(Definitely not) Plain-White-T's

Ever wondered how teh tarik india is made?

Well, apart from taking a peek in CA Mohd's kitchen, here's a video.



Demonstration by linz. Not sure whether a UK tour is planned : )

Boxing day in London

So, the busiest period of the year have come for retailers... and I have joined in.

Spent a few days in London and took part in the frenzy that is known as boxing day shopping. The venue? Oxford street. And what a busy day it was. Literally tons of people roaming about, shopping bags full in their hands, going from one store to another. Indeed SALE signs appeared everywhere. up to 50% in one and up to 70% in another (notice that in the stores, how tiny the "up to" words are and the apparent discounts are huge!).

All in all, it was alright. Didn't get anything interesting that day. Did check out the Apple store in Regent street. Quite big with 2 floors and very interesting design. They even had glass staircases.

Apple Store, Regent St.

I did discover something else which was interesting. A Beard Papa store has opened in oxford street!! To those who knows me, they would know that this is a big deal. Didn't waste time and got me a box of 5 pcs. They even have a new cookie version now. To those that haven't tried it, I would recommend it. Basically, they're cream puffs. The magic is the generous custard cream filling. Pure plululuouluouloluo!!

Beard Papa shop, Oxford St.

As a comparison, actually ran into a shop that sells Krispy Kremes. Been hearing so much on how good they were. My verdict? I can see why they say the donut "melts in your mouth" and it is nice. But given the choice, I think I'll take Beard Papa any day.

And I thought I'd put this for old times sake ;-)

Home of Capital FM, Leicester Sq.

To everyone, seasons greetings and many happy returns.

Faces of Fa'iz (Part One)

I''ll be starting a new feature on this blog called "Faces of Fa'iz".

Basically this is what happens when you let an IT-talented 4-year old roam free with the Photo Booth program on Mac. Believe me, after showing him how to do it, I just left him on his own and he started clicking away...

To start off, here are 2 pics.





Heheh, will post more later :-)

Eid Mubarak

Would like to wish everyone Selamat Hari Raya AidilAdha. Maaf zahir and batin.


Got an sms from G Zid reminding me that it's been a year since Hajj. Alhamdulillah. Hopefully we will be able to go there again. I wish the same to everyone. Insya-Allah.

Amin.

Meeting the Prince

One of the perks being in a big city such as Manchester is that there's a chance to run into someone famous. But did not expect to run into the Prince at all....

No, no, not the artist formerly known as "The artist formerly known as Prince".

It's Prince Naseem Hamed. Known for his arrogance, he was a very successful former featherweight boxing champion of Britain.

Here's a picture of him during his hey days.




Funny story actually. Bung actually saw someone taking a picture with him and shouted "eh, prince naseem jua tu!!" Immediately looked at him but did not believe it was him. Actually thought to myself "eh, inda jua ada usulnya former boxer". Macam ada jua usulnya yang jalan2 di rusholme atu....heheh.

Anyway, Bung asked me to ask him whether we can take a picture with him. Heheh, cali jua. 3 times kali I asked him to confirm. I kept on asking Bung whether it was really him.
Inda ku pecaya that I was tapping the shoulder of a fomer boxing great, Anyway, he was kind enough and agreed with the picture. Baik jua ia okay. Kalau nda, kena lah aku... :-)

End of semester one

Finally . . .

After nearly 3 months of lectures, assignments, practicals, report writing and design project, it is now the end of the first semester of the course.

How has it been?

I'd have to say that it has been quite tough. Maybe it's a combination of having left 'studying mode' for quite some time, but after listening to other people in the course and from other courses (both undergrad and postgrad), I've come to realise that the University itself is quite challenging. For a student here, you get the feeling that the Uni is setting a high standard for itself. "45 hours per week of work". That's what we were told when we first started. I thought they were kidding . . . but now, realised that it was indeed true.

What's next?

