Startup Camp KL 2008

Happy Halloween to everyone.

It's been a while since my last post which was dates in July. Been months. Many things had happened, and yet many things has happened, which meant to happen. But that's not the reason I blog today, apart my inner guilt for not blogging here for so long.

Anyway, time flies. Maximillian is going to be 1 years old in 10 days time. And today is my bosom pal's beautiful son, Luke's 1st birthday. Happy Birthday to Luke. May he grows up as cheerful and beautiful as the mother.

O.k. the real thing: Startup Camp KL 2008. This is it.

What's Starup CampKL08?
Nope, it's not some outward bound school camp, neither it's a summer camp, nor a camp fire. Sorry, not BBQ not, setting up tents. But we might have werewolves. We could have the biggest werewolves session ever. And you will love it.

What's StartupCampKL08？
Startup Camp KL 08 is going to be the largest unconference for entrepreneurs and startups in Malaysia. Over 300 entrepreneurs from all walks of life and sectors are expected to congregate in two full days of ideas exchange and making connections. Startup Camp is held in conjunction with the Global Entrepreneurship Week and it will be on the only National Level GEW event. It will be on 22nd and 23rd November.

Being an unconference, this event is organized by participants for participants. There will be no keynotes address, no special guest and no long boring lectures. It will be jam packed with new ideas and opportunities. If this is your first time attending an unconference, be prepared, for this is an ultra casual event.

For Malaysia's very first Startup Camp. We have divided it into 3 tracks. These tracks comprises of the General Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurs and Technopreneurship. We have allocated slots of 45 minutes for the participants to conduct their sessions.

The session type range from discussion to presentation to round tables to games to anything you can think of. For those participants who wish to contribute a session can book their session at our Wiki,

As for the rest of the participant, we all have two crucial task.

Number 1. Participants should be actively participating in the sessions and share with others. You can share with your friends details about startup camp before the event or you can share what you learn from startup camp after attending it.

Number 2. Vote with your feet. Do remember you can vote for each sessions with your feet. If you find you cannot contribute to the sessions or you cannot add value to yourself or the rest in the session, it is polite to walk out and drop in to another session. If you do not find session that you are interested, you can always add on the board to start and impromptu session.

Details of Startup Camp KL 08
Date: 22nd and 23rd November 2008
Time: 9 am to 8pm on Saturday and Sunday.
Venue: Plug and Play Center @Level 7, The Garden, South Tower.
Startup CampKL on Facebook

Well, if you really can't join us in KL. Then we also have BarCampJB(6-7 Dec08) and BarCampPenang(TBA) coming up.

Or if you are overseas, then you should look out for the Global Enterprenuers Week which will be held simatenously at various different locations worldwide, from 17 Nov to 23 Nov 2008. Check out the various locations.

Meanwhile here are some sneak peek of the event, photos and some videos from the last BarCampKL08. Only this time is less techie base.

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Dolphinitis revamping in process

I'm currently revamping Dolphinitis's layout.

Sorry for any incovenience.

Revamping in progress

Haven't been updating this blog for some time. Looks like it needs some lawn mowing...

Anyway, I've finally decided to do a revamping on this blog as well as my other blogs. Well, I'm almost there... In fact I have been busy with the redesigning from scratch for the past few weeks and I hope to roll out the new look next two weeks. Stay tune!

No updates...

First I would like to apologize for not updating this blog for a while, as I've been spending most of my time in my Chinese blog.

Since I don't like to repeat things here, as a result I have been neglecting this blog, Now, I need to revive it by thinking of blogging something different here to make this blog more interesting.

Any suggestions?

A wonderful Mother's Day

Yes, wonderful is the word. We had a wonderful family trip to the KL Bird Park at Lake Garden on the Mother's Day, instead of going to the cinema. I wanted to let Natalie and Max to experience(still too young though) the close encounter with the nature and birds.

Besides my in-laws also had plan on their own.

We left the house right after lunch, with the maid. And it took less than 30 min to reach the place and the traffic was really smooth. I guess most of the populations were in the malls.

When we reached there, there were also other families and the crowd was alright.

The admission fee was RM15 per adult with Mykad, and kids below three are waived. So we paid RM45, well the lady at the ticket counter decided to give a discount to our maid. What a lucky day!

The moment we entered the place, we were greeted by the colourful parrots and lovebirds. Some of the visitors were feeding them while others were taking pictures.











I quickly pointed at the birds and told Natalie,"Nat, come and see the birds..."

First time to the bird park, her eyes were gleamed with excitement and pointing at the birds, "Bird, bird..." she called out. The birds were flying around freely, and she wasn't afraid at all.

On the other hand, Max was a little overwhelmed by the flying birds, started to cry.
Not again? The other time when we brought him to IKEA, he chickened out when he saw the crowd. Well, we have to bring him out more often.

Max is the opposite of Natalie, who is a people person since she was a baby. She enjoys crowd, and like to follow us to "Gai Gai"(shopping).

Anyway, back to the bird park. The day was nice day to walk and get close to the nature. Besides, the place was very cooling too as there were canopies everywhere. And we had a good walk.





At the park, we saw many types of birds, there were Indian Blue Peacock, toucan, different types hornbill, ostrich, emu, flamingo and many others which I didn't have the time to memorize their names.

They also have a bird nursery, but we skipped that, as we were with the kids.

Apart from birds, they also coil fishes and beautiful man made waterfall, nearby that was where they house the flamingo. Have you seen a black flamingo? They have one. And the flamingo can stand actually stand on one foot.

They whole place were fenced, so the birds can't escape, but I guess most of them were born there and that was their habitat, and where would they want to leave.

At 12.30pm and 3.30pm everyday, they have birds show. Unfortunately we missed that.













