Today I missed a raid which I sign up for because I was stuck doing charity and I’m pissed off. Want to know why?

See the aunt I live with works for her cousin who runs his own accounting firm. Recently, he upgraded the computers in his office and his sister found out and asked for a few of them for his kids.

Problem was, one cannot just give away PCs from an accounting firm as sensitive financial information were kept on those computers and the hard disks have to be securely wiped to the point where even data recovery firms cannot recover them. Since it was a small firm of accountants they didn’t have an IT department with someone who could perform above service and the owner’s nephews who were going to be the beneficiaries of the old computers were pestering him for it.

So my aunt who I live with asked me to sort out the computers so that her cousin could give away the PCs and stop the kids from pestering him. Now, that’s fine by me, since making her cousin’s life easier would mean making her life easier as they all worked together so I said fine and it would mean that the children would finally have a PC at home.

My problem with it is this. Their mother makes nearly HALF A MILLION DOLLARS (And that’s DOLLARS, nearly 1.5 million ringgit) a year and I had to travel 40 minutes into the city and spend another 3 hours of sorting out old computers for her children who she would not spend $700 to buy a computer for. This pisses me off to no end. Seriously, some people don’t deserve to make money or have kids. I hope she gets audited and all her money taken away.

Image from Jeff Ooi’s Screenshots, www.screenshots.com

I get depressed every time I read about home. In fact, it’s such a depressing part of my daily routine that some times I find myself hesitating as I press the button that loads all my bookmarks on news from home. Is it really a wonder why Malaysians of means rarely want to return home?

I have a lot on my mind, but what’s the point of writing anymore? What I have to say I have said before, as have many other people. It’s come to the point where we’re just going on an on like broken records pointing out the same old problems over and over again (Highland Towers happened THREE times FFS)…

Simply, Malaysia as a Federation, as a political entity, is a failure.

Agree or disagree, ladies tend to open up better to guys who are already taken. I personally think and from experience, that this is indeed the case. Reason being that if the guy is already spoken for then there is less worry about the guy’s intentions…

Which is a bloody shame because only when you are taken do you get to see the more interesting side of the fairer sex…

So I asked 3 girls this question and the answers were Agree, Disagree and Don’t Know. As you can see we’re in quite a disagreement here. What say the rest of you?

RIght, so the following are a few picures of food I took in the past 3 days. Most of these are from Swan Valley where we visited a German Micro Brewery, a vinyard and a chocolate factory.

The Duckstein micro brewery…

Bratwurst and Porkchop on a bed of panfried potatoes and sauerkraut….

…Roast Pork Shank…

…A Ceasers Salad…

…Swiss Meat Loaf… and all served with beer!

And after that lunch we went to a Vinery…

… which i must admit was a little bit of a disappointment because it was winter so the shrubs were bare. But none the less there was wine to be tasted and..

… we picked up this beautiful dessert white.

From one sinful dessert to another, we went to a nearby chocolate factory…

… where we had chocolate fondue. Stab a piece of candy…

… and coat with as much sinfully delightful chocolate you want. :D

So from German Beer to English Beer, the next day we had lunch at this place called Pioneer Village, at a small English styled eatery that also brews it’s own beer…

I really cannot rememebr what that was… but it was creamy rich and good :D

Panfried Chicken brests in a creamy mushroom sauce…

More fish and chips…

and the house speciality, a meat pie made with beer! :D

If it is possible for hatred to take a sharp turn and lead to something beautiful, is there any reason the same cannot to true for another primal emotion?

We all know of couples who started out with a dislike for one another. He was the immature preadolescent child in an adult costume she wished would just grow up, or she was the bitch everybody wished would just get a grip. Yet somewhere along the line someone saw beyond loathing and found something substantial.

If love can stem from its polar opposite, why could it possibly be impossible for a relationship that started out as a primal fancy to turn into something meaningful?

We may not cook with cigarette lighter fluid, but we do use it to start the barbeque.

I contend that lust, in its purest form, free from the messy entanglement of social and religious taboos, isn’t evil, or a lie. It’s simply a tool, a means of getting started. While it’s obviously not the only way to start a relationship, nor is it the stuff to build a relationship out of; but like money which cannot buy happiness, a liberal dose does go a long way towards making people happy.

