Trip to ..... Or, why I collapsed in bed

Being a Saturday and with no one around, is a bit of a problem for me. I need to go to Pasar road today to get some LEDs. I could not go last week as there was something else that cropped up. Anyway, because Mommy had some school activities, I decided to take the girls along with me. I don't mind then coming with me but as it was rightly pointed out, it might not be safe.

However, taking that into consideration, I decided to to go there as early as I can. With the shops opening up and with minimal traffic, the mission went well.

The girls were intriqued with the numerous electronic
stuff on display even though they were not switched on

But Kristine was easily bored. So, I had to make
my purchases as fast as possible. And the shop
regulars were happy to see us anyway.

After my purchase, I brought them to
Pudu Plaza where each got what they
wanted, based on the one item per
girl rule. This made them choose
what they really wanted and not
just crap you can buy and then
throw away.

After that, it was back our home, where we will be
eating t Macdonalds. Since it had no parking space,
we decided to go to BSC instead. On the way, the
girls were impatient to open their prizes.

To store more, Kristine used the new bag which
I bought at KLIGP. It folds back into a small bag
when not in use.

Unfortunately, MacDonalds in BSC closed
three years ago and so, after taking a few
photos of this.. this.. thing, we left.

OK, one more shot, then.

And one for the road.

Really, we need to go or we
would have to pay for parking
after the 10 minutes grace is up

We ended up at Amcorp Mall since the Pusat
Damansara area would be deserted during the
weekends. So we ordered the value meals
equivalent for Double Cheseburger, Nuggets
and Big Mac. The I forgot about the three
helpings of fries! Oh-oh!

There is so much to eat!

And so much to pay! aiyo!

But finally, we sorted ourselves and managed
to eat most of the food. Here, Kaelynn keeps
her nuggets away from Kristine as they had a
small fight on the way.

While the chips are going down.....

Someone is full. Actually, they are not
full but rather, got bored with the food
and wanted ice-cream instead. I made
sure they ate most of the food and only
then, when we walked down to the base
ment level, would I consider ice-creams
for them. I not, I DBKL also cannot finish
all the food.

Hey, hey. The old cinema has been converted into a
Bookstore. One day, I must go in and have a look
but not with the girls and so many people right now

Back home, the girls were excited because this means
they can now open their prizes.

Kaelynn with her Strawberry Shortcake
stickers. Its a 3D pop-up set of stickers.

And Kristine with her new set of colour markers.
Althouh I did not know it, Wife said the marker
inks can be washed off. On the skin, that is. But
that did not stop the girls from writing on their
hands and then rinsing them off. Haih, kids.

Its a bit special because the marker also double
up as a stamp. Its great but you have to remember
that the ink fro the marker feeds the stamp. So, if
you forget and mix the covers up, you're going to
have a very weird coloured stamp and markers

For me, I got a 240 namecard holder in Pudu and
a second hand Dell USB keyboard at Amcorp Mall

Not to mention the 30 white LEDs and these
0.8cm and 1.0cm red and green bulb indicators
which i can easily convert them into LEDs.

Once I plugged the keyboard in, WinXP
recognises it and I can start to use the
keyboard right away.

All the custom buttons work and if i really want to
customise them, i would have to find and download
the Drivers from Dell. But not right now.

One nice thing about the keyboard is that
it has two extra USB ports which is a great
idea and very important to me.

The keyboard also comes with an added snap-on
wrist guard. D wanted a DELL keyboard 10 years
ago and now, I got it. And its a better model. The
problem is, I do see a lot of them lying around but
it was difficult for me to either buy them or, just
take it, for a lot of reasons.

And yes, its very comfortable typing on it. Actually, I
was sort of hoping to have the clickety-click feedback
but those type of keyboards (in the 90's) are long gone.

And so, the three of us rest and waited until we fell asleep for hours.

KLIGP 2010

After the meeting, we decided to attend the KLIGP 2010 Exhibition. The same exhibition my company wanted to participate but its another story. I wanted to go there because I want to see for myself, the different diary designs produced and also, more importantly, how the competitor stands. Most of the participants actually import stuff or OEM them. And if they were manufacturing, the cost is still a bit too high. Makes me wonder the part about "International" although I only saw a handful of foreign companies. OK, make that two; one for machine stitching and one for tourism. Still, its a great event but personally, I think it was marred by the fact that you need to 'dispose' your badges (but keep the paper) at the exit. It would be nice if they could inform you during registration and that it needs to be recycled for, well, environmental purposes (lie a bit, la) and it would be nice. Now, the show reminds me of it being cheapskate, a laughing joke for visiting guests. And while I am being cynical, I would also like to think why it was set at this date until I realised, its school holidays. i.e. cheap labour.

