Happy Wesak Day

Today is Wesak Day. Today is also, by coincidence, where it happened to be a Holiday. Whether it is Public or not, is up to the individual. But nevertheless, it is a Holiday. Which also means my driving to work would be blissful since there would not be so many cars on the road.

But I did not drive to work today.

Why? Because today is Wesak Day.

So, we went to the Maha Vihara Temple in the early morning or rather, in the earliest time I could wake up before getting a Kung-Fu kick from the Wife or, being woken up by the girls, whichever is worse.

Funnily enough, there were a lot of police personnel
stationed there. By in light of the recent events such
more Perkasa announcements and the covert death
of someone in Pakistan, I'm not suprised.

But there is am immediate effect to that because
there were no signs of beggars at the gates, and
so, I could not donate some things to them.

Halfway through, there was a procession where, the

Priest walked to the stage to deliver his speech

After his speech, we continued with our program

And this time, the atmosphere is
very nice and cooling even though
it is almost late morning.

And surprisingly, the crowd, although
large, was actually bearable. But this
time, there were more photographers
than normal. I wonder why...

The the girls went up to a stage and did their prayers

They were so cute, some photographer kept
taking photos of them.

This is where we start to collect the Holy Water
and also, being blessed again.

Then, all of a sudden, there was a commotion and
well, you start to get the feeling that something
official is coming in. They even have a Lion Dance
which is very weird for this time of the year.

Yep. And all sorts of 'freak attractions' start their way
in and onto the main stage.

With all the hoo-haa, everyone wondered what the
commotion was all about. But it turned out to be just
nothing. I mean, you have Police presence, some
body guard looking chums and friends but there
was no one important for all I can see. Oh well,
back to the program.

And then girls came back to the stage for one nice
little photo.

On our way out, even the Lion dance people are
packing up as if nothing important really happened.
Everyone was wondering, "what was that all about?"

As the Sun was really coming out,
we tried to take as much photos as
possible near the fountain. But the
lighting was very harsh.

Temptation came and I followed, so I bought
one of these (I forgot the name). Its actually
some vegetable deep-friend it batter and its
hot. Spicily hot. Immediately, my favourite.

Then on to another store and i got more of these
as it has been years since I had some. And yes, I
also forgot the name of this...delicious delicacy.

Then I also relented and bought
Kaelynn a balloon. Just one as I
told Kristine that she is getting
to be a big girl... the look on her
face was priceless but I saved a
few ringgit. Ha ha ha ha.

We stopped by a shady spot for the
girls to drink some water as the Sun
by now, is very very hot. Kaelynn is
showing her affection to her new toy.

And the girls tried my two packets of deep-fried
stuff. Initially, they loved it but when it got too
hot, both of them were rushing for more water.

Which is funny because I did not tell them that
it was hot. They loved it until the realised it was
hot. But if I told them it was hot in the first place,
they would not even tough it. Get the meaning?

Another 200 metres and we stopped where the girls
finished my two packets of that deep-fried stuff, plus
more Monster Mee too...

First time I have seen a Police helicopter up close.

After the prayers, I realised that I am still very 'early'. And since I took the whole day off, I decided to go back to the office and work for the rest of the day. The funny thing was, when I reached the office, it was almost lunch-time. What I did not realise was, that everyone took the day off AFTER lunchtime. In the end, only myself and a Manager was in the office...

And for lunch, I decided to eat out. Tofu, baked beans
and some nice spicy spinach. Yum-yum. Hey, at least
with the beans, if I want to fart the whole day, no one
is going to notice it anyway.

Yep, accidentally ordered a Permanis. You can see
the opening tab that looked like an angry face, reflecting
my stupidity.

House pest

During the first few encounters, they are cute and
harmless. But once they get used to you, they will
enter your house, shit on the floor and now, they
even claim your snacks when you're asleep. Damn
those squirrels. If only the cat did not die....

Vitagen or Yakult?

