MaDnUg MaDnEsS

 This year, boxing day main target for me are cheap Blu-Ray movies.  Ever since I got my PS3 a few weeks ago, I have been a little obsessed in hunting for the cheap BRs on sale everywhere (more on this on a later post probably).  Secondary target is to find a decent deal on a laptop.

Woke up at 5am this morning, and checked up on Amazon.ca’s boxing day sale.  It is utter CRAP - most of their sale prices are more than Walmart or Futureshop’s regular prices on the Blu-Rays and DVDs!  I am glad that I didn’t stay up for these so called deals.  Called Wong-in-law at 5:30 but he ended up bailing (can’t blame him, he got work still today starting at noon! Busy guy!), so I ended up heading out alone.

Arrived at Richmond Hill Walmart at 5:50am (website says store opens at 6am).  There’s only about 10 people lining up.  Was kinda hungry, drove across the street to McDs and got a burger.  Went back, the line grew a little.  Got out of the car with the food, and I can feel the envyness of people staring at me, smelling the sausage egg mcmuffin.

By 6, their door is not opened.  By 6:05, some lady with a baby opened a door and just jumped inside, and an employee came out saying their store is not open until 7!!  There was a bit of a overwhelming boo and hoo, but no one has actually left except me deciding to just walk out of there and head to Futureshop first.

Warden & 7 Futureshop’s traffic is insane.  Arrived there 6:15 am and majority of the parking around the store is already occupied.  Luckily, it seems the first batch of customers already got what they need and they were all escaping the mad house.  Went inside, they have their Blu-Rays and DVDs right at the front in a few freestanding displays.  But unlike the years before that they have dedicated racks for boxing day items, they have mixed everything up with minimal display on the cheaper stuff and all regular priced items facing out.  I guess it must be a tactic they want people to think those regular priced BRs are on sale, paid for them without really paying attention.  Looked at what they have to offer, and mostly at 16.99, I passed.  Went to the laptop department, the one I kinda targeted turned out to be a web exclusive, and there is really nothing good in stores that I wanted.

So I left FS and went back to the Richmond Hill Walmart by 7:15am.  When I got to the video department, the Blu-Ray racks are emptied.  Some dude was talking to a sales rep there asking about the 9.98 BR discs advertised, and the sales rep says “our manager does not like to stock up on Blu-Rays cos he thinks no one wants them.  We do not have many to begin with.”  He suggested us to go try the Super Walmart at Wellington and Leslie.

Bummed yet again by the Richmond Hill Walmart, I drove up to Welling Super Walmart.  There is practically NO ONE in the store.  Got to the electronics section, and found what I wanted - Sweeney Todd Blu Ray for 9.98!  YAY!  They got a few other movies like Dreamgirl (watched in DVD, not impressed enough to justify spending 10 bucks to upgrade), Kill Bill (still waiting for the long due special edition), Love Guru (terrible, terrible! Never thought Mike Myers can drop that low!), Saw (no urge to watch this in HD again) etc.  Also picked up a box of diapers for baby, and stocked up on some 1/2 priced Duracell batteries.  On my way out to the cashier, saw them having the baby megablocks on sale for 5 bucks a pack (100 pcs!), got 2 of those and will be stashed away for Farrah till a few months later!

Out of there by 8:10, and noticed there is a EB Games next to the Super Walmart.  But the parking lot was pretty empty, so I thought it’s not opened yet.  Drove by none-the-less, and they are actually open at 8am.  No one was in the store when I got in.  I asked the 2 sales guy there what is on sale, and they both seems to either do not understand, or not awake enough to answer me.  Grabbed a flyer myself, and looked thru to find a few good deals.  None of the products has been properly priced for their boxing day sale, so when I brought over the items and said “this is on sale for 10 bucks, right?”, the guys have to scan every single thing to confirm.  Ended up getting a bunch of 10 dollar items for myself and Wong-in-law: Unreal Tournament 3 PS3 (Brand New!), Guitar Hero III 360 (New), Spider-man 3 Blu-ray (New), Wii Zapper (New), Stranglehold PS3 (Used) - all for 10 bucks each!