Weeks ago, when I called up the organiser, the tulan
Lady who picked it up sounded uninterested until I
had to sternly remind her that I am calling as a
customer and not some idiot asking about a last
minute information (actually, I was)

One good thing was that at the entrance, there was
a big shelf which showcases a few 'big' companies
with their attractive products, something which I
have not seen from China websites. Either that or
did not surf the Net more. heh. Note the USB device
on the left. Its selling for RM30 which when they
plugged to the Nokia 5800, it allows the PC to read
the microSD card without having to take out the
card itself. And then I though, wait a minute. I can
just set my Nokia 5800 to Mass Storage mode and
its the same thing except i cannot plug in like a USB
without my Noka cable. Nah, I'll pass on that or if
and when the price comes down to RM10 or so.

There there are some attractive USB drives.
Apart from the cute orange guy, its a little bit
boring. I mean, you can have Pandan Po or the
Ice-cream stick but they're so big, you might
have problems inserting to a USB port on a
Laptop or where there are other USB devices
connected together. So I passed on this one too.

Now, a transparent namecard, something I wanted
to design long ago but never got to more than a few
due to costs and their durability. But look on the
right, a credit card USB drive. Its starting to come
from China.

Finally, a torchlight umbrella. Yes, finally. The
foldable umbrella was invented long ago and it
was only in the late 90's were the LED torch
concept began to shine.

Well, i can think of one or two companies who might
appreciate this design. Its cute. Cuter than those
wooden pallates.

The annoying name cards.
At the fair, you do get a lot of free gifts from pens to bags. But what is not nice is that most of them would gladly give them or their catalogues to you in exchange for your namecard. Probably one booth started this years ago and now, everyone does it. It would be more fun if they could
let you 'insert' your card into a machine or something and then you get some free stuff in return. I know they need this as a way to get more contacts but this makes the visitor feels like a beggar. So, when I happened to me, I just told them that its too bad you booked your booth this far as the ones near to the entrance all got my namecards. And no, I don't care if your booth sends you out and you give me your cute bambi eyes. only have less than four namecards and its all gone.

Because they're young kids, I managed to get an additional
KLGIP bag. (Later on, I realised each bag has some further
'free gifts' apart from the precious Guidebook) Its a good
thing too because the bag I had tore easily.

Back home, after a few hours there, I had a lot of flyers
and catalogues to go through. Which is fun. But i will be
giving all of them to my Boss. I know he would be asking
me to go to these fairs but because I was starting to be
always out, he might not get the chance to see me. So, I
am doing this on hindsight.

These are the stuff that came from the KLIGP
bags. You have a notepad, cough sweets, a very
nice bookmark and what the.......

...cigarette filters! Why cig filters? I know you might
need the sweets when you talk too much at the show
but everyone I saw or bumped into, did not smoke.

Ok, this is a magnetic bookmark but I am
more interested in the rubber "MapInfo"
thing. They told me there is no MOQ but
in this industry, I don't think so.

Then there is the thermal transfer which caught
my interest. So, I talked to them for quite some
time and funny thing is, they gave me their card
instead of asking for mine because they had so
much people calling them, they won't remember
who I am. Yeah, I asked for a lot of samples too.

And they did demo to me a few times and I love
this one because you can feel it 'pop' out from
the cloth. Imagine wearing a Punisher T-Shirt

Another item I was interested in was the mini light
box. It was so beautiful to look at and I was about
to get one/enquire, my wallet stopped me. I mean,
I did one with PVC pipes before and so, if I want to
have the same setup, I would just need to invest a
bit more on lighting and a white background.

To be honest, the first and last tradeshow for premiums I have ever been to was in 2001. And so, to me, nothing much has changed except for the products, the namecard requirement and yes, credit card agents at the exit.

There are no shows to give each participant a 15-minutes of fame, no walking free-gifts or mascots, no talks and unfortunately, not enough places for seats and discussion. OK, so I did not look at the guidebook but there were no "You are here" maps at strategic junctions. I won't complain about the planning or floor layout because most booths are selling multiple items. For example, booth A sells, diary covers, calendars, USB drives and bags. Then you have booth B selling USB related calculators. The on Booth C, you have Bags again, clocks, etc.

