Progress with Aquarium No 4

Okay, I got excited today and went ahead with getting some more stuff for Aquarium 4. Changed my mind about the swamp idea. Perhaps that will be Aquarium 5.. next project. Okay, so today I bought black aquarium substrate to add the the whole "sleek" effect.

At breakfast today, I walked across the street to a chinese wholesale mart and found a bunch of "orange" coloured PVC aquarium plant decor. They were cheap and perfect! (RM1.60) per set. I bought 5.

The little stones I had from before. I had use them from in the garden. I just picked out the "whitest" ones.

It took me a while to rearrange the 3 pieces of bog wood before I could place the rest of the decor. The plants were easy. My only issue with them was that because they were factory made, they came in all the same height. I might have to do some DIY and cut and glue some of those.

The stones were afterthoughts as I realised something was missing. The white against the black was absolutely beautiful and "zen" like. They added little highlights to the substrate landscaping. You almost feel like wanting to walk around them.

I'm keeping silver dollar and barbs in this tank so I don't think they will be moving the ornaments around much.

Anyway, let's recap how much I spent on this tank:

1. Pump - RM20
2. Bogwood 3 pieces - RM18
3. Black Substrate (RM3 x 5pkts) - RM15
4. The plastic aqua plants - RM8
5. The stones - free

GRAND TOTAL - RM61

That's a bloody fine deal, to beautify and enhance a room, if you ask me! The trickling water sounds, coupled with the slow playful movement of the fishes are very calming.

Jusco Bukit Tinggi - Impressive

The Jusco chain of stores under the AEON group seems to be doing well lately. The latest series of independant retail hypermalls has seen a very modern treatment and contemporary styling.

The latest, the Jusco Hypermall in Bukit Tinggi, Klang (not to be mistaken with the Bukit Tinggi in Pahang) is a very impressive mall. One which matches the likes of 1 Utama when it first open its doors in 1995 (which was and still is run by Jusco).

I'm a frequent shopper at Jusco Metro Prima (near where I stay) which is quite impressive for an independant suburb mall. And I had visited Jusco Taman Equine in Seri Kembangan (near the National Stadium). The latter had a very Australian mall "feel" to the place with just 2 floors but lots of ground area).

The Bukit Tinggi Jusco is quite another conception altogether. 4 floors of shopping space with each floor stretching a 10 min walk from one end to another (if you are walking casually non-stop). It's modern and clean (of course it's new) but I think it'll be this way for a long time considering the great standards which Jusco stands by.

Malls like Jusco are great places to shop because you are promised the same experience you have come to know and trust whichever Jusco you end up in. The only difference is the total shopping environment and a good way to escape familiar faces ;-)

PS: I am by no way associated with Jusco... and these are my honest opinions based on my personal experience. ;-)

Another Aquarium to my Collection

Okay, those of you who know me well, know that I am obsessed and passionate about my fishes and their habitat... my collection of aquariums.

Well, today I just added another one to my collection of 3. That makes it 4 now. Wait, before you start to say "that's all?" Just remember I started to take care and consideration into my aquarium only about 2 months ago. Tank No 1 actually had came with us from our apartment and moved with us. That was after a period of 2 years, without any fishes. (I had 2 tanks with Flower Horn and 1 large Balinese bowl filled with Japanese Carp at the time, which I had to release due to us moving to our apartment at the time).

Well, now that we are in a bigger place, I am starting it again. Despite what some of you may think, it's not as hard to keep fishes. Here are a list of fishes I am keeping:

1. Aquarium No 1 - Goldfish, Carassius auratus (the shortailed version) - my friendliest bunch of fishes yet, I guess maybe it's because they moved with us from our apartment and they've known us for about a year and half now
2. Aquarium No 2 - Parrot fish - still scared of us. Runs and hide everytime I come near. Must tell Celeste NOT to knock on the tank! But, I've given up on landscaping the tank as these little smartass fishes wants to do it their way ALL the time!!! *sigh* (err.. edit: Did I just type "runs and hide"?... *tsk* *tsk*)
   
3. Aquarium No 3 (11 litre tank) - Neon & Emperor Tetras with a couple of Golden Dwarf suckers - my pride as it's the first tank that I really took care in decorating.
   
4. Aquarium No 4 (30 litre tank) - Silver Dollars - Tank is currently undergoing new tank treatment

I love small fishes and I'd hate to have to take care of large fishes as they are too much hassle. Well, my prime consideration is actually the aquarium itself rather than the type of fishes I keep inside.

