The Shibumi Tale ...

There I was trying to catch a couple of minutes of shut eye in my office (hey, I wasn't bumming off, it was lunch time, ok!) and I catch a whiff of smoke in my room. The first thing that runs through my blurry mind is ...

'Oh my God! The office is on fire!'

I bolt up from my chair, get ready to run but am confronted by this floating image of a genie amidst a cloud of smoke. I take a few steps back, reaching out for my trusty old baseball bat when the genie speaks ...

'Don't you dare reach for that bat, you imbecile! It's me la, the Genie Princess.'

Squinting my eyes to look through the smoke, I breathe a sigh of relief and say ...

"Oh, so it is you. Aiyoo! next time don't frighten me la, for a moment there I thought you were that no good Genie King who still owes me wishes and I was about to hit the louse over his thick head!'

'No la, he's still in hiding' the Genie Princess says. 'Owes too many people wishes and they're all hunting him down'

'Anyway, I've got something for you', says the Genie Princess and she hands me an award.

'Shibumi award? what in hell is a Shibumi award? I ask.

'You numb skull', The Genie Princess replies, 'don't you even know anything? Shibumi is a Japanese term which is used in the following context in a noun. Its meaning refers to a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle and unobstrusive beauty."

'So you're trying to say I'm simply beautiful now, huh? I reply laughing ...

'Argggghhhhhhh!!! You're impossible!!! The Genie Princess screams. 'Here, take this and you'd better display it somewhere prominent or else you'll know what's good for you ..... !!!'

And with that, the Genie Princess disappears in the same puff of smoke from which she appeared leaving me to ponder upon the mysteries of the universe.

'Oh well, at least I still have another 20 minutes of lunch time left to snooze.'
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Taking The Plunge ...

Ok, I have a confession to make (what, another one Nick?). I've jumped onto the paid postings bandwagon about a month or so ago and have since then done about 6 assignments. I've always had my reservations about this and have been really skeptical. I refused to even consider doing it. I'm stubborn and when I make my mind up about something, I normally refuse to budge! Actually it was my wife who kinda convinced me to join up.

She's been blogging longer than I have, well, maybe about a week or so longer ... LOL! When we both first started blogging, we never were huge fans of paid postings. We'd normally skip the blogs that contain loads of them cos they were not really postings. They were more like ads. It's not the kind of blogs I'd like to read.

Then about 2 or so months ago, my wife threw caution to the wind and went full scale into the world of paid postings. Initially I thought she'd lost it ... hehehe ... I asked her what got into her and she said if she was going to be blogging all day, she might as well make a little side money out of it. So I went like ...

'Uh huh, whatever honey ...' (LOL!)

She would feverishly log on constantly and check if there were any assignments waiting for her and if there were, she'd snap it up instantly. I seriously thought her blog was going to get fewer visitors (She has quite a huge number regular bloggers who visit her daily). And I was thinking eventually they would stop visiting her. I mean who really wants to read lots of paid postings right?

But you know, I was absolutely wrong about this. Her viewership went up instead. I had like 1000 visitors more than her and she is actually catching up with me pretty fast. And you know why? It's the way she writes her paid postings. She doesn't just see them as something she's paid to do, she sees them as something of a challenge. And that doesn't turn people off. Any assignment that she gets, she does quite a bit of research on it and then she tries to find something about her personal life or daily happenings that compliments or relates to the assignment and she makes that paid post her own and really personal. And she's getting better at it with every assignment.

That's when I started getting a little interested in it. I was thinking if I could make these assignments run along closely with something that relates to my personal life and if I could make some money from it, then why not? I created this blog strictly for my personal rantings and experiences and I still stand by that belief. I don't want this blog to be boring and I sincerely hope it's not. I'd like it to be a part of me, a part of what I really am in real life, a glimpse of my inner thoughts.

So I signed up with a few of these websites offering these paid assignments. I wasn't 100% convinced yet but I wanted a feel for things first. My blog was accepted and approved but I still didn't want to start or accept any assignments yet. Then I checked out some of the blogs I visit on a regular basis and there are a few that do these assignments pretty well, they make it so personal that sometimes you find it hard to tell if they're really paid postings or sponsored posts. Here are some fine examples of some pretty good paid postings that I think makes the post sound more like a personal one. The only giveaway were the sponsored links attached.

Drive Baby Drive! by Nessa of Mumblings.
Me, Myself and I by Cindy of Foreign Beauty.
I lost my favourite pen! by Shemah of My Sweet Escape.
I want to RIP my hair out! by DiamondsSapphire of Nonsense, Fun, Tears, Happiness & Anger ...

So, I toughened up, took a huge deep breath and about a month ago, I actually posted my first ever assignment. And since then I think I've posted about 6 so far. And I've been paid for all of it already too :) And every single word in those posts are related to some of my personal experiences and thoughts. And I've decided that's the only way I'd do any of these assignments. I've rejected (well, not really rejected, just didn't do them) so many assignments given to me cos I found I couldn't write anything or relate it to any of my personal experiences. So, you might say I'm really very picky about the assignment I am given.

Some of you may say I've sold out, so be it. If I could post something that relates to my personal experiences and get paid for doing it, now that's a good deal isn't it? And with that big motor mouth that I have I don't think it would be too much of a problem for me ... LOL! Then again, it just might be a little problem. I have this assignment waiting for me and it's about Vegas and for the life of me I don't know how I'm ever going to relate that to something personal of mine. I've never ever been to Vegas in my life and all I know about Vegas is what I see on CSI ... LOL! Oh well, nobody said doing this was a piece of cake, right ...

I'm A Superstar!

First of all let me aplogise to Marzie of Wishing On A Falling Star cos she awarded me the Mariuca Superstar Award and I have been sitting on it for ages. Thankfully it didn't hatch or anything like that or it really would have been strange to see small little Superstar Awards running all around ... LOL! Ok, ok, I'm a little insane but it's close to 1.30am and I'm a little blur and slightly stuffed from so much eating earlier this evening.

I'd like to say a big thank you to Marzie for even thinking of awarding me such an award. I don't think I deserve it but it's always a nice feeling to receive awards. Looks like I'm really going to be needing to go to Ikea and get that new award cabinet already ... LOL!

I also have a lot of meme's to complete and to all those 'kind hearted' (LOL) folks out there who've tag me for something or other, please be a little patient and give me some time to get all those tags out, k? I promise to do them in another installment of my infamous Tag Marathon session soon ... LOL!
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Crazy Week!

