Tuesday, August 31, 2010

interesting nights don't actually have to include being with a man ;)

I just had, one of THE MOST interesting nights in my entire lifetime. Hahah. So many adventures, all in a few hours. Admittedly, most of it included gastronomic adventures, but it still included some things I've never been through before.

It all first started when we were on the way to our first destination for the night. While driving out to Tamarind Springs in Ampang, the front tyre of our car got punctured. What luck. We were five minutes away from iftar and of course the car had to have troubles right THAT moment. We drove a few metres up and stopped at a petrol station to change the wheels. We were lucky to have stopped by a station that was close to a mechanic-place-thing, whatever you call it, and have two, not so strong but very helpful men, help us fix the spare tyre in because the ONE guy we had wih us was practically useless (heheh. No offense, Hazeman)

abang-abang penyelamat


When the tyre was finally fixed, we head back out and on the way to Tamarind Springs, we saw a bunch of pigs coming out of the woods!!! (I mean, how often does THAT happen?!) They were tame (for some reason) and were eating food off the hands of several men standing around feeding them pigs. So we slowed down the car and took a picture—a very unclear one at that and drove off again.


baaabbiiiiiiiii! no, i mean, literally!!!



Tamarind Springs was nestled in a richly thick jungle-like place with loads of greenery and water features. The walkway from the main entrance to the restaurant was lined with candles and dimly-lit, giving off an ambiance of romance and mystery. We ordered four diferent dishes and enjoyd our meal (I’ll review some other time). When we finished, we headed out to Subang Jaya to go to the Empire Shopping Galery. Our mission: to try out macaroons in Whisk. We got there as the cafe was closing but the owners and shop-keepers were kind enough to accommodate us, even when it meant that they had to close the store half an hour late. Plus, one of the waiter guys was cute :p


Tamarind Springs, Ampang


We left Whisk after devouring ten macaroons, a huge helping of red velvet cake, a bagel, two cups of tea, a glass of OJ, and a bottle of really tangy-yummy pomegranate flavoured sparkling juice, and headed out to Baskin Robbins to get two pints of ice-cream. We sat in the store and enjoyed every spoonful of ice-cream till we hit the bottom of both pints.

Whisk, Subang


Baskin Robbins


We ended the celebration with a really crappy game of bowling in Wangsa Walk. Hazeman won because of all the years we’ve known him, this is apparently the only thing he does and does well that’s manly in nature.


Hazeman menang!!!!! BOOOOOOO!!!!


Dah, habis cerita. Hahaha.

All in all, it was a great night. We enjoyed ourselves very much, and hope that the birthday girl had an awesome 21st with us.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

a birthday shoutout

To a wonderful friend, 
Nadalmuhtadi Abd. Razak :

(this is just how happy you make me :) don't ever lose your exuberance and joy)

Happy 21st birthday.

May you become all the wiser with your age, and may you always be blessed with happiness, success, and good friends :)
 You've been a wonderful companion and I could not ask for more.
Thank you for being all that you are.

With Love.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

perihal Abah dengan lembu

one night during dinner...



Abah: Are, mana I punya susu lembu?

Mama: Dekat lembu.

*     *     *     *     *

another night, during dinner...



Jehan: Abah suka makan kote lembu.

Abah: Tak de lah. Tak suka makan pun.

Jehan: Dah tu? Selalu kalau balik kampung kenapa berebut kote lembu?

Abah: Lembu sekor, kote satu...kena la rebut.

.

welcome to the world

Hello there Kaylene Idella! 


Welcome to the world :)
I hope you have a nice time here and enjoy your visit while it lasts.
May you bring goodness to the world that you've come to. 
God only knows how much we need goodness now.


Lots of <3

Company Iftar at Halia (in Sime Darby Convention Centre)


It has become a tradition of sorts for Ingeniouscare Sdn. Bhd. to hold a buka puasa dinner for its employees during Ramadhan. Since I first joined the company, our pick for the company dinner every single year has been Halia, in Sime Darby Convention Centre.


