Meet Coachie

Meet my badminton pal, Coachie (yeah i know he sounds like a favourite snack that usually involves spitting saliva covered shells). He hangs around (literally!) with me when I go for my badminton session. Though he looks like he would prefer to be fishing somewhere, he really loves to hang around in the badminton hall with me. The reason why there is a new post entirely dedicated to Coachie is because of this :

He now has a protruding right eye! *o*

I believe he was in some sort of disagreement with some of the other hangies (like groupies but they are mainly hang ons....after all he hangs on to my badminton bag all his life with the others) or maybe a bump with a racket or something. His beautiful big black eyes that can see my soul are now weird looking but he is still a dear to me. I dont know if the eye can be fixed but I have decided to love him just the way he is. Protruding eye and all. He is after all my Coachie. The one who silently (if there were any noise, I would be screaming already) supports me when I am playing and the one who just hangs around and let me be. Bad badminton and all. Hahahaha. Plus, his coolness factor rubs on me too. Though now with the protruding eye, maybe the coolness level have dropped a bit or maybe gone up a notch, depending on how people rate coolness. :D

Anyway, here is Coachie and his protruding eye saying....here's looking at you kid. :)

While the internet was down.....

I spent some time destressing by playing good old pinball and minesweeper. I finally solved the biggest puzzle size (yeah, yeah, other people have solved it million of times and in shorter time that I have but who cares, the internet was down and I need some feel good moment. haha) and lo and behold my latest best times.

My live without stable internet access........

sucks. The internet connection have been disconnecting so much that any attempt at any postings or even email checking are proven futile. At one point, I was offline for nearly two days. Reports to the provider company makes my head itch like crazy for their nonchalant ignorance of my predicament. They couldn't care less. Ha ha, in my face. Well at least that is how I perceive their fervent effort not to do anything constructive in solving my problem. And blogging became a challenge. Thoughts that are fresh and needed to be written immediately get lost in day to day mundane going ons.....

I try and try and try......

but I can't figure out how to put background music on my blog. But I think it might be a blessing in disguise because logic tells me that if I succeed, the page will be slower to pop up. Plus there is the issue of copyright and even though I am not planning on making any profit out of anything used here in this blog, I better respect the rules. So maybe I should just forget about it.

The Thomas Cup and Uber Cup

Our Uber Cuppers did well. We reached quarter finals. I was satisfied with their efforts. :) Maybe when we can find more talented new players, we can mount a serious challenge. China is so lucky in a sense that they have a huge pool of talent to pick from.

Thomas Cup was so near yet so far. Yes, I was disappointed but I think most of our players did their best and if Hafiz were able to move up a gear and not look like there's no more hope on court and be more aggresive, we might have reached the finals. Koo Kien Keat/ Tan Boon Heong looked like thay have lost the magic. They did try though and I applaud that. But maybe they can't play together anymore. Or shouldn't play together anymore if they can't get over their differences on court and play together and support each other. I did not put much hope on Wong Choon Hann but I was still hoping against hope that he could beat Bao Chun Lai and set the standard for the next doubles to emulate. Thankfully the next doubles did not need any as they won their game. But by that time I was weary of the fact that we have to bank on hafiz to clinch a place in the finals. Truthfully, I was already thinking that we could try again next time even before hafiz took to the court. And sadly that thought was proved right by a meek hafiz that did not show any fight and made so many mistakes. If it was the pressure, he was there before and should have been prepared. But alas, another bad showing was all he was capable of. I was sad that so much talent came to nought.

Well...next time maybe we'll take the trophy home. It will be on our owm homeground and I am already planning to be there. :)

While I Was Visiting The Old House

I took some pictures of stuff that was lying around the area of the house using my phone. Most of the things have been thrown out. Some pictures of the landscape around the house. The mangosteen tree and the rambutan tree that was the source of many happy evenings "mengait" and fruit fest.

We will begin with the mangosteen tree and the rambutan tree. :) I did not photoshop these two pictures because I like it that way. :D

This is the rambutan tree. There's some young fruit (do you call it young fruit? I don't know what it is called but it is the "buah muda" so I translate directly to young fruit. hahahah) and they are light green. It will take a while before they turn red. Yum. Maybe by the time the house is done, we can get together and have a picnic outside the house and "kait" some rambutan. :)

And this is the mangosteen tree. If you look closely you can see the young fruit. But since it is also green in colour, I doubt you can spot it unless you are related to Superman and inherited some of his super sight. Hahahaa.

This used to be what kampung kids have for keeping coins. A piggy bank. Though nothing piggy about it. Made from coconut shell. The creativity of kids that dont have money to spend or video games to play. :D This one was not mine but most probably the owner was one of my cousins. What made it interesting to me though was the fact that it looks like a face. A shocked face but cute nonetheless. He he.




