wandering around batu caves the other day

I don't know... maybe it's me... but I kinda think this statue looks more thuggish than stately...

at the carwash

religious? superstitious? or just being unconventional?

the row of figurines on the guy's desk at the carwash yesterday caught my attention.....

... as well as a chinese teapot and coke sitting next to each other in what i thought was a cute east meets west fusion...

and yes, the tea was still warm!

I would know... I touched the pot and (in a typically Asian habit) lifted the cup/lid to get a whiff of the aromatic tea ... he he he

check you out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWV-7_aOV14

hey i'm (almost) famous! check the credits at 1.14 ...

another series! Awan Dania!

Another series just aired! :)

It aired 20 Oct 2008 and smile smile! I enjoyed watching the show as much as I enjoyed writing some of the episodes!!

The show is Awan Dania (airs Monday nights on astro 104 at 9pm) revolving around a headstrong girl attending Air Asia Academy to be a flight attendant. She's played by this cutie pie of a girl :) so fits the Dania :)

Mine episodes are 3, 6 and 10!! Looking forward to season 2 and maybe 3!

an interview with a girl

a girl
a slice of pizza
a kodak easyshare M853

... but no video!! grrr... been trying to upload a video (under the 100M limit) without much success!!! so I'm giving up!! better luck next time!

soup's on! :)

sara focused her cute karmic energy to get me to bring her to lunch yesterday. turned out she wasnt that hungry.. all she managed was mushroom soup and a side of fries.. but we did film a cute sara video to share! :)

green trip!

Made a trip out to Sg Buloh this afternoon!! It's always nice to visit the nurseries there, so much green, reds, yellows, purples, pinks, oranges! I must bring Sara one day! And Iman and Noah (if I can convince them it's better than internet or the movies! haha)


Anthriums!!!!

miscellaneous green stuff!

fir variety!!


Ixoras!!! but they're a slightly different sub-species, longer leaves, longer flower stems too!


cacti!!

more cacti!!!!

my not-so-nuclear curry!

Andy's curry pictures so inspired me to make my own!! But my version is not as fiery!!! And the recipe is designed around a little girl's palate!!

Scriptwriter-at-Large!!

Yaay!!

Today was the press conference for this medical drama I'd been writing scripts for for the past two months or so. The show? Ampang Medikal.

It was weird and interesting to finally see the characters, whom I'd only been imagining in my head and writing words and actions for, in the flesh. One character turned out to be exactly as I'd imagined!! wow. A few... not too far from my expectations, but some were really not what I'd imagined at all!!

The pilot episode goes on air 21 Aug 2008, 8.30-9.30pm on NTV7. We'll see how it fares!! Hope the viewing public loves it!!

andy's nuclear curry!!

yummm!!

coconut milk, curry powder, more curry powder, chilli powder, and pepper!!

of platinums and aminals!!

Sara and I have been reading Matilda by Roald Dahl for the past two weeks doing one to two pages nightly but last night we read four pages!!!

We're now at the part where Matilda punishes her father by replacing his hair tonic with her mother's platinum blonde hair dye. Sara can't get over how a little girl can do that to her father! She was kind of in shock as we read that chapter. She kept asking... Is Matilda a good girl or a naughty girl??! I felt bad... I have warped my child!!

And she had difficulty pronouncing platinum ... she kept saying plantimun!! but she has no problems pronouncing animal or anemone..

This morning, as we left for school and work, she declared that the plantimun chapter is the best one yet!! hahaha

Stress Buster!!

God bless girlfriends!!!

The wonderful thing about girlfriends is that they always ALWAYS know when you are sad, stressed, happy and upbeat, mad, raving mad or just need some bubble wrap to burst! A gf sent me this link! So opportune!!

Yesterday wasn't one of my best days. It was one of those heart vs brain thing again. Even Sara's jokes only managed to bring forth a weak smile. In the end she gave up and let me cry for a bit and then bring me to the pool she said!! Going to the pool is always good and but not always convenient and if there are no bubble wraps nearby, here's a good place to burst some virtual ones!!

http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/whatever/swf/bubblewrap.swf

confusing words for learners of the Malay language

Sara is still developing her Bahasa Melayu vocabulary... and this morning I let her read some of my Malay work. I asked her to translate a word and she gave the meaning of another but very similiar word. Made me realise how difficult language learning can be. I take BM so for granted, I forget she is still learning it.

