Happy Dumpling Day 端午节

Have you guys eaten your zhong today? Every year by hook or by crook regardless of the busy schedule, my family will try to make some dumplings. So every year this time, I’ll definitely get to munch all these, yum yum slurp~:

Dumplings festival also known as  Double Fifth Festival as it falls on the fifth day of the fifth month. What happened on that day? Hahah… This is what I remembered from my young time: (very vague, Don’t sue me for discrepancy)

It all started way back in one of the China Dynasty, I think it is the Zhou Dynasty. As usual in all story, we have the good guy and the bad guy. The smart scholar is the good guy but the king only listen to the bad guy. After countless “nyap,nyap,nyap” the King felt annoyed and throw him out of the palace. Finally, the unfortunate really has happened, the scholar blamed himself for the country invasion and try to cover it’s ka-cheng by jumping into a river full of piranha (<—heheh made it up) on the fifth day of the fifth month. The villagers there who admired and respected him, try to search for his body but their effort was futile. They came up with a funny idea by making dumplings to throw into the river to feed the fish so the scholar’s body will be left untouched. At the same time, the fierce looking dragon boat was made to scare fishes away from eating the body. ROar!

If you are lazy to read my long gas story… This is how PW simplified it. (Catfish: keng leh with paint only leh):

For a more complete info on Dumpling festival, click here.

 

Cheers,

--Catfish & PW--

KL Tower Forest Towerthon Challenge 2009

Took place during 1st March 2009. If I’m not mistaken, I was informed by my colleague then followed by Su-Lyn. I was very keen to take up this challenge and joined my colleague’s team called “Esaibo” (found out on the day itself, weird name though).

Why PW join? : PW LOA during my practice –> find colleagues –> agreed –> join as well!  Su-Lyn took part as well.

It’s been ages since I took part in any sports event. It makes my adrenaline pumping again when I’m at the Starting line.

Don’t worry if you are at the back of the line. We were all given a counter each to tie it up on our shoe. This will be use to record our time as soon as we step on the red mat. Thank God for that because without it we might ended up being as flat as a roti canai with all the kiasu-ness around.. ***

PW and me done loads of practices so the stairs was not really the big problem but we did not take other condition into account. It was like sauna as soon as we enter the stairs plus all the sweat smell and slimy trail from all those in front… YUCK~ The were some ventilation fan every 10-20 flights of stairs, those levels are like heaven! Cool breeze… (PW: also the 1km uphill dash to the KL Tower is not fun either.) ***

I hate this ‘6 floor to finish’… I hate it! HATE IT! StUPiD sign!!! (Notice it says 2008 – recycled –.-“) ***
 
At this point, you would think: dash up, finish it and get over with it! NO YOU ARE WRONG! GOTCHA!! It was a drinking station after 10+ flights of stairs… The sport officer said 2 more floors so I skipped the drink and continue to dash. What the HELL!! ANOTHER FREAKING DRINKING STATION. I confirmed twice or triple with the sport officer at this new refreshment station whether it is really 2 more floors. Well this time they are quite right, phew, lucky else I’ll faint from all dashing.

This is my team. Looked more like: “Neh tiring meh?” ***

I was surprised on how fast PW made it up. I’m so proud of her. First, the courage to take part. 2nd, for being so determined! Good job PW!! Here you go, you deserve this:

PW’s team... Good job everyone!

We spent about 1h enjoying the scenery up there and met up with few of our UNIM friends, wouldn’t thought of meeting them there. Pity for the foreigners who came by to visit KL tower during this time because the whole observation deck stinks! Well not to mention, queue up for the elevator. Imagine sweaty and smelly skin. YUCKS x 10~!

Love this photo. Too bad we were not in it. ***

Everyone was happy with themselves but the stomach just can’t stop complaining. So we all eat our medal…

Yea we all made it! Congratulation to everyone!

Time taken:
Catfish - 0:27:15 <— was alright. Maybe my 30min target was a bit too lenient.
PW - 0:39:02 <— I was surprised!