This picture I took because of the "pokok menjalar" that was renting a space on the mango tree. Hanging around like it was chillin's out.

This picture was photoshopped. It was a picture of an orange flower lying on the ground. I don't know the name of the flower but the contrast it made lying in it's grey and green and brown surrounding caught my eyes.

As I have mentioned above, these pictures were taken using the camera on a handphone and thus some does not turn out nearly as nice as the picture of the mangosteen tree. So this picture was not so clear and sharp. I decided to photoshop it and after tinkering around with some options, I settled on this. I think the outcome is nice. :) Oh and it is in fact the same mangosteen tree.

I took a picture of a jasmine flower. But the whiteness of the flower and the limitation of my camera made the flower look like a white blob and the details were next to none. So...yes, you guessed it, photoshop galore. The black shadow in the middle was the flower.

There was a young mangosteen that has fallen in the sand pile in front of the house. I took a picture of it but it turns out so grainy and blurry. I photoshoped like jaime oliver. A bit of this and a bit of that, yes use your hands because you can feel the texture, tear here and there and pop it in the oven...and wallah! Ok, I know it is not that nice but I am cool with that. :)

Due to my interest in badminton, of course this old shuttle lying neglected on the ground captured my attention. But again, the quality of the picture was not that good. Photoshop came to my rescue because I so wanted this picture to be included. But the best I could come up with was the picture on the left which I think gave the shuttle the old, run down but of hidden value feel. Like long lost painting of a master. Yeah yeah, I kid myself. I do that all the time. Hahaha.

Last but not least, a picture of me in front of the house. My aunts and me was having tea and "goreng pisang". I wanted to stay mysterious so I photoshop the picture. Looks weird right? But I kinda like it. :D

And that was the end of my adventure with the camera phone and photoshop. :)

Last Saturday

I went to Batu Gajah. To the house where I lived for nearly five years after my parents divorced. The house of my paternal grandfather.

The original house

The house was real old and need repair. So we all chipped in to repair it. The work has started and it is looking ok so far. Soon the house will not look like the old one. The one where I grew up and play and study and plan mischievious schemes. Hahaha. The next picture is what the house in the process of repair looks like.

The house holds many memories. Good and bad. Happy and sad. Things changes. Going home to your "kampung" and see things that are not the same anymore seems to make it obvious that time is passing us by. All things are familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. Where the old tree that we climb used to be, there's a stump. But just looking at the stump brings back memories of climbing that tree. Memory is a powerful powerful thing. :)

When the house is finished, I will post a new picture.

We make plans, but.............

things don't always go according to our plans. Well I wanted to have odd posts per day and yet even this simple plan was unsuccessful. Hahaha. Oh, well...live and let live. :D

Stop and Stare

Yeah, I am talking about the song. I feel that way sometimes.

Stop And Stare - One Republic

This town is colder now, I think it's sick of us
It's time to make our move, I'm shakin off the rust
I've got my heart set on anywhere but here
I'm staring down myself, counting up the years
Steady hands, just take the wheel...
And every glance is killing me
Time to make one last appeal... for the life I lead

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're 'here' not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, can u see what I see

They're tryin to come back, all my senses push
Un-tie the weight bags, I never thought I could...
Steady feet, don't fail me now
Gonna run till you can't walk
But something pulls my focus out
And I'm standing down...

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're here not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, you don't need

What u need, what u need...

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be
Oh, do u see what I see...

Learning is a lifelong process.

Today, I learned how to add Youtube videos on my blog. Thanks to Jesse. And yesterday i finally figured out how to put a link to a word or phrase. Please refer to the flag below. However I have not figured out how to link a word to a certain post. Like when you want people to refer to previous posts that are connected to your current one. :D There are still other things I have yet to learn. Like how to make my blog have background music. Though I suspect that will slow the page down. How to make a watermark on my pictures that I post here. How to add animation. How to add games that I love here. Though I can always link them here. Hahahaha.

Lifelong process indeed. And this is just about blogging. There are so many other things I would love to learn more of. But that's another topic altogether. :P

This is after all the week of TC/UC

I was so suprised and pleasantly so that our UC team beat Japan yesterday. Maybe this team can pull off a miracle after all. Now what we need is for the TC team to do the ultimate and win it. That would be like sooooooooooooooo awesome!!!



I DEDICATE THIS SONG TO OUR TC/UC TEAM.