Yes, I still cannot get this over my mind. Shall I
order a Japanese Vitagen over eBay. Or shall I
get a radiation detector first?

Hold Still!

Yes, hold still! I am trying out Nokia Beta Labs's

new Panorama software. More to come soon...

Freezing the Enterprise Part II

OK, so after leaving it in the freezer for a day, it was time to see the results. The theory is to let the water seep into the model's cracks and gaps so that when the water freezes, it would expand. By doing do, the stress from the expansion would then force the super glue to fail...

And so, the Enterprise is taken out of cold storage...

At this stage, I was very tempted to just put
this in my drink. But somehow, the very idea
of being choked by a warp nacelle or have my
throat ripped open by the secondary hull is
not a good idea afterall. No amount of coaxing
can get them out from the butt either except
by surgery.

OK, the first casualty was the warp nacelle which
failed to separate cleanly into two pieces.

And the Secondary hull was a disappointment as
well. In the end, I had to try an pry it even further
but after thinking much about it, its best to leave
them alone for a while.

A call to Bruce later yielded more information; I am supposed to do this repeatedly, something which I am not too keen as I notice some paints are actually chipping off from the model. So, what else can be done to separate these parts?

Poo-poo killer in a can

Years ago, I've been collecting these metal containers. They are actually air fresheners which usually, comes in very handy after you made a very bad poo-poo. With just one press of the finger/elbow/nose/forehead, a slight mist is released and within seconds, the whole room/toilet/car/underwear smells nice.

Whatever it is, everyone still knows you made a bad poo-poo.

And you can see these little things everywhere, especially in a company toilet, housed in a little two piece plastic case and double-side taped to the walls. And then, you will notice something about these little things;

1. They're always empty
2. When you release it, the fumes are uncontrollable (see Point #1)
3. No one ever replaces them

Still, this is great news for me because, I get to *ahem* liberate empty ones on every toilet I visit...

So, why the fascination with these little metal containers? Because they looked great as fuel containers or other stuff when it comes to Science Fiction scale modeling. At that time, all I could think of was that it will look great on a 1/100 Gundam model. Fast forward years later, I still do not have a perfect Gundam model but I can tell you that it would look great on a Gundam...

Anyway, this is how you would 'clean' the can.
Make sure the contents are empty just in case.
You do not want to have shrapnel embedded
in your face, as this is very embarrassing when
going through Airport Security. Anyway, take a
pair of pliers and carefully crimp and twist the
top part until it breaks as the metal cap is very
soft. And stop smelling the expired fragrance
otherwise people would think that you have
an extemely bad case of poo-poo in your nose.

Because it was my first time taking it apart, I
was afraid that I may have spoilt the can. But
on closer look, I saw the rubber seal which tells
me that the cap can still be taken apart further
without totally destroying the can. I was right.
And so, there you go, a nice clean poo-poo killer
taken apart.

Japanese Vitagen

You know, somehow, either the Japanese's Vitagen
(or Yakult over there) is smaller than ours or, the
new Hasegawa Falke model kit is smaller than the
Kow Yokoyama's original. Then again, I am unsure.

Still, what do you think?

Someone got married to Someone else

It had to happen anyway. It started with one day, someone met someone and they both found out that they somehow liked each other. At first, they did not realised it as it took them sometime to discover what is love.

Finally, after much something, something, they got some where...

Someone with Kaelynn

Someone with Someone

Lunch at Noble House, Near Jalan Imbi. So, I am
not going to say much about the couple as I am
hungry. And this is the only place that has so many
sauces at once. From left you have the crispy prawn
chili, the chili sauce, the green chilies, sambal, raw
garlic and the last was the green chilies which packs
a punch. But there is no soya sauce in sight.

So, I settled for the sambal (with lots of onions)
and the crispy prawn. Since I am one of the
designated driver, I decided that it was best
not to eat too much garlic...

You can see that I am bored by the way I
stuffed the decorative cucumbers with the
crispy prawn chilies.

