Zombieland!

Advertlets is giving away movie tickets to the movie Zombieland! If you are a moviegoer, I bet you have seen the trailer to this movie which is about two different people having to team up and kill zombies. Imagine 28 Days Later or 28 Weeks Later but with fun characters. And one of them is Woody Harrelson. Yes, the Woody Harrelson who stole the show in 2012 and of Cheers fame. He is the badass in Zombieland.

If you are not an Advertlets blogger, tough luck as they are giving away tickets for the movie to those who signed up with them. The link to their offer is here - Advertlets presents : Zombieland movie tickets.

What you have to do is tell them how much you want to see Zombieland. As for me, I would eat my own hand to get movie tickets to watch it. You do know that zombie even eat their own kind? Or they are far worse than a vampire as in they do not have any brain at all.

After watching Shawn of the Dead, the movie about 2 friends who ran to their local pub when their town is infested by zombies, I am itching for something in the similar vein. I bet Zombieland is the one to fulfill my craving.

Here is the trailer of the movie :

p/s : Doesn't the poster looks old school?

G-string

As a man, do you know that you need not fold a g-string before you put it away?

Before I was married, I never knew this.

My Spy : Malaysia version of James Bond

Thanks to Adverlets and Josh Lim, last Friday, I was invited to a movie premiere of the Malaysian version of spy movie  called My Spy. This 5th production of a local production powerhouse of KRU Studio, which also produced Cicakman, is the epitome of how Malaysia secret agents work in the environment of mixed collaboration.

Where usually a Malaysian production will show either in Malay, Chinese or Tamil, My Spy transcends the racial barrier and is presented in Malay and Chinese. There are various races in various characters in the movie too. The film did try to put a Malaysian flavor into it and there are various local issues which it tries to address.

With the backdrop of the beautiful island of Langkawi, My Spy brings forth the story of 2 bumbling spies, played by AC Mizal and Harun Salim Bachik, where they were appointed by a Datin played by Maria Farida. She suspected her husband Dato O. They are rivals in the spy game where the movie start of with them trying to outdo each other in solving cases.

The cast which include Hannah Tan, Carmen Soo and Daphne Iking were directed by the affable Afdlin Shauki. Afdlin did make an appearance in the form of his voice for the car of the spy-inventor Harun Salim Bachik.

The movie is passable as a light fare and has its moments. Though you may want to compare it with American action movies, My Spy can stand on its own as a milestone for local Malaysia film. It was partly sponsored by Celcom and Perodua. You do see their product placement in the movie though it did not hurt the storyline.

The cast, director and producer

The babes, Daphne Iking and Hannah Tan

Dato' O played by Ridzuan Hashim

It will open in cinema nationwide this coming 3rd December. Go and watch a good local production...

The Climb....

Was forced with a daunting task of climbing stairs this morning after stopping my exercise regime so many times. Then I remembered the climb that we had to do on Eiffel Tower as we did not want to wait our turn on the elevator. So, we climbed.

We were so tired and had to rest a few times.

Then, a very old lady and an elderly gentlemen bypassed us. They were moving faster to the top than us!

Since then, every time we climb something tall, we always make a reference to that time. When someone who seems not as fit as us beating us on the climb to the top...

Managed to queue only halfway

Smiling but was actually tired...

Breakfast of Champions

(I actually didn't know that the title is a title for a book until I Googled it)

I have always been told that breakfast is the most important component of any meal within a day. If you have your breakfast, you can actually skip any other meal within that day and you should be able to sustain yourself by eating mini-meals. I mean, you can have some salad or fruits or maybe those protein shakes that I heard a lot of people is taking.

My day always starts with breakfast which can be said to be just enough. Some eggs either half-boiled or poached. Sometimes I have toasted brown breads with my eggs. Sometimes I have them with chapati, a delicacy well-known to have originated from India but not as popular as roti canai. Chapati is more well-known around the world but roti canai is said to be a Malaysian invention which can't be found even in India. It is more known as pratha there. Canai is said to have its origin from Chennai, a city in India but most of my friends who have been there said, unless you go to Malaysian restaurant, their version of pratha is very much different than what we serve in Malaysia.

