Rowie's Scribbles

Whoa it's been a while since I wrote a movie review here! I watched Mad Max a few days ago with the bf, it was either this or the vague-sounding San Andreas. This review is gonna be pretty quick because, IMO, the film was a lot of flash.  The film is sent in the future where Earth is now a barren desert, water and oil are precious commodity and there are clans with names that sound like rock bands. Tom Hardy is Max, who teams up with Imperiosa Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) to escape the clutches of a cult leader. There is a lot of fire, sand, trucks, white "drug addicts" and supermodels.  This is obviously not my kind of film, but there are some outstanding points, namely Charlize's performance and the soundtrack during the chase scenes. Tom Hardy seemed stiff and spoke little with his signature Bane voice. Even supporting cast Nicolas Hoult and Riley Keough (Elvis' granddaughter!) in their roles as a fledgling couple incited more empathy than Mad ...

I found Beethoven's music intimidating; I always have this image of a furious, wild-haired genius banging away at the keyboard as if it couldn't hold the immense power of his music. I just finished The World of the String Quartet offered by Curtis Institute of Music via Coursera; that was a very enlightening course so I was intrigued by Curtis' other offering on Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas , delivered by the engaging Mr Biss who is an accomplished pianist in his own right.  This course is an open course; ie no deadlines, free and it is updated with new material. I finished it 2 weeks ago and this week a new set of lectures were added. yippee! Well Beethoven's piano sonatas, as I've learned, is so immense; it was pleasant to delve deeper into the structure of the piece, the history and what makes the piece uniquely Beethoven's.  I've gained a better appreciation of the genius in Beethoven's piano sonatas and I am reminded again of t...

I received a complimentary skin care set + facial therapy at New York Skin Solutions by Citibank. It's not my 1st free treatment courtesy of Citibank; my previous treatment was at London Weight Management. I suspect these 2 establishments are under the same company; using capitals of the world to headline the brand and similar font makes it pretty obvious!  I did some research: responses were mixed. M y friend went before and warned me that the staff can be very pushy (another sign that they are under the same company). I redeemed the facial at the Midvalley branch. It's my second facial treatment; my first was at Holistic Esthetics (redeemed a voucher for Sothys facial which was pretty good) and today my skin felt worn out so I decided to pre-pone my previous appointment to today hehe!  *I didn't take photos oops! The therapist was a nice young lady (her English wasn't fluent and my Mandarin is non-existent so there was some Malay exchange), I entered a privat...

I'm sure many of you would've heard of Scribd, a digital library with ebooks, magazines, and even audio books galore! I usually search for sheet music on Scribd as well as some Nora Roberts books for light reading :D You can have unlimited access for $8.99/month, else you can opt for the free membership however you have to upload a document for a single download.  PS This is not an advertisement for Scribd;  I've produced some music transcriptions and uploaded them to my profile here :)

Me and friends decided to celebrate Merdeka Day doing what Malaysians do best: MAKAN. So on 1st Sept, we left KL around 5.30am and arrived at Ipoh within 2 hrs. It was already packed with people having the same goal as us: looking for dim sum breakfast in Ipoh. We headed to the popular Foh San but the crowd was immense; you'd think the restaurant staff would have a better system in handling the q but there was none in place! We walked down the road to the less crowded (but we still had to wait 20 min) restaurant.  Crowded everywhere! BREAKFAST, FINALLY A trip to Ipoh would not be complete without Funny Mountain tau foo fah stall. On the way there, we stumbled upon the mural alleys and admired some unique artwork.  We waited 20 min again, luckily we met a friend who let us queue with him. We did some light shopping for biscuits and other food stuff at one of the various confectioneries.  Mmmm huge vat of tau foo far Confectionarie...

We held a farewell lunh for one of the senior engineers at Souled Out, Menara HL at Ampang. None of us have been there but we checked reviews online and they were positive. We chose to have lunch on a Wed which was a good thing as service was fast and we needed to be back at office to finish off work. The best selling point is the HUGE variety of pizza, Asian favorites, pasta, meat dishes you can choose from. This was great considering we had 9 hungry people + 1 vegetarian. I'll let the pics speak for themselves!  Cantonese style beef kuay teow Caesar salad - pretty big portion! Teriyaki chicken sandwich Spicy tom yam Duck & sundried tomato spaghetti Grilled salmon was the hit of the day - the sauce was AMAZING Salmon alfredo Fried rice Char kuay teow Beef burger Spaghetti aglio olio The drinks don't disappoint, there is a wide range of juices, mocktails etc to pick from!  Dragonfly - dragonfruit base Eclipse ...