Then, I went back home.  For some reason, after the non-fruitful Walmart and Futureshop, I lost the urge to run around.  Also realized that most of the so called sale price on Blu-Rays has been in effect pretty much before boxing day, there is really no need to hunt around much.

Mich and her parents went out for their round after I got him.  She scored a nice jacket at Rudsak, and a few clothing items.   Probably the least amount spent on boxing day for us in years.

So, I finally got a PS3 today.  EB got a deal going on that you buy a PS3 and you get a free game, including the infamous Little Big Planet.  I have accumulated enough Future-shop Gift Cards from my VISA rewards that I can almost pay for one a 80GB.  So I tried to talk to FS and see if they can match the EB deal and they did!  Ended up just paying 27 bucks extra, I got my PS3 and LBP game!

Did not have too much time to play with it yet.  Popped the Iron Man Blu-Ray disc in and I did see the difference in the detail sharpness from a regular DVD.  The backgrounds seems a bit grainy, but when there are digitally created parts (ie. most of the Iron Mans in the movie), they are sharp as hell.  I wonder if becoz my TV is 1080i makes any difference.

Popped the LBP game in, and realized it auto downgrades to 480p (my TV can only do 1080i or 480p with HDMI).  Was pretty annoyed about that, as I am anticipating a whole new level of sharp gaming experience.  Did some quick research only, and realized that almost 90% of the PS3 games are NOT 1080 compatible.  They are at most 720p, so for an older TV set like mine, it defaults back to 480P = Wii resolution.  Reminds me once again why people said PS3 is not a good game console but an excellent Blu-Ray player……

It’s been a over a few weeks in the new TV season, for the shows that I liked, I guess I have watched a fair amount of episodes to do a review here (Attention! Spoiler Alert!) -CHUCK Season 2 -  Season 1 of this spy comedy was OK.  I was not really feeling the show initially, until 1/2 way thru Season one when they stop the goofing around and starting to let Chuck be a part of the missions rather than always the target.  Season 2 picks up where it’s left off, and of coz Chuck cannot rid of himself being the “intersect” = the massive data brain of the government.  I enjoyed how they are slowly putting story elements through out multiple episodes of the show, rather than doing the mission of the week only plots.  The BuyMore staff is now getting full credits in the opening, so they have been playing a bigger role in each episode and it is a nice touch seeing their characters develop more (who would have guessed that Jeff used to be a video game champion?)  The latest few episodes brought back Chuck’s college GF Jill, and has made the dynamics between the main duo way more interesting.  Too bad this relationship seems to come to an end next episode.  Do look forward to see what else is in store.  So far, this show is still pretty fresh and I recommend a try if you haven’t seen it yet.

HEROES Season 3 - “When Heroes Goes Bad” pretty much sums up the plots as well as the show for Season 3.  After the horrible mess that was Season 2, you think Heroes would only get better.  WRONG!  Season 3 started with even worse stories, totally out of character situations, and repeated plots from Season 1.  I had wanted to write a review about this after 3 episodes but decided to wait for a few more weeks to see if any of what they did make sense.  And no, it does not!  Yes, they have warned us before the season started that things are not the same.  What they have done is taking “I see the future!  It is going to explode!!” plot from season 1, recycled it with each character playing a total opposite role than before.  So now, we have Sylar, instead of the bad ass head slicer, now wanting to be a good guy; Nathan, the determined politician, now not sure what he should to do; Claire, instead of being a victim before, is now a bad ass; Niki, oh wait, that is not Niki, that is her evil twin sister?  Admittedly, the last 2 or 3 episode is a little better.  But unlike Season 1 that the whole 23 episodes feels like a unified plot and played out bit by bit, you can totally see they have no direction in the beginning of this season, and just keep throwing things together as it goes and is trying so hard to fit things together.  How many times do we have to see a bunch characters so happens to be at the same place at the same time for no reason? By the way, has anyone noticed that they have pretty much written off all of Season 2’s characters and plots (except Elle)? The creators seem to have succumb themselves to their greatest villain of all time - the Internet forums.  I can’t help but feel that they are letting the internet crowd tell them what to do, or try to out smart them by doing the exact opposite of what they speculated.  Honestly, I am not sure if this show can go back to where it was.  Let’s just hope it will not go further down!

