Friday

Visit to KL Bird's park

Right in the heart of KL, the colorful jungle which hosts Birds Park, Orchid Gardens, Lake Gardens is a feast to the eyes that are sore with the constant view of concrete jungle...

Entrance tickets for foreigners are exorbitant (RM39 for adults and RM29 for children). Luckily, as I still hold Malysian work permit , I got to enjoy highly subsidized rates meant for the locals (RM15 for adults and RM6 for children)!


You need to spend a day there if you wish to catch the scheduled activities as per the information board. It includes bird feeding (various schedules for each species) and the bird show. We managed to see bird feeding session for Hornbills! I will cover this in a different post.

An artist from Beijing had a stall and she was bringing life to names with deft strokes!



Her hands are so sure that just with single gracious stroke she can draw! Attracted by this, I had a short chat with her and found that her brush was made of animal hair tied in bamboo and wrapped in tapes!

She draws alphabets in the form of flowers/birds for girls names, animals/birds for boys names:) See my daughter's name:

This cost me only RM 20!

Watch for more posts to come on Peacock, Hornbills, Freshwater birds, etc.,...

Tuesday

Decorated Cloud!

While waiting at a traffic light, I was gazing up to watch if I can catch a glimpse of my friends. I did catch them in a different attire:


You would have seen thunder clouds, but see this "serial light cloud"! Wish I had a good camera to capture the KL Tower and Twin Towers from this angle...in my Motorolo HP I could only catch them as a distant background:(

Saturday

Rocket Science

Beware, do not get carried away by the title of this post! Sure, am not rattling on rocket science because that is a not a domain where am familiar with...but, for sure I can talk about dosai. Dosai is an Indian food, which is meant for breakfast or dinner. This is made from a combination of rice and dhal batter.

Now, lets see the connection between rocket and dosai.

Yes, this is a ROCKET DOSAI. It is a challenging task to make the dosai so crispy and that too in a conical shape vaguely resembling a rocket!!

To do this, the chef has to spread the batter in a circular shape on a pre-heated pan and then precisely cut a radius when the batter is still soft, then let it turn crispy under right temperature just enough to make it in a cone shape. Look at the complicated steps involved, in fact, it is rocket dosai science^^:)

Friday

Predictors in Demand!

It is a human tendency to start looking for relief and change when distress sets in. Especially, during recessions like now, astrologers are often sought after to hear good words and make right decisions! Now, the question is not on the validity of their predictions... but, is about the belief of the industry giants who seek astrological predictions.

If everyone starts relying so heavily on astrology, then what happens to the so called "managers" who are supposed to handle critical situations and come up with solutions to manage the problems? Wha, world becomes so rosy, just with the predictions and counseling of an astrologer the decision makers financial troubles can be blown away.

Excerpts from an article that came out in Times of India shows the current market demand for astrologers:

Hired as vedic consultants, financial astrologers and vaasthu experts both in India and abroad, they'll be required to make predictions on the stock market, the success of business ventures and offer astro-tips on financial management. Students specializing in financial and vedic astrology are being lapped up by websites looking for such certified professionals, according to university officials. The packages being offered range from Rs 8.5 lakh to Rs 18 lakh per annum.

Interestingly, those who took this evening course have a finance background, with some bank employees and chartered accountants switching gears to fulltime stargazing. Engineers in the course are also changing streams. For many of these students, the course working out as a fulltime career option, at a time when the job market is shrinking.

It is clear that job market for astrologers is in great shape! Well, am not totally against astrological predictions or astrologers. There are limitations in astrology and to its predictions. If one starts relying on it heavily, then that person might be led into believing something that might be incorrect and phew! the negative influence itself is enough to kill the chances of a positive outcome...

Thursday

Sequel to my first post "Why do I Blog?"

From the beginning, I have always been curious to learn the reasons behind blogging and in my first post I had mentioned a list of items that I could think of. 

A couple of days ago I came across  a list of responses gathered by ProBlogger. Here am running through few that intrigued me, and my comments.

Because no one at home listens to me so when I blog I can pretend like someone cares what I think...

well said, because not only at home, even at work most of us don't have the luxury of "being listened to"!

I always like to have the last word...

Sounds like those typical bosses in their high pedestal^^

Because my voice is unique...

Yeah, "My baby is the best", typical writer:)

Sunday

Scintillating Twinkle stars!

