Waste not A Beautiful Day

The cold winter see me hiding at home away from the cold. While glued to the idiot box, I will be munching chocolate and eating ice cream. We all know, no excercise is bad for you and with the junk food I am putting away, I will a fatty boom boom in no time.
Sunday was a glorious, bright sunny day. After Church service, we went for a quick light lunch and decided to take a walk in Jell Park. I was surprised to see many people in the park. Some were cycling, walking, BBQing and kite flying. Each time we walk in the park, we see something different. After the walk, we stop at the cafe in the park and indulged ourselves with a cup of nice warm coffee.

Fiery Dell Laptop

If you own a Dell Laptop, take precaution, have it check and service for safety.

Another example of spontaneous combustion by a Dell laptop has emerged accompanied by graphic images of the molten aftermath.

This latest report comes in the wake of a flaming Dell laptop that was captured on film in the act of exploding during a conference in Osaka in Japan last month and another Dell that reportedly burst into flames at an office in the US state of Illinois just last week.

Link below to read more.

Sydney Morning Herald

The Sound of Music

Last night Channel 7 telecasted “The Sound of Music” starring Julie Andrew as the happy and joyous Maria. I saw the movie when it was first released in1965. Though the show is 41 years old, it is still so refreshing. It remained one of my favourite show.

Who can forget the joyful and playful Maria. She is a tomboy yet she is pretty, sweet, and innocence. She has a lovely singing voice. She is kind, gentle and understanding. I like her hair, short, clean and manageable. Her dressing was simple and uncomplicated. The simple unsophisticated dress makes her so feminine. It is sad most girls today prefer T-shirt and Jeans.

I always love the opening scene. The film began with camera panning left to right through the clouds and across rocky, snow-covered mountains. Then the camera dipped into a green, wooded valley with steep cliffs that descend into a snow-fed lake. The mirror like water surface reflected the hills and slowly panning over the European landscape and village, then into the open green field.

With an open arm appreciation of the beauty and surrounding hills, she sang the title song.

The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years.
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears.
My heart wants to beat like the wings
Of the birds that rise from the lake to the trees,
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies from a church on a breeze,
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls
Over stones on its way
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray.
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely,
I know I will hear what I've heard before.
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more.

The sceneries were also breathtaking and beautiful. It brought back memories of our Europe Tour in 1995. We visited Salzburg and managed to see The Benedictine Convent on Nonnberg from afar.

The movie, the hills and the Sound of Music beckons once again for another visit to Europe.

Hakka Girls

While growing up I come across many people in my life, people from different background, dialect and nationalities. One that makes a deep impression, if I may use the word loosely, is the Hakka Girls.

My paternal grandmother is a Hakka. This gives me the privilege of a close observation and understanding Hakka girls. Well, to begin with they are tough nuts and hard to crack. They can toil under tough condition and under the hot sweltering sun. Given a task, they seldom say “cannot do” and they will go all the way out to complete it. One prime example, you find, there are mostly Hakka girls working on construction sites, tin mining and toiling underneath the bright burning sun which others nationalities or dialects tend to avoid. My grandmother can stay out in the hot sun and do gardening the whole day, everyday.

Hakka girls are good looking but do not let the exterior look deceive you. Underneath the layer of good look, they are cold, cold as steel. They can be very mean, aggressive and emotionless.

While working with a few Hakka girls in my younger days, I learned more of them. They break a man’s heart without a beep. While the men cry, the girls are emotionless and would continue on with their daily routine as though nothing has happened. Yes, they are thrifty and calculative, too.

Sad to say, my grandmother makes a bad mother-in-law. It is because she is thrifty, calculative and demanding. But that does not mean she makes a bad mother or grandmother. She is protective of her children and grandchildren.

Oh, they are so manipulative. Once I was caught in one their deadly game and was nearly reprimanded for it. Part of grandmother’s genes in me saw to their trick, it managed to pull me out of the looming pitfall.

