Angpow Contest

This is a contest in conjuction with lunar new year celebration.

The 1st person who provides the correct answer to the specific location of this palm oil plantation on the Penang island stands a chance to walk away with RM200 cash voucher (Jusco).

E.g. An answer of Kuala Lumpur is too general, Jalan Ampang or Jalan P.Ramli is the specific answer required.


Participants should send in the answer to this email address : anak_penang@live.com

Closing date : 8th Feb 2009 (Sun).
Terms and conditions applied.






Happy trying and best of luck (:

Happy Lunar New Year

Sharing with you some of the new year greeting cards from some of the Ministers in Malaysia.

From the very beginning, this one is from Ministry of Finance (MOF).


Dr Ng Yen Yen - Kementerian Pembangunan Wanita, Keluarga dan Masyarakat

MOH - Ministry of Health





Dr Wee Ka Siong, Deputy Education Minister

MCA heavyweight - Dato Seri Ong Tee Kiat, Transport Minister


Make a guess on the sender of this card ...

Yaa, this person replaces Samy Vellu to the delight of Malaysia public. An Ir heading Works Ministry is a perfect match.

You should know the sender of this card by looking at the background structure ..


Our Prime Minister to-be, Dato Seri Mohd Najib











Obama On Board

I watched Barack Obama took his oath as the 44th President of the United States of America through CNN at 1am Malaysian time.

I ate 3 pieces of almond biscuits and drank one cup of Sarsi during the live telecast. It's really enjoyable watching this historic moment for mankind.



On Sep 11, 2001, I also watched the incident involving the World Trade Center in New York thru CNN. I was stunned for about 5 hours, sticking myself in front of the tv set without any biscuit or drink.


Perhaps Obama can do what Bush can't by getting hold of Osama who share 80% of his surname.
So you better watch out yaa ...

Movies this festive season

There are 3 movies lining up for this coming CNY :

A. Red Cliff (Part 2)


B. All's Well Ends Well


C. The Wedding Game



Coming together with charming actors and actresses :







But ...
luckily not these ones ..
































Herbal Soups

Not many herbal soup outlet can be found in Penang, but there is one in Desaria, Sungai Ara (sharing the same row as Fishermen Grill)


I tried 3 types of soup :
1. Ginseng ++ soup
2. Cordyceps ++ soup (冬虫草)
3. Brazilian mushroom ++ soup

Out of these 3, i must say Cordyceps and Brazilian mushroom ++ soups are the best. My reminder is that pls don't go there alone, one clay pot of herbal soup is too much a portion for a person, pls bring your mum along.


Ginseng ++ soup



Cordyceps ++ soup (冬虫草)







An Internet era ends as technology icons exit






Agence France-Presse - 1/16/2009 6:39 AM GMT

Steve Jobs exiting the Apple stage, perhaps not to return, signals a close to an Internet Age era with roots stretching back to the radical hippie movement of the 1960s.

His departure for health reasons comes some seven months after his renowned rival Bill Gates retired from Microsoft to devote himself to philanthropic work.

The two culture-changing men were seen as leaders of rival camps: personal computer lovers versus the cult of Macintosh computers.

Technology allegiances were the stuff of fierce debates in coffee houses and other Silicon Valley social settings, with vitriol spewed by all sides.

Macintosh devotees were passionate underdogs standing up to PC faithful whose confidence was cemented by the fact more than 90 percent of the computers in the world are PCs running on Microsoft operating systems.

The dueling technologies had faces at which people aimed praise of scorn. Gates was the PC. Jobs is the Macintosh.

Jerry Yang, the very public face of Internet pioneer Yahoo!, was replaced as chief executive this week by Carol Bartz and it seems he has already faded into the purple and gold woodwork at the firm's California headquarters.

"In many ways we are stepping out of the age where the people are defining the company," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

"We talk about the Google kids, but are the founders truly icons. I argue not. We seem to be moving away from the age where there is a face behind the company; a larger than life human component."

Ironically, while Google and other modern Internet superstars use private data about their millions of users to target ads, their founders tend to vigilantly protect their privacy.

