Photo hunting time again! And this week’s theme is “Pointed”. I cracked my head a little bit over this one, not wanting to go for very conventional ideas and here is my entry for the hunt.

I caught my sister’s pre-wedding photographer with his huge professional camera “pointed” at the happy couple. I thought this would be the perfect entry for this category!

2 more conventional pictures are below:-

Sansevieria trifasciata or commonly known as “Mother-in-law’s Tongue” because of its sharp pointed leaves.

A signpost showing places of interest within walking distance from Merdeka Square in Kuala Lumpur. Honestly? Not everything stated there is within walking distance. Some are really far away! But if you keep walking long enough, you’d get there.

Happy hunting and happy weekend everyone!

This is a shameless take on the Giddy Tigress’ latest post where she pondered what it means to grow up. For me, when I heard about the new movie Journey to the Centre of The Earth starring Brendan Fraser, my first mental image was of this:-

Brendan Fraser in Encino Man (California Man as the rest of the world knows this movie as).

And then, I remembered Brendan Fraser in George of the Jungle.

And now, look at Brendan Fraser, all grow-ed up and playing a Professor no less! Not a thawed out caveman, not a loincloth clad jungle man, but a professor!

Hands up who remembers the first 2 movies?!

No, I’m not a Brendan Fraser fan, but it was either write this useless bit of trivia or another angry little girl post filled with foot stamping and tantrum throwing at the injustices of the world. I opted to populate mine with rainbows and flowers and comic random thoughts

I’d always had good experiences with Esso Mobil petrol stations. I grew up when it was just either Esso or Mobil and I liked their old tagline of “Put a Tiger in your tank!”. I also used to have an old punching bag of the Esso tiger as a tot and I liked the Esso tiger because I like tigers.

Today, I had one of the worst experiences ever at an Esso Mobil petrol station.. in fact, at ANY petrol station for that matter.

This is the offending Mobil petrol station at 3 1/2 Mile Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur. Mobil or Esso they are tarred with the same brush since they are both merged into Esso Mobil anyway. It is right at a corner of a turning and next to the Maybank building on Jalan Ipoh. If you know where it is, AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!

This is a picture of the pump which had stopped at RM69.99. I had paid the cashier inside the station RM70 before filling my tank as is procedure. Initially, I thought my tank was full but when I tried to pump more petrol into the tank, nothing happened.

I’m not usually one to quibble but I was in a bit of a foul mood this morning, so I went into the station and checked with the cashier. Casually, she told me “Oh, pam ada masalah” (”Oh the pump has a problem”). As if that was supposed to be the end of the matter?!

When I saw the attendant, he said “Pam ini memang macam ini” (”This pump is already like that”) and then proceeded to get angry with me because I took my time moving my car from the pump.

He said “Satu sen pun nak bising” (”One sen also you want to make noise”)

I got angry at this point and said “Satu sen pun duit!” (”One sen is still money!”)

How would he like if his boss deducted out 1 sen from his pay every day? He’d feel it won’t he? I thought it was all very uncalled for.

If the petrol station was to scam every customer of 1 sen, 100 cars would yield them RM1. 1000 cars would yield RM10. In a month, it could mean extra income of anywhere between RM30-300 - enough to pay a pump attendant perhaps? Was this their dastardly plan?

And yet these petrol stations had the gall to try to hold customers and the government to ransom by threatening a strike if their demands for lower commission rates for credit cards was not upheld. I don’t use credit cards at petrol stations for security reasons so I’m not affected by this.

Now I’m thinking, stopping the pump from giving you your full money’s worth is one way to scam you. Another way might be to deliver less petrol into your tank even though the machine shows the amount you had prepaid.

Is it not enough that us consumers are already affected by high fuel prices? Do we have to give in to these scammer petrol stations?! I will not. I’m boycotting this particular Mobil petrol station at 3 1/5 Mile Jalan Ipoh and I will ask that you do too.

There is a Shell and Caltex just down the road and another 2 Esso stations in the area that have served me well thus far i.e. without blatantly scamming me. Consumers have rights too!

Well, not yet….

I spent the whole of Sunday with a professional photographer picking up whatever tips he deigned to throw my way about taking portrait shots. He had a swanky Nikon DLSR with giant telephoto lenses while I had my dinky little point and shoot Canon 860 IS.

He was actually shooting my sister’s pre-wedding photographs and I was roped in as driver cum assistant cum “dress fluffer”. The latter assignment so named because I had to make sure the line of her dress looked good, and the best way was to pick up the train and “fluff” it out. Who better to know anything about fluff than Paris B?! hehe…

The weather wasn’t bright and sunny but the rains held until all the important photos were taken. Anyway, there were loads of photos taken and I was so tired at the end of the day. But PE and J looked so good in the photos I can’t wait to see the finished product when the photographer rolls it out!

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Giddy Tigers was right when she said I was in Malacca on Friday (Holland would have been lovely though!). I was only there in the morning for a couple of hours, but it was enough for me to stop by the historic part of the city and relive a little bit of my childhood.

Sungai Melaka (Malacca River)

My mom was a history teacher and Malaysian history was her forte. Her daughter however, did not inherit her talent suffice to say. I stayed far far away from History after Form 3! When I was a kid, we used to visit Malacca (as I prefer to call it) and my favourite part of Malacca was the Stadthuys.

The Stadthuys is in a part of Malacca town where the buildings are all painted red and is one of the oldest remains of the Dutch colonials in the city. This was where the Dutch held their centre of administration. I’m not very conversant in history so please do not ask why the buildings are red, they just are

This is the clock tower in the middle of the square with a fountain nearby that sprays everyone who walks new with a fine spray of water. It wasn’t too bad on a hot day!

I’ve already shown a picture of a windmill just across the road from the clock tower which totally baffled me until I realised the significance of the Dutch in this part of town.

My favourite picture of all is this one:-

The Christ Church right at the centre of the square. It is lovely but I think the words are relatively recent because Melaka was generally known as Malacca until quite recently. But still, for a building that first saw light in 1753 its not doing too badly for itself! I don’t think I can say that for the modern buildings that are coming up around the city.

It was a Friday morning and there were hardly any tourists around so I pretty much had the place to myself to take pictures without having to jostle with people with swanky DSLRs.

And finally, what would a trip to Malacca be without the famous Chicken Rice balls?!

Its not just you, even I had to swallow of gulp of saliva when I saw that picture again. Droolicious! Go read Pink Parisian for what was to me the better chicken rice ball stall in Melaka!

Mmmm….