I found it amazing when a friend of mine (Qiqi, the one desperate to get married) commented on  a few books and her comments were published in some officials papers. please check this out .

I’m not a big fan of books. If I really read, that pile of papers really mean something.

Many people like to comment about the book they read. My favorite  example for these people are Daniel & Clarence. These are the samples of civilized and intellectual beings, which attracted me to stumble upon whenever I feel like I need some certain degree of inspiration and energy.

People say, what you read in the past made your mind today…

What had I been reading?

I remembered when I was 4 years old, my mum bought a series of sesame street books.

I still remember how Sesame Street conveys their teaching of the day.

Today’s letter A, B, C…. 1 , 2, 3 brought to you by Sesame Street…

Easy and fun, the subjects was instilled into my brain since then.

What else other than Sesame Street?

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The long hours of  lecturing during my University days had changed My reading habits dramatically.

I guess it was too much of pretending in front of lecturers that resulted my bad reading habits.

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During my younger days, I did give extra-curriculums to my mind. To explore, to be inspired, to be educated..

(I always prevent myself from bad reading habits when the reading material is inspiring)

Clarence Chua has always been helpful in providing insteresting subjects to me.

FHM magazine guru

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Above all,

Books strengthen the bond among friends. We used to share books before sleep. So that the information will cheerish our dreams and bring new hope to the next day.

Sometime I think my mind doesn’t belong to me at all. I just came back from Paris after meeting a good friend Jackson from UTM. My mind was wandering during the daytime in the office. Yes! It is another unproductive day for me in the office and I don’t know why I keep thinking about Journey to the West 西遊記, one of the greatest Chinese Classical Novels  I read during my childhood.

For some reasons this story reminds me about my presence in The West and my own Journey to the West. Why am I here?

Journey to the West story is about a Chinese Buddhist Monk who set out India to retrieve the Buddhist scripture for China in the 1590s. He was aided and protected by his royal and faithful disciples on his Journey. At the end, they all attained enlightenment.

Am I doing that?

Well, I was told by my boss or maybe it is a little mission from my boss to send me to the West to attain some experience that might help our company new direction. Get pieces of details, trivia about their work in the West.. so that at the end of the day I can crap things to them..

Gosh! Journey to the West is a Big wake-up call for me to be serious and pay more attention to work… so I have to gear myself up and be more competent now.

The mood of drawing suddenly hit me at the end of the day.. I guess I can use some Graffiti again to express myself like what I always like to do..

I decided to draw one of the interesting story in Journey to the West. It is about the punishment given by the great Buddha to Monkey King when he tried to escape from Buddha’s palm . The Buddha trapped the Monkey King under the Wu-Zhi Five Finger mountain for 500 years until someone come and save him!

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FireMice under the Five-Finger Mountain:

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one finger is hidden.

I felt the pressure all the time…. OUCH!

What is  “International Man of Mystery“? Can this title weight on par together with “The Sexiest Man Alive”, “The Most seducing Woman alive”,  “The Richest Man in the world”, “The Most Influential Person of the Century” and etc..

I’m 25 years old and I was half educated from various movies. Where did the title “International Man of Mystery” come from? It is from..

Austin Powers, a fictional character which is a parody of the famous James Bond, but in a more flamboyant style.

How Austin Powers was dubbed “International Man of Mystery” by the people  ?

It was during 1958, in British Intelligence Academy. Austin Power was 19 years old at that time

that morning he was “shagging” with a beautiful girl.

Only the most famous person in the academy can be the International Man of Mystery. Initially, the young Dr.Evil was nominated..

The young Dr. Evil was so evil, he was arrogant, people couldn’t  stand his laughter hahaha most of the time. People threw cake to him during that day ,  renominated Austin Powers as International Man of Mystery!

After since, he became magnificent!

cut the crap!

That ceremony taught me a very important lesson. Austin Power doesn’t need to be extremely intelligent (Dr. Evil was the #1 academy achiever),  He doesn’t need the smashing handsome look to become the sexiest man alive..

James Bond used his well proportionate body to seduce ladies to bed .

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But Austin used his WILDiness +  seductive body and charm enemy in a more effective way. Sometimes he manage to convince me that he is sexier than 007.  His jokes are lame but it makes people LoL.  He taught all the little boys out there (including me) to become the MAN they want to be and most importantly be PROUD of oneself.

