November 2006 Archives

So I'm 26 today.

Do I feel any different? Not really.

I don't mind birthdays, I really do enjoy the attention. Hey - it's the one day you're supposed to be special. So enjoy it all really on your one special day of the year.

Thanks everyone for all the well wishes!

As I always tell people - it's one year closer to retirement. Heh.

Anyways here's some interesting facts about Nov 30th from This Day in History.

1835 : Mark Twain is born.
1874 : Winston Churchill is born.
1902 : Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan sentenced.
1954 : Meteorite strikes Alabama woman.
1959 : Psycho production begins.

During our recent UMNO GM - which was broadcast live nationwide in Malaysia, our favourite UMNO Youth Chief Hishamuddin Hussein spoke with a keris in his hand. If it is just a keris for decorative or stylo-milo effect purposes, it would have been fine.

Unfortunately, his speech touched a lot on sensitive racial issues. And some totally unnecessary remarks.

What's going on with my beloved country?

I celebrated my 26th birthday a little earlier during the weekend. Well you know what the Chinese say - celebrating earlier is OK, but celebrating later is no good!

In case you're wondering when it is, the real day is this Thursday the 30th! Heheh.

For the first time ever, we threw a themed party. And what better way to start it then to go Gothic?

Here I am with my cake.

Manisha left SEEK this week and we went to Cafe Roy's on Fitzroy Street for a final lunch with her.

Here's the big group that went along.

Cafe Roy's is quite a new place - and it replaces the location's previous tenant, Cleopatra's at 159 Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda.

Peko Peko is a cafe/restaurant located at 190 Wells St, South Melbourne. The food is a little cross between Taiwanese and Japanese fusion.

Open 6 days a week (closed Sundays), this place is conveniently placed for the people who work in the busy area during the day as well as people who live in the apartments nearby.

Ok U2 fans - hopefully you enjoy this one.

I thought I'd just make a simple wallpaper with one of the photographs that I took at the concert for those of you that are still obsessing with U2.

Well - or if you just enjoy having concert pictures as your wallpaper.

Available in 2 sizes as usual.

1680x1050

1280x1024

Enjoy!

Rinesh flew to Melbourne from Sydney especially for the U2 concert. We had the chance to catch up with him over dinner, along with Matthew, Sashi, Wanlian and some other friends of Matthew at this Japanese fusion restaurant.

The address of Iku Izakaya is a little confusing - 64a River Esplanade Yarra's Edge. This is basically at 60 Lorimer Street, Docklands.

I got the location of this place mixed up and ended up in the wrong side of Docklands - over at New Quay. It was my own fault really - so with SY grumbling along the way, we ended up arriving 1 hour late.

Here's the gang.

Ok let's have a look at the food in this place.

At 11 am on Sunday morning, I was having a bowl of cereal reading up on news when I received an SMS from Rinesh.

"Dude, final 500 U2 tics go on sale through ticketmaster now or at d stadium at 12 pm. U shld come man."

And that was it! I was at the ticketmaster website in a flash. After 10 minutes worth of retrying and page refreshing, me and SY secured 1 general admission ticket each. YES!!!!!

After a quick shower, shoved some stuff in a bag, we headed out to the city, grabbed some stuff from Coles Express, had lunch at Go Go Sushi and arrived at the Telstra Dome stadium at 1:30 pm. Phew!

We collected our precious tickets from the box office and joined the already growing crowd queuing up for the General Admissions floor area. Some hardcore fans there started camping out from the night before. Rinesh went at 9.30 am!

Just by impulse, we decided to go cherry picking today.

Cherry Haven is a cherry farm located in Wandin, right in the Yarra Valley.

The website says it is 50 minutes from the CBD - but seriously I think it's more like 1 hour and a half.

This is what this writer (Michael Backman) is calling Malaysia in his article in the business segment of The Age (Australian) newspaper.

I love it. As a Malaysian living abroad - I totally agree with him.

This is the best article on the taboo Malay Chinese issue to surface for a while.

My earliest Vietnamese food exposure was at Hung Vuong 2 Saigon in Richmond.

This place is situated right in the middle of the busy Victoria Street Vietnamese district of Richmond (150 Victoria St).

You'd find that many people visit this place to have a quick meal of traditional Vietnamese noodles which is their main specialty here.

Anyways, we went to this place again on Sunday to have lunch.

Here's SY's sliced beef, brisket and tendon noodle soup.

Kimchi Grandma is a Korean restaurant located at 125 Koornang Rd, Carnegie. Actually this is right beside Kuala Lumpur Restaurant that I reviewed earlier.

I've heard a lot of good things about this restaurant so I think it was high time we tried it out.

Here's what the place looks like from outside.

Kuala Lumpur Restaurant serves yum char for lunch during the weekends.

Located at 123 Koornang Rd in Carnegie, this place is just less than 5 minutes by car from Monash University, Caulfield.

I thought it would be the push-trolley style yum char but instead they offered you a menu which you selected what you wanted and then it would be prepared.

I love siu mai - and I think it is one of the most important thing you need to have at every yum char.