Three exams to look "forward" to. Right after the christmas holidays. So, that means that the holidays do not deserve to be called as such. "Revision month" sounds more fitting!

BUT...

I am planning to take some well deserved R&R for the next few days. And will take a trip during christmas time. Yezza!

What a Game!!!

A slight delay to post this.

I won't say that I'm a big football fanatic but Alhamdulillah, I got the opportunity to see some great live games in the past.

This includes:

1. UEFA Cup. Liverpool playing against ?? (don't remember) Venue: Anfield.
2. Malaysia Cup final. Brunei vs Sarawak. This was intense since Brunei won and became Malaysia Cup champions! Venue: Kuala Lumpur PS- To a particular colleague, this maybe best forgotten! Sorry Le Prez!
3. International Friendly. England vs Holland. Venue: Ajax stadium Amsterdam.

Now I can officially add one more to the list.

Champions League Group Stage. Manchester United vs Sporting Lisbon. Venue: Old Trafford.

And what a game it was ! Surely by now everyone knows the score. 2-1 to Man Utd. But it was the fashion on how they won it. Gila, siok eh.

I can safely say that "sakai" was the right word to describe my emotions when I first entered Old Trafford. Shouted like a kid in a candy store meliat the atmosphere. The best part was that we were sitting 4 rows behind the pitch! It was also close to the seats where the players were sitting. We got to see the stars up close: Van der sar, Ronaldo, Tevez, Giggs, Ferdinand, Vidic just to name a few and Sir Alex himself!! Too bad Rooney and Scholes were not playing.

During the first half, game was not too exciting with the visitors playing well and controlling most of the game. They even went ahead with a goal. Sekali second half came, and the subs, Tevez and Giggs came on and changed everything. It was much more lively and Tevez really made the difference with Ronaldo and Giggs at their potent best. Rio was solid in defense and Anderson played particularly well.

When the equaliser came, we all cheered loudly. Happy to know that the live game that we're watching will not be a losing game for Man Utd. Then in extra time, the superb free kick from Mr. No. 7 himself erupted the entire stadium!!! Woohoo!!!! Kerrayyyzzaayyy!

Here are some pictures to capture the moments:

First, the supporters.





Then, the players.


During warm-up.






Entering the stadium









When the subs came on that changed the game.





Look at the time when they equalised ;-)




Before the superb winning free kick was struck.







Next major signing?? :-P






Thanks to Bung Taufik who made it all happen. Let's do it again sometime in the near future!

PS- To G Zid, sorry cuzz. Actually brought your Cantona 7 shirt for Sir Alex to sign tapi jauh tia. Nda apa lah, at least the atmosphere of Old Trafford was captured!

Champions League

Got this in the mail today.....


Will write more after the game :-D

Pic of the day

Congratulations to Syaza!


(taken from rezafaizal.com)

Across the miles....

Got a surprise belated birthday gift from friends at work. Hand delivered by "**r*o Mail". Heheh. Anyway, would like to thank the usual suspects: Ze Lunch Gang for the thoughtful gift. Rupanya, runningdiva atu, diam2 di London, rupanya on a mission.

The timing could not be more perfect coz I very nearly got me one of these. Yezza! These together with my trusted gloves, I'm officially ready for winter!

Cheers gang!

As for the card, let's just say it's R rated and better not shown here. Thanks to the usual Picasso-inspired doodling of kakarrot!

This is actually my 21st post which already matched TEAM GNR8's posts. Time to revive that one again. Have to get some feathers-inspired stories soon!

Time and Zero

Time.

It's so precious these days.....

Assignments, Practicals, Design projects, Deadlines, Discussions, Computer clusters, University, Lectures, etc etc.....

These are all too familiar terms in a life as a student.

Don't mind me. I'm just ranting because of the workload that I have. 3 modules doesn't sound a lot for one semester but if you have courseworks for each module given per week with some deadlines within one week, it can get pretty over-bearing. On top of that, throw in a design project which is due in two weeks, you will have one heck of a "party".

