NeroTeca

Was at this Italian restaurant over the weekend for a gathering. Only now do I have time to post up the pics. Sigh bz bz bz. Buzz!

A wide collection of wine to go with the truly cozy environment.

Then I noticed this. A classic wooden ladder to reach the top of the shelves.

The appetizer.


The house wine wasn't really to my taste

Pretty narrow place. I guess thats why you wont get a place without a reservation.

It's not always about the pasta.

All in all, it was a nice place to dine. Abit pricey though. There was 6 of us and the bill came out to RM525.00. A place to bring a hot date but make sure that wallet's fat. :) Address and contact below:

ground floor, somerset
8 lorong ceylon
50250 Kuala Lumpur
tel: 03 / 2070 0530
fax: 03 / 2070 2530
info@neroteca.com

Colouring Weekend.

Everyone and everybody wants to be individual these days. We are so caught up with our daily routines in life that it nauseates us. It's like watching a rerun of a golf tournament for 365 days a year and for the rest of our remaining years. It's boring, it's pathetic and it shortens our life span. The lab rats half the globe away have confirmed that a life lived in a boring manner without any form of stimulation will ultimately kill you faster than stage 3 cancer. I might be found guilty of a little exaggeration but am I wrong to say that a boring life is, by all means, no life at all? That said, being on top of the food chain and most probably being the first to destroy our own habitat, we, the human species are the blessed with the ability to innovate, create and conceive. And as such, in order to save ourselves from eternal boredom, the lab rats have invented the color hair dye.

Yes, the color dye. The one invention that makes us all individual or at least give us a false sense of exclusivity. You can walk down a street with a sea of asian black heads and be proud to be the only one with blonde, copper or even maple brown hair. If you had breasts, you could swing your head from side to side in slow motion and people will stop and stare in awe as though the whole scene was taken out of a shampoo commercial. If the Germans had discovered color hair dye first, they'd probably had won WW2. Nothing is as fearful as a purple headed Germans or a Yellow headed Nazi charging with color coded formations.

So how could I miss out on experiencing the biggest invention since the colored liquid paper. I then happily traveled to my local K4 and chose, out of a shelf of hair color conglomeration, a Sundance brand with the wordings 'Copper Red' inscribed on the bottom right corner. The picture on the package was a lady with a subtle brownish, reddish, goldish hair which spoke personality but yet illusive. Perfect...just what I need. How was I to know that an hour later, I had sucessfully turned myself into a freaking COCK! I'd always thought beautifying products like these would often over promise and under deliver. So when it said copper red, I thought it was what was shown on the picture. But noooo...they had to under promise and over deliver. They had to go and make copper red....red. And here I was facing the bathroom mirror. I was in awe alright. And I now know first hand how frightening a red headed German would me. In front me was a red headed asian and I was already petrified. My GOD what have I done! But be optimistic I told myself. I could now visit a farm house and score more hens than the local casanova cock. I visualized myself standing under a traffic light and all the cars would stop even though the lights were green. The heck with penalty cards, a player makes a foul, the referee would just blow his whistle and call me into the field.

It was already a Saturday evening and it was too late to un-red my hair. To make matters worst, I had a dinner to attend and was meeting up with my associates at a chic Italian restaurant down at Sommerset hotel. With hair like this, I'd set the pasta on fire I thought. I have to admit, being a red head (literally) did infact attracted much attention. I noticed chicks were stealing glances at me time and time again. Not sure if it's out of attraction or fascination. I'd think it was the latter as though I was a rare zoo captive. Sunday morning was my savior. Or at least that's what I thought. I forced myself out of bed and, zoomed to nearest Guardian. Again I was faced with an assortment of colors. This time I chose a Gatsby. Bleach and Colored it said. Rusty Brown it said. Yeah rite. An hour of yet another chemical treatment later, I still looked like a cherry lollipop. Off I went to my Sunday badminton session feeling like a clown. I guess one of my badminton kakis was too mesmerized by the shade of red on my head because the shuttle from my smash landed directly above her eye and she didn't even tried to take evasive measure. Another testament to the color hair dye. Maybe BAM should consider dying the player's head with rainbow colors and we might just stand a chance at winning the upcoming World Championships.

