Micheal Jackson 1958-2009

Yesterday morning (June26) when I woke up and walked towards to my computer and opened my email and I saw this..

On top is the conversation mails among friends Carmen, Low Kei, Yi Quan, Joshua…

MJ passed away? but which one? That time I was still half asleep… Michael Jordon or Michael Jackson? Both are legends.. while I was still unconscious, I went to CNN and realized  it is Michael Jackson.

Micheal Jackson, the cool man who Moonwalk and does robots on stage. He made people to feel OK to scream and shout “aaaarrrrGGGHHH” in their music.

Many people think he is weird and like to poke fun on him. Additionally medias makes him the freak of the century. But yesterday when the world realized MJ’s presence does not exist anymore, it was a huge wake up call for everyone in the world to remember him.

top selling album in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 20’s. Who can achieve that?

Personally I like most of his music. his eccentric energy that pour out from his music… and his iconic moves and dances.

I would like to have one of his patented 1993 anti gravity shoes…

We always love you MJ

FireMice’s secret Pasta Recipe

For some reasons, I just love noodles and pasta. This is due to my family background and I know alot about the origin of noodles.

My family

My Grandfather is the God father for one ton mee / Wan Tan Mee . He was the master / sifu for wan tan mee. About 50 years ago, He brought my grandma from China Guangzhou to Vietnam, then Singapore and finally decided to stay in a new vellage in Petaling Jaya called Sungai Way.

They opened a famous wan tan mee noodle shop in the wet market called Chooi Kei ( 徐记 ). Business was so good back then and it managed to finance the entire family well. Not only my grandparents sold wan tan mee, They manufactured all the ingredient themselves like the wan tan skin (雲吞皮), wan tan pasture, noodle and the BBQ pork (叉烧).
My dad even lost 2 fingers when he was 9 years ago while making the noodles. His fingers were accidently destroyed by the machine. So now he has 8 fingers. 2 contributed to the Wan tan noodles ingredient (joking).

We often have alot of wan tan mee and others noodle as well.

My little sister (Meng Xi) used to say this when she had too much wan tan mee:

I Know Wan Tan Mee is in my BLOOD! But i just want to eat something else!

History of Pasta and Noodle

Chinese people should be pround of their food. Noodle was invented by Chinese. We Chinese started eating noodles since 4000 years ago.

It was Marco Porlo went to China and imported Chinese noodles before they turned them into pasta and make it into Italian delicacies. Also it was because Noodles was introduced to Europe via Silk Road.

My secret’s Secret Pasta

Having been so far away from home makes me crazy about getting eating family noodles. I can only find pasta here.

But I did try something new to satisfy my appetite.

so! my secret starts here…  Since I like Tagliatelle pasta  so much. I decided to write about Tagliatelle pasta!

Firstly, rinse and clean the pasta with water. Then put Tagliatelle pasta into the water Neatly like the picture below.

Yes, Tagliatelle must be put like this  while boiling. Secret ->Tagliatelle is very sensitive, it will stick to each other easily. Once it sticks to each other it is very very difficult to cook them.

Then heat it profusely and stir it .  then put some cooking oil in the frying pan and be readied to prepare the pasta sause.

2nd vege,

Prepare one big Onion then cut it  and make it sprinkle  then pick 2 carrots , cut them  and mix with Onion + fry .

thirdly put tomato sause .

While waiting, I grabbed a bottle of beer and drink. this is another Secret. pour some it into the tomato paste. it will enhance the flavour.

put a lot and a lot i mean alot of pepper .

Here is another secret. I need Coconut milk. but I can’t find any coconut milk. But i manage to find another thing to replace coconut milk and it is similar. It is MAGNUM COCONUT CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM! so… take it out , let it melt and stir it .

Then, rinse the Tagliatelle , fry a little bit with the rest , take it out .

Finally wah la!

Amazingly Set foots again on ALPS!

2 years ago my colleagues and me had a precious opportunity to ascend Jungfrauh aka Top of Europe.

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Now, me and my colleagues were always HOT! ( not Pamela Anderson that kind of HOT!), we came from Malaysia and Singapore. So most of the time we suffer from extreme heat. ALPS is way too coool ( temperature and experience) for us.

