Author: RKenshin

To eat is prosperity 能吃是福

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WEEK 3

Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009

Woodbury Common here we come – again! This trip with my parents reminded us of our last trip.  Last Thanksgiving, we decided to “try out” shopping  in Woodbury in the middle of the night aka at 12 am.  Black Friday started mighty early for us.  All was good until we got pass Exit 15, the last exit on Interstate 87 before tolls, then we saw a string of break lights.  That was midnight.  By the time we got to the next exit, Exit 16 – OUR exit, it was FOUR AM.  We literally sat in a 2-mile jam for 4 hours trying to get to Woodbury Common.  We wanted to turn back so many times, but there were no outlets.  We sat through the jam, cursing the bloody Asian people and their extreme need to shop for branded goods in the middle of the night.

Thank goodness we were lucky to have found a parking spot almost immediately after pulling into the lot.  That day, we shopped till we dropped.  Cheh and I bought Coach bags like they were free.  Hubs got suede Puma shoes that were very stylish.  By the time we got home, at 8 am, we were totally beat.  What recession?!  Asian people keep money under their beds in tin cans and somehow it grows, like the much sought after backyard money-bearing-tree.

Lucky for us, there was no such mad rush and the need to buy this time around.  Yet, there was still a little congestion going in.  Mommy had to go to the toilet right away.  Cheh calls it the, “pundi kencing tak berguna” – bladder that doesn’t work.  We split for an hour before meeting for lunch.  During that hour, I got intructions from my younger sister to find a “better attire” for my mom for the wedding.  Trying to outfit my mom with new clothes is like trying to dress the king.  Everything was either too tight, too long, too in-fashion, too old-fashioned, too bright, too expensive or just not what she wants.  I even got an earful from her about why her own “dress” was good enough for the wedding. On top of that, I still had to look for my top for the wedding, one of the reason for going to the outlet in the first place.
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Malaysians in NYC

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WEEK 2

Saturday, Aug. 29, 2009 – A Day at the Museum

Mommy & Daddy with cheh & I in the museum

Mommy & Daddy with cheh & I in the museum

We planned for a day in the city starting with the American Museum of Natural History in the morning followed by lunch in K-Town with my younger sister.  Hurricane Danny was expected to bring a down pouring of rain.
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Malaysians bearing gifts

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I haven’t seen my parents for more than a year now, since our wedding in KL last summer.  So, it was with great excitement and haste that we cleaned the house in anticipation of their arrival.  For 4 weekends in a row, we cleaned, scrubbed and dusted the house.  But with Jessie around, our 9/10-year-old cocker spaniel, the dust and the fur balls magically reappeared the moment we unsullied the place.

So on Friday night, after work, we scurried home to start the cleaning.  It was finally at 9 pm that we were done, and had dinner.

WEEK 1

Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009

I woke up a little after 6:30 am.  Boiled gingko biloba with pearl barley in preparation.  Cut up all the vegetables for the week, marinated the chicken to be baked later and then readied a crock-pot for chicken curry.  After checking that everything was pristine, clean and put away, I finally sat down around 9:30 am.  Their plane was scheduled to arrive at 10 in Newark that morning.  We tracked the plane’s flight on-line and it was behind schedule.  We left the house 15 minutes later.

We reached the airport albeit a stall vehicle on the road, and a changed arrival entrance at the airport. We thought we were late.  My parents were later.  They finally came out from US Customs and Border, flustered, around 11:30 am.  Their mooncakes with yolk were confiscated. Mommy, however, managed to “smuggle” a piece of fresh ginger!
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Clannad

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I’ve never cried so much and for so long in my life – watching cartoon.  My tears just kept flowing for four consecutive episodes (that’s 25 mins x 4)  My eyes are shot!  I’m going to have swollen eyes tomorrow morning from anime.

Okazaki Ushio

Okazaki Ushio

Clannad is a a touching tale of two lives that brought out the best of each other and how their families accepted them.

8/18/09

It’s all a ruse!  Fate wasn’t really going throw a double whammy on nice people!!!  Wasted my tears, and had to go to work with swollen eyes!  WTF!

1600 -Yr-old Bible goes hitech

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As reported by NY Times and the Associated Press on July 7, 2009

The surviving pages of the world’s oldest Christian Bible, written in Greek, will be published and reunited on the Internet.

Nearly 800 pages from the Codex Sinaiticus, above, a Christian Bible dating from the fourth century, written in Greek and containing the oldest complete copy of the New Testament, were posted on the Web site codexsinaiticus.org, coinciding with a conference on the book at the British Library in London. The original manuscript, about 1,460 pages written on prepared animal skin, was discovered by the German Bible scholar Constantine Tischendorf in 1844 at the Monastery of St. Catherine, a Greek Orthodox shrine in the Sinai Peninsula. Its pages were split among Britain, Egypt, Russia and Germany. Scholars from the four nations worked on the restoration of the Bible, which also includes substantial portions of the Hebrew Bible and apocrypha. Forty-three pages of the manuscript are at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, and six fragments are at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg.

Selected translations will also be available in English and German.

TNF Blocker Posts Cancer Risk

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Aug. 4, 2009 – As reported by Market News & Forbes

Anti-TNF (Tumor Necrosis Factor) drug used to treat autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease will soon be labeled with the “black box” warning. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) says the drugs increase the risk of cancer in children and adolescents if taken more than 30 months. (Nothing is mention of the side effects these drugs have on adults) The drugs in question include J&J’s Remicade & Simponi, Abbott Lab’s Humira and Amgen & Wyeth’s Enbrel.

While rheumatoid arthritis patients may already be at greater risk for the white blood cell cancer, “there is a possible association between treatment with TNF blockers and the development of leukemia in all patients treated with these drugs,” the FDA said.

Roots

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First installment of our beginnings.  I managed to squeeze some heart-wrenching stories out from my father. More than a 100 years of history would have been lost if there was no thought of our past.  And this will be passed down to the next generation and the next to reminds us of how lucky we truly are and to be thankful for what we have.

Together with my father, we manage to come up with this – the Chong family history.

My mom doesn’t seem to remember anything.  The Phoas will have to wait a while until I get my aunts to spill their guts.

Kannagi

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Nagi

Nagi

Just completed the entire 13 episodes of Kannagi – Crazy Shrine Maiden last night.  Now will have to wait for the movie to be released. Read about it and download the opening theme in my post.

Nagi & Jin fight scene

During one of their squabbles, they started decking it out.  Some terrific hand eye coordination.

Nagi & Jin

Nagi & Jin

And the final scene…it’s NOT what it looks like. 😀  But VERY cute.