NOOOO…. And I really mean Nooooo…

I love neopets, have loved them and be their avid player since they first started and only had a small number of Neopets around. I’m so in love with their cute neopets characters. Unfortunately they do not sell their merchandise anywhere else but in the US.

Even though they had made their presence known in Singapore a few years back, I wasn’t fast enough to get my hands on their limited plushies. Now, when I know they have made a few thousands new plushies, I had to learn that the cute hugga-babies are only available in the TOYS R US USA.

Oh no… Unfortunately, the Toys R Us USA doesn’t send purchases overseas. Oh my cute Elephante. *sob.. Sob…*

Neopets should have their own merchandise E-shop where fans like me could buy and received our purchases worldwide. It’s not that difficult. Purchases can paid using PayPal or Escrow for safer security. They don’t really need a huge and techy security systems for their e-commerce since both merchants are very capable of anti-theft and hackers.

They can also use E-shops like E-bay to coincide with the buy/sell process.

Please… Neopets… I’m not asking much. I will pay for my purchases. I just want my Elephante!!

I have been following the news especially the Mumbai blast and the Thai Anti-Government protesters. My deepest sympathy to the families of the victims that had died in the Mumbai blast.

I followed closely on the hostage reports reported by the media especially the Singaporean hostage. I was hoping she would be released and survived the whole ordeal. Unfortunately, she didn’t come out from it alive. As a fellow Singaporean, her death was deeply felt by me and I’m sure by the rest of the Singaporeans.

I totally hadn’t expected the turnabouts. Really not expected it..

Another one which had me very concerned is the protests in Thailand. I’m not sure if the PAD can come out with the best government and keep up with their promises which every one of its members are enthralled about, but I am sure that whatever they are doing is wrong.

If what the TV news and newspapers showed were true, the PAD members behaves almost identical to a terrorist. They chase down officials, break and slam cars into unrecognizable metal junk and happily open fire to protest their unhappiness for the current government.

How could the PAD allow such acts to pass among its supporters. If this is what the new promised government would be in the future, then its a good thing I’m in Malaysia.

If I were in the position of the current prime minister, I would rally my police force block the entrance and exit of where the protesters were residing, efficiently locking them in. I would make sure that no food, water and any other supplies can reach the protesters. They want to have a new government, then let them make their own amongst them in that lock-up building.

If trying to be a diplomat doesn’t work with them, them use an iron fist ruling like Stallin on them.

The PAD are really selfish. It was already proven that the majority Thais have voted the current prime minister in and want him to stay in. Just because a few ten thousand of selfish PAD members doesn’t get their leader on the seat, they want to force the prime minister to step down. It’s either PAD way or no way.

Selfish and inconsiderate. Should have used the ISA act on them. They really are endangering the safety of the country to the point of being a traitor to the White Elephant nation.

I’ve studied the history of south-east Asia for years. I know the history of Thailand like the back of my hands. The beloved King Chulalongkorn would certainly be disappointed at how his people turn out to be, greedy and not one-heart and one-nation.

Siam or Thailand is a beautiful country filled with beautiful historical artifacts and immense history. To see a neighbour that has never been ruled by any foreign colonies like the French or East India Company gone to waste just because of a few greedy individuals who sought for their personal gains. In fact, if I can remember their history properly, there has never once been an outbreak of terrorist in that country.

But that is just my personal insight. I’m not trying to instigate anyone with my normal yake-di-yaks. I’m not even paid for rambling around like a senile old hag. Hopefully no one takes offense to this.

Being a choir member for four years and being brought up to like musical, it is not surprising to see me once in a while jumping in glee whenever there is a new interesting theatre to watch. Already the other day I had my eyes glued while the TV ads were showing a theatre on a historical story. I was entranced by the colors, the beauty of the theatre.

Sweet memories of my choir performances on a Victoria Theatre Hall in Singapore doing a musical theatre of Phantom of the Opera flashed through my mind. Being the Emcee and one of the performing artist took a toll out of that night and I remembered clearly how I keep stumbling around the backstage from one end to another in my 3inch high heels. I certainly didn’t need any vocal warming up due to it.

The adrenaline rush and constant goosebump running down my spine pulses through my memory. It was a night to remember. Even though the hall wasn’t our usual choir hall with the music echoing and rebounding off the walls, I could tell that the audience was enraptured. We managed to bring the story to life.

Duh! The eerie songs sung managed to make my hair stand on end even though the choir and me was grinning like a simpleton.