I know this event has been a while but still feel like blogging it because:

1. It’s something that we have challenged ourselves to nibble on,

2. The result have just been announced. Click here for the result.

3. I’m up for a new challenge, something that I have never done:

Standard Chartered KL Marathon this 28 June 2009 21KM Half Marathon. Unfortunately, PW won’t be joining (She said “boring” ). You may have noticed that I have placed a new column (KL Marathon 2009 Training) on the side for my practice time

------------–>

Just to give you a taste on the KL Marathon route:

If you are interested, it is not too late to join but you might not get the early bird discount like me. Click here

Wish me luck,

--Catfish--
Really need it!

*** Photos (especially those in the stairs) are courtesy of Axiao. Thanks!

Mango Mania @ Bangsar

On Saturday, PW had a day out shopping at Bangsar with her girlfriends. You wouldn’t believe how girls shop~ . They can shop for hours and climb countless flights of stairs without any sign of exhaustion. If you ask them to go to exercise: “tired la” or “lazy la” or even better “boring”. Anyway, I’m the chauffer and hanger of the day for PW.

Finally when the shopping spree got fruitful and they had enough, we headed off for some refreshment at Mango Mania:

For mango and ice cream lover, this is a place to be. It is self explanatory:

The Yoghurt Ice Cream cost RM6.90 with additional cost for fruit topping such as mango, kiwi or strawberry cubes. The Mango Mania which is additional mango cubes cost RM8.90.

My aim is to quench thirst so I opt for something big, an Apple Galore. It consist of blended apple and Mango yoghurt. I have to say it is a healthy drink and thirst quenching. At least, it refreshed me from the role of the day.

It’s not complete without something more solid so I ordered a Mango Cheesecake. It turns out to be a disappointment. As you notice, the top layer is gelatin; it does not compliment well with the cheese layer. According to Pei Pei, the best part is the biscuit base. That says a lot isn’t?

Don’t they looked ‘Absolutely Refreshed’, Pei³ (from left: Pei Pei, Pei Ying, Pei Wen).. 

But truth to be told we were all actually sweating because the place is quite hot and stuffy. I understand that part of it is due to the hot sun but the air conditioning doesn’t seem to be providing any relieve at all.

I like this photo a lot. PP it will make a very good wallpaper for your VAIO (click for wallpaper size 1024):

Mango Mania
Location: Opposite Eon Bank at Jalan Telawi 4, Bangsar. Google Map
Food: 3/5 nibbles (Excellent Mango Yoghurt Ice cream.)
Cleanliness: 4/5 nibbles
Pricing: 2.5/5 nibbles (suppose to be 2 but +0.5 for the location, Bangsar)
Service: 2/5 nibbles (waiter was not very helpful, not very smiley)

 

Had fun nibbling off some mango,

--Catfish--

Just keep swimming, keep swimming, swimming

We were having lunch 2 days ago at office Canteen. As usual, not much choice around the mixed rice corner so majority of us settled for the so called “special” corner, menu of the day: Wantan Mee. Some were chatting and some were busy trying to finish up their dishes in less than 30 min. Suddenly, Foo (aka Zhaun) shrieked:

“Oh my F***ing GOD!!! There is a WORM in my Wantan Mee!!!”

Foo had more than half of his share. Everyone was distracted from their busy eating and said “It’s not WORM it is a baby cockroach la…”. Shook Yee and me ended up snapping like paparazzi and my photos turns out as if the cockroach was diving for a swim :

Just Keep Swimming

Just keep swimming

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming … Dead~

After hard persuasion, Foo reluctantly brought it to Aunty to get a refund. Aunty was so scared and apologize tons of time and refunded. If we ever report this, canteen can get very serious actions which include change of canteen management.

Well, result was Foo did not get any stomach ache at all. Foo consume more protein compared to all of us…

 

Disgusted,

--Catfish--

Spooky~

Mr.Catfish and I were on the way to SS2 for a Korean dinner with a few of my high school best friends. We were already late for the 8pm appointment because Catfish was stuck in a meeting earlier. After picking me up, he was trying to think of the the fastest way to reach SS2 and he decided to use Seremban highway going into Federal Highway.

