The Spore Thingys Identified

Thanks to reader Jeales for his information on these things that are 'growing' on my bumper. Apparently these are not spores but eggs from an insect called Lacewings. So, it did not grow on my bumper.

I have seen this insect in my garden and from what i have read, the Lacewings Larva also known as Aphid Lions eat all kinds of pest insects.... thats good! Whats interesting is that the lacewings layed these eggs exactly on the same spot as last year.... hmmm

Anyway more info on Lacewings can be found HERE and HERE . Time to get the camera out and try and take pictures of lacewings and its larvae

END

The Return of the Spore thingys'

Almost a year ago I found this ‘growing’ from the bumper of my car. I blogged about it last year as seen in the following link;
http://pixelated_mo.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/2006/03/the_miracle_of_.html

Its some kind of spore. Looks like there are more sprouts then last year….

What the hell is it??!!??

Mo

Smooth Ride

For those of you that have taken a ride in my car. You might have noticed that the ride was bumpy, rough and loud (pun not intended). Dont even mention potholes and speed bumps... terrible... just terrible. Then there was this squeaky noise coming from the right rear absorber.

Well check it out! I finally got new tyres and shock absobers ....... Smooth and quiet ride....nice!

Three killed in armed robbery

Yesterday my wife and i went shopping in Subang Parade and we decided to eat in Kenny Rogers Rosters which was at the LG floor... As we sat there staring at the menu deciding on what to eat... we suddenly heard a 'pop!' sound like fire crackers or something... and when we looked out of the shop, we could not believe what was unfolding before our eyes... its only when we heard people screaming that we realized that it was gun fire... and when i looked up at Poh Kong Jewellers at the ground floor, I saw a man shoot at point blank towards another man who was laying on the floor... he must have taken three shots at him then ran into 'Blook' ....then come out again and take another 3 or more shoots at whom im guessed was the security guard.

By then we were on the floor of kenny rogers'. we heard a guy shout stay down! stay down!... I cld not believe it... we where a mere 50 to 80 feet from the gun man... we all (the other people and us) hurdled behind a piller because the robbers where shooting all over the place... thats when i saw another robber behind a piller infront of Poh Kong.

The shutters of the restaurant began to close... thoughtfully brought down by the manager. All the other shops also began closing their shutters. We then all hurriedly when behind the counter and into the kicthen. This was defirnately a good idea just incase of stray bullets and what nots...

It was chaos... i did not know what was going on... besides the fact that Poh Kong was being robbed, the guards where laying on the floor dead or dying. How many were there? were there more of them? We heard more gun shots.... a few minutes later some one said it was ok to come out now... It was about 15 minutes from the time we heard the first shot... Not surprisingly the robbers escaped...

a crowd was gathering but the Subang Parade Security kept a perimeter... there were three people sprawler on the floor. We could not see two of them from the LG floor. We only cld see the one i saw get shot, who was nearer to the ledge of the ground floor near 'Blook'. Five minutes later i saw 'one' cop holding back the crowd... i am not sure if there were more policemen or not. we split the seen before the car park got jammed. As we reached the exit we saw troves of people rushing out into the car park..

.... for some reason i was not scared but calm. But as we were leaving i became more and more disturd of the thought of the robber shooting the guard over and over and over again...

As you might have read in the sunday paper, two guards were killed and one robber was shot dead by a security guard from the 'Tomei' shop. He was unfortunately hurt but i believe he is recovering.

Today i found out on Star'online' that they arrested seven people involved thru a hotel key they found on the dead robber..... thats good news indeed...

...and here i thought it was going to be another boring weekend.....

END

My 1965 Beetle

I just started a new blog, dedicated to vw beetles. This is to motivate me to work on the restoration of my 1965 vw beetle. the link is available in the side bar menu, or you may go http://pixelatedbeetle.blogspot.com/.

--------------vw forever------------

Kulim

Kulim.... I did not know anything about it until i met my brother-in-law’s wife who comes from Kulim. From her, i learn that it was a small town in Kedah and it's weekends were on Friday and Saturday, which meant Sunday was a working day...... that scary....

Last Friday I was finally given a reason to go to Kulim. It was my brother-in-law’s son’s birthday and they wanted to celebrate it in his wife’s hometown where her parents still resided in. His son who is the most cutest thing I have ever seen just turned ‘one’ last Friday….

Kulim was about 400KM from KL and was not too hard to get to. It took us about 4 hours to get there including a half hour stop at Tapah. Just get off the Seberang Jaya exit after the Juru toll. Turn right and get on to the Buttorworth Kulim Expressway (the BKE)…. Just follow the signs and bam! You are in Kulim.

A nice small town which reminded me of how Port Klang used to look like…. a long long long time ago… I did not manage to take pictures of the town, because we did not have time and I was also driving.

