Happy Birthday Yeesin!!!

Happy Birthday Baby !!! (Its Yeesin/Hostess for the rest of you guys). She is the love of my life, my "bestest" friend, always sticking with me, thru thick and thin.... LOVE YOU... ;)

So... while the kids were in town, we managed to do a quick birthday thingy as usual. Couple of years ago Yeesin mentioned that we were never to throw a "surprise birthday party". Hmmm... maybe it might be related to the soft-toy hidden in a vacumm cleaner box surprise awhile ago!!!

Anyway, here's a pic of the cappucino cheesecake that Elaine and Yeesin made (Yes, the lack of a surprise unfortunately means that cake is DIY too). Anyway, it was a very short ceremony, with the blowing of candles, followed by a very long ceremony of trying to separate the crust of the cake from the cake tray... MMMhhmm, still. it was decadently delicous... Must be the good bakers!
So without further ado, let's introduce her presents! She got a very very nice gift card for Express from Huay+Nick+Elaine. I see some shopping therapy in the near future! Then she got a very snazzy and hip jacket from me ( again no surprise means that she picked it out herself!!)

SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY baby!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Par with the Yeoh's B&B tradition, we had a Turkey dinner with lots of other assorted veggie dishes. As with every year, we had Nick, Ah Huay, Elaine, Benji, and ourselves (The hosts) eating.

This year, we are Thankful for Good Health, excellent Food, and the "BESTEST" company that we can have. With our families sooooo far away from us in Malaysia, they are our adopted family over here... Maybe its the random words that we invent on the spot, maybe its the crazy stuff we do (Like the human pyramid here), or maybe its just us making fun of each other, BUT the house just seems so much more alive with them there!!! After getting ready for sleep last night, YS & I were a bummed that our "kids" left the house already... :(













Sappy emotional musings aside, we ate alot. But I bet we didn't eat as much as our little doggy Benji! Our little devil here managed to jump over the baby gate in the kitchen and had a Huge fiesta at the Dining table while we were out for a movie. 5 huge Mushrooms, a turkey leg, and some potatoes later, he was taking a well deserved nap upstairs to help digest...

Needless to say, no happy campers after we returned! Everyone was MAD. Even his favorite auntie Elaine was also on his case. Part of it was we were sooo looking forward to eating those mushrooms, the other part was we were more worried that our "goldfish" dog would eat like his namesake and keel over.... He got what he deserved tho... MAJOR indigestion : he didn't look comfortable at all for the next 2 days.... Don't worry he is back to normal now!

"Nua" for the rest of the weekend, until YS's Birthday celebration

A Picture Share!

Retro 3D TV Night

Apparently 3D is in these days! I stumbled across some really nerdy errr.. i mean really high-tech blue and red 3D glasses in our Sprint break room over lunch today! The story is NBC is running a "special" 3D episode of Medium on TV tonight: link

Trolling the message boards for a few minutes, and noticed that fans are up in arms about not being to get these glasses! So... Kiasu means that this episode MUST be really really good. Hmm... wondering if there's a secondary market for these glasses on ebay today? Too bad I won't be able to ship them out in time, if I did sell any :(

So... maybe there is something to this 3D phenomenon! Maybe in about a couple of weeks, its going to be on every show on the major networks, on syndication etc, then its going to be actually "stylish" to wear them out in the day time??!!. Or maybe its really a gigantic experiments by the TV execs to see if regular people will wear these darn things, and subject themselves to ridicule by their friends and family.... Who Knows?

For those people who have nothing much to do, here's a link to book. What's weird, is that covers the fictional character is based on a true-life medium named Allison DuBois, who is a consultant to the show. For the past four years, the real DuBois has been the subject of rigorous scientific experiments conducted at the University of Arizona by Harvard-trained psychologist Gary Schwartz... Freaky!

BIGGEST Question??!! What happens to the viewers who don't have the glasses? I bet they only get a nice non-3D headache... We'll see how it goes tonight.