Sand Art

The girl's Uncle (my biological brother) gave them a sand art kit last night and they've been pestering us to let them play with it. Which we relented on the condition that they do it outside. This art started more than a decade ago and at that time, it was something new where everyone queued up to have a go. Now, its very common and the sand art kit confirms it.

And so, with the newspapers all laid out, they are
ready to play with the sand art. The kit comes
with a few prepared slides, coloured sand in bottles
and toothpicks.

This is one of the 'pens' which contained some
coloured sand. Now, the girls are going to show
you how it works.

First you take the toothpick and pry off the
pre-cut paper covering the glued part. It is
like removing the lables off a sticker but in
reverse.

Then you 'pour' the coloured sand onto the
exposed part. The glue will accept the sand
and the you just shake the slide until all the
sand sticks to the exposed part.

Unfortunately, nowadays, the girls love to
leave things behind when they're done with
it. Just for today, I decided to give Mr. Cane
a rest.

Its a nice thing to play but as you can see,
it is very easy to 'waste' the sand or ink if
you prefer to call that.

Say the magic word and they start
to clean everything up. Oh, the magic
word for the day is, "CANE!"

Cooking dinner

Time for dinner. Because Mommy was busy with Kristine, I was told to deep fry some tofu and make an omellete. Easy peasy. or so I thought.

The deep frying went a bit too far and
it all turned out golden burnt brown

I failed at using the pan to flip over the omelet
and so, it became scrambled egg instead.

Kin Kin Pan Mee

"How would you like to eat some dried pan mee with chili?" he asked and without missing a beat, I agreed. And so, off we went, to Kin Kin Restaurant. Truth to be told, I came to this place before, in 2002 or so when as a Consultant, my colleague brought me there. All the while I thought it was at Lorong Haji Taib but I was wrong.

And so, here we are, after eight years

This is a bowl of their famous Chili Pan Mee, which
comes with a bowl of soup. The noodles comes with
one soft boiled egg, lots of deep fried anchovies and
something else at the base I forgot to look.

And this is their famous chili. When I first came,
the chili would be in every table. Now, you have
to order the pan mee and the waiters would then
give it to you. Truth to be told, the oily, crunchy
prawn chili I buy from Giant tasted better than
this. But in 2002, this was the best and I actually
took more than half the container. Unfortunately,
on the next morning........

Anyway, i decided to go slow on the chili this time and
after a few scoops of the pan mee into our mouths, we
were already sweating. Damn, the chili still has some
kick left.

And then the bowl of soup. Well, it was nice but
all the while, I kept thinking about the bubbles
or froth in there.

I wanted to leave since there were
somethings happening but because
it was raining outside, both of us
took another bowl each.

So, what do I like about Kin Kin?
Or to be more precise, what did I not like about Kin Kin. There is a lot.

1) The Boss (or was it his son?) keep scolding his staff, even in front of the customers. And the type of scolding is not a typical one. More like degrading type and the it could very well degenerated into a more physical state.

2) The 'posters'
They're made by using felt tip markers on the tiled walls. Its not so much about it being cheap but the language used. Its the kind of language you hear when talking to old experienced men. It would start of by being condescending, or a bit huffy, then goes about boasting before they stepped back and tried to pull a half-hearted failed apology.

This one tells you about their chili which
you must not sneak out blah blah blah.
Action will be taken, blah blah blah. You
should read the one about them being a
pioneer in chili pan mee.

Total experience?
To sum it all up, the picture below exactly shows how it feels. Not only that, after we have paid, and left the table for the toilet, the old lady in a very loud voice, pointed at us saying we have not paid, which we had, moments ago. Had my friend not been there with me, I would have let out a few choice words, Lady or no Lady. Then there is the weird queuing system. Customers who arrived later than us, got their noodles first. Maybe their called in earlier but then, some customers who arrived even later, did not get theirs too. Weird.


Will I go there again? I don' think so. Nor would I want to point out where the place it. In the past, it would have been a great place but now, it feels as if some old man wants you to come to their place, play by his rules and often reminded you're something else. I mean, come on, this is not the Coliseum Cafe.

Meeting up

Its been a long time since I met up with a friend of mine. To be more accurate, it was thanks to him that I got the job working for my previous company. After a chat, it was revealed that he was the original partner instead of the fat slouch who was eventually kicked out. And to be frank, if he was in there, the company would have worked out even more. But then again, his family comes first.

I was happy I got to meet up with him as it was a great day too, catching up with the past and then letting it go again.