My + Ex-colleagues

We didn’t just ascend to Jungfrauh, we stayed one night there at one of the luxurious hotel. Getting drunk at night with the bosses and etc.. I remember the thicket price to go up there was 145CHF.

Needless to say, one of my ex-colleagues is also my ex-coursemates..

Low Kei

Well, at that point of time I wish I could bring the people I love to enjoy this extraordinary view and breathe in the super fresh air on top of ALPS + feel the snow around you..  for me, to bring another person especially Pipi to ALPS is a mission impossible.

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Now I have the chance!! I will have to put low kei into history and make my wish come true.

It happened that Pipi was in Switzerland last month. There’s hundreds of thoughts running and goes into all sort of directions in my mind. I was so crazy to bring her up there. Finally, I got the chance to materialize it

HAHA!

This time, I didn’t bring her to Jungfrauh. Instead, we went to Mt. Titlis.

We took a bus from Zurich all the way to Lucerne, it was a 3 hours drive. Pipi was sleeping all the way… until she saw this in front of her eye…

It was at the end of winter, at this part of ALPS it was still full with glacier. Pipi was getting more and more excited when we get nearer to the mountains. As we were going up the mountains, snow is everywhere

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Everything was nice, and finally….. we ARrived!

Pipi below Alps

We have to use Titlis Rotair to go up there.

As you can see, Pipi need extra jacket to keep her warm + special boots to make her walk on snow.

We need to use 3 different types of cable car to go up to Mt. Titlis.

The #1 cable car is like the one we used to go Genting (my previous company)

exchange station…

and the final one is rotatable… it just made you dizzy.

finally we set foot on top of ALPS!

everywhere…. here here, there there is snow… scenery is great!

Mountains + snow + chill wind drives Pipi’s adrenalin crazY.

me?

with the snow I tried to make myself a touch phone… like the  touch-phone-one-hand-tips!

…………………………

But Pipi made a   luv.

I tried to climb up the hill and roll down….

end up OUCH!

and KO ..

Most importantly…you guys must try this!

Switzerland Muesli + famous yogurt + best scene + get your ass stick on ice

also… what i called Ice cave

sadly… there’s always an end…

we decended…

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

not to forget… our group of the day…

from left ( indian engineer, spain guy, spain woman, cool driver, Dubai business man, ninja business man’s wife, pipi, FireMice)

Belfort Music Fest 2009

I’m staying at a small town in France call Belfort.

It is a dead town. During weekends, everyone tries to escape Belfort. You will hardly find any surviving souls during weekends.

something happened in this particular long weekend 29, 30, 31 Mei and 1st June.

a pathetic quiet town is BLAST! by,

FIMU 2009

FIMU 2009 ” Festival International de Musique Universitaire” is a French International musical festival. Musicians all around Europe came to Belfort and perform. I am glad that finally I can kill some time in this looooong weekend. the good thing about this event is, it is going to be held for 3 days 3 nights.

at first, I thought no one else will care about this. But I felt strange about this Saturday. The sky seems brighter than usual and I felt extremely relax walking in the town. The town was so warm. I did notice there are more people in town compared to previous weeks.

I was surprised to see booths were set everywhere, stage at every corner of the city.

I first came across the traditional classic groups, it was not bad. I never seen anything like that. haha..

and there was a concert in one of the garden, people came from other towns and countries.

I personally like this group of young people. they are so casual, simple, great combination of instruments, unique, and fun.

this tells something about how my people (including me) play music back in Asia. Kids + youngsters play music is like one of their studying subject. if not, we do it for getting prestigious exam grades, gain recognitions in music competition and performance.

The whole idea of these people doing up there is not about being perfect in front of others. it is about interaction with the audiences. Music should be lively, not a planed subject.

and i came across these people… they dressed like Mafia in funeral function, formal uniforms, all guys, flags…they are form Portugal

mafia music

but…. they do nuts..

These portugal’s Marfia, jumping around, kissing each other, shaking their ass… fun + crazy + entertaining… that demonstrates another thing what we Asian won’t expect to.

There’s a big stage right below Belfort casttle and Lion monument:

river bank…

music at river bank

more inside Stadiums and Church….

Food is everywhere… you can simply grab a snack and beer . sit everywhere and enjoy.

I saw this cool kid,

with big ear phones + exposed butt..

at night i encountered these beautiful jazz…

these goes on and on for 3 days 3 nights from noon till midnight…

I’m regret i didn’t make myself to enter the long Q to church to listen to the classical music. haha… overall it is superb!