MY OWN WORST ENEMY Season 1 - Rumors are, this show is dead after Episode 9.  I feel bad about it, coz this is one of my favorite new show this year.  In a nutshell - Edward is a ruthless top spy/assassin, and Henry is a timid regular business man.  Edward and Henry are actually 2 personalities sharing the same body.   Being part of a top-secret project, Henry is this planted personality in Edward’s mind to act as a decoy when Edward is not in action.  However, things go wrong when the “switch” between the 2 personality is broken, and they agency cannot control when Edward or Henry is gonna show up!  It has a little bit of Sci-Fi, mostly a spy show, with a bit of humor mixed into it.  Christian Slater plays his duel personality very well, that he makes you believe that he is two different person altogether in the split second shift.  The first episode gave me doubts as to how they can keep the story going with just this one idea, but they have expanded the whole split personality idea to other side characters and it makes the plot goes bigger than a one person’s problem.  I like how they find a way for the 2 selves to interact.  The added in side plot for Henry’s co-worker Tom is also a great touch.  Too bad that just when this show seems to be warming up, it got canned.  I hope that at least they can give the whole story a decent wrap up, but I think is highly unlikely.  This is going to be another one of those shows to follow Journey Man and Bionic Woman with no real ending.  What a pity.

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES Season 2 - This show is for the Terminator fans.  It builds on an old franchise of Terminator and Terminator 2 (thank God not T3), and expanded the characters and universe above and beyond what we already know.  However, if you know nothing about Terminators, then, you will absolutely get lost.  It is even more so for the second season, coz a lot of season 2 builds on what has been done in season 1.  That is probably why the ratings have been bad for this show.  But if you were a Terminator fan, you would enjoy this one!

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Season 5 -  I am pretty amazed how they managed to keep a show of a bunch of bitchy women fresh after all that has happened in the past 4 years.  But they found a way - jump a few years into the future, and we have our lovely characters in a brand new setting and totally different scenario!  The pacing of this show has always been a success, with enough revealing at the right time so that any character change does not feel abrupt.  How they shakeup of some of the couples makes sense, and I just love the Scavo story now that the kids are all teens.  The new villain, Edie’s husband, shows off his bad side right off the bat.  So far, 8 episodes in, this season has been the second best so far (the first one is still the best).  Let’s hope they can keep it up and give us a good pay off by the end!

30 ROCK Season 3 - The award winning comedy on TV goes on, with LOTS of guest stars so far this season.  4 weeks in and we already have Jennifer Aniston, Oprha, and Steve Martin!  Becoz of all the focus on these super guests, the regular cast seems to have diminished into bystander roles so far.  Not that the guests are not funny, but I do miss the goofiness of Liz’s staff.  One thing I noticed is the sex jokes seem to be more explicit this season.  Ain’t making much difference, as the show is still funny as hell with or without those sex remarks.  Supposedly Salma Hayek will come onboard as Jack’s GF for a few episode.  Can’t wait for that!     

Yes, we understand that it is more for our own entertainment than our baby’s enjoyment.  But I guess no parents will miss the chance to dress their beloved baby up in cute costumes for their first halloween!  HAHA!

We went costume hunting for one afternoon, and got a few options in various stores.  Knowing that this is a one time only thingy, we really do not want to spend too much on it.  Ended up finding some pretty good deals at Winners!

Putting the costumes on her deems to be some challenge, as Farrah does not like clothes that are not comfortable.  We gotta wait till a time that she is really really happy, and then we quickly change her.