So, that is the norm for me. Eggs and bread.

Sometimes, I just have chapati. Two of them.

Why I am going on about breakfast? Thanks to a politician yesterday who tweeted to me that he just have milk and cereal everyday as his lunch and dinner are sometimes too rich (as in unhealthy) for him. So, he must start his day with light breakfast. And he is much, much younger than me.

Oh, to have the luxury of choice....

Blogging brought my life to a new level

The title above is totally true in the way that blogging has changed my perspective of living in Malaysia. I am not really an extrovert person to begin with, although as a lawyer, I can hold my ground in any situation. I can be as talkative as anyone else or just stay quiet in a corner, as wall-flowery as any wallflower.

However, blogging has allow me to express myself in many new ways and make new friends at many events. New friends that I have befriended for the past one year plus, through blogging are more than what I have made by just existing as a lawyer.

These friends may not be those whom I hang out with on a regular basis but I have meet up with them more than all the friends in college, school or even my neighbours. Heck, most that I talk to my neighbours are about the weather and whether there is going to futsal the next week (except for one neighbour who has the same wavelength with me who can now be labelled as a 'friend' - you know who you are)

Anyway, I have been attending events or at least invited to a few which sometimes due to scheduling conflict, I couldn't attend. I do try to get to know a few other bloggers although some of them like to keep to themselves especially those who may view me as too old to be a friend.

Whatever it is, being a Malay who has been living in a Malay environment either during school, during my university days and even now, in a neighbourhood full of Malays, I have realised the need to befriend other races to get to know them better. Although it has just been just a little more than a year, blogging has made me achieve that.

I wonder what more years of blogging can bring me...

Relaxing weekend

I have so many blog posts to put up but I was so into my 'me' time the whole weekend that I finished reading 2 books and was in bed until noon.

On both Saturday and Sunday, I was sitting at a local Starbucks, just reading a book and sipping coffee. It was my wife who was running around showing people houses and all.

I felt refreshed and now am ready to face the world.

Then it rained on Monday.

The whole day...

Predators

I have just finished reading the Life of Pi. Albeit a bit late as it had received rave reviews nearly 6 years ago, I read it as my wife bought it and left it near my side of the bed. It was about a boy who had survived an ordeal at sea with a tiger, of all thing.

One thing about being a cat owner, I can say that cats, even at their best behaviour, can sometimes act like their ancestors in a way. I had this one cat, who was good in catching butterflies and such while they were airborne. Just imagine a cat, jumping nearly 3 feet and landing back down with the butterfly firmly in their mouth. My wife, who never had experience with cats before we decided to adopt these beautiful creatures, were distraught when she saw this act, in front of her.

She was actually admiring the butterfly before our cat, Spot, killed it.

That was when, after a few times, we considered the occasional 'presents' which they brought home such as rats and birds, which they will they devour, as a normal thing for a cat owner. Yes, our cats eat their kill, in total. I usually had to hear they eat their kills under the bed, each time they go out using our toilet's window.

Just by that act, you know their prowess and whence they actually come from in the food chain before they were domesticated by men...

Cute huh? Wait until they get their prey...

Friday is bad?

Today is Friday the 13th all over the world. Some is in the midst of it and some is still on the eve of it. There are a lot of explanation about what Friday the 13th connotes. Some say the number 13th itself is a bad number. Even Chinese believe it as 1 + 3 makes 4 and 4 is equate to death in the Chinese language. Then there are a lot of bad luck which is associated with the number 13.

Then Friday is considered bad luck by some. Some say there was a lot of Black Friday which had happened and these are in reference to stock markets. There are other tales which had been told regarding what happens on Friday. Canterbury Tales and others had shown us what happened on Fridays.