Also they have a little playground, Natalie tried to the seesaw, the swing and the slide for the first time in her life. Only only at that moment I realized that we had never taken her to the playground behind our house. We should do that more often as she enjoyed her time there and reluctant to leave. And she cried and made a scene...Phew.

At last I had to tell her that we were going to get chocolate for her. Then only she stopped crying. I didn't lie to her, I actually brought some chocolate cream buns with us. And she ate 2 and half of those. Can't you believe it?

While Natalie was having a great time and laughing most of the time, baby Max was rather quiet as he spent all his time in the baby carrier. But he didn't complaint a bit, and when he was tired he slept in for a bit. When he got up , it was time for milk...

And we stopped by one side, and chow down on our buns.

After the break, it was almost four, and we were all tired and decided to go back.

On our way back, there was this BIG surprise for us. We caught the same Indian Blue Peacock showing off his iridescent blue-green or green coloured plumage. What a lucky lucky day!



I remembered that read it somewhere that it's a rare sight for a peacock to show off his plumage. I should have bought some 4Ds since we manage to see one on our first trip to the bird park.

Well, like I said it was a wonderful trip and we all had a great time and got plenty of pictures to show off... hahaha...

And I highly recommend you to bring your kids there. It's a fun place to be. You will not regret it. Bird flu? Nah...

More pictures and videos...

A peaceful and fulfilling Mother's day

Time flies huh? This year will be the 3rd Mother's Day as a mother, and now I'm a mother of 2.

We don't really celebrate Mother's Day in the family, at least on the actual day. Normally we will do it in advance of one day or a week. It's to go for a family dinner. Most of the time, we prefer to stay at home, cos DH and I hate crowds.

So what would I like to do on that day? Let's see... frankly I hate Sunday. Why? Coz the next day is Monday and I have to get back to work. Most people have Monday blues, bu I have Sunday blues.

So normally I don't overwork myself on Sunday, but yet I hate the idea of just lazing around at home, watching the lousy tv programs, while most of the time, the kids would be crying and whining (Natalie has been behaving like lately).

So this Sunday, perhaps DH and I can go for a movie or something in the morning, since we haven't been to the cinemas since Max's arrival.

Then maybe bake some muffins for Natalie. She loves my muffins....hehehehe...

After that clear the family hall, as we are in the process of moving some of those stuff to Dad's new renovated home. Meanwhile I hope the kids will behave good while I do the chores.

And a nice feeling good evening before bedtime.

In short I just would like to have a peaceful yet fulfilling Mother's Day. It's that simple.

*Just remember, we may have to skip the movie part, as my ILs are going somewhere in the morning or revise the sequence of the events...

1. Mumsgather shares - What I REALLY want to do on Mother’s Day.
2. Vien likes - Not to lift a finger on Mother’s Day.
3. Dolphine wants a peaceful and fulfilling Mother's day

Natalie's 2!

Last Monday was Natalie's 2nd birthday.

Sunday night we had dad coming over and joined us for the family dinner.
The dinner was to celebrate Natalie's as well as FIL's birthday, which falls in April too. Two birthday one dinner. The family tradition.

After the simple dinner, before sending dad home, dad got to play with his two favourite grandchildren.



After seeing Max happily playing with granpa, Natalie also joined in the fun and let dad carried her on his laps. This girl... Before that she was afraid of dad.

I guessed dad really enjoyed this special moment with his grandchildren.





So the next day, which was Monday, DH and I were both on leave, so that we could take the kids out to IKEA. Phew! That was quite an experience...tiring, not that fun.

Max was overwhelmed by the crowd in IKEA, not that big though and he cried. So I had to carried him in the baby carrier, facing me, then only he settled down. Well, we hardly took him out for shopping. And I guessed he felt more comfortable having me close to him. It made me feel special though...

Meanwhile Natalie, who loves shopping, simply couldn't sit still in the stroller. She wanted to run around freely. But we couldn't let her. I have this losing-her phobia.

So when I let her out to try on the rocking horse. She was so exiting and refused to sit in the stroller after that. Having to carry Max and running after Natalie was taxing, even though just for that little while.

So after the snack, we decided to go home and rest.

In the evening we brought Natalie to the nearby CakeSense to buy her birthday cake. Well, she was still too young to know how to choose her own cake, though we let her tried.

Wait the minute, she did choose something that she liked to have, Yakult. She was pointing at the Yakult in the fridge when we asked he to look at the cakes. Kids generally have sharp eyes, right mommies?

So we bought the one that she pointed, a raspberries flavoured one.

And after dinner we sang her the birthday song and cut the cake. She still didn't how to blow the candles... maybe next year.

Overall she had a great day. I could tell her expression, maybe it's because DH and I were at home and we took her out for "Gai Gai"(shopping).

Nice music with some good laugh for Friday

I had posted this on my Chinese blog yesterday.

I like the song, it's one of those old 90s British pop song, "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred and it goes really well with the montage of the falling models.

It's really funny so I thought I maybe I should post it here for those of you, who couldn't read Chinese.



Well, I know it's bad to laugh at others.

However come to think of it, it's a good lesson for us to reflect on our own self. If you fall down, you should just stand up again and move on.

Just like the models when they fell before so many pairs of eyes, there is only one thing they can/should do is to just stand up and walk on.

So if next time if you were to fall down clumsily in front of many eyes, just think of them, stand up, put on a smile and walk on. Sound too easy huh?

You can make a difference: Get Ranked with Real Rank

Did your PageRank get spanked recently? If you say yes, and it's because you do paid post.

Well, it's time to change and think RealRank.

