Jacky Fox King's Wedding Dinner

Today is a colleague - Hu's wedding (Jacky Fox King). Just now I attended his wedding dinner at one of the Chinese restaurant in town. All colleagues 12 of us were invited. Only one absent for unknown reason.

[Gosh! The photo is blur... maybe hand shaking ;) ]

[Dinner table]

We had a great time there. Beside nice foods, we utilized the time for chit chatting, gossiping and made fun of each other without any burden on our shoulders. I enjoyed the moment very much. Hardly find such moment during normal office hours.

[Delicious foods]

[Yum Yum man tou with pork - the presentation is nice]

[I think you can call it a Chinese burger]

Another colleague, Wong who is also former classmate of the bride and bridegroom had been assigned to be video man for the day. Hence, he was busy shooting video on the whole event happening. I could see his professionalism when he was following the new couples everywhere so that he won't miss any valuable moment!

[Semi-pro video man, Wong!]

All people attending the dinner had been given a small well-wrapped souvenir with a very meaning note attached with it. Mine one sounds: "When a semicircle meet the other half, it means happiness!" Sounds good?

[A well-wrapped meaningful souvenir]

The dinner finished around 8.35pm. I feel very happy for Hu, who had stepped into the next chapter of his life! Hu has been a nice colleague to me for the past 3 years and sitting face to face with me for more than one year! Congratulation Hu and Fong , and may happiness will always be with both of you everyday!

[Happy wedding Hu & Fong!]

Tang Yuan and Happy Dong Zhi

Today is Winter Solstice (冬至) celebration for Chinese. It's the time where Chinese family will prepare tang (soup) yuan (round), which implies reunion and also full satisfaction. It's one of the most important celebration in Chinese culture.

The main ingredient to make traditional tang yuan is the glutinous rice flour. Mix the flour with water then stir it with hand until the flour become enough glutinous and sticky. (How glutinous should it be? Well, I think this question is for my mum, honestly I don't have idea! ）

[Glutinous rice flour - main ingredient]

[Stir rice flour with water]

Then, you can choose not or add in some white sugar into the glutinous mixture. However, my mother choose to use some sweet potatoes to get its natural sweet flavor. Mix them well.

[Add some sweet potatoes into the flour mixture]

[Properly mixed ingredients to make tang yuan]

After the ingredients are properly mixed, it is time to roll the mixture between your palms to make it into round/ball shape.

[Rounded glutinous balls ready to be cooked]

The glutinous balls will then put into the boiled water to cook. This boiled water will then become the soup of tang yuan. Therefore, you can add in some pandan leaves or ginger or both when boiling the water to add more aroma to the soup. Floating glutinous balls indicate they are properly cooked and ready to be eaten.

[Cook glutinous balls in boiling water with pandan leave]

There are two method to serve traditional tang yuan. First, is the most traditional and original way which is tang yuan in soup. This is why it's called "Tang Yuan", where tang means soup and yuan means round - rounds in the soup.

[Tang Yuan]

2nd method will be cover the cooked glutinous balls with grind peanut mixed with sugar. Serving tang yuan in this way is more tasty and delicious in my personal opinion.

[Mixture of grind peanut and sugar]

[Tang yuan covered with peanuts and it is delicious! ]

Wish everyone, especially Chinese Happy Dong Zhi and enjoy your tang yuan with family!

Bunch Of Cute Colleagues

It was a funny afternoon.

Next Monday will be a colleague - Jacky Fox King's wedding. We were discussing about what to give him as wedding present. We finally decided to give him an combined angpow for whoever wanted to join. Then we also decided to buy a wedding greeting card so that all colleagues could put some wishes and signature on it as a sign of blessing.

So, a head of department assigned a staff to go buy the card. He spent almost 45 minutes to an hour to look around in town for a suitable card... but he hardly found any. After some efforts of searching, finally he got one.

He brought the card back to office. Mission accomplished! The card look normal, no fancy design but we not really care. The important thing is we have a space to express our sincere wishes to our dear colleague. However, once I opened the card prepared to be the first person signing it, I couldn't help myself to LOL (laugh out loudly)! Gosh!

[The card outside look - definitely a wedding card]

Why? OMG (Oh My God)! There were a lot of yellowish stain on the card! It was something like a card which had been stored in museum for more than 10 years, then somehow slipped out from museum and blew by the wind and coincidently placed on a rack for sale! It was not obvious especially when it covered with a transparent plastic wrapper plus light reflection on it. So, not my colleague's fault who had been working hard to hunt for a card!

[Yellowish rings?]

[Old thing easier to tear off even you handle it with care]

Therefore, I felt that we must do something to the card. Well, at least covered the yellowish stain which really made the card steal-from-museum-like! I had some idea how to do it. But with limited time, I needed to do it simple yet presentable.