Strangely enough the male species show or display little of such characteristic. These characteristics are more prominent in the female species. This observation is prevalent among my aunties (father's sisters). In conversation with friends, Hakka friends and my Hakka sister in law they all seem to confirm my observation.

Last but not least Dad agrees me. He used to tell me there is a saying which loosely translated “When a Hakka Girl is skinned alive, they will still be up, hopping and running around.” That is how tough Hakka Girls are.

Now, excuse me while I clamber into my bunker..............as the flaks start falling around me.
Have a good weekend.

Note:
This Post is the writer personal view and observation only. It is not to be taken seriously. To my Hakka girlfriends... I love you!

Friday's Humour

Monopoly Anyone?

Monopoly game had been around for ages. I used to play monopoly with my nephews and nieces and still do whenever they come around. The nephews and nieces would get together and quietly they would scheme up plans, ways and means to send their uncle broke and bankrupt. Thus one had to be diligent and observant. The kids will used every dirty trick they know to make sure I am out of the game first. They will distract you at every opportunity from remembering to collect your $200 as you pass “Go” or collect rental from your properties when they landed on it. Cash is used for every transaction; paying rents, buying properties, pay fine and taxes and is handled manually.

Moving with the times, the maker of Monopoly has released the latest release of the popular board game, which replaces cash with Visa-branded debit cards. This revamped version comes with electronic card reader that records the earnings and payments for players and transfers money between them.

The new game includes the trapping of today’s modern life. It also includes today’s property to make the game as realistic as possible. This means a revamp of properties to include new and trendy places and replacing train stations for airports.

There is no more passing “Go” and collecting $200.

Community Chest and Chance are upgrade; players can win a reality TV show and pocket a cool winning of $2 million.

The game tokens are replaced with mobile phones, cheeseburgers and roller blade giving the top hats and racing cars the flick.

It is time for me to upgrade my existing cash transaction Monopoly to cashless version one. It pay back time. Watch out kids!

Neighbour's House - Update 2

Upper floor outer walls and internal walls are up

Oh, Dear

Oh, dear, I am in deep trouble. I need to lay low for a while. They may come for me. Why? It is because of this.

Terror fears spark photo ban

TERRORISM fears have seen happy snaps banned at a site popular with tourists. Southgate management has posted "no camera" signs.

The signs are around the Yarra River retail and dining centre.

The edict follows an incident in which tourists were seen photographing "obscure" parts of buildings and were asked to delete the photos from their cameras.

They refused, and security called police to insist.

I took some pictures of Southgate and I better post it up before it is completely banned. I will lay low for a while. Nothing is too hard for my readers.





But wait, there is still hope.

Tourist photo ban over the top: PM

PRIME Minister John Howard has described a move to ban cameras from a popular Melbourne tourist precinct amid terrorism fears as "over the top".

Mr Howard said he did not think the terrorist threat in Australia warranted such a move.

"I think that is over the top," Mr Howard told ABC Radio.

"Everybody's got a camera now. Does that mean a mobile phone camera?

"I don't think the terrorist threat in this country warrants that. I really don't.

"I don't know who did this and I don't wish to offend them, and I'm sure they mean well, but I do think that is going too far."

Thanks, Mr. Prime Minister for your timely comments.
Once again this blogger can travel with his camera and grab happy, touristy snaps boldly and blog freely without fear.