What's RealRank and how it affects you?
RealRank is the ranking system created by people at Izea Ranks. It's a ranking system will weight a blog 70% based on its daily unique visitors, 20% on its daily active inbound links and the last 10% by its daily page views.

All you need to do is just sign up with Izea Ranks, get the IZEA Toolkit(ITK) tracking code and embed it in your blog. The ITK will start the tracking and collecting of the data. RealRank's transparent scoring algorithm, on measuring a blog's actual traffic and its influence throughout the blogosphere, is more relevant and realistic.

All these collected data will enable advertisers to analyze the potential of blogs, and identify their target market, which will then directly influence their decisions on online advertising campaign.

With the real data Izea Ranks provided, advertisers as well as bloggers will be able to compare traffic between different blogs. Every week Izea Ranks will showcase the Top100 based on the collected data.

However, the ranking system is still at its infancy. In order to make it a blogsphere standard, Izea Ranks need to get more users to particiapte in order to be able to pool in more real data for comparison. That's why I'm write about it.

Post-partum Hair Loss

Recently I have noticed that I have a drastic increase in hair loss. And it's scary and distressing to find myself pulling out a large clump of hair after every hair washing or collecting tumbleweeds of hair on my bed or the floor, at times on my shirt. It makes wonder if I'm going to be bald.

And the one day when I looked in the mirror, I have even noticed that there is a my fringe is thinning. Eeek. Will I be bald? I couldn't help myself wondering every time I comb or wash my hair. Btw, I don't remember having this when I had Natalie, or at least not to scary and obvious.

Hopefully no, as I went and googled for some answers. I found that hair loss is not uncommon after pregnancy. It is because the hormonal change in our body.

Did you ever notice that your hair rarely shed during pregnancy? I did. My hair rarely shed. In fact it became thicker. Well, this because our estrogen level increases during pregnancy and this "...causes our hair to remain in the growing phase and stimulates the growth of your hair."(taken from americanpregnancy.org) It means that we tend to be thicker and fuller head of hair during pregnancy.

This is one thing I actually love about pregnancy. So that I don't need to pick up shed hair.

And thank God this hair dropping period is not permanent. Normally it will only last for 6 to 12 months before hair loss returns to normal.

Well, I hope this hair loss phenomenon will end soon as I'm so sick seeing shed hair everywhere and picking them up. Meanwhile resume my one a day dose of vitamin B complex and eat more fruit and veges to ensure I get enough of "...flavonoids and antioxidants that may provide protection for the hair follicles and encourage hair growth."(taken from americanpregnancy.org)

For more ways to reduce hair loss after pregnancy, can refer to Pregnancy and Hair Loss (americanpregnancy.org)

Go Zoodoka!

One of the many ways to promote your blog is through email subscription.

If you look around you would see that, nowadays many blogs have moved towards this email subscription direction. They have, from a blogger, become a content provider. Instead of having we, readers, log in to their blog, but having their content deliver to our mailbox.

You may ask what is the difference between RSS subscription and email newsletter? The main difference is that RSS only goes to your Feed Reader, while email newsletters are directed to your mailbox.

Email newsletter is not a new thing in the web world. However having email newsletter subscription for a blog is a step forward within the blogsphere.

Zookoda
is one of the email marketing application which is designed to cater the need of bloggers. And it’s free for bloggers who would like to build their readership and keep their readers coming back to their blog.

All you have to do is to open an account with Zookoda
, get the subscription form code and place on your blog. When your blog readers subscribe to your newwsletter by entering their email address, Zookoda
will add these data to your mailing list.

No installation is required. Zookoda
works on PC, Mac or Linux. It is compatible with IE 6 or later, and Firefox on the PC, as well as Safari on Mac.

Zoodoka also provides templates which can be easily edit and format. With the online HTML Editor Zookoda
provides, you can quickly edit or customize your email newsletter to your liking.

Meanwhile Zookoda
gives you full control over how your newsletter contents appear to your readers, which you can edit manually.

If one day you should want to discontinue Zookoda
’s service, you can just export your mailing lists in Excel format at any time you want with no obligations.

So if you thik you have great content and would like start email newsletter subscription service for you blog, Zookoda
will be a good place to start with.

The journey of a first time mommy: My Happiness

After delivery, our hormone usually change drastically. As a result, I had post-partum depression.

For the first few months after the delivery, my condition was alright. It was more like minor baby blues sessions with an overworked body and mind for the first two months or so.

It was after my mother's sudden passing, my crying sessions became more obvious and sometimes for no obvious reasons, accompanied by all the persisting achings, on my neck, lower back, knees, shoulders, and forever a gassy stomach. I was treated with pain killer(such as Morbic and this other pain killer), muscle relaxant, gastric medicine and a few others. Even a 3 months physiotherapy which recommended by my orthopaedic specialist. But nothing worked.

My mother's passing dampened my emotion. At that time I was easily so agitated and always angry over some little things. Plus all the negative thoughts. Life became a stranger to me.

However it was for Natalie that I managed hang on there until the day I decided to seek medical advice.

Everyday I reached home and saw her face, I would feel better, regardless how bad my day is. She was all there reasons, my hope and happiness. She gave me my strength to carry on.

My little advice to all new mothers is just take things one step at a time, don't be so hard on yourself. If you can, arrange someone you can trust to help taking care of the baby, at least one or two hours, coz you need rest.

Let spark, mommy bloggers!

I felt flattered when I saw this invitation from IZEA in my mailbox, inviting me to test out the alpha version of of SocialSpark.

With a mixed feeling of excitement and anticipation, I was curious and eager tried it out.

Of course it took me a while to get used of the interface, what’s what and so on.

What’s of SocialSpark, if you haven’t heard of it. Well, imho it’s an improved version of PayPerPost. Why do I said that.

