Borders' Staff Gave Me Extra Discounts

On the 3rd day of CNY, I decided to ignore the old folks' comments that one should not go to books stores to buy books (shue, in Cantonese sounds like "loose" as in loose money) if one wants to gamble during the new year and win money. Took the Monorail to Berjaya Times Square and headed straight for Borders.

I like shopping at Borders Book Store as their selection is rather wide and I simply love their Bargain Corner plus their special promotions. They were having the 3 books for the price of 2 promotions and I simply could not resist picking up several. After spending almost close to an hour browsing and selecting, I decided to make for the counter to pay for the books as I only had about 30mins left to get home as my brother was going to belanja (pay for) dinner at Klang that evening (read previous post).

I already did a mental calculation as to how much I am going to have to pay for all those lovely books and it should be around RM210, plus minus RM1. When the cashier was scanning in the books, I realize that she was likely to make a mistake as she totally ignored the fact that some of the books were under the 3 for the price of 2 promotion. When the final amount was tabulated, she asked for RM248.90. I knew that could not be right. So, I politely asked if she could print out the bill so that I could check it. She curtly replied "Cannot" and she called her colleague over. I tried to ask her colleague if I could have a look at the bill first before I paid for the books and he replied (at least a little bit more politely) that they don't do that for the customers. Customers only get to look at the bill after they have paid for the books. Alamak.... how can that be right?

So, I asked if I could borrow a calculator. They were both ignoring me this time as they were busy taking all my books out of the plastic bag. I noticed that they were scrolling the bill out of the cashier's machine and checking it against the books. They must have realized that they did something wrong. I decided to fish out my mobile phone and using the calculator function, I managed to determine that the cost of the books should total RM207.80 exactly.

When the two of them finally finished re-keying in the cost of the books, the value came out to RM204.90. Yikes.. how come? So I asked them if they were sure?? I can check for them. This time all I got were blank stares. Sigh...so, what to do.. cough out the RM204.90 and the get the bill first after paying then only check lor. By then, I have already spent a good 10 minutes at the counter and I had only 20minutes to get up the Monorail to get home on time.

When I got home, I found out where the problem was. I bought 2 lots of the "special 3 books for the price of 2". The sticker clearer stated that one can buy 3 books from a collection, and the cheapest book out of the 3 selected will be given free. The mistake of the cashier was billing me for all 3 books from the 1st lot ... no free book from this lot. But for the other lot (which was more expensive), she billed me for 1 book and gave me 2 books for free...yeah..

So, all I have to say is "Thank you Borders for the angpow of RM2.90... which is the difference of what I would have had to pay if your staff had been nicer and more responsive to your customers". Kong Xi Fa Cai!

The True Meaning of Valentine's Day

Little Melissa comes home from first grade and tells her father that they learned about the history of Valentine's Day. "Since Valentine's Day is for a Christian saint and we're Jewish," she asks, "will God get mad at me for giving someone a Valentine?"

Melissa's father thinks a bit, then says "No, I don't think God would get mad. Who do you want to give a Valentine to?"

"Osama Bin Laden," she says.

"Why Osama Bin Laden?" her father asks, reeling in shock.

"Well," she says, "I thought that if a little American Jewish girl could have enough love to give Osama a valentine, he might start to think that maybe we're not all bad, and maybe start loving people a little. And if other kids saw what I did and sent Valentines to Osama, he'd love everyone a lot. And then he'd start going all over the place to tell everyone how much he loved them and how he didn't hate anyone anymore."

Her father's heart swells and he looks at his daughter with new-found pride. "Melissa, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard!"

"I know," Melissa says. "And once that gets him out in the open, the Marines could blow the crap out of him!"

Good joke: The True Meaning of Valentine's Day

Bad Joke?? Never mind.... just to share a different perspective of Valentines Day :)

I'd just like to wish everybody a Happy Valentines Day, whatever this day may mean to each of us... just let us have a happy one.

The season to eat and eat and then..eat some more

Apart from the pregnancy period (women only ah... sorry guys), the festive season is the only good time to eat a lot and look fat, without people commenting too harshly about it... coz all you need to do is look at the mirror and you'll get to meet Mr or Ms Blubber in person (smirk).

After the first day of Chinese New Year, where the obligatory visitations are almost done, the rest of the days are more more of informal meetups and gatherings, with the highlight of each event being obviously the food.

