Reading list, past and present

I just wanted to write about a couple of books I read recently, both of which I got from the library here. One is Sullivan's Justice by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg. The protagonist's brother is accused of murdering his girlfriend, and somehow the case ties up with something the protagonist (she's a probationary officer) is working on. It was an okay read, and the ends were tied up pretty neatly, but somehow I didn't find it that enjoyable. Just...okay.

Now the second book was better... a lot darker, though. It's The Traveller by John Katzenbach. It's about a serial killer who kills for fun. He gets a writer to travel with him so that she can chronicle his journey. (talk about immortalizing yourself...) The story is well told, from the points of view of four main characters: the killer, the writer, a policewoman going after the killer, and the killer's brother. A psychological thriller, the back cover (or was it the front cover?) says. And yes, you get to go inside the killer's head, and listen to his philosophy...

Neither of these books use the first person narrative. Not even the omniscient kind, which was a glad change for me. ;P

I'm now in the middle of Judith Kelman's Every Step You Take, which is about identity theft. Now this one is using the omniscient first person...argh! Hopefully the story will make up for it...

Edit: Oh, I've finished the book. Although the story is interesting, it is highly unbelievable... could you imagine that someone would risk her life to find out who is stealing her identity, without even making a police report first? And there are unexplained bits as well, though we could argue that some facts are just not meant to be known. Sorry, Ms. Kelman, this one doesn't get my vote.

Of stereotypes and leg room

I came across this blog post which looks for stereotypes for the different states in America. (which I actually found through this page)

Not being American, I was more interested in what people thought of the country as a whole. So I typed:

Why are Americans so...

And came up with:
fat
stupid
arrogant
rude

And why not search the same thing on Malaysians?

Why are Malaysians so...


It seems that we are:
stupid
ugly
rude
racist

Well? What do you think? Any truth in that?

I'm not hardworking enough to go and do the same on a world map, though (no way!!) :P


And on an unrelated note, this guy got into the back seat of my car and exclaimed, "It's so roomy!"

Um...that's because I'm short and you're sitting behind me... lol

Pikachu and a mighty bear god

Pikachu has been a little out of fashion lately. (at least in Malaysia...I'm not so sure about Japan) When it started out being popular, we could see Pikachu soft toys everywhere...but nowadays it's hard to even find one.

So I was surprised to see a bunch of Pikachu (yeah, the plural of Pokemon names don't take an 's'; that's what I learned from watching the US version of the series :P ) hanging out in a store in Queensbay Mall.

There's at least another one behind these four

There was another, bigger one (but not as furry).

There was a bigger version of this one on a higher shelf, but I didn't take a photo of it.

And at the entrance of the store, welcoming the guests...

The bear god and his subjects

With the lights shining above its head, it really looks like some sort of mighty god...and those little bears below it (they are on a bouquet) are his subjects! :P

This huge bear has been there for as long as I can remember...I'm not even sure whether it's for sale. It's sitting on a swing, in case you didn't notice...

I appreciate you. Really.

The other day C asked me to program a few test units for him (I'm doing software, remember?). But a wire had come off on the programming jig, so I had to go and get it fixed. When I was halfway back to my desk with the repaired jig, C and P came and asked me to do something else first. C says, leave this for afterwards. We were just beside the lab then, so I handed the jig to him and said, put it in the lab for me. I expected him to scold me and say something like "go and put it there yourself", but instead he took it into the lab without a word! :O

Not that he wouldn't have taken it into the lab for me if he had scolded me...but I expected him to complain...at least a bit! Something like, "Cannot do it yourself ah?" "So near also lazy to walk ah?" Something like that... that's what he usually does, after all...

And that's not all... later when we came back, he went into the lab and picked up the jig. (I was going to do that myself...) Immediately after that, R called him over to look at something, and he said to me, "wait a while", and went over to see her stuff. I was pretty confused then...because I could very well take the jig myself (it's so small!) and do the programming while he was discussing whatever it was with R. After he had spoken to her for a while (and showed no sign of finishing soon), I took the jig out of his hands and went off to do my programming...

*scratches head* Are you okay?? :P

Anyway... another time when I asked him to do something for me (not for the first time), he said "you should appreciate me!" Yes, I do appreciate you...that's why I'm posting this on my blog! ;)

Noisy birds

When I got home from work today, there were some birds chirping away out on my balcony. They were making so much noise that I looked out to see where they were. When I saw them, I dashed off to get my camera. :P

After a while, they flew off...down to join another bird, it seems.

the parking lot, below my balcony

Continuing on my thoughts...

Remember when I wrote about censorship overdone? Some time after that I noticed another mangled song. It is Fun.'s We are Young. The lyrics start with
Give me a second I,
I need to get my story straight
My friends are in the bathroom getting higher than the Empire State

And what did our radio stations do? They blanked out "higher" (or was it just "high"?) I take the same line of argument as I did the last time...not letting people hear a word will not help in any way. Not looking at something does not mean it will no longer be there. It's like what they say about turkeys sticking their heads in the sand to escape their enemies. (which I have heard is a myth...the turkeys are actually foraging for food)

A second "thought" I want to continue on is the hokkien mee one!