When you combine both, you get 2 unlucky things happenings at once. So, they say...

For me, I don't believe one bit of this numerical things at all. Especially when I am as a Muslim. I have to just oppose the equation of Friday being the bad day of the week.

For Muslims, Friday is the holiest of the holiest days. It is our Holy Day. Some states in Malaysia has their weekends on Fridays and they work on Sunday. Not easy when the world do it the other way. But they still managed to do all that one needed to do to live.

Maybe that is why Friday is considered bad by certain people but good by certain people. Bad things happened to one side but good things happened to the other side.

Histories are written by the one who wins...

Never been there but...

I still have a few continents which I would like to see before I die. My favourite was once America, either the pop-culture capital which is US of A or the Americas as in South America in countries such as Argentina or Brazil or maybe anyone of the island in the Caribbean. Nowadays, these countries don't really hold any interest for me. Maybe the Islamophobia makes me feel unsafe if I travel there. I actually don't know anything specific about this but the media made me says it.

Another country I would love to go is either Greece or Japan. I think they have great historical significant to the whole wide world that it would be nice to go and see for yourself what they have to offer in the real sense. My wife really wants to go to India but I don't. Maybe one day we will.

We love to travel and one of our dream is to travel the world. So, it may happen sooner or later....

My European vacation

I did a small post once, at a time I just didn't have any inspiration to blog about anything. I posted some of the pictures of our vacation in Europe. I travelled to a few countries there and I actually wanted to travel to a few more. What stopped me was more of the time in which at that point I already left the office for nearly 2 weeks and as a small business, that would be too long for one partner to not be at the office.

So, I decided to come back home. When we did decided to come home, the place that we really wanted to visit was the Alps which a part of it is in Switzerland. I did managed to cross over for 15 minutes when I went to fill up petrol with my friend whose wife had an auntie who lived just across the border of Switzerland but that does not really count as we were just there for too short of a time.

What makes me recounted my travel in Europe 4 years ago is the fact that this past few weeks, news of the 20th anniversary the fall of the Berlin wall is one of the prominent news. I remembered driving from Munich, which is nearly at the far southeast of Germany to Rotterdam, which is in Netherland. It was a full day drive and thanks to the Autobahn, it was one of the best ride ever...

Why am I ranting about a vacation  I had nearly 5 years ago. Actually thinking of doing a long holiday like this again. Maybe it will be in Europe again. Or somewhere Down Under. Or maybe some other continent. We'll see...

By the Rhine river

 

A very, very old church in Cologne

When you laughing, the world laugh with you...

...not if you tell bad jokes they don't.

It happened a few weeks ago when I went to this monthly comedy show which I have been following. I tweeted (using Twitter) about how bad the comedian was and as I saw another celebrity in front of me, I tweeted to her known Twitter name what she was thinking of his act. She Direct Message me (maybe not wanting people to know she replies to random tweet) and said that maybe he was not prepared for the show.

Come on....

He was the first comedian to go up there and he was supposed to represent Malaysia as there were two other international comedians who were supposed to perform later. And what surprised me more was this guy had been performing long before that show. I never heard of him but he seems to be well-known to a few people.

It was bad jokes in which sex was used as the basis for it. Which is not really that rare in Malaysia nowadays. But it just didn't work that night. It was tasteless, cringe inducing and just plain bad jokes.

And two days after that, I met the celebrity I had tweeted to and mentioned about the matter. She said she was going to use her for a fund raising which involves children. Arghh.... Good luck to her on that. Hope she does not have to pull her off stage...

He really spoiled the show that night and now I am having second thought of going to this show anymore.

Sex all over the house/room

Was having dinner with a friend just now and one of the topic was about how houses are built nowadays. I asked him why is is a problem for houses to be segmented. I mean, to have a separation between the living room and the dining room and the kitchen and the bedroom. Most condominium are built like that. Unless you put a separator between each room. A studio apartment will not have a segment at all.