I haven't posted anything (which is not me at all) or really visited any of my regular blog buddies for close to almost a week now and I have a perfectly good excuse, urmm, I mean reason for that ... LOL! Today is really the only time since Monday that I've had some time to actually sit here and type something out.

What happened first was my silly internet connection upped and died on me for close to two days (almost). Most of you who are using Streamyx would probably say, so what else is new? But the thing is I don't use Streamyx. I'm using a totally different service provider called Jaring and for the past 2 or so years since I've been using their wireless broadband, this is only the second time their service died on me.

The first being when the undersea cables broke or something and that wasn't really their fault. Besides, I didn't own a blog back then so I was not affected by it. The second time was just last week when all of a sudden, my wife said the service was down. I didn't really give it much thought cos I'm using a wireless broadband and it just rained and sometimes, the connection is slightly buggy for a few minutes after a heavy rain spell (which we've been experiencing quite a bit last week).

I told my wife to give it a few minutes and after waiting ten minutes with still no connection, I knew something was wrong. Their service and reception is that good that if you're not connected back in a few minutes, something really is wrong. So I went and have a look at the settings and stuff but found nothing wrong with it. Now this was already around an hour and I couldn't get online. I was shocked! I was devastated even ... LOL! (I can laugh now but I wasn't laughing then).

So I called their customer service (which I must stress is excellent) and they tried to help me troubleshoot my problem. After an hour on the phone troubleshooting together with their customer service and not getting any success, they decided to log my complain in the logs and let their technical people try to solve it. They said it might take anywhere from 24-48 hours to figure it out. Oh, man, 48 hours? I couldn't get angry with them, cos they were so helpful and apologetic so I waited patiently. I couldn't even log on in my office cos we use the same wireless broadband provider as well. Drats!

Then the next day, the worse thing that could happen, happened. My client calls up and says they need to get an ad out in the local media the next day.

'What!', I screamed in the phone ... (well, not really screamed, sounds more dramatic when I say scream ... LOL!)

They want an advert out tomorrow and they call me today. Don't they know it needs at least 3 whole days for material submission deadlines and such? Well, not really but that's what I always tell them :) Ok, normally this wouldn't be a huge problem cos I could just email them the artwork for confirmation but remember both my office and home connections were down.

Man, I panicked cos this would mean having to drive all the way to their place which is in the heart of the city to get the artwork approved and that would mean wasting a lot of time driving. Time which I really didn't have. But I had no choice. So the next couple of days were a frantic hell for me. Even my wife's needs were placed secondary to my client (sorry honey). But in the end I did manage to get things done for them and that took me a stressful 4 whole days since Tuesday.

True to my service providers assurance our connection came back in the next 36 hours but because of my last minute work, I couldn't get to replying my comments and posting anything new until yesterday evening. But after replying all my comments and visiting most of my regular blog buddies pages I got too lazy to post anything. And today being a Saturday I was even lazier. I don't usually post on weekends cos I'd rather spend the time with my beloved wife but today I just had too cos I can't stay away from not updating my blog for too long ... hehehe ...

Both my wife and me were pretty pissed when connection went down cos we're pretty avid blogger and she was even more pissed than me cos she has some paid posting assignments to complete by a certain date (which she just barely managed to squeeze in when the connection came back). Oh, and she's been doing a pretty good job with her paid postings, making loads of money too ... LOL!

This episode made me realize how much I've come to depend on my broadband service, both for my work and my personal life. I practically do everything online, from paying all my bills to my communication with my clients, research for my work, to just plain blogging and sometimes I wonder how the heck did I ever get anything done back in those old days when it was just plain dial up, worse still, when the internet wasn't even heard of yet! Boy, that is a scary thought ... LOL!

Ok, now enough with the heart stopping moments of not having connection already. It's time to go visit my regulars and see what they've been up to the past week. I've also got quite a bit of meme's and awards to post. Been sitting on it for way too long now. And since my wife is downstairs watching some movie called 'Click' I have the laptop all to myself for a whole 2 hours or so :D Happy weekend folks.

The Drug Menace!

I met a relative of mine a few days back and I must say I'm pretty proud of him. He's now working and doing pretty okay for himself. What's the big deal about that you might ask. Well, up to about 3 years ago, this relative of mine was a drug user and totally heading for the very pits of hell. He is a whole ten years younger than me and he was about 15 years old when he first delved and got himself deeply entangled in the world of drugs. It was really a sad day when we all discovered that he was involved with drugs.

When I was ten years old this guy just came into the world as a tiny little adorable baby. He stayed with us under the same roof while he was growing up. He was a nice but pampered little fellow (just like me ... LOL!), was pretty brilliant with his studies (unlike me). He used to get all A's in his exams. Eventually though, he and his family moved away a couple of years later when he was in primary school to stay on their own in another town, not really too far away from us. That's when the trouble started!

He started getting lax in his studies, mixed around with undesirables and started being very disrespectful to his parents. They had a hard time keeping him in checked, his grades started slipping real bad and he even began skipping school. When he was in secondary school, his parents decided to send him to study with an aunt of mine to keep him away from the bad hats he's been hanging around with. We all thought that would put a stop to his bad habits but that was far from the truth.

He got around to mixing with an even worse bunch of crowd here and that's where he got involved in drugs and almost ruined his entire life. As a family, we all rallied trying to get him out of it, but with mixed results. He was hauled up by the Police a few times and every time the family somehow managed to keep him from going to prison and even sent him to a drug rehabilitation centre which he eventually ran away from. We all got fed up with him and when he was caught once again by the Police, this time no one made any effort to help him. Prison was way much better for him, at least this time he couldn't run away and maybe when he eventually come out, he would be a better person. We didn't hold our breaths though.

To cut a really long story short, he did come out, and he did kick his habit, got married, even had a kid and now has a decent job. We're all pretty happy for him, though we weren't really sure he could pull it off. I'm hoping he will stay that way. And if you ever do get around to reading this blog dude, let me say that I'm proud of you.

Drugs just don't cut it folks. I've seen first hand how it can ruin your life. The pain and heartache it can cause the parents, the people around you, the people who love you. I've heard too many excuses from people dabbling in drugs ...

'too stressed out, just wanna try it, got too many problems, need an escape, etc, etc, etc ...'

