libromanic.com » 2009 » April

How did you find my blog?

Sarah — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:26:59 +0000

I have Google Analytics installed on my blog, I don’t care how many people visit it, but I love to see the keywords section, that shows what keywords people Googled in order to land up on my blog. Judging by the most popular keywords, you’d think I was a Konnyaku jelly eater, who also eats Krispy Kreme doughnuts who reads quite a lot.

Here’s a recap of some of the most interesting keywords:

i m here, arent i….
Well, if by ‘here’, you meant my blog, then yes, you are. Why were you Googling that phrase anyway?? Shouldn’t you know where you are?
after skytrex. go where?
We were all pretty hungry by the time we were done with Skytrex, so we went for lunch at Asia Cafe in Subang. How about you?
example of shu box for maths
Hmm, honestly, I have to say I have no clue what a shu box is. I Googled it, but it brings up Chinese people in the results. I have a friend named Shuraifa (Shu for short) and I love maths!
how to set up restaurant
I haven’t the faintest idea, sorry!
malaysian mentality nose discharge
I probably blogged something about how some Malaysians don’t have very clean habits…but I don’t remember using those exact terms.
things to do with a nerds rope
Sounds kinky! What’s a nerds rope?
who does hosseini blame for the plight of women in afganistane in the book thousand splendid suns
Wow, that’s a truly hard question. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Khaled Hosseini thinks about Afghanistan, I barely knew much about the conditions there until I read the book. It’s a great book, though, if you’re even remotely interested in Afghanistan and the Taliban, read it!

So, there are some of the terms that have brought people to my blog in the past. I always find it a blast to read through Google Analytics if I’m free!

Birthday Celebrations @ Vincenzo, One Bangsar

Sarah — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:58:35 +0000

Last Saturday, T’s auntie was thrown a surprise birthday party by her daughter and T’s family for her 70th birthday. It was held at Vincenzo, One Bangsar, which seems to be a really popular place for office parties and events. The upstairs has a bar area, and several other rooms including one with a balcony, so all in all, it’s a pretty nice place.

T’s mum was in charge of the decor, and she did a really good job! The theme of the night was yellow, for prosperous-ness, or something like that? So, every table had a little flower arrangement of yellow and white, which looked wonderful!

It was buffet style, amongst the food offered on that night were chicken and mushroom soup, some starters, roast beef, olio pasta, roast lamb, italian fried rice, and of course the desserts. Me being a dessert person, started with the desserts. There was mixed fruit (which I didn’t have until the end, why waste my stomach space with fruits!), chocolate cake, brownies, cheese cake, creme brulee and bread and butter pudding.

And a close up of the desserts that I started off the night with:

My recommendations (if they serve the same desserts on their normal menu) would be the cheesecake and the Creme Brulee, much yummier than the others! As for the mains, there wasn’t anything truly yummy (hence the lack of photos), but I’d say the roast lamb was better than the rest.

T’s sister also brought her contribution for the night. She’s been learning baking, and brought these gorgeously decorated mini-cupcakes. PS: she’s also taking orders, so if anyone in interested, let me know!

I sure walked away stuffed from the dinner that night…

What can you eat for 59 cents?

Sarah — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:57:16 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed walking around in grocery supermarkets, seeing what sort of cool new food types there are. A few weeks ago T & I visited the Giant in Kota Damansara for the first time after having had lunch in the area. It made a very good impression on me, there’s lots of parking, not crowded, and the shops there are quite nice, unlike the ones at Tesco. Also, they have quite a few salespeople offering freebies for people to try. I love sampling all the different items they offer, it allows me to try brands that I normally wouldn’t buy.

Today, I suggested that we pay a visit to Cold Storage at Jaya One, which just opened on the 18th of April. It’s quite unique, it’s a standalone building next to Jaya One. When we arrived, it so happened there was a nice parking lot right in front, and we were told that parking was free for the first hour as long as we purchased something (otherwise it would be RM2 for the first hour).

