gamblerz konnection

in line with chinese norms, no chinese new year is complete without a visit up to uncle lim's humble establishment, the genting highlands casino.

so after long and hard discussions and deliberation we decided that we too were deep-rooted chinese dudes who places very high importance in customs and traditions (haha..), and so off we went.

let me tell you, the place was jam packed even at 1am. its like every chinese person in malaysia was there last night squandering their hard earned nosh. no kidding man, everyone's throwin money away like there's no tomorrow.


apparently billions of other people place high importance in tradition too


hmm.. sleepy than go home and sleep la!

there are loads of weird ppl, its obvious that they're damn sleepy and can hardly stay awake but they still insist on gambling at the table. there was this old lady who was nodding off every few secs, but still wanna sit there and play. saw another guy already asleep (although still sitting upright), but die aso still wanna play. sigh..


woohooo! winnings for the day!

well as alwiz gamblings cool when its just for the heck of it. over-indulge urself and you'll definitely get urself into a whole lotta shit. there's loadsa stories here i can share with u about the perils of gambling and what could happen to u, but that's a different story for a different time..

Chinese New Year: Day 1

for my family is the tradition to go back to my grandma's house for on the first day for lunch and also to watch a lion dance performance by one of the local schools (which obviously we have to pay for).

for the benefit of those who have not seen a lion dance in ages (or never seen before), here's how ours went this afternoon:


tong chiang tong chiang.. here we come!


we're in! lets look for food! grrr.. (tong chiang tong chiang)


sniff sniff.. any food here?


you probably can't tell, but they are actually 'fighting' over some oranges on the floor..


"oei, dont fight! leave the oranges and lets go!" (come to think of it, i don't know who this guy is..)


awww.. look at what the lions left us.



oooh, look who's here: choy san yeh! (god of prosperity)


i have no idea whats written on the scroll, but i assume its something good.


every year aso got fish, hehe..


more kind words ..

Thats all folks! Same time, same place next year y'all!

happy chinese new year guys! wishing u and ur family nothing but the best in the upcoming year of the fire dog!

happy lunar new year guys!

well, so far its been a pretty uneventful chinese new years eve. things i've done since i woke up this morning:

1. went to my grandma's for lunch
2. sent my car for a wash
3. ermm.. ate a mandarin orange?

damn, what a way to start a year..

anyways, here's something which i've been meaning to write about lately but just havent gotten around to do it: its about malaysia's very own lebanese billionaire

there's is dude elie najem who claims he's this super billionaire (cant remember the exact amount, but if it were true he'd be one of the richest in the world) who was thrust into the spotlights when he pledged RM1 billion to makna (our local cancer foundation).

at first it was like "wow.. 1 billion. he's so generous". then more details on him came about - apparently he's got 50+ companies here in malaysia and is worth like 50 billion or something like that. he leads such a low profile life that he stays in a small apartment with his malaysian wife, thats why no one's heard about him. okayyy.. cool.

it was only later on when ppl started coming forward with bad things to say about him - that he's no billionaire and that he owes loads of people money, that things started smelling fishy.

well, anyway apparently it came to light that he's staying in some dodgy apartments (in the words of one of our local radio deejays: "its in the ghetto of KL", hahaha. and so far he's been in and out of courts for charges of cheating ppl's money and all that.

well, anyway today he claims that he's already banked in the 1 billion he pledged to makna and "In 10 to 12 days, the money should appear on the screen. Not now, because it is the holidays here". i certainly hope for ur sake that it does turn up my friend, so that at least u can prove to the world that u're not that psycho that everyone thinks u are.

"parlern mee, i yam florm mer-lays-year, aai ecterd een err laymes mond sow mefoll"

watched the memoirs of the geisha yesterday and the first thing i noticed that everyone complained about was how disappointed they were that the directors didn't follow the book (one gal started whining bout this the moment the credits came out). i personally enjoyed the show quite a fair bit, and actually welcomed omitting some parts in the movie (but then again i watched the midnight movie and was already very sleepy..). wont dwell into more details in case u guys havent watched it yet. dont worry, it good - go catch it now.

HOWEVER, there's one bit that doesnt sit quite well with me - how come michelle yeoh's english sounds so bad? i mean zhang zhi-yi's english has improved so much since her last english outing (well, even though its obvious its rehearsed like hell.. but still?!), bai ling's isn't too bad, and these two come from english-illiterate china! (ok, thats an exaggeration, but u get my point). so datuk michelle, wats ur excuse? people in ipoh dont speak english either?