But there is always another way out of these problems. What do you really get out of drugs? A couple of hours of ecstasy? Then what? Live in a world of illusion? I don't think so! I know I'm gonna be keeping a real close eye on the kind of company my kids mix around with. Not in a million years am I ever going to let them ruin their lives because of drugs. As cheesy as this may sound but ...

'Say NO to drugs!!!'
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Boss For A Day ...

Today I got to boss my wife around in her own domain, the kitchen! Oh, what a joyous day it's been ... LOL! To be able to make her do my bidding in the kitchen ... hehehe ... I had some left over minced chicken from yesterday for when I made the boys my Phillips special. The boys claimed I was a genius cos they so loved it :D And this praise given to one who at one time couldn't even boil eggs properly! But that's a posting for another day ... hehehe ...

So, today I asked my wife what to do with the balance and she suggested we make some cutlets for tea. A great cook she may be but she's never tried this dish before and I had some knowledge on cutlet making (yes, yes, it's true). I used to watch my mom make potato and meat cutlets when I was young so I got the chance to bluff, urrmm, impart my cutlet making knowledge on my wife :)

To cut a long story short, check out the pictures below for a chronology of me being head chef ... LOL! Forgive the low resolution image quality, taken with my cell phone camera.

First the potatoes had to be peeled , boiled and mashed ...

The main ingredients being mixed ...

The final mix of the mashed potatoes and minced chicken, tomato bits, spring onions, shallots and shavings of Parmesan cheese mixed together ...

Shaping the cutlets before frying ...

The cutlets waiting patiently to be fried ... (take a number fellas ... LOL!)

The frying process which by this point you could just smell the mouth watering cheese infused cutlets :)

And finally the end product which we ended up sitting outside in our porch with a nice mug of coffee (I'm a coffee addict remember) and tea (my wife's a more refined tea drinker) and our special Parmesan infused cutlets :) Good to eat on its own or dipped in mayo, either way, it was damn bloody tasty!

Only thing is, my wife left the clean up to me ... grooaaannnnn.
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Role Playing Games ...

Before you read further, let me warn you this post might be a little spicy ... LOL! I've always had problems trying to figure out what to buy for my wife on occasions like Valentines day, her birthday or even Christmas. She doesn't ask for anything mind you but that doesn't mean I should take that as she doesn't want anything right?

I've also been guilty of taking her for granted lately and haven't been giving her as much gifts and surprises as I used too (sorry honey!). We both have this saying that we strongly believe in which is,

'Just because we're together now doesn't mean we have to stop doing the things we did when we were dating, right?'

So, I've been checking around online for something really cool to get her but seriously cannot find anything interesting at all. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of stuff available out there but nothing that really intrigues me. And if it doesn't intrigued me, it probably won't intrigue her. We both have almost the same mindset on things, well, except when it comes to sports. She's a staunch Man United fan and I'm a die hard Arsenal fan. She's a fanatical Ferrari supporter while I'm a maniacal McLaren supporter!

I still remember the first gift I ever got her back when we were still in our early days. We were out walking around the mall and she said she loves koala bears. So the very next day I went around looking for a nice koala bear to surprise her with. I went from gift shop to gift trying to find one and would you believe that I couldn't find a single koala bear for sale! I ended up getting her a teddy bear instead. Best I could do. At least she loved the bear (or so I'd like to think ... hehehe) and she even named it Winky :) And eventually I got her another bear to compliment Winky which she named Polly and they had a little baby bear even, but that's a story for another posting ... LOL!

Ok, back to my gift problems. While surfing the net for gift ideas, I accidentally (honest, it was an accident ... LOL) stumbled upon this site offering sexy costumes. Now before you all start accusing me of being a pervert, I must remind you that I was looking for something totally different from the normal teddy bears, flowers and diamond rings (ok, I'll admit, I'm too cheap to buy a diamond ring ... LOL!) So, I check the site out and whoa, they have some pretty interesting costumes on offer :D Now, that got me thinking, this would definitely be the ultimate gift and it would also be beneficial to me at the same time ... hehehe ... and I did want to get her something extraordinary didn't I?

After a short while (ok, maybe a long while ... hehehe ...) browsing the eye raising, mouth watering costumes, I decided on a few that I like :D Honey, if you're reading this, go check the site out cos I have my eyes set on the gorgeous geisha costume or the French maid costume. LOL! With that settled, at least I know what I'm getting her for Christmas. Hope they send it in time for Christmas and not Chinese New year though and honey, you'd better be wearing it when it comes ... LOL!
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What, Another One?

There I was minding my own business, sitting in my porch and sipping some Earl Grey like the refined upper class gentleman that I am (LOL), when all of a sudden the post man comes by and hands me some mail.

'Hmmm, now who let the old geezer in?' I wonder.

Picking up the mail he dumped on my lap, I look at it and it's nothing but the usual bills and notices from the debt collectors.

'Sigggghhhhh .......' I sighed.

Just as I was about to dump the letters in the trash, I notice one slightly different from the rest of them. Curiosity got the better of me and I rip the envelope open and to my surprise it said that I've been awarded the Community Blogger Award by Adrian of the Genie King Who Don't really Grant Wishes Incorporated Company. (LOL).

'Woohooo ...' I shriek.

Now, that really is a nice change from all those normal daily bills I get from debt collectors so I'm gonna say a big thank you for the award, Buddy :D

Anyway, going through the letter, I discover that the community award originated with Cellobella at the Sultana blog, who said, "I wanted the award to say - this is a person who reaches out and makes my blogger community a better one." I think that is so kind and I'm thrilled to be in the position to pass it along as well as be included in the blogroll. Cellobella asks that nominees of this award e-mail her at (cellobella at gmail dot com) so that she can add your nominees to her blogroll.

Now, this one is really going to be a hard one for me to do cos ever since I've started blogging I've come across so many wonderful people who deserve this award that it would do a terrible injustice to them if I don't mention all of them but to do that would mean I'd be typing here for hours and hours just to include everyone so I'm going to say that you all deserve this award!