Right now, I am concentrating on tank No 3 and 4 cause they're in my room. Well, I am quite done with Tank No 3. Maybe just some slight adjustments here and there. This tank was meant to be small and decorative with all 4 sides uncovered for a see-through effect as it sits on my home office table. The concept is a Miniature Chinese Garden. And it's looking a bit like that now.

I'm going with a different style for tank No 4. It's going to be more like a Miniature Swamp. Right now, the pictures you see is of me conditioning the new tank and the bog wood. But, eventually I am going to reduce the water by half, add more bog wood, plant some moss on the wood and cascade the water from the top likea little waterfall. I'd transfer my silver dollars and perhaps add a couple of Gouramis for the tropical effect, but not too many, max 6 fishes.

Okay, that's all I got to report for now... I'll post some pics of Tank No 1 and No 2 soon...

If you're a fish or aquarium fan, let me know yeah!!!

AQUARIUM NO 3


AQUARIUM NO 4

Unsightly Christmas Decor at MidValley

This year for some funny reason or another, perhaps for the lack of any reason whatsoever, Mid Valley has come up with the ugliest Christmas decor. Standing in front of the horrendous display, I felt like I was standing in the midst of Sungai Penchala's unkept land surrounded by trees, weeds, dry twigs and several other different types of undescribable plants that would normally have been categorised as binable undergrowth.

Anyways, to make matters worse, there were feable attempts to add some decency in signifying the Christmas season... several "icicles" hanging from the mobile display of "butterflies" that didn't belong there in the first place!!! Oh, and the best of it all, golden poinsettas growing between weeded islands dotted the place...

*sigh*

Trying to create a new idea perhaps? I can understand that, but what I can't understand is how any concept of Christmas and the festive New Year was thrown out the window to be replaced by this miserable display.

Well, sorry for being overly critical. Mid Valley has done wonderful jobs for their festive decors before, but it's just unfortunate that this year, being on the hunt for all sorts of Christmas display, I had to be presented with this.

Oh well, I didn't bother to shoot Celeste's picture in front of the display.

Christmas Prezzies...

Oooh.... this year's Christmas celebration was quite nice really! Though it didn't not happen quite as I had been expecting it to, like a big blast of celebration. It came and went stretched across a period of 2 weeks. Yeah, it was kind of like, getting my present from Winnie early and then getting other prezzies towards Christmas and not just on Christmas day itself.

Well, the quantity or quality of presents may seem like too little or too much for some of you, but honestly, I couldn't care less cause it's always the thought that counts. So save your, "Wow-you-are-so-lucky" and "Huh?-That's-all-ah?" statements for yourselves... It's just a great cheerful Christmas for me.

Winnie bought me my first presents. Two sets of High Society compilation. One was the Shanghai Jazz compilation and the other was Shanghai Diva 2. Oh my, was I in musical heaven or what!... ;-) I longed for these two since I had the encounter with the albums in Kenneth, my MD's car. I knew I had to have them. These HDCD (High Definition CDs) featured classics from the grand periods of Shanghai's night scenes. The sounds were impeccable.

The CDs costed RM89 per piece and came with individual satin fabric pouches. That's quite luxurious. Well, I've sinced had them dubbed onto copies to listen in the car (I fear anything that could happen to them ;-) )

Mpph... perhaps these would be the start of my classic Jazz collections... next in line, Arielle Dombasle and Frank Sinatra muahaha......

Well, Winnie, (did I say I really love her?!) did not end it there and went out to get me a bottle of men's fragrance... the Mont Blanc Starwalker. I love my colognes but I'm hopeless at finding the ones I really like, somehow Winnie just knows what would tickle my fancy... ;-)

My next prezzie came FREE and just in time to join me for Christmas, just 3 days before Christmas. It was my Canon Selphy photo printer! The prize which I won for the best Architecture photo competition on PhotoMalaysia. Read it here. Thanks to PhotoMalaysia members, admin and Stephen who helped with the prizes, I can now print our Christmas pictures instantly!

Okay, so we had our office "Secret Santa" Gift Exchange thingy... and my dear old friend & colleague Mat had my name... and he got me a nice wallet. It came in a nice little wooden box too! And may I point out something else it had... 16 card slots!!! and that's just the top insert slots...

How would I ever have so much cards to fill in those slots, is beyond my imagination. And even if I do, think about how much the back of my pants would be extending from my bottom should I try and squeeze that little "packet" of card holder in! Hehehe.... But, seriously, I liked the gift...

