Vista vista.... sigh.

One of the few interesting articles about Windows Vista user experience i have come across. Recommended read.

Wedding Favours

2006 has been the year in which I have attended the most wedding dinners in my life so far. Close to 10. One of the nice thing attending such dinners *apart from yam-seng* is the wedding favour given to each guest.

So, i wonder what should i give if i happen to get married one day. Answer is here.

XML 10th Anniversary

As a dedication to this, IBM has released a special edition of its Systems Journal. Geeks, do check it out.

Put some music on.

Another filler post. Check out the ad here.

WTF !!

Our latest innovation of roti tissue/canai.

*I am more proud of this than asking our malaysian astronuts astronauts make teh tarik in space*

Short stay at Land below the Wind

Two days ago, i attended my long time friend's wedding at Sabah, more specifically a small city called Tawau. While this has been the most expensive wedding dinner i have been to (cost me close to RM600), it was one of those memorable trips i will never forget for a long time.

I also took the opportunity to spent about 2 hours at another town called Semporna, the gateway to the infamous island, Sipadan. The journey from Tawau to Semporna took about 2.5 hours by car. (well, its more like a boat we were sitting on because my friend was driving a Toyota Hilux, which is a very common type of vehicle in this part of the country)

Here are some of the pictures taken.

The entrance to the visitor centre.


Floating restaurant.


Chalets for rent.


The type of fish that killed Steve Irwin. Check out the sea, so darn clear.

Btw, i also had escargot ala hawker style there, hehe. Super cheap and quite delicious.


PS: I did not post any photos related to Tawau as i find it inappropriate for this post.

Team Dinner

This is the first time I post to this team blog. Have to as this about our another team dinner...

This is a bit different from our previous one because we have our 'Si Tou Poh' (Lady Boss) and new SDM, plus other 2 teams joining as well. The dinner was at La Bodega, Bangsar. It's quite a nice place, good ambience.


















































nice decor with wine bottles

We started with some drinks and tapas. The Chile's 2001 Shiraz was nice (nice to me as long as it feels smooth and doesn't burn my throat). According to our Mastermind, the person who plucked the grapes was born in the year of Ox...hehe

One of our teammates ordered a shooter - XXXXX Sucking Cowboy. After we saw his behaviour after the drink, we didn't dare to order the other sexy drinks - Slippery Nipple, Soft Comfortable Screw and Up against the Wall.

We had some escargots. This was the first time I had snail, didn't taste as bad as I thought. But according to others, it was quite plain.

















Escargots

Here are some of the food we ordered...
















Sirloin beef
















Lamb fillet

Wii

The most revolutionary game console ever to date. Can't wait to own it.



You will be amazed. Hot chick playing tennis. Check it out here.

Places to eat in KL

My first post, but not a very interesting one. I am planning dinner for quite a big group of people (10-15) and can't decide where to go. Anyone has any suggestion?

Place must be:

• Posh cos some gweilos coming also
  
• Expensive (but not overly so lah)
• Characteristic (not keen on hotels, but can also lah if nothing else)
• Good food and hearty meals
  

Someone suggested Telawi Street Bistro, which is a pretty good one really since it's not a very hotel-y place. I wonder if there are other places like that around KL/PJ?

Cuppa Cakes

Fancy a birthday cake?





Order it here

(pictures courtesy of terenceg.com)

Local Delicacies

Nothing gets in the way when it comes to good food. That is also the reason why i have chosen this subject to be the very first post of my trip. (or maybe 2nd).
(The tagging of one city per dish represents where it originated from.)

1. Shanghai - Xiao Long Pao 小籠包
The shop behind me is where Xiao Long Pao is invented. It is situated in Cheng Huang Miao or so called Yuyuan Garden. I literally have to queue for an hour just to get myself 16 pieces of this for 8 RMB. (If you eat in, you can only get 6 for 30RMB). So it was actually worth queuing.



But guess what, it was a disappointment. The skin was just too thick to my liking. Thank god it was saved by the ingredients inside. The soup and meat were delicious.




2. Wuxi - Pork spare ribs
Like the tour guide said, if you did not taste this dish, then it is a complete waste to visit Wuxi. Wuxi style of cooking is a little sweeter than other provinces in China. Though the ribs taste quite good overall but i still prefer western style of cooking like the one i had in Checkers Damansara or maybe Tony Romas.




3. Nanjing - Salted Duck
This dish share lots of similarities with Steamed Salted Chicken (In Cantonese, it is called "Yim Kuk Kai"), except that it is served cold, thus normally considered as starters. The meat is so so tender, i have not experienced it before.