But as with all awards, I'm going to have to name some of them here so that they in turn can go award this to their choice of bloggers, so here goes my bunch of nominees:

Nessa - for her warm, funny yet interesting postings of her life, quizzes and trivia.
Hui Sen - for his straight forward and honest approach to blogging.
Diamonds Sapphire - for her interesting take on life in general and of her son 'Z'.
Menopause Princess - for her insightful, fun and often humorous postings.
Janice - for her wonderful stories about the lives of her two little boys.
Cindy - for making blogging fun and exciting with her zany humor and wit.
Marzie - for her interesting contests and friendly demeanor.

Modification Crazy ...

When you're driving around doing your daily errands and stuff, have you ever noticed those cars on the roads with totally ugly and modified body kits, huge exhaust pipes that an elephant could fit in it, spoilers so large you could hang your washings from it, some even had blinking LED lights all around that made it look like a moving Christmas tree? You have? Well, I'm ashamed to say that once long ago I was like that ... LOL!

But not anymore folks. Back when I bought my first ever car, somewhere about 16 years or so ago, I used to love to modify my car and add on silly accessories to it. I just wanted that car to look cool with all the accessories I had. I was car crazy back then (I still am, but have mellowed down a lot since).

My first car was this pretty standard sissy looking metallic silver second-hand Honda Civic hatchback that I rightly named Silver (Duh, how obvious ... LOL!). It came with hardly nothing fancy in it and it looked really plain like a girly car. I can still remember taking possession of it and the first thing that was running through my mind was how to make it go faster and how it would look with a new pair of rims and a huge (yes, folks, huge) exhaust attached to it.

But I had to wait for a bit cos I didn't really earn that much back then and needed to save up some before I could think of even getting an air freshener for the car ... LOL! But as luck would have it, a month later I received this bonus from my company and was on cloud nine and a half! I had the funds to go and turn my car into a beast!

Immediately during the weekend, my cousin (who owned a car way before me and was the authority on good places to get stuff) and me went rim hunting and we managed to add this super cool (well, it was super cool to me anyway) rims to my car. Gosh, did it make a huge difference to my car, from a sissy looking hatchback, it started to look meaner ... hehehe ...

Over time I added a lot of other accessories to it, spot lights, fog lights (though we don't even have fog here ...LOL!), modified the engine, added racing filters and a host of other stuff to it (and I did get a huge exhaust too ...). I was kinda crazy back then. I loved to speed and to tell you how crazy (and stupid) I was back then, here's an example:

A car driving along slowly on a 2 lane road with me, signals and overtakes me (which is normal) and I'd look at the driver of that car and think,

'Oh, so you wanna race, huh? Come on lets race! Let's see what you can do!'

And then I'll hit the accelerator and chase that slow moving law abiding car which overtook me and never even had any intention to race with me ... I used to think everyone on the road wanted to race with me. I really had some serious problems back then. I used to speed like crazy and couldn't care less about the consequences! Thank god I grew up and sanity prevailed and I'm a much more decent and safe driver nowadays who drives so slow, even little old ladies in their minis overtake me ... LOL!

But that doesn't mean I don't like racing, modifying of cars and accessorizing it anymore. I still do, but more tastefully now, that is if I even do it. I love walking around in the car accessories section of malls. We have a couple of nice specialized car accessories shops near my house and I can spend hours there just looking and browsing the newer gadgets they invent for cars. Some of the stuff they have are pretty cool and ingenious. Some things I didn't even dream could exist back when I was in my modifying and accessorizing days.

But that's all in the past anyway. Nowadays, I feel if you want your car looking and going as fast as some sports car, go out and buy one already, for goodness sake. Besides how sure are we that these accessories and modifications are actually safe for your car. They're all sold and installed in some unsanctioned workshop by some highly suspect mechanics ... LOL! And a lot of them are totally illegal to boot!

I say, if you really want to modify your car, go back to your car dealer or a reputable expert on modifications and use original accessories which is much safer and actually intended for your make of car. Take for example, if you own a Chrysler 300, I'm sure there are a lot of professional shops out there selling Chrysler 300 accessories that are specially made for your Chrysler that would compliment the car nicely and not make the car look cheap with those generic grilles, generic dashboard kits and generic stuff they sell out there.

I wish they did have more of these specialty shops around back when I was in my crazy accessorizing and modifying phase, I'm sure my good old Silver wouldn't have looked so cheesy. Besides my current car is kinda old already and no amount of modifying is gonna get it to look any better ... LOL! My boss has so graciously just bought a new car for me which hasn't arrived yet and you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm not going to modify that car even one teeny weeny bit, no way, nothing doing, nope. Well, maybe a change of rims ... LOL! Old habits die hard ...

Games, Games And More Games ...

It's been a pretty boring day at work today. The general population of Malaysia are still on holiday for the Aidilfitri celebrations and so far I've had absolutely nothing to do all morning. Well, I did have a little cleaning up to do in my room at the office cos last week we had the place painted including my room (the smell of fresh paint is giving me a headache though) and things were kinda messy. But it really didn't take that long to clean my room and after that I ended up being bored again.

With nothing else to do I did my usual daily visit to all my regular blog buddies blogs and then ended up playing online games ... LOL! Hopefully my boss doesn't come in or anything (can't blame me cos I really have nothing to do, even my clients are still on holiday!). Those online games do serve its purpose,especially at times like these ... LOL!

Speaking of games, I was and still am a game addict (gee, I've already admitted to being a blog addict, a coffee addict, a reading addict, a comic addict, a running addict, I wonder what's next ... hehehe). Unfortunately nowadays I don't really have that much time to actually play any games, not like I did a couple of years back. Back then once I get home from work I'd get on the PC and game away till the wee hours of morning. (I was also so much younger then ... LOL!). And besides they didn't have blogs back then.

I played all kinds of games but mostly the real time strategy and simulation kinds. Those were my favourite genre of games. I also loved the first person shooter kind but they weren't fun playing alone on the PC. The best way to enjoy that kind of games was using a console and playing it with a buddy. Now that was fun!

My buddy Adrian and me used to also spend hours playing console games on the PS2 at his house every weekend without fail. What we'd normally do is before the weekend, we'd do our research on multi player games and then we'd go to this mall near his house and buy a couple of , urrmm, ahhh, hmmm, arrrr, 'cheap' games ... LOL! They were so 'cheap' that for every 5 we bought, at least 3 wouldn't work ... that's what you get for 'cheap' games I guess but we weren't complaining, as long as one worked we just milked it till the end :) I think we've played every title of multi player games out there ever made for the PS2. We'd start our gaming sessions Friday night after work (I don't work on Saturday's and neither does he) and we keep on playing till Sunday late evening, of course with breaks in between to eat, bathe and sleep!