A Good Deal

It is not everyday, one gets a good deal.
I have been looking for a lawn mower for the last 4-5 weeks. This is to replace the one I had for the past 15 years. It had been coughing, spluttering and hard to start. Morever, the casing is rusted out and I had it fixed at work once before. I guess it no use trying to fix it or service it. It is time to retire it off.
I had been to Bunnings and Kmart to look at the new lawn mower and it varies from $280 to $600 depending on the brands, models, features and country of manufacture. Well known brand like Victa, Rover,Maspot and Honda are on the expensive range. The cheaper range were unknown brand and I am skeptical about them. Some, if not most of them, were made in China with unknown brands of motors, with plastic casing and el cheapo grass clipping catcher.
I also looked at Ebay and was disappointed at some offerings. Majority of the sellers were selling new lawn mowers.
2 Saturday ago, I went with Maureen to the Glen Centro's Coles shopping for groceries. She went into Coles and I stood outside at the notice board glancing at the advertisment on the board. There was this small advertisement on the board looking directly at me. Look at me! It screamed.

"Lawn Mower for Sale $150. Electric Whipper $35. Used on small patch of lawn and hardly used. Ring xxxxxxxx or drop in to shop lot 158."

As soon as Maureen came out of Coles, we rushed to shop lot 158 and it was closed. I rang the number given and no one answered. I suspected it was the shop phone number.
Come Monday morning, I rang the lady at 9am. I told her I was interested in the Lawn Mower, she advertised. She asked if I could come the same evening after 6pm to have a look at it. Now, normally at this time of the day I would be cooking dinner and would not go out on a cold dark winter night. But something tells me to go and look at it. It is a small voice telling me, "Go and look at it, you won't regret it."
So I told her, "yep, I will be there at 6.15pm".
Just as I was to leave the house at 5.45pm it started to rain and when I hit the main road the traffic was building up. It was dark and the road signs were poorly lighted up and I got lost. Yep, I got lost. I was telling myself, "Blah, it was a mistake to come out tonight." After a few more wrong turns and frustrations, I found the place.
Rang the doorbell and a lady of about 50ish opened the door. She opened the garage door and I had a quick look at the Lawn Mower.

It was clean looking and well maintained. She told me the lawn mower has not been used for the last 9 months. She used to mow her small patch of lawn in front of her unit until she was told to stop doing it. Her unit was managed by a corporate affair and she has to pay to have the lawn mowed just like everyone else. That was why she decided to get rid of the mower.
I quickly paid her the $150. It was a bargain.
As I was about to leave and load it in my car, she asked if I would like the whipper snipper.

I was about to say, "no".

She said," you can have it for free."
I could not believe my ears.
She then bought out the fuel can, the funnel and the manuals for the lawn mower and whipper snipper and gave it to me. I was so happy.

Yeah, so happy I took a wrong turn on the way home and got caught in a massive traffic jam. It was a long way to home. But who cares, I got a good deal.
Last Saturday, I managed to have a good and closer look over the mower. It was clean and newish looking. I guess it was well maintained and seldom used. I drained and replaced the sump oil. Gave it a safety check, checked the plug, blades, catcher and wheels. Fill it with a bit of petrol and gave it a start. After the second yank, it roared into life.
I am back in business. Look out long grass, your days are numbered.

Neighbour House - Update 1

The outer wooden wall frames and the internal dividing wall are sat and mounted on the concrete slab. Underneath the concrete slabs are the plumbing. The upper floor floors' beams sit on top of the wooden wall frame . Then they put up another outer wooden wall frames and dividing wall sitting on the upper floor beams followed by the roof.

Do you think the lower wooden framed wall and inner wall are strong enough to hold the upper floor,roof, furnitures and people? Maureen thinks the houses built over here are very flimsy. I personally do not think so, as most if not all, the houses are built in this way. But I think Malaysian houses are over structured and over built making it more expensive. The irony is, even it is over structured and over built, houses still cracked and some even collasped. Why?

A Nice Warm Winter Day

Even though we in the middle of winter, today is one of the nice warm day in winter. The sun is out and bright and there is hardly any wind at all. This give me the opportunity to go out to the garden and smell the fresh air and look at some of the blooming flowers. Surprisingly the chilli plants are still surviving with chillies on it. Normally the leaves would have withered due to the frost. The rose plants are shooting. Armed with my camera I captured what I saw and let the pictures do the talking.