Halloween

Halloween,


It's that time of year again.  American culture seeping into all corners of the world, and Kuala Lumpur hasn't been spared.


If my memory serves me right, back in my younger days there was no such talk of celebrating Halloween, but nowadays one can't escape it, no matter what, you can't hide from the media,....radio's and tv's blaring ads announcing Halloween parties here and there and even the shopping malls put up dedicated stands to celebrate this supposedly most scariest day of the year when ghosts and spirits haunt our streets.

Credit to the marketing bozo's, they do know how to entertain the younger generation with the plethora of scary toys, as you can see for yourself on the pictures.  Our girl wasn't exactly scared but she was rather more intrigued with the countless Halloween products on offer.

But what made it all special for her, were the Halloween candy's on sale, and in this case it was a "vampire coffin creeper" lollypop.....gosh, should have known that this was the deal maker for her, she and her sweet tooth....can't go wrong....

We didn't actually buy any of these merchandise, informing our gal that Santa Claus was coming and we don't wanna spend money on this Halloween nonsense....so no costumes and no scary toys in da house.


How wrong could I be......'cos barely a few days later she was invited to attend a Halloween party at a classmate's, AliceTan's house.


Correct, you read it right....a Halloween party....


Her being at a tender age, we were already pondering how to help her out with her costume, ..... eventually our idea was of dressing her up as a pirate. Get some old clothes, tear it up, use marker pens to randomly draw whatever on it, a head scarf, smear some shoe polish on her face and body.....would look cool, wouldn't it?


Forget about it, the little dame had her mind set on being dressed as..........Cinderella........."gulp".....what?


She was adamant to go as Cinderella, no matter what.......even though I warned her that her dress would turn into a bunch of rags when the clock strikes twelve midnight.  Laetitia gave me a look like ......"yeah, right"....."you can't fool me anymore".....


(aaaargh, I want to turn back time on occasions like these.....grmmmbbblllll)

For the very first time, Jessica applied some make up to her, boy oh boy....our girl did look posh and daddy here dropped her off at her friend's house.

I'm the first to admit, that the Halloween party turned out quite nice, keeping her company for a bit till I felt that my presence was no longer required by her.  Her classmates, Audrey, Denise, Stephanie and Alice were more the focus of her attention than daddy.  -Sigh-, have to accept the fact that she is growing up......babygirl ain't a babygirl anymore.

The Gang of 4 : Denise, Stephanie, Laetitia & Audrey

And sitting at home till she called me up to pick her up, waaaaaay past midnight.


Did she have a great time? From the looks of it, she did indeed had a great time....




And did her dress turn into rags like I said it would? Silly me, ofcourse not....those are fairy tales....and fairy tales have no more place at her age, at least in this instance.

Run & Scoot?

Run & Scoot?

In Western Europe, bound by law, doctors can only discreetly show their practice with a signboard on their front door.  

But here in Malaysia, there are no limits....every country has its rules and regulations, so I'm used to seeing clinics here going all the way to attract patients by way of eye-catching signboards, news paper ads, magazines, social media, the lot.....

But this particular clinic beats them all.

"Klinik Panicker".....ermmmmm.....people tend to go to the doc with a bit of trepidation, seeking out medical help for their ailments.

But c'mon, this Panicker Clinic beats them all.....

First of all is the name itself......would you be at a piece of mind when you see this signboard screaming at ya?  I bet you don't :p

Secondly, all tinted glass, prohibiting us from looking inside.....yeah, I know, the docs in there must have their good reasons of installing tinted windows.  But somehow, I don't know what to expect before I set foot in this clinic when I need to (touch wood!!!).

Nah, I haven't paid the clinic a visit and I'm not inclined to, call me a 'chicken' :p

I'd rather run and scoot when my family suggests I pay this clinic a visit for a check-up.

Panicker.....I bet that any positive confidence that sick people have of getting cured will evaporate like ice put under the glaring, hot sun when they stand in front of this signboard. :)

Ghostbusters for hire

Ghostbusters for hire,

There must be some kind of truth in all these paranormal phenomena, what with the rising popularity of claire voyants, mediums and all other sorts of inexplicable occurrences.


Or at least the majority of our fellow men and women do believe that such things exist and occur outside our normal realm.


A lot of people tend to regard this as pure fiction, based on stories from hearsay, but there is a sizeable portion who do believe in it.


We were not surprised then when we saw this signboard, advertising in bold letters and lingo, offering their 'specialized' services to exorcise ghosts and demons.

They promote their services for everybody to see, better than through backwater channels.  At least you know what you gonna get :)


But......are they as good as they proclaim to be? When I pay for something I expect something tangible in return, but how about driving out 'ghosts' and 'spirits'??  If I can't see them, how would I know if those entities have truly been excorsized?


Only one way to find out......ermmm....


Anyone game for testing these ghostbusters out? Be my guest and do inform us whether you are able to sleep soundly :p


We are all ears :)

Unlocking a padlock Yuen's way

Unlocking a padlock Yuen's way,

Does this never happen to you all? Having padlocks lying around, but somehow somewhere the keys are missing?

Obviously, that's what happened to us, otherwise I wouldn't jot this down.


Well, after fruitlessly ransacking the house for well over a few hours, we resorted to using the brute method.

A hammer? nah....


Pliers?....also nah.....


Smashing it on the floor?....certainly doesn't work


Bare hands?.....nada, we ain't Superman....


Even with the dedicated set of lock picks that I've obtained through Wim R. (keep this hushed, will ya? :p),  I couldn't budge open the #@&! padlock.

We had to open this padlock as we needed to use this particular locked piece of luggage for our upcoming trip, and needless to say, we have a tendency of packing on the eve of departure,....thus you can easily imagine that our patience was severely tested....and all this because of us stashing away the keys and not remembering where we had put it.....#!@*&@_)*!$(.....