We don't really do that anymore cos family life has taken a precedence to everything and we don't really have time to play games all that much, though recently Adrian did raise a suggestion about playing games online with each other, which i think is a cool idea now that he has his broadband up and working ... LOL! But first I'd have to pry the laptop away from the wife ... hehehe!

I was actually thinking about getting a game console of my own so I don't disturb the wife from her blogging and paid posting sessions (which she's been doing a pretty good job with it I must say, making quite a bit of mullah too!). I'm actually torn between a PS3 and an xbox 360, I kinda like both machines and can't really decided on either one. One way to solve this is for someone to get me either one as a Christmas gift (*hint, hint*) ... LOL! Yes, yes, I have absolutely no shame!

Ah well, it's only a dream currently cos I think if I did get a game console, my two boys would hog the machine all day that I'd end just being a spectator. Say buddy, you still do have the PS2 at your place, right? Maybe we'll just have to make do with that one after all ... :D

Comics Come to Life ...

I've been a comic junkie for as long as I can remember and I still am. Recently I was going through one of my favourite comic websites and came across the trailer for Iron Man the movie and boy was I jumping up and down like a small little boy. I grabbed the wife and forced her to watch the trailer with me ... LOL! And then I barraged her with the whole history of Iron Man from start to end and she looked totally bewildered with my excitement ... hehehe .... told you I was a comic junkie and actually getting the chance to see your comic book heroes come to life kinda makes me feel like a little kid!

I've been reading and collecting (well, I used to anyway) comics since I was a kid. I've got loads of them at home from way back in my primary school days so you can imagine how old some of them are. I read comics more than I did studying back then. My favourites were the likes of Spider-man (who else), Superman, The X-men (and I'm talking way back to the original X-men here), Fantastic Four, Hulk and yes you guessed it, Iron Man! (which premieres may 2008 incidentally.)

Back then, who could have imagined they'd make the comic book characters into real life movie flicks. It's a dream come true for people like me. The only time back then you could get to see your comic book heroes in action were in animated cartoons and that wasn't the same as the real life action movies of today. They make them so real that you actually believe that these superheroes do really exist (for me anyway ... LOL!)

I've got a huge collection of comic books right now that I guard religiously with my life. Whenever my wife or kids read it, I'll be keeping a keen eye on them and always nagging them to be careful with it. I think sometimes they probably wanna strangle me ... LOL! But what I have right now is a far cry from what I had back when I was a kid. I used to have so many comics back then but quite a bit of them were 'borrowed' by friends who never returned them back, who disappeared over time and some I think forget they even borrowed it from me. Nowadays I don't lend my comics to anyone and if I do, I make sure I keep track of how long they have it ... :D

I used to even have this arrangement with this local Indian bookshop to call me when my favourite title arrived every month and whenever the shop owner calls me and says,

"Hello Nicholas, your book is here ..."

(he had this heavy Indian accent here) so it sounded like,

"ello Nikelas, yor buk is yere ..."

I'd drop whatever I was doing and grab my trusty old bicycle and cycle all the way there (about 40 minutes to and fro) and when I get home, I'd cuddle up in my favourite chair in my room and devour the comic from front to back, reading every single word in fine detail right up to the ads even ... LOL! I try to immerse myself into the character of the comic so that I can pretend to feel like I was the hero (yes, I had and still do have this vivid imagination!) That was how crazy I am about comics.

There was time once when I wanted to disown my mom. I came home one day from school to find her gathering all my comics into this pile and when I asked her what she was doing, she calmly said that I had way too much comics and wanted to go burn them!!! Oh my god, I almost fainted from fright. I screamed and quickly grab all my comics back and told her I'd disown her if she tried pulling that little stunt again. I was only 12 or so and there I was wanting to disown her ... LOL! Little did it occur to me back then that she was the source of my allowance which in turn supported my comic book addiction and there I wanted to disown her ... :D (I was a kid in love with my comics okay!)

Unfortunately I can't keep up with my addiction for comic books cos the price of comic books are sky high nowadays! So, you can imagine how excited I am to get to watch a full length real life movie on the likes of Spider-man, Superman, X-men, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Spawn, etc .... It's like a dream for me. I've seen all those movies at least 4 times minimum and I don't think it'll stop at those numbers cos our satellite TV station keeps on having reruns of these movies and I know I'll catch them each and every time.

Now, to wait patiently for Iron Man to premiere, though it's going to be a long wait till May 2008, but I'm filled with anticipation for it and judging by the trailer, it looks like a killer :)

"honey, I'm going to watch the Iron Man trailer again, wanna join me?" LOL!

If you're a little curious, you can check out the trailer here :)

A Coffeeholic, I Am ...

I love the weekends, even more so when a holiday goes along with it. We're having a nice 4 day long weekend over here in conjunction with the celebration of Aidilfitri (celebrated by Muslims around the world). I'm just gonna stay home all weekend and vegetate ... LOL!

The first thing I normally do when I get up is to go down and my steaming mug of coffee is always ready for me courtesy of my lovely beloved wife who spoils me by preparing it for me. Yes, I cannot start my day properly if I don't have my coffee. I'm a grouch, a monster even if I'm deprived of my morning coffee. I'm totally addicted to coffee!

I can drink coffee in any form, it doesn't matter if it's black, white, green, yellow or whatever. As long as there's coffee beans in it, I'll drink it. It's been an addiction since I was a wee little kid. I know people say coffee is supposed to be bad for you or something like that but I really couldn't care less. Take my coffee away from me and I'll pulverize you. Hmmm, now come to think of it, yeah, coffee sure does sound like it's bad for you ... LOL!

We don't brew our own coffee or anything like that here. The wife and me normally buy the instant kind of coffee for our daily use at home cos one, it's cheaper and two, the amount of coffee and the crazy times I require coffee, instant coffee seems like the best option for me. We've tried all the brands of instant coffee out there in the market, the branded stuff, the real low quality stuff and I've decided on this particular brand of instant coffee that is just to my liking for my daily consumption. The taste is so good that it simply beats the more branded ones flat out.