*Sigh* What could I say… I love classical theater. They make me feel as if I’m swept into another dimension. Unfortunately not everyone shares the same thoughts as me. When I was in ITE, there was a theater which I had wanted to watch since it was a collaboration of the Indonesian and Malaysian dancers doing a fused historical Malay/ Javanese dance with a little touch of contemporary in them.

Too bad, no one wanted to accompany me and I was cursing my luck. The day which I had wanted to attend since my friend managed to get a 50% discount on them falls on my busy working day. Haiz.. Missed the show, missed the greatest opportunity to attend a theater at 50% discount. What luck..

Anyway my cousin was chatting with me the other day and commented on making her own mini cinema in her spare room. Complete with the comfortable home theater seating, sound blasting speaker, huge plasma lcd tv. If you ask me, I won’t even be bothered in lifting a finger to even think about making a room for it.

Most of the time, I don’t even watch TV. Well, to each his own.

After much debating with some interludes of hair tearing and head banging on my desk coupled with mugs of coffee, I finally and I really mean finally debugged this blog from its well, bugs.

The original designer of the theme had most probably tested and designed the theme based on IE. I had tested it out on IE and Firefox before including it into Ramblings of a Vamp. It turns out ok without any problems. But the moment, the widgets were installed coupled with the advertisements codes and other Javascripts codes, the theme crashed down on me.

Nav bars start flying around, missing links and pages and the widgets coughed up junk.. It was like a war zone! It took me a few days to find the errors and even then some individual post and pages didn’t work as it was supposed to.

Had to edit and changed the right-nav bar to the left and the left nav-bar to the right.. blah.. blah.. and edit every single php pages.. grr… I HATE PHP!!

But in the end it works up properly. Everything is all stable and working A-OK.

Any comments and complains please feel free to complain.

Ciaoz!

Being a woman sometimes irritate me. For men or male readers, I suggest you pay attention to this post if you want to know why your wife/ girlfriend/ fiance get a bit ticked off from usual once a month. The reason why we women are sometimes too emotional, too hyper, too extreme in every sense is because we face a monthly cycle called menstruation. Don’t ever misspell and mistook it for mensuration. You do not want to have an irate woman plowing you down with a bludgeon.

When a girl reaches the puberty stage and turns into a woman, she begins the ever revolving cycle of menses every month. I remembered the first time I had mine… I had to have pre-menses crams a year prior to the big day and it always hurts at night. Ugh.. It was a terrible year..

The meaning of menses taken from TheFreeDictionary.com means:-

The monthly flow of blood and cellular debris from the uterus that begins at puberty in women and the females of other primates. In women, menses ceases at menopause. Also called catamenia.

At this time of the month, the cycle usually takes up to seven days plus/minus. During this time do not be surprised if your loving soft spoken fiance suddenly becomes a screaming banshee and cries at every insensitive words. Ugh.. Any words said to most of us would be insensitive.. hehehe

I have taken a snippet of information from a source and summarized it as best as I can without confusing the already confused men.. *snickers*

The menstrual cycle is under the control of the hormone system and is necessary for reproduction. It is divided into several phases: menstruation, the follicular phase, and the luteal phase.

**Refer to the diagram below to understand what follicular and luteal phase is.

Ovulation defines the change from the follicular phase to the luteal phase. Counted from the first day of menstrual flow, the length of each phase varies from woman to woman and cycle to cycle. The average cycle length is 28 days.

Stimulated by gradually increasing amounts of estrogen in the follicular phase, the lining of the uterus thickens. Follicles in the ovary begin developing under the influence of a complex interplay of hormones, and after several days one or occasionally two become dominant, non-dominant follicles atrophy and die.

The dominant follicle releases an ovum, or egg, in an event called ovulation. After ovulation, the remains of the dominant follicle in the ovary become a corpus luteum; this body has a primary function of producing large amounts of progesterone. Under the influence of progesterone, the endometrium (uterine lining) changes to prepare for potential implantation of an embryo to establish a pregnancy.

If implantation does not occur within approximately two weeks, the corpus luteum will involute, causing sharp drops in levels of both progesterone and estrogen. These hormone drops cause the uterus to shed its lining in a process termed menstruation.

To make the biologist-idiots like me understand better:-

The egg factory, the ovary, begins to produce ovum, egg, for ovulation. Ovulation is another term for being fertile and waiting to be impregnate by sperm thus establishing pregnancy. However the impregnation of the ovum should doesn’t take place within approximately 2 weeks, the egg expire and cause the uterus to shed its lining.