4. Hangzhou - Dong Po Meat
Everyone in the team knows i like this dish alot till i am getting fatter lately because of too much indulgence. I was told that the inventor of this dish, Su Shi (or known Su DongPo) is not a chef, but a famous poet.

Excerpt from wikipedia
"It is said that, once during his free time, Su Dongpo decided to make stewed pork out of boredom. Then an old friend visited him in the middle of the cooking and challenged him to a game of Chinese chess. Su had totally forgotten of the stew during the game until a very fragrant smell came out from his kitchen and he was reminded of it. Thus Dongpo's Pork (東坡肉), a famous dish in Chinese cuisine, was discovered by accident."

I personally find that Hangzhou version of this dish is way much better than the local ones over in Klang Valley because it is less oily and much tender.




5. Suzhou - ??
Honestly, i did not have any local specialty when i arrived. So, could it be this?
There is a meaning behind the picture, if you understand Cantonese. So, no offense to Suzhou and its people. :o)


6. Optional - Mcdonalds Premium Grilled Chicken Sandwich
It has been my practise for many years now that everytime i visited a country, i will try its local menu not available worldwide. This one actually taste better than any other chicken sandwiches i have eaten, though Ramly is still the best. It has a oriental taste in it because it uses five spices to marinate *i think*. Very nice.

Home Sweet Home

Too many places yet too little time. This basically sums up my 8 days trip to Shanghai and its neighbouring provinces. In total, i have visited 35 attractions only to have max 6 hours of sleep everyday. It was definitely a splendid and inspiring trip for a first timer to China like me.

Stay tuned for details.

She is Khong Yi Enn

This is my 2 months++ old daughter. Haven't give her a Christian name yet. Anybody comes across any name? Can be funky or classic.

Off duty

There won't be any post from me beginning tomorrow as i shall be going to the place where this food originated. Be back in a weeks time.



*Team, don't be so bad lah, post something interesting about your life here*

X820

I wish i can be an automobile blogger like paultan, so this post isnt about new Volvo or BMW sports utility vehicle models (though they share similar naming conventions).

I recently got myself a spanking new Samsung handphone which was unintentionally owned. My sis bought it to replace her Moto V3, which after 3 days using it, she complained it doesnt fit into her jeans pocket. Since i am such a nice guy, i decided to buy over that piece of technology.



There have been much praises given to this phone here and here due to its world record breaking slimness. Its LCD display also superbly bright, none of the Scandinavian counterparts come close to it.

Despite all that, i wonder how come not a single review has talk about the following 2 features, which i find the most attractive.

1. Dialing display.
The numbers you key no longer restricted in typical fonts, but as pictures !!



2. SMS display.
On normal handphones, when sms is displayed, all the text will be shown. This phone displays each character in the sms one at a time progressively, thus mimicking computer screen terminals just like in those sci-fi movies. Unfortunately, my video upload to YouTube has failed, otherwise i can show you a video on this.

Nice right?

Blog Reader Part 2

Coincidently couple of hours after my post, Robert Scoble, the most widely known blogger in the geek world has made a videocast interviewing the people behing Google Reader. Its available here.



Note: It has a glimpse of Google Master Plan 2.0 (if you have not seen it)

Blog Reader

Four years ago while still pursuing my postgraduate degree, i was introduced to the word "blog" at school not as a tool to replace traditional personal diary, but the technology that builts it, RSS. To me, it is just another type of markup language offshoot from its parent XML, and grandparent, SGML.

Fast forward, blogging today has gone mainstream and exploded to not only remains as diary, but can even generate monetary rewards out of it, thanks to our search engine big brother Google.

While i still consider myself as dummy to blogging (hehe, i am pretty late to the game now), i have learnt to become an expert in scouting first hand technology news. Windows Vista or previously called codename Longhorn, for example, was not widely known until a blogger, started talking about this piece of product even in its infancy. Screenshots of Vista's UI were shown to the public for the first time and made geeks like me over excited on how beautiful it can be and no longer bow to MacOS X.

Till today, i have a list of close to 100 feeds that i keep track daily. It used to take me so much time, going thru site by site just to see if there is any update. Thanks to my new found love, i no longer need to do that anymore.

Let me introduce you to the coolest tool after Gmail, Google Reader aka RSS feeds aggregator. As the name implies, once you have registered a list of your favourite feeds, it will periodically tracks/aggregates any new posting and display it in a Web 2.0/AJAX powered user interface.

With this tool, i can read thousands of blogs and still be able to work efficiently. Cool hey? Do check it out here



Note: And yes, i am a Google fan. :o)