FurryMaisy

Yesterday’s run at the stadium track:

Laps = 18.5
Distance =  7.4km

1/3 of target distance, not bad.

I have gotten myself addicted to the latest craze on Facebook….Farm Town.

It’s a game where you plow, harvest & sell your crops for coins & experience points (XP). As you collect more coins & XP, you can get bigger land and buy things to landscape your farm. The interactiveness of this game is when you can add your other Farm Town-playing friends as neighbours and other players as buddies. Then, hire them to plow/harvest your farm,  or vice versa.

If you can’t dedicate at least an hour each day to play this game, don’t start!

My Farm Town farm

Will be running a half marathon this coming December, and what other way to prepare for this than to run, run, and run even more!!

Yesterday’s run at the stadium track:

Laps = 11
Distance =  4.4km

Now, I only have to repeat this another 4 times to reach half-marathon distance……

Staples Center, the home of the LA Lakers, became the venue for MJ’s farewell to the world. Family, friends and fans packed the 20,000 capacity arena to pay tribute to the King of Pop.

Many tears were shed, stars like Brooke Shields, Kobe Bryant & Magic Johnson, Rev Al Sharpton gave their eulogies, even daughter Paris spoke briefly about her beloved dad. Performances by Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, John Mayer, Jennifer Hudson & others peppered the somber moment with memorable musical interludes. Was a bit surprised with the absence of Diana Ross & Liz Taylor.

It was a tasteful & dignified memorial, not too glitzy and overly done as I had first feared. In death, people have chosen to honour his contributions to music, to humanitarian causes, to society, his devotion to his children. In death, people have chosen to forget his idiosyncratic & bizzare behaviour, his apparent addiction to prescription drugs & plastic surgeries, his financially-crippling spending habits, and the eventual spiral to self-destruction.

I’m sure DVDs of the memorial will soon be sold in your local DVD stores; it’s just the first step in the milking of the extensive treasure vault  of MJ-related materials.

Also, we await the inevitable custody battle for Prince, Paris & Prince II (aka Blanket), and the vast assets that come with them.

R.I.P MJ.

Something monumental happened in my career as a weekend housewife yesterday:

I cooked 3 meals !

Yeah, yeah, most of you will thank “Big fat deal, I do that every day, including Sundays and Public Holidays”, but for me it’s different. Until a year ago, I’ve not really cooked a meal for anyone, but recent weeks have created a situation where I have to cook at least a meal each day. What did I cook?

Breakfast:
Sausage & onion omelette, with a side of fresh tomato.

Lunch:
Steamed fish, eggplant with sambal, and old cucumber soup.

Dinner:
Chicken in oyster sauce, bean sprouts with taukwa, and lunch’s old cucumber soup.

I’m so proud of myself!

This is a record of the Furrys’ (FurryMaisy & FurryHubby) holiday to Taipei last year. FurryMaisy’s one who forgets things very quickly, so a record of her travels here will help preserve memories of the trip.

Prologue

It all started one February evening:

FM : We haven’t gone for a holiday abroad for eons!
FH : ……… -_-‘  ………
FM : Are you listening to me?
FH :  You pick a place then, somewhere near and inexpensive
FM : *drooling over pics of Jerry Yan* why don’t we go to Taiwan?
FH :  *throws sceptical look* Taiwan?
FM : Good food and G-sized babes!
FH : Book the tickets now!!

And so a month later, we took the 1pm Jetstar flight from Changi to Taipei. FH summoned the magic holiday fairy (me!) to look for accomodations, research attractions and find ways to get there. Magic holiday fairy decided to just concentrate on Taipei and hit attractions reachable by Taipei Metro. Magic holiday fairy also summoned the travel agent wizard friend to book a hotel smack in the middle of Ximending, with airport transfer & a one-day tour thrown in for free. FH was happy with magic holiday fairy’s work.

Taipei here we come!

Day 1 : Are we there yet?

Airline meals, no matter how deceptively wonderful it looks on the colourful menu, is predictably disappointing when it reaches your seat tray. Notwithstanding the low air pressures in the air, the food will also shrink and any form of taste leaches out into the surrounding air. But the flight more than 3 hours, and FH’s tummy is tuned to growl if not filled every 3 hours or so. Still, $12 for an insipid-looking sandwich?! A hungry fool and his money are soon parted.

Touch down at around 6pm. Breezed through immigration & customs, and proceeded to the arrival hall hoping to spot a placard with our names on it. No such luck. Where is our ride to the hotel? Waited for over half and hour and still no sign of our ride. FH’s tummy is growling again, and a hungry man is an angry man. Where is our damn ride?!

Approached the information counter for help. We had the name & phone number of the travel agent’s Taipei counterpart, so the info counter personnel helped us contact them. After numerous phonecalls they finally got hold of someone and explained our situation to them. Apparently a bus was there to fetch us, but they had the wrong names on their sheet, and so they couldn’t find us. They quickly sent a taxi to pick us up, and we were finally on our way to Taipei.