"In many ways, Internet companies are losing their personalities," Enderle said. "Ever changing brands in a constant sea of surging names."

Jobs and Gates, both born in 1955, grew up during the socially rebellious 1960s and bear its mark, according to Peter Friess, a historian who is president of The Tech Museum of Innovation in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Gates and Jobs both dropped out of college to pursue dreams of building computers for people.

Before Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak made the first Apple computer, they crafted a "blue box" to get around paying for long distance telephone calls.

"They came out of a time when culture meant a lot to all of us," Friess said.

"It was a revolutionary time. It is always a time that creates people. Now, Google, Facebook and others align much more with the system. Social networks don't change the world like Jobs and Gates did."

Bringing personal computers to the masses fulfilled a hippie mantra of "Power to the people," according to Friess.

While the first PCs and "Macs" were sold by Gates and Jobs before there was a Web to surf, the men led their respective companies to glory in the Internet Age.

"In time, I suppose we might look back at the leaders of big search companies in a similar way, but it really feels like a thin comparison," said University of California, Berkeley, information school assistant professor Coye Cheshire.

"If only because all these fantastic information services only became practical and truly useful once we had the PCs, Macs, iPods, Xboxes, Zunes, iPhones, etc in our lives."

Crises with climate change and wars fought for control of oil have set the stage for new iconic visionaries in the molds of Gates or Jobs to rise in the area of renewable energy, says Friess.

"Putting personal computers in the hands was really giving power to the people," Friess said.

"I'm waiting for someone in the renewable energy world with the same vision Jobs had in the computer world."

In a rare joint appearance, Jobs and Gates reminisced on stage at an All Things Digital conference in California two years ago. The men joked that their rivalry was misunderstood.

"We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade now," Jobs quipped, eliciting raucous laughter from the audience.

While Jobs and Gates "personified the dispute" between Apple and Microsoft, the two companies are unlikely to change their ways without their iconic founders, according to analyst Michael Cherry of Directions On Microsoft.

"No one wants to die ... and yet death is the destination we all share," Jobs told a stadium packed with students during a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

"Death is possibly the single best invention in life. It clears out the old to make way for the new."












New Marketing Strategy ?

Lunar new year is approaching ... year of Rat is going to be replaced by the year of Ox ...


In almost every supermarket or hypermarket at this point of time, you are able to notice that a contemporary marketing strategy is being used by beer company to promote their products.




Red vs Blue

The conventional Yakult is in RED packaging.


A new range of product is being introduced and it's called Yakult Ace Light which is in BLUE packaging. It's less sweet and good for those who are practising healthy diet.


Good stuff normally costs more.
A pack of 5 bottles of Yakult Ace costs RM3.89 while it's RM4.49 for Yakult Ace Light. About RM0.10 more per bottle.


Coincidentally, Man Utd who are in RED is going to face Chelsea who is in BLUE at Old Trafford this Sunday (Jan 11).


Would the final result be like the Yakult setting i.e. the BLUE packaging is much better than the RED packaging or the other way round ?
The answer will be known on early Monday morning, just wait and see laa ...
























大团圆

MY FM and Astro collaborate again to come up with a CD for the upcoming lunar year.


It's the most Bullish CNY production ...


and the most "Firely Hot" new year hit songs.

There are 10 songs inside the album.

I have listened to Song #1 and Song #5 and they have the ingredients to escalate your mood to the heaven .


I am still very much in love with Song #10 大团圆 as it's truly a classic from last year.

This CD album is sold at RM19.90 and it's original.

Let's go for original in support of local artists, and also to respect intellectual property plus ourselves for the coming Ox year !!

With the year of Ox, hopefully the economy can have a speedy recovery and may the bull re-energized the world again ..

Perhaps we can buy a Lois jeans to give more power and umphhh to the bull.



Goods sold are returnable at Giant !!



At Giant, we are able to return Non-Perishable goods e.g. shirts and pants within 7 days.

There might be people buying some new year clothing for the first few days of CNY and then return it afterward, in order to save some money during the current economic turmoil ;p

Interesting Photos from the Caribbean



The Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea which comprises more than 7,000 islands.

This guy might be Cari some Bean during a 'hot' breakaway.