A knife then, just to cut it.....a table knife isn't up to the task, a kitchen knife neither....


mmmmmmhhhhhmmmm........how about a plain old bread knife?


That knife sure has some teeth to muster.....and guess what.


According to our trusted house maid, Ros, sawing the lock was a doodle.

And hupsakee.......problem solved.

One padlock less though.....we just have to buy another set, and try to remember where we stash away the keys of it.  


Lesson learned, using a breadknife to open the padlock,....
although it comes at the price of purchasing a new one




That serves us right, doesn't it?

Ladies and shopping for clothes

Ladies and shopping for clothes,

It's a universal truth, send the ladies of the house off on a mall trip, and chances are very likely that you find them shopping for garment.

Thus the ladies of our household make no exception to that.

One of the few perks of traveling up and down to Hong Kong, is the vast quantity of affordable and fashionable clothes that are up on offer all over the place.  What do you expect with the sweat shop factories across the border in China, it's a jungle of the fittest out there and as a result of that, we as consumers enjoy the fruits of the law of the 'jungle'.

Honestly, I always get myself lost in the huge selection of clothes on offer (after all I'm not a dandy)....so invariably the ladies go their own merry way picking out clothes while this dude drools himself over the latest techo gadgets next doors.

Loitering for well over an hour, I thought it was time's up and see for myself the spoils of the day of what they had purchased.

Dear wife was still selecting,.....time really flies...., and our girl?

Where was our girl?

"Dear, where is Laetitia?"

"Dunno, somewhere around"

"Ugh,...okay"

As I made my way through the shop, I couldn't help but notice the throng of eager ladies whose mind were solely set on acquiring that elusive perfect piece of garment.....so it's true then....shopping for clothes can be a bliss or a burden for the ladies....

So where did our girl hide herself then?

Last resort, head to the changing rooms.....she might be there trying out a bunchload of clothes.

Ow, yes......she was there all right.....

Not changing clothes though,.....just sitting there and killing her time playing on her Nintendo NDS.

I guess the labour of choosing clothes has gotten the better of her.......

Dear girl, tired already? 

You still have a long life of shopping for clothes ahead of you....better get the hang of it :)

Donning on Specs

Donning on Specs,

It seems not that long ago, but delving into our blog's archive, it's already 3 years ago that our girl complained of bad eye-sight back then and subsequently we took her for an eye-test. The check-up turned out negative (as in no glasses needed for her). We are talking 2008 here,....Time flies.....

http://yuenslair.blogspot.com/2008/11/vision.html

2011 now, and her school results have since the past 10 months taken a turn for the worst. We put it partially on her stubborn character to obey, listen (what do you expect, she has become a teenage Dragon girl after all). But somehow, something was nagging us.....


We suspected that something was amiss with her eyesight, thus when the opportunity presented itself to do a free check-up at a nearby optical shop, I demanded that she undergo a test, just to make sure....

1) whether she really has bad eye-sight (unable to copy from the blackboard)......


2) or whether she has really become that lazy at school (then she'll be in for some tirade from us)

The optometrist came back with a positive result, that our daughter really has become myopic,....well, like father like daughter....


Thus I asked for a more accurate assessment of her eyes and she was then duly asked to take a seat in the examining room.


Looking at my daughter wearing specs for the first time sure feels different.

And once it was determined how 'bad' her eyes are, came the task of choosing a suitable pair of specs....which I can tell you was no mean feat.

This, no....That, no....This, childish.....That, don't like the colour.......This, too big......That, too small.....I want like Justin Bieber!!!.....(aaaaaargh)

In the end she settled for a half frame design, with which she was comfortable with.

And have to admit, that's a pretty good choice......told her that Harry Potter's round glasses wouldn't match her round face....Round and Round don't go well together :p

So there you have it, D&D (daughter and dad) wearing specs, 

Her school results have incrementally improved since the day she DOESN'T forget to bring her glasses to school (God knows why she regularly 'forgets' to bring along her specs to class, has she become vain??)

But for time being, she can't complain or rather has no more excuses that she can't read from the black board anymore.

We as parents have fulfilled our duty of providing her with perfect vision, 

Thank you very much indeed :)

Smoke in the cabin

Smoke in the cabin,

Comfortably seated for take-off, all strapped up, trolleys stowed away in the overhead lockers, browsing through some reading material......and everyone on board is ready to go.

But as the cabin crew was going its final routine before departing, something unusual started to occur...white smoke in the cabin??

Heck, at first, most of us, seasoned travellers, didn't take much notice of it, but the smoke started to engulf the whole cabin....but looking around, some peeps did start to look nervously around, heads bobbing up and down, left and right...

Even my dear wife looked worried as shown in below vid......quickly opening up a bottle of water and drinking from it in order to prevent to inhale the white smoke. And quickly checking the emergency procedures checklist....

By now, I had already made the assumption that the smoke originated from the cabin cooling systems, as there was no smell of a bonfire (mind you, I'm not an aeronautical engineer, don't ask me for the details of how, what and why)

And out of the smoke came ......... our saviour........or rather.......our air hostess.

But as you see from the vid above, she just whisked by....and not with the usual smile and grace.....ohoooooooooooh.....something's fishy......

Nah, silly us, nothing's fishy about the whole white smoke, and yes indeed, another Red Angel came and did stop by to comfort the worried passengers that everything is A-Okay.

Eventually the 'smoke' subdued and we were finally cleared for take-off.

I bet that quite a few of my fellow passengers were already thinking that their flight was going up in smokes.....:p

How about that, to kickstart one's trip into the sky? 

"Flight AK47, You are GO for launch"