We finally moved to our new apartment

On June 25th, I helped my sisters moved to their new apartment at Augustus Street, Toowong. The moving process was smooth. We got two friendly Australian movers to help us move and they were really professional. With their help, we were able to move all of our stuff within 1 1/2 hours. However, there was something bad that happened today. I am not sure if I am too sensitive or something, but I feel that there is some Asian resentment in some parts of the city. Well, maybe I am wrong but I am happy that I didn't feel any similar Asian resentment when I was in San Fran.

Queensteet Mall in Brisbane, AU

Today, we went down to Queenstreet mall to get some Japanese food. We went to Sono Japanese restaurant and we finally get the the chance to enjoy some seafood in Australia. We have been having shrimp in Australia almost everyday but the price of seafood is definitely not cheaper than red meat here in Australia. Another thing about the shrimps that we had everyday were not from Australia but from China or South East Asia. I wonder why Australian shrimps are so much expensive than shrimps from Asia. I guess the Australian fishery people demand more money for their shrimp. Anyways, back to lunch, I had a hearty Sono Bento Box lunch($33) and it was definitely a good deal. After lunch, I went to the local HMV to pick up a copy of the "St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" by the Beatles($30). I have been listening to it on my Ipod for a while before getting the "actual" album. At first, I have decided to give it a try when I saw it being listed as the Number one of 500 greatest albums of all time by the Rolling Stone magazine. After listening to it a dozen of times, it is definitely worth the number one title. As a result, I have decided to pick up an "actual" copy to support the Fab-Four. Anyways, I have encoded it in 320kps and I am sure this album is definitely worth my personal collection.

Another normal day in Brisbane

It is like the a normal day in Brisbane, Australia. It is getting windy recently. The only place that we went today was Toowong Village. We went to K-mart and Coles to get some cleaning supplies because we are not going to hire any bond cleaners to help us clean up our old apartment before moving to our new place. Toowong Village sounds so similar to the Bangsar Village that we have in Bangsar KL. I wonder if there is a partnership in between the two malls. Perhaps someone came by Australia one day and he has decided to make his own "Toowong Village" in Bangsar. Anyways, there is another AU franchise that has caught my attention recently. They have this fruit juice/ fruit smoothy franchise called "Boost Juices" that is similar to "Jamba Juice" in the U.S. Although the menu is different, I am grateful that I can find such a fruit franchise because it provides me the opportunity to spend on not-cheap bu healthy fruit smoothies. I am not sure if I saw a similar franchise in Malaysia because the source fruits is essential for such a fruit smoothy franchise. You may need to get an affordable and the freshest fruits that you can get to supply the franchises.

The water in downunder do swirl anti-clockwise

I remembered that there was there was this one time in America, one of my Aunt's friends was discussing about an episode of "The Simpsons" with one of My Aunt's niece from Sydney, Au. The Simpsons episode was talking about the many things that are so different in Australia than in America. For example, when we drive on the left, the people in Australia drive on the right. However, when I was taking a shower in my sister's apartment yesterday, I noticed that the water is indeed swirling anti-clockwise to the drains. It is definitely too quiet in Queensland,AU. I hope there is more life in this place. As always, I hope they have more places for people to hang out overhere!!