I quickly looked into the web then I found a very cute wedding cartoon. So, I just printed it out on a piece of white paper. Well, the quality is a bit rough but we had no choice because it was the only color printer in the office.

Without wasting more time, I started to cut the cartoon out from the paper while others were busy writing their sincere wishes and signature on the card. After others finished, I then sticked the cute cartoon onto the card with glue.

I couldn't help myself from kept laughing while I was decorating the card. Really couldn't believe a card that suppose to be found in museum was in our hands now! Then thought of decorating the card to make it more presentable to the future-bridegroom, but no proper printer in the office.

[The inner look of the card after beautifying efforts]

Ok, my job done although it was a torture one! Well, not satisfied but no more choice. Although it couldn't cover all the yellowish stain because there were really too many but at least it gave that little bit of beautifying effect! Don't you feel so? ;p

Now, my immediate head turn! He complaint that the envelope to place the card was a bit too plain and white (in fact it was a bit milky). According to Chinese family, white color is not appropriate for a big event like wedding. Therefore, he suggested to do something on the envelope.

In view of time getting shorter, all colleagues started to get a bit panic. All of us worried if we can complete this "mission almost impossible" on time. Therefore, even the manager level persons also put down their works temporarily and slotted in opinion to make the mission a success. We used all the material available including the wedding invitation card and its envelope to create a "badge" and also little loves shape. (OMG! I just I realized that all our colleagues are so creative!)

While all of us were busy co-operating doing the works, the card buyer suddenly voice out with his innocent look, "So sorry, I didn't expect the card I bought bring so much trouble to you all". Gosh! All of us were laughing till almost fall from our seats!

"Yeah, right.. we thought of kicking your ass now!". I guess this is what in most of our brain at that moment! HAHAHAAH! Just kidding Jack! Don't worry!

[Manager level gave opinion to make "mission almost impossible" possible!]

[Do it faster! Time almost up!]

[Wedding invitation card's envelope being used as a material for deco]

["Girls have better skill in cutting love shape!"]

["Don't play play! I am a guy but my cutting kungfu very good also!"]

After few minutes of OT, finally, we made the "mission almost impossible" possible! The outcome... well... I guess better you judge yourself. But with limited time and material, I guess not bad la!

[Final envelope's presentation]

So Jacky Fox King, can you see how sincere we are to send you our deepest wishes from heart? It's not the design but the efforts and OT that we put in that count! ;p So hope you don't mind although you can still see the yellowish stain. That's so called "The ring of love!!" HAHAHA!

Hope you like it!

A True Original Supporter

Suddenly thought of telling a story...

This story is purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual individuals or events is coincidental.
本故事纯属虚构，如有雷同，纯属巧合。

Once upon a time.. in one corner of the earth, it lived a guy named Myso. Myso is a guy who claimed himself as an original products supporter. From time to time he urged people around him to buy original products. However, they not really agree with him as most of them can't afford to buy original with poor income. So, they complaint to Myso, "We can't afford to owned original software! You see, we used MS Office, Photoshop, Flash and so on but the licenses cost few thousands! Where to find money for that?"

With very steady voice and tone, Myso shared with them how he can afford original software. He shouted, "One day collect one dollar la! Don't tell me you can't do that? I am doing it, so can you!"

"Oh ya, what a brilliant idea! Why we never thought of that! No wonder he is the top person here!", thought in the mind of people who were listening to Myso's great philosophy. Most people were very impressed and nearly cried with his desire of supporting original including 2 pretty girls who by coincident happened to pass by the place and shared this great moment. Nobody knew if the girls' heart were moved by Myso's great idea or not, but it's hard to deny such a great person in the world I guess!

Anyway, forget about the pretty girls.. they were just passing by...

The great feeling only last for few seconds, maybe less than 10. Then when everybody was cooling down, their brain became more functional and started to think:

"Is it possible? One day one dollar? Yes! sounds very logic, but how long I should collect the money before I can afford one original software? Let say Photoshop which cost more than a thousand in local currency. One dollar x 365 days = 365 dollars a year and I need to collect at least 3 years to get one. When I get one, then I need another 3 years for the next software and this continued.. at the time I got my 4th software, it's more than 10 years time! At that time, the money value may depreciate, a software that costs a thousand 10 years back may cost 2 thousands now!"

People started to doubt about Myso's philosophy. They wondered since he's a true original software supporter (as he claimed), what is he using inside his computer now since he is as well collecting money to buy original software? As far as they understood Myso, he is someone who can never live without computer.

Thus, Mr L broke the silence and voiced out. He asked Myso, "Did you install Photoshop in your pc?" Myso replied "Of course!". "Then is it original?", asked Mr L with full curiosity. "I am thinking of change it to original also!", this is how Myso replied Mr L.