By the way, this PappaRich mixture
with Longan is quite nice. Its very
thick too. If you did not stir it, you
would think there is no sugar, which
I found out too late when I drank it
and ate the sugary longan. What a high

Judge Dredd: Book of Law

The forum did discuss about the making of the 'Book of Law' prop replica from the movie Judge Dredd. And so, with only two screen shot pictures to look at, I can only surmise the book format is as follows:
1. It has 192 pages, with no gilt edges, 80gsm white paper & square corners
2. It has about 2cm printed ribbon, head and tail too.
3. Cover is mostly bonded leather, unpadded, with gold corners on front and back
4. It measures about 89mm x 165mm and comes with and gold foil stamping.

This was the shot that was taken

And this was the second shot

Anyway, this was the closest I could find from the
archive.

Bear in mind, this book is not easy to make

And no, I am not going to do a run mainly because:

1) The covers are different. Here, the machine would nick the edges and I am not sure if they can make one without the nicking. Chances are, it is possible.

2) The gold corners have additional nicks and again, I am not sure if the machine has the actual crimps for that pattern. Chances are, they do not.

3) SOMEONE has to come up with all the contents. Yep. To make it more accurate, someone would have to scour all the comics from Prog 001 to current Prog 16xx, the movies and so on. This would be time consuming and not only that, it could be one day, 'canon' material for every writer or artists or script bots to follow and would have to be approved/endorsed by 2000Ad's creators (and Tharg?) and copyright ppl, etc. Yeap, imagine the pressure.

4) Production is not going to believe me about making a Law Book for less than 100 units. And not only that, the cost alone if going to kill this project before it even began. So, someone else have to do this.....


No, not me.

Home Alone Dinner

Tonight, wife has gone out to the Palace and this means i will be alone for dinner. Which is not a problem since there was quite some leftovers in the fridge from the dinner the night before, especially the delicious fish curry my Wife made. And so, its pasta with the fish curry. Then i saw some leftover rice in the rice cooker and heated it up as well. And since while we're at it, I sliced a whole onion too. This should make a nice dinner.....

...hey. who left the fish in the curry?
Now I have to eat a whole lot more!

Iron Man II toys

I just realised that the iron Man II toys, especially the toy Arc Lights are disappearing fast. And so, while I was deliberating to get more, my brother SMS-ed me as he saw some IM II Toys. And so, after a few choice replies, he got me two arc lights and one Ivan "whiplash" Vanko 3 3/4 action figure.

And so, three items costs about RM100 and since he
was 'busy' with his work and would not tell me the
actual cost, I decided to keep quite until he is 'free'

There is a problem with the Whiplash figure.
He looks nice on this card. And he also looked
very nice in the 1/6 scale Hot Toys series too.

But here...... oi yoi yoi yoi yoi!
He looks more like some Manga
character with a large scars on
his forehead.

So, why do I need so many Arc Reactors? Someone on the Forum expressed interest and then never replied back. Then, there is a Build your own Arc Reactor competition which I am not entering because of so much issues with dollar Stores and all. But I am hoping to make one up and donate as a prize. Only problem is, do I really want to make it remote controlled? Heh.

Bad Breath

This is what happens when you have bad breath
while talking to a customer. No lar, she just went
out because someone was looking for her

Hanging at the Curve

After my appointment a Surian tower (Surian.... surian.... why does it have a Lord of the Rings theme to it...?) I decided to walk around the Curve to see what can be eaten for lunch. Alas, it was still too early and I have another appointment. And so, I passed by the Cinema level instead. There is nothing much from the Outpost Toys and even if I forced myself to buy something, there is nothing to buy for the moment, apart from the NERF Longstrike. But then again, Nerfs seems to be out of flavour for June.

They're promoting the Toy Story 3 now.

Weird toys here. And I hate anything
that resembles kubrick. Its just a mutated
version of Lego figures.

Maybe mutated is a wrong word. i was
thinking more of bastardised, pariah, even.

Ah, the Longstrike below the Longshot.
Its now one of the longest NERf weapon
around but easily also the weakest or
bordering on crap.

One of the advertising gimmicks in the
toilet. It will display the ad but when you
walk past, it will turn itself off, which then
becomes a mirror. I was hoping it would be
programmable because the sensors, just like
the ones on the urinals would detect your
presense. Imagine it was programmed to do
the opposite: Just as you were admiring your
ugly mug on the mirror, it turns on and shows
you this: