December 30, 2005

Happy New Year 2006!

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year 2006!
May lots of happiness, love, good health and success be upon you.

Happy New Year from G&G

This is an old animation I drew for my other website in year 2001 - too lazy to draw a new one for this blog, so I just updated the texts. For the curious, it is drawn using a pen tablet, with Adobe PS. Animation is done with Extensis Photo Animator.

December 29, 2005

Humility, a dying trait

Just because one doesn't talk (or rather, brag) about ...

  • the thousands of dollars you give away to charities annually; others assume you do not give any at all

  • work experiences with some of the top guns in MNCs; others assume you have never worked in the corporate world

  • paper qualifications; others assume you have none and just got lucky

  • achievements and aspirations; others assume you are a loser

  • choosing to delay important actions before executing them at a more suitable time; others assume you were incapable all those while

  • current earnings; others assume you are on the dole or welfare
It's interesting what society perceives by the surface.
So why keep quiet and not spell it all out to the world?

Humility is a dying trait - some people prefer to keep it alive.

Ooops, I'm hungry, time to eat the left over nasi lemak I made last night.

December 27, 2005

New header

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas.

Changed the header to welcome the new year. The fireworks photos were actually taken in 2003, at an open air Beetles (not the original band of course) concert in Darling Harbour.

I remember going to my first New Year's eve there, it was super crowded and impossible to find an open space to snap photos of the fireworks unless you camp there to book a good spot early in the morning! Once was enough for me. Never been back since. It was a nice experience though.

December 21, 2005

This n That

There won't be anymore work done to the house until the second week of February. This is due to the standard annual construction industry workers union shutdown from Dec 22 until end January. I really can't wait to move in by March 2006 so that we can concentrate on servicing the mortgage only and not pay rent at the same time like how we do now, which is a killer. Meanwhile, money continues to flow out like water. Heard that the double storey house next to our new home has just been sold. The asking price was AU$498,950k.

Watched Harry Potter a week ago. I'm not a fan but it was entertaining nevertheless. As I looked back into my movie tickets scrapbook, I realized that we went to the cinemas for 9-10 movies a year. But I bet that pattern will change with the arrival of G&G junior. A few people have asked if we have watched The Chronicles of Narnia & Chicken Little - well not yet ... simply because they won't be released until Dec 26 and Jan 1 respectively. Don't forget yeah, Australia usually release movies only after the rest of the world has watched them!

Speaking of G&G junior, we went for a routine check-up yesterday. All was good, baby growing well and am scheduled for another ultrasound in 3 weeks by which time we would be able to know its gender. I'm 4 months preggo todate (huh?? where has time gone??) but already, I walk like a duck sometimes.

I also happened to watch a documentary on TV lately - showing a full frontal vaginal birth (I bet this would never be aired on Malaysian TV). It wasn't gross but it certainly looked awfully painful, yikes!!!


That's all the blabbering for now. Merry Christmas!

December 19, 2005

House progress

Met another neighbour from a nearby estate yesterday. A 60+ year old guy of Dutch origin. He came up to us to say hi and wanted to know what we thought of the builder we are using, as he too is considering the same builder for a new house he will be building at a different estate. We'll be seeing him and his wife next March as he has already invited himself to our new home, haha.

After that, we went to one of our favourite mall near Macquarie Uni, for some last minute Christmas gift shopping. It was crowded alright. Can't wait to be able to put up a Christmas tree at our own home in Dec 2006 :)

Some photos...
Roof tiling has been completed almost two weeks ago.
View from the main entrance door.


Looking into our lounge area from the main door entrance


Our love nest - the master bedroom


View of the meal and rumpus area

December 15, 2005

News

Could it get any worse? NZ posters call for 'white power'

Get the latest scoop at Sydney Morning Herald

December 13, 2005

Racial tension :(

The recent and ongoing racial riots & violence in Cronulla, South Sydney is sickening. It's not the first racial tension that's happened in Sydney for the past few years. Earlier, there was the riot with the Aborigines and not so long ago, Vietnamese were rallying for a local politician to step down for making racist remarks. Never in my life have I seen so much racial tension and violence, first hand.

December 10, 2005

Cousin sis

I got a surprise phone call from my cousin sis this afternoon. We were and still are very close, like sisters. I miss her soooo much!!

December 08, 2005

Chicken

Skinning chicken is gross, well at least for me it is. I often use chicken drumsticks (I don't eat pork or beef) as a soup base and would skin them to reduce the amount of fats in the soup. Sometimes I use chicken back bones too and I skin them also. Aiyeeeeeee very gross but I have no choice. I admire the generations of our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers who must have gathered so much courage to slaughter live chickens by the neck ... I still remember how my mom did it, blood splattering everywhere, yucks! I am sure if they had a choice like how we do now, they would not have done it. The things that mothers would do to cook yummy meals for their children. Aren't we all lucky these days? By the way, I only know how to make three different kinds of soup, ie lotus root + peanut, ABC and watercress soup - how embarassing.

Anyway, I usually buy chicken meat from this particular Red Lea Chickens outlet at Westfield Hornsby shopping mall, located just about 5 minutes walk from our apartment. One could get almost anything from this mall.

December 05, 2005

House progress III

The weather has finally been good, bright and sunny but a tad too hot, I got sunburn standing in the open space observing the progress of our house! Summer has just begun on Dec 1st.

Brickworks for the garage completed. Front view of the double garage. Braces have been attached to the roof in preparation for roof tiling which we hope will take place this week.


Close up view of the double bay window looking into the kitchen and rumpus areas


Yesterday, we bought 110m² of 500mm x 500mm (approx. 20" x 20") polished porcelain floor tiles for our rumpus, family, kitchen and lounge areas.


We're not going to have the decorative feature piece like in this photo below as that piece alone costs AU$499 on sale (normal price AU$799)


We are going to have laminated timber floorings for all bedrooms as tile floorings would feel like ice during winter. No pictures of the laminated timber floorings as we have yet to buy them but we've already seen and decided where to get it from.

December 02, 2005

JVC Everio G series

This is what we've been waiting for ... a 30 GB hard disk camcorder! JVC Everio G series looks tempting but we've blown our budget this year. It'll have to wait till some time next year *wishing hard* It'll come in handy when we make home movies on DVDs to send to family and friends especially with the coming new addition to the family.

CREDITS

Sadish Bala for this amazing Template to work with

Statcounter

Blogger Templates by Blog Forum