Lust is not Love. That’s a fact. Lust is primal; built into living creatures to help ensure the species continue. Love is the ability to care about, to believe in and deeply appreciate another, in spite of circumstance, despite our biology.

The ability to Love is what makes us human, but our instincts don’t make us any less.

Love starts from lust and maybe develops into romantic love… a place in life that lasts about 4 years… Four years. It’s quite a grim prospect if you think about it. The idea that we are all doomed to only be in love with someone for a set amount of time and then it will just fade away…

Go here, then watch the video titled “Video: That Thing Called Love”. The entire video is interesting, but the above refers to the bit in the chapter “Love Changes”

This is from the day before when I finally went to the City of Perth. It was quite a rainy day, so I didn’t shoot many pictures. I’ll take more when I revisit the city. :D

Fast forward to Yesterday, we went to Hillary’s Boat Harbour…

… for brunch.

I had a traditional bacon, sausage and sunny side up eggs on toast with pan fried tomato. But I must say for $16.99 I expected more, even with the inclusive latte and orange juice. Then again, maybe I’m biased because I cook and do marketing.

My cousin had this fab sauteed mushrooms on toast. There was also this nice eggs benedict my mom had, but I forgot to photograph that. :P

Whats with the birds in Perth? They are so rude, always sticking their butts at me.

Anyway, anyone notice from the sign above that they misspelled Kuala Lumpur?

So after the meal we took a walk along the harbour and along the seawall my cousin spied…

…real live wild crabs! But only the small ones were out, I spied an edible sized one, but it was hiding in a hole i could not reach.

After brunch we visited the (in)famous Curtin University campus.

It was an impressively large campus…

… as we can see from this map.

For all of you who studied business at Curtin, here’s a shot for your wallpaper. :D I have another artsy modern shot, leave a comment if you what to see that one too.

Along the way we took a quick warp back in time…

… to when my uncle was a student at the Western Australia Institute of Technology, which eventually evolved into Curtin University. Must have been alot of waiting to study there those days… *tongue in cheek*

The main preoccupation at Curtin… *grin* j/k

Anyway, more pictures to come, so drop by often… AND LEAVE COMMENTS :D

I hate nosebleeds. I started getting them in my left nose when I was in NZ. See what happends is there are tiny blood vessels in the nose whose job it is to humidify the air we breath, so that dry air doesn’t cause damage to our lungs. Problems start when the air is very dry these blood vessles work to the point where they simply rupture.

Of course in Malaysia, dry air isn’t really a problem as the humidity is close to 100% year round. So after spending my entire life in high humidity then moving to cold dry air simple broke my nose. :P

So now it totally sucks waking up in the middle of the night and having to stop it in a semi-concious state. Not to mention dry blood is damn hard to get off the pillow case etc and so i have to take everything off and soak it real quick. *sigh*

Suddenly, I realise why a girl’s room is stereotypically pink…

== Edit : Pictures Captioned ==

I’m finally in Perth. It’s good to be here, the weather is nicer compared to Melbourne, that is to say it’s warmer. I’m currently staying with my aunty in Perth and my mom, uncle and a few other relatives have also flew in. It’s so good to be among family and after surviving on canned soup while I was sick, the good food is also very much apreciated. :D

All in the family.

o the next day we all went to the fishing town of Frementle, it’s a historic town established in the 1800s…

…and famed for it’s fish and chips.

The people there were friendly, but the birds… well… stuck their bum at us.

It’s a marina with many boats parked all over the place and with many people milling about yet the water quality was just pristine.

Anyway, Fish and Chips isn’t the only thing the town is famed for, they also have a brewery…

… which makes a very fine beer!

CHEERS!

“Beer, the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”-Homer Simpson

Later we dropped by the Fremantle market. Established in 1897

It is still a fucntional market, dispite the increase in tourist arrivals over the years…

…and the proce of things are still vvery reasonable if not cheap.

Also, theres a fair bit of art and crafts to be found.

The day ended with dinner hosted by my uncle for some very facinating close friends of his.

Thus concludes my 1st ever day in Perth. :D