Historical Perviness = Deliriously Happy May Lee

I loved Showtime's 'The Tudors', that sex-fied historical drama about Henry VIII and his six wives. One, I love history. Especially when it's juicy. Two, a little perviness doesn't hurt either. Together, it created The Tudors' winning combination!

Of course, it wasn't entirely historically accurate - the costumes were sexier, King Henry was HOT, not old and fat, and the queens were pretty damn sexy! My favourite will always be Anne Boleyn, of course. The thing is, the show was awesomee. AND it helped kick-start a lot of people's interest in history!

And now, Showtime is coming up with The Borgias! Suuuper awesomee, I'm so excited!! In a nutshell, the Borgias are the original mafioso family. Cardinal Borgia, later the Pope, has illegitimate children, and they all scheme and pull strings and murder and (allegedly!) commit incest in order to secure the most power and money possible. Can it possibly sound awesomer? I think not!

Trailer!!

*squeal*

You Can't Look Around If You Only Look Down

Stumbled across this awesome Thai ad a while ago, on Story of Bing, a blog that I stalk. Go check it out! It's written by Bing, a Singaporean lady who currently lives in Africa with her husband who is posted there. Her blog is full of observations on life and her surroundings, and super yummy-looking recipes.. all with really gorgeous pictures!

Ok, back to the ad.

I think that most, if not all of us can relate to it in some way or another. I mean, which of us hasn't been guilty, at least once, of being too wrapped up in our technological worlds to connect and appreciate what is physically present around us? We may miss the simplest (and yet most beautiful) moments - moments that define what living truly is.

 So, yeah. Tell your friends on eBuddy that you'll 'brb', or better yet, that you 'gtg'. Log out of facebook for a while, those notifications will still be there when you sign back in! You can't tweet about what's going on, if you don't look up from your phone long enough to SEE what's going on.

As the title of the ad says: Disconnect, to Connect.

Super powerful message. I feel like dumping my phone somewhere, and I would but I know that I would regret that decision about 2 seconds later!

There's A First Time For Everything!

This week has been a week of new experiences!

First, my first EVER facial on Monday.

Went to Skin11, to take them up on their offer - a free collagen facial thing worth RM229. The facial lasted 2 and a half hours: about two hours of bliss and pampering, with masks (three of them! The kiasu in me is most pleased), scrubs, massages, and nice-smelling moisturisers. 

The other half an hour was TORTURE. Let me tell you, blackhead removal is a modern form of torture, along with bikini waxing (men who think women with some hair are equivalent to woolly mammoths, YOU try it and see). The - uh, beautician? facialist? - facial lady said "tell me when it's painful" but it was painful pretty much throughout the whole thing so I decided to keep silent. And that half an hour taught me new pain-tahaning techniques.

1. clench toes.

2. clench jaw.

3. tear up silently.

4. sing Glee songs in head.

5. imagine torture scenes, and comfort self that this is mere blackhead removal, no loss of limbs/life involved.

Thank god, after the pain was over, came massages and the three masks. I do have a question, though. Why is it necessary to blow water droplets in my face while the masks are on it? Cos after a while, I had a really wet face, and water was slowly trickling along my jawline towards my neck. AND it was cold! That being said, the whole experience was awesome. Even the parts where she left me alone, to let the stuff on my face seep into my skin. I lay there in the dark (eyes covered with something), and realised that shit, man my head is an empty, boring place to be in. I am a REALLY boring person, and I apparently cannot generate any thoughts without stimuli from phone or laptop!

But, seriously. It feels really luxurious, lying there while someone spreads things on my face and gives me massages. The lady did say that if I do come back in the future, I don't need this intensive sort of facial because I'm too young and my skin is still good (*smug*). So yeah, if you're planning on doing a facial, a collagen one might be a little bit tooo intensive, especially if you're in your twenties.

Oh and on to New Thing No. 2!

I WATCHED HARRY POTTER, GOLD CLASS.

Ok, sorry, do I sound super jakun?

Whatevs. It was a whole new cinematic experience, like serious. Ok, it's also a whole new price range, one I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Thank god my dad was in a 'ah, what the heck' mood. 

