Honeysuckle Weeks by The Submarines

First heard them when I saw "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" over the weekend. Not a great movie, but awesome music. The Submaries was one of the bands that caught my ear.

Frankly, this is probably the best replacement for The Shins (*while they are recording their new album*). Check out "Xavia" and "You, Me and Bourgeoisie".

You Know You Are Getting More and More Married to Your Job When...

People like Serene like to complain that I do too little compared to the rest of the guys, in term of work. I beg to differ. Some people have a nice comfortable job, doing challenging work that makes the feel empowered at the end of some days, and downright bored on some...

Some work day and night, 7 days a week and complain, but always summarize that they still ENJOY the work despite the workload, hours, torture and verbal/physical (*carrying copies and running between departments is physical*)/emotional abuse...

As for me, I always maintained an approach in which, when I am at work, I do the work given/expected of me and I make sure I finish it in the designated timeframe, regardless of what time I end up going home, and when I am home, I'm not thinking about work.

However, that is becoming harder and harder to do. Not the "finishing work on time", the "not thinking of work at home" part. As this becomes harder to do, I find that I am becoming increasingly married to the job (*I am not saying that I am completely married to the job yet, just getting there more and more with each passing week...*)

Why do I think that I am becoming more and more attached to my work? Because in the past 2 days, I have:-

1) Tossed and turned in bed over work I did the day before...
2) Tossed and turned in bed over work that I have to do when I get to the office..
3) and I accidentally peed on my shoe in the toilet while thinking about work tomorrow...

Arthur's birthday is always the first in the wave of birthdays that will be hitting us in the next coming months. Last year, we did it at TGI's at The Curve. Arthur got drunk (*and quite red*) and sang into a bottle of ketchup (*which was also...red...*).

This year, the crowd was much smaller, and Arthur didn't drink...

And instead of TGI, we went to Tram car, located at Dataran 3 Dua.


SOOO... Me, Jessica and Serene met up with Arthur for a small gathering and makan, while we make fun of Jessica and Serene's inability to leave the office at the office...

The nice thing about Tram Car was the it was quite a cozy. The lighting in the place gives it a very relaxed atmosphere, which is good for enjoying your meal, and hanging out with friends.


As me and Serene ordered the set, we started with a bowl of mushroom soup (*Serene has chicken*) and some dinner rolls. Soup was obviously Campbell's, but the roll was good.


The broccoli was an interesting one. The onion rings however, were a disappointment. Too much flour, onions were too small and at some angles, looked (*and tasted*) like sotong tepung.

On to the main dishes. Jess's baked fish. Looked good, tho from this angle, it dosen't look like fish. It looks like something covered in cheese.

Arthur's Chicken Maryland.

Serene and I got the same set. The main dish was lamb chops. And this was probably one of the most dissatisfying lamb chops I have ever had. Don't get me wrong. It is not bad. It just... unsatisfying. The 2 pieces of lamb were too small, tho it was prepared quite well. The stir fried vege's that were given in place of the usual salad was bland, and the fries were a bit soggy.

We even got a slice of apple pie, but it was not great. The ice cream it was served with was better.




Still, it was a good night. Not the best, but I guess hanging out with friends can take the sting out of a crappy dinner. However, it will be a long time before I go back to Tram Car again...

The Sore Thumb

have been playing wayy to much Street Fighter.

Source

It has gotten to a point where I have started to like a bit of skin on my left thumb from moving it across the D-pad, while pressing it hard, praying for a combo to come out.

But sadly, will still get trashed by an AI controlled Akuma diving, ducking and wiping the virtual floor with my virtual character...

The F1 Race...

Formula 1 is the pinnacle of racing. None of that A1 junk or even Nascar, which is just as entertaining as watching people running around in a circle. Nothing can ever beat the thrill of watching cars so low, they are like those toy cars that you put on tracks with the metal strip touching the track so that they can move, tho in this scenario, if the bottom of the car were to ever hit the road for a long period of time, the driver would lose a coccyx (*hmm i digressed*), hurtle down corners at breakneck speeds and then see them brake so hard the brake discs glow from the heat.