Last attempt at un-redding my hair. This time with a Loreal. And this time, no chances, I went with BLACK. It was a delicate procedure this hair dying business. The chemical mixtures had to be applied evenly unless you have an intention to look like a zebra. And considering this was the third time I was having my hair shampoo-ed in chemical milkshake, I might need to really go bald come Monday if this last attempt failed. Ten minutes and a rinse later and voila! I was back to normal again. No fiery red, no rusty brown. Just black. Boring old un-individualistic black. And how I loved black.......now. Black is good. Black means I no longer need to date hen. Black means I do not need to face the wrath of my boss. And most importantly, black means I'm human again, not some creature of the wild in heat.

Signaphobia

Life is getting expensive. That's not an assumption, that's a fact. It's a fact that the gas prices are rising every year but our cars are not getting any more efficient. It's a fact we are getting peanuts for our pay and still the government robs part of it from us. And it's also a fact that shuet char at the local tai pai tong used to be 30sen but now costs 50sen just because the lou sai claims "Gas to boil water more expensive edi....so meh hei kailor..tiu" and "sor hai garberman tax me kau kau lar". And because I no longer have enough peanuts to afford shuet char let alone char kuey teow, I was forced to cook my own lunches and thus has brought me to another ok KL's reality. You cannot be soft-hearted in KL. Yes, I have learnt that being a softy in KL has dire consequences and I have first handedly experienced how disaster-ly those consequences can become. And so the story goes.

Because I was forced to cook my own lunches, I was forced to get my lazy butt up on a saturday morning to go shopping at my local K4 outlet. And whilst I had gotten most of what I need and was forking out what kua chis I have left to the cashier, I was approached my this chinese bloke in his 30's, apparently a sales representative for HL bank. He starting pitching away and normally I'd put on my lansi face, throw him a casual half smile and with a wave of my hand, just walk off. But this guy was different. He was not pitching about the lifetime annual waiver or even on the free gifts. No, he had to go and tell me, with the eyes and look akin to Puss the Cat, that he wasn't meeting his given quotation for the day. He had to go and imply with a certain desperation that his family of 10 children was gonna starve to death if I'd hadn't given him my application. It was as though he had hit my weak spot and the next thing I know, I was sitting at a desk meant for midgets, exposing to him my life's details. BIG MISTAKE.

As soon as I was about finish up and leave, thinking I'd had done a good deed of some sort, I was approached by another chinese bloke, talking to me as though he was my long lost twin brother. "Leng chai, chim mai RHB ge lar". I 'tried' to politely decline and this is when hell broke loose. Before I could even get my arse off the midget chair, I was surrounded. "Sir, UOB free for live", "Lou Said, HSBC upgrade to Gold Card mou", "Citibank, Citibank mali mali". I recalled then, a friend once shared with me his backpacking trip to India and one of his advice he repeated over and over again was "NEVER GIVE TO THE CHILDREN". As he had once given a beggar child at the airport 100 rupees and the next thing he knew he was surrounded by hundreds of them. To hell with India, just go to K4 Sri Petaling and 'donate' your signature and you'd be so up to your neck with loan shark representatives, it will 'phobialize' you for good. Yes. I am now down with 'Signaphobia'. I cannot sign on any one piece of paper without the fear of being mobbed.

Mojo Joke - Malaysian Hell

A Malaysian dies and goes to hell. There he finds that there
is a different hell for each country.He goes first to the
German hell and asks: 'What do they do here?'

He is told 'First they put you in an electric chair for an hour.Then they
lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the German devil comes in
and whips you for the rest of the day.'

The man does not like the sound of that at all,so he moves on. He checks out
the American hell as well as the Russian hell and many more.
He discovers that they are all more or less the same as the German hell.

Then he comes to the Malaysian hell and finds that there is a very long
line of people waiting to get in. Amazed he asks 'What do they do here?'
He is told 'First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they
lay you on a bed of nails for another hour.Then the Malaysian devil comes in
and whips you for the rest of the day.'

'But that is exactly the same as all the other hells - why are there so
many people waiting to get in? '

'Because maintenance is so bad that the electric chair does not work,
someone has stolen all the nails from the bed, and the devil is a former
Govt servant, so he comes in, signs the register and then goes to the
canteen for teh-tarik...'

MAAMA.

Find of the morning: A pretty creative way of utilizing an AAM sticker.

HEARTACHE!!

