My First Encounter With

Chow Tau Foo

Located quite a distance from the main area of Taman Connought Pasar Malam (and with good reason), Chiew Chiew Chow Tau Foo provides it's patrons with fried, rotten bean curd. - the name's abit, disturbing, i know. I thought so too -. With a tagline 'Aroma of a thousand miles', which is, indeed apt, the strongest stomachs (and minds) savour this decomposed delicacy with chilli cuka, and nothing else. (If it were me, I would need chilli cuka and some Febreeze)

From afar, one can only catch a whiff of the chow tau foo 'aroma' because it is mostly concealed by 'tai chow' smoke and other pasar malam smells, and you would probably think the stink is from some longkang somewhere behind. But as you walk closer to the Chiew Chiew Chow Tau Foo van, parked in a dingy, damp, back-alley behind a 'tai chow restaurant', you get the full olfactory experience, and it smells something like this :

ohmygoshwhatsthatsmellitfreakingstinksweiohmygoshpleaseletmedienow

Anyway, my friends, being such wonderful friends, not wanting me to miss out on any of life's great experiences, MADE me take a bite. Thankfully, it was dark, and I couldn't really see what I was eating - I didn't really chew either, just bit it, and shallowed the piece whole. I did look though, and from what I saw, it looked dark, and rotten. And smelly.

Well, I survived. Chow Tau Foo is not for the faint hearted. If you can't stand durians, walau-eh, you ain't smelt nothin' yet!

Monster : View content advisory for parents

Just watched Monster, the one with Charlize Theron. Am currently recovering.

Warning : Rated R for strong violence and sexual content, and for perversive language.
Still, very well done and worth a watch, if you're not below the age of 21.

A brief summary : Monster is the true life story of the serial killer, Aileen Wournos (played by Charlize Theron). As a young girl of 8, Aileen was raped by her father's friend. She had told her father about what was happening, but he didn't believe her, instead, he beat her up for making up stories. As a result, the rape went on for years. her dad eventually killed himself, leaving her and her two siblings homeless. By the time she was 13, starving and starved for love, she prostituted herself..her two siblings were put up in foster homes, but because of what she did (hooking), no one would take her in, so she had to fend for herself.
Just as she was about to kill herself one day, she met Selby White - a lonely young lesbian, with one arm in a cast searching (for what, I'm still unclear actually). Selby gives Aileen the love she's been craving for, and Aileen promises to take care of Selby (like man and wife), and they both run away together.
Aileen does one last hooking job to get money so she and Selby can run away together, but her last "John" (customer) turns out to be a psycho who rapes and hurts her, and then threatens to kill her. In self defense, Aileen shoots him to death.
After that she made up her mind to 'get a real job', but no one would employ her. Quote from one scene, Aileen is in a law firm asking for a secretarial job:

Lawyer: Can I tell you something? When the beach party is over, you don't get to say. "You know what? Now I think I'd like to have what everybody else has worked their entire life for." It doesn't work that way.
Aileen: F*** you, man. Yeah, F*** YOU! YOU DON'T F*****' KNOW ME!
Lawyer: OK, great. That's great. See, now I'm so sorry I didn't hire you before.

So Aileen goes back to hooking (I learned the word 'hooking' from the movie), but then she figured killing is easier, and she makes more money that way. After awhile, it seemed right to her, to kill those that might rape someone anyway. So she kills them, after luring them to some secluded area, and then takes their money and their cars.
Until one day, she finds out that the police have tracked them down, and have released sketches of herself and Selby as her accomplice. Selby freaks out and leaves, and eventually Aileen gets arrested, and Selby tells on her.

Selby: I just wanna live, Lee. I just want a normal happy life. I don't know why you did this.
Aileen: Because I love you. Because I love you and I never wanna to loose you and that's all. I love you from my heart, my soul, my mind. And I never let you down. All right? Because it was me. It was only me. And I'll tell them that, ok. It's over for me now. And I never gonna see you again.
Selby: Yeah, I know.
Aileen: I wish there was a way that people can forgive you for something about this, you know. But they can't. They can't, man. So I'm gonna die, Sel... Hey Sel, I'll never forget you. Good bye, baby. Bye baby.
Selby: Good bye, Lee.

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Yea, so that was Monster...the true story of a woman who just had a screwed up life, who didn't get to choose to have a good childhood, and who then, desperate to just be able to LIVE, made all the wrong decisions.

I've always liked Charlize as an actress, she's very pretty, and she acts well. Plus, she's from South Africa. But this role that she played, in my opinion, puts her right on top.

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Aileen: I'm not a bad person. I'm a real good person.

Aileen: "Love conquers all." "Every cloud has a silver lining." "Faith can move mountains." "Love will always find a way." "Everything happens for a reason." "Where there is life, there is hope."
[laughs]
Aileen: Oh, well... They gotta tell you somethin'

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Poor Aileen.

p/s : watched The Bucket List last night. Another good movie, and yet still quite feel good - Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson - so no surprise there :)

Why I Heart P.J. (part 23)

Tis the final week of my 2 month long holiday *sobb*. And so I am going all out! And there's really no better place to bum around and entertain one's self than in P.J., the City of Entertainment.

Monday, I watched Wanted.


















For those of you who are contemplating whether to watch or not watch, I say, if you liked Jumper and Hitman then you'd probably like Wanted a bit more than the other two. The action is quite good, entertainingly violent (not TOO much like Pathfinder) but the story, in my humble 2 sen worth of opinion, is pretty darn dumb. Not too impressive for an Angelina Jolie flick, but go watch anyway, so you won't be left out when your friends are talking about it.

Tuesday I watched The Incredible Hulk (TIH) (2).

















(2) because if you remember, there was already one in 2003, so, I was wondering, why did they come out with another so soon?.
One from the company of my fellow TIH watchers say its because the earlier (not the 1978
one, the 2003 - Hulk - one) was a flop. I actually thought that was alright...I mean...ANYTHING with Eric Bana is alright in my books (except maybe Norbit, or Epic Movie) :D But I'd have to agree...this (2008) one's better. Not WAYY better, but better. I liked the end part :)

Today (is Wednesday) I watched Beauty and The Beast (The Musical, and UK version) with some special kids from the school.



















I've watched Beauty and The Beast the katun so many times (throughout my lifetime) that I know the whole dialogue, I even went for Beauty and The Beast, Disney on Ice when I was a kid, and got the mirror. This one's a bit different though...they put in some of their own songs, and they're very UK. But it was alright, and I enjoyed being with the kids.

I also heart PJ (call me shallow and materialistic lah) for the shopping malls. Seriously, P.J. is the best place to be when Malaysia goes on Mega Sale.

Four days left, P.J. my love, then its back to Bangi.

p/s: mng's end of season sale is pretty awesome this time round!