The seats are all super cushy, recliner seats! Imagine watching a movie with your feet up, snuggled to the chin in a fluffy quilt. In times of sudden shock or violence, you can also use said quilt to cover your head! Which is what I did! If you're thirsty, you don't have to run out midway to the concession stand to buy a drink, cursing yourself for your lack of foresight. You can just press a button, and a waitress will appear, take your order and bring it to you! Ordered too many things, and now you have to juggle stuff? No worries, the waitress will bring it to you later. Now, how is THAT for awesome? Have I mentioned the recliner?

Oh, and one more thing which may make me sound like a total cleanliness freak.

The toilet seat is covered with plastic. Before you sit down, press a button and fresh plastic will appear on the seat. Totally hygienic! My mum and I were like "THIS TOILET IS THE BOMB!" 

Oh, and Harry Potter is the bomb too.

But for feel-good happiness and warm, fuzzy feelings all-round, I'll have to recommend Rapunzel. ONLY THE AWESOMEST DISNEY MOVIE since they stopped making proper Disney cartoons. I am in love with Flynn, and anyone who says that I can't marry an animated movie character will have to forcibly rip the bridal bouquet from my white-knuckled hands. Just saying.

Oooh Glee is done loading! ^___^

I Will Stop Saying "I Can't."

You know how sometimes we set up mental barriers for ourselves? Like "Oh, I will NEVER be able to do this!" or "Ala, he could only do it cos he has the contacts! I don't, so I will always be stuck at the bottom of the ladder."

Sound familiar? Heck, I do it a lot!

I go "I'm not smart/pretty/funny/creative enough!" or "No I can't cos I suck at it!" and sink into self-pity.

Which is a massive waste of time.

Especially when there are people like

Yi Lin, who lost a leg to bone cancer when she was in Standard Four. Not only that, you see that medal she's holding up? She won it. IN A SWIMMING COMPETITION. With no leg AND cancer in her lungs (it spread). After facing so many blows in life, she managed to pick herself up and move on, and not only that, to also achieve more than many 'lucky' people do in their lives. Most of us drift. We have all our limbs, and we use them to fully facilitate our wallowing in uselessness.

Where's my self-pity now? Buried somewhere under a load of shame. Where are your excuses?

Full article here!

p/s: I CAN DRIVE NOW! Not very far, because while my driving skills have improved, my sense of direction hasn't. So until I get a GPS, I don't dare venture very far, unless I have a navigator! But yes! I can driiveee *happy*

The Lims Make A Random Trip to Kuala Selangor

This holiday is rapidly shaping up to become a 'Cuti-cuti Malaysia' one!

First my trip to Penang with the girls and David, and next a random road trip to Kuala Selangor, and my dad's suddenly got this hankering for driving around. So we're probably headed up north - Penang (AGAIN!), Terengganu (more beaches, hallelujah! But no bikini cos the Terengganu people mught stone me or something) - and onwards to the east coast and then back to KL.

But first, pics of Kuala Selangor!

 Blue skies, clear roads, and palm trees as far as the eye can see. Gorgeous.

 First stop: Bukit Malawati! Cos my dad said we had to see the lighthouse, apparently it's super awesome or something.

 It's just a lighthouse -___-

Visitors aren't even allowed in!

 The place is very well-fortified, though. Apparently when the Dutch first landed on Malayan soil, they landed here and then made their way to Melaka.

 We were like SUPER excited when we saw this! "Oooh oooh red cannon! So cute!" 

Upon closer inspection, though, it turned out to be a foam fire extinguisher on wheels, imported from the UK and used in Malaysia from 1840 to 1950. And I thought that the current blue one we use is unwieldy!

Oh, and there are monkeys EVERYWHERE. I took a gajillion pics of those monkeys, but because they weren't really in a photo-taking mood, I ended up with a gajillion pictures of monkey-shaped blurs. Except for this one. I really like how they both seem to be watching out for each other. They are REALLY ugly though. Even for monkeys.

 After taking all those monkey pictures, we got hungry! So we headed for the river, with its abundance of seafood restaurants.

Pretty! The expanse of water and sky is just.. whoa. Definitely not something I see very often.

 Ginormous prawn keropok muahaha. Don't jealous.