It’s because it provide a social networking platform to bloggers, not only more opportunity to earn some extra cash, but also to interact with each others.

Through of SocialSpark, we bloggers can now interact with not only others bloggers, but the advertisers.

Via of SocialSpark, bloggers can do post-exchange with each other, where I review your blog and you review mine. This is one way to help new bloggers like me, not so new though, to gain traffic and make some new friends.

More importantly advertiser can now easily go direct to us, bloggers via of SocialSpark, .They can access our previous submitted posts, your Real Rank and credibility in the network.

It’s a good way to promote interaction within the blogsphere.

What I like about SocialSpark
So far this is the first opportunity I have got from of SocialSpark. It’s too soon to speak though. However, I have to say that I like the feature where one can reserve an opportunity by submitting your name to the waiting list. If someone fails to complete the task, it will go to next person in line. When the opportunity is available for you, you will be notify via an email alert.

Of course downside is one has only 6 hours to complete the task from the time when the alert is sent. What if I miss the opportunity? Well, too bad. Therefore always keep your mailbox open.

Blogger Bonus
Besides, of SocialSpark has come up with Blogger Bonus, an incentive to encourage quality posts from bloggers. This bonus will be given to one or more bloggers monthly, based on the quality of the post and the advertiser’s ROI. Is it great?

Making friends
Like I have said before, of SocialSpark is also a social network platform, like Facebook, where you ca make friends and build your community. They have a feature where you can forward an opportunity to your friend.
Analytics tool
Apart from the above, of SocialSpark also has an analytic feature. With the javascript that we embedded in our blog, of SocialSpark will start collecting data of our blog visitors, such as top referrers, top outgoing links, our visitors demographics and so on. So that we know who has visited our blogs, where they come from, their age, their locations and more. These data are important feedback to us and will affect our RealRank.

Meanwhile these data also give the advertisers more information of our blogs.

Anyone can access these data, or you can choose to unchecked the feature. It’s your choice.

Well, these are just the beginning, I believe IZEA will keep improving their system to provide us more features in future in order to expand network.

So, sound good? Why not signing up now and see for yourself!

A Blessed Natural Birth After Caeserean Journey 03

A Blessed Natural Birth After Caeserean Journey 01
A Blessed Natural Birth After Caeserean Journey 02

I was admitted at 1pm on Saturday afternoon, 10 Nov 2007.

Actually on that day, we had a little episode on our way to the hospital. We were caught in this massive traffic jam from NKVE toll all the way to Kerinchi toll. Well the whole pJ was badly congested on that day. Only God knows what went wrong. I was so worried that Max would come out before we reached the hospital...

Thank God, he was well-behaved till the next morning...

Before that I had only mild contraction. I could still happily enjoyed my McChicken Deluxe Combo while watching tv.

The real pain only kicked in after 12am.

At 4am, the contraction became more regular and intense. I told the nurse the pain was getting unbearable.

"Did it feel like shitting?" One of the nurse asked me.
"Yeah."I replied. So she checked for dilation, and it was already 6cm.
"Good. Most likely baby will come another 4 hours..."she told me.
4 hours? I thought. 4 hours was a long time though the pain only come at the end of every contraction.

The nurse did ask me if I wanted the epidural. But I was firm with my intial decision, NO epidural, as I was worried about my caeserean wound.

But later they gave me some painkiller jab and the laughing, after that I was in a half-sleep mode, drifting in and out of sleep. It was painful but I somehow managed to get on with it.

Well, it wasn't that painful actually as there was a break between each contraction.

Comparing my previous experience, caeserean, this was a much pleasant experience.

As it was getting closer and closer to the final stage, the nurse were getting ready for the birth, setting up.

Ding Dong Ding Dong, 10cm, time to call the doctor. But before that, the nurse had a hard time trying to break my water bag... Hahaha...

Then the doctor came in.

The most difficult part, push the baby out. It felt a massive constipation and having a hard time to poo...

After a few pushes, the doctor decided to use the vacuum. One suction and Max was out. What a GREAT relief.

In my heart I was saying, "Thank you, God." And I was very grateful and proud.

The journey of a first time mommy - First night...

Rewind back to 21 months so ago, the first day Natalie was brought home. It was a Labour Monday, May 1st 2006.

That night was a disaster to us..

First few days in hospital, everything was just fine and smooth, as there were nurses for SOS. When Natalie cried, needed to be changed, fed, I could just press the red button. Someone would come and bring ther back to the nursery.

However, the night that we were back home, things were different and ugly. Reality kicked in. We have to face everything ourselves, problem. For first time parents, we were lost when Natalie started to cry non-stop for no reason, even after feeding her and diaper changed. Two clueless exhausted parents and a crying infant in a small room tussled till 3, 4 am in the next morning.

We were stoned yet frustrated. I wanted to cry as I didn't know what to do to sooth Natalie to sleep.

DH couldn't stand the crying and he just walked of the room... I forgot how I managed to get Natalie to bed later.

But the very next night and thereafter, I was left all alone with Natalie every night, while everyone in the house was in deep sleep, including hubby.

For the first few weeks I had Natalie fell asleep on my breast, while I leaned agaisnt the piled up pillows to keep myself in a sitting position. Often I dozed myself before I knew it... those were the lonely nights.

Then I resolved to watching tv while feeding Natalie or soothing her to sleep, so that I could stay awake.

Emotionally and physically I was exhausted and stressed out. Also because of the hormone changes, I cried alot, especially when I failed to breastfeed her.

Sometimes when I really needed a break, I got my in-laws to take care of Natalie. Often I made sure Nat was asleep and had her last feed, when I handed her over to them. So my MIl only need to feed her once, at 5 or 6 am, that's the time she gets up. Sometimes twice, the earlier feed at 2am.

