Eve’s and Wazir’s lil blog space

i’ve been gaining lots of weight since i joined the company i’ve been working at now…

didn’t weight myself but i know i that i did increase TWO dress sizes since i’ve joined

and at the end of last year, after my operation in November i decided to kick away my fats, and live healthier… didnt really feel good about being sick so often!!

so this year on our brand manager told us to set goals for ourself..

my personal goal was to loose 5kg this year! and i’m happy to announce this morning when i stepped on the weighing scale i have ACHIEVED my target WOHOOOOOOO…..

so now i’m going to push myself a little harder to loose another 5kg… wish me luck!!!

It is just over 2 weeks since the election and while things remain unrest in some states and in many of the so called community leaders’ heads, let’s enjoy some “political” songs posted in YouTube :

since last friday, where i purchased the MOST expensive material in my entire life…. i blew RM900 just on some laces and satin…

from then until now… i’ve been buying lots and lots of cloth!

i spotted this one at prettymommie’s and am thinking of turning it into a cheongsam…

what do you think? nice??

 

was surfing around ebay for some kebaya fabrics, and i came across this seller danini410 at prettymommieblog i just placed a booking for this kebaya fabric… not sure if i would be winning the bid, but hopefully i do…. cant wait for my beautiful kebaya to come…. wish me luck, its going to be my first kebaya!!!

here’s the picture taken from prettymommieblog on the cloth i just bid….

its beautiful……….

KB20. Material Cotton. Color Pink with Orange and Green Flower Embroideries.

Update 11am…

I WON THE BID!! YAY!!!!

We decided to burn up the extra “protein” we consumed in Coliseum Cafe last nite by taking a stroll up Bukit Gasing this morning. As it has been pouring in KL almost every day, the path was a bit more challenging due to the mud and slippery ground. In addition, we had a surprise encounter with a 7 feet Sumatran Spitting Cobra (naja sumatrana), one of the biggest we have seen todate. While we were fiddling with the camera phone, the snake made an escape and we only managed to snap the tail portion (see below).

Tail of our “friendly” Bkt Gasing snake (inset - the real deal)

To make things more interesting, Eve’s shoes gave way to a BIG SMILE

We borrowed from nature a crawler and used it to tie the sole and made it back to the car. The best shoes for this trail is a cheap one. We have seen a few Adidas, Nike, etc sole being left behind on the trail … at least now we know how they felt

Poor shoes … could not take the beating any more

Images from Bukit Gasing

After giving Coliseum Cafe in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman a miss for so long, we decided to have dinner with our friends and colleague there tonight. The place still has not changed, gloomy but at least the damp stench that usually lingers in the air was missing.

For those who are not familiar with Coliseum Cafe, it was the place to be for Western food in KL once upon a time.  Please do not expect warm welcome or great service here.  The waiters on average are above 50 years old and have probably been working there for their whole life.  Tonight, our orders were taken by Captain Moorty.

The cod and spinach were off the menu as they were still out catching the fish and planting the spinach according to our Captain.  We decided to order mushroom soup for starter, 4 in 1 chicken and sizzling rib eye steak with mushroom sauce for main course.  We also ordered a glass of pineapple juice which turned out to be a cordial and cost RM4.30++ a glass!!

Mushroom soup - it was not piping hot and taste like powdered soup that you get from Pizza Hut.  The bread was a slice of traditional hailam bread with butter.

4 in 1 chicken -  chicken, turkey ham, chicken sausage and ???? coated in batter and fried.  The crust was crispy but a little salty.  Overall, not too bad.

Sizzling Rib eye steak -  the hot plate was probably not hot enough.  We could hear it hissing when the tomato was placed on it but then quiet when the sauce was poured.  The steak was tough and the sauce was not as good as it used to be.

Mushroom soup - RM5.30++ & Bread - RM0.50++

4 in 1 chicken served with fries and mixed vege - RM20.90++

Hissing Rib Eye Steak with fries and vege - RM37.90++

Overall, the food standard at Coliseum has dropped.  It is a sad thing as they used to have some of the best sauce around.  We didn’t go for dessert which is also one of their specialty as we were just stuffed after all the meat.

Get used to this number.  In the recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) announcement in Singapore, CPI has risen by 6.6% between Jan 2007 and Jan 2008.  However, between Dec 2007 and Jan 2008, the increase was by 1.3%!  If prices continue to grow by 1.3% per month, the annual inflation rate in Singapore could be as high as 16.7%!!! 

With petrol price increase after the election, we can expect CPI increase in Malaysia too.  Although Bank Negara was quite confident that our economy is not directly impacted by the US economy and no change was made to our interest rate during their last meeting, will this situation last?  How long will it be before our interest rate is raised to curb inflation? Â

A colleague forwarded the following article which I found “interesting”.  This is coming from an external view and it sounded logical enough to make sense.  I am not going to take sides online as I believe everyone should make their own mind on who they want to vote for.  Hopefully this will help anyone who is still “atas pagar” (neutral) to make up your mind on who they think should represent us for the next 4 years

Malaysia Needs a Strong Opposition

By Michael Backman
The Age
February 27, 2008

SHOULD Malaysians bother to vote? The corollary of this question is: does the Malaysian Government deserve to be re-elected? The answer to the second question is no.