Don't Stop Me Now - Queen


Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time
I feel alive
And the world,
I'll turn it inside out yeah
I'm floating around in ecstasy
So don't stop me now
Don't stop me'cause
I'm having a good time
Having a good time
I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva
I'm gonna go go go there's no stopping me
I'm burning through the sky yea
Two hundred degrees that's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit
I'm travelling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic man out of you
Don't stop me now
I'm having such a good time
I'm having a ball
Don't stop me now
If you wanna have a good time
Just give me a call
Don't stop me now'cause I'm having a good time
Don't stop me now
Yes I'm having a good time
I don't wanna stop at all
I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars
On a collision course
I am a satellite
I'm out of control
I'm a sex machine ready to reload
Like an atom bomb about to oh oh oh oh oh explode!
I'm burning through the sky yeah
Two hundred degrees that's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit
I'm travelling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic woman of you
Don't stop me don't stop me, don't stop me hey hey hey!
Don't stop me don't stop me ooh ooh ooh
I like it
Don't stop me don't stop me
Have a good time good time
Don't stop me don't stop meohhhhhhh!
(guitar solo)
ohhhhhhh
I'm burning through the sky yeah
Two hundred degrees that's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit
I'm travelling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic man out of you
Don't stop me now I'm having such a good time
I'm having a ball
Don't stop me now
If you wanna have a good time(all right)
Just give me a call
Don't stop me now'cause I'm having a good time
Don't stop me now
Yes I'm having a good time
I don't wanna stop at all



this flag taken from, and thank you in advance








So guys, dont let anybody stop you, yeah!!!!!

Thomas Cup is here and...........

it is getting hotter and hotter. They were saying bad things about Korea's intentional match throwing. Which I think is pretty much the same as China match throwing between teammates. I guess they simply think of it as strategy. Win by any means. However, the fans will be shortchange. Sad really but that's the reality of badminton today. I think back in the 80s we would not realize there was any match fixing but nowadays teams are not shy at all to use it as strategy. :(

Six degrees of separation theory....

happens a lot more on the net. I found a schoolmate while I was in the badminton forum. Small world after all. She has taken some pictures of where I went to school from Form 1 to Form 3 (actually I was also there from the end of Standard 5 and Standard 6) before I moved to Balik Pulau to enter a boarding school there. :D It is good to remember the good old days.

Listening to this song............

on the radio lately and realize that I have been singing along a lot to it. I always rate a song as my favourite when I start to sing along when it plays. Like that Queen song, I Was Born To Love You. :)

Anyway, the song I am talking about is.....jeng jeng jeng.....(though I think a lot of people might have loved this song way way before me) Say It Again by Marie Digby.

The thing about love
Is i never saw it coming
It kinda crept up and took me by surprise
And now there`s a voice inside my heart that`s got me wondering
Is this true, i want to hear it one more time
Move in a little closer
Take it to a whisper
Just a little louder
Say it again for me
Cuz i love the way it feels when you are telling me that i`m
The only one who blows your mind
Say it again for me
It`s like the whole world stops to listen
When you tell me you`re in love
Say it again

Thing about you is you know just how to get me
You talk about us like there`s no end in sight
The thing about me is that i really want to let you
Open that door and walk into my life
Move in a little closer
Take it to a whisper
Just a little louder
Say it again for me
Cuz i love the way it feels when you are telling me that i`m
The only one who blows your mind
Say it again for me
It`s like the whole world stops to listen
When you tell me you`re in love

And it feels like it`s the first time
That anybody's ever brought the sun without the rain
And never in my whole life
Have I heard words as beautiful as when you say my name
Say it again for me
Cuz i love the way it feels when you are telling me that i`m
The only one who blows your mind
Say it again for me
It`s like the whole world stops to listen
When you tell me you`re in love
Say it again
When you tell me you`re in love

and of course, courtesy of youtube



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR8EyPH4cP0

enjoy....

Moving to a new place.....

brings along with it a new set of problems. Always. Be it a new house, a new office, a new place (boarding school and such), all will present new sets of pros and cons. Take for example my new office. Pros : parking is free and you can park very near to the building since there's a substantial space (yard some might say) around the new building, there's so much more space, it has a nostalgic feeling since the building is like an old wooden bungalow, it is quiet, there's good cheap food near the new office, it is nearer to my home and thus reduce petrol usage and some other plus points. Cons : the new network setup are so unstable and I get disconnected every few minutes and connected again every few minutes. Editing anything online means copying and pasting on word doc before submitting in case I get disconnected and have to write everything all over again and believe me I have done it quite a few times these last few weeks. The stairs are not looking so sturdy. The ascent and descent on the narrow steps leads to painful knees (and the main reason why I am currently looking for good sandal with good cushioning). When it is cold (like when it is raining outside) it can get real cold, and when it is hot, boy i tell ya, it can get real hot.

So yeah, pros and cons. And the irony is, when I am in the passionate mood to blog away, the line disconnected and my thoughts "terbantut" (retarded). Aiya.

Current pressing issue

If you are thinking around the line of global warming, political instability, nuclear war or environmental conservation...you are way way way off the mark. Not saying that I dont care about the above said issues but those are heavy issues for one mind to think about over and over again. I never said I was perfect. We do our best........humans that we are.