And this will be the time we women scramble for our sanitary pads or tampons…

School is out and for those who had passed their PSLE, it will be the dawn of a new year for them next January. New school, new syllables, new environment and new textbooks. Ayu managed to get an aggregate of 205 for her results which I think is a job well done although she could have done more on her mathematics. Having a D for mathematics and blaming it all on her teachers inability not to teach her properly is a lame excuse from her and resulted in me knocking her head a few times.

Being a Singaporean born and bred, I have a tendency to be very Kiasu (greedy) when it comes to education. Even though school is only starting on 1st Jan 2009, I’m happily preparing my younger sister for her new education. As it is, I’m bringing out my Mathematics notes, letting her glimpse my calculus equation simply because most of the algebraic equations can be easily solved using them.

I’m not bothered teaching her English since the subject is extremely simple but there are some fields she need to improve on like her vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure. Good heavens! Her sentence structure is enough to give me nightmares for a month.. Reading her composition is a teeth grinding effort.

Fortunately for her, I’ve totally forgotten how to go about in Chemistry. Ugh! I used to memorise the periodic table and can easily manipulate the molecular structures from scratch. But now… I think I’m better off making my website, using Notepad and all the HTML, VBscript from scratch. That, at least I can plot and type out with my eyes closed.

Design and Technology.. ah that is the subject I can ace with my eyes closed and without reading the text. Muahaha.. bred and interested in the field since I was a toddler, I used to help my dad out in his work. He would use that time to patiently teach me the names, uses and safety details to undertake when using an equipment. Who uses the medieval chisel when you can just use a router, mitre saw, electric planer and even the cutting saw? hehehe… yup, I am a maniac when it comes to working in a workshop.

Anyway, I will be preparing Ayu for her school and make sure, she didn’t turn out as stupid and blur as me when I had to go through my Secondary School. Those were the most four miserable years of my life… *shudders* I still have nightmares about them… brr…

I can’t help but to post this recipe up online since my darling good friend is having trouble to cook such a simple dish by herself. Told you to learn cooking before you got married my dear… hehehe.. now see the mess you are in? Who’s next?

Anyway for the person who personally requested this, I hope you know what and how the ingredients look like. If you do not know, don’t be shy and just call your mom up or heck, me. Or you can always google it up or go to the market and act really blur while you ask the Apek to serve you.

Pay attention to what I’m saying ok…

Too cook Sambal Tumis, you need to have:-

• 250gm -500gm chili boh. If you do not know what it is, I suggest you (a) follow this step by step.
• 100gm-150gm blended onions (4 bawang besar and 3 bawang putih/ garlic)
• 2inch by 1inch belacan (baked it first for 10mins!)
• 5 – 6 tablespoon sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 4 tablespoon cooking oil

(a) Chili Boh: -

Buy 1kg of dried chili. I prefer chili from India as they are really hot and have a beautiful smell when you saute them. Anyway wash them and soak them in water for half a day and then drain the water out. Ready a pot of boiling water and dunk the chili in for 3mins or so.

Then you drain them again for 30mins. After that, you can blend all of them in your blender. Remember do not put a lot of water when you blend or it will make your cooking hell as it will turn very watery.

Or you can always take the easy way out and get the ready made and prepared in the market.

(b) Steps to make the SAMBAL TUMIS:-

Mix the belacan and the onions together. Make sure that the belacan is dissolved and make it to a brownish paste.

Heat up the wok and pour the oil in. Once the oil is heated, add in the blended onions paste and chili boh. Stir and saute (tumis) them continually until the chili turns light brownish orange. It will usually take 3-5mins depending on the condition of your environment and the water content of the ingredients.

Then add in the sugar and salt and stir it again. Do not add any water whatsoever. Stir gradually for another 5-10mins. Do not panic if the Sambal thickens and bubbles out, spraying onto you and outside the wok. It happens, just continue stirring.

Before you turn off the heat, remember to taste it. You may want to add more sugar if its not sweet enough. Anyway before I forget, the longer your cooking time, the longer your Sambal can last outside the fridge without turning bad. Mine usually last for a month.

Once you are satisfied with the result, you can off the fire and serve it.

Note: You can add, dried prawns or ikan pari kering or udang kering if you prefer having something in the sambal other than just plain sambal. But remember to soak the dried food in water overnight before you add them or you’ll risk having a very salty sambal.