By fourth or fifth months I took care of Natalie full time at night, as she began to sleep longer hours, until the night before I gave birth to Max.

The ultimate reward of this first experience is Natalie and I are very close though she rather not to call me mommy until today. I'm still her No.1 favourite...

In the case if I'm not around, she prefers her grandparents to her daddy. Tes, the last person she seeks is my DH... haha... he couldn't handle her except when he has got food with him. Natalie is a "wai sik mao"(loves food).

Though I didn't manage to breastfeed her properly, I'm still very proud of myself and Natalie of what we had been through all those nights

However, things became a little different when Max was brought home from the hospital and that was another story.

Lemon Rosemary Grilled Chicken

Sunday evening I tried out this Lemon Rosemary Grilled Chicken, which recommended by a co-worker of mine, for dinner.

It pretty easy to prepare. All you need are;

1 whole chicken
2 lemons
20g Dry Rosemary
3 or 4 Garlic
Olive Oil

First cooked the lemon in boiling water for 15 minutes, till you poked the skin with a fork.

Meanwhile you can blend the garlic and the dry rosemary spices together. When it's done, mix the smashed garlic and rosemary with 2 tablespoon of olive oil.

Then rub the mixture onto the chicken inside out.

Lastly put the 2 cooked lemons into the chicken stomach, before grilling it at 180C for 60 minutes in an oven.

Flickr Vs Picasa

Since I could no longer find the uploaded images' url to be embedded in my respective blogs, I decided to switch back to Picasa. The only shortcoming of Picasa is their maximum image width is 800px. Anything bigger than that will be shrunk to 800px to keep the loading speed. Sad.

Thinking of a place to store my blog header background images...geee

Updated "Life is a Darling"

Finally have taken the time to update this photo blog of mine, Life is a Darling!

The blog is basically dead. Now I have to revive it by updating it more often... don't worry I still have plenty of photos to share... It's just a matter of scanning them and and do the editing.

Do drop by.

DolphineChannel

Have set up a YouTube Channel, DolphineChannel to share my two darlings' videos.

Will uploaded some of their older as well as latest videos there. Do drop by to check out the videos.:)

Hero family.

I got this joke this morning from a dear friend and I couldn't stop laughing...

A: May I know your name?
B: Batman...'

A: May I know your name?
B: My name is Bat-man.

A: Trying to be funny?!. What is your surname?
B: Supar-man...'

A: I want to speak with your manager...

If you think it is funny...

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A voter and an agent

Never been this interested and involved in election. For the first time I was a voter, a polling agent and a counting agent at my polling station.

It was quite an experience.

Shopping on the Black Friday for Christmas

Christmas 2007 is long gone and it's another 9 months to Christmas 2008. Is it too early to plan your Christmas now?

Well, too be frank it's never too early to plan a little early these days as life is always busy with work, with kids, with the house chores and many other big and little things. And before we know it's Christmas again. And in the states, they have this Black Friday Shopping.

What's Black Friday Shopping?

Black Friday is actually the Friday after Thankgiving, which normally falls on the fourth Thursday in November in US. Hence Black Friday Shopping marks the beginning Christmas shopping spree and stores would open as early as 5am for the early birds.

It's one of the busiest day retail shopping day of the year. Surely the stores would be packed with exciting shoppers.

Since I'm not living in the states and definitely missing out all the Black Friday shopping funs.

However with theblack friday ads, I can still enjoy the really good BlackFriday.info doorbuster deals.

BlackFriday.info is a one-stop online shopping mall where one can find out what’s hot, what’s on discount, and where, just within clicks.

At BlackFriday.inf, they have a list of retailers, such as Walmart, Amazon, ToysRus and many more.

Through BalckFriday.info, these retailers will list out their Black Friday or Cyber Monday hot deals in advance, to allow customers to pre-plan the Christmas shopping list. One can search for their desired items either by store of by category.

One can also subscribe to their emailing list so you get the up-to-date list of item available on the Black Friday 2008, without logon to the site, if you are busy and afraid to miss out any good deals.

BlackFriday.info not only helps shoppers to save time, but money too with their discount coupons which can be used with online purchase. Of course not to forget their daily updated HOT deals which only for online shoppers.

With BlackFriday.info, who needs to get up before 5 on a Black Friday anymmore?

The Wiggles + I Will Survive =...

this...



This is what I got when I searched for one of The Wiggles songs which was playing in my head since lunch time.

And you know what, the funny thing was that in the morning when I was searching for this very same "I Will Survive" song in Imeem, and was playing it on my PC...

Another homemde video...

I was testing out the Window Movie Maker.

And I have to say that it's fun to use despite of some minor hiccups on the software. But what the heck, it's free and comes with the Window.

So I decided to edit a lil movie out of some videos I took on Natalie and Max. And added half a track to the movie.

Enjoy...

How to make a lamb cap.

I learned this lamb cap thingy from 小女人,可爱的绵羊帽。And she learned from another mommy - The Wong Family..

Natalie loves wearing it. Then I thought, why not making a lil movie out of it. So I did.

Ladies and jelly beans, here I present you...



Enjoy! Happy lamb-capping with your lil jelly beans.

Related Post: Princess Leia Spotted!

Disastrous Friday Night...

Just like always, when I thought things are getting better and decided to give myself a pat on the head, something horrible always pops out unexpectedly.

Just when I thought of having a quiet Friday night. Quietly get Natalie to bed, followed by Max, something unexpected happened.

I was trying to get Natalie to bed a little early tonight, by 10.30pm, before bringing the baby o up stair and get him ready for bed.