Ajisen Ramen is a franchise of Japanese food restaurants in Asia. Their branch in Melbourne is located on Bourke Street in between Russell St. and Exhibition St.

They have got quite a selection on the menu here - from bento boxes to all sorts of side dishes and of course - lots of ramens.

Let's take a look at what we had tonight.

It was high time for another evening drive and this time we decided it'll be Mt Baw Baw as Ed and myself have never been up there before.

As soon as work was done, we set out straight away in the direction of Lilydale. After filling up with a full tank of gas, we headed to Yarra Junction to have dinner.

After dinner it was time to get serious and we headed straight up Mt. Baw Baw.

Almost 2 hours later, we reached the top.

Youtube user paramountprice has posted up the video of the Movie trailer and a minute featurette following it taken from The Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversary DVD.

Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay talks a little about the movie and you'll be able to see some scenes of the vehicles in action.

Check it out after the jump.

Krua Thai 2 is located at 37 Bridge Road, Richmond.

With a very modestly priced menu - this place is a good place to go for lunch while you are busy shopping along the Bridge Road area.

If you don't know already, Venom will be one of Spidey's enemies in Spiderman 3 (coming next year).

Aint it Cool News (AICN) recently released an image of Venom, and was taken down shortly after.

Film Ick managed to save a copy of Venom, Sandman and the Hobgoblin and they're now up on his site.

As I'm really only interested in Venom, here he is.

Click on the image to bring up a bigger version.

If this is the real thing - it's VERY COOL. Bring it on, Spiderman!

If you want to link to this entry, please link to:
http://www.harbx.com/archives/2006/11/spiderman_3_ven.html

Just last month - I released a Bumblebee wallpaper with an arm cannon graphic with many thanks to AzoStealth. However, some have wondered if it was actually authentic or just another fan art piece.

Well - I have some big news now. A little bumblebee from one of the Transformers fan sites has sent me these boards with a request to release them as a desktop wallpaper. With his approval - I am proud to now bring these to you. I will also honour his request for him to remain anonymous. Many thanks to him.

Do remember that they are concept art boards for the movie.

These boards are of Bumblebee in both robot form and vehicle form as well as his weapons system. Actually now I am getting a little confused with the spelling of his name - is it Bumble Bee or Bumblebee? Do enlighten me.

This now confirms without any doubt (almost - I hope) that Bumblebee will be sporting an arm cannon. I'm not sure how accurate it is that he'll be having shoulder missiles though. It does seem a little errr... dare I say it, extreme.

Again - they are available in 2 sizes. Let me know if I should be making other sizes.

1680x1050

1280x1024

I really like these concept boards though. They are getting me even more pumped about the movie. Hopefully you guys like these wallpapers as well - staying on your desktop as a teaser to the upcoming movie.

Let me know what you guys think about it.

Please link to this entry at:
http://www.harbx.com/archives/2006/11/transformers_bu.html

If you haven't seen them already, check out my previous Transformers movie wallpapers.

- Bumblebee's Gun/Arm Cannon
- Optimus Prime's concept artboards

Other desktop wallpapers are also available in my desktop section.

Being close to Swinburne University's main campus in Hawthorn, Samurai is a favourite amongst students and the locals in the area.

Located at 804 Glenferrie Road - a short walk away from the Swinburne Glenferrie train station, this Japanese place is normally packed during both lunch and dinner hours almost every day.

If you haven't guessed already - to be attracting lots of students the price of food here is quite cheap.

Originally tonight, SY and I were on the way to Stonegrill again to have some ramen. After circling the upper parts of the city for a while looking for a free parking spot I finally found one on Spring Street.

On the way to Stonegrill, I remembered that there was this little Japanese place in Liverpool Street which had caught my eye a long time back.

Here's a picture of the place from the outside.

Liverpool Street is a very small street - which is more like a small lane connecting Bourke Street and Little Bourke Street's upper part of Chinatown.

We had a look at the menu again from outside and decided to finally give it a try.

There were only 4 small tables inside so we were given seats at the bar area right in the middle of the shop - which was good so we were pretty close to the kitchen.

Snow you say? In spring? Very rare indeed.

These pics in this entry are real - they are not file pictures i saved from winter.

I woke up at 6:30 am on Sunday morning to go for a drive to Lake Mountain with Richard - and picking up Andrew on the way. Hah - damn early right?

Richard had just bought a 1998 BMW M3 recently and this was a good opportunity to see what it can do on our favourite twisties on the Reefton Spur and Lake Mountain.

I think the best hainanese chicken rice around Melbourne is hidden right here in The Causeway (which is a lane in between Bourke Street and Little Collins Street.

Oriental Wok is a small place run by a Malaysian aunty and her husband (runs the kitchen).

Their specialty - in which 8/10 people come here to eat? Hainanese chicken rice.

My colleague Sangeetha sent me the information about this event that was held last Saturday the day before.

After lunch, me, SY and Matthew dropped by the fiesta that was held at the square area beside Collins Street opposite the Melbourne Town Hall.

I think this fiesta is also organised in conjunction with Hari Raya. Speaking of which - Selamat Hari Raya to all our Muslim readers!