EDIT: The show was ok, but the 3D effects didn't really seem "3D-ey"... Probably the reason why no other shows are 3d episodes...

Italian Thoughts...

So, we've been back for about a week already. Seems like our vacation was like a really really good dream. Yeesin still talks about the molto excellente Spaghetti with clam sauce, and I dream about getting my wonderfully made cappucino from our Barista dude at the Bars...

We sometimes think about how we just decided to go somewhere where we don't speak the language, without a tour guide, just pick up a guide book, and go! It's probably the most fun we've both had in ages! Well I can definitely say we were NOT in Kansas anymore, nor in the same continent for that matter!

Aside from most Italians speaking some English (we had the most luck in speaking English with people trying to sell us something), Italy is WAAAYYY different from USA... So I decided to list them out...


1. Driving - Marco, the driver that picked us up from the airport, very well dressed and polite. However, the courtesy did not extend to the other Italian drivers out there. Coming from Malaysia, we surely respected his aptitude in the following skills: (1) Tailgating within a hair's breath of an accident, but close enough so that no one can "cut" in front of us. (2) Squeezing his nicely detailed black beemer into spaces that only scooters can get through. (3) Running red lights, and cursing other drivers that dare to get in his way... AHHH.... it felt like driving in Malaysia..

2. Italian Bars - We thought the Italians were crazy to be drinking at 9am in the morning as we approached a local bar. Later we found out that "bars" are their equivalent of a diner over here. That said, we had the best panini and cappucino ever at Bar Frattina in downtown Rome! "Una cappucino per favore" will get you an excellent cup of cappucino anytime! Here's Yeesin really pumped that we finally get some food after that looong flight! She's also pumped that she's got some caffine too! Shhhhh... don't tell her that they don't believe in gloves or hairnets when preparing panini's in Italy....


3. Bidets - No. They are not personalized toilets for him and her! Aside from the bathroom being a lot larger than our sleeping spaces, the Bidet was probably the next weirdest thing. The operation of the toilet is pretty much similar all across the world. Now, the bidet, on the other hand is kinda harder to operate. Our one didn't really come with an instruction manual, so its up to your imagination on what position you have to get into to clean your... errr, "special" areas. Just be glad that we didn't try to do laundry in that bidet.. It kinda looks like a nice sink for that!!




4. Caldo. This does not mean "COLD". Just because the faucet is marked "C" it reall just means the opposite. "C" stands for "Caldo", which means HOT. "F" on the other hand stand for "Freddo" which IS "C" for the rest of us. I figure they rather let the hotel guest figure this out on their own... If you turn "C", and it only gets Hotter, then common sense would dictate that you try the other one right?... Well, some direction challenged people like myself take slightly longer (and a little burnt) to find that out !!


5. Trains. Train rides in Europe always seem so serene and peaceful for the passengers. A gentle breeze blows in your hair as you take in the wonderful European countryside. That's all true. Here's a shot of Yeesin relaxing on our Eurostar cabin. But before that, we had to figure out if the train that we're supposed to be on was really on the correct track! They announced it, but it was Italian. If you're not paying attention you'll get on a train that's going to be cleaned, not the one going to Florence. A good skill to pick up is to follow where all the locals on your track is run to when they hear an italian annoucement!

6. Locals. Don't always trust them. Just because you meet an Italian dude, and he says that he is going the same way as you are, doesn't mean that he really knows. Or as Yeesin observed, the phenomenen that men don't ask for instructions is universal. On the way from Burano Island back to Venice we were supposed change boats at Punta Sabbioni. We got off, and ahead of the group is this Italian guy that seemed to know where he was going, so ALL the tourists (50 of us) followed him. We knew it didn't look so good the followers started dwindling as we got further out into the Boonies! In the end, the dock for the transfer boat was NEXT TO where we got off!!!

Stay tuned for our Thanksgiving Adventures.... ;)