LION!

I’d been moving around Europe lately. I would like to show you a typical Lion icon in Europe.

Why European likes Lion? hmm..

lion  GrrRRrrr…. A fierce creature, king of the jungle / king of the zoo, the only animal with sense of fashion (look at its stylish hair , its SEX symbol is so strong because behind one lion there’s hundreds of lionesses.

to put everything into a nutshell. Lion symbolizes POWER, SEX and STYLE.. a typical european huh? let’s see.

Lucerne

Lucerne is a very beautiful city in the heartland of Switzerland, across the lake from Altdorf.

Now there is a beautiful Lion Monument in Lucerne, it is called Lion of Lucerne.

I’m terrified of the lion

This Lion commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution. The sculpture of a mortally wounded lion mark the most mornful and moving piece of stone in the world. It was quite sad actually.

Belfort (Northeastern France)

I’m currently working in Belfort. There’s another Lion story here. This time it is Lion of Belfort.

GRRerRRrRr!

This is a masculine Lion. The Sculptor of this Lion is the sculptor for Statue of Liberty in New York. That means Lion of Belfort and Statue of Liberty came from the same mama.

This Lion symbolizes the heroic resistance of Belfort during a 103 days long Prussion assult. Belfort was protected from 40,000 Prussions by merely 17,000 men.

Lion of Sunway Pyramid

Now, I don’t have all the opportunity to see all the Lions of Europe. Well…

I miss home so much. So I was curious about the Lion near my house.

Lion of Sunway Pyramid

I wonder what does this symbolize as ? hmm… as you know Sunway was transformed from an abandon tin mine to an attractive location in Klang Valley.

I personally think the Lion has something to do with the Tin mine history in Klang Valley.

I remember during my form 2 in High School. my teacher used to tell me that. There was a great war between 2 entities to conqure important Tin Mine in Klang valley.

The event in Malay is called “ Perebutan Lombongan biji timah antara kongsi Gelap Ghee Hin dan kongsi Gelap Hai San“  which means Tin mine war between gangster Ghee Hin (contonese) vs ganster Hai San (Hakka).

I still remember Hai San gang was lead by the great YAP AH LOY ! the important person who developed KL and Klang Valley. Yap Ah Loy won the war and open many more tin mines in Klang Valley. Hurrah!

and later people commemorated the victory by putting LION of Sunway Pyramid. hence now we have all the hospital, shopping mall, Sunway College, Industrial area….

Many thanks to Yap Ah Loy and his gangster HAI SAN!

Europe DARK AGE

There had been a hiatus in my blog updating. I must say I’d been through a lot of things.

prequel updates:

Sad to say that I’m no longer a Baby-Renewable-Energy-Engineer. There was the time me + my company work together to think of the solution to capture CO2 and produce clean energy to save mama earth. I quit this sacred job and now I’m in an environmental-unfriendly-power plant-building-company. Instead of capturing and reducing CO2, me + my current company are looking for every possible way to erect power plants and releasing millions tons of CO2 and enormous amount of heat to the environmental.YES! it is an evil deed! in fact after transitioning from a renewable company to a traditional power building company, I realized  that currently the number of traditional power plants that are being erected is thousands times more than renewable power plants.

FireMice serving new boss to build EVIL plants

okie… now let’s enter to the real topics! What I encountered in Europe.

I traveled to a few places. I was in Sydney a month ago. Busy busy busy…. I was informed that I need to travel to Europe, basically Switzerland and France to experience an on-the-job training. I wasn’t excited about this when I heard that.

mainly because:

1. I don’t have enough time to prepare myself.
2. The weather was difficult for me.
3. I am still new to the company and there’s still a lot of procedures (necessaries)  yet to be discovered.
4. No one speak English in France.

Well in the end…. I managed to squeeze myself and put in all my capacity to prepare myself. I was tired + pressured + unpleasant + reluctant.

Everyone was telling a lot of procedures, must-do, must-not-do, how-to-do-it, way-to-get-there,  blah blah blah…..

Many people encouraged me to enjoy and experience the very best of Europe. I’m trying hard. But deep inside me…………. my 7th Sense (my 6th sense = sense of stupidity) tells me…… I see trouble.