This morning it was mengangguk. She thought it meant annoy.

The sentence was Fiza mengangguk. And Sara thought it meant Fiza annoys!

mengangguk - nod
mengganggu - annoy

I guess it's very easy to make that mistake. Another pair that gave Sara (and Noah! when he was expanding his vocab) some confusion is bulat and bulan!

bulat - round
bulan - moon

That reminds me... When Noah was seven, he came back from school with a question. He said, Mummy, What is sugar in Malay? I said, Gula. He pondered and asked, What is Heaven in Malay? I had to smile, because I knew he had Islamic Studies that day and they were probably talking about heaven and all. And his friends proably pronounced syurga (which is Heaven in Malay) with a silent 'r' as a lot of Malays do! Poor Noah!! He had quite a time learning the lingua franca!!

sugar - gula
heaven - syurga
candy - gula-gula

I'm learning French... so far so good... except for the pronunciations! A friend gave me this tip... he said dont say the last letter!! haha!! ok... yay!

Sara the Magazinator

Tuesday, Jul 23 2008, 7.23pm

She entered the car this evening announcing that she was one.

She defines a magazinator as a person who NEEDS (note the emphasis) and LOVES magazines.

Other words she coined to describe herself :

questionator - a person who keeps asking questions

.... hmm, I know there are more but at the moment can't remember any!!!!

Sara the Comedienne

Sara told a few jokes this morning. I was in stitches especially as she told it wearing such an unexpectant expression.

Why do the French like to eat snails? Because they don't like fast food.

Why are sausages rude? Because they spit when you cook them.

What does a lion use to comb its mane? A catacomb.

What is Beethoven's favourite fruit? Ba Na Na Na .... Ba Na Na Na (to the tune of Symphony No.5 - she didnt say it that way, but I knew straightaway, and told her how to say it the next time she told it... she said she's going to tell it at school today)

The Dark Knight

I saw the movie last night. And I saw the box office statistics this morning. I guess darkness, manic characters and depressive sell. I didnt like the movie that much, save for one scene on the ferry, close to midnight. It was too much mutilation and violence and car chases for my taste. I can stand crazy, being almost border-line crazy myself (sometimes ) - (hah, maybe some who know me well would beg to differ), but the over-the-edge crazy that they made the Joker out to be just got on my nerves. When he put the price on the accountant's head... I went... huh? Enough already!! (Heath Ledger's performance? I was impressed!)

My girls and I, Wisma Maxis

Having always been in the park/playground, watching my children play in the water, it was good to have a chance to look at the park from 37 floors up. Finally! We were up there in Wisma Maxis for Iman's interview two weeks ago.
I wanted to go out on the verandah but the doors were locked so these were the only outside pictures I could take.
My two girls! 13 years apart!
Trying to grow my hair as long as Sara's... naah... I prefer wash and go hair.
And the (almost) mandatory food picture...

out and about in Sentul

One Fine Day (this morning) in Sentul!

I've never ventured into Sentul! And it's only a 5 min drive from home! Less without traffic. I went this morning to collect a package at the Sentul Post Office. We saw some interesting sights.

Public phones in Sentul. I haven't seen anything like them anywhere else in KL. Maybe I don't get out much, I don't know.
Inside the post office, pleasantly uncrowded, unlike the one in TTDI!
Now you can personalize stamps for special ocassions - newborn baby, birthday, graduation, wedding, mother's day and anniversaries! Pretty cool I thought.
Sara wanted a bun from this tuck shop down the block from the post office. The shopkeeper kindly allowed me to take his picture! But his wife didn't want to be in it.
You can't see it on here, but there were two disposable diapers drying on that jemuran. Recycling disposable diapers. Yay, Malaysians boleh!
Yes, it smells as unpleasant as it looks or as intriguing as it looks... as you like. The guy was spraying that thingamijig silver. He wanted to pose but I said no, I wanted to capture him in action :)

Someone had put their clothes out to dry while we were away at the post office. Parking here was wherever you see a big enough spot for your car. No parking meters to feed coins.

Sara read this sign and asked me what building it was. I said what do you think. She said, Is it a lady police's office? Directly translated Ibu is mother, Pejabat is office and Polis is police. I can only imagine what she thought of those words!! I told her it's like saying it's the mother office, only the word in English is headquarters.