Unfortunately, I do not have my Sambal Tumis Udang Kering with me at the moment. So you guys just have to use your imagination in how it turns out.

I remembered ten years back when I was still in secondary school. The whole island was in the heat of dollar store franchise. At that time items were priced at $.099 each. The quality of the items sold were very good and that was a total hit with the locals.

The stores were always filled with customers and my favourite part of the store would be the snacks and toiletries. The Japan imported snacks and merchandise were hugely welcomed at that time since Japan made goods were well known for the quality and zen design.

Items which were usually sold at 70% higher at other places were sold at a dollar only. It triggered off the market and other department stores had to no choice but match their insane prices. Unfortunately during the recession period, the dollar store had to shut down, it being unable to cope with the increasing price and inflation rate.

Though the stores are now closed forever, but the memories and money worth deals will forever be in my memory.

That is certainly a long time and the thought had been playing around my mind for days. However should I be given the gift of life for a thousand years, there are a lot of things I would be doing.

Firstly, I’d be doing two jobs at the same time for 5 years, collecting as much cash as I could. Hehehe… After that, I’d make sure I get my degree in Bio-science/chem. By the time I managed to get my degree, I’d be broke again since the fees doesn’t come free and in cheap rates.

Then I would continue with my dual job for another 5 years followed by another round of studies for Doctorate. By now, I’d be collecting and getting all the knowledge and information I need to start my own RnD Research Center for cures of diseases.

I’ll be 23 this December and if I have gotten my PHD certificate, I’d be 45 by then. Hmm… I’m a little bit of vain at times and with the knowledge I had received over the years, my first bio-chem research on my list would be to reverse the cycle of aging skin or at least lessen the process of skin and muscle aging. I can’t live over a thousand years looking like an ancient Ramsey now right…

I’d be scaring the living daylights of everyone I meet!

Now where was I.. Oh yes! At the same time, I would start my research on cures for diabetics, kidney failures and alternative cures for cancer patients. I won’t waste my time doing my research on AIDS/ HIV cures since its already proven and written that there won’t be a cure for that disease.

During the years of my time, I would either spend my time studying while dealing with my RnD company and handing out aids to needy people that are still living in the first world. The money that I had collected over the years of working and selling the manufactured cures is more than enough to buy a country of my own.

I’m not crazy in this little imagination of mind but think about it. 1000 years of living and if my monthly income is USD 3000 per month, exclusive of all the investment I would be doing during that time, I’d  have USD 36,000,000. And that is not inclusive of my other income and earnings received by being part of the board of directors in other companies.

Hehehe… all that money… oooh… woooooooow!!!

Since I’d be the only one in my family to be able to defy age and time, I’d make sure that all of my kin who are not well to do is taken care of. I have known how life is being poor since I was raised and bred in a poor and low income household. I guess being the only ancient around in the family means I have to keep a look out for my dearest next of kin.

But I’ll make sure the last 100 years of my life, I will stop taking in those anti-aging formula and let my body slowly accommodate my aging. I want to make sure I look dead when I am dead. No point looking like a model when I’m in the hole.

I remembered the issue of recent mold breakouts in one of the hospitals in Johor, Pandan. The condition for mold to grow have the presence of water such as water vapor and condensation, high humidity and without the direct contact of sunlight.

The contractors that did the sterilization and killing of the molds must inform the affected customers about the proper care of their vicinity especially if it’s a hospital. Reconstruction and renovation of the place must be advice if the condition of the area is really bad and to avoid future outbreaks which is currently happening to Hospital Sultan Ismail (HSI) now.

I am a contractor, cum worker, cum receptionist, cum engineer, cum quantity surveyor etc.. the list is too long to fill in. However, I have done a lot of above ceiling and in ceiling works like repairs and installation of cables, pipes and HSDPA antennas. Like what everyone who has done in ceiling works, they would tell you how humid, wet and dark the place is especially if the ceiling is plastered up with only one very far and pathetic, 1′ x 1′ , ceiling exit to use. But these places uses high powered air-con and blowers with weekly maintenance, destroying mold habitat at the same time.

But there are mold killer in the market to stop the growth of molds and kill them efficiently. However this process is short term only and as I had mentioned earlier, making sure that your environment is clear of moist presence and continually air the place out must be added to the process to ensure that the growth of molds doesn’t take place again.