My route to Switzerland:

I’d done many solo trips in my previous company. But this time my 7th Sense made me very very uncomfortable.

On my 1st day, I departed from KLIA to Bangkok at night. wait there at least 4 hours before I made another departing from Bangkok to Zurich. The time different made me kind of dizzy. I don’t know whether I was hungry or sleepy. But in the end I grabed a Burger King. Then I continued my journey to the west……

I put my foot on Zurich at 7.30pm. My 7th Sense keep trigging me again and again.... in my mind.

Besides 7th Sense. My mind is full of instruction + procedures + way-to-get-there…. but my body cannot take the tiredness and worries. My ultimate destination is Baden (my company HQ).

I took a train to Baden…..

and…..

7th Sense was right…..

When I finally reach Baden train station. It was kind of tense… when I got out of the train.. I felt myself was lighter.. and my bag pack is not with me…………………. ?!

Inside the bag pack there’s Company Laptop , a lot and a lot of CASH , My new bought 14.7 Mega pix Canon camera , my new bought Richard Branson’s book , my keys to my luggage

THIS IS NIGHTMARE!!!!

I tried many ways to find back my back… but everything seems impossible.. I prayed for a Quantum of  Solace. Squeeze my eyes so so hard until it was going to burst and talk to myself and curse myself for such incidents happen to me…

I entered to the office… and everything seems like hell.

well you all can imagine how I went through when I don’t have money, I don’t have keys to open my luggage.. I basicaly don’t eat and wore back the same thing for another week. my soul was so weak!

Now why can’t I open my luggage even if I don’t have the keys?

My Luggage is built by armour . and the key to lock it is so sophisticated.. it requires special magnet to open sesame my luggage . These elements is supposed to protect my properties to prevent people to open it. It turned out I am the people. I don’t plan to break it because it was given by my dad before I did my 1st company trip.

angry day 1, then Painful day 2….. hate day 3….. numb day 4….. cry ( tried very hard but couldn’t ) 5….  attempt suicide day 6…. constipation day 7…..

then……. Pipi shows up

=)

Touch phone one-hand tips

About 4 months ago. I needed to change a phone when Iphone 2.0 was just about to be released. I did a survey over a few types of phones. Before I made my mind, I classified all the phones into 2 different categories. Which is… Button phone and Touch phone (without buttons)

VS

Buttons Phone                Touch phone

In the End I choose Button phone over touch phone. The reason was…..

1. Touch phone portrays everything virtually. For me it is abit complicated. You have to see the figures correctly before you dial it. hence you cannot press the key without seeing it.
2. Most of the time, Stylus is required to navigate the phone. and you must use both hands to use the phone. hence, One-hand navigation becomes a problem for touch phone users.

Unlike Buttons phones…..

1. You can feel the buttons without seeing it. thereto, You can dial, type messages or play around your phone without looking into it. You can even dial your phone in your pockets cool~
2. Since buttons phone allow users to operate their phone by using one hand only, this enables phone users to perform multitasking. Such as drive-and-dial , Pee-and-dial , perform ritual+smoking-and-dial .
   
3. Now er…. I can’t think of something else more important. you see.. Buttons phone has a very rough surface. You can utilizing its roughness to scratch! because handphone is so portable. you can use it everywhere!!

Recently my friend ( e-quan )  owns a touch phone. I can’t wait to teach him how to perform one-hand operating in touch phone.

The secret of using one-hand-touch-phone tips is to MASTER your………

Tongue

I think it is a good idea to hold your phone with one hand, but at the same time navigate your touch phone by using your Tongue. By doing this, you can apply all button phone’s advantages into your touch phones (except the scratchy thingy)

just like this……. you can enven scroll your phone programs by licking your phone..

so, let me end this post by introducing to the world.. the new way of dialing handphone. lick lick guys !!!

FireMice vs PrinCess Pipi

Today is a very important day for me to post this article FireMice vs PrinCess Pipi.

PrinCess Pipi

Why FireMice vs PrinCess Pipi? PrinCess Pipi is number 1 rival in FireMice’s world. She challenges me in the things I like most, the food I like most, sports, thinking, and more and more….

Before this, FireMice lived quietly and peacefully. Not until one day both of us meet each other.

HeheHe….