However when baby came up, Natalie was still awake. Suddenly baby cried, Natalie followed, like always. I'm not sure why? I'm guessing she was scared, of "dirty things" maybe. I mean dead people.

Well, the ability runs in my family. My mom and my brother both has it. Luckily my sister and I don't. Could it somehow got passed to my daughter? I'm just guessing. Why? The other day, DH and I brought her to Giant. While we walked near some CNY decor section, Natalie suddenly waved her hand, as if she was waving goodbye to someone. But when I looked to that direction, there wasn't anyone there... O.k it's creepy.

Also, there were times, at home, she would stare into the air like she saw somebody there. I'm getting goose bump here.

Or perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe she just afraid I would carry baby,and not her. I hope I was wrong about that whole I-see-dead-people thing

Back to where we started...

As for baby, I'm guessing he was crying for milk and missing me of course.

So I wanted to make milk for him and add some fever medicine into the milk, coz he just got his jab. His doctor asked us to give him one dose before bed, just in case.

And the medicine was in the fridge, and I needed to go and get it, since DH refused to go. He said he didn't where was the medicine. Fine! I'll take it, I thought.

But Natalie just refused to stay with her daddy and wanted to follow. I was mad at DH, for if he went and got it, it would be easier for me as I could stay with both children for a while.

So I went down with Natalie.

Like father like daughter, both are being difficult. Who suffer? Me of course.

I got pissed off and frustrated. So later I shouted at her after I failed to get her to sleep for a second time. I banged the door(bad move) Well, it startled the baby too as he thought I was shouting at him and began to crying very hard. Gosh!

Chain reaction. DH got mad too, and he blamed everything on Natalie. He came in to our room and scolded Natalie, who was already lying on the bed sobbing after I shouted at her.

Like adding oil to the fire, she cried louder and got really scared, and came clinging tight to me.

Poor girl. She was crying and crying. I guess she must have felt sad and thinking why mommy and daddy hate me so much. She cried herself to sleep in my arms.

After that I felt so miserable and so sorry for Natalie and Max.

Why things always have end up this way? Is Natalie a little too young to have a brother? She seems too young to understand the whole concept...

What can I do to settle all these problems? Instead giving Natalie a brother, I deprive her from the attention she needs from me.

Or should I just let my PIL take care of her instead?

Feel like one step forward, three steps back.

We're Brothers Forever...

I was half-forced to watch this by DH which he found in one of his favourite forum. And it's quite funny...



You would know him, Renaldo Lapuz, supposed to be his stage name, if you're an American Idol follower. Another William Hung??? Or just a William Hung wannabe.

Here's a techno version of the song. Whoever did that, I salute him... so free..



And someone has already make a website and ring tone from his "We're Brothers Forever" song.
http://renaldolapuz.com/ (the vocal ringtone is inside here)
http://borgzs.com/forum/showthread.php?p=48#post48 (the techno remix mp3)

This is what I call a shortcut to fame...

The 12th Malaysian General Election

The very much anticipated general election is finally coming closer after more than half a year of waiting... as the parliament has just been dissolved an hour ago, not that I'm really looking forward to it or getting too eager to vote though.

Well, my very first vote was cast during 2004's election. Back then I was polling at Tun Razak Area. Can't remember much of it, except that it was in a school nearby in a hot Sunday and luckily I didn't have to wait too long before it was my turn. I went there with my late mom and my dad.

This year I had my address changed to my husband's place. So instead of voting in Tun Razak, I'll be voting for the whoever-I-feel-deserved contestant in PJ.

I actually went to two different post office to get my address changed.

First time I went to this old post office nearby. Well, the lady told me I have to wait 3 months for the confirmation, and they will sent it to my old address. I waited like... god knows how long... nothing came.

So 3 months ago, I went to do it again at this other post office in Ikano. And finally it'd done. Just log on to spr's electoral roll checking site to check my electoral roll and yes my address has been changed to my current place's, at last.

So thank you very much for the Chinese New Year card, YB Tan, but sorry to say that you won't be get my vote this year... as I'm now belong to PJ.

So when is the actual election day? One the hottest topics among lengchais, lengluis, uncles and aunties in the kopitiam, since early last year, other than the Mongolian murder. March 2nd? Or March 8? We shall know tomorrow.

Back to work!

I finally went back to work on Monday, after a 3 and half months break. I had a mixed feeling about, was sad because I can't spend the day with the kids, but meanwhile I had this little feeling of can't- wait-to-go-back nudging within me...

For the past 2 days, things were just going slowly and steady. Nothing much to do for the time being. I hope I'm not speaking too soon, though I need something to ignite my engine, I enjoy the leisure at work.

On and off I miss the girl and the baby.

Life after working hour is short. Within that few hours before bedtime, I have to bathe, eat, express breastmilk, cleaning and feeding the baby, then get him and the girl to sleep before 12. So that I can sleep by 12.30am, in order to get up by 7.30am the next morning, to express the milk out(at least 45 minutes to an hour to get 120ml) before I can get ready for work.

Well so far, other Monday, I couldn't get up till 8am, partly becoz of the drowsiness of the anti-depressant. And I've been late for work.

Of course both the girl and the baby sometimes take turn to make fuss at night, one after another.

If baby doesn't sleep, I can't sleep, and the girl doesn't want to sleep too...

Luckily I have DH to help me out. He feeds the baby, while I express milk. Why I express the milk and not direct breastfeed?

1. I have anti-depressant before bed, some the milk would contain some anti-depressant, which I don't want the baby to have it.
2. I have to maintain my supply...

For the past few days, I only give him at night before I take my daily dose.

Or 3. I don't know how much he drinks if I direct breastfeed. By expressing, I know he can get at least 120ml per feed... and I can get more milk out.