He said it would be easier for him to have sex all over the house. Meaning that he does not have to worry about whether he will be hampered by any separator if he wants to straight away doing it as he entered the house.

Maybe it is a good idea after all....

Just like this one. Non-segmented room...Easy to do the deed...

The perfect glass of teh tarik

It was a long flight. The transit in Dubai was nearly half a day and sleeping at the airport on the long bench made his body ache. Travelling in business class do have its perks but it was still tiring. How he longed for a massage if he could slot it between his busy schedule tomorrow.

Wait a second. The day full of meetings was today. He looked at his wristwatch and it clearly showed 5am. KLIA was deserted. Except for a few passengers who had landed together with him. Most of them were not going outside the airport. KLIA was just a transit for them.

He waited for his bag and as the conveyor belt spewed out bags after bags, his mind went off to the last 10 weeks of his travel. Travesting Europe looking for new business for his company.

And what he missed most was just a perfect glass of teh tarik.

He did try to do it himself. He did taught the restaurant he stopped by in various cities owned by Turkish, people from India and at some, he even went behind the counters, tried his hands on his own teh tarik. Based on what he had seen how the mamaks of various restaurant in Malaysia had done it.

It was never the one that he remembered. It was either the milk or the tea itself. One of his colleague it may have been the way he pulled the tea. 'Pull' being the direct translation of tarik. But as many in Malaysia know, making a glass of teh tarik was never about pulling. It was about how you make the bubble.

Some hotels in Malaysia have one of the best teh tarik. Just with enough milk and enough bubble on top to make it an appetising drink. Acting as lubricants for conversation to run its course. For doors to open. For friends to catch up. For a simple game of football to be a platform for new friends.

That will be his mission of the day. After loading up his luggage into the airport taxi.

To look for that perfect glass of teh tarik.

Faces at the airports

Do you remember the scene at the end of Love Actually? Where people come and go, meeting, hugging, saying hello, saying goodbye, kissing, crying and such.

Isn't sometimes you want to be just one of those people?

I mean, not everyone have the chance to be missed. Some just stay where they are and keeping everything in place. For you who are travesting the world to come back to.

I never get tired of travelling. As much as the tiredness of travelling will always brings you back to reality the minute you step back into the life you left behind for a while.

Planning to travel again this December and still looking for the place where everyone don't know your name... (unless you got to know them....0

Dinner conversation

I always love the idea of entertaining my friends for dinner and engage them in conversation talking about nothing and everything. My wife is also someone who agrees with me on this and we had our fair share of dinner dates where we call up a few friends to come to our house, have dinner and then have coffee. Just for the sake of asking them to the house, catching up with their life and some of them were to celebrate either a birthday or some other celebration.

Even during Eid, we don't cater out to other people but we either buy some of the food or my wife cooks from scratch. It has been a date most of my wife's friends and mine have been waiting for that we dare not cancel it the last Eid although we were actually too tired to do it.

Last night, a couple dropped by at our house and as they just came back from Vietnam, a country we never been to before, they revel us with the tales of their travel. We showed them a TV show we are currently into and then we pigged out on pizzas and junk food. We served them the non-alcoholic wine and the coffee that they brought.

I think we need to do more of these dinner invites as we really enjoyed it. Maybe this is more of what the world need. Conversation, other than just twittering...

 

You bring childhood until you dies...

Saw this sign at the MINT Toy Museum in Singapore and wonders whether as men and even women, didn't we keep on accumulating toys until we die? Cars, shoes, gadgets and make-up. All toys....

Our Tune Hotel Kuala Lumpur stay

The day before we were to be taking a ride in a bus to Singapore, we decided to sleep at a budget hotel whose some of the shareholders are the same as those who owns AirAsia, that budget airline. Using the name Tune Hotel, we were curious how bad and downtrodden is the hotel. It is located at a place which is kind of dodgy as just down the road is a place where drug addicts and prostitutes are known to frequent.