Along our journey there the road was initially very busy with cars zooming left right but right after we passed Nirvana Memorial Centre we realize the road become suspiciously quiet with the nearest car is some distance away. This continue for quite sometime and the other cars seem to be keeping a constant distance between us. Out of a sudden, at the bend turning into Desa Water park City, Sunny Boy swerve to the left.

I turn to look at Catfish expecting an explanation to his sudden movement and with his face white he said to me that from the rearview mirror he saw a pair of green eyes looking at us from the backseat. By that time both our hearts stop. He ask me to turn around, take a look and confirm what he saw.  I suddenly thought of all the horror movie in the car where the ‘thing’ will jump on you the moment you turn back and look. So of course I refuse to do it and instead decided to use the camera since I already had it on my hand.  Picture posted below. Please only scroll down if you are sure you can take it.**

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Still don’t know what is it? Take a good look here. It’s actually Mr.Big Thing Elephant.

He’s hanging around thanks to Mr.Helmut and Goh.

Sigh, after the big scare and difficulty in getting a place to park Sunny Boy, we reach the Seo Gung Korean Restaurant to see this. Can’t blame them though, we are almost an hour late.

We ordered Dolsot Bibimbap which was quite good, haha maybe we are just hungry!!!

BBQ pork slice with spicy sauce. It was well marinated and the spicy sauce provided was excellent.

Restaurant Seo Gung
Ambience: 4/5 nibbles
Cleanliness: 5/5 nibbles (especially the toilet!)
Food: 2.5/5 nibbles (we have ate much better ones)

 

 

After dinner, we proceed to KTZ. Look at us studying the menu so intently while Catfish canwhoring there.

We ordered Tong Yuen which cost RM1.20 per piece and a Mango Loh Loh.

We are quite disappointed with Tong Yuen and Loh Loh after we have heard so much about their reputation.

It was indeed a fun and spooky evening. After so long of not seeing you girls, I miss everyone so much and can’t wait for the next meeting which is tomorrow. hehehehe…

 

Restaurant Kei Tak Sek
Ratings: 2.5/5 nibbles

 

Spooked Out,

--PW--

**Disclaimer: The spooky story above is somewhat exaggerated. Please forgive my crappiness.

Welcome Amanda!!!

Congratulation

Pin Ying and Kelvin…

 

Everyone, say Hello to Amanda.

May you have a wonderful journey ahead of you.

 

Love,

--PW--

Windows Vista Adobe Photoshop CS4 Problem

Sorry for another post on “nibbled tech” because today we came back very late for a celebration for PW’s good news and our 3rd year and 1 month anniversary dinner so a short post today:

My newly installed Adobe Photoshop CS4 on Windows Vista in my laptop, has been giving me scrambled / distorted pictures, like this:

It never happen on the Windows XP one. I was beginning to think if I had installed the wrong version 64 bit instead of the 32 bit.

I can’t do much photo editing when using only Picasa, telling myself what’s the use of my laptop if I were to blog on the move. So I went around googling for an answer, true enough it is a known issue.

Solution: Edit>Preferences>Performance, disable “OpenGL Drawing”

Reason why Windows XP was that the OpenGL Drawing was disabled by default but Vista is otherwise.

 

Cheers,
-- Catfish --

PS: Shhh… I post this when PW is asleep now, don’t tell her ya! I should not blog any “nibbled tech” for another 2 more post else I’ll be getting it from PW. I’ll try to blog on our Pangkor trip soon…

Great Tool - Windows Live Writer Review

I just can’t stop bragging about how good a tool Windows Live Writer is; really credits and salute to Microsoft. In the beginning I was so fed up with the Blogger post writer interface, it really turns me off blogging but thanks to YJ for recommending me this.

Supported blog services:

Windows Live Writer is neat and user friendly as opposed to blogger post editor. It downloads the blogger’s layout and gives you WYSIWYG feel while writing your post.

Windows Live Writer

VS

Blogger Draft Online Editor
 
Which do you prefer?