The picture above is, unfortunately, not a thinly-disguised prototype of a rocket-powered Ferrari F430. The sad truth is that yet another Prancing Horse has been destroyed, this time not by poor driving (at least not ostensibly), but by a fire in the engine bay. The picture was taken by the side of a Philippines highway, specifically the South Luzon Expressway that runs between metropolitan Manila and the Calabarzon region.

We don't like to minimize the passing of any Ferrari, but at least it wasn't another Enzo.

If you're sensitive to the sight of a beautiful car laid to waste, we wouldn't recommend following the link to see more, but if you're a natural born rubbernecker, Carscoop has got all the gory angles. Seriously, it's like Saving Private Ryan, only with a supercar.








Article taken from Autoblog.com.

The Milisecond Society

I consider myself an optimistic person. I always look at the bright side of things and I tend to reflect it off of people around me. Being an optimistic bloke, my personality often come off as being goofy and un-serious as I feel that being light hearted tends to diffuse a little of the everyday troubles of the people I meet. However, in the tech infested world we live in today, I am finding it harder to keep my optimism level in check day after day. It seems that everyone is rushing to somewhere with something urgent to do and the whole society has become a giant rat race of some kind. Technology is growing so fast and so sudden that the human psych if forced to evolve with it. The days of stopping and smelling the flowers has become obsolete. In order to cope with the current version of 'life', a higher specification upgrade is recommended. Preferably one with a tri-quadropple core technology and running on Life Vista operating system. And upon completion of the upgrade, one can work one's way up to the top of the management chain, meet one's dream girl, have a vacation in Bali, get retired, make love, have kids, and finally attend to one's erectile dysfunction all in 0.01 seconds. Yes, all this in less than a second after which the software will come to its EOF (End-of-Life) and subsequently a blue screen pops up with the letters D-E-A-T-H. At this point, the only thing to do would be to call the helpdesk line and after what seems like an eternity, the call gets patched through to a half-asleep indian bloke sitting behind a wooden desk in some hut half way across the world. In the next 0.01 seconds, the bugger would, speaking in a manner that seems he was possessed by a cow, listen to first word that you say then tries to sell you a subscription for Heaven or Hell, tell you that he needs to escalate the problem to a higher level support and finally comes back saying the version of Life vista that you were running on is no longer supported and hang up the phone.

Yes, we no longer live life. We zoom pass it. The word PATIENCE has been removed from the Webster dictionary and is now replaced with FASTERLAH-FUCKER. It's chaos. So much so that when I was happily traveling to my local gymnasium with a friend this night, a young lady in her 20s driving a white Proton Wira with what seemed like her whole family on board, decided to cross a junction on the road which we were commuting through. Now this lady must have had her upgrade done recently because she confidently placed her little white car in front of our path and thought she'd be home changing her tampon by the time our car had arrive at the junction. Well she would have but she forgot to installed COMMON SENSE 3.0 and because of oncoming traffic she had to apply the brakes and dully put herself stationary on the path of our route. Now at this time, the optimistic side of me took over. By running over her and her family, the world's population would be rid of another 5 souls. That's 5 less human potentially polluting the planet and 5 less human wastes to manage.
Heck, it would be a benefit as their bodies would most probably be buried and they'd serve well as fertilizers for future generation lalang grass. But all was not to be as the ABS kicked in and the Gen2 armoring the both of us manage to avoid splitting her Wira in two. She was in the middle of the road for 3 seconds, and in this millisecond society we are now accustomed to, it's akin having a blistered penis but still unable to orgasm. So then, we had almost killed 5 souls, we now have a car parked in front of us, and it's already 3.1 seconds and we are still not at the gym, pumped our irons, took out showers, ate our nasi lemaks, drove back home and masturbated. We figured we wont be for the next 0.02 seconds so I had to calm myself. I had to maintain my composure. I had to subdue my temper. I told myself to persevere. And because "Patience" was no longer an English word, I conveniently shouted out its replacement....."FASTERLAH-FUCKER".

The Date - Part 5: The Beach.