So first up, she becomes a banana!  The opening for her face is kinda tight, so when we have it going around her head, she gets irritated by the elastics.  Therefore, we have to slide it slightly backwards so her head sticks out of the opening.

This second costume is much more normal!  It is a little pirate outfit!  People said she looks like a boy here!

Pirate costume is complete with Bandanna!  This shot is like the first second she has the bandanna on….

Then she started realizing something is covering her head, which she hates… so 10 seconds later….

Until next year!!

I can’t believe I have to make another post about these He-Man DVD.  In the wake of last night’s event, I decide to open all the He-man and She-Ra sets I got.  One by one, I am doing it “backwards” from the last She-Ra, to the first He-Man.  And everything was fine until I open the last set, which is He-Man Season 1 Vol.1.  Spot what is wrong with this picture -

A-HA!  There’s 2 disc 5, and no disc 3!!!!!!!!!!  I got 2 Evil Lyn discs in place or the Teela disc.

I understand, at $9.96 a set VS over 40 bucks suggested retail before, these DVDs are a steal.  But it does not mean the QC can be THAT terrible.  2 out of 12 (9 for myself, and 3 I picked up for Matty) have problems.  That is over 15% error!

Or am I really having bad luck?

Started this past week, our local Wal-Mart is priced the old He-Man & She-Ra DVD sets at $9.96 per pack.  I have been calling around to try to find all 9 of them.  At this low price, it is the time to bring back some childhood memories.

Did a few trips to various locations, and just when I thought I am done hunting, I was hit by a BIG suprise.  Picked up all but one last set the past few days, I just put them on my DVD shelf without opening them at all.  But out of a very weird hunch, I opened the He-Man Season 2 Vol. 1 set I got today (which is the last set I need to complete).  And guess what -

IT’S EMPTY!  There is NO Discs in the package at all!  WTF!?

I called up the Wal-Mart and told them that.  Luckily, during my hunt, I have befriended the sales associate there, so he believe that I am not just trying to scam the discs.  So now I gotta bring the empty back there for a refund.

Annoying indeed!

There are 2 Malaysian restaurant that I  have always recommended in uptown Toronto.  One is Chinese influenced out in Markham, and the more authentic one has to be Restoran Malaysia in Richmond Hill.

Located at Bayview and MajorMac in Richmond Hill (right next to McDonalds), this place has been around for over a decade.  It is interesting to see how they started off as a family run place with a few tables and a small location, then expanded took over the karaoke place next door which makes it 3 times the original size, and still manage to be very crowded every night!  During weekends, you are risking running out of seats unless you arrive before 6pm!

After the expansion and renovation a few years ago, the decor become fancier, and the lighting is dimmed down a bit to create the cozy mood.  While I like their new design, sometimes, I missed their old look - that home-made, small restaurant feel.

Their food portion is quite generous, even for their lunch menu.  So be prepared that you might need to bag up the left overs!  Some of my favorite dishes there include:

PAD THAI - the classic Thai restaurant plate!  Comes loaded with delicious noodles, chicken, shrimp, tofu, and bean sprouts.

SINGAPORE CHICKEN RICE - another classic South East Asian dish.  The special thing about their Singapore Chicken VS others is that it comes BONELESS!  Yes, no more of those annoying small broken pieces of chicken bones that you gotta spit out!

I like their NASI AYAM MELAYU, which is a crispy roasted version of the Singapore Chicken Rice.

A hidden gem there is their BLACK PEPPERED BEEF KUAY TEOW.  Kuay Teow dish is a type of fried rice noodle (Ho-Fun) .  This dish is for the black pepper lover.  It is quite spicy for me, but yet I found the excitement very addictive and have the craving for it all the time.

And you gotta try out their ICE TEH TARIK.  It is the Malaysian way to make milk tea, where they will pour the tea from one container to another at a rather tall distance back and forth until it becomes frothy.  The process is referred to as “pulling” the tea.  This results in the milk tea being very smooth and tasty!

