charlene Choi) over Astro Celestial... this, i'd found, to be another luv-hate production..
you've watched it once, liked it, felt that it's a good one.. you'd luv to watch it sometime again, only to be well-aware that by the end of the show, you'd be bawling like a baby.
yes, this is another tear-jerker .. even the soundtrack is...
so be warned!





chinese title : 常在我心
year : 2001
director : Joe Ma Wai-Ho



another itch scratched...

what's becoming?

it's been another long night at the office.. Yes, i need to blog.

`O dear~ i fear i gotta say, just what is becoming of our time?
first of all, it was a really hazy night tonight. not that i'd notice during the day being bogged down at the office the whole day(s)... but tonite, while driving home from work ten-ish...

yup i know it's somewhat obvious that this was from my camera phone while drivin'.. but really, these are not the usual qualities that i'd get when i shoot using my phone! at least not on a gud, fine day! So, well, yea folks,... i guess the haze is back...

darn-darn yeah? it all even looked kinda surreal, with those street lamps aglow with some kinda halo effect around 'em... and the roads in front were really a tad foggy to see.. except of course, they aren't fog.. but haze.. =S

and to make matters worse.. just read from the star online that the H1N1 is now officially declared a level 6 pandemic by the WHO. gosh... gotta admit that i was one of those guilty of thinking that the whole issue might be dying down soon. uh-huh... so wrong, BIG TIME!

and i thought only those close to the states were in big issue ... but , gulp!.. the latest 2 confirmed on our tanahair had in fact, came back from places like Australia and the Philippines! that's like (sound the alarm!!) countries at our side of the globe!! asia!!

sigh-sigh... as if the current economic slump is not enuff for us to bear with, it's issues like these pandemic things that really catch us off guard.

doesn't sound that absurd anymore now, when i come to think back of those exaggerative movie plots where the whole world gets infected with some bio-weapons overnite.. Uhm, given the speed of how things are moving now - the frequency of inter-continental flights and travelling; the rate of flu-jumps from human to human, animals to humans and vice versa (u nvr know), it all goes back to suggest how nothing is impossible anymore (not entirely used in the right context here, but still...) Does it baffle us anymore then? how entire populations of ancient civilizations get wiped out overnite without a trace?

come to think of it, we're not that 'not-ancient' after all too, no?
gettin' drowsy.. that'd be all for now... =.=

another itch scratched...

wearblu.. on 8th June..

and hey, hey..! waddayakno?
it's the official World Ocean Day today, the 8th of June..
another half an hour or so to go before the day ends... just felt that i had to pen down somethin' here.. after all, i did sign the 7C's pledge (aka se7en Seas pledge, gedit?), one of it being to "communicate on my interest & concerns" ...

yup, it's evident that i've been caught by the green bug... ^^


and my recent purchase of the Asian Geographic Green Edition had not been more apt!! they actually have like a list of all the significant 'earth days' there...
and before i forget, the theme for this year's WOD:
"one ocean, one climate, one future"
www.theoceanproject.org

but uhm, shucks that i found out kinda tad too late... like, 30 minutes before the WOD ends...?!
and uhm, shucks too that i wore black to the office today... well, it was typical of me actually... =)

anyhow, happy World Ocean Day, people...

let's keep the 'green-bug-bite' itchy for the next 365 days hur?(more likely i'm reminding meself here but wth rite?.... =P)

another itch scratched...

go green, live green~!

dated jamie to The Star's Green Day Celebrations at FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia), Kepong today..

we'd both read about it in the papers earlier the week, and thought what the heck, it's so darn near our homeplace and it's been darn long too since we'd been to the Green Day celebs at FRIM.. apparently, we'd both been to the celeb days during our kid days.. and i suppose all kids stayin in the area had too... given the proximity of the green lung to our housing estates..