When we do feel the need (yes, wife is a semi coffee addict too) to have some freshly brewed coffee, we'll just go out and get some, They are a few places near our house that serves up some interestingly brewed coffee of various flavours. The wife actually brought back some local coffee beans from her hometown a couple of months ago when she went back but it's all gone now with my consumption rate. That local coffee that she brought back was excellent and she brewed a whole jug during the weekends and it normally doesn't last through the morning ... hehehe ... yes, I totally finish it all by myself!

I told you I was a coffee addict didn't? Actually what I would really love is to have one of those fancy schmancy coffee machines. Now that would be cool. Imagine getting up in the morning and just walking down to the kitchen and just pressing a button and you get your hot steaming mug of coffee or espresso all ready to be consumed :) But until someone buys me one for my birthday or Christmas, that's just gonna be a dream only .... siggghhh ... and if any of you do decided to surprise (*hint, hint*) me with one, I can recommend a few places you can find some cool looking espresso machines that would make my mornings a dream come true ... LOL!

Hmmm, honey you know what? With all that money you're making from postings, maybe you could surprise me with one soon ... hehehe .... please, pretty please ... Ok folks, I'm gonna go make myself another mug of coffee and then sit back with a good book and laze the holidays away.

The Fence ...

I think when it comes to neighbours I've been cursed by some neighbourhood gods or something. I've posted my irritation before about the neighbour on my immediate left and now I'm gonna let you know of my irritation (well, it's the wife's irritation really, but what irritates her, irritates me!) about the neighbour on my immediate right. I seriously think I'm cursed when it come to me and neighbours. Before you even begin to think that maybe it's not the neighbours but maybe it's just my plain unfriendly attitude at home that's causing all my neighbours to rebel against me, just hear me out, k?

My wife gets up much earlier than me in the mornings to prepare the elder boys breakfast before he goes to school. Sometimes she'll also do the laundry at the same time (while I'm still happily snoozing away). So, one morning, she stomps up into the room and grunts in this extremely irritated sound,

"Arggghhhhhhh ......"

I'm jolted from my sleep and the first thing that runs through my mind was,

"oh, oh, what did I do now?"

I mean, I couldn't have done anything, I was still sleeping right, but you can never be too careful ... LOL! So I groggily ask her what's with the grunting and she says,

"I hate that woman, that stupid old woman!"

I give her this blur look (I was soundly asleep before this remember) and say,

"what old woman?"

She replies (in a single sentence with no full stops and comma's, she's still in this very irritated mood, you don't wanna be anywhere near her when she's like that ... hehehe)

"that woman next door the moment I open the gate to hang out the laundry she rushes out and hangs stuff on the fence depriving me of space and she does that everytime she hears me open the grill gate! I hate her, one of these days I'm gonna take all those things she hangs from the fence and throw them away!!!"

Ok, let me explain in more detail about the wife's rage. From that conversation it might look like a small thing but it really is not. I live in a double story terrace house and have neighbours on my right and left sides. This particular neighbour consists of the mother (the culprit in this story) and her 3 daughters. She has a son but he doesn't live with them. We have a fence on either side separating each house from the other (typical house formats here in Malaysia). And due to lack of proper place to dry the laundry (I'm not rich enough to own a dryer, k, besides, I need to save up for my DSLR camera fund!) we hang our laundry on this common fence to dry.

What happens is, my wife tells me that every morning, when she go out to hang the laundry, this woman, the moment she hears my wife opening the gate, she hurries out and starts to hang old dirty rags on the fence, thus depriving us valuable drying space. At first I though my wife was just exaggerating it a little. So one morning, I just experimented a little and I went out to pretend to dry clothes and true enough, the moment I turned the key in our grill gate, she came rushing out like the flash or something and started grabbing whatever old rags, towels and stuff and started quickly hanging them on the fence. I stood there in total shock with my mouth totally wide open like a hippo (I'm sure you can imagine a hippo's mouth when it's open right, no, no Adrian I wasn't insulting you ... LOL!) When she saw that it was me, she just quickly walked back into the house (she knows what kind of crazy lunatic I can be at times, I'll tell you all about that story one fine day ... hehehe)

That was seriously totally selfish of her! My wife told me that it happens everytime she does the laundry. I didn't know that fence belonged exclusively to her. Last time I checked it was a common fence! I mean, I can understand if she needs to dry her laundry too which she does, but what's with the dirty old rags? And it only happens when my wife is out there alone wanting to dry the clothes. It doesn't happen when I'm there with her. (maybe she's jealous of you honey cos all her daughters are not as gorgeous and beautiful as you are and still unmarried some more ... hehehe). Ok, ok, that was cruel :)

I'm seriously at a loss here as to what to do here. It's not like we love washing clothes and hanging it on the fence and depriving anyone of space but somethings just have to be done, like the laundry for instance. Why am I cursed with crazy neighbours? The one on the left has this thing about my mango tree leaves falling into his compound when it rains or when the wind blows (duh, I can't control the weather dude!) and the one on the right has this thing about fences. Siggghhhhh .....

Maybe it's just old age. Both these neighbours are well into their sixties and maybe as you grow older you become a little bit more loony, I sure hope not cos I'd hate to turn into one of those monsters when I grow older. My other neighbours are such nice people, the one directly opposite my house is a nice fellow who always waves at me, the one two doors is also a decent guy whom I always bump into when I go on my runs and always sends cookies and goodies my way during the Hari Raya celebrations (hope he sends some this year too ... hehehe). Do people really become a little weirder when they get older? I don't know, I seriously don't know. Or is it just the way they were brought up? Or maybe it's just these two neighbours. I know a lot of other people who are so nice and considerate that it boggles my mind how some people can be the exact opposite.

You guys have this kind of problems too? Tell me about it cos then at least I won't feel like the odd one out here ... hehehe ... Until I lose my temper and throw all those rags away honey, you're just going to have to be so much quicker than her when you need that fence ... LOL!

My Other Best Friend ...

If you're a regular in my blog, you'd probably know by now that my other best buddy is going to get married next month. Well, officially he's already married but the church wedding and reception is geared for next month. I've never really written much about this good buddy of mine and you all already know my other good buddy, the genie king aka Adrian, right?

The 3 of us has been friends for ages, more that 20 over years to be specific. Well, Adrian and me have been waiting for him to get married for a long time now. We've seen him go through numerous relationships and kept on wondering when he would tie the knot. We knew all his previous girlfriends and we've had some amusing encounters with some of them trying to patch up his relationship for him (remember that one one buddy?). Not that we were successful mind you ... LOL! In fact we looked like stupid fools at times but then he was our buddy, so we'd go to great lengths for him.

