Awaken Baccus

We have an informal wine tasting session last night. There are ten attendees tasting four bottles of wines, two Shiraz from Australia and two French wines (a VdT and a Beaujolais (pronounced as bo-zho-lay). It is absolutely informal as some of us are busy imitating the characters in the TV series “Kami no Shizuku” and techniques mentioned such as ‘switch glass method’, although we have strong doubts that it makes any difference. I wonder why most Malaysian, inclusive myself can never appreciate French wine as much as the Australian wines. Maybe French wines are for the oldies since it’s the so-called old world wines right? So which country wines do you prefer (i.e. are you an oldies?)



Baccus, also known as Dionysus, god of wine and vegetation, who showed mortals how to cultivate grapevines and make wine.

Golf

In ancient time when someone use a stick to hit the grass and shout to the sky, we call them ‘witch craft’. Today we call them golf.

I went to play golf on course yesterday, the first time in about eighteen months. Results are satisfying at 105, yet need to improve to around 100 to achieve my goal of handicap 24 by year end. Unfortunately the weather in Malaysia is too hot to enjoy the full 18 holes. I remember the days in Melbourne when Francis and myself tee-off at 6pm plus and run through the course to finish nine holes before sun-set. Maybe I should find some early bird to tee-off at 7plus in the morning and finish before noon. Are you an earlybird?

TV Series

I’m currently watching “Kami no Shizuku”, a Japanese TV series about red wines. I do recommend to those wine lovers. You can watch it at http://www.mysoju.com/kami-no-shizuku.

Some of my other all-time favorite TV series include “Entourage” and “24”. There are both very addictive and I strictly warn those who don’t have hours to spend to not commence watching it. It’s addictive and before you realize, a few days of your time has gone.


What's your favorite TV series?

Retiring

I hereby declare that I am retiring from badminton amid constant muscle pain on the right arm. The pain first surface some three years ago from badminton game but slowly dissapear after I stop. The pain re-emerge when I resume playing badminton about half a year ago. Playing other sports such as basketball or golf, however, do not cause the same muscle pain. It does not need to be genius to know that it was caused by wrong style and usage of muscle whilst playing badminton. Nonetheless, sorry to all my badminton kaki. I will miss you too. As for my badminton fans (if any), I’ll have an autograph ceremony soon to satisfy your need.


Meeting my fans soon?

Bangsar Pantai Hospital

Bangsar Pantai Hospital doens't care if you get out of the hospital!

Calm down everybody. I'm not referring to the medical operation but the carpark service. The auto-pay station doesn't accept coins or RM50 notes. So what if you don't have small notes? No counter or working personnel care to entertain you with smaller notes. It just seems that Bangsar Pantai Hospital doens't care if you get out of the hospital!

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day. God bless those who spent double or triple today for the sake of pleasing someone they care about. Good luck to those who know how to utilize their fund by celebrating the event earlier or later. Hope you don’t get the unnecessary annoyance from your other half. Last but not the least, well done to those who are taking advantage of such event. People like you invented such days to gain profit to provide incentives to the world’s economy right?


What's your plan on Valentine's Day?

Upset Stomach

I have been having upset stomach for a couple of days. It could have been caused by too much food in the Chinese New Year, or more likely the watermelon fruit juice that I had prior to feeling unwell. I believe many people are likely to gain weight amid the festival season, probably caused by too much consumption in “Rou Gan”, “prawn crackers”, “chocolates” and other New Year junk food. I have yet to weight myself but an upset stomach could probably avoid the likelihood of having a diet after the New Year.

Wine

I have found a wine at home labeled Chateau Cadet-Bin 1984 Saint Emilion Grand CRU. Chateau wine is usually the best quality Bordeaux wine and Grand Cru Classe is the highest level of the Bordeaux classification. Being a 1984 wine it could be really valuable. The glitch is, however, base on my preliminary research, the first vintage of the particular wine is in 1988. Therefore, this so call 1984 vintage is pretty misleading. Any idea if this is a fake wine or wrongly labeled?

Traffic

Happy Chinese New Year! We welcome the year of the Ox. The traffic is as smooth as ever in KL amid Chinese New Year. This is the only time in the year you can enjoy such prevelige. I do wonder, however, if it is me or are there more idiotic drivers during this period of time? Maybe these low-b driver only surface when the elites are not around.

Winner of G900 vs E71

The outcome of the competition between E71 and G900 is released.

Each phone received 4 votes from participants but G900 turn out to be the winner amid the following reasons:

1. It is cheaper. RM 1,000 versus RM 1,280.
2. It is smaller in size but has larger screen.
3. It has touch screen.

These factors overcome its weakness of lack of GPS. One other reason that is not stated above is: Out of the four voters above, one of them is myself :) I guess that has some weight in the decision process.

Feng Sui

Attended Joey Yap’s Feng Shui and Astrology for 2009 yesterday. It has been entertaining as expected. In summary, the money sector for 2009 is in the South East corner, nobleman sector is in North West, career sector is in South West and last but not least Peach Blossom sector is in the South. North is the worst sector therefore avoid if possible.

It’s going to be a great year for many, particularly those born in the year/month/days/hours of Monkey, Ox and dog. Those born in the year/month/days/hours of goat and rabbit (such as myself) are less fortunate however :(



It is said that although rabbit has no lucky star in year 2009, it can borrow the intelligent star from rooster. Any rooster want to lend me your intelligent star?