Our feet sanked into the perfect white sands and as the music of waves played to our ears, the wind accompanying by lightly touching our faces. It was paradise. It was exactly how I'd pictured it in my mind. She couldn't stop smiling. She tried very hard but I could see that she had a hard time refraining from letting the the child beneath her from coming loose. She was happy, truly happy, free from the problems of fucked up VOIP CTI systems, free from the little amount she had in her bank account, free from her persistantly pestering ex-boyfriend and most importantly, free from the role she had to play in life. For the six months, 2 weeks, 12 days and 15 hours that I have came to know her, this was the first time I felt and saw the euphoric side of her. She was splashing around the shallow waters with her shoes off, one hand holding a stick of Wall's ice-cream we acquired from a kedai runcit earlier, the other trying invainly to scoop droplets of water on to me. I just stood there, half smiling, half suckling on the ice cream letting it melt in my mouth. Looking at her and I thought to myself "Mission Accomplished". This James Bond would have died smiling right there and then with no regrets. We stared at the stars littered across the clear skies. We played with the soft white sands, playfully trying to bury each other's feet. We walked the beach as though we were a couple long separated by the cruel society and finally reunited. Oh, how terrible was the urge to reach forth and wrap her palm around my fingers. Oh, how it was a torture to refrain from telling her the confines of my little heart. I would have readily betrayed all my principles against dating a colleague. At the heat of the moment, I could have abandoned everything I so strongly believed for her. I could have sent my career on a downhill course for kingdom come, disowned all my friends, shoved away my family and gave up my love for cars....yes, gave up my love for cars in exchange for her presence in my life. Right in front of me was truly someone with actual breasts and vagina (refer to Car & Women) that I could duly call my wife and marry. I have many times dreamt about our life together. How I'd make love to her eyes when we were in bed. How I'd wake up with her in my arms savoring her sleeping beauty. How'd her impatience would always get us into an argument and how we'd make up after each fight. We'd always arrive at wedding dinners when dessert was starting to be served with her tendency to be late. She'd start preparing in the wee hours of the am and would still be undecided on which hair clip to wear at the late pm and I'd be pestering her to no end given my have-to-be-on-time attitude. She would forget to turn off her headlights and I'd end up coming to her rescue. It was till opposite attracts. It was till death to us part. It was a perfect life.

Then suddenly the stadium lights illuminating the beach blacked out and I was hyperspaced back to reality. The white sands turned dark and the only thing that kept surrounding vision possibile was the feint light from the stars and the moon. Apparently the Gods of Heaven decided that my time with her was up and decided send me a hint. It was really dark and we were a 100km from home. I feared for her safety so after a few more steps trudging through the now dark sand, I suggested we leave. She nodded obediently. I reached into my pockets and pulled out my mobile. Against the gloomy surrounding, the bright white screen read 12.16AM. We had come from afar, abandoned civilization and dangerously escaped the murderous midnight traffic, and all the Gods decided to give me was 15 minutes? I should have sold my soul to the devil. At least he could've given me 30. And so I proceeded to escort my hopes and dreams back to the car and was now on a mission to get us home in one piece. And so began our journey from eternal happiness back to the realms from which we came. The two hour journey was indeed tiring. It was already an early Wednesday morning and we'd soon need to attend to our contractual obligations with HP in a few hours time. I was certain we'd showed up dead-fish-faced lingering to our respective sites like thousand year old zombies high on marijuana. But I was consumed in light hearted-ness. I didn't care. For all that mattered to me, I was already getting more than I had hoped for and a little sacrifice of shut-eye time and overnight acne seemed, at that moment, minor. We resumed the pattern that we have seemed accustomed to on long drives, silently listening to the voices of my JVC speakers, occasional meaningless chats, me stealing glances at her, and her slapping my hand every time the speedo touched a 100 as a reminder to contain the speed freak within me. She was the older one of the both of us and with all the little actions and gestures she'd make, she'd give me a strong sense of maternal concern. Maybe it's just that that was lacking in my life. Maybe it was the thought of having someone taking a certain interest of my well being. Or maybe it was just because she didn't wanted to be admitted into ICU in the wee hours of a Wednesday morning. But whatever it was, it sure made me feel, somewhat close to complete. To have quoted Jerry McGuire now would have been an exaggeration. But I wouldn't be afraid to admit that the feeling that she casted on me did seem as though it made the void in my life smaller. As I dropped her off back at her place, she turned back while she was closing the door and I instinctively said that I'll sms her when I got home. She nodded in agreement and with a clunk, closed the door and hurried her little self in back into her little house. With a short wave of goodbye, the night was over. As I lie in bed reminiscing back to the story of the night, I cannot help but let my mind wander to the infinite scenarios of 'what ifs'. What if I took hold of her hand? What if I really expressed my most deepest emotions? What if we kissed? I was now feeling the after effects of infatuation. I was getting a hang over from being love drunk. I was getting the at-the-end-of-a-dreamy-vacation-and-need-to-go-back-to-work-tomorrow disdain. I was empty....again. I was being greedy. I was given a taste of honey and now I'm left wanting the freaking bee hive. I closed my eyes in an effort to escape and promptly told myself in certainty; whatever the future holds destined for me, this will certainly be one of the sweetest highlights of my 2007. And this is also why it is so painful.