For those who are wondering what the title means, “Ayam or Daging?” means “Chicken or Beef?”   Note that Restoran Malaysia does not serve pork, coz they are Halal.  But there are a lot of choices from their menu that I am sure you will not be missing the piggy.  Other favs are their Curry Beef and Chicken dishes that comes with your choose of plain rice, coconut rice, or tomato pilaf rice.  And don’t forget to try out their roti pan cakes (perfect to dip them in the Curry sauce!), as well as their satay skewers.  You can check out their menu online here.

<Ken adding a touch of lime to his lunch.>

RESTORAN MALAYSIA

815 Major Mackenzie Drive East
Richmond Hill, Ontario
905-508-1432

Note: They closed Monday.

www.restoranmalaysia.com

Thank you Ken for bringing this kitty back from the US, now I can finally shoot some pictures of this nice looking statue to share.

I have been a big fan of Adam Hughes since I first saw his Vampirella covers.  Adam has been designing a lot of DC Female Busts, but since I never started collecting them, I decide to stay away from the line.  When Sideshow announced their Adam Hughes Marvel line, I got pretty excited about them too.  The White Queen is nice, but I found myself liking this Black Cat more, probably something to do with my love of cats too… LOL.  And what really push me over to order is they have the Sideshow Exclusive version still available when I checked their site, which includes a lithograph of the artwork that this statue is based on!

<The statue and the art print>

The concept of the statue is the Black Cat has just climbed out of an air duct grill, landing on some wooden crates of goods.  She is probably sneaking around some warehouse for some treasure!

The statue comes in 3 pieces, and they are nicely protected in a custom molded styrofoam insert.

The main body is easy to assemble to the base, but the “Grill” is a little tricky.  First of all, you need to slide the frame diagonally over her 2 arms, and the 2 pins on her hands seems to be a little narrower that the actual frame on mine, so I need to carefully squish the frame a little before I can successfully push the pins through the 2 holes.

The statue itself is quite huge, standing over 19 inches tall with the base!  Definitely get my money’s worth consider it is only 130 bucks (compare to most statues nowadays that are way smaller and pricing at 175 or more!).  The details on the figure are good, and the paint job is very clean.  The pose is rather straight compare to the Adam Hughes drawing, but her body curves is still shown off great!  I like how they use a high gloss for her suit, while the other parts are in matt finish that contrasted her suit nicely. Her facial detail is nicely sculpted, with a very decent paint job for a mass production piece.

If I really have to pick on something, I wish they would have put some shading on her hair instead of leaving  it a single shade white.  That would have added more “layer” to the look of her hair, and also enhanced the sculpt.

Being an art/design person, I want to compliment Sideshow on their nice packaging.  This is a rather big statue, and the box is very big, so it can get expensive to print in full color. In most cases, other statue manufacturer would sacrifice the box art and use a plain cardbox box with a sticker.  But Sideshow has always kicking the package up a notch. For a box that is over 20 inches tall, they did not go cheap and give us a full color package that is worth keeping (not that I would throw away any boxes, but I know a lot of people do becoz of space constraints).

My grade on the BLACK CAT Comiquette Statue:

Packaging - 10/10

Sculpt - 9/10 (if they can follow Adam’s pose better, it will be perfect!)

Paint - 8/10 (The Hair!!)

Value - 10/10

There is a new meaning to “POINT AND SHOOT”.

News reports said that the Toronto Police announced a “Pixels for Pistols” program, where gun owners can “trade-in” their fire arms (legal or not) for a digital camera and photo lessons from the Henry’s Camera store.  The police says it does not matter if you possess the gun legally or illegally, and no charges will be pressed.  The idea of this gun amnesty program is to hopefully make these weapons less accessible to criminals.