On the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, after a short break on the 2nd day of eating the leftovers from the reunion dinner dishes and the large plate of vegetarian dish served on the 1st day, one of my brothers suggested that we take a drive to Pandamaran for dinner. I'm always game for any dinner, especially when my brother volunteered to pick up the tab for it :).

It was a good drive up to Klang as the traffic was easy. We started off about 6pm and managed to reach in about 30 minutes, despite getting lost inside a housing estate. There were 8 adults (including my mum's maid) and 3 kiddos. We decided not to order the sets as they seemed a bit too much for us (even though we ...grunt...can eat like hogs). Ala Carte it was then.

The "must-have" Yee Sang..coz that is my favourite :)

This is Tofu Kang, a thick soup made of tofu.. the poor man's version (or should I say the environmentalist's version) of shark fin soup

What I can grab off the plate of Ho Chian, fried oysters.

Fried Kai Lan in garlic

Sweet and Sour Garoupa (I know I know.. dun look much like a fish... but this time I was too slow and the family got to the fish before I got to my camera phone)

Marmite Chicken

The quantity was just right this time... unlike the order we made for our reunion dinner ... which is another story.. a long hot meal by the roadside.

The total came up to slightly less than RM200. There was complimentary jelly which the kids loved more than any of the dishes we order. Thanks bro for a jolly good meal... anytime you need an extra stomach.. you know where to get me :)

This is the address of the restaurant :

Kedai Makanan Laut Kebun Kelapa (HALAL)
Add: 1354 Jalan Nipah, Lorong 4, Pandamaran, Port Klang
Tel: +603 3168 4451

Picture "borrowed" from Rasa Rasa Malaysia

Reviews on this restaurant can be found at Rasa Rasa Malaysia and Jules Eating Guide to Malaysia

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Great pre-CNY dinner at Spring Valley Mid Valley

Wow.. time sure flies when you are having great meals. It is already the end of 1st day of Chinese New Year.

My very good friend Daphne and her hubby gave us (me, JW, Winnie and Superman) a wonderful meal before they flew home on Tuesday. She picked or rather I picked the Tai Thong outlet called Spring Valley Chinese Restaurant at Midvalley because their food is tasty and the prices are reasonable. There were 6 of us adults and little Zach. I would like to post the photos of the people at the dinner but really, the photos of the food were a good deal prettier..haha..I will let the individuals at the dinner post their own photos at their respective blogs :).

Daff ordered the set dinner for 6 pax priced at RM328++. We started with the Salmon Yee Sang (oooo..my second for the year). Look at the pics and see how yummy the food turned out.

Salmon Yee Sang

Braised Shark's Fin Soup with Crab Meat and Hasma


Shanghai Styled Deep-fried Cod Fish


Deep-fried homemade Bacon Handrolls with Salad


Wok-fried Prawns with Chilli Powder and Dried Shrimp


Braised Village Chicken


Fried Rice with Waxed Meat


Dessert for the day which turned out to be yellow pumpkin with sago and honey dew

Thank you so much to Daff and Philip for the wonderful dinner and the great company. Little Zach, it was really great to see you after more than 3 years? Hope to see you guys again soon. Kong Xi Fa Cai and may you have much happiness, good health and great wealth in this year of the Rat.

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Time to shift my seating position :)

As most of you already know, the Year of the Earth Rat arrived yesterday at 7:30pm. And guess what, this year, I am really going to practice what I preach. This was really triggered by what my ex-Managing Director said to me a few weeks ago during lunch time. He said "Things have not been going to well for you lately has it?". Not sure if he meant it as a joke or whether he was serious as what he said did hit the nail on the head. After thinking about it, I realized that yeah.. i could calculate where the auspicious stars seated and where a person should locate himself or herself, especially for those who have come to seek advice from me. But as for myself, I definitely was not practicing what I preached.

For the whole of last year, I was actually seated in a position which promoted arguments and relationship problems. I must say that that was oh so true. There have been cold wars and hot wars. They were definitely unpleasant but as I was also living out the year of the boar, which was my "emptiness" year, I was probably caught in a period of being confused and lost. But as the boar left, clarity came back. As I am writing this post, I already have my compass out and have marked out the auspicious sector where I am going to located my table. I cannot really request for a new office spot but the least I can do with this limitation is to change the seated and facing direction of my office table.