"When I looked into your eyes and felt, very surely, that you were going to be one that I could spend the rest of my life with; when I realized that loving you, even though breaching my own principals, does not really matter; when I could see a future of us arguing and crying and hating, I could also see a future of laughter, warmth and happiness; when I can look at you and laugh at your flaws, smile at your temper and accept your clumsiness; when I could see a person, so real, so unpretentious and so comfortable to be with; when I realized that I could show you the deepest part of my heart and know that you will embrace and understand it; when I realize that the only thing that could bring joy in my life is not for you to accept me, but for me to see your happiness, your confidence and your smile."

Dedicated to You who Touched my Heart

-END-

The Date - Part 4: Traffic.

The world seemed to be on pause as I steadily guided the the chassis through a long left corner onto the Seremban highway. It seemed as though all the other vehicles were chess pieces waiting to be moved on a long chequered board. With a feather light touch of my foot, I commanded the heavy two liter turbocharged engine to forge ahead. The speedometer steadily touched the 80km/h mark and as quickly as it had gotten there, it was forced to fall back like a soldier forced to retreat. We had reached the first toll and she instinctively reached into her pouch and scrambled to hand me a Rm5 note. Soon we were on a dark highway, alone as if we had been abandoned by civilization and cast into the realms of what was in stored for us ahead. But I didn't mind. As far as I was concerned, I had readily accepted the task and secretly wished that the journey would last a lifetime. I direct my attention from the road to her angelic face. Her forlorn expression looking out the window told me she was in deep thought; perhaps mesmerized by the occasional passing headlights. For that few seconds, my heart smiled, satisfied and proud that it had managed to stole yet another vision of her. I forced myself to peel my sights off of her before I successfully drove both of us off the road and into certain death. As the music played on, so did our journey. It was getting late and the digital clock on the dash brightly reminded me as its digits turned 11:23. As she asked me for the fifth time where we were going, an overhead signboard flew by, one of it's scriptings made out P.Dickson in fluorescent white. I had an intuition she'd already know where we were heading. I just smiled and replied as though I had already answered her for the 1000th time "Long Kai lor".

Standing at the side of the road, I stood closely beside her as we tried to find a chance to cross to the opposite. I had parked the car on the side of the road just right in front of a Malay foodstall. The folks owning the store didn't seem to mind as they were closing up, happily content with the profits of the day. Just opposite where we were, the sounds of water clashing on soft sand can be heard. That was certainly our rendezvous point. For a small town on a weekday midnight, I was amazed that there was still traffic. The people must have known about my plans for night and decided to gang up on a conspiracy to banish me to a life of celibacy. No, I shall not retreat for what I am fighting for is worth three my lifetimes. I retaliated. Firmly putting my hand on her waist, I forced her to make her first step onto the middle of the road. We ran, with her under my grip, we ran as though we were Romeo and Juliet, fleeing from the conflicts, turmoil and feudalism of our families. And just as we were gonna make it, one of them Proton Sagas suddenly decided to run us over and accelerated like a mad cow in heat. His mad headlight flashes landed on our helpless faces and my perfect date for the night seemed destined to end up being a tragic story on the front headlines of New Straits Times. But tonight, I'm blessed. Tonight, I have an angel by my side. Tonight, I was escorting my dreams. My arms surrounded the waist of my most cherished. How can I...wait...rephrase...I will NEVER let the fingers of harm leave a fingerprint on her, let alone become a roadkill at the side of the road. With a determination like an Optimus Prime, I squeezed a squeal out of her and barely managed to dodge its sinister fenders. We had managed to reach the other side in one piece. The engine roar of our would be hit-and-run murderer suggested that the bastard never did intended on touching his brakes. Bastard! We sighed in relieve and I held my head up high, proud that I have beaten the evil plans of the town folks.

Nice place to work.

Recently went to RHB IT HQ in Bangi to attend to a support issue. Took a few pics of the surrounding environment with my trusty N73. I'd want a garden like that in my next home. Nice!.