As we walked in, the first thing that caught my eye was a Jelly Belly dispenser! I’ve never seen Jelly Bellies sold like that before. There were only about four flavours in the dispenser, I think it was Bubble Gum, Tutti Frutti…and I can’t remember what else. The others that were sold were normal packaged Jelly Bellies.

Another thing unusual about this Cold Storage was that there were lots of salespeople offering samples of their products. Normally Cold Storage never offers samples! Well, we sure took advantage of that…here’s a list of the different things we tried.
1. Kellogg’s muesli bar
2. Some kind of Korean instant noodles
3. Bud’s ice cream – Almond & Mocha flavour (this was really yummy!) and Cookies & Cream
4. Gelatomio – Strawberry yoghurt flavour (good as well, kind of sourish) and Black Sesame
5. Non-halal section: Smoked ham, normal ham, siew yuk and home made pao!
6. TuckerBox’s Aussie pie

I think that’s all, but there were a lot more things being offered! I saw salads, some sort of raw fish, more ice cream…and the list keeps on getting longer. I wonder if it’s because it’s the opening week, or if it’s going to be like this all the time. If so, you might see me there a lot more from now on. As for the 59 cents, well, we had to buy something to qualify for the free parking, so we walked out with a 59 cents Polo sweet. Hahah…

It wasn’t all freeloading, though, I think I’m tempted to buy the Bud’s strawberry yoghurt flavour the next time I get some ice cream! It was under RM10 for a tub which was 250g. Have I tempted you to make a visit to the Cold Storage @ Jaya one now?

Influences from TV

The Twitter battle

Sarah — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:33:28 +0000

Do you know what Twitter is? No? Well, according to the website:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

If you’re familiar with Facebook, it’s kind of like how you update your status there. So, in 140 characters or less, you continually “tweet” what you’re up to. According to NY times “It’s one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” Personally, I just can’t be bothered! I don’t really want everyone to know what I’m up to, anyway.

However, it is fast gaining popularity. Companies like Starbucks are using it as a means to communicate with their customers. They constantly update their feed with tidbits, answer coffee-related questions, and much more. News portals, even our own New Straits Times is on Twitter! During the Mumbai attacks, journalists were using Twitter to get news out real time, and information was spread really rapidly.

Another phenomenon that I’ve been following for awhile is the emergence of book bloggers. Previously, whenever I wanted to get book recommendations, I’d go to a bookshop and start browsing. That became much more difficult when the bookshops started wrapping up their books in plastic, making it impossible to browse, unless you take the book to the customer service and ask them to unwrap it, which is so troublesome. So then I started checking the bestsellers lists, and reading customer reviews on Amazon. And now, I go to my favourite book blogs! There are lots of book bloggers out there, and they constantly review books. The more popular ones even get advanced copies of books from the authors, and they hold competitions where the winners will get the books. Some methods I’ve seen include:

1. Comment on that post and you get one entry
2. Blog about it on your blog, and link back to the post, and you’ll get five entries
3. “Tweet” it, and you’ll get ten entries

So as you can see, Twitter is really taking off! But not quite so fast in Malaysia as compared to the US, of course…

Anyway, let’s get to the reason that I decided to do a post on Twitter. I was reading the news, and I saw that there was a Twitter competition going on between Ashton Kutcher and CNN’s breaking news team. They’re both racing to get to 1 million followers! I think they both have over 990,000 followers at the moment, so it’s going to be a tight race. The point of this competition? Hmm, I don’t really know, popularity, I suppose?

But it is going to do some good to the world. Ashton Kutcher has pledged that if he wins, he will donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to charity in honor of World Malaria Day. CNN has also said that they will match the offer. Come on, CNN, you’re a huge corporation, and Ashton Kutcher is but one person…you should be doing more!

Edited to add: And the winner is Ashton Kutcher!

Welcome to Malaysia, Krispy Kreme!