This is the position of the various auspicious stars and inauspicious stars for the year 2008. Normally people used the annual flying stars positions to maximize short-term good feng shui energies. All one has to remember is that the most auspicious positions by virtue of the Qi positioning is the East and the South East Sector, or even the centre. But it would rather be ridiculous to seat or to sleep in the middle of the room. The numbers 8, 9 and 1 are where the auspicious stars are located.


If you are seated in the East or South East Sector and also facing any of these two positions will be what we call having fine-tuned the seating position.

What I intend to do would be to place my table in either the East or the South East position. If I don't do that, I am likely to find myself still in a very argumentative state plus deteriorated health. A little bit of effort is all I need to do. No need to ask the company for budget to add furniture or do any renovations. And I am certainly not going to place any items or feng shui objects onto my already work cluttered table :).

Well.. (rolling up sleeves getting ready to move table).. here's to a much better year of the Earth Rat for me :)

Feng Shui

A great party, with great company and great food

JW organised a "makan" (eating get-to-gather) last Saturday at her spanking new condo. Invited us at least 2 weeks back and since then I have been thinking hard as to what to bring over. Since she said she was going to provide the main meal, my earlier intention of cooking the white pasta sauce had to be KIVed. Since there were kids there, I decided to make a really homemade Oreo cheesecake and some cookies.

Lookie all the gorgeous food.. some from EuroDeli, the duck is from the famous Setapak stall (so we were told by Winnie), the Tuna Potato cutlets were made by Casper

I remembered the Horlicks Doggie cookies which I saw some time back. It was posted by "Do What I Like" blogger. They were so very cute and it had what I thought was simple instructions... until I tried it. I think it must be difference in the ingredients and also the oven as I had to improvise some. I used super fine flour and my Hersey Chocolate Chips were a little too big for these doggies. How do I know? Coz my friend Winnie asked "Are these Panda cookies??". Anyway, the kids didn't buy it? There were 3 of them there but none of them ate the cookies. But the "older" kids... JW, Babe and Daff really helped themselves ...I am not sure if they gave any to Casper.

The doggies or are they Pandas?? The actual ones looks much much better at the "Do What I Like" blog

I also made a really homemade Oreo non-baked cheesecake. Why do I emphasize on the homemade? Coz as far as presentation went, that scored me an absolute perfect ZERO!. Absolutely non-existent artistic flair. I just plonked the bag of chopped Oreo cookies into the cheese filling and shucked it into the fridge and hoped for the best. Fed the cake to the test bunnies at the party and guess what.... saw JW's post and chatted with babe on MSN this morning...phew.. the test bunnies are still ok :)

The very much homemade Oreo Cheesecake

A very pretty and happy test bunny

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The Year of the Earth Rat Starts today!

Chinese New Year eCards are flying over the internet and everybody assumes that the new year of the Rat will start on the 7th February 2008. But in the study of Feng Shui, the year of the Earth Rat actually starts tonight after 7pm on the 4th of February 2008. The 4th day of February signifies the coming of Spring in the Chinese Solar Calender. The 7th February 2008 signifies the new moon in the Chinese Lunar Calender. So, if one is concerned about their luck for this coming year, then the Rat arrives tonight.

This is the Bazi Chart which is plotted using the Online Tools off the Mastery Academy of Chinese Metaphysics Website. It probably makes no sense to those who are not in the study of Chinese Metaphysics. The reason why I added it to this post look a little bit more authentic..hehehe



But after saying that, luck (whether good or bad) does not happen like the water off a tap.. where you turn on or off. The year of the Boar tapers off whilst the Rat moves in subtly. Just because you heard over the radio that you have abundant good luck in the year of the Rat, do not put all your savings on the poker table during your sessions during the new year. It really does not work that way.

I was listening over the radio this morning and there was a Feng Shui master who was doing predictions for the year and for those individuals who sms-ed in their hour and date of birth. It was rather interesting as different feng shui masters uses different techniques and interpretation to derive their readings. But my advice is whatever you hear or read, do not be fixated. The bazi readings are only to give you a guide to life. It shows you your potential. How you live this life is something you have control over, either through your actions or non-actions.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my friends and all who happen to drop in a wonderful and happy New Year of the Earth Rat!

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