After having lunch at my brother-in-law’s in-law’s place…. We went to the Kulim Club where the party was going to be held that night. It was also were we would be staying the night. It was a nice place, well kept but you could tell that it was 20 years old… it was like stepping back to the 80’s… having said that I must say that it was way better then PJ Club which is like a dump compared to it…

The party was fantastic and the little one really enjoyed him self…

The next day after breakfast we decided to go to a waterfall. We had learnt that Kulim has many waterfalls…. And we set out to go to one called Bukit Hijau Waterfalls. It was about a 45 minute drive to the Bukit Hijau Forest Reserve. On the way there we passed Kulim Hi-Tech Park which was the northern counterpart of Cyberjaya. To be honest it looked much nicer then Cyberjaya….. hhmmm..

Anyways …in our drive there we noticed that there are many Forest Reserve parks in that area and the nearest one was Bukit Hijau… as time was not on our side because we had to meet the rest of the family for lunch, we did not spend a lot of time at the waterfalls. But I did take a mental note that we shall come back to Kulim one day and visit all the waterfalls here… here are some pictures of the Bukit Hijau falls…..




we were marooned by cows one the way back from Bukit Hijau...



---I am guessing that it was a good day to get married because we saw more then a dozen wedding cars on our way back…. but this by far was the most ugliest…


It rained really heavy one and off on the North South Highway as we were making our way back to KL... there were a number of accidents we passed which ranged from really bad to not so bad.. So i was glad that we reached in one piece ...... It was a good trip and i hope to visit Kulim again.

End

A New Year A New Office

We moved into the the old IBM builiding in TTDI last week and i seem to be settling in into our new office pretty nicelly. Surprisingly the LDP was not as bad as i imagined. It takes me about half an hour to get to work...but .... i cant leave later then 7.45am cos the jam picks up from then until about 8.30.

On another note, Rose and I finally toke down the christmas tree last weekend.... yes i guess we were one week late but hey... we let christmas linger a little longer... so what...

I guess 2007 is finally kicking in..... new resolutions to keep and new goals to achieve.... arrrgghh!!! you can do it!!!

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"How I Met Your Mother?"

No i am not talking about your mother.... i am talking about a comedy half hour serial called "How I Met Your Mother?". Watched two episodes when I was in Melbourne...and i thought it was very well scripted... Very nice. I give it an 8/10. Wld have given a 9 but I minus 1 point because i don't know if it can be a long running show like 'Friends' or 'Fraser'.

Hopefully they will start airing it over here soon, but in the mean time i will just be looking forward to "Heroes" which will start this 31 of Dec on Astro. I have heard a lot of good things about this show....... i hope it doesn't disappoint

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Merry Christmas!!! and a Happy New Year!!!

....It's the most wonderful time of the year...... you cld almost hear Frank Sinatra belting that out on every corner....

Nat King Cole, Snowmen, Band Aid, Shopping, Caroling and Electric shocks..... ahhh!! the smell of burnt hair in the morning...... but most of all its the coming together of friends and family..........Christmas...

Wishing all of you a VEry MErry ChristMAs.... and a happy New yEar.......

The Best Car Theft Prevention System

I was in penang last weekend and noticed a running condition car with the latest Car Theft Prevention System. I would say that it is an ingenious solution... dont you think?

Mo

VH in Melb Day 6, 7 & 8

I am sure some of you will be happy to know that i have nothing much to say about days 6, 7 & 8. All the highlights of the trip were over and there was only one thing left to do.............. Shopping!! and also more sightseeing around the city.

We went all over town visiting shops of which I quickly found a few camera shops and scale model shops and comic shops and magazine shops...... their range of products were superb. Rose got me a scale model of the millenium falcon for my birthday/christmas. Cant wait to get started on it ...but rose commented that i will only finish it in 2020.

we also went to Myers, ....looked at the cloths and bought some christmas decoration which where really pretty. Wish they had deco like that here. I bought Rose the 'Scene It' musical edition game for christmas. She already has the movie edition which is an excellent game to play. It is an interactive trivia game. We also bought some wonderful chocolates at a place called Block Arcade. Simply delicious.....


We also went shopping at an area called Richmond, which was about 15 minutes from flinders station. It was recommeded by our new found friend Flo, on its cheap clothing. Well it was not that cheap, but cheap by Aussie standards anyways, because everywhere else the cloths were really expensive, like 50 aussie and above but in richmond you could get a blouse for 20 aussie. but thats like 60 ringgit ok.... believe me shopping for clothing is alot cheaper in M'sia.

Well thats about it, I hope a few insomniacs got cured after reading all my VH in Melb post, and i also hope that most of you enjoyed the photos atleast.

.....till i find someting else to write tata...

END

VH in Melb Day 5 - Great Ocean Road

“Great Ocean Drive was really cool…. Rose did not feel too well along the winding costal roads but I was having a ball of a time down shifting and powering up along the twisting corners…. Hmmm maybe that’s why she was feeling a little quizzy”

We left early because it was almost 300 km to our destination ‘the 12 Apostles’ which is at the end of Great Ocean Drive. Along the way we stopped at an aboriginal centre and bought some souvenirs and looked at some Aboriginal art. We later stopped a few times along the way but the most notable stop was somewhere after Geelong. The mist was tick; the air was crisp and of cos windy. Some huge trees had even grown into the shape of the wind ( I am not kidding)…that’s how windy the place was. And the waves where crashing over the beach…. Strangely the water was warm, …tempting us to get in… but we decided not to because we weren’t even halfway to the Apostles.