Never mind. Just hang in there. I'm glad that it's only for one year.

Looking forward to the times when life was much more relaxing and there's more time....


In other news.....


Zero.

I'm so relieved to see this number. Yezza! No more minus but zero! Heheh.


Time and Zero. Talk about mixed feelings :-/

"Lagu dan Irama"

After the (not-so-long) wait.....


HDTV comes to The GALLERY!

After a successful launching weekend with guests from Liverpool, Keele and Manchester, I am very proud to officially welcome HDTV to The Gallery.

Heheh, now the true power of the PlayStation 3 is truly realised!

Let's start the story with pics:

First, santa left a box in our living room....














we wonder, what could it be?















then we opened it....















and got this


























Doesn't it just fit like "lagu dan irama"....

or some might say, "hidup dan nyawa" (a bit heavy this one!)

The power of the PS3 really comes into life with this tv. Check out the details on "Heavenly Sword" and "PES 2008".


















































Even tried to hook up the MacBook and still, it looks good.














We're already planning to have a PES 2008 tournament sometime in the future! Gerenti hebat!

So there you go. Let the HD revolution begin....

PS- Memang heran lah, how clear these pics are... macam it's taken on a high quality camera.... hmm... that's a story for another day :-)

Liopad

Recently upgraded my mac os x from tiger to leopard (or as my colleague would put it, "liopad"). On the official day of release here in the UK (Oct 26), waited in line to purchase it and even got a free t-shirt. Remember those news report for people waiting in line outside apple stores when they release something new? Have now officially have joined as one of them.

Installation was easy and took less than 30 minutes.

Some Leopard features:

- Time Machine (back-up tool). Have yet to try it tho.
- Quick Look. This one is handy. Can actually preview documents without opening them. Even preview videos.
- Stacks. Keeps the desktop clean.
- New stationeries in Mail.
- New look for Front Row. More AppleTV-esque.

Overall, you probably won't notice anything major compared to Tiger. But I'm happy with the upgrade nonetheless.

Can read more about it here.

On top of that, I've recently realised the need to run windows to run some programs from Uni. Saves me from having to go to Uni all the time to do work. Was fortunate enough to get a genuine copy of windows vista ultimate for a very good deal. Thanks to Mr Golf GTI! Cheers mate.

Getting windows vista to run on boot camp has not been painless. It's actually a simple process but did something wrong in the beginning. To those thinking of doing the same, just remember to install the 32-bit version of vista. Found out the window drivers that came with leopard does not support 64-bit. Maybe they will be some support in the future.

When I did eventually manage to run it, was quite relieved. It was kinda weird to see the windows desktop on the mac in the beginning. The programs that I've installed in vista manage to run okay.

In the end, was quite happy with the achievement.

Here's how Leopard and Vista looks on the MacBook:

Krismas comes early to The Gallery

Here's an interesting story.

Once upon a time, there was a man who didn't have any definite plans to buy a PS3.

Then he saw this magazine:



















He spent the better part of the night going through the magazine, reading the PES 2008 review in detail. Then he read some more. He even forgot to sleep and read some more from the web.

The next day, (as if by plan) we went to Trafford Centre with the intention to get an HP printer. Just a printer....

By the end of the day, the magazine had turned to this:



















Hmm, but how is he going to play it?



How??



Well, the answer was this:

To Bung Taufik, enjoy the new toy. Hahaha, today was a fun day. Pressure's on me now! I hope the slide template of LCD TV is good enough for now.... heheh

Some raya pics

Thought I'd share some pics from the hari raya open house @ The Gallery last weekend.

Overall, it was a success. The number of people who came over exceeded our expectations. Even tried to make something that day. Till today, balum ada orang complain sakit parut, so I guess it was a success :-D

PS- The template above is plasma tv. Hmm...