Gratitude is the king of all virtues

Gratitude is the king of all virtues. Without it...there is no happiness in your life. It's really that simple.
Here's what Melody Beattie said:
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. I can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."

Lilies taken on my HiRes Camera

More lilies but taken on my HiRes camera...
This is "resized" otherwise, the file would be too big... cropping just the center bit where you see the bee ...
... click on the picture to see the full size in the actual resolution (but of course cropped)!
A cluster of lilies ... This lot was in the middle of the pond. I crop out the center flower to show actual pixel size...
Click to show the actual size. I cropped the flower to display 800 pixels across.
The above was posted on my photography blog which I update once in a while.

Maybank Customer Alert‏ - Beware!

I received this in my hotmail today. Please note that this mail is NOT from Maybank. If you receive such a mail, you must not click on any link. It looks real but the link behind is to someone else at jpcentral1.demon.co.uk, ie, a real demon! So, be warned!

By the way, they can't even spell name correctly!
=================================================
From:
Maybank Alert Customer (customer-alert@maybank.com.my)
Sent:
Tuesday, 29 Sep, 2009 12: 57 AM
To:
Customer Alert
Your Maybank2u.com account has been locked for security reasons (e.g you may have exceeded the number you may login to your account or because of too many failed login attempts ).You must authenticate again
Please login at mybank2u to restore your account access.
Maybank Berhand

Home made pizza for lucky brothers

Normally the two young boys, Timmy and Jos, would never like to help in cooking. Then we realised that if we are cooking things they like, they seem to have endless energy and helped to cook without problem.
Last night, eldest sister Esther, baked a pizza for them. They quarreled today because it was not enough! So, she baked two more today...
... to satisfy their appetite! They will bring them to school tomorrow and also eat them for breakfast. For some reason, they simply love them! Lucky boys! Once Esther go back to UK next Friday, they will have to figure out how to motivate me in order for me to make pizza for them!

Texting, handphone and driving don't mix

After watching this, I hope everyone doesn't do texting or talking on handphone while you are driving!

Miracle fruit - Synsepalum dulcificum Daniell

Have you heard of a fruit that could make sour turns sweet? For example, after eating this fruit, lime actually tastes sweet! Meet this most unusual fruit or rather berry from my brother's farm in Limbang.
The berry is about 2cm long and it has a seed inside. The flesh is quite thin.It is very colourful when ripe. Otherwise, it is green in colour. So, I decided to ask mousie to test it out ...

... after a bite of this lime...

yak... very sour...

... then, we told her to eat a miracle berry and the same lime is now sweet!

Timothy also agreed that it was not sour. So, we heard about the miracle berry and now, we tried it... it is indeed true as claimed! It can turn sour into sweetness! Read more about it here.

Exotic & delicacy food

On the first look, some food could hardly be classified as exotic or delicacies. Consider this:
If I wasn't told that sago worms tasted creamy or like "fried butter", I would have thought that they are food for some lucky acquarium fish! I saw sago worms for sales but never in such a large quantity before which I came across in Limbang Tamu (market).

Ok, talking about durian, this king of fruits must be a favourite amongst many local. But many foreigners also like this fruit very much. This year, durian is voted the 5th weirdest food in the world. Durian flesh is decribed by our foreign friends as a custard-like texture. Anthony Bordain may have described it the best when he said, "its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."

I don't mind eating durian but indeed, the breath is offensive!

Beautiful Water Lilies

I arrived at my brother's house yesterday afternoon. He showed me his "garden" and introduced me to his wonderful variety of plants and fruit trees! I will blog about it later.
So, early this morning, I visited his lily pond to take the photos of his huge lilies for your enjoyment! They are of so many different colours and shades. Enjoy.....

Candid shots

I enjoy taking candid shots of people. Below are some of them.
"I have nothing to eat!"
"You want a share?"
Miss Ding on attachment in Miri will return to WM soon.
"Hehehe"
"Hmmmm I am not in a good mood"
"Up up!"
"Huh..."
"Hello..."
"Hi...". Grace
"Do we look alike?" (Joyce Hii)

KLCC

I took the following photos of KLCC during my last trip there...
I stood close to the entrance and pointed my camera vertically upward. The sky was clear and blue and reflected on the glass and steel building. Time: 7:40PM ISO: 1000 1/60s f/2.8
... another view of the twin tower.
As I was on the top floor of the shopping center, I saw the twin tower and bridge clearly visible ...
... inside the shopping mall.
Going to the back entrance facing the lake, there was this musical fountain.
Time 9:06PM ISO:2000 f/2.8 1/8s 35mm.