We stopped at a lighthouse called Split Point Lighthouse (I think) as usual the view was breathtaking. The waves were pounding on the coastal cliffs …beautiful… The interesting thing was, there were wild cockatoos hanging around there (for those who don’t know… it is like white parrots …ok) … they where fat buggers … we also saw the infamous kookaburra bird perched on a telephone wire.


We had lunch at a little coastal town called Lorne. I think the main town was less then a kilometer square. We walked the stretch of this nice little cozy town and contemplated on visiting a waterfall a few kilometers north of the town. Again we decided against it and went on our way.

After driving about 50 km from Lorne, (somewhere near Apollo Bay), after passing countless number of ‘coastal scenes with spectacular’ cliffs, I found myself getting bored. (its never a good thing when you have too much of a good thing). Just then the road swerved away from the coast and we suddenly found ourselves driving through a thick forest which according to the map was the State Forest. After that it was one farmland after another, more forest and more farmland after that. And then there was more forest. I was beginning to get tired but the winding roads kept me sharp. It was only about 100 km later did we get on to the coastal roads again…

We finally were getting closer to the 12 apostles and Dono pointed out that we should stop at a place called Gibson Steps which lead us down to a stretch of beach, where we cld walk to the 1st Apostle. I guess I should explain that the 12 apostles are these rock formations sticking out of the coast, which was created by millions of years of bombardment from waves. We spent some time here at Gibson Steps before going to the main viewing point towards the 12 Apostles. It was magnificent… maybe I was a little tired because after a while, it just looked like giant rocks to me. Magnificent looking giant rock!

To get back to the city we used the A1 freeway ofcos. It was more then 100km shorter then Great Ocean Road and most of it was straight along Farmland. It started looking like it was going to rain and the wind was starting to pick up. Believe me the winds were really really strong but I was able to keep a constant 120 to 130 km in crosswinds. There where times where I had to drop my speed to about 90km because it was getting harder to hold on to the steering wheel… it was about that time I saw a big rig truck struggling to keep in his lane…. The rain was picking up but as soon as it slowed down I pick up speed again. The rain wasn’t as heavy as it is in M’sia but the winds were harsh… brutal even. The sun was beginning to set and it was spectacular. The colours were just out of this world. I just had to brave the strong winds to get out of the car and take a picture of it. And believe me when I tell you that me and my camera did not do justice to the sunset. It was a long and tiring day and we had covered about 520 km when we reached Shanti’s apartment in Melbourne. By then it was 9.30pm and yesterday’s leftovers were consumed over some nice wine.


mo
to be continued

VH in Melb Day 4 - Mornington Peninsular

The 4th and 5th day we planned to drive out of the City. We decided to go to Mornington first then do Great Ocean Road the next day. We rented a Toyota Yaris for two days and picked it up from Hertz after a wonderful western breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon. Yes Real Bacon folks…. Not the stupid chicken bacon we get in M’sia….. Real !!! Bacon!! Mmm….and the portions were of cos huge… I am a fatty!!

My first quest was to find Brighton Beach (notice how I said ‘My’ and not ‘Our’). Brighton Beach in Melbourne was a recreation of Brighton Beach in England, where they built colourful bath huts on the beach which were really expensive to rent. With the lack of a special detailed Map of Victoria which we forgot to pick up at the car rental place, we were lost….. but I bluffed my way there using a normal street map which I had and managed to get to a beach area ….and with the help of a few locals …we found Brighton Beach. Got a few shots of the huts and then we continued on our journey towards Mornington Peninsular which is known for its vineyards, breweries and hand made chocolates….mmmmm…


We managed to find the Chocolate place but to our disappointment they where closed on Mondays… yes it was a Monday and as we drove on we found that almost all the beer breweries and some of the vineyards were closed… but that’s ok… the drive was excellent… it was a beautiful scenic drive…. Vineyards to the left …vineyards to the right… “Hey look, a flock of sheep”… like Flo would say …”sooooo pretty!!”...

We visited a vineyard called ‘Darling’ and we got to taste different kinds of wine at this “pretty” place. It was simply brilliant. After Shanti and Rose bought a few bottles of wine, we went out to the chateau’ but the ‘wine grower/farmer guy’ (what do you call these people?) told us that they just planted the new vines and it only will be ready in March and Jun ….that’s when they start harvesting the grapes. I guess we will be making a trip to Melbourne in March some time in the distant future. We were getting a little bored so we just drove on,… stopping only to take in the scenery along the way. As it was getting late we decided to head back to the city. Anyway ….it was a pleasant drive thru Mornington ,…… all 230 km of it….

Somewhere near St Kilda (I think) we stopped at a Safeway Hypermarket to buy some groceries, because the girls decided to cook dinner tonight. It was a lovely little dinner with the best of friends.


mo
to be continued