I only direct breastfeed him after I express before bed and my medication.

To sum things up, too many things to do with too little time in hand.

Princess Leia Spotted!

I learned to make this lamb cap thingy from 小女人. She demo once in one of her posts, showing her children wearing it. She learnt it from here. Give it a try you may...

The first time I made it(few months ago), Natalie refused to put it on. Dying to take it out of her head...

The other day I was "free and nothing to do", so I tried the cap on her again. Well, once it on her head, she won't let it go. And she made me put the napkin for her... so she would look like Princess Leia... -.-

and started to run around the hall...

Later when I tried to take it away from her, she was screaming and crying...









Related Post: How to make lamb cap

New glasses for new year.

One of the many things I love to change for this new year is my glasses.

The last time I changed my eyeglasses was back in year 2001. Yep, it's been 7 years, and I still war that same old glasses.

And these days changing eyeglasses isn't cheap. For a pair of decent prescription glasses with good quality lenses can easily cost few hundred ringgit, or may be a thousand, depending the type of frame and lenses you choose.

But you now at Zenni Optical: Sell Rx Glasses $8 with case!

For a decent pair of eyeglasses with prescription, such as single vision, for only $ 8. It includes good quality stylish frame, anti scratch coating thin and light 1.57 index lens with full UV protection and polishing edge, hard case and a microfiber lens cleaning cloth. Or to upgrade to 1.67 index len, is additional $17. Well, under RM100 after conversion.

Not bad deal huh? And it also comes with full gurantee. Well my current eyeglasses cost me RM200 to RM300.

So what are you waiting for? I'm getting mine.



*This post is sponsored*

Dolphinitis's 1 now!

Last Saturday marks the first anniversary of this blog. It's been a year since I started this blog. Hoo hoo...

So far this blog has over 100 entries for 12 months. Phew... slow huh?

I would like to seize the opportunity to express my gratitude to all of you who read this blog and leave your comment. Thank you. And to those who want to comment but feel shy, I hope to hear from you. Don't be shy shy...

From my part, I'll try to write more often with more interesting stuffs. I know I can be long winded and boring at times. Oh well, that's me.

So far have I achieve what I set out for with this blog? Well, I must say YES!

I wrote about my kids, my last pregnancy and some of my 2 cent. Meanwhile I also manage to earn some extra cash, not much though, since I'm very occupied currently with my kids.

Perhaps when I go back to work and when Max is older, I can find more time to put in more effort in this blog, like change theme. Also now that my Photoshop is still missing, I can't edit my photos for posting up here. Sorry about that...

I love to put more pictures here.

Frankly I have so many things I love to write about with so little time I have.

Anyhow, once again I thank you all for your support. It's your comments that keep this blog going. So keep them coming, the more the merrier...

When your PC cannot display Chinese...

Feel really sad and angry as I can't update my Chinese blog or read my regular Chinese blogs now. It's so sad.

DH's friend helped to install the Window XP with his Service Pack 2 our PC. Somehow the Chinese input was left out. As a result, all Chinese displays end like this: ??????????????...

Guess I have to go and buy one since I'm really desperate, and our Service Pack 1 just doesn't work at all. *slap forehead*

I'm back!

It's good to be back.

Nope I didn't go anywhere. It was my PC. It suddenly went kaput one of the nights last week. The water cooler was leaking, the cpu flooded and the motherboard was wet and damaged.

So for almost a week I managed to survive without pc, internet, and blogs. Thank God, I was pretty occupied with baby max, Natalie and my dad's place renovation work, which started last Sat. Did a lot of running around during the day.

During the nights I could only watch TV, though a few nights were spent at IKEA. We were shopping there till they chased us out, to get some wall lamps and stuff.

Anyway, it was tough without the internet or the pc. I couldn't do my work and most importantly, surf. Felt lost touch with the world outside. I didn't know what were happening out there, besides my own little world. Thanks God it's finally back now(still got some software installings to do though...).

And I missed blogging and blog hopping.

Btw, my Chinese language setting is still out. Can't even display my own blog content properly. Hopefully it works with Firefox, trying to download the setup now.

I'm a drama series addict!

I'm still on maternity leave. In fact, I had just apply another 4 weeks, back to work after Chinese New Year, tentatively. I may change my plan as my annual leave is running low, need to save some for other ocassions, like the mid-year holiday trip.

Since I'm still on leave. What do I do other than taking care of and breastfeed Max as well as spending time with Natalie, top most priority, surfing and blogging, sleeping, and going shopping(seems like I have a long shopping list. Gosh! it means my wallet's bleeding heavily).

Well, I also addicted to US drama series, I used to watch a lot of them, before I had Natalie. Suddenly I stopped watching, not exactly sure why. Now I'm back to this drama series watching spree. For the past two weeks, I had finished watching Supernatural Season 1 & 2 (it's spooky but funny too at times)and Medium Season 2. Just bought Season 3, I just love the Dubois. I watch them whenever I breastfeed or feed Max, be it day or night. I have to say that these two dramas are really good, highly recommended.

I also used to like CSI, CSI New York(still like them, except Miami version, didn't like it, because of Horatia), Monk, Lost(stopped watching coz I was lost with it) and Veronica Mars.

Apart form the US dramas, I also like to watch the Hong Kong dramas as well as the Japanese ones. Korean? This category no thanks.

Believe it or not, I also bought and finished watching all the other three Harry Potter movies available, after I'd watched The Chamber of Secret.

Well, looking all the titles, you more or less know my taste for dramas series. So any dramas series addict out there?

5th Anniversary

Today is our 5th anniversary. Wow, it's been 5 years since I married to DH in 2003. I didn't actually count. It's like in a blink, it's 5 years.