We almost gave up hope that he would ever settle down at one time. You see he has this very strong character that sometimes may just seem too strong for everyone, even his girlfriends. And we're finally glad he found a great girl with an equally strong character and is finally going to tie that knot :D Hopefully, she'll make a decent fellow out of that bum ... LOL!

This buddy of ours (let me just call him Seansy) comes from a small town called Muar (I don't really know if it is still a small town anymore) many moons ago to further his studies. In fact he and Adrian have been friends a month longer than me. The first time he ever stepped into college all those years ago, my best buddy Adrian actually conned the poor bum into doing something silly (fill me in again Adrian cos I've forgotten what it actually was). In fact Adrian (and myself) still do con him right up to this very day. That boy is a just a gullible little fellow ... LOL!

Adrian and me are planning some prank to get him on his wedding day. You see, he actually asked us to come up and give a speech (*shudder*) for him on that day. He must have not been very sane when he asked us to give a speech. It is the perfect opportunity to work out a devious con for him (yeah, we're devious alright so don't mess with us) on his wedding day ... hehehe .... We've made up so many stories and cons in the past cos that fellow is so gullible and always falls for it and that's what spurs us on the create more ... LOL!

We'll see how things go on that day. I still have yet to write my part of the speech (we'll be giving the speech together) and I know Adrian's gonna be asking me about it soon. In fact I think he's going to ask me what the heck am I doing writing this post when I could be writing my speech right about now. Don't worry buddy, I'll get it out soon otherwise I'll just wing it ... LOL! After all we're gonna introduce ourselves as Laurel and Hardy aren't we ;) And probably make fools of ourselves up there too.

Actually I can't imagine Seansy being a married man, he doesn't seem the kind to be tied down, but then I guess you mellow down with age and you can't live your life alone forever right? I'll be looking forward to the day when he starts having kids and all that. I can already imagine him with his baby in a baby sling going grocery shopping and such ... LOL! Now that's something I really cant wait to see.

But that said and done, I'm really happy for him and I do wish him all the best. It's worth the wait Seansy!

More Awards and Another Meme ...

My best buddy, the elusive Genie King (elusive cos he still owes me my wish!) tagged me a week or so ago on this blogging tips meme. I've also been tag on my other blog for this and have already posted it there, but it really wouldn't be fair to my buddy if I didn't post it here as well. He did take the trouble to 'torture' me by giving me another tag to do, like as if I don't have all that many to do already ... LOL!

He's also awarded me with some awards as well and since I'm already here I thought I might as well thank him officially for thinking of me when he was handing out awards :) Thanks buddy but I think my award cabinet is bursting at the seams already ... LOL!

So, before I post my blogging tips, I'll just proudly display my awards here for all the world to see ... hehehe ...

And I'd like to award this award to following bloggers as I feel they deserve the awards :)

Nessa ~ Menopause Princess ~ Diamonds Sapphire ~ Josie Two Shoes

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And now to proceed to the blogging tip meme. As with all meme's there are some simple rules to be followed, can't have everyone making it up as they go along right? So, here are the rules:

You are to copy the list, add your tip to t he bottom of the list and pass it on. Then put an asterisk to the tip you you like best. Easy isn't it?

1. Look, read, and learn. http://www.neonscent.com/
2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. http://www.bushmackel.com/
3. Don’t let money change ya! http://www.therandomforest.info/
4. Always reply to your comments. http://chattiekat.com/
*5. Blog about what you know & love. http://sugar-queens-dream.blogspot.com/
6. Don’t use filthy language-buy a dictionary.http://shinade.blogspot.com/
7. Blog about something educational http://climateofourfuture.org/
8. Be yourself; others will follow http://sfgirl-thealiennextdoor.blogspot.com/
9. Don’t have too many blogs that will become a chore to maintain http://cubicledenizen.blogspot.com/
10. Keep it simple, user-friendly, interesting and organized! http://erishaling.blogspot.com/
11. Keep the blog simple and sweet!! http://www.leslieho.com/
12. Share with others your thoughts and don’t be shy!
13. Never ask for link exchange. Blog hop to increase traffic. http://www.jessieling.com/
14. Don’t clutter your blog with ads all over the place. IT’S IRRITATING. http://oliviasy.blogspot.com/
15. Don’t comment for the sake of commenting. Some looked too fake and its a big turn off! http://tagsnsuch.blogspot.com/
16. Share something interesting and you will gain more readers. http://judychow.blogspot.com/
17. Show that we care to all bloggers, treat each other as friends. http://mummyinvain.com/
18. Pictures say a million words. Keep them coming! http://familyfriendsnfood.blogspot.com/
19. Blogging should be fun or you’ll get tired of it pretty soon. http://justmyrambling.com/
20. Don’t think people will come to your blog if you’re not willing to pay a visit to them. http://joshualai.blogspot.com/
21. Everyone loves read short posting and best, illustrated with a picture http://www.demoments.net/blog/
22. Try not to publish more than 5 posts in one blog a day. Even if it’s from feed reader, it’s quite hard to digest and catch up reading everything. http://montessorimum.com/
23. Blog, the other window to peek into people’s life, minus the trouble. keep a certain level of privacy to yourself. http://babyshern.blogspot.com/
24. Never tell your readers that you are going on vacation. That’s basically telling them to not visit your blog for a week. Instead, write several posts, and take advantage of the timestamp feature. http://www.bloggingwv.com/
25. Try and write with people in mind that are “somewhat similar to you”. Allow your audience to identify with your blog and feel “at home”. http://www.blogger.com/nodirecton.blogspot.com 26. The key to a good article is a good introduction. A joke, a question or a picture does wonders. http://behindthepage.blogspot.com
27. If you are looking to earn an income blogging read StevePavlina.com and Problogger.net, you will be amazed at what you can learn. http://www.christyscoffeebreak.blogspot.com/
28. Write for yourself first. Remember that it takes time, effort, patience…and above all, daring. The Laidback Buddhist
29. Don’t offer opinions that are not based in the realm of personal knowledge…share yourself and your experiences…they speak louder then words The MiracleProcess
30. When you look make sure you SEE, When you listen make sure you HEAR, and when you talk make sure you SPEAK! First Time Dad
31. Unless I'm a huge fan of your blog, keep your posts short & sweet. Mariuca - Wishing On A Falling Star
32. Be SINCERE and GENUINE! Spiff, The Spaceman
33. Be GENUINE and SINCERE! Anything Goes!