Sarah — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:20:42 +0000

5 years after I tasted my first Krispy Kreme, an outlet is finally opening in Malaysia! Back then, I could only eat KK doughnuts when my colleague came back from visiting his gf in the UK. Then, KK opened in Australia, and friends coming back would bring a few boxes back for us. And then a uni friend was posted to Manila, and he got to fly back every two weeks, bearing boxes of KK for us. We visited him once and actually got to sit in a KK outlet for the first time. Apparently when the logo is lit up with red lights, that means they’re baking fresh doughnuts, and we got free glazed doughnuts fresh from the oven! That was probably the best KK doughnut I’ve ever had. Of course, that wasn’t enough, we sat down and ordered 3 – 4 more!

I got pretty tired of eating KK doughnuts after awhile (do I hear gasps of shock?), especially after Mr T had a project in Sydney and flew there a couple of times over a period of a few months. I think the last time I had a KK doughnut was in Dubai, when I was there transiting on the way back from Egypt.

We’ve been Krispy Kreme-less in Malaysia for a long time. When the doughnut craze was picking up all over the world, the only doughnuts we had were Dunkin Donuts. And then, Big Apple / J. Co opened, I can’t remember which one came first. The queuing lines were crazy at first, then after awhile, it kind of died down. Personally, I would never queue up that long, just for doughnuts! Perhaps 5 – 10 minutes at most, but an hour? I’m not that crazy over it…

I heard from a few people that Berjaya had bought the franchise quite awhile ago, but I hadn’t heard any news of an outlet opening. Until today. The first outlet is opening at Berjaya Times Square and they’re having a promotion! On the 27th of April 2009 at 10am at the main entrance of Berjaya Times Square, these will be their promotions:

- 1st customer gets a Golden Ticket (1-year supply)
- 2nd customer gets a Silver Ticket (6-month supply)
- 3rd customer gets Bronze Ticket (3-month supply)
- 4th till 100th customer gets a month supply
- 101th till 300th customer gets a mug

I wonder how they quantify one year’s supply of doughnuts. One a day? You get free doughnuts every time you go to their counter? Anyway, I’ll definitely go and check it out (probably at the Midvalley branch when it opens, it’s closer), but you’ll not find me queuing up for the free doughnuts!

Earth Hour 2009

Sarah — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:11:22 +0000

Yes, I’m late in blogging about this event, it’s already over and done with. It was bound to happen, after blogging so frequently in the last couple of weeks, my passion to blog totally died. Happens all the time to me, but this time it probably lasted the longest. Oh well, better late than never, right?

Earth Hour is something that started of in Sydney in 2007, when people turned their lights off for one hour to ‘Vote Earth!’. According to the website, in 2009, the goal was ‘1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote’.

I am somewhat environmentally conscious. I bring my own bag around (when I remember!), and try to recycle as much as possible. I’m not a super green person, but I would say I’m slightly better than average? I think…heheh.

Anyway, this year, T’s brother was celebrating his 17th birthday, so T’s family held a party-cum-Earth hour dinner! It was held in Armanee Terrace, at T’s cousin’s place. At the stroke of 8.30, we turned off the lights (candles were already lit prior to that). It was kinda cool, because from the balcony, we could see lights being turned off around the area.

So, there we were, with the lights turned off except…the TV! T’s auntie was watching badminton, and she insisted that only non-essential lights be turned off, whereas the TV was essential. Hahah, that was funny.

The next day, the newspapers reported that it was a big success.

From NST: The Earth Hour lights-off last Saturday saw a dip in electricity consumption nationwide that was sufficient to light up 14 million 40-watt bulbs.

That sounds cool, although I have no idea how much electricity that is. Sufficient to light that many bulbs, for how long? But it is a good sign that more Malaysians are becoming environmentally conscious.

My thoughts on this event? It’s a good idea, but don’t let your efforts towards global warming just be focused on this one event. Continue doing your best to be green for the rest of the year as well!

It’s Election Day…have you voted?