This year, we made no changes to our plans and pre-booked 4 tables at the Ramadhan buffet in Sime Darby two months prior to the occasion. While we've always been pretty happy with the food they serve, we took notice that every year, the seating grew in number and the buffet lines got longer and longer. This time around, Sime Darby opened its doors to a crowd of 700pax per night. And at the rate of RM 70/pax, they were making a hell of a lot of money.

Although the buffet spread is more extensive this year compared to other years –expanding from the generic Malay food to roast lamb, to Yee Sang and Dim Sum—we still much prefer the original way they did things; small crowd, good food. I guess with 699 others racing to get the same dish, you just figure in the end that it’s not worth the fight, especially when you feel full after 3 bites anyway (a disease I managed to catch since Ramadhan started—go figure!).

But, in the spirit of good cheer and merriment, we made the best of it. And I ate enough to make me feel not only bloated but positively brimming and on the verge of sickness (Alhamdulillah…I think?).


 
with Mikhaila, doing our "perempuan Melayu terakhir" pose

the big boss and her kids 

 
the team that holds the four forts down 

the young generation ;p

that's most absolutely the worst face she's ever made for a photo. that girl...


We will definitely make it a point NOT to go there again next year and find good cheer elsewhere.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

zomaigawd!! hahahah

Monday, August 9, 2010

I do not write this easily.

I have tried my best to live my life according to my beliefs and principles, to do what I know, somewhere at the back of my mind, is the right thing to do.

Some would say that my responsibility, as an artist or as a writer, ends at creating art.

To write pretty things about love.

But none of us are only one thing. I am an artist, a writer, a lover, a brother and most importantly, a human being.

As a human being, I ask you, a fellow human being, for your help.

Yesterday, in South Africa, where I live, a journalist, who had recently written an article on corruption within the government, was picked up off the street by 6 police cars. He was whisked away, in an unmarked car, to an unknown location. His “questioning” started at 2:30am this morning. I re-post this article from the www.thedailymaverick.com for more details.

___________
As we write this, the exact whereabouts of Mzilikazi wa Afrika are still unknown. Erik van den Berg, lawyer for the Sunday Times, says they know he was booked into the Watervalboven police station at 5:30pm on Wednesday. Then he was booked out. He has not been booked in anywhere else in Mpumalanga. Needless to say, this uncertainty really gives this story the fear factor. No lawyer has yet been to see Wa Afrika. Is that what the country ruled by the “greatest liberation movement” in the world has come to? This is behaviour reminiscent of one of the worst kinds of government - the one we thought we had relegated to history in 1994.

Strangely, the spin side of “Operation Arrest Wa Afrika” has been much quicker. The Hawks' Musa Zondi (you ask why the Hawks were involved here - so do we) was on the radio, talking about Wa Afrika's arrest, claiming it was a normal operation and that the arrest had nothing to do with Wa Afrika's work as a journalist. Which then turned out not to be the case. In fact, he was arrested for receiving a fax that was supposedly Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza's resignation letter to SA President Jacob Zuma. After the Sunday Times checked with the Presidency and they claimed never to have received it, editor Ray Hartley decided not to run the story and it was spiked.

Perhaps someone realised that public perception matters when you arrest a journalist in the same way you would a serial killer armed with automatic weapons and on the run. But the awareness of public perceptions didn't go far enough to arrange for Wa Afrika's appearance in court or to let him see a lawyer immediately. If they needed to ask him a few questions, couldn't they just have followed due process? No spin doctor in the world can fix such crude conduct.

Of course, none of that happened, and it is no surprise that the media is so concerned here. It took nearly 24 hours for police to even tell us where and if he would appear in court. And, according to Hartley, Wa Afrika’s interrogation began at 2:30 this morning - hardly a standard time to sit down for a chat with a journalist.