We heard the stories about the hotel not providing air conditions, about having to bring your own towels and about having to rent everything. It was half-true as you do have to rent those things but they do have enough for you to have a good night sleep.

They offer no television and no room service. What they have are 5 options for you to add on to the comfortable bed and the hot shower. You can rent the air condition for 12 or 24 hours; towels with toileteries; wifi; breakfast or an insurance package. You can opt to not add anything and you may be paying just RM50-00 for the room. The check in time is at 2pm like any other hotel but check-out is quite early at 10am. They do have a Subway outlet at the lobby and a 7-Eleven.

They call their concept as 'Limited Service Concept' and I actually have experience the same concept in Paris at a hotel owned by the Accor group. That one is a much cheaper and lower scale concept. The concept is enough for us who was staying for less than 12 hours as our bus was at 7am. To me, it was a convenience which is affordable and what is important is the comfort.

Here are some pictures of our stay :

Reception. Easy registration but there is a deposit for the towel

 

The lobby has the convenience store and a cafe

The corridor is clean and well-lit

There's an ironing board and a laundry area

The comfortable bed and those are our towels

The air condition which you have to pre-pay

 

Power shower

We first thought there was TV but it was just a place to put your stuff or act like a table

One thing we notice are the advertisements plastered everywhere in the room and the corridors

My verdict? It is good enough for budget travelling be it you are a businessman or for leisure. If you want to spend at a foreign country, you can spend it on other things. Just like if you take a flight...

So hard to pronounce

I went to accompany my wife to meet a new tenant recently at one of the house she is acting as a real estate agent for. The guy was a pilot with a leading airline in Malaysia. He was not a Malaysian and from the name he may be from Spain.

His name has the word 'Ja' in it which is not pronounce as such. Being Spanish, it is said as 'Ha'.

Being Malaysia, and as a Malay, all our words are phonetic. We said what we write. 'Ja' is 'Ja' and no two ways about it. So, it is hard for us to learn languages such as the English language which is not phonetic. Then give us those Spanish or France and you can see us suffer to pronounce it.

I know, I know. It is the lingua franca of the world at one time or another. But, still....

With all my complain, at least we don't have to cluck or anything to talk to each other...

Food galore in Singapore

When I was in Singapore the other week, on the final day we were there, we went to look for the dishes which have now seem to be a must for us to look for it whenever we are in town. The weird thing is, these foods are so common in Malaysia that I even sometimes have them nearly a whole week, every single day.

However, due to the nostalgic nature of the food, my wife and I have made it a must every time we are in Singapore. Since 2006 we have frequented Singapore and never have I neglected to have these 2 meals. Murtaba' and beriyani.

Last Sunday, we had both. I had my chicken beriyani and my wife had lamb beriyani. Then we shared the chicken murtabak which we did not managed to finish. We put it inside a doggy bag and brought it home to Malaysia.

It is not like we cannot find the same food in Malaysia. Heck, there is this one restaurant down the road from my office which claim they also serve Singaporean Murtabak. It is just that when I was a wee lad, my dad love to take me to Singapore for the food. Maybe, the memory just stuck with me...

And I am alsomarried someone who love them as much as me....

Does this actually work?

We have the Tongkat Ali and Kacip Fatimah in Malaysia which are made into all sort of drinks. Some are supposed to give instant energy and some can make you last Alll.......Night...... Loooooonnnnnggg. Yep, those drinks which will make you into a stallion or a tigress in bed.

Then I found this in a 7-Eleven in Singapore :

It says there :

NAUGHTY 'G'

It is BOTH for men and women. It is supposed to give you stamina and performance. Not sure whether it worked or not but a few of those who I told about this drink bought it. A few girls said they bought it as the can is nice...Hm...

If you look closely, one of the ingredient says, it has 'Horny Goat Weed'.No wonder eating goat can make you a bit hot under the collar and they say a bit hornier...

And does the 'G' stands for G-spot? I wonder...