Anyway, on to the pressing issue of my selfish selfish world. I need a good sandal/work shoes that is comfortable, have good cushioning to support my weight and my frequent trips up and down the stairs. My knees hurt you know. I was thinking Crocs but are they really good? I would like to hear the opinion of others before making my decision.

Basically, I need a sandal that is dressy enough to wear to work and yet sporty enough to look ok at the badminton hall during my badminton sessions. Wouldn't want other people to stop and stare at my feet like I am crazy shoes lady. Haaaahaaaa. I need the shoes to have very good cushioning (the painfull knees remember?) and easy to care for. Crocs seems to fit the bill. But upong googling, there's also bad things said about them Crocs. So feedback from those who has em would be helpful. Or maybe a recommendation of other brands.

Anyway, these are some of the design of Crocs that cought my eye. Check it out. Which one looks good to ye?

courtesy of http://www.crocs.com/

http://shop.crocs.com/pc-110-4-cleo.aspx?reqid=110&reqProdTypeId=41p&subsectionname=footwear&section=products

http://shop.crocs.com/pc-22-4-nile.aspx?reqid=22&reqProdTypeId=41p&subsectionname=footwear&section=products

http://shop.crocs.com/pc-111-4-patra.aspx?reqid=111&reqProdTypeId=41p&subsectionname=footwear&section=products

http://shop.crocs.com/pc-32-4-scutes.aspx?reqid=32&reqProdTypeId=41p&subsectionname=footwear&section=products

http://shop.crocs.com/pc-1466-4-sporty-adara.aspx?reqid=1466&reqProdTypeId=41p&subsectionname=footwear&section=products

This is a tribute......

to the first ever person who penned her thoughts on my silly blog. Thank you very much Miss (or more apt, Mrs mum to be) Opsiedaisy (no real name because i have not gotten any permission to use real name here and frankly i like the mysterious aura of it). Thank you for showing me the first taste of blog and for finally nudging me into making one of my own. :D

and kampua too for also nudging me towards the realization of this blog.

The third post today to fulfil the odd posts rule..hahaha

As I scratch my head to think up a topic, suddenly badminton pops up in my mind. Thomas Cup/Uber Cup is around the corner. I hope the Malaysian contigent will do well. The very least, I am hoping for a semi final appearance though really anything short of a final would be disappointing.



Anyway, I want to share a picture of my badminton gear. :D

Trial and error rocks!!

Yeah, I decided to not read up on anything and just grope in the dark. Hahaha. Kinda appropriate since my blog space is black and all. So, I changed the template, and tinker around with the colours, and tinker around with the layout and stuff. I think I like the one I finally settled on.

So many things to learn, so lazy to read up about them

Yes, this is still about blogging. I have so much to learn about blogging. I know I need to read up on it. Why can't we absorb info like Nobita did in one Doraemon episode where he put a bread on a page and then eat it and he will remember all the info on that page. Hahaha...

Odd number of posts per day

I was on the verge of signing off when suddenly I realize that I have made 4 posts so far today. Just as suddenly, I decided that I want odd number of posts per day. So it will be either 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 though I doubt I could write 9 posts per day. One per day might prove to be difficult in two months time. Hehehe.

Do you like board games?

I do. Monopoly, Risk, Cluedo...etc etc. Family gathering will almost always lead to boardgames galore. Hahaha. It is the simple things in life that can make you happy. I have no ambition whatsoever and I guess that is bad. But I lead a mainly happy life. That should count for something right?

Favourite song currently....

That would be "Hanya Kau Yang Mampu" by Aizat.

Enjoy........



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XghgSF9kCY

Told ya I will post a lot the first few weeks....

I love badminton. That's all I want to say. Well at least for now. : )

http://www.badmintoncentral.com/

The first is always the best, the hardest, the one you will most probably regret....

As with many my writing ventures, I have so many ideas now that I can't remember half of them. I wanted to be clever but I am really not that clever. I wanted to be witty but humour is different for everybody. I wanted to be cool but seriously who is cool on the net? We are merely thoughts without a face and even if we post pictures of ourselves (which I don't think I ever will because of major low self esteem issues, hahaha) we are not really who we are on this virtual pages. We are bolder because we are not directly interacting with other people. We simply say what we want and think about the consequences later. Like kids really and you know what they say.....kids say the darnest things. ^_^

I am predicting that I will write a flurry of posts these first few weeks. Things that are silly, things that are semi personal, things that I think about when I daydream, things that matter to me, things that makes me smile, things that are plain stupid, things that might offend other people (sorry in advance), things that make me mad, things that interests me......basically everything under the sun and the moon and hence the title of my blog. Do not expect mature posts all the time and I will not expect people to even read my posts. Just my ramblings.

On with the show.