 My dad saw this boat from a distance and waited by the rail of the restaurant to snap a picture! I couldn't be arsed, stuffing my face with aforementioned prawn keropok. I'm glad my dad was so enthusiastic, cos this is an awesome pic! I've never even been close to a boat like this before. It's almost like something from a movie.

 And the food arrived, yay! Due to allergies and cholesterol within the family, we didn't order crabs or prawns which is like suuper wtf la ok T_____T I was like "CRAA - *sigh* ok, sotong can or not?"

 "Caaaaannnn"

 Yum, the most awesome sotong EVER. Seriously. Calamari at its best. Crunchy, crispy, delicately-flavoured, oh my GOD. I ate half the plate on my own.

Sharing? Whazzat?

 After eating, we surveyed the small town and decided to drive along this road and see where we end up!

After going past a whole bunch of wooden houses, separated by wooden boardwalks that looked on the verge of collapsing, we arrived at the end of the road. And decided to take pictures!

 My brother, the amateur model, and my dad fully utilising his iPhone.

 My mum couldn't be arsed to get out of the car into the hot sun, just to take pictures.

 Ooops, caught in the act!

I was wondering why my dad was laughing like a hyena, but didn't know why til he showed me the picture. -___-

 On our way back from Kuala Selangor, we saw a sign that said Beach. I can't remember the name of the beach, oops. Not a fabulous one, rather dirty and rocky, but still! A beach with sea water and a sea breeze!

Look at that glorious blue sky.
Thank you for the fantastic weather, weather gods.

Btw, none of these pictures have been photoshopped. So if the sky looks brilliantly blue, it's because it really was that blue!

Holiday Project - Learn A New Skill!

This is what happens when I'm on holiday: I discover something new and spend hours obsessively learning to do it. Like cross stitching, which made me feel like and old lady cos I was sitting in a corner SEWING. That being said, it's awesome and super therapeutic! And cookie-baking fever, which last occurred years ago. I made batches and batches of peanut butter cookies, and haven't touched an oven since. This holiday, I've discovered PHOTOSHOPPPPP.

I realised I can make ugly pictures look nicer just by filtering them, and using some reeeally simple tools!

I took this picture because I have a thing for taking pics of paths and stuff. Unfortunately, this is NOT a prime specimen of paths. And I thought the colours were really ugly. So I filtered, cropped, covered up ugliness and super saturated all the colours, resulting in

THIS!

Ok don't ask why the sky is purple. It was an accident but I realised I like purple skies. So there.

I really like this picture of the river in Kuala Selangor (went there with the fam on Thursday, pictures to come!), but I was bored and figured it could use some recolouring. Filtered the whole thing to make it bluer, and made the trees greener with this really awesome quick select tool.

The difference is, I think, not too obvious but I like how peaceful and scenic it looks!

And oooh, I figured out how people do that awesome thing where the whole picture is in grayscale except for one bit! It's the quick select tool, or the magic lasso thingamajiggy, and you can make everything ELSE grayscale, leaving the selected object coloured.

I just HAD to take a picture of this cute cat sitting alone and forlorn. Unfortunately, cos it's so small, it doesn't stand out at all!

So I cropped it, grayscaled the background and saturated the cat's colour.

Much better, no?

Anyhow, if there are any awesome pro people out there, do feel free to drop me suggestions, etc. I'm still learning how to do stuff, got bitten by the bug yesterday while trying to resize pictures using Photoshop!

When my internet picks up speed (god, I hate slow internet), I will post up pics of a random Lim family road trip to Kuala Selangor! Yes, the place famed for fireflies. No, we didn't go to see fireflies. We ate seafood and took scenic pics instead =D

Embracing My Inner Chinese

I am a banana.

Not the fruit sort!

It means that I am 'yellow on the outside and white on the inside', an UNcomplimentary term for Chinese people who can't speak their mother tongue, like moi.

This means that I don't know my Chinese as well as I should (sorry ancestors!!). If I did, I would've long known that it is a language that understands life truths.

 This is a church. In Mandarin: Jiao tang.

This is a caramel pudding. Mandarin: Jiao tang

 (ok, the tone is a bit different but the words are the same!)

May Lee's conclusion:

Religion and food are on the same level.

Worship-worthy*.

Also, Chinese people have got it absolutely right!

Do I hear my ancestors cheering?

*(ok maybe I worship food more. shhhhhh.)