And now come the part to tag another person with this meme but I'll refrain from tagging anyone as I've already tagged 4 bloggers (2 of which will probably resort to bodily harm against me ... LOL!) so, I'll just invite anyone interested to participate in this tag :) Have fun ...
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Alcoholics Anonymous ...

Last night I went to my best buddy, Adrian aka the Genie king's place to help him mess around with his new desktop system which arrived yesterday. He was having some problems trying to get connected with his ancient dial up system (yes, you heard right folks, dial up!) and before you go laughing your head off, give the guy a break, folks, he has signed up for broadband services but it has not been activated yet ... hehehe ...

Actually he hasn't really been using his home system for quite some time (a few long years to be more specific) until I convinced him on the joys (or addiction) of blogging and now that poor boy is hooked on blogging that he just had to update his system and get connected with a broadband service provider here. So, I abandoned the wife at home last night (sorry honey ... hehehe) and went to try and see if we could get his connection up and running but alas we poor non technical people couldn't get the blooming modem to connect with the internet and so we gave up! He decided to call technical support of Monday, good luck with that buddy! LOL!

After that we adjourned to his hall to chit chat and my good buddy decided to open a bottle of wine and got his maid to make some freshly baked garlic bread! That's when it occurred to me that off late whenever me and our other good buddy go to his place, we'd end up drinking some hard liquor. Don't get me wrong, we're not heavy drinkers or anything, in fact far from it, we hardly drink hard liquor. We're not that kind of people, the strongest drink we used to have at his place was Shandy ... LOL! But of late, he's been serving us more of the stronger stuff ,what's wrong with you buddy? Trying to turn us into alcoholics? Soon, our wives are gonna send us to some alcohol rehabs centre or something. LOL!) Actually I think it's cos our best buddy's wedding is just round the corner and every time the three of us meet up, we tend to toast the bum :)

Anyway, last night's wine drinking was pretty strong cos by the time I got home, my speech was slurring ... hahaha ... and my wife was complaining of my garlic breath, saying that at least we don't have to worry about no vampires tonight ... hehehe ... see honey, at least I keep the place safe from evil demons :D Oh, I wasn't really drunk or anything, but I think by time I reached home the wine had seeped into my whole system and I was a little tipsy. Thanks buddy, I had some hard explaining to do to my wife ... hehehe ...

But I guess it's only an occasional thing until out buddy get married and the we can go back to our Shandy drinking way. The wife also just loves Shandy as well. Regular bunch of drunkards aren't we ... LOL! Damn, I must still be tipsy from last nights wine cos I'm laughing a alot writing this post ... LOL, there I go again ... hic! What's that honey? You think I should stop now before I injure myself ? LOL! Dammit, I just can't stop laughing ...

Ok, ok, I'm stopping already. Buddy I hope you get your broadband soon enough and then you can get to some serious blogging soon. Looking forward to your 100th posting :D Don't let anyone derail you, especially now that you have that fancy schmancy high tech new desktop system! Happy balance of the weekend people :)

My Night At The Brothel!

I'm sure that got your attention folks! I wonder what was on your minds when you read that, you sick, perverted little people ... LOL! Just kidding folks, the title has nothing whatsoever to do with this posting at all. I tend to do silly stuff like that once in a while, besides, I can't take the credit for that one. It was my wife's idea ... hehehe ... yeah, she's been around me too long that sometimes she thinks up loony ideas just like me :) I guess some of my weirdness has rubbed off on her ... LOL!

Actually I really don't have an inkling what to post today. Normally I'd have tons of nonsense floating around in my head but not today. I'm not having a writers or bloggers block or anything like that, just nothing interesting has happened in the past 5 days since my last post that's worth mentioning. But I just couldn't resist getting online and messing with my blog, especially since I'm pretty free right now. I've still yet to visit some of my regular blogs that I normally visit and leave comments but I'm going to do that right after posting this.

I could do all those tags I've been sitting on but I'm in this lazy mood as well at the moment and when I'm in one of those mood, I tend to not want to do anything at all ... hehehe ... To those who've tagged me so far, namely Nessa, Adrian, Marzie and Jean, thanks for the tags and awards but I'll get down to it soon enough, k? You guys all know how lazy I can be at times. I'll just accumulate a few more tags and then do one of my famous tag marathons and bore the life out of my readers with it :D

Actually that brings me to a good question. I wonder if sometimes the things I write do actually bore my readers and visitors. I really cannot tell at all. My readers come from all over this earth and do have characters of their own. Sometimes I find my postings to be a little too long and some people may not really like reading a post that takes ages to finish. But then I'm the kind of person who would like to be as descriptive as I possibly can in my postings so that my readers can 'literally' feel what I'm writing as if they were there themselves, but who knows, maybe it can be a bit too draggy ... what do you guys think?

What kind of posts or blogs intrigue you? There are so many different genres of blogs out there, all extremely well written and interesting in it's own way but what do you define as your kind of blog? Me, I kinda love reading personal blogs. The kind that tells you more about the author of that blog, what happens in their daily life, their experiences, their past, their work, their family, etc. Those are the kinds of blogs that keep me going back for more daily.

I'm happy to say that in my blog hopping sessions I've come across a very good percentage of excellent blogs that I visit without fail everyday (unless of cos I'm really busy and don't have time to visit). They're so well written that in time you get to know the person behind the blog, their very characterizations can clearly be seen in the way they write and you sort of get to know that person even though you've never met or seen that person who may be living thousands of miles away. It strange how you can come to know a person just from the way they write.

Gee, for someone who just said he had nothing worth blogging about I sure can write lots of nonsense ya ... LOL! Well, I think I'm just gonna end here and go do my daily blog hopping or I'll never stop blabbering my mouth off. That's me, the perpetual motor mouth! But before I actually sign off, I'd like to say that I'm pretty happy that my latest posting on my other blog, Spiff, the Spaceman, which I did a sponsored post yesterday has been approved today ... whooopeeee ... I'm so blooming happy that I just made my first ever tiny bit of money from blogging! Now to do a couple more million of those kinds of posts and I'm on my way to being a millionaire ... oh, how I wish!!!!