Mister taxi driver was a very nice man, who enquired us about Malaysia, and the places we should visit. Helped to pass the time. Nearly an hour later, we reached our destination. We were told that our hotel is situated in an area inaccessible to vehicular traffic after 6pm every day, so he dropped us off at the nearest possible place, unloaded our luggage from the trunk, and pointed us to where we should walk; “50 meters straight from here”, he said. We said our thank-yous and proceeded in the said direction.

The hotel was really in the middle of Ximending! We quickly checked in, dumped our stuff in our very small hotel room, and proceeded downstairs to hunt for food.

Ximending may look like a vibrant and hip part of Taipei, but it is filled with old 4-6 storey buildings, mostly selling fashion, food, convenience stores (one in every corner!) and more fashion. Only a few streets are bustling; if you care to walk a little further, you will suddenly find rows of run-down shops, some boarded up, some only frequented by old men arguing politics. A unique mix of old and new.

Vibrant part of Ximending

Quieter part of Ximending

Saw a young busker showing off his vocal abilities. Looks like one of those idol wanna-be contestants in Taiwan singing contests.

Taipei busker

Stuffed ourselves with noodles from a nearby shop (noodles are delicious), found the famous A-Zhong mianxian, and smelly toufu! Well, I stuffed myself with smelly toufu, FH wouldn’t go near with a ten feet pole, haha! Satiated, we retire to bed. Tomorrow will be a long day.

A-Zhong mianxian

Smelly Toufu!

Congratulations to Barcelona in their 2-0 win over my beloved Man Utd. Really, we were outclassed by the Catalan passmasters.

Woke up at 2.40am to watch the match via TVAnts (no Starhub subscription).  Before  I got ITV’s feed up and running, I heard shouts coming from an adjacent HDB block. Did someone just score? Did someone just missed? Was it ManUtd or Barca? Finally got ITV’s feed running, but it was not smooth. Missed Eto’s first goal for Barca.  Persisted with it for a while before giving up and switching to SopCast’s Shanghai Sports channel.

Yay, streaming was as smooth as terrestrial tv!

For the rest of the morning, I sat in front of my notebook watching ManUtd get outclassed in midfield. Was Anderson’s inclusion a desperate replacement for the suspension of Fletcher? If yes, it was a failure. ManUtd was not imposing themselves in midfield at all. Anderson, Park and Giggs were not dominating enough.Iniesta & Xavi was running the show.

Whenever Barca passed their way to the last third of the field, they looked threatening. As time went by, and frustrations mount, ManUtd’s play got rougher and rougher. Scholes, Ronaldo, Vidic, all got booked for a host of body-checking, sloppy tackles and everything in between. In the end, even with the substitutions of Berbatov & Tevez could not conjure the magic required.

After the match, the Barca players could be seen celebrating with gusto, but remembering to shake the hands of the dejected ManUtd players. Vice versa, ManUtd players looked downcast, but gracefully congratulated every Barca player that crossed their path. I guess they knew that the better team won, eh?

Will we be seeing a sudden deluge of people wearing Barca jerseys on the streets ?

Barca pose with the coveted trophy

Barca Manager Pep Guardiola hoisted into the air by his players

Dejected ManUtd players

Ever since the day Lee Sharpe graced the cover of Smash Hits, I have been an ardent supporter of Manchester United. So who do you think I will root for tomorrow morning?

Manchester United

Be glad that your girlfriend / wife is not like this Shanghai hussy…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RDVbO1320I]

I miss Allison, listening to 3 guys sing isn’t as fun. Still, the American voters made their decision, and now we have 3 guys vying for the title of American Idol. 

This week, the 3 are supposed to sing 2 songs each, the first is a judge’s pick, the second a contestant’s pick. 

Danny Gokey 
Judge’s Pick : Dance Little Sister by Terence Trent D’Arby
– I kinda liked it, but nothing spectacular. 
Own Pick : You Are So Beautiful by Joe Cocker
– Typical Gokey song. Dripping with saccharine sweetness. Didn’t do it for me.

Kris Allen
Judge’s Pick :  Apologize by One Republic
– Kris crooned behind the piano again. His singing was OK, but did not do anything different to the song. Kinda expected more.
Own Pick:  Heartless by Kanye West
– I didn’t know that song can be sung! The original version’s boring and monotonous, but Kris’ acoustic guitar version was quite inventive, and honestly, better than Kanye’s. 

Adam Lambert
Judge’s Pick :  One by U2.
– Didn’t amaze me. Felt like a ‘day in the office’ for me.
Own Pick:  Crying by Aerosmith
– This is much better, an Aerosmith number done with the signature Adam Scream. Lovely.

My final 2 prediction?
Personal choice would be Adam /Kris, but my prediction will be Adam/Danny.