IMPORTANT dogma by people who knows Austin power —>”  Girls want to be with Him and Man want to be Him ! “

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Austin inspired me to look for more “Man of Mystery” out there. I decided to open a new category in FireMice, for me to write and story telling the crazy + influence people out there.

Remember! You can be one of the INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY!

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Pics up there is my current staying place in Belfort (France). It is called Thomas Edison Apartment. This is my 4th month now. Why do they named it Thomas Edison? Maybe because the apartment is next to GE factory, apparently Thomas Edison is the founder of GE empire.

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Ladies and Gentleman, this post is about to detail another piece of FireMice’s living experience. You are about to witness FireMice’s personal belongings or should I say Properties.

As I was living here alone all the while, I’d invested thoroughly to kill my time and also satisfy the “sins of Gluttony” of mine.  In conjunction to that, I’d owned a series of private collections indirectly and I am about to share everything out.

#1 bottles

I have plenty of beers bottles, red wine, rums…

that’s not all, I have another series at the other table

it came together with these

and of course, plenty of these…

not only alcohol bottles, I have plenty of other bottles… which makes spaghetti, sandwiches, junk, that makes your dung / shit smelly

#2 Magnum

Magnum ice cream is relative cheap if compared to Magnum back  home…

Hence, I have many boxes in my room

Now when I look it back at my collection, It is so sexy… Magum Golden Hazernut, Magnum classic, Magnum Honey Nougat, Magnum Ecuador Dark, Magnum Coconut, Magnum Columbia coffee (my personal favorite), Magnum Pistachio, Magnum Almond…

and of course, Magnums will end up with..

This is what I call 1Malaysia. What PM Najib used to remind our Malaysians. We are one, see different type ice cream actually will become the same after I ate them. All the sticks look the same…. me, you, us, no different

UTM 2007 graduates had reached the 2 years working milestone.  It is time for us to stop awhile, have a rest, take a deep breath and observe our old buddies.

Are they ok? are they still wearing the engineer cap? Do they think like an engineer? Do they engineer their life? Continue studies? hmmm…

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This post is specially dedicated to Princess Pipi and also to Zeapleonia aka Michelle. While most of our UTM engineers spending time working in comfortable office, overseas traveling, working in Oil sucking company earning tons of $$$$, doing engineering sales. These 2 ladies spend their career time in Jungle.

About 2 months ago, their life in Jungle was featured in Magazine Cover. They were dubbed by the magazine ‘POWER PLANT’S POWER GIRL‘

This story was blogged by Michelle, and thanks to her, I was granted the permission to publish this story by taking her High quality scanned photos from her blog.

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Now the sad sad poor poor side of their working life is this

Imagine no phone, no internet, no Starbucks…..

this is follow by..

They have to provide their more than ordinary hands on skill… which is relatively more hands on than guys

Both of them were separated and assigned to different sides of the jungle..

I got the exact location map from Pipi’s Facebook.

Layun and Tebanyi

Again guys, please look at this photo again as I am going to imply something.

You can see Pipi is still sweating and wearing her working uniform. On the other hand, Michelle is wearing some scholar baju hantu Melayu ( a bit irrelevant right?), it is obvious that Michelle is spinning off the engineering orbit, and pursue her additional educational degree like a Meteor flying randomly. Well enough said!

Well done Power Girls!

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

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!

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!

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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…

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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)

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!

]]> http://firemice.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/belfort-music-fest-2009/feed/ 2 firemice quiet belfort FIMU 2009 Belfort Musical 005 Belfort Musical 008 Belfort Musical 010 Belfort Music nuts gang in belfort mafia music mafia do nuts music music below Belfort casttle and lion monument music at river bank food everywhere snack beer cool kid Night Jazz http://firemice.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/lion/ http://firemice.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/lion/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 14:19:00 +0000 firemice http://firemice.wordpress.com/?p=283 ]]>

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!

]]> http://firemice.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/lion/feed/ 2 firemice Zoo_lion lion fashion hair Lion of Lucerne 800px-LionBelfortEtChateau Statue of Liberty Lion of Sunway Pyramid yap ah loy