Sicko- A film that you should watch about your medicare in America

I have been a Michael Moore fan for years. The first time that I learned about him is when they mentioned one of his books that talks about "Stupid White Men". I went to his only appearance at SFSU and now I am going to talk about my afterthoughts after watching his latest documentary in 2007, "Sicko". Sicko is a documentary that talks about one of the real problems that many Americans face today and many politicians who tried their best to avoid today which is the troubled American Medicare system. Well, many of us know that America is one of the greatest country in this world and it has the state of the art medical facilities in this planet. However, not many Americans can afford to use these top of the world medical facilities without the aid of their medical insurance. In this documentary, Moore was talking about the many cases that people got themselves into after they were denied by their Medical Insurance. For example, a retired American baby-boomer couple were forced to move in with their daughter because they were forced to sell their house to fund their own medicare when they were rejected by their medical insurance provider. In addition to pointing out the many individual examples of tragic cases faced by many average American families in the film, Moore actually went to Great Britain, Canada, France and Cuba to check out their various "socialists" medicare system which provides low cost or cost free medicare for their own citizens. There are many things that we should all be aware about this film. On the things that we should be critical about this film is that we don't really get to learn about the many nature about the "great" medicare systems in the countries that Moore used to compare against the US. For example, he was told by a pharmacists in the UK that all drugs in the UK cost 6.65 pounds. We should be aware that these may or may not be true since the drugs that some people need may not be available for that price. In addition, we should also know that this the year before election year, the film seemed to persuade people to support the universal medicare system that is one of the items behind Hillary Clinton's presidential bid campaign. Although these are points that we should all be aware of when we are watching the movie, Moore is really doing a good job on drawing people's attention towards their medicare system. As we all know, the baby boomers are all heading their 60's and medicare is one of the most essential item that they need in their retirement life. Many politicians tried to avoid to talk about social security and the flawed medicare system in America because it is definitely going to cause the loss to many special interests groups who profits from such troubled situations. I believe this film is able to educate people about their potential medicare problems and it is able to make people aware about the many healthcare systems in the world. However, the American people should really stand up and ask the politicians to really solve this flawed system because it will not only affect the current generations but it will also affect the lives of their children.

An Asian in the Brisbane China Town

Like many Asians in a foreign land, many Asians love to hangout in the same neighborhood. For example, the Chinese in China town, the Japanese in Japantown and etc. Today, I went down to the Brisbane Chinatown to grab lunch and to grab some cheaper groceries. Like many Chinatown, it has the usual settings such as a huge Chinese gate, some grocery stores and a lot of Chinese restaurants. We had some simple roast duck lunch and we went straight to grocery store to grab what we need. At the grocery store, it reminded me about the many similar store environment in Asian grocery stores that are located in various Chinatowns around the world. Although we get to purchase goods with the lowest price that we can get in a city, the Asian store owners should really keep the store as clean as possible. Well, there is always a price to pay. Since we are paying less for something, I guess we are also willing to buy our groceries in a less clean environment. Besides the cleanliness of the store, I was also surprised to witness some of the largest vegetables in the store. Australia seemed to be able to grow some of the largest wombok cabbage, radish and bok-choy in the world. Imagine a white radish( Daikon) as big as a baseball bat. This is the only type of daikon that you will be to get in that store itself. I wonder what do they "feed" their greens in "outback"? Maybe steroids is part of th fertilizers that they used in Australia. Anyways, we grabbed some Asian groceries and we were able to get home before 5pm.

Day One:In OZ

We took an early flight to OZ today. It was kinda unusual since we will normally take a read eye flight to Australia. Well, another information about the airline that we took was Malaysia Airlines(. Another thing about our flight schedule is that we were required to fly to Sydney before we arrive in Melbourne. From my sources, MAS has canceled their direct flight route from Kuala Lumpur to Brisbane. Hence, for future Kuala Lumpur travelers who plans to travel to Brisbane, Au, your only option to Brisbane with MAS is only this route. While we were on our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney, we were served breakfast and a light meal. I think the airline should have served us dinner since we touch down at 7.54pm at Sydney Airport. Maybe it has something to do with their budget since they are not doing that well financially. When we were at Sydney airport, we were all required to leave our plane with our hand carry and go through some quick security procedures before we can get back to our seats. Well, I think they should have left us on the plane since we have all went through the same metal detectors and "no-liquid-on the plane" kinda crap before we first boarded the plane. Well, since we are in their turfs, we have to live by their rules. After we took off from Sydney at 9.20pm, we got to Brisbane at 10.45pm. Finally , we got to my sister's apartment at 12 am.

Lunch at Sakae Sushi

On the day before I head to OZ for a month, i went to Sakae Sushi at Bangsar Village II for lunch. During lunch, I had a Seafood Bibimbab and a Deep fry Oyster. This is my second visit to the Sakae Sushi chain and i am not sure if it is that special place to get a meal anymore. Well, when I had the Deep fry Oyster, I noticed that the Oysters was ok but, most probably, the Oyster is frozen. Anyways, I asked for my Seafood Bibimbab for to-go and I left the mall after picking up some groceries at the Village grocer. Sakae Sushi is a good chain but I am not quite happy about the way people refill their green tea close to their table. Although most table has a hot water dispenser of its own, I often for my table wet when I was trying to refill my green tea.