In the past few years, the Malaysian Government has presided over an extraordinary number of scandals that are appalling by any standards: the trade minister’s allocation of car import permits to friends, relatives and supporters; the billion-dollar fraud at the Port Klang Free Trade Zone; the outrageous and much-flaunted wealth of ruling party politician Zakaria Md Deros; the claims that a High Court judge allowed the lawyer representing a rich businessman to write for him his judgement in a defamation lawsuit; an immensely rich chief minister in Sarawak state who is allowed to rule as if it were his; and so on.

The Malaysian Government richly deserves to pay for all of this at the ballot box.

So the next question is: should the Malaysian Opposition be elected to office? Again, the answer is no.

The Opposition is a shambolic assortment of the disaffected rather than a competent, alternative government. In no way is it ready to govern.

All these questions are pertinent because Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has called elections for March 8.

Elections are fought tenaciously in Malaysia as if the South-East Asian country is a fully fledged democracy. But it isn’t. It is democratic in that elections are held, but they are not fair. The ruling coalition has been in power in one form or another since independence 50 years ago. One reason for this longevity is that there are legal and institutional biases that favour the Government.

Malaysian electorates are severely malapportioned. The smallest electorates are rural; the largest are metropolitan. The largest have about six times the number of registered voters as the smallest. This means that the votes of those in the smallest seats count for many times those in the larger seats.

This sort of bias meant, for example, that in the last general elections held in 2004, the ruling coalition won 198 or 91% of the parliamentary seats with just 64% of the votes cast. The Opposition won only 21 seats or 9.6% of the seats compared with 36% of the popular vote.

Had the Parliament reflected voters’ actual voting intentions, there would have been 79 rather than 21 Opposition members elected.

Outright fraud is another way in which Malaysians are cheated when they vote. Tens of thousands of dead people are believed to have voted in the 2004 elections. Exit polling is difficult, but it is assumed that these voters overwhelmingly favoured the Government. Credit must be given when it is due — the Government did eventually remove hundreds of thousands of deceased voters from the electoral roles. But the damage had been done.

Also at the last elections, thousands of Malaysians who turned up on polling day found that the electorates in which they were registered had been changed without their permission or knowledge. Thousands of voters were shifted into Opposition-held or marginal electorates. Absurdly, even family members living in the same house discovered that they had been registered in different electorates. Most Malaysians do vote for the ruling coalition, so the effect of this was to swamp the votes for the Opposition.

Multiple voting is another problem. Indelible ink is used to mark voters when they vote, but it is not compulsory.

Next month’s election is being held a year early. Why? One reason is because Anwar Ibrahim, who was deputy prime minister until he was charged and convicted of corruption and sodomy in the late 1990s, will only be eligible to stand for election after April 8 because of the convictions. The sodomy convictions were overturned because of uncertainty about the dates on which the alleged acts were supposed to have occurred, but the corruption verdict stood.

Anwar is unfit to hold public office, regardless of the Government’s manoeuvring against him. The sodomy issue is irrelevant. The serious charges against him are the corruption charges, which relate to Anwar asking the police to heavy two witnesses into withdrawing their statements against him. On this, Anwar was convicted with irrefutable evidence.

That the deputy prime minister of any country should do such a thing is unforgivable and yet Anwar has his backers, mostly in the Western media.

Most Malaysians found his criticisms of their Government shortly after he was removed from office to be transparently opportunistic, given that he had been a senior minister in the Government for 15 years. But while Anwar is more popular outside Malaysia than inside, he is still a rallying figure for the discontented.

So what should Malaysians do? Firstly, in a country where voting is not compulsory, they should vote. There’s no point complaining on internet blogs but not bothering to vote.

Given the Opposition’s unpreparedness to govern, the Malaysian Government is best returned. But it does deserve a good, hard kick. Even more, it needs a significant and strong Opposition to help it govern better. It needs greater accountability and scrutiny, which a strong Opposition in Parliament will help provide. That is what good governments everywhere have and need.

Of course, tiny Singapore is an exception but Singapore is a country in name only. The reality is that the Singapore Government is a glorified city council.

Malaysia, on the other hand, is a diverse and complex country that wants to be modern. It needs to be governed like one.

yesterday morning, i was in the kitchen cooking a light lunch… then i heard a loud bang… lots of nail scratching on the roof and the awning… then i spotted MONKEYS lots of them… making their escape!!

it happened so fast!! i didn’t even have enough time to scream… i left my half cooked lunch on the stove and ran upstairs… i saw the maid standing there breathless.. “monyet… tadi… monyet cuba masuk bilik Gordon, saya kejar… sudah lari…”

there used to be a big forest behind my house… lately there has been alot of trees being chopped down, for the new housing development going on, those monkeys must have been out searching for food… one whole big family of them!! more than 10 all swinging on a nearby tree 10 houses away…

got some really blurry pictures of them, cos im scared to go near… what if they attacked me? eee… scary…

went out and meet my girlfriends, at bangsar village for a catch up session… and gosh Delicious customer service is really Horrible!! i dont remember them to be that BAD!! will blog about that shortly… need to upload the pictures…