There are actually four separate stalls selling hokkien mee in Relau. Three for breakfast, and one for dinner. (did I miss any? lol) The other day I wrote about the one selling it for dinner...and today's one is one of the breakfast ones. The stall is just on the roadside. I didn't like it much in the beginning...I felt that it was just "okay". But then I thought that maybe the reason I didn't like it much was that it wasn't spicy enough... so I asked for extra chilli...and oh yeah, it was good! :D

And very red. See it for yourself:

(Again, I destroyed the egg :P )

Anyway, this is with the extra chilli...without it the dish is practically not spicy at all, which is why WW loves it so much. :P

Baby...

Lately I've been seeing people compare old and new lyrics on Facebook. More precisely, the "new" lyrics are the lyrics from Justin Bieber's Baby. Yeah, that famous chorus that goes
Baby, baby, baby oh
Like baby, baby, baby no
Like baby, baby, baby oh
I thought you'd always be mine

They compare these lyrics with some beautiful words from older songs, which actually say something. 

While I agree that those other lyrics usually sound a lot better, I think we can't really blame Bieber, either... I mean, these days people don't listen any more, do they? That is why he needs to keep repeating himself.

Imagine Bieber hanging out with his girlfriend. (Is it still Selena Gomez? Well, if it isn't, let's imagine it when it was.)

Bieber: Baby...
Selena: Hmm...? (manicuring her fingernails)
B: Baby... (Did she hear me?)
S: Hmm...? (checking her fingernails)
B: Baby... (looks at Selena) oh... (so that's why she's distracted)

Oh, this post is for a joke, yeah? Though the reason lyrics get lousy can only be because good lyrics aren't that important for the market any more...

If you are looking for mission spiciness...

Today I want to present you a super-duper spicy, super-duper yummy hokkien mee in Relau. (yup, "spicy" comes before "yummy" here :P )

I usually buy it home for dinner. Here are the noodles, right out of the packet, with the soup poured on the side. (so as not to disturb the chilli paste)

Look at all that chilli! :D (Well, for me it is :D but for WW it would be :s )

And the soup, which is all clear and probably not spicy at all, becomes this after mixing:

(Okay, so I destroyed the egg :P )

Okay, it's a bit hard to see the soup amidst all those noodles. But let me tell you that it is very, VERY spicy! I go "ah ah ah" while eating it...but it is so yummy that it is worth it. :P I'm not even sure whether the reason I like it so much is because of the chilli or because of the soup...


But you know, even with such spicy noodles, once I heard a couple of Indians ordering it, and they asked for extra chilli. :O I will definitely NOT do that...spicy is good but let's not go too far. I'll just trust the seller to give me the optimum amount of chilli. :P

I even made a half-half picture to compare the colour before and after mixing the chilli in.

What do you think? Personally I think the difference is hard to see because of all the noodles...I guess you have to look at the edges of the bowl or something...

A friendly shoe

When I was in Kuantan, I saw this in a shoe shop.

Side view:

My father saw me looking at it and said, you should buy it! You can put one beside your bed in Penang, and one beside your bed here.

........

Actually, I thought he was going to say to put the second one in the living room... hahaha.

Flowers, fish, sunrise and food

If you still remember, I wrote about going to Cameron Highlands a while back. Here are the rest of the photos!

A nice house we saw near a strawberry farm, while walking back to the cars.

a temple

There were lots of huge fish in the ponds there! (the finger is for size comparison :P )

another pond

the temple

a break from moving around...and the guys took the opportunity to check their cameras (as an amateur I'm not sure what has to be checked :P )

Then we went to a huge strawberry-and-cactus (and other plants too) farm. I'll just post a few photos of the plants here...

The second morning, we attempted to catch the sunrise again, this time from our balcony.

the moon before the sun came out (thanks to clear skies...)

the 4 cameras on tripods

the sunrise (well, sorta)

a panoramic view

then the sun came out...

reflection on the...glass wall? (what do you call that? :P )

Later we went shopping for things to bring home.

showing off the strawberry jam they bought (at least I think it was strawberry jam...)

There were a lot of strawberry earmuffs being sold...but we didn't buy any. Wooi Kiang helped me and Nichole to take a photo, though :P

just ignore the little boy playing behind us :P

Then we went somewhere where Samson could buy a horned beetle

everyone taking photos of the beetle...what a star! :P

On the way back to Penang, we stopped in Ipoh for some bean sprout chicken.

lunchtime!

We also bought some kaya puffs in a famous biscuit shop...they say that there is always a really long queue to buy this! And yeah, it's really yummy...

there were five in a box but I didn't think of taking a photo earlier :P

And Nichole got a photo of the queue...this is considered short, they say...

Well, this post took some time coming up...but it's done now! Haha...I don't think anyone was holding their breath for this, though :P