DH is my first and last boyfriend. I met him in my current workplace back in 2000, when I first joined. When I first met him, he was smiling at me. And I had this weird little feeling inside me, which I wasn't what was it. Maybe it's the "it's him!" feeling, was it? I don't know.

It wasn't love at first sight for me. Not too sure about him. I think so.

I'm glad that I met him and married him though at times we had auguement over our differences. However, often we think alike and he speaks my mind.

Ever since I met him I become very dependent on him in some ways, and he is dependent on me in other ways. We sort of complete each other and compliment each other's shortcomings. I'm not sure if I can live without him.

Today, we have two lovely and adorable little monsters. I always pray that we can walk together forever, and see our children beautifully and grow old gracefully.

DH always tell me that we are perfect couple. Why? It's because I'm a ONE(1) and he's a ZERO(0). When two of us standing together, we are 10. Get it?

The best breastpump

Even though my milk isn't enough for Max after almost two months. But I have to say I enjoy breastfeeding Max.

My first breastfeeding experience with Natalie wasn't quite successful. And this time, I actually stayed back in the hospital to learn up the breastfeeding technique and tried to give Max a better head start for breastfeeding.

However the first day we came, things didn't turn out well. I was in pain as Max still couldn't latch on properly the right breast and could hardly latch on to the left breast. And immediately the next day I had take him back to see the paediatrician as he wasn't taking in enough and I thought he had bloody pee. Also he had this swollen nipples. And his jaundice seemed to have gotten worse.

Due to the soreness and the bruise, I was so afraid to put him on my breasts. And I started him on bottle and formula. For while he was confused and I was afraid that he wouldn't breastfeed anymore.

Worrying about that, we went back to see the hospital lactation assistants a few times. With their help, I managed to continue breastfeeding Max till today and he can latch on well. Though it's not an exclusive breastfeeding experience, but I'm still proud of myself as I managed to hang on till today. I hope to breastfeed as long as possible.

I can see that he enjoys it too. Sometimes he smiles contentedly in the midst of breastfeeding, or after that. It's wonderful experience and surely he's the best breastpump. ;)

Lamb chop, anyone?

Last Saturday Dh and I brought my dad, my in-laws and my babies to this place in Section 17 for family dinner.

It was to celebrate dad's birthday, MIL's birthday and our upcoming 5th anniversary, which all happen to fall on this month.

We caught this HoChiak's review on the restaurant, 6 to 10 Grill & Nasi Lemak, on the previous Sunday. Since then I was craving for lamb chops for a few days.

So few days later, DH and I went to try out the food ourselves. I had the RED Wine Lamb Chop and DH had the Pineapple Sauce Pork Chop, and a Wild Mushroom Soup each. I have to the Lamb Chop and the soup were good.

I'm a big fan of mushroom soup, be it white or wild. Remember many years ago I had this very delicious creamy wild mushroom in this restaurant, don't know the name, which used to be in LOT 10. It cost at least 8 to 10 bucks for one small bowl, but it was yummy. I could still taste it oin my mouth after we walked out of that restaurant, which I don't think it's either moved or closed down. That was the first time and the last time I had wild mushroom soup, till recently.

As for the lamb chop, it was quite a big portion for about RM25. And it tasted good. Meanwhile the pork chop was not bad too, it's different, though I don't really fancy the pineapple sauce.

Last Saturday dinner only cost us 134 bucks for 5 main courses for each of us, 4 wild mushroom soups and 5 drinks. Reasonable, eh? And I had lamb stew this time, and again I like it and it was quite filling.

This place was popular and packed with customers. When we were done, there were still many customers waiting to be seated.

It was quite a nice and clean place to dine out with your family and the food is good value for money.

A sleepless night...

I simply cannot sleep tonight, not because I want to stay up, because I 'm upset...

I'm feeling sad because Natalie chose the maid over me.

Last night, she was making fuss and I offered to carry her, but she went to the maid. I was really disappointed. I waited for her come to me, but she was happily clinging to the maid. How can one not be upset?

Hubby kept telling me that she is still young...

But kids aren't stupid. Felt like I'm losing her for that moment. So I came upstair to breastfeed max. After about half an hour, I went downstair again, she was still clinging to the maid.

I told MIL not to let the maid carry Natalie that often, and I got this: "Natalie was making fuss mah..."

Natalie made fuss and must be carried around the house by the maid just because I'm not free and MIL is not willing to carry?

It was heartbreaking for a mother already feeling guilty for not having to spend enough time to her daughter. And now the daughter ran clinging on some stranger instead of the mother. And the MIL did nothing to stop that but encourage.

What am I to say? *Sigh*

A perfect fit

When you are sad and can't sleep, what do you do?

Well, I surf and try to do something to cheer myself up and make myself tired, like now.

As a result, I found this ipod case which also known as invisibleSHIELDs, very useful for my Sony Ericsson K750’s screen, as it can be custom made to fit.

My phone is almost 2 year old and it was bought before Natalie was born. DH passed it to me when he decided to get a PDA, which he was eyeing for a long time.

By the time the phone reached my hand, its screen was scratched a little. And I have been thinking of getting it a shield to protect it, but never actually get down to it, until just now.

This invisibleSHIELDs protector, can also be custom made to fit other devices like PDA, camera LCDs, MP3 players, laptops, GPSrs and so on. It uses military technology; urethane film which is used used to protect the leading edges of military helicopter blades, sound cool eh?
It’s invisible, durable, scratch-proof and with a life-time guarantee. And it’s only $11.95 with free shipping.
Hmmmm… to go with this screen protector, I may consider a new casing too, just to give the phone a new facelift, since I’m still far from getting a new phone.

*This post is sponsored*