Babel- A Good film from Year 2006

"Babel" is a unique film that you should really watch. Like "Pulp fiction", the sequence of the plots are disoriented. For example, at first the movie started from some kids in Morocco.Next, the film went on to start another sub story about an illegal alien who works as a house helper in a San Diego family. Then, we were introduced to this Japanese High school girl who happened to be handicapped in Tokyo and then we ended up with an American couple who was on a vacation in Morocco. In this movie, every subplots are actually a piece of the main movie puzzle. After my first run through the movie, I would suggest that the re playability of the movie may lead to different after thoughts among the viewers because it actually help people think about many issues that we can relate to today. Personally,i feel that the actress who played the Japanese handicapped schoolgirl in the movie looks rather cute. In addition, one of my former colleague looks like her. I guess maybe many Asian girls actually look alike.( Not a racist comment, because I am an Asian myself) In summary, this is a good movie that is worth your netfilx dvd rental plan.

"爱情全保"- An Educational TVB Series about the H.K Insurance Industry

Unlike the many entertaining soap operas that we get to watch on NBC or CBS which allows us to get to learn more water-cooler topics, many TVB series often reveal a side of a working industry to the people in Hong Kong in order to let them get a little introduction about how an industry work. Well, I am currently playing "爱情全保" on my TV and it is one of these series that tried to introduce some fictional plus factual ways on how the Hong Kong insurance industry really works. There are 20 episodes in the series and now, I am on episode 15. Uptil episode 15, this series is performing pretty well. The main plot of the story revolves around an insurance agent, his family and his work. Well, like many TVB series, it is easy to predict how things are gonna end. For example, at first, the Insurance agent was competing hard against his rival female colleague. However, on episode 10, the Insurance agent fall in love with his rival and they finally became a couple. After watching a number of TVB series, I have found out that plots are often comes in a standard fomula. For example, rivals turn to friends and vice versa. Anyways, I am sure it will be a great opportunity for a college in America to setup a class to introduce Asian tv series. Like I said before, these TV series play an essential part in the life of the Chinese.

The new "Azuki" Frappucino

Starbucks has been my friend for years. I had them in Malaysia, I had them in the States and I just tried out one their latest frappucino drinks in Malaysia. This new drink is the "Azuki" Frappucino a.k.a red bean frappucino. I have tried a number of drinks at Starbucks. My favorite drinks are as below:

• Unsweetened black tea lemonade
• Iced black tea
• Ice coffee frap
  
• Green tea frap/strawberry frap

When I first saw the word "Azuki", I was not sure about the flavor of that frappucino. However, as a Starbucks nut myself, I have to try it out. There are a number of options when you order the "Azuki" frappucino. You can either go with the coffee based "Azuki" or the non-coffee based "Azuki". Since this is my first try on the "Azuki", I asked the barista to fix his recommended "Azuki" frap which is a Whipped cream non coffee based "Azuki" Frappucino for me. Anyways, I had my first taste of the drink but , unfortunately, it will not be added onto my list. I am sure if you are a big "red bean" fan, you may love this drink. Unfortunately, I am not a big fan of read bean. As a result, if you like "red bean", give it a try. If you are a "red bean" hater, stay with your regular Starbucks drink.

A quick review for "师奶兵团"

Like Sports for the people in America, Asian people especially Chinese people are hooked on to TV dramas. I have been watching "师奶兵团" lately and it is a not-that-bad tv drama. Maybe it is true but if my memories serve me right, this tv drama actually tries to emulate the plot of the first wives club. However, it tries to add an Asian twist into the the three different main characters of the film. This series is 21 episodes and it is definitely not long for today's TVB drama. The main plot of the story is about three Hong Kong house wives who used to live to serve their family were force to live independently when they faced problems in their marriage. Although there is a small subplot that involves a murder case, but the three female main character own the spotlight of the show. Anyways, it is a fun series to watch but it is not really a must-watch series for the year. I am sure there are many TVB series in year 2007 that will able to better than this series.