They're great! So I expanded the idea with garlic,
the prawns again and also, the sambal. I had a hard
time deciding which was best as the table ran out of
cucumbers all of a sudden *ahem*

In the meantime, Kaelynn wasted no time with
all the food coming thick and fast to our table.

On the other hand, Kristine is discovering
the pleasures of slurping up fish skin.

And an Orange Ben10 was seen sipping
some very suspicious liquid....

Halfway through, something exciting happened.
This also means we do not have to go through
THE forthcoming Dinner.

Me? I am more interested in this semi-transparent
kuey teow thing that came with the fish. Its delicious!

But not so was this. The waitress came and showed
it to us country bumpkins as if it was made of gold
which we have not seen before. She even asked if
we want to take pictures before she cuts it up, and
I swear her tone was very sarcastic. In the end,
not many at our table ate the claw thing.

In the end, the girls and I decided to
have a walk around Noble House. Its
a very nice place and with this fish
pond located indoors, it is a great
attraction for everyone.

That is, if no one decides to jump in
and catch the fishes.....

Everywhere, the decorations in
Noble House screams of photo ops.

Finally, Someone got the knife and someone
else made the cut. And I am so happy for
them both.

On the way home, it was raining heavily and
with the strong winds, a lot of things really got
blown. But that is another story which I won't
tell. It just full of air...

So, Congratulations to *censored* and *censored*!


PS - If that someone does not pay me RM 1million by , I will reveal their faces.... soon, on June 31st.

Freezing of the Enterprise Part I

This is one of the Star Trek spaceships which I loved. However, like all other Star Trek ships, they only look good in certain angles and this Enterprise-D is no exception. But that is another story.

I got this via eBay because in Malaysia, it is very hard to find. And usually, if they do sell them, the prices are ridiculous and most places will sell them as a set even if you do not want the rest of the toys. Therefore, as sad as it may sound, Internet was my only option. The reason I chose this F-Toy version was, according to my fading memory, it was almost the same scale of the AMT Deep Space Nine model. I could try to get the episodes but in my mind, DS9 was one of my most favourite series to avoid, mainly because well, being stuck in a Space Station with no exploration (only in the later series) was kind of boring. so, it was like Babylon 5 but that, also, is another story.

The problem with this toy is that I want
to light it. But looking at the toy, putting
the wires through the thin warp pylons
was the least of my problems.

This was because they used some kind of super
glue which did its job too well. In one of the
warp nacelle, the upper part did not
snap properly and the glue had set.

The bigger problem was in the secondary hull
where the top part, as you can see here, is a
real pain in the ass to remove. And it is already
starting to break off.

The primary hull or saucer was also a real
challenge too. And as you can see, they did
not do a good job gluing the parts together.

It took two person and a chipped fingernail to
get the darn thing opened.

So, why am I so insistent in opening up this
toy? Looking at the material used, it is some
kind of plastic or resin and most of the parts
inside are actually hollow. Yes, HOLLOW!

So, this means that I can put in some LEDs to
make it look more 'convincing'. And because
Bruce said he had some extra, he told me to
go ahead and wreck it and he will give me
another one...

But first thing first. I have to remove the parts from
the warp nacelle and also the Battle section. This can
be done by freezing them and letting it thaw...

Ma.k Pumpkin Melusine

While I was at ICW, I decided to get this vinyl Ma.k toy. To be exact, its the Screaming SAFS series where each Ma.K Super Armoured Fighting Suit was dressed up and painted with Halloween themes.

Yes, these stocks ar not moving and so, I, the Great
Fatty, bought one. *ahem*. He was so honoured by
my generosity and by my glowing presence, my
Life was spared. Not so, was my wallet which lost
a green note in the encounter.

And, here he is, the Melusine. Just standing
over a a few inches, it was enough to scare
the living daylights out of the other occupants
on the table.

The figure is quite poseable and it boasts of
a generous four points of articulation. And,
it can also be customised to suit the needs
of the moment, as shown above. This is
the narrow canyon wall climber variation.

And, this is the casualty variation.