Of course, political reaction has been fascinating. Mabuza released a statement last night, at the witching hour, saying he welcomed the arrest which, he claimed, was further proof of a political conspiracy against him, and that Wa Afrika was a journalist who had ignored the gains being made in the province.

Mabuza's midnight statement told you all you needed to know about the province, and about how it’s governed.

It is clear that there is bad blood between Mabuza and Wa Afrika, and now it would appear that Mabuza has the journalist in his power. That may not be technically correct, as the police are run as a national “competence”, and officially premiers have no say and no power over them. But this leads us to the real issue.

The entire arrest, the outrage and anger that followed it and the giddy response from Mabuza all point to the same problem. The fact is that in this country the same people make decisions about who to arrest, which officers to use to do it, what to charge them with, and sometimes, it seems, who will do the judging. The checks and balances that are marks of a functioning democracy are simply not there.

In this country, Luthuli House decides how and who gets the power jobs in the civil service. The ANC decides who will head the police that will arrest a reporter and who will prosecute him. And we do know the nature of relationship between media on one side, and Bheki Cele and Menzi Simelane on the other.

The reaction also tells us another sad fact about our country. Your reaction to Wa Afrika's arrest will pretty much depend on your identity and whether you belong to the ANC or not. If you voted ANC, you’re probably pretty pleased that this rabble-rouser journalist who dissed your peeps is getting what he’s had coming to him. If you’re middle-class, educated and would consider voting for someone else, you’re bloody worried.

The reaction of the media is, naturally, more than just one of shared concern. For reporters and editors the sight of one of their own being bundled into a van by police officers with overwhelming force because of a story that is not even going to be run certainly looks like a sign of very bad times to come. The fact that it happened outside a building hosting a meeting of the SA National Editors’ Forum about defending media freedom can justifiably be seen as a crude attempt at intimidation.

To the older and greyer journalists' the developments of late, with the ANC hell-bent on railroading a raft of the laws through Parliament that will effectively muzzle the media and shield politicians behind even darker windows to keep them from public scrutiny, the Hollywood-style spectacular arrest of a journalist sounds way too familiar.

And we all thought it would never happen again.

By Stephen Grootes

_________________

I was 14 years old when Apartheid ended in this country. Had I been older, had I the ability to reach people that I do today, I like to think and to hope that I would have the moral backbone to do everything in my power to bring attention to the horrors that were being committed on a daily basis in this country.

Today, I am here.

You may not live here. In fact, you probably don’t live here. I have very few readers in my home country, compared to other countries. That is why you are important. It was people from other countries that provided the pressure, externally, through sanctions, that helped end Apartheid.

You can help end this before it becomes something more.

I beg you to repost this to your own blogs and media platforms, and to either copy and paste the letter below or draft your own, and send it on to the newspapers in my country, so that our leaders know that they are being watched. Not just by South Africans, but by the world.

I implore you.

Sincerely,

Me.

______________

To: tellus@sundaytimes.co.za

Dear President Jacob Zuma,

Firstly, I would like to congratulate you and your countrymen on hosting an incredibly successful World Cup. When the world’s eyes were upon you, you rose to the challenge.

Unfortunately, my attention has recently been bought to the detention of a reporter named Mzilikazi wa Afrika. I have several questions for you in this regard.

Why were 6 police vehicles required to arrest one journalist?

Why were photographers prevented from taking pictures, by police?

Why was he arrested for a story that was never published?

Why was he not allowed to see a lawyer?

Why did you only begin to question him at 2:30am in the morning?

Does this not remind you of the actions of the Apartheid government?

I sincerely urge you to look into this matter and to provide answers at the earliest possible opportunity. Because, as they were during Apartheid, as they were during the World Cup, and as they are now:

The eyes of the world are upon you.

Sincerely,

(Name)

(Country Of Origin)
__________

from: www.iwrotethisforyou.me

Sunday, August 1, 2010

i'm gonna give all my secrets away

 

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