Still not satisfied? No worry in Windows Live Writer, you can click Preview button on the bottom left to see the outcome of the blog post. For HTML experts, Source view is also available.

Set Category

The previously saved categories will be available for selection and you could also add a new category:

Set Publish Date

The latest blogger draft new function “Schedule at” function are also allowed to be done in Windows Live Writer:
 

Save Draft

There are option for both save draft locally and save draft to blog.

Open and Edit

Feel like editing and republishing your post that is already published or save as draft in blogger? Here you go:

Plug-ins

I find this a very cool addition to the blogging. You may try a lookout what plug-ins are available here. Recommended: Flickr4Writer, Polaroid Picture and Smileys (PW love the smiley tool).

Publish: Who say blogging is so hard? It’s just a click away. Vola~!

 

According to YJ, it works perfectly with Wordpress as well. This is a must try tool. Even PW (who constantly complains about any software) find it very user friendly. Those who have not started blogging, just pick up WLW and start now! Bloggers have a peace of mind when blogging…

Get it here.

If you have any good stuff or advise, do leave some comment.

Happy Blogging!

 

Cheers,
-- Catfish --

Back to Kuantan: Day 2

While we were on the journey to Kuantan, Catfish was  planning to finally start (it was suppose to start since April) his practice for the KL Marathon run. The plan was to jog around my neighborhood at 7am. Instead he got distracted by Counter Strike.

So Day 2 turns out to be another Makan Day! hehehe…

First stop: S Katong Curry Laksa.
This was recently introduced by my uncle so this is a first for me as well.

Don’t you think it looks exactly like how it was advertise in the signboard? This is the epitome of “What you see is What you get”. (Half an egg, 5 pieces of fishcake, one prawn,…).

I found this from Wikipedia though.

“Katong laksa is a variant of laksa lemak from the Katong area of Singapore. In Katong laksa, the noodles are normally cut up into smaller pieces so that the entire dish can be eaten with a spoon alone (that is, without chopsticks or a fork). Katong laksa is a strong contender for the heavily competed title of Singapore's national dish.”

The laksa I had was not cut into smaller pieces. If only they had, I would have given them a 100% rating.


For lunch, we had something healthier. Apple Salad by my mom. Simple dish but this is just what we need after days of eating such heavy meals.
This is a picture of Catfish getting distracted by Counter Strike. The night before he was playing till 4am and here he is again in the afternoon.
 

Before we leave Kuantan, we went for early dinner in ‘Astro’. hehe..
 

We ordered: “Zhu Kiok Chou”. Direct translation Pig’s Leg Vinegar.
“Hak Chiu Pai Kuat” = Pork’s Rib in Black Pepper Style.
“Lou Ngap” = Braised Duck. Actually I just learn from a Malay cooking show that Braise in Bahasa Melayu  is Merendidih.. In my 11 years of studying BM, I never come across this word. This is the power of TV. I shall therefore encourage people to buy more Sony TV. (wuahaha.. hidden agenda here. Catfish and his colleague would understand)
 

We also have a vege dish and the soup was complimentary. According to Catfish, his favourite is the Braised Duck.
 

Well, my favourite is actually the “Zhou Kai” = Running Chicken.. my gosh.. 
Actually “Zhou Kai” = Chicken in Wine. While I was happily enjoying this dish. I realize my mom stop after one sip. When I ask her, her reply was so funny. She said this dish reminded her of her confinement time and it gives her the creep. Wuahahahah..
Cue music….*Ibu~ Ibu~ Engkaulah Ratu Hatiku~….
Oh, and Catfish discover hidden treasure in the toilet. hehehhe… Careful guys. We don’t want any accident to happen.
 

Restaurant S Katong Curry Laksa
Ratings: 4/5 nibbles
Direction: Click here <— it is very difficult to get the correct location so this is a rough one..

Restraurant S-tro
Ratings: 4.5/5 nibbles
Direction: It is located near BHP petrol station and the 888 food court along Jalan Teluk Sisik. A rough map direction.

Cheers,

--PW--