Seriously, this sounded more like a headline for The ONION News!!  WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY WASTE TIME AND EFFORT DOING THAT?  Who is going to turn their guns over?  If you are a criminal, will you think of trading your gun for a camera that is worth $250?  Chances are, they will get loads of old, rusty, broken guns that does not even function.

There is no logic behind this.  If you want to get to the people who has illegal firearms, then why don’t you reward the person who can successfully tip the police off an arrest?  If you really want to crack down on crimes involving guns, then raise the panelty - how about “Any crime commited with a firearm, big or small, will automatically be charged and have a minimum of 10 years in jail without parole.”

Crimes should be punished.  Criminals should be heavily charged and locked away.  Thinking that giving away a digital camera is a way to lower crime rate is plain retarded.  Gun ownership has always been a topic of debate.  Gun owners are always justifying their possession of a firearm by saying it is for their own protection agaist crime.  In my opinion, this will only gives those people who owns a gun more excuse to KEEP their weapon, coz how can we believe a retarded police force can protect us?

<Keeping with the tradition - taken on the 21st when Farrah is 2 months old!>

We just passed Farrah’s 2 month birthday!  There is a BIG difference between Month 1 & Month 2 in terms of handling her!

<Look at that neck and legs!  HAHA!>

Our chubby little baby is now over 12 lbs, and we can certainly feel the difference while holding her from time to time.  I don’t know how we are going to manage when she grows heavier, but I guess it is just a way to “work out” our arms!

<Farrah is very nosey nowadays.  She likes to stare at stuff.>

Between 1.5 months to 2 months (around week 6 to 8), she becomes very cranky out of the blue once or twice a day.  There does not seem to be any real reason to it - not that she needs food, or seems to have gas stuck in her tummy.  Nor does she seems tired (sometimes, she was sleeping, and then bursted out crying!).  Nothing can stop her from screaming - tried holding her, bouncing her around, put her in the swing, etc etc…  and normally, it will stop between 15 mins to half an hour.  And you better believe me when I say that would be the longest 30 minutes everyday you would have experienced!  Luckily, this started to fade away as she is approaching week 8, and weird enough, it seems to have stopped the day she reaches 2 months!  Hopefully, the condition is not coming back!

<Open communications!>

And funny enough, on her 2 month birthday, we realized she started to try to “coomunicate” with us more!  She tends to smile everytime we talk to her.  And we can feel that she is paying more attention to what we said, and sometimes try to respond with a “coo” or “errr”, and then start giggling.  It is such a sweet and welcoming reaction that we are loving every moment of it!

<Need to do more push ups to keep fit!>

As per the doctor’s instruction, we would now put her tummy down so that she will do some “push ups” to strengthen her arms and neck.  When Farrah is happy, she doesn’t mind that.  But she would only try for a short little while, exhausted herself, and give up lying flat face down!  Then she will start crying for help!  Need to whip her more NOT to be a quitter I guess! HAHA!

<Farrah playing with Auntie Yvonne>

The first month flies by, and compare to the second month, the first 4 weeks is relatively easier.  When the baby is first born, she only eat, sleep, and shit.  It is the frequence of the feeding and diaper change that we were trying to get used to, but otherwise, baby just sleeps most of the time.  This second month becomes a new game, which she is more awake and wanted to play and need your attention.

<Happy mommy and baby!>

The positive side is that we have managed to stretch the feeding time to 4 hours during the day, and fed her extra at the last meal before midnight and most of the time, she will sleep through around 6 to 7 hours at night.  There are still stressful moments, and juggling between work, housework, the baby, and trying to find some personal time on our own (including finding time to keep up with this blog) can be a lot of work!  Suggestion to new parents and parents to be - take it easy on things.  House might be messier.  You might not be able to get things done immediately anymore coz baby is calling.  When the stress level become high, always take a deep breath, and relax, before you try to scream like your baby.  This is the new path of life, and you better get used to it!  Someday soon, you will get an extra helping hand for those stuff that you need to do around the house!  But first of all, we gotta raise this little fellow!  HAHA!