Then these was my brother, who was extremely thoughful this year, and came by bearing gifts. He made me rekindle one of my first love... reading! And he remembered one of my favourite author, Jeffrey Archer. It was the latest, first edition, hardcover of Jeffrey's A Prison Diary - From Hell to Heaven. I truly was excited to begin reading it... mmpph... which I would be doing right after this blog entry...

By the way, I didn't know that Jeffrey was held in a prison? Wow, for perjury some more... and having been a minister in the British government, that's rather unimaginable... mppph... But if it leads to a great story and best seller (of what this latest novel was based on), then it must have been worth it!

And finally, a present which I got myself... an Apple Ipod! I've always wanted one of these. Not that it's crucial to my survival, but it just feels good in my hand! Okay, okay, why you may ask did I get the 5th Generation Ipod rather than the latest or event the Ipod Touch... Well, honestly, I hadn't even considered to get this in the first place. But, then when I found out we had several units from our KLIA shopping Gadget Fair, and getting the Ipod at cost price proved too good to be true. I've since filled it up with music and videos and there's still more room to go in it's 30GB...

Well, this was the most number of presents I've ever gotten for Christmas. Well, may I say again, that this year's Christmas for us (and me especially) was extra special not because of the gifts but for the fact that everything just clicked together this year and many good things happened.

We really did feel Blessed! :-)

(Okay, it's gonna be another long blog entry if I started talking about Winnie and Celeste's gifts... ;-)...)

Xiaxue and Steven Lim : The Dream Date

Okay, I probably have been behind the times, but for those of you who have not seen this video (posted a year ago), you're WORSE! Hehehe...

Anyway, have you ever thought what your dream date may be like? Or perhaps you have had yours. Here's a wonderful moment of a dream date between my two favourite online celebrity...



More like a dream date FOR US lah!!! Muahaha... (If my chair had been lower to the ground, I'd be ROFL)

Nuff Nang Ads

Okay, this is a date log of when I officially added the Nuff Nag ads on my blog. Who knows when I will get 'Nuff' traffic or earn 'Nuff' money for placing it here. But, if anyone's ever interested, it started right from this moment! :-)

My Little Piece of Speech Heaven

Well, despite the fact that I "have" been blogging for 2 years, it never really caught on for me. (Just like cigarettes, no matter how many time I tried)

Mmpphh... drawing inspiration from the likes of Xiaxue and Steven Lim (one day I hope to be the World's Second Most Handsome Guy), it dawned on me how much fun I could have. Never mind ethics or proper English, this is my own little world!

So, I decide how I want to write it!!!

So, anyone who has a problem with what I have here, speak up but I'd always have the pleasure of the "Delete" button to see your comments go down the digital drain. But, hey I'm sure in this space of free speech, a little insult shouldn't make a dent in that armour which you supposedly should be wearing while browsing around in this jungle!

Anyways, it's a revelation as I finally found my little piece of heaven to vent stuffs... muahahahah!!!

Kenny Talks About : Instilling the Importance of Value in the Young

It was a Public Holiday today, Hari Raya Haji, so I started out the day having a nice breakfast with a friend of mine, Goh Wee Ping (who happens to also be the host of the Deal or No Deal Chinese Game Show on NTV7). We had a nice chat and long conversations about many topics. One of which really stayed in my thoughts for the rest of the day was about instilling the importance of value in our young ones.

So, over some dried Sarawak noodles and laksa, we began talking about his childhood. His father had taught him and his sibling about the value of money since they were very young. At a very young age, they were each given a bank account in which they would be deligently putting their saved allowances. As this money accumulated, the choices was there on how they would use it. As children, they wanted toys, games and stuffs which tickled their fancy, but when it came to asking for those things, their father would tell them:

"I will always give you the things that you need (and sometimes treats), but for the things that you want, you will have to think about how much you have in your savings. The choices of what you want to buy is all up to you."

That made the children think carefully about what they really wanted. He had put the responsibilities on their shoulders to think about what was really important, to spend or not to spend and whether it's worth sacrificing another item.

It cultivated several important things:

• It is important to save
• Think carefully about what you want and what you need (there is a difference)
• Money is not an easy thing to come by
• To depend on yourself

Those would definately be the things I would want my children to learn and grow up to take pride and ownership of. It does give one a whole new perspective of what our parents wanted us to learn, while we were calling them stingy, selfish and being scrooges.

Well, till my next posting, Have a Nice Day! Have a Nice End of the Year too!