Durian Feast

On Saturday, my family went to SabaOrchard (Lambir Green) to take pictures and also to eat durian! Lambir Green has 40 acres of fruit trees and is managed by a husband and wife team (Austin and Winni). I helped them to create their blog and I used some of the pictures here still with their blog name on.
Durians everywhere! We helped to pick durians ...
... and Austin busy serving us...
... and obviously mousie had a good time!
They also have mangosteen...

.. and rambutan, etc.

If you have not seen durian flower buds before...
In addition to durian, they also have flowers ... bunga kertas.
... orchid ...
... more orchid ...
... and more! Not all orchids shown here are for sales!
If you are interested, you may go to their farm in a group, or you may organise a durian party whereby Uncle Austin will deliver the fruits to you. Please visit his blog if you are interested to contact him. Alternatively, you can visit his residence for durian!

Cheapest plate of protein!

We went to the fish market the other day (at about 6:00PM) trying to buy fish for dinner. After walking one round, we couldn't find anything that we normally buy. Then I spotted this particular stall selling small fishes, about 4 inches long and I also recognize that those "little fishes" were actually "babies" of the much more expensive fish. He was selling them for RM3 per kg. (Normal price is about RM6-8). I bought two kg for RM6.
Here is how I cook them... my first time doing it this way!
Remove all scale and cut off the head and remove the gut. Use a small knife, pop it through the center just above the backbone and slide it to the front and then back along the bone. Flip over and do the same. So, you have two small fillets for one fish.
After all the fillet is done, sprinkle some salt and powder it with a generous amount of tapioca flour.
Heat up oil in a wok or frying pan. When hot, put in the fillet one at a time and fry until crispy.
When done, you should have something like this... yummy and very nice! The fillet has no bone.

Tip: To find out whether oil is hot enough or not, you pick up one fillet and hold it on one end dipping a little bit of the other end into the oil. If it bubbles, it is hot enough. Don't overheat the oil until it is "smoking". Don't use a plastic chopstick in hot oil. It can be very poisonous to consume.

Mental Jam...

Phew...I just clear up my backlog of photos on my memory cards and also catalogue all the photos. Now I need to back them up. Guess how many images I have... just counted and it is more than 100,000 of them! There are still lots of them I put them in "transit" folder before cataloging as according to events.
While sorting through the images, I realised that I have so much to blog about but never got time to do it... about my visit to JPJ, about the building progress at the landslide, about my rabbit - just realised that he knows where to go to do his business and why he can be very nervous, etc etc... Also, about photography, the backlog of photos to be uploaded to my facebook (oh, please link me if you want to see more of my photos) ...
Last night I accidentally deleted 1000+ photos and thanks to technology, I managed to recover all of them but took the computer almost 2 hours to do the job.
Anyway, I have to clean up my house this afternoon... see you soon.

What you are eating?

One of the ingredients used to bake cake was "white chocolate". After a little effort, Janice found the ingredient in a super mart near our home. Thinking that it was good stuff because she paid quite a lot of money for it. To her dismay, her cake was a complete failure. Thinking that it must be her fault, she tried again and failed again. So, she looked at the "ingredients" used to make the white chocolate. Actually, there is no "coco powder" at all. It is just a bar of "fat"! Price? It is almost the same as what she paid for in UK.
Ok, I am talking about something else today. This black moon cake attracted my attention...
I have to admit that it looks "beautiful". So, we finished off in no time. Then my wife asked "Do you know that you are eating charcoal?". Huh?? Checking the label...
Yes, we are eating charcoal! Actually eating charcoal could well be healthy because it is used in medical for neutralising poison. But is this charcoal purified and harmless? If yes, next time, the hospital can used this moon cake to treat poisoning! Or, eat this moon cake if we have been eating too much "rubbish" over the holiday.
By the way, looking at the picture, you would guess that the core was an egg yolk. But, check again. Egg was not part of the ingredient. Where is the yellow colour from? Does it mean that there are more "ingredient" not listed?