Big Blue Screen of Death

Remember last week, I have upgraded my machine's ram to its max. Since late Saturday, my machine has been throwing the legendary "Big Blue Screen of Death" on me quite frequently. It is hard to work on my machine in this condition but since I can't afford to get a new machine yet, I will have to figure out a way to fix it. Anways, something has to be done. I will try check out the event logs of my machine to find out what the "hell" went wrong with this machine!! Anyways, one of the good thing that I found out by doing some minor Ajax exercise is that now I will be able to write some information on the screen from a xml file by using childnodes.

An early Father's day!!

Today, we had a father's day lunch with my maternal grandparents. The reason that we had this lunch a week before the day itself is we are flying for Oz on this Friday. As usual, we had this Chinese seafood lunch that can make people full for days. The menu was:

1. Sampling appetizer
2. Sharkfin soup
3. Suckling Pig
4. Steam Marble Garoupa
5. Chinese Deep fry Chicken (*)
   
6. Fried Rice wrap
7. Chinese crispy pie with lotus paste
8. Red Bean soup
9. Fruits
10. Black Forest Cake

I stopped at point * because I was too full. After lunch, we went to the Malaysian China town to pickup some DVDs. Suprisingly, I wasn't able to pickup to movies that I would like to get because they were all out of stock. I hope they can do a better job in their inventory control. Anyways, the Malaysia China town is the best place to get the cheapest dvds in the whole city. If you are visiting Malaysia, remember to visit the Malaysian China town for its Dvds.

Coca restaurant at BSC

I went to Bangsar Shoping Center with my mom for lunch today. It has been a while since I went to BSC. I remember that I used to go to the Comic store at BSC when I used to play the "Magic:the Gathering" card game. Anyways, The malls looks kinda ancient and it has the same feel as KL plaza in the Bukit Bintang area. Another thing about the mall is one of car park elevators is really small. It says that it fits 9 people but actually I think it only fits 9 small Asian people. Once you get a shopping cart in the elevator, no more than 3 people can fit into the thing. Ok, back to Coca. The Coca restaurant is on the third floor at BSC(west wing). We first went in the place and we didn't find anyone to serve us. We were suprised. As a result, we went in by ourselves. Luckily, a server came up to us to find out what we were up to. Then, we got a table. This is my second visit to a Coca restaurant. In a Coca restaurant, people normally go for their buffet lunch/dinner. In this buffet, we normally cook our own food in a "Hotpot". Of course, since this is a buffet, we can order any amount of food that we want. For example, beef fillet, chicken fillet, fish fillet, jellyfish, fishballs, vegitable greens and etc. The premium buffet lunch at Coca is around rm33+15% of the bill(It is around $10-$15 and it is rather reasonable considering that it is a buffet deal). Anyways, we went in and the experience was so-so. Nothing is really that special because it is just a hotpot meal. We were full when we got out of the restaurant and we went to Bangsar Village to get our groceries before we call it a day!!.

Catch of the Day

Today, I went to Low Yat Plaza("The place where they sell a bunch of computer hardwares") to help get my sisters and myself some computer stuff. Today, I bought myself 1 gig of ram for my "old piece of junk" aka My 5 year old laptop.( 1 gig is the max for Dell Inspiron 4150) On the other hand, I got my sisters a 1 gig ddr2 ram and a Ipod dock/alarm clock/charger. The reason why I choose to get the Ipod dock is it looks unique and I think it fulfills the requirements of my sister. Well, she asked me to get a Ipod dock/charger for her. This Ipod dock does not provide any fm tuner if you need to listen to a radio, I think an "ihome" is a better choice. In addition, it only comes with a standard stereo speaker, if you will are a big sound quality nut, you should really go for the Bose SoundDock or Ipod hifi from Apple The price of this ipod dock is around $80.