Tong Hua
(Fairy Tale)

wang le you duo jiu
(i've forgotten how long its been)
zai mei ting dao ni
(since i last heard you..)
dui wo shuo ni zui ai de gu shi
(tell me your favourite fairy tale)
wo xiang le hen jiu
(i've thought about it for a long time)
wo kai shi huang le
(i'm beginning to worry)
shi bu shi wo you zuo cuo le shen me
(if there's something i did wrong)

ni ku zhe dui wo shuo
(u tearfully say to me)
tong hua li dou shi pian ren de
(fairy tales are all lies)
wo bu ke neng shi ni de wang zi
(i could never be your prince charming)
ye xu ni bu hui dong
(but you will never understand that)
cong ni shuo ai wo yi hou
(since the moment u said u loved me)
wo de tian kong xing xing dou liang le
(my skies and stars have shone brighter)

wo yuan bian cheng tong hua li
(i'm willing to be a part of your fairy tale)
ni ai de na ge tian shi
(to be that angel u love)
zhang kai shuang shou bian cheng chi bang shou hu ni
(to spread my wings to protect you)
ni yao xiang xin
(you've got to believe)
xiang xin wo men hui xiang tong hua gu shi li
(believe that we can be just like fairy tales)
xing fu he kuai le shi jie ju
(and live happily ever after)

yi qi xie wo men de jie ju
(together we will write out our happy ending)

this is such a nice song - sorry for the terrible translation, cos actually my mandarin aso not very pass one - and its damn hard to maintain the original meaning while trying to maintain grammatical integrity.. (fuuhhh.. like real, hehe)

u should check out the video clip if you've got a chance, a real tear jerker. don't really know whats wrong with me these days as i seem to be going thru a sentimental patch.

think i've gotta cut down on my drinking.. hehe

oh in case you didn't know, this song is by michael wang (better known as guang liang) a malaysian singer who went over to taiwan and is doing quite alright i think. so doesnt really matter if u get this song from ur favourite P2P prog or ur fave ah beng cd shop - i'm sure he'll survive. no wait, i'm just kidding - go get the original.. piracy sucks. haw haw hawwww.....

ch-ching!

i've always felt that the main reason why malaysians dont read as much as the mat sallehs is cos our books here are just too damned expensive! lets see, our average paperback here costs about RM35 to RM40, while a book costs about $6 to $8 both in US and UK. It works out to the the same after conversion, i hear you say? erm, excuse me.. fyi, ppl over there earn at least TWO TIMES our salary, job-scope for jobscope, dollar for dollar.

hmm.. and our government wonders why our ppl just dont read?

well, anyway dropped by borders bookstore the other day when i was at the curve and decided to finally get 'harry potter and the half blood prince' (HPB) cos it was going at a 20% discount. the reason to why i've waited all this time to get it is cos being a cheapo that i am, i'm actually waiting til the price dips to $30-ish before i get it.. *hides away in shame*

however, since i'm pretty stressed out these days, and am in desperate need for some leisure-reading (my definition of leisure-read is something that doesn't require too much brain processing power, but yet is interesting enough to keep my attention and for me, potter fit this bill perfectly), and so i decided that 20% off $99.90 would be good enough (damn it, after half a year of waiting, i only managed to save rm19.98, scowl..)

yes, u read right - HBP is selling at rm99.90!! fuck, how in the world is ur average malaysian worker going to be able to afford that for his kids on his rm1200 salary?!

well anyways, i also came across this book by a local author entitled "taikor: valour, honour, suspense, betrayal and love, the definitive malaysian saga". is that title long or what?! must be some title-length envy going about between malaysian authors or something, hehe.

anyway, i found it pretty interesting because it kinda gives u an insight of how was life like during the early days of malaya (the story is set between 1922 to 1982), how life was like then - especially for the chinese community, the so-called triads, corruption and so on. interesting stuff. oh, by the way even this book by a local author cost me rm38!

and about HBP, i personally didn't think it was all that fantastic. its like there just wasn't enough "umph" in this story compared to the rest of the trilogy (can it be called that..?). ah well, the next book's already confirmed to be the last so no matter how crappy its going to be its bound to sell anyway - for once a pothead, always a pothead. (ch-ching! for rowling)

nokia and hasbro was having some promotion together and they set up this big ass monopoly board at 1 utama 2 in one of their concourse areas. from the pic u can tell just how big the whole set up was - cool stuff.

its amazing how much nosh companies are willing to spend these days for their promos.

well folks, here we are with a brand new year. u think u can do a better job this time around? *fingers crossed*

happy new year dudes!