Often we discuss about different dialects or accents in a language. Here is a Youtube clipping that shows a lady singing English nursery rhyme, in different Indian music styles. You should watch it to enjoy the creativity!



If am not mistaken this is taken from a Tamil serial that was popular few years ago. For those who don't understand the Tamil dialogues that come in the video, here is the translation:

At the end of first style the lady says: note that I have not made any mistakes in musical pitch! Then the man asks her to sing in another language, she continues to sing with Telugu style, followed by Kerala style and Punjabi style.


Then the last part of the video is from a Hindi movie (dunno the name!).

On the whole I had a good laugh and wanted to share:)

Wednesday

Rosy Outlook

Last night when we were having usual bedtime chit-chat, my kid was curious to know, why medicine, especially tonics and syrups were colorful. I started to explain that various combination of chemicals bring color blah blah blah


And the response was "ah I thought that they were color colorful because we like it that way!" What an  attitude, I think that is why we should take all things in life from a child's perceptive, then everything will be rosy:)

Tuesday

Fire on Plus Highway

Thick dark smoke was reaching the skies and my initial thoughts were, arg! what a way to dispose dry and other garbage...but then, when I was nearing UPM exit on the Plus Highway, unusually traffic was slowing down and then only I realized that there was fire on a mini lorry, which was parked on the emergency lane, on the opposite direction.


I thought of calling 999, but then I saw fire engine approaching the site. Just wondering, if it is some malicious act...

Friday

Juicy tool and user expectations

When we do research, we start searching for something online, then get diverted if we stumble upon something interesting. Sometimes we even forget what we were looking for originally! How nice it would be if we can track what we started to look up. You might think that History would show you the sites that we were surfing, even in that you need to do spring-cleaning to find out what we were looking for, right?

Today, I was looking up for something I can't recall what, but ended up in discovering Juice, a plug-in meant for Firefox browser! Here, they claim that searching and keeping track of research is very simplified. As usual, I didn't bother to watch their demo, straight away I installed. Then dragged my name from my profile and dropped it in Juice, see what it brought up^^

First I thought that this will sort of help me to keep track of the original research. Then realized that if I keep dragging what ever I fancy, I can't keep track of the original item that I started with. Well, they claim it is in BETA. Sounds familiar? You are right, first we get excited with something, then we realize that it is still after all, in theory only...what else can we expect? Are the users exceeding the expectations of the creators? or may be "usability" is the last thing under the sun???

Wednesday

Slangs - Ever Expanding Lexicon

Like fast food, even language has become "instant"! Whenever I come across new contractions in day-to-day communication, I mutter, here is another word/term that I need to catch up with, thanks to the advent of electronic mail/chat systems^^.

A couple of classic terms that defied my common sense, when I came across it for the first time are:

  • wc: NOT toilet or water closet, it is WELCOME!
  • r u t: definitely not a hole, it is are you there!  
At times, I doubt if am a cryptologist trying to decipher a set of classified secrets.

Tuesday

New avatar of Spinister - Freemale!

I was working on  my research paper (not related to the title of this post), and I came across a new term FREEMALE. First, I thought they must be referring to bachelors. But, this was not in context with the sentence in which this term appeared! Typical of me, started to find out the correct meaning and learned that, it means:

manless females who are too busy living life to the full to make space for a second tooth brush by the bathroom sink

Whenever I meet unattached ladies, who are well into their thirties I wonder if they hate families so fiercely or a loner or fed up with relationships, or just can't compromise with anything! My imagination runs loose...and this could be due to my conservative background, where anyone who is unmarried above 25 yrs are pitied^^.

Though curious to know their reasons for being single, I have never dared to ask them out of decency - fancy name for hesitation :p.

Monday

Weight Equal in Fruits!

As per Hindu belief, some of the families make vows to their favorite Gods to present fruits or shillings, equivalent to their weight. For this ritual they use extra large balance. See this picture where a boy is being weighed against banana clusters!

Sunday

Decisions to make - a matter of choice!

A linkedIn question triggered me to write this post!
How often do you change your decisions, be it personal or work related? Changing is different from backing off with the decision when things start to fall apart! Most commonly heard excuses when a decision goes wrong:
  • Am NOT responsible..(white lie)
  • I was not around:p
  • Actually, I was forced to decide!
  • Nobody followed my decision:D
  • My hands were tied:(
  • I dint know "enough" when I decided^^
  • Am sorry - escapism!!
Instead, how about shouldering the responsibility with grace and find a level headed solution?
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