I got this book this afternoon. I have to finish it before the weekend is over. No problem. It looks like an interesting read.
Salad before dinner - rambutan slivers (yay!!!), lettuce, green apple slices, walnut and lots of sunflower seeds, and my own olive oil, calamansi juice, salt and pepper dressing.. yummy

lost in hulu langat

Last Sunday, we went out to Hulu Langat to look for a waterfall that we'd been to earlier on Mother's Day (which happened to coincide with my birthday this year).

We weren't sure about the name and weren't even sure how to get to Hulu Langat! We relied on road signs. Surprisingly there were none!

Finally, we got directions from a mother and son everything banana snack business on an empty carpark lot off the highway (...in the excitement of getting lost, I forgot to take pictures).

We asked a few more people after them. The son didn't seem like he knew his way very well. It felt like too long a way (from what we could recall from the last trip). But everyone gave the same directions, so we stuck with the directions.

Drove uphill, downhill, passed some spooky looking cemeteries, topekong (should have taken pictures! but I guess when you're spooked you just forget!), a lonely road (and it was getting dark)...

Anyway... to make a long story short, we didn't find the waterfall, but we did find this very pretty (man-made, I think) lake!

As it was getting quite late, we only stopped a few minutes for pictures. We plan to go back the first weekend in July!!! We passed an orang Asli settlement, and I saw that they had a little by the road shop which I want to have a better look at.

Oh when we come back here, we'll be looking for Sg Gabai waterfalls.




I had my sweat pants and shoes in the car.

rambutans in ttdi

Took a 3 hour lunch today (to run work related errands... of course..) Sara and I saw these georgeous red rambutans sold on the walkway, outside a supermarket. Of course we wanted some immediately. But as we couldnt possibly eat so much rambutans between the two of us, we decided to get only handful of loose ones. That's the guy pouring our rambutans into the pink plastic bag (sorry no environmentally friendly bag here :( ).

Mmmmm... guess who'll be having sweet rambutan pieces in her salads for the next few days! More fruits down the block. I wanted to buy some of those bananas, pineapples, and mangoes! Luckily there was a sensible person between the two of us!

I just had to snap these beautiful roses at Sara's babysitter's now hadn't I??

eating out in Sri Hartamas

Went for dinner at Sould Out w Trevor and Jensen last Saturday. It was very nice, apart from being a bit too loud; we sat under one of the speakers! We mentioned this to our usher, thinking we could get another table. The nice man misunderstood, he went to the DJ and got him to lower the volume of the guilty speaker instead! It was a slight improvement nonetheless.
That's the soup of the day - I forget it was either mushroom something or chicken something!
Satay appetizer! Delicious. I only had two sticks though - so much food!
Mine was Chicken Vindaloo - didn't realise it was hot! I thought the red was tomato!
Jensen's Lamb Shank - we shared our food as mine was too hot to eat all by myself. Trevor ate most of my chicken! So kasian oh you darlingest! Sorry!
I had most of Trevor's Sweet Sour Fish!
That's Jensen in the reflection taking our picture!

sally happy wishes!

Birthday wishes from Sally Happy, Trevor and Jensen!

my pink baby

Sara's middle name is Pink.

This was a few months ago at The Curve. She's showing off her new pink Polly Pocket book, standing in a frightfully pink sales booth. Pink carpet.

And pink dragonflies floating above.

A more recent picture - last month at home. She was in the mood for pictures - of me taking her pictures as well as her taking pictures of her stuff.
Only 2 out of her some 20 or so (at last count) barbie collection. She has more at her dad's place.
Sara was in charge of this and the barbie picture. She arranged the dolls, book, jewelry box, colour pencil and angle for the picture! She was so cute being busy creative director!

my favouritest trevor pictures

June 2nd 2008 at Ryan's early birthday party and Heather's full moon. Also Trevor's er.. 18th birthday. (and late dad's 75th)


Trevor's pictures came out so well. (well imho anyway - I took the pictures after all) This is him in the various stages of opening my present to him (Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet.. yay!)



careful with the wrapping... we want to recycle it


almost there and wrapping still intact... can use for my birthday present next year





ahh.. so glad you love it cousin dearest!! muaah