We have total opposite characteristics:

1. PrinCess Pipi involves heavily in Sports and extremely dynamic, wherelse I involve in Musical thingy which is mild and require not much of physical action.
2. PrinCess Pipi meets alot of people, but FireMice tends to be quiet and passive.
3. PrinCess Pipi studied Power Engineering but FireMice did Electronic Engineerings.
4. PrinCess Pipi speak Hokkien fluently, FireMice merely understand any Hokkien but he knows Cantonese.
5. PrinCess Pipi does thing swiftly and able to make quick decission, FireMice intends to be slow and always get alot of trouble in making decissions.

FireMice and PrinCess Pipi met in UTM at 2002. At that time, FireMice was shorter than PrinCess Pipi. Now, I’m proud to say that I’m taller than PrinCess Pipi.

PrinCess Pipi’s real names is Pearl.

PrinCess Pipi’s favrite color is Pearl-Pearl (Purple)

PrinCess Pipi’s favorite number is…

5 !!!

and Pipi loves Basketball … so she always pick number 5 for her Jersey

Nice Number 5 purple Jersey

FireMice and PrinCess Pipi used to participate in some of the events in UTM. We used to work together and had uncomfortable working experiences. But both of us manage to turn bad things to good ones =)

Working together back to Uni…

China meets India

Today is the 3rd Anniversary for me and Pearl being together. Although we seldom meet each other. I would like to thank you for all the supports, hearing and sharing from you. Love ya!

Graffiti 2008

Now it is the end of year 2008. 2008 is a tough year. I would like to conclude my 2008 by summarizing what I’d encountered in the entire of 2008. A lot of ups and down in my career, job, things around and trivia.

I would like to share with everyone about the things I felt unhappy about 2008.

1. Recession brings great pain to many people. Although I don’t own a lot of properties and the recession doesn’t affect me much. But it brings an indication to many that our coming 2009 and so on will be a tough one! It won’t be easy for everyone. Including me.
2. Ridiculous fuel price bring great economic effect on all the things around.
3. My Job is terrible. The project I involve in my company is put on hold due to financing difficulties. I did nothing significant for more than half a year!
4. Finding Job: I’d tried to look for other opportunities outside my current company. It is really hard for a baby engineer like me to  look for a competitive position in a Mega-large company.

Well, I am trying to put all that in my grafitti and express my feelings towards them. 2009 will be a challenging year for everyone. I sincerely wish everyone a Merry X’mas and a happy new year. be happy =)

Solar Fashions

It is time for me to write MORE about my work. I have a lot of bad times in my job. But sometime I get to attach myself to some interesting substance. This time, I would like to combine my work researches with some FASHION material. How to combine? This is all Application science.

Diagram below details about how different varieties of renewable sources can be integrated  together to become an independent power system.

I’m still a baby renewable engineer, I’d just completed some researches on several types of Solar Panels. Namely Thin-film silicon solar, Amorphous Thin-film silicon solar, Mono-Crystalline solar and Poly-Crystalline. ArgggHH ! sounds boring.. let’s get into the fun part! SOLAR FASHION!

Now let’s start with the Solar Fashion Parade!

I would like to start something mild. Well, these 2 ladies don’t really look fashionable. I doubt that those are solar also. But I would like to publish it to bring credit out from their commitment. Yeh Baby!Behave~~

Now this one look relevant, glamorous and sexy. Note the black spots are the solar cells. It is quite small. solar cells are made from Crystalized Silicon. It look nice in fashion because it looks like crystal.

This one look fashionable. Got Style. Solar Crystals can be found everywhere.

Now it is men fashion. Picture above shows a simple solar patch found in the collar.

This look simple. You won’t go out with this. It makes you look like a robot and you got powered by that solar panel.

This one look cool. It looks like the terminator robot from the future. This picture shows the solar vest can power the phone, camera and etc…

This one look funky. You will look like aliens.

Gadgets

other than clothings, Solar do come in the form of other miscenalleous.

Yes! Power Purse! hahaha

Imagine you can charge your accessories while you travel.

You can charge you phone everywhere under the sun.

Solar also bring Excitement in Fashion industry. It make ladies to take off their clothes to get powered also.. Technology is so interesting.. let’s go green girls!!

YES YES!! it is solar BRAs, Solar Bikini, Solar Swimsuits… wooHoo! I wonder when will my boss allow me to execute this projects.