nevertheless... i'd been half expecting a carnival-like atmosphere of some sort there upon reaching at 9-plus. well, at least that was what greeted me during my last visit there, with dad back in primary 5 i think.. i was half looking forward too, to perhaps another shot at taking a rm10 polaroid with an albino phython... for the sake of re-living my childhood ^@^

alas, that didnt happen.
what they had, were some car boot sales (on items like clothes and old issues of Cleo.. well, i hav plenty of those at home too y'know..); some face & t-shirt painting booths catered more for the parent + kid crowd; some booths on eco-natural stuff like some enzyme thingy DIY-ed from leftover foodstuff, which you culd miraculously turn into cleaning agents and even growth-enhancing fertilisers... enterprising ppl all of 'em there i tell you. of course, any events like these could never be short of some radio stations making their mark there, and while we were there, we were entertained by some DJs from red fm... dont really tune in to radio stations these days, but they provided some laughable banters, entertaining nevertheless... and the highlight booth of the booths (to me) was the one by WWF-Malaysia (initially stands for World Wildlife Fund, then changed to the World Wide Fund for Nature in 1987, to reflect on the broadening of their work, and now, simply, more affectionately,.. WWF).

we saw their campaign for pledges on saving the turtles, and also a petition on revamping the current (outdated) wildlife act in malaysia. we wasted no time in putting in our names, in fact, no further explanations nor campaigning be needed to us. we were two very willing pledgers and petitioners right there and then. more info of course, at www.wwf.org.my

since still in the Green Mood.. this, i felt, is just how much (or little?) that i could do on my part..

on highlighting the recent hoo-haa on captive whale sharks across the straits, where they had more than 10K plus of online hits, i was rather dismayed when found that the current online pledges at the WWF website were merely some 4-digits statistics.. pathetically not even tipping over 5,000 pledges. sigh.... still, i do believe we still love our turtles dearly... perhaps i culd blame this all on the lack of awareness and promotional efforts?...

at the WWF booth too, after signing our pledges, we both bought something to show our support to the cause. jamie got some car sticker and some pretty neat collar-pins i believe, while i got myself a simple canvas bag for 18bucks. i too, "pledge" that the next time i go for some light shopping at the local supermarket, i'd refuse their plastic bags and instead practise BYOB (bring-my-own-bag) !

some laudable efforts there eh? but sadly... after our lunch later the day at McDonald's... it didnt occur to me at all to bring the canvas bag along to Guardians, where i did almost some rm100's worth of shopping... =S

well, again, with "better late than never" being my green-mantra,.. i'd promised myself that i will remember to bring my bag along the next time i stop at Jusco @ Desa Park City... =)

until then, do stop by WWF's website and do something there, albeit passively, still, with each pledge/ petition signed, i believe the awareness level will only be heading towards a more positive growth.

another itch scratched...

luv LiFe~!!

dont get me wrong there...
i'm just sayin' that once in a while, we should all be reminded that we should never forget how to love (verb not noun) LiFe!

had been following the taiwanese drama Bai Quan Nue Wang (yes, again.. these all stem from another episode of a drama) - not just any drama, but one that stars Ethan Ruan... ^^
week after week, i'd been feverishly downloading each single episode after it finished its run on consequent sundays in taiwan. but the final episode, #21, i'd downloaded it on monday, and held on from watching until it was the weekend. yes. knowing that it'd be the finale, i'd wanted to savour every moment of it.. heheh! yes, my dose of weekly extraordinaries was coming to an end..

as usual, all taiwan dramas are guilty of being over-the-top, and sometimes even unrealistic. but hey, that's waht you'd expect out of the extraordinaries rite? and yes, i guess i too am guilty here.

behold, some of the titles where i've seen this guy performed and 'grown' over the months...

first caught him opposite Joe Chen in Fated To Love You...


next, i stumbled upon him again in Wayward Kenting... this time co-starring with Eddie Peng


and then, another small role in Summer X Summer... starring also the more popular Joe Cheng..


and finally, the best role to-date... as 'Lucas' opposite Cheryl Yang as 'Veronica Shan' in My Queen~



and along the way, i also got to discover this gem of a singer, Joanna Wang... from the OST of Wayward Kenting...


well... yea, the simple pleasures in life, culd be derived from almost anything if you like it enuff.

some simple drinks and catchup chats with ol'frens...
some afternoons of simple lunching and browsing...
some quiet nights of submergin' oneself in a book or a good mag...
and of coz, some wee hours of blogging indiscriminately on ::Rokujen`:: ...!



another itch scratched...