alright, best of's! (or at least recommendations)

I get requests for food recommendations quite often, as people usually regard me as some form of a foodie. However, I can honestly tell you, I'm not much of one, I don't travel far and wide to look for the best food or anything. The real definition of a foodie is embodied by my neighbor KY who's done a whole series of food reviews on his blog (and he even gets invited to food tasting at various places, how cool is that?)

But anyway I digress. For the benefit of those who would still ask me for recommendations of where to eat and all that, I give you... my favorites. They may not be the best, but usually a combination of good quality and decent price.

Bear in mind, these are all from the Klang Valley area of KL, Malaysia, so, sorry Vancouverites and folk from other areas of the world. I apologize for not being able to include your area in this list :p

Another caveat - I don't eat very expensively, so there isn't anything here that would really knock you back much more than RM100 per person. The only meal which I've had that really cost over that was the Prego Sunday Bubbly Brunch at Westin Hotel KL and that was only because we got vouchers for it.

Best of (and some honorable mentions)

Hamburgers : Carl's Jr. (those without any location mean any outlets) (P/S:- I'm dying to try out the reverse pork burger at Ribs @ Oasis. Will do so some day. Will post results here!)

Chicken sandwich : Wendy's spicy chicken and grilled chicken sandwiches

Pizza : Pizza Uno (Centerpoint)

Italian : California Pizza Kitchen (KLCC)

Fried Chicken : Bubba Gump Shrimp Co (the Curve) - if Popeye's (TTDI) is anywhere near as good as it is in the US, it deserves a mention here as well

Steak : Castell Steakhouse (PJ)

Pork Chop : Ribs @ Oasis (BU4)

Budget Japanese : Sushi Tei (Tropicana City Mall)

Premium Japanese : Kampachi (Equatorial Hotel KL)

Korean : Ka Wha Korean Barbecue (Bangsar)

HK food : Causeway Bay (Low Yat Plaza)

Seafood (local) : King Crab (Tmn Megah)

Seafood (Western) : Lobsterman (SS2), Bubba Gump Shrimp Co (the Curve)

Sandwiches : Subway!

Ice Cream : New Zealand's Natural

Satay : Hj. Samuri (Damansara Uptown)

Nasi Lemak : a good one is Sea Park mamak (beside the Maybank)

Pan Mee : Bao Bao pan mee (Aman Suria)

Chicken Rice : Kam Heong (SS14 Subang or Kota Damansara), Ipoh Chicken Rice (Midvalley)

Porridge : Pork Porridge (just outside the OUG market)

Dim Sum : Hong Kee (Damansara Jaya)

Alright, that's all I can think of now. Any suggestions, comments or snide remarks, (or violent protests) leave 'em in the comments section.

the weekend is here

Finally managed to drag myself past the Friday work day and into the weekend. Waking up early every day is murder on someone who's very much a night person and all. And this week I have to wake up even earlier with my wife away for the week.

Teacher's Day has come and gone. I think the extent of Teacher's Day stuff that I got was one lollipop from one of the older students. I dunno, is it not a big thing here? I always thought it was. Not that it's really important, though. Honestly, sometimes the smiles and appreciation from some of the good students almost makes up for the fact that I'm not a morning person, and I'm not a kid person (I don't like dealing with little kids). Although the naughty ones are pretty nasty and make everything frustrating.

Which makes me wonder, why are some kids really naughty that way? You can order them to behave, but they do stupid things anyway.

A sample conversation from a typical day of mine

Me: Don't touch the instruments
(five minutes later, a student is banging on one of the keyboards)
Me: Don't touch that! Didn't I tell you not to touch any of the instruments?!
Student: Uhh, yeah
Me: Isn't the keyboard an instrument?
Student: Uhh, yeah
Me: Didn't I tell you not to touch it?
Student: Uhh, yeah
Me: SO, why did you touch it?
Student: Uhhh.....
Me: Why did you touch it?
Student: I don't know
(usually ends with me doing a facepalm on myself)

Uhhhh I'm sorry but I have no idea what goes on in the minds of these people. It's like instructions just go in one ear and go out the other.

But anyway, I digress. Just went to a good barbecue with friends, to celebrate Jasmine's birthday. Happy birthday, Jasmine! Good way to wind up the work week, and tomorrow I DON'T plan on waking up early. At all. No way. Nada.

a twisted ending

a very touching video, featuring a deaf and mute girl who is determined to play the violin... and she does (although not the actress in the video, the violin playing is so fake)

and a very strange twist at the end. you'll have to watch it to believe it. it's a Pantene ad! what Pantene shampoo has to do with violin playing, I don't know.

an original... "piano" duet

a rather unusual piano duet by two women who dance their way through Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor :)


Girls Rock A Giant Piano

pachelbel, pachelbel!

someone gets sick of pachelbel's one hit wonder. and I mean really sick

mashing up

an cool piano & cello arrangement of Love Story and Viva la Vida.

it's quite well done, and neatly arranged.

typical inefficiency

a couple of weekends ago, our house got hit by lightning.

it was pretty nasty. the storm came quite suddenly. I had gone to the kitchen to get a drink of water when I heard the lightning strike and saw a flash of light from the study.

the end damage meant that my modem, router, and desktop were all out.

the desktop went to the shop for repairs. ends up that the motherboard is out. the shop was willing to lend me a few parts to use temporarily while it's on warranty repair but they didn't have a spare motherboard at the time, so I have to do without a desktop for the time being. fine, no problems.

then came the matter of the modem. I got a new Linksys modem/router, which was supposed to be pretty good. had problems setting it up cause my notebook is dying (optical drive acting crazy, audio drivers and speakers shot, and just found out my ethernet adaptor is gone, and I've already replaced the hard disk once)

tried to set up the router using a friend's notebook (the Dell XPS is a beautiful system :p) but failed to get an internet connection. noticed the DSL light wasn't lit, which means that it wasn't getting any internet signal from the line.

I tried everything I could figure out, still couldn't get the DSL light to come on or any kind of internet connection. finally we got TM to come over to check on the line.

I wasn't home at the time, Alice was there. They checked using their own cheap non-branded modem - and it worked... then they told her "your modem is not supported, why don't you get some cheapo modem" (or something along those lines). they then told her to get our modem checked at the shop.

so when I came back, I went over to the shop. they tested it - and it worked fine. came back home, and again, not working. tried it at a friend's place - not working

finally found the workaround in the lowyat.net forums, apparently somebody else had the same problem and posted the same questions on the forum (with the exact same modem, too!)

apparently, I had to change one of the settings to change the DSL mode to a lower one to accommodate TM's outdated technology. what a let-down.

but anyway, I have an internet connection again (albeit, with a dodgy notebook, but at least I'm online), no thanks to TM. First world infrastructure? I don't think so, and this is supposed to be one of the most modern and hi-tech cities in the country. what a laugh.