All people were stunned when listened to Myso's answer! With doubtful look, another guy Mr T quickly asked him, "Then is your Windows original?". Myso answered "I did bought an original XP before. It came with my notebook". Mr T was thinking "WTF??" and further asked him "But how about your current pc? No need to use original?". Myso scolded him "You crazy ar?!! Buy one windows already enough la! What for I buy the second one?".

Gosh, all the people there nearly fainted! Now they realized what Myso's philosophy on supporting original is all about! It is support BY MOUTH and not BY ACTION!

The people later discovered that Myso is an anime fanatic where he used to download all kinds of anime from the web using P2P technology. Don't blame him, he is just practicing his own philosophy - support original BY MOUTH!


Moral of the story: Don't be a NATO (No Action Talk Only)!

Important Note: The story is not intended to support pirated, in fact supporting original products should become a habit in our daily life. However, please support with your true action. If you are not prepare for this, then better keep your mouth shut because by this way, at least you still win some respect.

Making First Payment With Registered Letter

The first payment of my study loan will be due on 31st December 2008 which is just half a month to go. As I mentioned in my previous post, I bought the demand draft from bank last Friday for this purpose.

Today, I went to post office to post the bank draft to the authority concern which is Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Awam (SPA) Negeri Sarawak. I prepared the envelope together with the draft last night.

[Envelope for the bank draft]

[Demand draft slipped into the envelope]

This afternoon when I went to the newly-still-in-progress-renovated Sibu post office, I can't believe the crowd was so tremendous. Well, I know usually post office will be crowded but this seldom happen to stamp selling counter. This afternoon, even the stamp counter was crowded. I thought maybe the counter is still very new, so people choose to use new facility?

After some observation, I discovered that it was not what I thought. The long queue was because stamp fanatics were busy buying first day cover! I waited for about 20 minutes before my turn to be served.

[Long queue at stamp selling counter]

I told the staff on duty, "Register". With her professionalism, she immediately understood what I was trying to say. Ya, I would like to post my bank draft using registered letter because I felt more secure with it.

She quickly took out a register letter's sticker together with a 20 cents stamp to me. "Satu sembilan", she said. So the registered letter costs me RM1.90 with RM1.70 is the register service charge and RM0.20 for postal stamp.

[Minor part of the registered letter's sticker with reference number on it]

She then helped me to tear down part of the sticker and sticked it onto my envelope and put a date stamping onto the receipt which is actually the rear part of the sticker paper.

[Major part of the sticker with barcode on it]

[The registered letter's receipt]

After I stuck the 20 cents stamp on the right top corner of the envelope, I handed it back to the staff in charge. My part was done! I had made my first payment. Now the next thing I should do is pray hard and hope SPA Sarawak will receive my bank draft then issue me an official receipt on my payment!

[The registered letter and it is prepared to be posted!]

Steps of buying registered letter service at post office:

1. Queue at the stamp selling counter and wait for your turn.

2. Once your turn, hand the letter to the staff-in-charge and tell him/her "register" or "surat berdaftar".

3. The staff will scale your letter, then tell you how much you should pay for the service. Just pay the amount.

4. The staff will give you a sticker and a stamp. There are 2 parts of the sticker. Tear the major part with a lot of barcode on it. Then, stick it on your envelope where you wrote the receiver's address. Just stick at any empty space. Put the stamp onto the top right corner too.

5. Hand back the envelope to same staff and take the date-stamped receipt.

The 7th Fuel Price Deduction

This is the 7th fuel price deduction from our "caring" government over the past 4 months. This deduction will further decrease each category of fuel pump price at petrol station by 10 cents respectively.

Fuel Category	Old Price(RM)	New Price(RM)	Drop(RM)
RON97 Petrol	1.90	1.80	0.10
RON92 Petrol	1.80	1.70	0.10
Diesel	1.80	1.70	0.10

[Fuel price effective on 16th December 2008]

Xmas Cum CNY Theme

Don't get shocked when you discovered my blog site now is red in color instead of the default green. There is nothing wrong with your monitor as well as your computer system. So, don't slap hard on your monitor in order to get back the green color.

Actually, I changed the color scheme in my blog site as a way to celebrate 2 very significant celebrations in our life - Christmas which is just about 2 weeks to go and also Chinese New Year which falls on 26th January 2009, just about one month plus to go.

So from today on till the end of Chinese New Year, you will be seeing my blog in red color. I had spent almost half a day working on this. It's certainly not easy and time consuming.

You are welcome to give your personal opinion and feedback on the new color scheme. I hope the new color scheme can bring more feeling of celebration and happiness on these important days in our life.