So unlike cars chasing other cars in a circle.

So, I managed to go to this years F1 race at Sepang,and since I got 2 free tickets, I dragged KH along for the race. For something that was arranged at the last minute, it actually worked out quite well. Meet him at Nilai, park his car, hop into mine and then race to Sepang to watch the race...at Sepang...

Let me say this. I was packed. And hot.

I talking walk 2 meters and you literally melt in your shirt. I attribute some of my weight loss just walking from the car to the North Tower.


The atmosphere was awesome. People cheering, and yelling, and at some point, every one has a DSLR camera. It soon became a battle of who has a bigger lense.

The bad thing about our seats is that we faced the back end of the starting grid. The good thing, we sat at the slowest part of the track, so we could most of the cars. Each time, we prayed for an incident.

Sadly there were none.




Would I go for the race again? Probably not. It was wet, sticky, hot and loud. Sure it was all part of the atmosphere, but after a while, when sweat starts pouring everywhere, you kinda start getting annoyed. Whats even sadder is that it started to rain hard. I would have much rather been at home, watching it on TV, dry.


At least this year, the season will be interesting eh?

Current Playlist:-
Cowboys - Counting Crows
Colorblind - Counting Crows
Los Angeles - Counting Crows
Sunny Day - Abandoned Pools
The Ice is Getting Thinner - Death Cab for Cutie

Now I find it perfectly acceptable for a person that goes to Aussie for the first time, especially someone that dosen't drink, smoke or goes clubbing, will want to come home. I did, and I don't blame people for not missing friends and family and late night mamaks and good ole' Malaysian food...

But that is not a reason for flying back after a month...


Anyways, since Js came back, we decided to have a gathering and go on a makan trip. The place of choice this time was Lala Chong, past Terminal 3 of the old Subang airport. This area has quite a few good places to makan. According to KY, the place down the road has a wider selection of seafood, and honestly, there was more advertising for the place down the road on the way to Lala Chong, but due to the number of reviews this place has, we decided to go here.


On to the pics...


Fried sotong was quite good. Not too much flour used on the sotong and it was not oily.

The obligatory vegetable. Not that great. Not bad, just nothing different...

We ordered 2 different types of lala... This one was good, but personally, I never liked this preparation, coz the ginger gets in the way of the lala taste. The "kam heong" preparation is much better...

Bamboo lala is something that I dont get try very often coz my parents dont really enjoy this dish, so we never order this. However, whenever I get to order this, will whack like got no tomorrow. This has to be one of the best that I have tasted in a long time.

The kam heong chicken was good. The meat was not overcooked, and there wasn't much skin. Just that it was weird initially to eat chicken kam heong style...


The best dish of the night. Hands down. Claw down also can. 1.5kgs of kam heong awesome-ness. (*I just realized that I used the work kam heong a bit too much*). The crabs were full of meat, and just waiting for just to crack open and get to it. WC and I did a number on this, and I am pretty sure we will head back just for the crab.

The sweet and sour crab was kinda of a dissapointment. I mean, it was not bad, just that there was so much sauce that it kinda overpowered the crab meat. The saving grace of this dish is that the sauce went awesomely with the buns that came with it. But then again, the buns went awesomely with the kam heong crabs too....


I guess it was safe to say that we all enjoyed the meal. Even female CY eventually gave up her "we must be civilzed people when eating" notions and dove in fingers first and was soon cracking shells and whacking crab meat...

The aftermath...


And the various satisfied people...






Despite paying around RM330 for the meal (*which for the food that we ordered, was so worth it*), it was a good night. We ate, drank chinese tea, cracked crabs, insulted each other, and just chilled.

We are already looking forward to the next time Js comes down...


...Possibly in a couple of weeks...

Hustlin

Probably THE theme song for everyone...



Go on you know you want to. Go order a No. 7. Then get a hustlinhustlinhustlehustlinhustlinhustle...