Finally the end of another TVB drama

Woh, I finally watched the the final episode of "溏心风暴". Like many TVB series, this drama has similar plots that you can find in some previous tvb dramas. For example, the change of a good sibling to a bad sibling in a middle of a really bad situation.
There are some final words that I want to say about this series. Firstly, the actors in these series really played their character well in the series. Like for example, the character "大契" that was played by 李司棋， she really made that character "come alive". It really feels so sad when she "left" in the middle of the movie. Another character that was great to watch in the series was "小契" that was played by 关菊英. Unfortunately, "关菊英" did not showcase her high level of acting at the end of the series. I hope she could have showed more "villainous" side instead of the sudden change of character in the final episode.
The cons of this series are the development for some characters were not perfect and the producer tried too hard to tie the knot for every plot in the final one hour show. The development of characters could be better for the series. For example, the relationship of the main character's mother and the main character. We were showed a shot intro to his mother and we were given some introduction about the character but I think we should learn more about some important characters since they add more twist into the film. On the other hand, like other tvb dramas, A great TVB series does not necessarily lead to a great ending. In this series, we were showed a shot sudden change of sibling relationship and a "unforeseen" change of behavior of the villain in the series. Although, there were many signals and signs in the final two episodes, I think the producing team was trying to do too many in too little time.
In summary, this series is definitely one of the best series that people can correlate to today's materialistic society. This maybe wrong, but I think the series seemed to get some inspiration from the “新马仔" inheritance case that occurred in Hong Kong in the late 90's.

The Lawyer, The Judge and The Wig

While I am still trying to final few episodes of "溏心风暴", I noticed that lawyers and judges in British court wears a wig during a court session. It makes me wonder why do they want to wear a wig? Don't they have some good hair under the wig? Not to disrespect the tradition but many people in the past, including the French(King Louis), the Brits(Newton) and people from the countries, who fancies the British culture, wore a wig once they are ready to work. Another obeservation that I have is that someone wears a bigger wig,it seems to represent a more powerful position. Besides, the size and power relationship of the wig, I am also curious about the dimension of the wig, the size of the wig and the source of the wig. I guess the wigs may have some major effect in boosting people's ego. I guess this leads me to say that if you need more self confidence, go get a wig. If you need more authority, go and get a giant wig!!

Summer movie plans

There are a few movies/future dvds that I will be going to watch in this summer of sequels. I have watched Spiderman 3, Shrek 3 and Pirates of the Carribean 3. At the moment, I think that Shrek 3 stands out ontop. Pirates of the Carribean 3 came up second while Spiderman 3 cameup last in the list of movie that I have watched so far. Initially, there was only "The Simpsons:the movie" that will end my summer of sequels. However, after reading various blogs and watching a number of movie trailers before those three movies, I think "Sicko" and "Ratatouille" that is going to win the worth of your movie dollars for the rest of the summer.

Sicko is directed by Michael Moore and this time he is going to chase after the heat of the chaotic medicare in America and I think this is a good movie to watch because it really talks about an issue that the Americans should be worried about before it is too late. On the other hand,

Ratatouille is a 3d animation film by Pixar that talks about a rookie chef and a mouse in one of the greatest kitchen in Paris. My sixth sense tells me that this is going to be a sleeper hit in this summer.

Besides doing some Open Source Programming,

I am also busy checking out new TVB dramas. Here at home, there are a lot of places that supplies "cheap" movies, TVB dramas dvds. Since I came from a Chinese background, I think I am lucky to be able to purchase these means of entertainment in a "reasonable" price. Anyways, I have been watching this new TVB drama "唐心风暴" (Heart of Greed). It is a pretty long drama since it has 40 episodes. According to my sources, this drama received the highest ratings in Hong Kong recently. As a result, it just encouraged me to check out this drama to find out why it was so well received by the masses in Hong Kong. Uptill this point, on episode 36, the story revolves around complex family matters and complex friendship issues that some people that can relate to in this world. For example, the drama seemed to point out that sometimes wealth can cause a lot of problem to a close family especially when it comes to the inheritance issue. Sometimes, siblings may turn into enemies because they were not happy about what they got from their old folks. But I did pickup something useful from the film up to the point. It is sometimes good to sacrifice yourself for the good of all people. There is a chinese saying in the drama "甜的也吃，苦的也吃“ which reflects that we should not always think that we should only always work for the good of ourself but we should also realize that sometimes we gain more by sacrificing something in the short term.

A hole on my ceiling

It has been a month since someone unintentionally stepped on the ceiling of my room. The position of the hole was right on top of my bed. I was wondering if there is any bad "Fungshui" involved if I am sleeping under that "hole". All I can think of is I am worried that something will just fall through the hall and it will land on my face when I sleep. As a result, I asked someone to place a wooden board to cover that hole. I guess it is a temporary measurement. All I can warn people is that before you let anyone into your attic, you have to make sure that your attic is able to support the weight of your friend.