Simply Inspiring - Paul Potts

Paul was the winner of "Britain's Got Talents". He beat Connie Talbot (the video before this, but's I'd say they were both equally good.

This was his audition video which gave me goose bumps. Note the scepticism... :-)



This was the video of the finals:

Britain's Little Sweetheart - Connie Talbot

Ooh... this little girl sang so beautifully, she touched my heart. Yup, even grown men will break down with a sniff or two. ;-)



This was her finals...

Widgets Galore

Mpph... I just got to really know about widgets today. It's really interesting as you get to customise what you like all around your own site or blog without having to create the contents from scratch. Slide, Last.FM, DIGG and Sonific are some of the ones I've added recently to my blog here on Blogger.

Have fun... here's how I'm in a Sentimental mood!

Christmas @ 1 Utama

Christmas at 1 Utama is always something we look forward to every year since the opening of the complex. Maybe it's the size of the Oval area which makes every year's display seems big and larger than life. And this year's display was certainly larger than life.

Taking the "tunes" from the little drummer boy, this delightful Christmas display featured a colonial display of brick-walled, spired stage display along with a giant drummer boy, something which 1 Utama has always been famous for, (ie giant mickey house, giant castles... etc) and several other smaller ones on musical keys.

It was quite a sight.

We brought Celeste to have her Christmas photos taken here too!

Christmas @ Sunway Pyramid

We made our first trip to the new Sunway Pyramid last Sunday. I must say it's good to finally see the old-faithful lion grow in size. The additional shopping wing was a refreshing sight. Mpph... somehow all the new wings of the shopping complexes seems brighter and are more generous in space.

The 2 concourse area of the complex are not very big, but good enough for festive setup such as the Christmas showcase they had. A children-sized trainset and several Christmas huts lined the main concourse.

A lot of the shops have yet to be opened but the place does look promising along with the strong retail brands of the old wing still readily available.

Christmas @ The Pavilion

Ah, once again it's the end of the year and Christmas decor are up everywhere in KL. I'm a sucker for the festivities of this season. I guess because it heralds the beginning of a series of holiday periods leading up to Chinese New Year.

Anyway, what makes it interesting is perhaps more of the glitter and glam of each venue trying to outdo each other with their Christmas decor.

The Pavilion this year did up an impressive white spiral centrepiece in its concourse area. White see through fabric presents a coloured lighting glow from the tall structure.

*note: the structure does seem awfully similar to the spiral structure we proposed for the opening of the Gardens @ MidValley... mmmpphh... curious...

The theme of their Christmas Celebration this year is "Celestial Christmas". Interesting... that's heavenly, just like our little Celeste. ;-)

Winning an Online Photo Contest

I've never been one to enter really any sort of competition, really. Lazy perhaps or sometimes I discourage myself even before I do anything about it!

But, this time around I entered my photo of the Brunei Mosque in PhotoMalaysia, my favourite photo forum and lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, I was announced winner by the number of votes from members.

That's pretty cool.

What's even more interesting is the fact that I won a Canon Printer, which was something that I was looking for only about a week ago. Fortunately, I hadn't bought it. Well, it'll be a nice little gift for myself to use this Christmas season.

Happy, happy, happy...... :-D

Judging Showtime with Celebs...

Was asked to be the official judge for the Mandarin Oriental Annual Staff Party. It was interesting because out of a panel of actors and actresses, I was the only non-TV personality... yes little 'ol me. But as I guess 9 years in the events industry does qualify me in some way to judge a performance, something which I am already doing at the office while filtering through suitable entertainment for my client... (yes, no, yes, horrible, dreadful...)

Yes, I was practicing my Simon Cowell impersonation (some weight loss would have been helpful with the looks... *sigh*)

Most importantly, I had the privilage to chat with Dato Aziz Satar, who worked next to P Ramlee in their hey days of local black and white comedy acting. Wonderful conversations... glad I practiced my Bahasa Malaysia.

There was the equally famous Ruminah Sidek... who was charming as ever and had that famous smile all the time... Emelda was a bit reserved but perhaps due to the fact that I was trying to create small talk which only, I myself found interesting! (shame...)

Radhie a regular face on local comedy, was always upbeat... Shahrizan was the Master of Ceremony for the evening...

It was fun... being a celeb and walk the red carpet for a change...

Oh... coincidently, the evening's affair was managed and organised by my wonderful team of event managers... Perfect show? Well, only they (and me, sitting from the judging table... ) know where the little glitches were... too seasoned not to notice! hehehe... (waving finger..)